Interior Design & Architecture - News & Trends

AIA issues handbook

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Institute of Architects has issued The Architect's Handbook, 14th Edition. The retail price is $225; members, $199.50.

The hardcover book, at 1040 pages, is the definitive guide to running an architectural practice returns in the new Fourteenth Edition. The book outlines the legal, financial, marketing, management, and administrative aspects to running an architectural firm. It addition, it outlines the professional standards and documentation requirements that are specific to architecture.

Updated with nearly one-third new and revised content, the Handbook provides in-depth new coverage of topics on sustainable design, managing multiple offices, lifelong learning, mentoring, and team building. It comes in a book/CD package. For more information, see aia-timssnet.uapps.net

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A building grows in Dubai

CHICAGO – The Burj Dubai, designed by the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), is now officially the world’s tallest free-standing structure.

SOM announced today that the construction of the Burj Dubai has reached the 150th floor level at 1,821 feet (555 meters), surpassing the height of the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, which was previously the world’s tallest free-standing structure at 1,815 feet (553 meters). The CN Tower is a communications tower and was completed in 1976. For more information, see www.som.com

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African American Museum to open

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Blending the rhythms of Africa with the blues of America, architectural firms Moody Nolan, Inc. and Antoine Predock Architect PC are teaming up to design the International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston, S.C. During the TransAtlantic Slave Trade era, 40% of all Africans enslaved in North America arrived through the Charleston port. Using this as design inspiration, the museum will portray a strong connection to African roots and create an international feeling that distinguishes it from all other museums in the country. For additional information on Moody-Nolan, visit www.moodynolan.com

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Designs for hot, humid climes

ATLANTA – Building operators and designers around the world face common issues related to thermal comfort, ventilation, and energy, especially in hot and humid climates.

Design guidance on critical issues for achieving excellence and long-term sustainability in these climates is contained in a new book from American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). The ASHRAE Guide for Buildings in Hot and Humid Climates identifies and explains key issues for owners, architects, HVAC designers, contractors and building owners as they plan, build, and operate air-conditioned buildings – in a sustainable way – in hot and humid climates.

The book covers improving thermal comfort, managing ventilation air, reducing energy consumption, and avoiding bugs, mold, and rot and explains the relevant ASHRAE standards. It also highlights common problems seen in hot and humid climates, along with practical alternatives for avoiding such problems. To order, see www.ashrae.org/publications

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Testing teaching spaces

INDIANAPOLIS — BSA LifeStructures has been challenged to create a facility where researchers can test and explore new approaches to teaching and learning science, technology, engineering, and math. 
Discovery Learning Center — a $17.5 million, 90,000-sq.ft. facility — will enhance Purdue’s position as a leader in science, engineering, and math education. To be successful, the center must provide extensive flexibility and accommodate the latest technological capabilities.

Discovery Learning Center will provide an environment for creating and studying the effect of new teaching methods and cutting-edge learning environments. The new space must be imaginative and able to adapt to future needs. BSA LifeStructures is designing the facility with those goals in mind. For example, learning spaces will be nimble, with movable walls and furniture, so researchers can experiment with the learning environment. The learning labs will also incorporate a theatrical tension grid for overhead flexibility. The facility will include at least one black-box room, to allow researchers to test different room configurations.

Construction on Discovery Learning Center, scheduled for completion in the fall of 2009, will be located in Purdue’s Discovery Park, a $100 million complex taking a multidisciplinary approach to developing new technologies. For more information, visit www.bsalifestructures.com

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AIA announces education winners

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Continuing Education System, the Institute’s continuing education provider, has announced the winners of its 2008 Awards for Excellence.
The four winning organizations are Seattle-based Mithun Architects + Designers + Planners; San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Company Pacific Energy Center; Carmel, Ind.-based Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies; and San Antonio-based Ron Blank & Associates Inc. The mission of the AIA/CES Providers program is to inspire and guide providers of continuing educational programs to deliver high-quality lifelong learning activities for architects.

Established ten years ago, the annual award recognizes educational providers to architectural and engineering firms and their commitment to an overall system of developing quality professional continuing education programs. For more information, see www.aia.org

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Centerpiece for downtown D.C. revitalization opens

		WASHINGTON—Designed by Diamond and Schmitt Architects, Sidney Harman Hall, the new Washington D.C. home for the Shakespeare Theatre Company has opened. Sidney Harman Hall is a centerpiece in the revitalization of D.C.’s downtown business district. In recognition of this, the City has contributed $20 million to the project. The original plan for SidneyHarman Hall was to place the theatre within an office building with almost no street presence. The theatre was to have been contained entirely within the office building posing a number of problems for the theatre and office tower. Diamond and Schmitt Architects offered an elegant solution to these problems allowing the theatre greater exposure, with transparent lobbies animating the street and adding vibrancy to the surrounding district.

The theatre itself is also unique. The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s artistic director Michael Kahn calls it “the most flexible theatre in the world”. It can transform from a proscenium theatre, to a thrust or an arena configuration.

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The New Museum of Contemporary Art slated to open in December

NEW YORK—The New Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by cutting-edge, Tokyo-based architects Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA is set to open in December 2007. They have designed a breathtaking facility that will feature galleries, a theater, an education floor, a New Museum Store, a café, a top floor event space with roof terraces, and more.

The Museum will occupy its own freestanding, dedicated building for the first time in the institution’s history and will be the first art museum ever built from the ground up in downtown Manhattan. The seven-story, 60,000 square foot structure is a glimmering metal mesh-clad stack of boxes shifted off axis in a dynamic composition.
Clad in a silvery, anodized expanded aluminum mesh and punctuated by windows and skylights that offer vistas and vignettes of the city, the building’s form was conceived to express the ever-changing dynamic of the art and ideas to be presented within. Dramatic full floor, column-free exhibition spaces will occupy three main gallery levels.

The broad, light-washed ground floor space — named the Marcia Tucker Hall in honor of the New Museum’s late founder — will be an animated public space where visitors will find the Museum’s acclaimed store, a sleek café, and a glass walled lobby gallery lit by daylight from a setback above. These features and spaces will provide a platform for the Museum’s far-reaching international programs, including exhibitions, installations, live presentations and performances, public education programs and a new global institutional partnership initiative, Museum as Hub.

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Gehry goes to Utah

LEHI, Utah—Frank Gehry has been chosen to design a mega sports entertainment complex in Lehi, Utah which, when built, will include the State’s tallest building. The project, which has been approved, is the brainchild of Brant Anderson, a Utah-based entrepreneur and owner of the Utah Flash, and National Basketball Association (NBA) development team. Current plans call for a mixed-use development on an 85-acre site that includes an amphitheatre, a 450- foot high hotel, a shopping center, restaurants, and residences located around a man-made lake that will support wake-surfing and other water sports. There will also be a new, 10,000 seat arena for the Flash. The project is estimated to cost $ 2 billion. Groundbreaking is scheduled for next year

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