Archinect - News

"The Haves and the Have Nots" – digesting the most important news of the week that was, on Archinect Sessions #49

2016-01-21T18:46:00-05:00

As last week's episode was taken up by Pritzker-hooplah, this episode takes a look back at the major news items of the last week(ish) and gets you caught up with what's been happening in Archinect news.

We discuss: the recent photo exhibition on homelessness at USC (which closes tomorrow!); the Treasury Department's controversial new practice of tracking and identifying secret buyers of luxury housing; how BIG's 2 World Trade Center is now in limbo after "anchor tenant" Rupert Murdoch has pulled out; the demolition of yet another not-beloved-enough Brutalist building; the big ol' chunk of cash the U.S. now has to prepare for driverless cars; and the ongoing debacle over the Tokyo Olympic Stadium, as Zaha Hadid Architects accuses Kengo Kuma Associates of copying their design, while Japan won't pay ZHA until they hand over the design copyrights.

Phew! What a week. All original news postings are available in the shownotes.

Listen to episode 49 of Archinect Sessions, "The Haves and the Hav...

Rupert Murdoch suddenly pulls out of 2 World Trade Center deal

2016-01-18T17:48:00-05:00

Rupert Murdoch has dropped his plans to relocate 21st Century Fox and News Corp. to 2 World Trade Center. In a statement issued Friday afternoon, World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein declared himself “disappointed” by the news. [...] In June, the two media companies signed a letter of intent with Silverstein to occupy 1.5 million square feet for 30 years at a 2 World Trade Center designed by architect Bjarke Ingels.

2 WTC previously in the Archinect news:

2 World Trade Center receives $9M rent assistance from Port Authority to expedite project

2015-12-15T13:14:00-05:00

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey approved subsidies to help expedite the construction of lower Manhattan’s 2 World Trade Center [...]. Developer Silverstein Properties Inc., which leases the sites for 2 World Trade Center and two other towers from the Port Authority, would receive a rent break that amounts to $9 million over the life of the lease [...]. The agency had previously maintained that 2 World Trade would be built entirely without public assistance.

Previously in the Archinect news:

Bjarke Ingels and the challenges of designing Two World Trade Center

2015-10-06T13:41:00-04:00

He has coined a punning term, BIGamy, to describe his own up-for-anything style. He rejects the idea that an architect must adhere to a single personal aesthetic, which enables him to be cheerfully flexible in meeting the demands of corporate clients. Ingels’ creative impulse to say yes to everything, even contradictions, often leads him into hybridism.

Previously in the Archinect News:

2 World Trade Center Could Be the Most Expensive Office Tower in the World

2015-08-06T13:25:00-04:00

Construction of the Bjarke Ingels-designed 2 World Trade Center will come with a $4 billion price tag. The 2.8 million-square-foot downtown tower will top out at 1,340 feet, just 28 feet shy of One World Trade Center, which currently holds the title of the world’s most expensive office building with construction costs coming in at $3.8 billion.

Larry Silverstein, developer of 2 World Trade Center, is looking for $500 million in financing to fund the $4 billion tower’s completion. If all goes according to plan, a lease could be signed by the end of the year and construction could start next year with a 2020 completion date.

"[Architects] are not the creators of the city, but the midwives" says Bjarke Ingels

2015-07-23T13:51:00-04:00

In a fifty-one minute conversation with New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman, Bjarke Ingels does little to dispel his reputation as a media-friendly starchitect who dances his way around thorny design issues by reminding everyone of the rose. When Kimmelman brings up the wind issues that an 80th story outdoor space (such as the ones proposed for Two World Trade Center) is likely to encounter, Ingels relates an anecdote about how in Denmark the only car to have is a convertible, because even if the pleasant days are rare, they must be savored fully.

However, it is Ingels' redefinition of the architect's role, especially in the context of the discussion about how to shape the future cultural vibe of Manhattan, that makes Kimmelman shift in his seat:

Ingels: [Architects] are not the creators of the city, but the midwives.

Kimmelman: You make the architect sound a little more passive or receptive than maybe I'm comfortable with. Do you think the architect is just receiving other peopl...

Archinect's critical round-up of BIG's Two World Trade Center Design

2015-06-10T16:40:00-04:00

Taken out of its high-profile context, the BIG design for Two World Trade Center initially appears to be a graduate school placeholder: here are the initial seven blocks of program, with a light dusting of foliage on the exposed step-backs. The internet's critical reaction to the renderings released to WIRED has been heated: it's the New Museum without the ingenuity, it's a brilliant melding of memorial gravitas and client-driven-design, it's nothing but spoon-fed media hype taken to a 1,300 foot extreme. Of course, this is a building that can't be taken out of its context, not only in terms of being a new icon of Manhattan, but also because it is something of a sequel: its unabashed boxiness and new media savvy presentation clashes with Foster + Partners' previous svelte, slanted diamond-topped design. A little more than 24 hours after the renderings were released, we've rounded up the most compelling critical and forum-based reaction:

In Vanity Fair, Paul Goldberger confronts the c...

Renderings of BIG-Designed Two World Trade Center Revealed

2015-06-09T13:14:00-04:00

“The architecture becomes a solution to an almost unsolvable puzzle,” Ingels told me one recent morning.

Last week Archinect broke the news that Bjarke Ingels' BIG had taken over the design of Two World Trade Center from Foster + Partners, and today BIG has released its first renderings of its proposed new design. Foster's slanted quadruple diamond crown has been nixed in favor of a stepped-back design of seven stacked boxes that preserves the existing views to St. Paul's Chapel to Memorial Park while making it appear from the New Jersey waterfront that Two World Trade Center is "leaning in" to SOM's One World Trade Center. BIG's significant redesign also incorporates a series of rooftop gardens on each step-backed ledge, which will feature biomes from the arctic to the tropics.

The design attempts to honor the memorial of Ground Zero while simultaneously injecting BIG's signature enthusiasm into what will be the third tallest tower in New York City. As Ingels explained to WIRED Magazine, “On one hand [the design is] about being respectful and about completing the frame around the memor...

Foster's Out, Ingels' In: BIG-Designed Two World Trade Center to House News Corp. and 21st Century Fox

2015-06-03T13:52:00-04:00

“This isn’t your grandfather’s Wall Street.”

According to a statement issued on Tuesday, the design of Two World Trade Center, which was formerly the province of Foster + Partners, is now being handled by Bjarke Ingels' firm BIG and will likely house employees of both 21st Century Fox and News Corp. The media organizations inked a non-binding agreement with developer Larry Silverstein that places them in the tower, which as of now is slated to be the second-tallest tower in the four-tower World Trade Center complex. The proposed move is significant not only because many of the towers still boast significant amounts of unleased space (the two companies would occupy 1.3 million square feet of the tower's 2.8 million total available), but because both 21st Century Fox and News Corp. represent a new type of tenant for the traditionally financially dominated area. According to Bloomberg, Christopher Jones, vice president of research at New York's Regional Plan Association said, “People were expecting financial companies to be a sub...