Residential Architecture In The Urban Landscape

Residential Architecture In The Urban Landscape
Residential Architecture In The Urban Landscape

Video: Residential Architecture In The Urban Landscape

Video: Residential Architecture In The Urban Landscape
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Anonim

Blue Condo Chumi and 40 Bond Street H & dM are united not only by high value and original design: both buildings are distinguished by their attention to the urban situation in the area where they are located. This is not just a very expensive real estate, but also a significant architectural "gesture" that is reflected in the city's appearance.

This is especially true in relation to the "blue tower" of Bernard Chumi. It is located in the "lower" East Side of Manhattan, among brick tenements, social housing estates and dilapidated infrastructure. Despite rising real estate prices and the emergence of luxury residential buildings, this area cannot yet be attributed to the new fashionable districts of New York, transforming from a bohemian haven into a yuppie habitat.

Therefore, the Blue Tower project is "contextual," according to the architect; the volume of the tower seems to be squeezed with difficulty into the section 15 by 30 m, where it was erected. Its widened upper part, with obliquely cut from above the planes of the facades, hangs over the neighboring low building, on the roof of which there is a terrace for the residents of the house. Its center of gravity, shifted to the top, as if at any moment can make the seventeen-story building fall on its side. The solution of the facades is no less clearly “inelegant”: these are curtain walls made of glass panels of different shades of blue. Their irregular arrangement emphasizes the freedom from good taste in its applied sense, which by default should be demonstrated by all residential complexes of a certain category. Chumi, who first took on the project of an apartment building, was more interested in the formal opportunities that opened before him with this order. He admitted that he even anticipates the difficulties created by the harsh building laws of New York, as they force the architect to be more inventive. The house has a total of 32 apartments, which are distinguished by sloping walls and are included in transparent panoramic glazing of blue glass.

While it took about two and a half years to design and build the Blue Condo, the 40 Bond by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron came into being in just a year and a half. This was influenced by its much more modest size, and not by saving on the thoroughness and originality of the project. The main element of the solution of the street facade was a large lattice of green glass profiles, superimposed on a supporting structure of concrete supports, covered with sheets of polished stainless steel. This is a kind of paraphrase of a 19th century dwelling house with a cast iron frame, which is often found in this area. Thanks to the mirrored surfaces, the appearance of the building will change depending on the weather and time of day. The rear façade of the building follows the same lattice - but in a copper sheet version.

In contrast to the geometric clarity of the facades, the main fence of the building and its five "townhouses" of the first tier, made of aluminum, seems to be an example of expressionism. Her whimsical designs are drawn from computer-programmed New York graffiti. These motifs are repeated in the steel-paneled main entrance and in the lobby. Of the eleven floors, the top three are occupied by the apartment of the owner of the building, the famous New York developer Ian Schrager, the interiors of which were designed by the British minimalist architect John Pawson.

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