New development on the Bowery

[mariab]

Those jutting balconies would sure come in handy for escaping burglars or Don Juans escaping angry husbands.

[ablarc]

Then I must ask: What is so hard to understand that if the plan were altered as you propose, so that the portion above the base is narrower and taller (say 35' x 35' rather than the ~50' x 50' as shown) then that completely alters the floor layout along with the room size & placement? Using the stated total room number of 72, the plan as presented allows for 9 floors w/ hotel rooms: 8 rooms / floor @ ~ 12' x 20' / room (+ 10' for hallways / core running along the center). Change the calculus to make it a tower / base structure and the plan would need to rise to 12 floors w/ hotel rooms, and into that structure one could only fit 6 smaller rooms / floor @ ~ 11' x 13' / room (again with 10' for hallways / core running along the center). Adding 3 additional floors would totally alter the costs involved.

Kaufman is hired by these hoteliers because he was the original guy to break the NYC street wall mold and figure out the way to best fit more rooms onto 25' & 50' wide building lots as found in NYC. The aesthetics of Kaufman plan are way down on the list of necessities (and are simply pasted on the facade, as is apparent when viewing his tricked up bricks seen all over town).

The Kaufman model is also used by higher end hotels. Check out the Crosby Street Hotel and 60 Thompson. Both are set back from the streetwall and rise as a box straight up, allowing for a uniform fit out of rooms / plumbing / fire stairs /elevators throughout.

^ lofter, you're obviously starting to get it.

[antinimby]

^ No he isn't.

I just don't see how it all suddenly gets inefficient or expensive when the whole darn building is moved 4 or 5 feet closer to the street.

Kaufman (and his ilk's) projects are cheap not because of the setbacks but because of:

1) cheaper land costs since many are teeny tiny parking lots generally on rundown, dingy sidestreets
2) cheap labor - frequent use of nonunion labor
3) routine use of cheaper materials such outdated and unattractive windows
4) routine use of exposed floor plates and AC window units.

Once again, those setbacks are not done because they somehow save money. Otherwise, you would see that done by many more New York developers, who are generally as cheap and greedy as they come.

[lofter1]

It's all about fitting the hotel rooms into the box. You still haven't answered how you'd fit proper sized hotel rooms into your taller and thinner tower -- and do it for the same development budget.

The square footage saved by building with the setback allows the needed area up higher. The other option would be to set back the building from the property line on the north and east. But what good is it to the developer to have a 10' slice of empty land at the back where it's walled in by both the new one and other buildings -- making that open area basically inaccessible?

I don't see why you don't get that.

[antinimby]

You are not making any sense. On one hand you want to have "needed areas up higher."

Then, you don't want that because taller and thinner seems to be against the budget. Which is it?

You are the one that said rooms on higher floors are more coveted. All I'm saying is, assuming that is the case, then that can be accommodated by making the tower portion thinner.

So maybe instead of 8 rooms per floor you have 7 or 6 instead.

It's called "designing." (Which by the way, is not one of Kaufman's strong points, which is also obvious to everyone.)

If one is confronted with a problem, then you come up with a "solution." You seem to think that Kaufman's setback is the only solution and you are also certain that his solution is the cheapest and most efficient.

I don't buy that.

And what good is the slice of land out back? Why don't you ask all the other NY developers who aren't named Chang and Lam that?

They don't seem to have a problem with that slice of land in the back since no one else employs those retarded setbacks.

[ablarc]

In this market segment, it's numbers, not aesthetics.

Kaufman makes the numbers come out to Chang's liking.

[antinimby]

ablarc, please tell us something we don't know already.

[lofter1]

So maybe instead of 8 rooms per floor you have 7 or 6 instead.

It's called "designing."

No, that's called making it up as you go along. You're failing to address the essential question: Fitting the needed number of rooms into a specific sized floor space. You're generalizing about height and setbacks and all sorts of stuff and tossing out numbers that mean nothing but not dealing with the math required to get the square footage where it's needed to build at budget. Come up with a viable design where your "7 or 6" rooms per floor would work and then we can continue in a logical vein.

You also confuse my discussion of the calculus of the project with a supposed endorsement of Kaufman's design. I'm no fan of Kaufman. But I do understand, as ablarc points out, that mathematics are what rule here. Not some agitation about mis-placed anger at Amanda Burden and zoning regulations that don't exist.

[lofter1]

On one hand you want to have "needed areas up higher."

Then, you don't want that because taller and thinner seems to be against the budget. Which is it?

I'm talking about the plan that exists, where the building rises as a block without setbacks. And with the same square footage on floor nine as there will be on floor one. That design -- the proposed design -- is made possible because the entire stack is pulled back from the property line at the street and the allowable square footage under FAR is fit into that block.

You're the one talking about something taller and thinner than what is designed -- a base with a tower -- or at least that is what you showed in your drawing a while back. Considering allowable FAR there is no way to build what you are talking about and still get the square footage in the place where the developer wants it and in a configuration that fulfills the business plan as seen in the project as proposed and presented.

[antinimby]

No, that's called making it up as you go along.

Are you really that dense or are you just feigning just to make a case? I don't think there is a single person out there reading this that thinks the numbers I used was not purely hypothetical.

We can't use the actual numbers because we don't have the actual exact numbers or the blueprints. Using an example for discussion purposes is not "making it up."

Seriously.

You're failing to address the essential question: Fitting the needed number of rooms into a specific sized floor space.

I did not fail to address anything. You are the one failing to grasp this concept: the overall total square footage of a project need not change just because the configuration changes.

For example, if Kaufman has 200 sf of total space to build and he decides to spread it over 10 floors, each floor would be 20 sf (20 sf x 10 floors = 200 sf).

If he decides to make the tower taller, say, to 20 floors instead, then the tower would now have to be skinnier. Each floor would then be 10 sf (10 sf x 20 floors = 200 sf)

Thus, each floor would have less number of rooms per floor, assuming he wants to keep the rooms the same size.

Again, this is all hypothetical. Of course I have to tell you this because knowing your MO, you'd probably say something like "there's no way one can build a tower 20 stories tall with each floor being only 10 sf...it would topple over."

But I do understand, as ablarc points out, that mathematics are what rule here. Not some agitation about mis-placed anger at Amanda Burden and zoning regulations that don't exist.

And as I pointed out, the mathematics of low cost to build Kaufmans are almost certainly determined by cheap land costs, cheap labor, lesser materials and design, not his famous setbacks.

Also, no where here did I mention Amanda Burden, the ditzy socialite turned planning czar.

[lofter1]

Also, no where here did I mention Amanda Burden, the ditzy socialite turned planning czar.

Really?

What about this from ten days ago?

Let's not even get into what those Planning Commission people led by airhead socialite Amanda Burden, know about what is good form or not.

The rest of your argument falls apart on its own so I'll leave that be.

[brianac]

Unfreakin' believable. WTF is wrong with this Kaufman buffoon?

It's like he has something against streetwalls and think that exposing the neighbor's blank wall looks good.

And are those suppose to resemble open drawers?

Housing

February 23, 2011, 11:59 am

Designer Defends New Bowery Hotel

By MARK RIFFEE, 20 Cooper Square

Courtesy of Gene Kaufman Architect
The Salvation Army building at the corner of Bowery and East Third Street. Right: A rendering of what the corner will look like when Gene Kaufman’s Bowery boutique hotel is completed.

Much has been said about the design for the new boutique hotel and restaurant that is expected to take the place of the vacant Salvation Army building on the corner of the Bowery and East Third Street.

Several local blogosphere commentators have made it clear that this addition is not welcome in their neighborhood. Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, jokingly referred to the 11-story, 72-room hotel as the “red tumor building” in reference to a series of asymmetric balconies that will protrude from the building and glow red at night.

“It’s totally inappropriate and I think it will be another unfortunate, unwanted intrusion into the Bowery,” said Mr. Berman. “The scale is wrong, the design is wrong. It almost seems designed to offend.”

Gene Kaufman, the architect hired by the Paris-based Louzon Group to design the hotel and restaurant, is aware of the East Village’s reaction to the renderings published by The New York Observer last month, but is hoping it might not be permanent.

“The neighborhood sentiment in the beginning is the start of a process,” said Mr. Kaufman, who has designed other controversial hotels in New York. “It’s not necessarily reflective of what’s going to happen in the long term.”

Mr. Kaufman believes the architectural past and future of the East Village exist as separate but not necessarily opposed pieces of the neighborhood’s identity. His goal is to create a structure that is forward-looking rather than an allusion to the 19th-century architecture of the Bowery, which he said “seems extremely remote.”

His building’s facades will be white and reflect the conditions of the sky, said Mr. Kaufman, who hopes these reflections and the shadows created by the unusual series of balconies will cause the structure to “dematerialize” against its backdrop.

Mr. Berman, for one, is not impressed. He said Mr. Kaufman’s hotels “tend to stick out like sore thumbs” and don’t improve with age.

“Nobody expects him to recreate a 19th-century building,” he said. “But his vision of the future of the Bowery and the East Village is not one that’s shared by anyone in the neighborhood that I know.”

Mark Riffee
The Cooper Square Hotel, 25 Cooper Square.

As Mr. Berman sees it, Mr. Kaufman is failing to show consideration for the existing neighborhood that surrounds the site where the hotel is set to be built and where most buildings are smaller and less flashy.

“If you’re really trying to be respectful of the community in which you’re locating,” said Mr. Berman, “an effort to make the design fit in with and complement its surroundings as opposed to simply screaming, ‘I’m here, I’m new, I’m different!’ would probably be a better way to go.”

Mr. Kaufman understands that East Villagers are worried the Bowery will lose its character, but he said that the hotel and restaurant will be run responsibly and will be viewed as positive additions to the area.

As for the design, Mr. Kaufman quickly pointed out, “there’s nothing definite in architecture, design, construction, or real estate. That’s our initial concept. I think it will evolve. We have a whole design process still coming up.”

That process will have to be quick, however, because Mr. Kaufman and the Louzon group have said they plan to break ground in the fall and finish construction 18 to 21 months later.

Perhaps there is reason to believe people in the neighborhood will accept Mr. Kaufman’s hotel as originally conceived. Recently Sean Gibson, a 37-year-old East Village resident, looked at a drawing of the new hotel while standing at Bowery and East Third Street. He shrugged then compared Mr. Kaufman’s design with that of the Cooper Square Hotel, a 21-story, Carlos Zapata-designed tower in 2008.

“If you look against the backdrop of the other architecture in the area,” he said, “it looks kind of like it would fit in.”

Mr. Kaufman, no doubt, would see that reasoning as logical. But Mr. Berman and others would probably view the idea that one unusually tall building justifies the next as creating exactly the type of slippery slope they would like to avoid.

Join the conversation: What do you think East Village – eyesore or exciting new design?

http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes....-bowery-hotel/

[scumonkey]

"who hopes these reflections and the shadows created by the unusual series of balconies will cause the structure to “dematerialize” against its backdrop."
Why hope...revoke his license and make any further intrusions from Kaufman dematerialize forever!

[Derek2k3]

Diagonally across this will rise another Kaufman hotel at 340 Bowery. Permit filed last month for 10 stories of inevitable mediocrity.

http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/Jo...ssdocnumber=01

I can't wait for these recession specials to stop being unveiled.

[lofter1]

Bozo the Architect can't even draw proper perspective.