Evening exterior view - Outdoor art installation “Ailanthus” by Stefano Arienti (right) © Nic Lehoux / Renzo Piano Building Workshop

The newly constructed wing for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, opens to the public today with a celebratory ribbon-cutting ceremony accompanied by the City of Boston’s Mayor Thomas M. Menino. Designed to preserve the 1902 historic building, the 70,000 square-foot addition will offer purpose-built spaces for concerts, exhibitions and classes, along with enhanced visitor amenities. The museum will also be kicking off an inaugural season of exhibitions, performances and events that will highlight the buildings wide range of programming.

“This new wing is an extraordinarily elegant workshop, a bustling counterpoint to the historic building’s serenity. Here, the thinking and the work of the Museum is performed, so that the Palace, which had been put to uses for which it was not equipped, can once again give visitors the experience Isabella Stewart Gardner intended: a personal confrontation with art,” said Anne Hawley, Norma Jean Calderwood Director of the Museum.

Continue reading for more images and information.

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© Ed Wonsek

Architect: Tsoi/Kobus & Associates
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Project Size: 777,600 square feet
Project Year: 2008
Photographers: Jeffrey Totaro, Ed Wonsek

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Courtesy of Mikyoung Kim Design

Landscape Architect: Mikyoung Kim Design
Project Location: Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA
Commissioning Entity: R. E. Davoli
Project Year: 2007
Photographs: Courtesy of Mikyoung Kim Design

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Courtesy of Mikyoung Kim Design

Envisioned as an urban grove, this central gathering space represents the convergence of community in this diverse, mixed income, residential development. The design accommodates a complex program, layering the varied multi-cultural and intergenerational uses with a number of meaningful gathering and recreational spaces for the residents. Tai Chi, chess, children’s play areas, and contemplative seating areas allow for various groups to utilize the garden spaces in different ways. Lawn areas can be used for sunbathing in the summer and also provide the community with areas for flexible programming during larger gatherings, such as celebrations for the Chinese New Year, Russian Unity Day, and other cultural and civic events.

Landscape Architect: Mikyoung Kim Design
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Project Year: 2008
Photographs: Courtesy of Mikyoung Kim Design

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Courtesy of Somatic Collaborative

The Hinterland Urbanisms Symposium, curated by Felipe Correa of Somatic Collaborative, Assistant Professor of Urban Design and Ana Maria Duran, Loeb Fellow ’11, looks at the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) as a point of departure for an ample discussion regarding the diverse models of urbanism that emerge at the intersection of resource extraction and regional integration projects (primarily through mobility corridors).

The symposium takes place October 7th and 8th at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. More information on the event after the break. read more »

Courtesy of WaterFire Providence

Boston Society of Architects (BSA) recently launched their lecture series which opens up on September 21st with Jeremiah Eck, FAIA as he considers a simple way to infuse sustainability and light in homes; Barnaby Evans does something similar for cities while Chee Pearlman enlists design for the betterment of humanity and Audrey O’Hagan, AIA looks boldly toward the future of the profession. All free BSA lectures take place at 6:00 pm at the BSA Space multimedia room (290 Congress Street, Boston). More information on the series after the break. read more »

© Warren Jagger Photography

Architect: Payette
Location: Waltham, MA
Contractor: John Moriarty & Associates
Project Area: 137,000 sqf
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Warren Jagger Photography

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© Eric Roth Photography

Architect: ZeroEnergy Design
Location: Truro, Massachusetts
Consultants: Silvia & Silvia, Light Th!s, Venegas and Company, Eleven Interiors, Helmarck & Foglia
Project Area: 6,200 sqf
Project Year: 2008
Photographs: Eric Roth Photography, ZeroEnergy Design

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© Warren Jagger Photography

Architect: Payette
Location: Amherst, Massachusetts
Project Area: 173,000 sqf
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Warren Jagger Photography

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Gardner Museum director Anne Hawley and Jim Labeck, the director of operations, look over a model of the Gardner's new wing (center). The original building (right) sits in front of it. (John Tlumacki / Boston Globe Staff)

Opening in 2012, the $118 million steel, glass, and copper-clad expansion to Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum by Renzo Piano Building Workshop will more than double the size of the current facility. Included in the project are a new entrance, music hall, gallery space, and other amenities for an institution that has remained largely unaltered since opening in 1903.

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Photo by Daniel Cooper - http://www.flickr.com/photos/doitintheroad/

After a nine year process and fourteen possible architects the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library was finally finished and dedicated on October 20, 1979. Architect I.M. Pei’s signature geometric shapes of concrete steel and glass created an appropriate stately monumentality. A juxtaposition of spaces and light quality along with a defined and lucid circulation creates a logical story line of its namesake. read more »

Courtesy of Touloukian Touloukian Inc.

Architects: Touloukian Touloukian Inc.
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Client: James Wilcox
Structural Engineer: Richmond So
Landscape Architect: Bob Uhlig
General Contractor: Dave Quirk
Photographs: Ed Wonsek

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© Stephen Lee

Architects: Touloukian Touloukian Inc.
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
General Contractor: Fern Vanchon
Lighting Designer: Scott Richardson
Photographs: Stephen Lee

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© Stephen Lee Photography

Architects: Touloukian Touloukian Inc.
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
General Contractor: Mike Ahern
Structural Engineer: Uy Than Ly
Electrical Lighting Design: Paul Zaferiou
Photographs: Stephen Lee Photography

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© Chuck Choi

The Boston Society of Architects/AIA announced the winner of the 2010 Harleston Parker Medal as the Cambridge Public Library by William Rawn Associates Architects and Ann Beha Architects.  Each year, the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) and the City of Boston award the Harleston Parker Medal to “the single most beautiful” building or structure built in the Greater Boston area over the past 10 years.

More images of the winner after the break. read more »

Courtesy map-lab

The International Living Future Institute launched the Living City Design Competition in 2010, seeking designs for our cities in the year 2035. map-lab’s submission was ResilienCity. ResilienCity seeks to set the vision for the future of Boston’s Innovation District, a new neighborhood built on grey field and brownfield sites that will provide residences and workplaces for over 300,000 people.

We have reached the tipping point where we need to think of the whole, not the self. We have arrived at a time when we need to stop behaving selfishly and begin to explore how we can all come together as a community to create environments that are culturally enriching, healthier, and equitable. We come back to nature to do this. Additional images of map-lab’s submission and a continuing narrative can be seen after the break.

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© Timothy Hursley

The Wang Campus Center, Davis Garage and related Alumnae Valley projects encompass most of the western half of the Wellesley College campus. They include a 50,000 sqf Campus Center, the renovation of the Alumnae Valley landscape, a 565 car parking garage, a 20,000 sqf building for the Campus Trade Shops, a 4,000 sqf building for the campus police, the renovation and re-design of the campus chilled water plant, and the re-design of the Campus Central Utility Plant environs.

Architect: Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects
Location: Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA
Project Team: Mack Scogin, Merrill Elam, Timothy Harrison, Christopher Agosta, David Yocum, Kimberly Shoemake-Medlock, Jeffrey Collins, Jennifer Pindyck, Barnum Tiller, Christian Rice, Michael Wirsching, Jennifer Hurst, John Trefry, Stephen Trimble, Kevin Gotsch, Andrea Korber, Jane Lee, Ashley Moore, Margaret Fletcher, Brian Bell, Trey Lindsey, Sophia Greenbaum, Helen Han, Ted Paxton
Landscape Architect: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
Structural Mechanical and Plumbing Engineer: Arup
Civil Engineer: Vanasse Hangen Brustlin
General Contractor: Richard White Sons
Project Managers: Genesis Partners
Lighting Consultant: LAM Partners
Project Area: 74,000 sqf
Project Year: 2005
Photographer: Timothy Hursley

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© Michael Lavin Flower

Architects: Burr & McCallum Architects
Location: West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, USA
Project area: 4,600 sqf
Project year: 2010
Photographs: Michael Lavin Flower

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Courtesy of Rachely Rotem Studio & Phu Hoang Office

Fascinated with the theory of camouflage and interested in how, as a design concept, it could result in the transformation of space, Rachely Rotem Studio and Phu Hoang Office changed the recognizable figure of a barge in a city to an interactive atmospheric phenomenon they titled, ‘Lighter Than Air’. This proposal, which was for “The Barge” competition organized by SHIFTBoston, won first place and will be coming to the Fort Point Channel in Boston in September 2012. More images and architects’ description after the break. read more »

Courtesy of PRAUD

Boston based research and design firm, PRAUD, shared with us the West End Museum which is a community-based museum in Boston dedicated to documenting the history of the West End of Boston. The museum especially captures the immigrant era which dates approximately from 1880 to the West Ends destruction by eminent domain in 1958. More images and architects’ description after the break. read more »