from arcspace
” Inspired by the whirl streams of the sea, shoals of fish, and swirling starlings turning the sky black, the Blue Planet is shaped as a great whirlpool.
Raised a few meters above the terrain, overlooking the Øresund strait, the whirl-shaped building connects land and sea, drawing both the great outdoors and visitors inside. [...] Read”
——————————————————————————
——————————————————————————
Popularity: 1% [?]
from The Guardian
‘Gateway to the heavens’ … Kielder Observatory. Photograph: Charles Barclay
———————————————————————————–
“It is the darkest place in England. The Kielder Forest, occupying 250 square miles and situated just where Northumberland brushes against Scotland, has the lowest levels of light pollution in the country - making it the perfect place to watch the stars. Here, far from towns and cities, where all that artificial light smogs up the skies, Charles Barclay, a young, London-based architect, has designed a gloriously inventive yet low-key observatory. It is a place where amateur stargazers and professional astronomers can share telescopes, viewing platforms, ideas and knowledge, beneath one of the most wonderful sights the country has to offer, as the sun sets on clear days and eyes adjust to the seemingly infinite expanse of stars above.
‘Kielder observatory is situated on Black Fell, just outside Kielder village - Photograph: Charles Barclay
———————————————————————————–
This really is a remote spot. It is the last great, uninvaded playground of the red squirrel, as well as home to otters, roe deer, six species of bat (happily evident in the hot summer skies) and any number of birds of prey, from goshawks to windhovers. Unless you are prepared to drive, though, the Kielder Observatory, built for the Forestry Commission and the Kielder Partnership, is very hard to get to. The last passenger train stopped at Kielder Forest station in 1956. If trains were running along the route today, they would be busy all summer: there is so much to see, by day as well as by night. There’s the vast reservoir, opened in 1982 and almost instantly redundant, designed to quench the thirst of heavy industry along the Tyne, Wear and Tees. There are 155m trees, great stretches of moor and bog, and a cluster of enigmatic artworks, plus numerous other structures - including Japanese architect Kisa Kawakami’s Mirage, which features 1,000 steel discs woven between trees - all commissioned over the years by the Kielder Partnership.
And now there’s the observatory. I finally got here by the post bus that runs morning and afternoon from Hexham, half an hour from Newcastle upon Tyne by train. The observatory - which is not staffed all the time, so check before you go - is a small wonder, a kind of wooden pier stretching over land. When the doors of the turrets concealing its telescopes glide open, it looks like a child’s drawing of a warship. With its decks and galley, its largely timber and steel construction, and great views out across the waters of Kielder Forest, the observatory really does feel like a ship at sea - especially as night settles in and only the ghostly shrieks of barn owls remind you that you are a long way from tidal waters.
——————————————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
Set on concrete stilts, the observatory has two hand-cranked, rotating telescope turrets; between them sits an open-air terrace where amateur stargazers can unfold their telescopes, and a timber retreat called the “warm room”. This is where professional astronomers can operate the smaller telescope remotely, by computer. The room is equipped with a stove, and there’s a compost lavatory next door. All the energy the observatory needs is generated by a 2.5kw wind turbine and by solar power. This special building touches down on the Kielder landscape as gently as a long-legged fly on the nearby reservoir.
It has not been expensive: the total cost, including equipment, was £415,000. Projects like this will never make architects well off, yet who could resist such a challenge? Charles Barclay was a natural choice. He has a good feel for buildings that are inventive and gentle, as well as being imaginative and economical; his best work includes the renovation and remodelling of an 18th-century barn in the Cotswolds, and a new timber house for a Cornish dairy farmer at Liskeard.
There were more than 200 entries in the competition to design Kielder observatory. The winners were Charles Barclay Architects - Photograph: Charles Barclay
———————————————————————————–
Barclay’s observatory is a happy balance between what appears to be little more than a simple, almost cartoon-like, timber gangway with some sheds on top and some fine technology inside, with the cranks and cogs needed for the telescope turrets sitting delightfully within the simple wooden walls, floors and ceilings. It is rather like being in an early Victorian steamship, especially in the dark, when the red lamps glow (red keeps light pollution to a minimum). The timber, Douglas fir and Siberian larch, has had to be imported; the abundant supply within Kielder Forest is not suitable for building. Equally, there’s a nice balance between the computer-linked telescope and its larger sibling, a 20in Pulsar Optical, a mighty star-spotting device.
So the Kielder observatory is not just a special building in a special place, but a gateway to the heavens. At night, in the darkness of the forest, the sky is anything but still: shooting stars flare, satellites flash as they spin past, planets appear to rise and fall, and the moon glides by. I trained my telescope on the Dog Star, at its height in summer (hence the phrase “the dog days of summer”). It was the clearest view of it I’ve ever had.
The observatory joins a growing cluster of unpretentious, low-cost British buildings by intelligent architects that offer something way beyond what money can buy, far from the world of crude modern development. These gems include the simple yet sophisticated An Turas ferry shelter on Tiree, designed by Sutherland Hussey Architects; and Tony Fretton’s Faith House on the Dorset coast. Both are, as it happens, good places to watch stars from. And, because of their rarity, these buildings, along with the Kielder Observatory, are curiously exotic, and well worth working that little bit harder to get to - much like the stars themselves.”
The UK’s most famous observatory is in Greenwich. Commissioned in 1675 by Charles II, the facility was designed by Sir Christopher Wren with Robert Hooke - Photograph: Jeremy Horner
———————————————————————————–
Built from stone in the 1720s, Jaipur observatory in India boasts 14 major devices and is used, among other things, to announce the beginning of the monsoon season- Photograph: Travel Ink
———————————————————————————–
The huge radio telescope dishes of the Very Large Array (VLA), situated on the plains of San Agustin 50 miles west of Socorro, New Mexico - Photograph: Roger Ressmeyer
———————————————————————————–
WM Keck observatory in Hawaii. The twin domes of this station sit atop a volcano - Photograph: Roger Ressmeyer
———————————————————————————–
Parkes observatory in Australia. The telescope, affectionately known as ‘The Dish’, is one of the largest radio telescopes in the southern hemisphere, and was used by NASA during the Apollo moon missions - Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images
———————————————————————————–
———————————————————————————–
Popularity: 1% [?]
from Archinect
Tulane University students building a home for a low-income family in New Orleans as featured in the Sundance Channel original series “Architecture School”.
—————————————————————————
by Liz Martin
“This Wednesday, August 20, 2008, the Sundance Channel will premiere Architecture Schools. The docudrama follows twelve students enrolled in the Design/Build Program at Tulane University’s School of Architecture as they build a sustainable, design-forward home for a family returning to New Orleans.
Series co-creators Consulting Producer Stan Bertheaud (left) and Director/Executive Producer Michael Selditch(right)
—————————————————————————
Under the creative direction of Robert Redford, Sundance Channel is the television destination for independent-minded viewers seeking something different. To architect-turned-director Michael Selditch, Sundance seemed the ideal place to pitch the shows idea of bringing the architectural process to the screen capturing the design-build experience as seen through the student’s eyes.
After positive feedback and interest from Sundance, almost two years later, co-creators Michael Selditch and Stan Bertheaud got the green light in August 2007. “Two years have passed since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and there is still an extraordinary amount of work to be done,” commented Laura Michalchyshyn, Sundance Channel EVP of Programming and Creative Affairs. “This series provides a great opportunity for Sundance Channel to be part of the rebuilding process while presenting inspiring and compelling programming that spotlights sustainable design and the next generation of community planners.”
First, the creative team was given 40k to pull together a 10-minute trailer to show the intent and character of the proposed reality based design/build school project. Bertheaud pitched the idea to several architecture schools throughout the country starting with the renowned Rural Studio, however, Tulane University dealing with post-Katrina New Orleans jumped at the chance to tell their story and showcase their proactive and socially-conscious architecture curriculum.
Yes, in Architecture School (and you have to love that plain-Jane title), there’s a competition. But it doesn’t involve a judge’s panel or weekly stunt challenges. A group of, yes, Tulane University architecture students are assigned to design a low-cost house to be built in an area devastated by Hurricane Katrina; and the winning house gets built. The show walks us through the design process and workshops, explaining principles of modern affordable design along the way, as well as factoids like “shotgun house,” or “stringer”.
There’s conflict, though not the stage managed kind─not that I have anything against the Project Runway style, but this is higher education so to speak. Rather the series accurately shows the combative discussion sessions, we’ve all been a part of with students and professors challenging the designers on their work and how well it serves the low-income residents it’s intended for. “How does your design make better the life of someone who wants to live in the house,” one critic asks, “rather than stoke the ego of the architect who wants to express their nifty idea?” Ouch! As important, the show spends a considerable amount of time with New Orleans neighborhood residents, discussing the hurricane’s effect on them and their hopes for rebuilding.
Tulane University students voting on a house design they will build for a low-income family in New Orleans as featured in the Sundance Channel original series “Architecture School”.
—————————————————————————
In a nutshell: “Architecture School” tells the story of twelve idealistic architecture students who are bringing a social mission into the classroom by working with communities and populations that do not traditionally have access to architects. Although it’s considered reality TV, the series was filmed more like an old school documentary told from a classic fly on the wall point-of-view. Selditch, who spent most of the time on-location, mic’d up each student while he asked questions, but took himself, as narrator, out of the final editing leaving the experiences of the team building the house, neighbor’s opinions, the staff at housing services, and the life of the city to tell the story.
Tulane University students building a home for a low-income family in New Orleans as featured in the Sundance Channel original series “Architecture School”.
—————————————————————————
Liz Martin interviews co-creators Michael Selditch (MS) and Stan Bertheaud (SB) along with Tulane faculty Professor Byron Mouton (BM) regarding the T.V. series.
LM_ How was the series conceived? And what was the show’s intent?
SB_ Michael Selditch and I are both architects as well as filmmakers. We’ve talked about fusing architecture and film for many years. After visiting Auburn University and seeing what they do in Hale County with Rural Studio, we realized the arc of a design-build studio would be a good story to tell.
MS_ The show touches on many different levels from the students own personal journey to the people living in that neighborhood to the individuals that are desperately trying to get a house to the bigger city issues of knocking down public housing that seems perfectly fine and so on. It comes back to the idea of Sundance really wanting to do the show in New Orleans thinking that it was the ideal place to film this series. It sounds like a cliché, but New Orleans is very much a character in the series-you see a lot of New Orleans culture with the students going to bars listening music, the food, etc.
BM_ The series aim was to capture the studio experience and expose the audience to the creative process. The crew strategically organized filming based on our design-build process spanning two semesters. One of the early episodes exposes the studio learning process during a pin-up critiquing the work and the late night hours students often embrace throughout the semester.
LM_How did you choose the students that were a part of the TV series? Were all students in the class a part of the actual series?
BM_ The class was developed as a design studio and the topic of research was described in the course catalogue. There was no special process. Students simply selected the course of study and signed-up like any other class on campus. All students in the class are visible in the footage, but not all have primary roles.
Front row left to right: Scott Mucci, Carter Scott, Nik Haak, AmaritDulyapaibul, Alex Mangimelli , Ian Daniels, Casey Roccanova, Christina Alvarado-Suarez. Rear from left to right: Sam Richards (co-director), Byron Mouton (director), Kim Lewis, Emilie Taylor (project manager), and Adriana Camacho (kneeling)
—————————————————————————
LM_ This is being billed as a reality TV series. Was anything scripted or did the teaching style change as a result of the camera?
BM_ Not really. Once in a while students and faculty were asked to repeat something that had already been said. The series is the result of some editing, but basically what you see is what you get.
SB_ Nothing was scripted. Occasionally we had someone repeat a line if it was garbled the first time through. It’s as real as we could make it. Series is filmed actually like a documentary in an old school “fly on the wall” sense. There’s no artificial competition here. No one gets voted off the island.
MS_ When we get on site, [as director] I might ask a question like. “Begin by telling us how the final design was chosen,” and then the students begin to banter about their final review. That’s where the directing, quote-unquote, comes in for a documentary-style project like this one. I’m never telling anyone what to do or what to say, but I’m also always thinking in my head, “What do I need to tell this story to try and accurately capture it?” So it’s all happening and it’s all real, but as the director you kind of influence and “edit” how to portray all these interesting events to tell the story and tie together activities from episode-to-episode.
LM_Were you able to capture the design or studio learning process on film?
SB_ We spent time in the studio during work hours and after. The after hours conversations of the students were very revealing…and often funny. Watching smart students balance internal design questions with studio politics is pretty engaging…And Byron Mouton, the studio’s professor, is very good on camera. He’s a very comfortable guy to be around so he puts the students at ease. He’s smart too…
MS_ Bryon Mouton has a major presence, but he is not consistently in every episode, in fact, there is probably an episode or two where he’s barely in it. We essentially followed the process of the design-build project and some students were really vocal and others were more behind the scenes; sometimes the faculty stood out and others times they were completely back ground. But there is a scene on the roof, which became Byron’s scene because he’d had a very traumatic experience falling and it was a story he had told us prior to shooting that we thought was really interesting. It was an experience that had happened to him 12 years earlier, but it was a story that was a thread throughout the entire series. For example, there is one student, Carter, who wanted to do a three story house in a two story district and Bryon had a strong opinion of it and you realize it most likely had to do with his fear or trauma from his previous accident. Its one thing that I’m really proud of is that there are a few things, like Bryon’s accident falling off a roof, that arc throughout the series.
LM_Bryon, you had a personal scare a few years back–falling off a roof of a building under construction–how do you deal with that experience and heading up a design-build program?
BM_ Safety is a priority. Yes I had a scare in 1998; I fell from a framing platform and was unconscious for a while. In fact, I had an ‘accelerated brain concussion’ and was forced to spend 6 weeks attending physical and occupational therapy. I’m lucky to have walked away.
That experience strongly influences the way we control the job site and establish limitations of risk. No matter what, the job site and tools are dangerous; we cannot avoid that. However, we do our best to reduce the risks. This responsibility alone justifies the need for three experienced faculty members to be involved during construction. We attempt to lead by example, but we must constantly remind the students to take care. In the end, we cannot forget that they are adults, and they are expected to respond to all situations as such. They do repeatedly rise to that challenge….But we still keep a careful watch.
LM_ Why did you choose Tulane to feature in the series? How do post-Katrina New Orleans issues affect the series?
SB_ I used to teach at Tulane and Katrina had just happened. With my contacts and the national attention the storm focused on the city it was really a no-brainer. Post-Katrina Nola issues permeate the series and Nola is definitely a character. The city is still recovering. We shot in and around the city whenever we could. We spend a good bit of time with the students after hours doing “student stuff”… and it is New Orleans.
MS_ Filming in New Orleans post-Katrina seemed timely. A big realization, or shock to be honest, I had while doing the original 10-minute teaser trailer was that there were a lot of horrible abandoned housing and poverty situations prior to Katrina. When I first went on a tour of the city outskirts with Bryon and Reed Kroloff, who at the time we began filming was Dean of Tulane, I was shocked and said, “the storm did all that?,” and Bryon said well this area has been abandoned for almost 30-years [before Katrina]. The poverty level in some parts of New Orleans would shock the rest of the nation. Of course, there are other cities that have similar problems like if you go to Detroit, or Bronx in NY, or Watts in Los Angeles, but Katrina shed light on this phenomena in the US where not only rebuilding became really important, but also simply those who are in need.
—————————————————————————
—————————————————————————
BM_ There has always been support for our design-build program, but the greatest amount of support was, in fact, provided by H.U.D.. During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while students and faculty were in exile, Ila Berman (associate dean at the time…has since gone off to San Francisco) collected the works and progress of several faculty members and students in effort to assemble and submit a grant proposal. The proposal described the intention to conduct urban research at both the Macro and Micro scale of the city. The $300,000 grant was awarded, and that really propelled the program. Ila concentrated on the study of urban strategies, while I concentrated on the development of dwelling and neighborhood strategies.
As with other educational design/build programs across the nation, the goal was to provide students with the opportunity to work collectively on the design, development and construction of affordable housing prototypes. However, in contrast to programs offered by other schools, students were challenged to develop progressive proposals amidst selected deteriorating neighborhoods of an existing historic urban fabric and of course, the idea of water / flooding.
LM_ What do you think the students will learn from this experience that is different than a normal design studio that never leaves the studio?
BM_ Students leave the program with a sense of group accomplishment rather than individual accomplishment….they learn a very important skill–how to respectfully hold their colleagues accountable for their actions and decisions while still maintaining progress in the workplace. They learn professional conduct amidst the arena of difference in opinion.
SB_ Architecture is often just too abstract, so learning what happens on the job site is invaluable for students…But maybe even more important were the interpersonal lessons learned by all involved, both within the studio group and extending into the neighborhood and city.
MS_ To me, building efficiency beautifully. The house is really beautiful; flawlessly made with a really smart compact plan—no wasted space in that house. It’s on a tight little foot print, its 1200sf house—super small and it is packed with three bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, living and dining room, kitchen, etc. It’s an efficient floor plan with open feeling the way it’s designed with multiple outdoor spaces off grade. And I think the neighbors’ kind of came around, especially the ones that thought it was ugly at first, once they saw all the interesting and efficient spaces that were built by these students.
LM_ Describe one of your favorite episodes?
MS_ During production, Architecture Record came and did this great little story on what we were all doing and the kids were energized by all the support. This essentially is captured in episode 5, the house designed and fully framed. Then there’s open discussion on the arch record website, people start blogging in and at first they were very supportive and positive, this is great that these students are doing this for New Orleans, congratulations and blah, blah, blah…and then the discussion started going south and became really harsh. One comment was “it looks like terrorists dropped a bomb, what are these kids thinking?” And it kept going and got really unnecessarily cruel. And one student, in particular, got really discouraged and took it really personally. This was one of the students that was really about the altruism of the project. Through this series of events, it comes out on film through this one student, how architects, with the best intentions, can feel completely underappreciated within not only the neighborhood and community they are so desperately trying to heal, but also their peers. If you try and do something out of the norm, it will always open you up to criticism.” Archinect
—————————————————————————
—————————————————————————
Popularity: 1% [?]
from Dezeen
” Here are new images of Capital Hill Residence, a private house in Barvikha Forest close to Moscow, Russia by Zaha Hadid Architects.
———————————————————————————-
The project, which is currently under construction, will be shown in the Russia Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale from 12 September - 23 November as part of a showcase of work by Russian and foreign architects working in Russia.
Capital Hill Residence is due for completion in 2010.
———————————————————————————–
———————————————————————————–
Credits - current execution stage
Project architect: Helmut Kinzler
Project designer: Daniel Fiser
Project team: Anat Stern - Daniel Santos-Thomas Sonder
———————————————————————————–
———————————————————————————–
Popularity: 2% [?]
from Jetson Green
Just one mile from downtown Seattle in Madison Valley, Cascade Built has finished their latest green home, the Alley House. This high-performance home just received LEED Platinum certification last week and, for those that are interested, is on sale for ~$770,000. The home is on an advantageous urban infill lot and features some high-end finishes such as Caesarstone countertops, Kirei doors, and a Liebherr refrigerator.
————————————————————————————-
————————————————————————————-
In addition to a private bamboo garden, this home has some of the following green features:
Located at 222 26th Avenue, the Alley House will be open for public touring on Saturday, August 23. Register here if you’re interested in checking it out.
————————————————————————————-
————————————————————————————-
Popularity: 2% [?]
from Bustler
The sprawling Beijing Olympic Village won its own gold medal today for going green.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presented Chinese officials with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold award during a short ceremony, saying the 160-acre Olympic Village could serve as a future prototype for energy efficiency and environmentally friendly design.
“China’s leaders know the development of green buildings is a critical need and the Olympic Village can serve as a model for this development,” Paulson said.
The award, based on standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council, is an international benchmark for high performance in “green” design and construction. The village’s 42 six- and nine-story residential high-rises, which house more than 16,000 Olympic athletes, are 50 percent more energy efficient than most buildings in Beijing, using solar panels for energy and recycling wastewater for heating and cooling.
“With this award, the Olympic Village is being recognized for its contributions to making this year’s Olympics the greenest ever,” said Paulson.
Model of the Olympic Village (Image: United Nations Environment Programme)
—————————————————————————————-
Though much attention has focused on the country’s efforts to curb its air pollution, China’s huge push to achieve its goal of a “Green Olympics” has also meant a major investment in other environmental efforts, including the construction of “green” Olympic venues.
Many of the 31 athletic arenas, including the iconic National Stadium and the Water Cube, were built to incorporate environmentally friendly design.
“On day one, we were given instructions in terms of implementing a green agenda,” said Michael Kwok, the Olympic project director for the British-based design and engineering firm Arup, which has been involved in building some of Beijing’s signature new architecture.
Entrance gate to the Olympic Village which will host 16,000 athletes and officials during the games (Photo: LA Times)
—————————————————————————————-
“There was a general objective that this was the ‘Green Olympics’ so we had to consider energy conservation and water recycling. But in terms of details, it was up to designers to come up with solutions,” Kwok said.
At the Water Cube, where Olympic swimming events are held, builders used material similar to plastic wrap to create 4,000 translucent bubbles as the outer shell, allowing sunlight to filter in. The “skin” lets the building use natural lighting, while a rainwater capture system on the roof saves water for irrigation and landscape purposes, said Kwok.
“The Water Cube is very much a green building because of the way the building’s features work. It had inherent advantages of saving energy and also retaining and recycling rainwater,” he said.
Solar panels in the 91,000-seat stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, generate enough energy to power the huge underground parking lot. The arena’s open design, with its intricate external latticework, allows for natural ventilation instead of having a heating and cooling system, while the rainwater collection system uses 108 water tanks, said Kwok.
Typical accomodation in the village (Photo: LA Times)
—————————————————————————————-
“China is going through a ‘green’ push and there’s a lot of buildings that have these elements - water recycling, maximizing natural light, etc. Its all moving in that direction,” Kwok said.
The Olympic Village, the largest non-competition venue at the Games, includes the showcase “near-zero energy” welcome center, which generates nearly as much energy as it consumes using a combination of solar cells and geothermal heat pumps. The village’s developers, the Guo Ao Development Co., received technical assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Though several individual buildings in Beijing have gotten the LEED award, the Olympic Village is the first residential neighborhood to merit one. The developers plan to convert the development into luxury apartments in early 2009. The cachet and amenities of the Olympic residences have proven very popular with the public - 80 percent have already been sold.
China’s motivations for looking at sustainable design and development go far beyond the Olympics, Kwok said.
“They know that the high rate of urbanization is going on in China so there is an urgent need to find a solution where they can sustain growth but at the same time, not create so much problems in terms of energy and pollution that they are facing,” he said.” Bustler
—————————————————————————————-
—————————————————————————————-
Popularity: 1% [?]
Described as ‘a piece of urban architecture as much as a building’ by a Harley-Davidson Museum spokeswoman, the 12 000 m2 site containing three buildings has been designed by Pentagram New York partner and architect Jim Biber.
HDM will house a retail space, an annex and a rally urban space which will enable bikers to ride through the grounds. Visitors to the museum will see installations designed by Pentagram partner Abbott Miller, such as a parade of bikes at the museum’s entrance which showcases the best designs from the Harley collection.
The color palette inside uses the Harley colors of black, silver and orange, while the museum will use a variety of media including photographs, Harley-branded apparel and documents to engage visitors with the brand. On show will be a 1956 Model KH motorcycle owned by Elvis Presley and a replica of the Captain America choppers ridden by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in the film Easy Rider. The building itself is made from a selection of materials including galvanized steel, black brick and orange corrugated metal which are intended to reflect the toughness of the motorbikes.
————————————————————————————-
Press released by Pentagram:
“The museum sits on a twenty-acre reclaimed industrial site directly across the Menomonee River from downtown Milwaukee and has been conceived as an urban factory ready-made for spontaneous motorcycle rallies. The three-building campus includes space for permanent and temporary exhibitions, the company’s archives, a restaurant and café, and a retail shop, as well as a generous amount of event and waterfront recreational space. The museum’s indoor and outdoor components were inspired by the spirit of Harley rallies in towns like Sturgis and Laconia, where thousands of riders congregate every year.
Creating a museum for an icon is an enormous challenge, and Pentagram conducted a massive amount of research to gain a thorough understanding of the complex cultural phenomena that revolve around the company. We even became Harley riders ourselves.
View from the south at the intersection of 5th and Canal: the museum and bridge to the retail building.
————————————————————————————
The museum is directly across from downtown Milwaukee and surrounded on three sides by the Menomonee River.
————————————————————————————
Harley-Davidson was founded in Milwaukee in 1903, and the company has a pride of place and history within the community that made the museum’s location key. Sitting on a peninsula surrounded by water, the chosen site is one of the oldest remaining industrial areas in Milwaukee and has the advantage of being directly connected to downtown via the pair of newly constructed Sixth Street bridges. Addressing the site’s design, we began with a few basic goals: integrate the site back into the city; respect and reflect the site’s history; make the water an important recreational element and plan for future development. From these objectives, we developed an urban design that essentially restored the area’s lost street grid and, by doing this, connected the site to the surrounding city by giving it a scale and “grain” that felt like a neighborhood within the city.
Rendering of a bird’s eye view of the museum site and its relation to the city.
————————————————————————————
Site plan showing the restored street grid that connects the peninsula to the city.
————————————————————————————
Early drawing by Biber showing the site’s basic circulation pattern.
————————————————————————————
At the same time, we believed that the Harley-Davidson Museum should create its own street-level rally atmosphere, attracting the community of Harley riders at their most enthusiastic. Rally participants cruise the streets, ogle the parked bikes and enjoy the party atmosphere. These gatherings are unique in that they concentrate a great many riders in a small network of streets creating an enormous outdoor happening. It is as if the streets filled with motorcycles create a level of social interaction that exists nowhere else. These rallies are such an essential part of the Harley-Davidson experience that we felt it was essential to create a place that captured their spirit, but where those who are new to Harley-Davidson would feel welcome. Therefore, we proposed the museum should have an outdoor and an indoor component. We called the outdoor component the “Museum on the Street” and it became the counterpart to the formal museum.
————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————
The combination of site features and the idea of the Museum on the Street helped us to define the museum as not a single building, but as a group of three buildings that line both sides of Canal and Fifth Streets creating a real urban context. This notion of a group of buildings is not new; it appears in architectural compositions as diverse as factories and college campuses, but here we used the buildings to create an urban experience while letting the streets become truly special places for social interaction.
The idea of the factory, a place defined by one basic style and with a single purpose, seemed especially appropriate as riders refer to the Milwaukee headquarters of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company as “the factory” and in acknowledgment of the site’s industrial history. When looking for images to inspire the look of the museum, we leaned heavily on the history of factories, rather than the history of museums or of Milwaukee’s cultural architecture. While we were looking at these images, we were also thinking about how the museum should function.
The photography of Bernd and Hilla Becher was a source of inspiration.
————————————————————————————
Rendering of the museum’s form.
————————————————————————————
We developed an interior layout for the museum building that was organized like a factory; that is a large open space (the factory floor) lined with mezzanines (the factory office) and featuring a kind of processing silos (the towers). This model made sense for a number of reasons: it resonated with the sense of Harley-Davidson as the factory; the contrast of large open areas and more defined rooms was good for big and small exhibition spaces; it embodied a sense of straightforward design; and it seemed honest and even a bit modest compared to some other possibilities. In the end, the factory model prevailed.
View of the museum’s ground floor and the Motorcycle Gallery: ‘bridge’ exhibit to the right.
————————————————————————————
The three-story annex, across the street from the museum, contains ground-level temporary exhibition space with large glass garage doors that allow the building to open to the street. In this way, the building acts like a covered open-air market at times, while at others it houses exhibits or events. Meanwhile, the top two floors contain the company’s immense archive of historical artifacts as well as restoration and conservation areas. Both floors are hidden within a solid box that protects the artifacts from light while it conceals the workings within. In a motif used throughout the site, this box is “slipped off” the building’s one story base and the resulting overhangs create covered areas for special events. The retail building is a similar “box-on-frame” structure that overlooks the river and contains the museum shop, the restaurant and café, and space for special events.
The annex designed to protect artifacts from sunlight and hid mechanical components.
————————————————————————————
The retail building, the top mass of which is “slipped off” its one-story base.
————————————————————————————
The site design required interior connections between the various buildings, and so glass-enclosed bridges were also designed to allow the facilities to act as one while they provide sheltered connections and terrific views. Like the buildings, the bridges reveal their structure on the outside, holding the glass to the interior. Their industrial quality is not added on, but is part of the real support mechanism.
Two glass-enclosed bridges link the buildings.
————————————————————————————
Rather than find a decorative skin for the buildings, we turned to the motorcycles themselves for inspiration, and we found it in the Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The parts are not concealed behind plastic or metal, but are simply and honestly expressed as structure, function and, most significantly, as a jewel of an engine within the frame of the bike. Form follows function in Harley-Davidson’s iconic designs. With this inspiration, we developed an expressed structure, an exoskeleton of exposed supports in a frame of galvanized steel. Both the inside and outside of the structure is simple and honest utilizing I-beams and columns, exposed gusset plates and cross-bracing to stiffen the frame. The hot-dipped galvanized steel is not a perfect, painted finish, but an honest expression of an industrial process and the structures are weatherproofed and permanent, not shrouded or concealed.
Exoskeleton on the museum building’s louvered towers.
————————————————————————————
The infill materials are tough, and traditional finishes in a simple palette are used on all the buildings in black, white, silver and orange, the colors of Harley-Davidson. Infill materials include polished and stained concrete for the floors in black and grey; white double-layered insulated polycarbonate sheet for diffused light; glazed black brick for solid areas of important volumes; grey corrugated and enameled steel for secondary areas; orange corrugated and enameled steel for entry areas and stair/elevator towers; and galvanized and blackened steel for counters, trim, railings and other elements. By carefully selecting the materials and using each for a clearly expressed and consistent purpose, we wove the buildings together into a larger whole.
The iconic moment of the museum’s design is the four-sided Bar & Shield tower suggested by Willie G. Davidson, chief styling officer and grandson of one of the company’s founders. Willie G. arrived at the museum offices one day with a solid steel, four-sided logo model to suspend in the open tower of the museum. He said, “the engine is the jewel in the frame of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle” and this piece of signage is prescribed as the jewel in the frame of the museum.
Bar & Shield tower with four-sided logo designed by Willie G. Davidson.
————————————————————————————
Also creating a gracious sense of entry are a series of framed and covered spaces that line the walks that connect the buildings offering protection from the elements and adding a sense of depth in the buildings. The street side of the museum itself, meanwhile, is lined with a monumental colonnade of supporting columns.
Covered space leading from the museum to the retail building.
————————————————————————————
The identity of the museum at the street level had to be unique, yet also had to blend into the surroundings enough to be a “neighborhood” within the broader context of Milwaukee. Landscape architects Oslund and Associates helped us to achieve this delicate balance. We have all been in neighborhoods that feel a bit too themed or contrived, but here, the site feels genuine and uniquely Harley-Davidson. To maintain this balance, elements of the street furniture and site were carefully designed including special district light fixtures, planter boxes and site benches all made from steel I-Beams. Guardrails, transformer enclosures, dumpsters and other various elements utilize the same galvanized finish and standard pieces as the building structure.
For the landscape, Oslund and Associates took our basic site outline and developed it within the grid established by our urban design. Site areas were adapted to act as shaded gathering areas; flexible event spaces; a continuous river walk that meanders along the water’s edge; street termini were carefully designed; and trees and plantings to act as sculptural elements.
The landscape architecture offers a generous amount of green space.
————————————————————————————
Finally, to further emphasize the rally atmosphere created by the intersection of Fifth and Canal Streets, Oslund created a broad, orange “crossroads” that extends into each of the four central site blocks. The orange concrete identifies the “Sturgis-style” parking that will make riders feel immediately at home, while letting everyone know that there is something unique about this neighborhood.
View of the public rally space from one of the connecting bridges.
————————————————————————————
One of the most significant references to the industrial past of the site is the preservation and repositioning of the giant orange hoppers within the landscape. Oslund placed them at the north and south ends of the reconstituted Fifth Street axis to anchor the site and provided aesthetic interest. In a coincidence almost too good to be true, the hoppers were previously painted orange and their weathered finish has been kept in its original condition.
Orange street hoppers original to the site, left with their weathered finish. Photo: Tom Lynn/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
————————————————————————————
Throughout the design process, we worked with a remarkable set of collaborators. On the one side are all the Harley-Davidson folks who, though they had never before produced a building purely for the public, helped us refine the design to reflect the company they love. We worked with Museum leadership and the Museum Advisory Board throughout the design and construction process. We also met regularly with Willie G. Davidson who, as a designer and icon in Harley-Davidson culture, helped keep us true to the best ways to make the buildings a part of the Motor Company family. He had a number of small and large observations that made the buildings better, truer and smarter.” Pentagram
————————————————————————————
More photos of the project below:
————————————————————————————-
————————————————————————————-
Popularity: 2% [?]
” The Colognese Mill dates from the beginning of the last century. It was built by an immigrant family coming from the Veneto region in Northern Italy, employing pine wood (Araucária angustifolia) from the surrounding forest. When the miller died at the end of the 1990’s, the mill was abandoned.
It fell into decay until the Association of the Friends of the Mills of Alto Taquari was founded in 2004, the old mill and the land was bought and the project for the Ilópolis Mill came into being, aided by sponsorship of Nestlé Brasil. It was first extensively restored (organization by IILA - Istituto Ítalo Latino Americano) and put to work again.
————————————————————————————–
————————————————————————————–
The two new volumes, housing the small Bread Museum and the Confectioners´ School, establish a renewed context for the mill and attest its status as an architectural, technical and cultural document of the past. The old mill served as a serene reference for the new project: its architecture, its materials, its equipments, production, transformation.
With this union of tradition and invention, museography and architecture emerge simultaneously. The first exhibits of this new museum: the old Colognese Mill, which functions again, the museum and the school, “contaminated” by the physical and symbolic presence of the centenary construction. Everything contributes to the exhibition: the structure of the buildings, the way the light enters, the materials used, the timber walkways, the supports for the exhibits, the pieces on exhibition (old kitchen utensils, historic documents and photographs from the region).
After this spontaneous initiative, the project gained new impulse with the aim to valorise the cultural and historic richness of the region and extending its circuit: the neighbouring small towns of Arvorezinha, Anta Gorda, and Putinga shall be “infected” and in conjunction form the “Route of the Mills”.
——————————————————————————–
Projects Details:
Architects: Francisco Fanucci, Marcelo Ferraz, Anselmo Turazzi, Anne Dieterich, Cícero Ferraz Cruz, Luciana Dornellas, Fabiana Fernandes Paiva, João Grinspum Ferraz, Bruno Levy, Carol Silva Moreira, Gabriel Rodrigues Grinspum, Pedro Del Guerra, Victor Gurgel, Vinícius Spira
Date of project: 2005
Date of construction: 2007
Gross floor area: 1011m², construction area: 330m² (new construction), 200m² (Restoration)
Location: Ilópolis, RS
Photos: Nelson Kon
———————————————————————————–
———————————————————————————–
Popularity: 2% [?]
from Wallpaper
” After nearly 30 years of planning, and eight years since the international competition was launched for the project, the New Acropolis Museum in Athens is ready: the collections are carefully being moved in as we speak, and the official opening is expected with much anticipation towards the end of the year.
Proudly headed by architect Bernard Tschumi, the new museum project team also comprises local architect Michael Photiadis and the museum’s director Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis, who showed us around the new bright and airy building, where we had the chance to meet Swiss-born Tschumi, and discuss his concept, the design, Athens and the Parthenon sculptures.
The new Acropolis Museum in Athens
————————————————————————————–
Describe the building – how does it work?
The building has two layers; one leads to the excavations. It is quite unusual that you actually have to save and show the finds, so the whole building is on stilts. The ground floor is really structured so as to reveal the excavations, which is why you have all the glass, including the glass ramp leading to the galleries.
The second layer has all the sculptures and the artefacts related to the Acropolis. This part of the building, its geometry, follows the street’s geometry and pattern. But the top room, the glass enclosure, is really all about the Parthenon – it is absolutely parallel to it. This is why the building makes this strange shift on the top floor, and why the corners seem to stick out over the street.
The whole shape comes out of the conditions of the brief and our solution. We started from that shape and everything proceeded from there. We made it as minimal as possible, in terms of form as well as material, as we did not want to compete with the Parthenon. There were people who advocated that the New Museum should be in the style of the Parthenon; I always say that I did not want to imitate Phidias, but to think like Pythagoras. In other words, think of mathematics and master geometry, and start from a level of abstraction.
Aerial view of the new Acropolis Museum in Athens
————————————————————————————–
What are the main materials used?
The materials are very simple: glass, concrete, and steel. Inside it is marble, glass and concrete. The main structure is reinforced concrete.
What lead you to this choice of material?
The concrete I chose is really soft, so it absorbs the light. The sculptures, the real ones, not the copies, are made of marble, which reflects the light. This combination makes the exhibits stand out, which is why I selected it. This is clear in the top room, but also in the sculpture rooms with the big concrete columns; they bring out the sculptures’ detailing, making them look alive.
The new Acropolis Museum in Athens
————————————————————————————–
Did your main idea, the concept and the shape of the building evolve and change a lot during the design process?
Yes, but surprisingly little. You know, sometimes we are lucky and we get it straight away. Even when they found more excavations, we just continued with the same concept, it just worked; we didn’t even have to revise it.
Certain things of course evolved – and these were mainly the exhibits’ layout within the space. Of course we included the sculptures in the plans from the time of the competition, but now that we are putting them in their place and not on a piece of paper, we notice things that would work better, so some have been moved.
What kind of special technology was needed for the building design?
There are two things, which were technologically important for the building, and they have to do with the location, Athens. One is that this is an earthquake country, and the other is that it can get quite hot. The earthquake part means that we had to devise the building in such a way as to include the latest technology. Instead of making the building as heavy as possible, as was the usual practice until recently, we made the structure as subtle and flexible as possible.
This museum is done with the latest earthquake protection technology, developed in the last 20 years from our experience in Japan and California, called Base Insulation System. The lower part of the building is anchored into the ground, but the upper part is actually separated from it by a sort of cushion, like ball bearings, so that the upper part can move separately from the lower part.
The second technical aspect is the glass skin. There is a gap between the double-glazing of the top floor, so the hot air from the galleries circulates through the glass wall gaps, via the ceiling and ends up in the basement, where it is cooled and brought back up in the galleries. We recycle the air all the time to help keep the temperature stable and cool.
The new Acropolis Museum in Athens
————————————————————————————–
Excavation site at the new Acropolis Museum in Athens
————————————————————————————–
Drawing of the new Acropolis Museum in Athens
————————————————————————————–
How eco-friendly and sustainable is the building?
Museums are never your perfect, sustainable buildings as there are always difficult and special conditions in the brief for preserving the exhibits. Nevertheless the architects can always help as much as possible towards sustainability through design, and that is exactly what we did by recycling the air. We filter it, cool it and recycle it, so we use the least air conditioning possible. The floor itself is marble, so it is also very cool naturally.
The project is very well known, of course, because of the Acropolis, but it is also one of the few projects built by an international architect in Greece. How do you feel about building in Athens?
I don’t think much about being an international architect in Athens per se, but being able to build the closest new building next to the Parthenon, of course is terribly important to me! You have to be very humble and very arrogant at the same time to go through with something like that. This is one of the masterpieces, probably the masterpiece, of ancient architecture, and building next to it, establishing a dialogue with it is very important.
————————————————————————————–
————————————————————————————–
Even though it has concrete structure, the glass makes it a very discreet building. Was that you intention?
Yes, that is exactly what I wanted. And the skylights – you hardly see them. Everything was planned to be as minimal as possible.
The building reminded me of Greek modernist architecture, like the Karantinos-designed Aristotle University buildings, and Aris Konstantinides’ work. Was the design influenced by particular architectural styles or philosophy?
When you decide to search for clarity, for simplicity and put the emphasis on the purity of materials, like I did here, inevitably you will touch upon some other sensibilities that dealt with the same issues.
And there are moments in 20th-century architecture that have done this. Of course they did it slightly differently, for example the slight shift of the upper floor; nobody in the 1970s would have done that. But the minimalism of it, yes, it happened. And I don’t have a problem with that – we don’t live in a vacuum, buildings and styles evolve over centuries, so I am quite happy with it. It means the building is connected with the history, it has evolved in the same way as the Parthenon evolved from a generation of temples before.
The interior of the museum
————————————————————————————–
Do you feel your architecture, the way you treat buildings, is changing a lot from one project to the next?
Yes and no. It is not about style. But conceptually, there is a very strong coherence in the way I approach the projects. I will always say that the most important thing is the idea. The building itself is just the translation of the concept. So was La Villette, so was a major auditorium I did in France, buildings I did in the US etc.
I always use the materials rather than the forms in order to give expression to a building. I always say ‘Architecture is the “materialisation” of a concept’. It is always very much about a logic, as well as the simplicity and the clarity of the expression. So if La Villette and this building have something in common, it is the clarity of the concept.
It is never about fancy shapes, and there is a reason for that. In a way this case is the opposite of Bilbao. Bilbao was a city that didn’t have much of a presence, and for its art museum there were no sculptures to start with. While here, with the Parthenon next door, you build in a relationship with what is already here. You react in different ways for different situations, and it is always a case of translating an idea. That is how I see every one of my projects.
