Predock's Flexible Arts Center Suits College's Boundary-Breaking Style Becoming a citizen of the United States requires study, effort, patience—and a lot of paperwork. But when the interviews are completed and the forms filled out, individuals raise their hands and swear allegiance to their new country. Chicago-based 4240 Architects wanted to provide a proper setting for that transformative experience, so they designed a two-story, glass-enclosed Ceremony Room for the new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) building in Irving, Texas. Positioned along a busy highway, the light-filled room will not only be an uplifting space but also gleam “like a beacon,”
Constitution Text Inspires Immigration Building Design Becoming a citizen of the United States requires study, effort, patience—and a lot of paperwork. But when the interviews are completed and the forms filled out, individuals raise their hands and swear allegiance to their new country. Chicago-based 4240 Architecture wanted to provide a proper setting for that transformative experience, so they designed a two-story, glass-enclosed Ceremony Room for the new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) building in Irving, Texas. Positioned along a busy highway, the light-filled room will not only be an uplifting space but also gleam “like a beacon,” says 4240
College students socialize, shop, and learn in ways unimaginable less than a generation ago. Although they are increasingly connected via social networking Web sites such as Facebook.com, many students live in residence halls that predate the personal computer. The Association of College & University Housing Officers–International (ACUHO-I) held the second stage of its “21st Century Project” ideas competition this month, asking designers to envision housing that satisfies the needs not of today’s students but those 25 years in the future. A team of young interns and architects, fittingly, bested four other finalists—and took home $25,000—with a scheme called “net+work+camp+us.” In
If ever a head of cabbage could be heroic, it may just have that opportunity this summer, in Queens, New York. The Museum of Modern Art and its affiliate, P.S.1, have announced the winner of their ninth annual Young Architects Program. The honor went to the New York City-based WORK Architecture Company for its scheme “Public Farm 1,” which proposes planting a garden of cabbage and a range of other vegetables, fruits, and herbs in the outdoor courtyards at P.S.1. Images courtesy Museum of Modern Art For its summertime Young Architects Program installation, P.S. 1 has selected “Public Farm 1,”
Frank Gehry has one, so do Jean Nouvel and Norman Foster. Renzo Piano has two. But last month, when New York’s governor scrapped a convention center expansion project, Richard Rogers—who joined Piano in electrifying Paris with the Pompidou Center during the early 1970s—remained a Pritzker Prize winner who has worked in New York City without a finished project to show for it.
A design flaw and the use of the wrong type of steel in Rafael Viñoly’s David L. Lawrence Convention Center, in Pittsburgh, caused a partial collapse there last year, according to a report released this week, as detailed by the Associated Press in an article appearing February 5 on enr.com. A 30-by-60-foot slab of concrete in the loading dock collapsed and fell onto a walkway below in February 2007, as RECORD reported; no one was injured in the incident. “An engineering firm hired to investigate the collapse, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, said a slotted bolt connection used to attach a
Arthouse, an organization based in Austin, Texas, that supports and exhibits contemporary Texan art, has been confined, since 1995, to its single-story space that was most recently a department store. But a new design by the New York City-based architect Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis will turn what was once an improvisation into a flexible, contemporary, and permanent 23,800-square-foot home. Images courtesy Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis The Arthouse space currently looks much the same as the building does in this photo from the 1950s, when it was home to a Lerner department store (top). The Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis design keeps vestiges of historical elements, while propelling the building into
Correction appended February 14, 2008 Hong Kong is a jungle of high-rise buildings, so it may come as a surprise that architects and preservationists there are objecting to plans for a tall tower designed by Herzog & de Meuron. The Swiss firm was hired by a local nonprofit to transform the city’s old Central Police Station compound into an arts and culture complex—but after a backlash against the scheme the Hong Kong chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) stepped in and is holding a charrette next week to identify other viable designs. Images courtesy Herzog & de Meuron
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