New Residential in Princeton

Nassau HKT Associates LLC retained Minno & Wasko Architects and Planners of Lambertville N.J. to design a five-story residential building with ground floor retail space adjacent to the new public library in downtown Princeton, N.J.

The new building on Witherspoon Street will contain 24 apartments, a restaurant, and a landscaped quad complete with covered walkways. The ground floor will be cut back to allow for a covered walkway connecting a rear parking lot to the new library.

The primary structural system is steel frame with open web metal bar joists. The interior walls and curtain walls are framed with cold formed metal studs. The building will have a flat roof covered with a modified bitumen system on tapered insulation.

Downtown Moves Uptown

Ismael Leyva Architects has designed a new 32-story luxury residential building at First Avenue and 89th Street. The most striking feature of the building is the 29 bi-level, loft-like units with 11-ft. high ceilings. The loft-like units are in the base of the 199-unit building. The building was developed by a joint venture between The Clarett Group and Post Properties.

Perkins Writes Three Books and Wins Award

Bradford Perkins, senior partner of Perkins Eastman Architects, has recently co-authored three textbooks: Architect’s Essentials of Starting a Design Firm; The Architect’s Guide to Design-Build Services; and Building Type Basics: Senior Care and Living. Each was published by the American Institute of Architects in conjunction with John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Perkins’ firm has also received a 2003 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award from the New York Landmarks Conservatory for the restoration of the Fortune Society’s building, popularly known as "The Castle," at 630 Riverside Dr. in Harlem. The building was built in 1913 as a Catholic girls’ school. Abandoned since 1960, the Fortune Society and Perkins Eastman have transformed it into a residential facility for men and women recently released from prison. The Castle now contains 52-units along with training and counseling facilities.

Landscaping vs. Terrorism

William Kuhl of New York was of four landscape artists from across the country selected to serve on the landscape issues task force of Project ER, a federally funded initiative to create a prototypical all-risks ready emergency care facility able to deal with everything from terrorism to epidemics.

Specific issues the landscape task force is investigating include blast mitigation and access control. "Through landscaping, we are able to create buffer zones and control access to the hospital," said Kuhl. "In addition, we can create areas of natural beauty that are proven to have a calming effect on individuals."

Designing Old and New

Also winning a design award for preservation was Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture & Engineering P.C., which was awarded a 2003 Excellence in Historic Preservation Award by the New York State Preservation League for its renovation of Brighter Choice Carter School in Albany.

Built in 1890, the building is an example of Romanesque Revival architecture. It was a public school until the 1970s when the City of Albany purchased it and used it to house its Human Resources Department. In the 1990s it was left vacant and a national drugstore chain attempted to buy it in order to demolish it and replace it with a big-box drugstore. The public rallied to successfully save the building and now it is once again serving as an elementary school.

While it was restoring Albany’s 113-year-old Brighter Choice School, Einhorn Yaffee Prescott was also designing a new 6,000-sq.-ft., $1.6 million food servery building for the East Ramapo Central School District in Spring Valley, N.Y.

Once completed, the servery will be used to prepare food for all 18 of the district’s schools. The single-story building’s exterior is a combination of ground-face and split-face concrete block. Currently in the regulatory review phase, the project is scheduled for completion in September 2004.

More School Design

Cannon Design is also busy designing schools through out New York State. It is currently working on a new Schuyler Elementary School in Albany as well as renovation and new buildings for the Roosevelt Central School District, Pelham School district and Cornwall Central School District. It has been awarded the William Caudill Citation for Design Excellence for its work on the James Madison School of Excellence in Rochester.

Renovating Scientology

Brennan Beer Gorman/Architects has been retained by the Church of Scientology New York to design the renovation and expansion of its headquarters at 227 W. 46th Street in Manhattan.

The six-story building, originally built in 1910, will undergo a complete upgrade of all its mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection systems. The original base of the façade will be restored, continuing the existing band course, in lime and granite. New openings will be inserted that are scaled to the base and aligned with the colonnade above.

An existing airshaft will be filled in on floors three through six, contributing another 2,000 sq. ft. to the building and allowing more open and efficient floor plans. A skylight will cap the sixth floor infill. Leveling out the raked balcony of the auditorium will create additional interior space for offices that will retain views into the auditorium. Upon completion, the building will total 46,650 sq. ft.

Renovation has begun with DSK Construction as construction manager, Gilsanz, Murray, Steficek LLP as structural engineer, and Steven Feller P.E. Inc. as MEP engineer. The project is expected to be completed by spring 2004.