People and Places
                                                    . . . THIS WEEK

Omaha · 2007.0424
The Omaha, Nebraska, office of architecture, engineering, planning, and interior design firm Leo A Daly has revealed its design for a four-story addition to Trinity Regional Medical Center in Omaha. The center will receive a $100,000 rebate from MidAmerican Energy for the building's energy-efficient design.

Baltimore · 2007.0423
Plans have been unveiled for Lexington Square, a $250 million mixed-use development in the Westside neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryand. Encompassing three city blocks within the Market Center Urban Renewal Area, the project comprises over 300,000 square feet (28,000 square meters) of retail space, 400 residential rental apartments, and 900 enclosed parking spaces. Two new residential towers will feature energy-efficient design and rooftop gardens. The new and renovated retail space will include both small- and large-format stores to attract a variety of retailers.

Cooper, Robertson & Partners is performing planning and urban design for the project. The developer for the project is Lexington Square Partners, LLC, a joint partnership between Next Generation Chera LLC, BLDG Management Co., Inc., The Feil Organization, and The Dawson Company. Construction is scheduled to start in late spring 2008.

Tampa · 2007.0420
The $7.4 million Box Factory Lofts adaptive reuse project was recently completed in Ybor City, a National Historic Landmark District in Tampa, Florida. Atlanta, Georgia-based architecture and historic preservation firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent designed the project, which converted the Tampa (cigar) Box Factory, a handmade block structure built in 1915, to house 53 two-story lofts. The project recently won the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission's annual community design Award of Excellence in the category of historic preservation and restoration.

The project designer for Lord, Aeck & Sargent was Eric Brock, AIA, a principal and director of the firm's housing and mixed-use studio. The project team also included Miles Development Partners of Atlanta, owner and developer; Paul J. Sierra Construction, Inc., of Tampa, general contractor; Covalent Consulting, LLC, of Atlanta, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineer; Palmer Engineering Company of Tucker, Georgia, structural engineer; Kisinger Campo & Associates of Tampa, civil engineer; and jB+a, Inc. of Atlanta, landscape design.

Kannapolis · 2007.0418
Ground has been broken for North Carolina State University's Institute for Advanced Fruit and Vegetable Science and the Dole Nutrition Institute on the North Carolina Resarch Campus in Kannapolis. Also under construction at the 350-acre (140-hectare) public-private research hub is the Nutrition Research Institute that will be part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and will also house programs from other North Carolina universities.

San Francisco · 2007.0418
The San Francisco, California, office of SmithGroup has promoted Joyce K. Polhamus, AIA, to vice president of its healthcare and senior living interior architecture and design studios. The firm has hired Diana Kissil, AIA, as director of interior architecture and Timoteo G. Hernaez, AIA, as a healthcare project director.

Polhamus has designed or managed nearly 40 interiors projects for SmithGroup. Her portfolio includes major hospital and nursing facilities in Hadano and Tokyo, Japan, and Oahu, Hawaii. She is currently leading the interior design of the Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center.

Kissil has created award-winning interiors for many healthcare and assisted living spaces in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the recent design of 60,000 square feet (5,600 square meters) of interior space for the John Muir/ Mount Diablo Medical Center in Brentwood. She was previously director of interior architecture for Sasaki Associates in San Francisco.

Hernaez has specialized in the design of medical center projects for 25 years. He previously worked in the San Francisco offices of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Chong Partners Architecture, and Anshen + Allen, where he was an associate principal. His current projects at SmithGroup include planning for the Institute for Liver and Biliary Science in New Delhi, India.

Milan · 2007.0418
Wilkinson Eyre Architects of London, United Kingdom, has revealed its design for the House of Human Rights Cultural Centre in Milan, Italy. Entry points in the striking curvilinear facade will lead into a central ramp that spirals through the building's core. The firm created a tree-like geometry for the building, based on the Fibonacci sequence. The structure will be created from precast concrete elements, arranged in a delicate, seemingly random pattern.

Launched in collaboration with Amnesty International, the new cultural center will include exhibition spaces, conference spaces, an auditorium, an information technology resource center, offices, a shop, and a cafe. The building is expected to have a footprint of about 54,000 square feet (5,000 square meters). The site has not yet been chosen.

Princeton · 2007.0414
Jesse Reiser, a principal of New York City firm Reiser + Umemoto RUR Architecture PC, recently led a team in set design for a production of Alexander Pushkin's 1825 play Boris Godunov at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. The set consisted of hundreds of feet of surgical tubing stretched in vertical and angled clusters of taut lines, designed to be modified by the actors as the scene changed.

The design team, including assistant set designer Mitsuhisa Matsunaga and several architecture graduate students, was guided by source materials such as notes by legendary theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold specifying that the decor be in constant motion and that barriers between the audience and the stage be eliminated. The production was a collaboration between Princeton University and the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture in Moscow.

Thiruvananthapuram · 2007.0401
British-born architect Laurence "Laurie" Baker died on April 1, 2007, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, at age 90. Baker was originally drawn to India in 1945 to design buildings for leper colonies. He stayed on and spent over half his life in India, often in rural villages, working primarily on projects for the poor and marginalized.

Baker was deeply influenced by the rural vernacular architecture, particularly by simple building materials and techniques used to satisfy local site conditions. He became a passionate proponent of brick. Known for designing low-cost houses, Baker cofounded the Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development (COSTFORD) in 1984. He received many awards, including the International Union of Architects 1993 World Habitat Award and the Indian government's Padma Shri award.

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