Archinect - News

SOM, Weiss/Manfredi, and Future Green's $336 million NJPAC redevelopment breaks ground in Newark

2024-09-20T11:05:00-04:00

Skidmore, Owings & Merril (SOM) have broken ground on a new $336 million campus redevelopment at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in downtown Newark. The state’s largest city will receive a new 350-unit SOM-designed ArtSide apartment complex through the plan. Other key elements include new headquarters for legendary WBGO radio, Future Green Studio’s reimagined Chambers Plaza park area, and the 58,000-square-foot Cooperman Family Arts Education and Community Center from Weiss/Manfredi.

ArtSide. Image: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, courtesy of NJPAC.

SOM had created the NJPAC’s original master plan in 1988. Newark’s Mayor Ras Baraka commented: "The streets of Newark have always been steeped in the arts. This is a city where jazz and hip hop are in the breeze, and every wall without a mural is just a canvas no one’s yet claimed. The new neighborhood around NJPAC will fully embrace that dynamic spirit, bringing more housing, stores and gathering places to our already lively do...

Disneyland’s $1.9 billion campus expansion moves toward approval

2024-03-14T11:54:00-04:00

The LA Times and other local outlets are reporting on the progress made by Disney towards eventually realizing an expansion of the existing plot of Disneyland, a move billed as generating multiple community benefits for the city of Anaheim.

The $1.9 billion DisneylandForward project does not call specifically for any new construction and will be executed within the resort's existing 500-acre campus. According to an assessment of the plan from the Disney Tourist Blog, “DisneylandForward is the company’s pitch to the public and City of Anaheim for more flexibility in the master plans from the 1990s in order to give the company greater autonomy over what to build and where.”

In line with founder Walt Disney's vision for a constant expansion of the resort, the plan presents the potential for both an "immersive new theme park" and a "new kind" of entertainment district possibly containing a hotel and cluster of retail, dining, and entertainment plots to be created in the east and west co...

Cooper Robertson unveils campus master plan for the University of Maryland

2024-01-10T13:54:00-05:00

Details of a new comprehensive master plan by Cooper Robertson for the University of Maryland’s flagship campus in College Park were revealed Tuesday by the firm following its initial announcement in March of last year.

By prioritizing strategies for “holistic growth,” the university says it will be able to meet its slate of strategic development goals that include increasing institutional resilience, achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2025, improving transit options and pedestrian access on campus, making facilities improvements, enhancing connectivity between the campus and D.C. metro region, and preparing for a more diverse future.

Rendering courtesy Cooper Robertson

“This plan builds on the University of Maryland’s role as an ambitious, forward-looking, and value-driven academic institution,” Cooper Robertson partner and UMD alum Mike Aziz said. “By embracing its legacy of distinction in a modern and strategic program, the university is setting a highly sustainable and lasti...

Harvard's new Enterprise Research Campus breaks ground in Boston

2023-11-14T18:59:00-05:00

A master plan project at Harvard University from Studio Gang, Henning Larsen, SCAPE, and Utile has begun construction in the Boston neighborhood of Allston.

The 36-acre Enterprise Research Campus (or ERC) will coalesce an area across the Charles River from the Ivy League campus into a new multi-use innovation district with designs from MVRDV, Moody Nolan, and Marlon Blackwell, in addition to the university's first above-ground mass timber structures from Studio Gang.

Once complete, its initial two phases will entail 14 acres of redeveloped land reserved for offices, labs, conference center, hotel, residential component, and open green space.

Image courtesy SCAPE

The effort was inaugurated in 2018 in the interest of creating a "gateway to a collaborative community," which is Boston's well-known consortium of knowledge industries.

Studio Gang founding principal and partner, Jeanne Gang, said her team’s plan has "provided a framework for a vibrant and inclusive public realm that bring...

Foster + Partners releases Ellison Institute of Technology campus designs in Oxford

2023-10-16T17:09:00-04:00

Foster + Partners has unveiled renderings for a new scientific research and development facility design located in Oxford, UK.

The project to establish a new home for the eight-year-old Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) comprises a 30,000-square-meter (323,000-square-foot) central research laboratory, oncological wellness institute, and restoration of existing buildings. Its creation positions the institute, which also operates out of Los Angeles, for better collaborations with Oxford University and the city’s biotech and technology industries. The EIT says it will also aid with the launch of its new Ellison Scholars program, which was initiated earlier this year.

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

The scope of its design entails connecting the restored single-volume Littlemore House to new pavilions located at the easternmost edge of the site in order to create a larger C-shape footprint surrounding a landscaped courtyard that’s built over a sunken 200-seat auditorium and culminat...

SOM will deliver new $700 million climate center to NYC’s Governors Island

2023-04-24T15:18:00-04:00

A new 400,000-square-foot climate campus scheme for New York City’s Governors Island has been unveiled by SOM and Mayor Eric Adams at the close of a two-year competitive bids process for a project that is expected to support cutting-edge environmental research while creating green jobs and educational opportunities for future generations.

Image: SOM/Brick Visual, courtesy New York Mayor's Office.

Image: SOM/Miysis, courtesy New York Mayor's Office.

Stony Brook University is leading the New York City Exchange development, which will also add $1 billion in economic benefits to the city. The university will partner with a list of 15 schools and organizations, including IBM, Georgia Tech, and Oxford University, and offer space to 30 other entities from the non-profit sector, all with expertise that touches on the development’s core program areas of environmental justice, water rights, workforce development, education, and labor.

Image: SOM/Brick Visual, courtesy New York Mayor's Office.

I...

Cooper Robertson will develop master plan for a campus expansion at the University of Maryland, College Park

2023-03-09T13:19:00-05:00

Cooper Robertson has been announced to lead the master planning for a campus facilities expansion at the University of Maryland’s flagship campus in College Park.

As part of their contract, the firm will deliver “flexible, data-driven, and inclusive comprehensive planning framework that will guide strategic growth and development” at the 1,340-acre campus. The project will target the development of currently-available land, while enhancing connectivity to the surrounding community and improving multi-modal transportation along sustainability lines and with several capital improvement projects integrated therein.

Cooper Robertson partner Mike Aziz says it helps the university retain its character as a “ambitious, forward-looking, and value-driven academic institution.”

Image courtesy University of Maryland, College Park

This is the second of a three-phase project which includes a draft development plan and will be followed by a final approval in June. The firm has also completed simi...

Howard University begins Myrtilla Miner Building restoration, initiating $785 million campus master plan

2023-02-10T14:35:00-05:00

To kick off February, Howard University President Wayne A.I. Frederick announced at a groundbreaking ceremony the start of extensive renovations to the school’s historic, 109-year-old Myrtilla Miner Building. This restoration marks the start of Howard University’s $785 million Central Campus Master Plan, the largest campus development project in the school’s history.

As noted by Howard University, preservation and sustainability are at the core of the institution’s real estate development initiatives. When renovations are complete, the Miner Building will serve as a shared space for the university's School of Education and Middle School of Mathematics and Science.

Work will be conducted mainly on the building’s interior. Significant architectural features, such as the building’s two-story arched windows, limestone baseboards in corridors, and two grand staircases that rise from the ground floor to the second floor, are being preserved.

Previously on Archinect: Howard University an...

Gensler’s Culver Crossings Apple campus proposal goes under the planning microscope in Culver City

2022-11-09T16:05:00-05:00

Apple, currently the world's most valuable company based on market capitalization, faces a key test in its bid to construct a new office campus in Southern California, when the project goes before the Culver City Planning Commission this week for consideration.

Gensler’s plans for the new 536,000-square-foot campus were first revealed last October and will reportedly entail office spaces, production suites, and a 1,200-spot parking structure spread across three subterranean levels beneath the 4.5-acre site at Venice and National Boulevards. The project will be constructed in two phases culminating in Q4 of 2024 and 2025, respectively. An environmental study from the city mentioned Apple’s intention to assign 2,400 employees to the site by the time the project opens in 2026.

Gensler has also previously completed designs for TikTok’s new headquarters in Culver City, the speculative C3 office development, and the transformation of the historic Culver Studios for Amazon. The firm’s late founder was considered instrumental in developing some of the initial brick-and-mortar retail strategy for Apple after meeting Steve Jobs at a design conference in the early 1990s.

Perkins&Will will design a new STEM facility at Howard University

2022-10-28T17:43:00-04:00

A trio led by Perkins&Will has been selected to design a new STEM center for Howard University as part of the HBCU's well-publicized and long-overdue makeover.

The firm will collaborate with the local women- and BIPOC-owned firms K. Dixon Architecture and R. McGhee & Associates (both run by Howard alums) to deliver a seven-story new research facility that will eventually be shared by the university’s College of Engineering and Architecture and College of Arts & Sciences.

The team will renovate Howard’s historic C.B. Powell Building as part of the project, which university President Wayne A. I. Frederick called a “watershed moment” in the school’s 155-year history.

Image courtesy Perkins&Will

Howard is in the midst of a historic five-year $785 million master plan that will revitalize its campus with three new state-of-the-art academic buildings and other renovations in line with the federal government's larger $2.7 billion commitment to HBCUs that was first announced in March.

“The S...

Innovation is the key to 3XN and Itten+Brechbühl's new mass timber campus expansion in Switzerland

2022-08-18T09:00:00-04:00

A little more than 30 years after its opening in 1991, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Innovation Park in Ecublens, Switzerland, has announced a major campus expansion effort to be spearheaded by 3XN and the local studio Itten+Brechbühl (IB).

Their new masterplan, named Ecotype, includes 10 new mass timber structures and a smattering of biophilia-lined greenspaces that will gradually double the size of the entrepreneurial-oriented EPFL’s campus over the course of a ten-year timeframe. According to 3XN’s Jan Ammundsen, "Ecotope will be a campus that facilitates and generates disruptive innovative solutions by being the interface between EPFL and society at large."

Image render courtesy of 3XN.

The project is being undertaken in order to ensure that the 30 or so startups the Innovation Park produces annually will provide the physical spaces needed to thrive. The innovation park will be developed around six core "principles" of biophilia – "serendipity, modularity, ...

Student housing starts down sharply in 2022, expected to rebound for 2023 according to a new industry report

2022-06-28T16:56:00-04:00

A new report from the industry group RealPage indicates the extent to which the pandemic and certain societal trends related to higher education have impacted construction starts on private student housing developments nationwide.

The 175-school survey showed overall construction is now in a lag compared to the relative boom which took place throughout the 2010s when many colleges and universities adopted the more expensive luxury accommodation development model in an attempt to attract more undergraduates to campus.

Across the country, college enrollments are declining as smaller regional institutions continue to merge or shutter while prospective freshmen fail to matriculate onto campus altogether. This has coupled with the effects of the pandemic on the construction industry to create a nearly 50% decline in new beds (from 50,000 to 26,000) when compared to the industry...

Howard University announces historic $785 million investment to revitalize campus

2022-03-24T13:01:00-04:00

Howard University has announced a historic investment to build upon and revitalize its campus master plan. The University will invest $785 million to build three new state-of-the-art multidisciplinary academic buildings and renovate several existing structures. This is the largest construction real estate initiative in the school’s history.

The new academic centers include the Health Sciences Complex, which will house the College of Medicine, College of Dentistry, College of Pharmacy, and the College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences; the Center for Arts and Communications, which will house the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts and the Cathy Hughes School of Communications; and the STEM Center, which will house various STEM programs and disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, mathematics, and associated labs.

Previously, "Howard University's Bradford Grant named Instagram artist-in-residence at National Portrait Gallery"

“This is a watershed momen...

Cornell Tech celebrates Roosevelt Island Campus phase one completion

2022-02-24T14:33:00-05:00

Cornell Tech, Cornell University’s urban campus for technology research and education, has announced the completion of the first phase of its Roosevelt Island campus development in New York City. This news comes following the recent completion and opening of the Snøhetta-designed Verizon Executive Education Center and the Graduate Roosevelt Island Hotel in 2021.

The first three buildings at Cornell Tech, which opened in September 2017 include the Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Center, designed by Morphosis Architects, the TATA Innovation Center, designed by Weiss/Manfredi, and The House, designed by Handel Architects and developed by The Hudson Companies and Related Companies.

Previously on Archinect: Snøhetta completes two new buildings for Cornell Tech campus in New York

The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Center is the campus’s first academic building offering a variety of spaces designed to support different learning modes, while incorporating advanced sustainability features and comm...

New national study reveals post-Covid campus facility trends

2021-08-03T17:52:00-04:00

In a new national study conducted by the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) and Buro Happold’s higher education consulting group, brightspot, a series of notable findings reveal the major impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on how universities and colleges are planning for new facilities.

Called the Campus Facilities Inventory (CFI), the survey is used to provide facilities benchmarking data to colleges and universities in order to better inform their planning efforts. It asks institutions to provide space data as categorized by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and Facilities Inventory and Classification Manual (FICM). It was last undertaken in 2007. In the 2021 edition, a group survey of 88 higher-education institutions across the U.S. was conducted, gathering data on their buildings, as well as recent and planned changes to their facilities. The research also details changes over the last year and plans for the next three years.

Map of institu...

Disney is building a new regional campus in Orlando, relocating 2,000 employees from California

2021-07-20T09:21:00-04:00

The Walt Disney Co. said Thursday it planned to build a new regional campus in central Florida to house at least 2,000 professional employees who will be relocating from Southern California to work in digital technology, finance and product development.

Chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products, Josh D’Armaro, in a letter to employees, said the move would allow creative and business teams to be better integrated. The new campus will be located about 20 miles to the east of Disney World in a master-planned community called Lake Nona.

“Florida is known for its rich culture of hospitality and active lifestyle as well as a lower cost of living with no state income tax,” said D’Amaro in the employee letter.

It is set to be built over the next 18 months. Its exact location, size, and architect have yet to be announced.

Snøhetta and HGA selected to design new Parnassus Research and Academic Building at UCSF

2021-07-16T16:40:00-04:00

Snøhetta and HGA are teaming up to design the new Parnassus Research and Academic Building (PRAB) at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).

The approximately $700 million project will anchor a redesigned west end of the campus. The building is being accompanied by extensive site improvements in the surrounding area and a new hospital planned for the east end of the Parnassus Heights campus. Together, these projects are part of phase one of the Comprehensive Parnassus Heights Plan, a sweeping multi-decade revitalization of the campus.

The PRAB project will replace UC Hall, UCSF’s oldest building at Parnassus Heights, which was built in 1917. Preliminary plans for the building call for a 270,000-square-foot space with wet labs, computational labs, modern classrooms, and a nursing school, all supported by open spaces and other public realm improvements. 12,000 square feet will be set aside for education, allowing graduate students to work in labs and attend classes under ...

Studio Ma has been selected to lead the design for UNM's College of Fine Arts expansion

2021-07-05T19:44:00-04:00

An art school in New Mexico is banking on an ambitious plan that hopes a leading regional firm’s name power will drive a cultural revival in a state holding a pivotal place in the history of American art.

Studio Ma has been tapped to lead the design for the University of New Mexico’s College of Fine Arts new master plan that will incorporate a five-step holistic process to develop an expanded academic facility in collaboration with Albuquerque-based firm Dekker/Perich/Sabatini.

A university press announcement pointed to the studio’s prominence in the field as a reason for choosing the firm University Architect Amy Cobourn referred to as “talented and engaging.”

Arts Lab. Photo courtesy of the University of New Mexico.

Studio Ma has guided the efforts to Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix campus tower complex, a massive science center at ASU’s original Tempe location, and a graduate dormitory that opened in 2017 at Princeton.

“The University of New Mexico is a locus in the ...

Weyerhaeuser Campus: criticism is mounting against planned development of historic HQ

2021-02-10T16:54:00-05:00

Controversy over the former Weyerhaeuser campus in Federal Way continues, as those interested in preserving the historical site urge for “responsible” development while the owners hold firm to current development designs. The site [...] was purchased by Industrial Realty Group in 2016 for $70 million. [...] the nonprofit Save Weyerhaeuser Campus organization has advocated for environmental and historical preservation of the campus.

Completed in 1972, the Weyerhaeuser Company's iconic former corporate campus in Federal Way, WA was designed by landscape architect Peter Walker, founding principal of Sasaki, Walker and Associates (SWA) and PWP Landscape Architecture, and Edward Charles Bassett, partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM).

Photo: Joe Mabel/Wikimedia Commons

The Cultural Landscape Foundation has been advocating against the planned redevelopment, collecting letters of support from noteworthy institutions, landscape architects, architects, historians, scholars, and members of the public. A microsite was launched in support of the campaign.

BIG selected to design new Hopkins Student Center

2020-11-05T13:46:00-05:00

It appears to be a big week for student center design announcements: after Rice University revealed its pick of Adjaye Associates to replace the Rice Memorial Center in Houston with a three-story structure, now Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University presented renderings for the new Hopkins Student Center, designed by BIG.

Image by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

Dubbed "The Village," the proposal was chosen as the winner of an international design competition led by a special advisory committee which took into consideration more than 1,200 student, faculty, staff, and alumni responses to the four finalist design proposals.

BIG's competition team also includes Shepley Bulfinch as Architect of Record, Rockwell Group as Interior Architects, and Michael Van Valkenburg Associates as Landscape Architects.

Image by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

"The approximately 150,000-square-foot building will include spaces for relaxation and socialization, creative and performing arts spaces, student resources and sup...

Berggruen Institute signals new ambition for Herzog & de Meuron-designed Scholars' Campus in L.A.

2020-02-18T18:44:00-05:00

The Paris-born collector and billionaire Nicolas Berggruen says he is moving ahead with plans for his ambitious Berggruen Institute building, designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, that will rise on a plot of land in the Santa Monica Mountains, close to the Getty Center. He says, however, that no date has been set for the ground-breaking of the new venue, which will act as a base for the institute.

The Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute first unveiled the master plan for its "Scholars' Campus," designed by Herzog & de Meuron in collaboration with Michel Desvigne Paysagiste and Inessa Hansch Architecte as well as executive architect Gensler, in August 2017.

Backed by a $500 million endowment, the future campus is intended to rise on a small segment of a 447-acre site in the Santa Monica Mountains with the goal of becoming a private educational forum for scholars and thought leaders to interact.

The institute has now signaled its renewed commitment to the project with the announcement of the first cohort of artist fellows which includes Nancy Baker Cahill, Ian Cheng, Agnieszka Kurant, Martine Syms, and Pierre Huyghe, according to The Art Newspaper.

Gensler to design Walmart's new 350-acre campus in Arkansas

2019-08-29T18:15:00-04:00

With abundant natural daylight, expanded food offerings, convenient parking, fitness options, and an on-site childcare facility, Walmart’s new 350-acre campus in Bentonville, Arkansas, has ample amenities to attract next-gen talent...It’s a connected and sustainable campus where associates are inspired to do their best work, a place that reflects the company’s culture, and a campus that seamlessly integrates into the fabric of the local community.

Gensler has been named the Design Architect for the office buildings that will populate the new campus. The firm will also act as the Executive Architect for the overall campus design, leading a "team of consultants to create a campus that honors Walmart's history and amplifies the company's potential to impact the local community."

Amazon HQ2 — what else can it offer to NYC?

2018-12-28T16:23:00-05:00

For years, suburbia has offered these companies acres of disposable, cheap, anonymous office parks: mostly one- or two-story concrete structures surrounded by loads of surface parking. These sites minimized costs, maximized security and allowed companies to scale up, contract or split into different units quickly — at the same time they promoted sprawl and traffic jams and transformed once-quaint bedroom communities south of San Francisco into phenomenally expensive places to live.

Even though Amazon's search for its new headquarters' locations has ended all the talks and negotiations about the company's potential impact on the cities it will settle in — New York and Crystal City, Virginia—have only begun.

In ways, the choice comes as no surprise as tech platforms have been attracted to America's wealthy coastal cities, with their established cultures, universities and transit systems, for years. The intensifying expansion of the tech industry amidst urban landscape raises many questions about corporations' powers and rights in a city.

Michael Kimmelman of the NY Times notes that companies like Amazon, through their multi-billion biding process, should offer to satisfy more than just the city's growing need for new jobs. The author suggests options: "As for housing, the city’s regulatory and zoning policies are more responsible for driving up costs than tech companies. But, in an ideal world, Amazon would reverse what it did in Seattle and commit resources ...

Snøhetta to design Ford's new Michigan headquarters & campuses

2018-06-21T17:36:00-04:00

More details on Ford's adaptive reuse of Michigan Central Station reveal that Snøhetta has been commissioned as the lead designer as part of Ford's $1 billion capital improvements project. Tasked with re-envisioning the company's Headquarters and Research Campus in Dearborn, Michigan, the firm will also design Ford's new urban campus in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood.

Michigan Central Station renovation rendering. Image: Ford.

The Corktown Campus project, estimated to cover 1.2 million square feet, includes renovating the historic Michigan Central Station, which has been in disrepair for 30 years since Amtrak last used the train station. Spanning 500,000 square feet, the updated building will house Ford and partner company offices along with public spaces.

Michigan Central Station current state of disrepair.

The project also involves developing mixed-use facilities close to downtown Detroit. The plans include restaurant and retail spaces on the ground floor, with residential provis...

Steven Holl Architects breaks ground on new Winter Visual Arts Center at Franklin & Marshall College

2018-03-28T15:16:00-04:00

Yesterday, Steven Holl Architects broke ground on Franklin & Marshall College's new $29 million, four level, 35,000 square foot Visual Arts Building. The Susan & Benjamin Winter Visual Arts Center, named for the trustees who helped fund the project, will bring a wide range of teaching studios, galleries managed by the Phillips Museum of Art, classrooms, student and faculty work spaces, space for digital and analog film production and editing, and an 84-seat cinema that doubles as lecture hall and performance space.

Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.

Described by Holl as a "pavillion on the park," the design was heavily influenced by the numerous hundred-year-old-plus trees that populate the campus. "Raised kite-like into the trees, the building’s light profile is a concave response to the large diameters of the campus’ trees," describes the firm. Another prominent feature is a glass-enclosed forum in the center of the ground floor that will allow p...

ArtCenter College of Design presents 15-year master plan designed by Michael Maltzan Architecture & Tina Chee Landscape Studio

2017-11-06T14:12:00-05:00

The ArtCenter College of Design continues to move forward with a 15-year master plan for its two Pasadena campuses, with the release of a draft environmental impact report for the project. At completion, the Michael Maltzan- and Tina Chee Landscape Studio-designed expansion would increase the school's total enrollment from 2,000 full-time students to 2,500 full-time students, and its total staffing from 753 faculty to 994 faculty.

The City of Pasadena informs on its web page dedicated to the master plan project: "The ArtCenter College of Design (ArtCenter) proposes a 15-year Master Plan (the Project) that focuses growth on its South Campus, while providing for infrastructure improvements and building renovations on its Hillside Campus. The Project would be implemented in two phases, with Phase I occurring in the first five years of the Master Plan and Phase II occurring in the final ten years."

Image: Michael Maltzan Architecture, via artcenter.edu

More information can also be found on the school's ArtCenter Master Plan page.

Closer look at Zaha Hadid Architects' new hexagonal KAPSARC campus in Riyadh

2017-10-25T16:10:00-04:00

Emerging from the desert landscape of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Zaha Hadid Architects' new King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre (KAPSARC) recently opened its doors for the first time during Saudi Design Week 2017. With the late Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher as the architectural design leads, the 70,000m² building will serve as the new research and office campus for KAPSARC, a non-profit institution whose work includes developing economic frameworks and policies that aim to reduce environmental impact and overall cost of energy supply in various regions worldwide.

ZHA shared more project details, along with some stunning photos by Hufton+Crow below.

Zaha Hadid Architects designed the crystalline KAPSARC building with a cellular, partially modular layout that integrates different departments with interconnecting public spaces. The campus comprises five buildings: the Energy Knowle...

The Berggruen Institute unveils Herzog & de Meuron's masterplan for new Scholars' Campus in L.A.

2017-08-24T14:20:00-04:00

Plans for The Berggruen Institute's new Scholars' Campus in Los Angeles are shaping up. Most recently, the Institute unveiled the project masterplan designed by Herzog & de Meuron, who is working in collaboration with Michel Desvigne Paysagiste and Inessa Hansch Architecte, and executive architect Gensler.

Atop the Santa Monica Mountains, the linear masterplan aims to respond to the Institute's desire to respect and restore the landscape of its 447-acre site, as well as create a private educational forum for top scholars and thought leaders to interact. The plan also calls for preserving approximately 415 of the 447 acres for open space.

The main feature of the plan is a horizontal, rectangular building dubbed as the Frame, which, from afar, appears to float above the site. Hovering at 12 feet above the ground, the single-story Frame contains a large, central courtyard garden that shows off views of the surrounding landscape. Inside, the bu...

"Our architecture works harder than your architecture": Inside the city of Arcosanti

2016-10-06T13:03:00-04:00

Can cities be built not only to be harmonious with their environment, but to outperform traditional architecture? The residents of Arcosanti, Arizona, which is profiled in this video excerpt from the Atlantic, seem to think so. Part campus, part permanent dwelling, Arcosanti embraces the concept of "arcology," or the blending of ecology and architecture, to create a holistic, tightly engineered mini-metropolis:

The City of the Future

Coop Himmelb(l)au compares campus redesign of the University of Applied Arts Vienna to a "prison courtyard"

2016-07-11T14:05:00-04:00

After the University of Applied Arts Vienna chose a winner for its campus redesign competition in 2012, the proposal is just now being made a reality—much to the disappointment of another prominent Viennese institution, Coop Himmelb(l)au.

The University selected Riepl Kaufmann Bammer Architecktur’s design for a major renovation and expansion of its current buildings, totaling 9,500 square meters of new space. On July 6, the University broke ground on the project, and on July 8, Coop Himmelb(l)au’s communications office sent out an email decrying the design, comparing it to a “prison courtyard” and asking “does it necessarily have to be the worst project which will now be realized?”:

Commonly, Architecture is understood to be a three-dimensional imprint of content. Following this view, the rendering – boastfully called “inwards facing campus” – looks rather like a prison courtyard. If that image was a reflection of the University of Applied Arts’ curricula, one should definitely be con...