“We can have 2,000 people in here at a time,” Walker says, with relish. That shrinkage frees up space for three other nonprofit groups to rent, plus an art gallery and an abundance of meeting rooms (or “convening spaces,” in the foundation’s new kumbaya terminology) available to like-minded outside groups. Now the organization has withdrawn into a fraction of its previous space, halving the size of the president’s once imperial, now merely princely, suite. Until it closed for renovations two years ago, only a few hundred employees and visitors circulated through the 12 stories. It should create a sense of urgency.” The Landmarks Preservation Commission, which must sign off on every physical alteration to the exterior and the public atrium, has no jurisdiction over its dynamism or kinetic energy, but the most profound changes can’t be legislated. “Today it will be more kinetic, dynamic, and filled with energy. “Kevin Roche said it was about calm and reflection,” Walker told me. The foundation’s current president, the perpetual-motion justice warrior Darren Walker, isn’t interested in presiding over a cloister he wants the building to buzz. With an endowment of $12.7 billion, the Ford Foundation battles injustice around the world, an infinite task carried out by a surprisingly small staff. There will be an awareness of the whole scope of the foundation’s activities,” Roche predicted before construction had even begun. “It will be possible, in this building, to look across the court and see your fellow man or sit on a bench in the garden and discuss the problems of Southeast Asia. With touching hubris, the architects believed that the beauty of their midtown Eden would promote world peace. The centerpiece of this urban retreat was an indoor public garden designed by Dan Kiley, where stepped walkways paved in topsoil-colored brick threaded through dense greenery, rich in blossoms, foliage, and shade. Completed in 1967, when Manhattan seemed unbearably chaotic, the building, by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, bathed the foundation staff in an atmosphere of monastic serenity. The $205 million refurbishment, by Gensler and the landscape architecture firm Jungles Studio, has rejuvenated the building (which faces East 42nd and 43rd Streets, between First and Second Avenues), and restored many details while deliberately transforming its spirit. Those brass ashtrays remain - as relics, rather than conveniences - in the seats of the Ford Foundation’s auditorium after a sensitive, even self-indulgently gorgeous renovation. Few of us were ever as enlightened as we thought. In the 1960s, a handsome ashtray embedded in an armrest was a touch of thoughtfully deluxe design, not an incitement to antisocial behavior. Preservation means understanding that a course chosen decades ago no longer means the same thing. You have to decide which parts to keep buffing and which have fallen away, how much sameness to cling to without getting stuck in the past, how to embrace change without betraying your core. The whole project was carried out while the first floor was fully functional hence it was an exercise in innovative design and project management.Renovating a building is like taking a long, honest look at your life. The central office space was also designed to look into a green courtyard making the workspace more appealing for all. The design proposal also promoted the concept of flexibility in space for the main conference rooms so they could house gatherings of different numbers as desired. The design goal was to highlight iconic features as sculptures such as the stone walls, the hanging staircase and the building views to the garden outside. Since the exterior envelope of the office could not be touched, the reuse and redesign project looked at repurposing the interior so it feels like a new space altogether. The building was designed to showcase its simplistic yet beautiful form utilizing the iconic delhi quartzite stone and concrete combination. The office building was designed by Stein Doshi Bhalla and was declared to be a historic building based on its proximity to the Lodhi tombs.
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