Archinect - News

PAU founder Vishaan Chakrabarti unveils a housing plan for 1.3 million New Yorkers

2024-01-05T16:59:00-05:00

Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of PAU, has unveiled his firm's analysis, courtesy of The New York Times, which suggests that enough housing could be created for one million New Yorkers.

The PAU founder says there is space for up to 520,245 homes in the city on roughly 1,700 acres of unused land. Most of it would be enacted above existing single-story commercial spaces. The idea of adding density has been debated, though he points out correctly that it does present a viable alternative to the mass-scale conversion of office buildings that have been proven costly and largely unfeasible in structures built before 1980.

His team's analysis follows previous streetscape and rail infrastructure proposals and was conducted using available data on vacant lots, flood-prone areas, and the location of subway stations and other mass transit options. Current estimates have placed the need for over 500,000 new homes, a figure Mayor Eric Adams's official plan put forth in December 2022 used as a ben...

PAU releases updated renderings for Niagara Falls Heritage Gateways project

2023-12-12T17:17:00-05:00

Preliminary renderings for the $12 million Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU)-led Niagara Falls Heritage Gateways project have been released following a public meeting to discuss plans in the border city.

The multi-phase initiative will strengthen the connection between the city’s downtown and Niagara Falls State Park and Riverway Tree Walk. Four canopied gateway structures will be enacted as part of its design, offering tourists views of the nearby American Rapids and Goat Island and connected by a “network” of promenades and shaded open spaces.

Rendering of the Riverway Tree Walk at night. Image courtesy PAU

The initial phase calls for the redevelopment of Hydraulic Power Plaza and Niagara Gorge Gateway Park followed by the construction of the Tree Walk, which includes a viewing platform to be placed at a wooded clearing and serving as a beacon for visitors between downtown and the Riverway.

Hydraulic Power Plaza. Image courtesy Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture

“T...

PAU-designed The Refinery at Domino reopens Brooklyn's most iconic building to the modern workplace

2023-09-27T15:25:00-04:00

A landmark era of high-profile additions and architectural changes to the historic Brooklyn waterfront has ushered in a new chapter with today’s official public unveiling of the PAU-designed The Refinery at Domino office component at the 11-acre former Domino Sugar Factory site in Williamsburg.

The new, 15-story glass commercial space was constructed inside the building’s old brick masonry shell, offering tenants 460,000 square feet of Class A office space enhanced by carefully-inserted biophilic elements and marked by the firm’s attenuation to ascendant health and wellness considerations typical in modern workplace design.

Photo: Max Touhey

A 12-foot gap left between the new and old structures provides space for Field Operations’s 17-count in-house arboretum while standardizing a misalignment with the floors and helping to flood the bonetti/kozerski-designed office interiors with natural light and expanded access to vegetation throughout the day.

Photo: Max Touhey

A vaulted 27,000-s...

PAU begins Rock & Roll Hall of Fame expansion in Cleveland

2023-09-13T14:00:00-04:00

PAU has shared details of its expansion project of the I.M. Pei-designed Rock & Roll Hall of Fame museum in Cleveland ahead of next month’s anticipated groundbreaking.

The initiative will add a triangular structure to Pei’s iconic original glass pyramid design, featuring a new entrance lobby, education center, offices, and a 6,000-square-foot multipurpose space that’s meant to increase its overall footprint by 33% while activating public space along a currently underutilized section of the city’s Lake Eerie waterfront.

Rendering courtesy of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU)

The total 50,000-square-foot design evokes the museum’s architectural lineage within the new addition, where solid shapes pronounced as asymmetries serve as the visual markers of the building’s various programmatic elements combined under a tilted angular roof and façade composed of steel and granite in further reference to the region’s industrial character.

Rendering courtesy of Practice for Architect...

FAA selects PAU to deliver new air-traffic control tower prototypes

2023-04-20T17:42:00-04:00

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced its selection of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) for a new sustainable air-traffic control tower prototype that will initially deliver 31 highly-adaptable facilities at small regional and municipal airports throughout the United States.

The projects, funded in part through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, were selected against the agency’s strict requirements to minimize environmental impact while reducing operational costs and the price of construction.

Image courtesy PAU

Construction will vary in height between 63 and 119 feet and include elements such as all-electric building systems, thermal efficient facades, mass timber, and recycled steel and metal products. The new generation of towers will replace I.M. Pei’s iconic mid-century variation on the typology and will include interior spaces tailored to the well-being of air traffic control workers.

Image courtesy PAU

Geothermal heating and cooling techniques a...

PAU to lead the design of a new gateway enhancement project at Niagara Falls

2023-01-06T09:00:00-05:00

Vishaan Chakrabarti’s Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) has been selected to lead the design of the new $12 million Niagara Falls Heritage Gateways project, the studio unveiled via a press announcement on Thursday.

The project’s brief calls for the creation of four gateway structures and will supposedly enhance connections between downtown Niagara Falls and the popular state park in an extension of a previous strategic plan begun by PAU and the state in early 2021.

Images courtesy of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU)

"We're thrilled to continue our work with New York State in Niagara Falls with an expanded team including landscape architects Hargreaves Jones," Chakrabarti said of the new collaboration."The Niagara Falls Heritage Gateways project is a chance to demonstrate how thoughtful design can restore rather than remake our cities."

Images courtesy of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU)

"It is by building on a foundation of shared history — instead ...

Lisa Iwamoto has been appointed as the new Chair of Architecture at UC Berkeley's CED

2021-12-14T17:25:00-05:00

UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design (CED) has named a successor to its Architecture Chair in its effort to fill a leadership void created after popular former dean Vishaan Chakrabarti announced his unexpected departure in early September.

Current Professor of Architecture Lisa Iwamoto was appointed Chair of the department effective December 1st by the CED’s acting Dean Renee Chow.

Iwamoto has been on the faculty at Berkeley for the past two decades and is also a founding partner of the San Francisco-based practice IwamotoScott Architecture, which has won multiple national awards since its founding in 2002.

“I am pleased to appoint Lisa as the next chair of the department. She has dedicated her career to balancing practice with academia and enters the position with a well-rounded approach to architectural education that can meet the contemporary environmental challenges and opportunities we face,” Chow said in a statement.

Iwamoto is a graduate of the Harvard GSD and the U...

Vishaan Chakrabarti is stepping down as Dean of Berkeley CED

2021-09-24T16:05:00-04:00

Berkeley CED dean Vishaan Chakrabarti has announced he will be leaving his post at the university to return to New York over pressing family medical concerns.

Chakrabarti ascended to the position in 2019 after a successful career in New York, where he quickly established his firm PAU as an industry leader in sustainable design.

The 55-year-old left said he Berkeley with a “new foundation from which to build” and departs in the midst of a tenure in which CED underwent a tremendous amount of change and restructuring.

A university statement cited Chakrabarti’s “enormous mark on the college over the past year, even in the midst of a global pandemic” and praised the architect for his leadership commitment to social justice issues.

Chakrabarti was able to raise over $17 million for the college during his tenure as Dean and leaves behind a legacy of innovation, collaboration, and thoughtful stewardship.

Previously featured on Archinect shortly after Chakrabarti was named new dean at ...

Architect Vishaan Chakrabarti expresses his hopes for Philadelphia and the 'false choice' for cities

2021-03-12T19:11:00-05:00

The problem we have across the United States is we’ve been given a false choice for the future of our cities. We’ve been told that our cities are one of two things: the failing bankrupt, crime-ridden cities of the 1970s, or the bourgeois, gentrified cities of more recent history. And that’s our choice. If we want a tax base, then we need chain stores and gentrification. Otherwise, we have no tax base and cities become a horror story.

On March 11, architect Vishaan Chakrabarti presented a virtual panel for the Industry Intersections: Art, Design + Development, hosted by the Arts + Business Council in Philadelphia. Along with guest panelists, Lindsey Scannapieco (co-founder of Scout), Sven Schroeter (Director of Interior Architecture at KSS Architects), and Rachel Zimmerman (Executive Director of InLiquid) where the connection between design, real estate, and economic recovery for Philadelphia's creative community are discussed. Before Chakrabarti's virtual panel, he spoke with WHYY's PlanPhilly, Ariella Cohen.

During their discussion, he explained his "faith in density," city growth and renewal post-pandemic, and his confidence in Schuylkill Yards. Regarding the 'false choice' of cities and Philadelphia, he correlates it to the "full-scale withdrawal of the federal government from urban policy and public housing [...] cities don't have the wherewithal to resist the pressures of gentrification" without support fr...

Vishaan Chakrabarti assumes deanship at UC Berkeley CED

2020-08-04T15:29:00-04:00

Nearly 15 years after earning an M.Arch degree from the University of California, Berkeley College of Environmental Design, architect, educator, and author Vishaan Chakrabarti has taken the reins of the college as its new Dean.

In a welcome note published to the school's website, Chakrabarti reflects on the "intertwined challenges" facing rising architecture and design students, explaining that "the world is at an inflection point like no other."

Previously on Archinect: "Deans List: Berkeley's Vishaan Chakrabarti on Rejecting the False Choices Embodied by Recent Architectural Pedagogies." Vishaan Chakrabarti is the new dean at the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. Image courtesy of Columbia University.

"From the righteous calls on city streets for racial, economic, and environmental justice; to the disproportionate impacts of this global pandemic on black and brown communities; to the promise and pitfalls of new technologies; to the fraying ...

PAU proposes multi-modal plan for Manhattan streets

2020-07-09T14:41:00-04:00

The Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) has unveiled a plan envisioning how Manhattan's streets might transform to minimize auto dependency while embracing the widespread availability of dedicated bus and bicycle lanes as well as more generous pedestrian infrastructure.

The so-called "Not Your Car" (NYC) proposal envisions a future where private automobile use is drastically reduced in order to create urban fabric "focused on reappropriating public space back to people without the inequities and predation caused by the omnipresence of private cars."

A view of how city streets might change to accommodate new modes of traffic.

The scheme, developed under the leadership of PAU founder Vishaan Chakrabarti with support from Buro Happold, proposes to more or less get rid of on-street parking and private automobile traffic on most city streets, replacing this land-intensive arrangement with new pedestrian and public transit modes. Sidewalks would expand in width, street lanes forme...

Expanding the definition of universal design in a post-COVID world

2020-06-19T17:34:00-04:00

Rather than respond with temporary barriers or signs, [Joel] Sanders is trying to use MIX’s research process to arrive at designs that minimize the spread of the coronavirus and appeal to diverse users. This, he hopes, will result in buildings that endure, whether or not a vaccine becomes available.

Writing in The New York Times Magazine, journalist Kim Tingley takes a long look at the ways in which the design of everyday and communal spaces might shift to become more universally accessible following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The article engages with emerging design ideas resulting from new social distancing guidelines and includes perspectives from Joel Sanders of Joel Sanders Architect, Vishaan Chakrabarti of PAU, Mabel O. Wilson of Columbia University, Rosalie Genevro of the Architectural League of New York, and Deborah Berke of Yale University, among others.

Online events today include Geoff Manaugh, Vishaan Chakrabarti, Dror & Bruce Mau, Studio Libeskind, and Ignacio G. Galán

2020-04-29T14:01:00-04:00

Looking for some inspiration? Today's list of featured online events from our recently launched Virtual Event Guide include a lecture hosted by UCLA, a conversation between Dror Benshetrit and Bruce Mau, a conversation with Geoff Manaugh on his forthcoming book on the history and future of quarantine, and much more.

Are you hosting a virtual lecture? Presentation? Tour? Interview? Happy Hour? Submit it for consideration by clicking here.

Are you an expert in an arena that's especially important right now? Let us know if you would like to work with Archinect to host an online event.

Virtual Lecture with Ignacio G. Galán
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 | 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM PDT
Join us for a virtual lecture with Ignacio G. Galán, Principal of [igg - office for architecture] as part of our 2019-20 Event Series.
Click here to attend and/or register

Dror and Bruce Mau in Conversation
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 | 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EDT
Join Dror and Bruce Mau for an online conversation about yesterd...

Philadelphia's Schuylkill Yards mega-development takes a step forward with PAU-designed towers

2019-08-22T19:00:00-04:00

Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) and Brandywine Realty Trust have unveiled designs for a pair of aluminum-clad mixed-use towers in Philadelphia. The towers represent a key component of the 14-acre Schuylkill Yards mega-development that is currently taking shape in the city.

The towers, arranged as a pair of formal "cousins" that correspond to one another in terms of shape, bulk, and formal composition but differ in terms of size and use, are designed to evoke both "exuberant" and "classic" high-rise silhouettes when viewed from different vantages. Rising 512- and 360-feet respectively, the East and West Towers offer a mix of retail and office or residential spaces. Wrapped in regular grids of crab-colored aluminum window frames and spandrel panels, the two towers rest on a series of whimsical arcades that create a series of covered outdoor spaces and interior lobbies around the base of the towers.

The towers create a series of open and covered outdoor spaces around the...

PAU's Vishaan Chakrabarti to lead UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design

2019-06-27T17:38:00-04:00

The University of California, Berkeley has named Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) founder Vishaan Chakrabarti as the new dean for the university's College of Environmental Design (CED).

Chakrabarti comes to UC Berkeley after teaching at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Chakrabarti is an alumnus of CED graduate program and currently serves as a member of the school's Dean's Advisory Council. Chakrabarti earned a master's degree in city planning from MIT, as well as dual bachelor's degrees in art history and engineering from Cornell University.

Chakrabarti founded PAU in 2015 and previously practiced at SHoP Architects and SOM. He also served as the director of the Manhattan Office for the New York Department of City Planning under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Chakrabarti will expand PAU to include a west coast office when he assumes the role of dean. PAU studio director and associate partner Ruchika Modi will lead the New ...

Vishaan Chakrabarti reveals new designs for Domino Sugar Factory

2017-10-04T11:09:00-04:00

Vishaan Chakrabarti‘s Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) has revealed a new set of renderings for the refinery building at the three million-square-foot Domino Sugar Factory mega-development in Williamsburg. The new plans are brighter and better connected than those previously approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

PAU design for the Domino Refinery. Image courtesy of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism.

News via 6sqft

An ambitious plan to overhaul Penn Station, by moving Madison Square Garden

2016-09-30T13:21:00-04:00

Penn Station is much more than a transportation center. As the heart of the Northeast Corridor rail system, it has the potential to link downtown to downtown along the Eastern Seaboard in a way far more economical, expedient and environmentally sustainable than air travel. But while the governor’s recently announced plan is a step toward this goal, more must be done. What we propose in addition is a completely new commuter station on the site of Madison Square Garden

The proposed plan for Penn Station's redesign comes by way of Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism. Previously, Chakrabarti was the director of Manhattan's Department of City Planning under former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where he also oversaw prior refurbishment plans for the station.

Previously, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had released a plan to bring Penn Station up to speed (it was designed for a third of its current 650,000 daily commuters). But while the Governor's plan, headed by SOM, is focused mostly on utility, Chakrabarti's plan (as he writes for The Times) aims to provide the city with a grand public space—by physically relocating Madison Square Garden (an idea that has been floated before) to honor the original station's legacy where travelers "entered the city like a god".

Related on Archinect:

Vishaan Chakrabarti leaves SHOP, launches new firm PAU

2015-10-21T16:14:00-04:00

Vishaan Chakrabarti has amicably departed from SHoP Architects, where he was principal from 2012 to 2015, and has now launched a new firm, the Partnership for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU).

According to a press release, "PAU will offer two main business services – architecture and strategic planning. The latter will include tactical advice and advocacy, helping clients master plan and obtain entitlements for density and infrastructure at a macro-level, while also helping to define, intensify and enhance the experience of the urban environment. Initial clients include Sidewalk Labs, a new project with Two Trees Management, and a new cultural building in Manhattan."

For more of Archinect's coverage of SHoP Architects and Vishaan Chakrabarti, please see:

• SHoP’s Essex Crossing Mega-Market Will Be One of Largest in the Nation

• Bracket [takes action]: submissions selected and new website launches!

Bracket [takes action]: submissions selected and new website launches!

2014-06-26T17:01:00-04:00

[takes action] is the fourth issue from Bracket, Archinect's collaborative publication with InfraNet Lab. Edited by a diverse collection of professionals from the intersecting worlds of architecture, environment, and digital culture, Bracket's content is sourced from an open-call for submissions.

Bracket [takes action] asks: What are the collective projects in the public realm to act on?

How have recent design projects incited political or social action? How can design catalyze a public, as well as forums for that public to act? What is the role of spatial practice to instigate or resist public actions? Bracket 4 provokes spatial practice’s potential to incite and respond to action today.

Peruse the selected entries (on the brand new website !): Bracket [takes action]

The Jury included:

Pier Vittorio Aureli, founding partner of Dogma, teaches at the AA School of Architecture in London and is visiting professor at Yale University.
Vishaan Chakrabarti, Principal at SHoP Architects.
Adam ...

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.

New New Amsterdam: Would Some Giant Dutch Sea Gates Have Saved New York?

2012-11-01T11:46:00-04:00

“They really don’t treat the water in this kind of eggshell kind of way that they do in the United States,” Mr. Chakrabarti said. “They reclaim the land, use dredging material, do a whole variety of things to reshape the shoreline, like we first did when we were New Amsterdam. The Dutch have unrivaled experience in dealing with flooding. They really know how to shape the water’s edge, and I think we really have to rethink the way we deal with the water’s edge, given what’s happened with Sandy.”

Architect and planner Vishaan Charkrabarti, director of Columbia's Center for Urban Real Estate and a partner at SHoP, has a novel idea to save New York from the next big one: Build some giant sea gates around the harbor, like they have in Rotterdam. Also, a barrier island or two would be good.

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.