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Houston's Rothko Chapel breaks ground on 2026 expansion

2024-05-24T11:50:00-04:00

Houston’s iconic Rothko Chapel is expanding for 2026 and recently broke ground on Phase 2 of its $42 million campus plan. The initiative will yield two new buildings designed by Brooklyn-based Architectural Research Office (ARO) and an outdoor garden from Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects. The new buildings will stand at 6,600 and 3,800 square feet, respectively, and the entire project will be targeting LEED v4.0 certification.

Rendering courtesy of ARO

“On the heels of our recent 50th anniversary, the work also gives us a welcome opportunity to lift up and celebrate those who have contributed to the design, building, and stewardship of the Rothko Chapel, including the de Menils, Philip Johnson, Howard Barnstone, Gene Aubrey, Barnett Newman, and so many others. All of them shared a vision that brought together modern art and sacred space to promote human unity, solidarity, and justice. This vision is still as relevant today as it was 50 years ago, and I believe it will remain so...

Studio Gang to design new home for the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Upstate New York

2023-12-01T12:29:00-05:00

Studio Gang has revealed plans for the new home of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Upstate New York.

Located in the town of Garrison, the 13,850-square-foot performing arts space is set to become the first-ever LEED Platinum theater design in the United States when it is completed.

Nelson Byrd Woltz will provide landscaping for the site, a 98-acre former golf course that was donated to the company in 2020. Anchored by an open-air theater, the design frames the surrounding natural landscape to allow for actors to emerge from the topography.

Image courtesy Studio Gang

A timber-framed shell with wooden columns that supports the proscenium arch is carefully oriented to frame the surrounding Wey-Gat (or “Wind Gate”) for the audience and players. The remaining program calls for the construction of several small pavilions that will house the company's back-of-house operations, theater concessions, and standalone public restrooms. Costs of the project were not available at press ...

Architecture Research Office reveals plans for Frederic Church Center for Art and Landscape in Upstate New York

2023-09-21T19:38:00-04:00

Architecture Research Office (ARO), in partnership with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (NYS OPRHP) and The Olana Partnership (TOP), has today revealed a new plan for the Frederic Church Center for Art and Landscape at the Olana State Historic Site in Upstate New York.

The new Center is the centerpiece of a larger master plan designed in 2015 by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW). The scheme includes a restoration of the famed Hudson River School painter’s self-designed farm and homestead, which was constructed on the property between 1860 and 1900. ARO’s Center will serve as the new visitors arrival gateway overlooking the Catskills range at the site’s historic core, ensuring that their experience will be compatible with the surrounding landscape and vistas beyond.

Featuring a mass timber design, the total 4,500-square-foot structure includes a broad outdoor terrace and large bird-safe glazed windows. CLT roof panels combine with e...

The 'healing nature' of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects' new land bridge in Houston

2023-02-20T18:59:00-05:00

Named the Land Bridge and Prairie project, the new park was unveiled this weekend, when for the first time since the 1950s, visitors were able to cross over Memorial Drive and enjoy 1,500 acres of uninterrupted parkland at Memorial Park. Swelling like soft green mounds over a six-lane highway, the park is the latest example of how cities can mend the tears caused by disruptive roads without necessarily tearing them down.

Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects' Principal, Thomas Woltz, described his initial visit of the project’s site as a “post-nuclear landscape” when some 66 million trees suffered from a brutal drought in 2011. Since then, his firm has worked with city planners, archivists, and the Memorial Park Conservancy to consolidate the 20 disparate segments that had previously left the 1,500-acre park feeling “subdivided” to Houstonians.

Fast Company reports that "while the civic landscape was designed for people, the gently sloped nature of the mounds allows for small animals to cross over the highway as well (an underground stream allows for aquatic animals to pass under the highway, too.)"

With the addition of the land bridge, Houston joins Los Angeles County and San Francisco as communities aiming to adopt solutions for local wildlife to be able to move about freely. The total costs for the Land Bridge and Prairie project was funded by a $70 million donation from the local Kinder Foundat...

Selldorf unveils plans for a remade Shaker Museum campus in Upstate New York

2021-06-29T14:11:00-04:00

Plans for the new home of Upstate New York’s Shaker Museum have been unveiled this week, offering the public a glimpse at the multimillion-dollar makeover that has given new life to a restored former Hudson Valley hotel.

Selldorf Architects is responsible for the effort which will add some much-needed shelf space allowing the museum’s 18,000 objects and artifact collection to be properly displayed. The collection had not been on view in over a decade and will now be hosted by a new modern building and remade Victorian-era hotel on Austerlitz Street in the artistically significant village of Chatham.

Renderings of Shaker Museum, Designed by Selldorf Architects

The plan was announced in August and will now join the firm’s list of recent high-profile museum restorations that has included projects for the Frick and LUMA Arles collections. The museum’s offices and permanent collection will be relocated from nearby Old Chatham and will showcase great American design. The museum also owns ...

Henning Larsen unveils design for Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

2020-08-22T13:20:00-04:00

Henning Larsen with Nelson Byrd Woltz have unveiled their design for the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. The design team is one of the three finalists for a competition held by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation. the other two finalists include Snøhetta and Studio Gang.

Located in the rich landscapes of the North Dakotan Badlands, Henning Larsen's design takes its inspiration from its environment. "There is a unique and awe-inspiring beauty to everything about the Badlands that you simply cannot experience anywhere else," said Michael Sørensen, design lead and Partner at Henning Larsen in a statement. "The landscape only fully unfolds once you are already within it; once you are, the hills, buttes, fields, and streams stretch as far as you can see."

The building is comprised of four volumes that each shape a formal reference to the geography of the Badlands. The focal point of the collection of structures is the Legacy Beacon, a tower that becomes a visi...

ARO's renovated Rothko Chapel set to reopen in September

2020-05-19T13:46:00-04:00

With the renovation and expansion of the Rothko Chapel campus in Houston nearing completion, project organizers have announced that the sacred art space will reopen to the public in September.

The renovation is being designed by New York City-based Architecture Research Office and includes a series of preservation- and climate-minded fixes for the space that will "more closely align the building with the original vision of Mark Rothko and John and Dominique de Menil, the Chapel’s founders," according to a press release.

Rendering courtesy of Architecture Research Office.

The $30 million Open Spaces master plan for the chapel campus aims to offer "a space for ecumenical and interfaith celebration and contemplation, as well as to foster community engagement on critical social issues." The project seeks to continue the space's decades-long function as a space for international peace and spirituality by modernizing and building in resilience to the chapel and its surrounding site.

For t...

Introducing the 2016 AZ Awards jury members

2016-02-19T13:40:00-05:00

Leading Canadian contemporary architecture publication Azure Magazine is gearing up for another year of the AZ Awards. The annual awards give today's architects, practices, manufacturers, and students a chance to get their best work widely recognized. All designers of all design disciplines are invited to compete — you never know, you might win an award! If you didn't already submit, you have until next Friday, February 26 (the new extended deadline).

Recently, Azure Magazine revealed the five jury members you'll have to impress for the 2016 competition. They are:

Chris Wilkinson, founding principal of Wilkinson Eyre
Anna Simone, co-founder and partner of Cecconi Simone
Thomas L. Woltz, principal of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
John Tong, founder and lead designer of +tongtong, formerly of 3rd Uncle Design
Omer Arbel, creative director of Bocci

Read more about the jury here. To submit and find out more about the AZ Awards, visit awards.azuremagazine.com.

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Winners of the Dwell Vision Award 2013

2013-11-14T21:10:00-05:00

Dwell Media recently honored the finalists at the Dwell Vision Award 2013 ceremony at the historic Jane's Carousel in DUMBO in Brooklyn, New York. The DVA acknowledges the best of progressive technical and artistic innovation in modern design.

One winner and two finalists were selected out of nearly 300 entries from top architecture firms to emerging designers.

Winner: Harvest Dome 2.0 by Amanda Schachter and Alexander Levi - SLO Architecture
Finalist 1: Building with Bed Frames by Bundit Kanisthakhon - Tadpole Studio
Finalist 2: Orongo Station by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects

Learn more about Harvest Dome 2.0 in this article here on Archinect.