I actually think 40 Bond is a better building than 56 Leonard will be. I mean, yes it's all money but at least it works in its context and as much as people hate the patterning on 40 bond, it makes for a really cool surface treatment IMO and as a scrim for lighting on the interior. 56 Leonard is amazingly boring looking for an H & deM building, the walls are all white and the floor is all that same light hardwood found in every other manhattan condo. The stacking is a neat move, but pretty much every single housing project in my 3rd year studio explored some form of stacking and terrace making, its not original at all. Calatrava's floating townhouses were far more awesome than what H & deM have come up with for 56 Leonard. You would think that after Meier, Piano, and others tried to make pristine, white, glass towers in NYC people would get the point that they look gray and nasty after a year or two, but here come H & deM, who I can't remember have ever built anything so plain and frankly white, and their gonna pull the same crap in a neighborhood that's all brick and wrought iron.
I can see the attraction in this project, but seriously I've seen better come out of student work.
i like the H & de M proposal. Why? Here you go:
-As we all know, a project like this, might look like a bunch of juxtaposed floor plates on the face, but in reality there is a lot of thought that would go into resolving it
- knowing their earlier work, I am sure this act of resolving the spaces and layouts is going to make this project very interesting and unique
- there is a lot of randomness, albeit with a careful sense of restraint.
I was in the De Young last weekend - the feel is so contemporary, yet builds on the classic museum typology but simple use of light and views of the foliage.
For residential projects like these, the devil is in the details, and that is what will 'sell' this project in the end.
The Rem proposal is so tongue-in-cheek, its not a take on New York postmodern anymore, its a take on how someone can come up with a totally banal idea and still get away with it. Its beyond outrageous, its more like 'f*ck it, lets go bowling'
Putting aside socio-economic concerns for now, I'm excited by the 56 Leonard design. It exhibits what is hopefully part of a larger shift to much more humanly-scaled tall-building design.
The building's reading as a tower is never lost as it is obviously a conglomeration of general tower proportion, but most of each floor can be read individually and uniquely. Whereas the individual punched window of the past gave us a mostly two-dimensional idea of the human activity beyond, the 'individually punched space' here gives us a much deeper idea (literally).
In my opinion there has been an unfortunate and unholy convergence of modern architecture and utilitarian engineering. Because we made the 'Machine', we mistakenly gave it priority status, even over ourselves...that or we simply have lost control of it and can do nothing but sit back while its inherent abstractions erode our humanity day by day...
There is vibrancy in the scale of this building's texture.
Niiiice job, tronic! Great sound effects, I love it. And yeah, love the building all the more after seeing it(I know not everyone here agrees with me).
Here is what I think the finished product will look like; as I said above, a building that looks as interesting finished as under construction is a rainbow's end I've always wanted to chase.
I think the weakness of the H&deM building is at the top of the building. I think you get a very nice sense of scale at the lower levels with good definition - as if a lot of attention has been paid to how these different volumes stack together - but it looks like the designers have lost interest as the building gets higher.
There is no termination point, there is certainly no base/middle/top hierarchy. I am not one for following orthodox design strategies [such as the column] but I think this project is worse off because of this inattention.
Its possible that the taper is a planning requirement [I certainly noticed some unusually 'thin' and tapering towers in my visit to NY], but a different treatement at the apex would help this tower in my opinion.
In spite of this, if there are any architects that will get any kind of building right, it is H&deM. I think the Rem tower is more orthodox in its design and works better.
H & deM in TriBeCa: 56 Leonard
I actually think 40 Bond is a better building than 56 Leonard will be. I mean, yes it's all money but at least it works in its context and as much as people hate the patterning on 40 bond, it makes for a really cool surface treatment IMO and as a scrim for lighting on the interior. 56 Leonard is amazingly boring looking for an H & deM building, the walls are all white and the floor is all that same light hardwood found in every other manhattan condo. The stacking is a neat move, but pretty much every single housing project in my 3rd year studio explored some form of stacking and terrace making, its not original at all. Calatrava's floating townhouses were far more awesome than what H & deM have come up with for 56 Leonard. You would think that after Meier, Piano, and others tried to make pristine, white, glass towers in NYC people would get the point that they look gray and nasty after a year or two, but here come H & deM, who I can't remember have ever built anything so plain and frankly white, and their gonna pull the same crap in a neighborhood that's all brick and wrought iron.
I can see the attraction in this project, but seriously I've seen better come out of student work.
i like the H & de M proposal. Why? Here you go:
-As we all know, a project like this, might look like a bunch of juxtaposed floor plates on the face, but in reality there is a lot of thought that would go into resolving it
- knowing their earlier work, I am sure this act of resolving the spaces and layouts is going to make this project very interesting and unique
- there is a lot of randomness, albeit with a careful sense of restraint.
I was in the De Young last weekend - the feel is so contemporary, yet builds on the classic museum typology but simple use of light and views of the foliage.
For residential projects like these, the devil is in the details, and that is what will 'sell' this project in the end.
The Rem proposal is so tongue-in-cheek, its not a take on New York postmodern anymore, its a take on how someone can come up with a totally banal idea and still get away with it. Its beyond outrageous, its more like 'f*ck it, lets go bowling'
Putting aside socio-economic concerns for now, I'm excited by the 56 Leonard design. It exhibits what is hopefully part of a larger shift to much more humanly-scaled tall-building design.
The building's reading as a tower is never lost as it is obviously a conglomeration of general tower proportion, but most of each floor can be read individually and uniquely. Whereas the individual punched window of the past gave us a mostly two-dimensional idea of the human activity beyond, the 'individually punched space' here gives us a much deeper idea (literally).
In my opinion there has been an unfortunate and unholy convergence of modern architecture and utilitarian engineering. Because we made the 'Machine', we mistakenly gave it priority status, even over ourselves...that or we simply have lost control of it and can do nothing but sit back while its inherent abstractions erode our humanity day by day...
There is vibrancy in the scale of this building's texture.
Niiiice job, tronic! Great sound effects, I love it. And yeah, love the building all the more after seeing it(I know not everyone here agrees with me).
Here is what I think the finished product will look like; as I said above, a building that looks as interesting finished as under construction is a rainbow's end I've always wanted to chase.
I think the weakness of the H&deM building is at the top of the building. I think you get a very nice sense of scale at the lower levels with good definition - as if a lot of attention has been paid to how these different volumes stack together - but it looks like the designers have lost interest as the building gets higher.
There is no termination point, there is certainly no base/middle/top hierarchy. I am not one for following orthodox design strategies [such as the column] but I think this project is worse off because of this inattention.
Its possible that the taper is a planning requirement [I certainly noticed some unusually 'thin' and tapering towers in my visit to NY], but a different treatement at the apex would help this tower in my opinion.
In spite of this, if there are any architects that will get any kind of building right, it is H&deM. I think the Rem tower is more orthodox in its design and works better.
that's funny diabase - the only part i like is the top. the bottom looks very developer-conventional
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