After training at the prestigious Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Israel and moving to New York in 2000, Eran Chen founded ODA New York, a boutique architectural firm based in NYC. Chen has quickly become a recognized name associated with creating buildings that are not only innovative but also ecologically responsible. ODA has participated in high profile projects such as the "super-skinny and super-tall" Manhattan Tower and "a city within a city" in Brooklyn.
In the video above, Chen shares how ODA has been very active in the reconstruction, reimagining, redesign of NYC. He explains how architecture in the city is about the interstitial spaces, voids, gaps and land in between skyscrapers. Chen explains that the way we inhabit the built environment is a combination of physical and mental experiences.
New York City is faced with a bleak future of imposing walls, streets, and interiors (...) as an alternative to this future, we propose a network of spaces in which human scale inversely governs building scale, which in turn promotes socialization and community shared Chen with his social media followers.
In the second part (below) of the interview with ArchDaily, Chen discusses how well-designed outdoor spaces brings value to our lives and that by making this his main element during the design process, architects can leave room for compromise on other things. In his latest project, Chen explains a new concept of filling in the gaps and creating what is essentially a house with a backyard in a dense, vertical city like Manhattan.
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15 Union Square West / ODA Architecture + Perkins Eastman Architects
