Policy

Brooklyn SolarWorks and Situ Studio have devised a clever and flexible solar panel system that not only adheres to the city's strict building codes, but has been developed specifically for the characteristically flat rooftops of NYC. The "Solar Canopy," as it has been named, is designed as a tent-like structure with a coverage of 2.5-feet by five-feet and a head clearance of ten feet above its pathway—plenty more than the nine feet required by the city. SolarWorks and Situ have already installed their Solar Canopy at several properties in Brooklyn, including atop homes in Bed-Stuy, Park Slope and Crown Heights.
find out more here

June 6, 2016

Interview: Engineer Joseph Gulden Discusses Wooden Skyscrapers Surpassing 1,000 Feet

Could wood one day again be the material of choice for buildings? In response to rising construction costs and climate change, there's been a resurgence of interest in wood construction, with some even saying that we're in the beginnings of a "timber age." Many architects, engineers and builders have started to embrace the material, having erected, or making plans to construct, high-rises that reach several hundred feet in the air. In fact, in April, one architecture firm proposed bringing a 1,000-foot timber tower to London's Barbican. But is wood really a reliable alternative to concrete and steel? What about fire safety? And how tall can we really go at this point in time without compromising a building's structural integrity? To answer these questions and many more, 6sqft decided to pick the brain of DeSimone Project Manager Joseph Gulden. DeSimone is one of the world's leading engineering firms with a roster of top NYC projects that include Zaha Hadid's High Line project, 220 Central Park South and 45 East 22nd Street; Joseph himself is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) as well as a licensed Structural Engineer (SE) with extensive experience constructing in regions with high seismic risk. He's also worked on numerous high-rises and tall wood structures both in the U.S. and abroad. Ahead Joseph discusses some of the challenges and advantages of building with wood, engineered timber, deforestation concerns, and if a wooden supertall will ever be in reach.
read the interview here

June 6, 2016

To Increase Affordable Housing, De Blasio Pushes Bill to Lift Development Caps

In a continued quest to push ahead with his goal of adding/preserving 200,000 units of affordable housing over the next decade, Mayor de Blasio is backing a bill that will end state-imposed FAR (floor-area-ratio) caps to promote the construction of affordable housing. By lifting the size limits for residential buildings, and thereby increasing the number of units, neighborhoods currently affected by the cap, such as the Financial District, Midtown, and Hudson Yards, "could see both market-rate and affordable-housing stock soar," reports the Post. However, opponents of the bill feel that there's an underlying motive, catering to developers who have recently been called out for making hefty contributions to de Blasio.
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June 3, 2016

City Council Will Vote on Controversial Changes to the Landmarks Law

Over the past couple years, preservationists have waged two big battles pertaining to the 51-year-old landmarks law. First, there was Landmarks Preservation Commission's decision to de-calendar 95 historic sites--in other words, remove them from the "waiting list" to be considered for landmarking, leaving them in jeopardy. The LPC eventually withdrew this plan after massive public outcry, but then proposed a bill, Intro. 775, to implement timelines for reviewing possible landmarks, which was met with criticism again for a perceived catering to developers who want to demolish or alter a property. The proposal stalled, but the Council is back at it, now "proposing a half-dozen recommendations to simultaneously streamline and expand the landmarks process" that they will vote on this month, reports the Times.
Learn about all the points

Policy

Donald Trump’s Stake in Two Major Towers Came From a Lost Battle With China

1290 Avenue of the Americas in NYC (L); 555 California Street, formerly Bank of America Center, in San Francisco (R); Images courtesy of Vornado

June 1, 2016

Donald Trump’s Stake in Two Major Towers Came From a Lost Battle With China

When Donald Trump made an attempt to own the Empire State Building, he partnered with a foreign real estate investor, in this case from Japan. But it ended in a lawsuit and a public smear campaign before he ultimately sold back his stake. A similar turn of events surrounded his dealings with another high-profile Midtown building and related San Francisco tower; you may recall this quote from the day he announced his candidacy: "I beat China all the time. I own a big chunk of the Bank of America building and 1290 Avenue of the Americas that I got from China in a war. Very valuable." As the Times explains, the battle may not have gone down quite like the Donald says, with him schmoozing his way to the top and eventually waging a losing legal battle.
The full story ahead

May 31, 2016

Lift-Bit Is the World’s First Digitally-Transformable Sofa

By Rebecca Paul

For the first time, a remote will control a section of your living room furniture that doesn't include your lights or home entertainment center. From the international design and innovation studio Carlo Ratti Associati, Lift-Bit is the world’s first digitally-transformable sofa. The wired furniture was created with the support of Swiss-owned furniture company Vitra and is made up of a series of modular seats fully stacked with the Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies. Each separate seat has the ability to raise or lower independently, thus introducing a multitude of seating configurations and functionality that can be controlled with the click of a button.
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$40 Million Overhaul Will Make 8 Parks More Neighborhood-Friendly

Image: Fort Greene Park Conservancy

May 25, 2016

$40 Million Overhaul Will Make 8 Parks More Neighborhood-Friendly

The city has announced plans to make eight of the city's parks more welcoming and integrated into their surrounding neighborhoods, the New York Times reports. According to officials, the green-space face-lifts are part of a plan to improve city parks and part of the larger goal of having 85 percent of New Yorkers living within walking distance of a park. The parks, chosen by a nomination process that used feedback from residents, include Seward Park on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Faber Pool and Park on the North Shore of Staten Island, Jackie Robinson Park in northern Manhattan, Van Cortlandt Park and Hugh Grant Circle and Virginia Park in the Bronx, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, and Fort Greene and Prospect Parks in Brooklyn. According to parks commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, the many improvement suggestions the city received were "proof positive of how excited New Yorkers are to increase accessibility and openness in their favorite parks.”
Find out more about the park plans

May 25, 2016

Governor Cuomo Finally Approves MTA’s $27B Capital Plan

Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, notorious for their icy relationship, have been squabbling for well over a year about the MTA's $27 billion, five-year capital plan. Last October, they reached an agreement where the state would contribute $8.3 billion and the city $2.5 billion, neither of which would come from increasing taxes. Seven months later, the Daily News reports that Albany has finally approved the plan, which covers track and station repairs, new train cars, new high-tech buses, a MetroCard replacement, the Long Island Rail Road's East Side Access project, and, of course, the beginning of the Second Avenue Subway's phase two into East Harlem.
More details ahead

May 24, 2016

Landmarks Rejects Skinny Fort Greene House Because It ‘Looks Like Sing Sing Prison’

By Ondel Hylton

When talking townhouses, width matters. Aside from location and condition, width is usually the salient factor determining a home's desirability and pricing. While a 20-foot wide house is the coveted standard, the adored building type comes in an assortment of sizes, ranging from this narrow 12-foot wide townhouse in Park Slope upwards to the enviable 30-foot wide homes dotting Brooklyn Heights. On the tighter end of the spectrum, along a tree- and brownstone-lined block in the Fort Greene Historic District, R.A.Max Studio is seeking to secure the Landmarks Preservation Commission's approval to build a 12-foot wide, environmentally-conscious, two-family house at 39 South Elliott Place. Hemmed in on a vacant lot measuring just 1,200 square feet in area, the developer, Fort Greene Properties LLC, envisions building a four-story, 3,200-square-foot structure similar in scale to a previous house that stood at the site some sixty years ago, but with a more modern exterior. But this scheme did not go over so well at today's LPC hearing.
The full story, right this way

This Lamp Only Turns On If You Turn Your Phone Off

If you don't posses the willpower to put your smart phone down once and for all, this lamp will give you that extra nudge -- that is, if you don't want to walk around in the dark. Tranquillo, created by industrial designer Avid Kadam, is "an interactive piece of lighting where the user’s phone acts like a switch." Basically, if you want to see, you'll need to put your phone on the dock, where it'll go into do-not-disturb mode.
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May 23, 2016

Developers Used a Four-Foot-Wide Lot to Build a Taller Upper East Side Tower

The go-to move for building taller than zoning allows is snatching up some air rights, but at 180 East 88th Street in Yorkville, developer DDG Partners found an obscure loophole to increase their building's height. Back in 2014, as the Times explains, DDG received approvals to slice off a four-foot-wide lot from the 30-foot-deep site. This became an official taxable lot, but because it provided a buffer between the building and the street, it allowed the building to avoid typical zoning for structures touching the street, rising to its 521-foot height (60 feet taller than would have been permitted otherwise) and having its entrance on Third Avenue. Now that the motive has become clear, local residents and elected officials are not happy, and adding fuel to the fire is the fact that DDG contributed at least $19,900 to Mayor Bill de Blasio.
The full story ahead

40 Percent of Manhattan’s Buildings Would Be Unbuildable Today

720 Park Avenue could not be built today. Image via Google Maps

May 20, 2016

40 Percent of Manhattan’s Buildings Would Be Unbuildable Today

Many feel that the city's current construction boom is unprecedented, but while towers may be reaching new heights, according to a new report by architecture firm KPF, nearly three-quarters of the city's existing square footage was actually built between the 1900s and 1930s. More interestingly, The Times points out that forty percent of the buildings that currently make up Manhattan could not be built today because they break at least one zoning code violation—among which include being too tall, having too many residential units, or having too much commercial space.
find out more here

May 18, 2016

Study: Is NYC ‘Youthful’ Enough to Keep Millennials From Leaving?

Yet another survey on the fascinating habits of millennials comes to us via Gothamist, this time taking a closer look at where that generation’s critical masses are migrating en masse, and why. The Youthful Cities Global Millenial Survey by the data jocks at Decode interviewed 15,000 millennials in 34 cities throughout the world, then divided the results by continent. The study focused on the idea that millennials were more likely to be satisfied enough to remain in their current city if it's perceived as a "youthful city." Some criteria for this magical metric include a government that listens to the concerns of young people, access to fulfilling jobs, safety, healthy residents and access to health services, good post-secondary education programs and clean green space. North American respondents saw affordability as the top concern, followed by employment, safety, and decent public transportation. The survey shows that millennials see "a direct link between having a youthful city–a dynamic, curious, open, inventive, connected and playful city–and economic and financial benefits, including higher employment rates, more jobs, a stronger economy and a thriving environment for small business and entrepreneurship."
We're happier, but less employed

May 16, 2016

New Studies Show Historic Preservation Doesn’t Cause Gentrification Woes

The city's preservation groups have reported that the results of a series of studies, prompted by the 50th anniversary of the city's Landmarks Law, have put some numbers behind the claim that landmarking doesn't harm, and may actually improve, the economic balance of neighborhood development and growth. According to Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, "This is the first time which preservationists–who tend to be from the humanities and subsequently math-averse–have put real data behind anecdotes." The combined reports represent the most comprehensive study to date of the impacts of historic preservation in New York City.
Find out what the numbers say

Policy

Safer and Smaller Crane Could Cut Building Costs by Millions, But the City Doesn’t Allow Use

The Skypicker in use, via JOMAC

May 16, 2016

Safer and Smaller Crane Could Cut Building Costs by Millions, But the City Doesn’t Allow Use

Crane safety has made major headlines in recent months, after a crane collapse in February killed a passerby in Tribeca and reports surfaced about an uptick in construction site deaths. But at the start of the city's current building boom, there was a man and a crane who sought to make skyscraper construction safer, not to mention quicker and cheaper. Crain's introduces Dan Mooney, president of crane leasing company Vertikal Solutions and designer of the Skypicker, a lightweight mobile crane. It's only 10-feet tall with a 30-foot boom (compared with tower cranes that rise hundreds of feet), but Mooney says that's the point, that it "can fit in small spaces and is ideal for midsize buildings where tower cranes are overkill and mobile cranes or derricks are not big enough." When it was employed in 2012 for Midtown's Hilton Garden Inn, the 34-story building went up in just six months. After that, Mooney's phone was ringing off the hook with developers looking to save time and money on smaller projects, and he had four more Skypickers built. So why are they now sitting idle in a warehouse in Astoria?
Find out here

Policy

May 11, 2016

Grow Vegetables in Your Apartment Effortlessly With Foop and Your Smartphone

By Rebecca Paul

Caring for plants at home is a nice idea, but growing food inside your city apartment is an even better one. Now with Foop, a hydroponic pod from Japan, you can grow vegetables and herbs, like lettuce, parsley, basil, and mesclun with almost no effort. The process couldn't be easier; The first step is to purchase of your desired vegetable seeds, and the second to place the seeds into Foop's "cultivation cup." After the seeds are in place, you set a time frame for them to grow using Foop's app. When the vegetables are ripe for picking, you'll get a notification on your phone!
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May 10, 2016

Watch for Falling Bricks: The Importance of Brickwork Repair and Regulation

Scaffolding is more often than not seen as a nuisance and a blight, but the reality is that what’s going on behind all that metal, wood and mesh is a major necessity to keeping us all safe. While most of us wouldn’t give a second thought to taking a seat in front of a fully-constructed […]

Policy

Stuff You Should Know: How Eminent Domain Works

The Atlantic Yards (now known as Pacific Park) in Brooklyn where eminent domain was used to take property. Image via Atlantic Yards Report

May 4, 2016

Stuff You Should Know: How Eminent Domain Works

By Penelope Bareau

It has been called the most coercive public policy after the draft. It has also been said that without it, construction in major cities would come to a shuddering stop. What is this powerful, controversial tool? Can both statements be true? Eminent domain is the policy by which a governmental agency can acquire or "take" property from an owner unwilling to sell in order to build something else there, and it has been around for centuries. Some say it derives from the medieval concept of the divine right of kings, empowered by God the Almighty to be sovereign over all. And by inference, that includes the land, which individual owners occupy and trade at the king's sufferance. When he wants it back, it is his right to take it. So under eminent domain, all land theoretically belongs to the state, which can assume control at any time.
more on eminent domain here

April 29, 2016

Don’t Look Up: Would Traffic Signals in the Pavement Protect NYC Phone Gazers?

We've already seen the creation of texting lanes for smartphone addicts (in Antwerp, Belgium and Chongqing, China) so pedestrians don't have to be stuck behind someone hunting for the perfect emoji. Recently the German city of Augsburg has taken the step of actually installing traffic lights in the pavement so text-walkers could be made aware of when it's unsafe to walk–by which we mean they're about to walk into the path of a 50-ton train. The idea came about after a 15-year-old girl was fatally hit by an oncoming tram while wearing headphones and looking down at her smartphone. As reported in The Telegraph, the lights look like ordinary road markers, but flat to the ground. Bavarian public-works/transportation provider Stadtwerke Augsburg has installed the experimental earthbound traffic signals in two rail stations. The LED lights blink green when it's safe to walk and red when a train is approaching. They're visible from a distance, so they might even give pedestrians some lead time to realize an intersection is up ahead.
Find out more

Stuff You Should Know: How NYC School Zones and Districts Work

Photo by Mary Frost of the Brooklyn Eagle

April 28, 2016

Stuff You Should Know: How NYC School Zones and Districts Work

By Cait Etherington

It’s a longstanding New York City tradition—families relocating to live in a desirable school district or zone. Currently, all five of the city’s boroughs are divided into districts and zones and both come with their own currency. Districts, which usually cover large swaths of a borough, impact students’ middle school and in some cases, high school choices. Zones, by contrast, can run just a few blocks and are usually the sole criteria for assigning students to schools at the elementary level. Like many things in New York City, however, a block can make a world of difference.
more on School Zones and Districts here

Transit Think Tank Says MSG Move Could Be a $5B Example of ‘Architects Run Wild’

Rendering for a proposed new MSG by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates

April 27, 2016

Transit Think Tank Says MSG Move Could Be a $5B Example of ‘Architects Run Wild’

By Ondel Hylton and Dana Schulz

Moving MSG to make room for a bigger, better Penn Station train hub would be really expensive and probably not a good idea, according to a new report by transit think tank Rudin Center for Transportation Policy. Commercial Observer reports that the just-released study outlines the concern that moving the arena would come with a price tag of over $5 billion, take, like, forever, and would generally "become an urban planner’s worst nightmare." The study refers to the proposed overhaul of Pennsylvania Station and the idea of extending it to the post office off Eighth Avenue as well as suggestions by urban planners for relocating MSG.
So what's going to cost so much?

April 19, 2016

LPC Approves Brooklyn’s First 1,000+ Foot Tower; New Renderings and Details

Brooklyn is finally getting a new skyscraper development worthy of its 2.6 million populace. Today, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved SHoP Architects' vision for 9 DeKalb Avenue, a rehabilitation of the landmarked Dime Saving Bank that will marry it with a dramatic, supertall skyscraper behind, the first 1,000+ foot building to arrive in the borough. The Beaux-Arts banking hall, which is both an interior and exterior landmark, hosted a J.P. Morgan Chase branch up until last year. Now, its new owners, Michael Stern's JDS Development and the Chetrit Group, plan to transform the hall into a public and retail space that will complement their new tower. To bring back more of the building's grandeur, its exterior and interior spaces will be restored, and to accommodate the tower behind, the team is calling for the demolition of two nondescript one- and five-story rear annexes, which will then allow for a grand entrance to the skyscraper and a public through-space. The LPC was enamored with the project, calling it "flawless" and "enlightened urbanism at its best," as well as touting that it "improved the vision of this historic landmark." One commissioner even went so far as to say "It's similar to the Parthenon sitting on the Acropolis." The LPC had only a few minor modifications, the most notable being that the teller cages be retained until the team can show a plan detailing how the retail tenant (there will only be one) will use the space.
Get a look at all the presentation materials

April 14, 2016

Mayor’s Affordable Housing Push Brings Tough Questions on Racial Integration

Affordability vs. racial inclusion may sound like an odd battle to be having, yet it's one that often simmers below the surface in discussions of neighborhood change. The words "Nearly 50 years after the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act..." are, of course, no small part of the reason. And in a city known for its diversity–one that often feels more racially integrated than it is–the question of how housing policy might affect racial makeup tends to be carefully sidestepped, but the New York Times opens that worm-can in a subsection called "Race/Related."
Is there a tradeoff between integration and affordability?

April 12, 2016

The Port Authority Paid $47.6M in 2015 to Cover Condé Nast’s Move to One WTC