On View> Manhattan’s David Zwirner Gallery Presents Diana Thater’s Video Installation, Chernobyl
(Courtesy David Zwirner Gallery)
Chernobyl
David Zwirner Gallery
519 West 19th Street
New York City
Through December 22
Diana Thater’s video installation, Chernobyl, captures the effects manmade disasters have on the natural environment. Situating her work on the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear explosion in the Ukraine, which left a no-man’s land with the sudden evacuation of over 100,000 people, Thater highlights the possibilities nature has to rebuild itself when the ruins of industrial infrastructure are left to decay. She focuses on Prypiat, a city that was built to house nuclear plant workers, and the city’s wildlife, specifically the Przewlski’s Horse species that were released post-disaster and left free from human contact. Her work, both beautiful and startling, forces us to consider how we perceive images and their potential to dictate how we see our world.
Zaha Hadid to Design Residential Tower in Downtown Miami
Zaha Hadid to design tower at 1000 Biscayne Boulevard. (Courtesy Bing Maps / Jason Schmidt)
New York said no, but Miami says yes. After losing out to Norman Foster to design a tower in Midtown Manhattan, Zaha Hadid has been asked to design her first skyscraper in the Western hemisphere in downtown Miami, the Miami Herald reported. No design has been released, but the new residential tower will be located at 1000 Biscayne Boulevard on the site of a BP gas station on the city’s waterfront Museum Park, seen in red above. The site is part of a row of condo towers along the boulevard known as the “Biscayne Wall.” Developers Gregg Covin and Louis Birdman aren’t releasing details, but told the Herald the project will be officially unveiled early next year.
As AN previously reported, Hadid is also building a new parking garage in Miami, which was approved for construction in November. Elsewhere in North American, Hadid is working on a dramatic house in San Diego and has been designing smaller-scale interiors and products. Also check out renderings of Hadid’s Manhattan proposal here.
Apartments to Rise at Brooklyn Bridge Park Site in the Shadow of the Manhattan Bridge
(Courtesy Bing Maps)
For those in the market for prime waterfront real estate, there is something brewing in DUMBO. Today Brooklyn Bridge Park issued a Request for Proposal for a development on a vacant parcel in the north section of the park right next to the Manhattan Bridge. This site, located in what will be called the “John Street Section,” is approximately 9,600 square feet and will accommodate up to 130 residential units (with a maximum height of 130 feet) in addition to over 100 parking spaces and retail on the ground floor level.
The Shortlist> Top 5 Competitions of the Week
Vidal’s Modular Camouflage for the Transparent Shelter Competition. (Courtesy Innosite)
Don your thinking cap and put pen to paper in one of these architecture and design competitions drawn from AN’s online competitions listing. We’ve selected five of the most interesting competitions for you here, but be sure to browse the full listing here. If you’d like your competition to be included in the listing, please submit it here.
Transparent Shelter Competition: Deadline: 01.20.2013
The Nordic Centre of Glass is challenging designers to create a glass bus stop design to prove the material is both visually appealing and practical. Entrants will base their designs on an actual bus stop in Holbaek, Denmark that offers little shelter from the elements.
Street Seats Design Challenge: Deadline: 02.01.2013
Design Museum Boston’s competition is calling for international designers to create a bench or “street seat” to inspire socially and environmentally responsible design for South Boston’s Fort Point Channel in the growing Innovation District. The entries will be displayed publicly in an outdoor design exhibit held from April through October 2013.
Historic Park In BJØRVIKA, OSLO: Deadline: 01.04.2013
An open ideas competition organized by a free association of young planners called ByFabrikken. Submissions are accepted in various mediums and entrants can choose to plan the entire park area in Oslo or a designated section. The ten best proposals will be presented in an exhibition and the top three winners will earn a small cash prize as well as tickets to a music festival at the park site.
Boulder Civic Area Ideas Competition: Deadline: 01.11.2013
The City of Boulder is asking student and professional designers to redesign Boulder Civic Area to meet the community’s social and environmental needs. The winning proposal will be published in Urban Land magazine and receive up to $15,000 in cash and prizes.
Nikola’s Belvedere: Deadline: 01.15.2013
As part of the Archstoyanie Festival, Nikola-Lenivets Project has announced the Nikola’s Belvedere competition in search of a design for an observation deck/belvedere for Versailles Park. The winning design will link the park’s art objects, a rotunda and arch, offer a panoramic view, and will be awarded 100,000 rubles and funding for construction.
Here Comes The School Boat: Living With Bangladesh’s Floods
Bangladeshi School Boat (Courtesy Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha)
For five months a year Bangladesh endures a monsoon season, suffering from two floods yearly leaving millions of citizens living in river basins stranded without basic necessities. But a non-profit organization founded by an architect based in northern Bangladesh, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, has decided to build flood resistant schools that come to the homes of students. Health care facilities and homes are also being built to float by the non-profit.
Shuttle Shhhh: Details About Endeavor’s Permanent Home Take Flight
The Space Shuttle Endeavor in its new Los Angeles home. (Sam Lubell / AN)
Amid the hubbub surrounding the Space Shuttle Endeavor landing inside its temporary digs at the California Science Center (our favorite part at the opening: James Ingram crooning I believe I can Fly, with LA Mayor Villaraigosa dancing in a trance behind him), the museum has done its best to keep the plans for the orbiter’s future home under wraps. But we’ve managed to uncover some tantalizing details of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center: For one, the new building by ZGF will measure around 200 feet tall, enough to accommodate the spacecraft and its booster rockets standing upright. It may also feature a slide to the base of the Space Shuttle. Now that’s what we’re talking about.
Look Alive! Paul Rudolph’s Manhattan Loft at 23 Beekman Hits The Market
23 Beekman Place. (Courtesy Bernheimer Architecture)
The Paul Rudolph townhouse at 23 Beekman Place hit the market in early December, listed at $27.5 million. The property consists of four separate apartments, including the four-level penthouse that Rudolph himself lived in, along with his pet rabbits. But buyer beware: the penthouse, which was renovated in 2006 by Della Valle and Bernheimer, retains many signature Rudolph elements, like the death-defying stairways with no rails. Potential buyers should also consider getting “some new sprinklers and a back-up security system installed,” as Chas Tenembaum, one fictional former tenant of The Royal Tenenbaums fame, noted after failing to escape the house in adequate time after a fire drill. “Four minutes and forty-eight seconds. We’re all dead. Burned to a crisp.”
Obit> Alan Colquhoun, 1921-2012
Alan Colquhoun. (Marc Treib/Courtesy American Academy in Rome)
Architect, teacher, and critic Alan Colquhoun has died aged 91. Alan Colquhoun, 1921-2012, emeritus professor of architecture at Princeton University passed way yesterday in his Primrose Hill home in London. Colquhoun was a rigorous critic, writer, and intellectual and influenced several generations of students at Princeton and through his writings which include: The Oxford History of Modern Architecture, the seminal Essays in Architectural Criticism, and Modernity and the Classical Tradition. The Dutch journal; OASE recently published an edition devoted to his writings and teachings. AN will publish a full obituary in our next print edition.
LA Story: The Many Lives of LA Architect Mark Mack
Zoom Productions Sphere 2 offices by Mark Mack in Salzburg. (Courtesy Mark Mack)
LA architect Mark Mack has decided to take on several careers instead of the traditional single-job model. In addition to practicing architecture, he is now a screenwriter, chef, and DJ. He’s working on a screenplay about the early lives of Neutra and Schindler; he’s opening up a takeout restaurant focusing on small bites; and he’s spinning old and new songs on vinyl records. Surprised? Why? For all of us in LA it’s just a matter of time…
Developers Banking on Midtown East Rezoning
Rendering of 1 Vanderbilt. (Courtesy SL Green Realty)
Even though the Midtown East rezoning is still under consideration, SL Green Realty is counting on it becoming a reality. According to Curbed, the developer has tapped architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox to design an office tower at 1 Vanderbilt Street located a block from Grand Central Terminal. SL Green needs the rezoning to be approved to move forward with the construction of their 1.55-million-square-foot building. The proposed rezoning would allow for taller buildings to be built if developers make a contribution to a fund called a “District Improvement Bonus,” which would be used for area-wide pedestrian network improvements.
Manhattan Street Map by FLATCUT_ Ties Together Experiments In Motion
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The model of Manhattan’s street grid floats above visitors, offering a new perspective on the city. (Collin Erickson)
Audi and GSAPP teamed with FLATCUT_ to create a 1:1500 scale model of Manhattan’s street grid from 3/16-inch-thick aluminum sheets
This September at the preview of the Lowline Park in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, visitors had the opportunity to absorb nine visions by students from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) about the future of urban living and mobility. Conducted as the culmination of a yearlong research program in partnership with Audi of America, the exhibition, Experiments in Motion, was tied together and contextualized by a hanging, 50-foot-long, 1:1500 scale model of Manhattan’s street grid. Audi and GSAPP called on New York and New Jersey-based fabrication studio FLATCUT_ to create the model, which also calls out every subway station on the island. The job required the studio to pull off a high wire balancing act: the fabrication of an object both intricate and sturdy, modular yet monolithic. Read More
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