New York: The Latest Architecture and News

A new video by JDS Development Group, Building Knowhow: Skybridge, begins with an anecdote of a day when the firemen showed up at the site. “We got a call – the buildings are falling down!” the chief fireman told Michael Jones, director of JDS. Jones responded with a chuckle, "they're supposed to be like that!"

Located on the East Side of Manhattan, the American Copper Buildings, designed by New York-based SHoP Architects, test the boundaries of engineering. In an informative video, JDS Development Group documents the building of a skybridge between the towers, outlining their detail-oriented, step-by-step approach. Located 300 feet in the air, it is New York's first major skybridge in 80 years.

New York-based architecture firm Leong Leong has created an installation for the third annual Sight Unseen OFFSITE exhibition as a part of the citywide NYCxDESIGN festival.

Titled TOPO, the installation was a scaleless environment composed of more than one thousand foam rollers. Collectively, they form a landscape “that is both an intimate sanctuary and an expansive horizon.” The installation was situated in a room of mirrors, giving the effect that it extends indefinitely.

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This article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine as "Citizen Bridge, NYC's First Floating Bridge, Reaches Kickstarter Goal."

Governors Island is a small, pedestrian-only island to the south of Manhattan and to the west of Brooklyn. It’s just across from Red Hook, the Brooklyn neighborhood known to many a Manhattanite as the home of New York’s only Ikea. To get there, you have to take the East River Ferry—that’s the only option. No subway, no bus, no rail. But it wasn’t always that way.

Nancy Nowacek is a Red Hook-based artist whose vision, since 2012, has been to create an alternative way to reach this backyard of New York City. She has always had a close relationship with the waterfront, but many, she suggests, do not. “It’s really hard to get to the water’s edge from most points inland,” she says. “It’s not a part of the New York that the kids in my building...live in, nor many others who live a few miles away geographically, but experientially are a world away.”

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Design firm WXY architecture + urban design has released plans for a reconnection of nearly 50 acres of public space between downtown Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. Called The Brooklyn Strand, the project seeks to create a more appealing and accessible waterfront, while transforming the quality of public space in the area.

Throughout the four years since the opening of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island, New York City Hall has been arguing with the nonprofit group, the Four Freedoms Park Conservancy, over whether the park is adequately accessible to disabled people, reports The New York Times.

The park was designed from 1972 to 1974—before the advent of the American With Disabilities Act of 1990—by architect Louis Kahn, who died in Pennsylvania Station carrying the plans for the finished memorial. At its southernmost end the park features a 12-by-60-foot sunken terrace that, ironically, President Roosevelt himself would not have been able to use with his wheelchair.

Fourteen years from now, New York's skyline will be one vastly different than the recognizable profile visible today. With dozens of new projects set to make their mark on the city, the creative design company Visualhouse - specializing in 3D visualizations - has released a rendering of New York in 2030. “This image shows the who’s who of modern architecture - with buildings designed by Jean Nouvel, Rafael Vinoly, Bjarke Ingels Group, SOM, Foster + Partners, and Kohn Pedersen Fox, just to name a few," said Visualhouse CEO and Founder, Rob Herrick. "How these modern day masterpieces all fit together in the sky space, that will be the legacy for New Yorkers in 2030 and beyond."

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The Jane Jacobs Documentary - a feature length film focusing on the life and work of celebrated author and urban activist, Jane Jacobs - is set to be released Fall 2016. Coinciding with the author’s 100th birthday, Robert Hammond, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Friends of the High Line, and Matt Tyrnauer, producer/director of Valentino: The Last Emperor, plan to have the film tour festivals near the end of this year.

A photo posted by SWEENEY ART NYC (@sssweeney) on May 2, 2016 at 11:32am PDT

The Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, a New York landmark built in 1851 by Richard Upjohn, burned Sunday night in a fire after more than 700 parishioners celebrated Easter, reports NBC New York. Originally known as Trinity Chapel, the cathedral was created as satellite location for Trinity Church at Wall Street and Broadway in Lower Manhattan, also designed by Upjohn, after parishioners began to settle farther from the original location. The church was later joined by a Clergy House and the Trinity Chapel School in an ecclesiastical complex, but in 1943 the chapel and neighbors were sold to the Serbian Orthodox Church. The cathedral, stretching between 25th and 26th Street, was nearly 180 feet long, and had one of the largest hammerbeam roofs in the city. The New York Landmarks Conservancy partnered with the church for a 2002-03 restoration of the building's facade and roof. The four-alarm fire that was contained by Monday morning is under investigation as suspicious.

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SHoP has unveiled the design for a new 900 foot tall skyscraper in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The 77 story, 500,000 square foot, mixed-income tower will have 600 units, 150 of which will be permanently affordable and distributed evenly throughout the building. The project has been developed as a collaboration between SHoP and JDS who are co-owners of the development, with the partnership of two not-for-profit groups: Two Bridges Neighborhood Council (TBNC) and Settlement Housing Fund (SHF).

On May 3, Lisson Gallery New York will open beneath the High Line between 23rd and 24th Street. Designed by studioMDA and Studio Christian Wassmann, the 8,500 square foot space is split between a gallery, offices, viewing rooms, and storage. Although the main gallery is directly under the High Line – the steel columns in the photos are actually supports for the elevated railway – it will receive ample sun from dramatically angled skylights along the space’s edge, which also aid to extend the walls vertically. The gallery's polished concrete floors, white walls, and natural light are typical of today's contemporary art spaces, but also maintain the aesthetic of Lisson's other galleries. The public will access the space via 24th Street, while the 23rd Street entrance will be reserved for staff purposes and private functions.

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The Ford Foundation has received Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) approval for renovations to its building at 320 E 43rd Street in Midtown Manhattan, reports New York Yimby. Constructed from 1963 to 1967, with a design by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo and an atrium garden by Dan Kiley, the building became an instant architectural mecca and was made an individual and interior landmark in 1997. The proposed renovations, designed by Gensler, seek to restore a half century of alterations to the building’s appearance, in addition to subtle changes to adhere to adhere to fire and accessibility codes.