The Architectural League’s 30th annual Emerging Voices Award brings a focus to creative practices that will influence the direction of architecture. Each of the eight firms will deliver a lecture at the Cooper Union’s Rose Auditorium at 41 Cooper Square in Manhattan. The    

Buildings that resonate with their own sense of structure, in the vein of Mies van der Rohe enriched with tactile poetics à la Zumthor or Herzog & de Meuron, is the goal. And it is achieved at the Raymond-Lévesque library, with its dynamic array of overlapping geometries clad in carbonized poplar planks that work visually as a dynamic screen positioned to take maximum advantage of the sun’s position throughout the day.

In an arrangement that is rare in the United States, Atelier TAG waxes and wanes according to the needs of ambitious projects. As competitions get underway, the firm, usually 2- to 10-people strong, can grow instantly to 100 through an on-going alliance with the large and established Montreal firm, Jodoin Lamarre Pratte et Associés Architectes. “We control the working drawings and the entire design phase,” said Asselin, whose team moves into the larger office when projects get going. “Collaborating with an older firm that can handle the routine project management issues but also understands our approach to detailing makes it all possible.”