Architecture students propose designs for Ground Zero performing arts center

A proposal for the performing arts center at 1 World Trade Center by student Pooya Bakhsheshi, who said he emphasized dance’s “celebration of life” by wrapping his building in a perforated metal skin, protecting it “like a pearl in a shell”

Twenty-seven architecture students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and at the University of Utah College of Architecture and Planning created designs for the Frank Gehry-commissioned Ground Zero performing arts center as part of their fall semester studio courses, the New York Times reported. They only had to worry about the design. While Gehry, who told the Times he didn’t know the students were working on the renderings, already presented his design, the students weren’t aware of that. Their main constraint, which Gehry himself contended with, was to situate the center on roughly 30,000 square feet near the One World Trade Center office tower and to accommodate the dance needs of tenant Joyce Theater. Gehry said the project, which is projected to cost as much as $300 million, is “on hold.” In addition to the space challenges, there has been talk of moving the performing arts center away from Ground Zero and the project has suffered from a delay in financing. The failed assemblage of a board of directors has impacted the financing issues. All of the students traveled to New York. The Utah students were briefed by various parties involved in the project and the Carnegie Mellon students visited the Joyce’s existing stages in Chelsea and Soho and met with the theater’s executives. The Utah students had seven weeks to design their buildings, while the Carnegie Mellon students had 14 weeks. [NYT]