Archinect - News

New York’s Plan to Storm-Proof Fire Island Is Deeply Flawed, Says Scientist

2014-09-15T13:43:00-04:00

“The project does not provide the storm damage mitigation and storm-surge protection that is promised, or at least the U.S. Geological Survey comments on the plan question the science behind those proposed benefits.” [...] “A project like this, where the science is being questioned by government scientists and the environmental impacts are clearly negative, it’s a poster child for where we shouldn’t do this. This stretch of Fire Island is a park, for goodness sake.”

Richard Meier’s High and Mighty Beach House

2014-07-11T12:27:00-04:00

But building the $2.25 million steel-and-glass structure he had in mind presented a number of challenges on Fire Island. For starters, they had to dig 10 feet below sea level to bury the wood piles. Then they had to put a steel frame on top that could support 25 tons of glass. Sam Wood, the contractor, had been working on Fire Island for 30 years and had never seen anything like it. “It’s built like a mini-skyscraper,” he said.

Fire Island: Architecture of seduction

2013-07-25T00:51:00-04:00

I was amazed at the sort of uncanny way in which his work tracks the arc of gay liberation, like early 60s pavillions that provided refuge from a hostile world and then as you go through the 60s and into the Stonewall period the houses become literally open and voyeuristic. Full glass facades facing the ocean - Christopher Rawlins

Leigh Paterson visited Fire Island and talked with Christopher Rawlins author of a new book, Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction. The two discussed the culture of this gay community and the work of this relatively unknown modernist architect, who helped shape it.