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“To see the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine finally open is emblematic of Lower Manhattan’s storied future and defining past,” says Santiago Calatrava, the architect who designed the structure. “I hope to see this structure serve its purpose as a sanctuary for worship but also as a place for reflection on what the city endured and how it is moving forward.”

Calatrava and his eponymous firm also designed and rebuilt the WTC’s “Oculus” transportation hub, which opened in 2016. The station’s arched wings “symbolize a dove released from a child’s hand,” or a phoenix rising from the ashes.

The Saint Nicholas church design is similarly intended to evoke the ideas of strength, resilience, and light, according to Calatrava. “Architecture can have an intrinsic symbolic value, which is not written or expressed in a specific way but in an abstract and synthetic manner, sending a message and thus leaving a lasting legacy,” he notes.

Taking architectural cues from another well-known Greek house of God, the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the new church features four stone towers that support and surround a large inner dome. Calatrava also chose to sheath the towers in Pentelic marble, the same material that makes up the Parthenon in Athens.

The ridged dome is constructed from thin stone and laminated glass panels. Thanks to the lighting inside the church and behind the stone, “the entire church appear[s] to glow from within, invoking the feeling of being a beacon of hope amid the night.”

The interior includes more Byzantine-influenced design, with 40 windows and structural ribs and a glass painting of Christ in the center of the dome’s ceiling. In between the ribs is iconography of 20 prophets in traditional Byzantine colors.

In addition to the worship spaces, the church also has two “community” rooms on the second and third floors, areas that are open to the public for meetings and other activities. Calatrava feels “these spaces are a significant component of the building’s program as they accentuate the church’s open and welcoming relationship with the greater World Trade Center Memorial site, as well as the community of Lower Manhattan.”

The church leaders are grateful to have their physical structure restored, but they’re even more excited for what its return symbolizes. “This Shrine will be a place for everyone who comes to the Sacred Ground at the World Trade Center, a place for them to imagine and envision a world where mercy is inevitable, reconciliation is desirable, and forgiveness is possible,” said His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America in a statement. “The National Shrine…will stand as witness not only to the vitality of Holy Orthodoxy, but for America’s commitment to religious freedom. The Shrine will be a defiant symbol of opposition to the forces or intolerance around the globe.”

The post 20 Years After 9/11, the World Trade Center’s Only Church is Reborn first appeared on Dornob.

Enter Taylor Swift’s former New York residence, a charming carriage house in Greenwich Village which the songstress rented as recently as 2016. Situated in one of NYC’s most iconic neighborhoods, the five-story former pop palace is perhaps most famous as the subject of her song “Cornelia Street,” in which she refers to the early days of her relationship with the actor Joe Alwyn. The townhouse is situated on the quaint (you guessed it) Cornelia Street near Washington Square Park. At the time of Swift’s living there, it was owned by former Soho House executive David Aldea, who according to Vulture didn’t even know who Swift was when she asked to rent the property while renovations were being made to her own Tribeca apartment.

Upon first glance, 23 Cornelia Street is easily overlooked from the street. With an unassuming brick facade and wooden doors, the property doesn’t exactly scream “glamour.” Swift herself supposedly chose the townhouse because of its private garage, through which she could enter and exit in relative peace (though devoted Swifties naturally discovered where she was staying at the time).

Built in 1899, the historic home is a sprawling 5,500-square-foot dream of luxe grandiosity and glam touches that are very fitting for a star of Swift’s caliber. The basement alone is an airy, seemingly sky-high ceilinged lounge complete with a queenly glass chandelier, a private garden, indoor pool, and gym area. But it’s the townhouse’s living room which undoubtedly holds the most appeal for fans, as it’s featured in a video Swift posted of herself at the time writing the song “King of my Heart.”

During her tenure at 23 Cornelia Street, Swift reportedly used up the entire home, which boasts a total of four bedrooms and six bathrooms. It’s hard not to picture her using the sumptuous primary bedroom, complete with a small terrace and free-standing bath, or spending time on the rooftop terrace with her beau (as she sings in “King”: “With all these nights we’re spending/Up on the roof…”).

The home most recently sold in 2019 for a whopping $11.5 million. Today it’s unoccupied by residents, but instead serves as a “corporate house” for the Italian furniture company Zanotta. Any fans dying to get a glimpse into the pop star’s former abode can still book a tour hosted by the New York Junior League (NYJL). The female-led organization recently hosted a Fall House Tour and is planning another one in Spring of 2023, so make sure to mark your calendar if you’re a Swiftie!

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The property’s history as a former fish market and proximity to the Peconic Bay inspired the “boatel” concept. Juul-Hansen wanted the hotel to be deeply rooted in its waterfront setting, offering just as many boat slips as guest suites (20 of each). Its exterior is clad in cedar shingles (much like the vernacular architecture of the North Fork area) and is surrounded by decks offering views of the bay and marina. Guests can borrow pale blue beach cruisers for a pleasant ten-minute ride down to Southold, the nearest village, or book trips on The Shoals’ 28-foot vintage Chris Craft charter boat.

Picnic tables dot the grassy front lawn, and lounge chairs line the edge of the property along the water. A fire pit with a ring of deck chairs sparks to life after dark, and the hotel even has its very own food truck offering lobster rolls and soft serve. The outdoor lounge slings cocktails beside a grand piano with incredible water views. Swim in the bay, take a cruise on a boat, or spend the day fishing and then rinse off at the outdoor shower before heading inside, where yet another grand piano and leather sofas invite you to sink down and chat with fellow guests.

Juul-Hansen has distilled the area’s nautical heritage into a distinct flavor that’s all The Shoals’ own, rendered in soft shades of blue and sandy beige. Textural jute, rattan, linen, and wood lathe set off the smoothness of leather and polished stone, which particularly shines in the lobby’s sculptural front desk. Crisp white bedding, wood floors, and expressive framed art make the bedrooms feel serene. Some rooms have balconies or decks facing the water. The suites feature kitchenettes almost as spacious and comfortable as your own at home, with pale backsplash tiles glimmering like the insides of oyster shells.

Speaking of oysters, one of the coolest aspects of The Shoals is its commitment to bringing back the working waterfront that once thrived at this location. The owners have partnered with Little Ram Oyster Company, a local woman-owned business, to turn its former Scallop Shack into a fully operational oyster business. They plan to host private shucking workshops, host off-site oyster farm tours, and sell kits of unshucked oysters along with supplies to open them. On Wednesdays, their food truck will turn into the Shuck Shack, offering an oyster happy hour.

“The owners of Little Ram Oyster Company, Elizabeth Peeples and Stefanie Bassett, are stewards in the oyster development and advancement in Southold, and we thought they’d be great partners,” co-owner Jonathan Tibet told Travel + Leisure. “They are excited to serve the most craveable oyster experience on the North Fork while also sharing their knowledge with our guests through on-site educational opportunities.”

The post This “Boatel” on Long Island’s North Fork Has Its Own Oyster Food Truck first appeared on Dornob.

There’s nothing conventional about this second-floor addition to a compact house in the Babylon area of Long Island, New York. Not only does it flout the very modest conventional styling of the existing home, it looks like an entirely different home was just plopped right on top of it. That effect is intentional. The architects didn’t want the home to simply blend in, but rather offer a contrast of past and present, both visually and programmatically. While the original home is clad in light gray vinyl siding, the addition features thick stucco exterior walls. The two volumes are merged together by a splash of pale pink tiling flowing across the facade.

The client didn’t care much about resale value, opening up the potential for the architects to experiment. Instead, he asked them to update the original layout of the existing home and draw down some of the new features to create visual transitions, like a bold sculptural yellow staircase. The circular form of the staircase is echoed by the curves of the addition, including its street-facing facade.

“This prompt set the stage for a design process rooted in extensive research into the cultural history and architectural taxonomy of the surrounding suburban neighborhoods,” the architects explain. “In particular, co-principals Orsini and Roseboro were interested in the home’s proximity to Levittown, NY, a suburban development archetypal of the relationship between race, inequality, and housing in America, in which segregation was embedded in its formation through exclusionary contracts and redlining.”

The firm adds: “In Levittown, African Americans and indigenous communities could not access sales contracts by specific prescription of the Levitt & Sons Company; this was true of similar developments across suburban America and their surrounding neighborhoods. Further inherent in the typology were architectural features and layouts that fostered the isolation and introversion of the nuclear family, rather than the community.”

The original home’s design was identified as mimicking that of the standardized homes made popular by Levittown, which emphasized conformity and a lack of flexibility. The architects identified architectural elements like windows, porches, and roofs that are often found on these suburban homes and “hacked” them to simultaneously reference the neighborhood’s architectural history and defy it.

While most suburban homes are concerned with privacy, the client wanted to challenge those norms, creating big open cut-outs and and terraces that don’t attempt to hide from the prying eyes of strangers. He also requested that the architects eliminate the typical suburban separation of bedroom and bathroom in the upstairs suite.

“House on House” may not be for everyone, but that’s the point. The project questions whether seeing more expressions of personal tastes and preferences in the architecture around us could inspire more people to appreciate the little differences that make us who we are.

The post House on House: An Experimental Way to Expand a Suburban Residence first appeared on Dornob.

The mixed-media art installation explores how COVID-19 has impacted children and young adults around the world, expressed through commissioned pieces by composers, songwriters, and poets and recorded by the Young People’s Chorus.

A wide array of art forms come together in this project: video, sculpture, music, film, poetry, and spoken word. 500 singers with the Young People’s Chorus join the 15 composers and songwriters, seven poets, three choreographers, and two filmmakers to bring the stories to life. The exhibition aims to provide a powerful and intimate portrayal of the emotional strength, resilience, and joy these young choristers have faced since the pandemic first began in the spring of 2020.

“It was important to us to help our youth process their emotions — from confusion to fear to hope — through art while allowing listeners and viewers a glimpse into their hearts and minds during this time,” says curator Francisco J. Núñez, artistic director and founder of Young People’s Chorus.

Just like the rest of us, the members of the youth chorus have gone through a whirlwind of emotions throughout the pandemic. Pieces in the exhibit include songs like “Cabin Fever,” expressing what it felt like to suddenly be alone at home with stressed family members and no access to friends and old routines. “My Rainbow in the Window” is about finding small joys even during quarantine. “Power to the People” says “Just because we’re stuck at home doesn’t mean we’re stuck in our minds; just because we can’t hold each other doesn’t mean we stop the smiles. Fifty states protesting together, look at that a strong celebration. They won’t die in vain, we’re gonna fight, it’s time to save our nation.”

Participating artists include composers Samuel Adler, Derek Bermel, Thomas Cabaniss, Paquito D’Rivera, Aneesa Folds, Gordon Getty, Michael Gordon, Michael Harrison, Ted Hearne, Yuka C. Honda, David Lang, Elizabeth Núñez, Francisco J. Núñez, Jim Papoulis, and Paola Prestini. The exhibit is free and open to the public daily at the CIA at Copia, 500 1st St, Napa, California.

“We are thrilled that the public response to our AloneTogether installation at The CIA at Copia has been so positive that we have been asked to extend the exhibit through September,” says Núñez. “AloneTogether is a dynamic multimedia project that will give viewers a powerful and intimate portrayal of the range of emotions YPC choristers faced during the early days of the pandemic, from fear and loneliness to hope and joy. Art has given our youth a powerful vehicle through which they can process these complicated emotions and share them with the world. This is the power and beauty of art and what we do at YPC.”

The post The Young People’s Chorus of New York City Gives Voice to All Our Complicated COVID Emotions first appeared on Dornob.

Titled “Figures of Speech,” the exhibition is a reimagined iteration of Abloh’s first show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, featuring over 100 works by the late artist as curated by writer/critic Antwaun Sargent. Originally planned before the pandemic and Abloh’s death in 2021, the show is a carefully concocted mishmash of Abloh’s genius. Works of both fashion and design converge on an elevated, scene-stealing runway. An array of colorful sneakers marches across a table. Architectural sketches and fashion prototypes share space with a model of Chicago (Abloh’s hometown), including a proposed skyscraper he submitted for his master’s thesis in 2003.

While all this all might seem incongruous, the placing of Abloh’s extraordinary works is deliberate, and meant to express the artist’s work as a means to “[break] down hierarchies, especially within the creative world,” according to Sargent.

Sargent also explains that Abloh’s original goal for the exhibition was to re-conceptualize the show’s previous iterations from a more New York point of view, as the city “had special meaning for [Abloh], in the sense that it really was the place that he…became the artist that we have come to know.” One of the most significant ways the current Brooklyn exhibition has departed from its predecessors is its emphasis on Abloh’s many forays into architecture, including early sketches he completed while training to be an architect at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Appropriately enough, the show’s main attraction does reflect Abloh’s architectural bent, in the form of a full-sized house dubbed “Social Sculpture.” Built into the museum itself in order to fully integrate it with its surroundings (including the addition of new walls and existing columns), the display is eye-popping and dramatic, to say the least. According to Sargent, it showcases Abloh’s “spatial thinking as [both] an artist and designer.”

But like many of Abloh’s impressive art and design feats, Social Sculpture is so much more than just that. It’s a social commentary, “a representation of Black space, a living monument that holds the potential, through the exchange of ideas, to inspire the creation of more Black space,” as the Brooklyn Museum said in a statement.

This re-examination of Black space is exactly what makes the new exhibition so distinctive. The layout is dynamic and fluid, building relationships between disciplines as it simultaneously works to break down the barriers between them. And because Abloh himself had a hand in envisioning and conceptualizing the exhibition, as Sargent says, “‘[Figures of Speech]’ should be considered [Abloh’s] last living work…not at all a memorial…[but] a show by a living artist.”

“Figures of Speech” will be on display at the Brooklyn Museum through January 29th, 2023.

The post Brooklyn Museum’s Virgil Abloh Exhibition is as Bold and Visionary as the Artist Himself first appeared on Dornob.

The original Subterranean Tropicália Projects would have been a massive multi-level structure with an almost maze-like interior where visitors “discover” works of art by Oiticica and other artists and have interactions with each other. Unfortunately, garnering financial support and permits from the city for such a large installation proved out of reach. PN15 reworks the project as a 40-foot-diameter circular structure of curving corridors offering visitors a multi-sensory experience full of plants and projected images. Throughout its run, the installation will also be a stage for interactive performances and workshops by Brazilian and queer artists.

The installation marks the first time an outdoor work by Oiticica will be displayed in the United States. The project is able to move forward thanks to the Americas Society, which acts as a connector for Latin American artists in New York through grants and exhibitions. A cardboard maquette for the original design and sketches for the two modified versions (PN14 and PN15) went on display in Part I of the Americas Society’s “This Must Be the Place: Latin American Artists in New York, 1965-1975.” Part I closed in December, and Part II ran through May 21st.

“This is an artwork that is as radical now as it was in the 70s,” Aimé Iglesias Lukin, Director and Chief Curator of Visual Arts at the Americas Society, told ARTnews. “This is an artwork that is free, has public access, and is inviting them to participate and is engaging with them. We don’t have enough of that.”

According to Iglesias Lukin, the exhibition offers a “re-reading of 1960s and 70s American art through the lens of immigrants, in this case Latin American immigrants. We need to start questioning to which degree New York became the cosmopolitan center that it is without immigrants. How do you explain the neo avant-garde without all the artists who came from all over Europe, Latin America, and Asia?”

Oiticica first envisioned the work for display at Central Park, but as Iglesias Lukin notes, the Central Park of today is very different than it was in the 1970s. Installed within Socrates Sculpture Park, it will have more of the impact Oiticica imagined, seen and experienced mostly by everyday working class New Yorkers rather than tourists and wealthy Manhattanites. The park is a place where local residents hang out, play basketball, go on runs, and walk their dogs. Oiticica wanted Subterranean Tropicália Projects to foster “creleisure,” a term he coined for creative-leisure, offering a space for both planned and spontaneous performances.

The post After 51 Years, Hélio Oiticica’s Sculptural Vision Finally Comes to Life in NYC first appeared on Dornob.

But it’s not just the architecture and design spheres playing pivotal parts in sustainable urban integration projects. Many artists are also sharing their talents to create interactive environments that encourage a more harmonious relationship between nature and the urban sprawl. The new “Bird’s Eye View” installation in New York’s Battery Park aims to do just that.

Opened on Earth Day last month, the art installation isn’t just interactive — it uses augmented reality to show viewers all the bird species that live and travel through Manhattan’s waterways through the lens of their very own smartphones. Dubbed “Bird’s-Eye View,” the installation is the work of NYC artist Shuli Sadé, whose display consists of both photographs and original watercolors of local birds.

By scanning one of the 70 designated QR codes found on the signs along the water, visitors are virtually transported to a magical and often overlooked world in the sky. The immersive experience also includes snippets of bird songs, information about the birds’ habits and migratory patterns, and carefully curated lines of poetry that “draw parallels between the repetitive nature of bird sounds and syllables in poems.” Bird’s Eye View offers visitors a unique glimpse into the lives of 30 migratory bird species that frequent the skies above the Hudson River and can often be seen in flight above Battery Park City’s many gardens and parks.

While a focus on biodiversity and sustainability is nothing new to the 92-acre park, this dynamic installation means to further cement the Battery Park City Authority’s (BPCA) commitment to both “establishing Battery Park City as a biodiversity haven and bringing [the] community temporary art installations that transform [public spaces]…and encourage social cohesion,” according to B.J. Jones, president and CEO of the BPCA.

As Sadé recently explained, “One of the early goals of this artwork was to heighten our awareness of the environment in urban surroundings.” These images, sounds, and interactive displays do exactly that by connecting us to nature in a new way, blurring the lines that often exist between the virtual and the natural through art meant to educate, inspire, and promote biodiversity.

The post Fly with the Birds in Battery Park City’s New AR Installation first appeared on Dornob.

Located at 111 West 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan, the skinny spectacle is almost like a shiny finger pointing to the heart of the verdantly green Central Park. And its location on Billionaires’ Row is certainly appropriate — the reflective exterior fits right in with nearby statuesque structures like Central Park Tower. Home to some of the most expensive residences in the world, many of these buildings are also some of the tallest in the world, and SHoP Architects’ lanky newcomer is no exception, being the second tallest in the Western Hemisphere.

Also known as the Steinway Building, the extravagant edifice is itself a residential space that’s ready to welcome prospective tenants to a real-life “Jack in the Beanstalk” living experience. But despite its alarming height, the Steinway Tower won’t be blowing over any time soon. According to SHoP, it was built using the strongest concrete in the world.

The tower accommodates one residence per floor and includes such luxe amenities as an 82-foot swimming pool, a private dining room, and a double-height fitness center with its own terrace. Grandiose and glamorous, the interiors were designed by Studio Sofield and pair perfectly with the stunning park views visible through the building’s many north-facing windows.

A project almost 10 years in the making, the skyscraper’s construction stalled in 2017 due to budgetary problems, and it was unknown whether it would ever be completed. Fast forward to April 2022, and the adding of the final exterior touches finalized its completion. Today, the slender spire has truly earned its name as it takes its place among some of the most luxurious structures on the planet.

Also responsible for The Brooklyn Tower, SHoP Architects have really outdone themselves with the super skinny Steinway Building. Impressively tapered and immaculately mirrored, the tower majestically stretches its pencil-thin way to new heights in the NYC skyline.

The post 10 Years Later, the World’s Skinniest Skyscraper is Finally Complete first appeared on Dornob.

Designer and collector Lisa Perry takes up that mantle with her restoration of the iconic Scull House in the Hamptons. Originally designed by architect and urban planner Paul Lester Wiener, the Scull House was designed in the early 1960s for Pop Art collectors Ethel and Robert Scull. It’s a modernist’s dream dominated by sharp lines, stark aesthetics, and plenty of glass — a Wiener signature seen in many of his glass pavilions of the era (many of which were also built in the Hamptons).

Wiener himself had a strong connection to the Hamptons, summering there often before his death in 1967. It’s this history that inspired Perry to take the plunge after seeing the home on Instagram, along with with the fact that “it made me feel like I was home,” as she explained in a recent interview with New York Magazine.

The home was in need of serious restoration, but Perry was definitely up for the challenge. “The qualities of the design, the provenance, and [the house’s] history” made it a worthy endeavor for the creative designer, who ultimately decided to keep much of the original structure intact while still incorporating her own updates for a hybrid of past and present that honors the original while creating a livable space for the future.

This is especially true of the home’s former laundry area and storage room, which Perry has converted into a gallery and artist-in-residency space for women creatives. Dubbed Onna House, the space is yet another way to connect the house to its past as a midcentury haven for Hamptons artists and creatives. Though the Hamptons art scene was a boys-only club in the 1950s and 1960s, Perry’s space is devoted exclusively to celebrating the work of women — women whose voices would not have been heard in the Scull House and Hamptons of the past.

With her creative reimagining of the former Scull House in the Hamptons, designer and collector Lisa Perry has found a way to revitalize an important cultural space almost lost to the pages of history. By forging a connection to the past, she’s also found a way to build a better future by providing a space for women artists to flourish within a former modernist masterpiece that’s been given new life.

The post Lisa Perry Reimagines an Artistic Past With Hamptons Scull House Restoration first appeared on Dornob.

The 42-year-old architect will helm the $500 million, 80,000-square-foot addition to the museum’s Fifth Avenue building. Though her designs have not yet been revealed, Met director Max Hollein has praised her potential to “challenge the embedded hierarchies of our history and chart a more accessible trajectory for the new wing.”

The path of the addition has been rocky since its announcement in 2014, when sluggish fundraising delayed its progress. Chipperfield’s firm was initially selected to design the expansion in 2015, but when its plans pushed the cost up to $800 million, the project was reconsidered. The addition was originally supposed to be completed in time for the Met’s 150th anniversary in 2020.

COVID also resulted in a $150 million budgetary shortfall for the museum. Last December, trustees Oscar L. Tang and his wife Agnes Hsu-Tang gifted the museum $125 million, the largest donation in its history, allowing the project to move forward. The new wing will thus be named the Tang Wing.

Escobedo founded her studio in 2006 and previously gained attention for becoming the youngest architect to ever design the Serpentine Pavilion in London in 2018. Her focus on simplicity eschews luxurious and expensive materials, instead elevating ordinary materials like concrete blocks to craft sophisticated atmospheres. That gives her projects a sense of monumental minimalism full of pattern, repetition, and clean lines. The Met commission will be her largest and highest-profile project to date.

“[Escobedo] wields architecture as a way to create powerful spatial and communal experiences, and she has shown dexterity and sensitivity in her elegant use of material while bringing sincere attention to today’s socioeconomic and ecological issues,” Hollein said in the Met’s official statement. “The new wing will be a vibrant, exhilarating space that meets the Met’s current and future needs while promoting a lively representation and reevaluation of the art of the 20th and 21st centuries in the context of 5,000 years of art history.”

Hollein’s approach to the renovations is guided by a desire to create more inclusive exhibitions and find homes for works like a collection of Cubist paintings gifted by Leonard A. Lauder in 2013. The director has previously spoken about the art world’s failure to include non-Western contemporary artists in museums.

The Met is currently working to repatriate colonial objects like 45 artifacts from the Khmer Empire believed to have been stolen from Cambodia between 1970 and 2000 during a period of civil war and genocide, along with other objects obtained via colonization. Museums in the United States and Europe are also facing a reckoning around racism in the wider art world, and the ways it affects what we ultimately view on museum walls.

“The Tang Wing presents an opportunity to give new life to the museum’s art from the 20th and 21st century; to celebrate the dynamics we can find within art of different times, geographies, and ideologies; and to uncover new spaces for self-reflection and connection with others,” Escobedo said in a statement.

The post Frida Escobedo Tapped to Design the Met’s $500 Million Modern Wing first appeared on Dornob.

Here’s a little taste of what the next year has in store in the world of building design:

Merdeka 118

Conceived by the Australian design firm Fender Katsalidis, Kuala Lumpur’s Merdeka 118 will soon claim the title of the world’s second tallest tower. When completed, the 118-story edifice will reach 2,227 feet high, complete with a double height observation deck to provide stunning views of Malaysia’s capital city. The inside will house a mix of residential, retail, and hospitality offerings while the exterior is comprised of a geometric prism of windows, all set at angles that mimic traditional Malaysian craft patterns.

University of Illinois Campus Instructional Facility

This 122,000-square-foot educational building is blazing trails for colleges everywhere, mostly in that it’s designed to be completely carbon neutral. With a commitment to full campus net zero carbon operation by 2050, the University of Illinois has pulled out the stops with all-electric construction. Additionally, a ground source heat exchange system buried underground will meet roughly 65 percent of the structure’s energy demand.

Designed by global architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the interior features a multi-story staircase with surrounding stadium seating for informal gathering and collaboration. Additionally, there are classrooms of all sizes to accommodate classes of between 24 and 500 students, where subjects revolving around the future of education and its support technologies will be taught.

Abrahamic Family House

Located on Saadiyat Isalnd in Abu Dhabi, the Abrahamic Family House is the fruit of the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity’s work to increase tolerance and interfaith understanding. Shiek Ahmed el-Tayeb was one of the signers, alongside Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, of the February 2019 Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together. This inspired him to commission the project, a religious complex made up of worship centers for Christians, Jews, and Muslims with a shared garden space.

Designed by Adjaye Associates, each building is distinctive in its architectural features but stylistically similar enough to produce a unifying effect. Said principal architect Sir David Adjaye, “I want to create a building that starts to dissolve the notion of hierarchical difference – it should represent universality and totality – something higher that enhances the richness of human life.”

The Spiral

Perhaps the tallest building going up in Manhattan in 2022, the 1,031-foot-tall Spiral tower is the brainchild of Danish architectural group Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). Its most distinguishing feature is the corkscrew of open-air terraces twisting around the building from top to bottom. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced plans back in 2018 to move its world headquarters to the Spiral, while the other floors will be occupied by other global businesses, as well as restaurants and hospitality services.

Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture

In an effort to raise up a generation able to solve their own food scarcity problems, the Howard G. Buffet Foundation is installing a new academic and research campus for the surrounding inhabitants of Gashora, Rwanda. Designed and built by nonprofit MASS Design Group, the Rwanda Institute of Conservation Agriculture (RICA) is located in one of the country’s most drought affected areas, with minimal farmland and a population expected to double in the next 30 years.

The teaching facility will be energy-independent and carbon neutral, thanks largely to its solar farm (the largest in the nation), and 90 percent of the labor and materials will be sourced locally. The structure is arranged in two connected circles that will have space for education, storage, research, and housing for both students and employees.

The post A Sneak Peek at 2022’s Best Architecture Offerings first appeared on Dornob.

In 2013, Italian architect Dario del Bufalo, an expert on ancient stone and marble, was in New York to give a lecture and sign copies of his book Porphyry. Included in the book was a photo of a red and green mosaic that had once been part of the dance floor on one of emperor Caligula’s extravagant “party ships.”

“There was a lady with a young guy with a strange hat that came to the table,” Del Bufalo told CBS’ 60 Minutes. “And he told her, ‘What a beautiful book. Oh, Helen, look, that’s your mosaic.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, that’s my mosaic.’”

The architect chased down the young man, who led them to art dealer and gallery owner Helen Fioratti, who did in fact own the ancient tile work and had mounted it to a pedestal as a coffee table decades earlier. The artwork was subsequently confiscated by New York authorities and returned to the Italian government.

Emperor Caligula, one of the most despised Roman rulers, was known for his violence and over-the-top opulence. Among other things, he commissioned two giant pleasure barges (one was as long as an Airbus A380 plane) to sit on Lake Nemi. After his assassination in 41 A.D., the ships were sunk and remained at the bottom of the lake until the 1920s, when Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had the lake emptied. Hundreds of artifacts were recovered over the following years and put in a museum, but as the Nazis retreated from Italy in 1944, both the ships and the museum were destroyed by fire.

Because the mosaic-turned-coffee table shows no signs of fire damage, authorities suspect it was either stolen from the museum before the blaze or taken for a private collection before it could ever make it to the museum.

“These items may be beautiful, storied, and immensely valuable to collectors, but willfully disregarding the provenance of an item is effectively offering tacit approval of a harmful practice that is, fundamentally, criminal,” New York County District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. said in a statement speaking of the mosaic, as well as two other artifacts recovered and returned to Italy.

“It was an innocent purchase,” Fioratti told the New York Times in 2017. “It was our favorite thing and we had it for 45 years.”

She and her husband reportedly bought it from a Roman noble family in the 1960s, through a sale brokered by an Italian police official known for finding Nazi-looted art after World War II. When the millennia-old artifact was seized, the Fiorattis were not prosecuted, and although they still feel they have a legitimate claim to it, they did not fight the confiscation.

“I felt very sorry for her,” Del Bufalo said of Fioratti, “but I couldn’t do anything different, knowing that my museum in Nemi is missing the best part that went through the centuries, through the war, through a fire, and then through an Italian art dealer, and finally could go back to the museum. That’s the only thing I felt I should have done.”

At any rate, Italy is happy to have reclaimed one of its priceless pieces of history.

“The mosaic testifies how important and luxurious these imperial ships were,” Nemi Mayor Alberto Bertucci said in March, when the artwork was installed at the Museum of Roman Ships. “These [boats] were like buildings: They were not supposed to sail and they confirm the greatness of this emperor who wanted to show the greatness of his rule of the Roman empire through these ships.”

“This is a great day for Nemi and our entire territory!” the mayor added.

The post Ancient Roman Mosaic Recovered After Spending 50 Years as a Coffee Table first appeared on Dornob.

It’s not open to the public, so most people never get a peek at the Barclay building’s stunning lobby filled with travertine, black marble, and frescoes depicting the dawn of telecommunications. But every now and then, real estate listings for the outlandishly expensive apartments inside give us a sliver of insight as to what it’s like to live in a historic New York City landmark. While the duplex penthouse at the top stayed on the market for years due to its eye-watering $39.95 million asking price, a new opening will probably get snatched up by some deep-pocketed buyer in the weeks to come.

This four-bedroom $8.8 million condo is undeniably beautiful, with interiors that live up to the building’s reputation as a design gem. Listed by the Corcoran Group, unit 20B enjoys incredible views from the Hudson River to the Midtown skyline with One World Trade Center right across the street. Enjoying 3,665 square feet of space with four bedrooms and 4.5 baths, the apartment offers 10-foot ceilings, seven-foot casement windows, white oak floors, and a walnut-paneled entry door opening into a formal foyer and generously sized great room with north and west exposures.

“The adjacent open kitchen features custom cabinetry and hardware with calacatta gold marble countertops and back splash, including an island with seating for five,” reads the listing. “The kitchen is fully equipped with state-of-the-art appliances by Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Miele, as well as a garbage disposal and vented range hood. The primary suite features two large walk-in closets and a luxuriously finished primary bath with radiant floor heating, polished Calacatta gold marble floor and wall tiles, custom vanity, fixtures and deck-mounted tub by Waterworks, and steam shower.”

“The secondary bedrooms offer generous closet space and en-suite baths, combining high-honed vanilla cream marble vanity top and herringbone floor tile with crackle-glazed white ceramic wall tile. The residence conveniently features a laundry room with washer and vented dryer by LG, as well as built-in cabinets and sink. No detail was overlooked in the design of this residence with a multi-zone heating and cooling system that carefully controls the interior climate throughout. One Hundred Barclay offers an unprecedented amenity program. Over 40,000 square feet of carefully considered amenity spaces afford the most comprehensive offering in Tribeca.”

Curious just what your bills might look like living in a place like this? The listing lays it out: your monthly mortgage would be about $30,000, plus an additional $11,000 in taxes and fees. No problem, right? Other units in the building currently on the market range from $3 to $6 million, most of them smaller and somewhat less lavishly decorated than 20B.

The post Tour a Lavish Luxury Condo Inside the World’s First Art Deco Building first appeared on Dornob.

Designed by Bumblebee Spaces, a San Francisco-based startup founded by former Tesla and Apple engineers, this robotic system hides a bed, a desk, and even storage within a ceiling compartment, making the 470-square-foot studio units feel a lot more livable. Mounted to a grid capable of holding several tons of weight, the system also responds to voice commands, so you can simply ask it to move the furniture around at your whims. No need to open an app or even press a button.

Made of stylish light-colored wood, the system blends right into the contemporary style of the apartment interior and boasts built-in LED lighting. When the components are lowered, the surprisingly narrow supports are visible in each corner, maintaining a light and open feel. Taking the automation of the room even further, the system uses artificial intelligence to recognize various objects and remember where you put them. Lost your keys or sunglasses? Just ask. It’ll also learn your daily routine, and can be set to shape-shift at certain times of the day without being prompted.

Another cool feature is the system’s ability to photograph and catalog the contents of the storage bins that retreat into the ceiling on all sides of the bed (an add-on for which you can choose two, four, or six compartments). The Bumblebee app lets you preview your boxes so you know exactly which one you need to access instead of lowering each one and physically sorting through them. Built-in sensors and other safety features ensure the kinetic components won’t put any people or pets in danger.

The studio apartment itself features nine-foot ceilings made of exposed concrete, floor to ceiling windows, and monolithic resin floors, as well as several spacious closets, Italian stainless steel cabinets in the kitchen, and a stainless steel suite of appliances. Needless to say, it’s rare for rentals to have features like the $12,000 to $30,000 Bumblebee system, especially at a rent price that’s not too far from average in New York City. These five apartments will rent for $3,550 a month, and with four months free in a 16-month lease, they average out to even less. The building’s market-rate rentals will go for about $2,056 a month, and the affordable units, which make up about a third of the building, are even less.

BIG’s design for The Smile is a response to New York City’s 1916 zoning resolution, which calls for “stepped facade” towers to allow sufficient light and air to filter down to street level. Other unusual amenities in the building include a game room, co-working studio, demo kitchen, fitness center with Peloton bikes, yoga room, steam room, dry sauna, and “sensory experience showers.”

The post BIG’s NYC “Smile” Features Robotic Shape-Shifting Studio Apartments first appeared on Dornob.