I ♥ NY

We may have been a few months late, but we finally made it to NYC. A roadtrip to New York was a great way to spend the last Friday of winter break. First, a post on everything up to MOMA and later a post on MOMA!

Our visits to fresh hot architecture in the Big Apple included:

• The Apple store on Fifth avenue for some trendy fresh hotness. What better way to say "we're apple, we're hip, and we want your money" than a giant apple logo floating in a glass box. Thank you Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. For more info check LOISOS + UBBERLOHDE (the constultant's page) and BCJ's own page.

• Pinkberry, where frozen yogurt has never been so fresh hot. According to wikipedia, the first store was opened in 2005 by Shelly Hwang and Young Lee. Apparently, Young lee is an architect, and although I couldn't not find anything concrete saying he was responsible for some the chain's interior design trademarks, it's probably a safe assumption. Here's an interesting article on about "Crackberry" as fanboys call it, the "phenomena" of the frozen yogurt wars at CNN.

• Lever House, because it was fresh hot in it's day (some day in 1952 to be exact) and was next to the Seagram building. Sorry Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, we don't really like Mies that much more than you, the Seagrams building was just a more noticeable landmark because of it's height. Providing the boulevard with it's first glass curtain wall (leaverhouse.com) the Leaver House is great example of the application of high modernism and the international style ( greatbuildingsonline.com).
• 

• The Seagram building. Effin' Mies. Erected from '54 to '58, piloti and all, Mies' sky scraper clearly reflects his ideas of celebrating the structure of a sky scraper rather than covering it up with "a chaos of meaningless and trivial forms." (Mies' own words atgreatbuildings.com) The dark Bronze of the Seagram building truly does give it an attractive drama when compared to the buildings around it compared to the buildings around it. Although, the plaza around it seemed a bit sparse or unbalanced do to the fountain and plants crowding the 53rd st. side of the building.

• interesting places we passed by:

• The Citicorp Center

• Unfortunatley, I can't remember the name of this successful plaza at the moment, but I will update once I figure it out. Yes, I know, the pic does not depict a successful public plaza, but it is January after all.

• LEED pursuit!

• Facade? Billboard? Iconic..

• Deconstructivism?
  

And next time...MOMA.

Final Boards

BAMF

Abstract...

...we'll see how detailed this gets in the model, but tomorrow is the final assembly of the boards with people, marshes, etc drawn in.

the boards begin...

the beginnings of diagrams on BOARD_1

diagrams

Getting there....

......sort of

Figuring out the form of the wrapping on the side...still have to add transparency and such

Skin Attempt

It's just the shape that I used to derive the floors with a color mapping of clouds, transparency, and partial reflection.

A problem that I noticed is that the floors are rounded on the sides. I know that it's because I used the loft tool to connect the upper part of the floor to the lower part of the floor, but I don't know how else to do it. Any suggestions would be incredibly helpful.

This image is not part of the "scheme", but I can now make equidistant floors, with floor thickness, and the floors change as the "massing" changes. This is quick, only takes a few steps, and is "pretty" simple.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to make an exterior skin.


P.S. All "quotation marks" are for Dave.

rough edit of scheme to include solar/view study

_this is just a partial study that manipulates the form according to what we discussed regarding the green roof becoming a green wall
_we will need to work on program, playing with how it will fit into the adjusted forms

_suggestion for retail beneath green roof in plaza

edit of skyscraper; connecting tower to green wrapper

• encircling ramp extends over pedestrian walkway to become/connect to the tower; the wrapper becomes an unfolding of the building's surface

• green space covers tops of ramps, extends up the skyscraper (bypassing the transparent section) in the form of a green wall
• most surfaces beneath the ramp's top become glass, creating storefronts that allow access to the interior plaza from the street
  

more urban wetland resources

constructed wetlands

backyard wetland

i'm concerned with what elevating the wetland on these wrapping ramps (see skyscraper design below) will mean for its creation. perhaps there need be a layer of piping between the wetland and the ramp structure below it that carries waste water from the building to the wetland...

Envelope

The blue and pink forms were derived from solar concerns and site lines. The blue form is low enough to allow sunlight on winter mornings to the buildings on the northern side of the site. From street level approaching from the Gallery Pl metro or from the Museum of Natural History, a pedestrian can not see that the blue form is any taller than any of the other surrounding buildings. The pink form allows the low winter sun and the morning summer sun to hit the faces of surrounding buildings, but shades these buildings when the summer sun is at its hottest. I'm also working on a reflective surface on the lower southern side of the pink form in order to shine light on the northern face of the buildings located to the south during the winter.

This is summer morning








Winter morning








Summer afternoon








Winter afternoon










This is the idea of "skyscraper as light." Instead of just erecting a huge monolith that casts unthoughtful shadows and creates downward winds, this turns vertical density into an abundance of light, views, and open space.

wetland resources

urban wetland restoration

habitat value of urban wetlands

wetlands restoration on the Anacostia

model

here is a sketchup model I put together with some of our ideas.
_wrapping element to incorporate green space, plaza, and retail
_large spaces in first few floors
_glass transparent space at respected height zone
_residential and office spaces above

we should manipulate the form, cut it off at various heights, etc (as per the shard like window cutting in) based on heights that matt comes up with based on light and sight lines.

wrapping//folding ideas

to integrate the skyscraper(s) into the site and provide the desired marsh/wet land and human scale promenade, a folding or wrapping design, making the tower "sprout from" or "fold into" the ground is suggested


Here, the tower grows from an elevated green space/solar roof that covers a small-scale storefront zone at ground-level. The green space extends both up the surface of the building and down to the ground itself, in addition to rising back up to create another "ramp" wrapping around the building. In between these elevated landscapes is a plaza designed at human scale. Underground parking is suggested between the tower and its connection to the greenspace; further, elevated greenspace on some sides may protect the area from road pollution and/or traffic.


Some quick digital models addressing form and connection to greenspace:

Emma's integration plan sounds good...but regarding the "technicalities" of transparency, will we want to have

• actual voids, supported by smaller structural elements (as seems to be roughly represented in Dave's model below)
• "sun-voids," constructed from something like transparent concrete, which will allow sunlight to penetrate, but still block potential views
• structural glass voids, which will allow views through the building, and give illusions of suspension and flotation (Dave mentions the idea of a "floating skyscraper" below); however, will probably require some structural support that may interrupt the fluid transparency of these voids

Also an option could be some sort of permeable, structural web, open to the air (perhaps this becomes a place for birds or extended marsh/wet land).

wrapping/folding design images coming in a few...for now, check out Field Operation's entry for the World Trade Center Design Competition

today's ideas

group-

I was thinking it would be cool to integrate dave's ideas about the separation of program with matthew's ideas about "form dictated by views and access to the sun."
Maybe we can start with whatever form is created by Matthew's study in form z, then pull it apart using some of dave's ideas, then apply some of Genevieve's wrapping ideas and ideas about transparency.
I'm working in sketch up today (since I don't have form z at work) and will try to roughly put some of those ideas together.
I'm also thinking of going back to the tri-tower base idea, integrated with the wrapping of the site, that ultimately comes into one transparent piece above the "respected" height zone.

see you all later.

p.s. come by the honors office for ice cream if you want.

design sketch

_relating signage to mirroring the museum down 10th street.
_ideas about glass void, possibly with green roof, continuation of wetland