Cool Hunting

Post-industrial cities are crowded places, which means new development often comes in the wake of demolition. It's a process against contemporary sensibilities, as well as New York architectural firm Weiss/Manfredi, who have spent almost two decades reclaiming decrepit infrastructural sites in American cities. Known for their integration of architecture, art and landscape design, some of their most recent work is chronicled in their new monograph Surface/Subsurface.

The book covers the work of founders Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi since 2000, when Princeton Architectural Press released Site Specific. Their latest focuses on their most comprehensive works, particularly the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle (pictured above right), which opened last year. The project was an attempt to reclaim desirable waterfront, which was long relegated to the shipping industry. Their design features of a jagged Z-shape consisting of land bridges that span train tracks and a four-lane arterial road.

Surface/Subsurface also includes proposed redevelopment plans for Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens as part of New York City's bid to host the 2012 Olympics as well as a revitalization of Manhattan's side of the Brooklyn Bridge, both of which never came to fruition. It's lamentable that we may never be able to go swimming over lanes of traffic in the proposed pool suspended under the bridge (pictured left), but the book's dynamic mix of sketches, scale mock-ups and full-color technical renderings will have to suffice.

You can purchase Surface/Subsurface on the PA Press site or from Amazon.