Completed in 2006, the University of Cincinnati’s 350,000 sq ft Campus Recreation Center, designed by Southern California based Morphosis Architects Inc., is a successful attempt at weaving four distinctly different programs into one comprehensive building.
After a three year renovation, the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library reopened in the Summer of 2009. The ambitious project created an architectural jewel on the campus of The Ohio State University. The results of the $109 million, 340,000 square foot renovation project include seating for 1,800 people, over 200 computers with wireless internet access, additional meeting and study rooms, an art gallery, and a new cafe. The library also now consolidates the University’s 250,000 volume rare book collection.
Look out, Pisa, there is a new building on the block! Capital Gate, located in Abu Dhabi, now holds the Guinness Record for the "Worlds Furthest Leaning Manmade Tower." Scheduled for completion in late 2010, this 35 story building with an incline of 18 degrees is the focal point of Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Company's (ADNEC) new mixed use development.
Located across the street from SANAA’s Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art is Frank Gehry’s Center for the Visual Arts. Completed in 1993 to house the University of Toledo Department of Art as well as the Toledo Museum of Art's Reference Library, the four story, L-shaped fortress like building is a prime example of postmodern Deconstructivism.
By now you have probably heard that Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners of the Japanese architectural firm SANAA, have been awarded the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize. Renowned for their elegant compositions that emphasize transparency and lightness through explorations in material minimalism, Sejima and Nishizawa have emerged with an impressive body of work that includes the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion. Inspired by the news of the Pritzker award, I scheduled a trip to see the Glass Pavilion so that I could experience the qualities of design that prompted such an honor.
I recently had the opportunity to visit Bing Thom’s much talked about and long-awaited Arena Stage renovation and expansion project in Washington, D.C. With slightly more than two years of construction completed, the $125 million, 200,000 square foot project is in the final stages and is due to open its doors on schedule for the inaugural 2010/11 theater season later this fall.
Visible from the Cincinnati riverfront, Daniel Libeskind’s Ascent at Roebling's Bridge towers over the Covington, Ky. skyline. Completed in 2008, the concrete and glass curtain wall clad structure is 300’-0” tall and 310,000 square feet. Twenty-two stories (one lobby, a secure parking level, an amenities level, and 19 floors of luxury condominiums) of multifamily program are included in Libeskind's first U.S. high-rise.
In April 2009, the 1.2 million sq. ft. Vancouver Convention Centre opened. Built upon a former brownfield that was the last undeveloped piece of property on the harbor front, it functions as an expansion of Canada Place. The facility covers 14 acres of land and eight acres of water, and is connected to Canada Place via landside walkways. It was designed by Seattle-based LMN Architects, in collaboration with Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership and DA Architects + Planners, both of Vancouver.
If you have been following the Go Green channel, you've probably read about Vancouverism and the eco-density of downtown Vancouver. Below are a few snapshots of one of the newest contributors to the towering skyline that caught my eye while we were out exploring Vancouver. Right across the street from the Vancouver Convention Center, the Media Center of the 2010 Winter Olympics, is the Fairmont Pacific Rim.
In 1978, municipal, provincial, and federal Canadian governments began working together to plan the development of a convention center – complete with cruise line and hotel amenities -- on a waterfront property in Vancouver that had been used earlier in the century as a railway pier.
Most buildings are content to be four walls, a floor, and a roof, existing only to provide shelter and warmth for their inhabitants. A few, though, endeavor to be tools, ready at a moment's notice to serve the changing needs of their constituency. The new Wyly Theater at the Performing Arts Center in Dallas, Texas is a facility that embraces this subservient role to the point that it was designed as a ‘theater machine.’ The facility, opened in October of 2009, was designed by Rem Koolhaas | OMA and Joshua Prince-Ramus | REX and provides a new home for the Dallas Theater Center. Literally an assemblage of moving parts capable of transforming seating arrangements and orientation, the Wyly Theater redefines the meaning of "flexible space."
Records are made to be broken. Most are unexpected, like the 100m world record shattered by Usain Bolt in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but the world could see this one coming. Yesterday, in an unprecedented display of ceremonial hype usually reserved for major social goodwill events such as the Olympics, the opening of the Burj Dubai tower in the United Arab Emirates made it official. It is the new tallest building in the world, stretching more than a half mile into the sky. The Burj Dubai measures over 2625 ft (800m) and stacks over 160 floors of residential, hotel and office suites into a space-age, missile-like structure.
The Burj Dubai is the latest skyscraper from the prolific neck-bending designer Adrian Smith and his former firm SOM. The official website - Visit the Burj Dubai — The Tallest Building in the World - offers a glimpse into the vision, outlines the features and provides a comparison with the world's other tall towers.
Conceived to be one of the focal points of Dubai at the height of the massive construction boom, the tower opens in the midst of struggling world markets and stalled construction at other major Dubai projects. While certainly eliciting a few 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the average citizen, the project teeters on the ostentatious, especially taken in context of its immediate environment of Dubai. However, I would venture to say that among the design and construction community, the physical structure garners much curiosity and respect - never before has man reached this far into the clouds.
