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Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) together with Zyscovich Architects and Rockwell Group, have completed three new stations for Brightline, Florida's new public transit rail service. Designed by SOM in association with Zyscovich Architects. Image © Smilodon CGThe largest private... View full entry
Next fall, Indiana University announced Monday, the building will house the university’s new master of architecture program, serving as an outpost of the flagship Bloomington campus 36 miles to the west. But this will be no ordinary outpost.
Columbus, a small-town architectural mecca, boasts buildings by such renowned architects as Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei and Chicago’s Harry Weese.
— Chicago Tribune
Blair Kamin tells the story of the former The Republic newspaper building—a modernist gem designed by SOM partner Myron Goldsmith and opened in 1971—which will soon find a second life as Indiana University's new architecture graduate program studio in Columbus, Indiana. View full entry
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill just revealed designs for a new mixed-use skyscraper in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, a rapidly growing metropolis with a population of nearly 10 million and host of the Asian Games in 2022. The 280-meter-tall, 54-story Hangzhou Wangchao Center makes a strong... View full entry
270 Park Avenue, also known as the Union Carbide Building, is slated for demolition. Designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill partner, Natalie Griffin de Blois, and completed in the early 60s, the mid-century office tower will be town down in order for the building's owner, JPMorgan Chase, to... View full entry
[...] historians were dumbstruck last week when Chase announced plans to demolish the 52-story glass-curtain-wall skyscraper, which opened in 1961, and replace it with an even bigger structure.
The news prompted two immediate responses. The first was an outcry by preservationists. That part was predictable; what is surprising this time around was their wistful sense of resignation.
News of the Union Carbide building's demolition a little over a week ago has incited commotion, yet there is a level of resignation to many of the outcries. Jeffrey Lieber takes a deeper look into why this relinquishment may exist around the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill skyscraper. The... View full entry
Earlier today, news broke that the De Blasio administration has hashed out a deal with JPMorgan Chase to demolish its existing headquarters at 270 Park Avenue, and replace the structure with a shiny new 70-story building. The deal was negotiated in the wake of the Midtown East rezoning, which loosened zoning regulations for the area in exchange for developers providing street-level and infrastructure improvements. — Curbed New York
Not so fast! said architecture critics and preservationists when news broke that the midcentury 270 Park Avenue tower in Manhattan's East Midtown, currently home of banking giant JPMorgan Chase, had quietly been selected—not for landmark designation—but for the chopping block. Designed by... View full entry
The John Hancock Center is getting a name change, nearly a decade after another of Chicago’s most beloved skyscrapers — the Sears Tower — switched identities and caused a civic uproar.
Owners of the 100-story John Hancock Center said the building’s namesake, the insurance company that built the tower almost five decades ago, asked that its name and logos throughout the building’s interior be removed immediately.
— Chicago Tribune
Until the owners of the building, Chicago-based developer Hearn Co., find interested buyers for its naming rights, the iconic landmark tower will be known simply by its address, 875 N. Michigan Ave. View full entry
The $600-million project, called 1111 Sunset, would include high-rise condominium and apartment towers, town houses, shops, restaurants and two acres of public open space designed by James Corner Field Operations, the landscape architect behind New York’s High Line elevated park. [...]
The 98-room boutique hotel is to be designed by Kengo Kuma. It would be the major Los Angeles project for the high-profile Japanese architect known for melding his structures to their natural surroundings.
— Los Angeles Times
Image: SOM/Palisades.First announced last October, the redevelopment of the William Pereira-designed former Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District HQ, right on the edge of Downtown Los Angeles and Echo Park, is further taking shape. Besides new renderings of the 1111 Sunset Boulevard... View full entry
Two acclaimed design firms – Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP and James Corner Field Operations – are coming together to transform a 5.5-acre site along Sunset Boulevard into a mixed-use project focused on innovative design, open space and community. The project site is located on the northwest edge of Downtown Los Angeles, within a mile of Bunker Hill, Dodger Stadium and Echo Park Lake. — 1111sunsetblvd.com
Located at 1111 West Sunset Boulevard, right on the edge of Downtown Los Angeles and Echo Park, the two-building complex designed by William Pereira is best known as the former headquarters of the Metropolitan Water District and has most recently served as a church. The project's developer... View full entry
A Korean-born architect on Wednesday sued a major architecture firm over the design of Manhattan's One World Trade Center, claiming that the building bears a "striking similarity" to a tower he designed in 1999 while in graduate school.
Jeehoon Park accused Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of falsely claiming design credit for the 104-story One World Trade Center, whose 1,776-foot (541 m) height including the spire makes it the Western Hemisphere's tallest building.
— Reuters
Park is president of Qube Architecture, a Georgia-based practice. His design, shown below, was made when he was getting a masters from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Park is seeking unspecified damages. According to the architect, Skidmore has access to the design through an associate... View full entry
[Hearn's] venture also controls rights to the building's name, which has remained unchanged since John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. developed it [...] Hearn has been in talks with companies interested in putting their name on the skyscraper since the structure's namesake no longer pays for that right. "We've had interest in it, but have not made a deal yet," Hearn said. That process could be resumed by a new owner. — Chicago Tribune
Chicago-based developer Hearn Co. currently plans on selling the John Hancock Center's office space, parking garage and, perhaps most interestingly, its naming rights later this summer. According to the Chicago Tribune, Hearn would use the proceeds from the naming rights toward a $10 million... View full entry
The Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Foundation recently awarded the 2017 China Prize to three graduate students, who each received a $5,000 fellowship for travel and research outside of China. The recipients are (click their names to see their portfolio submissions):Yue Wu - Tongji... View full entry
The architecture giant Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) has announced that they will open a new office in Dubai, a move intended to further their presence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The office will be led by Thomas Behr, who will oversee all operations in the... View full entry
The $350-million, 633,000-square-foot courthouse, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, is an unusually polished work of civic architecture — especially by the standards of Los Angeles...This is a building that wants to look respectable and rational but not staid, one that is fairly conventional on the horizontal plane and takes a significant if measured chance on the vertical one. Still, it’s a chance that pays off. — Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times
Christopher Hawthorne gives a thumbs up in his review of SOM's design for the now-completed Los Angeles U.S. Courthouse, which appears to “float” in mid-air. Don't forget to check out a virtual tour of the building in the video below. Previously on Archinect: LA Federal Courthouse under... View full entry
Looking for something new to do in Shanghai? Well, if you're someone who enjoys dangling off a terrifyingly high ledge with nothing but a safety rope to stop you from plunging to your death, then have we got an activity for you!
Tomorrow, a skywalk will open outside of the 88th floor of the Jin Mao Tower in Lujiazui. [...] it will be the highest fenceless, all transparent walkway outside a high-rise building in the world and is sure to scare you senseless, 340 meters above the ground.
— shanghaiist.com
For more terrifying photos, head over to Shanghaiist (if you can handle it).Related stories in the Archinect news:Chinese glass-bottom walkway cracks below tourists – 3,540 feet above groundChina opens 590-foot-high glass-bottom bridgeSorry, Willis Tower, but Shanghai Tower just kicked you out... View full entry
