Paper Tigers Unbuilt Work

PAPER TIGERS:
TEN UNBUILT PROJECTS

PRESENTED BY S. DAVIS & C. GRABE • SPRING 2019

As part of the firm’s ongoing “Design Dialogues” series, Davis Brody Bond partners Steven Davis and Chris Grabé recently gave a presentation to staff and visitors of ten of the firm’s notable conceptual/schematic designs and submissions for invited design competitions over the past decade. While the work presented in most cases did not find (or has yet to find) physical form, in all cases it highlighted the firm’s unique balance of formal innovation, practical/technical expertise, and social and environmental engagement across a wide range of project types, as well its collaborative working style and use of graphic tools to express complex ideas in a clear and compelling way.

The diverse projects presented included: “unCity”, a multi-use master plan for the ConEd site, the largest remaining undeveloped site in Manhattan (in collaboration with OMA, Kohn Pederson Fox, Toyo Ito, Arup, and the Olin Partnership); Cornell University’s LINAC, a 250,000 sf research lab and cryoplant (in collaboration with Arup); PierEscape, one of five finalists in a high-profile international competition aimed at strengthen Chicago’s Navy Pier with extensive new uses and spaces (in collaboration with Martha Schwartz and SCB); a Master Plan to create a 52,000 sf mixed use business, commercial, and residential eco-friendly oasis in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; a 500,000 sf museum for the art, culture, and natural history of Yunnan Province, China; and the winning entry in a competition to re-imagine Union Square, the terminus of the National Mall at the base of the US Capitol (in collaboration with landscape architects Gustafson Guthrie Nichol).

”Paper Tiger” illustration on Design Dialogue menu by Kevin Waldron.