Cocktails & Conversation is a series of dialogues about design that joins an architect with a critic, journalist, curator, or architectural historian to discuss current architecture design issues. Each program includes a custom-crafted cocktail—one inspired by the architect’s work and created especially for this event.
Rafael Pelli, FAIA, LEED AP, is the Senior Principal at Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects’ New York studio, which he established in 2000. Pelli directs the design for a broad range of work, from large urban projects such as 731 Lexington Avenue (the Bloomberg Tower) and the Sao Paolo Corporate Headquarters in Brazil, to academic projects such as the Business Instructional Facility at the University of Illinois, Urbana‐Champaign. In the early 2000s, his multifamily buildings in Battery Park, NYC—the Solaire, the Verdesian, and the Visionaire—served as important case studies in sustainable design. The firm’s research into new design strategies for this essential urban building type has helped inform advances in the New York building industry.
Pelli has 32 years of experience at the firm, which was founded by Cesar Pelli in 1977 on the belief that intelligent design embodies many varied considerations, including placemaking, craft, and integrated engineering. Rafael Pelli builds on this legacy in his advocacy for sustainable design principles, completing award‐winning LEED Platinum projects for commercial, residential, and academic buildings. He is an active Board Member of Urban Green Council and has served on the NYC Green
Codes Task Force and Turner Construction’s Green Advisory Board.
Pelli received a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and a Master of Architecture from the Harvard
University Graduate School of Design.
Nico Kienzl, DDES, LEED Fellow, ASHRAE HBDP, is a founding director of Atelier Ten’s New York City office and a member of Atelier Ten’s U.S. and international leadership group. He is a recognized leader in environmental design, particularly the application of advanced building analysis for façade optimization, daylight and shading analysis, and optimization of building systems.
Kienzl has played an important role on a variety of residential, commercial, institutional, cultural, and master plan projects throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, where he has shaped environmental performance and influenced the building industry to move towards a more sustainable future.
An active member in the industry, Kienzl’s affiliations include the Urban Green Council, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations Industry Advisory Group. He received a Doctor of Design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, holds a Master of Science degree in Building Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received his diploma in Architecture from the Technical University of Munich.
Organized by
AIANY Architecture Dialogue Committee
