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News: British architect Norman Foster has unveiled a concept to build a network of elevated pathways above London’s railways to create safe car-free cycling routes, following 14 cyclist deaths on the city’s streets in 2013.

Entitled SkyCycle, the proposal by architects Foster + Partners, landscape architects Exterior Architecture and transport consultant Space Syntax is for a “cycling utopia” of approximately 220 kilometres of dedicated cycle lanes, following the routes of existing train lines.

Over 200 entrance points would be dotted across the UK capital to provide access to ten different cycle paths. Each route would accommodate up to 12,000 cyclists per hour and could improve journey times across the city by up to half an hour.

“SkyCycle is a lateral approach to finding space in a congested city,” said Foster, who is both a regular cyclist and the president of Britain’s National Byway Trust. “By using the corridors above the suburban railways, we could create a world-class network of safe, car free cycle routes that are ideally located for commuters.”

If approved, the routes could be in place within 20 years, offering relief to a transport network that is already at capacity and will need to contend with 12 percent population growth over the next decade.

“I believe that cities where you can walk or cycle, rather than drive, are more congenial places in which to live,” said Foster.

“To improve the quality of life for all in London and to encourage a new generation of cyclists, we have to make it safe,” he added. “However, the greatest barrier to segregating cars and cyclists is the physical constraint of London’s streets, where space is already at a premium.”

According to the designers, construction of elevated decks would be considerably cheaper than building new roads and tunnels. The routes would offer greater health benefits for London residents and would make more efficient use of space, as more car owners could be encouraged to cycle rather than drive to work.

“At crucial points in London’s history major infrastructure projects have transformed the fortunes of the capital,” said Space Syntax director Anna Rose. “For example, Bazalgette’s sewer system helped remove the threat of cholera to keep London at the forefront of the industrial revolution; the Underground strengthened London’s core by making long-distance commuting possible.”

“SkyCycle is conceived in this tradition as a network of strategic connections from the suburban edges to the centre, adding the much needed capacity for hundreds of millions of cycle journeys every year with all the social, economic, environmental and health benefits to London that follow,” she added.

Cycling safety in London was called into question in November last year when six cyclists died in road accidents in a two-week period, bringing the total for the year up to 14. A poll by BBC News found that one in five cyclists in London stopped cycling to work following the accidents.

In Dezeen Opinion columns in November, architect Sam Jacob said that roads should be designed “in a way that incorporates intelligence as well as brute engineering”, while Fabrica CEO Dan Hill questioned whether driverless cars would make roads safer.

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News: architect Norman Foster has presented plans to add a row of stone pavilions to the Norton Museum of Art in Florida as part of a major overhaul that will double the building’s gallery space.

Unveiled yesterday during the opening of the Art Basel and Design Miami fairs, the Foster + Partners masterplan seeks to restore the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach to its original axial arrangement by relocating the entrance to the west side of the building.

Three double-height pavilions will be constructed along this facade to accommodate a new auditorium, events room and grand hall, and will be sheltered beneath an overhanging metal roof that tapers gently upwards to reduce its visual impact.

Based on the concept of a “museum in a garden”, the renovated building will be fronted by a pool of water, while a new museum shop and restaurant will open out to a sculpture lawn on the south side of the building.

“Our approach is a celebration of the local landscape and architecture,” said Foster. “The gardens will be planted with native trees and flowers and the masterplan strengthens the elegant formation of the original museum, redefining its relationship with the city with a welcoming new street frontage.”

New buildings will be built from white stone to match the art deco-inspired architecture of the original building, which was designed by architect Marion Sims Wyeth and first opened in the 1940s.

“The project combines old and new and continues our explorations into the museum in a garden setting, which began with the Sainsbury Centre and has more recently embraced the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston,” added Foster.

Public facilities will be able to function independently, creating opportunities for evening events outside of gallery opening times.

The architects have also developed a long-term masterplan for the site, which includes the possibility of adding two new gallery wings in the future.

Here’s a more detailed description from Foster + Partners:

Lord Foster presents plans for the transformation of the Norton Museum of Art

Three bold new pavilions, unified beneath a shimmering roof, herald the transformation of the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach – host to the most important art collection in Florida. The masterplan, unveiled by Norman Foster in Miami today, allows the museum to almost double its gallery space and lays the foundations for future growth to become Florida’s leading cultural institution.

The first stage of Foster + Partners’ masterplan will establish its key principles: the sympathetic setting of a ‘museum in a garden’, with the original axial arrangement re-established to unify the visitor experience, and the creation of new public facilities. The museum will become a focus for the community with event spaces separate from the Art Museum, strengthening its role as a cultural destination for Florida.

The Norton Museum was founded in 1941 by Ralph Hubbard Norton and his wife Elizabeth Calhoun Norton and was laid out by the architect Marion Sims Wyeth as an elegant series of Art Deco inspired single-storey pavilions around a central courtyard. Subsequent expansion has broken the symmetry of the original east-west axial arrangement, and the creation of an additional car park to the south of the museum has led to the relocation of the main entrance to the side of the building. The new masterplan restores the clarity of Wyeth’s plan by reinstating the main entrance on a new street frontage on South Dixie Highway to the west – visitors will once again be able to see through the entire building via a new, transparent grand hall and refurbished glass and iron courtyard doors.

The new entrance is signalled by three new double-height pavilions, unified with the re-worked existing wing by a shared palette of white stone. The pavilions house a state-of-the-art auditorium, event space and a ‘grand hall’ – the social hub of the museum. The design also includes a new museum shop and a new restaurant with al-fresco garden seating which, like the new pavilion spaces, can operate independently of the museum to activate the campus throughout the day and at night.

A metal roof canopy floats above the pavilions and projects to shade the entrance plaza. The structure is gently tapered to visually reduce its profile, while providing stability to withstand hurricane winds. The canopy’s gentle lustre is designed to cast diffuse patterns of light in an abstracted reflection of people and flowing water below. Linear pools create a tranquil setting for the entrance plaza, masking the sound of traffic, which is visually set apart by a hedge. A curved opening in the roof accommodates the branches of a mature ficus tree and a further light well above the lobby illuminates and defines the new entrance.

The overall proposals reinforce the concept of the museum within a garden. Taking advantage of the Florida climate, the landscaping of the gardens and central courtyard incorporates native trees and flowers to provide shaded walkways, and the former parking lot is transformed into a new sculpture lawn. The borders of the museum’s expanded grounds are defined and integrate a row of houses at the perimeter of the site as an artist’s residence and studio, guest house and research facilities. The new sculpture lawn will provide an open-air venue for ‘Art After Dark’, the Norton’s popular programme of film screenings and events, and is bordered by a glass circulation gallery, connecting the interior with the lush green setting.

The masterplan enables the development of the Norton to be implemented over time, beginning with the reconfiguration and extension of the existing museum to create the landmark Dixie Drive pavilions and the new public amenities within a lush garden setting. This will include two new galleries with state-of-the-art environmental systems, a sculpture gallery and a new education centre. S

Subsequently, it will be possible to build two new wings for galleries to the east as part of the long-term masterplan.

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Florida’s Norton Museum of Art appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Foster + Partners has announced its resignation from a major expansion and modernisation of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, following a row about the firm’s involvement in the project.

Foster + Partners claims that the museum has failed to involve the firm in the project, while Moscow’s chief architect says the problem is that Norman Foster wasn’t contributing to the design personally.

A statement released this week by Foster + Partners reveals that it had walked away from the £430 million project two months ago. The announcement was prompted by comments from Moscow’s chief architect Sergei Kuznetsov, seemingly unaware of the resignation, who gave an ultimatum for the firm’s founder to take a more active role in the development and visit the city within the next month.

“If Sir Foster, for one reason or another, refuses to participate further in the work, then, most likely, a competition will be held to choose another team, possibly of Western architects,” Kuznetsov told journalists.

Speaking later to the Arts Newspaper, he added: “It’s not the candidacy of Norman Foster that raises any questions. The only problem is that either Norman Foster must himself work on the project and defend it face-to-face, personally – this is a very important question in architecture – or he must turn down this project.”

The architecture practice responded by revealing it had formally withdrawn from the project in a letter dated 5 June 2013, claiming that the museum had failed to involve them in the development of the design.

“Foster + Partners formally resigned from the Pushkin Museum project and stipulated that their name could not be used in conjunction with the project, as confirmed in a letter from Lord Foster to the director of the museum on 5 June 2013,” said the firm.

“Foster + Partners took this action because the museum, for the last three years, has not involved us in the development of the project, which was being carried out by others. This was despite numerous attempts by the practice to continue working with the museum.”

Norman Foster had been appointed to the project in 2006 by former Pushkin Museum director Irina Antonova – a fan of Foster’s work – who left the post in July after more than 50 years in charge. It was scheduled for completion in 2018 but may now be pushed back for another two years.

Foster + Parters is also currently working on a new California campus for Apple, which is reportedly $2 billion over budget, as well as a 200-metre skyscraper on Park Avenue, New York.

See more architecture by Foster + Partners »

Image of Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Change is afoot at the New York Public Library, which tapped Foster + Partners to mastermind an ambitious expansion that will more than double the public space within the 42nd Street building while preserving the 101-year-old landmark’s facade and its original interiors. Norman Foster joined NYPL President Anthony Marx last week at the library to unveil the initial schematic designs, which call for a new 100,000-square-foot lending library along with enhanced spaces for scholars, writers, and researchers. The video below offers an animated sneak peek at what the library will look like in 2018, once the project is completed. Entering through the library’s Fifth Avenue entrance, the camera travels on an east-to-west axis through the building’s first floor.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Architect Norman Foster (above) has designed the entrance to the Corderie Arsenale exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale, where the names of generations of architects, critics, designers, landscape architects and planners are projected over the floor, columns and visitors.

The Gateway installation also features rapidly changing images of communal spaces flashing overhead in an installation by Carlos Carcas, one of the directors of 2010 film How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster?

The images were sourced from architects, planners, photographers, critics, writers and artists around the world and show famous historic public spaces from western cities alongside meeting places in rapidly growing Asian and South American cities and favelas.

The installation sets up a dual interpretation of biennale director David Chipperfield’s theme of Common Ground, highlighting both the heritage that architects share as a profession and the issues surrounding physical common spaces, before visitors move on to the rest of the Arsenale.

Meanwhile, over at the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, Foster presents an exhibition about the communal space at the base of his famous Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation headquarters below.

Above: Occupy the Bank, photo by John Nye

The biennale opens to the public tomorrow and runs until 25 November. See all our stories so far here, check out photos from the preview on Facebook and watch David Chipperfield talk about his chosen theme in our movie interview here.

See all our stories about Foster + Partners »

Portrait is by Paolo Rosselli. Exhibition photos are by Carlos Carcas.

Here’s some more information from Foster + Partners:

Norman Foster has curated two spaces for the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale: the ‘Gateway’ installation at the head of the Arsenale, which is the first gallery that visitors pass through within the Corderie. The second space is in the Central Pavilion in the Giardini.

Norman Foster has chosen to interpret the theme of Common Ground in two ways. First in words, as the body of knowledge represented by the names of generations of architects, critics, designers, landscape architects and planners, who from antiquity to today have influenced the urban world. Secondly though images, which show the communal gathering spaces that bring us all together socially, outside or inside buildings.

For the ‘Gateway’ installation in the Arsenale, Norman Foster brings these two interpretations of the theme together in the words and images which he selected to create a black box experience. Visitors enter via symmetrical ramps into an immersive space, in which the floor and audience are washed by projected words, white on black and constantly in motion. On the walls of the space, projections of huge, rapidly changing images flash above the heads of the audience in an installation by filmmaker Carlos Carcas. They range from the historic spaces of the western world, to the booming new cities of Asia and South America, as well as the favelas, which are an inseparable part of these emerging urbanities. In the spirit of Common Ground, these thousands of images have been solicited from a global network of architects, planners, photographers, critics, writers and artists. The fusion of names and images are accompanied by a background soundtrack specifically composed for the installation.

The installation has been made possible by the Norman Foster Foundation and Ivorypress.

In the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, an exhibition focuses on the plaza below the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank tower as a gathering space. There were several early design variations for the Bank, which culminated in the final scheme, completed in 1985. The common denominator from the outset was a civic space created by lifting the building up to ensure a flow of pedestrian movement across the site.

Through models, sketches, drawings and photographs, the exhibition shows the evolution of the design of this public space and the tower that defines it, culminating in a photograph of the building by the artist Andreas Gursky. On Sundays, this space is transformed into an outpost of the Philippines, as hundreds of maids establish a community, with an extraordinary variety of social activities and intimate spaces created by cardboard walls. This aspect of the Bank is also explored in the work of artist Marisa Gonzalez. The triptych painting of the banking hall by Ben Johnson complements the view of the plaza from above by the photographer John Nye.

In the Hong Kong Pavilion in the Arsenale, Foster + Partners’ design for the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, part of the redevelopment of the former airport site, has been selected and curated by Chris Law. Continuing the theme of Common Ground, the terminal features a large public roof garden, set against the stunning backdrop of the city.

Credits:

Gateway

Curator: Norman Foster
Concept & Design: Norman Foster with Ivorypress team
Production: Elena Ochoa Foster and Antonio Sanz (Ivorypress), Katy Harris and Matthew Foreman (Foster + Partners)
Film Director & Editor: Carlos Carcas
Art Installation: Charles Sandison
Sponsors: The Norman Foster Foundation and Ivorypress

Hongkong and Shanghai Bank HQ

Curator: Norman Foster
Concept & Design: Norman Foster
Artists: Norman Foster, Andreas Gursky, Ben Johnson, John Nye, Marisa Gonzalez
Production: Elena Ochoa Foster and Antonio Sanz (Ivorypress), Spencer de Grey and Katy Harris (Foster + Partners)
Lenders: Andreas Gursky, HSBC, The Norman Foster Foundation, Foster + Partners
Sponsors: The Norman Foster Foundation and Ivorypress

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Architeture Biennale 2012 appeared first on Dezeen.