SHCA, which designed the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, was hired last August to design Harlem Park after developer Michael Caridi’s plan to erect a mammoth Marriott Hotel on the site fizzled. Critics of that project felt the proposed hotel’s 51-story height clashed with the neighborhood’s aesthetic of five- and six-story brick buildings.

Roger Klein, SHCA design principal, says that his firm was mindful of those sentiments.

“Instead of trying to do what architects typically do with an office tower, which is to express the verticality of the buildings, we embraced the squat and masculine forms of the Harlem neighborhood,” he explains.

The 600,000-square-foot Harlem Park takes the form of an irregular composition of stacked boxes—like Jenga blocks—that temper the building’s stature. These boxes are lined with vertical terra cotta fins that add texture to the glass curtain wall and reference the masonry of surrounding buildings. A cubic volume rises 14 feet above the roofline at the southwest corner. This apex will be illuminated at night, like a lantern gesturing south toward Central Park and the rest of Manhattan.

“The goal was to create an iconic branding moment within the building,” Klein says.

The tower replaces a parking lot located at Park Avenue and 125th Street, a gritty corner that has yet to be significantly impacted by gentrification. The site is ripe for development: situated on a street regarded as Harlem’s key economic artery, it’s also adjacent to a stop on a major commuter rail line.

Vornado Realty Trust purchased the lot last year. The development firm owns more than 20 million square feet of space in Manhattan but this will be its first project north of Central Park. It aims to attract financial service and media companies. The last major office tower constructed in the neighborhood was the 19-story Harlem State Office Building, completed in 1973.

“We hope they are successful in getting tenants,” says Curtis Archer, president of the Harlem Community Development Corporation, a state agency that facilitates revitalization initiatives in the neighborhood. “Harlem is primarily a residential community. It’s never been marketed as a business district until recently.”

The architects have also created green moments Harlem Park aims for LEED Silver certification. Daylight penetrates throughout nearly 75 percent of the occupied space, for instance, and the plumbing system will conserve water.

The project is scheduled for completion in 2009, with construction having been slated to start in August. In addition to its office tenants, the building will contain 82,000 square feet of retail shops located at street level and below grade.

Harlem Park joins other recently announced projects including a 230,000-square-foot mixed-use building at the corner of Lenox Avenue and West 125th Street, and an $80-million tower on Fifth Avenue at 110th Street that will contain the Museum for African Art as well as luxury condominiums.

Rejuvenation at the Park Avenue and 125th Street site had lagged. A former hub for prostitution and drug treatment clinics, homeless people still loiter there.
“If Vornado moves forward,” says Thomas Lunke, HCDC’s director of planning, “a lot more attention will be paid to that corridor.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently unveiled plans for a $40 million restoration of Dreier-Offerman Park in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst neighborhood.
The renovation is part of the $1.2 billion in capital improvements to city’s parks and open spaces set forth by Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative. In all, eight parks in all five of New York City’s boroughs will be restored.

Plans for Dreier-Offerman Park include the addition of three new baseball fields, six soccer fields, kayak launches, a central lawn, new restrooms and nature trails, and a bicycle path. In addition, an amphitheater, a recreation center, and a pavilion will be added.

“Parks like Dreier-Offerman have shown extraordinary recreational potential for years,” says Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “The new design for Dreier-Offerman will greatly enhance the opportunities for recreation and the quality of life for residents of south Brooklyn.”

The park was originally borne out of the closure of the Dreier-Offerman Home for Unwed Mothers in 1933. The small parcel of land was donated to the city, creating the original park. It was expanded in 1944, and again in 1962 when the city acquired an additional 72 acres to add to the existing five-acre park.

Asymptote Architecture, best known for its design of HydraPier pavilion in Holland and the virtual 3-D trading floor for the New York Stock Exchange, has found its latest interest in the West Village.

The new 55,000 square foot residential building at 166 Perry Street will be Asymptote’s first permanent, freestanding building. The eight-story structure will have 24 units—22 lofts and two penthouses—selling for between $2 million and $11.5 million per unit. To ensure adequate neighborhood scenery, each unit will occupy its own corner of the building. The total cost of the building remains undisclosed.

The exterior of 166 Perry Street will be draped in a discreetly shimmering, sculptural cascade of glass that appears to materialize or dematerialize with the changing daylight. This glass also allows the resident to see outside but the passersby can not glimpse inside the lofts. At the street level, the façade of the building is sheathed in a perforated white metal scrim with computer-generated, laser-cut, circular openings to provide texture.

The amenities will include a fitness center, 24-hour doorman and concierge services, room service, pantry stocking services and private storage facilities. The penthouses will have private terraces and lap pools.

The building was designed to “comfort and inspire, but also disappear into the background in order to create a very direct and intimate bond with nature,” explained Hani Rashid, a principal architect for Asymptote.

“We wanted to make something playful that draws from and reflects the finer grain of the neighborhood and provokes emotional and intellectual, as well as visual, responses,” he said.

The challenges Asymptote faced were two-fold, he added.

“Fitting an elegant and architecturally fine-tuned building into the neighborhood context, [we had to] find a way to meld a modern design into a somewhat demure and quite street,” he said.

To add uniqueness to its first residential design, Asymptote used Elterwater stone tile for entry areas, wide-plank solid wood flooring for primary rooms, Corian and lacquer for kitchen and baths, solid-core, full-height wood doors and sandblasted planes of translucent blue glass. Sliding glass “fly away” curtain wall openings were also added to increase sense of light. Ceilings will be 10-12 feet high in each loft. Asymptote also developed a curvaceous, customized open kitchen zone with under-cabinet drawer refrigerators, angled millwork, white lacquer and Corian kitchen islands to minimize clutter.

Perry Street Development is the developing the project and J. Companies, LLC is the general contractor.

Demolition began in April 2007 and the building is slated for occupation in the fall of 2008.