Archinect - News

Fentress Architects selected to design the California Indian Heritage Center in Sacramento

2022-05-11T15:26:00-04:00

Fentress Architects has been chosen by California State Parks and the California Indian Heritage Center Task Force to design the California Indian Heritage Center (CIHC) in Sacramento.

Per a press announcement, the site will be a destination where “visitors from across California, the nation, and the world will be drawn to this center of statewide significance for cultural preservation, learning and exchange, land stewardship based on Native American values, and a place to engage all visitors celebrating the living cultures of California tribal communities.”

California Indian Heritage Center location plan. Image via Final General Plan & Environmental Impact Report, 2011.

The 51-acre CIHC will be located at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers in West Sacramento. The project reflects a decades-long collaboration between the state and California Native American tribal governments and communities, along with allied individuals and institutions. The development gained mo...

Fentress' Norwegian Embassy restoration is a testament to the country's unique design heritage

2022-05-11T09:00:00-04:00

Fentress Architects’ AIA chapter award-winning Chancery restoration project for the Embassy of Norway has officially opened to the public, representing a first for the 42-year-old Denver-based firm.

Situated between the official Vice Presidential Residence and National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.’s Embassy Row neighborhood, the project’s scope entailed the restoration of an original structure from 1905 in addition to a 30,000-square-foot expansion aimed at making the complex more sustainable, modern, and accessible.

Photo: © Alan Karchmer / OTTO

The firm says this was all done along the guiding Norwegian principles of Handlekraft (vigor), Arbeidsglede (joy of work), Profesjonalitet (professionalism), and Åpenhet (openness).

Photo: © Alan Karchmer / OTTO

Per Fentress: “The result is a transformed Chancery comprised of three elements: a stone shell, a cocoon, and a copper-clad mass timber hull. The mass and forms of the limestone-clad stone shell are deliberately segmented and scaled ...

Fire erupts inside Denver's Mile High Stadium

2022-03-25T11:08:00-04:00

Producing a thick, black smoke plume that was seen throughout downtown Denver on Thursday afternoon, a fire burned in a portion of the club level on the east side of Empower Field at Mile High, which is home to the NFL's Broncos. A Denver Fire Department spokesman said the fire covered "over 1,000 square feet'' and began on a suite level -- the fourth level -- of the stadium and then spread into seats in the third level.

The fire began in a part of the Fentress-designed stadium that is currently under construction. No injuries were reported. Officials said that the composition of the plastic seats in part helped fuel the blaze, producing a porous cloud of black smoke that could be seen widely across the city.

Check out the newest photos of the Denver Art Museum expansion ahead of its weekend reopening

2021-10-22T17:06:00-04:00

The wait is over at one of the most important synoptic collections in the western U.S. As part of a 50th-anniversary celebration of its iconic Gio Ponti building, the Denver Art Museum (DAM) will officially reopen on Sunday following a four-year $150 million facelift and campus expansion by Machado Silvetti and Fentress Architects.

Kemper Courtyard at the Denver Art Museum. Photo by James Florio Photography, courtesy of the Denver Art Museum.

The expansion was necessary to unify the Golden Triangle campus. A new welcoming center is combined with the Hamilton Building designed by Daniel Libeskind to form a less “standoffish” offering for a visitorship that has nearly doubled in the past ten years.

Revitalized Gio Ponti tube entrance into the Martin Building. Photo by James Florio Photography, courtesy of the Denver Art Museum.

The upgrade plan has emphasized increased space for the public alongside a corrected program which had to be rearranged after the introduction of Libeskind’s bu...

What will airports of the future look like? Student winners of the 2020 Fentress Global Challenge explore the possibilities

2020-10-07T12:51:00-04:00

The winners of the 2020 Fentress Global Challenge, an annual global student design competition launched in 2011 by Fentress Architects, have been announced. This year's competition challenge students to reimagine airport mobility in the year 2100. Over 100 projects were submitted. The first-place prize is $15,000, second place $3,000, third place $2,000, and the two People's Choice Awards will receive $1,000.

"A deep passion for design and a creative mindset are the cornerstone of any successful design competition submission,” said Curtis Fentress, FAIA, RIBA, Principal in Charge of Design at Fentress Architects in a statement. “Each year, the submissions we receive are more innovative, spirited and dynamic than the prior year, which shows an exciting outlook for the future of terminal design. We’re greatly impressed by this year’s winners and every submission we received."

Here are this year's winners with captions via the Fentress Global Challenge:

First-Place Winner: BANIYA, The ...

Fentress Global Challenge invites students to push the boundaries for public architecture

2020-05-01T14:26:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Fentress Architects

Despite a multitude of technological advances including video conferencing and drones, the proliferation of airports worldwide continues to be spurred on by global commerce and an unrelenting demand for travel.

While the airport terminal—conceived a century ago—is a relatively new architectural typology, it has since its inception held equal importance with quintessential civic buildings: city halls, courthouses, libraries, museums, and theaters. Yet, airports are uniquely complex and they are more than just high volume transportation hubs. Increasingly, airports are also workplaces, centers of commerce, recreational outlets, and cultural resources.

Fentress Global Challenge (FGC) is an annual international student design competition. Since its inception in 2011, thousands of entries from over 75 countries have competed for top honors. FGC represents an extraordinary exploration into the future of architecture, and in so doing, cont...

LAX's New Tom Bradley Terminal Receives LEED Gold Standard

2015-04-09T17:35:00-04:00

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the Pacific gateway to the United States, has achieved LEED Gold certification for its new Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT), the crown jewel of the Bradley West renovation. This makes the 1.25-million-square-foot facility the largest LEED Gold airport terminal in the United States. Designed by Fentress Architects, TBIT is not only sustainable, it is America’s most technologically-advanced airport to date.

In the press release by the architects who designed the Tom Bradley terminal expansion, they detail some of the projects' most notable aspects:

The interior of the terminal contains "more than 12,000-square-feet of LED tiles and hundreds of LCD screens" to entertain travelers.
The project includes 15-gate terminals and concourse, designed to give room for expansion with LAX now the second-busiest airport in the nation.
Numerous features were designed to make the expansion sustainable, notably the use of low-E glass to minimize heat gain and low-flow water fixtures.

BIG & Design Partners Propose Miami Beach Square as Massive Convention Center Redevelopment

2013-05-14T19:09:00-04:00

BIG together with West 8, Fentress Architects, John Portman & Associates (JPA), Revuelta Architecture International and developers Portman-CMC have unveiled the urban planning proposal Miami Beach Square, the centerpiece of a 52-acre Miami Beach Convention Center District development. Portman-CMC is one of two development teams currently in the race for the project.

UPDATE: OMA Wins Miami Beach Convention Center Competition

Winners of the Fentress Global Challenge: Airport of the Future

2012-02-29T17:14:00-05:00

Global design firm Fentress Architects recently announced the winning designs for the 2011 Fentress Global Challenge, an international competition launched last fall for architecture and engineering students to present their visions for the Airport of the Future. Expert jury members narrowed the 200 submittals to 16 finalists, and then to the top three with two honorable mentions.