In this issue:
· Van Alen Books Fills Gap Left by Urban Center Books
· Installation Worms Its Way Down the Bowery
· Staten Island Museum Nestles in to Snug Harbor
· Luxury Hotel Reaches New Heights
· It Takes a Village, Condominium, and Hotel in Jesolo Lido

Van Alen Books Fills Gap Left by Urban Center Books

Book emporium at the Van Alen Institute.

LOT-EK

The Van Alen Institute will be opening a new architecture and design book emporium and gathering space later this month. The store will make available the remaining stock from the shuttered Urban Center Books, and will collaborate with publishers to offer a selection of new and noteworthy titles. Designed by LOT-EK, the storefront space at the institute’s headquarters features a 14-foot-tall staircase crafted from a stack of 70 recycled doors, which step up to create an amphitheater overlooking the street through glazed storefront windows. Sourced from Build It Green! NYC, a nonprofit supplier of salvaged building materials, the solid wood doors form a triangular platform evoking the steps of Times Square’s TKTS Booth, a project originated through the institute’s 1999 design competition. Beyond its role as a bookstore, multidisciplinary performances, debates, discussions, and storytelling sessions will be programmed. Van Alen Books is made possible through seed funding from Furthermore, a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund, as well as the guidance of Joan K. Davidson and Margot Wellington.

Installation Worms Its Way Down the Bowery

The Worms planned for the Storefront for Art and Architecture’s StreetFest International.

Family and PlayLab

A team of emerging NYC-based designers, Family and PlayLab, has been selected as the winners of Storefront for Art and Architecture’s StreetFest International competition. The competition called for designs of street tents that not only serve as shelters, but also as active elements. “The Worms” are modular accordion forms, skinned in bright, lightweight, waterproof rip-stop nylon. Each modular unit is 10 feet high and 20 feet long, and can be combined in a number of configurations. Rolled galvanized steel ribs supported by steel forks resting on swivel casters create bays that can expand, turn, and contract to host a variety of programs. They will be on view near the New Museum on 05.07.11 as part of the Festival of Ideas for the New City. In addition, “The Worms” will be used at the NYC Department of Transportation’s summer events and other temporary street fairs this summer.

Staten Island Museum Nestles in to Snug Harbor

Staten Island Museum.

Gluckman Mayner Architects

The Staten Island Museum recently broke ground for its new home in Building A, a landmarked, long-vacant building on the Snug Harbor Cultural Center Campus. The reconstruction, designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects, will provide 18,000 square feet of usable space, including an auditorium/performance venue and a multipurpose room for community exhibitions. Upon completion, a full-scale Mastodon replica will greet visitors in the first floor lobby, which will also contain Hudson River School paintings placed in counterpoint with newly commissioned contemporary representations of the Staten Island landscape. The second floor will contain a mix of ancient art on loan. The ground level will be home to “The Green Museum: Keeping Our Cool” exhibition, where visitors can learn about the history of Snug Harbor’s architecture and the innovative engineering of the 19th century, as compared with today’s green technologies. The new facility, which is expected to achieve LEED Gold, will utilize a closed loop geothermal system. Staten Island Museum, which is currently located in St. George, is owned by the City of New York and benefits from public funds provided through the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

Luxury Hotel Reaches New Heights

The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong.

Photo by Grischa Ruschendorf

The world’s highest hotel, The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong, located on the uppermost floors of the International Commerce Center designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, recently opened. The hotel occupies floors 102 to 118 of the “vertical city” and contains 312 guest rooms and luxury amenities. The hotel also has the world’s highest bar, glass-enclosed on the rooftop with an outdoor terrace. The tower contains offices, residences, retail, restaurants, cafés, and a 360-degree observation deck situated above a transportation network that spans the Pearl River Delta. Hong Kong-based Wong & Ouyang served as the associate architect, and Singapore’s LTW Designworks was the interior designer for the hotel.

It Takes a Village, Condominium, and Hotel in Jesolo Lido

Jesolo Lido Condominiums.

Renderings by dbox

Jesolo Lido Condominiums, Phase 2 of an ongoing project along Italy’s Adriatic coast designed by Richard Meier & Partners Architects, is scheduled to open this summer. The 10-story building features open staircases and shaded terraces on all elevations with ocean views. The project contains 69 units, featuring six ground-floor apartments with private gardens and a spa, and are five duplex penthouses, each with its own outdoor pool. Phase 1, Jesolo Lido Village, completed in 2007, is a long rectangular residential building with 23 units and retail space on the ground floor. Phase 3, in the development stage, is a 30,000-square-foot, six-story hotel with 122 rooms above a two-story lobby. All three projects — village, condominiums, and hotel — are tied together along a spine running from north to south, which also acts as a viewing corridor and public access walkway to the beachfront.