The Van Alen Institute, a think tank in New York City devoted to architecture and the public realm, has announced that Olympia Kazi will be the group's new executive director. Prior to joining Van Alen, Kazi directed the Institute for Urban Design (IFUD), also based in New York, for two years. In addition to expanding the IFUD's outreach and influence, her final project for the institute, "Urban Design Week," received a $150,000 grant in 2009 from the Rockefeller Foundation's Cultural Innovation Fund. Kazi, who was educated as an architecte at the University of Florence, Italy, has also served as the architectural editor of Wound magazine and has written for The Architect's Newspaper and Architectural Design.
Replacing Kazi at the IFUD—which focuses on the issues surrounding urban planning, development, and design—is longtime architecture and design journalist Anne Guiney. Most recently the editor of the New York edition of The Architect's Newspaper, Guiney was also an editor at Architecture and Metropolis. An occasional contributor to ARCHITECT, she has also written for Mark and I.D.
