a+t architecture publishers

Currently, electronic devices transport the self to virtual realities, blur public with private, even the innermost, and provide a foretaste of a different domestic spatiality. Facing this challenge, and taking a resistant stance, architecture turns its gaze to the recent past and is capable of constructing a privacy in which materiality still preserves its full evocative power.

The third volume of the GENEROSITY series is dedicated to delving into how this privacy is built in the collective housing environment. Stephen Bates signs an extensive article on new architectural options for living together, Javier Mozas summarizes in five points the benefits of a home in which it is possible to achieve domestic happiness and Aurora Fernández Per compares the strategies to improve privacy followed by 8 selected projects.

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When President Nixon’s Welfare Reform programme was launched, aimed at curbing the deterioration of American cities by building affordable high-rise housing, Sert and Jackson took part in the plan for Roosevelt Island designing a huge urban complex i.
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The transformation of a skyscraper into an urban block, or vice-versa the transformation of a perimeter block into a skyscraper, is achieved in this collective housing work by applying the figure of the hyperbolic paraboloid whereby two elevations of the original prism are diluted into a warped plane. The final form by BIG is a hybrid somewhere between the two typologies which adapts perfectly to the Manhattan grid yet preserves the qualities associated with European residential blocks.

The need to provide affordable housing for the growing single population of NYC led to the Housing Department holding public tenders for projects in different sites. These were programmes for rental apartments less than 40 m2 in size with the provision of additional communal services. In Carmel Place, by nARCHITECTS, the solution chosen was high-rise construc­tion using factory-built containers stacked with no load-bearing structure and a total build height of 8 floors plus ground floor. .
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The programme for the Wieden+Kennedy New York offices opts for shared space for 96% of the work stations, most of which have been allocated an average area of 5 m2. The architecture firm WORKac laid out the desks in islands close to the facade and the centre of the floor plan is set aside for the meeting and shared working areas, thereby creating an archipelago of work stations surrounded by circulations. The option to preserve an open floor plan is favoured by the h.
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This intervention took place in the interior of a 1920s office building. With a 4.50 m height between supporting structures and large 3 m-high windows on the facade, the monumentality of the space enabled a layout to be implemented with dual interpretation: a compartmentalized base up to 1.20 m incorporating parallel rows of desks and a free space above this height. The choice of walnut for the furniture and the storage systems further enhances the perception of this dual landscape.

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After completion of 40 Bond Street, Pritzker Prize-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron strike back in Manhattan with a 60 story brand new tower, 56 Leonard street -also known as the Jenga tower- is located in the neighborhood of Tribeca.

The neighborhood has diverse building heights, most of the structures are low or medium density, so the challenge for the awarded Swiss firm was to integrate a 60 story skyscraper into an area of lower density. The strategy is simple; a number of boxes are stacked one on top of another in various sizes and heights creating a cascade of edgy cubes. The cubes are shifted creating an attractive and dynamic shape and introducing different private outdoor terraces with breathtaking panoramas of the cityscape. This mechanism introduces all the different scales present in the area into a high rise structure creating a strong dialogue with the neighborhood and an iconic image as well as reducing the strong impact that would result from inserting a skyscraper into a lower density area. The clearness of the concept and the striking level of keen detailing all at once, show the project´s force.

The program of this skyscraper will include 145 unique residences and will be the highest structure in Tribeca with 60 stories and 250m. 17,000 square feet of amenities include a 75’ lap pool with a sundeck, gym, screening room, lounge, private dining room and playroom. The building leans on a sculpture of Anish Kapoor creating some tension between architecture and sculpture.

Wanting to be a light and clean object in the massive Manhattan cityscape, the materials and the façade appearance play a relevant role. The choice of a shiny reflective glass in the tower, used as a skin on all vertical surfaces, will give different light reflections and will help the building disappear in the sky during the day hours, at night the building will show a dynamic image when lights are turned on and off by the lucky tenants and will give more lightness to the massive structure.

The Swiss designers have invested a great effort in the details; the slabs will show convex edges that will enhance the perception of sharp boxes and will make the slabs look thinner. The curtain wall will introduce a regular rhythm in the chaotic distribution of boxes with elegant white mullions, frameless guardrails disappear contributing to control the chaos created by the random box shifting operation.
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