Boddewyn Gaynor Architects, D.P.C., is renovating a 400,000-plus-square-foot former industrial building on the waterfront in Brooklyns Sunset Park.

The property, known as the Brooklyn Whale Building, is a seven-floor, full-block structure being repositioned for commercial tenants in fields such as media, technology and creative arts.

Given the growing vitality of the Brooklyn waterfront and its huge importance in New York Citys economy, this property is among the Sunset Park communitys most significant assets, said Michele Boddewyn, president of the architectural firm.

The upgrades the firm has designed include canopies that highlight the main entrance and two secondary entrances along the buildings 600-foot faade; a new lobby with concierge desk, newsstand, and sweet shop, and restroom facilities for visitors; energy-efficient replacement windows; and infrastructure improvements to support the new tenancy. The architects also are studying possible reorientation of truck loading docks to facilitate better ADA access and vehicular flow, and they are reviewing proposed tenant improvements for code compliance.

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Boddewyn Gaynor Architects Designs Upgrades Brooklyn's Whale Building

El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles provides County Judge Veronica Escobar, background, and commissioners with information on costs associated with operating the Downtown Jail during a special meeting Thursday. (Rudy Gutierrez El Paso Times)

The County Commissioners Court on Thursday ended negotiations with MNK Architects and authorized county staff to start negotiating a contract with another firm to conduct a study to see if the Downtown Jail has to be replaced.

MNK Architects of El Paso was selected over Wiginton Hooker Jeffry, PC. of Plano, Texas, to perform a study on whether the 30-year-old Downtown Jail can be fixed or a new one has to be built.

But after two months of negotiations, the county and MNK Architects could not reach an agreement.

MNK Architects was charging the county a much higher price than what Commissioners Court had expected almost double, Commissioner Vince Perez said last week. Last year, County Commissioners set aside $250,000 to pay for the study.

Kennie Downing, the county's purchasing agent, now will contact Wiginton Hooker Jeffry, PC to begin negotiations.

Both MNK Architects and Wiginton Hooker Jeffry, PC were the top finalists in the bidding process and their proposals were rated as equal by the county's evaluation committee. Commissioners initially supported MNK Architects because it's a local company and it participated in the construction of the jail.

Downing said new negotiations will start soon, "hopefully next week."

"We are hoping that the company (Wiginton Hooker Jeffry) would negotiate in good faith with us," she said. The budgeted amount, $250,000, was based on an estimate given to Downing by a "very reputable" architect who does a lot of jail designs, she said.

That architect did not participate in the bidding process, Downing said.

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El Paso County to begin talks with new company on jail study

PAXTON The Paxton-Buckley-Loda school board may decide to renovate or replace the district's oldest learning facility, PBL Eastlawn School, as part of more than $23 million in potential projects being considered for over the next 10 years.

At 90 years old, the building on East Center Street is in need of some "major repairs" and is considered outdated for today's learning needs, Superintendent Cliff McClure said.

Addressing the future of Eastlawn has been on the minds of school board members for several years. So when the board hired architects and engineers to prepare the district's required 10-year health/life safety study, it decided to also have them help with planning for the district's long-term future, McClure said.

The board heard a presentation from Gorski Reifsteck Architects in Champaign and the DLR Group of Chicago. Three options were suggested for Eastlawn:

Complete an extensive renovation, building a 6,600-square-foot addition and continuing to keep students in third through fifth grades there.

Tear it down and build a two-story addition for students in grades 3-5 at Paxton's Clara Peterson Elementary, currently a facility for pre-kindergarten through second grade.

Tear it down and build a new school for grades two through five in the grassy area the district already owns north of the junior high/high school complex. Under that option, Clara Peterson would only serve pre-K through first grade.

According to architects, it could cost more than $11 million to renovate Eastlawn, build an addition to the school and complete a long list of work at that facility. And it could cost even more around $19 million to tear down Eastlawn and convert Clara Peterson into a school for pre-K through fifth grade.

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Architects offer Eastlawn options

Hamilton County commissioners on Wednesday unanimously approved nearly $3 million in contracts with four architects for design work at four schools.

Chairman Fred Skillern said the commission has worked with the architects before.

The architects are Derthick, Henley & Wilkerson Architects for the new Ganns Middle Valley Elementary School; Franklin Architects for Nolan Elementary School; Hefferlin + Kronenberg Architects for an addition to Sale Creek Middle/High School; and Billingsley/Architecture for an addition to Wolftever Elementary School.

Commissioners also approved the dedication of $26 million to the Industrial Development Board for the planned expansion of the Volkswagen site at Enterprise South Industrial Park.

Commissioners also approved the appointment of Richard Youngblood to the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Hospital Authority Board of Trustees, and the appointment of Nettie Gerstle as director of administrative services in the Health Services Division.

At the end of the meeting, Commissioner Warren Mackey asked County Mayor Jim Coppinger why Tennessee Highway Patrol officers have been ticketing extensively on state Highway 153, saying they were on a "rampage."

Mackey's complaint was that the money from the patrol tickets ends up in state funds, rather than in funds specifically for the county, like tickets from local police.

He asked Coppinger to encourage "Tennessee Highway Patrol in some fashion to slow down in Hamilton County."

Coppinger said the county does not have the authority to ask the patrol to leave, and also said it's his belief that the patrol was brought in at the request of the city of Chattanooga. However, he said he would look into it.

The Times Free Press reported in late July that the Chattanooga Police Department and the THP were partnering to try to reduce traffic fatalities on city roadways. There have been 29 reported traffic fatalities to date, up eight from the same time last year.

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Architects approved for Hamilton school projects

The 2050 Imperative sets out a roadmap to help individual countries develop customised building sector CO2 emissions reduction targets

Member organisations representing over 1.3 million architects in 124 countries - including the UK's Royal Institute of British Architects - agreed to adopt the 2050 Imperative at the recent International Union of Architects (IUA) World Congress in Durban, South Africa.

The 2050 Imperative states that urban areas are responsible for over 70% of global CO2 emissions, mostly from buildings, and that over the next two decades an area roughly equal to 60% of the world's building stock will be built or rebuilt in urban areas. As such, this provides an opportunity to reduce fossil fuel CO2 emissions to zero by 2050.

By signing up to it, member organisations are charged with promoting the planning and design of carbon neutral cities, towns, urban developments, and new buildings, in order achieve the 2050 target.

In cases where carbon neutral is not feasible or practical, built environments must be designed with the highest efficiency in mind - with the capability to produce, or import, all energy from renewable energy sources in the future.

Under the agreement, member organisations have also pledged to advocate and promote socially responsible architecture for the community, and help develop tools that can deliver low cost on-site renewable energy and natural resources systems such as passive heating and cooling, water catchment and storage, solar hot water and daylighting.

Sustainable design

The 2050 Imperative was drafted by Architecture 2030, a not-for-profit organisation focused on climate impacts of the built environment, and its action items are partly based on its recent study, which sets out a roadmap to zero emissions.

The roadmap is designed to help individual countries develop customised building sector CO2 emissions reduction targets and incorporates a range of 10-year reduction targets. Along with specific country targets for new buildings and renovations, the report also offers strategies for addressing land-use/infrastructure planning and development, and the needs of both developed and developing countries.

According to the American Institute of Architects president Helene Combs Dreiling, sustainable design practices implemented by architects at a global level will help to mitigate climate change.

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Architects pledge to phase out carbon in the built environment by 2050

SOM and HKS Architects could be forced to pay damages to an association of condominium owners in San Francisco.

Architects have something new to worry about. The California Supreme Court ruled that two large firms, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) and HKS Architects, could be forced to pay damages to an association of condominium owners who claimed their apartments were too hotyears after the developer rejected the architects recommendation to use low-E glass.

The case has yet to go to trial, but the decision may open the door to lawsuits by property owners who are unhappy about design decisions made at the request of previous owners. The case was considered so important that the American Institute of Architects California Council (AIACC) filed an amicus brief on the side of SOM and HKS, with support from the AIA in Washington, D.C. And while the ruling applies only in California, that states supreme court influences judges in other states.

The project that led to the lawsuit is the Beacon, a four-building, 595-unit condo complex in the China Basin section of San Francisco. SOM, through its San Francisco office, was design architect; HKS, based in Dallas, was architect of record. (Together, the firms earned fees of more than $5 million, which did not escape the courts attention.) Four years after the building was completed, the Beacon Residential Community Association, unhappy with temperatures in some of the apartments, sued. The glass recommended by SOM would have prevented the problem, but the developer substituted lower-performance glass to reduce costs, says SOM spokesperson Elizabeth Kubany.

In prior cases, California courts had ruled that an architect owes no duty of care to downstream users. This time, the court held that such a duty exists, in part because architects, in the courts view, are uniquely qualified to choose the right building materials. The decision cleared the way for the six-year-old lawsuit to move forward. Says Kubany, I am confident that SOM will be fully vindicated at trial. Perhaps. But the courts ruling will affect many other firms. R. Craig Williams, a principal of HKS (and the firms chief legal officer), says that the decision means that HKS should have known better than do what the client demanded. Kurt Cooknick, the Director of Regulation and Practice of the AIACC, agrees: The architect will be put in a bad position if the current client wants him to do something that will affect the downstream owner.

Of course, not everyone is lamenting the decision. Ann Rankin, an attorney whose firm represents the residents, calls it a big win for property owners throughout California whose buildings suffer from design errors caused by the negligence of architects and engineers. And even some design professionals agree with the decision. Howard I. Littman, a forensic architect in Agoura Hills, California, says that architects should hold themselves to a high ethical standard, and not expect to be relieved of liability because a negligently designed building happened to change hands.

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Lawsuit Suggests New Liability for Architects

An artist's impression of the new Wedgwood headquarters.

ARCHITECTS involved in the overhaul of Wedgwood's headquarters believe the finished development will attract "a plethora" of tourists from across the globe.

The 34 million master plan was designed for the 281-acre estate by Brownhill Hayward Brown (BHB).

It includes a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, contemporary company offices and a significant expansion of the Wedgwood Visitor Centre, which includes a new partnership with the Wedgwood Museum.

The majority of the existing factory will be demolished, whilst the remaining factory and outbuildings will be refurbished before three extensions are added for the new visitor facility.

The ceramic manufacturing facilities will enable significant increases in capacity to help safeguard existing positions and support future growth.

A linking corridor between the museum gallery and the new extension will ensure that the anticipated 100,000 visitors each year can take in the whole Wedgwood experience under one roof, including a flagship retail concept store, tea rooms and a restaurant.

Funding for the project has been assisted by a grant of 5.1 million from the Regional Growth Fund, whilst a residential development of 209 houses will be built by David Wilson Homes.

Andrew Hayward, director at BHB Architects, in Lichfield, said: "One of our primary aims was to ensure that the facilities were designed with efficiency and sustainability in mind whilst also making the finished site a real destination for the plethora of visitors and tourists that Wedgwood attracts."

Work on the site is expected to be completed by early 2015, with the Wedgwood visitor experience fully open by Easter 2015.

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Architects design new Wedgwood HQ with efficiency in mind

Panel of nine prefers look of Sun's Massachusetts casino

If architects who reviewed the two projects competing for the sole Greater Boston casino license were the final arbiters, Mohegan Sun would be sitting pretty.

In June, nine architects convened by AIA Massachusetts, a chapter of the American Institute of Architects, unanimously found that Mohegan Sun's $1.3 billion plan for a Revere casino "was markedly superior in every design aspect" to Las Vegas-based Wynn Resorts' $1.6 billion proposal for Everett.

"The Revere design is playful, has two inviting entrances, is pedestrian friendly, and makes good connections to public transit and the surrounding community," the architects wrote in a memorandum to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, which requested their input. "While smaller than the Everett facility, the Revere building projects a grand civic presence. The proposed resort-casino is a creative, successful design for the site (that) also echoes Revere's history of recreation and links the resort to the beach."

The Mohegan Sun project, designed by the firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, "holds the potential to help revitalize Revere" and "feels like a true destination," the architects wrote.

By contrast, they added, "The Everett design seems stale, has very poor massing and program (a massive hotel tower just sits on top of a vast horizontal casino base), and fails to aggressively take advantage of its waterfront location. The Everett design as presented was described at best as 'flat' and 'uninspired' and at worst as 'atrocious.'

"... In sum, the panel felt the Wynn proposal for Everett had major design flaws and shortcomings in all aspects."

The gaming commission concluded public hearings on the competing proposals this week, and is expected to award the Greater Boston license by Sept. 12. Last week, the commission received a report from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, which assessed the proposals' impacts on land use and transportation and the developers' plans to mitigate those impacts.

In three areas - traffic congestion, public transportation and economic and community benefits - the council gave the edge to Mohegan Sun. In the areas of developer-funded shuttles for patrons and employees; transportation monitoring and reporting; and environmental impacts, the council favored the Wynn project, which would be built on a brownfield site the developer would clean.

As for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, the council found the proposals to be equal.

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Architects revere Sun design

The water tank, like a white droplet, helped Paul Morgan's Cape Schanck House won an Australian Institute of Architects award.

The Sunburnt Countrys obsession with drought and flooding rains has received some poetic architectural expression in recent years. In his Cape Schanck House, Paul Morgan replaced one essential natural element for another by inserting a water tank rather than a fireplace as his homes hearth. Elegantly shaped like a pure white, water droplet, the tank helped win the home the Australian Institute of Architects 2007 national residential prize, the Robin Boyd Award.

Now ARM Architecture has raised the water tank to new levels with the H House in Port Melbourne. Making a virtue of this ubiquitous asset, 18 black 2000-litre Aquarius Slimline tanks have proliferated up the street sides of this corner-facing house like giant Mobilo blocks.

The bold geometric patterned effect resembles a modern Italian palazzo, according to ARM co-director Howard Raggatt. All that big rugged stone that the Italian palaces were made out of with a strong urban front on them. Rather than it actually being defensive in a militaristic way, this is defensive in terms of the environment and issues that are affecting everybody regarding water and sustainability.

The H House in Port Melbourne. Photo: Aaron Poupard

The tanks supply toilets, laundry and roof garden. They will also water the facades on the buildings remaining two sides. Currently these are completely clad in black drainage cells that form a trellis, but during the year a mix of native climbers will flower. Meanwhile a ground cover growing from the dissected tank planters on the roof will hang over the edge like a green furry top.

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In a way the whole building is designed as a green wall, says Raggatt.

Obscuring it, though, would be a pity. Ironic, too, if the building should transform into a lush hedge that required a defensive sign declaring water tank in use.

For Raggatt the crenelated roof furthers allusions to the bastion and images of home being a persons castle. An empty tank also doubles as an entrance gate or perhaps a drawbridge. Meanwhile the giant window frames take their cues from the water tanks rectangular portals and cross members.

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Architects take water tanks to forefront of climate change battle

A recent survey on Houzz.com shared the top five remodeling challenges for U.S. homeowners.

Trina Knudsen

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We recently saw an interesting survey of homeowners posted on Houzz.com titled "Transforming the American Home: Findings from the 2014 Houzz and Home Survey." Houzz is a website that posts literally millions of pictures of homes and everything to do with them, including the kitchen sink. It is a great resource for gathering and communicating ideas if you are considering building or remodeling a home.

The study surveyed 200,000 Houzz.com users across the world and discovered general patterns and perceptions in the current remodeling and housing market, including some of the most common challenges. The top renovation challenges identified by the survey were: "finding the right products to use," "defining my style," "making decisions with my spouse or partner," "staying on schedule" and "educating myself."

As architects, the most obvious thing about the results is that design was not mentioned as a challenge. We do not think this is because it is so easy but because people often overlook it as the first and most basic element of a great project. We also find it interesting that undertaking the design process with an architect can lessen (and in many cases eliminate) the challenges named in the Houzz survey. Bear with us as we put on our architects' hats and take a look at the survey results:

Forty percent of those surveyed identified the greatest renovation challenge to be finding the right products to use. This may stem from the fact that we are bombarded with an overabundance of information in this day of the Internet. Rather than having too little from which to choose, we have the opposite problem: Like a single person who cant commit because something better may come along at any time, we have issues making a choice due to the fear that we are missing something better that we havent yet discovered.

As challenging as selecting products may be, remember that even the most superior products installed in an inferior design cannot save the day. A poor floor plan that directs traffic through a kitchen instead of past it will still function poorly despite the most amazing gas range. We have been known to use the phrase, Dont put lipstick on the pig.

The second greatest challenge identified by 29 percent of those surveyed was "defining my style." While this may be a personal quest to learn about oneself, an architect can help by discussing the style of the existing structure in terms of materials, the shape of the house, also known as massing, and historical context.

Lets say a homeowner determines her preferred style to be Craftsman. She can then select a lovely Craftsman front door and sidelight, the design of which delights her. However, installing that terrific Craftsman door in her mid-century modern home will not be as successful of a curb appeal update as she may have hoped. Unless a complete tear-down is contemplated, an effective remodel will require a subtle blending of the owners style with the style of the home itself.

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Renovation Solutions: Top remodeling challenges decoded