by: Linda G. Miller
SOM Unveils Plans for Life Sciences Research Campus
Mayor Eric Adams, Governor Kathy Hochul, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), and The City University of New York (CUNY) unveiled SOM’s masterplan for the Science Park and Research Campus (SPARC) Kips Bay Master Plan, a first-of-its-kind life sciences career and education hub. SOM has produced a plan that will transform an entire city block— from 1st Avenue to FDR Drive, between 25th and 26th Street—with up to two-million-square-feet of academic, public health, and life sciences space, including three new towers of varying heights. The vertical campus will be home to Hunter College School of Nursing and School of Health Professions, the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, and the Borough of Manhattan Community College’s health care programs, plus a planned public high school. In addition, the space will contain an ambulatory care center for New York City Health+Hospitals (H+H)/Bellevue, training centers for CUNY students, a new Office of Chief Medical Examiner Forensic Pathology Center, new commercial office, and wet lab development space. In addition to the master plan, the Adams administration launched a new community task force led by NYCEDC to shape and steer the project’s vision and released a request for proposals for architectural design and related consulting services for the complex’s buildings and green spaces. The deadline to submit is January 8, 2024. SPARC Kips Bay is expected to generate approximately $42 billion in economic impact over the next 30 years, create 15,000 jobs (12,000 in construction and 3,100 permanent jobs in the life sciences sector), and advance the LifeSci NYC goal of 10-million-square-feet of life sciences space by 2030. SPARC Kips Bay is expected to enlist in the city’s Uniform Land Use and Review Procedure in spring 2024, break ground in late 2025, and be completed by the end of 2031.
Gensler’s Office to Residential Conversion for Pearl House
Leasing has been launched for Pearl House, the city’s largest office-to-residential conversion to date. Located at 160 Water Street, the formerly 24-story underutilized Class B office tower, built in 1972, has been transformed by Gensler into a 525,000-square-foot, 29-story office tower that will yield 588 luxury rental units, ranging from studios to two-bedrooms, and an acre of indoor and outdoor “club-inspired” amenities spanning three floors. Strategic architectural interventions include altering building cores, retrofitting operable windows, and adding new floors with a five-story overbuild atop the original structure. The lobby level features a sculptural brass staircase and offers a selection of lounge and social spaces. The concourse level caters to wellness, socializing, relaxation, and recreational activities, including a spa with facilities like a cold plunge pool, hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber, and interconnected social lounges. The Sky House is an entire floor of indoor and outdoor spaces and includes a full-size bar, chef’s kitchen, lounges, co-working spaces, and landscaped terraces. The project is being developed by the Vanbarton Group and is expected to be completed in mid-2024.
Studio Libeskind Reveals Memorial at Tree of Life Synagogue
Studio Libeskind, in partnership with local firm Rothschild Doyno Collaborative and the Memorialization Working Group (consisting of victims’ family members, communal leaders, and congregational representatives), has unveiled the preliminary design for the memorial for the individuals killed on October 27, 2018 at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. Eleven sculptural open books representing each of the victims will be placed along a landscaped walkway leading into the new 45,000-square-foot building. The space will hold a sanctuary for the Tree of Life congregation, an education and research center, plus a museum that will be the country’s first to focus on the historical roots and modern manifestations of antisemitism in the United States. The building features the “Path of Light,” a skylight that runs the entire length of the building. The building is expected to break ground in 2024 and open in mid-2026.
CookFox Architects Designs Mass-Timber Bruce Springsteen Museum
CookFox’s design of the new Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music (BSACAM) will celebrate the life, legacy, and art of Bruce Springsteen within the broader history of American Music. The 29,000-square-foot building is located on the campus of Monmouth University in West Long Branch, NJ. The university currently houses the Springsteen archives, and it is also the place where the musician performed his first concerts and later hosted Springsteen symposiums. The two-story mass timber building is clad in weathered steel evoking New Jersey’s industrial infrastructure. A mass timber structure reduces embodied carbon while reinforcing the warmth and familiarity many associate with Bruce Springsteen’s music. The rain screen panels rotate to reveal glazing underneath, illuminating displayed archival objects safely with clerestory lighting. Visitors access the building via a walkway reminiscent of the Jersey Shore and then enter a double-height entry hall, which bisects the open interior layout into a 200-seat soundstage and theater at one end and exhibition galleries in the other. Lower-level galleries feature displays about the heritage of American music while exhibitions about Springsteen and the E Street Band, will be located on the second floor. The Archives, encompassing some 35,000 items include Springsteen’s papers, awards, lyrics and notebooks, instruments, posters, handbills, photographs, concert performances, recordings, stage clothing, guitars, and other ephemera associated with Springsteen’s life. Artifacts from other notable artists occupy a large portion of the second floor and will be accessible to amateur and serious musical scholars. The Archives will provide listening and viewing cubicles, an area for artifact investigations, and small-group discussion rooms, as well as a processing center for ongoing donations of artifacts. The building looks out on the campus and an undulating grassy meadow of native plantings. Designed in collaboration with LaGuardia Design Group, the topography is filled with native plantings that reconstruct the region’s coastal ecology, improves local biodiversity and acts as a bioswale for managing stormwater. Designed to museum standards, the all-electric building will be the University’s first LEED Certified project.
Studio Iregular’s Interactive Cube Art Installation Debuts in Midtown
The Flatiron NoMad Partnership presents the New York City debut of Control No Control, on view now through January 1, 2024 in the Flatiron North Plaza at Broadway Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street. Designed by Montreal based digital art studio Iregular, Control No Control is a 13’ H x 13’ W x 13’ D LED cube that reacts to everything that touches it and every movement performed on its surface. LED tiles that cover the entire surface are seamlessly affixed to an aluminum truss structure that surrounds a weighted interior ballast and a wire rope tensioned from the ballast to the truss. The technical equipment is hidden on the hollow inside, streamlining the appearance of the seemingly self-standing cubic structure. Eight speakers and four motion sensors necessary for the interactive audiovisual aspect are almost completely hidden in weather-proof casings, contributing to the smooth look of the installation. Streamlined patterns and generative sound emerge as interaction occurs. Allowing 48 people to participate at the same time, the experience is extremely intuitive, leading to quick audience engagement and prolonged interactions. The installation can also be remotely operated and monitored from a computer at a distance. Created in 2011 in Montreal for Igloofest, the installation has since been presented over 35 times around the world. The project is presented in partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation’s Art Program (NYC DOT Art).
Miniature Gingerbread Metropolis Lands in New York City
For the US debut of The Gingerbread City, over 50 New York City-based architects and designers have created a miniature gingerbread metropolis at the Seaport. Organized by the Museum of Architecture, a UK-based charity dedicated to connecting the public with architecture and design in fun and exciting ways, the exhibition aims to stimulate conversations about cities and how we live in them. Inspired by the theme “Water in Cities,” it consists of five distinct zones: Desert Landscape, Urban Floodplain, Canal City, Frozen Landscape, and Underwater & Floating City, featuring gingerbread houses, train stations, bridges, airports, museums, and parks. The challenge was to protect this vital resource and consider how to design and build water-sensitive cities. Some highlights are Meier Partners’ Cloudtopia Stadium, built on the urban floodplain and formed out of a cloud; Marvel’s Marsh-Meadow Bridge, a place to appreciate the marshy landscape; and Rockwell Group’s Lemonade Lighthouse is a shining beacon and place of refuge. The exhibition was master planned by UK-based Madeleine Kessler Architecture and Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design and is open now through January 7 at 25 Fulton Street.
In Case You Missed It…
Built in 1917, the Victoria Theater is now a building block for the new Renaissance Hotel on West 125th Street. The theater will serve as the entranceway to the 26-story, 211-key Renaissance, along with a 25-story residential building with 191 units, half of which will be affordable, designed by Aufgang Architects. AJC Design served as interior designer for the entire hotel and parts of the historic lobby.
Governor Kathy Hochul unveiled Seneca, the selected proposal to redevelop the former Lincoln Correctional Facility in Manhattan designed by Curtis + Ginsberg Architects. This proposed project would bring 105 affordable homeownership units and community spaces.
Situ Studio has completed another Making Space project at DeKalb as well as new Teen Tech Centers at Bay Ridge, Saratoga, and the Annex. The Teen Tech Centers are designed as highly flexible kits of modifiable components, adapted to the programmatic and spatial needs of each new location, providing opportunities for teens to engage in hands-on creative workshops and technology training, building both their skills and confidence.
The Büro Koray Duman-designed exhibition Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom has opened at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in LA. The 22,000-square-foot exhibition, which runs through June 1, 2024, is modeled after a studio soundstage.
Architectural critics Alexandra Lange, Mark Lamster and Carolina A. Miranda have done what they’ve done for the past 14 consecutive years—they’ve selected the best, worst, and most befuddling in the worlds of architecture and design and presented them with “fake” awards. Many New Yorkers made this year’s list. Congrats to the winners!