Kelly Minner
15 Union Square West / ODA Architecture and Perkins Eastman Architects
This structure overlooking Union Square Park was originally designed for Tiffany & Company in the late 19th century. With careful consideration for upholding its historical place within the city, 15 Union Square West is gracefully translated into a 21st century residential masterwork. Creating harmony between the bygone and the present, the design for luxury living wraps the 12-story condominium residence in a translucent, layered glass skin, preserving the prominent cast iron arches of the original 5-story construction and dramatic 16’ceiling height.
Architectural Designer: ODA – Architecture P.C.
Architect of Record: Perkins Eastman Architects P.C.
Location: New York City, New York, USA
Project Area: 62,000 sqf
Photographs: Robert Granoff, Alberto Guglielmo
20 Dwellings in Manresa Barcelona / nothing architecture
Designed by nothing architecture the 20 dwellings in Manresa Barcelona project is part of the partial plan for land subdivision in the sector “La Parada” of Manresa promoted by INCASOL who proposed the design of a main axis, av. dels Dolors, where dwelling units are located in isolation. The building consists of PB +5, for a 3 floor commercial premises and the basement with 31 parking spaces and 20 storage rooms.
Architects: nothing architecture
Location: Av. dels Dolors 27. La Parada. Manresa, Barcelona, Spain
Project Area: 2,500 sqm
Project Year: January 2008
Photographs: Hisao Suzuki
Reggie Rodriguez Community Center / Sparano + Mooney Architecture
This park’s new community center provides a 6,300 square foot space including a two-story multi-purpose room, a snack bar which serves both the building and the park, storage areas, an elevator, two rooftop decks and space for four non-profit agencies (including a child care facility, a clinic and a computer laboratory) providing services for the at-risk youth of the neighborhood. There is also a neighborhood police drop-in station for the Montebello police. The scope of work for this $900,000 project included full ADA compliance upgrade for the park and the rehabilitation and reprogramming (to storage) of existing restrooms located in the park.
The design was developed through a series of community meetings with the Montebello neighborhood and was strongly influenced by the community outreach effort led by the SMA design team. The project was completed and has been featured in Architectural Record’s on-line magazine and in Architecture California and Bauwelt magazines.
Architects: Sparano + Mooney Architecture
Location: City of Montebello, California, USA
Project Team: John Sparano, Anne Mooney, Ludwing Juarez and Jorge Beltran
Project Area: 6,300 sqf
Photographs: Toshi Yashimi
Slow Architecture Exhibition 2011
The Slow Architecture Exhibition 2011 has just gotten underway. Canal Boat 107B will meander its way within Ireland’s canals and inland waterways over the next month promoting slow architecture through its floating exhibition centre and museum. Contributors for the summer of 2011 are Sonairte, Carson and Crushell Architects, Solearth, Architectural Farm with Michael Carroll, and Caelan Bristow. You can see a brief description of their contributions here as well as the full timetable for this year’s exhibition.
AIA 2011 Small Project Awards
The eight winners of the 2011 Small Project Awards were recently announced by the AIA. In its eighth year the program focuses on highlighting good design at any scale. The jurors for this year included: Deborah Pierce, Obie G. Bowman, Randy Brown, Lance Hosey, and Wendy Evans Joseph.
A complete list of winners following the break.
NewSchool of Architecture and Design Summer Events Include Workshops, Seminars Plus Study Abroad Opportunities in Europe and Asia
The NewSchool of Architecture and Design has recently announced their summer events schedule including workshops, seminars and study abroad opportunities in Europe and Asia.
The 2011 Southern California Architecture Experience (SoCAL-E><) “Second Exploratory Design Workshop,” is a four-week design workshop beginning July 11 paired with a two-week seminar July 11–24 that is conducted in English and Spanish. Students take part in an intense, totally immersive experience studying the architectural landscape and legacy of southern California. The works of world-renowned architects are examined and include visits to some of the most recent projects and offices of local avant-garde firms.
Further details and programs from NewSchool can be found here.
Symbiotic Districts: Towards a Balanced City
ZGF Architects and PoSI teamed up to provide a concept submission for the International Living Future Institute’s 2011 Living City Design Competition which has been recently awarded a People’s Choice Award voted by the attendees of the Living Future 2011 conference.
Their submission entitled Symbiotic Districts: Towards a Balanced City explores the symbiosis between five EcoDistricts in Portland, Oregon as well as regional systems and examines how strategies in a single district contribute to the city’s overall performance.
Competition Team: ZGF Architects, Portland Sustainability Institute, CH2M Hill, David Evans and Associates, Greenworks PC, Newlands and Company, Inc., Portland State University, Institute for Sustainable Solutions, and Sparling
Cooper-Hewitt 2011 National Design Award Winners
Honoring lasting achievement in American design Cooper-Hewitt announced yesterday the winners and finalists of the 2011 National Design Awards. In its 12th year of celebrating outstanding achievement in design, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum annually presents this award to various disciplines that demonstrate excellence, innovation, and enhancement of the quality of life.
Garnering first prize for architecture is New York based Architecture Research Office (ARO). A list of winners and finalists following the break.
In Progress: Taiyuan Museum / Preston Scott Cohen
Preston Scott Cohen‘s winning competition proposal for the Taiyuan Museum of Art is currently under construction. A cluster of buildings unified by continuous and discontinuous promenades both inside and outside. The building responds to the urban parkscape in which it is set; visitors are encouraged to pass through the building while not entering into the museum itself. An exterior ramp threading through the building connects the heterogeneous hardscapes, lawns and sculpture gardens. The integration of building and landscape registers multiple scales of territory ranging from the enormity of the adjacent Fen River to the intimacy of the museum’s own particular spatial episodes.
Architects: Preston Scott Cohen
Location: Taiyuan, China
Client: Taiyuan City Government
Project Team: Preston Scott Cohen (architectural design); Amit Nemlich (planning); Collin Gardner, Hao Ruan, Joshua Dannenberg (design assistants, modeling, renderings); Yair Keshet(model)
Project Consultants: Architecture Design and Research Institute of South East University
Project Area: 32,500 sqm
Project Year: 2007-2010
Video: Football for Hope
Architecture for Humanity’s Kimisagra Football for Hope Center in Kigali, Rwanda has broken ground. This video by Killian Doherty and music by Sophie Nzayisenga features the site location, renderings, and most importantly the communities excitement for the new center.
Steven Holl Architects to Design an Art Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University
Steven Holl Architects were approved last week by the board of visitors’ finance committee to design a $19.3 million gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Virginia.
An existing surface parking lot on the east side of VCU’s campus will be transformed into the 32,000 sqf arts institute. This will provide an opportunity to create a distinctive entrance into the campus from Broad and Belvidere streets. The program for the new gallery includes space for traveling exhibits and student exhibits, archival study area, offices, and an auditorium.
Points of View from Herman Miller
Points of View (POV) is a Herman Miller series sharing architects’ perspective on design. Directed by Hello Design, POV provides five different California architects’ step by step process from approach and design development to materials choices. Architects include Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner of Marmol Radziner, Kim Coleman of Cigolle X Coleman, James Meyer of LeanArch, Jim Jennings of Jennings Architecture, and John Friedman of JFAK Architects.
All five interviews can be viewed here.
Is Architecture Employment Improving
Is architecture employment improving? According to C. J. Hughes recent article some firms need for design services has increased providing an opportunity to hire employees. That being said the employment opportunities are still minimal some firms hiring only one or two employees while others are able to hire in the double digits. Many principals are tentative about the future and are therefore proceeding cautiously not to over hire employees.
The full article Architecture Employment on the Rise by C. J. Hughes for ArchRecord following the break.
Ecco / NAU
As an all-electric vehicle, the Ecco has no emissions of its own, and can be quickly charged at a standard 240V station. But when used for extended living purposes, even where no electricity is available, its built-in photovoltaic panels and solar sail roof mean that it can cut out the middle man, and charge directly from the sun.
Howard House / Brian MacKay-Lyons Urban Design
The modest house is a 12 foot wide, 110 foot long wall playing a didactic role within both the natural and cultural landscapes. It sits on a four acre field surrounded by the sea on three sides: east to a domesticated fishing cove, west to the nearby wild, open ocean, and south to the immediate shore of a bay. Its ‘rough-and-ready’ wrapper is in keeping with the dog-patch-like cultural landscape context. The exterior skin is standard, industrial, corrugated galvalume. The top-of-concrete line of the foundation is raised, expressing the relatively high cost of getting out of the ground in cold climates and forming a horizontal datum against the opposing slopes of land and roof. A heavy, concrete stair bump is a protective gesture against the prevailing westerly winds coming off of the sea.
Architects: Brian MacKay-Lyons Urban Design
Location: West Pennant, Nova Scotia, Canada
Client: Vivian and David Howard
Project Team: Brian MacKay-Lyons, Niall Savage, Trevor Davies, Talbot Sweetapple
Structural: Campbell Comeau Engineering Limited
Builder: Andrew Watts
Photographs: James Steeves
Tel Aviv Museum of Art / Preston Scott Cohen
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, located in the center of the city’s cultural complex and designed by Preston Scott Cohen has completed construction and will open to the public shortly. The program for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Amir Building posed an extraordinary architectural challenge: to resolve the tension between the tight, idiosyncratic triangular site and the museum’s need for a series of large, neutral rectangular galleries. The solution: subtly twisting geometric surfaces (hyperbolic parabolas) that connect the disparate angles between the galleries and the context while refracting natural light into the deepest recesses of the half buried building.
Architects: Preston Scott Cohen
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Project Area: 200,000 sqf
Project Year: 2007-2011
Photographs: Courtesy of Preston Scott Cohen
Video: A Plea for Modernism
Scheduled for demolition in Summer 2011, the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School is a treasured piece of regional modernism in New Orleans. Designed by Charles Colbert, the school has served the historic African-American neighborhood of Tremé since it opened in 1955. It is just one of over thirty public schools that were constructed at that time. These schools were designed by architects who practiced a regional modernism, incorporating innovative design for circulation, ventilation and lighting. Of the thirty schools only four are still standing, three of which are threatened with demolition (including Phillis Wheatley). DOCOMOMO Louisiana is advocating for the restoration through adaptive reuse for the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School. “A Plea For Modernism” was created by Evan Mather and is narrated by actor Wendell Pierce.
University of Oregon John E. Jaqua Academic Center for Student Athletes / ZGF Architects
The John E. Jaqua Center for Student Athletes at the University of Oregon explores the limits of transparency and connectivity to provide the UO’s student-athletes a place to gather as a community focused on study and learning. The challenge of creating a tranquil environment where students feel connected to natural landscape elements and daylight was heightened by the chosen location: a busy intersection between campus and the city of Eugene, on the site of a former parking lot at one of the major campus entrances.
Architects: Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects, LLP
Location: Eugene, Oregon, USA
Project Area: 40,000 sqf
Photographs: Courtesy of ZGF Architects
May 2011 Issue of the Charrette from Tulane School of Architecture
The Tulane School of Architecture, theCharrette presents its May 2011 Issue. The culmination of a year with a new image for the publication, theCharette has included in this issue key architectural topics at Tulane and adjacent realms including the Richardson Memorial Hall renovations with FXFOWLE and el dorado.
Included in this issue is the latest update from Byron Mouton and students who have completed URBANbuild build 06 house at 1821 Toledano. Also don’t miss the articles featuring Dutch Dialogues and Architecture 2030.
The Miller Hull Partnership Expands to San Diego
Seattle based Miller Hull Partnership has recently shared with ArchDaily that they have expanded to open an office in San Diego. Formed in 1977 the award-winning [check out our coverage of The Miller Hull Partnership here] firm’s design reputation is based on simple, innovative and authentic designs that incorporate sustainable practices.
The Miller Hull Partnership has been working in San Diego for seven years, and has a number of projects currently under way. These include the renovation of the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry, the busiest border crossing in the world (Phase 1 in construction), and the University of California San Diego Structural & Nano Materials Engineering building also in construction.
Portland State University to host Student Exhibition
The Department of Architecture at Portland State University will celebrate the graduation of its first-ever class of Master of Architecture students with an end-of-year design show, titled “Materialize | Student Work 2010-2011.” Hosted by the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the show will highlight the achievements of students throughout the graduate and undergraduate programs, with an emphasis on the independent design theses of the Master of Architecture students. An opening reception will be held in conjunction with First Thursday on June 2, 2011, from 5:30pm to 8:30pm.
