A Daily Dose of Architecture: August 2010

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

31 in 31: #31

The Sperone Westwater Gallery, designed Foster + Partners, is nearing completion about a block north of the New Museum. This piece continues the transformation of the Bowery, from Cooper Union down to Chinatown. In the ten or eleven years since I stayed at a hostel on the Bowery the street has seen numerous new buildings as well as restaurants and shops, displacing the old flophouses and mainstays like CBGB's.

I always liked to think of the Bowery as un-gentrifiable, a zone immune to the changes in neighborhing SoHo, NoHo, the Lower East Side, and the East Village. Of course I was wrong, but a nine-story building with a bright red elevator on its facade is probably the last thing I would have expected from the alternative scenario.

Norman Foster's design is the antithesis of the New Museum, which made the Bowery cool for institutions with money to spend on buildings by name-brand architects. SANAA's stacked and shifted white boxes respond to the zoning envelope without making that legal device explicit; Foster's design rises to the maximum street wall and then sets back once. Done.

Granted, the 20-foot-wide lot doesn't give much room for play, so Foster focuses on the skins. Facing the Bowery on the first five floors is an all-glass wall with laminations that allow light and views, but the latter are indistinct, yet not so much that the elevator's workings aren't apparent. One effect of the glass, which lies somewhere between transparent and translucent, is the band of light visible in these photos. It must be an unwritten code that new buildings must have a surface that blinds passersby!

The side walls, facing north and south, are blanketed with black corrugated metal, the panels mimicking -- but oddly not following exactly, in size or spacing -- the glass on the front. The rear facade is similar to the top of the front, with a zipper of clear glass running vertically between what looked to be solid panels (not translucent like the front). Foster's design certainly has a strong presence on the Bowery, but its industrial elegance will pack more of a wallop at night when the glass box is illuminated and the red box glows.

Previously:

Monday, August 30, 2010

31 in 31: #30

Spotted at The Architect's Newspaper, Tartinery Nolita is a new restaurant located on Mulberry next to Spring Lounge. Designed by SOMA Architects, the facade is marked by deep-set, black-steel fins projecting from the storefront glazing.

These fins -- spaced randomly across the elevation --work to hide and reveal the spaces behind. The shallow bar occupies the northern end (right in photos), and the double-height dining area sits to the south.

The bar-code design is more interesting from across the street than from the adjacent sidewalk (the top image of the archpaper piece testifies to this).

But from directly in front of the restaurant, the double-height dining area attracts the most attention. From the sidewalk the space extends to the cellar; an exposed brick wall behind mesh stands out at the southern end of the restaurant. A small tree also occupies this lower space, rising from the middle of a table.

Previously:

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

This week's dose features 40R_Laneway House in Toronto, Ontario, Canada by superkül inc | architect:

The featured past dose is Courtyard House in Toronto, Ontario, Canada by Studio Junction:

This week's book review is Encyclopedia of Detail in Contemporary Residential Architecture by Virginia McLeod:

**NOTE: The next "weekly dose" will be 2010.09.13.**

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Sunday, August 29, 2010

31 in 31: #29

Although completed a couple years before 2000, the former Art et Industrie sculpture garden is something I was intrigued about, so I searched it out over the weekend and took a close look at it. Designed by Architecture Research Office (ARO) and located at the corner of Thompson and Broome Streets, the meat of the project is basically two solid-steel fences that follow the corner.

I'm not sure what Art et Industrie displayed in its indoor and outdoor galleries, but the fence is like a piece of Modernist sculpture: well-crafted, simple, and easy to miss.

Painted a dark gray, thin sheets of steel (I'm guessing about 8' by 8') are welded to matching steel H-shape supports which double as deep reveals.

The posts stop a little bit short of the panels, allowing the thinness of the latter to be legible. Visible below, the corner overlap puts the simple construction of the two elements on display.

The adjacent storefront space is empty, and a peek through the space reveals a pleasing garden. But in an area surrounded by mid- and high-rise construction, what is the future of this outdoor space? If I'm reading it right, a recent DOB filing points to an "eating and drinking establishment," something easy to imagine working well here, indoors and out.

Previously:

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Today's archidose #436

Würzburg Weingut Stein a, originally uploaded by david pasek.

Weingut Am Stein (presentation and seminar rooms for winery) in Wuerzburg, Germany by Hofmann Keicher Ring Architekten, 2005

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

Friday, August 27, 2010

31 in 31: #28

This is a series for August 2010 which documents my on-the-ground -- and on-the-webs -- research for my guidebook to contemporary NYC architecture (to be released next year by W. W. Norton). Archives can be found at the bottom of the post and via the 31 in 31 label.

View Larger Map

For now the above street view shows what architect William J. Rockwell faced in turning a Tennessee Mountain restaurant into a Crocs flagship store, located at Spring and Wooster Streets in SoHo. Alterations to the early 19th-century, many-times-renovated corner house required Landmarks (LPC) approval. When compared with the photo below, taken earlier today, the changes were fairly minimal, occurring on the ground floor.

The three-story garage behind the house was demolished, but then LPC turned down Mitchell's first design which resembled the old garage. Instead they recommended "a modern transitional glass piece," according to The Architect's Newspaper. The new piece has some of the clearest clear glass I've seen lately, making the colorful Crocs shoes/sandals pop, but also the ducts, sprinkler pipes, and other fittings.

This project is a small but nevertheless notable example of LPC's assertion that new buildings should look new, so they are not confused with their historical neighbors. It is a view contested by Steven W. Semes in The Future of the Past; he argues that buildings should find continuity with their historical neighbors in an effort to extend some bits of culture from the past to the present and into the future. He would have fought for Mitchell's initial design, but I find the new glass box pleasing, if conventional. It is certainly a foil to the corner house, but it still could have found some inspiration in this historic building; as is it's like a Crate & Barrel squeezed into the small rear lot, well done but looking like it could exist somewhere else as easily as on this lot in SoHo.

Previously:

31 in 31: #27

Across the street from the strange Germanic streetscape of NYU's Deutsches Haus is a full block of beige brick, setbacks, and balconies. Some of the last are filled in (bottom middle of photo above) to convert the outdoor "rooms" to indoor space. Most of these new enclosures are unexceptional, but a piece capping one of the setbacks is subtly different, channel glass walls rising behind the old guardrails. Designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, the 9th Street Residence combined two apartments into one; the glass enclosure is an extension that houses the living area. The channel glass wraps over the space, visible in the photo below through the horizontal vision glass that wraps the corner.

Previously:

Today's archidose #435

Here are some photos of the South Pond pavilion (for yoga and other uses) at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois by Studio Gang Architects, 2010. Photographs are by John (& Beth) Zacherle.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

Thursday, August 26, 2010

31 in 31: #26

Double glass doors cut into an otherwise blank brick wall barely hint at the stunning space for Longchamp on Spring Street in SoHo. Designed by Heatherwick Studio and completed in 2006, a "landscape stair" is the defining element that ties the ground floor with larger second floor above. Longchamp makes handbags, among other things, so appropriately the continuous treads appear to be made of leather (they are rubber on steel plate). Black posts and handrails are the only other major visual element occupying the space (beside the goods); the glass guardrails--fabricated the same way as car windshields--disappear at certain angles and create blurry reflections at other angles. All is skylit, like a luxury stairway to heaven. It is one of the best retail environments in Manhattan, because it finds inspiration in the product and fuses its expression with its function as an armature for displaying merchandise.

Previously:

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

31 in 31: #25

It was the end of last year that I drove around Nehemiah Spring Creek, the largest affordable housing development -- as planned -- in New York City; phase one is complete with phase two's construction underway. A recent NYTimes blog post by Jayne Merkel on the "Irrational Exuberance" of the last couple of decades mentions the project located in East New York, Brooklyn and designed by Alexander Gorlin Architects, and it spurred me to include it here. Merkel uses the development as an example of how "interesting housing" is not limited to luxury condos in Manhattan, like Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue and Herzog & de Meuron's 40 Bond. Comments on the post tend to be split into two camps: those opposed to contemporary modernism and those who embrace it. Not surprisingly the former's comment are terse and opinionated, the latter more explanatory; never the twain shall agree.

Comments on Gorlin's project (Merkel says little about it) focus on its materiality, its prefab construction, it being built atop a landfill, and speculations on how it will evolve. The project needs to be looked at also in terms of the larger development of which it is a part. Gateway Estates includes a 625,000-sf retail center, in addition to the 800 homes in Nehemiah Spring Creek. These photos illustrate that living and shopping don't mix, which is a bigger problem than any architectural quibbles. These houses may technically reside in New York City, but they are suburban in their segregation of uses. This leads to a reliance on driving, the real difference between this development and the luxury housing at the city's core.

Previously:

New Aging

"The Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design presents New Aging, an international conference on aging and architecture," taking place October 1-2 in Philadelphia.

More details:

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

31 in 31: #24

Until 2009 the Holy Trinity Chapel, Generoso Pope Catholic Center at NYU (above, 1964, Eggers & Higgins) occupied the northeastern tip of Thompson Street across the street from Washington Square Park. The concrete, brick, and stained glass structure wasn't exactly beautiful, but it was nevertheless appealing, especially as NYU's surrounding buildings grew to dwarf it. Taking its place is the university's Center for Academic and Spiritual Life, a six-story building designed by Boston's Machado and Silvetti Associates, now under construction.

[View from Washington Square Park | image source]

Framed by Washington Square Arch, the north facade presents what looks to be a stone lattice that is variegated across the elevation, turning the corner on Thompson and dissipating into solid stone. Interior renderings in this project PDF indicate that the windows are not punched openings, but continuous floor-to-ceiling glass behind the lattice as screen. This may make the building stronger at night, as the interior glows through the patterned stone, like a contemporary rendition of stained glass. Of course this thinking points to the potential of the variety in the stone lattice towards a related expression: A figural image related to building's function? Embedded color glass in a similar vein? Right now the logic of the pattern is not evident and runs the risk of looking muddled to all but those seeing through the stone from inside.

[Entrance | image source]

Previously:

Monday, August 23, 2010

31 in 31: #23

Early discussions with my editor led me to remove most retail, restaurants and other ephemeral projects from my guidebook. They come and go so quickly that designs might disappear between handing in the manuscript and when the book finally hits the stores. But the boutique junya.ishigami+associates designed for Yohji Yamamoto near the Meatpacking District was an exception, mainly because it's a building, not just an interior. The architect cleverly split an existing brick building in two, also giving the tip a curve and setting frameless glass into the brick walls. Simple yet powerful. Yet what did I see over the weekend (below)? Brown paper over the lower portion of the storefront glass and a sign that the space is for lease. Does the remove the project from my book? While at first I was disappointed, I doubt the next occupant will dramatically alter the building. It's too unique, striking; it's a keeper. As designed by ishigami for Yamamoto, the architecture and the fashion had a synergy that elevated each. So it will be interesting to see if what fills the corner works with the architecture.

Previously:

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

This week's dose features Audenasa Corporate Building in Noain, Spain by Vaillo + Irigaray:

The featured past dose is Nazarí Wall Intervention in Granada, Spain by Antonio Jiménez Torrecillas:

This week's book review is Basics Landscape Architecture: Urban Design by Tim Waterman and Ed Wall:

american-architects.com Building of the Week:

930 Poydras Residential Tower in New Orleans, Louisiana by Eskew+Dumez+Ripple:

american-architects Building of the Week

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Sunday, August 22, 2010

31 in 31: #22

[Before and After | image source]

New York City may be home to numerous stalled projects in the residential realm, but universities seem to be booming. Columbia University is moving ahead with its Manhattanville expansion; The New School is planning its biggest building ever; and F.I.T. will squeeze a sliver of a building into its cramped quarters. Not to be outdone, NYU is moving ahead with NYU 2031, its plan for growth and sustainability in Greenwich Village and in expanded quarters elsewhere. They recently announced plans for a fourth Silver Tower and other new buildings. Under construction are the Center for Academic and Spiritual Life by Machado and Silvetti and Wilf Hall by Morris Adjmi Architects. The latter is discussed here, as I walked by the almost completed building yesterday.

Mr. Adjmi was the local architect for Aldo Rossi's buildings in the United States, including the Scholastic Building in SoHo, which Adjmi basically had to finish himself, since the car crash that killed Rossi happened before construction started. Adjmi's subsequent buildings reflect Rossi's Italian rationalism slash postmodern abstraction. Here the contextual response aligns the new six-story building with the Provincetown Playhouse (right in the photos above), yet the new brick wall is about as flat as can be, with only subtle articulation on the lower two floors. The projecting cornice is an abstraction bordering on the comical, but I think its simple stepping enables the split of the building into four parts to read stronger. From down the street this split appears to be merely a reveal in the brick wall, but it turns out to be slivers of curtain wall glazing. So the building is designed to look like four smaller buildings--residential in appearance--but these vertical strips subtly announce that something else is going on behind the brick and glass, something academic.

Previously:

Saturday, August 21, 2010

31 in 31: #21

When I took the above photo, these pieces of street furniture by Rogers Marvel Architects were only installed on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens. Since then I've also seen them on Steinway Street in my 'hood, Astoria. Given that the Rogers Marvel web page indicates 800 locations for the pieces, many more are sure to follow. These stainless steel undulating blocks sit atop the ventilation grates for subways running below the street. They are designed to deter the below from happening during rainstorms; their height is based on a 100-year storm event. The undulations refer to their purpose without explaining what they do. I'm sure many people will look at them and wonder what purpose they serve. I've seen a lot of people sit on them, but some are actually designed with integral benches projecting above the top grate. They're a welcome addition to my neighborhood, serving their purpose but beautifying the streetscape at the same time.

[Flooding on subway platform | image source]

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Friday, August 20, 2010

31 in 31: #20

Many people are familiar with Renzo Piano's design of the Morgan Library & Museum, notable--and controversial--for its contrast to the early 20th-century and the skylit atrium that internally connects the various structures. Piano's expansion fronts Madison Avenue, where the main entry is located. Pierpont Morgan's study and library faces 36th Street, where the new building is set back from it and the gallery building. So what is on 37th Street, next to the Morgan House (now bookstore for the Library & Museum)? A service walkway, loading, and a dumpster, of course.

Sure, just like the human body, every building needs to deal with how things go in and out, but spending a few minutes glancing (and taking photos, above) at this area, I felt like this side wasn't really considered as much as it should have been. In Manhattan, loading often occurs through the sidewalk (those hatches all over the place), but for larger buildings a garage or other internal space is often necessary. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be well done. I think SANAA did the opposite of Piano and actually embraced this "other side" of the building, visually opening up the loading to the street (left side on link and above). That embrace arises from the fact loading occurs a few feet away from the main entry, not around the corner. Yet it's still refreshing to see an architect confront the situation that is normally out of sight and out of mind.

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