Crimped and folded like the tectonic plates of the nearby Papago and Camelback Mountains, the roof that tops the Tempe Center for the Arts provides the facility with its signature element. Made of concrete over metal deck and supported by exposed tubular trusses, the iconic roof shelters the collection of programmatic elements that compose the $67.6 million center, including a 600-seat proscenium theater, a 200-seat studio theater, and a 3,500-square-foot gallery.
Employing what they call a "research-and-diagram-based process," David Leven and Stella Betts, of New York City'based Leven Betts Studio, have been creating environments that are inventive, spare, and elegant for the past decade. Their method involves scrutiny of site, program, and material, to create an organizational framework and physical structure.
Earlier this fall, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) released performance data for the green roof planted on its Washington, D.C., headquarters. The findings demonstrate a number of environmental benefits, including a significant reduction in storm-water runoff, retaining 27,500 gallons of water, or nearly 75 percent of precipitation, during a 10-month monitoring period. Photography: Courtesy ASLA The installation includes planted “waves” that hide rooftop mechanical units. The results suggest that widespread implementation of green roofs and other sustainable site development practices could be a viable storm-water-management option, particularly in cities with older, and overburdened, combined sanitary and wastewater transportation
If there were a prize for the project most often mentioned during the conference “Engineered Transparency: Glass in Architecture and Structural Engineering,” it would go to the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art, in Ohio, designed by SANAA [RECORD, January 2007, page 79]. The first to present the building was the Tokyo-based firm’s principal, Kazuyo Sejima, in her keynote address on September 26 for the two-day event at Columbia University, in New York City. Photography: ' Christian Richters The apparent simplicity of Toledo’s Glass Pavilion belies its complexity. Several of the subsequent 30 speakers, including architects, consultants, and
On the surface at least, it is hard to imagine a more incongruous combination of architect and client: the London-based John Pawson, known for his starkly Minimal and elegant temples to material culture, and a community of Cistercian monks whose lives revolve around prayer, study, and physical labor.
A technically challenging and long-anticipated Museum devoted to the display of ancient artifacts nears completion at the foot of Greece’s most sacred mount
A technically challenging and long-anticipated Museum devoted to the display of ancient artifacts nears completion at the foot of Greece’s most sacred mount At of the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, a politically charged and technically complex project first envisioned more than two decades ago is finally nearing completion.