Starr Whitehouse and Tri-Lox design a park in Long Island City with a playscape influenced by bird’s nests

The park is open for play! Part of a new residential development by the Durst Organization, Queens Plaza Park is a tightly-programmed pocket park built directly over subway lines and adjacent to the LIRR transit hub. Each area of the park is defined by a use and character, fitting together like puzzle pieces to make maximal use of a tight urban footprint.

Construction is complete on Vital Brookdale, a 160-unit affordable and supportive housing development in Brownsville. The complex is the first of ten affordable developments to debut as part of Vital Brooklyn—a $1.4 billion program that supports investment in new public open spaces, quality affordable housing, economic empowerment, and community-based violence prevention. Designed to Passive House standards, the complex features outdoor amenities including a second-floor terrace, and landscaped front and rear courtyards with dog runs, play areas for children, and outdoor seating. Building design by Dattner Architects.

Construction has begun on a $4M transformation of Anderson Plaza and Anderson Street in downtown New Rochelle that is expected to be a bellwether for the city’s continued evolution as an inclusive, forward-thinking walkable city.

Fast Company profiles The Battery PlayScape’s combination of resilience, ecology, and play.

The Battery Playscape was officially unveiled with a ribbon cutting on December 16th, 2021. Guided by the premise that an early appreciation for ecological diversity fosters environmental consciousness in adulthood, the Playscape creates an immersive play experience for children and their caretakers to play and learn together.

Read more about the Playscape:

Real Estate Weekly, 6sqft and Archinect report on Arverne East, an upcoming project that will revitalize a vacant 116-acre oceanfront site in the Arverne and Edgemere neighborhoods in Queens’ Rockaway Peninsula. Upon completion, Arverne East will be one of the most sustainable developments in the country and NYC’s first net-zero community. Starr Whitehouse is leading landscape design of the project’s first phase, a 35-acre nature preserve between Beach 44th Street and Beach 56th Place designed to restore and promote native ecology.

Patch highlights the Manhattan Greenway Harlem River’s future pedestrian ramp to the RFK Bridge, which will enable New Yorkers to travel directly between the East Harlem waterfront and the many recreational opportunities of Randalls and Wards islands.

“A truly inclusive public process is premised on bringing together multiple constituencies who don’t necessarily agree on everything, and working to unite them around a common, tangible goal and shared vision.” Architizer’s Hannah Feniak uses Marsha P Johnson State Park as a case study to argue that inclusive, stakeholder-driven design makes for a smoother, more efficient design process that generates public support and saves the client team costly resources.

Madame Architect’s Julia Gamolina interviews the female-led team behind Ray and the National Black Theatre’s new residential and cultural complex on 5th Avenue and 125th Street.

TimeOut New York features renderings of the redesigned Marsha P Johnson State Park.