Category: Arts and Culture
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Above: v.Ma_Studio's interpretation of WaTER: WaterFall Table
Water: Oil on Canvas: Karen Gunderson
Above: v.Ma_Studio: DWi.P: a 30,000 square foot public Community Center at Battery Park City:
A 320 foot long glass facade with an etched finish referencing WaTER.DWi.P: a building whose ground floor houses pools of WaTER.
A building that sits West of the World Trade Center Memorial fountain and east of the Hudson River.
Karen Gunderson: WaTER: oil on canvas
Takemitsu: photograph of Water/ Sky
Above: WaterFall Table: vMa_Studio
Each of these images are artistic interpretations of WaTER.
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Victoria Meyers architect has conducted investigations into WaTER and how WaTER affects architecture. Projects by vM.a_Studio that reference water. Research into aesthetic interpretations of WaTER include works by artist Karen Gunderson. Gunderson is an artist who devoted her art to revealing aspects of water, sky, and the natural world through the manipulation of oil on canvas, as well as through pencil drawings on paper. I've used Gunderson's paintings as teaching tools in architectural design studios at Columbia University, Cornell University, and elsewhere.
Karen Gunderson: Studies of WaTER
Above: Karen Gunderson: Water
Above: Water on display at Battery Park City's Teardrop Park. vM.a_Studio, with hMa/ with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. vM.a_Studio, with hMa, had design oversight for Battery Park City's North Neighborhood.
Above: WaterFall table designed by Victoria Meyers for vM.a_Studio.
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Prototype: Urban Outfitters Maker space, Philadelphia Navy Yard, Philadelphia, PA.
Studio Focus:Design the Roof /. Why the Roof? The Roof is the principal surface that determines the ability to 'Make' in the space. IE: It's very difficult to install a 15 foot high Digital Printing Machine in a space that has a ceiling lower than 20'. MaKE THE ROOF!
BE PREPARED TO MAKE DYNAMIC DRAWINGS THAT MAP YOUR ROOF CONCEPT!
BE PREPARED TO MAKE DYNAMIC DRAWINGS THAT EXPAND YOUR CONEPTUAL IDEA:
WHAT ENCOMPASSES THE IDEA OF 'ROOF'?
BE PREPARED TO WORK WITH NEW TYPES OF MATERIALS WHEN YOU BUILD YOUR MODELS
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Hack-Make: Use origami paper to study form and color.
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An exciting announcement!
Having moved my practice from New York City to Los Angeles, California, hMa has been dissolved as a practice. Victoria Meyers architect will practice as the design principal of v.Ma_Studio.
To reach Thomas Hanrahan you would need to contact him directly, in East Hampton, NY.
v.Ma_Studio has residential and institutional projects on the horizon. Victoria Meyers will continue research into materials, energy forms and sources, and current ideas from the fine arts.
v.Ma_Studio's newest focus? The Point/ Line/ Plane project from the original Cooper Union SOA curriculum founded by John Hejduk.
We've invited our friend and Cooper graduate, Paul Seletsky to offer words about the original Cooper curriculum which produced many of the finest American architects practicing today.
If this topic is of interest, read #Flatland. Flatland sets the stage for great investigations into SPACE.
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view of Meditation Hall from Administration porch : Won Dharma Center by hanrahan Meyers architects
hMa is pleased to announce that the Won
Dharma Center has won an Honor Award from the AIA NY Chapter. Won Dharma Center is a 28,000 square-foot spiritual and recreational retreat
in Claverack, New York for the Won Buddhists, a Korean
organization that emphasizes balance in one's daily life and relationship to
nature. The center is located on a 500-acre site on a gently sloping hill
with views west to the Catskill Mountains.
The buildings for the Center, including permanent and guest residences, an
administration building and a meditation hall, are sited as far as possible
from the local rural access road, and oriented west and south to maximize views
and light. The symbol of the Won organization is an open circle, suggesting
both a void without absence and infinite return. The buildings are
organized around the dual concepts of void and spiral.
view of Meditation Hall and Administration from west : Won Dharma Center by hanrahan Meyers architects
The 3,000
square-foot Meditation Hall is conceived as a simple rectangular void and a
lightweight frame to the natural surroundings. Its wooden structure is
exposed on three sides to form entrance and viewing porches, while the interior
offers expansive views of the mountains.The
four residential buildings include the dining hall/ administrative building,
and three residential dormitories for guests and permanent residents. The
design of the residential buildings draws on the formal organization of grass-roofed
Korean farm-houses, loosely clustered and organized internally around a single
central void. The roof shapes of the 4,000 square-foot residence
buildings transform in section around a spiral organization, from a simple
slope in section to a complex triangulated geometry where the roof transforms
into an open-air entrance porch. The internal organization of the residence
buildings allows silent walking meditation from courtyard to courtyard.
The courtyards act as passive cooling systems, and when the sliding doors
facing the courtyards open, cross ventilation through the public areas and guest
rooms provides passive cooling. All of the residential buildings are wood
construction, like the Meditation Hall, and deeply shaded to the west and south
to allow natural daylighting without excessive heat gain.view of guest residences 1 and 2 : Won Dharma Center by hanrahan Meyers architects
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Xenakis Simposium_Victoria Myers from BXMC on Vimeo. Victoria Meyers architect
Architect Victoria Meyers presents the work of hanrahan Meyers architects, and discusses the influences in the work from Iannis Xenakis. In particular, Ms. Meyers' talk focused on the firm's DWiP (Digital Water Pavilion), designed for Battery Park City's North Neighborhood, and scheduled to open in 2012. hMa is a firm that specializes in designing public buildings and masterplans for cities and campuses, incorporating state of the art green technologies, while also fostering collaborations with artists from around the world. hMa has collaborated with Michael Schumacher, David Teeple, and Jane Philbrick on various projects in the past. Jane Philbrick's latest site specific installation opened at Mass MoCA in September 2011.
About the Program: Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary explores the fundamental role of drawing in the work of avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001). One of the most important figures in twentieth-century music, Xenakis originally trained as an engineer and was also known as an architect, developing iconic designs while working with Le Corbusier in the 1950s. This North American premiere of Xenakis's visual work is comprised of samples of his pioneering graphic musings, architectural plans, compelling preparatory mathematical renderings, and pre-compositional sketches—in all, nearly 100 documents created between 1953 and 1984. The exhibition is accompanied by an exciting schedule of public programs, concerts, and symposia around New York City. Co-curated by Sharon Kanach and Carey Lovelace, the exhibition traveled to the Canadian Centre for Architecture (June 17 – October 17, 2010) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (November 7, 2010 – February 13, 2011).
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A new type of financing will pay for a solar array at this California development. Photo: Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Excerpt from the article:
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: September 19, 2011"A business consortium that includes Lockheed Martin and Barclays bank plans to invest as much as $650 million over the next few years to slash the energy consumption of buildings in the Miami and Sacramento areas. It is the most ambitious effort yet to jump-start a national market for energy upgrades that many people believe could eventually be worth billions.
Focusing mainly on commercial property at first, the group plans to exploit a new tax arrangement that allows property owners to upgrade their buildings at no upfront cost, typically cutting their energy use and their utility bills by a third. The building owners would pay for the upgrades over five to 20 years through surcharges on their property-tax bills, but that would be less than the savings.
The consortium is led by a company called Ygrene Energy Fund of Santa Rosa, Calif., which has already won an exclusive contract to manage a retrofit program for a half-dozen communities in the Miami area, with the city expected to join in a few weeks. It is in the late stages of completing a contract with Sacramento, and is seeking deals in other cities."
Click here to read the full article on www.nytimes.com
Green Design by hanrahan Meyers architects : hMa's Digital Water Pavilion (Battery Park City Community Center) will acheive a Platinum LEED rating click here to see more of DWiP on www.hanrahanmeyers.com
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Pratt Pavilion by hanrahan Meyers architects plays a fun game of inside/ outside. Pratt Pavilion is a small pavilion with big ambitions, on the main Pratt campus in Fort Green, Brooklyn. The pavilion floats in the air, above a glass entry vestibule. The pavilion is a single room, which is used as the main teaching gallery for Pratt's Design Center, which houses all of the main design programs at Pratt Institute.
Victoria Meyers architect
The plan above shows the plan of the Pavilion, to the south of a new courtyard, to the north. The courtyard and the Pavilion Gallery were designed to occupy approximately the same area, with similar shapes: to be mirror images. 'Mirror' – meaning – that we include the distortions inherent in the reflection.
I would argue that the Courtyard could be seen as 'Inside-Out'; and that the Pratt Pavilion Gallery is 'Outside-In' – as a spatial experience.
Outside-In: hanrahan Meyers Pratt Pavilion Courtyard Victoria Meyers architect
Inside-Out: hanrahan Meyers architects: Pratt Pavilion Gallery Victoria Meyers architect
These dispositions and juxtapositions of what is normally outside, being inside, and, vice-versa, what is normally inside being outside, have a history in architectural design projects. This would include the vestibule at Michelangelo's Laurentian Library, which is very much an Inside-Out space, through its extreme height, and its details.
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