Downtown Alliance’s Greenwich South Study Wins 7th Award for Re-Imagining the ‘Lower West Side’

The Alliance for Downtown New York’s Greenwich South Study has received an American Architecture Award for 2010 from the Chicago Athenaeum and European Center for Architecture and Design. The honor is one of the most prestigious and distinguished building awards in the United States to honor new and cutting-edge design.

The Greenwich South study suggests ways to turn the 23 blocks between Battery Park and the World Trade Center near Greenwich Street into the lynchpin for a thriving, round-the-clock “Lower West Side,” and presents a vision for revitalizing and reconnecting the community with nearby creative hubs.

Led by Chairman Robert R. Douglass and President Elizabeth H. Berger, the Downtown Alliance convened an ad-hoc committee to steer the report. The Greenwich South Committee was co-chaired by Frank J. Sciame, Chairman of the F.J. Sciame Construction Company and Timur Galen, a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs.

Additionally, the study was led by Architecture Research Office with Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, Open and Marc Kristal. It features contributions from Thom Mayne of Morphosis, WORKac, Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis Architects, Coen + Partners, IwamotoScott Architecture, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, sculptor DeWitt Godfrey, Transsolar Climate Engineering and Jorge Colombo. For more information on the Greenwich South project, please visit our website at https://downtownny.com/greenwichsouth.

The project was one of 47 2010 American Architecture Award winners selected from a pool of more than 1,000 applicants. The winners will be featured in a special exhibition in Madrid next month as part of the Athenaeum/European Center’s conference, “The City and the World: Madrid Symposium.”

Since its release in September 2009, the Greenwich South Study also has won recognition from:

 The American Society of Landscape Architects, Minnesota Chapter. The Minnesota ASLA honored Coen + Partners for its landscape architecture work on the study. The New York and Minneapolis-based firm submitted its concept of “A Living Street: A Landscape Illustrating Five Principles for Greenwich South.” The goal of the Greenwich South vision, Coen + Partners said, is to “shape future neighborhood development around the concept of a ‘Living Street.’ The resulting landscape concept successfully knits the World Trade Center site to Battery Park, creating a sustainable and animated neighborhood armature, both visually distinct and timeless, to guide long-term renewal.”
 The American Institute of Architects, New York Chapter. The New York AIA has awarded the study with a 2010 New York Chapter Urban Design Merit Award. The awards jury “picked projects that highlighted that good architecture is more than luxury – it’s what works best for the end user, be it a government agency, a nonprofit organization, or a private business,” said the symposium’s moderator, Architect’s Newspaper editor-in-chief William Menking.
 The American Institute of Architects, National Chapter. The national AIA has given the project a 2010 National Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design. “The potential of the extraordinary large parcel, essentially forgotten for decades, could result in a reconnection that opens up millions of square feet of developable air rights,” the awards jury said.
 The Rockefeller Foundation. Based on the Greenwich South study, the Foundation has granted the Downtown Alliance a $150,000 award from its New York City Cultural Innovation Fund for development of a creative arts-district prototype that supports permanent workspaces for artists and commercial growth.
 Architect magazine. The publication selected the Greenwich South project for one of nine 2010 Progressive Architecture awards. “What if?…The question is so simple, yet so integral to the progressive practice of architecture, that we applied it to all the award recipients…Asking the right questions can lead to solutions that are worth celebrating.”
 The International Downtown Association. The IDA last fall selected the Greenwich South project for a 2009 Award of Distinction in planning. The award honors projects that meet a rigorous standard of excellence in urban development.