Hasta La Ideas

While all the attention, particularly this week, has been on New York’s National September 11 Memorial and Museum, the other memorial, honoring those who died that day in rural Pennsylvania aboard Flight 93, is still moving forward. Plagued with just as many issues as its counterpart to the east, between budget issues and at times very vocal movements against its design, the memorial is plugging along after finally getting authorized land from the National Park Service and breaking ground back in 2009. Still under construction and likely not to be open to the public for a number of years, the Daily American in Somerset County, where the memorial is located, filed this great report on its progress and spoke with the architect Paul Murdoch, who reportedly “visits the construction project every month or two and is pleased with how it is progressing.” Well worth the read, and remembering, as the bulk of the national attention lies eastward. Here’s a bit about the memorial’s progress:

Phases 1A and 1C of the project are under construction. That is the memorial plaza, with the arrival court, benches, a visitors shelter, parking area, the memorial wall, the entrance road and the ring road. Phase 1B is not under construction. That phase includes the visitors center and exhibits; portal walls, flight path and overlook; 40 memorial groves; walkway around the ring road; western overlook trail; parking, water, sewer and utilities. The total cost of all of phase 1 is estimated at $62 million.

Phase 2 includes the Tower of Voices. Phase 3 includes the return road and reforestation. National Park Service Superintendent Keith Newlin said because the second and third phases are still in the final design stage, he couldn’t provide specific costs for those phases.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Visitors to this timber tea house sit beneath a woven rope dome with a gilded skylight and a hanging teapot in the middle.

The building, named Black Teahouse, was designed by Czech studio A1Architects and sits beside a lake and woodland near the city of Česká Lípa.

The teapot is suspended from the ceiling by a knotted length of rope and nestles into a crevice in the floor.

The round walls of the building are coated in clay plaster and integrate three flower vases.

Large doors slide back from both rectangular and arched openings in the walls of the tea house to open it out to a sheltered deck.

The exterior of the larch building has been charred.

A1Architects also recently completed an apartment where a stainless steel net takes the place of a banister – see our earlier story here and see all our stories about A1Architects here.

Another tea house featured on Dezeen in the last month is a music room that hangs like a lantern – click here to see all our stories about tea houses.

Here’s some more text from A1Architects:

Black Teahouse

Place

On the southern edge of garden The Black Teahouse reflects itself in water level of small dark lake.

Large and exceptionally cultivated garden becomes natural part of nearby pine forest and its southern edge defined by S-shaped lake with grassy banks makes beautiful surroundings of the family house. And the Teahouse is just part of this carefully designed scenery.

There is fabulous view of the lake, which could be admired by the host and guests from the teahouse. It is a small place to gather, it is a place for a cup of tea.

Teahouse

The inner space of the teahouse could be adjusted by the sliding doors, so there are more levels of perception of nearby landscape. One could enframe his own preferred view as a painting in the interior.

There is a play of sunbeams in gilded skylight, when the teahouse is closed. The whole interior is crowned with knitted geometry of cone soffit made out of sisal ropes. The hearth is the central point of the room, from which the space flows to large veranda built with larch planks.

The veranda is a unique space for watching the water level and the life beneath. There is another important motif next to the knitted soffit in the interior, it is a rounded wall with clay plaster which integrates three bamboo vases as a reminiscence of famous japanese tokonoma – the niche for flowers and caligraphy.

The Teahouse is carefully designed to become a natural part od the landscape and so the green roof is a fragment of grassy surroundings.
The whole house is covered with charred larch facing.

Authors: Lenka Křemenová, David Maštálka / A1Architects
Place: Czech Republic, Česká Lípa

Carpenter: Vojtěch Bilišič, Slovakia
Interior area: 3,50 m2

Veranda area: 10 m2
Realization: Spring 2011

See also:

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Tea House by David Jameson	Hat Tea House by A1Architects	Tea house by David Maštálka

Rural Studio alumni Marie and Keith Zawistowski led 17 students of the Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design in the design and assembly of a farmers market shelter in Covington, Virginia.

All produce sold at the market is sourced from within 100 miles and the same principle was applied when selecting construction materials.

The structures comprises a long canopy shaped like the wing of a plane.

The faceted pine roof is covered with sheets of steel, while reclaimed oak and pine were used to fabricate the frame.

An office, storage room and toilets are located beneath the canopy at the rear of the timber deck and are coated in blackboard paint.

The pioneering undergraduate programme Rural Studio was co-founded by the late architect Samuel Mockbee, who is the subject of a 60-minute documentary released last year – see our earlier Dezeen Wire here.

Here’s a more detailed description of the project from design/buildLAB:

Covington Farmers Market
134 W Main Street, Covington, VA 24426

Program Description

The design/buildLAB is a third year architecture studio at the Virginia Tech, School of Architecture + Design focused on the research, development and implementation of innovative construction methods and architectural designs. Students collaborate with local communities and experts to develop concepts and propose solutions to real world problems.

The goal of this course is to teach students the skills necessary to confront the design and realization of architecture projects, with a consciousness for social and environmental issues. By removing the abstraction from the making of architecture, the course engages students’ initiative and encourages them to ask fundamental questions about the nature of practice and the role of the architect.

By framing the opportunity for architecture students to make a difference in the life of a community, the hope is to show them the positive impact Architecture can make and inspire them to high professional ethics.

Program Funding

The project budget was $150,000 which was primarily funded by a $119,000 grant from the Alleghany Foundation.

In addition, substantial contributions were made in support of the project by local contractors and material suppliers, as well as national and international companies. These include material donations, in-kind contributions or substantial discounts on the purchase of products or materials. The students solicited donations, ordered materials, and managed the project budget.

Project Design

During the fall semester, the students spent a number of weeks studying existing Farmers Markets around Virginia – which they visited – and around the world – which they studied through publications, drawings and photographs. Using that information, a list of requirements given to them by the client and their own interviews of the Covington Farmers Market vendors, the students were able to establish guidelines and specific requirements for the project.

All 17 students first made individual design propositions for the project. From those, a master plan was determined then a design for the building. In this way, all of the students contributed ideas to the discussion. It was very important from a pedagogical perspective that not one “scheme” was chosen. Rather, they collaborated to develop the final design for the project.

The project is conceived as 3 parts: Ground Plane, Occupied Space, and Pavilion Roof. All component parts are based on a 10’ wide module to facilitate prefabrication and transportation to the site. At the scale of the town, the building reads as a seamless gesture. At the scale of the occupant, the details express the modular construction. A locust deck serves as the market floor. It folds up to allow the nesting of an office, storage room and toilet room. It extends beyond the market and into a sloped earth park to provide a stage and seating. A sculptural roof and ceiling of reclaimed heart-pine and galvanized sheet steel floats over-head.

This market pavilion is the modern expression of timeless agrarian sensibilities.

Sustainability

Because all goods sold at this market are required to be produced within a 100 mile radius, this distance became a goal for the procurement of construction materials. Essential to this approach was the use of recycled building material in the construction, in particular the re-use of wood salvaged from an old barn in a neighboring town. Additional, new lumber, including locust decking and yellow pine cladding for the project were sourced from locally sawn timbers.

Digital fabrication played a substantial role in the sustainability of the project by maximizing structural efficiency and minimizing waste.

In terms of limiting water and energy use, the project incorporates a rain water collection system, LED lighting and natural ventilation. A 1200 gallon cistern collects water from the roof and is used for watering the park and flushing toilets. LED lighting ensures long bulb life and extremely low energy consumption. Further, the pavilion roof was designed with an inverted ceiling to facilitate stack effect ventilation and eliminate the need for mechanical cooling.

Finally, the asphalt surface from the site’s previous parking lot was milled and stored through construction to be repurposed as a new permeable, compacted, parking area.

Prefabrication

The students prefabricated the Market structure, including floor, conditioned buildings, and pavilion roof at VA Tech’s Environmental Systems Laboratory. A local contractor was hired to complete the foundations and utility connections. This allowed for two phases of construction, site work and framing, to happen simultaneously. In total, the students prefabricated and assembled the structure in less than four months. The efficiency of working in a controlled environment, with easy access to tools and equipment was essential in achieving the schedule of one academic year.

Project Recognition

The Covington Farmers Market was awarded a 2011 Design Excellence Award from the Virginia Society AIA.

Design and Construction: design/buildLAB

Student Design Team: Anne Agan, Emily Angell, Zachary Britton, Chris Cromer, German Delgadillo, Chris Drudick, Cody Ellis, Jacob Geffert, Rachel Gresham, Shannon Hughes, Elizabeth Madden, Ryan McCloskey, Andrew McLaughlin, Brett Miller, Elizabeth Roop, Erin Sanchez, Sara Woolf

Professors: Marie Zawistowski, Architecte DPLG – Professor of Practice, Keith Zawistowski, Assoc. AIA, GC – Professor of Practice

Structural Engineer: Draper Aden and Associates – Dave Spriggs, PE

Owner: City of Covington, 333 W Locust Street, Covington, VA 24426

Project Timeline: Design – Fall 2010, Construction – Spring 2011

Major Materials: Locally Sawn Locust Decking, Reclaimed Heart Pine Ceiling, Reclaimed Oak and Pine Framing, Flat-Lock Galvalume Metal Roofing, Traxon LED Lighting, Toto Plumbing Fixtures, VT Industries Doors, Assa Abloy Hardware, Marvin Windows

Project Budget: $150,000 ($119,000 grant was provided by the Alleghany Foundation)
Software: Rhino 3D (Educational Version), AutoCAD 2011 (Educational Version)

See also:

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Metropol Parasol by J. Mayer H.	Forest School by Robert Gaukroger	Holiday Cabana by Damith Premathilake

Inside the new boutique hotel in NYC’s arts district

From the airy architecture of seaside retreat Basico to Distrito Capital’s urban focus, Mexico-based hotel group Habita has already made a name for itself for how it introduces high-design without disrupting surroundings. Opening today, 6 September 2011, Hôtel Americano, their first U.S. property, brings this elegantly light touch to New York City. The 56-room hotel both blends well into the scale of its “Way West Chelsea” neighborhood and firmly stakes a claim to its future. Designed for locals as well as out-of-towners, the destination offers a rooftop cafe and pool, basement bars and a street-level cafe in a section of NYC’s gallery district that has been one of the last to transform from its industrial past.

Like when the Ace Hotel opened to the East (as well as Habita’s property in Mexico City’s Condesa neighborhood), Americano’s arrival signals a new beginning for the area. With the elevated outdoor park, the High Line, opening nearby and a newly-constructed condo across the street, the new growth promises to reinvigorate an area formerly home to literally one restaurant and generally lacking housing and retail. And just how did the developers manage to balance the needs of the neighborhood with their ambitious new property? Let’s start with the building itself.

The work of Mexican architect Enrique Norten, a metal mesh-clad exterior creates a clean and striking facade whose clean lines integrates well with neighboring warehouse spaces while lending contemporary shine. By offsetting this facade from the windows, the size of the rooms inside feel a bit bigger—a welcomed detail for the more petite rooms on that side of the hotel. Across the hall, the larger accommodations feature a sitting area, fire places and bigger bathrooms. All rooms (designed by Arnaud Montigny) house wooden platform beds inspired by Japanese ryokans; beautiful wood cubes hold the beds in the bigger spaces.

For those who aren’t staying at the hotel, the Americano has a separate entrance so neighborhood visitors don’t compromise the experience for guests. A cafe near the front door provides Intellegentsia coffee (its first NYC outpost) and fresh-squeezed juices. Just behind the cafe, a restaurant will serve three meals a day indoors and on the back terrace.

On the roof, also open to the public and accessible via a separate elevator so as to not annoy hotel guests, La Piscine bar and grill will feature not only a seasonal menu but also seasonal decor—open and airy in the summer, glass-enclosed warmth in the winter.

Below the lobby, Bar Americano—a concrete tube of a bar, feels like a chic, modern subway station. Behind this space is El Privado, a small, warm living room with a bar that feels more like a kitchen, which as the name suggests is reserved for private functions.

A welcomed addition to our neighborhood, Hôtel Americano is now open for hotel guests and cafe customers. The additional spaces are set to open in late September or early October.

Perception shifts as art and nature intersect at the Nevada Museum of Art

Promising “unexpected access to the invisible,” what exactly the Nevada Museum of Art’s current show Landscape Futures proposes isn’t immediately clear. On first blush, the work looks like the usual collection of forward-thinking designs. But here there’s a catch.

The exhibit’s range of large-scale installations, experiments and devices all concern themselves less with the design itself than with the viewer’s reaction to it. Two years in the making, Bldgblog editor Geoff Manaugh worked with the NMA to develop an exhibition that would reflect the intersection of art and landscape architecture contextualized by the ever-evolving scope of design communication. The resulting project surveys methods for architecturally inventing and exploring the human perception of and interaction with their environments.

This flip-flopped point of view comes from Manaugh’s desire “to look at the devices, mechanisms, instruments, and pieces of equipment—the technology—through which humans can learn to see the landscape around them differently.” Revising the concept of “landscape futures” he posits that maybe we don’t need to devise new landscapes, “but simply little devices through which to see the world in new and unexpected ways.”

Artists Chris Woebken and Kenichi Okada’s interactive installation “Animal Superpowers” anthropomorphizes human sensory capabilities. Furthering the theme of human impact on environment, design firm Smout Allen’s Rube-Goldberg-inspired system visualizes a technological landscape that can adapt to our water needs.

An architectural commentary on the Arctic landscape, “The Active Layer” by experimental design group The Lateral Office consists of thousands of wooden dowels arranged to point out the tenuous geography in the North. “Embracing speculative scenarios in order to provoke new ways of thinking about the future” is at the heart of the exhibition, explains Manaugh.

Furthering the cause is the recently-launched Landscape Futures Night School, a series of event-styled lectures sponsored by Studio X in conjunction with Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture under Manaugh’s current direction (along with Nicola Twilley). On hand at the debut installment was lecturer Liam Young, founder of the futuristic think-tank Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today and fellow featured exhibition artist. Creating “living maps of moss,” Young’s “Specimens of Unnatural History” ecologically replicate the Galapagos islands as populated with robotic and taxidermy entities that simultaneously reflect a “cautionary tale” of the future and a throwback to the naturalistic height of the Victorian era.

Supporting the contemplative narrative of his work, Young presented a metaphysical tour-de-force of his expeditions, ranging from Chernobyl dreamscapes to invasive species in the Galapagos conducted under the nomadic studio group, Unknown Fields Division—a group devoted to “unreal and forgotten landscapes, alien terrains and obsolete ecologies.”

Landscape Futures runs until 12 February 2012 at the Nevada Museum of Art.

“Specimens of Unnatural History” images by Liam Young. All other images by Jamie Kingman.