New AIA New York President Aims to Unify Chapters

Terrence O'Neal aims to coordinate the efforts of upstate and downstate chapters. Also, Lord Norman Foster will design the third World Trade Center office tower, planned to be 65 stories high.

New AIA President Outlines Plans

Terrence O'Neal, the newly installed president of the American Institute of Architects of New York State, announced a broad agenda for the chapter this year, including plans to unify the state's 13 local chapters, foster better relations between the architectural community and government, and push forth legislative initiatives to protect architects.

Principal of New York-based Terrence O'Neal Architect and the first African-American to hold the state chapter's presidency, O'Neal said he chose "One New York State" as the theme "to unify the state for our milestone year" - its 75th anniversary. O'Neal said he intends to have upstate and downstate chapters coordinate on issues such as the design implications of affordable housing, transportation projects, and waterfront development.

O'Neal, who has served on the chapter's board of directors since 2001 and most recently chaired the association's Architects Political Action Committee, also plans to advance several legislative agenda items:

• a limited repeal of the state's Wick's Law - which requires at least four prime contractors on all public works projects - that would apply only to school projects, a strategy that O'Neal said could bring the repeal's anticipated cost savings to a popular cause and make headway for a complete repeal in the future
• adoption of a ten-year statute of repose for third-party lawsuits against architects in New York State, one of a handful of states that provides no such protection
• and passage of the Good Samaritan Act, which would grant liability protection to design professionals who provide voluntary services during disaster relief efforts.

In addition, O'Neal said he will encourage more active participation by architects in urban planning, pointing to the redevelopment of the World Trade Center as an example in which architects had a "real influence on a lot of the big-picture planning decisions," and the redevelopment of Brooklyn as a place where architects had an active voice on local planning boards. O'Neal also suggested that architects should fill vacancies at zoning and planning boards and run for elected office.

"I think we as architects would make really good elected officials," he said, adding that architects have served as council members, mayors, state representatives, and members of congress, most notably former U.S. Rep. Richard Swett, a New Hampshire Democrat who served in the early 1990s and was an outspoken advocate for the design profession.

Rutgers Holds Design Competition

Rutgers University is holding a design competition for its College Avenue campus in New Brunswick, N.J., with the winner slated to be announced next month.

The state university, which serves more than 50,000 students on campuses in Camden, Newark, and its main New Brunswick-Piscataway complex, selected five architecture firms to receive privately donated sums of $50,000 each to fund their design submissions. The five are:

• New York's Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners, which has designed projects for Columbia University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook
• Eisenman Architects, also based in New York, which has designed projects on college campuses in Ohio
• Thom Mayne's Morphosis, based in Santa Monica, Calif., which is currently designing a new academic building for the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in Manhattan
• Antoine Predock Architect of Albuquerque, N.M., whose experience includes work on campuses in Ohio, California, and Texas
• and Enrique Norten's Ten Arquitectos, based in Mexico City, which recently designed a Brooklyn Public Library addition.

The architects were asked to submit preliminary designs later this month.

Part of a multiyear capital program unveiled in 2003, and intended to upgrade the university's campuses with 2 million sq. ft. of new and renovated space, the New Brunswick design will include: conversion of the city-owned College Avenue into a pedestrian-friendly public space; development of a transportation hub and construction of a pedestrian bridge over George Street; replacement or renovation of the River Dorms; and creation of a student service hub in Brower Commons.

Architect Named for WTC Tower

Silverstein Properties has designated British architect Lord Norman Foster - one of several high-profile designers the firm lined up for its six World Trade Center office projects - to design the third of the buildings, a 65-story tower.

The firm has also selected France's Jean Nouvel and Japan's Fumihiko Maki to design future projects, though it has not designated them to specific ones. It had David Childs of New York-based Skidmore, Owings & Merrill design its first projects onsite, 7 World Trade Center, which opens later this year, and the 1,776-ft.-tall Freedom Tower.

The planned tower at 200 Greenwich St. is on a site bounded by Vesey, Fulton, and Church streets and the reintroduced portion of Greenwich Street, which had existed prior to the original center's construction nearly 40 years ago.

The new tower will contain 2.4 million sq. ft. of offices and approximately 130,000 sq. ft. of retail space. It will connect underground to the Trans-Hudson transportation hub being built on the site by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Foster, a Pritzker Prize winner who also designed the almost-completed Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, will submit a final design next year. Excavation and foundation work is scheduled to begin next year or in 2008 and steel erection would take place in 2009. Silverstein intends to open the building in 2011. The firm refused to release cost estimates for the project.

As with 7 World Trade Center and the Freedom Tower, Silverstein has said it intends to earn Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for 200 Greenwich, though it has not said what level it will seek.

Affordable Design for Affordable Housing

A new mid-rise building under construction on Manhattan's Upper West Side takes advantage of affordable design to add more apartments for moderate-income families.

New York's Loewen Development is developing the $6.3 million building for Malcolm Shabazz, a nonprofit Harlem-based organization. The 46,000-sq.-ft. building at 15 W. 116th St. will contain 38 one- and two-bedroom apartments, as well as a 4,000-sq.-ft. common courtyard, a community room, and 1,600 sq. ft. of ground-floor retail.

Meltzer/Mandl, a New York-based architect, fit nine stories into the structure's 80-ft. allowable height, maximizing the number of units under existing floor-area-ratio requirements while at the same time meeting housing unit sizes set by New York City's Housing Development Corp. The team used the steel superstructure, flexible utility alignments, and pre-fabricated exterior panels to accomplish the layout goal.

Loewen is also the general contractor on the project. Construction is scheduled for completion later this year.