Brooklyn, NY

New waterfront Park at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. A great spot to see Manhattan, take a stroll or go to a wine bar.

ArchPlan News

While the situation in the industry is still difficult, ArchPlan is humming with activity.

- We welcome Mandy Palasik and Erin Jones, both joined the ArchPlan team recently. Mandy and Erin are busy preparing the schematic design documents for the Sphinx Club and the associated B.A.L.L. Museum on Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore. Concurrent they have all hands full with construction administration on the Gateway rehabs and the new Bakerview Homes, both in the Druid Heights community.

- Michael Crowley is helping is out with our preparation work for the Red Line Station Area Advisory Planning Process which will be launched in September.

- Kari has completely redesigned the facility building for the planned Langley Transit Center. Now we can move forward to the design development drawings for the entire project.

Stay tuned for a complete redesign of our website coming soon!

For Historic Preservation (or against politicians?)

August 17, 2010


Stuttgart station human chain draws 20,000

Published: 14 Aug 10 09:50 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100814-29153.html
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Around 20,000 people demonstrated against the tearing down of Stuttgart’s central train station on Friday evening, forming a human chain around the building before marching to the city hall to protest.

The number of people who took part was twice as many as had been predicted, presumably prompted to take to the streets by the actual start of demolition, said Matthias von Herrmann, organiser of the demonstrations against the Stuttgart 21 project.

“If it continues like this, the whole city will be in uproar before long,” he said. Politicians had thrown oil on the fire by ignoring previous protests by thousands of people, he said.

‘Polling day – pay day’, those in front of the station had chanted, threatening political retribution at next March’s state election for the decision to go ahead with the project which has become enormously controversial.

Costing €4.1 billion, the demolition and construction will tear up the city centre for more than a decade and demolish parts of the landmark train station built by architect Paul Bonatz in 1928. But its supporters argue it will make the city an important rail link between Eastern and Western Europe.

A ‘test’ sit-in blockade is planned for Saturday, to see how much disruption could be caused to demolition work should it be repeated, with organisers expecting several hundred, if not more, people to take part.

Police reported the demonstration and march on Friday went off without any problems, although four people were carried away having entered the works site to try to stop the start of demolition that morning.

AFP/DPA/The Local (news@thelocal.de)



I have followed this project Stuttgart 21 and the debate about the north wing of the Bonatz building for years and all of my Stuttgart architect friends seem to be vehemently opposed to the project of making the Bahnhof a through station rather than a dead end station (Kopfbahnhof). One of them stated “in einer Stadt, da kommt man an, da faehrt man nicht durch“. (In a real City you arrive, you don’t pass through). I find these kinds of statements cozy but provincial and eventually concluded that Stuttgart 21 offers the city a big opportunity to add large areas of TOD (on top of all the tracks) and that the fact that the ICE station is in its old location and not bypassing the city altogether is by far the superior solution. The Bonatz Bahnhof is nice and well (although also liked by the Nazis) and most of it will be preserved (the entire main building and hall as well as the tower). If Stuttgart would be bypassed by the ICE train it would sink to third tier ranking and its downtown would cheapen further than it has already not very unlike American downtowns. Stuttgart 21 with all its investments and new uses has the chance to inject a huge dose of new juice in a very central location. Looks like good planning to me.