Work will go ahead to construct an “elevated island park” in the Hudson River off Manhattan after a judge dismissed a lawsuit from environmental and civic advocates.

The $130m park, which has been given the go-ahead by the US Army’s Corps of Engineers, will be based on the Hudson River...

Judge Joan Lobis, who threw out the lawsuit, said: “A significant purpose of maintaining event spaces in the park is to generate funds for the ongoing upkeep of the park, which is surely a park purpose.” — Global Construction Review

The observation deck won’t be finished for a few years yet. If you want to see the future of New York, walk north along the High Line, round the curve at the rail yards, and turn your back to the river. Amid the highway ramps and industrial hash of far-west Manhattan, a herd of cranes hoists I-beams into the sky. This is Hudson Yards, the largest private real-estate development in United States history and the test ground for the world’s most ambitious experiment in “smart city” urbanism. — Shannon Mattern | Places

Workers have almost completed mounting the copper paneling on the American Copper Buildings (née 626 First Avenue), the new tilting, two-towered development on Manhattan’s East Side, but their most striking feature—a three-story, 100-foot-long skybridge—is still open to the elements. [...]

The skybridge itself, though, is designed to be the showstopper. The architects placed a 75-foot lap pool on the bridge, so residents can swim 300 feet in the air [...]. — bloomberg.com

Working for free has been a reality for architects for decades. The hallmark of the practice is the open competition—a scourge on the financial and cultural health of the profession. But the argument against them has always seemed moot: as long as clients keep launching them, architects will keep entering them. Choosing not to participate, for some, seemed like a pointless act of professional self-sabotage. — FastCo.Design

Brooklyn is finally getting a new skyscraper development worthy of its 2.6 million populace. Today, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved SHoP Architects‘ vision for 9 DeKalb Avenue, a rehabilitation of the landmarked Dime Saving Bank that will marry it with a dramatic, supertall skyscraper behind, the first 1,000+ foot building to arrive in the borough. To bring back more of the building’s grandeur, its exterior and interior spaces will be restored. — 6sqft.com

Rikers Island looms large in New York’s imagination. It is home to a notorious complex of prisons, one whose excesses are still being discovered by the media and the courts. Many would like to see the Rikers Island closed forever, or barring that, to at least change the name to something that does not honor a slaveowner.

One group of designers has a different goal for Rikers Island—one that is within reach and, in fact, already at hand. — CityLab

“New York Horizon” would be virtually impossible to implement in the real world, given the actual urban landscape of the proposed site, which includes some of NYC's subway lines for starters. That being said, the criticism “New York Horizon” has sparked in recent weeks raises bigger questions — particularly involving the rise of “meme-tecture”, the cultural value of landscape architecture, and re-evaluating the setup of open ideas competitions. — Bustler

With The Frick Collection’s garden saved, the museum is moving forward with a new preservationist-friendly plan for expansion...The Frick Collection, looking to realize a revised expansion for the institution, has put forward a request for qualifications to a chosen group of architectural firms.

The Frick plans to announce its selected finalist later this year, and plans to reveal designs in 2017. — Observer

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey...has been so chastened by the cost overruns and construction delays that it declined to hold even a modest ribbon-cutting. When a bureaucracy turns down a major opportunity to pat itself on the back, you know things have turned sour. Turned acid, really.

Still, everyone seems to agree that the main hall, which stretches beneath a glass and white-steel roof and which Calatrava calls the Oculus, is beautiful. But I didn't find it beautiful... — the Los Angeles Times

Rikers is built on a landfill. The ground underneath the facilities is unstable and the decomposing garbage emits poisonous methane gas. In addition to extreme heat and poor air quality, flooding and crumbling infrastructure pose a serious threat, especially when superstorms like Hurricane Sandy strike. As the violence and human rights violations worsen, so do the environmental circumstances surrounding Rikers. — Grist

WeWork’s inspirational mottoes—"Do what you love," "Thank God it’s Monday," among many others—its evangelical faithful, and gatherings like the summit all have religious echoes..."Start imagining it a bit bigger," Neumann says about WeLive, stoking his idyllic view, "an entire building. And then instead of having just one building doing it, five buildings doing it. Then you’ll be able to imagine what a WeNeighborhood or a WeStreet would be." — Fast Company

None of the bike-lane opponents’ predictions has come to pass. City streets have never been safer, more economically thriving, or offered more transportation options than they do today...Sometimes a bike lane is just a bike lane, but this one is also a moribund metaphor for the fights that cities across the nation face when reclaiming and resetting their streets. — New York Magazine

When production begins, SolarCity, already the leading installer of residential solar panels in the [U.S.] will become a vertically integrated manufacturer and provider...At a time when conventional silicon-based solar panels from China have never been cheaper, investing in a new type of solar technology is a risky undertaking. However, the potential benefits are huge. The new factory...could transform both SolarCity’s business...and the economics of residential solar power. — MIT Technology Review