Founded in 1982 by Kyong Park with R.L. Seltman and Arleen Schloss, Storefront for Art and Architecture is a nonprofit organization committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design. Their program of exhibitions and presentations is intended to generate dialogue and collaboration across geographic, ideological and disciplinary boundaries. As a public forum for emerging voices, Storefront explores vital issues in art and architecture with the intent of increasing awareness of and interest in contemporary design.

Steven Holl and Vito Acconci designed a gallery for the tiny triangular space which replaced the existing façade with movable panels.

Storefront for Art and Architecture

 Pratt School of Architecture at Higgins Hall, a historic landmark, was almost consumed by a four-alarm fire which destroyed the central wing, gutted the north wing to its masonry shell, and laid bare the building`s six previous constructions. The renovated school reveals the poetic within the ruin and creates a contemporary workplace for architecture furthering the School`s mission and purpose. Previously hidden arched openings, timber lintels, cast iron columns, curved masonry, and 100 year-old scars from an earlier fire were incorporated in the renovation. New openings in the old masonry`s bearing walls create light filled studio spaces while double-height spaces created by the fire become review spaces with gallery balconies. With the tectonics of the original structure and the new interventions clearly revealed, the building participates in the teaching of architecture. The deteriorating exterior of the south wing was reconstructed using primarily salvaged material and its roof profile reconfigured to allow new operable windows, clerestories and skylights. A cantilevered blackened steel stair completes the original ornate cast iron stair with drama. The new construction of the central wing creates an entryway and lobby for the school. With a series of ramps and stairs and open studios, it negotiates significant floor height differences between the two other wings. Its mechanical systems are located in the north wing for maximum light and openness. Steven Holl Architects was a collaborator on the new entry and glass connector. The South wing is a pilot project for LEED-CI commercial interiors. The complete reconstruction project spanned ten years. A phasing strategy helped surpass the client`s desired schedule by immediately minimizing the need for swing spaces and allowing continual programming on fully functional floors while ongoing work proceeded above. reactivating as much space. 

Higgens Hall

Higgens Hall:  Pratt Institute School of Architecture

 In the center of Chengdu, China, at the intersection of the first Ring Road and Ren Ming Nam Road, the Sliced Porosity Block forms large public plazas with a hybrid of different functions. Creating a metropolitan public space instead of object-icon skyscrapers, this three million squar foot project takes its shape from its distribution of natural light. The required minimum sunlight exposures to the surrounding urban fabric prescribe precise geometric angles that slice the exoskeletal concrete frame of the structure. The building structure is white concrete organized in six foot high openings with earthquake diagonals as required while the "sliced" sections are glass. The large public space framed in the center of the block is formed into three valleys inspired by a poem of the city's greatest poet, Du Fu (713-770), who wrote, 'From the northeast storm-tossed to the southwest, time has left stranded in Three Valleys.' The three plaza levels feature water gardens based on concepts of time&mdash;the Fountain of the Chinese Calendar Year, Fountain of Twelve Months, and Fountain of Thirty Days. These three ponds function as skylights to the six-story shopping precinct below. Establishing human scale in this metropolitan rectangle is achieved through the concept of "micro urbanism," with double-fronted shops open to the street as well as the shopping center. Three large openings are sculpted into the mass of the towers as the sites of the pavilion of history, designed by Steven Holl Architects, the Light Pavilion by Lebbeus Woods, and the Local Art Pavilion by Chinese sculptor Han Meilin. The Sliced Porosity Block is heated and cooled with 468 geothermal wells and the large ponds in the plaza harvest recycled rainwater, while the natural grasses and lily pads create a natural cooling effect. High- performance glazing, energy-efficient equipment and the use of regional materials are among the other methods employed to reach the LEED Gold rating. 

CapitaLand Raffles City

Sliced Porosity

 Located on the corner of West 218th street and Broadway&mdash;the northernmost edge of Manhattan, where Broadway crosses with Tenth Avenue and the elevated tracks of the 1 subway line&mdash;the Campbell Sports Center forms a new gateway to the Baker Athletics Complex, the primary athletics facility for the Columbia University`s outdoor sports program. The first new athletics building to be constructed on Columbia University's campus since the Marcellus Hartley Dodge Physical Fitness Center was built in the mid-1970s, the Campbell Sports Center will be the new cornerstone of the revitalized Baker Athletics Complex and provides increased program space for the entire intercollegiate athletics program. The facility, which adds approximately 48,000 square foot of space, houses strength and conditioning spaces, offices for varsity sports, theater-style meeting rooms, a hospitality suite and student-athlete study rooms. The Campbell Sports Center aims at serving the mind, the body and the mind/body for aspiring scholar-athletes. The design concept &ldquo;points on the ground, lines in space&rdquo;&mdash;like field play diagrams used for football, soccer, and baseball&mdash;develops from point foundations on the sloping site. Just as points and lines in diagrams yield the physical push and pull on the field, the building`s elevations push and pull in space. The building shapes an urban corner on Broadway and 218th street, then lifts up to form a portal, connecting the playing field with the streetscape. Extending over a stepped landscape, blue soffits heighten the openness of the urban scale portico to the Baker Athletics Complex. Terraces and external stairs, which serve as &ldquo;lines in space,&rdquo; draw the field play onto and into the building and give views from the upper levels over the field and Manhattan. NY Times Critic Michael Kimmelman said of the building, "It rises over a shambolic jumble of single-story bus depots and auto repair shops, Campbell's sanded-aluminum panels picking up on the industrial vibe and vocabulary of the Broadway Bridge, with its twin raised steel towers, a few blocks north. The subway rumbles straight past the picture windows of the center's second-story, double-height gym, where the college's football team routinely works out to a deafening soundtrack: muscle and heavy metal, inside and out. " 

Campbell Sports Center

 The private gallery and house are sited in the hills of the Kangbuk section of Seoul, Korea. The basic geometry of the building is inspired by a 1967 sketch for a music score by the composer Istvan Anhalt, &ldquo;Symphony of Modules,&rdquo; which was discovered in a book by John Cage titled &ldquo;Notations.&rdquo; Sunlight turns and bends around the inner spaces, animating them with the changing light of each season and throughout the day. Like a cesura in music, strips of glass lenses in the base of the pool break through the surface, bringing dappled light to the white plaster walls and white granite floor of the gallery below. Exteriors are rain screens of custom patinated copper, which ages naturally within the landscape.  

Daeyang Gallery and House

 Jongseo Lee, Project Manager of the Daeyang Gallery and House shares his insight on the design development of the project. 

 The undergraduate residence is envisioned with the concept of "porosity." It is a vertical slice of city, 10 stories tall and 382' long, providing a 125 seat theater, a night caf&eacute;, and street level dining. The "sponge" concept transforms the building via a series of programmatic and bio-technical functions. The building has five large openings corresponding to main entrances, view corridors, and outdoor activity terraces. Large, dynamic openings are the lungs, bringing natural light down and moving air up. Each of the dormitory's single rooms has nine operable windows. An 18" wall depth shades out the summer sun while allowing the low angled winter sun to help heat the building. At night, light from these windows is rhythmic and magical. 

Simmons Hall

 The 400sf Editions de Parfums Fr&eacute;d&eacute;ric Malle shop is an abstract insertion into the historic fabric of Greenwich Village. It is envisioned as an integral material/spatial whole. An imagined geometry for olfaction, a slipped disk characterizes the facade, the main cabinetry, the furniture, and the secret garden beyond. If smell could have geometric properties they might come in all scales and textures. Similarly, the &ldquo;slipped disk&rdquo; geometry is textured, porous and reflective (foamed aluminum); dense, smooth and opaque (black walnut); transparent (glass); or soft and rough (wool carpet). In the Secret Garden, which is paved in schist, the gentle sound of water emanates from a cast brass slipped disk. 

Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle

Library with adult reading collection, children's area, teen area, cybercenter, conference room and outdoor amphitheater.Located on a prominent site along the East River, against the backdrop of rapidly built skyscraper condominiums, the 22,000 square foot Queens Public Library at Hunters Point stands as a public building and public park, bringing community-devoted space to the Long Island City waterfront. Resisting recent trends of incorporating public libraries and much-needed social space within high-end residential towers, the Hunters Point Library stands independently, rising with a minimal footprint on its 32,000 square foot site to offer maximum surrounding green space to the local community and becoming an integrated part of the vibrant public park that lines the river`s edge. The vertical structure reimagines the traditional library model, providing diversity of spaces from intimate reading areas to active gathering spaces. The building`s aluminum-painted concrete shell is not just a facade but a load-bearing structure, which omits curtain walls and columns. Sculpted cuts are carved out of the facade, showing the movement of people within and framing expansive views of the Manhattan skyline. The program's separation into children's area, teen area, and adult area can be read in the sculpted cuts of the east face of the building, one facade opening for each area; yet the programmatic divisions are fluid. Inside, warm bamboo creates an inviting social space, open to the community and offering engaging spaces for all ages. Natural light enters through the large windows from all sides, animating the space.

Queens Public Library

Hunters Point Community Library

 Installation within the 14' x 10' x 26' high chapel. A Madrona Tree as "shelter" (the root meaning of the word tabernacle) Honey onyx tabernacle lit from within, Sanctuary lantern of amber cast glass with leaf, insect, feather, imprints is the focus of the room ( the light of Jesus). The Beeswax walls surround, 10' high with prayers inlaid into plaster marking the four cardinal points (gold leaf on zinc). One prayer is within the black of the threshold floor. The scent recalls the ancient church, the room becomes a candle. This is the sacred place for meditation within the chapel. 

Chapel of St Ignatius, The Blessed Sacrament Chapel, Seattle University

Faith

Steven Holl Architects is a 35-person innovative architecture and urban design office working globally as one office from two locations: New York City and Beijing. Steven Holl leads the office with partners Chris McVoy, Noah Yaffe and Roberto Bannura. Steven Holl Architects is recognized for the ability to shape space and light with great contextual sensitivity and to catalyze the unique qualities of each project to create a concept-driven design at multiple scales, from minimal dwellings, to university works, to new hybrid models of urbanism. The firm has realized architectural works around the world, with extensive experience in the arts, campus and educational facilities, and residential work, as well as mix use and office design, public works, and master planning. Steven Holl Architects emphasizes sustainable building and site development as fundamental to innovative and imaginative design.

Steven Holl Architects

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