Don’t string me along says architecture temp Althea Norwood Roberts
* Quarter of jobs created in past year were temporary
* Temps about 2 percent of overall employment
* Companies still cautious about permanent hiring
By Kristina Cooke
NEW YORK, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Althea Norwood Roberts gives employers three months to turn her temporary job into a permanent one. Then she looks elsewhere.
That’s as long as a company needs to see if she’s a good fit, the 35-year old single mother from California believes.
Norwood Roberts, currently temping for an architecture firm, is like millions of other Americans who are wondering if she will get permanent work.
“Temping is kind of like dating. It’s a trial-run for the company,” she said. “If they can’t make up their mind about you after 90 days, it’s probably not going to happen, they’re stringing you along.”
Norwood Roberts, who has a five-year old daughter, wants a job with security, good benefits and a pension. “It is not optional at this point. It is a necessity,” she said.
In the past year, about a quarter of all jobs created in the United States were temporary as companies remained cautious about the outlook for the economic recovery.
Over the past three recessions, temps — who are easier to hire and fire — have suffered the quickest and most severe cuts to their numbers at the beginning of a downturn, and then led broader employment gains when the economy recovered. For a graphic see http://r.reuters.com/geb97r
The pace of temporary job creation after the most recent recession — an average of about 25,000 per month — has been faster than in the past two, potentially a good sign for a labor market struggling with a jobless rate of 9 percent.
In the 17 months after the 2001 recession — the same period which has lapsed since the one in 2007-09 — employers added just 1,400 temporary jobs a month and the lag between the pick-up in temp hiring and the economy starting to add full-time jobs was 10 months longer.
But the faster pace of temporary hiring this time around hasn’t yet translated into significant full-time job creation.
“It will be a really good sign when we see those temporary jobs turn into permanent jobs,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said this month.
Peter Capelli, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, says the jury is still out on whether the U.S. labor market is undergoing a structural change towards more temp workers or whether companies are just biding their time until demand for their products picks up and they add more long-term employees.
“It’s probably a bit of both. Another thing may be that employers are using temp work as a more thorough interview process, so it could be masking permanent hiring,” he said.
That is a trend that Randstad, the world’s second-biggest staffing firm, is seeing.
Randstad said more of its clients than in prior recoveries are using a “temp to perm” approach to hiring, to try the employee out before committing to taking them on.
NO LOYALTY BOTH WAYS
Some companies are actively shifting to what they say is a more flexible workforce.
In January, Lowe’s, the home improvement giant, slashed 1,700 middle-management jobs and said it would add thousands of part-time customer service employees.
One of the middle managers laid off was Dean Lutz, 43, from South Carolina. Lutz says the job market is the worst he has seen in his career, with most available jobs either seasonal or part-time.
“Honestly, jobs available out there aren’t very good.” he said. Companies “don’t want to pay benefits or higher wages.”
Lowe’s move is “emblematic of an evolution that took place starting in the late 1970s in which employers showed less commitment to their workers,” said Gary Burtless, a professor at the Brookings Institution.
But he said there is little evidence to suggest that temporary hiring has become more common in the past couple of years, with temporary workers as a share of overall employment peaking at 2.4 percent at the height of the dotcom bubble.
Despite the faster pick-up, the number of temporary jobs is still down about 15 percent from before the recession.
Tom Bonds, vice president of operations at the Huron Valley Steel Company in Anniston, Alabama, said he expects a shift back to permanent workers once there is more clarity about the economic and regulatory outlook.
“We prefer full-time workers, because they are going to be there … with temps there is no loyalty both ways,” he said.
While temporary workers may be high caliber at times of high unemployment, the cream of the crop may be quickly snapped up once the recovery picks up steam.
Norwood Roberts, the single mother in California, is optimistic. She has had two previous temporary jobs in the past 10 years, both of which turned into permanent positions.
“I have been able to juggle things so far. Some people don’t have that luxury,” she said. “I am one of the lucky ones.”
(additional reporting by Nick Zieminski, Dan Burns and Dhanya Skariachan)
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LOS ANGELES, March 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Cesar Pelli celebrated a milestone for the Red Building on Monday, as the long-awaited final building of the Pacific Design Center nears completion. The Red Building is the third building of the landmark West Hollywood showroom-and-office complex whose design and construction span nearly 40 years.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110301/NE56547 )
At a topping-out ceremony, the architect joined developer and owner Charles S. Cohen to put in place a piece of red glass that completes the Red Building’s narrow triangular facade on San Vicente Boulevard. The 400,000-square-foot office building is slated for occupancy by year’s end.
“I am delighted to see the Red Building so close to fruition,” said Pelli, Senior Principal of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. “To know that the Pacific Design Center will soon be how I envisioned it is very exciting.”
Pelli conceived the 14-acre site to contain three buildings arranged around a plaza. The first, nicknamed the Blue Whale, was designed when Pelli was with Gruen Associates and completed in 1975. The Green Building, designed with his own firm, now Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, followed in 1988.
The most dynamic of the three, the Red Building is composed of two curved, sloping towers atop seven levels of parking. Between the towers will be a courtyard planted with palm trees. The six-story West Tower slopes inward against the Hollywood Hills. The eight-story East Tower curves upward.
The ceremony also paid tribute to the “Los Angeles 12,” a group of Southern California architects featured in a 1976 exhibition at the Blue Building. Pelli, Roland Coate, Raymond Kappe, Daniel Dworsky, Craig Ellwood, Frank Gehry, John Lautner, Jerrold Lomax, Anthony Lumsden, Leroy Miller, James Pulliam and Bernard Zimmerman were in the original show. Eric Owen Moss and Michael Maltzan we also recognized at the ceremony.
About Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
Founded in 1977 and led by Cesar Pelli, Fred Clarke, and Rafael Pelli, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects has designed some of the world’s most recognizable buildings, including the World Financial Center in New York, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, and the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong. The firm has been honored with critical acclaim and hundreds of design awards, including the American Institute of Architects’ Firm Award and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
SOURCE Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
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architect, buildings, construction, Design, Engineering, government architecture, Green Architecture, green building, green buildings, Green Built Environment, modern architecture, modern buildings, new buildings
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Blue Whale, Pacific Design Center, Red Building
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Margaret O’Donoghue Castillo
Ms. Castillo is the new president of the American Institute of Architects New York, one of the oldest and largest A.I.A. chapters in the nation, with just under 5,000 members. She is also a principal at Helpern Architects, specializing in sustainable and historic preservation projects.
Photo Credit - Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
Q The theme of your presidency is “design for change.”
A It has to do with sustainable urbanization, which is absolutely critical. With over half of the world’s population now living in cities, and that number expected to reach 70 percent by the next generation, how are our cities going to handle all of this?
Seventy-five to 80 percent of greenhouse gases are from buildings. Architects have a responsibility in knowing that figure.
Q What can architects do to make cities more sustainable?
A How you design the buildings influences energy usage and the way you orient a building — where you put windows, the type of overhangs, and whether you use daylight versus artificial light. Every material selected has an environmental implication.
We’re very happy with Mayor Bloomberg’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through PlaNYC. The A.I.A. wants to go further: we want zero emissions.
Q Is that realistic?
A Well, I think you have to try. Imagine not needing fossil fuels, and the implications of not having to go abroad to get oil. It isn’t just extracting the fossil fuel, a limited resource, but it’s also the pollution caused by fossil fuels. You need to create buildings that use renewable resources.
Q What are some of the new materials being used or tested?
A We’re trying to encourage more interest in building science. People talk about phase change materials, like an insulation that changes from a liquid to a gas or solid. In New York, every square inch of buildings is so valuable. To just add, say, two feet of insulation is not going to work.
Q Will we see more LEED-certified buildings?
A They don’t always have to be LEED. Some, like the School Construction Authority, use the term “high performance.” They have their own guidelines.
Q Some of the smaller developers have complained that getting LEED certification is expensive.
A I don’t think it’s in the cost of the materials; it can be in the application process. LEED does have a lot of paperwork in terms of documenting where every single material comes from.
Now there’s the New York City Energy Conservation Code — as of last July — which sets energy-efficiency standards for new and existing buildings. The codes are changing so rapidly that they are going to acquire a certain amount of energy efficiency.
Q Do you have a favorite building?
A They’re all interesting for different reasons.
Q Or architect?
A Maybe McKim, Mead & White, after having worked at Low Memorial Library at Columbia and some Carnegie libraries. They’re magnificent buildings.
Q How is business at Helpern Architects?
A It has been slow over the last two years. It’s a little bit better.
Q What projects are you working on now?
A We’re working on a hotel — it’s to be rolled out in the next three weeks — and the Marble Collegiate Church, on Fifth Avenue and 29th, which is sort of a longstanding client. We’re doing a renovation there.
Q Your practice focuses largely on historic buildings.
A Some of the first projects that we did were up at Yale, on mansions. One of them was the Davies Mansion, which sat empty for 25 years. To turn that into the new center for globalization was both an interesting mission and a challenge, since the building was practically destroyed by fire.
Q What are your thoughts on the repurposing of the High Line?
A I think it’s a beautiful design. What’s great about the High Line, is the way it started off — with a competition. There was even the idea of turning it into lap lanes for swimming.
Q Can any other found space be creatively repurposed?
A I would like to see the space at Governors Island used. It is restricted — you can’t do housing, or a casino, but you could do restaurants, conference centers or parks. And there is a plan for a park from West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture.
There’s so much history there, and there’s a tremendous opportunity with Fort Jay and Castle Williams to teach children about history. You feel like you’re a world away, with these old trees, the barracks and the houses.
Via NYT
The Cairns Institute, Cairns, Australia
By Woods Bagot Architecture
Proposing a concept that will celebrate the rainforest setting, and enrich the place experience was a winning formula for Woods Bagot and RPA Architects who have been awarded the design of The Cairns Institute, headquartered on the James Cook University (JCU) Cairns campus. A $25 million project, the Institute will be a research hub, housing specialists in the social sciences, humanities, law and business sectors to examine the issues of importance to people in the tropics. Putting the Cairns Institute and JCU on the international stage to attract post-graduate students from around the globe; and to enable the university to draw a high caliber of researchers was key to the winning design.
* January ABI 50.0, down 3.9 pts
* New projects index falls 5 pts to 56.5
* Cautious optimism for design industry: AIA
NEW YORK, Feb 23 (Reuters) – A leading indicator of U.S. nonresidential construction activity weakened last month after two months of improving numbers, an architects’ trade group said on Wednesday.
The monthly Architecture Billings Index fell almost 4 points in January to 50.0, a level that indicates neither expansion nor contraction of demand for design services, the American Institute of Architects said.
The billings index is considered a predictor of construction spending about nine to 12 months in the future, since buildings are designed long before they are erected. The latest readings suggest an anticipated recovery in U.S. nonresidential construction may not gain traction this year.
A separate index of inquiries for new projects fell more than five points to 56.5, according to the AIA.
“This slowdown is indicative of what is likely to be a very gradual improvement in business conditions at architecture firms for the better part of this year,” said AIA chief economist Kermit Baker. “We’ve been taking a cautiously optimistic approach for the last several months and there is no reason at this point to change that outlook.”
The AIA’s billings index dropped below 50 in January 2008, indicating falling demand, and stayed below that mark until last November. The separate inquiries index only fell below 50 briefly in 2008. It is typically higher than the billings index, as prospective customers solicit bids from multiple architecture firms.
Most diversified industrial companies get at least some revenue from nonresidential construction, selling machinery used for erecting buildings or components such as elevators or electrical and cooling systems.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rLsS-JDJKE]
“Finally the Neues Museum is finished. The official handover of the building,newly restored by David Chipperfield,is to take place in early March. The museum,originally built in the mid-nineteenth century,has been in ruins since the end of the Second World War. Its rebuilding is the last of the restoration projects on the city’s Museum Island. ARTS.21 took an exclusive tour,accompanied by the architect and the head of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
Hat tip to Architects Talk
When I attended the University of Miami School of Architecture from 1974-1976 (before transferring to Pratt) my studio director was Andres Duany. He was a relative unknown and had recently graduated from Columbia. I have very fond memories of my time in his classes.
Andres Duany
A slide presentation is available at www.PortAuPrinceRP.com.
Famed Miami architect and planner Andres Duany’s government-commissioned blueprint for the reconstruction of Port-au-Prince’s quake-decimated historic city center envisions a new, middle-class residential, commercial and governmental district literally built upon the rubble of the old.
While sparing the few remaining viable structures — including, most significantly, the partially collapsed National Palace — the plan would start virtually with a clean slate. It calls for clearing much of the badly damaged city center, encompassing some 25 city blocks, which pre-earthquake contained a dense mix of government buildings, homes, a commercial district and a cruise port.
Duany’s Miami firm, known for its advocacy of traditional, pedestrian-friendly urban planning, was commissioned by the Haitian government to develop the plan in collaboration with The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, a charity backed by Britain’s Prince Charles that supports ecologically sound planning and building.
The planners outlined their ideas this week in Port-au-Prince after weeks of research and a weeklong public workshop. A final version of the plan, which would have to be adopted by the government, is due in mid-February. Whether Haiti can muster the will or the financing, though, remains an open question. Enacting the plan would require a blend of government funding, private investment and foreign aid.
On ground raised above flood levels by the use of demolition rubble, the plan calls for self-contained blocks mixing one- and two-story residential and commercial buildings to be constructed in small, incremental phases. While street fronts would be public, courtyard interiors would be secure and private and include parking. Small corner parks would dot most blocks.
The plan also proposes a Classically inspired, naturally ventilated prototype for new government buildings to replace those toppled by last year’s catastrophic earthquake.
Key to Duany’s overall rebuilding strategy would be luring back to central Port-au-Prince some of the Haitian middle class that had decamped for the city’s hilltop suburbs — the only financially viable way for the old city center to be rebuilt, Duany has said in interviews.
Reconstruction of the city would be impossible without the investment and income of middle- and upper-class property owners, Duany says.
The plan outlines three possible approaches to rebuilding.
To keep initial costs down, one approach would be to rebuild a single block at a time, with each urban “village” containing at its center its own power generation, water and sewer capabilities, at a cost of about $3.7 million per block. That would avoid the need for a large, upfront and improbable investment to replace destroyed utilities across the entire urban center.
But that approach would over time be far more expensive — a total of $440 million — than doing everything at once with centralized utilities, which the planners estimated would cost $175 million.
The plan would require new building codes and zoning rules to control what can be built. It proposes a range of rigor, with the loosest set of regulations allowing informal construction in the interior of each block.
A contemplated retail complex and waterfront promenade would cater to an incipient tourist trade from the cruise port to supplement government and small-business employment.
Along the waterfront, mangroves would be replanted to protect the shoreline from storms.
Duany, whose firm, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., drew up Miami’s new pedestrian-friendly Miami 21 city zoning code, also has designed prefabricated shelter housing for Haiti. He also has designed redevelopment projects for post-Katrina New Orleans, although only small parts have been implemented.
Via The Miami Herald
architecture, buildings, built environment, Design, Engineering, government architecture, new buildings, Urban Planning
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Haiti, Port-au-Prince, Prince Charles, University of Miami School of Architecture
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Firm says it has plans for Rancho Mirage, but city says it’s news to them
Ten diverse architecture firms are collaborating with a Los Angeles-based real estate investment company in hopes of building a $250 million urban-village type retirement community primarily for gays on 100 acres in Rancho Mirage. / Submitted illustration
Ten diverse architecture firms are collaborating with a Los Angeles-based real estate investment company in hopes of building a $250 million urban-village type retirement community primarily for gays on 100 acres in Rancho Mirage.
Developers hope to break ground next year on 300 homes to be built in eight distinct neighborhoods — each designed by a different architect — said Matthias Hollwich, principal at New York-based Hollwich Kushner Architects.
The proposed development is news to Rancho Mirage planning officials, however. They only heard of it recently by receiving e-mails from residents after the project was made public on an architecture blog.
“No application has been submitted,” said Bud Kopp, Rancho Mirage senior planner. “I don’t know where it’s proposed to be. I would assume at some point they would come to talk to us. You have to get planning entitlements and approval of the (City) Council first.”
Hollwich said he could not yet reveal the exact location of the proposed project because negotiations are still under way.
A public workshop to seek input from Coachella Valley residents — whether they would want to live in the newly developed community or not — will be held in the area in about three months, Hollwich said.
Input also is being sought through the website boomforlife.com, designed by Toronto-based Bruce Mau Design.
Social media outlets such as Facebook are being used to take participants from a virtual community to one of bricks and mortar, developers said.
Plans call for pathways, plazas and walking trails; an entertainment complex; a boutique hotel; a gym and spa; and a wellness center.
Other features include restaurants, outdoor cafes, nightclubs, a meditation center, a “multi-generational funhouse,” parks, children’s playgrounds, a climbing wall, swimming pools, an outdoor movie theater and an open-air market.
A second phase to include 400 homes already is being conceptualized for the master- planned, pedestrian-oriented community.
Homes range from studios to four-bedroom single-family homes that can be shared.
Hollwich said prices for the units have yet to be set.
Inclusive mission
Boom Communities Inc., a 52-year-old real estate investment firm that is spearheading the project, was so adamant about creating a different kind of look and feel that it sought out only architects who had never worked on retirement communities or projects geared for aging populations.
“We wanted people who looked at the issue with really fresh eyes,” Hollwich said.
Architects range from well-known New York-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro to emerging firms such as Berlin-based Juergen Mayer H and Sadar + Vuga of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Architects say the philosophy behind the development began with the notion of pioneering a space for gay retirees. It has since expanded into a community for all ages with the mission of inclusion, not seclusion, about living, not retiring.
“Like the Kibbutz we grew up on, our vision for (our) neighborhood allows you to have privacy when you want it upon entering your house,” said Lior Tsionov, principal with Tel Aviv, Israel-based architecture firm L2 Tsionov-Vitkon.
“But if you want social interaction, all you have to do is open the door and your neighbors and friends are all around.”
Architects will strive for “high design” that is far from the status quo of other retirement communities or assisted-living facilities, Hollwich said.
Firms for the Boom project also were chosen for their willingness to collaborate with the desert community as well as other architects, and for their progressive design, Hollwich said.
Architect Bostjan Vuga’s progressive design calls for a neighborhood called The Petals, where “homes flower upward and bloom outward to create and exist with a space that blurs the boundaries of public and private.”
Sadar + Vaga’s homes are comprised of two halves — an indoor home and an outdoor home, the latter blending into open space.
Joel Sanders, a New York- based architect chosen for the project, said “gay identity” is not singular, but multiple.
“Our hope is to design a spectrum of housing types that cater to and accommodate these diverse lifestyle needs,” Sanders said.
Several years ago, tennis legend Billie Jean King proposed the RainbowVision project, a gay retirement community that was to be built on 13 acres at East Palm Canyon Drive and Gene Autry Trail in Palm Springs. The project never took off, and the lender repurchased the land at a foreclosure auction.
A few of the features pitched as part of the proposed Boom project for Rancho Mirage:
Pathways, plazas and walking trails; Entertainment complex; Boutique hotel; Restaurants and nightclubs; A “multi-generational funhouse”; Gym, spa and wellness center; Parks, children’s playgrounds, a climbing wall and swimming pools; Outdoor movie theater; An open-air market.
Boom community architects
Arakawa + Gins, New York
Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York
Hollwich Kushner, New York
J. Mayer H., Berlin, Germany
Joel Sanders Architect, New York
L2 Tsionov- Vitkon, Tel Aviv, Israel
Lot-Ek, Naples, Italy and New York
Rudin Donner Design, West Hollywood
Sadar + Vuga, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Surfacedesign Inc., San Francisco
Via The Desert Sun
- Designing using CAD
As an AEC staffing expert and someone who has sold, supported and trained in CAD products for years, I would love to know your thoughts on this article. For example, why is BIM below the radar?
Architects can now design buildings without lifting a pencil, thanks to computer technology. In fact, digitally conceived architecture can be too complex to draw by hand or to develop using conventional drawings, even those printed by machine. Yet there may be risks in abandoning the pencil and relying so completely on the computer.
Drawing manually used to be an indispensable architectural skill, and not just for mechanical drafting. Drawing by hand was how historic architecture was documented and analyzed, and how incipient design ideas were recorded and explored graphically. For many architects, drawing by hand is both inherently pleasurable and integral to critical design thinking, a way to directly and creatively connect the eye, brain and hand. But today, computers enable architects to do little or no manual drawing, and drawing less by hand may tempt some architects to think less critically.
In architecture offices today, you rarely find a drafting board with a parallel bar, rolls of tracing paper, measuring scales, triangles, drawing templates or boxes of pencils and markers. Instead you see a workstation with a flat-screen monitor, keyboard and mouse. Many designers use computers for “drawing” everything: diagrams, preliminary design studies, three-dimensional views and construction documents. Produced on large-format printers, drawings can even be made to look like hand-drawn sketches.
Computer-aided-design (CAD) has transformed architectural design methodology, not because it eliminates manual drawing, but because it allows architects to compose stacks of drawings at every stage of design. Architects can show clients countless design variations, create realistic renderings and graphic simulations, and produce detailed construction documents.
Once preliminary design studies – site plan and massing studies, floor plan layouts, sections and elevations – are undertaken and a preliminary digital model is created, the architect can obtain three-dimensional views, including animated walk-throughs or fly-throughs. The designer also can modify any part of the project, whether a house or a high-rise, and CAD software can automatically edit and update all parts of the design affected by the modification.
CAD software can manage a vast amount of layered data, keeping track of and coordinating all digital model components and systems, such as the structural skeleton, windows, doors, interior partitions, floor finishes, ductwork and plumbing. These programs can alert the designer if components conflict geometrically and can instantly recompute dimensions, floor areas and material quantities.
It gets even better. When a design is finalized and fully defined in a three-dimensional digital model, CAD programs can print annotated, two-dimensional drawings for bidding, building permits and construction. For highly complex designs that cannot be adequately represented and interpreted using conventional documents, the digital model itself can become the primary documentation.
Architect Frank Gehry’s work epitomizes and necessitates this approach. His design concepts begin as sketchbook squiggles or crumpled paper and are ultimately transformed into volumetrically complicated, expressively curvaceous buildings impossible to draw. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Stata Center at M.I.T. and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park could not have been designed and constructed without using digital models.
Contractors for these projects directly accessed Gehry’s digital models, not conventional drawings. That was the only way they could calculate and price the enormous quantities of materials and labor necessary to fabricate and install the thousands of steel structural members and metal panels that make up the complex exterior skins of these buildings. Only with advanced computer technology could Gehry’s idiosyncratic approach to design have evolved and his projects been implemented.
Yet if every architect emulated Gehry’s expressive approach, a lot of bad architecture would result. This is because CAD can seductively induce “I can, therefore I shall” thinking. Because architects can digitally model almost any form they can dream up, CAD can lead to excessively complex, overwrought building designs – form for form’s sake. Such CAD-gone-wild buildings may be inappropriate for their sites, functionally inefficient, difficult to construct, way over budget and perhaps even ugly.
During the preliminary design phase, CAD programs also can yield machine-printed drawings that make a schematic design idea appear more precise, refined and resolved than it really is. Before CAD, concepts drawn by hand often were sketchy and loosely delineated with wavy or fuzzy lines laid down by soft pencils, felt-tip pens or charcoal. The art and technique of manual drawing ensured that schematic ideas looked schematic.
The computer is a powerful tool, but still just a tool that must be used properly. Designers who never draw manually still must engage in critical thinking and rational invention, as if they were drawing and designing by hand, even though their hand grasps a mouse instead of a pencil.
Via Washington Post
architects, architecture, CAD, Design
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Bilbao, CAD, Chicago's Millennium Park, Guggenheim Museum, Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Los Angeles, Spain, Stata Center at M.I.T., Walt Disney Concert Hall
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Transitional spaces at stem cell building encourage ‘cross-pollination of ideas’
The Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building at the University of California (UCSF) hosted a grand opening yesterday to celebrate the completion of a challenging construction project.
Designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects with executive architect the Smith Group and DPR Construction, the new facility will act as the headquarters for the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research, analysing complex scientific data at the earliest stages of human and animal development.
Located on a steeply sloping hillside, the site posed multiple challenges for the design team. A solution was found in the creation of a raised serpentine structure supported by steel space trusses springing from concrete piers, minimising space excavation and incorporating seismic base isolation to absorb earthquake forces.
The main laboratory area is arranged in four split levels set in stepped stages working in harmony with the sloped nature of the urban hillside. Each of these levels is topped with a cluster of offices and a green roof-space planted with wildflowers.
An external network of stairs and pedestrian bridges takes advantage of San Francisco’s temperate climate, with internal stairs and break rooms providing a base for the ‘cross-pollination of ideas’ among scientists. Interior glazing maximises visual connectivity while plentiful glazing on the south-facing side affords widespread views to the wooded slope of nearby Mount Sutro.
Rafael Vinoly Architects is currently pushing forward on two long-awaited projects in London, UK – work has now recommenced on 20 Fenchurch Street (the Walkie Talkie) and the £5.5bn redevelopment of Battersea Power Station has been approved by Wandsworth Council.
Hat Tip to World Architecture News
