Controversy Over Designs for Cologne's New Mosque

Earlier this month, despite tremendous opposition, Cologne's City Council approved designs to allow construction of what will be Germany's largest mosque within Ehrenfeld, an industrialized district of Cologne.

The structure is estimated to cost between 15 and 20 billion euros and will be financed by over 800 private groups in Germany. Construction will be completed in 2010 by the locally based Turkish Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) which has close ties to Ankara. The mosque designed by German architects Paul and Gottfried Bohm will be a domed building with glass walls and two 180 foot minarets, one-third the height of the towers of the Cologne Cathedral. The building will be flanked by highrise office complexes so the DITIB has agreed no to broadcast the daily prayers over loudspeakers.

Though the architects initially saw their design as being welcomed by all Cologne residents and viewed as "an architectural masterpiece that tour buses will take people to see after they visit the Cologne Cathedral," the building as met with heavy opposition from numerous parties including the Conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), Cologne's Roman Catholic Bishop and extreme right activist who have drummed up support from as far as Austria and Belgium.

Indeed, the opposition has triggered anger in the middle east with the Iranian Foreign Ministry urging France, as the current European Union President, to block the protests in Cologne by far-right activist from all around Europe. The IFM also expressed their fears that the protests over the approved mosque designs are increasing "anti-Islamic sentiments in Europe." Pro-Cologne leaders who head the protests, say that they support Muslims' rights to live in Germany provided they learn the language and "actively demonstrate" a willingness to integrate but they say that such a large mosque has "no place in traditionally Roman Catholic Cologne."

When I first heard of the protest, I initially thought it had something to do with the designs themselves or some component of it but the protests seem to be more about the symbolism of the mosque and the not so warm feelings Germans have of Islam. I think that the designs are pretty intriguing but outside of that, I'm not touching this one people! It was just an interesting issue going on right now that I thought you all would like to know. But I would like to ask; in situations like this, how can architecture separate itself from the controversy of religion and be just about the building and all issues that follow building design?


Images obtained from www.spiegel.de/international
For more information, check www.salon.com/wires/ap/world/2008/09/12/D9358V980_germany_mosque_protest

Post 9/11 Building Codes too Stringent?

The General Services Administration (GSA), a federal agency which serves as the government's property manager within the United States has joined some of the nation's biggest landlords in trying to repeal stronger safety requirements for new skyscrapers, that were added to the UBC and IBC last year arguing that they would be too expensive to implement.

The new provisions are based on a report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which issue safety standard recommendations after building catastrophes, and now requires all non-residential buildings over 420 feet or about 40 stories to have more robust fireproofing and a third stairwell for emergency egress. Also, the new codes would require all buildings taller than 75 feet to have "glow in the dark" markings on stairwells as a back-up in case the power goes out. The fireproofing in itself must be capable of withstanding an impact of 1,000 pounds per square foot and could cost real estate developers $13million for a 42 story building as well as $600,000 a year in lost rent due to decreased rentable floor space.

David Frable, a GSA fire safety engineer argued that, "It does not take a NIST report or a rocket scientist to figure out that requiring extra stairs will increase general occupant evacuation times but the question that needs to be answered is at what economic cost to society?" Frable and many others from the GSA have written petitions to the International Code Council to rescind the changes this week at the Minneapolis Code Council meeting.

As the debate rages on, one consideration that might be made is to replace the third stairwell with specially designed elevators that can reliably operate during a fire or any event of power outage. The GSA are hoping that this will help recover lost building space and money to what they describe as "an emotional reaction to the 2001 attacks that has led to unrealistic and unnecessary new building standards."

Well, I am not surprised that the GSA, who are really developers are more interested in overall profit above the occupant's safety. I know that the Sept 11 attacks were isolated cases and there is a very slim chance that another plane could come crashing into another highrise but as long as there is that likelihood of occurrence, everything should be done to prepare for it. I do understand the concern about reduced square footage within the building but safety is a higher priority. That is what architecture is about! Not just pretty building to fatten a landlord's purse but a place of refuge and safety for the tenants.

This new standard is no different from designing for earthquakes which definitely requires more money for something that might never happen but still we ensure that the building is ready to withstand the strongest tremors specific to the site. That being said, the General Services Administrations should stop worrying about the money being taken from their already bulging pockets and get with the program.


Images obtained from The New York Times.
For more information check www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/washington/08codes

Another Gehry Monstrocity

Princeton University's science majors started classes on Thursday the 11th of September but they also got a tutorial on how Frank Gehry seems to always throw up all over a site, totally disregard budgets and still wins acclaim and gratitude for it.
The $76 million dollar (and counting), 87,000 square foot project houses the University's collections for astrophysics, biology, Geo-science, chemistry, math, physics and statistics, student classrooms and lecture halls.

Taking slightly over four years from ground breaking to top-out, this building required 90,000 pounds of embossed stainless steel and 620 pounds of clay brick which were combined with glass, steel and stucco to "attempt" to reflect the design of surrounding buildings. The atrium, just inside the front door expands into a wide open space, giving the visitor views of all parts of the building with walls painted all sorts of colors from tangerine to blueberry. The group study room on the top level looks out onto the building's roofs and the rest of the campus through a prism like array of windows.

In putting up its new Gehry designed "Lewis Library," Princeton endured its share of challenges. It paid to construct models of the building to give the subcontractors a chance to practice, it fired a contractor halfway through the project when the building was already past due and recently learned that some contractors bribed their way onto the job site.

But the project has finally been completed and Princeton is very satisfied though I can't imagine why. This building looks like it was thrown together to see just how many completely different materials could be connected together without having the entire ensemble come crashing down. The concept of using glass, steel and stucco was to have the building relate with those surrounding it but when did you ever see a Gehry design blend in with its surroundings? You would have a better chance of seeing Ray Lewis participating in the cirque de soleil, than a Gehry design that didn't look like it was just dropped there from outer space.

The main questions I want to ask are, how energy efficient is this building and will it withstand the weather? I think these are very relevant questions for Mr. Gehry especially in the aftermath of his designs for the Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT that leaked once the rains began.
Well, Gehry has done it again and I guess I shouldn't be whining about it. That's his trademark design and if Princeton got it then they specifically asked for it.


Images obtained from arcspace.com, chronicle.com/blogs/architecture

Construction Boom In China Slowing Down?

As growth in Europe and the United States seems to be grinding to a halt, China may also be facing an economic slowdown and consequently, a decrease in construction projects.

In recent years, we have seen a lot of "throw-up" development that revealed China's insatiable desire to emulate architecture of the West, such as Thamestown, which is a copycat slice of England outside Shanghai. It seems that now they're construction sector is also being hit with a slow market as residential values have dropped by 15% in Beijing and Shanghai since the Olympics. One reason for this is the fact that money supply for developers has tightened in the past few months leaving commercial and residential projects to languish.

Callum MacBean, managing director of Gensler's Shanghai office confirmed in a company Newsletter that many of the firm's projects have been put on hold with many foreign investors suddenly very cautious preferring to venture to India and Vietnam instead.
U.K based firms report that this has been caused by the Chinese government itself who have made it more difficult for smaller scale Architecture and engineering firms to secure projects, by demanding astronomical insurance deposits. Also, the Chinese government has decided to limit the number of residential and commercial landmark projects and emphasize more on infrastructure, education and health care and have also created larger land parcels thereby making them increasingly more difficult for smaller developers to purchase.

I don't know what may have caused this state-driven shift in the last few months. Maybe the government felt that there was overbuilding in the housing sector to the detriment of infrastructure and health care but who can explain why a communist government does what it does. Still, for all those seeking investment and building projects in China, this trend seems to be predominantly restricted to Beijing and Shanghai; at least for now. There is still plenty of work to be had in the cities of Chengdu and Chongqing.


Image obtained from the Architectsjournal.com

Transforming The Sahara Landscape

Last week, a trio of visionaries, Charlies Patton, Bill Watts and Micheal Pawlyn unveiled their ambitious plan for the Sahara Desert. The project seeks to produce enough water to grow crops, produce a sustainable bio-fuel that does not negatively impact world food supplies and harness enough solar power to supply electricity to cities in Africa and Europe by redefining some of the desert landscape.

As we know, no one solution will successfully address global warming and all the numerous issues that go with it such as shortage in water supply and increasing food prices. The Sahara Forest Project seeks to combine technologies by marrying greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP) which uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays and generate heat and electricity. The installations would transform patches of the vast desert into lush vegetation without the traditional system of digging wells for fresh water, which has depleted many aquifers around the world.

Plants cannot naturally grow in arid climates so the greenhouses work by using the solar farm to power seawater evaporators and then pump the cool damp air throughout the greenhouse. This reduces the temperature within by about 20 deg Celsius compared to that outside and at the other end of the greenhouse, the water vapor is condensed creating situations of high humidity and lower temperature.

According to the designers, virtually any vegetable could be grown here, depending on the specific conditions at which it is maintained as demonstrations have already produced lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers with the necessary nutrients for the plants coming from the seawater itself.

Charles Patton reports that the greenhouse would produce more than five times the fresh water needed for the plants so the rest could be utilized by the local environment and the same goes for the excess solar power generated.

The cost of the Sahara Forest Project will be relatively cheap as both CSP and seawater greenhouses are already proven technologies so estimates for a 20 hecter greenhouse combined with a 10MW CSP scheme would come to about $130 million or 80 million euros.

This sounds like a good idea but I'm not sure just how much food or electricity could be produced on a 20 hecter greenhouse to really counterbalance the high cost of food or equally high demand for energy around the world as the designers claim. Will the 20 hecters be enough or will the entire face of the Sahara have to be similarly changed eventually and what will that do to the ecosystem and environment?


Image obtained from www.Guardian.co.uk

The Olympics and Urban Planning

Now that the Beijing Olympics are over, future host nations especially England, which will host the 2012 games are faced with the task of how to compete with the grandiose scale of what we saw in China especially in terms of stadium design. If hosting the games was a way for China to shore up its strength on a visible international stage, then the architecture was the component that brought together politics and aesthetics into a seemingly cohesive whole.

The organizers of the London 2012 Olympics would like to duplicate such accomplishments but for many such cities who lack the adequate space for expansion or the necessary funds, this could be a tall order. HOK sports has unveiled a temporary solution for the 2012 games by creating a "convertible" structure in the London arena(top left) which would increase the seats from 25,000 to 80,000 for the games' commencements and back down to 25,000 seats when the games are concluded(left). Also, these expansion components will have the ability to be dismantled, boxed up and shipped to another country needing an expansion to their main stadium.

This tactic of "recycling" the Olympic stadium has been lauded as a first step in a new approach to preparations for the games which could become more like a traveling circus to keep costs down and allow poorer countries to play host for the Olympics. A spokesman for London's Olympic Delivery Authority stated that the plan would also help to offset the rising cost of the London games which now stand at 9.3 billion pounds. The cost of the main stadium has already risen from 280 million pounds to 496 million pounds. Taking these costs into consideration, the ODA spokesman went on to say: "it is right that we should explore any opportunities that would recoup some of the costs incurred by the lottery and the public purse."

David Higgins, the CEO of the London ODA began talks with officials in Chicago (bidding for the 2016 games alongside Tokyo, Madrid, Prague and Rio de Janeiro) in June for a deal that would see the shipping of the London stadium's expansions (55,000 seats) to Chicago's Washington Park expanding a planned 7,500 capacity community arena into the city's main stadium.

I don't know, this might be a good way to keep costs down in times when the economy is struggling as it is today but I love to see "permanent" landmark stadiums that are not only aesthetically appealing, but add to the overall infrastructure of the city and enrich its architecture. The convenience of the "travelling" stadium will see a drop in stadium construction.

Images obtained from www.guardian.co.uk

The New LEED v3

With its initial introduction in 2000, the LEED green building rating system has helped change the way we approach the design, construction and operation of our buildings and infrastructure. The new and updated version is soon to be unveiled by the U.S. Green building Council and is scheduled to go into effect by January of 2009 featuring 3 major changes: 1. Customized regional credits, 2. New weighing of certification criteria and 3. Greater consistency between different types of construction.

The regionalization seeks to allow specific regions to place more emphasis on certain design criteria. For example, water conservation will be more important and worth more points in Nevada or Arizona than Florida. According to officials of the USGBC, the system of awarding points has evolved over the past eight years without any type of overall strategy and at times, without much consistency so the LEED v3 seeks to look at all categories and set them based on strategies taken to "really making the building have a significant impact on being more green." Also, the new version will provide more consistency in point allotment across different construction sites (for example, new construction Vs existing buildings, commercial sites Vs homes).

Although these changes are to standardize LEED across the country, numerous complaints have been made about it from professionals in the building industry but more especially from contractors who claim that it would eliminate the innovation credits that would be available to them. Bruce Offner, chief estimator of Springhouse based Henderson Corp. complains that the new version is still a design tool for architecture and engineering without any consideration for the job site type of work.

I say "boo-hoo" to all whinny contractors and if I had my way, there wouldn't be any credits given to them at all. The construction process for buildings seldom go smoothly all thanks to the contractor, building things you never specified, looking for that one inconsistency in the construction specifications and using that one, making me submit change order upon change order, wasting time and money and you want credit for that?

That being said, I think that the new LEED v3 will go a long way in addressing the issues not covered by the current version and hopefully help us all see the benefits of green design as energy doesn't seem like it will be any cheaper for some time to come, offshore drilling or not.

Zaha's Designs For Singapore

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) recently unveiled proposed designs for the new Farrer Road residential complex in Singapore composed of seven 36 story residential towers, each rising to a height about 510ft, and 12 villas on an 838,488 sq ft site. The $3 billion project is reminiscent of her dancing tower in Dubai and upon completion, will be the largest residential complex in Singapore's history.
Hadid wished to redefine urban space with this project, as she shows intricate landscaping for the towers' outdoor communal spaces on grade and uses some of the country's unique vegetation as form generators as each tower is subdivided into petal patterns according to the floor plan of each story. The petals are expressed in three dimension giving the overall form the look and feel of petals blossoming (or at least, that was her goal).

I think Zaha really does give her very best effort to her designs and shows a certain level of commitment that is lacking in many "star architects" but I always find something lacking in some of her work. This project though very revolutionary in form ( I would love to see diagrams depicting the proposed structural bracing for these "petals"), seems to be too much of a site intervention. I know that Farrer Court on Farrer Road is the Bohemian sector of the neighborhood and Zaha wanted to do something lavish for them but this project does not relate to anything around it. I know that I have spoken about this before and just want to say here that when I talk about a building relating to its surroundings, I don't necessarily mean that it has to mimic the buildings around it, but it should at least look like it belongs there and can't be "transplanted" somewhere else and still fit in with the context. Come to think of it, it looks like she used much of her prior designs from her "dancing tower" for this one and it does look like it would be more at home in Dubai than Singapore.

Another thing that made me cringe when I saw this project was not the design per say, which I really do think is quite impressive, but the density of these massings all lumped together. If the communal outdoor gardens are not maintained well with the proper amenities, these buildings could slowly degenerate into slum dwellings. I have seen his trend with many towers in the United States that initially preached "community interaction" in their mission statements but somehow became ghettos where everyone was stacked deep from floor to floor. The Pruitt-Igoe in Missouri is a perfect example.

As I said earlier, I think generally this is a great design and I hope that Zaha will be able to see this project through to its completion and I mean to the last detail to be sure that the gardens look as she intended them.


Images obtained from www.worldarchitecturenews.com
For more info check http://www.tuvie.com/farrer-road-in-singapore-by-zaha-hadid-architects

HKS Selected for New Liverpool FC Stadium

After battling with Manchester based AFL, HKS has finally been chosen to design the new Liverpool FC soccer stadium in Liverpool, England set to open in time for the 2011 Premier League season. The two firms' original proposals were rejected by the American owners, Tom Hicks (also owner of the Texas Rangers) and George Gillett as they felt that AFL's design was outdated and HKS' way too expensive. The cost had risen from $600 million when it was announced in the summer of 2007 to almost $900 million by the end of the year.

The new design by HKS which increases the current seating capacity from 42,000 to 60,000 will feature a stone base on the north, west and east exposures with glass facades above. The south will be metal clad with south east and south west corners open but the main selling point of the design is the world famous "Kop" (similar to the Oakland Raider's "Black Hole" but filled with fewer Hooligans) behind the home goal. This all-seater stand will be set at the higher point of the site and will contain over 20,000 seats and was designed very expressively to intensify the setting and sense of drama. The asymmetrical building as a whole was designed to break from the bowl-like shapes of most soccer stadiums and announce itself as Liverpool FC's stadium only and none other.

I think that there were some good intentions with this design especially with the "KOP" but HKS has created quite an ugly project but I guess that's what one could expect if the design team came up with their proposal after attending only one game in the original stadium. That's just like the Manchester based AFL proposing a design for say the Pittsburgh Steelers after attending one regular season game. I think that a lot more time should have been spent trying to get a feel for the culture of the club, the game of soccer and the fans.

Also, the street level view is not as interesting as aerial perspectives, just like the SF Transbay Terminal and this leads me to think that many firms seem to fall in love with how their projects look in aerial perspective and overlook how most people will view it-from the street level. Another thing that seems odd to me is that the images of the stadium are shown without a scrap of context around them so one doesn't even get a sense of how it will fit in with it's surrounding environment. I remember doing something like that with one of my fourth year school projects and was ripped into cause my building was "floating in space" but I guess when you become successful in this field you can do whatever you want with your renderings.

Well, the design has been selected already and the only people I feel for are the Liverpool fans cause they have joined the list of franchises that have been screwed by American owners cause we don't understand the culture of soccer in Europe even though we like to pretend we do.


Images obtained from www.liverpoolft.tv/news

The Manhattanization of San Francisco Part II

It seems that the umbrige felt by some San Franciscans about their city's apparent urban xeroxing of New York is not limited to the Rincon Towers but also extends to the proposal for the new Transbay terminal which will be slated to break ground sometime this fall and top out in 2014.

The original terminal located roughly in the center of the rectangle bounded north-south by Mission and Howard Street and east-west by Beale and Second street currently serves long distance and local transbay buses such as the Muni and SamTrans. The new proposal seeks to replace the current terminal with a new one including a tunnel that would extend the Caltrian commuter rail and a heavy rail portion designed to accomodate the planned high speed line from Los Angeles. This project, designed by Pelli Clark Pelli Architects will consist of a 1,200ft tall tower paired with organic undulations of the transit center toped with a 5.4 acre green roof that will be freely accessible to the public and will host a variety of cultural activities.

The new Transbay terminal will seek to incorporate as it's theme, "transit & sustainability" with the tower's apex crowned with wind turbines and each floor being able to draw fresh air from outside directly through the building's "porous" facade. Geothermal heating has also been incorporated to regulate room temperature and both tower and transit park will benefit from a rain and gray water recycling center that can provide water to neighboring buildings as well.
Even though mayor Gavin Newsom has lauded this project as "forward thinking," many residents again feel that an elevated 5.4 acre park does not compliment its surroundings nor does the 1,200 ft high tower which will again redefine the city's skyline. I agree, even though I really like the look of the roof park but one will only see it like that from the window of a taller surrounding building. What I feel is pretty awful is the structural undulation of the park from street level. The height of the building will only set a new height for new projects to contend with but that structural pattern on the terminal is just horrid and will continue to stick out for a very long time to come.

This is a very innovative design and I think is the better proposal of all submitted to the city of San Francisco. It does a good job of making public transportation a bit easier and convenient which is a necessary component for cities in America today as we are continually faced with ridiculous gas prices but the terminal's street level facade...Its just bad!



Images obtained from: http://lifewithoutbuilings.net