The Architecture of the City

Replacing a lone turnstile and guard’s hut behind the Brooklyn Museum with a series of glass-wrapped, green-capped pavilions and a plaza, the new Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) Visitor Center by New York–based Weiss/Manfredi is a sight for sore eyes. Nestled within a rich context and history—the nearby Prospect Park was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted in the late 19th century and the Gardens by his two sons in the early 20th—the Center’s most impressive feature, its steel-frame design, is also its most vital. The custom-made structure forms a curving vertebrae that is formally elegant and light on the ground, yet structurally robust.

“We wanted it to be an inhabitable topography,” said Manfredi. Indeed, the center’s serpentine form responds to the site’s existing undulations and is shaped to accommodate the grade differential and maximize sunlight and views to the gardens, as well as reap the geothermal benefits of a berm. To successfully do this the exposed 10x6 columns have been welded to varying roof beam depths, ranging from 10x6 to 18x6 to form frames that are organized in a curvilinear, 12-foot on-center grid in an east-west configuration.

Via Lauren Moss

Richard Meier & Partners is proud to announce their FIRST project in South America. The new Leblon Offices will be a sustainable and state-of-the-art building in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.The new office building located in the Leblon neighborhood, will be the iconic new international headquarters for VINCI Partners in Brazil. The design scheme consists primarily of open office spaces and a series of terraces which open up and create a direct connection with the urban artery of Av. Bartolomeu Mitre.

 

The design of the office building with its refined formal vocabulary reflects the distinct orientation of the site while addressing issues of sustainability, maximum efficiency and flexibility. The building will be recessed from the urban frontage and masked with a set of louvers designed for both maximum sun shading and privacy retention to the west. On the east, the building has been pulled away from its neighbors to create an internal courtyard and provide natural day lighting on two exposures for all offices. This void creates a generous vertical garden that ties back into a rough and refined exposed architectural concrete service core. The entire project straddles between the refined precision of a white aluminum and glass, free-plan office and the roughness of concrete and vegetation within the courtyard and is reconciled by an illuminated glass bridge.

Via Lauren Moss