The Parrish Art Museum recently opened on a rural site in Water Mill, New York, a community in the East End area of Long Island. The 34,400-square-foot (3,200-square-meter) barn-like building was designed by Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, and is said to take some of its design inspiration from local vernacular architecture.
And indeed, its form is simple and clean, its profile a pair of adjoined gables running along the building's 615-foot (187-meter) length. Narrowly spaced wood rafters support the roof, which rests on cast-in-place exterior concrete walls in most places, and on steel columns and beams everywhere else.
Inside, regular skylight placement near the roof peak admit diffuse daylight between the rafters. Outside, the roof's deep eaves shelter a patio area intended for use by museum patrons. Seating under the eaves takes the form of a concrete bench that is integral with the building's walls.
At one end of the building, the roof extends beyond the weather envelope, covering a larger outdoor event space.
With its regular structural system, honest use of materials, and simple vernacular forms, the quietly expressive Parrish Art Museum seems more likely to be the work of Australian architect Glenn Murcutt than of the radical Swiss duo who brought us the 2008 Beijing National Stadium (with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei), and a host of other avant-garde buildings.
The US Environmental Protection Agency announced seven winners
of its 2012 National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement. As I have noted in the past,
the smart growth awards are given for creative, outstanding initiatives
that protect the health and the environment of our communities while
also strengthening local economies. One of this year’s winners is a
personal favorite, Denver’s Mariposa (South Lincoln) revitalization.
The 2012 award winners are being recognized in four categories, below: Overall Excellence BLVD Transformation Project, Lancaster, California
The redesign of Lancaster Boulevard helped transform downtown Lancaster
into a thriving residential and commercial district through investments
in new streetscape design, public facilities, affordable homes, and
local businesses. Completed after eight months of construction, the
project demonstrates how redesigning a corridor guided by a strategic
vision can spark new life in a community. The project has generated
almost $300 million in economic output and nearly 2,000 jobs. Equitable Development Mariposa District, Denver, Colorado
It’s
hard for me to overstate how much I love this project. In particular,
the redevelopment of Denver’s historic and ethnically diverse South
Lincoln neighborhood is turning an economically challenged area into a
lively and transit-accessible community enthusiastically supported by
current residents. The community’s master plan preserves affordable
housing while adding energy-efficient middle-income and market-rate
homes. Influenced by extensive community engagement, the newly named
Mariposa development will include actions to improve the health of
residents, reduce pollution, and control stormwater runoff.
Atlanta-based Lord, Aeck & Sargent (LAS) recently completed a renovation of Gaillard Hall, a 1950s military barracks building on the campus of North Georgia College & State University in Dahlonega, Georgia. The architects worked to preserve as much of the International-style building's character as possible, while meeting the modern needs of a college dormitory.
So, while changes to the exterior were fairly minimal, the concrete-and-brick building's interior underwent extensive remodeling and modernization. One result of the reconfiguration is that the building now includes accommodation for 166, compared with the original bed count of 280.
The firm chose to largely preserve the building's dramatic split-level lobby, which helps to mediate the building's interaction with a significant site slope.
Another preservation decision made by the LAS team was to keep the building's exisiting glazed-terra-cotta hallway walls. This was accomplished in part by converting one in three double-occupancy dorm rooms into a bathroom that serves the two adjoining spaces, along with a separate mechanical room. This allowed the updated configuration to work with the existing doorway placements. Each semi-suite has its own entry and the middle door provide hallway access to the mechanical room.
The University of Oregon, in Eugene, Oregon, has opened a new $65 million, science facility that brings together researchers from a range of different disciplines including Neuroscience, Life Science, Material Science, Physical Science, and Computer Science.
Designed by THA Architecture with HDR, Inc, the Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative Science Building (LISB) is a 103,000-square-foot (9,570-square-meter) addition to the university's science complex. And although the building is clad in brick, like many older projects in the complex, it is a stylistic departure from its 1990s predecessors, in whose designs the influence of Charles Moore can be seen.
The LISB atrium. Photo: Lara Swimmer
In keeping with a long-standing science-complex tradition, the building is connected to its neighbors. In one case, a glazed atrium connects it with an adjacent building. And in another case, enclosed bridges link it to another structure.
The 44-story luxury apartment building at 50 United Nations Plaza was designed by Foster + Partners. Image: dbox/ Foster+ Partners
Construction has begun on 50 United Nations Plaza, a 44-story residential office tower designed by Foster + Partners. Developed by Zeckendorf Development with Global Holdings, the luxury apartment building occupies a prominent location within United Nations Plaza, with views of the celebrated UN Headquarters building, the East River, and the Manhattan skyline.
According to the firm, "The tower's massing respects the height and scale of its neighbours. Its three slender volumes appear faceted in elevation, visually reducing the building's scale, while emphasising its vertical form."
Each of those three volumes becomes a vertical series of bay windows, which help to increase views and increase the size of living spaces within the building. Stainless steel bands provide horizontal punctuation of the bay windows. The firm indicated that this detailing is particularly meant to recall the iconic Art Deco styling of nearby buildings.
News sources are reporting that Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has won the international competition for the new Tokyo National Stadium, an 80,000-seat stadium planned for a site in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, Japan.
The new 290,000-square-meter (3.12-million-square-foot) stadium will be built on a site, adjacent to Fumihiko Maki'sTokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium (1990), and will replace an existing open-air stadium that was used for the 1964 Summer Olympic Games. A 2019 completion date for the project is anticipated.
Aerial rendering of the new National Stadium, which will dwarf the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. Image: Zaha Hadid Architects
The firm described the building's design with these words:
"The building volume sits gently within the urban landscape and is articulated as an assembly of stadium bowl, structural skeleton, cladding membranes and the museum, together forming an intricate structural composition that is both light and cohesive. The perimeter of the bowl structure becomes a new inhabited bridge, a continuous exhibition space that creates a new type of journey for visitors flowing along the project’s North-South axis."
The AIA has released a series of case studies about five firms in the institute's 2030 Commitment Program. Firms in the program work toward a goal of carbon-neutral building design by 2030.
The AIA's plan for a deep energy retrofit of its headquarters building (1973), in Washington, D.C., originally scheduled for completion in 2012, has reportedly been delayed because of funding issues. Photo: Kevin Matthews/ Artifice Images
The AIA's announcement reads:
"In order to examine the benefits and lessons learned from firms participating in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2030 Commitment Program, five participating firms were interviewed and case studies documenting their experiences were developed. The program began in 2009 and is a voluntary initiative for AIA member firms and other entities in the built environment that asks these organizations to make a pledge, develop multi-year action plans, and implement steps that can advance AIA’s goal of carbon neutral buildings by the year 2030.
John Portman & Associates has won the design competition for the Tianlong Fortune center. Image: Courtesy Portman
John Portman & Associates (Portman) has been selected to design Tianlong Fortune Center, a 108-story skyscraper in Nanning, China. The architectural design competition was led by developer Guangxi Wei Zhuang Real Estate Co., Ltd., and the Nanning Planning Bureau. As a finance and trade center, the building will be home to banks and financial consultants.
As the image provided shows, the building should look great from a helicopter.
The upper portion of the 1,312-foot-tall (400-meter-tall) tower includes a five-star hotel, while floors immediately above the hotel provide an exclusive executive club and destination restaurant. The level below the hotel lobby will feature a hotel's fitness center, pool, restaurant, business center and other amenities. The remainder of the tower is office space.
The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, Michigan, opened on Saturday, November 10. The 46,000-square-foot (-square-meter) project was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and features a facade of pleated stainless steel and glass.
Dedicated to exploring global contemporary culture and ideas through art, the Broad Art Museum at MSU will serve as both an educational resource for the campus community and a cultural hub for the Mid-Michigan region. The museum will present contemporary works within a historical context through access to a study collection of more than 7,500 objects, ranging from the Greek and Roman periods to modern art.
A gallery space of the Broad Museum. Photo: Paul Warchol
Glasgow, Scotland's new Maggie's Centre Gartnavel – like its sister projects – sets out to provide space where people can feel welcome, at home and cared for: a haven. The architects – the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) – has sited the building on a slight rise, but cut it into the slope so that on two sides it looks at banked landscape.
The building received the 2012 Andrew Doolan Best Building in Scotland Award, given by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS).
Overview of Maggie's Centre Gartnavel. Photo: Charlie Koolhaas
DesignGroup designed the Franklin County Common Pleas Courthouse, Columbus, Ohio. Photo: Brad Feinknopf
An aquatics center on a wetlands site, and a university student services building received top marks from the AIA Columbus 2012 design awards program. Other winning projects include a new-built courthouse, vetrenary office, and two adaptive reuse arts buildings – a city arts facility in a former school building and a design school in a renovated auto dealership.
Highlands Park Family Aquatic Center, Westerville, Ohio
Photo: Matt Carbone
Instead of following a traditional municipal pool design approach, the design team sought to blend the project with the surrounding wetlands. In order to minimize the project's impact on the existing natural habitat, a rainwater collection system was installed using green roofs, rain gardens, retention ponds, bioswales, and pervious concrete.
The pierresvives building, in Montpellier, France, is the new home of three institutions for the department de l'Herault: the archive, the library, and the sports office. Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the four-story building is clad in concrete and glass, with horizontal gold-colored fins highlighting portions of the glazing.
The 35,000-square-meter (376,000-square-foot) building is clearly perceived from a distance as a single structure, and from close up, three parts can be discerned in the facade. Dynamic ribbons of glazing, detailed with Hadid's iconic branching-lines motif, serve to separate portions of the facade, which is predominantly finished in concrete. This glazing is expressive of major circulation elements, including corridors and atriums, and plays some role in suggesting boundaries between the three major pieces.
An upper-floor lobby inside the pierresvives building, near the auditorium volume. Photo: Iwan Baan
Hadid uses the metaphor of a tree laying on its side to describe how the facade expresses the building's programmatic disposition, and this is where the branching lines in the glazing help to reinforce the comparison.
Safdie Architects has designed the new home of the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music in Melbourne, Australia. Image: Courtesy Safdie Architects
Safdie Architects has revealed its design for a new Music Conservatorium building at Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia. The four-story building, home to the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, will include a 500-seat recital hall, a multipurpose hall, amphitheater, a recording studio, 40 individual practice rooms, a jazz club with cafe and restaurant services, and music department offices and support spaces.
Composed of glass, precast concrete, and stainless steel, Moshe Safdie's design for the building is composed of two major building elements. The Conservatorium's more staid, rectangular portion, with a skylit central atrium, contains the building's office and classroom spaces. The second component is a large performance wing that contains the recital hall. This wing splits, culminating in two performance spaces whose end walls are a series of stepped, curved-shell light scoops that will wash diffuse daylight into the rooms.
Two-minute virtual walkthrough of the Music Conservatorium. Video: Courtesy Monash University
Inside an upper-floor node of the newly renovated Tripolis building, originally designed by Aldo van Eyck and remodeled by Moriko Kira Architect. Photo: Christian Richters
Moriko Kira Architect has redesigned the interior of Aldo van Eyck's Tripolis building in Amsterdam-South. Built in 1991, Tripolis is now the headquarters of Nikon Europe, a regional division of the Japanese electronics company.
The five-story building's original plan is a series of four interconnected volumes whose form is based on an octagon, although alternating facets of the octagon are expressed as large protruding bays. The volumes are linked together in a T-shaped plan and at the lower level, two curving wings help to enclose a pair of octagonal courtyards on either side of the central axis.
One of the newly opened office areas in the Tripolis building. Photo: Christian Richters
The Haus am Weinberg, in Stuttgart, Germany, was designed by UNStudio. Photo: Iwan Baan/ Courtesy UNStudio
Built on the site of an ancient hillside vineyard east of Stuttgart, Germany, the Haus am Weinberg is a large, white modernist composition poised on its site. Designed by UNStudio, the 618-square-meter (6,650-square-foot) four-story home overlooks river-valley farmland and stands in stark contrast to the brick and wood buildings that surround it.
Haus am Weinberg is generally rectangular in plan, and extensively glazed. From the outside, the three-level home's structure appears to be a series of counterweighted surfaces that cantilever to shade the glass walls that separate inside from out. At key points, the home's solid horizonal surfaces fluidly into transition walls, connecting each floor or roof plane with the one below and deftly balancing the building on its sloped site. At one corner, the second floor plane smoothly bends upward to join the roof.
Looking across the dining room of the Haus am Weinberg toward the living room. Photo: Iwan Baan/ Courtesy UNStudio
An upper floor view of the Doha Tower, in Doha, Qatar, designed by Jean Nouvel. Photo: Courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel
The 238-meter-tall (781-foot-tall) Doha Tower, designed by Jean Nouvel, is shaded by an aluminum screen that recalls the mashrabiyya grillwork screens in traditional Islamic architecture. Located in Doha, Qatar, the tower's outline even seems to echo the shape of an Islamic pointed arch. The screen, together with a layer of reflective glazing and operable interior shading devices protects the tower's interior office space from the harsh desert sun.
The circular tower's diagrid reinforced concrete structural system is inset slightly from the perimeter, creating an open office floor plan. And rather than a traditional central placement, the building core services are offset from the tower's center and are stepped in plan, minimizing the sense of the core's size. A slender internal atrium also rises through the building's first 27 floors, exposing elevator mechanisms.
Doha Tower is 238 meters (781 feet) tall. Photo: Courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel
The 46,5000-square-foot (4,320-square-meter) building, which was recognized in an unbuilt category of the 2012 AIA Education Awards earlier this year, will be largely subterranean. The central rectangular meeting space, called the Forum, will feature an angled steel-and-glass prismoid skylight, whose orientation is in line with the star Polaris. The Forum's skylight tapers as it rises to a height of 105 feet (32 meters), and cantilevers at 39 degrees over the nothern portion of the building. According to the Air Force Academy the alignment with Polaris is intended to be a symbol of navigation to the cadets.
A new wood rainscreen-clad logistics center, located in Haderslev, Denmark, supplies all of the European boutiques of the clothing company Bestseller.
The Bestseller Logistics Center has been designed by C.F. Møller Architects in three parallel linear bands along a main avenue. One of the bands contains the main entrance, office and staff facilities, together with a truck-loading area, while the second contains an automated sorting facility, and the third, a fully-automated storage area. This layout provides a flexible arrangement, and allows for a possible future expansion of the logistics center to triple its present size – i.e. 150,000 square meters (1,600,000 square feet).
Overview of the Bestseller Logistics Center on its greenfield site. Photo: Adam Moerk
An overview of the Hongqiao Vantone SunnyWorld Centre, designed by Foster + Partners. Image: Courtesy Foster + Partners
Ground has been broken on the Hongqiao Vantone SunnyWorld Centre, a project in Shanghai, China, designed by London-based Foster + Partners. The project is a major new sustainable urban plan for a large-scale site in the Hongqiao central business district.
The buildings of the new center face into a park. Image: Courtesy Foster + Partners
The last project designed by Louis I. Kahn, a park on Roosevelt Island in New York City, has been completed over 38 years after the architect's unexpected death in 1974. The four-acre (1.6-hectare) Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park occupies the East River island's southern tip, with views of both Manhattan and Brooklyn shorelines.
The triangular park pays homage to the 32nd President and his January 6, 1941 "Four Freedoms" State of the Union speech. At its northern end, a grand stair lead visitors to formal lawn, bordered by wide concrete paths and flanked by precise rows of Little Leaf Linden trees arranged in allees.
Looking south from the entry stair of the Four Freedoms Park. Photo: Paul Warchol/ Courtesy FDR Four Freedoms Park
Maison L, in Yvelines, France, is an addition to an 18th-Century orangery designed by Christian Pottgiesser. Photo: Courtesy architecturespossibles
In the corner of the rolling site of a former chateau near Versailles is a heavily restored orangery whose origins can be traced back to the late 18th Century. The building was already home to a couple with four children when they hired architect Christian Pottgiesser to expand it. Maison L, in Yvelines, France, has been awarded the 2012 RIBA Manser Medal for best new house.
The project brief called for an extension that would minimially impact the mature landscape and views from the orangery. These requirements naturally suggested the new home's rambling plan and the use of indigenous stone for retaining walls. But the home's most prominent features are a series of five three-story towers, clad in board-marked concrete, that extend from the home's rockery
Inside the cavernous living space of Maison L, looking at the base of a bedroom tower. Photo: Courtesy architecturespossibles
The Guangzhou International Finance Centre in China is a 440-meter (1,440-foot) tower. It has a mixture of uses including office space, a luxury hotel and a top floor sightseeing area. At ground level, the tower connects with a substantial podium complex containing a retail mall, conference center, and high-end apartments.
An atrium of the Guangzhou International Finance Center. Photo: Jonathan Leijonhufvud
A new library and adjacent residential neighborhood have recently been completed in Spijkenisse, the Netherlands, a municipality southwest of Rotterdam. Both the library, and the adjacent Library Quarter, which consists of 42 social housing units, together with parking and public space, were designed by Rotterdam-based MVRDV.
The library -- named Book Mountain -- is a crisp geometric form comprising a rectangular base finished in brick and glass, that seamlessly transitions into a pyramidal, glazed hip roof. Located in the centre of Spijkenisse, the 9,300-square-meter (100,100-square-foot) building also stands along the traditional market square, next to the historic village church.
NBBJ designed the new Lunder Building, a 535,000-square-foot (50,000-square-meter) hospital building on the campus of Massachusetts General Hospital. Photo: Courtesy AIA
Four buildings have been named recipients of this year's AIA/ AAH Healthcare Design Awards, one in each of four awards categories. The projects include a hospice facility in Albany, Georgia, a major new building for Massachusetts General Hospital, a Bethesda, Maryland facility for researching and treating traumatic brain injury, and a planned medical center for Nairobi, Kenya.
Chicago-based Perkins+Will designed two of the four winning projects.
Lunder Building, Boston, Massachusetts
The five-story atrium of the Lunder Building. Photo: Courtesy AIA
The Lunder Building is a high-tech, flexible structure designed to advance Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts, into a third century of care. Designed by NBBJ, the 535,000-square-foot (50,000-square-meter) building houses procedural programs, 150 inpatient beds, progressive technologies, and new emergency and radiation oncology departments.
Located on a compact urban site in downtown Boston, the building, split into a procedural program base and an upper bed tower, is also linked to five adjacent facilities. A key design element was connections to natural light and gardens; a five-story atrium garden connects all patient floors.
Canopea, the "nanotower" concept home designed by Team Rhone Alpes has won the 2012 Solar Decathlon Europe. Photo: Courtesy Solar Decathlon Europe
With a total score of 908.72 points, the Canopea house built by the Rhone Alpes team has won the 2012 Solar Decathlon Europe competition. The winning project, on display at the "Villa Solar" event grounds in Madrid, Spain, is a model of one floor of the team's "nanotower" concept: narrow-footprint, midrise towers in which an individual home comprises each floor.
In this design, a top floor, with angled walls of louvered glass, contains common spaces including: a common laundry, a summer kitchen, gardens, storage boxes, and community gathering space. A rooftop photovoltaic array provides shade for the upper floor.
Rendering of possible configurations for the Canopea "nanotowers". Image: Team Rhone Alpes
The home's square floor plan is composed of two concentrically positioned walls, separated by a narrow zone that can be occupied. The outermost wall is largely permeable to light and air, and includes louvered glass panels . The inner wall is largely opaque and comprises the home's insulation. The in-between space can serve as additional enclosed living space, or as patios, porches, and other informal spaces.
Unit designs for the Canopea nanotower range from studio apartments through three-bedroom flats.
Foster + Partners has released conceptual designs for a new 40-story office tower at 425 Park Avenue in New York City. Image: dbox/ Foster + Partners
London-based Foster + Partners has won the competition for a new office tower at 425 Park Avenue in New York City. The 40-story tower will feature a predominantly glass facade punctuated by light-colored vertical and steel horizontal structural elements. At the ground level, the building's lower floors are pulled back from Park Avenue to form a sheltered entry plaza.
The building's profile tapers twice as it rises, dividing the tower into three vertical zones. These two upper-level tapered areas are visually punctuated, as multistory diagonal structural elements and outdoor terraces surround special lobby levels.
The building is being developed by a joint partnership of L&L Holding Company and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LBHI).
The conceptual design by Foster + Partners will serve as the framework for a two-year collaborative process with L&L Holding’s project team to create a fully formed architectural and construction plan for the 425 Park Avenue tower. L&L Holding anticipates construction will begin in 2015 with completion by the end of 2017.
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