A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Here are four winners of 2000 AIA Chicago Design Excellence Awards and Interior Architecture Awards . Text and images grabbed from the awards web page. Wilmette Public Works Facility in Wilmette, Illinois by A. Epstein and Sons International This is a small project with a big purpose: by linking two mundane buildings with a lively design, it changes the work environment for the employees and provides an attractive street façade for the public works complex. A single-loaded corridor plan, with circulation on the yard side and occupied spaces on the street side, allows natural light to penetrate the building. The corridor splays out to provide access to an employee patio/courtyard. A large steel and fabric canopy runs from the courtyard to the parking lot, providing covered access to the entrance and creating a sheltered outdoor dining space on the patio. The jury felt that the project set...

Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier in Zeeland, Netherlands by West 8, 1992 This submission is from Jim Counts , who received his graduate degree in architecture from Columbia University and his Bachelor of Architecture from Kansas State University. He has been a guest critic at SCI-Arc and UC-Berkeley and was an Editor of Oz, Volume 18 , Kansas State University. He currently lives and works in New York City. In 1952, the province of Zeeland, in the Southern part of Holland, was an archipelago of islands in a large-scale tidal region. In 1953, these lowlands suffered a disastrous flood killing nearly 2,000 people. To avoid another such catastrophe, the Netherlands implemented the Delta Plan. This ambitious public works program shortened the country's coastline by 700 kilometers. It closed off the sea by using a series of dikes and da...

Rooftop Office in Vienna, Austria by Coop Himmelb(l)au  The Viennese architects Wolf Prix and Helmut Swiczinsky, aka Coop Himmelb(l)au , made their reputation on blind, gestural sketches that, sometimes, became buildings. These sketches accomplish many things, three that I would like to focus on: capture a feeling, create a unique design process, and lead to complex structural and design solutions. The accompanying images are Coop Himmelb(l)au's design of a rooftop addition, focusing on a conference room, to a law firm's office. Wolf Prix and Helmut Swiczinsky's desire to capture a feeling or emotion regarding a project through their blind sketches raises more questions than providing answers. One can see that the sketch on the previous page is similar to the view on this page. But why? What is to determine the sketch's translation? In this case ...

Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York by Smith-Miller + Hawkinson, 1999 The following text and images are by Smith-Miller + Hawkinson , for The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York. Much like the first Glass Center at the 1939 Worlds' Fair, the Corning Glass Center and Steuben Factory building in Corning, New York, built by the architect Wallace Harrison in 1951 represented a certain optimism about the future of industry and culture. These buildings represented the "best in architectural design" in their time and the Glass Center and Steuben Factory as we know them, remain to this day, landmarks of American architectural history. This second phase of the project envisions a new Orientation Center building to the East of the present Glass Center. The Orientation Center will accommodate both pedestrian and jitney-borne visitors arriving o...

Metreon in San Francisco, California by SMWM, 1999 Situated on the western edge of Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, Sony's Metreon has the benefit and responsibility of one of the most popular sites in the city. Also bordered by the Center for the Arts Theater & Galleries and the Museum of Modern Art, the park has become an attractive public space with a consistent stream of tourists and art-goers. The Metreon adds a capitalistic punch to this mixture with 15 cinemas, an IMAX theater, entertainment venues (ride simulation, virtual reality, and interactive media) and retail spaces. The building, completed in summer 1999 and designed by SMWM , successfully addresses its site but also, more importantly, sets a precedent for malls in the 21st century. The basic organization places the theaters, which require no daylighting, to the west, thereby creating a street wall i...