Search Results for: "landscape architect"

November 16, 2015

New Renderings of SuperPier: Google’s New NYC Digs + Bourdain Food Market To Arrive in 2018

Last month at the Municipal Arts Society's (MAS) 2015 Summit for NYC, Seth Pinsky, executive vice president at RXR Realty, shared a presentation regarding the development of the long-planned rehabilitation and conversion of Pier 57 aka "SuperPier." In addition to some new looks at the project, he revealed that the developers have largely secured financing and are finalizing talks with the Hudson River Park Trust. RXR are co-developing the project with Young Woo & Associates, and Handel Architects and !Melk Landscape Architecture and Urban Design are the commissioned designers. According to Pinsky, the 450,000-square-foot development will invest $350 million of private capital to redevelop the structure, and in return create hundreds of jobs, generate millions of dollars of revenue for the Hudson River Park Trust, and create a new destination for New Yorkers and visitors alike. The former NYCEDC head confirmed that the project will include 250,000 square feet of office space for a major technology company [Google], a 170,000-square-foot food and retail market [Anthony Bourdain], and an elevated park with an outdoor movie and performance amphitheater on the roof to be used for screenings for the Tribeca Film Festival. He also noted construction will begin during the first half of next year, with completion aimed for early 2018.
Lots more renderings and details ahead
October 28, 2015

Two New Handel-Designed Towers to Sail Onto the Greenpoint Landing Waterfront

Yesterday it was announced that Brookfield Property Partners is making their first Brooklyn venture by purchasing a majority stake in two Greenpoint Landing development sites for $59.7 million. While better known for their commercial ventures, Brookfield will begin construction early next year on 775 market-rate apartments on two waterfront parcels. The towers should be finished sometime in 2019 at the total cost of $600 million as part of the first phases of the of the 22-acre master plan which is being designed by Handel Architects. Plans filed with the Department of Buildings for Brookfield's sites call for a 30-story, 372-unit rental building at 37 Blue Slip and a larger 39-story, 401-unit tower at 41 Blue Slip. A cul-de-sac will separate the slab-shaped towers, which will open onto a waterfront esplanade designed by James Corner Field Operations.
More renderings right this way
October 26, 2015

INTERVIEW: Lowline Creator James Ramsey Discusses the Challenges of Building an Underground Park

The hottest destination in the Lower East Side is not a bar, but rather a cutting edge installation hidden inside a vacant warehouse at 140 Essex Street. Just over a week ago, partners James Ramsey and Dan Barasch launched the Lowline Lab, a high-tech, miniaturized precursor to the city’s first underground park. James is the co-founder (alongside Dan) of the park, which will occupy a 40,000-square-foot abandoned trolley terminal below Delancey Street; and creator of the technology that will fill it—a remote skylight system that redirects light underground thorough a maze of optic tubes and diffuses it over a canopy to produce a subterranean environment where plants can grow and flourish (phew!). 6sqft recently took a private tour of the Lowline Lab alongside James, and he gave us some insight into the science, as well how he and Dan are approaching the challenges that come with bringing a park below ground to life. We of course asked all those questions you've been wondering about, like: Who's paying for this whole thing? And what about the rats?
Read our interview with James here
October 16, 2015

6sqft’s Must-See Recommendations for This Weekend’s Open House New York

This year's Open House New York takes place this weekend on October 17th and 18th. A full roster of sites was revealed just over a week ago, and there is certainly plenty to see. But how will you prioritize? To help make planning your itinerary a bit easier, 6sqft has put together a list of recommendations for not-to-be-missed sites, from Google's headquarters to a food factory tour at Industry City to the 1920s gilded Loew's Kings Theatre.
See our picks here
October 15, 2015

Pollution Cleanup Park Taking Shape at Gowanus Canal

The Gowanus Canal isn't the first place that comes to mind when one thinks about lush waterfront parks, but that's exactly the vision behind the long-planned Gowanus Canal Sponge Park, an 18,000-square-foot public space that will be built with engineered soil to absorb (hence "sponge") stormwater that would otherwise pollute the canal, as well as plants to break down toxins and floating wetlands. It was first conceived back in 2008 by the Gowanus Canal Conservancy and Susannah Drake, principal at the landscape architecture firm DLANDstudio (who's also responsible for the Queensway). Now, seven years later, DNAinfo reports that state officials announced on Tuesday that construction has officially commenced on the $1.5 million project at the notorious Superfund site. The park will sit on city-owned land at the point where Second Street dead-ends at the canal. Workers are on site, digging out five feet of contaminated soil that will be sent to a special facility that handles toxic materials; during the next 90 days, the metal walkway will be installed; and plants will arrive in the spring.
More on the park and the Gowanus Canal cleanup
October 9, 2015

Starchitect Rafael Viñoly Will Donate Services to Design Science Center at Tribeca’s Pier 26

When he's not designing the city's tallest towers, starchitect Rafael Viñoly has a philanthropic side. The New York Times reported that he'll be donating his services to the Hudson River Park Trust to design the long-planned science education and research center on Pier 26 in Tribeca (famous for serving as the location of the Village People's 1978 "Y.M.C.A" video). Known as an estuarium, the project is part of a larger redevelopment of the pier, which will include a new park by landscape architects OLIN, the current free kayaking program and dog runs, and a City Vineyard restaurant, according to Curbed.
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October 9, 2015

This $4.7M Historic Park Slope Brownstone by MESH Architectures Has the Heart of a Loft

When the owners of this North Slope townhouse at 144 Lincoln Place purchased it in 2005 for $2.1 million, they'd had their hearts set on a loft; after choosing a Victorian brownstone instead, they worked with MESH architectures to create their dream space without having to give up their dreams. The result? The architects explain how the home is "consistent with contemporary family life but does not erase the original structures. Instead a layered, more complex spatial composition balances gravity with lightness, old with new, raw with finished." Now on the market for $4.7 million, this 3,300-square-foot classic-on-the-outside 1882 townhouse consists of a spacious and creatively designed owners’ triplex over an adorable garden-floor apartment (in a high-rent neighborhood). The landscaped back garden paradise alone is a show-stopper. The interior of the house was thoroughly reimagined, and the resulting “vertical loft” is a unique home that’s a fit for both daily life and the pages of a design book.
Check out this history-meets-industry dream house
August 31, 2015

Dattner Architects’ Prismatic, Concrete Salt Shed Reveals Itself

Summer is coming to a close, and in a few months we'll be navigating the city's treacherous streets perfecting our penguin waddles and fine-tuning our black ice magna-vision. This winter season, downtown Manhattan residents may find a sliver of comfort knowing that the rock salt used to mitigate slippery streets will be stored in one of the most grandiose salt sheds on Earth. Recently unshrouded, the Department of Sanitation's 67-foot-tall Spring Street Salt Shed flaunts a prismatic concrete facade evoking the intriguing faceted forms of salt crystals. The award-winning design, crafted by the public works masters at Dattner Architects and WXY Architecture + Urban Design, comes with a sizable price tag of $10 million. The structure was crowned the "Taj Mahal of Salt" back in 2010, noting that it cost more than nine recently constructed city salt sheds combined. Nevertheless, even in its unpolished state, we have to admit this riverfront iceberg is pretty captivating. And despite its utilitarian use, its form is well-worthy of its prime Hudson Square locale.
More renderings and info right this way
August 26, 2015

City’s Next Floating Park May Be a Giant Food Forest

It seems the way to create new public spaces in New York these days is to float them in the rivers. First there was the +Pool, then Pier55, and now we introduce to you Swale, a floating food forest that may grace our waters next summer. The New York Observer reports that artist Mary Mattingly is looking to embark on the project, which will "be created with collaborators and built from repurposed shipping containers, will stretch 50 feet across and will feature a gangway entrance, walkways, and an edible forest garden." The floating garden will move around to different docks in the harbor to serve various communities. Local students and gardeners are working on a wetland plant base that will filter the river water to help grow edible plants.
More on the project ahead
August 19, 2015

There’s a Spanish-Style Adobe Home in Brooklyn Heights; Heroic Food Farms to Provide Employment for Military Vets

Be transported to a Spanish villa just by looking at this unique adobe-style house in Brooklyn Heights. [Gothamist] Mister Softee may serve up summer deliciousness, but don’t mess with him when it comes to his jingle. He’s suing a rival ice cream truck for allegedly stealing the signature tune. [NYDN] Ennead Architects and RAFT Landscape Architecture plan to build a Heroic […]

August 11, 2015

DHD Interiors Bring the Beach Back to This Hamptons Beach House

When a Manhattan couple first bought this 8,000-square-foot Hamptons home, it seemed like more of a hunting house than a beach house. Wall-mounted deer heads and paisley wallpaper outfitted the space, while dark mahogany floors sucked the light out of the rooms. But the new homeowners didn't let this turn them away. “It was a big house with unbelievable water views and we thought it would be a fantastic place to host family and friends,” the wife told luxe. “But we knew it needed some work.” The couple called in Steven Wakenshaw and Steffani Aarons of DHD Interiors, as well as landscape architect Steven Tupu, to bring out the best in their now house, but what had started out as small-scale remodeling and redecorating snowballed into an architectural intervention. Given the placement of the house on the eroding shoreline, DHD was prevented from changing the shape of house without obtaining local ordinances, which could take years to get. The homeowners wanted the house ready in time for Memorial Day, giving the team only five months to complete the task. With those restrictions, the firm decided to work with what they had to create a stylish, family-friendly beach house.
See how DHD Interiors turned the house around
June 5, 2015

Pier55 Floating Park Gets New Renderings and Updated Design Details

Back in April, the city introduced a plan B for Barry Diller's Pier 55 floating park, but it was far less exciting than the original futuristic design. Thankfully, the latest set of renderings, revealed by Curbed, show that the whimsical nature of the park hasn't gone anywhere. Mathews Nielsen, the landscape architect for the project who is working with designer Thomas Heatherwick, unveiled the latest set of images at a meeting this week. They take into account concerns from the local community board, including its height (the platform will now be 62 feet at its highest point as opposed to 70), circulation (the winding pathways are being designed with congestion in mind), and the issue of people jumping off (the periphery will be lined with shrubbery and a fence).
More details ahead
June 2, 2015

Elizabeth Roberts Brings Light Back into This 163-Year-Old Fort Greene Townhouse

When Allison Freedman Weisberg and Peter Barker-Huelster bought this Fort Greene townhouse, it was the opposite of the home they envisioned. The couple wanted a house that was bright and uncluttered. Instead, the 163 year-old house was dark and decaying with its roof and back wall about to cave in. The family enlisted Elizabeth Roberts Design/Ensemble Architecture to put air and light back into the house, resulting in this indoor/outdoor blend thanks to a two-story addition, which features a wall of windows on the second floor and an operable glass door on the ground floor.
Look around the house here
April 15, 2015

Ruffle Bar and Robbins Reef: NYC’s Forgotten Oyster Islands

Today, when most New Yorkers think of oysters it has to do with the latest happy hour offering the underwater delicacies for $1, but back in the 19th century oysters were big business in New York City, as residents ate about a million a year. In fact, oyster reefs once covered more than 220,000 acres of the Hudson River estuary and it was estimated that the New York Harbor was home to half of the world's oysters. Not only were they tasty treats, but they filtered water and provided shelter for other marine species. They were sold from street carts as well as restaurants, and even the poorest New Yorkers enjoyed them regularly. Though we know the shores of Manhattan, especially along today's Meatpacking District and in the Financial District near aptly named Pearl Street, were chock full of oysters, there were also a couple of islands that played a part in New York's oyster culture, namely Ruffle Bar, a sandbar in Jamaica Bay, and Robbins Reef, a reef off Staten Island marked with a lighthouse.
Find out about these two forgotten islands
March 4, 2015

‘Built by Women NYC’ Showcases the Work of Female Architects and Engineers

To mark Women's History Month, a new exhibit at the Center for Architecture will showcase the work of more than 100 female architects, landscape architects, and engineers across the five boroughs. Built by Women New York City (BxW NYC) is a project of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, which started accepting nominations for outstanding female-led design last fall and received 350 submissions. Among the 98 sites celebrated at the show are the Pepsi Cola Corporate Headquarters on Park Avenue, designed in the 1960s by Natalie de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; the new Fulton Center, the work of more than two dozen women; and the High Line, another collaborative effort of many females.
More on the exhibit
February 25, 2015

Renderings Revealed for West Village’s New Triangular Park That Will Feature AIDS Memorial

In 2011, Rudin Management inked a controversial deal to convert part of St. Vincent's Hospital into luxury condos, now known as The Greenwich Lane. Part of the deal was that the developer would build a public park on an adjacent piece of triangular land that would include the city's first major AIDS memorial, a feature that garnered tons of press thanks to a much-talked-about design competition. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that Rudin has broken ground on the new 16,000-square-foot West Village green space, located on Seventh Avenue between Greenwich Avenue and West 12th Street. And along with this news comes renderings from M. Paul Friedberg & Partners, the architecture firm that designed the Greenwich Lane and is also designing the park, which show winding walkways, curving benches, plenty of trees, play areas, a lawn, and water jets.
More details ahead
February 6, 2015

Facebook Expands Its Midtown Office; Buy a Condo at the Oosten and Get a Free Trip to Amsterdam

Facebook is expanding its offices. The social media giant will add 80,000 square feet—at $100 per square foot—at its 770 Broadway locale. [Crain’s] If you buy a condo at the Oosten in Williamsburg, you’ll get a free trip to Amsterdam. [Brick Underground] How many jobs are accessible from your neighborhood? [DNA Info] The East River Waterfront […]

January 28, 2015

Living Breakwaters: An Award-Winning Project Brings ‘Oyster-tecture’ to the Shores of Staten Island

We know what you're thinking: what is oyster-tecture, anyway? Just ask Kate Orff, landscape architect and the founding principal of SCAPE Studio. SCAPE is a landscape architecture and urban design office based in Manhattan and specializing in urban ecology, site design, and strategic planning. Kate is also an associate professor of architecture and urban design at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she founded the Urban Landscape Lab, which is dedicated to affecting positive social and ecological change in the joint built-natural environment. But the Living Breakwaters project may be the SCAPE team’s most impactful yet. The “Oyster-tecture” concept was developed as part of the MoMA Rising Currents Exhibition in 2010, with the idea of an oyster hatchery/eco-park in the Gowanus interior that would eventually generate a wave-attenuating reef in the Gowanus Bay. Describing the project as, “a process for generating new cultural and environmental narratives,” Kate envisioned a new “reef culture” functioning both as ecological sanctuary and public recreation space.
Find out more about what oysters and other creatures can do for NYC
December 4, 2014

Anmahian Winton Architects’ Red Rock House Is a Minimalist Berkshires Retreat

Plenty of New Yorkers have already begun weekend trips up to their second homes in the Berkshires, but once the snow starts falling all the winter-loving urbanites will really start making an exodus. And this estate in Red Rock, New York couldn't be any more perfect for a festive getaway. The work of Anmahian Winton Architects, the Red Rock House is a property made up of the main one-bedroom house and a combined guest house/garage. It's situated on a densely wooded, 16-acre site and was designed to work with the existing topography, taking advantage of the landscape, views, and daylight.
Tour the entire property
November 20, 2014

Forest Hills Gardens: A Hidden NYC Haven of Historic Modernity

This unique sheltered enclave might be the perfect spot for residents who can handle the rules; just don't call it FoHiGa. Occupying a 175-acre wedge just south of the Forest Hills LIRR station and within the greater Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills, Forest Hills Gardens is one of America’s oldest planned communities. Modeled after England’s “garden cities,” originally intended to create an ideal environment that incorporated shared green space with urban convenience for the working classes, the Gardens (as it's known) is home to about 4,500 residents. The private community is managed by the Forest Hills Gardens Corporation, an organization made up of property owners. This unique community consisting of over 800 free-standing and attached houses and 11 apartment buildings as well as churches, parks and storefronts, dates from 1909, when architect Grosvenor Atterbury and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.–-son of Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape architect who helped design Central Park–-were commissioned to plan a new town. Though the community lies within the boundaries of one of the world’s most modern and populous cities, it has retained much of its co-operative, idyllic nature.
Find out more about this unique community
November 17, 2014

Barry Diller Pledges $130M for Futuristic Offshore Park on the West Side

Floating space in New York's waterways is not a new concept. Take the +Pool, for example, the public pool proposed for the East River that was recently supported by Kanye West. But a new offshore park proposed for the Hudson River off 14th Street seems exceedingly ambitious, as it would cost $170 million, be located 186 feet off land, and contain wooded nooks and three performance venues including an amphitheater. Barry Diller, sponsor-to-be of this ambitious plan, gives the project a much more realistic outlook. The billionaire chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp, former head of Paramount Pictures and Fox–and husband to Diane von Furstenberg–was the single largest donor to the High Line. He's pledged $130 million from the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation to make the 2.7-acre park a realty, as well as agreed to run the outdoor space and cover operating expenses for 20 years. He and his wife have starchitect-designed offices in the Meatpacking District and are clearly becoming king and queen of the neighborhood.
More on the futuristic park ahead
October 26, 2014

Watermill Residence is Topped With Wildflowers and Powered by Geothermal Energy

Andrew Berman Architect PLLC is a New York-based practice focused on the realization of unique and finely executed spaces, and the stunning Watermill Residence is not an exception. Created for a family of three generations, it features lovely, light-filled interiors and plenty of outdoors space for enjoying nature. It's made from an elegant combination of wood and polished concrete, is topped by a green roof made from local wildflowers and grasses, and is powered by geothermal energy.
Learn more about this stunning green-roofed residence
October 20, 2014

REVEALED: Renderings of Greenpoint Landing’s Waterfront Park Designed by James Corner

Renderings for the waterfront park to be built alongside the massive housing development Greenpoint Landing have been released. Flooding from Hurricane Sandy ravaged the area only a few years back, so it comes as no surprise that the local community was concerned with how the developers were going to address the possibility of damaging storm swells in the future. Despite their concerns the park's designer James Corner Field Operations has used intelligent design and beautiful landscaping to enhance the structural integrity and aesthetic appeal of the existing riverfront.
READ MORE
October 3, 2014

The Flowerbox Building: A Sustainable Gem in a Storied Setting

Built in 2007, The Flowerbox condo building at 259 East Seventh Street, about mid-way between Avenues C and D, is considered by many to be one of the city’s most beautiful new developments–and definitely a neighborhood standout, featuring a vertical garden that waters itself. The building boom that started with the 21st century and has continued apace since the end of the most recent economic downturn has given Downtown Manhattan an impressive collection of starchitect-designed creations, complete with Sky Garages, Boxwood Mazes and plenty of glass curtain walls. But the Flowerbox Building continues to charm with its design, quality and curb appeal.
Find out about the vertical
September 26, 2014

New Yorker Spotlight: Eloise Hirsh on Turning the Freshkills Landfill Into a Thriving Park

Similar to Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's grand ideas for Central Park, there is a vision for the 2,200 acres of reclaimed land at the former Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. Where trash once piled up for as far as the eye could see, the site is now a blossoming park full of wildlife and recreational activities. The Park Administrator overseeing this incredible transformation is Eloise Hirsh. Eloise is a major force behind the largest landfill-to-park conversion in the world to date. In her role as Freshkills Park Administrator, she makes sure the park progresses towards its completion date in 2035, and regularly engages with New Yorkers to keep them informed and excited. 6sqft recently spoke with Eloise to learn more about Fresh Kills' history, what it takes to reclaim land, and what New Yorkers can expect at the park today and in the years to come.
Read the full interview here