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Filed under architect, architects, architecture
Full-Time Employment Barely Up Since Recession Ended
Did you know that seasonally adjusted full-time employment in September 2011 was lower than it was when the recession officially ended in June 2009, and that this was the case for 26 of the first 27 post-recession months? What’s more, the economy had over 8.7 million fewer full-time workers in November 2011 than it did when full-time employment peaked four years earlier in November 2007.
Full-time employment finally surpassed the June 2009 level for two consecutive months in October and November. Hopefully it will keep going up, but the economic policy barriers to continued improvement are quite substantial.
For those who are wondering, during the first 29 months after November 1982, the official end of the Reagan-era recession according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, full-time employment increased by almost 8 million:
Currently, the economy has 417,000 more full-time workers than it did when the recession officially ended in June 2009.
Readers will also see that the increases in the number of full-timers continued to climb after that. By the end of 1986, over 11 million more Americans (almost 14%) were working full-time than were doing so at the end of that era’s recession.
Filed under Hiring trends, jobs, recession, unemployed architects
“Tech” of the town – Cornell’s Roosevelt Island Campus Plan Unveiled in NYC
ISLE STYLE: An Escher-esque visualization of Cornell University’s bold new plan for a high-tech engineering campus on Roosevelt Island.
Proclaiming it a “defining moment” that will revolutionize the city’s economy, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday offered a first look at Cornell University’s gleaming-new graduate school for applied sciences that will be built on Roosevelt Island.
“It will transform our economy,” the mayor declared at a press conference just 72 hours after Stanford University stunned City Hall by announcing it was dropping out of the yearlong competition to attract a premier engineering school that will serve as one of his administration’s enduring legacies.
Bloomberg described the proposal submitted by Cornell and its partner, Israel’s Technion, as “far and away the boldest and most ambitious.”
“Their proposal called for the most students, about 2,000 a year, the most faculty, about 300, and the most building space, over 2 million square feet,” he said.
Cornell announced last week that it had received a $350 million gift, the largest in its history, from an anonymous donor for the project.
That deep-pocketed donor was revealed yesterday as Charles Feeney, a Cornell alum who made billions as the founder of the Duty Free Stores.
Seth Pinsky, president of the city’s Economic Development Corp., estimated that the number of engineering graduates here will increase by 85 percent once the campus is fully functional in 2037. Operations are scheduled to begin in leased space in September.
In addition to classrooms, labs and dorms, the $2 billion campus will includes “incubator space” for start-up companies and what was described as “spinout space” for commercial applications of research-and-development projects.
Cornell is also immediately establishing a $150 million fund for new tech ventures that agree to stay in the city for at least three years.
“History will write this was a game-changing time in New York City,” the mayor said at Cornell’s Upper East Side medical school.
Officials predicted that Cornell would eventually help generate 30,000 high-tech positions along with 20,000 construction jobs and 8,000 permanent jobs at the school.
The 11-acre school is to be built on land now occupied by Goldwater Hospital, whose patients are to be moved to the former North General Hospital Harlem.
People-powered
Cornell-Technion’s proposed graduate school for applied sciences
* Location: 11 acres on Roosevelt Island now occupied by Goldwater Hospital
* Total square feet: 2 million
* Completion date: 2037
* Permanent jobs: 8,000
* Temporary construction jobs: 20,000
* Jobs created from high-tech spinoffs, licenses and corporate growth: 30,000
SOURCE: NYC Mayor’s Office
High Line Landscape Architect Tapped to Build an Olympic Labyrinth for the London Games
A rendering of architect James Corner’s winning design for the South Park
The verdict is in: after launching a design competition in July for London’s forthcoming 50-acre Olympic Park, the Olympic Park Legacy Company has announced James Corner Field Operations and erect architecture as the winners.
James Corner, the New York-based landscape architect, put himself on the map after designing the celebrated and oft-copied High Line park. His other notable work is Freshkills Park, the former Staten Island landfill the borough will, with Corner’s help over the next 30 years, reclaim as a recreation area that will be twice the size of Central Park. He’s bringing his landscaping expertise to the Olympic Park’s south end between the Olympic Stadium, the Aquatics Centre, and the park’s centerpiece, the Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond-designed ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture, a mammoth work of red, twisting tubular steel. He’ll be planting a hedge labyrinth (exciting!), event lawn, and outdoor theater along a tree-lined promenade.
While the south end’s focus will be on commercial use — festivals, food stalls, and the like — the north end will be more wildlife oriented. erect architecture, a younger emerging London team, has been tapped for its track record of whimsical playspaces, primary schools, and youth centers to create a community hub in the park’s north end, complete with a nature-themed playground for climbing trees and building dens.
Construction off the banks of the River Lea also include the VeloPark, which comprises a one-mile road circuit for cyclists flanked by wetlands, as well as miles of mountain bike trails surrounding the Velodrome. The entire operations of the park are slated to be renamed the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in 2013 with the expectations that it will remain a major tourist attraction long after the Olympics are over.
To see renderings of the future Olympic Park, click the slideshow.
Source: ARTINFO
Proposed S. Korean Towers Resemble Exploding World Trade Center
The unveiling of pictures of planned luxury residential towers scheduled to be built in Seoul, South Korea, has sparked instant controversy. The reason is obvious. The towers, which include a so-called “cloud” feature connecting them around the 27th floors, clearly resemble the World Trade Towers in the process of collapsing following the 9/11 attacks.
The designers of the towers, Dutch architectural firm MVRDV, have responded to the controversy by quickly publishing an apology in English. “It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks,” the designers insist, “nor did we see the resemblance during the design process.”
They did not see the resemblance during the design process? The problem with this assertion – apart from its inherent implausibility – is that they have admitted the contrary in Dutch. Thus Jan Knikker of MVRDV told the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, “I have to admit that we also thought of the 9/11 attacks.”
Moreover, given the context, the MVRDV architects could hardly have not thought of the 9/11 attacks. The residential towers, after all, are supposed to be built at the entrance to the so-called Yongsan Dream Hub: a complex of business towers that has been designed by none other than Daniel Libeskind, the designer of the original “master plan” for the reconstruction of Ground Zero. Indeed, as the below image from Studio Daniel Libeskind makes clear, Libeskind’s Yongsan Dreamhub “master plan” closely resembles his original “master plan” for lower Manhattan.
Source: The Weekly Standard
Filed under architecture, architecture critic
Buildings designed by ‘starchitects’ pay off big
Residential towers by name-brand designers are outperforming others, even in a weak real estate market.
A decade after a bumper crop of residential buildings designed by internationally renowned “starchitects” began rising around the city, the early results are in.
As predicted, such residences were indeed pricier to put up. But especially in Manhattan, the supply of people willing to pay more to live in architecturally celebrated environs seems to be more than adequate.
The biggest surprise, however, may be the degree of flexibility shown at times by such celebrity architects as Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Jean Nouvel and Robert A.M. Stern. Some have gone so far as to lower the ceilings of their creations and even change facings to meet fast-changing economic conditions and New Yorkers’ (especially rich New Yorkers’) less-adventurous architectural tastes.
“These architects are great both at helping developers resolve whatever issues come up and creating notable designs for buildings that can command high prices,” said Vishaan Chakrabarti, director of Columbia University’s Center for Urban Real Estate.
Such compromises come in the context of cost expectations that are raised from the outset. For openers, starchitects can command fees up to twice those of their mortal brethren. Such buildings can also be more expensive to build. Everything from higher-than-standard-quality materials and mechanical systems added as much as 15% to the cost of constructing the 96-unit condo known as On Prospect Park in Brooklyn, according to Louis Greco, a principal with SDS Procida, the developer that tapped Mr. Meier for the job.
Despite all that, buildings constructed before the real estate crash were “incredibly effective,” selling quickly and at steep premiums compared with plain-vanilla projects, according to James Lansill, a senior managing director at brokerage Corcoran Sunshine. Even today, they still outperform the market.
A 2002 takeoff
The starchitect phenomenon started in earnest in 2002 with the completion of 173 and 176 Perry Street, a pair of sleek, 15-story glass boxes in the West Village on the Hudson River designed by Mr. Meier. They were followed in 2007 by such notables as Mr. Nouvel’s 40 Mercer, a 13-story glass palace built by Hines, and Robert A.M. Stern’s wildly successful 15 Central Park West, designed for developers Arthur and William Zeckendorf. The latter features two limestone towers inspired by the Art Deco architecture of their neighbors—and has racked up several of the city’s highest-priced sales in recent years.
But not all starchitect projects took off. In TriBeCa, developer Sleepy Hudson paid out $36.6 million for 5 Franklin Place and promptly hired Dutch architect Ben van Berkel to produce an ambitious design. The 20-story project died, however, when the recession hit.
With the economy still soft and construction financing continuing to be hard to find, the current crop of starchitect buildings in the works is small. There’s Extell Development’s 1,003-foot-tall apartment tower and hotel on West 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, designed by French architect Christian de Portzamparc. Mr. Nouvel’s controversial 75-story tower next to the Museum of Modern Art from developer Hines is also under way.
Having proven themselves so well and so widely, starchitect-designed residences look like they will be around a long time in New York.
“When building picks up, there’s going to be a greater sensitivity to higher-quality work,” said Mr. Meier.
Others agree that there may now be no turning back.
“It may not be optional,” said Stephen Kliegerman, president of Terra Development Marketing, which provides sales and marketing to developers, including many builders of luxury buildings. “Buyers are going to expect a certain level of design and, to obtain the highest price point, you’re going to have to give it to them.”
40 Bond
Location: 40 Bond St., Manhattan Architect/based: Herzog and de Meuron/Basel, Switzerland Completed: 2007 Number of units/size range in s.f.: 24/1,200 to 2,400 Construction cost per s.f.: $500 Sales price per s.f.: $3,000 Current occupancy: 100% Most striking features: Inspired by neighboring 19th-century cast-iron buildings, it has a shiny façade of thick, richly articulated green-glass, plus high, cast-aluminum faux-“graffiti” gates.
The timing was good for 40 Bond, the first U.S. residential building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the firm behind the Beijing National (Olympic) Stadium, aka the “Bird’s Nest.” It turned a nondescript block in NoHo into “one of the hippest places you could possibly live in New York City,” said James Lansill, a senior managing director at brokerage Corcoran Sunshine, which handles the building.
The property has a daring design and prices to match. They were nearly triple the going rate in the market, according to Ian Schrager, whose company developed the building. He attributes his success in getting those sums to a combination of star power and avant garde design. In June 2008, Mr. Schrager himself bought the 8,500 square-foot triplex penthouse.
“This might be one of the best examples of the power of working with world-class architects and letting them be free to design something radical,” said Mr. Lansill.
8 Spruce Street
Originally Beekman Tower Location: 8 Spruce St., Manhattan Architect/based: Gehry Partners/Los Angeles Completed: 2011 (interiors of upper floors still under construction) Number of units/size range in s.f.: 930 when finished/480 to 550 (studios) to 1,700 (3-beds) Construction cost per s.f.: NA Rent per month: $3,100 to $4,000 (studios), $12,000-$15,000 (3-beds), $45,000 to $60,000 (penthouses) Current occupancy: 530 units of the 620 completed Most striking features: Undulating stainless-steel façade resembles the folds in a large piece of cloth. The many bay windows create numerous interior configurations, with more than 300 unique floor plans.
Frank Gehry’s 76-story rental just south of the Brooklyn Bridge, built by Forest City Ratner, has attracted much critical acclaim. And it’s filling up quite nicely, despite studio rents that typically top $3,000, according to Susi Yu, Forest City’s senior vice president, retail development.
In fact, apartments are going at a 15% to 20% premium over the average luxury building rental, according to Clifford Finn, president of new market development at Citi Habitats. At the same time, the $875 million cost ran higher than normal, but not hugely above, according to Ms. Yu.
The building went through a series of twists to get where it is today. Forest City bought the land in 2004, planing to build condos, but switched to rental units two years later. Mr. Gehry then had to lowering ceiling heights and make other changes to lower costs so the building could work as a rental. After the crash, it looked like the project would have to stop at the 38th floor, but Forest City renegotiated union costs and went back to work.
On Prospect Park
Location: 1 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn Architect/based: Richard Meier and Partners/Manhattan Completed: 2009 Number of units/size range in s.f.: 96/962 to 3,500+ Cost of construction per s.f.: $350 Sales price per s.f.: Around $1,000 net, $800 gross Current occupancy: 75% Most striking features: A stark contrast to the neighborhood’s surrounding brownstones and brown-brick buildings, the glass and white metal structure features an ultra-modern design and noteworthy views of the park and plaza.
Pritzker Prize-winner Richard Meier designed the 15-story pristine modern building, carefully taking into account lighting and shadows from the park it overlooks. But when the bottom fell out of the market, On Prospect Park was 60% sold and half of those buyers dropped out, according to Louis Greco, a principal with SDS Procida, the project’s developer.
SDS halted construction, re-examined prices and re-opened for business in the spring. Now, prices are at about 90% of their original level and Mr. Greco hopes to have the building’s 96 apartments completely sold in a year.
While about half of the residents are from Brooklyn, the rest are from around the world, according to Cheryl Nielsen-Saaf, senior vice president and associate broker at the Corcoran Group. “To a great extent, that’s because of the architect,” she said. “He widened the market and broadened the net.”
Superior Ink
Condominiums and Townhouses Location: 400 West 12th St., Manhattan Architect/based: Robert A.M. Stern Architects/Manhattan Completed: 2009 Number of units/size range in s.f.: 68 plus 7 townhouses/800 to 3,200 (apartments), 3,800 to 4,750 (townhouses) Construction cost per s.f.: $500+ gross Sales price per sq. foot: $3,000 net Current occupancy: 100% in tower, 5 of 7 townhouses sold Most striking features: Red-brick facing is designed to fit in with the surrounding West Village neighborhood and exploit Hudson River views. The townhouses hark back to residences of 100 years ago.
Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, designed this building after local preservationists objected to the original plan for a 270-foot modern glass tower. In an effort to retain the feel of the site, which housed an ink factory built in the early 20th century, Mr. Stern created a 17-story red brick building with 68 condos and a row of seven townhouses with private garages.
Its cost per square foot of construction made the project “one of the most expensive buildings we’ve built,” said Bruce A. Beal Jr., an executive vice president of Related Companies, Superior Ink’s developer. On the other hand, sales for tower units, which started well before construction was completed in 2007, “exceeded our expectations,” he said.
Interest is still high. One buyer who bought an apartment for $25 million in 2009, resold it a year later for $31.5 million, which worked out to a whopping $4,983 per square foot.
Source: Crain’s New York Business
Filed under architecture
Studio Visit> Fernando Romero Enterprise
With an expansion into a New York office, FREE continues its evolutionary approach to contextual design.
Fernando Romero Enterprise (FREE) grew out of the architect’s Mexico-based Laboratory of Architecture (LAR) founded in 1999. Then last December FREE opened a second location in New York. “It’s a significant shift,” said practice director Armando Ramos, alluding to the firm’s increasingly multi-disciplinary approach to design as well as its U.S. presence. Romero, whose early career resume reads like a Who’s Who of architecture figures—Enrique Morales and Rem Koolhaas among them—has had a string of successes since starting his own practice in Mexico.
His interest in research and architecture act as a mirror for social, political and cultural currents, often informing books that feed into building projects. Although the concept building, a bridge-like museum with access from American soil and Mexican, stemming from his 2007 book, Hyperborders, never materialised in the Americas for complex political and land ownership reasons, it has manifested itself in a project in China that straddles a lake in a park.
The focus on context has remained a thread throughout other work. Indeed, rather than being tethered to an explicit ideology and signature style, FREE’s work is fluid with each building specific to its setting and circumstance. “It’s evolutionary and ideas are recycled,” said Sergio Rebelo director of design in the New York office. There may be no formal language, but the firm’s work is not directionless. The recently opened Museo Soumaya and Plaza Mariana in Mexico City, the plans for a network of hotel rooms in Brazil, and a masterplan for a cultural retreat in South Mexico are testament to this diversity. “I think for good or for bad we don’t have a dependency on a specific style,” said Romero. According to FREE director Armando Ramos, the firm’s dynamism derives in part from Romero’s experience working with European firms, including Alvaro Siza in Portugal and Jean Nouvel in Paris.
The office has not announced any U.S. projects yet, but there are allusions to a planned tower, and Romero is preparing an exhibition next year to showcase these plans along with the firm’s existing work to its new audience. Unlike FREE’s Mexico office that neighbors the Luis Barragán house, where Romero once put on an exhibition of interventions with the likes of Gilbert and George among others, the New York office nestles underneath the High Line in Chelsea, opposite Pace Gallery. Here, on the border of the area’s new, ongoing, and prospective developments along the Hudson, it’s a fitting location for a firm keen to make its mark in uncharted waters.
Continue reading at The Architects Newspaper
Filed under architects, architecture, architecture critic
HOK Selected for Porsche’s New U.S. Headquarters
HOK has been selected to design Porsche Cars North America’s new headquarters in Atlanta, following an intense design competition. This innovative development includes a contemporary workplace, a Technical Service and Training Center, and a Customer and Driver Experience Center with an integrated road handling track. The nearly 200,000-square-foot complex will accommodate up to 400 employees under one roof on a high-profile, 26-acre Aerotropolis site near the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The headquarters will provide Porsche a strong foundation for continued growth in its largest market worldwide.
“Our vision for our new U.S. corporate home is to create a bold and energizing environment where the physical elements are as memorable and moving as the Porsche driving and ownership experience,” said Detlev von Platen, president and CEO of Porsche Cars North America. “HOK has perfectly interpreted this vision into a dynamic design that is as emotionally charged as Porsche automobiles.”
“Our design goal was to capture the essence of the Porsche brand and performance,” said Todd Bertsch, director of design at HOK in Atlanta. “We have designed a movement-filled building with the same high-energy feel and performance as Porsche automobiles. By integrating the track into the lower levels of the office building and weaving in subtle motorsport-related cues, we can immerse employees, dealers and customers in the Porsche experience.”
HOK’s design will create a single home for the Porsche North America family by bringing together office, training and driving functions while creating a unified brand experience. An interior “Main Street” and courtyard area showcasing the vehicles will function as the heart of the facility. From this courtyard space, customers and employees will be able to interact while watching the action on the track below.
“We’re delighted to work with a client like Porsche,” said Bertsch. “Its design philosophy and culture are very similar to HOK’s. We each emphasize integrity, simple elegance and high performance. We are approaching the design of Porsche’s North American headquarters much like they approach the design of their automobiles. We want to create a high-performing, low energy consuming building while emphasizing a superior customer experience.”
Reflecting Porsche’s commitment to the environment, HOK is designing a highly sustainable building and targeting a minimum of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification. Energy conservation measures include fine-tuning the building orientation and creating a highly efficient building envelope. The team will explore opportunities for natural ventilation and on-site energy generation and green roofs that reduce the heat island effect and filter rainwater before it returns to Atlanta’s water system.
Employees will enjoy a contemporary light-filled workplace that promotes collaboration and inspires creativity. Central café areas, team rooms and huddle spaces will support Porsche’s cooperative, transparent culture.
HOK’s integrated design services for the project include architecture, interior design, workplace strategy, sustainable design, high-performance building engineering, environmental graphics and landscape architecture.
Porsche Cars North America, Inc. (PCNA), based in Atlanta, Ga., is the exclusive U.S. importer of Porsche sports cars, the Cayenne SUV and Panamera sport sedan. Established in 1984, it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Porsche AG, which is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, and employs approximately 220 people who provide parts, service, marketing and training for 196 dealers. They, in turn, work to provide Porsche customers with a best-in-class experience that is in keeping with the brand’s 63-year history and leadership in the advancement of vehicle performance, safety and efficiency. At the core of this success is Porsche’s proud racing heritage that boasts some 30,000 motorsport wins to date.
HOK is a global architectural firm that provides planning and design solutions for high performance, sustainable buildings and communities. Through its collaborative network of 25 offices worldwide, the firm delivers design excellence and innovation to clients globally. Founded in 1955, HOK’s expertise includes architecture, engineering, interiors, strategic facility planning, consulting, lighting, graphics, and construction services. In 2011, DesignIntelligence ranked HOK as the No. 1 role model for sustainable and high performance design.
HOK projects include the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia; the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida; King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia; and the New Doha International Airport in Qatar.
Source: PR WEB
Filed under architect, architecture, architecture critic
