New York: The Latest Architecture and News

Being awarded the Pritzker means you’ve hit it big. Having that ribbon placed around your neck proves you’re top dog in the architecture world and you’ve practically become a household name….doesn’t it? While that may seem that case for Gehry and Hadid, even Piano and Meier, the Pritzker’s seventeenth honoree, (France’s first laureate, in fact) Christian de Portzamparc sometimes feels forgotten.

modeLab will be conducting a Strip Morphologies Workshop in New York between June 19 and June 21. This workshop will introduce participants to the cultural, technological, and tectonic domain of parametric design and digital fabrication in a fast-paced and hands-on learning environment. Over two-plus days, the workshop will investigate the morphology of the ’strip’ by cross-linking developable surfaces and joining strategies. We will identify and exploit the constraints inherent in sheet material and High-Force CNC cutting technology to explore and construct highly articulated material assemblies.

It seems that after Cornell overcame the danger of having both their accreditation and new architecture school eradicated from the campus, there has been smooth sailing in terms of the physical construction of OMA’S Milstein Hall. The building is right on schedule to be fully completed in the Fall of 2011, as the structural steel, and the exterior structure + roof are being erected.

More images of the steel and more about the current construction phase after the break.

This has been reflected trough several initiatives, such as the White House Redux Competition (2008), Pike Loop (Gramazio & Kohler, 2009), the Reef (Urbana + Radical Craft, 2009), the itinerary Spacebuster (Raumlabor, 2009), and editing publications such as “49 Cities” by Work AC and Storefront Newsprints.

San Francisco based IwamotoScott sent us their latest tower development produced for the Greenwich South design study led by Architecture Research Office, Beyer Blinder Belle and Architects & Planners and OPEN. Contributing architects, artists and designers included Coen + Partners, DeWitt Godfrey, IwamotoScott Architecture, Jorge Colmbo, Lewis.Tsuramaki.Lewis Architects, Morphosis, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Transolar Climate Engineering and WORKac.

Architects, landscape architects, engineers, and other designers are invited to submit projects to the Architectural League’s New York Designs series.

What began in a rented townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side has grown to become an internationally recognized preeminent source for exhibitions and publications related to historical and contemporary African art. The Museum for African Art will finally find a permanent home along Manhattan’s “Museum Mile” and will be open to the public next April. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP, the museum will bring the prestigious row of museums of Manhattan to Harlem, one of the country’s most important centers of historic and contemporary African-American culture.

More about the museum and more images after the break.

The 2010 AIA New York winners were recently announced (we’ll share the full over view this weekend with you), and this project by Kohn Pedersen Fox received a design award in the Unbuilt category. Just like the other winning projects, the design showcases New York talent and was chosen for its “design quality, program resolution, innovation, thoughtfulness and technique.” The project, entitled Urban Market, is for Tianjin, China. The urban center is a way to reinvigorate the river banks through new uses, such as cultural institutions. The hope it that the center will grow to establish “a new identity for the city that links its culture to its historic place of commerce.”

More about the winning project after the break.

The East River Park Museum Competition in Brooklyn, New York have just announced it’s winner. We really love it’s simplicity and good use of materials. We couldn’t find out who designed it, so if you know, please do tell us!

Proposal after the break.

With Valentines Day barely a week away, the Times Square Alliance is eschewing flowers and candy yet again. Instead, they’re sending New Yorkers a giant designer valentine for the second year in a row, as Moorhead & Moorhead will stage an installation adjacent the TKTS Booth beginning today.

We continue featuring the proposals for this years P.S.1 summer installation competition (awarded to SO-IL, read our full coverage of the PS1 competitions here).

This time we introduce you EASTON+COMBS, a practice ran by partners Rona Easton and Lonn Combs.

The firm has a focus on material innovation, which could be seen at LUX NOVA, their proposal for the P.S.1, which includes “Strong Light”, a 100 percent recyclable and exceptionally strong featherweight building component.

The initial system is developed as a permeable featherlight structural skin that engages an environmental play of translucent and polychromatic effect. The system offers an 80% weight reduction over an equivalent glass system with no compromise in strength and stability at a significantly lower cost.

More about LUX NOVA after the break:

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.