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Building regulations are stifling architects according to developer Roger Zogolovitch, who has declared support for ideas proposed by Patrik Schumacher in his controversial World Architecture Festival speech. Read more
It took me forty years to find Vinegar Hill. As the crow flies, that Brooklyn neighborhood was around two miles from my apartment on Gold Street in Manhattan. I knew of Brooklyn; Crazy Eddie’s store was there, where he sold stereo components at prices that were insane, until he got bagged for fraud. The Brooklyn Bridge went there, over the spooky-dark waters of the East River. The river was what you call a psychogeographical barrier, intimately known only to people wearing cement shoes.
I learned of Vinegar Hill when my office moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn Heights in 2012. Not the Brooklyn Heights of Pineapple, Orange, and Cranberry streets, but over east, bordering the courts and the house of detention. That’s Brooklyn for you. That’s New York City for you. There are neighborhoods and, yes, they have histories and distinctivenesses. But they are always rubbing shoulders with the “other” — one street beyond the neighborhood boundary — and it mostly works out. “New York is a triumph of coexistence interrupted by people yelling at one another,” Rebecca Solnit neatly summarizes in Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas. Just so. There is still turf in New York, gang turf: shivs, zip guns, brass knuckles, and lawsuits.
When my office moved to the not-so-great side of the Heights, I went for walks. I’m a geographer, and if I didn’t walk around, I might as well be a sociologist. William Helmreich is a sociologist, up on the Hamilton Heights campus of City College, and he might as well be a geographer. He has walked 6,000 miles in New York City — that’s about every block, chronicled in The Brooklyn Nobody Knows — and he has walked them with an eye to knowing them, a least taking their measure from street level: he studies the architecture, the light, the sounds, the ambience. He is Baudelaire’s flâneur, Guy Debord’s dĂ©riviste. Helmreich was eating salted cod in Vinegar Hill before I bought my first turntable from Crazy Eddie.
It is not that Helmreich is all-knowing, but he is as tempting as a sideshow barker. And The Brooklyn Nobody Knows — especially for the 1972 Manhattanite know-nothing archetype like me — is made to order. He has a handful of fine curios. But he has competition in a couple of midway veterans: Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro — big competition, five-borough competition: “a rapture, a misery, a mystery, a conspiracy. A destination and point of origin, a labyrinth in which some are lost are some find what they’re looking for.” New York City, forever dying and being born. Who could resist?
Nonstop Metropolis — co-authored by Solnit and geographer-writer Jelly-Schapiro — is impressionistic, a gallimaufry of takes on neighborhoods and topics: hip-hop, doo-wop, jazz, nerdy Scottish bands; wildlife, greed, riots (we like our riots); races, ethnicities, creeds; Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs; Yiddish theater and the West Indian Parade; pickup basketball and Latin radio; stone aqueducts and homeless shelters; Kings, Queens, Breukelen, the Bronck, and Staaten Eylandt, too (with apologies to the Lenape). Each of these essays is as dense and demanding as a prose poem. Some are as sudden as squibs. Don’t miss those; as in the paper newspapers, squibs are often the best parts. Many of the accompanying maps are highly colored, flushed with exuberance: so much to convey, so little space. Others are as quickening as the silk, escape-and-evasion maps given to pilots during World War Two. The writing and the maps are what “place” is about: desire, fear, landmark, memory, imagination, a state of mind, sometimes melting into thin air — but still right there under your feet. “Conventional maps are falling by the wayside as people just consult their phones about where to go. With that, the map as a work of art vanishes, and so does some key part of learning the lay of the land . . . digital devices just teach obedience,” writes Solnit, intuitive geographer extraordinaire.
The Brooklyn Nobody Knows is less flamboyant than Nonstop, and there is much the “walking guide” about it. He knocks around all forty-four neighborhoods, all seventy-one square miles, and may well have wished a good day to each of the borough’s 2.6 million inhabitants. Helmreich is smitten with Brooklyn; I’ll even take the liberty of saying he loves the place, loves the whole city. He’s the kind of guy who asks questions: ” ‘So you’re a hornsmith!’ I exclaim by way of beginning a conversation. ‘What’s that? I didn’t even know there was such a thing,’ ” he inquires of a man in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood. He knows there are parts of Brooklyn that can only be disarmed by common decency — not that he isn’t commonly decent — and being an old man. “If I see some bad-ass dude walking up toward me, I don’t put on my gang face, I don’t try to look tough.” (From an interview in the New Yorker, September 17, 2013.) As if. “I do the opposite. I seek to make eye contact, and as soon as they look at me I say, ‘Hey, buddy, how ya doin’?’ ” Not too much eye contact. Thinking he might break the ice with a group of Bloods, “I asked them, ‘How can I get one of those red jackets?’ and they said, ‘Depends what side you’re on.’ ” (New Yorker interview, same date.) That takes a special, radiant aura of street credibility. He also knows the power of laughter, and when to laugh.
Solnit and Jelly-Shapiro write that Nonstop Metropolis will be the last atlas of its kind, which includes San Francisco and New Orleans. “Nonstop Metropolis is the last volume in a trilogy of atlases exploring what maps can do to describe the ingredients and systems that make up a city and what stories remain to be told after we think we think we know where we are.” Sounds like Tennessee Williams: “America has only three cities; New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” Cleveland would make it a tetralogy, which is not in the works. Helmreich does, however: Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, too. Sail in peace, William, may your legs be strong, your humor tireless, and your wish for a red jacket go unmet. Try camouflage.
The Barnes & Noble Review http://ift.tt/2gCoiRe
The new terminal for Stockholm’s permanent ferry connections to Finland and the Baltics will be a landmark for the new urban development Norra DjursgĂĄrdsstaden – both architecturally and environmentally.Â
The firsthand experience of the terminal reveals a confident realization and immediacy detailing that demonstrates an innovative new type of typology in the area.
Mixing urban park and infrastructure
The terminal recalls the shape of a moving vessel and the architecture – with large cranes and warehouses – that previously characterized the ports. At the same time, the terminal has an ambitious sustainable profile, characteristic of the entire development. The main idea has been to create natural links between central Stockholm and the new urban area in connection with the terminal, so that city life will naturally flow into the area.
Therefore, the terminal is raised to be at level with the urban zone, so it is easy for both pedestrians and traffic to access. At the same time the roof of the terminal building is designed as a varied green landscape with stairs, ramps, niches, and cosy corners, inviting both Stockholmers and passengers for a stroll or relaxing moments, while enjoying the view of the ferries, the archipelago, and the city skyline.Â
In that way radically blurring the way in which the line between architecture, harbour and the rooftop landscape is experienced, linking the terminal to its maritime context in a direct manner, both in scale, tectonics and though its materiality – but also back to the city through its accessible public park on top.
Clarity and consistency
A deliberate clarity and consistency of architectural solutions, most clear through the terminals exposed zig-zag trusses, vast use of floor high seamless panoramic glass sections and seem less floors and cladding used for its facades and ceilings. And for the urban park its vast green buildup on top it’s roofscape.
Focus on light
The inside of ferry terminal is a testament to C.F. Møller’s careful attention to daylight and pleasant indoor spaces. This focus is particularly evident in the large arrivals and departures hall. The sculptural roof of the hall draws in sunlight by day and provides stunning views of starry skies at night.
Made to be self-sufficient in energy
Solar energy and geothermal heating/cooling are provided via the building’s integrated systems, making the terminal self-sufficient in energy. Värtaterminalen will receive the environmental certification level Gold.
An estimated four million people annually will pass through Värtaterminalen, travelling to and from Finland and the Baltics.
Product Description.The firsthand experience of the terminal reveals a confident realization and immediacy detailing that demonstrates an innovative new type of typology the area, capable of intermixing fluid spaces for traffic and passengers, further enhanced through a setting of large seamless surfaces, interwoven from outside in and outwards. Applicating a special atmospheric sensuality and attention to material, detail – perhaps more parallel to the architecture of its vessels it serves than the traditional architecture in the area, surrounding the site of the terminal.
Radically blurring the way in which the line between architecture, harbour and the rooftop landscape is experienced, linking the terminal to its maritime context in a direct manner, both in scale, tectonics and though its materiality – but also back to the city through its accessible public park on top.
A deliberate clarity and consistency of architectural solutions, most clear through the terminals exposed zig-zag trusses, vast use of floor-high seamless panoramic glass sections and seem less floors and cladding used for its facades and ceilings. And for the urban park it’s vast green buildup on top it’s roofscape.
From the architect. As the cultural core of the Faena District, the Forum provides a focal point to the neighborhood and to the mid-Beach zone at large. The ensemble of three buildings – the Faena Forum, Faena Bazaar and Parking—enrich Faena’s hotel and residential components along Collins Avenue, providing a dynamic symmetry between the district’s cultural and commercial programming across Miami Beach’s main thoroughfare.
The existing site presented three distinct conditions for the three distinct programs– a large, wedge shaped site for the Forum, a protected historic art deco hotel for the Bazaar and an empty lot allocated for parking. Although the Faena District enjoys a unique location spanning two waterfronts, the cultural components were positioned on the quieter, residential zone along Indian Creek rather than the activated Atlantic beachfront.
The Forum claims the heart of the complex by addressing this urban context with two volumes that generate distinct frontages toward Indian Creek Drive and Collins Avenue. Embedded within the residential zone west of Collins, the Forum’s cube and cylinder achieve the same intimate scale as the Bazaar and Park. The Forum’s circular plan enables the public domain to expand, activating pedestrian movement within the district. A 45-foot cantilever allows the landscaped plaza to slip under the Forum along Collins, providing a dramatic sense of arrival.
The combination of the Forum’s classical dome space with a black box theater in the main assembly space provide the ultimate flexibility for the diverse programming of Faena’s multifaceted ambitions. Combined, the full layout has the capacity for large scale events. Independently, the spaces can be divided to host distinct events, with dedicated acoustics and arrival. The Forum represents endless possibilities to host a range of events – from concerts to conventions; roundtable discussion to banquets; intimate exhibitions to art fairs- all within a single evening. Liberated from obligations to operate as a strictly institutional or a strictly commercial entity, the Forum presents a new typology for interaction, leveraging the ambiguous advantage of Faena’s redefinition of culture.
Eric Parry Architects has been granted planning permission for 1 Undershaft, a 73-storey skyscraper that will dwarf The Gherkin and The Cheesegrater to become the tallest building in London’s financial district. Read more
BIG and Barcode Architects have been selected as the winning team in a competition to design a new mixed-use building in the emerging district of IJburg Steigereiland in Amsterdam. To be known as Sluishuis (Lock House), the building will serve as a new icon connecting the neighborhood to Amsterdam’s historic center while providing 380 zero-energy residences, 4,000 square meters of commercial and public space, and a marina with space for up to 30 houseboats.
The winning design takes the form of a classic European courtyard typology, adapted to the canal-centered landscape of Amsterdam and the complex context of the site, close to both large infrastructure and small-scale urban development. Towards the water, the building corner is lifted to bring daylight and views to inner apartments and to allow watercraft to enter the complex. From this peak, a cascade of landscape terraces creates a transition from the scale of the cityscape to its small-scale surroundings.
“Having spent my formative years as an architect in Holland at the end of the 20th century, it feels like a homecoming to now get to contribute to the architecture of the city that I have loved and admired for so long,” said Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner of BIG.
“Our Sluishuis is conceived as a city block of downtown Amsterdam floating in the IJ Lake, complete with all aspects of city life. Towards the city, the courtyard building kneels down to invite visitors to climb its roof and enjoy the panoramic view of the new neighborhoods on the IJ. Toward the water, the building rises from the river, opening a gigantic gate for ships to enter and dock in the port/yard. A building inside the port, with a port inside the building.”
Around the building, a vegetated promenade connects an archipelago of public program elements, including mooring points for houseboats, a sailing school, and floating gardens. The pathway loops around to connect to a public passage climbing the terraces on the roof of the building, leading to community viewing platform at the building’s peak.
“We have tried to design a building with a surprisingly changing perspective and a unique contemporary character, which reflects the identity of the future residents and all users of Sluishuis.” explained Barcode Architects Partner Dirk Peters.
The design was lauded by the competition jury for its ambitious sustainability goals, which aim to increase social sustainability by “reducing environmental impact during the construction phase, limiting total CO2 emissions, and by using renewable resources throughout the building.”
“The world-famous urban environment of Amsterdam was created by the fusion of water and city,” said Andreas Klok Pedersen, Partner at BIG. “The new Sluishuis is born of the same DNA, merging water and perimeter block and expanding the possibilities for urban lifeforms around the IJ.”
News via BIG.
On a chilly morning, photographer Susan Taylor waited more than an hour to capture the perfect pastel sunrise at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. “It’s been my mission and passion to support and photograph America’s parks and public lands since I was young teen,” Susan said. The park honors President Theodore Roosevelt, who fell in love with the rugged landscape of grasslands, forests and rivers and started a cattle ranch at Elkhorn Ranch, which you can still visit today. Photo courtesy of Susan Taylor.
OMA has finished its perforated Faena Forum art and performance centre in Miami Beach, the heart of a new ocean-side cultural district springing up in the US city. Read more
Sig Nordal 