On the 27-hectare (67 ac) site of the former Poznanski textile mills in the center of Poland’s second-largest city, French developer Group Apsys has refurbished and adapted 14 historically protected buildings as a two-story lifestyle destination center organized around a traditional Polish market square. A mix of international shops—including two hypermarkets—and more than 50 restaurants, cafés, and bars occupy the 150,000-square-meter (1.6 million sf) project, which opened in May 2006 and will be completed in 2008 with the addition of a four-star hotel, a conference and business center, and three museums.
Certified green—the first high-rise office building in the world to be precertified by LEED-CS (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design–Core and Shell Development program) at the Silver level and, upon completion, the second to be certified by LEED at the Gold level—1180 Peachtree is a striking icon that has redefined the epicenter of Atlanta’s urban renaissance and enhanced the city skyline. Located at the center of Midtown—a four-square-mile (10 sq km2) neighborhood between downtown to the south and Buckhead to the north—the 41-story tower at the corner of Peachtree and 14th Streets anticipates the Santiago Calatrava–designed future home of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO). An extraordinarily narrow site challenged the development team to accommodate office and retail space as well as parking; the extremely efficient floor plan provides more than 630,000 square feet (58,529 m2) of office space and more than 32,000 square feet (2,973 m2) of retail space plus a 1,200-space parking deck. When ASO’s Symphony Center is completed, it will face 1180 Peachtree across a large public plaza to be shared with the Woodruff Arts Campus to the north.. A landscaped plaza and retail and lobby frontage define 1180 Peachtree’s street-level presence, and passers-by are unaware of the parking, which is situated below the main office tower.
The Philadelphia Navy Yard, which encompasses more than 1,000 acres (405 ha), 2,000 buildings, and 2.5 miles (4 km) of riverfront, was decommissioned in 1996. In 2000, ownership was transferred to the Philadelphia Authority of Industrial Development (PAID), and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) began developing the property on behalf of PAID and the city. The Navy Yard is rapidly becoming a dynamic and viable new business location, as evidenced by the Urban Outfitters corporate office campus, which was completed and opened in October 2006. The campus includes 250,000 sq ft (23,226 sq m) of office space and 8,000 sq ft (743 sq m) of retail uses on 11 acres.
Nihonbashi—“Japan Bridge”—is the symbolic zero-marker of the country’s highway system and a fitting name for a district that is the historic center of domestic commerce in Japan. Yet in recent years the Nihonbashi district’s appeal had waned, due in part to a 1964 Olympics–era expressway that divides the district and obscures the famed view of Mount Fuji from the bridge.
More than 30 years after it was originally built, the Landmark still stands out as a most prominent upscale retail center and office address in Hong Kong. The Landmark Scheme, a HK$1.64 billion (US$210 million) upgrade completed in November 2006, has reinforced the prominence of this commercial complex that occupies a one-hectare (2.5 ac) site in Hong Kong’s central business district (known as Central Hong Kong, or Central).
The Levent district—the financial heart of downtown Istanbul—had become disjointed and isolated, the result of rapid growth, the lack of a viable urban plan, and little collaboration among public agencies and developers. New development had put the needs of automobiles ahead of more pressing urban needs. The approximately 50,000 people who worked in the district had few places to socialize, entertain, or even walk along the street.
In 1970, America Park was one of the worst public housing projects in Massachusetts. One-quarter of its 408 units on 58 acres (23 ha) were boarded up and condemned. The tenants, recognizing that the local housing authority was not able to properly manage the project or provide the services they needed, organized themselves through an elected residents council. Wanting to bypass the state housing authority, whose regulations were seen to have exacerbated conditions, the residents council refused public renovation funds.
The Petit Palau respectfully expands Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana—a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the best preserved and most used art nouveau buildings in the world, as well as one of the world’s leading concert halls—with a new service building and underground performance space. The expansion exposes the original Palau structure on all sides as had been originally intended. The new 538-seat auditorium contains state-of-the-art features that could not be retrofitted into the Palau’s main concert hall. The small—only 2,100 square meters (22,600 sf)—site on which the building was constructed between 1905 and 1908 posed numerous challenges to its execution. Architects Oscar Tusquets and Carles Díaz worked on this and previous Palau projects for more than two decades, accomplishing a major renovation and expansion effort that addressed numerous challenges while honoring architect Lluís Domènech i Muntaner’s original vision for the Palau.
Two purposes—the social vision of the federal HOPE VI housing program and the livability principles of new urbanist design—are coming together in the High Point development. High Point, a 120-acre (49 ha) residential neighborhood with a mix of incomes, ethnicities, and household structures, invites social interaction and fosters community identity. It replaces a post–World War II public housing project of 716 units with an environmentally conscious community of 1,600 new housing units, 45 percent of which are affordable and low-income rentals being constructed by the housing authority, and 55 percent of which are for-sale market-rate units or rental housing for seniors being built by for-profit and nonprofit developers.
