The need to build a bigger, more accommodating space to shelter children and their families undergoing expensive medical treatment at Baltimore-based hospitals has been more than seven years in the making.

Last year, the new $34 million Ronald McDonald House Charities Maryland in the Jonestown neighborhood of Baltimore finally opened its doors after about two years of construction. The facility was designed and built by Beatty Harvey Coco Architects and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company.

Since 1982, the facility has sheltered more than 40,000 families. The new six-story, 60,000-square-foot facility is more than three times larger than the old building on West Lexington Street near the University of Maryland Medical Center. It more than doubles the Ronald McDonald Houses capacity to accommodate 1,000 more families per year.

The new Ronald McDonald House is loaded with resources for families to ease their burdens as their children go through difficult treatments. These include 54 guestrooms and nine suites for bone marrow and transplant patients, a game room for children and play room for younger kids, a large main kitchen and a smaller kitchen for children with weakened immune systems.

The walls from the lobby to the top floor are adorned with stones containing get well messages from former residents whove stayed at the shelter.

Theres also a rooftop terrace, a meditation room, a classroom space, a family business center and an outdoor playground with an adjacent picnic and dining area.

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Beatty Harvey Coco Architects, The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company - Maryland Daily Record

While we have seen many projects with green infrastructure embraced in Sydneys urban centres since early exemplars such as the iconic One Central Park (Ateliers Jean Nouvel design architect with PTW Architects local collaborating architect) - a leading international example for the City of Sydneys Green Roofs and Walls Policy Implementation Plan - its uptake in more suburban areas, where there is already an abundance of green space and leisure areas, has been much more gradual.

Council initiatives are paving the way for this suburban transformation, with Sydneys The Hills Shire Councils Environment Strategy (October 2019), encouraging new and diverse habitat types, such as green roofs and walls which can complement natural areas and help grow the urban forest.

Trees can help reduce the impact of heat waves and extreme heat. (The Hills Council Environment Strategy 2019, p34).

An exemplar project for Castle Hill, designed by international architects PTW, Chateau at 16 Middleton Avenue takes sustainable principles of green infrastructure design from its city precedents (One Central Park, The Alexander at Barangaroo) and adapts them to an appropriate response for this area which is undergoing significant growth and revitalisation.

The current urban scale of the area consists of low-rise free standing dwellings, however, this urban character is likely to change in areas with close proximity to the Showground Metro Station.

Our clients wanted a high-end but quintessentially vernacular, sustainable response to apartment and townhouse living for this project in the picturesque Hills Shire.

An area known for its natural Australian bush setting and agricultural roots, the site is well-located just south of Castle Hill Showgrounds and future local centre, said Simon Parsons, PTW Managing Director, Asia Pacific.

Green roofs, integrated gardens throughout and significant areas of deep soil planting for large trees were the perfect solution for the desired aspects of leafy neighbourhood living, mixed with lifestyle, connection to community and sustainable outcomes.

Green roofs bring the benefits of an expansive backyard to apartment living, with numerous sustainable advantages, sophisticated resort-style amenities and naturally cool buildings, substantially lowering demand for air conditioning, says Parsons.

On the ground level, nestled between the four towers (comprising 296 dwellings, including one, two and three bedroom luxury apartments, town houses and penthouses) sits a Zen adventure Garden and through-site link giving residents connection and access to the future Showground train station and bus link.

The network of open space and improved connections will also encourage pedestrian and cyclist activity throughout the precinct.

As well as extensive community gardens, grassed and vegetated areas, the roof tops offer unique spaces and amenities such as a resort-style wet-edge pool, gym, barbecue areas and breakout meeting spaces.

This project on one hand brings the benefits of urban living to what was a traditionally suburban area; and on the other the spirit of the landscape and leafy character of Castle Hill to this large apartment project.

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PTW Architects spearheads Castle Hill's 'green roof growth' - Architecture and Design

In one of the most contentious discussions to date, months of work on drafting short-term rental regulations abruptly halted last Thursday, when Councilor Paula Schnepp of Marstons Mills chose to withdraw both a general and zoning ordinance, effectively ending consideration of any new rules. For now.

"I don't know if I'm completely surprised, given how hard it was to even get it to our meeting on the 5th," Schnepp said by phone Tuesday. "What happens next will depend on if leadership wants to bring it forward again."

Council President Paul Hebert supported delaying the votes at least until Nik Atsalis, who was elected last week to fill Britt Beedenbender's Precinct 4/Centerville council term, is sworn in. But the council annually elects new leadership in December.

"The one thing that is abundantly clear is there are a myriad of issues that have yet to be addressed," said Councilor David Bogan of Osterville. "The issue is not the ability to rent property but the ability to engage in short-term rentals."

At the council's Nov. 5 meeting, Bogan moved to table STR discussions until mid-January, and he recommended that the draft regulations undergo further subcommittee or task force study.

"We want to protect our neighborhoods, ability to rent periodically and keep out non-owner occupied renters," he said. "Let's take a little more time."

If the ordinances go back to the same committee, whats going to change? asked Councilor Jen Cullum of Hyannis, who served on the STR subcommittee that Schnepp chaired.

Schnepp and Cullum, who worked closely with town staff to draft the STR ordinances, sought to move forward with a vote.

"We put a ton of time into this 88 hours of meetings and endless public comment," Cullum said. "Weve done the work. I think we should vote on it and move onto sewers. Its becoming a crisis to me that were not dealing with a billion-dollar sewer project."

Schnepp agreed. "We have gone through a rigorous process," she said. "I believe we have arrived at a very reasonable regulatory framework. To pass this along is not fulfilling our obligations as elected officials."

An hour and a half into the meeting, even Councilor Eric Steinhilber became exasperated.

"This issue has been talked about for 18 months. This didnt just drop out of the sky," Steinhilber said. "We are failing people. We are not getting our business done. Call it a failure of leadership.

"If you have objections, come prepared with amendments," he said. "Come to a working consensus, and vote on it. Im sorry. Its just embarrassing."

In his own defense, Hebert said, "my job was to allow the councilors to discuss. Some councilors chose to not discuss. Look at yourself in the mirror before you criticize the leadership. We seem to have lost our ability to be civil."

Schnepp said she sensed there would be no consensus.

"The motion to table was a split vote (6:6), an early indication we were not going to get the support we needed for the zoning," she said. "The general (ordinance) without the zoning (ordinance) is not a good path forward."

For now, the town still has Board of Health regulations and inspections in place that govern owner-occupied rentals, she noted. "It is my understanding that town staff will be moving forward with reaching out to properties that have registered with the Department of Revenue and telling them that they also have to register with the Barnstable Board of Health."

In addition, Schnepp said town staff is looking into entering into a contract with a company that monitors STR advertising.

"That will be a mechanism to identify those properties that haven't come forward yet and the service offers a 24-hr complaint hotline," she said. "I feel confident that there will still be ways in which we identify and monitor short-term rentals in town even without these ordinances."

Nevertheless, "it's been a long year of accomplishing absolutely nothing," Cullum said in hindsight. "It's been very frustrating...the worst year in my nine years of serving Precinct 13. We have done nothing in one year. There's no leadership."

The council's next meeting is Thursday, Nov. 19 at 7 p.m. on Ch. 18 and ZOOM.

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Chief architect of short-term rental regulations withdraws drafts from Town Council - Barnstable Patriot

Shelter From The Storm / Holland Harvey Architects

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Text description provided by the architects. Shelter from the Storm is a London based homeless shelter that provides 42 beds, freshly cooked food and holistic support to its guests to help them reintegrate back into society. Shelter From The Storm (SFTS) approached us with a challenging site, a disused supermarket to be transformed into a permanent home for the charity. The brief was to re-provide the shelters current facilities that would open during the daytime as a new community caf to serve local residents. At the heart of this project are the people; in order to develop the design, it was fundamental to understand the mindset of a guest entering the shelter for the very first time.

Sensitivity, domesticity and warmth became driving principles. Whilst the caf has a large and open frontage, the shelter entrance is intended to be private and familiar, identifiable by a homely red front door. Upon arrival, guests are greeted with an entrance space that is domestic in scale with a smaller private room directly adjacent if needing to compose themselves before entering the shelter. As you move through the shelter, the scale of each space slowly increases, aiding a smooth transition to the open kitchen and dining area. Throughout the project, each detail was carefully considered ensuring robustness as well as dignity and a sense of ownership for the guests. Bedrooms and bathrooms are based upon typical domestic typologies. For example, sinks and mirrors are separate providing guests with something of their own within a communal space.

An essential part of our undertaking was to understand and respond to preconceived ideas around homelessness and the homeless. Our approach to this was to embed the idea of transparency into the scheme. This was achieved through the insertion of new windows and internal openings that allow views in, out and through the space. Similarly, the dual use of the shelter as a community caf aims to open up the shelter to the wider community. By inviting the general public into the shelter, they are simultaneously invited into the debate about how to demystify homelessness.

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Shelter From The Storm / Holland Harvey Architects - ArchDaily

Increased car and foot traffic coupled with rising sea levels have driven parts of the Tidal Basin area underwater. Sam Kittner/Tidal Basin Ideas Lab hide caption

Increased car and foot traffic coupled with rising sea levels have driven parts of the Tidal Basin area underwater.

Five landscape architects unveiled proposals Wednesday to save the sinking Tidal Basin on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The plans run the gamut from a conservative approach to radical reimaginings.

The Tidal Basin connects centuries of American history and includes memorials to Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr. Some 1.5 million people walk along the basin's rim during the annual Cherry Blossom Festival each spring. But with increased car and foot traffic, the ground underneath is dipping. As sea levels rise, the walkways flood daily.

A walkway at the Tidal Basin is covered with water. Elizabeth Blair/NPR hide caption

A walkway at the Tidal Basin is covered with water.

"After 130-some years, we've got pathways that are too narrow," says Teresa Durkin, executive vice president at the Trust for the National Mall. As a result, visitors are forced onto the grassy areas. "The trees get trampled," says Durkin. "The trees get flooded with the brackish water from the flooding. So there's a myriad of issues and problems here."

Sensing the urgency, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Trust for The National Mall and National Park Service joined forces last year to create the Tidal Basin Ideas Lab.

Five leading landscape architects DLANDstudio, GGN, Hood Design Studio, James Corner Field Operations and Reed Hilderbrand agreed to come up with proposals that would rescue the vast land and waterscape. The firms were paid modest fees through a $750,000 grant from American Express. American Express is also an NPR sponsor.

While their aesthetic philosophies differ, each proposal addresses the very real ecological challenges.

"Let the waters be free," writes Walter Hood in his proposal. "It could start with living in a wetland rather than draining it." Hood, whose Hood Design Studio is based in Oakland, Calif., also calls for "a prophetic aesthetic ... that is really telling the truth about a place." He envisions, for example, "replacing the classical design of the romantic and baroque with other stories embedded in the American landscape and integrates storytelling around Hush Harbors, antebellum places where African American slaves went to practice their religion at Potomac Plantations."

In one of the possible future design scenarios presented by James Cormer Field Operations, nature would take its course, and a walkway would be built around the Tidal Basin for visitors to observe. James Corner Field Operations/Tidal Basin Ideas Lab hide caption

In one of the possible future design scenarios presented by James Cormer Field Operations, nature would take its course, and a walkway would be built around the Tidal Basin for visitors to observe.

Kathryn Gustafson of the Seattle-based firm GGN takes a measured approach. "Making small changes now will buy us time for the long process of getting projects built in D.C.," Gustafson says in her video presentation. "Then our design can adapt and evolve over time as we gain new knowledge." She also points out that the Tidal Basin hasn't "ever been looked at as an ecological whole." The GGN plan introduces new "flood plain forests" that would "slow flood waters while fitting into the national capital aesthetic." She continues, "We want the environment of the Potomac River to be part of this, allow a certain amount of flooding to come in to introduce the new ecology, but still preserving major cultural institutions."

In a proposal that might make historic preservationists tremble, James Corner introduces a scenario he calls "create entropy or create the inevitability of flooding, decline and decay." In other words, let nature take its course. Corner's New York-based Field Operations envisions an "elevated circular walk" where visitors can view monuments that would inevitably become ruins. "The monuments in this scenario will gracefully age and decay, melancholia prevails, sitting as entropic ruins, a natural time where daily flooding is absorbed as part of nature's cycle," Corner says in his presentation.

The Tidal Basin was built in the 1880s to solve flooding (ironically). According to the National Park Service, the reservoir was built "to harness the power of the tides in the Potomac River to flush silt and sediment from the Washington Channel."

Looking out over the Tidal Basin from the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, Durkin explains that to create the land on which we're standing, "Everything west of the Washington Monument was filled in. The Potomac River was actually filled in." If the Tidal Basin hadn't been built, "we would be standing in the Potomac River right now," Durkin says with a laugh.

GGN imagines a plan in which the Tidal Basin would be monitored and adjustments like, perhaps, a walkway over marshy waters made over the rest of this century. GGN/Tidal Basin Ideas Lab hide caption

It does make you wonder what early Washington architects were thinking. James Corner says that looking at historic maps of the capital, you can see that "the National Mall is actually on the old mouth of what was the Tiber Creek as it met the Potomac. And most of that land was marshland and mud. Very, very low lying land and, of course, subject to flooding."

The Tidal Basin Ideas Lab is not a design competition but rather, says Durkin, "a creative collaboration of the best minds that we could bring to the table." The goal is to foster conversation with architects, designers, urban planners, environmentalists and the general public.

Katherine Malone-France, chief preservation officer of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, says that during the pandemic, she and her colleagues have been struck by "how much people are interested in engaging with places digitally." She hopes people will ask tough questions. "Should we move the cherry blossoms? What would be the best way to circulate around the Tidal Basin?"

As part of its design package, Reed Hilderbrand imagines a "pedestrian bridge that draws the geometry of the city into the park." Reed Hilderbrand/Tidal Basin Ideas Lab hide caption

As part of its design package, Reed Hilderbrand imagines a "pedestrian bridge that draws the geometry of the city into the park."

There isn't much time to waste. According to the Tidal Basin Ideas Lab, "the cherry trees in the grove gifted to the U.S. by Japan stand daily in 3 feet of water at high tide. By 2040, the Jefferson Memorial is projected to be submerged daily in 4 feet of water; by 2070, the MLK Jr. Memorial in 6 feet of water at high tide; and by 2100, they will likely stand in 9 feet of water under the same conditions."

"This isn't something that we're looking out for in 10 or 50 years' time," says Corner. "It's already with us. And so how we address it now is critical ... not simply as a Band-Aid but as something that can be truly transformative and become a legacy for future generations."

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The National Mall Tidal Basin Is Sinking; Experts Unveil Solutions - NPR

The Quayside is an innovative, mixed-use development that promotes a healthy work-life balance with dining, entertainment and relaxation in the heart of Kowloon East, Hong Kongs CBD2. The CBD2 is envisioned as Hong Kongs largest commercial district, overtaking the existing CBD on Hong Kong Island. As a whole, CBD2 will ultimately double the current size of the Central Business District in terms of commercial floorspace.As a development project that fits into the governments plan to establish Kowloon East as a smart city pilot site, The Quayside is packed with sustainable, high-tech features. Here, work-life balance is not merely a utopian concept, its an approach that shapes every aspect of the project by CL3 Architects, from planning to operation, to create an efficient, eco-friendly and healthy commercial and living space for users and occupants, as well as residents of the Kowloon East district.The development is integrated into a convenient and accessible network, where streets and public transport are linked with pedestrian walkways and cycling tracks. This enables users to make the most of sustainable mobility, and the whole community to enjoy leisurely moments with a stroll or a bike ride along a scenic waterfront that inspires innovation and creativity. This goes towards making The Quayside the incarnation of sustainability and wellbeing, where innovative elements of greenery relieve the monotony of the typical concrete and steel commercial buildings A passive solar design with brise-soleil filters heat around the perimeter of the building. At the same time, the third level 4,300m podium garden boasts a jogging path with views of the sea, one of the standout elements of this project that contributed to its WELL-CS gold pre-certification. WELL certification includes the concepts of air, water, nourishment, light, movement, thermal comfort and mind to achieve a healthy workplace amidst a stark, industrial backdrop that is undergoing massive change.The project by CL3 Architects extends from the office lobby on the ground level to retail on the first and second levels. It culminates in the already mentioned large green podium on the third level, with a grand spiral staircase leading up to it. The architects created circular openings to visually connect and integrate the various functions on different levels.In addition to WELL GOLD pre-certification, The Quayside also received LEED Platinum certification and BEAM Plus Platinum rating. BEAM (Building Environmental Assessment Method) is the Hong Kong rating tool for green buildings. It is a voluntary private sector initiative conceived in 1996, that has developed into an internationally recognised suite of rating tools for green buildings. It provides guidance and options for building owners and developers to plan, build and create a green building with a lower environmental impact than a comparable code building.With The Quayside, CL3 Architects created a new, cutting-edge, smart complex with a green heart that runs through every indoor and outdoor environment, with great style and harmony.

Christiane Brklein

Interior Design Firm: CL3 Architects Limited (https://www.cl3.com/)Designers: William Lim, ClintonTsoi, Howard ManProject Location: Kwun Tong, Kowloon, Hong KongSite Area: 6,843mCompletion Time: July 2019Photographers: Nirut Benjabanpot, Kris Provoost

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Living well and living green The Quayside by CL3 Architects | Livegreenblog - Floornature.com

Landscape Architects of Color on How to Combat Erasure

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Over two days, approximately 500 online participants together set the agenda, formed and dissolved discussion groups, and shared knowledge and resources. With the assistance of an open space facilitator, this is how Cut|Fill, a virtual "unconference on landscape architecture, unfolded.

Organized by the Urban Studio and Ink Landscape Architects, Cut|Fill was meant to raise questions we all want to discuss, explained Andrew Sargeant, ASLA, a founder of Urban Studio. One of those important questions: how can landscape architects design with empathy and end dismissive behavior towards people of color?

The goal of these questions was to get designers to think harder about how to stop intentionally or unintentionally erasing communities of color, which are often purposefully made invisible, and instead get them to truly see these communities, co-design with them, and empower them.

Imagine the place you love is erased. This has happened to people of color for generations, said Justin Garrett Moore, executive director of the New York City Public Design Commission, during the opening panel. Moore said that erasure, which has taken the form of urban renewal, displacement, and gentrification over the past few decades, takes work. Some groups of people need to invest time and money to make a community disappear.

He also spoke of the pain of feeling personally erased. A video was produced of a planning and design panel he was on with a number of white speakers. The organizers cropped the video so only the white panelists remained. It took work to do that it was done with intention. He called these erasures, both personal and communal, death by a thousand cuts.

For Maria Arquero de Alarcon, an associate professor of architecture and urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan, erasures of communities can be combated through new ways of teaching planning and design. One important methodology is co-creating and co-producing knowledge together in spaces of inclusion. Online technologies also now offer opportunities to become radically inclusive with marginalized communities.

In many places, erasure has been happening for many generations, but there are cultural remnants if you know how to see. For example, there is so much of Africa in the landscape of South Carolina, commented Austin Allen, a founder of DesignJones, LLC and associate professor of landscape architecture practice at the University of Texas at Arlington. Slaves brought from Africa also brought their rice farming knowledge, which shaped the southern American landscape. Allen said landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, on his tour of the South, traveled through South Carolinas rice plantations and wondered, what is this place?

Despite erasures, the legacy of marginalized peoples remains waiting to be rediscovered. Allen said this upcoming generation of landscape architecture students is exploring intersectional issues related to race, landscape, and memory with a new level of openness.

In the next panel, the discussion moved from erasure and invisibility to empowerment.

If you inhabit a black body or are disabled, you are so invisible. That is until youre not. In an instant, anything you do can be the focus of critical feedback. You could be eating skittles or going on a jog and be made very visible, explained Tamika Butler, director of planning in California and director of equity and inclusion with Toole Design Group.

She added that Black people are used to sliding in and out of a space invisibly, but to stay where we are, we need to claim space.

For Ulysses Sean Vance, an associate professor of architecture at Temple University, who focuses on universal and inclusive design, the planning and design world has created massive voids of erasure. Too often, involvement is done to a community; engagement is done to them. He added that places that experienced generations of erasure arent ruins, but places to be inhabited and re-inhabited.

In these communities, we can instead intentionally unbuild disenfranchisement. To accomplish this, communities must be real participants in the planning and design process, and their input must be reflected in outcomes. Through inclusive processes, the feeling of being invisible and marginalized can be overcome, and people can feel comfortable and confident.

Butler elaborated on the concept of intersectionality, which came up a lot during Cut|Fill and is a key framework for creating more empowered visibility. On streets, intersections are where conflict, friction, and struggle happen. If there is a poorly designed street intersection that is leading to pedestrian deaths, we arent like, this is just too complicated. No, we go in and solve the problem. To solve intersectional social and environmental justice issues, diverse designers and planners need to create brave spaces, not safe spaces that open up the difficult conversations.

Architect Steven Lewis, a principal at ZGF, offered a meaningful perspective on the entire discussion. There is self-realization as a young Black person that jars you. You realize you are not like the white characters you watch on TV. You become aware that you are different. You realize that there is a parallel Black universe and you now need to navigate between white and Black universes.

George Floyds death created a wormhole in which everyone was sucked into the Black universe, Lewis said. The walls crumbled, and were all in one place right now. (Butler added that constantly transitioning between these two universes can be exhausting. We are tired and can make some mistakes.)

While white people have work to do and need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable, Black people can be sherpas or guides in the Black universe, Lewis said. If white people have their hearts in the right place, we can be patient and loving.

He believes empathy and caring can lead to learned and gained familiarity and then love for each other. But he cautioned that this process of developing empathy and understanding requires life-long effort; there is no quick prophylactic or therapy.

This article was originally published as "Designers of Color on How to Combat Erasure" on The Dirt. Also, we invite you to check out ArchDaily's coverage related to Architecture and Race.

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Landscape Architects of Color on How to Combat Erasure - ArchDaily

Its been nearly two years since we last heard new music from Architects. Now, they are back with their hard-hitting new single Animals.

As well, Architects have subtly confirmed their next album is on the way.

2018s Holy Hell was a true triumph for Architects. Featuring hits such as Doomsday, Hereafter and Royal Beggars, the album marked an evolutionary period for the band following 2016s All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us.

Now, Architects are back after nearly two years with their surprise new single Animals, which highlights the existential crises we deal with in life. Architects have also dropped an ominous video, directed by drummer DanSearle, for the new single which truly showcases their growth and creative development as a band.

Were just a bunch of fucking animals, Sam Carter sings on the new track. But were afraid of the outcome. Dont cry to me because the fiction that were living in says I should pull the pin.

Eagle-eyed fans seem to have spotted a major hint about Architects forthcoming album. Although no release date for the LP has been shared yet, fans spotted the albums title in the videos metadata.

According to the video information, Architects next album is called For Those That Wish To Exist. Along with the speculated new album and Animals, the band also recently dropped some new merch for this next era.

Fans last heard new music from the band last year when they released an acoustic version of A Wasted Hymn which appears on Holy Hell. As well, they also put out two Spotify singles in 2019 that were recorded at the historic Abbey Road Studios in London.

Animals is available to stream below.

What are your thoughts on the new Architects single? Let us know in the comments below.

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See Architects return in the ominous new video for Animals - Alternative Press

Architects have announced that they will play a special livestream show from the Royal Albert Hall in London next month.

The news comes after the five-piece announced yesterday (October 21) that their latest album For Those That Wish To Exist will arrive on February 26, 2021.

Architects will perform in the Royal Albert Hall on November 21, with the show set to screened around the world via the streaming service Veeps.

Tickets to access the Architects livestream will go on sale tomorrow (October 23) at 9am from here.

Architects (Picture: Ed Mason)

Architects new album is their first since 2018s Holy Hell, and the record was previewed earlier this week by the release of its lead single Animals.

Speaking about For Those That Wish To Exist, the bands Dan Searle explained that this album was me looking at our inability to change to a way of life that would sustain the human race and save the planet.

I wanted to look in the mirror and ask ourselves the question of what are we going to do, as opposed to trying to point the finger at politicians. Change has to start on a personal level. The world has developed a culture of wanting someone else to deal with it, when we need to take our own responsibility. It has to start there.

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Architects announce special livestream show from the Royal Albert Hall - NME

The new Winter Visual Arts Building at Franklin & Marshall College was envisioned as a pavilion on the park by Steven Holl Architects (SHA). Rising between canopies of old-growth trees and their driplines in south-central Pennsylvania, the art center seemingly floats above the landscape of the campus and Buchanan Park. The 32,000-square-foot project is wrapped in SHAs signature translucent channel glass to provide an ethereal illumination for art students.

Housing galleries managed by the Phillips Museum of Art, the project also includes a cinema, classrooms, film production spaces and teaching studios for the Art, Art History, and Film departments. A gradual exterior ramp connects from the campus Old Main axis to a second-floor entrance in the new building. On the ground floor, the building opens up to the surrounding community of Lancaster with both a forum space and suite of galleries for art exhibitions. This design was made possible through a lightweight, two-story box-kite steel frame where the entire roof structure is exposed. Overhead, tongue-and-groove Douglas fir planks and operable skylights bring natural light and warmth into the common spaces and studios.

The star of the Visual Arts Building is its luminous concave facades. Glass covers more than 70 percent of the building envelope, and the design was realized through channel and structural glass systems, as well as a recycled glass aggregate envelope. The suspended structure features cantilevered trusses with 16-foot-tall structural glass units manufactured in Poland. As the first building on campus thats naturally ventilated during mild seasons, the project was made with an insulated envelope working alongside geothermal heating and cooling to reduce overall energy demand.

The arts center utilizes a two-layer U-plank system that has never been done before. Instead of traditional interlocking U shaped glass, the facade is composed of two U-Plank extrusions in which the cavity between them is filled with Okalux translucent insulation. The result is 19 percent light transmission for the studios and a high thermal performance that minimizes heat gain in the summer and harnesses solar gain to reduce heat loss in winter. In turn, low-level site lighting is provided by the spill from the buildings interior lighting where more than 75 percent of spaces are daylit. Balancing form and enclosure, the Visual Arts Building becomes a new campus destination for students with space to gather, learn and grow through the universal language of art.

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Steven Holl Architects's scalloped Winter Visual Arts Building showcases the first-ever two layer, u-plank facade - The Architect's Newspaper