MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO PROFILE - synergy ny a+e

SYNERGY
180 VARICK STREET, #930 NEW YORK, NY 10014 T 212 627 9120 F 212 627 9125 www.sorkinstudio.com
WEED, ARIZONA, 1994
MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO PROFILE
The Michael Sorkin Studio is devoted to both practical and theoretical projects at all scales with a special interest in the
city and in green architecture. Recent projects include planning and design for a highly sustainable 5000-unit community
in Penang, Malaysia, master planning for Hamburg, Visselhoevede, Leipzig, and Schwerin, Germany, planning for a Palestinian
capital in East Jerusalem, urban design in Leeds, England, campus planning at the University of Chicago and
CCNY, studies of the Manhattan and Brooklyn waterfronts, housing design in Far Rockaway, Vienna, and Miami, a resort
in the desert of Abu Dhabi, and a park in Queens, New York. The Sorkin Studio is active in research in issues of urban
morphology, sustainability, and equity and has been the recipient of numerous awards from, among others, Progressive
Architecture, ID, and the New York AIA.
Michael Sorkin is the Director of the Graduate Urban Design Program at the City College of New York. From 1993 to 2000
he was Professor of Urbanism and Director of the Institute of Urbanism at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Previously,
Sorkin has been professor at numerous schools of architecture including the Architectural Association, Cooper Union
(for ten years), Columbia, Yale (holding both Davenport and Bishop Chairs), Harvard, Cornell (Gensler Chair), Nebraska
(Hyde Chair), Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan (Saarinen Chair) and Minnesota. In 2005 -2006, Sorkin is directing
studio projects for the post-Katrina reconstruction of Biloxi and New Orleans. Sorkin lectures widely and is the author of
many articles in a wide range of both professional and general publications and is currently contributing editor at Architectural
Record and Metropolis. For ten years, he was the architecture critic of The Village Voice. His books include Variations
on A Theme Park, Exquisite Corpse, Local Code, Giving Ground (edited with Joan Copjec), Wiggle (a monograph of the
studio’s work), Some Assembly Required, Other Plans, The Next Jerusalem, After The Trade Center (edited with Sharon
Zukin), Starting From Zero, Analyzing Ambasz, and Against the Wall. Forthcoming in 2006 are Twenty Minutes in Manhattan,
Eutopia, All Over the Map, Indefensible Space, and Project New Orleans.
/SYNERGY

Riva Ring, Istanbul, Turkey
Masterplan for a Warterfront Town, 2008
Located on the Black Sea near Istanbul, Riva is a town
being planned for a population of 40,000. Heavily constrained
by prior plans and ownership patterns, the goal of
this project is to create a town that maximizes its autonomy
and pleasure.
Shanghai Gateway, China
Shanghai Main Station District Masterplan, 2007
/SYNERGY
Our urban design master plan, commissioned by the municipality,
is for a 77 hectare site in the Zhabei district of
Shanghai. The rapidly developing area includes the city’s
northern train station - a major hub - and is bordered by the
Suzhou river, one of Shanghai’s great neglected assets.
This scheme seeks to “complete” the district by reclaiming
its waterfront; by retaining the vanishing small-scale commercial
character of its historic fabric; by providing for a
rich mix of uses; by adding a thick layer of green and sustainable
interventions; by specifying the forms and densities
of new buildings and street-scapes; and by developing
a rich texture of public spaces.
/SYNERGY

NEIGHBORHOOD
SOUTH CAMPUS
Almere Hout Masterplan, Netherlands
Masterplan for New CIty, 2005
Almere Hout seeks to realize these desires:
To be a place of profound physical singularity, remarkably
attractive in its urban character.
To offer great scope for individual expression and abundant
opportunity for the accommodation of difference in the
construction and occupation of private environments.
To build strong partnership between and private initiative
with the public sector providing a singular and delightful
infrastructure to conduce the widest range private possibilities.
To be structured around strong neighborhoods with clear
centers and shifting, overlapping, boundaries.
To allow neighborhoods emerge organically within sympathetic
frameworks proposed by this plan.
To provide possibilities for autonomous development at every
scale and include the potential for fundamental change
over the period of Almere Hout’s construction.
To phase the growth of Almere Hout a way that satisfying
communities can be created in sequence and not await the
development of the site as a whole to find local viability.
To be model of best practices for sustainable architecture
NORTH CAMPUS
City College Masterplan, New York City
Campus Plan, 2005
/SYNERGY
This masterplan for CCNY seeks to unify the campus, to
offer a strategy for the development of the south campus
with 2000 dorm beds and almost half a million square feet
of laboratory space, and to reconfigure the north campus
to create a stronger sense of place. Although fortunate to
have a beautiful neo-gothic core, the campus has been
blighted by mediocre modern buildings that dramatically
increase the scale of campus construction. Our scheme
is structured around a unifying campus spine, the partial
closure of the roadway that runs through the campus center,
the creation of two distinct open spaces – one hard,
one soft – to organize the two ends of campus, and the
addition of a series of buildings that attempt to mediate the
diverse scales of current construction. At a larger frame,
the plan offers a number of proposals to improve links to
surrounding communities and to integrate development
with the ambitions plans of Columbia University for a site
two blocks to the west of CCNY.
/SYNERGY

Starfish Cafe, Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY
Design for a Rotating Cafe, 2005
The Starfish Café joins the queue of Coney Island icons.
A rotating restaurant takes in the view, from the ballpark
to the ocean to the parachute jump, at one revolution
per hour, a giant clock. At boardwalk level, an outdoor
café and a shop or restaurant. At ground level, exhibition
space for the Coney Island Gallery, catalyst perhaps for
the Coney Island Museum.
/SYNERGY
The Freedom Bowl and the Island of Peace
Redevelopment plan for Governer’s Island, New York,
2005
The Island itself embodies two conditions: the original “natural” island as it
existed until the beginning of the twentieth century and its large southern
extension, built from fill excavated during the construction of the IRT. By redividing
the island into northern and southern islands, the historic northern
half could become an extension of the space-challenged United Nations,
the perfect site for the pursuits of peace. Appropriately isolated, the southern
island would be a glorious and secure site for mass gatherings and big
games. The challenge of getting there could also be turned to advantage.
Unless a pedestrian bridge or tramway were built from Red Hook (not a
completely illogical pair of possibilities), all access would be from the water.
But this is less daunting than it otherwise seems. To begin, Governor’s
Island is very close to both Manhattan – with its existing infrastructure of
ferry terminals - and Brooklyn with its capacity to lead cars from the Battery
Tunnel and BQE/Gowanus directly to shore-side parking. Moreover, given
that football is played on Sundays – when service on the huge Staten Island
ferries is reduced – a dedicated boat or two making round trips from South
Ferry could efficiently deliver very large numbers of people to the island in
minutes. Finally, the proximity of the stadium to the Statue of Liberty raises
the prospect of a view of that great symbol through the uprights of another,
from the new Freedom Bowl, America’s stadium.
/SYNERGY

East Darling Harbor, Sydney, Australia
Waterfront Park and Commercial District Masterplan,
2005
Our goal is to make Darling Harbor into a new and dramatically public
waterfront. This very large site is pivotal for Sydney - effectively completing
the downtown peninsula and it will define the city’s edges and character
for a very long time to come. The challenge is to be sensitive to the environment,
history, and situation of this mesmerizingly singular place while
transforming it for a brilliant future.
Urban waterfronts are fluid places and it would be a mistake to be overly
nostalgic for these hectares of fill, for any particular pattern of historical
development, or for any adjoining modern precedents. Our objective has
been to multiply the waterfront by thinking of it not as a simple seam between
land and water but as a gradient that extends into the city: we hope
our project can both bring people to the water and water to the people.
This will happen, through an intensified mix of uses on the site - including
shipping, swimming, walking, dwelling, and culture - and because of the
introduction of new ways to experience the water. These range from the
Darling Channel, cut through the site to treble the literal water’s edge, to
the constructed wetlands that will treat site run-off, to the Tidal Steps that
will acknowledge this powerful force and bring visitors close to the water
itself, and to myriad spots for strolling, viewing, and contemplating.
Chungcheong New City, South Korea
Masterplan for New CIty, 2005
/SYNERGY
This project is informed by the idea of the ecological footprint. The concept
is simple: cities are the creatures of territories that far exceed their own
boundaries. By thinking of cities as artifacts defined by purely political borders,
the real nature of urban sustainability and exchange is distorted and
obscured.This proposal is for a city that takes dramatic account of both its
needs and effects and dedicates itself to the project of radically reducing its
own footprint. This, we believe, is vital to the health of a planet that simply
doesn’t have the resources or the surface to sustain a population consuming
at typical developed-world rates. We suggest that the new city works
to secure “neutrality” in eight critical areas: energy, air, food, waste, water,
temperature, employment, movement, and habitat. By this we simply mean
that the city must strive either to produce or process each of these lifesustaining
elements.
We recognize that this paradigm of self-sufficiency is a goal never to be
reached: the vital interconnection between cities, regions, and nations is not
to be denied nor is the economics of comparative advantage. But the selfsufficient
city is also replete with functional, economic, and environmental
efficiencies and we propose that Chungcheong New City become a living
laboratory for the invention and implementation of the panoply of best practices
that must ultimately inform the character of every city.
/SYNERGY

Penang Peaks, Malaysia
Mixed-Use Redevelopment of the Penang Turf Club,
2004
Penangs Peaks is an intensely mixed-use community,
providing housing, offices, commercial space, medical
facilities, a convention center, transit node, concert hall,
schools, a campus for overseas universities and extensive
recreational facilities. The project is designed to be highly
sustainable, indeed, a model of best environmental practices:
in both appearance and behavior, its architecture
will be dramatically green and will be fully self-sufficient
in water and waste management. The project is organized
around a 20 hectare Great Park, intended to provide amenity
for the city as a whole and linked to the Penang Hills
via a land-bridge over the new Penang Outer Ring Road.
The park is surrounded by residential buildings, connected
by Kudalari Drive, an elliptical roadway that girdles the site
and distributes its uses. The Drive is intended to become
the city’s premier retail boulevard and to accommodate a
legion of strollers and diners.
Equine Tower, Penang Peaks, Malaysia
Mixed-Use Tower, 2004
/SYNERGY
A signature building for the sponsor of the redevelopment
of Penang Turf Club, the Equine Tower embodies
principles incorporated in the larger site planning effort.
The tower embraces a mix of uses, organized vertically.
Below grade is a parking area with direct access to the
building above. At grade are retail uses, as well as elevator
lobbies and a large cisterning pool. Office space
is in the podium above and on top of this element is the
building’s “Green Floor,” holding bioremediation devices
for building wastes, recycling center, gardens, and a day
care facility. The remaining floors are residential – a series
of two story “sky houses.” These are configured to
provide ventilation of all sides, screening from the sun,
and terraces. The residential units, shops, and offices
are arranged around a vertical chimney/atrium, which allows
convective cooling from the pools below. Atop the
tower, a great PV-lined “flying saucer” collects and stores
rainwater for building systems and cooling.
/SYNERGY

STREET TYPE PEDESTRIAN TYPE
Street Lights, New York City
New Lighting Fixtures, 2004
The New York City streetlight is both illumination and icon,
the most ubiquitous element in the furnishing of our streets.
Streetlights symbolize the character of the city’s commitment
to its public spaces, both to making them safe and to
making them beautiful. Current lighting combines a variety
of styles, ranging from standards that evoke historical elements
to the predominant and unlovely functional types.
This situation of variety will continue for the indefinite future
as will the use of lighting standards for mounting signage
and other fixtures on a strictly as-needed basis. Our
designs are meant both to have a strong individual identity
and to be compatible with the variety of other fixtures currently
in use. We have proposed a family of three types of
fixture, based on three specific kinds of urban space.
AVENUE TYPE /SYNERGY
Chiang Kai-Shek Int. Airport, Taipei, Taiwan
Terminal Redevelopment Plan, 2004
The international air system is a place apart. This “space of
flows” handles the movement of over a billion people a year and
represents, in many ways, the cultural future of the planet. It is
a place that enables human contact undreamed of until recent
times, a planetary common ground. But the air system also embodies
much that is less happy: extreme levels of surveillance, a
generic quality that frustrates any sense of place or locality, the
feeling of being part of a mindless herd.
Great airports – like Chep Lap Kok or Dulles – are those that
both maximize comfort and convenience and that offer powerful
architectural experiences. In the replacement of Chang Kai-
Shek’s Terminal One, it is our ambition is to create a marvelous
work of architecture that restores the pleasures of air travel
while simultaneously offering new levels of efficiency, comfort,
and environmental responsibility, including an undulating green
roof and extensive generation of wind energy. The terminal is
designed to allow uninterrupted airport operations during construction,
to accommodate the next generation of super-jumbos,
and to facilitate further expansion over the long term.
/SYNERGY

Kaohsiung Maritime Gateway, Taiwan
Waterfront Park, Ferry Terminal, and Urban Boulevard,
2004
Seeing the waterfront as amphibian - as a condition that
extends into and infuses the city as a whole with views,
breezes, forms, and activities - the project seeks to exploit
these potentially deep synergies. The organization
of this scheme reflects this strongly: the perpendicular of
Star Light Boulevard continues both the spirit and the fact
of the waterfront. The boulevard and its associated park
and canal extends waterfront public space -the cultural,
leisure, and transportation uses that characterize the water’s
edge - into the developing financial district and its
associated neighborhoods, to make this a district on the
waterfront. The two major buildings on the site - the large
and small ferry terminals - share a family relation both with
each other and with the landscape vocabulary of the park
spaces that surround them. The scheme incorporates extensive
wind farm to take advantage of the stiff on-shore
that characterize the site.
Kaohsiung Ferry Terminal, Taiwan
Ferry Terminal, 2004
/SYNERGY
This little ferry terminal is designed to smoothly separate
arriving and departing passengers and to expedite passage
through border and customs formalities. In form,
the building seeks to become a seamless part of a larger
treatment of the Kaoshiung waterfront as a continuous
green space comprised of a series of sculptural mounds,
some of which are buildings. Uninterrupted in their regular
placement, towers from the shoreline wind farm pass
through the building shell to the earth. Special details allow
these windmills to be structurally isolated for vibration
and rhythmically open the roof to the sky.
/SYNERGY

Queens Plaza, New York
Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvement and Linear Park,
2003- 4
Located along and within a tangled system of bridges and
roadway, Queens Plaza, this project seeks to create an urban
forest, planting the site as densely as possible. This
is to establish a continuous canopy of shade and visual
enclosure, to manage and exploit rainwater and run-off, to
sequester carbon dioxide and other pollutants, to attenuate
traffic and transit noise, to provide alluring smells and
sounds and to give a common identity throughout the project.
The strong environmental theme this suggests is extended
to a comprehensive scheme for the management
and remediation of run-off foe the nearly two mile length of
the project. Several other elements are likewise designed
to create a sense of place throughout the site. These include
a uniform set of walking surfaces, design of graphic
and wayfinding systems,lighting elements, and for other
street furnishings, as well as a diverse series of spaces
for gardening, relaxation, community meetings, exhibitions,
and sports.
PLAZA MIDWAY CAFE /SYNERGY
EAST ELEVATION
NORTH ELEVATION
SECTION - GREENHOUSE
Community Building, Queens Plaza, New York
Design for public building, 2003- 4
This little building was designed as a community center
to be shared by a large New York City Housing Authority
project and a growing neighborhood of artists and other
emigrants from Manhattan. It provides offices for community
organizations, including a tennis program aimed
at kids from the project, meeting space for local groups,
a greenhouse and club space for a gardening club, and
a “living machine” that would clean wastes produced on
site and serve as an element in an environmental education
program. The building wraps around an existing
MTA electrical substation and incorporates an old trolley
kiosk (moved from the 59th Street Bridge overhead) as a
refreshment stand/café.
/SYNERGY

Sun-Moon Lake, Shuishe Waterfront, Taiwan
Recreation Redevelopment Scheme, 2003
The character of this beautiful spot is secured at its periphery,
in views of the lake from the shore and of the
shore from the lake. Our first move was to secure the
edge of the lake via continuous landscaping and pathways.
This circumferential walk would be punctuated
by sites for rest, contemplation, and commerce. At this
enlarged scale we would also propose a more logical
circulation armature to connect a nearby highway, new
parking facilities, and the existing town dock and transit
station. The upland end of the site would be used for an
artificial “mountain” within which parking facilities could
be housed. The rest is designed as a park, containing
opportunities for both passive and active recreation. On
the lake itself, we propose a teahouse evoking the image
of “two lakes reflecting the moon”. Not simply floating, but
mobile, the teahouse would — in the course of a tea service
— traverse the lake and return. Finally, we suggest a
floating plum orchard. Free-floating on the lake, the plum
trees would aggregate and disperse with the winds and
currents. At blossom time they would form an evanescent,
mobile, cloud of pink.
Fugee Fishing Port, Fugee, Taiwan
/SYNERGY
Waterfront Development Plan, 2003
This proposal seeks to capture and enlarge both the
drama of Fugui Cape and bustling commerce of the Fugee
Port. To preserve the cape landscape, we propose
locating the substantial new facilities for the port under
an artificial hill, allowing unobstructed views of greenery
and sea, not of a sea of cars and the backs of shops and
buildings. Beneath the hill would be all parking, service
access, and uses that do not require daylight, including
storage, mechanical systems, and a cinema. Facing the
harbor would be a row of shops and restaurants on the
ground floor, festooned with neon signs. Above these, enjoying
a fabulous and romantic seaward vista is a modest
sized hotel. Facilities would also be provided for offloading
of fishing boats, the sale of fresh fish and other
goods, and for unpredictable, spontaneous activities and
the docking of the coastal ferry and other pleasure craft.
Given the strong prevailing winds, we propose the waterfront
as an ideal location for a wind farm. This would
be both a dramatic element on the skyline and should be
able to provide a large portion of the electrical requirements
of the port and the new tourist facilities.
/SYNERGY

Fenquin Mountain Railway St., Fenguin, Taiwan
Project for Redevelopment of Railway Station, 2003
The dramatic daily increase in population at the mid-day
arrival of the mountain trains is clearly the problematic
and propulsive event in the life of Fenquin. On the north
side of the tracks, the existing bamboo forest would be
preserved and expanded. Within it, the guest and public
rooms of the bridge-hotel would be located as well as
several integral — and manageable - paths up the hill.
Step one is to create a rational means for the circulation
of these visitors. The long train platform provides an
armature for linear distribution and filtering into the town
itself. Along this path we propose to align the entry and
drop-off from the main highway, a travel and ticketing
center (combined with a community hall in the old depot),
a waiting area, a museum, and a café. Although the infrequency
of train service allows the roadbed to be used
for crossing, we would also include a “hotel-bridge” over
the railway, providing a connection to the parking along
the highway above, bringing greenery into the town, and
forming a gateway for the arrival and departure of the
train.
/SYNERGY
World Trade Center Memorial, New York City
Project for a Memorial, 2003
The eloquence of the void at Ground Zero will never be
matched. It is a place of power and presence, coherent
in scale, and framed by a well articulated, if incomplete,
wall of buildings. We proposed that all of Ground Zero
should be public: instead of enormous commercial buildings
with a subsidiary memorial, we suggested a park,
a space of gathering. The park would include two pools
located on the footprints in which memorial candles are
floated by survivors. Beneath the pools – under transparent
ceilings – are the hall of names and a chapel for
survivors.
/SYNERGY

Cleveland Waterfront Park, Cleveland, Ohio
Masterplan for Waterfront Park, 2002
This project looked at the development of the Cleveland
waterfront several miles to the east of downtown and at
the connection of the waterfront - via Rockefeller Park
- to the group of institutions around University Circle. The
biggest move is the creation a series of green islands out
of a small airport on the waterfront that the city proposes
to abandon. These islands culminate in a wildlife sanctuary
at the lake end of Rockefeller Park and the partial
burial of the shore line expressway to ease access to the
waterfront.
The plan also suggests the creation of a trolley connection
from the lakefront to University Circle, linking two
commuter rail lines and helping to revitalize the severely
derelict 105th Street corridor.
/SYNERGY
World Trade Towers, New York City, New York
World Trade Tower Proposals, 2002
An exploration of the form of several tall buildings at
Ground Zero, done in a spirit of investigation. Although
the idea of such buildings is contrary to the highest and
best use of the site, these were designed to encourage
some fluidity in approach and to keep the question of the
site’s future open. The inspiring image was the lotus, a
flower unfolding to signify rebirth. The research soon became
a simple speculation on skyscraper form and the
limits of its expressivity.
/SYNERGY

World Peace Dome, New York City, NY
Peace Dome Proposal - 2002
The World Peace Dome is one of a number of proposals
made for Ground Zero, not far from the location of the
studio. Although firmly convinced that building on the site
is inappropriate, we proposed this dome to assert that
the skyline could be marked with something other than
a triumphalist, phallomorphic, tower and that its program
did not have to simply be commercial office space. Here,
the suggestion is for a United Nations annex and a center
for global NGO’s surrounding a contemplative central
garden.
Ground Zero, New York City, New York
/SYNERGY
Temporary Enclosure and Lower Manhattan Plan, 2001
Commissioned to design a temporary enclosure for
Ground Zero, we proposed the construction of a large
earthen berm to secure the site during recovery and
clearing. Realizing that the “problem” of Ground Zero
was not one that could be solved on the site itself, we
proposed a strategy of disaggregation, locating replacement
construction elsewhere in the city. At the same
time, we proposed that Ground Zero become a point of
dissemination for the greening and pedestrianization of
all of downtown.
/SYNERGY

Arverne, Far Rockaway, Queens, New York
2500 Housing Units, 2001
This project for 2500 housing units and associated educational,
commercial, social and recreational facilities was
undertaken under the sponsorship of the Architectural
League and the New York City Economic Devlopment
Commission. The project was designed to leverage the
unique relationship of public transportation and beach
frontage to create a seaside community of special quality.
We also sought to include a series of environmental features
- including solar and wind power, bioremediation of
waste water, and careful management of run-off - to make
this a model of responsible green practices. Finally, a focus
on pedestrianism, public transit, and mixed use is designed
to reduce the energy expended on circulation both
within and to and from the site. The site is the last great
beach-front property in city hands and we tried to give it an
atmosphere of breezy relaxation.
Bronx Hub, Bronx, NY
Transit Hub and Plaza, 2000
/SYNERGY
This project - part of a broader study - focuses on the literal
“hub”, the intersection of three major streets that forms
the heart of the district. Well-serviced by bus, subway,
and road connections, the hub is the site of both maximum
traffic and architectural density. In configuration, it
resembles a miniature Times Square, a spatial “bow-tie”
created by the geometry of the street intersections. Taking
a cue from this, we have proposed a visual intensification
of the power and identity of this center via the construction
of a sinewy media billboard to mark and enclose the Hub
and to create a gateway. The intent is to create both an
increased sense of legibility and excitement and to make
a space of gathering for a variety of public occasions. Not
the least of these is waiting for a bus or transferring to or
from the subway. Accordingly, this plan adds a new subway
entrance, reorganizes bus circulation, and transforms
the existing Roberto Clemente Plaza into a focal point for
the surrounding community.
/SYNERGY

THE GLAZED STACK OF THE NON-EMITTING INCIN-
Sendai Green Village, Japan
Green Municipal Incinerator and Masterplan for a Green
Industrial Village, 1999
The commission was to design the housing for a very
clean, high-technology, incinerator which was combined
with a center for recycling and reuse. We proposee that
the new facility should be designed as the center of a small
“Green Village.” Instead of isolating the incinerator, we
suggested that it form the nucleus of a small development
focused on green technologies and environmental remediation.
Like a great cathedral surrounded by the smaller
structures it supports, the incinerator is potentially a symbol
and an enactor of responsible environmental management,
a center of social life, and an economic driver.
The building we propose is a little mountain, an artificial
hill reflecting the profile of those surrounding it, a new and
dramatic feature in the landscape. Within the hill is the
incinerator, an environmental education center focused on
a tour of the facility, a large greenhouse extension to the
plant, and a municipal bath-house warmed by waste-heat
from the plant.
East Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine
Masterplan Proposal, 1999
/SYNERGY
The mark of modern urbanity is heterogeneity: every city
is shared. Jerusalem is both the eternal prime example
and exceptional case. Perhaps more than any other city,
Jerusalem’s genius loci is founded in geographies of difference:
a panoply of religions, sects, ethnicities, classes,
nationalities, and lifestyles commingle here, all expressed
in complex – and often conflicting – sets of spatial and social
practices.
This proposal makes no attempt to alter of re-deploy
Jerusalem’s incredible assortment of styles of inhabiting
space; it is devoted to more primary urban values and
distinctions. It is clear that Jerusalem is moving toward
becoming the capital city of two states: Israel and Palestine.
Whatever else may be true of these tow nations and
their labyrinthine histories of development and conflict,
their capitals will find a measure of their expression in the
“normal” infrastructure of any capital city – ministries and
embassies, bureaucracies and businesses, symbolic and
honorific sites, a city hall and a parliament – all the installations
that make a capital city functional.
This plan is a schematic proposal. It begins by suggesting
that the political and commercial sprawl of the city be
ceased and the further development be a thickening of
existing built-up territory, rather than further aggrandisement.
It further suggests the re-naturalization of the
Kidron River valley to the east of the old city of Jerusalem
to become a central park to serve both east and west
Jerusalem and to secure the future of this historically and
culturally charged space. The plan proposes that the major
administrative infrastructure of the Palestinian capital
be located on the north side of the great park in Wadi
Joz, a largely derelict site, occupied by automobile repair
shops. The Palestinian parliament – connected to the
administrative district and to West Jerusalem by a new
east-west boulevard - is proposed for a site to the west
overlooking the vast expanse of the Judean desert. Finally,
to secure the viability of the group of Palestinian
neighborhoods to the east of the great park, we suggest
a chain of neighborhood parks a social centers and armatures
for commercial, cultural, and civic development.
/SYNERGY

House of The Future, Site Unknown
Theoretical Project, 1999
This proposal is for a small community sharing resources and
environment. The basic unit is a double space, two sheltering
elements that share water and waste management, energy
production, and a social space - a tiny community. From this
kernel the larger house grows and from these houses larger
communities might also develop, finding their form according
to the living arrangements desired by their inhabitants. The
house proposed here offers space for a new kind of elective
extended family, for people living singly, in couples, with children,
and in groups. In various alterations and recombinations,
the house can continuously transform itself to different
needs and choices. Constructed of soybean-derived plastic
panels cast to form an infinite variety of shapes, glazed with
aero gel windows that can be made transparent or opaque at
the turn of a dial, generating its own power from photovoltaic
and hydro, and treating its own wastes through green “living
machine” technology, the house is at peace with the world.
Imagine being able to step into a mobile “bubble” docked to
the house, enter a destination code, and find yourself transported
anywhere on the planet.
/SYNERGY
Retirement Community, Somewhere in America
Masterplan and Housing Study, 1999
Commissioned to speculate about the “retirement community
of the future,” we realized that none of us boomers
were likely to retire and so decided to work on the plan of
a small village with a large golf course. The village is organized
in a series of clusters, each of which has associated
commercial, recreational, and social space. The dwelling
type is the row house and each row – oriented south for
greenhouses and passive solar heating – shares a “living
machine,” a bio-remediation device for waste water treatment.
The houses themselves are made of soy-based
plastic panels with tunable aerogel windows. All cars are
relegated to the periphery of the community and internal
movement is via walking, bikes, wheelchairs, and slow
moving, zero emissions bubble cars that dock directly into
ports on the houses. A robotic version of these vehicles is
utilized for deliveries and other internal goods transportation.
/SYNERGY

NORTH CAMPUS
University of Chicago Masterplan
Campus Masterplan and North Campus Development,
1998, Chicago, Illinois
The plan seeks to join two sides of the campus presently
divided by the Midway Pleasance, to secure the future of
the neighborhood to the south of the university, and to suggest
the location of a number of facilities, particularly on
the developing “north campus.” To achieve this, the Midway
is transformed by the addition of a watercourse - part
of the original intent of Frederick Law Olmsted - and by
the reduction of vehicular traffic. To protect the Woodlawn
neighborhood from university encroachment, the south
campus is configured as a hard - but friendly - campus
edge.
The north campus - dominated at present by a series of
very large buildings - is designed to create an intimacy and
complexity that evokes that of the original collegiate gothic
quadrangles and is programmed with a mix of residential
and academic uses.
NORTH CAMPUS NORTH CAMPUS /SYNERGY
20 KILOMETER 10 KILOMETER 5 KILOMETER
100 KILOMETER
Hamburg Harbor Studies, Hamburg, Germany
Masterplan, 1998
The master-planning study was undertaken as the result
of a public art commission from the city of Hamburg. We
called the project a “portrait” with the understanding that
portraiture is always an idealized representation of its
subject. In this case, we hoped that it was clear that our
project grew from our affection for the form of the city, for
its system of waterways and its juxtaposition of maritime
activities with more traditional urban form. As with many
cities, the great threat to Hamburg is sprawl, the loss of
its edge to a miasma of ill-built suburban development,
adding pressure to the - largely automotive - transport
system. We’ve proposed a strict urban growth boundary
along with the strategic enlargement of selected towns
and villages on the city’s periphery. To accommodate the
major portion of anticipated growth, we have proposed
large-scale development of the harbor area and the creation
of a strong north-south connection between Hamburg
and Harburg. We also propose to a circular water
transport line to link the two sides of the Elbe into a single
community.
/SYNERGY

Schwerin, Germany
Masterplan and Railway Station, 1998
Commissioned by the municipality, this proposal studied
the pattern of growth of Schwerin under the influence of
the proposed construction of a magnetic-levitation rail
line connecting Berlin and Hamburg. The station for this
line was to be situation some distance to the south of the
town center, begging questions of both local development
and its connection to longer-term expansion of the town
and its urban region. This plan proposes a ring of semiautonomous
towns and villages to counteract the likelihood
of sprawl and to provide a more intimate experience
for the expected growth of a commuter population making
use of the rail link. Growth around the station was to be
along a radial pattern, resulting in a both a clear center
and distinct edges for the new community.
Columbus Circle, New York City
/SYNERGY
Reconstruction of Subway Station and Traffic Circle,
1998
This project for the reconstruction of one of the busiest
stations in the New York subway system took as its fundamental
challenge the difficulty of transferring between
the two subway lines that cross on the site. Because
the upper line is close to the surface, crossing over requires
crossing under both this line and the line below, an
impossible walk. By elevating the surface of the “plaza”
above, enough space is gained for an bridge over and
an enormous skylight is created to illuminate the rebuilt
station below.
/SYNERGY

Vienna Housing, Vienna, Austria
70 Units of Mixed-Use Public Housing, 1998
On a tight site on the periphery of Vienna, these apartments
were part of a group of approximately 400 units
designed by a group of architects on adjoining plots. This
grouping is designed to slope towards a southern exposure,
guaranteeing good insolation and providing outdoor
space for each unit. The plastic shapes of the buildings
allow each apartment to have private variation and to give
the complex identity in a more rectilinear complex. The
juxtapostion of the buildings also offers an urban quality
to the pedestrian realm while allowing long views and air
in the spaces above. The site offers a direct subway connection
and cars are parked in a shared facility nearby.
Floating Forest, Hamburg, Germany
Center City Floating Park, 1997
/SYNERGY
A proposal for a piece of public art commissioned by the
city of Hamburg. Located on the Biennen Alster, a lakesized
body of water in the middle of the city, these floating
green islands - “life boats” - were meant to move lazily in
the wind and currents, sometimes lashed together to form
larger surfaces for use. A number of these islands were to
be “living machines”, bio-remediation devices that would
clean the water to a swimmable standard.
/SYNERGY

FIRST FLOOR SECOND FLOOR
Friedrichshof Commune, Austria
Site planning and Housing Development for a Former
Commune, 1997
A plan for enlargement of the Friederichshof community
would make this rather ragged collection of buildings into
a denser village for a group of people who have elected
to pursue their own goals in circumstances of affinity and
cooperation. The plan provides resources to enable those,
who choose to do so, to lead full lives within its borders
- living, working, relaxing - and those, who prefer to work
in the city or to come for holidays and weekends, to feel
fully integrated into the life of the place. A new circulation
spine runs along a little canal across a flat portion of the
site. Buildings along the canlal - a mix of houses and lofts
- would open to the waterwork in a series of courtyards
establishing a more localized sense of community. A large
new lake would expand recreational possibilities and provide
an imageable geographical center for Friederichshof.
Excavated material from this lake and from other construction
will be used to extend the “Friederichshof Alps” as an
enhanced place of recreation - including ski, horseback,
bike, and jogging trails - and as a winter wind barrier.
/SYNERGY
Herd Houses, Friedrichshof Commune, Austria
Housing Development for a Former Commune, 1997
This group of houses was designed as an iteration of a
planning effort for the development of the grounds of a
former commune east of Vienna. The ex-communards
remaining on site have decided to open their community
to a small group of new tenants and these houses are
designed for sale to a small number of new residents.
Although the commune is long defunct, much of the atmosphere
remains and the owners of these houses are
expected to share in this. Grouped at a corner of the site
with a long view over fields and vineyards, the houses
provide loft-like accommodation along with excellent
wine cellars. Each house is bi-directional with access to
the surrounding road system on the west and to thecarfree
community grounds on the east. A stable is to be
constructed on an adjacent site as a number of prospective
residents are riders.
/SYNERGY

Visselhoevede Town Plan, Germany
Landscape Masterplan, 1997
The project is a scheme for managing the growth of an agricultural
community undergoing an economic and population shift
to a commuter and tourist base. A new ribbon development is
part of a strategy to create a series of new “green living rooms”
- agricultural lobes which will consolidate agricultural activities
in the most arable areas. Agriculture would thus become part
of the daily foreground of the new ribbon-dwellers, part of the
special delight of the town. This gradual and very long term
redistribution would effectively create a new category of land
within Visselhoevede, land formerly under cultivation which is
to be withheld from normal development. This park land would
become another kind of resource, the town lung and playground
as well as the guarantor of a character that would remain
perpetually green and of a resource that would continue
in use. A series of small new centers which would contain both
basic neighborhood apparatus - corner shops, child-care, and
other services - but would also provide for a small amount of
loft-space, part of which would be devoted to collective use.
Many people - while taking advantage of the opportunities to
“telecommute” will still prefer to work in the company of others
rather than in isolation at home.
EuRomania, Bucharest, Romania
Masterplanning Project, 1996
/SYNERGY
This scheme for the rebuilding of central Bucharest attempts
to recreate the neighborhood scale and residential
texture of places destroyed by the enormous reconstruction
of the Ceaucecu era. We sought to re-introduce the
small-scale and irregular morphology of the original city
and to dilute the alienating and megalomaniac scale of
the Hausmmanized quarters of the city. The project also
looked at the city at regional scale, proposing to bring
greenways from one side of the city to another and to
structure progressive restrictions on car use and complementary
increases in public transport density towards the
center of town.
REGIONAL PLAN /SYNERGY

Westside Waterfront, New York
Masterplan for Lower Westside Waterfront Park, 1996
This unsolicited masterplan for the Manhattan waterfront
from 14th Street to Battery Park City is a response to the
tepid official plans for the reconstruction of the roadway.
It takes as its premise the idea that the waterfront is not
simply a seam between land and river but a gradient with
effects felt deep in the city. Accordingly, the plan suggests
a series of small parks and the “greenfill” of portions of local
streets to bring the energy of the transformation as far
as Sixth Avenue. Along theriver edge, a channel has been
created to allow water-born transportation to flow near the
new boulevard, facilitating access. Building this channel
requires the inborn ends of the existing piers to be snipped
off and re-bridged to allow passage of boats below. A
number of new piers also are created for a variety of recreational
activities. Additionally, a series of set piece waterfront
spaces – including the grand Piazza San Giuliani
– have been proposed.
Company Town, Hin Heup, Laos
Masterplan for Timber Processing Complex and
Company Town, 1996
/SYNERGY
A design for a Malaysian timber company included housing
for workers and their families, a range of social, cultural,
and commercial facilities, and a large plywood factory
and timber mill. The project was meant to reflect the
sustainable policy of the company and the plan features
an abundance of green spaces, careful management of
run-off and waste, a network of pedestrian and bicycle
paths, and a variety of alternative energy devices. Housing
is in both hostels and individual houses and these
are aggregated in small villages to promote the growth
of community life. Each of the houses is provided with a
kitchen garden.
/SYNERGY

CHAIN OF CITIES EDGE CONDITION
Neurasia, Site Unknown
Masterplan for an Imaginary City, 1996
Neurasia is an imaginary city located somewhere between
Hong Kong and Hanoi. The town is organized into a series
of village-scaled increments, each distinct. A priority
to pedestrians is achieved with an intense layering of
means of motion. Within the city there is an abundance of
small-scale agriculture, sufficient to support its population.
Complex networks of green and blue space serve farming,
recreation, oxygen production, environmental cleansing,
and thermal regulation. At the center of the city, reflecting
Asian tradition, is a void.
The fantasy of the single city is extended to a network
of cities along the transcontinental line, which becomes
an armature for transportation, organizes transfer among
modes, and isolates disruptive uses. Cities blossom along
this line when the local environment is fertile and receptive.
Distance between the towns is calculated to enhance
local self-sufficiency, maximize unbuilt space, and respect
the bearing and artistic capacities of individual sites.
URBAN FRAGMENT /SYNERGY
Stadtebau Eisenstadt, Eisenstadt Austria
Masterplan for a city extension, 1996
An extension for a town in Austria – home to a magnificent
Hapsburg palace – adjoins the traditional linear
center formed along the town high street. Located on
a sloping site, the project seeks to reinforce movement
perpendicular to the main street in order to move closely
integrate the town and its extension. The main building
type is a low-rise loft building, predominantly residential
but also holding the possibility of housing small commercial
activities, including telecommuting, and a limited
amount of retail. Community facilities – meeting rooms,
child-care facilities, medical offices, etc. – are also provided
within the format of the loft typology. Site organization
is designed to create extensive car-free zones
for leisure and play and to take advantage of southern
exposures and views.
/SYNERGY

LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 LEVEL 3
Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia
Design for Civic Center, 1996
Design for a municipal complex including government offices,
a theater, library and gallery, we located a sinuous
building on the shore of a pond in a town park. The water
from the pond penetrates the folds of the plan, providing
pleasant views and cooling for the building. The spirit
of the intervention is carried over into a proposal for a
restructuring of the adjoining, somewhat ragged, downtown.
/SYNERGY
Governors Island, New York Harbor, New York
Masterplan Proposal, 1995-96
This spectacularly sited island in New York Harbor is, in
this scheme, re-imagined as the “University of the Earth”,
a collaboration among local universities dedicated to earth
and environmental sciences. The scheme re-uses the
many historic buildings on the island and adds a series
of flexible, loft-like structure to accommodate a variety of
academic uses. The structures are meant to be evocative
of the early nineteenth century forts on the island and
its opposite shore. In addition, we have proposed that
the courtyards of these building be enclosed by inflatable
membranes in inclement weather.
/SYNERGY

STEP ONE: PLANT A TREE IN AN INTERSEC-
East New York, Brooklyn, New York
Neighborhood Masterplan, 1995
This partly derelict area is socially, topographically and ecologically
(though not economically) rich, descending from bluffs and
ending in wetlands and shore. It holds factories and canals, rail
lines, and a huge neo-Corbusian middle-class apartment enclave.
It is also a museum of virtually every failed social housing typology
in the American experience. We wondered how East New York
might be transformed not by an urban-renewal-style demolition or
by historicist completion – the fulfillment of some of the turn-of-thecentury
developer’s fantasy of original intent – but by the addition
of new layers of circulation, of use, of green space and of form.
First studies show a flow of this energy, of parks, of agricultural
space, of small buildings, of new differences working their way
through the neighborhood. As the project progressed a question
arose: What might be the minimum initial invention necessary to
get this going. The answer, we decided, was to plant a tree in the
middle of an intersection; an “acupuncture” that might excess of
public space devoted to automobile transport in New York would
be reduced. Around these points, low-density, agrarian neighborhoods
would develop. A further intended consequence would be
the consolidation of several street-oriented neighborhood commercial
centers.
Sudraum Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
Project for Brownfield Reclamation, 1994
/SYNERGY
The landscape south of Leipzig is dominated by a series of
huge, abandoned, open-pit, soft coal (lignite) mines. In this
reclamation project we allow the mines to fill with water (a
process well underway) and use the massive old machines
to dig channels connecting them into a chain of lakes. This
water connection – extending into the center of Leipzig
– would form a new circulation armature for the towns and
villages of the Sudraum and a site for new villages to replace
those lost to the mines. By re-contouring the perimeters of
the mines to accommodate “island villages” just off shore, the
entire edge of the lakes would be saved for public use and
access. The new water-related development, it is hoped,
would inspire a distinctive style of life, an interconnected island
culture of boats and bridges, with a high degree of sustainability,
a rich mix of uses, recreational activities close by,
and direct access to green space. By freezing construction
on non-reclaimed sites, the existing landscape would be protected,
threatening urban sprawl contained, and a unique
pattern of settlement created on the new islands reclaimed
from the mines.
EXISTING CONDITIONS. THE CHAIN OF LAKES AND THE NEW VILLAGES. /SYNERGY

PHASE 1 PHASE 2
Spa Tokaj, Budapest, Hungary
Masterplan Proposal, 1994
Tokaj – a plan for a new town in Hungary attached to a
film production studio - is to be a town of pleasure and
health. Its workplaces are the thermal spa, casino, hotel,
medical facilities, concert and theater center, parks, film
studios and academy, and cinema museum. This extraordinary
program of leisure is to be supported by a rich apparatus
of normalcy. The town – as any new town should
be – is at once prototypical and practical, fantastical and
exigent.
The center of Tokaj – bounded by a sinewy canal – is
car-free and linked to Budapest by a light-rail connection.
Vehicular traffic circulates at the town’s perimeter on a
ring road that feed parking lots and service tunnels. Tokaj
is to be expanded in two phases to a radius of 1,500 meters.
At build-out, the town would include two additional
neighborhood centers in addition to the use-centers of its
main activities, all fronting on the central plaza. Greenery
would penetrate in strong vectors to the center of town,
allowing walks from the backyard to open countryside
and beyond.
Mondo Condo, Miami, Florida
700 Housing Units, 1994
/SYNERGY
A project for seven hundred condos on Biscayne Bay
presented a classic problem of the relationship of density,
automobiles, and view, most typically solved with a
double-loaded slab oriented perpendicular to the shore.
The site had the further complication of a high water table,
which made underground parking (to house a number
of cars more than enough to cover the entire site)
prohibitive. Our wish was to try and keep as much of the
ground plane as possible available for use, both as recreational
space for tenants and to tie the big project to
its neighborhood by providing an amenity that could be
shared. Fortunately, the site - although deep - was also
wide. Our solution gives each apartment a good view
(as well as cross-ventilation) - and by putting parking on
the upper level - frees virtually the entire ground plane
from cars. We hoped that the green core of this project
could grow into its surroundings, perhaps anchoring a
pedestrian connection to downtown Miami.
/SYNERGY

PLAN AT GARDEN LEVEL SECTION
Souks of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
Mixed-Use Development, 1994
This project is a proposition for the rebuilding of the destroyed
Souks which were at the heart of the city before
the outbreak of civil war. It seeks to restore the atmosphere
of an area without literal restoration of its forms
and to layer in new uses appropriate to a city on the verge
of the 21st century. While rejecting literal historicism, the
project nonetheless preserves all exiting architecture on
the site and systematically takes into account the memory
of the architecture which preceded it.
The project – at a pivotal point between the historic area
of the city and a new development zone – also seeks to
knit itself into the larger texture of Beirut by establishing
a new kind of “Green Line.” This sinewy, curving zone of
density, pedestrianism, and greenery traverses the site
– where it becomes an archipelago of garden topped pavilions
sheltering a large produce market – and spreads
into the city beyond, propagating parks and adding its
stitchery to the repair of a torn city.
The central feature of the project is the restoration of the
former market, here covered by a series of pavilions, each
topped by a garden. Surrounding buildings are zoned
vertically with shops at the bottom, professional offices
above and apartments on upper floors. These would be
directly connected to the green spaces atop the market
pavillions. The intent is to create a lively 24-hour environment
at the heart of the city.
MARKET PAVILLION /SYNERGY
SITE PLAN PLUS ONE
Shrooms, East New York, New York
Loft Housing, 1994
The genesis of Shrooms is in the idea of an “all-sided” loft
building in a particular New York neighborhood - East New
York - characterized by extensive abandonment and vacant
land, much of it city-owned. Looking at the empty lots
not as blight but as a community resource, we hoped that
a growing garland of Shrooms might have a ripple effect in
greening the neighborhood. In addition, we thought of the
loft-type as a crucial proto-public space. Not a space with
a fixed or predetermined set of uses but a kind of resource
out of which innumerable private possibilities might be
drawn. As an urban proposition, Shrooms seeks to establish
a new pattern of movement through the neighborhood,
a greenway which operates not as a replacement for the
street grid but as a supplement to it. Flowing through the
middle of the large blocks, it occupies the spaces of abandonment
as they are found. These public greenways lead
to the “green-rooms” at the core of each structure.
/SYNERGY

Spree Insel, Berlin, Germany
Masterplan Proposal, 1993
This project seeks to make a mixed-use neighborhood
from what might simply have been a single-use government
precinct by adding housing and commercial activity
to the program of ministerial facilities and museums. The
proposal is organized by a large circular figure that unites
the disparate activities and is intended to accrete a range
of variations, including a large public market in its interior.
Cars are excluded from the center of the site and green
spaces within the project are meant to propagate through
the city, linking existing parks and gardens into a continuous
chain.
Spree Insel, Berlin, Germany
Masterplan Proposal, 1993
/SYNERGY
This project seeks to make a mixed-use neighborhood
from what might simply have been a single-use government
precinct by adding housing and commercial activity
to the program of ministerial facilities and museums. The
proposal is organized by a large circular figure that unites
the disparate activities and is intended to accrete a range
of variations, including a large public market in its interior.
Cars are excluded from the center of the site and green
spaces within the project are meant to propagate through
the city, linking existing parks and gardens into a continuous
chain.
/SYNERGY

BEFORE AFTER
Brooklyn Waterfront, Brooklyn, NY
Waterfront Park, 1993
A design for a spectacular site on the Brooklyn waterfront
situated opposite Lower Manhattan and below the Brooklyn
Heights Promenade. Given the likelihood that this will
be an intensely trafficked place, the proposal was to racket
up the mix. A conference center is maintained to the north,
augmented with a hotel on a deconsecrated cruise ship or
aircraft carrier. A series of brick loft buildings fills out the
northern end of the site and lines its eastern flank. Further
down, a large amphitheater faces the fabulous view
of Manhattan. At the south end of, we have proposed an
industrial use: a barge-building yard. The barges would
be fitted out as gardens, sports grounds, restaurants, and
community facilities for use as constituents in the rest of
the project and might be floated to other parts of the city to
seed development of other stretches of waterfront.
/SYNERGY
Church Street Building, New York City, NY
Design for loft building, 1993
One of a series of proposals to look at the transformation
of redundant street spaces in New York, this residential
loft structure occupies the center lanes of Church Street at
its dead end at Canal. A double row of irregularly shaped
dwelling spaces are supported by a regular steel grid with
circulation and services pushed to the outside. These
spaces are combined to create units of various sizes and
all float above grade which is left free for circulation and
public activity, including a small cinema, patrly buried underground.
/SYNERGY

Spreebogen, Berlin, Germany
Masterplan Proposal, 1991
This competition project for a new administrative district
in Berlin attempted to reinforce a democratic environment
by expanding the precinct to the scale and complexity of
a neighborhood. The overall strategy involved providing
a surfeit of building in relatively compact increments to
both establish a compact scale and to encourage coalition
and consensus in the occupation. Public gathering
spaces are provided at many scales, including a long arcade
through the main range of parliamentary offices and
a series of spaces meant to evoke such familiar public
places as Harvard Yard, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Washington
Mall, and the Piazza Navonna. These are not reproduced
in any direct way but are invoked in spirit and
use. The range of spaces is intended to support spontaneous
gatherings and demonstrations at a wide variety
of scales.
Godzilla, Tokyo, Japan
Mixed-Use Skyscraper, 1989
/SYNERGY
The project’s affinities with Godzilla are not merely morphological
but conceptual. Just as that monster stands
for a certain intensification of Japanese post-nuclear
anxieties, so this building represents, an intensification
of Tokyo-ness. In it, the tangled skein of the city finds a
critical mass and erupts into form, a verticalization of the
fundamental (dis)order in the city. As with traditional skyscrapers,
Godzilla is divided into three parts. The lowest
includes large-scale, publicly-oriented spaces, including
theaters, department stores, and other commercial uses.
The middle portion holds office space and the fish-like
crown, apartments.
Godzilla is also designed as a strategic urban blockage,
thwarting and then reorganizing traffic. It is a center of
dissemination of green, blue, and car-free vectors, for the
expansion of a zone of pedestrianism, and for the insinuation
of fresh tendrils of form and materiality.
PLAN AT GRADE /SYNERGY

SHEEP
Beached Houses, Whitehouse, Jamaica
Project for Seven Houses, 1989
These houses were the result of a commission from a
New York art dealer who wished to establish a small colony
for the artists he represented. As a result, each of the
three house types propose (“Ray”, “Carp”, and “Slug”) is
designed as a loft with minimal interior partitioning to allow
for flexible use. In the case of Ray and Carp, dwelling
space is located above the primary use space to provide
privacy and to avoid interfering with the open area below.
Construction is light-weight framing with a metal skin. An
abundance of openings allow for ample natural ventilation.
Animal Houses
Theoretical Project, 1989
/SYNERGY
Part of a group of houses dedicated to an investigation
of variations in bilateral morphology, these projects also
embodied a then current interest in zoomorphic shapes.
The series – dog, frog, and aardvark - also includes the
sheep, a more elaborate loft building for designed for a
site in Manhattan. Sheep is one of a number of projects
undertaken by the studio to explore the idea of “resistant”
loft spaces. That is, instead of the paradigm of undifferentiated
space to be sub-divided in use, these projects
examine the greater flexibility inherent in spaces that
must be aggregated to form useful wholes.
SHEEP FROG DOG /SYNERGY

MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO/SYNERGY
180 VARICK STREET, #930
NEW YORK, NY 10014
T 212 627 9120 F 212 627 9125
www.sorkinstudio.com
Rancho Mirage, Palm Springs, California
Design for mixed-use bulding, 1988
Clearly a mixed metaphor, hybridizing bio- and geomorphic
shapes. The radial piece is for municipal offices, narrow
limbed to get each desk next to a window, to maximize
natural ventilation, and to share shading. The anemones
growing on the top are skylights and windscoops and
chimneys. The City Council chamber allows meetings
either indoors or out and the outdoor space was meant
for performances as well The long section is a giant drafting
room for the City Engineer’s Department and the little
flower at the end is an autonomous child care center and
public classroom space.
/SYNERGY