The Creative Arts Center advances new directions in teaching and research, and cross boundaries between the arts, sciences and the humanities. The 36,000-square-foot building includes a 200-seat recital hall and 35mm screening facility, a recording studio, multimedia lab, gallery space, and large multi-purpose production studios. Next in the species of the loft typology, the building is made up of large uninterrupted floor plates with interior surfaces ranging from raw to refined. The building program utilizes three floor plates that fill the site envelope. These floor plates are cut in the short axis along a shear line, and displaced in section to create six half levels, each with different technical and physical properties. The structured misalignment is a sectional  opportunity, allowing each floor to interface two others conjoined by a shear glass wall. The landscape shears as well, half inclined toward the entrance lobby and half descending along the rake of the recital hall. Students and passersby are invited into this outdoor theater to witness activities on stage or screen. The building fosters creative exchange throughout. The landings of the main circulation stair are expanded and conceived as vertically stacked living rooms for serendipitous and planned encounters. 

Creative Arts Center

The dual requirements of a destination restaurant and a public green within the limited open area of Lincoln Center’s North Plaza are satisfied in a single gesture sited between the reflecting pool and the plaza’s north edge. A twisted plane of lawn is elevated to act as an occupiable green roof over a glass pavilion restaurant. The hypar touches down at the SW corner plaza for access to the lawn and has two high points at SE and NW corners. The resulting topography is oriented away from city noise and traffic to create a bucolic urbanism. The contoured wood ceiling of the restaurant frames views to the plaza and the street. A split kitchen serves 160 diners and 40 at the bar. 

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Lincoln Center- Hypar Pavilion

Founded by George Balanchine, the School of American Ballet is the premiere ballet academy in the U.S. and the official training academy for the New York City Ballet. The 8,200 square foot expansion includes the addition of two new dance studios within two existing ones in Davis & Brody’s 1990’s Rose Building. The existing 16’-0” high studios are optimized by capturing most of the volume of a deep mechanical plenum above the ceiling and reorganizing ductwork to produce sectional depth for stacked studios. These smaller nesting studios get structural, electrical, and mechanical sustenance from their host. Three steel beams bridge the load into the building’s structure, allowing the new studios to float. Light and views are borrowed from the existing clerestory windows through floor-to-ceiling acoustic glass periphery walls. The two sets of stacked studios are connected by a mezzanine lounge. Its liquid crystal sidewalls can be switched on and off from translucent to transparent at the discretion of instructors to allow or deny parents and visitors visual access to the studios.

school of american ballet

Lincoln Center- School of American Ballet

The Juilliard School had long outgrown Pietro Belluschi’s 1960’s building, widely considered one of the best examples of Brutalism in the US. The nearly 100,000 square-foot expansion/renovation restores some of the building’s lost architectural features while positioning this premiere music, dance, and drama conservatory for the future. Features of the renovation include an entrance lobby and box office; a black box theater; an orchestra rehearsal space and recording studio; jazz studios; a large dance rehearsal studio; a library expansion; an archive for rare music manuscripts; plus smaller studios, rehearsal rooms, classrooms, administrative offices, and lounges. Three teaching levels are expanded by 45,000 square feet into the open triangular site toward Broadway. The cantilevered volume is a framing canopy for the Tully Hall expansion below. The east façade organizes a system of circulation and public spaces while revealing school activities to the street. New features include a grand lobby entrance stair/hangout space in which risers morph into couches; single surface open riser steel communicating stair; a suspended dance studio opening to the street; and a travertine façade with punched three-dimensional prismatic windows. In collaboration with FxFowle. 

Lincoln Center

Lincoln Center- Juilliard School

 Located on existing Columbia property on Haven Avenue between West 171st and West 172nd Streets, the 100,000SF Medical and Graduate Education Building will be used by students from all four CUMC schools (P&amp;S, Nursing, Dental Medicine and the Mailman School of Public Health), and the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The &ldquo;Study Cascade&rdquo; is the principle design strategy of the building - a network of social and study spaces distributed across oversize landings along an intricate 14-story stair. The Study Cascade creates a single interconnected space the height of the building, stretching from the ground floor lobby to the top, and conducive to collaborative, team-based learning and teaching. The &ldquo;Study Cascade&rdquo; interiors are complemented by a distributed network of south-facing outdoor &ldquo;rooms&rdquo; and terraces that are clad with cement panels and wood. The &ldquo;Study Cascade&rdquo; is also an urban gesture that, with its transparent fa&ccedil;ade, aims to become a visual landmark at the northern limit of Columbia University`s medical campus. 

Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center 

 After removing all traces of Philip Johnson`s original interior, the gutted shell is resurfaced with thin liners of varying materials that sometimes lift away to become structural, spatial, and functional elements. While the Seagram Building is considered to be the quintessential modernist glass tower, the restaurant is lodged in its stone base and is without glass, view or connection with the street. This irony prompted a series of alternate responses to the relation between glass and vision. A plasma monitor at the entry, back-to-back with a video camera to the street, produces a virtual transparency. Like a remnant of past construction, a 50-foot long sheet of lenticular glass is propped against an interior wall to support 24 seated diners. It sheaths artifacts on display and teases a direct view of them. The ritual of making an entrance is split into two events. A sensor above the revolving door triggers a video snapshot with the entry of every new patron and his or her image is added to a continuously changing video display over the bar. At the same time, entry into the main space one-half level below the street is made theatrical: a glass stairway of unusually gradual proportions prolongs the descent and deposits each patron into the center of the dining room. 

Brasserie

 The ICA is the first museum to be built in Boston in 100 years. The 65,000 square foot building includes temporary and permanent galleries, a 330 seat multi-purpose theater, a restaurant, bookstore, education/workshop facilities, and administrative offices. It straddles the competing objectives of a dynamic civic building for public programs and an intimate, contemplative environment for viewing art. The site is bound on two sides by the Harbor Walk, a 47-mile public walkway. The Harbor Walk is used as a civic surface that extends up to form the public grandstand, flattens into the theater stage, and wraps the surfaces of the theater extending into a horizontal tray that holds the gallery and shelters the grandstand. The waterfront is both a great asset for the museum and a distraction from its inwardly focused program. A choreographed passage through the building dispenses the visual context in small doses. Upon entry, the view is compressed under the belly of the theater, then scanned by the glass elevator, used as a variable backdrop in the theater, denied entirely in the galleries, and revealed as a panorama at the crossover gallery. The mediatheque suspended under the cantilever edits the context from view, leaving only the texture of water. Perry Dean Rogers acted as Associate Architect. 

ICA’s 325-seat theater, where operable glazed walls can be controlled to accommodate performance needs ICA’s 325-seat theater, where operable glazed walls can be controlled to accommodate performance needs.

Institute of Contemporary Art

Former Project Architect at Diller Scofidio Renfro Discusses the design of the ICA

Former Project Architect, Eric Howeler for Diller Scofidio Renfro discusses the design of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

The re-design is intended to transform the venue from a good multi-purpose hall into a premiere chamber music venue with street identity and upgraded functionality for all performance needs. Tucked under The Juilliard School, the opaque base of Pietro Belluschi’s building is stripped away to reveal the hall’s outer shell. The sloped underside of Juilliard’s expansion serves as the canopy framing the hall, its expanded lobby and box office. A shear one-way cable net glass façade puts the hall on display. The liner of African moabi is tailored around all existing hall features and new programmatic elements to eliminate visual noise and illumination emerges from the wood skin the way a bioluminescent marine organism exudes an internal glow. A percentage of the wood liner is constructed of translucent custom-molded resin panels surfaced in veneer to match and blend seamlessly with the wood, binding the house and stage with light. Like the raising of a chandelier or the parting of a curtain signaling the start of performance, the blush will be part of the performance choreography: a hush will fall in the seconds of transition from distraction to attention when the blushing walls become the first performer. In collaboration with FxFowle.

Lincoln Center- Alice Tully Hall

The ensemble of buildings and public spaces of Lincoln Center are the product of a group of prominent architects including Gordon Bunshaft, Eero Saarinen, Wallace Harrison and Philip Johnson. Lincoln Center has become an icon inextricably linked with New York. The redesign of public spaces includes the Central Plaza, the North Plaza, the conversion of 65th Street from a service corridor into a new central spine, the transformation of three blocks of Lincoln Center’s frontage at Columbus Avenue and eventually, Damrosch Park. The redesign is intended to turn the campus inside out by extending the spectacle within the performance halls into the mute public spaces between the halls and into the surrounding streets. The range of scales for the project requires an effort that dissolves boundaries between urban planning, architecture, landscape design and information design.65th Street Project in collaboration with FxFowle; Promenade Project in collaboration with Beyer Blinder Belle.

Lincoln Center- Public Spaces

 The Landscape Architect talks about some of the design ideas that were incorporated into the revisioning of Lincoln Center, perhaps the most noteworthy being relocating the vehicular entrance below grade. 

The Broad features two floors of gallery space and The Broad Art Foundation lending library. The building's carved underside shapes the lobby below and public circulation routes. Its top surface is the floor of the third-floor galleries. The vault is enveloped by the “veil,” a porous, honeycomb-like exterior structure that spans across the block-long third-floor gallery and provides filtered natural daylight.Dubbed “the veil and the vault,” the museum’s design merges the two key programs of the building: public exhibition space and the archive/storage that will support The Broad Art Foundation’s lending activities. Rather than relegate the archive/storage to secondary status, “the vault” plays a key role in shaping the museum experience from entry to exit. Its heavy opaque mass is always in view, hovering midway in the building. Its carved underside shapes the lobby below and public circulation routes. Its top surface is the floor of the exhibition space. The vault is enveloped on all sides by the “veil,” an airy, cellular exoskeleton structure that spans across the block-long gallery and provides filtered natural daylight. The museum’s “veil” lifts at the corners, welcoming visitors into an active lobby with a bookshop and espresso bar. The public is then drawn upwards via escalator, tunneling through the archive, arriving onto an acre of column-free exhibition space bathed in diffuse light. This 24’ high space is fully flexible to be shaped into galleries according to curatorial needs. Departure from the exhibition space is a return trip through the vault via a winding stair that offers glimpses into the vast holdings of the collection.

The Broad

 The southern part of the Upper West Side developed quickly in the 1880s along Columbus Avenue. The area was never fashionable and except along Central Park. By late 1940s the part west of Broadway was a slum fostered by its proximity to the open New York Central railroad yards lying between West End Avenue and the river. This latter area was the subject first of low-rent subsidized apartments and then of a 12-block urban renewal project that cleared the tenements and is now the site of the Lincoln Center, Fordham University`s in-town campus, many luxury apartments, and public and institutional buildings. 

Charles Renfro, partner in Diller Scofidio+Renfro, talks about the firm's commision to renovate one of the most important performing arts hubs in New York City. 
"It started as a street scape project" says Renfro but turned into "an expansive rethinking of the Center." The architects touched almost every part of the public space, added on to the Julliard Building,  added a new pavillion on the North Plaza and made surgical changes to the entry steps and the canopies. 

 The High Line, in collaboration with James Corner Field Operations and Piet Oudolf, is a new 1.5-mile long public park built on an abandoned elevated railroad stretching from the Meatpacking District to the Hudson Rail Yards in Manhattan. Inspired by the melancholic, unruly beauty of this postindustrial ruin, where nature has reclaimed a once vital piece of urban infrastructure, the new park interprets its inheritance. It translates the biodiversity that took root after it fell into ruin in a string of site-specific urban microclimates along the stretch of railway that include sunny, shady, wet, dry, windy, and sheltered spaces. Through a strategy of agri-tecture&mdash;part agriculture, part architecture&mdash;the High Line surface is digitized into discrete units of paving and planting which are assembled along the 1.5 miles into a variety of gradients from 100% paving to 100% soft, richly vegetated biotopes. The paving system consists of individual pre-cast concrete planks with open joints to encourage emergent growth like wild grass through cracks in the sidewalk. The long paving units have tapered ends that comb into planting beds creating a textured, &ldquo;pathless&rdquo; landscape where the public can meander in unscripted ways. The park accommodates the wild, the cultivated, the intimate, and the social. Access points are durational experiences designed to prolong the transition from the frenetic pace of city streets to the slow otherworldly landscape above. 

The first phase of the park extended from West 12th Street to 22nd Street between 10th & 11th Avenue.  Subsequent phases extended the length of the elevated rail till 32nd Street.

High Line

Carol Berens, VP of the Empire State Development Corporation, discusses the reinvisioning of a dilapidated elevated railroad into the High Line Park and its consequences on the surrounding neighborhood.  

Elizabeth Leber, Partner at Beyer Blinder Belle speaks on the design features of the High Line Maintenance and Operations Facilities Center, which seamlessly integrate the new building with the existing High Line.

Goodwin's inclination towards the traditional Beaux-Arts style and Stone's more modern approach came together to create a building of six stories made of sleek white marble and a type of insulated glass called Thermolux. This glass helped in diffusing the light in the galleries of the museum.The building stands true to its vision of popularising and democratizing modern art, with modern and contemporary architecture styles blending together with international styles. The sculpture garden of the museum was designed by the MoMA director Alfred H. Barr Jr. and MoMA architecture curator John McAndrew.

In the late 1990s, Yoshio Taniguchi, a popular Japanese architect, submitted his design for renovating MoMA architecture. After its completion in 2004, it was reopened to the public on its 75th birthday.Taniguchi added granite and glass facades to the entrance of the MoMA museum. He added minimal solutions to the museum’s design while maintaining its modernist roots. Yoshio restored the International style building and enlarged the Sculpture Garden. The architect achieved a minimal aesthetic look with the help of precision. Glass panes were added that surrounded the Sculpture Garden and the curtains walls were detached from the floors to ensure that the glass doesn’t deflect when there are lots of visitors. Taniguchi’s design made the garden the focus while the other buildings acted as the side characters. His design allowed visitors to enjoy NYC’s streets and skyline as they passed through the galleries. Several windows in the galleries and the stairways allow the visitors a look outside. Visitors would find contemporary works on the ground floor and older artworks on the higher floors. A huge sky-lit space for temporary exhibitions was made available on the top floor. An atrium was also added that connects the lobby to the Sculpture Garden. KPF was executive architect for this restoration, renovation and expansion, which included work on the MoMA’s galleries, east wing and education building. KPF restored the original curved canopy and courtyard, added theater, library, and office spaces, and increased the exhibition area by 30%.

A two-phased renovation, the first part involved the MoMA architecture and new walls whereas the second part focused on the new art that is getting installed on those new walls.

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

Barry Bergdoll, Phillip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA talks about the intellectual origins of the museum building and the development of the sculpture garden. 

Giovanni da Verrazzano first observed the village’s residents – Canarsie-speaking Lenape, who called the island “Pagganck,” which means “nut island,” so named for the area’s abundance of hickory nut trees.&nbsp;

The first settlers in New Netherland settled on what the Dutch called Noten Eylandt ("Island of Nuts") purchased by Wouter Van Twiller for two ax heads, a string of beads, and some nails for private use initially, confiscated by the Dutch government a year later. A group of 30 Dutch families settled on the island. &nbsp;Wouter van Twiller commandeered the island for his personal use, and he drew up a deed with two Lenape leaders so he could cultivate a farm on the island.

During the American Revolution, Governors Island was strategically fortified by American colonists in 1776 with 40 cannons and defensive earthworks. However, following their defeat at the Battle of Brooklyn in August, the British seized the island. It remained under British control until the end of the war in 1783, and became the property of New York State.

The island is a prison during the American Civil War. Captured Confederate soldiers are held there.

The Army Corps of Engineers supervised the deposit of 4,787,000 cubic yards of fill on the south side of Governors Island. The fill was the rocks and dirt that came from the excavation of the Lexington Avenue subway line. The island is expanded and is now 172 acres. In 1939, the island becomes the headquarters of the U.S. First Army, the longest-established field army of the United States. In 1966, budget cuts from the Department of Defense close the Army Base on the island. Governor’s Island becomes a Coast Guard Base. It is the largest installation of the Coast Guard, with a self-contained residential community and a total population of 3,500. The Coast Guard base is closed in 1996 after 30 years.

1st United States Army activated at Governors Island throughout the 1930s and WWII

150 acres of Governors Island were sold to New York City for $1, following a 2001 agreement by President George W. Bush, Governor George Pataki, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The agreement aimed to return the island to public use for a nominal cost, excluding the 22-acre landmarked area, which remained federally protected.

The Governors Island Park and Public Space Master Plan transforms 87 acres of open green space on the island into a regional destination by taking advantage of its unparalleled setting in New York Harbor. MNLA was the Associate Landscape Architect on the team that completed the master plan and the two-phased park design for the open space. The master plan rejuvenates existing landscapes in the National Historic District, transforms the southern half of the island into a twenty-first century park, and creates a 2.2-mile Great Promenade along the waterfront where strollers and bicyclists can experience 360-degree views of the harbor.Phase I includes the gardens of Liggett Terrace and Hammock Grove, a 10-acre afforestation project with more than 1,900 trees representing 50 species. The result is a design that engages people in unexpected ways and complements the unique character of Governors Island`s location. Phase II, also known as "The Hills," opened to the public in July 2016. The Hills were built from a combination of salvaged fill, clean fill, designed soils, and structural support. Their height and slope create complex gradations of planting conditions due to aspect and grade. As a result, MNLA`s planting strategy for them addresses the aesthetic, experiential, and technical aspects of design. Over 40,000 shrubs, comprising 19 species of plants, cover nearly five acres of the Hills, and, as visitors climb the paths, the viewsheds are controlled through the massing of both trees and shrubs.The design of New York`s Governors Island dramatically transformed this once-abandoned island from a utilitarian windswept military base into a vibrant, resilient and thriving mixed-use destination. The recently opened Hills represent the culmination of the Park and Public Space Master Plan, a 10-year planning process for the 172-acre island. Today, Governors Island is a major festival and events destination, a tourist draw within the region, and a public park for all New Yorkers.

Site-specific information panel, one of many installed by the National Park Service within Governors Island National Monument.&nbsp;Island map is a regional location map showing showing the positions of other federally administered park properties in Upper New York Bay.

as far north as Central Park, also the East River shorefront of Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint, and the New Jersey shoreline of Jersey City and Hoboken, Map VIII AA.R. Ohman Map Co. (Creator)Bolton, Reginald Pelham, 1856-1942 (Creator)Ohman, August R. (Creator)Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation (Publisher)

Governors Island Park and Public Space

Moscone Center

Was located in the lake Neuchatel in Switzerland

Governors Island

Diller Scofidio + Renfro is a New York City based architectural firm founded by Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio. They are particularly well known for their interdisciplinary approach to architecture. Their influence stems as much, if not more, from their contributions to the theory and criticism of architecture as from their built works. These are sometimes in the form of written work, but more often are in the form of installation art, video art or electronic art.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Charles Renfro, partner in Diller Scofidio +Renfro, talks about Columbia's new Medical Center and the concept of a vertical campus that guided the design of the building. The architects sought to create a hub that demonstrated the variety of communication and collaboration present in today's medical eduction. "On the front side- it's all business" says Renfro, "on the back side- it's all party".

Charles Renfro, partner in DS+R, talks about the design for the Brasserie restaurant in the MetLife Building, the firm's first project in NYC.

This video shows Diller Scofido + Renfro's installation and movement of trees.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro

SITES

DRAWINGS

PLAYLISTS CURATED by Diller Scofidio + Renfro