The Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park in midtown New York, designed by Cook + Fox Architects, is the first commercial high-rise to achieve LEED Platinum certification. The design and high performance of this building is intended to set a new standard for commercial construction and for the office-work environment. By focusing on ways to emphasize daylight, fresh air and a connection to the outdoors, the architects redefine the parameters of the skyscraper as more than a glass box.
More on the strategies implemented in this project after the break.
In an effort to make New York City’s built environment “more livable and hospitable” the Department of Design and Construction (DDC), Health and Mental Hygiene, Transportation (DOT), and City Planning have developed the Active Design Guidelines: Promoting Physical Activity and Health in Design to be referenced in conjunction with the DOT’s Street Design Manual and other guidelines produced by NYC. The guidelines are written for urban planners, designers and architects and are driven by the need to address health concerns such as obesity and diabetes through intelligent design. Our built environments give us cues as to how to inhabit them and have tremendous effects, sometimes subconscious, on our lifestyles. Do you walk, drive, or bike to work? Do you take the stairs or the elevator? We make these types of decisions, which are largely based on comfort, on a daily basis. But the guidelines established in this manual are intended to give designers the tools to encourage healthy lifestyle choices to address the social concerns of NYC. So, what can planners, architects and designers do to create an active and healthy city? Find out after the break.
The Green Building Council of Australia has released Green Star – a new comprehensive rating system that can assess the degree to which communities, as a whole, succeed in creating livable and sustainable environments. This is a new and dynamic way to look at the culture of sustainability. “Green building” is not only reflected in individual buildings; it is the accumulation of the buildings, the infrastructure, the urban planning and design, the amenities of the community and the lifestyles that communities live. Projects such as DIY Urbanism in the Netherlands by MVRDV and “e_co_llectiva” by Athanasios Polyzoidis & Katerina Petsiou have this kind of regard for the development of holistic community.
The New York Economic Development Corporation and Mayor Bloomberg of NYC announced the completion of the final plan for Willets Point - a peninsula on the Flushing River in Northern Queens, New York. The development of Willets Point is part of the urban renewal project associated with Citi Field – the Mets’ new stadium. Nicknamed the Iron Triangle, the project will include housing for mixed incomes, retail and entertainment amenities, a hotel, a convention center, office space, parks and open space, and a new public school, all of which falls under the umbrella of LEED-certified buildings and infrastructure. As with every redevelopment plan, there are positives and negatives to restructuring the community.
In April, Black Spectacles filmed a discussion with Stanley Tigerman and the AIA Chicago Education Knowledge Committee revealing an intimate look at Tigerman’s 60+ years in the profession in his own words. The discussion is guided by a series of questions from the audience that send Tigerman into stories from his experiences, his attitude towards the profession today, technology and ethics.
Read on for key points from the interview after the break.
Despite all of the preconceived notions about New York City being overpopulated, noisy and constantly bustling, there are numerous pockets within the five boroughs that offer respite from the city. This design strives to be one such pocket – or island. Governors Island has a long military history that dates back to 1776. It was controlled by the U.S. Government first for the U.S. Army and later for the Coast Guard. In 2002 the island was “sold” to the people of New York and declared a national monument. In 2010, Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson agreed on the future operations, planning and redevelopment of the island through the Trust for Governors Island. Since then, the island has been open during the summer months for visitors to enjoy the unique seclusion offered by the the old military grounds. But the Trust had bigger plans. Choosing a team of architects, urban planners, designers and landscape architects that include Rogers Marvel Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mathews Nielsen and led by West 8, plans began to unfold that would reimagine the island as a getaway for New Yorkers. Playing up to its isolation, its abundance of lawns and trees, and the views that it offers, the first phase of the plans have officially broken ground and are scheduled for completion in Fall 2013.
The new facility designed by Perkins+Willfor the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland approaches the design as a total experience of healing that includes architecture and urban design. The project proposes to redefine the hospital experience with The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center and the Sheikh Zayed Tower, whose goal is to emphasize transformative patient-centric care.
UP Projects and The Architecture Foundation have announced an Open Call to architects and designers for the 2013 design of the Floating Cinema Projectthat will cruise the waterways of East London. The design is a followup to the Floating Cinema project of 2011, designed by Studio Weave, a scheme launched by UP Project’s Portavilion series for innovative temporary public art spaces with artists Somewhere (Nina Pope, and Karen Guthrie). The competition will be held in two stages. A pre-qualification questionnaire should be submitted by each entrants (or group), due by 4pm on June 26th. UP Projects and the Architecture Foundation will then select four practices to develop and design the Floating Cinema in response to a brief. More on the competition after the break.
Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment will be opening June 16th, 2012 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. The exhibit, organized by Yale Institute, will celebrate Kevin Roche’s expansive portfolio, from his early days as Eero Saarinen’s “right-hand man” through the founding of his practice in the 1960s with John Dinkeloo (KRJDA). The exhibit will include images, drawings, interviews, models, as well as original slide presentations to clients. More on the exhibit after the break.
Last December, ArchDaily revealed the winners of the Architect’s Eye Photography Competition. Now, in celebration of the 2012 London Festival of Architecture, the winners of the the competition will be exhibited at the Roca London Gallery beginning June 23rd in Chelsea, London as part of a Launch Event, Exhibition and Discussion Panel. International Art Consultants (IAC) hosts the competition in recognition of architects’ passion for photography. Last year’s 19 finalists and winners will be on view to the public at the gallery until July 8th.
In the past decade New York City’s government, along with numerous organizations and design teams, have taken the initiative to revive the city’s public spaces and reclaim underutilized areas that have long been associated with the city’s manufacturing past. We’re all familiar with the High Line, a project that takes over the elevated rail lines of Chelsea and Meat Packing District that until several years ago stood as a desolate and eroding piece of infrastructure, which was beautiful in its own way but largely underutilized. Then there is the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which has become a mecca for designers, fabricators and research companies and has recently acquired a museum to celebrate its history. And of course, there are the city’s waterways, which, since New York City’s early history, have served its manufacturing and trade economy, have become parks along the waterfront as part of the Hudson River Greenway and the FDR Drive. Manufacturing has long been replaced by Wall Street, but there are parts of the city that still retain the industrial past along the historic waterfront and continue to operate some of the most important facilities that allow the city to function. Now it is time to reintroduce a public use among these industrial zones.
The new exhibition space Rooms for Glass (Le Stanze del Vetro) in Italy, designed by Selldorf Architects, will open this summer in August 2012. The first exhibit to inaugurate the space will be Carlo Scarpa. Venini 1932–1947, a collection of over 300 glassworks by architect Carlo Scarpa. The exhibit will run until November 29, 2012, after which Rooms for Glass will continue showcasing the art of Venetian glassmaking in the 20th century with other exhibits.
The city of Colmar, France is undertaking the expansion of The Unterlinden Museum with the annexation of an Art Nouveau building that once housed the city’s municipal baths. The 1906 building stands just meters away from the current museum. Its addition will bring the current museum to an area of 8,000 square meters, which will allow works that are currently stored in the museum’s vaults to be displayed to the public. The design team is led by Herzog & de Meuron and is scheduled for completion in September, 2013.
Sydney is once again illuminated by the fourth annual Vivid’s Festival of Light 2012 that celebrates the creative industries with light shows, music, design ideas conferences and entrepreneurship conferences. The seventeen-day festival, which started on May 25 and will run until June 11th, features light shows and graphics projected on buildings, concerts, lectures and conferences. This round of light projections will have over 50 installations and includes cityscapes, street furniture, monuments and emblematic buildings like the Sydney Opera House.
Neri Oxman is an architect and founder of MATERIALECOLOGY with the MIT Media Lab. Her work focuses on computational strategies for form finding; she chooses to define and design processes that generate form. She has published numerous papers and has contributed to various texts. Her work has also been featured at the MOMA for the exhibit “Design and the Elastic Mind“, which she designed four systems of processes. In this lecture posted by PopTech, Oxman discusses what the processes of nature can teach designers and how computational strategies defined by materials and the environment can expand the possibilities of the generation of form through algorithms and analysis.
Over the past five years, the Make it Right Foundation in New Orleans has been realizing its commitment to build 150 affordable, green storm resistant homes for families living in the Lower 9th Ward. The foundation, established by Brad Pitt, has completed seventy-five homes with the time and efforts donated by local and international architects such as Gehry Partners,Morphosis,Kieran Timberlake, Pugh+Scarpa, and McDonough+Partners.
