Grimshaw Designs 'Airport City' for St. Petersburg The government of St. Petersburg, Russia is raising $1.5 billion for a Nicholas Grimshaw–designed expansion to the city’s Pulkovo Airport, as part of a plan to double capacity there by 2025. While the city views expansion as vital for its future, Grimshaw’s master plan makes reference to the past. Images courtesy Grimshaw Architects Grimshaw Architects is transforming a 39-acre commercial site into an “airport city” for St. Petersburg. The scheme calls for offices, shops, and a hotel, along with a 1.6-million-square-foot terminal for international travel. UK-based Grimshaw Architects was one of four firms
Today New York developers Izak Senbahar and Simon Elias unveiled the design of 56 Leonard Street, a 57-story condominium tower that is now under construction in Manhattan’s Tribeca Historic District. It will be the first skyscraper realized by Switzerland–based Herzog & de Meuron.
The five finalists for the inaugural Curry Stone Design Prize will be officially announced tomorrow at the Venice Biennale’s 11th annual Architecture Exhibition. Founded by architect Clifford Curry and his wife, H. Delight Stone, and administered by the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Design, the prize will be given each year to an individual or group for “exceptional emerging design innovations that contribute positively to living circumstances for broad sections of global humanity.” Modeling itself on the MacArthur Fellowship, the Curry Stone Prize invites an anonymous pool of 75 to 100 leading designers and global thinkers to nominate between
A federal commission is accepting entries for a competition to design a Washington, D.C. monument honoring Dwight D. Eisenhower, the United States' 34th president. For a four-acre site just south of the Mall divided by Maryland Avenue S.W., and near many Cabinet agencies that Eisenhower had a hand in creating, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission seeks proposals that emphasize open spaces with little in the way of actual buildings or statuary. Indeed, one of the only requirements is a canopy to protect against rain, plus 2,500 square feet of enclosed space for a bookshop, bathrooms, and ranger station, though
The Pentagon Memorial commemorating the terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001, provides a long-awaited place for contemplation. Dedicated today and designed by Kaseman Beckman Advanced Strategies (KBAS), a Philadelphia-based architecture firm founded by Keith Kaseman and Julie Beckman, the memorial is composed of 184 cantilevered benches—one for each victim who died that day. The memorial is located on the West Lawn of the Pentagon, adjacent to where the hijacked plane hit the building. Photo courtesy Starfire Lighting (top); Columbia University (above) The Pentagon Memorial commemorates the terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001. It was designed by Kaseman Beckman Advanced Strategies,
After New York City’s Twin Towers fell in September 2001, rebuilding quickly—and majestically—seemed imperative. But seven years later, there is nothing majestic about the 16-acre World Trade Center site, a construction zone informally called The Pit.
HOK Sport Venue Event, a major sports facility design firm based in Kansas City, will split from its parent, HOK Group Inc., following a company buyout by a management team. The deal, announced August 28, will be completed by early 2009 with HOK Sport acquiring a new brand name. The firm has been part of HOK Group for 25 years, although it has been a wholly owned subsidiary since 2000. The split involves HOK Sport’ 10 top managers buying the value of their firm’s stock from HOK Group. “This is a logical step that will free all of us to
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced that starting in January 2009 it will require its members to complete four hours per year of continuing education focused on sustainable design, constituting half of the eight hours required for topics in health, safety, and welfare. The requirement will remain in place until 2012, when it will be reevaluated. The organization now faces the task of vetting its existing courses to determine whether they will count toward the new requirements. According to Thomas Lowther, senior director of continuing education systems, AIA has decided on four broad thresholds by which to judge
To design the first new residential colleges at Yale University since 1963, the Ivy League school has turned within its own ranks. Class of 1965 alumni Robert A.M. Stern, FAIA, who also is the current dean of the Yale School of Architecture, was selected for the job, university officials announced today. His New York-based firm, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, is known for its expertise in the design of buildings that honor stylistic precedent, particularly in academic settings. The two buildings Stern is designing for Yale will add 460,000 square feet of space to the New Haven, Connecticut, campus, which has
With the recent installation of limestone floors and Douglas fir walls, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is wrapping up a top-to-bottom, four-year redesign by Frank Gehry, who spent much of his childhood just streets away from the Toronto museum. It also marks yet another instance of the city using attention-grabbing architecture to lure visitors to its cultural institutions.