Archinect - News

Construction starts on MVRDV's new Berlin mixed-use development

2024-03-17T08:00:00-04:00

Construction has begun on the MVRDV-designed LXK Office and Residential Campus in Berlin. The mixed-use complex will add needed office and residential space to a rapidly developing part of the city.

The project is located in the Friedrichshain district. It spans approximately 658,751 square feet and features abundant office, commercial, and residential space. The complex consists of two L-shaped volumes, with the residential component consolidated into a single block. The corners of each volume open up to create an accessible green, public square. This divide allows the project to integrate itself sensitively into the scale of the surroundings.

Image © MVRDV

One of the most distinguishing features of the development is its single continuous luminous band that wraps horizontally around each structure. The band unifies the fragmented structure into a single form. This component is further activated by green, accessible terraces that offer views into the surrounding city. It also hosts ...

Snøhetta's green, mixed-use AIRSIDE development opens in Hong Kong

2023-11-11T11:21:00-05:00

Snøhetta’s AIRSIDE, a LEED Platinum-certified, mixed-use development in Hong Kong, has officially opened.

Located at the site of the former Kai Tak Airport district, the approximately 1,912,424-square-foot project merges into the surrounding urban landscape by creating direct access between pedestrian transit areas, retail spaces, and elevated landscapes. The development comprises an approximately 699-foot-tall tower with a second tower and its base in a continuous form.

The building mass comprises five interconnected volumes that gradually step up from the Kai Tak River, which lends the 699-foot-tall tower an inviting presence at ground level. The building’s sculpted forms create a series of human-scale urban spaces at this level, in addition to rooftop gardens. Landscaped plazas contribute to further integrating the development into the surroundings and creating an engaging pedestrian realm.

An expansive elevated garden sits atop the podium containing the building’s central atr...

New construction video highlights AECOM's nearly complete Intuit Dome in Inglewood

2023-07-19T13:35:00-04:00

Following reports of its topping out in March, the AECOM-designed Intuit Dome, the future home of the Los Angeles Clippers, is taking shape ahead of its expected completion in 2024.

A new video depicts the status of the project as of June 2023, where its standout steel frame with diagrid geometry can be seen wrapping the structure. This building skin is formed from a series of diamond-shaped, interwoven metal panels with multiple uses. According to the architects, the frame was inspired by the form of a basketball net as a ball passes through it.

A vast array of solar panels can also be spotted on the structure’s roof. Intuit Dome is set to operate 100% carbon-free, powered fully by batteries and solar power. The design team, alongside the Clippers organization, worked towards initiatives that will earn the stadium a LEED Platinum certification.

The $1.2 billion, 18,000-seat arena will be the centerpiece of a larger mixed-use project, including an 85,000-square-foot training faci...

COOKFOX's 555 Greenwich office complex in Manhattan nears completion

2023-05-08T17:19:00-04:00

*Editor's Note: The 555 Greenwich project officially topped out on April 22, 2022, and is slated for completion in 2023. Details below have been adjusted for accuracy.

COOKFOX’s 555 Greenwich project, a 270,000-square-foot, 16-story office tower in the heart of New York City’s Hudson Square, is near completion. As reported on NewYorkYimby, images by Michael Young show the installation of the building's brick facade and windows.

Rendering: Vocon, image courtesy COOKFOX

The structure will seamlessly combine with the adjacent 1931-built 345 Hudson to form a singular full-block building. The development was led by Hudson Square Properties, a joint venture of Trinity Church Wall Street, Norges Bank Investment Management, and Hines. The combination of 555 Greenwich and 345 Hudson aims to be a benchmark for sustainable and environmentally responsible office development.

Rendering: Vocon, image courtesy COOKFOX

The new building will feature geothermal and radiant heating and cooling, full el...

Apple's first flagship store in India, designed by Foster + Partners, opens to the public

2023-04-18T15:30:00-04:00

Apple’s first flagship store in India, designed by Foster + Partners, is now open. It is located in the Bandra Kurla Complex, a business and residential district in Mumbai.

Employing many design elements synonymous with Apple stores around the world, Apple BKC attempts to blur the boundaries between inside and outside: A 26-foot-tall glass façade highlights the double-height volume within and the outdoor areas. Greenery is invited into the store, with a row of ficus trees slotted along the inside of the glazing.

Image: Foster + Partners

The connection between the interior and exterior spaces is further emphasized by a hand-crafted timber ceiling that extends beyond the glass façade to the underside of the exterior canopy. The ceiling is made up of a triangular grid of 450,000 individual timber elements. Each of the 1,000 ceiling tiles is formed using 400 pieces of oak timber (reportedly sustainably sourced) arranged in a lattice woven pattern. This was inspired by the work of cane an...

Google's BIG + Heatherwick-designed Bay View HQ campus opens

2022-05-17T18:55:00-04:00

Google has announced the opening of its new Bay View campus in Mountain View, California, with the neighboring Charleston East project in its final phase of construction. Together, they form the latest additions to Google's headquarters.

Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Google

The web giant celebrates the first time it led the concept and construction of one of its own major campuses, boasting an extensive list of human-centered, sustainable features.

According to Google's project announcement, Bay View is an all-electric, net-water-positive facility with the largest geothermal installation in North America. Both projects report being the largest buildings in the world to pursue LEED-NC v4 Platinum and the largest to pursue elements of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) Living Building Challenge (LBC) Petal Certification.

Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Google

Designed in collaboration with Bjarke Ingels Group and Heatherwick Studio, the campus officially broke ground in 2...

One of Zaha Hadid's final designs opens in the UAE

2022-04-11T18:50:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects has officially ushered in what it says will become a “new benchmark for future workplaces” in the form of a brand new high-tech headquarters for the sustainably-minded BEEAH Group in Sharjah, UAE.

Echoing the surrounding desert landscape, the design incorporates two interconnected dune-like structures that house the company’s main offices with a central courtyard and an oasis-like water feature in between to aid in the overall ventilation of the structures.

Image © Hufton+Crow

Lightly glazed facades made of glass with reinforced fiber panels reduce the need for artificial light in the hall. The new headquarters also comes equipped with a host of green innovations such as on-site water treatment and solar-charged Tesla battery packs and will strive for LEED Platinum standards and a net-zero emissions rating using materials taken primarily from local sources.

Image © Hufton+Crow

Much like the city it inhabits, BEEAH is trying ...

SOM completes mixed-use smart office tower in Chicago's Fulton Market District

2022-04-11T15:21:00-04:00

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), along with real estate investment firms QuadReal and Thor Equities, have announced the completion of 800 Fulton Market, a 326-foot-tall, mixed-use office tower that stands out for its wide range of pandemic-responsive design features.

Photo © Dave Burk | SOM

The building is located in one of Chicago’s fastest-growing neighborhoods, the Fulton Market District. It relates to the neighborhood’s historic low-rise streetscape and Chicago's downtown high rises through a series of stepped, landscaped terraces. The 19-story building sports a façade of brick, glass, and exposed structural steel bracing, which also draws from the area's industrial character.

“We set out to design a building that would feel like it had always been part of Fulton Market’s historic, industrial character, but also recognized the pressures and concerns of the new vibrant neighborhood,” said SOM Consulting Design Partner Brian Lee. “This sensitivity informed everything from our ma...

KPF breaks ground on a new headquarters for T. Rowe Price in Baltimore

2022-03-31T19:36:00-04:00

An exciting birthday gift is underway in the Charm City as Kohn Pedersen Fox has finally broken ground on a new headquarters for T. Rowe Price in the company’s hometown of Baltimore 85 years after its founding.

The project was announced in December 2020 and centers around a new 550,000-square-foot two-winged building with an all-glass central atrium sited along a prime piece of waterfront real estate fronting the pivotal gateway of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor area.

Image © Atchain, courtesy Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates

KPF Design Principal Jeffrey Kenoff said the project will create a “hyper-porosity, both visual and physical, from the Central Plaza down to the harbor. The façade specifically reduces the scale of the massing through a cadence of grey double-height bays that echo the city’s historical DNA and industrial heritage.”

Plans are for construction to be completed in 2024. The building will aim for ambitious Fitwel Three-Star and LEED Platinum certifications in its interiors. T...

University of Kansas students converted shipping containers into housing for community shelter guests in need of quarantined spaces

2021-11-10T19:46:00-05:00

As part of a program at the University of Kansas School of Architecture and Design, a cohort of students retrofitted twelve shipping containers to serve as private housing for homeless people during the pandemic.

The project, located at Kansas’ Lawrence Community Shelter, is called Monarch Village. It was established in response to the need for adequate quarantine spaces for its population when the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020. The initiative is part of the non-profit Studio 804, a comprehensive design-build program offered through the school where graduate students design and build a LEED Platinum project. Monarch Village is the studio’s sixteenth.

According to Studio 804, the dwellings offer much-needed privacy for families while allowing guests access to services at the shelter. It is hoped that this project will be a precedent to move away from housing the homeless in gymnasium-like rooms full of bunk beds, an arrangement that makes isolating impossible.

Construction on th...

Deborah Berke Partners completes new $19M residence hall for Dickinson College

2018-08-23T18:06:00-04:00

Ahead of the new academic year, Dickinson College has opened a new $19 million residence hall that will house 130 students. The High Street Residence Hall, the Carlisle liberal arts college's first new residence hall since 1973, is part of a $46 million campus investment plan that began in 2012. Officials said demand for on-campus housing exceeded available space, prompting the start of construction on the new residence hall last year.

Deborah Berke Partners' new dormitory for Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA is now open for the upcoming academic school year.

The 40,500 square foot building is currently targeted to be LEED Platinum, making it the first college residence hall in Pennsylvania to achieve this level if approved. The dorm features an upgraded stormwater management system with four rain gardens.

The residence hall was designed with an energy efficient roof, exterior walls, and windows. The facility connects with the colleges' central energy plant to reduce carbon emissions.

Collaborating Firms
Deborah Berke Partners – Architect and Interior Designer
Andropogon – Landscape Architect
Kohler Ronan – MEP Engineer
Steven Winter Associates – LEED/Environmental Consultant
PHT Lighting – Lighting...

Iotti + Pavarani Architetti-designed office building fills an entire block in Turin

2017-07-13T09:48:00-04:00

The new operations headquarters of Reale Group, designed by Iotti + Pavarani Architetti, was recently opened in Turin, Italy. Located on the southwestern border of the city’s Roman castrum it replaced a building from the seventies, redefining and modernizing the entire block.

Covering a built area of 23,500 square meters, the LEED Platinum certified building will accommodate 800 work stations, 150 parking spaces, a conference room for 280 people and will include a visible from the street 1,700 square meter internal courtyard.

Fernando Guerra | FG+SG fotografia de arquitectura

"The entire complex takes on board the surrounding area and “absorbs” a protected historical façade (that on Via Bertola and Via San Dalmazzo), creating a compositional solution in harmony with the surrounding buildings."

Fernando Guerra | FG+SG fotografia de arquitectura

"The architectural envelope becomes a fulcrum, a gravitational hub in the urban fabric of this part of the surrounding centre of Turin: it foc...

Brad Pitt's "Make It Right" opens LEED-platinum housing complex in Kansas City

2013-11-11T15:50:00-05:00

Make It Right, an organization that helps communities rebuild after environmental or economic disasters, opened its most recent project in Kansas City, Missouri this past Saturday. The project focused on the abandoned and badly damaged Bancroft School plot, renovating the school building into LEED Platinum apartments, and constructing new homes on the grounds (designed by local BNIM Architects). The community complex also includes an auditorium, gym, computer lab and public gardens.

Originally founded by Brad Pitt in response to the alarmingly slow rate of reconstruction in post-Katrina New Orleans, Make It Right uses urban acupuncture tactics to help damaged cities recuperate. According to Director of Innovation Tim Duggan, projects like the Bancroft School can help "[transform] the focal point in a blighted neighborhood into a catalyst for redevelopment. And we believe this can be a model for communities around the country".

Since its founding in 2007, Make It Right ha...

Just How Green Is The World's Greenest Building?

2013-08-07T20:06:00-04:00

According to data released by New York City last fall, the Bank of America Tower produces more greenhouse gases and uses more energy per square foot than any comparably sized office building in Manhattan. It uses more than twice as much energy per square foot as the 80-year-old Empire State Building. - Sam Roudman

The Bank of America tower in NYC, winner of Platinum LEED certification and (according to Bank of America) "one of the world's most environmentally responsible high-rise office buildings", is under scrutiny for its environmental claims, in a debate hosted by the Fast Company blog, Co.Design. A recent article by Sam Roudman for the New Republic questioned the building's actual environmental impact, and the effectiveness of LEED certification by extension. Roudman's piece prompted a counter-defense from the sustainability blog, Treehugger, and Co.Design has published the two sides of the conversation.

Orange Barrel Media Announces LEED Platinum Headquarters in Columbus

2012-04-21T11:46:00-04:00

The new Orange Barrel HQ will reuse existing concrete storage silos and a renovated 10,000-sqft warehouse with a new 10,000-sqft addition. OBM President Pete Scantland says they’re aiming for LEED Platinum certification with the project. Solar panels will be located on the back side of a 120-foot tall structure rising above the new offices, while the front side will provide a showpiece advertising space.

Orange Barrel Media is a nine-year-old outdoor wallscape mural design and advertising firm that serves markets in New York, Boston, Charlotte, Columbus, Denver, Cleveland and Cincinnati. Yesterday, they announced a new headquarters in Columbus that includes an innovative solar-panel advertising tower and 20,000 square feet of space on a former concrete mixing plant adjacent to Downtown.

The new development was designed by George Acock of Acock Associates with Landscape Architecture done by Keith Meyers and his team at MSI+KKG.