New York: The Latest Architecture and News

The awkwardly shaped large site at West Side Highway and 57th Street is about to get a whole lot more attention. Bjarke Ingels and BIG will finally make their architectural debut in North America, with an unusual apartment building design in none other than New York City. The asymmetrical peak almost pyramid in shape is the result of blending the mismatched forms of a typical Manhattan tower podium and a low-rise apartment block European in style.

BIG’s reinvention of the ‘New York apartment building’ somehow is able to check all of the boxes, providing a connection to the waterfront and the Hudson River Park, acknowledging the surrounding context both in relationship to building size and neighbors’ views, and alleviating traffic noise. The leafy green courtyards that pop up within this new residential typology help to balance a steeply sloped facade, 450-feet at its peak. Designed for client Durst Fetner Residential, the building offers both a cultural and commercial program and will accommodate 600 residential units varying in size.

Follow the break for the architect’s description and more photographs.

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Architects: BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group Location: Manhattan, New York, USA Partner in Charge: Bjarke Ingels Project Leader: Beat Schenk Project Architect: Sören Grünert Project Team: Thomas Christoffersen, Celine Jeanne, Daniel Sundlin, Alessandro Ronfini, Aleksander Tokarz, Alessio Valmori, Alvaro Garcia Mendive, Felicia Guldberg, Gabrielle Nadeau, Ho Kyung Lee, Julian Liang, Julianne Gola, Lucian Racovitan, Marcela Martinez, Maria Nikolova, Minjae Kim, Mitesh Dixit, Nicklas Rasch, Riccardo Mariano, Stanley Lung, Steffan Heath, Thilani Rajarathna, Xu Li Architect of Record: SLCE Architects Landscape Architects: Starr Whitehouse Structural: Thornton Tomasetti MEP: Dagher Engineering Civil: Langan Engineering Construction Manager: Hunter Roberts Transportation: Philip Habib & Assoc. Building Envelope: Israel Berger & Assoc. Marketing: Nancy Packes Vertical Transportation: Van Deusen & Assoc. Acoustical: Cerami & Assoc. Wind: CPP Environmental: AKRF Client: Durst Fetner Residential Project Area: 870,000 sqf Renderings & Animation: German Glessner

The work of Indian artists, including Raqs Media Collective, will also be included in the exhibition, offering insights into the complex and oft cited “messy” urbanism of India. Curator is Kanu Agrawal and the exhibition design and graphics by Popular Architecture and Omnivore.

Situated on a prominent waterfront site just across the East River from the United Nations and Roosevelt Island, the Queens Library at Hunters Point is scheduled to begin construction early next year. The design, which was approved this month is a collaboration between Steven Holl and partner Chris McVoy.

When we visited Steven Holl Architects we had a chance to see the design of Queens Library at Hunters Point on the boards. Check out our recent features of works by Steven Holl Architects, including the master plans and buildings for Hangzhou Normal University in China, the Glasgow School of Art, and our previous coverage of Queens Library at Hunters Point.

Further project description of the new Queens Library at Hunters Point and images following the break.

Architects: Steven Holl Architects Location: Hunters Point, New York City, New York, USA Design Architects: Steven Holl and Chris McVoy

The open international ideas competition, hosted by suckerPUNCH, is for a new, larger home for the museum of cartoon and comic art . The museum was established in 2001 and currently is based in the Soho area of Manhattan in New York City. The main goal of the museum is to educate the public about comic and cartoon art, how it is crafted, and how it reflects history. More images and descriptions of winning entries after the break.

Or Regev and Shirly Kujawski shared their entry for the new Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, hosted by Sucker Punch Daily. The project is located at Essex Market in New York City, nearby the Williamsburg Bridge. The architects approached their design for the proposal for MoCCA as an extension of the media that the museum is designed to house and present.

Read on for more on this project after the break.

LightHearted is the winning design for this years Times Square Valentine, an annual competition to deign and build a heart for Times Square. Designed by Freecell, a 2010 P.S.1 contestant, in collaboration with Peter Dorsey, the ten-foot diameter heart is a light weight construction, with five pairs of aluminum elliptical loops radially arranged with rotating connections. The structure is covered with an open weave red fabric that both captures and reflects light while letting wind pass through.

LightHearted is an interactive installation, six people will hold the heart up for fifteen minute intervals. The ten-day event, February 10 to February 20, will need over 2,600 volunteers to share in this collective experience.

Head to the LightHearted website and sign up for your fifteen minutes on their volunteer calendar!

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Architects: Freecell, and Peter Dorsey Location: 46th Street and Broadway, New York City, New York, USA Web Design: Deelux Sponsor: Times Square Alliance Public Art Program Photographs: Courtesy of Freecell

The Museum for African Art, New York, and Columbia University’s Institute of African Studies, Committee on Global Thought, and Center for African Education have announced the creation of Sightlines: New Perspectives on African Architecture and Urbanism, a lecture series devoted to Africa’s rapidly changing urban environments.

Sightlines will comprise talks by distinguished practitioners of architecture, urban planning, and architectural theory, each of whom will apply his or her particular area of expertise to the exploration of contemporary African cities as unique built environments. The lectures, which will be open to the public free of charge (see schedule below), will examine the architectural, social, physical, and emotional contours of the cities, while also addressing the global relevance and applicability of this emerging field of discourse. Sightlines additionally includes a lecture by Senegalese artist Viyé Diba, whose work is tied to urbanization.

Complete lectures schedule after the break.

For the occasion of the first Festival of Ideas for a New City in New York City, Storefront for Art and Architecture jointly with the New Museum and New York City’s Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) are launching the StreetFest Competition for the design, management, and construction of temporary outdoor spaces that produce new ways for collective gathering and city engagement. On Saturday, May 7, 2011, one winning entry will occupy designated outdoor spaces along the Bowery and the surrounding streets of the New Museum during the Festival. We envision fabricating a minimum of fifteen structures that will cover approximately 2,000 square feet.

Nabito shared with us their latest project for mixed uses, The Stairscraper, a horizontal skyscraper, designed to be in New York, which won the Total Housing Competition. It is currently on exhibit until the 22nd of January at the Store Front for Art and Architecture in New York City. More images and architect’s description after the break.