News – What’s New at AIANY and the Center for Architecture.

Event: Clodagh Inner Circle Speaker Series
Location: Clodagh Design Showroom, 02.27.07
Speaker: Paul Novack – Founder & Operational Manager, Environmental Construction Outfitters (E.C.O.)
Organizer & Sponsor: Clodagh Collection

The web is not the best source when searching for healthy alternatives, according to Paul Novack, CEO of Environmental Construction Outfitters (E.C.O.). That is why he founded Greendepot in January 2006 – to provide environmentally friendly and sustainable building products to both the public and the design community. A one-stop shop for construction needs with stock and delivery inventory, Greendepot also offers product recommendations to bring the most LEED points possible to a project. Insulation made from recycled blue jeans, rubber flooring manufactured from old truck tires, and cleaning products required to maintain a sustainable home are some of the items available.

Clodagh prides herself as a leader in responsible design, through her own practice as well as educating the public. Attendees of her Inner Circle Speaker Series were eager to hear about living healthier lifestyles: “I can use blue jeans as insulation in my walls?” “LEED what?” “How can I live green?” For more information, go to the Greendepot website or visit the Brooklyn showroom. To learn more about Clodagh and the Inner Circle Speaker Series, click the link.

Anne Lefferson, IIDA, ASID, is a designer at Brennan Beer Gorman Monk.

Event: The Big Oyster; History on the Half Shell, part of the Downtown Third Thursdays lecture series.
Location: India House, Marine Room, 02.15.07
Speaker: Mark Kurlansky – author, food historian
Organizer: Downtown Alliance

“Oysters were what New York was all about,” according to historian and author Mark Kurlansky, recalling the mollusk’s once defining place in the city’s history. Traces of the oyster industry may have all but vanished, but New York was once littered with street corner oyster carts, 24-hour oyster markets, and alcohol-fueled dives known as oyster cellars. In the 1800’s, New York’s cultural identity was tied to the oyster. “You rarely find a food that satisfies all socioeconomic backgrounds at one time,” said Kurlansky.

A strange tale of environmental caution lies at the root of why the native oyster has all but disappeared from the city’s cultural and culinary memory. The Hudson River estuary enables oysters to thrive with its brackish combination of salt- and freshwater. Dutch settlers enjoyed saucer-sized oysters; the oyster trade fueled the city’s growth and filled its tables. Beginning in the 1890s however, the Hudson’s oyster beds became contaminated by raw sewage causing cholera outbreaks. By 1930, it was illegal to harvest oysters, and by 1960 the water was too polluted for them to grow at all. Thanks to improvements brought about by the Clean Water Act, oysters can be found in the Hudson River today, though PCBs and heavy lead make them dangerous to consume. Someday, with the help of sustainable planning, New Yorkers might enjoy Hudson River oysters again, but never will they be plentiful enough to fuel an entire city.

Carolyn Sponza, AIA, is an architect with Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners and is the AIANY Chapter Vice President of Professional Development.

This past week, a debate ignited regarding NYC Council’s proposed pedicab regulations, Intro. 75-A and Intro. 331-A. I may be in the minority, but after reading through the legislation, I feel that much of the regulation is reasonable and will provide a higher level of safety much-needed on busy NYC streets.

The first valid ruling is that drivers must own a license and attach a license plate to their pedicabs; licenses are to be renewed every two years. In order to obtain a license, drivers must complete a safety course, pass an exam administered by the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) with the Department of Transportation (DOT), be at least 18 years old, and pass any DCA-determined fitness requirements. Business owners must obtain a business license, renewed annually. Drivers must also have liability insurance that covers the “amount required by the vehicle and traffic law for vehicles carrying passengers.”

The local law also outlines a number of common-sense safety features to be incorporated into every pedicab vehicle. Included are: seating for up to three passengers; installation of water-resistant breaks; secondary or emergency breaks; battery-operated headlights and taillights; turn signals; seat belts; audible signaling devices; and reflectors on wheel spokes. To be integrated into pedicab designs (which must be motor-less and have maximum dimensions of 55-inches-wide by 10-feet-long) are timers that calculate ride rates, visible posting of pedicab business information, and visible rate-charge information. Pedicab operators can determine their own rates, but they must be posted. It is difficult to argue against any of the above decrees, in my opinion.

There are some debatable rulings included in the new law, however. Those who are opposed to the law target an item that gives the police the ability to restrict pedicabs from certain areas up to 14 days during “unusual heavy pedestrian or vehicular traffic.” In Midtown, from November 12 through January 7, there will be no limit to police restrictions due to the holidays. At first glance, this might seem unreasonable considering that the holidays are a time when pedicabs might profit the most, and the police may abuse this rule, but the text explains that unusual heavy traffic means during emergencies, fires, demonstrations, accidents, and parades. Of course I am against the misuse of the ruling, but the text itself does not pose a problem for me.

The one item of the legislation that I do disagree with, and is perhaps the most contentious, is the restriction of the number of pedicabs allowed in the city – 325, limiting the existing 500+. The pedicab business is new to the city. With time, it may prove to be a viable, more environmentally friendly alternative to taxicabs, car services, buses, and subways. I believe the city has a responsibility to legislate for people’s safety, and it is doing its job by instituting the new pedicab law, but it should not smother new forms of business that have the potential to thrive.

In this issue:
• Prospect Park Gains Skating Rinks
• New Y’s for Tribeca, Bed-Stuy
• Asymptote Reaches New Heights in Asia
• Selldorf Architects to Renovate The Clark
• South Beach Style Heads to Manhattan
• LHSA+DP X 5 in Caribbean
• Building Tests Stanford Law Green Guidelines

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Prospect Park Gains Skating Rinks

The Prospect Park Alliance has selected Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects for the new Lakeside Center, a 38,000-square-foot recreation building and two ice skating rinks totaling an additional 35,000 square feet. The center will be open year-round and offer a café, gift shop, lockers, rental facilities, programming areas, and pedal boat rental in summer. The new building, which is aiming for LEED Silver certification, is slated to begin construction next year. After it opens, the outdated Kate Wollman Center and Rink and its 15,000-square-foot building will be demolished. Landscape architect Christian Zimmerman will oversee the restoration of the present rink’s site to reflect the original landscape designs of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

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New Y’s for Tribeca, Bed-Stuy

The 92nd Street YMCA’s Makor and Daytime@ programs are moving to Tribeca, Kostow Greenwood Architects has designed its new 15,800-square-foot storefront space at 200 Hudson Street. Opening this fall, the facility contains a music-performance space with a bar, café/performance space, screening room large enough for readings and other non-film programs, an expandable lecture space, several classrooms, art galleries, and offices.

The YMCA of Greater New York’s Bedford-Stuyvesant Fitness and Community Center, designed by Donald Blair & Partners Architects, has also been completed. The 20,000-square-foot center is connected to two other buildings owned by the YMCA – the newly renovated Bedford Academy High School, and the existing YMCA Activity building currently undergoing renovation. The brick and glass façade creates transparency and opens the building to the community. A two-story atrium houses the membership lounge and permits light and visibility to penetrate the lower floor. A 100-foot-long ceramic tile mosaic overlooking the lounge memorializes the former Bedford-Stuyvesant YMCA branch colorfully illustrating a football scene depicted in a photograph found in the branch’s archives.

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Asymptote Reaches New Heights in Asia

Asymptote has won an international competition to design the Millennium Tower World Business Center in Busan, Korea. The competition was organized by the Busan International Architectural Culture Festival (BIACF) and sponsored by the Municipality of Busan City and the Solomon Group, a private Korean developer, who has committed to move forward with the design. Asymptote’s winning design has three separate slender towers rising out of a robust and powerful base tapering upwards around a central garden. Upon completion, the 560-meter-tall building will be the tallest in Asia.

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Selldorf Architects to Renovate The Clark

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute has selected Selldorf Architects for the renovation of its original museum situated on 140 acres in the Berkshires, and a short walk from Williams College. Designed in the neo-classical style by architect Daniel Perry, AIA, the museum, which opened in 1955, has remained largely untouched. Selldorf will join Reed | Hilderbrand Landscape Architecture of Watertown, MA, the architect-of-record Gensler, and Tadao Ando, Hon. FAIA, who is designing The Clark’s Stone Hill Center. Selldorf will oversee the renovation of the galleries that house the museum’s permanent collection renowned for its 19th-century European and American painting, especially French Impressionism. An addition of over 5,000 square feet of new gallery space dedicated to American painting and decorative arts will also transform existing support spaces. A new off-campus entry, connected to the new Exhibition, Visitor, and Conference Center also designed by Ando, is part of a master plan to orient the buildings away from the street.

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South Beach Style Heads to Manhattan

The Setai Group and New York developer Zamir Equities have collaborated on a 30-story luxury and very exclusive condominium. The Setai New York, billed as “a mantra of serenity and calm,” is located in the Financial District. Jean-Michel Gathy, of Kuala Lumpur-based Denniston International Architects & Planners, who designed The Setai, South Beach, is design architect, and New York’s Avinash K. Malhotra, AIA, (AKM Architects) is project architect. The building will contain 167 studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom residences priced from around $650,000 to $6.75 million, in addition to a members only club and spa and furnished rooftop lounge. The public spaces are Asian-inspired with Thai silk panels lining the walls of the lobby, bronze panels, and teak lattices lining the lobby walls.

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LHSA+DP Impacts X 5 in Caribbean

The Caribbean island of Anguilla will be the site of five new luxury projects by Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership (LHSA+DP). The projects will feature the ultimate in indoor/outdoor living, green and sustainable design. It will emphasize an authentic Anguillan experience, focusing on natural elements such as water, sky, sand, and wind. The developments are designed to reflect the history of the island’s culture and architecture in tandem with a distinctly modern aesthetic sensibility.

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Building Tests Stanford Law Green Guidelines

Polshek Partnership Architects has been selected by Stanford Law School to design a new 80,000-square-foot academic building intended to promote overall campus integration and strengthen the Law School’s community while providing the faculty with a collaborative working, learning, and teaching environment. The project is located between the commons facility of the Munger Graduate Residence, currently under construction, and the academic buildings of the Crown Quadrangle, designed by Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill in 1972. The new building will be developed in accordance with the Stanford University Guidelines for Sustainable Buildings.

After receiving last year’s TED Prize, Architecture for Humanity is launching a beta version of the Open Architecture Network (OAN) on 03.08.07. The website will allow designers, community groups, and NGOs to browse, post projects, discuss relevant topics, contribute to shared resources, collaborate with each other, and access project management tools. The goal is to develop a site that will support innovative, sustainable, and collaborative design solutions for improving standards of living, according to the mission statement. To learn more, check out the website. An interview with Cameron Sinclair, Executive Director and co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, is also available on TreeHugger Radio.

The AIA New York Chapter released its list of 2007 Design Award recipients; 31 winners were selected from over 400 submissions. To see the full list of winners, click the link. Honor Awards were announced in the previous issue of e-OCULUS. Architecture Merit Award winners include: Peter L. Gluck and Partners (Affordable Housing); Steven Holl Architects (School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa); noroof architects (Slot House); and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (U.S. Census Bureau Headquarters).

Interior Architecture Merit Award Winners include: STUDIOS Architecture (Bloomberg LP Expansion Floors 17-20); Christoff:Finio Architecture (The Heckscher Foundation for Children); and Asymptote: Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture (Alessi Flagship Store New York).

Project Merit Award Winners include: Cooper Robertson & Partners (Zuccotti Park); Thomas Phifer and Partners, Office for Visual Interaction, Werner Sobek Ingenieure (City Lights); Caples Jefferson Architects (Weeksville Heritage Center); Robert Siegel Architects (United States Land Port of Entry, Calais, Maine); Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects (405 West 53rd Street); Ogawa/ Depardon Architects (Red Hook Workspace); CR Studio (Pier 62 Carousel Shed); Lyn Rice Architects (Sheila C. Johnson Design Center); Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (Park Fifth); Rogers Marvel Architects (55 Water Street Plaza, The Elevated Acre, and Battery Park City Streetscapes); and Frederic Schwartz Architects (New Orleans Shotgun LOFT Affordable Housing)…

The 2007 AIA Jury of Fellows elevated 76 members to the AIA College of Fellows, including New York based architects: Mustafa Kemal Abadan, FAIA; Roger Duffy, FAIA; Frank J. Greene, FAIA; Paul Katz, FAIA; Blake Middleton, FAIA; Margaret Rietveld, FAIA; Henry Stolzman, FAIA; Calvin Tsao, FAIA; and Adam Yarinsky, FAIA…

Winners of the 2006-2007 BOMA/NY Pinnacle Awards include: The Lincoln Building (Historical Building); Ted Weiss Federal Office Building (Government Building and Earth Award); and Hearst Headquarters (New Construction)…

Ted Moudis Associates received the IFMA award for Excellence in Design/Construction of a New Facility for their office space at 79 Madison Avenue… School of Visual Arts appointed Jane Smith, AIA, founder and managing principal of Spacesmith, as the chair of the BFA Interior Design Department… Gensler recently announced the promotion of 21 new Principals of the firm, four of whom are New York-based: Lance Boge, Rocco Giannetti, AIA, Thomas Lanzelotti, AIA, and Keith Rosen, AIA, IIDA…