Design Competition for a 2012 Olympic Village

[Kris]

City Plans Design Competition for a 2012 Olympic Village

By GLENN COLLINS

An international architectural competition will be held to design the 2012 Olympic Village, where more than 16,000 athletes and coaches would live if New York City is selected as the host of the Summer Games.

The village — with 4,400 units of housing on more than 36 acres at Queens West, across the East River from the United Nations — "will be the spiritual heart of the Olympic Games, and we want it to be remarkable, a real landmark," said Daniel L. Doctoroff, the deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding.

The competition is open to all architects, and up to five finalists will be announced on Dec. 4. Those finalists will participate in a 20-week planning and design study. After public commentary sessions akin to those during the architectural selection process for ground zero, the winner is to be announced in May.

The $400,000 design competition will be sponsored by NYC2012, the committee leading New York's bid to become the host city of the 2012 Games. The competition, as well as the village, will be privately financed, said Mr. Doctoroff, who was the founder of NYC2012.

Last November, New York was selected over seven other cities to represent the United States in the host-city competition. The International Olympic Committee is scheduled to announce the winning city on July 6, 2005.

The projected cost of the Olympic Village has been estimated at $1.5 billion.

A mix of high-rises, mid-rise structures and townhouses, the village "will not be dormitories," Mr. Doctoroff said. "We see it as first-class housing for New York City residents in a world-class design that people 50 years from now will remember as the center of the Games in our city."

He said the village would become a new city neighborhood at the southern margin of Queens West after the Olympics.

Contest submissions are due by Nov. 17. Alexander Garvin, director of planning, design and development for NYC2012, said: "We welcome proposals from young designers who are interested in exploring the potential of an environmentally sustainable residential community that will set the standard for urban design in the 21st century."

Members of the design review panel include Gary Hack, dean of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts; Con Howe, planning director for the City of Los Angeles; Ronay Menschel, chairwoman of Phipps Houses in Manhattan; Laurie D. Olin, professor of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania; Will Rogers, president of the Trust for Public Land; Moshe Safdie, an architect; Denise Scott Brown, of the architecture firm Venturi Scott Brown; Dejan Sudjic, editor of the architecture magazine Domus; and Cristina Teuscher, an Olympic swimmer.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

I wonder how this project will proceed if NYC does not get the Olympic Games.

[Kris]

Down the toilet.

[billyblancoNYC]

Have faith, maybe with Rockrose's success on the North side, this will just become a natural extension of the project. It makes good sense with or without the olympics.

[NyC MaNiAc]

How much would New York City benefit from the Olympics?

Would it help out the city and it's debts?

[billyblancoNYC]

No one will know for sure, if ever, but I think the rough estimates are in the billions of economic activity/impact.

Makes sense, I guess. An olympics in NYC would be one of the most premiere events of all time.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Hopefully it would provide incentive to construct major projects and improvements by 2012 that will benefit the city before and after the Olympics. The people who complain that there will be too much traffic for three weeks drive me crazy. Big picture!

[billyblancoNYC]

www.globest.com/newyork.html

NYC2012 Calling All Designers
By Melissa Kress
Last updated: Sep 25, 2003 02:28PM

NEW YORK CITY-NYC2012 is holding an international design competition for architects and designers for the proposed Olympic Village, slated to be built in Queens. By holding an open call for qualifications, the committee hopes to encourage small, lesser-known firms to participate.
The competition is “another important milestone in the long race New York has been in to bring the Olympic Games to New York City,” says Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff.

The first step in creating an Olympic Village for 16,000 athletes, coaches and officials is an issuance for RFQs, which begins today with information posted on the committee’s website. NYC2012 will then hold a question-and-answer opportunity until Oct. 24. At that time all the questions and answers will be posted on the website. Interested firms then have until Nov. 17 to submit the simple, nine-page request, according to Alexander Garvin, director of planning for NYC2012.

A 10-person Design Review Panel will then evaluate all the submissions and select five finalists for the design phase of the competition, he adds. The finalists will be revealed on Dec. 4. The first submissions due in November will include only the firm’s name, the names of the people who will work on the project, proposed approaches and three visuals: a residential project already completed, a project that was not completed and the firm’s favorite project. The submissions will not include any designs for the proposed village.

“All through this we will be working with Olympians,” Garvin says. “There are two Olympians on the design panel … who lived in the villages and know what it is like.”

If the city is selected as the host of the 2012 Olympic Games, the Olympic Village would be located in Queens West, across the East River from the United Nations. After the 17-day games, the village--which will consist of approximately 4,400 housing units--would become residential housing for 18,000 people. If the city loses its bid, the site would still be the future site of residential development, according to Doctoroff. There is already an approved housing plan for the area which will go through, “win or lose,” he adds.

“If we do not receive the bid, the Queens West site, which forms the basis of the village, will go ahead,” he says, “but probably not on the same timetable as if we were selected.”

[JMGarcia]

I visited the NY Olympic Committees display offices and took these two pictures of the models.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze26pnp/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/Olympic1.JPG

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze26pnp/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/Olympic2.JPG

[enzo]

Do we really need a box stadium?

[matt3303]

I agree. They could have been more creative than a shoebox. Still, remember that's just a preliminary rendering, not the final deal.

[TLOZ Link5]

I went to the Center for Architecture yesterday! Err, two days ago, considering that it's now early Sunda morning. It was great!

[Kris]

Olympic Village design finalists chosen

NYC2012, the committee spearheading New York's bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, announced five finalists to design an Olympic Village in Queens.

The finalists, selected out of more than 130 entries from 20 countries, are: Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects from Manhattan, which is leading an international team; MVRDV from Rotterdam, which is working with Leeser Architecture of Brooklyn and Stoss Landscape Architects of Boston; Henning Larsens Tegnestue A/S from Copenhagen; Morphosis from Santa Monica; and Zaha Hadid Architects from London.

The finalists will now take part in a 14-week planning and design study. In March, their submissions will be presented to the public, and after an evaluation and a public comment period, the winner will be announced in May. The final design will be submitted to the International Olympic Committee on Nov. 15, 2004.

The proposed site of the Olympic Village is Queens West, across the East River from the United Nations. During the 2012 games, it would house 16,000 athletes and coaches, and following the event, it would provide housing for up to 18,000 New Yorkers. The project is expected to cost about $1.5 billion, most of it funded by developers; NYC2012 would contribute $50 million to $100 million.

New York City is vying with Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig, London, Paris, Madrid, Moscow, and Rio de Janeiro to host the games.
Copyright 2003, Crain Communications, Inc

http://crainsny.com/news.cms?newsId=7023

[Clarknt67]

Is there a square foot of NYC that *isn't* poised to be reconfiguired by a design competition?

Is so, let's find it and bring it to light! (so long as it's not my bedroom!)

[TLOZ Link5]

Is there a square foot of NYC that *isn't* poised to be reconfiguired by a design competition?

Is so, let's find it and bring it to light! (so long as it's not my bedroom!)

Ack! First NIMBYs, and now NIMBRs!

[the Italian Stallion 718]

lol, NIMBR's? shed some light. :lol:

[Clarknt67]

Is there a square foot of NYC that *isn't* poised to be reconfiguired by a design competition?

Is so, let's find it and bring it to light! (so long as it's not my bedroom!)

Ack! First NIMBYs, and now NIMBRs!

You're right, I'm sorry for my small-mindedness. I am now announcing a design competition to redesign my bedroom. :wink:

[TLOZ Link5]

You're right, I'm sorry for my small-mindedness. I am now announcing a design competition to redesign my bedroom. :wink:

Paging Thom Felicia :D

[fioco]

Please Stop! If I laugh any louder I'll wake my upstairs neighbors! Thanks folks, I'm extending my vocabulary (Nimbrs -- love it) and envisioning new frontiers for the Fab Five.

[Kris]

January 14, 2004

In Olympian Dreams, Designs for the City

By JULIE V. IOVINE

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/01/14/arts/olym.1.583.jpg
Kohn Pedersen Fox's design for a New York Jets and Olympic stadium.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/01/14/arts/olym.2.602.jpg
Design by Weiss/Manfredi for a boardwalk at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, part of the Olympic proposal.

"NYC2012: Olympic Opportunities," now at the Center for Architecture in Greenwich Village, is a small show, but it presages huge architectural ambitions for New York City. The bid to make the city the home of the Olympics in 2012 may seem like a pipe dream, but detailed plans are well under way for some 25 sites spanning all five boroughs, New Jersey and Nassau County.

The projected new construction budget, the bulk of which will be privately financed, is in excess of $3 billion, said Daniel L. Doctoroff, deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding and the founder of NYC2012, the group leading New York's bid to be host. "We hope to use the process of bidding for, and hopefully hosting, the Olympics as a way to showcase New York as a center of excellence and path-breaking developments in design," Mr. Doctoroff said.

New York is contending against eight other cities, including Paris, London, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro and Havana, making this one of the hottest — one could say, truly Olympic-class — races in the modern history of the games. The International Olympic Committee will announce its decision on July 6, 2005.

More than a dozen initial proposals for athletic fields, a stadium and other sites for supporting events have already been designed and are on display through Feb. 7 at the Center for Architecture, at 536 La Guardia Place (north of Bleecker Street). Printed on wide strips of floppy Mylar, clipped to fluorescent tube lights and suspended by wire from the water pipes in a radical-tech installation by J. Meejin Yoon, the exhibition makes it appear that it would be easy enough to slip the mega-structures needed for the games into the already stretched urban fabric of New York.

Half a dozen events would take place in Manhattan alone, including gymnastics (at Madison Square Garden), wrestling (at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center) and boxing (at the 369th Regiment Armory in Harlem). The Manhattan architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates has designed an Olympic stadium that would be constructed on decking over the rail yards on the West Side from 30th to 33rd Streets. (The $800 million stadium is to be paid for by the New York Jets as its new home. But the decking and roof would be built with about $600 million from city and state funds, Mr. Doctoroff said, so that the stadium could be used for conventions and other events.) The stadium has been designed to harvest energy from wind, water and the sun, and, along with its retractable roof, would have walls made of solar thermal tubes and the capacity to collect and recycle rain water.

Alongside the stadium, there would be a lawn designed by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer, 40 percent larger than Bryant Park but in the same urbane spirit as the midtown park. It would be bisected by a long glass pavilion loaded with restaurants, cafes and shops. With its afterlife as a park in mind, the lawn would include a majestic fountain and a flourishing bosque of trees. Although both the stadium and the lawn would be built over the Long Island Rail Road storage yard, a spokesman for NYC2012 said that thanks to new technology no one would ever feel the trains rumbling below.

Weiss/Manfredi, a relatively young Manhattan firm, was charged with designing locations for rowing and white-water events at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, a leftover landscape haunted by glaring remnants of the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs. The firm's plan — created to focus, as with all the designs, on post-Olympic uses — includes a mile-long boardwalk wending through a newly recovered wetland beneath the Piranesian sweep of on- and off-ramps to the Long Island Expressway.

In its proposal, on view at the exhibition, the former reflecting pool of the 1964 Unisphere has been reconfigured into a 20-foot vertical drop for the white-water course.

Margaret Helfand, a Manhattan architect and former president of the American Institute of Architects, is the curator of the exhibition. Though the show is small, it is packed with a polemic. Beneath the strip of preliminary renderings for New York, she arranged images of some of the greatest hits from past Olympics.

The proposed Olympic stadium by Kohn Pedersen Fox is matched against that by the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & deMeuron for Beijing 2008 and against Pier Luigi Nervi's 1960 Palazzo dello Sport in Rome with its innovative (for that time) web of concrete walls. In another pairing, Cesar Pelli's plan for a sleek but straightforward glass media tower near the proposed West Side stadium is set off against Santiago Calatrava's communications tower that looks like a letter jotted in the sky for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

"The proposals to date have been on the unambitious side," Ms. Helfand said. "They are not on the level they should be. This is an opportunity for new ideas. After all, excellence is what the Olympics are all about."

Ms. Helfand said she hoped that the best — architecturally speaking — was yet to come with the design of the Olympic Village, where the 16,000 athletes would live three or four to an apartment for 17 days. An innovative design study is under way to select an architect for the site in Queens West, across the East River from the United Nations.

The Olympic Village selection process attracted 132 architects, both unknown and renowned, from the United States and abroad, who submitted their qualifications in November. An international jury whittled the list down to five architectural firms: Zaha Hadid of London; Morphosis of Santa Monica, Calif.; MVRDV of Rotterdam; Smith-Miller & Hawkinson of New York; and Henning Larsens Tegnestue of Copenhagen. The winning firm and its preliminary design for the $1.5 billion Olympic Village will be announced in March.

"Our agenda is clear," Mr. Doctoroff said. "We want the Olympics to leave a legacy to the city."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

Beijing Olympic Stadium (http://forums.wirednewyork.com/viewtopic.php?t=1335)

Bold Stadium Designs (http://forums.wirednewyork.com/viewtopic.php?t=1395)

[Kris]

http://www.hhpa.com/photos/projects/planning/1_l0.jpg
http://www.hhpa.com/photos/projects/planning/1_l1.jpg

Olympic Square 2012
New York, New York

Date: 2000
Size: 6 acres

HHPA assisted the City of New York with its bid for the 2012 Olympic Games through the design of Olympic Square located in the Hudson Yards, the area surrounding the Long Island Rail Yards and considered to be the great undeveloped area of Manhattan's west side. HHPA's plan envisions a great Square, 40 percent larger than Bryant Park, which would serve as the focus of the Hudson Yards area. With a central lawn as its focus, the Square would be flanked by two new hotels; a 1.3 million sq. ft. office tower that would be used during the Olympics as a Media Center for broadcast journalists; and a site that could be available for a new Madison Square Garden. The area surrounding the Square would provide an opportunity for an expansion of the Midtown Central Business District, needed growth for New York's viable and competitive economy.

www.hhpa.com

[BrooklynRider]

They state that this park will be "along side the stadium". Can anyone clarify along which side of the stadium they are proposing?

[ZippyTheChimp]

The long axis of the stadium would be north-south. The park would be south of the stadium.

[Ninjahedge]

What scenic....overpasses... :P

[Kris]

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg Unveils Finalist Designs for Proposed 2012 Olympic Village

Two-Week Design Exhibit at Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal

March 10, 2004

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, and NYC2012 today made public the five finalist designs for the proposed Olympic Village. Today’s event, including presentations by each of the five architects, launched a two-week exhibit, at Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal, and public review period, which is part of the selection process before a winning design is announced in May.

The finalists are: Henning Larsens Tegnestue A/S – HLT (Copenhagen, Denmark), MVRDV (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), Morphosis (Santa Monica, CA, USA), Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects (New York, NY, USA) and Zaha Hadid Architects (London, United Kingdom). They were picked from more than 130 entries from all over the world.

“The 2012 Olympic Games would have an unprecedented and enduring impact on New York City, and the benefits would be felt in all five boroughs,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The Olympic Games would create 125,000 jobs, and pump $11 billion into our economy. It would spur the largest investment in parks and recreation facilities in the City’s history - all privately paid for. And it would give us the once in a lifetime opportunity to transform what is now a largely abandoned and blighted stretch of the East River waterfront in Queens into a stunning new residential community. Designing the Olympic Village is a breathtaking project, and Queens will provide a spectacular home away from home for thousands of the world’s greatest athletes. I want to thank the five finalists for their stunning effort and NYC2012 and Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff for all their hard work towards making our Olympic dreams a reality.”

“These five designs represent the best from an international search to create the best possible Olympic Village for athletes and housing for New Yorkers when the Olympians go home,” said Queens Borough President Helen Marshall. “I urge the public to express their comments and ideas on these designs that give us a working knowledge of what the Olympic Village will look like when it rises on one of the prime real estate sites in Queens and the City of New York.”

“These spectacular designs put the athletes at the center of a New York Games and uphold the true spirit of the Olympic Movement while forming the model for future urban housing,” said Daniel L. Doctoroff, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding and Founder of NYC2012. “With the exhibit and public review period, the people of New York will continue their opportunity to share in the Olympic dream and preview the city’s future, as well.”

The proposed site of the Olympic Village is Queens West, directly across the East River from the United Nations. The Village would house 16,000 athletes and members of the Olympic Family in the center of New York’s Olympic X plan and, following the event, would provide world-class residential housing for up to 18,000 New Yorkers. The winning design will be the basis of NYC2012’s Olympic Village proposal in the Candidature File to be submitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on November 15, 2004.

Queens West is a joint project of the State, City and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, overseen by the Queens West Development Corporation. The full Queens West project (in an area formerly called Hunters Point) is 73 acres. The Olympic Village site occupies the southern portion of Queens West.

First announced in September 2003, the Design Study began with the issuance of a Request for Qualifications (RFQ), which was open to all designers and architects, regardless of nationality. An 8-member Design Review Panel evaluated all entries in terms of qualifications and design concepts. The review was intended to identify creative and varied ideas for the design of an outstanding Olympic Village for New York. The panel’s members include experts in architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, environmental planning, and housing, as well as an Olympian: Gary Hack, Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts; Con Howe, Planning Director for the City of Los Angeles; Ronay Menschel, Chairperson of Phipps Houses; Laurie D. Olin, Landscape Architect; Will Rogers, President of Trust for Public Land; Moshe Safdie, Architect; Dejan Sudjic, Architecture Critic; and Cristina Teuscher, Olympian (Swimming, 1996: Gold, 2000: Bronze).

The five finalists participated in a 14-week planning and design study, overseen by Alexander Garvin, NYC2012’s Director of Planning. The current evaluation and public review comment period is an integral part of the final round of the process. The public is urged to comment on the designs online beginning on March 10th. Concurrently, NYC2012 staff will assess the viability of the plans. The winner will be announced in May 2004.

The host city for the 2012 Olympic Games will be selected by the IOC on July 6, 2005 in Singapore. Other competing cities are Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig, London, Madrid, Moscow, Paris and Rio de Janeiro.

The architects on the designs:

Henning Larsens Tegnestue A/S - HLT (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Architect Louis Becker said: “The entire Hunters Point has been developed to create a unique framework for a sustainable urban Olympic Village with a strong identity. The Village consists of five quarters – all linked like the five Olympic rings. The center quarter is laid out around an Olympic Square on the waterfront facing Manhattan. Athletes will perceive the five quarters and their varying typology like the cultural and typological differences of world continents. Water constitutes a major feature – the use of it varying from leisure to security. The outline of the plan secures maximum privacy for athletes along with maximum space, air and views for all.”

Morphosis (Santa Monica, California -- USA)
Architect Thom Mayne said: “Informed by a commitment to sustainability, connectivity and interdependence, our design for the Olympic Village symbolically reflects the Olympic Movement's universal ideals of peace, tolerance and humanitarianism through an innovative vision for a revitalized ‘new territory’ that will leave an important legacy, or gift, to the city. With 43 acres of open space reserved for both urban and natural parkland, this development's greens will rank as the largest urban waterfront park in the five boroughs. By working carefully and deliberately to sculpt land and building forms into a coherent relationship with the existing urban fabric and naturally advantageous site conditions, we will create an iconic landmark and vibrant new neighborhood which will function as an important stimulus for creative and optimistic development of the adjacent urban areas. “

MVRDV (Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
“Weaving” Village on the Beach
Architect Winy Maas said: “By creating a large urban public beach on the East River, the Olympic Village becomes dramatically intense and visible. The village employs a mini-grid to condense the program to a point that triggers a New York City-style urbanity, otherwise diluted on the site. The skyline beach opens the site as a NYC attraction: views plus unimpeded space. Emphasis on urban public life is further invigorated with weaving towers, slender to the top and tilted to reveal more views in and from the Village. Sometimes they even kiss, improving security and allowing sports facilities higher up. These urban moves generate a three-dimensional neighborhood, reflecting the Olympic spirit and challenging the current Manhattan tower typology.”

Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects (New York, NY -- USA)
New Park: the Green Machine
Architect Laurie Hawkinson said: “Tomorrow’s New York will be shaped by a new attitude towards its natural and constructed landscapes. Our design for a sustainable Olympic Village will be the first large-scale project in this fundamental shift and is based on six simple ideas: First, the production of a new park - the Olympic Green; second, an Olympic ring around the Village for public access to a waterfront park; third, five slender river towers where athletes and residents live with panoramic views; fourth, new super-blocks with courtyards for Olympic events, athletes’ recreation and year-round use by residents; fifth, a new transit hub where the Long Island Railroad meets the river taxi terminal; and sixth, buildings and landscape linked together forming a regenerative system exceeding existing standards for sustainability and energy utilization”

Zaha Hadid Architects (London, United Kingdom)
Architect Zaha Hadid said: “Our Olympic Village masterplan opens Hunters Point to a rapidly changing future between Newtown Creek and the East River. Here, a constellation of towers dramatically presents an Olympic icon to Queens, Brooklyn, and across to Manhattan, while ensuring that both today’s and tomorrow’s local residents enjoy the spectacular views of Midtown and Lower Manhattan that only an open Hunters Point can offer. These features establish enduring principles in a plan which offers flexibility through the design process, with the strength of the towers balancing an openness to changing patterns of activity on an expansive horizontal plane. The differentiated waterfronts give rise to a new local scale drawn across the village through a sequence of more intimate pockets cut into the ground form, giving rhythm and texture to the public ground.”

NYC2012 Olympic Village Design Study Finalists Display their Proposals

Exhibit Opens Wednesday, March 10th, 2004

and closes Thursday, March 25th, 2004

Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal

East 42nd Street between Vanderbilt and Lexington Avenues

View the finalists’ designs (http://www.nyc2012.com/village_finalists/index.html)

[NYguy]

some good stuff...


Henning Larsons Tegnestue

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/hlt_target1.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/hlt_target3.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/hlt_target4.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/hlt_target5.jpg


Morphosis

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/morph_target3.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/morph_target4.jpg


MVRDV

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/mvrdv_target1.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/mvrdv_target2.jpg


Smith Miller Hawkinson

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/smh_target1.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/smh_target2.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/smh_target4.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/smh_target5.jpg


Zaha Hadid

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/zaha_target1.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/zaha_target2.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/zaha_target4.jpg

http://www.nyc2012.com./village_finalists/zaha_target5.jpg

[TLOZ Link5]

I almost laughed out loud at the rendering of a new beach with a guy carrying a surfboard. A beach sounds nice, though, provided that the water's clean enough.

[JMGarcia]

I almost laughed out loud at the rendering of a new beach with a guy carrying a surfboard. A beach sounds nice, though, provided that the water's clean enough.

Dude! Wanna go catch some waves down in the east river? - lol

[NYguy]

Both the East and Hudson rivers have been cleaned up in recent years. 10 years down the line they should be even cleaner. Two of the five finalist showcase beaches on the riverfront. I say why not? NY is full of waterftont promenades. Let the people swim in the water already!

[NoyokA]

Both Morphosis and Zaha Hadid's proposals show promise. Hadid's masterplan is conventional, not unlike the layout of the Rockrose development, the towers however could be spectacular. The Morpshosis site plan is very interesting and would with the completion of QueensWest and Jackson Blvd. station would reshape Queens, squashing any previous stereotypes and make it a destination.

[Eugenius]

I am not crazy about Hadid's plan. It is impossible for buildings to look that transparent in real life. If they are opaque and more angular, like real-world buildings, her plan looks like a bunch of bulky, short apartment buildings in the midst of a wind-swept, if grass-covered land.
The Smith Miller plan looks more realistic. I like how the apartment buildings turn their narrow edges toward Manhattan. This should decrease the feeling of bulk, and emphasize height.

[TLOZ Link5]

Both the East and Hudson rivers have been cleaned up in recent years. 10 years down the line they should be even cleaner. Two of the five finalist showcase beaches on the riverfront. I say why not? NY is full of waterftont promenades. Let the people swim in the water already!

Actually, the first three plans have beaches. The question about the beaches is less regarding the quality of the water of the East River but the waves therein.

Kinda reminds me of Chicago, but let's hope that we won't start building concrete beaches.

[Clarknt67]

I almost laughed out loud at the rendering of a new beach with a guy carrying a surfboard. A beach sounds nice, though, provided that the water's clean enough.

It would be cool to swim in the rivers. 8) I'm not sure how good the surfing will ever be however.

[JMGarcia]

Both the East and Hudson rivers have been cleaned up in recent years. 10 years down the line they should be even cleaner. Two of the five finalist showcase beaches on the riverfront. I say why not? NY is full of waterftont promenades. Let the people swim in the water already!

No problem with the beaches or even swimming in the East River. But surfing? Where's the waves dude? ;)

[Kris]

March 11, 2004

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Let the Design Sprint Begin

By HERBERT MUSCHAMP

Slide Show: The Proposals (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2004/03/10/garden/20040311_NOTE_SLIDESHOW_1.html)

HERE are five scenes from the buffed-up city yet to come. Perhaps never to come, alas. Five architecture teams have prepared designs for an Olympic Village, to be in Long Island City, Queens, to help New York win its bid to be host to the summer games in 2012. The designs were unveiled yesterday and will be on view for the next two weeks at Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal. A winning design will be chosen in May. After that, who knows?

Built by private developers, the Olympic Village would house 1,600 athletes during the games. Afterward, the complex would become middle-income housing. The site would occupy the southern portion of Queens West, the state-sponsored residential development across the East River from the United Nations headquarters.

The creative ambition of the teams is pitched at a high level, overall, and it must be said at the outset that this is an impressive achievement in itself. Whether New York is chosen over London, Paris and the six other contending cities, it says a good deal that a city agency has embraced architects of the caliber of Zaha Hadid, Thom Mayne, and the Dutch firm MVRDV. In this case, the agency is NYC2012, the outfit established for planning the Olympics bid.

Selected from 130 entries from 20 countries, the finalists also include Henning Larsens Tegnestue of Copenhagen and Smith-Miller & Hawkinson Architects of New York.

The public deserves much of the credit for the quality of the Olympics proposals. In July 2002, New Yorkers rejected the initial round of plans for the World Trade Center site. Alexander Garvin, a city planning commissioner who presided over the design of ground zero, is performing the same function for the Olympics bid. Aesthetically, at least, the design process is starting off on a sounder footing this time around.

The audience for civic works, we are again reminded, does not consist exclusively of neighborhood groups. It also includes an audience as broad and international as that for Olympic sports. At the Grand Central show, there are ideas of which any city can be proud.

The Olympic Village is part of a brilliant master plan for the games devised by Mr. Garvin in 2002. Entitled the Olympic X Plan, the scheme uses the city's transportation system to link new and existing sports venues arranged in giant intersecting axes draped across all five boroughs and the New Jersey Meadowlands. The Olympic Village sits at the center of the crossing, facing the Manhattan skyline. The view could make even the losers feel like champions.

In another sign of changing times, the architects were instructed to disregard the development's original master plan, by the New York firm Beyer Blinder Belle, architects of ill-fated ground zero plans.

Instead, following the example of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's "innovative design study," the teams have been asked to submit ideas for planning as well as architectural design.

This is not a design competition, although it has the general appearance of one. There is no formal jury (deliberations will be conducted by a loose group associated with NYC2012, including Mr. Garvin and Daniel L. Doctoroff, the deputy mayor for economic development). There is also no fixed set of criteria by which the designs will be judged. We don't yet know whether the winner will be an architect or a design.

The schemes presented are proposals, not fully developed master plans or designs for actual buildings. This is a study of ideas or, to use a term now largely discredited by its abuse by politicians, an array of "visions" to support the city's bid. We've had our Libeskind vision, and now we will have our Hadid, Smith-Miller & Hawkinson and MVRDV visions. Two projects, in particular, stand out: Mr. Mayne's and Ms. Hadid's. These designs are radically different in form, but they share a trait. Both attempt to revive urban concepts repudiated by city planners more than a generation ago.

For Mr. Mayne, the concept is the megastructure, a sweeping, usually horizontal building much favored by progressive architects in the 1960's. A spinoff of the British Brutalist movement, the megastructure combined architecture and urbanism beneath a single roof. Typically, it housed a variety of functions, including schools, shops, offices and recreation as well as housing.

An ambitious example for lower Manhattan was proposed by Paul Rudolph in 1970. But the most notorious, and possibly most outstanding, example of the genre is that symbol of Nixon's Washington, the Watergate complex.

The highly articulated forms of Mr. Mayne's facades suggest that his design, too, contains a mixed program. It consists entirely of housing, however. This represents a partial reversion to the Unité d'Habitation in Marseille, the residential blocks designed by Le Corbusier in the late 1940's. The Unité, which included an interior arcade of shops and a rooftop park, was the original inspiration for the megastructure concept.

Ms. Hadid has reached back even further in time but, again, to Le Corbusier. She proposes nothing less than our old friend and favorite postmodern enemy, the Towers in the Park. Entitled the Radiant City, the concept was presented by Le Corbusier in 1931. In the postwar years, it became the leading paradigm for urban renewal projects in the United States, where it became synonymous with the modern movement's ambition to engineer society.

It does not require a long memory to recall why both Corbusian models eventually came under attack. With both, the architect asserted a uniform control that all but eliminated urban diversity. They eliminated conventional streets and with them continuity with the surrounding urban fabric. They also eliminated the "eyes on the street," the neighborhood self-policing that results from active street life. These powerful objections, raised by Jane Jacobs in 1960, went far toward discrediting modern architecture in the United States.

Times change. So do urban scale, the meaning of modernity and the relationship of cities to their past, including modernisms gone by. Not all towers-in-a-park designs were failures. A few, like Waterside on the East River and Silver Towers in Greenwich Village, contributed to the rich diversity of the cityscape.

Mr. Mayne's and Ms. Hadid's projects do not stem solely from Le Corbusier. They also embody Oscar Niemeyer's concept of the poetic urban object and the sculptural tradition that has been carried forward in recent years by Frank Gehry. These designs are right-brain poetry, not the precisely calibrated gridscapes of modernism's cold, objective truth. The forms are sensuous, playful, sinewy, as if the buildings had incorporated nature into themselves instead of standing apart from it.

The other three projects are skimpy on the wow factor. This doesn't disqualify them, of course. All five designs deserve more than a once-over. MVRDV's proposal at least has the advantage of simplicity. The Rotterdam office wants to build a big beach with some housing behind it, a not unnatural shift in emphasis for a time of global warming. The Dutch will have much to teach us as water levels rise. In the 1970's, Rem Koolhaas gave us "Delirious New York." Now, MVRDV gives us "Drowned New Amsterdam," a reprise of colonial times as our great city subsides beneath the waves.

To judge from the proposal by the firm Henning Larsens Tegnestue, New York still looks delirious to the Danes. It divides the site into four zoning quadrants: a pleasing reminder of its placement in the X Plan, but an idea with unfortunate theme park connotations. This is Manhattan replayed on the scale of "It's a Small World," with miniature versions of Times Square, Central Park and Co-op City.

And it could work. At least, for people who want to raise their children in a theme park. Yet it is hard to shake the feeling that the design is intended as a parody of post-Cold War fortress America, with its intoxicating, commercialized freedoms gaily paraded beneath the scrutiny of video surveillance cameras and Men in Black. As Vincent Scully might put it, the Danes have got our number, and it hurts.

The Smith-Miller & Hawkinson submission is almost unaccountably dull. I say almost, because I suspect that the design's pedestrian quality may be calculated. This is one of those mysteries that can occur when you hold a competition while denying that it is a competition: nobody really knows the rules. You can tell architects to go all out for innovation and imagination, but when the time comes to pick a winner you throw all this rationale in the air about budget, feasibility, community preference and so on.

It shouldn't work that way. It's somehow less than obedient to the Olympic spirit. If you want architects to compete on the level of architecture, that is the sole basis on which a winner should be chosen. Then, should New York be fortunate enough to be host to the games in 2012, there will be more than enough time to deal with the pragmatics. This is all just fantasy, right?

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

A few more views at nyc2012 (http://www.nyc2012.com/village_finalists/index.html)

[Clarknt67]

Hennings Larsen: Probably my second favorite. I'm a little mixed on the round towers. I think I'd have to see them built before I make a decision! :wink:

Morphosis: I don't care for this plan at all, it strikes me as heavy and urban, despite the beach & marshes. The buildings seem lumbering and at odds with the environment. Almost like a dystopic sci-fi vision, like Logan's Run.

MVRDV: Yuck. Have they offered no landscaping? Are the buildings built on a sandlot? Too trendy/gimmicky for my taste. Would anyone really want to live there after the Olympics?

Smith-Miller + Hawkinson: Definately my favorite. Modern, graceful, nice integration with the landscaping and the city as a whole. It's be perfect if they could just work the Hennings beach into the equation.

Zaha Hadid: Interesting concept but would they really be so transparent? The ameobic shapes aren't my fav, also, like the MVRDV, would they look good in 10 years? or would the complex always stick out as SOOOOO 2012?

[Eugenius]

March 11, 2004
In another sign of changing times, the architects were instructed to disregard the development's original master plan, by the New York firm Beyer Blinder Belle, architects of ill-fated ground zero plans.
Stuffed again! Looks like the influence of the firm nicknamed "Blah Blah and Blah" is waning dramatically, Grand Central restoration notwithstanding.

[dbhstockton]

What a relief these designs are. All of them have signifigant merit. For comparison, the original proposal is at the bottom of this graphic:

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2002/11/03/sports/021103_spt_OLYMPICS.gif

NYC 2012 thread is here. (http://forums.wirednewyork.com/viewtopic.php?t=59)

[OKoranjes]

All of these proposals forget one thing in their ideas: The people who have to live there. In 2015 after all the buzz of the olympics is over, who in their right mind would want to live there? What is attractive about them? Sure, they look pretty from above and hip and cool in the pictures, but imagine living there. Most of them remind me of the 'block tower in the park' model that was so popluar to "REVIVE" (Which they DIDNT do at all) urban areas. Let's be progressive here, not regressive. These architects should be trying to fix problems, not contribute to them.

[OKoranjes]

Architects should stick to designing the buildings, not doing the urban planning as well unless they really know what they are doing. Gridded streets and formulaic patterns are what WORK for urban areas, though they might not look amazing and have a wow-factor. Those characteristics are GREAT for buildings, but very not great for street design.

[ddjiii]

Both the East and Hudson rivers have been cleaned up in recent years. 10 years down the line they should be even cleaner. Two of the five finalist showcase beaches on the riverfront. I say why not? NY is full of waterftont promenades. Let the people swim in the water already!

No problem with the beaches or even swimming in the East River. But surfing? Where's the waves dude? ;)

But there is a problem swimming! The East River is a tidal estuary. The water changes flow direction twice a day, and the current is brutal - I heard up to 12 knots. You could end up in NY harbor pretty fast.

It makes you wonder about the designers...

[ddjiii]

All of these proposals forget one thing in their ideas: The people who have to live there. In 2015 after all the buzz of the olympics is over, who in their right mind would want to live there? What is attractive about them? Sure, they look pretty from above and hip and cool in the pictures, but imagine living there. Most of them remind me of the 'block tower in the park' model that was so popluar to "REVIVE" (Which they DIDNT do at all) urban areas. Let's be progressive here, not regressive. These architects should be trying to fix problems, not contribute to them.

I agree completely. There is little urbanism in these plans - Hadid's in particular looks like a suburban light industrial park with towers. It appears as if she simply didn't think about the plan at all - just placed the towers and drew roads around them.

I don't understand what's so hard for architects to understand - New York is all about streets! Get the street right first, then design the pretty tower.

I agree with a previous poster that Smith Miller - Hawkinson's plan is the best, but I think the group isn't that impressive as a whole.

[billyblancoNYC]

I'm sure they were told to make this "futuristic" which many seem to think is very different from how things are today.

[BigMac]

New York Newsday
March 23, 2004

DESIGN 2012: Visualizing a land fit for Olympians

BY JUSTIN DAVIDSON

Even as he woos the International Olympic Committee in the hope of bringing the 2012 games to New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a separate message for New Yorkers squeamish about gridlock: The Olympics can transform our town. A case in point is the proposed Olympic Village, which would rise on the industrial shoreline of Hunters Point in Long Island City, turning it into a new riverfront downtown, with high-rises for 16,000 residents, shopping, parkland and a beach.

Dazzling the citizenry is a tough job in these parts, especially with attention still fitfully focused on lower Manhattan, but a measure of the city's architectural ambitions can be seen in an exhibit hall at Grand Central Terminal, where five variously hazy visions for the Olympic Village are on display.

Zaha Hadid's seamless, see- through towers float above Queens like elongated soap bubbles. Alternatively, a cluster of apartment buildings in the form of tilted, multicolored cones by the Dutch firm MVRDV loom above an East River beach. Or you might prefer Smith-Miller + Hawkinson's notion of athletes living in a tall glass loaf overlooking a marina.

These fancies embody the sense that New York is more malleable than it has been in a generation. Not since the days of Robert Moses have the city's official aspirations been so expansive on so many fronts - only this time they are tinged by an avant-garde design sensibility.

It's fun to be dazzled, but the Olympic Village exhibit illustrates why the public needs to keep its skepticism tuned, to ward off the blandification of good ideas as well as the intoxication with flashy ones. The competition's rules are unclear and its outcome, in any case, contingent on the IOC's decision about 2012. Even if the "ifs" were overcome, whatever architect got the job might eventually emerge with a completely reconceived design.

Looking unlike the city

For now, though, the finalists have cooked up some high-style strategies for disaster. With the exception of the imaginative Danish firm Henning Larsens Tegnestue A/S, they have re- conceived Hunter's Point not as an extension of the gridded city, but as a prettified showcase for sexy buildings.

One of Hadid's bulbous towers, tenuously attached to the ground by a slender lobby, would make a grand spectacle if it were on Sixth Avenue; a collection of them in Queens would look like the phalanx of self-contained towers that line the cliffs of New Jersey along the Hudson River. This is not urbanism, but design by multiplication.

Hadid places each building on a plaza encircled by a strip of green. The ground ripples over a buried garage and a hidden strip of waterfront stores. Even in idealized renderings, the snaking walkways appear joyless and dead.

The design by MVRDV is an even starker attempt to pair density with open space. A cluster of jaunty, tapering towers, like stretched pyramids made of masonry with bands of colored glass, faces a windswept beach, creating a mini-metropolis for a warmer clime: Miami Northeast. Skyscrapers and shoreline can certainly work in combination, but nothing in the model suggests the architects have given much thought to how.

Tall buildings out of place

Especially in Queens, the feeling of metropolitan density has little to do with height; Main Street in Flushing is a teeming avenue of stubby buildings and should be a required stop for any out-of-town planner hoping to create the borough's next node.

Morphosis, the Santa Monica, Calif., firm directed by Thom Mayne, envisions the Olympic Village as a bucolic campus on a promontory of its own. The athletes - and after the Olympics, 18,000 permanent residents - would live either in high-rise slabs or long, low apartment structures that wiggle along the shore and across the green of a large waterfront park. Amenities abound: open-air sports facilities, wetlands landscaped to look wild, a beach, a glass-enclosed pier. The renderings show a sunny esplanade with a spouting fountain and distant views of the Empire State Building across the East River. This is a fantasy of what New York City might look like if only it were in North Carolina.

Smith-Miller + Hawkinson of Manhattan is the only local firm among the finalists, and at least it has avoided the impulse to relocate the site to a different place: Its series of town greens walled in by glass would be sterile pretty much anywhere.

That leaves the Danes - Henning Larsens Tegnestue - who, to their credit, recognize that lively streets, traffic and chaotic variety are what give New York its New Yorkness. Their plan actually deals with the passage between the city's grid and the scalloped edge of Hunters Point. They divide the site into sectors: a set of twisting towers, a complex of severe, all-white, five- story apartment blocks reminiscent of Lincoln Center, a marina and a park that cascades from the high-rises to the water like the lawn of a Gold Coast estate. The buildings themselves are less than thrilling, but the layout begins to make a broad-brush sort of sense.

For the next few months, the public can visit the Grand Central showcase or the Web site www.nyc2012.org, read the architects' impenetrable statements, and register praise or complaint. Competition winner will be announced in May. The trick will be to see if fabulousness and urban logic can be made to merge.

Copyright 2004 Newsday, Inc.

[NoyokA]

Morphosis, the Santa Monica, Calif., firm directed by Thom Mayne, envisions the Olympic Village as a bucolic campus on a promontory of its own. The athletes - and after the Olympics, 18,000 permanent residents - would live either in high-rise slabs or long, low apartment structures that wiggle along the shore and across the green of a large waterfront park. Amenities abound: open-air sports facilities, wetlands landscaped to look wild, a beach, a glass-enclosed pier. The renderings show a sunny esplanade with a spouting fountain and distant views of the Empire State Building across the East River. This is a fantasy of what New York City might look like if only it were in North Carolina.


True, they took a more creative, artistic route with their scheme. Is that such a bad thing?

Morphosis IMO is the only competant proposal that would actually contribute to the city after the Olympics. The others could be throwback proposals from Roosevelt Island.

[Kris]

http://www.theslatinreport.com/story.jsp?Topic=Top%20Story&theStory=0329oymvil.tx t.txt

[NoyokA]

The Morphosis proposal, widely regarded as the strongest among five strong offerings.


Thom Mayne of Morphosis chose to limit his presentation - the strongest of all - to five minutes and a single image. Its central feature was of two low-lying, elongated, multilevel "ribbon" buildings facing each other at the eastern and western boundaries of the site. These low-flying hangars for humanity would provide, post-Olympics, the largest urban waterfront park in the five boroughs. The plan's genius is also its vulnerability: although the buildings are laced with openings to provide views to the water, their mammoth stretch is impossible to ignore. The western slab occludes the water and looms above those who pass through its openings. Promisingly, though, the extended courtyard between the slabs spills out into a triangular beach has been included directly on the East River. Should these be rotated 45 degrees or so, the waterfront would be that much more available to all. The buildings in themselves are strong and supple reminders of what architecture can mean. Half of the housing is provided for in these ribbon buildings, with the other half is in four angular. The view from Manhattan delicately balances the narrow facades of each tower against the organic and undulating lower buildings. Other features include an entertainment pier extending into the East River, and a regenerative wetlands area with promenade.

GREAT!!!

http://www.theslatinreport.com/morphosis.jpg

[NYguy]

A few more renderings...


http://nyc2012.com/village/mvrdv_target3.jpg


http://nyc2012.com/village/mvrdv_target4.jpg


http://nyc2012.com/village/zaha_target1.jpg

[Kris]

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/05/17/arts/mayne.1.583.jpg
Thom Mayne of Morphosis with his design for a 2012 Olympic Village in Queens.

An Iconoclastic Architect Turns Theory Into Practice (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/17/arts/design/17MAYN.html)

[billyblancoNYC]

If this project truly looks like this, I think this is a must build, no doubt about it.

Also, why are there not more piers for entertainment purposes? Although touristy, Navy Pier in Chicago is pretty nice and very well loved and used.

NYC should have at least 5 "Navy Piers" for passive and active recreation, culture, amusement, dining and drink.

[Derek2k3]

http://www.crainsny.com/news.cms

Olympic Village design announced

Architectural firm Morphosis was named the winner of NYC2012’s Olympic Village design study, city and state official announced Wednesday.

The proposed, $1.5 billion complex, which is planned for the Queens West section of Long Island City, would house 16,000 athletes, coaches and team officials if the city wins its bid to host the Olympic games. The design by Santa Monica, Calif.-based Morphosis features mainly low-rise buildings skirting the waterfront, and dramatically reduces the number of high-rise residences outlined in the original concept to 4 from 10. It also includes 43 acres of new parkland, as well as an array of sports training facilities, such as fields, a full-size Olympic track and tennis courts.

After the games, as many as 18,000 New Yorkers would live in the village. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said that he hopes the complex, which will be privately funded, will be built even if the games are not held in New York.

Copyright 2004, Crain Communications, Inc

[BrooklynRider]

I agree with their selection. I think the model representation is stunning. Hopefully, the actual buildings will echo it. It has been said in other threads and perhaps this one as well, the relatively low rise waterfront development utilizes its access to the shore well, but invites taller, denser development behind it. It becomes a catalyst for further development rather than an impediment to it.

[NoyokA]

Im glad that not only my favorite but the best design won.

[Kris]

Renderings (http://www.nyc.gov/portal/index.jsp?epi_menuItemID=1922fbe83b2de115f7393cd40 1c789a0&epi_menuID=53459261fb6a2fb3f7393cd401c789a 0&epi_baseMenuID=27579af732d48f86a62fa24601c789a0& sV=pw) (large files)

[Kris]

May 27, 2004

California Design Firm Chosen for Olympic Site in Queens

By COREY KILGANNON

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/05/27/nyregion/olym.184.1.650.jpg
Thom Mayne, principal architect from the design firm Morphosis, pointing to a model for his firm's winning entry for the Olympic Village. It would house 16,000 athletes and coaches during the Games in 2012.

They did not play the national anthem or drape the champion in red, white and blue, but there was plenty of other fanfare as city and state officials gathered yesterday in Long Island City, Queens, to announce the architect chosen to design the 2012 Olympic Village.

The winner, selected from 132 proposals from architects worldwide, was Morphosis, a firm based in Santa Monica, Calif., known for its innovative designs.

Standing next to the Morphosis model for the village, the officials beamed at its several serpentine low-rise buildings depicted on the banks of the East River, and its four sleek high-rises jutting up as if to mimic the United Nations building across the river from the proposed site. It sits at the southern margin of Queens West, a waterfront development plan the state is sponsoring. The village would include 4,500 units of housing for 16,000 athletes and coaches, and athletic fields and indoor training areas, all with views of the Manhattan skyline.

At a morning news conference at the Tennisport club, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Charles A. Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, called the Morphosis design strong enough to give New York the edge over the four other finalist cities competing for the 2012 Summer Games: London, Madrid, Moscow and Paris. A decision is expected in July 2005.

Mr. Bloomberg said the $1.5 billion Olympic Village project, on a 52-acre waterfront site, would be converted into "first-class housing" after the Games. The plan was selected by a steering committee organized by NYC2012, the organization leading the city's bid to play host to the Games.

Daniel L. Doctoroff, the city's deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding, said the Morphosis design would be "incredibly important" in the competition for the Games and for the Games themselves, since "the athletes are the center of the Olympic Games."

Thom Mayne, 60, head of the Morphosis firm, is known for creating graceful designs out of unlikely materials, like industrial metals. Among the firm's current projects are a building for Cooper Union in Manhattan, a recreation center at the University of Cincinnati and a housing project in Madrid.

His Olympic design features three long, low-rise buildings that follow the contour of the shoreline, like flowing ribbons wrapping sections of tree-shaded parkland. Mr. Mayne said he tried to design the village as a "Central Park on the Hudson" and create "a contrast with the urbanity and density of Manhattan," all while connecting it to Manhattan.

Paved walkways are designed as extensions of Midtown streets, and many breezeways and open spaces are incorporated into the buildings to preserve Manhattan sightlines.

Another goal was to capitalize on its proximity to transportation and the security benefits of being partly bordered by water.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[billyblancoNYC]

Very glad to see this won. Hopefully it will be built with our without the Olypmics.

Of course they'll be tweaking, so do you think they'll be a chance for maybe 1 or 2 more towers?

BTW, were heights mentioned at all?

[billyblancoNYC]

More model pics...

http://www.newyorkled.com/OlympicVillage-Designs-Morphosis.htm

[krulltime]

Morphosis Olympic Village:

http://www.pbase.com/image/32240559.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/32240556.jpg

[NoyokA]

A tid-bit from the New New York Skyline suggests that the Olympic Village might be built with or without the Olympics:

Just to the south, the Los Angeles-based firm Morphosis is working on a less conventional housing development originally conceived as part of New York's bid for the 2012 Olympic games. It would include a series of low-rise housing complexes whose sinuous forms trace the water's edge and frame one side of a lush public park. Three rectangular towers anchor the complex's northern edge.

The development's snake-like forms vaguely evoke the work of the British group Archigram — the 1970's firm that once proposed the creation of machine-like "Walking Cities." But in urban planning terms, the proposal is a throwback to Le Corbusier's 1952 Unité d'Habitation in Marseille, a grid of apartments raised up on columns and set in a vast park — a rational antidote to the chaos and congestion of Manhattan. As such, the Morphosis project represents a kind of revenge by the great Swiss Modernist, who was famously tossed aside in the competition to design the United Nations headquarters nearly 50 years ago.

[NoyokA]

New Renderings:

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/09/05/arts/skyskraper.slideeight.jpg

A housing development in Queens being designed by Morphosis Architects of Los Angeles would trace the East River shoreline.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/09/05/arts/skyscraper.slidenine.jpg

The Morphosis housing development, at left, was originally conceived as part of New York's bid for the 2012 Olympics.

[Pottebaum]

Would that be public housing?

[NoyokA]

I don't think the city builds much public housing anymore, it would most likely be mixed income.

[MidnightRambler]

Interesting... looks a little like The Watergate.

[Derek2k3]

MVRD

http://www.mvrdv.nl/252_nyc2012/img/mvrdv_nyc2012_modelfoto1.jpg

http://www.mvrdv.nl/252_nyc2012/img/mvrdv_nyc2012_modelfoto2.jpg

http://www.mvrdv.nl/252_nyc2012/img/mvrdv_nyc2012_modelfoto3.jpg

More pics at MVRD's website.
http://www.mvrdv.nl/252_nyc2012/index.php