Arch Daily |
- Explore Peter Zumthor's 1986 Shelter for Roman Ruins in Quiet Solitude
- Paris Courthouse / Renzo Piano Building Workshop
- Ananda House / IBUKU
- Wenzhou Dalton Elementary School / FAX ARCHITECTS
- The Vault House / OBBA
- Muay Thai Space / BWAO
- Chilbo Culture Centre for Youth / Studio In Loco + Utopian Architects
- Northside Library / NBBJ
- Modernist Architect Albert C. Lender Dies at Age 93
- Aesop Duke of York Square / Snøhetta
- Architect Magazine Selects the Top 50 Architecture Firms in the US for 2017
- Apple Park Visitor Center / Foster + Partners
- WeWork to Become Primary Tenant of James Stirling's No 1 Poultry After Renovations
- CAP Cibeles / Valor-Llimós
- Choreographed Performance at Farnsworth House Explores “Queer Space” in the Work of Mies van der Rohe
- Critical Round-Up: The Louvre Abu Dhabi by Jean Nouvel
- CWA House / Beczak / Beczak / Architekci
- First Images of What is Set to Become the Largest Botanic Garden in the World Revealed
- Snohetta, Sasaki and HOK to Take Part in a 4-Firm-Team to Design Oakland A's New Stadium
| Explore Peter Zumthor's 1986 Shelter for Roman Ruins in Quiet Solitude Posted: 21 Nov 2017 08:00 PM PST In 1986, Peter Zumthor completed one of his first projects: a shelter over an Ancient Roman archaeological site in Chur, (Graubünden, Switzerland). Now over three decades old, this film by ArcDog captures the building and the preserved excavations that it sits around with a quiet sophistication. With only timber lamella to allow in light and ventilative air, the project stands as a testament to Zumthor's sensitive architectural approach. .jpg?1511195500 "© ArcDog") © ArcDog  © ArcDog  © ArcDog  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Paris Courthouse / Renzo Piano Building Workshop Posted: 21 Nov 2017 07:00 PM PST  © Sergio Grazia
 © Sergio Grazia Text description provided by the architects. Situated on the northern edge of central Paris, the new Tribunal de Paris will regroup various facilities currently dispersed around the capital, becoming the largest law courts complex in Europe. The building takes the form of a slim, transparent, 160m tower of stacked volumes of decreasing size, carefully laid out for efficiency and ease of use.  © Sergio Grazia The project for the new law court building, a public–private partnership, was launched to alleviate the increasingly cramped accommodation of several different services around central Paris, including the regional court, the police court, the public prosecution courts and the district courts attached to each of the city's sectors (arrondissements). Situated in the urban development zone of Clichy–Batignolles on the northern edge of Paris, the site is at a key intersection between the different administrative areas of Paris and its suburbs. It is also well connected by public transport, including the northern stretch of the highly successful new tramway.  © Sergio Grazia The scale of the building is reduced by breaking it down into four superimposed volumes of decreasing size, the first of which, long and low, fits in readily with the proportions of Haussmann's Paris. The three subsequent levels each contain some ten storeys. This tiered system gives rise to large roof terraces – around a hectare in total – which will be landscaped and planted with some 500 trees, again softening the feel of the building and creating comfortable spaces for reflection or discussion.  Section The tower is narrow – only 35 metres (115ft) for a tower of 160 metres (525ft), which permits a high level of natural light and contact with the outside world. On both (long) sides of the building the double-skin facade is interrupted by a dorsal fin – a vertical stripe housing the panoramic lifts, which afford vast views out over Paris.  © Sergio Grazia The building is entered at ground-floor level via a 6,000 sq m (64,600 sq ft) piazza on the Avenue de la Porte-de-Clichy. Inside the first volume, the 27m-high 'pedestal' to the rest of the building, the vast concourse is totally visible from the exterior through a crystal-clear glazed facade, reinforcing the buildings message of transparency and ease of orientation. From here, some 50 reception desks ensure minimum visitor waiting time.  Ground Floor Plan This 5,500 sq m (59,200 sq ft) space is punctuated by three atria – one large central atrium (64m x 16m, larger still for the first four storeys) and smaller north and south atria (16m x 16m), which reach the full height of this first section of the building, daylight pouring in from the glazed skylights in the roof terrace above. Circulation areas of subsequent floors give onto the atria. Looking up from the ground floor one can see the glazed balustrades and the open structure of the building, containing a series of galleries bathed in natural light.  © Sergio Grazia On subsequent floors within this 'pedestal' are the 90 courtrooms, nearly all of which benefit from indirect (channelled) natural light. Via a system of vertical and horizontal circulation, these courtrooms are all accessible within just a few minutes from any of the offices housed on the subsequent floors.  Floor Plans The subsequent volumes contain offices and meeting rooms: the second is the domain of the magistrates, the third of the Public Prosecutor's offices, and the fourth and final houses the presiding judges.  © Sergio Grazia The building's thermal inertia, use of natural ventilation, incorporation of photovoltaic panels on the facade and rainwater collection are some of the environmental solutions employed in this project, setting a new benchmark for energy consumption in a very tall building.  © Sergio Grazia  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 21 Nov 2017 06:00 PM PST  Courtesy of IBUKU
 Courtesy of IBUKU Text description provided by the architects. A simple stone gateway marks the entrance to the house. The gateway frames three young block palms surrounded by a corridor of green that cascades down the land. Sunlight pours into this east-facing slope in the morning when there is still a touch of dew on the leaves, and in late afternoon the lost fingers of golden light angle down through the fronds. A stone pathway winds along the contours of this terraced garden. Pathways branch off the main stone path to left and right at intervals along the contours, leading to two delicate multi-level structures, perched like birds that have nestling into the slope. The curving leaf-shape roofs sweep low around the sides, and under them you can see a glimpse of glass which reflects the green of the garden, and white curtains flowing. These are the private bedrooms, and at the front of each is a private balcony pointing east towards the valley. .jpg?1511225056 "Courtesy of IBUKU") Courtesy of IBUKU Winding down the pathway between these two structures to you discover a teardrop shape open pavilion on the right. It has a sweeping leaf-shaped roof that peaks upward toward the east, diming slightly upriver. This is the family room, the heart of the house, and of its center is the kitchen with a curving sweep of counter top mode from flat slabs of river stone. At the back of the pavillion, above and behind the kitchen area, is a high loft for the kids to sleep in.  Courtesy of IBUKU The deck sweeps around the north side of the family pavillion around towards the grotto pool; it's a continuation of the living space which cultivates an indoor-outdoor feeling and overhangs the cliff just slightly. The living room deck and pool are the terrace along which family life revolves, with the bedroom houses perched above, and the river rushing past for below. Stepping back through the living space to the south is a secluded area of the deck for a romantic morning breakfast for two, and beyond it behind the kitchen a conveniently located little powder room.  Courtesy of IBUKU Several terraces above the deck, where the central pathway branches left to where the couples' bedroom house is nestled. It has an upper and lower bedroom, each room with its own private balcony and bathroom. These rooms are a sweet and cozy place forest and retreat, just the right size for a queen bed and desk, with space for a crib or toddlers cot to be set up beside when needed. The bed faces tall glass windows toward the balcony and the north-eastern views beyond.  Section Set close to the north boundary and high up on the slope, is the final and most dramatic structure. It is three levels, including a tower lookout at the top. The first level is the master bedroom, facing east and perched high above the grotto pool, with dramatic river views. It has all the essentials that the other bedrooms have, as well as an elaborate outdoor bathroom and a monolithic stone tub set into the slope overlooking the valley. Suspended among the columns of the stilted structure below the bedroom, a hammock becomes another private outdoor retreat.  Courtesy of IBUKU The drama and beauty of this property is best captured from a second living space, set above the master bedroom, and offset to point north-east directly towards the mother mountain of Bali, Mount Agung, visible on the horizon on a clear day. This room, unlike the family pavillion, can be fully enclosed with tall glass windows, and becomes the family's retreat on hot or stormy days. At dawn the sunrise light will flood through the lift in the roof, turning it into a golden glowing study.  Section At the highest level of all is perched a tiny tower room, accessed by a ladder and through a trap door. This is where you come to meditate at dawn or dusk. On a clear night, some may want to set up a bed up here and be awaken by bird song and the first glow of dawn light.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Wenzhou Dalton Elementary School / FAX ARCHITECTS Posted: 21 Nov 2017 04:00 PM PST  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS
 Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS Text description provided by the architects. With the rapid development of the urbanization, the main urban area of Wenzhou is constantly expanding eastwards, so that the functions such as residence, living, work and learning need constant perfection. Nikula, an enterprise that is committed to the educational cause, also goes with the tide of urban development and converts its old factory into a high-quality elementary school.  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS Design concept  Diagram Building facades  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS Landscaping  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS Space characteristics  © Sicong Sui  Section  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS Public activity platform and corridor  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS The atrium lighting courtyard in the main teaching building  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS The activity space on the ground floor on the north side of the main teaching building  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS The first-grade classrooms on the ground floor  © Sicong Sui  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS The setting of double corridors for the south classrooms  © Sicong Sui The public space on each floor of the main teaching building  © Sicong Sui Indoor basketball courts  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS Multi-function theater  Courtesy of FAX ARCHITECTS  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 21 Nov 2017 02:00 PM PST .jpg?1511235621 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin
.jpg?1511236706 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin Text description provided by the architects. When did this happen? The faces of our city have lost their characters. Dull façade of apartment buildings surrounds city and streets full of cars are gradually turning into a dreary parking lot. The moment where a street meets a building is cut off by a faceless wall and the space between houses has turned into unidentifiable space with a wall separating them. .jpg?1511235558 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin  Site plan .jpg?1511236786 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin If you look into the definition of a wall, it is an architectural structure designed to protect inside from outside primarily from intrusion, to define a boundary and to block views from outside for personal privacy. Between what and what is a wall defining a boundary? From what does a wall distinguish something? Is a wall used to distinguish the boundaries of my private land, or to show off my status? Or is it used carelessly regardless of its function? .jpg?1511236857 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin The project is a small house of 82 m2, in Bipa-ri, Hadong in Gyeongsangnamdo. Three brothers in their 50s who were born and raised in the town but now live with their own family in the city wished to build a new house for their elderly mother on where the old house used to be. .jpg?1511236550 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin The site is basically surrounded by endless farmland on its all sides. However, trains pass by on its Southeast and Bipa Island boasts its small but impressive forest of green pine trees all year round on its Northwest. .jpg?1511236693 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin Our biggest concern about this project was defining the relationship between private space and the rest in a countryside where all sides are open to crop fields. Fence wall is generally installed along the boundary of the entire site, away from the actual house. In this case, however, we incorporated the fence wall as a part of the building in order to create several types of intermediate/transitory space between private and public space. .jpg?1511235412 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin The building has an enigmatic face. It is difficult to tell which is the main entrance or how is the house arranged. Curvilinear brick walls wrap around the house and an elegant/neat/orderly entrance is hidden next to a slit on the brick wall.  Plan The house is composed of a living room with generous openings toward the North and South, and a master bedroom and two guest bedrooms on the East. Each end of the living room has a small pocket garden formed by the curvy brick walls. The curvy wall on the North has an arch shaped opening on top that allows view toward the greens of Bipa Island from the living room. The one on the South with an arch shaped opening on the bottom blocks wind and noise from the railroad while the opening visually and physically connects the space with the backyard behind the wall. .jpg?1511235488 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin A guest bedroom on the East also has pocket garden which is enclosed by a semi-circular wall with a diameter of 7.5m, extended from the house's wall. The extended wall prepares for future changes that may come due to the newly built railway station, blocks noise from the streets that will be expanded due to the city's plan, and ensures privacy of the residents. There is a small opening on the bottom of the wall for neighboring dogs and cats to freely pass through. One of the master bedroom's wall and kitchen's wall grows out similarly to screen the bedroom from the streets and to provide shades and storage space for the kitchen, respectively.  Section 01  Section 02 By designing fence wall, which is commonly treated as an entity independent from the building, the house could be more functional and acquire more flexible form. Furthermore, the transitory spaces created by extended curvy walls allow richer spatial experience and add character to the moment where they meet with public space. .jpg?1511237164 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin We look forward to see intriguing moments characterized by with intermediate spaces between two different spaces and a connecting point anticipating to be filled with excitement. .jpg?1511235368 "© Kyungsub Shin") © Kyungsub Shin  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 21 Nov 2017 12:00 PM PST .jpg?1510240297 "Courtesy of BWAO") Courtesy of BWAO
.jpg?1510240074 "Courtesy of BWAO") Courtesy of BWAO Text description provided by the architects. Wangjing SOHO serves as the landmark of Wangjing urban space with its predominant architectural presence. The site presented itself as a challenge as how to respond to the city with its three open edges. .jpg?1510320149 "Courtesy of BWAO") Courtesy of BWAO As an anchoring tenant, its three sides are a continuous curve, with only one straight edge. There are seven columns that lean into the space with various degrees. .jpg?1510240158 "Exploded Axonometric") Exploded Axonometric The space will be used as a Muay Thai place. The fighting ring is the central program. The ring is 5m in square, with a height of 800mm, or even 2m if counting the railings. It's highly visible with its elevated massing in the open space. On the other hand, programs such as shower and changing happen in an enclosed space. .jpg?1510240397 "Courtesy of BWAO") Courtesy of BWAO A linear volume is applied to the west edge. It condenses foyer, bar, and shower and changing area into one space and leaves the rest to the open area, maximizing the spatial potential. The ring is placed within the space that is surrounded by the four slanted columns, forming the visual focus of the entire space. This is consistent with the plan of a theater: the shrinking end of a fanning plan is used for the stage while the open area is for the audience. The ring becomes the stage. .jpg?1510240251 "Courtesy of BWAO") Courtesy of BWAO How to resolve all the issues mentioned about within a structural synthesis is in the final analysis. An arch system is applied to all the bays between the columns on the south, north and east sides. Along the east-west axis, a series of arches are also created between the columns. These nine arch controlling lines form the very basis of structural genesis. .jpg?1510240212 "Ceiling Structure") Ceiling Structure To loft between the pairs of arches, a series of surfaces are produced. All these surfaces are joined into one continuous canopy after trimming. The arch shapes are controlled by adjustable conic curves, achieving spatial efficiency while remaining its continuity. .jpg?1510319997 "Courtesy of BWAO") Courtesy of BWAO The continuous canopy is split at the height of 2m. The upper part is partitioned along the east-west axis, forming the ceiling components. The lower parts are contoured vertically, forming the pillars that support the ceiling. This not only differentiate the two conceptually, but also functionally: the pillars need to be solid as to interact with people directly, while the ceiling needs to be open as to accommodate all service conduits. All these components are digitally cut by with 18mm thick density boards. The seams of these component panels are arranged in a fashion that achieves both spatial effect and material efficiency. The lighting above the ceiling are arrayed and lit upward so that the diffuse light from the ceiling can penetrate the panels, creating a soft ambient light environment that one can totally immerse within. .jpg?1510240115 "Concept Diagram") Concept Diagram The four pillars within the open space concentrate on plan, the arches contract in section, and the ring is staged on a platform. All these add to the effect of total enclosure for anyone on the ring. The program areas on the open plan are defined by varying ceiling heights: high at the apex of the arch in the center for training area, and low at the edges for miscellaneous training areas. The arches also respond to the unban challenge set above: bringing Muay Thai, a highly competitive sport back to the colosseum symbolically. .jpg?1510239998 "Courtesy of BWAO") Courtesy of BWAO  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Chilbo Culture Centre for Youth / Studio In Loco + Utopian Architects Posted: 21 Nov 2017 11:00 AM PST  © Lee Choong-Gun
 © Lee Choong-Gun Text description provided by the architects. Compared to the amount of time youth groups are required to spend in private institutes or after school tutoring, it is usually thought that they are not given proper opportunities to explore their interests and hobbies. Including public schools, many of the spaces youth groups may visit and stay are far from alluring. For the "youth group" includes a such large spectrum of ages from kindergarten goers to college students, community's youth centers need to well support varying needs and wants of different age groups. The Chilbo Youth Center aims to provide a platform where the youth can appreciate their most favored spots, where they may choose different places to be, and where spatial characteristics of each space are precisely experienced from their eye levels.  © Lee Choong-Gun The site is divided into two parts: one for the parking space and the footsal court, and the other for the indoor spaces. In a way to organize different programs, each one is given a particular form that are driven from the typical form of a "house", the familiar shape of so-called a barn house. Each "house" is adjusted with its height and floor area, through which they grow to adequate home for diverse programs. Located in the north edge of the Homesil Park, the site generously opens up to its surroundings except towards the North where there is a daycare center recently completed across the street. Instead of being vertically stacked into multiple levels, individual spaces in the Chilbo Youth Center are spreaded out horizontally comprising only two stories; the square meter of the upper level is as half large as the lower one. Programs are seated in their proper place, at the very center of which a light well inspirits the surrounding area with natural light gliding in.  Section  Section The light well houses an information desk and an open lounge behind. The band practice space, two singing rooms, gym, and the dance studio, categorised as the "noise zone", are set aside from the information desk by folding glass doors. The administrative offices, the "working area", are located towards the North. The book cafe binds the ground and upper level with grand stairs, and the auditorium is located below. The changing colour and texture of natural light at the very core of the ground floor renders the most ordinary yet enchanting scenes throughout a day, and around it unfolds the diverse universe for the youth.  © Lee Choong-Gun In order for the youth to experience more than a box, both physically and metaphorically, spaces in the youth center are persistently provided with varying spatial characteristics that can be enjoyed with five senses. The book cafe and the gym are given the highest ceiling and the largest volume inside the building. Middle schoolers reading books in their favourite spots on the grand stairs, soft buzzing sound of small talks between a mother and a child, and the passers by who stride along the edge of the stand to move from one floor to the other all together deliver the characteristic of the book cafe. The noise of cheering shouts and bouncing balls, rhythmical echo of young players' steps, and the lazy afternoon sun beam drifting into the space compete the gym as a whole.  © Lee Choong-Gun  1st Floor Plan  © Lee Choong-Gun .jpg?1510226761 "2nd Floor Plan") 2nd Floor Plan At the every end of walkways inside the building visual fields grow further outside. One window is faced with another, and the end of a passage is accentuated by a window and its view and its light. Through this structure of spaces, walls are merely dividing tools, but they rather connect and relate the spaces on their both sides. The "sharing walls" on the second floor are built with small show-boxes, benches, windows, and shelves. Besides enabling visual connection or providing spaces for hand-crafted goods, the wall invites people to sit and stay in the space. As a result, the passage in front of the multipurpose rooms becomes another adequate space for the youth to stay and rest, a place more than just a threshold.  © Lee Choong-Gun  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 21 Nov 2017 09:00 AM PST  © Chuck Choi
 © Chuck Choi Text description provided by the architects. Libraries are in transition. Once a point of knowledge dissemination and quiet introspection, they are becoming places to meet, socialize, study, hang out and plug in. Historically, we have seen a library's civic value shift from a place for things, now, to a place for people. Its unique nature is that it maintains the tenants of a public service institution, while embracing the increasing proclivity of people to seek environments to carry out activities that blur the line between research, socialization, knowledge-seeking and play.  © Chuck Choi The new Northside branch aims to capitalize on its distinctive urban nature and the tide of new development behind the libraries of today.  1st Floor Plan  Section  2nd Floor Plan Currently sitting at a junction of four significant urban vectors in Columbus; the Short North growing north, the University growing south, the Peach District bordering to the west, and Weinland Park to the east. Rather than one single contextual driver, the library is a reflection of this unique junction, and as such celebrates the scale, material and vibrancy of these neighborhoods.  © Chuck Choi  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Modernist Architect Albert C. Lender Dies at Age 93 Posted: 21 Nov 2017 08:00 AM PST  O'Toole Building, New York. Image © Wikimedia CC user Beyond My Ken. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 Architect Albert C. Ledner, known for his unorthodox style that subverted the seriousness of the Modernist period, has passed away at the age of 93 in Manchester, New Hampshire. Beginning as an apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright, Ledner went on to have his own successful career designing buildings mainly in New York and New Orleans, where he completed more than 40 projects. He also completed a series of futuristic buildings and meeting halls around the country for the National Maritime Union, including what were perhaps his most famous buildings, the wavy O'Toole Building and the porthole-dotted National Maritime Building (renovated into a hotel by Handel Architects in 2011) in New York.  Image from the Southeastern Architectural Archive. Courtesy <a href='http://https://news.tulane.edu/news/%E2%80%98ashtray-house%E2%80%99-architect-featured-tulane-exhibit'>Tulane University</a>.. ImageSunkel House, New Orleans In New Orleans, Ledner designed a number of notable residences that experimented with innovative techniques and atypical building materials. One such example, the Sunkel House, was designed for a client couple that both enjoyed smoking. In response, Ledner installed 1,200 glass ashtrays as a decorative element along the house's facade. The home is now commonly referred to as the Ashtray House.  © Wikimedia CC <a href='http://https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maritime_Hotel_and_Dream_Downtown_Hotel_2.jpg'>user Beyond My Ken</a>. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. ImageMaritime Hotel, New York Read a full obituary for Ledner in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, here.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Aesop Duke of York Square / Snøhetta Posted: 21 Nov 2017 07:00 AM PST  © Paola Pansini
 © Paola Pansini Text description provided by the architects. Situated in Chelsea, London, the store's design is inspired by the contextual relevance of the location combined with an influence of futuristic elements. The result is an interior characterized by classic architypes, a pale red color palette, and stainless-steel elements. An existing column is used as the starting point for the store's layout. From this centralized column, 12 arches stretch towards the perimeter walls. This series of arches function as a key element in creating a sense of organizational hierarchy, establishing visual separators within the space. The arches are clad in a clay based plaster with a subtle gradient color, ranging from a lighter base to a darker shade. Illumination from between the arches further emphasizes the gradient effect.  © Paola Pansini Expanding out from the centralized column, a sink in a circular shape establishes itself as the natural meeting point of the store. The sink, which is an integral part of all Aesop's stores, appears as a hovering water mirror reflecting the light and colors of the ceiling. Made from polished stainless steel and glass fiber, the sink becomes a focal element, while simultaneously allowing for an optimized flow of people within the space. The walls, ceiling, and arches are clad in a pink-pigmented clay based plaster, giving the space a royal rose-color. The clay plaster is delivered by Clayworks, and sourced from South West counties of England. This simple and clear color palette is contrasted by extensive use of steel in the other custom elements of the store.  © Paola Pansini The contrasts created by the rough surfaces of the walls against the soft, polished expression of the clear stainless-steel shapes, the play with color gradients, as well as the changes in light throughout the space, all underline a sense of depth to the design. Combined with the traditional arches and futuristic elements such as the sink, the design aims to trigger customer's sense of curiosity. Aesop Duke of York Square is the seventh Aesop store designed by Snøhetta. Other stores include Aesop Prinsens Gate (Oslo), Aesop Homansbyen (Oslo), Aesop Grabenstraße (Düsseldorf), Aesop Fasanenstraße (Berlin), Aesop ION (Singapore), and Aesop Raffles City (Singapore).  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Architect Magazine Selects the Top 50 Architecture Firms in the US for 2017 Posted: 21 Nov 2017 06:00 AM PST  Architect Magazine has unveiled the 2017 edition of the "Architect 50," their list of the 50 best architecture firms in the United States. The 2017 rankings are based on scores from three categories: business, design and sustainability. This year saw more entrants than ever before, with several first-time entrants making notable impressions, including the number 1 ranked design firm, WORKac. Topping the overall list was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), who also ranked in the top 10 in both design and sustainability. See the top 10 from each category after the break.  New United States Courthouse / Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Image © Bruce Damonte Overall
 The Stealth Building / WORKac. Image © Bruce Damonte Design
 J. Craig Venter Institute La Jolla / ZGF Architects. Image © Hedrich Blessing Sustainability
 Statue of Liberty Museum / FXFOWLE. Image Courtesy of FXFOWLE Business
See the full Architect 50 with profiles on the top firms, here. News via Architect Magazine.
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| Apple Park Visitor Center / Foster + Partners Posted: 21 Nov 2017 05:00 AM PST  Courtesy of Foster + Partners
 Courtesy of Foster + Partners Text description provided by the architects. The Visitor Center along Tantau Avenue, designed as an exclusive public gateway to Apple Park, it features an expansive roof terrace with stunning views of the main building that offers a unique glimpse into Apple Park. Nestled within a carefully planted olive grove, an exceptionally transparent envelope sits below a floating carbon-fiber roof, which cantilevers over outdoor seating areas on either side. Its softly-lit timber soffit gives the interior an inviting warmth, while the full-height glazing dematerializes the building volume.  Courtesy of Foster + Partners Visitors are greeted with a large scaled model of Apple Park – seemingly suspended in mid-air – milled and finished by the same machines that create the signature Apple products. Visitors also have the opportunity to get a closer look at the main building from the roof terrace of the Visitor Center, which offers an unmatched panoramic view of Apple Park. A delicate screen of thin, curved carbon-fiber fins shades the terrace, where people can relax and take photos against the lush backdrop of Apple Park.  Courtesy of Foster + Partners Stefan Behling, Head of Studio, Foster + Partners commented, "The idea was to create a delicate pavilion where visitors can enjoy the same material palette and meticulous detailing seen in the Ring Building in a relaxed setting, against the backdrop of Apple Park." Special Apple merchandise, exclusive to the Visitor Center, is available as souvenirs. At the southern end of the Visitor Center is a café – a place of relaxation and repose, where visitors can enjoy the verdant Californian landscape that surrounds Apple Park.  Courtesy of Foster + Partners Several elements from the main building are replicated at the Visitor Center to give people a taste of the precision detailing at Apple Park. For instance, the design of the staircases is inspired by the similar ones in the main building, clad with the same quartz stone, and the countertop at the café is made with the same marble as the main restaurant.  Courtesy of Foster + Partners  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| WeWork to Become Primary Tenant of James Stirling's No 1 Poultry After Renovations Posted: 21 Nov 2017 04:00 AM PST  © Flickr user merula. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 After being saved from a major renovation that would have eliminated its iconic Postmodern facade, James Stirling's No 1 Poultry building is now receiving a gentler retrofit that will upgrade its spaces to house 110,000-square-feet of contemporary office space. Fitting right in with the update, coworking giant WeWork has now been announced as the building's first tenant, and the company has revealed some details of how the building will work for its users.  Courtesy of WeWork. via The Spaces Renderings released with the announcement show lush plantings in the building's interior courtyard space and a sleek new entry. Led by local architecture firm BuckeyGrayYeoman, plans also include reopening the grand staircase, which is believed to have been inspired by the Vatican City's Scala Regia, a new reception area, and underground bike storage.  Courtesy of WeWork. via The Spaces  © Flickr user Robert Moore. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 "Bank continues to evolve into a modern version of the city, and we're excited to be a part of that," said Patrick Nelson, WeWork's head of real estate Europe. "We know its fantastic location, access to excellent amenities and postmodern design will appeal to our community of 23,000 members." The renovation is scheduled to be completed in 2018. News via The Spaces. H/T Curbed.
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| Posted: 21 Nov 2017 03:30 AM PST  © Jordi Surroca
 © Jordi Surroca 32 dwellings for elderly people, Primary Care Center & parking The center is located on the border between the "Ensanche" and the "Gracia" neighborhood within an existing building that includes three different uses: 32 dwellings for elderly people, Primary Care Center and parking for 44 vehicles.  Section 04 The ground floor is strongly conditioned by the need for independent access to each of the different uses. Space distribution is very influenced by the strict dimensional requirements of the Primary Care Center and housing minimum surface requirements. All that is reflected in the design of structures, facilities and fire protection.  © Jordi Surroca  Fourth Floor Plan  © Jordi Surroca The building is conditioned by the intention to take full advantage of the possibility of natural lighting and ventilation. To do so, the mezzanine floor is pulled apart from the façade, generating an elevated ramp that acts as a hallway, and works as an extension of the street as a space of relationship.  © Jordi Surroca In terms of energy efficiency, the building is one of the four High-Combi pilot projects of the VII European Union's Framework Program, for high-performance solar thermal buildings, and has achieved an Energy Certification A label.  © Jordi Surroca  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 21 Nov 2017 02:30 AM PST .jpg?1511197306 "© Bradley Glanzrock, LStopMedia.com. Courtesy of Gerard & Kelly") © Bradley Glanzrock, LStopMedia.com. Courtesy of Gerard & Kelly This article was originally published on the blog of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the largest platform for contemporary architecture in North America. The 2017 Biennial, entitled Make New History, will be free and open to the public between September 16, 2017 and January 6, 2018. "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." This famously misattributed analogy has floated through the arts world for decades as shorthand for the difficulty of imposing the gestures of one creative discipline onto another. But why should dance and architecture get lost in translation? Isn't there an inherent poetry to the movement of bodies navigating the built environment? .jpg?1511278123)  © Bradley Glanzrock, LStopMedia.com. Courtesy of Gerard & Kelly Creative links between architecture and dance stretch back at least as far as the Bauhaus, the pioneering German design school where performances like Oskar Schlemmer's Triadisches Ballett merged avant-garde choreography with abstract sets and costumes. Black Mountain College, where the Bauhaus spirit was transplanted in the 1940s and 1950s, hosted Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and a wide cast of artistic pioneers who launched modern performance art as a resolutely spatial practice. And in the past half-century, stage legends such as Pina Bausch and Robert Wilson as well as architecture firms like Diller Scofidio (now Diller Scofidio + Renfro) have also drawn on the built environment in plotting out new parameters for performance. The Los Angeles-based performance practice Gerard & Kelly has opened up a new avenue of thinking within this hybrid tradition – one where dance meditates on individual works of architecture by inhabiting them and bringing the body to bear on their histories. For this year's Chicago Architecture Biennial, the troupe created a new installment of their Modern Living project, a series of site-specific dance pieces performed within some of the 20th Century's most radical modernist homes.  © Bradley Glanzrock, LStopMedia.com. Courtesy of Gerard & Kelly Modern Living is a long-term investigation into the connections between modern architecture, the social construction of domesticity, and queer identity in its many forms. The series started at the R.M. Schindler House in West Hollywood, where the architect's family and friends lived in a kind of communal household, and then traveled to the Glass House in New Canaan, CT, where the iconic iconoclast Philip Johnson lived for more than four decades with his partner, David Whitney. This fall's performances took place at the iconic Farnsworth House near Chicago, designed by Mies van der Rohe between 1945 and 1951 for Edith Farnsworth, a prominent doctor, and patron of the arts. Dr. Farnsworth was an unmarried poet who commissioned the one-room glass house as a revolutionary statement piece, and but ultimately found the space unlivable and quarreled with the architect personally. The performance, like the rest of Modern Living, pushes and pulls on conventional interpretations of modern architecture by invading the personal spheres of some of the movement's protagonists. Dancers test alternative ways of being in each space with their entire bodies, pressing themselves to windows, prowling the living areas, letting loose or curling up depending on the venue. Seeing these loosely sketched dramas up close, each audience member can sense the arbitrariness of normative domestic scenes and glimpse ways of living outside them.  © Bradley Glanzrock, LStopMedia.com. Courtesy of Gerard & Kelly CAB Blog: Can you talk a little bit about the "characters" in the piece? There are references to Mies and Dr. Farnsworth, the members of a normative heterosexual relationship, the many kinds of partners who can make a home together, the more loosely embodied figures of authority and autonomy, et cetera. I'm curious how you choreographed the dancers' movements to express these orientations and more. Gerard & Kelly: There are no characters in Modern Living – at least not in a conventional theatrical sense. Each chapter of the project is sited in a different modernist domestic architecture, and at each site, we collaborate with a variable number of performers in order to model the social relations of the site. In the first chapter of the project at the Schindler House in West Hollywood, we collaborated with L.A. Dance Project. Architect RM Schindler designed his house to shelter a relationship quite radical for its time (1921!): two young couples who would live, work cook, grow vegetables, make clothes, and raise children together. To channel this experiment in communal living, we chose to work with this group of nine dancers who were all in their 20s, thinking of the company as a ready-made set of social relations, much like siblings. At the time of the house's construction, the Schindlers and the Chases were young, in their 20s. We were interested in the pleasures and tensions, the love and the violence, that is common to relations betweens siblings. We wanted to explore the specificity of a relation structured along a horizontal, potentially non-hierarchical axis, as opposed to the vertical axis of the parent-child relation (for so long the object of psychoanalysis). In this first chapter of Modern Living, we mapped this set of given relations onto the architecture, and used it as a building block for the choreography. Our reading of the site was driven also by formal analysis. The horizontal plan of the Schindler House, a single-story pinwheel structure in which every room is a transit to another room, equally evokes this sibling relation. So at each house where Modern Living temporarily lives, there are no characters, and we do not attempt to represent or narrate the history of the site, but we do make specific decisions in order to channel the structure of relations that produced and inhabited the home. At the Farnsworth house, we had to deal of course with this myth of Mies and Dr. Farnsworth, a relation which too often gets cast as a story of heterosexual romance, of attraction and conflict between a man and a woman. Historians, mostly men, tell a rather patriarchal story of unrequited love with all the tropes of marriage and divorce. Farnsworth is the jilted lover and Mies is the domineering genius. But what a normative way to tell this story! And what a disservice to the radical potential of the architecture to completely reconfigure our most intimate relations. We worked with two dancers, a woman and a man: Julia Eichten, a collaborator from the first two chapters of the project at the Schindler House and The Glass House, and Zack Winokur. Lucky Dragons composed the music, and Sara Rara performed it live. In our research, we were struck by the vision and intelligence of Edith Farnsworth, a poet and a physician. The clarity of her vision to create a manifesto for "modern living" on the banks of the Fox River, her faith in the modernist project, is remarkable. We were aided in this research by the work of historian Alice Friedman and Nora Wendl. Farnsworth's public position as a single woman with a career and a certain power in the 1950s opens up feminist and queer ways of looking at the house. At the time of the house's construction, a single woman without chidlren was a queer position with respect to the consolidation of the nuclear family. The figures—or "characters" to refer back to your question—that were available to Dr. Farnsworth in mid-century America were depressingly limited: the hysteric, the old maid, the doting aunt. In making this work, we were not only conscious to avoid the repetition of these tropes but to completely explode the idea of character altogether, to expand the possibilities for fashioning subjectivity out of the ruins of history. Over the course of the performance, through language, movement, and sound, each of the three performers channels parts of Farnsworth and parts of Mies, but also parts of the architecture and the landscape, the trees, the river, the birds. But of course there are more than a few literal references to the lives of Mies and Farnsworth. To compose the text of the performance, we used fragments from poems written by Farnsworth reflecting on her experience of living in the the house and interviews with Mies on his relationship with clients. We braided these with our own writing, and the performers' writing. In this way the work becomes a palimpsest of memories around this site, a collective text, and the performers—and hopefully, by extension, the public—can identify with shifting subject positions in a field of social relations defined by the site.  © Bradley Glanzrock, LStopMedia.com. Courtesy of Gerard & Kelly CAB Blog: What does a queer space mean to you as spatial practitioners? What other ways of thinking must be joined to conventional architectural practice for designers to conceive of queer space more expansively? Gerard & Kelly: You could say Modern Living is a project in search of a queer space. At each site we ask the question, what is queer space? Can the home, as the site of intimate and familial relations, be a queer space? Can a home be transformed into a space of queer possibility? The stakes for this question are high. The home is one of our most received notions. After all, queer people come from families, and many of these families are configured along a heterosexual logic. One of the major hurdles to the full social substantiation of queer subjectivity is a culture of homophobia that is cultivated within the family, produced in the home. To conceive of queer space, it is necessary to address the physical structures where we live and might spend most of our time. How do these structures function ideologically to reproduce certain dominant formations, certain intimacies, and prohibit others? What are the psychic consequences of inhabiting these architectures? It is surely no coincidence that one of the prevailing metaphors for thinking of homosexuality is a reference to domestic architecture--the closet. Perhaps there is something queer, or odd, about our approach to this question of queer space. A more logical place to start would be public spaces, streets, bars, dance clubs, piers, public toilets, places where queer people have come together for decades if not centuries. The home is not a place historically where queer people have gathered to be with one another, to have sex, dance, exchange knowledge, build power – in short, the home is not at all where queer life has been built. These queer spaces are indeed worthy of much more research and analysis in the field of architecture. But we wanted to get to the belly of the beast, so to speak, to address the home as a site of social relations in an attempt to de-naturalize domestic space and the relations that are produced there. The project deliberately looks back in order to pose a question that is addressed to the future. The houses where we have conducted our research are no longer lived in, they are kind of like abandoned signposts along this strange winding highway of modernist architecture. Some of the houses function today as museums and in some cases they are active spaces for contemporary production, but in terms of today's architecture and discourse, you could say the sites are carcasses. We are sifting through the ruins of modernism for the experiments, the failed utopias, the fragments from which we might build new spaces. Neither of us has lived in a modernist house, but each of us can attest to homes that obey a patriarchal and heteronormative logic, the logic of the nuclear family – master bedrooms, divided by hallways from children's rooms, kitchens abutting laundry rooms for (women's) domestic labor, etc. Throughout modern history, the home is the place where sex becomes private, divorced from the public sphere, which is catastrophic for the future of queer people. The question is how can we produce architectures that defy our received notions of relationships and family, these constructs that many of us find suffocating and that stifle queer lives, and how can we imagine structures that produce and protect intimacies outside of the institutions of marriage and the nuclear family?  © Bradley Glanzrock, LStopMedia.com. Courtesy of Gerard & Kelly CAB Blog: I'm also curious about the process of reconceptualizing "Modern Living" as it has moved from house to house in terms of choreography and driving themes. The story of the Farnsworth house is of course different from that of the Glass House or the Schindler House. What shifted and what remained common to all three performances? Gerard & Kelly: As with the first two chapters of Modern Living, our research process began at the Farnsworth House with deep listening at the site, inhabiting it temporarily. By moving and writing in situ, we mine the home for its experiments in living, as embedded in floor plans, construction materials, vistas, the surrounding landscape. We study the ephemeral effects on the architecture of light, wind, and sound. At the Farnsworth House, our first impressions were marked by the house's stillness in relation to the river that runs parallel to it. The experience of the house truly begins at the moment when, after a carefully choreographed procession that leads you to the site, indirectly, through a forest, around the corners of the floating box, up a marble staircase of extraordinary lightness, across a wide terrace, after a 90-degree pivot through a single doorway, finally after this journey, you enter, you stop, you look out, and the experience begins. Movement is everywhere. You are immediately sutured. The experience is cinematic. There is no stillness in nature. And the pasture that borders the house opposite the river is really a clearing of the mind. While choreographic material may travel from home to home over the life of the project, performances are newly configured for the architectural, historical, and discursive conditions of each site. At the Farnsworth house, we continued using a choreographic tool we invented when we began working on Modern Living. We call it "the clock": a series of 12 movements customized for each individual dancer and corresponding to the face of a clock. Each dancer's "clock" has a specific and unique rhythm. We have been thinking about the rhythms of domestic life and the temporality of the home, how the home functions as a kind of time machine to synchronize the clocks of its inhabitants. In terms of intimate relations, what does it mean when our bodies fall in and out of sync? At the Farnsworth house, we used this clock score to generate rhythms, spoken memories, and temporary constellations of solos, duets, and trios. The Farnsworth house is itself so performative, from the opening and closing of curtains to its relationship with the Fox River, as you pointed out. The architecture has very specific behaviors and it enforces certain emotional registers. What were some of those qualities that stood out to you, and how did you work with them? Mies' structural design called out for a different way of moving. The house appears to float above the ground, but then again the horizontal slabs of floor and ceiling are supported by eight columns of exposed steel. With Julia and Zack, we developed a score exploring the architectonics of movement. How do weight, mass, and friction work, not in terms of materials (which is perhaps the question for Mies' architecture as well as Richard Serra's sculpture) but in terms of the body? Perhaps an elementary question, but how exactly does the body get off the ground? Amid Mies' "skin and bones" architecture, we wanted to investigate the flesh, its mechanics and vicissitudes. How, using support and counterbalance, using the architecture as a kind of prop, does the flesh elevate itself and organize itself in order to move through space? Zack and Julia began this architectonic movement before the first spectator arrived to the site. It began under the house, in the void created by the vertical columns, in the dirt. It was a way for us to slow down the experience of the architecture, to extend the already elongated approach into the house that Mies designs--from the wooded path from which you approach the house from one side, to the thin marble steps that require attention to navigate, to the terrace that serves as transition between the ground and the house. Images of the house tend to emphasize this floating world aspect, and we wanted from the first encounter to bring it back to earth, to slow things down. The question of choreography extends to the viewer. We design the events of Modern Living for a mobile spectatorship. The audience is free to move throughout the interior and exterior spaces of the site, as the dancers enact performance scores exploring the the rhythms of domesticity and the embodiment of time and memory. We are interested in how choreographies of shifting connections (solos, duets, trios, groups) and intimate encounters between performers and spectators might model alternative kinship structures for the domestic habitus.  © Bradley Glanzrock, LStopMedia.com. Courtesy of Gerard & Kelly  © Bradley Glanzrock, LStopMedia.com. Courtesy of Gerard & Kelly CAB Blog: As an audience member, I felt a swirl of reactions during the piece because I got to inhabit the performance, in a sense. It was like a compressed shot of the endearment, self-consciousness, identification and complicity that you experience actually living with someone, or with a group of people. How did you think about those dynamics when planning these pieces? Did the dynamic change from one audience to the next? Gerard & Kelly: We're very touched by this intimate response to the work. Thank you. Yes, in some ways, our primary mission in the performances of Modern Living is to return to the site the condition of inhabitation. We learn how to live in the space temporarily and find a way to invite visitors to join us in this co-habitation. Sometimes that experience is comfortable but also it is uncomfortable much, as you say, is the experience of actually living with anyone. It is a fundamentally human problem to grapple with. How do I live with others? Or how do I live with myself? Strangely, architecture often ignores these questions, driven instead by ideological and formal concerns, as any refined, self-reflexively critical research demands. (Art is no different.) But we are not architects. Our questions are simpler, more direct, when we encounter the houses. How can we live here? With all of history at our backs and in the heat of our lived relations... how can we live here? Explore more projects in the space between dance and architecture in the Are.na channel below. Leo Shaw is a strategist at Consortia. The 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial blog is edited in partnership with Consortia, a creative office developing new frameworks for communication who are editing the Biennial blog. This article also features embedded content from Are.na, an online platform for connecting ideas and building knowledge.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Critical Round-Up: The Louvre Abu Dhabi by Jean Nouvel Posted: 21 Nov 2017 01:30 AM PST .jpg?1511265934 "© Laurian Ghinitoiu") © Laurian Ghinitoiu Earlier this month, Abu Dhabi's much-awaited "universal museum," the Louvre Abu Dhabi designed by Pritzker Prize-winner Jean Nouvel, was opened to the public. After several years of delays and problems including accusations of worker rights violations, revisions in economic strategies, and regional turmoil, the completion of the museum is a feat in itself. Critics, supporters, naysayers, artists, economists, and human rights agencies, have all closely followed its shaky progress, but now that it's finally open, reviews of the building are steadily pouring in. Read on to find out how critics have responded to Nouvel's work so far. .jpg?1511018528 "© Roland Halbe") © Roland Halbe "Architects are fond of talking of painting with light, but here it rings true. The combined effect is mesmerizing." While the critic deems the museum only "somewhat modest" compared to the glitzy skyline of Abu Dhabi, he admires Nouvel's clever orchestration of light through the patterned dome which covers the scatter of galleries and pathways below:
However, he also writes about how certain features or finishes are quick to betray the billion-dollar investment that drove the whole project—which in turn indicates careless indulgence on part of both the client and architect:
During its construction, the project came under scrutiny for its treatment of migrant construction workers—an issue that, in spite of assurances from Nouvel himself, still sparks discomfort and anger, perhaps more so with the recent opening. With his conclusion, Wainwright emphasizes that in some ways, what has been built is forever inextricable from how it has been built:
_%C2%A9_Louvre_Abu_Dhabi_-_Photography_Marc_Domage.jpg?1511018413 "© Marc Domage") © Marc Domage "The effect is almost otherworldly, an amalgam of memories from Venice to Marrakesh, from sci-fi to Spanish villas, yet it creates from those vaguely familiar images something utterly original." Heathcote, like most critics, praises the Louvre Abu Dhabi for its spatial, technical and formal qualities, especially the dome, as well as the architect's ability to effectively harness what the site offers: abundant light and water. When Nouvel was hired to design the museum, he struggled with the idea of "context" since the island was essentially a bare stretch of land. Using references from Islamic architecture and the region's traditional vernacular architecture, he reinterpreted them in his design for the museum. But this is precisely what is a bit too forced, according to Heathcote:
But while the critic chooses to question the relevance of the references and metaphors, he also recognizes the incredible challenge posed by the scorching heat of the desert, and how Nouvel conquered it through his design:
 © Mohamed Somji "[…]it's hard not to be thrilled by what Nouvel has achieved—a reiteration of a north African medina composed of 55 separate pavilions, some sitting beneath that dazzlingly engineered dome, where eight layers of latticed metal create 7,800 perforations that filter the hot Arabic sun into brilliant spots of light that dapple their bright white walls." The metallic dome and the light-filled interior is perhaps the highlight of every user's experience of the building. It doesn't fail to impress, as Roux also describes. Similarly, like Wainwright, Roux compares the museum's architecture to the tall, flashy buildings in the main city, and is immediately recognizes the new work as an aesthetic feat. But interestingly, Roux also imbues the building with a sense of foreboding, and reads it as a symbol of power, politics, and violence:
 © Mohamed Somji "Louvre Abu Dhabi is a building for the age of the smartphone and the selfie, its startling architecture and angles perfectly designed for Twitter and Instagram." Abu Dhabi and its neighboring regions have often come under fire for creating whole cities and buildings that rely solely on instant success or effect through the clever commissioning of world-famous architects. The plan for the Saadiyat Island, too, was referred to as a "supercharged architectural petting zoo," by Wainwright. But for Langton, who writes for the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National, the "instagrammable" quality of the museum is exactly what makes it so appealing:
At the same time, he also recognizes the museum's worth in being able to create a new kind of space for Abu Dhabi's citizenry. Unlike other critics, he does not compare the museum's architecture with existing building trends, but rather, the existing trends of using space and how the museum might change them:
 © Roland Halbe "In your head you might suspect that you have entered a Venice-meets-Las Vegas world, but in your heart this calm, air-conditioned realm of cool blues and pale greys, bright whites and deep shadows, simple patterns and stark geometries feels deceptively spiritual. Louvre Abu Dhabi is a beautiful building." Once again, like many critics, Johnston is initially "underwhelmed" by the building from afar, calling it "a mushroom in the grass", but gives in to praise upon entering the museum complex. At the same time, she's perhaps the first one to point out how the design process cannot be divorced from the curatorial model and the art and artifacts to be housed inside:
And that, in turn, reveals an architectural flaw too:
Architecture, of course, is forever bound to social, financial and political issues, among others. While Wainwright touched upon the worker rights controversy, Heathcote talked about the "injection of cash," and Roux briefly alluded to the political realities of the region, Johnston's fiery criticism extends to the disappearing natural life on the island:
 © Roland Halbe Interestingly, the museum's own motto—"See humanity in a new light"—lends itself to three different readings: the first, quite literally, is Nouvel's ingenious "rain of light" loved by all. The second is the museum's curatorial model offering a grand timeline of humankind through the clever selection or omission of art and artifacts on display. And the third, as Wainwright also suggests in his concluding remarks, is about reading the Louvre Abu Dhabi in the light of worker exploitation, the commoditization of art and architecture, and the lofty aspirations of the UAE. For more on the Louvre Abu Dhabi's architecture, check out our previous coverage below:
Jean Nouvel's Louvre Abu Dhabi Photographed by Laurian Ghinitoiu  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| CWA House / Beczak / Beczak / Architekci Posted: 21 Nov 2017 01:00 AM PST  © Jan Karol Gołębiewski
 © Jan Karol Gołębiewski Text description provided by the architects. This house, located in Owczarnia, a village near Warsaw, to a large degree owes its form to its owners, who, wanting a personalized, unique look, agreed to a spatial composition that departed from that of the archetypal home. The result was a building they came to call "the sarcophagus," "the battleship" or "the crystal."  © Jan Karol Gołębiewski Its asymmetrical roof consists of four planes of differing slopes covered in graphite panels that flow down into the northern and eastern walls, creating a seamless shell. The southern and western walls were finished with wooden boards that join with the wooden surface of the terrace, together becoming one compositionally inseparable part in this interlocking form.  © Jan Karol Gołębiewski The home's ultimate geometry reflects the functional considerations of its design. The ridge of the roof sweeps up from the ground floor to the upper story, making each subsequent room able to take advantage of a higher ceiling. The space thus created above the children's rooms was used for mezzanines, that above the utility area became a storage space and additional storage room also opened up over the bathroom and closet. Walking the hall, one sees the asymmetrical gable of the roof soaring upward, braced by ever higher girders. The roof hits its peak height above the upstairs rooms. Having mounted its summit, it then rumbles rapidly downward, creating very rich interiors in terms of their structural variety. This descent halts in the far corner of the living room, where an exposed roof truss marks its lowest point. The crescendoing ceiling heights and geometrically-varied girders create interiors that take on a sense of dynamism and lack of repetition.  © Jan Karol Gołębiewski A crucial design consideration was to let the maximum amount of light into the living room, which was thus situated in the sunniest part of the plot. Its long horizontal window catches the noonday sun, while its high vertical windows welcome the sunset.  © Jan Karol Gołębiewski The ground floor contains a living room, dining room and kitchen, as well as an office and a sleeping area for the children consisting of two rooms and bathroom. The upper floor holds the master bedroom, which has a bathroom and walk-in closet.  © Jan Karol Gołębiewski  Ground Floor Plan  © Jan Karol Gołębiewski A freestanding fireplace attached to a long stainless steel pipe was placed in house's lowest corner, in the living room. The interiors have been left in a very raw state, with their finishings planned to make use of the same materials employed for the core construction, i.e. bricks for the walls and concrete for the floors and ceilings.  © Jan Karol Gołębiewski  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| First Images of What is Set to Become the Largest Botanic Garden in the World Revealed Posted: 21 Nov 2017 12:00 AM PST  Exterior view of Northern Habitat Biome. Image via ©Arup/Grimshaw Bold, innovative and set to become the largest botanic garden in the world, images of Oman's future light-filled oasis in the desert have been revealed. A collaboration between Arup, Grimshaw, and Haley Sharpe Design delivers the architecture, engineering, landscaping, and interpretive design in a scheme of over 420 hectares for the Oman Botanic Garden.  Aerial View. Image via ©Arup/Grimshaw The gardens, with guidance offered by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said will celebrate the country's botanic diversity in the foothills of the Al Hajar Mountains. Here, an ancient seabed is still visible after it was elevated to 100m above sea level by tectonic activity. The scheme uses the diverse landscape to its advantage, working within the undulating land and natural ridges and ravines to generate walkways and inform building elements.  Exterior view of the Southern Habitat Biome. Image via ©Arup/Grimshaw Central to the site, eight defined habitats reflect the habitats of the country, featuring a range of endangered, native and endemic flora. Two sensitive habitats are enclosed by large biomes – shimmering glass structures woven seamlessly into the rolling plains of the desert. The Northern Biome recreates the varied environments of the Northern Mountains while the Southern Biome will house habitats of the Dhofar region, including an immersive green forest 'Khareef' setting. The habitats will be supported by a visitors center and education and research facilities and connected by a cable car.  Southern Habitat Biome. Image via ©Arup/Grimshaw  Northern Habitat Biome. Image via ©Arup/Grimshaw The organic forms of the biomes were driven by the atmospheric conditions of the site, working with the topography and using the sun orientation and weather patterns to optimize natural lighting and cooling and the most efficient plant irrigation. All the water for the site is sourced sustainably with no wastage, contributing to the scheme's plan for achieving the globally recognized sustainable standard - LEED Platinum.  Habitats Pavilion. Image via ©Arup/Grimshaw Keith Brewis, a partner at Grimshaw has said of the design;
The Oman Botanic Garden will allow visitors to experience the flora of the Sultanate of Oman in only a few hours, and no doubt become a much-loved attraction for locals and tourists alike. Construction on site is expected to start imminently.  Visitor's Centre pavilions and cable car structure. Image via ©Arup/Grimshaw News via: Grimshaw.
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| Snohetta, Sasaki and HOK to Take Part in a 4-Firm-Team to Design Oakland A's New Stadium Posted: 20 Nov 2017 10:00 PM PST  (c) Flickr user Redlegsfan21 licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 The Oakland Athletic's have hired four firms to lead the design and urban planning for their new ballpark on the Peralta site, near the heart of Oakland. HOK will be collaborating with Snohetta on the design of the ballpark. Snohetta will also be working on the masterplan along with Sasaki and Oakland-based Studio T-Square. The diversity of the teams, their work and their experiences, reflects the Oakland A's dedication to a project that will challenge the status quo and support the community. All involved firms express their excitement for the catalyst the new stadium will be in Oakland. Brad Schrock, AIA regional leader of Sports + Recreation and +Entertainment at HOK explains that "the new ballpark is a transformational opportunity for the city of Oakland and the A's to create an architectural icon and completely reimagine the fan experience. We're looking forward to collaborating with the A's and our design partners to create an imaginative, amenity-rich and enduring community asset."  (c) Photo by Amy K Posner licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 With their local expertise, Studio T-Square will assist in the four-firm team's intensive community engagement process. Studio T-Square is as James Miner, the principal in charge at Sasaki states, "a key component to making this project a success will be an active and meaningful engagement with A's fans as well as with the broad and incredibly diverse community of Oakland. We want the ballpark to be a great place not only for baseball but also for the community and the environment." News via: HOK  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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