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.