Times Square redesign

July 22, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Filed under City Happenings, Landscape Architecture, Placemaking

Photo: Billings Jackson Design

Efforts have been underway for years to make Broadway and the Times Square area more pedestrian friendly. In 2009, a pilot study by London-based Billings Jackson Design focused on surface treatments, zoning, and street furniture in the transition from Broadway to Herald Square and Columbus Circle.

Now, a design team led by Norwegian landscape and architecture firm Snohetta will create pedestrian plazas, improve traffic flow, and create permanent infrastructure for public events held in Times Square. The Snohetta team won a Design and Construction Excellence Program competition (a Mayor Bloomberg initiative administered by the city’s Department of Design and Construction) for the project. Snohetta is known for its high-profile international projects including the National September 11 Memorial in Manhattan and the new library in Alexandria, Egypt.

The winning design team also includes WXY Architecture + Urban Design (partners with Local Projects on the SEGD Design Award-winning Official NYC Information Center project), engineering firm Weidlinger Associates, New York-based landscape architects and urban designers Mathews Nielson, Billings Jackson Design, and broadcast infrastructure designers Bexel.

Photo: Molly Dilworth

Construction on the new project is set to begin in 2012. In the meantime, a temporary surface treatment entitled “Cool Water, Hot Island,” by New York artist Molly Dilworth (known best for her rooftop art), has been installed. Dilworth created the installation based on NASA infrared satellite data of Manhattan, and its current of blue tones suggests a river flowing through Times Square. –P.M.K.

Curved brick walls

July 1, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Filed under Architecture, Landscape Architecture

“To be fair, the ‘hand’ doing the crafting is in fact the extremity of a robotic arm, in turn connected to a highly advanced computer construction – still, the effect is incredibly convincing: these bricks look like they were manually stacked by someone with a great deal of time and expertise on their hands, able to curve them not just in a two-axis wave but in a complex three-dimensional fashion.” — A.M.

It’s nae folly, it’s science

April 16, 2010 at 8:47 am
Filed under Landscape Architecture

“Open to the public only one day a year, the Garden of Cosmic Speculation takes science and maths as its inspiration… Horticultural displays very much take second place in this garden. Instead, it is designed with ideas in mind – and to provoke thought (or at least speculation) about the very nature of things.” — A.M.

Vision on the Potomac

April 2, 2010 at 8:32 am
Filed under Conferences, Landscape Architecture, Public Art, Urban Planning, Wayfinding

When developer Milton Peterson bought a barren 300-acre stretch along the banks of the Potomac River in 1995, he was the third developer to try his hand at transforming it into a viable enterprise. It took vision, and Peterson had one. Inspired by grand public spaces like Las Ramblas in Barcelona, he dreamt of a classic, pedestrian-oriented boulevard and inviting public gathering places. More than a decade later, the $4 billion National Harbor opened, offering an entertainment, resort, and convention alternative to the urban experience of Washington, D.C.

To make it work, Peterson knew he needed to create a strong sense of place and an inviting, pedestrian-friendly ambience. The development’s success is owed in large part to extensive and integrated public art, landscape, and wayfinding programs developed by Sasaki Associates.  ”It was like building a city from scratch,” says Brian Pearce, a Sasaki senior associate.

The project is profiled in the latest issue of segdDESIGN magazine. And incidentally, the Gaylord National Hotel at National Harbor is the headquarters of the 2010 SEGD Conference + Expo June 2-5. We’ll see you there. — P.M.K.

Gaylord National Hotel

NSFW but funny (don’t say you weren’t warned)

February 12, 2010 at 10:57 am
Filed under Architecture, Fashion Design, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture

Someone named mentaldesigner has created a series of videos on the designer-client relationship.  How can robots talking in a monotone not be funny? — A.M.

Kiddie – and senior – parks

November 27, 2009 at 8:09 am
Filed under Landscape Architecture, Placemaking, Uncategorized, Urban Planning

Gorgeous, educational, and safe, these are not your grandpappy’s playgrounds.  (Which begs the question: if today’s kids don’t have to walk two miles to school in snow uphill both ways and can’t slide down a scalding hot slide with shorts on, how will they discipline their own children?) — A.M.

How does your garden grow?

November 18, 2009 at 10:25 am
Filed under Landscape Architecture, Placemaking

The concept of “garden” is becoming quite deconstructed.  ”The ‘Blackberry generation’ was raised on advertising concepts, slogans, instant solutions, and new designs cater to both by being conceptual and very very low maintenance.” — A.M.

Water wonderland

November 9, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Filed under Architecture, Green Related, Landscape Architecture, Uncategorized

“In Florian Boer and Marco Vermeulen’s proposal, rainwater runoff isn’t funneled into a complex system of underground pipes, a system that is rather expensive to build and maintain, but is managed instead through a network of surface reservoirs, the Waterpleinen, or Watersquares. These storage spaces will be dry for most of the year, but during storm events, they will collect water from the surrounding neighborhood. If one reaches capacity, excess water will overflow into another basin. After the rain, the collected water will slowly recede into nearby bodies of water or seep into the soil.” — A.M.

The garden that climbs the steps

November 4, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Filed under Landscape Architecture, Placemaking

In Bilbao, Spain, “the garden climbs the stairs, running in undulating lines of different textures and colors. Envisioned as a dynamic urban space; it moves in time and with the seasons. Its lush planting cascades down as though the garden was flowing or melting, bleeding the colors into each other. In one gesture, it narrates a story of landscape taking over and expanding over the Public Space and Architecture, therefore transforming the way that the stairs and the space is perceived and read by the user. It is a garden of contrasts: the contrast between native and exotic plants, between the red flowers and the green grass, between the green grass and the grey paving. In form, the garden engages the horizontal plaza with the rising vertical plane of the steps and the upright gesture of Eduardo Chillida’s sculpture. Like the famous Spanish Steps in Rome, the garden is not only designed for visitors to ascend and descend, but for them to linger, and just be.”  (Thanks to Jack Bryce for the tip!) — A.M.

Rocket park mini golf

September 24, 2009 at 10:51 am
Filed under Exhibit Design, Human Interaction, Landscape Architecture, museum

Rocket Park opened at the New York Hall of Science in June. Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design designed the Rocket Park Mini Golf course to teach the basics of astrophysics. Here’s an interview from the New York Academy of Science. Eric Siegel, Director of the NY Hall of Science, Lee Skolnick, the course’s architect, and physicist Alan Friedman explain the how and why of the mini golf course. — S.N.