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Royal Ontario Museum unveils renovation design by Hariri Pontarini Architects

2024-02-14T19:50:00-05:00

Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum has unveiled plans for a renovation of its Daniel Libeskind-designed Michael Lee-Chin Crystal expansion, which opened in 2008. Led by Canadian firm Hariri Pontarini Architects, the OpenROM project is being enacted to expand its public offerings to an anticipated 1.4 million visitors annually.

The brief calls for a reconfiguration of its main floor, plus the addition of upper-level gallery spaces and the reimagining of an existing entrance on Bloor Street. A new water feature will be added to the heritage facade surrounding the building on Bloor Street and Queen’s Park, punctuated by a cantilevered bronze canopy. A total of 4,000 square feet of programmable public spaces will be added through the overall design.

Image courtesy Hariri Pontarini Architects

Also part of the project is the addition of a four-story atrium called The Hennick Commons. The atrium will be serviced by a multi-level adjacent lily pad feature staircase replete with viewing platform...

Studio Libeskind completes new Maggie's Centre design in London

2024-02-05T18:57:00-05:00

Studio Libeskind has completed work on its design for a new Maggie’s Centre cancer treatment facility at the Royal Free Hospital in north London.

The 4,886-square-foot design follows well-known contributions from Foster + Partners, Steven Holl, and Heatherwick Studio as an example of its client’s mission to provide patients with world-class settings in which to receive their care. The project is now the 24th Maggie’s Centre completed in the UK since 1996.

Photo: Hufton + Crow

The studio says its design is arranged for the free-flowing movement of patients and their caretakers while giving equal consideration to the needs for both privacy and socialization.

Photo: Hufton + Crow

In terms of building form, the Centre is curvilinear in contrast with the surrounding brick-and-mortar buildings on the NHS campus. The design was realized on a small plot that was once a parking lot. As such, its volume expands upwards from the ground floor clad in weathered timber panels and sheathed in glaz...

Studio Libeskind unveils preliminary design for Tree of Life synagogue shooting memorial in Pittsburgh

2023-12-08T15:16:00-05:00

Preliminary designs for Studio Libeskind’s long-awaited 10/27 Memorial at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh have officially been announced following a sensitive design consultation with families of the victims of the tragic 2018 mass shooting that left eleven worshipers dead and six more injured.

“The journey to unveiling the preliminary memorial designs has been a long and emotional one, but I am grateful for a process that prioritized our hopes that our loved ones are remembered for how they lived, not solely for how they were murdered,” said Diane Rosenthal, a member of the Memorialization Working Group who lost two siblings in the attack, which stands as the deadliest antisemitic hate incident in American history.

A March 2022 rendering of the Tree of Life project depicting the expanded building. Image: Studio Libeskind

The group, which represents all three congregations included within the 70-year-old synagogue, was also able to visit the memorial to passengers of Flight ...

Daniel Libeskind completes senior housing development on Long Island

2023-09-20T17:59:00-04:00

Studio Libeskind has shared photos of its recently completed senior housing project on Long Island.

Located in the village of Freeport in Nassau County, the new Allan and Geraldine Rosenberg Residence holds a total of 45 units reserved for residents aged 55 and older, along with a selection of on-site supportive services and other amenities meant to improve its users' quality of life and ability to age in place as part of the state’s larger $25 billion push to create 100,000 units of affordable housing.

Declaring “Senior housing isn’t just about accommodation; it’s about people. It’s about creating a residence where residents can feel happy, secure, and emotionally connected to their neighbors,” the studio’s founder was joined by New York Governor Kathy Hochul for this week’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. The project reserves a total of 30% of the apartments for disabled and formerly homeless seniors, and sustainability is ensured thanks to rainwater collection, efficient HVAC, and all-e...

Studio Libeskind’s Nokia Arena takes center ice in Finland

2021-12-16T13:13:00-05:00

An exciting new development is coming to one of the Nordic region’s most up-and-coming small cities as Studio Daniel Libeskind gets set to drop the puck tomorrow on a new ice hockey arena in Tampere, Finland.

Located along the intersection of a downtown railway axis, the mixed-use development also features hotel accommodations along with five residential towers meant to activate a downtown core that the firm characterizes as “the epitome of a thriving European City.”

Photo © Hufton+Crow

The 17,000-seat arena includes a casino and restaurant topped off by the hotel area and three luxurious rooftop saunas. Its curvilinear envelope suggests the speed and exhilaration of an attacking hockey forward on the power play, with variable cladding that breaks up the mass perfectly, culminating in a glass facade at ground level to meet both visitors and the city in the center of a well-organized urban scale development.

Photo © Hufton+Crow

“The Nokia Arena creates a new landmark for the city with ...

Daniel Libeskind designs a new mixed-use complex at the heart of Germany’s film industry

2021-11-16T15:11:00-05:00

Following up on recent superlative creations in Poland, Kenya, and Chile, Studio Daniel Libeskind is back with a proposed design that would bring a new media arts complex to the German city of Potsdam, just south of Berlin.

Developer Jan Kretzschmar tapped the firm to create a filmmaking-inspired five-building program in what has been considered the epicenter of the German entertainment industry.

Per the architect: “The design concept is focused on creating human-scaled buildings that encourage community and flexible office and public spaces throughout. The design proposes a 66-meter-high (217 feet) circular office tower that anchors four lower-rise arc buildings of 44 and 22 meters. The lower, wider buildings are to be built at the front of the street, with the higher tower set back from the street creating more open space.”

Image © Studio Daniel Libeskind

Spread out across an unused 94,000-square-meter (about 1 million square feet) site in the historic Babelsberg district of Potsd...

The full weight of history: Daniel Libeskind's brick memorial to Dutch Holocaust victims opens Sunday

2021-09-17T17:12:00-04:00

Daniel Libeskind will have the memory of an entire lost city on his mind at Sunday’s official unveiling ceremony of the National Holocaust Memorial of Names in Amsterdam.

“I grew up in Poland in Lodz, a city that had hundreds of thousands of Jews. There was nobody Jewish left. It taught that you should never give in to authoritarianism. You should never bow your head to fear,” the 74-year-old architect said in a recent interview about his forthcoming memorial for the victims of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018.

Image courtesy Studio Daniel Libeskind © Kees Hummel.

Libeskind took the memory of his birth city into his design for the Jewish Museum in Berlin, one of the architect’s first major commissions when it opened in 2001.

Image courtesy Studio Daniel Libeskind © Kees Hummel.

Now, 20 years later, Libeskind’s latest project pays tribute to the memory of the Dutch Jewish, Roma, and Sinti populations that fell victim to the Holocaust.

Image courtesy Studio Da...

Daniel Libeskind selected for renovation of Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, site of 2018 mass shooting

2021-05-04T13:25:00-04:00

Daniel Libeskind, an architect known for memorializing historical trauma, will turn the site of 11 deaths back into a home for worship as well as a place to learn about confronting hatred.

In the wake of the October 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left eleven worshipers dead and six more injured, the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation was faced with a long internal discussion about the future of its building. This week, the synagogue's leadership announced the selection of New York architect Daniel Libeskind, a son of Polish Holocaust survivors himself, to lead the renovation effort of the campus.

As the New York Times reports, the initiative will also create classrooms, a communal space, a Hall of Memories dedicated to the 2018 attack as well as spaces for exhibitions and public programs of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh.

"We must return," the paper quotes Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers of Tree of Life. "If we don’t, we give the message that evil won."

Daniel Libeskind designs Łódź Architecture Center in his native hometown

2021-04-21T19:24:00-04:00

Daniel Libeskind will be returning to his native hometown of Łódź, Poland, to create a series of cultural hubs throughout the city.

Dubbed Nexus21, the program features 21 unique interventions — ranging from buildings to urban spaces — to invigorate select neighborhoods spots, spur economic development, and pay tribute to the city's cultural, historical, and industrial heritage including architecture, textiles, fashion, and film.

Łódź Architecture Center, exterior. Image: Studio Libeskind.

"The 21 sites, mostly empty blocks and derelict structures, will be revitalized to create point investments that amplify the character and functionality of each site," explains the project description. "The plan targets the spaces in between buildings within the center of the urban plan to create a vibrant nexus between the old and the new while adding value to the historic neighborhoods of Łódź. The aim is to create a chain reaction of development across the city that enriches the public realm."

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First glimpse of Daniel Libeskind's design for Ngaren: Museum of Humankind in Kenya

2019-05-14T17:12:00-04:00

Studio Libeskind unveiled their design for the proposed Ngaren: Museum of Humankind in Loodariak, Kenya. Commissioned by Dr. Richard Leakey, a renowned Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician, the museum will be the first center of its kind that is dedicated to the research, discovery, and exploration of over 2 million years of human history. It'll also showcase Dr. Leakey's life work of fossil discoveries that have helped reveal the history of human evolution.

Working with local Kenyan architects, Studio Libeskind is overseeing the design and construction of Ngaren. The museum will emerge from within the dramatic landscape of Rift Valley, where Kamoya Kimeu — a member of a team led by Dr. Leakey — first made the significant discovery of Turkana Boy, which is the most complete early-human skeleton ever found by far.

Image courtesy of Studio Daniel Libeskind.

Described by Studio Libeskind as a vertical stalactite, the museu...

Studio Libeskind to redesign Museo Regional de Tarapacá for Chile's Regional Anthropological Museum of Iquique

2019-03-21T19:46:00-04:00

Studio Daniel Libeskind released a few images of their proposed design of the new Museo Regional de Tarapacá for the Regional Anthropological Museum of Iquique in northern Chile. The project is part of a larger development plan led by Mayor Mauricio Soria Macchiavello and his team.

Dubbed by the studio as “El Dragon de Tarapacá”, the new 3,760m2 building will replace the old museum built in 1892, which can currently display only 20 percent of their collection. Featuring the signature sharp, angular forms of a Libeskind building, the new museum's design was inspired by the Atapaca Desert's stark landscape and Iquique's urban dune, the “Cerro Dragon”. Exhibitions in the new building will display 6,000 years of northern Chilean history.

Courtesy of Studio Libeskind.

A sloped garden will lead up to the building's entrance hall, which will be topped by a cafe that overlooks the Southern coastline. Three pairs of parallel vertical walls shape the major space...

Inspiration from Italian ceramic and tile push architects and designers to submit their best ideas

2019-01-28T13:36:00-05:00

This post is brought to you by Ceramics of Italy Tile Competition

In its 26th year, the Ceramics of Italy Tile Competition challenges architects and designers to create outstanding works through the use of Italian ceramics and porcelain tile. A well known building material, ceramic and tile usage can be found through out architecture's historical timeline. As modern technology and advancement in building materials has progressed the beauty in ceramic and tiles still remains.

This year architects and designers are invited to submit their projects that utilize Italian ceramic tiles in an aesthetically beautiful, original, and functional way. Past winners of the competition include leading industry names such as Gensler, Cooper Carry, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Studio Libeskind, and more.

Last year's commercial category winner, Studio Libeskind, used 3D geometric-patterned stone tiles to accentuate the building's facade. The residential commission, Sapphire, was built in Berlin...