Selected
Fate of Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center Remains In Question
The latest in the debate over Paul Rudolph’s controversial Orange County Government Center, Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times stresses the importance of its survival in “A Chance to Salvage a Master’s Creation.” The much debated plan for the now monumental structure would alter much of its existing character, whether by removal or replacement. Kimmelman argues that despite the criticism the Government Center has garnered from some, Orange County should reconsider architect Gene Kaufman’s alternate proposal which would keep the structure intact and would restore it to its former glory.
BLUEPRINT: Curated by Sebastiaan Bremer and Florian Idenburg & Jing Liu of SO – IL
BLUEPRINT is the latest exhibition on display at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. Curated by Sebastiaan Bremer, Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, the exhibition features 50 blueprints from participating artists and architects, ranging from as far back as 1961 to 2013.
How Americans Get to Work
In the US, most people drive alone to work. This isn’t surprising, considering car culture has been a staple of American life since the end of World War II. However, with the potential of high speed rails making way in California and the push for public transit in many other states, it will be interesting to see how this map may (or may not) change over the next decade.
This interactive infographic, provided by flowingdata.com, illustrates the work-related usage rates for all varying modes of transportation throughout every county in the US. Click here to see.
Work on 432 Park Avenue Ceases Briefly Due to Falling Construction Debris
As uncovered by Curbed, construction workers at Rafael Viñoly‘s 1,396 foot (426 meter) tall 432 Park Avenue were served with a full stop work order last week by the New York City Department of Buildings, after an 8 foot (2.4 meter) long section of steel pipework was dropped from a construction hoist on the building’s 81st floor.
Inequality and Informality in New York: SITU Studio’s Proposal for MoMA’s Uneven Growth Exhibition
When it comes to discussing informal housing, it’s usually cities in developing nations that take the spotlight – however, as revealed by SITU Studio’s contribution to MoMA’s Uneven Growth exhibition, issues of informal housing are indeed present in cities across the spectrum of development. In this interview, originally posted on Arup Connect as “Inequality and informality in New York,” Sarah Wesseler speaks to SITU Studio principle Bradley Samuels about their unconventional proposal to address an issue that is frequently overlooked in New York city policy.
Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities, a newly opened exhibit at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, focuses on the complex relationship between urbanization and inequality. Over the 14-month period leading up to the launch, six interdisciplinary teams explored how these issues are playing out in different parts of the world, each developing an architectural response for a specific city.
Architecture firm SITU Studio (together with Cohabitation Strategies [CohStra]) was tasked with studying its home city, New York. (Arup transport planner Michael Amabile also consulted with the team.) We spoke with SITU principal Bradley Samuels about the project.
Norman Foster Revisits New York’s Hearst Tower With Drones
To mark the 10th anniversary of the topping out of New York City’s Hearst Tower, Lord Foster returned in order to narrate a short film shedding new light on the building with the aid of camera drones. The 46 storey building – which is integrated into a 6 storey base brick structure designed by Joseph Urban in 1928 - was “one of the most sustainable buildings of its time.” Now, ten years later, this footage captures spectacular new views of the main atrium.
Vincent Laforet’s Images of New York From Above Will Take Your Breath Away
Something he has “dreamed of capturing for decades,” Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Vincent Laforet has released a stunning set of images that captures his hometown of New York in a way that has never before been seen. Taken from a nauseating 7500-feet above the city, Laforet’s “Gotham 7.5K” series reveals the unrelenting, pulsating energy that radiates from the Big Apple’s city grid.
All the images and the making-of video, after the break.
New York’s “City of Dreams” Competition Selects Two Winners
Two winners have been announced for the fifth annual cycle of New York’s “City of Dreams” competition: the “Billion Oyster Pavilion” by locally-based BanG Studio and “Organic Growth” by Izaskun Chinchilla Architects of Madrid and London. Pending approvals and fundraising, both pavilions will be assembled on Governors Island and open to the public for the summer 2015 season. The winning pavilions, after the break.
Video: Santiago Calatrava On His Design For Ground Zero’s Only Non-Secular Building
In a film for the BBC Magazine, Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava talks through his designs for the new St. Nicholas Church – the only non-secular building on the 9/11 Memorial site. The building, which broke ground last year, has been described by Calatrava as a ”tiny jewel” for lower Manhattan, comprising of a white Vermont marble shrine sat beneath a translucent central cupola that is illuminated from within. The new church, of Greek Orthodox denomination, replaces a church of the same name which was destroyed during the attacks of 9/11. It is sited close to its original location on 130 Liberty Street, overlooking the National September 11 Memorial park and museum. With the building set to open in early 2016, Calatrava discusses the key conceptual ideas and references behind its unique, controversial design.
Chefs Club by Food & Wine / Rockwell Group
Architects: Rockwell Group
Location: The Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012, USA
Area: 6000.0 ft2
Year: 2014
Photographs: Emily Andrews
Location: The Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012, USA
Area: 6000.0 ft2
Year: 2014
Photographs: Emily Andrews
Northwest Corner Building / Moneo Brock Studio
Architects: Rafael Moneo Arquitecto + Moneo Brock Studio
Location: Broadway y 120th Streett, New York, NY 10010, USA
Design Architect: Rafael Moneo Valles Arquitecto, Belen Moneo and Jeff Brock
Moneo Brock Studio Project Team: Benjamin Llana, Spencer Leaf, Andrés Barron
Associate Architect: Davis Brody Bond, New York, NY, U.S.A. William Paxson, Partner-in-Charge
Dbba Project Team: Mayine Lynn Yu, David Haft, Fernando Hausch-Fen, Gene Sparling, Mario Samara, Clover Linne, Dohhee Zhoung, Veronique Ross, y James Paxson
Project Management: Columbia University Facilities – Capital Project Management
Area: 188000.0 ft2
Year: 2010
Photographs: Michael Moran
Location: Broadway y 120th Streett, New York, NY 10010, USA
Design Architect: Rafael Moneo Valles Arquitecto, Belen Moneo and Jeff Brock
Moneo Brock Studio Project Team: Benjamin Llana, Spencer Leaf, Andrés Barron
Associate Architect: Davis Brody Bond, New York, NY, U.S.A. William Paxson, Partner-in-Charge
Dbba Project Team: Mayine Lynn Yu, David Haft, Fernando Hausch-Fen, Gene Sparling, Mario Samara, Clover Linne, Dohhee Zhoung, Veronique Ross, y James Paxson
Project Management: Columbia University Facilities – Capital Project Management
Area: 188000.0 ft2
Year: 2010
Photographs: Michael Moran
Lincoln Memorial and Flatiron to Join LEGO® Architecture Series
LEGO® has unveiled the latest buildings to join their architecture series: the Washington D.C.Lincoln Memorial and the New York City Flatiron Building. Both will be released in 2015.
The Lincoln Memorial, a national monument honoring the 16th President of the United States, was designed by Henry Bacon and features a sculpture of Lincoln by Daniel Chester French. The Flatiron Building, originally known as the Fuller Building, is a landmark Manhattan skyscraper designed by Daniel Burnham Frederick Dinkelberg.
The news was released following the grand opening of a new LEGO® Brand Store adjacent to the Flatiron.
More images of the new LEGO® sets, after the break.
New York’s Storefront Launches “Street Architecture” Competition
On the occasion of Ideas City 2015, the biennial Festival created to explore the future city and to effect change, Storefront for Art and Architecture, along with the New Museum and the New YorkCity Department of Transportation, is launching a competition for the design and construction of an outdoor structure—a work of “Street Architecture” that facilitates new forms of collective gathering and engagement with the city.
Why Are There Still No Built Traces of New York’s Tech Industry?
For many architects, the chance to make an impression on the landscape of New York City is a sign of distinction, an indication that they have “made the big time.” But it’s not just architects who have this desire: for decades, the city’s big industrial players have also striven to leave their mark. However in this article, originally posted on New York YIMBY as “How New York City is Robbing Itself of the Tech Industry’s Built Legacy,” Stephen Smith examines where it’s all gone wrong for the city’s latest industry players.
Strolling through the streets of Manhattan’s business neighborhoods, you can pick out the strata of the city’s built commercial heritage, deposited over generations by industries long gone. From the Garment District’s heavy pyramidal avenue office towers and side street lofts, dropped by the garment industry in the 1920s, to the modernist towers like Lever House and the Seagram Building, erected on Park and Fifth Avenues during the post-war years by the country’s giant consumer goods companies, each epoch of industry left the city with a layer of commercial architecture, enduring long after the businesses were acquired and the booms turned to bust.
But 50 or 100 years into the future, when our grandchildren and great-grandchildren stroll through the neighborhoods of Midtown South that are today thick with technology and creative firms, they are not likely to find much left over from the likes of Facebook or Google. There will be no equivalent of Grand Central or Penn Station, Terminal City or the Hotel Pennsylvania, left over from the early 20th century railroad tycoons, or SoHo’s cast iron buildings, developed by speculators seeking to feed the growing textile and dry-goods trades of the late 19th century. Perhaps unique among New York’s large industries, the tech and creative tenants that have become the darlings of the current market cycle are leaving very little behind for future generations to admire.
INABA Frames Empire State Building with Animated “New York Light” Installation
From the architect.
This holiday season, wedged between two New York City icons – the Flatiron and Empire State building – stands the #NewYorkLight public art installation by Brooklyn-based INABA. A magnificent place to experience the Manhattan grid, the installation frames a unique and uninterrupted view of the skyline due to the clearing of Madison Square Park.
In Defense of Santiago Calatrava
In recent years, few architects have had a tougher time in the media than Santiago Calatrava. Whether it’s his repeated legal battles over leaking roofs and peeling facades, the unceremonious death of his Chicago Spire project, or the media firestorm over his New York Transportation Hub that is $2 billion over budget, Calatrava has become a poster boy for those who criticize the supposed arrogance of today’s architects. However, in an engaging article for FastCo Design, Karrie Jacobs responds to what seems to be “a concerted effort to shore up his reputation,” coming to the defense of this “unreconstructed aesthete.” Read the article in full here.
Interior Renders of Robert AM Stern’s 520 Park Avenue, NYC’s Most Expensive Apartment Building
This news article was originally published by 6sqft.
Robert A.M. Stern‘s 520 Park Avenue has already been called “the next 15 Central Park West,” and like its Stern predecessor, 520 is an ultra-luxury development with a stately façade wrapped in stone. Set to be completed in 2016, it will rise 51 stories high, but contain just 31 units, one of which is the $130 million penthouse, the city’s most expensive apartment. And though most of the attention has been on “the greatest apartment on the Upper East Side,” the fanfare has now shifted to the first batch of interior renderings for the building.
520 Park’s full website is now live, and not surprisingly, the residences have classic layouts, impressive Central Park views, and a host of high-end amenities.
Davis Brody Bond and KieranTimberlake Chosen to Design NYU Facility
As the culmination of a five-month selection process, New York University (NYU) has announced that Davis Brody Bond and KieranTimberlake will be designing its major new facility along Mercer Street between Houston and Bleecker in New York. The facility’s many uses will include classrooms, teaching spaces for performing arts, a state-of-the-art sports facility, and student and faculty housing.
Collectively, the team was chosen for its high profile portfolio, which includes projects like the 9/11 Memorial Museum, the U.S. Embassy in London, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the 1983-2006 restoration and expansion of the New York Public Library.
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