URBANmedias

Great news comes from NYC for Heatherwick Studio architecture practice whose design of the Pier 55 a Floating Park in New York City has gotten it’s green light from the city authorities. The initiative for the park which is to serve as a public park and performance space on a pier in Hudson River was headlined by legendary fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg and her husband businessman Barry Diller.

The power-couple is to donate $113 million to the construction, which in fact is the biggest private donation the New York City in history. Construction is set to begin in 2016, the cost is estimated on $130 million in total, with city of New York donating 17 million to the project. The state of New York will also donate $18 million for the construction of the accompanying esplanade designed to lead into the pier.

Architecture firm Snøhetta has concluded the first phase of a major overhaul of New York's Times Square, continuing the initiative started in 2009 to pedestrianise large sections of the popular tourist destination.

The $55 million reconstruction project is the largest redesign of the square in decades and encompasses the transformation of five public plazas between 42nd and 47th Streets, which will be entirely reconstructed to remove any traces that vehicular traffic once ran through the square along the Broadway...

It is no great revelation that architects tend to look up when exploring a city. It’s the best way to guage size, scale, placement, composition and detail – all the information required to process the qualities of a space or place.

Having spent the last few days looking up and considering the architectural impact of the New York City grid-plan layout, this article takes a particular interest in the domestic scale elements that help to service the city and punctuate the rigidity.

At first the brain identifies the rhythm of the brick formation and the window layouts, it is this assumption of regularity that leaves many with this very valid conclusion based on the verticality of the grid. But in identifying this pattern – the eye becomes more accustomed, searching for further geometries or perhaps more importantly, exceptions to the rule.

Large cities produce large amounts of trash and create a lot more to transport it to landfills. Looking at New York City as the site, local practice Present Architecture posits the ‘Green Loop’ as a solution to large scale waste management. 

Intended to be used as a network along the city’s waterfront, the floating energy production oasis has a street-level composting facility, elevated park, and barges and railways to efficiently transport the compost to other locations. Trash is then transported only a short distance to the borough’s Green Loop which offers more public space as it responsibly processes waste, tackling two pertinent urban issues simultaneously.

The master plan proposes the construction of 10 hubs around the 520 miles of coast in the city effectively alleviating congestion issues and dramatically lowers unnecessary energy waste while contributing 125 acres of public park land.

The Town Square Initiative is a yearlong volunteer effort in which Gensler designers set out to unearth and re-imagine unexpected open space in cities around the globe. All 43 Gensler offices were invited to participate in the conceptual project, in which we challenged our designers to identify open space in the city and reimagine it as a town square.

Visit the link for more images, diagrams and information on Gensler New York’s design of their future city.