In this issue:
· 15 Penn Plaza Passes City Council
· Union Square Will Become Sukkah City This September
· The Beatrice Tops the Eventi Hotel
· MTA Police Department Moves into New HQ
· DC Commissions a Sustainable Public Library

15 Penn Plaza Passes City Council

15 Penn Plaza.

Pelli Clark Pelli

City Council voted 47 to 1 to approve the construction of Vornado Realty Trust’s project, 15 Penn Plaza. The 67-story Pelli Clark Pelli-designed office tower will rise 1,190 feet, 60 feet shorter than the Empire State Building’s 102nd-story observation deck. The project is expected to create an estimated 6,000 construction jobs, and Vornado has committed to set aside 15% of its contracts for women and minority owned businesses. In addition, the developer has pledged more than $150 million in improvements to transportation connections, including modernizing and reopening the old Gimbels tunnel that connects Herald Square to Penn Station. The new project will replace McKim, Mead & White’s Hotel Pennsylvania.

Union Square Will Become Sukkah City This September

Gathering.

So Sugita, and Ginna Nguyen

Biblical in origin, sukkahs commemorate how the Israelites dwelled during their exodus from Egypt. They are typically temporary structures with at least two-and-a-half walls, a roof made of organic materials that both provides shade and allows views of the stars, and is big enough for a table. Sukkah City: New York City held a competition to re-imagine this Old Testament structure using new methods of material practice and parametric design. Twelve selected teams (out of 600 from 43 countries) will construct their proposals as a village in Union Square Park 09.19-20.10. Seven NYC-based teams were selected: Dale Suttle, So Sugita, and Ginna Nguyen (Gathering); Henry Grosman and Babak Bryan (Fractured Bubble); Kyle May and Scott Abrahams (LOG); Matter Practice (Single Thread); Bittertang (Bio Puff); SO-IL (In Tension); and THEVERYMANY (P.YGROS.C / passive hygroscopic curls). A “people’s choice sukkah” will be installed during the weeklong festival of Sukkot, and selected entries will be displayed at the Center for Architecture in September.

The Beatrice Tops the Eventi Hotel

The Beatrice.

Perkins Eastman with model apartment by Norma King Design

The Beatrice, 30 stories of luxury rental apartments on the uppermost portion of the 54-story, Perkins Eastman-designed Klimpton’s Eventi Hotel, recently opened model apartments. Located in Herald Square, the 302 apartments range from studios to three-bedroom penthouses. Residents have a fitness center with a yoga studio and 6,300 square feet of amenities, including the Cloud Lounge, an outdoor terrace on the 54th floor.

MTA Police Department Moves into New HQ

MTA Police Department Headquarters.

WASA/Studio A

The new MTA Police Department Headquarters is now open on the site of the former Central Islip train station on Long Island. Designed by WASA/Studio A, the 17,000-square-foot, two-story facility is a modern interpretation of an historic train station. Improved communications will make quicker responses to emergencies in the Suffolk County section of the LIRR’s territory possible. The building accommodates the patrol force, including commanding officers, patrol officers, detectives, and administrative staff. In addition, it contains space for the K-9 unit and training facilities, with a motor pool for maintaining and repairing emergency response vehicles. Complying with New York State Executive Order 111, it meets strict energy-efficient guidelines for lighting, heating, cooling, and insulation.

DC Commissions Sustainable Public Library

Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library.

Davis Brody Bond Aedas

The 22,800-square-foot, three-story Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library, designed by Davis Brody Bond Aedas, recently opened in Washington, DC. The entry plaza features a 22-foot sculpture by local artist Craig Kraft. The ground floor houses the new materials and catalog stations for the general collections, and the children’s library. The upper level includes the bulk of the adult collection, including reference and periodical sections. The lower level contains community spaces, such as a 100-person, multi-purpose room. The library also offers conference rooms and individual study rooms to allow for collaborative work in a non-disruptive setting. Designed to meet LEED Silver standards, the building incorporates a vegetative roof, displacement air system, solar control, daylight management, and extensive use of recyclable and renewable materials. The southern façade is a corrugated, perforated-aluminum screen wall system that sits three feet in front of a curtain wall, providing shade to the upper level reading room while allowing natural daylight to enter.

In this issue:
· Delta to Fly into the 21st Century at JFK
· NYCEDC, WXY Start Projects in the Bronx & Brooklyn
· FIDI’s New Pop-Up Café
· The Bronx’s Little Italy Gets Modernized
· Senator Edward M. Kennedy Honored with Institute at UMass
· Shipping Containers for Public Art

Delta to Fly into the 21st Century at JFK

Terminal 4.

Courtesy SOM / ARUP

Delta Air Lines, the Port Authority of NY and NJ, and JFK International Air Terminal announced plans for a Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-designed expansion of Terminal 4 (the firm designed the existing Terminal 4, which opened in 2001). The project includes the expansion of Concourse B, with nine new international gates; a passenger connector between Terminals 2 and 4; and expanded baggage claim and customs and border protection areas. Terminal 3, built in 1960 and designed by Tippetts-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton for PanAM Worldport, has been deemed functionally outmoded and beyond repair; it will be demolished and the space used for aircraft parking. Construction is scheduled to begin in September 2010.

NYCEDC, WXY Start Projects in the Bronx & Brooklyn

Fordham Plaza (left), and WNYC Transmitter Park.

WXY architecture + urban design

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) recently released the conceptual master plan, designed by WXY architecture + urban design, for the redesign of Fordham Plaza in the Bronx. Adjacent to the Fordham Road retail corridor, the plan is to create a hub for transit, culture, and retail. The plaza would also provide a venue for yearlong event programming, including movie screenings, concerts, and holiday markets. The new design aims to create a contiguous public space, enhance traffic flow, and provide access to commuter rail service.

NYCEDC and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation recently broke ground on a $12 million redevelopment of WNYC Transmitter Park along the East River in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Designed by EDAW/McLaren Engineering Group/WXY architecture + urban design, the project is located on the site of former radio transmission towers. The design includes a pier with concrete platforms connected by aluminum bridges, a new overlook, a waterfront esplanade, and a pedestrian bridge built across an excavated historic ferry slip that will be restored as a wetland. The park will also include an open lawn with a children’s play area featuring a nautical theme.

FIDI’s New Pop-Up Café

Pop-up café.

Riyad Ghannam, AIA

Under the auspices of the NYC Departments of Transportation and Consumer Affairs, NYC now has its first pop-up café — a temporary curbside seating platform in the Financial District that provides both locals and visitors with a public space to sit, sip, and snack. CA-based RG-Architecture, which designed similar outdoor space in San Francisco, created the 84-by-6-foot wooden platform that is furnished with 14 café tables, 50 chairs, and landscaped with planters. Architectural services, which were requested by two adjacent restaurants, were provided pro bono. The Corten steel planters filled with English lavender, miniature boxwood, and turf lily were donated by Denver-based Bison Innovative Products.

The Bronx’s Little Italy Gets Modernized

Arthur Avenue Retail Market.

Papadatos Partnership

Renovation of the Arthur Avenue Retail Market in Belmont, Bronx, also known as the borough’s Little Italy, is underway. The design, by Papadatos Partnership, combines modern materiality with old world aesthetics by incorporating an “agora” motif, recalling ancient Greek and Roman markets. The 26,000-square-foot market was originally built in 1941 to give street vendors shelter from the elements, and became a center for sausage makers, bread bakers, cigar rollers, and florists. The project includes a total renovation of the exterior that will retain historic design elements. The interior, which has undergone minimal renovation over the years, will get flexible modular displays designed to adapt to both merchant and market conditions, enhanced public and gathering areas, lighting and electrical improvements, upgraded heating and cooling systems, and new plumbing — including modernization of toilet and food preparation facilities. The renovation is expected to be complete by December 2010.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy Honored with Institute at UMass

Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate.

Rafael Viñoly Architects

Rafael Viñoly Architects has been selected to design the new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate on the University of Massachusetts Boston campus. The institute will be located next to I.M Pei’s 1979 John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and will overlook Boston Harbor. The facility will consist of approximately 40,000 square feet of program space, composed mainly of classrooms, educational exhibitions, and a representation of the Senate Chamber. Two triangular volumes define the entry to the building and geometrically connect the institute to the JFK Library; the entrance approach will be designed to incorporate components from each of the 50 states. The project will break ground in fall 2010.

Shipping Containers for Public Art

Anyang Public Art Project.

LOT-EK

LOT-EK recently completed the Open School for the 2010 Anyang Public Art Project (APAP) in the city of Anyang, South Korea. Positioned over the Hawoon Park pedestrian walkway along the Anyang River, the structure is made of eight shipping containers featuring different, but interconnected, spaces. At the ground level is an open-air amphitheater for public programs. The second story, lifted above ground on stilts, contains a large multi-purpose space for meetings, exhibitions, artist-in-residence studios, and a work place for researchers. A continuous public path, constructed of a cut and bent container, takes visitors from the lower amphitheater to a rooftop observatory.

In this issue:
· City Council Approves New Domino
· Flushing Commons Puts Local Businesses to Work
· Historic Loews Pitkin Makes a Comeback
· SFMOMA Hires Snøhetta
· Tschumi Encloses Institut with New Dome
· Postcards of Progress from Haiti

City Council Approves New Domino

Domino Refinery.

Rafael Viñoly Architects

The landmarked Domino Refinery complex will be preserved and adapted for residential, commercial, and cultural uses, including 30- and 34-story apartment buildings. Rafael Viñoly Architects developed the overall master plan as well as the conceptual design for all new buildings on the site; Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners developed architectural concepts for the refinery; and Quennell Rothschild and Partners developed the landscape design. The master plan will transform the industrial complex into a modular, mixed-use, and multi-income residential development that emphasizes open space and public access to the river while preserving the refinery and its famed 40-foot-tall Domino Sugar sign. The project will create approximately 2,200 residential units, 660 of which will be affordable. The more than 223,500 square feet of retail will include a grocery store that will adhere to FRESH zoning standards in addition to approximately 143,000 square feet of community facility space. A nearly one-acre open lawn will anchor a new public waterfront esplanade.

Editor’s note: New Domino will be featured in OCULUS Fall 2010.

Flushing Commons Puts Local Businesses to Work

Flushing Commons.

Perkins Eastman

Also approved by the City Council is Flushing Commons, an 11-bulding complex in the northeast section of Queens, designed by Perkins Eastman and landscape architect Thomas Balsley Associates. The project has 1.5 acres of public outdoor open space to support community-sponsored cultural events and performances, including a 62,000-square-foot YMCA with a full-size gym/basketball court, running track, two pools, daycare, and a youth center; 36,000 square feet of community space; 760 apartments, including affordable units; and a 1,600-space parking garage. The project aims to transform the business community of Flushing with a comprehensive strategy to employ local businesses and residents to work on the project during and after construction. In addition, at the request of the City Council, the city will provide $6 million to support local businesses during the construction.

Historic Loews Pitkin Makes a Comeback

Loews Pitkin.

Kitchen & Associates Architectural Services

The grand carved staircase, the koi pond in the lobby, the domed ceiling depicting a starry sky, and seating for more than 2,800 are some of the attributes people reminisce about the Thomas Lamb-designed 1929 Loews Pitkin, in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The theater closed in 1969 and in the ensuing years suffered considerable interior damage. Now it is making a comeback as a mixed-use, eco-friendly project, designed by NJ-based Kitchen & Associates Architectural Services, that will offer more than 70,000 square feet of retail space and a new 90,000-square-foot charter school. A completely new interior will be constructed within the existing shell, but the original Neo-Classical and Art-Deco cornices, pilasters, and niches will be restored to their original condition.

SFMOMA Hires Snøhetta

SFMOMA.

Henrik Kam

After an international search and two-year planning process, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has selected the NY office of Snøhetta to be its partner in developing a $250 million expansion of its 1995 Mario Botta-designed building. Snøhetta will work as part of a yet-to-be-named collaborative team to create additional gallery space and interior enhancements to accommodate the museum’s growing collections and increased public programming. Initial design concepts for the project will be unveiled in spring of 2011. In addition to Snøhetta, the finalists for the project were Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Adjaye Associates, and Foster + Partners.

Tschumi Encloses Institut with New Dome

Institut Le Rosey.

Bernard Tschumi Architects

Bernard Tschumi Architects has been selected to design a new center for the performing arts on the 70-acre campus of the Institut Le Rosey, a boarding school on the site of the 14th-century Chateau du Rosey, near Rolle, Switzerland. The design proposes a low, stainless-steel dome enclosing an 800-seat concert hall that defines the site and spatially organizes the disparate parts of the program, including a black box theater, conference rooms, a learning center joined to a library, a teaching center, practice rooms, and social spaces featuring a restaurant, a café, a student lounge, and other amenities. A series of openings articulates the periphery of the dome, and a terrace cut into the center near the apex offers views of Lake Geneva. The building’s compact shape minimizes the exterior surface area and acts as a thermal shield reducing energy consumption.

Postcards of Progress from Haiti

HaitiSOFTHOUSE.

©2010 SOFTHOUSEgroup LLC

The SOFTHOUSEgroup, a design agency composed of four NY-based architects/designers and Pratt Institute professors (Lonn Combs; Rodney Leon; Mark Parsons; and Dragana Zoric, RA, RLA), has developed prototypes for HaitiSOFTHOUSE — transitional shelters designed to meet the evolving demands and needs of post-earthquake Haiti. Prototypes for a schoolhouse and a dwelling were recently constructed on a site maintained by the Haiti Rural Project near Port-au-Prince. Twenty more units are expected to be in place in the next few months, once funds are raised. Working with the NY office of Elgin and IL-based manufacturer Fabric Images, the structures are designed to resist hurricanes and earthquakes and can be easily assembled by a few people within a day. The various shelters serve as an active case study for implementation of transitional communities, and allow time for the development of more comprehensive, long-term sustainable strategies for permanent reconstruction in Haiti.

In this issue:
· Culture Shed Nests Into High Line
· It’s Blue Skies for the Azure
· Times Square Redux, Part Deux
· Affordable Chelsea
· Ever Timeless Israel Museum Reopens
· Automobiles Stop at New Home in The Hague

Culture Shed Nests Into High Line

Northwest view of Culture Shed at High Line and Eastern Rail Yards platform level.

Courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro/The Rockwell Group

As part of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded the Hudson Yards Development Corporation (HYDC) $100,000 to develop plans for Culture Shed, a collaborative design effort by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and The Rockwell Group. Located north of the High Line, the five-story building will be on a 22,000-square-foot site. Two deployable outer sheds will nest over the base and can be rolled out on tracks to form an exhibition hall of more than 55,000 square feet. The grant is one of 21 totaling $3 million.

It’s Blue Skies for the Azure

The Azure.

SLCE Architects

The Azure, a luxury residential condo on the Upper East Side that suffered a deadly crane collapse in 2008, has opened for occupancy. Designed by SLCE Architects with interiors by Studio Morsa, the 34-story glass tower contains 128 residences ranging from studios to four-bedroom units. The project offers more than 6,300 square feet of amenity space, including a kids’ playroom, game room, lounge and event space, private dining facility, fitness center, and two landscaped rooftop terraces. In addition, two glass panels by Weil Art Studios depicts the “Poet’s Walk” in Central Park. They are backlit with a responsive lighting system that adjusts to the time of day and season. A public school was demolished to make way for the condo, so the completed project includes a new red-brick middle school designed by Mitchell/Giurgola Architects for the NYC Department of Education.

Times Square Redux, Part Deux

Times Square.

Courtesy NYC Department of Transportation

The New York office of Snøhetta, one of the eight firms in the NYC Design and Construction Excellence program, has been selected to lead a team of NYC-based designers, engineers, and event infrastructure specialists to create a plan for the permanent redesign of Times Square. The scope includes the design of plazas with ample seating, new paving, and underground infrastructure to accommodate events. The project also includes the complete reconstruction of the roadways, including water mains and sewers, as necessary. The design team includes: WXY architecture + urban design; Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects; Billings Jackson Design; Leni Schwendinger Light Projects; Pure + Applied; Weidlinger; Buro Happold; BEXEL; Wesler Cohen; and Ducibella Venter and Santore. Construction is expected to begin in 2012.

Affordable Chelsea

The Elliott-Chelsea.

GF55

GF55 Partners has completed the design for the Elliott-Chelsea, a 22-story, 165,000-square-foot housing development in West Chelsea. The project will contain 168 affordable units, retail space on the ground level, and an underground parking garage. The development is in response to an RFP issued by the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development and NYC Housing Authority in 2007, which called for the redevelopment of underutilized land to build mixed-income communities and providing safe, quality housing for working families.

Ever Timeless Israel Museum Reopens

“Turning The World Upside Down, Jerusalem” (2010), a new site-specific sculpture by Anish Kapoor created for the Israel Museum’s Crown Plaza, the highest point of its renewed campus.

© Tim Hursley, courtesy of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Originally opened in 1965, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, designed by Alfred Mansfeld and Dora Gad, is set to reopen with new galleries, public spaces, and two new large-scale, site-specific commissions on its renewed 20-acre campus. Led by New York’s James Carpenter Design Associates and Efrat-Kowalsky Architects of Tel Aviv, the $100-million project includes the comprehensive renovation and reconfiguration of the museum’s three collection wings, and reinstallation of its holdings in the fine arts, archaeology, and Jewish art and life. Echoing the Modernist geometry of the original buildings, the pavilions are shaded within terra-cotta louver housings, designed to soften and diffuse the bright light and create a dialogue between the interior and exterior spaces across the campus. Continuing the tradition of site-specific collaborations, with contemporary artists the museum commissioned Olafur Eliasson’s “Whenever the rainbow appears,” a 44-foot-long work consisting of 360 paintings installed at the end of the museum’s newly designed Route of Passage, and Anish Kapoor’s “Turning The World Upside Down, Jerusalem,” a 15-foot-high sculpture of polished stainless steel at the highest outdoor point on the museum campus.

Automobiles Stop at New Home in The Hague

The Louwman Museum.

Michael Graves & Associates

One of the world’s largest collections of historic automobiles and automotive art has found a home at the new Louwman Museum, also known as the National Automobile Museum, in The Hague. Designed by Michael Graves & Associates, the museum contains more than 230 pioneering automobiles from the late 19th century, racing cars, sports cars, and luxury limousines, and the world’s largest collection of automotive art. The three-story, 185,000-square-foot museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of the collection, with temporary and permanent exhibition galleries, a reception hall, auditorium, food service, and workshops for the conservation and repair of cars in the collection.

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:
· Common Ground Opens The Brook in The Bronx
· Weill Cornell Medical College Expands Interdisciplinary Research
· Public to Walk in Donald Judd’s Footsteps
· SUNY Maritime Harnesses Wind

Common Ground Opens The Brook in The Bronx

The Brook.

Courtesy Alexander Gorlin Architects

Common Ground, New York’s largest provider of supportive housing, recently completed its first project in the Bronx with The Brook, a six-story residential project designed by Alexander Gorlin Architects. The 90,000-square-foot project contains 120 units for formerly homeless adults, including those with special needs, and 70 units for low-income single adults from the South Bronx. The project features a ground floor retail space; a 2,400-square-foot event space open to the neighborhood; a large courtyard garden; computer lab; and fitness room. Sustainable features include a green roof; a high-efficiency building temperature management system; high-efficiency boilers; light and motion sensors; and low VOC paints and materials. Common Ground’s service partner BronxWorks will provide on-site social services. The $43 million project was developed under NYC’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, which intends to build or preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing by 2014, with more than 100,000 units financed to date.

Weill Cornell Medical College Expands Interdisciplinary Research

New medical research building at Weill Cornell Medical College.

©Polshek Partnership Architects

Construction has begun on a new medical research building at Weill Cornell Medical College on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The new, $650 million facility, designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, will more than double the institution’s existing research space. The 18-story, 480,000-square-foot building will include 16 floors of housing research initiatives that target cancer, cardiovascular disease, children’s health, and neurodegenerative diseases, and global health and infectious diseases. Open floor plans throughout will facilitate communication and collaboration among scientists. Its proximity to the Weill Greenberg Center, the Medical College’s ambulatory care building, will further enhance communication between investigative researchers and practicing clinicians.

Public to Walk in Donald Judd’s Footsteps

101 Spring Street.

Architecture Research Office

The artist Donald Judd lived and worked in a five-story cast iron loft in SoHo, and left it as a haunting “permanent installation.” It has not been open to the public. Architecture Research Office (ARO) will restore the building as a museum and office for the Judd Foundation. Constructed in 1870 by Nicholas Whyte, the building was built as a factory. The scope of the restoration includes a complete overhaul of the building’s structural foundation; preservation of the historic exterior fabric; and the installation of building-wide environmental and fire safety systems. Upon completion, scheduled for spring 2013, the ground floor will host public programs, while visitors to the upper floors will experience Judd’s collection of more than 500 objects, original sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, and furniture, as well as works by Marcel Duchamp, Dan Flavin, Claes Oldenburg, Ad Reinhardt, and Frank Stella, among many others.

SUNY Maritime Harnesses Wind

SUNY Maritime.

EYP Architecture & Engineering

EYP Architecture & Engineering has been selected to design the new academic building on the Fort Schuyler campus of SUNY Maritime College. Located at the confluence of the East River and Long Island Sound in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx, the building will include classrooms capable of supporting a variety of seating configurations to match different pedagogical styles; a reconfigurable multi-purpose room; formal and informal student areas; conference rooms; an outdoor terrace; and an accessible roof. Clad in glass and metal that responds to its marine environment, the building will be naturally ventilated, deflecting harsh winder winds and channeling cooler summer winds. Southern exposure will allow for passive heating during the winter, and a system of exterior sunshades will minimize solar heat gain in the summer. Rusticated stone panels will visually connect with the stonework of a nearby historic fort.

In this issue:
· The Great Blue Way
· The McKim Building Undergoes Restoration
· Artists Take Up Residence on Governors Island
· In Time for Summer: Parks and Recreation Open on West Side
· Princeton Reduces Dust, Vibration for Energy Research
· The Curtain Goes Up on Hylton Performing Arts

The Great Blue Way

“Cool Water, Hot Island” in Times Square.

Courtesy the Times Square Alliance

Out of 150 submissions, the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) in partnership with the Times Square Alliance, has selected Brooklyn-based artist Molly Dilworth’s “Cool Water, Hot Island” as the winning temporary treatment for the Times Square pedestrian plaza. The design, which is scheduled to be installed by mid-July, is composed of a graphical representation of NASA’s infrared satellite data of Manhattan. Its color palette reflects sunlight and absorbs less heat, thus making the plaza a more comfortable place to sit. The Alliance will maintain the treatment as the DOT initiates plans for a permanent plaza under the Department of Design + Construction’s Design Excellence program. As part of the longer-term project, DOT and DDC are working with architects, landscape architects, and engineers to design appealing plazas with ample seating, new paving, and underground infrastructure able to accommodate and enhance the signature events that are staged at Times Square throughout the year.

The McKim Building Undergoes Restoration

The Morgan Library & Museum’s McKim Building.

©Todd Eberle 2007

The Morgan Library & Museum’s McKim Building will undergo the most extensive restoration of its interior spaces since its construction more than a century ago. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, as the private study and library of Pierpont Morgan, the restoration will provide new and expanded exhibition space for the Morgan’s permanent collection. Key components include: new lighting throughout the building to better illuminate its murals and décor; the installation of new exhibition cases to house rotating displays; restoration of period furniture and fixtures; and the cleaning of the walls and applied ornamentation. Also, for the first time, the North Room, which will display the earliest works in the collection, will be open to visitors. Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, who served as executive architect during the Morgan’s 2006 expansion by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, will act as architect-of-record on the restoration. The museum reopens to the public on 10.30.10.

Artists Take Up Residence on Governors Island

Artist Studio Program at Governors Island.

Davis Brody Bond Aedas

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) has opened its year-round artist studio program on Governors Island. More than 50 visual and performing artists in all disciplines were selected in a competitive request for proposals (RFP) held by the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC). The program resides on the island’s north shore in Building 110, a circa 1870s building originally used to store munitions and later occupied by offices for the Army and U.S. Coast Guard. The building renovation was designed and built by GIPEC and Cubellis, Davis Brody Bond Aedas did the interior fitted out of 14,000 square feet pro bono to house artist studios, two rehearsal areas, and exhibition space. Visual artists are provided studio space for five-month residencies, while performing artists receive rehearsal space for periods ranging from two weeks to two months. All LMCC artists-in-residence on the island are expected to show work when the island is open to the public.

In Time for Summer: Parks and Recreation Open on West Side

Opening day at Riverside Park.

Photo by Malcolm Pinkckney

The NYC Department of Parks & Recreation recently cut the ribbon on Riverwalk, the pathway stretching from West 83rd to 91st Streets, completing the bike and pedestrian path along the Hudson River from Battery Park to Dyckman Street. Constructed on a pile-supported platform in and along the river, it features hardwood railing interspersed with bollard lighting and granite walls. Design consultants on the $15.7 million project were RGR Landscape and Stantec.

The newest sections of Hudson River Park, Piers 62 and 63 in Chelsea, were also officially opened. The two new piers and adjacent uplands join Pier 64, which opened last year, to form nine acres of new green space. The construction includes a great lawn, a landscape created by artist Meg Webster, a public garden designed by Lynden Miller Public Garden Design, and a new California-style skate park. The park also includes a Hudson River carousel complete with a “green” roof. The design team for the Chelsea segment of Hudson River Park was led by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and included Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, CR Studio Architects, Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers, Maitra Associates Engineers, Ysrael A. Seinuk Consulting Engineers, U Lighting, Skanska USA, and Ove Arup & Partners.

Battery Park City’s long delayed Teardrop Park South, also designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, has finally opened with two water features, a stacked wooden amphitheater, sun-refracting heliostats atop neighboring buildings to reflect light into the shadowy gardens.

Princeton Reduces Dust, Vibration for Energy Research

Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects

Plans for Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment were recently released. Designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, the 127,000-square-foot center will provide specialized facilities for sustainable energy research. The plan builds on the findings of a faculty steering committee that worked with Davis Brody Bond Aedas to develop a program study. The design calls for three interconnected buildings built of mostly brick and glass and include a range of needs, from highly specialized labs to classroom and meeting spaces. The lab with the most demanding technical requirements will reduce the amount of airborne dusts one-thousand-fold, a requirement for nanotechnology research. It also will contain imaging labs for microscopes examining atomic material, which require an ultra-low vibration environment. To achieve such low vibration, the labs will be built directly on top of bedrock, below the natural grade level. Instead of being fully underground, the space will open to gardens.

The Curtain Goes Up on Hylton Performing Arts

The Hylton Performing Arts Center, George Mason University.

©Robert Benson Photography

The Hylton Performing Arts Center on the Prince William campus of George Mason University in Manassas, VA, recently opened after a 10-year effort to make this performing arts venue a reality. Designed by Holzman Moss Bottino Architecture, the $44 million, 85,000-square-foot facility clad in copper, glass, and masonry will provide a setting for local, national, and international arts groups and performers, as well as university-related activities. Within the nine-story venue is Merchant Hall, a 1,121-seat, multi-functioning theater modeled on the classic European opera houses for an intimate audience experience. The hall features flexible acoustics and stage/pit configurations, a movable orchestra shell, and rows of box seating. No seat in the house is more than 95 feet from the stage. In addition, the center contains a 4,400-square-foot black box theater, a 1,000-square-foot practice studio, an art gallery, and a donor’s lounge. Sterling, VA-based Hughes Group Architects served as the architect-of-record.

In this issue:
· The New School Expands on Fifth Avenue
· One Isn’t the Loneliest Number
· MAP Continues to Make Its Mark in Melrose
· Two by TEN
· Fresh Fish, Sticky Rice, and CNC Fabrication
· Jewish Museum Berlin is Expanding Across the Strasse

The New School Expands on Fifth Avenue

The University Center.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

The New School has plans to create a major new 16-story, 365,000-square-foot campus hub, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, on Fifth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets. Named The University Center, it replaces a structure designed as a department store in 1951. The first seven floors will contain specialized design studios, interdisciplinary classrooms, university resource centers, faculty offices, and laboratories in addition to an auditorium, library, dining facilities, and student gathering spaces; the first floor and below-grade floors will house retail space. The top nine floors will house a 608-bed dormitory that will have a separate entrance. The school’s partners on the project include The Durst Organization, Tishman Construction, and SLCE Architects, who designed the dormitory interiors. Construction is scheduled to begin this August and the building is expected to open for the Fall 2013 semester.

One Isn’t the Loneliest Number

Theater for One.

Times Square Alliance

Theater for One (T41), conceived by set designer Christine Jones and developed into its architectural form by LOT/EK, is an intimate space created for experiencing theater. Located in Duffy Square, this four-by-nine-foot portable, fully operational theater is created for one audience member and one performer. With separate entrances, the audience half references the iconography of Baroque theaters and opera houses and is lined with red padded velvet, while the performer’s side is intentionally raw so it can be transformed as needed for magic, poetry, dance, puppetry, and theater pieces created for the venue. T41 uses “road box” technology to configure a system where connected and detachable units for the black box theater allow for the different sets. Presented by the Times Square Public Art Program, T41 will be open to the public until 05.23.10.

MAP Continues to Make Its Mark in Melrose

El Jardin de Selene.

Magnusson Architecture and Planning

El Jardin de Selene, a mixed-use affordable housing project, designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning (MAP), recently opened in the Melrose section of the Bronx. Mindful of the rich architectural heritage of the Bronx, Art Deco elements were incorporated into the design. The 12-story building contains studio, one-, and two-bedroom rental units, and residents have access to over 2,000 square feet of community space, including green roofs at the second floor courtyard and ninth floor setback. The building also features 6,000 square feet of commercial space and more than 12,000 square feet of structured parking. In addition to receiving a LEED Gold rating, the building is NYSERDA Energy Star certified and Enterprise Green Communities compliant. Sustainable strategies include daylight and occupancy sensors in common areas, bamboo flooring, and solar panels on the roof. The project is a joint venture of Nos Quedamos, MJM Construction Services, and Melrose Associates, under the financial guidance of Forsyth Street Advisors.

Two by TEN

Rutgers Business School (left) and the National Laboratory of Genomics.

Photo by Luis Gordoa

The new facility for the Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick on the Livingston Campus in Piscataway, NJ, has be given the green light for construction to begin in late spring 2011. Designed by Enrique Norten/TEN Arquitectos, the 156,000-square-foot project will feature classrooms, lecture halls, instructional labs, meeting spaces, student lounges, faculty offices, a business library, and a trading floor, and is expected to be completed by the fall semester of 2013.

The firm has also completed the first construction phase for the National Laboratory of Genomics, which is part of an extension to the Institute of Agricultural Studies in Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. Nestled within a built-up artificial topography, the institution happens to be sited on a fault line that divides the program in half, with laboratories on one side and an auditorium and administrative spaces on the other, and a paved courtyard in between.

Fresh Fish, Sticky Rice, and CNC Fabrication

Moc Moc.

Fabian Birgfeld, PHOTOtectonics

MoC MoC is a new, 2,400-square-foot restaurant in a building being renovated in downtown Princeton. The project, designed by NYC-based GRO Architects, features a ceiling and wall system that that functions as both infrastructure and an architectural effect. A curvilinear system of mahogany wood slats is used to organize the main dining area into a series of alcoves formed as the ceiling slats curve down to create screen partitions. This system is also essential to the operations of the restaurant as it houses retractable privacy screens, conceals glowing linear LED lights, organizes speakers and sprinkler heads, and functions as a fresh air diffuser. The restaurant also includes a sushi bar at the rear of the first floor, and a chef’s table in the private dining room adjacent to the kitchen on the lower level. The project was developed parametrically to allow for variations in the geometry and a seamless output to CNC fabrication.

Jewish Museum Berlin is Expanding Across the Strasse

Jewish Museum Berlin Library Cube.

P Rendering by bromsky, © Jewish Museum Berlin

Plans for the Daniel Libeskind-designed Jewish Museum Berlin Academy to house the museum’s archives, library, and education center were recently revealed. Located across from the existing museum complex, the academy will be built on the site of the 19th-century Berlin Flower Market and an existing hall. The design features a tilted cube that penetrates the outer wall of the hall creating a counterpart to the museum’s main Baroque entrance. Visitors will enter the academy through an opening in the entrance cube, which leads to the hall where two more cubes tilt towards each other containing a lecture hall, library, and packing crates filled with documents and artifacts sent to the museum from around the world. Clad in rough timber board, the cubes are meant to recall Noah’s Ark. The exterior walls are clad with titan zinc-plate panels and skylights form an alef and a bet, the first letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The project expected to be completed by fall of 2011.

In this issue:
· NYU Consolidates School of Continuing and Professional Studies
· A View from the Bay Windows
· Architecture Takes Flight in Dance
· Let There Be Street Art
· Arcadia Expands for the Common’s Good
· Shanghai Dreaming

NYU Consolidates School of Continuing and Professional Studies

7 E. 12th Street.

Mitchell/Giurgola Architects

New York University has plans to unite its Washington Square academic programs and services, now located in several locations in Greenwich Village, into a single 117,000-square-foot building at 7 East 12th Street. The 12-story building, designed by Harrison & Abramowitz in 1948, will give the School of Continuing and Professional Studies an identifiable and dedicated teaching, learning, and administrative environment at NYU’s main campus. Mitchell/Giurgola Architects will oversee the redesign, including a new, transparent façade, and the reconfiguration of the building into 65,000 square feet of administrative and faculty offices. The remaining 52,000 square feet will be dedicated to state-of-the-art classrooms, multi-use student lounges, and conference rooms. Occupancy is planned to begin in early summer of 2011.

A View from the Bay Windows

The Dillon.

© Michael Moran

The Dillon, aka 405-437 West 53rd Street, designed by Smith-Miller + Hawkinson, opened where parking lots and derelict buildings once stood. The seven-story building has 150,000 square feet of residential space featuring a mix of 51 “flats” (studios to three-bedrooms), 22 duplexes, and nine triplex townhouses, with underground parking and outdoor courtyards. Walls are angled to draw the eye outside, and the building’s faceted façade featuring bay windows is intended to broaden views along the block. The residents’ lounge, with a service bar and a private dining room with catering kitchen, leads to a landscaped garden terrace and a fitness center. Montroy Andersen DeMarco served as the executive architect.

Architecture Takes Flight in Dance

Calatrava designed sets for Christopher Weeldon (left) and Melissa Baraki.

New York City Ballet

After receiving a personal invitation from Peter Martins, the ballet master of the New York City Ballet (NYCB), Santiago Calatrava, FAIA, has designed several multi-functional environments, each one illustrating the recurring theme of movement and flight, for the company’s new season titled “Architecture of Dance — New Choreography and Music.” This is the first time Calatrava has designed sets and his work will appear in world premiere ballets choreographed by Melissa Barak, Mauro Bigonzetti, Martins, Benjamin Millepied, and Christopher Wheeldon. This also marks the first time an architect has designed sets for the NYCB since Philip Johnson in 1981.

Let There Be Street Art

Urban Art Program.

Sage and Coombe Architects

More than 300 volunteers recently painted murals on 150 Jersey barriers lining pedestrian paths and bike lanes in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, as part of public-art project created by Otis Berkin with Sage and Coombe Architects, Niko Courtelis, Lucy Kalian, and Brenda Zlamany. The team was selected through a design competition sponsored by NYC Department of Transportation’s Urban Art Program to enhance public space through art and improved street design and streetscapes.

Arcadia Expands for the Common’s Good

Arcadia University Commons.

Kliment Halsband Architects

As part of its At Home & In the World campaign, Arcadia University in suburban Philadelphia, has broken ground for a new three-story University Commons, designed Kliment Halsband Architects. Intended to create a gathering place at the heart of the campus, it will provide larger spaces for lectures, seminars, art exhibitions, fitness, performances, and many other student, faculty, and community needs. With a new façade and a 50,000-square-foot extension to the existing recreation and athletics center, the building completes the campus green. The curving silhouette of the roof defines the interior spaces by separating commons rooms and public spaces facing east to the green from private and service spaces to the west. A terra-cotta-and-glass façade relates to the materials of Landman Library, whose addition was also designed by the firm.

Shanghai Dreaming

Dream Cube.

Basil Childers

ESI Design, in collaboration with Yung Ho Chang, AIA, founder of Atelier FCJZ Architects and current head of MIT’s department of architecture, has designed the Dream Cube for the Shanghai Corporate Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. The 40,000-square-foot space was designed from the visitor experience outwards, creating synergies between the exhibition and architectural experiences. The interiors of the pavilion are shaped as a series of free-flowing organic forms wrapped by a dense, cubic volume of infrastructural network housing millions of LED lights encased in polycarbonate transparent plastic tubes made from recycled materials. The building changes its appearance in response to visitor interaction. The concept for the pavilion was inspired in part by fourth-century Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream in which he could not determine if he was a person dreaming he was a butterfly or vice versa. The Expo features 200 pavilions and will run through 10.31.10.

In this issue:
· Trump SoHo Goes SoHi
· Passaic River Inspires Conceptual Design for Visitor’s Center
· DC Opens First in a Series of New Libraries
· North Carolina Museum Vaults Open
· Canceled Building Gets New Life in Istanbul
· Five Rivers to Join at Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge

Trump SoHo Goes SoHi

Trump SoHo.

Handel Architects

The 46-story, 386,000-square-foot Trump SoHo New York, designed by Handel Architects, recently opened. Clad in a silver-and-glass curtain wall with skybox windows projecting from the façade, the hotel contains 391 guestrooms and suites and has more meeting and event space (including SoHi, an event space on the 46th floor) than any hotel in SoHo. Handel Architects also designed an adjacent landscaped urban plaza featuring a continuous green wall offset by a series of garden rooms. Other designers contributed to the interior spaces: Studio A designed Quattro Gastronomia Italiana; DIGuiseppe Architect designed The Spa at Trump and Bar d’Eau, a seasonal indoor-outdoor bar along the pool on the seventh-floor roof deck; Kastel designed an exclusive cocktail lounge; and the Rockwell Group designed the guestrooms, lobby, and library.

Passaic River Inspires Conceptual Design for Visitor’s Center

Newark Visitor’s Center.

di Dominico + Partners

The conceptual design competition for a new Visitor’s Center in Newark, NJ, was won by a team led by Long Island City-based di Dominico + Partners. The structure consists of an undulating green roof that is a metaphor for the Passaic River. The competition, sponsored by AIA Newark and Suburban Architects in conjunction with its Emerging Professionals and Young Architects Forum, called for a multi-use 13,435-square-foot building that would fit into the surrounding community and reflect the city’s diversity. Uses include an information center, auditorium, interactive display area, gallery space, conference room, café, and a gift shop. Second prize went to a team led by NY-based PLT Design, and fourth was won by a team led by super-interesting! of Brooklyn. Newark-born Richard Meier, FAIA, FRIBA, was honorary jury chairman.

DC Opens First in a Series of New Libraries

Benning Library.

Paúl Rivera — archphoto

The Benning Library, the first in a series of new flexible and open libraries in Washington, DC, recently opened. Designed by Davis Brody Bond Aedas, the building is terraced into the sloping terrain, allowing access from both Benning Road at the upper level and a commercial shopping area at the lower level. The two floors of the 22,000-square-foot, $12 million facility are connected by an interior public stair, which creates a space that encourages pedestrian circulation through the library to connect one elevation to another. The facility features community spaces on the lower level, including a 100-person, multi-purpose room, two 12-person conference rooms, and a public gathering and exhibition space. The upper level houses the library’s collection of books, DVDs, CDs, and other library materials. The upper level also features separate reading areas for adults, teens, and children, complete with a children’s program area. The firm was commissioned in 2007 by DC Public Library to design both the Benning Library and the Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library, the latter of which is scheduled to open this summer.

North Carolina Museum Vaults Open

View of the Entry Canopy and Contemporary Galleries, North Carolina Museum of Art.

Photograph © Scott Frances; Courtesy the North Carolina Museum of Art

After a three-year expansion, the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA), designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners, will open to the public this week. Located on a 164-acre park in Raleigh, the single-story, 127,000-square-foot structure has a roofline defined by a rhythmic series of curves expressive of a system of vaults and coffers designed to bring daylight into the building. In addition to creating a significantly larger home for the collection, the new building, known as the West Building, also has multiple entries, a new restaurant, retail store, and other visitor amenities. The expansion project enables the NCMA’s 1983 East Building, designed by Edward Durell Stone, to become a center dedicated to temporary exhibitions, education, and public programs.

Canceled Building Gets New Life in Istanbul

Vakko Fashion Center and the Power Media Center.

www.rex-ny.com

REX Architecture took an abandoned skeleton of an unfinished hotel project in Istanbul and turned it into the now completed corporate headquarters for two sister companies — the Vakko Fashion Center and the Power Media Center. Construction began just four days after the firm received the commission because they were able to modify plans for the California Institute of Technology’s Annenberg Center, which had the same plan dimension, floor-to-floor height, and servicing concept, which had also recently been canceled. The project was divided into two structurally independent components — a U-shaped concrete structure, and the Ring, which contains a new, six-floor steel tower called the Showcase. The Ring houses flexible office space, and the Showcase includes an auditorium, showrooms, meeting rooms, and executive offices.

Five Rivers to Join at Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge

Xinjin Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge.

WXY Architecture

WXY Architecture and Weidlinger Associates have won the international design competition for the Xinjin Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge. Located in China’s Sichuan Province, the idea for the design reflects the location of the bridge at the confluence of five rivers. The 600-foot-long bridge, based on a double helix configuration, will have new bridge landings and plazas and an interactive lighting design. Rotterdam-based MVRDV, Glasgow-based OLA Architects, and Ty Lin Shanghai were short-listed in the competition.