Twin Tower Columns Would Be Part of Transit Hub

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is moving forward on its plans to preserve remnants of the Twin Towers during construction slated to start this summer on the new World Trade Center transit hub.

The plans came after completion of a one-year federal preservation commission review that was necessary because the new transportation hub is using $1.7 billion in federal funding. The Port Authority plans call for preserving 84 column bases from the north tower and 39 from the south tower "to the maximum extent possible." The plan calls for encasing the columns in glass to offer views otherwise obstructed by a new platform, according to a Port Authority spokesman.

The new train station serving the PATH subway system connecting New York and New Jersey would also incorporate features from the old station on the site, such as handrails and travertine flooring. In addition, the project would entail removing several steel beams and putting them into storage.

The New York State Historic Preservation Office, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and the Federal Transit Administration all recently approved the plans.

Design Updated for Delayed Queens School

A new school construction project on Jamaica Avenue in Queens - delayed for two years because of city budget problems - is moving forward again on an updated design. Swanke Hayden Connell Architects of New York updated its design for PS/IS 263 in Queens Village after already having won an American School & University Merit Award for its original plan drafted in 2001.

The new prekindergarten-to-8th-grade school will serve 700 students in an 88,000-sq.-ft. facility that will double as community space after hours. The N.Y.C. School Construction Authority awarded the design contract to Swanke in part due to its innovative plan to fit standard rectilinear-oriented classrooms and other facilities onto "a site of highly irregular geometry" along the busy Jamaica Avenue commercial corridor.

The building will feature two brick and glass sections - a four-story building to house classroom, administration, cafeteria, and gymnasium space, and a three-story structure to hold the 300-seat auditorium, a library, and art, music, and dance rooms. A glass lobby in between will face the street, with a playground in the rear. The new design modified the school to fit on a reformatted site that is 15 percent smaller than originally planned.

Construction, originally slated to finish last year, will now start this summer, with completion by 2007.

Redesign Planned for Casinos

The Trump Marina Hotel Casino and the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, N.J., are getting a $12 million renovation. The work will redesign restaurants, the casino, and the atrium at the Marina, while ushering in new color, carpet, and fabric schemes for guest rooms at both resorts.

Brennan Beer Gorman Monk Interiors of New York is designing the renovations. Work on the Marina, slated for completion next year, will evoke a 1920s style for the casino while redesigning the 150-seat Portofino restaurant to combine it with the Yacht Club bar. It will also create space for a new restaurant. Work on the Taj Mahal has already begun, centered primarily on redesign of the rooms with Indian-inspired motifs such as oversized beds of rattan and wood.

Mayne Wins Pritzker

Thom Mayne, who is finally making his mark in New York with two high-profile design jobs, recently won the 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize. He is the first American in 14 years to win the field's most recognized award.

The 61-year-old Mayne, known for his bold designs, joins the ranks of Rem Koolhaus, Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry, and the late Philip Johnson. Over a three-decade career, Mayne has won 54 American Institute of Architects and 25 Progressive Architecture awards. In 1972, he founded both the Southern California Institute of Architecture and his Santa Monica-based design firm Morphosis, which started winning large-scale public projects worldwide in the last decade.

Construction is slated to start next year on Mayne's first New York City building, the translucent Albert Nerken School of Engineering for the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Ronald Drucker, who chairs Cooper Union's board, said Mayne's award may well help the university raise the remaining $40 million it needs for the $71 million project. "It's a really spectacular design," Drucker said.

Morphosis also won the 2004 design competition for the NYC2012 Olympic Village in Queens West, a 52-acre complex of competition facilities, housing, park land, and even a beach, all on the East River waterfront. According to N.Y.C. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, construction of the complex will move forward regardless of the outcome of New York's bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics.