Jonathan teaches Workshop seminar to the Second Year Landscape Core at Harvard's GSD on Genealogical Design and Parametric Geo-forming. MORE
PAVILION
op.AL completes Trade Wind for the City of Salem
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
PAVILION
'Thaumatropic Turbines' under development for Trade-Wind
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
PAVILION
'Trade Wind' selected for 2016 Salem Summer Installation
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
PUBLICITY
Urban Omnibus Features Industrial Sublime
Urban Omnibus writes a featured article on Gowanus by Design featuring op.AL's honorable metion proposal as the cover and featured entry. MORE
EXHIBITION
Industrial Sublime Station featured in Brooklyn Exhibition
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
INTERVIEW
op.al interviewed by CUNY.TV for Fresh Kills Pavilion
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.
LECTURE
op.al lectures at University of Texas at Austin
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.
GRANT RESEARCH
op.al receives Grant from NY State Council of the Arts
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.
PAVILION BUILD
op.al Constructs Duck Blind in Plain Site in Austin Texas
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.
COMPETITION
op.al Receives Honorable Mention in Gowanus by Design
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
PAVILION
Plastic Flowers featured on Design Boom!
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
COMPETITION
op.al wins Field Constructs Design Competition
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
PROPOSAL
op.al proposal for Public Plaza in Washington DC
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.
CONFERENCE
Jonathan to Present at the ACSA Fall Conference.
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
CONFERENCE
Jennifer to Present at the ASLA Annual Meeting.
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
PUBLICATION
op.al publishes article in PLOT Vol. 4
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.
COMPETITION PROPOSAL
'Duck Blind' a finalist in Field Constructs Competition
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
EXHIBITION
The Anamorphic Hut featured on Bustler
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
PUBLICATIONS
The Function of Style is Available for Pre-Order from Actar
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
COMPETITION PROPOSAL
OP.AL Submits Proposal for the Redford Gardens Festival
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
INSTALLATION
Quasi Object Pavilion Reviewed in AR
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
OFFICE APPROACH
Formed in 2013, by Jonathan A. Scelsa + Jennifer Birkeland, op.AL is a trans-disciplinary practice seeking creative design solutions at the intersections of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design.
The name op.AL emerged as a portmanteau for several tropes that we find occurring in our practice. The first being a deliberate reference to Op Art, whereby the geometry and spatial conditions of optics can produce a set of phenomenological illusions. The second reference concerns our trans-disciplinary focus of operating between the Opposition of Architecture and Landscape resulting in design solutions that strive to dis-integrate the subject-object relationship normally established between the two disciplines.
We engage in design at scales from the regional to the design of intimate architectural objects; it is our belief that design solutions come in all sizes and we remain flexible to solutions to given problems at multitude of scales of insertion.
We offer full architectural services in the New York area including Interior Design, Feasibility Studies, Zoning Analysis, and Visualization solutions. We look forward to working with you on your next project.
CONTACT
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.
VIEW WORK BY
ALL
ARCHITECTURE
LANDSCAPE
URBAN DESIGN
ACADEMIC
WRITING
VIDEO STREAM
