NY: The Latest Architecture and News

Winners of the 2012 Land Art Generator Initiative Competition for Freshkills Park in Staten Island, NYC are out. With 4 placed winners and a long list of shortlisted projects, the range of ideas shows how designers are exploring many different options for sustainable energy infrastructure.

The Winners:

• First: Scene-Sensor // Crossing Social and Ecological Flows byJames Murray and Shota Vashakmadze
• Second: Fresh Hills by Matthew Rosenberg, Structural Engineering Consultant: Matt Melnyk, Production Assistants: Emmy Maruta, Robbie Eleazer
• Third: Pivot by Yunxin Hu and Ben Smith
• Fourth: 99 Red Balloons by Emeka Nnadi, Scott Rosin, Meaghan Hunter, Danielle Loeb, Kara McDowell, Indrajit Mitra, Narges Ayat and Denis Fleury

Check out the projects 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 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.

Read on for more after the break.

With the forthcoming release of Rhino 5.0, RhinoScript will be moving to a new syntax: Python.  The new, more intuitive interface for manipulating Rhino from the inside gives us the opportunity to quickly and easily create a wide variety of complex systems based on simple rules that are easily implemented with no prior programming experience.

We introduce RhinoScript for absolute beginners, including the basics of programming techniques (variables, flow control, etc.) as well as the working knowledge of how Rhino represents geometrical objects such as points, curves, surfaces and even text. We then move quickly into techniques for automation and generative design which address the specific ways in which each participant can use Rhino.Python.

When the iconic Apple glass cube on Fifth Avenue was shroud in barriers in preparation for renovation in June, the future of the flagship Apple store was unclear.  It was only revealed that Apple would be removing the glass cube and working on drainage, pavers, and bollards on the plaza, but just what changes were to be made to the cube itself remained elusive.