Rem Again: OMA Designs a Third Gallery for Lehmann Maupin
Do Ho Suh’s Fallen Star 1/5 at the Lehmann Maupin 26th Street Gallery, 2008-11. (Courtesy Lehmann Maupin)
Rem Koolhaas and OMA may have grander commissions and more famous clients (Miuccia Prada?), but probably not a more devoted and long lasting partnership than with David Maupin of the Lehmann Maupin Gallery. The gallerist first commissioned Koolhaas to design a new exhibition space on Manhattan’s Greene Street in 1995 and again when they moved to 26th Street in Chelsea ten years later (there is non-OMA-designed Lehmann Maupin on the Lower East Side). Now the Lehmann Maupin Gallery has asked OMA to design a third gallery, this time in Hong Kong.
On View> Aircraft Carrier at the Storefront for Art & Architecture through April 27
Aircraft Carrier
Storefront for Art and Architecture
97 Kenmare Street
Through April 27
Aircraft Carrier examines the dramatic changes that occurred in Israeli architecture between two catalyzing moments in global capitalism, 1973 and 2008. The events of the former, marked by irreparable changes in American relations to the Middle East and the fundamental structures of Israeli society, drastically altered the course of Israeli architecture. Presented through diverse works of photography and video art from international artist Florian Holzherr, Nira Pereg, Jan Tichy, Asaaf Evron, and Fernando Guerra, the exhibition explores this transformative period, the American imprint that endowed it, and the radical changes in Israeli architecture that emerged from it.
Could Chad Oppenheim’s Slab Hotel Rise Above the Williamsburg Bridge?
Chad Oppenheim’s design for Williamsburghotel. (Courtesy Oppenheim)
After a two-year lull since we broke the story about a potential 440-foot-tall boutique hotel adjacent the Williamsburg Bridge, it looks like developer Juan Figueroa is moving forward with his plans to build a 250-room hotel next to his under-renovation Williamsburgh Savings Bank. The Real Deal reported that the boutique hotel could check in guests as soon as 2015.
Southern Philadelphia High School Crowdsourcing Philly’s First Rooftop Farm
Southern Philadelphia High School has teamed up with Roofmeadow, a Philly-based green roof design and engineering firm, and the Lower Moyamensing Civic Association to bring the city its first rooftop farm in a new campus-wide plan to take the school from gray to green. The plan includes rain gardens, street trees, vegetable gardens, and a rooftop farm. These elements will be incorporated into a new curriculum for the school’s culinary and science departments, providing students with a chance to escape the classroom and engage in hands-on learning, while nearby residents will gain access to fresh produce and new green space.
“South Philly High is on the cutting edge of sustainability and innovation,” said Kim Massare, President of the Lower Moyamensing Civic Association in a statement to greenroofs.com. “It is changing the way we think about what a school should be and using technology to drive change in a totally new direction.”
The school is working with Roofmeadow and community representatives to develop the master plan, which targets large, underutilized properties on the school’s urban campus. The project will be crowdfunded through Projexity, an online platform that provides the support and framework for bottom-up neighborhood development projects, from creating proposals, to gathering funding, holding design competitions and getting the final approval necessary to move forward. The first of five stages of fundraising begins here on April 9th.
A Corian Carnival in SoHo
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Associated Fabrication produced 34 bollard-shaped merchandise displays. (Melissa Hom)
Brooklyn-based Associated Fabrication realized all the merchandise displays, benching, shelving, and cash wraps for Melissa Shoes in Pearl Gray Corian.
Before Kinky Boots came to Broadway, Melissa Shoes opened shop in SoHo. The Brazilian shoe brand, known for its use of brightly colored, recycled PVC material and collaborations with designers like Jason Wu, Vivienne Westwood, and Gareth Pugh, opened its first U.S. boutique in the states last year. With the help of local architecture firm Eight Inc. and Brooklyn-based Associated Fabrication, a distinguished aesthetic was achieved that supports the original Sao Paulo shop’s rotating art theme, but with a much cleaner slate of epoxy floors and Pearl Gray Corian bollard-like merchandise displays.
Working from two-dimensional drawings provided by the architects, Jeffrey Taras of Associated Fabrication used Rhino to model the 34 display platforms. Taras grouped the displays, which resemble blunted stalagmites, into categories of varying heights and configurations—single columns in four different heights, double columns in two groupings, and one cluster of three columns. Read More
Atlantic Yards To Develop Along Vanderbilt Avenue In First Phase
Clockwise from top left: An early model showing buildings along Vanderbilt Avenue designed by Frank Gehry; A massing diagram of buildings along Vanderbilt Avenue; The approved site plan indicating four buildings to be built at Vanderbilt Av and Dean St. (Courtesy Forest City Ratner; Courtesy MAS/Jonathan Barkey; Courtesy Forest City Ratner)
While construction has just begun on the first residential tower at Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, the developer may be plotting the next construction site. SHoP Architects designed three towers clustered around the Barclays Center arena, but the Atlantic Yards Report blog reported in late March, citing documents from Forest City, that the developer is including a parcel at the southeastern corner of the site at Vanderbilt Avenue and Dean Street in its first phase construction plans. No design exists for the four buildings planned there, but an early site model by Frank Gehry and a massing diagram from the Municipal Art Society based on the approved Gehry site plan show the buildings will not be the tallest in the project.
Critics like AYR-blogger Norman Oder are upset that development atop the railyards at the center and north of the site aren’t being prioritized and have accused Forest City of delaying real investment in the area. The southeast parcel indicated above is the largest remaining terra-firma site at Atlantic Yards and previously was to be among the last developed.
Via Verde 2.0? Bloomberg Seeks Developer For Last City-Owned Lots in the Bronx
The Site of the Bronxchester Project at Bergen Street, Brook Avenue and East 149th Street. (Courtesy Bing Maps)
With his time in office coming to a close, Mayor Bloomberg is moving swiftly ahead with his administration’s affordable housing plan, and calling on developers to submit proposals to build on the last sizable stretch of vacant city-owned land in the Melrose and HUB area of the South Bronx. The NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) is overseeing the Bronxchester Project, and yesterday announced a Request for Proposal (RFP) to develop two parcels into affordable housing and mixed-use space.
My LA2050: Vote to Change Los Angeles
Think LA has too many issues? Then start voting in the My LA2050 Challenge, a competition handing out $1 million in grants to some of the most innovative and creative ideas meant to tackle the city’s biggest problems. Voting, which is all online, began on April 2nd and lasts until April 17th.
More than 275 ideas have been proposed. One is AN West Coast Editor Sam Lubell’s exhibition, Never Built: Los Angeles, which brings to life more than 100 innovative, often unbelievable, unbuilt schemes—many dashed by LA’s inability to embrace innovation—and challenges the city to change its culture of public timidity and banality. Another favorite is Farm on Wheels, by LA-Más, in which food trucks will serve as citywide “hubs of healthy food.”
Architects Invited to Reimagine a Future Penn Station
Inside Penn Station. (Kevin Harber / Flickr)
With its special use permit expired, the push is on to dislodge Madison Square Garden (MSG) from its current location atop Penn Station. The Municipal Art Society (MAS), one group vocally in favor of moving MSG, has asked four leading architects to imagine a future Penn Station unencumbered by the arena. MSG’s owners have asked the city to renew the permit in perpetuity and the city council will issue their decision later this year. Meanwhile, SHoP Architects, Santiago Calatrava, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and SOM have been tasked with creating a dramatic vision that could galvanize New Yorkers in supporting the move.
Tonight> RE: Think / Profit – Architecture in the Age of the Entrepreneur
Today when designing a building, an architect is responsible for more than just the “making a building.” He or she must consider the kind of transformative effect a building will have on a neighborhood while simultaneously addressing various organizational, spatial, and technical issues as well. Additionally, when opening up a new practice there is a milieu of constantly changing technological, geographic, political, and economic factors that an entrepreneur must bring into careful consideration.
Join tonight’s panel of architects, creative directors, and business professionals in a discussion on the impending challenges architects face in designing buildings and in opening new forms of practice. The RE: Think / Profit – Architecture in the Age of the Entrpreneur will take place at the Center for Architecture at 6:00 p.m.
Building Whisperer: Ann Beha To Deliver April 11 Keynote On Historic Interventions
University of Chicago Department of Economics and Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics, original building 1923-1928. (Courtesy Ann Beha Architects)
Not many practitioners today can say they’ve collaborated with Henry Van Brunt, the 19th century architect famous for designing Harvard’s Memorial Hall, or Boston architect Guy Lowell, who designed the original 1903 master plan for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. But Ann Beha, who once said she specializes in “finding a contemporary voice within a historic center,” is a bit of a time-traveler. Her Boston-based firm is acclaimed for creating elegant links between the past and present.
A keynote speaker at Facades + PERFORMANCE, an upcoming conference about high-performance building envelopes, Beha notes that some of the older buildings she works with already have highly efficient envelopes thanks to excellent construction and high quality materials. Her lecture, “Interventions: History and Innovation,” will review three case studies at varying scales, telling the stories of how she restored landmarked buildings while simultaneously developing new expansion plans that were rooted in the original architecture but also clear expressions of their own time.
Learn the Latest About Retrofitting Aging Facades from Enclos’ Mic Patterson
Enclos is working with SOM to retrofit the facade of 680 Folsom Street in San Francisco.
Some estimates indicate up to 70 percent of existing building stock is in need of major renovation. Get hip to the latest trends and techniques in facade retrofit at the Facades+PERFORMANCE Conference taking place in New York City next week. Come explore the emerging technology and recent applications in the daylong workshop, Facade Retrofit: The Challenge and Opportunity Presented by an Aging Building Stock, moderated by Mic Patterson, Director of Strategic Development at Enclos.
What better place to explore this topic than Manhattan, surrounded by aging buildings badly in need of facade renovation both to improve performance and appearance. But these buildings and their facades present unique challenges. This full-day workshop will delve deeply into the various issues comprising the renovation of large commercial facades in the urban environment, particularly the retrofit of old curtainwall facades, and also the use of contemporary curtainwall technology to renovate old masonry buildings. A team of local experts will first establish context by defining the scope of the problem, then follow with a discussion of design strategies, and means and methods for implementing facade retrofit projects. A series of exemplary case studies will be presented, among them will be the recently completed recladding of the Javits Convention Center. The workshop program will conclude with a mid afternoon tour of the Jacob Javits Convention Center.
Speakers from: CUNY, Davis Brody Bond Architects, Gensler, Halsall Associates, Mitchell/Giurgola Architects, RA Heintges and Associates, SHoP Architects, Structuretone.
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