Archinect - News

SCAPE teams with BIG for Manresa Island power plant redevelopment on Long Island Sound

2024-10-02T11:27:00-04:00

Landscape and planning studio SCAPE has announced the addition of architects BIG to a new adaptive reuse project in southern Fairfield County, Connecticut, called Manresa Island.

The project, which is set to reimagine a decommissioned coal-fired power plant into a new 125-acre public park in the city of Norwalk, intends to elevate the site’s endemic wetlands and biodiversity while creating a range of opportunities for dining and recreation.

Image courtesy SCAPE and Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

Three buildings — the two 22,000-square-foot boiler and turbine towers and a 8,200-square-foot office component — will be redeveloped through the effort, added to by SCAPE’s master planning and landscape contribution, and connected via a newly unearthed scenic waterway.

Image courtesy SCAPE and Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

The project's features include an expansive green lawn and meadow with a public beach. A 1.75-mile tract of waterfront access will be created, offering residents an alternative t...

SCAPE completes Living Breakwaters coastal resiliency project for Staten Island

2024-10-01T11:01:00-04:00

SCAPE has completed work on the $111 million Living Breakwater coastal resiliency project in Staten Island, New York three years after the start of construction in the borough's Tottenville neighborhood.

Per SCAPE: "The project consists primarily of 2,400 linear feet of near-shore breakwaters—partially submerged structures built of stone and ecologically-enhanced concrete units—that will break waves, reduce (and eventually reverse) erosion of the beach along Conference House Park, and provide a range of habitat spaces for oysters, fin fish and other marine species."

Image courtesy SCAPE/Ty Cole

Staten Island was heavily impacted by Superstorm Sandy, prompting the launch of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Rebuild By Design competition in 2013. A live oyster installation for the project is expected to follow by 2027.

Image courtesy SCAPE/Ty Cole

Harvard's new Enterprise Research Campus breaks ground in Boston

2023-11-14T18:59:00-05:00

A master plan project at Harvard University from Studio Gang, Henning Larsen, SCAPE, and Utile has begun construction in the Boston neighborhood of Allston.

The 36-acre Enterprise Research Campus (or ERC) will coalesce an area across the Charles River from the Ivy League campus into a new multi-use innovation district with designs from MVRDV, Moody Nolan, and Marlon Blackwell, in addition to the university's first above-ground mass timber structures from Studio Gang.

Once complete, its initial two phases will entail 14 acres of redeveloped land reserved for offices, labs, conference center, hotel, residential component, and open green space.

Image courtesy SCAPE

The effort was inaugurated in 2018 in the interest of creating a "gateway to a collaborative community," which is Boston's well-known consortium of knowledge industries.

Studio Gang founding principal and partner, Jeanne Gang, said her team’s plan has "provided a framework for a vibrant and inclusive public realm that bring...

Studio Gang, SCAPE complete work on transformative $61 million Tom Lee Park in Memphis

2023-11-06T15:35:00-05:00

Studio Gang and SCAPE have shared new photos following the completion of work on their $61 million Tom Lee Park redevelopment project in Memphis, Tennessee.

The 31-acre riverfront space puts Memphis squarely in league with a host of contemporary restorative urban green space projects slated for other major American cities, including San Francisco's new Presidio Tunnel Tops and the partially completed Freshkills Park in Staten Island.

Its ecological restoration work and accessibility to the residents of one of the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods make it an instant industry standard-bearer. The project creates a connection between downtown and the Mississippi River, also providing new ADA-approved access at three different points for the first time.

Image © Tom Harris

Studio head Jeanne Gang says: “Insights and input from the Memphis community were essential to this project from the very beginning, to make sure the park’s programming reflects how Memphians from across the city ...

MVRDV sets its feet in Boston with a two-tower residential design near Harvard University

2023-11-02T14:54:00-04:00

A new residential project in Boston from MVRDV and co-architect Moody Nolan will deliver much-needed housing accommodations for the burgeoning Enterprise Research Campus (ERC) district on the southern edge of Harvard University in Allston, Massachusetts.

The scheme remade a former industrial site located across from the Harvard Business School on Western Avenue into a new urban district with a 343-unit housing component (25% of which is considered ‘affordable’), new green spaces, and areas reserved for local small businesses.

Developed by Tishman Speyer using a master plan from Studio Gang and Henning Larsen, the district will serve as an innovation center with added laboratories, an office component, hotel, and a new conference center for the university. MVRDV says it will be sited in the middle of the plan, offering a connection to the Greenway, a two-acre open space linking to the Charles River. Local mainstays Utile, Inc. are also contributing to the master plan's landscape des...

Studio Gang to design new sustainability commons at Stanford

2023-06-06T16:50:00-04:00

A new project led by Studio Gang will deliver Stanford University a home for the recently-established Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, called Stanford Sustainability Commons, at a site located on the western half of the school’s Palo Alto, California campus.

New York-based practices SCAPE and atelier ten will join the firm for the design of the Commons, which aims to help consolidate a group of interrelated academic disciplines in the hopes of enabling a “thriving habitat supporting the region’s larger network of living things.”

Jeanne Gang says: “The climate crisis is the most urgent challenge facing our world today. We are going to be working with Stanford to design a home for the Doerr School of Sustainability that can support the cross-disciplinary collaboration needed for generating climate solutions in all industries. At the same time, we are excited to model ways for the built environment to address this challenge head-on.”

An aerial view of campus courtesy of Flickr ...

Inside Studio Gang’s Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts ahead of its 2023 opening

2022-10-20T13:12:00-04:00

The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts is nearing completion ahead of a predicted April 2023 opening. Designed by Studio Gang and Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects following their selection for the commission in 2016, the project has seen the unification of several existing structures on the museum grounds under a “blossoming” central addition.

Photo credit: Tim Hursley

The 133,000-square-foot building includes galleries, an art school, performing art spaces, public gathering spaces, a restaurant, and a museum store. Over 14,000 works of art will be housed in the museum, some dating back to the 14th century.

Photo credit: Tim Hursley

“Our design strengthens the museum’s role as a cultural anchor for Little Rock by uniting once-disparate structures into a cohesive whole and opening the building to the surrounding city and landscape,” said Jeanne Gang about the scheme. “By optimizing its functional spaces and expanding its galleries, classrooms, and social spaces, the building transforms the vi...

Construction images of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts reveal the completion of its pleated concrete roof

2021-04-28T14:39:00-04:00

In January, Archinect previously reported on the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA) and its plans to open in May 2022. The 133,000-square-foot Museum is designed by Studio Gang in collaboration with landscape architecture firm SCAPE and Little Rock-based Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects. While initial renders of the new Museum's design didn't provide specifics to the Museum's distinct roof design, recent construction images showcase a signature roof design that flows, "blossoming out to the north and south," as described by the firm. "Spanning the length of the building, the roofline connects new construction and renovated spaces and establishes AMFA's new architectural identity."

Image © Timothy Hursley

Located within Little Rock's historic Macarthur Park, Studio Gang's design process began by studying the Museum's original building from 1937 and its eight additions. Aiming to create a renewed architectural identity that integrates the building with its surrounding landscape and the ...

Studio Gang-designed Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, formerly Arkansas Arts Center, to open in 2022

2021-01-27T16:48:00-05:00

The Arkansas Arts Center has a new name: the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. Leaders gathered [...] provide an update on its facility, which is being renovated and expanded. [...] Designs for the additional $14 million in funds, Ramirez said, include new plans for 15% more gallery space than initially planned, added programming and “transforming even more of MacArthur Park into landscape space designed to host a variety or programs and events.”

A new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts building, designed by Studio Gang with landscape architects SCAPE and Little Rock-based Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects, is already under construction in Little Rock's MacArthur Park.

"The central gesture of the new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts — a folded, thin-plate structure running through the museum complex — lends AMFA a highly visible new architectural identity and connect its diverse programing spaces," explains the project description.

"This roofline spans the length of the museum from north to south, blossoming toward downtown Little Rock at the north and Historic MacArthur Park to the south. In concert with new construction, the design once again reveals the original 1937 limestone facade of the Museum of Fine Arts, a precursor to AMFA, as the main north entrance."

"Inside, the central stem opens up a new axis of pedestrian circulation through the building from Crescent Drive at the north and opening in...

New renderings of Norman Foster’s Red Hook office complex reveal green roofs and courtyard

2018-12-20T13:53:00-05:00

Construction on Norman Foster’s Red Hoek Point, a 7.7-acre commercial campus at a former sugar factory, started in October and this week new renderings were released that provide the first look at the nearly four acres of green roof space, including walking and jogging paths and landscaping to mitigate stormwater runoff.

via Visualhouse New York

Oysters Could Save New York From More Sandys

2013-11-12T19:42:00-05:00

Kate Orff wants to grow oysters in New York’s Jamaica Bay. Not for you to eat, but to save the shore from mighty storms. Great piles of mollusks will diffuse the energy of 10-to-15-foot waves, like those from Sandy that shattered boardwalks and beach homes and shot like missiles up city streets.

SCAPE with Rogers Marvel named Water Works park designers

2013-07-09T17:40:00-04:00

SCAPE and Rogers Marvel will shape one of the most dynamic destinations on the Mississippi River, the Minneapolis Parks Foundation and Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board announced today. The team was selected to create a schematic design for Water Works, a Minneapolis Park Board-owned riverfront district including the former Fuji Ya restaurant site and centered on St. Anthony Falls, the only true waterfall on the Mississippi River – “America’s fourth coast.”

Previously: Minneapolis’ Water Works Competition Shortlists West 8, SCAPE, Gustafson Guthrie Nicol

Minneapolis’ Water Works Competition Shortlists West 8, SCAPE, Gustafson Guthrie Nicol

2013-06-13T18:03:00-04:00

The Minneapolis Parks Foundation has announced a shortlist of three award-winning design teams for the schematic design project Water Works: A Next Generation Park on Minneapolis’ Central Riverfront. The teams are Gustafson Guthrie Nicol with VJAA and Interboro (Seattle/Minneapolis/New York); SCAPE with Rogers Marvel (New York); and Team West 8 (Rotterdam/New York).

SCAPE Wins Lexington Town Branch Commons Competition

2013-02-06T18:36:00-05:00

A five-member jury has selected the winner of the Town Branch Commons Design Competition in Lexington, Kentucky. The brief calls for the creation of a long, serpentine park following the path of a historic stream in downtown Lexington. From a shortlist of five finalists, the entry "Reviving Town Branch" by SCAPE / Landscape Architecture team was chosen as the winning proposal.

Other finalists were Coen+Partners, Minneapolis; Civitas, Denver; Inside Outside: Petra Blaisse, Amsterdam; and JDS / Julien De Smedt Architects, Copenhagen.

Previously: Five teams shortlisted for Town Branch Commons in Lexington, Kentucky