Archinect - News

Oppenheim Architecture unveils hotel carved into a mountainside

2021-09-29T10:08:00-04:00

Oppenheim Architecture has released details of their Desert Rock hotel complex, situated in the mountains along Saudi Arabia’s west coast. When completed in 2023, the complex will include 48 villas and 12 hotel suites, some of which are carved directly into the mountainside. The Desert Rock hotel forms part of a wider redevelopment known as the Red Sea Project, which is set to comprise 50 resorts across 22 islands and six inland sites upon its completion in 2030.

Image by Luxigon

Oppenheim’s scheme seeks to blend with its surroundings through the use of natural materials, some of which are recycled from the site. During the daytime, the hotel's material palettes and shadow effects blend with the mountainside to conceal the scheme, while at night, the glow of the architectural lighting activates the hillside. The approach to the hotel, along a hidden valley within the mountains, has been further considered to gently reveal the scheme as guests draw nearer, and minimize obstruction of ...

Renzo Piano's Academy Museum of Motion Pictures receives LEED Gold Certification

2020-11-04T16:14:00-05:00

Slowly, slowly, LA's new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is inching towards its anticipated completion.

The LACMA-adjacent, Renzo Piano-designed 300,000 square-foot museum campus on Wilshire Boulevard was forced to push back several official opening dates — most recently, the December 14 opening was rescheduled to now April 30, 2021 — but there appears to be continued progress at the site: the project was recently awarded LEED Gold Certification for its environmental concept.

Bird's eye rendering © Renzo Piano Building Workshop/©Academy Museum Foundation/ Image from L’Autre Image

Contributing to the rating were high-performance indoor environmental systems, solar power systems, waste reduction programs, easy public transportation access, a rideshare pickup and drop-off point, bike racks, a storm water reuse system that feeds irrigation for the museum’s landscaping, and Green Building Education content that will be accessible onsite and online after the museum’s opening.

Firms invo...

Meet the world's first Living Building Challenge certified winery

2020-05-29T18:01:00-04:00

After completing a required one-year post-occupancy review, the Silver Oaks Alexander Valley winery designed by Piechota Architecture, with engineering and sustainable design consultations from Thornton Tomasetti, has achieved Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification.

The winery's interconnected tasting, production, and administrative buildings. Image courtesy of Damion Hamilton.

Located in Healdsburg, California, the 100,000-square-foot complex was completed in 2018 and is now the world's first LBC-certified winery. The building exists, additionally, as one of just 25 buildings globally to achieve this level of certification from the International Living Future Institute, Thornton Tomasetti explains on the firm's website.

The winery project consists of two interlocking structures situated on a 113-acre site. One structure contains a sizable tasting room with event spaces and is connected to an adjacent production facility by a covered patio. The second structure includes admin...

Pop star Akon set to break ground on Senegal's first LEED-certified crypto-city

2020-01-22T20:18:00-05:00

Global pop star Akon and Senegalese government officials are readying to break ground on a new ground-up 2,000-acre sustainable tourism city near the country's capital, Dakar.

Just finalized the agreement for AKON CITY in Senegal. Looking forward to hosting you there in the future pic.twitter.com/dsoYpmjnpf
— AKON (@Akon) January 13, 2020

CNN reports that the musician-turned-businessman and government officials recently signed an official agreement initiating the development of the city. In a tweet marking the occasion, Akon writes, "Just finalized the agreement for AKON CITY in Senegal. Looking forward to hosting you there in the future." The project is being developed with the help of SAPCO, Senegal's state-owned tourism company, Africa News reports. Hussein Bakri, BAD Consultant, Semer Group are credited with the design of the project has not been announced, while the Sana'a-based engineering firm Yemeni Group is listed as another project partner.

Proposed renderings of Akon Cit...

USGBC embraces "regenerative" approach, LEED certification for existing buildings

2019-11-20T18:00:00-05:00

At the recent Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in Atlanta, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) unveiled its vision for the new LEED Positive initiative, a vision that embraces a series of subtle changes to the group's approach to building certification standards.

Mahesh Ramanujam, president and CEO of USGBC, writes in a press release, "LEED must evolve qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitatively, it must transition from strategies that reduce the harm done by buildings to strategies that cause no harm and are regenerative by design, ensuring our buildings are actually giving back more than they take. And quantitatively it will need to accelerate and increase its impact ten to a hundred-fold."

The refined perspective means that LEED will now place an added focus on requiring "new construction to go further" as an industry-wide effort to decarbonize the building sector gets off the ground. The program will also "push existing buildings with high energy usage to su...

9 Featured Job Opportunities Focused on Sustainable Design

2019-07-25T12:24:00-04:00

Following Archinect's recent coverage of sustainable design practices this week we have selected nine firms who are seeking to hire candidates with strong backgrounds in sustainable design, analysis and research, LEED documentation, and green construction guidelines.

University of Texas at Dallas, Edith O'Donnell Arts & Technology Building by STUDIOS Architecture. Image © Tim Griffith

STUDIOS Architecture seeks a Project Architect
Location: Los Angeles, CA
The ideal candidate will be able to develop designs with understanding of building systems, sustainability requirements, accessibility and code compliance for solutions that are unique and engaging while tailored to client’s vision and project requirements. Experience in LEED documentation and certification, space programming, space planning, workplace strategy, entitlements, planning approvals, and other relevant facets of commercial architecture and planning are desirable. License or LEED Accreditation or pursuit of license and LE...

USBGC seeking input on the future of LEED

2019-07-15T19:25:00-04:00

The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has announced a call for proposals to solicit feedback and concepts for the next version of LEED certification standards.

According to the announcement, the organization is looking to expand and improve upon its recently completed suite of LEED v4.1 rating systems. Aside from focusing on lowering carbon emissions and improving energy and water efficiency ratings like previous editions of the LEED certification guidelines, LEED v4.1 makes an appeal to the growing building wellness movement by also emphasizing "health and well-being of the people who live, work, learn and play in these buildings, cities and communities every day."

Mahesh Ramanujam, president and CEO of USGBC explained in a prepared statement that LEED v4.1 "has allowed us to become more agile and adaptable to incorporate real-time feedback so that we can realistically raise the bar on the marketplace."

Ramanujam added, "Building on this success, we are excited to enga...

How glass buildings are making fighting climate change harder

2017-07-18T13:26:00-04:00

Permissive building codes, industry inertia, and market demands — like clients clamoring for floor-to-ceiling views — have widened the discrepancy between the kind of buildings cities say they want and what they actually allow. So while the industry inches towards better environmental performance, buildings in Boston and other cities still fall short of the sustainability goals that everyone claims to embrace.

Courtney Humphries of Boston Globe argues that the current trend for extensive use of glass in buildings contradicts today's strive for sustainability and "green building." When New York started tracking energy use by skyscrapers, the gleaming 7 World Trade Center — one of that city’s more efficient glass towers — scored worse than the 1930s-era Empire State Building."

Taking a lot of energy to heat and cool, glass buildings do not fit well with most climates. "Unlike opaque walls, glass allows heat to pass in and out easily. A 2014 report from the Urban Green Council in New York found that glass buildings have insulation values equivalent to medieval half-timber houses." As the author adds, "Transparent walls also limit privacy, and sunlight can create glare. Reflections on glass buildings can also be a problem; one London skyscraper infamously melted cars parked outside. The Urban Green Council has found that occupants of glass buildings often cover their views with shades and cur...

BIG's ship/office building docks at the Philadelphia Navy Yard

2016-11-03T12:40:00-04:00

What features an interior periscope, exterior stacked precast concrete panels in a basket-weave shape that mimic the curvature of a ship's hull, and 26,000 square feet of freshly occupied office space? Bjarke Ingels Group's newly completed "Intrepid," a four-story, LEED Gold certified office building for the Philadelphia Navy Yard which just welcomed its first tangible tenant, the Penn Capital Management Company, Inc., on its top floor.

The Intrepid's site context is closely tied to its design concept. As BIG partner Kai-Uwe Bergmann explains: “In many cases, architects design big, boxy buildings that could be placed anywhere and don’t connect directly to the site. You would really be hard-pressed to place 1200 Intrepid anywhere else, due to how it connects with its surroundings. Our commission involved creating a speculative office building, for which no tenants were committed. The key challenge here was to create a reason for tenants to be here with the constraint of a stringent bu...

Editor's Picks #344

2013-12-03T18:49:00-05:00

eric chavkin penned a review of "Glen Small: Recovery Room" an exhibit at Assembly in Los Angeles, organized and curated by Archinect's own Orhan Ayyüce. MightyMike (aka Michael Locke) commented "For local (Los Angeles) fans of Archinect, there's a wonderful example of Small's work in the Franklin Hills...the Leiberman House". For his part davidd felt "This review and Small's work seems to come from an ingroup/niche point of view".

eric chavkin penned a review of "Glen Small: Recovery Room" an exhibit at Assembly in Los Angeles, organized and curated by Archinect's own Orhan Ayyüce. He concluded "Despite the flaws the works of Glen Small offer so much that another architect could base an entire career on re-doing, modifying, repeating any one of his single works".

MightyMike (aka Michael Locke) commented "For local (Los Angeles) fans of Archinect, there's a wonderful example of Small's work in the Franklin Hills...the Leiberman House, designed by Glen Howard Small, AIA c.1989 and completed by Anthony Eckelberry in 1995". For his part davidd felt "This review and Small's work seems to come from an ingroup/niche point of view".

Plus, in latest edition of the series Working out of the Box, Archinect spoke with with Microsoft Design Leads Mary-Lynne Williams and Moneta Ho Kushner.

News
Brian Henry noted a move by Ohio towards banning LEED. katscan thought "It sure is about time, I was wondering why stat...

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.

Frank Harmon Wins Honor Award for AIA NC Center for Architecture and Design

2012-11-28T16:59:00-05:00

November 28, 2012 (Raleigh, NC) – Frank Harmon Architect PA, a multi-award-winning firm in Raleigh, NC, has received an Honor Award from the North Carolina Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA NC) for the design of the new AIA NC Center for Architecture and Design in downtown Raleigh.

Already praised by the media as a “heroic gesture” (Metro Magazine), a building “that behaves like the skilled diplomat it was designed to be,” (News & Observer), and “an ode in zinc and cypress, and an inviting treatise on transparency,” (Huffington Post), the building is located on an oddly shaped, previously unused lot in downtown Raleigh near the State Capitol and Government Complex.

According to Frank Harmon, FAIA, the building and landscape were conceived of as “one interlocking system” with the help of Charlottesville, VA, landscape architect Gregg Bleam, FASLA. “The landscape is an extension of the building and the building is an extension of the landscape,” Harmon said. ...

Empire State Building Achieves LEED Gold Certification

2011-09-14T13:44:58-04:00

It’s official — the Empire State Building has been awarded LEED Gold certification. Thanks to a massive green overhaul that took more than two years, the landmark is now the tallest building in the United States to receive LEED certification.