News: Dutch firm OMA has seen off competition from Danish studio BIG to land the high-profile commission to renovate Miami Beach Convention Center, home to the annual Art Basel/Miami and Design Miami trade fairs.
In a meeting held last night, Miami Beach City Commission named the winning development team as South Beach Ace, the group comprising OMA, property developers Tishman and UIA, local architect TVSdesign and landscape architects MVVA and Raymond Jungles.
OMA’s design will see a new 800-room hotel constructed over the roof of the existing convention centre, which itself will be expanded and reorganised by a 90-degree rotation that relocates the entrance on the south side of the site.
OMA’s Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu commented: “We are thrilled to be chosen to develop one of the most significant urban districts in the US. Our design will reintegrate Miami’s vital convention centre with the area’s existing neighbours, offering new connections as well as amplifying the character of this vibrant and exciting city.”
Reports claim that Miami Beach city manager Jimmy Morales had recommended BIG‘s Portman CMC team because it would be a cheaper and quicker construction, but that eventually OMA’s proposal was selected on a vote of five to two.
A public vote on the plans will take place in November, and if successful the renovated building could be open by 2018.
Here’s an animated fly-through of the winning design:
We take a tour through the staircases, gyms and study areas of Steven Holl’s Campbell Sports Centre at Columbia University in the second of two movies by architectural filmmakers Spirit of Space.
Steven Holl Architects designed the building as a combined athletics and study facility for students. The movie shows activity both inside and outside, from football games on the sports pitches to conversations in the stairwells.
The film begins with the building’s busy setting on the corner of West 218th Street and Broadway, where the five-storey structure climbs up a sloping site and forms a new entrance to several existing sports tracks.
It also traces routes through the building, including on the staircases and balconies that zigzag across the facade.
Architect Steven Holl describes how the design for his new athletics centre at Columbia University was based on a diagram for a football strategy, in the first of two movies by architectural filmmakers Spirit of Space.
Completed earlier this year, the Campbell Sports Centre is a five-storey building that is partly raised up on stilts, providing both a student facility and a new entrance to the existing sports tracks of the Baker Athletics Complex.
Steven Holl explains the original concept for “points on the ground and lines in space”, like a game strategy. “Those point foundations of the building [are] where it becomes a gateway and the idea of the outer exits is as lines in spaces moving on the building,” he says.
The building features an exposed concrete and steel structure, as well as a series of exterior balconies and staircases. “Those big heads of the [nearby] Broadway Lift Bridge were, in a way, inspirations for this sort of grey steel structural shape,” adds Holl.
The interior of the building is divided into three zones, with physical exercise zones located on the lower levels and student study areas at the top. “This has to do with the aim of the scholar athlete, that you develop both the body and the mind together,” adds architect Chris McVoy.
Holl concludes by talking about how the building comes alive after dark, forming a “chunk of architecture that equally gives a feeling of light and brightness,” alongside the glowing lights of the sports pitch. “The building has a kind of life that it gives to that site at night,” he says.
These public toilets in Japan by Tato Architects comprise a single curved wall sheltered beneath a gabled roof (+ slideshow).
The toilets were installed by Japanese architect Yo Shimada of Tato Architects for visitors to the Setouchi Triennale, an art festival that takes place for three seasons on on Shodoshima Island.
Shimada followed the shapes of local soy sauce factories, where large cedar barrels are contained inside timber warehouses, to create an angular canopy with curved forms below.
“I decided to make the toilet adapt to such surroundings and make it the starting point of a walk by partitioning the space with curved surfaces, as softly as a cloth under a traditional cabin roof,” he said.
The curving steel wall outlines three main enclosures, framing toilets for men and women, as well as one for disabled visitors.
The roof is clad with a mixture of opaque and transparent tiles, allowing daylight to filter into each space.
“The smoked tiles and glass tiles cannot easily be distinguished during the day,” said Shimada. “But the difference appears clearly when night falls and light begins to leak from inside.”
I made a public toilet at Shodoshima Island as a part of the project of Setouchi Art Festival in which I came to participate from this time. The site is in the area called “Hishio-no-sato (native place of sauce)” where pre-modern architecture of soy sauce making warehouses remains collectively most in Japan. These warehouses are authourised as registered tangible cultural property, where soy sauce has been made still in the old-fashioned formula. Framing of a traditional cabin and large cedar barrels on the floor are the characteristic scene.
I decided to make the toilet adapt to such surroundings and make it be the starting point of a walk by partitioning the space with curved surfaces as softly as a cloth under a traditional cabin roof.
Due to circumstances on the site the construction had to be completed in about two months. I tried to shorten the construction period by making the curved surfaces with steel plate and by, while making them at factory, proceeding with the foundation work at site at the same time.
I adopted tile roofing following nearby houses. Actually I roofed with smoked tiles and glass tiles in mosaic pattern as these are compatible with each other thanks to the standardisation, and I used FRP plates for the sheathing to make the place light as if sunlight came in through branches of trees.
The smoked tiles and glass tiles cannot easily be distinguished during the day, from outside and may be mistaken for the same as the unevenness of the aged roof tiles of the neighbourhood. But the difference appears clearly when night falls and light begins to leak from inside. The internal space will give feeling of being guided on while walking along the softly curved surface.
I think I may have realised such a place as looks more spacious than actually is and as being secured while being relieved.
Danish architecture studio BIG has completed a sunken sports hall where an arching wooden roof doubles up as a hilly courtyard (+ slideshow).
BIG was asked by Gammel Hellerup high school to design a new building that could be used for sports, graduation ceremonies and social events. Rather than replacing the school’s existing courtyard, the architects decided to sink the hall five metres below the ground and create a decked surface over the top.
Concrete retaining walls surround the new hall, while a series of curving timber joists give the roof its arched shape.
Solid ash was used for the floor and is painted with colour-coded lines that denote basketball, football and badminton courts. A sliver of daylight penetrates the room through a series of skylights around the edges, while narrow lighting fixtures create stripes of illumination across the ceiling joists.
Basement corridors connect the hall with the existing school buildings. BIG also added solar panels onto the rooftops of these structures to generate heating for the new space.
Above the hall, the decked surface was conceived as an informal meeting area, with outdoor furniture installed so that students can work in groups or simply take time out between classes.
“Opposed to placing the hall outside the school’s building – thus spreading the social life even more – the new hall creates a social focal point and connection between the existing facilities of the high school,” explain the architects.
Photography is by Jens Lindhe, apart from where otherwise stated.
Read on for a project description from BIG:
How do we transform a courtyard into a new social meeting point?
Gammel Hellerup Gymnasium is, with its characteristic yellow brick buildings, a good example of a school building in a human scale and a fine architectural example of its time. The sports facilities have, however, become too insufficient and the high school is lacking a large, multifunctional space for physical activities, graduation ceremonies and social gatherings. The Gammel Hellerup Gymnasium, a self-owned governmental institution, wishes therefore to build a new flexible hall for the students’ usage with a particular focus on sustainability.
Photograph by the architects
The new multi-purpose hall will primarily be for the pupils’ physical education and social development. The hall is placed 5 metres below ground in the centre of the school’s courtyard which ensures a good indoor climate, low environmental impact and high architectural quality. The characteristic soft curved roof wood construction will act externally as an informal meeting place that can host numerous activities from group work to larger gatherings. The edge of the roof is designed as a long social bench with easy access across the courtyard and is perforated with small windows to ensure the penetration of daylight. Solar panels placed strategically around the existing buildings provide heat for the hall. Opposed to placing the hall outside the school’s building – thus spreading the social life even more – the new hall creates a social focal point and connection between the existing facilities of the high school.
Planned for King Street West at the centre of Toronto’s entertainment district, the proposed gallery and university complex includes the construction of three 82-86 storey metre skyscrapers, atop an expansive art gallery and a learning centre for OCAD University‘s art history and curatorial courses.
Moving on from the initial design revealed in October 2012, Frank Gehry envisages the three residential towers with layers of ribbon-like cladding, creating curving surfaces and asymmetrical shapes. Despite objections from the city’s planning department, the proposed heights remain unchanged.
The planned demolition of three warehouses and a small theatre to make way for the new buildings also prompted concerns from city officials. In response, Gehry has added a structure of vertical, horizontal and diagonal wooden beams to the base buildings as a reference to the area’s industrial past.
“Toronto has grown to look like every other screwed-up city,” Gehry told the Toronto Star. “We’re searching for that way of expressing old Toronto without copying what they did.”
He continued: “It’s not hard to do a skyscraper; but how do you do one that has some Toronto DNA in it? I lived not far from the site. I remember the warehouses. It was the industrial section where the factories were. But we need to bring a new kind of life down there.”
The project is currently set for completion in 2023.
Huge clerestory windows reveal the exposed timber frame of this school sports hall in Kobe, Japan, by architecture firm Takenaka Corporation (+ slideshow).
Entitled Harmonie Hall, the building functions as both a basketball court and auditorium for the Kobe International Junior High School and Senior High School, and was designed by Takenaka Corporation to fit in with the wood and concrete buildings that already made up the campus.
“This building is designed to capture the most from the rich surrounding environment while inheriting the formal language of the campus as it exists today,” says the architect.
A 46 metre-long wall of uninterrupted concrete lines the north elevation. Narrow lengths of glazing run along its top and bottom, bringing light through to the floor and ceiling of the hall.
Larger windows span the southern elevation so that students elsewhere on the campus can catch a glimpse of activities taking place inside, while students inside can look out towards the surrounding woodland.
“Through the framing of landscape views, the beautiful surroundings engage with the space and offer openness by using the trees and sky to highlight the structural frame,” explains the architect.
Structural timber columns are positioned along this facade to take some of the vertical load from the wooden roof, which protrudes over the edges of the walls.
Toilets, storage areas and a teacher’s office occupy a small annex with a connecting corridor.
Photography is by Tomoki Hahakura, apart from where otherwise indicated.
Photograph by Yasutaka Inazumi
Here’s more information from Takenaka Corporation:
Harmonie Hall, Kobe International Junior & Senior High School
Design Intent
The Kobe International Junior High School and Senior High School Harmonie Hall was based on an idea of a clear and open axial plan utilising concrete and wood to respond to the campus’ history while creating a new relationship with the natural landscape. Harmonie Hall is an ancillary facility that includes a teacher’s room, storage, toilets, and a gymnasium that can be used as both a basketball court and an auditorium.
Site plan
This building is designed to capture the most from the rich surrounding environment while inheriting the formal language of the campus as it exists today. Functionally, gyms tend to be enclosed spaces removed from their surrounding environment, but this time, by utilising a wood structural frame, the building is in concert with the vibrant local environment as much as possible.
The south side leads to an existing building and is comprised of a long 20m wood structural span for views of the woodlands supported by a 6m high and 46m long concrete wall. Opening the building to the lush ecosystem of the north campus was a natural configuration.
By supporting the horizontal force with concrete walls on three sides, with the north side being the exception, the structural roof frame was designed to transfer vertical load to the wooden poles on the north facade.
The north side is a rich and open ecosystem. Through the framing of landscape views, the beautiful surroundings engage with the space and offer openness by using the trees and sky to highlight the structural frame. From the beginning, the design has been interested in offering the experience of simultaneous continuity between the paired horizontal open spaces.
Furthermore, by providing a sufficient aperture to the wind and natural landscape, a space filled with light and consistent breezes from the north is realised.
Also, by using vegetation identified from research and field surveys, trees are transplanted from the construction staging areas while simultaneously cultivating local seeds as a means to visually and biologically produce a landscape of continuity with the local context.
Cross section
The idea for using structure to maximise openness to the surrounding environment, both conceptually and visually, marries the wind and light of the natural environment with the new space. The environment is the architecture.
Site and Context
The context for this project was a combined junior and high school located in the peaceful hills overlooking Suma with a view of the Akashi Straits and Awaji Island. This school was established in 1992 with aims to foster women with prolific knowledge and grace, and the campus has since been designed with the theme that the campus has made an impression on their memory. The exposed concrete of the design provides a sense of integration with the campus which includes many memorable places.
Long section
The existing school buildings, located on the north-south and east-west axes, consist of just two basic geometric shapes, the square and the circle, and were built of exposed concrete. This prompt for this project was to build a gymnasium the size of a basketball court for the 20th anniversary. For this project, I tried to create a new gymnasium, on the angle shaped site located in the west part of the campus, that was in harmony, to the greatest degree possible, with the surrounding environment. The junior high school building has a circular hall in the centre which is surrounded by open related rooms. This memorable hall within the square shaped form is inserted into the hill, but for this project I aimed to create memorable places between this building and the hills.
News: London architecture firm Grimshaw has unveiled a masterplan for the home of the annual Wimbledon Championships tennis tournament.
Grimshaw‘s proposal for All England Lawn Tennis club includes building a new retractable roof on No.1 Court so play can continue in all weather conditions, and creating three new grass courts on the edge of the site to free up more space in the busy central and south areas.
“Our proposals strive to improve the quality of the experience for all, and provide innovative and high-quality solutions to meet the challenges posed by this beautiful but constrained site,” says Grimshaw partner Kirsten Lees.
A new retractable roof will be added to Court No.1
Landscaping of the public areas has been designed to reinforce the “spirit of tennis in an English garden”, with improved approaches to the stadiums and vistas of the outside courts from new hospitality areas.
Landscape architecture firm Grant Associates has created a landscape framework for the plan, which will “include enhanced landscape walkways and promenades, the use of topiary, green walls and planted pergolas, creative paving, display areas, enhanced tree planting and themed garden spaces.”
Plan of Wimbledon masterplan
The plans will be used as a framework for redevelopment that will take place over the next 10-20 years and have been announced ahead of the start of the Wimbledon Championships on Monday.
Wimbledon and Grimshaw’s new vision for championships
The All England Lawn Tennis Club has unveiled its design proposals for the Wimbledon Master Plan. Marking the first step in a consultation process, the plan sets out a vision for the future of the site and creates a framework which will guide the continuing development and enhancement of the Club over the next 10-20 years. Developed by Grimshaw, the vision reflects and reinforces the long history of The Championships while further enhancing Wimbledon’s position as the premier Grand Slam tennis event.
Building on the Club’s previous Long Term Plan, the proposed Master Plan is influenced by the much loved traditional qualities and character of the grounds. It will draw on these existing assets whilst simultaneously resolving some of the challenges that this beautiful but constrained site poses. The vision has been determined by a radical rethink and strategic re-configuration of the grounds to optimise the use of the site. Three new grass courts have been located to the north of No.1 Court to release space and ease congestion in the central area and the south.
No.1 Court will be remodelled to receive a new fixed and retractable roof, which will allow for uninterrupted play irrespective of the weather. It will also provide new hospitality areas, replacing the temporary facilities currently situated at the south of the Grounds, which will benefit from spectacular views over the outside courts.
A new landscape framework will enhance and define the public areas and reinforce the spirit of tennis in an English garden. Enhanced approaches to the grounds are created with improved setting of stadia, main buildings and entrance spaces. A series of distinctive character areas are defined which connect and choreograph the various spaces that enrich the visitors’ experience.
Speaking about Grimshaw’s aspirations for the site, Partner Kirsten Lees said: “Maintaining The Championships’ status as the premier tennis tournament in the world underpins the Wimbledon Master Plan. Our proposals strive to improve the quality of the experience for all and provide innovative and high quality solutions to meet the challenges posed by this beautiful but constrained site.”
Grimshaw’s proposals will now be brought forward in a phased development by a process of detailed study, refinement and consultation. The publication of the Wimbledon Master Plan is the first exciting step in the consultation process with a wide range of stakeholders that will take place in the coming months.
Ten years after completing the Ílhavo Maritime Museum in Portugal, Lisbon studio ARX Portugal has extended the building by adding an aquarium dedicated to codfish (+ slideshow).
The aquarium is contained within an angular metal-clad structure, positioned over a white concrete base. Bridging a public plaza, the building sets up a winding route between the existing museum and its accompanying research centre.
ARX Portugal placed the aquarium tank at the centre of a spiralling pathway, allowing visitors to look into the water from different heights and positions.
The architects explain: “The visitor’s path is a spiralling ramp, a journey that begins in suspension over the tank and turns into a diving mode of gradual discovery, an experience of immersion in the cod habitat.”
An informal auditorium offers a stop along the route, where visitors can learn more about the fish, while extra facts and pictures are printed across the walls.
A private basement floor houses technical equipment needed to maintain the tanks and there’s also storage space to house the museum’s archive.
The codfish aquarium connects two other buildings and sets a complex built ensemble, united around the subjects of the sea and fishing. In this unusual structure, the Maritime Museum is the place of memory, the Aquarium the space for marine life and CIEMAR, installed in the old renovated school, the research centre for the activities of man linked to the sea.
In articulating these three units the building is both an autonomous urban equipment that relates to the context and defines a public space, but it is also a building-path, which develops in a spiral around the tank as it connects the Museum to the old school.
In a context of small scattered houses, it is shaped by the interstices of this urban domestic fabric and establishes a new public domain. But in doing so it breaks into two horizontally overlapping bodies searching for a scale of transition.
In its proposed matter duality, the white concrete body emerges from the ground and sets the basis for defining a square. The floating black body of metal scales sets the height of the square, in a public urbanity redefined into three dimensions.
At the heart of the building we find the fish and the sea. The visitor’s path is a spiraling ramp, a journey that begins in suspension over the tank and turns into a diving mode of gradual discovery, an experience of immersion in the cod habitat. The informal auditorium, with extensive visibility into the aquarium, marks a pause in the visit for contemplation and information about the life of this species.
All technical components of control are placed in the basement, guaranteeing a subliminal operation of all the life support systems, the quality of the seawater, the control of air temperature and even the new reserves of the Maritime Museum.
Location: Ílhavo, Portugal Owner: Ílhavo Municipality Project: 2009–11 Construction: 2011-12 Architecture: ARX PORTUGAL, Arquitectos Lda. José Mateus Nuno Mateus Work Team: Ricardo Guerreiro, Fábio Cortês, Ana Fontes, Baptiste Fleury, Luís Marques, Sofia Raposo, Sara Nieto, Héctor Bajo
Structures: TAL PROJECTOS, Projectos, Estudos e Serviços de Engenharia Lda. Electrical and Telecomunications Planning: Security Planning AT, Serviços de Engenharia Electrotécnica e Electrónica Lda. Mechanical Planning: PEN, Projectos de Engenharia Lda. Sanitary Planning: Atelier 964
Fifteen conical bamboo columns support the roof of this waterside cafe designed by Vo Trong Nghia Architects at a hotel in central Vietnam (+ slideshow).
Referencing the shapes of typical Vietnamese fishing baskets, the top-heavy bamboo structures form a grid between the tables of the open-air dining room, which functions as the restaurant and banqueting hall for the Kontum Indochine Hotel.
Vo Trong Nghia Architects designed the restaurant without any walls, allowing uninterrupted views across the surrounding shallow pools of water, and beyond that towards the neighbouring river and distant mountains.
The roof of the structure is clad with bamboo but also contains layers of thatch and fibre-reinforced plastic. In some places the plastic panels are exposed, allowing natural light to permeate the canopy.
There’s no air conditioning, but the architects explain that the surrounding waters and the shade of the overhanging roof help to keep the space cool, even in the hottest seasons.
“By providing shadow under the bamboo roof and maximising the cool air flow across the water surface of the lake, the open-air indoor space successfully operates without using air conditioning,” they say.
All of the fixings for the columns are made from bamboo rather than steel and were constructed using traditional techniques, such as smoke-drying and the use of bamboo nails.
“The challenge of the project is to respect the nature of bamboo as a material and to create a distinctive space unique to bamboo,” say the architects. “The bamboo columns create an inner lining, giving the impression of being in a bamboo forest.”
Bridges cross the water to provide access to the cafe from three sides, plus a concrete and stone kitchen is positioned at the back.
Read on for a project description from Vo Trong Nghia Architects:
Kontum Indochine Café
Kontum Indochine Cafe is designed as a part of a hotel complex along Dakbla River in Kontum City, Middle Vietnam. Adjacent to Dakbla Bridge, a gateway to Kontum City, the cafeteria serves as a breakfast, dinner and tea venue for hotel guests. It also functions as a semi-outdoor banquet hall for wedding ceremonies.
Located on a corner plot, the cafe is composed of two major elements: a main building with a big horizontal roof made of bamboo structure and an annex kitchen made of concrete frames and stones.
The main building has a rectangular plan surrounded by a shallow artificial lake. All elevations are open to the air: the south facade faces the main street along Dakbla River, the east to the service street, the west to a restaurant and banquet building belonging to the hotel complex and the north to the annex kitchen which serves the cafe. By providing shadow under the bamboo roof and maximising the cool air flow across the water surface of the lake, the open-air indoor space successfully operates without using air conditioning even in a tropical climate. The roof is covered by fibre-reinforced plastic panels and thatch. The translucent synthetic panels are partly exposed in the ceiling to provide natural light in the deep centre of the space under the roof.
The roof of the main building is supported by a pure bamboo structure composed of 15 inverse-cone-shaped units. The form of these columns was inspired by a traditional Vietnamese basket for fishing which gradually narrows from the top toward the base. This open structure maximises the wind flow into the building during the summer, while resisting harsh storms during the windy season. From the cafe, hotel guests can enjoy a great panoramic view of the mountains and Dakbla River framed by the bamboo arches. The bamboo columns create an inner lining, giving the impression of being in a bamboo forest and show the continuity to the mountains as seen from the cafe.
The challenge of the project is to respect the nature of bamboo as a material and to create a distinctive space unique to bamboo.
The material characteristics of bamboo are different from that of timber or steel. If the details and construction methods of timber or steel structures are applied to bamboo structures, the advantages of bamboo may be impaired. For instance, using steel joints kill the cost benefit of bamboo structures. Steel pin joint generates too much local loads which is not appropriate for bamboo, which tends to be subject to buckling.
In this context, we use traditional treatment methods (soaking in mud and smoking out) for the treatment of bamboo, and we use low-tech joint details (ratten-tying and bamboo nails), which is suitable for bamboo structures. The columns at Kontum City are prefabricated before their erection to achieve the appropriate quality and accuracy.
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