Showing posts from category: architecture
- Designing using CAD
As an AEC staffing expert and someone who has sold, supported and trained in CAD products for years, I would love to know your thoughts on this article. For example, why is BIM below the radar?
Architects can now design buildings without lifting a pencil, thanks to computer technology. In fact, digitally conceived architecture can be too complex to draw by hand or to develop using conventional drawings, even those printed by machine. Yet there may be risks in abandoning the pencil and relying so completely on the computer.
Drawing manually used to be an indispensable architectural skill, and not just for mechanical drafting. Drawing by hand was how historic architecture was documented and analyzed, and how incipient design ideas were recorded and explored graphically. For many architects, drawing by hand is both inherently pleasurable and integral to critical design thinking, a way to directly and creatively connect the eye, brain and hand. But today, computers enable architects to do little or no manual drawing, and drawing less by hand may tempt some architects to think less critically.
In architecture offices today, you rarely find a drafting board with a parallel bar, rolls of tracing paper, measuring scales, triangles, drawing templates or boxes of pencils and markers. Instead you see a workstation with a flat-screen monitor, keyboard and mouse. Many designers use computers for “drawing” everything: diagrams, preliminary design studies, three-dimensional views and construction documents. Produced on large-format printers, drawings can even be made to look like hand-drawn sketches.
Computer-aided-design (CAD) has transformed architectural design methodology, not because it eliminates manual drawing, but because it allows architects to compose stacks of drawings at every stage of design. Architects can show clients countless design variations, create realistic renderings and graphic simulations, and produce detailed construction documents.
Once preliminary design studies – site plan and massing studies, floor plan layouts, sections and elevations – are undertaken and a preliminary digital model is created, the architect can obtain three-dimensional views, including animated walk-throughs or fly-throughs. The designer also can modify any part of the project, whether a house or a high-rise, and CAD software can automatically edit and update all parts of the design affected by the modification.
CAD software can manage a vast amount of layered data, keeping track of and coordinating all digital model components and systems, such as the structural skeleton, windows, doors, interior partitions, floor finishes, ductwork and plumbing. These programs can alert the designer if components conflict geometrically and can instantly recompute dimensions, floor areas and material quantities.
It gets even better. When a design is finalized and fully defined in a three-dimensional digital model, CAD programs can print annotated, two-dimensional drawings for bidding, building permits and construction. For highly complex designs that cannot be adequately represented and interpreted using conventional documents, the digital model itself can become the primary documentation.
Architect Frank Gehry’s work epitomizes and necessitates this approach. His design concepts begin as sketchbook squiggles or crumpled paper and are ultimately transformed into volumetrically complicated, expressively curvaceous buildings impossible to draw. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Stata Center at M.I.T. and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park could not have been designed and constructed without using digital models.
Contractors for these projects directly accessed Gehry’s digital models, not conventional drawings. That was the only way they could calculate and price the enormous quantities of materials and labor necessary to fabricate and install the thousands of steel structural members and metal panels that make up the complex exterior skins of these buildings. Only with advanced computer technology could Gehry’s idiosyncratic approach to design have evolved and his projects been implemented.
Yet if every architect emulated Gehry’s expressive approach, a lot of bad architecture would result. This is because CAD can seductively induce “I can, therefore I shall” thinking. Because architects can digitally model almost any form they can dream up, CAD can lead to excessively complex, overwrought building designs – form for form’s sake. Such CAD-gone-wild buildings may be inappropriate for their sites, functionally inefficient, difficult to construct, way over budget and perhaps even ugly.
During the preliminary design phase, CAD programs also can yield machine-printed drawings that make a schematic design idea appear more precise, refined and resolved than it really is. Before CAD, concepts drawn by hand often were sketchy and loosely delineated with wavy or fuzzy lines laid down by soft pencils, felt-tip pens or charcoal. The art and technique of manual drawing ensured that schematic ideas looked schematic.
The computer is a powerful tool, but still just a tool that must be used properly. Designers who never draw manually still must engage in critical thinking and rational invention, as if they were drawing and designing by hand, even though their hand grasps a mouse instead of a pencil.
Via Washington Post
architects, architecture, CAD, Design
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Bilbao, CAD, Chicago's Millennium Park, Guggenheim Museum, Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Los Angeles, Spain, Stata Center at M.I.T., Walt Disney Concert Hall
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Transitional spaces at stem cell building encourage ‘cross-pollination of ideas’
The Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building at the University of California (UCSF) hosted a grand opening yesterday to celebrate the completion of a challenging construction project.
Designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects with executive architect the Smith Group and DPR Construction, the new facility will act as the headquarters for the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research, analysing complex scientific data at the earliest stages of human and animal development.
Located on a steeply sloping hillside, the site posed multiple challenges for the design team. A solution was found in the creation of a raised serpentine structure supported by steel space trusses springing from concrete piers, minimising space excavation and incorporating seismic base isolation to absorb earthquake forces.
The main laboratory area is arranged in four split levels set in stepped stages working in harmony with the sloped nature of the urban hillside. Each of these levels is topped with a cluster of offices and a green roof-space planted with wildflowers.
An external network of stairs and pedestrian bridges takes advantage of San Francisco’s temperate climate, with internal stairs and break rooms providing a base for the ‘cross-pollination of ideas’ among scientists. Interior glazing maximises visual connectivity while plentiful glazing on the south-facing side affords widespread views to the wooded slope of nearby Mount Sutro.
Rafael Vinoly Architects is currently pushing forward on two long-awaited projects in London, UK – work has now recommenced on 20 Fenchurch Street (the Walkie Talkie) and the £5.5bn redevelopment of Battersea Power Station has been approved by Wandsworth Council.
Hat Tip to World Architecture News
Fed Chair Ben Bernake
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress on Wednesday that the sharp drop in unemployment over the last two months is encouraging but cautioned that it will take several years for hiring to return to normal.
In prepared testimony before the House Budget Committee, Bernanke also warned that failing to forge a plan to reduce the government’s $1 trillion-plus deficits over the long term could eventually hurt the economy.
The unemployment rate was 9 percent in January after the fastest two-month decline in 53 years.
Those declines “provide some grounds for optimism on the employment front,” Bernanke said.
Bernanke is making his first appearance before the House since Republicans took control last month. He is expected to face tough questions from them, despite being a member of the party.
The Fed chief said the economy is strengthening, helped by more spending by consumers and businesses. However, the economic recovery won’t be assured until companies step up hiring on a consistent basis.
Bernanke’s remarks suggest the Fed will stick with its plan to buy $600 billion worth of Treasury debt by the end of June. The program is aimed to invigorate spending and the economy by lowering rates on loans and by boosting prices on stocks.
Despite rising prices for gasoline and for many industrial and agricultural commodities, Bernanke said inflation remains “quite low.” He blamed the higher prices on strong demand from fast-growing countries such as China — not the Fed’s stimulus policies.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., worries that the Fed’s stimulus policies, including debt purchases, could trigger inflation or fuel speculative buying of stocks or other assets.
“Many of us fear monetary policy is on a difficult track,” Ryan said.
However, Ryan expressed more concerns about the nation’s exploding government deficits. If left unchecked, it will eventually hurt the economy. Ryan favors budget cuts to get the deficits under control.
Hat Tip to Associated Press
architecture, architecture jobs, Hiring trends, jobs, unemployed architects
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agricultural commodities, China, Debt, Federal Reserve, House Budget Committee, Inflation, R-Wis., Rep. Paul Ryan
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Fueled by a growing shortage of apartments and fears that condominiums will lose their value, Chicago’s apartment building boomlet is a welcome shift from the brutal recession years, if only because it will help keep struggling architects off the unemployment rolls. Yet as two new apartment towers reveal, the design consequences of this anticipated construction surge are complex and, in some ways, troubling.
The towers have much in common. Both were designed by the workhorse Chicago firm of Solomon Cordwell Buenz and were financed before the market turmoil of 2008. Both rise just west of the Wells Street elevated train tracks, a placement that makes you wonder whether their residents will ever get a good night’s sleep. And both have names that strive desperately to make them sound hip.
One (left) is called 215 West, which is shorter and snappier than its actual address, 215 W. Washington St. The other, two blocks to the north, is named 200 Squared, reflecting its location in the 200 blocks of North Wells and West Lake Streets but also suggesting (unintentionally, no doubt) that the building is crammed with ex-math majors. Fortunately, the architecture is better than the names, though nothing here is going to turn heads like the boldly undulating balconies of the Aqua hotel and residential tower.
This Lake Wobegon, all-the-buildings-are-above-average quality was predictable. These are apartment buildings, where budgets and architectural ambition tend to be considerably lower than corporate office buildings or condominium towers. If an apartment high-rise turns out not to wreak havoc on the cityscape and to give us some decent design in the bargain, then we have every reason to tolerate it. And that, with some notable exceptions, is what these buildings deliver.
Rising 50 stories and designed by SCB’s Drew Ranieri, 215 West is composed of three distinct parts, each housing a separate function. A ground floor lined with storefronts nicely addresses Washington Street. Above it rises a 600-space parking garage and, above the garage, a thin apartment slab housing 389 apartments. Most skyscrapers save their visual drama for the top. Here, it comes near the bottom.
Due to a difference in the size of their floor plates, the slab’s eastern end cantilevers over the garage by 25 feet. Indeed, the slab would seem to be in danger of falling off the garage were it not for the presence of a big steel truss (above) that reassuringly joins it to the rest of the building. The truss also gestures to the exposed structure of the “L.”‘Lake Wobegon’ in the sky: Apartment high-rises are above average, but nothing special
‘Lake Wobegon’ in the sky: Apartment high-rises are above average, but nothing special
The 42-story 200 Squared (left), designed by SCB’s Jim Curtin, is a more pleasing variation on the three-part theme.
Above its glassy, still-to-be-finished ground floor is a 547-space garage, outfitted on two sides with narrow ribbon windows and handsomely corrugated metal panels. Above the garage rises another thin slab, this one housing 329 apartments. It is noticeably glassier than its counterpart at 215 West because its columns, unlike its barely visible floor slabs, are hidden inside. The slab is divided into four wafer-thin layers, including a hard-edged plane of concrete that confronts the “L.”
Any detailed consideration of these buildings must begin with a glaring contradiction: By virtue of their downtown location, they will encourage people to walk rather than drive. But their parking garages contain far more spaces than their residents will ever need. Their extra, or “non-accessory,” spaces invariably will make it easier for people to drive, limiting or even canceling the buildings’ energy-saving benefits. Memo to City Hall: Stop green-lighting these garages on steroids.
All those extra spaces also make the garages ridiculously tall — 12 stories at 215 West, 10 stories at 200 Squared (left). Thankfully, though, the high-rises don’t give us a repeat of the brute towers plopped atop faceless parking garages that marred River North over the last decade.
Their proportions are pleasingly vertical. Their bottoms and tops subtly interlock. Their slabs, which cover only a portion of their sites, create welcome openings in the Loop’s thicket of high-rises, letting daylight filter down onto the streets below. And their ratio of glass to concrete is high enough, especially at 200 Squared, that the high-rises don’t look like concrete hulks.
Still, these buildings suffer from the blandness bug. The grid patterns of their painted concrete walls, an SCB visual trick that’s become tiresome, lack the rich sense of depth and texture that uplifts the Loop’s office buildings. Even the big move at 215 West, its large steel truss, comes off somewhat feebly, its fire-proofing and light-colored paint making it look indistinguishable from the building’s concrete.
215 West has more serious problems at ground level, notably its failure to strike up a convincing relationship with its richly textured Victorian neighbor to the east, a post-Chicago Fire office building called the Washington Block. The Washington Block, which holds down the corner of Washington and Wells, looks marooned. Its brick side walls are artlessly exposed to the passers-by. It’s as if the architects couldn’t move the building, an official city landmark, so they decided to dwarf it instead.
The worst damage comes along Wells, where an outdoor, curving parking ramp (left) that serves the tower’s garage brings a discordant touch of car-happy Sun Belt cities to the pedestrian precinct of the Loop. The ramp replaces a surface parking lot, meaning that a critical opportunity was lost to flank the Washington Block with a building of complementary scale. The architects have decorated the ramp with perforated metal, but that’s nothing more than perfuming the pig.
The interiors of both buildings are skillfully done and reflect SCB’s decades of experience in this genre. Each has a spacious, tastefully designed two-story lobby. Amenity floors provide indoor exercise areas and access to outdoor decks.
The apartments — $1,350-a-month studios to $5,000 three-bedrooms at 215 West, and $1,450-a-month studios to $2,750 two-bedrooms at 200 Squared — have floor-to-ceiling glass that takes advantage of the surrounding open space. At both buildings, glass is thicker than normal to shush the racket of the “L.”
The architects and the developers — Jupiter Realty Co. and Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers at 215 West, and Midwest Property Group Ltd. at 200 Squared — haven’t produced any masterpieces in these buildings, but they haven’t saddled us with any eyesores either. Let’s hope that they and other design teams learn from the strengths and shortcomings of these apartment buildings and reach higher in the next wave.
Via Chicago Tribune City Scapes
click to enlarge all photos
CLIENT:
The owners, both practicing Buddhists and avid modernists, were interested in creating a weekend retreat from Washington, DC in the Shenandoah Valley. The natural setting with distant views and nearby rock outcropping were maintained for enjoyment while meditating. The structure also doubles as a place to stay for family and friends. The clients’ conviction for energy efficiency and minimal waste or consumption in producing, delivering, installing, and maintaining materials and products inspired a sustainable project. The team of client and architect agreed on the importance of local craftsmanship in nurturing local culture — the other half of sustainability. The project, designed by Carter + Burton Architecture, is part of the LEED for Homes Pilot program and received Gold certification. Southface was the LEED for Homes provider for the project.+
DESIGN:
County restrictions on size for a Studio in Clarke County warranted a design which feels big for spaciousness, views and light while maximizing efficiency. An organic shape felt right which stretches out to take in as much southern light as possible while still being compact. This outbuilding fits with the site while maintaining a modern purity of form and space rarely seen in this rural setting. The structure’s circulation features doorways at each end. A beamed entrance to the east and the western end sits high with a deck on the view side feeling like a tree house. The walls and ceiling curve to provide an energy efficient and site responsive design which respects the allotted space requirements. The simplicity of the structure required an attention to detail and materials that are achieved with the customization of most elements in the project.
SITE:
The mountainside site proved challenging for design and construction. The chosen site rests behind a craggy stone ridge on a 5 acre lot an hour west of Washington DC. The placement of the Studio 100 feet functions and systems, reducing the overall impact on the site. The view from the road 70 feet below changes with the seasons as the two structures anchor the ends of the 100 foot long rock ledge.
click to enlarge
The native plants remain intact featuring Mountain Laurel, hardwoods, lichen covered boulders and over an acre of wild blueberries. Care was taken in the design of the landscape around the house to allow for the forest to return to its natural state as quickly as possible. Measures were taken during construction to protect the existing trees and control erosion, including covering the topsoil and using erosion fencing to prevent additional dirt from sliding down the steep hill. Permanent erosion measures include planting indigenous trees to absorb water in the meadow formed by the staging area of construction, and a low retaining wall which scoops out of the hill to form the grill area and front terrace.
The driveway does not extend beyond the Main House – visitors walk downhill to the Yoga Studio. The living roof from Building Logics featuring sedums and a maintenance free system for a low pitched structure saves 30-40% on energy bills while retaining 70% of rain water to aid with latent cooling and storm water management on the site. The minimal landscaping – indigenous trees and succulents on the living roof are non-invasive and drought tolerant plants, which also saves in maintenance and water consumption on the site.
click to enlarge
SYSTEMS:
A geoexchange system provides efficient space heating and cooling and all of the Studio’s hot water needs. The system consists of a ground-coupled heat transfer loop (geoexchanger) connected to a liquid-to-liquid heat pump and a liquid-to-air heat pump. The loop employs vertical and horizontal ground tubing runs, and is sized to heat and cool both the Studio and the Main House.
Heat pumps are limited in their ability to raise and maintain temperature in domestic hot water storage tanks. The mechanical engineer was concerned this risks growth of biological organisms in the tank. For this reason, a thermal storage system (TSS) using an aqueous heat transfer media (HTM) was employed. When a faucet or shower is turned on, cold well water draws heat from the TSS via a parallel-plate heat exchanger.
This arrangement allows for continuous heating of the incoming water stream without worry regarding an immediate drop in water temperature, as is the case with traditional domestic hot water storage tanks when the hot water runs out. The HTM is heated primarily by the liquid-to-liquid heat pump. A mixing panel, coupled to the TSS, circulates tempered HTM through a plastic tubing loop embedded in the concrete entry and bathroom floors. This assures year-round comfort for bare feet on these floors.
The liquid-to-air heat pump provides space heating and cooling via a forced-air system. A heat recovery ventilator (HRV), along with high-purity air filtration ensures indoor air is kept exceptionally clean. When the liquid-to-air heat pump is operating, a desuperheater contained within the unit rejects heat to the HTM. This tops off the overall temperature of the TSS without needing to operate the liquid-to-liquid heat pump. The reduced number of cycles reduces the overall energy consumption and prolongs the life of the equipment. An equally important aspect of the desuperheater function is due to the fact that the heat rejected is essentially “free” during cooling operation. This is because the heat from the building that is normally transferred to the ground is instead transferred to the TSS for later use.
The Main House and Studio are a second home for the owners. To minimize energy use while the Studio is unoccupied, the TSS is shut down and the space heating/cooling system maintains an “offset” temperature. The owners can remotely switch the systems to occupied mode, so space temperature will be comfortable and the TSS will be able to meet domestic hot water needs when they arrive.
A remote internet based monitoring system allows the mechanical system to be observed and controlled by the owner or mechanical engineer. Interior and exterior temperature sensors and controls allow for reduced interior temperatures without risk of freezing pipes when the house is unoccupied. Temperature settings can be adjusted just before weekend visits. Because of the tightness of construction, a heat recovery ventilator (HRV) was installed for energy efficient fresh air ventilation. The HRV recovers nearly 70% of the heat that would be lost during winter and rejects nearly 70% of the heat gained during summer, versus a direct ventilation system. In addition, the HRV exhaust air stream is used to ventilate the crawlspace below. This dry and tempered air mitigates potential for mold growth.
MATERIALS:
This project tested the limits of construction technologies for the area and its tradesmen. The following items created unique spaces, details and functional attributes:
The design team considered S.I.P.S. for many reasons including structural strength with less material, high R-value, low air infiltration, and use of recycled materials in the OSB and expanded polystyrene bead foam. After a tour of the local SIPs factory only 23 miles away where they were showing a curved panel sample that another designer wanted to use to build a boat, the designer knew that curved panels were possible. The news that SIPs could provide a clear span of 17 feet over an entire space rather than be interrupted by rafters (more savings of wood resources) lead to the idea of curved roof panels. All these factors helped to pilot a unique design strategy for the Yoga Studio, where the client can now lead others in yogic practices in a material and energy efficient space.
The project also employed many environmentally preferable products, as recommended by LEED, to satisfy the clients’ desire for a “healthy” interior environment and sustainable materials. These materials include:
• Poplar boards from a sawmill 3 miles away were used to board-form the concrete foundation walls. Soy oil was used as a natural release agent before the boards were air dried and planed for reuse as flooring and curved wall panels inside the Studio. These boards have a richness of pattern that serves as art work for the structure while also rooting the project to this place.
• No VOC-laden carpet or paint was used in the house. As an alternative to gypsum wallboard and paint, a technique of beeswax/resin mix on canvas pulled over MedEx MDF (no added formaldehyde to the medium density fiberboard) was used and installed by a local craftsman.
• Stainless steel ceiling panels were used indoors and on the porch ceilings for indirect reflected lighting and an airy feel. Maintenance-free galvanized corrugated metal siding creates a rural outbuilding feel, which some may argue has a terrestrial quality as the moon usually rises from behind the structure.
• Colored glass tile lines the bathroom walls and ceiling while a radiant terrazzo ground concrete floor with cast in place floor lights covers the bathroom and entry hall areas which creates a larger feel.
• Custom steel handrail at the loft with resin and grass panels serves dual purpose as safety feature and an art element.
• A custom steel and wood ship’s ladder saves space while allowing natural light to blend to all corners under the loft.
• Custom wood windows were fabricated 10 miles from the site by the builder and are low-e with a solar heat gain coefficient high enough to allow for some of the sun’s heat to be absorbed by the building as a passive solar technique in the wintertime. This is offset by custom stainless shading louvers which allow for a curtain free approach to passive solar light control in the summer, blocking the sun’s rays from over-heating the space.
• Built-in floor berths are detailed for storage or possibly future sleeping bunks on special occasions when the weekend camping trips are interrupted by severe weather or unwanted intruders like the local family of black bear often seen on the property.
• Special lighting concepts include LED track lighting below the loft area and the Artemide Yang light ball which provides a wash of any color of light using a computer and three fluorescent bulbs behind color filters providing mood and light therapy.
• An outdoor built in concrete grill and bench forms a retaining wall for steps while relating to the concrete carport near the Main House. TXactive concrete (the first pour in North America) features a pollution abatement system using photo catalytic cement.
CULTURE:
The simplicity of the diminutive structure required more attention to detail and materials to maximize the perception of a large space. This was achieved with the customization of most elements in the project. Both the client and the designer value the work of local craftspeople to support the local trades and economy, as well as ensure a heightened level of care and craft in the resulting product. The designer, the client and the builder met on a weekly basis to discuss design issues that needed to be resolved that week.
There are some key features that are worth highlighting about the project:
• After using the 22” wide poplar boards from a sawmill 3 miles away for formwork of the foundation, the builder and his team planed the wood for use inside the house as flooring and wall panels.
• The builder and his team spent weeks in his shop constructing all the wood windows and doors.
• The doors have custom steel handles sized to be comfortable for a hand grip with a narrow profile for the tight spaces.
• Another key feature of the Studio is that it doubles as a bunkhouse. There are beds built into the floor diaphragm with trap doors hiding them during the day. Bunk beds built out of a steel frame with custom mattresses are located in the loft space. With all these beds in use, the Studio can sleep nine people in a minimal amount of space if needed on special occasions.
• A custom steel and wood ship’s ladder saves floor space while allowing natural light to blend to all corners and doubles as access the loft and as a sculptural piece for the Studio space.
• All the cabinetry in the Studio, including a wash closet, a shoe storage bench by the front door, bathroom wash basin cabinet, kitchen cabinetry, and a bench and cabinet at the grill center was built by local craftspeople.
• Materials which are rooted to the region, such as the maintenance free galvanized corrugated metal siding creates a rural outbuilding feel. The grain of the wood extracted from the region is left exposed inside the Studio highlighting the sense of place.
• All the subcontractors working on the site, including the mechanical contractor, the security contractor, and the electricians were from within 30 miles of the site. The benefits of utilizing local craftspeople as well as experimenting with and using environmentally responsible materials in inventive ways reinforces sustainable concepts and creates and enduring sense of place.
Project Details:
Location: Clarke County, Virginia – USA
Architects: Carter + Burton Architecture – www.carterburton.com
Date: 2007
Certifications: LEED Gold certification – LEED for Homes Pilot Program
Hat tip to Architecture Lab
Airport Building in Mestia, Georgia
A project by: J. MAYER H. Architects
About
The new built airport is part of Georgia’s ambitious plans to develop tourism in Mestia. The beautiful medieval town with its stone defensive towers is part of UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites and also famous as ski-resort. With the unveiling of the airport on December 24th the building was designed and constructed within 3 months.
Hat Tip to Architizer.com
China is planning to create the world’s biggest mega city by merging nine cities to create a metropolis twice the size of Wales with a population of 42 million.
City planners in south China have laid out an ambitious plan to merge together the nine cities that lie around the Pearl River Delta.
The “Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One” scheme will create a 16,000 sq mile urban area that is 26 times larger geographically than Greater London, or twice the size of Wales.
The new mega-city will cover a large part of China’s manufacturing heartland, stretching from Guangzhou to Shenzhen and including Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing. Together, they account for nearly a tenth of the Chinese economy.
Over the next six years, around 150 major infrastructure projects will mesh the transport, energy, water and telecommunications networks of the nine cities together, at a cost of some 2 trillion yuan (£190 billion). An express rail line will also connect the hub with nearby Hong Kong.
“The idea is that when the cities are integrated, the residents can travel around freely and use the health care and other facilities in the different areas,” said Ma Xiangming, the chief planner at the Guangdong Rural and Urban Planning Institute and a senior consultant on the project.
However, he said no name had been chosen for the area. “It will not be like Greater London or Greater Tokyo because there is no one city at the heart of this megalopolis,” he said. “We cannot just name it after one of the existing cities.”
“It will help spread industry and jobs more evenly across the region and public services will also be distributed more fairly,” he added.
Mr Ma said that residents would be able to use universal rail cards and buy annual tickets to allow them to commute around the mega-city.
Twenty-nine rail lines, totalling 3,100 miles, will be added, cutting rail journeys around the urban area to a maximum of one hour between different city centres. According to planners, phone bills could also fall by 85 per cent and hospitals and schools will be improved.
“Residents will be able to choose where to get their services and will use the internet to find out which hospital, for example, is less busy,” said Mr Ma.
Pollution, a key problem in the Pearl River Delta because of its industrialisation, will also be addressed with a united policy, and the price of petrol and electricity could also be unified.
The southern conglomeration is intended to wrestle back a competitive advantage from the growing urban areas around Beijing and Shanghai.
By the end of the decade, China plans to move ever greater numbers into its cities, creating some city zones with 50 million to 100 million people and “small” city clusters of 10 million to 25 million.
In the north, the area around Beijing and Tianjin, two of China’s most important cities, is being ringed with a network of high-speed railways that will create a super-urban area known as the Bohai Economic Rim. Its population could be as high as 260 million.
The process of merging the Bohai region has already begun with the connection of Beijing to Tianjing by a high speed railway that completes the 75 mile journey in less than half an hour, providing an axis around which to create a network of feeder cities.
As the process gathers pace, total investment in urban infrastructure over the next five years is expected to hit £685 billion, according to an estimate by the British Chamber of Commerce, with an additional £300 billion spend on high speed rail and £70 billion on urban transport.
Hat tip to the Telegraph
architecture, Engineering, new buildings
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China, Dongguan, Foshan, Guangzhou, Huizhou, Jiangmen, mega-city, Shenzhen, Zhaoqing, Zhongshan, Zhuhai
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The following text and images are courtesy Höweler + Yoon Architecture for their competition-winning design — Splipstream Public Exchange — of the Boston Society of Architects Headquarters. The 154-year-old organization will move from 52 Broad Street to Atlantic Wharf.
SLIPSTREAM maximizes the BSA’s engagement with a larger public by creating a series of interfaces, both physical and informational. The physical design of the new headquarters introduces a “cloud” ceiling that capitalizes on the viewing angles between the sidewalk and the second floor, to create a highly visible signature feature that doubles as gallery ceiling and supergraphic signage. The information interface utilizes wireless technologies to deliver site specific content to visitors, while also creating a BSA application for smart phones and location-aware hand held devices.
BROADCAST
Drawing the public up to the second floor, a grand stair drops down from the ceiling above, and provides a fluid transition between floors with a single gesture. The stair and ceiling form the primary figure of the physical interface. Information technologies are also embedded in the “cloud” ceiling, allowing its edge to broadcast messages through an LED sign band, while projectors display a digital wayfinding entrance mat, and wireless transmitters stream video feeds. “Public Exchange” consoles are located throughout the space, allowing the public to access curated information about the built environment, construction billings index figures, and databases of designers, products, and services.
PERIMETER
The contoured media surface wraps around the perimeter of the space, creating a continuous gallery and event circuit. Program areas are held back from the edge, allowing the public circulation to flow along the perimeter. The gallery program is conceived as a series of fluid paths and not as a discrete room. The content of the exhibitions produce the programmatic “current” to the flow of the gallery. Placing the gallery along the edge reinforces the cognitive parallax between the contents of the exhibitions in the foreground and the city in the background. This is consistent with the BSA’s core mission to support the active engagement between the process of design and the resulting product of the built environment.
PODS
Conference rooms are distributed within the free-flowing gallery zone. The conference rooms form an archipelago of program distributed within the flows of public gallery, maximizing the contact between the BSA members, visitors, stakeholders, and members of the general public.
SLIPSTREAM
The new BSA produces “Public Exchange” through its organizational and material logics, as well as through its network and media strategies. The fluid spaces of the linear gallery parallel the constant streams of broadcast information. The archipelago of programs and exhibitions will create a smooth mixture of audiences and content within the flows and eddies of the BSA’s slipstream configuration, resulting in the productive discourse that is BSA’s mission.
Design Team:
Höweler + Yoon Architecture: J. Meejin Yoon, Eric Höweler (Principals in Charge), Ryan Murphy, Parker Lee, Liu Xi, Thena Tak, Cyrus Dochow.
Structural Engineer: ARUP
MEP Engineer: AHA Consultants
Hat tip to A Daily Dose of Architecture
The architect Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) are the forces behind some of the most striking structures built in recent years, including the Seattle Central Library and the CCTV headquarters, in Beijing.
The new MOCA (www.mocacleveland.org)
But dozens of architects who were trained at or otherwise passed through Koolhaas’s firm are now spread across the world and beginning to make their mark, observes Metropolis. The magazine dubs them Baby Rems.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, for example, is moving ahead with construction of a striking new building, which features triangular facades that, from certain angles, allow luminescent peeks at the museum’s interior. It’s the handiwork of Foreign Office Architects (FOA), an OMA offshoot.
The Balancing Barn, which has been feted in England (and lives up to its name, cantilevering off into space), is a project of MVRDV, which also traces its roots back to Koolhaas’s office.
Metropolis’s generational schema confuses me—who counts as Generation One, again, and who as Generation Two?—but Work A.C., evidently part of the second wave, has gotten the nod to revitalize the Hua Qiang Bei Road, in Shenzhen, China; the renderings look pretty wild, and also impressive.
All this amounts to another reminder that even architecture, long considered the redoubt of the lone genius (see: Ayn Rand), is in fact better viewed as a shifting network of creative minds with personal, professional, and intellectual ties: a Kaleidoscopic Discovery Engine.
Hat tip to Christopher Shea, WSJ
architects, architecture, modern architecture, modern buildings, new buildings
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Ayn Rand, China, Christopher Shea, Cleveland, Hua Qiang Bei Road, Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), Shenzhen, The Museum of Contemporary Art, WSJ
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When: 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26
Where: At The Center
AIA New York Chapter
536 LaGuardia Place
NY, NY 10012
(212) 683-0023
This panel discussion will take a look at what architects might expect in terms of employment and workforce trends this year.
Speakers: David C. McFadden, Founder/CEO of Consulting for Architects, Inc. and Daniel A. Cloke, President, Parade A|E|C Staffing
The economy has changed radically throughout the world and the impact has been strongly felt in the design community in New York City. The NBAU program focuses on what design professionals need to do now for themselves and their firms.
Please RSVP as a light lunch will be served. Check local weather report for snow forecast.
Events in this series are provided at no cost thanks to our sponsors: Chief Manufacturing, Lutron Electronics and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP
Register
aia, architects, architecture, CFA Freelancer Community, Consulting For Architects, David McFadden, Hiring trends, jobs, unemployed architects
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AIA NY, CFA, David C. McFadden, LLP, Lutron Electronics, McFadden, NBAU, Owings & Merrill, Skidmore
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