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Courtesy of Sasaki Associates

Sasaki Associates, with RDG Planning & Design and Applied Ecological Services (AES), were recently announced as the winning team of the Water Works Parkitecture Competition. The international design competition entailed the creation of a conceptual plan for Water Works Park to form dynamic relationships between the river, the watershed, and the community. Education and the connection between the river and the community were highly stressed in Sasaki’s winning proposal. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Courtesy of Sasaki Associates

Water, wild + wonder imagines a dynamic public park that respects and discovers the power of water in the Des Moines region. We imagine Water Works Park as a place of adventure and water experience that serves as entrée to a restored, easily accessible wilderness and beyond – to a river system, a watershed, and a new understanding of the role of everybody in the region’s water story. The Park creates a re-imagined public space on the Raccoon River, where the dynamic floodplain, the engineered water systems, ecology and active recreation come together.

Courtesy of Sasaki Associates

Our proposal explores four key ideas:

- Building a resilient, floodplain park
- Creating a park expressive of the site’s working water systems
- Encouraging ecological health and sparking stewardship throughout the Raccoon River watershed – Integrating innovative programs that encourage expanded visitation and learning.

There are two essential characters of the existing Water Works site which our proposal will amplify. We describe these as the wild and the engineered.

Courtesy of Sasaki Associates

The wild is nearly 1,200 acres of Raccoon River floodplain. Accessible and dotted with changing adventure programs, the wild is a place for restored habitat and urban escape. It is a landscape of nature and wonder, experienced on a vast scale of dynamic, looped, and serpentine walking, hiking, biking, and equestrian trails.

Courtesy of Sasaki Associates

The engineered is the working landscape of the Water Works Plant. This terrain is devoted to the production of drinking water for the City. Tracing the site’s impressive gallery, the Engineered landscape hosts the high-intensity urban park program while also interpreting layers of water-related issues and infrastructure. The centerpiece of the Engineered landscape is the Circuit; a water- based recreational and educational journey that explores, interprets, and cleans water.

Courtesy of Sasaki Associates

The Water Circuit, as engineered infrastructure, provides an understanding of five water-related systems: quality and quantity of drinking water, recreation and interpretation, land use, and flood dynamics. The Water Circuit connects the existing series of basins and ponds into one unified system; improves yield of clean water into the gallery; and creates a water trail along the public river frontage of Water Works Park.

Courtesy of Sasaki Associates

Recreationally, the Circuit provides a unique water adventure – more intimate than the lake scene common to Greenway parks, and more stable than the Raccoon River itself – to be experienced by ironically-branded Water Works standing paddleboards or other self-powered craft. Surfing on the Circuit, the visitor discovers a series of interpretive events, including demonstrations of best management practices in different land use types and the dynamics of flooding.

Architects: Sasaki Associates
Location: Des Moines, Iowa, United States
Team: Gina Ford, Lead Designer; Steve Hamwey, Managing Partner; Alexis Canter, Shannon Lee
Consultants: RDG and AES
Client: Des Moines Water Works
Size: 1200 acres

© Peter Bennetts

Architects: Anthony Gill Architects
Location: Sydney, Australia
Project Team: Anthony Gill and Sarah Mcspadden
Project Year: 2010
Project Area: 38 sqm
Photographs: Peter Bennetts

The Potts Point Apartment involved the re-design of an existing 38 sqm (410sqft), one bedroom apartment in a Harry Seidler building in Sydney. The brief was to adapt the layout as inexpensively as possible to suit our growing family. We wanted to provide a separate sleeping area for our young daughter, increase the living space and solve all our storage issues.

© Peter Bennetts

We pulled out all the existing (not original) joinery but left the bathroom core untouched. Into the space we inserted a 7m long joinery item which contains all our things for living – books, toys, food and wine, plates, pots and pans, clothes, even beds. At one end the shelves dissolve into the kitchen and pantry with sections of the main shelving unit being open enabling everyday objects to filter the view through. At the other end the wardrobe block separates our daughters bed from the main living space with our bed sliding in and out from underneath. We wanted a space that enabled all our things to surround us but not in a contrived way, it is not meant to be about display.

Original Plan

New Plan

The idea is about a rich and layered backdrop for living, something that we all interact with everyday. The materials used are inexpensive. The shelves and kitchen are constructed from form-ply (low grade pre-finished plywood used for concrete formwork) and the wardrobe/bed block is hoop pine plywood with a beeswax finish.

© Peter Bennetts

Red House / JV © Nils Petter Dale

Here in the Lower 48, winter weather has been hard to come by. However, Alaska’s snowy landscape has inspired us to compile a list of images, previously featured on ArchDaily, that capture architecture amongst a pristine, white blanket of snow.

Continue after the break for the complete list!

1) Red House / JV

© Nils Petter Dale

2) Rolling Huts / OSKA Architects

© Tim Bies

3) Natural History Museum of Utah / Ennead Architects

© Jeff Goldberg/Esto

4) Iakov Chernikovs Architecture Prize 2010 / Fantastic Norway

Cabin Verdehaugen

5) Ten Broeck Cottage / Messana O’Rorke

© Messana O’Rorke

6) Holiday House on the Rigi / AFGH

© Valentin Jeck

7) Marché Lier / Lund+Slaatto Architects

© Ivan Brodey

8) Chameleon House / Anderson Anderson Architecture

© Anthony Vizzari

9) 2 Sisters House / NRJA

© NRJA

10) Nearpoint Residence / Workshop Architecture|Design

© Kevin G. Smith

© Roland Halbe

Architects: José María Sánchez García
Location: Alange, Badajoz, Spain
Project Team: Daniel González Guerrero, Julia Ternström, Enrique García-Margallo Solo de Zaldivar, Francisco Sánchez García, Marion Foucault, Cruz Calleja Perucho, Rafael Fernández Caparros, Maribel Torres Gómez, Laura Rojo Valdivielso, Marilo Sánchez García, Marta Cabezón López, Mafalda Ambrósio, Carmen Leticia Huerta.
Structural Engineer: María Concepción Pérez Gutiérrez
Services Engineer: ARO consultores
Project Year: 2010
Project Area: 1,959.81 sqm
Photographs: Roland Halbe

The Rowing and Canoeing Centre is located near the Alange reservoir and tries to be as neutral as possible with the environment. It is configured by a large pedestal and a light deck, creating between them a platform that dialogues with the landscape, looking over the water, the shore, the boats. It’s like a big veranda, a balcony, which focuses on the movements toward the reservoir, with paths that are created to “look” and to “stay”.

Plan

Over the platform, light metal trusses that spans over a large room of 21mx21m are constructed, holding the ramp that hangs from them. These trusses are covered to create a shady area.

© Roland Halbe

The lower level emerges as raised platform, like a rock in which deep holes are drilled to introduce air and light, and that holds the more private needs of the program. The geometry of the building comes from the shape of the site and consists of a central hall that acts as a large classroom / workshop, and around this area, located in the perimeter bands, are the public toilets and changing rooms for athletes, the residence area and the offices.

Section

© Roland Halbe

The relationship between the platform and the base is solved with a large-sized hole, a crack in the platform that acts as a crevice that allows the passage of light into the lower floor, and holds a slender two-section ramp that hangs with wires from the trusses, and that connects the lower floor with the platform, acquiring therefore a very important role in the project.

© Roland Halbe

© Marco Introini

Architects: Lorenzo Noé Studio Di Architettura
Location: Brienno, Italy
Client: Town of Brienno
Project Year: 2010
Project Area: 230 sqm
Photographs: Marco Introini

Brienno still has the dimension of a lakeside village. Unlike many other settlements, the territory has not been impacted by uncontrolled growth, and has managed to conserve a strong identity.

Elevation

The site lies to the north of the historical center, downhill from the church and the cemetery, where a stone wall with three arches contains an embankment of about six meters in height over the average level of the water of the lake. The wall cannot be modified, nor can it bear ulterior loads.

© Marco Introini

To permit use of the escarpment a structure has been built over the lake, resting on recessed columns with individual foundations and micro-piles for support below. The project is composed of a few elements: the stone staircase, the wooden deck and the landing stage. The surface of the plaza is slightly sloped toward the north, amplifying its sense of space and transforming it into a small stage that commands new views of the historical center and the opposite shore.

© Marco Introini

© Marco Introini

To the south, the park concludes with two wooden volumes: the rest rooms and the access staircase to the storage facility and the dock for the boats. The space between the plaza and the previous ground level is bordered by steel cables that serve as supports for climbing plants.

Ground Floor Plan

First Floor Plan

Limited costs (of budget and maintenance), high landscape and historical value of the site and respect for the existing structure are approached not as limitations, but as stimuli for a sustainable design.

© Marco Introini

© Bill Timmerman

Three libraries in USA, one in Canada and Dominique Perrault’s National Library of France. All part of our 9th selection of previously featured libraries. Check them all after the break.

Palo Verde Library and Maryvale Community Center / Gould Evans and Wendell Burnette Architects
Designed by Gould Evans in association with Wendell Burnette Architects, the Palo Verde Library and Maryvale Community Center is a multi-use facility that includes a large public library collection area, a 150-seat auditorium for recital, drama and public lectures, and a community center that includes a park, pool, basketball courts, running track, and gym (read more…)

© Bernard Fougeres

Grand Library of Québec / Patkau Architects with Croft Pelletier and Menkès Shooner Dagenais architectes associés
The Grand Library of Québec consolidates a number of collections dispersed throughout the province to create a resource library for the region as well as a central public library for the city of Montreal. The building contains four major components: a general library, a children’s library, the collection Québécoise (historic documents pertaining to Quebec), and an assortment of public spaces outside the library control zone (read more…)

© Will Austin Photography

South Park Library / Johnston Architects
The LEED Equivalent South Park Library is a meeting place and focal point for the rich and diverse South Park neighborhood in Seattle. Johnston Architects incorporated the spirit of the community within their design through material choices, colors, and gathering areas such as the courtyard/front porch space for the neighborhood. Follow the break for a full project description, photographs, and drawings of the library (read more…)

©Yuri Palmin

AD Classics: National Library of France / Dominique Perrault
As an edition to the developing urban project in eastern Paris, the French National Library was built in hopes to be the most modern library in the world. The competition of 1989 that included projects from 244 internationally renowned architects was won by Dominique Perrault, who was only 36 years old. This project would be the defining design of Perrault‘s career (read more…)

© Charles Davis Smith

Dallas Public Library Lochwood Branch / Meyer Scherer & Rockcastle
The site for the Dallas Public Library Lochwood Branch, is bound by a strip mall, apartment complex, and residential neighborhood, which presented significant contextual opportunities. The design centers on addressing each context, as well as the library’s programming needs, through directing and screening views and considering varied levels of scale (read more…)

Courtesy of Make Architects

Architects: Make Architects
Location: London, UK
Client: City of London
Collaborators: Arup, Davis Langdon
Project Area: 135 sqm
Project Year: 2007
Photographs: Zander Olsen, Make Architects 

Courtesy of Make Architects

Situated opposite the South Transept of St Paul’s Cathedral, the City of London Information Centre introduces a dynamic contemporary structure to an area of exceptional architectural and urban heritage.

plan

In form, the building combines simplicity and efficiency of structure with a distinctive visual impact. The triangular plan has evolved from analysis of principal pedestrian flows across the site, while the orientation and profile establish an intriguing dialogue with St Paul’s as the building looks up to its prestigious neighbour and opens out to welcome people approaching it. A folded metallic envelope evokes the aerodynamic profile of a paper aeroplane, seamlessly wrapping 140m2 of internal accommodation and formed by a steel frame braced with structural ply and clad in 220 pre-finished stainless steel panels.

site plan

The building meets exacting environmental standards and has been engineered to exceed current Part L targets for C02 emissions by 20 per cent. The structure’s envelope is highly insulated, the interior environment is regulated using borehole cooling and the sloping roof facilitates the collection of rainwater which is used to flush toilets and irrigate planting nearby.

Via AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA

In 2011, a volatile Architecture Billings Index (ABI) reflected the unstable conditions U.S. practices were struggling to deal with. However, the year ended optimistically as the ABI remained at 52.0 for the month of December. So far, January has prolonged the hopeful outlook for the American design and construction industry, as many reports highlight a “modest recovery” in the nonresidential sector for 2012 and an even stronger upturn in 2013.

“Spending on hotels, industrial plants and commercial properties are going to set the pace for the construction industry over the next two years,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “The institutional market won’t experience the same growth, but healthcare facilities and places of worship are poised for a positive economic outlook in that sector.”

Continue reading for more.

The AIA semi-annual Consensus Construction Forecast predicts a 2.1% rise in spending this year for nonresidential construction projects and a 6.4% increase in spending for 2013. Bloomberg’s recent article, “Construction Rises as Architects Show U.S. Nonresidential Bounce”, acknowledges the forecast and reports multiple examples that confirms a consistent overall consensus among many economic professionals.

Bloomberg highlights that the commercial and industrial component climbed to its highest in ten months during the month of December at 54.1, while U.S. office vacancies fell to its lowest since 2009 at 17.3 percent. Bloomberg also commented on the growing activity in stocks of companies that design privately-funded projects in manufacturing and utility industries, such as Caterpillar Inc. (CAT). Further stating that Caterpillar has reported the “demand for construction equipment is improving.”

However, Baker warns, “We are concerned that the unusually high energy costs, given the overall weakness in the economy, might trigger a jolt in inflation and hamstring economic recovery. The housing market also needs prices to stabilize and to resolve the high number of delinquencies and foreclosures before it can fully recover.”

View the AIA press release here and Bloomberg’s complete article here.

Reference: AIA, Bloomberg