Victoria Meyers : Invisible Buildings

Victoria Meyers Architect, hMa, and DWi-P

DWi-P , posted Victoria Meyers architect,  click here to see more photos of DWi-P on www.hanrahanmeyers.com

Victoria Meyers architect is pleased to present hMa's DWiP (Digital Water i-Pavilion), a building that proposes an interactive surface (edge) where visitors share an interactive experience in the city of New York.  The experience is interactive as a live event, and also through an App, developed as a mirrored experience of the building. 

DWiP's 550-foot long etched glass facade interacts with smart devices through an interactive media surface that embraces urban design, and encourages social interactions between participants, at the edge between Battery Park City and the lower west side of Manhattan. 

DWi-P glass facade in construction June 2012 click here to see more photos of DWi-P on www.hanrahanmeyers.com Victoria Meyers architect

DWiP marks the eastern edge of Battery Park City at the Ballfields.  DWiP connects pedestrians within Battery Park City's North Neighborhood to the West Side Highway pedestrian crossing from Battery Park City to the National Sept. 11 Memorial and the World Trade Center site.    

DWiP's 550-foot long glass facade is an interactive space of mediated interaction where visitors will be encouraged to post ideas, reactions, and thoughts about New York City, the waterfront, the Irish Hunger Memorial, Poets House, Teardrop Park, and other significant sites in the area.  The edge is also interactive through the DWiP App, where visitors will be able to interact with the frit pattern on the building's glass, as well as the Michael Schumacher sound piece, WaTER.  

DWi-P : view up ramp toward Ballfield Terrace click here to see more photos of DWi-P on www.hanrahanmeyers.com Victoria Meyers architect post

DWiP is on track to receive a Platinum LEED rating. 

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hMa Master Plan concept diagrams: Victoria Meyers architect

We are pleased to present a series of diagrams and development concepts by Victoria Meyers architect (hMa) for the Won Dharma Center project in Claverack, NY.  Click here to view the project on www.hanrahanmeyers.com.

Won Dharma is a 550-acre brownfield site, designed by hMa to abate the brownfield area, and to have zero carbon footprint with five buildings built on the site.  Visitors are welcome to visit the Center, located at 361 NY 23, Claverack, NY, 12581.   

Victoria Meyers archiect post

The Diagram above explains how the cedar screen edge on the buildings creates a 'Porous Condition', blurring the edge between the buildings and the site, creating 'infinite bleed of edge'. 

Victoria Meyers architect post

The diagram above explains the formal diagram for the placement of buildings on the site, creating formally organized paths between buildings:  between Administration and Meditation;  between Permanent Resident's building and the woodland meditation platform;  between the two Visitor's Residence buildings.  In each case, a spiral linked circulation creates a dynamic relationship between spaces, through the site. 

Site Plan : Won Dharma Center Victoria Meyers architect post

The site plan above shows the rural access road to the site, the entry gate, the driveway to the Dharma parking lot 500 feet from the buildings, and the site driveway as it marks the edge between a hill overlooking the building area, and the new buildings, as seen from Google earth.  The driveway was recycled from an existing entry drive.  The five buildings were located at the site of a former stone quarry, which was abated as part of the construction process. 

hMa has designed other Green Master Plans, including the 25 acre-master plan for Battery Park City's North Neighborhood in Manhattan, and Pratt Institute's Campus Plan.  hMa Master Plans link Green and Sustainable values to new development, fostering dynamic relationships between planning, food sourcing, sustainable development, and living.

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Victoria Meyers architect, hanrahan Meyers architects, posts Master Plan Diagrams for Pratt Institute Campus Design

English: Pratt Institute main gate on Dekalb and Reyerson, looking north on a springtime late afternoon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pratt Institute logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Victoria Meyers architect is pleased to present a series of diagrams updating ideas from hMa's Pratt Pavilion. In 1999 hMa was hired by Pratt Institute to overview the development of a new campus master plan, and to design Pratt Pavilion, linking two 1890's brick warehouse buildings:  Pratt Studios and Stueben Hall. Pratt Pavilion was completed and opened to the public in 2007.  Pratt Campus Master Plan is ongoing.  The Main Walk will be reconfigured and repaved this summer, with work starting in June 2012. 

The plans below demonstrate the progressive changes to the campus, initiated in 1880, when the Pratt family began developing the Pratt Campus to educate young people in engineering and the arts, to maintain American competitiveness. 

Pratt Institute circa 1900 : Small Privately Owned Institute:  Three buildings with distinct programs: Library, Engineering, Art / Architecture Victoria Meyers architect post

Pratt Institute circa 1990 : Unplanned Dispersion Victoria Meyers architect post

-  Enlarged campus with diverse buildings
-  Programs dispersed randomly throughout various large, anonymous brick industrial lofts
-  No distinct image
-  Building Entrances oriented toward streets instead of campus

Pratt Institute circa 2007 : Convergence Victoria Meyers architect post

-  Rebranding of the campus, making campus mall the focal point
-  Programs focused into single building entities with entrances turned to face the mall
-  Original buildings plus new buildings and additions give a 'branded' image to the mall/ campus.

Pratt Pavilion, on the Pratt Institute Campus, by hanrahan Meyers architects: exterior view  click here to view all photos of Pratt Pavilion on www.hanrahanmeyers.com.  Post:  Victoria Meyers architect.

In 2007 hMa's Pratt Pavilion opened, to press and fanfare.  Pratt Pavilion was the first building constructed that begins to develop the concepts outlined in the Pratt Master Plan.  Pratt Pavilion creates a new main entry into Stueben Hall and Pratt Studios from the Pratt campus.  The original building entries were from DeKalb Avenue to the south.  With the opening of Pratt Pavilion, the Pratt campus became more cohesive and branded as Pratt Institute's main public space.  Pratt Pavilion was recognized with design awards from the AIA NYChapter, as well as the Architectural League of New York for design excellence. 

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Diagram Relating Green Areas Throughout Manhattan to Battery Park City's North Neighborhood: Victoria Meyers architect post

In 2000 hanrahan Meyers architects (hMa) were hired as the Master Plan Architect for Battery Park City Authority’s North Neighborhood, the most forward-thinking urban master plan in the United States. The North Neighborhood is the location of the first green high-rise residential tower in the United States and is the first sustainably designed high-rise neighborhood in the world.  When the North Neighborhood is complete in 2012 it will include a total of 5 million square feet of sustainable buildings, an array of new technologies and operating practices and a unique integration with the spectacular natural features of New York's waterfront.

Isometric Diagram showing Battery Park City North Neighborhood's Green Roofs and Green Landscapes.  Master Plan by hanrahan Meyers architects, master plan architects for the North Neighborhood, Green Urban Design guidelines for buildings built in Battery Park City's North Neighborhood Victoria Meyers architect post

The configuration of the buildings also emphasizes this engagement with nature by creating an interweaving grid of outdoor spaces – including 4 major parks - with 11 residential and public buildings including the renowned Stuyvesant High School.  Individual buildings are designed to complete the urban blocks by aligning with lot lines up to the 11th and 14th floors, after which towers are placed up to the 25th and 32nd floors in a complex pattern of offsetting alignments to open up view corridors and bring light and air into the parks below.

Every building and every park built in the hanrahan Meyers master plan is LEED certified.   hanrahan Meyers are building the last building in the North Neighborhood, the Battery Park City community center, called DWiP -  Digital Water i-Pavilion.  DWiP is on track to receive a Platinum LEED rating. 

Click here to view all images of the Battery Park City North

Neighborhood Master Plan on www.hanrahanmeyers.com

hanrahan Meyers architects Victoira Meyers architect post

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Update: Bridge-Studio by hanrahan Meyers architects

Bridge-Studio, Victoria Meyers architect, for hanrahan Meyers architects:  summer 2012

Victoria Meyers architect is pleased to present Bridge-Studio, a new artist studio building in Easton, Pennsylvania.  Bridge-Studio is a new workspace designed for Joe Amrhein and Susan Swenson, a couple who are artists as well as owners of Pierogi Gallery, and its companion, the Boiler event space, in New York City.  Bridge-Studio houses a painting studio for the Joe on the east side, and a writing studio for Susan on the west.  An open air breezeway runs through the center, connecting back to the site with an entry ramp to the north.  Bridge-Studio is entered by walking up the entry ramp, into the open breezeway overlooking the Delaware River, approximately 120 feet below the site.

 Victoria Meyers architect post

Victoria Meyers architect post

The breezeway fireplace hearth houses a flue for a fireplace in the breezeway, in the writing studio, and a third fireplace in the outdoor area below the deck.  In addition to producing their own bodies of work, the clients own a prominent gallery in Williamsburg, New York, and a gallery/ event space, also in Williamsburg.  Joe and Susan regularly entertain artists and clients from their gallery at their home in Pennsylvania. The couple’s desire for an appropriate setting to entertain artist friends created part of the program for the Bridge-Studio.

Victoria Meyers architect post

Bridge-Studio was designed as a small urban or rural proto-type, and the architects are offering plans of the building free to communities who would like to replicate the project.  The prototype was featured on this blog, with the building shown in different settings for different urban and rural conditions.

The building offers an inexpensive and easy prototype for communities where flooding is an issue, or where small shop owners wish to have living quarters above the street, with a street-level shop below. 

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Victoria Meyers on Heritage Radio Network's "Burning Down the House" Show: Interview with Curtis B. Wayne

L to R:  DWi-P in construction, view looking north from gym room; digital rendering of DWi-P glass wall; Curtis B. Wayne click here to view all images of DWi-P on www.hanrahanmeyers.com

From heritageradionetwork.com:

On this episode of Burning Down the House, our host Curtis B. Wayne is in the studio with architect Victoria Meyers architect, founding partner of Hanrahan Meyers architects. Tune in to hear about how poetics, music, and sound art has become entwined in Victoria's work. Listen to works by Harry Partch and John Cage; Curtis says these works speak to the architecture of John Johansen. Hear about Victoria's collaboration with sound artist Michael Schumacher: a building covered with frit patterns that trigger sound and music on the iPhone. Hear some architecturally influential pieces from musicians and composers such as John Cage's "Sonata No. 5 for Prepared Piano", and Philip Glass's "1,000 Airplanes on the Roof". Finally, listen to hear about some of Victoria's other projects, including the Bridge Studio on the Delaware River and the Infinity Chapel above Washington Square Park.

Listen to the interview on heritageradionetwork.com

Related :

Link to an article on "Burning Down the House" with Curtis B. Wayne from architect's newspaper