Along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., memorials honor the service of Americans in wartime, but the site’s newest addition will be one that fosters conflict resolution and peace. The 150,000-sq-ft permanent headquarters for the U.S. Institute of Peace, being built at the mall’s northwest corner near the Lincoln Memorial and the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge over the Potomac river, will greet visitors with a dramatic new structure that its designers say both respects the context of its historic surroundings and offers a strikingly modern contrast.

Photo: Clark Construction, By Bill Fitz-Patrick

The New York City office of Moshe Safdie and Associates, Somerville, Mass., designed the base of the five-story building, which is clad in precast panels to blend with its neoclassical neighbors and features a sweeping white glass roof intended to make a strong statement of the institute’s mission. Designed as three buildings connected with glass-enclosed atriums, the structure is topped with two large-span undulating roofs, including one that evokes the image of a white dove of peace in flight. “We see it as a gateway to the city from the Roosevelt bridge,” says Paul Gross, Safdie principal in charge of the project. “It respects the vocabulary of the National Mall and offers a symbolic gesture to the city.” The $108-million project is funded by public and private monies.

Bringing this visual statement to reality created significant challenges for Safdie’s design team and construction crews, led by Clark Construction Group, Bethesda, Md. German firm Seele, LP, was added to the team in late 2006 to assist design and installation of the steel-frame and glass-panel roof system. Using building information modeling with Autodesk Revit and Rhino, designers devised two grid-shell systems that would be built using preassembled pieces of roughly 400 sq ft each in surface area. The south roof has a total surface area of 12,000 sq ft and spans 80 ft between buildings. The north roof has 7,500 sq ft of surface area and a 55-ft span. Project engineer is U.K-based Buro Happold.

A framework of 4-in. by 8-in. hollow steel beams holds 1,500 triple-layered glass panels, the majority of which measure 4 ft by 4 ft, except for custom-sized pieces along the edges. Each panel is fritted on the exterior to give it a white appearance at all times during the day. A white translucent membrane along the interior side of the panels gives it a white glow when illuminated from inside at night.

Clark broke ground on the project in March 2008 and roof installation began in June 2009. Because the roofs would span multiple structures and be exposed to winds blowing off the Potomac, structural analysis was a critical element of the complex design. To minimize loads on the concrete-structure buildings, designers opted for a mix of sliding and spring connectors that would allow for up to 2 in. of expansion.

Portions of the roof also cascade off the edges. Along the south elevation facing the National Mall, one “wing” of the roof extends 40 ft away from the building. Three 35-ft-long steel props fan out from a horizontal structural beam along the facade and meet the roof near the middle of the cantilever, leaving the tip of the roof untouched.

“Those moving connections were the most challenging part of the design,” says Mark Goodwin, project executive with Clark Construction. “Once you allow the facade to move a few inches, then you are dealing with tie-ins to other materials such as a metal roof to the north, a PVC membrane along the roof and fixed metal flashings above it. You need to create expansion joint details to allow this structure to move significantly compared to the building.”

Since the roof is going up in vast atrium spaces, a complex scaffold system had to be designed to not only fill the void between the buildings, but also be precisely tiered to match up with the roof curvatures. The five-story, 20,000-sq-ft horizontal scaffold is fully loaded down to slab-on-grade at the parking level below the main floor. Reshoring was added in the garages to support the scaffold above. After several months of design, the scaffold took nearly six weeks to assemble.

To build the roof, sections of the shell were preassembled on the ground using mostly bolted connections to minimize welding in the field. Each piece was then picked up and placed with a tower crane. Once the entire shell is set, the scaffold is designed to allow workers to stand in each frame and receive each 200-lb glass panel as it is individually picked and placed by the tower crane. Placement of the first glass panels began in mid-October and is scheduled to finish next month. Substantial completion for the entire project is scheduled for October 2010.

As panels move into place, the signature white dove is beginning to reveal itself to city residents, commuters and throngs of tourists. “When it first came out of the ground, it looked like your typical Washington building,” says John Stranix, owner’s representative for the institute. “Now that the roof has started going up, people are taking notice. This is going to be a very important addition to the mall.”

Via archrecod

By Joann Gonchar, AIA via archrecord

“Transformable design” is the term that Chuck Hoberman uses to describe the focus of his multidisciplinary practice, Hoberman Associates. The 19-year-old New York City-based firm fuses sculpture, engineering, and product design to create objects with the ability to change size and shape. It is perhaps best known for the Hoberman Sphere, which relies on a series of scissor-like joints to collapse from an open polyhedron to a tightly packed sphere. It has been fabricated in many sizes, all the way from a palm-sized toy to a giant sculpture found at the Liberty Science Museum in Jersey City. But Hoberman’s oeuvre also includes retractable domes, medical instruments, and a stage for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

The firm is also applying its expertise with kinetic objects to buildings in order to create automated and responsive enclosures that can provide shading or ventilation. Facades are ripe for such adaptive components, according to Hoberman. “The envelope plays the single largest role in building performance,” he says. “Not only in relationship to energy consumption, but also with regard to occupant comfort.”

Hoberman, who has envelope projects under way with Foster + Partners and Kohn Pederson Fox, among others, completed his first building with an adaptive skin in October—a mixed-use tower on Tokyo’s Ginza. The 15-story structure, designed by Japanese architecture firms Nikken Sekkei and Yasuda Atelier, houses a showroom for cosmetics company POLA on the lower floors and commercial office space on the upper levels. Within the 3-foot-deep cavity of its street-facing double-skin facade, 185 polycarbonate operable shutters shield the interiors behind the all-glass southeast elevation from direct sunlight. Photo sensors and a building management system control the translucent shading devices, helping cut heat gain by as much as 10 percent, says Hoberman. At night, the shutters move in concert with a colorful lighting scheme.

To further the development of responsive facades, Hoberman’s firm has formed a 50/50 joint venture with global engineering consultancy Buro Happold. The two companies have a long history of working together on transformable structures, including a rapidly deployable shelter for Johnson Outdoors and an expanding elliptical video screen for band U2. But the new Hoberman-Happold entity, named the Adaptive Building Initiative (ABI), differs from these previous collaborations. Instead of providing services on a project-by-project basis, ABI will focus on longer-term technology development with the ultimate goal of creating unitized, dynamic envelope assemblies. The joint venture is working to form partnerships with fabricators and manufacturers so that it can “deliver not only design and engineering, but complete adaptive systems,” says Hoberman. The ABI partners hope to make such systems commercially available within three to five years.

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Mile High Illinois

Frank Lloyd Wright
1956

Frank Lloyd Wright intended his Mile High Illinois skyscraper to be the focal point of Broadacre City, the theoretical city, he began planning in the 1920s. Because the Broadacre project was an exploration of horizontal space, a one-mile-high skyscraper might at first seem out of place—but by the 1950s Wright had decided that some cities were “incorrigible,” and that even Broadacre City could use a tall building as a cultural and social hub. The foundation of Wright’s building was a massive column, shaped like an inverted tripod, sunk deeply into the ground. This supported a slender, tapering tower with cantilevered floors. In keeping with his belief that architecture ought to be organic, Wright likened this system to a tree trunk with branches. He planned to use gold-tinted metal on the facade to highlight angular surfaces along balconies and parapets and specified Plexiglas for window glazing. Inside the building, mechanical systems were to be housed inside hollow cantilevered beams. To reach the building’s upper floors, Wright proposed atomic-powered elevators that could carry 100 people.


Then came Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) a building that made history in hard times

"We're going to need a new word. The Burj Dubai doesn't scrape the sky; it pierces it, like a slender silver needle, half a mile high. It's only because Dubai never has any clouds that we can even see the tower's top. And, judging by the images released so far, the view is more like looking out of a plane than a building. It has made reality a little less real.
The facts and figures about the tower are equally surreal – like the one about how it could be eight degrees cooler at the top than at the bottom, or the one about how you could watch the sunset at the bottom, then take a lift up to the top and watch it all over again. It's a new order of tallness, even compared to its nearest rival, Taiwan's Taipei 101, which it exceeds by more than 300 metres." The Guardian

Concrete jungle ... the view from the 124th floor of the Burj Dubai. Photograph: Imre Solt/Barcroft Media

In environmental terms, the Burj Dubai is way too tall to justify itself, but there is at least some structural efficiency to the form. Its Y-shaped plan – three wings extending from a central core, like the roots of a tree – "confuses the wind", in the architects' words, while the core stops the wings from twisting (which would give top-floor occupants nausea). For super-tall buildings – and surely there will be more, one day – this "buttressed core" design is likely to become the prevailing form.

More worrying than the tower itself, however, is what's around it. In 1956, Frank Lloyd Wright unveiled a scheme for an elegantly preposterous mile-high skyscraper for Chicago, safe in the knowledge that he'd never have to figure out how to build it. It was undoubtedly an influence on the Burj Dubai. It even had a similar triangular structure. But Wright's intentions with his mile-high skyscraper were to create a concentrated human habitat, the better to halt Chicago's unstoppable urban sprawl, and free up ground space for parks, nature and leisure.

The Burj Dubai, by contrast, has become the tentpole for several more acres of anonymous, soulless, energy-hungry cityscape. You can apparently see for 60 miles from the top, but when you look down, the immediate landscape is the same schematic real-estate tat you see everywhere else in Dubai: vast shopping malls, bland office towers, sprawling residential developments semi-themed to resemble "traditional" Arabian villages, outsized ornamental fountains. The Burj Dubai might be a triumph vertically, but what about the horizontal?

zliten campus at asmariya university for islamic sciences by RMJM architects
image courtesy RMJM architects

RMJM architects have received the islamic architecture award for their work on
the zliten campus at asmariya university for islamic sciences in libya at the cityscape
awards in dubai, 2009.

the zliten campus is a new branch of al asmariya university, located 75 miles southeast
of tripoli. RMJM’s architects designed a campus master plan for the development of
the 202-acre site. core academic functions are organized in four quadrants within
a perimeter habitable wall that houses faculty offices and academic support functions.

with a total build-out of more than 1 million square feet, the new campus provides
academic and support buildings, a conference and student center as well as
administration, library, recreation and residential spaces for a population of 4,600 students.


image courtesy RMJM architects


image courtesy RMJM architects


image courtesy RMJM architects


image courtesy RMJM architects

Architectural Design & Fabrication with Digital Technology Lisa Iwamoto [Assistant Professor of Architecture, UC Berkeley] Abstract: Since the advent of Computer Aided Design (CAD), the process of making buildings has fundamentally changed. Computer drafting has become the industry standard, facilitating rapid and accurate communication among architects, engineers, and contractors. There is now a corresponding move toward Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) using computer numerically. Now you talking hey?

Louis Vuitton: Art, Fashion and Architecture Book

A powerful entity in the world of fashion, Louis Vuitton’s reach over the years has extended much beyond its humble beginnings as a luggage brand. In its latest book release, LV’s unparalleled reach over numerous facets of society and design are outlined in its self-titled book, Louis Vuitton: Art, Fashion and Architecture. The book’s contents delve into the brand’s history and association with numerous personalities from the world of art, architecture, design, photography and fashion. A cornerstone of creativity, the Louis Vuitton book features 400 pages filled stunning imagery and will be available in three languages, English, French and Italian. A special deluxe version will release on September 1st, 2009 at LouisVuitton.com and at Louis Vuitton stores and features artwork by Takashi Murakami. The book is priced at $130 USD. Below is a synopsis of the book as well as a three-question interview with Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton.

Announced earlier this year, the Louis Vuitton: Art, Fashion and Architecture Book together with Camille Scherrer puts an animated spin on things to further highlight the book. For any Louis Vuitton fan and culture fan in general, this book should appeal to you as it uncovers Louis Vuitton’s involvement over the years in various facets of art, fashion and architecture as the book’s title would suggest.

Source: ILVOELV

Twice a year, Kermit Baker, the chief economist of the American Institute of Architects, convenes a panel to provide a forecast of nonresidential construction activity for the next six months.

The most recent forecast predicted a 16 percent decline in 2009, and an additional drop of almost 12 percent in 2010. In Atlanta, commercial architecture firms are seeing a similar downturn and are refocusing their firms’ business models to adapt.

“We are certainly seeing a decline in a lot of sectors we work in,” said Fred Perpall, managing principal of Beck’s Atlanta office. “Retail, corporate commercial and also spec office are probably going to be down for the next few years because we’ve got some big overbuilding.”

Perpall predicted commercial financing will come back before demand for commercial work ramps up again.

by Michael Hunter Via

Paper your walls in splashy florals, tranquil leaves or bold abstract designs with Marimekko wallpaper. Whether you are looking to create an accent wall or an entire hallway, Marimekko has the wallpaper that will make your home someplace special.

Marimekko have come out with some of their most popular prints on wallpaper. At this stage they have 11 prints for sale but will be adding all 56 patterns. It you love their designs as much as I do, click here for a look. They are US$89 a roll (NZ$140) and ship worldwide. My favourite are the Stilla leaves and Bo Boo kids cars.

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