op.AL installs new work, Flat Farms / the Mosaic Figuration of Roman Courtyard Agriculture, as a part of the American Academy in Rome's annual festival for fellows, Cinque Mostre the Tesseract. The new piece, Flat Farms, explores the figuration and tectonics of the Ancient Roman espalier practices of mosaic and espalier. MORE.
op.AL displays the design work for a new gallery expansion in Little Italy. The gallery features larger format renderings prepared by the office as well as a model. The work will be on display through March 2018 at 187 Grand Street. More news on the development was recently released on CURBED + YIMBY.
op.AL partners with John Paul Rysavy publish new article in Princeton's PIDGIN Magazine vol 21. on FLaura + Fauna entitle, "What do you Want, Duck-Brick? A decorated Tectonic". More
op.AL partners will continue roofscap research by examining the Roman Roofscape - Atrium as Urban Infastructure, as the Mark Hampton Rome Prize Winners in Design for 2017-2018. More
op.AL submits a delightfully decorated and figural entry for a new folly, these new floats did not persuade the jury, however we are rather in love with their ambiguously graphic new tent forms. MORE
op.AL submits a great new idea for spatial furniture mood based internal landscapes but the project did not go ahead, see MORE
op.AL along with hiJAC, Stephanie Imbeau complete Trade Wind a series of pavilions commissioned by the City of Salem for display in historic Derby Square for 3 Months. MORE
Jonathan presents structural folding research at Texas Society of Architects Emerging Design + Technology Conference 2016 in San Antonio.
Jonathan teaches Workshop seminar to the Second Year Landscape Core at Harvard's GSD on Genealogical Design and Parametric Geo-forming. MORE
Urban Omnibus writes a featured article on Gowanus by Design featuring op.AL's honorable metion proposal as the cover and featured entry. MORE
op.AL submits a proposal for the Harbor walk in DC arts festival utilizing ecological sampling for figural generative phenomenolgy.
The figures of Water and winter are central to the historic economy of the city of Salem, the wind art for the 2016 Summer Pavilion focuses on this by using Thaumatropes. More
The City of Salem, Massachusetts selected op.al's submission 'Trade Wind' collaborated on with hiJAC + Stephanie Imbeau, as the summer pavilion for the 2016 Salem Arts Festival. More
Station of the Industrial Sublime, op.al's entry to the 2015 Axis Civitas Design Competition sponsored by Gowanus by Design is on featured on display as one of the honorable mentions at gallery in brooklyn through March. MORE
Jonathan interviewed by CUNY.TV for a segment on "Study with the best / Things CUNY built" for op.al's summer pavilion work with The Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York and Fresh Kills Park.
Jennifer and Jonathan lecture at the University of texas at Austin on "Ambiguous Autonomies and the Folly of Contingency," fleshing out the current work of op.AL as situated in the historical evolution of the folly between Architecture and Landscape. The invited lecture was a part of the Goldsmith talks sponsored by the University.
op / Arch Land receives a grant from the New York State Council of the Arts to research the roof-scape of the Gowanus Canal Watershed in Brooklyn, NY. The grant in the category of Architecture and Design is awarded annually to practicing architects with a proven research agenda focusing on NY. More Soon.
op / Arch Land constructs the winning entry to the Field Constructs Design Competition as a part of Austin East November Arts Festival at the Circle Acres Nature Preserve. op / Arch Land collaborated with local organizations including CookShop, The Thinkery, and Ecology Action.
op / Arch Land receives an honorable mention for Station of the Industrial Sublime, an entry into the 2015 competition, Axis Civitas, Gowanus by Design. The proposal call for the re-examination of existing infrastructure for more operative and cultural means . MORE
op / Arch Land in conjunction with students from the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York, designed and fabricated a shade structure for Parks and Recreation Department to be used in Fresh Kills park beginning in 2015. MORE
OP / Arch Land won the international competition Field Constructs with their proposed pavilion, "Duck Blind in Plain Site." The proposed pavilion will be built in November for the Autumn Festival at Circle Acres Nature Preserve with a concurrent workshops at the Thinkery and exhibition at the University of Texas, Austin. MORE
OP.AL combines existing geometry research and site specific condition for peace memorial proposal in Washington DC. Utilizing a double periodic Mobius Topology the sculpture symbolizes the circular nature of relationship building in world cultures. The ring’s surface is twisted such that its back side is connected to the front, making it an endless surface with a double-sided expression.
Jonathan to present and publish at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Fall Conference at Syracuse University on "Quasi-Objects" between the Autonomous and Contingent condition. The presentation will feature the Anamorphic Hut among other projects. MORE
Jennifer to present at the ASLA conference on keeping millennials engaged at the office with Jessica Henson of OLIN and Janelle Johnson of Hoerr Schaudt at the American Society of Landscape Architects Annual meeting in Chicago. The Annual meeting will be held November 6-9 hosted by the Illinois chapter of the ASLA. MORE
Jonathan and Jennifer pen an original article in PLOT Vol 4: Wastescapes, on the 20th Century Hidden Hygiene Footprint of New York. The article includes an original timeline of New York's waste infrastructure development.
Duck Blind, OP.AL's submission to the Field Constructs Design Competition at Circle Acres Nature Preserve in Austin, Texas, is a short-listed finalist for construction in the November Arts Fair. The project provokes a tension in between landscape integration and de-familiarization utilizing processes of camouflage and high chromatic visibility. MORE
A model for the competition proposal of The Anamorphic Hut was exhibited in the RISD museum of art as a part of the RISD faculty show. The Proposal focused on the fusing of Object and Ground to create an architecture existing in tension between Situation and Autonomy. MORE
The Function of Style, a compendium on 21st century architecture is now available for Pre-Order in the United States. The volume utilizes analysis of contemporary projects against modernist precedents to argue that Style is an integral way that an Architect engages with the principles of the building and not merely a superficial aesthetic layer. Jonathan was an assistant editor on the project from the years 2010-2014.
The Hy-Bol pavilion designed and fabricated by Jonathan's Summer digital design + fabrication class at the Spitzer School of Architecture, is on display for summer programming at Fresh Kills Park, such as Kite Day shown above. The form of the pavilion consists of several nested hyperbolic surfaces of revolution, that peel away from each other to form bench, table, and canopy. MORE
Jonathan publishes the cover article Enfiladed Grids, The Museum as City in the Autumn Edition of MONU The Magazine on Urbanism, Vol 21. Interior Urbanism. In the atricle Jonathan identifies a trend in Contemporary Museums of Art to organize the plan in an urban configuration. MORE
OP.AL will be displaying a model from a recent competition entry in Rhode Island School of Design's faculty biennial exhibition at the RISD Art Museum in Providence Rhode Island. The exhibition will be open to the public on Friday, February 20, 2015 through March, 22, 2015.
Jonathan and Neil Denari's Final review of the advanced design studio at Penn Design, X Point City, was on December 17th 2014 and featured guest jurors, Laura Baird, Brennan Buck, David Freeland, Jonathan Louie, Kyle Miller, Duks Koschitz + Winka Dubbledam. MORE
OP.AL along with Johanna F. Barthmaier and Brian Payne submitted a proposal to the Annual Call for the Redford International Garden Festival. The proposal focused on integrated fields of grain with human scaled periscopes allowing visitors to play within the fields of grain.
Jonathan's Final review of the core design studio at RISD, Making of Design Principles, was held on December 9th 2014 and featured guest jurors, Doug Jack, David Turturo, Jason Carlow, Olga Mesa, and Penn Ruderman. MORE
Quasi Object Float Pavilion was reviewed as a part of the Shenzhen Biennale's Street Exhibition, curated by Terrence Riley, in Architectural Review Winter 2012, by Critic Raymund Ryan. MORE
Jonathan's teaches a Landscape computation seminar in Inscribing Geo-patterning Order at Harvard GSD's winter session. The topics of explored geometric patterning in establishing hydrological and ecological based systems within geo-morphology. MORE
op.AL is a Architecture firm and Design practice located in New York City, formed by, Jonathan A. Scelsa + Jennifer Birkeland.
The office approaches design problems by exploring the oppositions established by the vantage points of our two disciplines of focus, resulting in design solutions that strive to disintegrate the subject-object relationship conventionally established between Landscape + Building. Our investigations range in scale from regional planning and infrastructural design solutions to the domestic. Clients include the City of Salem, Circle Acres Nature Preserve in Austin, New York State Council of the Arts and New York Parks and Recreation.
Oppositions
1. Site / Contingency v Autonomy
Objects as placed and placeless, situated and siteless, integrated and discrete.
2. Optics / Immersion v Separation
Affect oriented perspectival Immersion and effect objectified parallel projection.
3. Temporal / Adaptability v Stasis
Equilibrium as rooted in time, place and culture while changing, adapting, growing.
For general inquiries and new projects, please leave us a message in our Contact Page. For information on jobs and internships, email jobs@op-al.com with a current portfolio and CV.
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