The United Center Joint Venture group introduced The 1901 Project, an ambitious mixed-use development in Chicago set to transform 55 acres on the West Side. Working with the client team and city and community leaders, the design team has created a vision for a new development that bridges neighborhoods and enhances opportunities for residents, businesses, and all of Chicago.
The vision for the United Center—home to the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks—will reconnect surrounding neighborhoods and create a world-class urban coree. With over 10 acres of public space included in Phase I, The 1901 Project will connect the community with nature and further the legacy of iconic public spaces throughout the city. Paired with a new 6,000-seat music hall, hotel and retail, and reimagined parking and transportation, it envisions this neighborhood as a year-round destination to live, work, and play.
Learn more on the project website, in Bloomberg, and in the Chicago Tribune.
Following a vote by the city council's planning committee, Birmingham Smithfield has been given the green light to move forward.
Working with Lendlease, Field Operations led the public realm design that shaped the master plan for a new £1.9 billion GBP mixed-use development at the center of Birmingham. With a new Smithfield Market at the heart of the development and over 3,000 homes, new cultural and leisure facilities, and commercial space, the new development will create a richly textured urban fabric. The site plan comprises an interconnected tissue of new public spaces, strengthening the city center's authentic character and improving connectivity to the surrounding neighborhoods. A variety of vibrant community spaces, a new public park, squares, walks, and active play for children combine as part of an urban greening approach that maximizes green space and prioritizes health and well-being.
Learn more about the vision on the project website and in BBC.
Field Operations is pleased to announce its transition from a sole proprietorship to a new partnership. The firm will now simply be known as Field Operations, which better reflects the diversity, depth, and experience of the leadership team, as well as the collaborative character of our studio.
Joining Founding Partner James Corner are Partners Sarah Weidner Astheimer, Richard Kennedy, and Lisa Switkin, with Associate Partners Megan Born, Isabel Castilla, Tatiana Choulika, Matt Grunbaum, Jayyun Jung, Veronica Rivera, Karen Tamir, and Hong Zhou.
This new structure elevates some of the field’s most skilled and experienced professionals to the forefront, each with over 15 years of experience and significant achievement. Field Operations has always been about more than one person, and this new structure provides a vibrant platform for individuals to lead with vision, passion, and commitment, ensuring all-around excellence for clients, collaborators, and the communities we serve.
Read the full announcement here.
Joining Nicholas Parisi from eDesign Dynamics and Tom Adams from Hudson River Park Trust, Cricket Day will lead a tour of Gansevoort Peninsula at Hudson River Park with ASLA-NY on July 10.
Now the site of Manhattan’s first public beach, Gansevoort Peninsula has added 5.5 acres of new recreation space to Hudson River Park, along with a salt marsh and submerged habitat enhancements to create a more resilient shoreline. Now the largest single green space in Hudson River Park, Gansevoort Peninsula hosts a full size athletic field, an outdoor gym, a dog run, picnic areas, a topographic lawn, and a kayak landing. Hear more about how extensive community outreach shaped these programs, the integration of coastal barrier island inspired planting, as well as salt marsh restoration and oyster reef design.
Sign up for the tour with ASLA-NY.
Included as one of the people shaping creative America in 2024, James Corner is listed in the Wallpaper* USA 400 in the "Creativity Meets Science and Tech" category, leaders of design research, start-uppers and business leaders whose creative brilliance is paired with a strong focus on technology and sustainability. Cited as "landscape architect, theorist, founder of Field Operations, whose work on New York’s High Line helped champion urban green spaces for all," he's in good company on the list, featuring leaders in design, business, culture, and more.
Read the full list on Wallpaper*.
Inviting him to join as a guest for The Second Studio, a podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday, David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design interviewed James Corner for the podcast. Together they discuss his background, early interests, education in landscape architecture and urban design, the value of urban design, the difference between architecture and landscape architecture, design competitions, Field Operations' practice structure, the High Line, and more.
Listen to the full episode here.
Recognized by both the jury and the public in the Urban Design Interventions & Infrastructure category, the High Line – Moynihan Connector took home two Azure AZ Awards as the overall category winner and the People's Choice winner. Cited by the magazine as "equal parts nature and infrastructure," the Moynihan Connector creates a vital new connection for the High Line and Midtown West.
"This intervention solves a gap in the urban fabric—and does so with an elegant solution that recognizes the pedestrian as a priority while also adding a new green landscape to the concrete jungle of Manhattan," said Jennifer Keesmaat, AZ Awards 2024 Juror and President & CEO of Collecdev Markee.
Learn more about the project and these awards from Azure in the feature on their website.
The Underline Phase 3 has been recognized with a Second Award in the 2024 RTF Awards! The awards program aims to raise awareness around the strategies architects and designers are employing to deal with contemporary global challenges to inspire the next generation.
Currently under construction, Phase 3 builds on Phase 1 and 2 of The Underline, stretching for 7.36 miles under the Metrorail as the final phase. Once complete, it will create new connections between several communities including the City of Miami, City of Coral Gables, City of South Miami, and Dadeland. With designated paths for cyclists and pedestrians, improvements to 25 intersections, and 12 community spaces with diverse programming, this phase also includes innovative planting techniques that will re-naturalize the corridor.
Learn more about the project and the strategies employed on the RTF website.
In partnership with the City of San Francisco, the Union Square Alliance unveiled a new design proposal and vision for Powell Street on June 10, 2024 following the announcement of funding for the Powell Street Improvement Project in 2023.
The design, led by Field Operations and SITELAB Urban Studio, reimagines a three-block stretch of Powell Street with practical and aesthetic upgrades to welcome residents and visitors, offering a more enjoyable transit experience and spurring economic development in the area. The proposal celebrates and centers the iconic cable cars as well as Powell's beautiful and historic architecture.
Learn more about the design vision from the Union Square Alliance, in the San Francisco Examiner, and in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Allegheny Conference on Community Development, Allegheny County, and the City of Pittsburgh jointly released a downtown revitalization vision plan for Pittsburgh. The vision plan proposes a dynamic future for the region's urban core and will guide the next phase of transformation that advances the creation of a true neighborhood at the heart of the Pittsburgh region.
"By tapping the national expertise of Field Operations, we're identifying the assets that differentiate Pittsburgh. Our goal is to capitalize on these in novel ways to create a vital neighborhood downtown—not just a corporate and jobs center or an arts and entertainment destination but a magnet for everyone to live, work, and play," said Allegheny Conference CEO Stefani Pashman.
Check out the vision plan online here, and learn more about it in NEXT Pittsburgh, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
As part of the AIA Conference on Architecture & Design 2024, Sarah Weidner Astheimer joins the AIA Committee on Design, Arlington County Planning, and ZGF Architects for a tour of Amazon's second headquarters in Crystal City, Virginia.
The design team will share more about the project, inclusive of a welcoming 2.5-acre public park, two 22-story buildings with over 2 million sq. ft. of office space, and 50,000 sq. ft. of retail with a publicly accessible lobby prioritizing small, female- and minority-owned businesses, art installations, and neighborhood connections.
Learn more and register for the tour through the AIA Conference.
As part of Urban Design Forum's Rewire initiative, Field Operations hosted "Nature-Inclusive Neighborhoods," gathering UDF Fellows for an energizing and informative roundtable to discuss what a nature-inclusive neighborhood might look like in New York City. Alejandro Vázquez from Field Operations joined K.C. Alvey (NYC Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice), Myles Davis (NYC Bird Alliance), Zenobia Meckley (Future Green Studio), and John A Pavacic (Con Edison) to share ways of incorporating biodiversity in the built environment, with examples from within NYC and from other cities.
Learn more about the event on Urban Design Forum's website.
Three Field Operations projects have been recognized in this year's Architizer A+Awards! The High Line – Moynihan Connector received a Popular Choice Award in the Architecture+Landscape category, The Refinery at Domino received both Jury and Popular Choice Awards in the Commercial Adaptive Reuse Projects category, and SKP Chengdu received a Jury Award in the Shopping Center category.
Field Operations is thrilled to share this recognition with our clients and collaborators for these projects. Learn more about the projects and awards on the Architizer website.
Joining Mina Akhavan, MSCA Research Fellow, TU Delft, Alejandro Vázquez will give a lecture, entitled "The Underline: The Re-Naturalization of an Active Transportation Corridor," for the Urban Ecologies Research Seminar Series. Promoted by the Università degli Studi della Basilicata and UNESCO Chair on Mediterranean Cultural Landscape and Communities of Knowledge, the lecture will shed light on the innovative strategies The Underline is taking for re-naturalization in the heart of Miami.
On May 14, Texas Trees Foundation and the Southwestern Medical District unveiled the design and launched the Urban Streetscape and Park Transformation Project in Dallas.
As partners for the project, Field Operations has worked with the client team to design a project that will transform the largest "heat island" in the City of Dallas into a healthy, cool oasis that unites the community, promotes health, healing, and safety, and acts as an intersection between health and nature. Supporting the quality of the healthcare provided within the hospital walls, the project aims to address the negative ambient heat impact on more than 42,000 Medical District employees and 3.4 million healthcare patients and visitors.
The project will increase the Medical District's tree canopy to up 37 percent and will transform the streetscapes within the Medical District from car-centric to people-centric, by greening two miles of public right-of-way and transforming the aging concrete "clover leaf" area into a 10-acre park.
Learn more about the project in the latest press release and Dallas Business Journal.
For The World Around's Annual Summit on May 11, hosted at the Guggenheim Museum, Lisa Switkin will join a panel with Kongjuan Yu from Turenscape and Joe Christa Giraso from MASS Design Group with moderation by Beatrice Galilee. This all-day program curated by Beatrice Galilee will be a year of architecture and design in a day, introducing the best of contemporary buildings, initiatives across landscape, technology and design today.
Learn more and register for the summit here.
As part of The Architect's Newspaper's Outdoor Spaces on May 8, Isabel and Alejandro will lead a panel conversation titled "The Underline: The Re-Naturalization of an Active Transportation Corridor," sharing strategies employed in Phase 3, currently under construction.
The virtual one day conference features national leaders in landscape architecture presenting recent projects and discussions on how the relationship to outdoors spaces has changed in light of the pandemic, the urgencies of climate change, the need for new public spaces, and the drive to create more healthy and engaged connections to our landscapes.
Learn more about the conference from The Architect's Newspaper and register here.
With a new report released in May 2024, the District's Chinatown task force—including leaders from D.C. Public Libraries, DowntownDC BID, and the Mayor's Office—released eight "big ideas" to make the neighborhood more livable and energetic. With a study area of 130 acres across 30 city blocks, Field Operations was part of the urban planning team that participated in visioning workshops that ultimately informed these design recommendations.
Learn more about the 8 big ideas and the vision for Gallery Place Chinatown with Axios D.C. and in the report.
James Corner will deliver this year's annual Keating lecture, entitled "Places, Public Life, and Environment," at Princeton Art Museum on May 2. He will discuss a number of the firm's acclaimed design projects, including New York’s High Line, Staten Island’s Freshkills Park, and San Francisco’s Presidio Tunnel Tops, each addressing urgent issues of urbanization, environment, resiliency, and public life. He will also touch on work for Princeton’s campus and new Art Museum.
Learn more about the lecture that's free and open to the public here.
Three Field Operations projects have been selected as finalists in the 12th Annual Architizer A+Awards! The High Line – Moynihan Connector in the Architecture +Landscape category, SKP Chengdu in the Commercial Shopping Center category, and The Refinery at Domino in the Commercial Adaptive Reuse category. Voting is open for the A+Awards Popular Choice winner in each category until May 10—vote at the links below!
Vote for the High Line – Moynihan Connector, SKP Chengdu, and The Refinery at Domino on the Architizer website.