Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects designed the newly built "Wabi Sabi" house in Houston, Texas. Photo: Don Glentzer Extra Large Image

Arlington · 2008.0624
Robert J. Fatović, AIA, has joined Cannon Design as vice president. Fatović has over 30 years of experience in the design, management, and construction of sports and recreational facilities. He previously served as principal of his own consulting firm, Robert J. Fatović AIA Facility Consulting, where his major assignments included working with the Washington D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission in the renovation of RFK Stadium and the development of the new Nationals Ballpark. He is currently working on BC Place in Vancouver, Canada, a signature host venue for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

Baltimore · 2008.0623
Hord Coplan Macht, Inc. (HCM), a full-service architecture and landscape architecture firm based in Baltimore, Maryland, has promoted eight staff members. The three new senior associates are James Black, who leads the specifications department; Steven Corkill, a project manager on education and public institutional projects; and Eileen English, a project manager in the healthcare studio. The five associates are Mark Angielski and Scott Davis, project architects in the healthcare studio; John Harris and Tina Apps, project architects in the housing studio; and landscape architect Josh Kilrain.

Houston · 2008.0623
The "Wabi Sabi" house (pictured above) in Houston, Texas, has been completed. Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects of Seattle, Washington, designed the house for Houston developer Carol Isaak Barden + Company, with Rick Sundberg as lead architect.

The 3,750-square-foot (350-square-meter) wooden house integrates Eastern and Western aesthetics, with natural materials and simple modern forms. Materials include naturally aged cedar siding, salvaged wood, bamboo, reclaimed teak, mahogany, and ipe, an exotic hardwood. Skylights, operable windows, and an expansive roof deck allow for daylighting and natural ventilation. Old-growth trees on the site were preserved, and decking flows around a pecan tree. The developer plans to build a series of Wabi Sabi Houses in Houston.

Bethel · 2008.0619
The Museum at Bethel Woods recently opened in Bethel, New York. The 40,000-square-foot (3,700-square-meter) structure is part of the new Bethel Woods Center for the Arts on the site of the 1969 Woodstock Festival. The Washington, D.C., office of Westlake Reed Leskosky provided services including master planning; architecture; mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering; structural engineering; energy conservation; historic preservation, audiovisual and theater consulting; museum planning; and content development.

The museum is built of locally quarried stone, copper, and a laminated wood structure. It includes 10,000 square feet (930 square meters) of permanent display space, 6,000 square feet (560 square meters) of changing exhibit space, a 4,500-square-foot (420-square-meter) event gallery, a 130-seat high-definition theater, and a 1,000-seat performance amphitheater.

Bethesda, Maryland-based Gallagher & Associates designed the exhibits, which create an immersive environment to tell the story of the festival and its cultural significance.

Norfolk · 2008.0619
Peter J. Trozze, AIA, has joined Norfolk, Virginia-based architecture and engineering firm Clark Nexsen as vice president and director of the Washington capital region offices. Trozze's primary areas of responsibility will be business development and management of the new architecture and interiors office located in downtown Washington, D.C.

The firm has also named structural engineer Chad F. Poultney, PE, a principal in charge for the firm. Poultney has a strong background in construction, design, structure inspection, structure rehabilitation, and project management, with previous experience as a general contractor.

Four staff members have been named associate: Christopher H. Born, PE, LEED AP, director of fire protection; Kathryn B. Brown, PE, PTOE, civil engineer; Thomas Dalton, ASLA, CLA, director of landscape architecture; and Susan A. Drew, CID, IIDA, LEED AP, director of interiors.

Brooklyn · 2008.0619
Construction is underway on a $6.8 million firehouse for Engine Company 201 in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. Carmi Bee, FAIA, president of New York City architecture and planning firm Rothzeid Kaiserman Thomson & Bee (RKT&B), is the project's architect.

The front facade will include glazed red brick, with the Maltese Cross incorporated in a suspended, illuminated glass lantern. The front of the apparatus floor will be transparent to foster a sense of connection to the community. The three-story, 17,000-square-foot (1,600-square-meter) firehouse is being built on the lot of a recently demolished two-story firehouse.

Oceanside · 2008.0618
Construction has begun on a new $2 million resource center at the New Venture Christian Fellowship campus in Oceanside, California. Domus Studio Architects (formerly known as Dominy + Associates) of San Diego, designed the two-story, 4,770-square-foot (440-square-meter) building for the church's 12-acre (five-hectare) campus.

The structure will feature a curved glass curtain wall at the second-floor meeting rooms and large sliding glass doors on the lower floor that open to the courtyard promenade. The meeting rooms will be accessed through a catwalk that overlooks both the bookstore and courtyard below. Marcotte & Hearne Builders of Sorrento Valley is the general contractor for the project, which is expected to be completed later in 2008.

Englewood · 2008.0617
The Hygeia Gynecology medical offices in downtown Englewood, New Jersey, are complete. Henning Meisner of New York City firm Alveary Architecture designed the interiors of the facility, located in a historic building. The reception area was designed to imitate a high-end spa. Environmentally friendly materials include wool carpet, Marmoleum, recycled glass tiles, cork flooring, and recycled Formica cabinetry.

Kansas City · 2008.0616
The new building for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has opened in Kansas City, Missouri. Pei Cobb Freed & Partners of New York City and the Kansas City office of Ellerbe Becket designed the 600,000-square-foot (55,700-square-meter) office building, which houses the Federal Reserve Bank's regional headquarters. The facility also houses a museum about banking and the economy. Limestone from Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, was used on the building's exterior. The project manager was J.E. Dunn Construction Co.

Chicago · 2008.0615
Architect Walter A. Netsch, Jr., FAIA, a longtime partner of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), died in Chicago, Illinois, on June 15, 2008, at age 88. Netsch was known for bucking the predominant international style, creating such iconic buildings as the 1963 Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The tetrahedrons of the Cadet Chapel contrasted with the otherwise orthogonal buildings of the campus and with the boxy modernist forms of the 1950s and 1960s. It received the AIA 25-year award in 1996 and has been named a National Historic Landmark.

A Chicago native, Netsch was born in 1920, and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1943 with an architecture degree. He worked for SOM from 1947 to 1979, most of that time as a partner in the Chicago office. In the 1960s he developed what he called the "field theory," a unifying geometric system of design based on shifting square shapes into complex patterns.

Netsch designed a variety of projects in the Chicago area, from the Inland Steel Building in the 1950s to the University of Illinois at Chicago campus in the 1960s to his own home in 1974. (The 19-story Inland Steel Building — the design for which was modified by SOM's Bruce Graham — was recently renovated by SOM.) Netsch also designed a number of projects for other U.S. universities.

He was known as an early advocate for the recruitment of women and minorities in architecture. After retiring from SOM in 1979, Netsch served as a consultant to the firm and as the Chicago parks commissioner.

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