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Popular Science click to enlarge If you are looking for some interesting infrastructure projects to throw stimulus money at, here are two good ideas from the Infrastructurist that would get cars off the roads of New York City and solve the problems of those long delays for tunnels and bridges: dam the rivers and fill them in with gre... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Architecture + Design

There are moments, usually ones having to do with wanting just one good bar or a second good restaurant (here's the first) in my neighborhood, when I think back fondly on the time I spent living in Brooklyn. Yes, the place in which I lived came complete with THX-quality domestic disputes broadcast through the wall we shared with the next building; yes, there were critter issues; no, the bathroom was (somehow) not insulated. My nostalgia for it may have something to do with me being 23 when I lived there, but my eye still often wanders back to BK. So it was a pleasant surprise when I read, in a feature at The Real Deal, that Prospect Heights' Sterling Green and Williamsburg's Mason Fisk, two of the greener and more interesting-sounding Brooklyn developments of recent vintage -- read: real estate crushes -- have been beacons of success in a housing market that's currently pretty flush with beacons of suck. See what I did there?

I know, it's hilarious, but save your applause for the end of the post, please. While neither Aspen Equities' Sterling Green nor the Meshberg Group's Mason Fisk is pursuing third-party certification as a green building, both are excellent examples of how to develop green real estate in what could emerge as a very big market for green buildings. (I'm talking about Brooklyn, but the broader green real estate market will obviously expand, too) The author of the Real Deal piece above, Candace Taylor, focuses on how Sterling Green's and Mason Fisk's moderate sizes and reasonably priced units helped make them more appealing, with the reasonable size making it easier for developers to clear the financing benchmarks under tightened Fannie Mae condominium financing guidelines and the reasonable prices delivering some very obvious benefits to buyers, especially as the Federal Housing Authority prepares to raise its own standards. From a real estate perspective, then, that both buildings are small (Sterling Green is eight units, Mason Fisk is 26) and comparatively affordable even by the standards of their neighborhoods (condos for sale at Sterling Green average $501 per square foot; Mason Fisk's wound up being $617, when the neighborhood standard was still north of $800) seems savvy. From a green-building perspective, though, both Sterling Green and Mason Fisk offer some interesting lessons.

Stephen covered Sterling Green -- which is over 50 percent sold after nine weeks on the market -- back in March of 2009, and the project was intriguing then for its panoply of green design elements. (Stephen's laundry-list is on the other side of the link above, but suffice to say that it runs the gamut from low-VOC finishes to bamboo flooring to wind-powered common areas) From a design perspective, too, Sterling Green seems exemplary -- its understated look blends in seamlessly with Prospect Heights' townhouses and larger pre-war apartment buildings, making it a good architectural neighbor as well as a solid environmental citizen. Mason Fisk, for its part, stands out as an example of innovative and attractive adaptive reuse in a neighborhood whose other luxury condominium developments -- and I say this with all due respect -- are generally big glass turds with stupid names. Mason Fisk, beyond doing the usual energy-efficiency things (Energy Star appliances, etc.) stuck with the shell of the hundred-year-old building at 72 Berry Street and made a point of preserving as much of the original structure as possible, down to recycling original wood ceiling beams as furniture for the lobby. Whether either building would make the LEED grade we'll never know, but considering how many macro-developments are currently floundering -- and considering the less-than-green realities inherent in huge new developments in the first place -- it's hard not to applaud two greener-than-average, human-scale, intelligently priced Brooklyn buildings that are making it work in a market that still, by and large, isn't working.

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Architecture + Design

Within the last day or two or three came the announcement of a few new projects located in New York City.


[Urban Umbrella by Young-Hwan Choi, University of Pennsylvania | image source]

Bustler reports that Urban Umbrella is the winning entry to the urbanSHED International Design Competition, which aims to "create a new standard of sidewalk shed design and develop a prototype worthy of today's New York City." Young-Hwan Choi, a first-year student at University of Pennsylvania, designed tree-like supports that give the impression of lightness and make the area under the "canopy" more porous and accessible. The ubiquitous sidewalk sheds limit movement via horizontal bars required for lateral stability. Choi's design uses Gothic-like ribs to addresses lateral forces in both directions. With lighting integrated into the tops of the ribs, it is a welcoming design, a definite improvement over what's been used for the last 50 years. If it will be as welcoming as the rendering above will be seen when a prototype is built in Lower Manhattan in the near future.


[P.S. 1 Courtyard by SO-IL | image source]

The Architect's Newspaper reports that Brooklyn-based SO-IL are the winner of this year's P.S. 1 and MoMA's Young Architects Program. Titled Pole Dance, it is comprised of "nearly 100 fiberglass rods measuring 2-inches around and 25-feet tall that will be anchored into the ground at 12-foot intervals...14 feet up, at the height of the courtyard's walls, a stretchy, trapeze-like net measuring about 9,000 square feet will be bungeed to the walls and poles." The design is intended to "broadcast the activity inside to the city," according to the architects. Last year's winning design by Mos was realized for $70,000, but SO-IL will have $85,000 for construction of the eleventh YAP design. The first, Dunescape (PDF) by SHoP Architects, cost $50,000 and was far enough under budget the architects were able to pay the volunteer workers who helped build it. The difference between renderings and execution has diverged greatly in these projects, but one thing that's safe to say about SO-IL's is that it looks really fun.


[Edible Schoolyard by WORKac | image source]

Arch Daily features the Edible Schoolyard project for P.S. 216 in Brooklyn by WORKac. At first glance it looks like two volumes, one opaque and one transparent, next to each other. But the "Mobile Greenhouse" will actually slide towards the "Kitchen Classroom" in the spring to cover the latter and uncover the area underneath that is kept warm and usable in the winter months. Not a bad idea, though maybe a tad excessive for a public school in Brooklyn. Maybe this sort of educational urban farming experiment will find some generous donors to make it happen as envisioned, so it's not value-engineered into something less kinetic.

Architecture + Design

I'm not sure I mentioned it, but I became a father for the first time at the beginning of December. That's a rewarding experience, but it's not giving me much time to shoot. So I'll probably be posting lightly on Bluejake over the next few months. To entertain myself in the medium, I've relaunched Streetsy. Stop by!

Architecture + Design

"In September 2007, HDB exhibited the plans for Remaking Our Heartland to realise, rejuvenate and regenerate housing estates in Singapore. Under this initiative, Punggol will be developed into a Waterfront Town of the 21st Century."
With this development goal, Singapore had held competitions for it. The winning entry has been published at http://heartland.hdb.gov.sg/e-Exhibition-Nov-2009.html
A very competitive process for the firms engaged. to find out more...
Passage from http://heartland.hdb.gov.sg/e-Exhibition-Nov-2009.html
Image from http://heartland.hdb.gov.sg/win_event_pdf/d3/s2_p10.pdf

Architecture + Design

There are a lot of architects using passive design, but when it comes to building a truly green, healthy house, there is nothing on earth like the Passivhaus. Through careful design, quality windows and a huge amount of insulation, these houses need almost no heat at all. It's big in Europe and it is coming to America in style. ... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Architecture + Design

image (c) by anarchitecture, christoph wassmann

Somewhere in Munich. Superinsulation makes buildings fat.
content by anArchitecture

Architecture + Design

Credit: Screenshot from www.schimmelart.com. Junk mail. It gathers in your mailbox like flies to you know what. You can shred it, recycle it, sign up with junk mail killing services, and it still comes. An artist named Sandhi Schimmel Gold of Phoenix makes junk mail into works of art. ... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Architecture + Design

Rob Hopkins and Gordon Gecko Jesse Ashlock was the last editor of ID Magazine, and is the moderator of the Conversations in Design: A World Without Oil He laments that we may well be living in a world without magazines long before we live in a world without oil, but then he reminds us that oil is in everything, in plastics, in textiles, even in our food, that we live in a world where everything runs on oil. He enjoys the benefits of it, and notes that he is wearing a suit made in Romania, designed by a Belgian, and bought in Italy by an American. ... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Architecture + Design

Chile 74 of 245, originally uploaded by John (& Beth) Zacherle.

Bicentennial Room in the Chilean National Library in Santiago Chile by A+F Arquitectos, 2009. See Arch Daily for more information on the project.

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Architecture + Design