Recently, we shared Visiondivision’sCancer City project – if you haven’t seen it, be sure to check it out as the firm’s fresh outlook results in a new kind of landscape for the animals. Moving from designing a new metropolis for crayfish, the architects have switched gears for their latest project to create a sukkah for an annual Jewish harvest festival. The proposal is part of the New York competition for Sukkah City (be sure to view the finalists here), which asked participants to re-imagine the temporary pavilion by developing new methods of material practice and parametric design. For Visiondivison’s proposal, the organic pavilion changes the conditions for social interaction and behavior within a simplistic structure of compression.
More images and more about the proposal after the break.
Check out this cool treehouse nestled into Maple trees near the Hudson River in New York designed by German-based Baumraum. Far from a child’s treehouse, this residence provides simple interiors with a touch of elegance. Constructed for a family with two children, the treehouse serves as an outlet for relaxation and is connected to their main residence via a slender wooden catwalk.
More images and more about the treehouse after the break.
The New York Office of Architecture for Humanity just announced the dates for FlyNY 2010, the second annual international kite design competition and showcase co-hosted by the City of New York Parks & Recreation. On the wings of a successful 2009 event, FlyNY 2010 will take place on August 21 from 10:30AM – 4PM on Pier I at 70th Street in Riverside Park South in New York City. FlyNY is one part design competition and one part Fly Day, with the overall aim of engaging design professionals and novices alike in a dynamic conversation about design.
Set on Manhattan’s West Side, participation in the August 21 Fly Day is free, open to the public and does not require a submission into the competition. The event will include kitemaking activities for kids and families, live entertainment and kite flying.
Designers, architects, artists and others are also encouraged to participate in the FlyNY Design Dialogue taking place Friday, August 20 6-8pm EST on Twitter. It will be a dynamic conversation which merges the FlyNY competition jury panel discussion with a broader, international design/architecture audience. Just log onto Twitter, follow @_FlyNY and tweet using the FlyNY will be posing design related questions and following along during the jury panel discussion.
For more information on the event, visit http://flyny.org/ or view the event page on Facebook. See images of last year’s event after the break.
We took a few shots of Foster + Partners’latest addition to the Bowery – a new gallery to house theSperone Westwater’s growing collection from prominent artists of different nationalities and ages. Sitting a few steps away from SANAA’s musuem, this new gallery’s CNC milled glass facade elegantly responds to its neighboring art museum. According to Foster, the gallery is “both a response to the dynamic urban character of New York’s Bowery and a desire to rethink the way in which the public engages with art in the setting of a gallery.”
The Business of Aura is an exhibition hosted in two locations, Elga Wimmer Gallery and Broadway Gallery, curated by Kelsey Harrington. It includes painting, drawing, photography, sculptural prototypes, and installation. The show examines the potential of studio processes to produce aura.
Our director, David Assael, took some shots of Gehry’s latest creation – a wavy residential tower clad in undulating metal panels. While still in the construction phase, it is easy to get the overall idea of the structure. In person, the tower demands attention as its presence, due both to scale and materiality, is unmatched within its context. Throughout the day, the light plays upon the curves making the hard metallic color almost glisten. Some of Assael’s photos capture the tower in the early evening – the perfect time of day to see the reds and oranges of the setting sun against the building. What do you think of Gehry’s skyscraper?
Earlier last week, the City Council of New York City decided to move forward with Rafael Viñoly Architects’ master plan for the New Domino in Brooklyn. While the historic sugar refinery complex, with its familiar yellow signage, has achieved landmark status and will be preserved, the 11.2 acre-site will be outfitted with 2,200 new apartments – 660 of which are affordable housing – and four acres of public park space including a riverfront esplanade along the East River in Brooklyn.
New York will be the recipient of another Steven Holl project – a new library at the Queens West Development at Hunters Point. Envisioned as a contemporary “urban forum”, the project will shape public space and create new connections across the Queens West Development, Hunter Points South, and the existing neighborhood of Hunters Point. Steven Holl states, “We are very pleased with this great commission for an addition to the growing community. We envision a building hovering and porous, open to the public park. A luminous form of opportunity for knowledge, standing on its own reflection in the east river.”
New Buildings New York, a program of the Center for Architecture Foundation, is a series of tours that provide a behind-the-scenes look at new building in the New York metropolitan area and are led by their architects, engineers and designers. All proceeds benefit youth and family programs at the Center for Architecture.
During the post-WWII era, the surge in the housing market often resulted in “faceless” suburban communities that sprang up to relieve the immediate need for housing. The cities maintained their cultural identity and rather than the suburbs infusing their new communities with commercial or cultural entities, the suburbs constantly relied on the city’s proximity for such things. As this old model is highly unsustainable and car dependent, Christoph Vogl from Cheungvogl has studied Long Island’s suburbs, in particular Hempstead, that did not grow as independent communities. He has outlined a master plan of what can be done to give Long Island the social, cultural and economic context it needs.
“Very much representing these observations, the so-thought town centres of Long Island’s communities, placed around the major traffic intersections are not occupied by cultural, commercial and social institutions, as expected from the ratio of communal identity and urban context, but by parking lots. Not some, but hectares of paring lots. Not complaining about the non-existence of urban context and real community, these vacant areas around Long Island’s “Cross roads” offer the unique chance for master planning based reconsideration of the meaning of community,” added Vogl.
Check out the steps of the master plan after the break.
It is easy to take for granted the things you grow accustomed to, but ever since the initial idea of revitalizing the High Line began sprouting up, New Yorkers have been taking full advantage of the project and loving every second spent strolling, relaxing and gazing at the West Side’s newest addition. The project has truly piqued locals and tourists’ interests as the elevated promenade is enjoyed as much today as it was on opening day over a year ago.
With such success, it is no surprise, as Kate Taylor reported for the New York Times, that the small office of the Friends of the High Line has received countless calls asking how their cities can also enjoy the High Line effect.
