In late October 2009, we reported that the Department of Buildings and the AIA New York Chapter had teamed up with an array of other civic organizations to organize an international design competition to re-imagine the maligned sidewalk construction shed. Yesterday, the city announced that a winning design has been chosen from three finalists.

The winning design, chosen by a jury including MAS Chairman David Childs, is titled Urban Umbrella and was developed by Young-Hwan Choi, a 28-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania. His design will improve quality of life, reduce construction impacts on businesses, increase pedestrian safety, and increase available space for pedestrians on sidewalks, while also complimenting the city’s architectural beauty. Continue Reading>>

Sidewalk sheds are required whenever renovation or new construction takes place on a building, or a Department of Buildings inspector suspects an unsafe condition exists. These sidewalks sheds are erected in order to protect pedestrians and typically remain in place for nearly a year, sometimes even longer. Currently there are more than 6,000 sidewalk sheds standing in New York City, spanning more than a million linear feet. 

The Department of Buildings and AIA New York Chapter have teamed up with an array of other civic organizations to organize an international design competition called UrbanShed that seeks a brighter future for this unique New York City structure. Contestants had been asked to design a sidewalk shed that is sustainable, economical and attractive.  Continue Reading>>

Earlier this week, the Rockefeller Foundation presented the 2009 Jane Jacobs Medals to Richard Kahan, Founder and CEO of the Urban Assembly, and Damaris Reyes, Executive Director of Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES). A ceremony in their honor was held at the new Thom Mayne-designed building at 41 Cooper Square.

The juried awards process is administered by the Municipal Art Society as part of MAS’s continuing collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation to celebrate the legacy of the pioneering writer and activist. The Medal is awarded to two individuals each year whose work creates new ways of seeing and understanding New York City, challenges traditional assumptions and creatively uses the urban environment to make New York City a place of hope and expectation. Previous medalists have included, Omar Freilla of Greenworker Cooperatives, Alexis Torres-Fleming, founder of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, Peggy Shepard of West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. (WE ACT), and Barry Benepe of the Greenmarket program. For more information about the Jane Jacobs Medal, visit www.mas.org/jane-jacobs-medal.

The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design was the setting for the 2009 MASterwork Awards ceremony. The outstanding renovation/adaptive reuse of the Center was an exciting backdrop for honoring this year’s winners. Bob Kerry, President of the New School gave some welcoming remarks which were followed by the ceremony.  The video above captures the essence of each winner.

Each year, the Municipal Art Society honors the year’s top building projects for their excellence in architecture and urban design, and their contribution to New York’s built environment. For more information, visit www.mas.org/masterworks.

The glow of outdoor lighting that has followed urban growth has overwhelmed our view of the stars.  This light pollution does not provide any useful light, wastes significant amounts of energy, harms surrounding ecosystems and contributes to carbon dioxide emissions.

The problems of this light pollution can be mitigated by using outdoor lighting that is efficient and designed to illuminate the ground and not the night sky.  It is probably impossible to create a fully dark sky here in NYC, but we can help the situation by simply installing lighting only when and where needed and by always directing it down towards the ground. Billboards can be lit from the top down rather than by shining a light on them from the bottom up.  Parking lots and ball parks can use fully shielded fixtures that shine the light on the playing field rather then the sky above. Continue Reading>>

The deadline for nominations to our 2009 MASterwork Awards has just been extended from this Friday, January 30, to noon on Friday, February 13. So, if you have been responsible for, or know of a project completed within the 2008 calendar year that you wish to nominate, please contact Genevieve Sherman on 212-935-3960 or gsherman@mas.org.

Each year, the Municipal Art Society honors the year’s top building projects for their excellence in architecture and urban design, and their contribution to New York’s built environment. You can download nomination forms here.

The photo above is of Frank Gehry’s brilliant IAC Building which won a 2008 MASterwork Award for Best Building. Continue Reading>>

The New York City Council will hold a public hearing next Monday, January 26, at 1:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall on Intro. 623 which proposes to allow advertising on sidewalk construction sheds for a yet to be determined permit fee. The Municipal Art Society will testify against this ill-conceived plan. [Read MAS press release here.] Download our testimony, here.

Outdoor advertising and sidewalk construction sheds blight our city’s streetscape. The City wisely seeks to regulate outdoor advertising with strict zoning regulations and imposes design guidelines for sidewalk construction sheds, but the City Council now wants to combine these two eyesores with a permit that would allow outdoor advertising companies to advertise on sidewalk sheds in manufacturing and commercial zoning districts. Read coverage of this issue in Metro NY, January 27, 2009. Continue Reading>>

New York City has one of the highest volumes of pedestrians in the world, and despite generous-width sidewalks in some parts of the city, sidewalks become crowded and the quality of the pedestrian experience is hurt.

New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT), under its new Commissioner, Jeanette Sadik-Khan, has launched an ambitious plan to remake New York City’s public realm. DOT’s new, multi-facted streets initiative will consist of the following elements: public plaza programs; Broadway boulevard projects; complete street projects and design standards; safe streets for seniors and student; public art programs; coordinated street furniture; and weekend pedestrian and cycling streets. All the these areas are of interest to MAS, but we are primarily concerned about pedestrian/sidewalk issues.  Continue Reading>>

Now that 2008 is drawing to a close we are again seeking nominations for our 2009 MASterwork Awards.  Each year, the Municipal Art Society honors the year’s top building projects for their excellence in architecture and urban design, and their contribution to New York’s built environment. This year’s Awards Committee will be considering New York City projects that are completed within the 2008 calendar year.

If you have been responsible for, or know of a recently completed project that you wish to nominate, please download and fill out a nomination form. Nominations are due by January 31, 2009. Continue Reading>>

Both Moscow and Los Angeles are tackling serious billboard problems. In Los Angeles bright LED screens shine across neighborhoods, intruding into homes and distracting drivers. In Moscow, the historic areas around the Kremlin are marred by endless billboards. Both these cities are taking aggressive action to remove and slow the encroachment of these ads. One unique approach in Moscow is the city’s strategy of phasing in the restrictions and compensating the ad-industry for losses on unexpired contracts with their billboard clients. Ad companies will be compensated for each surface that is removed.

Here in New York City, when the Buildings Department finally issued rules for city for billboards in 2006 to a new law regulating outdoor advertising passed in 2001, the city was promptly sued by an outdoor advertising company and the city has failed to enforce regulations while the lawsuit is pending. Once the lawsuit has been resolved, we hope the city will start using the effective regulations that are in place to curb an industry that is rapidly overrunning our city.