The United States Department of State has commissioned WEISS/MANFREDI to re-envision the Edward Durell Stone-designed embassy compound in New Delhi, India. Fifty years after its opening, the masterplan hopes to "restore the early modernist Chancery Building and recast the Embassy Compound as a multi-functional 28-acre campus setting." The masterplan's first phase will see the addition of a new office annex and restore the complex's landscape.
WEISS/MANFREDI broke ground yesterday on Cornell Tech's pioneering building, "The Bridge." Spearheading the first phase of the $2 billion Roosevelt Island tech campus, the new building will "bridge" the gap between academia and industry, providing a seven-story "corporate co-location" loft where students and industry leaders will collaborate.
“The Bridge is a crystalline incubator with river-to-river views and creates a three-dimensional crossroads, an ecosystem of innovation to catalyze collaboration between academics and entrepreneurs,” say design partners Marion Weiss and Michael A. Manfredi.
Ohio’s Kent State is set to break ground tomorrow on its New Center for Architecture and Environmental Design. The $48 million building was designed by New York-based WEISS/MANFREDI following a collaboration with Richard L. Bowen & Associates which won first in the project’s national competition.
The design, dubbed the “Kent State Design Loft,” transforms the notion of a continuous studio loft into a three-tiered structure that unites all the college’s programs, including construction management, under one roof.
New images of the building, after the break.
In honor of World Photo Day (August 19th) ArchDaily wanted to thank the photographers who bring to life the projects that we publish every day. So we asked architects to weigh in on the work of some of our most-appreciated architecture photographers. Here, Weiss/Manfredi writes on behalf of ESTO.
Wiel Arets, Dean of the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and Dirk Denison, Director of the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP), have announced the inaugural MCHAP shortlist – 36 “Outstanding Projects” selected from the 225 MCHAP nominees.
“The rich diversity of these built works is a testament to the creative energy at work in the Americas today,” said Arets. “When viewed alongside the innovative work by the MCHAP.emerge finalists and winner, Poli House by Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen which we honored in May, we see the evolution of a distinctly American conversation about creating livable space.” See all 36 winners after the break.
New information has been released — along with a series of renders — seven months after the New York City Council approved Cornell University's two million square foot technology campus in Roosevelt Island. Envisioned as "a campus built for the next century," Cornell Tech's first set of buildings has tapped into the talent of some of the most respected architecture firms in the city: Morphosis' Pritzker Prize-winning Thom Mayne, Weiss/Manfredi Architecture, Handel Architects, and Skidmore Owings & Merrill.
New images of the buildings, after the break...
New York-based architects Weiss / Manfredi and Philadelphia-based landscape architects OLIN have been announced as winner of the National Mall Design Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds at Sylvan Theater in Washington, DC. Weiss / Manfredi and OLIN were one of three winning teams selected by the Trust for the National Mall to rejuvenate and transform three neglected sites on the National Mall (read our original announcement here). In the winning proposal for Sylvan Theater, Weiss / Manfredi and OLIN sculpt the ground plan and restore the existing tree canopy to create a new performance landscape that can accommodate a wide variety of events, while permeating the site with critical visitor amenities.
Continue reading for more images, video and the architects’ press release.
After an intense and highly publicized competition, the Trust for the National Mall has announced the three winning teams selected to redesign the neglected sites of America’s front yard. As reported by the Washington Post, Rogers Marvel Architects & Peter Walker and Partners will redesign Constitution Gardens east of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, while Weiss/Manfredi & OLIN will bring new life to the Sylvan Theater, southeast of the Washington Monument. The Union Square will be forwarded to the Architect of the Capitol and transformed by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol & Davis Brody Bond.
Continue reading for more on the winning proposals.
The ten finalists competing in the final phase of the National Mall Design Competition are dreaming big. Proposals to restore the National Mall include flourishing lakeside gardens, contemporary cafés hovering over water, grassy new amphitheaters and underground pavilions exposed at the foot of the Washington Monument. Since the announcement of the finalists, the teams have been refining there proposals behind closed doors.
Now, the Trust for the National Mall has released the highly anticipated proposals to the public. From now until Sunday, at the Smithsonian Castle and the National Museum of American History, you can view each proposal in its entirety. If you don’t live in the D.C. area, no need to worry. Continue after the break to catch a glimpse of each submission and learn how you can help the jury decided who will revamp America’s “front yard”.
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.
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.
The St. Petersburg Pier, a long-adored and long-outdated West Florida cultural attraction, has unveiled the semi-finalists in its international redesign competition. Of the twenty-three qualified inquiries received, nine were chosen to move forward in the contest. The competition attracted big names in the architecture world; BIG, West 8 Urban Design, James Corner Field Operations, and HOK Architects were among the participants.
More on the St. Petersburg Pier after the break.
We are happy to share that our friends from New York-based Weiss Manfredi will be recognized at the 2011 AIA Honor Awards Ceremony in New Orleans this May. The firm’s Diana Center for Barnard College has infused the urban campus with a new sense of vitality as the vertically organized quad unites landscape and architecture with interior and exterior spaces. While the building contains 98,000 sqf of mixed use functions, the project also strongly emphasizes the constant connection between urban user and nature as a grand diagonal slash through the building creates a double-height glass atria to provide inward, as well as outward views. The slipped atria and an unfolded glazed staircase bring in natural light and eliminate visual boundaries between the College and the city, while providing spaces for informal interaction to encourage collaboration and dialogue across disciplines. The building has achieved a LEED Gold certification and Debora L. Spar, president of Barnard College explained, “The Diana Center has not only transformed the way our community interacts, but through its environmentally responsible design and function, has inspired us to become active participants in sustainability efforts. The project was also named a winner of ArchDaily’s Building of the Year Award for 2010 [be sure to view our full coverage of the Diana Center previously on AD].
Some time ago we visited New York City based Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, to interview founding principals Marion Wesis and Michael Manfredi. The multidisciplinary firm has distinguished themselves with their holistic design approach, successfully integrating the disciplines of architecture, art, infrastructure, and landscape design.
Our friends from Manhattan-based Weiss Manfredi have shared their museum design for Ithaca, New York’s Paleontological Research Institution, which houses one of the United States’ largest paleontological collections. Situated in the Finger Lakes region, the natural landforms of the site inspired the architects to take advantage of the existing gradual 40 ft slope – a feature which resulted from a receding ice sheet more than 20,000 years ago. Rather than considering the site as distinct and separate from the museum, this project creates a new topography: a continuous, terraced landscape that fuses architecture and ecology into a cohesive expression of the geologic processes involved in the region’s formation.
More images and more about the museum after the break.