The new LEED Gold-targeted visitor center by Ayers/ Saint/ Gross has officially opened at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia. Photo: Thomas Jefferson Foundation/ Mary Porter Extra Large Image

Charlottesville · 2009.0415
A new visitor center (pictured above) has officially opened at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's estate near Charlottesville, Virginia. The three-level, 42,000-square-foot (3,900-square-meter) visitor complex consists of five pavilions around a central courtyard. The Baltimore, Maryland, office of Ayers/ Saint/ Gross designed the Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center and Smith Education Center to respect Jefferson's iconic Monticello house without echoing its neoclassical vocabulary.

LEED Gold certification is expected. Sustainable features include a geothermal heating and cooling system; two green roofs; extensive use of locally sourced, sustainably produced building materials; double-glazed windows and louvered blinds; advanced stormwater removal; water conservation measures; enhanced wastewater treatment; and recycling protocols. Landscaping by Michael Vergason Landscape Architects of Alexandria, Virginia, is designed to restore the natural forest that was removed for construction.

Washington, D.C. · 2009.0414
The Smithsonian Institution has selected Freelon Adjaye Bond/ SmithGroup as the architectural team to design the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, planned for the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Freelon Group of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, will be the architect of record, and Phil Freelon, FAIA, will serve as the design guarantor. David Adjaye, principal of London-based Adjaye Associates, will be the lead designer. The team also includes architecture firms Davis Brody Bond and SmithGroup. The building design is expected to take up to three years. Construction is set to begin in 2012, and the museum opening is slated for 2015. The project cost is estimated to be $500 million, including design.

Haldenstein · 2009.0413
Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has been named the 2009 laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. His work includes thermal baths in Vals, Switzerland; a small field chapel in Wachendorf, Germany; and the Kolumba Art Museum in Cologne, recently featured in ArchitectureWeek No. 410. "His buildings have a commanding presence," commented the prize jury," yet they prove the power of judicious intervention, showing us again and a again that modesty in approach and boldness in overall result are not mutually exclusive."

Zumthor was born in 1943 in Basel, Switzerland. The son of a cabinetmaker, he trained as one himself as a teenager. He then studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule (applied arts school) in Basel, and later at the Pratt Institute in New York City. Starting in 1967, Zumthor worked in the department of the preservation of monuments in Graubünden, Switzerland.

In 1979, he established his own practice in the village of Haldenstein, where he has worked ever since with a small staff. Most of his work is in Switzerland, with projects also in several other European countries and in the United States. Since 1996, he has also been a professor at the Academy of Architecture, Universitá della Svizzera Italiana in Mendrisio, Switzerland.

Zumthor previously received the Praemium Imperiale (2008) and the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture (1999), among other awards. He described his philosophy of architecture in the 1998 book Thinking Architecture.

Gainesville · 2009.0409
Ground has been broken for a new $20 million Asian art wing at the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida. Orlando-based Kha Le-Huu & Partners designed the 25,000-square-foot (2,300-square-meter) expansion, which consists of two levels of galleries, and curatorial and conservation space, and a series of outdoor Asian gardens. It will increase the museum's size by 30 percent.

LEED certification is expected. Completion is planned for fall 2010, and opening is scheduled for spring 2011. Kha Le-Huu previously designed the Harn's main building (1990) and the museum's Mary Ann Harn Cofrin Pavilion (2005).

Preston · 2009.0408
Moxon Architects of London has received planning permission for Oliver's Place Preston, a new 4,200-square-meter (45,000-square-foot) commercial development in Preston, United Kingdom, including a four-story office building and a multideck parking garage. The primary architectural expression of the building will be through an array of anodized aluminum fins, cantilevered from vertical support brackets on all four facades.

The fins appear as a thicket of material, changing the appearance of the building dramatically depending on the position of the viewer. On the southwest facade, they will act as a large-scale brise-soleil and rain screen, but they will appear more visually permeable on the southeast facade. Early morning and winter sunlight will enter the building, while summer sun will be excluded.

Geneva · 2009.0407
Stuttgart, Germany-based Wittfoht Architekten has revealed its winning designed for the Centre William Rappart, a new building at the World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Staff and visitors will cross a glazed pedestrian bridge to reach the new building, an elongated transparent block positioned south of the main building. The center will comprise two main elements: a plinth at ground level and a crystalline structure that seems to hover above it. This division will help the new building blend into the surrounding park.

The plinth zone will contain the lobby and a restaurant, with a terrace extending the building toward Lake Geneva. Above this, the crystalline block will house offices. Daylight will flood through the glazed frontage and skylights. The comprehensive energy and ventilation concept outperforms the current "Minergie-P" energy standards, aided by integrated sun protection and effective heat regeneration. Completion is scheduled for the end of 2012.

New York · 2009.0406
A sustainable retrofit project for the Empire State Building (1931) in New York City has been revealed. The program will reduce the building's energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions by up to 38 percent, and is expected to result in an Energy Star score of 90, placing the building in the top ten percent of efficiency for Class A buildings. LEED Gold certification will also be sought.

The program will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 105,000 metric tons over the next 15 years, equivalent to the annual emissions of about 17,500 cars. Project include a 6,500-window light retrofit, the introduction of radiator insulation, improved tenant lighting, daylighting and plug upgrades, air handler replacements, a chiller plant retrofit, a whole-building control system upgrade, ventilation control upgrades, and new web-based tenant energy management systems.

Chicago, Illinois-based real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle served as program manager with a team that included the Clinton Climate Initiative; the Rocky Mountain Institute of Snowmass and Boulder, Colorado; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Johnson Controls Inc.

Amsterdam · 2009.0402
Construction has begun on a private residence in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, designed to be energy-neutral. Dutch firm FARO architecten bv of Lisserbroek and Zutphen designed Residence 2.0 according to "cradle-to-cradle" principles. The house will achieve an Rc insulation value of ten through triple glazing, 100-percent liquid-tight joints, and heat exchangers. The air supply comes via the outside and will be heated by a sole ground-source heat exchanger two meters (six feet) under the house.

Extra energy for space heating and warm water will be supplied by warm water collectors integrated in the cornice of the facade. Electricity will be provided by two wind turbines and six square meters (65 square feet) of photovoltaic panels. Other features include adjustable sunscreens and rainwater collection for toilets and laundry. The wooden facade will be charred, according to a Japanese tradition, to preserve the wood and eliminate the need for paint or other treatments.

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