The new U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown opened earlier this year as part of a larger New Embassy Compound designed by Sorg Architects for the U.S. Department of State.  The new Embassy consists of a renovated existing five-story office building along with a new addition of similar scale, and is located on a dramatic site in Wildey, St. Michael, outside Barbados’ capital city, Bridgetown.


In response to the challenging site and Department of State security requirements the design concept combines prevalent vernacular architectural styles with local materials and modernist forms to create architecture that both reflects  important elements of its local context and serves as a symbol of U.S. democratic ideals.  The new Embassy’s hinged form connects public and private functions with a smaller centerpiece and creates a welcoming and graceful American diplomatic presence on the island.

  



 







This new house, infilled on an existing 25-foot wide lot in San Francisco, includes two distinct volumes separated by an interior courtyard. 


The front structure has a garage at street grade and a painting studio above; the back volume is the main house, with the bedrooms on the lower level, living spaces in the middle, and a master bedroom on the top floor.

 



The project for the advertising agency Alazraki KP consists of two buildings constructed at different stages. The first one was conceived as a radical intervention of an existing building by transforming its use and image, while respecting the existing structure.


The building is located facing a high speed road that contains a central sidewalk lined with tall trees. Thus the project proposes a new red body housing the lobby that forms a portico framing the ‘green’ area and that folds itself to announce the agency’s logo.

Site-Sensitive Design Creates New Charles River Landmark in Cambridge


Architect Kyu Sung Woo has designed a new graduate housing complex for Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. The 115,000 SF project is a part of University’s ongoing effort to house 50 percent of its graduate, professional and doctoral students, further supporting a strong residential campus community and helping to alleviate pressure on the local housing market.

The scheme houses 215 beds in over 30 different suite types, and includes a faculty director’s suite, a fitness room, study lounge spaces, a multipurpose room, and a garage that extends under the building, its courtyard, and a new public open space along Memorial Drive. 

Concordia International School Shanghai: Elementary School and Performing Arts Center

Designed by architecture and design firm Perkins Eastman, the two facilities create a fully self-contained campus, enhance teaching, foster creativity and stimulate artistic exploration through improved interaction.

Concordia International School Shanghai, (CISS) had outgrown its original facilities and chose Perkins Eastman to implement a series of phased expansions to their property creating a fully self-contained campus that enhances the learning experience for its students and faculty with unparalleled learning environments consistent with the quality of education for which CISS is known.

Hines, the international real estate firm, had selected Jean Nouvel as the designer for this building slated for a key parcel in midtown Manhattan, adjacent to The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Here are some details from the preliminary architectural design.

Nouvel’s bold design will rise 75 stories from the 17,000-square-foot-site between 53rd and 54th streets just west of MoMA.

Currently, a mix of uses is contemplated for the building including: a 50,000-square-foot expansion of MoMA’s galleries (levels two to five); a 100-room, seven-star hotel and 120 highest-end residential condominiums on the upper floors.


The project will likely commence pre-sales in late 2008.

Density Fields is an investigation into the accumulation of material densities and their resultant structural and spatial effects.

This extreme cantilever built of aluminum and polypropylene rope hovered over the courtyard of Materials & Applications in Silver Lake, Los Angeles through February of 2008.

Defying classification as either sculpture or architecture, the piece flexes with a gesture that projects a dynamic set of trajectories beyond the small courtyard, toward adjacent buildings and features within the neighborhood.

The architect's goal was in balancing a set of structural ideas, the programmatic needs of the space, and the desire to use basic geometries to create a rich spatial experience within the space itself.

The primary structural question posed by the piece is, “What makes the idea of using lines different in terms of their structural properties and how might that be exploited in creating an architectural affect?”