Author: Devin Worthy

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oodoI6bYBA-ywpvCYswujKAzNxP5xKpa1WcmzUr8C6k/edit?usp=sharing

For the midterm presentation, we had to pinpoint what topic we wanted to do. We started from a general topic and were encouraged to narrow it down. Each group that presented narrowed down their topics and performed a lot of research, using various sources – maps, charts, before and after pictures, and voice memos – to show us what they’ve accomplished. Overall, their presentations were well-researched. I was left with an understanding as to how all of the topics presented were of an impact from the creation of MetroTech and fully convinced of each of the groups’ take on their topics.

On today’s walking tour, we were shown the many differences in the architecture of the buildings in MetroTech. MetroTech was built from the late 1980s to the early 1990s and shows some modern traits of buildings built today. There windows are plentiful in the buildings. They are built considerably tall for office buildings of today, but during their time period, I’m sure they were considered the tallest office buildings in the area. Each building was designed with different materials – one building was built with stone whereas another building was built with granite. Three buildings incorporated a shielded passageway, which I assume is to protect people from weather – if it rains, people can stay relatively dry.

We also walked Bridge Street and looked at a building that seemed to be from 1821. We compared it to a neighboring high-rise residential building. The older building had attention to detail – its arches, the curved brickwork – compared to the newer high-rise; uniform and repetitive in design all the way up.

In the Commence itself we noticed the different heights of the neighboring buildings and its similar scaling. The ground floors were all retail with the exception of the NYU buildings. The commons allows for open space, however, though there are no obstructions it does limit interaction between the underpasses. Each building in this area had a different designer but we can tell after close observation that they must have been giving a specific guideline as they all have a similar structure and design to compliments one another.