Archinect - News

Renzo Piano Building Workshop puts the finishing touches on 600 W. 125th residential tower for Columbia University

2023-12-27T18:36:00-05:00

Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) is progressing towards the completion of its new 600 W. 125th Street off-campus Harlem housing project for Columbia University in collaboration with CetraRuddy.

Once complete, the 34-story dorm is set to host 142 apartments for graduate students and faculty with another 5,000-square-foot McDonald’s retail location included at the ground level. Thornton Tomasetti is in charge of delivering the building’s facade system. The construction has been engineered to meet LEED v4.0 Gold certification standards and culminates in a total of 177,000 square-feet, including its terraced podium.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Renzo Piano Building Workshop (@rpbw_architects)

The project is being realized just a few blocks south of the southern edge of Manhattanville, Columbia’s sometimes fraught 17-acre multiphase development that has to date included three other RPBW buildings (the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, Lenfest Center f...

Frida Escobedo and Handel's National Black Theatre project tops out in Harlem

2023-10-09T17:24:00-04:00

Frida Escobedo and Handel Architects have shared photos of their newly topped-out National Black Theatre and Ray Harlem mixed-use development in Manhattan.

The project entails a new 27,000-square-foot theater, retail spaces, and a 222-unit residential component strategically located along the historic 125th Street corridor in East Harlem. It is the first scheme in the city to utilize the Visual and Performing Arts bonus included in a comprehensive 2008 rezoning plan, expanding on the late National Black Theatre founder Barbara Ann Teer’s vision for “an artistic ecosystem that uplifts the community,” according to Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. Proponents say its creation is also a catalyst for greater representation in the theater and cultural industries overall.

Image © Brett Tiagwad

Construction will now continue towards the NBT’s expected public opening in 2026. Once complete, the theater will include a 250-seat immersive technology performance space, a 99-seat flexible s...

See photos from Harlem Grown and Jerome Haferd / BRANDT : HAFERD's newly-opened 'Sankofa' installation

2023-07-24T17:53:00-04:00

New York-based artists collective Harlem Grown, in collaboration with Jerome Haferd of BRANDT : HAFERD, has shared photos of the new ‘Sankofa’ installation in Harlem’s historic Marcus Garvey Park just months after the announcement of a two-year community-led commission aimed at creating an artistic public gathering space for residents of the area.

Image courtesy Anna Dave

The installation is part of the Mellon Foundation’s Culture, Creativity, & Care Initiative focused on Marcus Garvey Park and the cultural traditions of the community that it serves.

Image courtesy Anna Dave

Harlem Grown shares: "The project involved planning and collaboration with local artists and makers across various artistic styles and media. Despite its bespoke appearance, the installation is based on a modular system and uses sturdy, reusable materials that can be reconfigured for a number of future uses or sites."

Image courtesy Anna Dave

The design of the circular 32-foot canopied struc...

Harlem Grown and BRANDT : HAFERD's 'Sankofa' will take over Marcus Garvey Park this summer

2023-06-13T18:47:00-04:00

A new public art installation will kick off the Mellon Foundation-funded Culture, Creativity, & Care Initiative in Harlem this summer with an engaging reflection of the history of Marcus Garvey Park and the cultural craft traditions of the various communities which surround it.

Friday, June 16th, will mark the grand opening of “Sankofa,” a circular 32-foot structure that serves as an art gallery and public gathering space for residents of the neighborhood who will meet underneath its mesh fabric canopy’s complex composition print.

Image courtesy Harlem Grown and Jerome Haferd

The project was initiated by the Black-led artists collective Harlem Grown and Jerome Haferd of BRANDT : HAFERD. The design team describes:

“‘Sankofa’ is the first outdoor hub to be unveiled as part of the initiative. ‘Sankofa’ derives from the Akan African folklore, symbolizing remembrance of things forgotten, and means ‘in order to know our future we must look to...

New York City announces major new Harlem River Greenway in the Bronx

2023-03-28T13:47:00-04:00

A new greenway project expected to make over a corridor of the Harlem River between the Bronx and Upper Manhattan was announced recently by New York Mayor Eric Adams, adding an important new cog in his administration’s ‘20-20 Vision Zero’ plan that aims to improve and increase pedestrian access across the city.

The project will take shape over the next decade and will bring better bicycle pathways to several bridges in the seven-mile-long area. The plan calls for nodes at Van Cortlandt Park to the north and Randall’s Island to the south. The city will commence a public engagement process beginning April 18th and says it is an important step in reconnecting communities that have been divided by the Federal highway system since the 1930s.

“This administration continues to deliver for all five boroughs, and expanding the Harlem River Greenway to the Bronx is a huge win for equity and justice,” Mayor Adams said at a press conference. “Our administration is leading the way in undoing the...

MTA to evaluate potential subway line to run west along Harlem's 125th Street

2022-08-01T09:00:00-04:00

The MTA will consider a transformative project that would extend the upcoming Second Avenue Subway even further by routing it west below 125th Street and then further uptown, the agency announced this week.

The Second Avenue Subway is currently set to expand from its phase 1 completion, which wrapped up in January 2017 with the opening of the 72nd, 86th, and 96th Street stations. The decades-old project, which was originally proposed in 1920, moved into the next stage of the federal funding process earlier this year, that would make way for the extension of the line up to 125th Street in East Harlem. Three new stations would be built along this route.

Now, according to documents released by the MTA this week titled the MTA’s 2025-2044 20-Year Needs Assessment, the Authority will consider extending the Second Avenue Subway even further. The line would move westbound along 125th Street, adding two to four new subway stations. Listed possibilities include the route ending at Broadway and 125th Street, turning north below Broadway to a connection at 137th Street, turning north under Riverside Drive to a connection at 137th Street, or turning north under St. Nicholas Avenue and continuing ...

Developer withdraws ShoP Architects-designed One45 project in Harlem following local opposition

2022-05-31T16:42:00-04:00

The developer of a controversial Harlem complex that would have brought 915 new apartments to an underutilized stretch of 145th Street — half of which would have been income restricted — has scuttled the plan ahead of a subcommittee vote on the project Tuesday morning.

Developers Pointsfive reportedly withdrew their application for the zoning needed to build the mixed-use, ShoP Architects-designed One45 hours before it was set to be voted on by the New York City Council Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises. The proposal included a pair of 363-foot-tall towers on the corner of West 145th Street and Lenox Avenue, with residential, office, and retail space, along with a rooftop events space.

Previously on Archinect: First look at One45-Museum of Civil Rights in Harlem designed by SHoP Architects

Since its inception, the project has faced pushback from Harlem’s local community board and especially from recently seated local Councilmember Kristin Richardson Jordan. The Harlem native has claimed that the levels of affordability proposed by One45 aren’t in line with the needs of the community, fearing that it would instead indirectly displace Harlem’s Black residents and drive up gentrification. In a round of last-minute moves to gain support for the pro...

For the first time, you can buy shares in a building in New York City

2022-04-08T09:00:00-04:00

An office building in Harlem has become the first building in New York City, and one of the first in the country, to be listed on the stock market in its own right. Located at 286 Lenox Avenue, the 18,759-square-foot building holds four floors of office and retail, with three tenants including Wells Fargo.

As of last week, any investor can buy shares in the building, which trades under the stock ticker TESLU. Since going public last Wednesday, the share price has fluctuated from its initial $250 per share, with a high of $255 and a low of $241.

The shares are being sold by the building’s owners Regal Capital Acquisitions, who are selling 8,600 shares (49% of the building’s equity), which they hope will raise $2.15 million. Regal paid $10.2 million in March 2020 to purchase the property, which sits on the site of the now-demolished Lenox Lounge jazz bar that once hosted stars such as Billie Holiday and Miles Davis.

Related on Archinect: Paul Rudolph's Edersheim Residence liste...

DS+R’s Columbia Business School building opens in Manhattan

2022-02-26T09:00:00-05:00

The important next step in Columbia University’s aggressive campus expansion project has been inaugurated this week with the opening of its new Columbia Business School, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with FXCollaborative, in northern Manhattan.

The school’s fourth incursion into the blocks north of 125th Street marks the end of the first phase of its controversial Manhattanville development scheme.

Columbia Business School and The Square. Photo: Iwan Baan.

Kravis Hall, 12th Avenue Retail facing Riverside Drive Viaduct. Photo: Iwan Baan.

Earlier pushback against the two-decade-long effort had been unable to derail the CU’s largest-ever expansion, which has been steadily taking form after a series of community reinvestment efforts brokered between the school and its neighbors in the mid-2010s.

Construction on the new school building began in 2016 after the firm won an international competition for the $600 million project in 2011.

Kravis Hall Facade. Photo: I...

Walter Hood, a 'contemporary prophet of landscape and public space,' is awarded the Architectural League 2021 President's Medal

2021-08-04T09:00:00-04:00

There is much to reflect on when thinking of Walter Hood's illustrious career. Hood started his design practice in 1992 after he graduated from UC Berkley where he received his Master's in Landscape Architecture. Since then, his commitment to merging architecture, art, and urbanism has led him to become one of the most prolific landscape architects for social change and spatial equity.

Early this July, Archinect contributing writer Rukshan Vathupola conducted an in-depth interview with Hood. In his piece, Othering Blackness in Design: Reflections with Walter Hood, Vathupola crafted a discussion that highlighted Hood not only as a practitioner but as an individual who challenges the perception of landscape architecture, design, and urbanism as a cultural practice.

View overlooking the Walter Hood-designed New de Young Museum gardens in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Image taken from the 9th-floor observation deck. Image © Mandy Sui Ta via Instagram/Courtesy of @deyoungmuseum

The hi...

SOM reveals plans for a new public health laboratory in Harlem

2021-07-23T18:26:00-04:00

If the pandemic has shown us anything, it is that the health of Black and Hispanic communities is being systemically underserved in large part due to an infrastructure gap that has left both urban and rural parts of the country bereft of key resources in a time of crisis.

In keeping with this pressing need, SOM unveiled plans this week for the new New York City Public Health Laboratory in Harlem that will replace an existing facility in Kips Bay owned by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The new $400 million laboratory will host a range of services addressing both clinical and environmental concerns in an adaptive scheme that can change focus to ascendent public health concerns as they come along.

SOM’s state-of-art structure, which last month was honored by the Public Design Commission’s Award for Excellence, rises from a three-story masonry podium into a prominent cubic volume containing first essential functions as well as community-facing accomm...

First look at One45-Museum of Civil Rights in Harlem designed by SHoP Architects

2021-04-13T16:16:00-04:00

Here's our first look at One45, a nearly one-million square foot mixed-use development proposed for West Harlem... A draft scope of work submitted to the city last Friday, reveals two new towers that would rise about 360 feet apiece and contain space for office, retail, residential, and a banquet hall/event area for community use. The program also includes a brand new 48,000-square-foot space for the Museum of Civil Rights (MCR), a long-standing institution founded by Reverend Al Sharpton.

Columbia University submits plans for 34-story Harlem residential tower

2019-12-09T14:21:00-05:00

Columbia University plans to bring a 34-story residential tower to West Harlem amid its massive campus expansion. The project at 600 West 125th Street will span just over 175,000 square feet and have 142 units for students and faculty, according to an application with the city Department of Buildings. It will replace a decades-old McDonald’s that closed a few months ago.

The tower, slated for completion in 2022, aims to "reduce demand on the local housing market," The Real Deal quotes a Columbia University spokesperson.

Northern end of Central Park to receive $110 million makeover

2019-09-19T14:30:00-04:00

The nonprofit group that manages Central Park is planning the largest project it has undertaken in its nearly 40 years: a $110 million investment in the mostly forgotten northern corner, which may not be on many tourists’ itineraries but which is a vital backyard to surrounding blocks where green space is scarce.

The renovation plan, according to The New York Times, has "resurrected questions about 'park equity' and long-running criticism from advocates who say that as money continues to pour into New York’s signature parks, smaller and out-of-the-way green spaces in modest neighborhoods remain neglected."

According to the Central Park official website, the new design is being undertaken by the Conservancy’s design office, which is led by Chief Landscape Architect Christopher J. Nolan, who will be supported by the architectural team of Susan T. Rodriguez Architecture|Design in collaboration with Mitchell Giurgola.

Handel Architects aims to build a "community of opportunity" in East Harlem

2019-07-19T14:53:00-04:00

Construction on Sendero Verde, a sizable Handel Architects-designed affordable housing development in New York City, is expected to break ground later this summer.

Patch reports that L+M Development Partners, Jonathan Rose Companies, and Acacia Network, the developers behind the project, have secured the necessary funding to get shovels in the ground. AECOM is providing landscape architecture services for the project.

The $233 million, three-phase development will ultimately bring close to 700 affordable housing units to New York's East Harlem district, where recent developer interest and real estate activity have disturbed the area's naturally affordable existing housing stock. The project results in part from the recent re-zoning of the East Harlem neighborhood, an effort that is expected to bring up to 1,288 affordable housing units to the area, overall, according to Patch.

The development will preserve a series of existing community gardens currently located on the developmen...

A look at how Hamilton's tourist-flocking Grange house was moved

2017-09-18T15:43:00-04:00

For nearly three weeks in the spring of 2008, residents and passersby near Convent Avenue and 141st Street in Harlem craned their necks to take in a peculiar sight. Positioned atop a 38-foot structure of crib piles, shimmies, and steel beams was a two-story yellow house originally built for Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury and future Broadway musical sensation.

Built in 1802, the Hamilton House has been moved twice since then, first in 1889, and more recently in 2008 when it was raised on a 38-foot tall structure before being moved slowly down the street to St. Nicholas Park. The National park services considered cutting the house in half or removing pieces, but the third option of raising the house up on jacks and driving it down at a six percent grade allowed them to keep the house in one piece during the move. Since then, the house has been located at St. Nicolas Park and is open to the public to visit.

A blind New Yorker identifies the city by scent

2016-05-05T12:26:00-04:00

I’m blind, so my nose tells me what neighborhood I’m in. My dog and I – we walk. We’ll walk from 125th down to Houston. The smell of Harlem is definitely different now. It’s more open. There’s a new class of people. The whole thing feels like someplace else.

To navigate a vast city, people often develop a set of idiosyncratic markers: personal landmarks, favorite coffee joints, or in Craig Taylor's case, the smell of a particular section of town. Should designers start thinking in terms of creating signature scents to help identify their work for a populace that can't "see" projects traditionally?

For all the best in the smells of architecture:

Michael Kimmelman on the state of affordable housing in NYC

2016-01-26T17:28:00-05:00

New York City once set the standard for subsidized housing. The city started out building and maintaining tens of thousands of apartments for working families, sponsoring job training and social programs. It ran a budget surplus. [...] Now the Village is like a gated playground for runaway wealth. Subsidized apartments all across town are converting to market-rate rentals and condos faster than City Hall can build affordable units or preserve old ones.

David Adjaye will design new bespoke Studio Museum in Harlem

2015-07-06T13:44:00-04:00

Since opening in 1968, the Studio Museum in Harlem has had to make do with difficult homes. Originally operating out of a rented loft, the museum moved into a roomier early 20th century commercial space, renovated by J. Max Bond, Jr., in 1982. But despite further renovations, the building's age and design were limiting the Museum's scope and programming. Now, the Studio Museum will have its very own building designed by David Adjaye, built specifically for its needs, replacing its current building on the same site.

Adjaye's design will significantly expand the museum's facilities, including 50% more space for both the galleries and the artist-in-residence program, as well as 60% more public indoor space. As quoted in The New York Times, Adjaye spoke of trying to merge the city and neighborhood feel with the museum's presence in Harlem: “Between the residential and the civic, we learned the lessons of public realms and tried to bring those two together.”

The design features a "reverse ...

Harlem May Get Its Own High Line Park

2014-10-16T12:04:00-04:00

A new proposal called 'Harlem Promenade' developed by the Housing Partnership could bring not only 2,000 additional affordable housing units to Washington Heights, but also an elevated railway park akin to the High Line. The park would be built atop a portion of Amtrak rail lines and would finally offer locals a safe and easy connection to the waterfront parks and recreation along the Hudson.