Times Square Billboard Garden
Course: CORE I STUDIO
Year:
FALL 2020
Instructor: EMMETT ZEIFMAN
This project describes the future of billboards in One Times Square. It starts with in depth study of the urban condition around Broadway and Times Square: urban plazas, intersections, street furniture, and building typology. The first diagram looks at highrise typology along Broadway Ave between 21 st and 47 st, a comprehensive map of tower developments that proliferate the skyline of Manhattan. I put selected highrises into different functional categories (office, hotel, mix-use, commercial) and different time periods (pre-war, post-war), recognizing the change of form through major sections of time. The 2nd diagram looks at urban plaza and intersection, Times Square Plaza, Columbus Circle, Lincoln Center for Performing Arts / Metropolitan Opera House. It tries to mix and match major street intersections to create a conjunction of urban fabric. Unconnected cross roads are placed right next to each other, shown as Piranesi’s Plan of Rome, to cultivate an image of public and private. Then I looked at One Times Square Plaza, zooming in into one of the street courtyard scenarios. It is a public space sandwiched between highrise buildings, forming a street garden with the installation of multiple street furniture, creating unique special characters. The 3rd drawing studies the billboard content (company, revenue, target customer, information style and duration) at Korean Town and One Times Square. Billboard showcases distinct contents in Korean town and Times Square, both visually and culturally. In Times Square, big name companies worldwide invest billions of dollars to flash seconds through the LED screens. But in the Korean town, small family restaurants and Asian small businesses pulled up their light boxes for decades.
1.Boardway Avenue Highrise Chronicle2.Times Square Street Intersection, Urban Plazas, and Street Furnitures3.Times Square and Korean Town Billboards Analysis4.Existing Site Ground Floor Plan5.Existing Building DissectionThe 4th drawing is the ground floor plan of the existing building on site, One Times Square, a 25-story, 111m high skyscraper built in 1903 as the headquarters of the New York Times. Its angled form takes its shape from the intersection of 4 streets: 7th Avenue, 42nd Street, Broadway, and 43rd Street. The building undergoes drastic modification where its original architectural details have been reformed into an advertisement showcase. The 5th drawing studies the existing facade and structure of the building. Its primary design purpose is to advertise billboards on the facade. The ground floor is supermarket Walgreens and vacant in the upper level. Due to the large amount of revenue generated by its signage, One Times Square is one of the most valuable advertising locations in the world. Image 6 - 8 are photos of the buildings in the site with its structure frame, opaque facade, and potential advertisement expansion where the advertising light boxes invade the surrounding skyscrapers. The neon color of the photo mimics the vibrant glowing light emitted from the advertisement screens illuminating the Times Square.
Drawing 9 -10 are design proposals describing the future of billboards in One Times Square. It proposes a vertical garden as a projection and image into the interior in a Utopian world where billboards overflow the space in-between buildings, occupying the public realm of the city, and eventually become the façade of the building. The existing facade and concrete walls are demolished, leaving only the column system and floor plates. New elevators and staircases wrap around the perimeter of the building. New public programs such as restaurants, urban parks, public washrooms, and libraries repurpose each floor. Drawing 11 - 14 illustrates a typical floor, 16th floor, with an urban garden and tea houses using the structure frame of the advertising light boxes. Bamboos and plants proliferate the open air interior.
6.Existing One Times Square Structure Frame7.Existing One Times Square Clean Facade8.Billboards Slowly Cover The Building’s Facades 9.One Times Square In Future - Urban Garden Section10.One Times Square In Future - Four Urban Garden Proposals11.Typical Plan - Zen Garden and Billboard Light Box Tea Houses12.Left Section - Stairway At Perimeter 13.Right Section - Billboard Light Box 14.One Times Square Billboard Garden