Construction of Expanded Brooklyn Greenway Underway
Rendering of the greenway through Brooklyn. (Courtesy NYCDOT)
With the arrival of the Citi Bike share program just around the corner, and the Regional Planning Association’s Harbor Ring proposal gaining momentum, New York’s cycling community can now set its sights on the Brooklyn Greenway. The proposed 14 miles of bike lanes running from Bay Ridge to Greenpoint aim to provide a safe route for cyclists and pedestrians wishing to cross the borough. As Gothamist reported, the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) is preparing to begin construction on three more sections of the path, in Red Hook, Greenpoint, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Los Angeles’ First Complete Street On the MyFigueroa Corridor Close To Moving Ahead
Proposed elements include separated bike lanes, improved crosswalks, new lighting, and enhanced plantings. (Courtesy MyFigueroa)
It’s been about a year since the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (DOT) took the reins over MyFigueroa, a project that hopes to remake the 4-miles in and around Figueroa Street from LA Live to Exposition Park, near USC. But things are quickly wrapping up, because the $20-million Proposition 1C funds it was awarded need to be spent by 2014. On April 9, DOT hosted a community meeting in downtown LA to unveil updated designs for this crucial connective corridor, which when finished, would be the city’s first implemented complete street.
On View> Indianapolis Museum of Art Showing “Ai Weiwei: According to What?”
(Courtesy IMA)
AI WEIWEI: ACCORDING TO WHAT?
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Allen Whitehill Clowes Special Exhibition Gallery
4000 Michigan Road
Indianapolis, Indiana
Through July 21
Ai Weiwei is internationally recognized as one of China’s most controversial and influential contemporary artists. In his exhibition Ai Weiwei: According to What?, the artist, through various media (sculpture, photography, architectural installations, and video), boldly addresses issues of human rights in China and comments on the nation’s history, traditions, and politics. The exhibit features more than 30 works spanning more than 20 years. One is an early work, Forever (2003), in which Ai arranged 42 Forever brand bicycles into a circle, to honor China’s most popular, and reliable (the bicycles were made of heavy-duty steel), mode of transportation during the mid-1900s. The exhibit is also devoted to Ai’s more provocative pieces, such as a 38-ton steel carpet entitled Straight (2008). The artist used rusted steel rebar taken from the remains of a poorly-built school that collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake that tragically killed more than 5,000 schoolchildren. The piece commemorates the thousands of lost lives while openly condemning the Chinese government’s stance on human rights.
On View at the Whitney: Scrim veil-Black rectangle-Natural light
Robert Irwin (b. 1928), Scrim veil—Black rectangle—Natural light, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1977. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Photograph © Warren Silverman, 1977
This summer, the Whitney Museum of American Art will reinstall a work for the first time since its original conception in 1977. Robert Irwin (b. 1928) formed the large-scale Scrim veil-Black rectangle-Natural light, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, especially for the Emily Fisher Landau Gallery almost four decades ago. The exhibition was central to Irwin’s career, as it determined the path for his ensuing practice, and will now be on display for the second time from June 27 to September 1, 2013.
A New Competition Asks Architects to Create Ideas for a More Resilient Waterfront
The Rockaways Post Hurricane Sandy (Courtesy of Tom Duggan/Flickr)
Hurricane Sandy not only caused considerable damage to the Rockaways, but it also exposed the vulnerability of New York City’s waterfront communities to future storms and changing weather patterns. Today, the American Institute of Architects New York, along with NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development, L+M Development Partners, Bluestone Organization, Triangle Equities, and Enterprise Community Partners, announced a new design competition for “resilient and sustainable development in the Rockaways.” The group called on architects to come up with different strategies for how cities can build more thoughtfully in areas prone to flooding.
EVENT>Cocktails & Conversations: Audrey Matlock & Jason Sheftell
Join AN this Friday, April 19th from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM at the Center for Architecture, award-winning architect Audrey Matlock and New York Daily News real estate editor Jason Sheftell will lead the discussion and bartender and author Toby Cecchini will design the evening’s custom cocktail.
cultureNOW and AIA NY’s Architectural Dialogue Committee have launched a new Friday night lecture series with the purpose of initiating conversation about the design of built environments. The new series, Cocktails & Conversations, connects an architect with a critic, journalist, or curator to direct the discussion while attendees sip custom beverages inspired by the architect’s work.
Members and non-members can register here.
Loyola University Hopes to Close Kenmore Ave for Pedestrian Walkway
Loyola University hopes to permanently close part of Kenmore Avenue in preparation for new dorms on its lakefront campus in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. SmithGroupJJR architects, who also helped revamp Loyola’s lakefront campus along with Solomon Cordwell Buenz, released some renderings of the new pedestrian space, which would replace Kenmore Avenue between West Sheridan Road and Rosemont Avenue.
On View> The Vienna Model Exhibition at NYC’s Austrian Cultural Forum
Sargfabrik Estate, 1996, by BKK-2 and Johnny Winter architects. (Courtesy Austrian Cultural Forum)
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- Sperr 17 Rooftop Expansion, 2004, by Sigs architects (Courtesy Austrian Cultural Forum)
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- Alt Erlaa Housing Estate, 1976, by Harry Glück, Requat & Reinthaller & Partner, and Kurt Hlaweniczka (Courtesy Austrian Cultural Forum)
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- Bike City, 2008, by königlarch architects (Courtesy Austrian Cultural Forum)
The Vienna Model: Housing for the 21st Century City
Austrian Cultural Forum
New York
Through September 2
An upcoming exhibition at the Raimund Abraham-designed Austrian Cultural Forum in Midtown Manhattan, entitled The Vienna Model: Housing for the 21st Century City, presents 37 reasons why we should look towards the Austrian capital when it comes to public housing. Curated by AN’s William Menking and head of the Department of Housing Research for the City of Vienna, Wolfgang Förster, The Vienna Model will exhibit a collection of case studies of Viennese public housing spanning the past 95 years and representing the work of dozens of architects, from contemporary innovations to classics by Josef Hoffman, Adolf Loos, Richard Neutra, and Margarete Schütte Lihotzky.
With 60 percent of Viennese living in municipal housing, and the city continually topping the ranks of the world’s most livable (check here, here, and here), there is obviously something to learn from Vienna’s example. The show opens April 16th and will run until September 2, before heading off to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and finally back to the Imperial City.
Drexel Opens Revamped Venturi Scott-Brown Building in Philadelphia
The exterior of 3501 Market Street by Robert Venturi. (Courtesy of Drexel University)
A few years ago Drexel University embarked on an ambitious plan to convert one of Philadelphia’s iconic postmodern landmarks by Venturi Scott Brown Associates (VSBA) into a new home for the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. Tonight the University will celebrate the official opening of its new building, dubbed the URBN Center, with a series of performances and demonstrations to showcase student work.
Sail Away: The Granoff Collection
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Fiber reinforced plastic forms the shell for a modular sofa unit, a chair, and a table that doubles as a stool. (Taylor McKenzie-Veal)
Goetz Composites fabricated the Granoff Collection of modular furniture for a new Diller, Scofidio + Renfro-designed building at Brown University.
Brown University’s Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, completed by Diller, Scofidio + Renfro in 2010, was a direct result of the institution’s studies on how students and faculty interact today. Since most interdisciplinary exchanges were taking place in stairwells over classrooms, the architects designed a central escalier with five landings where the school’s population could meet among rotating student installations. One year after the building opened, the users realized that something was missing on the escalier: a place to sit. To rectify the situation, graduate students from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) collaborated with Brown alumni to design a unique collection of furniture named for the building’s patrons, Perry and Marty Granoff.
The alumni designers—Taylor McKenzie-Veal, Scot Bailey, Ian Stell, and Yumi Yoshida—crafted a line of modular furniture that includes a sofa, a chair, and a table that doubles as a stool. The line caters to local industry in materiality; namely the state’s maritime history. “The boating and composite expertise in Rhode Island has a long-standing history of excellence and [we] consulted and collaborated with a local composites and engineering firm while developing and prototyping the design,” said McKenzie-Veal.
Massive Post Office Development in Chicago Moves Forward
Phase One Rendering of Old Main Post Office Redevelopment. (Courtesy Chicago Architecture Blog)
International Property Developers (IPD) has renewed plans for massive developments around Chicago’s Old Main Post Office. IPD bought the structure in 2009 for $40 million and has been working with Chicago-based architects Antunovich Associates on a plan to surround the massive building, which has almost as much interior space as Willis Tower, with three new towers.
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