© Brett Boardman

• Architects: Lahznimmo Architects
• Location: Sydney NSW, Australia
• Area: 200.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2008
• Photographs: Brett Boardman

• Client: Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA)
• Builder: Inten
• Structural Consultant: Taylor Thomson Whitting
• Mechanical Consultant: Services Integration Management
• Electrical Consultant: Shelmerdines Consulting Engineers

© Brett Boardman

From the architect. Adaptive reuse of Building 13 as a café was completed in 2007 as part of the Blaxland Riverside Park, within the historic Newington Armory precinct at Sydney Olympic Park. When Building 13 was destroyed by fire in November 2007, Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA) engaged lahznimmo architects to design a new café on the site of the original.

Plan

The Armory Wharf provides striking 270 degree views across the Parramatta River to mangroves and the post-industrial working wharf landscape. The new Café draws upon the palette of existing materials and typological forms of the Armory Precinct, including the neighbouring camouflage covered shade structure to the east of the kiosk – designed by Lacoste + Stevenson architects. In plan, the building matches the original Building 13 footprint, ensuring a continuity of wharf scale. Functional necessities of kitchen exhaust and gas flues have been encased in a chimney structure that references the silhouettes of retained cranes. The rhythm of weathered steel and recycled timber blades, which survived the 2007 fire, are carried into the new building and set the pattern of solid and void along the southern elevation. The other survivor of the fire, the inset railway tracks that originally carried armaments in and out of the building, have been retained and incased in clear epoxy resin.

© Brett Boardman

The dining outlook focuses toward the river and the procession of activities along it. The café space has different degrees of openness and enclosure. Similar to the mangroves, which progressively get less dense towards the waters edge, the new cafe structure and roof appear to dissolve from solid, progressively becoming more filigree towards the waters edge.

© Brett Boardman

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Opera House Songlines. Image Courtesy of Destination New South Wales

Vivid Sydney, the Australian city’s annual festival of lights, began today with colorful installations that reinvent icons like the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Jørn Utzon’s renowned Opera House. The event is host to over 90 light installations devised by more than 150 artists from 23 countries, appearing in eight precincts across the city.

This year’s installation on the “sails” of the Sydney Opera House is called Songlines and celebrates the work of six Indigenous Australian artists: Karla Dickens, Djon Mundine OAM, Reko Rennie, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi, Donny Woolagoodja and the late Gulumbu Yunupingu.

Opera House Songlines. Image Courtesy of Destination New South Wales

Vivid Sydney is owned, managed and produced by Destination NSW, the State Government’s tourism and major events agency. As the world’s largest festival of light, music, and ideas – attended by 1.7 million visitors in 2015 – Vivid Sydney will run for 23 nights from May 23 – June 18.

Cathedral of Light, Botanic Gardens. Image Courtesy of Destination New South Wales

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© Moreno Maggi

• Architects: Westway Architects
• Location: 30025 Fossalta di Portogruaro VE, Italy
• Architectural Design: Luca Aureggi, Maurizio Condoluci
• Area: 427.51 sqm
• Project Year: 2012
• Photographs: Moreno Maggi

© Moreno Maggi

From the architect. When observing projects by the Rome based firm Westway Architects, it is the details that attract the gaze and guide an overall interpretation of the work. The project that has bestowed a new look on the Santa Margherita Winery in Fossalta di Portogruaro, in the Province of Venice (Italy) confirms this congenial impression.

© Moreno Maggi

Materials and colour

The solid geometry, created to connect and incorporate the various production blocks, is revealed through the materials and colours, whose authenticity follows quality choices by the company. Starting from the zinc-titanium slats. These run vertically along the lower part of the facade to head height and are characterized by a red earth pigment, alluding to the colour of the wine. Their tops meet the grey pigment slats, which run vertically towards the sky, creating a fascinating optical illusion. The roof has been designed from a corrugated aluminium sheet, the outer canopy is made of aluminium, and the long, white-painted beams, which appear to be the imaginary thread assembling everything, are made of steel. A glass wall both protects and reveals the stainless steel winemaking tanks. Finally, the windows “with jamb extensions, to channel as much light as possible into the offices”, as emphasized in the project report, are all punctuations in a single sculptural block.

© Moreno Maggi

Section

© Moreno Maggi

Poetic functionality

This is a project that expresses the rhythm of the work carried out inside and outside in the yard in a dialogue between the continuity and discontinuity of volumes and geometry. Thus conceived, the architecture has achieved its goal of making movement more fluid, protecting people and property from the weather, but also of bringing together the various stages and areas: storage, wine-making area, and cellar. Each department plays a leading role and is an important link in a chain, starting from the new architectural and visual dimension that can be gathered at a general glance. Its importance is called to our attention by a backlit glass wall. Made using two thousand bottles, it solves the problem of a shaded area and summarizes the entrepreneurial stamp of the Santa Margherita Winery. During the day, it attracts the attention of those heading to the offices and by night it radiates a reassuring stage effect, in keeping with the luminous company sign placed a short distance away.

© Moreno Maggi

Recladding 

The refurbishment and renovation of old buildings with new types of facades affecting the aesthetic, energy and functional performance, is nowadays called “recladding”.  In Fossalta di Portogruaro, Westway Architects has combined elegance, lightness, and strength, and has succeeded in clothing old spaces of solid tradition using a strong contemporary interpretation. And above all, has achieved an even more ambitious goal. “The requirement of the client in this project was not only to create a shell with a scenographic function that would be visible from the street, but to redesign the workplace to be more usable and functional”, says Maurizio Condoluci from Westway Architects. “Our work, therefore, involved redefining the spaces from the inside in order to redesign and rebuild their identity. The work, defined in this way, was highly appreciated by the people who use the spaces on a daily basis. This has strengthened the identity relationship between the workers, their workplace and the company”.

© Moreno Maggi

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Courtesy of CHROFI

CHROFI and McGregor Coxall have designed Acadia Remembrance Sanctuary as a “bushland cemetery for a secular society.” The architects are proposing a burial ground located in the idyllic setting of a conservation woodland area on the outskirts of Sydney. The project calls for natural graves without headstones, instead opting for GPS technology to find the resting sites of loved ones. The tactic shifts the emphasis of cemeteries from the manicured appearances of individual plots and headstones to the retention and protection of the bush ecology. The proposed cemetery is situated on 10.1 hectares (25 acres) of parkland with a 400 square meter (4,500 square foot) building located at its center. 

Courtesy of CHROFI

Courtesy of CHROFI

Visitors to the Sanctuary will begin at an elevated walkway that meanders through the woods toward the Walled Garden. Arriving at this fortress-like facility, a structure formed by vine-covered gabion walls, users are meant to experience a “dignified transition” from the woodland environment to this “other world” interior condition. Inside the Garden, the Gathering Place is a multi-purpose, open-air pavilion, surrounded by shallow reflecting pools and picturesque gardens. There is also a cafe, meant to provide views, quietude, and time for reflection. Further emphasizing an ecological and sustainable approach, the facility is self-sufficient and not connected to the electrical grid.

Courtesy of CHROFI

Courtesy of CHROFI

The project was recently honored as the recipient of the 2016 Future Commercial Award of the World Architecture News, WAN Awards. The Jury included: Mike Lampard, Design Director of Corstorphine + Wright, Robin Partington, Managing Partner of Robin Partington & Partners and Paul Makowicki, Principal of Callison RTKL.

Courtesy of CHROFI

Courtesy of CHROFI

• Architects: CHROFI, McGregor Coxall
• Area: 400.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Courtesy of CHROFI

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© Casey Dunn

• Architects: STG Design
• Location: United States, Temple, TX, USA
• Area: 31000.0 ft2
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Casey Dunn

© Casey Dunn

From the architect. Wilsonart Engineered Surfaces approached STG Design to create a headquarters building for its American operation with the challenge to develop a space that showcased the company’s growing portfolio of surfacing materials and provided a unifying space for collaborative work, training, meetings and customer events. Located in Temple, TX, the new Wilson Center would integrate a global organization into an open plan office, while providing much-needed specialty spaces for product design, merchandising development, large-class training, meetings, and video-conferencing. The Wilson Center celebrates light with an all-windowlobby that welcomes guests with a playful “sample wall” featuring Wilsonart’s iconic red laminate sample chip. The main hallway serves as a central artery connecting the lobby to a spectacular break room at the back of the building. This corridor offers access to wings of well-lit open offices, plenty of phone rooms, huddle rooms and meeting rooms. An open-space “café” features a coffee bar and comfortable seating to encourage engagement. Clever magnetic spinners showcase the latest company stories, while the entire office space uses Wilsonart’s products in innovative, conversation-starting applications. 

© Casey Dunn

Site Plan

© Casey Dunn

The 31,000 sf headquarters design exhibits Wilsonart’s capabilities and unique products.For instance,the reclaimed wood flooring in the break room was digitally reproduced as a custom-printed laminate and used on the front desk where nearly every guest has to touch it to believe it. The coffee bar makes use of Wilsonart® Solid Surface and Woodgrain Laminate on top, with Wilsonart® Compact Laminate, a thick, High Pressure Laminate, routedto emulate the surrounding tile. Thepergola beams overheadarecovered with a second Woodgrain Laminate.Whether the bathroom stalls or accent furniture, Wilsonart’snew space maximizes the potential tobeautifullydisplay the company’s finest, cutting-edge products. The Wilson Center has dazzled customers and significantly improving employees’ morale since it opened.

© Casey Dunn

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Courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) has unveiled its design for the David M. Rubenstein Forum at the southeast corner of Woodlawn Avenue and 60th Street on the University of Chicago‘s campus. The 90,000 square foot (8,500 square meter) facility has been devised as a place of intellectual, institutional, and educational exchange, fulfilling a variety of campus needs for meeting spaces. A collection of block-like volumes, the building’s two-story base is anchored by a narrow 165-foot (50 meter) tower, with the exterior materials and structure reflecting the programmatic divisions within.

The facility has been designed with complete focus on the user experience, placing an emphasis on reliable technology, quality foodservice, and informal spaces for more spontaneous meetings. Natural light is employed wherever possible, and transparency allows for users to establish connections with the University’s campus, surrounding communities, Downtown Chicago, and the Lakeshore.

“We composed the tower as a stack of ‘neighborhoods’ with meeting and communal spaces of all sizes—both formal and informal, calm and animated, focused and diffuse,” explains DS+R’s founding partner, Elizabeth Diller. “The building prompts its varied populations to cross paths with one another where possible to enhance intellectual exchange. The lower floors of the Rubenstein Forum are porous and dynamic with connections to the campus and the community in all directions. As one climbs the building, there is a progressive retreat from the everyday to more contemplative spaces with dramatic views of Chicago and Lake Michigan.”

Courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro

The building is broken up by what the University is calling “signature spaces,” which are denoted by the bronze cladding in the renderings. On the building’s ground floor, the tentatively named University Room is a flexible space for large lectures, panel discussions, or seated dinners, with accommodations for up to 600 people. Directly above the base in the building’s tower is a 285-seat auditorium being called the Presentation Hall, which will provide tiered-seating options for keynote presentations, panel discussions, film screenings, and performances. At the top of the tower, and tentatively named the Lake View Room, is a space meant for large departmental receptions, symposia of 50 to 75 scholars, or other activities.

According to the University Executive Vice President David Fithian, “For those of us involved every day in convening groups on campus and in organizing meetings and events for guests from around the world, the Rubenstein Forum fulfills a critical need for the University. Too often events hosted by the University are held in other parts of Chicago, and our guests are denied the opportunity to experience the intellectually dynamic and beautiful campus that we have in Hyde Park.”

The Rubenstein Forum is named for University Trustee and alumnus, David M. Rubenstein, JD’73, co-founder and co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, in recognition of his ongoing generosity to the University.

• Architects: Diller Scofidio + Renfro
• Location: 6005 S Woodlawn Ave, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
• Architect In Charge: Diller Scofidio + Renfro
• Area: 8500.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro

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