‘Solar Loop’ Competition Entry / Paolo Venturella & MenoMenoPiu Architects
Designed by Paolo Venturella & MenoMenoPiu Architects, their ‘Solar Loop’ finalist entry for the Land Art Generator Initiative competition aims to expose more surface as possible to the southern solar rays. Sited in FreshKills Park in New York City, the shape comes directly from the solar diagrams, and deals easily with the sun following it with the best angle almost like a frozen artificial sunflower.bThe aesthetic of the sculpture is the result of this dialogue that becomes synthesis between the solar power and the park. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Photography: The Rockaways, Post-Sandy / Amanda Kirkpatrick
Hurricane Sandy has come and gone, but the destruction she left in her path remains a stark reminder of her strength.
Photographer Amanda Kirkpatrick has shared with us her images of The Rockaways in Queens, an upper-class beach neighborhood that was one of the areas hit hardest by the storm. Kirkpatrick’s objective eye documents the twisted boardwalks and unrecognizably distorted homes in an almost “clinical” way, honestly portraying the damage from the perspective of the broken structures themselves.
If you’re interested in getting involved with Hurricane Sandy Recovery Efforts, you can get more information here. For more images from Amanda Kirkpatrick, read on after the break…
510 W 22nd St / COOKFOX
New York-based COOKFOX, formally known as Cook + Fox Architects, has designed a state of the art office tower planned to neighbor the High Line by 2014. Projected to achieve LEED Platinum status, the glass and steel mid-rise offers large, light-filled interior spaces engineered for comfort and high performance, along with spectacular views of the Hudson River and direct connections to the High Line.
Continue reading for the architects’ description.
‘TENACITY’ Architectural Research Proposal / PinkCloud.DK
Proposed by PinkCloud.DK, TENACITY seeks to revitalize the broken system of New York City Public Housing through architectural development, economic stimulus, education, and most importantly – community pride. The goal for this project is to be a catalyst for dialogue, spurring community and governmental action. The design of TENACITY is founded on the firm’s belief that a strong community is built upon three main goals – good health, prosperity, and family. More images and architects’ description after the break.
modeLab Lattice Lab
Originally scheduled for this weekend, the new dates for the Lattice Lab workshop, put on by modeLab, will take place November 17-18. The two-day workshop will focus on the topic of topological/subdivision modeling with paneling tools and weaverbird. In a fast-paced and hands-on learning environment, they will cover fundamental concepts related to working with mesh geometry, high-order topological smoothing, and grid-based modeling. Drawing inspiration from the patterns found in 3-dimensional lattice structures, they will create geometrical units capable of responding to a range of dynamic contexts. Additionally, they will explore the limits and opportunities of 3D printing while testing the visual and structural effects of their lattices. For more information, please visit here.
2013 P.S.1 Shortlist
MoMA P.S.1 has announced five finalists to compete in the 2013 Young Architects Program (YAP). Now in it’s 13th edition, the competition will challenge a group of emerging architects to design a temporary installation within the walls of the P.S.1 courtyard for MoMA’s annual summer “Warm-Up” series.
This year’s finalists are CODA from Ithaca, New York; Leong Leong Architects and Moorhead & Moorhead both from New York City; TempAgency from Charlottesville, Virginia and Brooklyn; and French 2D, based in Boston and Syracuse, New York.
Over the years, the YAP competition has inspired a vast amount of innovative proposals. Just check out last year’s winner, Wendy! This blue nylon beauty, designed by New York-based HWKN, graced the P.S.1 courtyard with her smog-eating, titania nanoparticle coated spikes. Learn more about the 2012 YAP award winner here.
Best of luck to the 2013 finalists!
‘The City That Never Was’ Symposium
Co-organized, in cooperation with the Architectural League, by Christopher Marcinkoski and Javier Arpa, The City That Never Was symposium is a day-long event that uses the current crisis in Spain as a lens to reconsider patterns of urbanization and development around the world. Taking place November 9th from 9:00am-5:00pm at the Scholastic Building in New York, the event will reconsider how planners, designers, politicians, and financiers conceive of and realize large-scale contemporary urbanization and settlement. This event seeks to better understand the systems that have produced certain imbalances resulting from this urban growth and explore new models and approaches for urbanization and development. For more information, please visit here.
Iwan Baan vs. Sandy: The Story Behind That Iconic NYC Shot
We got in touch with Iwan Baan to ask him how on earth he got that incredible aerial shot of a Sandy-struck New York City for New York Magazine; he told us what it was like to face the frenzy and fly into the storm itself. Read his incredible story, after the break…
Solar Carve Tower / Studio Gang Architects
Jeanne Gang is about to make her New York debut, as the Chicago-based architect just unveiled the latest project planned to border New York City’s beloved High Line. The 180,000 square-foot office tower with ground level retail will replace an existing, disused meatpacking plant along 10th Avenue between 13th and 14th streets. It will feature a “gem-like”, glass facade that is intelligently shaped to avoid the disruption of light, air and views from the High Line.
Dubbed the Solar Carve Tower, the mid-rise structure is currently pending city approval and is planned for completion in 2015.
Continue after the break for the architects’ description.
New York: Night and Day
Amidst the post-Sandy recovery efforts, we would like to share with you New York: Night and Day by Philip Stockton. The New York-based animator and director created the film in attempt to explore the city’s relationships between night and day from a series of fifteen preconceived locations. Using an interesting mix of non-traditional video time-lapse and animation, Stockton combined four to eight hours of footage from each location into single sequences using rotoscoping techniques.
Review each location after the break…
SOM breaks ground on New York’s First Net Zero Energy School
A few days before the wrath of Sandy, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) broke ground on what will be the first net zero energy school in New York City and the Northeast U.S. Located on a 3.5-acre site on Staten Island, at the intersection of Crabtree Avenue and Bloomingdale Road, P.S.62 Richmond will serve 444 pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students. When completed in Fall of 2015, the cutting-edge primary school will harvest as much energy from renewable on-site sources as it uses on an annual basis.
Learn more after the break…
Will Sandy Finally Convince New York to Re-Design Its Waterfront?
Maybe Sandy, the colossal hurricane that has barreled across the East Coast this week, will finally get the message across: ”We are all from New Orleans Now.”
Thanks to climate change, America’s coastal cities, and particularly New York, have become increasingly vulnerable to nature’s wrath. Over two years ago, MOMA asked five architects to come up with a redesign of lower Manhattan that would prevent damage in the event of major flooding. Barry Bergdoll, the Curator of the “Rising Currents” exhibit, put it to the architects this way: “Your mission is to come up with images that are so compelling they can’t be forgotten and so realistic that they can’t be dismissed.”
Unfortunately, they were. As the many images from traditional news sources and social media users reveal, Sandy’s damage has been extensive – and perhaps, in many ways, preventable.
It often takes tragedy to instigate change. Let’s hope that Sandy will finally get the conversation of New York’s vulnerable urban landscape on to the table.
More images of Sandy’s damage, as well as plans from MOMA’s “Rising Currents” Exhibit, after the break…
Joe Fresh New York flagship / Burdifilek
Architects: Burdifilek
Location: New York, United States
Project Team: Diego Burdi, Paul Filek, Jeremy Mendonca, Jacky Kwong, Daniel Mei, Edwim Reyes, Anna Nomerovsky, Anthony Tey, Daniela Cerchie, Tom Yip; Callison Architecture, Inc.: David Curtis
Design Team: Joe Fresh Design Studio
Area: 17,783 sq ft
Year: 2012
Photographs: Ben Rahn A-Frame
Urban Development in the Bloomberg Years
Urban planning is delicately intertwined with government. As much as architects and designers try to avoid the overwrought laws and codes and prescriptive government policies that guide the construction and development of the urban landscape, they are very much a shaping force in cities such as New York. Ask any architect working in a such as NYC and they will likely describe the bureaucratic hassles of working with outdated zoning regulations and restrictive building codes. In this NPR segment Leonard Lopate interviews New York Magazine’s architecture critic Justin Davidson to discusses the impact of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s planning policies on New York City’s urban development.
Join us after the break for the link.
Which Grand Central Vision Is the Best for New York?
The New York Time’s Michael Kimmelman described it as an “ennobling experience, a gift,” a lesson on what architecture, at it’s best, can be.
Indeed, entering the Main Concourse of Grand Central Terminal is a pleasure that rivals few others. For me, it took me by surprise: walking, as New Yorkers do, in a determined beeline through an undistinguished tunnel, I was suddenly struck by light. I stopped, as New Yorkers never do, to observe a vaulted, starry ceiling, the changing light, and multitudes of people whipping by.
Grand Central is one of New York’s most beloved icons, one of the few which tourists and natives share alike. Which is not to say, of course, that it isn’t in need of a face-lift.
The Terminal’s upcoming centennial, which corresponds with proposed re-zoning laws that would completely change the face of Midtown, makes now the perfect moment to consider how Grand Central’s grandeur can be preserved and its neighborhood reinvigorated. Last week, the Metropolitan Art Society (MAS) invited three firms to share their visions – and while SOM’s gravity-defying “halo” may have stolen the show, only one truly captured the spirit of Grand Central, and explored the full potential of what it could – and should – one day be.
modeLab Lattice Lab
Lattice Lab is a two-day workshop put on my modeLab, which takes place November 10-11. The lab will focus on the topic of topological/subdivision modeling with paneling tools and weaverbird. In a fast-paced and hands-on learning environment, they will cover fundamental concepts related to working with mesh geometry, high-order topological smoothing, and grid-based modeling. Drawing inspiration from the patterns found in 3-dimensional lattice structures, they will create geometrical units capable of responding to a range of dynamic contexts. Additionally, they will explore the limits and opportunities of 3D printing while testing the visual and structural effects of their lattices. For more information, please visit here.
Final Vision for Grand Central Station, by WXY Architecture + Urban Design
We showed you Foster + Partners’ vision, then SOM’s - now we bring you the third and final re-imagining of New York’s iconic Grand Central Station, by WXY Architecture + Urban Design.
All three architects, asked by MAS to present at their 2012 summit in honor of Grand Central’s approaching centennial, considered not only how to improve and renovate the aging station (suffering from acute overcrowding) but also how to best adjust the surrounding neighborhood for upcoming changes in New York’s zoning laws (which will increase Midtown’s population density).
Much like the other two plans, WXY’s vision expands access points and public space, making the terminal far more pedestrian-friendly. However, the plan differs in that it focuses on harnessing the “untapped potential” of a few key locations along the station’s edge and proposes a tower with “sky parks” (to symbolize New York City’s commitment to green and healthy spaces). As Claire Weisz, Principal at WXY, said of the project, it would “make the Grand Central neighborhood a place people enjoy being in [and] not just running through.”
Check out WXY’s description of their plan for Grand Central Station, after the break…
How to Make It: Implementing Green Practices in Your Designs
If you are considering turning your designs and business practices into a more eco-friendly, deeper shade of green, then we strongly encourage you to attend the ‘Implementing Green Practices in Your Designs’ free event as part of the How to Make it series. Hosted by UncommonGoods, a brooklyn-based online retailer of unique gifts and creative designs, the event includes a panel of design professionals sharing their advice on how to source more eco-friendly materials and how to set up a studio or workspace with little environmental impact. Taking place October 29th from 6:30pm-9:00pm, attendees will also have the opportunity to discuss their product ideas and designs with the buyers and panelists. For more information on the event, please visit here.
SOM’s vision for New York’s Iconic Grand Central Station
In honor of Grand Central Station’s upcoming centennial, three architects were asked to present how they would re-imagine the iconic New York terminal at the MAS 2012 Summit earlier this week.
While Foster + Partners’ plan emphasized the need to alleviate the Terminal’s acute overcrowding (“designed to support 75,000 people a day, Grand Central, one of the world’s busiest transport hubs, routinely handles about ten times that much ”), SOM’s contemplates the potential for new zoning laws to increase population density, and thus sees itself as an answer to the future demand for public space.
The plan highlights three solutions: pedestrian corridors to alleviate circulation; additional levels of public space; and, most provocative of all, a circular pedestrian observation deck, which rises/lowers above Grand Central for a 360-degree panorama of the city.
More images and info from SOM, after the break…
Mike Taylor: ‘Track Record’ Lecture
Co-sponsored by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union as part of the program put on by the Architectural League, Mike Taylor of Hopkins Architects will be delivering a lecture on his current work at the Cooper Union in New York. Taking place on Tuesday, October 30th, the leader of the design team for the London 2012 Velodrome, and a senior partner at Hopkins Architects is “guided by deeply-rooted architectural, environmental, and social convictions.” Widely lauded for its elegant carefully engineered form, the Velodrome’s sustainable and flexible design has won awards for its architecture and engineering, as well as its civic presence from the RIBA, the Architects Journal, and the BCI, among others. For more information, please visit here.
