WORK ac was one of the first practices we interviewed here at ArchDaily. When we visited their office they were working in P.F.1 (Public Farm 1), their awarded entry for the 2008 P.S.1 summer installation – one of the best installations I’ve seen so far.

An interesting part of the conversation was on how they worked with a mixed group of experts for this project, bringing more into the discussion and finally into the installation. This becomes the central part of the book, with over 150 pages dedicated to a series of interviews with the parties involved, from structural engineers to growing soil experts, telling the story of the process behind P.F.1. This section is structured as a story, but you can still read it picking from any random page. Interesting interview format with no questions, just “answers” that become the narrative of the project.

On the appendix we found a series of recipes for the vegetables that grew on the urban farm, and also a foreword with an interview by Winy Maas with Dan Wood and Amale Andraos.

WORK ac has also edited 49 Cities, a highly recommended guide to unrealized urbanism.

More info on the book after the break.

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Dan Wood from WORKac will be conducting a lecture in Syracuse Architecture NYC Studio next Tuesday June 8, 6pm at 171 Madison Ave, 14th floor, NYC. The lecture is open to the public but seating is limited, so be there early to grab a seat.

WORK Architecture Company (WORKac) was founded in 2003 by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood. Based in New York, WORKac strives to develop architectural and urban projects that engage culture and consciousness, nature and artificiality, surrealism and pragmatism.

You can see every WORKac project we’ve featured in ArchDaily here. And don’t forget to check one of the first interviews we had with Amale Andraos & Dan Wood, and the 49 Cities book by WORKac (with a free PDF sample).

You can now pre-order 49 Cities, by WORKac. For this second edition, the book includes a new interview with Michael Webb (Archigram) and an essay by Sam Jacob (FAT).

You can pre-order from Storefront’s official website.

Work AC‘s design for a utilitarian industrial building for the Brooklyn navy yard becomes an opportunity to explore the efficiencies of scale through possibilities of long-span structures.  A two-story truss rests on four columns at the ground level, allowing the upper floor to cantilever out past the entrance, creating a dynamic entry point and a new shared entrance plaza.  The stripped facade is comprised of low-cost standing seam metal panels in a variety of colors.  The color palette is taken from the varied hues of the surrounding buildings as a way to tie this contemporary structure with the existing context.  The form, a long rectangle with the top level shifted off center, allows space for a shared green terrace on the back side of the building while the protruding side makes the protected entry condition.  The top floors are also lifted and clerestory windows inserted to provide extra natural light for the lower floors.  The building’s placement on the site was studied using the assumed 23,333 sqf footprint as well as acknowledging the fact that buried 138 KV electric lines still had to be accessible.

More images and diagrams after the break. read more »

Work AC, in collaboration with Edible Schoolyard NY and the Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation, is designing a new schoolyard for PS216 that will offer the young New Yorkers a different learning experience.   The Edible Schoolyard is designed as a series of interlinked sustainable systems where the building will produce energy and heat, collect rainwater, process compost and sort waste with an off-grid infrastructure.

More images and more about the school after the break. read more »

© Work AC

WORKac‘s design for a 1-kilometer section of Hua Qiang Bei Road in Shenzhen was awarded first prize.  The design responds to the area’s growing commercial character which has unfortunately created traffic problems. For the proposal, the road becomes a series of “strategic interventions” where “five iconic lanterns”, (twisting bands of required program) create unique, visible destinations through a process of “urban acupuncture”.

More images and more about the design after the break.

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When David Basulto and David Assael from ArchDaily went to NY and interviewed Work AC, they got the chance to see this book before being published. Now, it has been published as the catalog of the 49 Cities exhibition we featured a couple of weeks ago, currently taking place at the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

49 Cities sets out to crunch the numbers of several centuries of unrealized urbanism, all the way from the ideal Roman city to the great utopian projects of the 20th century. Through plans, sections, charts and scale drawings, 49 cities are observed statistically and presented in an unprecedented comparative study, the result of a research project conducted over several years. Despite the fact that these cities never actually existed in their intended form, this overview of utopian urbanism provides a remarkable insight into our understanding of the contemporary metropolis.

How many inhabitants would Buckminster Fuller’s Tetrahedron City house? What would the density of Rem Koolhaas’ Exodus plan for London, or Superstudio’s Continuous Monument, have been had they ever been realized? How would they compare in scale to Kenzo Tange’s Tokyo Bay project, or to Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse?

You can buy the book here ($25.00), and there’s also a free 20-page sample PDF for you to download.

This villa is located in plot #96 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: Work AC / Dan Wood and Amale Andraos
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm aprox

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Mark Magazine is by far one of my favourite architecture magazines. Their motto “Another architecture” tells us what we´ll find inside: fresh architecture – the main reason we love this magazine so much.

This bimonthly magazine is structured in 5 sections: Noticeboard (a collage of new projects), Cross Section (short articles on new buildings and architectural subjects), Viewpoint (interviews with architects on the rise), Long Section (in depth articles on buildings) and Service Area (new building materials).

On the August/September issue (October one on the mail, more about that soon) we find an amazing house by spanish studio Ensamble, shown on a collage with embossed textures, something that has become a signature on Mark Magazine covers.

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Work AC shared with us another project built in Manhattan, the Diane von Furstenberg HQ in TriBeca. An amazing renewal of an historic building. The light use is accented by the use of hanging crystals. I personally like the landscaping on the rooftop, wich reminds me of the High Line passing nearby. You can also see the new The Standard hotel in the back, which is actually being built over the High Line.

Architect: WORK AC – Amale Andraos & Dan Wood
Location: New York, USA
Design Period: June 2004 to February 2005
Demolition Period: February 2005 to February 2006
Construction Period: February 2006 to June 2007
Project Architects: Silvia Fuster, Eckart Graeve, Michael Chirigos
Design Team: Mirza Mujezinovic, Kirsten Krogh, Rune Elsgart, Christina Kwak, Andrew Sinclair, Brendan Kelly, Marc El Khouri, Judith Tse, Lamare Wimberly, Benjamin Cadena, Dana Strasser, Tina Diep, Jacob Lund, Erin Hunt, Martin Hensen Krogh, Martin Laursen, Dayoung Shin, Sylvanus Shaw, Forrest Jesse, Queenie Tong, Christo Logan, Fred Awty, Elliet Spring, Anna Kenoff.
Structural Engineering: Goldstein and Associates
Mechanical Engineering: Athwal Associates (main building) / Syska Hennessy (penthouse)
General Contractor: Americon
Crystals, Research and Development: D. Swarovski & Co.
Client: Diane von Furstenberg (DVF) Studio
New Building Area: 2,790 sqm
Budget: US $28,000,000
Photographs: Elizabeth Felicella

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Public Farm 1, Work AC‘s installation for the PS1 opened on June 16th. The above video shows the construction process that took a month to be finished (May 15th to June 18th).

You can check the list of the DJs and artists that will playing at the PS1 this summer on the 10th version of the Warm Up Sessions (including LCD Soundsystem and Au Revoir Simone) here.

I still remember when i saw the cardboard tubes on their office,  and now they are part of this innovative green canopy. Below, pictures sent by photographer Elizabeth Felicella of the completed structure. She has more pictures available for editorials.

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As I had previously mentioned we visited Work AC in New York a few months ago, where we interviewed Amale Andraos and Dan Wood. This turned out to be a great interview, where they shared their thoughts on the current state of architectural practice, the role of architects in current society, humor, networking, media and something that really interested me: the importance of knowing how to manage the growth of your office.

On their office we saw the amazing model for their Cadavre Exquis Lebanese, a proposal based on a series of interventions to re-create Downtown Beirut presented at the 2007 Rotterdam Biennale. We also got to see their on on going projects and a 1:1 prototype of their Public Farm 1 structure soon to be opened at the PS1. You can check the construction progress at the PF1 website.

Pictures of Work AC after the jump.

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UPDATE: See a video on the construction and photos of the project finished on this article.

Every year the PS1 Gallery at the Museum of Modern Art in New York invites young emerging architects to propose a temporary structure for their Warm-up Music festival, and unless you´ve been living under a rock for the last few months, you already know that Work AC won this years edition with their PF1 (Public Farm One) proposal.

PF1 (Public Farm One) is an urban farm concept built with inexpensive and sustainable materials recyclable after its use at P.S.1, such as cardboard tubes that form a continuous surface creating multiple zones of activity including swings, fans, sound effects, innovative seating areas, and a refreshing pool at its center, as an Urban Beach.

We visited Work AC (interview coming this Sunday) and they told us how this project allowed them to get in touch with non architects for the technique for growing plants on the cardboard tube structure, which enriched the development of the project. They also worked with LERA structural engineers.

Installation opens June 20th, hosting the 2008 Warm Up summer music series at the PS1. You can follow the construction progress at the Public Farm 1 website.

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