In this issue:
· Gilmartin Soars through Glass Ceilings, Torques Steel Façades
· The Green Way Lays Path for the Future
· Studio Libeskind Designs with Global Perspective
· Two visions of 21st-Century Cities
· Snøhetta’s Ineffable Lightness of Being

Event: An Evening with MaryAnne Gilmartin
Location: Center for Architecture, 10.27.08
Speakers: MaryAnne Gilmartin — Executive Vice President, Forest City Ratner Companies & 2008 AIA NY Chapter Award Recipient
Organizer: Center for Architecture
Sponsor: Kramer Levin

The Beekman Tower by Gehry Partners.

Artefactory

During her 15 years at Forest City Ratner (FCR), Executive Vice President MaryAnne Gilmartin has set a new standard for female leadership in the real estate community and is the reason she is this year’s AIANY Chapter Award recipient. With the 76-story Beekman Tower designed by Gehry Partners, she is proving her perseverance with the torqued stainless steel residence scheduled to open in 2010.

“To make a great building takes a great many people,” Gilmartin stated — collaboration is a theme that resonates throughout her portfolio, which includes development of Atlantic Yards, also by Gehry Partners, and the New York Times Building by Renzo Piano Buliding Workshop with FXFOWLE Architects. The Beekman is an exercise in public/private partnership, a regular mission of FCR’s endeavors, which fuses 100,000 square feet of public school programs with 903 luxury rental units. The site, located on Beekman and William Streets, is adjacent to New York Downstate Hospital and will provide the healthcare facility with an ambulatory care facility as well. Originally slated for a mix of condos and rental units, the final design contains only leasable units — a shift many properties are adopting in response to the 70/30 split between renters and owners in Manhattan. The final program also reflects a decrease in retail and parking areas, and a significant increase in housing units.

Gilmartin describes Gehry’s tower as a “serious departure from the norm,” and championed the property as unparalleled in its grandeur and views yet equal to its peers in rent costs. Regulating the budget for a building of “starchitect” quality is challenging; Gilmartin attributes the financial success of Beekman to the demystification of the undulating façade through mockups and precise manipulation of the curves. Like any good developer, she believes, FCR “introduced a certain amount of sanity” to the design process. And like any great developer, the result will be a dynamic addition to Manhattan’s skyline.

Jacqueline Pezzillo, LEED AP, is the communications manager at Davis Brody Bond Aedas and a regular contributor to e-Oculus.

Event: An Evening with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and its Deputy Commissioner Holly Leicht
Speaker: Holly Leicht — Deputy Commissioner, NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development; Adam Weinstein — President, Phipps Houses (Co-developer); Paul Freitag — Development Studio Director, Jonathan Rose Companies (co-developer); William Stein, FAIA — Principal, Dattner Architects (affordable housing studio); Robert Garneau, AIA — Grimshaw Architects
Organizer: Center for Architecture
Sponsor: Kramer Levin

Via Verde.

Phipps Rose Dattner Grimshaw, courtesy pieaia.org

Via Verde is entering its final working drawing phase. Since the competition-winning team of Phipps Rose Dattner Grimshaw was announced in January 2007 by competition hosts AIANY and the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) with NYSERDA and the Enterprise Foundation, zoning changes have been approved, the design has developed, and it is now going for LEED Gold certification.

With a combination of sustainable and community oriented high-, mid-, and low-rise units (to be both owned and rented), the project may not be an exact prototype for future development, but it will hopefully be a model for smaller developments, said Paul Freitag, the development studio director for Jonathan Rose Companies. Sited near the NYC Housing Authority, Melrose Commons, the commercial center known as The Hub, and other retail development, the site presents distinct opportunities and challenges. According to William Stein, FAIA, principal at Dattner Architects, Via Verde can be described in organic terms. He compared it to tendrils that spiral from a high tower to the north, to the lower gardens to the south, and continue out to the neighborhood beyond.

The triangular site provides southern exposure, ideal for solar access. Terraced green roofs provide everything from orchards, vegetable gardens, and passive recreation, to non-accessible green areas to control storm water and mitigate the heat island effect on the horizontal fields. The vertical planes accommodate photovoltaic cells on panels that will produce 2.5% of the building’s total energy, or 160,000kw per year. Every apartment has large operable windows and through-ventilation.

Various materials on the façade distinguish private and public spaces, from warmer wood composite material facing the courtyard to cooler cement board panels facing the street. The rain screen system throughout is innovative, Robert Garneau, AIA, of Grimshaw Architects explained, and the prefabrication provides both cost efficiency and construction expediency. Balconies line the private inner courtyard as well, encouraging interaction among inhabitants, while sunshades protect apartments from overheating along the public street façade.

Overall, the team aims to encourage a healthier lifestyle with the design. In addition to cross ventilation and passive and active recreation areas, a food co-op is planned in one of the street-level retail spaces, along with an onsite health and fitness center. Signage will encourage the use of the stairs over the elevators, and FSC woods and low VOC paints will prevent harmful off-gassing. The onsite Montefiore Medical Center will also provide care.

At the end of the day, fine tuning existing tried-and-true systems will save the most money and offer the easiest solutions to environmental challenges, said Garneau. By correctly sizing units and by not oversupplying spaces, the savings will produce a regressive tax on low-income housing. With requirements for fixed percentages of affordable units and environmental regulations for all new city buildings, this project has honed the skills needed for future developments, according to Adam Weinstein, president of Phipps Houses.

Event: An Evening with Studio Daniel Libeskind; 2008 President’s Award Recipient
Location: Center for Architecture, 10.29.08
Speakers: James McCullar, FAIA — 2008 AIANY President; Rick Bell, FAIA — AIANY Executive Director; Nina Libeskind & Daniel Libeskind, AIA — Studio Daniel Libeskind, President’s Award Winner 2008
Organizers: Center for Architecture
Sponsors: Kramer Levin

WTC site plan as of 01.29.08.

Image by Foster + Partners, courtesy of Silverstein Properties

Studio Daniel Libeskind received this year’s AIANY President’s Award for its significant contributions to the design of major international cultural buildings and urban projects. With this year’s Architecture Week theme in mind, “Architecture and Design: How to Create Sustainable Cities,” Nina and Daniel Libeskind, AIA, shared their thoughts on the development and importance of design across the globe.

With designs intended to expand the horizons of architecture and urbanism, the Libeskinds believe buildings and urban projects are crafted with human energy to speak to the larger cultural community. The public will see the symbolism of the WTC site once it is complete, he claimed. He regards the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan, and his role in it, as a grand success with its global vision.

In general, the clients the firm chooses to work with share their goals; therefore, Nina, who is chief operating officer and partner, prefers working with clients in democratic states. The office itself is “full of passionate designers and a fun place to work.” Married and working together, the Libeskinds “are like a yin and yang — we always disagree with each other, but this is essential to develop new inspirations and push boundaries,” they said.

Christian Bergner, Assoc. AIA, works at Caples Jefferson Architects, having previously worked with Studio Daniel Libeskind. He studied architecture in Oxford (UK), BA (Hons), was a Project Manager for national and international projects, the Chairman for the Oxford Architecture Society, and Executive Member of the National Architecture Society ARCHAOS. Bergner is also a member of the AIANY Emerging NY Architects (ENYA) Committee and is pursuing LEED accreditation.

Event: Forum for Urban Design Fall Conference Presentation
Location: Century Association, 11.03.08
Speakers: Richard Burdett — Centennial Professor in Architecture and Urbanism, London School of Economics & Director, Urban Age; Robert Bruegmann — Professor, University of Illinois
Organizers: Forum for Urban Design

Courtesy Forum for Urban Design

In back-to-back presentations, two urban planning researchers gave conflicting accounts of the future of cities, differing on the use of statistics and the desires of city dwellers. Richard Burdett, director of the Urban Age project, outlined the results of an eight-city study, recently published in the book The Endless City (Phaidon, 2008). Noting that 2007 marked the first time in history that half the world’s population lived in cities, Burdett used photos and diagrams from the book to summarize the prospects for urban design in the 21st century.

In one aerial image from São Paulo, a freeway separated orderly apartment blocks from a chaotic shantytown, or favela. Pointing to the image, Burdett said architects “mostly build ugly buildings, and only to the end of the property line, with little concern for what happens outside.” A series of maps showed the locations of the world’s fastest-growing cities in Africa and Southeast Asia. According to Burdett, São Paulo’s favela is representative of the explosive growth of the slums and shantytowns in these cities. “As urbanists, this is the problem we have to deal with… and I don’t think we have the tools to do it.”

Against this vision of endless sprawl, Burdett held up examples of highly functional urban design, including London, Berlin, and New York. Through their combination of inclusive governance structure, public transit, and high density, Burdett argued that these cities could serve as models for the developing world.

Professor Robert Bruegmann of the University of Illinois responded to Burdett’s presentation, taking issue with several of Urban Age’s statistics and methods. Bruegmann charged that Burdett and Urban Age had neglected the middle class’s desire for lower density and detached housing. The book, Bruegmann said, is concerned with not what people want but “what people should want.”

Referring to the high-density cities, Bruegmann observed, “It’s quite possible that these old European and American cities were an aberration.” He forecasted that future cities would look less like Berlin and more like Los Angeles, with sprawling suburbs and exurbs connected to a medium-density core by freeways.

Matt Frassica is a freelance writer.

Event: Current Work: Snøhetta
Location: The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, 10.28.08
Speakers: Craig Dykers, AIA — Senior Partner/Director, Snøhetta; Calvin Tsao, FAIA — President, Architectural League & Partner, Tsao & McKown Architects (introduction)
Organizer: The Architectural League of New York

September 11 Memorial Hall and Memorial Museum by Snøhetta.

Rendering by Squared Design Lab

Snøhetta is named for a craggy Norwegian mountain, but the firm’s inspiration comes as easily from water. From its Oslo office windows, ships can be seen drifting by on a fjord, said Senior Partner/Director Craig Dykers, AIA. “Three or four hundred tons of metal float effortlessly by, and there’s nothing more engaging to an architect [than] to see that much weight seemingly untouched by gravity. In a sense, that’s an important part of, I think, how we approach things — with a lightness,” he remarked.

The design for an airy glass-and-steel pavilion at the WTC tilts up toward the sky. Serving as an entry to the September 11 Memorial Hall and Memorial Museum, the pavilion has an angled roof that points down toward the underground museum and leads the eye up toward nearby buildings, reinforcing its role as a “link between the memorial and the commercial fabric of the city,” Dykers said.

The much-delayed project has, at times, been a tumultuous one. “Our building has been the only building on the memorial site, and therefore it gathers more criticism than the much larger buildings nearby,” he said. At one point, they had to redesign it and scale it down, yet in the end, Dykers thinks the change has been a good one. “In NYC, a small scale is a luxury,” he observed; the reduced size will bring a greater sense of intimacy for visitors.

The project led the firm to establish a second office in NYC in 2004, boosting its local presence. These days, it is planning to renovate a Williamsburg space for STREB, a highly athletic dance company whose gravity-defying feats match the firm’s kinetic sensibilities. “We began to review the methods of movement that occur with their dance company and integrate that into the motions of the façade,” Dykers said. Ripples in the brick will let dancers climb on the façade’s surface to perform acrobatic feats, and entire sections of the façade will be able to pivot open to the street.

Beyond presenting an array of projects, Dykers also discussed Snøhetta’s philosophies and progressive work policies, such as keeping an internal union. Principals are paid no more than twice an entry-level salary, and the firm’s experience-based salary ladder is common knowledge, taking the mystery out of the compensation process. And even in busy times, they eschew late nights at the office, proving that architects can take their work seriously without letting it weigh them down.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for Oculus, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.