In this issue:
• I Go To Rio
• A Winning Prescription for UB School of Medicine
• Multi-Use Community Center Serves a Multitude of Families in West Harlem
• Brooklyn Gets City Point(s)

I Go To Rio

Elevation

Courtesy Richard Meier & Partners

Courtyard

Courtesy Richard Meier & Partners

Richard Meier & Partners has unveiled designs for the international headquarters of the investment management firm Vinci Partners in Leblon, an affluent section of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a country known for its modern architecture. The design scheme for the 10-story white aluminum-and-glass building consists of close to 70,000 square feet of leasable open office space and a series of terraces, plus an internal translucent glass bridge that is illuminated at night. The entire building is recessed from the urban frontage. Facing west, the building is masked with a carefully composed set of louvers designed for both maximum sun shading and privacy; the eastern side is pulled away from surrounding buildings to create an internal courtyard that provides natural day lighting on two exposures for all offices spaces. This void also includes a vertical garden that ties back into the exposed architectural concrete core which services the building. The lobby anchors the building to a recessed open retail plaza and a three-story underground structure that provides additional leasable space as well as private parking. This is the firm’s first project in South America.

A Winning Prescription for UB School of Medicine

Courtesy HOK

Courtesy HOK

After winning a design ideas competition, HOK has been selected to design the new 520,000-square-foot, $375 million University at Buffalo, State University of New York (UB) School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building that will house 1,200 students, faculty, and staff on its emerging downtown campus. In the coming weeks HOK will begin visioning and space programming discussions with medical school leadership, faculty, staff, and students to develop a final design that addresses the full range of design challenges. This 13-month process will culminate in construction starting in fall of 2013, with completion expected in 2016. Nineteen architectural teams were pared down to four finalists including Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and Cannon Design; Rafael Viñoly Architects with Foit-Albert Associates; and Grimshaw and Davis Brody Bond.

Multi-Use Community Center Serves a Multitude of Families in West Harlem

Courtsey MDSzerbaty+Associates Architecture/NYCHA

Courtsey MDSzerbaty+Associates Architecture/NYCHA

MDSzerbaty+Associates Architecture’s (MDSA) 23,000-square-foot community center for the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) in West Harlem recently opened. Distinguished by its curved roofline and graphic green, blue, and yellow color scheme, the center serves residents of three low- and middle-income housing complexes, and offers much-needed recreational, social, and educational programs to the neighborhood. The basketball court, multi-purpose area, and performance stage occupy one side of the vaulted space; under the building’s lower roofline are classrooms for computer use, an arts and crafts studio with a kiln, a video room with a sound booth, and a commercial kitchen that serves 200. A row of skylights illuminates the main corridor, and windows near the roofline bring natural light into the classrooms and gym.

Brooklyn Gets City Point(s)

(c) Cook+Fox Architects

(c) Cook + Fox Architects

As Phase 1, a four-story, 50,000-square-foot retail complex at City Point, a 1.3 million-square–foot, mixed-use development in Downtown Brooklyn designed by Cook+Fox Architects nears completion, local retail chain Century 21 recently announced it has signed on as an anchor tenant, making it the first new department store on Fulton Street in 50 years. Phase 2, also designed by Cook+Fox, is currently in design phase and will include two residential towers above a five-story retail podium. One tower is slated to be 19 stories, the second, 30 stories – with approximately 690 units as well as at least 500,000 square feet of retail space. The commercial component of the project also includes about 30,000 square feet of office space geared toward Brooklyn’s expanding technology sector. City Point is designed to achieve LEED Silver certification. Greenberg Farrow is the architect-of-record on Phase 1. SLCE, architect-of-record for Phase 2, is also designing the interiors for this phase of the development. Project partners include Acadia Realty Trust, and project manager Washington Square Partners.

THIS JUST IN…

Perkins+Will has completed the 110,000-square-foot Center for Musculoskeletal Care (CMC) at NYU Langone Medical Center. In a departure from typical clinical environments, all services are at a single point of care. A curving stair ascends up through three floors connecting the rehab gym with the diagnostic and imaging facilities on adjoining floors.

Construction is set to begin on a TPG-designed Hudson Square office for the international communications firm Havas. The 260,000-square–foot, seven-floor office will house more than 1,100 staffers, and feature an in-house production facility, innovation laboratory, theater, and café.

Netherlands-based DyeCoo Textile Systems received the third annual Material ConneXion MEDIUM Award for Material of the Year for the development of a revolutionary commercial dyeing machine technology that has the potential to significantly lower the environmental impact of dyeing and improve the quality of the dyed fabric.

In a continuing series of showcasing visual artists, FXFOWLE presents “Glass and Paintings” by John Brekke in the firm’s office gallery. Brekke’s work focuses on the visual line in abstract as well as figurative contexts. The exhibit is on view 06.07–08.31.12, and is free to the public.