He helped the firm launch its London office and worked on a series of waterfront restorations that inspired his Fulbright Fellowship project at the Royal Docks. Valgora's first architecture job was as a senior designer with Koetter Kim & Associates in Boston. '66), who coauthored Collage City with Rowe. Valgora went on to earn a master's in architecture at Harvard University, where he studied with Fred Koetter (M.Arch. "Every day, I use what I learned at Cornell," he adds. "I was looking at my own experience in Buffalo, wondering if we could restore cities in new ways to respond to the needs of their communities - and Colin was saying we could." "Suddenly, I was exposed to the teachings of Colin Rowe, a legend in the world of 20th-century architecture education," Valgora says. "In Buffalo, urban renewal and the loss of the industrial environment practically destroyed my hometown."Īt Cornell, he discovered that restoration and reinvention were possible. "That industrial architecture had a profound influence on me," Valgora says. That didn't stop Valgora from climbing the surrounding fences and spending hours exploring the dilapidated structures. The massive structures were abandoned and officially off-limits. He grew up outside Buffalo, New York, once home to the world's largest complex of grain elevators. Nearly 400 miles away, Valgora's "dream project" is underway - a reinvention of one of his childhood stomping grounds: Silo City, the "magnificent ruins" that enthralled him as a boy and inspired him to become an architect. Valgora's home, the award-winning J+K Residence - a three-level penthouse atop the landmark former Gilsey Hotel - uses high-efficiency heat pumps, double-glazed windows, a roof garden with efficient drip irrigation, and other green features. At Halletts North, a former industrial site in Queens, plans call for market-rate and affordable housing, community-use space, and eco-friendly elements such as wastewater recycling systems. In Brooklyn's Coney Island, Valgora and STUDIO V designed a two-tower, 463-unit residential complex, the largest geothermal project in New York City.
The superstorm and its aftermath cemented Valgora's determination to address climate change and other environmental issues - and to make resilience and sustainability core components of his practice. Empire Stores, then under construction, was flooded with five feet of water from the East River. STUDIO V added the protective technology after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The project is also notable as one of the first in New York to incorporate an AquaFence FloodWall. Slicing through the historic fabric to create a sequence of public spaces, passages, and gardens, the project is a two-story, glass-and-steel addition with a public park and views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges and the Manhattan skyline.
The design for Empire Stores retained the brick exteriors of the seven warehouses and added tenant space, a vertical courtyard, and extensive green roofs. STUDIO V's designs often pay tribute to old and new by preserving and restoring historical elements and blending them with contemporary features. "The waterfront has a place for transformative design in the contemporary city to address sustainability and equity." "My work in New York City is dedicated to the idea that water has gone from being a barrier to a catalyst for invention," Valgora says. '68) photograph Conical Intersect (1975), Valgora broke through the warehouse walls, carving public passages to offices, stores, restaurants, a museum, and a rooftop beer garden. Inspired partially by Gordon Matta-Clark's (B.Arch. For centuries, the wall of warehouses, or "coffee stores," stood as a barrier between the waterfront and their adjacent communities. At Empire Stores in Brooklyn, for example, STUDIO V's award-winning design converted abandoned coffee storage warehouses into a thriving multiuse urban center.
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