The first phase of Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Renzo Piano Building Workshop's (RPBW) expansive Manhattanville Campus plan for Columbia University is making significant progress; completion is nearing on a highly-anticipated portion of the project - RPBW's LEED platinum Jerome L. Greene Science Center, which is scheduled to open in Fall of 2016 just six miles North of the practice's soon-to-open Whitney Museum.
More on the mixed-use structure after the break.
Nearly four years after the start of its construction, South America’s first Bahá’í temple is beginning to take shape. Designed by Canadian firm Hariri Pontarini Architects, the temple is being constructed at the foothills of the Andes in Santiago, Chile. The building is comprised of “nine translucent wings, rising directly from the ground, and giving the impression of floating over a large reflecting water pool,” describes the project’s website. Each wing is designed like a leaf, with a steel “main stem” and “secondary veins of steel” supporting its cast glass exterior. During the day, the cast glass will filter sunlight into the temple, while at night the temple’s interior lighting will produce a soft glow on the outside.
The structure’s steel columns are now fully self-supported on its concrete foundation, and the steel frames and interior marble panels of each of the nine wings have been completed. In October, the project reached an important milestone as the installation of the cast glass cladding began on the outside of the wings.
The King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) is a new 55-million-square-foot mixed-use urban community in Riyadh. Among its public buildings under construction is FXFOWLE Architects’ Museum of the Built Environment (MOBE), which explores the role of social, economic, and environmental issues in the development of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the larger region. The museum will exhibit works related to the history of the arts and architecture on the Arabian peninsula, as well as document trends in sustainable thinking and their role in the future of the built environment. The museum puts the traditionally private culture of Saudi Arabia on display, creating a building for residents and visitors.
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