New images of architect Jeanne Gang’s Vista Tower in Chicago have been released to entice buyers to purchase luxury condominiums within the supertall skyscraper (+ slideshow). (more…)
Bay Area illustrator Peter Berkowitz has constructed a tiny wooden bedroom for himself in a friend’s living room to avoid paying San Francisco‘s “absurdly high” rents. (more…)
Belarussian designer Constantin Bolimond has created a modular sex gadget made up of elements that differ in shape, texture and colour, and provide a variety of vibration, rotation and temperature settings (+ slideshow). (more…)
From the architect. The American Enterprise Group (AEG) national headquarters is an eight-story office building in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. The venerable building, designed by SOM’s Gordon Bunshaft, was completed in 1965 and received an AIA Honor Award for Architecture in 1967. In 1966, it was featured in LIFE magazine and deemed “the talk of the Midwest.”
The project is being considered for the National Register of Historic Places; improvements were made utilizing historic documents and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings.
The innovative rehabilitation reinforces the original design intent as follows:
Minimalism
This in an invisible rehabilitation. The 1966 LIFE magazine article stated the building had “No Fat.” The building’s original systems were meticulously integrated with the building architecture. The work required substantial demolition of walls and finishes which were obsessively and elegantly reconstructed to accommodate new systems, including the important addition of life-safety.
Beauty
The original building meshed together workplace and AEG’s significant art collection — a museum within an office. The renovated space addresses human efficiency and evolving workplace standards with systems that enhance human productivity while making the art an integrated part of the experience.
Sustainability
This exposed cast-in-place and precast concrete building included many groundbreaking characteristics: an integrated mechanical system; indirect lighting; minimal windows on the east and west facades; north and south facades with expanses of glass; and substantial overhangs to maximize daylight and minimize heat gain. These concepts were preserved and augmented with energy efficient systems. On Levels 3 through 8, a custom thermally broken insulated glazing system was installed to match the profile, finish and tint of the original building. The Entrance and Second Levels remains and frames with panels of annealed clear glass as large as nine feet by eighteen feet.
Views
Advanced for its time, the minimal internal structure provides openness via ninety-foot clearspan. Transparent or minimal design elements including custom sliding glass door office enclosures and a new minimal and modern open-office system were designed to preserve the expanse and provide a modern workplace.
Efficiency
The original building systems were controlled by two thermostats, resulting in “…the experience of four seasons in one day.” Comfort was further compromised by inefficient, single-pane glazing. The rehabilitation replaced the 50 year-old mechanical, electrical, plumbing systems with energy efficient systems and added current life-safety systems. This involved redesigning the integrated duct system, an important visual expression found throughout the ceiling of the building to include air movement, acoustical absorption, lighting and fire-protection.
The $30,000,000 rehabilitation was completed within an extremely tight schedule. Design began in May 2014 and employees returned in August 2015.
“There are still plenty of good buildings lost, and plenty more that are … altered out of all resemblance to their original condition. But there is also a greater willingness than ever before to get to the essence of a work of architecture and to try to bring out once again the qualities it had when it was new.
— Paul Goldberger, American architectural critic
Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron has completed a new gallery to house the permanent collection of the Frank Gehry-designed Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany. (more…)
From the Publisher: The April 2016 issue of a+u introduces 18 works by 12 architects from around the world. The issue begins with one of the masterpieces of modern residential architecture, the Kappe Residence, from Los Angeles in the 1960s. The other works, including houses, pavilions, and a church, differ in scale and program, but they share a common attitude which could be called a commitment to space that is a pure ad of remarkable beauty.
Feature: Poetry of Modesty
Ray Kappe
The Kappe Residence
Column:
The Kappe Residence: Hillside Pragmatism
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg
Barkow Leibinger
Fellows Pavilion – American Academy Berlin
Robbrecht en Daem architecten
Dairy Gaasbeek
Robbrecht en Daem architecten
Het Huis, Middelheimmuseum
Atelier Lise Juel
Landstedet
Atelier Lise Juel
Strandvilla
architecten de vylder vinck taillieu
Famous
architecten de vylder vinck taillieu
House Vos
Gabinete de Arquitectura – Solano Benítez
Casa Abu
Hoidn Wang Partner
Children’s Day Care
Hoidn Wang Partner
Chair
General Architecture and Kod Arkitekter
Villa Eder-Hederus
Johan Celsing
The New Crematorium, The Woodland Cemetery
Johan Celsing
Årsta Church
Christian Kerez
House with a Lake View
Christian Kerez
House with a Missing Column
Harquitectes
House 1014
Valerio Olgiati
Villa Além
Spotlight:
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
Diller Scofidio + Renfro
From the architect. The Titus brothers reached out to MH Architects to explore the concept of a new winery facility located in Napa Valley in 2012. The client’s stated goal was to express the spirit of Titus Vineyards wine through the architectural components of the winery design. MH Architects responded with a series of design iterations before narrowing the focus toward a design that best matched the client’s needs. During the process, architect and client reviewed the basics of production flow, matched hospitality requirements with current trends in the wine tourism industry, and created a building aesthetic which captured brand identity. The design team worked closely to accommodate the complex layout of shiny fermentation tanks which catalyze anaerobic reactions under the same roof which hosts aesthetically-conscious guests with discerning palates.
Bordered by Silverado Trail to the east and the Napa River to the west, the 54-acre project site is located just north of St. Helena with views overlooking estate vineyards. Previously, an existing farm house accommodated occasional informal tastings on a picnic bench and wine was produced at a rented custom crush facility. The client wanted take advantage of the picturesque setting and integrate a tasting experience for an ever-growing clientele with a state-of-the-art production facility. The new building would enable Titus Vineyards to sell wine directly to their customers and engage those customers with the land where the grapes were originally grown and the process of the wine being made.
Program
MH Architects discussed the winemaking process at length with winery staff in order to map out crucial adjacencies for production flow. Staff was forthcoming with technical requirements for all equipment. Necessary clearances were observed and efficient routing for all plumbing and electrical components were optimized. As the equipment was integrated into the floorplan, the building itself became a wine-making machine.
As a 20,000 case production facility, Titus is generally considered a “boutique” winery where crafted production is emphasized over the volume of wine that is produced. Fruit is delivered directly to the Covered Crush area from flatbed trucks and dumped onto horizontal conveyances for cellar staff to remove any substandard grape clusters. After being processed by the destemmer, the grape “must” is pumped to 6000-gallon fermentation tanks in the adjacent Fermentation Room. During the next six weeks, glucose is converted to carbon dioxide, heat, and ethyl alcohol while the age-old process of fermentation is administered through a tightly-controlled process. Following crush and fermentation, the wine is then pumped into 60-gallon wood barrels stacked five racks tall where it will age for two years in the Barrel Storage Room.
Architectural Approach
Siting the building was complicated due to proximity to the Napa River. To mitigate flood risk, the winery was raised to sit atop on a 5- to 8-foot-tall earthen berm. In addition to avoiding high water, the elevated building pad afforded the new Tasting Room uninterrupted views over the surrounding vineyards to the Napa River and the wooded Mayacama Range beyond.
Because of the raised berm, every effort was made to reduce the vertical height of the structure and the profile of the building in general. The large roof spans at the Fermentation and Barrel Storage Rooms were achieved with flat metal trusses as opposed to sloped gables. Most of the perimeter walls of the building were constructed with tilt-up board-formed concrete. The formwork and rebar for the walls were laid out on 6-inch-wide boards to create a rich, striated texture. After curing, each of the concrete walls was “tilted up” 22-feet high and into place by crane. Because the walls were precast, special care was taken to coordinate imbedded metal anchors to receive the ends of the metal trusses in order to structurally interlock the roof and walls together.
The horizontal lines that define the board-formed concrete walls repeat in the Hospitality Room suspended ceiling, comprised of varied width and depth wooden slats. Glass blade LED light fixtures set between the slats maintain the linear theme. Offsetting the hard concrete floors and walls, the slatted ceiling baffles sound gently and mitigates acoustical resonance allowing intelligible conversation when multiple groups of guests are present. MH Architects also designed linear pendant fixtures over the Tasting Counter and in the individual Tasting Rooms. Suspended by pairs of minimal aircraft cables, the fixtures are comprised of rectilinear wooden blocks of alder to match the ceiling with an LED light slot on the bottom.
Blending of Interior and Exterior
The distinction between the winery interior and the natural setting was intentionally blurred. Sliding glass Nana bi-fold doors span a 24-foot-wide opening between the Tasting Room and the exterior covered porch overlooking the vineyards to the west. The concrete floor and wood slat ceiling finishes continue uninterrupted between the interior and exterior. The Tasting Room space expands toward the covered porch and the crisp lines in the ceiling mirror the cultivated vineyard rows beyond.
During a tasting, guests may admire the view of the estate vineyards to the west or alternately observe the cellar staff hard at work in the Crush and Fermentation Rooms through a glass wall to the east. Flanked by grapevines and fermentation tanks, the winemaking process is integral to the guest experience. As wine production weaves with wine hospitality, the philosophy of the Titus Vineyards brand translates into built form.
Opinion: temporary architecture is having a “moment” in Europe, and it has some serious lessons to offer architects that are still obsessed with permanence, says Aaron Betsky. (more…)
A total of 34 countries will participate in the inaugural London Design Biennale, according to a press release from the organization. Set to open on September 7th, the Biennale will center on the theme Utopia by Design, looking at “sustainability, migration, pollution, water and social equality,” among other issues.
The theme was chosen in honor of the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s “Utopia,” and the Biennale will be “the centerpiece” of the Somerset House’s year-long programme celebrating the text. “We chose the inaugural theme, Utopia by Design, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s classic, and to reflect on the rich history of the modernist design it inspired,” said Christopher Turner, the Director of the London Design Biennale.
The Biennale “will present newly commissioned works in contemporary design, design-led innovation, creativity and research,” bringing together “designers, innovators and cultural bodies” to explore “the role of design in our collective futures.” A diverse group of countries from five continents are set to participate: Albania, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Chile, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, SouthAfrica, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, UK and the USA.
Among the projects that have already been unveiled is Mexican architect Fernando Romero’s “exploration of the potential of charters cities” through an installation that examines “the pyschologcial roots of Utopia from German designer Konstantin.” Nigeria’s project, meanwhile, will look at floating cities as a potential solution to flooding in the country, while Greece’s project will “contextualize current population movements.”
The Chilean installation, “The Counterculture Room” by Fab Lab Santiago will consist of a 1:1 scale installation of a project carried out by the government of Salvador Allende in 1971, which aimed to create a real time communication network between workers and authorities.
Israel’s proposal looks at an option to parachute first aide into disaster zones, while Lebanon “will bring a lively depiction of Beirut’s street spirit” to the River Terrace by the Waterloo bridge.
In addition, the UK will be represented by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby and curated by the Victoria and Albert Museum. Other organizations that will represent their countries include: the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (USA), DAMnation (Belgium), German Design Council, Directorate-General for the Arts (Portugal), Moscow Design Museum (Russia), Triennale Design Museum (Italy), India Design Forum, Southern Guild (South Africa),and The Japan Foundation.
