June and July '09 in Review:
Architects have a general tendency to forget about color and focus on monochromatic compositions. When judiciously utilized, the integration of a polychromatic palette can become a powerful tool that helps define the identity of the project.
Rafael Viñoly Architects has designed the new East Wing at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), Ohio, which opened to the public on June 27, 2009. Its completion marks the opening of the first of three planned wings.
This 74,000 square foot youth center, located in one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods, demonstrates a commitment to social progress in providing a constructive environment for area youths to spend their after-school hours.
Croatian architecture firm 3LHD has won the competition for this business center in Zagreb. The competition program is placed on a crossing of two streets, Miramarska and Bednjanska. It is a point of colliding two urban city concepts: north part with classical city blocks of the Zagreb’s lower city enclosed by the railway and the south part primarily along the Vukovarska Street, outlined with modernistic dominant character of mostly public and social buildings.
Cities get identified by their landmarks. The centre of Davenport, suffers from many of the problems endemic to a number of American cities. Over the years the area has witnessed the departure of much of its residential and business community, leaving downtown Davenport with little of the vibrancy normally associated with urban life.
Butler Rogers Baskett Architects (BRB) has designed a new aquatic center for the Canterbury School, a college preparatory, coeducational boarding and day school for students in grades 9-12, in Milford, Connecticut.
The project hosts the offices of the Cyprus Olympic Committee and of all the National Athletic Federations. The design of cypriot architects Eleftheria Serghidou, Vasilis Pashiourtides sought to achieve an architectural composition that would give the fullest possible expression to the Olympic ideal.
The winning design for Cairo Expo City delivers a unique facility for Cairo – a 450,000 square metre, state of the art city for exhibitions and conferences, located between the centre of Cairo and the city’s airport. The project comprises a major international exhibition and conference centre with business hotel. A further office tower and a shopping centre are also proposed.
De Rotterdam, a complex of three interconnected mixed-use towers designed by OMA, will go under construction in December this year. The project is located in the old harbour district of Wilhelminapier, next to the iconic Erasmus bridge. The three stacked towers reach 150 metres high, producing a gross floor area of approximately 160,000m2, making De Rotterdam the largest building in the Netherlands.
Restaurants
Nota Bene is a new destination restaurant located in the base of One Eighty Queen West, a commercial property sited at the northwest corner of downtown Toronto’s financial district area.
The restaurant, Sequel, by United Coffee House is located in a busy market square in the heart of an upscale neighborhood in New Delhi. United Coffee House is one of Delhi’s oldest restaurants and has deep-rooted memories for most Delhiites who have frequently visited the restaurant over decades.
The mandate was to develop a store design that supported the simple modern and evolving aesthetic of the brand’s fashion and offer a flexible environment for showcasing clothes, jewelry and accessories.
For over a decade, the Conga room has been a Los Angeles cultural landmark. The Latin live music and dance venue was LA’s center for Salsa and Rumba. The original location closed in 2006 with the goal of opening a new venue in the new “LA Live” complex in Downtown, Los Angeles.
Houses
Seattle based Vandeventer + Carlander Architects designed this attractive residence on a steep slope corner lot within a prestigious neighborhood. Existing conditions included neighbors to the west and north, a busy arterial below, and a residential street to the east. Although the existing residence got demolished, the site requirements have established the vertical datum to which the new design responds.
“Collaborative and Enlightening” describes the 3-year effort by Coates Design's Matthew and Ruth Coates in designing and building their first home. Located on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle Washington, the architect couple’s endeavor was a true team effort that included design, contracting, and labor toward the finished product. The couple’s sweat-equity is evident in the home’s site-milled siding, movable casework, and concrete countertops.
The Whistler Cay Residence is a 5000 sq. ft. single-family home located in one of Whistler's oldest residential neighborhoods, with spectacular views of Whistler, Blackcomb, and other surrounding mountains. The design incorporates the vernacular materials of the typical Whistler mountain home, and applies them with a contemporary language, using clean and simple gestures that are at once bold yet subtle.
The Openhouse is embedded into a narrow and sharply sloping property in the Hollywood Hills, a challenging site that led to the creation of a house that is both integrated into the landscape and open to the city below.
The Silverman Residence, juxtaposed in a non-descript neighborhood in Scottsdale, Arizona renders itself as architecture. Upon approach, the street side façade (North Elevation) is a composition of white stucco finished volumes which are unified by a cantilevered steel structural element painted black.
This house is an exploration of the traditional division of a building into base, middle and roof. The solidity of the base is maintained. It reads heavy and rooted to the earth. The second floor is light and almost without walls.
According to the architect, the objective for this eco-friendly residence in Venice, California was to design a high-performance home that dissolves the barriers between indoors and outdoors; utilize raw, honest materials appropriate to the bohemian grittiness of the surrounding community; and have the smallest carbon footprint in balance with lifestyle. |
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris Architects - Jubilee School on the surburbs of London 
John Ronan - The Gary Comer Youth Center Chicago IL 
3LHD - Business Center Miramare in Zagreb, Croatia 
David Chipperfield Architects - Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa
Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects - Madison @ 14th Apartments in Oakland, California 
Armon Choros Architektonikis - Olympic House and Park in Nicosia, Cyprus 
OMA’s De Rotterdam, planned as the largest building in the Netherlands 
KPMB Architects - Nota Bene Restaurant in downtown Toronto 
A Mystic Restaurant in New-Delhi by Morphogenesis 
mcfarlane green biggar Architecture + Design (mgb) - Obakki fashion retail store in Vancouver, BC 
Belzberg Architects - The Conga Room at L.A. Live
Vandeventer + Carlander Architects - Mad Park Residence
Coates Design - Island Residence on Bainbridge Island, WA 
a k a architecture + design - The Whistler Cay Residence in Whistler, British Columbia
XTEN Architecture - Openhouse in Los Angeles, California
Michael P. Johnson Design Studios - The Silverman Residence in Scottsdale, Arizona 
Abramson Teiger Architects - Private Residence in Toronto
Ehrlich Architects - 700 Palms Residence in Venice, California
