These New Flood-Proof Buildings Designed by Garrison Architects Are Built To Survive New York’s Next Hurricane

After Sandy, the lifeguard stations on New York’s beaches were destroyed. But these new versions are built to withstand a storm–and might be a model for how to think about building better for the future.

Garrison Architects has created a plan to introduce net-zero energy, flood-resistant, modular structures along the beaches of Coney Island, Staten Island, and Rockaway Beach

Jim Garrison is a busy man. Just before Christmas, his architecture firm got a call from New York City officials asking if he could design and build nearly 50 lifeguard stations and other beach structures to replace the ones wiped out by Sandy. The one catch: The new units needed to open to the public in five months, on Memorial Day weekend, the symbolic start to summer.

The new structures will be constructed in a factory offsite, and later installed into site-specific support structures and access ramps on the beaches. Relying on quick-to-install modular structures in the future might serve as the foundation for the reconstruction of whole neighborhoods (as opposed to throwaway, temporary trailers).

When Garrison Architects needed shop drawings done so the contractor could begin fabrication, they called Consulting For Architects (CFA) to find them an architect to execute the drawings.  “Within 24-hours, we closed the deal with Garrison Architects and a talented CFA Consultant who started this week.” stated CFA owner David McFadden.

Since then, “it’s been a wild ride,” Garrison told me over the phone on Tuesday. After 40 days worth of 16-hour planning sessions, Garrison Architects emerged with a plan to introduce net-zero energy, flood-resistant, modular structures along the beaches of Coney Island, Staten Island, and Rockaway Beach. He says his designs are not only economical and aesthetically interesting– but could help lay new groundwork for the way that cities respond to climate change-related disasters in the future, by relying on quick-to-install modular structures that serve as the foundation for the reconstruction of whole neighborhoods (as opposed to throwaway, temporary trailers).

Better lifeguard stations are nice, but their design could also help lay new groundwork for the way that cities respond to climate change-related disasters in the future

He says the initiative is the first time he can think of that any American city is “confronting the reality of starting to build infrastructure that can deal with these enormous storms and can live beyond them.”

Garrison’s designs for new lifeguard stations, comfort stations, and beach offices include a number of features that make them both flood-resistant and sustainable: they’re elevated above the new FEMA storm surge numbers, and they rely on photovoltaics, solar hot water heating, and skylight ventilators as part of a net-zero energy system. The wood siding was salvaged from boardwalks wiped out by Sandy.

The project also involves relandscaping the beaches, reintroducing dunes in certain places to help protect the shore, and eliminating boardwalks. “The waves basically just roll under [boardwalks] and sometimes take them away with them,” Garrison says.

The new structures will be constructed in a factory offsite, and later installed into site-specific support structures and access ramps on the beaches. According to a briefing by Garrison’s firm, “New York has only a handful of modular buildings, such as low-income trailer housing or modular classrooms, most of which essentially qualify as manufactured boxes on chassis, not unique designs. Our modules are a premier example of cutting edge modular building practices and sustainable design solutions for the future.”

The new buildings are elevated above the new FEMA storm surge numbers, and they rely on photovoltaics, solar hot water heating, and skylight ventilators as part of a net-zero energy system. The wood siding was salvaged from boardwalks wiped out by Sandy

What’s perhaps more impressive than the speed of the design is the way the city’s bureaucracy got out of the way to let the project unfold under tight deadlines. “I’ve never seen anything like it on [the city’s] part,” Garrison says (and he’s been designing buildings in New York for more than three decades).

Garrison hopes that the project serves as a model for disaster rebuilding efforts in the future, when it’s possible that Sandy-strength storms will be the norm. “Next time it hits, can we mobilize [modular design] as disaster housing? And I mean good stuff–not FEMA trailers that make people sick, stuff people can really live in for the long term?” Garrison wonders. “This is a way to build in an era of congestion, ecological challenges, and the need for permanence.”

Credit Zak Stone
Zak Stone is a staff writer at Co.Exist and a co-founder of Tomorrow Magazine.

In China, an underground luxury hotel

While many architects and engineers have been vying to construct the world’s tallest tower, a group in China has looked to build in the opposite direction.

Construction began last month on Shanghai’s first “groundscraper”—a structure built almost completely below the surface. The massive project will eventually take form as the InterContinental Shimao Shanghai Wonderland, a 19-story, 380-room luxury hotel surrounded by a 428,000 square-meter theme park.

The hotel broke ground about 30 miles from the city of Shanghai in an abandoned quarry at the foot of Tianmashan Mountain. The building, located in the district of Songjiang, will be grafted onto the side of the quarry with 16 floors descending down and three floors resting above the crater.

Just as the top levels of a skyscraper are often filled with elegant restaurants and the most luxurious of rooms, the bottom two floors of the groundscraper will include an underwater restaurant, an athletic complex for water sports and 10-meter deep aquarium.

The quarry’s surrounding cliffs will be used for extreme sports like bungee jumping and rock climbing.

The project’s developers at the Shimao Property Group worked with British engineering firm Atkins to bring the idea to fruition and expect to near completion in late 2014 or early 2015.

The theme park and hotel are expected to cost at least $555 million and nightly room rates should start at approximately $320.

Existing quarry

Source

The Taiwan Tower Twin Syscraper

Hill House – Andrew Maynard Architects

Design is complex. There is little that is more complex to design than a home, however fundamental issues offer an architect a starting point; where is the sun? How do we capture it in winter, how do we exclude it in summer?

The thin allotments that dominate Melbourne’s northern suburbs often provide indomitable constraints to solar access and therefore require the production of unorthodox ideas to overcome these constraints and convert them into opportunities.

The site faces north therefore relegating the backyard, the family’s primary outdoor space, to shadow throughout the year. In the 90s a two storey extension was added reducing solar access even further while creating deep dark space within the house. A family of five wished to create a long-term home, which could meet the requirements of three small children and their slow transformation into young adults over the years.

Rather than repeating past mistakes and extending from the rear in a new configuration, the proposal was to build a new structure on the rear boundary, the southern edge of the block, upon the footprint of what had been, until now, the back yard. The new structure faces the sun, the pure cantilevered box above acts as the passive solar eave, cutting out summer sun, while letting winter sun flood in.

Following the decision to build at the rear of the block a ubiquitous modern box was first imagined. Soon it seemed necessary to pursue the opportunity to activate this new, once shaded, now sunny facade. A seat along the new northern facade? Perhaps a series of steps like the Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti? But how does one lounge in the sun on steps. Perhaps a slope instead …. And the hill house evolved/emerged.

The new structure faces the original house. The backyard is now the centre of the house activated by the built form around it. Beyond solar gain, the benefit of the new structure being in the backyard is that it borrows landscaping from its neighbours’ gardens. The high windows about the entertainment cabinetry and the dining area are enveloped in trees. Internally one gets the sense that Hill House is enveloped by bush rather than part of the suburban mix.

Along one boundary a 2m high fence was created, but unlike most houses the Hill House has a one metre wide fence; a corridor lowered into the site to achieve head height. This in turn creates a lowered dining area. One rises into the living space. The change in floor level creates a bench seat for the Maynard designed ZERO WASTE TABLE.

Front Street no longer provides the main entry to the home. Family now enters via the side lane. The original house, now private dormitory spaces, no longer has a typical relationship to the N#@$%k street’s “front” door. The original house, as with most narrow blocks throughout Melbourne, demanded that visitors walked a long corridor past bedrooms to the living area. Stolen quick glances into dark private spaces always occurred along the journey. At the Hill House the entry is reorientated. The kitchen, the nerve centre, the hub of the house, is the new greeting point. Beyond is the park. Adjacent is the living space, the yard and the “kids’ house” beyond.

The old house is converted into “the kids’ house”. The old house is as it once was. The rear of the simple masonry structure, though spatially connected, is not reoriented, a face is deliberately not applied. It is left honest and robust. With a restrained piece of “street art” to be applied.

Andrew Maynard Architects was established in 2002 following Andrew’s receipt of the grand prize in the Asia Pacific Design Awards for his Design Pod. The core principles in the establishment of AMA was a balance between built projects and broad polemical design studies. This is demonstrated in AMA’s highly crafted built work and socio-politically based concepts both of which have been widely published and have garnered global recognition.

Andrew Maynard Architects explores architecture of enthusiasm – AMA treats each project as a unique challenge, offering unique possibilities and prides itself in experimentation. All of AMA’s designs are concept rich, left of centre and sustainability conscious; styles and singular themes are avoided. AMA specializes in ideas rather than building type, whether the project be a house in Fitzroy, a library in Japan, a protest shelter in Tasmania, a plywood bicycle or a suburb eating robot. Andrew Maynard Architects continues to be published in many prestigious international journals such as Mark Magazine [Amsterdam], Architectural Record [US], Architectural Review [London], Monument. Houses A + T [Spain], Architecture Australia, Wallpaper [London] and Pol Oxygen. AMA’s conceptual and built work has been exhibited in New York, Budapest, Melbourne, Sydney, Osaka, Milan, Sao Paulo, Tokyo and more.

More at Source

‘Like’ CFA’s Facebook page for job openings for architects and interior designers

CFA Founder/CEO David McFadden’s about.me profile!

Going for green?: The ecological aims of the 2012 Olympics

It was once the polluted hotbed of the Industrial Revolution in London, a large area of land that became badly contaminated with toxic waste after centuries of abuse.

WATCH VIDEO

But the hope of the local Olympic organizers is that, what was once a wasteland site in Stratford, will soon bloom with fauna and wildlife as the green heart of the 2012 Games’ site.

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) is planning to convert the area into Britain’s first new public park in London for over a century once the sporting event is over and — in order to create the intended environmental legacy — the work of planting, cultivating and remodeling the new landscape is already underway.

The Olympic Park will not only provide a public space for people to enjoy both during and after the Games, the aim is to generate a variety of habitats for wildlife with 2,000 trees and 350,000 wetland plants.

“There are all kinds of different habitats here and there are target species,” John Hopkins, a project sponsor for the parklands and public realm at the authority, told CNN. “We have things like the frog ponds, which hold water and have loggeries in them.

“We also have over 700 wildlife installations. We have wet woodland, which is a very rare habitat that feeds off the river to keep it wet.”

Wetland areas have been central to the regeneration of the area, specifically along the banks of the River Thames, which runs from the UK’s east coast and through the heart of the British capital.

“This is part of a huge vision for restoring working landscapes in the whole of the Thames gateway, which is great for bio-diversity and great for people,” Hopkins said.

“Parks like this create those places where people want to live, work and play.”

Turning the former industrial area into a suitable home for plants and animals has not been a straightforward process.

Factories had been located on the site in the 18th and 19th centuries, which left the soil in need of special treatment.

“This site was one of the crucibles of the Industrial Revolution in London,” Hopkins said. “Some of the land was heavily contaminated after centuries of abuse.

“We had what we called ‘soil hospitals.’ They were treating all of the materials to make sure that it was suitable for re-use on the site.”

Paul de Zylva, head of international environmental organization Friends of the Earth has been working on the issue of the Games coming to London since 2003, two years prior to the city being awarded the Olympics.

He told CNN he was generally supportive of the work being done by the ODA.

“The plan they have come up with is about trying to create some of the old London habitat that used to exist there,” said Da Zylva. “Grasslands, meadows, woodland and waterways as well, and I think that’s been done well.

“They are putting in a long-term management plan for the area. There’s a 10-year management plan for the park, which is a good start.

“They are trying to manage the land to be of high conservation value, to the point where some parts of it would be on the way to being designated as a site of special scientific interest, which is the highest possible designation in this country. So that’s a good ambition.”

De Zylva also praised the honesty of London’s organizers with regards to making information about the Games available.

“We said to them that we do want you to be open and transparent about what the impact of putting on the Games would be, and they published that.

“We were very pleased they did. We think it’s important, if you’re going to learn lessons from staging the Games, that you have a baseline of information about what it actually takes to host the Olympics.

“This is the first time it has been done, London has been good in that respect.”

London has held the Summer Olympics on two previous occasions, in 1908 and 1948 — next year’s event will begin with the opening ceremony on July 27 and conclude on August 12.

Source:  CNN

Phase II of the High Line Now Open!

Cool benches under one of the many futuristic silver buildings which have popped up recently in West Chelsea.

The anticipation of the second section of the High Line has more in common with that of summer blockbusters than urban renewal projects. With two million visitors last year, the elevated park has garnered praise usually reserved for Manhattan’s original icons. The park was even featured in an episode of “Family Guy” late last year, featuring a Sketch-up like rendering of the hunkering Standard Hotel straddling the elevated walkway whose terminus disappears in a wash of low rise brick buildings.

Due to its overwhelming popularity and appeal, the park has, as some have pointed out, become more than a dynamic urban project — it’s become a brand, and one with remarkable influence in shaping the future of Manhattan’s real estate and elsewhere.

Aerial View, from West 30th Street, looking West toward the Empire State Building. ©Iwan Baan, 2011

Phase II of the High Line keeps all of the original features of the elevated promenade that flipped the Olmstedian park on its head, while introducing some new baubles, including a wide glass screen framing traffic criss-crossing 26^th street below and a “cut-out” view of the deck’s substratum, where the trademark concrete planks are stripped away to reveal the platform’s substructure.

There’s also the “flyover” (above), a catwalk ascending above the main path into a “shady canopy of sumac and magnolia trees, allowing an undulating terrain of shadowy groundcover to fill in below”—a narrative apparently warranting donors’ name—and what will probably be the park’s most welcomed addition, a long, unobstructed lawn for lounging or picnicking.

Philip A. and Lisa Maria Falcone Flyover, aerial evening view at West 26th Street, looking South. ©Iwan Baan, 2011

But more has changed since the opening of the first section of the High Line. The architecture looming over the sides of the park has grown increasingly flashy, with starchitects and others being called in to furnish silver-screen backdrops to the spectacle. Of course, Gehry’s IAC building is nearby, accompanied last year by Jean Nouvel; further along, Neil Denari’s HL23 glistens like some Jetson-age aluminum bombshell. And Renzo Piano is set to make his mark at the foot of the High Line’s main entrance with typically ascetic designs for the new extension of the Whitney Museum.

The rapid production of such marketable architectural clout, along with the openings of countless art galleries, chic eateries, and high-end shopping have attributed to the construction of the High Line Effect. The dream is that this gleaming model of gentrification can be reproduced ad absurdum, given the tangentially right conditions, the involvement of fashionable architects, and, the most important ingredient, the procuring of salvageable decaying urban infrastructure. Cities far and wide, from Chicago to Philadelphia, Jerusalem to Rotterdam, have expressed interest in building their own elevated parks, going so far as to contacting Field Operations to consider plans (no doubt, willfully derivative) for their respective cities.

The original conception of the High Line project surely holds the most promise and the most applicable lesson to all venturing cities and urbanizing areas, that is, untapping the potential hidden within the obsolescent and the forgotten made possible through the tireless efforts of a stubbornly committed group of people dedicated to preserving and improving their city.

A ribbon of grass lawn just above 23rd Street

Source and more photos:  Architizer

High Line Website

Local Events Highlight National Landscape Architecture Month

WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–From a newly created traveling park in San Diego to the New Jersey Governor’s office, local chapters of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) will volunteer in their communities, reach out to schools and educate the public this April during National Landscape Architecture Month. In addition, the entire April issue of Landscape Architecture magazine is available online for free. 

Among the many events this April, expect benches to show up with virtual informational markers in Indiana at important sites designed by landscape architects. In Missouri, a community comes together to re-design a park to increase water quality and improve wildlife habitat. Connecticut and Wisconsin state houses will display award winning designs from the profession. In Arizona, professionals will offer seminars at their local library on topics ranging from the urban heat island effect to lizard species habitats. 

“Landscape architecture encompasses everything from giant ecological restorations to single family homes – balancing the built and natural environments in every step of the process. These events will encourage everyone to learn about the profession and how it creates sustainable communities during National Landscape Architecture Month,” said ASLA President Jonathan Mueller, FASLA. 

National Landscape Architecture Month encompasses Earth Day on April 22nd and Frederick Law Olmstead’s birthday on April 26th, the father of American landscape architecture. For more information about National Landscape Architecture Month activities, visit www.asla.org/lamonth. To view the free issue of Landscape Architecture magazine, www.zinio.com/lamapril2011.

Via ASLA

The Better Way to Know if a Building Is Green

An exhibit at the American Institute of Architects headquarters shows off the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system

The architecture firm Farr Associates, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the U.S. Green Building Council have produced a fantastic exhibit on how to create green neighborhoods. It opened in Chicago last year and is now on display at the American Institute of Architects headquarters in Washington.

This carries some symbolism. When it comes to sustainable communities, the architecture profession has been both hero and villain. It has been a hero because many of the early (and continuing) leaders of smart growth and sustainability in our built environment have been architects, from William McDonough to Peter Calthorpe, from Andres Duany to David Dixon. Frankly, in my opinion, architects were way ahead of the environmental community in forging solutions to sprawl. And it’s a good thing that they were, because they gave us environmentalists something positive to advocate.

Continue with article via The Atlantic

Winners of the 2011 Skyscraper Competition

eVolo magazine has run a tidy little competition for the last five years, inviting architects to innovative new skyscraper typologies. Today, the winners of the 2011 Skyscraper Competition were announced and we’ve got a recycling wind turbine, an energy- and water-harvesting horizontal tower, and a re-imagining of the Hoover Dam.

Jury members included SOFTlab principals Jose Gonzalez and Michael Svizos, architecture critic John Hill, Mitchell Joachim of Terreform One, CarloMaria Ciampoli of Live Architecture Network, and a host of other working and teaching architects (see the full list here).

FIRST PLACE: ‘LO2P Recycling Skyscraper’ by Atelier CMJN (Julien Combes, Gaël Brulé)

“The idea behind this skyscraper is to recycle the old cars and use them as building material for the new structure. The building is designed as a giant lung that would clean New Delhi’s air through a series of large-scale greenhouses that serve as filters. Another set of rotating filters capture the suspended particles in the air while the waste heat and carbon dioxide from the recycling center are used to grow plants that in turn produce bio-fuels.”

“The idea behind this skyscraper is to recycle the old cars and use them as building material for the new structure. The building is designed as a giant lung that would clean New Delhi’s air through a series of large-scale greenhouses that serve as filters. Another set of rotating filters capture the suspended particles in the air while the waste heat and carbon dioxide from the recycling center are used to grow plants that in turn produce bio-fuels.”

SECOND PLACE: ‘Flat Tower’ by Yoann Mescam, Paul-Eric Schirr-Bonnans, and Xavier Schirr-Bonnans

Imagined for medium-size cities where vertical skyscrapers do not fit the skyline, the flat tower is a “new high-density typology that deviates from the traditional skyscraper. The medium-height dome structure is perforated with cell-like skylights that provide direct sunlight to the agricultural fields and to the interior spaces. The dome’s large surface area is perfect to harvest solar energy and rainwater collection.”

THIRD PLACE: ‘Reimagining the Hoover Dam’ by Yheu-Shen Chua, United Kingdom

This project merges the programs at the current Hoover Dam — viewing platform, a bridge, and a gallery – into a “single vertical super structure.”

There a long list of honorable mentions, and we’ve highlighted below some especial favorites (clockwise from top left):

‘Sports Tower’ by Sergiy Prokofyev and Olga Prokofyeva, Ukraine

‘RE:pH Coastscraper’ by Gary Kellett, United Kingdom

‘White Cloud Skyscraper‘ by Adrian Vincent Kumar and Yun Kong Sung, New Zealand

‘Seeds of Life Skyscraper’ by Mekano (Osama Mohamed Elghannam, Karim Mohamed Elnabawy, Mohamed Ahmed Khamis, Nesma Mohamed Abobakr), Egypt

‘Waste Collector Skyscraper’ by Agata Sander and Tomek Kujawski, Poland

‘Hopetel: Transitional High-Rise Housing’ by Asaf Dali, United States

Via Architizer.com

SOM commissioned for FTP City in Danang

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP (SOM) has been awarded the masterplan commission for FTP City in Danang, Vietnam. SOM’s preliminary plan for a sustainable new high-tech community at the edge of the city has been applauded by local authorities, including the Head of Planning and the People’s Committee of the City of Danang. SOM is now working closely with these authorities to finalise the project’s design and ensure its delivery.

The plan has been commissioned by FPT, an up-and-coming national IT and telecommunications company with over 10,000 employees. Covering an area of over 180 hectares, the plan incorporates a wide range of uses organised into a series of distinct districts, including a Town Centre, a Business District, and a series of residential neighbourhoods. The plan also incorporates a new University Campus for FPT University – specialising in information technology, software development and e-services. The campus will also contain a research institute and training centre for FPT employees, allowing new technology to be developed further and put directly into practice.

SOM’s concept is formed on key principles to reduce energy needs and carbon emissions by promoting best practices in mixed-use development in an emerging local context of luxury resorts and single-use residential communities. Instead, FPT City will promote a diverse living community with integrated local services accessed via sheltered and shaded walkable streets. In addition to a web of natural greenways, the plan also incorporates a wide network of smart infrastructure. As a major national IT provider, FPT will ensure the delivery of state-of-the-art communications and information technology to every business and household in the community.

The design also brings to life part of a strategic regional river corridor initiative to be implemented between Danang and Hoi An, a national tourist destination, by establishing a new riverfront eco-park. The waterfront park engages a large existing lake at the river’s edge and will be designed to restore, protect and enhance the wildlife habitat along its entire length and around the lake’s perimeter.

Via World News Architecture