Brooklyn Bridge Park - by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

[DarrylStrawberry]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...618483?src=rss

A New Brooklyn Bridge—This Time Made of Trees

Near the original Brooklyn Bridge, innovative structural engineer and designer Ted Zoli's new planned footbridge shows the potential of creative urban infrastructure, and the 21st century possibilities of an old material: wood.

Ted Zoli, the MacArthur Genius Award–winning structural engineer, is among the nation's foremost experts on "terror-proofing" bridges and other infrastructure. After 9/11, he developed a composite material now used in construction and bridge retrofitting to protect against damage from explosives. That's some pretty heavy stuff (meaning the work, not the composite material). So it comes as something of a surprise that Zoli's vision of new sustainable design is grounded in an old-fashioned material: He sees a great future in building long-lasting, rot-resistant bridges out of wood.

His first timber pedestrian bridge design—the 396-foot-long Squibb Park Bridge, which received $4.9 million in city funding last July—is scheduled to open next summer. With two main spans of 120 feet each, the bridge will connect a small, paved park at the north end of the historic Brooklyn Heights Promenade with the acclaimed new Brooklyn Bridge Park, an 85-acre waterfront park designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates featuring sweeping views of New York Harbor and the Manhattan skyline. Zoli's design is expected to receive approval today in a hearing before the New York City Design Commission, according to park president Regina Myer. "It's a thing of beauty in itself," Myer says, "and it provides important connectivity to Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is now somewhat isolated because of the barrier formed by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway."

Getting around that barrier required some design creativity. From Squibb Park, the bridge will zigzag gracefully through a clutch of tall oaks, between buildings and over a street, descending 30 feet in elevation from its starting point to its endpoint in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Supported by poured-concrete pillars and suspended by steel cables, the primary construction material will be 6- and 10-inch-diameter pieces of Robinia pseudoacacia, or black locust, a tree found widely in the Southeast but also prevalent in forests of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Black locust is extremely rot-resistant, durable and sustainable, Zoli says. The rough-sawn decking and wooden structural posts will have a natural finish that changes color and even warps slightly with exposure to the elements, a desired effect.

In the case of Brooklyn Bridge Park, black locust isn't just an excellent building material—black locust fence posts are also a prominent feature of the park's landscape. "The overall idea was to create a bridge that draws from the language of Brooklyn Bridge Park," says Zoli, who is vice president of HNTB Corporation, an architecture and engineering firm headquartered in Kansas City, Mo. "I was very taken by the idea of the Robinia fence posts and the wire range fencing [in Brooklyn Bridge Park], and re-imagining these components as part of the footbridge."

Though this project is a pedestrian bridge, Zoli says he sees durable woods like black locust—together with smart design—as the foundation of a new generation of American bridges. "Squibb Park Bridge is a stepping stone to using rot-resistant natural building materials [including Robinia] for new vehicular bridges in rural areas," he says. And the design is a far cry from a gritty metal bridge: The early renderings of the Squibb Park Bridge show a footpath reminiscent of a boardwalk or wooden bridge from a national park. "Ted's design riffs on the tension between rural and industrial," says Matt Urbanski, a principal with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. "It's not like Smokey Bear came in and dreamed it up. It shows a nice balance between elegance and strength."

[Merry]

DOT Plans to Give BBP Pier 1 Approach Some Room to Breathe

June 29, 2011, by Bilal Khan



As more pedestrian traffic comes to Old Fulton Street —the primary entry into Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 1— the DOT has revealed plans to make the area more friendly to non-motorists. It even looks like pedestrians should have an easier time avoiding the snake-like line pouring out of Grimaldi's. According to Streetsblog, the plan "calls for a new pedestrian plaza, treatments to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists crossing highway exits, and a concrete median intended to prevent illegal parking and bus drop-offs in the middle of Old Fulton Street."



DOT Unveils Livable Streets Makeover for Approach to Brooklyn Bridge Park [Streetsblog]

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2011/0...eathe.php#more

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
Thanks for that, Merry. Just happened to be in BBP yesterday.

After a few seasons of growth, the plants have begun to knit in, and you get a sense of the overall landscape plan.



Some new areas on Pier 6. Beach volleyball. Lawns are still fenced off.



I wish they'd make one of these for adults.



About half the pier is still undeveloped.



Tots' playground is a sea of hydrangeas.



Although a substantial amount of land is developed, it's a tiny fraction of the overall site. Only two piers and none of the upland are developed. If taken to completion, this will be a tremendous park. Nothing of this scale has been done since Riverside Park.



-----------------------------------------------------

Many of the streets of DUMBO are being repaved, new sidewalks, granite curbs, and cobblestones - a nice consequence of necessary infrastructure upgrades. New utilities are now being installed at Washington St. Water St is complete down to Fulton Ferry.

[Merry]

^ Thanks for the update, Zippy.

I don't think I've ever seen white hydrangeas .

Does BBP compare favourably with Hudson River Park or are they quite different?

[ZippyTheChimp]

The two parks are very different, basically because of dimensions.

HRP is much larger in area, but it's spread out over 5 miles, and on the average about 100 feet wide. It's more a park/waterfront. The place where it's more a full park is Chelsea (and later the 6 acre Gansevoort). You leave the city when you go out on one of the piers. It's big resource is the bikeway which connects to Riverside Park.

BBP is more centralized, a little over a mile long. It's more a park that happens to be on the waterfront. The piers are shorter than at HRP, but much wider at about 350 ft. Even half done, Pier 6 feels like an entire park.

[MidtownGuy]

Thanks for sharing all of those tremendous photos. It felt like being there.

I have to get down there asap! The plantings look wonderful.

[Merry]

Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 1 Ready for Housing and a Hotel

July 19, 2011, by Sara Polsky


[Photo via Pardon Me For Asking.]

The Brooklyn Bridge Park higher-ups seem to have given up on the various alternatives to housing that were being kicked around as funding ideas for the park. How do we know? Because the board will soon—later this month or early in August—be issuing a Request for Proposals for hotel and housing across from Pier 1, according to the Brooklyn Eagle. The RFP will will call for two buildings, a 100-foot hotel and a 55-foot residential building with parking. There will be a total of 170 to 225 hotel rooms and 150 to 180 residential units. Developers' proposals will be due in October, but the whole housing-as-park-funding scheme still has some skeptics, including one member of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund who pointed out that a good portion of One Brooklyn Bridge Park remains unsold. But hey, a bunch of TV stars live there now.

RFP on the Way for Bridge Park Hotel, Housing [BK Eagle]

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2011/0...nd_a_hotel.php

[Merry]

Sward into playgrounds: What all the fuss over Brooklyn Bridge Park is actually about

By Nancy Scola



Earlier this month, the mayor agreed to a deal with two state legislators that is supposed to resolve one of the most contentious issues surrounding the long-awaited, painstakingly planned Brooklyn Bridge Park: The development of luxury condos inside the park, which the mayor wants in order to guarantee a source of recurring revenue to pay for the park’s maintenance in the future, and which the two lawmakers (and a vocal coalition of park activists) oppose.

Actually, the deal provides an incentive for condo opponents to put off a binding decisionon housing until 2014, in the form of a Dec. 31, 2013 deadline for rezoning properties on Columbia Heights (Brooklyn's "most expensive street") for high-end residential development. This in turn makes it extremely likely that the park plan won't be completed until after the mayor leaves office.

Asked whether condo opponents saw the agreement as a way to wait out the current administration in anticipation of the installation of a potentially more sympathetic mayor, Regina Myer, the president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, said: “Sounds right.”

Nothing to do with the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge Park has come easily to anyone working on the project. Not for the mayor, who may now be denied the opening of a park on his watch even though it was he who authorized the funding for it nearly a decade ago; not for the park's designers, who have endured a consistent series of brickbats from other architects and urban planners who are philosophically opposed to their plans; and not for local residents, who have watched the endless back-and-forth push the completion date of its park further and further.

This endless fussiness over what Brooklyn Bridge Park will be is a function of the perceived stakes: Everyone involved with the park knows that the end result of their planning, haggling, and political deal-making will be with New York City for decades, and will influence park projects in other cities as well. They’re playing for keeps.

WHAT EVERYONE AGREES ON IS THAT BROOKLYN BRIDGE Park is going to be spectacular.

continuation of long article at Capital New York

[lofter1]

Wanna see a bald French guy riding a Merry-Go-Round?

"The night is very important on the site; when it's 6pm, you fill the carousel live with the light inside.

And you see the golden lamps and the horsies and it's perfect."

Exclusive: Chatting with Jean Nouvel at Jane's Carousel Opening

[lofter1]

Nouvel added:

And, on the status of the proposed MoMA Tower Verre:

"I can say nothing. I'm waiting. I hope to see some answers here in the next month; I hope."

[lofter1]

[lofter1]

iPhone version, with better views of the surroundings ...

[ZippyTheChimp]

[Derek2k3]

benjamin-gs

[Merry]

Unveiling Park Plans

By LAURA KUSISTO

Seven prominent developers have submitted proposals to build a large waterfront hotel and residential complex at Brooklyn Bridge Park.


Rendering of the design submitted by developer Two Trees.

Extell Development Co., Starwood Capital Group and Toll Brothers are some of the developers vying to build two towers on the edge of the 85-acre waterfront park. Two Trees, which is based in Dumbo, is the lone Brooklyn-based bidder, although many of the others have done significant work in the borough.

The strength of the bidders shows strong appetite for building hotel and residential projects in the city, even on a site that presents challenges.

The new development will include 170 to 225 hotel rooms and 150 to 180 residential units, but developers are permitted to only build diminutive buildings of 110 feet and 55 feet in height.
The submitted proposals include a range of creative responses to the height restrictions—from a snakelike building by Two Trees to a latticelike design by Starwood.

The Brooklyn Bridge Park board plans to select a winning bidder early next year. The other bidders were RAL Companies & Affiliates, SDS Procida and Dermot.

Design will be a factor, but a key consideration will certainly be the revenue that must generated from the new project.

The developer will lease the property long term from the city. The Bloomberg administration has said that the public park must be self-sustaining, meaning it needs to generate $16 million a year in revenue from multiple private developments sites near the park.

"The financial aspect of the proposals is very, very important because the ability for us to continue to fund the park using this resource is key," said Regina Myer, president of Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp., the nonprofit that manages the park.

She declined to comment on the range of rents offered by the bidders.

The first step for the Brooklyn Bridge board is to present the proposal to community groups, which voiced considerable early opposition to the creation of private developments on the edge of a public park.

The new proposals were presented to the community advisory Brooklyn Borough Hall on Tuesday evening. The community will only be able to give feedback, but won't have any official role in the selection process.

The deadline for community feedback is Dec. 22, but local politicians earlier complained that the timeframe is inadequate.

"For a project as important as this, a single public presentation at a regular [community advisory council] meeting is inadequate," says the letter, which is signed by Senator Daniel Squadron, Assembly Member Joan Millman and City Council Member Stephen Levin.

The Pier 1 project has been less controversial than the Pier 6 and John Street projects, also part of the larger Brooklyn Bridge Park development, in part because a hotel is thought to be more accessible to the public than an exclusive condo project.

Ms. Myer says the designs already take into account community concerns raised earlier in the process, including providing a restaurant and public restrooms and limiting the buildings' heights.

The strength of the proposals, she says, shows the controversy and a slow economy didn't damp developers' appetite for the prime site. "We are pleased at the level of architectural detail and thought that the different proposals put forth. That's a huge vote of confidence in the overall city's health," she said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...455095320.html


Developers Vie for Brooklyn Bridge Park Hotel, Condos

by Sara Polsky


(click to enlarge)

The responses are in, and, as predicted, lots of boldface names from the developer world have submitted proposals for the hotel and condos at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Developer roll call: Extell, Starwood Capital Group, Toll Brothers, Two Trees, RAL Companies & Affiliates, SDS Procida, and Dermot. The Journal has a summary of the proposals, for 170 to 225 hotel rooms and 150 to 180 residential units, packed into smallish 110-foot and 55-foot-tall buildings. The hotel and condos need to generate enough revenue to help fund the park. We've put some images from each proposal in the gallery above.

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2011/11/23/developers_vie_for_brooklyn_bridge_park_hotel_cond os_poll.php