New York: The Latest Architecture and News

The architectural team comprised of Davis Brody Bond and Kieran Timberlake has unveiled its newest updates on the design for 181 Mercer, a 735,000-square-foot complex for New York University that will replace a 35-year-old gym facility and become NYU’s largest classroom building, as well as a space for performing arts, athletics, and students and faculty housing.

With the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the great World’s Fairs that had been held around the globe since the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 lost much of their momentum. With the specter of another global conflict looming like a stormcloud on the horizon in the latter half of the decade, prospects for the future only grew darker. It was in this air of uncertainty and fear that the gleaming white Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939 New York World’s Fair made their debuts, the centerpiece of an exhibition that presented a vision of hope for things to come.

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Foster + Partners’ designs for the latest tower to be located within New York’s Hudson Yards megaproject have been revealed. Named 50 Hudson Yards, the building will rise 985 feet (300 meters) into the sky in becoming New York City’s fourth largest commercial office tower with 2.9 million gross square feet and the new home of leading investment firm BlackRock.

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Their theoretical, critical and historical approach attempts to rediscover a thoughtful dimension behind the architectural subject. Each firm will present a residential project for the Roman countryside, a design exercise meant as a typological investigation, or, more generally, as a meditation on the autonomy of the architectural discipline. The thirteen projects for thirteen houses showcased in the exhibit are intended as a homage to the city of Rome and its countryside.

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Over the last few years, the way Americans move around has changed remarkably, especially among young people. Previously the automobile was people’s preferred, if not the only, option. Now they are choosing to walk, bike, or use public transport according to recent studies.

This difference in preferred transportation methods has generated many benefits not only for residents but also for cities, in both economic and social terms. 

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The Santiago Calatrava-designed St. Nicholas National Shrine at the World Trade Center has topped out, and capped with a temporary, six-foot-tall cross.

The Byzantine-styled structure was envisioned by Calatrava in 2013 as a non-denominational spiritual center to replace the original St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, located at 155 Cedar Street, which was destroyed on 9/11.

This article was originally published by Metropolis Magazine as "An Incredible Journey into the New York City that Never Was."

Imagine the waters surrounding the Statue of Liberty were filled up with land. That you could walk right up to Lady Liberty herself, following a path from Manhattan’s Battery Park. Believe it or not, in 1911, this could have been.

In Never Built New York, authors Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell (foreword by Daniel Libeskind) describe with irony, and sometimes nostalgia, the most significant architectural and planning projects of the last century, projects that would have drastically changed the city—but never did.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Public Design Commission have announced the winners of their 2016 Awards for Excellence in Design. Established in 1983, the award has been bestowed annually to projects from the city’s five boroughs that “exemplify how innovative and thoughtful design can provide New Yorkers with the best possible public spaces and services and engender a sense of civic pride.” Both built and unbuilt projects are considered for the award. Previous winners have included Studio Gang’s Fire Rescue 2 (2015), the Louis Kahn-designed Four Freedoms Park (2014), and Steven Holl’s Hunters Point Library (2011).

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[In New York] there’s this math problem: 1.8 million small households and only one million suitable apartments. – Mimi Hoang, principal of nArchitects

Last year, nArchitects released a trailer that teased the development of their winning adAPT NYC entry, Carmel Place (formerly known as My Micro NY). The competition sought to address the need for small household apartments in New York City. Now in a newly released video, the full story of the city’s tallest modular tower comes together in smooth timelapse to a dainty piano soundtrack.

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Many have walked by and wondered what purpose this vast, windowless skyscraper in the heart of Manhattan serves. 33 Thomas Street, also known as the "Long Lines Building" (LLB), is an impenetrable monolithic fortress amid canyons of glass and steel. Ostensibly an AT&T telecoms building, the New York Times have recently reported (based on investigative work by The Intercept) that this "blank face[d] monument to privacy" may in fact be a NSA (National Security Agency) listening post, hidden in plain sight.

The idea of revitalizing a public space by bringing improvement that brings people together should not generate suspicion or fear. However, specific examples of places that have seen the cost of living greatly increase after their revitalization have been creating paradoxes. After all, does this "new villain" called gentrification have any relation to placemaking?

The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Although it's not a direct relation of cause and effect, it is impossible to deny the tenuous line between the two concepts. By definition, gentrification, or "ennoblement," refers to the social, cultural, and economic improvement of a neighborhood or, on a larger scale, of an entire region. Placemaking is the process of planning quality public spaces that contribute to the well-being of the local community. The concepts may be similar, but the methods and consequences of the two are very different.

Rafael Viñoly Architects, Richard Meier & Partners Architects, and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) have been tapped to design towers for “Waterline Square,” a new luxury residential development located along the Hudson River in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The three buildings will fit into five acre masterplan between West 59th and West 61st Streets on Riverside Drive, just two blocks north of BIG’s recently completed VIA 57 West.

The New York Public Library has revealed the first renderings of Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle’s renovation of the NYPL’s Mid-Manhattan Library at the corner of 5th Avenue and 40th Street, diagonally across from the library’s main branch, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Bryant Park. The $200 million project will increase seats, expand services and add public space to the building, which receives 1.7 million annual visits and constitutes the NYPL’s largest circulating branch.

“New Yorkers will soon have the central circulating library that they need and deserve,” said NYPL President Tony Marx. “This library will transform lives by providing books, classes, and programs for New Yorkers of all ages, and it will transform our city – as it will be a model for how libraries can strengthen communities.”

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Socrates Sculpture Park and The Architectural League invite designers and architects to help shape the physical setting in which the park fulfills its mission as a venue for art, creative expression, public programming, and education.
Socrates Sculpture Park, located in Long Island City, Queens, is one of the most distinctive cultural organizations in the country with its combination of waterfront setting, accessibility, and community-based programming. As a venue for the presentation of public art, a New York City park, and an active social space, Socrates has for 30 years harnessed the power of creative minds to transform the urban landscape.

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