Tags: architecture

Four giant coal gasometers, built as part of Vienna’s municipal gas works in the late 1800s, have been refashioned into a complex of residential, commercial and municipal facilities.  Formerly Europe’s largest gas plant, the gasometers now house 800 apartments, a student dormitory, a music hall, over 70 shops, restaurants, bars and cafes, a movie theater and the city’s municipal archive.

Toward the Sentient City, an exhibit organized by The Architectural League of New York, examines the implications for architecture of the proliferation of sensor, mobile and other new technologies.  According to curator Mark Shepard:

The exhibition examines the relationship between ubiquitous computing, architecture and the city in terms of the active role its citizens might play – or neglect to play – as both designers and inhabitants, in the unfolding techno-social situations of near-future urban environments.

A master plan by Grant Associates of the UK has been selected from an international competition for the design of Singapore’s largest garden project to date, Marina South Gardens.  The architecture and landscape for the ambitious plan are inspired by orchid anatomy and include a series of micro-ecosystem conservatories to house plants from Mediterranean, temperate and tropical climates.  

This Saturday and Sunday, October 10th and 11th, is Open House New York weekend.  OHNY’s 7th annual offerings include building tours and site visits of unique locations across the five boroughs.  Staten Island is represented by its array of historic buildings as well as two Parks-related listings: Freshkills Park and the Greenbelt Native Plant Center (GNPC). 

Pruned’s three-part “Under Spaces” survey (Parts 1, 2 and 3) explores the problems cities face when planning under and around elevated infrastructure like rail lines and highways.  Recent projects have converted these typically neglected landscapes into urban public centers, mountain biking and skating parks and waterfront green spaces.

The New York Times features Dan Phillips and his construction company, Phoenix Commotion, which builds housing for low-income families out of discarded materials that would otherwise be sent to landfills.

So far, he has built 14 homes in Huntsville, which is his hometown, on lots either purchased or received as a donation.

The aim of Dwell Magazine and Inhabitat’s recent ReBurbia design competition was to reimagine the American suburbs in the context of the current home foreclosure crisis and rising energy costs.  The competition’s cheeky winning entry posits the transformation of abandoned suburban mansions into wetlands and water purification systems for urban centers: the buildings become machines housing micro-ecosystems, and the front yards become micro-wetlands, providing habitat for wildlife. 

The Hudson River Park Trust has selected a winning design for its reimagining of Pier 57, near Chelsea on Manhattan’s west side.  LOT-EK‘s design makes use of disused shipping containers in the construction of a mixed-use community facility on the 375,000 square-foot pier. 

Zero-net energy buildings are designed to be as energy-efficient as possible and to offset what energy they do use through renewable power generation. Some have already been built, like the Omega Center for Sustainable Living in Rhinebeck, NY.  The state-of-the art education center and natural wastewater treatment facility boasts not only zero-net energy use due to its solar array, but also zero-net water use.

There are exciting green roof projects emerging all over New York City these days: the experimental setups at the Parks Five Borough facility that we visited last month; The US Postal Service’s brand new 2.4-acre installation of native, drought-resistant plants–reportedly the largest green roof in the country–atop their Manhattan mail processing facility; the green roof farm in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which has been hosting volunteers and giving lectures since opening this spring.  

We really enjoyed last Friday’s tour of the green roof atop the Parks Department’s Five Borough Technical Services Complex.  The roof is gorgeous and inspiring, and it’s worth checking out our flickr photos (and videos) of the tour if you weren’t able to make it. 

Metropolis Magazine‘s 2009 Next Generation design competition asked entrants to “fix our energy addiction” at any scale and through any design specialty.  From 197 ent­ries, the winner was a proposal to integrate wind turbines into existing power transmission towers. 

Next Friday, we’ll be taking a field trip to visit the green roof at the Parks Department’s Five Borough Technical Services Complex on Randall’s Island.  This is no ordinary green roof–it’s the fourth largest in New York City (at over 15,000 sq ft) and uses 13 different green roof systems.  

Another constructed wetland system, this time at the Sidwell Friend’s School in Washington D.C.  The Wetland Machine by Andropogon Associates, Kieran Timberlake Associates and Natural Systems International incorporates two self-contained systems to recycle water, one for wastewater and one for stormwater. 

Installation of composting toilets in public facilities is catching on.  In New York City, The Bronx Zoo and Queens Botanical Garden have been operating restrooms with composting toilets, with no need for sewer lines, for the last few years.   The technology in both facilities is made by Clivus Multrum and resembles a conventional toilet, except that it uses only 3-6 ounces of water, in combination with a bio-compostable foam, for flushing. 

Ballistic Architecture Machine’s (BAM) concept for a green roof installation, called Biornis Aesthetope, is an aviary for migrating birds proposed for the 70,000 sq ft rooftop of Goldman Sachs in Lower Manhattan.  Ornithologists at Harvard and Cornell Universities provided BAM guidance on the resting and nutritional needs for 12 species of birds, including diurnal raptors, songbirds and owls, whose migration paths along the Atlantic Coast Flyway bring them through New York City regularly.

Integrating solar and wind power capture into natural and urban environments isn’t just a technical or engineering task–it’s also a design opportunity.  Some recent eye-popping ideas have ranged from a dragonfly-shaped urban farm on Roosevelt Island to a snakeskin-like PV-tiled stadium in Taiwan.

Harvard’s Graduate School of Design hosted a conference in March called Ecological Urbanism: Alternative and Sustainable Cities of the Future.  Podcasts of talks included in the conference are available for streaming.  Sessions focused on sustainable urbanism, what that means or might look like, and how on earth might we accomplish such a daunting task. 

In a move to increase biodiversity within our urban jungles, the UK Green Building Council (the UK’s equivalent of the US Green Building Council) have put forth some biophilic design recommendations to policymakers, developers and urban planners that could enable wildlife to better integrate with the built environment. 

Dutch architecture firm Arons en Gelauff has won a design competition to adapt a pair of former sewage treatment silos in Amsterdam into a multi-functional cultural complex.  The design tops one of the silos with a splashy, open-rooftop playground and wraps it with a green wall.