Andrew Baisley

Architect Ben Hansen has designed a townhouse for a family in Brooklyn, New York.

From the architect

In many ways, the historic New York City townhouse is not compatible with a contemporary family’s way of life. Contemporary families tend to socialize in and around their kitchens. Members of the family move fluidly between the kitchen, dining and living rooms. Traditionally, townhouses are configured with a grand parlor level and a cramped and utilitarian garden level. This splits the living spaces and cooking spaces between two levels. This has led to a below grade cooking space with low ceilings and a beautiful, but underutilized parlor level. Our design for a townhouse on State Street resolves this problem. Each floor level has a different sized floor plate to accommodate our program. This allowed us to put both the kitchen and living areas on the parlor level. The smaller basement level is used as a guest bedroom and play space.

Architect: Ben Hansen Architect
Photography by Francisc Dzikowski

Facebook has settled into its 185,000-square-foot office in the historic Wanamaker Building at 770 Broadway near Astor Place, and to mark the occasion—and make everyone else feel sad about how completely boring and inadequate their offices are—they're unveiling the space with an event (and feature in the Wall Street Journal). Frank Gehry designed the new work space, now home to 500 employees and engineers. The floors have open layouts, there's a full service cafeteria and a library, as well as all of the things that one thinks of when picturing a hip tech company office, i.e. gaming tables, exposed ceilings, and custom-made art. The social media juggernaut joins AOL, Adweek, Backstage, and Billboard in the building, and IBM Watson and online marketplace 1stdibs are across the street in the Deathstar.

· Facebook Sees Midtown South Office as Recruitment Tool [WSJ]
· Here Now, Facebook's Partially Done, Gehry-Designed NYC HQ [Curbed]

One of the defining features of the Grand Theft Auto franchise has always been its unique third-person view from which the player experiences the world, a staple of the experience ever since 2001's Grand Theft Auto III. However, Rockstar Games has shaken all of that up with possibly the largest addition to the holistic open-world experience with the introduction of first-person view to Grand Theft Auto V. Although this feature was present to some extent in past titles, it was always an afterthought and never as thoroughly executed as this most recent improvement, which serves to up the ante and creates a complete sense of immersion in the worlds of Los Santos and Blaine County that will keep players glued to their screens. Exclusive to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions, enjoy the trailer above and head over here for more information.

Read more at Hypebeast.com

Vanessa Mitrani has designed a variety of home decor items that play with the idea of gravity.

Design: Vanessa Mitrani

Is it dubious to believe that long-term food giant McDonald's is set to part ways with their infamous catch phrase, "I'm Lovin' It"? The Wall Street Journal reports that the chain plans to launch its' new slogan "Lovin' Beats Hatin'" in January 2015. Since "I'm Lovin' It" was introduced in 2003 as a company incentive to produce a universal, worldwide tagline, it has become a marketing phenomenon set in place for the last 11 years.

Like other hugely successful chains, McDonald's has in fact changed its' catch phrase many a time - "Did somebody say McDonald's?" serving from 1997 to 2000 and "We love to see you smile" from 2000 to 2003. We speculate though, that their current slogan will forever resonate with the young generation – irrespective of the change.

"Lovin' Beats Hatin'" is supposed to attempt to revitalize the company's image following a notable 30% decline in profits in their most recent quarter. Shrouded in skepticism, it's unclear whether any of this will be beneficial, especially following criticism across various social media platforms like Twitter. Love it or hate it, get involved and let us know what you think in the comment section below.

Click here to view full gallery at Hypebeast.com

kateoplis:

Child-Proof Minimalism

Skyway Development Group is going to build a ridiculously lavish townhouse on West 21st Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, and for the first time unveiled renderings of what that home will look like. 34 West 21st Street will have the following, in order of prevalence: seven floors; six bedrooms; six bathrooms; four powder rooms; two hot tubs; one glass elevator; one sauna; one steam room; one home office; one private garage (with a curb cut included); one garden; and one roof deck. Interiors of the 8,000-square-foot giantess will be designed by Andres Escobar, who has places like the Jade hotel and other moderately nice designs to his name.

Here's the kicker: the architect is Karl "Hot Karl" Fischer, better know for designing blocky Brooklyn rental buildings and other non-attractive structures. But Fischer and Escobar have worked together before, and the results are sort of palatable and definitely luxurious, so let's see how this shakes out.
· A Hot Karl McMansion [Curbed]
· Portfolio [Skyway Development Group]

It’s on Sale: Unionmade Archive

What is it with awesome California stores clearing out their archives this week? Unionmade has put a ton of leftover stock on their archive site for up to 90% off. There is a LOT of good stuff in here—maybe the best are fall/winter knitwear and accessories at deep discounts. Check out Levi’s Vintage Clothing, Ts(s), Drake’s, MHL, Begg, and Golden Bear, among other brands. Unionmade seems very intent on letting you know all sales are final.

-Pete

OGE CreativeGroup have designed the Giant Birdsnest, a fusion of furniture and playground.

From the designers

The Giant birdsnest aka “Giant Birdsnest for creating new ideas” was conceived and created as a prototype for new and inspiring socializing space: a fusion of furniture and playground: A comfortable informal and sensual soft space. The wooden nest is filled with highly comfortable egg-shaped sitting poofs which allow ergonomic sitting positions and various configurations for informal meetings and social exchange.

The nest comes in various sizes, from a small and intimate nest for 2-3 people up to a 4.50 m diameter big version which can host up to 16 people at once – the soft space is perfect, comfortable and inspiring place for resting, browsing the web, reading, relaxing, loving, talking, briefing, discussing (…) Its powerful, yet simple concept and intriguing character needs no explanation or user manual: Ready to be used, ready for playing or working in.

Design: OGE CreativeGroup

Developer Jerry Witkoff's demolition of Long Island's graffiti mecca 5Pointz is long, slow, and painful. After beginning in late August, the destruction arrived at a more startling point this week when iconic tags containing the building's logo and website came crashing to the ground, captured on video over at Untapped Cities. Historian and blogger Mitch Waxman published a series of demo photos himself along with a little eulogy. Watch, and try not to cry on your keyboard.

· 5Pointz Sign Comes Tumbling Down in Final Demolition Phase [Untapped Cities]
· 5Pointz Demolition Photos [StonerQ]
· All 5 Pointz coverage [Curbed]

This season, California-based watch specialist, TSOVET, returns with another range of timepieces inspired by the "aerospace engineers of yesteryear." The brand's Fall/Winter 2014 designs, as in seasons past, are simple and clean, and draw from classic design details while adding modern functionality to the mix. Standout models include the rugged, yet minimal JPT-TF40; the basic SVT-SC38; the modern JPT-NT42 and the field watch-style JPT-TF40, all of which feature Swiss Quartz or Japanese Miyota movements, durable stainless steel bodies and a variety of woven canvas, rubber or leather straps. Simple and stylish without sacrificing quality or functionality, TSOVET's Fall/Winter 2014 watches are ideal for a variety of occasions and can be found now at the HYPEBEAST Store.

Click here to view full gallery at Hypebeast.com

[Breezy Point, a gated community in the Rockaways, has committed to rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy. All photos by Nathan Kensinger.]

Welcome back to Camera Obscura, Curbed's series of photo essays by Nathan Kensinger. This week marks the second anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, and Kensinger will return to three neighborhoods he has been visiting since the storm. Up first is Breezy Point, a gated community in the Rockaways.

In the two years since Hurricane Sandy devastated New York's waterfront, the city has undergone a painful recovery process. In Breezy Point, Sea Gate, Ocean Breeze and Oakwood Beach—some of the neighborhoods hit hardest by the storm—residents have struggled to choose between rebuilding or retreating from the water. With sea levels expected to rise several feet in coming years, the government has also been considering what steps to take next to address a future shaped by climate change, flooding, and storms. "We are rebuilding highways, we're doing dune replenishment, there are massive MTA projects, there are protections for the tunnels," said Barbara Brancaccio, spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Storm Recovery. "It's the second anniversary and I would say that the city is extremely prepared."

New York City's most impressive recovery is taking place in the Rockaways, where many communities were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy's storm surge. Today, the peninsula is protected by a newly built system of walls and dunes, and all of its neighborhoods have decided to rebuild. In Breezy Point, a gated community at the western tip of the Rockaways, more than 300 homes were either washed away or burned to the ground during Sandy. Over the past two years, the landscape here has been transformed from scorched ruins into a thicket of new homes, many built in the past few months. One year ago, on the first anniversary of the storm, Breezy Point was still dominated by empty lots filled with sand. Today, dozens of new homes have been built, and the sounds of hammers, saws, bulldozers and backhoes echo through the salty air.

Despite being located on a shifting sand bar surrounded by the ocean, the residents of Breezy Point are committed to staying on the waterfront. They recently spent $130,000 of their own funds to create a protective dune, and are in the process of evolving their housing stock from the single-story bungalows that Sandy destroyed to mammoth multi-story homes that fulfill the new building requirements. The government is supporting the community in their rebuilding efforts, and recently announced a multi-million dollar "Comprehensive Coastal Protection System" for Breezy Point, "to safeguard the community from future instances of extreme weather." This project is just one part of the city's resiliency plan, explains Amy Spitalnick, director of public affairs for the city's Office of Management and Budget. "The plan strengthens coastal defenses, upgrades buildings, protects infrastructure and critical services, and makes homes, businesses, and neighborhoods safer and more vibrant in these communities and beyond." 

The refusal to retreat from the water is also part of a much larger city vision. Since Hurricane Sandy, numerous residential megaprojects have been built or announced along the city's coastline, increasing population density enormously in areas which will experience the most flooding during storms to come. Some have questioned the wisdom of building in flood zones next to the sea, but in the Rockaways and Breezy Point, these concerns have not deterred rebuilding. 

November 2012: On Gotham Walk in Breezy Point, Hurricane Sandy's devastation was nearly complete. After a fire destroyed over 120 homes in the area, only a handful of houses remained standing. 

October 2014: Standing at the same spot today, the changes are disorienting. A new home has been built on almost every empty lot.

November 2012: On Fulton Walk, every home was burned to the ground during Hurricane Sandy, in what the Times described as one of the "the worst residential fires in New York City's history."

August 2013: Then months after the storm, rebuilding had begun on only a few new homes in the area. Fulton Walk's concrete paths had been cracked by demolition equipment.

October 2014: Today, the residents of Fulton Walk have enjoyed a nearly complete return, with houses either completed or under construction. Much of the cost has been covered by insurance and private money, according to Crain's. 

November 2012: On Irving Walk, humble one-story bungalows were pushed off their foundations by Hurricane Sandy, which destroyed approximately 350 homes in Breezy Point. 

November 2012: Many of these homes were unsalvageable and were gutted and demolished, with personal belongings taken away to be deposited in a landfill. 

October 2014: On Irving Walk today, these bungalows have been replaced by much larger houses, elevated above the sand to meet new building requirements. 

October 2014: Seeing a mailman making his rounds through the neighborhood would have seemed almost impossible two years ago.

October 2014: Some residents have reportedly had difficulty rebuilding, but even the increasingly rare empty lots of Breezy Point have been set up to arrange delivery of mail. 

October 2014: This new home was erected in just over a week, with workers laboring through the weekend. Many new homes here are modular in construction, and some, like the building site on the left, have been funded by the city's Build It Back program.

October 2014: Facing south towards the sea, some of these new houses are isolated, surrounded by sand and situated at sea level. 

October 2014: A broad plain separates Breezy Point from the ocean, but provides no buffer from the elements. When it comes to sea level rise, New York is one of the "most vulnerable metropolitan areas" in the world, according to the Times. 

October 2014: Residents constructed this 1,000-foot dune along the south side of their community using their own funds. 

October 2014: From atop the dune, the sea is never far away. A new climate change report will be approved by the United Nations at the end of this month, which will help shape future plans for waterfront communities.  
· Nathan Kensinger [Official]
· Tracing a Post-Storm Year of Chance in the Rockaways [Curbed]
· Camera Obscura archive [Curbed]

Sup haha lol

A Yale University graduate student who recently returned from Liberia is being treated for Ebola-like symptoms at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. The Yale Daily News reports, "While University administrators have insisted that the patient did not have contact with the disease, Yale Medical School Dean Robert Alpern said that the patient 'did have contact with one person who eventually developed ebola.'" Update: The student has tested negative for Ebola. [ more › ]

The plan to turn a 3.5-mile stretch of abandoned railroad tracks in Queens into a vibrant park now has a blueprint. The detailed study released today by the Trust for Public land includes a cost breakdown, economic and transportation analyses, and detailed outlines for such amenities as exercise areas and a sports pavilion. Now supporters (and detractors) of the Queensway can move the conversation forward.

The park would connect Rego Park to Ozone Park with a lush walkway and bike path, indirectly linking the Gateway National Recreation Area to Forest Park in the middle to Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The official plan, prepared by WXY architecture + urban design and DLANDStudio Architecture & Landscape Architecture, aims to offer more traffic to local businesses, more park space to locals, a safer route for cyclists, and other diversions and attractions along the path.

The new study says the Queensway would cost $122 million. For comparison, stack that up to the $66 million that Hunters Point South Park cost. On the higher end, a pricetag of $152 million applied to High Line phases 1 and 2, $275 million for Brooklyn Bridge Park, and $430 million for Hudson River Park. (Apparently, waterfront parks are particularly pricey.) Potential funding, it says, could include philanthropy, "value capture," earned income and public funding, which might include federal transportation dollars because of the bike trail.

Other details of the study address concerns such as privacy for neighbors by way of shrubbery buffers and fencing. Lighting would also be directed in such a way not to bother those who live just outside. But the study, naturally, emphasized more of the positives, such as four main activity areas, separated pedestrian and bike trails, "learning landscapes" for nearby schools, and all the hypothetical new visitors to the borough who would stop at shops and eateries. The study estimated there would be 1 million visits per year to the Queensway, with 250,000 people from outside the borough. These people, the study says, will spend between $7 and $21 per visit, a collective $2.2 million in new spending in the area.

In late 2012, the Trust for Public Land secured a $467,000 grant from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to put towards the study. Since then, the TPL and the Friends of the Queensway held community meetings for public input. The study competes with supporters of a different plan to restore transit service on the tracks, formerly the Long Island Railroad Rockaway Beach line. Neither proposal has secured support from the mayor's office.

But a slew of public officials, businesspeople and heads of nonprofits offered support for the Queensway today. Congresswoman Grace Meng said the park "has the potential to be the new gem of open space in the borough."

· All Queensway coverage [Curbed]

This two-family townhouse at 102 Gates Avenue was purchased last year for $1.555 million, renovated, and relisted yesterday for $3.35 million, as these types of houses often are. But luckily for us, the 2013 listing is still online, displaying what rough shape the interiors were in before, and making the new renovation seem all the better for it. Gone are the wall-to-wall carpeting, Halloween-ish paint, and general grime — they have been replaced by restored wood plank floors, and refurbished "wedding cake crown moldings, paneled doors, casings, window shutters, doorknobs, and rim locks." The landscaped backyard is pretty great, too.

· Listing: 102 Gates Avenue [Brown Harris Stevens, via Streeteasy]
· Old Listing: 102 Gates Avenue [Corcoran]

Okay Tumblr: we love the subway goers in the tiles at the Prince St stop — but what the heck do you think is in that one guy’s bag?

While the authorities are taking concerns about Ebola seriously, one airline passenger decided it would be hilarious to blame his sneezing on the deadly virus. A man traveling from Philadelphia to the Dominican Republic reportedly announced on a US Airways flight, "I have Ebola, you are all screwed!" [ more › ]

One of my all-time, hands-down, most favorite places to explore in New York City is the abandoned hospital complex on Ellis Island. Normally off-limits to the public, tours are suddenly being offered for the first time in 60 years, and I highly, highly suggest you go while the opportunity exists.

I wrote about my first visit a few years ago. I’ve since been back several times for additional scouting trips, and I never get tired of walking through the eerily silent hallways and rooms of the abandoned 29-building complex. Below, a few of my favorite pictures…

Tours are being offered to allow the public to experience French artist JR’s new site-specific installation “Unframed – Ellis Island,” in which historic images from the island’s past have been overlaid onto its crumbling walls and broken windows. Here’s an example from a recent NY Times article on the project – the effect is beautifully haunting.

Joshua Bright / NY Times

Tours are small (just ten in a group – hard hats provided!) and will take visitors on a tour of several buildings, as well as the grounds.

Best of all, proceeds from the tours will go to the Save Ellis Island project, which has been working tirelessly for years to stabilize the buildings. Tickets can be purchased here. If you’re a Scouting NY fan and are looking for a one-of-a-kind experience – perfect for the month of October! – I promise you will not forget this.

-SCOUT

mashable:

These Click Photo-Parade magazine photos show what passed as advice for women back in 1938.

[via]

Date night!

Vox introduced Ello this way:

A brand-new social networking startup — Ello — has gone viral. At one point on Thursday, the site was acquiring 31,000 new users an hour — many of whom flocked to there because of a disagreement with Facebook over its policy requiring real names, which some say is unfair to LGBTQ and transgender users.

Ello might be the new Facebook or the new Twitter or the new social media flop. It’s too early to tell.

Actually, no, it’s not too early. Ello will fail, deservedly so. It has a consumer hostile business model.

---

Discussion of how a company makes money – its business model – is often completely divorced from discussion about the product at hand, but I think that’s a mistake; business models fundamentally impact product, if not now, then assuredly in the future. To their credit, Ello is quite up-front about the fact that many of their decisions are driven by business models, specifically, their opposition to ads. From their WTF document:

Many other social networks (like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, Instagram, etc. etc.) started out ad-free, then suddenly switched gears. They modified their privacy policies, started selling information about their users to data brokers, and bombarded us with ads. Many users of those networks feel betrayed.

Ello’s entire structure is based around a no-ad and no data-mining policy. Quite frankly, were we to break this commitment, we would lose most of the Ello community. Including ourselves, because we dislike ads more than almost anyone else out there. Which is why we built Ello in the first place.

OK, so how exactly will Ello make money?

Very soon we will begin offering special features to our users. If we create a special feature that you like, you can choose to pay a very small amount of money to add it to your Ello account forever. We believe that everyone is unique and that we all want and need different things from a social network. So, we are going to offer all sorts of ways for users to customize their Ello experience.

I have no idea what these features might be – a mobile app and an API would be good places to start – but the gist is clear: to get the optimal Ello experience you had better pay up, but only once, and you’ll have it forever.

This is a terrible idea.

Here’s how this policy will play out in practice:

• The initial experience of using Ello will be a poor one because you won’t have access to all of the features
• A poor initial experience will lead to high rates of abandonment among the few friends you manage to convince to try the service
• You will complain to Ello and they will have exactly zero incentive to make things better

It’s this final point that is critical for me whenever I evaluate a new product or service: does the product’s business model incentivise the developer to be responsive to my needs as a user?

The way this drives my decision-making in hardware is the easiest to understand:

• Businesses predicated on selling high margin products are highly incentivized to differentiate their products to attract my purchase, and also highly incentivized to ensure quality to guarantee that I stay loyal
• Businesses predicated on achieving the lowest prices are highly incentivized to drive down costs, and are much more likely to sacrifice quality

Thus, I almost always buy high margin products, especially for products I use regularly. The incentives are better for me as a customer, according to the criteria that I consider important.

Things are a little more complex when it comes to software, but the same guiding principle is still in place: I like companies that are incentivized to make and keep me happy:

• My favorite business model is a subscription: I pay every month for a piece of software or a service, which means the software or service provider is always under pressure to earn my money

• Advertising is actually not far off from a subscription-style service: while in a very narrow view the adage “you’re the product that’s being bought and sold” is certainly true, the reality is that the Google and Facebooks of the world are arguably even more incentivized to make sure the user experience is great. After all, the value they offer has to be sufficient to overcome the negative effects of advertising (and in some case, particularly Google search, there are times when advertising is actually additive to the user experience)

• Up-front payments can go either way:

  • I’m a fan of up-front payments if the developer has plans to release new versions of the software that require me to pay to upgrade. This sort of business is similar to high-margin hardware: not only must this developer offer something very compelling to earn my up-front payment, they must also deliver something of quality to ensure I’m willing to pay for versions two, three, and four
  • On the other hand, if the developer will never charge for upgrades, then I think this business model isn’t consumer friendly at all. A developer of such an app is incentivized to garner as many up-front payments as possible with no regard for existing customers

• “Unlock”-type schemes are the worse. These can be products where you need to pay for features or assistance to accomplish some given task (free-to-play definitely falls in this category). Developers who use these schemes are incentivized to make the experience of their product frustrating so that I might be willing to pay to avoid the frustration. But, once I pay, there is no incentive to keep me happy

That said, my business model preference is impacted by the type of product that is being offered. For example, while I particularly like subscriptions for productivity-focused products that I use on a regular basis, games are more singular experiences that I take in at a particular moment in time; in that case I like paid downloads that let me experience the game on my own schedule. When it comes to social networks, on the other hand, advertising is clearly the best option: after all, a social network is only as good as the number of friends that are on it, and the best way to get my friends on board is to offer a kick-ass product for free. In other words, the exact opposite of the feature-limited product that Ello is proposing.

Make no mistake: I am very much aware that Facebook is tracking everything I do – and that it’s getting worse. As I wrote on Monday in my Daily Update (members-only), the killer feature of the just-relaunched Atlas is not buying ads outside of Facebook. Rather:

What Facebook is proposing with Atlas is that advertisers can connect the dots between online advertising – on Facebook or off – to actual purchases made by customers no matter where those purchases are made. This means that ads served through Atlas will, in the long run, be much more effective for marketers, even as Facebook improves their targeting which will allow them to command ever higher rates across all of their ad offerings.

Not only is that a marketer’s dream, it’s also profoundly creepy.

Here’s the thing though: the reason Facebook can pull that off is because companies like Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and Bluekai – all Facebook partners since 2013 – have been tracking what I do and buy for years. Privacy died a long time ago; pretending like Facebook killed it is naive (just ask Richard Stallman). If you truly care about privacy then don’t use the Internet, credit cards, a mobile phone, the list goes on-and-on.

If, on the other hand, you care about making a successful social network that users will find useful over the long run, then actually build something that is as good as you can possibly make it and incentivize yourself to earn and keep as many users as possible.

As for Ello, well, co-founder Paul Budnitz told Mashable:

“The advertisers are the customer and the user is the product that’s being bought and sold,” he told Mashable. “We don’t see ourselves competing with [Facebook], because what we’re doing feels so different.”

I completely agree; it feels like a political statement not a product that I – and more importantly, none of my friends – would want to use, and I’m pretty certain that Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t see them as competition either.

The post Ello and Consumer Friendly Business Models appeared first on stratechery by Ben Thompson.

klipspringers:

driver roll up the partition please

It’s me!