From the architect. Mundo Verde is a bilingual, sustainability-focused public charter school located in the District of Columbia. The school’s curriculum is based in expeditionary learning, where students learn through the active exploration of the world around them. Awarded a shuttered 1920s-era school building and site by the District in 2013, Mundo Verde had a direct question for the design team: “How can this redevelopment and addition project teach our students to be global stewards?”
Mundo Verde is two buildings: the renewed and refined historic school and a new Pre-K annex. The surrounding landscape is integral to the buildings, blending the natural systems of the city with learning space.
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Pre-K Annex: The massing of the annex is derived from the existing building and modulated in response to solar exposure and the pattern of the surrounding city fabric. It sits at the northeast corner of the site, reinforcing the site’s urban edge while protecting a courtyard for Pre-K student play. The exterior facade is designed to be deferential to the historic school, yet textured at a scale accessible to the Mundo Verde students. A third floor learning terrace, large window openings, and building orientation provide for light-filled classrooms which frame the natural landscape of the interior play court. Bold colors inspired by Latin American culture add additional vibrancy to the interior.
Site: The new Mundo Verde campus is a framework for learning expeditions about environmental sustainability. The paths of these expeditions are quilted together to form the campus design. Students grow and harvest food for their lunches in gardens onsite, learning healthy and seasonable eating habits. Indigenous plantings support migratory insect and bird populations. An underground cistern and constructed streambed illustrate the importance of water conservation.
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Historic School Renovation: The institutional plan of the existing building is reimagined as an innovative blend of flexible student and administration spaces. Breakout nooks and cubbies are carved from the generous corridors, abandoned ventilation chases, and existing wall thicknesses. New windows provide natural light to the building core. As in the Annex, high ceilings and grand window expanses are supported by highly coordinated building system integration.
The expeditionary learning curriculum empowers MV students to be leaders in their own learning expeditions. The new Mundo Verde buildings and landscapes are designed to be dynamic partners in the growth of children into life-long learners and stewards of the environment.
Next month, the AIA National Convention is heading to Philadelphia! As the premier architecture and design conference of the year, this is a can’t-miss event for those involved with the industry. If you haven’t yet purchased your pass, we’re offering a chance to attend free of charge!
reThink Wood is offering a full pre-paid pass to the 2016 AIA National Convention ($1,050 value) to one lucky ArchDaily reader. The winner will have the chance to meet with architects, engineers, academics and developers that are passionate about innovative design with wood.
To win, just answer the following question in the comments section before Friday, April 22 at 12:00 p.m. ET: Which mass timber building in the U.S. has most inspired you?
As part of their annual attendance at the AIA National Convention, reThink Wood will be hosting a variety of activities on site to discuss wood’s advantages in the built environment.. The choice of products used to build, renovate and operate structures consumes more of the earth’s resources than any other human activity. Over the past several years, a number of tall wood projects have been completed around the world, demonstrating successful applications of next-generation lumber and mass timber technologies. Today, the concept is gaining traction in the U.S. – with more architects opting for a sustainable solution for attaining safe, cost-effective, high-performing tall buildings in urban-dense settings.
Attendees are invited to personally meet with experts at the reThink Wood booth (#1131), including Hans-Erik Blomgren of Arup, Lisa Podesto of U.S. WoodWorks and Joe Mayo of Mahlum Architects. We also encourage those interested in learning more about wood buildings and mass timber to attend the various education sessions discussing recent advancements (see below for a few highlights).
reThink Wood events taking place during the conference include:
reThink Wood will again be hosting a Twitter Q&A live from their booth (#1131)! Attendees are invited to participate in this year’s discussion about the tall wood building movement within urban settings. A panel of architects and engineers will be participating to share their learnings and experiences with mid-rise and tall wood buildings. Interested participants are encouraged to gather in-person at the reThink Wood booth, or join virtually using the hashtag #AIATimberTalk. Check out highlights from last year’s Q&A here.
2. The Momentum of Tall Wood Buildings Hans-Erik Blomgren, Arup, and Lisa Podesto, U.S. WoodWorks Thursday, May 19, 12:30-1:30 p.m. ET CE Theater C Booth 324
With more than two tall wood projects of 10 stories or more in height planned to start construction in the U.S. in 2016, designers are curious how building teams are navigating the code hurdles. This presentation will examine the latest research available supporting tall wood structures and how architects can leverage this information with their local authorities having jurisdiction.
3. Architecture in Solid Wood Joe Mayo, Mahlum, Todd Beyreuther, Washington State University, Susan Jones, atelierjones, and Hans-Erik Blomgren, Arup Friday, May 20, 7:00-8:00 a.m. ET Pennsylvania Convention Center Room 113
It’s hard to rival the desirability of solid wood as a building material. From forest to factory to finished building, this session explores the selection and production of mass timber in today’s high-tech industry. Don’t miss this opportunity to get insider insights into how mass timber is transforming residential, commercial, and institutional projects.
Remember, to enter for a chance to win a full pre-paid pass to the 2016 AIA National Convention, answer the following question in the comments section before April 22 at 12:00 p.m. ET: Which wood building in the U.S. has most inspired you?
From the architect. The house is located in a new community on the outskirts of the city. The project is meant to be a sober and orderly intervention; a pause within a visually noisy context. Once you walk in the interior of the house, one understands that the spacial sequence is defined by its structure. By structure we mean shape, space and movement.
In an attempt to reduce, but above all, keep control of construction costs, inexpensive modular elements were used –e.g. concrete blocks – as well as materials that do not require maintenance – e.g. exposed concrete and pre-painted metal panels-.
Concrete blocks comprise the exterior envelope of the house with metal framing with gypsum board on the inside. The metal framing hosts all of the pipes and wires without interfering with the CMU, while providing optimal thermal insulation. The project is laid over a grid of parallel walls which run from east to west, crossed by 4 beams in a north-south orientation. Walls define spaces and there are sloped slabs between beams.
A group of researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm has developed Optically Transparent Wood (TW), a new material that could greatly impact the way we develop our architectural projects. Published in the American Chemical Society’s journal Biomacromolecules, the transparent timber is created through a process that removes the chemical lignin from a wood veneer, causing it to become very white. This white porous veneer is then impregnated with a transparent polymer, matching the optical properties of the individual cells and making the whole material translucent.
Lars Berglund, a professor at KTH Wallenberg Wood Science Center, says that these translucent panels could not only be used in windows and facades to let in sunlight while preserving the occupant’s privacy, but also would be an effective material for the surfaces of solar cells – particularly when covering large expanses of cells, where the wood’s cheap production costs would offer a significant cost benefit.
“When the lignin is removed, the wood becomes beautifully white. But because wood isn’t naturally transparent, we achieve that effect with some nanoscale tailoring,” said Berglund.
The optical properties of the material, which was funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, are “tunable by changing the cellulose volume fraction.” A detailed explanation of the process here.
From the architect. Palau Sant Jordi designed for the 1992 Olympics, by Arata Isozaki, have evolved and changed its skin into multiple, different and variable faces during the last two decades. From U2, or Bruce Springsteen to the Rolling Stones have gone through its rooms, scenarios and walls.
The VIP lounges are conceived inside those walls. They are thought as capsules built into the geometry of Palau Sant Jordi. The new spaces are grown and built into an existing one.
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The existing spaces where 3D bounded and modeled to fit the new lounge capsules. Made of steel and light every panel of the lounges was 3D designed and parameterized with different patterns of texture, perforation and LED RGB. The 418 different panels were separately laser cut and manufactured using the very new technologies without increasing the cost and time of production.
The capsules shape a new atmosphere for its events. A new space that can fit the multiple events happening in the Palau at the same time it takes the visitors to a completely different kind of dimension. It is a space travel through sensations and feelings. The VIP lounges represent the new experience that completes and accompanies the tours of the great stars.
OMA has revealed the design for its first skyscraper in Tokyo. A tower with a torqued front-facade, the building incorporates an elevated park and access to a new Hibiya Line subway station in a project that mixes hotel, office, and retail components.
Designed by Shohei Shigematsu, Partner and Director of OMA New York, the tower is one of three proposed by Japanese-developer Mori Building. OMA’s Toranomon Hills Station Tower would join Toranomon Hills Business Tower and Toranomon Hills Residential Tower, and will, according to the firm, “transform the area into a more vibrant, globally accessible business hub that will entice individuals and enterprises from around the world to live, work and play, reshaping Toranomon into a gateway to Tokyo and hub for international business.” The tower is scheduled to be completed in 2022, but partial subway service will begin in time for the 2020 Olympics.
“Toranomon Hills Station Tower serves as a key node that connects the new station to the other towers and the surrounding district,” says Shohei Shigematsu. “The axis of activity is designed to run through the base, extending vertically to wrap the tower; communicating the activity of the complex at an urban scale.”
From the architect. Invisible Studio were commissioned to build 2 new buildings comprising their new tree management centre – which is a Machinery Store and a Welfare Facility for the Tree Team. We particularly wanted to use the timber from the arboretum – as the client had an extraordinary resource which they hadn’t exploited previously for building. As a result, all the timber was grown and milled on site, and used untreated for the construction with no further processing.
Courtesy of Invisible Studio
One of our interests is how you can use imprecise materials to make a precise building, and this is something we have enjoyed with this project, which was constructed with volunteers working alongside a skilled contractor.
Courtesy of Invisible Studio
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Courtesy of Invisible Studio
The engineering objective for the design for the building was to efficiently use timber from the arboretum; with all processing taking place on site minimising transport and processing costs. Many of the timbers to be used for the structures had not been felled until late in the design process and the design was adapted to suit the material that became available. A dialogue between engineers, architect and the contractor during fabrication of the timber frames facilitated the use higher quality timber where strength was most critical and in other areas make use of timbers that had not achieved the higher strength grading. This approach allowed the team to efficiently use the materials available.
“In this installation for COS, I envisage to make a forest of light,” said Fujimoto. “A forest which consists of countless light cones made from spotlights above. These lights pulsate and constantly undergo transience of state and flow. People meander through this forest, as if lured by the charm of the light. Light and people interact with one another, its existence defining the transition of the other.”
London-based architecture firm Foster + Partners has designed a central community space for the district, due to be completed in 2018. Image Courtesy of Dubai Design Week
In recent years, it’s been no secret that Dubai has been attempting to diversify its industries, as the city moves on from being an oil-based economy. In this article, originally published by Metropolis Magazine as “Dubai: Making a Creative Capital from Scratch,” Ali Morris investigates how the city is building its own design district to rival London or New York – and doing so despite starting from almost nothing.
In cities where a faded industrial area exists, a creative community often follows. It’s a well-established cycle of urban regeneration that has played out in Berlin, London, and New York. Attracted by cheap rent and large, empty spaces, the creatives come, building up areas with independent cafés and stores before inevitably being priced out of the market by the very gentrification they helped to bring about.
So what happens in a city so young that it doesn’t have a dilapidated area for the creatives to occupy? When the city in question is Dubai, which was still just a desert fishing settlement until around the 1960s, you build it from scratch, of course. With the second part of a three-phase build unveiled last year, Dubai Design District (known as d3) is a sprawling 15.5-million-square-foot (1.4 million square meter) development located in a desert plot on the eastern edge of the city. Circled by multilane highways and located between downtown Dubai and a wildlife reserve, d3 has been masterminded as a framework from which to grow and sustain a new design ecosystem.
The Dubai Design District (d3) is planned as a creative neighborhood within reach of the city’s downtown. Image Courtesy of Dubai Design Week
The site, acquired in 2013 by developer TECOM Group, is already being utilized by 2,000 design practitioners, mostly brands and established studios, spread across 11 buildings. By 2018 TECOM hopes to open what it calls the project’s “cultural epicenter”— a one-million-square-foot (93,000 square meter) creative community designed by Foster + Partners comprising workshops, studios, and residences for start-ups and emerging local designers. A one-mile waterfront commercial strip with boutiques, hotels, and hospitality and leisure facilities is slated to follow in 2019. When complete, the development will house over 10,000 design practitioners and will play host to large design events such as Dubai Design Week—a new initiative that debuted in 2015—and Design Days Dubai, which hosted its fifth edition this month. “Our vision is to become the heart of the Arab world’s design scene,” explains d3’s chief operating officer, Mohammed Saeed Al-Shehhi.
One of the installations constructed by local designers for the inaugural Dubai Design Week in 2015, "Yaroof" by Aljoud Lootah references the traditional form of fishing in the area. Nylon ropes strung on octagonal frames also call to mind arabesque motifs. Image Courtesy of Dubai Design Week
“Since Dubai is a relatively dispersed city, having a design district helps create a platform for people in this specific field to interact on a much closer level,” says Ayah Al Bitar, a young designer and graduate of Parsons School of Design who has taken a studio in the district. A sense of community and opportunity for cross-pollination was “nonexistent” in Dubai before the arrival of d3, according to fellow tenant Viktor Udzenija, who moved to the city in 2008 and has since started his own interior architecture practice. “There are so many young companies here from various fields of work,” he says. “It’s a unique opportunity that d3 is creating—trying to get everyone to move here to work together and create something together.”
The installation "Earth Hives" by Emirati artist and designer Latifa Saeed and Syrian-born designer Talin Hazbar reexplores the legacy of terra-cotta craft in the UAE. Image Courtesy of Dubai Design Week
Conversations about d3 began back in the early 2000s, heralding the start of a long period of research and planning before the build began in 2013. “What’s been challenging about this project is that we’re delivering two million square feet of built-up areas [in phases one and two combined] that will be inhabited by all kinds of creatives,” explains Lindsay Miller, managing director of d3. “The goal for us is making sure the mix is right in every building. we took a lot of time to look at who was neighboring whom.”
Ali Al-Sammarraie assembled his "Detritus Wall" installation using refuse cardboard and wood. Image Courtesy of Dubai Design Week
For the district’s all-important second phase, d3 has enlisted Foster + Partners to generate a scheme with pedestrian-friendly streets and outdoor event spaces that echo New York’s Meatpacking District and East London’s Shoreditch neighborhood. “The joy of creating a design community is that we can borrow from centers of excellence around the world to ensure that the site we create fully caters to the needs of the industry,” says Al-Shehhi.
"Untitled (Archway)," a structure built of glass filaments, was designed and built by Anjali Srinivasan, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Srinivasan directs ChoChoMa Studios, the only artist-run handcrafted-glass-making enterprise in Dubai. Image Courtesy of Dubai Design Week
Indeed, one of the distinct advantages of building from scratch is the removal of the threat of rising rents due to gentrification. The d3 creative community has been tailored to the needs of the United Arab Emirates’ emerging designers and artists, and the price of renting a space in one of the community’s shared workspaces, Al-Shehhi says, will reflect this: “We interviewed our target market to understand what they wanted and therefore what price was feasible for them. We have developed a wide range of spaces, facilities, and pricing options that allow each entity to develop their space, bespoke to their needs.”
During the design week, d3 also hosted a number of other exhibitions and retail events. Exit Through the Design Shop was a mobile shopping experience by Dubai-based retailer s*uce. Image Courtesy of Dubai Design Week
In 2013, an extensive study titled the “MENA [Middle East North Africa] design outlook” was commissioned by the Dubai Design and Fashion Council with support from d3. The study’s findings vindicate Dubai’s considerable investment, stating that the MENA design industry, which had a market value of over $100 billion at the end of 2014, is expected to grow at an average rate of 6 percent annually—twice that of the global design sector.
The district is also being planned as a regional hub for design. During Dubai Design Week, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan (pictured), Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the UAE showcased the best design work from their countries as part of an exhibition called "Abwab," which means “doors” in Arabic. Image Courtesy of Dubai Design Week
“Dubai says it wants to move from being a consumer and importer of design to being a producer and exporter—that’s a lovely idea, but it won’t happen overnight,” says interior design firm director Pallavi Dean, a d3 resident who says the district’s atmosphere reminds her of working in London’s Clerkenwell neighborhood seven years ago. “The good news is that we’re definitely making breakthroughs. Until five years ago, most clients with money only wanted branded Italian furniture and architects or interior designers from big-name studios in London or New York. Now it’s becoming a badge of honor to say your hotel or office was designed by a Dubai-based studio, with locally made furniture.”
From the architect. Behind the project «casa no muro» there is the promise of a father to his children, to build them a tree house. But the tree overhanging the enclosure wall was on the neighbours land: So how could we answer to the children request to build this dreamed cabin?
To rising off the cabin from the ground, we install it on the wall to keep the idea of a floating space. Constructed in wood, the cabin can open on nature by a big wood shutter, invisible when it is closed. The project is accessible using a ladder integrated on a footpath: a large platform ends the boardwalk offering a view on pinewood landcaspe. Fishing nets are fixed all along the constructive system in «v» shape, for the children safety.
The concept of laminated facades is thinking with tightened boards, on the lower part of the cabin and increasingly spaced boards in the higher part.It creates outside views, filtring light and keeping child- ren privacy at their level small size.
Because of a low budget, this cabin is a project made with the participation of the village carpenter, customers, neighbours, and architects. This is a local pine wood: an autoclave treatment has been applied to make resistant this outdoor construction.
Sig Nordal 