Sears Tower To Be Renamed

London-based Willis Insurance Group Holdings is consolidating five of its local offices and more than 500 employees into more than 140,000 square feet in the 110-story Sears building at 233 S. Wacker Drive. The insurance broker announced Thursday morning that this move will also entail renaming what we have always known as the Sears Tower (without having to pay extra for the naming rights) to the Willis Tower.

Willis is the largest new tenant to move into Sears Tower since the 2001 terrorist attacks. In recent years, the building has suffered several big tenant losses, including its largest tenant, by rental revenue, Ernst & Young U.S. LLP, which is moving in 2012 to an almost-complete skyscraper at 155 N. Wacker Drive.

“Having our name associated with Chicago’s most iconic structure underscores our commitment to this great city, and recognizes Chicago’s importance as a major financial hub and international business center,” Joseph J. Plumeri, chairman and CEO of Willis Group Holdings, said in a release. “We are delighted to be making this bold move and firmly establishing our leading presence in one of the nation’s biggest insurance markets, and it will be wonderful for all our associates to work under one roof.”

I really don't have much to say except that I am not really pleased that such an iconic building will be losing its name. The "Willis Tower" just doesn't sound right at all. And how is it that they can rename the tower without having to pay for the naming rights?




Image obtained from: images.google.com
For more information, check: www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-biz-sears-tower-name-change-willis-march12,0,7014962.story

So Brad Pitt Thinks He's An Architect?

Like most, I have heard the claims Mr. Pitt has made about his "passion" for architecture and his pretensions to design but had decided to ignore this ridiculous issue till I read an article in which the author compared Pitt to Le Corbusier and Mies van der rohe in the context that like Pitt, they didn't have a formal architecture education. What? Pitt should not be mentioned in the same sentence as these architects as he has not even had any sufficient experience in the field. This is obvious as some of the few Pitt designed buildings in the project, "Make it right" have materials that are off-gassing!

First of all please, let me say here and now that architecture is not art! Being an architect is not about making pretty, purely conceptual drawings without having the faintest idea about what the structural system is going to be, the potential occupant experience or where the HVAC ducts and systems will go, among a myriad of other things. If this were not the case, any first year architecture student could come up with a design and hope that some competent engineers could make it work.

It is important to note that this whole love of architecture from Brad started about a few years back after he asked Frank Gehry to redesign one of his mansions. The two became good friends after that and I guess from hanging out with Gehry, Pitt began to think that he had some talent too. In that same light, I guess since I have met with many psychologists and studied personality typology in relation to the psychology of architecture, I could claim to be a clinical psychologist myself.

So if Brad wants to contribute financially to projects then that's all well and good, but for him to go to the White House and be touted around by Nancy Pelosi as "a hero" when his designs have basically been cleaned up by more experienced practices such as MVRDV, Shigeru Ban and Morphosis is ridiculous and unfair. I have heard opinions that Mr Pitt is good for the image of the profession and can use his fame to finance architectural projects and get goverment´s attention to raise millions of dollars, something that lots of architects would really like to do anyway. I don't have any problem with this except if Mr Pitt limited his actions to financing and didn't have pretensions to being an architect.





Images obtained from: www. archiblog.info
For more info, check: blog.miragestudio7.com/2008/02/brad-pitt-and-the-pink-project-in-new-orleans/

Fate Of Koolhaas' TVCC Still Unclear

In the aftermath of the February fire that scorched the TVCC building in Beijing, China, investigations continue on the strength and structural integrity of the burned building bringing up the question of what should be done with the building now? Will it need to be completely rebuilt or simply repaired? And if the latter, will anyone stay in it? The fire not seen as particularly ominous for the building.

Andrew Mueller-Lust, principal at Severud Associates, also involved in the investigation, is of the opinion that the chance of re-occupation of the building is not very high and points to certain historical precedents. One of these was the One Meridian Plaza, a Philadelphia office tower stricken by a fire on the 22nd floor in 1991. The fire raged for 18 hours, burning out one floor before moving on to the next, until it ran out of fuel at the 38th floor. Testing showed that the building could have been restored, but no one was willing to reoccupy it. It stood for years before finally being razed.

Unfortunately, it seems the same fate just might await TVCC. “As I read the Chinese newspapers, according to the official statements, the main structure is very little damaged,” said Tian-Fang Jing, principal at Weidlinger Associates. While that might be the case, the greater issue remains whether anyone would willingly go into a repaired TVCC.

It seems like Koolhaas and OMA just cant catch a break with this disaster. When I wrote about the fire last month, the common consensus in China was that the building burned to the degree that it did due to shoddy construction work in the design. Now that it is obvious (at least I think it is obvious) that this was not the case as the building structure is still sound, current public sentiment is that no one wants to have to move in after it is repaired. So what now?





Images obtained from: archpaper.com
For more information, check: http://rudenoon.com/absalletc/archives/1190

Planned San Francisco Transbay Station Could Soon Be Obsolete

Further analysis has shown that the planned high-speed rail station in the new Transbay Terminal would be obsolete within two decades, experts have warned and are seeking for a revision to the current plans.

Part of the concern is that of adequate capacity as it has been projected that the proposed station would not be large enough to accommodate half the passengers expected to be using the system by 2030. Also, the plan for a connection to Caltrain has been deemed as unfeasible from an engineering standpoint. "Three sets of engineers met and they concurred that the design for the station was inadequate and useless for high-speed rail," said Quentin Kopp, chairman of the High Speed Rail Authority.

The current plan comprises, one platform and two tracks for Caltrain and two platforms and four tracks for high-speed rail and with this, the High Speed Rail Authority now believes that the station would have to be able to handle 12 trains an hour, or one every five minutes which is not very feasible. Under that scenario, eight to 10 tracks would be required instead, officials said. This issue was only learned of by transit officials three weeks ago.

One idea being studied is whether a two-story underground train station would be feasible from engineering and funding standpoints.

This is not a problem that transportation officials want to have to deal with right now as they try to scramble to find solutions to ensurethe rail projects don't miss out on federal stimulus funds. California is the only state with a high-speed rail plan and funding and officials are seeing opportunities they never envisioned as President Obama's emergency funding bill contains an unprecedented $8 billion for high-speed and intercity rail projects. The President also indicated in his proposed budget last week that he would like to pump a further $1 billion annually over the next five years into such projects.

"I think we are well positioned to get these funds - unless we get in our own way," said Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a regional planning and funding agency.

As it stands, the project is behind schedule and suggestions have been made to speed up the process by commencing the project without the "train box," the skeleton of the underground train station. The idea is to build it later, when funding becomes available. But building the train box in the first phase could shave an estimated $100 million off the $490 million cost.

I had written an article "The Manhattanization of SF Part II" in August of last year in which I talked about the plans for this project and had since assumed that it was progressing towards groundbreaking but this new apparent impasse has surprised me. What is most troubling though is that no one group can seem to agree on anything here. Caltrain officials have raised concerns about the design pertaining to track alignment and slope but Transbay authorities claim that "at no time has Caltrain indicated that the rail design does not work for them." Yet, Michael Scanlon, executive director of the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, which operates Caltrain just released a statement saying, "The current alignment and design is fatally flawed!" If they can't even agree to the seriousness of the problem, how can they begin to solve it?




Image obtained from: www.sfgate.com

Living In A Shipping Container

Adam Kalkin, a New Jersey architect isn't the first to seek to make homes out of shipping containers, I see them all the time on the planet green channel, but no one has employed them as intensively as Kalkin has to design luxurious homes, museum additions and refugee housing.

In architectural circles, no one is quite sure what to make of Kalkin and he is somewhat regarded as an oddball. His website includes lessons on hitting a tennis forehand and a selection of songs to sing after taking antidepressants (imagine going karaoke singing with him). Years ago Kalkin shaved while delivering a lecture at the Whitney Museum, which tends to make one wonder what type of Meds he must be on. Still, there is no denying the ingenuity and care with which he has designed his projects, 32 of which were included in the publication of Quik Build: Adam kalkin's ABC of Container Architecture. Some of these projects include the "Bunny Lane," a home he built for himself with a 19^th century clapboard cottage inside an industrial hanger, and the "Push Button House," a furnished room that unfolds from a container with hydraulic walls.

Although these projects may make practical sense, shipping containers are cheap, mobile and highly recyclable, they don't seem to make much economic sense as the average cost of these prefab designs range from $250 to $400 a square foot including installation, which is more than a thrifty consumer today would pay for a home built by an architect and contractor. Even with the suggestion that they might be used more in refugee relief and in providing low-cost housing in places like the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, it is still too expensive to warrant justification.

This is the same issue I have with the Ikea and Universal world houses respectively and can understand why if they are to be marketed as a cheaper and smaller alternative to expensive suburban homes, they are so expensive then. At $50,000, I would rather put the money in the bank and rent an apartment or use it as down payment on a California home than buy a 400 plus square foot shipping container to live in. Also, what is the indoor air quality (IAQ) like in the container with extreme temperature changes? I know it is pretty open, but its still made of metal. It might get way too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.




Images obtained from: www.fastcompany.com
For more info, check: http://ecoble.com/2008/06/01/how-to-live-in-a-shipping-container/

The Nation's Largest green Roof

Mosholu Golf Course in the Bronx is one of a dozen run by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation. Its compact layout is typical of New York’s urban courses—nine holes, tree-lined fairways, the odd sand bunker—save for one highly unusual obstacle: the $2.1 billion drinking water treatment facility under construction on what used to be the driving range.

When this heavily secured compound is completed in 2012, it’s due to be topped by far more than just new turf. Grimshaw and landscape architect Ken Smith have designed one of the largest and most intensive green roofs to date, which is also a fully functioning driving range. And an irrigation system for the golf course. And an integrated security program for the facility below. Think Pebble Beach meets the Biosphere meets Rikers.

“The distinction here is it’s not just a green roof, but a performative green roof that needs to provide all these functions,” Smith said in an interview. “I think we’re pushing both the design of the green roof and the design of the golf course in new directions. We’re working to see how far we can push the diversity of the ecology and still adhere to the constraints of the golf course.”

This quietly radical project is the result of more than a decade of debate over whether or not water from the Croton Reservoir, the smallest of the city’s three, needed treatment after more than a century of going without. That was followed by battles with Bronx residents over which and even whether the borough’s parks would be torn up to make way for the new plant. The city finally broke ground on the facility in 2004, and the driving range has moved to a temporary site while the complex roofscape takes shape.

The engineering challenges are formidable. At nine acres, the $95 million driving range is the largest contiguous green roof in the country. So when it rains at the range, it pours, which creates a paradoxical hazard for the plant below. “It’s of paramount importance to the City of New York that this building stay dry, despite being full of water,” said David Burke, the project architect at Grimshaw. So to handle the millions of gallons that can accumulate on the green roof during a storm, the design team has devised a natural filtration system to collect, process, and store the runoff.

The range’s unique topography not only provides green-like targets for golfers, who tee off from the perimeter of the circular structure, but helps channel rainwater into the collection basins, where it meets groundwater pumped in from the plant’s four sump pumps. The water then travels through a series of ten cells that ring the range, each one modeled on a different native ecosystem to serve different filtration purposes. It takes up to eight days for water to travel through the cells, at which point it’s collected and used to irrigate the golf course.

“We’re not just dumping it in the sewer,” said Mark Laska, president of Great Ecology & Environments, one of two ecological designers on the project. “It’s a true display of sustainable green design in an urban environment.”

The design team wanted to convey such sustainable lessons to the public, especially the kids enrolled in the First Tee outreach program at Mosholu, and so the cells were left in plain view. Furthermore, because they are sunk ten feet below grade, they serve as a moat of sorts that helps protect the city’s water supply, which is seen as a potential target for terrorists.

To that end, Grimshaw has also designed the guardhouse and screening buildings that security constraints required, in addition to the new clubhouse and tee boxes on the range. (Grimshaw is not designing the plant, however, which is the work of a specialized engineering firm.)

It's an unlikely commission, to be sure, but one the architects embraced. “It’s very fitting for Grimshaw,” as Burke put it. “We tend to gravitate toward these oddball projects.”

Story by Matt Chaban

Image obtained from: archpaper.com

Fisher Museum Toned Down

In light of the uproar last year, the design for the contemporary art collection museum to be located in San Francisco's Presidio has been amended by New York architect, Richard Gluckmanto to try to relate to its site and the surrounding buildings without being an icon in itself.

With the new plans, instead of a sharp-edged stack of concrete and glass, it's a low pavilion with a landscaped roof. The pavilion burrows into the earth and includes a public thruway, rather than rising up, as its predecessor did, to demand attention within the historic heart of the army base turned national park. The museum, being funded by Gap founder, Donald Fisher is still to be located on a prominent site between 19th century red-brick barracks and the site of the original 1776 Spanish settlement. That's anathema to critics who, for reasons ranging from traffic to the non-Presidio focus, don't want the facility anywhere in the park.

The current plan also reduces the gross square footage from over 100,000 square feet to just about 76,000, reduces the building height from 50 ft to 27 and the main structural material has been changed from precast concrete to masonry and wood.

Gallery spaces would be housed in a long and relatively narrow two-story structure; the lower level would rest beneath the existing slope, opening onto three sculpture courts. The upper level would be clad mostly in glass, topped by a roof with a series of pitches that ripple toward the parade ground and shade the galleries. The roof would be "green" a la the California Academy of Sciences and framed in a white lacquered wood similar to what clads other Main Post structures. Again this was to make sure that he museum feel like part of the larger district.

I'm still not sure that the new designs adequately complement the site as well as it could but at least proper steps are being taken to lead the design in the right direction. I always groan when I see a building that screams for notice without enhancing its surroundings and its good to see that the Fisher family have been made to understand a little bit of this.





Images obtained from: www.sfgate.com

Italy To Build World's Largest Suspension Bridge

Plans by the Italian government for the controversial suspension bridge which is to arch between the mainland and Sicily, are to continue despite continued criticism from the public.

The six billion euro, two-and-a-half mile bridge across the Strait of Messina has been seen as a project which, due to the distance it spans, might not be particularly a wise undertaking as the area is prone to earthquakes. "It's true that it costs six billion euros but this is the project and we're not going back on it," Altero Matteoli, the public works minister, told Italian radio.

The vision for this project is not entirely new as Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, when he was in office in 2001-2006, first proposed the idea but was quickly abandoned by his center-left successor, Romano Prodi, amid concerns that it would mostly benefit construction firms run by the mafia. Prodi voiced his disdain for the bridge as he labeled it a vanity project and "the most useless and harmful infrastructure plan of the past 100 years!"

But guess who was re-elected prime minister? Yes. Silvio Berlusconi! And he has put the bridge project back on track as he insists that it will be able to handle nearly 5,000 cars an hour as well as high-speed trains, create thousands of jobs, boost tourism and improve transport links between the 'toe' of the Italian mainland and Sicily, replacing old ferry services.

I think that this is a good and innovative idea and disagree with critics that feel that the sheer size of the project make it unfeasible. If Dubai has thought us anything, it is that nothing is impossible. This will be a major icon in Europe when completed and will indeed stimulate the Italian economy though I do think that the six billion euros budgeted for its completion is unrealistic and will be closer to 20 billion when you factor in cost overruns, mismanagement, delays, union interference.




Image obtained from: www.telegraph.co.uk

The New Museum of Liverpool

This new project will seek to build on the success of the old museum which, with limited floor space, could no longer deal with the more than 300,000 annual visits and will be able to better represent the history of the city of Liverpool and can place it within a wider British urban context.

The 72 million pound museum set to open in 2010, is located on the Mann Island site at the Pier Head, at the core of the World Heritage Site on Liverpool's famous waterfront and will be the world's first national museum devoted to the history of a regional city as it reflects Liverpool's global significance through its unique geography, history and culture.

With a total square footage of about 24,000, the museum will be composed of four large gallery spaces, an 180 seat theater for audio/visual and community theater performance, facilities for after-hours events, meetings, after-school clubs and dining in the brasserie. The new building will display 6,000 new exhibits not displayed in the previous building with other interesting additions including a tailor-made gallery for children under six called Little Liverpool and a "history detectives" gallery which charts Liverpool's story from the last ice age to today.

The general goal is to allow the exhibits be capable of incorporating change, to examine and interpret the city as it evolves. Within the new museum there will be ‘anchor’ elements of the displays outlining the milestones of Liverpool’s development, combined with more frequently changing temporary exhibition spaces. This combination of approaches and media will realize the museum’s core value as an engine of learning through a mixture of education and entertainment.

What is most impressive with this project is that despite the economy, the city of Liverpool didn't use this as an excuse to submit a cabinet full of "work change orders" and greatly reduce the scope of the project. They saw this as an opportunity to not only create a landmark building for the city but to also improve their economy. The building will attract more than 750,000 visitors per year including 100,000 learning visits, provide at least 500 construction jobs and 73 direct permanent jobs.




Images obtained from: www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk
For more information, check: www.designbuild-network.com/projects/museum-liv/

Redesigning The Sky Over New York

The sky over New York city is mapped in a dense and intricate geography nearly as complicated as that of the cityscape below and this is a nightmare for New York travelers as delays affect about a third of the area's flights. The problem also ripples out to create a bigger logjam: Because so many aircraft pass through New York's airspace, three-quarters of all holdups nationwide can be traced back to that tangled swath of East Coast sky.

The problem is in a large part due to the fact that more than 2 million flights pass over the city every year with the greater bulk coming from the metropolitan area's three busiest airports: John F. Kennedy, Newark, and LaGuardia. And all that traffic squeezes through a network of aerial routes first laid out for mail planes from the 1920s but redesigned in the Expanded east coast plan during the 50s.

Though this system is safe and there haven't been any mid-air collisions over the US in 22 years, the fact that aircraft are tracked by antiquated, ground-based radar and guided by verbal instructions issued over simplex radios doesn't help matters. So a lot of space given through the troposphere (6 by 6 miles) thus now causing New York to run out of airspace.

Six years ago, congress approved a plan called "The Century of Aviation Re authorization act" which called for a system known as "NextGen." This uses GPS to create a real-time social network in the skies. In theory, it should give pilots the data they need to route themselves without the huge safety cushions. The only problem here is that NextGen requires very expensive hardware: roughly $300,000 in new avionics equipment for every cockpit which is a lot of money for struggling airlines today. Add to this, the nearly 800 new federally funded ground stations that would be needed to relay each plane's location and trajectory to every other plane in the sky and by the time NextGen finally launches in 2025 ,the price tag could reach $42 billion.

In the meantime, the New York-area skies have seen a huge traffic bump over the past two decades which including a 48 percent increase between 1994 and 2004. So the FAA has set out to coax new efficiency from old technology which is really to create a redrawn map of the roadways in the sky. While planes used to fly in and out of the city on a few packed roads, the redesign spreads out the aircraft by adding new arrival posts (exit ramps), departure gates (on-ramps), and takeoff headings (streets leading up to the intercity highways). But the biggest move will be making the space for all these additions. The proposal is to extend the boundaries of this airborne city into a 31,180-square-mile area that stretches from Philadelphia to Albany to Montauk.

The FAA started implementing the first part of the plan—the new takeoff headings—in December 2007 and should have the full strategy in place by 2012. By then the agencies hope to have reduced delays in New York by an average of three minutes per flight. And in a system as interconnected as the US air traffic network, those few minutes could quickly cascade into hours.

Anything to reduce the delays in flights around New York would be a welcomed change but I'm not sure how much of a change this would be. It was projected by the FAA that after complete implementation, there would be "a savings of 9.7 minutes for planes leaving LaGuardia and 1.3 minutes for planes arriving at Kennedy; they'll shave 7.3 and 7.1 minutes off Newark's arrivals and departures, respectively." Still, many experts have disagreed with this and have shown that even if there was time saved and more planes were delivered to New York's airspace, the runways in NY can only accept a certain amount of airplanes per hour by the laws of physics. The airports have been running at maximum acceptance for years and nothing can improve this but more runways.





Image obtained from: www.wired.com