plumbing shaft

So what do you do when the penthouse atop the 15-storey building you’re renovating has a small unused space that was originally constructed as a shaft for a second elevator? Well, if you’re the architects at Hernandez Silva, you turn it into a glass-floored bathroom that would give professional Hollywood stuntpersons second thoughts about using.

Beach and Howe St. by BIG

TGIF!

Today we will be looking at Beach and Howe St by BIG.
For more photos and information, you can go here: http://www.dezeen.com/2012/04/13/beach-and-howe-st-by-big/





Here’s some more information from BIG:

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BIG contributes to Vancouver skyline
The 490-foot-tall Beach and Howe mixed-use tower by BIG + Westbank + Dialog + Cobalt + PFS + Buro Happold + Glotman Simpson and local architect James Cheng marks the entry point to downtown Vancouver, forming a welcoming gateway to the city, while adding another unique structure to the Vancouver skyline.

BIG’s proposal, named after its location on the corner of Howe & Beach next to the Granville Street Bridge in downtown Vancouver, calls for 600 residential units occupying the 49-story tower, which would become one of the city’s fourth tallest buildings.

The tower is situated on a nine-story podium base offering market-rental housing with a mix of commercial and retail space. BIG was commissioned by Canada’s premier real estate developer Westbank, established in 1992, with over $10 billion of projects completed or under development, including the Shangri-La luxury hotels in Vancouver and Toronto.

“We have brought together the best talent available in Vancouver and Europe to create a truly world class project that will enrich not only the particular neighborhood, but also the city and its quest to become creative, sustainable and affordable city.

Architecturally, the Beach and Howe tower will introduce a new building typology to the Vancouver skyline and will create a dramatic gateway to downtown Vancouver that speaks to the emerging creative economy in the city”, Ian Gillespie, President, Westbank.

The tower takes its shape after the site’s complex urban conditions aiming to optimize the conditions for its future inhabitants in the air as well as on the street level. At its base, the footprint of the tower is conditioned by concerns for two significant neighboring elements, including a 30-meter setback from the Granville bridge which ensures that no residents will have windows and balconies in the middle of heavy traffic as well as concerns for sunlight to an adjacent park which limits how far south the building can be constructed. As a result the footprint is restricted to a small triangle.

“The Beach and Howe tower is a contemporary descendant of the Flatiron Building in New York City – reclaiming the lost spaces for living as the tower escapes the noise and traffic at its base. In the tradition of Flatiron, Beach and Howe’s architecture is not the result of formal excess or architectural idiosyncrasies, but rather a child of its circumstances: the trisected site and the concerns for neighboring buildings and park spaces.” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.
As the tower ascends, it clears the noise, exhaust, and visual invasion of the Granville Bridge. BIG’s design reclaims the lost area as the tower clears the zone of influence of the bridge, gradually cantilevering over the site. This movement turns the inefficient triangle into an optimal rectangular floor plate, increasing the desirable spaces for living at its top, while freeing up a generous public space at its base.

The resultant silhouette has a unique appearance that changes from every angle and resembles a curtain being drawn aside, welcoming people as they enter the city from the bridge.

“The tower and base are a reinvention of the local typology, known as “Vancouverism.” In this typology, slender towers are grouped with mixed-use podiums and street walls that define human-scale urban environments. The aim is to preserve view cones through the city while activating the pedestrian street,” Thomas Christoffersen, Partner-in-Charge, BIG.

The tower’s podium is a mixed-use urban village with three triangular blocks that are composed of intimately-scaled spaces for working, shopping, and leisure which face onto public plazas and pathways.

The additional public space adds to the existing streets, giving the neighborhood a variety of open and covered outdoor spaces of various scales which transform the site under the Granville Bridge into a dynamic and iconic mixed-use neighborhood hub.

“Vancouver has already embarked upon an urban experiment in creating a super dense residential downtown – to increase pedestrian activity and street life.

With this project we attempt to continue this process of densification by reclaiming a site beneath the bridges that would otherwise be lost as a lifeless “black hole” in the urban fabric.

The diagonal canopies of the vehicular flows above create a new form of weather protected urban space, turning the large infrastructure in to a niche for social life.” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.

The courtyards created by the building volumes, roofs and terraces are all designed to enhance views from the Granville Bridge and the residential units above.

The canted, triangular clusters of green roofs create a highly graphic and iconic gateway to and from the downtown core, reinforcing the City of Vancouver’s focus on sustainable cities.

The exterior façades respond to the various solar exposures which is integral to the overall sustainability concept.

The building will strive for LEED Gold Certification.

NAME: Beach and Howe St.
CLIENT: Westbank Projects Corp.
LOCATION: Vancouver, Canada
SIZE: 653,890 sf / 60,670 m2
COLLABORATORS: Dialog, Cobalt Engineering, Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg Urban Design, Buro Happold, Glotman Simpson, James KM Cheng Architects
PARTNERS-IN-CHARGE: Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Christoffersen
PROJECT LEADER: Agustin Perez-Torres
TEAM: Julianne Gola, Marcella Martinez, Chris Malcolm, Karol Borkowski, Michael Taylor, Alina Tamosiunaite, David Brown, Tobias Hjortdal, Alexandra Gustafson

Corn Creek Visitor Center

CORN CREEK, NV - JMA Architects

"The Concepts."

The concept for the design of the 10,000 square foot Desert Nafional Wildlife Refuge Administrative / Visitor Center at Com Creek is to design a place that enhances the visitor's experience of the landscape, and the stories that it tells. Approaching the site from the south ... a hint of architecture appears above the landscape. A simple slice between two landscape berms frames the entry, acting as a gateway to the native landscape beyond.

Before entering the building, the story-telling begins with a native landscape exhibition display on the landscape berms. The landscape slopes upward into the long sloping roof line, taking one's eye from the landscape up towards the sky and mountains beyond. The concrete retaining walls provide text/graphics with site informafion, and history as one walks the entry path.



The walls begin wide and low invitng people into the site, and become more narrow and taller as they get closer to the entry compressing visitors right before they enter the lobby.

As one travels north through the lobby, the ceiling height begins to climb and fioor-to-ceiling glass allows the visitors expansive views towards the mountain ranges. Visitors have easy access to the outdoor trails (and future amphitheater), shaded seafing areas, and interior exhibifion space from the main lobby.

"The architecture must become an inseparable part of the landscape and the landscape must become an inseparable part of the architecture."



 Display Board

Just wanted to share that JMA took top honors on April 18th 2012 at the Las Vegas AIA Unbuilt Design Awards, and was awarded the only Honor Award for the Corn Creek Visitor Center design.

Designs unveiled in competition to redesign America's 'front yard'

The Competition

The National Mall Design Competition is a three-stage competition, through which a Jury of esteemed professionals will select a Design Team for each of three redesign sites identified by the National Mall Plan: Union Square, the Washington Monument grounds at Sylvan Theater and Constitution Gardens.
The three-stage competition process includes (1) portfolio evaluations to select up to eight potential lead designers for each site, (2) team interviews to select up to five potential design teams for each site, and (3) a design competition to select a design for each site.

the Ideas

 

Constitution Gardens

Andropogon & Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

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Constitution Gardens

Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architect & Paul Murdoch Architects

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Constitution Gardens

OLIN & Weiss/Manfredi

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Constitution Gardens

Rogers Marvel Architects & Peter Walker and Partners

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Washington Monument Grounds at Sylvan Theater

Balmori Associates & Work Architecture Company

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Washington Monument Grounds at Sylvan Theater

Diller Scofidio Renfro & Hood Design

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Washington Monument Grounds at Sylvan Theater

Michael Maltzan Architecture & Tom Leader Studio

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Washington Monument Grounds at Sylvan Theater

OLIN & Weiss/Manfredi

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Union Square

Diller Scofidio Renfro & Hood Design

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Union Square

Gustafson Guthrie Nichol & Davis Brody Bond

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Union Square

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners & Workshop: Ken Smith Landscape Architect

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Union Square

Snohetta & AECOM

View the Idea »

From the Daily Mail:

It is steeped in history and the place where Washington's power games are played out. But of late it has been looking a bit neglected.
Now the designs that are in the running to be chosen as the new look for the National Mall in Washington have been released.
They have emerged as finalists in a design competition conducted by the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall to overhaul neglected sites on the landmark.

This design by Nelson Byrd Woltz and Paul Murdoch Architects, shows a proposed new look for Constitution Gardens, one of three overused and neglected areas of the National Mall in Washington

Among the ideas are lakeside gardens, dining rooms hovering over water, grassy new amphitheaters and underground pavilions at the foot of the Washington Monument.
Designers and architects have been dreaming big for the chance to improve America's 'front yard.' One vision calls for a garden 'museum without walls' in a place called Constitution Gardens.
Another would 'peel up' the landscape of the Washington Monument to reveal a large structure below ground with a theater and visitor amenities.

The finalists' concepts will be on display until Sunday at the Smithsonian Castle and National Museum of American History.

Since last September, architects and designers have been competing for the chance to make over areas near the Capitol, Washington Monument and Constitution Gardens, which was once imagined as a pastoral park near the Lincoln Memorial but has since been left as a fetid pool with crumbling edges, surrounded by broken sidewalks.
Each of the designs would bring major changes, adding amenities including food options and restrooms.

Diller Scofidio Renfro and Hood Design's proposed new look for Union Square has also been put on show

The Diller Scofidio Renfro and Hood Design team also entered this design for the National Washington Monument grounds at Sylvan Theater

'The face of the mall is going to change quite dramatically,' said Donald Stastny, an architect hired to oversee the competition. 'If you're in Constitution Gardens, it's going to be cool, as opposed to 'How did I end up in this place?"'
The nonprofit National Mall group aims to raise $350 million from donors and corporations to help restore the mall, beginning with one of these sites. Former first lady Laura Bush joined the fundraising effort last year, and the group committed $875,000 to the design competition.
After sifting through entries from 32 teams, a jury picked four finalists for each of the three sites.
Organisers are seeking public comment to help select a winner for each site in May. The group aims to build one of the designs, overhauling either Constitution Gardens or the Washington Monument grounds by 2016.

Union Square, which includes the Capitol Reflecting Pool and a memorial to Ulysses S. Grant, had been envisioned as a space that could host demonstrations or protests, but Congress placed it under control of the Architect of the Capitol and Capitol Police instead.
Still, the design competition will choose a winning design to pass along to congressional overseers of the site. One option calls for a new reflecting pool that would be a piece of art in itself. Ripples would emanate across the pool from the House and Senate sides of Congress.
On the other side, a visitor could speak through a microphone to send ripples back toward their lawmakers as a symbol of public discourse.

For the Constitution Gardens site, the design possibilities offer significant improvements. The park with a lake framed by trees was dedicated in 1976, and a memorial was added a few years later honoring the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence on a small island.

The park was slated to have a restaurant as well, but funds ran out. In the past 30 years, its memorial has been mostly forgotten, and the grounds grew shabby.
Designers have proposed glass pavilions or buildings growing out of earthen berms, as well as performance spaces and cafes. They would open up views to the nearby Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial and link the park to one of Washington's main boulevards nearby, Constitution Avenue, to connect with its urban setting.

Proposals in the competition are varied. One from New York-based landscape architect Diana Balmori calls for reshaping the landscape as a grassy bowl around an outdoor theater and adding a building with a garden roof to produce food for a restaurant below.
Another design by New York-based Diller Scofidio Renfro and Hood Design, the landscape would be 'peeled up' on one edge to serve as an outdoor theater and reveal a new underground structure.
'The whole intent is that the mall continues to be an evolving place,' Stastny said. 'The improvements at this point will carry us into the next evolution - I think that's what a lot of the designers are feeling.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2127218/Designs-running-new-grand-plan-Americas-yard-released.html#ixzz1rvUZBKkH

The Aizhai suspension bridge in China

from the guardian.co.uk

The world's highest and longest tunnel-to-tunnel bridge has opened to traffic in Hunan province, central China. The Aizhai suspension bridge links two tunnels 1,176 metres apart, carrying traffic 355 metres above the foot of Dehang Canyon. Construction of the bridge started in October 2007 and its main sections were completed at the end of last year. It is designed to help ease traffic in the mountainous region, where queues are common due to the narrow, steep and winding roads.