Washington: The Latest Architecture and News

The international design firm Olson Kundig has designed a new sustainable option for after-death care. In fact, the architects created the world’s first facility for converting human remains into soil, a flagship building for Recompose in Seattle.

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The Seattle Asian Art Museum renovation by LMN Architects and landscape architect Walker Macy is set to open in February next year. The project takes the original, early 20th-century building and brings it up to 21st-century standards. The renovation includes the preservation of the 1933 building and Art Deco front façade and a new glass-enclosed park lobby overlooking the Olmstead-designed Volunteer Park.

Kengo Kuma & Associates have proposed a new 40-story mixed-use skyscraper incorporating a historic Gothic Revival facade in Seattle. Located in the Belltown neighborhood, the project would reuse the ornate five-story Bebb & Gould’s Terminal Sales Annex facade. Made in collaboration with Ankrom Moisan Architects and the landscape architecture firm Berger Partnership, the project aims to reinforce the Gothic and Art Deco heritage of Seattle’s downtown.

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Microsoft has unveiled plans to commit $500 million to advance affordable housing solutions across the city of Seattle, Washington. The money, to be distributed as loans and grants, will kick-start new solutions to the city’s housing crisis, where income increases have lagged behind rising housing prices.

The investment breaks down as $225 million committed to subsidize middle-income housing construction in six targeted cities, $250 million to support low-income housing across the King County region, and $25 million to philanthropic grants to address homelessness in the greater Seattle region. The tech giant has targeted the region in close proximity to the site of its Redmond headquarters expansion, expected to accommodate 8,000 new employees.

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Snarkitecture’s “Fun House” has opened at the National Building Museum in Washington DC, an interactive exhibition forming part of the museum’s Summer Block Party series of temporary structures created inside its historic Great Hall.

More than 1500 people visited Fun House at its July 4th opening day, which comes three years after Snarkitecture’s installation at the 2015 Summer Block Party, titled "The BEACH." Other noted collaborations for Summer Block Party include Studio Gang in 2017, James Corner Field Operations in 2016, and Bjarke Ingels Group in 2014.

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Videos

The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts has released new photographs as construction continues on the Steven Holl Architects-designed expansion project in Washington DC. Due to open in September 2019, the REACH expansion project aims to “provide artists and visitors new and wide-ranging opportunities to fully interact and engage with the Center.”

The project features 72,000 square feet of interior space across a 4.6-acre site, resulting in a 20% increase in public areas, and a doubling of outdoor space.

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