WaveLine

WaveLine in Queens, New York by hanrahanMeyers Architects

The following text and images are courtesy hanrahanMeyers Architects (hMa) for their WaveLine project in Flushing, Queens. Photographs are copyright Michael Moran.

WaveLine is a steel and masonry pavilion of subtle but powerful vision, with modest dimensions. The building is located in New York's newest "hot neighborhood", Queens. WaveLine does not try to "blend in" with its neighbors -- twenty-story public housing towers built during the 1950's -- but instead uses the contrast of its contemporary materials and graceful form to define a new place for performance and sport within an existing public housing complex.

The main façade of WaveLine is the building's bent roof plane constructed using standing-seam galvanized steel and aluminum. The interior is a simple, white, one-room volume for performance and sport. The pavilion ceiling is a faceted surface expressive of the overall form of the building’s exterior. A new entrance vestibule on the south elevation of the existing community center is the lobby for the new pavilion. The pavilion will be accessed within the community center from a series of double doors along a public hall between the Center and the Pavilion. Entering the building visitors will find a womb-like interior, streaked with light from a thin strip of linear windows that rim the building's south wall, and subtle windows that allow buffered light from the east façade.

WaveLine is a term from ship-building and physics referring to the shape most likely to glide through water without resistance. The formal properties of the project were influenced by researches into non-resistant structures. hMa also consulted with acoustic designer Yasua Toyota whose sound calculations of reverberation times for chamber music performed in the space also influenced the roof shape.

The project client was the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). As a publicly funded project, the pavilion marks a milestone in public housing facilities. The building’s forward-looking design brings a new level of sophistication to a population of users where public buildings normally were built as concrete bunkers. This unusual project was designed under an initiative undertaken by NYCHA starting in the 1980’s to bring quality design to all public housing projects in the City of New York. The pavilion is 5,000 square feet, and the adjacent community center is 20,000 square feet. WaveLine finished construction in June 2007, and is expected to officially open by November 2007.