Institute for Urban Design - Urban Design Update May/June 2005

URBAN DESIGN

UPDATE

Newsletter of the Institute for Urban Design May/June 2005 Vol. 21 No. 3 LIBERTY BONDS CREATE NEW NEIGHBORHOODS IN LOWER MANHATTAN While the press has followed each round of the fight to rebuild at Ground Zero, less appreciated – especially beyond New York – is reportage on the transformation, wrought by Liberty Bond funding, to Lower Manhattan. Emily A. Youssouf, President of New York’s Housing Development Corporation, has said that “The Liberty Bond program showed that the government was not afraid to make a statement about revitalizing Lower Manhattan.” Among beneficiaries: • 20 River Terrace, site 1813 Battery Park City, will be funded at $100 to build a twin to the Solaire. It will be developed by the Albanese Organization and designed by Cesar Pelli and Associates with SLCE architects.

• Tribeca Green on Warren Street at North End Avenue and also in Battery Park City is being financed for the Related Companies with $100 million in Liberty Bond money. Robert A.M. Stern Architects will integrate the building into the Battery Park City pedestrian system.

• Front Street in South Street Seaport will be financed at $46.3 million with funds to Frank J. Sciame, within a consortium also including the Durst Organization, that will result in 96 units.

• Two Gold Street is being developed with $170.3 million in Liberty Bond financing to Rockrose. Architect Avinasi Malhotra’s design for 650 units will open onto a plaza designed

by Thomas Balsley, landscape architect.

• 90 West Street – Woolworth Building – is receiving $106 million in financing from Kibel Companies to restore it.

Carl Weisbrod, former President of Alliance for Downtown New York, has said that residential retention grants, as well as Liberty Bonds are responsible for a residential occupancy rate of 95 percent in Lower Manhattan.

According to Youssouf, the Liberty Bond program is also improving quality of housing through a transfer of rights to other neighborhoods. These include 390 units at 760 Melrose Avenue, 3880 Orloff Avenue and 1011 Washington Avenue in the Bronx; Beach 96th Street in Queens; and 1652 Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Since Liberty Bond funding can only be applied to residential buildings, private developers have been innovative regarding what they could most successfully build downtown. Nevertheless, the federal government’s authorization of $1.6 billion in tax-exempt financing for multi-family rental projects is transforming The Liberty Zone south of Canal Street into the residential neighborhood first envisioned by Jane Jacobs some 50 years ago.

With the arrival of John Cahill in Lower Manhattan to restart the Ground Zero redesign/rebuild process, hopes are raised that, as Governor Pataki’s chosen lieutenant, he will succeed in bringing The Port Authority into line, persuading Goldman Sachs to remain downtown and coaxing competing projects to cooperate. As housing continues to be built, Lower Manhattan is already succeeding as a series of residential neighborhoods. In the end, this may be the biggest surprise success to come out of the 9/11 tragedy.

Rails – Rhine-Rhône; Roads – Flatbush Avenue; And Open Space – Silvercup / Queens Chris Wilkinson is on Wilkinson Eyre’s London team designing a Rhine-Rhône high-speed rail link. With trains at 220 miles per hour, the architects called on engineer Jean Muller International to design tetropod piles to absorb vibrations.

A light-rail transit line to move pedestrians from the West side of 42nd Street to the East side and back was in the news in late April, reports Fellow Roxanne Warren, from the Institute for Railroad Urban Mobility. The river-to-river transit time is only 21 minutes. Studies by Michael Fishman at Halcrow, Sam Schwartz and Urbanomies propose a test of a time-limited auto-free 42nd Street transporting pedestrians via buses – sometime in 2006. If that works well, a trolley line could follow as early as 2008.

Atlanta Roads to Roads?

The Beltline Emerald Necklace: Atlanta’s New Public Realm is a 41-page illustrated proposal from Alex Garvin and Associates to give Atlanta via a ring of pedestrian paths a sense of urban form. If realized, The Beltline Emerald Necklace would add some 1,401 acres of new parkland to 613 acres of parkland currently along the beltline. Alex Garvin, who dedicates the study to Frederick Law Olmlstead, says the opportunity to create a city-wide system of parks and public transit exceeds that of other major American cities. Implementation now underway, could be funded via a proposed Atlanta Beltline Tax Allocation District, at a cost of some $TK over the next 20 years.

Flatbush Avenue, from the foot of the Manhattan Bridge to BAM Cultural District is being upgraded by a team including Donna Walcavage, landscape architect, Claire Weisz, architect, and Leni Schwendinger, lighting consultant. Clients include New York City Planning, New York Department of Transportation and Downtown Brooklyn City Council.

Richard Rogers East River Open Space

The Silvercup Studios redevelopment in Long Island City, Queens, says Alan Suna, CEO for the $800 million project, is moving forward. The Silvercup Bakery building is furthest along in plans and will be joined by Silvercup East and Silvercup West. The latter site, for which the office of Richard Rogers, London, is preparing a plan, will provide new public open space as well as waterfront access to the East River for the first time in 100 years.

Greg Pasquarelli is on ShoP team creating a new form of college quad for students at Fashion Institute of Technology whose 27th Street campus is in center of New York’s fashion industry.

The vertical quad is placed level with the fourth floor of an existing 10-story building. The 11story addition is connected to the existing building by a large-capacity escalator bringing students from the 27th Street South Quad to the new North Quad. Construction begins this fall.

Tianjin, China

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

Now that the first phase of work on the Tianjin Convention Center has been completed, Lee Harris Pomery has begun work on phase two. And in April Dr. Pi Qiansheng, Chairman of the Tianjin New Coastal Area, visited New York to describe how the Convention Center will promote further development goals within the area. As the center attracts thousands of visitors per year, it is expected to encourage the development of hotels, restaurants, theatres.

Marilyn Jordan Taylor, SOM, spoke at Syracuse University School of Architecture on April 6 together with Fellow Mary Margaret Jones, Hargraves Associates, San Francisco and Brian McGrath, Columbia . . . Enrique Norten visited Syracuse the following week to present new projects from his work . . . Michael Schwarting was presented by dean Judith DiMaio at NYIT in Manhattan, where he spoke on Broome and Ludlow housing among other projects . . . Jean Gath is moving from Los Angeles to New York as principal Pfeiffer Associates in offices on Centre Street . . . Raphael Vinoly is commuting to Cleveland to design a $258 million expansion including renovation of 1971 addition by Marcel Brener . .

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE James Lima, President of Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, had been

St. Paul

working with office of Norman Foster to design a $78 million Globe Theatre inside historic Castle Williams on the Island until he announced his resignation from position at Governors Island . . . Robert A.M. Stern is among those competing to design a train station in building named for late Fellow Daniel Patrick Moynihan . . . Patrick Seeb, Director St. Paul Riverfront Corp., was busy conducting the 11th annual focus on future of the Mississippi last May 12 . . . Hugh Hardy attended a February 3 AIA Center for Architecture opening for exhibit of Theatre for New Audience, BAM Cultural District in Brooklyn which he is designing with Frank Gehry . . . Costas Kondylis has been moving from Morton Square Condominiums on Barrow Street to his 19th century house, North Main Street, Southampton. When that sells, he will move to a potato barn down the road . . . New School President Bob Kerrey was all over town in mid-April until he decided not to run for Mayor of New York . . . John Shapiro talked about reconnecting Chinatown to other Lower Manhattan neighborhoods at an April 21 meeting at AIA’s Center for Architecture in Greenwich Village. Also speaking were Fellows Marion Weiss, Weiss Manfredi and Mark Ginsberg, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP . . . Landscape architect and Institute Fellow, Nancy Owens, recently organized and facilitated workshops on “Reinvisioning of Cooper Park” which completed plans to create a more vibrant and inviting Peter Cooper Park.

The 2005 National AIDS Memorial Design Competition in San Francisco has selected as an entry of note Constellations of Hope by Barbara Wilks and Alex Washburn.

HONORS

Grimshaw has won in the tall building category, sponsored by SOM, for a mixed-use tower in Dubai, reports Andrew Whalley, head of Nicolas Grimshaw & Partners U.S.A. Ltd. in New York where work is moving forward on a new Lower Manhattan Transit Center.

The American Institute of Architects has received for The Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architecture Education the name of Lance Brown, Dean, School of Architecture, CUNY, as a nomination for the award.

University of Miami Center for Urban & Community Design held a workshop in late March for Coral Gables, reports Richard Shepard, Director of the program. Some twelve urban design students participated in the one-day charette to provide a vision statement for the community, which plans to implement elements of the plan in June.

EDUCATION

Sydney

Queens & Brooklyn

The University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its Masters of Urban Development and Design reports Fellow Jon Lang. The Spring 2005 class of 42 students includes 12 from Australia, two from Indonesia, one from Germany and none from North America. Entering students include a lawyer and an archeologist, indicating that architecture is not a prerequisite. Five of the 42 entering students are women. Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) was the site of a recent studio program conducted by Lang, together with Fellow Sonja Lyneham and with CUNY’s Urban Design Program Director, Michael Sorkin as guest teacher.

Jon Lang’s Urban Design: A Topology of Procedures and Products, will be published by Architectural Press, London in August.

From Flushing to Brooklyn, economic development policies have not helped the outer boroughs of New York City reach their potential. How to make physical change and spark economic growth for the future of these areas was the focus of a forum presented by the Center for an Urban Future and Milano Graduate School of New School University on April 6. Among many factors inhibiting growth in the outer boroughs was a lack of funding and management of the MTA leading to underserved transit in Queens and other boroughs. Of the two main MTA projects planned for NYC, neither address the problems of the outer boroughs. Due to state and city budget problems, funding is wrongly siphoned from low-cost busses in order to “save pennies.”

One of the main problems seen by Joel Kotkin, Senior Fellow at New America Foundation and author of The City: A Global History, is the overzealous and irrational prioritization strategy of funding high-status museums, tall buildings and stadiums in Manhattan while ignoring infrastructure.

BOOKS

The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft. By Robert S. Boynton. 456 pages. Random House, New York. $14.00 paperback.

In 1973 Tom Wolf announced, in The New Journalism, that non-fiction had replaced the novel as “the most important literature being written in America today.” Now, some 30 years later, Robert S. Boynton argues that a new New Journalism has arrived – even more fact-charged, more narrative-driven - - - than the work acclaimed by Tom Wolf.

Is there a place in the new New Journalism for reporters and writers covering city design?

Perhaps too soon to tell. Of the 19 writers whose work is published in this collection, none focuses on the city, city design, architecture or landscape architecture. Yet few would deny the 9/11 destruction of New York’s World Trade Center has made city design a topic of dinner table conversation across the country.

• • • •

The New York Times made journalism history by publishing obituaries of all the dead in months following destruction of the World Trade Center.

“Blocks,” David Dunlap’s bi-weekly column, covers planning and urban design issues in Lower Manhattan and around New York.

The New York Review of Books, February 24, 2005, carried reports of four Ground Zero books. Two – by Fellows Paul Goldberger and Daniel Libeskind – are cited. But reviewer Martin Filler gives most attention to Philip Nobel’s Sixteen Acres.

The San Francisco Chronicle is the first North American newspaper to have, in John King, a regular urban design contributing critic. Whether other reporters/critics continue to shift to city design will be on the agenda for discussion at the May 26 Fellows panel.

The 60s: Montreal Thinks Big. André Lortie, editor. Color/black white illus. 204 pages. Copublished by Canadian Centre for Architecture Montréal and Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver / Toronto, 2005. $TK.00.

This book, the outgrowth of an exhibition held last year in Montreal, goes far in reminding how – with Habitat by Moshe Safdie and American Pavilion the geodesic dome by Buckminster Fuller – Expo ’67 set the stage for Montreal’s extraordinary comeback today.

Since the 1990s French speakers in municipal positions has risen from 41 percent to 67 percent and large companies with French speaking Boards has risen from 13 percent in 1976 to 43 percent in 1991. Today’s Montreal, comfortably bi-lingual, is one of the most confidently cosmopolitan cities in North America. This confidence has reinforced the city’s urban design renaissance in the 21st century. The old district and a vibrant Chinatown now have the counterpoint of the new Quartier Internationale and, in a few months, will see the opening of the Grand Biliotheque, jewel in the crown of University of Quebec in Montreal.

UPDATE, published six times a year, welcomes contributions from members.