* Architecture: Domino Sugar in Brooklyn by SHoP Architects and James Corner Field Operations

Architecture:  Domino Sugar in Brooklyn by SHoP Architects and James Corner Field Operations: “..Manhattan studio SHoP Architects has designed a masterplan of hollow skyscrapers surrounded by gardens for the site of the former Domino Sugar refinery in Brooklyn, New York, USA..Working alongside landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, SHoP Architects has planned a mixed-use complex that includes the renovation of the nineteenth century factory, five new buildings, plus a series of public parks, gardens and sports fields..The plans replace earlier proposals by Rafael Viñoly for the historic site, which started production as a sugar factory in 1856 but has been out of use since 2004. Viñoly’s proposals proved unpopular with local residents, so developer Two Trees commissioned an alternative that would offer taller buildings but more public spaces..”If you’re standing next to a 400-foot tall building or a 600-foot tall building, you have no idea,” SHoP principal Vishaan Chakrabarti told New York magazine Curbed. “But if a 600-foot building means that you get a park where your kid can graduate, that means something to you.”..The tallest building in the scheme is a 180-metre tower, which will be positioned beside the Williamsburg Bridge to the south. Other structures will be shorter in height, relating to the scale of buildings to the north and east, and will include a tower with a rectangular void through its middle and a school at its base, plus a 600-unit apartment building. The old factory will be transformed into offices for technology companies and the creative industries..The developer plans to push ahead with the project this year and is organising community meetings in the upcoming weeks..SHoP Architects has worked on a number of high-profile projects recently. The team completed the Barclays sports arena in Brooklyn in September and is also developing a masterplan for a new “silicon” city in Kenya..New York-based James Corner Field Operations is best known for its role on the High Line, an elevated park on an abandoned railway..”

See some of our other posts on work by James Corner Field Operations:

• Architecture: James Corner Field Operations Team Wins Navy Pier Competition
• Architecture: High Line at the Rail Yards Design Unveiled
• Architecture: James Corner Field Operations – Fast Company 50 Most Innovative Companies
• Urban Design: PIERSCAPE by James Corner Field Operations
• Architecture: Landscape Architecture: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park by James Corner Field Operations
• Architecture + Urban Design: Section 2 of the High Line (New York City)

image: Courtesy of SHoP Architects and James Corner Field Operations, Dezeen; article: Dezeen

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* Residential Architecture: Frank Gehry Designs Mixed-Use Tower for Downtown Santa Monica

Residential Architecture: Frank Gehry Designs Mixed-Use Tower for Downtown Santa Monica: “..Developers M. David Paul Associates and the Worthe Real Estate Group have commissioned Frank Gehry to design a mixed-use hotel and residential tower in his hometown of Santa Monica, California, USA. The 22-story “Ocean Avenue Project” aims to stimulate the coastal city’s economy with street-level restaurant and retail space below a 125-room hotel and 22-unit condominium tower topped with a rooftop observation deck. As for accommodating the car-centric lifestyle of the West Coast, resident and visitor parking will be available in a three-story subterranean garage beneath the tower. In addition, the developers plan to integrate a 36,000 square foot museum campus that will add a cultural perk to the development just North of its two-acre site..Although this project looks promising, the 244-foot, Gehry-esque tower is currently pending approval from the City. A vote by the end of March will decide its fate..”

See some of our other posts on work by Frank Gehry:

• Architecture: Miami: America’s Next Great Architectural City?
• Architecture: Gehry and Mirvish unveil Toronto ‘Sculptures’
• Architecture: Frank Gehry designs Facebook HQ Expansion
• Architecture: The French Cinematheque by Frank Gehry
• Residential Architecture: Duplex by Frank Gehry for Make it Right
• Architecture: The Dancing House by Frank O. Gehry
• Residential Architecture: Video: Gehry Residence by Frank Gehry, 2012 AIA Twenty-five Year Award Recipient
• Residential Architecture: Gehry Residence by Frank Gehry
• Architecture: Opus Hong Kong by Frank Gehry
• New York by Gehry Now Complete
• Frank Gehry-designed Abu Dhabi Guggenheim Faces Boycott
• “New York by Gehry” Now Renting
• Gehry, Hadid, Foster, Ando, & Nouvel – All on One Small Island
• Frank Gehry’s New World Symphony Center – Wonderful the Way it Should Be
• Frank Gehry Residential Tower Prepares for Renters
• Frank Gehry’s Riotously Sculptural $100-million Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas Opens

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image: © Gehry Partners; article: Rosenfield , Karissa. “Gehry Designs Mixed-Use Tower for Downtown Santa Monica” 04 Mar 2013.ArchDaily

* Residential Architecture: Absolute Towers by MAD

Residential Architecture:  Absolute Towers by MAD: “..Chinese firm MAD has completed a pair of curvaceous twisted skyscrapers in the growing city of Mississauga, Canada..Standing at 170 and 150 metres, the Absolute Towers contain apartments on each of their oval-shaped floors, but every storey is incrementally rotated to give both buildings a curved and twisted outline..“The concept of the tower at the beginning was very simple,” said MAD founder Ma Yansong. “We just wanted to make something organic but different, more natural and more soft and not something too strong that would remind people of money or power.”..Mississauga first developed as a suburb of Toronto but has grown in recent decades and was named as a city in 1974. Since then, high-rise developments have sprung up across the city and the architects were keen to avoid designing another of these “listless, boxy buildings”..“Lots of cities like this are happening in China, just repeating the modern urban typology and always making square towers,” added Yansong. “We were thinking; how about reversing that? “So we don’t treat architecture as a product, or an artificial volume or space. It’s more like a landscape.”..MAD won a competition to design the buildings in 2006, which were initially dubbed “the Marylyn Monroe towers” by local residents in reference to their shapely bodies..Apartments in both towers boast panoramic views of the city skyline from continuous balconies that wrap around the recessed glass facades. This set-back also helps to shade each apartment from direct sunlight in the summer months..”  Interesting forms..

See our posts on other work by MAD: Residential Architecture: Huangshan Mountain Village by MAD and Architecture: Architecture in China: Ordos Museum by MAD.

image: Iwan Baan; article: Dezeen

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* Residential Architecture: Huangshan Mountain Village by MAD

Residential Architecture:  Huangshan Mountain Village by MAD: “..Chinese firm MAD has today unveiled plans for a village of towering apartment blocks beside the Huangshan Mountains in eastern China..Inspired by the topographical layers of the landscape, the buildings will have organically shaped floor plates and will emerge from amongst the treetops on a site beside the Taiping Lake..MAD hopes that the new community will give many Chinese residents access to the impressive landscape that has inspired painters for many years..“We hope that residents will not just look at the scenery, but see themselves in relation to this environment,” said MAD founder Ma Yansong. “In observing oneself, one perhaps begins to notice a different self than the one present in the city.”..The architect also explained how the poetry of the place inspired the design. “The impression we have of Taiping Lake in Huangshan is vague. Each visit to this place yields different views, different impressions. A bit mysterious, like ancient landscape paintings, never based on realism but rather, the imagination. This vague feeling is always poetic; it is obscure and indistinct,” he said..Set to complete in 2014 , the community will accommodate 700 apartments, as well as a hotel and other community facilities..”  Impressive site; interesting inspiration and form..

image: Courtesy of MAD; article: Dezeen

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