In this issue:
· Warm Up With Wendy This Summer at P.S.1
· The Metropolitan Museum of Art Embarks on a Major Plaza Redesign
· Construction in Abu Dhabi Heats Up
· Going to the Chapel in the Philippines
· Reflecting Luxury Residential
· Reclaimed Timber Strikes BIG with Jury

Warm Up With Wendy This Summer at P.S.1

MoMA/P.S.1 in Long Island City has selected HollwichKushner’s (HWKN) project “Wendy” as the winner of the 2012 Young Architects Program (YAP). As in years past, the design will serve as a temporary urban landscape for the Warm Up summer music series held in the museum’s outdoor courtyards. Designed as an experiment that tests how far the boundaries of architecture can expand to create ecological and social effects, the project is composed of nylon fabric treated with a titania nanoparticle spray that neutralizes airborne pollutants, and is said to clean the air to an equivalent of taking 260 cars off the road. The project features a scaffold deployed to create a 70′-by-70′-by-45′ volume that bridges over walls into the large and small courtyards. Its spike-like nylon arms reach out with micro-programs such as blasts of cool air, music, water cannons, and mists to create social zones throughout the courtyard. The other finalists for this year’s YAP are Paris- and New Orleans-based AEDS|Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio; Cambridge, MA-based Cameron Wu; Ibañez Kim Studio, also based in Cambridge; and Chicago-based UrbanLab. An exhibition of the five finalists’ proposed projects will be on view at MoMA over the summer. This year marks the 15th summer that MoMA/P.S.1 has hosted a combined architectural installation and music series in its outdoor galleries, though it is only the 13th year of the Young Architects Program, which began in 2000.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Embarks on a Major Plaza Redesign

Philadelphia-based landscape architecture firm OLIN has been named the lead design consultant for a comprehensive redesign of the four-block-long Fifth Avenue plaza fronting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The plan creates a more ecological and user-friendly space that includes the creation of two new contemporary granite fountains, designed by L.A.-based Fluidity Design Consultants, that will be positioned closer to the musuem’s front steps, a popular place for sitting and people watching. The renovated plaza will also feature tree-shaded allées, replacing the current trees, which have limited lifespans and low environmental benefits due to their planting conditions. These bosques will provide shaded casual seating areas similar in concept to others recently installed in public spaces around the city. Two new museum-run kiosks designed by London- and Charlottesville, VA-based architects Rick Mather Associates will be clad in bronze-colored metal to match architectural details of the building, such as railings and window grates. Rather than lighting the façade with energy-inefficient floodlights that tend to flatten the architectural features, LED lighting by L’Observatoire International will be mounted on the museum’s façade and on the plaza itself, and will treat the building like a work of art, providing highlights that enhance the sculptural nature of the façade. Efforts to initiate the project have required input from several city agencies including the Public Design Commission, Landmarks Preservation Commission, Department of Parks & Recreation, Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Cultural Affairs, and Department of Transportation, in addition to the Central Park Conservancy. Construction is expected to begin by fall 2012 and take almost two years to complete.

Construction in Abu Dhabi Heats Up

The Executive Council of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi has approved Kohn Pedersen Fox’s design for the new Midfield Terminal Complex at Abu Dhabi International Airport. The 7.6-million-square-foot complex is conceived as a gateway to the city, and is raised up from the road level, giving the terminal the appearance of sitting on its own plateau. Inside, long-span arches support a roof that is close to 165 feet tall at its highest point. The arches allow the interior to be largely column free, and endow the building with an openness that creates connectivity between the outdoor landscaping and the indoor civic space. The cruciform plan provides programmatic efficiencies enabling the terminal to expand from 39 to 49 gates and to ultimately process more than 50 million travelers and 2 million tons of cargo each year. With groundwork already commencing on site, a contractor will be appointed to start work on the construction of the complex. Expected to be completed by the end of 2016, the project is integral to Plan Abu Dhabi 2030, a framework for the Emirate’s future development and projected population growth.

Going to the Chapel in the Philippines

Architects at Brooklyn–based CAZA recently transformed an underused sales office in Pico de Loro, a leisure destination along the Hamilo Coast in the Philippines, into a glass-enclosed chapel. Only the columns and the roof remain from the original structure, sited on a hillside overlooking the South China Sea. The project included constructing a new floor and suspended ceiling, and a 12,000-square-foot deck composed of local sustainable hardwood that surrounds the chapel. The pews are made of the same wood and evoke the geometry of the origami-like roof. When not in use for religious ceremonies, the glass box, sans pews, is used for meditation and yoga. The 4,000-square-foot interior also consists of a smaller floor underneath the chapel that is used for offices, maintenance, and storage space. The $150,000 project was commissioned by the resort’s developer, SM Land, one of the largest developers in Asia. Currently in design phase is a master plan for a marina-based community designed by CAZA for the same developer who owns nine contiguous coves along the coast.

Reflecting Luxury Residential

Singapore’s Reflections at Keppel Bay, Studio Daniel Libeskind’s first residential development in Asia, is set to open in March. Situated on a 20-acre site at the entrance to the harbor, the approximately 900,000-square-foot project contains 1,129 luxury apartments divided among three 41-story and three 24-story high-rises, and 11 low-rise villas varying from six to eight floors each. The high-rises, which gently bend toward one another, are sheathed in anodized aluminum panels intermixed with large glass windows. When combined with the towers’ alternating heights, the exterior creates an interplay of shifting planes and seemingly infinite reflections. Rooftop gardens adorning the towers are connected by nine sky bridges, and offer views of the lush foliage, nearby mountains, and the sea. Other team members include Singapore-based architect-of-record DCA Architects; landscape architect Hargreaves Associates + Sitetectonix; and curtain wall consultant R.A. Heintges & Associates.

Reclaimed Timber Strikes BIG with Jury

Following an international competition, the Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah, has selected Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to renovate and expand its existing building. The project consists of an interior renovation and the construction of a new building adjacent to the historic art center. BIG proposed that the original building be renovated into an educational hub with a rooftop sculpture garden. The proposal calls for massive stacked timber elements reclaimed from railroad piles from the Great Salt Lake enclosing a spiral staircase, exhibition spaces, a restaurant, and topped by a terrace. With the objective of achieving a LEED Platinum rating, the new center plans to feature generous skylights and large ribbon windows that will flood the building with diffused natural light, greatly reducing energy costs for lighting. Operable skylights will trigger natural stack ventilation, a ground-coupled heat exchanger will be drilled deep into the ground in non-built areas, and heat pumps will extract heat from the circulating water in the winter and reject heat in the summer. The phased project is expected to begin in mid-2013 and be completed in mid-2015. The other four finalists in the competition were L.A.-based Brooks + Scarpa Architects; Salt Lake City -based Sparano + Mooney Architecture; Phoenix -based Will Bruder + Partner; and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects of New York City. BIG will partner with Salt Lake City-based Architectural Nexus, a firm with experience building in mountain areas like Park City.

THIS JUST IN…

Steven Holl Architects (SHA) has been selected by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston to design and addition to expand the presentation of collections, exhibitions, and educational programs. The project entails the construction of a new building primarily for post-1900 art to complement the Audrey Jones Beck and Caroline Wiess Law Buildings. It will address the integration of the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden, and the expansion of the Glassell School of Art, as well as provide a new parking facility.

“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an exploration of new architectural possibilities for cities and suburbs in the aftermath of the current foreclosure crisis, will be on view at MoMA from February 15 to July 30, 2012. Last summer, five interdisciplinary teams of architects, urban planners, ecologists, engineers, and landscape designers—led by the principals of MOS, Visible Weather, Studio Gang, WORKac, and Zago Architecture—focused on a specific location within one of five “megaregions” across the country to put forward inventive solutions for the future of American suburbs. The exhibition presents proposals developed during the architects-in-residence program, including a wide array of models, renderings, animations, and analytical materials.

On March 8, 2012, the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., in collaboration with Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF), will present its seventh annual Women of Architecture program – “Architecture and the Great Recession” – and will discuss how women have been impacted by the economic crisis. The program features, among others, MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president Forest City Ratner, Cathleen McGuigan, editor-in-chief, Architectural Record, and Claire Weisz, AIA, partner, WXY architecture + urban design.