Ah fashion photography—in what other context would a bevy of glamourous women lounge nonchalantly on the ground in genuine Valentinos? Then again, those steps are *genuine* travertine, whose beautifully pocked surface catches shadows oh-so-well, camouflaging splotches of chewing gum and cigarette butts infinitely better than New York’s crusty cementitious sidewalks. So, where in the world is this fantastic urban stair? If you think you know this awesome project, sound off in the comments below!
HOK’s master plan for the New Istanbul International Financial Center includes a commercial plaza with canopies that push through an overhang like trees.
In its bid to become a global center of finance by 2023, Istanbul has begun construction on the New International Financial Center, a massive complex of green-roofed, lattice-skinned high rises on a 170-acre site near the city’s historic center. In a time marked by the decline of centralized finance hubs—helped along by the New York Stock Exchange’s fading relevance—Istanbul’s $2.6 billion investment is perhaps a long bet. It’s also an experiment in how to make a financial powerhouse from scratch. In HOK’s master plan, there’s not a cobblestone in sight. We’re in the 21st century, the era of green roofs and geometric floral canopies! Read more.
When the financial center opens at the end of 2016, it will offer 45 million square feet of office, conference, retail, hotel, residential, and park space. HOK divided the site into four districts: civic, commerce, culture, and governance. The firm is also designing two of the center’s high rises.
The first phase of construction will lay down new infrastructure for data, security, and sustainable power and water, and take care of excavation for a new subway line. All of this will be integrated into a podium that will double as the base of a new urban park. Sure beats trying to sit on Charging Bull.
“This development will become a focal point for Turkey as well as for the international finance and business community,” HOK vice president and strategic planner Cagri Kanver said in an announcement. Kanver did not point out how the layout of the master plan just happens to bear a strong resemblance to an aerial shot of Manhattan. You’ve been put on notice, New York!
All renderings courtesy of HOK
Project: Rock Strangers
Architect: Studio Arne Quinze
Location: Ostend, Belgium
The often overlooked coastal town of Ostend hugs the English Channel, and can seem more sea than town—the sweeping views out to sea draw focus away from Ostend and to the horizon. To contradict this tendency, architect Arne Quinze developed the Rock Strangers, a series of monumental metal sculptures scattered across the seafront plaza. Their electric orange hue and ineffable forms are visually magnetic. Exploring the themes of otherness and alienation, the sculptures radically transform the public space of the town and acta as an anchor to the town-at-lands-end.
Read more about this project in the Architizer database!
Image: courtesy of OLIN studio Project: David H. Koch Plaza, Metropolitan Museum of Art Landscape Architect: OLIN studio Location: New York, NY Function: The proposed multi-block plaza for the Metropolitan Museum of Art will provide a grand entry portal to match the venerable collections housed within. Two monumental granite fountains will flank the cascading steps,
GH3 con sede en Toronto, Canadá han diseñado Parque de Estudiantes Verde en Mississauga, Ontario.
Situado en el centro del nuevo campus Sheridan College, el Parque de Estudiantes Verde es una simbiosis de parque público y académico común que proporciona comodidad al aire libre rico para estudiantes, profesores y la comunidad circundante. Ordenado de un sistema de cruce de circulación criss, una versión moderna de Harvard Yard, es tanto un homenaje al paisaje colegial mientras que proporciona una red “todo el mundo en todas partes ‘de caminos que conectan perfectamente el parque a su alrededor. Forrado con columnas de haya, las facetas del parque contienen diversas formas: micro-bosques, anfiteatros para enseñanza; cuadrángulos de hierbas, cafés al aire libre, y plazas públicas. Efectivamente una serie de discretas salas al aire libre, el Parque de Estudiantes Verde responde a una necesidad, en un barrio de densificación, por un refugio seguro y tranquilo para los individuos y pequeños grupos de todas las edades.
Think of the indoor park at 135 Main Street as your multilevel living room in the middle of downtown. Inside, several floors of couches and carpets beckon the lunchtime napper.
San Francisco’s downtown business district, a flatland where the office towers are tall enough to blot out the sun, doesn’t have much park space. And when the goof-off options during business hours are limited to trips between a private office and a private restaurant for lunch, the city can start to feel a little inhospitable. Where to find a place to sit in the sun, a table for eating a homemade sandwich, a planter of flowers, a flat surface on which to momentarily set down one’s coffee?
According to the nonprofit urban think tank SPUR, downtown alone has more than 50 such places — they’re just well hidden. “The issue is that a lot of people don’t know these spaces exist,” says Karen Steen, publications and communications manager at SPUR. “They’re not well marked. Sometimes they’re upstairs, on a roof, or sometimes it’s an interior atrium and there’s no way of knowing it’s a public space.” To call attention to these oases of urban respite, SPUR and the developer Escape Apps have released an iPhone app that documents and maps downtown’s indoor parks, rooftop terraces, urban gardens, and bamboo forests (yes!). Read more.
This sun terrace at 100 First Street is accessible via a staircase on Mission. On your way up, grab some grub from the deli at the foot of the stairs.
The app, SF’s Secret Spaces and Hidden Oases, sheds light on downtown’s uncataloged network of privately owned public open spaces, or POPOS (also POPS), as they are known in urban advocacy parlance. In 1985 the city strengthened its public-space requirements by asking developers to provide one square foot of open space for every 50 square feet of occupied office area; over the past few decades downtown has accumulated a nice share of POPOS. The app features plenty of snippets and sun terraces worth discovering, but there are also some hard-to-miss large plazas. The trouble, explains Steen, is that even obvious plazas can look like no-trespassing zones, and there are no signs that say otherwise. “The developers are following the letter of the law to create these spaces, but they’re not necessarily letting everybody know that they exist,” she says.
The Citigroup Center, at Sansome and Sutter streets, owes its skylit atrium and marble arches to the 1912 Paris-London Bank building, which was hollowed out to make way for palm trees, a crêpe stand, and your afternoon coffee run.
The app works like a guidebook to downtown, with tips on park closing times and suggestions for improvements like better signage or the need for a restroom. The project grew out of a 2009 report from SPUR that evaluated San Francisco’s POPOS, which in turn was inspired by a 2006 assessment of the spaces by the art and design studio Rebar.
560 Mission Street is an urban garden with a high bamboo grove. The path steps down to a granite plaza with tables, chairs, and delis close by.
If you’re in Boston or New York, not to worry—another urban research group, ICE-POPS, has got your back. Tally up your local POPOS and check out the guides that are still in progress. Seattle and Pittsburgh, you’re next!
The sun terrace at 150 California Street is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Don’t be deterred by the lobby guard—just sign in and head on up.
Open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., the indoor park at 101 Second Street is a five-story skylit atrium with café seating on the mezzanine.
The urban garden at Empire Park beautifies the site of a demolished building with big brick planters, café tables, and a sculptural fountain.
Photos: Noah Christman, courtesy of SPUR
Think of the indoor park at 135 Main Street as your multilevel living room in the middle of downtown. Inside, several floors of couches and carpets beckon the lunchtime napper.
San Francisco’s downtown business district, a flatland where the office towers are tall enough to blot out the sun, doesn’t have much park space. And when the goof-off options during business hours are limited to trips between a private office and a private restaurant for lunch, the city can start to feel a little inhospitable. Where to find a place to sit in the sun, a table for eating a homemade sandwich, a planter of flowers, a flat surface on which to momentarily set down one’s coffee?
According to the nonprofit urban think tank SPUR, downtown alone has more than 50 such places — they’re just well hidden. “The issue is that a lot of people don’t know these spaces exist,” says Karen Steen, publications and communications manager at SPUR. “They’re not well marked. Sometimes they’re upstairs, on a roof, or sometimes it’s an interior atrium and there’s no way of knowing it’s a public space.” To call attention to these oases of urban respite, SPUR and the developer Escape Apps have released an iPhone app that documents and maps downtown’s indoor parks, rooftop terraces, urban gardens, and bamboo forests (yes!). Read more.
This sun terrace at 100 First Street is accessible via a staircase on Mission. On your way up, grab some grub from the deli at the foot of the stairs.
The app, SF’s Secret Spaces and Hidden Oases, sheds light on downtown’s uncataloged network of privately owned public open spaces, or POPOS (also POPS), as they are known in urban advocacy parlance. In 1985 the city strengthened its public-space requirements by asking developers to provide one square foot of open space for every 50 square feet of occupied office area; over the past few decades downtown has accumulated a nice share of POPOS. The app features plenty of snippets and sun terraces worth discovering, but there are also some hard-to-miss large plazas. The trouble, explains Steen, is that even obvious plazas can look like no-trespassing zones, and there are no signs that say otherwise. “The developers are following the letter of the law to create these spaces, but they’re not necessarily letting everybody know that they exist,” she says.
The Citigroup Center, at Sansome and Sutter streets, owes its skylit atrium and marble arches to the 1912 Paris-London Bank building, which was hollowed out to make way for palm trees, a crêpe stand, and your afternoon coffee run.
The app works like a guidebook to downtown, with tips on park closing times and suggestions for improvements like better signage or the need for a restroom. The project grew out of a 2009 report from SPUR that evaluated San Francisco’s POPOS, which in turn was inspired by a 2006 assessment of the spaces by the art and design studio Rebar.
560 Mission Street is an urban garden with a high bamboo grove. The path steps down to a granite plaza with tables, chairs, and delis close by.
If you’re in Boston or New York, not to worry—another urban research group, ICE-POPS, has got your back. Tally up your local POPOS and check out the guides that are still in progress. Seattle and Pittsburgh, you’re next!
The sun terrace at 150 California Street is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Don’t be deterred by the lobby guard—just sign in and head on up.
Open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., the indoor park at 101 Second Street is a five-story skylit atrium with café seating on the mezzanine.
The urban garden at Empire Park beautifies the site of a demolished building with big brick planters, café tables, and a sculptural fountain.
Photos: Noah Christman, courtesy of SPUR
Arquitecto:
Spanish “LOW-TECH” (1)