Atlantic Yards / Ellerbe Becket + SHoP
Bruce Ratner originally looked to Frank Gehry to design the Atlantic Yards’ basketball arena, a 22 acre development project in Brooklyn. Gehry’s scheme looked promising as the arena and surrounding buildings were carefully categorized in different zones and then reassembled to create “startling urban moments.” When Gehry was fired early in the summer and replaced by Kansas-based firm Ellerbe Becket, many were worried that the project would not be realized with the care Gehry had given it. When Becket’s original design seemed below par, Ratner quickly hired SHoP Architects to get the design back on track.
More about SHoP’s addition to the Atlantic Yards after the break.
This past week, Becket and SHoP unveiled the third version of the 675,000 sft arena. This design incorporates some of Gehry’s original ideas, like opening views from the sidewalk into the arena. SHoP’s new façade, a rust-colored skin woven out of weathered steel panels, has a certain sense of toughness that helps it fit into its surroundings. Perforated holes will make the building appear to glow at night.
The latest design consists of three separate but woven bands. The first engages the ground as the steel exterior rises and lowers to create a sense of visual transparency. The second band is made of glass that permits views from inside and outside. A third band floats around the roof varying in transparency.
Gehry's Vision for Atlantic Yards
In the beginning, the project, although many parts, was thought of as one big scheme. Yet to defer additional costs, Mr. Ratner divided up the design. This has worried many who feel that once the arena is built, it may be years before the rest of the project is any where near completion. Yet according to Ratner, once the arena is finished, the foundations for the residential and commercial buildings will be dug, once he is ready to start the next stage of construction. It is important for the whole design to keep progressing, for the sum is greater than the individual arena.
As seen in The New York Times reported by Nicolai Ouroussoff
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17 comments »
Dressing Up a Turkey
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/59004/
This is one of those projects that is testing the abilities and creativity of many of us. Gehry got fired, Becket was not up to the task and ShoP will be soon history if they continue with this approach.
I just want to think who will be up to the task or better said who will make it next to the black list.
Mr. Ratner, I am sorry to tell you but the project it is not back in track, not yet. If you are planning to design a new concept of a Jail like type of building, well then you are right on the money.
Hey ShoP, I know you can do better than this. We are used to see your elegant and creative and surprising analysis of space. I would live to see a building we will all fell proud in Brooklyn, but this. Let’s get back to the board and give it one more try, before Mr. Ratner realize that shop is more that just a nice apple store.
poor ny!
wtf!!
I live just around the corner from this. I want to see development in my neighborhood but this whole project, maybe ill conceived from the beginning, has just gone right down the crapper. Yet, no one will pull the plug.
For good design in our neighborhood take a look at the projects in this neighborhood by the firm Loading Dock, right here on ArchDaily.
Gehry is getting old and tired.
WHAT A VOMIT!!And Ghery’s vision for Atlantic Yards…well…RUN FOR YOUR LIFES!!!That’s to bad architecture…i have no words to describe this…SHOCKED.
no thanks!
Gehry’s design looks rather interesting to me. I don’t think these towers deserve all the buckets of puke and vomit reserved for it.
Clustering buildings in a playfull way resembling the buildings in the neghbourhood seems to me like a reasonable way of giving urbanistic input to the city.
Shop can and should take another look at this. They can do much better!
FG’ project is terrible and SHoP’s is even worse……..
In Rem’s words…. just Fk the context and do something better than these mediocre proposals.
If Gehry was the high point and Ellerbe Becket the lowest of low points, SHoP’s design is decisively (upper) middle crust. It displays confidence in SHoP’s own design ability, and return of some element of risk-taking and boundary-pushing.
I do not see that!!!
Sadly I live near here and this is terrible. I have no doubt that someone could make a great design for the budget but trying to recreate a design that was never good to begin with is a mistake.
Put it out to bid. Make something you can be proud of. The first design looked like something the Joker designed and this looks like a rusted structure from the 1970’s that a community would hope would be replaced or torn down as soon as possible.
It looks like SHoP did not have enough time to develop their scheme. Frank Gehry’s design scheme is out of place. SHoP should be hired and develop their scheme.
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