Massachusetts’ Bentley University Arena together with Architectural Resources Cambridge (ARC) have earned the LEED Platinum certification and was named the most environmentally sustainable arena in the United States. The 76,000 square foot arena emphasizes the university’s commitment to sustainability, energy efficiency, and goal to reach carbon neutrality by the year 2030. Bentley Unversity also offers a major in Sustainability Science and a program that will reduce more than 270 tons of material waste per year. This arena hosts several university events such as concerts, alumni events, career fairs, and is home to its NCAA Division I hockey team.
The Boston Society of Architects (BSA) has announced announced Mecanoo and Sasaki as the winners of the 2016 Harleston Parker Medal for their design of the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building. Awarded each year by the BSA and the City of Boston, the prestigious award honors “the single most beautiful” building or structure built in the metropolitan Boston area over the past 10 years.
As long as there have been buildings mankind has sought to construct its way to the heavens. From stone pyramids to steel skyscrapers, successive generations of designers have devised ever more innovative ways to push the vertical boundaries of architecture. Whether stone or steel, however, each attempt to reach unprecedented heights has represented a vast undertaking in terms of both materials and labor – and the more complex the project, the greater the chance for things to go awry.
Street Plaza View. Image Courtesy of Ennead Architects
Ennead Architects has broken ground on the construction of an addition to the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, the country’s oldest continuously operating museum (since 1799).
The expansion project includes a new 40,000 square foot wing and 17,500 square feet of renovation to adjacent structures. Upon completion, total gallery space will be increased by 15% for a total of 100,000 square feet, making the Peabody Essex into one of the top 20 art museums in the country.
These days architecture is both a weapon and a victim of intolerance. Historic buildings are destroyed for what they symbolize, and there are calls for the building of walls and the construction of refugee cities. These actions are symptoms of the global preoccupation with the fear of others and the attempt to keep people “out.” The MassachusettsCollege of Art and Design (MassArt) community rejects these injustices and has built the architecture department on the principle that the purpose of architecture is to support the social good.
https://www.archdaily.com/797357/massachusetts-college-of-art-and-design-architecture-program-supports-social-goodSponsored Post
Steven Holl Architects (SHA) has been commissioned by Williams College to complete a program and masterplan study for the Williams College Department of Art and Museum of Art (WCMA). "The Master Plan aims to evaluate programming and space needs toward the determination of a program to catalyze the engagement of students, faculty and visitors with the visual arts," says SHA.
After talking with nearly 30 distinct groups of students, faculty and museum staff, SHA defined five main goals in which the study is based on:
Gluckman Tang Architects has been selected to design two new museums in North Adams, Massachusetts: the 160,000-square-foot Global Contemporary Art Museum (GCAM) and 32,400-square-feet Extreme Model Railroad and Contemporary Architecture Museum.
Built as a 700-foot-long addition to two historic freight depots in Western Gateway Heritage State Park, the Extreme Model Railroad museum will house one of the world’s largest collections of working O-scale model trains, moving through a trainscape designed by world-class architects, including Frank Gehry, Gluckman Tang, and Zaha Hadid.
Maya Lin, best known for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, together with Shepley Bulfinch has been chosen to redesign Smith College's Neilson Library. Selected after an international search conducted by the school, Lin's interdisciplinary approach coupled with Shepley Bulfinch's extensive work with academic institutions ultimately brought them to the forefront. Construction is expected to begin in 2017 and last two years.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) has been chosen as the winner of a design competition for a new performing arts center at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. The competition received submissions from eight world-renowned firms, which were then judged by a selection committee. The $60 million building will tentatively begin construction in 2017, as part of the College's plan to "Become More: The Campaign of Holy Cross." DS+R ultimately won the competition due to its diverse design and interdisciplinary nature, just as the College hopes to instill in its students through this addition.
Following the highly anticipated world premiere of Archiculture (watch here!), Arbuckle Industries is now releasing over 30 never-before-seen full length interviews with some of the industry’s leading influencers, all discussing the profession and how we are or should be training the next generation of designers. The first of the series featured Columbia’s Kenneth Frampton on whether or not architecture should be considered a luxury. Now, this most recent installation delves into just how policy makers can affect the built environment, interviewing politician and former Governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis.
In Boston, playgrounds are no longer just for kids. Twenty LED-lit circular swings have been installed outdoors as a part of "Swing Time," Boston's first interactive sculpture installation. The hanging, glowing orbs are a twist on traditional rubber-and-rope swings, dangling from a minimal steel structure similar to those used in conventional playgrounds. LED lights embedded in the swings activate and change color as each swing moves, returning to a dim white light when static. The piece is designed to blend Boston's design community with its expanding technology sector while playfully engaging residents.
Take a seat in "Swing Time" with more photos and info after the break.
The Salem Harbor Station, built between 1948 and 1951, is a coal fired power station which occupies a 65-acre site in Salem, Massachusetts. One of the region’s dirtiest coal- and oil-burning power generators, the 748 megawatt station sits within the historical maritime hub of Salem’s waterfront. The facility is topped by three towering smokestacks that pierce the skyline, and can be seen from many parts of Salem as well as the neighboring communities of Beverly and Marblehead.
Learn more about the station's transformation after the break...
https://www.archdaily.com/460037/salem-harbor-station-cookfoxJose Luis Gabriel Cruz
Curated by Charles Waldheim, Ruettgers Consulting Curator of Landscape, the 'Composite Landscapes: Photomontage and Landscape Architecture' exhibition opens this Thursday, June 27th, at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Examining the montage view, one of landscape architecture's most recognizable representational forms, the exhibit gathers work from a select group of influential contemporary artists and a dozen of the world's leading landscape architects. These composite views reveal practices of photomontage depicting the conceptual, experiential, and temporal dimensions of landscape. The exhibit runs until September 2nd. For more information, please visit here.
Opening tomorrow, June 25th through September 29th at BSA Space, the 'Reprogramming the City: Opportunities for Urban Infrastructure' exhibition celebrates more than 40 examples of imaginative reuse, repurposing and reimagining of urban infrastructure, from physical objects to the city’s most functional systems and surfaces. Curated by Scott Burnham, the new exhibition presents a global overview to serve alternate and expanded functions for urban dwellers and visitors. Featured exhibits will include numerous videos, photos, media stations, renderings, and models. For more information, please visit here. More images after the break.
Taking place this Friday, April 12th, from 4:00pm-8:30pm, the Doctor of Design program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design is inviting you to 'Research as Practice', their annual Convergence symposium. As the traditional boundaries of design practice are increasingly questioned, broadened, and blurred, scientific research in technology development and application emerges as an essential vehicle for exploration and assessment. In this inaugural year, the symposium will seek to explore the position, relevancy, and sustainability of applied research in design practice across various disciplines with examples from contemporary practitioners. For more information, please visit here. For more information, please visit here.
Free and open to the public, the PhD program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design is pleased to invite you to the 7th annual Cambridge Talks conference, which will take place on Friday, March 29, from 9:00am to 4:30pm. This year's conference seeks to bring fresh historical themes and tools to bear on the problem of 'Architecture and the Street'. New research promises to enrich and challenge perspectives pioneered by Spiro Kostof, Jane Jacobs, and William H. Whyte. You will be challenged to critically think about questions such as 'How might we theorize and historicize modern streets as sites of cultural memory and nostalgia? And above all, what are the effects of such social, political, and technological forces on architectural form? For more information, please visit here.
Taking place April 8-9 at MIT's School of Architecture and Planning the 'Infrastructural Monument' Conference hosted by the Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU), focuses on the development of infrastructural research agendas and projects which is a key mission for MIT’s CAU. This conference is the first in a series, devoted to a series of strategic design challenges facing cities worldwide. The conferences challenges you to answer the question, 'Can a typical American city be transformed from a collection of fragments assembled regionally by interstate highways, to a more durable regional constitution, using targeted infrastructural investment projects?' For more information, please visit here.
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