Battle over Midtown’s Skyline
New York City’s Empire State Building has dominated its portion of Manhattan’s skyline ever since it was constructed back in 1931. Now, as Charles V. Bagli reported for the New York Times, a proposed tower just two avenues west on 34th Street across from Pennsylvania Station will be infringing on the Empire State Building as it is slated to rise 1,216 ft – almost reaching the Empire State Building’s 1,250 ft (with its antenna, the ESB measures 1,453 ft). So, it has become the battle of the skyscrapers as the new building claims it will benefit Manhattan by providing jobs and improve the quality of life for New Yorkers and the Empire State Building is worried about losing its iconic presence in the skyline.
Cliff Treehouse / Baumraum
Check out this cool treehouse nestled into Maple trees near the Hudson River in New York designed by German-based Baumraum. Far from a child’s treehouse, this residence provides simple interiors with a touch of elegance. Constructed for a family with two children, the treehouse serves as an outlet for relaxation and is connected to their main residence via a slender wooden catwalk.
More images and more about the treehouse after the break.
Material Intelligence: Intensive Design and Prototyping Workshop Reception
Studio Mode/modeLab and Tietz-Baccon are pleased to announce the Material Intelligence: Intensive Design and Prototyping Workshop Reception in New York City, August 21, 2010. The workshop investigated the prototype within the history and culture of design through component-based aggregate systems. All prototypes were designed in an associative environment and iteratively tested utilizing digital fabrication equipment.
The reception will include design prototypes and full scale assemblies built by workshop participants over the course of the workshop. The reception will take place tomorrow at 4PM at Hunters Point Plaza, 47-40 21st Street, Long Island City, NY. You can see some photos of the workshop here.
FlyNY 2010 Returns to New York City
The New York Office of Architecture for Humanity just announced the dates for FlyNY 2010, the second annual international kite design competition and showcase co-hosted by the City of New York Parks & Recreation. On the wings of a successful 2009 event, FlyNY 2010 will take place on August 21 from 10:30AM – 4PM on Pier I at 70th Street in Riverside Park South in New York City. FlyNY is one part design competition and one part Fly Day, with the overall aim of engaging design professionals and novices alike in a dynamic conversation about design.
Set on Manhattan’s West Side, participation in the August 21 Fly Day is free, open to the public and does not require a submission into the competition. The event will include kitemaking activities for kids and families, live entertainment and kite flying.
Designers, architects, artists and others are also encouraged to participate in the FlyNY Design Dialogue taking place Friday, August 20 6-8pm EST on Twitter. It will be a dynamic conversation which merges the FlyNY competition jury panel discussion with a broader, international design/architecture audience. Just log onto Twitter, follow @_FlyNY and tweet using the #designdialogue hashtag to participate. FlyNY will be posing design related questions and following along during the jury panel discussion.
For more information on the event, visit http://flyny.org/ or view the event page on Facebook. See images of last year’s event after the break.
In Progress: Sperone Westwater Gallery / Foster + Partners
We took a few shots of Foster + Partners’ latest addition to the Bowery – a new gallery to house the Sperone Westwater’s growing collection from prominent artists of different nationalities and ages. Sitting a few steps away from SANAA’s musuem, this new gallery’s CNC milled glass facade elegantly responds to its neighboring art museum. According to Foster, the gallery is “both a response to the dynamic urban character of New York’s Bowery and a desire to rethink the way in which the public engages with art in the setting of a gallery.”
Check out some photos after the break.
The Business of Aura exhibition opens today
The Business of Aura is an exhibition hosted in two locations, Elga Wimmer Gallery and Broadway Gallery, curated by Kelsey Harrington. It includes painting, drawing, photography, sculptural prototypes, and installation. The show examines the potential of studio processes to produce aura.
The exhibition opened today at the Elga Wimmer Gallery, 526 West 26th St. NYC, and will be on display until September 18. Photos of the prototypes and final pieces are posted for your viewing pleasure here. For more information, click here.
459 West 18th Street / Della Valle + Bernheimer
Architects: Della Valle + Bernheimer Design
Location: New York, NY, USA
Partner in Charge: Jared Della Valle
Project Manager: Burck Schellenberg
Project Designer: Andrew Bernheimer, Garrick Jones
Project Team: Andrew Willard, Cathy Braasch, Brian Butterfield, Adam Ruedig
Client/Developer: Alloy Development
Contractor: TG Nickel
Project Area: 29,700 sq ft
Project Year: 2006-2009
Photographs: Della Valle + Bernheimer, Frank Oudeman, BLiP Studio, Evan Joseph
In Progress: Beekman Tower / Frank Gehry
Our director, David Assael, took some shots of Gehry’s latest creation – a wavy residential tower clad in undulating metal panels. While still in the construction phase, it is easy to get the overall idea of the structure. In person, the tower demands attention as its presence, due both to scale and materiality, is unmatched within its context. Throughout the day, the light plays upon the curves making the hard metallic color almost glisten. Some of Assael’s photos capture the tower in the early evening – the perfect time of day to see the reds and oranges of the setting sun against the building. What do you think of Gehry’s skyscraper?
More of Assael’s photos after the break.
Material Intelligence Intensive Design + Prototyping Workshop
Material Intelligence is a one-week intensive design and prototyping workshop to be held in New York City during the week of August 16-20.
Over the course of five days participants will examine the cultural as well as technological domains of associative practices within architecture and its related fields. Participants will develop projects through iterative workflows with an emphasis placed on material prototyping as a vehicle for design innovation. The workshop will be conducted in a fast-paced and hands-on studio environment where participants will have access to digital fabrication equipment including an industrial CNC 3-axis Mill and CNC High-Force Cutter.
The format of the workshop includes daily instructional, design, and fabrication sessions in addition to lunch time and evening lectures by leading practitioners in the field. The primary CAD platform will be Grasshopper for Rhino3D, supported by a suite of associated programs including RhinoCam, RhinoNest, and Brazil Render. The workshop will culminate in a public exhibition and opening reception on the evening of Saturday, August 21.
For more information, click here.
House on Fire Island / Studio 27 Architecture
Architects: Studio 27 Architecture
Location: Fire Island Pines, NY, USA
Principal in Charge: Todd Ray, AIA
Project Architect: Bethan Llewellyn
Contractor: Bill Santangelo
Project Area: 1,550 sq ft
Project Year: 2005-2007
Photographs: Judy Davis
WTC Transit Hub / Santiago Calatrava
Check out the latest video of Santiago Calatrava’s transit hub at the World Trade Center site, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal and funded by Brookfield Properties. Back in 2004, Calatrava first unveiled his vision for the transportation hub – a “mega-station” which will include PATH services and 12 subway lines – and it seems that we’ll still have to wait until 2014 for the project to be fully completed. Although certain aspects of the design have been modified since 2004, the overall vision embodies Calatrava’s original conceptual ideas. At $3.2 billion dollars, the station is an expensive, but vital, component of the new WTC complex. Millions of commuters, tourists, and residents pass through the station every day, filtering in and out of one of the most powerful financial districts in the world. The video’s alluring imagery of the main concourse piques our interest as Calatrava has opened the roof to allow natural light to flood the interior. This strategy creates a more transparent and open space, which is unusual for a New York subway station, that can also be enjoyed from above as people in the towers look down upon the hub. We are anxious to wait on the sleek platforms and walk down the commercial connection between the hub and the Winter Garden, but we’ll just have to patiently wait to see the final result!
The New Domino / Rafael Viñoly Architects
Earlier last week, the City Council of New York City decided to move forward with Rafael Viñoly Architects’ master plan for the New Domino in Brooklyn. While the historic sugar refinery complex, with its familiar yellow signage, has achieved landmark status and will be preserved, the 11.2 acre-site will be outfitted with 2,200 new apartments – 660 of which are affordable housing – and four acres of public park space including a riverfront esplanade along the East River in Brooklyn.
More about the master plan after the break.
New Queens Library at Hunters Point / Steven Holl Architects
New York will be the recipient of another Steven Holl project – a new library at the Queens West Development at Hunters Point. Envisioned as a contemporary “urban forum”, the project will shape public space and create new connections across the Queens West Development, Hunter Points South, and the existing neighborhood of Hunters Point. Steven Holl states, “We are very pleased with this great commission for an addition to the growing community. We envision a building hovering and porous, open to the public park. A luminous form of opportunity for knowledge, standing on its own reflection in the east river.”
More about Holl’s new project after the break.
New Art Museum / SANAA
Architect: SANAA
Location: 235 Bowery, New York, NY 10002
Client: New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York City; Zubatkin Owner Representation
Project Leadership: Saul Dennison, Chairman, Board of Trustees, New Museum; Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director, New Museum; Lisa Roumell, Deputy Director, New Museum
Architect of record: Gensler Architects
Project Management: Plaza Construction Corporation, New York City
Structural engineers: Guy Nordenson Associates, Simpson Gumperts & Heger Inc., New York City
Lights and illumination: Arup
Constructed area: 58,700 sq ft
Year of enchargement: 2002
Year of completion: 2007
Photographs: Iwan Baan, Dean Kaufman, Benoit Pailley
Times Square Reconstruction Project / Snøhetta
We just found exciting news from Bustler that the Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta recently won the Times Square Reconstruction Project in New York City. Times Square is the epitome of a chaotic New York block, with signs, noise and tons of people and taxis. The area currently has a public space which was deemed traffic free, yet now the city is looking to make the space more permanent and Snohetta will be heading the project.
More about the project after the break.
232 Bedford Ave / Loadingdock5 Architecture
Architects: Loadingdock5 Architecture
Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA
Project Team: Sebastian Schroeter, Werner Morath and Sam Bargetz
Project Year: 2008-2010
Photographs: Courtesy of Loadingdock5 Architecture
What You Say and What They See: A Client Perspective on Winning Proposals
Winning new work for architecture firms has become increasingly complex as competition has become fiercer and clients more sophisticated in their expectations. A client-focused, targeted proposal is one of the key elements in winning a project. But just what are clients looking for? And what goes into assembling a successful submission?
This panel of architects and clients will explore what it takes to make your best case. Architect panelists will start with the initial “go” decision, and discuss strategies including selecting the team, the project approach, and the cover letter. Client panelists will describe the thinking that goes into developing an RFP and what makes for a convincing response. This session promises to result in some valuable advice in an especially challenging market.
The event will take place July 26 from 6 to 8 pm. For more information click here.
New Buildings New York: Alice Tully Hall and the Redesigned Public Spaces at Lincoln Center
New Buildings New York, a program of the Center for Architecture Foundation, is a series of tours that provide a behind-the-scenes look at new building in the New York metropolitan area and are led by their architects, engineers and designers. All proceeds benefit youth and family programs at the Center for Architecture.
All interested parties are invited to join the Center for Architecture Foundation for an insider’s tour of Alice Tully Hall and the redesigned public space at Lincoln Center. The tour will be led by the principals of Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Sylvia Smith, FAIA, LEED of FXFOWLE followed by a cocktail reception. Tickets are $80 per person ($50 tax-deductible) and advance RSVP is required. It will take place on July 29 between 6-8 pm.
More information can be found here.
100% Content / Cheungvogl
During the post-WWII era, the surge in the housing market often resulted in “faceless” suburban communities that sprang up to relieve the immediate need for housing. The cities maintained their cultural identity and rather than the suburbs infusing their new communities with commercial or cultural entities, the suburbs constantly relied on the city’s proximity for such things. As this old model is highly unsustainable and car dependent, Christoph Vogl from Cheungvogl has studied Long Island’s suburbs, in particular Hempstead, that did not grow as independent communities. He has outlined a master plan of what can be done to give Long Island the social, cultural and economic context it needs.
“Very much representing these observations, the so-thought town centres of Long Island’s communities, placed around the major traffic intersections are not occupied by cultural, commercial and social institutions, as expected from the ratio of communal identity and urban context, but by parking lots. Not some, but hectares of paring lots. Not complaining about the non-existence of urban context and real community, these vacant areas around Long Island’s “Cross roads” offer the unique chance for master planning based reconsideration of the meaning of community,” added Vogl.
Check out the steps of the master plan after the break.
The High Line Frenzy
It is easy to take for granted the things you grow accustomed to, but ever since the initial idea of revitalizing the High Line began sprouting up, New Yorkers have been taking full advantage of the project and loving every second spent strolling, relaxing and gazing at the West Side’s newest addition. The project has truly piqued locals and tourists’ interests as the elevated promenade is enjoyed as much today as it was on opening day over a year ago.
With such success, it is no surprise, as Kate Taylor reported for the New York Times, that the small office of the Friends of the High Line has received countless calls asking how their cities can also enjoy the High Line effect.
