Archinect - News

A Manifesto for Hyperdensity

2013-06-14T13:39:00-04:00

We cannot expect big American cities to reach their potential when the very professions that purport to defend and perpetuate urbanism recoil at the presence of towers. Left rudderless by the experts, we are forced to inhabit the bleak consequences of a poorly regulated marketplace, analogous to a population that must operate on its own cancers due to the confused surgeons who keep cutting away at the healthy tissue.

Americans are famously conflicted about urban development: somehow we've demonized both sprawl and density. But today there is a new conversation about the future of cities, driven by diversifying social desires, evolving technologies, and pressing environmental constraints.

On Places, in an excerpt from the new book A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America, Vishaan Chakrabarti contributes a bold argument for hyperdensity. The very dense city, he says, not only promotes prosperity, sustainability and delight; it will also determine our strength as a nation.

Hello Dubai-on-the-East-River

2013-03-04T19:02:00-05:00

In recent years developers putting up a forest of residential towers have been accused of turning the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront into Miami-on-the-East-River. With his new plan for the 11-acre Domino Sugar refinery in Williamsburg officially unveiled on Sunday, Jed Walentas has crafted something that might better be described as Dubai-on-the-East-River.

Audacious new waterfront development designed by SHoP unveiled in Brooklyn. Transforms derelict Domino Sugar refinery into 24/7 community with designs the likes of which New York has never seen.

Atlanta Falcons name shortlist to design new stadium

2013-01-29T11:34:00-05:00

"The Falcons and the Authority have reviewed the Statements of Qualifications received in response to the RFQ, and the Authority has selected the following firms to be finalists and eligible for further consideration (listed alphabetically):"

the short list for the new Atlanta Falcons stadium was released yesterday. they are:

360 Architecture
Ewing-Cole
HKS Inc.
Populous + SHoP Architects
Tvsdesign/Heery/Gensler

Atlantic Yards Will Be Getting 32-Story, SHoP-designed Modular Tower After All

2012-11-28T19:34:00-05:00

Modular construction has long been a dream of architects, for its efficiency and control, and now it could be a boon for New York City developers as well, since prefab methods can save 20 to 30 percent from traditional design methods.

Thanks to a deal with construction unions, the developer of the controversial Atlantic Yards project will move ahead with a 363-unit, 32-story prefab apartment building in Downtown Brooklyn. Designed by SHoP Architects, Skanska and ARUP, it is tentatively the tallest prefab tower in the world. (Until that crazy 2,000-footer in China gets built.)

A hunkered-down, hunchbacked, brooding sight

2012-11-02T17:52:00-04:00

No, this isn’t a beautiful or ingratiating building, but it’s technologically smart, with an underground turntable for trucks that may sound eye-rollingly dull but makes traffic engineers like the city’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, swoon...SHoP has also spared Brooklyn another retro stadium.

Michael Kimmelman reviews the new Barclays Center and the surrounding Atlantic Yards project. While he finds the arena by SHoP Architects to be a good start, Kimmelman criticizes the larger plans for Atlantic Yards. He argues that the current plans share the same faults as many other mega-projects and he offers some suggestions on how Mr. Ratner could alter his plans to provide more benefit to the surrounding community.

Major League Soccer taps SHoP Architects for its Queens stadium project

2012-10-09T16:48:00-04:00

Major League Soccer has asked SHoP Architects, the firm that designed the new Nets stadium in downtown Brooklyn, to prepare initial designs for a Major League Soccer stadium in Queens. SHoP's name is on a July Major League Soccer proposal given to city officials, and obtained by Capital. Last night, MLS confirmed that SHoP is indeed working on the initial schematic designs for a stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Vishaan Chakrabarti Joining SHoP, Promises New Epoch of Planning

2012-03-06T12:12:00-05:00

Mr. Chakrabarti said the firm is determined to shake things up in the world of architecture, development and planning. “Most master planning, you use pretty pastel drawings that rarely have anything to do with what gets built,” he said. “Planning has been static, it hasn’t been performative. Most of these plans, they get implemented over 20 or 30 years. Think of how much a city and the world changes in that span of time.”

The former city planner, developer and current chair of Columbia's real estate development program, the Center for Urban Real Estate, joins the hotshot New York firm.

Pier 15 by SHoP Architects Opens on NYC's East River Waterfront Esplanade

2012-01-17T14:15:00-05:00

We reported over the summer about the unveiling of the East River Waterfront Esplanade and mentioned plans to further extend it in coming years. Only six months later, Pier 15 just south of South Street Seaport, is now open. Designed by SHoP Architects, with help from Ken Smith Landscape Architect, the new two-story section features sharp angles, a colorful red roof, native flora, and a design that expands upon the existing esplanade.