Olson Kundig is a Seattle-based design practice founded on the ideas that buildings can serve as a bridge between nature, culture and people, and that inspiring surroundings have a positive effect on people’s lives. Led by five owners, the firm’s work can be found across the globe, with projects as wide ranging as huts to high rises, homes to academic, cultural and civic projects, museums and exhibition design, places of worship, creative production, urban design and interior design.
With construction underway on their renovation of the Space Needle, Olson Kundig will shift their focus to a different American icon. The Seattle firm has unveiled their proposal as lead architect and exhibit designer for The Bob Dylan Center—a new museum that will also house the Bob Dylan Archive in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sponsored by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa, the center is expected to open in 2021, with groundbreaking planned for 2019 in the Tulsa Arts District.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected eleven recipients in its 2018 Small Projects Awards. Established fifteen years ago by AIA’s Small Project Practitioners, the program “recognizes small-project practitioners for the high quality of their work” and “aims at raising awareness about the value and design excellence that architects can bring to projects, no matter their size or scope.”
December 21 saw the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. The season is an excellent time to take architectural photographs in a unique and different landscape, with a blanket of snow providing a reminder of the delights of nature. Here, we present a selection of 10 cabins captured in winter by prominent photographers such as Tim Bies, Fernando Alda and Pasi Aalto.
Taking photographs in fog can be an experience as chaotic as it is enchanting. Although working with this phenomenon can be risky, since fog dramatically modifies the available light and the atmosphere of a scene, if you know how to take advantage of it, the result can lead to perfect photographs. Below is a selection of 10 images from prominent photographers such as Kevin Scott, Richard Barnes, and Koichi Torimura.
Construction has begun on the Olson Kundig-led $100 million renovation of Seattle’s most iconic structure, the Space Needle.
With work taking place 500 feet above the ground, the project demanded a unique alternative to traditional scaffolding: a 28,000 pound platform surrounding the tower that was hoisted to a position just below the observation Tophouse.
New drone footage shows how this platform, manufactured by scaffolding company Safway, was constructed at 100 feet above the ground, and then lifted into place and secured. According to Century Project, the structure represents “one of the largest lifts of Safway scaffold ever completed and it’s one of the company’s biggest scaffolds in circumference.”
Developer Strategic Property Partners has announced plans for a new $3 billion 50-acre mixed-use neighborhood in Tampa, Florida. To be known as Water Street Tampa, the multi-phase project will create 9 million square feet of commercial, residential, educational, cultural and entertainment space on a site currently underused and occupied by highways and surface parking.
One of the world’s most recognizable landmarks, the Seattle Space Needle, is set to undergo a $100 million renovation project focused on the structure’s preservation and the enhancement of the visitor experience by opening up spaces to dramatically improved views.
Designed by Olson Kundig with interiors by Tihany Design, the scheme will intensify the Observation Deck experience through the addition of floor-to-ceiling glass on both the interior and exterior spaces, creating unobstructed 360 degree views of the Puget Sound and Seattle skyline . The renovation will also reimagine the Needle’s restaurant level by featuring a “first-of-its-kind” rotating glass floor to offer never-before-seen downward views of the structure.
.jpg?1528168523 "Grand Lake Pool House / Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. Image © Timothy Soar")
