Concrete, Light, and Water

That's the headline on a recent article on the Web site archpaper.com, which is billed as The Architect's Newspaper. The heading refers to a building under construction in the NoLita neighborhood of New York City (that's the ever-trendy way to describe the downtown area North of Little Italy, get it?). The article says the building shows Japanese architect Tadao Ando's mastery of concrete, which he has been perfecting since the 1970s. According to Ando, "A living space should be a sanctuary," and for the NoLita project, the team has chosen a natural material palette that creates spaces that compress and expand while giving "life to light and water," according to Michael Gabellini, principal of Gabellini Sheppard. "Concrete is a very democratic material, very accessible," Gabellini explained. "It doesn’t create a gap between the rich and poor like some other materials."