CHROFI, architectural practice based in Sydney, Australia

TKTS Times Square

Client:
TDF, Time Square Alliance, Coalition for Father Duffy, City of New York

Program:
Public Square, Ticket Booth

Scale:
300 sqm

Year:
1999 - 2008

Architects:
Choi Ropiha, Perkins Eastman, PKSB Architects

Scope:
Concept Design

Photography:
John Saeyong Ra, Emile Wamsteker, Ari Burling

Team:
Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners, DMJM Harris, Schaefer Lewis Engineers, Fisher Marantz Stone

Location:
New York, USA

Building Contractor:
Gorton Associates, D. Haller, Haran Glass with IG Innovation Glass

Status:
Built, Competition 1st Prize

TKTS was opened in October 2008. It was a project that began nine years earlier with an international competition to re-design the existing TKTS booth at the centre of Times Square. The competition was the largest in New York’s history at the time and attracted 683 entrants from 31 countries.

While the competition brief simply requested designs for a small scale architectural structure to replace the existing booth, we reframed the problem as one requiring an urban design response. Our proposal for the new ticketing booth consists of a tiered red ‘resin’ staircase that rises to form a backdrop for the nearby statue of Father Duffy, simultaneously providing roofing to the booth and a public space above. The shell of the booth is lit from within, generating a powerful glow at night that strengthens the presence of TKTS, making it an iconic marker for Times Square. TKTS patrons and visitors alike are provided with a new place to pause and enjoy the theatre of Times Square.

The design's iconic strength has seen it become instantly part of the identity of the city and popular culture. It was featured in the Will Smith film ‘I Am Legend’, and recently it featured in the music video of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ ode to New York, ‘Empire State of Mind’.

Widely acclaimed for the way in which both public and private benefits are derived whilst strengthening the underlying character of Times Square, it has received an unprecedented 18 international and national design awards.

The winner is really the winner. Seldom in a design competition with so many excellent entries is the winner so obviously the best choice. It goes beyond meeting the criteria and is even poetic (which is really hard considering the Times Square environment!) It will become a landmark.

Tucker Viemeister, Juror

More Quotes

It transforms the environment, and it creates a large effect on all sorts of different scales” “The belly button of Manhattan

Joseph Grima & Marion Weiss, Jurors
2009 I.D. Magazine’s Annual Design Review Award

The TKTS booth invents public space where there was none before.

Michael Beirut, Juror
2009 Travel + Leisure Design Award

What a meeting place for this generation. Never mind the clock at the Baltimore, you now meet on the ruby red steps in Times Square.

Bill Cunningham, New York Times

Awards

2010 GOOD DESIGN Award
2010 American Institute of Architects, National Honors Award
2009 AR Awards for Emerging Architecture, Commendation
2009 World Architecture Festival Award, Category Winner
2009 The Chicago Athenaeum, American Architecture Awards
2009 Spark! Design & Architecture Award, Winner
2009 Australian Institute of Architects, Jørn Utzon Award
2009 American Institute of Architects, NY, Best in New York State
2009 American Institute of Architects, NY, Design Award
2009 Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, People’s Design Award Nomination
2009 Interior Design Magazine, Best of Year Award, Public Space
2009 IESNA Illumination Award: Lumen Citation
2009 D & AD Yellow Pencil Award, Environment Design Category
2009 I.D. Magazine’s Annual Design Review Award
2009 William H. Whyte Award, American Planning Association NY
2009 Municipal Art Society of New York, MASterworks Award
2009 Travel + Leisure Design Award, Best Public Space
2009 American Institute of Architects, NYC, Design Award Merit
2007 New York Art Commission Award
2000 TKTS2K International Design Competition, 1st Prize

Selected Press

'A Ticket Booth as a Stairway to the Stars', New York Times

H Kaiser, 'TKTS2K Competition Interview', Architecture Review

B Cunningham 'On the Street', New York Times

N Stead, ‘TKTS’, Architecture Australia

K Moskow & R Linn, Small Scale, Princeton Architectural Press

J Davidson, 'When the City Became a Stage', New York Magazine

A Fernandez Per & J Mozas, Strategy Public, A+T – TKTS

K Moskow & R Linn, Small Scale, Princeton Architectural Press

Rather than asking ‘what kind of booth can we make‘, we asked ‘what can this project be for Times Square and New York‘.

The dominant urban experience on Manhattan is that of the street grid. When the grid relents, it is typically a green park. Time Square is a ‘rare’ condition where the grid opens to create an urban room.

Times Square was a place experienced from the periphery. Thus, even though it is one of the world‘s best known destinations, people simply had nowhere to stop and enjoy the show. To us it was like a theatre without seats.

From these observations, we used the booth project to ‘invert‘ the existing condition and create a ‘centre‘ and a destination where both locals and visitors can pause, sit and enjoy what’s on offer.

The scheme could be viewed both as seats or a stage to Times Square. It has re-calibrated how people use and understand the place. It has gone from a place that operated from the edges, to now, from the centre, outwards.