Weiss/Manfredi + OLIN

As we have shared previously on AD, Washington DC’s National Mall – America’s most visited national park with over 25 million visitors a year- is undergoing a total restoration.  The $700 million project will be the first major renovation in over 35 years, and will focus on three sites of the Mall: Union Square, Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument Grounds, and the Constitution Gardens.  During an intensive three part competition, the jury first evaluated scores of portfolios to select up to eight designers per site; conducted team interviews to narrow the site designers to five; and finally, during Phase Three, the jury will hold a design competition for each site.  We have just been notified by Weiss/Manfredi and OLIN that their team has been chosen to develop two of the three sites; no small feat for a competition that began with over 1,2000 designers.   The multidisciplinary team of architecture, landscape and planning designers will develop proposals for both the Monument Grounds and the Constitution Gardens.  We are excited to see what the team will develop, and we will keep you updated on the other Phase Three finalists and their proposals as we hear more.

Trust for the National Mall has announced the Stage II results, naming the ten design teams selected to continue in the third and final stage of the National Mall Design Competition. The National Mall will undergo an approximate $700 million restoration in three selected areas – Union Square including the Reflecting Pool and the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument Grounds, and the Constitution Gardens between the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.

“We are excited about the teams selected to advance to Stage III and have no doubt each of them will create beautiful, useful and sustainable designs for the National Mall,” said Caroline Cunningham, President of the Trust for the National Mall. “We are eager to share their final designs with the public in April.”

Continue reading for more information and the complete list of finalists. read more »

Over 1,200 entires from 30 states and 10 countries submitted applications for the National Mall competition. Late last month fifteen design teams were chosen as finalists to advance to the second stage of this prestigious contest.

Hosting 25 million visitors annually, the National Mall will undergo an estimated $700 million restoration beginning in 2012. The competition has been broken down into three areas of restoration: Union Square including the Reflecting Pool and the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument Grounds, and the Constitution Gardens between the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.

Among the finalists to move on to stage two of the competition, Diller Scofidio Renfro, Weiss/Manfredi, and Rogers Marvel Architects who are shortlisted for two out of the three areas of restoration, as well as Snohetta, Michael Maltzan Architecture, Ten Arquitectos, and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson who are finalists for one area of restoration.

“Entrants were evaluated on past design performance, philosophy, design intent, thoughtfulness, creativity and overall resume,” according to a release from the Trust of the National Mall. The jury, compiled of architects, professors and other members of the architecture community, included Michael Gericke of Pentagram NYC and Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne founder of Morphosis.

The second stage of the competition includes interviews of the teams conducted by the Trust for the National Mall and the National Park Service, and the last stage will include proposed plans for the restoration. The competition will culminate in May 2012 and the proposed designs from stage three of the competition will be available to the public prior to the winning design being selected.

Follow the break for a complete list of design finalists for the National Mall Competition.

read more »

Courtesy of WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism

The Diana Center, a 98,000 square-foot multipurpose arts building at Barnard College designed by WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, is the winner of a 2011 Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Award. The project will be exhibited in Buenos Aires at the 13th International Architecture Biennial in October, and will be on display throughout Europe in the next year.

Established in the 1990s by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design, together with The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd., the awards program honors and celebrates the most outstanding new achievements and innovations for new architecture. Past recipients of the award include Renzo Piano, Perkins + Will, Eric Owen Moss and other leading architecture firms with distinguished projects designed and built in the United States. which makes this award such an honor.

The Diana Center establishes a new nexus for social, cultural, and intellectual life on campus and within the city. Located on Broadway, the Diana Center unites landscape and architecture, interior and exterior in a seven-story structure that rethinks the conventions of a mixed use building. The building is home to the departments of architecture, art history, visual arts, and theater and includes architecture and painting studios, a 500-seat events space, black box theater, cafe, dining room, reading room, classrooms, and exhibition galleries.

Earlier this week Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi, founding principals of Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, lectured at Harvard GSD about Evolutionary Infrastructures. The multidisciplinary firm has distinguished themselves with their holistic design approach, successfully integrating the disciplines of architecture, art, infrastructure, and landscape design.

Their projects have been received internationally attention; the Olympic Sculpture Park for the Seattle Art Museum, which was the winning design of an international competition and has been recognized at Barcelona’s World Architecture Festival (Nature Category Winner), by ID Magazine Environments Design Awards (Best in Category), and was awarded the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in urban Design from harvard University. The Diana Center at Barnard College was chosen as the winning design of a national design competition and received a Progressive Architecture Award and an ArchDaily 2010 Building of the Year winner.

Weiss/Manfredi has received the Academy Award in Architecture and the Gold Medal of Honor by AIA New york City chapter. ArchDaily had the chance to interview Weiss/Manfredi earlier this year.  Be sure to check it out.

Stephen Cassell, Kim Yao, and Adam Yarinsky, © Lajos Geenen

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.

read more »

© Paul Warchol

For Weiss/Manfredi’s International Retreat – a conference center for international organizations to discuss issues and politics –  the project exemplifies the firm’s emphasis of the integration of architecture and landscape.  A series of existing early 20^th-century buildings sit on the 400 acre site, and the project uses a network of gardens to create a framework for these renovated and programmatically transformed structures.

More images and more about the project after the break. read more »

© Jeff Goldberg/Esto

Students at Smith College—the largest liberal arts institution for women in the country—are assigned to houses, many of them Victorian-era structures complete with living rooms. Meant to foster a collegial environment, while successful, they also create isolated communities. Broadening the opportunity for social interaction, the Smith College Campus Center serves as a mediating body, the only building at Smith available to all students, faculty, and staff.

Follow the break for more photographs and drawings of this Weiss/Manfredi project.

Architects: Weiss/Manfredi
Location: Smith College Campus, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA
Design Partners: Marion Weiss and Michael A. Manfredi
Project Manager: Tae-Young Yoon
Project Architects: Armando Petruccelli and Kian Goh
Project Team: Michael Blasberg, Lauren Crahan, Stephanie Maignan, Chris Payne, Jason Ro, and Yehre Suh
Structural Engineering Consultant: Weidlinger Associates Consulting Engineers
MEPFP Engineering Consultant: Jaros, Baum, and Bolles Consulting Engineers
Landscape Architecture Consultant: Towers|Golde Landscape Architects and Site Planners
Lighting Design Consultant: Renfro Design Group, Inc.
Civil Engineering Consultant: Fuss & O’Neill
Curtain Wall Consultant: R. A. Heintges Architects Consultants
AV/Acoustics/IT Consultant: Shen Milsom & Wilke
Food Service Consultant: Cini-Little International
Cost Estimator: AMIS Inc.
Waterproofing Consultant: James Gainfort
Construction Manager: Daniel O’Connell’s Sons, Inc.
Client: Smith College
Project Area: 60,000 sqf
Photographs: Jeff Goldberg

read more »