Renderings of a sculptural Manhattan residential skyscraper by Kohn Pedersen Fox have been unveiled to entice buyers to purchase units costing up to $18.5 million (+ slideshow). (more…)
New images released of luxury condo tower by KPF in New York
Architecture
McCulloch Residence / NatureHumaine
© Adrien Williams
Architects: NatureHumaine
Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Adrien Williams
© Adrien Williams
From the architect. The project was carried out in an old residence built at the foot of Mount Royal around the 1860s for Dr. McCulloch, after whom the avenue would later be named. The residence was subsequently divided into two houses. The project aimed to expand one of the two divisions so the owners would have a new kitchen and an art studio.
© Adrien Williams
The sharp shape of the extension is dictated by the land’s angle setbacks. Its black materials echo the nuances of the works of art made by the owner, a graphite pencil artist, and interact with the grey stones of the century-old house. Like a sculpture, the bricked ground floor acts as a base for the studio, which is covered with black zinc cladding. Vertical steel screens create intimacy on the street angle while revealing Mount Royal’s forest behind.
Model
Inside, special attention was given to transitions in materials to foster a flowing perception of the old and new sections.
© Adrien Williams
The idea was to keep the original components of the house while incorporating modern elements such as the main staircase and the Russian birch integrated furniture. Discovered during the renovations, the wooden square wall is the masterpiece of the dining room. In the addition, the focus is on a central midnight-blue block that is used for storage on the kitchen side and for bicycles and skateboards on the secondary entrance side.
© Adrien Williams
SHoP Wins Landmarks Commission Approval for Brooklyn Supertall
via YIMBY
SHoP has won Landmarks Preservation Commission approval to build Brooklyn’s tallest tower at 340 Flatbush Avenue Extension, reports New York Yimby. Located on the same block of the former Dime Savings Bank, an individual and interior landmark, SHoP’s proposal calls for a 73-story, 1,066 foot-tall mixed-use tower. The proposal required LPC-approval because the architects want to merge the tower’s lobby with the bank and convert the atrium into a new retail component. The site’s relationship to the bank building encouraged the architects to develop a design and material choices that are heavily influenced by the proposed tower’s smaller, but no less grand, neighbor.
via YIMBY
As noted in the LPC presentation by SHoP partner Gregg Pasquarelli, the bank is on a triangular lot, but it resolves this plot condition through inlaid hexagonal motifs on the marble floor within. Considering this lead SHoP to design its tower as a series of gradual setbacks on six sides that echo the floor patterns of the bank interior. While there were some concerns raised about the removal of teller stations in the banking hall (a restoration project for that space will occur in tandem to the tower’s construction) most members of the commission thought SHoP’s presentation was exceptional.
via YIMBY
The project, which has the support of Brooklyn Community Board 2, is being developed by JDS Development Group and the Chetrit Group. No completion date has yet been announced.
via YIMBY
Story via New York Yimby.
Bastiaan Buijs turns Rietveld chair into kinky BDSM device
Milan 2016: Dutch designer Bastiaan Buijs’ latest sex-inspired furniture piece is a BDSM version of Gerrit Rietveld’s iconic Red and Blue Chair, which aims to “shine light” on sexual taboos. (more…)
Smestad Recycling Centre / Longva arkitekter
© Ivan Brodey
Architects: Longva arkitekter
Location: Oslo, Norway
Area: 6000.0 sqm
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Ivan Brodey
From the architect. Smestad Recycling Centre represents a new building typology. It is a facility for the public where all waste handling takes place indoors.
© Ivan Brodey
The recycling centre is a robust, unclimatised open hall with two distinct areas: one for the public and one for operations. There is an integrated, climatised service and management building at one end, with areas for hazardous waste and maintenance, changing rooms and cafeteria for employees, as well as offices and technical rooms.
© Ivan Brodey
The building has a saw-tooth roof that gives the large volume a subdivision and rhythm. The recycling hall’s back and sidewalls are predominantly closed. The main façade towards the ring road is open, clad with expanded metal sheets mounted between the columns of laminated wood.
© Ivan Brodey
1st Floor Plan
The operational logistics were an important design criteria. The local authority’s master plan gave strict limits to the buildings placement and size. It has been important to maximise traffic flow and parking for the public, to ensure sufficient slots for the waste fractions, and to give adequate maneuvering area for operations. The hall has space for 34 cars without trailer and 16 waste fractions. The public area is raised 2 metres over the operations yard. The outside space consists mainly of a large queue magazine to control traffic flow and avoid congestion both inside the hall and on the adjacent approach roads.
© Ivan Brodey
Section
The project has high environmental ambitions. The building is constructed from low impact materials Facades are of concrete, brick, laminated wood and expanded metal of weathering steel. The entire roof is planted with sedum. The climatised part of the building achieves an EU energy label A (yellow).
© Ivan Brodey
March ABI Reflects Increase in US Design Services
March ABI 2016. Image via CalculatedRiskBlog.com
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reported the March Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score was 51.9, up from the mark of 50.3 in the previous month. This score reflects an increase in design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 58.1, down from a reading of 59.5 the previous month.
“The first quarter was somewhat disappointing in terms of the growth of design activity, but fortunately expanded a bit entering the traditionally busy spring season. The Midwest is lagging behind the other regions, but otherwise business conditions are generally healthy across the country,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD. “As the institutional market has cooled somewhat after a surge in design activity a year ago, the multi-family sector is reaccelerating at a healthy pace.”
Regional Averages
West (50.4)
Northeast (51.0)
South (52.4)
Midwest (49.8)
Sector Index Breakdown
Multi-Family Residential (55.7)
Commercial / Industrial (51.8)
Institutional (48.0)
Mixed Practice (50.0)
Key March ABI Highlights
Project inquiries index: 58.1
Design contracts index: 51.8
As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lead time between architecture billings and construction spending. Regional and sector categories are calculated as a 3-month moving average, whereas the index and inquiries are monthly numbers.
News via AIA
Replica of destroyed Syrian archway erected in London’s Trafalgar square
A replica of the Palmyra Arch – a 2,000-year-old Syrian architectural landmark believed to have been destroyed by Islamic militant group ISIS – has been erected in London’s Trafalgar Square. (more…)
“Treating the refugee crisis as a design problem is problematic”
Opinion: initiatives like What Design Can Do’s Refugee Challenge encourage designers to believe that they can solve international problems that go far beyond their reach, says Ruben Pater. (more…)
A Stretch of Rio de Janeiro’s Tim Maia Bike Path Collapses
Image via Reprodução / Globo News
A 50-meter stretch of Rio de Janeiro’s Tim Maia bike path, which was built in preparation of the 2016 Olympic Games to connect neighborhoods Leblon and São Conrado, collapsed this morning. Adjacent to the Avenue Oscar Niemeyer, in the south of the city, the bike path was inaugurated on January 17 this year. According to the fire department, the deadly accident was caused by the surf of the sea.
According to passersby, the bike lane was hit by a strong wave that, in addition to collapsing the site, broke the windshield of a bus and dragged a woman on the boardwalk. The location is near the exit of the sewer pipe.
The pathway is currently being extended westward, as the New York Times reports, to connect pedestrians and bicyclists to the Barra de Tijuca neighborhood.
Image via Reprodução / Globo News
Witnesses say that five people were on the bike path at the time of the collapse, two of which have reportedly died, one was rescued by helicopter and two others remain missing.
News via G1, O Globo, New York Times
New UBC Library PARC Facility / DGBK Architects
© Ema Peter Photography
Architects: DGBK Architects
Location: University of British Columbia Farm, Vancouver, BC V6T 1W5, Canada
Design Team: Robert Lange, Amy Cheung,Peter Sickert
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Ema Peter Photography
Structural Consultant: Axis Engineering Ltd.
Civil Consultant: Core Group Consultants
Mechanical Consultant: Integral Group
Electrical Consultant: MMM Group
Code Consultant: GHL Consultants Ltd.
Constructor: Wales McLelland Construction
© Ema Peter Photography
From the architect. DGBK Architects joins the University of British Columbia in celebrating the official opening of the Library Preservation and Archives (Library PARC) facility. The new Library PARC facility is an outstanding demonstration of a highly specialized library environment based on a model developed at Harvard University that extends the life of printed library collections from 30 years (in a typical library environment) to 300 years.
© Ema Peter Photography
By using a system where the Library’s collections are stored within high-density shelving units in a thermal and humidity controlled environment, Library PARC is one of North America’s most efficient and cost effective storage facilities.“Library PARC is key in terms of helping us house our ever-growing collections and providing innovative spaces worthy of a 21st-century research library,” says Ingrid Parent, University Librarian at UBC. “The facility’s carefully controlled environment will extend the life of the Library’s collections, ensuring their availability to current and future generations of students, scholars and lifelong learners.”
© Ema Peter Photography
Designed to provide more than 2,200 square metres of high-density collection storage, capable of holding about 1.6 million volumes, the facility is the first of 6 possible storage modules. The facility will also house a campus-wide records management service, in addition to a small digitization area, a contained freezer area for decontamination, a staff work area and a publicly accessible reading room.
Plan
To achieve an identity for Library PARC, DGBK started to advance concepts for an architectural language while exploring the siting options. “This exploration started with the location of the facility within the Forest District of UBC and the play of light in the vertical forest,” says Robert Lange, Partner, DGBK.
© Ema Peter Photography
The storage of materials in this facility does not follow the traditional approach of grouping books by topic but rather by book size, permitting the use of barcodes to store and retrieve them. The barcoded book is stored in a tray, which also contains a barcode and the trays are placed on the shelves, which are again barcoded. “The conceptual idea of the trees in the forest in tandem with the operational requirements of the facility – the barcode – led to the building’s design language.”
© Ema Peter Photography
The facility consists of two main parts – a processing/administrative area and a long rectangular storage module for a combined area of 2,045 square metres. For the latter, the cladding visually references the forest and the barcode through its use of colour and depth using stained cedar on concrete. The blockwork and glazing of the processing and loading areas employs a playful solid void composition with the glazing mullions replicating a varied vertical rhythm of spacing again referencing the barcode. The void areas are used for infiltration of natural light, permitting views to the forest from various orientations. Wood elements at the entry and the sunshades on the west glazing enliven the expression of the processing area. To diminish the large volume, the facility’s massing is divided into three parts and united through the use of similar cladding materials and colours. The folded roof and wood soffit wraps over the processing area, providing a connection of the parts. Wales McClelland Construction built the Library PARC facility with project management by UBC Properties Trust.
© Ema Peter Photography
