Dutch designers, Rem Koolhaas and Hella Jongerius, have revamped the delegates' lounge in the United Nations building just in time for the 68th General Assembly this week. The "workshop of peace" lounge space, originally designed in 1952 by Wallace K. Harrison in collaboration with renowned modernists Le Corbusier and Oscar Neimeyer, now sports a range of pastel-colored sofas and lounge chairs, opting for minimal intervention in attempts to maximize the social space. Read more about the UN North Delegates lobby on Gizmodo.
https://www.archdaily.com/430669/koolhaas-revamps-un-building-s-modernist-era-loungeJose Luis Gabriel Cruz
After decades of contention between residents and politicians, the Bloomberg administration will announce on Wednesday plans of constructing a six-acre complex by SHoP and Beyer Blinder Belle Architects over a ten year period. Nine vacant lots in New York City's Lower East Side will be erected into a mega-development of retail, office, entertainment, cultural and housing units. The complex will be located in rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, once home to working-class Italians, Jews, Puerto Ricans and Ukrainians, and has struggled to preserve affordable housing against an encroaching luxury market. In response, developers have collaborated with local community groups agreeing that half of the projected 1,000 apartments will be for low-, moderate-, and middle-income families.
However, is this enough to sustain a balance of varying incomes?
https://www.archdaily.com/430573/bloomberg-to-announce-mega-redevelopment-of-nyc-s-lower-east-sideJose Luis Gabriel Cruz
Last monday, Columbia University's Avery Hall was buzzing.
The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) hosted a highly attended event that welcomed respected academics and professionals from architecture and real estate to what the dean, Mark Wigley, warned might take the form a a celebrity roast. Vishaan Chakrabarti, a partner at SHoP Architects and director of the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia, was on deck to deliver an abridged, more "urban version" of a longer lecture on his new book, A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America. Proceeding the twenty minute lecture, an "A-list" panel of architects and historians - that included Kenneth Frampton, Gwendolyn Wright, Bernard Tschumi, Laurie Hawkinson and Reinhold Martin - lined up to discuss Chakrabarti's work.
https://www.archdaily.com/430538/a-country-of-cities-a-manifesto-for-an-urban-americaJose Luis Gabriel Cruz
Calling all urban innovators, organizers, stewards and builders: Tomorrow, September 20th, from 9am to 5pm EST, curators Chris Anderson, John Cary and Courtney Martin will kick off TEDCity2.0: Dream me. Build me. Make me real. The day-long event, which will be live-streamed for free, will share stories of urban ingenuity and interdependence from across the globe, while featuring an unexpected mix of over 20 speakers, including walkability expert Jeff Speck, world renowned architectural photographer Iwan Baan, and several 2012 City 2.0 Award winners. View the event program for more details.
Too busy to (digitally) attend? ArchDaily co-founder, David Basulto will be keeping you posted with live updates right here on this thread.
In an attempt to activate a vacant storefront in New York's Lower East Side, the miLES Storefront Transformer - a 6ft cube designed to "program any storefront" - is a versatile, movable set of furnishing and amenities designed by Architecture Commons. Seven individual pop-up interventions, curated by a collection of creative minds, would inhabit empty shops between November 4th and December 22nd 2013 if their Kickstarter campaign is successful.
On the twelfth anniversary of September 11th, we would like to share with you this incredible time-lapse capturing the progress of the One World Trade Center between 2004 and 2013. The 1,776 foot tall skyscraper, which is expected to be the tallest in Western Hemisphere, topped out earlier this year and is slated for completion in 2014.
On the twelfth anniversary of September 11th, we would like to share with you this incredible time-lapse capturing the progress of the One World Trade Center between October 2004 and September 2013. The 1,776 foot tall skyscraper, which is expected to be the tallest in Western Hemisphere, topped out earlier this year and is slated for completion in 2014.
In this article in the New York Observer, Stephen Jacob Smith discusses the future of Penn Station, now that Madison Square Garden's permit has been extended by just 10 years. Smith thinks that the grand redesigns of the station itself are pure vanity - considering the poor organization of the current station and the competing interests of the stakeholders involved - and proposes that there are better improvements to be had in unseen infrastructure improvements rather than show-stopping architecture. Read the full article here.
One of the United States’ most polluted bodies of water is about to receive a much needed make-over: In early 2014, construction will begin on a pollution-preventing greenscape that will run alongside Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. The proposal, dubbed Sponge Park, was envisioned more than five years ago by Susannah Drake of dlandstudioand has just now “soaked up” enough funds to move forward.
Since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2001, the fabric of New York City has been in constant flux. In just 12 years, Bloomberg has lead an effort to rezone 37 percent of the city to create opportunities for high-density growth, as well as aided the construction 40,000 new buildings and 450 miles of bike lanes. Putting these efforts in perspective, the New York Times has released the interactive feature “Reshaping New York” that compares statistics with drastic ‘before and after’ comparisons. Check it out and read our report on Bloomberg’s lasting affect on the Empire State here.
Cover of Young Frank, Architect, published by The Museum of Modern Art
Inspiring builders of all ages, MoMA has released their first storybook, following the adventures of a young, New York City architect and his architect grandfather: Young Frank and Old Frank. The creative pair - with matching bow ties, straw boater hats and, of course, Le Corbusier-inspired glasses - optimistically views the world as an endless supply of inspiration and possibilities. Everything, from macaroni to old boxes, inspires them to create - especially after discovering the works of Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wright at The Museum of Modern Art.
Back in February of this year, the non-profit arts organization FIGMENT asked “What would an art pavilion made out of recycled materials and based around the idea of 'The City of Dreams' look like to you?.” Brooklyn-based STUDIOKCAbeat out over 200 other submissions in the competition with their Head in the Clouds pavilion, now open to the public on Governors Island in NYC.
U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced ten shortlisted teams to compete in the multi-stage regional design competition “Rebuild by Design.” Each team will aim to “promote innovation by developing regionally-scalable but locally-contextual solutions that increase resilience in the region, and to implement selected proposals with both public and private funding.”
NYDaily News reports that the New York City Council has allocated $7 million to redevelop a 11,000 square foot swath of forgotten land into a beautiful, sandy beach beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Originally conceived as part of New York’s “Blueway” plan, the waterfront project will grant access to terraced seating, wading pools and fishing areas, along with a kayak launch and concession stand via tree-lined walkways. See what else the “Blueway” entails, here on ArchDaily.
“Modern Architecture: International Exhibition” is the title of an exhibition that took place in 1932 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Curated by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock, the exhibition introduced an emerging architectural style characterized by simplified geometry and a lack of ornamentation; known as the “International Style,” it was described by Johnson as “probably the first fundamentally original and widely distributed style since the Gothic.” The exhibition, along with an accompanying catalogue, laid the principles for the canon of Modern architecture.
