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| Peter Zumthor designed the crisp modern Kolumba Art Museum (2007), which incorporates the remnants of the late-gothic St. Columba church. Photo: © farbanalyse |
Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has been named the recipient of the 2013 Royal Gold Medal for architecture by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The 69-year-old architect, whose work is not well-known outside the architectural community, has received recent professional acclaim for his body of work, including the 2009 Pritzker Prize.
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| The 2013 RIBA Gold Medal Prize will be awarded to Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. Photo: Gary Ebner |
Shortly after he was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2009, ArchitectureWeek contributing editor Michael Crosbie summarized Zumthor and his work.
"There is little doubt that Zumthor has become in some sense a "starchitect" — the term attached to those major architects who command media acclaim — yet his following is limited mostly to the academy.
"Among those who know of Zumthor, he is hailed for just a handful of buildings.
"Perhaps his most celebrated is the Therme Vals spa (1996), in his native Switzerland — a congeries of cavelike spaces rendered in steam, shadow, and watery reflections.
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| SANAA has designed The River, a glass-and-steel community building in New Canaan, Connecticut. Image: SANAA |
"The River" will be a new spiritual and community center building, in New Canaan, Connecticut, designed by Japanese firm SANAA for the Grace Farms Foundation. The firm's designs for the sinuous building were recently submitted to the local planning and zoning commission for review.
The building is designed as a continuous sequence of glazed pavilions connected by covered breezeways all unified by a single, curvaceous roof that winds around the one-acre (0.4-hectare) building site on the 75-acre (30.4-hectare) grounds of Grace Farms. Near one end, the River contains a space that will serve as the sanctuary for Grace Community Church. Other spaces will accommodate a range of community center functions, including a library, dining room, gymnasium, and spaces for children.
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| Overview of the sanctuary space of The River. Image: SANAA |
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| The Mercury City tower, in Moscow, Russia, has nearly topped out. Photo: Courtesy Liedel Investments Limited |
As Moscow's Mercury City skyscraper approaches its topping out point, with construction completion expected in late 2012, it is worth reflecting on the building's place among the skyscrapers of Europe. At 339 meters (1,110 feet) tall, this new tower will be the tallest on the continent upon its completion, edging out The Shard, a recently completed building in London, a 310-meter (1,020-foot) building that currently holds the position.
The 70-story Mercury City tower is a reinforced-concrete-frame structure with a copper-tinted curtain wall glazing system. The tower's plan narrows as it rises, and a series of vertical and diagonal bevels give the building its distinctive asymmetrical form.
26 high-speed elevators by ThyssenKrupp provide Mercury City's primary vertical conveyance.
- Height: 339 meters (1,110 feet)
- Stories: 70 (plus 5 floors underground)
- Area: 180,160 square meters (1,939,200 square feet)
- Architect: Frank Williams & Partners Architects with M.M. Posokhin
- Developer: Mercury Development Company/ LLC RASEN STROY
- Year Completed: estimated late 2012
Of the five tallest buildings in Europe, four are in Moscow. The Shard, by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, is the only building outside of Moscow in the top five. And a fifth Moscovite building rounds out the European top ten.
To put these buildings into another kind of perspective, the Mercury City tower is less than half the height of the Burj Khalifa which, at 828 meters (2,717 feet), is currently the tallest building in the world. Upon its completion, Mercury City will likely rank 37 or 38 in a listing of the world's tallest buildings.
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Photo: Courtesy Baron Phillips Associates
2. The Shard, London, England
- Height: 310 meters (1,020 feet)
- Stories: 95
- Area: 111,000 square meters (1.2 Million square feet)
- Architect: Renzo Piano with Adamson Associates
- Builder: Mace
- Owner: Sellar Property Group
- Developer: Sellar Property Group
- Year Completed: 2012
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| The "bathtub" addition to the Stedelijk Museum, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has been completed. Photo: John Lewis Marshall |
The recently completed Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands opens to the public on September 23. Amsterdam-based Benthem Crouwel Architects designed the project, including the renovation of the museum's 1895 brick building, and the new addition, nicknamed "The Bathtub" for its form and sleek white facade, currently being assembled.
The addition essentially consists of a large canopy extending out about 40 meters (130 feet) at the roof level of the existing building, with a smooth white volume descending from the roof that narrows as it nears the glazed ground-floor base. Galleries, a new auditorium, and various other spaces are divided between this volume and an underground portion of the addition, while the transparent ground-level volume houses the museum shop and restaurant and the new entrance to the facility.
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The museum addition abuts the existing historic museum building. Photo: John Lewis Marshall
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| Allen Jack+Cottier (AJ+C) designed the Indoor Sports Stadium on Milson Island, near Sydney, Australia. Photo: Nic Bailey/ Courtesy Allen Jack+Cottier |
Allen Jack+Cottier (AJ+C) adopted an imaginative approach to materials, structure, and form when designing the Indoor Sports Stadium, located in rural New South Wales, on Milson Island in the Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney, Australia.
The project brief was to design a multi-purpose recreation hall for use by young children at camp. The firm undertook careful study of local conditions which resulted in a curving, lightweight building that seems to float over the landscape of its extraordinary natural site.
The form of the building is an overt and direct expression of thermodynamic analysis. Smooth airflow required a clean, crisp interior skin and the natural thermal ventilation patterns influence the building’s wing shape. A combination of twelve wind turbines and a series of floor mounted louvres ensure the building remains cool in Sydney's fierce summer heat, and when closed in winter, act as an insulation blanket.
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| The main hall of the Indoor Sports Stadium. Photo: Nic Bailey/ Courtesy Allen Jack+Cottier |
The building’s shape was inspired by the traditional Arnhem Land canoe. These canoes were made from a single piece of bark, stripped from a Stringybark tree, seasoned over a fire and shaped by branches. Upturned and propped off the ground, the canoe, in its frugality, demonstrated the essence of shelter.
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| The LEED Platinum-certified Portland Community College Newberg Center, in Newberg, Oregon, was designed by Eddy Architects, Inc. |
Four buildings received top marks in this year's Educational Facility Design Awards from the AIA Committee on Architecture for Education (CAE), while 11 other projects were also recognized in the program's two lesser tiers.
The fifteen projects, all of which are located in the United States, range from a LEED Platinum-certified community college building, in Newberg, Oregon, to a mix of primary and secondary school projects in Bellevue, Washington; Snohomish, Washington; and Joplin, Missouri; and also include several special schools focused on either the arts and sciences.
And in the case of one project, a Beaux Arts-style swimming pool was converted into a 282-seat music performance space.
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| The Ardmore Elementary School, in Bellevue, Washington was designed by NAC|Architecture. |
The two-story Ardmore Elementary School is organized around multiple internal courtyards and relies heavily on glazing to connect parts of the building with each other and with the surrounding landscape. A notion of non-linear learning is embodied in the variety of meandering paths available throughout the building, gradually revealing different spaces, those close and those far away.
Stamboldžioski Dental Studio is located at the outskirts of Nova Gorica, Slovenia, in a residential community featuring mostly single-family homes. It has been built as a replacement for the cramped surgery in the dentist's private house, which was set up on the ground floor. It is therefore an annex, whose floor area exceeds that of the house it has been attached to.
Due to the required floor area of the annex, which is more than double the size of the existing building, a relationship with the natural landscape was sought. The building is built on a slope, which allows its greater part to be set into the earth. This reduces its presence in the space despite the somewhat expressive appearance, which follows the building's function.
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Rendering of Rathbone Market, designed by CZWG Architects, an east-London development whose second phase recently received planning permission. Image: Courtesy CZWG Architects
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English Cities Fund, a joint venture between Muse Developments, Legal and General Property, and the Homes and Communities Agency, and developer of Canning Town's Rathbone Market scheme, has secured a detailed planning consent to take the development into its second phase.
Rathbone Market's redevelopment already had outline planning consent which fixed the masterplanning parameters.
Phase two will comprise two new public squares, one of which will form the attractive new open market square - the centerpiece of the finished Rathbone Market scheme and will also feature purpose built facilities for the market traders. This phase will also see the delivery of 165 new homes - 42 of which are affordable, a brand new 10,000-square-foot (929-square-meter) public library and community centre and 12,000 square feet (1,100 square meters) of ground floor retail space.
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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."
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New City Industries, at 178-185 High Street West, Sunderland, England, by John Robinson Beattie. Image: Courtesy RIBA
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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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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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
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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.
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Overview of a street-level entrance of One World Trade Center. Image: PANYNJ/ Durst Organization
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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.
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The stone-clad lobby of 1 WTC. Image: PANYNJ/ Durst Organization
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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.
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| An upper-floor waiting room in the Seidman center. Photo: Mark Kempf Photography |
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| 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.
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