Archinect - News

Gensler works on new hybrid timber data centers for Microsoft

2024-11-04T18:48:00-05:00

A Gensler and Thornton Tomasetti-led data center project that highlights the enormous potential for similar environmentally-minded hybrid mass timber designs in the booming typology is on its way toward completion in the suburbs of Northern Virginia.

The firm is working with Microsoft to deliver a pair of new centers made using CLT materials. Microsoft says their presence will reduce the buildings’ overall carbon footprint by 35% compared to conventional steel construction, and another 65% compared to those made from precast concrete—an important step as such projects gain priority in the new data-driven economy.

Video courtesy of Microsoft

Microsoft has previously committed to becoming fully 'carbon-negative' in its construction footprint by decade’s end, developing a plan that has since seen setbacks due to the volume and pace of expansion and a subsequently high rate of 'indirect emissions' skyrocketing by 30.9% over just three years.

Another innovation meant to combat this i...

Marlon Blackwell reveals design for new Columbus, Indiana, air traffic control tower

2024-06-27T15:34:00-04:00

Marlon Blackwell Architects has shared an update to their planned air traffic control tower project in Columbus, Indiana, following its initial announcement in December 2023. Renderings of the design revealed this week detail the firm’s pledge to create “more than a piece of infrastructure” but rather “a beacon of Columbus’s architectural and design heritage” standing as a “key gateway into the city."

Rendering by Conica/courtesy of Marlon Blackwell Architects

As such, the 129-foot stainless steel and aluminum creation is set to include a multi-purpose space for education and community events. Thornton Tomasetti is included as a partner for the tower’s facade design.

Rendering by Conica/courtesy of Marlon Blackwell Architects render courtesy of Conica

Construction will progress along a two-year timeline to the early spring of 2027 following the $11.5 million project’s groundbreaking in early 2025.

Rendering by Conica/courtesy of Marlon Blackwell Architects

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Thornton Tomasetti CEO and co-founder of Charlie Thornton passes away at 83

2024-01-05T14:20:00-05:00

Charlie Thornton, the well-admired structural engineer, co-founder and CEO of Thornton Tomasetti, passed away in early December at the age of 83, according to his firm.

The Bronx-born Thornton began his career in the New York offices of Lev Zetlin Associates before pursuing a new venture with Richard Tomasetti after 1977. What followed was a long and decorated career in building, with the world’s first supertall designs — Malaysia’s Petronas Towers and the Taipei 101 in Taiwan — among the signature projects in a globe-spanning portfolio that would later include One Liberty Place in Philadelphia, the forthcoming Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, and the delivery of new Yankee Stadium in his hometown.

“Charlie was a visionary, foreseeing the needs of structural engineering, our clients, the building industry and the public it serves,” Tomasetti said in a firm statement. “He was equally dedicated to mentoring everyone in our firm, our partners, and future generations through his founding...

Marlon Blackwell to design new air traffic control tower for Columbus Municipal Airport in Indiana

2023-12-19T14:09:00-05:00

Marlon Blackwell Architects has announced it will be designing a new air traffic control tower at the Columbus Municipal Airport in Columbus, Indiana. The $11.5 million project helps the airport modernize its facilities in line with current Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Control Tower design and safety standards.

Plans call for a 100-foot design to replace an aged-out 80-foot tower with help from a team that includes Woolpert (aviation design), Guy Nordenson (structural design), Thornton Tomasetti (façade design), and Threshold Acoustics (acoustic consulting). The project is being supported, in part, by a grant from the Cummins Architecture Foundation.

Marlon Blackwell was selected over other shortlisted finalists from Snow Kreilich Architects, SO – IL, and Höweler + Yoon.

“We are so honored to have been selected to contribute to the architectural legacy of Columbus,” Blackwell sa...

World's tallest mass timber tower opens in Milwaukee

2022-07-14T17:47:00-04:00

A historic milestone in the use of mass timber as a construction material is about to be passed as Korb + Associates Architects’ aptly-named Ascent tower is finally set to open tomorrow, July 15, in Milwaukee.

Standing 25 stories and a total of 86.6 meters (284 feet), the tower is now officially the world record holder for the largest mass timber structure in the world, surpassing Norway’s Mjøsa Tower by a scant 1.2 meters (or roughly 4 feet). It cost $80 million to construct and will provide Milwaukee’s East Town neighborhood with a total of 259 apartment units built in partnership with structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti.

Ascent is now Milwaukee’s second mass timber residential development after the nearby Timber Lofts and will soon be joined by a 15-story design called The Edison, which is set to open next year.

Image courtesy Thornton Tomasetti

2022 has already been an exciting year for the use of the highly sustainable material in architectu...

Meet the world's first Living Building Challenge certified winery

2020-05-29T18:01:00-04:00

After completing a required one-year post-occupancy review, the Silver Oaks Alexander Valley winery designed by Piechota Architecture, with engineering and sustainable design consultations from Thornton Tomasetti, has achieved Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification.

The winery's interconnected tasting, production, and administrative buildings. Image courtesy of Damion Hamilton.

Located in Healdsburg, California, the 100,000-square-foot complex was completed in 2018 and is now the world's first LBC-certified winery. The building exists, additionally, as one of just 25 buildings globally to achieve this level of certification from the International Living Future Institute, Thornton Tomasetti explains on the firm's website.

The winery project consists of two interlocking structures situated on a 113-acre site. One structure contains a sizable tasting room with event spaces and is connected to an adjacent production facility by a covered patio. The second structure includes admin...

21-story timber tower—proposed as North America's tallest—wins U.S. government grant

2019-05-16T14:18:00-04:00

A downtown Milwaukee high-rise has found support from an unlikely source: the United States Department of Agriculture. The department’s Forestry Service division announced this week that it had awarded 41 grants totaling $8.9 million to businesses, universities, non-profits and tribal partners in 20 states to “create jobs, support fire-safe communities, restore healthy forest conditions, and spur environmentally sound innovation.”

Part of the grant will be allocated to Ascent, a potentially record-breaking mass timber tower in Milwaukee proposed by New Land Enterprises (previously on Archinect).

Image: Korb + Associates Architects.

"The funds will be used to support engineering work on the proposed 21-story, 201-unit apartment building," reports Jeramey Jannene for Urban Milwaukee. "New Land is partnering with Korb + Associates Architects on the building’s design and New York-based Thornton Tomasetti on the building’s structural engineering."

Meanwhile north of the U.S.-Canada border, another timber tower proposal in Vancouver, the Perkins+Will-designed Canada Earth Tower, promises to rise up to 40 stories and become the "world's next tallest wooden skyscraper."

Proposed 21-story timber tower in Milwaukee would be Western Hemisphere's tallest wood building

2018-10-11T13:34:00-04:00

New Land Enterprises has announced a bold plan to build a 21-story mass timber apartment building in East Town. If completed, the building, known as Ascent, would be the tallest timber structure in the Western Hemisphere according to the company. The news comes just months after New Land released plans to build a seven-story mass timber office building, the city’s first, along the Milwaukee River in Westown.

The timber tower scheme was designed by Milwaukee-based Korb + Associates Architects with structural engineering input from Thornton Tomasetti. If completed as proposed, the 21-story residential building would rise 238 feet—considerably more than the currently tallest timber building in the Americas.

Image: Korb + Associates Architects.