Lisa Delgado – Page 4 – News – What’s New at AIANY and the Center for Architecture.

Landmarks Preservation Commission Takes to Knitting

Event: Roundtable Discussion on “Appropriateness”
Location: Center for Architecture, 11.04.09
Speakers: Harry Kendall, AIA — Partner, BKSK; Richard Cook, AIA — Partner, Cook+Fox Architects; Bill Higgins — Principal, Higgins Quasebarth & Partners; Margery Perlmutter, AIA — Partner, Bryan Cave & Member, Landmarks Preservation Commission
Moderator: Mark Silberman — General Counsel, Landmarks Preservation Commission
Organizer: AIANY Historic Buildings Committee
Sponsors: AIANY Historic Buildings Committee

Historic Front Street (left) and 24 Peck Slip by Cook+Fox Architects.

What does it mean for architecture to be “appropriate?” It’s quite a nebulous, subjective term, yet the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has the tricky task of evaluating it before granting a Certificate of Appropriateness for new architecture in a historic district. Since the mid-1960s, the LPC has granted around 250 such approvals, said Mark Silberman, LPC general counsel, at a recent panel presented in conjunction with the exhibition ContextContrast: New Architecture in Historic Districts, 1967–2009.

Weighing those decisions can be “difficult and perplexing,” because while landmarks law provides some general guidelines, “it’s pretty broad,” Silberman remarked. “It doesn’t really guide us, the commission, as to this question of, well, what is that new building to be? Is it supposed to be a copy of an old building?” Or should it instead be boldly contemporary, “a landmark of the future?” While the law provides no exact formulas, the LPC has always been sympathetic to the notion of progress in historic districts, rather than seeking to freeze them in time, he said.

The issues really came alive through the presentations of Harry Kendall, AIA, of BKSK, and Richard Cook, AIA, of Cook+Fox Architects. Kendall and Cook discussed their firms’ approaches in various projects, including two that appear in the exhibition: 114-116 Hudson Street, a residential project in the Tribeca West Historic District; and Historic Front Street in the South Street Seaport Historic District, a large mixed-use project that involved restoring 11 buildings and designing three new ones.

In researching the history of the Front Street area, “We started to think that there were many things that were relevant to a discussion of appropriateness that weren’t necessarily tangible at all,” Cook said. “They weren’t about bricks and mortar.” Inspirations including Moby Dick by Herman Melville and a 1936 Berenice Abbott photograph showing a schooner at Pier 11 with city buildings in the background helped the architects understand the maritime history of a place filled with “ghosts of our past,” he added.

In the design of one new building at 24 Peck Slip, the glassiness of a façade has a contemporary feel, but “wood solar shades might allude to the wood sailing vessels,” and tension rods for canopies “crisscross in a crazy pattern and allude to rigging of a ship.” In a nearby building at 217 Front Street, a window design evokes the form of a whale’s tail, an homage to Melville. Using 10 geothermal wells for the project’s heating and cooling not only boosted sustainability, it also reduced noise and kept roofs uncluttered by cooling equipment, preserving the look of the roofscape.

BKSK’s project on Hudson Street involved restoring an existing building from the 1840s and creating a contemporary expansion in an adjacent vacant lot. The expansion’s glass-and-metal façade forms an abstract grid that subtly echoes the lines of the masonry buildings to either side. However, the new design is different enough that it didn’t look jarring to make the addition slightly taller than the existing building, Kendall said.

While the notion of appropriateness takes center stage in new architecture in historic districts, the issue is really commonplace, Kendall remarked. “What we realized was that we had just formed a continuum with something that always goes on in architecture: that when you build something next to something else, you don’t copy it, but you do things that knit it in. We just continued that tradition: context and contrast.”

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, I.D., Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

Cities Improve with Circuitry

Event: Sentient City Case Studies: New Songdo City and Meixi Lake
Location: Scholastic Auditorium, 10.07.09
Speakers: James von Klemperer, FAIA — Principal, Kohn Pedersen Fox; Relina Bulchandani — Director, Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group Connected Real Estate Practice
Organizers: The Architectural League of New York

Meixi Lake, in Changsha, China.

Kohn Pederson Fox Associates

What’s your building’s IQ? Chances are it’s not as smart as the ones planned for New Songdo City in South Korea and Meixi Lake in China. Presented in conjunction with the NYC exhibition “Toward the Sentient City,” a recent talk by James von Klemperer, FAIA, of Kohn Pederson Fox Associates (KPF) and Relina Bulchandani of Cisco revealed the designs and goals of the two high-tech urban areas master planned by KPF for developer Gale International. The event offered insights into the challenges involved in planning a “u-city,” a city with ubiquitous computing.

Many of the challenges lie in figuring out how emerging technologies will change city residents’ behaviors and expectations for their environment, said von Klemperer. The physical and virtual worlds should complement one another, he believes, but technology needn’t necessarily dictate the forms that architecture takes. Still, the relationship between cities and computing is growing closer.

One of the most interesting aspects of the talk was learning how ubiquitous technologies complemented larger architectural goals for sustainability in the two developments. Located within the larger metropolitan area of Changsha, Meixi Lake is designed as a model for eco-friendly design, von Klemperer said. Covering an area about as big as NYC’s Midtown, it encircles a lake. Thus, the street system isn’t a grid; it consists of radial arcs, which he called a “hyper-efficient” design. Other green features include canals that connect outlying areas to the center of town and a pneumatic trash system that automates the sorting of recyclables.

According to Bulchandani, Cisco’s vision for cities of the future involves “smart and connected communities” in which everything from healthcare to education to transportation runs on networked information, with the goal of boosting the city’s economic resiliency and the citizens’ quality of life. Cisco is also focusing on using digital technologies to cut down on waste in water, energy, and other resources. In both Meixi Lake and New Songdo City, a product called EnergyWise will help save energy by tracking whether devices on a network are being used, so unused energy can go back in the grid.

In Meixi Lake, an application called ECOMAP will help promote the public’s engagement in ecological issues, since it lets people see what’s going on in their neighborhood in terms of transportation use, waste, and other factors that affect the environment. ECOMAP has already been tested in San Francisco, Bulchandani added. Scattered throughout business and commercial areas will be Smart Work Centers that promote productivity through technologies that foster collaboration and connectivity. While Bulchandani described them as a way of responding to shifting work patterns, they also hold promise for shortening commutes and therefore boosting sustainability.

Located along Inchon’s waterfront, New Songdo City will be a 1,500-acre free economic zone. It is around one-quarter complete, von Klemperer said. As in Meixi Lake, canals aid in transportation. The urban fabric features ample green space and a design that promotes walkability. A 100-acre park at New Songdo City’s center was partly inspired by NYC’s Central Park. Designed for minimal maintenance, the park is “sentient,” he said, since it has a self-watering system.

Bulchandani emphasized Cisco’s holistic approach at the International School in New Songdo City, where IT will boost everything from safety to productivity to energy efficiency. Virtual offices will close down automatically when teachers and students are not using them. Telepresence will help in “bridging gaps of physical limitations” and expanding educational possibilities, she said, adding that Cisco’s goal is “to merge the physical and virtual and have learning be an anytime, anywhere, any device” activity.

Sprinkled with marketing jargon, Buchandani’s presentation was sometimes vague — more specific details about the technologies would have been welcome. Nevertheless, the event provided a look at the potential for ubiquitous technologies to boost sustainable design and quality of life in cities of the future.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, I.D., Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

New Barclays Center Design Eyes Atlantic Yards

Event: A Conversation with the Architects of the Barclays Center
Location: Brooklyn Borough Hall, 09.14.09
Speakers: William Crockett, AIA, LEED AP — Director of Sports Architecture, Ellerbe Becket; Gregg Pasquarelli, AIA — Founding Partner, SHoP Architects
Moderator: Rick Bell, FAIA — AIANY Executive Director
Organizer: Empire State Development Corporation; Center for Architecture

Barclays Center.

©SHoP; detail elevations by Seong Kwon Architects

“Where do the things in dreams go? Do they pass to the dreams of others?” asked Rick Bell, FAIA, quoting from Pablo Neruda during a recent talk on the new design of Barclays Center. A bit like dreams, memories of the sports-and-entertainment arena’s previous, rejected designs hovered over the proceedings: Gehry Partners’ glassy, circular design, which got scrapped for a more economical (and bland) version by Ellerbe Becket. SHoP recently joined up with Ellerbe Becket to create a sexier new design, the subject of the evening’s talk. If all goes according to plan, Barclays Center will one day be home to the Nets basketball team, and the building will be a prominent part of developer Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards, a controversial mixed-use complex in Brooklyn.

Judging by the presentation by SHoP’s Gregg Pasquarelli, AIA, and William Crockett, AIA, LEED AP, of Ellerbe Becket, the new design couples visual flair with an attention to scale and a transparency designed to make the structure seem welcoming, not overbearing. The architects described a prominent entrance plaza at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues leading to a glassy entryway that allows views straight into the arena, including glimpses of the scoreboard and a sports practice court. A canopy overhead is intended as a “grand civic gesture onto the plaza,” Pasquarelli said, adding, “It has a large oculus in the middle of it so that light can penetrate through. It’s more than 30 feet in the air, and it becomes this kind of way of seeing the building as you approach it from the west.”

To break down its mass, the building is composed of three horizontal bands. (See “SHoP Architects Joins the Nets Design Team,” In The News, e-Oculus, 09.15.09.) An intricate steel latticework helps, too: it casts shadows during the day, making the building seem less bulky. By night, the latticework will be softly lit from inside, creating a distinctive pattern of glowing lights. (Attendees were able to check out the effect in a model.)

Some questions about the project remained unanswered. Eliciting grumbles from community activists who oppose Atlantic Yards, Bell chose not to allow questions pertaining to the process surrounding the complex, explaining that the session’s purpose was to focus purely on the new design. And while the architects explained many specifics of that design, just how the arena will be integrated with the complex’s future towers remains shrouded in mystery. During the Q&A, one audience member asked what would happen to the oculus if another building slated for that spot were constructed in the future. Pasquarelli replied that the whole canopy might be removed or extended, or perhaps new escalators or elevators could even go through the oculus. As time goes by, it will be interesting to see just how this project — and the opposition surrounding it — plays out.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, I.D., Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

High Line Offers New Slant on City Views

Event: High Line Section 1 Media Preview
Location: The High Line, 06.08.09
Organizer: Friends of the High Line

Scenes along the High Line.

Bill Millard

Most park designers wouldn’t deliberately direct views to the flow of nearby city traffic. But an amphitheater peering down onto 10th Avenue is just one of many ways the recently opened High Line offers fresh views of familiar West Side cityscapes.

With the surface of the public park some 30 feet above street level, “you see the city from perspectives you normally would never have access to,” remarked James Corner, principal of landscape architecture firm Field Operations, which led the design of the new park on a former elevated railway. The High Line’s sense of calm and seclusion seems to suit its role as a “slow park,” one designed for leisurely strolls.

More than 60,000 people visited the park in the first week alone. As a group of journalists wandered the nine-block stretch of Section 1 (Section 2 opens next year), we encountered a succession of areas with distinct characters, united by a common design vocabulary of long, thin concrete planks and simple, linear furnishings. The planks rear up to merge with wood benches, a flourish that seems sleek but not slick.

On the southern end at Gansevoort and Washington Streets, the journey begins in a woodland; further north, visitors pass through grasslands and elements such a sundeck — complete with oversized deck chairs and a shallow water feature good for cooling one’s toes — and the amphitheater, where people can look down upon the bustling avenue, as if the street life were a form of dramatic spectacle. One visitor was reminded of the highly focused view offered by the Mediatheque at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the High Line’s architects.

The High Line has spurred a much-publicized wave of development in the area, and walking along Section 1 reveals a parade of construction cranes and recent creations by Frank Gehry, FAIA, Jean Nouvel, Della Valle Bernheimer, and others. (Polshek Partnership’s Standard Hotel is unmissable, straddling the park like a giant robot.) To the west are sweeping views of the Hudson River, and a Spencer Finch art installation in one tunnel celebrates the river’s ever-shifting hues.

The new design is geared to “set up really great and unusual situations where you can view the city,” Corner said. In deference to those views, the designers chose an understated aesthetic for the park itself. However, their contemporary take on the historical structure offers subtle visual pleasures of its own. Where the planks and plantings meet, they blend together in a comb-like pattern; vegetation sprouts up between thin concrete lines. The notion of a hybrid “agri-tecture” was inspired by the once-wild state of the vegetation there, when the High Line became a postindustrial ruin after trains stopped running in 1980. For now, the northern area near 20th Street, where the plantings went in earliest, best demonstrates the untamed effect. Benches and a water fountain echo the linear forms of the planks and the rail lines themselves, most of which have been retained and restored.

The designers and engineers faced their share of challenges along the way. With shallow soil, wind, and extremes of temperature, “that’s an extremely difficult environment to get plants to grow,” Corner said. Many of the 210 plant species had to be chosen for their hardiness and their ability to survive at their specific location within the park. As for the hardscape, the different rates of thermal expansion and contraction of the concrete planks and of the steel structure underneath led to fears that the planks would soon shift out of place, so engineers at Buro Happold devised a special system of expansion joints for the planks that could accommodate the movement of both materials, said Herbert Browne, Buro Happold senior project manager.

Ultimately, the park serves as a testament to the way that — with some ingenuity and imagination — old infrastructure can be put to new uses. “The big story about the High Line is the sort of economic revitalization that it has brought to the West Side, and other cities can learn from that,” Corner said. “The High Line, I think, opens the door for a little bit more experimentation with what public spaces could be.”

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

Island at Center Preserves Views of NYC

Event: Governors Island Park and Public Space Master Plan: On the Drawing Board
Location: Center for Architecture, 04.24.09
Speakers: Adriaan Geuze — Principal, West 8
Sponsors: AIANY; Architectural League of New York; New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects; Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation

West 8, Rogers Marvel Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Quennell Rothschild, and SMWM’s proposal for Governors Island.

The West 8 Team.

Small, pastoral Governors Island might technically be part of NYC, but it feels like another world, remarked Adriaan Geuze, principal of West 8. When people visit the 172-acre island, “this sensation of leaving the town behind, taking the boat, and crossing is really amazing,” he said. “You’re totally reborn!”

The future redesign of the island aims to extend and heighten the visitors’ sense of wonder throughout their time there, Geuze said. His urban design and landscape architecture firm is part of a larger team that won a competition in December 2007 to design the island’s park and open spaces. West 8, along with Rogers Marvel Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Quennell Rothschild, and SMWM are currently working on completing the master plan, scheduled for release in early June.

As it is, the partially man-made island offers stunning views of the harbor, Lower Manhattan, and Brooklyn, but it is “even flatter than Holland,” Geuze observed. Not only does its low landscape raise fears of flooding, it also eradicates any sense of mystery. “It’s not about temptation and desire — not at all. You are standing there, you see everything…. And you walk, and you still see the same.” To remedy that, the designers used a combination of maquettes and computer modeling to sculpt the island into a hilly topography with viewlines that will make visitors “hunger to walk through the park,” he said. Two high spots on opposite ends of the park will provide sweeping 360-degree panoramic views of the surrounding harbor, giving a true sense of place as an island.

The essential look and concept of the design — the “organic grid” of paths, the sculpted hills made from recycled building debris — has stayed true to the original competition entry, but Geuze’s slide-filled talk revealed how the design has been refined in the meantime. The butterfly wing-like pattern of paths has been tested and tweaked to offer better circulation. Lining the paths, seats and curbs act as “edging,” adding visual definition: “It’s the same effect as eyeliner,” Geuze joked. In an ornamental impulse, they hope to embellish lampposts and benches with designs “poetically linked to ocean and shore and wind and sea,” he said.

In addition to the island’s predominant use as a park, some of the existing buildings are gaining new tenants, and around 33 acres on the south side will be devoted to a future development zone, said Leslie Koch, president of Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation. This prompted a flurry of questions from the audience. Calling the park a “fantastical place,” and expressing concern that the development could be detrimental to the overall vision, the question was asked whether urban design guidelines had been set for it. It is too early to determine exactly what sorts of buildings will fill that zone, Koch said, but public access through the area will be preserved, along with view corridors — an encouraging sign, for a park whose design is so much about celebrating its views.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

In a Shifting Economy, Architects Shift Gears

Event: Firm Development in Uncertain Times — A discussion with Jack Reigle
Location: Center for Architecture, 03.25.09
Speakers: Jack Reigle — President, SPARKS, The Center for Strategic Planning
Organizers: Professor Frank Mruk, AIA, New York Institute of Technology for the Center for Architecture and the Association for Strategic Planning
Sponsor: AIANY New Practices Committee

The past several months have been filled with an uneasy feeling of “now what?” remarked design-business consultant Jack Reigle. Faced with the recession, architects are collectively holding their breath, waiting to see what’s in store for them, their firms, and the industry.

Don’t panic and blindly seek whatever projects can be found, warned Reigle, author of the book Silver Bullets — Strategic Intelligence for Better Design Firm Management (Bascom Hill Publishing Group, 2008). “You want to be better, not busier,” he explained. A firm should carefully assess its individual identity and mission, and pursue the specific types of clients and projects that will help to fulfill its “higher purpose.” Don’t let short-term practical matters drain your time at the expense of far-sighted strategic thinking, he cautioned, for that leads to inefficiency. Focusing on long-term goals helps a firm gain greater success and a more defined identity, which ultimately means attracting business instead of having to spend time chasing it.

Archetypes can help a firm clarify its mission, he added. Is your firm an “Einstein” — a producer of visionary ideas? Or a “niche expert” that clients turn to for advancing a certain specialized type of project? Or a “market partner,” which collaborates with the client to pursue immersion in a certain market? Some other archetypes include “community leader,” “orchestrator,” and “builder.” In general, it’s best for a firm to limit itself to one or two archetypes, to keep well focused, Reigle said. When one audience member from a large company questioned the advisability of such a tight focus, Reigle suggested that big companies might draw from a greater number of archetypes, but each department should keep its own identity well defined.

He also emphasized the importance of “client and market empathy.” “You’ve got to develop expertise beyond your professional skills: expertise that is based on knowledge and familiarity, let’s say, with markets,” he said. “The more you do that, as opposed to just jumping from market to market, the more you’ll be able to contribute.” That kind of market savvy helps architects empathize with the specific challenges the client faces, and as a result, architects can offer services beyond architecture itself, such as valuable research and information, or even marketing.

The economic downturn might also necessitate different, more flexible ways of working, Reigle said. Some architects might end up working as freelancers in medium-to-large firms instead of full-time staff. Also, virtual firms might gain traction, as architects band together on more of an ad-hoc basis in response to these fluid, uncertain times.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

Emerging Voices Take Inspiration From Shoes and Views

Event: Emerging Voices Lecture Series
Location: Urban Center, 03.26.09
Speakers: Andrew Berman, AIA — Principal, Andrew Berman Architect; Stella Betts, David Leven — Partners, LevenBetts
Organizer: The Architectural League of New York
Sponsors: New York State Council on the Arts; NYC Department of Cultural Affairs

Catskills House by LevenBetts (left); Center for Architecture by Andrew Berman Architect.

Michael Moran (left); Peter Aaron/Esto (right)

David Leven and Stella Betts are like a pair of shoes. Not because they cover a lot of ground (though they certainly did in their rapid-fire presentation), but because they work best as a duo. Opening their lecture with a slide of a set of sneakers, Leven said, “We’re a pair, we work in a pair, we think as a pair, and we’re interested in the ideas of similarities and differences that pairings bring up,” and then he and Betts presented a series of several projects grouped (naturally) in sets of two.

The vertical layers or horizontal patterns of landscapes inspired one pair of designs. A Catskills hillside house represents a layered topography, with an upper volume that seems to be slipping off the lower one. Echoing the surface patterns of farmland, a Columbia County house and garage consists of three volumes arranged in formations reminiscent of crop lines.

A couple of local projects explored the pairing of illumination and infrastructure. The Mixed Greens gallery features a luminous ceiling that resembles a “glowing lightbox,” Betts said. It contains mechanical and sprinkler systems, along with lights, and its gently zigzagging form reflects the configuration of the existing beams and columns, she added. Similarly, the EMR printing plant features a brightly lit stairwell or “vertical slot” that’s a locus for both infrastructure and illumination, Leven said.

Emerging Voices lectures typically consist of pairs of firms, which naturally leads to comparisons of their own. Like the partners of LevenBetts, Andrew Berman, AIA, is a local architect with a knack for weaving old materials into new interventions, remarked juror Joel Sanders, AIA, of Joel Sanders Architect, adding that they also share “a similar clean, spare design sensibility.” Berman’s sensibility emerged when he founded his firm during a recession in the mid-1990s, a time when “it seemed very natural to me to work with a kind of an economy and a modesty,” Berman explained. In many of his firm’s projects, the design is “a catalyst to reinvigorate and redefine the old [space], which has lost its relevancy or utility,” he added.

For a Californian client who craved a sensation of unlimited space, the firm transformed a tar roof on Grant Street into sprawling gardens and a penthouse, with a loft below. Windows frame views of Midtown, the Financial District, and the Police Building dome, and a lightwell brings natural light to a greenhouse and other spaces on the lower level.

The firm’s competition-winning design for the Center for Architecture transformed subterranean spaces that were once dark, dirty, and damp into light-filled places for exhibitions and events. The transformation necessitated a “violent excavation,” cutting away portions of the building’s concrete slabs on the street level and mezzanine to allow sunlight and sightlines to easily penetrate from the front window down two floors to the lecture hall. In the future, keep an eye out for the Andrew Berman Architect–designed entry kiosk at P.S.1, which will help that familiar local institution enhance its street presence too.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

OMA’s New Tower Steps Out From the Crowd

Event: Helfand Spotlight Series: 23 E. 22nd Street by Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA)
Location: Center for Architecture, 03.06.09
Speaker: Shohei Shigematsu — Partner and Director, OMA NY
Organizer: Center for Architecture
Sponsor: Slazer Enterprises

23 E.22nd Street

Office for Metropolitan Architecture

In the 1978 book Delirious New York, a young Rem Koolhaas remarked that Manhattan “has fed, from its conception, on the splendors and miseries of the metropolitan condition — hyper-density — without once losing faith in it as the basis for a desirable modern culture. Manhattan’s architecture is a paradigm for the exploitation of congestion.” A new OMA tower epitomizes that impulse to exult in density and make the most of a congested air space, as a recent talk by Shohei Shigematsu and an accompanying exhibition about the building at the Center for Architecture showed.

Like a young kid peeking from behind a more straitlaced parent, a midrise tower at 23 E. 22nd Street will cantilever nearly 30 feet to the east to gain views of Madison Square Park, which otherwise would be blocked by the adjacent 60-story One Madison Park to the north. At the same time, the OMA-designed tower avoids blocking the light coming to the terrace of the next-door building, Shigematsu explained. The stair-like shapes of the new building also playfully allude to the traditional setbacks of the city’s architecture.

“Somehow, [in] New York we are a little bit either lucky or doomed to face a lot of interesting moments,” Shigematsu observed, citing past projects that never came to fruition, such as the hotel at Astor Place and the Whitney Museum extension. This latest project, though, seems on the luckier side: it’s nearly recession-proof, since it shares a base with One Madison Park, which is near completion, he added. The new tower — OMA’s first in the city — will include 18 residential units, a restaurant, and a Creative Artists Agency screening room, which will be prominently visible from the sidewalk.

Though the design received considerable publicity when it was unveiled last year, one of the joys of the talk and exhibition was getting a glimpse into OMA’s process. Some other potential designs, such as a tower shaped like a spiraling stairway, make the final choice look comparatively tame. In the end, the firm went with a design that’s largely guided by the limitations of the site and its zoning. Angling over to the east not only improves views, it also allows the tower to rise higher by skirting to the side of a 250-foot height limit, Shigematsu said. The strategy was made possible by obtaining air rights from neighboring buildings.

The tower gains the necessary structural strength through a form “like a corset that braces the building at the center,” he said. The middle of the building is denser, with smaller windows and lower ceilings, whereas the ceiling heights of the units towards the top and bottom of the tower are higher, creating loft-like spaces. In a move that somehow makes sense in the building’s topsy-turvy geometries, windows are placed on the floors of cantilevered spaces, creating a sense of connection to the bustling street life below. It’s a fitting flourish for a building that seems to defy gravity, in both meanings of the word.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

Jurors Roll Out Red Carpet for 2009 AIANY Design Awards

Event: 2009 AIANY Design Awards: Jury Symposium and Announcement of Winners
Location: Center for Architecture, 02.23.09
Speakers: Brian Healy, AIA — Principal, Brian Healy Architects; David Miller, FAIA — Partner, The Miller|Hull Partnership; Terence Riley, AIA — Director, Miami Art Museum & Partner, K/M; Randy Brown, FAIA, LEED AP — Principal in Charge, Randy Brown Architects; Ivonne Garcia, AIA — Associate Principal, AECOM; Eva Jiricna, Hon. FAIA — Principal, Eva Jiricna Architects; Peter Chermayeff, FAIA — Principal, Peter Chermayeff and Poole; Rahul Mehrotra — Principal, Rahul Mehrotra Associates; Dominique Perrault, Hon. FAIA — Principal, Dominique Perrault Architecture
Moderator: Barry Bergdoll — The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art
Organizer: AIA Design Awards Committee
Sponsors: Benefactor: ABC Imaging; Patrons: Cosentino North America; Syska Hennessy Group; The Rudin Family; Lead Sponsors: Dagher Engineering; The Durst Organization; HOK; Mancini Duffy; Sponsors: AKF Group; Building Contractors Association; FXFOWLE Architects; Hopkins Foodservice; Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti; JFK&M Consulting Group; KI; Langan Engineering & Environmental Services; Mechoshade Systems; Rogers Marvel Architects; Studio Daniel Libeskind; Tishman Realty & Construction; VJ Associates; Weidlinger Associates; Zumtobel Lighting/International Lights

Architecture Honor Award-winning Dutchess County Residence by Allied Works Architecture (left); Interiors Merit Award-winning Nike Genealogy Of Speed by Lynch/Eisinger/Design (right).

Since this year the AIANY Design Awards were held the night after the Oscars, perhaps the comparisons were inevitable: “This is our Academy Awards moment,” quipped chapter president Sherida Paulsen, FAIA. But luckily the jurors and moderator Barry Bergdoll of the Museum of Modern Art refrained from performing musical numbers. Instead, they offered discussions of the winning projects, culled from more than 400 submissions, and advice on mistakes to avoid in submitting for the awards.

There was no Slumdog Millionaire-style sweep, but some names did pop up more than once. Allied Works Architecture won an Honor Award in the Architecture category for a guest house in Dutchess County, NY, and a Merit Award for the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan. Slides of the former showed a house with a steel frame that continues beyond its actual volume, as if suggesting the presence of a phantom extension. Juror Brian Healy, AIA, compared the effect with work of Sol LeWitt and enthused about how the house “allowed these kinds of ghost structures to float out and frame unoccupied space.”

The Museum of Arts and Design might seem a more surprising choice, given its sometimes-tepid critical reception, but the jurors defended it for making the best of a tricky adaptive reuse project and for reinvigorating the idea of the vertical museum. The jurors also praised Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Honor Award-winning design for Alice Tully Hall, done in collaboration with FXFOWLE Architects, as a project that used the bones of an existing space to create something transformative. Thomas Phifer and Partners was another double winner in Architecture, with Honor Awards for the Millbrook House in Millbrook, NY, which skillfully exploits its verdant views, and the Susan and Raymond Brochstein Pavilion at Rice University in Houston, TX, a transparent, sustainable pavilion that the jurors appreciated for the way it responds to the spirit of the surrounding architecture without slavish mimicry.

The Interiors jury chose not to give any Honor Awards, simply conferring eight Merit Awards. “Not one really rose up above the others,” Randy Brown, FAIA, LEED AP, explained. “I think we were just looking for that ‘wow’ project… and I didn’t feel like we saw it.” Still, the Merit winners include some memorable entries, such as Nike Genealogy of Speed by Lynch/Eisinger/Design, a design featuring one wall whose fluid bent-steel forms might evoke the curves of a running shoe, providing a striking contrast with the rectilinear forms of product displays on the opposite wall. Brown praised the design for “pushing the technology of architecture.” Another winner in NYC, the Finger Apartment by noroof architects, stood out for its ingenious space-saving devices in a 540-square-foot apartment for a family of four.

Among the Projects honorees was the Honor Award-winning Summer Blow-Up by Stageberg Architecture PLLC: Bade Stageberg Cox. The installation’s mushroom-like inflatable structures did not win the Young Architects Program competition to design the P.S.1 courtyard this summer, but the jurors were charmed by their humor and transience. The Merit Award-winning Marriage Bureau by Johannes M. P. Knoops envisioned a spot to tie the knot on the roof of the Manhattan Municipal Building, featuring grand views of the city skyline. “Why not celebrate the city and marriage at the same time?” said Peter Chermayeff, FAIA, drawing laughter from the crowd.

In a Q&A period, OCULUS editor Kristen Richards asked jury members about pluses and pitfalls for future applicants to keep in mind in preparing their submissions. This resulted in an outpouring of tips: Put your Big Idea in the first sentence — you’ll lose the jurors’ attention if you don’t grab it right away. Test your portfolio by showing it to friends and colleagues, to make sure your project and the intention behind it are easily comprehensible. Dark, blurry images don’t serve you well — presentation counts. And last but not least, read the instructions: In a blind competition, don’t include your firm name in the submission materials.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

Alice Tully Hall: A First Blush of Success

Event: Alice Tully Hall Press Preview
Location: Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, 02.19.09
Speakers: Reynold Levy — President, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; Frank A. Bennack, Jr. — Chairman, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; Katherine Farley — Vice Chairman, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Chairman, Lincoln Center Development Project; Elizabeth Diller — Principal, Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Charles Renfro, AIA — Principal, Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Sylvia Smith, FAIA, LEED AP — Senior Partner, FXFOWLE Architects; Adam Kusinitz — Senior Project Manager, Lincoln Center Development Project; Ron Austin — Executive Director, Lincoln Center Development Project; Mark Holden — Principal, Acoustics, JaffeHolden; Peter Flamm — Chief of Staff and Senior Director of Planning and Logistics, Lincoln Center Development Project
Organizer: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

The newly opened Alice Tully Hall, re-named the Starr Theater.

Iwan Baan

Stars such as Yo-Yo Ma and David Byrne have graced the stage of Alice Tully Hall, but during a preview before its recent opening, the real star was the redesigned theater itself. With its eye-catching expanses of wood veneer curving over gill-like forms along the sides of the theater, the space seemed to embrace the onlookers with warm tones and understated forms.

The visually cohesive expanse of wood veneer was part of design architect Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s strategy to give the newly named Starr Theater a sense of intimacy it had previously been lacking, Elizabeth Diller explained. Thanks to the help of acousticians JaffeHolden, they were able to improve the 39-year-old auditorium’s acoustics and eliminate rumbles from the subway, but an equally important goal was to eliminate “unwanted visual noise,” she said. “In many halls, there are distracting elements like acoustic panels and hardware, railings, exposed equipment, exposed light fixtures, and so forth. And for this hall, we developed a high-performance wood skin, which you see wraps the entire hall, all the surfaces: the floor, the stage. We thought of the wood almost like a bespoke material, almost like a tailored suit.” The skin encloses lighting and other equipment, and its “gills” are designed to perfect the acoustics, said Sylvia Smith, FAIA, LEED AP, of associate architect FXFOWLE Architects.

The thinness of the veneer is conducive to a certain signature effect: in the moment when the theater goes dark and a hush falls before a show starts, the walls can light up in a rosy “blush” when illuminated by LEDs from behind. (See “The Unnatural: How Diller Marches to a Different Drummer,” Reports From the Field, e-Oculus, 06.24.08). When demonstrated, this glowing effect appeared a bit patchier than expected, but no doubt its novelty will still make an impact on audiences.

While “intimacy” was the watchword of the theater, designing the lobby and exterior spaces of the hall was about creating a sense of celebration and connection to the surrounding city, according to Diller. In the past, Lincoln Center has suffered from a reputation for elitism fostered by its austere superblock architecture that appeared unwelcoming from the surrounding streets. In the original 1969 Brutalist design by Pietro Belluschi, the Juilliard building that includes Alice Tully Hall was “entirely internally focused and mute to the street,” she said. In the new design, a dramatic cantilever at the corner of 65th Street and Broadway not only expands Juilliard’s space but also provides a “framing canopy” for Tully. Large glass curtain walls yield views inside, creating part of a new “Street of the Arts” along West 65th Street — a concept that was first unveiled almost five years ago and is finally starting to come to fruition, noted Lincoln Center Chairman Frank Bennack.

Especially appropriate for these recession-pinched times, the hall offers ample and inviting hang-out spots for those without tickets but longing for somewhere to relax, people-watch, and perhaps grab a cup of coffee. A visible café in the lobby tempts passersby, and outside, a whimsically designed “infopeel” (incomplete at the time of the tour) offers stairlike seating and information screens in a structure shaped like a candy wrapper curling up from the ground. “Whether you’re buying a ticket or not, we want you to come; we want you to stay a while; we want you to enjoy this precious public space on a very dense island,” declared Reynold Levy, president of Lincoln Center.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.