|
Located on a suburban office park site in Enschede, the Netherlands, a new headquarters building for Sigmax was designed by Architectenbureau Paul de Ruiter. The four-story building features a horizontally uninterrupted glass facade that emphasizes access to daylighting. The building's interior spaces were designed by Ex Interiors.
The 2,500-square-meter (27,000-square-foot) building has been designed in the form of a "stacked pavilion," whose horizontal lines and extensive glass facade with rounded corners emphasize spaciousness and transparency. The glazing comprises large, rectangular floor-to-ceiling panels whose joints align with the building's structural grid. And quarter-circle glass panels form the rounded-corner bridge between adjacent facades.
 |
| The rectangular floor-to-ceiling glass panels of the Sigmax building's facade are sized to the building's structural grid. Photo: © Pieter Kers |
The thin building floor plates provide minimal interruption of the glass facade and accentuates the building's sense of horizontality. The portions of each floor plate that cantilevers beyond the glazing work to provide shading of the glass and are intended to develop as a vegetal "roof." The architects intended this feature to produce a sense of connection to the landscape, even on the upper floors.
 |
| Each floor plate of the Sigmax headquarters cantilevers well beyond the glazing, providing shade. Photo: © Pieter Kers |
On August 22, the National Park Service released an Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Final Disposition of the Gettysburg Cyclorama at Gettysburg National Military Park, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The study evaluates three alternatives for the future of the Gettysburg Cyclorama building (1962), which was designed by modernist architect Richard Neutra.
The NPS study was undertaken in response to a March 2010 decision of the United States District Court that directed the agency to undertake a site-specific environmental analysis focused on the demolition of the Cyclorama building, and to consider alternatives to removal of the building, before any action is taken.
 |
| A ramp allowed visitors to view the landscape of the Gettysburg Battlefield from atop the Cyclorama Building's rectangular wing. The building has been closed by the National Park Service and is slated for demolition. Photo: Courtesy University of Minnesota Press |
The Cyclorama Building was designed by Richard Neutra to house an 1883 cyclorama painting of the Battle of Gettysburg. The building was also intended as a visitor information center. The building is composed of a long, rectangular wing of offices and a multi-story cylindrical exhibition space. The two masses, stand along a single north-south axis and are functionally separated by the building's glass-enclosed entry.
In the years after its construction, the National Park Service gradually minimized the building's use, citing flaws in the building's design. In 1971, the visitor information center functions were transferred to another location. And in 1996, the NPS announced its intent to remove the cyclorama painting and to ultimately demolish Neutra's building.
 |
| Decades of deterioration ultimately led the National Park Service to abandon its use of the Cyclorama Building as a visitor center and even as home to the eponymous painting. Photo: Leslie Johnston |
 |
| The new "Meadow Structure" pavilion at the Staten Island Children's Museum, in Staten Island, New York was designed by Marpillero Pollak Architects. Photo: Courtesy Marpillero Pollak Architects |
Visitors to the Staten Island Children's Museum, in Staten Island, New York, will learn about renewable energy from a new 2,200 square-foot tensile structure featuring a translucent, photovoltaic fabric roof. Designed by Marpillero Pollak Architects, the exterior pavilion (the Meadow Structure) uses thin photovoltaic strips affixed to its fabric cover to produce electricity.
A rooftop vertical-axis wind turbine also powers an exhibit inside the museum, and a skylight wind scoop passively ventilates the building's main stairwell.
The Meadow Structure's tensile roof combines photovoltaic film panels with a PTFE-coated fiberglass membrane, both fabricated by Birdair, Inc. Electricity generated by the photovoltaic film is sufficient to illuminate the pavilion for nighttime events.
 |
| The "Meadow Structure" pavilion features a tensile fabric roof with photovoltaic film attached to its upper side. Photo: Courtesy Marpillero Pollak Architects |
The structure's main (northern) segment is a fanfold plate formed into shallow ridges and valleys. Electrical wiring for the panels is threaded through the structure's hollow steel supports. During storms, the canopy's ridges direct rainwater through strategically placed funnels, creating miniature waterfalls around the structure, which enter the ground through circular/oval dry wells.
"One challenge of this project was to balance the lightness, strength, and aesthetics of the structure with the need to maximize sun exposure for the photovoltaic panels." said Weidlinger Project Manager Gregory Freeman. To achieve this, Weidlinger engineers worked with the architect to shape the roof, originally designed with only small portions facing the sun, into a slightly flatter contour, accommodating the resultant loss of structural efficiency by using heavier steel beams.
 |
| Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Duquesne Incline (foreground) as seen from nearby Mt. Washington. Photo: David Owen/ Artifice Images |
Architecture 2030 has announced that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is the third U.S. city to launch a "2030 District," a zone designated to meet the energy, water, and transportation emissions targets in the 2030 Challenge for Planning.
The Pittsburgh 2030 District currently includes 61 properties and more than 23 million square feet (over 7 million square meters) of the city's downtown area. Pittsburgh joins Seattle, Washington and Cleveland, Ohio, which have already established 2030 Districts.
 |
| Graph of proposed reductions to energy, water, and carbon dioxide from transportation, for existing developments under the 2030 Challenge for Planning. Image: © Architecture 2030 |
Ground has been broken on a new United States Embassy in Oslo, Norway. The three-story building was designed by the Albany, New York office of EYP Architecture & Engineering. Located on a 10-acre (4-hectare) site, the multiple-building embassy complex will include a chancery, an underground support annex, three entry pavilions, and Marine security-guard quarters. Upon its anticipated completion in spring 2015, the building will accommodate around 200 employees and staff.
The public face of the building will be its northeast corner -- visible from the adjacent prominent roadway, Sørkedalsveien -- which contains a two-story cafeteria that also doubles as an events space. Tall windows, traditional in Norway, will take full advantage of the abundant summer sun while capturing as much light as possible during the dark winters. Metal fins further emphasize this verticality throughout the facade.
 |
| The Lime Kilns Indistrial Museum at Marsden Lime Kilns, South Shields, England, by IMA, Ian McArdle, Jonathan Rixon & Tink Wilkinson Kindred Form Ltd. Image: Courtesy RIBA |
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the project shortlist for its Forgotten Spaces 2012 competition. Focusing on sites located within the RIBA North East region, and hosted by the eponymous regional office, the competition invites design proposals for left-over land.
According to RIBA, "A 'forgotten space' could be small or large - a grassy verge, a wasteland, an unused car park, a derelict building or underpass or flyover. The proposal could be simple or complex, commercial or public, a piece of public art or a new building, the only requirement is that it responds to the area and serves a function for the local community."
 |
New City Industries, at 178-185 High Street West, Sunderland, England, by John Robinson Beattie. Image: Courtesy RIBA
|
Out of 39 entries, 21 were selected for the shortlist. Projects include small urban designs, such as Angular Flight, Behind the Side, Forgotten River, and Pink Plaza -- intended to heal and reconnect historically fractured urban fabric. The City Wall Circuit is a walking tour that traces the former town walls of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. And a number of project for the adaptation of various existing structures were proposed, including: Forgotten Relics, conversion of a ruined stone building into a reliquary; Home Surveillance, a proposal to adapt a disused theater for use as a homeless community; and New City Industries, which plans to fill a disused steel frame structure with an adaptable architecture system.
 |
| Forgotten Relics at St Mary's Chapel Jesmond Dene, Newcastle, England, by Paul Jones & Will Campbell. Image: Courtesy RIBA |
Standing at 158 meters (518 feet), a new 50-story residential tower has been built adjacent to the recently refurbished Hotel Georgia (1927) in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. The tower was designed by the Vancouver office of IBI Group, known as IBI/ HB Architects. The combined mixed-use building, all of which bears the hotel's name, has hotel and commercial office space in the first 11 storys, with residential units on the upper 34 storys.
 |
| The facade of the renovated Hotel Georgia (1927), originally designed by Robert T. Garrow and John Graham. Photo: Bob Matheson |
The shape of the tower is unusual. The first 35 floors angle outward on the building's south and east sides, providing passive solar shading and views of downtown Vancouver. The top dozen floors of the building lean back so that the balconies on the southeast corner have views of Seymour and Grouse mountains to the north.
The 11-story base of the new tower pays homage to the architectural detailing of the original Hotel Georgia. The original hotel's terra cotta quoins were used to determine the color, size, and proportion of the stone panels covering the base of the new tower.
 |
A rendering of the updated design of the One World Trade Center tower in New York, designed by David Childs of SOM. Image: PANYNJ/ Durst Organization
|
As construction continues on the One World Trade Center tower, in New York City, the building's design team has released new renderings showing recent design changes. These updates to the 90-story, 1,776-foot (541-meter) building reflect adjustments to the building's base, comprising around 20 floors, and its spire.
 |
Overview of a street-level entrance of One World Trade Center. Image: PANYNJ/ Durst Organization
|
The tower's metal-and-glass-clad base includes vertical fins arrayed in V-shaped pairs. The 3-million-square-foot (280,000-million-square-meter) building is currently scheduled for completion in 2014. One World Trade Center is also targeting LEED Gold certification.
 |
The stone-clad lobby of 1 WTC. Image: PANYNJ/ Durst Organization
|
Harmon's firm now occupies 1750 square feet (163 square meters) of the top floor of this three-story building on the corner of Peace and Wilmington Streets, near the Government Complex. The building itself was completed in December 2011.
The 375,000-square-foot (35,000-square-meter), 10-story Seidman Cancer Center, located on the Cleveland, Ohio campus of University Hospitals, was designed by the St. Louis, Missouri office of Cannon Design. The new, free-standing building provides three times the area that was previously devoted to cancer care on the campus.
The 120-bed facility was designed with the capacity to be expanded to 150 beds. Inpatient bed floors offer cancer-specific facilities and programs. The building also houses outpatient services, including physician and clinical offices, and patient treatment areas organized to treat specific patient populations. The project is also registered for LEED certification.
At the base of the tower, a 13,000-square-foot (1,210-square-meter) sculpture garden is intended to provide patients with calm, comfort, and relaxation. Separated from the cityscape by a low wall, the garden features 120 varieties of plants including: trees, miniature evergreens, bamboo, flowers and shrubs. A wide curving path winds through the gardens and water features.
The narrow site designated for the hospital, and the building's substantial programmatic requirements, initially suggested that the hospital would take on the form of a thick rectangular box. Instead, the architects created a light-filled structure with curved walls clad in a metal-and-glass skin.
 |
| An upper-floor waiting room in the Seidman center. Photo: Mark Kempf Photography |
 |
| Rendering of the atrium space of the new University of Lancaster Engineering Department building designed by John McAslan + Partners. Image: Courtesy John McAslan + Partners |
John McAslan + Partners have been appointed by Lancaster University to assist in the design and construction of a new home for the University's Engineering Department.
The competition-winning scheme will deliver 4,720 square meters (50,800 square feet) of workshop, laboratory, and office space in two concrete-framed wings set on either side of a continuous, four-story high atrium.
The building is targeting a BREEAM Outstanding rating, and will consider combining multiple renewable energy sources including solar, wind and biomass provisions as part of a visibly demonstrable sustainable design strategy.
A dramatic metal staircase, dropped into the atrium, provides circulation and breakout spaces linking the two wings together. The route also serves as an architectural promenade providing views into the diverse workshop and laboratory areas of the Engineering Department.
The Royal Institute of British Architects has announced its shortlist for the 2012 Lubetkin Prize, given to a new building located outside the European Union, designed by a RIBA member firm. The winner of the award be announced on the evening of Saturday 13 October at a special event in Manchester, England.
The nominees are:
- Guangzhou International Finance Centre, Guangzhou, China, by Wilkinson Eyre Architects
- One KL, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by SCDA Architects
- Solaris, Fusionopolis 2B, One North, Singapore, by TR Hamzah and Yeang and CPG
- Sperone Westwater, Bowery, New York City, USA, by Foster + Partners
Guangzhou International Finance Centre
Guangzhou, China
The Guangzhou International Finance Centre is the tallest building to be designed by a British architect, anywhere in the world. Wilkinson Eyre Architects won the competition with a slender triangular mixed use tower rising to 103 storys out of a podium containing shopping and a connection to the subway system and three levels of parking, as well as two linked smaller towers of accommodation.
According to the firm, Ms. Scott Brown will continue to publish and present her work.
Although Venturi designed many buildings throughout his career –– including the Vanna Venturi House (1964) for his mother –– his theories have probably created
more impact. Based on the philosophy of 'complexity and contradiction',
he reassessed architecture to stress the importance of multiple
meanings in appreciating design.
The firm, which is now under new leadership, has also been renamed VSBA, LLC.
Daniel K. McCoubrey, president and principal, together with fellow principal Nancy Rogo Trainer, will lead the firm going forward.
 |
Venturi and Scott Brown designed Gordon Wu Hall (1983), a student dining and recreation building on the campus of Princeton University, in Princeton, New Jersey. Photo: Tom Bernard
|
-Philippe-Ruault-(4).550.jpg) |
| A skylight and bench seat inside the Maggie's Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, designed by OMA, one of the six projects shortlisted for the 2012 Stirling Prize. Photo: Philippe Ruault. |
The Royal Institute of British Architects announced a shortlist of six buildings for its 2012 Stirling Prize.
The 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize judges will visit the six shortlisted buildings and meet for a final time on the day of the presentation (13 October) to pick the winner.
The six buildings now competing for this year's title are the Hepworth Wakefile museum, the London Olympic Stadium, the Lyric Theatre, Maggie's Centre in Glasgow, New Court, London, and the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge.
On arrival at the Hepworth you are drawn across an elegant bridge surrounded by strange river craft and motley industrial buildings. The gallery works beautifully with this varied and gritty context, both suggesting it belongs and at the same time is something rather special. Its scale changes as you approach and enter it, big and dramatic where it needs to be, but welcoming where it doesn't. The carefully cast dusky mauve concrete forms make you want to stroke them as you get closer.
What appears to be a fairly random set of boxes in plan soon reveals its logic inside, with the shop, cafe, education room and offices on the ground floor radiating out from the entrance space. In the first floor galleries the circulation pattern changes subtly from radiating to radial as the promenade takes you through a series of galleries with deep walls concealing the ventilation services.
The galleries are daylight through slit skylights and carefully placed windows which frame views of Hemsley Moor, the Town Hall, the Weir and the Chapel on the Bridge.
The building gives a sense of being made specifically for the work of Hepworth whilst at the same time being very much of Yorkshire, grounded and granite like. An affirming project on every level.
Ground was broken July 6th for the Yale-NUS College campus, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in collaboration with Forum Architects of Singapore.
Jointly created by Yale University and the National University of Singapore, Yale-NUS College, the campus is scheduled to open in 2015, and is designed to achieve the highest rating under the Green Mark, Singapore's benchmark for sustainable design.
The 62,000-square-meter (670,000-square-foot) campus is composed of courtyards punctuated by residential towers, along with a community of learning, and social spaces. At its heart is a campus green flanked by academic and administrative buildings, including the learning commons, auditorium, sports hall, and an open-air, sheltered gathering place -- the Agora.
Some really nice projects done with stacked pieces of baked clay can be seen in the Brick Industry Association's 2012 Brick in Architecture Awards.
Projects were awarded in one of seven categories and were selected by an awards jury for their innovative use of brick, with eight projects getting the program's highest award level, and over 50 projects getting awards in three other award tiers.
 |
Atlantic Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts
Commercial - Photo: Courtesy BIA
|
- Architect: Cbt Architects
- Associate Architect: Building Conservation Associates
- Builder: John Moriarty & Associates, Inc.
- Mason Contractor: A. Jandris & Sons, Inc.
- Owner: Boston Properties, Inc.
- New Brick Wall Contractor: Phoenix Bay State Construction
- Restoration Contractor: Grande Masonry
 |
| The five-sided open living space on the upper floor of Le 49 House, in Kamakurayama, Japan, designed by Apollo Architects. Photo: Masao Nishikawa |
Located on Mount Kamakura, the Le 49 House, designed by Apollo Architects, boasts a stunning view overlooking Sagami Bay. The clients, a couple who had been living in a high-rise condominium in downtown Tokyo, fell in love with the location at first sight, taking an instant liking to the view and the lush green surroundings. The husband is a keen architecture buff who went on architectural tours throughout Europe to see buildings while he was working in the UK, and decided to commission a new residence with an attached workshop for his wife.
The house consists of rectangular volumes with concrete bases to which a white photocatalytic pigment has been applied. These volumes are staggered to create an overlapping effect that projects a modern sensibility while also embodying a certain Oriental aesthetic. As you descend the narrow slope, the triangular pilotis at the entrance to the house come into view.
 |
| Bohlin Cywinski Jackson's design for the new residence hall at University of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, Washington. Image: Courtesy University of Puget Sound |
Puget Sound breaks ground on a new academic residential community.
A contemporary new residence and event hall, with modern interior spaces and a traditional Tudor Gothic exterior, will open on the campus of University of Puget Sound in autumn 2013. Preliminary work for the 55,000-square-foot building began in May on the corner of North 13th and Lawrence streets, near the center of campus overlooking Commencement Walk.
The 135-single-bedroom residence features innovative spaces and amenities that encourage students to connect academically and socially with their peers, while providing them with privacy and independent living. The hall also gives the Puget Sound community new spaces for teaching, meetings, and activities.
 |
| Finne Architects has designed a major renovation of a mid-century northwest modern home located outside of Seattle, Washington. Photo: Benjamin Benschneider |
Located on a secluded, wooded site about 25 miles north of Seattle, Washington, a 1950's northwest Modernist house has been completely and sensitively renovated by Finne Architects. With extensive new windows and light monitors, the renovated house opens out to the surrounding forest.
During the renovation, the plan was reorganized to create a larger master bedroom and bathroom, with each space afforded views of the forest. The main living and dining spaces have also been slightly enlarged, and a new roof monitor was added to bring daylight to the entire space.
 |
| The combined kitchen/dining space is at the heart of the home's layout. Photo: Benjamin Benschneider |
An existing hemlock ceiling with exposed fir beams has been retained in roughly half the house and new fir ceilings were added to the remainder of the house. Similarly, existing terrazzo flooring was refinished and new areas of terrazzo were added in a complementary color.
 |
| Aerial view of Union Station (1939), in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Courtesy Grimshaw |
Los Angeles Union Station listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, featured frequently in film and other media. The building was designed by John and Donald B. Parkinson, Architects, and was built from 1936 to 1939. The building's Fred Harvey Company restaurant was designed by Mary Jane Colter.
Today, it is the primary station for rail service in southern California, offering both long distance and commuter rail service in addition to local subway, light rail and bus lines. Union Station also anticipates the potential arrival of high speed rail in the future, offering another vital link to the region's transportation network.
The station and the area surrounding it are at the nexus of multiple vibrant communities. The Master Plan project will create a new vision for Union Station, in conjunction with the general revitalization and growth of downtown Los Angeles.
|
|
|
