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Editor’s Note: Thank you to all who participated in the Oculus survey. The AIANY Oculus Committee is combing through all of your responses to come up with better ways to provide what is important to you.
- Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP
Note: Be sure to follow Tweets from e-Oculus and the Center for Architecture.
And check out the latest Podcasts produced by AIANY. This week, two interviews about the state of the design press.
Event: Our Cities, Ourselves: The Future of Transportation in Urban Life (Media Roundtable)
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.24.10
Speakers: Michael Sorkin — Distinguished Professor of Architecture & Director, Graduate Program in Urban Design, City College of New York & Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio; Elizabeth H. Berger — President, Alliance for Downtown New York; Walter Hook — Executive Director, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP); Norman Garrick — Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Connecticut & Co-chair, Transportation Task Force, Congress for the New Urbanism & Trustee, Tri-state Transportation Campaign
Moderator: David Owen — Staff Writer, The New Yorker & Author, Green Metropolis (Riverhead, 2009)
Organizers: Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in collaboration with AIANY
2030 vision of urban transport in Ahmedabad, India by Bimal Patel and HCP Design and Project Management.
Bimal Patel and HCP Design and Project Management, courtesy AIANY
In the context of the BP oil spill and the nation’s seemingly ineradicable dependence on the same toxic substance, the possibility of reconfiguring urban space in ways that helps restore environmental balance begins to look less like utopia and more like an imperative. Owen and others have been making the green-urbanist case for years, offering the combination of urban density and sustainable design as a logical, desirable response to global warming and all the other ill effects of a petroleum-dependent economy. The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) and AIANY are now joining forces to bring this case to the public in concrete, accessible forms.
For “Our Cities, Ourselves,” an exhibition currently on view at the Center for Architecture, the ITDP has engaged architects in 10 cities to translate green-urbanist principles into buildable forms, with an eye on realization by 2030 and an emphasis on transportation systems. ITDP Executive Director Walter Hook laid out the history of these efforts along with the increasing dangers ahead if large developing nations recreate 20th-century America’s transportation monoculture on a vaster scale. The plausible future, he said, will either be an ecological nightmare scenario (some 390 million cars in China by 2030 and a temperature increase beyond that which scientists claim the planet can tolerate), or a series of site-specific transformations that draw on local talent and traditions to correct developmental damage and promote low-impact forms of transportation.
Organized along a set of “Ten Principles for Sustainable Transport,” the designs in the exhibition build on ideas already known to produce results in revitalizing damaged urban areas. The exhibition’s title evokes the Boston Women’s Health Collective’s medical/sexual manual Our Bodies, Ourselves, broadly influential since the 1970s in clarifying connections between personal matters and their political aspects. It combines this progressive tone with common-sense appeals reminding viewers that the automotive era is a brief segment of urban history — destructive, but by no means irreversible.
The architects have chosen different strategies and scales for Ahmedabad, Buenos Aires, Budapest, Dar es Salaam, Guangzhou, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Mexico City, NYC, and Rio de Janeiro. Projects range from HCP Design and Project Management’s construction of a public square in Ahmedabad — a site where any significant new civic space amounts to a cultural innovation — to the transformation of Lower Manhattan into an auto-free “ecozone” by Michael Sorkin Studio.
Sorkin emphasized that no single technology solves the problems of cities. Lower Manhattan is blessed not only with a high percentage of transit use, but with a resilient “medieval” street plan. Removing the FDR Drive below the Manhattan Bridge, along with its associated infrastructure, would open up surprising amounts of space for civic functions. Elizabeth Berger of the Downtown Alliance expressed agreement in principle on reinventing the business district as a greener, transit-intensive district with an increasing residential component; this development philosophy is good for local business, she said. Her group’s new plan for Water Street as a rescaled, pedestrian-friendly boulevard meshes with the Sorkin vision, but she pulled up short of a complete ban on cars, claiming it would isolate the neighborhood.
New Urbanist engineer Norman Garrick placed the range of changes in a global context, offering Zurich’s integrated approach to transit as an alternative to large-scale motorization that he has seen in China and Jamaica. Owen also emphasized the astonishing changes occurring in China, where “the Manhattan” is a unit of scale and 10 new Manhattan-sized urban formations are on the way. Development on such a scale and pace, he noted, makes good design an urgent challenge: build a high-performing city, a New York or a Bogotá, and it will be emulated. The key question may be whether such places can be emulated widely enough and fast enough.
Bill Millard is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in OCULUS, Icon, Content, The Architect’s Newspaper, and other publications.
Event: Our Cities Ourselves: Architects, Developers, and Transport Planners on the Future of the City
Location: Center for Architecture, June 26, 2010
Speakers: David Sim — Gehl Architects; Enrique Peñalosa — President, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP); Saskia Sassen — Colombia University
Panelists: Michael King — Nelson Nygaard; Michael Sorkin — Distinguished Professor of Architecture & Director, Graduate Program in Urban Design, City College of New York & Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio; Wagner Colombini Martins — Logit Consultoria; Walter Hook — Executive Director, ITDP; Luc Nadal — Technical Director, ITDP; Emiliano Espasandin — PALO Arquitectura Urbana
Moderator: Paul Steely White — Transportation Alternatives
Organizers: Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in collaboration with AIANY
2030 vision of urban transport in Guangzhou by Urbanus Architecture & Design.
Urbanus Architecture & Design, courtesy AIANY
Like the exhibition, the “Our Cities Ourselves” symposium largely advocated common-sense solutions that would promote equality across the public realm and bring city residents closer to a more egalitarian version of “the good life.”
There were four overarching themes throughout all of the dialogues. First, walking and pedestrian design should be given higher priority alongside motorized forms of transport. Design for “powered by people” transport (primarily bicycles) should consider future deployment on both individual and mass commerce levels. Current roadways must be realigned to favor pedestrians and cyclists, including: the redesign of slower, shared streets with mixed traffic; a wholesale decommissioning of highways; congestion pricing for cars; and development of eco-zones that would control the type and density of truck penetration into neighborhoods. Lastly, the implementation of Bus Rapid Transit systems (BRT) was highly praised for both the ease of adaptation and low cost.
In addition to costing much less than subway systems to develop, new BRTs differ from traditional express bus service in a variety of ways: users prepay before entering “stations” allowing for faster boarding; and buses can travel in dedicated lanes adjacent to vehicular traffic. A recent example is the new BRT in Guangzhou, China, which utilizes a trunk feeder system connected to the subway to move more than 800,000 people per day. Panelist Wagner Colombini Martins of Brazil-based Logit Consultoria noted that like Guangzhou, higher density Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) will be planned around BRTs in the future, affecting the shape of a city along these corridors.
Though panelists alluded to the fact that future interventions need to be tailored to fit existing and new cities differently, concepts were largely discussed as one-size-fits-all solutions. Enrique Peñalosa noted that certain things like establishing cycle- and pedestrian-only thoroughfares were “easier to do in cities that don’t exist.” They are hardly impossible, however, given his success with creating such corridors in Bogotá. Some impediments that existing cities face are a pre-existing historic fabric; already established patterns for vehicular use and parking; limited existing transportation right-of-ways; and even personal predispositions against intermingling social classes on the street or in public transport.
Clearly, better transport systems can be engineered, but individual choices play a large role. Individuals’ concerns about sustainability are low on the list. In bicycle-saturated Copenhagen, only 1% of women commute on bicycle because of the environment, but 61% bike because it is convenient and easy, said David Sim of Gehl Architects. Transportation decisions in the future should not be based on either “’save the world’ or ‘have a nice life,’” he continued. “We can offer both.”
Carolyn Sponza, AIA, LEED AP, is an Associate with Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners.
Event: Our Cities Ourselves: Visions for 2030
Location: Center for Architecture, 07.01.10
Speakers: Wang Hui — Partner; Aidi Su — Senior Architect, Urbanus Architecture & Design, Guangzhou, China; Michael Sorkin — Distinguished Professor of Architecture & Director, Graduate Program in Urban Design, City College of New York & Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio; Johan Fourie — Osmond Lange Architects, Johannesburg, South Africa
Respondent: Enrique Peñalosa — President, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy
Moderator: Luc Nadal — Technical Director, Institute for Transportation & Development Policy
Organizers: Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in collaboration with AIANY
2030 vision for NYC by Michael Sorkin Studio.
Michael Sorkin Studio, courtesy AIANY
The architects behind plans for three of the 10 featured cities in the “Our Cities Ourselves” exhibition — Guangzhou, Johannesburg, and New York — outlined their ideas to address traffic congestion and create improved urban development for walking, cycling, and public transportation. Experts in sustainability and urban design, with intimate knowledge of their individual cities, each design team studied how people move through urban areas to deal with the burgeoning population growth over the next 20 years.
In Guangzhou, China, Wang Hui and Aidi Su of Urbanus Architecture and Design identified the urban realities — growing development, infrastructure, and vehicular traffic — of the historic Liwan district. The noise and congestion, along with physical infrastructure barriers and underutilized space, provide a formidable challenge. Seeking to re-energize the city and create urban linkage, Urbanus proposed a skywalk, an elevated bicycle and pedestrian promenade, and a bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor. While they retained the historic integrity of existing structures along the street, they added a residential program above to respond to the growing population.
As South Africa’s largest and densest city, Johannesburg has begun to integrate BRT lines as well. However, the area has been separated into three horizontal bands that lack civic identity and scale due to main thoroughfares, detached residential zones, an under-developed river zone, and a disjointed mass transit system. Osmond Lange Architects and Ikemeleng Architects’ proposal integrates these bands into a cohesive environment by creating landmarks as focal points, establishing vertical integration, visual thoroughfares, courtyard blocks with medium- to high-density housing, and parkland below the 100-year flood line.
While many of the cities included in the exhibition are in developing countries, NYC has a tabula that is a little less rasa. To address this, Michael Sorkin Studio, studied ways to reprogram the waterfront and repurpose Lower Manhattan as an eco-friendly zone. As Sorkin said, “Movement has a basis in negotiation,” meaning that in a multi-modal transit system where pedestrians, bicycles, cars, and sometimes animals inhabit the same space, it can only work when we all cooperate. The proposal for NYC hinges on repurposing the FDR Drive south of the Brooklyn Bridge to develop a district of parks and shops. Cyclists would inhabit the lower level of the bridge while pedestrians would populate the elevated walkway.
Jacqueline Pezzillo, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, is the communications manager at Davis Brody Bond Aedas and a regular contributor to e-Oculus.
Event: 2010 Design Awards Symposium: Architecture and Interiors
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.19.10
Speakers: Stacie Wong — Project Architect, Peter Gluck and Partners and ARCS Construction Services; Adam Marcus — Project Architect, Marble Fairbanks; David Burns — Principal, STUDIOS Architecture; Philip Wu, AIA — Partner, io Architects; Lyn Rice, AIA — Principal, Lyn Rice Architects; Astrid Lipka — Associate Principal, Lyn Rice Architects; Mark Maljanian, AIA — Design Director, Butler Rogers Baskett; Tom Krizmanic, AIA, LEED AP — Principal, STUDIOS Architecture; Andrew Mazor — Project Architect, Thomas Phifer and Partners; Sonya Lee, AIA — Project Architect, Toshiko Mori Architect; Stan Allen, AIA — Principal, Stan Allen Architect; James Garrison — Principal, Garrison Architects; David Rolland, AIA, JIA, LEED AP — Project Director, Rafael Viñoly Architects
Organizer: AIANY
Moderators: Kelsey Keith – Editor-in-Chief, Architizer.com; Cliff Pearson — Deputy Editor, Architectural Record
Sponsors: Chair’s Circle: Foster + Partners New York; Benefactor: STUDIOS Architecture; Patrons: Mancini Duffy; Peter Marino Architect, PLLC; Studio Daniel Libeskind; Trespa; Lead Sponsors: A. E. Greyson + Company; Dagher Engineering; F.J. Sciame Construction Co., Inc.; Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson; FXFOWLE Architects; Gensler; Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti; Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates; MechoShade Systems, Inc.; New York University; Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; Rudin Management Company, Inc.; Structure Tone, Inc.; Syska Hennessy Group; Toshiko Mori Architect PLLC; VJ Associates
The 2010 AIANY Design Awards have provided plenty of proof that stellar architectural design is alive and well, despite the recession. At the Design Awards symposium for Architecture and Interiors, Stacie Wong of Peter Gluck and Partners and ARCS Construction Services discussed how her firm’s tightly integrated design-build process allowed it to keep costs down for a new building for the East Harlem School — built for $340 per square foot. The Architecture Honor Award-winning building features inviting, light-filled interiors and an eye-catching façade design. The school engages actively with the community, but shields its students from the distractions of the outside world, Wong explained. To express that duality, the Trespa-panel façade looks like a “screen or a fabric weave that both masks as well as reveals the activities that happen behind it,” she said.
For Garrison Architects, a project to create Koby Cottage in Albion, MI, offered the chance to explore an ongoing fascination with modular design. “The idea behind modular buildings is to prepare the site while the building’s being constructed in the factory, and that means the time taken to build it is basically cut in half,” Principal James Garrison said. “It also means there’s much less disruption of the environment, whether it’s urban or whether it’s rural.” The Architecture Merit Award-winning cottage has many finely handcrafted details, he added, contrary to what one might imagine of something produced in a factory. His firm also received an Interiors Merit award for the renovation of Slocum Hall, home of Syracuse University’s School of Architecture.
A couple of Interiors Merit Award winners in NYC showed a flair for integrating high-tech information displays: STUDIOS Architecture’s Dow Jones office space and Lyn Rice Architects’ The New School Welcome Center. The trick is to integrate such digital displays into the design from the beginning, said Tom Krizmanic, AIA, LEED AP, of STUDIOS Architecture. If they’re not “in the DNA” of the project, beware — the space might end up looking like a P.C. Richard showroom, he joked.
Many other award winners showed a fascination with the transparency of glass, balanced with the need for energy efficiency. Thomas Phifer and Partners’ Fishers Island House served as one of the most extreme examples, with an airy transparency that makes the house and surrounding gardens seem to meld into one. The glass is insulated and blocks UV rays to provide a climate-controlled, safe environment for the owner’s art collection, explained project architect Andrew Mazor.
Once, Modernists held a “fascination with pure transparency,” remarked Stan Allen, AIA, principal of Stan Allen Architect, which won an Architecture Merit Award for Salim Publishing House in Paju Book City, Korea. Nowadays, “I think we’ve returned to an interest in transparency, but it’s modified by that sense that the façade, the elevation, can do something more.”
Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.
Event: NORCs — Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.22.10
Speakers: Nat Yalowitz, MSW — LCSW President, NORC Program at Penn South Housing Co-op & President, National NORC Center, NYC; Georgeen Theodore, AIA — Principal, Interboro Partners & Assistant Professor, Infrastructure Planning, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Organizer: AIANY Design for Aging Committee
Greenbelt, MD, recently made into a NORC.
Andrew Bossi
The term NORC (Naturally Occurring Retirement Community) is a demographic descriptor, referring to a building or group of buildings in which numerous residents have lived for many years and a significant number of them have become senior citizens. The term was coined in the 1980s, and legislation now exists in many states, including NY, that enables qualifying buildings to apply for official designation, making them eligible for public funding for supportive services programs (SSPs) for seniors. NORCs aim to provide a comprehensive array of these services to meet the specific needs of seniors in close proximity to their residences. This aging-in-place approach is considered to be the most desirable and most affordable solution for seniors living in urban environments.
There are now 43 official NORC programs in NYC, located in four boroughs (none in Staten Island). Their physical characteristics, SSPs, and residents’ activities are described in a book, A Guide to NORCs in NY, researched by Interboro Partners. A surprising number of them are towers-in-the-park complexes. Many of the older building groups (1920s-30s) began as limited equity housing co-ops (LEHCs) sponsored by labor unions, and the original residents were mostly union workers. In the 1960s and 70s many federal, state, and municipal subsidy programs were used to build similar “affordable” housing complexes. These buildings tended to retain their residents for long periods of time, enabling them to become NORCs. With different approaches to the design of affordable housing communities nowadays, the physical characteristics of future NORCs are likely to be more horizontally organized. Interestingly, the entire town of Greenbelt, MD, a garden city with about 2,500 single-family homes built in the 1920s, has recently become a NORC — a significant example of horizontal organization.
NORCs tend to provide generational diversity in urban neighborhoods, since many residents use amenities outside the NORC itself. And there is some evidence that living in a NORC extends residents’ life spans.
Coincidentally, on 06.28.10, Mayor Bloomberg issued a statement indicating that NYC has become the first member of the World Health Organization’s Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities. The Mayor commented, “New Yorkers are living longer than ever before, and it’s important that we engage our senior residents so they, too, can benefit from everything our communities have to offer… We will continue to work with our age-friendly network partners to transform our city into a place that maximizes the health and active participation of New Yorkers of every age.” The development of NORCs contributed to this effort, and the AIANY Design for Aging Committee aims to raise awareness so the city can become ever more age-friendly.
Jerry Maltz, AIA, is the co-chair of the AIANY Design for Aging Committee.
Event: Colombian Architecture for Education, Bogotá and Medellin: A Tale of Two Cities
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.08.10
Speakers: Fernando Villa, AIA, LEED AP — Senior Associate, Magnusson Architecture & Planning (NY); Winka Dubbeldam — Principal, Archi-Tectonics (NY); Carlos Pardo — Principal, obranegra ARQUITECTOS (Medellin); Juan Manuel Pelaez — Architect (Medellin); Eduardo Samper Martinez — Architect & Director of Architecture, National University in Bogotá; Beth Broome — Managing Editor, Architectural Record
Organizers: AIANY Committee on Architecture for Education
Giancarlo Mazzanti’ Biblioteca España on top of the hill in Medellin (left); Santo Domingo Savio Derka School by Carlos Pardo.
Photo by Sergio Gomez (left); photo by Jab Visual JoséAlfredo Betancur
“Colombia’s ability to shift its image from a country riddled with violence and crime to one of innovation and optimism is remarkable,” stated Beth Broome, managing editor of Architectural Record. “It is a clear demonstration of the power of urban design and architecture… to drive social transformation.”
Medellin is a poignant example of how educational buildings can be a catalyst for building communities with its public structures. Built in the midst of socially fragile neighborhoods, the city identifies with and gains social cohesion from facilities that provide education and use for the young and adults alike. For example, the public library, Biblioteca España, designed by Giancarlo Mazzanti, is accessed by a network of cable cars (free of charge) that transport inhabitants through the valley, up the hills, and to the city’s poor shanty neighborhoods where the library resides. It is the pride and meeting place of its poor residents, stated Fernando Villa, AIA, LEED AP, of Magnusson Architecture & Planning.
The library and schools are part of a plan embarked upon in 2004 by then Mayor Sergio Fajardo. He called the plan “Medellin, the best educated.” The idea to combat social inequality and violence through a master plan of infrastructure and various programs connected with quality education and social urban planning aims to bring stability and hope to Medellin’s poor neighborhoods. It also engages the new generation of architects, as a new law requires public projects to be determined through design competitions.
Two schools that have helped integrate education with urban life in Medellin are Carlos Pardo’s Santo Domingo Savio Derka School and Juan Manuel Pelaez’s Colegio Las Mercedes. Pardo’s school is built on a steep hillside, so the school’s roof is used as a public park. This “inhabitable geography” relates to the landscape in a similar way to the terraces of the neighborhood houses. Pelaez used much of the site of his school, including some of the roofs, for public access, as well, creating a civic center.
The AIANY Committee on Architecture for Education (AIANY/CAE) staged this event in its tradition of showcasing local and international educational facilities and programs that identify schools as community centers.
Umberto Dindo, AIA, is the principal of Dindo Architect, the co-chair of the AIANY Education Committee, and AIANY Secretary.
Volunteer docent Michael Bischoff, AIA, and the crowd enjoying the views in New York Harbor.
Rick Bell
Architectural boat tours help make sense of Chicago’s Loop, providing insight into design, development, and decision-making. Such tours are now here in New York with AIANY out on the water, working with Classic Harbor Lines on a trip that circumnavigates Manhattan, departing from Chelsea Piers. More information and tickets here.
A team of AIANY volunteer docents, led by Board Vice President Abby Suckle, FAIA, has developed a narrative and map that makes the tour both entertaining and educational. The map, Around Manhattan Now, lists 144 projects from Chelsea Piers (Butler Rogers Baskett) and 100 Eleventh Avenue (Atelier Jean Nouvel & Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners) up to the Peter J. Sharpe Boat House (Robert A.M. Stern Architects). Proposed waterfront plans, including The New Domino (Rafael Viñoly Architects) and Governors Island proposals (West 8, Diller Scofidio & Renfro, and Rogers Marvel Architects) are highlighted in the context of New York’s rich architectural, mercantile, and maritime history.
Volunteers, including Michael Bischoff, AIA, Kyle Johnson, AIA, and Deborah Young, AIA, have led those aboard down the Hudson and up the East, Harlem, and Bronx Rivers. Knowledgeable New Yorkers, including land use lawyer Michael Sillerman of Kramer Levin, have added their commentary. Sillerman’s two cents on the view of Lower Manhattan: “This is a good place to talk about transfer of development rights and the setback requirements that determined skyscraper form.”
Apart from the scheduled Saturday sailings, the AIANY and Classic Harbor Lines have also been able to accommodate special requests. Walter B. Melvin Architects, a Manhattan-based architectural firm, decided to bring the whole office for a firm outing, which, according to Melvin’s business manager, Jennifer Murray, provided “a good way of seeing lots of our work at the same time.”
Whether to cool off on a hot summer day or listen to the architectural commentary, come aboard for the tour and stay to take in the pleasures of the harbor.
“Pole Dance” at P.S. 1 by SO-IL.
Jessica Sheridan
There’s nothing like a heat wave to make me want to take a stroll in the sand, kick around beach balls, and relax in a hammock. Luckily, the P.S. 1 courtyard has it all. This year’s “Pole Dance,” SO-IL’s winning entry to the annual MoMA/MoMA P.S.1 Young Architects Program, is an interactive installation that is sure to tap into your nostalgia and make you feel like a kid again.
There is a 16-foot-by-16-foot grid of 30-foot-high PVC poles. Suspended among the poles are bungee cords and a netting canopy. Beach balls float on top of the canopy and, when one shakes the poles, they sometimes drop through openings. At three locations, the openings are lined with tubing that creates a cool mist of water. Hammocks are suspended in the corners. Foam extrusions act as benches dispersed through the space, and there is a pool of water to wade in at the center. In one of the smaller courtyards to the side, designated poles create sounds as visitors interact with them (either in person or via iPhone app). The netting creates intricate shadows against the sparse concrete walls. And water-stained gravel circles break up the otherwise monotonous ground.
The renderings did not do this project justice. I was suspicious about whether people would actually want to engage with this “participatory environment,” but once I got there it was irresistible not to shake the poles or toss around a beach ball. Everyone else in the courtyard felt the same way.
The one drawback to “Pole Dance” is the lack of sustainable materials used in its construction. Perhaps my mind is too focused on the catastrophe in the Gulf Coast these days, but with PVC piping and plastic beach balls, as much as I tried to escape the reality beyond the walls, I found myself thinking of the amount of oil it took to produce the playful installation. My mind hearkened back to a time when I didn’t worry about the environment, but I’m not convinced that is a good thing. And, if that is the point of the project, it did not fully succeed. The website claims that the components will be re=purposed after the installation closes, so perhaps sustainability was taken into account, even if it is not elaborated upon.
Overall, the project does meet its objective. States the website: “We bounce about, footloose, on a network of intersections and knots.”
In this issue:
· Imagine — A Playground in a Box?
· SALON Mixes Sangria and Spanish Design
· Alaskan Artifacts Grow in New Home
· Hawaii Five
· Innovation Harnesses Green Technologies in Botswana
· Ellis Island’s European Counterpart to Be Restored
Imagine — A Playground in a Box?
Imagination Playground.
Rockwell Group
As a prelude to the Rockwell Group-designed Imagination Playground Park that will open this month, “Imagination Playground in a Box” units will be installed on weekends throughout the city during the summer. The project is a colorful container on wheels. The sides and top of the boxes reveal a variety of loose parts, such as foam blocks, sand, water tools, and found objects including tarps, fabric, and milk crates. Children will use the tools to create their own toys, games, and environments. In collaboration with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, the first of the Imagination Playground parks will be located at Burling Slip in the South Street Seaport area. This site-specific park will feature a full set of loose parts and a sculpted landscape, as well as sand and water installations.
SALON Mixes Sangria and Spanish Design
SALON.
Photo by Floto + Warner
SALON, a permanent exhibition space and new lounge bar, opened at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Designed by Winka Dubbeldam of Archi-Tectonics, the 1,200-square-foot space was inspired by the works of Spanish surrealist artists including Dalí, Picasso, and Caballero. SALON showcases the work of 16 Spanish designers and manufacturers, including BD Barcelona Design furnishings; Lladró sculptural vases and lighting; and Nani Marquina rugs. The project is supported by RED, an organization that represents Spanish design companies and the Trade Commission of Spain’s Interiors From Spain department.
Alaskan Artifacts Grow in New Home
Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center.
Photo by Chuck Choi
The Smithsonian Institution is loaning more than 600 indigenous Alaskan artifacts to Anchorage and allowing access for hands-on study by Alaska Native elders, artists, and scholars. These cultural and historical treasures, selected and interpreted with help from Alaska Native advisers, are now exhibited in the new Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in the Anchorage Museum, designed by NY-based Ralph Appelbaum Associates. Rather than pursue a traditionally static interpretive experience, RAA designed interactive, updatable digital stations to allow multiple layers of information that can change over time, including oral histories, historic photographs, artistic depictions, and a growing body of Native and scholarly commentary. Visitors learn about objects through touch screens; a video art installation about contemporary Alaska Native life plays on seven large, flat-screen TVs; and a 3-D sound art installation is designed to immerse visitors in the Arctic with recordings of howling wolves, cracking ice, and storytellers. The firm worked closely with the designer of the museum’s expansion, London-based David Chipperfield Architects, and Anchorage-based architect-of-record Kumin Associates.
Hawaii Five
Trump International Hotel + Tower, Honolulu, HI.
Photo by Andrea Brizza
Brooklyn-based Guerin Glass Architects has completed its fifth project in Hawaii — the Trump International Hotel + Tower, a 750,000-square-foot, 38-story hotel and residential building, that is part of a two-million-square-foot redevelopment intended to revitalize the Waikiki retail and hotel district in Honolulu. Encountering local resistance to contemporary design in the hotel district, the design team responded by infusing Hawaiian motifs into the design. The cast-in-place structural frame features fin walls and post-tensioned slabs that project to protect the exterior from the strong island light. The pattern of the deep façade evokes traditional Polynesian weaving. The tower contains 462 residential and hotel units, several dining and resort facilities, including a day spa and fitness center, as well as parking for 220 cars. Honolulu-based Benjamin Woo Architects served as associate architect.
Innovation Harnesses Green Technologies in Botswana
Botswana Innovation Hub.
SHoP Architects
Via an international design competition, NYC-based SHoP Architects has been selected to design the new Botswana Innovation Hub. Located in Gabarone, the country’s capital and largest city, the 270,000-square-foot facility will provide office and laboratory space for technology driven and knowledge intensive foreign and local businesses, as well as research and advanced training institutes. The client’s brief called for an iconic building that employed cutting-edge green technology. SHoP’s design concept features what the firm has coined an “energy blanket roofscape,” which incorporates large overhangs to passively shade the building’s interior volumes, mechanisms to collect and re-use water, and both passive and active photovoltaic systems to harness solar energy. Where the roof slope prevents optimal solar collection, a low-maintenance roof garden collects and filters rainwater. The combination of these technologies is anticipated to offset at least half of the building’s operational energy costs.
Ellis Island’s European Counterpart to Be Restored
Red Star Line Museum.
Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners
Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, responsible for the restoration of Ellis Island, has begun work on the Red Star Line Museum located in the Montevideo section of Antwerp. Three historic harbor sheds that served as luggage storage and mandatory medical and administrative inspections buildings for millions of European emigrants bound for the U.S. and Canada during the decades before and after the turn of the 20th-century will be restored. There are different levels of historical significance related to the emigrants’ experiences among the three buildings in the complex, and different levels of architectural integrity based on the existing conditions and amount of remaining historical fabric. Work will also include infrastructure and interior upgrades for the new use of the buildings as a public exhibition space that will relay the stories of past and contemporary migration. A new, central observation tower, reminiscent of a disassembled tall boiler stack, is designed to give museum visitors an idea of what it must have been like for the emigrants to have their last look of Antwerp from the deck of an ocean liner. The museum is scheduled to open in 2012.
In this issue:
· New York Now, 2010 Edition: AIANY presents “MADE IN NEW YORK”
· Committee Program Webinars Available Now!
· Passing: David Smotrich, FAIA
New York Now, 2010 Edition: AIANY presents “MADE IN NEW YORK”
After the success of “New York Now” in fall 2009, the AIA New York Chapter will be taking over the West 4th Street subway station again this October with a new member-generated show, “The American Institute of Architects New York Presents: MADE IN NEW YORK.” The show will open on 10.06.10, during Architecture Week (10.02-10.10) and remain on view for a month.
While “New York Now” featured member projects in the five boroughs, this year the Chapter will be asking for new projects by AIANY members sited anywhere around the globe. While collecting submissions for “MADE IN NEW YORK,” the Chapter will also be accepting projects for “MADE IN THE USA” — a related digital exhibition and database of AIA member work. The AIA has big intentions for “MADE IN THE USA,” including plans to generate future exhibitions from submissions, so both “MADE IN NEW YORK” and “MADE IN THE USA” are great opportunities for local firms to promote their work, nearby and around the world.
Committee Program Webinars Available Now!
With dozens of committee programs each month, AIANY has launched its Webinar feature, which presents some of the most popular, content-rich programs “on demand.” The platform records live presentations and streams them with the PowerPoint presentation and program handouts. For a small fee, all material will be available online and can be viewed at your convenience. At the end of each Webinar, members can take a quiz to get continuing education credits. Now available are the first two installments of the Committee for the Environment’s Green Integration Series, and the Professional Practice Committee’s May program on Dispute Resolution. See all the available programs here: http://eo2.commpartners.com/users/aiany/.
As this is a new feature, please send comments and questions to enemens@aiany.org.
Passing: David Smotrich, FAIA
David I. Smotrich, FAIA, 76, of Chappaqua, NY, died suddenly on 06.20.10, at his home. Smotrich graduated from Harvard College in 1955, and Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1960. He began his architectural career in Israel as part of the design team for the new city of Arad, Negev Desert. After working for I.M. Pei, FAIA, he established his own firm in NYC in 1965. He continued as principal of David Smotrich & Partners until his death. His work, which was nationally recognized, ranged broadly, from educational facilities and commercial projects to low-income and elderly housing. Smotrich is survived by his wife of 54 years, Bernice D. Smotrich, his children: Ross (Talma Nir), Maura and Hannah (Michael Barr), and nine grandchildren: Matthew, Amit, Alex, Shani, Ben, Avital, Dani, Joshua, and Etai.
Students at the New Design High School build their Rooftop Design Village.
Tim Hayduk
Over the past three years, students at New Design High School in partnership with Learning By Design:NY (LBD:NY) have been designing and building Rooftop Design Village. This on-going, student-driven project currently consists of a wood shop as well as a greenhouse and deck that are close to completion.Future plans include building planters and a food kiosk for community events. Rooftop Design Village is a hands-on learning experience that adds a real-world component to the New Design curriculum.
Rooftop Design Village is a hands-on learning experience that adds a real-world component to the New Design curriculum. LBD:NY residencies often introduce architecture to students unfamiliar with design concepts, but these students are experienced. At New Design High School, class assignments include everything from designing and building a catapult to experimenting with lighting and furniture. According to LBD:NY educator Erik Ratkowski, what sets the Rooftop Design Village apart from other assignments is the large-scale and long-term nature of the project. Such projects require students to be persistent in their problem solving and patient in achieving results.
Many students across all four grades have worked in teams on small aspects of the overall project. “Students surprised themselves by being able to do something that they wouldn’t have known they could do,” said Ratkowski, who works with design teacher Brian Lentini. Ratkowski and Lentini teach kids technical and problem solving skills. Students begin the construction phase by learning how to hold a hammer and use a drill, then use these skills to solve open-ended problems. When the wind threatened to blow the roof off of the greenhouse, it was a student who devised how to secure it in a new way.
Design-build projects such as this show students their capabilities and introduce them to new fields. Scott Conti, principal at New Design High School, believes that “Learning By Design:NY is a doorway into professions that low-income, urban kids normally can’t get into — architecture, urban planning, graphic design. Our idea at New Design is to use programs like Learning By Design:NY to be transformative in these kids lives.” New Design High School wants to continue to ask students to design and build structures for the rooftop village project in the years to come.
If you would like to help support the Rooftop Design Village or donate your time to this Learning By Design:NY residency, please contact Tim Hayduk at thayduk@cfafounfation.org.
The Center for Architecture Foundation (CFAF) thanks Cornucopia Project, Loud and Public, and Open Road for being instrumental in bringing together knowledge, resources, and enthusiasm to the project. Also a special thank you to Jason Spodek of City Lumber who donated all of the building materials that will make this project a built reality. The CFAF is very grateful to have received funding from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
How are you being green during this heat wave?
Note: Results from this poll are non-scientific.
Did you attend this year's AIA National Convention in Miami?
Note: Results from this poll are non-scientific.
Crain’s New York asked several architects and other public figures to share their thoughts about how to make NYC “better, smarter stronger, wealthier and maybe, just maybe, a little friendlier.” Contributors include Paul Katz, FAIA, president, Kohn Pedersen Fox; Stanton Eckstut, FAIA, founding principal, Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn; Dan Kaplan, AIA, and Mark Strauss, FAIA, senior partners, FXFOWLE Architects; and Richard Olcott, FAIA, partner, Ennead Architects (formerly Polshek Partnership Architects). Suggestions range from far-out (building a posh gambling resort on Governors Island) to modest (adding ferry stops for commuters from nearby communities). View all of these visionary ideas in a slide show essay format.
Winners of the IIDA NY Lester Dundees Interior Design Competition include Bancolombia by IA Interior Architects, Commercial Over 50,000 SF; Fortune Global 500 Investment Center by Mancini Duffy, Commercial Under 50,000 SF; LIM College by Marner Architecture, Educational/Institutional; Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center by Perkins Eastman, Healthcare; Morgans Hotel Group by Rockwell Group, Hospitality; Private Residence, Marina Towers, Beirut, Lebanon by Joe Serrins Studio, Residential; and Confidential Media Client by HLW International, Judge’s Award…
The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has selected the recipients of its 2010 honors, including Achva Stein, FASLA, Professor and Director, CCNY Graduate Landscape Architecture program, who won the Community Service Award…
The 2010 Brooklyn Building Awards winners include: Atlantic Terminal by di Domenico + Partners, Civic and Institutional; IAVI Design & Development Laboratory by Perkins Eastman, Economic Development; Juliana Curran Terian Pratt Pavilion by hanrahanMeyers architects with Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects, Educational; 274 Garfield PLacy by James R. Gainfort, AIA, Consulting Architect, Historic Preservation; Remains Lighting by Just Architecture, Industrial; Toren by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, National Grid Award for Energy Efficiency; Brooklyn Bowl by NY Design Architects with Tristan Steinberg Design, Retail; Schermerhorn House by Polshek Partnership Architects, now Ennead Architects, Residential: Affordable Housing; and 80 Metropolitan Avenue by Greenberg Farrow, Residential: Multi-Family…
Coburn Architecture won the Pearl Street Triangle Competition, an ideas competition for a new community plaza design in DUMBO…The Peninsula Shanghai, designed by BBG-BBGM, won the 2010 Development of the Year Award at the China Hotel Development and Financing Conference…
Twenty-three finalists have been selected for the Build A Better Burb open ideas competition, including several NYC entrants: LIRR Long Island Radically Rezoned by Tobias Holler; Levittown: Increasing Density and Opportunity through the Accessory Dwelling Structure by Meri Tepper; Reclaiming Community by Courtney Embrey; Upcycling 2.0 by Ryan Lovett; SUBHUB Transit System by Michael Piper; Open Source Suburbs by Siobhan Watson; REpark: Adapting Long Island’s Commercial Infrastructure to an Emerging Network by Scalar Architecture; AgISLAND by Amy Ford-Wagner; Long Division by Kazys Varnelis; and Building C-Burbia by Denise Hoffman Brandt…
The Switzer Group celebrates its 35th anniversary this month… Jake LaChapelle, AIA, has been promoted to principal of Nelligan White Architects… HLW International announced the expansion of the firm’s Discovery practice with the addition of Scott Francisco, who joins HLW’s New York office as Director of Discovery… H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture announced that founding partner Hugh Hardy, FAIA, has extended the partnership to five new firm leaders, including Ariel Fausto, AIA, LEED AP; John Fontillas, AIA, LEED AP; Geoff Lynch, AIA, LEED AP; Jack Martin, LEED AP; and Daria Pizetta, AIA…
David Sokol, a writer and OCULUS contributor based in New York and in Washington, DC, recently joined GSA Design Excellence as head of publications.
06.26-07.03.2010: AIANY and Classic Harbor Lines have circumnavigated Manhattan three Saturdays, on their “Around Manhattan Official NYC Architectural Tour,” with more cruises planned for July and August. See this issue’s Rhetorically Speaking “ Ahoy AIA” for more on these exciting new boat tours.
Boat cruise organizer Abby Suckle, FAIA, and Deborah Young, AIA, a volunteer docent.
Florence Schmitt
Michael Sillerman, Jessica Harris, and Rick Bell, FAIA, on the deck.
Natalya Nikolaeva.
Captain Jim Chambers and Rick Bell, FAIA, discussing the route.
Natalya Nikolaeva.
06.10-13.10: AIA Convention in Miami, FL.
(l-r): Charles Thanhauser, AIA, Principal, TEK Architects; Lisa Chapman, Ibex Construction; James McCullar, FAIA, James McCullar & Associates, 2008 AIANY President; and Margaret Castillo, AIA, LEED AP, Partner, Helpern Architects, AIANY President-Elect at the “Sand in Your Shoes” AIA Miami Host Chapter Party.
Kristen Richards
AIA Miami’s sandcastle competition results: 1st Place: “The Vitruvian Homer Simpson” by Florida International University Department of Landscape Architecture.
Kristen Richards
(l-r): Mike Mense, FAIA, mmenseArchitects, presented The Architect’s Newspaper Publisher Diana Darling, and Editor-in-Chief William Menking with an AIA Institute Honors for Collaborative Achievement for supporting the profession of architecture and architects over the years.
Kristen Richards
At the Faith & Form/IFRAA International Awards for Religious Art and Architecture program, NYC-based Lichten Craig Architects received a Merit Award for the restoration of the Christ Church Tower in Poughkeepsie, NY; (l-r): Editor-in-Chief Michael J. Crosbie, FAIA, with Senior Architect Barry Donaldson, RA, LEED AP, and Principal Kevin Lichten, AIA.
Kristen Richards
Robert Ivy, FAIA, editor-in-chief of Architectural Record and Ned Cramer, editor-in-chief of Architect magazine, enjoy the 2010 AIA Convention in Miami (without the slightest hint of any grudges).
Joan Capelin, Hon. AIA
Newark Airport heading to Miami.
Kristen Richards
06.17.10: desigNYC introduced its 12 pilot projects with an exhibition at Pratt Gallery, on view through July 31. The program connects projects submitted by nonprofits, community groups, and city agencies with designers who work pro bono to see the projects through. Collaborations include the Broadway Mall Association with Joel Sanders Architect, Balmori Associates (landscape/urban design), and Domingo Gonzalez Associates (lighting design); the Lower East Side Ecology Center with Andrew Berman Architect; and three projects for Enterprise Community Partners with Robin Key Landscape Architecture, Sohbr Studio, and Andre Kikoski Architect.
(l-r): Brian Lewis of Andre Kikoski Architect, desigNYC advisor Sara Bengur, and Joan Montbach representing the client, Palladia.
Kristen Richards
06.17.10: The Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction hosted The Iron Designer Challenge. A fundraising event for the school (raising a total of $20,000), 10 architecture and engineering firms competed for the title. Jurors included David Burney, FAIA, commissioner of the NYC Department of Design and Construction; Gregg Pasquarelli, AIA, principal of SHoP Architects; Caroline Payson, director of education at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; and Joel Towers, dean of Parsons The New School for Design. Diana Williams, anchor for WABC-TV Eyewitness News hosted the event.
In the end, Gensler reigned supreme and was named Iron Designer. Also, Omni Architects won a Structural Innovation prize; Robert Silman and Associates won Best Use of the Secret Material (3 Form resin tiles, and glass tiles by Galaxy); and Gensler won the People’s Choice Award.
The roof terrace of the Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction set the stage for the event.
Katie Michael
Omni Architects’ structurally innovative structure.
Jessica Sheridan
Team Gensler erects their structure.
Katie Michael
The completed winning design.
Jessica Sheridan
The winning Gensler team.
Katie Michael
2010 Oculus Editorial Calendar
If you are an architect by training or see yourself as an astute observer of New York’s architectural and planning scene, OCULUS editors want to hear from you! Projects/topics may be anywhere, but architects must be New York-based. Please submit story ideas by the deadlines indicated below to Kristen Richards: Kristen@ArchNewsNow.com.
THE 2010 THEMES:
Spring: Architect as Leader: (CLOSED).
Summer: AIANY Design Awards 2010: (CLOSED).
Fall: Thinking Back / Thinking Forward and Understanding the Shift: (CLOSED).
Winter: Practice without Borders: The world is growing smaller. New York is an international city, and it is easier than ever for overseas firms to work here and for New York City firms to work abroad. We will look into reciprocity, licensure, removal of boundaries to practice, and international competitions as ways to build renown.
Submit story ideas by 08.13.10
07.11.10 Call for Nominations: AIANYS Officers and Regional Director
07.12.10 Call for Proposals: Thanatopolis Exhibition at I-Park in East Haddam, CT
07.19.10 Call for Entries: Urban Canvas Design Competition
08.04.10 Call for Entries: AIA West Jersey Annual Photography Competition
08.04.10 Request for Qualifications: City of Seattle: Central Waterfront Project
08.09.10 Call for Nominations: AIANYS 2010 Honor Awards
11.01.10 Call for Entries: The Future of Competitions: Tell Them What They Need
Center for Architecture Gallery Hours and Location
Monday-Friday: 9:00am-8:00pm, Saturday: 11:00am-5:00pm, Sunday: CLOSED
536 LaGuardia Place, Between Bleecker and West 3rd Streets in Greenwich Village, NYC, 212-683-0023
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Through 07.31.10
desigNYC
desigNYC.
Alexandra Corazza
DesigNYC, a collective committed to improving life in NYC through good design, celebrates its first 12 projects with an exhibit dedicated to the impact of collaborations. Collaborations include The Broadway Mall Association with Balmori Associates, Joel Sanders, and Domingo Gonzalez Associates; Enterprise Community Partners with Robin Key Landscape Architecture, Sohbr Studio, and Andre Kikoski Architect; and Outstanding Renewal Enterprise: the Lower East Side Ecology Center with Andrew Berman Architect.
Pratt Manhattan Gallery
144 West 14th Street, 2nd floor, NYC
Through 08.01.10
Cars, Culture and the City
L Motors, 175th Street and Broadway, 1948
Photograph by Gottscho-Schleisner, courtesy Gottscho-Schleisner Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Like many major cities, NYC has a low per-capita ownership of automobiles. But surprisingly, it has played an essential role in creating today’s car culture; the car has helped, in turn, to shape modern NYC. Visionary drawings and models, historic photographs, films, and advertisements, and a wealth of car memorabilia tell this untold story.
Museum of the City of New York
1220 5th Avenue, NYC
Through 08.14.10
Land Use Survey
Aerial #62, 2002 by Sarah McKenzie
Courtesy Jen Bekman Gallery
This exhibition, with photographs, paintings, and works on paper by 27 artists, functions as a critical appraisal of land use across the country, as a document of the changing landscape vernacular, and as a celebration of the artists who take diverse approaches to capturing this genre.
Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street, NYC
Through 08.28.10
ECOAESTHETIC: The Tragedy of Beauty
Beizhuanzi II, Siming District, Xiamen, 2004
Sze Tsung Leong
This is an annual summer experience of environmental issues affecting our visual world and spiritual selves. The Tragedy of Beauty focuses on photography of land where the tragedy of the image becomes the aesthetic of the environment.
Exit Art
475 10th Avenue, NYC
Through 09.09.10
Before They Were Parks
Henry I. Stetler Warehouse and Comfort Station (now Bleecker Street Playground),1959.
New York City Parks Photo Archive
More than 100 vintage and contemporary photographs from the NYC Parks Photo Archive and other collections are on view. They may be lush and green now, but at some point in their past, parks may have been warehouses, tenements, estates, reservoirs, landfills, cemeteries, or jails.
The Arsenal Gallery
64th Street and 5th Avenue in Central Park, 3rd Floor, NYC
eCalendar includes an interactive listing of architectural events around NYC. Click the link to go to to eCalendar on the Web.
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Penn Station Office Space
Workstations – Ideal for small firms (1-5 persons). Share conference rooms, copier, fax, kitchen and receptionist w/architectural firm in loft building. Open view of skyline. Semi-private work areas. Call 212-273-9888 ask for either Jeff X204 or Larry X203.
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