Archinect - News

Morphosis breaks ground on new U.S. Embassy compound in Saudi Arabia

2023-12-26T11:41:00-05:00

Morphosis has broken ground on the firm’s new U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia compound project for Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter.

Located on a 27.5-acre site away from the capital’s center near the Hanifa River, the complex will be delivered at an unknown square footage in replacement of the embassy’s current facility from 1984.

In a recent Instagram post, the firm states: “This natural setting provided a key source of inspiration for the campus: we drew from the wadi's geometries to shape the campus planning and buildings throughout the site, guiding circulation and channeling breezes between the structures. The new Embassy design embodies an innovative approach to providing safe, functional, and sustainable facilities for the US diplomatic mission to Saudi Arabia.”

Image courtesy U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Saudi Arabia

According to the project team, the design prioritizes security throughout while integrating the most state-of-the-art and modern hospitality features with sensitivit...

Fentress' Norwegian Embassy restoration is a testament to the country's unique design heritage

2022-05-11T09:00:00-04:00

Fentress Architects’ AIA chapter award-winning Chancery restoration project for the Embassy of Norway has officially opened to the public, representing a first for the 42-year-old Denver-based firm.

Situated between the official Vice Presidential Residence and National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.’s Embassy Row neighborhood, the project’s scope entailed the restoration of an original structure from 1905 in addition to a 30,000-square-foot expansion aimed at making the complex more sustainable, modern, and accessible.

Photo: © Alan Karchmer / OTTO

The firm says this was all done along the guiding Norwegian principles of Handlekraft (vigor), Arbeidsglede (joy of work), Profesjonalitet (professionalism), and Åpenhet (openness).

Photo: © Alan Karchmer / OTTO

Per Fentress: “The result is a transformed Chancery comprised of three elements: a stone shell, a cocoon, and a copper-clad mass timber hull. The mass and forms of the limestone-clad stone shell are deliberately segmented and scaled ...

Studio Malka Architecture adds modular vertical extension to French Embassy in Vienna

2021-10-13T14:57:00-04:00

French firm Studio Malka Architecture has announced a new project that will see the addition of a striking collection of curved, modular extensions to the French Embassy in Vienna, Austria.

Built in the early 20th century, the embassy is situated within two buildings that express an Art Nouveau style. The project calls on the refurbishment and vertical extension of the two units that are both modern and informed by the site’s history. The result was the decision to develop a light and modular extension.

As noted by the architects, the curved, shell-like components serve as more than mere ornamentation but as functional pieces, “in the daily use of its architecture.” The system, which Studio Malka Architecture says was created in ancient Egypt, collects, amplifies, and diffuses natural light throughout the entire building, as well as creates natural ventilation.

“More than a century after its creation, the project of the new French Embassy in Vienna reconnects with Art Nouveau’s f...

The war in Afghanistan left behind a host of abandoned buildings and other infrastructure

2021-09-08T15:25:00-04:00

The Afghan countryside is littered with abandoned and decaying power plants, prisons, schools, factories, office buildings and military bases, according to a watchdog agency, the legacy of the U.S.’s 20-year effort to fund the establishment of a modern Afghan state that could provide security and basic services for its citizens

A reported $145 billion went to infrastructure projects and construction equipment alone. In March, an American taxpayer watchdog group called SIGAR released a report which estimated $6.6 billion worth of buildings and vehicles went misused or were abandoned since the 20-year war began. Architecture in the country is likely to fall into dire straights as the Taliban have gained total control of every province.

The embassy complex alone cost the U.S. over $8 billion. President Bush called the main building a “big, solid, permanent structure, which should represent the commitment of the United States of America to your liberty” at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in March of 2006.

The Wall Street Journal has more on what’s been left to rot here.

Roeoesli & Maeder Architects team up with local Kenyan builders to complete the new Swiss Embassy in Nairobi

2018-07-26T12:17:00-04:00

Having to work through a flurry of logistical challenges from 3,700 miles away, Lucerne-based Roeoesli & Maeder Architects (or ro.ma) led an international design team to successfully complete the new Swiss Embassy in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. The architects describe the design as “an appropriate representation of Switzerland”, while also incorporating local Kenyan building practices and the skills of local companies. Roeoesli & Maeder won the commission in an open competition in 2011.

During the construction phase, Roeoesli & Maeder couldn't spontaneously drop by the site, so they observed the project through only photos. “Building was often done by ‘trial and error’. In other words, they build something (which does not necessarily have to correspond with the plans) and ask whether or not it is OK; if the answer is no, then it is demolished and a new attempt is made,” they explain.

Photo: Iwan Baan.

The exposed concrete building has an earthy red dye whose color...

US Embassy in Jerusalem will cost at least $20M more than Trump's $250,000 bargain estimate

2018-07-19T15:39:00-04:00

President Donald Trump boasted earlier this year that the US would spend only $200,000 to $300,000 on a new US Embassy in Jerusalem, but it seems the project will cost nearly $20 million more than that estimate. [...] The US spent just under $400,000 on modifications to the consular facility that allowed it to open as the US Embassy in May, but the State Department told CNN at the time that it planned "for construction of a new extension [...] as well as for additional security enhancements"

Back in March, the 'Builder in Chief' promised that the highly controversial new United States Embassy in Jerusalem would have to be built "very quickly and very inexpensively" at a bargain price tag of around $250,000. According to documents made public this month, the State Department however recently awarded a $21.2 million contract to the firm Desbuild Limak D&K to design and build an extension and compound security upgrades to the former consular building in Jerusalem's Arnona neighborhood—nearly 100 times the original estimate.

"Calm and reasonable and a bit boring": Rowan Moore reviews London's new U.S. embassy

2018-01-12T19:36:00-05:00

London’s new US embassy may be just a glass cube with disguised fortifications, but it is also restrained, efficient, green… the antithesis of Donald Trump [...] It’s a fortress, of course it is. As the embassy of the Great Satan to the Little Satan – as the unlamented Ayatollah Khomeini would have put it – it couldn’t not be a target and defended accordingly. The architects therefore decided to make it as nice a fortress as possible [...].

The new embassy in Battersea Nine Elms seen from across the river Thames. Image via Wikipedia.

Only a few more days until the U.S. Embassy & Consulates in the United Kingdom move into the new digs (designed by KieranTimberlake) in Nine Elms on January 16. Sans Trump.

The new billion-dollar U.S. embassy in London doesn't want to look like a fortress

2017-12-14T14:26:00-05:00

At $1 billion, it is the most expensive embassy ever constructed. But its designers say the new American chancery on the Thames River marks a paradigm shift: The U.S. Embassy here will exude openness while hiding all the clever ways it defends itself from attack. After decades of building American embassies that look brutalist or bland, like obvious fortresses, the soon-to-be-opened chancery in London is a crystalline cube, plopped down in the middle of a public park, without visible walls.

Image via the U.S. Embassy in London's Twitter

The KieranTimberlake-designed U.S. Embassy in London is preparing for its grand opening on January 16, and the building pleasantly departs from the increasingly common drab 'fortress' chic that American chanceries in cities with heightened risk of terror attacks have adopted.

Image via the U.S. Embassy in London's Twitter

Pulling off a seemingly transparent and welcoming look while still employing state-of-the-art defensive strategies and gadgetry (it even has a pseudo-moat) isn't cheap though — the crystalline 'sugar cube' comes with a hefty $1-billion price tag and takes the title of the most expensive embassy ever built.

Former US Embassy Building Is Declared Culturally-Inappropriate for Canadian Indigenous Center

2017-06-20T19:20:00-04:00

Classical revival is perhaps the architectural style most identified with colonization. This building, which references Washington architecture, is a building of formal rooms, offices, and hierarchies, echoing structures of European authority.

This June the federal government announced that the US' former embassy building in Ottawa will become a space dedicated to Inuit, Métis and First Nations communities which the task force of the RAIC finds to be a deeply inappropriate space for an Indigenous Centre.

"Canada's Indigenous communities have, for too long, been forced into leftover spaces that fail to connect in any meaningful way to their cultures and unique connectivity to place" says the task force, composed of about 30 mostly Indigenous architects, architectural students, interns and academics.

Dr. Patrick Stewart, the chair of the task force suggests that the federal government should provide capital dollars for the design and construction of a structure based upon Indigenous knowledge and through the use of Indigenous architects.

China furious over US plan to rename street in front of its embassy after dissident

2014-06-25T19:14:00-04:00

Chinese diplomats on Wednesday said Congress’ decision to rename the street in front of Beijing’s embassy in the U.S. capital after a Chinese dissident is "really absurd" [...] On Tuesday the House Appropriations Committee voted to rename the street outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., to “Liu Xiaobo Plaza” — after a Chinese dissident who received the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia and is currently serving an 11-year prison term for subverting the government’s authority.

This is not the first time that place-naming – or toponymy – has provoked a political dispute. Actually, it's pretty likely that as long as people have been naming places, other people have been getting upset about it. For example, as immortalized by Jimmy Kennedy in the classic song, Istanbul has been called Constantinople, Byzantium, and Stamboul among other names. What isn't mentioned in the song is that these name changes signal major political shifts, in particular the waves of (often violent) colonization by the Greeks, the Romans, and the Turks. More recently Russian cities were renamed to commemorate Soviet leaders, then changed back to their older names following the collapse of the USSR. Likewise, after the Arab Spring, squares and streets in Tunis and Cairo were renamed to obliterate mention the deposed dictators Ben Ali and Mubarak, respectively.

Controversial Embassy in Baghdad Under Threat From Isis

2014-06-23T18:13:00-04:00

As militant Sunni fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) continue their assault on Iraq, following their recent take-over of Baquba, President Barack Obama has ordered the deployment of 275 combat-ready troops to help defend Baghdad and, in particular, the new and expensive embassy there. At 4,700,000 sq ft, the Yaeger Architecture-designed embassy is the largest in the world and, with a cost exceeding $700 million, it was the most expensive to construct. Its multiple gyms, conference rooms, pools, private gardens, department stores, and fortified apartments are all protected by blast-resistant walls and multiple security checks. An American working at the embassy has no real need to venture beyond its walls. The complex is a city-within-a-city –– or, more accurately, a city-within-a-city-within-a-city, as the embassy is situated in the heavily-fortified “Green Zone” that harbors Baghdad’s international population.

The urgent rush to protect the supposedly impe...

New U.S. Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands breaks ground

2014-05-30T13:49:00-04:00

Over in The Hague in The Netherlands, the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) celebrated the groundbreaking of the new U.S. Embassy earlier this week. Located on a 10-acre site in the Wassenaar municipality, some features of the $206 million project will include a chancery office building, a U.S. Marine Corps residence, a utility building, and multiple access pavilions.

Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners of Santa Monica, CA will be project architect with Caddell Construction Company of Montgomery, AL for construction.

Find more about the project on Bustler.

Department of State and Finnish officials dedicate renovated U.S. Embassy in Helsinki

2014-04-30T20:35:00-04:00

U.S. Department of State, OBO, and local Finnish officials hosted the dedication ceremony for the new campus of the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, Finland today. Located in the same 3-acre site since the 1930s in the Kaivopuisto District in downtown Helsinki, the $114 million project had Moore Ruble Yudell of Santa Monica, CA as design architect; PAGE of Arlington, VA as architect of record; and BL Harbert International LLC from Birmingham for construction.

Started in November 2011, the three-phase project consisted of renovating existing spaces and adding new facilities to enrich the campus. The transformation of the existing office annex into the new Innovation Center finished in January 2013 while completion of the new chancery in phase two happened this past February. If all continues to go well, the existing chancery and ambassador's residence will be renovated by this December.

Finnish cultural references in the new Embassy's aesthetics include the permanent art collection and the ne...

Ann Beha Architects selected for major rehabilitation of Gropius-designed Athens Chancery

2013-11-19T19:54:00-05:00

Ann Beha Architects from Boston, MA was selected by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) for a major rehabilitation project of the U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece. Walter Gropius and consulting architect Pericles A. Sakellarios designed the iconic embassy from 1959-1961. The building is also listed as a protected architectural landmark.

Ann Beha Architects was given the task out of four shortlisted teams that included: DesignLab Architects, Inc. (Boston, MA); Machado Silvetti / Baker (Boston, MA); and Mark Cavagnero Associates (San Francisco, CA).

Previously: Four Design Teams Shortlisted for Major Rehabilitation of Gropius-Designed Athens Chancery

KieranTimberlake’s U.S. Embassy in London celebrates groundbreaking

2013-11-13T20:35:00-05:00

The U.S. Department of State - Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations announced the groundbreaking of the KieranTimberlake-designed U.S. Embassy in London on Nov. 13. KieranTimberlake of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was named as the project architect after winning the Department of State competition back in 2010.

To see previous news posts about the U.S. Embassy in London project, click here.

Morphosis Architects selected to design new U.S. Embassy in Beirut

2013-10-31T17:35:00-04:00

From six finalists to three and finally to one, Morphosis Architects will be designing the new U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, as announced by The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) earlier this week. Morphosis won against top-name contenders Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Mack Scogin Merrill Elam / AECOM. All top three teams advanced to the competition's final round of presentations and interviews. Submitting designs weren't a requirement.

Previously: Shortlist for new U.S. Embassy in Beirut now down to three finalists

Shortlist for new U.S. Embassy in Beirut now down to three finalists

2013-09-04T21:46:00-04:00

The Stage 2 shortlist for the new U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon has now been narrowed down even further.

As the Department of State's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) reports, these three design teams were selected for Stage 3 evaluation:

Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Mack Scogin Merrill Elam / AECOM
Morphosis Architects

Earlier this year in June, the Stage 1 shortlist still included Rafael Viñoly Architects, Steven Holl Architects, and Yazdani Studio.

Previously: DS+R, Morphosis, Viñoly and Holl Among Finalists for new U.S. Embassy in Beirut

UPDATE: Morphosis Architects selected to design new U.S. Embassy in Beirut

DS+R, Morphosis, Viñoly and Holl Among Finalists for new U.S. Embassy in Beirut

2013-06-19T13:28:00-04:00

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has shortlisted six design teams for the new U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.

The shortlisted teams are:

Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Mack Scogin Merrill Elam/AECOM
Morphosis Architects
Rafael Viñoly Architects
Steven Holl Architects
Yazdani Studio

UPDATE: Shortlist for new U.S. Embassy in Beirut now down to three finalists

UPDATE 2: Morphosis Architects selected to design new U.S. Embassy in Beirut

Four Design Teams Shortlisted for Major Rehabilitation of Gropius-Designed Athens Chancery

2013-05-15T19:26:00-04:00

Four design firms have been shortlisted by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) for the major rehabilitation of the Athens Chancery project. The iconic modernist embassy building, designed by Walter Gropius with consulting architect Pericles A. Sakellarios, was constructed between 1959 and 1961 and is a protected architectural landmark.

The shortlisted firms are:

Ann Beha Architects, Boston, MA
DesignLab Architects, Inc., Boston, MA
Machado Silvetti / Baker, Boston, MA
Mark Cavagnero Associates, San Francisco, CA

UPDATE: Ann Beha Architects selected for major rehabilitation of Gropius-designed Athens Chancery

Can U.S. Embassies Be Safe Without Being Unsightly?

2013-02-26T20:16:00-05:00

There's been a tug of war between aesthetically pleasing and safe when it comes to American embassies around the world. Many embassies have been slammed as bunkers, bland cubes and lifeless compounds. Even the new Secretary of State John Kerry said just a few years ago, "We are building some of the ugliest embassies I've ever seen." But the choice between gardens and gates isn't just academic for diplomats — it can affect the way they work.

Previously: All the glamour of a corporate office block & American Embassy Buildings Increasingly Getting Ugly

Swiss Clockwork Embassy in Yaoundé, Cameroon

2012-05-18T12:52:00-04:00

London/Paris-based practice Matteo Cainer Architects Ltd has sent us its competition entry for the new Swiss embassy building in Yaoundé, the capital city of Cameroon, West Africa. The design is a play on the precision of Swiss clockwork mechanism and traditional Cameroon Musgum housing.

Save the only Neutra In Pakistan

2012-04-12T15:05:00-04:00

"In 1955, the US State Department commissioned Richard Neutra to design a new embassy in Karachi. Neutra's appointment was part of an ambitious program of architectural commissions to renowned architects, which included embassies by Walter Gropius in Athens, Edward Durrell Stone in New Delhi, Marcel Breuer in The Hague, Josep Lluis Sert in Baghdad and Eero Saarinen in London."  

Neutra referred to these other buildings as “just pretty buildings” and called his design as “stripped for action”. A slightly curved stately white rectangular slab punctuated with narrow rectangular windows suitable for Karachi’s hot climate. A building which has seen a lot of activity, from International and State affairs to movie screenings, art openings and car bomb attacks in 2002 and 2006 which led to its eventual shut down to the public. It seems obvious that such a space be repurposed with the same energy it once had for local and international culture. Its demolition would not only mean the loss...

All the glamour of a corporate office block

2010-02-24T12:55:00-05:00

So says Nicolai Ouroussoff in his review of the recently released winning design, by the Philadelphia firm KieranTimberlake, for the State Department’s new embassy in London. NYT Previously

Christopher Hawthorne reviews the new US Embassy in London

2010-02-23T15:27:00-05:00

Even as the design itself, for all its airiness and crisp confidence, is hardly radical from a formal point of view -- it consists of a cube sheathed in a shimmering polymer scrim and resting on a ground-floor colonnade of concrete pillars -- it represents a major shift in how we think about the role of U.S. government architecture, both at home and abroad. It suggests putting an emphasis on action instead of values, measurable behavior rather than symbolic gestures.

The LA Times' Christopher Hawthorne reviews the new U.S. Embassy in London, designed by KieranTimberlake.

American Embassy Buildings Increasingly Getting Ugly

2009-07-19T18:59:00-04:00

"We are building some of the ugliest embassies I've ever seen. We're building fortresses around the world. We're separating ourselves from people in these countries. I cringe when I see what we're doing." - John Kerry.

Lots of people cringe when they think about the recent architecture of American diplomacy, and now a new report adds ammunition to the Massachusetts Democrat's charge. "Design for Diplomacy," written by the American Institute of Architects, is a classic Washington document: dull, dry and filled with recommendations that run from the tepid to the bland to the obvious. But the fact that it exists means that the age of the American embassy as architectural wasteland may finally be coming to an end. w.post

New London Embassy

2009-03-11T12:15:00-04:00

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) announced that four architectural firms have been selected for the final phase of the design competition for the new United States Embassy in London. State Department

US Embassy London Shortlist

2009-01-06T00:21:00-05:00

Thomas Mayne's Morphosis Architects, SOM, KPF and Richard Meier & Partners are among nine firms on the all-American shortlist to design Britain’s £275 million new US embassy. BD | previously | related

Secrecy, Security and Suburbia in Baghdad

2007-06-15T12:47:00-04:00

"War planning meets Sim City ... the architecture of manufactured, blast-resistant banality" - LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne reviews the US Embassy in Baghdad