Discuss with the architectural matchmaker the architectural shed, the macho of Hudson Yards, and what to do when you choose the wrong celebrity architect.

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Someone can easily make an elegant reality show about Susanna Sirefman and her company Dovetail Design Strategists. As a trained architect, an amateur writer and lecturer, she consults with major institutions to help them find suitable architects for their new buildings, additions and renovations.

Sometimes this involves organizing design competitions to simplify and speed up a process that may take several years, thereby putting public facilities in trouble.

But what brought her to my attention was that she seemed to have found a solution to the ugly scaffolding.

I had an email conversation with her to find out what she did in New York and other areas. For the sake of space and clarity, this exchange has been edited.

Everyone in New York complains about scaffolding-or sidewalk sheds, in technical terms-blocking and obscuring our sidewalks and obscuring our buildings. With all the construction in the city, they seem to be everywhere.

However, your company may finally find a solution.

The Bloomberg administration took it for granted that New York City should be better than the dark, dirty, and unattractive standard sidewalk sheds that New Yorkers walk through every day. I was hired by a partner in the city hall for this project.

The sidewalk shed is complicated. They must protect pedestrians from all kinds of debris falling at different speeds, withstand different wind loads, and straddle sloping sidewalks with uneven urban width.

The competition I initiated challenged architects and engineers to completely reimagine the sidewalk sheds while ensuring their important functions. Changes in profit margins will not cut it.

The winning design must be safer or more secure, provide better store access, create a 180-degree different experience for pedestrians, use the most advanced building technology, be easy to install, and complement the mix of streetscapes. And be beautiful.

A team of engineers and architects composed of Andres Cortés, Sarrah Khan, and Young Hwan Choi, Agencie Group's award-winning design Urban Umbrella knocked it out of the park.

One big problem is that the shacks on the sidewalk can feel gloomy, especially at night, especially for women. How does this new shed style make pedestrians feel safer?

In sharp contrast to the low headroom of the existing dark and spongy wood and metal sheds, Urban Umbrella is open and arched, without cross supports. The ceiling is illuminated by stylish, energy-saving LED lights. The adjustable steel cylinder is bright white and smooth-no dangerous jagged loose bolts.

Please forgive my cynicism, but why do developers use scaffolding that is many times more expensive than the off-the-shelf type? Even beautiful?

Good design brings many benefits. As far as Urban Umbrella is concerned, it goes far beyond aesthetics. An important goal of the competition is to determine a design to reduce the negative impact on corporate traffic. Another benefit is improved safety.

I am not an economist, but combining these two benefits alone, in a city like New York, scaffolding can save costs.

Over the years, plans to refurbish the main research department of the New York Public Library and sell the Midtown Manhattan Library have been controversial. The library was under tremendous public pressure and had to cancel the plan to replace the bookshelves under the main reading room with a borrowing library (designed by British architect Norman Foster).

Writers and scholars resisted, believing that the stack must be preserved, otherwise the main branch will no longer be a place for serious scholarship. They won, but then the project seemed to stall.

How did your collaboration with the New York Public Library promote it?

When I joined, the library just broke away from the long-term partnership with Norman Foster, which in hindsight did not match. In the process of rethinking, they established the idea of ​​creating a Midtown campus.

The concept of connecting these two famous buildings (the main research branch and the Manhattan Midtown Library) has made architects who can turn them into reality the focus of attention. Only eight months later, Francine Houben, the architect of the Dutch company Mecanoo, was selected by the library.

Today, the full interior renovation of the Midtown Library in Manhattan is underway, and the main branch library on Fifth Avenue has begun work. The two buildings will provide more public space, including the magnificent rooftop terrace of the Manhattan Midtown Library.

The top of this outdoor space is a sloping copper roof, which directly communicates with the main branch on the opposite side. If you stand at the corner of 40th Street and Fifth Avenue, you can already see this connection happening. New Yorkers will be very excited.

Hudson Yards is rarely loved by New Yorkers. If you were hired to advise developers, what different approaches would you take?

This is a tricky question. As far as I know, New Yorkers are struggling with a basic design principle: how scale and structure are physically and culturally connected to their surroundings.

If this process were more focused on scale, then the macho of everything in Hudson Yards could have been alleviated.

Hudson Yards reminded me of the famous Winston Churchill quote, "We shaped our buildings, and then they shaped us."

You are also building a memorial and museum in Orlando to pay tribute to the people who lost their lives in the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre in 2016. how is the progress?

It is always important to do things well, but when the focus of the project is to respect the lives taken, fragility and originality must be considered.

After the tragedy, the owners of Pulse established the onePULSE Foundation. They came to me to find a design team on a global scale that would effectively convey their creed "We will not let hatred win" through architecture.

The competition attracted submissions from 68 teams from 19 countries and attracted the attention of the global design community.

Once the shortlisted teams submit their designs, our next step is to open an exhibition in Orlando in early October and provide an opportunity for the public to share their opinions.