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2019 Best of Design Award for Public: Anita May Rosenstein Campus for the Los Angeles LGBT Center The Anita May Rosenstein Campus is an unprecedented project for the Los Angeles LGBT Center that combines social services, housing, and community programs into a porous, pedestrian-oriented complex. This new type for community-based urban development is a cohesive mosaic of identities and programs with internal courtyards and a new public plaza that make up a permeable building form. The structure is both a sanctuary for the LGBTQ community and an interface linking neighborhood and city. The program includes a homeless youth shelter and a new senior community center and youth academy along with administrative, retail, and cultural event spaces. At the heart of the campus is Pride Hall, a multi-height space for community events and public gatherings, which opens directly onto the new plaza. Designer: Leong Leong and KFA Location: Los Angeles Structural Engineer: Nabih Youssef & Associates MEP Engineer: Glumac Civil Engineer: Kimley-Horn Landscape Design: Pamela Burton Geotechnical Engineer: Feffer Geological Consulting Honorable Mentions Project Name: Discovery Center of Îles-de-Boucherville National Park Designer: Smith Vigeant Architectes Project Name: Hunters Point Library Designer: Steven Holl Architects Editors' Picks Project Name: Tsleil-Waututh Administration and Health Centre Designer: Lubor Trubka Associates Architects Project Name: Louis Armstrong Stadium Designer: ROSSETTI

  After expanding our categories to a whopping 47 and receiving over 800 submissions, the 2019 AN Best of Design Awards were our most successful yet. Of course, this made the judging more difficult than ever. Projects came from firms big and small across every corner of the North American continent. While we are always surprised by the breadth and quantity of submissions, we were not surprised by the quality of the design work put forth by these talented architects and designers. There were some telling trends, however. First, our interior categories received more and better projects than ever before. This resurgence in architects doing interiors, both residential and commercial, seems to mirror what we see in the field: Simpler, less colorful interiors that put more emphasis on materiality than on playful shapes, as in the past. It was also a good year for exhibition design. For the Building of the Year, our esteemed jury was fiercely divided between two exemplary but very different projects. The final debate came down to The TWA Hotel by Beyer Blinder Belle and Cooley Monato Studio, and the Anita May LGBT Center in Los Angeles by Leong Leong and KFA. In the end, the jury decided that the sensitive restoration and reactivation of Saarinen’s masterpiece merited the Building of the Year award. This selection well illustrates the attitude that this year’s jury had about the projects that were deliberated. Sensitivity and subtlety were at a premium. Winners were chosen for their contextual, tactical approaches rather than big, bombastic ideas. For example, MQ Architecture’s small wooden pavilion in Garrison, New York, and Signal Architecture + Research’s Cottonwood Canyon Experience Center are both examples of structures with simple profiles that were carefully cut to make residential-scale architecture that blends into its surroundings. Perhaps this signals something larger about architecture in 2019, or even the end of the 2010s. Is U.S. architecture becoming more formally muted? Or is 2019 just a quiet year? Is this phenomenon an ongoing reaction to something in the media that has promoted design that is flashier and more figurally exuberant? Or is this just a one-year trend? Our jury this year was a very savvy group that included old AN friends and some new faces as well. By provoking discussions and offering up new ideas, the jury is essential to the mission of AN. We hope you enjoy this selection of winners, honorable mentions, and editor’s picks, and we look forward to hearing from you again next year with new projects! We will be updating this list over the next few days with winner and honorable mention profiles. To see the complete feature, don't miss our 2019 Best of Design Awards Annual issue, out now! 2019 AN Best of Design Awards

Building of the Year Winner TWA Hotel Beyer Blinder Belle Cooley Monato Studio New York City

Finalists Cottonwood Canyon Experience Center Signal Architecture + Research Wasco, Oregon Anita May Rosenstein Campus, Los Angeles LGBT Center Leong Leong Killefer Flammang Architects Los Angeles Public Winner Anita May Rosenstein Campus, Los Angeles LGBT Center Leong Leong Killefer Flammang Architects Los Angeles Honorable Mentions Discovery Center, Îles-de-Boucherville National Park Smith Vigeant Architectes Hunters Point Community Library Steven Holl Architects Editors' Picks Tsleil-Waututh Administration and Health Centre Lubor Trubka Associates Architects Louis Armstrong Stadium ROSSETTI Urban Design Winner Brooklyn Army Terminal Public Realm WXY Brooklyn, NY Honorable Mention City Thread SPORTS

Cultural Winner Menil Drawing Institute Johnston Marklee Houston

Honorable Mentions Ruby City Adjaye Associates New York State Equal Rights Heritage Center nARCHITECTS Editors' Pick The Evans Tree House at Garvan Woodland Gardens modus studio Saint Mary Mercy Chapel PLY+

Exhibition Design Winner Calder: Nonspace STEPHANIEGOTO Los Angeles

Honorable Mentions Nature—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial Studio Joseph VENTS TEMPO | Catty Dan Zhang Editors' Picks Model Projections Agency—Agency Common Threads ikd

Green Building Winner Galenas Medical Cannabis Cultivation Facility Urban Green Design Akron, Ohio

Honorable Mentions Tree Pittsburgh Headquarters GBBN 370 Jay Street, New York University Mitchell Giurgola Editor's Picks Marvin Gaye Recreation Center ISTUDIO Architects Greenport Passive House The Turett Collaborative

Facades Winner 130 William Adjaye Associates New York City

Honorable Mentions CME Center Krueck + Sexton 277 Mott Street Toshiko Mori Architect Editors' Picks University of Cincinnati Gardner Neuroscience Institute Perkins and Will 280 St Marks DXA studio Young Architects Winner bld.us

Infrastructure Winner North Chiller Plant, University of Massachusetts Amherst Leers Weinzapfel Associates Amherst, Massachusetts

Honorable Mentions Richmond Water Transit Ferry Terminal Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects BART Market Street Canopies VIA Architecture Editors' Picks Frances Appleton Pedestrian Bridge Rosales + Partners Northeastern University Pedestrian Crossing Payette Commercial — Hospitality Winner Furioso Vineyards Waechter Architecture Dundee, Oregon Honorable Mentions McDonald’s Chicago Flagship Ross Barney Architects The Carpenter Hotel Specht Architects Editors' Picks Heritage Savvy Studio Lumen at Beacon Park Touloukian Touloukian Commercial — Retail Winner Apple Scottsdale Fashion Square Ennead Architects Scottsdale, Arizona Honorable Mentions Sunshine and National Retail Center Dake Wells Architecture Christian Dior Myefski Architects Editors' Pick Grant Gallery Ted Porter Architecture The Culver Steps Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects Commercial — Office Winner 1000 Maine Avenue KPF FOX Architects Washington, D.C. Honorable Mentions 901 East Sixth Thoughtbarn Delineate Studio Solar Carve Studio Gang Editors' Pick American Express Sunrise Corporate Center Perkins and Will Interior — Workplace Winner HUSH Office Interior Inaba Williams and Kyle May New York City Honorable Mentions ShareCuse Architecture Office Vrbo Headquarters Rios Clementi Hale Studios Editors' Picks McDonald’s HQ Studio O+A Conga Headquarters DLR Group Interior — Institutional Winner Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School Great Hall Renovation tonic design Raleigh, North Carolina Honorable Mentions The Center for Fiction BKSK Architects The Children’s Library at Concourse House Michael K Chen Architecture Editors' Picks Countryside Community Church Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture Gordon Chapel Renovation, St. Hilda’s and St. Hugh’s School MBB Interior — Retail Winner maharishi Tribeca Abruzzo Bodziak Architects New York City Honorable Mentions Malin+Goetz San Francisco Bernheimer Architecture Claus Porto New York tacklebox architecture Editors' Picks Notre Norman Kelley R13 Flagship Leong Leong Interior — Hospitality Winner Tamarindo Stayner Architects San Clemente, California Honorable Mentions All Square Architecture Office ROOST East Market Morris Adjmi Architects Editors' Picks Woodlark Hotel OFFICEUNTITLED The Fleur Room Rockwell Group

Interior — Healthcare Winner Chelsea District Health Center Stephen Yablon Architecture New York City

Honorable Mention Mount Sinai Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit Perkins Eastman YPMD Pediatric Neurology Clinic Synthesis Design + Architecture Editors' Pick NEXUS Club New York Morris Adjmi Architects

Restoration & Preservation Winner Owe'neh Bupingeh Preservation Project Atkin Olshin Schade Architects Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico

Honorable Mentions Brant Foundation Art Building Gluckman Tang Avenue C Multi-Family Thoughtbarn Delineate Studio Editors' Picks Chicago Union Station Great Hall Restoration Goettsch Partners Boston City Hall Public Spaces Renovation Utile

Healthcare Winner University of Cincinnati Gardner Neuroscience Institute Perkins and Will Cincinnati

Honorable Mention Duke University Student Wellness Center Duda|Paine Architects MSK Nassau EwingCole Editor's Pick Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic Foster + Partners Tia Clinic Rockwell Group

Interior — Residential Winner Michigan Loft Vladimir Radutny Architects Chicago

Honorable Mention Inaba Williamsburg Penthouse Inaba Williams Gallatin House Workstead Editors' Picks Watermark House Barker Associates Architecture Office Lakeview Penthouse Wheeler Kearns Architects Residential — Single Unit Winner Glass Cabin atelierRISTING Iowa Honorable Mentions Bigwin Island Club Cabins MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects Triple Barn House Mork Ulnes Architects Editors' Picks Ephemeral Edge Dean/Wolf Architects Manifold House David Jameson Architect

Residential — Multiunit Winner 139 Schultz CPDA arquitectos Mexico City

Honorable Mentions XS House ISA Origami Waechter Architecture Editors' Picks Solstice on the Park Studio Gang Bastion OJT

Landscape — Residential Winner Malibu Overlook Stephen Billings Landscape Architecture Malibu, California

Honorable Mention Musician’s Garden Stephen Billings Landscape Architecture Landscape — Public Winner Josey Lake Park Clark Condon Cypress, Texas Honorable Mentions First Avenue Water Plaza SCAPE Landscape Architecture Pier 35 SHoP Architects Editors' Picks Scottsdale’s Museum of the West Colwell Shelor Landscape Architecture Drexel Square West 8 Education Winner Cottonwood Experience Center Signal Architecture + Research Wasco, Oregon Honorable Mentions Club de Niños y Niñas Centro de Colaboración Arquitectónica RISD Student Center WORKac Editors' Picks Santa Monica College Center for Media and Design + KCRW Media Center Clive Wilkinson Architects Cal Poly Pomona Student Services Building CO Architects

Lighting — Outdoor Winner Lightweave FUTUREFORMS Washington D.C.

Lighting - Indoor Winner TWA Hotel Beyer Blinder Belle Cooley Monato Studio New York City

Building Renovation — Commercial Winner Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice Gensler New York City

Honorable Mentions Apple Fifth Avenue Foster + Partners Avling Kitchen & Brewery LAMAS Editor's Picks Intelligentsia Bestor Architecture Olympic Tower, 645 Fifth Avenue MdeAS Architects Building Renovation - Civic Winner Keller Center Farr Associates Chicago Honorable Mention Centennial Planetarium Lemay + Toker Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art Sparano + Mooney Architecture Editors' Picks Oregon Conservation Center LEVER Architecture National Arts Centre Rejuvenation Diamond Schmitt Architects Building Renovation — Residential Winner Phillipsport Church House Architecture in Formation Wurtsboro, New York Honorable Mention 1/2 House NOW HERE Editors' Pick Case Room Geoffrey von Oeyen Design Adaptive Reuse Winner TWA Hotel Beyer Blinder Belle New York City Honorable Mentions Senate of Canada Building D Diamond Schmitt Architects Redfox Commons LEVER Architecture Editors' Picks Fifth Avenue Adaptive Re-use Inaba Williams 10 Jay Street ODA New York Temporary Installation Winner Soft Civic Bryony Roberts Studio Columbus, Indiana Honorable Mention Salvage Swings Somewhere Studio Editors' Picks Lawn for the National Building Museum Summer Block Party Rockwell Group Coshocton Ray Trace Behin Ha Design Studio New Materials Winner Grass House bld.us Washington, D.C. Digital Fabrication Winner Knitcandela Block Research Group, ETH Zürich & ZHCode, Zaha Hadid Architects Mexico City Architectural Representation Winner Support KEVIN HIRTH Co. New York City Honorable Mentions Other Medians Studio Ames Manual of Instructions NEMESTUDIO Editors' Picks Shaped Places of Carroll County New Hampshire EXTENTS Interim Urbanism: Youth, Dwelling, City N H D M Small Spaces Winner Small Wooden Pavilion MQ Architecture Garrison, New York Honorable Mentions Aesop Shaw DC David Jameson Architect Schaefer Residence Duo Dickinson Architect Student Work — Group Winner A Home for MJ Drury University Design-Build Program, Jordan Valley Community Health Center Springfield, Missouri Student Work — Individual Winner Museum/Park Design Alberto Arostegui, Savannah College of Art and Design Unbuilt — Urban Design Winner St. John's Park Ballman Khapalova New York City Honorable Mentions Pensacola Waterfront Framework SCAPE Landscape Architecture Pier 70 SITELAB urban studio Editors' Picks Chicago Transit Authority Damen Green Line Station Perkins and Will Boston Coastal Flood Resilience Design Guidelines & Zoning Overlay District Utile Research Winner Delirious Facade LAMAS Honorable Mentions The Water Alert and Testing Resource (WALTER) Ennead Architects USModernist Masters and Library Databases USModernist Editors' Picks Sound Pavilion UNC Charlotte Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab Architectural Ecologies Lab Unbuilt — Residential Winner Ambrosia Gensler Los Angeles Honorable Mentions Little Berkeley Kevin Daly Architects Stump House PARA Project Editors' Picks Aqualuna 3XN Micro Unit Studio Ames Unbuilt — Interior Winner Life on Mars: From Feces to Food Lydia Kallipoliti Mars Honorable Mention The Renovation and Reuse of a Historic Granite Bank musumanoco Unbuilt - Commercial Winner Aurora Belzberg Architects Mexico City Honorable Mention Surf Entertainment Facility BLUR Workshop Editors' Picks Folded Wings Form4 Architecture Nanotronics Smart Factory Rogers Partners Unbuilt - Cultural Winner Arkansas Arts Center Studio Gang Little Rock, Arkansas Honorable Mentions Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History Studio Gang Terminal B Performance Venue Touloukian Touloukian Editors' Pick SynaCondo Studio ST Architects Unbuilt — Education Winner Otto Speech School Charles Rose Architects Chestnut Ridge, New York Honorable Mentions University of Arkansas Center for Farm and Food System Entrepreneurship University of Arkansas Community Design Center Church Hill North O’Neill McVoy Architects Editors' Picks Del Mar College Southside Campus Gensler Tecnano FGP Atelier Unbuilt — Green Building Winner Sendero Verde Handel Architects New York City Honorable Mention Coleridge Street Residences Touloukian Touloukian Unbuilt — Public Winner Adams Street Branch Library NADAAA Boston Honorable Mentions Northeast Bronx YMCA Marvel Architects 7Hills Homeless Day Center University of Arkansas Community Design Center Editors' Picks Memorial Garden for Victims of Gun Violence Svigals + Partners Bus Shelter Design for the City of Miami Beach Pininfarina Unbuilt — Landscape Winner Boston Children's Hospital Green Master Plan Mikyoung Kim Design Boston Honorable Mentions Tom Lee Park SCAPE Landscape Architecture and Studio Gang The Clearing: Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial SWA Group Editors' Picks Beaubien Woods Action Plan Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture Chicago South Lakefront Framework Plan SmithGroup A special thanks to our 2019 AN Best of Design Awards Jury! Jaffer Kolb, Cofounder, New Affiliates Sara Lopergolo, Partner, Selldorf Architects Carlos Madrid III, Associate Director, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Anne Rieselbach, Program Director, The Architectural League of New York Oana Stănescu, Founder, Oana Stănescu Studio

Today, the nonprofit Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) filed a class-action lawsuit against Queens Public Library (QPL), the Board of Trustees of the QPL, and the City of New York over the Library’s newest branch, Hunters Point Library. Designed by Steven Holl Architects, the branch in Long Island City has been facing backlash from patrons and community members since it’s opening in September for not being fully accessible to people with disabilities.  Despite disability rights laws, the newly constructed building's circulation relies heavily on stairs which limits access and excludes many from accessing the collection altogether. While there is one elevator, it does not stop at certain levels in the library and patrons have complained of long lines and congestion. The reason that was previously given for such an omission was that librarians can retrieve materials for patrons who cannot access the stacks themselves.  Plaintiffs Tanya Jackson and the Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York are suing to require the library to fix this “unjust and discriminatory situation.” Jackson stated in a recent press release, “It is shocking to me that a brand-new public library would not be fully accessible to people with mobility disabilities like myself. Libraries should welcome everyone, not exclude whole populations of people.”  In addition to the three levels which are completely inaccessible to persons with mobility disabilities, there are reportedly numerous other barriers at the library: The children’s section contains a multi-level lounge and meeting spaces inaccessible to children and caregivers with mobility disabilities, the upper level of the rooftop terrace has no access point other than stairs, the framed panoramic views of Manhattan throughout the library are only viewable from the stairs, and designated stroller “parking” areas block circulation from the elevator to other main parts of the library.  “The ADA is not a new requirement, and it is not hard to understand. It is baffling that this $41.5 million building is missing these fundamental elements. It’s as though the library didn’t even care about these requirements, or worse, didn’t even consider the needs of these members of the community,” said Andrew Kozak-Oxnard, a staff attorney at DRA. “People with disabilities should be able to browse, relax, and enjoy the library just like everyone else.” The lawsuit alleges violations of both federal and local civil rights laws for disability-based discrimination and hopes to rectify the situation by requiring the defendants to develop a plan that provides equal access to the library. DRA is the leading nonprofit in disability rights in the country and claims to win nearly all of its cases and “knock down barriers for people with all types of disabilities.” Rather than seeking monetary compensation, their suits aim to force reforms to systems and practices of oppression against those with disabilities.  Michelle Caiola, managing director of litigation at DRA insisted, “Hunters Point Library was meant to be a model, a state-of-the-art institution designed to serve the needs of the community. The Library’s total disregard for adults and children with disabilities must be addressed.” The Queens Public Library provided the following statement to AN:

"This morning we learned that a disability rights organization filed a lawsuit against the Library and the City of New York alleging that Hunters Point is not accessible to people living with disabilities. It is always the Library’s goal to be welcoming, open and available to everyone, including customers with disabilities. We are taking this matter very seriously."

Steven Holl Architects has been contacted for comment and this article will be updated accordingly.

What goes into a park? We dug into the parts and pieces of landscape design to explore and illustrate the forces, material histories, and narratives that hide beneath the surface. This article is the first of three such deep dives, which includes Tongva Park in Santa Monica, California, and The Gathering Place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. All illustrations were done by Adam Paul Susaneck.

The transformation of Hunter’s Point South in two phases from a contaminated strip of coast in Long Island City, Queens, to an ecologically sensitive 11-acre park was 11 years in the making. Stretching along the East River south of Gantry Plaza State Park and Steven Holl’s Hunter’s Point Community Library (see page 16), Hunter’s Point South Park sits on a conveniently sited piece of land that was neglected for decades before the park opened at the end of last year.

The park was designed by Thomas Balsley Associates (TBA; the firm became SWA/Balsley in 2016) and WEISS/MANFREDI to be a sustainable storm buffer and public green space for the new Hunter’s Point South development, a 5,000-unit housing complex on the southern shore of Long Island City.

The idea for Hunter’s Point South Park had been percolating long before plans for it officially started coming together in 2007. Thomas Balsley told AN that back in 1990, when Gantry Plaza State Park was being planned, he envisioned a whole-coast master plan that would stretch from Anable Basin in Long Island City (the site of Amazon’s failed HQ2 bid) all the way down to Newtown Creek in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (now home to a wastewater treatment plant known for its iconic “biodigester” eggs). To Balsley, Gantry Plaza State Park was supposed to be the start of a line of parks running down the Queens–Brooklyn shore. Design on Hunter’s Point South Park began in 2009, and Balsley and Weiss/Manfredi’s early sketches are remarkably close to what would be built nine years later.

The linear park provides views of the Manhattan skyline and has an amphitheater-like arrangement that also blocks noise from the busy Queens streets to the east. Because of tight siting requirements, budget constraints, and the harsh microclimate that the park has to endure, SWA/Balsley filled the site with resilient native salt-marsh plants. Besides acting as a natural flood buffer, the plants don’t require active irrigation, meaning none was built into the site. The plants also filter and clean the river, a job that Balsley likened to “acting as the park’s liver.”

Lighting

Arup was also responsible for specifying the park’s lighting fixtures. Most of the fixtures used were New York City Department of Transportation/Parks Department–standard pedestrian- and street-lighting poles and Holophane helm fixtures. Linear lighting by Wagner was used to illuminate the benches and overlook handrails and as uplighting. Step lights by Bega were integrated into the wooden furnishings and concrete walls. The nonstandard lighting features were all intended to be as minimal and unobtrusive as possible, so as not to detract from the landscape and views.

Structures

WEISS/MANFREDI was responsible for designing structures for both phases of the park, with Galvin Brothers serving as the general contractors. In Phase 1, that meant the 13,000-square-foot bent-steel pavilion that houses Parks Department offices, restrooms, and a COFFEED cafe at LIC Landing, the park’s ferry dock. Fabrication of the structure and canopies was done by Powell Steel Corporation of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which permanently closed in 2013. Stainless steel cladding came from Westfield Sheet Metal Works in Kenilworth, New Jersey.

For Phase 2, the towering steel overlook structure (below) was fabricated by Newport Industrial Fabrication in Newport, Maine, while the freestanding precast panel walls were fabricated by Bétons Préfabriqués du Lac (BPDL) in Alma, Quebec.

Furniture

The custom wood–slat lounge chairs and banquette seats and custom precast concrete benches were designed in-house by SWA/Balsley and WEISS/MANFREDI, with galvanized steel framing and Kebony USA–provided Kebonized southern yellow pine. Steel benches with aluminum seat dividers were provided by Landscape Forms and manufactured in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with raw materials mined from within 500 miles of the facility to reduce environmental impact.

Transportation

The park is easily accessible despite its coastal locale. It can be reached via the 7 train’s Vernon Boulevard–Jackson Avenue station; by the Q103 bus via the Vernon Boulevard/49 Avenue stop; by the Long Island Rail Road, which stops at 49-13 Vernon Boulevard; by numerous street-level bike paths; by car; and via the Hunter’s Point South ferry landing.

Vegetation

Plant species were selected for their hardiness and nativity and include juniper trees and a variety of shrubs and grasses for the park’s bioswales. Besides cutting down on maintenance costs, the flora used by SWA/Balsley can thrive on the edge of a briny river, and hosts native fauna.  Plants were sourced from nurseries in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland.

Infrastructure

Arup, which was responsible for the structural, civil, and bridge engineering of both phases, oversaw the installation of 7,500 feet of sanitary and storm sewers and 3,700 feet of water main.

Infill and hardscaping

Prior to the park’s construction, the site had been used in the 19th and 20th centuries as a dumping ground for soil excavated from rail-line construction sites around the city, and many portions of the site had since grown wild. To build out and sculpt the shoreline, existing infill was repurposed and moved to the water’s edge. Around the shore, board-formed and precast concrete walls were used to create the harder edges, while Jet Mist and Stony Creek granites mined from Stony Creek, Connecticut, were used for the riprap (below) and to fill in steel gabions.

Art

Because this was a city project, the NYCEDC was tasked with appointing an artistic consultant. After a search, Suzanne Randolph Fine Arts was chosen, which in turn picked Nobuho Nagasawa to create a site-specific installation. Seven photoluminescent sculptures resembling different phases of the moon were installed in 2017 in the winding, peninsula-like amphitheater forming a piece titled Luminescence. Each “moon” in the series was cast from Hydrocal, a mixture of plaster and portland cement.

Funding and Labor

In 2009, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) selected the project’s developer, TF Cornerstone, and TBA, which brought on WEISS/MANFREDI as collaborators. The project was split into two phases from the beginning. Phase 1 broke ground in January 2011 and opened in August 2013, after the NYCEDC spent $66 million for the 5.5-acre park and an accompanying 3,400 feet of linear roadway. Phase 2, which began construction in November 2015, opened at the end of June 2018, at a cost of $99 million. This 5.5-acre section, which came with another 3,500 linear feet of new roadways, was funded through the NYCEDC as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Housing New York plan, as the park fulfilled the green space requirement of the adjoining housing development and is intended to mitigate flood damage there in the event of a storm surge.

The NYCEDC shepherded the project through two mayoral administrations and hired the LiRo Group to act as construction manager for the build-out, which then subcontracted the actual construction to the Great Neck, Long Island–based Galvin Brothers. The standard design-bid-build process was used for both sections. Park maintenance is handled by the NYC Parks Department.

Though over 1,700 parcels owned by the city of Los Angeles were designated for affordable housing development in 2018, the vast majority of them remain empty to this day and without any plans in the foreseeable future. This may be due to the fact that many of these sites are “leftover spaces”—irregular geometries tucked in the margins of already-developed neighborhoods. Local firm Lorcan O’Herlihy (LOHA) is one of the first, however, to boldly make use of one of these compromising sites with their newest project, Isla De Los Angeles Supportive Housing and Annenberg Paseo, a 54-unit housing project on a triangular lot near a freeway interchange in South Los Angeles. Renderings of the project recall both the staggered apartments of Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 and the spatial porosity of Steven Holl’s Simmons Hall dormitory at MIT. Rather than appear as a single, monolithic building on its narrow parcel, the project is broken down into housing units placed within modular boxes then arranged into informal towers. The units would be assembled by welding together three 20-foot-by-8-foot shipping containers, each of which would provide roughly 480 square feet of living space in an open plan featuring a kitchen, bathroom, and a living room that doubles as a bedroom. The units can be assembled offsite by half of the construction team while the other half prepares the grounds on-site, cutting the construction time from four years to two. They will be arranged along the perimeter of the site to make room for several green spaces in its center, which LOHA anticipates will serve as a “green lung,” helping to filter air pollution from the nearby freeway. “Our aim,” stated LOHA in a press release, “was to create something that was compartmental but solid, strong enough to withstand the demands of the project’s location but porous enough to engage the residents on a human scale with outdoor activities and places to work and socialize.” Following MLK1101 in 2017, Isla De Los Angeles Supportive Housing and Annenberg Paseo is the second project LOHA has designed in collaboration with nonprofit developer Clifford Beers Housing in South Los Angeles.

Update 10/30/2019: A representative for Steven Holl Architects says that issues with water entering the building and the sprinkler have been resolved. They claim that "the issues that have come up are wrinkles normal to the opening of any new building, especially when the building is receiving such a huge audience," adding that "reading areas and study desks are continually full." Update 10/29/2019: A spokesperson for the Queens Public Library has said that DDC determined that the water was due to a problem with fire sprinkler, which has been resolved. Water also seeped from the rooftop area through a doorway. DDC is addressing both these problems and is working with contractors to repair the cracks in the floor. The Steven Holl Architects–designed Hunters Point Library in Long Island City, Queens, is already facing troubles, according to the New York Post. Previously under fire for its accessibility issues—the adult fiction stacks could only be accessed via staircase, a feature which met ADA compliance as the library claimed that patrons with limited mobility could ask librarians for help (the books have since been moved)—the building was suspected of leaking (it has been determined to have been both a faulty sprinkler system and an insufficiently weather-proofed door) and has been showing cracks on the floor, some as long as ten feet, just a month after opening.  In addition, librarians and patrons say there are major sound issues, with floors that “screech” when chairs are moved and a quiet room that is anything but. Librarians also told the Post that they felt the 22,000-square-foot building, which New York magazine architecture critic Justin Davidson described as a five-story “Seussian obstacle course,” could have made a better attempt at maximizing its usable space for books and other resources, rather than being designed like a “museum or gallery.” Librarians have also reported inadequate visibility within the library. Curbed says that the Queens Public Library system is working with the Department of Design and Construction, who was responsible for the actual building of the library, to address these concerns. The Hunters Point Library was a much-anticipated addition to the Queens waterfront and is eminently visible from the Manhattan waterfront. Through the project was approved in 2010, construction didn’t begin until 2015 and it opened just this September. Costing approximately $41 million (over $1,800 per square foot), the library was built as part of the Bloomberg-era Design and Construction Excellence initiative, which brought a series of public buildings with serious architectural chops to the city. As Davidson has previously pointed out, they came in often at staggering prices, due perhaps more to government inefficiency and bureaucracy, as well as state rules that require taking on the lowest-bidding contractors, than because of high-flying architectural fees and forward-thinking designs. (Holl himself reportedly told would-be publicly minded architects in New York City to “get ready to lose money, and do it with a smile," according to Davidson.) Steven Holl Architects and the New York City Department of Design and Construction have been contacted for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

Provocateur, philosopher, and polymath Charles Jencks had a kaleidoscopic perspective on the forces and complexities of the cosmos. From his student days onward he was voracious in his interests, explorations, and speculations. At Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, he cut a swath with his precocious wit, preternatural eloquence, and confident banter. He was lanky, elegant, and a bit of a dandy and knew how to provoke, entertain, and charm. Charles never gave a lecture, led a symposium, or even held forth over lunch without changing the magnetic field forces of the space. He was a passionate teacher; powerful because he both provoked his students and invited them to jump into the scrum of debate. Once they learned that he liked nothing better than to be challenged, the whole world of analytic and critical thinking opened up to them. The force of his personality and power of his intellect was leavened by his wit, warmth, and occasional self-deprecation. Charles was determined to bridge theory and practice. He made his mark early with polemic and influential books. But wherever possible he sought to test his theoretical propositions with material challenges in situ. He used a series of small but densely composed projects to posit, test, and expand his thinking. This began with the Garagia Rotunda, a modest studio at his family’s beach house in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, where he explored the use and improvisatory opportunities of readymade components. Next, the Elemental House in Rustic Canyon, Santa Monica, California, riffed on and reworked a 1950s western ranch house while celebrating the elements of earth, air, water, and fire. He reached an epiphany of embodied symbolism with the Thematic House in London where the cycles of seasons, sun, and moon are celebrated. He often invited friends to collaborate. Terry Farrell collaborated on the Thematic House, where Michael Graves contributed to the Winter Room. Over several years Tina Beebe and I had the pleasure of collaborating with Charlie and his wife Maggie Keswick Jencks on two houses. I worked with Charlie and Maggie on the planning and architecture of the Elemental House, where Tina worked on the color and materials and Maggie led the garden design. Charles Moore contributed to the Water Pavilion. Tina then worked with Jencks and Maggie on colors and material for the London house. For Charles, all aspects of his work and life were integrated. Whether home or traveling, he was constantly writing, sketching, and testing ideas with undiminished enthusiasm and unrelenting purpose. Most of our design meetings were set at home and coordinated with drinks and meals. When in Los Angeles (where he taught at UCLA), he and Maggie hosted convivial Sunday lunches on their terrace and delighted in convening old and new friends with the most diverse interests possible. It was all part of connecting the dots and mysterious forces of the cosmos. Charles savored debate, spanning from the Socratic to the operatic. He valued disruption long before it became a meme of the tech and business worlds. And if one was reticent to partake, he would tempt and taunt until ignition was achieved. Maggie was his great muse but often an important counterpoint, as well. Tina remembers a particularly robust debate in London. Charles was making the point that every aspect and every detail of the house had to be infused with meaning. Maggie and Tina were arguing that sometimes the meaning is inherent in the experience and does not need to be literally described. As the debate got more heated, these two strong women achieved a standoff with Charlie—not an easy feat, even when double teaming. Finally, exasperated, he exclaimed: “I don’t care what it means, as long as it means something!” After a brief pause, the argument was defused over drinks and all was commodious again. Maggie also bridged theory and practice. Her poetically written book The Chinese Garden: History, Art and Architecture helped to establish the foundation for her work as a landscape designer both for herself and for commissions. At the Elemental House, she was inspired by John Milton’s poems L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, creating an imaginative garden that embodied the dualities of joy and contemplation. This partnership between Maggie’s deep understanding of the landscape and Charlie’s evolving interest in the forces and symbols of the cosmos reached new heights in their collaboration on The Garden of Cosmic Speculation at Portrack, their country house near Dumfries, Scotland. This veritable gesamtkunstwerk was organized as a cosmic narrative, which one experiences through a compelling landscape sequence and metaphoric meander through the Quark Walk, the DNA Garden, the Fractal Terrace, and other cosmic phenomena. This was a seminal work that inspired the next phase of his exploration. The project unified art, architecture, and landscape, creating environments of great lyric and choreographic beauty. It was informed and structured by theory but animated by the experiential delight of its forms and materials. The work at Portrack became the basis for a fecund new period in Charlie’s creative life. He continued his writing and teaching, but increasingly focused on a new body of commissioned landforms for museums and sites around the world. The Jencks’ wonderful daughter Lily became a collaborator and continues to lecture and design at the intersection of landscape, art, and architecture. In parallel, Jencks curated the architecture of some 22 Maggie’s Centres. Designed by eminent architects, these spaces provide healing environments and supportive care for cancer patients. They are based on Maggie’s belief that people should “not lose the joy of living in the fear of dying.” As I think of Charlie, I imagine him now fully engaged in the cosmos, extending his insatiable curiosity and deep understanding into all the forces and cycles of life. Buzz Yudell was a friend and collaborator of Charles Jencks. He is a partner at the Santa Monica-based firm Moor Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners. 

Charles Jencks, the architectural historian, cosmic gardener, and cofounder and director of Maggie's, has died, according to the RIBA Journal. Jencks was best known as the promoter of Post-modernism (he specifically demanded an uppercase “P” and dash after “Post”), having authored the seminal The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. He was also the author of Meaning in Architecture (1969) with George Baird and continued to publish books on the subject of Post-modernism, including Radical Post-modernism, an issue of Architectural Design with FAT. Born in Baltimore in 1939, Jencks attended Harvard, studying English literature in undergraduate, and then architecture at GSD. He later moved to the U.K. and completed a Ph.D. under Reynar Banham. Jencks would stay in the U.K. for the rest of his life, owning homes in both Scotland and England. He founded the Charles Jencks Award, which recognizes “major international contributions to the theory and practice of architecture.” Jencks turned to landscape design later in life, building the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, and a series of earthworks at Jupiter Artland. After his wife Maggie died in 1995 from cancer, he founded Maggie’s, a cancer research institute whose Maggies Centres have become a notable architecture program, featuring works by Steven Holl, Frank Gehry, and Zaha Hadid. AN will follow this announcement with a longer obituary.

Three sections of Steven Holl’s recently opened Hunters Point Library in Long Island City, Queens, have raised concerns due to only being accessible by stairs and are now being reorganized. While the library was previously applauded for the staircase’s design, and there's an elevator, it doesn't provide access to the three, tiered levels of stacks above the lobby. The Queens Public Library has announced that it is taking steps to fix the issue, but given the project's lengthy development timeline, how could such an obvious flaw make it past the design phase?  “With all the money they spent and all the years of delay, it struck me as strange," library patron Joe Bachner, told Gothamist. With the building costing upwards of $41 million, it does seem to be a big mistake that such popular sections of a library (fiction and periodicals) would exclude individuals with wheelchairs or other mobility challenges, as well as parents with strollers, and the elderly.  The library does technically meet the American Disabilities Act's (ADA) requirements due to a promise that librarians would retrieve books for patrons unable to make it up the stairs—but patrons don’t always know what they are looking for when they enter a library. The search and the discovery are a part of a library’s experience—a crucial part of obtaining knowledge. This statement was met with backlash by community members on Twitter (and in the comments on our previous article about the building's opening): “A 41 million budget and accessibility wasn’t considered in a beautiful inclusive way...” posted Sinéad Burke. 

Don't worry! If disabled people want books from those inaccessible areas (ugh fine) they'll just have staff go get them! Because they'll just never hire disabled librarians! What a perfect solution for everyone!!!

— Angie Manfredi (@misskubelik) October 4, 2019

As Justin Davidson wrote in New York Magazine, "Staircases can be wonderful, providing drama, seating, exercise, and hangout spaces all at once—but they must never be the only option. Holl’s design, as sensitive as it is in many ways, fails to take that mandate seriously." In a statement to Gothamist, Public Library President and CEO Dennis M. Walcott said, “Our goal is to be inclusive and provide access and opportunity to all.” The library plans to move the fiction stacks to another location in the library and provide the community with updates as they come.

Archtober is just days away and AN is here to get you ready by rounding up all the must-see events beginning October 1. Organized by the Center for Architecture, the month-long design celebration is now in its ninth year and there’s so much to see and do.  Ample new building projects have popped up throughout New York since last October, which means this is your chance to tour some of the most talked-about spaces in town. Not only that, but there will be plenty of after-work lectures, panels, workshops, films, conferences, and special events you can attend every day. Sales go fast, so purchase tickets to Archtober events today. Here’s our breakdown of 2019's can't-miss activities:  Buildings of the Day tours One Vanderbilt Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox October 3 Building 77 Contemporary Renovations by Marvel Architects and Beyer Blinder Belle October 8  Solar Carve Architect: Studio Gang October 10  Hunters Point Library Architect: Steven Holl Architects October 11  Moxy East Village Architects: Rockwell Group and Stonehill Taylor October 16 Statue of Liberty Museum Architect: FXCollaborative October 23  Bronx Music Hall Architect: WXY Architecture + Urban Design October 24  MoMA Renovation and Expansion Architect: Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler October 25 121 East 22nd Street Architect: OMA New York October 29   Lectures + Panels: Building Better Cities with Crowdfunding Organized by: Syracuse Architecture October 1 Cocktails & Conversation: Marlon Blackwell & Billie Tsien Organized by: AIA New York October 4 Shohei Shigematsu & Atelier Bow-Wow on the Past & Future of Tokyo Architecture Organized by: Japan Society October 11  Daniel Libeskind: Edge of Order Organized by: Pratt Institute October 15 NOMA '19 Conference Organized by: nycobaNOMA October 16-20 Breaking Ground: Architecture by Women Organized by: The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, The Cooper Union; Beverly Willis Architectural Foundation; Phaidon October 18  A History of New York in 27 Buildings with Sam Roberts & Alexandra Lange Organized by: Museum of the City of New York October 21 Extra Tours: Architecture and the Lights of Gotham: Nighttime Boat Tour Organized by: AIA New York; Classic Harbor Line Multiple Dates  Behind-the-Scenes Hard Hat Tour of the Abandoned Ellis Island Hospital Organized by: Untapped New York October 19  VIP Tour of the Woolworth Building Organized by: Untapped New York October 5  Special Events: Opening of Fringe Cities: Legacies of Renewal in the Small American City Organized by: Center for Architecture October 2 Architecture of Nature / Nature of Architecture Organized by: The Architectural League of New York October 3 World Cities Day Organized by: UN-Habitat October 31

Steven Holl has faced some real challenges with the Hunters Point Library in Long Island City, Queens—both artistic and pragmatic. Its completion after nine years can now be celebrated (construction began in 2015), but it’s a long time to wait for the $40 million, 22,000-square-foot-project, built by the city’s Department of Design and Construction (DDC). For the last year, precautions were made to adjust balconies off the central atrium space to prevent any suicide attempts. Nevertheless, it has been well put together by Steven Holl Architects, with Olaf Schmidt in charge, and opens today, September 24. Holl points out that what makes the library tick is its connection between what it looks like and how it’s experienced. He sums it up as a “browsing circuit,” comparable to his plan for an earlier unbuilt American Memorial Library in Berlin. For both there was the open stack, finding your own books, and seeing what others of interest were there at their side. In Queens, this is accomplished by suggesting readers movement along a multitude of stairways that are punctuated by levels with select bookcases off the sides, designed with shelves which accommodate readers’ books and/or their computers. Holl favors both artifacts, but he insists on the continuing presence of books. Holl also sees this space as a community center for presenting lectures, reciting poetry, or offering philosophical views. The latter can take place below, in the meeting room, or on the roof level at an outdoor setup with its dark wood seats. Literature for the earlier Berlin library tells of its fulfilling an aim of John Cotton Dana (1856-1929), the American librarian’s officiation of the open stack. Dana wasn’t alone, but the Americans open stacks library was actuated by him. Coming upon more than the original call number gives the reader a wider choice, a chance to browse. Inside—the exterior views have already been discussed—the good number of stairways suggest the presence of a Gianbattista Piranesi’s Carceri second state etching, Pier with a Lamp (1761). In 2007 Holl had rendered a watercolor painting based precisely on this print, transforming it over from a typical dark, mysterious, and haunting Piranesi to a brightly lit, upbeat image. This changeover in mood to a cheerful interior is the kind of atmosphere which John Cotton Dana prescribed for his ideal public library. He said,

Let the shelves be open, and the public admitted to them, and let the open shelve strike the keynote of the whole administration. The whole library should be permeated with a cheerful and accommodating atmosphere.

I would say that Holl has unknowingly fulfilled Dana’ s goal and maybe consciously paid homage to Piranesi. The cheerfulness of Holl’s library is—in spite of his knowledge of the persistence of doubt and uncertainty in our world–due to strong light coming in from the huge windows (modulated by metallic curtains) and enhanced by artificial lighting; LED and canisters lights provided by Dove and other companies. Answering Piranesi and some Cubists intents, there are theatrical views in addition to Holl’s fully tectonic field: A bold, slanting north/south white form resembling a beam (but is in actuality the underside of the egress stair clad with sheetrock) moving through a portion of the building is perpendicularly met by a curved mass and sheaved with bamboo, allowing for flickering light and shadow earth color effects, like early Cubist still lifes and landscapes. The photos above by Paul Warchol show how the library presents an ambiguous spatial field; the fragmented mass is a typical Cubist formal language. One other especially noteworthy interior view is the vaulting of the children’s area into an atrium space. The children’s area is across to the south, shielded by a curved vault of rounded steel tubes bent with metal decking spanning between, as observed by Justin den Herder of Silman, the engineering firm who helped realize the job. This structural element is also clad with bamboo panels allowing for a billowing curvature. The teen section is tucked away on the 5^th level, off the atrium, and, above, on the roof deck, is the small outdoor theatre for lectures and cafe treats. Other contributors to Holl’s design were Michael Van Valkenburgh’s landscaping and Julianne Swartz’s optical devices. Van Valkenburg was hired to design a much more complicated scheme but the budget was sharply reduced, allowing only for several Honey Locust trees. Swartz’s four sculptural lenses were placed strategically along, and inside, the library to control views, echoing the playfulness of the sixties-era lens boxes designed by Mary Bauermeister. According to Swartz, “I make sculpture because it relates to the body.” This, in extension, is incredibly fitting for a design by Holl, since his work is ultimately tied to phenomenology. Alongside Holl’s sublime measures of the atrium, is his human scale and measurement throughout. Libraries around the globe have proliferated recently; they’re increasingly offering more than borrowed books. Is it too much to say, that our new community library in Queens, complete with its 50,000 books, now provides usefulness and beauty, equal to any of these others or even greater than some?

Steven Holl Architects (SHA) has designed and completed the first-ever expansion of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. Located southeast of the National Mall along the Potomac River, the three pavilions that make up The REACH opened this weekend to the public, marking the Washington, D.C.-based institution’s largest design upgrade in its 48-year-history. The $250-million addition spans four-acres of sweeping, waterfront landscape next to the main Edward Durell Stone-designed building that’s held all of the Kennedy Center’s programming for decades. Arranged in a series of angular, cast-in-place concrete structures that are semi-submerged underground, The REACH is strategically woven into the surrounding, sloping green space and features a contemporary vision that lightly references its parent building next door.  According to a press release, the new structures “break down the traditional barriers separating art and audience.” The Welcome Pavilion, Skylight Pavilion, and River Pavilion all emerge from the green lawns with shapely white facades and opaque glass windows. Together, they make up a porous and fluid, 72,000-square-foot facility that, though largely underground, includes ample access to daylight and features soaring, open interiors.  While the site doesn’t look very active from an aerial perspective, what you see above ground isn’t all that you get. Inside and below the pavilions is a large network of flexible rehearsal studios and classrooms, as well as performance and public spaces that are, by design, more welcoming to visitors—something the Kennedy Center previously lacked. AN wrote previously about the crinkled concrete walls that were integrated into the studio spaces to stop sound from echoing throughout the below-grade rooms. Performance-enhancing technology such as this was used at every level of the building project. For example, SHA worked with ARUP to make The REACH more sustainable than its predecessor; it’s now on track to achieve LEED Gold status. The site features a closed-loop, ground source heat rejection system, advanced temperature controls, an under-floor concrete trench system, and radiant floor heating made by ARUP’s in-house software suite, Oasys Building Environmental Analysis (BEANS). Much like other projects by Steven Holl, the integration of unique light cutouts on the sides or tops of the buildings and curvaceous walls made the structures difficult to heat or cool efficiently. Arup’s interventions will help the facility maintain proper temperatures year-round.  In addition to improving the Kennedy Center campus, The REACH was intended to bolster the memory of JFK. Some of the spaces within the pavilions were named after the 35th president, and a plaza with 35 gingko trees honors his life and accomplishments. Over time, the 130,000-square-foot landscape is expected to grow into a fuller, more vibrant addition to the riverfront and help activate a formerly-inaccessible area. SHA also designed a pedestrian bridge to cross the highway separating the Center from the water’s edge.