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WORK
WORK
MARIBETH RENTSCHLER
ARCHITECT: FVHD ARCHITECTS + PLANNERS
COMPLETED: JULY 2015
ROLE: INTERN ARCHITECT, Assisted with Schematic Design through Design Development, creating
models and renderings for community meetings
The addition of 37,000 SF to the existing elementary school building provides better vehicular access, separate from the school entrance, administration and registration. A combination of community use and academic spaces were designed to integrate numerous state-of-the-art design, technology, security and mechanical system features. The project was designed and built to meet LEED Silver sustainability standards.
MONARCH WATCH MULTI-FAMILY
ARCHITECT l NCARB CERTIFIED
TRANSILIENT
THESIS
Located on the Upper West Side in New York City the project seeks to solve a myriad of issues related to both infrastructure and abandoned architecture. The bustling corner site has been activated with a mixed use tower that mimics the migratory patterns of the New Yorker. It connects to the abandoned Substation 14, on West 96th Street, which was one of the original eight substations that powered the New York City subway system when it began operations in 1904. The project takes the old technologies of design and re-presents the switch in technology and the way our society lives in the 21st Century.
The site encompasses three different zoning configurations within its boundaries, and borders the edge of the historic district on the upper west side. Currently, it is occupied by low-density, non-historic buildings; it mimics the environment of walking along an expressway at this stretch of Broadway because the sidewalks are narrow, leaving more space on the center island where the subway head-house is located. Since the subway’s relocation to the middle of Broadway, there have been an increase in pedestrian-vehicle altercations which have included several deaths.
In planning the site to maximize its zoned density and give more sidewalk room back to the pedestrians, air rights from the different zones within the site boundary were transferred, and concentrated in a small tower footprint which exceeds the current allowed height limit. In strategically doing so, the neighborhood gains from it. On the ground level, there is a secondary entrance to the 96th street subway, an open air plaza with ramping that addresses the steep grade change, a separate and main entrance to the tower, and one to the off-Broadway theater located in the preserved and adapted substation 14.
1/4 MILE + 1 MILE RADIUS SITE ANALYSIS
The building does not meet the site boundary edge. Rather it peels back at an angle that gives back some of the original sidewalk up to the corner. By adapting the zoning and strategically transferring the air rights to one single tower, it leaves the neighborhood at this corner with more sky exposure and preserves most neighboring building’s light and views.
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