Ground has been broken for a new KTGY-designed student residence and bookstore for the University of La Verne in La Verne, California. Image: KTGY Extra Large Image

La Verne · 2011.0331
Ground has been broken for a new mixed-use student-housing building in La Verne, California, at the University of La Verne. KTGY Group, Inc., Architecture and Planning, based in Irvine, California, designed the four-story, 103,000-square-foot (9,600-square-meter) facility, which will combine a new university bookstore with a residence hall for about 380 students. The majority of the 68 dorm units will be four-bedroom units serving six students. The architecture takes its cues from downtown La Verne, with the ground-floor bookstore continuing the retail street frontage. Located at the south end of campus, on the site of a former campus parking lot, the project will also include a new parking lot. The developer is Hanover Pacific, LLC.  

The San Telmo Museum in San Sebastián, Spain, has reopened after a rehabilitation and expansion designed by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos. Courtesy Museo San Telmo Museoa Extra Large Image

San Sebastián · 2011.0328
The San Telmo Museum in San Sebastián, Spain, has officially reopened after the rehabilitation of its main building, a 16th-century Dominican convent, and the construction of an addition. Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos of Madrid and Berlin designed the project for the Basque Country art and history museum.

Along with repair of the historic museum building and restoration of original stone and wood elements, some structures added in 1932 were removed, revealing the original forms of the cloister, church, tower, and chapels. The new wing is nestled along the Mount Urgull hillside. Walls of perforated steel, designed with artists Leopoldo Ferrán and Agustina Otero, will allow plants to grow through, evoking the plant growth on the steep slope above and minimizing the addition's visual impact. New spaces include a library, event space, museum shop, and restaurant.  

Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura is the 2011 laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. His works include the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego museum in Cascais, Portugal (pictured) and the Braga (Portugal) Municipal Stadium. Extra Large Image

Porto · 2011.0328
Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura is the 2011 laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The prize jury commented, "In their apparent formal simplicity, de Souto de Moura's buildings weave together complex references to the characteristics of the region, landscape, site, and wider architectural history."

Souto de Moura was born in Porto, Portugal, in 1952. As a student, he worked for Álvaro Siza for five years. Since forming his own practice in 1980, Souto de Moura has completed over 60 projects, most in his native Portugal, but also in Spain, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, and Switzerland. The projects include single-family homes, a cinema, shopping centers, hotels, apartments, offices, art galleries and museums, schools, sports facilities, and subways.

The jury praised several of Souto de Moura's works for diverse reasons. The Braga Municipal Stadium in Braga, Portugal, for which part of a granite mountainside was blasted away, is "muscular" and "monumental," while at the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego in Cascais, Portugal, the series of volumes interspersed with trees "is both civic and intimate, and so appropriate for the display of art." In work for the Porto subway system, Souto de Moura "granted new significance to public spaces" through modifications of pavements and pathways, and in his House Number Two, in the town of Bom Jesus, Portugal, he "achieved an uncommon richness through the subtle banding in the concrete of its exterior walls," the jury remarked.

Souto de Moura will receive the award at a ceremony at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., on June 2, 2011.  

Kevin Kennon Architects has revealed its design for the Tian Fang tower in Tianjin, China. Image: Kevin Kennon Architects with Ginsun Shanghai Digital Technology Co., Ltd.

Tianjin · 2011.0323
Kevin Kennon Architects of New York City has revealed its design for Tian Fang, a new mixed-use commercial tower planned for the Eco-City development in Tianjin, China. The 44-story, 200-meter- (656-foot-) tall, 90,000-square-meter (970,000-square-foot) building will house offices and a high-end shopping center.

The design is based on a 14-meter- (46-foot-) square module, and also reflects biophilic principles, incorporating algorithms that mimic the form and growth of bamboo forests. Solar and wind studies influenced the site orientation and building massing. The design features approximately 50 atriums, facilitating daylighting, and natural convection will be used to heat and cool the building with filtered fresh air. The building is also expected to generate energy onsite, from a combination of hydrogen fuel cells, solar panels, and wind turbines.

Construction is slated to begin in fall 2011 and be completed by early 2012. The architect of record is Beijing Victory Star Architectural & Civil Engineering Design Co., Ltd., and the developer is Tianjin Real Estate Development & Management Group, Ltd.  

Cibinel Architects designed the new Brandon Fire & Emergency Services Building in Brandon, Manitoba. Photo: © Mike Karakas/ Courtesy v2com.biz Extra Large Image

Brandon · 2011.0314
Cibinel Architects Ltd of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, designed the new Brandon Fire & Emergency Services Building in Brandon, Manitoba. The 30,000-square-foot (2,800-square-meter) building is divided into two formal components: the firehall wing, which is oriented toward the street, and the narrower administrative wing, aligned with the nearby creek. Behind ground-floor glazing in the administrative wing, a museum space houses an 80-year-old fire truck. The transparent doors of the adjacent firehall structure allow the public to glimpse the current fleet of emergency vehicles.

A minimally detailed transparent volume links the two wings and serves as an entry into both. On the south side of the facility stands a hose tower, its dark brick cladding serving as a counterpoint to the lighter finishes of the main volumes. Through a series of walls and fire separations, the tower also acts as a training facility and exit stair connecting the apparatus floor with the dorms on the second level.

The project team also included Collins Design Service as fire station consultant. The contractor was BIRD Construction. The project was completed in September 2010.  

BDP has revealed its winning design for the University of Strathclyde's new Technology and Innovation Centre in Glasgow, Scotland. Image: BDP Extra Large Image

Glasgow · 2011.0314
UK-based international multidisciplinary firm BDP has revealed its competition-winning preliminary design for the University of Strathclyde's new £89 million Technology and Innovation Centre in central Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. The 22,000-square-meter (237,000-square-foot) center is designed for 850 academics, researchers, engineers, and project managers from the university and its industrial partners to work side by side. The building will facilitate research and knowledge-exchange activities by incorporating flexible project, meeting, and office space alongside high-quality research and laboratory accommodations.

BDP is the lead designer on a project team led by project manager and cost consultant Gardiner and Theobald. Work is slated to begin in early 2012, with completion expected in late 2013. The sustainable design goal is to meet the criteria for a BREEAM Excellent rating.  

Hassell designed the new Ecosciences Precinct research facility in Brisbane, Australia. Photo: © Christopher Frederick Jones/ Courtesy v2com.biz Extra Large Image

Brisbane · 2011.0309
Australia-based international multidisciplinary firm Hassell designed the new Ecosciences Precinct in Brisbane, Australia, which provides a collaborative research environment for 1,000 scientists from four separate agencies and several different scientific disciplines. The 50,000-square-meter (540,000-square-foot) facility is divided into three zones — office, laboratory, and support — with specialized facilities and support services centrally located. A generic, flexible, adaptable configuration is designed to accommodate varying group sizes and functions.

One of the major design challenges was to minimize solar gain in Brisbane's subtropical climate. The solution was to envelope the building in a veil of perforated aluminum sunscreen, protecting the laboratory and atrium spaces. Other materials used in the project include solid timber slats of recycled blackbutt eucalyptus, blackbutt wood veneer, engineered stone, granite floor tile, and Interface modular carpet tile.

The facility opened in October 2010. Hassell served as principal consultant, providing architecture, interior design, planning, and laboratory planning services, and leading a briefing process that engaged scientists across agency boundaries to facilitate the collaborative outcome. The client was the Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation.

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