New York: The Latest Architecture and News

The New York Office of Architecture for Humanity just announced the dates for FlyNY 2010, the second annual international kite design competition and showcase co-hosted by the City of New York Parks & Recreation. On the wings of a successful 2009 event, FlyNY 2010 will take place on August 21 from 10:30AM – 4PM on Pier I at 70th Street in Riverside Park South in New York City. FlyNY is one part design competition and one part Fly Day, with the overall aim of engaging design professionals and novices alike in a dynamic conversation about design.

Set on Manhattan’s West Side, participation in the August 21 Fly Day is free, open to the public and does not require a submission into the competition. The event will include kitemaking activities for kids and families, live entertainment and kite flying.

Designers, architects, artists and others are also encouraged to participate in the FlyNY Design Dialogue taking place Friday, August 20 6-8pm EST on Twitter. It will be a dynamic conversation which merges the FlyNY competition jury panel discussion with a broader, international design/architecture audience. Just log onto Twitter, follow @_FlyNY and tweet using the FlyNY will be posing design related questions and following along during the jury panel discussion.

For more information on the event, visit http://flyny.org/ or view the event page on Facebook. See images of last year’s event after the break.

We took a few shots of Foster + Partners’ latest addition to the Bowery – a new gallery to house the Sperone Westwater’s growing collection from prominent artists of different nationalities and ages. Sitting a few steps away from SANAA’s musuem, this new gallery’s CNC milled glass facade elegantly responds to its neighboring art museum. According to Foster, the gallery is “both a response to the dynamic urban character of New York’s Bowery and a desire to rethink the way in which the public engages with art in the setting of a gallery.”

Check out some photos after the break.

The Business of Aura is an exhibition hosted in two locations, Elga Wimmer Gallery and Broadway Gallery, curated by Kelsey Harrington. It includes painting, drawing, photography, sculptural prototypes, and installation. The show examines the potential of studio processes to produce aura.

Our director, David Assael, took some shots of Gehry’s latest creation – a wavy residential tower clad in undulating metal panels. While still in the construction phase, it is easy to get the overall idea of the structure. In person, the tower demands attention as its presence, due both to scale and materiality, is unmatched within its context. Throughout the day, the light plays upon the curves making the hard metallic color almost glisten. Some of Assael’s photos capture the tower in the early evening – the perfect time of day to see the reds and oranges of the setting sun against the building. What do you think of Gehry’s skyscraper?

More of Assael’s photos after the break.

Material Intelligence is a one-week intensive design and prototyping workshop to be held in New York City during the week of August 16-20.

Earlier last week, the City Council of New York City decided to move forward with Rafael Viñoly Architects’ master plan for the New Domino in Brooklyn. While the historic sugar refinery complex, with its familiar yellow signage, has achieved landmark status and will be preserved, the 11.2 acre-site will be outfitted with 2,200 new apartments – 660 of which are affordable housing – and four acres of public park space including a riverfront esplanade along the East River in Brooklyn.

More about the master plan after the break.

New York will be the recipient of another Steven Holl project – a new library at the Queens West Development at Hunters Point. Envisioned as a contemporary “urban forum”, the project will shape public space and create new connections across the Queens West Development, Hunter Points South, and the existing neighborhood of Hunters Point. Steven Holl states, “We are very pleased with this great commission for an addition to the growing community. We envision a building hovering and porous, open to the public park. A luminous form of opportunity for knowledge, standing on its own reflection in the east river.”

More about Holl’s new project after the break.

New Buildings New York, a program of the Center for Architecture Foundation, is a series of tours that provide a behind-the-scenes look at new building in the New York metropolitan area and are led by their architects, engineers and designers. All proceeds benefit youth and family programs at the Center for Architecture.

During the post-WWII era, the surge in the housing market often resulted in “faceless” suburban communities that sprang up to relieve the immediate need for housing. The cities maintained their cultural identity and rather than the suburbs infusing their new communities with commercial or cultural entities, the suburbs constantly relied on the city’s proximity for such things. As this old model is highly unsustainable and car dependent, Christoph Vogl from Cheungvogl has studied Long Island’s suburbs, in particular Hempstead, that did not grow as independent communities. He has outlined a master plan of what can be done to give Long Island the social, cultural and economic context it needs.

“Very much representing these observations, the so-thought town centres of Long Island’s communities, placed around the major traffic intersections are not occupied by cultural, commercial and social institutions, as expected from the ratio of communal identity and urban context, but by parking lots. Not some, but hectares of paring lots. Not complaining about the non-existence of urban context and real community, these vacant areas around Long Island’s “Cross roads” offer the unique chance for master planning based reconsideration of the meaning of community,” added Vogl.

Check out the steps of the master plan after the break.

It is easy to take for granted the things you grow accustomed to, but ever since the initial idea of revitalizing the High Line began sprouting up, New Yorkers have been taking full advantage of the project and loving every second spent strolling, relaxing and gazing at the West Side’s newest addition. The project has truly piqued locals and tourists’ interests as the elevated promenade is enjoyed as much today as it was on opening day over a year ago.

With such success, it is no surprise, as Kate Taylor reported for the New York Times, that the small office of the Friends of the High Line has received countless calls asking how their cities can also enjoy the High Line effect.

Beginning February 2009, The AIA New York Chapter and its Emerging New York Architects committee (ENYA) launched a pilot Boot Camp Review program to get intern architects in shape for the Architect Registration Examination (ARE). In the summer 2009, AIANY added graphic vignette workshops to its class offerings, established an ARE Resource Library and several other classes and events to promote and encourage emerging architects to stay focused on the licensure track. The revenue from these programs was used to expand the existing programs and create new support programs for local ARE candidates.

Check out this video we found by Yellow Line Pictures and the 2010 MoMA/MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. We’ve been documenting SO-IL’s Pole Dance quite extensively and we feel that this video is a good addition to our coverage. We hope the film’s fun take on demonstrating how to use the project will make you even more excited to visit the PS1 schoolyard if you find yourself in the New York area. What do you think of the noise making poles? And, how about the fact that the project can be affected by an iPhone app ?

The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservations (GSAPP) at Columbia University have announced its Summer Lecture Series 2010. Here are July events:

The urbancanvas Design Competition is a unique opportunity to challenge professional artists and designers to create printed artworks for temporary protective structures at construction sites that will beautify New York City’s streetscape and promote maintenance of these structures. The competition seeks complementary designs for different types of temporary protective structures located on City-owned property: construction fences, sidewalk sheds, supported scaffolds and cocoon systems.

Our Cities Ourselves: The Future of Transportation in Urban Life has just kicked off its worldwide tour starting in New York at the Center for Architecture. The exhibit shows the visions of ten of the world’s developing cities from ten of the world’s leading architects. Over the next 20 years, these places will experience urban growth on a grand scale and the urban planning efforts will create successful cities through better transportation.

More about the exhibit after the break.