Four Firms Shortlisted to Refurbish US Embassy in Athens

Posted on mayo 16, 2013 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

The Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has shortlisted four design firms for the major rehabilitation of the Athens Chancery project. Protected as an architectural landmark, the mid-century modern building was originally designed by the famed Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius with the consulting architect Pericles A. Sakellarios.

The shortlisted firms are:

Ann Beha Architects
DesignLab Architects, Inc.
Machado Silvetti / Baker
Mark Cavagnero Associates

Fifty-six (56) firms were accepted for consideration to compete. The shortlisted submissions presented projects that were well-conceived and well-executed, displaying a sophisticated understanding of the issues involved in renovating historically significant buildings and experience with rehabilitations of complex modern structures. Each presented a diversity of projects which displayed a strong use of materials and context, and demonstrated experience with design and construction of facilities in a campus setting. The shortlisted offerors also presented the design capabilities of their proposed lead designers, each of whom possessed exemplary credentials and a strong portfolio of relevant work experience.

The shortlisted firms will assemble their technical teams and submit detailed information on their organization and qualifications for the second stage of evaluation.

Four Firms Shortlisted to Refurbish US Embassy in Athens originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 16 May 2013.

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BIG Unveils Design for Miami Beach Convention Center

Posted on mayo 14, 2013 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

BIG has collaborated with West 8, Fentress, JPA and developers Portman CMC to challenge an OMA- and South Beach ACE-lead team in the 52-acre Miami Beach Convention Center overhaul. With a mission to “bring Miami Beach back to the Convention Center,” BIG’s newly unveiled proposal aims to transform the “dead black hole of asphalt in the heart of one of the most beautiful and lively cities in America” into an archipelago of urban oases made up of paths, plazas, parks and gardens, which will all lead to the heart of the plan: the Miami Beach Square. This tropical centerpiece will become the front door to the convention center and the convention hotel, as well as the front lawn to a revitalized Jackie Gleason Theatre, a town square for the city hall, an outdoor arena for the Latin American Cultural Museum, and the red carpet for the big botanical ball room.

More images and the teams description after the break…

“We have devised a strategy that combines urban planning and landscape design to create a neighborhood characterized by human scale, pedestrian connections, shaded spaces with public oriented programs lining the streets and squares. A neighborhood that, depending on the season, the weekday, or even the time of day can be perceived as a lively downtown neighborhood or an inviting public park.” Bjarke Ingels, Creative Director BIG

The square creates a series of intuitive connections across the site – a diagonal that connects the Soundscape to the Botanical Gardens and Holocaust Memorial. A north-south connection joins the Collins Canal to Lincoln Road and naturally channels the flow of convention visitors to the liveliness of Lincoln Road. A green network of public spaces that stitches together all of the adjacent neighborhoods – formerly separated by the convention center – into a complete and coherent community – for both visitors and residents. All public programs – old and new come together on the square. All great cities have a great square – this will be Miami Beach Square.

“Rather than scattering all the program across the 52 acre site we have decided to concentrate it around the center piece of our public realm – Miami Beach Square bringing focus to the renovated Jackie Gleason Theater, the entrance of the convention center and for the first time ever creating a worthy civic presence to Miami Beach City Hall.” Jamie Maslyn Larsen, West 8, Creator of Soundscape Park

By popular demand we have found a way to preserve and enhance the architecture and programming of the Jackie Gleason Theatre. By making it all public at the street level – opening up lobbies, restaurants and cafes on all sides – we make the Gleason a lively centerpiece in this new neighborhood. Towards the Square we propose to extend the fly tower with a performing arts center with various spaces for rehearsal and offering a visual connection to the public. Adjacent to the Jackie Gleason Theater sits the new Latin American Cultural Museum consisting of a base of public programs opening up on the square. The building form creates a covered shaded event space on the square blurring the transition between inside and outside.

Today the Miami Beach City Hall is almost like a left over wedged between random neighbors surrounded by traffic. Our proposal places it rightly in the middle of the town square with amble space for public expression and at the heart of communal life. The Miami Beach City Hall and Botanical Ballroom book end the Square making it a natural extension of the civic activities of city hall. To the north the botanical ballroom opens up allowing for beautiful views of the botanical gardens and the memorial. The Ballroom has an entrance to the south and to the north allowing for seamless connectivity to the convention center – under the shade and shelter of the canopies.

Rather than being the hermetic mono programmatic box that the Miami Beach Convention Center is today – a single program at the size of an urban block- we propose to consider the Convention Center an actual urban block complete with different programs – grown together to form a continuous architecture. A gradual transition from public to private – and from cultural to civic – conference to residential turns a stroll around the block into an experience of continuous variation. Along the entire west adjacent to the various gardens and the new square – the main entrances to the convention Center and Conference Center occupies the ground. The hotel lobby spans the entire south elevation in continuation of the Convention Center lobby. The Hotel façade as pulled back forming a cascade of terraces for the south facing hotel rooms – decreasing the perceived height seen from the Gleason.

The Roof of the Convention Center is framed by a green roof drawing the outline of the urban block – framing the hotel gardens and the roof parking interspersed with shade giving landscapes. As a reoccurring annual event we propose to sponsor an art foundation that will deliver a roof art piece to cover the remaining roof surface turning it into a giant ever changing canvas seen from the air as well as the roof terrace of the hotel. An ever changing giant canvas that will annually challenge contemporary artists with an architectural scale canvas – seen from the roofs and penthouses of adjacent buildings, from airplanes and google earth.

“Realizing that a challenge that seemed to be driven by two incompatible agendas was actually the opportunity – to create a convention center district that is not only for convention-goers but, more importantly, for residents.” Jack Portman, Portman Holdings and JPA

Architects: BIG
Creative Director: Bjarke Ingels
Partners In Charge: Thomas Christoffersen, Kai-Uwe Bergmann
Project Team: Leon Rost (Project Leader), Romea Muryn, Blake Smith, Carolien Schippers, Doug Stechschulte, Chris Junkin, Choonghye Lee, Kenneth Amoah, Ivy Hume, David Dottelonde, Birk Daugaard, Christoffer Gotfredsen, Maya Shapova, Manon Gicquel, David Splitter
Development Team: Portman Holdings, CMC, Bal Harbor Shops, Cirque du Soleil
Design / Planning Team: BIG (master plan and architecture), West 8 (public realm), John Portman & Associates (hotel), Fentress (convention center), Revuelta Architects (local)
Consultant Team: Schwebke Shishkin (Civil), Plummer Associates (Traffic) , HDC Associates (Estimating, Scheduling), CMC Group Construction, Greenberg Traurig (Legal), Desimone (Structural), Space Syntax (Pedestrian Accessibility), MIT/Carlo Ratti Associati (Technology), Lead Pencil Studio (Art Consultation)
Pr / Marketing / Branding Team: Garber & Goodman (Public Relations), Cinnamon Associates (Public Relations)
Feasibility Team: Courtney Lord (Retail), BRC (Entertainment), Noell Consulting (Residential)
Financing Team: Piper Jaffray, Brookfield, HFF
Production Team: Squint Opera (Animation), MIR (Renderings), Kennedy Fabricators (Model)
Site Area: 52 acres
Photographs: BIG

BIG Unveils Design for Miami Beach Convention Center originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 14 May 2013.

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Red Bull Music Academy New York / INABA

Posted on mayo 13, 2013 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

Architects: INABA
Location: New York, USA
Inaba Principal In Charge: Jeffrey Inaba
Inaba Project Architect: Ostap Rudakevych
Inaba Project Team: Yoichiro Mizuno, Alan Kwan, Sean Connolly, Steven Tsai, Shuning Zhao, Allyn Hughes, Stephanie Lee, Richard Yoo
Architect Of Record: SLAB Architecture
Area: 38200.0 ft2
Year: 2013
Photographs: Greg Irikura

Slab Architecture Principal In Charge: Jill Leckner
Slab Architecture Project Architect: Matt Voss
Slab Architecture Project Team: Laura Trevino, Min Chen
Environmental Graphics / Wayfinding: MTWTF – Glen Cummings (Principal), Aliza Dzik, Pedro Goncalves, Ly Le, Virginia Chow, Farzin Lofti-‐Jam (Project Team)
Lighting Design: Tillotson Design Associates – Suzan Tillotson (Principal), Erin de Vries, Christopher Cheap (Project Designer)
Structural Engineering: Buro Happold – Cristobal Correa (Associate Partner), Jeff Thompson (Project Engineer)
Mep: Kam Chiu Associates

Jeffrey Inaba’s firm INABA was commissioned by Red Bull Music Academy to transform four floors of a vacant building in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood into a model learning environment. INABA has used dramatic walls and lighting to create unique collaborative work areas in place of the traditional classroom.

Curving walls throughout the 38,000 square foot forum give shape to the distinct spaces. On the ground level the walls extend far into the former warehouse allowing passersby and users unrestricted views across the floor. They reveal a cross section of the types of activity taking place which include performances, private workshops, music production and broadcasting, aimed at making a statement that the space is different in its use from the shops, galleries, and cafés of the area. Below, on the cellar level, the arcing walls of the capsule-‐shaped lounge are interrupted only to establish long views from the recording studio located at the south end to the open-‐air patio at the north. On one of the upper floors, the similarly rounded walls enclose eight collaborative music studio pods. Each has large windows facing onto open workrooms and the city skyline.

Since learning occurs in different kinds of contexts, the street and cellar levels are organized for a range of encounters for groups of varying sizes. The central areas accommodate big gatherings like receptions or performances. In nearby spaces people can interact for an extended period of time in a more personal setting including lounges, a radio studio, living room-‐like auditorium, production studio, and rehearsal room.

In an interior that is used at all hours of the day, the lighting plays a key role in setting the architectural atmosphere. During the day the ground level receives generous amounts of natural light from high floor-‐to-‐ceiling windows, while at night it is illuminated by rows of warm-‐colored custom-‐fabricated neon fixtures. Diffused LED lighting illuminates the radio studio and a programmable LED system focuses light on rows of acrylic tubes above the bar. Curved FRG light diffusers and indirect lighting lend an intimate setting to the auditorium while the ceiling structure supports light riggings for more theatrical effects. In smaller ancillary spaces, colored neon and grazing fixtures are employed in combination with high saturation paint. The cellar lounge has a low ceiling embedded with hundreds of linear LED fixtures to create a distributed field of light.

The Red Bull New York studios will be used as a space for experimentation. The programming is geared to encourage exchange and production with the goal being to share ideas, make things, and test the results. For example, the ground level will serve as an event venue for people to meet and talk, at other times as a working studio for producing content inspired by such discussions, and at others as a gallery where that work is displayed, together producing a feedback loop of trial-‐and-‐error learning.

Red Bull Music Academy New York / INABA originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 13 May 2013.

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DawnTown 2013: Landmark Miami Design Competition Winners Announced

Posted on mayo 13, 2013 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

DawnTown recently announced the winners for Landmark Miami, their 2013 ideas competition which focused on how cities are instantly identified by the individual structures within them. With the challenge of coming up with a new symbol for the future, architects and designers were tasked with creating an iconic architectural piece that contributes to the image of Miami. Studio Dror was announced as the first prize winner for their ‘Miami Lift’ proposal which pays tribute to the city’s by elevating visitors to give them a new perspective to the city. More images and information on the winning entries after the break.

1^st Place: ‘Miami Lift’
Team Name: Studio Dror
Location: New York City, NY, USA

2^nd Place: ‘Lemonade Square’
Team Members: David Giraldeau, Alexandre Guilbeault
Team Name: REMED
Location: Montreal, Canada

3^rd Place: ‘Torre de Las Americas’
Team Members: Mauricio Gonzalez, Alfredo Andia
Location: Miami, FL, USA / Santiago, Chile

Honorable Mention: ‘Great Spirit Woods’
Team Members: Jakub Frolik & Vojtěch Kolář
Team Name: Frolík & Kolář + VIZarch.cz
Location: Brno, Czech Republic

DawnTown 2013: Landmark Miami Design Competition Winners Announced originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 13 May 2013.

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DawnTown 2013: Landmark Miami Design Competition Winners Announced

Posted on mayo 13, 2013 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

1^st Place: ‘Miami Lift’
Team Name: Studio Dror
Location: New York City, NY, USA

2^nd Place: ‘Lemonade Square’
Team Members: David Giraldeau, Alexandre Guilbeault
Team Name: REMED
Location: Montreal, Canada

3^rd Place: ‘Torre de Las Americas’
Team Members: Mauricio Gonzalez, Alfredo Andia
Location: Miami, FL, USA / Santiago, Chile

Honorable Mention: ‘Great Spirit Woods’
Team Members: Jakub Frolik & Vojtěch Kolář
Team Name: Frolík & Kolář + VIZarch.cz
Location: Brno, Czech Republic

DawnTown 2013: Landmark Miami Design Competition Winners Announced originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 13 May 2013.

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Augustus F. Hawkins High School / CSDA Design Group

Posted on mayo 12, 2013 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

Architects: CSDA Design Group
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Landscape Architect: Melendrez Design Partners
Area: 351,070 sqft
Year: 2012
Photographs: Henry Cabala/ CSDA Design Group

The new Augustus F. Hawkins High School is part of the largest school construction building program in the history of Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Located on 15.37 acres in highly urbanized South Los Angeles, the new school serves 2,025 students. The school consists of three (3) Small Learning Communities (SLC’s), each including classrooms, science labs and administration offices. Each of the learning communities shares the goal of preparing and inspiring students to become transformative leaders in South Los Angeles and the global community.

Named after “Gus” Hawkins, a Watts political leader, 12-term Assemblyman, and California’s first African American elected to the United States Congress, the 4-story neighborhood high school is a high performance educational facility that was designed to relieve overcrowding at nearby schools and eliminate student busing. The school responds to LAUSD’s goal to facilitate better education through the design, construction and maintenance of healthy, safe and modern facilities that promote schools as centers of community andreflect the wise and efficient use of public funds and limited land and public resources.

Embracing the high performance concept to build healthy and sustainable schools, Augustus F. Hawkins HS was designed to meet the United States’ first green building rating program especially designed for K-12 schools. Known as theCollaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS), the program sets forth criteria for the design of environmentally responsible and high performance learning spaces that promoteenergy and water efficiency, sustainable site planning and use of “green” materials. CHPS components integrated into the design of the Augustus F. Hawkins HS include:

· Limiting turf areas and using native plants and drip irrigation systems for landscaping to reduce potable water use for sewer conveyance by 35%.
· Installing operable windows and/or separate controls for each classroom to cut down on energy costs and increase occupant comfort.
· Using low-emitting health-conscious materials and products (i.e., carpets, paints, adhesives, sealants) in all classrooms and staff work areas to improve indoor air quality and reduce health related illnesses.
· Installation of a “cool roof” to reduce energy use by up to 50%.
· Designing a Central Plant to house all HVAC equipment needed to generate heating and cooling requirements for campus buildings thereby increasing energy efficiency, lowering operating costs, and generating cleaner air and providing enhanced occupant comfort.

The SLC organization of the academic buildings revolves around the verticality of the exterior main stairways that allow open interaction amongst the school and students while providing shade by stainless-steel mesh screens. The tight urban site challenged designers to maximize program and security solutions through continued verticality including locating campus basketball courts on the roof of the on-grade parking garage for staff, students and guests.

The outdoor spaces around and within the campus were designed to provide a park-like sanctuary for students and the adjacent community that conveys a collegiate landscape character. Reminiscent of many urban college campuses, the overall landscape suggests a school built within a park; tranquil and sheltered from the surrounding inner-city context. Broad, spreading canopy trees shade new pedestrian sidewalks. Spacious synthetic turf fields lie along Menlo Street, the most visually permeable edge of the site, presenting a lush green foreground for views of the campus beyond.

A Community Plaza bounded by the Academic Buildings, Multi-Purpose Building and Gymnasium Building functions as a formal receiving space for the school as well as a community amenity after school hours, allowing open internal pedestrian access to gym, library and performing arts facilities for neighborhood visitors. This centralized plaza unifies the campus SLC’s as well as its extracurricular activities and outdoor sitting areas are provided throughout the campus to encourage interaction between students. Accent paving in the form of asphalt color-coating, asphalt pavers and/or integral color tactile pavers highlight major nodes and routes of travel, aiding intuitive way-finding through the plaza with a pattern inspired by circuitry that is vital to information technology, the cornerstone of the school’s curriculum.

A sunken outdoor amphitheater with seat walls, sloped turf and bench seating provide seating up to 350 students for larger performances, while maintaining a sense of intimacy. Athletic fields and courts occupy the northernmost parts of campus, nestled within a perimeter of water-wise low growing shrubs and groundcovers. A visual corridor into the Community Plaza is punctuated by a large outdoor classroom situated within verdant green surroundings and sheltered by canopy trees.

Augustus F. Hawkins High School / CSDA Design Group originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 12 May 2013.

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John and Frances Angelos Law Center / Behnisch Architekten + Ayers Saint Gross

Posted on mayo 12, 2013 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

Architects: Behnisch Architekten, Ayers Saint Gross
Location: 1401 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD USA
Client: University of Baltimore
Gross Area: 18.0123 m2 / 194.000 sqft
Year: 2013
Photographs: Courtesy of Behnisch Architekten

The University of Baltimore called for a new building for its law school that would offer a contemporary and functional solution, as well as establish the school as an integral partner in enhancing the culture, commerce, and future of Baltimore and the region. A competition was held for the design of the new building. Five international architects were invited to participate in the competition after a two-phase RFQ. Behnisch Architekten in partnership with Ayers/Saint/Gross of Baltimore were selected as the winning entry.

The new home of the John and Frances Angelos Law Center will unite classrooms, faculty offices, administrative space, and the law library under a single roof for the first time. This building, to be located at the prominent intersection of Mount Royal Avenue and Charles Street, will functionally & symbolically define the School of Law as an Ωcademic & social nexus, offering state-of-the-art teaching and learning facilities while fostering an interactive, communicative environment for collaboration between students, faculty, and administrators.

With the proximity of the site to Baltimore’s principal train station, Penn Station; at the terminus of one of Baltimore’s great urban thoroughfares; and immediately adjacent to the Jones Falls Expressway, this project is also an opportunity to create an important and highly visible threshold to the campus and the City, and to demonstrate the commitment of the University of Baltimore to the renewal and development of the city. The building serves as a gateway into the city and engages the surrounding neighborhood.

The Angelos Law Center is the first large-scale opportunity for the University to demonstrate their intent to pursue strategies that “eliminate global warming emissions” and achieve climate neutrality. The School of Law will maximize the use of natural daylight on the building interior; intelligently apportion spaces such that tempering of interiors is optimized based on function and occupancy; conserve and reuse as many water resources as feasible; and utilize a flexible and highly efficient façade system to meet all of these goals. It will also engage the Law School community by providing interior spaces that connect people to the cycles of nature (light, air, water) and to other people in the building.

The building form consists of three interlocking L-shaped volumes which articulate the functions of the building program – classroom facilities, offices, and the law library. The administrative volume also includes the separate accessible clinics, where students, faculty, and local attorneys provide legal services to the community. An atrium, the void connecting the three volumes, provides space for a lobby, coffee bars, and lounges. The Appellate Moot Court extends down from the main lobby to a lower garden level; court hearings, lectures and events are held within its assembly space.

John and Frances Angelos Law Center / Behnisch Architekten + Ayers Saint Gross originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 12 May 2013.

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Tucson Mountain Retreat / DUST

Posted on mayo 9, 2013 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

Architects: DUST
Location: Tucson, Arizona, USA
Project Team: Cade Hayes, Jesus Robles, Dale Rush
Area: 3,640 sqft
Year: 2012
Photographs: Jeff Goldberg/Esto

General Contractor: DUST – Cade Hayes, Jesus Robles
Construction Crew: Caleb Coy, Dale Rush, Jason Gallo, Agustin Valdez Sr., Agustin Valdez JR, Cesar Valdez, Tomas Valdez, Casey Perry
Interior Design: DUST – Cade Hayes, Jesus Robles, Natalia Zieman, Kevin Osborn
Lighting: Claudia Kappl
Structural Engineering: Harris Engineering Services
Plumbing/Mechanical Engineering: Otterbein Engineering
Electrical Engineering: Matthews Consulting & Design
Acoustics/Home Automation: Crestron Topperfo, RPG Acoustic Mtrls

The Tucson Mountain Retreat is located within the Sonoran Desert; an extremely lush, exposed, arid expanse of land that emits a sense of stillness and permanency, and holds mysteries of magical proportions. The home is carefully sited in response to the adjacent arroyos, rock out-croppings, ancient cacti, animal migration paths, air movement, sun exposure and views. Great effort was invested to minimize the physical impact of the home in such a fragile environment, while at the same time attempting to create a place that would serve as a backdrop to life and strengthen the sacred connections to the awe-inspiring mystical landscape.

Intentionally isolating the parking over 400 feet from the house, one must traverse and engage the desert by walking along a narrow footpath toward the house, passing through a dense clustered area of cacti and Palo Verde that obscure direct views of the home Upon each progressive footstep, the house slowly reveals itself, rising out of the ground. The entry sequence, a series of playfully engaging concrete steps, dissolves into the desert. As one ascends, each step offers an alternative decision and a new adventure. Through this process, movement slows and senses are stimulated, leaving the rush of city life behind. The home is primarily made of Rammed Earth, a material that uses widely available soil, provides desirable thermal mass and has virtually no adverse environmental side effects. Historically vernacular to arid regions, it fits well within the Sonoran Desert, while at the same time it embodies inherent poetic qualities that engage the visual, tactile and auditory senses of all who experience it.

The program of the home is divided into three distinct and isolated zones; living, sleeping, and music recording/home entertainment. Each zone must be accessed by leaving the occupied zone, stepping outside, and entering a different space. This separation resolves the clients’ desired acoustic separation while at the same time, offers a unique opportunity to continuously experience the raw desert landscape.

Rooted in the desert, where water is always scarce, the design incorporates a generous 30,000 gallon rainwater harvesting system with an advanced filtration system that makes our most precious resource available for all household uses.

Solar heat gain is reduced by orienting the house in a linear fashion along an east–west axis, and by minimizing door and window openings in the narrow east and west facades. The main living and the sleeping spaces extend into patios and open toward the south under deep overhangs that allow unadulterated views and access to the Sonoran Desert. The overhangs provide shelter from the summer sun while allowing winter sunlight to enter and passively heat the floors and walls. They also scoop prevailing southerly breezes and enhance cross ventilation, which can be flexibly controlled by adjusting the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors. When the large glass doors are fully opened, the house is transformed, evoking a boundless ramada-like spirit where the desert and home become one.