Archinect - News

Venus Williams will be a keynote speaker at the AIA Conference on Architecture

2021-06-15T07:58:00-04:00

This year’s AIA Conference on Architecture just got an unexpected celebrity guest.

Tennis legend Venus Williams will be the keynote speaker at this year’s edition of the conference, where she will deliver a lecture titled ‘The Need for Change.’

Williams, who has long been seen as a champion of gender and racial equity, has made a name for herself in architectural circles lately after starting her own interior design firm V Starr in 2002. The Florida-based firm made waves earlier this year for its reworking of sister Serena’s 14,500 square foot Spanish-style mansion in Miami that included an infinity pool, 620 square foot closet, Gaggenau appliances, wine cellar, and white-walled gallery space meant to showcase the superlative collection the younger Williams has amassed over her three decade career.

The 40-year-old former grand slam champion has also partnered with Airbnb affiliate Niido on the design for the interior of their eponymous apartment complexes, which began operation in 2...

Carlo Ratti Associati proposes vertically-stacked tennis court tower

2020-12-04T13:05:00-05:00

Italian design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) unveils their latest concept design, a 300 ft tall (90 meter) tennis tower. In collaboration with Italo Rota, the project was developed for sport and media company RCS Sport. Besides its intent to house eight tennis courts, what makes the design intriguing is its structural design, which CRA shares, "a solution inspired by the outer shell of a spacecraft."

Lightweight stainless-steel sandwich structure, developed by the company Broad Sustainable Building (BSB). Image and text courtesy of CRA. Renders by CRA/Gary di Silvio.

The stacked tennis courts are layered vertically using a lightweight stainless-steel sandwich structure. Its design approach aims to promote safe and efficient deployment practices thanks to its prefabricated construction.

CRA found Carlo Ratti shares in a statement, "This project would not just create a new icon for sports lovers, it also experiments with a new type of public space, extending vertic...

Serena Williams helps build schools for the underprivileged

2019-12-13T14:24:00-05:00

In a recently released video, Williams donned a pair of jeans, workboats, a hardhat and went to work on Salt Marsh Elementary School in Trelawny Parish, Jamaica. Williams, who has won a total of 39 Tennis Grand Slams – including Doubles titles, has also built grade schools in Uganda, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. Williams built the Marsh Elementary through a partnership with the nonprofit Helping Hands Jamaica, while the schools in Africa were in conjunction with Build Africa.

The work is part of the mission of Williams' Serena Williams Fund and her other charitable efforts, which include the Serena Williams Venture, an organization that seeks to incest in companies that embrace diverse leadership, individual empowerment, creativity, and opportunity, reports Black Press USA.

According to the Helping Hands Jamaica website, the foundation seeks to improve the lives of the next generation of Jamaicans and their communities by creating a world-class education system through investment in infrastructure, resource materials and expertise.

Matt Rossetti on tennis design

2019-09-05T14:00:00-04:00

Sports journalist Tim Newcomb has penned an intriguing exploration of tennis stadium design, looking at the architecture through the work of Matt Rossetti, an architect and established expert in this typology.

Rossetti started in tennis design in 1990 with his father's architecture firm, Rossetti Architects. Now the president of the firm, Rosetti still seeks to push the envelope in tennis design. "We are trying to redefine the tennis stadium every time," Rossetti expressed in Newcomb's article, acknowledging the tendency architects tend to have to repeatedly reinvent something.

Miami Open Tennis Complex. Rossetti Architects. Photo by Rafael Gamo

Newcomb dives into Rossetti's innovative design of the 2019 Miami Open that was held in the Hard Rock Stadium. Here, Rossetti introduced a temporary pop-up stadium within the existing 65,000-seat football stadium. "I think about what we did for the Miami Open and I think a lot of people are going to look at that as a future trend, where you c...

New $150M PTFE membrane roof at Arthur Ashe Stadium blocks the rain but not the noise

2016-09-06T12:59:00-04:00

Watch professional tennis, and you'll notice that silence makes up a significant part of the game, to the point where spectators can hear the bounce of the ball each time it lands on the playing surface. The acoustics of the new Rossetti Architects-designed roof for the Arthur Ashe stadium, which reportedly is amplifying crowd conversations when it it closed as well being so noisy during a recent rainstorm that according to John McEnroe it's "hard to hear yourself think," are problematic. Ironically, the 210,00 square foot PTFE membraned retractable roof was installed partly to avoid rain delays during play. As BusinessInsider.com notes:

"It turns out that even casual conversations among fans were amplified as the noise reverberated inside. The roof was eventually fully closed during the second set, and the atmosphere reportedly sounded more like a ballpark and not like a tennis venue the players are used to."

Bi-parting Fixed Fabric Shell

For more in sporty architectural news:

HOK wi...

Rio cancels construction contract for unfinished Olympic tennis center – 200 days before the games open

2016-01-15T13:01:00-05:00

The city of Rio de Janeiro canceled the construction contract for the Olympic tennis center on Thursday, just 200 days before the start of the games, fining the consortium responsible for delays and breach of contract for the mostly finished venue. [...] Rio City Hall, which is responsible for the construction, did not say how the tennis center, which is 90-percent complete, will be finished.

MVRDV completes The Couch, their eighth project in Amsterdam

2015-10-14T14:51:00-04:00

On the artificial IJburg island east of Amsterdam, the local Tennisclub IJburg now has an ultra modern clubhouse known as The Couch, designed by MVRDV and Studio Bouwkunde. Construction began later than originally announced last April and the building recently opened its doors to the public. Despite what one might assume, the new clubhouse won't serve as the central hub for the club's activities.

The finished design stayed true to the renderings. Aside its brick-red polymer-sprayed exterior and coordinating tennis courts, the 36-meter long clubhouse features a 322 m2 rooftop that dips in the center toward the south side of the building, and then ascends to the north side to a height of 7 meters. The rooftop therefore creates a tribune with terraced seating that can "comfortably" seat up to 200 spectators, as MVRDV describes.

Visitors lounging on the roof can watch a match in the center court or catch views of the IJburg on the other side. Anyone passing by the clubhouse can make a pit...

MVRDV to start construction on The Couch, a club house for Tennisclub IJburg in Amsterdam

2013-11-15T19:52:00-05:00

Upon receiving approval, construction of MVRDV's The Couch is set to begin this month. The Couch is a club house that the Dutch firm designed together with co-architect Studio Bouwkunde for IJburg, a growing tennis club established in 2010 on an artificial island in Amsterdam.

Images courtesy of MVRDV.