Thursday, March 23, 2017

Students receive vertical learning in Manhattan

Students receive vertical learning in Manhattan

        Text REED MILLER       Photos IWAN BAAN
Tags ARCHITECTURE, CONCRETE, DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO, EDUCATION, FAÇADE, GENSLER, GLAZING, HIGH-RISE, MARK 65, MARK MAGAZINE, NEW YORK, UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK – At 170th Street in Manhattan, concrete slabs march up the Bard-Haven Towers, three 30-storey student residences overlooking the Hudson River. The pattern of their familiar off-white silhouettes provided a theme for the bold variations of their new neighbour, the Vagelos Education Center.

Located at the northern edge of the Columbia University Medical Center, the project is the latest realized work of local architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, designed in collaboration with Gensler. On the north side of the building, thin horizontal panels of glass fibre reinforced concrete trace each floor plate; a fritted-glass curtain wall hangs between them. The façade recalls the plain horizontal stripes of the residential towers to the west, while suggesting a fundamentally different structure.



It’s this end of the building that houses specialized programmes requiring uninterrupted floor space: labs, classrooms, simulation suites, etc. Follow the floor plates to the south façade, though, and you can see them bending, breaking and even connecting to form closed loops. As the floors and ceilings transform on this side of the building, they open and deflect from the horizontal, creating a less conventional space for the facility’s more flexible functions.

The designers call this part of the high-rise a ‘study cascade’. It’s a single space, unbroken over the full 14-storey height of the building and served by a circuitous open stair that lends access to various areas for informal study. Students and faculty – just beginning to occupy the building – will circulate, settle and ultimately decide whether the ‘cascade’ is too unprogrammed for its own good, but the vertical expanse of shared air and a warm consistent palette of materials and colours (a predominance of orange!) give the impression of a coherent space, even from outside.

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Nio's sci-fi object grabs all the attention

Nio's sci-fi object grabs all the attention

        Text MONICA ZERBONI       Photos LINEASHOW / NIO ARCHITECTEN
Tags ARCHITECTURE, CLADDING, CONTEMPORARY ART, CULTURE, EXTENSION, ITALY, MARK 65, MARK MAGAZINE, MAURICE NIO, METALLIC, MIXED USE, MUSEUM

PRATO – Although only a stone’s throw from Florence, Prato is not Florence, and its inhabitants do not like to be compared with the neighbouring Florentines. Proud of its industrial heritage, for the past 30 years the smaller city has devoted its efforts to becoming a first-rate centre for contemporary art. Centro Pecci, which opened in 1988, was established by local entrepreneur Enrico Pecci in memory of his son. Nearly three decades later, the size of the museum has doubled, thanks to financial aid from the European Cultural Foundation and the contribution of Dutch architect Maurice Nio, whose signature marks the striking extension of the original building.


Nio’s fluid volume makes a strong architectural impact and, at the same time, forms a bold contrast to the severe character of the existing museum. Impossible to miss, the extension stands out as an attention-grabbing object in an otherwise anonymous industrial environment. The designer calls his work ‘Sensing the Waves’. Its semicircular shape can be interpreted in various ways: as a ring, a disc, a spaceship, a lunar sliver – and its rising antenna might be seen as a sensor capable of intercepting and transmitting the creativity of the artists whose pieces appear inside the building.


New interior spaces are arranged on two levels within a volume that embraces the original building and joins it at both ends. Ground-floor facilities include a theatre, a cinema, a library and a restaurant whose glazed façades provide views of the city. The exterior surface of the upper level, used for temporary exhibitions, wears a warm, bronze-coloured metal cladding. Inside the building, transparency interacts with opacity, concavity with convexity, and lightness with heaviness. Contrasts that make Prato’s splendid landmark worth a visit.
Article originally published in Mark magazine issue #65

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