Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation NBBJ

A local firm with a global practice rethinks the headquarters for the world’s largest charitable foundation. 

Seattle

The new headquarters occupies a prominent site, across Fifth Avenue from the Seattle Center, where the 1962 World’s Fair took place and the Space Needle rises. In 2000, the Frank Gehry–designed Experience Music Project (EMP) opened, bringing new energy to a part of town that had grown seedy after the fair closed. The 12-acre Gates campus reinforces the area’s comeback, while adding a more buttoned-down sensibility. A pair of curved office buildings, a reception pavilion, and a 1,000-car parking structure anchor three corners of the site and may be joined by a third office building in the future. By burying four of the garage’s five levels below grade and creating a plaza in front, NBBJ tamed the impact of the huge structure. A visitor center designed by Seattle-based Olson Kundig Architects occupies part of the garage’s frontage on Fifth Avenue, adding another hospitable note to the structure.

Early in the design process, the architects and client decided that a campus was the right model for the project. So they broke the complex into a set of four buildings and collaborated with Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol on the landscape. Weaving buildings and landscape together was an essential part of the scheme, says Christian Carlson, NBBJ’s lead designer for the project. To take advantage of a climate that is temperate most of the year, the design team created a large plaza one level below the street. (Dropping the plaza below grade allowed the architects to add an extra floor to the office buildings without exceeding the height limit, which is measured from the street.) On nice days, foundation employees work on laptops and socialize here. A shaded courtyard next to the reception pavilion offers views to the plaza below, providing a degree of transparency to people even if they don’t have any further access.

The project earned a LEED Platinum rating by applying a range of sustainable strategies, including landscaping and green roofs that cover 40 percent of the site; a 1 million-gallon tank that stores rainwater for use in irrigation, reflecting pools, and toilets; a 750,000-gallon underground tank for water to chill the buildings, and aggressive daylighting made possible by narrow buildings that keep all workstations within 30 feet of sunlight.

A multistory atrium at one end of the north office building serves as a civic space where employees can eat lunch, work on laptops, or gather for special presentations. A floor-toceiling glazed corridor running along the plaza side of each office building lets people see their colleagues from afar and feel connected, says Melissa Milburn, who handles external communications at the foundation. “It’s like Hollywood Squares. We can see who’s here.” Open “hubs” at the elbow of each floor and a variety of casual spaces encourage chance encounters and socializing. Forty-four years ago, Kevin Roche built the iconic Ford Foundation in New York around a hushed indoor garden. NBBJ has updated that model, wrapping the Gates complex around a lively outdoor plaza and greening its roofs.

Completion Date: June 2011

Gross square footage:

640,000 gross square feet

Construction cost: $500 million

 

IT BUSINESS PARK, Indjija, Serbia

The Embassy Techzones IT & Business Park is the maiden venture in Europe of the Embassy Group, a leading Indian real estate development firm. The park is located in the municipality of Indjija, near Belgrade, Serbia - one of the top investment destinations in this part of the world.

This multi-phase development is being built for LEED® Green Building Gold Certification. The first phase is scheduled for completion in Q2 2013. This development includes single and multi-tenant state-of-the-art offices across 25,000 m² (270,000 sq ft) spanning four office buildings. It is envisaged that in the next five years this park could be expanded to offer 250,000 m² (2.7 million sq ft) of office space.

The IT & Business Park at Indjija has been conceptualized as a business support and technology transfer initiative that will encourage and support the start-up and incubation of innovation-led, high-growth, knowledge-based businesses. It will provide an environment where large, global businesses can set up specialized centers of knowledge creation.

Besides significant cost advantages, the benefits of this IT & Business Park are manifold - master planning, strict covenants pertaining to building design, construction material and green space requirements. It will enable lower density offices, state of the art infrastructure with uninterruptible telecommunication lines, on-site data hosting and business continuity with disaster recovery management solutions. Shared transportation services with excellent interstate/highway access will be provided on site.

Phase I

• Office Space: 25.000 m²
• Plot Area: 10 ha

Phase II

• Office Space: 20.000 m²
• Power Center
• IT University
• University Campus
• Plot Area: 15 ha

Phase III

• Office Space: 25.000 m²
• Life Style Center
• Hotel
• University Campus
• Serviced Apartments
• Plot Area: 25 ha



T I T A N I C B U I L D I N G

Titanic Belfast

Designed by CivicArts/Eric Kuhne Associates, Todd Architects and Kay Elliott, the glittering form is reminiscent of four pointed hulls rising from the watery depths of the fluid landscaping at the building’s base. A series of reflective pools anchor Titanic Belfast to the riverside as the 90ft-high angled hulls lean towards the River Lagan where the RMS Titanic first set sail, the drawing office where naval architect Thomas Andrews sketched her classic lines and the Hamilton Graving Dock where the SS Nomadic (sister ship to the RMS Titanic and RMS Olympic) is berthed.



The £97m scheme was denied BIG Lottery funding but donated £43.5m by the Northern Ireland Government and £10m from Belfast City Council, enabling the realisation of this immense 150,700 sq ft museum. Experts in conceptualising public buildings, CivicArts/Eric Kuhne Associates worked closely with specialist façade contractors Metallbau Frueh to design 3,000 folded aluminium panels to catch the waterside light, 2,000 of which are completely unique in form. None of the remaining 1,000 plates has been repeated more than 20 times and the designers confess that they ‘always manage to catch the light, a bit like a cut diamond’.
Similar to the ship from which the museum takes its name, Titanic Belfast broke various records in its design and construction. It is officially the largest tourist attraction dedicated to the RMS Titanic, incorporates the longest freespan escalator on the island (Northern Ireland and Ireland) at over 25m long, and boasts the largest volume of concrete ever poured on the island for its foundations with one delivery every two minutes for almost 24 hours.

Internally the six storey volume incorporates nine interpretative and interactive galleries, retail space, a four-storey atrium, temporary exhibition galleries, an underground car park, education facilities and a 1,000-seat banqueting suite and conference centre (the largest in Belfast).
It is within this sumptuous banqueting suite that visitors will find a near replica of the famous Grand Staircase from the RMS Titanic. Constructed using similar materials and techniques to those used on the original, Kay Elliott created the staircase in six separate sections using the same Red Oak that Harland and Wolff selected, and used 10,000 individual parts to compose the 23ft high by 24ft wide, four tonne feature.

Kay Elliott’s Project Director, Mark Muir, explains: “A major challenge was the lack of complete drawings of the original staircase. We developed a detailed 3D technical model based on photographs of the original staircase onboard Titanic’s sister ship Olympic - a job which involved painstaking detective work over several months so we could be as true to the design as possible.”
Also decorating the interior is a 60ft-high wall coated in sheet metal panels which are similar in size to those used on the hull of the RMS Titanic, forming a glittering copper sheen which glistens in the natural light flooding the atrium. An array of glass escalators climb to the top of this atrium, past a wide bridge on the first floor which acts as the start of the RMS Titanic’s short story. Already immortal in its tragic tale, the RMS Titanic has been done justice in this sensitive and respectful design, open now in time for the 100th anniversary of her sole launch.



Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC)

VCCC is a unique and ambitious endeavour. A New Centre on a landmark Melbourne site, in a famous bio-medical precinct. The centre brings together new project partners in a collaborative work environment for world-leading research, education and clinical activities.

The new design is to be symbolic and representative of the bringing together of these project partners, of the creation of new networks and clusters of collaboration. The building will have an imagery that is expressive of optimism and progress. The key public building on a key Melbourne axis will acknowledge and make evident our collective endeavour to gain mastery over cancer. The centre will provide hope, health and wellbeing to all Victorians.

This new building will be instantly recognizable, both locally and internationally. It will be easy to access. The building will be surrounded by colonnades, retail facilities and high quality materials to create an intriguing and delightful pedestrian environment and will greatly contribute to the public realm in Melbourne. The generous central atrium is a key element in the design and it will immeasurably enhance the internal environment of the centre. The atrium space will also not only provide light and way finding throughout but will be the focus of formal and informal collaboration and interaction for the staff and users of the centre.

The Yardmaster’s Building by McBride Charles Ryan

F U T U R E    A R C H I T E C T U R E

Revolutionary design from Yardmaster’s Building a project by: McBride Charles Ryan from Melbourne, Australia
this form only to highlight a futuristic design perfectly adapted to the environment is a way of inspiration for architects who want to bring their work performance.describe from architect site:

The Yardmasters Building confidently presents itself as a ‘public’ entity. Viewed in the round, it offers itself back to the city as an exquisite, mysterious box: a jewel in the junk-heap. The project involved extensive consultation with representatives of the diverse users, their respective union representatives, and management and associated authorities. So that the building’s public interface would not be contingent upon the inevitable machinations of this complex stakeholders mix, the planning was contained within a simple flexible shell. Internally, the building is robust and matter of fact. A rational system of glazing integrated with the repeated external pattern allowed each room to have at least one beautiful and exotic window. The cost and complexity of constructing within a rail environment is considerable. As it ages, the patina of the facade will express its environment, as if it had always been there or simply emerged from the ground.

This building is moody. With the Melbourne weather, these moods change rapidly. In providing interest and delight to the rail experience, this ‘Southern Crustacean’ is a building that says that public infrastructure matters and, by extension, that the public matter.
please visit site source for this article: http://www.mcbridecharlesryan.com.au/

Suzhon Center, Chine

Greenland Group's Suzhou Center in Wujiang, China

 

 

The Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) announced that it has won an international competition to design the Greenland Group Suzhou Center, on Taihu Lake in Wujiang, China, reports Dezeen. The 358-meter supertall tower will top out at 75 stories and will contain a mixed-use program that could comprise a small city--with office, apartments, hotel, and retail uses on site. 

The most striking feature of the exterior design is the 30-story high operable window that spans the hotel and residential floors.

The building also features an atrium in the center of the building that separated the east and west side of the building and functioning as a ventilation channel. According to Luke Leung, SOM Director of Sustainable and MEP Engineering: “The design of the Greenland Group Suzhou Center utilizes an atrium as the ‘lung’ of the building to provide ventilation and will incorporate a series of high efficiency measures with the objective to achieve a 60% savings in energy consumption compared to a conventional US high rise and a 60% reduction in potable water use.”

The building’s expansive lobby is a result of the building a novel approach maximizing the efficiency of the building structure:  “[the] unique split-core configuration of the upper floors increases the efficiency of the building structure. By placing half of the building core program on each side of the lobby and interconnecting them with structural steel braces, the combined core becomes more effective than a typical center core system while also creating a dramatic tall lobby space within.”

SOM also recently announced the opening of a new design studio in Downtown Los Angeles as part of the firm's West Coast practice. Michael Mann, FAIA; Paul Danna, AIA; and Jose Luis Palacios, AIA will lead the new studio--all three come from AECOM but all three also worked for SOM in the past. 

RMJM Le Meridien Hotel, Doha, Qatar

Le Meridien Hotel, Doha is an iconic and elegantly proportioned 60 storey tower that provides 77,500m2 of built up area.

The tower is both dynamic and elegant, rising 230 meters above the ground, providing 249 keys of hotel rooms & suites and 66 serviced apartments within a ground site area of approximately 3000 m2. Also provided are 2,100 m2 of retail and food and beverage facilities and 1300 m2 of ballrooms, function & meeting facilities. 

Le Meridien Spa and Health club is located on the 31st to 33rd and a 500 m2 SkyLounge and Terrace is provided at the top of the building, with providing spectacular views out over the surrounding context.

An 8 storey media Art Wall is envisioned onto which media artists can display their works. 

A unique pre cambered core technology is adopted for this building in order to support the cantilevered floors above level 10. This is similar to the technology that was used for the Capital Gate Project, Abu Dhabi.