Author: Linda G. Miller - Contributing Editor

In this issue:
· Collaborative Research Center Links Disciplines
· David Adjaye Associates Debuts Broadway Housing
· Two New Infill Buildings Refer to 20th-Century Surroundings
· Community of Designers Creates a Mixed-Use Community for Brooklyn
· Park Avenue Armory Begins Phase I of Renovations
· Libeskind’s Warsaw Project Gets Green Light…Again

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Collaborative Research Center Links Disciplines

Phase One of Rockefeller University’s new Collaborative Research Center on the Upper East Side has been completed. Designed by Mitchell/Giurgola Architects, the complex includes the renovation of Smith Hall, one of two neo-classical limestone-and-masonry buildings, and the construction of a “bridge building” over a parking lot sited between the two buildings. The 250,000-square-foot project reorganizes both buildings into open-plan laboratories. Horizontally oriented lab space will allow as many as eight laboratories to share a single floor plan, an arrangement that will help foster interaction among scientists. In addition, the project includes campus-wide support elements, such as a conference center, a café, and facilities for campus-wide glass washing and chemical/biological/radioactive waste removal. The limestone-and-glass curtain wall bridge building incorporates conference and meeting rooms, snack areas, and pantries. During Phase Two, Flexner Hall will undergo renovation and a 200-seat lecture hall will be constructed below the atrium.

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David Adjaye Associates Debuts Broadway Housing

Broadway Housing Communities, a non-profit community housing development and management organization providing permanent housing for individuals and families at “high risk” in Washington Heights and West Harlem, has unveiled plans for the new project designed by David Adjaye Associates. The building, which overlooks the Harlem River, will contain 124 housing units and be home to the new 18,000-square-foot Faith Ringgold Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling. The museum will house the artist’s permanent collection of painted story quilts along with temporary exhibitions and children’s artwork, a performance space, shop, café, media center, and library. Work on the project is expected to begin later this year and the building is scheduled to open in 2012.

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Two New Infill Buildings Refer to 20th-Century Surroundings

RKT&B Architects has completed an 80,000-square-foot, $15 million NYC Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) project in Harlem. Located close to Marcus Garvey Park, the project, which is two new eight-story infill buildings that flank an existing low-rise building, includes 37 affordable housing units, commercial ground floors, and community facility space. Both buildings are thematically similar and relate architecturally to the early 20th-century neighborhood. The facades consist of bricks in three colors that relate to the colors of the surrounding buildings. Staggered windows create a variegated surface while allowing flexibility in locating apartment walls.

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Community of Designers Creates a Mixed-Use Community for Brooklyn

Ground was recently broken for Navy Green on a 103,000-square-foot city block, a former naval prison site known as “The Brig,” in Fort Greene/Wallabout, Brooklyn. Designed by FXFOWLE Architects, master planner and architect, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects, architect, Architecture in Formation, design architect of supportive housing building, and Todd Rader and Amy Crews Landscape Architecture, the site will be transformed into a mixed-use community by combining affordable rentals with market-rate co-ops, townhouses, and supportive housing facilities constructed in two phases. The first phase includes an eight-story, 101-unit, affordable rental building and an eight-story, 98-unit, supportive housing building. The latter will provide housing and social services, such as access to medical care, recreation, and vocational training to chronically homeless and low-income single adults. When completed, Navy Green will consist of approximately 458 residential units in four multi-family buildings and 23 townhomes. In addition, the project features over 8,000 square feet of commercial and/or community facility space, and approximately 32,000 square feet of common green space in the center of the development.

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Park Avenue Armory Begins Phase I of Renovations

Park Avenue Armory has completed the first phase of a $68 million, multi-year renovation and restoration project by Herzog & de Meuron, design architect, Platt Byard Dovell White, executive architect, and Fisher Dachs Associates, theatrical consultant. Work completed to date includes reinforcing trusses and bolstering the building’s electrical capacity, and the installation of high-tech rigging, lighting, and mechanical equipment. The renovation has transformed the Wade Thompson Drill Hall into one of NYC’s largest visual and performing arts spaces for large-scale, immersive, site-specific installations and performances. The overall renovation plans for the building, designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Platt Byard Dovell White, will be unveiled next year.

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Libeskind’s Warsaw Project Gets Green Light… Again

Objections from neighbors forced Polish authorities to suspend the permit on ZLOTA 44, designed by Studio Daniel Libeskind, located in the heart of Warsaw. After proving the project was planned and designed in accordance with all local codes and regulations, work has resumed on the 54-story concrete structure with glass curtain wall cladding. Designed in response to the destruction of Warsaw in post-war Russian reconstruction, the 804,602-square-foot project — Libeskind’s first in his native Poland — will include 251 luxury residential units, retail, and parking/storage. Orco Property Group, the project’s developer intends to complete as much of the building as possible in time for EURO 2012, the final tournament of the 14th UEFA European Football Championship.

In this issue:
· Red Room on the Bowery
· Message in a (Klein) Bottle
· The New LIFE Secondary School Gives New Life to Vacant Building
· Ramapo College Completes Non-Denominational Center
· Healthcare Network is Designed with User Input
· Gateway Arch to Scale Down to its Ground

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Red Room on the Bowery

For its 35th anniversary, the Sperone Westwater Gallery has moved into a new eight-story building designed by Foster + Partners, doubling the size of its previous space. Located on the Bowery near the New Museum, the design responds to the site’s long, slender footprint and features a double-height, 27-foot-tall exhibition space at street level with a sky-lit gallery. The building includes a sculpture terrace, private viewing galleries, and a setback at the sixth floor marking the location of the administrative offices, library, and mechanical spaces. Visible through the milled glass fa çade is the gallery’s red “moving room” — a space inserted into an 85-foot-high, room-sized elevator — designed to create both a temporary transition between the exhibition floors and usable as an extension to one of the exhibition floors.

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Message in a (Klein) Bottle

The forms of the Infinity Chapel for the Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist, designed by hanrahanMeyers Architects, evoke the shape of a Klein bottle or Moebius strip. The design of the 8,000-square-foot sanctuary is a contemporary interpretation of a fifth-dimensional figure — a hypercube that incorporates ideas of light, time, space, and space-time — with surfaces that peel back to reveal spaces beyond. In a departure from traditional Christian Science Reading Rooms, a combined lobby and reading room is an open space that is as transparent as possible to the street. A clear, frameless glass wall separates the reading room from the chapel; beyond is a garden chapel, created from a space formerly used for trash collection. Tubes of light are inset in the floor to transmit light up to the reading room and the chapel, as well as down to the Sunday School and Board Room below.

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New LIFE Secondary School Gives New Life to Vacant Building

The 264-seat New LIFE Secondary School for students with emotional, behavioral, and academic disabilities recently opened. Located in the Melrose section of the South Bronx and designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning (MAP), the project entailed a gut renovation and adaptive reuse of a vacant two-story warehouse building. Taking advantage of the existing floor-plates and large windows, both interior and exterior modifications are designed to maximize daylight and create an open environment. The main has glazed openings facing the street, and a new skylight brings daylight into the core circulation area. The second floor features a double-height “green wall.” To serve the student population most effectively, individual staff offices and resource rooms are interspersed between classrooms and distributed throughout the building.

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Ramapo College Completes Non-Denominational Center

Holzman Moss Bottino Architecture has completed the Salameno Spiritual Center at Ramapo College in Mahwah, NJ. The 1,525-square-foot, non-denominational center was conceived as a sanctuary for meditation, reflection, and celebration, where students and members of the college community can practice their faiths, discuss ethical issues, and seek quiet refuge. Constructed on what was originally sacred ground for Native Americans, and sited on the south shore of a pond at the center of campus, the center consists of four structures, two outdoor gathering places, six small woodland gardens, and a deck with views across a pond. The Padovano Peace Pavilion, the largest structure, is composed of triangular and trapezoidal sloping surfaces rising 25 feet enclosing an 800-square-foot interior space.

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Healthcare Network is Designed with User Input

Ground was recently broken on a new regional medical center in suburban Philadelphia, designed by the NY office of Perkins+Will for the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network. The 360,000-square-foot facility was shaped by user input and designed to optimize patient-centered care while maintaining an environmentally responsible approach. As much as possible, services are decentralized and treatment is deployed at the bedside, including pre-procedure areas and emergency room exams. In addition, the hospital features integrated interventional platform, co-locating surgical operating rooms, interventional radiology treatment rooms, and cath labs within the same suite along with shared pre- and post-treatment spaces. The consolidation of surgical and interventional intake and recovery spaces is intended to not only eliminate duplication of services, but also to improve patient flow. The curtain wall at the five-story atrium is sloped to provide self-shading from the sun, and high performance, low-e glazing and window shading devices reduce heat loads. Interior systems include highly efficient water fixtures and mechanical systems, coordinated to reduce the number of access points and streamlining long-term maintenance.

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Gateway Arch to Scale Down to its Ground

A multi-disciplinary team lead by landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA) has been selected for the planning phase of The City+The Arch+The River 2015 International Design Competition. Plans will revitalize the park and surrounding areas at the Gateway Arch, including the MO and IL banks of the Mississippi River. Responding to the memorial is the central challenge of the project: the MVVA team intends to expand the site’s scalar and experiential range by designing more intimate landscapes. They envision a connective landscape that will not only draw visitors from around the world, but also serve as a new locus of civic energy in the daily lives of the citizens of St. Louis. Over a 90-day period, the team — NY-based team members include Arup, Guy Nordenson and Associates, HR&A Advisors, James Carpenter Design Associates, and Steven Holl Architects — will work in partnership with the sponsors, the City of St. Louis, the National Park Service, and others to further define program requirements. The project completion date is set for 10.28.2015, the 50th anniversary of the topping off of Eero Saarinen’s 630-foot stainless steel arch.

In this issue:
· Emery Roth Gets Luxury Makeover at Columbus Circle
· Re:Construction Continues to Brighten Lower Manhattan
· Brooklyn Romanesque Is Revived
· Cleveland State University Responds to Urban Context
· Gilman Hall Opens Interior to the Light
· Out With the Old Farmhouse, and in With the New Modern Manor

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Emery Roth Gets Luxury Makeover at Columbus Circle

The Sheffield, designed by Emery Roth & Sons and built in 1978, has undergone a condo conversion with a new lobby, renovated floor plans, and interiors. Cetra/Ruddy is the building’s design architect and also designed the new sales office, model homes, and amenity spaces. Located just off Columbus circle, the building contains 597 luxury units ranging from studios to four-bedrooms, and six model homes. The Sky Club on the 57th and 58th floors will feature an indoor pool with a sundeck, a health club with a fitness center, a yoga studio, his-and-her spa, and a children’s playroom. The building also includes a landscaped sculpture garden designed by Moed de Armas & Shannon.

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Re:Construction Continues to Brighten Lower Manhattan

The Alliance for Downtown New York is installing three new pieces of art by NY-based artist Richard Pasquarelli as part of its Re:Construction public art program. Located at construction sites, the first of the three, “Restore the View,” has been installed outside of CUNY’s Fiterman Hall at Barclay Street, between West Broadway and Greenwich Street. “Secret Gardens” will be installed at the Chambers Street road construction project from West Street to West Broadway, and “Hours of the Day” will be installed on the piazza at the W Hotel at 123 Washington Street and Albany Street. Both will remain on view until the construction projects are completed. The program began in 2007 to help mitigate the impact of Lower Manhattan’s numerous construction projects by recasting the sites as canvases for innovative public art and architecture. The Downtown Alliance works closely with public and private developers to produce each installation and, with a $1.5 million grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the initiative has created 16 pieces, seven of which are currently up for viewing.

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Brooklyn Romanesque Is Revived

RKT&B Architects has completed the restoration and adaptive reuse of 166 Montague Street, the Franklin Trust Bank, in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District. The Romanesque Revival style office building, designed by George Morse and built in 1891, was one of the borough’s first skyscrapers. After a gut renovation, floors were repositioned, new vertical circulation systems were inserted, and new west-facing windows, balconies, and a rooftop terrace were introduced to take advantage of views of New York Harbor. The firm also designed the building’s 25 apartments, which range from one to three bedrooms, including several duplexes and penthouses, and the building’s public areas, including the lobby. A slender, one-story glass addition off Clinton Street was designed to access the commercial component of the building. All the work affecting the building’s exterior received approval by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

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Cleveland State University Responds to Urban Context

Cleveland State University’s new three-story, 138,000-square-foot student center, designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, is now open. The first level provides street-level access to an atrium, bookstore, lounge, and a circulation ramp that leads to a redesigned outdoor plaza. The food court, convenience store, and student office are on the second level, which also provides direct access to the campus-wide interior walkway system. The third level houses a conference center, pre-function spaces, and the student life administration and office suite that includes interconnected lounge and conference rooms. The materials were selected to respond to the building’s urban context. The connection from street to campus is articulated in granite, and the flanking walls and windows are clad in brick and aluminum. The building’s opening coincides with the completion of the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project, which places a rail stop in front of the entry plaza.

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Gilman Hall Opens Interior to the Light

Kliment Halsband Architects has completed the renovation of the 146,000-square-foot Gilman Hall at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The 95-year-old building is concentrically organized around a central atrium, and the new design moves from historic on the exterior to modern on the interior. The glass-roofed atrium is enclosed with a tension-grid skylight from which diaphanous vessel-shaped sculptures by VA-based artist Kendall Buster are suspended. The atrium floor consists of marble salvaged from the building’s original structure, which was removed during the renovation, and the new walls are clad in terra cotta tile. An exhibition and study area for the archaeology collection is ringed with glass vitrines allowing views of the collection from the atrium into the study area. New departmental spaces include faculty offices, seminar rooms, and graduate student workspaces. The roof was raised to create an additional floor of office space. The exterior remains virtually unchanged and new ramps, concealed by marble walls and plantings, provide full accessibility. The building is expected to earn LEED Silver and will be the university’s first LEED-certified building.

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Out With the Old Farmhouse, and in With the New Modern Manor

Richard Meier & Partners Architects (RMP) has received the green light to build a new home for British actor Rowan Atkinson. Sited in the Chilterns, which is designated by the British government as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, is located northwest of London. Commissioned by Atkinson two-and-a-half years ago, plans call for the removal of a derelict farmhouse and adjacent buildings to be replaced by a five-bedroom contemporary take on a manor house, complete with a guesthouse and tennis court. This is the firm’s first project to be realized in the UK.

In this issue:
· 15 Penn Plaza Passes City Council
· Union Square Will Become Sukkah City This September
· The Beatrice Tops the Eventi Hotel
· MTA Police Department Moves into New HQ
· DC Commissions a Sustainable Public Library

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15 Penn Plaza Passes City Council

City Council voted 47 to 1 to approve the construction of Vornado Realty Trust’s project, 15 Penn Plaza. The 67-story Pelli Clark Pelli-designed office tower will rise 1,190 feet, 60 feet shorter than the Empire State Building’s 102nd-story observation deck. The project is expected to create an estimated 6,000 construction jobs, and Vornado has committed to set aside 15% of its contracts for women and minority owned businesses. In addition, the developer has pledged more than $150 million in improvements to transportation connections, including modernizing and reopening the old Gimbels tunnel that connects Herald Square to Penn Station. The new project will replace McKim, Mead & White’s Hotel Pennsylvania.

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Union Square Will Become Sukkah City This September

Biblical in origin, sukkahs commemorate how the Israelites dwelled during their exodus from Egypt. They are typically temporary structures with at least two-and-a-half walls, a roof made of organic materials that both provides shade and allows views of the stars, and is big enough for a table. Sukkah City: New York City held a competition to re-imagine this Old Testament structure using new methods of material practice and parametric design. Twelve selected teams (out of 600 from 43 countries) will construct their proposals as a village in Union Square Park 09.19-20.10. Seven NYC-based teams were selected: Dale Suttle, So Sugita, and Ginna Nguyen (Gathering); Henry Grosman and Babak Bryan (Fractured Bubble); Kyle May and Scott Abrahams (LOG); Matter Practice (Single Thread); Bittertang (Bio Puff); SO-IL (In Tension); and THEVERYMANY (P.YGROS.C / passive hygroscopic curls). A “people’s choice sukkah” will be installed during the weeklong festival of Sukkot, and selected entries will be displayed at the Center for Architecture in September.

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The Beatrice Tops the Eventi Hotel

The Beatrice, 30 stories of luxury rental apartments on the uppermost portion of the 54-story, Perkins Eastman-designed Klimpton’s Eventi Hotel, recently opened model apartments. Located in Herald Square, the 302 apartments range from studios to three-bedroom penthouses. Residents have a fitness center with a yoga studio and 6,300 square feet of amenities, including the Cloud Lounge, an outdoor terrace on the 54th floor.

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MTA Police Department Moves into New HQ

The new MTA Police Department Headquarters is now open on the site of the former Central Islip train station on Long Island. Designed by WASA/Studio A, the 17,000-square-foot, two-story facility is a modern interpretation of an historic train station. Improved communications will make quicker responses to emergencies in the Suffolk County section of the LIRR’s territory possible. The building accommodates the patrol force, including commanding officers, patrol officers, detectives, and administrative staff. In addition, it contains space for the K-9 unit and training facilities, with a motor pool for maintaining and repairing emergency response vehicles. Complying with New York State Executive Order 111, it meets strict energy-efficient guidelines for lighting, heating, cooling, and insulation.

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DC Commissions Sustainable Public Library

The 22,800-square-foot, three-story Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library, designed by Davis Brody Bond Aedas, recently opened in Washington, DC. The entry plaza features a 22-foot sculpture by local artist Craig Kraft. The ground floor houses the new materials and catalog stations for the general collections, and the children’s library. The upper level includes the bulk of the adult collection, including reference and periodical sections. The lower level contains community spaces, such as a 100-person, multi-purpose room. The library also offers conference rooms and individual study rooms to allow for collaborative work in a non-disruptive setting. Designed to meet LEED Silver standards, the building incorporates a vegetative roof, displacement air system, solar control, daylight management, and extensive use of recyclable and renewable materials. The southern façade is a corrugated, perforated-aluminum screen wall system that sits three feet in front of a curtain wall, providing shade to the upper level reading room while allowing natural daylight to enter.

In this issue:
· Delta to Fly into the 21st Century at JFK
· NYCEDC, WXY Start Projects in the Bronx & Brooklyn
· FIDI’s New Pop-Up Café
· The Bronx’s Little Italy Gets Modernized
· Senator Edward M. Kennedy Honored with Institute at UMass
· Shipping Containers for Public Art

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Delta to Fly into the 21st Century at JFK

Delta Air Lines, the Port Authority of NY and NJ, and JFK International Air Terminal announced plans for a Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-designed expansion of Terminal 4 (the firm designed the existing Terminal 4, which opened in 2001). The project includes the expansion of Concourse B, with nine new international gates; a passenger connector between Terminals 2 and 4; and expanded baggage claim and customs and border protection areas. Terminal 3, built in 1960 and designed by Tippetts-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton for PanAM Worldport, has been deemed functionally outmoded and beyond repair; it will be demolished and the space used for aircraft parking. Construction is scheduled to begin in September 2010.

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NYCEDC, WXY Start Projects in the Bronx & Brooklyn

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) recently released the conceptual master plan, designed by WXY architecture + urban design, for the redesign of Fordham Plaza in the Bronx. Adjacent to the Fordham Road retail corridor, the plan is to create a hub for transit, culture, and retail. The plaza would also provide a venue for yearlong event programming, including movie screenings, concerts, and holiday markets. The new design aims to create a contiguous public space, enhance traffic flow, and provide access to commuter rail service.

NYCEDC and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation recently broke ground on a $12 million redevelopment of WNYC Transmitter Park along the East River in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Designed by EDAW/McLaren Engineering Group/WXY architecture + urban design, the project is located on the site of former radio transmission towers. The design includes a pier with concrete platforms connected by aluminum bridges, a new overlook, a waterfront esplanade, and a pedestrian bridge built across an excavated historic ferry slip that will be restored as a wetland. The park will also include an open lawn with a children’s play area featuring a nautical theme.

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FIDI’s New Pop-Up Café

Under the auspices of the NYC Departments of Transportation and Consumer Affairs, NYC now has its first pop-up café — a temporary curbside seating platform in the Financial District that provides both locals and visitors with a public space to sit, sip, and snack. CA-based RG-Architecture, which designed similar outdoor space in San Francisco, created the 84-by-6-foot wooden platform that is furnished with 14 café tables, 50 chairs, and landscaped with planters. Architectural services, which were requested by two adjacent restaurants, were provided pro bono. The Corten steel planters filled with English lavender, miniature boxwood, and turf lily were donated by Denver-based Bison Innovative Products.

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The Bronx’s Little Italy Gets Modernized

Renovation of the Arthur Avenue Retail Market in Belmont, Bronx, also known as the borough’s Little Italy, is underway. The design, by Papadatos Partnership, combines modern materiality with old world aesthetics by incorporating an “agora” motif, recalling ancient Greek and Roman markets. The 26,000-square-foot market was originally built in 1941 to give street vendors shelter from the elements, and became a center for sausage makers, bread bakers, cigar rollers, and florists. The project includes a total renovation of the exterior that will retain historic design elements. The interior, which has undergone minimal renovation over the years, will get flexible modular displays designed to adapt to both merchant and market conditions, enhanced public and gathering areas, lighting and electrical improvements, upgraded heating and cooling systems, and new plumbing — including modernization of toilet and food preparation facilities. The renovation is expected to be complete by December 2010.

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Senator Edward M. Kennedy Honored with Institute at UMass

Rafael Viñoly Architects has been selected to design the new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate on the University of Massachusetts Boston campus. The institute will be located next to I.M Pei’s 1979 John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and will overlook Boston Harbor. The facility will consist of approximately 40,000 square feet of program space, composed mainly of classrooms, educational exhibitions, and a representation of the Senate Chamber. Two triangular volumes define the entry to the building and geometrically connect the institute to the JFK Library; the entrance approach will be designed to incorporate components from each of the 50 states. The project will break ground in fall 2010.

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Shipping Containers for Public Art

LOT-EK recently completed the Open School for the 2010 Anyang Public Art Project (APAP) in the city of Anyang, South Korea. Positioned over the Hawoon Park pedestrian walkway along the Anyang River, the structure is made of eight shipping containers featuring different, but interconnected, spaces. At the ground level is an open-air amphitheater for public programs. The second story, lifted above ground on stilts, contains a large multi-purpose space for meetings, exhibitions, artist-in-residence studios, and a work place for researchers. A continuous public path, constructed of a cut and bent container, takes visitors from the lower amphitheater to a rooftop observatory.

In this issue:
· City Council Approves New Domino
· Flushing Commons Puts Local Businesses to Work
· Historic Loews Pitkin Makes a Comeback
· SFMOMA Hires Snøhetta
· Tschumi Encloses Institut with New Dome
· Postcards of Progress from Haiti

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City Council Approves New Domino

The landmarked Domino Refinery complex will be preserved and adapted for residential, commercial, and cultural uses, including 30- and 34-story apartment buildings. Rafael Viñoly Architects developed the overall master plan as well as the conceptual design for all new buildings on the site; Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners developed architectural concepts for the refinery; and Quennell Rothschild and Partners developed the landscape design. The master plan will transform the industrial complex into a modular, mixed-use, and multi-income residential development that emphasizes open space and public access to the river while preserving the refinery and its famed 40-foot-tall Domino Sugar sign. The project will create approximately 2,200 residential units, 660 of which will be affordable. The more than 223,500 square feet of retail will include a grocery store that will adhere to FRESH zoning standards in addition to approximately 143,000 square feet of community facility space. A nearly one-acre open lawn will anchor a new public waterfront esplanade.

Editor’s note: New Domino will be featured in OCULUS Fall 2010.

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Flushing Commons Puts Local Businesses to Work

Also approved by the City Council is Flushing Commons, an 11-bulding complex in the northeast section of Queens, designed by Perkins Eastman and landscape architect Thomas Balsley Associates. The project has 1.5 acres of public outdoor open space to support community-sponsored cultural events and performances, including a 62,000-square-foot YMCA with a full-size gym/basketball court, running track, two pools, daycare, and a youth center; 36,000 square feet of community space; 760 apartments, including affordable units; and a 1,600-space parking garage. The project aims to transform the business community of Flushing with a comprehensive strategy to employ local businesses and residents to work on the project during and after construction. In addition, at the request of the City Council, the city will provide $6 million to support local businesses during the construction.

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Historic Loews Pitkin Makes a Comeback

The grand carved staircase, the koi pond in the lobby, the domed ceiling depicting a starry sky, and seating for more than 2,800 are some of the attributes people reminisce about the Thomas Lamb-designed 1929 Loews Pitkin, in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The theater closed in 1969 and in the ensuing years suffered considerable interior damage. Now it is making a comeback as a mixed-use, eco-friendly project, designed by NJ-based Kitchen & Associates Architectural Services, that will offer more than 70,000 square feet of retail space and a new 90,000-square-foot charter school. A completely new interior will be constructed within the existing shell, but the original Neo-Classical and Art-Deco cornices, pilasters, and niches will be restored to their original condition.

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SFMOMA Hires Snøhetta

After an international search and two-year planning process, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has selected the NY office of Snøhetta to be its partner in developing a $250 million expansion of its 1995 Mario Botta-designed building. Snøhetta will work as part of a yet-to-be-named collaborative team to create additional gallery space and interior enhancements to accommodate the museum’s growing collections and increased public programming. Initial design concepts for the project will be unveiled in spring of 2011. In addition to Snøhetta, the finalists for the project were Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Adjaye Associates, and Foster + Partners.

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Tschumi Encloses Institut with New Dome

Bernard Tschumi Architects has been selected to design a new center for the performing arts on the 70-acre campus of the Institut Le Rosey, a boarding school on the site of the 14th-century Chateau du Rosey, near Rolle, Switzerland. The design proposes a low, stainless-steel dome enclosing an 800-seat concert hall that defines the site and spatially organizes the disparate parts of the program, including a black box theater, conference rooms, a learning center joined to a library, a teaching center, practice rooms, and social spaces featuring a restaurant, a café, a student lounge, and other amenities. A series of openings articulates the periphery of the dome, and a terrace cut into the center near the apex offers views of Lake Geneva. The building’s compact shape minimizes the exterior surface area and acts as a thermal shield reducing energy consumption.

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Postcards of Progress from Haiti

The SOFTHOUSEgroup, a design agency composed of four NY-based architects/designers and Pratt Institute professors (Lonn Combs; Rodney Leon; Mark Parsons; and Dragana Zoric, RA, RLA), has developed prototypes for HaitiSOFTHOUSE — transitional shelters designed to meet the evolving demands and needs of post-earthquake Haiti. Prototypes for a schoolhouse and a dwelling were recently constructed on a site maintained by the Haiti Rural Project near Port-au-Prince. Twenty more units are expected to be in place in the next few months, once funds are raised. Working with the NY office of Elgin and IL-based manufacturer Fabric Images, the structures are designed to resist hurricanes and earthquakes and can be easily assembled by a few people within a day. The various shelters serve as an active case study for implementation of transitional communities, and allow time for the development of more comprehensive, long-term sustainable strategies for permanent reconstruction in Haiti.

In this issue:
· Culture Shed Nests Into High Line
· It’s Blue Skies for the Azure
· Times Square Redux, Part Deux
· Affordable Chelsea
· Ever Timeless Israel Museum Reopens
· Automobiles Stop at New Home in The Hague

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Culture Shed Nests Into High Line

As part of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded the Hudson Yards Development Corporation (HYDC) $100,000 to develop plans for Culture Shed, a collaborative design effort by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and The Rockwell Group. Located north of the High Line, the five-story building will be on a 22,000-square-foot site. Two deployable outer sheds will nest over the base and can be rolled out on tracks to form an exhibition hall of more than 55,000 square feet. The grant is one of 21 totaling $3 million.

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It’s Blue Skies for the Azure

The Azure, a luxury residential condo on the Upper East Side that suffered a deadly crane collapse in 2008, has opened for occupancy. Designed by SLCE Architects with interiors by Studio Morsa, the 34-story glass tower contains 128 residences ranging from studios to four-bedroom units. The project offers more than 6,300 square feet of amenity space, including a kids’ playroom, game room, lounge and event space, private dining facility, fitness center, and two landscaped rooftop terraces. In addition, two glass panels by Weil Art Studios depicts the “Poet’s Walk” in Central Park. They are backlit with a responsive lighting system that adjusts to the time of day and season. A public school was demolished to make way for the condo, so the completed project includes a new red-brick middle school designed by Mitchell/Giurgola Architects for the NYC Department of Education.

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Times Square Redux, Part Deux

The New York office of Snøhetta, one of the eight firms in the NYC Design and Construction Excellence program, has been selected to lead a team of NYC-based designers, engineers, and event infrastructure specialists to create a plan for the permanent redesign of Times Square. The scope includes the design of plazas with ample seating, new paving, and underground infrastructure to accommodate events. The project also includes the complete reconstruction of the roadways, including water mains and sewers, as necessary. The design team includes: WXY architecture + urban design; Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects; Billings Jackson Design; Leni Schwendinger Light Projects; Pure + Applied; Weidlinger; Buro Happold; BEXEL; Wesler Cohen; and Ducibella Venter and Santore. Construction is expected to begin in 2012.

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Affordable Chelsea

GF55 Partners has completed the design for the Elliott-Chelsea, a 22-story, 165,000-square-foot housing development in West Chelsea. The project will contain 168 affordable units, retail space on the ground level, and an underground parking garage. The development is in response to an RFP issued by the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development and NYC Housing Authority in 2007, which called for the redevelopment of underutilized land to build mixed-income communities and providing safe, quality housing for working families.

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Ever Timeless Israel Museum Reopens

Originally opened in 1965, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, designed by Alfred Mansfeld and Dora Gad, is set to reopen with new galleries, public spaces, and two new large-scale, site-specific commissions on its renewed 20-acre campus. Led by New York’s James Carpenter Design Associates and Efrat-Kowalsky Architects of Tel Aviv, the $100-million project includes the comprehensive renovation and reconfiguration of the museum’s three collection wings, and reinstallation of its holdings in the fine arts, archaeology, and Jewish art and life. Echoing the Modernist geometry of the original buildings, the pavilions are shaded within terra-cotta louver housings, designed to soften and diffuse the bright light and create a dialogue between the interior and exterior spaces across the campus. Continuing the tradition of site-specific collaborations, with contemporary artists the museum commissioned Olafur Eliasson’s “Whenever the rainbow appears,” a 44-foot-long work consisting of 360 paintings installed at the end of the museum’s newly designed Route of Passage, and Anish Kapoor’s “Turning The World Upside Down, Jerusalem,” a 15-foot-high sculpture of polished stainless steel at the highest outdoor point on the museum campus.

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Automobiles Stop at New Home in The Hague

One of the world’s largest collections of historic automobiles and automotive art has found a home at the new Louwman Museum, also known as the National Automobile Museum, in The Hague. Designed by Michael Graves & Associates, the museum contains more than 230 pioneering automobiles from the late 19th century, racing cars, sports cars, and luxury limousines, and the world’s largest collection of automotive art. The three-story, 185,000-square-foot museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of the collection, with temporary and permanent exhibition galleries, a reception hall, auditorium, food service, and workshops for the conservation and repair of cars in the collection.

In this issue:
· Imagine — A Playground in a Box?
· SALON Mixes Sangria and Spanish Design
· Alaskan Artifacts Grow in New Home
· Hawaii Five
· Innovation Harnesses Green Technologies in Botswana
· Ellis Island’s European Counterpart to Be Restored

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Imagine — A Playground in a Box?

As a prelude to the Rockwell Group-designed Imagination Playground Park that will open this month, “Imagination Playground in a Box” units will be installed on weekends throughout the city during the summer. The project is a colorful container on wheels. The sides and top of the boxes reveal a variety of loose parts, such as foam blocks, sand, water tools, and found objects including tarps, fabric, and milk crates. Children will use the tools to create their own toys, games, and environments. In collaboration with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, the first of the Imagination Playground parks will be located at Burling Slip in the South Street Seaport area. This site-specific park will feature a full set of loose parts and a sculpted landscape, as well as sand and water installations.

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SALON Mixes Sangria and Spanish Design

SALON, a permanent exhibition space and new lounge bar, opened at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Designed by Winka Dubbeldam of Archi-Tectonics, the 1,200-square-foot space was inspired by the works of Spanish surrealist artists including Dalí, Picasso, and Caballero. SALON showcases the work of 16 Spanish designers and manufacturers, including BD Barcelona Design furnishings; Lladró sculptural vases and lighting; and Nani Marquina rugs. The project is supported by RED, an organization that represents Spanish design companies and the Trade Commission of Spain’s Interiors From Spain department.

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Alaskan Artifacts Grow in New Home

The Smithsonian Institution is loaning more than 600 indigenous Alaskan artifacts to Anchorage and allowing access for hands-on study by Alaska Native elders, artists, and scholars. These cultural and historical treasures, selected and interpreted with help from Alaska Native advisers, are now exhibited in the new Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in the Anchorage Museum, designed by NY-based Ralph Appelbaum Associates. Rather than pursue a traditionally static interpretive experience, RAA designed interactive, updatable digital stations to allow multiple layers of information that can change over time, including oral histories, historic photographs, artistic depictions, and a growing body of Native and scholarly commentary. Visitors learn about objects through touch screens; a video art installation about contemporary Alaska Native life plays on seven large, flat-screen TVs; and a 3-D sound art installation is designed to immerse visitors in the Arctic with recordings of howling wolves, cracking ice, and storytellers. The firm worked closely with the designer of the museum’s expansion, London-based David Chipperfield Architects, and Anchorage-based architect-of-record Kumin Associates.

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Hawaii Five

Brooklyn-based Guerin Glass Architects has completed its fifth project in Hawaii — the Trump International Hotel + Tower, a 750,000-square-foot, 38-story hotel and residential building, that is part of a two-million-square-foot redevelopment intended to revitalize the Waikiki retail and hotel district in Honolulu. Encountering local resistance to contemporary design in the hotel district, the design team responded by infusing Hawaiian motifs into the design. The cast-in-place structural frame features fin walls and post-tensioned slabs that project to protect the exterior from the strong island light. The pattern of the deep façade evokes traditional Polynesian weaving. The tower contains 462 residential and hotel units, several dining and resort facilities, including a day spa and fitness center, as well as parking for 220 cars. Honolulu-based Benjamin Woo Architects served as associate architect.

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Innovation Harnesses Green Technologies in Botswana

Via an international design competition, NYC-based SHoP Architects has been selected to design the new Botswana Innovation Hub. Located in Gabarone, the country’s capital and largest city, the 270,000-square-foot facility will provide office and laboratory space for technology driven and knowledge intensive foreign and local businesses, as well as research and advanced training institutes. The client’s brief called for an iconic building that employed cutting-edge green technology. SHoP’s design concept features what the firm has coined an “energy blanket roofscape,” which incorporates large overhangs to passively shade the building’s interior volumes, mechanisms to collect and re-use water, and both passive and active photovoltaic systems to harness solar energy. Where the roof slope prevents optimal solar collection, a low-maintenance roof garden collects and filters rainwater. The combination of these technologies is anticipated to offset at least half of the building’s operational energy costs.

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Ellis Island’s European Counterpart to Be Restored

Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, responsible for the restoration of Ellis Island, has begun work on the Red Star Line Museum located in the Montevideo section of Antwerp. Three historic harbor sheds that served as luggage storage and mandatory medical and administrative inspections buildings for millions of European emigrants bound for the U.S. and Canada during the decades before and after the turn of the 20th-century will be restored. There are different levels of historical significance related to the emigrants’ experiences among the three buildings in the complex, and different levels of architectural integrity based on the existing conditions and amount of remaining historical fabric. Work will also include infrastructure and interior upgrades for the new use of the buildings as a public exhibition space that will relay the stories of past and contemporary migration. A new, central observation tower, reminiscent of a disassembled tall boiler stack, is designed to give museum visitors an idea of what it must have been like for the emigrants to have their last look of Antwerp from the deck of an ocean liner. The museum is scheduled to open in 2012.