Longitudinal Slum

How To Do A Parking Garage #2

Temple Street Parking Garage. New Haven, Connecticut. Paul Rudolph, 1962.

How To Do A Parking Garage #1

Random parking garage in New Haven, Connecticut

Railyard Proposals "tired, generic"

Nicolai is spot on with his take on the five West Side Railyard proposals:

...the proposals embody the kind of tired, generic planning formulas that appear wherever big development money is at stake. When thoughtful architecture surfaces at all, it is mostly a superficial gloss of culture, rather than a sincere effort to come to terms with the complex social and economic changes the city has been undergoing for the last decade or so.

If anything was to be learned from the debacle at Ground Zero, its that these large scale developments have the potential to really suck if not handled carefully. Nicolai reserves some praise for the Extell / Holl scheme, which begins to display some smarts and innovative problem solving specific to this site in particular, and the architectural treatment of these projects in general, but at the end of the day you are still left with a secluded plot of open space surrounded by glass towers all of which are cut off from the surrounding context. Which is all we can expect from this type of development, especially with the constraints imposed by the working rail yards. Jane Jacobs version / vision of New York doesn't apply here, but there is an untapped potential of how these mega-projects impact the city. Currently there is too much focus on the architecture - as Ground Zero clearly showed, the smarts of a master plan shouldn't rely so much on the design of the towers framing the plan, as it's likely David Childs will end up being responsible for the architecture at the end of the day. Unless the towers are going to push the limits of skyscaper design that will have a more operational impact on the use of the site (OMA's CCTV, or some of the original Ground Zero proposals) then what the towers look like can be limited to simple massing that express FAR ratios and square footage calculations.

In Plans for Railyards, a Mix of Towers and Parks [NY Times]

The Image Is Everything...

In what otherwise appears to be a well thought through master plan for Hudson Yards (pdf here), a series of cold and gloomy renderings manage to set the tone for the early public reaction to Extell's proposal.

Green Roof - A Case Study

Assistant professor of landscape architecture at Harvard University’s GSD Christian Werthmann uses Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates' design for the ASLA's headquarters in Washington DC as a green roof case study for a new PA Press title Green Roof - A Case Study. As green architecture, sustainability, and LEED have all become hot topics in the last few years - and the ubiquitous green roof a token component in many design projects - this case study sheds light on both the historical underpinnings and technical issues associated with the design of a green roof.

Early on a distinction is drawn describing the correct terminology when talking of a roof that supports vegetation and any supplemental activity:

Roof gardens are installed to be accessed and enjoyed. They are more cost intensive to construct, heavy in weight with deep soil profiles, and maintenance intensive... Most green roofs are inaccessible, and they are mainly installed for environmental performance and visual improvement.

Despite the recent infatuation with the green roof, this building component has a long history tracing back many centuries to Northern European vernacular architecture with an obvious insulating benefit grounded in fundamental building technology. The history of the green roof also traces through the early roots of Modernism where roof gardens were intended to occupy the flat roofs of Early Modernism and support the demand for "light, air, and sun." The current green roof trend accelerated with German research advances in the mid-seventies, coupled with a newfound green revolution. While fully embraced in Germany and other areas of Europe, the green roof is only now beginning to make an impact in the United States.

The featured case study project was a unique opportunity for the ALSA to showcase green roof technology through building a green roof hybrid - both a green roof and roof garden - through an experimental approach that could serve as a case study within itself. This case study portion does a thorough job of documenting the decision making process leading to the completed design, and the layers which compose the end product, including the roles and responsibilities for the design team - architect, landscape architect, structural and mechanical engineers.

Being a quick read, this is a good introduction to the history and fundamentals of the green roof. With both genuine and disingenuous interest in sustainability sweeping through both the schools and design community right now (being green is often supplanting other design considerations at the moment), this can serve as a quick education into what a green roof really is, when it is appropriate and what are its benefits, and the fundamentals behind its construction.

Green Roof—A Case Study [Princeton Architectural Press]
Green Grows the Roof [papressblog]
top image courtesy ALSA
bottom image courtesy Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

Green Architecture In NY Times Magazine

The New York Times Magazine features Eco-Tecture with a look at green and sustainable architecture today.

Ouroussoff leads with a look at European attidudes toward green design and why America lags so far behind: "In Europe the guidelines tend to have to do with broader organizational ideas," Thom Mayne, the founder of the Los Angeles-based architectural firm Morphosis, told me. "Energy consumption, the organization of the workplace, urbanism — they’re all seen as interlinked. Here, the whole focus is on how to get these points. You just check them off: bike racks, high-efficiency air-conditioning units — it’s very narrow."

Arthur Lubow follows with coverage on Curitiba Brazil, long recognized for it's progressive urban planning at the leadership of Mayor-Architect-Urban Planner Jaime Lerner. An insightful look at the successes and future challenges of this city of 1.8 million people, and the leadership required to move forward progressive initiatives.

Why Are They Greener Than We Are? [NY Times]
The Road to Curitiba [NY Times]
The Zero-Energy Solution [NY Times]
The Accidental Environmentalist [NY Times]
An Eco-House for the Future [NY Times]
top image by Wijnanda Deroo
bottom image by Simon Norfolk

DS+R's ICA: Not So Hot?

Philip Nobel takes on the relationship between critic and architect with an honest look at Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s new Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Nobel writes that bad buildings by big names are usually let off the hook by critics in a continuing cycle of codependence between the two. While the ICA depends on a few iconographic gestures supported by early renderings and fashionable tricks recycled by today's current batch of hot architects, it suffers from a host of ills that make it a bad building. The rear facade which faces the buildings neighbors and serves as the approach to the building is poorly designed and under-whelming. The large cantilever creates a host of other problems, ranging from a 'miserably shaded' waterfront plaza, mis-placed galleries and poor circulation, and shoddy detailing in general.

Die Another Day [Metropolis]
image by Iwan Baan

A Nebraska Vacation Comes To A Close

Back in New York after a week and a half visiting friends and family in Nebraska (less time for Emily as she flew into Omaha direct from Shanghai). Omaha and Lincoln have changed since we left over five years ago - Omaha maybe for the better, Lincoln for the worse. Omaha won the culture war. Or bought it. Insert obligatory Conor Oberst reference here.

Of course I'm gauging the battle based on new downtown development and activity, where progress is most visible and easily measured. The suburbs of Nebraska's largest two cities still seem to be a mess, both lacking any coherent design vision transcending what would be expected of the middle landscape found in any city. The architecture in Omaha is better. Lincoln has no architecture. Nearly every visible surface of building in Lincoln has been covered with a turret, dormer, cornice, or wedge - Deconstruction's gift to the vocabulary of the architect.

Downtown Lincoln fares no better than it's outer rings. While a small handful of individuals have firmly planted their feet and strive to do good work, the status quo reigns supreme. The city lacks leadership. The College of Architecture is aloof and disengaged from what is happening at its doorstep, perhaps stuck in a matrix. Bricks and mortar. Beige and tan. All with the token turret, dormer, cornice and wedge. Sometimes built-up from EIFS. Entire blocks of downtown are stripped bare, replaced with surface parking lots until construction can begin on parking garages, movie theaters, or soon mundane towers (with parking garages). The level of design is so hideously bad you can't help but to walk through the downtown and mutter "bad, bad, bad" as if scolding a dog. The interiors in most buildings are worse, as they often smell as if they were inspired by a visit to Starbucks. 10 years ago. The most interesting development in Lincoln is the knee-jerk reaction many building owners have had to Lincoln's recent smoking ban. Several facades at the sidewalk level have been carved away - the void filled with outdoor patios for the smokers of Lincoln to congregate, rather than fill the sidewalks or curbs as they do in other cities. Downtown living is picking up - though modern conveniences such as grocery stores, laundry mats, or the corner deli don't exist. A new apartment development, Federal Place Apartments, sports red Husker flags at the corners of the buildings. Coffee houses are on every block.

Downtown Omaha on the other hand is in the midst of some chest thumping resurgence. New York style. The new Holland Performing Arts Center designed by Polsheck Partnership is the finest piece of architecture downtown has to offer. Condos are sprouting up and filling existing warehouse space just as quick as Williamsburg or Bushhwick. North of downtown, but not part of downtown, the frightening Quest Center provides a backdrop to a mixed use development anchored by a new headquarters for Saddle Creek Records, though it is hard to tell how welcome the pedestrian will feel in this ground-up development. The city of Omaha has thrown its creative might into the eastern fringe of the city bound by the Missouri river, while continuing to disregard its western edge which continues to march westward into the future.

image of Holland Performing Arts Center by Albert Vecerka/Esto, others by Geoff DeOld

Robert Moses & The Modern City

This afternoon we viewed one of the three exhibits on Robert Moses, this one at the Museum of the City of New York, titled Robert Moses and the Modern City: Remaking the Metropolis. Focusing on the physical transformation of New York City, the exhibit examines a range of works completed by Moses, ranging from roadways and parks, to developments such as the United Nations and Lincoln Center. The show also includes unrealized projects such as the Midtown Expressway, the Lower Manhattan Expressway, and the Brooklyn Battery Bridge - all presented in model form.

The exhibit strikes a balance between giving credit where credit is due and displaying projects where Moses was defeated by stiff opposition. The Expressways proposed for Manhattan and the Brooklyn Battery Bridge would have drastically changed the face of Manhattan as we know it, much the same way the landscape of the Bronx was altered with the Expressway Moses built there.

Megastructure Exhibition Kicks Off In Berlin

Via Archinect, MEGASTRUCTURE-RELOADED, a traveling exhibition launching in Berlin, will bring together the work of the megastructuralists of the 1960s and "focus on the connection between architecture and visual art, as well as on actual architectonic and urban-design issues."