Tag: DWiP

Water, Architecture and hanrahan Meyers architects: Water References

August 25th, 2011

hMa (hanrahan Meyers architects) is a great fan of water. Plain simple pure water.  Water symbolizes purity. The sound of water is soothing. Religious rites of purification revolve around water. The bulk of our body weight is water. Babies in the womb float in water.. Water is part of our nature.

In homage to this precious and threatened vital commodity hMa's collaboration with sound artist Michael Schumacher addresses water directly. Michael Schumacher has been commissioned to write a piece called: WaTER. WaTER is the basis for the facade of DWiP (Digital Water Pavilion), and our collaboration has been published extensively in previous postings. Visitors can check the blog history for other posts.

DWiP: Digital Water Pavilion by hanrahan Meyers architects click here to see more images of DWiP on www.hanrahanMeyers.com

We address ideas that pertain to water from other designers and thinkers in this posting,

First, we would like to commend WET Designs, who New Yorkers are probably familiar with from their design for the new fountain for New York's Lincoln Center. WET (Water Entertainment Technologies) was founded by Mark Fuller, and the company is based in Los Angeles. We are linking to an article about Mr. Fuller and his Lincoln Center fountain HERE.   Most people know Mr. Fuller from his amazing water works for Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

Fountains of Bellagio by WET Design

Our other recommendation for water imagery and thoughts is Craig Childs' book: The Secret Knowledge of Water, published in March 2000. The Secret Knowledge of Water is a wonderful book and gives its readers a new respect for the qualities of water. For a preview of the book, see our exerpt below:

Cover "The Secret Knowledge of Water" by Craig Childs link to Amazon

'My mother was born beside a spring in the high desert, just north of where West Texas and Mexico meet along the Rio Grande. Born three months premature, she was kept alive in an incubator heated with household light bulbs. An eyedropper for feeding. The water from the spring bathed and filled her body, tightening each of her cells. It filled the hollow of her bones. Years later, as the water passed from mother to child, like fine hair or blue eyes, I grew up thinking that water and the desert were the same. …'

hMa pays homage to water with their collaboration with Michael Schumacher on WaTER.   WaTER will be available as an App being developed for the i-Phone as well as Android platforms.
Victoria Meyers interview on FIXr.com

February 8th, 2011

Victoria Meyers recently sat down for an interview with the FIXr.com blog. In the interview, Ms. Meyers discusses her inspirations, life as an architect in New York City, as well as several current projects including the recently completed Infinity Chapel in Greenwich Village, NYC and Digital Water Pavilion, a community center currently under construction in Battery Park City.

Read the full Interview on FIXr.com

Infinity Chapel – sanctuary view click here to see more photos of Infinity Chapel at hanrahanmeyers.com

DWiP: Digital Water Pavilion- looking north along interactive wall click here to see more photos of Digital Water Pavilion at hanrahanmeyers.com

Link to the full Interview on FIXr.com
Digital Water Pavilion: DWiP featured in ASHRAE Journal and the New York PostBattery Park City Community Center; Sustainable Design; Interactive Wall Design

December 8th, 2010

hMa's Digital Water Pavilion is featured in November 2010's ASHRAE Journal, 'Wall of Light' for Lower Manhattan, and also the December 7th NY Post, Downtown by Design. Both articles focus on the visionary design and high Green standards of the project.

"Even those that are simply passersby will be drawn to the curving 550-foot long outer glass arcade wall that runs along-side two ball fields and a soccer field facing West Street just north of the World Trade Center"

-NY Post, Downtown by Design

Above: NY Post article Downtown by Design (click image to zoom in and read), inset with a current construction photo of the 550-ft glass Interactive Wall

"'The Wall of Light'" is the standout architectural and sustainable feature of the Battery Park City Community Center"

– ASHRAE Journal, 'Wall of Light' for Lower Manhattan

"The community center project itself was designed by Hanrahan Meyers with the goal of the highest environmentally friendly Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum certification being overseen by Atelier Ten… Stalco construction, which is building the community center, said that while some companies find LEED work challenging, they found it 'enticing'…from air quality to debris removal, we are under strict guidelines."

-NY Post, Downtown by Design

Read more about Digital Water Pavilion: DWiP at hanrahanmeyers.com
Architecture and Windows: Duchamp, Cage and Contemporary Architectural Production: Exploring the Window; Architecture, Scientific Determinism + Artistic Production

August 6th, 2010

hanrahan Meyers architects (hMa) are great fans of Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, and bring their enthusiasm for these two giants of the artistic avant-garde forward in time through hMa's on-going collaborations and conversations with contemporary avant-garde artists including Michael Schumacher, Bruce Pearson, Monica de la Torre, Roxy Paine, Joe Amrhein, and Susan Swenson, and including several other artists who we work with, mostly from the New York area.

Reunion by John Cage, featuring John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, and Teeny Duchamp playing chess. Post: Victoria Meyers architect

What hanrahan Meyers architects (hMa) love about Cage, Duchamp, and our contemporary friends in the arts, is how the most intelligent works in the fine arts foster on-going discussions about science, technology, and culture. Great artists look at culture as a whole, and create visual and sound interpretations of the technological changes of that period in time. This discussion places viewers and listeners into that conversation, through an incisive and intellectually challenging presentation of ideas.

hMa's architecture incorporates contemporary discussions into buildings and space design. hMa does this by bringing on-going discussion with artists who are making some of the most challenging contemporary art into the firm's design process. hMa invites artists whose work poses challenges beyond the ordinary to incorporate their works onto and into hMa's buildings.

three early versions of the 'WATER' score frit pattern by NY composer Michael Schumacher in collaboration with hanrahan Meyers architects. For information contact: info@hanrahanMeyers.com. Post: Victoria Meyers architect

As part of hMa's ongoing discussion with the arts, they are developing an interactive glass wall for their Digital Water i-Pavilion (DWi-P): Battery Park City Community Center in collaboration with Michael Schumacher. The facade will be activated so that Visitors passing by the building will be able to wave cell phones at the building's facade and receive sound samples of Michael's 'WATER' score, depicted on the facade as a bar-coded frit pattern.

The DWi-P collaboration takes the idea of the 'normal' glass window which has been 'altered' by being selected for interpretation by the artist (and – in this case - by the architects) and uses that otherwise mundane and everyday piece of the built fabric to generate an architectural armature that works as a building - but also as in interactive work of art.

scale mock-up of the frit pattern seen on-site of the Digital Water Pavilion: Battery Park City Community Center, with WATER composition shown as a bar code. For information contact: info@hanrahanMeyers.com. Post: Victoria Meyers architect

Above, we are showing a full scale mock up of the glass - fragments of a future 550-foot long glass wall – in our office for on-site installation - at the building site at DWi-P. hMa will keep Visitors to the blog updated on progress with the WATER score / glass installation. DWi-P is scheduled to receive a Platinum LEED rating.

More to come….

for more information about the hMa / Schumacher collaboration, visit our website: www.hanrahanMeyers.com. Contact: info@hanrahanMeyers.com