Category: Imported Entries

Woe is my Boathouse

This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

The boat.HSE – a model.
After five or so years, one should really get over loss, but sometimes the first cut is the deepest; I am talking, of course, of the first project I had ever secured and then lost due to a variety of reasons. The long process of wooing a client and then securing the project for the University of Cincinnati’s Women Rowing Team, was very much like a dance. Then growing the project from a simple “pole barn” to a full design project, with site selection, master planning, and then design was an education itself; learning how to survive while the university bureaucracy ground down, securing payment for two poor architecture students, was a completely different education.
So it comes great sadness that my baby, which I still have feelings of ownership, is now at the center of Title IX legal proceedings. Members of the women’s rowing team are accusing the university of not equally supporting women’s athletics. I wish I could be surprised it would come to this, but the bureaucracy at a major university is amazingly difficult to deal with. On the mater of equality, I have no way to judge, being away from the project nigh on five years.
Even so, the university was recently trumpeting a new boathouse which was given $1 million seed money for my – and my fellow designer’s – boathouse design.
Someday (and probably soon) I will have to sit down and write all of this out, it would be an excellent case study for beginning designers and business people.
Later
Here’ a Cincinnati Enquirer about the suit:

Monday, the team filed suit against the university, saying UC has spent millions on men’s sports while not providing the women’s rowing team so much as a boathouse. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, alleges that UC is in violation of Title IX laws, which prohibit gender discrimination in educational programs that receive federal assistance.
…
A bit of history: Originally, the university had plans to build a $3 million boathouse in Wilder, Ky., on the banks of the Licking River. Construction was slated to begin in February 2004 and end eight months later. A donor pledged $1 million to the project. But the boathouse ran into snags for both design and financial reasons, UC spokesman Greg Hand said. Replacement sites or designs have not materialized.

Even later…
Well, who though the News Record was good for nothing::

Perhaps the largest issue in the lawsuit is a proposed boathouse in Wilder, Ky., which was never built.
In December 2000, UC Board of Trustee member Candace Kendle gave $1,032,281, the largest single amount donated, to the construction of the new boathouse UC promised to build, according documents obtained by the The News Record.

As they say in DC, you are not off the track.

Ghost Bike Project

This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

Ghost Bike 2, originally uploaded by trevorlittle.com
This summer has been a particularly rough time for New York City commuters who choose to ride their bike to work, with a record number of commuters dying due to careless drivers.
In memorial to those who have died an art group, Visual Resistance, has started the Ghost Bike project, taking old bicycles and painting them all white and affixing a plaque in memorial to the fallen.
I’ve seen them pop up more and more across Brooklyn and Manhattan, and they are quite a striking memorial and agit-prop. And perusing Flickr, it seems like this project is world-wide.
See more photos on Flickr and other projects by Visual Resistance.

The Big Box Fallacy

This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

If anyone wants to see the world through the eyes of a retailer or realtor, this article about Brooklyn Real Estate is an interesting insight into the world where design – and people – are second (and third) thoughts.
Take this paragraph for example – one of the more asinine observations about Brooklyn:

Yet for such a large consumer market, Brooklyn remains under-retailed. If Brooklyn were a city unto itself, it would be the fourth largest in America. The borough has more people than Houston, yet few big shopping centers — including Forest City’s Atlantic Terminal, Related Cos.’ Gateway Center, Fulton Mall and Vornado Realty Trust’s Kings Plaza. According to Cushman & Wakefield, the average amount of retail space per person in Brooklyn is about 6 square feet, compared with 20 square feet nationwide.

Luckily, one paragraph later, someone intelligent speaks up:

“The small stores are usually where the demand is in the city of New York,” says Havens. “For every Whole Foods store, there are usually about 10,000 bodegas.” Shopping streets in hip neighborhoods like Williamsburg are filled with music stores, coffee shops, restaurants and Internet cafes. National retailers such as Subway and Verizon are also present. Typical store size is usually around 5,000 to 10,000 square feet.

You know, trying to compare Brooklyn and the greater New York City area to any other place in the states is just an idiotic thing to do. The combination of geography, culture, urban life, and je ne sai quois of New York City makes it simply unique. So complaining about a lack of lifeless suburban big-box retail in Brooklyn is just plain dumb. And, I for one, gladly make the bargain of having to shop at multiple smaller stores instead of one large mega-store because the quality of life here is vastly better due to the lack of all things which make big box retail viable.

Terror Threat

This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

Well, looks like my subway ride will be fun:

New York authorities stepped up security across the city on Thursday after what officials described as a specific and credible threat of a terrorist attack on the subway system in the coming days.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the FBI had alerted him to “a specific threat to our subway system,” which had come from overseas but had already been partially thwarted, while some officials cast doubt on the credibility of the threat.

This is so much damned if you do, damed if you don’t. I have to ride the subway (or take the bus), so here’s to hoping that the NYPD and the Feds kick some butt.

Fire Patrol No. 1

This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

Fire Patrol No. 1, originally uploaded by plemeljr
I didn’t know this, but apparently the Fire Patrol is a private fire company working under the New York Board of Underwriters, basically to protect insured property (and make sure firefighters don’t steal stuff). From their short history:

The Fire Patrol can trace its beginnings back to 1803, when the Mutual Assistance and Bag Corporation was formed by a group of volunteers to protect and preserve the contents of buildings from fire and water damage.

Fire Patrol members have the same equipment, but wear red helmets, and are dispatched by the FDNY. Here is a google cache with some good info. I also heard that there isn’t a lot of love lost between the FDNY and the Fire Patrol.

Sorrow

This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

WTC

Average Joe: Olympics Edition

This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

Annie Fannie Strikes Back, originally uploaded by SNLfreak5104
The day of reckoning has come and passed – the clock has ticked down. This morning it was announced in Singapore that London has won the 2012 Olympics bid.
If the 2012 Olympics bid were like Average Joe, then “Average Joe” New York – Met’s cap and all – lost to dapper Bespoke-clad London (with or without monocle is unknown). New York got voted out in the second round – only Moscow was cut before NYC. That could be NY2012’s or the NYC Chamber of Commerce’s new tagline:

New York City – Not as bad as Moscow

In all seriousness, NYC’s bid never had a serious chance to win the 2012 bid. The Olympics have been in the USA in Salt Lake City (2002) & Atlanta (1996) and in Vancouver (2010) – the IOC has been said to prefer to distribute the Olympics across the globe, and it has been in North America perhaps too frequently. Yes the stadium fiasco undoubtedly affected the bid, but as we wrote before, this falls squarely on the shoulders of Mike & Dan for not adequately planning. This wasn’t Politics Bringing down Development, but rather the process working: a huge white elephant stadium was stopped from being approved.
In the end, we are quite happy with London receiving the Olympics bid. Let them have the crowds, construction, and associated pain which the Olympics bring.
Check out these NYC 2012 Party from yesterday, and all photos with the Olympics tag.

Freedom Bunker

This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.


Freedom Tower, courtesy LMDC
So Larry Silverstein and David Childs (of SOM) have unveiled the newest design for the Freedom Tower, and well, there really isn’t much to say. The best headline so far goes to Curbed, with “Freedom Tower, Now With 34% More Freedom!” But I think, “Freedom Tower, Now With 100% less Libeskind” would be more appropriate.

Here are some stats on the new design:

  1. Tower sits on an “almost impermeable and impregnable” 200-foot concrete and steel pedestal, clad in “ornamental metalwork”
  2. Above that, 69 office floors topped with a restaurant, and two observation decks (at 1362’ and 1368’)
  3. Antenna brings total height to 1,776 feet

Here’s LMDC’s description of the design via their fact sheet: (pdf)

Freedom Tower is a bold and simple icon in the sky that acknowledges the memorial below. While the memorial, carved out of the earth, speaks of the past and of remembrance, Freedom Tower speaks about the future and hope as it rises into the sky in a faceted, crystalline form filled with, and reflecting light. This tall, point tower, in the tradition of great New York City icons such as the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building, evokes the slender, tapering triangular forms of these two great landmarks of midtown and replaces more than one quarter of all the office space that was lost on September 11, 2001.

Snap Critique: Well, it appears that Danny has been pushed right out of the picture – looks like some people will be looking for jobs soon. That little year-plus diversion of pretending that design competitions matter or that master plans matter, sure was fun. Yes, yes – parts of the plan still exist, but it fairly obvious that no one is really paying attention to the master plan.

Could Mr. Childs have made a less graceful building? Are they even trying anymore at SOM? Maybe that separate, locked, floor of architects and interns at SOM really is degredating their design skills. (see update) I doubt the lack of skill at SOM is the primary cause, but the external forces at work bear a majority of the blame for this design.

With all of the innovative and elegant skyscraper design occurring throughout the world, one would think that New York City – cradle of the skyscraper – would advance the genre. Yet the design by Mr. Childs – whether by bureaucratic limitations, safety concerns, lack of client resolve, or lack of design skills – reflects a complete lack of imagination by the design team as whole. It also reflects the lack of imagination or political will of Governor Pataki, who rather than take the time to actually design a truly great building, was (and is) more concerned about photo-op timetables for his 2008 Presidential ambitions.
This design might as well have been the massing studies by Beyer, Blinder, Belle for its lack of grace or substance.

Update
Wow, go Internets. The Hive mind over at Wired New York dredged this up: The new (NEW!!!) Freedom Tower looks nothing at all like the New York Stock Exchange building which was scrapped due to (ba, dum…) September 11th. (via Curbed)

Update on the Update – SOM worker bee emails Curbed to set the record straight that this was an earlier version of NYSE. The final design which was cancelled can seen here.

So this explains how Childs and his worker bees on Wall Street could pump out the design for a 69+ story building in such short notice.

From left: NYSE tower; right, Freedom Tower (courtesy LMDC)

I’m with V-2: it is better to build nothing at this moment in order to preserve the site, than to build something so God-awful that it disgraces the hallowed site. I doubt Pataki et al have the foresight or will to acknowledge this reality.
More photos after the jump:

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