A Bureaucratic Loophole
The urban legacy of New York is often attributed to the verticality of the skyscraper and the horizontality of the grid.  Yet, despite their technological and organizational achievements, Manhattan’s greatest contribution to the discourse of the city is, unsurprisingly, bureaucratic in nature.  The 1916 zoning code responded to the growth of buildings by instituting setbacks and a sky exposure plane.  While the regulation was intended to serve the public welfare of the street it inadvertently created wedding cake islands, phallic enclaves of wealth.

The proposed dome enclosure for the Open Fort site creates a unique interior urbanity for Amsterdam – one that locates the space of the ‘public’ within rather than beside the towers. In this new context New York’s zoning code can be reconsidered for the benefit of a block rather than the street. By exporting New York’s regulatory legacy to Amsterdam the wedding cake is inverted; the void figures of Manhattan’s skyline carving out the tower’s public core.

Yonic Block
Using the setback rules of the 1916 zoning code and the 20% available massing reduction, a public void is created — an uninterrupted exterior space that enters into the building’s mass: a yonic response to New York’s phallic pedigree. This public lobby connects the street to the partially enclosed information booths that sit within the towers four structural feet.

The façade reinforces the tower’s competing identities: A fixed glass curtain-wall sampled from a conventional New York tower and a literal flexible curtain of reflective gold beads that drapes the inverted wedding cake.  While the rigid glass curtain-wall fronts the domes exterior, the soft supple curtain faces the tower’s public void.

Image #2, courtesy Stereo Architects

coming soon…

A couple with a 1930s Dutch revival clapboard in upstate New York want to turn their attic into a writing room and guest space. She, a writer, and he, a bookbinder, together own a letterpress. The two want a space for writing and storage of their book collection – for the consumption and production of literature. Their project is one about escape within their own habitual/domestic environment.

The solution exploits the small volume as a single room with several pockets. Primary circulation/access down the center takes advantage of the ceiling apex for head-height. As the ceiling slopes lower, sitting-height program is distributed along the edges to include the writing desk, reading chairs, chaise lounge, and a refurbished claw-foot tub.

The two ends of the volume orient the interior horizontally (at the rear) and vertically (at the bookcase). With a frameless rear window at one end and a mirrored bookcase opposite, the volume works to double context (the rear view) and content (the literary collection). The walls accommodate the program and stair pockets, emphasizing both volume and view.

Excess as Resource = MASSiveness
As a result of budgetary constraints P.S.1 installations typically rely on a material and structural economy of means that result in a tectonic of Thinness.  But if material is instead considered as a resource whose accumulation is desirable we arrive at Mass and the archaic tectonic of the lumber stack - a renewable resource with maximum use value for the public following the P.S.1 installation.

Fuzzy Mass
By shifting the lumber within the stack, the mass’s distinct shape becomes fuzzy, ambiguous, and suggestive. The fuzz facilitates the required program (shade, seating, pools, etc.) and alludes to alternate ones.

Stimulator Tips
The lumber stack is programmed by a catalog of tip modifications, providing sensorial stimulus as seating, swinging, misting, lighting, and playing.

Second Life
The P.S.1 courtyard acts as a temporary holding area for the inhabitable lumber stack before the resource is distributed to public and private, non-profit and for-profit institutions to be used for further entrepreneurial projects. The lumber stack will slowly disperse over the course of the summer as the public is invited to propose alternate uses for the material.
Renderings courtesy Mariano Recalde & Matthew Liparulo

Located near the Melrose shopping neighborhood, the new 3.1 Phillip Lim store and showroom announces the designer’s west coast debut with the transformation of 5000 square foot auto body shop into a flowing interior. The experience is a curious indulgence taking clients from the sunny LA sky into the intimate ambiance of Phillip Lim.

An Undulating Wall: Amoeba, Niches and Nooks

By introducing a thick curving wall within the existing building envelope one large main space unfolds into four smaller niches. Mirrors along the walls enhance the spatiality of the store and create visual continuity between adjacent spaces.
The curving geometry and thickness of the wall allows for the conventional methods of lighting and display to be rethought. With most of the spotlights within the thickness of the wall, the ceiling is free of the clutter of typical track lighting. A single, continuous light-diffusing membrane floats above the space adding to the intimate atmosphere while giving the space a sense of lightness.

Liners: Atmospheres + Ambiances

Like the construction of a garment, the curving wall has an inner ‘lining’ and outer ‘lining.’ The pyramidal texture on the walls is actually soft to the touch creating a sensation of being both hard and soft. The smaller niche spaces are each lined with different materials; wallpaper, Spanish cork, leather herringbone, and bamboo creating a variety of tactile vignettes for the clothing to be displayed in.

A Blank Facade

As an alternative to the typical window display, the exterior façade has no openings except the entrance. Instead of windows, the façade is surfaced in a stark yet supple pattern of concrete tiles shaped like pillows. The emphasis of the blank façade acts like a ‘palette cleanser’ as one transitions from the hustle and bustle of the street-scape to the intimate interior.

Project description © PARA-Project, LLC.

In Collaboration with: Office/Giancarlo Valle

FACT SHEET:
Location:631 N. Robertson Blvd, West Hollywood, CA
Program: Fashion Boutique Flagship Store, Office, Showroom
Area: 5000 sf. interior, 2000 sf. exterior
Completion:
Design Team: Dominic Leong, Jonathan Lott, Brian Price, Giancarlo Valle
Staff: Andrew Seiger, intern
Executive Architect: Leong Architects, Inc.
Consultants: MKM Associates, Structural Engineer
Client: 3.1 Phillip Lim
Contractor: Hinerfeld-Ward Inc.

All Images© Iwan Baan

]]> http://www.para-project.org/2008/01/28/31-phillip-lim-los-angeles/feed/ http://www.para-project.org/2007/03/24/times-sq-recruiting-center/ http://www.para-project.org/2007/03/24/times-sq-recruiting-center/#comments Sun, 25 Mar 2007 03:14:42 +0000 admin Projects http://www.para-project.org/?p=46 In 2006 we were approached by the US Defense Department to propose an alternative to the existing Recruitment Center at Times Square. The predicament was one of image: The military sought to re-present itself in the context of Times Square; how could the American public readily relate to the Military in this hyper-commercial environment?

As an enduring American symbol the Pentagon has unparalleled cultural currency. Its value is both global and timeless, evoking the power, strength, and nobility of the United States Joint Armed Forces.

The Pentagon is transplanted to Times Square as an icon from which a new image of the military can be constructed. The mass of the Pentagon is lifted from the ground as if a cloud, allowing the street and the public into its courtyard. Clad in highly reflective inflated-ETFE cushions, the floating cloud is camouflaged by its context, reflecting at various points either the purity of the sky or the vibrant street life of Times Square.

The Rorschach Test is a method of psychological evaluation, not so much for seeking objective meaning, but to interpret the psychosis of both the patient and observer. The Rorschach test is used as a device to challenge “inherited” predicaments within the discipline of architecture — questioning modes of practice, techniques of production, code of values, and public perceptions.

The inkblot is neither formal nor formless. It is a formless-form, so empty of inherent meaning that it is brimming with potential content. It is a shape that acquires significance according to how it is perceived or used. Can “empty formalism” make more “meaningful” architecture?

Is Architecture’s only means to establish relevance on a global scale through its own iconography?

Wandering through the city or a city wandering?

The Roosevelt Island Universal Arts Center is conceived of as a network of floating barges. Inheriting the island’s history of landfill, the barges gather together to form a Mobile Art Park, filling the site with a vibrant community of artists and art enthusiasts.

A Performative Graphic Landscape= ART+Leisure+Nature

The barges form a migrating network that extends throughout the regional waters of New York’s five boroughs and beyond. Linking together in multiple combinations, the barges accommodate different events at the scale of the entire Southpoint site. Dispersed throughout the city, the barges bridge culturally disparate enclaves with the vibrant communities of artists already thriving in the city.

The Mobile Art Park addresses the issue of accessibility as cultural inclusion — aiming to maximize access to the world of art and facilitate the incorporation of art into everyday life.

In February 2006 PARA organized Paratheses, a symposium held at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture. Paratheses addressed the emerging shift in architectural pedagogy on collaborative forms of research. While the independent thesis project exemplifies the image and model of the heroic independent architect, this symposium examined the implications of collective research initiatives and think-tanks which are quickly taking its place. Architectural research has taken on a polemic dimension, extending into strategies for revitalizing and repositioning architectural practice. What is at stake in embracing these collective models of research? What new direction is offered to the unstable constitution of architectural knowledge through this ideological shift? Gathering together the educators at the forefront of this development, the event discussed what is offered by the trope of architectural research.

Speakers:
Denise Scott Brown
Brendan Moran
Mark Jarzombek
Sarah Whiting
Bernard Tschumi
Roemer van Toorn
Jeffrey Inaba
Brett Steele
Sylvia Lavin
Keller Easterling
Mark Wigley
Reinhold Martin

Paratheses was made possible through generous support from the Columbia GSAPP and Dean Mark Wigley

There are two types of parks: public and private. Macri Park aims to combine the two into one, creating a loop of public circulation through private space. Large custom glass doors are designed to recess within the walls, defining the space as a large breezeway. The small rear yard is exploited to connect exterior and interior zones through an unremitting floorplate without thresholds.

Inground luminaries are distributed throughout interior and exterior alike to further emphasize continuity. The twisted dropped ceiling allows room for necessary mechanical equipment yet reads as a seamless connection between the two exterior spaces.

Image 1,2,4 © Frank Oudeman
Image 3, Andrew Engelson

It is said that Architecture moves too slowly. Perhaps the lagging profession has something to learn from the overnight identity transforming procedures of plastic surgery. Mies van der Rohe’s Seagrams Building, epitomising late Modernism’s embrace of Fordist repetition, is taken as a case study. Could a strategy of modification, a post-Fordist nip-and-tuck, rejuvinate this aging trophy to let it stand alongside Manhattans newest starlet towers?

‘Lifting Mies is a catalog of such surgical procedures that operate directly on Mies’ canonical decorative I-beam. The techniques eschew the addition of unecessary material, the conventional approach to ornamentation, and instead rely on the alteration of what exists — as a facelifts would. No longer identifiable as something dispensable and separate from the restructured body, surgery allows ornamentation to evade easy recognition, just as the ideal facelift transforms one’s identity without revealing the work of the surgeon. By cutting, reshaping, and stitching, surgical techniques make ornament essential to the body, and the pace of New York image-making.

‘Lifting Mies was recently published in its entirety in 306090 v10: Decoration. A copy can be purchased here.

Loopholes: within Discourse and Practice was held at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design over two days in April 2005 and was organized in collaboration with Ashley Schafer.

The loophole is a model of opportunistic deviance. Like lawyers exploiting contract ambiguities, financiers engaging in arbitrage, or accountants seeking tax shelters, the loophole is an opening for the dexterous professional. Borrowing this concept as provocation for architecture, the loopholes introduces an opportunistic use of architectures disciplinary constraints.

As architecture operates according to certain rules, codes, and standards internal to the discipline, the loophole is proposed as a strategy for constructive intervention enabled by, rather than restrained by, such autonomous laws. Loopholes do not arise from the negation of law, but instead are found and formed within its center. They are sites of potential within an otherwise closed system. Avoiding the naive call to abandon theory, the loophole can be understood as a reconsideration of the critical/projective divide. To this end we propose the the loophole, which depends on institutionalized laws in order to elude them, presents and advanced mode of practice, hyper-aware of the disciplines periphery as well as its hard-core.

The two-day symposium proposes four potential loopholes for architecture: geometry, geography, imaging, and effect. Through a mix of writers and practitioners, established and emerging voices, and critical as well as projective approaches, we hope to discover what it means to practice within the loophole.

Farshid Moussavi
Preston Scott Cohen
François Roche
Philippe Morel
Jeffrey Kipnis
Dave Hickey
K. Michael Hays
Sarah Whiting
J. Meejin Yoon
Helene Furjan
Yusuke Obuchi
George Baird
Mark Wigley
Antoine Picon
Ashley Schafer
John McMorrough
Amanda Reeser Lawrence
Sylvia Lavin
Mark Goulthorpe
Jeffrey Inaba
John May
Keller Easterling
Benjamin Aranda
Saskia Sassen
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

“Loopholes” was made possible through generous support from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Toshiko Mori.