50 UN Plaza, Foster+Partners' first residential building in the U.S., broke ground this morning. With the Hearst Tower long finished, Tower 2 at Ground Zero near complete, and a new iconic building planned for 425 Park Avenue, 50 UN Plaza will only further solidify Lord Foster's mark on New York City.

The 44-story luxury tower's privileged spot at the United Nations Plaza will give it remarkable views of the UN Building, the East River, and the Manhattan skyline. According to Foster, the building's deep bay windows (which line each of the tower's 3 volumes) will maximize that view and, along with its steel and glass facade, give the tower a distinctive, "jewel-like quality": “The slender proportion of 50 United Nations Plaza is attenuated by the vertical stacks of bay windows, which give it a distinctive identity[...] The polished stainless steel detailing of the facade is in the sprit of earlier historic towers in the city and it reflects the sharp quality of light which is special to New York." 

The building, whose construction will incorporate recycled materials, also has a strong environmental agenda, combining active and passive energy strategies.

According to the New York Observer, the tower's 87 units will range in size from 1,100 square feet one-bedrooms; three bedrooms as big as 3,000 square feet; full-floor residences; and a penthouse duplex, measuring about 10,000 square feet. One of the marquee features will also be a private driveway. The tower is expected to cost $500 million and be completed in 2014.

More images and Foster+Partner's description of 50 UN Plaza, after the break...

It turns out the David Wright House isn't the only unusual (and controversial) Frank Lloyd Wright-designed gem on the market.

Petre Island (sometimes called Petra Island) is an 11-acre, heart-shaped island 47 miles from Manhattan. While Wright hand-picked the site himself in 1949, and drew up plans for a 5,000 square foot "dream house" the following year, budget concerns forced him to scale down his vision, resulting in the construction of a smaller guest cottage.

Fast-forward 53 years later, and the island's new owner, John Massaro, decided to make those long-sitting plans reality; he hired architect and Wright scholar Thomas Heinz, who used ArchiCAD to model aspects of Wright's design that weren't obvious from the original renderings and updated the house with some modern amenities.

While the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation refuses to accept the house as authentic (they even tried to sue Massaro for claiming so), that hasn't stopped AHALife, the web site featuring the island for sale, from proudly selling the "spectacular Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house" for $19,900,000 USD.

More images and info on this Wright-designed island, after the break...

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...

+ 3

Out of 65 submissions from 32 countries, six public-interest design projects have just been announced as this year's winners of the International SEED Awards. The SEED Network and Design Corps have singled out these projects as those which best incorporated social consciousness, community outreach, and sustainability into their designs.

The 6 projects represent the diffusiveness of public-interest design today, and how, by looking through the lens of design, many diverse (and yet often re-occurring) social problems can be addressed. 

The Winning Projects, which you can see on display at the 13^th annual Structures for Inclusion conference at the University of Minnesota College of Design March 22-23, 2013, are: SAGE: Affordable Green Modular Classrooms, Gervais, Oregon; Puyallup Tribal Longhouse, Tacoma, Washington (Puyallup Tribal Reservation); Rosa F. Keller Building, New Orleans, Louisiana; Firm Foundation, Banjarmasin, Kalimantan, Indonesia; Sudan Jalle School, Jalle Payam, Jonglei State, South Sudan; Maa-Bara: Catalyzing Economic Change & Food Security, Lenya (Bondo District), Nyanza, Kenya.

More info on these extraordinary public-interest designs, after the break...

+ 2

Just when we thought the saga was over, a whole new chapter has begun.

The David Wright House, an unusual home in Arizona that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for his son, has been in danger since July, when the developer-owners announced their plans to tear it down and split the lot in two. After considerable hubbub caused by preservationists, and an online petition that received thousands of votes, enough pressure was put on the Pheonix City Council to delay demolition until they could vote on whether or not to confer Landmark Designation on the house (this would delay demolition for another three years, but not safeguard the house from demolition).

However, the point became moot when a preservation-minded buyer swooped in to save the day. Now, just two weeks later, the buyer has backed out.

Find out more on the fate of the David Wright House, after the break...

Architects are used to designing within the parameters of clients' needs... but it's not everyday you design for your client's breed. 

That was the task proposed by Kenya Hara, the design director of Muji, when he enlisted 12 big-name architects to design architectural environments that would "change the way humans interact with their dogs." Each of the architects were paired with a particular breed - Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA with the Bichon Frise, Shigeru Ban with the Papillon, Atelier Bow-Wow with the Dachshund, Sou Fujimoto with the Boston Terrier, Kengo Kuma with the Pug, etc - not for any architect-animal resemblance (that, according to Hara, "would frankly be a little rude"), but to provide the designers with a clear design brief.

More about Architecture for Dogs, after the break...

+ 5

After months of following the David Wright House's brushes with demolition, we're happy to report that an anonymous, preservation-friendly buyer has bought the house.

"As whenever disaster strikes, it will be many days before the full impact of the storm is brought to light, and which communities will be in largest need of design support as the broader reconstruction effort proceeds. However we are not waiting for water to recede before preparing a reconstruction campaign." - Cameron Sinclair, Architecture for Humanity co-founder

Since Hurricane Sandy struck New York and New Jersey last week, Architecture for Humanity volunteers have been in action - not just aiding in the recovery efforts, but also analyzing how/where long-term reconstruction efforts will need to be focused. Indeed, Architecture for Humanity's co-founder, Cameron Sinclair, has already published the organization's 5-point strategy for long-term reconstruction in the areas most severely impacted by Sandy.

Architecture For Humanity's strategy for reconstruction (and more information on how you can get involved), after the break....

When we introduced you to the Bancroft School in September, the topic of one of the SEED Network's awesome mini-documentaries, or SEEDocs, the revitalization project was still in development. However, this Saturday's ground-breaking ceremony means that this innovative community complex will soon be a reality.

The building, which was an elementary school from 1904 until it fell into disrepair and closed in 1999, is located in one of Kansas City's most neglected, lower income neighborhoods: Manheim Park. However, thanks to the joint-efforts of the Make It Right Foundation, BNIM Architects (the AIA’s 2011 Firm of the Year), and the Historic Manheim Park Neighborhood Association, the once asbestos-ridden school will soon be the center of a revitalization project to transform the urban landscape.

More on the Bancroft Project, after the break...

It’s not often that a project requires you to bulk up on your haggling skills.

Then again, it’s not often that a project requires you to re-invent the African Mud Hut either. But that was exactly the task presented to Karolina and Wayne Switzer, participants of the Nka Foundation’s “10x10 Shelter Challenge” to design and build a 10 by 10 feet shelter deep in the heart of Ghana.

The pair, who just completed their project this month, were dependent upon the local community to make the shelter a reality, and had to learn early on how to communicate with the locals - not just to negotiate prices for materials and labor, but to overcome the local stigma associated with mud architecture (usually only used by the very poor). 

The result was a contemporary, durable shelter built with a construction method inspired by local tradition: the pounding of the fufu root, a diet staple for the community, which uncannily paralleled the pounding of fresh soil into the forms. Hence the local’s name for the structure: “Obruni fufu” (white man’s fufu). 

If you’re interested in getting involved in the 10x10 Challenge (open to students and graduates of design, architecture, art, or engineering, until October 2013), check out the Nka Foundation’s website, www.nkafoundation.org, or email at info@nkafoundation.org

Full description of the project, after the break....

Lebbeus Woods, the American architect, artist, and theorist, has died today at the age of 72.

Woods may be best known for his radical re-imaginings and re-constructions of cities in crisis. While most of Woods' politically-charged, fantastical sketches were too fantastical to be built, many have been displayed in Art Museums across the globe; the last exhibit occurred just this March at the Friedman Benda Gallery in New York City. His only built project, the Light Pavilion of the "Sliced Porosity Block," commissioned by his longtime friend Steven Holl, was completed and opened this year.

In his blog, Woods described the Pavilion as a space "designed to expand the scope and depth of our experiences. That is its sole purpose, its only function. If one needed to give a reason to skeptics for creating such experimental spaces in the context of this large urban development project, it would be this: our rapidly changing world constantly confronts us with new challenges to our abilities to understand and to act, encouraging us to encounter new dimensions of experience."

Indeed, it is this quality that characterizes all of Woods' works. As Geoff Manaugh, the author behind BLDGBLOG , puts it: "Woods's work is the exclamation point at the end of a sentence proclaiming that the architectural imagination, freed from constraints of finance and buildability, should be uncompromising, always. One should imagine entirely new structures, spaces without walls, radically reconstructing the outermost possibilities of the built environment. If need be, we should re-think the very planet we stand on."

More on Woods' life and career, after the break...