Search Results for: architecture firm

July 9, 2019

Where I Work: Harlem’s Focus Lighting illuminates the field of architectural lighting design

6sqft’s series “Where I Work” takes us into the studios, offices, and off-beat workspaces of New Yorkers across the city. In this installment, we’re touring the Harlem office of architectural lighting design firm Focus Lighting. Want to see your business featured here? Get in touch! After spending many years designing theatrical lighting, Paul Gregory decided to transition into the world of architectural lighting. He started his career working on nightclubs and in 1987, founded his own firm in his neighborhood of Harlem. Eight years later, Paul and his team at Focus Lighting garnered international recognization for their work on the Entel Tower in Santiago Chile, the world's first automated color-changing building. Since then, the firm has grown to have 35 employees and nabs commissions such as the Times Square ball, Tavern on the Green, and the Waldorf Astoria (and that's just here in NYC). But through all their success, Focus has kept their offices in Harlem, now at 116th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, where their close-knit employees work collaboratively. The converted loft space has a unique light lab, similar to a black box theater, as well as a gallery space where the team can test out new means of digital architecture and video projects. 6sqft recently visited Focus Lighting to learn more about their fascinating work, tour the space, and chat with Focus partner and principal designer Brett Andersen and principal designer Christine Hope.
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Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim becomes a UNESCO World Heritage site

Photo via Wiki Commons

July 8, 2019

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim becomes a UNESCO World Heritage site

By Michelle Cohen

Eight buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright have been named UNESCO World Heritage sites, including New York City's iconic Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The buildings were given heritage status by the organization's World Heritage Committee at a July 7 meeting (h/t Dezeen). Additional Wright creations named to the list are Fallingwater (Pennsylvania), Frederick C. Robie House (Illinois), Hollyhock House (California), the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs House (Wisconsin), Unity Temple (Illinois), and Wright's homes and studios at Taliesin, Wisconsin and Taliesin West, Arizona.
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June 21, 2019

Inside the Elizabeth Collective, Elizabeth Taylor’s former Midtown mansion turned arts collective

By Dana Schulz

When you think of the heart of Midtown, the first thing that comes to mind is probably not a turn-of-the-century mansion dripping with historic details. But nestled amongst the office buildings on West 56th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues is just that. Designed by architects Warren & Wetmore of Grand Central fame, 10 West 56th Street has gone through several incarnations over its lifetime, from private residence (including the one-time home of Elizabeth Taylor!) to high-end retail space. Its most recent transformation was helmed by Roxana Q. Girand, founder of real estate development firm Sebastian Capital. Wanting to merge her expertise and passion in commercial space, art, and beauty, she opened the Elizabeth Collective this past fall as part art pop-up event space, part permanent studio workspaces. 6sqft recently visited Roxana at the Collective to get a behind-the-scenes look at the incredible French Renaissance Revival building, see how she's given the space a new life, and learn more about what's to come.
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June 21, 2019

Remarkable Williamsburg shipping container townhouse is for sale asking $5.5M

By Michelle Cohen

Two years ago 6sqft reported on the rise of a singular single-family residence on a Williamsburg corner lot; the amazing townhouse was built from 21 steel shipping containers, tamed and transformed into a sleek and surprisingly livable home by the architecture and design firm LOT-EK for the Brooklyn couple behind neighborhood barbecue favorite Fette Sau. If you've always wanted to live in the 25-by-100-foot, 5,000-square-foot home at 2 Monitor Street, now's your chance; the house just hit the market for $5.5 million.
Tour this industry-inspired wonder

Seven years in the works, Jeanne Gang’s $383M Museum of Natural History expansion breaks ground

A rendering of the front façade of the Gilder Center (L) by Studio Gang, 2019; Center interior (R) by MIR and Studio Gang, 2019.

June 12, 2019

Seven years in the works, Jeanne Gang’s $383M Museum of Natural History expansion breaks ground

By Alexandra Alexa

Following delays caused by a lawsuit aimed at protecting the adjacent, city-owned Theodore Roosevelt Park, a groundbreaking ceremony on June 12 officially kicked off construction of the American Museum of Natural History’s new Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. Designed by architect Jeanne Gang—who was initially brought on board the project seven years ago—the $383 million Center will add new galleries, classrooms, a theatre, and an expanded library while linking 10 museum buildings for better circulation throughout the campus. Originally slated to open in 2020, the construction process is expected to last three years.
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From George Washington to war bonds: The revolutionary history of Fraunces Tavern

Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York outside 54 Pearl Street on opening day. Taken from Broad Street facing east. 1907. From the archives at Fraunces Tavern Museum. Courtesy of the Fraunces Tavern Museum

May 29, 2019

From George Washington to war bonds: The revolutionary history of Fraunces Tavern

By Lucie Levine

Fraunces Tavern is breaking out the champagne this year to celebrate its 300th birthday. Called "the oldest standing structure in Manhattan," the building you see today at the corner of Broad and Pearl Streets owes much to 20th-century reconstruction and restoration, but the site has a storied and stately past. In fact, any toasts delivered to mark the Tavern's tri-centennial will have to stack up against George Washington's farewell toast to his officers, delivered in the Tavern's Long Room, on December 4, 1783. Named for Samuel Fraunces, the patriot, spy, steward, and gourmand, who turned the old De Lancey Mansion at 54 Pearl Street into 18th century New York’s hottest watering hole, Fraunces Tavern connects New York’s proud immigrant history with its Dutch past, Revolutionary glory, maritime heritage, and continuous culinary prowess. Dive into the building’s unparalleled past and discover secrets and statesmen, murder and merriment – all served up alongside oysters as big as your face.
Learn the whole history

History

May 17, 2019

All of I.M. Pei’s New York City projects

By 6sqft

Following Thursday’s news of the death of 102-year-old Pritzker Prize-winning Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei, the spotlight has been focused on his many contributions throughout the world. His firm, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, has had a hand in dozens of projects throughout New York City, though Pei himself was the principal designer for only a rare few. Below is a roundup of I.M. Pei’s NYC buildings, from a pedestrian plaza “superblock” in residential Brooklyn to the iconic Four Seasons Hotel, to the JFK Aiport Sundrome that was sadly demolished in 2011, and a never-realized futuristic 1956 Hyperboloid design that was to be a replacement for Grand Central Terminal
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Architecture And Design

NYC Council approves JPMorgan’s 70-story Midtown East tower

Via Flickr

May 9, 2019

NYC Council approves JPMorgan’s 70-story Midtown East tower

By Devin Gannon

The New York City Council on Wednesday approved the first supertall to be constructed under the Midtown East rezoning. JPMorgan Chase will build a new 70-story headquarters at the site of its current offices at 270 Park Avenue. The rezoning, adopted by the city in 2017, affects more than 70 blocks around Grand Central Terminal and encourages the construction of taller, more modern office towers in the neighborhood. Designed by Norman Foster's Foster + Partners, the 1,400-foot building is set to become one of the tallest structures in the city and the tallest office building by roof height.
More here

Policy

Noguchi Museum to expand LIC campus, open the sculptor’s studio to the public for the first time

Rendering of the Noguchi Museum campus by Büro Koray Duman

April 26, 2019

Noguchi Museum to expand LIC campus, open the sculptor’s studio to the public for the first time

By Devin Gannon

The original studio and pied-à-terre of Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi will open to the public for the first time as part of a new unified campus, the Noguchi Museum announced earlier this month. The Long Island City museum plans to expand its existing museum and sculpture garden, founded by Noguchi in 1985, by adding a new 6,000-square-foot building and restoring the sculptor's studio.
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Where I Work: How Kerry Brodie helps empower refugees through food at Emma’s Torch in Brooklyn

6sqft’s series “Where I Work” takes us into the studios, offices, and off-beat workspaces of New Yorkers across the city. In this installment, we’re touring Carroll Gardens nonprofit-restaurant Emma’s Torch. Want to see your business featured here? Get in touch!

April 24, 2019

Where I Work: How Kerry Brodie helps empower refugees through food at Emma’s Torch in Brooklyn

By Devin Gannon

While volunteering at a Washington, D.C. homeless shelter a few years ago, Kerry Brodie witnessed how food can facilitate conversations among diverse groups of people. “If I have one background, someone else a different one, but we have this shared experience of cooking with our mothers and grandmothers, there’s got to be something else we can do to propel change,” Kerry said. With the idea to help those from disenfranchised communities find jobs and feel empowered doing so, she quit her job in public policy, moved to New York, and enrolled in culinary school. A month after graduating, Kerry founded Emma’s Torch, first as a pop-up in Red Hook to now a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Carroll Gardens, where it’s been for about a year. The nonprofit, named after Emma Lazarus whose poem is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, serves as a culinary school for refugees, asylum seekers, and survivors of trafficking. Applicants who are accepted to the 12-week paid program not only learn how to cook in a high-pressure setting but also work on English language skills and career planning. 6sqft recently sat down with Kerry at Emma's Torch ahead of a graduation dinner, a night where the students take over the menu and "cook from the heart." Ahead, learn more about the mission of Emma's Torch, the challenges of operating as a nonprofit, and Kerry's plan to expand beyond New York City.
See the space and meet the founder of Emma's Torch

New rendering shows 277-foot tower rising next to Williamsburgh Savings Bank

Rendering courtesy of Stonehill Taylor. Bank image via Wikimedia cc.

April 22, 2019

New rendering shows 277-foot tower rising next to Williamsburgh Savings Bank

By Michelle Cohen

The 26-story tower rising at 159 Broadway next to South Williamsburg's landmarked, domed Williamsburgh Savings Bank is making progress on its way to becoming 21 condos and a hotel. A new rendering courtesy of architectural firm Stonehill Taylor depicts the 277-foot-tall tower on the rise thanks to air rights above the bank, purchased by developer Cornell Realty Management along with the lot adjacent the bank hall.
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New Developments

March 28, 2019

Photos capture the historic glamour of the Waldorf Astoria before its renovation

By Dana Schulz

To the dismay of many New Yorkers, the Waldorf Astoria closed its doors in 2017 for a huge renovation project that will ultimately create larger hotel rooms and add a new set of luxury condos. After the plans were announced, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the hotel's first three floors as an interior landmark, meaning the new owners will need to preserve the 1931 Art Deco spaces. But after a four-year hiatus (the hotel will reopen in 2021) and a completely new vibe, it's not clear if those interiors will have the same glamorous, old-school New York vibe that they were once famous for. Luckily, photographers James and Karla Murray captured the Waldorf in all its glory before it closed its doors. Ahead, take a tour of the old Waldorf, from its iconic, two-ton lobby clock to the three-tiered grand ballroom.
Take the tour

DXA Studio’s pedestrian bridge design would connect Hudson Yards and Moynihan Train Hall

Rendering: DXA Studio.

March 4, 2019

DXA Studio’s pedestrian bridge design would connect Hudson Yards and Moynihan Train Hall

By Michelle Cohen

A curvy urban pathway designed by DXA Studio could allow commuters to pass between the new Moynihan Train Hall at West 31st Street to the High Line and Hudson Yards at 30th Street without having to deal with cars at all. The design is the grand prize-winning entry–for a $15,000 prize–in the 2019 Design Challenge by Metals in Construction magazine. The contest asked architects, engineers, and students to create a pedestrian bridge that could safely move the approximately 100,000 people daily that travel from the train hall to Hudson Yards while keeping the foot traffic from affecting the street below.
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Architecture And Design

February 19, 2019

Plans for Norman Foster’s Red Hook office complex may be kaput

By Alexandra Alexa

According to sources close to the project, plans for Norman Foster’s Red Hoek Point, a 7.7-acre commercial campus at the former Revere Sugar Factory on the Red Hook shoreline, appear to be getting scrapped, The Real Deal reports. The website still advertises the “revolutionary office campus on the Brooklyn waterfront,” but Thor Equities is reportedly going to abandon the 800,000-square-foot complex and replace it with warehousing, a change of course that Thor’s founder Joseph Sitt may have been considering as early as last October, as new renderings for Red Hoek Point were being developed.
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New plan by BIG and WXY will help make Downtown Brooklyn a ‘competitive national urban center’

Image courtesy of Downtownbrooklyn.com.

February 12, 2019

New plan by BIG and WXY will help make Downtown Brooklyn a ‘competitive national urban center’

By Michelle Cohen

Downtown Brooklyn Partnership announced today the selection of a joint proposal from design firms WXY Studio (WXY) and Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG Architects) for a public realm action plan aimed at implementing long-term improvements to Downtown Brooklyn’s plazas, streets, and public spaces to keep pace with the neighborhood's unprecedented growth. According to a press release, the two firms will conduct a comprehensive study and create an implementation plan for Downtown Brooklyn’s public realm and help "advance Downtown Brooklyn as a competitive, national urban center."
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Architecture And Design

City calls on architects to design innovative affordable housing on super small lots

The city hopes to develop affordable housing on this lot at 829 Freeman Street in the Bronx; via Google Street View

February 4, 2019

City calls on architects to design innovative affordable housing on super small lots

By Devin Gannon

The city is calling on architects to help design innovative affordable housing on irregularly-shaped lots, the New York Times reported Monday. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development will launch a design competition, along with the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, seeking ideas for housing on 23 unusually small or narrow lots across the city. The program, called Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC, was first announced by the city last year and falls under Mayor Bill de Blasio's ambitious Housing New York 2.0 plan.
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Hope Street, Love Lane, and more: The stories behind NYC’s most optimistic street names

Photo via Flickr cc

February 4, 2019

Hope Street, Love Lane, and more: The stories behind NYC’s most optimistic street names

By Cait Etherington

Short on hope? Wondering where to find love? Craving the promise of Utopia? If you are, you’re likely not alone. What you may not realize is that a few New Yorkers have these things on the street where they live, or at least on the street signs where they live. While most New Yorkers, especially Manhattanites, are relegated to living on numbered streets and avenues, in a few city neighborhoods, streets do have names and just a few of these streets--Hope Street, Love Lane, Futurity Place, and more--are especially uplifting.
Learn the story behind NYC's most optimistic addresses

City Living

January 31, 2019

For artists by artists: Inside the landmarked studios of the 144-year-old Art Students League of New York

By Devin Gannon

6sqft’s series “Where I Work” takes us into the studios, offices, and businesses of New Yorkers across the city. In this installment, we’re going inside the landmarked building of the Art Students League of New York in Midtown. Want to see your business featured here? Get in touch! In 1875, a group of young students broke away from the National Academy of Design and founded the Art Students League of New York to pursue a new and more modern method of art education. What started as a small group of rebellious artists in a 20-foot by 30-foot space, turned into an internationally-recognized, landmarked institution, which continues to set the standard for art training today. In its 144th year, the Art Students League’s mission has remained unchanged since its founding: to spread the language of art to anyone interested in learning. The nonprofit has been located in the American Fine Arts Society Building at 215 West 57th Street since 1892. A designated New York City landmark, the French Renaissance-style building was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh, the architect behind the Plaza Hotel and the Dakota. Ken Park, the director of marketing and communication for the League, recently gave 6sqft a behind-the-scenes tour of the historic building and shared some insight into this storied establishment.
See inside

Via Creative Commons

January 9, 2019

The Chrysler Building is for sale

By Devin Gannon

New York City's iconic Chrysler Building is on the market. The owners of the 1930 Art Deco landmark, Tishman Speyer Properties and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, have hired real estate firm CBRE Group to sell the property, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The Abu Dhabi government purchased its majority stake in the Chrysler for $800 million in 2008, but real estate experts told the WSJ it would be difficult to recover.
Details here

Real Estate Trends

Via Practice for Architecture and Urbanism

December 11, 2018

A megachurch in East New York will become an ‘urban village’ with 2,100 affordable apartments

By Alexandra Alexa

A Christian megachurch in East New York is partnering with the Gotham Organization to redevelop their East New York campus into a mixed-income community, or "urban village" as Reverend A.R. Bernard calls it, of 2,100 affordable units and neighborhood amenities. The plan from the Christian Cultural Center, led by Bernard, will supplement the existing church at 12020 Flatlands Avenue in Brooklyn and create a community with CCC at its core.
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Affordable Housing

December 5, 2018

VOTE for 6sqft’s 2018 Building of the Year

By Michelle Cohen

The city’s most important residential projects include a glittering showcase of superlatives that continue to eclipse all that came before, with claims that include tallest (Central Park Tower), skinniest (111 West 57th Street ), most expensive (a $250 million penthouse at 220 Central Park South) and loftiest outdoor lounge (Fifteen Hudson Yards) and pool (Brooklyn Point) almost being a requirement for selling the fabulously luxurious apartments and amenities that lie within. Though some of this year’s contenders appeared on previous years’ lists, their sales launches and toppings-out in 2018 proved that their arrivals on the city's skyline–and among its residential options–are no less impactful than the anticipation that preceded them. We’ve narrowed our picks down to a list of 12 headline-stealing residential structures for the year. Which do you think deserves 6sqft’s title of 2018 Building of the Year? To have your say, polls for our fourth annual competition will be open up until midnight on Wednesday, December 12th and we will announce the winner on the 13th.
VOTE HERE! And learn more about the choices.

New Developments

November 8, 2018

Meet Candice and Malessa, real estate’s ‘new generation’ of brokers working to empower women

By Dana Schulz

"Integrity, vigorous work ethic, and a strategic business approach," form the platform that Candice Milano and Malessa Rambarran bring as brokers to the NYC real estate world. But there's no "broker babble" here. The duo--who recently joined Halstead as the Milano-Rambarran Team--consider themselves the "next generation of real estate," forming important relationships with their new development clients and growing their luxury resale business. But what sets them apart the most is their mission to bring this knowledge of how to use real estate as a wealth building tool to the public, specifically women. They've even created their own platform, Women in Residential Real Estate (WIRRE) to foster this community and connect people through their series of curated events. Ahead, 6sqft chats with Candice and Malessa about how their approach, how they got into real estate, and why it's so important to support fellow females.
Read the interview

November 6, 2018

Behind the Scenes at Queens’ Loew’s Valencia, once the most successful Wonder Theatre in NYC

By James and Karla Murray

Earlier this year, 6sqft got an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour at the majestic Loew’s Jersey City Theatre, as well as the United Palace Theatre in Washington Heights. In 2016, we joined Untapped Cities and NYCEDC on a tour of Brooklyn Kings Theatre, and just last month, as part of Untapped Cities Insider’s Tours, we were lucky enough to tour and photograph the former Loew’s Valencia Theatre on Jamaica Avenue in Queens, which is now home to the Tabernacle of Prayer for All People church. The majestic Loew’s Valencia Theatre opened on Saturday, January 12, 1929, as the first, largest, and most famous of the five flagship Loew’s “Wonder” Theatres established in the New York City area from 1929-30. All of the grand movie palaces were built by Marcus Loew of the Loew’s Theatres chain to establish the firm as a leader in film exhibition and to simultaneously serve as a fantastical yet affordable escape for people of all classes from the tedium and anxieties of their daily lives. The Valencia most definitely did not shy away from this fantastical approach, with its Spanish/Mexican Baroque architecture, gilded ornamentation, rich jewel-tone colors, and elaborate carvings.
Take the grand tour

October 25, 2018

Remembering Soho’s Tunnel Garage: An automobile age marvel

By Andrew Berman of Village Preservation

As the old saying goes, you win some, you lose some. That’s particularly true in preservation, where sometimes in spite of the most heroic of efforts and compelling of cases, historic treasures succumb to the wrecking ball. GVSHP is frequently asked, “Which fight do you most regret losing; which building do you mourn the loss of most?” It often comes as a surprise that the answer, inevitably, is a parking garage — one which seemed to almost eerily peer into the future. But the Tunnel Garage, at Broome and Thompson Streets, where the South Village meets Soho, was no ordinary parking garage. Built in 1922, it was a thing of extraordinary beauty, a sublime ode to the dawn of the automobile age and to the engineering marvel of its time which was the Holland Tunnel.
So, what happened?

History

Meet Theodate Pope Riddle, New York’s first licensed female architect

The Hill-Stead Museum via Flickr cc

October 19, 2018

Meet Theodate Pope Riddle, New York’s first licensed female architect

By Lucie Levine

Original Plans for Hill-Stead, from McKim, Mead and White papers 1901, designed by Theodate Pope Riddle, via Hill Stead Theodate Pope Riddle not only made history as New York’s first licensed female architect but also lived it as a passenger aboard the Lusitania, the British ocean liner torpedoed off the coast of Ireland in 1915. The sinking of the Lusitania helped draw the United States into World War One, but neither German torpedoes nor the social strictures of her time could sink Theodate’s indomitable, independent spirit. She would go on to collaborate with McKim, Mead & White on a Colonial Revival masterpiece in Connecticut, as well as reconstruct Theodore Roosevelt’s birthplace on East 20th Street.
The whole history

History

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