Archinect - News

Washington University in St. Louis launches search for next architecture director

2023-10-04T15:29:00-04:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Senior Project Manager at The Menil Collection, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an opportunity on Archinect Jobs for the Director of the College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis.

The role, based in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, calls for an individual who will “provide leadership to elevate pedagogy and research within the College and across the university, as well as recruit and retain exceptional faculty in their fields.” Candidates for the position will ideally hold a terminal degree in one of the disciplines taught within the school and “demonstrate a track record of research, creative practice, or significant equivalent professional activity appropriate for appointment as a full professor with tenure.”

Archinect Feature: Investigating the Histories and Futures of Water-Based Crises with Nathan Stanfield, ...

SOM's all-inclusive Kansas City terminal brings air transport design 'far into the future'

2023-02-28T17:04:00-05:00

This week, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is debuting a new civic landmark for the Kansas City area they claim will also set a new benchmark for inclusive design in transportation architecture while bringing its 51-year-old airport “far into the future.”

The new, 39-gate terminal comes with an adjacent 6,000-space parking garage designed by BNIM and importantly consolidates three smaller terminals into a single two-story structure. With room to expand by another 11 gates in the coming years, its layout keys on user circulation and comes with a series of design features in line with the city’s resolution to make it the “most accessible in the world.”

Image: © Lucas Blair Simpson | Courtesy of SOM

Under a hemlock-clad ceiling overhang, both levels of the light-filled, 1.1 million-square-foot I-shaped structure come with a series of locally-designed mosaics made from materials preserved from its predecessor building in order to preserve its memory. The products of an intensive commun...

Drury architecture students build homeless shelter that plays on light and color

2022-05-17T11:54:00-04:00

Architecture students at Drury University have unveiled a new shelter designed and built to aid the homeless community in Springfield, Missouri. Situated at the Revive 66 Campground, a local site offering nightly stays for unhoused people, the project is designed to offer a more spacious alternative to the teardrop trailers predominantly used in the grounds.

Photograph by Traci Sooter FAIA

Outside, the shelter’s exposed timber structure and cladding are brought to life by a multicolored window forming a second skin around the patio. Inside, the cabin is designed with a full-sized bed to accommodate couples and enable ADA-compliant accessibility for wheelchair users. Heating is provided through an electric radiant floor system, supported by highly-insulated walls, floors, and ceilings.

Photograph by Traci Sooter FAIA

“The structure honors the role of community in helping to provide dignity for those that so often encounter the indignities of poverty and homelessness,” said Traci Soote...

Interboro Partners, H3 Studio among designers of 17-acre “Nature Playscape” for Forest Park, St. Louis

2019-07-16T19:34:00-04:00

“We want this to be an evolving place for people to come back again and again,” said [Lesley Hoffarth, president and executive director of Forest Park Forever]. It will change with the seasons and change as people decide how to use it, she said.

Having easier access to green urban spaces and thoughtfully sprucing up public parks would ideally be higher priorities for cities across the U.S. In Missouri, nonprofit conservancy Forest Park Forever and the City of St. Louis celebrated the groundbreaking yesterday of the upcoming 17-acre Nature Playscape in historic Forest Park, located in the western part of town.

Scheduled to open in 2020, Nature Playscape is being built to encourage local residents of all backgrounds to get outdoors and allow kids and their developing minds to engage with nature and reap the benefits of spending time outdoors. The project is the first of its kind at this scale in the region.

The Meadow at the Forest Park Nature Playscape. Image courtesy of Forest Park Forever.

A team of landscape architecture and play-space experts that included the Natural Learning Initiative, H3 Studio, Interboro Partners, and Rubus Landscape Architecture developed and designed the project in collaboration with Forest Park F...

St. Louis' Gateway Arch reopens with a new name and a new museum that reexamines the history of U.S. western expansion

2018-07-03T17:30:00-04:00

The name change, however, also reflects two facts that have long bedeviled the arch and its role within the National Park Service. Saarinen’s soaring arc of steel is an icon of the automobile age, an attraction that has always been more about playing to the passing audience of the interstates than any particular relevance to the idea of national expansion. It also honors historical events that are now understood as deeply problematic within the larger trajectory of American history.

It's a big day for the city of St. Louis, which is celebrating the grand reopening of the Gateway Arch. The monumental renovation project includes a new name — the Gateway Arch National Park, a new museum, and a major redesign of the park's urban landscape. The exhibitions inside the museum reexamine moments in the city's history, the consequences of the U.S.'s westward expansion, and the design and construction of the Arch.

You can see the new museum come to life in EarthCam's construction time-lapse video below.

BNIM restores Kansas City's century-old Westport Presbyterian Church

2017-06-06T20:11:00-04:00

Completed in 1905 in one of Kansas City, Missouri's oldest neighborhoods, the Westport Presbyterian Church was in dire need of repair after suffering from a catastrophic fire in 2011. Undertaking all the technical challenges that come with a project of this nature, architecture practice BNIM worked with the congregation to successfully preserve the Church's most sacred elements while creating a new, dynamic space for the community.

Photo © Michael Robinson.

The church's exterior limestone shell survived the fire, while its roof structure, interior structure, and finishes were destroyed. Following an analysis of the existing 27,000 square-foot building, BNIM restored the most significant elements in the original structure: the sanctuary, chapel, second floor, and basement. On the other hand, a second building first grafted to the church's east side in 1916 had to be fully reconstructed. BNIM also redesigned the storefront facing Westport Road to be more welcoming and easily accessible....

Make it rain as you sit on rocking chairs inside the Cloud House

2017-03-21T21:09:00-04:00

Not far from the hustle and bustle of Farmers Park in Springfield, Missouri, the Cloud House is a getaway spot where anyone can sit and enjoy a few moments of peace and relaxation as you listen to the (somewhat simulated) sound of a gentle rain, as if you were sitting on the porch of a rural farm away from it all.

Designer Matthew Mazzotta developed the idea for the Cloud House during a two-month artist residency at Farmers Park. Mazzotta and his project team built the house from reclaimed barnwood and tin obtained from a nearby abandoned Amish farm, and its gutter system is modeled after the natural water cycle. During rainy days, the house collects rainwater as it hits the tin roof and into the storage tank underneath.

Diagram via Matthew Mazzotta.

Sitting in the rocking chairs inside the house triggers a pump that brings the rainwater up into the cloud, which will then release the water onto the tin roof and produce that pleasant pitter-pattering sound of rain hitting the roof.

The...

One of the best long reads of 2016 explores the demise of a medieval U.S. city

2016-12-14T18:20:00-05:00

Each generation likes to think it is unique, or at least living on the cutting-edge; but archaeologists have long known that history has a way of repeating itself. Although North America is often considered to be part of the "New World," inhabitations on this continent date back millennia. In this fascinating piece by Annalee Newitz for Ars Technica (whose length is perfect for plane reading) archaeologists uncover new sections of the lost city of Cahokia, which flourished between 1100 and 1400 A.D. in an area that is currently known as East St. Louis. A city of 30,000 that was more populous than Paris at the time, the pyramid and earthern-mound laden city went through all the statutte-endowed stages of societal refinement before taking the low road into ritual sacrifice and random trash fires. Sound familiar?

For more on the ancient world:

Washington University in St. Louis to phase out styrene next fall, students express mixed reactions

2016-04-19T13:10:00-04:00

Many current architecture students are excited about the removal of styrene mainly because of the various health hazards...[However,] others are worried that it will negatively impact their work and productivity. Sophomore Sam Landay explained that it’s not uncommon for architecture students to put their projects before their health. Even outspoken opponents of styrene admit the necessity of utilizing the material.

Make It Right reveals new family-housing designs for Kansas City

2015-02-03T23:12:00-05:00

Make It Right, the non-profit organization founded by actor Brad Pitt in 2007, recently revealed six new single-family housing designs for the Manheim Park neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri. The single-family homes will be built on vacant lots directly across the Bancroft School Apartments, an affordable housing and community complex that Make It Right collaboratively built in 2013 to provide homes for young people transitioning out of foster care, seniors, and families in need.

Six local architecture firms designed each of the houses in collaboration with the Manheim Park Neighborhood Association and homeowners in the community.

Cover image: El Dorado Inc.

BNIM Architects:

DRAW architecture + urban design:

Hufft Projects:

KEM Studio:

Pendulum Studio:

You can support the project through donations.

A Failed Public-Housing Project Could Be a Key to St. Louis' Future

2014-08-25T14:53:00-04:00

Today the Pruitt-Igoe site is once again in the spotlight, but this time because of a new bid to “get the economic flywheel going in the right direction again,” in the words of private developer Paul McKee, the force behind the proposed NorthSide Regeneration project. [...] The lynchpin of it all would be to get the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency—the high-tech eyes and ears of the Defense Department—to relocate to where the towers of Pruitt-Igoe once stood.

Get Lectured: Drury University '14

2014-02-27T12:49:00-05:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter/Spring 2014

Archinect's Get Lectured is up and running again for the Winter/Spring '14 term! As a refresher from our Fall 2013 guide, every week we'll feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current season. If you're not doing so already, be sure to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

Since we've been receiving more submissions lately, we're gonna show off posters more often — and so you can see what events are happening in architecture schools right now!

Our poster for today features the Design 360 lecture series from the Drury University Hammons School of Architecture in Springfield, Missouri.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Don't miss out on HSA's last two lecture events for the year. Lectures begin at 3:00 PM at the HSA Auditorium.

MARCH

March 3
Gulla Jonsdottir / G+ Gulla Jonsdottir Desi...