In this issue:
• Bringing Good Things to Life in NJ
• School Designed to Meet the Exacting Needs Associated With the Study of Law
• Designing the Future of Retail Environments
• Everyone in the New Pool!
• The Fire Island Phoenix

Bringing Good Things to Life in NJ

(c) Woodruff / Brown Photography

Courtesy Gensler

The new five-story, 325,000-square-foot North American headquarters for the international chemical company BASF has achieved LEED Platinum for both core-and-shell and commercial interiors, and has the distinction of being one of five double-Platinum buildings in the country. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) and located in The Green at Florham Park, NJ, the building is clad in a clear low-E insulating glass-and-aluminum curtain wall system with stainless-steel entrances and canopies with stone bases and benches. The south façade incorporates a horizontal louvered sun shade system to provide shading for the exposed glass façade. A sunken landscaped garden is conceived as a landscaped surface that peels up from the ground floor to form a stone layer that bisects the lower volume to define the building entry. Hart Howerton served as landscape architect.

The Gensler-designed interiors create a more transparent environment between employees using lots of glass, and stairs that connect departments between floors. Meeting spaces, collaborative areas, closed confidential rooms, and amenities are designed so employees can enjoy access to daylight. The project also features a stadium-like learning and development center which seats up to 120, an interactive welcome/innovation center that showcases the BASF portfolio, and a lab just for kids so they can learn the role chemistry plays in the world around them.

School Designed to Meet the Exacting Needs Associated with the Study of Law

Southeast view

Courtesy Gluckman Mayner Architects

Atrium level

Courtesy Gluckman Mayner Architects

Auditorium from exterior

Courtesy Gluckman Mayner Architects

Construction recently began on Dineen Hall, Syracuse University College of Law, designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects. Sited on a former parking lot adjacent to other law school buildings, the approximately 200,000-square-foot, five-story building has a masonry and glass exterior. The building features a central atrium at the main level that is positioned beneath a green roof that creates a seasonal outdoor terrace space. The atrium visually links the college’s core elements of legal study: a library, a 330-seat ceremonial courtroom/auditorium, collaborative areas, and a celebratory space. Classrooms, offices, and meeting places are arranged with casual spaces for informal gatherings and collegial interaction. The project is slated to be completed by 2014 and expected to achieve LEED Gold. Richard Gluckman, FAIA, a Syracuse University School of Architecture alum, is the lead architect on the project.

Designing the Future of Retail Environments

Main view from entrance

Courtesy Gage / Clemenceau Architects

Mannequin with an original Lady Gaga outfit

Courtesy Gage / Clemenceau Architects

Detail of the vacuum-formed panda wall surface

Courtesy Gage / Clemenceau Architects

Gage / Clemenceau Architects has completed a 1,350-square-foot store in Hong Kong for designer Nicola Formichetti, best known for his creative work for fashion brands Mugler, Uniqlo, and rock star Lady Gaga. The new store is located in Lane Crawford, a leading specialty store in the IFC Mall, an Asian fashion mecca. This experimental project fuses architecture, fashion, visual special effects, and social media, and features original outfits from Lady Gaga’s collection, as well as other Formichetti designs, including a new Nicopanda line. Over 350 three-foot-tall, vacuum-formed clear plastic panda panels Illuminated with color-shifting LEDs were designed. This is the second collaboration between the architects and the designer; BOFFO Building Fashion 2011 paired the two as part of a series of pop-up spaces in New York. The third collaboration takes place in Lane Crawford’s store in Beijing. Click here to view a video of the Hong Kong project from rendering to realization.

Everyone in the New Pool!

Courtesy Rogers Marvel Architects

Courtesy Rogers Marvel Architects

Courtesy Rogers Marvel Architects

After an extensive restoration designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation is set to open the McCarren Pool complex. Located within the 35-acre McCarren Park, which is nestled between the Williamsburg and Greenpoint sections of Brooklyn, the complex’s centerpiece is the public pool that can accommodate more than 1,500 swimmers. Under PlaNYC, $50 million was allocated to fund the renovation of the historic bathhouse building and entry arch, as well as the 37,570-square-foot pool. The new plaza called “the beach” is located in the pool’s center; it has spray fountains during summer and is designed to be converted into an ice skating rink in the winter. The project also includes new open air changing rooms, which allow the original bathhouse to be converted into a year-round community center that contains a gym, basketball court, multi-purpose community space, office spaces, and a snack shop. Originally opened in the summer of 1936, the pool closed in 1984, sat abandoned for 20 years, and finally had an interim life as a performance space. The project is seeking LEED Silver certification for its use of green materials and construction methods, which include interior partitions and exterior screens made of salvaged wood from the Coney Island boardwalk.

The Fire Island Phoenix

Courtesy HWKN

Courtesy HWKN

Construction has begun on a new 8,000-square-foot, two-story Pavilion dance club on Fire Island, designed by Holliwch Kushner (HWKN) and developed by FIP Ventures. Occupying the same footprint as the one destroyed by fire last year, the new building’s form is sheared towards the harbor, welcoming those who arrive by ferry. The design stretches the public zone of the boardwalk up to the open, wooden façade. Benches, wide staircases, and storefronts activate the base of the building and the entrance forms a set of bleachers that act as a viewing platform, stage, wedding chapel, and an extended dance floor. Two stories of terraces add approximately 3,000 square feet of space, and partial overhangs add some cover in inclement weather. The Pavilion is expected to be completed in 2013. Repairs have been made on the neighboring Canteen building, pool deck, bulkhead, and boardwalk that were also damaged by the fire. A master plan for FIP’s Fire Island properties is being led by Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

THIS JUST IN…

Columbia University’s environmentally sustainable design and overall project plan for its 17-acre Manhattanville campus in West Harlem has earned LEED-ND (Neighborhood Development) Platinum certification, the first in New York City, as well as the first Platinum certification for a university campus plan nationally.

The first of desigNYC’s 2012 Recharging Communities built environment projects has been realized and unveiled at the LES (Lower East Side) BID’s DayLife event on Orchard Street. Dub Studio designed a prototype for a modern-day urban pushcart. Click here to see the process.

Vox populi! The popular vote winners of American Express/National Trust for Historic Preservation Partners in Preservation grants have been chosen. Receiving $250,000 are: Park Slope’s Brooklyn Public Library to restore the main entrance doors; Congregation Beth Elohim, also in Park Slope, to restore stained glass windows; and New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx to restore its rock garden. The Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum in the Bronx will receive $155,000 to restore areas within the gardens. Sites to receive the remainder of the $ 2.1 million in grants will be announced shortly.

New York Magazine and Dwell have joined forces to launch a festival that will feature design-related events and home tours in Manhattan and Brooklyn during the first week of Archtober, AIANY’s month-long celebration of architecture and design. In addition, the 10th Anniversary OHNY Weekend takes place October 6 and 7 in all five boroughs.

Inside a 40,000-square-foot warehouse in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, HÜB at Northside, a 50’ x 35’ x 16’ elliptical-shaped inflatable structure that serves as the Northside Festival’s town hall, has been designed by Überanst to change the dynamics of interactions at conferences. The structure is wrapped with projections of real-time “big data” visuals in an effort to foster real-world connections.