The theme of today’s daily news roundup is big. Among other juicy items, we have big projects, big mergers, big blows, big holes in the ground.
Here’s what you need to know today:
Marvel Architects to design huge government building in Brooklyn
This week New York City Mayor Eric Adams revealed plans for a city facility with more than five football fields’ worth of office space, pictured above, that will house a branch of the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA).
Developer Leser Group and local firm Marvel Architects will realize an office that will be home to a whooping 1,100 HRA employees as well as an unspecified number of private tenants. The Fulton Street project, on the border of Bed-Stuy and East New York, Brooklyn, sits across the street from a major transit hub at Broadway Junction.
The city’s social services will occupy 200,000 square feet of class A office space, while the remaining 100,000 square feet will be handed over to private-sector offices, nonprofits, and retailers.
The development is part of Mayor Adams’s City Agencies Revitalizing the Economy (CARE), an initiative to create job hubs in the city’s lower-income neighborhoods. The project is meant to further the goals of an economic development plan that was made public last month. The city is currently assessing proposals for other CARE hubs in Queens and the Bronx.
Moody Center, a mega UT Austin sports complex, opens April 19
A plaza for fans to hang out (tailgate?) on is the centerpoint of a Gensler-designed athletic complex that includes a new 16,000-seat basketball arena. The 530,000-square-foot University of Texas at Austin Moody Center Basketball and Concert Arena (Moody Center, for short) tries to speak the language of Texas vernacular architecture with a wood roof, outdoor terraces, and wall to wall windows that keep the arena from being a dark, hermetically sealed box. In addition to general seating, the complex includes three different kinds of suites as well as food and beverage options from local vendors. While it’s primarily a basketball arena, the Moody Center will also be used for concerts.
The official ribbon cutting is scheduled for April 19.
High Court invalidates controversy-stirring Holocaust Memorial in London
Planning permission for a national memorial to the Holocaust at Victoria Square Park in Westminster that was granted last year by U.K. Minister Christopher Pincher has been overruled by a High Court judge in London. The decision follows an ongoing campaign to quash the memorial and adjacent education center at its proposed location in the relatively small and historic park. A wide coalition of opponents that included the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust described the Adjaye Associates- and Ron Arad Architects-designed project as being the “right idea, wrong place.” The firms won the commission for the project in 2017, and the battle over its location has been raging ever since. Construction was initially due to kick off this year.
“This is major boost for the protection of London parks at a time when they’ve never been more valued by the public,” said Trust director Helen Monger. “The high court has given the government a welcome chance to reflect and re-consider the best site for a fitting Holocaust memorial, which the UK deserves.”
The Hight Court reportedly made its ruling based on a rather arcane 1900 law regarding parkland preservation.
In a tweet reacting to the news, Conservative MP Robert Jenrick called the judgement “surprising,” and noted that the government “will no doubt seek an appeal in the Court of Appeal and I am confident they will succeed.” And so, the saga continues…
H/t to The Guardian
Perkins Eastman and Kliment Halsband Architects announce merger
The New York–headquartered firms Kliment Halsband and Perkins Eastman today announced that they’re combining forces. Going forward, Kliment Halsband will now be Kliment Halsband Architects—A Perkins Eastman Studio. It will be joining Perkins Eastman architects in the schools and universities design division.
“We see things the same way, but we work in different ways to bring something new to the table. When we work together, we accomplish more than when we work individually,” said Kliment Halsband Founding Partner Frances Halsband in a press release.
Just two months ago Perkins Eastman, the world’s seventh largest architecture firm, acquired Philadelphia’s BLT Architects (or BLTa), which now does business as BLTa—A Perkins Eastman Studio. Perkins Eastman’s recent projects include the Turkish consulate in Manhattan as well as a comprehensive plan for the Jersey City Hackensack River waterfront in collaboration with SWA Group. As for Kliment Halsband, AN has covered its renovation and expansion of Manhattan private school Friends Seminary that included a meticulous restoration of one building’s Italianate facade.
An unfinished tower left a gigantic, gaping hole in the ground. Fifteen years later, the hole will finally be replaced by a building
Just look at it.
H/t to CBS News Chicago
