Peace pentagon restoration and new building, NYC:
The early twentieth-century building is a symbol for the town and community of New York and is temperamentally and typologically very important for the contemporary Architecture. The selected project aims to recover and improve the existing building in order to get it adequately ready for the development of the new-built volume. The intervention furthers the integration non only with the already built section but above all with the urban environment, gaining two floor additional height and a roof-top, to stress the historical and social importance of the Peace Pentagon, so that it can be more visible and recognizable.
The facades are enliven with transparencies, reflections and dedicated iridescent lighting which show the fervent activity of social commitment to assure Peace in the world. Inside, the building’s core is placed in correspondence to LaFayette st. and Blecker st. cross, justifying the presence of a Hall at every level, which can be identified with a changeable multi-faceted volume going across the whole building in its height to come out on the cover top. The Hall represents the meeting point between who lives and works in the building and all the visitors who would like to discover it, it gives its welcome and supplies all the main functions.
The other volumes, life of the project, are the restaurant and the conference hall on the fifth floor, the first as a window on the Manhattan skyline while the second as a sculpture shelter of social gathering and match point. The financial aspects have been faced considering the cost-cut stemming from the employment of the existing structure and connections, the choice of technologies which could guarantee energetic self-sufficiency and the idea of all those functions with an economic gain, such as the employment of the Hall for exhibitions, the rent of the conference hall and the public entrance at the restaurant/bar.