Lectures
Claire Weisz
An urban experiment: WXY recent work
Claire Weisz received the Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Toronto in 1984 and the Master of Architecture from our School in 1989. From 1985 to 1989, Claire worked as a project architect in the office of Urban Innovations Group with Charles Moore and, following the completion of her studies at Yale, she lent her talents to firms of Hayne, Winkler & Weisz and to Agrest & Gandelsonas before founding, in 1992, WXY Architects with Mark Yoes (’90 M.Arch). Layng Pew (‘84 B.A.; '89 M.Arch.) and Adam Lubinsky, joined WXY as partners in 2006 and 2011 respectively.
WXY is an award-winning multi-disciplinary practice specializing in the realization of urban design, planning and architectural solutions in challenging contexts. Focused on innovative approaches to public space, structures and urban issues, the firm’s work engages both site-specific design and planning at multiple scales. The firm’s commissions are in collaboration with community-based, public authority, and private clients.
WXY’s architectural design embraces place-specific concepts and resilient design to create new and repurposed buildings, piers and bridges, and urban furnishings for the public realm. The firm’s integrated design process involves clients and stakeholders, to coordinate and solve complex design problems, yielding solutions as noteworthy for their intimacy and detail as for their civic dignity and amenity.
WXY’s planning work engages local communities and constituencies in unique ways, utilizes analytical GIS and zoning expertise, and integrates an understanding of infrastructure and economic development concerns. The results have included the creative visioning of public spaces, new urban clusters and broad urban revitalization and infrastructure planning efforts.
WXY’s recent and ongoing work in New York City includes the redesign of Astor Place, the Spring Street Sanitation Garage, the redesign of the Rockaway Boardwalks, Pier 26’s Boathouse/Restaurant, Battery Park’s SeaGlass Carousel, a pedestrian bridge in lower Manhattan, a design to better accommodate both pedestrians and elevated trains in Harlem, a study of Brooklyn’s growing commercial tech sector (the Brooklyn Tech Triangle), the East River Blueway Plan, and a finalist proposal for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rebuild by Design initiative.
In addition to professional practice Claire is no stranger to academia, having taught as a critic, visitor and professor at a number intuitions including NJIT, The Pratt Institute, Columbia University and here at Yale. For the last ten years she has been Assistant Visiting Professor at the New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service and for the last six years Studio Critic at The New School’s Parsons School of Design. In 2015, Claire was visiting assistant professor at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at CCNY.
In Fall 2012 Claire was the lead organizer and primary inspiration for the first-ever Yale Women in Architecture Reunion – an event that attracted over 100 women graduates of our School.
With Andrea Woodner, Claire co-founded in 1995, the Design Trust for Public Space, a nationally-recognized incubator that transforms and evolves the city’s landscape with city agencies and community collaborators. The work of the Design Trust work can be seen, felt and experienced throughout all five boroughs–from parks and plazas to streets and public buildings.