Steven Holl Architects have received the go-ahead for a new pedestrian bridge linking their own Kennedy Center Expansion to the Potomac riverfront. Originally proposed by Kennedy Center architect Edward Durell Stone in 1959, the idea to extend the lively arts program from the center along the waterfront is set to increase the vitality of both existing programs. The bridge approval was one of the last remaining piece of the project, with the majority of the Kennedy Center Expansion already under construction.
Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects
The Kennedy Center, a national center for performing arts, was established in memoriam of President John F. Kennedy in 1959. The prestigious original building was marked for expansion, and a competition in 2013 saw Steven Holl Architects selected to undertake the design. The expansion encompasses the area south of the center to the waterfront, integrating the landscape and river into the center’s existing program. The bridge is an integral part of this plan, giving direct pedestrian access across this new zone.
Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects
In the landscape adjacent to the main expansion building towards the riverfront, various gardens and landscaped areas will play host to outdoor performances and on-site installations. A new cafe will further encourage the movement of activity from the waterfront upwards to the Kennedy Center.
Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects
The bridge itself will also connect the center to Georgetown to the north and the Lincoln Memorial to the south to create new public access. With its approval, construction will take place within the next two years, completing Steven Holl Architects’ engagement with the center.
For more information on Steven Holl’s active projects, check out our recent round-up.
From the architect. The “Lingenhel opening” marks the completion of destilat’s most important project in recent times. This project is very unique and was therefore quite an extraordinary challenge for an interior design firm such as destilat. The visual and spatial identity for Johann Lingenhel’s culinary-gastronomic vision was developed from scratch for this project, since no corresponding definition of it existed initially.
The two cornerstones of this architectural concept by destilat (www.destilat.at) are the project’s listed building on Landstrasser Hauptstrasse in Vienna and Lingenhel’s corporate identity.
Plan
Its counters, bars, and presentation furniture evoke images of cubically stacked wooden beams, which were inspired by the beams of the historic roof truss. Surface structures and haptics play significant roles in this concept. Patination reflects their change, which develops over the course of time; as a result, the building’s long history as well as the production processes of certain foods find their place in this house.
The central idea of this concept is not to fight against natural ageing processes but use them to increase quality. This turns ageing processes into improvement processes, which are naturally associated with the tasteful ripening of cheese or raw ham.
The architectural concept’s second cornerstone – Lingenhel’s corporate identity, which was developed by Germaine Cap de Ville – plays a central role in this interior design project with its “Lingenhel check” pattern.
The check pattern is transformed from its abstract graphic origins into the basis for wall-mounted product presentations. Translated into the third dimension, it ultimately turns into shelves, which are used to present wine.
One of the Lingenhel universe’s central areas surely is the public cheese dairy with its adjacent tasting and event room in the historic court stables.
In this area, the goal was to merge the cheese dairy’s hygienic requirements with an atmospheric and multifunctional event room.
The area of the cheese dairy is separated from the rest of the room by a glass wall and can only be accessed through a hygienic sluice. The room’s sophisticated light installation evokes the image of a theatre stage, which deliberately puts the cheese-making process in the central limelight.
The huge central table made of raw wooden beams and the two minimalistic wire-mesh chandeliers give the tasting room its archaic flair, which corresponds with the room’s character and, at the same time, provide attractive contrasts to the cheese dairy’s sober, industrial atmosphere.
This article is part of our new “Material Focus” series, which asks architects to elaborate on the thought process behind their material choices and sheds light on the steps required to get buildings actually built.
Installed last year, the Salling Tower provides a striking, sculptural landmark in Aarhus Docklands. From inside, its deceptively simple counterbalanced form provides a range of ways to look out over the harbor and the city – but from the outside the project’s designers, Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter wanted the tower to take on an abstract appearance, referencing nautical themes with its sail-like shape and porthole-like openings all while obscuring the process of its own construction. To do this, the firm created a structure composed entirely of a single steel piece resting on top of its foundations. In this interview, project architect Noel Wibrand tells us about how the project’s material choice contributed to the construction process.
What were the principal materials used in the project?
The viewing tower consists entirely of steel plates. Sheets vary in thickness from 20 to 30 millimeters. The construction is welded into one piece, which was mounted on a concrete foundation in a counterbalance structure. All steel parts were painted with a white paint used in the off-shore industry.
The project's drawings show how the steel plates were welded together into a single piece.
In terms of materials, what were your biggest sources of inspiration and influence when selecting what the project would ultimately be made of?
The viewing tower is conceptualized as a huge “origami” structure, and the picture of a piece of folded paper was used as design criteria in the tender and detailing phases.
Describe how material decisions factored into concept design.
The challenge in this design was to maintain the original idea as well a keeping the abstract feel of the design. The detail design process was very much about reducing and simplifying the detailing.
A very large part of the design resources was put into calculating loads and stability for the tower. With its many tilted faces this required a good amount of technical knowledge and skill with computer simulations and calculations. Søren Jensen Engineers provided a sound a professional expertise at this.
What were the advantages that this material offered in the construction of the project?
The advantage of using a homogeneous material, and having no climatic shell or requirements is that you actually can obtain a simple and light structure. The holes in the tower also helps reduce windloads and create a 20% reduction in material, along with freedom to place openings towards views of the city. The tower itself weighs approximately 85 metric tonnes.
Were there any challenges you faced because of your material selection?
Another challenge in the design was to connect the very small “footprint” of the tower with foundations. Even though the old harbor front has been used for loading cargo onto ships, the documentation for this specific construction required thorough investigations.
Did you consider any other possible materials for the project, and if so how would that have changed the design?
We did considering a lighter construction, with metal sheets on a rib structure. This alternative would have been much lighter, and easier to calculate and build on site, but would have resulted in a much less elegant design, as well as a less spectacular mounting process. One function of the tower was also to create an event to put attention to the development of Aarhus harbor.
This project arises from the client’s need to combine a two-room and a three-room flat into one apartment that would better accommodate the family’s new needs. The project strategy entails a clear division between the living and the sleeping areas and includes, within the distributive scheme, a little study area that would host the administrative headquarters of the family business.
We have imagined to spatially define an interior landscape through a prism, a levee that divides and, at the same time, conceals the most private functions of the house. This expedient has allowed us to conceive the living area as a sort of ‘outdoor’ space for the family’s most social activities.
Diagram
Diagram
The fil rouge that connects “Along the Levee” to our previous works is the choice of the materials which are, once more, raw, undisguised elements enhanced in their most authentic expression. Special care has been given in finding their harmonic combination, often obtained through contrast: the earth’s dense texture is softened by the ethereal quality of the resin, the harshness of concrete is tempered by the warmth of wood.
The building process mirrors our vision for the project, where the integration and contamination between the artisans’ custom made work and the project’s technical expertise is paramount.
The New Museum for Western Australia. Image Courtesy of HASSEL + OMA
With the contract to design and build the museum in Perth officially awarded to contractor Brookfield Multiplex, HASSELL + OMA have revealed the design for the New Museum for Western Australia. The WA Government commissioned HASSEL + OMA to design the cultural institution in April of this year.
HASSELL Principal and Board Director Mark Loughnan, and OMA Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten stated: “Our vision for the design was to create spaces that promote engagement and collaboration, responding to the needs of the Museum and the community. We want it to create a civic place for everyone, an interesting mix of heritage and contemporary architecture, that helps revitalize the Perth Cultural Centre while celebrating the culture of Western Australia on the world stage. The design is based on the intersection of a horizontal and vertical loop creating large possibilities of curatorial strategies for both temporary and fixed exhibitions.”
New Museum – Museum Street entrance. Image Courtesy of HASSEL + OMA
The images of the project reveal ample public space and an impressive combination of new structures and existing heritage buildings. The designers explain that the driving concept of the scheme is “a public space that is the central point of the new museum, in terms of both location and programming.” This “outdoor room” seeks to increase public presence in the area, especially when the museum is not officially open.
Courtesy of HASSEL + OMA
New Museum seen from Francis Street. Image Courtesy of HASSEL + OMA
The New Museum is due to be completed in 2020, with main construction beginning next year.
New Museum Francis Street façade. Image Courtesy of HASSEL + OMA
New Museum with projections at night. Image Courtesy of HASSEL + OMA
Paris-based firm RE: has recently completed the design for an extension and refurbishment of the Cyprus College of Art in Paphos. With the idea of continuation, rather than radical reimagination, the project extends the existing sculptural wall of the college, creating new carvings and sculptures from a series of hung perforated copper-clad sheds.
Through this design, the cast concrete wall becomes a horizontal core for the building. Furthermore, this space will contain a series of building services, and can become a place of participation, as it may be carved or painted.
Courtesy of RE:
Courtesy of RE:
Arranged around the wall and the existing structures of the school, the sheds—new studio spaces—will maintain a “low-slung” character and “[reinforce] the village typology and deinstitutionalized nature of the existing school, while a new tower announces the position of this important cultural institution” explained the architect.
Courtesy of RE:
Courtesy of RE:
The extension and refurbishment aims to continue the college’s motto, “for artists, by artists,” by encouraging freedoms through its character.
Courtesy of RE:
The studios’ copper color is derived from the Lady of Lemba statuette, which was excavated from the site of the college and has since become a symbol for the village.
From the architect. The building is connected to a racetrack located in Barcelona, and is actively used as a training site for professional motor racing. Several companies involved in the industry have set up permanent offices in this building.
A flexible design was needed for the building so that it could accommodate several companies of varying sizes. For this reason, the building is divided between several 35 square meter subdivisions or sectors.
Each is independent from the other, and all mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) utilities were installed below each sector, allowing for an unobstructed view, optimal energy efficiency, and minimized energy consumption.
Plan 2
The building had to be completed in only 6 months, and therefore we chose to employ already built concrete frameswhile the concrete was being moulded in a factory we begin to lay the foundations of the building and transform the plot of land.
Special care was taken when selecting the glass panes. To prevents overheating, minimizes greenhouse effects and eliminates the possibility of an irritating glare appearing on, for example, their computer monitors.
Section
We sought to prevent any potential issues related to oxidation, or rusting of any metallic components. We therefore only employed aluminium, galvanized and or stainless steel, and obviously abstained from using any painted iron.
The interior had to be crafted with the most durable of materials; cement plates were thus chosen as they are more resistant to shock and moisture exposure and damage than dry wall and sheetrock. A porcelain floor helped us to create a solid, durable, and shock resistant surface
The interior finish was coloured white to complement and enhance the building’s light output. The air conditioning is powered by geothermal energy which is quite low maintenance, is more economical, and as a system it greatly reduces CO2 emissions.
Elevation
The lighting system includes an automatic adjustment feature that maximizes natural light.
Exhibition Layout: Paulo David and João Gomes da Silva
Assembly Coordination: Inês Maurício, Nuno Gamboa
Production: EXPOCENA
Production Support: Atelier PD Arquitectos, Betão e Taipa, Câmara Municipal da Calheta, Câmara Municipal do Funchal, CAV – Centro de Artes Visuais, Ecobasalto, FAF – Produtos siderúrgicos, Francisco Soares, Lda., Francisco Xavier de Castro, Lda, Manuel Gaspar, Norigem Secil
Team Global Arquitetura Paisagista:: Stefano Serventi (coordinator), Inês Norton, Hugo Guiomar, Sebastião Carmo-Pereira, Ana Pereira
Team Paulo David Arquitectos: João Almeida, Joel Gomes, Adriana Henriques, Sofia Teles, André Ferreira, Joaquina Freitas
Landscape as architecture
From the works of João Gomes da Silva and Paulo David
Texto cortesia do curador da exposição Nuno Crespo.
This exhibition is twofold in nature. It is about two architects – João Gomes da Silva and Paulo David – and two disciplines, and deals with two quite distinct geographies: the island of Madeira and the city of Lisbon. But this exhibition is not about the history of the relationship between the two architects. It starts with their collaborations together, but then it moves from this central core to look at other individual projects, other geographies and other times. It is not an exhibition about a common history, but the illustration of a path that begins with a common core of works and then goes off in other directions. From a more ambitious and comprehensive standpoint, Landscape as Architecture is, above all, designed to provoke reflection about the complex relationship between landscape and architecture.
The projects presented do not follow any chronological principle, but appear here because they develop themes that bring us closer to understanding the possible relationship between architecture and landscape proposed by the work of the two architects. The exhibition does not seek to simplify this relationship, but to emphasise its wide-ranging and problematical nature. The temptation has been avoided of closing off concepts or putting forward disciplinary or programmatic principles, because we know that the theme of landscape is so profound that it would oblige us to examine many other arts besides architecture if we were to do it full justice. Only in that way would it be possible to establish a rigorous framework for the idea of landscape, presenting it in its dimension of something that is built, fabricated and originated by man.
Landscape is the place of a tension or, if you prefer, of a conflict, an old and rather primitive conflict that is still to be found in all human gestures that seek to create form and produce meaning. At a certain level, this conflict is waged between reason and nature and can be understood as a kind of basic and constitutive polarity between form and substance, the logical and the empirical, or even between idea and construction. Nature signifies those frequently paradoxical and confused aspects of reality that withstand the human desire for order and its wish to impose a form upon the world. The modern narrative, believing in progress and in human productive forces, was convinced that the resistance shown by the world’s empirical substance, and with it nature, should be overcome and integrated into a dialectic in which man would always be the dominant and triumphant element. This exhibition places itself at the very centre of these tensions.
It is not a question of creating a hierarchy or of tracing a path between our different understandings of architectural material structures as monuments, functions or nature, but of examining the possibility that nature itself might be the guide of architecture. A possibility that does not imply forgetting the different rationalities or the different technical and functional requirements that the discipline of architecture involves, nor does it mean proposing the possibility of an architecture that, as Rosario Assunto says in Nature and Reason, mimetically reproduces nature, but instead critically thinking of a way of acting that is not guided by the beauty of pure, geometrical and ideal forms, but which begins and ends in nature.
Nature is not synonymous with “natural” or with biology, but is to be seen as geography, territory, history, culture, etc. And it is this form of nature that the works of João Gomes da Silva and Paulo David call upon, in the sense that their gestures, turned into form and substance in space, are ways of understanding the world, interpreting the territory and thinking about history, architectures that not only seek to impose objects upon the world, but to live in a kind of intrigue between human construction (rational, logical, geometrical) and the spontaneity of nature (irrational, spontaneous and sensual).
But this exhibition is not confined to the idea of landscape and its questions. It also examines the modalities, materialities and concepts with which a place is constructed, as if, through the collaborations and projects of these two architects, we were attempting to answer the question: how does one construct these kinds of places that seem as though they have always existed? and which, seemingly immune to the passage of time, allow us to guess their beginnings or their genealogy: places without time, which appear to have always been there and where their antiquity is their future. How can we imagine Calheta in Madeira without the Casa das Mudas, where each volume, window and material is an integral part of that coastline? Or how can we think of the Ribeira das Naus in Lisbon as not having always been like this? It is interesting to understand the way in which, in these two projects, a strategy is devised that will reveal what, in a territory, lies hidden in its deepest layers. Seen in this light, architecture appears as a way of critically recovering – activating, making present, operative and pertinent – something that previously existed. It is not a question of choosing the idea of antiquity as the main value, but of viewing architecture from the idea of belonging: architecture that is not based on a desire for formal or technological invention, but on the feeling of belonging, or, in other words, its original questioning is about what belongs to a place. For this reason, as Álvaro Siza Vieira writes, architecture is never entirely free because there is always something – even in the middle of the Sahara Desert – that obliges us to postpone the test of its Great Freedom and head off in another direction: the turban of a nomad, a gold coin or a drawing carved into the wall of a cave.
Although the question of place is not new, it has become pertinent in our present time because we are all subject to the intense feeling of no longer having a place. It is not a form of nostalgia or melancholy, but a question of critically approaching the (strange) idea of a generic place, of the need that we feel, so well expressed by the works of these two architects, to associate the geographical place with history and culture.
Plan
It is also important to stress the way in which the question of the representation of architecture is raised through the confrontation of different ways of representing a space, a place and a geography: material fragments, technical drawings, architects’ models, photographs, drawings, words. A labyrinth of elements where a comparison is made between personal, cultural, historical and disciplinary geographies, which is prolonged in the previously unseen videos and photographs by Nuno Cera. The images (fixed and moving) appear as a kind of notebook in which the different textures and intensities of architecture and landscape take both form and shape. These are not photographs of architecture in the normal sense, but subjective, artistic and poetic approaches to the unity between form, substance, desire and place that makes architecture a landscape.
Chamfer House revisits a post and beam dwelling designed in 1977 by Kevin Borland. It sits within an established garden on Oliver’s Hill, a crucible of late modernism overlooking Port Phillip Bay. Our clients approached us soon after moving in. They wanted to protect the timber structure and ceilings they loved, while also updating the house to suit their young family.
Our intervention assumed a strategy of sensitive infiltration. We touched every room, some more heavily than others, yet retained the house’s core personality: the romantic rationalism that characterised much of Borland’s later work. We unkinked the plan, pulled back a touch on the 1970s psychedelics, and reconfigured the living and sleeping areas to better connect with the garden.
We sought to build on the juxtaposition of structural rationality and romanticism, layering a rational spatial sequence with an exploded interpretation of the chamfer. A device used regularly by Borland, we developed it into a three dimensional form that operates from the macro scale to the micro. The faceted balcony soffit framing the view from the master bedroom is one example, as are the repetitive triangular motifs in our customized joinery hardware.
Brandon Haw Architecture (BHA) has unveiled the plans for Serena del Mar, one of two “twin” buildings that will host the Universidad de Los Andes International School of Management in Cartagena, Colombia. As the first office and institutional building to be constructed as a part of a long term, two-phase master plan, the four-story building will additionally house offices for corporations and businesses to support the upcoming master plan, specifically a new hospital building for Johns Hopkins University.
Serena del Mar is designed to respond to the “local climatic conditions in the most naturally passive yet contemporary way,” explained the architect . It will feature precast concrete vertical fins to shade from the intense Caribbean sun, but will also allow for views of the surrounding landscape.
Courtesy of Brandon Haw Architecture (BHA)
Furthermore, the twin buildings will capture northerly breezes over pools of cool water to maximize air movement. “This creates a shaded microclimate within centrally located courtyards, very much a functional interpretation of local Cartagena architecture.”
Courtesy of Brandon Haw Architecture (BHA)
Courtesy of Brandon Haw Architecture (BHA)
Inside, each building will feature both internal and external spaces for collaborative work, study, and socializing, with high ceilings, controlled sunlight, and framed views.
BHA is a newly established firm under British architect Brandon Haw. Haw previously spent nearly 30 years as a Managing Director at Foster + Partners, working on high-profile projects like New York City’s Hearst Tower.
Sig Nordal 