BIG |Greenland’s New National Gallery | Arquitectura 3d

BIG to Design Greenland’s New National Gallery

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Competition-winning design for the new National Gallery of Greenland by BIG + TNT Nuuk + Ramboll Nuuk + Arkitekti

Located on a steep slope overlooking the most beautiful of Greenland’s fjords, the 3,000 m2 National Gallery will serve as a cultural and architectural icon for the people of Greenland. The new museum will combine historical and contemporary art of the country in one dynamic institution The winning proposal was selected by a unanimous museum board among 6 proposals, including Norwegian Snøhetta, Finnish Heikkinen‐Komonen, Islandic Studio Granda and Greenlandic Tegnestuen Nuuk.

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Visualization, Exterior

“The Board has a clear vision: to work for the establishment of an internationally oriented highly professional institution that communicates the continuous project of documenting and developing the Greenlandic national identity through art and culture. Our dream is a national gallery where historic and contemporary art meets circumpolar pieces, Nordic and world art in general. Our dream is an institution that stimulates our curiosity, awake our excitement with its thought‐provoking design and where we all feel at home. Selecting a prominent architect as BIG, I am sure that our chances of realizing that dream are good”, Tuusi Josef Motzfeldt, Greenland’s National Gallery of Art.

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Visualization, Exterior

As a projection of a geometrically perfect circle on to the steep slope, the new gallery is conceived as a courtyard building that combines a pure geometrical layout with a sensitive adaption to the landscape. The three‐dimensional imprint of the landscape creates a protective ring around the museum’s focal point, the sculpture garden where visitors, personnel, exhibition merge with culture and nature, inside and outside.

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Visualization, Exterior

“The Danish functionalistic architecture in Nuuk is typically square boxes which ignore the unique nature of Greenland. We therefore propose a national gallery which is both physically and visually in harmony with the dramatic nature, just like life in Greenland is a symbiosis of the nature. We have created a simple, functional and symbolic shape, where the perfect circle is supplied by the local topography which creates a unique hybrid between the abstract shape and the specific location”, Bjarke Ingels, Founder and Partner, BIG.

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Visualization, Exterior

The slope opens up the sculpture garden towards the city and the view, framing both the sculpture garden and museum functions. A rough looking external façade of white concrete will patinate over time and adjust to the local weather, while the circular inner glass façade will consist of a simple and refined frame which contrasts the rough nature and compliments the beautiful view.

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Visualization, Interior

” The building will with its simplistic coarseness and harmony with the landscape become a symbol of the current independent Greenlandic artistic and architectural expression.”, Andreas Klok Pedersen, Partner & Project Leader, BIG.

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Visualization, Interior

The circular shape of the gallery enables a flexible division of the exhibition into different shapes and sizes, creating a unique framework for the museum’s art. Visitor access to the exhibition happens through a covered opening created by a slight lift in the façade into a lobby with a 180 degree panorama view towards the sculpture garden and the fjord as well as access to the common museum functions, including ticket counters, wardrobe, boutique and a café.

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Visualization, Interior

The new gallery will create more activity at the waterfront by attracting the whole area is interconnected by a path which like the museum, forms after the shifting inclinations of the terrain. The locals and visitors will be able to admire the clear shape of the gallery which appears as a sculpture or a piece of land‐art.

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Visualization, Interior

“Greenland National Gallery for Art will play a significant role for the citizens of Greenland and the inhabitants of Nuuk as a cultural, social, political, urban and architectural focal point that opens towards the city and the world through its perfect circular geometry and shape”, said Bjarke Ingels.

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Model

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Model

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Model

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Model

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Model

Project Details:
GREENLANDS NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
PROJECT: Greenland National Gallery
CLIENT: Nunatta Eqqumiitsulianik Saqqummersitsivia
SIZE: 3,000 m2
LOCATION: Nuuk, Greenland
COLLABORATION: TNT Nuuk, Rambøll Nuuk, Arkitekti, MIR, Glessner Group
PARTNER IN CHARGE: Bjarke Ingels, Andreas Pedersen
PROJECT LEADER: Jakob Henke
TEAM: Daniel Selensky, Ji –young Yoon, Gul Ertekin, Aleksander Tokarz, Alessio Zenaro, Johan Cool, Nicklas Antoni Rasch
Find floor plans, sections and many BIG-style diagrams in the image gallery below. All images courtesy of BIG.

TLS/KVA | Minneapolis Riverfront Design | Arquitectura 3d

TLS/KVA Team Wins Minneapolis Riverfront Design Competition

The bi-coastal urban and landscape design team of TLS/KVA – Tom Leader Studio (Berkeley) and Kennedy & Violich Architecture (Boston) – were named the winning team of the Minneapolis Riverfront Design Competition (MR|DC) at a press conference in Minneapolis yesterday.

TLS/KVA "RiverFirst" concept video from MRDC on Vimeo. View detailed proposal (PDF)

The TLS/KVA team comprises 14 additional firms, including nine Minnesota partners: Kestrel Design Group, St. Paul on the Mississippi Design Center, SRF Consulting, LBG-Guyton Associates, Donjek, Economic Development Services, Mortensen Construction, Inter-Fluve, and Solid Gold.

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View of RiverFIRST team proposal from the south, with the Scherer Park site in the foreground and ‘Knot Bridge’ at Plymouth Avenue.

TLS/KVA was first selected as one of four finalists in November 2010, from a pool of 55 Request for Qualifications submittals representing 14 countries on five continents. The other three finalists were award-winning teams led by Ken Smith Workshop (New York City), Stoss Landscape Urbanism (Boston), and Turenscape (Beijing). The teams impressed an overflow audience at the Walker Art Center, January 27, when they presented their proposals to the public and the competition’s jury. More than 600 people attended the event in person or via live webcast; thousands more viewed the teams’ proposal videos online.

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View of demonstration at Scherer Park, a 300-unit market rate housing development, restored Hall’s Island, and public beach with kayak launch.

On January 28, the MR|DC’s 14-­member jury of nationally known parks and design professionals and local decision‐makers met to evaluate the proposals. The jury’s evaluation was based on the criteria and deliverables outlined in the Competition Brief, as well as how well the proposals met the competition’s stated goals: establish parks as the economic engine for development along the river; knit communities on both sides of the riverfront to and across the river; and re‐focus Minneapolis and the region toward one of the three great rivers of the world.

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View from Farview Park looking east, across new agricultural landbridge of I-94, connecting the Hawthorne neighborhood to the River.

“Among a pool of proposals worthy of America’s fourth coast, TLS/KVA’s RIVERFIRST stood out as particularly well suited to the Upper Riverfront in Minneapolis. The team grounded their proposal in proactive outreach to the community, demonstrated extensive research, and posited several multi-­‐layered solutions unique to these 11 miles of riverfront and the habitat, communities, businesses, infrastructure, and culture intrinsic to our region,” says David Fisher, Superintendent Emeritus of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and an MR|DC jury member. Fisher noted that the jury valued the participation of the other three finalists and the talent and effort represented in the proposals they submitted.

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View from new Lowry Ave bridge looking south along new bluffs and ravines to the east, and Biohaven floating habitat islands to the west.

The TLS/KVA RIVERFIRST proposal offers a comprehensive remediation of the city’s storm water management system and its conceptual transformation into a system of ‘tributaries’ that are naturally cleaned with planted bio‐filtration landscapes and returned to the river. The topography of the RIVERFIRST design is guided by the dynamics of the river. Where water scours and erodes, carving design principles are used to create water remediation ravines and terrace overlooks on the North East Bluffs. Where the river deposits new material, accretive principles of design are used to mold and shape land berms for the new Park.

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View from new Lowry Ave bridge looking south along new bluffs and ravines to the east, and Biohaven floating habitat islands to the west.

The recovery of Northside Wetlands, and the design of storm water remediation ‘ravines’ on the North East bluffs integrate public parkland with municipal eco-infrastructure and a wide range of recreation activities. The TLS/KVA design uses site topography to reconnect the Northside’s historic Farview Park with the River, urban agriculture and new skilled jobs in a proposed River City Innovation District. The site’s sloped cross-section provides for a compact footprint for a Green Port and Green Economy Industries. Sculpted landforms enable pedestrian and bike/ski River Shore Trails to rise above existing barge terminals allowing for immediate, continuous public Riverfront access. The RIVERFIRST design for Scherer Park restores Hall’s Island with public swim/skate and kayak launching facility and provides for sustainable Housing, Live/Work Studios and an Arts Center. At Scherer Park, the river produces its own dynamic landscape of sand bars and shallow pools that shift according to winter melts, patterns of sediment deposition and river flows.

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Wetlands: View from barrier islands

Real time water monitoring from the Minnesota USGS website is made public with energy efficient, smart illumination along Knot Bridges which link the creative energy of the NE Arts District with the River City Innovation District and Downtown. Floating Biohaven Islands made of recycled water bottles anchored to existing bridge piers provide seven acres of protected riparian habitat for migrating birds and endangered wildlife. The River Talk mobile phone app and solar powered Park WiFi Network create unprecedented opportunities for local and national public education about river ecology attracting world‐class institutional, corporate and organizational partners to the Minneapolis Parks.

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Green Port: View from Port building terrace

The transition to the Minneapolis riverfront initiative With their selection as the winning team, TLS/KVA will be awarded a riverfront parks commission and become part of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s Minneapolis riverfront initiative, of which the design competition was the first phase. While the team’s RiverFIRST proposal contained many specific design schemes, no particular location, project or feature has yet been identified for development. As the design competition concludes, the Park Board and its partners will engage in a four‐month transition phase to identify next steps.

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View from Lowry Bridge looking back at the City

“With the success of Minneapolis Riverfront Design Competition, the largest design competition in Minneapolis history, we’ve established that the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board can achieve great things on behalf of the people of Minneapolis and the region,” says Jayne Miller, Superintendent of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. Beginning in the 1980s, a Park Board-­‐led revitalization of the Downtown Central Riverfront leveraged private investments that resulted in nearly 10,000 retained or created jobs. “We intend to replicate that same level of results-­‐focused implementation with the next phases of our riverfront initiative.”

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Scherer Park Kayak Launch

During the transition phase, the Park Board will establish a steering committee made up of individuals and organizations with experience stewarding large-­scale, multi-­disciplinary public projects or who have a vested interest in the riverfront. The steering committee will work along several parallel tracks: organizational development; planning, design and construction; resource identification; and on-­going community engagement and two-­way communication. In June 2011, the Park Board will announce the process for the next steps in the initiative.

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Aerial View of Spirit Island

“Our community – not just Minneapolis, but the region and all those who view the Mississippi River as an icon of the American heartland – has high expectations of Minneapolis parks. Our reputation as the City of Lakes helps our broader community draw visitors and residents and contributes to our region’s reputation as one of the best places to live and raise a family,” says Miller. “With our riverfront initiative, we’re well aware of our responsibility to uphold our heritage and create a parks-­centered riverfront worthy of both our great river and the people who live, work and visit it now and into the future.”

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Comprehensive site plan with all proposed RiverFIRST sites: Farview Park landbridge, Wetlands & River City, Green Port, East Bluffs and Ravines, Scherer Park, Library Square Park.

Farm House | Endemic Architecture | Arquitectura 3d

Clark Thenhaus of LA-based Endemic Architecture,  "Farm House" concept is the Single Family/Modular category winner in the d3 Housing of  Tomorrow 2011 competition. 

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Farm House, Exterior

Project Description from the Architects:
Increasingly, aquifers and surface water irrigation systems are being depleted in the agrarian farm lands that feed our urban centers. As a result of poor, or uncertain, water availability our foods are being increasingly treated with chemicals and water wars are being waged around the world in agrarian cultures. Simultaneously, the labor pool of farm hands, despite mechanization, remains a crucial component of the food industry. Many of these seasonal laborers live in shanties or decrepit out buildings ill suited for quality living.

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Farm House, Exterior

This 800 square foot farm house addresses these two critical and contemporary concerns. The first being the availability of irrigation water in the farmlands that feed urban centers. Depleting aquifers and shrinking rivers are increasing the need for an infrastructural intervention. Secondly, the need for seasonal migrant worker housing in the agrarian realm is concern for future productivity of the food system. The Farm House proposes a small scale home connected to hydrological cycles for purposes of agricultural irrigation. The house is designed to collect, store, and distribute rain water and snow melt in an elastic exterior skin. The capacity of the house to perform like a cactus in biology or a canteen in technology enables the home to become an integral component in the operations of food productivity, easing withdrawals on river systems and aquifers.

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Farm House, Exterior

The geometry of the house is in service of storm water collection. The exterior skin is made with rubber ‘canteens’ that fill with water which can be used in times of lower water supply. One skin can hold up to 17,000 gallons of water, making for a total capacity of 34,000 gallons...enough water to irrigate almost 50 acres for nearly 1 month during the cultivation season. Using an annual average of rain fall in the mid-western United States of 36” annual rain fall (= 3 acre feet = 1 million gallons), the canteens could fill numerous (approx. 20)  times per year to full capacity. The system connects to existing irrigation infrastructures and the houses themselves are modular, allowing them to aggregate.

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Farm House, Interior

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Farm House, Interior

The swelling and contraction of the skin throughout the seasons indexes the hydrological cycle, tracking the environment through the dynamism of the building form and texture. As the canteens fill, the skin stretches, revealing an underlying patterning and assembly of the exterior rubber skin. The chronicling of the environment through the building’s formal change with regard to water fosters simultaneous architectural conditions of change and permanence, acting as a visual indication against which to measure hydration conditions. The Farm House initiates temporary forms and textures within a permanent system of water collection and distribution for the purposes of easing ground and surface water withdrawls for irrigation.

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Section

See more plans and elevations in the image gallery below. All images courtesy of Endemic Architecture.