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National Design Awards and the New York Waterfront

South Street Seaport
Credit: SHoP Architects

I have been looking at this image from SHoP’s submission for quite some time without really understanding what the firm is proposing. Somehow, I managed to largely miss the announcement of the plan of General Growth Properties (GGP) to completely transform the area known as the South Street Seaport – an increasingly residential area characterized largely by a large mall on Pier 17 that is almost always empty. SHoP’s proposal for the area includes a reconceptualization of Pier 17 as an open public space with smaller retail and hospitality around it. The Tin Building would be renovated and moved onto Pier 17, allowing Beekman Street to flow directly onto the pier rather than hitting a dead end at South Street and, additionally, letting the East River Esplanade to continue without interruption. The glowing tower at the center of the rendering above is SHoP’s proposed new tower, a 495-foot mixed use building that consists of three stacked volumes held together with a net-like exoskeleton. SHoP’s proposal has been met with some controversy, even though it does embrace some of the sensitive treatment of the waterfront seen in their highly praised proposal for the East River. It will come as no surprise to anyone who actually lives in New York City that the archipelago has a fairly contentious relationship to its waterfront. Thanks to the infrastructural ambitions of the 1930s, most neighborhoods that should have access to the waterfront can barely even see it. SHoP’s proposal here accepts the fact of the hard edges of the waterfront while finding discreet ways to bring people to the water – visually, literally, psychologically – across the length of the FDR.

Lincoln Center
Credit: Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects

In the meantime, despite the deafening silence of building cranes throughout the city, there are some exciting developments courtesy of previous National Design Award winners that are worth keeping an eye on. Michael van Valkenburgh’s Brooklyn Bridge Park has finally broken ground. Hopefully, portions of Pier 6 will be open later this year but, while you are waiting, here is an interesting walkthrough with the designer. Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s transformation of the Highline is underway and their highly acclaimed recently completed renovation of Alice Tully Hall will be joined later this fall by a new visitor’s center – replacing the old Harmony Atrium and its climbing wall – designed by Tod Wiliams and Billie Tsien. Morphosis’ dizzying new building for Cooper Union will also be completed this fall, all in time for the launch of our exhibition celebrating the past decade of the National Design Awards, Design USA: Contemporary Innovation.

National Design Awards + Objectified

Gary Hustwit’s latest film, Objectified is playing at the IFC downtown for a limited run. Hustwit himself is seemingly traveling along with the film to nearly fifty venues between now and mid-summer, so both he and the film are likely coming to a venue near you if you happen not to be in New York. The poster, seen here, and the very large milled piece of Corian that appears in the opening sequence of the film were designed by Michael C. Place. Like Helvetica, it’s an engaging and imminently personal account but rather than focusing on a single font, Hustwit’s latest film scans the current climate of industrial design. It also serves as a mini-reunion for many of the honorees of the National Design Awards. Included are this year’s finalists, Smart Design, as well as this year’s Lifetime Achievement winner Bill Moggridge, and Andrew Blauvelt, the Design Director and Curator at the Walker Art Center. Previous honorees with similar star turns include Karim Rashid, Paola Antonelli, David Kelley, Jonathan Ive, and former jurors Chris Bangle and Tim Brown. (We also suspect that the Director of Photography, Luke Geissbuhler, is related to Steff Geissbuhler, partner at C&G Partners, Communication Design finalists in 2007.)

National Design Awards and the 2008 Presidential Election

Perceptive Pixel’s Magic Wall played a central role in CNN’s rather exuberant coverage of President Barack Obama’s press conference last week on the occasion of his 100th day in office. The press conference was streamed on the White House’s YouTube channel, marking the first time the White House had ever livestreamed a news event. It is needless to reiterate the extent to which new technology and social media transformed the 2008 Presidential Election, but two of our National Design Award winners played a big part in how this unprecedented event was understood. Perhaps even more than its excellent print coverage of the 2008 election season, the New York Times Graphics Department provided innovative interactive maps online to digest the often overwhelming amount of information about the constantly shifting political map of the United States.

NYT interactive map
Credit: New York Times Graphics Staff

The Electoral Explorer in particular broke down pertinent information in relevant demographic chunks with an elegant interactive slidebar that made the political landscape immediately legible. And, of course, who can forget the seemingly ubiquitous presence of Perceptive Pixel’s multitouch interface on network television from the primaries through election night.

John King and Wolf Blitzer
Photo: Perceptive Pixel

Quite a leap from Tim Russert’s dry-erase board on election night 2000. Let us not forget John King’s brilliant turn on the Daily Show, either.

National Design Awards: Finalists

The winner and two finalists of the Corporate Achievement category are, together, quite different from the winners of the past. As a whole, they represent what is possible at a smaller scale. The Walker does its amazing work in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Heath Ceramics has been handcrafting tiles and tableware in the same way for over fifty years in Sausalito, California. Dwell magazine tells stories about smaller spaces and the people who design and inhabit them.

In the architecture category, the two finalists represent two very different types of practices. ARO (Architecture Research Office) produces beautiful buildings that are somehow able to communicate the intelligence of their practice. A research-driven practice whose two principals both came from Steven Holl’s office, Adam Yarinski and Stephen Cassell are also great critics who have taught at numerous schools of architecture, a fact that is not unimportant when considering their influence. My favorite project of theirs is still their Times Square Recruiting Station, a project that takes on the vernacular of its site and the gravity of its client with one simple move. Michael Maltzan’s practice is probably best known on this coast for MoMA QNS, with its brilliant treatment of the mechanical boxes on the rooftop, spelling out the name of the building but meant to be seen from a 7 train in motion. The work of Michael Maltzan Architecture – whether because of their Los Angeles location or the large-scale nature of their commissions – is more explicitly dedicated to the reconceptualization of open space and the relationship between architecture and its public.

The Communication Design finalists include – for the first time in NDA history – a firm that is dedicated to the design of typography. Hoefler & Frere-Jones have been making some of the most recognizable fonts in recent memory, including Gotham, used by Senator Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. Typography literally changes the way that we understand the world. If you have any doubts, you should watch this movie. Project Projects is a relatively young practice with the same exact office address as another one of our other NDA finalists. From their office on Ludlow Street, Prem Krishnamurthy, Adam Michaels, and their team design just about everything with a large roster of cultural clients. There seems to be a rash of new websites because they, too, have redone theirs since I last visited. Be sure to spend some time there – in addition to the work that they do for institutions like MoMA and the CCA, the site includes some of their very interesting independent projects.

I was lucky enough to get a seat at Rodarte’s Fall 2009 RTW show a few months ago and was totally blown away. Their work is absolutely stunning. The sartorially consistent Thom Browne is given credit for saving the suit with his intelligent reflections on business attire. It is not a look for the meek of heart, but a recent collaboration with Brooks Brothers has at least made it more possible to join Thom in baring your ankles this spring (or any season, really). In the Interaction Design category, Lisa Strausfeld is a partner at Pentagram. A pioneer in the field of interaction design, Strausfeld’s recent work includes the incredible new website for Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Potion believes that every surface is a potential display. At the Clo Wine Bar in the Time Warner Center, patrons sit at an interactive table where they can research their pours, an innovative interactive experience for wine novices, future sommeliers, and everyone in between.

The Interior Design category has lately been populated by architects. I don’t know what this says about the traditional field of interior design, nor what it says about architecture firms who end up in this category, but this year’s group of honorees does work that could rightly be honored in either. While it has seemed in the past that the Interior Design category has tended to award younger architecture practices that, by default, did not yet have an extensive portfolio of freestanding buildings, the same cannot be said for the honorees this year. Ali Tayar has done equal amounts of work in architecture, furniture design, and product design. An inveterate multi-tasker, the breadth of his work demonstrates his ability to work with any type of client and within the parameters of any type of budget – a degree of flexibility that is increasingly an asset in the design world today. WORKac is a practice that is known for the humor, wit, and intelligence that they bring to design (full disclosure: they are old friends). Their Public Farm 1, installed last year as part of P.S.1’s Warm Up series, was made entirely of recyclable materials and powered by solar energy. In addition to being a great spot for a summer party, the farm produced over 50 varieties of fruit, vegetables, and herbs and also had a chicken coop. (I have wondered what happened to those chickens, though…)

Lastly, in Product Design, the honorees represent the full spectrum of the discipline (a debate between them would be very interesting). I think it is fair to say that this was a very contentious category, perhaps revealed by the broad differences between the honorees. Smart Design makes difficult products simpler and is unafraid of tackling the redesign of products in industries that are typically resistant to radical reinvention. Their work in the medical industry is an excellent example of Smart’s willingness to use design to create broad change. Ross Menuez of Salvor Projects has one of the more interesting biographies that I have read in quite some time. He even designed an airplane while still in high school. I admittedly didn’t know his work very well before this year’s awards cycle, but I now find myself coveting just about everything he has ever done.

Next time – a shorter post.

“Green” Publishing


On May 14, 2009, Cooper-Hewitt opens Design for a Living World, an exhibition developed by The Nature Conservancy, one of the world’s leading conservation organizations.

As part of our partnership with TNC, Cooper-Hewitt met the challenge of publishing a companion book that would emphasize the exhibition’s principal themes: sustainable design and materials, and responsible conservation of our environment. After researching more than a dozen printers, we chose Engelhardt und Bauer, a printer in Karlsruhe, near Baden-Baden, Germany, to help us accomplish our goal.

E&B’s printing processes are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, which ensures that E&B’s practices contribute to conservation, responsible management, and community-level benefits for people who live near the forests that provide their paper. For this book, we chose soy-based, rather than oil-based, inks, with no real loss of color quality in any of the 326 images, many of which are lush landscape photos by award-winning photographer Ami Vitale. E&B’s printing plant is powered entirely by solar and wind energy. And to make our project “carbon-neutral,” we purchased carbon credits equivalent to a total of 16.6 tons of CO2 emissions. Finally, E&B helped the Museum research and source an eco-friendly, 100% recyclable shrinkwrapping for our books.

Design for a Living World
Edited by Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller
Designed by Abbott Miller and Kristen Spilman, Pentagram
Text and images © The Nature Conservancy, all rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-910503-88-4, 200 pages, 326 illustrations, $40.00

Download a sample PDF of the book (14 MBs).
Available May 14 at The Shop at Cooper-Hewitt.

Check out nature.org/design for more information about the exhibition.