Arup: The Latest Architecture and News

Global architecture firm Perkins&Will, in collaboration with ARUP, Grimshaw Architects, EPS , AIM Consulting, and the City of Sacramento, have transformed the city's historic train station into a self-reliant and regenerative transportation hub, making it one of the most sustainable public areas in California. The design team worked alongside the local community to create a people-centric 31-acre master plan that reflects what the community envisions for a public train station and gateway to the city of Sacramento.

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Snøhetta has unveiled a new Central Campus Building for Ford Motor Company, part of the transformation of its Research & Engineering (R&E) Campus in Dearborn, Michigan. As the result of a 3-year research and planning process, the project was created in collaboration with IBI Group as the Architect of Record, Ghafari as the Engineer of Record, and Arup leading sustainability and engineering.

Led by OUTCOMIST, an international design team including Diller Scofidio + Renfro, PLP Architecture, CRA - Carlo Ratti Associati, and Arup won the competition to revitalize the Porta Romana Railway Area, transforming the industrial site into a diverse green neighborhood in Milan. Rehabilitating a disused railway yard into a connective tissue that links the southeast area of the city to the center, the development will generate a rich biodiverse public space, including a large urban park.

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Contreras Earl Architecture has revealed its design for the world-first coral ark. Located at the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef in Port Douglas, North Queensland, Australia, the conservation facility “aims to secure the long-term future and biodiversity of corals worldwide which are under severe threat due to climate change”.

Creating new standards for a more connected and livable city, Henning Larsen has designed a New Masterplan for Wolfsburg, Germany. The new prototype for urbanism across the European continent diffuses new energy in the city center. Selected to design the project in a competition in 2019 that included competitors UNStudio and Bjarke Ingels Group, Henning Larsen’s proposal for phase 1 is expected to reach completion by 2023.

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Team V Architectuur, an architecture office based in Amsterdam, is designing the new Dutch timber hybrid head office for DPG Media at the Amstel Business Park in the Netherlands. In collaboration with DELVA Landscape Architecture/ Urbanism for the landscape and outdoor space, the project will generate a 46.000 square meter of healthy and sustainable working environment.

Van Alen and the New York City Council have announced the 6 finalists for the “Reimagining Brooklyn Bridge” international competition, in both the professionals and young adults categories. Inspiring participants to rethink the iconic Brooklyn Bridge walkway, the contest gathered short-term interventions and longer-term proposals for a complete reconfiguration of the bridge. The 3 final teams in the Professional category include BIG + ARUP; ScenesLab + Minzi Long + Andrew Nash; and Pilot Projects Design Collective, Cities4Forests, Wildlife Conservation Society, Grimshaw, and Silman.

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Despite all the news of re-openings, lifted restrictions, al fresco options dining, and a return to something more closely resembling “normal,” COVID-19 is still very much with us. And despite the defeatist/downplayed/nothing to see here stance embraced by the current presidential administration, the United States is still in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis. In some states, both new reported cases and hospitalizations have now reached record highs.

This being said, the need for accessible, easy to fabricate, and quick-to-deploy testing facility solutions are still in great need, particularly in dense urban areas, at large institutions and workplaces, and in underserved communities where coronavirus testing might come as a luxury, not a basic necessity. In terms of testing availability, all bases need to and must be covered.

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The Houston Endowment and the organizers of the Malcolm Reading Consultants (MRC) contest announced that the team led by Kevin Daly Architects (KDA) and PRODUCTORA, in collaboration with TLS Landscape Architecture, won the international competition to design the new headquarters for the foundation. The winning proposal stood out as a dynamic response to the architectural and landscape tradition of Houston.

The 2019 London Design Festival opened this month and features a large-scale instillation called Please Be Seated by Paul Cocksedge. Returning for its 17th year, the festival celebrates design across London and aims to promote the city as a major design capital. Please Be Seated joins a series of art, design and performance-based projects by internationally-renowned designers across the city.

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Architect Jürgen Mayer H. founded his firm J.MAYER.H in Berlin in 1996. He studied both in Germany (Stuttgart University) and in the US (Cooper Union and Princeton). Back in 2010, Mayer H. told me that while his solid professional education in Germany equipped him with the know-how about the technical and practical aspects of architecture, he still lacked a clear vision about how to develop his own thought and an architectural language.

Years of questioning and experimenting eventually led to the development of his own distinctive voice. Mayer H.’s buildings have brought unique identities to many places around the globe, particularly through his use of data protection patterns that triggered the creation of architecture unlike anything seen before. On my recent visit to his studio in West Berlin we discussed the architect’s identity. When I confronted Mayer H. about what he thinks about his signature style at the times when it is no longer celebrated by the media he said, “This started as my voice and by now it is the contribution of an entire team. There is no intention or strategy, just our own capacity to work with the medium of architecture.”

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Anna Liu and Mike Tonkin of London-based Tonkin Liu have developed an innovative medical device for use in patients’ windpipes. The prototype stent is based on the firm’s signature Shell Lace Structure, a “single-surface structural technology designed and developed through a decade of research for architectural and engineering applications.”

The 3D-printed prototype is 500 times smaller than those used by the firm for their architectural applications and was developed in collaboration with Arup and the Natural History Museum.

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New images have been published of Grimshaw and Arup-designed stations for the UK’s ”High Speed 2” railway system. Connecting London to the British Midlands, the mega-infrastructure project will be the UK’s second high-speed rail system, with HS1 already connecting London and the South East to the Channel Tunnel.

The Grimshaw and WSP-designed Curzon Street station in Birmingham will be the first brand new intercity station to be built in Britain since the 1800s, while Interchange Station, designed by Arup, will serve as a gateway station to the West Midlands and Birmingham Airport.

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This article was originally published by Metropolis Magazine as "The Skyscraper's Innovative Structure is Changing the Game for Earthquake Design".

The most remarkable thing about 181 Fremont—San Francisco’s third-tallest tower, designed by Heller Manus Architects—is not the penthouse’s asking price ($42 million). Rather, it’s an innovative yet unglamorous structural detail: a viscous damper system that far exceeds California Code earthquake-performance objectives for buildings of 181 Fremont’s class, allowing immediate reoccupation after a seismic event.

Bold, innovative and set to become the largest botanic garden in the world, images of Oman’s future light-filled oasis in the desert have been revealed. A collaboration between Arup, Grimshaw, and Haley Sharpe Design delivers the architecture, engineering, landscaping, and interpretive design in a scheme of over 420 hectares for the Oman Botanic Garden.

UNStudio, working in collaboration with Werner Sobek, have unveiled their designs for the Wasl Tower, a 300-meter tall skyscraper in Dubai. Centrally located along the main thoroughfare that connects the Emirates north to south, the Wasl Tower sits directly opposite the Burj Khalifa and, once completed, will feature one of the world’s tallest ceramic facades. Inspired by the movement of the city, the 300-meter supertall building takes on a "contrapposto" form, responding to the Sheikh Zayed Road along which it is sited.

Arup's’ research into alternative production techniques and materials has focused on the potential of 3D printing metal in the construction sector. Complex and individually designed steel structural elements can be efficiently produced “resulting in endless possibilities in mass customisation, weight reduction, product integration and more.”

Working with the Anglo-Dutch company 3Dealise, their 3D-printed sand molds are used in the traditional casting process to create sophisticated, unique structural steel nodes as a certified material. Sand printing offers a quick technique that can reuse the materials and allows costs to be kept low.