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Table of Contents Building on History
6 10
ESSAY
The Shape of New York
16
PROJECT
280 St. Marks Avenue
26
PROJECT
Carroll Gardens Courtyard House
34
PROJECT
Williamsburg Sustainable House
42
CONVERSATION
Discussing architecture and the role of the LPC and preservation in NYC
48
PROJECT
West 81ST Street Church Conversion
58
PROJECT
Ulmer Brewery
66
CONVERSATION
Discussing preservation and cultural significance
With Robert Tierney
With Cas Stachelberg
Cast Iron Districts: Soho and Tribeca
72 76
PROJECT
14 White Street
86
PROJECT
102 Greene Street
92
PROJECT
47–49 Greene Street
100
PROJECT
831 Broadway
110
By Russell Shorto
ORO Editions ESSAY
De Kooning's Space
By Judith Zilczer
114
PROJECT
Venice Biennale 2018 Installation
118
CONVERSATION
124
PROJECT
Essex Crossing
134
PROJECT
215–225 West 28TH Street
142
CONVERSATION
148
PROJECT
158
ESSAY
164
PROJECT
Discussing the collaborative development of a multimedia installation for the Venice Biennale
Discussing the value and accessibility of architecture and design in NYC
With Gregory Rogove
With Gregory Wessner
Midtown Viaduct Integrating Dynamic Landscape Design into Collaborative Praxis
By Patrick Cullina
The Great Bridge
172
Squares of New York: A Brief History of DXA studio
176
DXA studio Team
178
Acknowledgments
179
Image Credits
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280 St. Marks Avenue
Essex Crossing
Carroll Gardens Courtyard House
The Great Bridge
102 Greene Street; 47–49 Greene Street
Ulmer Brewery
Mid 1600s Indian trails repurposed as main Brooklyn streets by settlers
1839 Brooklyn street grid mapped
1820 1850
Mid 1800s
Tenement Housing built
Development of Carroll Gardens
1872 1869 1883
1901
Construction of Brooklyn Bridge
Late 1800s Development of Soho Cast-Iron Historic District
1885 Phased construction of the William Ulmer Brewery complex
1920
Tenement House Act outlaws "old" tenement housing typology
1933
1967
1965
New York City demolished several blocks in the Lower East Side with an unfulfilled promise to construct new lowincome apartments
Creation of Landmarks Preservation Commission
ORO Editions
Prohibition shuts Brewery down; complex turned into light manufacturing
Williamsburg Sustainable House
1898 Annexation of Williamsburg to New York City
14 White Street
W 81ST Street Church Conversion
Midtown Viaduct
Late 1800s
Late 1800s
1910
831 Broadway + Venice Biennale
215–225 W 28TH Street
1963 Early 1900s
Early 1900s
Development of Tribeca East Historic District
Romanesque Revival in New York City
Construction and demolition of the original Pennsylvania Station
1933 1960s
1965
1965
Creation of Landmarks Preservation Commission
Creation of Landmarks Preservation Commission
Construction and use of “West Side Elevated Line” for freight transport
1999
1950s Abstract Expressionism develops in New York City
1965 Creation of Landmarks Preservation Commission
2005 Creation of Friends of the High Line to repurpose elevated tracks as a park
ORO Editions 2006 2019
Phased construction of the High Line
2011 West Chelsea rezoned
STREET ELEVATION
280 St. Marks Avenue is an 80,000 square-foot-multi-family building with 32 residences. The street front townhouses update the classic Brooklyn townhouse for a multi-family context. They feature private front yards with entrances that open directly onto the sidewalk. Inside, the plan preserves the traditional arrangement of lower floors with the living room and kitchen and upper floors with bedrooms. The penthouses have floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding doors that open onto private terraces looking out over the leafy green spaces of the neighborhood and to the Manhattan skyline beyond. At the center of the building is over 5,000 square feet of communal space, featuring a front lobby and a double-height residents’ lounge with communal table and pantry kitchen. The oversized windows and doors open directly onto the landscaped 2,945-square-foot backyard garden designed by Patrick Cullina. Additional amenities include a fitness room, bike room, common roof deck with grill, and underground parking.
ORO Editions THIRD FLOOR PLAN
1600s • 1839
280 ST. MARKS AVENUE
ORO Editions INTERIOR, SKETCH STUDIES
24 DXA NYC
WEST 81ST STREET CHURCH CONVERSION
CHURCH SANCTUARY INTERIOR
The design, approved unanimously by the Landmarks Preservation Commission upon its first public hearing, marries the historical with the contemporary, balancing the solid masonry elevation with an addition composed of glass and steel. The 5,000-square-foot sanctuary space, which features the original stained glass sanctuary windows, houses the congregation on the ground level, and another 3,000 square feet of community space is located below. Above the sanctuary, a two-bedroom apartment is designated for the pastor’s family, and five luxury apartments, ranging in size from 2,800 to 4,000 square feet—including a two-story penthouse unit—will rise in a massing that is evocative of the original sanctuary’s gabled roof and the cruciform shape of many Romanesque churches. The entrance to the residential lobby is through the restored central doors to the church, while the Church entrance lies behind a new double wood door created in the image of the historic church doors. The entrance leads to a gallery space and the new sanctuary space,
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Late 1800s – 1900s • 1965
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1872 – 1885 • 1920 – 1933
13'-0 ¼"
16'-6"
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13'-7 ¼"
13'-6 ¾"
12'-11 ½"
8'-0"
12'-7 ½"
14'-6"
20'-7 ½"
19'-5 ½"
BUILDING SECTION
On the interior, the layouts reference the major historic divisions of the sections of the building, and historic materials and finishes will be exposed and restored. A new metal ceiling replicates the historic pattern, original columns remain exposed, and the vaulted cellars will be preserved. The bright and open upper levels will have a distinct focus on materiality and texture while the lower commercial levels strive for an atmosphere of timelessness by putting a focus on the solid brick masonry of the existing building.
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64 DXA NYC
2022 - PENTHOUSE ADDITION
2022 - PLATFORM ADDITION 18
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AXONOMETRIC HIGHLIGHTING THE STAGES OF THE HISTORIC CONSTRUCTION
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DIT
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FIGURE 2 WILLEM DE KOONING, DOOR TO THE RIVER, 1960. OIL ON CANVAS, 80 X 70 INCHES. WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK
De Kooning credited the Armenian-born sculptor Raoul Hague with introducing him to the possibilities of loft-living:
on his third group of “Woman” paintings: “There was paint all over the floor because he kept scraping them down.” 3 The bare-bones workspace apparently permitted such unfettered studio practices.
Raoul Hague . . . came to New York . . . and saw this loft. It reminded him of . . . the way the poor live in the cities of Europe. Even with all the problems, no heat, draftiness . . . not comfortable. He took a loft to live in, to work in, and we all began to see what we could do with them. We all began to rent them. 2
De Kooning brought decades of experience in loftliving to the new studio he chose to rent in 1958 on the top floor of the 19th-century building at 831 Broadway. By the time he selected this work site, de Kooning had attained both critical and commercial success that enabled him to design a more commodious work environment. Reflecting on his past as a struggling member of what would become the New York School, he once lamented that he and his friends had to resort to working “in some leftover hole in the wall that nobody . . . wants anymore.” Instead de Kooning believed that “art is good enough to be made” in a setting specially designed for that purpose. 4 With sufficient financial resources at his disposal, he renovated the top floor at 831 Broadway to create an open floor plan. Photographs of the remodeled interior show that several fluted columns and old radiators were all that remained from the
De Kooning proved particularly adept at adapting such run-down urban spaces to suit his needs. Photographs of his studio interiors from the 1940s and 1950s reveal the Spartan living and working conditions in which he produced many of his most consequential abstract and figurative paintings. His friend, painter Nicolas Carone, recalled visiting de Kooning in the early 1950s, when he was working
ORO Editions 112 DXA NYC
FIGURE 3 WILLEM DE KOONING, UNTITLED, 1962. OIL ON CANVAS, 80 X 70 INCHES. HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON, D. C.
original space in an otherwise stripped-down, modern loft. [FIG. 1] The generous proportions of that space with its large, front- facing windows and skylights provided a light-filled arena for painting. Thomas B. Hess, the painter’s friend and critical champion, dubbed de Kooning’s new studio a “luxury loft.” Beyond its ample size, the interior featured gleaming sanded and waxed wood floors, sleek designer chairs by Charles Eames, and “a refrigerator capable of producing ice with suburban efficiency.” 5 Photographer Dan Budnik, who documented the artist at work over a two-week period in 1962, was struck by the studio’s lighting conditions:
Walking into Willem de Kooning’s 831 Broadway studio . . . was like entering a New York artist’s dream space. Daylight from skylights and large front windows reflected off white walls and a polished natural wood floor, creating a proper balance in ambient light . . . 6
FIGURE 4 WILLEM DE KOONING, ROSY-FINGERED DAWN AT LOUSE POINT, 1963. OIL ON CANVAS, 80 X 70 INCHES. STEDELIJK MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM
According to Hess, de Kooning even devised mobile painting walls on casters the better to capture optimal lighting conditions by moving his canvases as he worked. 7 From the time that renovations were completed around 1960 until 1963, de Kooning worked in his customized loft—the last of his Manhattan studios. The large abstract landscapes that emerged from that period were as luminous and expansive as the space where they took shape. Paintings such as Door to the River, 1960 (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York) [FIG. 2]; Untitled, 1962 (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.) [FIG. 3]; or Rosy-Fingered Dawn at Louse Point, 1963 (Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam) [FIG. 4] bespeak de Kooning’s growing pastoral sensibility. That sensibility would find full expression when, later in 1963, the painter chose to leave New York City to settle permanently on Long Island’s east end. Throughout his years at 831 Broadway, he had been planning to build a new studio in the Hamlet of Springs on property he had purchased from his brother-in-law. The customized
features of the Broadway studio became prototypes for de Kooning’s far more ambitious studio design in Springs. For de Kooning, 831 Broadway served as a proving ground and transitional work space. His final Manhattan address signaled the transformation of the humble artist’s loft into a working studio at once practical and exalted.
1 Mark Stevens and Analyn Swan, de Kooning: An American Master (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004): 89. For the sequence of de Kooning’s successive studios, see Chronology in Judith Zilczer, A Way of Living: The Art of Willem de Kooning (London: Phaidon, rev. ed., 2017). 2 Willem de Kooning, interview by Anne Bowen Parsons, 21 November 1967, typescript, Anne Bowen Parsons Collection of Interviews on Art, 1967-68, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 3 Nicolas Carone, telephone interview, 12 October 2005. 4 Willem de Kooning, letter to Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 18 May 1964, in Judith Zilczer, Willem de Kooning from the Hirshhorn Museum Collection (New York: Rizzoli, 1993): 152. 5 Thomas B. Hess, de Kooning: Recent Paintings (New York: Walker and Company/M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., 1967): 10. 6 Dan Budnik, “Photographing de Kooning,” in Willem de Kooning: Printer’s Proofs from the Collection of Irwin Hollander, Master Printer (New York: Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, Inc., 1991): 124. 7 Thomas B. Hess, Willem de Kooning (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1968): 101.
ORO Editions
Venice Biennale 2018 Installation TYPE EXHIBITION INSTALLATION
SIZE N/A
STATUS COMPLETE
YEAR 2019
In 2018, DXA studio was invited to take part in the Time Space Existence exhibition, held as a part of the European Cultural Centre's fourth biennial architecture exhibition in Venice, opening alongside the Venice Architecture Biennale. The six-month event showed a broad selection of work from architects, photographers, sculptors, and universities from across the globe. Participants' work focused on the fundamental, existential questions associated with the concepts of time and space, and how architecture interacts with those philosophical ideas. DXA exhibited a scale facade mockup with a projected video and animation of an early design iteration of the renovation and addition to the 831 Broadway building, which once was home to Willem de Kooning’s art studio.
ORO Editions 114 DXA TEN YEARS
1950s • 1965
ORO Editions
2020 (CURRENT CONDITION)
1884 (OPENING DAY)
2030 (PHASE I)
1907 (PEAK YEAR)
2040 (PHASE II)
ORO Editions
2020 (CURRENT CONDITION)
SECTION THROUGH BRIDGE, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE CONDITION
2050 (FINAL)
1869–1883
BROOKLYN BRIDGE
CURRENT (2020)
PHASE I REMOVALS (2030)
REMOVAL OF LOWER FREQUENCY AND DECOMISSIONED ON-RAMPS
PHASE II REMOVALS (2040)
REMOVAL OF REMAINING ON-RAMPS AND FDR CONNECTIONS
We envision that through this redesign, the bridge can emerge, 250 years after its construction, as an exemplary embodiment of human ingenuity once again, integrating sustainable and resilient technologies and practices. By reducing traffic lanes on the bridge from, a majority of the access ramps can be removed, which frees up much-needed land for city use. This space can become a contiguous series of parks extending from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Other parcels can be used to establish museums. These buildings and the parks are envisioned to be carbon negative, utilizing sustainable materials and technologies such as tidal turbines, geothermal wells, and even low-tech solutions like oyster farming.
REMOVAL OF AL ON-RAMPS
FINAL PROPOSAL (2050)
ORO Editions
168 DXA NYC
ADDITION OF CONSOLIDATED FDR CONNECTIONS TO THE NORTH
MANHATTAN
BROOKLYN
K
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TO CIT
TIDAL ENERGY PROJECT
CLIMATE MOBILIZATION ACT
RARE PLANT PROJECT
BILLION OYSTER PROJECT
EAST SIDE COASTAL RESILIENCY PROJECT
BQX CONNECTOR
CONNECTIONS TO NEARBY INITIATIVES
THE BIG “U” PROPOSAL BROOKLYN NAVAL YARD
NYC FERRY EXPANSION
BROOKLYNQUEENS PARK PROPOSAL
PROPOSED PROGRAM EXISTING PARKS NEW PARKS POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT SITES (INCL. AFFORDABLE HOUSING & NEIGHBORHOOD FACILITIES) CIVIC / INSTITUTIONAL RETAIL + F&B SUSTAINABLE MOBILITES AUTONOMOUS TRANSIT
FERRY
PEDESTRIAN MOVEMENT
CYCLING
URBAN RENEWAL URBAN RENOVATION RESEARCH PROGRAM
CULTURAL PROGRAM CLIMATE RESILIENCE
GATHERING SPACE / PLAZA GREEN ENERGY
OYSTER REEF
CURRENT/TIDAL ENERGY GEOTHERMAL ENERGY SOLAR ENERGY
HABITAT REHABILITATION
MOTION-GENERATED ENERGY
NEW GREEN SPACE URBAN FARMING
ORO Editions
OPPOSITE PAGE: PLAN PHASING DIAGRAMS
AXONOMETRIC, SITE PROGRAM AND URBAN INITIATIVES
TO BQX
1869–1883
The new museum structures employ innovative and characteristic design to complement the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. Cross-laminated timber is used for the external lattice structure as a novel and eco-friendly material, and a nod to the bridge’s pine foundations. A central core is supplemented by vertical and sloping columns to provide lateral and vertical stability.
BROOKLYN BRIDGE
Expansion of the bridge’s upper deck and its strategic perforation to provide natural light to the lower deck permits the introduction of linear planters comprised of seasonally expressive sequences of dynamic landscape plants. Planters are recessed into the deck where possible and assist with the management of bridge runoff. The plantings are comprised of colorful matrices of grasses, wildflowers and woody plants drawn from local ecologies like the coastal plain, riparian corridors and upland meadows—rich communities with compelling arrays of flowers, foliage, fruit and form that, when woven creatively, engage visitors, birds, and pollinators alike. The result is a future infrastructure that highlights and nurtures a civic and sustainable intervention rooted in the history of New York that is able to respect the monument of the Brooklyn Bridge while employing a forward-looking response to the current demands of the city. VIEW FROM BRIDGE PARK
ORO Editions
AXONOMETRIC, BRIDGE PARK MODULE
170 DXA NYC
ORO Editions