Archinect - News

Signal's makeover of historic Fort Worden offers Puget Sound a new arts center

2021-10-13T18:14:00-04:00

Whence a military installation, now an art gallery. A new adaptive reuse project from Signal Architecture + Research has transformed a one-time coastal artillery fortification in Port Townsend, Washington into an eight-acre arts compound with accommodations for studios, exhibition space, and a new artist residency called Makers Square.

Image courtesy SIGNAL

The project took three of Fort Worden’s warehouse buildings currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places and remade what began a harbinger of violence into a historically sensitive space for creative expression.

Image courtesy Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission

The old quartermasters’ warehouse is now a gallery space complete with new double-height ceilings and a gabled roofline. Two writers’ studios occupy an expanded attic area, and the basement has been transformed into a headquarters for the local station KPTZ with the help of engineering partner Arup. The two remaining buildings became ideal canva...

Perkins and Will design kid's fort that acts as a sound barrier

2020-05-21T11:46:00-04:00

The K-12 Education team over at Perkins and Will has designed a blanket fort DiY project that parents and their kids can do together while at home. The project calls for blankets and cardboard that are intended to function as sound barriers to help with conflicting activities throughout the day, such as competing decibels from Zoom calls and playing children.

"The cardboard also doubles as an art platform for the kids to decorate as they want," said Bryan Harry, Designer at Perkins and Will. The fort can be made with wooden dowels and copper pipe fittings. This fort design is a bit more refined compared to the traditional furniture fort. Here, the architectural acumen of the Perkins and Will team show in the strengthened frame design as well as the intentionality of the sound proofing design aim.

Make a Buckminster Fuller Blanket Fort

2012-05-19T17:26:00-04:00

In 1975 Buckminster Fuller first defined the term tensegrity, a portmanteau of “tensional integrity.” It refers to structural systems that derive their stability from various elements acting against each other with equal force, like the surface tension of a bubble. Tensegrity lies at the heart of giant projects like the Georgia Dome. But you can apply it to build the ultimate blanket fort, supported by finely balanced brooms that never touch one another.