Topping out two weeks ago, the structure of Brock Commons, currently the tallest timber structure in the world, is now complete. Measuring in at 18 stories and 174 feet (53 meters) tall, the building was completed nearly four months ahead of schedule, displaying one of the advantages of building tall buildings with wood.

Just 70 days after the prefabricated timber components were first delivered to the site, construction will now turn to the interior, with an expected completion date in early May 2017. In total, construction time will clock in at a speed 18 percent faster than a traditional project.

Check out the timelapse video to see the project come together.

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Center for Sustainable Landscapes / The Design Alliance Architects. Image © Denmarsh Photography

A recent study conducted by Dodge Data & Analytics with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has found that architects and building owners are beginning to place higher priority of the impacts of design decisions on human health. Nearly 75% of architects and 67% of owners responded that health considerations now play a role in how their buildings are designed, indicating that healthy environments have become an important tool in marketing to tenants and consumers.

According to the report, the five healthy building features most often used by architects include:

• Better lighting/daylighting exposure
• Products that enhance thermal comfort
• Spaces that enhance social interaction
• Enhanced air quality
• Products that enhance acoustical comfort

The findings align with the goals of the AIA’s Design and Health initiative, which strives to improve health outcomes for people and communities while enhancing well-being, safety and environmental quality.

For more highlights from the report, visit the AIA’s website here, or download the report in full, here.

News via the American Institute of Architects.

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© Main Street Studio – Wayne Johnson

• Architects: OPN Architects
• Location: Cedar Rapids, IA, USA
• Area: 94000.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2013
• Photographs: Main Street Studio – Wayne Johnson

• Cm: Ryan Companies
• Gc: Knutsen Construction
• Design Engineers: MEP
• Structural: M2B Structural Engineers
• Civil: Ament Engineering

© Main Street Studio – Wayne Johnson

In June 2008 a flood swept through Cedar Rapids, Iowa filling the city’s downtown central library with eight feet of water. In the wake of this natural disaster, the city rallied to build a new central library that would be a dynamic center of the city’s urban core, embrace the transformational shifts of 21st Century technology and minimize the building’s environmental impact and long-term operational costs. 

© Main Street Studio – Wayne Johnson

The new site is a couple blocks from the former flooded facility, outside the flood zone’s reach, and positioned to be an anchor to the city’s urban park. The design of the library embraces this opportunity by creating an urban plaza and positions the vibrant, active library spaces so the large expanses of glass highlight the library services to the community. 

Plan 2

From the exterior, the activity of the library is prominently on display through expanses of floor-to-ceiling glass that wrap around the building on the first and second floor, visually connecting patrons and pedestrians.  A 200-seat auditorium situated on the second and third levels faces the park. The auditorium stage is set against a wall of glass creating a backdrop from the changing seasons and cityscape. As darkness falls, the facade surrounding the auditorium glows with 60 eight-foot-by-one-foot light panels. This language of light is carried inside with a dramatic monumental stair featuring illuminated panels that respond as users walk up and down the stairs. The stairs and light wall are visible from the exterior, functioning as a kinetic sculpture and vividly telegraph the activity within the library to the street.  

© Main Street Studio – Wayne Johnson

Plan 1

© Main Street Studio – Wayne Johnson

The new design broke barriers between the staff and patrons, library and civic spaces, and staff departments. Upon entry, patrons step into a two-story central atrium that brings together all of the core patron services in a hub and spoke system allowing users to orient themselves in the building as well as gather to meet. A café and coffee shop is nestled in the core, enticing visitors to gather, linger and engage with each other. Radiating from the core are the children’s, young adult and adult fiction areas. The views in and out of the collection spaces are seen from nearly every vantage point. The second floor consists of the adult non-fiction collections, a large dividable conference space, and staff and administrative offices. On the third floor is a break-out lobby for the auditorium and public access to the 20,000-square-foot green roof that was a key part of the LEED Platinum storm-water management strategy and has become a go-to spot in the library.

© Main Street Studio – Wayne Johnson

The success of the Cedar Rapids Public Library demonstrates the impact a next generation library can have on a community. The most surprising aspect of the new library is the ways in which the community has embraced and used the facility in ways unimagined. It truly is a participatory library. The metrics on circulation, meeting room use, and computer use have far surpassed expectations and highlight the impact a new library can have on a community.

© Main Street Studio – Wayne Johnson

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Courtesy of Space Caviar

Genoa-based studio Space Caviar has recently unveiled Arcipelago di Ocno, an aquatic installation on a lake in Mantova, Italy, which is the 2016 Italian Capital of Culture. Named after the local demigod Ocno, the installation recalls the form of a lotus, a plant with an extensive presence in Mantova’s lakes. 

Acting as an aquatic piazza for the city, the archipelago of floating islands “[extends] Mantova’s urban fabric onto the lakes that surround its historic center,” utilizing modular units to create a venue for Mantova’s cultural activities for years to come.

Courtesy of Space Caviar

Courtesy of Space Caviar

These modular units can be reconfigured, relocated, or extended according to need, and will expand over the next few years to host concerts, events, performances, lectures, screenings, and more on Mantova’s lakes.

Courtesy of Space Caviar

Courtesy of Space Caviar

Courtesy of Space Caviar

Mantova’s citizens have been deprived for too many years of the pleasure to fully enjoy the relationship with water, said Mantova’s Councilor for Urban Regeneration, Lorenza Baroncelli. The archipelago will be a new, significant step in the effort to absorb the lakes into Mantova’s urban and social fabric. In addition, the archipelago finally represents an element of artistic and cultural innovation with a great international appeal alongside the city’s most historical beauties.

Courtesy of Space Caviar

Courtesy of Space Caviar

Courtesy of Space Caviar

The installation opened on September 11, and will continue to host events through the fall, as well as further in the future.

News via Space Caviar.

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© Jordi Anguera

• Architects: Dom Arquitectura
• Location: Roses, Girona, Spain
• Architects In Charge: Pablo Serrano Elorduy, Blanca Elorduy, Carlota de Gispert
• Area: 230.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Jordi Anguera

• Branding & Marketing Partners: Agencia Hache

© Jordi Anguera

The aim of the project is to renovate and repurpose the first floor of Roses’ ‘Hotel Maritim’, in a ‘tapas’ and drinks bar.

The hotel is located on the seafront of Roses, a traditional fishing village, specifically on the beach promenade. The main objective is to give ‘Mediterranean character’ to the new space. The first floor used to be a closed interior space and a small outside terrace, of 3m wide, divided by a line of sliding doors. The key idea was to eliminate that division understanding the space as a unique covered outer space. For that purpose, we placed on the façade’s edge glass curtains, sliding and folding panels such as those of ‘See Glass’. This move allowed us to unify the whole space, without any frame or division, connecting it to the outside beach promenade and the sea.

© Jordi Anguera

This large outdoor/indoor space can be transformed. During the summer months and good weather, the space may be totally open, but in bad weather days or wind, it can be closed.

© Jordi Anguera

The proposed distribution places the bar counter at the back, parallel to the sea and the facade. The kitchen is also situated at the rear, together with the main access, thus leaving more usable space for tables and bar area for the clients. 

Plan

We generated different areas to create diverse secluded spaces with their own atmospheres. Firstly the drinks area composed by different counters close to the main one and a large high counter attached to the eastern window overlooking Roses. Secondly two big U shape sofas facing the sea compose the ‘chill out area’. Finally the tables are distributed amongst some planters cladded in wood integrated in the pillars. This encloses and gives more privacy to the clients in such an open space.

© Jordi Anguera

The lighting is designed with a scenes system, which controls different types of atmospheres for every moment according to light intensity. As lighting devices we combine spotlights, linear LEDs and hanging lamps on the bars, with mobile and rotating lamps in painted copper tubes that allow the tables mobility specifically designed for the project,

© Jordi Anguera

The materials used intend to give the space personality, integrated in its place and people’s traditions. Several walls, planters and counters are cladded with a stripped wood, evoking the timber of old fishing boats. The facilities and ceiling beams are painted in dark brown. Three different sizes of wicker panels compose the ceiling and carrying sensations of summer beach bars.

Diagram

The furniture’s colors follow the project’s line of natural colors. Fishermen net’s constitute the ceiling at the chill out area, together with the wood, the wicker panels, the plants and the nets we obtain a balanced Mediterranean character needed for the project.

© Jordi Anguera

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