Coming Soon: 9 Projects to Watch in 2022

New parks and public spaces will open, campus buildings will be inaugurated, and civic treasures will be renovated and reimagined: 2022 has many highlights in store. With climate change top-of-mind, this work demonstrates an array of strategies to decarbonize the built environment, from ecological restoration to adaptive reuse. Here are a few of the milestones we are looking forward to in the coming year.

A pivotal development in Manhattan will be completed

Two Manhattan West, nearly complete. Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM

Recent visitors looking westward from Moynihan Train Hall may think they’re seeing double: One Manhattan West, the soaring glass tower completed west of the station in 2019, is being joined by its nearly identical twin.

Within days, Two Manhattan West will reach its full 995-foot height. When the cranes come down, the pair of towers will complete a gateway to the revitalized Far West Side, a district that has undergone a remarkable transformation with the Hudson Yards development and the extension of the High Line.

SOM’s master plan for Manhattan West began with engineering a platform built above the train tracks serving Penn Station. Today, new plazas and public spaces create an unbroken pedestrian pathway through a district that includes commercial space, retail, residences, and a hotel. The glass-enclosed lobbies of One and Two Manhattan West accentuate these new public spaces, opening up sight lines from corner to corner.

A new park will double as green infrastructure

Jinan Ribbon Park weaves open spaces throughout the city’s new business district. Image © SOM

Known as the “city of springs,” Jinan, in eastern China, has a distinctive landscape and ecology defined by its position between the Yellow River and the mountains. Equally important is the city’s industrial heritage as a center for steel production in the mid-20th century.

Today, Jinan is evolving yet again: a large, formerly industrial area is being reimagined as a new central business district. At the center of SOM’s master plan for this development is Jinan Ribbon Park, which weaves a two-kilometer path through the district.

The park, opening next year, forges a deep connection with the landscape that defines the region, with water features that evoke Jinan’s historic springs. Key landscape elements include the Willow Promenade and the Lotus Lake, while a rich palette of local trees and plantings provide areas of respite and improve air quality. The lake serves as an essential piece of green infrastructure: together with a network of rocky ravines, it is designed to capture excess stormwater and mitigate flooding during the rainy summer season.

SOM has also designed new buildings within the park: a transit pavilion, which links the park to a new subway line, and a new retail center. The existing structure of a former steel mill has been repurposed to serve as a cultural and community venue — an apt symbol for the reclamation of this once-industrial area as a place for people to connect with nature.

At Wellesley, the reimagined Science Center will open its doors

The Innovation Hub, a timber structure seen here under construction, links old and new buildings at Wellesley’s Science Center. Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM

For a small liberal arts college, Wellesley is a heavy hitter in the STEM disciplines: it ranks among the top U.S. institutions in the number of women graduates who go on to earn PhDs in the sciences. Now Wellesley is building on this success with a complete transformation of its existing Science Center. The college describes it as the most ambitious project in its modern history. SOM’s design concept re-envisions the Science Center as a living laboratory, with strong connections to the campus landscape designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. It will link existing facilities — including the observatory, the Global Flora greenhouse project, the arboretum, and the botanic gardens — to create a “village” of science programs. The renovation opens up the fortress-like buildings to the outdoors, and also introduces two new gardens that will be used for teaching. A new cluster of interdisciplinary teaching labs will provide space to explore new pedagogies and put scientific work on display. By the Fall 2022 semester, Wellesley’s new Science Center will be ready to fulfill its role as a crossroads for the campus.

University of Illinois will get its first zero-carbon building

The newest academic building at Illinois’s largest university not only represents the future of technology-driven teaching and learning — it also demonstrates a major step in the university’s commitment to climate action. The Campus Instructional Facility, or CIF, is designed with the flexibility to accommodate a range of teaching styles, with classrooms ranging in size and capacity from 24 to 500 students. Areas for informal collaboration are located on each floor, and at the center of the building is a signature gathering space: a multi-story staircase framed by soaring structural trusses. Many of these spaces incorporate new technologies for hands-on learning.

Read the continuation of the rest of the projects, by visiting the link below:

Article by SOM

https://www.som.com/story/coming-soon-9-projects-to-watch-in-2022/