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SEPTEMBER 2023
DEPARTMENTS
18 EDITOR’S LETTER
21 EXHIBITION: Herzog & de Meuron,
Royal Academy of Arts, London
By Chris Foges
24 TRIBUTE: Jean-Louis Cohen
(1949–2023) By Gwendolyn Wright
26 HONORS: 2023 Women in Architecture
Awards By Matt Hickman
36 HOUSE OF THE MONTH: Courtyard
House, Seattle MWWORKS By Rachel Gallaher
43 LANDSCAPE: Ajolotario,
Toluca, Mexico RIPARIA By Matt Hickman
48 PRODUCTS: Hospitality By Sheila Kim
53 BOOK EXCERPT:
The New Antiquarians,
by Michael Diaz-Griffith
57 GUESS THE ARCHITECT
FORUM
29 Gothic Shadow: On SHoP’s Brooklyn
Supertall By Izzy Kornblatt
30 Learning AI: Are Architecture Schools
Ready? By Pansy Schulman
PROJECT
60 Royal Collections Gallery, Madrid
MANSILLA + TUÑÓN ARQUITECTOS
By Andrew Ayers
BUILDING TYPE STUDY 1,056
RECORD INTERIORS
71 Flat Oak Apartment, São Paulo
STUDIO MK27 By Tom Hennigan
76 Queen Silvia Concert Hall,
Stockholm ARKPABI/GIORGIO PALÙ
By Andrew Ayers
80 Xokol Restaurant, Guadalajara,
Mexico ODAMX & RUBÉN VALDEZ
PRACTICE By Michael Snyder
84 Savoy Club, New York FOGARTY
FINGER By Linda C. Lentz
90 Ms MIN Shop, Shanghai NERI&HU
DESIGN AND RESEARCH OFFICE
By Leopoldo Villardi
94 Claridge’s Artspace Café, London
JOHN PAWSON By Catherine Slessor
98 AIA San Francisco and Center for
Architecture + Design, California
AIDLIN DARLING DESIGN By John King
102 Bulgari Hotel Roma, Italy
ACPV ARCHITECTS By Chris Foges
LIGHTING
119 Penn 1, New York
ARCHITECTURE PLUS INFORMATION
& LIGHTING WORKSHOP
By James S. Russell, FAIA
122 320 South Canal, Chicago
GOETTSCH PARTNERS & ONE LUX
STUDIO By James Gauer
124 Products By Sheila Kim
113 CONTINUING EDUCATION:
Structural Bamboo
WITH ITS RAPID GROWTH CYCLE AND ABILITY
TO STORE CARBON, THE MATERIAL HAS
NEW APPEAL By Joann Gonchar, FAIA
140 Dates & Events
144 SNAPSHOT: The Sea Ranch Lodge,
California NICOLEHOLLIS By Aaron Smolar
COVER: QUEEN SILVIA CONCERT HALL, STOCKHOLM. BY
ARKPABI/GIORGIO PALÙ. PHOTO © ROLAND HALBE.
THIS PAGE: XOKOL RESTAURANT, GUADALAJARA, MEXICO. BY
ODAMX & RUBÉN VALDEZ PRACTICE. PHOTO © GILLIAN GARCIA.
Expanded coverage at architecturalrecord.com.
11
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 From the EDITOR

F E N C E S The Inside Track

THIS MONTH, our annual issue
P E RG O L A S focused on interiors examines how
architects experiment and innovate
with ideas, materials, and craft
A R B O R S techniques. The scale may be small-
er than in other architectural pur-
G AT E S suits, but the results can be just as
intriguing.
Diminutive projects like a single
T R E L L I S E S communal-table restaurant in
Guadalajara, Mexico, where ears of
corn hang dramatically from the
R A I L I N G S ceiling, and a clothing shop in
Shanghai, where roof tiles are adapt-
ed as a unique floor detail, share the spotlight with a sprawling, sumptu-
ously furnished apartment in São Paulo and the unapologetic marble
splendor of Rome’s Bulgari Hotel.
In Stockholm, a gemlike concert hall, featured on this month’s cover,
is built inside a former orphanage. Its architect, Giorgio Palù, has a
practice steeped in musical heritage. Based in Cremona, Italy—home of
the Stradivarius—he designed the award-winning Auditorium Gio-
vanni Arvedi in that town’s violin museum. In London, the quintessen-
tial minimalist, John Pawson, designs a gallery and café for the famously
posh Claridge’s Hotel. Two American projects—one an amenity suite
for office tenants in New York, the other the new home for the San
Francisco chapter of AIA—inject new life into landmark buildings.
Interiors offer an appeal to architects for being shorter-term undertak-
ings than designing from the ground up. On the opposite end of the spec-
trum, Madrid’s Royal Collections Gallery, by Mansilla + Tuñón, is an
extreme example of a drawn-out building process. During the 25-year-long
saga of designing and constructing the museum, firm partner Luis Moreno
García Mansilla died. And, even after the building was completed in 2015,
it would take another eight years before it opened to the public in June.
As a well-known architect recently told me, “Practicing architecture
requires dedication and perseverance, and the moments of satisfaction
are few and far apart.” Herzog & de Meuron is a firm that’s successfully
navigated the ups and downs of architectural practice and surely has
many moments of satisfaction. A retrospective at London’s Royal Acad-
emy of Arts (reviewed on page 21) charts the 600-person studio’s rise to

PHOTOGRAPHY: © JILLIAN NELSON

the top of the profession over the past five decades.
Recognizing the complexities of architectural practice, we introduce in
this issue a new section called Forum. In it, we’ll explore topics of interest
and concern both to seasoned architects and those just joining the profes-
sion. It’s a place for opinions and discussion about form, aesthetics, peda-
gogy, training, technology, and compensation. These subjects are all
pertinent to the architect’s evolving role amid economic, social, cultural,
and environmental shifts affecting how and why we build.

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 EXHIBITION
Making Waves
Decades of influential design work are explored in a Herzog & de Meuron retrospective in London.
BY CHRIS FOGES
OVER 45 YEARS, Herzog & de Meuron
has ascended to the heights of architectural
stardom without developing a signature style.
Instead, the 600-strong Swiss firm has dem-
onstrated a consistent commitment to experi-
menting with form and materials, producing
notably diverse buildings that are often places
of heightened sensation, evoking both the
sublime and the uncanny. It’s an approach
that has given the firm a “certain mystique,”
says Vicky Richardson, head of architecture at
London’s Royal Academy of Arts, where a
major exhibition, Herzog & de Meuron,
opened this month. “The aim is to let visitors
in on the process,” she explains. “You can feel
like part of the design team.”
The show, which runs until October 15
PHOTOGRAPHY: © IWAN BAAN
and was cocurated by the firm and the Royal
Academy, occupies an enfilade of just three
galleries but packs in a huge quantity of
material, supplemented by an augmented-
reality smartphone app developed by the
architects. As might be expected, many of the
conventions of architectural exhibitions are
eschewed, with mixed results.
The first room is dominated by three
timber-framed display cases stuffed with
hundreds of models and material test pieces
representing 80 of the firm’s nearly 600 proj-
ects. The vitrines are replicas of those at
Kabinett, Herzog & de Meuron’s purpose-
built archive-gallery in its home city of Basel,
and the objects—the “waste” products of the
design process—are presented as evidence of
their thinking. Arranged roughly by chronol-
ogy, they illustrate a remarkable trajectory,
from austere houses and factories in the Alps
to breakthrough projects such as London’s
Tate Modern and the crystalline form of the
Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg.
For aficionados of the firm’s work, some
of the humblest mementos are akin to holy
relics. Here we find a model made of the
Lego bricks that founders Jacques Herzog and
Pierre de Meuron played with when they met
as 7-year-old schoolchildren. Nearby, the
conception of Beijing’s National Stadium,
built for the 2008 Olympics, is captured in a
THE SCULPTED ROOF of Herzog & de Meuron’s
Elbphilarmonie in Hamburg, Germany.
series of quick-fire maquettes. Their scrappi-
ness attests to the speed at which an idea
develops. Shapes are tested in bent wire and
taped cardboard, and later swathed in stringy
bits of organic matter to develop the stadium’s
distinctive “bird’s nest” appearance.
Throughout, we get the clear sense of
restlessly fertile imaginations at work, con-
stantly improvising, reacting, exploring. Also
apparent is the architects’ preoccupation with
the evocative properties of matter. It’s there in
the great quantity of test pieces—punched
copper, turned wood, and rammed earth—
and in models of buildings too. The weighty
CaixaForum in Madrid is cast in great lumps
of wax and resin, giving it the look of a
Joseph Beuys sculpture. And just as the firm’s
architecture adapts to advances in technology,
so too do its processes. View the gallery
through the app, and a 3D model of HVAC
ducts appears to hover in the air between
21
 EXHIBITION

clinical facilities are arranged in 35 “neigh-

THE EXHIBITION brings the firm’s design processes to life through models (above) and drawings.
Among the firm’s lesser-known earlier works is its Ricola Storage Building in Switzerland (below).
cabinets. It’s fun, if mildly distracting.
The app might more usefully have linked
to the firm’s compendious website, though,
because the exhibition itself provides almost
no information about what is shown. We see
the evolution of designs for a forthcoming
Paris skyscraper but cannot discover why it is
triangular, or how its architects feel about the
uproar it has caused. More frustrating still is
the lack of representation of completed build-
ings, save for nine large-scale prints on the
walls. These stunning images, by the Dussel-
a general understanding of the firm’s oeuvre.
How much will the ordinary visitor get from
this avalanche of creative speculation without
more appreciation of its results?
The second gallery offers an equally
oblique perspective on the firm’s creative
process, which includes the use of film to
observe how its buildings are used. One
gently paced montage comprises vignettes of
life in 40 buildings, all recorded for this show.
Crowds mill about. Someone pops outside for
a smoke. Children improvise games. The
borhoods” linked by internal streets and
courtyard gardens that lend an intimate scale
and an air of calm. As with REHAB, there is
an emphasis on the restorative power of day-
light and natural materials. Children’s rooms
have porthole windows and pitched wood
ceilings like little cabins. It is clearly going to
be a special place.
The exhibition demonstrates that this
outcome owes as much to determination and
effective collaboration as to inspiration.
Displays describe the difficulty of coordinat-
ing pipework and the merits of BIM. A video
game sends players on a quest through a
digital model used as a design tool. One
gallery wall is entirely covered with a plan of
the hospital—a real working drawing, covered
with inscrutable numeric information and
clouds of revisions—within which projections
pick out various departments, illustrating the
apparent simplicity that will be recovered
from bewildering complexity. There is little of
the glamour associated with “starchitects” in
the careful, laborious work of delivery on
display.
Back in the app, visitors can toggle be-
tween navigable CGI renderings and 360-de-
gree views of the construction site, with the
usual puddles of water and trailing cables.
The striking contrast between the dark,
chaotic interior of today and what is to come
could be a metaphor for the practice of design.
The app is also required to experience the
centerpiece of the space, a full-size fragment
of a child’s room, painted ghost white. Aim

PHOTOGRAPHY: © ARCHITEKTURZENTRUM WIEN, SAMMLUNG (BOTTOM); HERZOG & DE MEURON (TOP)

dorf School photographers Thomas Ruff
and Andreas Gursky, hint at Herzog & de
Meuron’s long-held interest in how its work is
documented but are too few in number to give
gaze follows people, while architecture is
relegated to the background.
An affecting 37-minute documentary by Ila
Bêka and Louise Lemoine follows the stories
of patients at REHAB, a Basel neurorehabili-
tation center completed in 2002. The low-rise
timber building bathed in natural light is the
antithesis of the strip-lit, antiseptic institu-
tions familiar to most visitors. But while the
beneficial effects of the environment are
heavily implied, the building is only visible in
glimpses. Nonetheless, giving center stage to
the clinic highlights the firm’s long track
record in care facilities—which is often over-
shadowed by its flashier cultural buildings.
Recent statements by the architects suggest
that they are keen to change perceptions of
their priorities and to devote more of their
energies to such socially meaningful work.
That impression is underscored by the
exhibition’s final room, which is dedicated to
a 200-bed children’s hospital nearing comple-
tion in Zürich. Within the low-rise building,
your phone at it and a palette of natural mate-
rials appears to be overlaying the structure,
along with cushions on the pull-out bed for
parents, and plants outside the window.
Again, the technology is impressive, but its
application seems ill-conceived. If the haptic,
sensory qualities of the building are so impor-
tant, why not use real materials?
Despite such misfires, it’s good to see a
museum show experimenting with the pres-
entation of architecture, which tells its own
story about the propensity of these architects
to challenge convention. This difficult exhibi-
tion demands time—particularly for audi-
ences outside the world of architecture—but
rewards patience, not least in revealing little-
discussed realities of practice. As a portrait of
the architect, it is in some ways unusually
forthright, but it leaves much out. Like the
buildings in the show, the firm’s motivations
and personalities can only be glimpsed
obliquely. In the end, Herzog & de Meuron
remains something of a mystery. n

22 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

 Record TRIBUTE
Jean-Louis Cohen (1949–2023)
BY GWENDOLYN WRIGHT
ON AUGUST 7, 2023, having just turned
74, Jean-Louis Cohen was enjoying a picnic
at his family’s vacation home in the Ardèche
region of southern France when an angry
hornet took his life. We suddenly lost the
person who’s widely considered the most
insightful, wide-ranging, lyrical, and prolific
historian of modern architecture, a dazzling
scholar and polymath, a man of immense joie
de vivre, luminous and witty, boundless in
his warmth and generosity, especially for
students.
His parents had bought the bucolic prop-
erty, with the ruins of an abandoned 17th-
century silkworm factory, in 1949, the year
of his birth. This had always been his home,
his haven. And, yet, allergic to hornets, he
unknowingly swallowed one that had landed
on his sandwich; its repeated stings quickly
induced a fatal heart attack. News of Cohen’s
tragic death immediately generated heartfelt
responses from friends, colleagues, and
students around the world. Strangers eulo-
gized his symphonic descriptions of archi-
tecture as a sensual and emotional experi-
ence—a site for bliss and barbarity, power
and resistance—vastly expanding our as-
sumptions about how architecture happens
and what it can do.
Cohen grew up in the crowded state-subsi-
dized housing projects (HBM’s) of Paris’s
13th arrondissement, a lively working-class
neighborhood. His family were scientists,
secular Jews, and devout Communists com-
mitted to social justice. Thus he understood a
multiplicity of cultures, aspirations, and
experiences.
Trained as an architect at the École Spéciale
d’Architecture and the more radical Unité
Pédagogique No. 6, he received his DPLG,
then a first professional degree to practice
architecture in France, in 1973, while also
attending seminars by Foucault, Lefebvre,
and Lacan. The École des Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales awarded him a Ph.D. in art
history in 1985. Professorships began in 1976 at
the School of Architecture in Nantes, though
he soon returned home to Paris-Villemin and
the Institut Français d’Urbanisme. Then, in
1994, NYU appointed him the Sheldon H.
Solow Professor in the History of Architecture
at the Institute of Fine Arts.
Jean-Louis called himself a Parisien errant
(a wandering Parisian), with allusions to plea-
sure, adventure, and straying from the proper
24 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
course as well as his own peripatetic travels
and research topics. Early terrains expanded
from France to Germany, Italy, and the USSR.
He finally came to the U.S. in the early 1980s.
(His leftist politics had relegated his visa
applications to a blacklist for a decade.) En-
thralled by France’s former North African
colonies, especially Morocco, he began to
chronicle cities of the Global South, notably
Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, and São Paulo.
His grandfather, a renowned linguist,
nurtured Jean-Louis’s exceptional French
prose in its multiple idioms from an early age,
so that he soon developed complete fluency in
five other languages. A prolific author, Cohen
published countless articles, conference pro-
ceedings, and feuilletons, plus more than 40
books. Highlights include Casablanca: Colonial
Myths and Architectural Ventures (with Monique
Eleb, 2002); Mies van der Rohe (1994); The
Future of Architecture Since 1889: A Worldwide
History (2012); France: Modern Architectures in
History (2015); and the colossal Le Corbusier:
The Built Work (2018). He and his good friend
Frank Gehry planned an eight-volume
Catalogue Raisonné of the Drawings to distill
Gehry’s creative process. The first volume
came out in 2020 (record, May 2022); the
second is in press, but the fate of the others is
now uncertain.
As a curator, Cohen saw exhibitions as a
“didactic and playful walk” through time and
places, both real and imaginary. He plotted
multiple trajectories of images, artifacts, and
narratives, some cohesive but others antago-
nistic, that captured common sentiments as
well as antagonisms. Many artifacts in shows
came from the vast personal collection of
books and images he began to assemble in
the 1970s.
He was involved with two Centre
Pompidou epochal exhibition catalogues:
Paris-Moscou 1900–1930 (1979) and
L’Aventure Le Corbusier, 1887–1965 (1987). At
MoMA, he did The Lost Vanguard: Soviet
Modernist Architecture, 1922–32 (2007) and Le
Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes
(2013). Montreal’s Canadian Centre for
Architecture assembled three treasure troves
of his in Scenes of the World to Come: European
Architecture and the American Challenge, 1893–
1960 (1995); Architecture in Uniform:
Designing and Building for the Second World
War (2011); and Building a new New World:
Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture (2020)
(record, March 2021).
Cohen also confronted difficulties in his
career. Chosen to create and direct the Cité
de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine (National
Heritage) in 1998, he threw himself into the
project for five years, only to be “purged”
under a right-wing administration in 2003.
A daring and supple method then crystal-
lized. Cohen embraced strategies to counter
the rote conventions of mainstream scholar-
ship. Cities became the key to continuities
and innovations, patterns and particularities,
ideas and experiences, in every cultural realm
from film to fashion, but especially in archi-
tecture.
Honors proliferated too. Cohen became
a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des
Lettres in 2001. He received a Guggenheim
Fellowship in 2013, then began a three-year
chair at the prestigious Collège de France.
His inaugural lecture celebrated both vision-
ary masters and “the tens of thousands of
practitioners putting their energy into hous-
ing, schools, community services and all
the elements of everyday life . . . that Zola
termed ‘the architectural formula for
democracy.’”
PHOTOGRAPHY: © MANDANARCH, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Jean-Louis Cohen’s sudden death at the
apex of his career is a tragic shock for the
world of architecture. The astounding range
of his research matched the power of his
words, which immediately rang true. We will
sorely miss his warm, radiant presence. He
sought to make a difference in the world, in
small gestures as well as grand ambitions, and
he succeeded brilliantly. n
Gwendolyn Wright is Professor Emerita in
Columbia University’s GSAPP (Graduate School
of Architecture, Planning and Preservation).
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 Record HONORS

Meet the 2023 Women in Architecture Awards Winners

BY MATT HICKMAN

record has announced the 2023 recipients than 50 design leaders juror and is a board
of the Women in Architecture Design who have been recog- member and past
Leadership Awards, which is observing its nized since the pro- president of AIA
10th anniversary as the only awards program gram’s launch. Mississippi.
in the United States recognizing and pro- Duvall Decker, Genevro is an
moting notable women in the field. This who cofounded architectural historian
year’s honorees will be celebrated at the Jackson, Mississippi– and urbanist who,
Women in Architecture Forum & Awards based firm Duvall until her stepping
event held on October 27 in New York. Decker in 1998 with down earlier this year,
Breaking with tradition, the 2023 jury— partner Roy Decker, led The Architectural
Anne Marie Duvall Rosalie Genevro
comprising past awardees Stella Betts, leads a place-centered, League of New York
Decker
Julie Eizenberg, and Claire Weisz, joined community-based as executive director, a
by Mark Gardner, principal of Jaklitsch practice steeped in the role she had held since 1985. Over her trans-
Gardner Architects, and critic Christopher belief that all architecture is public work. formative tenure at the 142-year-old nonprof-
Hawthorne—disposed of the categories used With its focus on promoting social and envi- it, Genevro inaugurated new programs includ-
in previous cycles when selecting this year’s ronmental health, the firm has received nu- ing the online publication Urban Omnibus,
distinguished honorees: Anne Marie Duvall merous accolades and been selected for de- along with many projects such as American
Decker, Rosalie Genevro, Andrea Leers, sign-excellence programs established by the Roundtable and Ten Shades of Green.
Jane Weinzapfel, Julie Snow, and Dr. Sharon GSA and Walton Family Foundation. Genevro also directed projects on housing
Egretta Sutton. Beyond the studio, Duvall Decker has served and a series of design studies that included
The 2023 winners join a cohort of more as a lecturer, visiting professor, and design Vacant Lots, New Schools for New York, The

26 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

 dedicated educators of Design. Dr.
and have taught at Sutton’s career is one
institutions in the of multiple touch­
Boston area and stones as the first
beyond. African American to
Minneapolis prac­ receive both the
PHOTOGRAPHY: © ERICA LANSER (OPPOSITE RIGHT); JENNIFER SIMONSON (MIDDLE)

tice Snow Kreilich ACSA Distinguished

Andrea Leers Jane Weinzapfel
Productive Park, and Housing on the Edge.
Established in 1982, Leers and Wein­
zapfel’s eponymous Boston­based practice
has garnered more than 200 international,
national, and regional design awards, in­
cluding the 2007 AIA Firm Award—the
first woman­owned firm to receive the
honor. Together heralded as leaders in
campus and urban design, Leers is a pioneer
in the use of mass timber in academic set­
tings, while Weinzapfel is recognized for
her expertise in infrastructure and transpor­
tation design. Leers and Weinzapfel are also
Architects was found­
ed in 1995 by Snow as
one of the first wom­
Julie Snow
an­led architecture
firms in Minnesota.
Bestowed with the AIA Firm Award in
2018 and nationally recognized for projects
including the U.S. Land Port of Entry in
Van Buren, Maine, and CHS Field in St.
Paul, the firm describes itself as producing
architecture that performs against multiple
measures of design success. In addition to
her practice, Snow is a noted academic,
having taught at the University of Minnesota
College of Design and other schools.
A musician, fine artist, and practicing
architect, Dr. Sutton is currently distin­
guished visiting professor at Parsons School
Professor Award and
the AIA/ACSA
Topaz Medallion for
Dr. Sharon Egretta
Excel lence in Archi­
Sutton
tectural Education.
She is the 12th African American woman in
the U.S. to be licensed to practice architec­
ture, as well as the first to be promoted to
full professor of architecture and the second
to be elected a fellow of the AIA. The author
of numerous books, include the recent
Pedagogy of a Beloved Community: Pursuing
Democracy’s Promise Through Place-Based
Activism (Fordham University Press), Dr.
Sutton is the 2011 recipient of the AIA
Whitney M. Young Jr. Award and has been
awarded the Medal of Honor from its New
York and Seattle chapters. n

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 FORUM
Gothic Shadow
The Brooklyn Tower forces the public to grapple with
the genre of the supertall, writes Izzy Kornblatt.
IF THE AVANT-GARDE architects of a century ago
liked to invoke the unity of the arts represented by the
Gothic era—in 1919, Walter Gropius argued that modern
society needed to facilitate “the rebirth of that spiritual unity
which found expression in the miracle of the Gothic cathe-
drals”—it was not because the arc of the 20th century tended
toward such cohesion. In retrospect, these invocations seem
more like acts of protest against the very opposite condition:
the dissolution of architecture into a set of ever-multiplying
specializations that no individual could hope to govern. In
place of the master builder, the regime of economic efficiency
began to dictate each aspect of building according to its own
ruthless logic. If in 1950 Frank Lloyd Wright’s S.C. Johnson
Research Tower in Wisconsin could still be reasonably de-
PHOTOGRAPHY: © YAXUAN LIU
scribed as an American Gesamstkunstwerk—a total work in
which everything from the cantilevering structure to the
custom furnishings served a unified purpose—no similar
thing can be said of the skyscrapers of today. In all but those
cases where a brand-name architect is brought in for a state-
ment building, massing tends to be a product of real-estate
economics and zoning laws, structure is the most expedient
code-compliant option devised by engineers, and interior
planning is highly formulaic.
Such is the world into which the looming 1,066-foot
The Brooklyn
Tower seen from
afar, with the
Williamsburgh
Brooklyn Tower, the borough’s tallest by far and its first to
Savings Bank
attain the status of “supertall,” has arrived. Linked at its base Tower, long the
to the Beaux-Arts Dime Savings Bank at the intersection of tallest building in
Fleet Street and DeKalb Avenue, the dark hexagonal tower Brooklyn.
rises forcefully, narrowing as setbacks cut into each of its
sides—a lengthy Gothic shadow of the Neoclassical neigh-
bor from which its geometries are derived, perhaps, or a
realization of the forbidding “metropolis of tomorrow”
imagined by Hugh Ferriss. In the sea of repetitive slabs that
has come to define downtown Brooklyn, this tower stands
apart, an ominous mass rendered scaleless by a skin of black
glass and arrhythmic pattern of glinting fins. Observers have
likened it to something out of Gotham City or Lord of the
Rings. A friend of mine who lives nearby went so far as to
link it to Edmund Burke’s notion of the sublime: something
vast and infinite, designed “to excite the ideas of pain, and
danger,” as Burke put it.
And all this despite the tower’s architect, Gregg Pasqua-
relli of SHoP, facing the same constraints as everyone else,
from intricate building codes to the need to allocate square
footage with maximum efficiency and that ultimate crite-
rion—the tower’s chances of profitability in the eyes of
financial backers. SHoP’s achievement, then, is creating a
work of “capital-A Architecture” within and in spite of an
29
 FORUM
economic system that is indifferent to
the concerns of architecture as a disci-
pline. We are not dealing with yet
another attempt to dress up the ordi-
nary products of the building industry
in elegant garb; that one can vehe-
mently like or dislike this tower is a
sign that it is something far more
interesting. Indeed, this is architecture
that attempts a serious undertaking—
to provoke its audiences to contend
with what it means to build such a
tower in Brooklyn today.
Needless to say, in the shrinking of
the domain of Architecture, where
architects no longer have control over
many aspects of their projects, much
has been lost. The Modernist ambi-
tion to remake social relations by
reconfiguring the built world would
seem to be a particularly tragic casu-
alty, though its causes of death are
multifold. But, unlike Rem Koolhaas’s
OMA and its many disciples, SHoP
has not responded to the present
Hugh Ferriss’s situation by attempting a latter-day resuscitation of that
A City of Needles ambition. The Brooklyn Tower neither seeks to disrupt or
(1924), illustrating reconfigure how its occupants live, nor to mount a critique
the architect of the institutions that created it. The building is unapolo-
Raymond Hood’s
getic as a moneymaking proposition on the part of its devel-
proposal for a
future city of oper, Michael Stern’s JDS Group, and it has been a success
widely spaced so far: even though the tower’s interiors will not be complete
supertall towers. until 2024, the expansive, multimillion-dollar condos on its
upper floors are already selling briskly, according to JDS
managing director Marci Clark. Even its rent-controlled
apartments—the inclusion of which earned JDS a tax
break—start at more than $2,600 per month.
The genre of the “pencil tower,” those super-skinny
supertall residential buildings made famous by Manhattan’s
so-called Billionaire’s Row, one designed by SHoP, may well
represent what is decadent and unequal in the 21st-century
American economy—and the arrival of the first such tower
in Brooklyn serves as yet another reminder that wealth
inequality in New York does not respect borough boundar-
ies. Where the Brooklyn Tower goes beyond profiting its
developer and begins to take on a greater significance is
precisely in its open acknowledgement of these realities. The
menacing effect of the exterior, created through the relent-
less verticality and Gothic articulations of the dark facades
and through the building’s Ferriss-like setback massing,
becomes a flirtation with the image of evil and an open-
ended comment on how the tower is perceived: it might be
evil, or it might just know that we think it’s evil. Perhaps, the
tower implicitly suggests, a building produced by the dark
forces of modern capitalism should illuminate those forces
rather than wear false teeth.
In these ways, the tower makes public debate over the
changing face of the city a subject of architectural aesthetics,
and in so doing it enters into lively dialogue with its sur-
30 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
roundings. Seen behind the cheery Junior’s restaurant near its
base, or from nearby Fulton Mall, the tower becomes an
arresting backdrop for the theater of everyday Brooklyn life.
Seen from a mile or so south, where it appears to stand di-
rectly on axis with Flatbush Avenue, it develops a more com-
plex relationship with the Romanesque Revival Williams-
burgh Savings Bank Tower, which was completed on the eve
of the Great Depression and held the title of Brooklyn’s tallest
building until 2009. If the two are linked by a shared his-
tory—Halsey, McCormack & Helmer, the firm that de-
signed the tower, renovated and expanded the Dime Savings
Bank in the early 1930s—and by their embrace of historical
references, they could hardly be more different in outlook.
The optimistic projection into the future of the roaring 1920s
has given way to the contradictory attitudes of the present,
when the technical and economic achievement of rising 1,000
feet into the sky is blunted by critiques of how such buildings
ultimately serve the city.
That the Brooklyn Tower manages such heavy architec-
tural lifting without the budget and freedom afforded by,
say, a cultural commission, is a rare feat. The best analogues
may be the “decorated sheds” of Venturi, Scott Brown, and
Associates, in which the most ordinary of structures become
forceful works of social commentary. But for Venturi and
Scott Brown, these works constituted a pained lament of
architecture’s retreat from an enterprise of social transfor-
mation to one of surface decoration, revealing, as the theo-
rist Manfredo Tafuri argued, “the very depths to which one
who still wants to make ‘Architecture’ is confined.” The
Brooklyn Tower shares little of Venturi and Scott Brown’s
pessimism; it does not seem bothered about Architecture’s
reduced domain. Its self-consciousness about its place in the
city is ultimately a product of architectural confidence: it
finds in the present situation the exciting possibility that the
ordinary might yet be made extraordinary again. n
Learning AI
Incorporating AI into architecture school is a chance
to address broader issues, writes Pansy Schulman.
OVER THE PAST YEAR, the exponential proliferation
of artificial intelligence–powered technologies has turned
an anxious whisper into a blaring claxon of existential crisis.
In a March 2023 report, Goldman Sachs predicted that AI
could replace as many as 300 million jobs across all indus-
tries globally and estimated that 37 percent of tasks within
architecture and engineering could be automated by AI.
And while some architects are embracing it with open arms,
others warn of AI’s troubling ethical implications and the
threat it poses to the profession. Both predictions ring true:
AI is both a tool and a crisis, and much may depend on how,
and how quickly, practitioners can adapt.
This sea change is playing out in architecture schools,
where educators are grappling with how to incorporate AI
into curricula even as the technology continues to evolve at
breakneck speed. Preparing students for architecture after
AI means addressing ethical issues around plagiarism, The author’s
intellectual property, and privacy, while at the same time attempts to
facing its potential impact on the labor market. recreate SHoP’s
Brooklyn Tower
While some architects have been working with artificial
via text prompts
intelligence for decades, the introduction of image-generat- using Midjourney
ing software such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion last software, from
summer was a pistol firing for educators in the race to stay at first attempt (far
the industry’s cutting edge. “We’re now introducing these left) to 16th (left)
programs in our undergraduate program as early as second to 30th (bottom).
year,” says Omar Khan, the head of Carnegie Mellon
University’s school of architecture, “but they are framed in a
way that is critical.” In a February letter, Khan listed AI as
one of the school’s three “central pedagogical challenges,”
along with climate change and social justice.
With Midjourney, renderings that once took weeks can
now be generated within seconds via a text prompt, with
results ranging from the mundane to the fantastical. Of
course, these are just images—not three-dimensional de-
signs that can be represented in plan and section—but more
advanced design programs are in the works. The China-
based firm XKool is currently attempting to develop a
unified AI program to fill in these gaps.
David Ruy, who leads the postgraduate program at the
Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and
has been working with AI in his advanced studios for years,
sees a possible positive outcome to widespread use of such
technology. Many trace the profession’s attachment to long
working hours to architecture school’s studio culture, and he
believes that AI’s time-saving capabilities could kick-start a
value shift. “When you can type in a prompt and get a
rendering that’s better than what you could have produced
after a week of work, you have to acknowledge that the real
value in education comes in judgment and curation, not
elbow grease,” he says.
But these tools can also be abused. Last fall, SCI-Arc
faculty became alarmed by a rash of AI-aided “plagiarism” our jobs? or ‘Are we going to even have jobs when we gradu-
in writing assignments, a problem that has become wide- ate?,’ ” says Del Campo. “After a year, they don’t ask that
spread with the advancement of the text-producing software question anymore.” A number of his students have been
ChatGPT. Generative software does not copy per se, but it hired after graduation in new roles that are geared toward
is trained on copious amounts of data scraped from the web, AI. One firm, for instance, sought to create a dataset of its
pointing to thornier issues of ownership and originality in past projects; another wanted to develop a program that
AI-generated work. In January, three artists filed a lawsuit could perform feature recognition on project sites.
against the creators of Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, Architect Neil Leach, who directs the Doctor of Design
alleging that the training of these so-called “large language program at Florida International University, is among the
models”—on some 5 billion human-authored images—in- bleakest prognosticators of an AI-driven future. Of particu-
fringed on the copyright of countless artists. Data is the lar concern to him is AI’s pace of development and ability to
currency of our age, and increasing awareness of its value train itself. “It’s doing things that we never programmed it
could lead to future regulation. to do, and never anticipated that it could do,” he says, pre-
Of course, image generators are just the tip of the AI dicting that there will soon be nothing that AI can’t achieve,
iceberg. For Matias del Campo, director of the Architecture architecture included. Leach’s dystopian view is bolstered by
and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of warnings from AI ‘godfather’-turned-whistleblower Geof-
Michigan, the clamor around Midjourney obfuscates more frey Hinton, who has called attention to the technology’s
essential applications of the technology, such as predictive capacity to spread misinformation, upend the job market,
methodologies that can optimize plans or chart urban devel- and, in the longer term, evolve beyond the control of its
opment. Since 2018, he has been teaching his students to go creators.
“under the hood” of AI, to build and program their own Leach is currently working on his third book on AI and
datasets. This work, he argues, also helps students grapple architecture, ominously titled The Death of the Architect,
with ethical issues like bias in data and privacy. which casts AI as the final nail in the coffin of an already
“A lot of students come in asking, ‘Are we going to lose beleaguered profession. In our conversation, he oscillated

31
 FORUM
between fear and awe at the technology’s potential, and
criticized the naivete of architects who prescribe anything
less than a complete overhaul of the profession. I asked
Leach if he wanted to “shut it down,” like the group of tech
leaders—including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak—who
signed an open letter in March calling for a halt to AI de-
velopment. “We can’t,” he replied. “The cat’s out of the bag.”
I came away from the conversation with an only slightly
heightened sense of dread—the urge to throw my electronic
devices into the ocean lasted only a moment—and not yet
convinced of AI’s ability to supersede all aspects of human
creativity. Even with the assistance of Midjourney, with
which “anyone can be an architect” (or at least generate a
convincing image of a building), designing well still requires
a dense cultural knowledge and a sophisticated critical
understanding that can be honed by architectural education.
After all, doomsayers have been foretelling the death of
architecture since the adoption of computer-aided design.
The real fear is not that AI will necessarily be better than
us, but that it will be cheaper, and that our economic system
ensures an imminent and devastating fallout. In its wake,
the efforts of educators to encourage interdisciplinary col-
laboration with the fields of robotics, computer science, and
data analysis, and to question ideas of sole ownership and
S I T E FU R N I S H I NGS
IMAGE: THOMASTEAL.COM
BURNSIDE BIKE CORRAL
MULTNOMAH UNIVERSITY
32 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
LEARN MORE AT HUNTCO.COM
lone creative genius that generative technology is provoking,
will not only be crucial to the profession’s survival, but may
help address such longstanding issues as an unsustainable
and sometimes toxic work culture.
New technologies, each promising to be earth-shattering,
have been the relentless patter of our times, and it’s difficult
to rouse feelings of either promise or fear when flashy new
software debuts. But an expanded role for AI seems assured,
and will demand a critical and informed understanding,
both of the technology itself and of the individual, political,
and corporate interests that are propelling it forward. As
Khan told me, “The shift that’s coming is not about the
tools; it’s about the new world that AI will create.”
With thoughtful integration of AI into the curriculum,
educators can equip the next generation of architects with a
tech literacy that not only increases output or efficiency but
also allows them to see past the hype, toward the structures
of power that undergird AI—and then, perhaps, a more
nuanced conversation about the role of architects within
those structures will emerge. n
We are seeking thoughtful, well-researched pieces with a strong
point of view for future editions of Forum. Please send pitches
and submissions to ARForum@bnpmedia.com.
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 HOUSE of the Month
MWWORKS DESIGNS A PRIVATE REFUGE IN THE HEART OF SEATTLE, OVERLOOKING A LAKE. BY RACHEL GALLAHER

JUST THREE MILES east of downtown

Seattle—and a handful of blocks up from
Lake Washington—sits the idyllic Madrona
neighborhood. With quiet, tree-lined side-
walks, an eclectic mix of architecture, and
hilly topography that results in enviable water
views, the tiny enclave has long been home to
the city’s most sought-after real estate. For
one local family—a marketing executive, his
wife, and their two children—settling in
Madrona had been an ambition for many
years. They lived just south of the neighbor-
hood, and the wife, an avid runner, would
pass through as she clocked her weekly miles.
“There was one particular lot that she had
been eyeing,” says architect Steve Mongillo,
cofounder and principal at the Seattle-based
mwworks, who worked with the family to
design their 3,480-square-foot residence.
“They had periodically reached out to the
residents who lived there, saying, ‘If you’re
ever interested in selling, we’d love to talk.’ ” A TWO-STORY PAVILION (top) provides views out to Lake Washington (above). A breezeway connects
When the lot—a spacious corner property the house’s two main volumes and doubles as an entrance (opposite).
on a gentle slope—finally went up for sale in
PHOTOGRAPHY: © KEVIN SCOTT

2016, the clients jumped on the opportunity,
even though mwworks was designing a house
for them elsewhere. “This was their dream
location,” says Mongillo, “so they sold the
other property, and we got to work on the
Madrona site,” first by taking down the exist-
ing house.
Despite breathtaking views to the east, one
of the primary challenges the design team
encountered was car traffic on the abutting
roads—headlights regularly shone across the
property. Privacy was important to the clients,
Mongillo says, adding that, “aside from want-
ing a house connected to the landscape, they
asked for a peaceful retreat that felt calm and
rejuvenating—a place to escape at the end of
the day.”
Rather than install unwelcoming walls or
tall fences—the clients hoped to keep the
house in line with the surrounding neighbor-
hood—Mongillo and his team creatively used

36 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

37
 HOUSE of the Month
slatted screens to shield the house from public
streets on three sides and, on the fourth, from
a nearby neighbor.
With screening solutions as the driving
design force, Mongillo planned a four-bed-
room house comprising simple, rectangular
concrete masses connected by a glassed-in
breezeway and two intimate courtyard gar-
dens. Downhill, Mongillo opted to raise the
grade and plant a row of hedges at the prop-
erty line, a move that obscures views of the
road and neighboring sheds and garages.
The house is divided into two main sec-
tions. The single-story public zone (kitchen,
indoor, and outdoor dining areas, a living
room, and a large deck) is the easternmost
sited—it opens to the yard and has unob-
structed lake views. The breezeway connects
this part of the house with a two-story pavil-
ion that holds an informal TV room, utility
spaces, and a sauna on the first level, the
bedrooms and a home office above. The
single-story volume has a green roof that acts
as a foreground to the sweeping views from
the uppermost floor.
“Initially, we assumed the second story
would be forward on the property, closer to
5
A 5 A
4 6
1
7
LOWER-LEVEL PLAN UPPER-LEVEL PLAN
1 PORTE-COCHÈRE
2 VESTIBULE
3 KITCHEN
4 DINING
7 7
1 4 5 6
SECTION A - A
38 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
the lake,” Mongillo says, “but we pushed it
toward the back to avoid views that look
directly down at the street.”
The two-volume layout creates unique
spatial experiences; the positioning of the
structures strategically hides and reveals
specific spaces as one wanders through the
house. “We choreographed a progression of
views,” says Mongillo, “and it unfolds from
the front door on.”
Nods to Pacific Northwest Modernism
abound. The courtyard gardens—one at the
entryway and another flanking the dining
room—help bring daylight deep into the house
and create a sense of calm through a connec-
tion to nature. The exterior material palette
was chosen for its elegant simplicity and ability
to weather well with little maintenance. The
poured-in-place concrete forms (“We love the
imperfections,” notes Mongillo) complement
recycled, paper-based panel siding, and
Alaskan yellow cedar slatted screens add depth
and lighten the house’s street presence.
White oak, used for flooring, cabinetry, and
casework, harmonizes the interiors and helps
bring a sense of warmth, especially during the
gray Pacific Northwest winters. “We used
8
7
0 15 FT.
5 M.
5 LIVING
6 PATIO
7 BEDROOM
8 PRIMARY SUITE
slightly different textures for the oak ele- GARDEN
ments,” says Mongillo, “but we intentionally COURTYARDS
and large windows
kept it simple to heighten spatial quality and
bring light deep
the house’s connection to nature.” n into the house
(left and above).
Rachel Gallaher is a freelance writer and editor Raw concrete with
living in Seattle. Her work has appeared in gridded snap ties
GRAY, Dwell, The Seattle Times, and is used inside
Azure, among other publications. (opposite) and
out (top left).
Credits
ARCHITECT: mwworks — Steve Mongillo,
Eric Walter, principals; Bradley Kinsey, Drew
Shawver, Briony Walker, design team
ENGINEERS: PCS Structural Solutions
(structural); J Welch Engineering (civil)
CONSULTANT: Wittman Estes (landscape)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Dowbuilt
SIZE: 3,480 square feet
COST: withheld
COMPLETION DATE: May 2020

Sources
CLADDING: Alaskan Yellow Cedar (fins);
Western Red Cedar (siding); Richlite (panels);
Prosocco (moisture barrier)
WINDOWS & DOORS: Quantum
HARDWARE: Emtek
INTERIOR FINISHES: Benjamin Moore (paint);
Garrison Collection (flooring); Cathy Connor/
Studio C (plasterwork)
LIGHTING: Juno, Halo (downlights); B-K
Lighting (exterior)
PLUMBING: Calazzo (shower); Zuchetti
(fixtures)

39
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 LANDSCAPE
MEXICAN STUDIO RIPARIA ANCHORS A REVIVED PARK WITH A MASS-TIMBER PAVILION FIT FOR A FAMED AMPHIBIAN. BY MATT HICKMAN
BOTH EMBLEMATIC of, and endan-
gered in, its native Mexico, the perpetually
juvenile amphibian known as the axolotl—el
ajolote—once thrived within vast lakes later
drained by Spanish settlers and devoured by
the sprawling metropolis that became the
country’s capital. Known for their impish
“grins,” feathery gills, hearty carnivorous
diets, and remarkable regenerative powers
that kick in when a limb (or two) is lost,
Mexico City’s famed mole salamanders take
their name from Xolotl, the Aztec god of fire
and lightning who escaped death by trans-
forming himself into a lizard-like creature
and fleeing into the water.
Today, Mexico City’s imperiled wild
axolotl population can be found only within
a single surviving habitat: the canals and
PHOTOGRAPHY: © ONNIS LUQUE
scattered wetlands comprising the remnants
of the ancient lake of Xochimilco. Roughly
40 miles to the southwest of the city, in
Toluca, the axolotl—including all 16 endem-
ic-to-Mexico members of the larger family
Ambystoma—is celebrated, and its continued
plight spotlighted, at a new facility that is
part of one of the first public park-rewilding
projects in the country.
Led by Riparia, a multidisciplinary archi-
tecture studio focused on water sustainability,
the restoration of Toluca’s 47-acre Parque de
la Ciencia Sierra Morelos foregrounds public
recreation and wildlife conservation while
showcasing the axolotl in a shrine, of sorts:
the Ajolotario, a circular wetland observation
platform-cum-education center that anchors
the revived urban park, dedicated to the
conservation and study of Mexico’s iconic
amphibians.
Realized with concrete and mass timber,
the 4,300-square-foot Ajolotario is built
directly into its marshy surroundings, con-
nected to the shore by a pedestrian bridge.
Because its lower level is partially sub-
merged, the ring-shaped structure’s concrete
“basement” had to be completed before the
rainy season began. The wetlands then
filled with the assistance of a nearby waste-
water plant that pumps treated water into
the park’s once-barren ponds—part of a
larger wetland reclamation strategy led by
Shaded by a mass-timber canopy, the
Ajolotario features a circular observation deck
with views of the surrounding wetlands.
Riparia. The remainder of the project was
completed by crane.
Giordana Rojas, a partner at Riparia,
points out that the park itself is in a “very
humble area, so, in terms of socioeconomics,
water, and biodiversity, it was important to
rescue it.”
“The Ajolotario is the embodiment of
everything we want to showcase about wet-
lands and the ajolote,” says Laurent Herbiet,
another partner. “We put the museum in the
water so people can experience the underwater
ecosystem.” To that end, the lower level of the
pavilion, with its porthole windows offering
visitors a direct glimpse of the murky depths,
features exhibition space, classrooms, and
research labs that are visible to the public from
a winding corridor encircling the space. While
Toluca’s native variety of ajolote can be found
in the wild just upstream of the Ajolotario, the
vulnerable amphibians have yet to be reintro-
43
 LANDSCAPE

A ramp wrapping around a central garden (left

and above, left) leads to the lower level (opposite)
where native amphibians (above) are on display.

duced to the park’s restored lake. For now,

they can be viewed, along with fellow Mex­
ican salamanders and other local wetland
denizens, in a series of display tanks at the
new building.
Above the surface at the Ajolotario’s
made­for­birding observation level, which is
connected to the submerged deck via a spi­
raling ramp, is a soaring canopy featuring a
vegetation­topped cross­laminated timber
(CLT) slab roof. Supported by glulam col­
umns, the roof is the first structure in
Mexico to be built with CLT, according to
the architects. “It’s in the early stages here,
but it’s growing fast,” remarks Herbiet of the
country’s embrace of mass timber. Further
emphasizing the beauty of wood, a Monte­
1 RAMP 4 DRAINAGE 7 LAB 10 GREEN ROOF zuma cypress emerges from a garden at the

PHOTOGRAPHY: © ONNIS LUQUE (2); ZAICKZ MOZ (TOP, RIGHT)

2 EXHIBIT 5 CYPRESS TREE 8 PORTHOLE 11 WETLAND heart of the space that’s open to the sky.
3 AQUARIUM 6 STORAGE & 9 TEMPORARY 12 BIRD SIGNAGE Back on land, the larger park­rewilding
M/E/P EXHIBITION scheme yielded recycled­concrete footpaths,
green­roof­topped restroom facilities and
10 10 picnic shelters, wildflower meadows, a new
play area, and a towering bat house—a far cry
from its barren previous iteration, when the
12 9 9
5
park lacked significant wildlife and was domi­
1
nated by scruffy expanses of lawn. After its
11 2 1 7 8 11 reopening in late 2022, people—and just as
6 4 crucially, wildlife—have returned to experi­
ence something the park has undergone but
that the axolotl, by design, does not: a full
0 15 FT.
SECTION
5 M.
metamorphosis. n

44 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

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Really a trio of tables, Cyclade was designed by Gabriel Tan for Herman Miller. The
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A simple yet elegant chaise longue by Frag, Caruso is modeled to
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Inspired by Japanese pottery, this Daltile series is
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48 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

 Haze
In collaboration with Turkish
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Brise Dining Chair

Koinè Wall
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49
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BOOKS
The New Antiquarians: At Home with Young
Collectors, by Michael Diaz-Griffith. Monacelli
Press, 272 pages, $65.
Ranging from minimalist to maximalist, the
interiors illustrated in this compendium make the
case that a new generation is revitalizing the
world of collecting. These “New Antiquarians”
treat connoisseurship as a serious vocation and
embrace novel ways of looking at—and living
with—the material culture of the past and pres-
ent. Michael Diaz-Griffith draws from deep
knowledge of art history,
interior design, the antiques
trade, and contemporary
culture in seventeen hand-
somely illustrated chapters and
an introduction. Following is
an excerpt from the latter.
Between the 1970s and
early 2000s, the market for
antiques and historic art
ascended to precipitous
heights, adding untold value
to the world’s store of old
things. Entire categories of
objects that had been considered unfashion-
able or even objectionable, from English
furniture to American folk art, returned to
vogue, along with the practice of collecting
itself. Volumes could be dedicated to the
economic and cultural reasons for this boom,
and undoubtedly some would strike a negative
tone. The period, especially the 1980s, has
been characterized as an Age of Excess. For
collectors and connoisseurs, however, it was a
Golden Age. Objects were not just desired;
they were violently contested and victoriously
won, from the sharp-elbowed aisles of an-
tiques shows to the increasingly glamorous
auction house floor, which became a locus for
public spectacle. There was little doubt that
things mattered, and no question at all that
stewards would volunteer themselves, perhaps
too readily, to usher them into the next cen-
tury—paying millions of dollars, if necessary,
for the privilege of doing so.
The problem with booms is that they are
pregnant with busts. So it was with this
boom, which slid into a downturn around the
turn of the century before busting, with
barely a whimper, after the financial crisis of
2007–08.
What happened? Did the recession cause
collectors to tighten their belts in the usual
fashion, or did the trouble go, mysteriously,
deeper? Some gestured to the specter of 9/11
and the endless wars that followed, murmur-
ing about a generational shift from beauty to
survival. Others pointed to the burgeoning
taste for minimalism among Gen X (or those
born between roughly 1965 and 1980), which
produced a mania for Midcentury Modern at
a time when the material was still too new,
despite its vintage status, to be seen through
the lens of continuity rather than disruption.
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the market,
IKEA rose to a status first of ubiquity, then of
hegemony, becoming a kind of shorthand for
everything antiques-lovers hated: flatness,
convenience, and, above all,
disposability.
Historians of these times
will marvel at our oblivious-
ness of the internet’s rise,
even as it remade our world.
While the antiques market
cratered, the vast jungle gym
Peale™ Wall Panels
of high society began to fail
too, reducing the stakes of
socially competitive activities
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 ROYAL COLLECTIONS GALLERY I MADRID I MANSILLA + TUÑÓN ARQUITECTOS
The Big Reveal
Nearly 25 years in the making, a museum with a complex and dramatic site finally has its debut.
BY ANDREW AYERS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUIS ASÍN
“TIME IS A construction material,” says 64-year-old architect Emilio
Tuñón Álvarez as we stand at the threshold to Madrid’s new Galería de
las Coleccionnes Reales (Royal Collections Gallery, or GCR). And he
should know: almost a quarter century after his then firm, the globally
renowned Mansilla + Tuñón, entered the first competition to design the
institution, the $165 million building finally opened to the public this
June. A lot has happened since, including the 2012 heart attack that
struck down his former partner, Luis Moreno García Mansilla, at the
age of just 53. “His death was a disaster, but what could we do?” asks
Tuñón, now principal at Tuñon y Albornoz Arquitectos, alongside Car-
los Martínez de Albornoz. “We carried on. This is Luis’s final building.”
As sites go, it’s difficult to find one that’s more dramatic or presti-
gious—on the crest of a forbidding promontory right next to Madrid’s
vast Palacio Real (Juvarra, Sacchetti, Sabatini, et al., 1735–1905), with
spectacular views over the Casa de Campo (a former royal hunting
park), the forest of El Pardo, and the peaks of the Sierra de Guadar-
rama beyond. “This was the founding point of Madrid,” says Tuñón of
the spot where the ninth-century alcazaba once stood, a citadel built to
defend Muslim Toledo from the Christian kingdoms to the north.
“The Galería completes the line of the city’s crest.” What’s more, with
artworks by Bernini, Rubens, Titian, and Velázquez, not to mention
60 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
furniture, fans, carriages, and a pair of armored Mercedeses gifted to
Franco by Hitler, the collections are just as spectacular and challenging
as the site.
The idea of building a museum for the royal collections dates back
to Spain’s Second Republic (1931–39), which, after Alfonso XIII’s
flight into exile, nationalized the monarch’s palaces, monasteries, and
gardens and founded Patrimonio Nacional to oversee them. Seven
decades later, at the turn of the millennium, the Spanish government
finally launched the project as part of a wider program of museum
expansion in Madrid: Rafael Moneo won the commission to extend
the Prado in 1998 (record, March 2008), Jean Nouvel scooped up
the Reina Sofía enlargement in 1999 (record, July 2006), while
BOPBAA was victorious in the 2000 Thyssen-Bornemisza remodeling
contest. For the GCR, viewed at the time as an extension to the
Palacio Real, the 1999 competition asked seven finalists to slot their
designs into an L-shaped site wrapping one corner of the huge and
unloved Catedral de la Almudena (1883–1993), next to the palace’s
THE BUILDING OCCUPIES the edge of a promontory next to the Palacio
Real (above). From below, it reads as a complex stack of floors of varying
heights (opposite).
61
 A B
B

A
7
C
D
E
2
3

A ROYAL COLLECTIONS
GALLERY

B CATHEDRAL
A B
C PLAZA DE LA

ENTRY-FLOOR PLAN SITE AXONOMETRIC DIAGRAM ALMUDENA

D MUSEO DE ARMAS

E PALACIO REAL

0 100 FT. 0 100 FT.

-1 FLOOR PLAN -2 FLOOR PLAN
30 M. 30 M.

62 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

THE LOWER FLOORS’ ramps are brick, like the
walls of the adjacent palace basement
(opposite), while the rest of the building is
enclosed in offset stone colonnades (right).

parade ground, the Plaza de la Armería.

Spanish firm Estudio Cano Lasso won the
job, beating not only David Chipperfield and
Zaha Hadid but also Mansilla + Tuñón, who
were disqualified for disrespecting the site
boundaries—to avoid building between the
palace and the cathedral, the duo eschewed
the competition’s L contours, proposing
instead to occupy the whole strip of land
along the edge of the ridge, whose southern-
most tip belonged to the church and not to
Patrimonio Nacional.
The story would have ended there for
Mansilla + Tuñón were it not for Antonio
Vázquez de Castro Sarmiento, a respected
Spanish architect who had worked on the
Reina Sofía conversion. As Tuñón tells it,
furious at having been overlooked in the
extension competitions, he attacked the GCR
results in court on a technicality: children of
the illustrious Julio Cano Lasso (1920–96),
the winners, had submitted their father’s
résumé to get through the selection process.
After the court found in Vázquez de Castro’s
favor, the authorities organized a new compe-
tition in 2002, to which Mansilla + Tuñón
submitted exactly the same project—and this
time won.
Motivated by the presence of important
archeological remains, the duo’s decision not
to build between the cathedral and the palace

10
11

12

0 100 FT.
SECTION A - A
30 M.

1 ENTRANCE 8 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RUINS

2 EXIT 9 HOUSES OF TRASTÁMARA AND

3 LOBBY AUSTRIA GALLERIES

4 TICKETING 10 HOUSE OF BOURBON GALLERIES 9

5 SHOP 11 TEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS 10

6 RAMP 12 OFFICES AND STORAGE 11

7 CAFETERIA
SECTION B - B 0 100 FT.
30 M.

63
 is among the more brilliant aspects of their scheme: as you approach
the GCR from the cathedral plaza, the 538,000-square-foot building
is entirely invisible, since it dips down to form a belvedere from which
to admire the extraordinary view. To your right is one wing of the
palace, to your left the extremely discreet entrance, and in front of you
the 100-foot drop to the Campo del Moro, the palace’s gardens below.
Viewed from down there, the GCR reveals itself as a complex piling up
of floor plates of different depths, with auxiliary program in the larger
lower levels, which, projecting farther into the Campo del Moro, form
a podium for the galleries and other public areas in the five slimmer
stories above. While the bottom floors, with their brick-clad ramps,
are massed to fit in with Sabatini’s brick-and-stone palace basement,
the public spaces are encased behind a formal grill of offset orthogonal
colonnades, intended to echo the solemn march of Sacchetti’s granite-
64 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
THE LOBBY’S stately columns frame views of the landscape (above).
Visitors descend through the museum via an internal ramp (opposite).
and-limestone facades. This is perhaps the GCR’s one false note, for,
although contextually faced in huge blocks of granite 1 foot thick and
up to 10 feet high (in all, 353,000 cubic feet of stone, says Tuñón,
snapped up for nothing in the wake of the financial crash), these
brooding elevations, with their fortress-like balistraria, appear a little
cumbersome next to the palace’s stately Italian baroque.
There is, of course, a reason for this massiveness. Besides providing
a retaining wall for the promontory flank, the GCR houses three giant
galleries, 338 feet long and 53 feet wide, stacked one on top of the
other. Realized in heavily reinforced concrete whose white-limestone
aggregate matches the palace facades, their structure takes the form of
tightly cadenced, endlessly repeating orthogonal frames that enclose
spaces free from intermediary supports. “The building is like a piece of
freeway infrastructure,” says Tuñón. “You could drive trucks inside it.”
At the time of the competition, the idea was to divide the collections
by object type: the 26-foot-high upper gallery would display tapestries,
the 18-foot-high middle space the fine and decorative arts, while the
20-foot-tall lower gallery would showcase the carriage collection.
Visitors would enter from the top and descend via a series of monu-
mental ramps, after which a giant elevator (capacity 140) would bring
them back up and out again.
The competition fiasco was just the first of many factors that pushed
the timeline over the two-decade mark. The detailed-design phase took
three years to complete after Patrimonio Nacional decided the GCR
needed to operate independently of the Palacio Real and asked Mansilla
+ Tuñón to add in an auditorium and a cafeteria. When construction
finally began, in 2006, lengthy archaeological digs—among them the
former palace gasworks, whose heavy contamination needed cleaning
up—and the 2008 financial crash saw to it that the building would not
be completed until late 2015. Then began what El País has described as
an eight-year-long “political-diplomatic-cultural psychodrama” involving
“four prime ministers, five presidents of Patrimonio Nacional, two
directors of the GCR, an ex-king, and all the political and administrative
apathy in the world.” Part of that drama was triggered by the first direc-
tor, José Luis Díez, who quite legitimately questioned the logic of orga-
nizing the collections typologically. After prolonged debate, the inaugu-
ral display, as curated by his successor, Leticia Ruiz Gómez, mixes
everything up to tell the story chronologically: in the upper gallery, we
find the royal houses of Trastárama and Austria (with objects from the
65
 Credits
ARCHITECT: Mansilla + Tuñón Arquitectos
— Luis Moreno García Mansilla, Emilio Tuñón
Álvarez, Carlos Brage, Rubén Arend, Matilde
Peralta, Andrés Regueiro, Clara Moneo,
Teresa Cruz, Bárbara Silva, Jaime Gimeno,
Stefania Previati, David Nadal, Oscar F. Aguayo,
Carlos Martinez de Albornoz, Asa Nakano,
Coco Castillón, Javier González Galán, Mila
Moskalenko, Inés García de Paredes
ENGINEERS: J.G. Asociados (m/e/p); GOGAITE
Ingenieros (civil)
CONSULTANTS: Manuel Blanco Lage, Hector
Navarro (museography)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: FCC Fomento de
Construcciones y Contratas
CLIENT: Patrimonio Nacional
SIZE: 538,000 square feet
COST: $165 million
COMPLETION DATE: June 2023

Sources
GLAZING: Saint-Gobain
CURTAIN WALL: Jansen
STONE: Granilouro
ROOFING: BASF
VERTICAL CIRCULATION: TK Elevator
LIGHTING: ERCO

66 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

THE REPEATING concrete frames help organize
lighting and conceal mechanical equipment in
the galleries (right and opposite).

reigns of Isabella of Castile to Charles II,

1474–1700); in the middle space, the
Bourbons, the current ruling dynasty (with
displays covering Philip V to Alfonso XIII,
1700–1931); while the lowest level has been
split in two, with temporary exhibitions in one
half—cars and carriages for the inaugural
show—and a secondary entrance (essentially
for groups) in the other.
The vast majority of visitors will arrive from
above, as initially intended, through an en-
trance that Tuñón describes as “a bit of a joke.
It’s something we learned from [former em-
ployer] Rafael Moneo, who used to say, ‘Good
buildings are small outside and large inside.’ ”
To this end, in a classic architectural trick, the
scheme has you pass through a low, dark space
before emerging into a high, light-filled en-
trance hall that sets the tone for what’s to
come, with its beautifully cast, board-marked
white-concrete columns and beams framing
views out onto the landscape beyond. “We
sought to mix the monumental and the domes-
tic,” says Tuñón about details such as white-
lacquered louvers and oak window shutters
that recall the vocabulary of the Palacio Real.
After traversing the upstairs gift shop, you
arrive at the impressive ramp, part Villa Savoye
and part Renaissance stairway (think the
Louvre’s Escalier Henri II), with granite floors
and handrails that evoke the Escorial (1563–
84), Philip II’s vast and gloomy palace-monas-
tery in the foothills of the sierra.
Until the GCR opened, many of the
170,000 pieces in the royal collections were
hidden from view in the Palacio Real’s base-
ment. For the inaugural hang, 650 are show-
cased in a finely detailed display designed by
architect Manuel Blanco (notably, with
curved supports that allow big 18th-century
tapestries to be hung in the Bourbon gallery,
whose ceiling is a little too low for them). As
well as providing a monumental yet neutral
setting for all the gilt and pomp, Mansilla +
Tuñón’s repeating concrete frames recall the
heavy wood beams of Renaissance ceilings,
and allow lighting and other equipment to be
hidden between them. Moreover, the GCR
furthers understanding of Madrid’s early
history, with remains of the Hispano-
Moorish citadel revealed on level -1. A decep-
tively simple project, where structure and
envelope appear to become one and the same,
this rich, layered, deftly handled building was
thoroughly worth the wait. n

67
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RECORD INTERIORS

FLAT OAK APARTMENT I SÃO PAULO I STUDIO MK27

Fresh
Start
Marcio Kogan reimagines a timeworn 1970s
apartment with a rich material palette.
BY TOM HENNIGAN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRAN PARENTE

WHEN A YOUNG COUPLE approached São Paulo

architect Marcio Kogan to renovate an apartment in one of
the city’s most exclusive residential buildings, a rare opportu-
nity presented itself. The existing interiors were a pastiche of
classical French style that was all the rage among the city’s
elite when the property was completed half a century ago,
fallen out of favor with succeeding generations.
The team at Kogan’s Studio MK27 was given permission
to start with a blank slate. “The only thing the clients asked
for was an apartment in light oak. Otherwise, they were
open to a totally new adventure,” says Diana Radomysler,

71
 RECORD INTERIORS

LIGHT OAK clads the entry (previous page) and most of the residence,
complementing Studio MK27–designed armchairs by Minotti in the living
room (right), and a Studio Drift chandelier over the dining table (above).

the firm’s director of interior design. And so the team, which along
with Kogan and Radomysler was led by architect Luciana Antunes,
gutted the unit, replacing the overly fussy imitations of an imagined
16th-arrondissement Paris, fleur-de-lis wallpaper and all, with an
altogether cleaner approach that fills the flat with more light and
greater space.
The success of this approach is immediately apparent at the entrance
of the apartment. The foyer, its floor, walls, and ceiling all clad in oak
paneling, introduces the visitor to the long horizontal lines that Kogan
values in his projects. In doing this, he has created an ideal setting for
the display of the clients’ burgeoning art collection, the only other
consideration they had in discussing the project with the design team.
This entrance area immediately leads into the unit’s main social
space, which runs along two thirds of the building’s front-facing eleva-

72 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

tion that, beyond a generous terrace, overlooks the gardens of one of
São Paulo’s best-known museums, the Museu da Casa Brasileira
(Brazilian House Museum). With sheer beige linen curtains softening
the tropical sunshine, this large living room flows at one end into a
dining room and at the other an office, its light tones further empha-
sized by the neutral hues of woolen rugs from Belgian maker B.I.C.
It is in these public rooms that the team used to greatest effect the
free rein given by the clients to deliver interiors that mix new and
vintage, local and international. The light oak creates a clean, mini-
malist setting that is the perfect platform for the project’s ambitious
design proposal. “One of our main inspirations is Japanese postwar
architecture,” says Kogan, a longstanding admirer of and frequent
visitor to Japan. The living room’s Daiki armchairs, designed by Studio
MK27 for Minotti, are a tribute to Yoshiro Taniguchi’s iconic Hotel
73
 RECORD INTERIORS

5
Okura in Tokyo, which Kogan visited before
its demolition in 2015. It is almost a local
touch in a city that’s home to the world’s
7 8
3 4 6 largest Japanese diaspora, which has so influ-
enced São Paulo’s urban culture. In the dining
room, the centerpiece is a stunning light
9
2 7
fixture—more like an installation—by
13
Amsterdam-based Studio Drift, a first col-
1 laboration between the Dutch designers and
12
10
Studio MK27. The piece fuses real dandelion
11 11
12 seeds with LED lighting in a delicate geo-
14 metric structure.
The private areas of the apartment are
20
1 ENTRANCE 11 BEDROOM accessed by two hallways that lead away from
15 the main entrance. The first of these goes
16 2 GALLERY 12 BATHROOM

3 DINING AREA 13 FAMILY ROOM

past a second, more intimate, family room
toward the kitchen. The less onerous de-
4 LIVING ROOM 14 KITCHEN
17 19 mands made by the new, younger residents for
18 5 BALCONY 15 FOOD/WINE ROOMS
staff and service quarters also allowed more of
6 OFFICE 16 LAUNDRY ROOM
the apartment’s 8,000 square feet to be de-
7 “HER” EN SUITE 17 SERVICE QUARTERS voted to the family’s living space. The rede-
8 PRIMARY SUITE 18 PLAY ROOM signed floor plan reduced the area previously
0 15 FT. 0 15 FT.
FLOOR PLAN 9 “HIS” EN SUITE 19 GYM given over to services—almost a third of the
5 M. 5 M.
10 GUEST SUITE 20 SERVICE HALL unit—allowing for the addition of a spacious

74 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

A GALLERY (opposite) showcases the owners’
art collection and leads to primary suites (right
and below, right), bedrooms, and family areas
like the kitchen and playroom (below, left).

children’s playroom and a gym.

The other hallway connects to the apart-
ment’s four bedrooms, the doors to which are
hidden in the corridor’s oak-paneled walls in
order to maintain Kogan’s long, clean lines.
The corner primary suite also overlooks the
museum gardens and comes with his-and-her
grooming suites, the bathrooms of which are
clad in white-veined Calacatta Oro marble.
These individual suites double as the prop-
erty’s most intimate living spaces, private dens
for solitude. For quiet contemplation and
reading, his dressing area features a lounge
chair by Charles and Ray Eames, comple-
mented by a two-level side table and floor
lamp by local designer Jader Almeida, whose
work features most extensively throughout the
apartment.
The result of all this is the transformation
of a dated residence into one that is contem-
porary and more suitable for an active 21st-
century family. Studio MK27 marries its
signature lightness of touch to that of an
international style that has long been prized
in Brazil’s most cosmopolitan city. n

Tom Hennigan is the South America correspon-

dent for the Irish Times, based in São Paulo.

Credits
ARCHITECT: Studio MK27 — Marcio Kogan,
principal in charge; Diana Radomysler, interior
design director; Luciana Antunes, project
architect
ENGINEER: PHI Engenharia de instalações
CONSULTANTS: Foco ld (lighting design);
Marvelar e Arali (woodwork); Julio Vidal
(management); Fabio Oguri (audio/video); Gif
Engenharia e Iluminação (controls); Logiproject
(air-conditioning)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Laer Engenharia
CLIENT: withheld
SIZE: 8,000 square feet
COST: withheld
COMPLETION DATE: March 2022

Sources
FURNITURE: Minotti, Molteni, Flexform, Sollos,
Espasso, BassamFellows, GUBI, Herman Miller,
Moroso, Artek
LIGHTING: Studio Drift, Oluce, Kalmar, Noguchi
CARPETS: B.I.C. Carpets
PLUMBING FIXTURES & FITTINGS: Ex.t; CEA;
Docol

75
 RECORD INTERIORS
QUEEN SILVIA CONCERT HALL I STOCKHOLM I ARKPABI
Fine Tuned
World-class acoustics and details both delicate and bold set the stage
for a gemlike performance space.
BY ANDREW AYERS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROLAND HALBE
“I’LL BUILD YOU a hall that rings like a violin,” said the
great Auguste Perret to the pianist Alfred Cortot, an ambition
that Italian architect Giorgio Palù of Arkpabi Architecture
Studio no doubt had in mind when imagining his very first
concert hall 15 or so years ago. Commissioned as part of the
Museo del Violino he designed for his birthplace, Cremona—
famed for its violin-making, the Lombard town counts both
Andrea Guarneri and Antonio Stradivari among its illustrious
tradition of luthiers—the intimate Auditorium Giovanni
Arvedi (installed inside a 1941 building by Carlo Cocchia)
caught the attention of many in the music world upon its 2013
inauguration. Among them were the directors of Stock holm’s
Lilla Akademien, who approached Palù and his acoustician—
Yasuhisa Toyota of famed Japanese firm Nagata Acoustics—to
create something similar in the Swedish capital.
76 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
Translating roughly as “Junior Academy,” Lilla provides
schooling and music training for children, adolescents, and
young adults. It is housed in a former orphanage on the edge
of Stockholm’s historic center, a finely detailed 19th-century
brick-and-stone complex belonging to Ramsbury Property,
whose owner, clothing magnate Stefan Persson (former
chairman of and largest stakeholder in retail giant H&M),
was the $15 million concert hall’s chief benefactor, as well as
Palù’s direct client. In addition to school performances and
rehearsals, the auditorium, named for the reigning Swedish
queen, was intended for use by the O/Modernt Chamber
Orchestra and Festival, founded by Lilla’s deputy artistic
director, Hugo Ticciati, in 2011.
“When Yasuhisa and I first visited the site together, in
2015, the school had already decided where in the complex
the concert hall should go,” recalls Palù. “For me, their
choice was a complete mistake—small, with a low ceiling.
So I suggested they change the location to do something
much more special.” Lilla’s directors had selected one of the
former orphanage’s smaller C-shaped blocks for the hall,
and were proposing to install it in a short lateral wing; Palù
proposed moving it to the main, central wing, where it
would benefit from far more space inside a shoebox volume
similar to Cremona’s. “In terms of dimensions, the two halls
are alike, but their configuration is completely different,” he
continues. “Cremona, which has an audience capacity of
485, was designed for chamber performances of 35 to 40
musicians. In Stockholm, where audience capacity is 300,
the school needed to accommodate orchestras of up to 120
musicians, as well as a choir.”
An obvious precedent was Vienna’s celebrated Musikverein
(Theophil Hansen, 1870), a shoebox hall that places the
orchestra on a stage at one end, and is considered a reference
by many acousticians, among them Nagata. But, seeking
greater audience immersion along the lines of Hans Scha-
roun’s equally celebrated Berliner Philharmonie (1963), Palù
decided to place the orchestra at the center, with the audi-
THE HALL is housed within a brick-faced former orphanage
(left), and takes advantage of a large volume in its central
wing (opposite).
77
 RECORD INTERIORS

TRUMPET PENDANTS hang over the stage

(left), while LEDs color the space (opposite, top
left). Curving balconies interweave (opposite,
bottom left and opposite, right).

ence in raked seating on either side of the

“stage” (in fact a clearing in the middle) or
standing, leaning, or sitting in the two levels
of balconies above. “I call it a democratic
space, because there are no barriers,” he says.
When a very large orchestra and choir are
programmed, singers and musicians perform
from the balconies, making for a particularly
enveloping listening experience.
To build his design, the central wing was
gutted, its walls reinforced with concrete
(which also provided the required acoustic
mass), and its roof rebuilt in steel, with lateral-
span I-beams from which the sinuous upper
balcony is partly suspended. Palù imagined a
promenade architecturale whereby the audience
enters from a side foyer on level 3, itself an
intimate performance room, and descends via
the balconies and their interlinking stairs,
“breathing in the hall’s spatial atmosphere” on
the way—although it can be entered at any
level, and in school hours connects the two
lateral wings. In the interests of both acous-
tics and “a continuous concert of organic and
fluid shapes,” Palù paid particular attention to
the surfaces—curved panels of pine slats on
the long walls, finished in the same varnish as
Cremona violins; soft Scots pine for the or-
chestra floor; film-covered curved-glass
panels in front of the historic windows, vio-
lin-colored at the sides and transparent in the
middle; and a striated plaster ceiling that
fades from varnish tones at the bottom to
white at the top, since programmable LEDs
offering every imaginable hue are directed

2 3
A A

4
1
2 1 3
5

SECTION A - A LEVEL 3

1 CONCERT HALL 3 MUSIC ROOM 5 BALCONY

2 CLASSROOM 4 FOYER 6 ELEVATOR

78 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

onto it during performances, with colors chosen to match the mood of Credits
the music. Trumpet-shaped polished-steel pendants light the stage ARCHITECT: Arkpabi Architecture Studio — Giorgio Palù, principal;
area, while the balconies’ steel railings and the undersides of their Marcello Cesini, Davide Andrea Nolli, Alessandra Dall’Ara, Francesca Gallina,
Martina Varoli, Sara Cavazzoni (design team)
concrete floors are painted golden bronze, so that everything merges in
a symphony of mellow ormolu. ENGINEERS: Geosigma Konstruktion (structural); Notos Consult
(mechanical/plumbing)
“My dream was to create an undefined hybrid of music, sculpture,
and architecture,” explains Palù, who allowed himself a dash of contex- CONSULTANTS: Nagata Acoustics (acoustics); Light Bureau Limited
(lighting)
tual contrast on the shorter lateral walls: brass-colored maps of the
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: NCC
Stockholm archipelago set against a deep blue background at one end
and dark green at the other. After the bijou intimacy of the Giovanni CLIENT: Stefan Persson

Arvedi and Queen Silvia auditoria, he is now pursuing a change in SIZE: 3,015 square feet
scale, with a 1,200-seat space planned for his native Italy, as well as a COST: $15 million
big opera theater currently under construction in Tehran. n COMPLETION DATE: June 2022 (inauguration)

79
 RECORD INTERIORS
XOKOL RESTAURANT I GUADALAJARA, MEXICO I ODAMX & RUBÉN VALDEZ PRACTICE
A Seat at the Table
Craft, cuisine, and community come together for a theatrical dining experience at this artisanal restaurant.
BY MICHAEL SNYDER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAFAEL PALACIOS
FOR OVER THREE YEARS, the restaurant Xokol in Guadalajara
operated out of a no-frills 890-square-foot space in the working-class
neighborhood of Santa Teresita, serving some of the most exciting,
sophisticated, and deeply rooted cooking anywhere in Mexico. Chefs
and owners Xrysw Ruelas and Oscar Segundo had a total of five staff
members, 20 seats, and a loyal clientele that, over time, came to include
neighbors and visitors; artists, architects, and designers; carpenters,
ceramists and, of course, fellow cooks. Their food, from the surprising
and elaborate to the deceptively simple—a sweet-and-sour apple mole,
say, or a pale-yellow tortilla folded over a tangle of wild garden greens—
spoke to the concentric circles of community that make projects like
Xokol possible: farms and farmers (foremost among them Segundo’s
own family in Mexico State, 230 miles southeast of Guadalajara), city
and neighborhood, clients and friends.
By 2019, though, Xokol had outgrown itself. “Projects like ours
should always be evolving,” Segundo says, and, so, when he and Ruelas,
who grew up in Guadalajara, found a 2,280-square-foot space for rent
80 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
less than a block from the restaurant, they drew on the communities that
had made Xokol a success to bring the project to life. That process began
with architects and longtime clients Alejandro López, principal at
Guadalajara-based firm ODAmx, and Rubén Valdéz, originally from
Guadalajara, who runs his eponymous practice out of Lausanne, Switz-
erland. “We’d always appreciated sitting at the bar, seeing the complex
processes that went into the food,” says López, “and that experience was
the center of the project we ended up developing together.”
Used previously as a tenement, a ceramics factory, and a modest neigh-
borhood eatery, the space was awkwardly divided by columns, walls, and
false ceilings, which Váldez and López stripped away while leaving the
marks of beams and archways as testaments to the building’s past lives.
They coated the walls in hand-mixed black plaster and selected black
concrete tiles from a small local workshop for the floors, turning the
room into “a very discreet canvas” that would highlight the work of the
kitchen, Valdéz says, “a catalyst for the collective ritual of eating.” They
aimed for equal discretion as part of the neighborhood by leaving every
BLACK STEEL partitions separate
the restaurant from the street
(opposite). Dried ears of corn hang
from the ceiling (this image).

81
 RECORD INTERIORS

A SINGLE long table dominates the main space (opposite, bottom), where
diners watch the cooks at the comales (opposite, top right). An entry
porch (left) and art-filled patio (opposite, top left) round out the spaces.

scratch and piece of graffiti on the aluminum storefront gate intact. By

day, when Santa Tere is at its most active, Xokol, which opens only for
dinner service, disappears into the urban landscape of textile shops and
small factories.
Inside, the architects split the space down its central axis, dedicating
one half to an illuminated open kitchen and service area and the other to a
50-foot communal table, handmade from oak and coated in black mineral
oil by the Guadalajara-based carpentry studio Joselo Maderista. Lined
with 42 seats, and illuminated from above by a narrow track of light
sandwiched between slender steel plaques—the fixture, like almost every-
thing else in the restaurant, was made to measure—the table is a sculp-
tural statement and a humble nod to the banquet tables at village celebra-
tions thrown together from planks of wood and sawhorses. The black
steel partitions that separate the restaurant from the street are elegant and
austere, but also a direct “quotation” of the plywood boards that shield
patrons of old-school cantinas from prying eyes.
Against that austere backdrop, a handful of more “literal gestures,” as
Valdéz puts it, connects the space to the rural culinary landscapes that
inspire Ruelas and Segundo’s cooking. Dried ears of corn from Segundo’s
family’s milpa (the ancient system of small fields that continues to shape
Mexican food ways) hang from the ceiling on lengths of twine like an
inverted Bertoia sound sculpture, and, on the back wall, a portrait of
Segundo’s grandmother painted by street artist Trepo Parker overlooks the
table. Four functioning comales—clay cooking surfaces essential to
Mesoamerican cuisine, in this case crafted by Oaxacan artisan Amado
Ramires Leyva—greet guests upon entering. “In the old Xokol, we
couldn’t give the comales the space and dignity they deserve,” Ruelas says.
For all its theatricality, Xokol’s new home also maintains—even

4 4 4

A 6 2 A

3
1

5 3 3

1 STREET-SIDE PORCH

2 ENTRANCE

3 COMMUNAL DINING ROOM

0 10 FT.
FLOOR PLAN
FLOOR PLAN
3 M. 4 KITCHEN/SERVICE

5 RESTROOM

6 PATIO

4 4 2 1
6

0 10 FT.
SECTION A - A
3 M.

82 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

insists upon—the horizontality and transpar-
ency that have always defined Ruelas and
Segundo’s project. Strangers sit by strangers;
lean away from your dining companion and
you’ll disappear into a deep penumbra. The
chefs themselves spend much of their time at
the communal table, serving and explaining
dishes that leave the kitchen on sculptural
stoneware and ceramics made by, among
others, Makario Ceramica, a workshop in the
nearby craft town of Tonalá, and by the
Guadalajara studio operated by José Noe Suro,
a central figure in the city’s vibrant art scene.
The gravel-paved patio out back, which will
eventually serve as a mediator between the
dining room and a rooftop bar, centers on a
totem-like statue donated by prominent
Guadalajara artist José Dávila. All clients and
friends of the restaurant.
“For us, knowing who made the table or
the comal is as important as knowing who
harvested the corn,” Segundo says. Craft, like
community, takes many forms. n

Michael Snyder is a Mexico City–based freelance

reporter on architecture, food, and travel.

Credits
ARCHITECT: ODAmx & Rubén Valdez Practice
CONSULTANT: Proinox (kitchen specialist)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Arktifakt
CLIENT: José Oscar Casimiro Segundo, Cynthia
Xrysw Ruelas Díaz
SIZE: 2,280 square feet
COST: $148,000
COMPLETION DATE: March 2022

Sources
TILES: Mosaicos Mooma

83
 RECORD INTERIORS

84 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

SAVOY CLUB I NEW YORK I FOGARTY FINGER

Driving Force
An amenity suite in Edward Durell Stone’s General Motors Building hums with a 1960s vibe.
BY LINDA C. LENTZ
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID MITCHELL

RISING 50 STORIES above New York’s Fifth Avenue, opposite the ing out, group classes, stretching, cycling, and physical therapy.
Plaza Hotel and Central Park, the 1968 General Motors Building, Fogarty Finger’s material toolbox references Stone’s architecture and
designed by Edward Durell Stone, was notably controversial when it the midcentury design ethos of his building’s namesake tenant. “We
was built, causing the demolition of McKim, Mead & White’s Savoy- really wanted to bring the monumental tone-on-tone materiality of his
Plaza Hotel (1927) and interrupting a graceful cluster of early 20th- lobby up to the second floor, but with a warmer, more enveloping color
century chateau-style structures with a modern steel-and-glass sky- palette amenable to a hospitality setting,” says Garrett Rock, lead
scraper (one that would house an automobile showroom) clad in faceted designer. Natural stone figures prominently, but instead of the stark
white stone. Its prime location has always been a magnet for aspiring
businesses, however. Some 55 years later, the GM Building’s tall hex-
agonal piers and pristine lobby still attract high-profile retailers like
Apple, Balenciaga, and Dior to open shops within its base and numer-
ous blue-chip companies—Estée Lauder and wealth-management
firms among them—to locate their offices on its upper floors.
In 2019, wanting to maintain the building’s appeal to its well-heeled
clientele in a competitive real-estate market—and to help them main-
tain their employees—current building owner BXP surveyed key
occupants to learn what services the tower lacked. According to Hilary
Spann, the developer’s New York–region executive vice president, the
BXP team then ranked the respondents’ priorities and called on New
York–based Fogarty Finger to devise a scheme for an amenity suite that
would accommodate them.
A wellness-related venue was No. 1 on their list, says Spann, fol-
lowed by an affordable food option, a rare find in the city’s tony Plaza
District. They also asked for a place to hold large meetings, she adds,
noting, “It doesn’t make sense to rent enough space to host 250 people
and use it once or twice a year.”
Located on the second floor, the new Savoy Club—a nod to the
site’s past—opened early this year. The place was humming with activ-
ity during a recent midday visit, populated by workers running in for a
quick bite, or coffee from its well-stocked café, or perched with laptops
on comfortable furnishings.
L-shaped in plan, the 26,000-square-foot space—last occupied by
the FAO Schwartz toy store and originally by the GM showroom—
was delivered raw, with a 19-foot slab-to-slab height and existing
freight elevator, one that formerly hauled cars up for display. Working
with BXP senior development project manager Federica Burelli, the
architects mapped out three programmatic zones: a central food and
beverage hub, complete with state-of-the-art prep kitchen for daily
service and events; a versatile conference center with a lounge, wine
bar, and three seminar rooms that open to one large space as needed;
and a well-equipped fitness facility that spans the building’s east side,
with luxurious locker rooms, showers, and a series of studios for work-

A TRAVERTINE-CLAD elevator lobby leads to the café (opposite) and

lounge (right) through a deep white-oak portal with flush bronzed doors.

85
 RECORD INTERIORS

8 11
white marble on the exterior and in the main
11 12
3
lobby, Rock and his team chose a rich vein-
11
7
7 cut travertine, applying it to floors, walls, and
11 12 vanities. They also drew from the lobby’s
2
11
12 verticality and patterns, fluting the travertine
7 5
4
10 for wainscoting that mimics its marble grills
15
and borrowing the polygonal forms on its
9 ceiling and floors to shape custom tables and
16
8 1 rugs. These neutrals are complemented by
13
similarly hued white oak in the lounge,
striped carpet in meeting rooms, and terrazzo
(actual and a slip-resistant faux of porcelain)
in the functional café, bar, and locker rooms.
Impact- and sound-absorbing rubber and
convincing wood-look vinyl and plastic lami-
14
nate provide practical fitness surfaces. The
one pop of color: book-matched Calacatta
0
Viola marble accent walls in the showers,
30 FT.
FLOOR PLAN
10 M. which elevate a typically routine experience to
that of a spa.
1 ELEVATOR LOBBY 5 BAR 9 BREAK ROOM 13 FITNESS FLOOR Much of the inspiration for the muted
2 CAFÉ 6 SEMINAR ROOM 10 FITNESS RECEPTION 14 GROUP STUDIO surface treatments came from GM itself, and
3 PREP KITCHEN 7 RESTROOM 11 WOMEN’S LOCKER 15 SPIN STUDIO a short-lived group of 10 women designers the
4 LOUNGE 8 STORAGE ROOM 16 PHYSICAL THERAPY company hired in the 1950s to style car interi-
12 MEN’S LOCKER ROOM ors that would appeal to a growing commu-

86 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

THE CAFÉ links to the fitness area (opposite), while the
lounge (right) opens to three expandable seminar rooms,
one of which doubles as a library when not in use (below).

nity of female drivers and decision-makers. Dubbed

“Damsels of Design” (an unfortunate name), they
introduced craftsmanship, two-tone interiors, and such
materials as microsuede into the newest models. Here,
their influence is most evident in the tactile limewash
and clay paints on the walls, curvy solid-surface-
topped walnut tables edged in chrome, softly rounded
locker-room ceilings, and plush upholstered ban-
quettes, sofas, and seating.
The generous volume allowed the architects to build
out columns, beams, and ceiling planes to effectively
conceal HVAC and lighting. Rock notes that the
greatest challenge was daylight. Though the space is
surrounded by windows, an easement for retail signage
leaves only two primary sections unblocked—one
along the seminar rooms, the other spanning the group
fitness studio. While these spaces are often open, the
architects utilized fully or partially glazed doorways to
filter daylight into the adjacent areas when closed off

87
 RECORD INTERIORS

for activities. Mirrors and programmable

variable-white lighting, too, enhance the
perception of natural light throughout.
“Properties like this want to distinguish
themselves,” says architect Robert Finger,
director in charge. “Over time, we’ve learned
that just checking the box with an amenity
isn’t enough.” The design and realization of
the Savoy Club seems to have gotten a boost
from BXP’s commitment to the project and
the symbiotic relationship between architect
and client. At one point in our visit, both
Spann and Burelli proudly noted the discov-
ery of existing brass doors at the passenger
elevators during demolition. Refinished to
their original luster and set into bronze jambs
with back-painted-glass transoms, these
portals represent the building’s past and open
up to its future. n

Credits
ARCHITECT: Fogarty Finger — Robert Finger,
director in charge; Garrett Rock, lead designer/
project manager; Candace Rimes, director;
Taylor Fleming, furniture lead; Nevra Kumova,
Patrick Ceguera, Eva Cunninghame, designers
ARCHITECT OF RECORD: TPG Architecture
ENGINEERS: Gilsanz Murray Steficek
(structural); JB&B (m/e/p)
CONSULTANTS: Lightbox Studios (lighting);
Cerami (acoustic); Gillman Consulting (code);
Exos (fitness); ETC Venues (food/beverage);
Chessa Ferro (art); Island Woodwork (casework)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Structure Tone
CLIENT: BXP
SIZE: 26,000 square feet
COST: withheld
COMPLETION DATE: February 2023

Sources
TILE & STONE: New York Stone, Naturali Stone,
Salvatori, Living Ceramics, Ceramica Vogue,
Nemo Tile
GLASS: Galaxy Glass, Modernus
SURFACES: JH Wall Paints, Portola Paints,
Benjamin Moore, Corian, Formica, Fenix NTM,
Abet Laminati, Lab Design Laminates
METAL-SCREEN WALL: B+N Industries
DOORS: Total Doors, TGP
ACOUSTICAL CEILINGS: Armstrong
LIGHTING: Workstead, Apparatus, iGuzzini,
USAI; FLOS, Axis, Targetti, Fluxwerx, Mercury/
Cosine, Apparatus
FLOORING: The Hudson Company, Kahrs,
Bentley Mills, PLAE
PLUMBING: Kohler, The Splash Lab
FURNITURE: Blu Dot, Burgess, Crate & Barrel,
Eastvold, Normann Copenhagen, Room &
Board, Steller Works, TRNK, West Elm
TELESCOPING GLASS and mirrored walls filter daylight into fitness areas (top); ceiling curves and WALLCOVERINGS & UPHOLSTERY: Kvadrat,
marble enhance locker rooms (above); terrazzo and travertine enrich the bar in the lounge (opposite). Maharam

88 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

89
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MS MIN SHOP I SHANGHAI I NERI&HU DESIGN AND RESEARCH OFFICE

Sticks and Stone

In a bustling Chinese mall, a tailor-made boutique opens for a burgeoning fashion label.
BY LEOPOLDO VILLARDI
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ZHU RUNZI

90 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023


CUSTOM MANNEQUINS, designed to let
fabrics elegantly hang (above), echo the earthy
material palette of the boutique (right).
THE MANDARIN phrase yí jiàn rú gù
came to mind when fashion designer Min Liu
described her first encounter with architects
Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu. The idiom
evokes the immediate sense of old friendship
that manifests when like-minded people
meet. But their rapport stems from more than
similar design sensibilities, or even a shared
home city (in this case, Shanghai). As with
the husband-and-wife team behind Neri&Hu
Design and Research Office, Min runs a
creative enterprise with her life and business
partner, Ian Hylton. Together, they lead high-
end Chinese fashion label Ms MIN, estab-
lished in 2010, which quickly earned a repu-
tation for its emphasis on fabric selection and
“intelligent fit.”
With so much common ground, it only
seemed a matter of time before the two cou-
ples would find a way to collaborate. That
opportunity came three years ago, when
Neri&Hu and Ms MIN assembled HéYī, an
exhibition at Design Republic Commune, the
Concession-era police station adapted by the
architects as a center for high-end design
(record, February 2013). As the show’s
name—roughly translating to “integration” or
“unity”—suggested, it put on full display the
harmony integral to the work of, and at work
in, both partnerships. HéYī was also precur-
sory, sowing ideas that would grow and evolve
in a future more significant commission: the
design of Ms MIN’s second shop.
The 2,100-square-foot space is situated in
Shanghai’s Taikoo Li, a new retail develop-
ment in the city’s rapidly expanding Qiantan
International Business Zone, which is already
home to a number of luxury brands, from
Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton to Hermès and
Bulgari. For Neri&Hu, whose hallmark has
become the imaginative reuse of the disused,
working within a freshly minted raw interior
presented far fewer surprises than usual. But
this isn’t to say that transforming the concrete
“canvas” wasn’t without challenges.
In recent years, online shopping has dra-
matically upended the consumer landscape,
putting pressure on brick-and-mortar busi-
nesses to up the ante—especially in China,
the world’s largest e-commerce market. To
enhance the in-person experience, Neri&Hu
looked to the language of textile ateliers—to
the process of carding, spinning, and weaving
fabric by hand, to develop a tectonic expres-
sion that is tailor-made for the clothing
brand. As Neri points out, fashion, like archi-
tecture, “deals with structure, with material-
ity, with layering, with experience.”
Inside, balanced light establishes a calm
atmosphere. To achieve this, a too-tall,
75-foot-long preexisting ribbon window along
the store’s southern wall first needed to be
attenuated. In front of the glass, Neri&Hu
mounted a surface with a narrow slit to modu-
late brightness and, in so doing, amplified the
window’s horizontality. By painting the ex-
91
 RECORD INTERIORS

FREESTANDING PANELS (opposite, top) and a wood frame

with sheer linen scrims (above) curate space without
sacrificing daylight. Wood posts float above the clay-tile floor
3 (opposite, bottom).
4
5 3 posed concrete slabs, mechanical equipment, and fire-
safety systems the same shade of charcoal gray, they made
ceiling clutter recede from view without sacrificing height.
2 2 And, underfoot, salvaged wă piàn or clay roof tiles, sliced
into C-shaped strips, have been laid in rows of alternating
1 curvature, giving the floor a texture that appears woven.
2 The Ms MIN shop has been organized into three
6 6 zones—each snugly fitting into the store’s irregular foot-
3
print like a Tetris block. A delicate wood frame—akin to
the pole structures used in rural villages outside Shanghai
for the dying and drying of fabric—partitions the space
along the ribbon window into a kind of architectural look-
book. Suspended from the frame’s beams overhead, scrims
0 10 FT. of sheer linen define a promenade of intimate galleries,
PLAN
3 M.
where mannequins showcase the label’s current collection.
Quadripartite posts, each comprising four cylindrical
1 ENTRANCE 4 VIP FITTING ROOM colonettes arranged in a square, hold the scaffold in place,
2 DISPLAY 5 VIP LOUNGE
while beams pass through them. The posts never touch the
3 STORAGE 6 FITTING ROOM
floor—they rest on brass plates, in what Neri describes as a
contemporary reinterpretation of a detail found in some
traditional Chinese houses, intended to prevent wood rot.

92 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

 In the store’s central area, which the archi-
tects liken to a courtyard, customers peruse
garments. “But it was important that it didn’t
feel like racks and racks of clothing,” he adds.
Instead, clothes are hung from freestanding
panels of alternating figured green marble
and beige limestone, with hand-patinated
brass edge-banding, arranged in an enfilade
of loosely defined rooms. In a more tradi-
tional setting, these “screens” might have
been adorned with painted landscapes or
elaborate brocade, but here they serve as
neutral backdrops. Because the panels are not
fixed to the floor, they can be moved to keep
pace with seasonal collections, which might
warrant different display configurations, or
removed entirely, freeing up space to accom-
modate up to 80 seated guests for fashion
shows.
Neri describes the third—and most pri-
vate—zone as a house. With a slatted “eave,”
this space accommodates a lounge for consul-
tations and fittings by appointment. Flanking
it on either side are discreet back-of-house
storage closets, which make clever use of an
odd triangular corner in the store’s perimeter.
Neri&Hu’s boutique for Ms MIN is quiet
yet manages to speak volumes. The same
could be said of the fashion label’s current
collection, which cuts elegant figures, with
reverence for materiality and neat construc-
tion. While e-commerce is steadily consum-
ing the retail realm, there is no substitute for
the tactile experience and happenstance
discovery offered by in-person shopping; this
is especially true when the objects on display
and the architecture displaying them so clear-
ly echo the same values. At Taikoo Li, it
seems Neri&Hu fits Ms MIN like a glove. n

Credits
ARCHITECT: Neri&Hu Design and Research
Office — Lyndon Neri, Rossana Hu, principals;
Sanif Xu, design lead; Muyang Tang, Zhikang
Wang, Amber Shi, Yoki Yu, Nicolas Fardet,
design team
CONSULTANTS: Viabizzuno (lighting)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Shanghai Yali Design
Decoration Co.
CLIENT: Ms MIN
PHOTOGRAPHY: © SANIF XU (BOTTOM)

SIZE: 2,100 square feet

COST: Withheld
COMPLETION DATE: May 2022

Sources
HARDWARE: Häfele
LIGHTING: Viabizzuno
INTERIOR FINISHES: Cement Design

93
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CLARIDGE’S ARTSPACE CAFÉ I LONDON I JOHN PAWSON

A Perfect Pairing
John Pawson combines the culinary and visual arts with an eatery and gallery at a renowned hotel.
BY CATHERINE SLESSOR

94 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

 “WHEN I DIE, I don’t want to go to heaven,” said Spencer Tracy in
1972. “I want to go to Claridge’s.” London has other grand hotels, but
none compare to Claridge’s, famed for its Art Deco opulence and
hyper-attentive service. A fixture of international high society for over
two centuries, it has hosted princes, potentates, politicians, and pop
stars from Winston Churchill to Lady Gaga.
PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY CLARIDGE’S
The current hotel, a stately hulk of russet brick and stone, dates
from 1898, when its original premises in Mayfair were rebuilt by then-
owner theatrical impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte. His architect,
C. W. Stephens, also designed Harrods, London’s most famous de-
partment store. During the 1920s, keeping pace with the Jazz Age, the
interiors were remodeled in a sleekly luscious Art Deco style that
became Claridge’s signature. Its present owner is the Maybourne Hotel
Group, which also has Mayfair neighbor the Connaught among its
portfolio of deluxe establishments.
A BANQUETTE of soft caramel leather wraps the white walls (opposite).
Custom-designed bentwood chairs are paired with a Carrara-marble
tabletop at the center of the café (above).
Though Claridge’s appeal is rooted in its reassuring aura of history and
hedonism, it also needs to keep moving and modernizing. Its latest enter-
prise is a new café and art gallery—the first dedicated space for contempo-
rary art within a luxury hotel—designed by John Pawson, whose oeuvre of
exquisitely refined minimalism has encompassed Calvin Klein’s flagship
store in Manhattan and a Cistercian monastery in the Czech Republic.
Accessed directly from Brook’s Mews at the rear of the hotel, and
connected to it only through back-of-house spaces, Pawson’s gallery
and café are effectively self-contained and public-facing. The gallery
occupies the lower ground floor, with the café above activating the
mews frontage and drawing people in.
95
 RECORD INTERIORS
Featuring white walls and an almost colorless polished-
terrazzo floor, the gallery is among the largest in Mayfair.
One of Pawson’s earliest projects was for a similarly pared-
down exhibition space in neighboring Cork Street for the
influential art dealer Leslie Waddington, which cemented
his enduring relationship with the modern-art crowd.
Inaugurated in 2021 with a show by Damien Hirst, the
ArtSpace, as the Claridge’s gallery is known, aims to stage
changing exhibitions every two months. Clay excavated
from associated construction work, part of a wider hotel
expansion that involved digging down six stories, will be
donated to artists to create ceramic objects.
Completion of the café was interrupted by the pan-
demic, but it finally opened earlier this year, so the two
spaces can now play off each other as originally intended.
Combining a supple banquette of soft caramel leather
snaking around white walls, with another subtly glinting
terrazzo floor, it’s a modern take on the grand European
café, where you can while away the day. It also contains a
small art bookshop.
Custom-designed chairs in solid ash recall traditional
bentwood furniture, their sinuous contours like pale,
sculpted wishbones. “I wanted them to have a presence so
they bring some character to the space,” says Pawson.
Having an aversion to squashy furniture— “sofas are
anathema to me”—Pawson prefers the version without the
leather seat pad, but acknowledges that comfort is a factor.
Remarkably, it’s his first chair design, now in general
production with Italian company Passoni, with whom
Pawson collaborated closely. “To have a focus, a specific
place to design them for was good,” he says. “It’s very
difficult designing in a vacuum.”
Tables are also custom-designed, with polished
Carrara-marble tops inset with discreet drawers to conceal
the clutter of cutlery and napkins. A larger, refectory-style
table can accommodate 10 people for larger gatherings,
and rotund stools of leather, wood, and brass have a pleas-
1 CAFÉ
2 KITCHEN
2
3
LOWER-GROUND PLAN BASEMENT PLAN
96 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
ingly solid heft. Everything appears seamless and curiously
sensual, despite—or perhaps because of—Pawson’s rigor-
ously edited palette of materials.
At the rear of the café, an expansive marble and glass
counter provides a literal showcase for the skills of the
hotel’s pastry chefs. Gleaming brass hardware and simple
globe light fittings complete the picture. As with the
gallery, the café is conceived as neutral armature, with
people, rather than art, adding animation.
Though his approach might seem at odds with
Claridge’s more “maximalist” design heritage, ultimately
Pawson has proved an apposite choice for this latest phase
of the hotel’s evolution. Beautifully detailed and exuding
an air of calm intensity, his interiors clearly signify a new
venture for Claridge’s, as it endeavors to retain its edge in
a ruthlessly competitive market. n
Catherine Slessor is a London-based architectural critic and
writer, and former editor of The Architectural Review.
Credits
ARCHITECT: John Pawson — John Pawson, principal;
Stefan Dold, Stephane Orsolini, Nina Ismar, design team
ARCHITECT OF RECORD: Blair Associates Architecture
ENGINEERS: WSP and McGee (structural); AECOM
(mechanical and electrical)
CONSULTANTS: Light IQ (lighting); Rainey & Best (surveyor
and project manager)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
Mastercraft Construction and McGee
CLIENT: Maybourne Hotel Group
SIZE: 3,780 square feet
COST: withheld ON THE LOWER
level, a large but
COMPLETION DATE: February 2023
pared-down gallery
features a polished
Sources terrazzo floor (above
LIGHTING: Erco, Lucent Lighting and right).
3 RESTROOM
4 GALLERY
0 10 FT.
3 M.
97
 RECORD INTERIORS
AIA SAN FRANCISCO AND CENTER FOR ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN I CALIFORNIA I AIDLIN DARLING DESIGN
Getting Down
An AIA chapter upgrades its office by moving to the ground floor of a landmark it’s long called home.
BY JOHN KING
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD BARNES
SINCE 1988, the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of
Architects has been housed in a singularly appropriate location: Willis
Polk’s Hallidie Building, a seven-story landmark in the city’s Financial
District that dates back to 1918 and features one of the nation’s first
curtain walls. But the office was tucked upstairs, removed from the
daily life of the city below.
Now that has changed, and in an aspirational way. The chapter’s
new home is a 10,000-square-foot ground-floor space in the same
building, a transformation of a longtime clothing shop into a combina-
tion office, gallery, and event space that aims to connect with a much
wider public than architects and design buffs.
“Our aim is a cross-pollinated, cultural, design center,” says Joshua
Aidlin of Aidlin Darling Design, the firm selected for the project by
AIASF in 2020. “We’d like it to be a museum to the craftspeople of
the Bay Area, and an inspiration.”
98 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
The elegant clarity of what is billed as the Center for Architecture +
Design sets the tone from the instant you step inside—taking a long,
wide rectangle with 20-foot-high ceilings and layering it in such a way
that it feels like an interlocked set of spaces to explore. A mezzanine
holds the chapter’s office, reached by a broad metal stair that begins
behind the concierge desk by the front door; beyond the stair, three
shallow steps lead down to a small informal gathering area and an
artifact of the building’s early life—an enormous steel-plated bank
vault that now holds a large conference room.
At the main level, the central gallery/corridor concludes with a skylit
planted wall that both softens the ambience and provides a visual hook,
A CAFÉ SPACE with a signature custom table and chandelier occupies the
storefront area (below, left) in the 1918 Hallidie Building (below, right). A
curving concrete desk greets visitors in the long central gallery (opposite).
99
 RECORD INTERIORS

THE DOUGLAS FIR–

lined lecture hall
features built-in
amphitheater-style
seating (left). The
main corridor
culminates in a living
wall that is visible
from many spaces on
both levels (opposite,
top two). Refined
offices contrast with
raw, rusted steel-
lined ones (opposite
bottom).

pulling you through the space. To the left, an alcove-like area hold-
ing a small café along the storefront window backs onto a fully
enclosed lecture hall.
Amid these changes to the interior, the landmark’s historic
features remain—not just the metal filigree of Polk’s curtain wall,
8 which can be glimpsed above the tall storefront, but the brawny line
of octagonal structural columns that march through the gallery
below closely spaced concrete beams.
9 Those thick, scarred concrete elements offer a counterpoint to
11
12 the refined, often bespoke interior. The latter includes the center’s
most poised space, the lecture hall, with its tiered amphitheater
seating that holds 110 people within tightly ribbed walls of Douglas
UPPER-LEVEL PLAN
fir. The design was worked out with the acoustic consulting firm
Salter to enhance speech recognition. At once intimate and verti-
cally expansive, it is a space intended to host everything from lec-
2 5
tures and educational seminars to film nights.
3
“We don’t just want to be a clubhouse for architects; we want to
serve as a conduit for discussions about the issues of the moment,” said
4 Stacy Williams, executive director of the chapter. “Design is wonder-
4 ful and beautiful, but we also want to show that it is important.”
1
If all this seems elaborate for a chapter with a tight budget, you’re
4
right: the deft architectural design was augmented by in-kind dona-
7 tions from a range of suppliers, manufacturers, and individual
5 craftspeople. This side of the effort was handled in large part by
Aidlin Darling, a San Francisco firm whose portfolio includes
wineries, custom houses, and such masterful environments as the
0 15 FT.
GROUND-FLOOR PLAN Windover Contemplative Center at Stanford University (the studio
5 M.
was also the 2013 recipient of the National Design Award for
interior design from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design
1 ENTRY LOBBY 7 RESTROOM
Museum).
2 CAFÉ 8 RECEPTION
“I cashed in all my chits—I’ve got nothing left!” Aidlin laughed,
3 LECTURE HALL 9 WORKSPACE
referring to the appeals he made to contractors and collaborators from
4 GALLERY 10 OFFICE past work. “This is by far the biggest legacy project of my career.”
5 STORAGE 11 RECORDING BOOTH In spots, the artisanal add-ons clutter up aspects of the center’s
6 MEETING ROOM 12 KITCHENETTE clean form. One example is at the mezzanine landing, where bul-

100 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

bous glass lighting floats above the front
counter of the AIASF office while, behind
you, rows of black tube lighting hang down to
illuminate the ground-floor gallery. Sepa-
rately, they’re cool. Together, they clash.
Much more satisfying is the dark steel-
plate stair created by San Francisco’s Lund-
berg Design, a rigorous passage upward to the
mezzanine. The biomorphic concierge desk
by the entrance, designed by Aidlin and
crafted by Concreteworks, shows how sinuous
and sculptural poured concrete can be. Even
noise control serves the larger architectural
purpose, as with the felt ceiling baffles by
Turf Design that run between the structural
beams and add a hint of syncopation to the
central space.
The key to the center’s success will be the
extent to which AIASF becomes a starting
point to explore the intersection of design and
urban life, through thought-provoking exhi-
bitions or panels on issues such as housing,
the public realm, and changing notions of
sustainability. This is particularly true in a Credits COST: $7.5 million (total: includes $3.4 million in-
city where the dual impact of the pandemic kind donations); $5.6 million (construction)
ARCHITECT: Aidlin Darling Design — Joshua
and evolving work patterns has skeptics ques- Aidlin, principal in charge; Roslyn Cole, principal COMPLETION DATE: June 2023
and project manager
tioning downtown’s viability.
ENGINEERS: Murphy Burr Curry (structural); Sources
None of that is easy. But with its visibility
Innovative Mechanical (mechanical); Young
and nimble design, the chapter’s new home is Electric + Communications (electrical) GLASS AND GLAZING: Starphire Glass, dHive
a promising start. n CONSULTANTS: Tucci Lighting (lighting); Salter ACOUSTICS: LogiSon, Rockwool, Kinetics Noise
(acoustics/AV/security) Control, Armstrong

John King is the San Francisco Chronicle’s
urban-design critic. His book Portal: San Fran-
cisco’s Ferry Building and the Reinvention of
American Cities will be published in November.
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: BCCI Construction
CLIENT: AIA San Francisco and
Center for Architecture + Design
SIZE: 10,000 square feet
CUSTOM WOODWORK: Henrybuilt, Space
Theory, Boxcabco, Commercial Casework
SURFACES: Fenix, Caesarstone, Wilsonart
LIVING WALL: Habitat Horticulture

101
 RECORD INTERIORS

BULGARI HOTEL ROMA I ITALY I ACPV ARCHITECTS

Jewel in the Crown

Bulgari’s first hotel in Rome at last brings the luxury brand’s signature hospitality to its home city.
BY CHRIS FOGES

102 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

 GUESTS STEPPING into the entrance foyer of the new Bulgari
Hotel in Rome are greeted by a 2,000-year-old statue of the emperor
Augustus. He could even be described as its presiding spirit—it was
Augustus who famously claimed to have found Rome a city of bricks
and left it a city of marble. For the hotel, ACPV Architects took a
BULGARI HOTELS & RESORTS
PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY
brick-and-travertine office building facing his mausoleum on Piazza
Augusto Imperatore and infused it with rich color, materials of impe-
rial splendor, countless examples of exquisite craftsmanship, furnish-
ings by the reigning greats of modern Italian design, and motifs de-
rived from Bulgari’s main business as a high-end jeweler. Somehow it
all comes together in an abstract and sensuous evocation of the proud-
THE HOTEL’S fifth-floor restaurant, featuring mahogany, walnut, and
marble, comfortably seats 54 guests.
ly Roman brand, and of its home city.
“We wanted to stay away from the clichés of Romanness,” says
Patricia Viel, ACPV partner with Antonio Citterio. “There is a corre-
spondence with the eclectic feeling that Augustus created in the capital
of an empire by bringing together very different cultures, tastes, and
languages.”
This is the ninth of the hotels the jeweler has opened since 2001, all
designed by Milan-based ACPV. Rome was a natural target from the
103
 RECORD INTERIORS

7
4

6
2 6

3 5 5

1 5

0 30 FT.
GROUND-FLOOR PLAN
10 M.

1 ENTRANCE 3 LOUNGE 5 IL CAFFÈ 7 POOL

2 RECEPTION 4 LIBRARY 6 BACK-OF-HOUSE 8 BOARDROOM

104 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

THE HOTEL (opposite, top), shown behind the mausoleum,
includes a roof terrace (opposite, bottom). Ground-floor
amenities include a café (above) and a lounge (right).

outset, but finding the right location proved difficult. Several

feasibility studies were abandoned before Bulgari acquired the
former headquarters of Italy’s social security agency, in a hard-
to-beat spot between the Tiber River and the Via del Corso,
close to its flagship store on the Via dei Condotti.
The 170,000-square-foot building forms the northern edge of
the piazza, which was laid out in the 1930s around the cylindri-
cal mausoleum as part of Mussolini’s effort to emulate the glories
of Augustan Rome. Designed by Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo, the
building is in the Rationalist style preferred by the fascist regime.
Unfortunate associations aside, it seemed a perfect fit for Bulgari.
“They are contemporary Italian jewelers,” says Viel, “and there is
something timeless in the connection between classicism and
modernity in the design of that period.”
Though the building’s outward appearance is little changed,
extensive renovation was required for its fragile structure,
including careful insertion of two new elevator cores. Little of

105
 RECORD INTERIORS

Morpurgo’s interior survived, but signature

details have been reinterpreted. Curved walls
in the foyer are lined in the same buttery
Chiampo marble used in the original en-
trance, and distinctive stone door frames have
been echoed in marble.
Heavily figured stone abounds throughout,
and is used to most lavish effect in the guest
bathrooms. “That’s one of the places where
we invested a lot on finishes,” says Viel, “not
least because you experience materials with
your whole body.” Following the example of
Augustus, specimens were imported from
around the world, and the architects devel-
oped a color palette for each type of stone,
which was then applied throughout the 114
guest rooms and suites.
Bathroom walls are lined in Sudanese red
jasper, an olive green Brazilian quartzite, a
deep yellow Iranian marble with swirling
veins, and a milky white one from India.
DELUXE SUITES (above) include bathrooms with yellow marble (top). Massive columns drop There’s a subtle hint of the 1930s in their
directly into the spa’s pool (opposite). handling, which recalls Piero Portaluppi’s

106 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

synthesis of Rationalism, Art Deco, and extravagant materiality at the
Villa Necchi Campiglio in Milan.
Allusions to other themes that inform the project are low-key.
Bathroom mirrors are round—a geometric accent borrowed from
Augustus’s tomb and repeated everywhere, from bedside sconces to
sculpted plaster recesses for light fixtures in the ceilings. And refer-
ences are frequently cross-pollinated, so that several are reflected in a
single detail. Over every bathtub, large mosaic roundels depicting
vintage Bulgari brooches are inlaid in the marble walls. They were
made by the same school of Friulian artisans responsible for restoring
original mosaics on the facade, who took two years to produce the
required number.
The inventory of bespoke pieces is long. There are tailor-made dry
bars covered in vellum, and Flos floor lamps were reworked to feature
bases made of the same marble used in the bathrooms—something
that required unique permission from the estate of designer Achille
Castiglioni. In the 3,200-square-foot, $41,000-per-night Bulgari
Suite, a freestanding bathtub inspired by basins from the Baths of
Caracalla has been carved from a single block of black-and-white
Corchia marble. Walls are hung with silk patterned to match a 1930s
Bulgari powder compact too.
Despite the evident expense, the aim is not vulgar opulence but
rather a heightened sense of comfort and sensory pleasure. “If you tell
someone that the walls are lined with silk, they might imagine a ba-
roque palazzo,” says Viel. “It’s nothing like that—the effect is very
quiet, very warm, and gives a beautiful goldish color to the light.”
Many of the most important design details can’t be seen at all.
“Luxury is not just about things,” Viel adds. “It’s about space, silence,
and privacy.” Air-conditioning must be soundless. Close attention was
paid to the way luggage is brought to each room, or how information is
provided to guests without cluttering tables in the usual way.
If the design of guest rooms is almost muted, the volume is turned
up in the hotel’s public spaces. “They need to evoke the glamour of the
brand and set the stage for social life,” says Viel. “It’s about showing off
and being seen.”
Perhaps the most spectacular of the amenities is the spa. Inspired by
the public baths of ancient Rome, it is set up for socializing and syba-
ritism as much as exercise. Fat fluted columns of figured marble drop
directly into the turquoise waters of the pool. Niches lined with glitter-
ing gold mosaics have been filled with classical statuary. “It’s too much
for my personal taste,” Viel admits, “but it’s what guests expect from a
Bulgari hotel.”
In other public spaces, diverse elements are held in a delicate tension
so that no single one dominates. The cool, Morpurgo-inspired mono-
chrome marble in the reception is balanced by richly veined walnut
paneling. Here, formal grandeur meets hints of La Dolce Vita. Simple
107
 RECORD INTERIORS

THE BULGARI BAR, on the same floor as the restaurant, features suggesting that the building’s site should ideally be occupied by a hotel,
illuminated hand-blown Murano glass and a black marble bar top. to make a permeable threshold between the historic city and his new
quarter. “In my view, he never really lost the idea,” says Viel. It’s any-
but significant design pieces such as the Gio Ponti–designed majolica one’s guess what Augustus might think of the building he inspired
vases form a counterpoint to more florid custom fixtures and finishes. twice over, but he’d probably feel right at home. n
In a private dining room, for example, walls are lined in terra-cotta-
colored Venetian fabric by Rubelli, patterned with signs of the zodiac
found on the soffit of a small portico outside. A chandelier comprising Credits Sources
25 handblown glass lamps with gold flecks hangs over Augustus’s head ARCHITECT: ACPV Architects WINDOWS: Carretta Serramenti
— Antonio Citterio, Patricia Viel, (wood); Secco Sistemi (metal)
in the foyer. Another team of Murano glassblowers produced the rip- principals; Roberto Mariani, senior DOORS: Lualdi
pling backlit baguettes that edge the counter in a rooftop bar, whose project director
INTERIOR FINISHES: Friul Mosaic
terrace is filled with aromatic plants that were grown in ancient Rome. ENGINEERS: ARIATTA Ingegneria (hand-cut mosaic); Rigo Marmi
Although the Bulgari Suite may be out of reach for many, anyone dei Sistemi (m/e/p); Ai Engineering (marble); Cancian Pavimenti
(structural) (Venetian terrazzo); Rubelli
willing to spend $7 for a coffee can visit the hotel. ACPV wanted to
CONSULTANTS: Metis (lighting); (tapestry); Skillmax (wood inlay);
ensure that Romans would get something from the project and that the
P’ARCNOUVEAU (landscape); Barovier&Toso (glass chandeliers);
architecture would signal a welcome, which it accomplished by opening AcusticaStudio (acoustic); Kent Fornace Sugaroni (opus spicatum);
up the ground floor to surrounding streets. “It’s much more exposed (kitchen design); Studio Polis Arte Poli (Venetian crown glass);
than similar hotels,” says Viel. There’s a walnut-paneled library with (restoration) Vescom (wallcoverings)
Franco Albini–designed shelving, where students can consult books on GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Carron LIGHTING: Flos, FontanaArte,
CLIENT: Edizione Property S.p.A. Oluce, Barovier&Toso
Rome. A café spills out under the double-height entrance portico,
where diners sit among a forest of banana plants and gum palms. SIZE: 170,000 square feet
That might have pleased Morpurgo. In its research, ACPV discov- COST: withheld
ered a letter from him, sent while the piazza was being developed, COMPLETION DATE: June 2023

108 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

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Change is inevitable, and that holds true for the dynamic nature of architecture. Build-
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 CEU STRUCTURAL BAMBOO

Grass Roots
With its rapid growth cycle and ability to store carbon, bamboo
has new appeal as a building material.
BY JOANN GONCHAR, FAIA

BY NOW, the oft-repeated stats should be
familiar: the built environment contributes
nearly 40 percent of the greenhouse gases
emitted annually, and at least one-quarter of
that is embodied carbon, or the emissions
associated with the manufacture of products
used to make buildings and with the con-
PHOTOGRAPHY: © TOMMASO RIVA
thought of as wood, but the plants are not
trees. Instead, they are part of the grass fam-
ily. More than 1,600 species exist, with most
tending to thrive in humid climates close to
the equator. These are divided into herba-
ceous types, which are slender-stalked and
grow as understories, and the larger-diameter
THE ARC, the gym at the Green School in Bali,
has a roof of anticlastic gridshells, 118 feet long
and 45 feet high.
the otherwise hollow plant from buckling. In
between run vascular bundles and cellulose
fibers, providing bamboo with excellent

struction process. So how can we continue to
build while minimizing these impacts? One
answer is to use bio-based materials. And one
such material—with untapped potential—is
bamboo. It is abundant, has a rapid growth
cycle, and is strong, sometimes characterized
as vegetable steel.
What exactly is bamboo? Bamboo is often
“woody” varieties more suitable for construc-
tion. Some have “running” root systems,
which can send up new shoots as far as 100
feet from an existing culm (or stem), while
others clump, growing new culms close to the
base of an existing one.
Bamboo is made up of nodes that segment
the culm and act as diaphragms, preventing
performance along its axis in compression,
bending, and especially tension. “If I imag-
ined an ideal structural material, it would be
bamboo,” says Neil Thomas, founder and
director of the London-based engineering
firm Atelier One.
Of course, bamboo has been used as a
construction material for thousands of years.

113
 CEU STRUCTURAL BAMBOO
ARCHES BUNDLE
6 PANGKAL BLOND
BAMBOO PETUNG
0/ 51∕2 – 6 INCHES
ARCHES BUNDLE
4 PANGKAL BLOND
BAMBOO PETUNG
0/ 51∕2 – 6 INCHES
PEDESTAL FOUNDATION
WITH WOVEN-BAMBOO
SECTION PATTERN
CRISSCROSSING bamboo splits (below) running between arches of bundled bamboo (above) make up the Arc’s doubly curved gridshells.
But one reason it is attracting more attention
now is its ability to store carbon. According
to the International Bamboo and Rattan
Organization (INBAR)—an intergovern-
mental group that promotes development
using those two materials—bamboo ecosys-
tems contain between 94 and 392 metric tons
of carbon per hectare (tC/ha), depending on
species, soil conditions, geography, and other
factors. Although this is markedly less than
the carbon captured by natural forests, which
contain between 126 and 699 tC/ha, it is
comparable to that of tree plantations. In
addition, points out INBAR, unlike most
tree species, many types of bamboo can be
grown on degraded land, helping satisfy the
dual goals of soil restoration and carbon
sequestration.
From a climate-solution standpoint, bam-
boo’s most remarkable attribute is its quick
maturation and regeneration cycle. Bamboo
can be harvested within three to seven years
of sprouting, with the same clump producing
multiple harvests. (According to some esti-
mates, a single bamboo clump can produce
up to nine miles of usable culm over a 15-year
period.) This growth pace means, that com-
pared to most tree species, bamboo plants
generally have higher yields and higher stor-
age of carbon when they are used to make
buildings or long–life span products. Over a
30-year period, the carbon-storage potential
of durable products made from guadua, a
114 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
DOUBLE SPLIT KULIT
GRID SHELL
0/ 13∕8 INCH
0 13 FT.
4 M.
BAMBOO PETUNG POLE
0/ 51∕2 INCHES
South American bamboo species, is 134.7 tC/
ha, compared to only 30.0 for Chinese fir,
says INBAR.
The material does have its limitations,
however, especially when used in its natural
state. Without proper precautions, bamboo is
IMAGES: © IBUKU (TOP); TOMMASO RIVA (BOTTOM AND OPPOSITE, BOTTOM); JAMES WOLFF, PT BAMBOO (OPPOSITE, TOP)
susceptible to moisture, insect infestation, UV
degradation, and—because the culms are
hollow—they pose a high fire risk. And,
though bamboo buildings are often cited for
their ability to survive earthquakes because of
their flexibility, this is a bit of a misconcep-
tion, says Sebastian Kaminski, an associate
structural engineer in the London office of
Arup. Bamboo buildings have historically
performed well in quakes primarily because
bamboo has a high strength-to-weight ratio,
which generally results in lightweight build-
ings, and seismic loads are proportional to
mass, he explains.
For the last 14 years, Kaminski has been
working to address bamboo’s shortcomings,
and enhance the durability and livability of
bamboo buildings, offering them as a solution
for affordable and disaster-relief housing
across the global south. Among his bamboo-
related projects is an INBAR design guide,
created with collaborators from academia and
practice. It outlines a structural system that
builds upon the wattle-and-daub construction
methods still used in much of the developing
world, incorporating modern materials and
techniques.
FULL-SCALE physical tests (right) helped
designers understand the loading capacity of
the Arc’s structural elements. The bamboo
arches rise from concrete pedestals (bottom).

The improved version of the vernacular,

known as a composite bamboo shear wall
(CBSW), or engineered bahareque—as the
traditional system is called in some regions of
Latin America—is well-suited for one- and
two-story structures in rural settings or in
city outskirts, says Kaminski. The assembly
sits on reinforced-concrete foundations sup-
porting a masonry upstand, to elevate the
bamboo frame above the ground. A matrix of
cane or small-diameter bamboo, or bamboo
lath, is nailed to one or both sides of the
frame, and then galvanized-wire mesh is
affixed as reinforcement. The final layer is a
coating of cement mortar. By adding such
details as generous roof overhangs to protect
against the driving rain, use of bamboo treat-
ed with the chemical element boron to guard
against insect infestation, a minimum thick-
ness of the mortar for fire protection, and
proper seismic connections, a CBSW build-
ing can be robust and last for as long as 50
years, says Kaminski. And, notably, the em-
bodied carbon of a structure relying on such a
system is less than half of one using more
conventional manufactured materials, like
concrete masonry, that are typical in humani-
tarian housing. “That is even before taking
into account the biogenic carbon,” he says,
referring to the carbon stored within the
bamboo. Thus far, the CBSW has been
sanctioned by the building codes of Colom-
bia, Ecuador, and Peru, as well the Interna-
tional Organization for Standardization
(ISO). Efforts are also under way to incorpo-
rate it into the Philippine, Mexican, and
Nepalese building standards.
In Indonesia, bamboo is part of the cul-
ture, notes Defit Wijaya, lead architect at
Bali-based design firm IBUKU. But now the
studio, which focuses almost entirely on
bamboo, is creating a new formal vocabulary
for the ages-old material. One emblematic
project is the Arc, a gymnasium at the Bali
campus of the Green School, a pre-K through
12th-grade independent school. The product
of a collaboration with Colombia-based bam-
boo specialist Jörg Stamm and Atelier One,
the 8,000-square-foot building has no walls,
in keeping with the school’s nature-focused
mission. But it is sheltered under a striking
sculptural roof, 118 feet long and 45 feet tall
at its highest point, that seems to recall some
extinct armored mammal. The structure,

115
 CEU STRUCTURAL BAMBOO
made primarily of the bamboo species
Dendrocalamus asper, or Bambu Petung, is
supported by a series of interlocking arches,
each a bundle of culms rising from concrete
pedestals and spanning 65 feet. Between
them, crisscrossing bamboo splits form dou-
bly curved gridshells topped with a water-
proofing membrane. The whole is topped
with a layer of plupuh, or shingles of flattened
bamboo.
Because the roof ’s structure of anticlastic,
or oppositely curving, gridshells was unprec-
edented in such a natural and highly variable
material, the project demanded a unique
approach. Wijaya describes a process in which
design, engineering, and testing were hap-
pening nearly concurrently, and in both digi-
tal and analog realms. The team used draw-
ings, physical models, and computer simula-
tions to develop and refine the scheme. They
also heavily relied on full-scale mockups of
the arches and other elements, loading them
with concrete blocks to understand their bear-
ing capacity. A bamboo culm “is not like a
wood joist, which is normalized and graded.
You know what it is and what it does. This is
nature,” says Thomas of the challenges of
building with bamboo.
This complexity is one reason bamboo as a
structural material—at least in its natural
state—is unlikely to make significant inroads
in the U.S. But Seattle-based structural
engineer Don Davies, cofounder of Davies-
Crooks, a consulting practice focused on
lowering climate impacts, does see a role for
bamboo in North American construction. He
argues for an approach he calls “fiber optimi-
zation,” which means, he says, using the best
and most appropriate material for each load
application, while taking into account carbon
emissions and other environmental consider-
ations. As one of nature’s fastest-growing
BAMBOO buildings
can be durable when
properly executed.
This CBSW house in
Costa Rica had been
standing 20 years at
the time of the
photo.
116 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
Mechanical connections,
such as bolts, nails, or
screws
Galvinized-steel mesh
nailed to matrix
Wall matrix of cane,
small-diameter bamboo,
bamboo laths, bamboo
mats, or expanded steel
mesh, nailed to both
sides of frame
Sole plate, typically
timber
DOUBLE-SKIN CBSW SYSTEM
fibers, bamboo could be used to great advan-
tage, he says, if fabricated into familiar
shapes and sizes, with predictable perfor-
mance, even as hybrids with other materials
such as timber.
A handful of companies have entered the
U.S. market with the kind of structural bam-
boo products that Davies is advocating. One
is Windsor, California-based BamCore,
Head plate, typically timber
Large-diameter bamboo studs
(timber can also be used)
Large-diameter bamboo or
timber bracing
Cement-mortar plaster on outer
face of each matrix
Damp-proof membrane
Upstand of reinforced concrete
or reinforced masonry
which offers a panelized shear-wall framing
system for low-rise residential and commer-
cial construction. It typically consists of two
engineered sheets, combining wood and
bamboo plies, on either side of a shallow
cavity. With bamboo sourced primarily in
Central America, the company manufactures
the sheets in Ocala, Florida, and then fabri-
cates the structural panels—complete with
openings for windows, doors, and mechanical
systems—either there or in its California
facility. The company also has plans to offer a
mass-timber-bamboo product within the next
18 months, which it says will be thinner,
stiffer, and lighter than cross-laminated
timber.
Architecture firm, BLDUS, a 2023 Record
IMAGES: © ARUP; TY COLE (OPPOSITE 2)
Vanguard, has used BamCore’s shear-wall
system in several projects, including its own
office in the Anacostia neighborhood of
Washington, D.C. Dubbed the Grass House
—a play on the name of Philip Johnson’s New
Canaan, Connecticut, residence, but also a
reference to bamboo’s plant family—the
750-square-foot, two-story (plus basement)
structure has exterior walls framed in Bam-
 interior—along with their corresponding
embodied carbon. Here the architects left the
inside face (a layer of wood) exposed, but
stained it various shades of brown. Because
the panel’s outside face requires protection
from the elements, Becker and Linn covered it
with a fluid-applied waterproof membrane,
and then clad the structure in local black
locust.
Along with BamCore, there are a few other
pioneers of structural engineered bamboo
(SEB) offering their products in the U.S.,
including Lamboo, Renuteq, and Moso. They
make a variety of structural and semi-struc-
tural products, such as columns, beams, cur-
tain-wall systems, and framing for structural
glass. But the SEB industry is still in its in-
fancy. If it is to scale up, says Davies, more
support is needed for early adopters. “Opening
a plant takes capital and time, which involves
risk,” he says.
If, and when, SEB takes off, even the most
ardent bamboo fans see it as a complement,
rather than a replacement, for wood, steel, or
concrete. “We need to combine the best bits
of each material, each for their own proper-
ties,” says Thomas, echoing Davies’s thoughts
on fiber optimization. Regardless of what
combinations manufacturers and project
teams come up with, let’s hope it is a big part
of our material future, since the construction
industry sorely needs more rapidly renewing
and carbon-storing options. n

CONTINUING EDUCATION
To earn one AIA learning unit (LU), including one hour
of health, safety, and welfare (HSW) credit, read “Grass
Roots,” review the supplemental material found at
architecturalrecord.com, and complete the quiz at
continuingeducation.bnpmedia.com. Upon passing the
test, you will receive a certificate of completion, and
your credit will be automatically reported to the AIA.
Additional information regarding credit-reporting and
continuing-education requirements can be found at
continuingeducation.bnpmedia.com.

Learning Objectives
THE EXTERIOR walls of the Grass House (top), in Washington, D.C., are framed in composite
bamboo-wood panels. The wood face of the panels is exposed on the interior (above). 1 Describe how bamboo grows and explain how this
relates to its structural properties.
Core panels. The framing system is used in neighboring Victorian house where Becker 2 Compare its carbon-sequestration capacity to
the diminutive building along with other lives, the prefabrication of the panels made that of other construction materials.
rapidly renewable, bio-based materials, in- construction faster and simpler on the tight
3 Describe its resistance to earthquakes and fires.
cluding mycelium and woven willow, “be- site, compared to standard wood framing,
cause we are concerned about how our prod- says Linn. The architects specified lambs- 4 Discuss bamboo’s incorporation into projects,
uct choices impact the earth and the health of wool insulation for the 5½-inch cavity within both in its natural state and as an engineered
the building’s inhabitants,” says principal the panels, while the absence of studs meant structural product.
Andrew Linn, who founded BLDUS with reduced heat loss through thermal bridging. AIA/CES Course #K2309A
Jack Becker in 2013. The framing system also allowed elimination
Technically an accessory structure to the of some finishes—namely drywall on the

117
 © Osman Rana
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 LIGHTING
Penn 1
Architecture Plus Information
Lighting Workshop
BY JAMES S. RUSSELL, FAIA
IN CONTRAST to the prevailing predilec­
tion in Manhattan for defining prestige and
PHOTOGRAPHY: © MAGDA BIERNAT
status through lobbies slathered in gleaming
white marble, lit as intensely as an operating
theater, the firm Architecture Plus Infor­
mation (A+I) assembled a mainly subdued
palette of wood, stone, and bronze at Penn 1,
a 57­story tower designed by Kahn and
Jacobs, adjacent to New York’s main rail hub,
Pennsylvania Station. Vornado, one of the
city’s largest commercial owner/manager/
developer companies, engaged A+I to rejuve­
nate the characterless 1972 office tower that
had steadily sunk in prestige over the decades.
Working with the architect MdeAS, the
firm responsible for upgrading Penn 1’s core,
shell, and public spaces, A+I made the entry
more generous and prominent by moving it a
bay and a half into the surrounding public
plaza. A small patch of indoor plantings (with
targeted downlights) echoes a new plaza
garden on the other side of the glass walls.
They reimagined the lobby as more than
an entrance. “It has become a social hub,” says
A+I associate Dina Mahmoud, with work­
place amenities added across three floors at
150,000 square feet. To distinguish the varied
uses, consultant Lighting Workshop deployed
A welcoming “social stair” in the lobby features
digital art on its risers and leads to a new
mezzanine level (this image).
differing light levels and fixtures to set moods
for work less rigidly prescribed, more social,
and more enmeshed with relaxation. The
atmosphere is “warm and comfortable, like a
hotel,” explains Mahmoud.
The predominant ceiling material is oak­
veneered slats, with downlights tucked into
the recesses; oil­rubbed bronze wraps columns
and beams. By contrast, a cove­lit recessed
ceiling acts as a luminous wayfinding strip
that guides occupants along the lobby. Cove­
mounted wall­grazing strips rake elevator
banks faced with creamy, chiseled Spanish
limestone. These punchier lighting elements
guide visitors whose only goal is to reach their
desired floors quickly. Security gates tucked
into each elevator bank allow the remainder
of the lobby to be treated as a public space.
119
 LIGHTING

Hidden lighting glows from fixtures

built into shelves (below) and
ceilings—bronze (this image) and
wood (below, right and opposite).

120 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

 A+I placed the security counter off to one
side. Lit by a bronze-shaded task light, among
several custom fixtures designed by Lambert
& Fils, it feels like a hotel concierge desk. An
inviting corner, wrapped by glossy embossed-
bronze wall and ceiling panels, features soft
lounge furniture. Uplights, mounted on adja-
cent glass mullions, highlight the metal pat-
tern. These are augmented by tiny downlights
set into the panel intersections overhead.
“There was always lots of retail at the
ground floor, but it all faced the street,” says
Mahmoud. “Vornado wanted to cater to
building users as well,” she adds, which is why
the glass walls of the Blue Bottle Coffee shop
and a grab-and-go outlet called Office Hours
open into the lobby as well as the street.
A+I also created a small secondary building
entrance through a single passage between
one of the elevator banks. Here the architects
tucked an intimate semiprivate space called
the Library. It is lined with arrays of shelves
concealing built-in uplights that gently wash a
mirrorlike ceiling to give the impression of a
much taller room. The gaps between ceiling
panels host recessed downlights. Globe fix-
tures, which appear throughout the project as
accents, here augment task lighting over the
desk and hang from a track.
Back in the main lobby, a wide “social
stair” (with risers displaying digital art) leads
up to a double-height mezzanine—space
carved out by removing floor slabs—where
bleacher-style seating faces jumbo video
screens. Overhead, a tessellated ceiling punc-
tuated by downlights provides ambient over-
head lighting and dims to a gentle glow. The
space defaults to an after-hours lounge, with a
bar and restaurant called The Landing (busy
on a recent end-of-workday visit). The ter-
raced space can also be used for events and
presentations. A long stone task-lit desk offers
tenants an alternative workspace. The ceiling
rises another floor, offering a peek into a
fitness center and coworking space that are
part of the social hub.
The Landing’s bar is lively, combining
backlit liquor shelves, narrow mirrors, a
cove-lit ceiling, and an armature that sus-
pends softly glowing tubes and globes, by
Ladies and Gentlemen Studio.
This mix of amenities may be new to
Midtown office buildings but is familiar to
suburban campuses, where places to gather,
work, dine, and blow off steam aim to keep
staff in the building at lunch and ease the
pain of long hours. At Penn 1, it legitimizes
socialization (in hope of aiding idea-sharing).
Designed before the pandemic, Penn 1
may prove well attuned to today’s challenged
office market. Rethinking the lobby might be
one key to luring remote workers back. n
Credits
ARCHITECT: Architecture Plus Information
LIGHTING DESIGNER: Lighting Workshop
ENGINEERS: Severud (structural); AMA
(m/e/p); SMW (AV/IT/security)
CONSULTANTS: Jenkins & Huntington
(elevator); D3 (AV integrator); Future Green
(landscape); Milrose (code)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Turner Construction
CLIENT: Vornado Realty Trust
SIZE: 225,000 square feet
COST: withheld
COMPLETION DATE: September 2022
Sources
LIGHTING: Ecosense, i2 Systems, Kelvix, ERCO,
Apogee, Lucifer, Lumenwerx, USA Illumination,
Viabizzuno, KKDC, B-K Lighting, Bega, Lambert
et Fils, Ladies & Gentleman, Allied Maker, Vibia,
Roll & Hill, Lutron (controls)
ACOUSTICAL CEILINGS: USG, POHL
CUSTOM WOODWORK: PGS Millwork
121
 LIGHTING
320 South Canal
Goettsch Partners
One Lux Studio
BY JAMES GAUER
IN PURSUIT of transparency, architects use
a lot of glass. But, rather than clarity, the
result can be glare and reflection. This is what
the lighting designers at New York–based
One Lux Studio (OLS) wanted to avoid in the
lobby of 320 South Canal Street, a 51-story
office tower designed by Goettsch Partners
for a West Loop site just south of Chicago’s
Union Station.
OLS partner Stephen Margulies and archi-
tect James Goettsch, chairman and co-design
director of his eponymous Chicago-based
firm, have collaborated on 20 projects since
they first worked together, more than 40 years
ago. “We understand each other,” says
Margulies. “Jim always wants the lighting to
build on the architectural design and never
the reverse.”
Goettsch has a well-earned reputation as
an advocate for architecture’s civic role. “Both
the interior and exterior ground-floor spaces
are as important to the public realm as they
122 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
are to the building’s occupants, and so we
place an increased emphasis on their design,”
he says. “When we design a lobby, we con-
sider it to be part of the urban streetscape and
the streetscape to be part of the lobby.”
The core of the 40-foot-high space is
articulated as faceted planes of saw-cut, sand-
blasted Carrara marble, visible from outdoors
through a perimeter enclosure of clear glass.
“Our goal was to light the white stone walls
beautifully, evenly, and with no reflections,”
says Margulies. To accomplish this, OLS
recessed multiple clusters of LED downlights,
with varied beam distributions and lens acces-
sories, into the painted gypsum board ceiling,
which is also faceted. The LEDs were pre-
aimed during manufacturing to ensure a clean
look and minimize aiming time during in-
stallation. A daylight sensor adjusts their
brightness.
To avoid glare and reflection, Margulies
and his colleagues recommended that the
lobby’s fin-wall glazing system be made of
zero-reflection glass, allowing unobstructed
views from outside, where the building’s The 10-foot-wide by 40-foot-high lami-
stainless-steel-clad exoskeleton meets the nated glazing panels wrapping the lobby
ground in V-shaped piers. These are discreet- comprise three layers of glass, about 1¼-inch
ly illuminated from above by adjustable fix- thick in total, fabricated in Germany, sent to
tures recessed into the folded ceiling plane, New York by ship, and then to Chicago in
similar to those used inside. specially designed trailers. An antireflective
 The 51-story tower (opposite) glows from
discreet fixtures tucked into its ground-level
ceiling plane, inside and out (above, both), and
throughout an adjacent green space (right).

coating on both exterior and interior surfaces

keeps the visible light reflectance down to
less than 2 percent, while providing visible
light transmittance of 89 percent. According
to Goettsch, the coating did not add signifi-
cantly to construction cost. But because this
product is manufactured only once a year, it
had to be fitted carefully into the schedule.
The artful combination of lighting and
glazing provides a luminous backdrop to an
adjacent 1½-acre green space, which is open
until midnight. Organized around a large
oval lawn surrounded by a curving path, this
outdoor room glimmers after dark. LED Credits SIZE: 1.7 million square feet (building)
“tape lights,” integrated beneath precast ARCHITECT: Goettsch Partners — James COST: withheld
concrete benches, are augmented by “mini Goettsch, chairman and co-design director COMPLETION DATE: October 2022 (lighting)
bullet” lights shimmering up into the foliage LIGHTING DESIGNER: One Luxe Studio —
Stephen Margulies, partner in charge; Yasamin
of lilac bushes and maple, birch, and spruce Shahamiri, associate principal Sources
PHOTOGRAPHY: © NICK ULIVIERI

trees. But the real magic comes from high
above: at level 31, a partially louvered me-
chanical floor, 24 narrow-beam floodlights
with glare shields are secured to vertical
members of the building’s curtain wall.
These wash softly over the park, creating the
ambient glow of moonlight. n
ENGINEER: Environmental System Design
(m/e/p/fp)
CONSULTANT: Confluence (landscape
architecture)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Clark Construction
CLIENTS: Riverside Investment & Development;
Convexity Properties
CURTAIN WALL: New Hudson Facades
GLAZING: Pilkington Deutschland, Thiele Glas
Werk, Architectural Glass Works, Interpane
LIGHTING: Lumenpulse, USAI, MP Lighting, LED
Linear, Lutron (controls)

123
 PRODUCTS Lighting

How Illuminating! Modula Suspension

These pendant and wall fixtures are
elegant, playful, and efficient.
BY SHEILA KIM
Powered on or off, this linear pendant from Slamp engages visually,
with a sculptural lens offered in two different textures: Plissé, which
sports wavy ridges, and Crystal (below), with the appearance of
knurls. Both are available with either a black or light gray canopy and
in single (37½" long) or double (74¾" long) configurations.
slamp.com

Topo
RBW’s Topo is graphic yet simple, with a light
source outlined by a round backplate avail-
able in a choice of oat, straw, clay, rust, or
basalt tones. Composed of a blend of cement
and FSC- and PEFC-certified wood—a com-
mon construction material—this charming
sconce is available in 12" or 8½" diameters,
with or without dimming capability.
rbw.com
Architectural Cylinders
CSL Lighting has launched a next generation of cylinder
systems that offers such upgrades as higher lumen outputs
and a more streamlined design, devoid of visible external
hardware. Available in pendant, ceiling flush-mount, and
wall-sconce formats, the cylinders are customizable in sev-
eral ways: 2", 3", and 5" lengths; matte black, semi-gloss
white, or custom colors; and in square or round profiles.
csllighting.com

PLI
Foscarini elevates the humble
AYNO Wall Lamp
paper shade with this pen-
After its successful launch of
dant series by Danish de-
the whimsical AYNO floor and
signer Felicia Arvid. The LED
table lamps, Midgard is fol-
lamping, offered as a straight
lowing up with a wall model
or circular tube, becomes the
available in 85" or 154"
support structure for the
lengths. Constructed with
paper diffuser, piercing
steel, fiberglass, and ABS
through its folds like a needle
plastic, its flexible arc mounts
and thread in fabric. The
onto a wall bracket that allows
result is a ribbonlike appear-
it to swivel. A cable stretched
ance that softens the light. A
between two sliding rings can
wood version that directs
be loosened or tightened to
light upward and downward is
adjust the arc’s radius.
also available.
midgard.com
foscarini.com

124 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

 ACADEMY
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127
 EDUCATIONAL-ADVERTISEMENT
CONTINUING EDUCATION

Multifamily buildings are

places that create a density
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and community which are

desirable traits, as long as
the potential downsides are
properly addressed in design.

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Multifamily buildings meeting the
Learning Objectives
varied needs of their residents After reading this article, you should
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Sponsored by Inpro, PABCO Gypsum, and Tamlyn 1. Investigate the beneficial attributes
to people of acoustic control and fire
By Peter J. Arsenault, FAIA, NCARB, LEED AP resistance using properly specified
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buildings.
2. Assess options for interior design that

D
ensity in living situations is general-
ly regarded as a good thing in terms
of sustainable design, availability of
services, provision of mass transit, and other
quality-of-life conditions. However, build-
ings that house multiple households require
attention to both design and detail to achieve
attractive, desirable, and livable situations.
That includes providing the proper balance
between public spaces and privacy within
dwelling units, especially related to acoustic
privacy. There is also the need to provide
spaces and materials that are attractive and
durable to keep the buildings looking good
and performing well over time. The current
trends of healthy indoor living environments,
green building design, connections to the
outdoors, and other design features are all
equally important aspects of contemporary
multifamily building or renovation design.
This course reviews these issues with some
specific approaches toward achieving better,
coordinated, and budget-friendly outcomes.
BETTER BUILDING EXTERIORS
Multifamily buildings are usually part of a
larger community setting and in a very real
sense, the exterior design helps to shape the
nature and character of that community.
Architects control that design and can help
create exteriors that add vibrancy, provide
welcoming environments, and maintain
appropriate levels of scale for individual
living units.
At the same time, building exteriors need
to meet the rigors of energy conservation,
enhance wellness, innovation, and
safety as applied to both private and
public spaces in buildings.
3. Explain the significance of properly
used expansion joints for building
integrity and the safety of people and
the protection of property.
4. Determine options to improve the
exterior and interior cladding of
multifamily buildings for safety,
durability, and aesthetics using
extruded aluminum trim.
To receive AIA credit, you are required to
read the entire article and pass the quiz.
Visit ce.architecturalrecord.com for the
complete text and to take the quiz for free.
AIA COURSE #K2309B

128 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

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 LIVING WITH NEIGHBORS
Photo courtesy of Tamlyn
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Extruded aluminum trim can be used to help secure and frame many different types of
exterior cladding edges, such as 36 Dolores, located in Emeryville, California. Architect: Levy
Design Partners
sustainability, durability, and cost-effective-
ness. For many multifamily buildings, that
has meant the use of lightweight cladding
used in a rainscreen system for better overall
performance. That cladding is often held in
place with aluminum trim that is used not
only for fastening purposes but to create a
visual statement as well. When used suc-
cessfully, aluminum trim is a design tool
that economically creates facades that can
be dramatic or subtle, bold or understated,
colorful or muted. This gives the trim mul-
tiple purposes that can be used to tie into the
larger purpose of the community.
Designing with Exterior Aluminum Trim
Not all cladding is the same, so it follows
that not all methods of supporting cladding
panels are the same. Similarly, different clad-
dings have different capabilities for the edges
of panels to be left uncovered or unprotected.
This is particularly true if the cladding is po-
rous, such as with wood, cement fiber boards,
or some composite products. In these and
other cases, aluminum trim is typically used
around the perimeter of the cladding.
The design possibilities of using alumi-
num trim are extensive. There are literally
thousands of standard profiles available
that can either create a recessed reveal
between cladding panels, be flush over the
top surface, or can intentionally project
outward to accentuate the lines of the design.
The aluminum is available in a wide range
of standard anodized or painted colors.
Extruded aluminum trim can be provided
130 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
in sizes and styles that work with multiple
panels enabling architects to vary the
material choices within their façade designs
while keeping details that will have a similar
language. Used in any of these ways, it has
typically been shown to be less expensive
with a more elegant look of clean lines than
with other options.
There is a current design trend to
increase the use of non-90-degree corners
in urban settings. This may be a response
to tighter spaces and building lots or
Common or amenity spaces in multifamily buildings can look better longer and help guard
against potential hazards when durable, architectural wall and door protection is incorpo-
rated into the design.
EDUCATIONAL-ADVERTISEMENT
simply a desire for more creative shapes
and geometries on building exteriors.
Lightweight cladding and aluminum trim
have become proven as a means to achieve
such angular designs. Manufacturers now
provide multi-angle corners that adjust to
the angle of the wall for inside and outside
corners. This allows for clean, efficient
details on non-90-degree corners. Without
this option, an installer would need to line
up two or more pieces of trim that may or
may not end up straight and plumb going
up the wall. There are also transition trims
available to provide a clean transition from
one type of cladding to another. Some
two-piece products are also available that
allow for easy transition details to keep the
architectural design intent intact.
For situations that require it, there is
the option of working with a manufacturer
to create custom trim profiles to suit the
needs of a project. The option also exists
for custom coloring for any standard or
custom trim profile.
Perhaps the biggest design trend is for
architects and designers to use multiple
different claddings and trims on a single
project or façade. That has obvious implica-
tions for the number of different trims that
will be needed to work with those different
claddings. Clayton Webster, a Product
Manager with Tamlyn, notes, "Architects
are designing with four or more different
claddings on multifamily and single-family
construction. The struggle for contractors
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 LIVING WITH NEIGHBORS
is to merge those claddings efficiently while
keeping the design consistent. Utilizing
CONTINUING EDUCATION
aluminum trim with transition profiles al-
lows architects the ability to design freely and
gives contractors the solution they need to
address the transition between the different
claddings."
SUSTAINABLE INTERIORS
A big part of creating a sustainable multifam-
ily building is the durability of the interior
areas, especially those that get heavier use.
Incorporating protective architectural
products on walls and other surfaces helps to
increase the longevity of multifamily build-
ings while also protecting occupants from
potential hazards. This is particularly true
for amenity areas such as common rooms,
exercise areas, and café areas as well as cir-
culation spaces such as corridors, stairways,
doors, and elevators. Protection in all of these
areas is not limited just to foot traffic and
people but also needs to address protection
from equipment for moving tenants in and
out, cleaning equipment, deliveries, and
things needed for special events.
Multifamily buildings therefore can be
most sustainable when owners invest in
products that protect the interior wall and
door surfaces allowing the building to last
longer and saving resources like time and
money in the long run. The alternative is
to regularly go through costly and time-
consuming updates, especially to justify any
increases in rent prices. Instead of needing to
replace surfaces and interior features every
three years, it is now reasonable to expect
10–15-year service lives by using architec-
tural protective products.
Incorporating effective architectural
protection doesn’t mean that performance
and aesthetics have to compete with each
other. There are plenty of different protec-
tive products for multifamily buildings
that can be aesthetically pleasing and even
innovative in the way they are manufactured
and used. The best approach is referred to
as targeted wall protection where a specific
set of products is used that are designed to
absorb impact and protect the underlying
portion of the wall. By targeting the most
vulnerable areas, protection can be added by
using corner guard or wall guard products
specifically where they are needed. These
can include horizontal rails across targeted
sections of the walls as well as vertically
installed corner guards. Since many of these
products can be specified with materials that
are not only durable but also easy to clean,
132 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
CLD gypsum board uses viscoelastic polymers (damping layer) between two layers of gyp-
sum (constraining layers) to reduce sound and vibration in building partitions. When under
vibration, the damping layer shears as the panel flexes resulting in less overall sound energy
transmitted through the panel.
they help protect the building as well as the
people in them.
Taking the concept of wall protection
further, sheets of rigid wall covering have
been used where large surfaces need to be
made more durable and easier to clean.
Usually produced in sheets or rolls, rigid
vinyl extruded wall cladding comes in sev-
eral standard thicknesses. For medium-duty
installations, .028 is used when flexibility
is needed such as wrapping a column for
example. A slightly heavier .040 can be used
to eliminate re-painting where repeated
scuffing wears through the top layer of
drywall. For heavier-duty locations, .060 is
used to protect against gouging of the wall
while .080 is used for maximum protection,
often installed on top of cement board or
fire-rated plywood. Most of these products
offered in the U.S. are Class A fire rated with
many choices of product types, finishes, and
colors to enhance, rather than detract from,
an interior design scheme.
For wall areas that need some protection
but desire a softer look, resilient, textured
wall covering is available which brings sev-
eral advantages. A thicker wall covering with
special top coatings makes for a very durable
product. That includes resistance to chemi-
cals and cleaning agents. Such wall coverings
can also be selected which are quite cleanable
and resilient against stains, markings, and
graffiti. From a design standpoint, there are
textured wall coverings available in a variety
of colors and patterns that can be combined
with other wall protection products from a
manufacturer for a totally coordinated look.
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Photo courtesy of PABCO Gypsum
CONTROLLING SOUND
USING GYPSUM PANELS
Residents of multifamily buildings, whether
condos, apartments, co-housing units, or
other types, all have a fundamental need
for some acoustic privacy. They really don’t
want to hear their neighbors in an adjacent
unit on either side, above, or below them and
they certainly don’t want to feel like those
neighbors can hear what they are saying or
doing. Therefore, reducing the noise transfer
from one living unit to another and between
a living unit and a common area (hallways,
community room, amenity spaces, etc.) can
result in more satisfied owners and renters,
less turnover, and fewer vacancies.
From a design perspective, achieving
this common goal of acoustic privacy means
calling for wall assemblies and floor/ceiling
assemblies with adequate Sound Transmission
Class (STC) and Impact Insulation Class (IIC)
ratings. The higher the STC or IIC rating for
a particular assembly, the less sound that is
transferred between units. The International
Building Code (IBC) calls for an STC rating
of 50 for walls that separate dwelling units,
but many designers and developers/owners
are questioning if that is really high enough to
meet the expectations of occupants.
In response, design professionals seeking
to achieve greater acoustical performance
without unduly thick walls or creating higher
costs are finding that there are options
available using sound-reducing gypsum
board. Such products are made as gypsum
board panels but use a technique known as
constrained layer damping (CLD). Products
 Design Peace
and Quiet®

Multifamily residents
will thank you for it
Good acoustics and noise control can suggest a higher
level of quality to the condo buyer or renter, elevating
by
the perceived value of the property. Residents want
their privacy and don’t want to hear their neighbors.

Including QuietRock sound reducing drywall between

multifamily units will help decrease the noise
transferring from one residence to the other. The
result—satisfied owners and renters, less turnover and Scan code or visit
fewer vacancies. pabcogypsum.com/quietrock
 LIVING WITH NEIGHBORS
Photo courtesy of Tamlyn
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Extruded aluminum trim can be effectively used for smooth transitions between different
cladding panel types at inside and outside corners, edges, and other locations.
using this technique achieve high sound
attenuation and fire resistance in one panel
using less space, less material, and less labor
than other acoustical treatments.
CLD panels are manufactured with a vis-
coelastic polymer central layer that allows thin
gypsum outer layers to independently shear,
thus dissipating the acoustic energy of sound
waves. This results in less audible energy pass-
ing through the CLD board. Incorporating
CLD panels into a wall or ceiling assembly
allows for acoustical performance at levels
higher than just using standard 1/2” or 5/8”
gypsum wallboard. Since only one layer of
CLD is often all that is required, the instal-
lation is easier, more efficient, and less costly
than traditional systems.
Beyond the airborne sound measured by
STC, IIC measures a floor/ceiling assembly’s
ability to insulate against structure-borne
(impact) sound. Structure-borne noise is
defined as any noise source whose primary
radiation comes from impact (footsteps on
an upstairs floor, for example) or vibration
of solid structures. IIC is the main metric
used in the building industry to characterize
structural noise in buildings. As with STC
values, the higher the IIC value of a floor/
ceiling assembly, the better its ability to reduce
the transmission of sound from impacts
above. An acceptable IIC rating is typically 50
or above to meet code and user requirements.
In multi-story, multifamily buildings,
resident comfort can be notably compro-
mised if impact noise is detected by the
134 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
occupants below. In these cases, the floor/
ceiling assembly becomes the critical point
of focus. One successful solution includes
the use of thicker, more dense gypsum board
for the ceiling material which is specifically
formulated to reduce the amount of impact
noise being transmitted. This solution has
been successful in reducing both airborne
and structural noise and is also effective for
lower sound frequencies where sound attenu-
ation has proven difficult (see acoustics case
study at end of course).
EXTRUDED ALUMINUM
TRIM FOR INTERIOR WALLS
Extruded aluminum trim works well not
only on the exterior of multifamily build-
ings but on the inside too. It can be used to
frame and hold fast drywall panels, mill-
work, acoustic ceilings, and even compos-
ite panels. The durability of the extruded
aluminum is good for the protection of
the edges of all those materials and makes
them easier to clean. Extruded aluminum
products are readily available and are de-
signed to be used with 5/8-inch-thick or ½”
thick drywall to provide continuous edge
protection for drywall edges and corners. In
some cases, the profile of the trim creates a
recessed reveal which offers an understated
but elegant design while keeping corners
and edges protected.
Similarly, aluminum trim can be used in
conjunction with wrapped surface finishes
such as fabric or vinyl wall coverings. Such
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trim pieces are available in a variety of tra-
ditional, contemporary, and modern looks
to create subdued, elegant looks or emphatic
three-dimensional appearances. Since
aluminum is highly durable, recyclable,
lightweight, and non-combustible, it is a
popular and logical choice for interior trim.
In addition, the design options, variability,
and cost-effectiveness of this trim make
them very well suited for both public and
private spaces in multifamily buildings.
Aluminum trim products can create a
minimalist shadow line with simple reveal
space that allows installation vertically,
horizontally, or diagonally. They commonly
include ridged faces for tape & float connec-
tions with gypsum board finishing. They
can also include pre-punched holes for easy
installations, although hole placement may
vary between profiles and products. These
products are commonly made from 6063 T5
aluminum with standard clear anodized or
primed finish.
Of course, the color and finish of the
trim is an important design consideration,
regardless of the location. Fortunately,
there are many different finish options
available including mill finish aluminum,
anodized aluminum, standard prefinished
color palettes, ready to paint finishes or
custom finishing. Extruded aluminum trim
can be specified in anodized aluminum in
standard colors such as clear, champagne,
bronzes and black. Factory prefinished
trim can include liquid paint (i.e., acrylics,
alkyds, polyesters, and others) or powder
coatings, any of which reduces onsite labor
needs. At least one manufacturer can
provide custom pattern matching on the
aluminum to include logos, to match wood
panels or stone walls, or even create a wood
grain look. Alternatively, it can be specified
simply with a paint primer ready to receive
final finish coats in the field of virtually any
color. With this variety of choices, the trim
can appear to blend in with the adjacent
wall panels or it can be used to highlight all
or some of the visual lines it creates.
Peter J. Arsenault, FAIA, NCARB, LEED AP is
a nationally known architect and a prolific author
advancing better multifamily housing for all people.
www.pjaarch.com www.linkedin.com/in/
 ADVERTISEMENT

PRODUCT REVIEW
Living with Neighbors

CONTINUING EDUCATION
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Photo courtesy of PABCO Gypsum

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Photo courtesy of Tamlyn

Achieve Clean, Modern Lines with Extruded Aluminum Trim

Clean, modern lines can be achieved by using extruded aluminum trim in projects. Extruded aluminum trim will give the building long-lasting
trim details that will not oil can or buckle under sun exposure. Tamlyn works with architects to manufacture extruded aluminum trim for easy
cladding transitions.

www.tamlyn.com

135

CONTINUING EDUCATION
Photo courtesy of Lester Ali
Matching Design Aesthetic
with Performance
Louvers as a decorative element to
achieve thermal performance
Sponsored by Construction Specialties
By Andrew A. Hunt
L
ouvers play a critical role in com-
mercial construction, offering a
multitude of benefits. In addition to
providing intake and exhaust ventilation,
louvers have evolved to become architec-
tural features that seamlessly blend design
aesthetics with performance qualities. This
article explores the benefits and advantages
of incorporating louvers into commercial
construction, highlighting their ability to
enhance the overall building design while
optimizing energy efficiency, indoor com-
fort, and air ventilation. Moreover, it delves
into the significance of incorporating
136 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
EDUCATIONAL-ADVERTISEMENT
installed at the building’s entry level
"blank-offs" into the design as well as the
importance of rigorous testing to ensure the
effectiveness of these systems.
GETTING TO KNOW LOUVERS
Louvers are horizontal or vertical arrange-
ments of blades or slats that are used to
control airflow, and even light penetration.
By altering the configuration of the blades
and varying the free area, louvers achieve
certain functions that architects desire for
their projects. Installed on the exterior in an
opening seamlessly integrated into a build-
ing’s facade, louvers can provide a wide
Rose Hill is a new, state-of-the-
art residential tower on East 29th
Street in Manhattan whose design
hearkens back to the classic design
of Rockefeller Center. Louvers are
near the occupant entrance, with
mechanical components hidden
behind custom-cut metal screens.
CONTINUING EDUCATION
1 AIA LU/HSW 0.1 ICC CEU
1 IIBEC CEH
Learning Objectives
After reading this article, you should
be able to:
1. Explain the basic concept and design
elements of louvers in commercial
construction, and their primary
purpose and function.
2. Describe how louvers can help a
building achieve thermal comfort and
reduced water intrusion by being an
integral part of the building envelope.
3. Discuss the incorporation of “blank-
offs” into louver design and how they
add value to a project.
4. List the important aspects of
testing louver systems to ensure
code compliance, durability, and
performance expectations.
To receive AIA credit, you are required to
read the entire article and pass the quiz.
Visit ce.architecturalrecord.com for the
complete text and to take the quiz for free.
AIA COURSE #K2309L
EDUCATIONAL-ADVERTISEMENT
range of benefits, including improved air-
flow and ventilation, privacy, and protection
for sensitive equipment, and offer a creative
and unique aesthetic.
There are different types of louvers that
architects can specify: non-drainable units;
drainable options; storm-resistant products
that resist wind-driven rain; extreme
weather louvers that can withstand tornados,
tropical storms, and hurricanes; acoustical
versions that are engineered to minimize
noise and sound leaving the building; and
blast-resistant louvers that are designed and
manufactured to withstand the shockwave
from an explosion and not break apart and
become a projectile.
The number, size, spacing, and design
of the blades provide varying degrees of
protection as each blade type has a distinct
configuration, allowing for different degrees
of air and water to pass through. Generally
speaking, the Louver profiles get more
complicated as the performance requirements
go up. Architects and engineers will need to
determine the type of ventilation and protec-
tion they need in order to determine the
number, size, and design of the louver panels.
THE CASE FOR LOUVERS
Louvers have many uses and benefits for
engineers and architects. Their primary pur-
pose in commercial buildings is to screen air
intakes and vents from unwanted elements
and facilitate beneficial air movement in and
out of essential equipment, but louvers make
buildings energy efficient and comfortable
as well. They also offer an opportunity for
architects and designers to enhance the visual
appeal of their buildings.
To better appreciate how louvers can help
improve energy efficiency, sustainability, and
health and wellness, it helps to understand
their intended function.
When combined with other ventilation ac-
cessories, louvers help supply additional fresh
air to HVAC systems. Outside air is brought
into the building, filtered, then picked up
by the air handler and cycled through the
ductwork. The louvers help push out the hot,
stale air, and keep buildings cooler through-
out the summer months.
This air-regulating property has an
added benefit. Appropriately sized and
Founded in 1948, Construction Specialties (CS) is a specialty building products manufacturer. CS provides solutions to the
complex challenges architects, designers, building owners, facility managers, and contractors face every day. Since invent-
ing the first extruded louver, CS has become a global leader in interior wall protection, impact-resistant doors, entrance
mats & grids, expansion joint covers, architectural louvers & grilles, and more. c-sgroup.com.
MATCHING DESIGN AESTHETIC WITH PERFORMANCE
Photo courtesy of Lester Ali
designed louvers can enhance the energy
efficiency of a commercial space because
CONTINUING EDUCATION
properly sized louvers impose less stress
on mechanical equipment and allows
HVAC systems to operate efficiently. The
adequate ventilation allows fresh air to
circulate throughout the building, creating
a more comfortable indoor environment
and maintaining optimal temperature and
humidity levels throughout the year. The
additional ventilation also reduces the
likelihood of mold in buildings by reduc-
ing the amount of moisture vapor in the
circulated air.
Choosing the right louver can also help
support sustainable building practices,
reduce the carbon footprint of a project and
contribute to the overall environmentally
responsible goals of a project. When properly
incorporated into a design, louvers can
qualify for Leadership in Energy (LEED) and
Environmental Design credits.
One of the big benefits to louvers is
that they help improve indoor air qual-
ity by enabling a steady flow of fresh air,
which reduces the buildup of pollutants,
allergens, and odors. Adjustable louvers
allow building control systems to manage
over airflow, ensuring personalized comfort
and improved productivity. By strategically
orienting louvers and utilizing advanced
materials, like sunshades with high solar Specifying the louver based on performance
reflectance, buildings can minimize energy criteria is critical to ensure the building not
consumption, resulting in reduced carbon only has ample fresh air, but is protected
emissions and long-term cost savings. from the elements and water intrusion.
LOUVER TYPES
In order to select the right louver, an architect under simulated rainfall and wind speed.
must look at each unit’s performance criteria Louvers are organized from the most effec-
and decide what is needed. Manufacturers tive rain defense louver to the least.
likely have their products categorized by Another performance category that
depth, free area, pressure drop, wind-driven architects can check is the louver's Free
rain, and extreme-weather defense, giving an Area, the minimum area through which air
indication of the capabilities. can pass.
For example, an architect would look at
the rain defense to see how successful it is at
keeping water from entering through a lou-
ver. Rain defense performance is measured Andrew A. Hunt is Vice President of Confluence
by several test methods. Wind-driven rain Communications and utilizes over twenty years
rejection tests by BSRIA (Building Services professional writing experience in residential and
Research and Information Association) commercial building science to produce marketing,
and AMCA (Air Movement and Control training, educational and multi-media material.
Association) measure a louver's effectiveness www.confluencec.com
137

CONTINUING EDUCATION
Photo courtesy of 3A Composites USA, Inc.
Norwegian Cruise Lines Terminal,
Miami, Florida.
Sustainable Construction
The lasting benefits of building with metal
Sponsored by The Metal Construction Association
By Rebecca A. Pinkus, MTPW, MA
T
his section focuses on the durability
of metal. It provides an overview of
the benefits of using metal as a build-
ing material in commercial construction
and explores why metal is often specified
for walls and roofs over other materials,
especially as architects and developers aim
to construct more resilient, sustainable
buildings.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF METAL IN
COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION
Metal buildings have a long history in com-
mercial construction, with their earliest
use in late 1700s England to build mills,
factories, and agricultural buildings during
the Industrial Revolution. Metal was less
expensive—and less flammable—than brick
and timber, and the advantages were quickly
138 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023
EDUCATIONAL-ADVERTISEMENT
apparent. Commercial construction in the
early 19th century United States slowly began
to incorporate the newly mass-produced steel
into buildings, with the wealthy in New York
City as an early adopter due to the cost.
While this set the groundwork for later
building projects, World War II is recognized
as the tipping point for metal in commercial
construction. Metal had beneficial attributes.
It could be quickly prefabricated and shipped
to construct structures such as airplane
hangars, barracks, and other temporary
shelters to support the war effort. Advantages
of metal later were applied in agriculture
and other industries that required strong,
durable, and relatively easy-to-assemble
structures. During the post-war era,
metal building systems (MBS) became more
common for basic large-scale storage or
CONTINUING EDUCATION
1 AIA LU/HSW 0.1 ICC CEU
1 IIBEC CEH
Learning Objectives
After reading this article, you should
be able to:
1. Discuss how the durability of metal as
a building material can contribute to
the sustainability of buildings.
2. Explain some key qualities of metal
that make it an ideal material selection
when incorporating renewable energy
goals into building plans.
3. List the financial and aesthetic
benefits of choosing metal for walls
and roofs.
4. Describe the importance of
considering a cradle-to-cradle
approach when specifying building
materials to address carbon emissions
and climate change.
To receive AIA credit, you are required to
read the entire article and pass the quiz.
Visit ce.architecturalrecord.com for the
complete text and to take the quiz for free.
AIA COURSE #K2309D
EDUCATIONAL-ADVERTISEMENT SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION

Photo courtesy of Nucor Corporation

warehouse structures.
Steel grew increasingly popular, and the

CONTINUING EDUCATION
advancement of Computer Aided Design
(CAD) in the mid-1970s allowed metal build-
ing design to be widely applied to commercial
buildings. The rest is history. Today metal
is specified as a building material in many
commercial sectors, and for good reason.
Metals such as steel are versatile and sustain-
able and last a long time with limited or no
maintenance. Steel can be customized to
meet specific design requirements, or it can
be combined with other building materials to
suit a design.

Benefits of Metal Construction

Compared to Other Materials
Compared to other materials such as wood,
concrete, or brick, metal proves versatile
and cost-effective over its lifetime, as well as
lightweight, sustainable, and durable. Many
materials will fall to rot or decay with water
exposure, but properly designed, constructed,
and maintained metal can last for years.
With newer composite materials that in-
corporate insulation and protective finishes,
architects and builders can choose from
products that offer increased performance
and design options. These attributes lead
with durability, placing metal high on the list
of ideal building materials for commercial
construction projects.
In the construction world, durability typi-
cally refers to a material’s ability to withstand
the elements, resist damage, and handle
structural pressure. Buildings constructed
with metal building products such as wall pan-
els and roofing can last decades with minimal
maintenance or repair, even when exposed to
extreme weather or natural disasters.
Benefits of Metal Walls
in Commercial Construction
Metal walls are increasingly common in both
residential and commercial construction
thanks to increased versatility and sustain-
ability as well as advances in panel design.
Commercial construction projects benefit
from the advantages of metal walls. This
holds true for both new construction and
retrofits. Metal walls can provide protec-
tion against both fire and water, stand up to
wear and tear, and offer lower material costs,
Boeing 787 Dreamliner final assembly plant, North Charleston, South Carolina.
as well as lower costs for installation and
maintenance. On top of that, metal walls are
versatile when it comes to design aesthetics,
and they offer architects a huge range of op-
tions for both interior and exterior walls.
Designers and builders have several
options when it comes to metal walls. Three
of the most common metal wall panels
are insulated metal panels (IMPs), metal
composite material (MCM) panels, and
single-skin panels.
Insulated Metal Panels (IMPs)
Insulated metal panels (IMPs) are exterior
cladding elements constructed with compos-
ite materials. Their exceptional performance
stems from the combined metal skins and
rigid insulative core. The core can be made
of different materials, including mineral
wool, which may be fire rated. Along with a
vapor-retarding thermal barrier, IMPs are
designed to be highly insulative, lightweight
and weather resistant; they can be used for
roofs or walls and are an excellent choice for
commercial construction.
Aside from weather resistance and
thermal benefits, IMPs carry many
other attributes that will be discussed later
including aesthetics and increased energy
efficiency. Features such as the design and
installation of assembly systems, however,
connect to durability.
Where IMPs have similar installation to
concrete tilt-wall and precast options, they
are quicker and easier to install when used
as roof systems. A notable characteristic is
they can be installed with a single pass and
span large sections of a structure. From
an aesthetic perspective, IMPs are highly
versatile in size, width, color, profile,
and finish. Not surprisingly, IMPs are
frequently used for large buildings, from
warehouses and manufacturing facilities to
healthcare, educational, recreational, and
government buildings.
A stand-out benefit of IMP walls hinges
on insulative properties. With panels from
3-8 inches, walls can be designed to provide
Rebecca Pinkus is a science and technical communi-
cation consultant focusing on technology, environ-
ment, and history. She contributes to continuing edu-
cation courses and publications through Confluence
Communications. http://www.confluencec.com

The Metal Construction Association (MCA) is an organization of manufacturers and suppliers whose metal products are used
in structures throughout the world. Since it was formed in 1983, MCA has focused on one key strategy – to promote the use
of metal in the building envelope through marketing, education, and action on public policies that affect metal’s use.

139
 DATES & Events

Upcoming Exhibitions
Brutal D.C.
Cedar City, Utah
October 14, 2023–March 4, 2024
The Southern Utah Museum of Art presents
an exhibition that explores the history, im-
pact, and future of Brutalist buildings in
Washington, D.C, such as Gordon Bunshaft’s
Hirshhorn Museum (1969) and the J. Edgar
Hoover FBI Building (1975). Comprised of
archival materials, large-scale photography by
Ty Cole, and contemporary reimaginings of
the buildings’ future use, the exhibition will
travel to the National Building Museum next
summer. See suu.edu.
Ongoing Exhibitions
There is Room
Chicago
Through October 14, 2023
An exhibition of local architecture studio
Kwong Von Glinow’s ongoing and completed
Chicago housing projects is on view in the
reading room of MAS Context, a nonprofit
platform for urban research. Presented as a
series of half-inch-scale models, the projects
seek to demonstrate how the city’s standard-
ized housing typologies can be interpreted in
regard to layout and circulation, quality of
space, and natural light. For more informa-
tion, see mascontext.com
Urban Archaeology: Lost Buildings of
St. Louis
St. Louis
Through February 4, 2024
This exhibition at the Pulitzer Arts Foun-
dation consists of salvaged architectural
elements from landmark buildings, residential
homes, and neighborhood institutions built in
St. Louis between 1840 and 1950. Drawn
from the collection of the National Building
Arts Center in Sauget, Illinois, the displayed
artifacts illuminate the city’s history and
reveal the complicated legacies of power,
wealth, and neglect that shaped its built
environment and the experience of its inhab-
itants. See pulitzerarts.org.
Critical Consumption
Vienna
Through September 9, 2024
This year-long exhibition at the Museum of
Applied Arts (MAK) will juxtapose historical
objects with contemporary designs that illus-
trate how consumption of fashion has devel-
oped over the past 300 years, inviting viewers
to reflect on the role of the fashion industry in
driving global cycles of production, waste,
and labor exploitation. Curated by Lara
Steinhäußer, the exhibition also includes
contributions by contemporary artists Celia
Pym, Dead White Men’s Clothes, Stefanie
Moshammer, Sylvie Fleury, Tenant of
Culture, The Nest Collective, and Wang
Bing. For more information, go to mak.at/en.

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140 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023


Events
Regenerative Metropolis: High
Performance Carbon Sequestration 2023
New York
September 22, 2023
A free one-day symposium hosted by the
Parsons School of Design explores scalable
design technologies for sustainable urban
futures, with a focus on Passive House energy
standards. Panels and workshops will take a
holistic view of emerging tools, policy, fi-
nancing, and material science in high-perfor-
mance architecture. See nypassivehouse.org
Atlanta Design Festival
Atlanta
October 14–22, 2023
The 17th edition of the festival is kicking off
with a two-day “Creative Futures” conference
featuring speakers Kai-Uwe Bergman of
Bjarke Ingels Group and Jan Knikker of
MVRDV. Guided by the theme “Why Not
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city. See atlantadesignfestival.net
Competitions
AIA COTE Top Ten Awards
Deadline: October 26, 2023
Now in its 28th year, the AIA Committee on
the Environment (COTE) award recognizes
excellence in design and performance for
sustainable projects across the world. Submit-
ted projects must have been completed at least
12 months prior to the submission deadline
and will be evaluated based on environmental
performance, sense of place and history,
aesthetics, community connection and resil-
ience, and stewardship of the natural environ-
ment. See aia.org.
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141
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ce.architecturalrecord.com/ee

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143
 SNAPSHOT

Perched on a windswept bluff along the

Northern California coast, The Sea Ranch was a
planned village conceived by architect and
developer Alfred Boeke in the 1960s to promote
environmental stewardship. At the heart of this
community was the Lodge—a general store
and restaurant for residents—later expanded
by Boeke and notable architect Joseph Esherick
to include rentable accommodations for
visitors. In 2018, the Lodge’s new owners began
an extensive, two-phase renovation, which
concluded in July with the debut of 17 updated
guest rooms, including this 400-square-
foot deluxe studio. With a considered touch,
San Francisco–based design practice
NICOLEHOLLIS refreshed the rooms—preserv-
ing cedar ceilings, refinishing surfaces with a
historically accurate palette, and staging
functional modern furnishings alongside earthy
accents by local craftspeople. These spaces
exhibit an elevated simplicity and comfort that
aptly embodies the Sea Ranch ethos of “living
lightly on the land.” Aaron Smolar

PHOTOGRAPHY: © ADAM POTTS

144 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD SEPTEMBER 2023

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