In the spirit of the Olympics

New York City architecture in 2013:  The great and the not-so-great

In the spirit of the Olympics, here are our three favorite projects from 2013 — plus one that didn’t stick the landing.

A toast to 4 World Trade Center, Sunset Park’s new recycling center and Walker Tower, plus a hard look at Prospect Park’s new skating center.

This seems like a stretch to tie in architecture criticism to the Olympics, but it did get me to read the post by Matt Chaban of the Daily News.  He brings his critique to a pedestrian level in my opinion, which is probably why I don’t know him as an architecture critic – that’s just my opinion. Do you agree with Matt’s Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medal projects? Do you have your own medals you would like to award?

Gold medal
4 World Trade Center

It may not be the biggest building on the 16-acre site, nor the boldest, but it is certainly the most beautiful — a quiet, dignified tower that honors its sacred home. Using simple geometries, Japanese master architect Fumihiko Maki put a notched parallelogram atop a trapezoid and covered the whole thing in a crystalline glass sheath. The result is a solemn sentinel watching over the site.

Silver medal
Sims recycling center

Annabelle Selldorf is best known for designing Fifth Ave. boutiques, Chelsea galleries and luxury apartments. And now a recycling plant in Sunset Park, Brooklyn (below). The firm used standard prefabricated beams and modules to create the hangar-like structure on the harbor. The surprisingly sleek industrial facility shows that simple components and a clever hand can achieve great results.

Bronze medal
Walker Tower

There’s a reason the wealthy and celebs like Cameron Diaz have been flocking to Walker Tower (right). Take a neglected art deco telephone exchange towering over Chelsea, gut it and turn it into a modern throwback. Period details and newfangled accessories are expensive, which explains why the penthouse is in contact for $50.9 million, a downtown record.

Dishonorable mention
Lakeside skating center

A good effort by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, but the new skating center in Prospect Park (right) is more of an unpolished diamond — nice rinks, but utterly lacking in necessities like changing rooms and benches for hockey. We can only hope the problems will be addressed.  By Matt Chaban

My Medal Picks are more simpatico with these projects

CFA Showcases Client Projects

Featured Projects

We thought it would be really great to showcase our client’s projects to spread an inspirational vibe.

Therefore, we are giving you the opportunity to create a showcase of your project. Showcase your project with photos or hand sketches, and an optional blog post and video! Each month, CFA features one client project on our website, which receives over 600 hits per day AEC industry professionals. Featured clients include photographs and a blog post detailing the project.

To participate we ask for three high resolution project photographs with the dimensions of 215 wide x 135 high. We also ask you to choose one of the three photographs to be on the header of the blog post with the dimensions 950 wide x 430 high. Submit your project blog post on a Word document. The submission deadline is the Friday of the third week of the month. To participate, we require three high-resolution project photographs or hand-sketches (dimensions 215 wide x 135 high). We also ask you to choose one of the three photographs or a hand sketch to be on the header of your blog post (dimensions 950 wide x 430 high). To submit a video, please provide the URL link to your video.
Again, the submission deadline is the Friday of the third week of the month.

Thank you for your interest in showcasing your project on our website.

If you have any questions please contact David McFadden at (212) 532-4360 or [email protected]

5 Questions You Should Never Ask in a Job Interview

Could these words be costing you your dream job?

By Catherine Conlan, Monster Contributing Writer

Hiring managers and HR pros will often close out a job interview by asking an applicant if he or she has any questions themselves. This is a great opportunity to find out more about the job and the company’s expectations, but you can’t forget that the interviewer hasn’t stopped judging YOU. Here are 5 questions that can make a bad impression on your interviewer, scuttling your chances for getting the job.

1. “When will I be promoted?:
This is one of the most common questions that applicants come up with, and it should be avoided, says Rebecca Woods, Vice President of Human Resources at Doherty Employer Services in Minneapolis. “It’s inappropriate because it puts the cart before the horse.”  Instead of asking when the promotion will occur, Woods says a better approach is to ask what you would need to do to get a promotion.

2. “What’s the salary for this position?”
Asking about salary and benefits in the first interview “always turns me off,” says Norma Beasant, founder of Talento Human Resources Consulting and an HR consultant at the University of Minnesota. “I’m always disappointed when they ask this, especially in the first interview.” Beasant says the first interview is more about selling yourself to the interviewer, and that questions about salary and benefits should really wait until a later interview.

3. “When can I expect a raise?”
Talking about compensation can be difficult, but asking about raises is not the way to go about it, Woods says. So many companies have frozen salaries and raises that it makes more sense to ask about the process to follow or what can be done to work up to higher compensation level. Talking about “expecting” a raise, Woods says, “shows a person is out of touch with reality.”

4. “What sort of flextime options do you have?”
This kind of question can make it sound like you’re interested in getting out of the office as much as possible. “When I hear this question, I’m wondering, are you interested in the job?” Beasant says. Many companies have many options for scheduling, but asking about it in the first interview is “not appropriate,” Beasant says.

5. Any question that shows you haven’t been listening.
Woods said she interviewed an applicant for a position that was 60 miles from the person’s home. Woods told the applicant that the company was flexible about many things, but it did not offer telecommuting. “At the end of the interview, she asked if she would be able to work from home,” Woods says. “Was she even listening? So some ‘bad questions’ can be more situational to the interview itself.”

With the economy the way it is, employers are much more choosy and picky, Beasant says. Knowing the questions to avoid in an interview can help you stand out — in a good way.

“We Really Do Offer The Freedom To Design”

The entire CFA team and I are pleased to announce the completion of the rebranding of our company, social sites, and website.  We wanted a fresh new look that better reflects our times and services in a constantly changing world and the professionals we represent.  I described CFA to as a 29 year old “start-up” because we have always reacted well to change and our brand should reflect our unique ability and staying power.  CFA was successful the year it was created, 1984, and has never looked back.

Special thanks and acknowledgement goes out to our designer Ryan Kovich. Ryan devoted several months of his valuable time and energy studying the creative world of architecture and design and contemplating our brand identity.  He took that knowledge and his creative energy to bring us this great new brand.  Find Ryan Here.

We would also like to thank our creative editor David Gibbons.  David did a tremendous job taking our ideas, filtering out the rhetoric, and providing rock solid content that expresses our brand perfectly. Find David Here.

Finally, we would like to thank our consultants and clients who gave us their valuable input throughout this process.  Our rebranding efforts success would not be possible without them.

Would you like to evaluate our new Website? Evaluation Form.

The original creative thinkers

It’s hard to miss the chatter these days about creative thinking and it’s importance going forward in the new ideas based, connected economy.

Richard Florida says creativity drives theeconomy (http://zite.to/11HzQyZ). Peter Arvai calls it the “Frictionless Economy (http://zite.to/11Wsa2b) where he states;

“Companies that are succeeding rely on creative thinking to consistently produce new ideas”

More Arvai;

“Creativity is becoming the single most defining characteristic of an organization’s ability to survive. We’ve moved into an idea economy where success can be very profitable and short at the same time. To be a contender, companies have to be built around idea production and guided by an actual purpose for existing.”

Hey, I get it. The business world is constantly in flux and adaptability and innovation are the keys to success. So who is better suited to guide business through innovation and idea production than the original creative thinkers?

You guessed it, architects and designers. We ARE the original creative (design) thinkers. It’s what we’ve been trained to do. Trained to dissect problems, assimilate information, connect dots and see patterns before anyone else sees them. Trained to innovate as we strive to create a better built environment. Trained to ask why and find a better way.  We think, creatively all the time. So my question is:

What took the business world so long to catch up?

Architects and designers have always know there is only one way to think.

Creatively.

Our way.

So if you see a forlorn businessperson muttering to themselves about how to compete in today’s business world throw an arm over their shoulder, smile and say it’s going to be okay.

The thinkers are here.

Robert Vecchione is an original thinker. Architect/designer, principal at Cobrooke Creative, a multidisciplinary firm generating ideas for business to help them sharpen and define their purpose. www.cobrooke.com

Zero, Zip, Nada.

My work doesn’t get built.

There, I said it.  Nothing I’ve designed as Cobrooke in the last five years has gotten built.

Zero, zip, nada.

Not the concierge ALF in Tampa, the new campus plan for a developmentally disabled service provider, a new technology center or the performing arts center addition or the school for victims of human trafficking in Africa. By my count that makes me 0 for 5, batting a perfect zero. Recently, we were executive architects for a fairly large church addition that did get built but that doesn’t count. It’s like being a car passenger, along for the ride with your feet hanging out the window enjoying the view.

And yet here I am, still standing in the batter’s box, bat in hand waiting to take a swing. Hey, I’m an architect, it’s what we do.

We dream, we hope (these days pray, a lot) that the next one is the big one. Until that happens we forage, like survivors in a post-apocalyptic world, for nuts, berries and insects to keep ourselves alive and hopeful.

Today it’s a new competition that occupies my time and keeps me from wondering if today’s the day that a proposal submitted two months ago for a small project with a whopping three grand fee gets green lighted, or the even smaller proposal for half that amount goes through. Hey, it’s all nuts and berries remember?

Until then I work on my competition winning acceptance speech and hang my hat on the adage that “architecture is an old man’s profession”.

Problem is, depending on who you ask, I am already an old man.

Robert Vecchione is an architect/designer and principal of the multidisciplinary firm Cobrooke Ideas-Architecture-Design (www.cobrooke.com).

spbr Architecture – House in Carapicuiba, Brazil

House in Carapicuiba by spbr Architecture is set in a small valley far below street level. To design a house that provided for both living and work in this unique site, the architects created a multi-level structure that separates private and professional space. The entrance to the concrete and glass building, reached via a steel-grid bridge, provides two options upon entry: a descending staircase to the living space, or an ascending staircase to a tube-like structure that serves as the office.

Full story and all photos in Architizer

Does being an architect imply you’re creative?

Does being an architect imply you’re creative?

I had someone remark recently that using the phrase “creative thinking” in my firm description was redundant because being an architect implies creativity.

Is that true?

We’ve all been in and seen our share of uninspired buildings that don’t deserve to be called architecture. A majority of the built environment is comprised of buildings. How can we all be so creative and wind up with the built environment we do? Isn’t there a distinction among architectural firms, those who fall in the more creative side of the spectrum (think Gehry, Hadid) and nuts and bolts production firms?

Doesn’t a market exist for both buildings and architecture?

If so, are there creative and non-creative architects?

Can creativity and creative thinking be quantified and marketed as a service?

Or is being an architect enough?

Robert Vecchione is an architect/designer and principal of the multidisciplinary firm Cobrooke Ideas-Architecture-Design (www.cobrooke.com)

AIA/NCARB Survey Shows Rosier Picture for Emerging Professionals

More interns are employed and getting licensed than during the throes of the recession. Read article http://www.aia.org/practicing/AIAB098254

What’s up, dock? Council approves Pier 57 restoration

The City Council has unanimously approved plans to redevelop the historic Pier 57 at 15th Street and the Hudson River, turning the eyesore into an urban, cultural and retail hub.

The approval clears the way for construction to begin at the pier, which has served as a dock for ocean liners, a former MTA bus depot and a holding pen for rowdy protesters arrested at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

WITHOUT ‘PIER’: An artist’s rendering of Pier 57 after a City Council-approved restoration that will create 425,000 feet of retail space.

Calling it “a major victory for Manhattan’s West Side community,” Council Speaker and mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn said the pier will provide “a new, sorely needed source of revenue” for the Hudson River Trust, which oversees the pier.

“Soon they will transform Pier 57 from an unused waterfront space into an innovative hub, a culture of recreation and public market activity, all located within a restored historic structure,” said Quinn, whose district encompasses the pier.

The plan calls for creating roughly 425,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space built from re-purposed shipping containers, designed by Young Woo & Associates — the same firm that designed Dekalb Market in Brooklyn, also built from old shipping containers.

It will be an “incubator for cutting-edge local and international brands and merchants,” the company said.

It will also feature an amphitheater and a marketplace area made from old airplane fuselages and 160-square-foot “incuboxes” — small spaces for local merchants, artists and start-up companies.

There will also be educational components, such as cooking schools, art galleries, photography labs and music-recording studios. The Tribeca Film Festival will use the 100,000 square feet of outdoor space as a permanent venue.

A 141-slip marina and water-taxi landing space will surround the pier. Construction will begin in October, the company said.

The approval comes after years of wrangling by developers and community activists and after a more elaborate design — a $330 million proposal from real-estate developer Douglas Durst — was killed in favor of the less expensive plan offered by Woo’s company.

The now rusted pier was built in 1952 from three concrete slaps floated down the Hudson River.

“Today’s approval brings us one step closer to transforming Pier 57 into a recreational, cultural and retail center that will provide yet another great destination for the Hudson River Park community,” Hudson River Park Trust President and CEO Madelyn Wils.

Via NY Post [email protected]