The Disney Concert Hall in Downtown LA is an inspirational, heroic building. One thing many people don’t seem to notice is that the spaces between the folds are inhabitable by the public. Without entering the building or attending a show at the theater, anyone can explore the twisting soaring spaces around the building along a public path full of greenery and water features.
Tom Maine of Morphosis designed the much lauded CalTrans building, also downtown. It is an exercise in layering, creating multiple transparencies and depths of texture.
The LA County Muesum of Art was designed by Renzo Piano and carries his signature complex roof forms, tuned to let in just enough controlled light to enjoy the works. This 3″ thick steel snaking through the expansive space is one of my favorite works by the sculptor Richard Serra. He is famous for his sculptures falling through the un-reinforced floors of galleries.
Oxnard, California is half way between LA and Santa Barbara. I had never heard of it, but it is the strawberry capital of the world.
As a creative experiment in temporary urbanism and digital innovation, the 24-hour City Project explored the intersection of data, arts, and technology within the built environment. The project aimed to demonstrate how technology, imagination, and innovation can envision our future cities.
On June 5th, three interdisciplinary teams, installed exhibitions at the National Building Museum that were meant to encourage a vision of the built environment that is more engaging, relevant to our lives, and accessible to all.
The three teams were led by Elissa Goetschius, Eric Gunderson, and myself, Kashuo Bennett, with much help from FabLabDC, iStrategy Labs and A Wider Circle, as well as Virginia Tech and RTKL.
My team’s entry, titled “Data Materialized,” won first place in the competition. Here’s a video about the event:
This installation demonstrates how numerical data can be used to drive the shape of geometric form and then be converted into tangible material objects through the use of computer controlled fabrication technology. The form of the undulating physical structure represents higher educational achievement in the District in plan. You can see the number of bachelor’s degrees spike near Capitol Hill and decline east of the Anacostia River. By projecting colored maps of other statistical data sets onto the structure from above (like crime and median income), relationships emerge between data and social demographics. The digitally fabricated surface was manufactured using a laser cutter and has 717 unique pieces (and 4,302 rivets!).
In a second example of modern library design in Washington this week, we are presented with this striking building on Wisconsin ave, near American University. Similar to the strategy employed on the Shaw library, the angled steel fins along the south and east side of the building are aligned to block direct sunlight while allowing views to the outside. Their color is evocative of terracotta and contrasts nicely with the crisp blue sky.
The recently completed Shaw Library located at 7th and Rhode Island Avenue NW was designed by architecture firm Davis Brody Bond Aedas. The building features several innovative technologies to improve sustainability performance. The south facade of the building is glass, but an outboard layer of perforated metal blocks direct sunlight to minimize solar gain in the summer months, while still allowing views to the outside. The north wall of the building is made from translucent insulated panels that have excellent thermal properties while also letting in diffuse light so that there is less load on the electrical systems for lighting, and furthermore less load on the air conditioning system to account for the heat from those lights. The sculptural design is exciting to me as well, with a soaring projected fin and many nicely articulated minimalist details.
This brand new building designed by architect Moshe Safdie was just completed at the far west end of the National Mall. The bold design features a swooping translucent roof form that covers an interior atrium connecting stone office masses. Safdie walks a fine line between a pure modern minimalism and a post-modern iconic formalism. The roof structure is technologically elegant, but if viewed in plan it purposely evokes the image of the dove of peace.
Last semester I was invited to be a guest critic at final reviews for the Harvard Architecture School (aka The GSD). The class I was reviewing was on the subject of parametric modeling and digital fabrication (which I also teach a course on at Virginia Tech) The student work was varied and invigorating.
The new Arena Stage just opened this fall in South West DC after a major 30 month, $135 million renovation designed by Canadian architect Bing Thom. The dramatic curved glass form with a floating cloud-like roof encloses the original theater building and adds about 100,000 sf to the program of the Mead Center for American Theater.
In our second of a three part exploration of brutalism, we examine one of the most elegantly understated buildings in the district. The offices of The Department of Housing and Urban Development was designed by Marcel Breuer and was completed in 1968. This pre-cast concrete facade houses one of the most important institutions of our forthcoming era. With the rapid increase in global urbanization, sophisticated and robust planning initiatives must be deployed if we are to meet the needs of the growing urban population.
Even though HUD here in DC doesn’t necessarily operate on an international level with these kinds of urban problems, it will become more and more important to be aware of these challenges in coming decades. The figures are staggering, especially in developing countries. Within just 30 years, cities in developing countries will triple their entire urban built-up area, generating the same amount of urban area as the entire world had cumulatively generated by the year 2000–much of it will be in the form of over crowded slums. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, slum dwellers make up 72 percent of the urban population, totaling more than 166 million people in 2001. Their numbers are expected to increase to more than 325 million by 2020, more than the current population of the United States of America.
In other news, Virginia Tech Architecture professor and National Building Museum curator Susan Piedmont Palladino gave a lecture on brutalism a few weeks ago and used a few Straight Torquer photographs. She blogs about architecture and sustainability at: http://ganggreennbm.blogspot.com/
The McMillan Reservoir Filtration Plant was built in 1905. At the time it was constructed it utilized an innovative sand filtration technology that replaced toxic chemicals for treating water. It operated continuously for 80 years. This abandoned facility in North West DC is an eerie and mysterious landscape. The wide fields are dotted with crop-circle-esque patterning of manhole covers extending the mechanical construct out into the at first seemingly empty grass plains. It is truly a vast machine.
One is reminded of the French modern architect Le Corbusier’s study of the early industrial grain silos of North America in his seminal book: Towards a New Architecture. It them he saw utility, simplicity, material efficiency, and exciting structural form.
Located next to the Capitol Building on the National Mall, The Hubert H. Humphry Building was designed by Marcel Breuer in 1975 and houses the headquarters of the US Department of Health and Human Services. This excellent example of brutalism employs both pre-cast and cast-in place concrete to create a richly textured exterior with many sloping planes that pleasingly interact with the angled light. Le Corbusier, the father of brutalism, is famous for saying: “Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.” One can see this philosophy at play in this building, where high contrast shadows add depth and interest to the building facade.
At $830 per square foot, this LEED-Gold office tower designed by Helmut Jahn is the second most expensive piece of commercial real estate ever to be sold in Washington DC. Located at 1999 K Street, the building may seem underwhelming at a distance. However the uniquely expressed curtain wall is a cleanly detailed system that delivers a completely original experience. Each curtain panel is buttressed by a vertical fin of glass projecting from the flat surface of the building. The functional directive of the fins is to provide wind-load support, but their sculptural quality is what makes them so exciting. From a vantage point on the adjacent sidewalk, the fins create a mosaic effect of angular geometric transparency. The result is very subtle, and likely missed by the majority of passers by. But it is exactly this understated simplicity that leads to a profoundly graceful power. The close-up photos of the wall are worth clicking on. The lobby at night is also a vivid space.
Kashuo Bennett publishes The Straight Torquer from a row house in Columbia Heights, Washington DC. All photographs are original and copyrighted. Relevent interests include architecture, industrial design, digital fabrication, urbanism, sculpture, and photography. You can contact me by commenting on a post or by email: monroehaus@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Twitter: @monroehaus
