Showing posts from category: architecture
National Architecture Week is a public awareness campaign from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) dedicated to increasing attention to the role architects play as a force for positive change in our communities and to elevate the public’s appreciation of design.
Similar to previous years’ observances, National Architecture Week will be virtual and will be composed of video presentations and a presence on Foursquare designed to reach the public (practicing nonmembers as well as architecture lovers in general) and members. As an incentive to follow AIA National on Foursquare, each day a Foursquare follower will be randomly selected to receive a prize from AIA Store.
The intent is to use several platforms for as many people as possible to share their thoughts and engage with like-minded professionals during the week.
The event will kick off Sunday, April 10, with a welcoming video from AIA President Clark Manus, FAIA, which will be posted to the AIA National YouTube channel.
In the video, he will discuss an emerging issue within the architecture profession and end his presentation with a thought-provoking question for participants to discuss online.
China is set to build a hotel shaped like an upside-down ping-pong paddle as part of a new $45.8 million sports complex.
The China Daily newspaper reports rounded guestroom windows will resemble the surface texture of a table tennis racket, while the “handle” of the 500-foot hotel will be an observation deck, allowing tourists to take in a view of the city of Huainan, where the hotel will be built.
“An erected ping-pong racket has a perfect architectural shape for a hotel,” Jin Chang, director with Huainan Municipal Bureau of Sports, tells the news outlet.
But the ping-pong racket hotel isn’t the only oddly shaped building in the works for the 165-acre sporting complex: there will also be a main stadium shaped like an American football, plus smaller stadiums and gym facilities shaped like a volleyball, soccer ball, and basketball.
The sports bureau has signed an agreement with China Sports Industry Group that guarantees various sports games will be held in the stadiums over the next 20 years.
This is not the first time hotel designers have turned to sports for inspiration. The Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai is designed as a wave to compliment the sail-shaped Burj al Arab, one of Dubai’s most iconic images.
In France, the Rugby World Cup was celebrated with the construction of a giant rugby ball hotel in 2007. During the event, rooms cost nearly $10,000 per night.
Hat tip Fox News
Retrofitting commercial buildings is quickly becoming the growth market in the building industry.
The shift from building new commercial spaces was bound to turn from erecting sparkling new mega-buildings on greenfields to retrofitting run-down but still valuable older buildings in good locations close to transportation or other amenities.
No one knows this better than the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Its LEED green building certification is often called upon to rate these buildings. To date, more than 40,000 projects participate in the commercial and institutional rating systems of USGBC, which represents 7.9 billion square feet of construction space.
Ashley Katz, communications manager for USGBC notes that many of these commercial ratings are for existing buildings. “LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance has seen explosive growth since 2008. More certifications are awarded under [the existing buildings program] on a square-footage basis than any other LEED rating system. And this is important because existing buildings make up the vast majority of the U.S. building stock.”
As a result of this growth, LEED projects are predominately existing buildings that have received certification based on verified energy performance. “We believe that the rapid uptake of this tool signals that the market is becoming increasingly aware of energy performance and is ready to move further toward even higher levels of performance,” Katz says.
USGBC’s experience is backed up by research. The McKinsey & Company report, “Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy,” which addresses reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, states that existing buildings will make money and will meet 85% of our new energy demand through 2030.
And the 2009 McGraw Hill Construction’s “SmartMarket Report” estimated that the green building retrofit and renovation market was 5%–9% by value, or a $2–$4 billion marketplace for major retrofit projects. By 2014, that share is expected to increase to 20%–30%, representing a $10–$15 billion market for major projects.
Katz points out the Adobe Systems project in Northern California as particularly representative of the retrofit commercial projects and why they are growing and will continue to grow: Adobe spent $1.4 million on 64 separate projects and received $389,000 in rebates, $1.2 million in annual savings, reported a 10-month payback, and 121% ROI.
These kinds of numbers are valuable for companies that need to see a strong ROI and must defend spending in a still-recovering economy.
Another example of a retrofit with a solid bottom line is the Armstrong World Industries’ corporate headquarters in Lancaster, Pa. Originally constructed in 1998, the glass and steel building was recently rehabbed for $138,000. Company leadership believes it will recoup that money in three years. For its outlay of money, the company got:
- waterless urinals, dual-flush toilets, and water sensors for the faucets so the company could greatly reduce its water footprint. Those changes and a fix to the humidification process reduced the annual use of water from 800,000 to 420,000 gallons
- occupancy sensors
- the purchase of 2 million kWh of wind power, which provides 75% of the project’s electricity use
- landscape with low-maintenance plants, no irrigation, and a catch basin that slows stormwater release.
Another project, the Joe Serna Jr. California EPA Headquarters Building in Sacramento, Calif., studied its investment in LEED Platinum certification and found it had increased its asset value by $12 million (for a $500,000 investment), while diverting 200+ tons of waste from the landfill and enjoying a building that was better than a third more energy efficient than California’s 1998 energy code.
The team for that project actually took on some untraditional methods, such as a vermicomposting program (worm composting), which diverts more than 10 tons of waste from landfills, and saves $10,000 annually. Plus, by eliminating garbage can liners and using reusable cloth bags in centrally located recycling bins, the headquarters saves $80,000 per year.
While success stories abound in the retrofit of existing buildings, some pundits warn of the potential “post-fossil-fuel age,” where many commercial buildings, high-rise buildings in particular, will be hard to maintain and may be abandoned for easier to maintain buildings.
In an interview with with Grist.com’s Kerry Trueman, James Howard Kuntsler, author of The Long Emergency, among many other books, warns of the impact of a capital scarce, energy-scarce future on mega-structures, which serves as a reminder that builders and owners must consider how buildings will weather an uncertain future where materials or energy might be scarce or expensive.
“The skyscraper is obsolete,” Kuntsler claims. “The main reason we’re done with skyscrapers is not because of the electric issues or heating-cooling issues per se, but because they will never be renovated! They are one-generation buildings. We will not have the capital to renovate them—and all buildings eventually require renovation. We likely won’t have the fabricated modular materials they require, either—everything from the manufactured sheet-rock to the silicon gaskets and sealers needed to keep the glass curtain walls attached.
“From now on, we need desperately to tone down our grandiosity. … Our cities have attained a scale that is inconsistent with the economic and energy realities of the future. The optimum building height, we will re-discover, is the number of stories most healthy people can comfortably walk up.”
LEEDing States
USGBC just released its list of top ten states in the United States for LEED-certified projects in 2010.
The top LEED states per capita, including the District of Columbia:
• District of Columbia: 25.15 square feet
• Nevada: 10.92 square feet
• New Mexico: 6.35 square feet
• New Hampshire: 4.49 square feet
• Oregon: 4.07 square feet
• South Carolina: 3.19 square feet
• Washington: 3.16 square feet
• Illinois: 3.09 square feet
• Arkansas: 2.9 square feet
• Colorado: 2.85 square feet
• Minnesota: 2.77 square feet
Of the projects represented on the list, the most-common project type was commercial office and the most-common owner type was for-profit organization. The cities most represented in the list were Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Photo credit: As a certified LEED Platinum facility, Armstrong’s corporate headquarters became only the sixth existing building (and the first outside of California) to achieve LEED’s highest level of certification.
Via GreenBuilder Mag
New Haven, Conn. — Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects will design a new headquarters for Vietnam’s national oil and gas company, creating a landmark development in Hanoi. PetroVietnam Construction Joint Stock Corporation, a subsidiary of PetroVietnam Oil and Gas Group, selected the firm following an international competition. The project is expected to break ground by the end of the year.
“We are honored to be selected for such a prominent project for one of Vietnam’s most important companies,” said Fred Clarke, Senior Principal of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. “Our design expresses the prestige of PetroVietnam and the potential of Hanoi and all of Vietnam.”
In the proposed design, a 79-story tower known as PetroVietnam Tower will contain the company’s headquarters and a luxury hotel. This building will be the centerpiece of the development and the city’s tallest building. To create its distinctive silhouette, the tower is hexagonal at the base and becomes triangular at the top. An adjacent 84,000-square-meter podium is composed of curving forms. A new center for the community, the podium will include a petroleum museum and media center, shops, and a skating rink. At the opposite end of the podium will be a 47-story residential tower with curved facades and a sloping top.
Highlighting PetroVietnam’s interest in sustainable energy, the development will be designed for LEED Gold certification. A glass wall will allow visitors to view some of the building’s high-performance systems in operation. In addition, part of the podium roof will be clad in photovoltaic panels. The building’s use of advanced technology extends to its structural design, which will enable the building to withstand a severe earthquake.
PetroVietnam Tower will be Pelli Clarke Pelli’s second project in Vietnam. The first, Vietcombank Tower, is under construction in Ho Chi Minh City.
About Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
Founded in 1977 and led by Cesar Pelli, Fred Clarke, and Rafael Pelli, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects has designed some of the world’s most recognizable buildings, including the World Financial Center in New York, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, and the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong. The firm has been honored with critical acclaim and hundreds of design awards, including the American Institute of Architects’ Firm Award and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
President Barack Obama has appointed Edwin Schlossberg, an interactive media designer and husband of Caroline Kennedy, to serve on a federal panel that helps oversee the architecture and design of the nation’s capital.
The White House announced the appointment Tuesday night for the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts among other diplomatic and cultural posts. Schlossberg has a design firm in New York.
Members of the arts panel play a key role in shaping Washington architecture, including the design of new memorials or museums added to the National Mall or other parts of the city. Seven commissioners appointed by the president serve four-year terms without compensation.
Past members have included architects, landscape architects and artists, including Daniel Chester French who sculpted the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial.
Hat tip Associated Press
architecture, architecture critic, architecture jobs, government architecture, Uncategorized, Urban Planning
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Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Chester, Lincoln Memorial, National Mall, Obama, U.S. Commission of Fine Arts
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An exhibit at the American Institute of Architects headquarters shows off the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system
The architecture firm Farr Associates, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the U.S. Green Building Council have produced a fantastic exhibit on how to create green neighborhoods. It opened in Chicago last year and is now on display at the American Institute of Architects headquarters in Washington.
This carries some symbolism. When it comes to sustainable communities, the architecture profession has been both hero and villain. It has been a hero because many of the early (and continuing) leaders of smart growth and sustainability in our built environment have been architects, from William McDonough to Peter Calthorpe, from Andres Duany to David Dixon. Frankly, in my opinion, architects were way ahead of the environmental community in forging solutions to sprawl. And it’s a good thing that they were, because they gave us environmentalists something positive to advocate.
Continue with article via The Atlantic
aia, architects, architecture, architecture critic, built environment, carbon-neutral office building, Design, eco building, Green Architecture, green buildings, Green Built Environment, Urban Planning
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aia, American Institute of Architects, Andres Duany, Chicago Architecture Foundation, David Dixon, Farr Associates, LEED, Peter Calthorpe, sustainable communities, The Atlantic, U.S. Green Building Council, William McDonough
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Portugal’s Eduardo Souto de Moura, who has designed soccer stadiums, museums and office towers in his home country, is the winner of this year Pritzker Architecture Prize, the highest honor for architects.
Among his best-known buildings are the soccer stadium in Braga, Portugal, where European soccer teams fought for the championship in 2004; and the 20-story Burgo Tower office block in his native city of Porto, built in 2007. Souto de Moura, 58, has also built family homes, cinemas, shopping centers and hotels and since setting up his own office in 1980.
Jury Chairman Peter Palumbo said Souto de Moura “has produced a body of work that is of our time but also carries echoes of architectural traditions,” according to a statement today from the Hyatt Foundation, which awards the prize.
“He has the confidence to use stone that is a thousand years old or to take inspiration from a modern detail by Mies van der Rohe,” the statement said.
Souto de Moura worked for fellow Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza for five years before founding his own company. Siza won the Pritzker Prize in 1992.
Other previous winners of the prize, which is worth $100,000, include Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas and Frank Gehry. The Hyatt Foundation established the prize in 1979 to honor a living architect.
YOU build it, will they come? That’s the basic question motivating plans to develop grand culture centres in otherwise derelict urban neighbourhoods. The idea is savvy: hire architects to build something beautiful (or at least something big), and then let the related businesses follow. This approach to urban rejuvenation—dubbed the “Bilbao effect” after Frank Gehry’s transformation of the Spanish city—has yielded some success stories, such as DC’s Penn Quarter (thank you Abe Pollin) and Minneapolis’s Mill District (the Guthrie Theatre is something else). Cleveland’s Gordon Square Arts District has essentially applied economic shock paddles to an entire area. But what about Dallas?
More than 30 years and $1 billion in the making, the Dallas Arts District is a 19-block area of museums and performance halls. It glitters with impressive buildings, including the handiwork of four Pritzker prize winners (I.M. Pei, Renzo Piano, Norman Foster and Rem Koolhaas). But Blair Kamin, the architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, is not impressed. Alas, despite the “architectural firepower”, it is an “exceedingly dull place”:
There are no bookstores, few restaurants outside those in the museums and not a lot of street life, at least when there are no performances going on. Even some of the architects who’ve designed buildings here privately refer to the district as an architectural petting zoo—long on imported brand-name bling and short on homegrown-urban vitality.
Part of the problem is that Dallas lacks urban density, particularly in this area, so inevitably fewer people are milling about. Another hitch is that the buildings themselves are essentially competing beautiful fortresses—designed as grand monuments, not inviting public spaces. Some locals complain that they are clearly built for folks who drive in for a bit of culture and then drive away. Mr Kamin suggests that plans for a new park, which will bridge a sunken freeway and connect the district with a buzzier neighbourhood to the north, should create more pedestrian traffic when it opens in late 2012. Otherwise, he warns, Dallas may have just created “the dullest arts district money can buy.”
But surely it is possible to spend even more money to create an even duller arts district. Let’s take a moment to consider Saadiyat Island, the sprawling arts development taking shape in Abu Dhabi. Like the arts district in Dallas, Abu Dhabi has imported a series of bling-bling names for some serious starchitecture. Frank Gehry has designed the new $800m outpost of the Guggenheim (pictured top; 12-times the size of the New York flagship and in need of a new art collection by 2015); Jean Nouvel, the Pritzker-winner who designed the Guthrie Theatre, is creating the Abu Dhabi branch of the Louvre; Norman Foster is designing a museum of national history; and the matter of density may be solved by new luxury resorts and villas. As for bookstores and cafe culture, surely the mesmerising mess of the Gehry building will make it impossible to read and unnecessary to caffeinate.
The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi has been in the news a lot lately, owing to a possible boycott of more than 130 artists over the working conditions of those charged with erecting these modern temples. But setting aside this public-relations disaster, which could significantly hamper the Guggenheim’s work in filling this museum, the Saadiyat complex poses a larger question: will people come? Is it enough to build these gigantic monuments to modernity (in an otherwise not-so-modern and remote place) and assume that the razzle-dazzle will lure the tourists? Dallas’s experiment illustrates the flaws in developments that consider the needs of architecture at the expense of people. A culture district without the glue of wandering pedestrians (or an atmosphere of working artists; or let’s face it, streets) may struggle to earn its keep.
Via The Economist
architecture, architecture critic
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Abu Dhabi, Bilbao effect, Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune, Guggenheim, I. M. Pei, Louvre, Norman Foster, Pritzker prize winners, Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano, Saadiyat Island
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Uptick in business has them cautiously optimistic about a rebound
Some of the larger architectural firms in Aspen and Basalt have hired additional employees this spring after cutting up to half of their staffs during the recession.
Poss Architecture and Planning, Harry Teague Architects, Cottle Carr Yaw Architects and Design Workshop’s Aspen branch have each hired three or four workers in recent weeks. Partners in each firm said business is up this spring and they are bringing on additional workers to help with projects on the books.
“This year is just different from last year in a positive way,” said John Cottle, a partner with Cottle Carr Yaw Architects.
However, the owners of each of the firms said they remain very cautious about the business outlook because there is so much uncertainty beyond the next year or so. Bill Poss said 2007 and 2008 were the best years in his firm’s 35-year history. He doesn’t expect business to return to that level in some time. On the other hand, any uptick in business over 2010 is welcomed.
“Last year was pretty bad,” he said.
Architectural firms are somewhat like a canary in the coal mine for the construction industry. Projects they work on translate into work for contractors and subcontractors six months or so later. Poss said he is constantly being quizzed by friends in the construction world who want to know if his business is picking up.
The answer isn’t a simple yes or no. His firm is working on a large hotel in North Carolina that had been temporarily placed on hold when the recession hit. It is an encouraging sign that the owners have felt the economy has recovered enough that they are moving ahead with the design, Poss said. “That’s about a 12-month deal” for his firm, he said.
Poss is getting more calls this year than last year from property owners in the Roaring Fork Valley who are considering building homes. While the interest is encouraging, he noted that “nobody’s pulled the trigger, so to speak.”
Consumers of architectural services, like consumers of all types, are shopping for the best prices. His firm has reduced its prices, which required it to cut costs. That meant laying off employees after the recession struck, and cutting salaries for the remaining staff.
Poss said he and his partners recently hired three more drafting people and interns and are considering hiring a fourth person. Even so, the firm isn’t anywhere close to where it was three years ago in terms of the staff count when it employed 56 people. That fell to about 22 at the lowest point and is now creeping back toward 30 workers, he said.
Poss said business has always been cyclical. He has experienced a downturn every five to seven years. This downturn was different because it was so severe and long. He said laying off so many employees was unpleasant because it had so many consequences.
“I had to lay off 30 families, not just individuals,” he said.
Harry Teague, another longtime veteran architect in Aspen, said it has been common over the years for the staffs of architectural firms to expand and contract, depending on the firm’s number of projects. Employees who were laid off from one firm could usually find work with another.
“The roller coaster is not particularly unique to this time” he said.
What was different in this cycle is that business dropped off for virtually all firms at once, according to Teague. That was tough because people who were laid off had a tough time finding new jobs with different firms.
Teague said his firm’s work is also picking up this year so he has hired four people, boosting the total to 12. He described the positions he hired for as a mix of architects, project managers and designers as well as interns.
Teague’s firm is working on a project at the Aspen Music School campus on Castle Creek Road, including the replacement of a building that can no longer be used. His firm is also designing a school in Crestone, Colo., a home in Telluride and a home in the Roaring Fork Valley. He is also the architect for a river center proposed by the Roaring Fork Conservancy in Basalt. That project is scheduled to be reviewed by the Basalt Town Council and Basalt Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday.
Overall, Teague said, it does feel as though the level of activity is increasing.
Cottle said his firm is staying busy with a combination of local, regional and even international projects, a combination of residential and commercial.
“Aspen is stronger than most of the other places where we work,” he said.
The firm is receiving more calls of inquiry so far this year compared to the last couple of years, he said. Cottle is encouraged because potential clients are exploring a variety of projects and seem serious about moving ahead.
The firm recently added four positions, one permanent and three tied to current projects, Cottle said. It’s too soon to tell if business has truly turned around, so he and his partners will remain cautious with their projections and with their hiring. Cottle said they don’t want to get in a position of hiring workers for permanent positions only to lay them off again. That’s rough on everybody, he said.
Cottle Carr Yaw employed 38 workers from 2000 through the end of 2008 and intentionally didn’t expand beyond that point. They laid off roughly half the staff during the lean last couple of years and are back to 20 employees with the recent hires.
Kurt Culbertson, chairman of the board for Design Workshop, said the firm hired two entry-level workers and two mid-level experience workers in its Aspen office within the last six months. The position were for landscape architects. They are looking to fill another two positions.
The firm — which also has offices in Denver, Tahoe, Austin, Salt Lake City, and Asheville, N.C. — works on everything from resort planning to residential gardens. The Aspen office is benefiting from an increase in business overseas as well as domestically and in the Roaring Fork Valley, according to Culbertson. He said some potential clients are even looking into real estate development, which has been on hold for the last couple of years.
Culbertson said the Aspen office of Design Workshop reduced its staff by about half after the recession.
“It hasn’t been fine times,” he said.
He’s been with the firm through five recessions, this one being the worst. The name of the game is living to fight another day.
“You can’t hire people back if you’re not in business,” Culbertson said.
Via The Aspen Times
architects, architecture, architecture jobs, construction, new buildings, recession, Residential, unemployed architects
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Basalt Town Council and Basalt Planning and Zoning Commission, canary in the coal mine, chairman, construction industry, Cottle Carr Yaw Architects, Design Workshop, Harry Teague Architects, John Cottle, Kurt Culbertson, Poss Architecture and Planning, recession, Roaring Fork Valley
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For those who have experienced the reality of a recent disaster, the following days and weeks are chaotic and filled with stories of heroism and loss. The first responders are not charities but the families of those who are injured or missing.
These immediate days are also not the time for architects or urban planners to show up thinking they can start rebuilding and Architecture for Humanity makes it a policy to only take action with invitation. Within hours of the disaster we were approached by a number of Japanese groups, including our local chapters in Kyoto, Tokyo and Osaka, for our support and services and so are raising funds and laying the groundwork for a partnership in the reconstruction initiative. We are receiving contributions online.
Currently, a coalition of individuals is trying to help update foreign nationals in Japan with the latest information regarding unfolding events. This is also being done via twitter the hashtag #honyaquake.
After primary needs are addressed, Architecture for Humanity will move to support those local Japanese architects and building professionals who want to contribute their own time and expertise in the rebuilding efforts. We will direct resources to help professionals protect and preserve cultural and historic structures and provide services to communities that would otherwise not have access to their expertise.
Complete story at Architecture for Humanity
