SFA News - Architizer Awards Finalist: ArtsQuest Center

Spillman Farmer Architects is pleased to announce that the ArtsQuest Center at Steelstacks has been recognized by the Architizer A+ jury as a top five finalist in the Plus Categories for Architecture and Urban Transformation.

The Architizer A+ Awards is an international competition honoring the world’s best spaces. The awards, launched in partnership with the producers of The Webby Awards, is extraordinary on many fronts: 200+ jurors; 50+ categories; an award trophy designed by Snarkitecture and fabricated by the same group that makes the Emmys; and a red carpet gala in New York City in May 2013. ArtsQuest Center is entered in the Urban Transformation category of the A+ Awards, which honors architecture that revitalizes neglected areas and results in lively community spaces.

ArtsQuest Center is a dynamic performing arts, media, and cultural center located on a brownfield that once housed Bethlehem Steel. The building is an anchor for the revitalization effort in the City of Bethlehem, transforming a once-abandoned historic industrial core into a dynamic, sustainable, and livable mixed-use community. 

“Honoring our country’s industrial past is a critical first step to healthy and vibrant revitalization. We are fortunate to work in a community comprised of visionary and steadfast leadership working together toward a common goal,” Spillman Farmer Design Principal Joseph Biondo said. “Embracing our history while introducing a diversity of arts, culture, and technology will always become a catalyst in transforming urban areas.”

 

Uniquely, Architizer's A+ Awards are selected by a panel of more than 200 jury members from a broad range of disciplines, including art, film, architecture, design, engineering, branding, and business. They include:

Steven Holl (Steven Holl Architects) Charles Renfro (DS+R) Bjarke Ingels (BIG) Ben van Berkel (UNStudio) David Rockwell (David Rockwell Group) Tom Kundig (Olson Kundig Architects)

Charles Adler (Kickstarter) Ben Kaufman (Quirky) Cameron Sinclair (Architecture for Humanity) David van der Leer (Guggenheim) Barry Bergdoll (MoMA) Iwan Baan (Photographer)

Voting for the Architizer A+ Awards is open until March 19 and is limited to one vote per log-in platform. Voters can log in to the Architizer Web site through their Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google to streamline the voting process. Winners will be announced on the Architizer Web site on March 19, 2013.

 

To vote for ArtsQuest Center, go to: http://awards.architizer.com/public/voting/?cid=40

Speaking of Green - Leed V4

As an active participant in the last Greenbuild conference, I noticed an exciting shift in thinking.  Between Phoenix Greenbuild 2009 to San Fransisco Greenbuild 2012, the dialogue surrounding sustainability issues has shifted from achieving energy efficiency to attaining net-zero energy usage.

 

It is the USGBC's goal to actively measure and communicate building performance rather than statically display an achievement level. Together with IDEO, the USGBC is creating a dynamic LEED plaque which displays a building’s current performance. This plaque takes into account the building’s metrics as well as the users' behavior.

 

 

 

LEEDv4 strives to reverse our past impacts on the earth. In lieu of energy usage, our future buildings will be generative. Buildings will provide healthy environments where we can live, work, play, and learn; they will produce more energy than they use. Although this sounds like a big leap into the future, the industry tells us it is achievable in the present. Are we ready for this challenge?

LEED Dynamic Plaque by IDEO (left)
Spillman Farmer Architects LEED Gold Office Ceremony with  Current Static Plaques

 

Living in the Brownfield - Ornament and Grime in Context

While conducting research on context and materials, we came to use the phrase “Ornament and Grime.”  The phrase is a hack of the famous Adolph Loos manifesto “Ornament and Crime,” first delivered in his January 21, 1910 lecture in Vienna. Ornament and Grime (O+G) became the wordmark for Spillman Farmer’s investigations into post-industrial contexts and the “marks of time” as related to the aesthetic and technical lifespan of buildings. This blog will look at just one aspect of this thinking: the post-industrial context.

The true catalyst of our O+G research was found in scholarship from Ben Campkin, of London’s Bartlett School of Architecture. Campkin’s “ Ornament From Grime: David Adjaye’s Dirty House, the Architectural ‘Aesthetic of Recyclying’ and the Gritty Brits,” became a starting point for our Partnership for Innovation (Pi) project. We began to question the aging process of buildings, and the way our architecture might address the long-term material impacts of age. Pi, fully entrenched in a post-industrial fabric, was a critical juncture for the development of a new approach to the building/context relationship.

We set off to maintain and leverage the rough, back-alley context of the project. Rather than sanitize our approach, we chose to embrace the grit and history of the existing building. Pi, a technology incubator developed and run by the City of Bethlehem, recycles an existing loading dock as its new entry. Tagging or marking the entry in an appropriate way was of paramount concern for both the historical review board and for the project’s public image.  Our approach was born of the local context, drawing inspiration from the industrial heritage of the neighborhood just beyond Pi’s front door and the need to respect a tight budget without sacrificing design solutions.

The new entry faces the City’s recently-developed Greenway, creating a highly-visible face for Pi along the district’s main artery. In reference to the Greenway’s former use as a railroad, 138 industrial-issue reflective flags were installed in an array across the entire façade. While the rest of the alley is marked by dumpsters and other “back of house” fixtures, Pi’s façade addresses the industrial vernacular and elevates it with modest rough elegance. The conspicuity array marks entry, signals transition, and promotes pedestrian safety for doors that open immediately onto a tight street. The array augments the “gritty” architecture of its industrial building, and acts as a visual cue for vehicular and pedestrian travelers along a narrow but important urban corridor.

Campkin writes of Adjaye’s Dirty House, saying, “Rather than celebrate the industrial as ruin or quasi-ruin, the anti-fly posting coating both signals that the building is ‘new,’ and that its current phase takes precedence over any fussy preservation of it’s past.” Pi leverages the contextually-sensitive principles of conspicuity, seriality, and dirty that are found throughout the transitioning neighborhood to create a place that is respectful of its heritage but lacking the anchor of knee-jerk nostalgia for Bethlehem’s industrial heritage.

Special thanks to the City of Bethlehem team for their continued vision and pursuit of creating a vibrant post-industrial neighborhood in South Bethlehem, the former home of the Bethlehem Steel: Mayor Callahan, Joe Kelly, Tony Hanna, Irene Woodward and Rebekah Rusnock.

 A big thanks to Kate Carter who co-authored this blog and provided a fantastic image as well.

Links:

Adolph Loos “Ornament & Crime”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crime

Ben Campkin “Ornament From Grime”: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13602360701614649

Conspicuity: http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/NA_roadway/safety/products/vehicle_specialtymarkings/?PC_7_RJH9U5230GE3E02LECFTDQOVB5000000_nid=DFDP3LXZPFbeMRKM0WZXCWgl

Pi on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spillmanfarmer/sets/72157627800998951/

Photographers: Henry Bourne, Kate Carter, William Deegan,

Evilinnocence (IG), Walker Evans, Paul Warchol

SFA News - Building of the Year 2012

Spillman Farmer Architects is thrilled to have two projects in the running for the prestigious 2012 building of the year award over at the American-Architects website. The Sigal Museum and The Artsquest Center are both in the running for top honors. We’d like to thank the clients and patrons of both projects for being committed to the built environment and making the effort to create lasting architecture.

Vote for Sigal here: http://www.american-architects.com/en/projects/vote_review/34256/12/5

Vote for Artsquest here: http://www.american-architects.com/en/projects/vote_review/38869/12/46

See all 50 projects here: http://www.american-architects.com/en/projects/voting/41/12

Excerpt from the American-Architects website:

Building of the Year 2012

"Fifty projects were presented as Building of the Week on American-Architects.com in 2012. Now it’s time for you, our readers, to choose the 2012 Building of the Year. With just a few mouse clicks you can vote for your favorite here. The most popular project will be presented in our eMagazine #3|13 and on our website starting from February 11, 2013. We thank you for your participation and look forward to seeing the results."

"The Poll is open until January 28, 2013"

"Founded 1994 by Zurich-based PSA Publishers, world-architects.com utilizes a network of editors, critics, and designers at home and in all of the countries for which national pages are maintained. Via the linking of the different disciplines and countries to one another, a reference work has been produced in which thousands of buildings by established and emerging offices can be searched according to themes or regions."

Material Process Product - Franz Kline

Franz Kline: Coal and Steel

I recently viewed the Franz Kline exhibit at the Allentown Art Museum and had the priviledge of listening to the curator and friend Robert Mattison speak of the work. I first became interested in Kline's work when I moved to Wilkes-Barre to work for Peter Bohlin. My house was located just three blocks away from Kline's childhood home on River Street where a historic marker announces his contribution to the Abstract Expressionist movement.


Franz Kline "The Ballantine" Courtesy of Franz Kline Estate

Kline's work was deeply influenced by his native coal mining region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. This stark anthracite region inspired Kline's most famous work, the black and white abstractions of the 1950's. The paintings consist of layers of white and black paint, vigorous brushwork and angular substructures -silhouettes of the massive mechanical forms that dot the Pennsylvania landscape. 

Huber Breaker #4 Ashley Pennsylvania Image Courtesy of Michael Mirabito

You can see how the bold lines and confident brush strokes are reminiscent of Pennsylvania's coal breakers. These great machines used in the mining industry are something you will read about in a future blog and deeply influence the architecture I produce.

SFA News - Peace + Joy

Spillman Farmer thanks all of you for a great 2012 and wishes you the best for 2013.

Living in the Brownfield - 100 years of Ray Eames

December 15th is the centennial of the birth of Ray Eames. We wanted to acknowledge her contribution to the design world and offer you a chance to look back at an interesting and often overlooked detail of the eames house described in her own words.

“Then there are the reflections; windows that reflect back abstract patterns of eucalyptus bark, superimposing them on the human textures within. Elsewhere you see the meadow through windows, through the house, through interior plants, all at once. There is a

detail over the back patio – a black-and-white photograph of these same trees screened onto a textile, then mounted on a panel and screwed to the building. Just before twilight, when shadows still fall on the image and the natural light turns the reflections on the leaves monochromatic, it becomes almost impossible to tell where the building ends and the reflections begin. One truly believes Ray when she remarked “after 13 years of living in it,
the building for me ceased to exist a long time ago.”

excerpt from "The Eames Primer" by Eames Demetrios.

To learn more about this detail please refer to our earlier blog post:
http://speakingofarchitecture-sfa.blogspot.com/2012/06/living-in-brownfield-here-and-there-at_26.html