Back in March, Gothamist-founder Jake Dobkin had the enviable opportunity to take a tour of Manhattan’s Second Avenue subway construction, deep below the surface of the Upper East Side, and took some incredible photos of the mega-project’s progress (see the photos here). Dobkin’s photos give a rare look into the borrowing subterranean world that construction workers inhabit each day. Since March, workers continue to tirelessly tunnel through the bedrock under Second Avenue, inching closer to the future opening of New York City’s first subway since 1932. Recently, the MTA released exciting updated photos on their Flickr page, which show the remarkable progress that’s been made in the past couple months.

The deep tunnels of Second Avenue look entirely mysterious; a mind-blowing network of connecting caverns covered in curing concrete. Rippling bright yellow layers drape the interior of the illuminated tunnels, giving them a radioactive appearance as the cement dries. In some photos, the droopy, damp concrete resembles the stalactites and exposed rock of deep caves. Others show the MTA’s rapid progress, as the shapes and forms of future stations look nearly finished. While noisy construction has been causing numerous controversies as the subway moves along, MTA’s photographs show that a less congested commute in Upper Manhattan is not too far away, with the opening of the Second Avenue line’s initial phase in 2016. Click through to see them all!

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Back in May, you had the chance to vote for the next great visionary project for New York City at the first ever Architizer-sponsored Pitch the City event. And now you—yes, you!—can help make the event’s winner a reality.

Plus Pool, a floating swimming pool designed by Dong-Ping Wong, Archie Lee Coates, and Jeffrey Franklin that miraculously makes the murky waters of the East River clean enough for everyone to swim in, has launched a Kickstarter campaign that will help move the project into an initial testing stage this summer—and literally let you claim a piece of the pool for yourself. (Talk about breaking architecture out of the echo chamber.) Find out more below!

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A note from Marc Kushner AIA, CoFounder of Architizer

Architizer and its sister architecture firm, Hollwich Kushner (HWKN), are located in Manhattan. Our office is at 30th and 5th, in an area recently dubbed NoMad. We love the neighborhood, but our lease is up and we have grown. We need more space, and we want to move somewhere where we can stay for a long time. We are thinking of Lower Manhattan.

OK, the truth is that we were not thinking of Lower Manhattan, at least originally … we were thinking of Brooklyn. Unlike our friends at Warby Parker, most of our employees live in Brooklyn, and we thought we could all bike to work and grow mustaches and pickle our own vegetables and it would be wonderful. (I live in Brooklyn; it’s OK for me to say that).

Then we found out about the Take the HELM competition, run by the New York City Economic Development Corporation and funded by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. This is the program’s second year, and this time the city is concentrating on cash grants to recognize moving to Lower Manhattan. And they are putting their money where their mouth is: Four prizes of $250,000 each, four runners-up at $50,000 each, and 12 finalists each receiving $10,000.

What to do with all of this money? Put it toward your lease in Lower Manhattan, of course.

Last year SHoP was a finalist—but most of the winners were tech companies. This year the city is interested in diversifying, and that’s when we started to get interested.

Once we started thinking about Lower Manhattan we started to get excited. It is among the most densely built places in the country (if not the world). It is filled with amazing architecture, like the Woolworth Building and the UN Studio Plein + Pavilion, not to mention all of the new buildings at Ground Zero. It is fantastically easy to get to via public transportation, and major companies like Conde Nast are already joining outfits like SOM and American Express at the bottom of the island.

Oh yeah, and rent is cheap!

So join us! Let’s grab some of this public money for the architecture and design community and spread our footprint all over this island. The deadline for application is July 15. You can find out more here.

All photos via Take the HELM’s website.

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770 Broadway will hold two floors of Facebook’s new Frank Gehry-designed offices. Photo: via nymag.com

Frank Gehry seems to be the architect of choice for Facebook. The social media giant has now entered into another partnership with the starchitect, to design its new office space in the heart of Manhattan. Previously, Facebook had been using 150,000 square feet of space in the Bank of America tower near Grant Park and Grand Central Terminal. According to this statement (via gawker.com) from Facebook Engineering NYC, the new 100,000 sf office will have:

… big, open spaces for people to work and collaborate, and lots of room for conference rooms and cozy spaces where people can meet or grab a white board to talk through ideas on a whim. We’ll have plenty of video conferencing equipment to make meeting with our colleagues in other offices really quick and easy. We’ll have room to build out a full service kitchen and serve great food throughout the day. And, of course, we’ll still have all the other Facebook benefits like free laundry, gym memberships and lots of paid vacation.

In other words, this will be an awesome place to work. Located within trendy NoHo, and next to NYU and Washington Square Park, this is also some prime real estate. Architecturally, what can we expect? If Gehry’s Facebook West campus is any indication, it will be a playful and open design facilitating Facebook’s informality and collaboration.

Frank Gehry and Mark Zuckerberg review the model for Facebook’s West campus in Menlo Park, California. Photo: via arch2o.com

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For generations, musicians from all walks of life have flocked to the rich cultural resources of New York City to enhance their craft. From music schools, to conservatories, to genre-specific subcultures, the city caters to the likes of any blossoming virtuoso. Now, musicians in New York will get a little boost from the brand new Red Bull Music Academy designed by Jeffrey Inaba’s firm INABA. Located in Chelsea, INABA transformed four vacant floors of a former warehouse into an exciting collaborative environment meant for musical experimentation, production, and exchange.

To create stimulating spaces that stray from the traditional classroom, INABA incorporated dramatic walls and plentiful lighting throughout the 38,000-square-foot space. The resulting design combines vibrant colors and open breathable spaces, while conserving the warehouse’s appealing unpolished surfaces that feels fresh and inspiring. Click through to read more!

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Mine is bigger than yours: the proposed Sky City One for comparison against the Chicago skyline. Photo via webodysseum.com

Is it just us or are towers getting taller and taller these days? Broad Group, a Chinese developer, recently announced plans to scale up its prefabricated building technology to unparalleled proportions. The proposed Sky City outside Changsha will be the tallest on earth at 838 m or 2,749 ft, just barely inching past the Burj Khalifa in the UAE. And, as if this weren’t astounding enough, the tower will purportedly be assembled on site 90 days.

Here you see a super tower living in its natural forest environment, happily coexisting with the trees and the sky. Photo: Broad Group via dvice.com

Between worries about China’s real estate market and safety concerns, not to mention the environmental cost of producing the 270,000 tons of steel needed to erect the structure (that’s about 4.5 Nimitz class aircraft carriers), we’re a bit skeptical of the project’s prospects at being the tallest and greenest tower around.

However if the builders do pull it off, successfully housing close to 30,000 people with thermally efficient walls, recycled materials, and LED lighting will be quite the accomplishment. Regardless, we did notice a startling similarity to a project underway in New York City …

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The Folk Art Museum in New York City, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.  Photo: Ozier Muhammad for NYTimes. 

When the news broke that MoMA was planning on demolishing the former American Folk Art Museum, the design community responded with a gigantic petition to preserve the architectural gem, designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, which had only opened in 2001. Fortunately, the fierce reaction looks to have stymied the Goliath neighbor-next-door from bulldozing. Or perhaps MoMA brass took notice of the revival of Arrested Development, the cult TV comedy premiering a final season on Netflix seven years after Fox prematurely canceled it. (Yeah … just go with it.)

But unlike TV shows, when it comes to architecture, once the building explodes, there’s no wrangling up cast members for a reunion. Which is why it’s so important to fight to save buildings; just take a look at the at-risk Robin Hood Gardens, which has managed to stay standing (so far) thanks to petitions signed by the likes of Richard Rogers and Zaha Hadid.

So, a cautionary tale: We’ve gathered a list of 11 buildings that we think were demolished too soon. Lament their demise? Think they deserved to R.I.P.? Or have other suggestions for buildings that should have been renewed for another season? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Robert Hammond and Joshua David, co-founders of Friends of the High Line, accept their Architizer award.

Architizer Honorees Robert Hammond and Joshua David aren’t architects. They don’t have design degrees or urban planning experience. But that didn’t stop them from banding together to save an old elevated railway track in Manhattan’s West Side from oblivion. Little did they know that their passion project would end up not only creating one of New York City’s most beloved public parks, but revitalizing an entire neighborhood.

That project: the High Line, of course, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Robert and Joshua founded Friends of the High Line after a community meeting about the abandoned structure in 1999. Which made them a natural pick for our first Architizer Advocacy Award. Not only does their story illustrate the transformative power of architecture and design, but it also proves that anyone—not just architects, planners, and the like—can participate in it.

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Van Alen Institute’s ground floor space at 30 West 22nd Street

Van Alen Institute has just announced Ground/Work, an international architecture competition seeking innovative designs for a new street-level venue that will house the Institute’s work space and public programs.

Since 1982 the New York City nonprofit, which is dedicated to promoting innovative thinking about the role of architecture and design in civic life, has made its sixth-floor location at 30 West 22nd Street home to a diverse program of competitions, curatorial projects, and public events, becoming a venerable hub for design innovation.

Now, building on the success of its ground-floor bookstore, Van Alen Books, the Institute is moving its entire operation to the street level. In the process, Van Alen is putting its public-oriented mission at the core of its own office and event space, transforming the ground floor and lower level of its building into a home that is more visible, accessible, and participatory in public life, with a clear connection to the street and the city at large.

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In only a few days, the biggest names in architecture and design across the world will descend upon New York City to attend the Architizer A+ Awards gala. Perhaps we’re just super exhilarated about the event and proud of our winners, but we can’t get over how big this has become, with honorees and guests flying from all over the world to be a part of it.

Take our A+ winners from Spain: Estudio A2arquitectos,  Josep MiAS ARCHITECTS, APARICIO + DONAIRE, and ÃBATON. These firms will not only be attending our party, but throwing their own the very next day! On Friday, May 17th, join the Center for Architecture and the Spain Culture New York-Consulate General of Spain in celebrating some of these extraordinary projects. The free event includes cocktails and runs from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Center for Architecture. (For more details, click here.)

Seeing these three remarkable Spanish projects made us think of all the amazing architecture going on in Spain lately. So in honor of La Furia Roja, we’ve rounded up some of the best examples of contemporary Spanish design, including, of course, our A+ winners. Click through to see them all!

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