The first to use this type of free-form geodesic geometry in the United States, HOK’s Salvador Dali Museum is a Floridian landmark in St. Petersburg known for housing one of the most important collections of a single artist’s work in the world. Referring to it as “The Dali,” architect Yann Weymouth and museum director Dr. Hank Hine discuss their intentions behind the building’s design in this interview with TheCoolist.com.
“Salvador Dalí was a monumental pioneer of twentieth-century art and this is perhaps the best collection of his work in the world,” said Weymouth. “Our challenge was to discover how to resolve the technical requirements of the museum and site in a way that expresses the dynamism of the great art movement that he led. It is important that the building speak to the surreal without being trite.” You can learn more about the building, here.
Design/Responsible Partner: Johannes Kister
Project Manager: Gabriel Mörsch
Project Management: HIB Huber Integral Bau GmbH, Rheinbrohl
General Contractor: Projektgesellschaft NGP² (ksg and Krawinkel Ingenieure)
Structural Analysis: Ingenieurbüro Dr. Naumann, Köln
Building Physics: Krawinkel Ingenieure GmbH, Krefeld
From the architect. kister scheithauer gross architekten describes the multi-storey car park for RWTH Aachen University as “peculiar with an out of focus depth”. The building does not correspond to conventional associations with the appearance of a car park. The internal and external concept for the prefabricated building designed for maximum functionality is inspired by the dualism to develop a distinctive architecture as well as an economic building.
Cologne, 01.12.2014 – The Building and Real Estate Department of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (BLB NRW) implemented the Melaten campus extension for RWTH Aachen University in the north-western part of the City of Aachen in immediate proximity to the university hospital. The “Campus Melaten Süd” car park was now completed for the nearby office and laboratory buildings.
The interior of the multi-storey car park with a floor area of 21,000 m² on 15 split levels is typologically characterised by an access road spiralling upwards and provides 810 parking spaces, which are arranged behind a façade built of air-permeable, highly reflective and coated steel wire mesh mats mounted in two layers. These mats cover the volume like a membrane. On the rear mesh mats, 10-centimetre wide stripes remained untreated during the varnishing process, which consequently do not reflect the light. In the entirety of the façade, these stripes result in a pattern reminiscent of a tyre tread, the density of which increases from the bottom to the top.
“Depending on the position of the sun and the viewing angle, this light envelope appears transparent, blurred or solid. It reminds of the motion blur with which one perceives the surrounding area from a moving car depending on the viewing angle”, explains architect Johannes Kister.
Besides the façade, the signage is also highly conspicuous: just as signs and lights provide orientation in road traffic, the interior of the multi-storey car park is organised with a system using vibrant signal colours. Each of the fifteen levels was assigned an individual shade from the RAL colour range; the respective colours were used to indicate the single parking spaces with large coloured areas on the floor, mark the name of the level on the wall and emphasise the doors to the fair-faced concrete staircases.
“Especially at night when the coloured lights in road traffic also have a special significance, the coloured parking areas reflect the artificial light in their respective colour onto the white ceilings. The façade, which has an almost solid appearance during the day, seems to be completely transparent at night and the single structural components of the building consisting of floor slabs and columns become visible”, says chief site manager Gabriel Mörsch from kister scheithauer gross.
The car park is one of the first components of the Melaten Campus extension. In the course of this project, ksg will implement the NGP² laboratory building located right next to the car park by 2015, which will bring together six of Aachen’s process engineering departments under the same roof.
Early this month at Design Miami/, Olson Kundig Architects celebrated the opening of “38 Beams,” a temporary collectors lounge named after the thirty-eight salvaged glulam beams that made up the structure. Originally milled in the 1950s, the Northwestern Douglas fir beams were once used to construct a Los Angeles building before being repurposed.
Approximately 15×30 inches around and up to 30 feet in length, 38 Beams formed a 2,400-square-foot lounge with an open lattice-work stacked 15-feet-high. The focal point of the space was a 28-foot Perrier-Jouët champagne bar lit by a chandelier of one hundred suspended light tubes designed by LILIENTHAL l ZAMORA.
More about the structure and images, after the break.
After being used as the structural foundation of 38 Beams, the glulams will be repurposed once again into a future project by Studio 804, a University of Kansas design-build teaching program that creates affordable buildings in communities of need.
The lounge furniture was also designed by Olson Kundig, featuring four tables designed by Tom Kundig from the Tom Kundig Collection for 12th Avenue Iron and custom-designed Longbranch chairs by Jim Olson.
SHoP Architects have revealed a mixed use proposal to pedestrianize New York City’s historic Seaport District. Extending the Manhattan grid out into the waterfront, the scheme seeks to harmonize pedestrian infrastructure and increase access to the shoreline, while proposing a 500-foot luxury residential tower by developer Howard Hughes Corporation that would jut out into the harbor. More about the proposal, after the break.
From the architects: SHoP’s proposal for the Seaport District provides a vision of restoration and revitalization for this historic waterfront neighborhood. While South Street Seaport is currently a waterfront access hub for commuters, boaters, and tourists, it is also home to long-neglected historical elements and impediments to foot traffic.
The principal of this mixed-use project is to extend the Manhattan city fabric toward the water, defying the current barriers created by South Street and the FDR drive, and creating continuous pedestrian connections and increased waterfront access. The addition of retail, residential, cultural, and educational facilities will transform the waterfront area to an essential asset for the community and the city.
An extended esplanade, retail on both sides of South Street, and activation of the space under the FDR will invite foot traffic outside of the Manhattan city grid and toward the water. Restoration of the historic Tin Building will breathe new vitality into a long-neglected structure and provide a plaza and marketplace in a previously abandoned space. The residential building on the New Market site will complement both the history and future of the seaport in its aesthetic and materiality, and will include retail spaces as well as a school on its lower levels.
The Seaport project as a whole, including Pier 17, embraces the district’s nautical and commercial history at the same time as it rethinks the relationship between the city grid and the waterfront.
Chicago’s Studio Gang Architects have been selected to design a new Center for Science, Education and Innovation for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Named after its largest donor, the $325 million Gilder Center will include 218,000-square-feet of existing and new space. It is slated to open on Columbus Avenue at 79th Street on the west side of the Museum campus, in conjunction with its 150th anniversary in 2019–2020.
“It was apparent that Jeanne Gang embraced the Museum’s legacy in science and education, and she has demonstrated a pervasive sensitivity to sustainability and the relationship between nature and the built environment, particularly in urban settings,” said Ms. Futter. “Jeanne’s approach could not be more appropriate, since introducing New Yorkers and visitors from around the world to science and the natural world is what the Museum has done since its founding in 1869. Throughout her career, Jeanne has shown a special passion for projects that combine innovative, mission-driven design, with a commitment to creating community spaces that facilitate onsite and digital access.”
“I was immediately struck by the immense range of work the Museum is already doing as an educational facility to reach learners of all ages,” said Jeanne Gang, founder and design principal of Studio Gang. “This project and collaboration with the Museum is incredibly important to me and my entire team. The Gilder Center’s holistic mission closely aligns with Studio Gang’s interdisciplinary practice of integrating architecture, nature, science, and art. Designing spaces that facilitate interaction between science, education, and exhibition experiences will make possible the learning the new Gilder Center aspires to generate.”
Ralph Appelbaum of Ralph Appelbaum Associates, who previously designed the exhibits in the Museum’s Rose Center for Earth and Space, the fourth-floor fossil halls, and the Hall of Biodiversity, has been chosen to design the exhibition experiences for the Gilder Center.
Architects: Hiroyuki Ito Architects
Location: Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Area: 524.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Makoto Yoshida
M&E: TETENS / EOS plus
Construction: SANYU CONSTRUCTION
Building Area: 129.04 sqm
Site Area: 237.64 sqm
From the architect. This is an apartment building which contains ten units including duplex apartments. As a variety of households are living around the site, the building provides different types of rooms in it. Balconies are sticking out from the stair-formed volume. Each unit has a balcony which has rather high walls with openings so that exterior spaces are experienced in a continuation of the interior space.
One apartment unit is composed of some cells of a deformed grid, and each cell is connected to another. A bath and a toilet are contained in one cell without any division, so that it would be experienced equally to other cells in the dueling unit.
Rough concrete panel was chosen so that one cannot tell when the building was built. This building with distortion and gaps might not seem to have a clear shape, but its rather vague form obtains a kind of generosity which lively and beautiful cities have.
Client: Konya Metropolitan Municipality
Capacity: 38.000 kişi
Total Floor Area: 90.000 m2
From the architect. Konya City Stadium is located on the north of the city, 9 km away from the city center on an area of 450,000 m2. A sports hall, swimming pool, veledrom and a concourse is also available on the site plan. The transportion is provided by the railway system, private vehicles and public transport. Konya City Stadium, is designed with an approach of harmonizing the cultural codes with contemporary structure. The exterior of the structure is in white-green colors which symbolizes the city football team.
Planning of the structure is based on UEFA criterias. The total seating capacity of the stadium which is 42,000 is seperated as the lower and the upper in the grandstand. The seating area settlement is called as the east, west, south and north. A sufficient number of toilets and buffet areas were planned under all the grandstands for the audience. The football field is covered with artificial turf that’s heated from below based on the FIFA and UEFA criterias.
The top part of this area is covered with high technical featured materials which enables the arena to be used for different functions. The grandstands are reinforced with concrete, and roof and the facades are made of steel. Wall and roof is covered with composite panel and quadroclad panels, aluminum interlock systems and solar olimpic polycarbonate and tinted green glass is used in wall and roof covering. Metal pans with a width of 30 cm and depth of 15 cm is used to create a consant canal which defines the forms, provides the drainage of roof and facade water, and assembly the linear led lightning system. The concrete areas are made of brut concrete.
Athlete locker rooms, training areas, the referee and jury rooms and various size of rooms for media and VIP entrances are planned on the western grandstand which also has a main carrier made out of of concrete. Technical units and management offices are also in this region. Durable, robust and easy to clean aesthetic materials are used on the walls and on the ceiling. Athletes use this elevation to reach playground.
The grandstands are 2 floored and designed to be in the form of an arch with 44 steps. The distance of the grandstands to the field is between 9-11 m. The most distant audience from the football field is planned to be 90 m away from the center. Audience, media, lounge, VIP, athlete, and security guards entrances and circulation areas are seperated from each other. The stair blocks of the upper and the lower grandstands are seperated. Radiant heaters are positioned under the roof for the audience comfort and a sub-heating system is used in order to protect the turf under heavy weather conditions.
Architects: Atelier Oslo
Location: Norderhov, Norway
Design Team: Nils Ole Bae Brandtzæg, Thomas Liu, Marius Mowe, Jonas Norsted, Juan Ruiz, Bosheng Gan, Sveinn Thorarinsson, Emmanuel Ferm
Area: 80.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Lars Petter Pettersen, Courtesy of Atelier Oslo, Jonas Adolfsen
Consultants: Estatikk AS v/ Sivilingeniør Ole Morten Braathen, Aps AS v/Kåre Wærnes, Moelven Limtre AS v/ Rolf Evensen, Concept design v/Fredrik Eng
Main Conctractor: Byggmester Bård Bredesen
From the architect. The project is located in Krokskogen forests, outside the town of Hønefoss. Its location on a steep slope gives a fantastic view over the lake Steinsfjorden.
The site is often exposed to strong winds, so the cabin is organized around several outdoors spaces that provide shelter from the wind and receives the sun at different times of the day.
The interior is a shaped as a continuous space. The curved walls and ceilings form continuous surfaces clad with 4mm birch plywood. The floor follows the terrain and divides the plan into several levels that also defines the different functional zones of the cabin. The transitions between these levels create steps that provide varies places for sitting and lying down.
The fireplace is located at the center of the cabin, set down in the floor of the main access level. This provides the feeling of a campfire in the landscape. Seen from all levels in the cabin, you can enjoy the fireplace from far away or lying down next to it.
Large glass walls are located in the living and dining areas. The frames of the glass are detailed carefully to avoid seeing it from the inside. This creates a more direct relationship with the nature outside.
Outside, the cottage has a more rectangular geometry and the walls and roofs are covered with 20mm basalt stone slabs laid in a pattern similar the ones often used for traditional wooden claddings in Norway.
The lodge consists mainly of prefabricated elements. The main structure is laminated timber completed with a substructure of Kerto construction plywood. The Kerto boards are CNC milled and defines the geometry both externally and internally. The cabin is supported by steel rods drilled directly into the rock, supplemented with a small concrete foundation under the fireplace for stabilization.
Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho, or simply Oscar Niemeyer, was one of the greatest architects in Brazil‘s history, and one of the greats of the global modernist movement. After his death in 2012, Niemeyer left the world more than five hundred works scattered throughout the Americas, Africa and Europe.
Niemeyer attended the National School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro in 1929, graduating in 1934. He began working with the influential Brazilian architect and urban planner Lúcio Costa also in 1932, a professional partnership that would last decades and result in some of the most important works in the history of modern architecture.
In 1936, Niemeyer joined a team of Le Corbusier, Lúcio Costa, Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Carlos Leon, Jorge Moreira and Ernani Vasconcellos to design the headquarters of the Ministry of Education and Health, located in the center of Rio de Janeiro. Aged just 29 years, Niemeyer was assigned as a draftsman for Le Corbusier, however after Le Corbusier left Brazil the young prodigy made changes to the design that greatly impressed Lúcio Costa – so much so that by 1939 he appointed Niemeyer as the project’s lead architect. The building, a horizontal bar that intersects a vertical blade, was completed in 1945 and became the cornerstone of modern Brazilian architecture, attracting international attention.
In 1956, then-president Juscelino Kubitshek invited Niemeyer to participate in the largest urban and architectural work of the country’s history: the construction of the new capital in the middle of the savannah, Brasília.
Lúcio Costa, the masterplanner of the new capital, said in an interview with Ana Rosa de Oliveira in 1992: “when Juscelino became president, he had an architect in his pocket, Oscar Niemeyer. He was a pre-selected architect. This means that the competition was only for the city’s urban planning, the masterplan.” The collaboration of Costa and Niemeyer gave the world something entirely new: the first major city designed entirely on the basis of modernist principles of functionality and aesthetics.
Oscar Niemeyer was never a scholar, never interested in theories, jargon, clichés. His freeform, flowing lines were always accurate. Though he had strongly held political views, unlike some other Modernists they were not especially apparent in his work. His goal was simple and innocent: give beauty to the world. And he did.
See the gallery below for all of Niemeyer’s works featured here on ArchDaily, and the links below that for our articles on the great architect.
In an article for The ObserverRowan Moore examines ‘Second Home’, a newly opened “creative hub” in London designed by Spanish practice SelgasCano, who were recently announced as the designers of the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion. For Moore the project, which is the practice’s first building in the UK, offers a “lightness and grace as well as invention, and an awareness of when to stop.” The building is designed to be fluid, allowing start-up creative businesses to move in and move out as and when their business model dictates. Heavy tables can emerge from the floor, and ‘roaming zones’ facilitate creative thought. According to Moore’s review, there “are no water-coolers, no kitchenettes, [and] no microwaves.”
It’s a niche, part of a network of niches such as the bars and roof terraces of nearby hotels designed with a similar eclectic delightfulness, that collectively form a playground for the contemporary creative. [...] SelgasCano know when to tune an echo up or down and wield a range of tactilities: warm, soft, glossy, ductile, coarse, constructional, intimate, chilly. They know when to squeeze a space and when to open it up. They introduce enough curviness to add enjoyment, but not so much that it becomes oppressive.
Architects: Carr Cotter & Naessens
Location: Moran Park House, Queen’s Road, Dublin, Ireland
Architect In Charge: Louise Cotter and David Naessens
Area: 6327.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Dennis Gilbert
From the architect. A bold new addition to the town of Dún Laoghaire, Ireland is set to open on the 8th December: dlr LexIcon. Contemporary libraries now have an extended role within the local community, with the requirements of educational and cultural events shaping the design of the building and the spaces within. This building, the result of an RIAI international competition held in 2007, exemplifies this new approach to library design and offers a mix of intimate and expansive public rooms, places to congregate, or to sit quietly with a book and enjoy the view.
Architects, Carr Cotter Naessens’ design creates a new public space that will transform the heart of Dún Laoghaire, leading visitors in a natural progression from the seafront up to the town. When viewed across the water, the building is a true landmark, it’s monumental window dramatically rising up towards the harbour, providing breathtaking views from inside.
Although a distinctly contemporary form, the library is clad in brick on the southern side to reflect the material palette of the Victorian high street and in granite across the rest of the building to respond to the historic context of Dún Laoghaire. The park also takes its cues from the past. The newly created public park is stepped to respond to changing levels, with a terraced water feature and bamboo garden on the site of an old granite quarry while a new public space on the footprint of the original bowling green is envisaged as a garden room, sheltered by a grove of trees. Here a grand staircase leads up to the library and cultural space at the higher level while the foyer cafe spills out on to the garden.
Internally, the library is presented as a ‘living room’, bathed in natural light from the window facing the sea. this communal space will house the most social elements of the building where groups can meet or individuals can read or access the internet. The library will also house separate reading rooms, a junior library, an auditorium, a cafe, an art gallery, a history department with study spaces, as well as staff facilities. The material of the building is spare, a voluminous concrete shell, into which are inserted oak linings for books and sound modulation.
Architect Louise Cotter says, “It has been an absolute privilege to work on this project and to realise the vision of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. This challenging project has offered us the opportunity to work on a number of different scales. This building and park is a truly public space with a very particular spatial sequence and material aesthetic. We look forward to seeing the spaces evolve as they become inhabited and people make it their own.”
County Librarian Mairead Owens says, “The LexIcon will embrace the modern concept of what a library should be – a key community space where all are welcome. When people walk through the door I hope they get a sense of ‘wow’, it’s a stunning public space and quite extraordinary. The LexIcon will be a key component in the delivery of the cultural programme in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. It will be a vibrant centre of learning and creativity for all those who live, work in and visit the County.”
Chief Executive of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Philomena Poole says, “dlr LexIcon is by far the most significant piece of public infrastructure in Dún Laoghaire for over 100 years and is the single biggest investment by the Council in a civic amenity. The decision to invest in the facility is consistent with the Council’s primary objective which is to deliver high quality services and infrastructure, which contribute to a better social, physical, economic and cultural environment for all who live in, work in and visit the County.”
Dun Laoghaire was transformed in the early 19th century by a number of ambitious infrastructure projects. Since that time, most development in the town has been commercial or residential. Dlr LexIcon represents the first significant piece of civic infrastructure in the town since 1900.
OMA has won a competition to design the Lujiazui Exhibition Centre, a 1,500 square meter space in Shanghai Pudong on the site of the former “Shanghai Shipyard.” The design aims to create a concentrated culture and event space within the surrounding financial district, on the edge of the Huangpu River, one of the most photographed waterfronts in the world.
More on the design after the break
Located on the ramp of a disused ship cradle, the Exhibition Centre is conceived as a “spatial armature,” rising above a new plaza to define a range of uses in the surrounding space such as film screenings, fashion shows and concerts, while the area underneath the building can be used for more intimate gatherings. Internally, exhibition spaces are contained within the raised armature and also in a space beneath the ship cradle ramp.
The materiality of the building is designed to recall the site’s industrial heritage. The structure will be wrapped in a metallic mesh which partially exposes the building’s structure, a move that is intended to evoke images of the unfinished ship hulls which used to occupy the area.
Completion of the new Lujiazui Exhibition Centre is planned for the end of 2015.
Architects: OMA
Location: Lujiazui, Lujiazui, Pudong, China, 200120
Partners In Charge: David Gianotten, Michael Kokora
Associate In Charge: Paolo Caracini
Project Architect: Ricky Suen
Design Team: Paul Feeney, Vincent McIlduff, Yuye Peng, Tony Yang, with Mafalda Brandao, Thomas Brown, Gemawang Swaribathoro, Stella Tong, Mavis Wong, Shu Yang
Structure Consultancy: Ramboll
Façade Consultancy: Front
Client: LuJiaZui Central Financial District (Phase II) Development Corporation
Area: 1500.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Courtesy of OMA
From the architect. Historically, convening for social justice has taken place in the most informal settings, with many of this nation’s most important civil rights gatherings, for example, taking place in a church basement, a living room, or even around a kitchen table. The challenge of designing a building from the ground up that fosters discussion and renders this work visible and welcome to all is in many ways unprecedented. The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership aims to bring social justice topics up from the basement and squarely into public consciousness.
With its mission to catalyze positive social change, the Arcus Center works to develop emerging leaders and engage existing leaders in the fields of human rights and social justice. As a study center and meeting space, the building brings together students, faculty, visiting scholars, social justice leaders, and members of the public for conversation and activities aimed at creating a more just world.
The Center’s architecture supports this work in several important ways. Inside, the building’s visually open and day-lit interior is designed to encourage “convening” in configurations that begin to break down psychological and cultural barriers between people and help facilitate understanding. The presence of a living room, hearth, and kitchen for sharing food at the center of the building creates the potential for frequent informal meetings and casual or chance encounters.
Many decisions that architects must make about space—addressing, for instance, issues of accessibility or gender identification—have social justice repercussions. The integration of equitable practices directly into its design enables the Center to instigate positive social transformation at every scale. The building is likewise designed to respond sensitively to its distinct yet adjacent physical contexts: a residential neighborhood, the college campus, and a native woodland grove. Its tri-axial plan addresses and unites all three contexts with large transparent facades connected by concavely inflected arcing walls that embrace the interior space.
For the Center’s wood masonry exterior, a local but forgotten building technique was revived and brought into the 21st century. The wood sequesters carbon and provides a low-tech approach to achieving a high-performance building facade. The stacked wood material also works as a figurative extension of the trees in the adjacent grove landscape. This unique exterior challenges the Georgian brick language and plantation-style architecture of the campus’s existing buildings, while simultaneously honoring the masonry craft and those who constructed the college’s earlier structures.
Informed by the tenet that in a socially just world each person’s life is valued and their inherent dignity is recognized, the Arcus Center demonstrates that spaces for convening can and should be some of our most powerful.
In their first collaboration together as writer and director, John Hughes and Christopher Columbus produced Home Alone (1990). This quintessential Christmas film is a prime example of a “movie home” — a home that is made iconic and famous with its appearance in a popular film.
The film concerns itself with Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin), a young boy whose family accidently leaves him home alone after leaving for a vacation. In this small suburban town, on Christmas, their home is targeted after a string of successful break-ins in the neighborhood. The McCallister Residence as a result becomes the central space where the majority of the action in the film occurs.
The production used an actual home for the setting of the film. The home’s location is 671 Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka, Illinois, north of Chicago. The majority of the interiors were filmed on location, including most of the first floor, while several rooms were recreated and filmed on a sound stage. Interiors visited the location in July 2014.
In terms of production design, warm colors pervade the interior spaces. The home is made up of reds and greens, attributing and heightening the feel of Christmas and further emphasizing the absence of Kevin’s family. The opening minutes of the film are very dynamic. The use of rapid editing, quick cuts and blocking of the actors in early moments of the film results in a great deal of energy. This fast-paced quality is a stark contrast to the scene that follows, where Kevin wakes up and discovers he is home alone. The emphasis here is on the silence and emptiness of the house. The film further underscores his family’s absence with an exploration of the space of the house. There are shots of Kevin walking around his home, in each of the main rooms of the house. These are mostly played in wide shots, which show off the space of the interior of the home, whereas the scenes prior were all sporadic. In fact, for all of the exploration of space, as well as all the time that we spend in various rooms throughout the home, it’s interesting to note that the audience never sees Kevin’s bedroom. In this sense, Kevin doesn’t have a space of his own and he never really finds his place with his family. Kevin is subjected to the attic, but also finds salvation in his tree house.
The film brings out the architect in Kevin. In preparation for the break-in, Kevin draws up a floor plan of his own, which he titles the “Battle Plan.” The drawing notes the traps that he has planned throughout the interior of the home. Kevin’s floor plan of his home is surprisingly consistent with the actual floor plan of this home. The room to the right of the dining room is never used or shown in the film, and as a result, is excluded from Kevin’s own drawing.
In our floor plan of the McCallister Residence, we examine the break-in that Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) plan, showing them at the back door. The floor plan features a dotted line for each of their routes throughout the robbery; each time a trap occurs on the first floor, we have drawn a silhouette of them.
Kevin’s “Battle Plan” is very architectural in the sense that he devises a trap in every main room or space of the house. Kevin defends this personal space with traps that are devised around the perimeter of the house; every entrance is rigged: icy external stairs, a heated door knob on the front door, ornaments under the window, and a nail on the basement stairs. Kevin also anticipates potential routes during his plan. Harry and Marv separate after they attempt to enter through the back door, but the ultimate plan that Kevin has for them is having them meet at the foyer and travel up the stairs.
The break-in begins with Harry and Marv arriving to the house. They attempt to enter the home from the back door that is connected to the kitchen. Kevin shoots them both through the dog door, sending them on separate routes. They then attempt to enter from the front door (Harry) and the basement (Marv). Harry is unsuccessful because of the traps on the outside of the home: the ice water on the stairs and the fiery door knob). Marv, however, discovers that the basement door is unlocked and is unsuccessful because of the traps on the inside of the home: an iron that falls down trash chute and the tar and nails on the stairs.
The next obstacle Harry faces is the fire torch that is rigged in the kitchen. He then successfully penetrates the space after rushing through the door and breaking in with force. Harry finally makes contact with Kevin as he enters the dining room. Marv successfully enters the house through the living room window. He steps on ornaments, which pierce his feet only because he had previously taken his shoes and socks off in the basement. This could have only worked if one of them had attempted to enter through the basement before the living room showing us that, for the most part, Kevin’s plan could only be successful if executed as Kevin has intended.
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From the architect. Groupe Dynamite is a women’s clothing retailer operating 315 stores worldwide under two brands, Dynamite and Garage. Located in Town of Mount Royal’s industrial sector, the head office occupies two large industrial buildings with more than 500 employees. Within their walls, the group creates, designs, markets and distributes a constantly evolving collection to a large network of retail stores.
The objective was to establish a permanent link between the two buildings and create a bright, open, flexible and dynamic space for staff to meet, collaborate, learn and eat. Located at the heart of the GDI Campus, the atrium reflects the company’s culture and creative character and acts as the new hub that links all the company’s departments. The concept involved repurposing the inner courtyard that separated the two buildings and inserting a large atrium space to house a 2,000 sq. ft. creative lounge, a 6,000 sq. ft. cafeteria with a food service counter and a 1,800 sq. ft. multifunctional space for conferences and training.
The atrium features a glue-laminated timber structure that echoes the industrial aesthetics of the existing buildings. The inner courtyard’s landscaping conceals views of the atrium from the street. The landscaping concept is then carried inside the space with green walls installed along the existing brick demising walls. At the back, a steel and glass staircase leads to a terrace located above the multifunctional conference centre. The creative lounge and bistro area feature movable furniture to allow Dynamite to host events. Custom tables were designed so that they could be grouped together to create platforms or catwalks for fashion shows.
The inclusion of wood, as used in the existing buildings ceilings, has fulfilled many aspirations foreseen at the onset of the project; using regional, durable and renewable material with a reduction in the carbon footprint, compared to a steel structure. The opportunity to showcase a natural material such as wood, in the structure and its flexibility and ease of use have contributed to this choice as being the optimal solution for the primary structure.
Alongside the launch of Faena Circle, an experimental collaboration between Faena Art in Miami Beach and its sister institution in Buenos Aires, comes new images of the OMA-designed Faena Forum. The new center for arts and culture planned for Miami Beach is designed to “catalyze experimentation within and across artistic disciplines and foster cross-cultural collaborations among artists throughout the Western Hemisphere.” A series of flexible spaces formed by interlocking cylindrical and cuboidal volumes will provide for a range of projects, commissions, performances and events.
The 50,000-square-foot center’s cylindrical portion was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The 40-foot dome, featuring a spiraling walkway that connects the ground floor to its central glazed oculus, is connected to a cube that takes takes inspiration from the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Two larges rectangular spaces interlock with each other and the dome to offer combined or subdivided spaces for installations and performances.
“Art institutions in the 21st century need to serve as catalysts that spark new forms of cultural production that transcend artistic mediums and disciplines,” noted Executive Director, Ximena Caminos, who is also the Executive Director of Faena Art Buenos Aires. “Faena Forum has therefore been conceived as a polyphonic space that will connect the experimental and the popular and allow for a range of voices and visions to take form and, in turn, inform new dialogues within Miami, among the Americas, and globally.”
Faena Forum will be the centerpiece of the six-block Faena District Miami Beach, a new mixed-use development also designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA in collaboration with Foster + Partners and Brandon Haw, at 33rd and Collins Avenue. It is set to open in December of 2015.
Faena Forum and Faena Circle was launched during Art Basel Miami Beach 2014 at the Faena Collaboratory, a new pavilion designed by OMA, Atelier Marko Brajovic, and Faena. Located at 3425 Collins Avenue, Faena Collaboratory is a platform for the exhibition of models, drawings, notes, and research that trace the creative process that informed the design of Faena Forum and the advancement of its mission.
Architects: Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos
Location: Santiago de Querétaro, Querétaro, Mexico
Architects In Charge: Arq. Javier Sordo Madaleno Bringas
Architecture Leader: Arq. Javier Sordo Madaleno de Haro
Project Leader: Arq. Humberto Mendoza
Architecture Team: Fernando Sordo Madaleno de Haro, Juliam Silva, Andrés Muñoz
Área: 9000.0 m2
Year: 2014
Photographs: Paul Rivera
Facade Area: 9000m2
Media And Marketing: Arq. Rosalba Rojas, Maria Luisa Guzmán
Structural Engineering Y Construction Coordination: Grupo RIOBOO
Lightning Consultant: Noriega Iluminación
From the architect. The classical department store is defined by a strict physiognomy: a box with four façades. This constraint was the principal challenge to be overcome in the project. Dematerializing the material was the guiding concept used to create diffuse limits based on the horizontality of the solid and void elements to achieve an effect of floating layers.
The façade is comprised of these horizontal elements designed in a range of dimensions and sections, giving rise to a clean and fluid movement that culminates in the framing of the principal entrance to the store at one of its corners. This entrance is reinforced by a large welcoming vestibule that serves
as a transitional element with a majestic double height that permits the permeability of the façade. From the interior of the ground and first floors—where the gourmet food area is located—the exterior may be observed, thus breaking with the typical blind walls that define most department stores.
Optimization of resources was essential to the modulation of the façade, meaning it was structured in such a way as to employ a single aluminum panel
prototype for all the “layers” even though these have different dimensions, sections and movements. The “solid layers” range from 1.80 m to 3.40 m across the façade and in each of its corners. They comprise aluminum panels anchored to a steel structure. The “void” elements are actually aluminium mirrored panels that reflect the project surroundings, vegetation and the extraordinary skies of Queretaro. This effect of reflection creates an optical illusion of seeing through the material, making the solid elements appear to float with a magnetic force that prevents them touching each other.
The citizens of Queretaro have gratefully received this project, which has become a new icon in the city and acquired the popular name “the great book” due to its resemblance to the leaves of an open book. Palacio de Hierro is part of the Antea Lifestyle Center and is located at the north end of the complex as
one of its principal anchor stores. Antea is a linear development with a volumetry that is closed to the exterior and open to the interior, with a green backbone. The concept of the façade of the Palacio de Hierro in Antea seeks to contrast with the closed volumetry of the rest of the development, standing out with its permeable façade and an effect of openness to the exterior. Both Palacio de Hierro and the Antea shopping mall are designed by Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos.
REX has shared with us their competition proposal for Calgary’s New Central Library (NCL). Though Snøhetta and DIALOG ultimately won the competition, REX was shortlisted as a finalist with an unconventional scheme that was based on adaptability, serendipity and treating the librarians as curators. By literally stacking the library’s program according to the client’s desired sequence, REX formulated six typological clusters hoisted on top an illuminated plinth.
Check out the complete proposal, after the break.
From the architects: As part of its architect selection process for the New Central Library (NCL), CMLC requested the finalist firms create a conceptual model revealing their design approach. The model was to be amalleable strategy, not a fixed proposal, that exhibited each proponent’s vision for the library of the future. Essential mandates were to make the building as adaptable as possible and to integrate it into the neighborhood as an urban catalyst. The ideas incorporated into REX’s malleable strategy stem from our analysis of the NCL’s organizational DNA.
DNA Sequencing: We observed that the project’s summary of required components—the Functional Program—was already ordered in CMLC’s desired patron sequence through the building. Stacking these components vertically forms the basis for a plausible, highly organized building section.
The most publicly accessible functions—Retail Concourse and Public Forum—are shifted to straddle the tracks of Calgary’s Light Rail Transit that bisect the site, thus activating the currently desolate surrounding streets. The Future Expansion space is stacked adjacent to the Main Collection for maximum flexibility: it can provide growth space for the Main Collection or, should the Future Expansion house its own program, immediate adjacency and access to the collection. Building Operations sit at grade for accessibility from the proposed service route. The four sections of the Main Collection—The Center for Community Excellence; Science, Health, and Arts; My Calgary; and Fiction and Literature—occupy individual floors, but their programs are combed and placed in the same zone on each floor to create vertical clarity: there is now a Reading Room, a Books Box, and a Rooms Box. The Staff Work Areas are aligned over the typologically-similar Rooms Box. The Learning Commons slides between the Main Collection and Future Library Expansion to increase its interface with the core library resources.
The final organizational diagram suggests an actual section through a possible building with six typological clusters and a plinth. This diagram translates into a three-dimensional, malleable building strategy: a conceptual armature robust enough to accept significant public and staff input, and major aesthetic adjustment. The agglomeration of clusters need not retain a Cartesian aesthetic. Manifold configurations and aesthetics could satisfy the underlying conceptual armature.
Following are the concepts that underpin our strategy:
Adaptability: Despite an increased need to accommodate change, contemporary library design still relies on an outmoded version of flexibility: one size fits all. The promise of a blank slate upon which any activity can occur has produced sterile, surprisingly inflexible environments, where functions blend confusingly and rooms or individual spaces lack unique character. As their functions multiply and specialize, and operational budgets dwindle, the “blank slate libraries” can rarely afford to accommodate the expansion, evolution, and increased specificity of their offerings. When they can, these alterations come at the expense of other equally vital elements. The result is not freedom, but imprisonment within a sterile box.
We proposed the opposite: a concept that delimits activities, builds in uniqueness on opening day, and provides each unique element with its own forms of flexibility. As described in DNA Sequencing, by combining like-with-like, six typological clusters from NCL’s Functional Program were identified. The cluster strategy enables three significant forms of tailored adaptation.
First, by keeping each cluster autonomous, its architecture can be dedicated to, and equipped for, specific duties far beyond what could be achieved on a generic floor plate. Because each cluster is designed for a unique purpose, the size, flexibility, circulation, palette, structure, and building services of each varies. Importantly, although each typological cluster is architecturally defined vertically, the intended clarity of each Main Collection section is still maintained horizontally.
Second, by keeping each cluster discrete, the possible evolutions of each can be developed on its own terms, without sacrificing the potential of another. Flexibility is thereby highly specific to each vertical cluster’s needs. By example, as the entire Reading Room need not accommodate the floor loads of books nor the air handling specificity of rooms, it can be designed with an underfloor plenum system, allowing reconfiguration and rewiring at any time without capital cost.
Third, during design, each cluster’s architecture can be completely reconceived and the location of one cluster can be switched with another’s, without impacting the credibility or integrity of the design concept. Ultimately, the strategy of delimiting activities—giving each a tailored solution, and arming each with its own specific form of flexibility—provides significant malleability, not just over the building’s life, but also during the design process.
Wayfinding and Serendipity: The traditional library presents the visitor with an infernal matrix of materials, technologies, and “specialists.” It is often a demoralizing process—a trail of tears through alien Dewey Decimal numbers, bifurcated classifications, mysterious floor numbers, and antiquated or redundant categories (should Crime and Punishment be in Literature, Humanities, or Fiction?!).
NCL’s vertical typological organization eases wayfinding while celebrating serendipity. By example, the Books Box is a single vessel of media connected by an interior stair case and perimeter ramps. If, while researching Carl Sagan’s pioneering work on exobiology in Science, Health, and Arts, a patron discovers Sagan was also a novelist, his book Contact could be found two flights up on the Fiction and Literature floor without leaving the Books Box.
In addition, by providing each cluster with a clear typological character, the building itself is the ultimate wayfinding device: each component is a super-sized icon. (“Look Mom! There’s the Reading Room.”)
Librarians as Curators: In an age when information is exploding and readily accessible by all, it is the expert guidance and curatorship of its broad contents that makes the library essential. Libraries’ most vital resource is no longer the media they offer, but the librarians they house. Librarians differentiate the library from all other information sources. NCL’s design must therefore be planned to enhance the librarians’ evolution from managers of materials to mentors and curators who help patrons navigate the information explosion.
Organizing NCL into typological clusters increases the ability of patrons to self-navigate, freeing librarians to focus on their role as intellectual guides (as opposed to operating as “finders”). While specialists will continue to provide expert direction within each functional element, many can be united in a zone of concentrated, interdisciplinary expertise: the Learning Commons.
Located at the heart of NCL, the Learning Commons fosters interdisciplinary synergy, serving as a trading floor for efficient, in-depth information exchange, and as the gateway to the larger offerings of the Main Collection and Teens’ Center surrounding it. It is conceived as a series of stepped plates connecting all four floors of the Main Collection: an energetic hive of patrons, librarians, and technology. The Learning Commons thus consolidates NCL’s cumulative human and technological intelligence. Librarians are physically and spiritually at the project’s heart.
Library as Public Lighthouse: The last several decades have revealed an accelerated erosion of the interior Public Domain, replaced by increasingly sophisticated and entertaining forms of the Private, where one must pay to play. But the essence of the Public is that it is free. In North America, the Library has become the last repository of free, interior public space. Beyond maximizing the Functional Program’s desired relationships, NCL’s vertical organization expands this last free interior public space into a markedly inspirational experience.
Using the slope formed in response to the LRT tunnel, Calgarians are drawn up and through the building on an interiorized public landscape. Along this continuous path from grade to the alpine reading meadow atop the Books Box is the interface between the Library’s many functions—spaces for work, interaction, and play.
The energy of the Entry Core and Learning Commons forms a public lighthouse, radiating a warm and welcoming civic face toward the new East Village precinct. The drama of the experience and the unusually high vantages it offers the public will command a significant position not only within Calgary’s physical landscape, but its mental landscape.
New Central Library as Crossroads: By centering NCL at the nexus of nearly every existing and planned vector in the City and straddling its Entry Core over the LRT, the Library becomes the keystone that bridges downtown with the nascent urban expansion eastward. In this manner, NCL is both an intellectual exchange and a physical crossroads. As if by Providence, the site is located within the precinct of the East Village master plan named “The Crossing”…“X” literally marks the spot.
Urban Stage: For all its resultant programmatic, experiential, and symbolic advantages, NCL’s vertical organization also frees the plinth to form a rare and vibrant amenity, a publicly accessible gateway from one half of the City to the other—an Urban Stage. The four floating arms of NCL act as a fly tower, transforming the stage beneath into a dynamic space for outdoor performances and events.
The centerpieces of the Urban Stage are the accessible lawn and the year-round ice rink. Informed by the slope of the LRT tunnel below, NCL’s front lawn creates a true public event space technically aided by the cantilever of the Books Box above. The Stage’s north side focuses on urban sports, organized around a hockey rink and lit from the Rooms Box after dark. Outdoor recreation space for Yoga in the Village, Sno-Flo Glow, or events for the Hypothermic Half Marathon will animate this space year-round.
Competition: Calgary New Central Library
Award: Competition Entry
Architects: REX
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
Design Team: Adam Chizmar, Stacy Christensen, Alysen Hiller, Tomas Janka, Roberto Otero, Joshua Prince-Ramus, Ishtiaq Rafiuddin, Aude Soffer, Elina Spruza, Matthew Uselman, Matthew Zych
Consultants : Magnusson Klemencic, Scatliff + Miller + Murray
Client: Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC)
Area: 26600.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Luxigon, REX
Architects: BUJ+COLÓN Arquitectos
Location: Calle de las Huertas, 28914 Leganés, Madrid, Spain
Framing: La Carpintería, Madrid.
Project Year: 2014
Photographs: Elena Almagro
From the architect. The apartment is organized through the insertion of three wood furniture-elements that work as filters between the different programs of the house: the living-dining room, the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom and the dressing room. These elements condense the accesses, the storage, and the light entrance of the programs. This way, they work as elements the serve the spaces they lead to.
With this operation, we seek to keep the space where life takes place in the home as clean, transparent and flexible as possible. The three wood pieces are slightly offset forward with respect to the existing walls of the house, becoming visible as independent and freestanding furniture. The furniture-elements are made of plywood, providing warmth to the interior space and allowing to design the smallest scale, contributing a more human character to the domestic space.
The first wood furniture-element is made of a staircase that leads to the main bedroom. This element separates, at the same time, the guest bedroom from the living room and allows the light coming in from the skylights to descend to the lower level. Under the landing of the staircase is the filter space to the guest bedroom, while the window defined by the interior courtyard of the building is added, allowing light to bathe this semi-hidden area. This part solves the bedroom closet under the second flight of the same staircase. Under the first, blankets, slippers, magazines and other living room devices are stored.
This staircase element becomes a desk when it reaches the top floor. The second element of plywood is a counter open to the dining room with the kitchen storage cabinets underneath. The third furniture-element is a wooden box that includes the bathroom door and a closet with the household cleaning items. This piece incorporates at the top a big opening that allows light to enter the bathroom.
Come February 9, New York City will be celebrating the opening of its seventh annual Valentine’s Day installation in Times Square. As part of Times Square Alliance’s heart design competition, Brooklyn- based and Venezuelan-born firm Stereotank will be constructing a heart-beating urban drum in hopes that it will bring together New Yorkers through music.
“Heartbeat is a heart-beating urban drum,” says Stereotank. “This engagement sculpture consists of a massive heart glowing to the rhythm of a strong, deep and low frequency heartbeat sound which changes its rate as visitors approach, move around and engage with it by playing various percussion instruments and joining the base rhythm of the heartbeat. The audience is invited to come together and creatively play, listen, dance and feel the vibrations of the heart while enjoying the warm pulsating light. In the emblematic, active, flickering atmosphere of Times Square, Heartbeat orchestrates multiple rhythms into a unique urban concert.
“Heartbeat is equipped with various percussion instruments. Each drum has unique sounds and resonant characteristics. Membranes of different sizes and materials such as synthetic snare skin, synthetic snare skin with coil, animal hide, and hard plastic are used to create a variety of drum timbres.”
Heartbeat will be located at Father Duffy Square, between 46th and 47th Streets. It will remain on view through March 8, 2015.
The Times Square Valentine Heart Design competition is in partnership with The Architectural League of New York. Support provided by Arup.
