Meet Andrew Lawrence, keynote at AN’s TimberCon 2021

As AN counts down to our bi-annual timber conference, today we can share a glimpse into the life and work of our second-day keynote speaker, Andrew Lawrence. TimberCon will be held virtually on March 18th and 19th with speakers from both coasts of the US and Canada who will shed light on their latest projects, best practices for assembly, and forecast

Casa Quattro is clad almost entirely with cork panels (Courtesy LCA Architetti)

Casa Quattro answers the call for sustainability with wood, straw, and cork

Italian architect Luca Compri designed a barn-sized home in the quaint town of Magnago, Italy, made of materials you may not expect. Set against a lush backdrop, the house is composed of wood, rice straw, and most curiously, cork. This cork board is far from tacky, however, and hoped to answer the client’s desire for

Edmonton’s Milner Library slices and dices with its Z-bar zinc facade

AZENGAR zinc-clad facade and window wall (Andrew Latreille) The Stanley A. Milner Library opened in late September of 2020 in downtown Edmonton, Canada. As the flagship branch for Edmonton’s public library system, the public was reasonably involved during many stages of design and construction. In fact, well after the project broke ground and install of the

WE3, designed by SPF:a, is the third building to land at the Water’s Edge creativity complex in Playa Vista, California (Mike Kelley)

SPF Architect makes a splash with corrugated metal at Playa Vista’s WE3 tech campus

Designed by Zoltan E. Pali, FAIA, and his Los Angeles-based firm SPF:a, WE3 is a six-story creative workspace in the commercially robust area of Playa Vista, California, colloquially referred to as “Silicon Beach.” It is the third and final building in a pre-existing commercial campus, Water’s Edge, that boasts 160,000 square feet horizontally expressed along

ODA’s cubic condominium complex brings dynamic form to DUMBO at 98 Front Street

  Dumbo, Brooklyn has seen a myriad of new development—mixed-use and residential alike—flood the neighborhood in the past few years. With glistening glass complexes for luxury housing and new odes to its industrial history, the area located between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridge is home to bustling activity on the waters of the Hudson River.

The sculptural white mesh of Perkins & Will’s Gardner Neuroscience Institute stands out in a sea of brick

In an age where healthcare design is rapidly embracing new technologies and research to maximize patient care and comfort, the University of Cincinnati’s Gardner Neuroscience Institute stands out with its attention to detail for the specialized needs of the patients and healthcare workers who use the space. The outpatient facility, chosen as AN’s 2019 Best

Pendry West sets a ripple through Manhattan’s Hudson Yards

A new hotel designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill landed at the beginning of 2021 on West 33rd Street in Manhattan’s still-rising Hudson Yards neighborhood. Pendry Manhattan West tops out at 21 stories and is part of a 5-building master plan that will bring new hospitality and mixed-use buildings to Tenth Avenue, adjacent to Hudson Yards. Wedged between One and Five

Talking timber with Alan Organschi ahead of AN ’s TimberCon 2021

Ask any architect or engineer—timber is growing (no pun intended) on everyone. The Architect’s Newspaper is excited to present TimberCon 2021, hosted in partnership with Toronto’s Mass Timber Institute to foreground exemplary projects, identify best practices for assembly, and spotlight emerging technologies within the field. A two-day event packed with leading innovators and experts, TimberCon

Woods Bagot’s Tribeca Rogue comes at the corner from a new angle

Set on a prominent corner of Church and West Broadway in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, 108 Chambers Street is a contemporary reinterpretation of the industrial setting and local architecture it is surrounded by. Unlike other gridded neighborhoods in NYC, Tribeca’s streets are not perfect right angles and speak to an older era of wrought-iron facades and

A slatted scrim system from MBH Architects breathes life into a historic San Francisco district

MBH worked closely with the city to balance the modern detailing of the facade with elements consistent with the historic Kearny/Market/Mason/Sutter conservation district. “Union Square is in many ways a representation of San Francisco itself, with its large and small, tall and short, colorful and quaint buildings, all standing shoulder to shoulder in incredible harmony,”

The Architect’s Newspaper presents TimberCon

Mass timber construction is on the rise from the Pacific Northwest to the Deep South, promising new potentialities in tactile design and engineering; all while offering aesthetically pleasing solutions to sustainability goals. TimberCon 2021, hosted in partnership with the Mass Timber Institute will foreground exemplary timber projects across North America; identify best-case practices for their

SOM’s new Moynihan Train Hall restores original trusses to support new catenary vault skylights

On January 1, 2021, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Train Hall opened to the public. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, this renovation and expansion of the original Pennslyvania Station were urgently needed to accommodate the busiest transportation hub in the Western Hemisphere. The monumental civic project connects the architectural past through adaptive reuse of the

Archi-Tectonics’ Asian Games Park lands in Hangzhou with a steel diagrid of glass and brass shingles

New York based firm Archi-Tectonics has master-planned an eco-village in the heart of the bustling skyscraper district of Hangzhou, China, for the upcoming 2022 Asian Games. Integrated within the existing city fabric, this eco-village sits on a mile-long landscape of 116 acres with program and park fluidly integrated. Two stadiums, the Hockey Field and Table Tennis

The Eisenhower Memorial awes with steel mesh and abundant light

The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C. was completed at the tail end of summer following nearly two decades of contentious debates ranging from budget disputes to the rhetorical broadsides of advocates for traditional civic architecture. The project, led by Gehry Partners, is located on a full-block site on Maryland Avenue just off of the National

COOKFOX’s 25 Park Row joins Lower Manhattan with fluted concrete and dramatic massing

COOKFOX Architects has been busy lately. The New York-based architecture firm has completed or is just wrapping up scores of projects across the city, ranging from twin-towered Ten Grand and One South in Williamsburg to St. John’s Terminal in Tribeca. Central to these projects is a fine-tuned understanding of context and unpretentious design cues that embed the structures within their setting.

Trahan Architects’ 309 Magazine Street infills with monumental steel and poured concrete

Architectural preservation is often a continued struggle between human-made constructs and the inexorable forces of natural phenomena. Nowhere in the United States is this relationship more pronounced than in New Orleans, that polyglottal metropolis at the border of the Mississippi River Delta and the Gulf of Mexico. Located in the Picayune Place neighborhood, Trahan Architects’ under construction 309

Olson Kundig talks kinetic design, new projects, and our Facades+ conference

Leading up to this week’s Facades+ West Conference on Thursday and Friday, AN caught up with its two co-chairs, Blair Payson and Alan Maskin, principals at Olson Kundig in Seattle. In preparation for the at-length discussions on these topics, Payson and Maskin shared some insights of theirs regarding kinetic design, historic architecture, and some interesting upcoming projects. AN: As a leading firm in the kinetic

The Fitzroy harkens back to Old New York with art deco-inspired terra-cotta blocks

A stroll through New York neighborhoods subject to feverish developments, from Downtown Brooklyn to Central Park South, reveals a design trend that has taken root and proliferated citywide: A seismic shift from unobstructed glass curtain walls to facades of ever-greater opacity. The trend is being driven by myriad forces, namely rising performance standards and shifting aesthetic tastes,

Tom Wiscombe Architecture’s Dark Chalet looms over Powder Mountain with black-on-black aluminum composite

A black aeronautic mass is taking shape in Utah’s Wasatch Range. Dubbed the Dark Chalet, the project, designed by Los Angeles-based firm Tom Wiscombe Architecture (TWA), is a private residence perched prominently (and precariously) on Powder Mountain within the under-construction Summit Powder Mountain ski resort. The project is a demonstration of the firm’s characteristic playfulness

Facades+: Enclosure Innovations on the West Coast will highlight emerging trends and exemplary case studies

From Southern California to the Puget Sound, the American West Coast is home to some of the nation’s leading architects, engineers, and designers. The impact of their work is not only felt across the country, but throughout the four corners of the world. On December 3, the online Facades+: Enclosure Innovations on the West Coast conference, co-chaired