Hasta La Ideas

News: architecture firm Foster + Partners has unveiled proposals to increase the capacity of New York’s Grand Central Terminal by widening approach routes and pedestrianising streets (+ slideshow).

The architects were one of three teams invited by the Municipal Art Society of New York to re-think the public spaces in and around the 100-year-old station, which was designed to serve around 75,000 passengers a day but often sees as many as a million passing through.

Foster + Partners’ proposals include the pedestrianisation of Vanderbilt Avenue to the west of the station, creating a public square at the entrance to the new East Side Access lines, surrounded by trees, cafes and public art.

The plans also include wider pavements and trees on the southern approach from 42nd Street and along Lexington Avenue to the east, while larger underground spaces would lead into the terminal from Park Avenue to the north.

Inside the station, wider concourses would help to ease congestion for travellers on the 4, 5, 6 and 7 metro lines.

“The quality of a city’s public realm reflects the level of civic pride and has a direct impact on the quality of everyday life,” said Norman Foster. “With the advent of the Long Island Rail Road East Side Access, along with the plan to re-zone the district, there has never been a better opportunity to tackle the issues of public access and mobility around one of the greatest rail terminals in the world.”

Foster + Partners presented their proposals yesterday at the third annual MAS Summit for New York City, alongside American firms SOM and WXY Architecture.

In the last year the firm has also won a competition to design a high-speed rail station for Spain and presented proposals for an airport and transport hub on the estuary outside London.

See more stories about Foster + Partners »

Here’s some more information from Foster + Partners:

Foster + Partners re-imagines Grand Central Terminal for 2013 Centenary

Norman Foster presented proposals for a masterplan to bring clarity back to Grand Central Terminal at The Municipal Art Society of New York’s annual Summit in New York last night.

Masterplan – click above for larger image

Grand Central Terminal is one of New York’s greatest landmarks and contains perhaps the city’s finest civic space. However, over time it has become a victim of its own success. A building designed to be used by 75,000 people per day now routinely handles ten times that number with up to a million on peak days.

The result is acute overcrowding; connections to the rail and subway lines beneath the concourse are inadequate; and the arrival and departure experience is poor. Added to that, the surrounding streets are choked with traffic and pedestrians are marginalised. The rapid growth of tall buildings in the vicinity has all but consumed the Terminal.

Within the station, the proposal creates wider concourses, with new and improved entrances. Externally, streets will be reconfigured as shared vehicle/pedestrian routes, and Vanderbilt Avenue fully pedestrianised. The proposal also creates new civic spaces that will provide Grand Central with an appropriate urban setting for the next 100 years.

Wider masterplan

The 42nd street entrance to the south, where access is severely constrained, will be widened to fill the entire elevation by using existing openings, thus greatly easing accessibility. The access via tunnels on the northern approach from Park Avenue will be rebalanced in favour of pedestrians by creating grander, enlarged underground spaces through the Helmsley building. Lexington Avenue to the east will be tree-lined with wider sidewalks and will benefit from more prominent and enhanced tunnel access to Grand Central Terminal. The idea already mooted to pedestrianise Vanderbilt Avenue to the west would be extended. The street would be anchored to the south by a major new enlarged civic space between 43rd Street and the west entrance to the Terminal and to the north by a plaza accommodating new entrances to the East Side Access lines. Trees, sculpture and street cafes will bring life and new breathing space to Grand Central Terminal.

At platform and concourse levels where congestion is particularly acute for travellers on the 4, 5, 6 and 7 lines, we will radically enlarge the connecting public areas, to address the huge increase in passenger traffic in the last 100 years. This will transform the experience for arriving and departing commuters and passengers. A generous new concourse will be created beneath the west entrance plaza on Vanderbilt Avenue connecting directly into the main station concourse.

This visionary masterplan with its focus on pedestrians and travellers will allow Grand Central Terminal to regain the civic stature that it deserves as a major New York landmark and an appropriate twenty-first century transport hub.

The post Foster + Partners present vision
for Grand Central Terminal appeared first on Dezeen.

Renaissance artist El Greco lived and worked in the Spanish city of Toledo and Pardo + Tapia Arquitectos has refurbished and added a glazed entrance pavilion to the small museum that houses some of his most important paintings (+ slideshow).

Located in the city’s Jewish quarter, the El Greco Museum comprises two buildings; a 16th century house designed as a recreation of the artist’s home and a 20th century extension.

Architect Fernando Pardo Calvo told Dezeen how his extension was conceived as a glazed volume to respect the existing buildings. ”Its presence in the garden is diminished by its transparency,” he explained.

Behind the glazed entrance, a second new space is clad in concrete panels, which are engraved with the outlines of one of the artist’s paintings.

“El Greco is present at all times,” said Pardo Calvo. “Not only in the collections but also in the architecture. In the historic building because this place was near his workshop, and in the new building because his painting “Vista y plano de Toledo” is engraved in the concrete.”

As well as adding a new entrance, the architects have restored the spaces of the gallery, which house artworks by El Greco and a selection of other 17th century painters.

The architects used a traditional material palette of ceramics, plaster, stucco and wood for these areas of the building.

See more stories about renovations, including a replacement corner for a ruined Renaissance palace.

Photography is by Miguel de Guzman.

Here’s some information from the architects:

El Greco Museum
Toledo, Spain 2003-2011

Adequacy and realignment works of the El Greco Museum, at buildings and gardens surrounded by Samuel Levy St., Paseo del Tránsito St., Alamillos del Tránsito St. and San Juán de Dios St. at Toledo city. Toledo

Short historic notice

On the remains base of a XVI century house and a renaissance palace at the Jewry of Toledo, it was built on the beginning of XX century the edification conjunct that today compounds the El Greco Museum House.

The Marquis de la Vega-Inclán was who recovered those areas, as well, the gardens during the years 1907 – 1910, the aim was to develop the idea of organize a center dedicated to the art work of El Greco performed at the Jewry of Toledo, in the real El Greco’s house environment , nearby of Villena’s Palace.

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

When the works were finished the Spanish State donation was formalized, and on April, 27th, 1910, the Patronage was founded, this institution took over of the custody and govern of the Greco’s Museum House.

First floor plan – click above for larger image

That age significant personages were involved in the Patronage. (Beruete, Sorolla, Mélida, Cossío, etc.). The House was opened and inaugurated on June, 12nd, of 1911. A section was restored as the Marquis Vega-Incan’s house, staying this private situation up to 1942.

Roof plan – click above for larger image

The reasons for restore this conjunct were to shelter in it, the El Greco’s work collection that was spread out all over the city of Toledo (San Jose´s Church, Santiago’s Hospital, etc…) and was on risk of disappearing and lost. This collection was developed with a further room’s extension at 1921, for the exposure of the painting art work of the XVII century Spanish schools. This should be the starting point of a Spanish Art Center.

Section one – click above for larger image

The 1921 restoration was followed by any other two, at 1950 and 1960 and other one at 1990. The current project begins on the base site of the last one (1990).

Section two – click above for larger image

Project

The target of the project has been to take advantage of space and cultural potential that the edifications, gardens and the El Greco personality as well, going through a realignment labor.

Sections three and four – click above for larger image

Meanwhile a pavilion construction gives shelter to the museum funds and a new travel path is restructured across the conjunct of buildings (rehabilitated and adapted to the current normative standards) and also allows the visit to the gardens and caves.

Section five – click above for larger image

Museografy

The museography project, although formally distinguished, takes part of the propound common objective, going through the existing building path, showing the recuperation and construction of the El Greco figure by the Marquis de la Vega-Inclán, the work and the different aspects of his life and travels, and his painting later influences, with the aim of explaining and giving value itself trough a reference configuration frame.

Section six – click above for larger image

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by Pardo + Tapia Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.

The stone mullions surrounding this visitor centre by Irish firm Heneghan Peng Architects imitate the towering basalt columns of the volcanically formed Giant’s Causeway (+ slideshow).

Created around 60 million years ago by the movement of basalt lava, the causeway is the most popular tourist attraction in Northern Ireland and comprises over 40,000 columns that step down from the foot of the cliff into the sea.

Heneghan Peng Architects won a competition in 2005 to design a visitor centre for the Giant’s Causeway, providing exhibition spaces, a cafe, toilets and a giftshop.

The new building opened this summer and is described by the architects as “two folds into the landscape”. The first fold rises up from the ground to create a building with a sloping grass roof, while the second angles down to form a car park and entrance that meets the level of the approaching road.

“It is a carefully sculpted intervention,” say the architects. ”It is both visible and invisible; invisible from the cliffside yet recognisable from the land side.”

Between each of the stone mullions, vertical windows line the walls and surround a cafe that overlooks the coastline from the far end of the building.

Visitors can climb up over the grassy roof, where skylights let them peer down into the exhibition spaces.

Floors inside the building are staggered to negotiate the sloping site, but ramps connect each level.

Other projects at natural landmarks include the installations along the Norwegian national tourist routes.

Photography is by Hufton+Crow.

Here’s a project description from Heneghan Peng Architects:

The project is located at the ridgeline of the North Antrim coast at the gateway to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The proposal for the new visitor facilities can be understood as two folds into the landscape. One folds upwards revealing the building and the second folds down to form the carpark and shield it from view of the approach road and coastal path. Between the two folds, a ramp leads to the coastal ridgeline which is restored at this location.

The visitor’s centre at the Giant’s Causeway is experienced as an event along the route to the Causeway and the coastline. It is a carefully sculpted intervention into this landscape which is both visible and invisible, invisible from the cliffside yet recognisable from the land side.

Internally the building can be understood as a series of stepping floor plates which are linked by a series of ramps.

These floor plates allow the different activities of the building to flow into each other creating a fluid movement through the building for the visitor.

The cafe has been situated close to the main building entrance with a long view to the coastline. The visitor ends the route through the building by exiting onto the access road to the stones.

The folds are precise and geometric yet vanish into the patchwork that forms the tapestries of fields.

The architectural expression of the edges of the folds is singular, stone mullions that echo the columnar landscape of the Causeway site.

The strategy for the building creates a space between the basalt and the folded plane of the grass roof; a space formed within the materials of the site.

The basalt edge is formed as a weave between basalt stone columns and glazing where changes are created in transparency and opacity along the visitor’s route.

What belies this simple façade concept is a carefully engineered solution which evolved around the inherent properties of the locally sourced basalt stone.

The aspirations for this project in every way are of the highest order as befits its location, excellence in architectural and landscape design, excellence in sustainable practices and construction.

The project’s design has received a BREEAM “Excellent” rating.

Client: National Trust
Gross Internal Area: 1800m2
Location: Northern Ireland

Architecture, Landscape Concept and Interiors: heneghan peng architects
Competition: Shih-Fu Peng, Róisín Heneghan (Project Directors) Chris Hillyard, Aideen Lowery, Marcel Piethan
Project Design & Construction Stages: Shih-Fu Peng, Róisín Heneghan (Project Directors), Julia Loughnane (Project Architect), Monika Arczynska, Jorge Taravillo Canete, Chris Hillyard, Kathrin Klaus, Carmel Murray, Padhraic Moneley, Catherine Opdebeeck, Helena del Rio.

Structures: Arup
Building Services: Bennett Robertson
Quantity Surveyor/Project Manager: Edmond Shipway

Facade Engineering: Dewhurst MacFarlane
Planning: Turley Associates
Civils: White Young Green

Landscape: heneghan peng architects (Concept design) Mitchell + Associates (Implementation)
Exhibition Design: Event
Accessibility: Buro Happold
Acoustics: FR Mark

BREEAM: SDS Energy
Fire/Traffic/Environmental: Arup
Specialist Lighting: Bartenbach Lichtlabor
Specification: Davis Langdon
CDM Coordinator: The FCM Partnership

Above: Hexagonal basalts at the Giant’s Causeway

Competition: 2005
Appointment: 2006
Start On-Site: November 2010
Completion: May 2012
Open to public: July 2, 2012
Contractor: Gilbert-Ash
Contract: NEC 3 Option A

Site plan – click above for larger image

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Longitudinal section – click above for larger image

Cross section – click above for larger image

East elevation – click above for larger image

South-east elevation – click above for larger image

South elevation – click above for larger image

The post Giant’s Causeway Visitors’ Centre
by Heneghan Peng Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Bright shades of yellow and green help elderly people find their way around in this 17-storey housing block in Barcelona by Spanish architects Pau Vidal, Sergi Pons and Ricard Galiana (+ slideshow).

“The building is divided into three communities and each community is assigned a different colour to facilitate orientation,” Pons told Dezeen. “We’ve used yellow and two shades of green, one lighter and one darker. These colours are uplifting whilst also calming.”

Located beside a motorway on the edge of the city, the tower contains 77 government-allotted apartments for pensioners.

A shared garden covers the top floor of the building, which Pons hopes will be used by both grandparents and grandchildren.

Corridors and staircases wrap the exterior and lead into double-height communal spaces, which were designed to encourage residents to communicate with their neighbours. ”The hallways were conceived as streets,” explained Pons.

At ground level, the building opens out to a small public square that it shares with a new sports centre and housing development.

See more stories about housing, including an apartment block with a grid of chunky balconies.

Photography is by Adrià Goula.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Torre Júlia. Government-allotted housing for elderly people

This project forms part of the urbanization that is taking place in one of the lots left over after the construction of the Ronda de Barcelona, a bypass road, in 1992.

A sports centre, a residential development and an old people’s home will all share the same space, creating a public area that will stretch from the street to a square giving access into the different facilities.

A prominent feature in the city’s northern quarter, Torre Júlia rises up to a height of 17 floors.

There are three areas in the building. Each community has a larger space assigned, where users carry out most of their collective activities. These spaces, the core of the proposed project, figure plainly on the building’s frontage, which is wrought entirely in concrete and works as a cantilever beam.

Typical floor arrangement – click above for larger image and key

Wide corridors overlooking the city, stairs in all outdoor places, double-spaced areas and sun-shaded terraces configure a building that is intended to give elderly people an opportunity to socialize and engage in community activities.

Site plan

Project team: Pau Vidal, Sergi Pons, Ricard Galiana
Address: Via Favència 348-350, Barcelona
Program: 77 Home Units, Facilities and Parking Space
Construction dates: Building 2009-2011

First floor plan – click above for larger image

Client: Patronat Municipal de l’Habitatge
Collaborators: Gioia Guidazzi, Diana Sajdova
Consultants: Encarna García, BOMA, L3J, 3dLife, Ambar Fotografia, Artkitech, Estel Rosell
Contractor: Acsa

Second floor plan – click above for larger image

Gross floor area: 8.391
Budget: 7.518.419
State: Built

Section – click above for larger image

The post Torre Júlia by Pau Vidal, Sergi Pons
and Ricard Galiana appeared first on Dezeen.

Lysning urban park proposal by Norwegian design firms Space Group & Superunion will be a modern public hub in the midst of a historical waterfront district in Sandnes, Norway. An architectural ring provides relief from sun & rain, & connects the various public spaces of the interior, including a water fountain area for cooling off, skate park, running track & plenty of gardens, foliage & grass for laying about. Inspired by NYC’s Central Park, the center also aims to be a space for community events & celebrations.

Designers: Space Group / Superunion

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(Urban Escape was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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