Icing on the apple pie

Andrew Whalley of Grimshaw explains why there’s at least one company looking forward to 2012

In the early hours of 10 September 2001 we were celebrating in the World Trade Centre’s ‘Windows on the World’ after winning EMPAC, an upstate performing arts centre and our first New York project. Anniversaries are always an occasion to reflect on change, and now, 10 years after 9/11, the Wall Street Journal is evaluating changes in the city’s landscape.

The WSJ highlights one significant change in New York during the last decade, which is the number of international architects designing buildings in the city. It selected Grimshaw out of an impressive list as the international practice which has had the biggest impact on the everyday lives of New Yorkers since 9/11. Grimshaw started a fledging two person office in downtown Manhattan early in 2001. We had just completed our first USA project in the Midwest, entirely out of London, and had decided that to fully explore the interesting and challenging opportunities in the USA, we had to be committed there. Strong connections between New York and London made it the natural location. Since then, our portfolio has expanded, and unlike most international firms who are principally engaged with large-scale commercial schemes, we have worked largely in the public sector and with institutional clients. Many of these opportunities have come from the initiatives of mayor Bloomberg to improve the design quality of the city’s public buildings and infrastructure.

Going public
Our second success came in 2003, the competition for the new Subway Transit Centre at Fulton Street which forms part of the post-9/11 reconstruction of downtown. We have come to realise that another key aspect of public projects is patience; originally a four year timeline, we have only just completed the structure and have two more years to go to completion. Other work ranges from humble sidewalk ventilation grates that incorporate seating benches and bicycle racks, to New York’s largest infrastructure project, the $3 billion Croton water treatment plant in the Bronx. One of the most visible projects is the new citywide street furniture that includes three and a half thousand bus shelters, newsagent stands and perhaps, less glamorously, New York’s first new public toilets in two decades.

Bloomberg appointed David Burney, a graduate of Edinburgh’s Heriott Watt, as the first architect to lead the Department of Design and Construction. He set up a professional framework system under the heading Design Excellence that allows public agencies to appoint architects entirely on design, experience and aptitude rather than pure fee tender. This has engaged a range of architects working on anything from utilities to new civic buildings. It has given Grimshaw commissions from the Queens Museum of Art to streetscape and urban planning projects.

Another mayoral initiative was to improve the quality and design of public housing, with a new generation of sustainable and mixed income developments. A site was identified in the south Bronx and teams of developers and architects were invited to take part in a design competition. We were teamed with the developers Jonathan Rose and Phipps and New York architect Dattner. This is another enjoyable aspect of working in America; there are many more opportunities to team with other firms of architects influenced by licensing, office locations or just strengthening skill sets. As a company known for our interest in working closely with engineering firms this has been a natural extension to the collaborative design process, which we all find educational and rewarding. The biggest challenge with this competition was the budget; it was fixed on standard utilitarian public housing rates but had high design and sustainability aspirations. In spite of this, our team gelled and won the competition with the design integrity remaining intact. Via Verde’s new residents will take possession in spring.

Special relationship
Being a British firm in the USA has created new opportunities. Alongside the transport and infrastructure projects that we are known for in the UK we have succeeded in winning a range of arts and cultural projects. In Mexico we converted an old blast furnace into a museum of steel and in Miami we are about to start construction on a new science museum. More recently we won a competition for a new mobile touring museum in Brazil. This is part of a new stage in the development of the New York office, with more international work in the Americas, Asia and the Middle East and is a reflection on how we have restructured the company as a partnership. Rather than following the traditional model of the founding office as the HQ with foreign satellites we are developing a network, with all the office locations working together as one entity. The challenges go beyond time zones and currency exchanges but it allows our 15 partners to work together and harness skill sets and resources in the USA, UK and Australia and work into new markets in Asia and the Middle East.

All this has allowed the New York office to grow and develop at an economically challenging time. Since 2001, my fellow New York partners Vincent Chang and Mark Husser have been joined by a new partner, Bill Horgan. We recently refurbished a warehouse in Chelsea (pictured) overlooking the Hudson River and now have 70 staff which will continue to grow. New York has proven a very successful city for Grimshaw.

Andrew Whalley is deputy chairman at Grimshaw