rogueHAA is pleased to announce the next event in its 2011-2012 panel discussion series: Provocations: Challenging Detroit’s Design Discourse

PANEL DISCUSSION 05: “archiCRITICAL: Evolving Detroit’s Architectural Criticism”
January 26, 2012 – Panel Discussion: 6pm-8pm, Reception to follow: 8pm-9pm
Tech Two (formerly known as Dalgleish Cadillac)
6160 Cass Ave, Detroit

Architectural criticism is a productive and creative literary practice, challenging the architectural profession to consciously examine itself while simultaneously guiding its evolution. Bound in a mutually constructive association, architecture and architectural criticism contribute to each other in reactive and proactive ways.

But what is the function of architectural criticism (and architecture) for societies consumed with economic, social, and environmental crises, which may or may not be directly related to the built environment?  Should architecture (and architectural criticism) focus solely on the built environment, or more actively engage the societies that inhabit and/or fund them?  How does architectural criticism react to a practice (and public) shifting from a desire for superstarchitecture towards socially conscious, equitable design?  Can this symbiotic relationship be more productive towards this end goal?

archiCRITICAL brings together six distinguished architectural critics to expound upon these difficult questions.

Participants:
Frank X. Arvan – President, AIA Detroit
Jennifer Conlin – Contributor, New York Times
Sarah F. Cox – Editor, Curbed Detroit
Michael Hodges – Fine Arts Columnist, Detroit News
Karrie Jacobs – Writer, Architectural Critic, and Editor, Design Observer and Metropolis Magazine
Reed Kroloff – Director, Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum
Melissa Dittmer – Event Moderator, rogueHAA

Following the panel discussion we will post a video and written summary of the event.  We will also provide an open comment board for others to share their thoughts on the dialogue.  As always, this event is open and free to the public.

rogueHAA would like to formally thank TechTown for their contributions towards this event.  More imformation on TechTown can be found on their website, http://techtownwsu.org/.

This new MONU issue on the topic of Post-Ideological Urbanism probably touches on one of the most fascinating and biggest issues of our time and in our culture, or what is left of it: the non-ideological – or better post-ideological – conditions of our society when it comes to cities. Today, ideology ap…pears to have become, and to have been reduced to, something merely aesthetic, something you can buy yourself into as Wouter Vanstiphout explains in an interview with us entitled “Acrobatic Narratives”. In that sense cities have become suspicious territories where hypocrisy and fakery prevail when it comes to urban ideologies…and a new sincerity is obviously needed in a world consisting of a multiplicity of choices and urban outcomes without a single consistent urban ideology as Melissa Dittmer, Jamie Witherspoon, and Noah Resnick point out in their piece “Choose Your Own Urbanism Presents: The Case of the Missing Ideal”.

The following text is an excerpt from an article entitled “CHOOSE YOUR OWN URBANISM PRESENTS: The Case of the Missing Ideal” that has been recently published in the latest MONU magazine:

It’s a hot, dry and dusty afternoon… But, then again, all the afternoons are hot, dry and dusty in Sin City.  You’re in your shoebox of an office with the top three buttons of your white cotton shirt undone, a damp towel on the back of your neck, and the sound of a rickety two-dollar fan blowing in your face.  The A.C. is on the fritz again, and you’re just about to phone up that good-for-nothing building super to complain, when you hear three soft taps on the glass pane of your office door – the one that reads: Calvin Lynch, Private Detective.

You ask her to have a seat in the worn leather armchair and offer her a cigarette and a glass of flat ginger ale.  She accepts neither and says she prefers to stand. 

“I’m searching for something,” she finally says, after standing in front of the window, staring out through the half-closed blinds. “They say what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, but this thing didn’t stay.  Or, maybe it never existed to begin with. Either way, I need your help.”

And then she says the magic words that for the first time since she walked through the door, piqued your interest: “I’m willing to pay you whatever you need to find it.”  You button your top three buttons, walk over to the window to open the blinds, and sit on the corner of your desk directly across from the slightly agitated but determined young woman looking you keenly in the eyes.

“If you’re ready to start now” she says “I’ve got a car downstairs waiting to drive us to the City Planning department.”  You ask her just what it is she thinks you can help her find, and she replies in a subdued, but urgent tone: “Las Vegas’ urban ideology.”

 If you grab your fedora and your decommissioned, but trusty police revolver, and hop into her waiting car to search for the guiding principles that shaped the city’s morpholgy: turn to page 69

 If you pull another cigarette from your crumpled pack, and explain to her that Vegas rejected urban ideology from the start, in favor of the capitalist gamble: turn to page 666

Las Vegas has perpetually been a city of conflicted narratives. From the dry desert ecosystem to the seedy commercial enterprise to the themed mega-resort to the recent trend of chic high-rise hotels and condominiums, the city is a collection of contradictions. Each identity exists as a totalizing world, literally and conceptually distinct from one another, yet occupying and often denying the same physical space. While these narratives sometimes overlap, there is the tendency for each to maintain its own independence. Las Vegas is built on storytelling. The city is as much about the stories it enables as the buildings, population, and hidden infrastructure that support it. It is a place where one goes to escape the weight of normative urban structure in favor of the whimsy, adventure, and multiplicity of urban outcomes without a single consistent urban ideology.

Architecturally, the image of Las Vegas is always referential. Drawing on the cultural exoticism of places like Paris, Venice, Egypt, or even ancient and Medieval Europe, the built environment of the downtown does not so much imitate but rather capitalizes on our hidden desires for these exotic encounters. This desire is not for the actual experience of visiting these places, but for the unique eclecticism and historic ideologies that each of these referential cities offer, all within the safety and comfort of the United States. The city itself is constructed like a “choose-your-own-adventure”, or interactive fiction storybook, where one’s experience is finely orchestrated by the various choices one makes as they flip non-sequentially through the pages.

To read one of these young-adult detective noir novels in numerical page order, rather than the non-sequential path, would yield a disjointed presentation of the text and result in an incomprehensible narrative. In an analogous way, a geographically linear excursion from any two locations on opposite sides of the Vegas Strip will provide a similarly incoherent urban phenomenon, in sharp contrast to the highly controlled encounters of the establishments that line the Strip itself.

A study of Las Vegas suggests that in a city with no overarching ideological framework, each inhabitant is given the opportunity to choose their own.  This choice, however, is made from a highly curated menu of theatrical pastiche and capitalistic excess. The urban environment is designed to lead visitors through a multiplicity of destinations, via a selection of predetermined pathways, rather than provide a sequential unfolding of city fabric. 

For a full version of the article, click here.

This article was co-authored and designed by Melissa Dittmer, Jamie Witherspoon, and Noah Resnick.

rogueHAA is pleased to announce the next event in its 2011-2012 panel discussion series: Provocations: Challenging Detroit’s Design Discourse

PANEL DISCUSSION 04: “INCENTIVES – Funding Advocacy”
November 15, 2011 – Panel Discussion: 6pm-8pm, reception to follow
Cass City Cinema at The Burton Theatre
3420 Cass Avenue

Detroit’s deep history  of commercial innovation and industrial production has created innumerable stories of prosperity and devastation.  From this spectrum of aspiration and consequence has emerged a fertile environment that gives root to new creativity and opportunity, while establishing a remarkable legacy of philanthropic and institutional support. This environment has created a sophisticated network of resources, where large scale national foundations, anchor institutions, and influential local leaders work alongside small scale arts groups, community development coalitions, entrepreneurs, and development advocates to cultivate locally focused programs. 

In the space of this network, numerous projects are underway, and many more are yet to come.  Our discussion will catalogue these efforts, discuss their impact, and outline new and innovative strategies for grants, incentives and other programs in the future. 

Participants:
Melinda Anderson – Detroit Creative Corridor Center
Heather Carmona – Woodward Avenue Action Association
George Jacobsen – Kresge Foundation
Rishi Jaitly – Knight Foundation
Sue Mosey – Midtown Detroit Inc
Dan Kinkead – Event Moderator, HAA

Following the panel discussion we will post a video and written summary of the event.  We will also provide an open comment board for others to share their thoughts on the dialogue.  As always, this event is open and free to the public.

This Friday, rogueHAA will join hundreds from around the world to celebrate Park(ing) Day, a one day event that highlights the need for more livable and vibrant public spaces in our cities.

During last year’s installtion, pavers and sod where placed on a parking spot at the corner of Gratiot and Woodward. Soon, there was a green patch of space, an unusual site especially when one is accustomed to see a car in its place inste…ad. Onlookers were curious. Drivers paused. Parking enforcement stopped, then questioned, and questioned some more, but finally drove off.

This was the idea — to get people to notice, ask questions, and interact. For those that stopped by, they got the message and left with a smile on their faces.

This year’s theme is Urban Beach. Our Woodward beach will be located between Gratio + Grand River. Take off your shoes, dip your toes in the water, and just relax for a moment. 

We will be grilling at the beach from noon until 2pm.  Join our facebook page and mention it at the beach…get a free hotdog. 

For more information on Parking Day: http://parkingday.org/

To view photos of last year’s installation: http://www.roguehaa.com/tag/parking-day/

For additional Detroit PARKing Day Events: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=158018997616431

NOW DOCKING.  Recognizing the potential influence of the cruise industry upon Detroit, the Detroit / Wayne County Port Authority commissioned HAA to design a new 22,000 square foot international ship passenger terminal. Officially opening next week at the foot of Bates Street, between Atwater Street and the Detroit River, The Port Authority Terminal is designed to function as both a domestic and international facility, including associated functions such as customs, border patrol, baggage handling, ticketing, and queuing. The building and dock will accommodate Great Lakes cruise ships, tall ships, and other large vessels, as well as the offices for the Port Authority. 

The Port Authority anticipates this terminal will serve as a port of call for the many cruise vessels that sail the Great Lakes each summer, some providing accommodations for over 400 passengers.   Mid-way through construction, the American Recovery and Reinvestment act provided additional funding for the construction of a wharf and an extension to the building, allowing even larger ships to dock at the facility. 

These cruise lines, tall ships, and vessels will ideally make Detroit one of their premier urban ports, bringing tourists and their dollars directly into downtown Detroit. Detroit will offer a unique counterpoint to other ports of more rural locales.  In this capacity, the terminal serves its most important function; a pristine gateway, welcoming visitors with a gleaming reception and ultimately providing direction to the region’s greatest assets.

Additional terminal programming could include:

Cruising the Great Lakes:  Great Lakes and St Lawrence Seaway cruise ships tour international tourists through the Fall color season in late August through September.

Water Taxi Service: The DWCPA has proposed a cross-border water taxi service between Detroit and Windsor. This ferry service could also be extended to domestic port communities up and down the Detroit River.

Conference Facility: The terminal offers spectacular views and flexible meeting spaces for special events or educational opportunities.

Eco-Tourism: As part of the 2008 U.S. EPA Brownfields Conference, of which the DWCPA resided on the Host Committee, eco-tours were conducted as part of a unique mobile workshop. Long-term, the Port Authority would like to link the facility to the International Wildlife Refuge and Belle Isle, via water-based tours.

Eco-Industrial Tourism:  The introduction of Eco-Industrial Tourism via an Eco-Industrial Cruise Line. See previous rogueHAA post outlining this concept.  

Hydrokinetic Energy Generation: The DWCPA, through a DTE Energy Foundation grant, has been studying the feasibility of generating hydrokinetic energy at its facility in partnership with a University of Michigan start-up company called Vortex Hydro Energy. Other partners include the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy and NextEnergy.

For additional information, media links, and cruiseline concepts:

Click here for previous post on the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority

Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority

Port Authority To Open, CBS

Cruising Towards Eco-Industrial Tourism

NOW DOCKING: Detroit’s evolving waterfront gets new terminal building.

Since as early as the 1960’s, there has been a narrow yet persistent thread of architectural design dedicated to inflatable structures. From Rehner Banham’s, Environment Bubble (1965) to the more recent Rem Koolhaas/Cecil Balmond collaboration at the Serpentine Gallery (2007) and Kengo Kuma’s Tea House at the Museum fur Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt (2008), these bulbous spaces have challenged traditional construction techniques and patterns of occupancy. Without traditional compression supports like walls or columns, the form of these buildings becomes a direct translation of the relationship between the material and air pressure.

At the Amococo installation, this relationship is articulated on a large and complex scale. Architects of Air, a UK based design firm, used translucent vinyl in a range of colors and geometric patterns to create a 10,000 square foot inflatable ‘luminarium’. The designers utilized only natural light through a series of occuli to illuminate the interior spaces. Music streamed throughout the installation, enhancing the sensory experience while mixing with the muted sounds of the world outside. This distinct contrast between the interior and exterior created a dramatic immersive environment which changed throughout the day.

The installation was on view at U of M’s Palmer Field from June 23 through June 26 as part of Ann Arbor’s Summer Festival. However, the installation is part of an international tour so check the designer’s website for their upcoming installations.

Last Sunday marked the opening of Hostel Detroit, the vision of Emily Doerr and the product of the hard work of over 100 volunteers over the last five months. Through a mix of active fundraising and generous donations, Doerr was able to transform the building in North Corktown into an engaging and playful space for travelers seeking an authentic and affordable Detroit experience. The Hostel offers a variety of accommodations, from bunk-beds which were built by hand utilizing reclaimed wood to full and queen size beds in private rooms. There is even an apartment available for month-to-month rental. The layout encourages the social atmosphere of the hostelling experience by providing a large common kitchen and seating area, as well as an internet nook and game room. The walls are adorned with murals designed by local artists and there is a rotating exhibit of local photography on display.

Hundreds turned out for the ribbon cutting Sunday, including State Senator Coleman Young II, Lt. Governor Brian Calley and the Detroit Party Marching Band. The Hostel is the first in Detroit in 15 years, and its supporters believe it will offer an essential alternative to traditional lodging and encourage a wider range of visitors to the city. At the time of the opening, Hostel Detroit was reserved to capacity with more reservations coming in for the upcoming months.

images by Dan Austin

Mapping the Terrain

Works by Emily Duke

April 2 – April 30, 2011

Opening Reception:
Saturday, April 2, 7 p.m. – 10 p.m.

In Mapping the Terrain, sculptor and ceramicist Emily Duke focuses on architecture and systems of order to address her own relationship with the structures she occupies and their relationship to the climate of her surroundings. Duke references elements from construction sites, agricultural buildings, and manufacturing complexes to base her objects. She builds formal compositions coupling true right angles with shrunken scale and skewed perspective to present intimacy in structures that are ordinarily massive and complex in our common terrain.

Using the naturally rich color and texture of unglazed clay as her primary material, Duke’s minimal use of additional color allows the forms’ shadows to create depth and emphasize interior space. By simplifying her structures, Duke accentuates patterns of organization and the intersection of lines and creates a sense of delicacy through the combination of linear structure and mass elements.

Emily Duke’s first solo exhibit in Detroit opens at Re:View Contemporary Gallery on Saturday, April 2, with a reception from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Re:View is located at:
444 W. Wiilis
Units 111 & 112
Detroit, Mi 48201
(at the Willys Overland Lofts)
Tel: 313.833.9000

RETHINKING THE POST INDUSTRIAL CITY: DETROIT<>LONDON.  On Wednesday, February 9^th, HAA participated in a London conference regarding Detroit, and the Post-Industrial City.  The conference, sponsored by Buro Happold, and coordinated by the World Architecture News, convened over 20 urban designers, planners, governmental leaders and architects to discuss the status of Detroit, and how lessons learned in London’s recent redevelopment could provide some insight into how Detroit may navigate toward to a more sustainable, viable future.

HAA attended as a design representative from Detroit, along with Jess Zimbabwe of the Urban Land Institute, whose current work focuses on the redevelopment of the Livernois corridor, and Marja Winters, the Deputy Director of the City of Detroit Planning and Development Department.  John Gallagher, writer for the Detroit Free Press, and author of Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining the American City, also attended remotely, via videoconference.   

The event, entitled Rethinking the Post-Industrial City: Detroit<>London, was focused on four segments of analysis, dialogue and recommendation, including governance, ecology, development and society.  This structure provided a platform to develop a series of potential strategies and considerations that may inform future efforts to engage the post-industrial landscape, and performance of Detroit. 

While looking at Detroit through a European lens has arguably been as fashionable as it has been somewhat implausible, the discussions in London provided a unique opportunity for the candid exchange of ideas that might otherwise be dismissed if posited locally.  Here, simple gestures and heroic concepts, often based on real London precedents, were discussed on their merit, and how they may be reconceptualized for use in parts of Detroit.  From staged post-Olympic demolition strategies, to the Southwark rebirth that included the Tate Modern, and “free zones” for speculative limited risk redevelopment, each idea was examined for its intrinsic strengths and relevance.

The geographic, economic and cultural distances between places such as London and Detroit may be difficult to bridge at times, but we also know that being open to new ideas, methodologies and points of view, can be extremely powerful.

Our attendance at this event provoked the following questions:

• If Leipzig, Turin and Manchester are the current international post-industrial  “success stories” what might Detroit’s narrative be in 10, 20 or 30 years?
• When the economic and developmental realities of London and Detroit are so different, what are common denominators that ensure relevance and applicability?
• What if the next Detroit<>London event occurred here?  Who should attend, and what should be the subject matter?  What lessons might London and other world cities learn from Detroit?

What do you think?

HAA would like to thank our sponsors and hosts, Buro Happold and the World Architecture News.

WELLS HALL ADDITION

Since March of 2009, HAA has been working with Michigan State University (MSU) to design a new language arts facility on its East Lansing campus.  As lead designer, HAA has collaborated with executive architects and engineers, Integrated Design Solutions (IDS), to realize this $38m campus relocation project.  Resulting from the necessary demolition of an historic facility in the university’s north campus, relocation efforts require multiple renovations, and ultimately a new facility for language arts faculty, graduate students, researchers, and advanced instruction.

This facility, commonly known as the Wells Hall Addition, will be the focus of a four post series that will chronicle the design, documentation and construction of the new 88,000 gross square foot building.  Each post is intended to provide a candid glimpse into HAA’s design process.  From understanding the externalities of program, site and client need, to confronting the inherent complexity of adding one building to another, each post will use the Wells Hall Addition to illustrate the demands on contemporary design practice, and the rigorous intellectual project that is required to address them.

The four posts will discuss the following main topics:

CONTEXT, QUESTIONS AND COMPOSITION

OLD MEETS NEW, STRUCTURAL FORM AND FUNCTIONALITY

DOCUMENTING COMPLEXITY

CONSTRUCTION MATTERS

POST 1

CONTEXT, QUESTIONS AND EVIDENCE

INSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION AND GROWTH

As universities continue to evolve to meet their ongoing educational missions, their physical environments must be updated.  In many cases, this no longer means providing basic instructional space, student unions, and housing.  Instead, it means leveraging a given university’s academic heritage, identity and funding resources to create new, competitive, and contemporary facilities that not only support their mission, but also provide profound opportunities for intellectual – and financial – growth.  This current mandate has arguably never been as important, or as challenged, as it has been over the last few years.  Amidst global economic circumstances that have impacted both endowments and potential outside funders, universities have required strategic thinking to guide their investments, ensuring each one brings real, lasting value to their institutions.

In some cases, this may mean the development of specific building types, including research laboratory facilities that provide opportunities for advanced, funded research, such as the recently completed University of Michigan Biomedical Research Building.  Or, the new Hylton Performing Arts Center which utilizes a diverse array of funding sources to provide George Mason University with a new destination and revenue-generating facility that can garner significant donor support, and become a vehicle for a new university identity.

U of M Biomedical Research Building

Hylton Performing Arts Center

For The Cooper Union, capital projects have been leveraged to both improve learning environments, and to cultivate an image that is more aligned with the school’s design legacy.  Meanwhile, the Barnard College, Nexus/Diana Center, works to provide a destination for campus interaction, while also challenging preexisting implicit urban boundaries between the academy and city beyond its walls.

Cooper Union

Nexus/Diana Center

Still, other universities that may be extremely limited in available area for any academic functions, simply need to expand and create new campus locations.  Under considerable community scrutiny, Columbia University has begun to create a new campus in West Harlem and Harvard University plans to continue its expansion, albeit slowed by the economy, across the Charles River into Allston.

Columbia University Harlem Campus

Harvard University Allston Expansion

In each case, the institutional need to grow and evolve is manifest in the architecture that is realized.  As both physical indicators of a university’s highest aspirations, and irrefutable testaments to its history, the buildings, spaces and landscapes established in these projects provide the real currency for exchange between the institution, its students, and the world outside its gates.

BOOM

As Michigan State University (MSU) continues its own evolution and growth, it is one of the many public universities that are going through a building boom of sorts.  Through several major projects, the university is making significant strides to update and improve its campus.  From academic projects such as the new Bott Building for Nursing Education and Research, to the Plant Sciences Expansion, and new, donor-funded, high-profile projects such as the Broad Art Museum, designed by Zaha Hadid (and documented by Architect-of-Record, IDS), the university is poised to have nearly six major projects completed by 2012.

Plant Sciences Expansion

Broad Art Museum

Even in the midst of difficult economic circumstances, universities such as MSU realize the need for new facilities to maintain and improve the institution’s competitive position as a destination for research, higher learning and investment.  It is within this context of institutional demand and financial austerity that the Wells Hall Addition has been designed.

As a historically bucolic and pastoral university such as MSU accommodates new development, and correspondingly new ideas in space and design, obvious challenges exist.  At the core of these challenges, one can find important questions to consider:

• How can a new building with contemporary demands for performance, innovation and overall design be situated within an existing complex of offices and classrooms to dramatically improve its physical appearance, leverage the existing strengths of its site, and eliminate past physical barriers that complicate important student circulation?
• How can we maximize precious capital investment for the university in ways that may be extremely effective, equitable and sustainable, but less conventional than projects in the past?
• How do we combine a university’s embodied architectural heritage and history with a current identity of innovation, research and engagement?

POSITION AND SITE ENGAGEMENT

The building position and landscape design play a particularly important role in reconfiguring and improving the spatial experience between the new building and the existing campus context.  On the west, important physical and visual linkages are established between the main road and the building entry that will become the new address for the building complex. On the east, the prevailing architectural geometry and ground floor classroom program provide formal and functional mechanisms to directly engage the existing park.  Through this engagement the new construction and existing building are linked to a vast lawn and woodland that provide space for day-to-day student circulation, contemplation and discussion.
(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

BUILDING COMPOSITION

The new building is 4 stories in height.  The upper 3 floors form a rectangular building with a longitudinal axis running north-south over an existing single story classroom building.  It is rotated in plan approximately 30 degrees creating a perpendicular relationship with an adjacent existing building to the north.  The form establishes a physical span that figuratively links the west and east sides of the building that had been previously perceived as separate, while also creating a dynamic form that directly engages existing paths of travel through campus.

The angled rectangular upper portion of the building and the parallel lower portion are linked to one another via common stairs at the north and south extents of the building, and by an elevator core and communicating stair that is set outboard from the upper portion, reconciling the two main building geometries.  This outboard core and stair are positioned at approximately the mid-point of the building, aligned with the main entry, providing visual identification as a beacon along the west side of the complex.

By limiting the overall width of the upper portion of the building and placing important programmatic elements – where students, faculty and staff will be working – close to sources of daylight and actual exterior views, the users of the building will have a direct connection to their outside environment. In this case the design places conventional offices, open office areas, meeting spaces, break-out spaces and primary circulation routes in direct proximity to daylight and views.  This is even more noteworthy given the visually stunning context surrounding the new building. To take full advantage of the view to the existing park and reinforce interaction and connectivity between floors, the design includes a three story communicating space.  This space provides break-out seating and opportunities for art display.

EXTERIOR DUALITY

Fundamentally, the exterior of the Wells Hall Addition is developed to support the whole of the building, including the important interior functions it houses.  The integrated design methodology throughout the project has been cultivated to facilitate this and has resulted in:

• Generous ambient daylighting
• Efficient and informed use of materials at specific locations
• Orientational devices, providing direct sight lines to the exterior at most corridor termini
• Open and dynamic facades that reveal the activities within

However, the exterior of the building is also a study in contrast, revealing the relationship between the university’s 20^th century built form – visible throughout the south campus – and a contemporary form that places a premium on practical innovation, versatility and site engagement.  One look at the west side of the building, facing Red Cedar Road, and another at the north, south and east side of the building, illustrate a building design carefully navigating important considerations of architectural language and message.

On one hand, a staid, archetypal form of a simple masonry, with punched window openings and sills, provides daylight to faculty offices, and addresses the more public Red Cedar Road.  This façade is momentarily broken by the outboard elevator core, a position made necessary due to the existing building below, but made visually operative as a cue revealing both an alternate geometry in the building, and a very different architectural form beyond.  This other architectural form is legible from the south, where the dynamic raked section of the new presentation space is revealed.  But, it is most notable from the east, where the entire 300’ length of the building opens up to the People’s Park, providing ample daylight for all faculty, students and researchers within the open office suites, and a generous view out to the lawn, woodland and river, below.

This exterior duality gives a brief glimpse into the important, and legitimate struggles institutions must engage, factoring perspectives of donors and alumni, with those of prospective students and their parents, not to mention faculty and researchers.  Across this spectrum of opinions, tastes, and needs, is a series of important options HAA has worked carefully and strategically to help university leadership navigate.  It is a very real part of contemporary design practice, where clients must be informed and persuaded by evidence, and where the perceived carte blanche bestowed on so many “starchitects” carries no currency.

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CONSTRUCTION UPDATE

Construction began on the Wells Hall Addition in September, 2010 with utilities and interior demolition.  Today, the existing Wells Hall has been refitted with a new structural system to support the building above (see the next post for details).  As the foundations are laid, and the steel emerges from the existing building, the new geometry and volume of the addition takes shape.

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

For information on HAA’s additional project partners, please see below:

SDI

NTH

Kirk Associates

Barton Malow