Teton County Children's Learning Center Brings Sustainable Design to Jackson, Wyoming

Many children's make believe adventures revolve around wooden forts in the mountains; the new Teton County Children's Learning Center by Ward+Blake Architects and D.W. Arthur Associates Architecture has captured this dream in the wilds of Jackson, Wyoming. This children’s daycare facility reflects the rustic decor of the Teton region, while achieving LEED Gold certification with an energy-efficient, low-impact design.

Creatively named “The Ranch,” the Rafter J Childcare facility was designed by the team of architects to achieve three objectives: to fit into the ranch-like neighborhood, experientially stimulate the children, and to achieve LEED Silver certification. Boston-based D.W. Arthur Associates Architecture was brought into the project by local firm Ward+Blake Architects to bring some expertise in childcare design to the table. It’s fitting that D.W. Arthur’s mission is to educate children through experiencing their spatial environment.
The exterior of the building celebrates the regional vernacular ranch style of the local neighborhood, and it incorporates many natural materials in its skin. Made from rammed earth, cedar wood, weathered wood, glass and steel, this 12,000-square-foot facility rises and falls almost as if mimicking the surrounding mountains. Beaver slide-like enclosures and other slatted fences help to break up the exterior of the building, while creating shading devices for the building. Various shed roofs allow for natural light to penetrate deep into the building through angled clerestory windows. Also, many of these shed roofs are covered with sod in order to control storm water runoff.

Green-Roofed Villa Topoject Emerges from the Hills Near Seoul, Korea

Instead of creating walls and fences to demarcate a plot situated in a small valley near Seoul, Korean architects AND (Architecture of Novel Differentiation) designed a house that is nestled into a hill and spirals up from beneath it. Villa Topoject flows with the hilly topography of the area to create semi private outdoor spaces that blur the line between exterior and interior. 

The house is clad in black-stained cedar panels that, with cedar’s earthly quality, visually merge with the ground and contribute to the warmth of the place. The protruding balcony floats above a decked terrace ground floor level that opens up to a shallow pool of water and a small creek running along the site. The first floor houses a living room, bedroom, study and greenhouse, while a guest suite and storage are accommodated underground, “at the tail” of the building.

Villa Topoject is a home for a couple who would like to enjoy rural life. Strongly linked to the ground, the house is a land-building hybrid that allows residents to be in direct contact with the land, like farmers. As the building gradually emerges from the landscape, the residents seem to observe nature more like tourists, benefiting from the beautiful balcony views of the area.

World's "First Floating Village" Unveiled by Baca Architects and ZM Architecture Design for Glasgow

 Baca Architects and ZM Architecture have teamed up with Floating Concepts to design what has been dubbed the world’s first “floating leisure village” at Canting Docks in Glasgow. The Scottish city—in which the docklands once served as a major industrial hub—has seen significant urban renewal in recent years and the mixed-use floating development could add to the city’s appeal. Plans for the location, which lies just off the River Clyde, include a boat-sharing facility, an 80-100 room pod hotel, single-family homes as well as a cafe and theater— much of which will utilize renewable energy.

The £30 million floating development is located directly adjacent to the Glasgow Science Center at the Pacific Quay, and will form a key part of the larger Clyde Waterfront redevelopment. Previous projects considered for that development include the ZM Architecture-designed solar power-generating floating lily pads. The Canting Basin development is designed around a floating horseshoe-shaped promenade, and public amenities at the development will include a public marina, an 80-100 bed pod hotel and a cafe and theater with rooftop seating. The hotel is comprised of modular stacking units atop a floating base, which has been awkwardly described as having the appearance of “luxury shipping containers,” with large glass facades to provide dramatic views of the river. The sloped elliptical theater can reportedly rotate (with the help of a tug boat) to provide views of events both on the water and on land.

The village will also provide apartments, townhouses and office spaces for residents, with lightweight steel frames allowing for three-story floating structures. The residential buildings, designed by Dutch and Scandinavian architects, will be available on an off-the-peg basis, and range from 1000-3500 square feet. All are designed with glass facades for views of the water, along with space for balcony and ground-floor level gardens, while on the outer edge of the property plantings will provide a buffer for the properties. Heat exchangers will harness the water for climate control for the floating homes, while grey water will be filtered and recycled on site.

While a large numbers of boats buzzing around the marina may not be the most ecologically sensitive thing, the developer’s focus on a water-borne, peaceful and car-free community certainly has its appeal. Each of the residential units will have its own berth, while office workers and visitors will be able to take advantage of a boat-sharing program and additional moorings to “encourage the use of the river for recreation and transport.”

The project was approved by the Scottish Executive last year, and is currently slated for completion by 2020.

BIG's Connecting Greenland: AIR + PORT Exhibit Proposes a New Future for Greenland

Dream it and they shall come. That's the premise of the POSSIBLE GREENLAND exhibit at the 13^th Annual Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, headed by the Danish Architecture Centre and curated by Minik Rosing and Nord Architects. This exhibit seeks to explore the huge potential and some of the challenges that face Greenland, a place that has gotten global attention of late due to its natural resources and its position on climate change. BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) in collaboration with TENU, Julie Hardenberg and Inuk Silas Hogh created the Connecting Greenland: AIR + PORT portion of the POSSIBLE GREENLAND exhibit. The architects propose creating a multi-modal transportation hub for domestic and international travel just south of Nuuk, the capital.

Currently, Greenland residents rely heavily on air travel to get around, but are plagued by empty flights and staggering prices. BIG and its cohorts are proposing to address this domestic problem with a global solution. The Greenland Transport Commission identified the island of Augisunnguaq, south of Nuuk, as a potential new hub for connecting Greenland domestically and internationally by air and by water. But Connecting Greenland: AIR + PORT isn’t just about creating a new piece of transportation infrastructure. It proposes a variety of programs and mixed uses for the area as the genesis of a new paradigm of efficient transportation and vibrant public programs that would benefit the whole country. This holistic solution is what Bjarke Ingels calls Social Infrastructure.

This vision is part of Greenland’s attempt to position itself at the center of major world economies like Europe, Asia and America. Instead of positioning itself as a back-water in harsh and inaccessible part of the world, Greenland wants to explore its potential as a transit hub between Europe and America – increasing potential transit tourism while at the same time cutting costs for local commuters.

Other parts of the POSSIBLE GREENLAND exhibit include Cultivating Greenland, Inhabiting Greenland and Migrating Greenland, exploring the multiple aspects of the country as a way to work towards a more prosperous and connectedglobal future.

Facebook Commissions Frank Gehry to Design New Green Menlo Park Campus

Facebook just announced a huge expansion to their Menlo Park campus, and have commissioned Prizker-Prize winning starchitect Frank Gehry – best known for his shiny, titanium-clad icons of blobitecture – to design the expansion. Even more surprising is that we’ve seen the designs, and so far they don’t appear to include Gehry’s trademark incomprehensible piles of eye-scorching titanium curves. The proposed design is quite eco-friendly, with a massive park-like, tree and grass-lined green roof featuring a ‘park benches’ and a ‘walking trail’ on top! In addition, Facebook submitted proposals to the city to allow its 6,000 planned new workforce to travel between old and new campuses to via a tunnel designed for pedestrian and bike traffic. Perhaps an eco architect like Bill McDonough might have been a better pick to design the giant green roof, but it seems Facebook was going for icon status here, and no architect is better known than Frank Gehry.

Zuckerberg’s team have made few changes to the former Sun Microsystems building they have occupied since their move in last summer. This area, the East Campus, cover 57 acres and about 1 million square feet of office space. The new plan proposes the creation of a 22 acre west campus, which will be able to house their proposed hire of over 6,000 people in the next six years.
In Gehry’s architectural models of the West Campus plan show a green roof extending over all of the planned building space. The plan will also conform to Menlo Park’s the Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance which requires that turf area shall not exceed 500 square feet. In the non-turf areas, the ordinance state that at least 80% of the plants be native plants, low water using plants, or no-water using plants, and the roof top will be peppered with eating cafes and kiosks, such as sushi bars, as well.

More than a third of the new workers will be engineers, and Everett Katigbak, Facebook’s environmental design manager, is making sure the new building takes this into account. “At every step of planning the new building, Frank has taken into account our engineering culture” says Katigbak in a Facebook post. “It will be a large, one room building that somewhat resembles a warehouse. Just like we do now, everyone will sit out in the open with desks that can be quickly shuffled around as teams form and break apart around projects.” The new offices will also include cafes, mini-kitchens, and comfy break spaces. The tunnel connecting the two campuses can be seen in site plans submitted in 2011 to the City of Menlo Park. The path creates a transit route for people and bikes underneath the Bayfront Expressway.

Frank Gehry is such a big name in architecture that inevitably, his buildings all seem to become ‘icons’, so we expect Facebook is hoping for a Bilbao moment here with their new campaus. Though Gehry is best known for his swooping, technically challenging, titanium-clad facades, we’re noticing that his more recent works heavily promote bioscaping. The Panamanian Museum of Biodiversity, L.A.’s Grand Park, and Chicago’s Millennium Park all capture Gehry’s uniqueness of form, consideration for the native plant-scape, while creating spaces that draw people outdoors. If Gehry’s team applies the same attention to detail to the Facebook West Campus, future Facebook employees should be happy campers. Strolling on the roof park of your office building while nibbling on sushi sounds pretty idyllic!

 

http://inhabitat.com

China's Green-Roofed Samaranch Memorial Museum Was Inspired by the Olympic Rings

While the 2012 Olympic Games are taking place in London, construction of a new green-roofed Olympic museum in Tianjin, China is also underway. Dedicated to former International Olympic Committee (IOC) chairman Juan Antonio Samaranch, the new Samaranch Memorial Museum will feature exhibits to commemorate his legacy as well as the influence of the Olympics in China. Dutch firm HAO and Beijing firm Archiland International designed the museum, which will be surrounded by a lush new park and will feature 5 Olympic-inspired rings, a rooftop photovoltaic system, and geothermal heating and cooling.

HAO and Archiland International won first place earlier this year with their Olympic-themed museum. Working with the concept of the 5 Olympic rings, the firms formulated a plan composed of a two-ring figure eight-like building surrounded by 3 sunken ringed buildings. The first ring of the main building is slightly raised so visitors can walk through the entrance courtyard and into an exhibition space dedicated to the influence of the Olympics on China. The second ring is dedicated to the work of Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was a strong supporter of the Beijing Olympics.
Surrounding the main building are three sunken spaces that provide more space for events and rotating exhibitions as well as administration and research. The museum will be located in a newly constructed park with other symbolic rings representing the 204 IOC members. To minimize impact, the figure eight-shaped museum will topped off with photovoltaic panels to generate up to 76% of the building’s energy needs. Additionally, a geothermal heating and cooling system will reduce energy used for hot water and climate control. Construction began this summer in Tianjin and the project is expected to be completed in 2013.

Lively Urban Cabin in Brazil Features Nest Beds and a Spherical Shelf Window

Fabio Galiezzo took a shabby shack in Brazil and transformed it into a colorful urban cabin decked out with nest beds and an awesome spherical shelf that frames views of the verdant surroundings. The original building was so dilapidated that Galeazzo propped it up with bamboo beams and columns and topped the whole place off with a series of green thermal tiles.

The Urban Cabin’s interior flooring is comprised of a combination of FSC-certified timber and brown granite. Since the structure sits amidst a shaded woody area, it was treated as a work of art – a la modernist painter Tarsila do Amaral. The bright colored stripes and irregular forms give the youthful home an attractive lift.
The spherical window doubles as an awesome bookshelf that draws a distinct connection between the interior and exterior, while the lovely hanging nest beds round off the project’s overall sensitivity to and celebration of nature. Outside, nautical, stretchy fabric is used to shelter the owner’s tiny vehicle and the outdoor barbecue is decked out in beautiful tiles. Although this might be a bit bright for some, we absolutely love this home.

Italian Firefighter House is Carved Into a Cave

Bergmeisterwolf Architekten have essentially turned Italy's Margried volunteer firefighting team into superheroes by building their new fire brigade in the depths of a sharp black-fronted cave. Instead of using up valuable agriculture land, the community opted to carve three caverns out of rock, thereby minimizing the use of new materials and reducing the project's energy load.

Enclosed with a pair of folding glass doors that reveal the red fire trucks and then protected from falling rocks by a strong pitched wall tinted to resemble burned wood, the fire brigade features three large caverns furnished with simple materials such as wood, glass and steel designed to contrast with the plastered interior walls. A heat simulation test conducted prior to construction revealed that only the administrative area of the “cave” needed insulation.
Otherwise, even when it’s 10 degrees Celsius below outside in winter, the cave maintains a fairly steady temperature of about 12 degrees Celsius. At the front, however, which has more exposure to the outside doors, it is colder, so the design team installed triple-insulated glass to mitigate heat loss. A cantilevering glass cube inserted into the cave near the offices brings in natural lighting, further reducing energy requirements. And the remaining heat for hot water and the interior is met with an ecological pellet heating system.