Archinect - News

Studio Gang updates progress on mass timber conference center at Harvard

2024-12-17T16:12:00-05:00

The new David Rubenstein Treehouse conference center project from Studio Gang for Harvard University has topped out near its campus in the Allston neighborhood of Boston.

What will become Harvard’s first-ever mass timber structure is included as part of the larger 36-acre Enterprise Research Campus (or ERC) development that was announced last summer along with designs from MVRDV, Moody Nolan, and Marlon Blackwell. It follows another creative higher ed timber design from Studio Gang, the new two-building campus expansion for the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco, which was unveiled in November.

University of Salford confirms demolition plans for first Stirling Prize winner

2024-11-13T11:04:00-05:00

CNN has confirmed the planned demolition of Stephen Hodder‘s RIBA Stirling Prize-winning Centenary Building at the University of Salford. A spokesperson from the university told the network: "While the Centenary Building has been part of our university estate for a number of decades, unfortunately its ageing infrastructure means it no longer meets modern standards and requirements. It has now been vacant for a third of its built life."

Speaking to his former client's plans for the building, which was the first RIBA Stirling winner in 1996, Hodder told AJ: "For a university that promotes its sustainability credentials, the intention to demolish surely undermines the credibility of its policy. We urge it to reconsider, and hope the architectural community and wider industry collectively exclaim its concerns."

University administrators had previously floated the idea of repurposing it into a K-12 facility before deciding on the demolition.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro reveal updated CCAT design for the University of New Mexico

2024-10-11T17:05:00-04:00

An update has been provided for the Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R)-led Center for Collaborative Arts & Technology (CCAT) design at the University of New Mexico’s main Albuquerque campus.

The $65 million project is 60,000 square feet in total, establishing a new gateway to campus at Stanford Drive and Central Avenue.

DS+R is working locally with the firm ROMA Architecture on what is the sole new construction realized as part of Studio Ma’s 2021 master plan for the College of Fine Arts.

Image courtesy Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R)

Inside the building, a 600-seat multi-purpose performance hall serves students and faculty alongside supportive "dynamic collaborative workspaces." A transparent "Super Lobby" is created by slicing through the three floating volumes horizontally at Level 2. A new, state-of-the-art ARTSLab with an in-house fabrication facility takes its place above it on the third level. These spaces match the design brief...

Robert A.M. Stern Architects to author renovation of Austin’s historic UT Tower

2024-10-10T11:28:00-04:00

Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) has signed on to a new higher education project for the University of Texas at Austin. The project to renovate the historic UT Tower (aka the 'Main Building') back to its original 1937 appearance will be completed by the end of summer 2027. Restoration of its exterior will begin next month. The listed budget for the project is $70 million.

Image: The University of Texas at Austin

RAMSA’s new Raclin Murphy Museum of Art opens at Notre Dame this December

2023-11-17T18:34:00-05:00

The University of Notre Dame’s new Raclin Murphy Museum of Art from Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) has announced an opening date of December 1st, completing the first phase of a multi-year plan that will advance research and foundational arts education offerings for students in South Bend, Indiana.

The design consists of a 70,000-square-foot neoclassical style building to house the university’s 31,000 object collection. A rectangular layout of 23 separate gallery spaces centers around a circular multi-story atrium and sculpture court, with the exhibitions of different world cultures stitched together into one “dialogue” connecting to an art historical timeline that totals approximately 4,000 years.

Image rendering courtesy of RAMSA

Notre Dame is, similar to Brown University, pursuing the project in the interests of re-affirming the role of arts education in its undergraduate curricula. The school says the new museum brings it on par with Yale, Stanford, and other comparable ins...

Robert A.M. Stern Architects adds to Notre Dame's arts educational offerings with modernizing Raclin Murphy Museum of Art redesign

2023-07-31T08:00:00-04:00

Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) has shared design details of the new Raclin Murphy Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame ahead of the project’s first phase opening in South Bend later this fall.

The 70,000-square-foot facility is built to hold a growing collection of over 31,000 art objects, one of the largest for an American university or college, in addition to featuring a slate of exhibition strategies designed to “encourage ongoing dialogues with works of art” for Notre Dame’s student body. As the firm’s brief stated, 91% of the class of 2022 graduates reported having used the former Snite Museum for academic research at some point during their undergraduate careers.

Inside the museum’s neoclassical building, the new facility delivers a multi-level atrium space that welcomes visitors at the ground floor level and directs into the first series of thematic galleries, which house the university’s collection of American, European, and African art. A suite devoted to In...

Yazdani Studio's Caltech sustainability center is making progress

2023-04-13T15:28:00-04:00

Nearly one year after breaking ground in Pasadena, construction is in full swing for the Resnick Sustainability Center on the Caltech campus. [...] When completed, the new complex will serve as the physical hub of the Resnick Sustainability Institute, which has existing at Caltech since 2009.

Following a $750 million donation from The Wonderful Company owners Lynda and Stewart Resnick in 2019 to Caltech, plans to construct a new 80,000-square-foot research facility were put in motion. Designed by Yazdani Studio, the Resnick Sustainability Resource Center broke ground in May 2022 and is now rising along the west side of the school’s campus.

The building, distinct with its undulating glass façade and mass timber grid shell, will be home to critical research in solar and climate science, energy, biofuels, decomposable plastics, and more.

Previously on Archinect: Yazdani Studio designs sustainability research center built with mass timber for Caltech

The Center will house a biosphere engineering facility, a solar science and catalysis center, a remote sensing center, and lecture and interactive learning spaces. The structure is also designed to be the greenest building on the campus, with systems that limit water consumption, interior finishes that prioritize renewable and ...

Munger Hall update: New report outlines 'safety hazards' in megadorm's design

2022-12-21T14:42:00-05:00

A new independent review produced by a 13-member panel made up of faculty and community members at the University of California, Santa Barbara has outlined a host of health and safety risks inherent in the contested Munger Hall megadorm design proposal.

The report cited the need for Covid-safe ventilation techniques, safer egress routes, and the psychological toll taken on students as factors to be considered in a “robust redesign” that would follow the changes made previously in response to a torrent of community feedback. It also decried a lack of outside input early on.

“[A] majority of Panel members believes that such information could have averted the critical concerns raised by the current design,” the report stated. “Research and analysis weighed by this Panel reveal significant health and safety risks that are predictable enough, probable enough, and consequential enough that it would be unwise for UCSB to proceed without significant modifications to the design.”

Previously...

Updated Munger Hall images show two floors removed as controversial project seeks approval

2022-10-21T12:18:00-04:00

New details have emerged of the controversial Munger Hall student accommodation planned for the University of California, Santa Barbara. The updated scheme has seen two levels removed from the original design, from eleven to nine stories.

The changes come as UCSB prepares to submit an Environmental Impact Report for the development before approval is sought from the University of California Board of Regents and the California Coastal Commission.

Video footage extract courtesy of UCSB

As reported by The Daily Nexus, UCSB’s student-run newspaper, the university’s initial plan to commence construction on the project in late 2023 has now been removed. If construction were to begin in 2023, a projected 40-month construction program would see the building open in 2026.

Video footage extract courtesy of UCSB

“We do not have a target to start construction at this time,” a UCSB representative told the newspaper. “It will all depend on the ongoing process, including filing the EIR and other ne...

Morphosis designs new arts and cultural district master plan at the University of Texas at Dallas

2022-06-07T15:20:00-04:00

A team led by Morphosis is designing a new 12-acre arts and cultural district at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Called the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenæum, the project will bring a second location of the Crow Museum of Asian Art as well as a performance hall and a planned museum for the traditional arts of the Americas. According to the architects, the new athenaeum breaks from the conventional, reserved model of this building type into one that prioritizes porosity, visibility, and informal connections between its users.

The structure will be located at the southeast corner of the University’s campus, organized around a central plaza and flanked by the museums and performance hall on the west and the parking structure to the east. To the north, the plaza aligns with social and green spaces that support the Naveen Jindal School of Management and Davidson Auditorium. On the opposite end, the arts district establishes a new public-facing presence for the University at the...

Studio Gang to design new home for University of Kentucky’s College of Design

2022-05-02T14:03:00-04:00

The picture is getting clearer for the Studio Gang-envisioned new, unified home for the University of Kentucky's College of Design after final renderings and a project timeline were just revealed.

The firm beat out five other top-flight firms for the renovation of the former Reynolds Building, which was announced three years ago and has since been bolstered by a $5.2 million gift from local developers Gray Construction.

The building is located in a former tobacco warehouse at the edge of campus. Image courtesy of the University of Kentucky College of Design.

Now simply named the Gray Building, the 145,000-square-foot structure, originally conceived as a tobacco storehouse, had been sitting largely unused for a period of several years (a rare occurrence on most college campuses) and is now set to become the combined home of the College’s five academic programs and landscape department. A special joint studio between the Biomedical Engineering and Product Design programs and a new coll...

Snøhetta’s Hopkins arts center revamp serves both town and gown to the creative community at Dartmouth

2022-04-08T12:32:00-04:00

Snøhetta has revealed renderings for its new expansion and modernization of the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College.

The old facility known commonly as the Hop will be upgraded with a new state-of-the-art broadcast facility, improved accessibility, and connections to the surrounding Hanover Inn and Hood Museum of Art all while preserving the character of its original 1962 design from revered Lincoln Center architect Wallace K. Harrison.

Image courtesy Snøhetta and Methanoia

The renewed Hop will serve as a welcoming gathering spot that connects the town of Hanover with the campus’ central Green. Inspired by the distant White Mountain landscape, the design features an exterior plaza that opens into a new lobby space dubbed the Forum.

Image courtesy Snøhetta and Methanoia

A central staircase connects the ground-level social condenser to the building’s new 150-seat recital hall and performance laboratory on the second floor, with views of Baker Library and the surrounding qu...

New Henning Larsen and Fabel Arkitekter-designed veterinary building, Norway's largest university building, has opened in Oslo

2022-01-27T16:52:00-05:00

The new Veterinary Building at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences at Campus Ås has officially opened in Oslo, Norway. It is the largest overall development in the university and college sector in Norway ever.

The project was developed for government real estate manager Statsbygg in cooperation with Henning Larsen, Fabel Arkitekter, Multiconsult, Link Arkitektur, and Erichsen + Horgen. It is one of the largest and most complex construction projects ever undertaken in Norway. The 63,000-square-meter (678,000-square-foot) structure is divided into eight distinct but linked buildings, uniting previously disparate resources.

The Norwegian government has set out to become one of the leading nations in education and research in biosafety and the spread of infectious diseases. This project was designed to fulfill this ambition. The facility houses biomedical research laboratories and academic facilities, split amongst the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Norwegian Veterinary...

Design team selected to envision a new Indigenous cultural center in Ontario

2022-01-12T19:25:00-05:00

The heart of one of Canada’s oldest and most notorious educational institutions is about to be renewed thanks to a forthcoming Indigenous center for cultural excellence called Mukqua Waakaa’igan on the campus of Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Moriyama & Teshima Architects and Smoke Architecture are the team behind the plan to build the space that will serve as an important hub to the university. Its name translates to “Bear’s lodge” in Anishinaabemowin and is evocative of its use as a learning archive and place of healing for the Indigenous community. The architects say their proposal was developed in homage to the triadic directions of Memory, Present, and Future laid forth in a native text called The Sweetgrass Path.

According to the university, Mukqua Waakaa’igan is meant as a showcase for the decades-long pursuit of “truth-telling work” undertaken by the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association and the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre. Aside from the archi...

AIA Los Angeles joins growing opposition to controversial UCSB Munger Residence Hall

2021-12-21T12:23:00-05:00

The AIA Los Angeles chapter has issued an open letter to the President of the University of California, voicing opposition to the proposed UCSB Munger Residence Hall. The project, which has gained an intense media spotlight both within and beyond architectural spheres, would see the construction of bedrooms for 4,500 students, 94% of which would not have access to natural light.

The letter, penned by AIA LA President Mitra Memari, describes the proposal as one which will “create harmful and unhealthy living conditions for its residents,” setting a “negative precedent, literally and symbolically, for generations to come.”

“We urge UCSB to follow best design practices supported by numerous studies, and not advance the Munger Hall project further,” the letter continues. “We recommend that UCSB reconvene its design review board to re-examine best pract...

AIA Santa Barbara signs open letter against “inhumane” Charlie Munger-designed/funded student accommodation

2021-11-09T10:51:00-05:00

The American Institute of Architects Santa Barbara (AIASB) has sent an open letter to the Chancellor of the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) in opposition to the controversial Munger Hall student residence. The letter, delivered in email format, was led by AIASB President Tai Yeh and signed by 34 individuals, most of whom are affiliated with the AIA.

The open letter, dated November 5th, was first published by Edhat Santa Barbara and sets out the AIASB’s position that the “Munger Residence Hall as proposed, does not meet [health, safety, and welfare] requirements and that there is no justifiable reason to proceed with the project as proposed.”

“Our collective response to this proposal is not a critique of style, rather this is a critique of the unacceptable, inhumane living conditions that will no doubt have a psychological impact o...

UCSB officials release Q&A addressing Munger Hall controversy

2021-11-05T17:21:00-04:00

The swirling controversy over the University of California, Santa Barbara’s proposed plan to add billionaire real estate investor Charles Munger’s massive self-designed dormitory building to its exhausted stock of student housing has been addressed by the university in a campus-wide Q&A published yesterday in which it answered “misconceptions” about the project’s design features and doubled down on its reasoning and necessity overall.

Last week’s revelation that architect Dennis McFadden had resigned in early October after a university planning meeting resulted in a heated letter to the design review committee, making waves on our discussion board, and even landing UCSB in national news outlets in part over Munger’s deep connections with billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

University officials failed to address McFadden’s indignation over its questionable contingent approval process but were able to issue a defense of sorts in the form of a self-prompted answer sheet that claimed...

Sir Peter Cook’s mural-like Innovation Studio opens on UK university campus

2021-11-04T14:19:00-04:00

Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) in the United Kingdom is celebrating the opening of a new creative facility designed by Sir Peter Cook. The Innovation Studio is the second building on AUB’s campus designed by Cook, after his undulating Drawing Studio was opened in 2016 by Zaha Hadid. Cook himself graduated from AUB in the 1950s.

Image: Richard Bryant

The new facility will host a range of digital and physical manufacturing technologies, including Large Format Additive Printing, CNC milling, and waterjet cutting, alongside VR/AR technologies such as 3D body scanning and a green screen studio. The university sees the Innovation Studio as a space where students, graduates, university experts, and businesses can collaborate on real-world issues through design.

Image: Richard Bryant

“The space is a rich vessel for creativity and innovation,” said Cook upon the studio’s opening. “Those creating within these walls will almost certainly working towards solutions to some of mankind’s great...

'A jail masquerading as a dormitory': Architect resigns from UCSB over a ludicrous, Charles Munger-designed dorm

2021-10-29T16:01:00-04:00

A key architect has resigned his committee membership at the University of California, Santa Barbara following its proposal of a monolithic new dormitory building that purportedly fails to provide windows for some 94% of its single-occupancy residences.

After fifteen years sitting on UCSB’s Design Review Committee, architect Dennis McFadden resigned in protest over its decision to select financier-cum-ametuer architect Charles Munger’s plan for a 1.68 million-square-foot structure that will also bear his name following a $200 million gift to the university. Munger had allegedly stipulated that his plan be followed without alteration as part of the gift. McFadden referred to the design as “unsupportable from my perspective as an architect, a parent, and a human being” in an angry letter sent to the university on October 25th.

“The building is a social and psychological experiment with an unknown impact on the lives and personal development of the undergraduates the university serves...

Grafton Architects has been awarded the 2021 Stirling Prize

2021-10-14T16:46:00-04:00

Grafton Architects has been named by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) as the winner of this year’s Stirling Prize for the best new building in the UK.

The Dublin-based firm won for its Town House multipurpose academic and arts space for Kingston University London.

Image © Ed Reeve

A thermally-activated concrete design, the development serves as a “progressive new model for the design of higher education buildings.” The combination public forum, theater, library, and dance studio provides an open and democratic space to students at Kingstown, one-half of whom are the first in their families to attend university.

Image © Ed Reeve

“Kingston University Town House is a theater for life — a warehouse of ideas. It seamlessly brings together student and town communities, creating a progressive new model for higher education, well deserving of international acclaim and attention,” Norman Foster said, speaking for the jury.

Image © Ed Reeve

This year’s postponed competition rep...

LMN Architects celebrates the topping out of the mass timber Foster School of Business, Founders Hall at the University of Washington

2021-09-27T17:07:00-04:00

LMN Architects’ mass timber structure for Founders Hall at the University of Washington Foster School of Business has topped out.

The 85,000-square-foot structure, expected to be completed in the summer of 2022, frames the northeast edge of the school’s historic Denny Yard, an open space at the heart of the original campus plan. It expands the Foster School of Business education complex while improving connections to the surrounding area.

Image: Adam Hunter / LMN Architects

The building is organized in two parts, a public-facing sector and a more private office sector, which are framed by an open circulation space that also serves as a central connector. Active-learning, collaboration, and event spaces are positioned at the south edge of the site in order to engage with the Denny Yard landscape and to link to the surrounding pedestrian pathways.

Image: LMN Architects

The connector houses a feature stair, circulation spaces, pre-function spaces, and two-tiered classrooms that can ser...

Another Tod Williams Billie Tsien building is being demolished to make way for a BIG project in Baltimore

2021-09-25T16:37:00-04:00

Two big name architecture firms are changing places on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.

The university has commenced demolition of its Tod Williams and Billie Tsien-designed Mattin Center that was originally completed on its Homewood campus in 2001.

The demolition will make way for a new $250 million student center designed by BIG with help of Rockwell Group and academic design specialist Shepley Bulfinch.

The erstwhile center was designed as a place to “nurture the creative arts in a school where the primary focus has always been science and engineering.”

Featuring a dance studio, black box theater, art studios and a café, the center’s design incorporated clerestory windows focused on producing as much natural light and clear sightlines as possible in order to create a sense of “visual community” amongst the student users.

“I loved walking in and disconnecting from the academic rigor to create something artistic with a group of people, and the building definit...

Peterson Rich Office breaks ground on a new arts facility at Wesleyan University

2021-08-05T18:11:00-04:00

Groundbreaking has commenced for a new art gallery on the campus of Wesleyan University, adding new cultural facilities to the Connecticut liberal arts institution for the first time since the mid-70s in an expansion of the university’s existing Art Center designed by Pritzker Prize laureate Kevin Roche.

Peterson Rich Office (PRO) is behind plans for the expanded Davison Arts Center, which will add 5,500 square feet of arts space for an expanded collection that has been housed in the university’s main library for the past two years.

View of the Public Affairs Center, with Davison Art Gallery nestled between it and the Olin Memorial Library. Image courtesy PRO.

The new building features an elongated program fronted by a glass-wall lobby on one end and filled with multidisciplinary art spaces in an Indiana limestone that helps the structure blend with the adjacent library and public affairs office.

Image courtesy PRO

“The new gallery presents an opportunity to expand the visual arts fro...

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...

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 ...

Trahan Architects begins construction on a new chapel for Loyola University in New Orleans

2021-06-21T15:37:00-04:00

Ground was broken last week for an immaculate new chapel at Loyola University in New Orleans.

The naturalistic modern sanctuary by Trahan Architects will sit at the heart of the university’s Audubon campus and serve as a communal space for Loyola’s 16,000 students.

Containing a series of smaller circles connected in a ring to the larger circular design of the chapel, the 5,000-square-foot sacred space brings together natural light and cast-in-place concrete in a variegated composition with views of an adjacent live oak tree that offers worshippers a thoughtful reflection on the natural world.

The new church's 120-seat interior. Image: Trahan Architects

“A faith that does justice is core to a Loyola education, and this new space will be transformative for our Jesuit Catholic mission,” Rev. Justin Daffron, Loyola University’s Vice President of Mission & Identity, said in a statement.

The firm was able to complete its design concept via a series of pandemic-induced backyard experiment...

Yazdani Studio designs sustainability research center built with mass timber for Caltech

2021-06-03T17:36:00-04:00

In September 2019, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, owners of LA-based The Wonderful Company, donated $750 million to Caltech to support further environmental sustainability research. This enabled plans to construct a new 80,000-square-foot facility called the Resnick Sustainability Resource Center. Yazdani Studio, the experimental arm of CannonDesign, is behind the building’s design.

The Resnick Sustainability Resource Center will be home to critical research in solar science, climate science, energy, biofuels, decomposable plastics, water and environmental resources, ecology and biosphere engineering, and more. Key spaces within the building include a biosphere engineering facility, a solar science and catalysis center, a remote sensing center, a translational science facility, teaching labs, and lecture and interactive learning spaces.

The facility is designed to be the greenest building on the campus, built with materials that reduce its carbon footprint. The building’s facade takes...

University of Arkansas debuts the largest mass timber building in the U.S.

2019-12-02T14:00:00-05:00

Boston-based architecture practice Leers Weinzapfel Associates recently completed the construction of the 202,027-square-foot University of Arkansas Adohi Hall, noted to be the "first large-scale mass timber residence hall and living learning setting" as well as the "largest cross laminated timber (CLT) building in the United States" by the practice. For the project, the firm collaborated with Modus Studio (Fayetteville, AR), Mackey Mitchell Architects (St. Louis), and OLIN (Philadelphia) to complete the project.

According to the firm's website, "A series of interconnected buildings arranged in a sinuous, serpentine configuration set in a forested landscape provides a variety of communal outdoor spaces that offer a sustainable way of re-imagining campus housing in contrast to traditional housing on the campus quad. Other important sustainability initiatives include a sign...

A Manahattan Pianoville, for a new neighborhood by the river

2016-11-13T14:12:00-05:00

a triumph of postindustrial classicism by the ultimate deluxe architect. More a craftsman than a visionary, he conjures steel membranes and glass scrims that seem to float free of their tethers. With beams as fine as pencil lines, he draws planes that seem flatter, volumes more graceful, and angles righter than anyone else’s. ..a mini-city so perfectly ordered and ruthlessly pleasant that by rights it should exist only in the mind.

Justin Davidson visits the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop. As the first architectural marker on the new 17-acre Manhattanville campus, which RPBW masterplanned, Davidson looks for clues to the future/past of the new campus/city...