By Roland Li

New York University will seek to designate two strips of land south of Washington Square Park as city parkland, as it moves forward with an expansion plan that would add four new buildings to the area. The change, characterized by the school as a concession to neighborhood groups that had requested that the land be preserved, would also shift a new building 15 feet west.

By Roland Li

Joseph Moinian’s W Downtown Hotel & Residences occupies a parcel in Lower Manhattan that overlooks the World Trade Center, a visible reminder of the changes in the area. Less apparent are the advantages of the building’s south view, which faces the converging Hudson and East Rivers. When Moinian was planning the condo and hotel building, designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates and the interior firm Graft, he brought a feng shui consultant to ensure that rooms conformed to Chinese beliefs of space and aesthetics.