Back in 2000, then New York Gov. George E. Pataki “proposed building one of the first museums in the country to be devoted to women’s history.” The following year’s competition for the Battery Park City site was won by Smith-Miller Hawkinson, but what interests me here is Weiss/Manfredi’s runner-up design.

[Museum of Women's History | scan source]

Coming across the design in an issue of future devoted to New York City competitions, I was immediately reminded of this week’s dose, Weiss/Manfredi’s competition-winning design for the Barnard College Nexus now under construction.

[Barnard College Nexus | image source]

Note each design’s section, which incorporates what the architects call (in the Nexus) a slipped atria. What interests me, as a practicing architect, is not so much the design of the slipped atria (which I do like) but the way the architects found a way to utilize the concept in a later project, after it failed to come to fruition years before. This is very common. Architects do not invent the wheel on each project, and they especially use competitions to explore ways of articulating space that may not arise in other commissions. This example illustrates how architects not only reuse and recycle design ideas, arising from site, program, and other concerns, but how those ideas can actually be the key ingredient in a design. To imagine the Nexus without the slipped atria is near impossible, as is (now) imagining the Nexus without the Women’s History Museum.

NEW BOOK The Sustainable Vegetable Garden Jeavons, John US $9.46 End Date: Wednesday Sep-10-2008 9:28:45 PDT Buy it now | Add to watch list

Early Victorian BOOK art design architecture US $5.27 (1 Bid) End Date: Monday Sep-08-2008 3:50:45 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

Huts Havens and Hideaways BOOK home house architecture US $14.19 (2 Bids) End Date: Monday Sep-08-2008 3:53:35 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

American Architecture Since 1780 By Marcus Whiffen Book US $3.00 End Date: Monday Sep-08-2008 8:51:20 PDT Buy it now | Add to watch list

Victorians & Farm Houses book*architecture home plans US $9.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Monday Sep-08-2008 8:53:44 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

1979 Earth-Covered/Underground Home Architecture Book US $6.99 (1 Bid) End Date: Monday Sep-08-2008 9:03:00 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

1908 BOOKS- ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ARCHITECTURE & BUILDING US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Monday Sep-08-2008 10:04:02 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

Architecture~HOW THINGS ARE BUILT*INTO THE SKY~2 Books US $3.50 (0 Bid) End Date: Monday Sep-08-2008 10:49:27 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSIONS FUN IN ARCHITECTURE NEW BOOK US $10.59 (0 Bid) End Date: Monday Sep-08-2008 12:11:04 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

THE FASHION OF ARCHITECTURE - NEW ILLUSTRATED BOOK US $15.90 (1 Bid) End Date: Monday Sep-08-2008 12:11:04 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

MINIMAL ARCHITECTURE - NEW ILLUSTRATED BOOK US $14.13 (0 Bid) End Date: Monday Sep-08-2008 12:11:04 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

If you liked this, You might also like:

1. blog wunderlust
2. new continent: plastic | step right up - get your Gehry | DWR interviews Yves Béhar of Fuseproject | Watch...
3. Book Review: Building London & Paris 2000+
4. Building London: The Making of a Modern Metropolis (2008) by Bruce Marshall Universe Hardcover, 304 pages Paris 2000+: New Architecture...
5. Book Review: Two Books on Sustainability
6. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (2000) by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, & L. Hunter Lovins Back Bay Books...
7. Weekend Media
8. Here's some inspiration culled from radio and television, for your Memorial Day Weekend enjoyment. This weekend's Studio 360 includes a...
9. Finnish Summer Houses
10. One of our most popular posts here at L+L is the Finland Summer House posted by James back in...
11. Piel.Skin
12. A new "paperless" architecture book featuring facades from around the world. This book is the result of two years...
13. Pentagram Papers
14. Pentagram Papers 37 presents Forgotten Architects, a look at 43 Jewish architects working in Germany before 1933. Exhaustively researched by...
15. The Ring by Ofis Arhitekti
16. Slovenian architects Ofis have completed The Ring, a redevelopment of the football stadium in Maribor, Slovenia. (more…) Link to...
17. Book Review: Cost-Effective Buildings
18. Cost-Effective Building: Economic concepts and constructions (2007) edited by Christian SchittichBirkhauserHardcover, 176 pagesThe latest in Detail Magazine's in DETAIL series...
19. Blue Sky on Canal Street
20. New York asked four architects to come up with ideas for the odd-shaped block at Canal and Varick Streets, recently...