MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO
WHO WE ARE Michael Sorkin Studio is a global design practice devoted to both practical and theoretical projects at all scales with a special interest in the city and green architecture. The studio is based in New York City and maintains satellite offices in Shanghai and Xi’an, China. For over thirty years, we have provided professional consulting, planning and design service to clients around the world. We work towards innovative solutions that respect the natural environment, local cultures and economic realities and collaborate with our clients to produce designs that are both sustainable and beautiful. Firm
Michael Sorkin Studio LLC N ew Y O R K
180 Varick Street, Suite 1220 New York, NY 10014 USA P hone
212.627.9120 C on t ac t
Michael Sorkin email
info@sorkinstudio.com SHANGHAI
Room 602,Building 2, Lane 46, Guokang Road, Tongji Science Park Shanghai 200092, China XI’A N
1 N Taibai Street, Beilin District Xi’an, Shaan Xi 710061, China S erv i ces
Programming Master Planning Feasibility & Pre-design Workshop Facilitation Full Architectural Design Landscape Design Interior Design Construction Administration
Our recent projects include award-winning masterplan of a new town for 300,000 inhabitants and an environmental research park, both in Wuhan, China. We also planned the reclamation and development of a 50-kilometer stretch along the Wei River and a new university town, both in Xi‘an, China. The studio has also completed designs of a 1,000-unit resort in Coffs Harbor, Australia, and for site and building development and complexes in Turkey, the Philippines, Malaysia and the United States. Our experience includes design for office and academic facilities and complexes, housing developments, hotels, science centers and religious structures. The studio has been the recipient of numerous awards and its work has been exhibited around the world. The studio works closely with Terreform Center for Advanced Urban Research, a nonprofit institute engaged in a wide variety of socially and environmentally-driven urban initiatives.
PRINCIPAL Michael Sorkin is the principal and founder of Michael Sorkin Studio. His practice and work spans design, criticism and pedagogy. Since 2000, Sorkin has been Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at City College of New York. His previous academic engagements include Professor of Urbanism and Director of the Institute of Urbanism at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Gensler Chair at Cornell University, Hyde Chair in Nebraska University, Saarinen Chair in the University of Michigan, Gilbert Chair in the University of Michigan, both the Davenport and Bishop Chair at Yale University, and professorships at the Architectural Association, Cooper Union, Harvard University and Columbia University. Sorkin is architecture critic for The Nation, contributing editor at Architectural Record, and author or editor of twenty books. His books include Variations on a Theme Park, Exquisite Corpse, Local Code, Giving Ground (edited with Joan Copjec), Michael Sorkin Studio: Wiggle (Works in Progress), Some Assembly Required, Other Plans, The Next Jerusalem, After The Trade Center (edited with Sharon Zukin), Starting From Zero, Analyzing Ambasz, Against the Wall, Indefensible Space, New Orleans Under Reconstruction (edited with Carol Reese and Anthony Fontenot), All Over the Map, and Twenty Minutes in Manhattan. In 2005, Sorkin founded Terreform, and is currently its president. He is editor-in-chief of its imprint, UR (Urban Research), which was launched in 2015. He is on the board of several civic and professional organizations such as Urban Design Forum (Vice President) and the Architectural League of New York (Director). He is also a member of the International Committee of Architectural Critics. Sorkin has been the recipient of several fellowships and awards. His recent awards include “Design Mind” from the National Design Award in 2013; and Fellow in the field of architecture planning and design from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in 2015.
city of science* Xi’an, China, 2015-2016 Masterplan for a University Campus and Technology Park This new campus for Xi’an Jiaotong University is to be constructed on a clear site near the Wei River as the core of a new City of Science. The ambition is to create a kind of Silk Road Silicon Valley in which the university – and a series of government sponsored research institutes – will generate not simply research but will offer incubators for its commercial development and house a number of manufacturing facilities for the implementation of these technologies. Our design includes not simply this range of academic and technical facilities but the full infrastructure of a small town. Here, as in other campuses we have designed, view the university as an ideal community, a place in which the full complement of daily needs – commercial, cultural, recreational, education, etc. – is satisfied within a walking environment and as an opportunity to provide a truly rigorous apparatus of sustainability. *First Prize Winter of Concept Planning for West China Scientific and Technological Innovation Port Intelligence University Town Competition
Xi’an Zaoyuan complex Xi’an, China, 2015-2016 Conceptual Design for Mixed-use Tower Complex This complex lines a major street in the rapidly developing northwest area of the city and is intended as a landmark for the region and a driver for its economic development. It includes and office tower, a hotel, an apartment tower, extensive shopping and commercial facilities, a hospital, and several smaller structures for restaurant and sales pavilions. The row of towers offers splendid views over the city and a nearby park and will be visible from far away, appearing as an inhabited mountain range. The individual towers are to be linked to each other at various levels where social and recreational facilities will be concentrated.
ECOLOGICAL Golf Resort New South Wales, Australia, 2014 Masterplan and Architectural Design This project adds approximately 1000 new dwelling units and a wide range of other facilities – a hotel, casino, museum, prep school, academic institute, veterinary hospital, sports center, etc. - to the beautiful landscape surrounding Australia’s most spectacular golf course. The plan is flexible, based on a pattern of “villages” and can be modified over time, as the resort grows. Within the context of this plan, however, no project will exceed the bearing capacity of the site and we have provided a lexicon of options for achieving expanded sustainability and look to achieve “net zero” outcomes in water supply, waste treatment, energy, and internal movement systems. Most of all we seek to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of the place and to provide a model of environmental best practices.
Xi’an airport office Xi’an, China, 2011 Architectural Design Located in a new zone adjacent to the Xi’an airport, this building – recently completed – provides headquarters space for the Airport Development Authority as well as extensive service space for customs and shipping operations. In addition, the building is divided to provide rental offices for a variety of trading and other companies doing business at the airport. Also included are an exhibition area, dining facilities, meeting rooms, and retail space. The building is meant to give a strong image at the entry to the new “city” – and an icon for the complex as a whole - and to express the optimistic technology of flight: the landscape scheme includes the use of runway lighting to evoke the striking beauty of the contemporary airport.
Xi’an Wei River* Xi’an, China, 2011 Master Plan for Riparian Ecological and Sustainable City Development
XI’AN CITY CENTER
The development of the Wei River offers a remarkable opportunity for Xi’an, one of China’s burgeoning mega-cities, to reconfigure itself for the future. Recognizing the natural and planning constraints on growth in other directions, the city is rapidly developing to the north, threatening existing rural structures and risking a city that is overwhelmed by its own sprawl. The river (and the line of historic sites beyond it) can house a dense new edge for Xi’an, organizing a logical and beautiful condition and turning an under-used resource into a remarkable amenity for the city and its region. Our project is both for the riparian areas of a 50 kilometer stretch of the river but for the development of the urban and landscape spaces in the surrounding corridor and includes a new CBD around the recently constructed central train station, an Olympic village, a cultural zone, a tourist are centered on a series of agricultural villages, an energy research zone, an exposition and entertainment island, and extremely extensive array of parks and recreational facilities. * First Prize Winner of Xi’an Wei River Ecological Corridor Developemnt Competition
Jellyfish hotel Tianjin, China, 2009 Architectural Design for Hotel, Club, and Villas The hotel takes the form a small tower on the shore of a large artificial lake. Each room commands superb views of the lake from its glassy interior and its green balcony. Atop the hotel is a dazzling restaurant and bar, offering panoramic vistas. Unusual in form, this intimate, yet expressive, building promises to be a vivid marker on the skyline and powerful image to attract the world to its doors. The hotel and an associated club stand at opposite ends of a curved, sandy beach. During the summer, this will be a place for sunbathing and swimming and in winter, a spot for romantic walks. By creating this waterfront condition, a series of villas arranged along the beach will gain special value and we can imagine the shared social life of hotel guests, occupants of these beach houses, and members of the club. We envision a luxurious spa, private dining, meeting rooms, sports facilities, bar, and the other amenities of a first-rate club.
Houguan Lake New City* Wuhan, China, 2010 Masterplan for a Sustainable New City This new city for 300,000 residents sits at the southwest edge of the city in a rapidly developing zone. The site is dominated by a series of relatively pristine lakes and flanked, to the west, by green areas. Our plan divides the city in a series of sub-cities, each of which is fully “harmonized” to provide jobs, housing, education culture, recreation, and the other necessities of daily life. Our objective was to design a city that both harmonizes its uses and users with each other and with the environment and we’ve sought to create a city that truly takes responsibility for itself while sitting while interacting vitally with the larger networks of Wuhan. Each of the several districts of the city – defined both internally and in relationship to the complex of lakes that lace the place – has a principal economic driver (university, administration, entertainment, commerce) – but is both mixed with other functions and linked by easy and copious transit and walking routes to all the other centers and to the city’s periphery. * First Prize Winner of Houguan Lake Ecological New City Masterplan Competition
Riva ring Riva, Turkey, 2008 Masterplan for Sustainable Community Riva is a plan for a new city along the Black Sea near the mouth of the Bosphorus. Like any city – Riva seeks to harmonize desire, context, and constraint. Physically, the site is blessed by its dramatic proximity to the Black Sea, by rolling hills, by a sinuous river, by green fields and forests, by lovely beaches, by an existing town of intimate informality, by a protected forest buffer, and by easy proximity to Istanbul. It is, however, challenged by salt winds, by demanding topography, by the risk of becoming a mere commuter dormitory, by existing plans and infrastructures, and by a pattern of land holdings and regulations that demand a too even distribution of building across the site. Riva is no tabula rasa and our approach is shaped by a set of prior decisions we might not have made. In seeking to thread our way through these challenges we have been guided by a number of key principles: strong neighborhood organization, walkability, maximum sustainability, hydrological sensitivity rich mix, universal proximity green spaces, environmental respect, architectural flexibility, and a true sense of locality. â€
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