Search results for "morphosis"

Richard Weinstein, an architect whose contributions helped to rethink traditional zoning and urban planning in both New York and Los Angeles, passed on February 24 at the age of 85 from complications related to Parkinson’s disease. Weinstein, a proponent of public-minded urban planning, was known for crafting zoning regulations that were specific to the context of individual neighborhoods rather than conform to a universal template. Weinstein began his academic career in the field of psychology, receiving his B.A from Brown University and an M.A from Columbia. As reported by the New York Times, Weinstein’s professional tenure as a psychologist based in Washington D.C exposed him to the works of Frank Lloyd Wright that dot the capital’s landscape. Spurred by this exposure, Weinstein enrolled in Harvard’s architecture program but ultimately transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his master’s in 1960. The architect’s planning career began following John V. Lindsay’s successful campaign for mayor in 1965. Under the Lindsay administration, Weinstein served as the director of the Office of Planning and Development for Lower Manhattan and was a founding member of the Urban Design Group, a revolutionary body that embedded architects and planners within city governance and decision-making. With the authority of the mayor’s office, the Urban Design Group negotiated directly with the development community to guide New York towards an inclusive and pluralist policy of urban design. Prior to his involvement with the Lindsay administration, Weinstein worked for the firms of Edward Larrabee Barnes and I.M Pei. Weinstein’s approach to planning is described by UCLA as grounded in the belief that “the city’s mandate was to preserve and enrich the life of the public and cultural street as the city grew taller with private investment,” increased tax revenue was not to be considered a valid exchange for building variances. While working for the Lindsay administration, Weinstein was crucial in the protection of Manhattan’s South Street Seaport, Cass Gilbert’s United States Custom House, and pushed for the creation, and expansion, of the Times Square Historic District. His knowledge of New York's complex system of air rights facilitated economic self-sufficiency for the city's landmarks and simultaneously guided development along predetermined channels Weinstein took up the post of dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning in 1985, a post he held until 1994. He remained at UCLA as a professor of architecture and urban design until 2008. There, his influence on a generation of architects was immeasurable. As Thom Mayne, founder and principal of Morphosis, and a professor of architecture at UCLA, stated, "Richard saw architecture/urbanism as a noble profession with immeasurable potential to shape everyday life, inextricably linked to its social, political and cultural circumstance. We often discussed the seemingly unknowable nature of our profession which only propelled us to stubbornly attempt to achieve the impossible — in every project.” Weinstein is survived by his wife, Edina, and two sons – Nikolas and Alexander.

The educational mentorship program spearheaded by Morphosis principal and co-founder Thom Mayne headed into its third semester this year. For sixth graders at Hall Elementary School in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the Thom Mayne Young Architects program was a chance to receive an architectural education and access to design software via after-school classes led by Pratt Institute architecture students. Tonight, Mayne himself will host a closing reception of their final projects from last semester at Pratt Institute's Higgins Hall, beginning at 6pm. Founded in 2017, the Thom Mayne Young Architects program was spurred by Mayne's participation in President Barack Obama's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Mayne partnered with TurnAround Arts, a 2012 program launched by Michelle Obama and the president's committee to bring arts education to the bottom five percent performing public schools, which includes Hall Elementary. The sixth grade students have been working on a site close to home–their own classrooms. Their design prompt is to create a "beautification proposal" for their classrooms. In the course of the 12-week program, students learn about design thinking, architectural design fundamentals and computer design, aided by the donation of Pixelbook laptops loaded with design software by Google. Beyond design skills, the program also includes lessons about photo editing, branding, marketing, and budgeting. The exhibit, which opened on February 12, closes on Saturday, February 17.  

Capping a search for new designers for the U.S. Department of State’s newest worldwide embassies, the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO), responsible for constructing and maintaining embassies, has chosen 16 firms to provide design and engineering services for U.S. facilities around the world. The winning offices are expected to provide not only new construction services, but also to renovate existing buildings. The selection process for the Worldwide Design Services Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) began with 136 initial submissions, where firms were asked to provide a package detailing their approach and design capabilities. A 26 studio shortlist was released next, and competitors were invited to provide technical qualification documents and information on completed projects, followed by in-person interviews with the OBO selection committee. After winnowing the field down, the OBO’s final selection contains some surprises, with a healthy mix of larger and smaller studios from all over the country. See the full list of winners below: Mark Cavagnero Associates SHoP Architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro Krueck & Sexton Architects Ennead Architects Richard + Bauer Architecture Morphosis Architects Robert A.M. Stern Architects Kieran Timberlake Marlon Blackwell Architects 1100 Architect Allied Works Architecture Ann Beha Architects Studio Ma The Miller Hull Partnership Machado and Silvetti Associates According to the OBO’s announcement, “The final 16 selected firms presented the most highly qualified technical teams and demonstrated exemplary past performance, strong management and project delivery experience, a well-defined approach to public architecture, and a commitment to sustainability and integrated design.” While U.S. embassies have traditionally been thought of as fortresses disconnected from the urban fabric, newer iterations of the facilities have embraced a more holistic approach, one that doesn’t shun the surrounding city. The OBO has 285 facilities around the world, with $7 billion in projects currently under construction and in the pipeline.

 

The Facades+ Los Angeles conference took place last week in Downtown Los Angeles, bringing together technical innovators, socially-driven practitioners, and visionary academics to discuss some of the most resonant topics facing architecture today. Here are some highlights from the event’s first day. The conference opened with remarks from City of Los Angeles Chief Deputy City Engineer Deborah Weintraub, who elaborated on the city's ongoing public improvement projects. Weintraub’s office is involved with many key regional projects, including the First and Broadway Park and the restoration of the Los Angeles River. Many of the day’s discussions straddled architects’ multi-faceted approach to addressing the region’s ongoing housing crisis. Opening keynote speaker Stanley Saitowitz of Natoma Architects motioned toward the crisis in his opening keynote, which touched on the frustrating state of affairs relative to building high-density infill housing in apartment-starved cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Nevertheless, Saitowitz vowed to push forward with his desire to provide “freedom of occupation” for city inhabitants through new apartment dwellings. The architect explained that he pursues this vision via an emphasis on the open plan and integrated service cores in his projects. The resulting unit arrangements allow for occupants to enjoy “better flooring, nicer kitchens, and more glass” in each apartment, Saitowitz explained. The architect chronicled several of his office’s most controversial high-rises, including the Palladium Towers in Los Angeles and several San Francisco– and Chicago-based projects. It is no coincidence that as rents and property values have skyrocketed across the region, more and more people are finding themselves homeless. Luckily, architects are leading housing justice discussions, especially those working with organizations like nonprofit housing developer Skid Row Housing Trust (SRHT) to develop affordable, well-designed social housing. The Architect’s Newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief William Menking led a panel discussion with Mike Alvidrez of the SRHT, Angela Brooks of Brooks+Scarpa, and Nathan Bishop of Koning Eizenberg Architecture (KEA) that discussed architects’ efforts at crafting thoughtful and impactful supportive housing projects. During the discussion, Alvidrez explained that SRHT’s projects were widely used to promote a recent ballot initiative aimed at raising taxes to fund more housing development and assistance. By pursuing a “housing-first” model that focuses social services on re-housing individuals first and foremost, SRHT has been able to spread design quality to over 1,800 inhabitants in projects as varied as Brooks+Scarpa's The Six and Michael Maltzan Architecture’s Crest Apartments. During the talk, Brooks described the social mission of the project as being focused on shared spaces, economy of structure, and sustainability. The discussion was a precursor for the afternoon keynote, which featured KEA principals Julie Eizenberg and Nathan Bishop discussing L.A.’s vernacular apartment types. Their discussion covered the quirks of apartment design in Los Angeles, which is guided predominantly by density restrictions and car parking requirements. The talk sought to situate the firm’s work amid a backdrop of increasing urbanization and density, especially the firm’s 500 Broadway project, which features 249 market-rate residences and is organized as a group of four buildings structured by prefabricated steel moment frames that allow for greater flexibility in placing interior partitions. These socially-driven discussions were bookended by a technically-driven examination of SOM’s new Los Angeles United States District Courthouse by Jose Luis Palacios, Keith Boswell, and Garth Ramsey of SOM. The project utilizes a dynamic, accordion-fold facade to maximize daylighting and minimize heat gain while also formally projecting democratic ideals regarding the nature of public space, justice, and building craft. The presenters focused on the beneficial aspects of the design-build nature of the project, a process with fostered conceptual and material innovation with regards to the building envelope and the architects’ overall seismic strategies. Later in the day, the Scholars and Skins discussion with Doris Sung of DO-SU Studio, Satoru Sugihara of ATLV, and Alvin Huang of Synthesis Design and Architecture covered myriad new developments in dynamic, technologically-focused material and formal innovation. Sung described her firm’s work with layered metal sheets that self-assemble and move into various shapes with the use of heat and sunlight. Sugihara focused his discussion on his firm’s facade work with high-technology and sustainability-focused firms like Morphosis. Huang detailed designs for a pavilion his firm designed for car manufacturer Volvo that utilizes a curving skin to create space and shelter. Huang described his treatment of the project's skin as “a canvas—everything has joints and patterning. There is no such thing as a monolithic surface.” The day’s events closed out with a talk by Alice Kimm of John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects (JFAK) that focused on the potential for so-called “selfie-architecture” to impact urban spaces. Kimm explained that as cities like Los Angeles grow, their reach will be buoyed by the proliferation of the images created by inhabitants and visitors of its streets and iconic structures. Missed the Los Angeles Facades+ conference? Meet The Architect's Newspaper in Seattle December 8th for the next conference installment. See the Facades+ website for more information.

The 2017 Facades+ Conference in Los Angeles, presented by The Architect’s Newspaper, will kick off later this week, offering two full days of stimulating presentations, panels, and workshops. Day one —Thursday, October 19th—will showcase presentations by key regional and national industry leaders, including Deborah Weintraub, chief deputy city engineer for City of Los Angeles; Stanley Saitowitz, principal of Natoma Architects; Lorcan O’Herlihy, principal of Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects; principals Julie Eizenberg and Nathan Bishop of Koning Eizenberg Architects; and Alice Kimm of John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects. The symposium will also feature panel discussions covering the design of SOM’s Los Angeles Federal Courthouse; changing perceptions of supportive housing covered in L.A.; advances in facade design that utilize computational research; and sporting facilities for the 21st Century. AN covered the panel presentations in a previous post earlier this month. Thursday’s presentations will also include sessions led by industry product leaders Vitro, Neolith, and YKK, as well as opening remarks by AN’s Diana Darling. Day Two—Friday, October 20th—is dedicated to industry-focused workshops with both morning and afternoon sessions. Russell Fortmeyer of ARUP will lead a discussion on zero-energy facades. Another morning session will cover advanced detailing for high-performance envelopes and is led by Chris O’Hara of Studio NYL, Brad Prestbo of Sasaki, and Stan Su of Morphosis. Another will explore facade design using the software engine Dynamo that will be led by Daniel Segraves and Gijs Libourel of Thornton Tomasetti. Some afternoon highlights include a stick-built curtain wall intensive led by Bart Harrington of YKK and a discussion on the future of ETFE skins by a team from Walter P Moore. For more information and to buy passes for the conference, see the Facades+ website.

 

Actor, artist, and NFL player-turned-furniture designer Terry Crews was approached by Bernhardt Design President Jerry Helling to design a line of furniture, which became available to consumers this month. AN Interior arranged for Crews to visit the Downtown Los Angeles studio of Bureau Spectacular and join designer, curator, and theorist Jimenez Lai for an afternoon of discussion about life, pop culture, and what it means to be a young, emerging talent in design. AN Interior: So, Terry Crews, welcome. It’s such a pleasure and honor meeting you. We’re here to talk about Bernhardt Design. The first question we have is about youth. Bernhardt Design is a company that values and promotes young designers. I want to quote one of the final interviews by Allen Iverson where he said, “It’s not how old you are, but how long you’ve been playing in the NBA.” How does it feel to be young again, and what are some of your feelings right now about entering design once again fresh? Terry Crews: This is a great question because for me, you know, youth truly isn’t a number. It’s an attitude. You brought up Allen Iverson, but for me, Quincy Jones has always been that example of eternal youth, and he never, ever counts on the thing he did before. This man worked with Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, then went to Michael Jackson and Al B. Sure, then he went to hip-hop and he's still doing it now. And he’s well into his 70s, early 80s and he’s always viewed as the youngest guy in the room. I take that approach. For me, with Bernhardt, they have that attitude. Bernhardt Design has always grabbed guys and really put a lot of investment into the youth, especially from Pasadena’s Art Center and it motivates me and inspires me. It’s one of the most exciting, most adventurous things ever. You feel like you’re discovering a new land and you just landed on the beach and it’s uncharted and you can just go and there are no obstacles and it’s fascinating and again, I’m really, really looking forward to what comes next. I want to be 70 years young. Yeah, listen, there are many, many examples of that. A lot of times in our culture, youth is praised. I mean, youth above everything, at the sacrifice of everything, and the phrase child prodigy is the term that’s normally used, but you can actually be an adult prodigy. There’s no stopping an adult prodigy. You can even be what you call an elder prodigy, where all your things happen, all of a sudden, you change the world and you’re post-50, which happens a lot, but they don’t use the term prodigy anymore, they kind of get that out of there.

President Camacho stopped by Bureau Spectacular today. I think my life is complete @terrycrews @_bureauspectacular @archpaper #archpaper #terrycrews #bureauspectacular

A post shared by Jimenez Lai (@0super) on May 8, 2017 at 8:17pm PDT

The second question I wanted to ask you is about style. President Camacho from Idiocracy [who Terry Crews plays in the film] is by far the greatest president in cinematic history. You have a certain presence. That dancing is iconic in film history at this point. There’s a certain sensibility or personality with you. There’s this kind of charisma around you, which translates a lot of times into style. You’ve already designed your own house. You’ve also done these paintings. The question is, what can we expect to see in terms of your work? What can we expect to see in terms of your design as far as style goes? You know, it’s weird. That’s a great question because I, for one, feel like some people get things mixed up with flash and shock and then they call it style. I’ve seen it in entertainment where jokes become insulting as opposed to informative and insightful. I’ve seen even design itself get very cynical, which is something you really have to watch because as an artist I don’t want to offend, but I always want to be bold. Bold is the most important trait that I have and the good thing is that bold has nothing to do with personality. I’ve seen people who were very meek, very withdrawn or even sanguine or melancholy, but they were extremely bold. My wife is my best confidant because I put stuff out there. I always run everything by her first. I want to make sure that I differentiate the loudness and craziness and shock jock kind of thing from actual boldness. To me, when you say bold, I’m thinking full throttle and focused. Oh, that sounds good. I’m stealing that. You know what? You just summed it all up right there. Full throttle, focused, that’s me. Yeah, but you’re right. When you see somebody that’s literally obsessed and they’re so focused and it gets better and better and better and better, over the whole incarnation, you go, holy cow … I’ve watched other people do that, and like I said, it’s not about being crazy and dancing around and putting lights on it and sparklers. It’s like, holy cow, look at that. I’m with you, man. Next, I want to ask about process. As a film actor, probably there’s a preparation process that’s unfamiliar to designers and I wonder how you might translate that into design. You know what? Because I made all the mistakes and art is art, be it acting, drawing, designing, architecture, it’s all art and fear is your enemy. It’s your enemy. For an actor, there’s a point where you spend years overcoming fear. I’ll tell you about my first job. I was working on a movie called The Sixth Day with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the first movie I ever did. My job was to come up on the steps of his home and tell Arnold, "Hey, Adam Gibson, you’re coming with us." And he looks at me and he says all this stuff. That’s how the scene’s supposed to go. Well, the scene started. I go in, I walk up to him and nothing comes out of my mouth. I was scared to death. Instantly, I was like, I don’t belong here. I’m a football player, I have no skills. I don’t know what this is, and I doubted everything about myself and in a split second, I mean it was like, brrrr! Magically, something went wrong with the camera, which was crazy, and they had to shut everything down and all that and they said, Terry, we’re going to take a break, something is wrong with the camera, we’re going to just take five minutes. Now, they didn’t notice that I suck, but that’s what happened and I went to the side and I said, Terry, what are you doing? And I remember feeling like, if you don’t do this, you’re never going to get this opportunity again. And I used that energy and I went back at them and I looked at Arnold and I’m like, "I’m here, sir and you’re coming with us." And he was like [imitating Arnold saying his lines] and I was like, “Oh my God.” And let me tell you something, I learned something that day – you have to trust yourself. I was even so stuck on this furniture, and then I came up with a story for it and all of a sudden it started making itself. I think you’re absolutely right. I get nervous, I worry about stuff. This is super therapeutic, actually. It is. I’ve been there with you, man. It’s a hard thing, but practice makes it easier. Let’s go to the next question, which is about transformation or metamorphosis. You’re a person who’s gone through this once. You went from being an NFL player to a film actor, and now you’re about to go through it again. And during our Terry Crews week, we stumbled on your Sesame Street episode … violinist, sculpture, mime. So, here, you’re about to undergo this metamorphosis once again. Are there things that you can take away from the first time that will teach you again? First of all, being a football player is a very limiting world. It’s very, very limiting. People already have so many preconceived notions of who you are because it’s almost like a cookie cutter. But you have to understand the football thing and the art thing has never been separate with me, ever. When I went to college, I would go to the little art classes with the people in black who were so sad and I was like, Hey you all, how are you all doing? I got my letterman jacket on, I was like, alright! And then I go right to practice after that and people … there were others that had issues. Now, I know I’m an artist. I know what I do. And then when Jerry Helling, the President of Bernhardt Design came to me and said, "I want to do something with you," and I’m like, "Cool, we can find a designer, we can… " He’s like, "No, no, no, no, no. I want you to design it—pivot time." It just went back to – we need you, we know you’re a linebacker, but we need you to play defensive end on this point. We know you do drama, but here’s comedy right here. I’m the riskiest guy ever. I try everything. They were like, we want you to host the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." I was like, okay, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I mean, look at Regis and look at me. I got a 200-pound difference, me and Regis or any other host they have, Meredith Vieira. But I said, you know what? This is where all the action is and it’s funny because I’m thankful. By this practice of doing this, I’ve built a career where no one is shocked at what I’m doing. So, that’s a long answer to that question. These are deep questions. They’re so good. Beautiful answer. I really admire your courage. This takes so much courage. Words can’t really describe how thankful I am that you’re here and so glad to be sitting here with you and having this conversation. We’re really looking forward to your design. My pleasure, man. This is awesome. I love this world. I love this. Thank you, guys.

Get ready New York City, the month of Archtober is almost upon us. While October heralds the return of chunky knits and PSLs, New York City's architecture and design community knows that the tenth month of the year is really Archtober, AIA New York's celebration of the built environment. In collaboration with the city's cultural institutions, Archtober (also known as Architecture and Design Month) fosters awareness of architecture's role in everyday life through exhibitions, conferences, films, lectures, and the Building of the Day tours – architect-led visits to the city's best-loved structures and landscapes. The first site this year is the Woolworth Tower Residences, apartments by SLCE Architects in Cass Gilbert's classic neo-Gothic skyscraper. In partnership with AIA New York, The Architect's Newspaper (AN) is pleased to be the one-and-only source for Building of the Day blogs. For all of October, we'll bring you on-the-ground stories and tour highlights, so you can ride on WXY's SeaGlass Carousel, step inside LOT-EK's shipping container Carroll House, or explore Paul Rudolph's Modulightor Building, all without leaving your office. But if you do decide to leave (and you should), tickets for all tours are now available at the Archtober website. Here is the complete schedule: If your number-one-can't-miss tour is sold out, don't despair: There are more than enough events for everyone. Archtober has a new series called Workplace Wednesdays where firms like SHoP, Snøhetta, and others will open up their offices to ticketed members of the public for workshops, presentations, and talks. On October 29, AN Contributing Editor Sam Lubell will give a talk on Never Built New York, the exhibition he co-curated at the Queens Museum.

Apartments currently represent one of the most fruitful sites of invention within the field of architecture. The contemporary world, simply put, is filled with provocative apartment buildings. Michael Webb’s Building Community—New Apartment Architecture aims to chronicle some of those exemplary projects, delivering a well-rounded—though somewhat incomplete—exploration of contemporary apartment design. At 256 pages, the tome, with muted graphic design by Praline, is jam-packed with 30 smart apartment designs from across the world designed by renowned firms, including Zaha Hadid Architects, Studio Gang, Michael Maltzan Architecture, Gehry Partners, and Bjarke Ingels Group. The book uses photographs, plans, sections, and other drawings to provide unvarnished views into the ways in which communality functions at the scale of multifamily housing. The collection offers a “greatest hits” approach to uncovering what’s possible when designers and developers work together toward the shared aims of livability and sociability, touching on widely publicized projects like Morphosis Architects’ Carabanchel Housing and Luciano Pia’s 25 Verde. The latter features 150 trees along its exterior, while the former utilizes a network of plazas and courtyards to create cool and social outdoor spaces. Another stellar example comes in the form of Jakob + MacFarlane Hérold apartments in Paris, from 2008. The chiseled, ETFE-wrapped housing blocks—“softly-molded and irregular,” in Webb’s words—are designed with multiple exposures for cross ventilation and dwelling-wide balconies attached to each unit. The balconies, due to their comfortable proportions, are populated by eccentric patio furniture, plantings, and knickknacks, exhibiting the lived-in qualities of these truly successful outdoor apartment spaces. They seem like great places to live. The book also offers a collection of ruminations from housing-focused architects like Édouard François and Lorcan O’Herlihy that shed light on some of the inner workings and contemporary struggles of apartment design. As Michael Maltzan’s and Stanley Saitowitz’s testimonials lay bare: It’s often too difficult, costly, and risky to build quality and affordable multifamily housing on a mass scale. All told, the book’s six thematic sections—“Urban Villages,” “Building Blocks,” “Promoting Sociability,” “Spirit of Place,” “Reaching Skyward,” and “Looking Ahead”—are too generic for the multifaceted buildings on display, especially “Reaching Skyward.” The heading unnecessarily creates a division by elevating tall apartment buildings into a separate class. It would have been more helpful, perhaps, to compare tall and short buildings within chapters together, highlighting each via juxtaposition. The book features several examples of thoughtful affordable and social housing projects, but their numbers are too few. Instead—perhaps as a commentary on contemporary practice—too many of the projects bluntly use “design” as a tool for extracting higher rents and padding the developer’s bottom line. Studio Gang’s contribution points to this fact directly—“People were so eager to live here that rents are the highest in Hyde Park,” the architect explains—as does MAD Architect’s Marilyn Monroe tower, which was so successful that the developer asked the firm to design a virtual carbon copy next door. Maybe it would have been more effective to couch this contemporary tendency within a larger discussion focused on the rich connections between economies and architecture. Either way, the general topic of affordability is glossed over. Webb’s book, after all, comes not only as rapidly urbanizing populations make high-density living a practical necessity, but also as this egalitarian typology is simultaneously being co-opted by wealth. The book’s introduction highlights this fact: Until recently, apartments were the domains of regular, hard-working folks, not the idle rich. Perhaps more architects can take a page from Webb, and fight for greater excellence and representation of these types. As Webb explains, “Huge complexes can be humane places for a wide variety of residents as long as they are well built and maintained, provided with essential services and connections, and softened by generous plantings.” Building Community—New Apartment Architecture Michael Webb, Thames & Hudson, 2017 $65.00

For a psychiatric hospital built in the late 19^th century, the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane in Buffalo, New York, was remarkably ahead of its time. At the request of physician Thomas Story Kirkbride, who helmed the hospital’s design, emphasis was placed on access to natural light, fresh air, and pastoral views to benefit patient well-being. It was originally completed in 1880, combining Victorian and Romanesque elements.

Deborah Berke Partners (DBP) recently completed the asylum’s metamorphosis into the Hotel Henry Urban Resort and Conference Center. “The intentions for this building were about it being a welcoming and safe space,” said Stephen Brockman, senior principal of DBP. “The graciousness of the space is what’s fascinating. You open these doors, and it’s breathtaking,”

That said, converting the former asylum – located in the central portion of the sprawling National Historic Landmark Richardson Olmsted Campus – into a 191,000-square-foot luxury boutique hotel and conference center without losing its character was not without its challenges.

During early presentations of the project to the local community, conversations with the relatives of people who had spent time at the hospital and felt a close relationship with it created a desire “to make it feel like it was still theirs,” Brockman said. “Our interventions were subtle.”

The hotel and conference center houses 88 guest rooms, multiple conference facilities, a fine dining restaurant, a bar, and a cafe. Of the campus’s original 11 buildings, the hotel comprises three central buildings that were the asylum’s administrative hub and patient housing.

Along with the exterior, original interior elements, including windows, interior shutters, plasterwork, stairs, and tile and wood floors were preserved, while the grand staircase was restored. The spacious hallways, 200 feet long and 15 feet wide, were also kept intact. These corridors, which were originally called “day rooms” and functioned as the asylum’s social spaces, were flooded with ventilation and light to aid patient recovery.

“The grandeur of the building simply cried out to be a destination, so this is a perfect fit,” said Jean Carroon, principal at Goody Clancy, preservation architects for the project. “The exterior is rugged and beautiful. The interior has the high ceilings, natural daylight, and views, which were part of its first life.”

To transform the building into a modern hotel welcoming the 21^st-century traveler, a flagstone-and-granite entry plaza was added. A new, second entrance, in glass and steel, glows at night, as do newly illuminated towers, lit internally to serve as beacons. A staircase created within the second entrance features an illuminated glass handrail and leads to the second-floor lobby. An attic was converted into large, loft-like guest suites with partially exposed beams and high, sloped ceilings. Guest rooms were updated in neutral tones and will feature works by local artists.

Landscape architecture and planning firm Andropogon Associates updated and restored the grounds, originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, adding a new roadway in Olmsted’s aesthetic, as well as guest parking. Andropogon also planted 125 new trees, interspersed with rain gardens of switchgrass, as well as grapevines and hawthorns.

It was important to pay homage to the hotel’s history as an asylum more prominently as well. To that end, Carroon noted, several patient rooms have been completely restored and will be part of the campus’s historic tours when the Lipsey Buffalo Architecture Center opens in late 2017 as a co-tenant with Hotel Henry. Celebrating Buffalo’s rich architectural history and honoring the site’s legacy, the center will feature a 400-square-foot interactive exhibit about the asylum and the history of mental health treatment in the U.S. 

Yesterday Cornell Tech's campus opened on Roosevelt Island, a strip of land between Manhattan and Queens perhaps best known for housing medical institutions and mental hospitals. This development definitively stakes a new identity for the island. Created through an academic partnership between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, the project is the winner of a New York City competition for an applied-sciences campus initiated by the Bloomberg administration. The campus spans 12 acres and houses three new buildings by Morphosis, Weiss/Manfredi and Handel Architects. So far, what makes the buildings stand out is their aim to be among the most sustainable and energy efficient structures in the world. The four-story, 160,000-square-foot Bloomberg Center, designed by Morphosis Architects, serves as the heart of Cornell Tech. With its primary power source on-site, it is one of the largest net-zero energy academic buildings in the world. Smart building technology developed in collaboration with engineering firm Arup includes a roof canopy supporting 1,465 photovoltaic panels designed to generate energy and shade the building to reduce heat gain, a closed-loop geothermal well system for interior cooling and heating, a rainwater harvesting system to feed the non-potable water demand and irrigate the campus, and a power system conserving energy when the building is not in use. Another striking element is The Bloomberg Center’s facade, which is comprised of a series of metal panels designed to decrease the building's overall energy demand. The Bridge, designed by Weiss/Manfredi, is a seven-story “co-location” building intended to link academia to entrepreneurship. It houses a range of companies from diverse industries that have the opportunity to work alongside Cornell academic teams. The loft-like design of the building encourages dialogue between the University's academic hubs and tech companies. The building orientation frames full river views and brings maximum daylight into its interior. At the ground level, the entrance atrium opens onto the center of campus extending into the surrounding environment through a series of landscaped terraces. The House, designed by Handel Architects, is a 26-story, 350-unit dormitory for students, staff, and faculty. It is the tallest and largest residential passive house in the world, meaning it follows a strict international building standard to reduce energy consumption and costs. The House is clad with a super-sealed exterior facade created from 9-by-36-foot metal panels with 8 to 13 inches of insulation which are projected to save 882 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Yesterday’s opening comprises just the first phase of the campus development project at Cornell Tech.