manhattanisms Gallery Guide # sh arin gmo vem en t @storefrontnyc

Transcription

manhattanisms Gallery Guide # sh arin gmo vem en t @storefrontnyc
Gallery Guide
#sharingmovement
@storefrontnyc
#manhattanisms
Sharing
Models —
Manhattanisms
July 15 — September 2,
2016
We are experiencing the emergence of a culture that
is marked by a return to, redefinition, and expansion
of the notion of the commons. The increasing
complexity and interconnectedness of globalization
is reorienting us away from trends that have
emphasized individuation and singular development,
and toward new forms of collectivity.
Over the last decade, emerging technologies and
economies have affected aspects of our everyday
life, from the way we work and travel, to how we
think about shelter and social engagement.
How will the sharing movement of today affect the
way we inhabit and build the cities of tomorrow?
Manhattan, one of the most dense and iconic places
in the world, has been a laboratory for many visions
of urbanism. Sharing Models: Manhattanisms invites
30 international architects to produce models of
their own visions for the city’s future.
The models, each a section of Manhattan, establish
analytical, conceptual, and physical frameworks
for inhabiting and constructing urban space and the
public sphere. Together, they present a composite
figure; a territory that is simultaneously fictional
and real, and one that opens a window to new
perceptions of the city’s shared assets.
MODELS AND DRAWINGS
01 — Future Firm
Where the Borough Ends
15 — T+E+A+M
Rummage
02 —The Open Workshop
Peer-to-Pier
16 — MODU
Living Outside the Dome
03 —June-14 Meyer-Grohbrügge &
Chermayeff
freud unlimited, again
17 — ODA
Sharing is Caring(?)
04 —Matilde Cassani | Caterina
Spadonia
Fort Tryon Park center
for rituals
05 —Pedro&Juana
ShaMBuF [Sharing Marring
Bubble Flaring]
06 —MAIO
SHARING METABOLISM
A Speculative Policy for
Manhattan
07 — LEVENBETTS
GAME ON!
08 —Tatiana Bilbao Estudio +
Rodolfo Díaz Cervantes
Magnetic Fields
09 —FOAM
Interfacing Absorption
10 — Manuel Herz Architects
City of Things
11 — TEN Arquitectos
Geology/Topography/
Territory/Density
12 — Huff + Gooden Architects
Spook or Architecture and
Imitation of Life
13 — Büro Koray Duman
New Babylon 2.0
14 — SCHAUM/SHIEH
Beyond The Totems
18 — SITU Studio
Section 581
19 — RICA* | Iñaqui Carnicero +
Lorena Del Río
The Golden Loop
20 —Asymptote Architecture
Deep_Future
Manhattan Sky_Lattice
21 — Atelier Manferdini
The Sixth Burrow
22 —Archi-Tectonics
UN_CRAMMING: Re-Visiting
the Midtown Rezoning
23 —nARCHITECTS
Key Party: City as Home
24 — SO – IL
Noah’s Ark
25 — Leong Leong
A City for the Newer Age
26 —Dror
New Rock: Terra Era
27 — Bureau V
NOZI OH
28 — Höweler + Yoon
Reserve Buoyancy
29 —Urban Agency
Super-urbia
30 —Renato Rizzi/IUAV
InvisibHole
GALLERY PLAN
01
03 05 07 09 11 13 15 17 19
02 04 06 08 10 12 14 16 18
21 23 25 27 29
20 22 24 26 28 30
FACADE INSTALLATIONS
As part of Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, five artists have been invited to produce
stencils that ask us to reflect upon the sharing movement. The facade of Storefront will
be transformed into a canvas that presents one artist’s work each week throughout the
duration of the show. The first 100 visitors to Storefront’s gallery space will receive a
stencil of the work being shown. Participating artists include Curtis Kulig, John Giorno,
Lawrence Weiner, Sebastian ErraZuriz, and Shantell Martin.
Jul. 14 — Curtis Kulig
We Love We Share
Jul. 28 — John Giorno
Sit In My Heart And Smile
Aug. 4 — Lawrence Weiner
MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE YOUR HOUSE IS MY HOUSE
WHEN YOU SHIT ON THE FLOOR IT GETS ON YOUR FEET
Aug. 11 —Sebastian ErraZuriz
You Share, They Profit
Aug. 18 —Shantell Martin
Share
01
Where the Borough Ends
Where the Borough Ends — Future Firm
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
In 1939, when the Bronx Borough
President, James Lyons, planted a flag
on Manhattan’s Marble Hill and deemed it
“Bronx Sudetenland,” referring to the Nazi
annexation of regions of Czechoslovakia,
he may have exaggerated the degree of
conflict. Nonetheless, this moment marks
one of many episodes in the conflicted
history of Manhattan’s northern border, a
line bounded by the east-west waterway
that separates the borough from the
mainland. However, this so-called “natural”
border is far from static. Over centuries,
Manhattan’s northern edge has been
shaped and reshaped, cataloging New
York’s evolving ambitions in its changing
forms. The waterway has been reconfigured from swirling eddies in the 17th
century, before settlement by Europeans;
to the wadeable Spuyten Duyvil Creek;
to the severing of the landmass by the
Harlem Ship Canal in 1895; and finally, to
the filling-in of the river north of Marble
Hill in 1915.
01
T—@FutureFirm
Future Firm
Where the Borough Ends investigates
this liminal zone at Manhattan’s northern
edge, including its episodic reconfiguration. It renders visible the paradox of
how we think about natural landmarks
as fixed demarcations—a Chinese
word for “border” still comprises the
character for “river”—when they, in fact,
are transformed at the same speed as
urban change. Instead of showing a single
iteration of Manhattan’s northern edge,
this sand-and-water model represents
infinite possibilities for the divide. Viewers
get their hands dirty and shape the
terrain between the two boroughs by
molding the model’s scale landscape. An
overlaid projection responds in live-time,
extending Manhattan’s grid south and the
Bronx’s urbanism north. Data points on
the model’s sides serve as reference for
historical datums of elevation, water level,
and average housing prices.
Where the Borough Ends aims to provoke
broader questions about how politically-configured landscape forms often
result in “shared” liminal territories of
both conflict and coordination. Currently,
Marble Hill—the vestigial neighborhood
on the North American mainland but
legislatively remaining in Manhattan—
represents a “shared” territory that
is the urban legacy of the fluctuating
border. Marble Hill residents vote for the
offices of Manhattan Assemblyman, City
Councilman, and Borough President,
and are called for Manhattan jury duty,
yet their school board representatives
and city services, including the fire
department, police department, and EMS,
all hail from the Bronx.
Beyond New York, consider for example,
the recurring border disputes resulting
from the shifting of the Rio Grande at
the Mexican-US border, resulting in both
arbitration and re-channeling of the river.
Or the shifting of the Sham Chun River
between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, which
once—when its course was corrected to
respond to flooding—also allocated more
territory to the S.A.R. collectively. These
are symptoms of a long shift from the
perception of landforms and waterways
as immutable wilderness, toward the
contemporary understanding of urban
and landscape edges to be perpetually
changing, bureaucratically-defined, and
up for reconsideration. Today, a group
called “The Great and Glorious Grand
Army of The Bronx” performatively
re-enact Lyons’ flag planting annually,
defending against what they consider
Manhattan’s “spoiled ramblings of the
effete bourgeois.”
02
Peer-to-Pier
Peer-to-Pier — The Open Workshop
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
If sharing requires a common collective
realm, it also necessitates difference in
that each person or constituency offers
a unique resource to be shared. At the
core of sharing, we find Hannah Arendt’s
definition of human plurality as a dialectical condition between our collective
and individual desires. Nowhere else is
this relationship so clearly depicted as in
the grid of Manhattan—which provides a
collective armature that enables unique
expression. While this difference is
typically situated in the interior of the
block, the avenue of Broadway inserts
difference into the grid itself. By not
assimilating into the grid, Broadway
instead creates a series of public spaces
from the anomalous parcels it forms as
it crosses the grid. Similarly, in the far
northern reaches of Manhattan, Inwood is
one of the few neighborhoods that have
not assimilated into the collective grid.
With few access points, it sits in isolation.
Curiously, its urban grid ascribes to
Broadway’s trajectory, eliminating
difference, and therefore the production
of parcels that resist commodification.
02
I—@theopenworkshop
The Open Workshop
Topography and infrastructure have
subdivided Inwood into three islands:
Inwood Hill Park; a series of consistent
housing blocks; and a parking/maintenance train yard for the New York City
Subway. Within this compressed swatch,
we see three distinct and critical pieces
of Manhattan: its relationship with and
romanticisation of nature, its typological
development of domestic space, and its
lifeblood, the subway.
Our proposal recognizes that sharing
is also a dialectic condition, requiring
clear delineation between the public
and the private as well as the collective
and the individual. Furthermore, we
contend that sharing emerges at different
scales of association—from the territory
of the island of Manhattan, the neighborhood, and domestic spaces. Our
proposal begins by creating a common
neighborhood datum of access, which
is aligned with the collective grid of
Manhattan. Connecting across the three
distinct islands, this swatch provides
access to the water, train yard, domestic
roofs, and park, gathering the islands into
a larger neighborhood. Moreover, this line
forms a stage for appearance that still
enables each island to remain distinct.
Within Inwood Hill Park, one of the few
natural forests in Manhattan, we propose
a territorial sharing of nature through
rewilding, vis-à-vis the introduction of
native fauna and flora. An inverted zoo
condition, humans are put on display
while animals are able to roam freely. At
the scale of the city, we propose that
newly programmed subway cars leverage
the network of connectivity throughout
the boroughs. From shared art galleries,
libraries, markets, and gyms, the subway
can distribute programs to particularly underserved communities. While
the train yard currently separates the
neighborhood from the Harlem River as
a parking lot for subway cars, it can now
provide Inwood with a wide selection of
amenities not being used by the larger
city. Trapped between the park and train
yard is a series of housing blocks that
primarily consist of the letter-types “H,”
“T,” “C,” and “I.” By addressing these
typologies from within the domestic
environment, we can alter over sixty
percent of the housing on the site.
Renegotiating the public/private realm
within these types, we have eliminated
private restrooms, kitchens, and living
rooms, and have consolidated larger
communal spaces. At the same time,
these typologies retain a clear division of
private space for sleeping and working,
which becomes even more important
when everything is shared.
03
freud unlimited, again
freud unlimited, again — June-14 Meyer-Grohbrügge & Chermayeff
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
We need chaos in order. We’ve spent
millennia creating security, but we now
miss the mess that we imagine we once
had. On a basic level, the arbitrary fear of
modernity has passed because its reality
has arrived. The grid is not scary anymore.
In fact, it turns out that this reality does
not look as different as society once
thought it might. In this sense, we are no
longer critical of (or whimsical about) an
impending technological aesthetic or any
real change at all.
Accidentally, nostalgia is the new future in
the 21st century.
Now that we’re in this grid, we’re
searching for the new angle, perhaps the
humanist opposition. But humanism is not
random. It is, rather, quite modern; people
and the body as parameters.
We propose a pillow for the bodies.
03
June 14 Meyer-Grohbrügge & Chermayeff
(Madelon Vriesendorp already figured
this out in 1975 with Freud Unlimited) And
now that we’re content, the question is
actually the answer.)
04
Fort Tryon Park center for rituals
Fort Tryon Park center for rituals — Matilde Cassani | Caterina Spadoni
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
The idea that spiritual needs are an urban
issue has always been part of human
history. One of the biggest changes to
occur in this century is the pluralization
of cultural and religious references
that have brought about both different
religions as well as the collective practice
of secular rituals.
The so-called “return of the sacred” is
considered one of the consequences of
the collapse of the absolute certainties
of modernity, and implies a widespread
system of architectures, people, and
ritual objects.
Sacred spaces, attended physically,
and even virtually, can be man-made
or naturally spiritual. There are sacred
spaces that include non-sacred spaces,
or sacred spaces that, in certain
occasions, may become non-sacred.
A sacred space exists when it is interpreted as such. For the believer, space
is not homogeneous. At the point one
encounters a certain place, there is a
04
I—@mineralwassermc
Matilde Cassani | Caterina Spadoni
break in the continuity of time and space.
Due to the lack of space for different
cultural expressions, public spaces are
the locus where collective memories,
public happiness, and discontent are
ostensibly manifested.
Fort Tryon Park center for rituals is a
diorama for human beings in which a
series of full scale replicas of desired
landscapes is reproduced. It is a
collection of places by which fragments
of existing monuments from every part of
the world are reunited in the same park.
Consisting of small pavilions, temples,
open air monuments, and mausoleums,
each replica is inspired by existing
scenarios in which man and nature
interact in different ways. Fort Tryon Park
is a place of wonder where, along its small
alleys, man can perform his own individual
and collective rituals. It is a fragmented
monument to individual desires, and
religious and secular memories. Fort
Tryon Park envisions a future in which
remote places are physically reunited in
the same territory.
05
ShaMBuF [Sharing Marring Bubble Flaring]
ShaMBuF [Sharing Marring Bubble Flaring] — Pedro&Juana
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Peer to peer technologies have made
sharing available to a community of
unrelated individuals. The sharing
movement has made you and your
belongings available to share for the
purpose of experiencing community.
Inhabitation has become a trading
endeavor, a marketed ideal. To meet
someone who has similar dreams and
goals, please fill out the form at hand.
Data interactions will match correlations
of taste and take you right to the action,
exactly where you belong, to a community
that shares your thoughts and ambitions
with their complementary possessions.
The city becomes a cluster of groups,
a bubble condition of people that are
evermore alike.
ShaMBuF [Sharing Marring Bubble
Flaring] is a representation, or better yet
an abstraction, of an economy; a sharing
economy; a manifesto accompanying
a sharing economy; an example of the
latter. To reveal its mechanisms, the inner
workings and the tools inherent to our
05
I—@pedroyjuana
Pedro&Juana
profession. A form, a diagram, a manifestation! A drawing and a model, a frozen
moment of a work in progress. Together,
they become a procedure, a dialogue, and
ultimately an action that operates upon
the spectator. A masquerade, a sham of
sorts, an honest truth disguised that mars
an object, a form, a city.
06
SHARING METABOLISM A Speculative
Policy for Manhattan
SHARING METABOLISM
A Speculative Policy For Manhattan
Preface*
At the verge of the twentieth century, cities like New York were full of apartment buildings that had collective kitchens,
dining rooms, shared rooms, nurseries, shared domestic helpers and more. At that time, both housing and collective life
were understood as tools for social transformation. A culture of sharing run the city and affected directly, not only its
housing typologies, but basically the everyday life of its citizens. While many of the nuances and complexities of these
particular buildings were lost over the course of the twentieth century, they live on into the present as a valuable point
of reference for innovative domestic proposals.
The actual revival of the Sharing Culture is affecting, as it affected at that time, how our houses are organized and beyond. While, hundred years ago, the city still needed to be built, actually our urban fabric is quite consolidated and the
Sharing Culture needs to find its place in the pre-existent, mixing with it and changing it progressively.
The present policy, called Sharing Metabolism, aims to encourage the collective use of residual, disused or underused
spaces in our close community. Is a reenactment of those laws that shaped the city and allowed things to happen. If in
1916 the Zoning Law shaped the growth of our constructed environment and the profile of the actual New York City,
the proposed Sharing Metabolism policy will shape how we share spaces in our close community.
This set of rules, and the spaces run by it, are metabolic because they adapt and absorb external change.
* The model and drawing accompanying this policy show which underused spaces could be occupied by Sharing Metabolism in the area of Washington Heights, Manhattan, in the following fifty years (2016-2066).
Art. 1
Private spaces that are owned collectively by resident’s association and that are actually underused are potential spaces
to be occupied by its neighbors under Sharing Metabolism –for instance: rooftops, patios, alleys, empty services rooms,
etc.-. The scope of application is therefore the pre-existing private tissue, the public space is not included under this
policy.
Art. 2
Each space can be used for one or more purpose.
Art. 3
Uses may be diverse and they have to be always temporary to allow changeability and adaptability through time.
Art. 4
Each resident’s association has to take care of their Sharing Metabolist spaces, defining how they will be used, for how
much time and who will manage them.
Art. 5
The benefit of Sharing Metabolism has to have an impact on the whole community, going beyond the resident’s association.
MAIO
SHARING METABOLISM A Speculative Policy for Manhattan — MAIO
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Preface*
At the verge of the twentieth century,
cities like New York were full of apartment
buildings that had collective kitchens,
dining rooms, shared rooms, nurseries,
shared domestic helpers, and more. At
this time, both housing and collective
life were understood as tools for social
transformation. A culture of sharing ran
the city, and had a direct effect on not
only its housing typologies, but also the
everyday life of its citizens. While many
of the nuances and complexities of these
particular buildings were lost over the
course of the twentieth century, they live
on into the present as a valuable point
of reference for innovative domestic
proposals.
The revival of “sharing culture” is affecting,
as it had at the beginning of the twentieth
century, the organization of housing
and beyond. Our urban fabric presently
is quite consolidated, and therefore this
“sharing culture” must find its place in the
06
I—@maiowork
MAIO
pre-existent structure by mixing with and
changing it progressively.
The present policy, called Sharing
Metabolism, aims to encourage the
collective use of residual, disused,
or underused spaces in our close
community. Is a reenactment of the initial
laws that shaped the city and allowed
things to happen. If the 1916 Zoning
Resolution could shape the growth of our
constructed environment and the profile
of New York City, the proposed policy of
Sharing Metabolism will shape how we
share spaces in our close community.
This set of rules, and the spaces run by
it, are metabolic because they adapt and
absorb external change.
Art. 1
Unused private spaces owned collectively by residents’ associations, such
as rooftops, patios, alleys, and empty
services rooms, are potential spaces to be
occupied under the Sharing Metabolism
policy. The policy applies to pre-existing
private spaces, and does not apply to
public space.
* The model and drawing accompanying this
policy shows which underused spaces could
be occupied by Sharing Metabolism in the area
of Washington Heights over the next fifty years
(2016–2066)
Art. 2
Each space can be used for more than
one purpose.
Art. 3
Uses may be diverse, but they have to
be temporary to allow changeability and
adaptability over time.
Art. 4
Each residents’ association has to
take care of their Sharing Metabolist
spaces, and must define how they will
be used, for how much time, and who
will manage them.
Art. 5
The intent of Sharing Metabolism is that
it has an impact on the whole community,
beyond the residents’ association.
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GAME ON! is comprised of several key
elements that formulate a healthy urban
infrastructure: a connective tissue of
small and big green sites that recast the
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ding
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GAME ON! is a recreation focused
infrastructure that encourages Healthy
Living and fosters interaction and sharing
between adjacent communities. GAME
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GAME ON! LEVENBETTS
GAME ON! — LEVENBETTS
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
series of large hybrid programmed parks.
GAME ON! brings a much needed dose
of Healthy Living and fun to this east-west
slice of Manhattan and the Bronx.
GAME ON! proposes that just and
equitable city-making is best done
through infrastructure that is efficient,
aesthetic, and fun! Seen through the
lens of current sharing cultures, GAME
ON! is an integrated urban infrastructure
providing for the entire collective of
the city, defining the public realm and
LEVENBETTS
defending the city against the ravages of
solely affluent privatization. GAME ON!
is an infrastructure that serves, cares
for, and moves all people. GAME ON!
posits a collective connectively conceived
infrastructure that bundles transportation,
health and community services, recreation, education, food networks, parks,
and housing. GAME ON! proposes
that truly democratic urban infrastructure
is also based in Healthy Living and
lots of fun!
Located in Washington Heights, the most
narrow and one of the highest parts of
Manhattan, GAME ON! extends beyond
the island of Manhattan, bundling together
the Bronx to the east as well as the
Hudson and the Harlem Rivers. GAME
ON!’s infrastructure of Healthy Living in
Washington Heights and the Highbridge
neighborhood of the Bronx merges with
a series of existing north-south parks
as it cuts across the Bronx, the Harlem
River and Manhattan, and then into the
Hudson River toward New Jersey and
the Palisades. The hospital district in
Washington Heights is the institutional
paradigm of health care, but the real
public infrastructure of health and healthy
living resides in the parks and recreational
activities. GAME ON! threads together
Riverside Park, the banks of the Harlem
River, the housing towers in the park at
Highbridge Gardens, a series of smaller
parks within the grids of Manhattan and
the Bronx, and the NYCHA Claremont
Village housing in the Bronx (creating
a new Bronx Highline over the Amtrak
railroad line that currently divides it).
Recreation is central to GAME ON! and is
not only located in the parks but also in
sites such as the existing Armory Track
Field House and in the bicycling culture
that courses through Washington Heights
on Riverside Drive. The park of NYCHA’s
Highbridge Gardens’ “towers in the park”
is also an untapped site for recreation
and for reconsideration of the often
marginalized ground of the New York City
Housing Authority’s communities.
This new paradigm for the healthy city
includes a more egalitarian infrastructure;
greener and more beautiful housing; better
and more connected athletic fields; closer
and more pleasant connections between
housing, education, community facilities,
and recreation; and safer and greener
human powered paths of travel.
GAME ON!
08
Magnetic Fields
Magnetic Fields — Tatiana Bilbao Estudio + Rodolfo Díaz Cervantes
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
As cities continue to evolve into densely
populated areas, they will become dense/
intelligent organisms. For this reason,
cities of the future must accept gradual
transformations in the unpredictable shifts
of spatial and social structures. The future
of cities is intrinsic to organic growth.
Among others, Yona Friedman and the
situationists pleaded for a compact city,
believing that building above existing structures could diminish outward expansion,
and could create an open structure for
adaptable configurations that enable the
growth of cities while also restraining
the use of land. However, we should not
pursue imposing, largely scaled buildings
in order to house the ever-growing
expansion within cities. Instead, we must
embrace an organic development and
render the unexpected admissible.
The real context of this urban slice,
Washington Heights, exemplifies a tranche
of the city with a complex urban fabric that
includes (mostly) mid-rise social housing,
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Tatiana Bilbao Estudio + Rodolfo Díaz Cervantes
commerce, churches, schools, a cemetery,
the “oldest” house in Manhattan, Riverside
Park, highways, middle class homes, and
very little public space (only the streets
and the cemetery, actually).
This model is sort of a “plastic poem” that
speculates about the possible structure
of a projective urban scenario. Gaps
and agglomerations, towers and voids…
architecture here presents itself as an
abstract registration of human thought
and a powerful evaluation of the definition
of structure. We believe in crowdsourcing
and organization as an ecology of ideas
(set in practice) swarming over the solid
urban topography of a multilayered
history. Multilayered capacity of growth
deals with anti-segregation of ideas and
knowledge, with collaboration between
trans-generational individuals pursuing an
active public life. It is the inhabitation and
inhibition of transit spaces; densification
rather than expansion. Each iron filing
represents an individual or a housing unit.
The new topography takes shape because
of the cohesion among all the entities.
The iron filings represent the crowds and
their space, while the magnet represents
collective space (intellectual and physical).
The fluctuation of the materiality is conditioned by the strength of the magnet; the
collective strength.
Magnetic Fields speculates metaphorically
about the future; of how we cannot control
or predict what cities will turn into, nor
measure exactly how they will evolve. The
magnet represents the cohesion of public
space and the need for an open-source
collective infrastructure to consolidate
ideas into space. After all, ideas are
fundamentally social, and cities are
spaces where ideas are incubated, moved,
and progressed. The model reinforces the
idea that individual space (the minuscule
iron filings) is spread over a cohesively
consolidated tectonic space (the stone, a
totem of gathered intelligence and development and agglomerated individuality).
The model takes shape aiming to render
visible the fragile connection between the
two. Cities will not survive unless we find
ways to strengthen this connection by
looping back the gathered intelligence and
projecting it onto our immediate present.
We present this model to stress individuality as an effect of crowd behavior, by
interconnecting yielding points of great
density and focus
09
Interfacing Absorption
Interfacing Absorption — FOAM
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
“There has existed no avant-garde
movement whose own ‘political’ objective
was not, implicitly or explicitly, the
liberation from work.” — Manfredo Tafuri,
Architecture and Utopia: Design and
Capitalist Development
#work#work#work#work#work#work
#corporate-avant-garde
FOAM is an equity crowdfunding platform
for the architecture industries where users
can invest in projects as financial stakeholders with spatial assets.
Public space has shrunk to the size of
our dreams, with invisible financial forces
manifesting themselves as luxury living,
driven by revenue and economic potential.
FOAM begins with the negative space of
the city. In the negative space there are
small scale projects of urban development
that the public can invest in and the
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FOAM
architect can envision. This is a process
that will develop over time, through which
privatized space can become privately
owned by the public, and a new collaborative process will emerge where the
lines between developer, architect, and
end user are more blurred than they have
been historically, into a mesh of nonhierarchal users.
Over time, a decentralized redefinition of
ownership in the city absorbs buildings,
with the architect orchestrating economic
thresholds of projects funded by the end
user. Through the FOAM interface, the city
is absorbed by foam space.
Each layer represents the passing of time
during which our interface has absorbed
more of the city.
Emptiness is a structural component of air
suspended in individual bubbles of foam.
The architectural expression of FOAM
manifests an appreciation of value in
material and spatial markets of exchange.
Parks, streets, sidewalks, rooftops,
balconies, airspace, lawns, gardens,
backyards, and inaccessible empty real
estate suddenly become an investment
opportunity. The notion of collectivity
and connectivity are transformed by a
communal sharing project: initiated by the
architect and completed by participants.
On a global scale, a multitude of selfinitiated crowd-equity projects will proliferate, and shares will be held in spatial
investment portfolios; a portfolio of shares
in interdependent spaces that can be
traded on secondary exchange markets.
An architecture that is capable of restructuring spatial regimes of power must be
financially profitable.
—
Log into FOAM on the Wi-Fi list from your
phone or tablet to access our interface
and invest in shares of our space NAVEL.
NAVEL is a test site for collective enterprise that monetizes the process of
intellectual stimulation and productive
dialogue from active agents of a
communal cultural exchange platform.
By situating NAVEL where infrastructure
meets territory, new constituencies and
cultural diplomats will be assembled. As
anyone can produce for and consume
from the NAVEL workspace, it becomes
an open-source brand.
NAVEL operates with an understanding of
the new shared economy and is managed
on FOAM, a platform that returns agency
to the Architect. Space can no longer be
valued abstractly on financial markets,
and instead needs to be assessed in
tangible, material, and spatial indicators
of value. In the sharing economy, we need
more than public space; we need to be
absorbed by foam space.
10
City of Things
City of Things — Manuel Herz Architects
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Who is the “we” that we consider when
we think of sharing? Can we think
of sharing much more radically and
substantially than the way it is used by
the (neo-liberal) instruments of flat-share,
car-share, work-share, time-share, and
similar devices that are mostly consumption-oriented? Can we radically expand
the “we” to include animals, plants, and
even inanimate objects? Can we think of
a truly shared city where we humans are
just one among many other actors in the
urban fabric?
In reference to Bruno Latour’s concept
of the “Parliament of Things,” I declare
the future of Manhattan a City of Things.
The right to speak and the right to be
represented does not belong exclusively
to humans. In a shared and truly urban
environment, this right is extended to the
non-human. It is extended to all things.
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Manuel Herz Architects
We can no longer maintain the distorted
dichotomy between culture and nature.
We share this world with many. We are just
one party, among all animals, plants, and
objects. What if we welcome all things
into our city?
This model represents a vision of
Manhattan where all things, animate and
inanimate, are given a right to representation. Streets, roads, parks, and empty
lots become a space for the public, for all
things. Human transport is solely public,
including an extensive underground
system and bicycles. Cars are no longer
used, freeing up an additional fifty percent
of space for novel use, space to share. The
model provides a habitat for a new fauna
and flora to develop, a political ecology.
Given the nature of the small scale, this
model partially operates on the level of
illustration. It is a representation of our
acknowledgement that the object-subject
dichotomy does not apply in a shared city.
11
Geology/Topography/Territory/Density
Bedrock Topography
Development Potential
Bedrock
5th Ave.
Park Ave.
Manhattan Schist
Madison Ave.
Lenox Ave.
7th Ave.
Frederick Douglass Blvd.
Convent Ave.
Fordham Gneiss
St. Nicholas Ave.
Amsterdam Ave.
Broadway
Riverside Dr.
Claremont Ave.
Henry Hudson Pkwy
Manhattan Schist
Geology/Topography/Territory/Density — TEN Arquitectos
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
As technology becomes more prevalent
in globalized societies, the idea of shared
space has become a dominant factor
in how we consider the future of the
built environment and the ways in which
territory is best utilized. Boundaries, both
physical and psychological, continue to
blur and dissolve, so that ultimately we
might expect that a greater percentage
of “shared” space will define our lives. The
“sharing movement” suggests a utopian
vision of living harmoniously without the
need for walls or possibly even permanent
addresses. It seems to promise the
potential for even higher spatial and social
efficiency—resulting in an ever increasing
density and proximity.
We have chosen to take a macro view of
the fundamental infrastructure of the city,
focusing not on the activity on the city’s
surface, but rather how the natural underlying conditions—the city’s geology—
may lend some insight as to how future
density may develop. As intricate
and interesting the networks above
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TEN Arquitectos
Manhattan’s street-level may be, the
layered landscape that exists below the
city’s surface, from the subway down to
the natural bedrock, creates fascinating
economies that have the potential to
shape how and where we develop density
efficiently. Here, we examine the unseen
landscape to understand the potentials of
Manhattan’s future cityscape.
12
Spook or Architecture and Imitation of Life
Spook or Architecture and Imitation of Life — Huff + Gooden Architects
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
125th Street in Harlem, USA runs along a
rift in the Earth’s crust (known as the 125th
Street Fault) from New Jersey to the East
River. The fault line runs through layers
of Manhattan schist skirting the northern
edge of Central Park and extending
southeast towards Roosevelt Island.
However, 125th Street is historically also
a line of cultural, economic, social, and
racial demarcation.
The conflation of this line with globalization not only resulted in the gentrification of Harlem beginning in the 1990s,
but it extends to the current conditions
of cultural commodification, mis-appropriations, and mis-appearances. These
are played out in urban space through
the publicity of digital life evidenced in
social media and the event-spaces of
public protests, marches, festivals, rallies,
memorials, disasters, vagrancy, and
leisure. As this line becomes increasingly
culturally ephemeral, it also becomes
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Huff + Gooden Architects
more globally ubiquitous, marked by
conditions of intensification, extraterritoriality, and contestation.
“I definitely am not white.”
— Rachel Dolezal (June 17, 2015)
Significant to the conflation of 125th Street
are a number of economic developments
beginning when the first international retail
chain (The Body Shop) opened on the
street in 1993, along with Ben & Jerry’s
Ice Cream in the preceding year. These
were quickly followed by the introduction
of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment
Zone in 1994, which brought $300 million
in development funds and $250 million in
tax breaks for new businesses such as
Starbucks, Magic Johnson AMC Theaters,
and the Harlem USA retail complex.
Prior to 1990, the population of Central
Harlem had decreased from a high of
237,468 in the 1950s to 101,026. With the
advent of gentrification, the population
increased significantly (approximately
17%) between 1990 and 2004. However,
the black population decreased from
88% to 69% while the white population
increased to nearly 7% in 2004 and to
nearly 12% today. Concurrently, housing
prices increased exponentially, making
most housing unaffordable to long time
residents.
“Spook” recalls Koolhaas’ “Exodus or the
Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture” and
proposes the re-appropriation of 125th
Street as a “City with a City” including
housing that extends from the East River
to the Hudson River. Yet, the urban future
of this rift is imagined as a continually
mediated event-space where urban life
and digital life collapse the experience
and conceptualization of city space.
Social media housing in the East and
Hudson Rivers posts and broadcasts the
minutiae of daily life and urban spectacles,
while parallel east / west walls of housing
infrastructure demarcate the zone of
intensification. The performance of urban
and domestic life along and within the
walls allows for slippages of identities,
resistance to the commodification of
difference, and the confoundment of
social and economic disparities.
13
New Babylon 2.0
New Babylon 2.0 — Büro Koray Duman
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
It’s 2026 and Constant is a creative
consultant. He decides to spend the next
three months in Manhattan, opens his
app—New Babylon 2.0, checks which
neighborhood his friends are staying
in, and reserves a pod in Harlem. New
Babylon 2.0 is a new online app, a
conglomeration of various apps of the
past (WeWork, Maple, Rent the Runway,
Uber, etc.)—the Facebook of 2026. With
a monthly subscription, one can reserve
a studio to live in, have access to office
space, use a shared common closet,
order food from a common kitchen.
Structures are built as rings above existing
blocks. Each ring has a designated
function; live, work, and learn; depending
on the zoning the block is in. Towers are
built in the empty lots that connect with
and support the infrastructure above.
The infrastructure runs at the perimeter
of each block, structurally supported by
existing buildings underneath, sometimes
connecting several blocks at a time.
Entry towers provide common services
(common closet, kitchen, laundry, and
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Büro Koray Duman
waste management system) and the
system provides units that plug into the
infrastructure above as needed. New
Babylon 2.0 pays a monthly rent to co-ops
underneath for the use of the air rights.
Constant enters his new/ temporary
living ring. He picks up the clothes he
selected at the closet, and settles into his
home. Soon he will meet his friends in the
common living room. He knows that there
are a few ‘work rings’ close by that he can
work from for the next few days.
From the balcony, he looks at the strange
new skyline, a new parasite living on top
of an old organism. Very similar to the
old New Babylon, he has the freedom
to move around but he is not the same
person anymore. He doesn’t like the idea
of drifting around aimlessly. After all he
is addicted to his gadgets, constantly
connected to everything everywhere, with
a schedule simultaneously updated as he
moves through the city. New Babylon 2.0
gives him the fake sense of freedom that
late capitalist cities provide. After all he
is old now. His old anarchist self doesn’t
belong to this new system.
14
Beyond The Totems
Beyond The Totems — SCHAUM/SHIEH
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
We came to this place.
Office space, meeting space, sleeping
space—everywhere and anywhere.
Want it, reserve it, book it.
Small, medium, large.
By the hour, by the night, by the week.
The culmination of physical space as
fungible good. At a very fine grain.
There is no interior space left. There is no
place to be alone, except for the kind of
alone that you find amongst strangers—
the sweet lonesomeness special to cities.
Buildings have become totems. Symbolic
stacks of space commodity. They mark
place, but there is no admittance. There
are only transactions. Like mountains, the
buildings cannot be occupied. They can
only be negotiated.
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SCHAUM/SHIEH
The only space is outside (if we’re lucky)—
in the streets, in the park, at the edges,
between and beyond the totems.
Individuals are uncoupled from cars,
apartments, houses—they are abandoned
by objects of identification. Or maybe
they’ve been freed from these objects?
Free now to swarm into the streets, the
park, to the edges. Here together, they
build different kinds of forms. They stand
in circles. They hang together in clumps,
standing beside each other. They make
lines. They clear a space. They make
formations so they can hand things to
each other easily, lean on one another, or
combine their strengths.
Alone and together—an arrhythmic dance
between the anonymous crowds of the
city and the obligations of a small town,
neither as freeing as we imagined when
we departed. There is more to do.
15
Rummage
Rummage — T+E+A+M
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
The day all of our unwanted things
relocated to the city’s open spaces was
the day the new commons appeared. All
of our idle possessions, discarded objects,
various rubbles and clutter—the stuff you
can always find on the curb, on Craigslist,
or heaped up in an empty lot—was now the
material of a new urban space.
What had been distributed across closets,
garages, attics, and basements was now
gathered into long piles that formed large
open rooms. What had been a homely
mishmash of stuff was now sorted,
redistributed, and piled up according to
principles that were not readily apparent.
However, it has been noted that some
areas of the piles are softer to climb on,
some have shaded interiors, and some
continue to grow into tall chalky cliffs.
To everyone’s surprise, no one balked at
the appearance of junk in the streets and
open spaces. Maybe this was due to the
sheer scale of the piles and the spaces
they made. Or it was the addition of
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multi-story scrims, which provided visual
backdrops for the piles. These suggested
landscapes other than those which the
city could offer on its own...in any case,
the immediate reaction to the commons
was more of curiosity and exploration.
People in one neighborhood began to
boast that the quality of light in their apartments had dramatically improved with
the mountain of CDs shimmering in the
morning light. In another neighborhood,
kids redrew the boundaries of their territorial war games according to what was
piled where. In the park, a heap of LACK
tables peeked above the tree-line. And, it
was said, its nest-like quality also made it
a home to all manner of wildlife.
A few intersections became destinations
for tourists who wanted to experience the
rainbow canyon view up Fifth Avenue. It
requires a long meander or cross-town
bus to follow the shifting purple hue of a
long ridgeline that originates on the East
Side and dies into the Hudson.
Some say the commons are an ecological
gesture, a last ditch effort to instill a
shared environmental consciousness
in people. Some say the idea of the
commons has no function or message,
but it simply brings together the physical
stuff that is overlooked in our preoccupation with immaterial transactions and
communications. No one really knows.
But most agree that there are ways to
experience the city, in both its material
and imaginary dimensions, that were not
there before. With the commons, the age
of rummage urbanism began.
16
Living Outside the Dome
Living Outside the Dome — MODU
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
The following story envisions an alternative future for Manhattan, as well as
today’s “sharing economy.” This retroactive future begins with the completion
of an unprecedented urban project—
Buckminster Fuller’s “Dome Over Midtown
Manhattan.” In 1968, a short eight
years after proposing the dome, Fuller
celebrated the installation of the last panel
of its enclosure, which he described as a
“wire-reinforced, one-way-vision, shatterproof glass, mist-plated with aluminum.”1
All of the dome’s residents celebrated
the project’s completion, as Fuller’s
prediction of its massive reduction of
energy consumption turned out to indeed
be true. The economic windfall benefited
everyone living under the dome—the
city’s first “sharing economy”—while also
producing an urban environment without
weather. As Fuller said, “windows may
be open the year round, gardens in
bloom and general displays practical in
the dust-free atmosphere.”2 Recalling
Le Corbusier’s earlier vision of a “weatherless city,” the dome’s climate was so
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MODU
constant and homogeneous that the very
idea of weather was mostly forgotten.
Meanwhile, in the city outside the dome,
the streets and buildings immediately
began to overheat. Fuller’s vision of an
“exterior appearance of a mirrored dome,
while the viewer inside will see out without
conscious impairment”3 caused extreme
levels of reflected solar radiation around
the structure. During the summer, the
weather outside the dome increased by
fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. To reduce
the sudden and extreme reflected heat,
building owners began constructing
extensions to their roofs to shade their
buildings below. The rules of Manhattan
real estate quickly led to converting
the roof extensions to form interior
spaces, creating a continuous network
of “rooms above the street.” This ad hoc
construction of continuous roof extensions eventually led the city to rewrite its
zoning regulations to adopt a new urban
layer; all buildings above this datum had
their floors removed to avoid the extreme
weather from the dome. Below the layer,
the roofs of existing buildings became
a public realm accessible through the
network of roof extensions.
1 Buckminster Fuller, “Choices and Challenges,”
St. Louis Post Dispatch (Sept. 26, 1965), 39–41.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
Over time, an inverted city rises above the
old city. The continuous roof extensions
form a concave surface that extends
from the Hudson River to the East River,
rising high above the water and dropping
to its lowest point at Central Park. Voids
created between the continuous roof
extensions and empty lots are vents that
regulate wind movement through the
inverted city. The city’s zoning regulations
are transformed; rather than building
from the ground up, it is now possible to
build from the roof down. The continuous
“rooms above the street” form an “indoor
city,” which combines the exterior urban
scale with interior spaces. A new form of
the “sharing economy” has emerged from
this continuous “indoor city,” based not
on those who are able to monetize unused
property and extra time, but instead on
sharing an uncontrolled urban life outside
the dome. This life comes with all of the
unpredictable experiences that are part of
living in Manhattan.
17
Sharing is Caring(?)
Sharing is Caring(?) — ODA
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
New York City is one of the greatest cities
in the world, and we are fortunate to not
only be a part of it, but also to be active
in shaping its future. We love this city for
its intensity, multi-culturalism, accessibility, diversity, efficiency, and opportunity. However, there is also an extreme
disparity between private and public
spaces that perpetuate a passive and
persistent reduction of social communities. The threshold between in and out
has been flattened to the glass curtain
wall and the brick veneer.
The street level has become crowded
and bewildered. Varied forms of traffic
have monopolized the streetscape, while
pedestrian presence has been relegated
to circulation. Sidewalk life is abused by
constant pedestrian flux, and persistent
noise agitates its users. With sealed doors
and daunting walls, buildings stand as
dead ends. Their verticality demands a
typical entrance sequence of street to
lobby, of elevator to apartment and to
office. Paired with anxiety over security,
this pattern does not accommodate
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ODA
any impromptu circulation. Movement
becomes as fixed as facades. Citywide,
blocks are congested and pixelated.
Manhattan’s charm and collapse is that
its blocks have become undisciplined,
sculpted by the disparate whims of
owners and architects. Courtyard spaces,
if at all accessible, are merely residual
spaces organized by indifferent walls.
New York City is faced with a bleak future
of imposing walls, streets, and interiors,
forcing our faces ever closer to our
phones and other screens as a means of
escape. As an alternative to this future,
we propose a network of spaces in which
human scale inversely governs building
scale, which in turn promotes socialization and community. The functionality
of the Manhattan grid is invaluable to this
pursuit and should not be compromised.
Instead, our interventions revolve around
the inverted space created by the grid: the
city block.
Consequently, blocks are opened to the
street and courtyards are carved. The
street wall is extended internally, and
these once leftover spaces are now places
designed for public interaction. Spilling
pedestrian life into the internal void of
the block instills a slow-paced network
that foils the accelerated orthogonal
Manhattan grid. The interior texture of
Manhattan is now public.
Atop the buildings, a resident-controlled,
communal spatial fabric is created.
Bridging between blocks produces an
elevated system of connectivity and
establishes a network complementary
to the slow ground floor network. The
traditional courtyard has been moved to
the roof and expanded between blocks.
Private courtyards are no longer bound
by unrelated walls, but rather by the
horizontal and vertical surfaces of the
dwelling below and its neighbors.
18
Section 581
Section 581 — SITU Studio
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Anachronistic tax code, anonymous shell
companies, and absentee residents are
all distinct characteristics of New York’s
luxury housing market. As the veils of
limited liability companies are pierced and
leaks from Panama converge on the same
investments, it is illuminating to render
visible the drivers of the built environment
across a swath of Manhattan’s most
valuable real estate, and to project a
future in which access and exchange of
information play a greater role in shaping
the City. It is also a moment to reflect on
Michael Bloomberg’s enduring legacy of
shoring up New York City’s standing as
a hub of international luxury real estate
investment and his largely unqualified
conviction that concentrations of global
capital are a net benefit to all citizens
of the City.
While the inequalities engendered by the
real estate market leave many signatures
on New York City’s built environment, the
arcane model of calculating property tax
and the misalignment of this process with
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the realities of the contemporary market
are particularly acute. Following Section
581, the component of New York State
property tax law that lends its name to this
project, property taxes on condos and
co-ops in New York City are calculated
based on an assessment of property value
conducted by New York City’s Department
of Finance, not based on sale prices. For
reasons that are too complex to go into
here, the assessed values are often orders
of magnitude lower than sale prices—a
condition that is concentrated in the most
expensive properties in the city, many
of which are located in the swath of area
covered by our model.1 Because gross
undervaluation of assessments by the
Department of Finance are most extreme
at the highest price points, a wealthy
owner’s tax burden on luxury real estate is
disproportionately low.
Accompanying this text are a model and
drawing which present this skewed reality
in our area of interest. In the model, the
height of the resin surface above a co-op
or condominium building represents the
relative magnitude of difference between
its sale price and assessment value.
The drawing unpacks selections of the
underlying data. It identifies the fifty most
expensive of the 11,000 undervalued
unit sales in our section, and compares
their respective sale prices to the values
used for property tax assessment. This
study represents a small fraction of the
lost property tax revenue that could be
1 Yager, Jessica, and Andrew Hayashi. “Shifting the
Burden,” Furman Center, July 2013.
http://furmancenter.org/research/publication/
shifting-the-burden.
2 “Olshan Realty, Inc. | Olshan Luxury Market
Report.” June 20-26, 2016.
http://olshan.com/marketreport.php?id=290.
captured across the entire city. As a
general trend, the more expensive the
sale price, the more extreme the disparity,
in some cases numbering in the tens of
millions of dollars for a single unit alone.2
Methodology:
Making use of NYC’s rich information
commons, the model and drawings are
based on analysis of available financial
and geospatial datasets published by the
City. Comparison figures for assessments
draw from the Department of Finance’s
property assessment roll for fiscal year
2017. Sales data was gathered through
the DOF’s rolling and annualized datasets
from the last thirteen years (2003 to 2016).
19
The Golden Loop
The Golden Loop — RICA* | Iñaqui Carnicero + Lorena Del Río
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
pied-à-terre
noun
– A small house or apartment that you
own or rent in a city other than that
where your primary home is located, in
which you stay when visiting that city
for a short time.
– French for “foot on the ground”
Owning a piece of New York or “putting
a foot in the city” has become a shared
aspiration for the global rich, from
traditional American and European buyers
to cash-flush Russians, Chinese, Middle
Easterners, and Brazilians. In recent
years, the demand for these super-elite
luxury apartments has increased dramatically, creating a whole new typology of
skyscraper, the “superslenders,” which
are rising on the New York skyline.
The purchase of these trophy apartments
is largely a status symbol, therefore
competition for them arises not from a
necessity for dwelling but from a battle
19
F—inaqui.carnicero
RICA* | Iñaqui Carnicero + Lorena Del Río
of the egos. The proliferation of these
properties has left large areas of the city
“owned but not used.” Ghostly towers
stand with dark windows, seemingly
abandoned but ironically “SOLD OUT.”
According to the New York Times, “In one
part of [Midtown], between East 53rd and
59th Streets, more than half of the 500
apartments are occupied for two months
or less. That is a higher proportion than in
resort and second-home communities”
The problem with this is that not only is
valuable real estate essentially wasted,
but a high demand for these buildings
makes them more profitable to construct
than badly needed affordable housing that
would address the city’s rampant housing
shortages. Some have suggested a tax
on pieds-à-terre to deter potential buyers,
but the logic behind this is flawed, as
extra costs will only serve to make these
properties seem more elite, and therefore,
more desirable.
The Golden Loop represents a satirical
perspective on the extravagance and
wastefulness of these real estate
practices. As opposed to taxation or
regulation, the project will engage these
properties directly by providing access,
both visually and physically, to otherwise
forbidden domains. The goal of the
project is to re-incorporate the territories
lost to the insatiable appetite of the
super-elite back into the public sphere by
allowing universal access to the amenities
that they hoard. Through the act of
occupation instead of inhabitation, we are
left to contemplate how these two vastly
different worlds can exist simultaneously,
oblivious to each other’s existence.
To illustrate the problem with pied-àterres, golden volumes have been stacked
onto the most significant residences,
representing the percentage of each
building that consist of underutilized
homes. The volumes are, in fact, layered
striations spaced 10 feet (3 meters) apart
(a typical floor-to-ceiling height) to illustrate the magnitude of the phenomenon.
The project’s intervention, an elevated
promenade that circles Central Park
South and “Billionaire’s Row,” shows how,
through occupation instead of inhabitation, the city can gain back its lost
space. Through a series of catwalks and
elevators that branch off towards each
building, views previously reserved for
penthouses will be opened to the public,
liberating vistas from empty windows.
In a city short on space, The Golden Loop
makes use of pied-à-terres while owners
are absent, blurring the lines between
what is public and private, and providing
a setting to contemplate how the other
half lives.
20
Deep_Future Manhattan Sky_Lattice
Deep_Future Manhattan Sky_Lattice — Asymptote Architecture
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Visionaries have often dreamed of airborne
and elevated structures, of cities floating
above the earth, and of metaphysical
concepts as much as physical projections.
From Wenzel Hablik’s Colony in the Air and
Georgy Krutikov’s Flying City, to Constant’s
New Babylon, Buckminster Fuller’s Cloud
Nine, and Paolo Soleri’s Babel IID and
Hexahedron, the idea of ‘floating’ and
‘lofting’ infrastructure and city space has
persevered as an asymptotic trajectory for
architects and city planners seeking new
forms of urban inhabitation.
Throughout the 20th century, the
growth of dense urban centers such as
Manhattan have emerged out of opportunities provided by dense populations
set against the maximization of property
value. Consequently, urban forms have
been shaped by the extrusion of lot lines,
setbacks, and rights of way inscribed onto
a ground plane, as well as by the push
and pull between private and collective
rights to infringe upon, or protect the air
space that is above, and in between built
and projected structures. However, with
20
T—@ASYmptote_
Asymptote Architecture
the density of cities growing in an upward
trajectory, and congestion increasing
at the ground level that creates inefficiencies, reduces productivity, diminishes
opportunity, and decreases quality of
life, we are perhaps compelled to re-think
this twentieth century notion of ‘air rights’
and instead attempt a new understanding
of the potential for occupying urban
‘air space’.
Our cities are in many ways already
airborne, if one is to consider the digital
information networks of Wi-Fi signals,
satellite communications, and phone
networks that bind us together and tether
our structures within an invisible web.
Sky_Lattice is a new conceptual approach
to infrastructure, mobility, accessibility
and the public realm, and can perhaps
be found through an inversion of sorts
that is rendered feasible with the advent
of drones and intelligent vehicles. It is an
urban strategy that in the physical sense is
top-down as opposed to bottom-up, while
also economically and socially horizontal.
Might we envision a new type of ‘citygrid’
as an elevated and seemingly floating
architecture set far above Manhattan’s
existing ground plane? As a new
occupiable datum offering vast areas
of real estate for energy production,
all the while remaining immune to the
impending environmental calamities that
might threaten Manhattan down below?
Or as an elevated three-dimensional
matrix, a network of new public nodes
and distribution links that connect and
bridge between, within, and through the
upper reaches of the structures that we
inhabit? Might we conceive of a shared
ground comprised of lightweight and high
strength long-span structures, where
coordinated systems of intelligent drones,
autodrive vehicles, and a new generation
of robotic machines can access, service
and make possible new communities,
green space, and work and living spaces,
along with places of entertainment,
enlightenment, and repose?
21
The Sixth Burrow
The Sixth Burrow — Atelier Manferdini
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Team: Elena Manferdini, Shawn Rassekh, Evaline Huang, Ann Gutierrez,
Connor Gravelle, Meenakshi Dravid, Begum Baysun
New York City is the most populous city
in the United States, with a population
among the top 10 highest in the world. It
is composed of multiple layers of grids to
accommodate cars, subways, and slender
skyscrapers. Unfortunately, the city’s
current organization does not allow for
the addition of any new green spaces for
its inhabitants.
This proposal for Manhattan produces
a new view of nature in a city that has
grown accustomed to concrete, brick, and
mortar. The site, situated along the 42nd
Street corridor in Midtown, is a network
that connects New York’s neighborhoods
and boroughs. It is a 2-mile wide strip of
Manhattan that contains major infrastructures such as the Lincoln Tunnel, Queens
Tunnel, Grand Central Station, and the
21
I—@atelier_manferdini
Atelier Manferdini
Port Authority Bus Terminal. While these
networks connect Manhattan to other
areas such as New Jersey and Queens,
the presence of the United Nations also
connects New York to the world. It is
home to the famous Theatre District,
but also steps away from other cultural
landmarks such as Times Square, the
Chrysler Building, and Bryant Park.
Using Bryant Park as a point of departure,
The Sixth Burrow proposes an alternative
future for New York where public green
spaces could exist. Using the public
library as the anchor point, this project
envisions extending the current park west
to the edge of the island. In the process of
the park’s extension, this new excavated
park would require the removal of many
existing buildings. However, in order to
maintain the same volume of inhabitable
space, the removed architecture would be
built alongside the park directly underneath the existing buildings in Midtown.
The new park will provide 0.25 square
miles of public space, and 2.75 miles
of frontage overlooking it. While the
properties around the periphery of the
park gain a new view of nature, they not
only increase in value, but begin to shift
the paradigm of New York City urbanism.
22
UN_CRAMMING: Re-Visiting the Midtown Rezoning
UN_CRAMMING: Re-Visiting the Midtown Rezoning — Archi-Tectonics
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
According to a Quantierra study1 recently
featured in the New York Times, 40
percent of the buildings in Manhattan
could not be built as per the current
zoning today, because they’re too tall,
bulky, or dense.2 Between 32nd and 42nd
Street, the grid is at its most congested
state, and the bustling blocks are
crammed with old overbuilt building stock.
Where the west section around 34th street
is dense with amazing activities; Chelsea,
the new Hudson yards with the high line,
Penn Station, etc., the East side on the
other hand is almost forgotten.
To mark the hundredth anniversary
of the New York City’s zoning code,
we propose the next dimension of
zoning: a 4-dimensional framework that
un-crams Manhattan’s 2- and 3- dimensional congestion. By projecting the
grid’s coordinates into Hypercubes, we
developed a typology that falls between
the scale of a city block and building; a
city within a city. Located at the water
22
T—@winka
Archi-Tectonics
edge of the East river, the hypercubes
become a new terminal building, a
domestic haven on top of the new 2nd Ave
subway line, multiple ferry lines and the
LaGuardia water taxi.
This 4-dimensional framework will reactivate Manhattan’s forgotten East Side.
Flanked by a large suspended public park
and pool, sixty percent of the Hypercube
is public and shared program, while forty
percent is occupied with mixed-use space
and housing. This distribution allows the
10 FAR to be at once condensed and airy;
a new way of sharing and city dwelling.
1 Stephen Smith, and Sandip Trivedi. Quantierra
Real Estate.
2. Bui, Quoctrong, Matt A.V. Chaban, and Jeremy
White. “40 Percent of the Buildings in Manhattan
Could Not Be Built Today.” The New York Times.
N.p., 20 May 2016. Web. 21 June 2016.
23
Key Party: City as Home
Key Party: City as Home — nARCHITECTS
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
1.We now live dispersed: our houses no
longer defined by walls, but spread
across our blocks, our city.
2.Our block is our home; our city is our
house. Everything is everywhere; one
only needs a key. We have many such
keys, some more and some less—keys
to everything.
3.We need to move around much of
the time, like atoms converging and
separating; delineating a different home
every day.
4.Our blocks are porous, our city laced
with a myriad of shortcuts and public
commons.
5.We don’t need as much space, as
almost every space unused almost all of
the time.
6.For all the large and varied places we
meet in, we retreat to as many small
ones to find ourselves alone.
23
I—@narchitects_pllc
nARCHITECTS
Key Party: City as Home represents an
alternate, hypothetical Manhattan that
extrapolates on a universal culture of
sharing and its corollary—a retreat to small
spaces affording privacy and escape from
pervasive civic life. Acknowledging the
potential for both utopian and dystopian
consequences for a society based on
sharing, the title of the project, Key Party,
refers to extended (and inherently limited)
access to shared services and amenities
in a society with both increased opportunities and rising inequality.
City blocks are reimagined as overlapping,
dispersed homes, comprised of larger
shared buildings and slender mini-towers
that allow for solitude within the crowd. A
lower density, afforded by the efficiencies
of sharing, results in additional networks
of public space and greenery at the scales
of block and city. Rather than a manifesto
or proposal for urban renewal, Key Party:
City as Home functions as an extrapolation, exposing both the excitement and
peril of the sharing model of society.
24
Noah’s Ark
Noah’s Ark — SO – IL
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
The gig economy is irreversible, and
ruptures emerge with every form of
revolution. But as the direction of the wind
changes and the hardened earth loosens,
it is also time to whack the weeds, plant
the bulbs, and contemplate the potentials
for a new form in our gardens.
We are not the stubborn breed that
advocates the contrary for the sake of
it. Afterall, haven’t architects been all
too eager to be the style definer of the
mushrooming incubators and domestic
spaces newly made public via engines
like Airbnb and Instagram? However,
an important role we must also fulfill as
architects is to guard the civic fabric
and to imagine new ones—to foresee
the structural deficiencies and to mend
them. Through constant gardening and
sometimes radical interventions, we strive
toward a more civilized and equal society
in which it is not simply that “wasted
resources” are harnessed for economic
exploitation, but one in which the benefit
of a new order can invest in social and
24
I—@solidobjectives
SO – IL
cultural values that enrich the lives of the
many (ie. respite, leisure, and room for
personal pursuits?).
For this sharing model, we imagine
Manhattan’s great grid undone by the
endlessly shrinking atomic unit and the
chaotic energy embedded between
floating particles. The grid–which has
served to conquer the wilderness,
subjugate differences and “others,” and
ultimately fuel the three-dimensional
anarchy that has become a hallmark of
Manhattanism–can be rendered superfluous; blocks shattering into pieces
from within. Bits and pieces congest and
disperse without permanent ties to each
other, floating on a sheet of seductive
pink fluid. Smart vehicles are expected
to calculate and recalculate the fastest
route, constantly avoiding congestion but
never without the risk of being trapped.
Landmarks old and new–the usual
suspects and some unexpected–take on
the role of marking the nodes, voids, and
boundaries of this new landscape. Devoid
of the grid, their symbolic presence
becomes more agonistic and argumentative. What do we guard? What do we
destroy? Where do we transgress? Where
are our limits?
Our model is a set of questions more than
anything, but also a realism rendered
beautifully toxic.
25
A City for the Newer Age
Leong Leong
A City for the Newer Age — Leong Leong
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture
NEWFAR proposes an unthinkable shift
in the value of space, challenging citizens
to imagine how the latent potential of the
real estate market could be translated
into unforeseen social capital. In an
inconceivable twist in the history of New
York’s real estate market, unused slivers
of FAR (floor area ratio) are aggregated
and redistributed as NEWFAR, creating
a constellation of shared spaces in the
form of fantastical communal typologies
for collective urban life. The first nine
programs include a forum, apothecary,
sound bath, rehabilitation center, sleep
room, bathhouse, kitchen, spiritual cave,
and floating garden. While each typology
is designed for a simple activity such as
eating, healing, playing, or reflecting, their
shapes remain ambiguous and reveal the
latent potential of the market in the form
of an alternate neo-cosmopolitan reality.
NEWFAR explores architecture’s capacity
to connect the individual to the collective
through scaleless forms and their organization throughout the city.
25
I—@leong__leong
26
New Rock: Terra Era
Dror
New Rock: Terra Era — Dror
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Buildings swell without concern.
Resources are extruded, exhausted,
eradicated.
It is time to end our disruption of the
landscape.
It is time to rethink, reimagine, rebirth.
It is time for a new terrain.
It is time for a new era.
It is time for a movement.
It is time to answer our elemental calling.
It is time to return to nature.
A new nature. A super nature.
The boundary between earth and artifice
disappears.
Nature, science, technology and design
fuse.
A new symbiotic system is born.
An ever-changing organism that we care
for, as it does for us.
That shapes, shifts, soars to meet our
evolving needs.
Community is no longer he, she.
Community is all things alive.
26
I—@studiodror
27
NOZI OH
NOZI OH — Bureau V
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Canal Street, the Lower East Side, and
Five Points hold a two-century-old history
of hyper-density, cultural complexity, and
environmental health hazards that have
literally shaped lower Manhattan. The
primary of these was the squandering of
water resources through pollution in the
early nineteenth century, which forced the
infill and reclamation of the once picturesque Collect Pond and Canal Street’s
namesake waterway.
Taking its departure from local history
as well as global challenges, the project
considers possible shifts in New York City
as water hyperinflation begins, caused by
freshwater shortages from infrastructural
and environmental failures.
The shock of global dehydration
epidemics coupled with local water
disruptions creates a climate of fear in
the city. The relative stability of New
York City’s water system fuels a rapid
27
I—@bureauv
Bureau V
neo-urbanization, driving the city’s
population to double in a mere decade.
In this anxious climate, the city’s
collective water resources become
increasingly precarious.
water market forms around this network,
which tempers the water oligarchy and
stabilizes a growing middle class. This
strata collectively becomes known as the
“B-Horizon.”
A parasitic network of underground
cisterns begins to emerge, driven by a
black market water economy. This network
eventually overtakes the city’s formerly
paradigmatic, shared water system.
The economic forces that once drove
Manhattan’s architecture skyward
now drive it deep into the Earth. The
frequent power failures of the overburdened electrical system force a vertical
migration. High-rise residents flee the
frequent dry-outs. As the street level
becomes overburdened, the elite begin
to move further underground, making
its cavernous spaces (spectacles in
their vast structures and ornamental
construction) highly desirable. The value
of concealment in the literal and figural
underground becomes the driving
aesthetic of urban life.1
The most affluent begin to build large
cisterns beneath their buildings to
ensure their own water security. The
growth of this illegal construction quickly
capitalizes a few leaders in geotechnical
industries, displacing significant wealth
and creating a new water oligarchy. The
oligarchy constructs massive cisterns that
penetrate deep into the bedrock, some as
low as 1000 feet below the surface with
capacities to fuel a hundred city blocks for
months. These cisterns further destabilize
New York City’s water system and secure
the oligarchy as the primary supplier of
water to the general population. The
people and culture that surround this
water market becomes known as the
“R-Horizon,” named after the geological
description of the deep bedrock layer that
their cistern infrastructure occupies.
As costs rise, a network of smaller
ad-hoc cisterns also emerge, occupying
building cellars and other existing subterranean spaces. A direct, peer-to-peer
1 While much of the city’s residents move underground, other communities do arise, the most
notable of which are the “Stratos.” As high-rise
buildings become vacant, a population of mostly
lower income and queer residents begin to move
skyward. Living in relative isolation, the Stratos’
cooperative living settlements flourish, supported
through tight-knit, water sharing and collection
communities and a relatively stable food infrastructure, subsidized by cap-gardens.
28
Reserve Buoyancy
Reserve Buoyancy — Höweler + Yoon
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
CORPSE
The city is already an exquisite corpse, a
collective endeavor producing individual
parts at the scale of the parcel that may
or may not add up to a coherent urban
“body.” These 30 representations of the
city shift the format of the game from the
parcel to the precinct, from the writer to
the reader. Sharing Manhattan-isms, a
metropolitan exquisite corpse, hopes to
reveal something unfamiliar, marvelous,
and perhaps surprisingly prescient. This
endeavor of multiple authors working on
a shared “body” of the city occurs at a
moment where collectivity, sharing, and
the superabundance of information data
are redefining our relationships to the city
and to each other.
CODE
It has been 100 years since zoning first
shaped New York City in powerful yet
subtle ways; when the 1916 Zoning
Resolution introduced volumetric
controls to regulate building in bulk
and to preserve “light and air” for the
28
I—@howeleryoonarchitecture
Höweler + Yoon
common spaces of the street. New
York’s zoning instruments have evolved
to create new mechanisms that “shape”
the city through incentives and trade-offs.
The combination of constraints and
incentives (privately owned public
spaces and air rights) have produced a
unique urban morphology that manages
to strike a balance between degrees of
prescription and degrees of freedom.
SKYLINE
We acknowledge the difference between
height and density. Manhattan possesses
both. Each offer a combination of costs
and rewards. While height is measured
in one dimension, offering bragging rights,
visibility, and views, density is measured
as a relational quantity. The notion of
density—units relative to area—addresses
urban qualities of efficiency and economy,
as well as intensity and proximity,
without automatically translating into
height. The height of a building and its
profile contribute to the urban skyline in
particular ways that density does not.
POTENTIAL
Our interpretation of the city in the
Lower Manhattan area, encompassing
the World Trade Center site and the
Lower East Side, maps the potential “air
rights” above existing buildings and
extends their footprints to a new datum
line defined by the Freedom Tower. The
difference between the actual height,
the potential height achievable through
unrealized floor area ratio (FAR), and a
new datum, are modeled as columns of
pure potential.
AIR
In New York real estate, the parcel has
historically been the primary commodity.
At a certain point of urban density, light
and air become assets and commodities.
The 1916 Zoning Resolution acknowledged the collective value of light and
air, and the 1961 revisions to the Zoning
Resolution introduced Transferable
Development Rights, or Air Rights,
making explicit the value of the “unbuilt.”
Mapping the air above Lower Manhattan
and materializing it in the physical model
serves to highlight the columns of air as
commodities but also as resources. The
uniform datum neutralizes the skyline
function of pure height and returns the
primary urban metrics to density.
Buoyancy is the quality of relative
lightness, or the upward pressure exerted
by a fluid in which a body is immersed.
Reserve buoyancy, in nautical design,
refers to chamber of air intended to
remain above an anticipated flood line,
with enough buoyancy to ensure a vessel
remains afloat in the event of flooding.
Reserve Buoyancy recognizes the
reserve potential of Air Rights in Lower
Manhattan as a resource, but also as an
emergency flotation device for the metropolitan ship as it confronts the precarious
seas of contemporary Manhattan real
estate and the extreme climatic events of
our present moment. 29
Super-urbia
Super-urbia — Urban Agency
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
A recent study showed that New York’s
population spends up to 65% of gross
salary on housing. A city which once had
reasonable land values has become a
center for global investment, where the
average individual is priced out by an
institutional investor looking for capital
protection. Manhattan has one of the
highest land values in the world, which
drives up rental and property price levels
to unsustainable levels. This increase
has led to native Manhattanites fleeing to
the boroughs. What is interesting to us
is the evolution of Manhattan as a series
of concentric rings growing into the bay.
This will continue with the Big U expansion
and resilience plan, which will create a
much needed social and green edge to
Manhattan.
We propose a project that links Manhattan
to the boroughs more effectively, through
a series of habitable bridges. The water,
owned by the City of New York, could be
considered a land value of 0, a gift from
the City to its people. The resultant built
29
I— @urbanagencyarchitects
Urban Agency
housing could have much lower rent,
and would only be accessible to those
who need it most. Our project site, in
Manhattan’s financial center, has some
of the highest land values and costs in
the world. Our proposal allows average
workers on normal salaries, from young
interns to a hotdog vendor, to live near
their places of work; a benefit available
in most cities that has become lost in
New York. Rather than long commutes,
we propose an affordable belt of bridges
that would bring people closer to what
was traditionally the New York living
experience: the ability to live within
walking or cycling distance from one’s
office. The bridges would then become
collective centers for recreation, play,
residence, and work, depending on the
tangential need in Manhattan. The rent
in such buildings (including profit for
developers, calculated with an assumed
payback of 20 years and rate of 15%)
would mean a rent of $1,550 dollars for an
85 square meter apartment.
This is a real possibility. Other cities (for
example, Copenhagen) have stepped in to
rethink how they can make housing more
affordable for the average citizen. What
looks like a Metabolist vision plan could
turn into a reality. The question is this: is
New York brave enough to do it?
30
InvisibHole
InvisibHole — Renato Rizzi/IUAV
Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, 2016. Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Team: Susanna Pisciella, Francesco Rigon, Stefano Gobetti, Marco Renzi,
Margherita Simonetti, Marco Costa, Fabio Gardin
1
To reflect on the word “common” results
in a twofold critical knowledge: one of the
paradigms of our contemporary culture
(microhistory), and one of the paradigms
of Western culture (macrohistory). In other
words, we cannot ignore the twofold
epistemic structure of “form.” There is the
plane of presence, the visible world, and
there is the plane of absence, the cosmos
of invisible forces; the “images.” Form is
always visible; it belongs to the ambit of
particulars and distincts. Image is always
invisible; it belongs to the universal ambit
of the indistinct. The indistinct shapes
the distinct. Therefore, the structure of
form is founded on a non-dissoluble
tie: the detail (that which is not common)
is always tied to something universal
(that which is common).
30
Renato Rizzi/IUAV
However, the paradigm of contemporary
culture breaks this tie (makes us think
that it breaks it): form becomes the
mere envelope/wrapper of a presence
dominated by individual arbitrariness.
For this reason, and for quite some time
now, form is no longer the common place
where the individual makes an effort to
encounter the universal (the invisible
iconological forces), but instead has
become the place where the violence of
architectural languages is the expression
of arbitrary insignificance.
The technical and scientific knowledge
upon which the contemporary paradigm
is founded “believes”—and this is the
violence imposed upon Architecture—
that it has broken the (in any case indissoluble) tie between the particular and
the universal, between the dominable and
the indomitable. Believing to have broken
the tie is the presumption that forms the
base of the violence of contemporary
architectural language.
Architecture is the absolute relation
between the indomitable (archai) and the
dominable (tèchnai), just as individuality
is the absolute relation between interiority
(indomitable) and exteriority (dominable).
Thinking to ignore the pair of opposites
(indomitable–dominable) fuels the worst
faith of the West.
2
The project, situated at the southern tip
of Manhattan, reflects upon the cultural
crisis of our times through two parameters: the geohistory of the place, and the
epistemic relation between interiority
and indomitability and between absence
and invisibility.
The geology of the bottom of the Hudson
River reveals a history that anticipates
the future. The strategic point of entrance
in 1800 was controlled by four forts that
corresponded to four islands: Castle
Williams on Governor’s Island, Fort Wood
on Liberty Island, Fort Gibson on Ellis
Island, and Southwest Battery Island
(then a rocky islet 300 yards from the
Manhattan coastline). Those places later
became obligatory points of passage for
millions of immigrants coming to the New
World. Now, Castle Clinton houses the
ticket office for the Statue of Liberty.
The Statue of Liberty now represents an
absent value that, in any case, belongs
to thought. That’s why the project is sunk
into the waters of the Hudson, forming a
circular cavity that sucks up the absence
of a past that migrates from history to
metaphysics. Its hollow shape alludes to
the invisible forces that transited there
before, through visible bodies. Presence
drops into the void, attracted by the
power of the spirit – our spirit and that
of all things. It is architecture dedicated
to the edification of “singularity,” of
the community.
3
The title InvisibHole derives from the
number 01 (assigned by the organizers),
but it translates the binary language of the
digital world into the analogical language
of the formal world. It not only indicates
the hole in the water in a direct way, but
also has phonetic similarity to the phrase
“All One.” It is a metaphor where “everyone”
and “one” refers at the same time to
individual singularity and to the singularity
of a community.
PARTICIPANT BIOGRAPHIES
01 — Future Firm
Future Firm is a Chicago-based architecture
office founded by Craig Reschke and Ann
Lui. Future Firm works at the intersections
between landscape territories and
architectural spectacle. Recent research
explores the relationship between finance,
economy, and the built environment.
Craig Reschke is an architect interested
in landscape practices. He is a registered
architect in the state of Illinois. He
graduated from Harvard’s Graduate School
of Design, where his research focused on
rural American landscapes. At Harvard,
he received the Jacob Weidenmann Prize.
He also holds B.Arch from University of
Tennessee. Previously, Craig was a project
architect at SOM and RODE Architects,
where he led the design of buildings at
many scales.
Ann Lui is an Assistant Professor at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She
holds an SMArchS from MIT in History,
Theory & Criticism and a B.Arch from Cornell
University, where she was awarded the
Charles Goodwin Sands Medal and the
Clifton Beckwith Brown Memorial Medal.
Previously, she practiced at SOM, Ann
Beha Architects, and Morphosis. Ann was
Assistant Editor of OfficeUS Atlas (2015) and
co-editor of Thresholds, “Scandalous” (2015).
02 — The Open Workshop
The Open Workshop is a multidisciplinary
design office focused on critically
re-examining the concept of an open
work, first posited by Umberto Eco in
1962. The Open Workshop operates as a
design-research practice on a variety of
scales, from the urban to the domestic.
Based in Toronto and San Francisco, the
office has garnered recognition through
international competitions, exhibitions, and
publications that focus on how designresearch can renegotiate the relationship
between architecture and its environment.
The firm’s approach relies on transcalar
design techniques that find opportunities
to holistically integrate environmental,
political, economic, and social factors.
The Open Workshop was founded by
architect and urban designer Neeraj Bhatia
in 2013. In 2016, the office was awarded
The Architectural League Prize for Young
Architects and Designers.
03 — June-14 Meyer-Grohbrügge &
Chermayeff
June-14 Meyer-Grohbrügge & Chermayeff
is a collaborative practice; Johanna MeyerGrohbrügge from Germany and Sam
Chermayeff from New York. The two met
at SANAA in Tokyo, where they worked
together from 2005 to 2010. June-14 is their
new venture that began with a desire to
make things, places, and atmospheres for
people. Their office and work aims to have
people relate to architecture, for architecture
to relate to people, and for people to relate
to themselves. June-14 searches for an
understanding of different ways of living
and working in the contemporary world,
stemming from a belief that architecture
can make things happen and that things
can happen to architecture. The office is
an exchange with its users, and is open to
new ideas.
On a practical level, the principals have
experience with a wide range of projects
from small gardens and bespoke furniture to
office towers. Based in Berlin and New York,
the office’s intention is to expand that range
while maintaining a dynamic understanding
of the human scale.
04 — Matilde Cassani | Caterina Spadonia
Matilde Cassani moves on the border
between architecture, installation, and event
design. Her research-based practice reflects
the spatial implications of cultural pluralism
in the contemporary Western context.
Her works have been showcased in many
cultural institutions and galleries, and has
been published in several magazines such
as Architectural Review, Domus, Abitare,
Arqa, Arkitecktur, and MONU Magazine
on Urbanism.
She has been a resident fellow at “Akademie
Schloss Solitude” in Stuttgart and at the
“Headlands Center for the Arts” in San
Francisco. In 2011, Storefront for Art and
Architecture hosted an exhibition of her work
called “Sacred Spaces in Profane Buildings.
She also designed the National Pavilion of
the Kingdom of Bahrain at the XIII Venice
Architecture Biennale in 2012, and she took
part of the XIV Venice Architecture Biennale
(Monditalia) with the piece “Countryside
Worship,” recently acquired by the Victoria
and Albert Museum in London.
She has taken part in many international
conferences and lectured at various
international universities such as Columbia
University in New York and E​cole Speciale
d’Architecture in Paris. She currently
teaches at Politecnico di Milano and at
Domus Academy.
Collaborator: Caterina Spadonia
05 — Pedro&Juana
Pedro&Juana, founded by Ana Paula Ruiz
Galindo and Mecky Reuss, is a studio
from Mexico City that works on a variety of
projects across creative professions. Dear
Randolph, the studio’s project for the 2015
Chicago Architecture Biennial, consisted
of a domestic space within a public interior
square composed of moving lamps,
rockers, and tables of different heights
along with a wallpaper, presenting objects
in a continuous relationship with the public.
Other projects include Sesiones Puerquito
(Little Pig Sessions) in 2012, which used the
process of cooking a suckling as a pretext
for better conversation; Archivo Pavilion
(2012), an intervention in the gardens of
Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura DF/Mexico;
Hellmut (2013), a table turned bench turned
table for Gallery 1 of Museo Jumex DF/
Mexico; Casa Reyes (2011–2012), an annex
in an ex-colonial house in Merida/Yucatan;
and Cocina DS (2013), a kitchenette
entrance for Dorothea Schlueter Galerie
in Hamburg/Germany.
06 — MAIO
MAIO is an architectural office based in
Barcelona that works on flexible systems.
The practice has developed a wide range
of projects, from furniture and exhibition
design to housing blocks and urban
planning. MAIO recently completed the
construction of a urban public square and
an exhibition at the MACBA (Barcelona
Museum of Contemporary Art), and
is currently building a housing block in
Barcelona, among other projects.
MAIO’s members combine professional
activities with academic, research, and
editorial ones. They serve as head of
the magazine Quaderns d’Arquitectura
i Urbanisme and teach at the School of
Architecture of Barcelona ETSAB/ETSAV.
Members of MAIO have lectured at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Columbia
University GSAPP, Yale School of
Architecture, Piet Zwart Institute, Het Nieuwe
Institut, Madrid School of Architecture
ETSAM-UPM, Washington University,
Facultade de Arquitectura de Lisboa, and
Brussels School of Architecture UCL-LOCI,
among other places. MAIO’s work has been
published in magazines such as Domus,
Frame, AIT, Volume, Blueprint, A10 and
Detail, and has received several awards.
MAIO exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion at
the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, and
was awarded with the Golden Lion. MAIO
also participated in the 2015 Chicago
Architecture Biennial and co-curated
a “Weekend Special” at the 2014 Venice
Architecture Biennale together with SPACE
CAVIAR and DPR-Barcelona. Recently, Anna
Puigjaner, co-founder of MAIO, was granted
the 2016 Wheelwright Prize from Harvard
Graduate School of Design.
07 — LEVENBETTS
LEVENBETTS is an award-winning New
York City based architecture practice. The
office was founded by David Leven and
Stella Betts in 1997, and it focuses on
design at all scales, including urban design,
public architecture, houses and housing,
commercial workspaces, exhibitions, and
furniture. Central to the firm’s work is an
architecture that engages its urban and/or
natural environment.
LEVENBETTS’ work has been recognized
nationally and internationally through
awards, exhibitions, and publications.
The office has won seven New York City
AIA awards, most notably for its urban
design and housing proposal entitled “PhX
caseXcase: Cactus Flower Housing,” and
for a parking garage project called Chicago
Filter Parking, which is part of a larger
ongoing study that applies new sustainable
transportation solutions and green planting
systems to aging infrastructures. Currently,
the office is working on three libraries, a
renovation for Cornell University Rhodes
Hall, three houses in upstate New York, and
a 300,000 square foot commercial building
in Harlem through the New York City
Economic Development Corporation.
The work of LEVENBETTS has been
published in various design magazines and
books. In 2009, Princeton Architectural
Press published a monograph on the firm’s
work. LEVENBETTS is currently working on
its second monograph.
08 — Tatiana Bilbao Estudio
+ Rodolfo Díaz Cervantes
The multicultural and multidisciplinary
office of Tatiana Bilbao analyzes urban and
social crises, as well as the rigid codes
of communication and telematics. Through
these strands, her office regenerates
spaces to “humanize” them by making
them aware and reactive to global
capitalism, opening up niches for cultural
and economic development.
Projects in Mexico include the Botanical
Garden Culiacan; Funeral House, San Luis
Potosi; Universe House (designed with
Gabriel Orozco), Puerto Escondido; Parque
Biotecnologico, Culiacan; Centro de Artes
Escenicas, Guadalajara; and Ventura House
in Monterrey. The firm also designed the
Jinhua Architecture Park in Jinhua, China.
Rodolfo Díaz
Architecture, graphics, mechanics, coding,
literature, and paintings influence Díaz’s
work. The semiotics of materials and objects
is an important part of his artistic search. He
understands collaboration as an essential
part of daily work for ideas to grow, cool off,
and lose control.
Since 2015, Díaz has run Taller Tornel,
producing art and architecture installations.
His work has been exhibited in many
institutions, galleries, and private venues
and projects.
`
09 — FOAM
FOAM is a project management and crowdequity funding platform for the architecture
industries, secured by blockchain
technology. Architects are creatively and
entrepreneurially constricted by their
reliance on clients for work. Additionally,
architects do not retain a financial stake
in the spaces they design. FOAM enables
architects to connect and collaborate with
each other, manage teams, initiate projects,
and access capital funding from crowd
investors. FOAM allows the end user of
space to become a financial stakeholder,
increasing public accessibility to
architecture. FOAM envisions an ecosystem
of empowered architects, public investors
and new spatial markets of value exchange
in the city.
Ryan John King,
Architect, co-founder of FOAM
Ekaterina Zavyalova,
Architect, co-founder of FOAM
Jonas Wendelin Kesseler,
Artist, co-founder of NAVEL
10 — Manuel Herz Architects
Manuel Herz is an architect based in Basel,
Switzerland. His recent projects include
the prize-winning Synagogue and Jewish
Community Center in Mainz, Germany and
housing projects in Germany, Switzerland,
and France. He has taught at the ETH Zürich
and at Harvard University’s Graduate School
of Design. He is currently a professor of
urban and territorial studies at the University
of Basel. Manuel’s research focuses on the
relationship between migration, architecture,
and nation-building, and the spaces of
refugee camps. He has exhibited widely,
including at the 2016 Venice Architecture
Biennale, where he designed and curated
the National Pavilion of the Western Sahara.
This was the first time a nation-in-exile was
represented at the Venice Biennale. His
books include Nairobi: Migration Shaping
the City, From Camp to City: Refugee
Camps of the Western Sahara, and African
Modernism – Architecture of Independence.
11 — TEN Arquitectos
Founded by Enrique Norten in 1986, TEN
Arquitectos has earned a global reputation
for bold Modernist works that push
simple geometries to surprising extremes,
demonstrating a mastery of scale and
composition. With 91 employees working in
offices in Mexico City and New York, TEN
Arquitectos has realized more than 60 built
works—including museums, libraries, public
parks, residences, hotels, and university
buildings—in multiple cities worldwide.
TEN Arquitectos approaches each project
through a rigorous process of analysis
and three primary lines of investigation:
architecture as public space; architecture
as infrastructure and public platform; and
architecture as contextual landscape; which
establish existing and proposed connections
of site, program and community. These
layers of investigation inform the firm’s
projects, both built and conceptual, and
address the opportunities and power of
architecture outside of its physical presence.
The resultant ideas lead to performative
buildings that impact their context on
multiple scales. Guided by the belief
that architecture is a public amenity and
responsibility, TEN Arquitectos aims to
enhance the local communities of which their
projects are a part.
12 — Huff + Gooden Architects
Huff + Gooden Architects is a collaborative
architecture practice dedicated to the design
and exploration of architecture and its
relationships to culture and knowledge.
The firm was formed in 1997 by Ray Huff and
Mario Gooden. In 2001, Huff and Gooden
were recognized by The Architectural
League of New York with the distinguished
honor of “Emerging Voices.” Huff + Gooden
Architects was simultaneously recognized
by Architectural Record magazine as one
of six leading firms practicing exceptional
architecture outside the “Centers of Fashion.”
Recently, the firm was selected to design
the $67 million renovation and expansion
to the California African American Museum.
Huff + Gooden Architects is currently
designing a 50,000 square meter urban
redevelopment project in downtown
Johannesburg, South Africa.
Additionally, Mario Gooden is Associate
Professor of Practice at Columbia University
GSAPP and co-director of its Global Africa
Lab. Gooden’s research and writings
frequently examine architecture and the
translation of cultural landscapes defined
by the parameters of technology, race,
class, gender, and sexuality. Gooden is
author of Dark Space (Columbia University
Press, 2016) a collection of five essay that
move between history, theory, and criticism
to explore a discourse of critical spatial
practice engaged in the constant reshaping
of the African Diaspora.
13 — Büro Koray Duman
Büro Koray Duman is an idea-driven
international practice that brings together
an analytical and playful approach to a
broad range of projects. A thoughtful and
creative catalyst, Büro aims to explore the
unexpected. We believe Architecture should
be functional and unexpected, engaged and
poetic, experimental and affordable.
Led by Koray Duman, Büro works on
projects of varying scales, from a studio
renovation and new gallery building for artist
Richard Prince, to nation-wide flagship
stores for Design Within Reach, art galleries,
non-profit spaces and a prototype for a new
cultural center in New York City. Büro has
been internationally-honored with design
awards and exhibitions and the studio’s
projects have been widely published in The
New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Interior
Design, New York Post, Architectural Record,
New York Magazine and Dwell.
Koray Duman, AIA, LEED is originally from
Turkey, where he earned a BArch from
Middle Eastern Technical University. Duman
furthered his studies at UCLA Graduate
School of Architecture and Urban Design
with a master’s degree in Architecture.
In 2009, he established Sayigh Duman
Architects. In 2013, the firm transitioned into
its current form, Büro Koray Duman. He is
an adjunct professor at Parsons School of
Design and a licensed architect in New York
and Turkey.
14 — SCHAUM/SHIEH
SCHAUM/SHIEH is a small architectural
collaboration operating between Houston,
TX and New York City. Rosalyne Shieh and
Troy Schaum established SCHAUM/SHIEH
around overlapping interests in art, form,
and the city, and have developed a dialogue
through projects ranging from buildings and
installations to speculative projects and
unsolicited urban plans. The practice has
a particular interest in the city at the scale
of the building, both as a site of theoretical
experimentation and as a reality that may be
transformed through building.
15 — T+E+A+M
T+E+A+M is a collaboration between
Thom Moran + Ellie Abrons + Adam Fure
+ Meredith Miller. Collectively, our work
centers on architecture’s physicality as
an agent of cultural, environmental, and
urban production. Most recently, T+E+A+M
exhibited The Detroit Reassembly Plant
in “The Architectural Imagination,” the U.S.
Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale.
16 — MODU
MODU is an interdisciplinary architecture
practice specializing in smart design that
connects people to their environments.
Based in New York City, MODU has
completed projects in New York, Miami,
Beijing, Tel Aviv, and Sydney. Co-directed
by Phu Hoang and Rachely Rotem, the
practice’s client list represents a diverse
group of organizations and individuals,
including the Design Museum Holon,
Creative Time, Art Basel Miami Beach,
Duggal Visual Solutions, and numerous
private clients. MODU has won design
awards and competitions sponsored by
the American Academy in Rome, American
Institute of Architects, Architectural League
of New York, and the Beijing Architecture
Biennial. Phu Hoang and Rachely Rotem
recently won the Rome Prize, an award
that “represents the leading edge of
contemporary American scholarship and
creativity.” MODU also conducts research
that investigates architecture and weather,
which has received grant funding from the
Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the
New York State Council on the Arts. The
practice’s interdisciplinary, multi-scalar
approach has led to projects that bridge
several disciplines of the built environment,
from architecture to urbanism to interiors.
17 — ODA
We design “As of Right” buildings. As such,
we are not looking to create monuments, but
to redirect the perspective of dwelling, and
over time influence the city. Our immediate
context has a powerful impact on our wellbeing, and we have the ability to shape that
context. We design our city while our city
designs us back. As Steven Johnson said,
“our thoughts shape the spaces that we
inhabit and our spaces return the favor.”
The power of the NYC architect is
continuously relegated to the surface of
things, as our profession is dominated
by numerous rules and regulations.
Consequently, architecture becomes less
about the fundamental qualities of living and
more about the iconic expression. At ODA,
we always strive to rearrange these priorities
and put people first. We seek to crack the
surface and explode the content, allowing
more interaction and surprises. We work
within the system to exploit the system. We
employ its nuisances to create value that can
be replicated and reinterpreted. We believe
in the synergy between architect and client
and the inclusion of as many parameters as
possible. Our studio is a horizontal plane; we
all share the same space and all opinions are
heard. Design begins from the inside out: we
create form from the relationships between
people and their activities.
18 — SITU Studio
SITU Studio is an architectural design
firm that develops innovative, high
performing, materially rich, and enduring
spaces. Working across three branches-Research, Design and Fabrication--the firm
fully integrates material research, testing,
prototyping, and fabrication into the design
process. This approach extends from our
studio in DUMBO to our 10,000 square foot
space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and allows
the act of making to become a generative
part of how SITU designs.
Our architectural solutions are driven by a
rigorous analysis of the user’s needs, values
and aspirations, rather than any stylistic or
formal agenda. To this end, we create spaces
that encourage user appropriation, as well as
energize individual and collective creativity.
From highly flexible and engaging public
spaces at the Brooklyn Museum to ground-
breaking makerspaces at the New York Hall
of Science to a re-envisioning of NYC’s
public libraries for the 21st century, SITU
values innovative and boundary-blurring
projects. Through collaborations with a
wide-range of practitioners in other fields,
interdisciplinary projects have led us to
unanticipated but exciting applications of
architectural tools and methodologies that
have extended our work far beyond the
scope of traditional practice.
19 — RICA* | Iñaqui Carnicero +
Lorena Del Río
RICA* is a young architectural office and a
platform for design investigation operating
across many scales and searching for the
potential of creativity regardless of the size
or budget of the project. Based in Madrid
and San Francisco, RICA* represents a
new phase for Iñaqui Carnicero and Lorena
del Río, who together have extensive and
diverse building experience.
Iñaqui Carnicero (Madrid, 1973) is an awarded
architect with a PhD from Polytechnic
University of Madrid. Carnicero has lectured
at prestigious institutions such as Cornell,
Harvard GSD, Rice, Berkeley, NJIT, Carleton,
Roma Tre, La Sapienza, Calgary, Cervantes
Institute in Prague, London Roca Gallery,
Barcelona La Salle, Madrid ETSAM, Sevilla,
and Navarra University. He is the director of
“Symmetries,” an architecture platform that
relates Roman and contemporary strategies
in the city.
Lorena del Río (Madrid, 1981) is an architect
educated at Polytechnic University
of Madrid, ETSAM, where she received
her degree in 2008, and where is she
also developing her PhD. Lorena has
participated in reviews and lectures at
several universities, including MIT, Cooper
Union, the University of Buffalo, New York
City College, the University of Houston,
NYIT, and the University of Puerto Rico.
She also lectured at the fouth edition of
Campus Ultzama, organized in the summer
of 2015.
Project Lead: Song (Steven) Ren is a
Bachelor of Architecture student entering
his third year at Cornell University. He has
a keen eye for detail and broad expertise
in areas such as virtual reality design and
computer hardware. He previously worked
with RICA* on the Spanish Pavilion at the
Venice Biennale.
20 — Asymptote Architecture
Founded in 1989 by Hani Rashid and Lise
Anne Couture, Asymptote Architecture is a
leading international architecture practice
based in New York that has distinguished
itself globally with intelligent, innovative, and
visionary projects that range from building
designs to master planning projects; from art
installations to virtual reality environments;
as well as interior and industrial design.
Asymptote’s approach to utilizing digital
tools and technologies, contemporary
theory, innovative building practices, and
advancements in engineering solutions and
environmental sustainability have afforded the
practice a broad and powerful perspective
on all aspects related to architectural building
design and city planning.
Completed projects include the Yas
Viceroy Hotel in Abu Dhabi (2010); ARC
Multimedia Theater in Daegu South Korea
(2013); the HydraPier Cultural Pavilion
in the Netherlands (2004); 166 Perry
Condominiums (2008), Alessi HQ (20042012), and the Carlos Miele Flagship store
(2006) in New York City (2006); and the
Univers Theaters in Aarhus Denmark (1998).
Other key unbuilt projects include; an award
winning design for a luxury condominium
tower, the StrataTower, in Abu Dhabi,
an Eco-Cultural Master Plan for Baku,
Azerbaijan, commercial office towers in
Budapest, Hungary, and the World Business
Center Solomon Tower in Busan, South
Korea.
21 — Atelier Manferdini
Elena Manferdini, principal and owner of
Atelier Manferdini, has over fifteen years of
professional experience in architecture, art,
design, and education. She is a licensed
engineer in Italy, and a licensed architect in
Switzerland. She received a Professional
Engineering Degree from the University
of Civil Engineering (Bologna, Italy) and a
Master of Architecture and Urban Design
from the University of California in Los
Angeles (UCLA).
Elena currently teaches at the Southern
California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
and is the Graduate Programs Chair. In
2014 she held the Howard Friedman Visiting
Professor of Practice at the University of
California Berkeley (UCB). She has also
held Visiting Professor positions at Cornell
University, University of Pennsylvania, and
Seika University.
Elena Manferdini was recently awarded the
2013 COLA Fellowship given by City of Los
Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs to
support the production of original artwork.
In 2013, she received a Graham Award for
architecture, as well as the 2013 ACADIA
Innovative Research Award of Excellence,
and she was selected as recipient for the
Educator of the Year presidential award given
by the AIA Los Angeles. In 2011, she was one
of the recipients of the prestigious annual
grants from the United States Artists (USA) in
the category of architecture and design.
Team: Elena Manferdini, Shawn Rassekh,
Evaline Huang, Ann Gutierrez, Connor
Gravelle, Meenakshi Dravid, Begum Baysun
22 — Archi-Tectonics
Archi-Tectonics is a research-based
design practice with an expertise in LEED
design that works on multiple scales,
spanning from cities, to buildings, to
object design. We aim to achieve design
efficiencies that express themselves in
optimized modulations resulting in original
shapes and innovative structures. Built
residential work includes the Greenwich
building in Soho, the Chelsea townhouse,
the Brewster Building, the residential
V33 building all in Manhattan, The Dub
residence in Germany and the 15-story
American Loft tower in Philadelphia. We
recently completed several commercial
projects, including the interior for the
Netherlands Architecture Institute [NAI]
in Rotterdam, the Tashan restaurant in
Philadelphia, and several flagship stores
for Ports1961 in Paris, London and
Shanghai. Archi-Tectonics has been chosen
to be the Lead Architects on many projects
internationally, including a bottom-up
Masterplan for Downtown Bogota; the,the
large scale Yulin Master plan in China;
and the Waterfront Masterplan in New
Rochelle, NY.
23 — nARCHITECTS
nARCHITECTS was founded by Principals
Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang with a goal of
addressing contemporary issues through
innovative concepts, social engagement,
and technical experimentation. The letter “n”
represents a variable, indicating the firm’s
interest in designing for a dynamic variety
of experiences within a systemic approach.
The firm’s work instigates relationships
between architecture and public space, and
their dynamically changing contexts.
nARCHITECTS provokes social interactions
that in turn question basic building types
and systems, responding to evolving criteria
or phenomena such as weather (as in their
bamboo Canopy for MoMA PS1, 2004); light
and views (Switch Building, 2007); rising sea
levels (New Aqueous City, Rising Currents,
MoMA, (2010); shifting demographics
(Carmel Place, 2016); and landscape
(Chicago Navy Pier, 2016). While engaging
with complexity and flux, nARCHITECTS
aims to create architecture with an economy
of conceptual and material means.
nARCHITECTS was recently honored with
an American Academy of Arts and Letters
award in Architecture and with the AIANY’s
Andrew J. Thomson Award for Pioneering
in Housing. Previous recognition includes
The Architectural League’s Emerging Voices
award, several AIANY Design Honor and
Merit Awards, the Canadian Professional
Rome Prize, Architectural Record’s Design
Vanguard, and two NYFA grants.
Principals Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang
are Adjunct Assistant Professors at
Columbia University.
24 — SO – IL
SO–IL is an award winning architectural
design firm that envisions spaces for
culture, learning, and innovation. From their
offices in New York, SO–IL partakes in the
production of buildings, interiors, furniture,
and landscapes around the world. As a
collective of diverse thinkers and makers,
the office engages with the ever changing
social, economic, and natural environment
through active dialogue that considers
context, function, and opportunity. SO–IL
believes that physical structures have
the power to offer a sense of wonder
and place. They serve as platforms of
exchange, and create generous, sensorial,
and visceral experiences.
25 — Leong Leong
Leong Leong was established in New York
in 2009. The studio’s interests are not
defined by a particular project type, but by
the potential to create environments and
artifacts with cultural resonance. Over the
past several years, the studio has been
increasingly focused on projects that inhabit
the blurry boundary between culture and
commerce, public and private, figure and
field, domestic and monumental, diagram
and effect. The studio has completed
projects in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo,
Hong Kong, Seoul, Venice, and Napa
Valley. Leong Leong’s work includes a wide
range of project types, including buildings,
interiors, exhibitions, and furniture. In 2011,
Architectural Record magazine featured
Leong Leong as one of seven emerging
architecture firms from around the world in
their annual “Design Vanguard” issue. Leong
Leong was a finalist for the MoMA PS1
Young Architects Program, and was awarded
a grant by the New York Council of the Arts.
In 2010, the American Institute of Architects
selected Leong Leong for its “New Practices”
award. The firm’s work has been featured
in The New York Times, Wallpaper, Surface,
Monocle, Dwell, CNN, Interior Design, Detail,
A+U, Architect, Architectural Record, Pin-Up
and other international press outlets.
26 — Dror
Dror is a holistic design practice.
We are driven by ideas.
We imagine without limits.
We experiment without fear.
We create objects, installations, architecture.
We create poetry in structure.
27 — Bureau V
Bureau V designs architecture and
experimental projects ranging from cultural
and commercial buildings to performances,
installations, objects, and events. “Easily
one of the most exciting and eclectic young
design firms working in New York,” Bureau
V was founded in 2007 and is led by three
partners, Stella Lee, Laura Trevino, and
Peter Zuspan.
National Sawdust, Bureau V’s first completed
building, opened in 2015. The New York
Times described National Sawdust as “the
city’s most vital new-music hall.” It won the
AR Culture Commended Award, was included
in Architectural Record’s Top Ten Arts
Centers of 2015, and has been nominated for
the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize.
Bureau V’s clients and collaborators
have included cultural institutions such
as National Sawdust and the Montello
Foundation, as well as artists and designers
such as Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Early
Morning Opera, Arto Lindsay, and Mary Ping.
Bureau V projects have received support
from Saatchi & Saatchi, the Art Production
Fund, West of Rome Public Art, and the
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Bureau V
projects have been exhibited or performed
at the Guggenheim Museum, the Venice
Biennale of Art, Inhotim, the Sophiensaele,
the Performa Biennial, MoMA PS1, and Los
Angeles’s REDCAT Theater.
28 — Höweler + Yoon
Höweler + Yoon is an internationally
recognized architecture and design studio,
founded by principals Eric Höweler and
Meejin Yoon. Originally known as MY Studio,
our multidisciplinary practice operates in
the space between architecture, art, and
landscape. We believe in an embodied
experience of architecture, seeing media
as material and their effects as palpable
elements of architectural speculation.
While our work lies at the intersection of
the conceptual and the corporeal, we are
committed to both the practice-of and
prospects-for architecture. Engaged in
projects of all scales, we are interested in
the material realities and material effects of
our work. From concept to construct, we are
determined to realize built ideas and to test
projects through the dynamic interaction
between the construct and the larger public.
29 — Urban Agency
URBAN AGENCY is an award-winning
architecture firm with a broad international
profile. The office is based in Copenhagen,
Dublin, and Lyon, with projects ongoing
throughout Europe, Asia, and North Africa.
It is led by four partners: Maxime Laroussi,
Andrew Griffin, Henning Stüben, and
Heechan Park.
URBAN AGENCY takes pride in devising
innovative solutions that address
contemporary challenges in cities and the
built environment. In designing pragmatic,
sensitive, and innovative solutions, we create
new possibilities for a better everyday life.
We design flexible, dynamic, and powerful
projects that can absorb complexity and
change while simultaneously maintaining
and building upon existing qualities.
he has lectured at Harvard and in Cairo,
La Plata, and Auckland.
URBAN AGENCY’s value add is through
design for the betterment of society, as well
as for the individual client. We have a proven
track record of adding monetary value to
new and existing buildings. Through careful
analysis, programming, and massing, we
design innovative mixed-uses, providing
additional square meters for end users and
stakeholders. URBAN AGENCY believes
in creating spaces where individuals can
interact; aesthetically inviting spaces of
social encounter. We develop comfortable
and ecologically responsible solutions that
create new value and identity, and that are
economically profitable.
Team: Susanna Pisciella, Francesco Rigon,
Stefano Gobetti, Marco Renzi, Margherita
Simonetti, Marco Costa, Fabio Gardin
30 — Renato Rizzi/IUAV
Renato Rizzi graduated from the University
of Venice, IUAV, in 1977, with a degree
in Architecture.
From 1984 to 1992, he began working in
New York with Peter Eisenman on projects
including the La Villette in Paris; the new
headquarters of Monte dei Paschi in Siena;
the Opera House in Tokyo, and recently, in
2008, the “Research Tower” in Padua. He
has participated in numerous international
competitions in places such as New Zealand,
Warsaw, Berlin, Barcelona, ​​Wellington,
Copenhagen, and Krakow. In 1992, he was
awarded the National Award in Architecture
and in 2003, he received an honorable
mention for the Gold Medal for Italian
Architecture. His list of accolades include
the Gold Medal for Italian Architecture of the
Milan Triennale, the Landscape Award of the
Council of Europe in 2009, and an Honorable
Mention for ADI’s Compasso d’Oro for the
House of Art Futurist Fortunato Depero in
2011. Rizzi has also exhibited his works at
the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 1984,
1985, 1996, 2002, and 2010.
After working for about a decade with Peter
Eisenman, he returned to Italy to devote
himself to teaching, design, and theory, and
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Curtis Kulig
Curtis Kulig gained notoriety with his
signature manifesto “Love Me.” His work
is a celebration of humanity in a voice that
ranges from the poignant to the playful
through a wealth of mediums: rich canvases,
scintillating neon, 16mm films, typewritten
poems, and ubiquitous prints; in cities
ranging from New York to London, Istanbul
to Los Angeles, Tokyo to Berlin. As a painter,
photographer and illustrator, Kulig has
collaborated with Colette, DKNY, Pendleton,
Vans and Uniqlo among others, making
him internationally distinguished in both the
fine art and commercial domain. He has
been featured in the New York Times, Wall
Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and contributes
regularly to charities including Free Arts,
Art of Elysium and most recently Hilarity
for Charity. Kulig lives and works in New
York City.
John Giorno
John Giorno is a poet and visual artist. Born
in 1936 in New York City, Giorno attended
Columbia University and worked as a
stockbroker for a short time before meeting
Andy Warhol in 1962. A romantic relationship
ensued, and Giorno was featured in Warhol’s
first film, Sleep (1963). The influence of
pop art and Warhol’s Factory are evident
in Giorno’s work, which developed out of
verbal collages of appropriated texts drawn
from advertising and signage.
In the 1960s, Giorno began to record his
poetry, distorting the recordings with
synthesizers to produce installations
he called “electronic sensory poetry
environments.” In 1965, he founded Giorno
Poetry Systems, a nonprofit production
company designed to introduce new,
innovative poetry to wider audiences. In
1967, Giorno collaborated with other artists,
including William S. Burroughs, Frank
O’Hara, and Patti Smith, to record poems
for his project Dial-a-Poem. The recordings
made during this project were exhibited in
1970 at the Museum of Modern Art.
In his later years, he has become well
known for his confrontational readings and
his contributions as a gay rights activist;
he founded the AIDS Treatment Project in
1984. In 2010, he had his first solo gallery
show, Black Paintings and Drawings, which
focused on the development of poem
painting. He currently lives in New York City.
Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner is an integral figure of the
Conceptual Art movement of the 1960s.
Best known for his text-based work, Weiner
creates subversive installations that alter
an existing space or environment. His
early piece Declaration of Intent (1968),
created during the heyday of Abstract
Expressionism, brings a wry criticism of the
nature of art by creating a list of simplistic
written terminology. One such line, “The
piece may be fabricated,” addresses
whether the imagined gesture or actual
creation of a work have any hierarchal
difference in regard to the assessment of
art. Born on February 10, 1942 in the Bronx,
NY, he went on to briefly study at Hunter
College in New York before dropping out
and traveling the country. Weiner was the
subject of the retrospective at the Museum
of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the
Whitney Museum of American Art in New
York from 2007–2008. His works are in the
collections of the Art Institute of Chicago,
the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in
New York, the National Gallery of Art in
Washington, D.C., the Centre Georges
Pompidou in Paris, and the Tate Gallery in
London, among others. Weiner lives and
works in New York.
Sebastian ErraZuriz
New York based Artist, Designer and
Activist Sebastian ErraZuriz has received
international acclaim for his original and
provocative works on a variety of areas
and disciplines. Tackling everything from
political artworks to giant public art projects,
conceptual sculptures to experimental
furniture and product design, his work is
always surprising and compelling, inviting
the viewer to look again at realities that
were often hidden in front of their own eyes.
His monumental public art installations
have been shown internationally to raise
awareness and create exposure on different
themes for multiples institutions. ErraZuriz’s
work has been included in exhibitions and
collections alongside the most celebrated
artists, architects and designers in numerous
international exhibitions. The coverage of
his creations has been a successive string
of viral responses. His collection 12 Shoes
for 12 Lovers generated 35 million hits on
Google and his Wave Cabinet has over 10
million online views. ErraZuriz has been
featured in multiple magazine covers and
portrayed in thousands press articles.
He has received critical acclaim from The
New York Times, The Financial Times and
The Wall Street Journal, among others.
In addition, his work has been featured in
mainstream TV on BBC, CNN, ABC, and
NY1.
Shantell Martin
The work of Shantell Martin is a meditation
of lines; a language of characters, creatures
and messages that invite her viewers to
share a role in her creative process. Part
autobiographical, and part dreamlike
whimsy, Martin has created her own world
that bridges fine art, performance art,
technology and the everyday experience—
conversations, objects and places. Her
artwork has appeared in the Brooklyn
Museum, Museum of the Contemporary
African Diaspora, Bata Show Museum and
a number of private galleries.
Martin’s diverse portfolio illustrates her
gift of navigating many worlds. From early
beginnings with live performance drawing
in the mega clubs of Tokyo, Martin made
her way to New York where she pushed the
limits of her trademark continuous line.
Her drawings have transformed everything
from walls, found objects, sneakers, cars
and circuit boards. In 2015, she became
an artist in residence at the MIT Media Lab
where she explores cross-disciplinary
ways to express her art form, such as using
drawing to visualize data.
She is an Adjunct Professor and former
Artist in Residence at NYU’s ITP (Tisch
School of the Arts) where she teaches
her students to integrate drawing with
technology, including cameras, music, and
code. She is also a fellow at the Brown
Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia
University. Martin was born in London and
attended Central St. Martin’s University.
Storefront for Art and Architecture: Founded in 1982,
Storefront is a nonprofit organization that advances
innovative and critical ideas at the intersection of
architecture, art, and design. Storefront’s program of
exhibitions, events, competitions, publications, and
projects provides alternative platforms for dialogue
and collaboration across disciplinary, geographic,
and ideological boundaries.
For more information about upcoming events
and projects, ways to get involved with Storefront,
or to subscribe to our email list, visit
www.storefrontnews.org, or contact us at:
[email protected] or +1 212.431.5795
Gallery Hours
Open Tuesday–Saturday; 11 am–6 pm.
Closed Sunday and Monday.
Gallery Location
Storefront’s gallery space is at
97 Kenmare Street
between Mulberry and Lafayette Streets.
Transit
6 to Spring
N/R to Prince
B/D/F/M to Broadway/Lafayette.
Support: Storefront is a nonprofit organization and
relies on the support of individuals like you. If you
would like to make a donation or become a member,
please visit: www.storefrontnews.org/support.
Research support provided by Juan Francisco
Saldarriaga and the Center for Spatial Research at
Columbia University. Specific model support provided
by Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and Hotel
Americano. Stencil cuts provided by SOFTlab.
Exhibition photography provided by Romy Rodiek.
Storefront’s programming is made possible through
general support from Arup; DS+R; F.J. Sciame
Construction Co., Inc.; Gaggenau; KPF; ODA; Roger
Ferris + Partners; the Foundation for Contemporary
Arts; The Greenwich Collection Ltd.; the Lily
Auchincloss Foundation; the New York State Council
on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew
Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; public
funds from the New York City Department of Cultural
Affairs in partnership with the City Council; The
Peter T. Joseph Foundation; and by Storefront’s Board
of Directors, members, and individual donors.
Storefront provides assistance to visitors with
disabilities by request.
Graphic Design: Jeffrey Waldman
Executive Director and
Chief Curator
Eva Franch i Gilabert
Director of Strategic
Development
Jinny Khanduja
Associate Curator
Carlos Mínguez Carrasco
Associate Curator of Archives
Chialin Chou
Development and
Outreach Associate
Alexandra Axiotis
Gallery Manager and
Project Coordinator
Max Lauter
Interns
Miriam Abd El Azim,
Olivia Abrahao, Shefali Desai
Andrew Emmet, Carolina Florez,
Hannah Han, Jessica Maposa,
Katerina Paitazoglou, Alana
Rogers, Ann Mirjam Vaikla
Board of Directors
Charles Renfro, President
Campbell Hyers, Vice President
Steven T. Incontro, Treasurer
Lauren Kogod, Secretary
Phil Bernstein
Belmont Freeman
Terence Gower
Natasha Jen
Amit Khurana
James von Klemperer
Michael Manfredi
Thom Mayne
Sara Meltzer
William Menking
Sarah Natkins
Margery Perlmutter
Linda Pollak
Robert M. Rubin
Sylvia J. Smith
Artur Walther
Director’s Council
Kyong Park, Founder
Shirin Neshat
Sarah Herda
Joseph Grima
Board of Advisors
Kent Barwick
Barry Bergdoll
Stefano Boeri
Jean Louis Cohen
Beatriz Colomina
Peter Cook
Chris Dercon
Elizabeth Diller
Andrew Fierberg
Claudia Gould
Dan Graham
Peter Guggenheimer
Richard Haas
Brooke Hodge
Steven Holl
Steven Johnson
Toyo Ito
Mary Jane Jacob
Mary Miss
Antoni Muntadas
Shirin Neshat
Lucio Pozzi
Michael Sorkin
Benedetta Tagliabue
Frederieke Taylor
Anthony Vidler
James Wines
2016