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:
· Recipe for New Design: The Robert at MAD
· What’s Cooking at the Freedom Tower
· Autohaus Shifts into Gear
· More Mixed-Use for Melrose Commons
· Louvre Expands LENS to Lille

Recipe for New Design: The Robert at MAD

The Robert.

Photo Credit: Andrea Malizia

The Robert, a 132-seat restaurant, recently opened on the ninth floor of the Museum of Arts and Design. Schefer Design created a flexible, open interior environment that maximizes views of Columbus Circle and Central Park. Materials such as metallic porcelain tiles, expanded metal ceiling panels, stainless-steel trim, tightly upholstered metallic fabric panels, decorative plaster, and strategically placed mirrored panels create a back-drop that reflects the museum’s architecture and provides a setting for selected art installations. London-based designer Philip Michael Wolfson created sculptural pieces including the restaurant’s two reception desks and a 15-foot-long steel communal table with a six-foot-tall “sound wave” element. Mobile-like LED-lit Lucite chandeliers and sconces were designed by San Francisco-based designer Johanna Grawunder, and Vladimir Kagan designed the upholstered furniture. A new video art piece, “Orbit 2″ by artist Jennifer Steinkamp, is the first work to be displayed on the restaurant’s 103-inch plasma screen.

What’s Cooking at the Freedom Tower

The Subway restaurant is located in the Northwest Pod — containers NW31, NW32 AND NW33.

Courtesy PANYNJ; Courtesy DCM Erectors

A Subway restaurant has opened for Freedom Tower construction workers who want to stay in the tower during their half-hour lunch break (as the tower gets higher, it could take them 45 minutes to get to the street). The restaurant is like any other Subway, but the big difference is that it is housed in a series of shipping containers that will rise in tandem with the tower itself. A Subway franchisee was subcontracted by DCM Erectors, which fabricates and installs all of the tower’s structural steel. DCM Erectors was given the layout and they had the container fabricated to suit the constraints of the structure of the tower. The restaurant occupies three of nine top level containers. The remaining six containers in the pod are for dining areas and mechanical services.

Autohaus Shifts into Gear

Mercedes-Benz Autohaus.

The Spector Group

The Spector Group has been awarded the contract to design the new Mercedes-Benz Manhattan dealership in Clinton Park, a mixed-use development on 11th Avenue between 53rd and 54th Streets designed by TEN Arquitectos and currently under construction by Two Trees Management. The dealership will occupy parts of the first two floors of the complex for showrooms and offices, and three levels below ground for service facilities. This is the only company-owned dealership in the country, and the flagship of the Mercedes-Benz Autohaus initiative, a new set of design standards geared toward optimizing the customer’s experience. The new facility will combine brand and architectural design elements that are oriented toward creating more transparency, comfort, and convenience. It will feature state-of-the-art showroom technology and a service area. In addition to the dealership, the $700 million Clinton Park includes more than 900 mixed income rental apartments, retail space, a health club, and a NYPD equestrian facility.

More Mixed-Use for Melrose Commons

Melrose Commons North Urban Renewal Area.

Magnusson Architecture & Planning

One of the last large city-owned tracts of land in the Melrose Commons North Urban Renewal Area (URA) in the Bronx will be transformed into a mixed-use project designed by Magnusson Architecture & Planning (MAP). Three connected buildings will include 260 units of low- to moderate-income family housing, subsidized senior housing, studios, and 27,500 square feet of retail space. The project is designed for LEED Silver certification; green features include solar heating, roof gardens, and storm water management. Developed by CPC Resources, The Bridge, and The Briarwood Organization; the latter will also construct the project. Under the auspices of the City of New York Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), 2,743 dwelling units have already been built or are currently under construction within the Melrose Commons URA, contributing to the city’s $7.5 billion New Housing Marketplace Plan (NHMP) to build and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing.

Louvre Expands LENS to Lille

Louvre LENS.

SANAA/ImreyCulbert/Catherine Mosbach

Ground was recently broken on a former coalfield for the new Louvre LENS near the city of Lille in northern France. Co-designed by NY-based Imrey Culbert, Tokyo-based SANAA, and Paris-based Mosbach Paysagistes, the new branch of the Louvre will span 300,000 square feet and will house hundreds of artworks from the Louvre’s collection. Located on a 153-acre site, five one-story transparent and reflective pavilions will blend into the landscape. One of the pavilions, the Gallery of Time, will feature a semi-permanent exhibition of artworks regardless of styles and origins and arranged in chronological order — a departure from the way art is exhibited in Paris. A square-shaped pavilion in the center serves as the main reception area and will contain a large staircase that leads down to the first basement level. It will house a place where visitors can look down into the museum’s studios and see where artworks are prepared for display.

In this issue:
· New York’s Bravest Receive Design Excellence
· Museum of Jewish Heritage Expands View
· LEED Platinum Building Serves as Test Lab to Improve Respiratory Health
· Sponge Park & Eco Dock Are in Brooklyn’s Future
· Museum Hotel Fosters Arts, Urban Revival
· Crocker Art Museum Triples for 125th Anniversary

New York’s Bravest Receive Design Excellence

Engine Company 201.

© Albert Vecerka / Esto, courtesy FDNY

Engine Company 201 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, designed by RKT&B Architecture and Urban Design, is the first completed firehouse as part of the NYC Department of Design and Construction’s Design Excellence Program. It is also the city’s first firehouse to be built with glass doors at ground level, expressing the importance the firehouse plays in the community by visually connecting firefighters with the neighborhood they serve. The design gives top priority to apparatus floor functions, response time, and operational efficiency of the shared spaces. The second floor contains offices, bunkrooms, bathrooms, lockers, and storage facilities, with horizontal and vertical circulation allowing fast access to the trucks on the ground floor. The third floor contains private spaces and includes a dormitory bunkroom, study facilities, and locker rooms. Design elements include a Maltese Cross, which is embossed on the street-level glass doors and expressed as an illuminated light box on the third floor façade. Brightly glazed red brick is used throughout, and a pre-existing ground floor memorial dedicated to fallen heroes has been preserved.

Museum of Jewish Heritage Expands View

Keeping History Center.

Melanie Einzig

The recently opened 2,200-square-foot Keeping History Center is the first permanent addition to the Museum of Jewish Heritage since the Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates-designed Robert M. Morgenthau Wing opened in 2003. Designed by the interdisciplinary design firm C&G Partners, and Potion, a design and technology firm, the center is located at the end of a special exhibition hall that contains the Garden of Stones Timekeeper, a time-lapse showcase of Andy Goldsworthy’s sculptural installation. With panoramic views of New York Harbor, modular Plyboo chevron-shaped benches echo the room’s position in relation to the Statue of Liberty. They are located in circular listening stations that play “Voices of Liberty,” a soundscape of immigrant voices describing arriving in America for the first time accessed via an iPod Touch. One of the voices is Daniel Libeskind, AIA, who arrived in New York in 1959.

LEED Platinum Building Serves as Test Lab to Improve Respiratory Health

The Eltona.

Danois Architects

The Eltona, a five-story residential building in Melrose Commons in the South Bronx, is a standout with the 10 wind turbines mounted on its parapet to generate electricity for the building. The 70,566-square-foot, LEED Platinum project, designed by Danois Architects, contains 63 residential rental units ranging from one to three bedrooms, with a ground-floor community room, 6,800 square feet of landscaped recreation space, and an adjacent community garden. Located in an area known as the “Harlem-South Bronx Asthma Corridor,” residents will serve as subjects for the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, which will investigate and quantify what effects living in a green building may have on respiratory health of asthma sufferers. Not only is the building 100% smoke-free, each apartment will have a separate air ventilation system, and all public areas will be served by high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter systems. Blue Sea Development, the building management company, constructed the $16.5 million Eltona in partnership with agencies including the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Housing Development Corporation, and the NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal.

Sponge Park & Eco Dock Are in Brooklyn’s Future

Eco Dock Prototype.

Guardia Architects

The development of the Gowanus Canal Sponge Park, designed by dlandstudio, recently took a step forward when the fiscal year Interior and Environment Appropriations conference report was approved in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill includes $300,000 for the project, which will incorporate greenery along the banks of the canal to manage excess runoff and help improve water quality. Still awaiting decision is whether the polluted canal will be declared a U.S. Superfund site.

With funding in place, the first of several planned Eco Docks will be constructed by next summer. Designed by Guardia Architects and located at the 69th Street Pier in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the dock will be a flexible, lightweight, 20-by-40-foot barge. Cost-effective to build and easy to maintain, the project will become a prototype to extend up the Hudson River to Albany, with numerous Eco Docks ready for visitor drop-off and pick-up, community programs, and possibly, ferry service. The docks are a legacy project of the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial Commission, spearheaded by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance in partnership with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation.

Museum Hotel Fosters Arts, Urban Revival

21c Museum Hotel in Cincinnati.

Deborah Berke & Partners Architects

Deborah Berke & Partners Architects, who served as design architect for the original 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville, KY, will repeat the role at the new 21c Museum Hotel in Cincinnati. The renovation will restore the 97-year-old former Metropole Hotel, recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Building on 21c Museum Hotel’s mission of engaging the public with contemporary art, the hotel will feature a contemporary art museum with more than 8,000 square feet of exhibition space. In addition, the facility will contain 160 guest rooms, a restaurant and bar, and meeting spaces. Located adjacent to the Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati (by Zaha Hadid Architects) and across the street from the Aronoff Center for the Arts (by César Pelli, FAIA), the new museum/hotel is expected to help foster the ongoing revival of the city and strengthen its role as a cultural destination. The firm will collaborate with Pittsburgh-based Perfido Weiskopf Wagstaff + Goettel as executive architect, noted for its experience in historic preservation projects.

Crocker Art Museum Triples for 125th Anniversary

Crocker Art Museum.

Courtesy Crocker Art Museum

Next October, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA, will open a new 125,000-square-foot expansion/addition, designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, which will more than triple the museum’s current size. The new building will complement the historic museum and expand its capacity for its growing collection, traveling exhibitions, and educational programs. Upon arriving at the new museum, visitors will enter a two-story, glass-walled court from a new 7,000-square-foot open-air courtyard. The indoor and outdoor spaces of the first floor will provide a community gathering place. The building will also include: expanded educational and art studio space; a teacher resource center; a space for participatory arts programming; an expanded library; student exhibition galleries; a 260-seat auditorium and meeting center; a café with indoor and outdoor seating; a redesigned store; space for onsite collections care and storage; and a new conservation lab. A Works on Paper Study Center will improve access for visiting scholars studying the Crocker’s master drawings collection.

In this issue:
· Downtown: Gehry Makes a New Impression
· Foundation Grants $25 Million to Improve 2 NYC Parks
· Upper East Side Patterns New Condo Design
· Action at Pier 94: NYC Expands Trade Show Capacity
· Melrose Commons Builds First Sustainable Building
· Crafting a Center for Kids
· Calais Border Station is Flexible, Secure, Pollution-Free
· 1815 WV Mansion Gets New Lease on Life

Downtown: Gehry Makes a New Impression

Beekman Tower looking up from Park Row.

Artefactory

The 76-story Beekman Tower will be Gehry Partners’ first residential high-rise/mixed-use commission in NYC, and at 867 feet tall it will be the tallest residential building in Manhattan. The Forest City Ratner Companies’ development will feature a 1.1-million-square-foot structure sheathed in glass and stainless steel cladding atop a six-story masonry podium. In addition to 903 market-rate rental apartments, the development will include a four-story, 100,000-square-foot pre-K through eighth-grade public school in the podium — the first public school built in NYC on private land — with a 5,000-square-foot rooftop play area. A 21,000-square-foot ambulatory care center for New York Downtown Hospital will be used as doctors’ offices, 1,300 square feet will be dedicated to neighborhood-oriented ground-floor retail space, and there will be 26,000 square feet of below-grade parking.

Due to the design of the curtain wall, each floor will have a different configuration. The folds of the façade create bay windows inside. The complex surface geometry of the curtain wall will be mapped by computer software developed by Gehry Technologies called Digital Project. There will also be a wide range of amenities including a gym, spa with swimming pool and sundeck, business conference-center, residents’ recreational lounge with golf-simulator, demonstration kitchen, and children’s playroom and television lounge. The site will feature two 15,000-square-foot landscaped public plazas designed by Field Operations.

Foundation Grants $25 Million to Improve 2 NYC Parks

Rendering of Prospect Park’s future Concert Grove.

Rendering by Peter DePasquale, courtesy NYC Department of Parks and Recreation

The Leon Levy Foundation is awarding $15 million to The New York Botanical Garden for the creation of a new Native Plant Garden on 3.5 acres adjacent to the Native Forest and Rock Garden. It will serve as a center for the study and display of plants native to northeastern United States. The garden will be one of the first projects in the Botanical Garden’s Master Plan, being developed by the Philadelphia-based landscape architecture firm Olin Partnership.

The foundation has also awarded $10 million to Prospect Park to fund renovation of the park’s 26-acre Lakeside Center, and help to restore the park to its original design as envisioned by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The grant will fund the demolition of Wollman Rink, the first step toward bringing back the area’s native trees, shrubs, and aquatics; new rinks will be built nearby. In addition, Music Island will be rebuilt as a natural habitat sanctuary where pedestrian viewing paths will be restored along the lake edge, and invasive aquatic reeds will be removed. Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects will design the new building and ice rinks, with Christian Zimmerman of the Prospect Park Alliance as landscape architect.

Upper East Side Patterns New Condo Design

Isis Condominium.

Courtesy Alchemy Properties

FXFOWLE Architects has designed an 18-story luxury residential condo on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for Alchemy Properties. Billed as a “family-friendly” building, Isis Condominium will contain 31 two-, two-plus den, and three-bedroom residences — two units per floor and four penthouses. Resting on a six-story base, the façade features a greenish-gray mosaic made by Trespa. The project is currently under construction with an expected completion date in July 2009.

Action at Pier 94: NYC Expands Trade Show

Piers 92 and 94 — future home of a new trade show facility.

Courtesy Dattner Architects

New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) has designated the team of Vornado Realty Trust and its subsidiary Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. to redevelop and expand the trade show facility on Manhattan’s far west side. The design team includes Dattner Architects and SMWM, with Philip Habib and Associates acting as traffic consultants. The project will expand the trade show facility on Pier 94 to include Pier 92 and will contain approximately 355,000 square feet of trade show and conference space. The project will also feature a 9,300-square-foot winter garden and accessible open space around the perimeter. A 60,000-square-foot logistics center will accommodate loading/unloading, storage, and other back-of-the-house functions to relieve traffic congestion. Developers hope the $100 million renovation will help NYC capture a larger share of the tradeshow market.

Melrose Commons Builds First Sustainable Building

El Jardin de Seline.

Magnusson Architecture and Planning

Construction is underway on El Jardin de Seline, a new, sustainable affordable housing project in the Melrose Commons section of the Bronx. The mixed-use, mixed-income rental building was designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning (MAP) and developed by a joint venture of Nos Quedamos, MJM Construction Services, and Melrose Associates. At 12 stories, the project will be the tallest building in the neighborhood and will reference “old Bronx style” with its use of art deco motifs and materials consistent with local buildings. Funded by the NYC Housing Development Corporation, the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Richman Housing Resources, and NYSERDA, El Jardin will contain 84 units from studio to 2-bedroom apartments and will be available to residents making up to 60% and 80% of AMI. The project will contain over 2,000 square feet of community space including a laundry room and outdoor courtyard, as well as 6,000 square feet of retail space and 12,000 square feet of parking. It is expected to receive a LEED Silver rating upon completion.

Crafting a Center for Kids

The Queens Child Guidance Center.

CetraRuddy

CetraRuddy has redesigned the Queens Child Guidance Center in Woodside. The organization is a family-focused non-profit that annually serves more than 12,000 children, ranging from newborns to 20-year-olds. Programming and design combined four separate facilities into one central location. The space includes two large conference rooms for group sessions — one specifically for young children with play spaces, and another for older children and adults adjacent to a two-way observation room for staff — and 40 brightly-colored soundproof counseling rooms. The Child Center is now moving into a second design phase and is adding 5,000 square feet to the existing space.

Calais Border Station is Flexible, Secure, Pollution-Free

U.S. Land Port of Entry.

Robert Siegel Architects

Ground was recently broken on the U.S. Land Port of Entry in Calais, ME. The 100,000-square-foot building, designed by NY-based Robert Siegel Architects for the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection, is part of the General Services Administration’s Design Excellence Program. The design is intended to create a welcoming yet secure, flexible yet permanent gateway between the U.S. and Canada. The facility will be wrapped with a textured aluminum façade that acts as a protective barrier for surveillance and reflects sun and shadows. A concealed courtyard protects staff from pollution and vehicle traffic but manages to offer unobstructed views of the rugged landscape. The station, which has an overall budget of $48 million, is slated for completion in November 2009. The firm garnered a Merit Award in the Projects category of the 2007 AIANY Design Awards.

1815 WV Mansion Gets New Lease on Life

Holly Grove Mansion.

Swanke Hayden Connell Architects

Swanke Hayden Connell Architects (SHCA) has been selected by the state of West Virginia to design a comprehensive rehabilitation plan for Holly Grove Mansion, a 5,300-square-foot mansion listed on the National Historic Register of Historic Places. The circa 1815 Classic Revival mansion is on the State Capitol grounds in Charleston, next to the Governor’s Mansion. SHCA performed a due diligence evaluation and researched adaptive new uses, such as offices, event space, guesthouse, and museum. The scope of services entailed a full building assessment, including code-compliant analysis for stabilization and repair of deteriorated structural components. In addition to restoration and replication of period elements, new mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire suppression systems will be concealed, and period appropriate architectural finishes and features will be selected to support the building’s historic character.

In this issue:
·Affordable Housing in Bronx Is UP
·Museum-within-a-museum: New Light Shed on Greek and Roman Art
·Cooper-Hewitt Renovates
·Randall’s Island Sports New Look
·Water Heals at Medical College
·Boris Godounov Plays Princeton
·On the Boards in Baltimore

Affordable Housing in Bronx Is UP

500 East 165 Street in the Bronx.

Magnusson Architecture and Planning

Ground was broken for a new affordable housing project, designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning (MAP), in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. Developed by a joint venture of L&M Equity Participants, Nos Quedamos, and Melrose Associates, the building will rise eight stories on a corner of 165th Street and Third Avenue. Because of the site’s location on a main thoroughfare, MAP plans for a dramatic façade and an articulated corner entry with a setback to create public open space in front of the building. The steep slope of the site inspired a partially double height atrium space that allows light to move through the building and affords views from the street to a landscaped courtyard. Funded through New York State’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal, the project will create 128 units of affordable housing for residents earning up to 60% of Area Median Income (AMI), and approximately 4,500 square feet of commercial space.

Museum-within-a-museum: New Light Shed on Greek and Roman Art

Cubiculum (bedroom) from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor.

Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art

After more than five years of construction, the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is now open to the public. Billed as a “museum-within-the-museum,” the long-awaited opening concludes the completion of a 15-year redesign project headed by Kevin Roche, FAIA. Returning to public view are the Met’s collection of classical art and thousands of long-stored works from the museum’s collection of Hellenistic, Etruscan, South Italian, and Roman art — on display in a peristyle court with a two-story atrium evoking that of a large Roman villa. The McKim, Mead, and White atrium previously displayed Roman art for 20 years before being converted into a cafeteria. Although the new design introduces several features, it remains faithful to the architects’ original concept — classically inspired architecture — and a glass roof that allows the objects below to be viewed in natural daylight

Cooper-Hewitt Renovates
On the heels of an ambitious capital campaign, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum has raised $33 million for the renovation of its home in the landmark Andrew Carnegie Mansion. The Design Architect Selection Committee, which includes the museum’s executive architect, Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, unanimously chose Richard Gluckman, FAIA, principal of Gluckman Mayner Architects, to develop the interior renovation. Through renovation and re-programming portions of the Carnegie Mansion and the adjacent Miller and Fox townhouses owned by the museum, the project expects to increase the museum’s total exhibition space from approximately 10,000 to 18,000 square feet.

Gluckman will design a new 7,000-square-foot flexible gallery and stairway to connect floors — which will be expanded with an additional 1,000 square feet of gallery space — forming a juxtaposition between 21st century design and the mansion’s Georgian style. The renovation program, which follows a two-year master planning process conducted by Beyer Blinder Belle, will advance in stages, with the design development by Gluckman to be conducted in the coming months. The renovation of the Miller and Fox townhouses will begin in spring 2008, followed by the renovation of the Carnegie Mansion, beginning in summer 2009.

Randall’s Island Sports New Look

The main quad planned for Randall’s Island.

Courtesy Levien & Company

Levien & Company is project manager for the Randall’s Island Sports Development Project, one of the largest public works projects in recent NYC history. The $127 million project will contain 64 state-of-the-art athletic fields, attendant roadways, parking, pedestrian pathways, lighting, landscaping, and comfort stations to be built on the island’s 300 acres. In response to a growing need for quality sports and recreation facilities in the city, the non-profit Randall’s Island Sports Foundation (RISF) created a public-private partnership with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. Together, they commissioned a master plan prepared by M. Paul Friedberg and Partners and Ricardo Zurita Architecture & Planning for Randall’s and Ward’s Islands. Already implemented is construction of the Icahn Track & Field Stadium (designed by Hillier), and in the development stage are a new and expanded Sportime Tennis Center and 27-acre Aquatic Entertainment Complex.

Water Heals at Medical College

Weill Greenberg Center.

Polshek Partnership Architects

Sited on the Upper East Side, the newly completed 330,000-square-foot, 15-story Weill Greenberg Center for ambulatory care takes its place among the college’s array of different architectural styles. Guided by the principle that the building’s design is integral to the healing process, Polshek Partnership Architects created a series of interior water features, including a 60-foot-long water wall, a 100-foot-long stream, and a reflecting pool. An interior vehicle drop-off that opens directly onto the ground floor lobby (complete with valet parking) facilitates patient arrivals and departures. A white ceramic fritted glass curtain wall cut into undulating vertical facets allows soft light to permeate the interior while assuring patient privacy. It also reflects the gothic motif of the original New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center across York Avenue.

Boris Godounov Plays Princeton

Set design for “Boris Godunov.”

RUR Architecture

Jesse Reiser, AIA, principal of Reiser + Umemoto RUR Architecture, led a team of graduate students at Princeton University’s School of Architecture in designing the set for the world premiere of Alexander Pushkin’s 1825 play, “Boris Godunov.” The interdisciplinary set design involved the concept, design, and production of the sets using legendary theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold’s notes and other source materials as the basis for a new interpretation. For the design of the sets, Meyerhold’s concept of the “biomechanical theatre” was extrapolated to fit a 21st century paradigm.

On the Boards in Baltimore

Master plan for the Market Center Urban Renewal Area.

Cooper, Robertson & Partners

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dunn recently unveiled Cooper, Robertson & Partners’ urban design plans for Lexington Square, a mixed-use urban retail destination and residential project. The three-city-block, $250 million redevelopment project has been designed to revitalize the Market Center Urban Renewal Area of Baltimore’s Westside. Two 14-story residential towers containing 400 residential rental apartments, 300,000 square feet of retail space, and 900 enclosed parking spaces comprise the project that is slated to begin construction in Spring 2008.