Speaking about town planning, the Cooper Union building by Thom Mayne,
which was set at the upper end of Bowery Street, Manhattan, NY, now gives the
idea to new forward-looking structures which appear among old-style traditional
environment. By the way, the perspective of the street in down-town ends by
Frank Gehry skyscraper. More likely it not happen especially, it happen step by
step. But wooden personality of NY, of course, was shocked by approach of Thom
Mayne.
Tightly stay in small block, the building has two points of view which
are very important. This one is most impressive because of its form.
But the architectural manifesto, to my mind, is another one, at the right
side. We’ll see it further.
This corner with bended canopy above main entrance gives the idea of entire façade solution, made like “second skin” – self-living surface made of perforated cladding. Including composition of different things, caverns, shutters in chaotic order (sending us to traditional Manhattan windows with shutters) and few amount of white plagues which knock monotony of perforation.
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The play with type. When you stay in front of building you can feel depth of facade. For instance looking to
This corner with bended canopy above main entrance gives the idea of entire façade solution, made like “second skin” – self-living surface made of perforated cladding. Including composition of different things, caverns, shutters in chaotic order (sending us to traditional Manhattan windows with shutters) and few amount of white plagues which knock monotony of perforation.
The play with type. When you stay in front of building you can feel depth of facade. For instance looking to
words. On pedestrian level the building has separate composition. Literally separate composition, because it is not going up. About dozen beautifully inclined columns, complicated intersections of materials, they are existing only on the pedestrian level.
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Two inclined columns and horizontal beam.
Two inclined columns and horizontal beam.
Here is the intersection of two beams. Play of concrete parts, glass, vertical and horizontal cladding, “Beautiful” joints it is too contraption. Of course, everything was done with great mastership, but they are just a few details, not a system. They look like been made during construction design supervision.
This is bottom parts of inclined columns intersected with pavement. Pavements on Manhattan, mostly, made of concrete. There are no tiles or paving stone blocks.
This inclined concrete fragment of such a complicated composition has some details to stop skaters and rollers. The channel at the left side of the frame is water collector.
The glass wall from previous picture ends at the top like this. It is also fashionable, complicated, virtuoso. But this is about nothing. It is not connected to main idea of the building.
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How it looks together. It is separate part of ground floor, stays in row with two columns described above.
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This is the view of facade when you look up from the middle of pavement in front building. It has depth, complexity and made with great mastership. But once again, it is separated from ground floor design. More majestic, more clean and significant, but has different design idea.
Now we are approaching to second corner of the building, which is the manifesto. The first look is from inside. It is clear now why we consider this part like a manifesto. The idea of the building is separate skin, overhanging around very simple and regular structure with offices inside. And this corner has few of these claddings. It does not make any practical sense, it is only about idea. On this picture we see three of them: at the left side glass walls of office core, second in the middle another suspended glass wall, and last one at the right side is perforated metal cladding installed very far from the first one
The same corner from outside. We can see even four claddings.
Joints of cladding from inside. Nothing special, regular façade system. Square section tube, oval openings for adjustment.
Just plaques, bolts, screw-nuts. The new solution is those plastic bandages for fixing wires. But even Chinese lunar vehicle has the same, taken from regular construction warehouse.
Same corner after you turn to side street. It was interesting does the idea from main façade connected to the side façade and developed further?
The beginning of back façade is dramatic – joke) Why did he (architect) need this fragment decorated as raw concrete timbering? By the way, in NY it is always dirty and never looks aesthetic. But the perforated cladding is very close here and it is possible to see how those white plaques were made.
White plaques are close. Possible to see detailed.
One more view to façade system from behind. White plaques, from inside, are not transparent. Probably they are not connected to positions of windows.
Detail of the back façade. The cladding has only one layer. Somewhere we see a few elements of facade system from underneath of glass.
Just found only one symmetric detail in design of this building – two columns, same sections, same angle. It’s a wrap!
The entire view of back façade. One layer of cladding also could look impressive.
One more view from underneath of the baldachin.
Cantilevers made of square section tubes. Good to see that there no seismic in the calculations. In the other way those sections could be much bigger.
Here is service platform above main entrance. It is very inquisitive that this baldachin does not connected to cladding, installed far from cladding and does not give enough security to the place in front of main entrance. Of course, a few drops of rain will be stopped by this perforated cladding. Next few drops will be stopped by grill of this service platform. But generally, like every genius and made for manifesto, this building, speaking about façade, neglects to some practice things. For instance, where does water go from entire surface of this perforated cladding, which hanged in the middle of depth of pavement? There is canopy along main façade, but no channel and no tube downward. May be this project is a great lesson that you should just build beautiful structures and sacrifice for the idea. Moreover, if this is such a strong idea by Tome Mayne.
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