Laurian Ghinitoiu Courtesy of REX

Each day in the month of October a different building in New York City will opens its doors to visitors who want to see and learn more about the structure’s unique architecture. This “Building of the Day” program is part of Archtober, a month-long series of events all over New York City that celebrate design and architecture. The events are presented by a variety of organizations including the Center for Architecture, Open House New York, and the American Association of Architects, to name a few.
Untapped Cities has partnered with Archtober to grant access to select events throughout the month. If you are or become an Untapped Cities Insider, you can join the following Archtober events for free:

• Exhibit Opening of “Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture,” at the Center for Architecture
• Oculus Committee Book Talk
• The Future of Governors Island, Panel Discussion
• Archtober Trivia Night at Housing Works Cafe and Bookstore
• Pumpkitecture! Architectural Pumpkin Carving Competition, an Archtober Event
• Designing the Future of the Tri-State Region, An Archtober Lecture
• “New York – London Exchange: Regional Planning” Live Video Seminar, an Archtober Event

We’ve rounded up all of the participating Building of the Day buildings, and links to register for tours, in the following list!

October 1st: One John Street

Alloy / Laurian Ghinitoiu

One John Street was the winning response to a public RFP held by Brooklyn Bridge Park. The design’s simple mass and authentic materiality is consistent with DUMBO’s Historic District. Every apartment layout is designed to capitalize on the exceptional views offered by the site. Unlike most development sites, a careful analysis of the view corridors yields an unusual outcome: The views at the bottom are as good, if not better. Additionally, the upper portions of the building are subject to severe solar and acoustical exposures. A gradient of window sizes afford more masonry to protect the interiors at the upper floors, while on the lower floors larger windows offer broader views to the water and Park. The ground floor contains a restaurant, lobby and annex to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, open up to the public and surrounding park.
Register for tour: 12:00pm – Sold Out!

October 2nd: Lenox Health Greenwich Village

© Chris Cooper, Courtesy Perkins Eastman 

Original Architect: Albert Ledner, 1964
Renovation Architect: Perkins Eastman, 2015
Originally designed by Albert Ledner as the headquarters of the National Maritime Union and district hiring hall for local maritime trades, this 160,000 sf facility underwent an adaptive reuse to provide three primary medical services: the first freestanding, 24-hour Emergency Department in the New York metropolitan area; a full service Imaging Center featuring digital x-ray, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and ultrasound; and a specialized ambulatory surgery facility focusing on interventional treatments for the sick and elderly. The interior reflects the underlying themes of the original program and design-the sea, ships, and circular shapes.
Register for a tour: 1:00pm- Sold Out!

October 3rd: Domino Park

New Domino Park with Domino Refinery in behind. Photo by Daniel Levin

Landscape Architect: James Corner Field Operations

Domino Park is part of the ambitious Domino Sugar mixed use development project, providing a unique and unprecedented opportunity to reconnect Williamsburg to its waterfront and create a significant and continuous open space that is deeply rooted in the community and the site’s industrial history. Domino offers a range of activities, including a unique ‘Artifact Walk’ that integrates over 30 large-scale salvaged pieces, and is designed to act as an absorbent sponge and first line of defense against super storms.
Register for a tour:12pm- Sold Out!

October 4th: Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant

Jeff Goldberg/Esto

Architect: Polshek Partnership / Ennead
The design and planning framework for Newtown Creek employs a “kit-of-parts”: structures and systems consisting of durable and corrosion-resistant materials—including stainless steel, glazed ceramic tile, glazed brick and glass—are keyed by color, form and material to organize the plant both visually and functionally. Flexibility for new and developing technologies is integral to the approach.
Eight iconic futuristic, stainless steel-clad “digester eggs” are visible from vantage points across multiple boroughs and act as a symbol of civic service for travelers on several of the City’s highways and bridges.
Register for a tour: 12pm- Sold Out!

October 5th: Swiss Institute

Nicholas Venezia, Courtesy of Selldorf Architects

Architect: Selldorf Architects
The 4-story building contains 7,500 sf of gallery spaces for exhibitions and open programming, a library, flexible spaces for open programming, a Printed Matter bookstore, and a roof terrace and garden which features site-specific installations and enjoys views of the neighborhood and beyond. Facilities and programs are also made more accessible through open floor plans, a new additional staircase, and an elevator. This incredible project is a collaboration with the Swiss Institute to realize their vision of a permanent space for display and engagement.
Register for a tour: 12:00pm

October 6th: TWA Hotel

MCR Development 

October 9th: Five Manhattan West

Laurian Ghinitoiu Courtesy of REX

Original Architect: Davis Brody Bond, 1969
Renovation Architect: REX, 2016
The renovation of this 1M square foot brutalist building repositions it within its new urban context—it is neighbor to the High Line, Manhattan West, and Hudson Yards-to Class A status by upgrading its public spaces, bringing daylight deep into the massive floor plates, transparency to its street presence, and improving its energy performance. The adaptive reuse of Five Manhattan West stands to prove the plausibility of creating contemporary, competitive office stock from structures that might normally be considered for demolition.
Register for a tour: 12:00pm- Sold out!

October 25th: Sculpture Studio

Michael Moran / Otto

Architect: Andrew Berman Architect
This project repurposes a long-underutilized industrial site to become a studio complex for a sculptor and his team. The artist employs digital fabrication technology as well as exquisite handwork to extend classical sculpture into new realms of materiality and subject matter. The project includes the renovation of a 10,000sf warehouse building, and the construction of a new heavy equipment hall. Various studio and workspaces are provided for digital imaging, photography, woodworking, metalworking, sandblasting, and carving.
Register for a tour: 12:00pm– Sold Out!

October 26th: The Shed

Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group

Architects: Diller, Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group
The Shed is New York’s first arts center dedicated to commissioning, producing, and presenting all types of performing arts, visual arts, and popular culture. The Shed’s building—an innovative 200,000-square-foot structure designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group—is designed to physically transform to support artists’ most ambitious ideas. Its telescoping outer shell deploys over an adjoining plaza to double the building’s footprint for large-scale performances, installations, and events.
Register for a tour at 12:00pm: Sold Out!

October 27th: The Alice Austen House

Floto + Warner, 2015

Original Architect: Unknown
Clear Comfort (a.k.a. the Alice Austen House) was built in 1690 as a one-room Dutch farmhouse. In 1844 it was purchased by John Haggerty Austen, Alice Austen’s grandfather. Alice Austen moved here in the late 1860s with her mother, Alice Cornell Austen, after the two were abandoned by Alice’s father. In 1917, Gertrude Tate, Alice’s loving partner, moved in, and the two lived together until financial problems forced them to move in 1945. When they left, the house fell into disrepair until a group of concerned citizens saved it from demolition in the 1960s. The house successfully gained status as a historic landmark, and was restored in the mid 1980s and in 2017 it was designated a National LGBTQ Landmark.
Register for a tour: 12:00pm

October 28th: Ocean Wonders: Sharks!

David Sundberg / Esto

Architecture, Exhibit Design, Landscape Architecture: Edelman Sultan Knox Wood / Architects (Architect of Record), the Wildlife Conservation Society – Exhibition and Graphic Arts Department and The Portico Group

Ocean Wonders: Sharks!, is a new 50,000 sf building at the New York Aquarium, houses an exciting shark exhibit that conveys a sense of wonder of the ocean, an urgency regarding the ocean’s health, and connects New Yorkers to their local waters. The building form is an organic, fluid geometry resembling landforms carved by water. Integral to this theme is the spiraling ramp that unveils ocean views and leads visitors to a popular roof deck featuring open vistas.
Register for a tour: 12:00pm – Sold Out!

October 29th: African Burial Ground Memorial

Courtesy of Rodney Leon Architects

Architects: Rodney Leon / AARRIS Architects
It was in May 1991 while the US General Services Administration was preparing to build a federal office tower in Lower Manhattan at Broadway between Duane and Reade Streets that the first human remains from the 18th century African Burial Ground were accidentally uncovered. Construction was subsequently halted and the resulting archaeological excavation unearthed more than 400 skeletal remains of men, women and children along with hundreds of burial artifacts. We commemorate this African Burial Ground with an “Ancestral Libation Chamber.”
Through Seven Elements, the Ancestral Chamber serves to physically, spiritually, ritualistically and psychologically define the location where the historic re-interment of remains and artifacts of 419 Africans has taken place. It will also serve to acknowledge the site as a “Sacred Place” where an estimated 20,000 remains of Africans are currently buried. The African Burial Ground is widely considered to be one of America’s most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century. In 1993 the African Burial Ground was designated a National Historic Landmark and in 2006 the African Burial Ground Site was designated a National Monument.

Register for a tour: 12:00pm 

October 30th: 123 Melrose

Imagen Subliminal

Architect: ODA New York
Situated on the former site of Brooklyn’s Rheingold Brewery, the project will generate 1,000,000 sf of apartment units in Bushwick, 20% of which will be affordable. The project will host a multitude of communal spaces open to the neighborhood, while a 17,850 sf public park will bisect the development creating a green promenade and two 400 by 200 feet blocks. These masses are further perforated by a sequence of meandering, interconnected courtyards which ultimately lead to the promenade. Over the pair of these New York city blocks, ODA superimposed the layout of woven streets in a typical old town core.
Register for a tour: 12:00pm – Sold Out!

Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park

Co-designed: SWA/Balsley and WEISS/MANFREDI
Prime Consultant and Infrastructure Designer: ARUP
Recently opened to the public, Phase II of Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park transforms 5.5 acres of abandoned industrial landscape into a new waterfront park. Phase II begins south of 54th Avenue and wraps around Newtown Creek to complete the full vision of Hunter’s Point South Park initiated in Phase I, and resulting in nearly 11 acres of a continuous waterfront park. The park offers places of retreat and invites intimate connections with nature at the water’s edge, complementing the active recreation spaces in the Phase I park.
The park is also a new model for waterfront resilience, with a “soft” approach to protecting the water’s edge from floodwaters. A continuous meandering causeway, elevated slightly above the river, offers a walk along the river’s edge and protects nearly 1.5 acres of newly established wetlands. The design also leverages the site’s dramatic topography with a shaded grassy promontory, a new island reached by a pedestrian bridge, a kayak launch, exercise and picnic terraces, a collection of intimate “break-out” lounges off the pathways, and a dramatic cantilevered overlook that hovers above the wetland and offers panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline.
Register for a tour: 12:00pm– Sold Out!
See our full list of Insider Events, including those offered in partnership with Archtober here!