Here's a snippet of text from ArchNewsNow that describes the new Guggenheim in Frank's own words.

"Approaching the design of the museum for Abu Dhabi made it possible to consider options for the design of a building that would not be possible in the United States or in Europe. It was clear from the beginning that this had to be a new invention, and in my discussions with Tom Krens, the director of the Guggenheim, we explored what those inventions might be. We did not have a pre-conceived plan or an idea for a building, a museum of contemporary art, in place like Abu Dhabi. The landscape, the opportunity, the requirement to build something that people all over the world would come to, and the possible resources to accomplish it, opened tracks that were not likely to be considered anywhere else. The site itself, virtually on the water or close to the water on all sides, in a desert landscape with the beautiful sea, and the light quality of the place suggested some of the direction.

We started with very basic plan organization. The center core galleries are laid out forming a courtyard. Those galleries, of various height and sizes, are placed one on top of another to create four floors. These will be the more classical contemporary galleries, completely air conditioned with skylights where possible and a sophisticated lighting system. The next ring of galleries surrounding the core then radiating out of the center will be larger galleries in a variety of shapes and less formally constructed. The third ring of larger galleries would be less finished and more like raw industrial space with exposed lighting and systems. These galleries would be spawning homes for a new scale of contemporary art – art that would be, perhaps, made on site and of a scale that could not be achieved in other museums around the world.

This idea is based on the experience that Tom has had visiting artists’ studios in large industrial spaces. They have been able to create works that are way beyond the experience any of us have within the normal museum spaces. So in the end you create a cluster of galleries that allows for a tremendous amount of flexibility in organizing a great variety of shows. The different heights, shapes, and character of the galleries are something that will be studied and refined as the progress of the design continues.

We have been exploring with our consultants, TransSolar, a method of cooling outdoor spaces based on the very old idea of the open-top tepee that draws hot air out of the space. This led to a series of conical shaped tubes that becomes an element of focus for the surrounding galleries, creating an outdoor space. In some cases, the conical shapes are used as entry pavilions: a main entrance to the museum, a boat entry to the museum, and then as walkways out into the desert landscape. The use natural ventilation is inspired by its historical use in the region for many, many generations. Water walls in the main courtyard and other sustainable features now being explored have the intention of making an exemplary energy efficient building.

The exterior walls of the building are now being considered in stone with some variety in color and texture to highlight a particular museum pavilion. The museum will house contemporary art from all over the world, not just Western culture. And as the design progresses, it will be necessary to identify with the architecture and character of the art being shown. Two large Biennale art galleries have been added and brought closer to the main building as an introduction of the future Biennale buildings along the canal. These buildings would form a courtyard entrance from the central transportation routes on Saadiyat Island."

Another commentary from the New York Sun on the entire project can be found here.

The first project I worked on at Frank's office is now public. As part of a larger master plan by SOM in Abu Dhabi, a new Guggenheim museum was unveiled yesterday along with other cultural complexes by Novel, Hadid and Ando. The NY Times has a couple of articles - one covering the press release and one a commentary by Nicolai Ouroussoff.

I worked on the project from my initial hire on Sept 25 to just before Christmas - seeing the project through its final massing stages and then on to the shaping and structuring of the overall form. The picture above is from the smaller model that fit into SOM's master plan model - I cannot begin to tell you how long that model took to put together at that level of detail. I feel like I earned a masters degree in sanding.

So far it's been a very rich experience at the office to have the balance between the initial design of the museum coupled with the refinement and development of the Barclays Center project in Brooklyn. Hopefully as more of that becomes public I'll be able to post more about it.

This past holiday break I had a chance to visit Chicago and several of the area museums with the fam. While the King Tut Exhibit at the Field Museum was certainly entertaining (if not downright bursting with tourists), the standout of the bunch would definitely be the Massive Change exhibit that completed its run New Years Day at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Now I'll admit that I own the book by Mr. Mau, but have done little more than thumb through it from time to time. And while my colleague on this site posted a blurb about the subject well over a year ago, I felt it necessary to provide my own thoughts on the subject particular to the exhibition.

Before doing so I'll also state that I was with my mother who is kind of a skeptic on this whole global warming thing. While she's not completely ignorant of the amount of damage that we as a species might be wreaking on the planet, she certainly isn't ready to call up her pals in the White House demanding an enactment on the Kyoto Protocols. So at the very least I was entertained watching her try to be dismissive about some of the content presented there, and at the very least I can take solace in the fact that it opened her eyes, if even it was the tiniest of tiny bits.

Now I'm not going to tackle each and every gallery in the show (a description of each can be found here), but I did want to comment on the three that struck me the most - energy, manufacturing and urbanization.

About a year ago I read Kieran & Timberlake's Refabricating Architecture, finding it to be the perfect, not too theoretically deep, architectural manifesto that one could digest over the course of many 30 minute trips via the L train in Chicago. It's sort of the 'Towards a New Architecture' of the early 21st Century - first building up its argument through an attack on historical modes of production before positing its own vision for the future at the end.

The firm made a name for itself doing some quite beautiful residential projects and a number of installations (including immaterial/ultramaterial and fabricaitons for MoMA). All of them were imbued with a spirited analysis into the generation of surface pattern through transformation and depth - what Nader, and many of his contemporaries, have termed the 2.5D. Early work (shown below) used the structural and patterning properties of common building components such as brick and corrugated decking in ways that allowed for manipulations in form (shape) and program (screen).

The exploration and manipulation of simple materials according to their inherent specific logics has evolved into more sophisticated and parametrically driven work as the firm has embraced the digital tools of modeling and fabrication. A recently completed installation at Georgia Tech (see below) shows their success in this evolution at the microscale through the metamorphosis of different formal and structural typologies across one simple armature. The piece transforms from a compact, laminated series of sheets to a more controlled set of perforated ribs to the final more playful and sculptural expression at the apex. Geometrially I found the project quite fascinating, particularly the drawings which unfortunately are not shown on their website. However I wasn't crazy about the material as I found the ascending half to be visually cluttered and forcing me to think of Moss's glass vomit behind the Stealth Building in Culver City. An unfair comparison I know, but for some reason that's what popped into my head when I saw some of the images of the project.

A project that synthesizes their work in the 2.5D through parameterization through the macroscale is the recently published Villa Moda complex in Kuwait. This massive project (Tehrani described it as something like 12 NYC blocks) seeks to capture this geometrical and structural manipulation through an egg crate like coffered ceiling that undulates throughout the entire project. The radically different shapes of the program (from sports arena, to housing, to retail) dictate very different formal typologies that are quite difficult to link in one topological system. Their solution is to define and locate specific cell types in the ceiling - say circle, triangle, square, etc. - and then create an ever-changing differentiated tapestry that will blend between these different shape types. It makes for some very sexy images, but to pull something like this off on a scale this big (with a project that is phased nonetheless!) will be nothing short of impossible. I can't imagine what the bids would be on the formwork to pull something like this off in concrete. But it's in schematic design and its not like the firm is unfamiliar with getting work built.

While other projects and ideas were presented and discussed, I've focused on this one area in their body of research as a point of personal interest in their work. Indeed, Tehrani began to discuss how all of this could begin to translate itself into fully spatial three-dimensional systems (as they are attempting to do in the recently proposed Isaam Fares Institute). It's clearly the next step in the evolution of their work, one which will almost certainly be a greater challenge to that which they've accomplished so far.

Frank Gehry, Peter Arnell and Greg Lynn's collaboration with Kerzner CapitaLand went public yesterday in Singapore. It is a very exciting project and one which I hope will one day be realized. Here's a few snippets from the website link below (of which there are a few videos as well).

Kerzner CapitaLand has put in a S$5.28b bid for the integrated resort on Sentosa.

And the highlight of its proposal - the ability of human visitors to mingle and interact with next-generation robots in a natural environment.

Kerzner CapitaLand unveils an artist's impression of their version of the integrated resort on Sentosa.

From across the water, Atlantis Sentosa will feature glass structures that resemble sails, with F&B outlets and viewing points sitting on top of the existing jetty of the defunct ferry terminal.

"Sentosa island is beautiful already, so we try not to damage the character of it but fit a family-oriented, entertainment, and exciting place that adds to it and becomes part of it," explains principal architect and designer Frank Gehry.

The integrated resort will feature the theme of Atlantis - an underwater world - with some 150,000 marine life of 1,500 different species planned to be introduced to the property.

...

While Kerzner-CapitaLand is not, at this point in time, prepared to share with the public the design of its robotic community, the preliminary video footage shows that these are not your garden-variety of machines, but very advanced robots with artificial intelligence that can interact with the public.

Central to the Atlantis Sentosa architectural design is the 90-metre tall "sails", and a marine aquatic theme park that will occupy a major portion of the property.

"The combination of Sentosa in Singapore (is about) our exploration into the sea life and working with technology & visions for the 21st century and beyond.... In addition to the attractions that we have described, we believe that the resort is integrated, giving a full experience for people who come here," says Tensho Takemori, architect and partner at Gehry Partners.

Text courtesy Channelnewsasia.com

See and Read More!

Here are some of the professional photos taken in UCLA's DeCafe by Deborah Bird after we finished the space in late May. Amazingly we're still tying up several odds and ends before the new school year starts. Enjoy.

Overall View 01
Overall View 02
Overall View 03
Ceiling Detail
Wall Detail 01
Wall Detail 02
Wall Detail 03
Opening Night

Here are a series of professional photographs that were taken by the school during the Manifold Destiny Exhibition from this past winter. Sorry for the late post, but I just got my hands on these only recently. Enjoy.

Close Up View 01
Close Up View 02
Close Up View 03
Close Up View 04
Field of Objects
Overall Show Photo 01
Overall Show Photo 02

Well now that I've had time to decompress from the all the end of term/graduation hullabaloo, I figured it was time to spend a little time presenting the final research studio project on the site. I'll use this post to present the project only and I'll follow it up with one that will be more of a wrap-up to my thoughts and ramblings on the UCLA M Arch 2 education in general.

So, for anyone who hasn't follow the project's genesis thus far, it's a very large urban project in Downtown Los Angeles - across from the Disney Concert Hall on the site of the existing Music Center. Our charge is to scrap the existing center and design a new center that will have multiple theaters of various sizes - requiring multiples foyers, lobbies, restaurants, etc. From the beginning, my scheme has revolved around a massing strategy where a large outdoor theater, located on the end facing Disney, would be connected to a large indoor theater with a shared flyloft. This would allow for mulitple types and sizes of performances that would take place inside and/or outside.

Rather than sitting on a plinth as did the previous music center, or facing a plaza as does say Lincoln Center, the building complex is sited longitudinally emphasizing the changing grade and it is embedded into the ground while its major presence is the diagonal section relationship to the ground - making a vast civic
space both at, above and below grade.. The building complex is bundled and smoothed together into a single massing that is approached from below, from the side via switchback ramps and grand stairs and from the Northeast frontally facing the cathedral and the freeway below (plan).

The contemporary baroque ambitions of the project are set up through the (de)formation of a draped surface through a carved faceted mass containing all of the theater and amenity spaces. The three main theaters and the grand hall are connected longitudnally through this continuous draped surface. As the section shows, the drape moves from outdoor theater canopy to become the indoor theater's ceiling. The drape folds over each of the facing theaters, creating an enclosed space on the right, to allow for the drape to slump and spread out over the grand hall to become its ceiling as well as an occupiable roof surface that is accessed from Grand St. The draped surface dives into the smaller indoor theater to become its acoustical ceiling before bubbling out through the mass on the side of Temple St. to form another enclosed space.

The drape is perforated to emphasize areas of tension/compression as well as areas that are occupiable. The interest here being what types of shreds and cuts can be made in a draped surface and how they are impacted by issues of irritation and weight. Although no interior perspectives were constructed, these perforations could allow for a secondary drape of light and shadow that could begin to stitch the disparate masses together that are found below.

A secondary folded language of materials was applied to the faceted volume - glass, soft surfaces, and seating moved across the facets of the main stealth black volume to emphasize the folded geometry of the rusticated mass. The drape was rendered as much lighter in color to contrast with the stealth like mass, with light pouring out of the performance mouth of the building and the perforated apertures at night.

Here are pdfs of the final drawings for those interested:

Siteplan
Building Plans
Building Section

Renderings:

Day Shot
Night Shot

Here are a couple of pics of the scheme I'm running with towards the final (are mere 13 days and counting!). Three theater spaces arranged longitudinally across the site (a connected indoor and outdoor theater and a smaller individual theater) that are connected by a single draped surface that is pulled taut at the theaters and allowed to bunch and slump to create walkable surfaces and occupiable spaces (on top of the theaters). The rusticated mass is now rendered as stealth-like triangular planes against the smooth curvature of the drape. Currently finalizing the geometry of the two systems (this was a design model that was used to test some interactions) and the material palette. More updates throughout the week.

Site Section
Overall Model 1
Outdoor Theater
Drape Detail 1
Drape Detail 2

We've completed the space (well almost - there's always a punchlist) and tonight's the big opening, headlined by a lecture by Liz Diller. Here's a few final photos - the space looks really fantastic.

Wall/Ceiling Connection
Construction
Ceiling Splice Detail 1
Ceiling Splice Detail 2
Pin Up Board Detail
Door Head/Jamb Detail
Manipulating the Felt
Wall From Above
Overall Ceiling

Final Panorama 1
Final Panorama 2

Here are the two sections that I presented at the midterm review for Greg Lynn's studio. There was also a model, but it's pretty unfinished so I'll leave it out for this posting.

The basic sectional strategy is to introduce two theaters (one indoor and one outdoor) that face each other across a central stage and flyloft. The front of the building, facing the Disney Concert Hall, is a giant opening into the large main spaces of the building, providing a visual connection between the main interior and exterior spaces.

All of the theaters and the other dense parts of the program (rehearsal rooms, offices, etc) are housed in a very dense rusticated mass through which the softer public spaces flow around and through. These soft spaces are defined by a series of draped surfaces which are pulled taut at certain points to allow for walkable floors while at other conditions they are allowed to unfurl to become structure or vertical circulaton. The surfaces fuse the disparate spaces into one conceptually continuous space, seaming with each other to form overhangs, balconies and stairs.

More refinement is needed on their architectual qualities however in the second half of the quarter.

Building Section A
Building Section B

Site Plan
Site Sections

Exploded Axonometrics

New batch of photos that show a ton of progress. We are moving very quickly now in anticipation of our completion date this friday. The acoustics are noticably better and people are quite pleased with the aesthetics.

Ceiling Progress 1
Ceiling Progress 2
Felt Production
Wall/Ceiling Connection 1
Wall/Ceiling Connection 2
Wall Layout 1
Wall Detail 1
Wall Detail 2
Wall Panoramic