In this issue:
· Jersey City Bridges City and Marina
· Design Dresses Clothing Store
· A New Tree Grows in Brooklyn
· Reform Temple Restructures
· Prism Links to the Past at AAAL
· This Hotel Breaks the Archetype
· Color Floods Hell’s Kitchen

Jersey City Bridges City and Marina

Jersey City’s new waterfront master plan.

Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects + nARCHITECTS

The Jersey City Waterfront Parks Conservancy recently unveiled a new master plan called Connect the Parks that re-imagines parcels of parkland in disrepair surrounding the Little Morris Canal Basin. The plan, designed by Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners in collaboration with nARCHITECTS, ensures the protection of waterfront parkland and Manhattan views via passive lawns, kids’ play elements, interaction with water and nature combined with natural erosion protection, and promotion of aquatic life. An “Infinity Bridge” that connects two major parcels of parkland will result in a continuous walkway from the city to the marina. Two pavilions will provide gathering areas that can be used for concerts, puppet shows, and more.

Design Dresses Clothing Store

Derek Lam store.

SANAA

Women’s ready-to-wear and accessories designer Derek Lam’s first freestanding store has opened in Soho’s Cast-Iron Historic District. Designed by SANAA, the 2,800-square-foot boutique is on the ground floor of an 1876 warehouse building. The firm designed transparent organic forms crafted of clear acrylic to create distinct rooms within the store, each one housing a different collection. Custom-fitted wood and aluminum furniture, a one-pour concrete floor, and original brick walls painted white are intended to heighten the exhibition-like feel of the store.

A New Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Castle Braid Building.

Durukan Design

It’s not the same Castle Braid Building (a.k.a. 114 Troutman) as it was in Betty Smith’s novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, set in pre-World War I Brooklyn. Durukan Design is transforming the 160,000-square-foot factory building for developer Mayer Schwartz into a rental apartment building with 146 one- to three-bedroom units. Concrete floors are printed with patterns, staircases take unexpected forms, and walls are built specifically so artists can use them as canvases. Glass encloses a 5,500-square-foot courtyard, designed by Future Green Studio, and is composed of green walls, garden enclaves, a graffiti art wall, a double-sided fireplace, wood furniture made from tree trunks, and found corrugated steel. Amenities are intended to create community, including a doorman, common area, gym, movie screening room, laundry center, library, and a game room. The developer is considering adding a food co-op/café for the project as well.

Reform Temple Restructures

Temple B’nai Chaim.

PKSB Architects

PKSB Architects got the green light for the construction of a new addition to Temple B’nai Chaim in Fairfield County, CT. The expansion will provide a sanctuary and reception hall and catering kitchen in a pre-engineered steel building. The existing temple will be converted to classroom, library, and administrative spaces. A glass and stone circulation spine will link the old and the new providing a unifying façade, appropriately scaled to the woodland setting.

Prism Links to the Past at AAAL

Glass link from terrace. The former American Numismatic Society is on the left; the Academy is on the right; Trinity Cemetery is beyond.

American Academy of Arts and Letters

The American Academy of Arts and Letters (AAAL) has completed construction of Glass Link, designed by architect James Vincent Czaika, AIA, and consulting architects Henry Cobb, FAIA, and Michael Flynn, FAIA, of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. Connecting exhibition galleries in the administration building to those in the former headquarters of the American Numismatic Society, the new link is a rectangular prism, 12 square feet wide and 16 feet high with iron-laminated glass walls, roof, and floor. The roof panels are two panes of glass with a 50% white dotted frit pattern. The panels are supported by three structural glass beams, which bear directly on the existing walls. The floor consists of 16 translucent glass panels that allow uniform lighting below.

This Hotel Breaks the Archetype

Helix Hotel.

Leeser Architecture

Leeser Architecture has won an invited competition to design a five-star luxury hotel in Abu Dhabi. Known as the Helix Hotel, due to its staggered floor plates, the building rests in the bay, partially floating in the water and adjacent to the Zaha Hadid-designed Sheik Zayed Bridge now under construction. Guest rooms and suites are arranged around a helical floor that constantly shifts in width and pitch as it rises to the top floor. As the helix winds upward, programmatic elements change from lounges and restaurants on the bay, to meeting rooms and conference facilities, to lounges and cafés, a luxury indoor-outdoor health spa, and a rooftop deck with a glass-bottom swimming pool.

The firm is working with Atelier Ten on sustainable features to maximize use of local natural resources such as the installation of GROW cladding made from 100% recyclable polyethylene that will collect energy from both the sun and the wind. An interior waterfall in the atrium will help to maintain comfortable temperature and humidity levels, and a retractable glass wall will open up to ocean air. The 208-room/suite hotel will be the centerpiece of a comprehensive new development that will contain offices buildings, condominiums, and retail along the water.

Color Floods Hell’s Kitchen

Xie-Xie.

TVD

Therese Virserius Design recently unveiled the design for a fast-food gourmet restaurant concept called Xie-Xie, which means “thank you” in Mandarin. The 400-square-foot Asian sandwich shop located in Hell’s Kitchen has a façade with horizontal ribbed panels highlighting the Xie-Xie signage. The logo is imprinted on the glass in a gradient pattern. Inside, a violet and white wall is comprised of alternating colored stripes extending up the wall and cantilever across the ceiling. The wall directly across from the counter features Xie-Xie fortune cookies cast in hues of chartreuse, violet, raspberry, and orange in high gloss porcelain.