• Brooklyn-based architect Anton Bashkaev puts forward a community-driven concept that could change the way we live, work, and play.
• Many of today’s architects look to move away from cold, private architecture and design for togetherness.
• Crown House aims to foster an environment of mutual acknowledgment, education, and collaboration in a formerly vacant site.

This is the story of 21st-century architecture and how it can generate a sense of home in us again. For the last century many architects were enamored with utopian concepts that brought us the modernism style, Bauhaus, and machine-inspired aesthetics that alienated people from their living environment. Sharp corners of glass and steel facades, the sterile seriousness and cold detachment, made architecture impenetrable and hard to enjoy.

Our generation is waking up. Overwhelming time spent in digital space has to be balanced with a humane physical environment—not to be reinforced by machine-inspired aesthetics of sleek, pixelated, or AI generated shapes of buildings.

I was raised in a Soviet modernist residential neighborhood. Following the behest of Le Corbusier, multi-story concrete panel towers look at each other over vast grass-seeded areas framed with asphalt sidewalks along highways. There was an absence of street facades and any sense of private or communal ownership, which atomized local residents and created a city of dwellers, but not citizens. The notion of community was virtually nonexistent—the first time I heard this word was in my master’s program in England.

A New World

My most eye-opening experience was when I moved to Crown Heights. Getting to know the faces behind the facades and being connected to the multigenerational, multicultural life of the neighborhood was energizing.

Throughout the pandemic, thanks to the local park, people remained in social relation to each other, turning a once dangerous park into a buzzing, joyful island, living by the rules of social distancing.

20 Examples of Community Architecture at Its Best

Gail Shillingford of B+H Architects on Equitable, Inclusive Planning

By the time the war broke out in Ukraine I’d been living in Crown Heights for four years. Its Crimean precursor was the reason I left Russia in 2015. When political protesting became illegal my family was forced to leave the country under the threat of incarceration.

This was an existential moment. While working in the US I haven’t yet become a full resident, but Crown Heights showed me the value of true community and gave me a sense of home. I was received not as a citizen of an aggressive state but as a neighbor and friend.

Crown House Project

As a professional architect, I discovered a vacant spot belonging to an educational organization and tasked myself to come up with the best realistic concept. It’s now called Crown House. I wanted to strengthen the existing community and address its issues, doing the job Brower Park does so beautifully as a public space. My goal was to design a social hub with an equally high ethical and aesthetic value.

To involve all the communities of Crown Heights and create synergy between programs I allocated one program for each community to ensure they correspond with and amplify each other. These groups are the Hasidic Jews of Chabad Lubavitch, African Caribbean Americans, and young professionals from all over the world. Their respective programs are an education center, café, and bookstore, each of which will occupy one-third of the first level and have its own entrance. Inside will be lateral passages connecting them, including access to the backyard that can be used by all three.

The Jewish educational center will have a lobby on the first level that leads to the elevator and stairs to the floors above. Here they can hold classes and meetings as well as accommodate overseas students and visiting professors. A Jamaican-style café will serve Blue Mountain coffee and traditional Jamaican desserts. In between there will be a bookstore for young professionals who have moved into the neighborhood, as well as a great selection of books for all youth.

Rendering courtesy of Anton Bashkaev

All of the programs will correspond with each other. The café will recommend books at the bookstore, which in turn will promote events at the educational center. The students of the latter can also enjoy discounts at the café. The after-hours use of the educational center space is important to engage with the larger community and different age groups, with Spanish classes, guitar lessons, and a diabetes prevention group.

The top floor of Crown House will have a lounge for the education center that hosts external events, celebrations, and symposiums. Levels four, five, and six will have dorms for overseas students and studio apartments for visiting professors.

On the lower levels the language of the site’s historical architecture allows for more than residential use. The bay window facade of the demolished buildings has been used as a module for the new design, preserving the previous massing and matching the height of neighboring cornices, gently recessing upward to provide space for the residential terraces on the top levels. This program is crowned with a fully glazed lounge on the top floor, which serves as the main rentable asset of Crown House.

The introduction of these terraces not only enhances the living experience of the residents, but it also contributes to the safety of the street by increasing the onlookers’ presence in the public space. The friendly brick-clad curves and local species of wildflowers planted in the corners of the terraces add warmth and friendliness to the image of Crown House, encouraging communities to use the public space even more, continuing the legacy of Brower Park.

Crown House is an example of modern architecture that has been thoughtfully integrated into the historical fabric of the city. Rather than changing it, it heals and amplifies, bringing the community to the forefront of architectural attention on both ethical and aesthetic levels.

The post Crown House is This Russian Architect’s Way of Giving Back to Crown Heights appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• Gail Shillingford recently joined the planning and landscape practice at B+H and is focused on community engagement.
• B+H is currently working on the rehab of the historic Holt Renfrew Building in Montreal.
• The New Lowell is a great example of a suburban community that straddles the rural/urban context.

Practitioners of urban planning and design must be adaptable and well-rounded in their skillset—from analyzing site plans and environmental studies to keeping up-to-date on building codes.

Yet for Gail Shillingford, principal of planning and landscape at B+H Architects, the most critical aspect of her role is to serve as a champion of inclusive and equitable design—to engage with stakeholders in the community and ensure developments are built to improve the lives of the end user, not simply for the profit of the client.

“The buildings we put up, the landscapes we put up, the interventions we make in the public realm all affect people,” Shillingford says. “We have to be thinking about the health and well-being of people, and that needs to be the priority and the main thread in all that we do.”

Shillingford recently joined the planning and landscape practice at B+H after more than 25 years in the field of master planning, urban, and landscape design. Growing up in the Bahamas, she loved helping her father in the garden and being outdoors in green environments but never considered it as a career. It wasn’t until she left veterinary school and took up field work with a British architect that she realized her true passion for landscape architecture. “I’ve always wanted to be part of the bigger story and be able to shape and define the bigger picture of the public realm,” she says. “That’s been my journey.”

Shillingford recently sat down with gb&d to discuss her new role at B+H, her passion for inclusive and equitable design, and the engagement process she argues is the key to any project’s success.

What drew you to this new opportunity at B+H?

A lot of the attraction to coming on with B+H was that I was looking for a shift in my career. I wanted the opportunity to be part of a growing landscape and urban design team and to practice on a national and international level. But meeting the fantastic team is really what pulled me onboard.

It was also about wanting to be part of the frontiers of moving the profession forward, so that was very exciting. I’m not part of the status quo in what I do or my design pursuits. It’s always been about seeing what’s next, seeing where we can push boundaries and push discussions further. I’ve always been labeled a shit-stirrer, and I don’t mind that label.

What inspires your design philosophy?

I was educated not to work for a client, but to work for the people—to work for the end user. That’s something that’s really important to me. The work we do is driven by money—you have to keep the lights on—but at the end of the day what we do is for people.

And as a woman and a person of color, I strongly believe and advocate for inclusivity and equity in all we do. We are still in a world and environment where there is too much inequity, and as a designer I’m responsible for creating spaces where we can face that challenge. That’s what drives me and my design.

How is inclusive and equitable design part of your projects?

It’s about telling our stories. I’ve had the pleasure of working with many indigenous people throughout my career, and one of the things many of them have strongly believed in is that the only way you can create an inclusive environment is to engage and to listen to others’ stories so you can gain an understanding. Without that we are designing for clients, or our egos, but not people.

You can really see this process play out in my current work on the redevelopment of the Jane Finch Mall in Toronto. The developer has committed to an unprecedented engagement process, which is unbelievable. The first seven months have just been about engaging with this community, participating, and being with them.

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This is an underrepresented community, and it’s been a challenge for the city to revitalize and make positive changes without stirring gentrification, so engagement is critical. We have a storefront presence in the mall now where we can talk and consult with the community daily.

Our starting point with the landscape team is to conceptualize what we’ve understood thus far. They still want a central hub for the community, so we’ve defined two strong plazas in the center of this new development that will be critical for bringing people together. A full 20% of the development will be public space, which means we’re making this space extremely permeable and connected to the existing community.

The site will maintain a retail presence, but it will be street- and plaza-oriented so it faces the public space. And the community will have a voice on what type of retail they’d like to see, and how the plazas get shaped. Right now they’d like to see a pavilion that could allow for market stalls, events, and art galleries. There will be a residential component as well.

We are making sure we’re designing to allow for that integration of culture and context, and we’re allowing for a high degree of flexibility to create this cultural change so the new and old communities can become one.

How do you define sustainable and environmental design?

Rendering courtesy of B+H Architects

In terms of environmental sustainability, one of the most critical things we can do is create designs that are compact. One thing I still want to do before I die is to redesign suburbia, to shift suburbia and infuse urbanity within it. Some people think dense urban environments are the antithesis of natural environments, but that’s a misnomer. One of the projects I walked into when I came on with B+H, the New Lowell Land Assessment and Master Plan, really exemplifies this.

The basis of the design was to develop a complete suburban community that straddles the rural/urban context, with mixed uses like commercial, residential, office, amenities, and services in this environment—without disrupting nature.

To do this we had to reverse our usual system for development. Roads and infrastructure had to be configured to minimize the impact on the environment. Within the residential patches there are no fences or boundaries; it’s a series of nature-inspired housing typologies connected by shared sidewalks, shared gardens; it creates an environment that connects us to nature and to each other.

It’s a very off-the-grid environment, where we’re not reliant on typical energy systems, there are few roads, and it’s a five-minute walking distance from home to work. The integration of people and infrastructure into the natural environment is so strong. To me this is the new way we have to think and approach community design. Our challenge in the next phase is bringing in a very urban context.

How do you work across teams to ensure a project’s success?

The new Lowell project includes shared gardens. Rendering courtesy of B+H Architects

You really have to break all those silos down internally. Normally the architects do their thing, then they pull in the landscape architects, and then the engineer is pulled in and tells us what doesn’t work and what we have to accept. A great example of a cross-discipline collaborative approach is my work on 1300 Sherbrooke in Montreal.

Here we refused to work in silos, and we gathered all of the disciplines at the same table. The project is a historical renovation of one of the original French buildings in the city. It’s a beautiful art nouveau structure, the Holt Renfrew Building, but one of the most exciting aspects I’m working on is what to do with a very iconic laneway in the back of the building.

Back in the day people would drive up for valet parking and then be escorted to the shops inside. We were tasked with reconfiguring the laneway with new retail frontage on the lane, where you could order groceries for pickup, sip some coffee, and enjoy the scenery.

So we’re envisioning a people-place that’s more of a plaza, with space for events in the evening but still respecting the history and architecture. We’re also designing a rooftop patio that brings the green to the roof, where all the patrons of the building can cohabitate and have lunch. With any historical rehab, you have to think about the structure, the mechanical, and all of that, so being at the table together is critical to the process.

The post Gail Shillingford of B+H Architects on Equitable, Inclusive Planning appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• Robert Hutchison balances conceptual projects with client work as an exercise in artistic exploration.
• RHA’s Rain Harvest Home encapsulates the firm’s commitment to sustainability through doing less.

Architecture is both an art form and a trade, and its practitioners are constantly seeking the ideal balance between their conceptual vision and the realities of budgets, material limitations, and zoning regulations.

Few architects have the opportunity to free themselves from the constraints of client-based work. Yet the pursuit of this freedom was one of the driving forces behind Robert Hutchison’s decision to found his own practice, Robert Hutchison Architecture (RHA). “I’ve always been interested in pursuing more of what I call the boundaries of architecture, independent from our client-based work,” Hutchison says.

The Rain Harvest Home project two hours west of Mexico City aims to establish a holistic, integrated relationship between people and place. Photo by Cesar Bejar

He and his Seattle-based team still spend the majority of their time on a diverse array of client projects, including an impressive roster of custom homes that seem to disappear into the beauty of their natural surroundings.

But the independence that comes from being one’s own boss provides Hutchison—who also teaches at the University of Washington—with the opportunity to pursue conceptual projects and research initiatives without the need to commercialize them. “Our work is all about letting those things bounce off of each other, letting the client-based work feed a direction in the research or conceptual base, but also letting those conceptual projects influence the built work,” he says.

Balancing the Conceptual with the Temporal

This installation designed by RHA on the rooftop of architect Luis Barragán’s studio is a half-scale version of an unbuilt memorial chapel originally designed for a rural site in Maryland. Photo by Cesar Bejar

After helping to lead the joint practice Hutchison & Maul Architecture from 2001 to 2013, Hutchison developed RHA into a small firm that focuses on single family residential, art studios, cabins, and smaller retail formats. This work is complemented by more peripheral works that include architectural installations, conceptual work, research, and related exhibitions.

“We’re very comfortable in this place we call the ‘triggering town,’ to paraphrase the concise book on writing by Richard Hugo,” he says. “This is really about exploring something simply because we’re interested in it, and we’ve learned that this exploration will always trigger new possibilities and investigations.”

This allows RHA to play with broader architectural themes without being bound by client budgets. One of the most important of these conceptual projects is Memory Houses—a five-year endeavor that has resulted in two installations, two exhibits, a published book, and a series of incredible models and sculptures.

“Memory Houses began when I realized my father was losing his memory and wanting to process what that meant,” Hutchison says. “It investigates mortality and memory through the lens of architecture and encapsulates distant as well as more recent architectural memories that weave together a spatial narrative about loss and recollection.”

Outside the Rain Harvest Home. Photo by Jaime Navarro

On the client side, RHA’s works develop out of a strong relationship between plan and section. Hutchison also finds himself frequently returning to the topic of economy in architecture, which he argues is too often equated with being cheap but really is a reflection on his philosophy of sustainability.

“Economy for us is doing as little as is necessary,” he says. “This can mean reducing or minimizing our client’s programmatic interests—while still meeting their original goals. It’s also about developing design solutions that accomplish multiple goals with a single move.”

Sustainability Through Economy

Hutchison puts this philosophy on sustainability into practice on projects like Rain Harvest Home—an off-the-grid three-structure residence in Temascaltepec, Mexico, about two hours west of Mexico City, which he co-designed with architect Javier Sanchez of the firm JSa. “Rain Harvest Home embodies many of the themes we’ve focused on over the years and has opened up new ways of addressing the relationship of architecture to the environment,” he says.

Throughout the design phase Hutchison always focused on reducing the indoor areas of the buildings—which include a main residence, a studio, and a bathhouse—in favor of outdoor space that provides connections with the natural environment. “It became important to spread the program out across the site, which requires you to interact with all of the natural elements,” he says. “We really wanted to encourage people to use the site as a threshold to go between these spaces.”

The Rain Harvest Home. Photo by Jaime Navarro

The main residence, situated on a raised concrete plinth, is designed as a pavilion that allows for outdoor use year-round. A perimeter of steel colonnades supports a floating green roof that shields the exterior living space below. “This really helped answer the question, how do you give people as much space to occupy while keeping it outside?” he says.

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And rather than use concrete or masonry, as is typical in Mexico’s construction culture, RHA made the decision to construct entirely wood buildings. “This choice was made with the intention of building as light on the ground as possible and to reduce the carbon footprint of the project.”

Robert Hutchinson leads RHA—an architecture and design firm in Seattle, specializing in projects that explore the relationship between elegance and economy. Photo by Jill Hardy

More importantly, RHA chose early on to collect and use all of the rainwater on the site and to ingrain this into the conceptual and experiential basis of the project. The onsite water treatment system is completely self-contained and gravity-fed. “It’s a big self-contained cycle,” Hutchison says. “But I think the most important thing we did was just not to treat it as a system but to treat it as an experience, really thinking about how rainwater could be a way of living on the site. It’s not just a metric; it’s about experiencing and being a part of the site. Because when it rains for six months, to be in the bathhouse when it’s raining is a pretty visceral experience.”

Project Credits

Project: Rain Harvest Home
Location: Temascaltepec, Mexico
Completion: October 2020
Size: 1,200 square feet (main residence); 200 square feet (studio); 175 square feet (bathhouse)
Lead Architects: Robert Hutchison Architecture and Javier Sanchez Arquitectos
Structural Engineer: Bykonen Carter Quinn
General Contractor: Mic Mac Estructuras

The post Architect Robert Hutchison on the Economy of Sustainable Architecture appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• A sustainability expert sees collaborative design as the way forward as part of her work with Buro Happold.
• Boston is an example of a city that’s exploring just how much sustainability matter in the built environment.

Ask a room of architects when they knew they wanted to be an architect, and many will say building was a passion from a young age—an idea formed from early Lincoln Log and LEGO creations. But not for Julie Janiski. No, Janiski wanted to be a backup dancer for Janet Jackson.

Dancing ambitions aside, the Boston-based partner at the engineering consultancy and design planning firm Buro Happold grew up in Michigan working with her dad at the family business, Great Lakes Fire Protection. It was there that Janiski got her first glimpse into the built environment, working with sprinkler heads.

Submerged in the subcontractor atmosphere, she “learned a lot about construction and heard a lot about how dumb architects can be from a construction point of view,” she says. “You would think that would have potentially turned me off or made me think of not doing it.” But the idea of architecture—of a field that marries math and design, left brain with right—won out in the end. “It was ultimately what drew me to architecture and the built environment—the promise and reality of wanting and needing to be able to think about it from those two perspectives.”

Taking Sustainability Head-On

Julie Janiski is a partner in Buro Happold’s Boston office, where she leads integrated teams of engineers, designers, analysts, and subject matter experts. Photo courtesy of Buro Happold

After graduating from New York University with a degree in urban design and architecture studies, Janiski decided to pursue a graduate program in architecture—eventually. “I knew I didn’t want to do it right away, mostly because I had decided that sustainability was so important that I wanted to study that first to get a solid foundation to everything I was hoping to learn about architecture.”

She went to work at Platt Byard Dovell White Architects (PBDW), which confirmed her instinct that green building was more than a fad—it was a growing, necessary practice. “I was going through RFP after RFP and saw everyone was starting to ask for sustainability features. LEED had just started to emerge. I went to the four partners and said, ‘What are we doing about this?’ And they said, ‘Oh, every building has sustainability features,’” Janiski says. Her response was: “OK, but what does that mean? And how do we talk about it to help coordinate that effort within the firm?”

She spent the next five years bringing sustainable projects like the first LEED building in Brooklyn to light, working remotely from Australia for a time while pursuing her master’s of design science in sustainable design at the University of Sydney.

At the end of those five years, she went back to school at the University of Michigan for her master’s in architecture. “While I was at PBDW, the firm was working on a project for the Park Avenue Armory. We were doing some of the sustainability work in-house, but the project was so big we decided that there needed to be a sustainability consultant on the project,” Janiski says. “I worked with the project architect and helped interview firms, and one was Buro Happold. They did not get the project, but I called them a year later and said, ‘I’m back in school pursuing a graduate degree, I’ve got a four-month summer break, and I would love to work with the sustainability team. It was really interesting to hear how you talked about it.’”

Janiski got the job that summer and returned the summer after. It was the start of her 12-years-and-counting career at Buro Happold, where she made partner in 2021. “There are so many talented people at Buro Happold and so many different disciplines, which means there are so many different subject matter experts,” she says. “There’s always something new to learn, which I love because I want to know everything.”

Green Building in Boston

Buro Happold is working closely with the wider design team, including architects Henning Larsen and Gensler, on the One Boston Wharf Road / Seaport District Block L5 Tower project. Photo courtesy of Henning Larsen

Today no two days are alike for Janiski, and that’s on purpose. “I like to joke that I spend most of my time meeting architects and engineers and helping them talk to each other,” she says. In fact, it’s this collaboration that makes her job so rich. “I think the majority of folks at Buro Happold specialize in a discipline or a sector, and I make it my business to not, so I can help cross-connect and integrate all disciplines sustainably.”

Janiski’s projects range from tech to higher education, cultural and multi-family spaces, as well as working with the State of Massachusetts on updating its building energy codes. But perhaps some of the most exciting work is happening in Boston itself, where the city is finalizing a zero-carbon zoning initiative that mandates that all new construction be zero carbon.

“The City of Boston has become a really interesting place to be within the realm of thinking about sustainability in the built environment,” Janiski says. “The work that is happening here right now is setting a completely different baseline for what is required of projects.”

Take the ongoing One Boston Wharf Road / Seaport District Block L5 Tower project. Working closely with Henning Larsen and Gensler, Janiski and Buro Happold are transforming the 17-story, mixed-use building into what will be the city’s largest net zero carbon facility when it’s completed in 2024.

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“It was a perfect storm of what the state requirements are for energy code, what the City of Boston is moving toward, what the tenants are asking for, and the developer’s own sustainability goals that led to the team coming together and establishing a goal of zero operational carbon for the 630,000-square-foot office tower,” Janiski says.

Key to the project is its all-electric system, which is set up to maximize energy recovery—heat energy coming from the building will be captured for reuse—and includes an air source heat pump. The project is also pursuing LEED certification, with green elements like a 52% reduction in potable water use and triple glazing on the facade to not only support energy efficiency but also improve thermal comfort.

It’s a big undertaking, but a collaborative approach that Janiski says marks a new era of architecture. “I’m excited that just in my career I’ve seen a real shift from an older, more traditional model of the architect as the author, and consultants are called on every once in a while, to a model where design teams are more of a ‘Knights of the Round Table’ model,” she says. “The opportunity to take advantage of the subject matter expertise that’s available and the impact that everyone’s expertise can have on building performance is phenomenal. I’m excited to see more of that shift from one firm to the next and alternately figure out how to put the purpose of the project and people at the very center of the process.”

Project Credits

Project: One Boston Wharf Road
Location: Boston
Expected Completion: 2024
Size: 630,000 square feet
Lead Architects: Henning Larsen, Gensler
MEP Engineers: Buro Happold
Energy Consulting: Buro Happold
Contractor: Turner Construction
Landscape Engineer: James Corner Field Operations

The post Julie Janiski on a New Era of Green Building appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• New leadership at BWBR continues a longstanding commitment to be better.
• BWBR recently renovated the historic Rankin Hall at Carroll University.
• BWBR celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2022.

Given that buildings generate nearly 40% of global CO2 emissions, architects today are charged not only with curating beautiful spaces but also ensuring that our built environment is designed to limit its impact on the health of the planet.

For Stephanie McDaniel, who was recently named president and CEO of the architecture firm BWBR, this is a guiding principle she brings to her new role. “Having accountability throughout the design process is really important to ensuring that, as architects, we remain committed to this principle of sustainable design,” she says.

McDaniel is also a strong advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the firm, which could serve as a role model for the industry. “As a profession we have a long way to go on racial and gender equity,” she says. “We absolutely need to hear everyone’s voices and ensure everyone has a seat at the table.”

This emphasis on inclusive, sustainable design practices is reflected in BWBR’s recent work, including the new Hennepin Healthcare Clinic & Specialty Center in Minneapolis and the renovation of Rankin Hall at Carroll University.

McDaniel is taking the reins at an exciting moment in the firm’s history. This year BWBR is celebrating its centennial anniversary. McDaniel recently sat down with gb&d to discuss this milestone and explore how changing attitudes and breakthroughs in new technology are facilitating a more sustainable future.

Stephanie McDaniel was recently named president and CEO of the architecture firm BWBR. The firm is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Photo by Brandon Stengel, Farm Kid Studios

BWBR is celebrating its 100th anniversary. What has led to the firm’s success over the years?

BWBR began in 1922 when 25-year-old Bill Ingemann began his architecture practice in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1925 he hired Dorothy Brink, an exceptional design talent and one of the first woman members of the architectural fraternity Tau Sigma Delta. She was instrumental to the firm’s work and later became Ingemann’s wife. In 1941 Milton Bergstedt joined the firm, bringing with him the beginnings of the company’s ongoing commitment to its people and the impact of the work on the greater good.

Many organizations don’t survive beyond the founders. BWBR has established a culture of developing future leaders who carry on the values and practices of their predecessors while continually looking for ways to make the firm a better place to work that offers better results for clients.

BWBR isn’t about any one person or group of people; it’s about purpose, mission, core values, and staying in the game. Heading into its 100th anniversary, the firm is embracing change while still relying on the deep commitment to community and culture that is the bedrock of BWBR—combining a sense of continuity with excitement for the possibilities of the future.

How would you describe your design philosophy and process?

As I think about the BWBR design philosophy, I always go back to our purpose statement: transforming lives through exceptional environments. One of the key elements of our philosophy is that we are driven by our clients, so it’s not about designing a building because we think it looks good or because that’s the building we want to do. It always stems from the work our clients are doing and how this building can support their work.

The other important aspect is that we really foster an integrated design process. We host a series of workshops both internally, where we collaborate with our engineering partners and our design team stakeholders, and externally with our clients’ teams so we can make sure we’re analyzing every aspect of our projects.

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This focus on an inclusive and engaging design process was critical in one of our current projects, the new Schoenecker Center for STEAM Education at the University of St. Thomas, which is breaking ground in May 2022. The university has really been committed to its equity and inclusivity efforts and charged us with folding that into our design processes.

We utilized the USGBC’s Inclusive Design pilot credits, which in part asked us to consider: Who is not represented in this building? Part of what that looked like was meeting with focus groups from a variety of stakeholders—including alumni, students, and the university community—throughout the process to seek input, with the goal of creating a space that was welcoming for all.

To accomplish this we prioritized creating inclusive spaces like all-gender restrooms, lactation rooms, public education areas, and spaces that encourage frequent, casual interaction to reduce the probability of social isolation. We also incorporated assistive technology like accessible height service counters and height adjustable furniture, as well as wayfinding tools like non-text diagrams, braille, and patterns and color-blocking to identify key public spaces.

One of BWBR’s recent projects, the new Hennepin Healthcare Clinic & Specialty Center in Minneapolis, consolidates 26 primary and specialty clinics previously spread across nine buildings. Photo by Andrea Rugg Photography

What are the markets that BWBR specializes in?

We’re fortunate to work with a broad range of clients, and as a socially conscious firm we tend to work with a lot of clients in health care, nonprofits, and higher education. Our recent work on the Hennepin Healthcare Clinic & Specialty Center (CSC) in Minneapolis is really indicative of that process and focus.

The first hospital building on the downtown campus was built in 1887, and the new CSC was the biggest addition to the campus since 1972. The goal was to bring together clinics that were spread out across Hennepin Healthcare while revitalizing this corner of downtown and bringing a sense of place to the campus.

As a public health care provider it was critical to connect the community to the site and gather their input. And so we incorporated a pocket park on the site to help integrate the campus with the surrounding Lowry neighborhood and downtown area. We also made extensive use of local and diverse art, the most identifiable piece being the three-story glass piece hanging in the main lobby.

How is sustainable design in your work?

That’s something I’ve always been excited and passionate about in my personal life going back to my childhood. I always spent a lot of time outside, and when I was 14 I went on my first Boundary Waters trip. I first went with the Girl Scouts and returned many summers with my dad, and then I was a canoe guide, so connection to nature was very formative in my career and my life, and that connection to that magical wilderness is certainly part of my passion for sustainability.

As an architect it’s really about digging in on every project and asking, “What more can we do?” We always prioritize sustainable design, but even then we’re always asking ourselves how we can constantly up our game. I really believe that we get the most sustainable projects by having the most passionate people on each project.

Ultimately you need to set goals and push yourself on those goals. That’s why we were early adopters of the AIA 2030 Commitment, which sets standards and goals for reaching net zero emissions by 2030.

How has the industry changed over the course of your career?

I started in the industry and at BWBR in 1996, fresh out of grad school from the University of Texas Austin. Very shortly after starting my career I found some like-minded folks and we launched the Performance Design Group to talk about enhancing the performance of buildings, both for our clients and for the environment.

The industry has also fostered a culture of sharing information. Early on I learned other architects were passionate about sustainable design, and they were so generous in sharing information and best practices. That has really helped move us all forward.

And then the tools, particularly the software tools we have access to, have changed. We use Insights 360 for early energy analysis and daylight modeling, Athena Impact Estimator for life cycle assessments, and Flixo to evaluate the thermal performance of our walls. Of course, we didn’t have these types of tools when I was starting out as an architect, and it’s really improved the industry’s sustainability practices.

BWBR recently renovated Rankin Hall at Carroll University, which is a building constructed in 1906 that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Photo by Michael R Conway

How do you approach historic renovations differently from new construction?

Renovating existing structures is far more sustainable than building from scratch, so that’s an important consideration. We recently renovated Rankin Hall at Carroll University, which is a building constructed in 1906 that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and I think that offers an interesting case study.

Our team had to be sensitive to how modern needs and requirements are met in a way that maintains the spirit of the original design. One of the challenges was improving the envelope and thermal comfort. We decided not to insulate the original masonry walls, which had “breathed” for over 100 years, and changing the thermal properties and moisture permeability of an existing masonry wall can potentially damage it.

Instead we added spray foam insulation to the attic space, upgraded the mechanical systems, installed LED lights, and utilized insulated glazing on the refurbished historic wood windows. All of this improved the energy efficiency of the building while maintaining its historic character.

What do the next 100 years hold for BWBR?

We’re in a really great place. We’ve got great markets, we have great clients, and so the future really is about leveraging what we currently have and then just making it better. Through our philosophy of transforming lives through exceptional environments, how can we constantly do better?

We have a great track record on sustainability, but we can always do better and improve our practices. Meeting the AIA 2030 Commitment is going to be a challenge, so I’m always looking for ways to further incorporate sustainability into our projects. Utilizing the AIA Framework for Design Excellence will be an important template for accomplishing that.

Another principle I hope to lead with is increasing our equity at BWBR, which is something we’re always mindful of. And then finally, having an innovative spirit so our projects continue to be unique and fresh while supporting the work of our clients.

The post Stephanie McDaniel on Inclusive, Sustainable Design and 100 Years of BWBR appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• The sustainability director at Hastings architecture firm wants people to reconsider the way they talk about green building.
• Nashville’s Peabody Plaza at Rolling Hill Mill, completed in 2020, is one example of a sustainability conversation gone right.
• The core and shell project earned LEED Silver certification—a process Erica Weeks was heavily involved in as the LEED facilitator.

Ask any architect about where they first discovered their love for building, and most will cite a childhood fascination with LEGO or Lincoln Logs. But for Erica Weeks, it was a high school drafting class.

“I really found a fondness for the technical aspects of the projects that we were to emulate, draw up, and figure out. Give me a challenge, and I will figure out 10 ways to do it,” she says. “For me, buildings and architecture really came into that question of, how do I solve that puzzle every day?”

Now, in her role as associate principal and director of sustainability at the Nashville-based Hastings, Weeks spends every day doing just that: solving puzzles on green building. “I help across the board in specification language for sustainable materials, energy codes compliance, and making sure all of our clients are getting what they need for our projects,” she says.

In 2015 Erica Weeks was one of the first recipients of Hastings’ HYPE (Hastings Young Professionals Experience) Innovation Grant, which she used to further study biophilic design. Photo by Daniel Meigs

And the projects are plenty: Weeks works with every team at Hastings to identify sustainable solutions for multifamily and commercial spaces to health care and warehouse distribution. “I spend most of my day in emails and, honestly, doing math. It’s a lot of spreadsheets and crunching numbers and connecting different consultants to make sure they’re talking to each other.”

Communication is Key

Because Weeks touches so many projects, she works with a variety of people, and it’s her job to keep everyone on the same page. “I keep a work journal with ideas and tactics for communicating different ideas, not just to owners and clients, but also to project team members and consultants,” she says. “Unfortunately in the time we live in, where people are trying to do projects quickly, consultants might just want to stay in their silos and focus on their scope of work. But we really need those synergies between all of us to come out with the solutions.”

While many talk about including sustainable solutions as a pathway to LEED or other accreditation, Weeks tries to bring the focus back to the foundational intent. “I’m always zooming up to that 30,000-foot view and saying, ‘We’re really doing this because it’s going to save you X number of dollars and save Y amount of gallons of water,’ and then equating that to something like, ‘That is one half of an Olympic size swimming pool.’”

Giving that kind of visual is when Weeks sees a lot of aha moments, she says. But like anything, sometimes the tactic works, and sometimes it doesn’t. In her notebook Weeks will record the responses from the conversation down to the facial expression, and, depending on the feedback, try it again on another project or take a new approach.

“Keeping that work journal is the easiest way for me to think about every discipline I work with to make sure we’re getting those synergies across the board, so the civil engineer isn’t just thinking about what they need to do but how it also affects landscape, architecture, and mechanical design.”

Sustainability in Practice

Peabody Plaza, Nashville. Photo by Kendall McCaugherty, Hall + Merrick Photographers

Putting those strategies to work every day, Weeks and the Hastings team build innovative sustainable projects like Nashville’s Peabody Plaza at Rolling Hill Mill. Completed in 2020, the core and shell project earned LEED Silver certification—a process Weeks was heavily involved in as both the primary LEED facilitator and documenter.

“Unlike other high-rise buildings in an urban environment where you see 15 stories of garage, it was really such a beautiful site where the garage could be submerged and the plaza made on top,” Weeks says.

So that’s exactly what they did. The 1,005-car parking garage was buried five stories below grade, and the building was positioned along the western edge of the site to create a 37,500-square-foot pocket park. “You don’t even notice the garage. This way you also have this amazing public-use plaza and greenscape with amenities everyone feels they have access to, even though it’s part of a private development,” Weeks says. “In theory, if it was a dense urban project, you would see the 15 stories of garage, and then the amenities deck would only be for the people in the building.”

Instead anyone can come to Peabody Plaza, sit on the amenities deck, and overlook the skyline and the Cumberland River—an idea Weeks was able to watch unfold in real time. “They were installing the bike racks, and they had literally screwed them into the concrete and somebody came up on a bike within one minute and parked their bike,” she says. “It was hilarious. It was so cool to see that.”

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The amenity deck also features an impressive 5,745-square-foot green roof designed to echo the new park—a sustainable feature that decreases heat-island effect, reduces stormwater runoff, and improves stormwater quality.

“The most exciting part of the project for me is that we could capitalize on creating such connectivity and redefine how a high-rise works in that area of town,” she says. “A big thing for me is I want every day to be challenging, and I think that’s what led me into the sustainability role versus the traditional architect working one project at a time. The coolest thing I see is I’m able to connect something faster between teams because I oversee so many projects. It’s teaching people to think differently.”

Project Credits

Name: Peabody Plaza
Location: Nashville, TN
Completion: July 2020
Size: 290,000 square feet
Architect: Hastings
Interior Design: Hastings
General Contractor:
Brasfield & Gorrie
Structural Engineer:EMC Structural Engineers
Precast Concrete: GATE
Precast Glass & Glazing:Alexander Metals
Masonry: Jollay Masonry
Oko: Groove Construction
Landscape Architecture:
HAWKINS Partners

Photo by Kendall McCaugherty, Hall + Merrick Photographers

Photo by Kendall McCaugherty, Hall + Merrick Photographers

Photo by Kendall McCaugherty, Hall + Merrick Photographers

The post Erica Weeks on Improving Conversations Around Sustainability appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• Katelyn Chapin, associate at Svigals + Partners, is a 2021 recipient of the AIA’s Young Architects Award.
• The Bergami Center for Science, Technology, and Innovation is one example of her work, which promotes community and sustainability.
• Besides her architectural work, Chapin is involved in various committees dedicated to improving equity and diversity in the industry.

At a recent visit to her parents’ home, Katelyn Chapin unearthed a childhood travel journal from her early family getaways. Sprawled across its pages were not aimless doodles drawn in far-off places but floor plan sketches of the hotels they visited. “Growing up I don’t think I knew what the word architect meant,” Chapin says. “I can’t even recall seeing a floor plan. It was just how I expressed my ideas—through drawing.”

Chapin has always been a spatial thinker, going back to the first house footprints she ever made, drafted with LEGOs and wooden blocks. (They always included a driveway for her Barbies’ Corvette but were never quite built to the right scale.) Now an Associate at Svigals + Partners, Chapin is a 2021 recipient of the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Young Architects Award. It’s a testament to her design work, yes, but also her dedication to bettering the industry as a whole.

How She Got Here

When Chapin graduated from Roger Williams University in 2009, the US was in the midst of a recession. Landing a job in architecture was difficult, so she started work as a package engineering drafter before later joining Svigals + Partners, where she’s worked for the past 10 years. Moving from Massachusetts to Connecticut for the job, Chapin didn’t know anyone in the area—so she got involved.

“I didn’t have any contacts in Connecticut; I was moving here blindly,” she says. “I was looking for a network to be involved with like-minded people. I was active in the [AIA’s] Emerging Professional Committee early on in my career and eventually that moved into other roles.”

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In 2018 Chapin became the Young Architect Regional Director for New England and last year was selected as the Young Architects Forum Community Director, on top of her roles serving in two other national committees—the AIA’s Equity and the Future of Architecture Committee and Association of General Contractors Joint Committee.

“I have my foot in a little bit of everywhere,” she says. “I’m finding that my drive is really community-based and ensuring that there is equity and inclusion in our profession, and, especially with the recent recession, ensuring that we retain females in our industry.” Much of Chapin’s advocacy work centers on giving a voice to architects and improving visibility, “making sure young architects see other architects that look like them” while also providing resources to advance their careers.

Project Process

The LEED Gold Bergami Center was designed with community in mind, as the design team spoke with stakeholders across the campus to define the final project. Photo by Peter Aaron/OTTO

These roles are an added bonus to Chapin’s architecture work itself, which focuses on higher education and K-12 spaces. The Bergami Center for Science, Technology, and Innovation on the University of New Haven campus is a career highlight and a 2019 LEED Gold project. Chapin recalls that the university needed a new academic building, but it wasn’t sure, exactly, what kind of building it really needed.

“We had a stakeholder group composed of the deans of each of the schools, professors, administration, the design team—a little bit of everyone from campus. We brainstormed what types of spaces would be required for their campus,” Chapin says. “Being a community-oriented person, this was my favorite part of the process.”

Those initial conversations were more of a space for faculty to air out their grievances about lack of storage. “Then we did a tour of campus, and what professors realized was, ‘Oh man, I was complaining about my storage, but this other department doesn’t have any storage, and I do.’ And so they started to sympathize with each other, and that helped define what the space was going to be.”

The result was a sustainable, interdisciplinary hub for students on campus. “It wasn’t meant to be just a spot where students went for class and then left,” Chapin says. “It was going to be an environment where students would come, go to class, grab a coffee, sit in the atrium space, hop to another class, go use the makerspace—it was really intended for a half-day or full-day experience as a student.”

Green Building

Photo by Peter Aaron/OTTO

The site itself was an old parking lot, which was removed and replaced with plentiful green space to reduce the heat island effect and improve stormwater runoff. Bioswales were also added along the main road in front of the building to filter the water.

From an architectural standpoint, one of the building’s most noticeable elements is its golden exterior sunshades, meant to reduce solar heat gain. Indoors the team ensured there was copious daylight and views to the outside. “We prioritized products that were in a 500-mile radius and used low-emitting adhesives, sealants, paints, coatings, and flooring. In the end about 22% of our building materials were manufactured using recycled materials,” Chapin says.

The project also incorporates high-efficiency boilers and chillers, on-demand controlled ventilation, and low-flow fixtures that reduce water consumption by 40%. By the end of construction more than 93% of construction waste was recycled or went to a salvage center.

Photo by Peter Aaron/OTTO

“Because it’s an innovation center, we wanted to pay attention to how sustainability was expressed and also use building as a learning tool,” Chapin says. In the lower levels of the building, which include much of the building’s makerspaces, Chapin and the design team left parts of the structure exposed so students could see how the steel and the other materials formed the building.

Although students may not be able to see every single sustainable strategy up close, the university is doing its part to educate the community through green campus tours. It’s a tool not unlike those in Chapin’s own work, where education is key in uplifting and pushing the industry forward. She recently started a book club within the Svigals + Partners office to further dig into architectural topics that may not come up in the firm’s day-to-day work but are important to the future of the architecture.

“I feel like there has been a little bit of a pivot in the industry where 10 years ago we were talking about sustainable design strategies and how to implement them, but now that’s really just good design,” Chapin says. “Sustainability strategies and different types of materials—they are always evolving. There is always an opportunity to share the knowledge you have.”

Project Details

Project: Bergami Center for Science, Technology, and Innovation
Location: West Haven, CT
Completion: August 2020
Size: 45,500 square feet
Cost: $35 million
Architect: Svigals + Partners
Structural Engineer: Michael Horton Associates
MEP Engineer: BVH Integrated Services
Civil Engineer: Westcott & Mapes
Construction Manager: Consigli Construction Co.
Landscape Architect: Richter & Cegan
Interior Designer: Svigals + Partners
Energy Analysis: Karpman Consulting
Millwork: Millwork One; The Westmount Group
Acoustics: N.T. Oliva, Inc.
Flooring: Elegant Concrete Polishing, Inc.; Apex Tile, CRF Inc.; Ayotte & King for Tile LLC
Door Hardware: Builders Hardware; Kelley Bros
Glass/Glazing: K-Man Glass Corp
Paint: Kaloutas Painting
Signage: ABC Sign Corp
Curtain Wall: Advanced Performance Glass

The post Katelyn Chapin on Improving Community and Equity in Architecture appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• With wellness and equity at the core of its practice, WRNS Studio examines the ways design contributes to physical and mental well-being.
• Lilian Asperin, partner at WRNS Studio, talks a lot about designing higher education spaces that work for everyone.
• Flexible, multi-functional, healthy, and welcoming indoor/outdoor spaces that accommodate a wide spectrum of schedules, learning requirements, and activities put student wellness first.

When Lilian Asperin, partner at WRNS Studio, thinks about where she is today, she gets emotional.

She’s been doing this work for nearly 25 years, but still it’s sometimes hard to believe.

Today she plays a pivotal role in the designing, developing, and decision-making that results in some of the most groundbreaking designs happening in higher education—including the new UC Merced Arts and Computational Sciences Building in Merced, California.

Lilian Asperin is partner at WRNS Studio and co-chair of the AIA’s Equity by Design committee. Photo courtesy of WRNS Studio

“I come from a biracial background, born and raised in Puerto Rico, so I’ve always wanted to be of greatest service to the greater community, knowing not all of us are the same,” she says. “As a Latinx person, I was part of the 1%. There were not too many of us women going through architecture.”

Asperin is also co-chair of the AIA’s Equity by Design Committee, a group that’s committed to thinking about how architects impact much more than the built environment. They affect justice, too. “My practice has to do with paying it forward and connecting as many dots as I can—architecture-based education, wellness, opportunity. All of those things to me are synchronous.”

A key goal of the UC Merced project was to offer students an engaging, inclusive campus experience that supports evolving learning modalities with flexible, mixed-use spaces that blend student life with education.

The work is part of a Public Private Partnership (P3) delivery model and included a Triple Zero Commitment—zero net energy consumption, zero waste production, and zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. We talked to Asperin about this project and designing for wellness overall.

Photo by Jeremy Bitterman

How does wellness and well-being fit into design?

Wellness, to me, is health. Being healthy, having opportunities, having an ability to see a future for yourself in a profession and a way for you and your family to have generational wealth and knowledge and wisdom is something that we should be all striving toward.

As architects we’re natural pattern-seekers and system-makers. All of these things really have to do with how we nurture ourselves as humans and as networks of communities across generations. And now, making sure there’s justice, that all of these things are working together to elevate gaps where folks have not had the same level of opportunity.

With education it’s the same idea. The more you can turn information into data, data becomes knowledge, then knowledge becomes the reason for your activism. I see them as connected. When I think about higher education I think about: How are people learning? But I also think about how the faculty is teaching. What are people learning? How are campuses coming together, and how is an experience on-campus really building on all those smaller scales of education, like wellness and growing and becoming part of this world?

A brise-soleil, with angled cast-in-place concrete columns, runs along the south side of the building, offering students an outdoor, sheltered gathering space and comfortable transition from the quad to the interior. Photo by Jeremy Bitterman

How do you build that into the design process?

It starts with asking better questions at the beginning and then thinking, “Who else should we be asking?” Are we really engaging the broadest number of people to help us discover? Ask better questions and have a broader group of people to engage with. As architects we need to suspend thinking that we need to have the answer earlier. We need to train ourselves to listen longer and more attentively.

Yes, the physical space is the outcome, but do we have the right ingredients to reach that outcome? The process is a design opportunity. How are we getting to the components? How are we listening? How are we playing things back? That also has to do with equity and diversity and inclusion. We need to create spaces that welcome everyone.

Buildings have a great impact on the environment. I can’t not feel enormous responsibility for healing the planet and making better decisions and, frankly, not building more if we can adaptively reuse space. That’s a better answer—thinking about materials and carbon footprints, thinking about daylight. Do we need energy to turn on the light when you can plan the building in a way that it has more natural daylight?

That whole campus is the youngest campus in the University of California system. By definition, it’s out there—in a town called Merced, which is in the valley. The demographics in the valley are primarily Latinx, and a lot of the students are first-generation. So this building exists as part of a campus that is creating enormous opportunity for generations. It’s exciting.

Thinking about the valley, it’s very hot out there. How do you create a building where people want to hang out? When you hang out on campus you meet people and you learn and you create this whole learning experience. But how do you create a community that has nothing else around it? And how do you create a building that doesn’t harm the landscape and also make sure students and their families have a positive experience?

What about designing in a hot climate?

Because it’s super hot we designed exterior circulation. Our facade to the building envelope is called a brise-soleil, which is a shading device. We use the materials in the depth of the building to create a sheltered environment that’s outdoors. You’re not spending a lot of money conditioning the space, and you work with the natural environment and the winds to create a space where people feel comfortable hanging out in the shade. The brise-soleil is like a habitable space that creates shelter.

And every room has natural light?

Every single space in the building has access to natural daylight. That was really hard to do because there are deep, long spaces and spaces that are simply storage rooms. But if a human goes in there, we were considering a day in the life, so every single room has access to daylight and views, which is a huge commitment to wellness. Why should the professors in the corner office be the only ones who have a pleasant space?

an acoustical system inside the lecture hall is based on the geometry of wooden components, like piano bars, to create a 3D framework on the vertical and horizontal surfaces. Photo by Celso Rojas

Tell me about the lecture hall.

We designed an acoustical system inside the lecture hall that is based on the geometry of wooden components, sort of like piano bars that create a three-dimensional framework on the vertical and horizontal surfaces. We worked with the local community to find wood that was regional to the valley, and we designed the lecture hall around that species, which celebrates community. We used poplar, a regional FSC-certified wood species, so we can keep the contract and the economic benefits in the region.

How was color important to the UC Merced Arts and Computational Sciences Building?

We talked a lot about the quality of light in the selection of colors. Every color we considered we asked: Is it reflective of heat? The concrete itself is gray, and we left it natural because the lighter the color the more reflective it is, but also we didn’t want to spend any money on painting concrete. Concrete can be very beautiful.

The one color we picked was red; it’s in great contrast to the valley. It’s a very agrarian landscape. In some ways red to us was like the color of energy, like student life and the joy of learning and growing. This sort of celebrated life, and the red is really a good neighbor to green, or the agrarian landscape, and a simple alternative to the blue of the sky. The only dark elements you see are the shadows created by the light.

Photo by Jeremy Bitterman

Talk to me more about your love of concrete.

We love concrete. It’s such an honest material. It’s very sculptural. It’s very tactile. We actually built models to study how we were going to sculpt the concrete. When you look at the project from the front, it’s kind of like a lattice work. And the depth of the lattice work has to do with how much we want to use that to mitigate the sun. The deeper it is, the more shadow it creates, so the shadow is much more comfortable to be under.

We also varied the angle of those columns from floor to floor. As you’re walking down the brise-soleil, it’s a shaded walkway. We have a physical model of it, we reviewed the shop drawings, we looked at the concrete itself to make sure it was the right mix. Sometimes you can get concrete and it could be quite harmful for the environment. We paid attention to what is this material doing? It doesn’t absorb a lot of heat or retain it. It’s a really good—a naturally occurring way of avoiding heat gains or heat loss.

What is the future of design for higher ed spaces?

What about indoor/outdoor space? I’ll share a little from what’s in my head since a (SCUP, Society for College and University Planning) workshop I had this morning. We had a workshop with 60 people and 13 institutional leaders talking about what they’ve learned in the past year, what students need, and how are things changing after COVID. How are we thinking about campuses?

For me, I started thinking not just about indoor and outdoor space, but about designing through another lens. Of course we can design spaces, like a porch, or you can open doors or windows, but campuses are these incredible natural assets. Everybody remembers a beautiful tree they would go to after a class or a park where they used to talk to their professor. I think we should talk to the gardener and the groundskeeping crew. What do they know about the campus that we should be thinking about? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have class under a tree that’s 100 years old?

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If you’re a commuter student and you’re on campus for eight hours, and you have class for three hours, what are you going to do in between? Let’s think about the fact that you’re learning in between classes; you’re learning outside of the classroom. That’s wellness, too, right? Being outside lowers your stress. You’re breathing clean air.

Especially after COVID we love parks again. I think there’s going to be a renaissance. It’s another reason to build less—shouldn’t there be more open landscapes on campuses? I want us to have healthy campuses. Just imagine; maybe there’s a migratory bird path. You wouldn’t see that unless you were sitting out in the yard. And maybe that’s what you want to learn.

Project Credits

Project: UC Merced, Arts and Computational Sciences

Completion: August 2019

Size: 90,000 gross square feet

Cost: $60 million

Architect: WRNS Studio

The post Design for Equity in Higher Ed Architecture appeared first on gb&d magazine.

Story at a glance:

• Body Lawson Associates designed Home Street Residences in the Bronx, a 63-unit building made specifically to meet seniors’ needs. 
• The firm is also working on a large project called The Peninsula with WXY Studios in Hunts Point.
• Victor Body-Lawson is committed to designing affordable housing that empowers residents.

Victor Body-Lawson has a passion for designing buildings that give back to the communities around them. As the principal architect and founder of Body Lawson Associates, he creates affordable housing projects in neighborhoods like Hunts Point and Harlem that keep the diverse culture of New York City thriving.

His projects reduce gentrification by providing residences for local people and encouraging autonomy, educational growth, and healthy living. In addition to providing modern homes that support people’s personal and economic growth, his thoughtful designs increase the community’s curb appeal. We talked to Body-Lawson about defining affordable housing, his firm’s recent work, and the changing needs of communities.

Body Lawson Associates designed Home Street Residences to be affordable housing for seniors in the Bronx. Photo by Erik Rank

Let’s start by asking the simple but perhaps often misunderstood question: What is affordable housing?

Affordable housing is typically defined by the AMI, or average mean income, and it varies depending on area. Essentially, in New York City affordable housing is encouraged by the city to provide housing for people so they are not completely displaced.

For example, we did a project in Mount Vernon where the idea was to provide workforce housing. It’s for teachers, nurses, police officers, and city workers. In certain areas in New York City affordable housing is built for the formerly homeless, elderly, veterans, people with special needs, and low-income families.

We also do mixed-use projects. What I mean by mixed-use is the developer might not want to do 100% affordable. It could be 60/40 or 80/20, where you have 60% of apartments at market rate and 40% affordable. We’re currently working on a project on 124th Street in Harlem that’s 169 units. It’s part of a larger complex where the entire development will have about 400 units, but one building—the one we’re responsible for—will be 100% affordable and the other will be a market rate rental and condo building.

How do affordable housing designs compare to market rate designs?

We try to design our projects to feel, look, and perform like market rate projects. We do stone countertops and stainless steel appliances. We try to reach LEED Gold standards so the building is just as good as any other building.

In terms of materials, we want to make buildings feel like something you’d find in a market rate priced house. They are defensible spaces (residential environments whose layouts allow people to feel safe and secure), so when people actually get into this building they feel like they own it. They become part of it and make sure the buildings are taken care of as well as if they were their own homes and they weren’t just paying rent to live there.

Are there key features you include when designing affordable housing?

Community spaces are part of the program for most affordable housing projects. You would normally try to create a community space like a recreation room so residents can meet there. They could have birthday parties or tenant meetings, so that’s something we like to provide.

Sometimes we do mixed-use buildings where there may be a church or a grocery store on the ground floor. That starts to attract the larger community into the building. By making a mixed-use building you’re tying it to the community at large. Those are things we tend to do because it doesn’t isolate the building as a separate entity; it inserts it into the community.

How can community spaces adapt to meet residents’ needs?

Now with COVID-19 we’re starting to look at the public spaces within our affordable housing projects. Is it possible that instead of being a recreational room—which cannot be used at this time because it’s a closed indoor space—we could use that as an isolation center for residents who may be sick? Then we’d look at installing a better ventilation system—maybe getting HEPA filters in those spaces and making them much more robust for things like isolation for a short-term stay.

We’re also looking at the possibility of subdividing the recreational spaces with movable partitions so residents can do Zoom calls. We’re laser-focused on some of the community spaces in affordable housing projects, and the objective is to figure out ways to make them better, make them more empowering for people who live there, and adapt to needs as they change.

How do these projects affect communities in large cities?

If you look at cities you realize the value of real estate has been growing constantly. As that happens you see a lot of gentrification. You also see people who don’t have the resources to live in that environment—the teachers, nurses, police officers. Without affordable housing or without the cities, states, and federal government lending a hand to create affordable housing for newly graduated students, it would be almost impossible to live in large cities like New York City. A lot of cities recognize that and have been building affordable housing to accommodate the workforce to create a more diverse environment.

Tell us about Home Street Residences in the Bronx.

It’s a 63-unit building specifically for seniors. It’s completed and essentially occupied now, and the benefits that the residents are getting from living there are something that really makes me happy. Whenever I go there I find that most of the residents are happy.

It’s a mixed-use building with apartments on the second to eighth floors, and the ground floor has a large open space that is being occupied by a group that trains students as part of a gaming community called DreamYard. It’s really a building that has seniors on the upper levels and young people on the lower level and occasionally they come together—at least they used to before the pandemic. The connection between the two benefits both demographics. From a psychological standpoint the mix is good. The building is now a resource for learning.

What was the site like before?

There was a church on the site that unfortunately became dilapidated after members left and they didn’t have anyone taking care of it. It was boarded up, had a fence around it, and—for lack of a better word—it was an eyesore. One of the things they initially talked about was to try to re-create the church. I don’t think they were able to get enough interest to get members to come back so they decided to pull out of the deal. That’s how DreamYard came to take the space.

When we decided to move forward with the project we felt the building had to be demolished, but we wanted to keep as much as we possibly could. We took one of the cornerstones of the site and embedded it in one of the sitting areas in the rear yard. We also took church pews, restored them, and put those in the lobby. There was some wainscoting from the church. We took that, restored it, and made it part of the community room. We also took the Manhattan Schist of stone—the idea of that was what inspired the color of the building. We wanted to create a sense that this building that was formally there was now here but with a new design. And now it would be friendly because it has windows and eyes on the street.

How did you see the building fitting into its community aesthetically overall?

The building site was also something we took into consideration. It’s bounded by three streets so we wanted the building to look as if it was a church in a piazza, but a modern one. I considered the space in front of it as if it was a piazza, even though it is traversed with cars, and the building itself like a church even though it’s an apartment building.

When you see it, you see something that’s somewhat dominant. It’s not like a typical New York City building you look at obliquely on the street. There’s a frontal relationship from Home Street to the building, which was there when the church was there as well.

What are the accommodations like?

Home Street Residences, designed by Body Lawson Associates. Photo by Erik Rank

It’s an apartment building that is 100% affordable, and 30% of units are geared toward formerly homeless people. There is an onsite management company that helps to support them. They are typically one-bedroom or studio apartments, and there is a two-bedroom apartment for an onsite super. There’s a nice, open space in the back. There are a couple of roof terraces, a landscaped roof terrace, and an associated gym that’s next to the roof terrace. That’s something we are very proud of. There’s a recreational room on the ground level that’s opened to the rear courtyard for residents to use.

It’s also in what we call a transit zone. There’s a subway right next to it, which gives you access to the rest of the city and region. There are post offices, grocery stores, and a park that’s a 10-minute walk. It’s a walkable environment that’s really centrally located.

What’s the art like in the common spaces? Is it true there are a few Victor Body-Lawson originals?

Home Street Residences, designed by Body Lawson Associates. Photo by Erik Rank

One thing I’ve always enjoyed is painting. It gave me great joy to create paintings for each of the floors of Home Street. The paintings became wayfinding art on each floor. Each painting is different so when you get out of the elevator you get a sense of ‘This is my floor.’”

What else is your firm working on?

Body Lawson Associates is working with WXY Studios on The Peninsula, a mixed-use complex set to transform Hunts Point. Rendering courtesy of Body Lawson Associates

We’re currently working on a large project called The Peninsula with WXY Studios. We’re quite passionate about that because of the effect the project will have on the community. It’s creating a lot of jobs for people—in construction, in security, in all various aspects. It’s going to be a game changer in Hunts Point.

We designed The Peninsula to be a mixed-use complex on almost five acres with five buildings being built in phases. The second to 14th floors are residential, and they surround an open space that’s connected to the rest of the community. The base of the building has public spaces like a grocery store and school. It’s got an urban health center where people from the community and from the development can actually go. It’s got a venue for possibly recording videos. It’s got a bank. It’s got a brewery and a dance studio.

It’s a project that will change a lot of lives. It will make the community a much more powerful neighborhood. The site used to be a relatively notorious detention center, Spofford Youth Detention Facility, and when we started the project we interviewed the neighborhood and they categorically wanted us to demolish the building and the memory of the detention center. Essentially we are replacing it with a much more environmentally friendly, socially friendly, and economically friendly complex that will benefit the people who live there.

How does work like this and at Home Street reflect your mission?

Home Street Residences, designed by Body Lawson Associates, also includes a landscaped roof terrace with a gym right next to it. Photo by Erik Rank

We have a social obligation: How do we empower people? How do we move them from point A to point B? We want our buildings to be delightful experiences for whoever interacts with them.

I think that’s our mission—to give as much as possible to people so they feel empowered and like part of the community, that they are part of the city. The city needs that level of diversification, to show it’s not only a city for high network people; it’s a city for everyone—for middle-class people, for people who don’t have resources, for people who are formerly homeless, for people who may have mental health issues. The richness of the city comes from its diversification.

We feel like when you give people more, they become stronger at the end. When they live in that building, it acts as the vessel that moves them from one stage to the other. You want them to be psychologically balanced. You want them to be economically strengthened so that by the time they move to their next stage they have benefitted from living in that building. It’s not just a place for living, where you just rest your head, it’s a place that acts as a partner in empowering the person through their life.

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• Sara Hickman is the sustainability director at Retail Design Collaborative and Studio One Eleven, where she drives sustainable design practices.
• Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego is being reinvented as a tech hub with retail, dining, and more.
• The upgraded plaza is targeting LEED and WELL Platinum and includes a number of sustainability features, including an impressive solar array and San Diego’s first onsite blackwater system.

Growing up on a three-acre plot of land in Massachusetts, Sara Hickman has always felt connected to nature. But it was her love of math, art, LEGOs, and Lincoln Logs that really brought out the builder in her. Over time architecture became something Hickman and her family bonded over, particularly with her dad.

“My father was very much a Renaissance man,” she says. “Both of the houses I grew up in he built from scratch. He wasn’t an architect; he was in insurance and IT. Building was something he just taught himself.” Together Hickman and her father loved to pore over floorplans. On family vacations, they’d all drive around to look at houses and marvel at the architecture.

Hickman studied architecture at the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston before heading west to California. Although sustainability had always been an underlying factor in her life—something “built into who she is,” she says—it wasn’t until Hickman was studying for the LEED exam that she felt the pull to make a change in the green movement.

Courtesy of Stockdale Capital Partners

But not long after graduation, whispers of the recession began. “So instead of sending out a bunch of resumes, I got involved,” she says. Hickman started volunteering at USGBC-LA, Sustainable Works, and other local nonprofit sustainability groups, where she worked on a variety of projects, from creating graphics to teaching residents about sustainability. She also started attending trainings and conferences on her own dime to fully immerse herself in the sustainability world. “It was like getting a master’s degree,” she says.

But it paid off. Through her newfound connections, a friend put Hickman in touch with the owner of Leading Edge, where she worked as the sustainability manager, consulting on more than 20 millions square feet of LEED-certified space.

Courtesy of Stockdale Capital Partners

Education in Action

Today Hickman is the sustainability director at Retail Design Collaborative (RDC) and Studio One Eleven, where she has driven the firms’ sustainable design practices, educating staff and clients and advocating for environmentally friendly architecture to the outside world for the past three years. A board member of USGBC-LA, she practices what she preaches, biking or walking to work each day.

One of Hickman’s most recent successes is the Horton Plaza project in downtown San Diego. Built in the 1980s, the plaza was originally a mall—one so well-known people would come from out of state to shop there. A collaboration with design firm RIOS, the 10-block, nearly 1 million-square-foot project will now be reinvented as a tech hub, complete with retail, restaurants, public park space, and theaters.

“Horton is a dream come true,” Hickman says. “This is rare, but it was easy right from the start because ownership started asking very early who our audience is, and they tried to understand their wants and needs. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple—they all have very aggressive carbon emissions reductions toward net zero, so they knew we needed LEED Platinum; health and wellness factors, meaning WELL; and carbon neutrality as much as possible.”

Courtesy of Stockdale Capital Partners

Designing Green

As such the project, slated to be completed in summer 2022, will feature numerous sustainable elements. For one, a 2.5 megawatt solar array will stretch across the campus rooftops to achieve Net Zero Carbon for the new offices, which will be fully electric. The project also needed a new central plant, tied in with San Diego’s first onsite blackwater system, which will reduce potable water demand by 50%.

Hickman in particular is overseeing the LEED, WELL, and WiredScore—another point-based system focused on Internet connectivity and resilience—certifications of the project, which is targeting Platinum across all three certifications. Although there are a lot of components to each of these credentials, including specs for healthy materials, lighting, and acoustics, among the most relevant today is how the project is prioritizing indoor air quality.

“I’ve always wanted my WELL projects to incorporate air quality monitoring, and I’ve myself tested three or four different standalone systems to see how they compare to one another in our office, which is LEED Platinum and WELL Gold,” Hickman says. Her system of choice: Aircuity, an air quality monitor system often used in the medical field that spears out to individual spaces from one main hub, which means flexibility for both tenants and building owners. For the Horton Plaza project, because the team doesn’t know who will be working in the space, that flexibility is key.

Courtesy of Stockdale Capital Partners

“Some of those floor spaces are pretty big, and we don’t know how they are going to be broken out,” Hickman says. “The tenants can choose whether they want to hook into that existing Aircuity system. If they want to have their space measured for air quality, they can; it’s up to the tenant whether they want to install it or not.

“The other piece I love about this project is promoting active circulation,” Hickman says. “Just the nature of the project itself—it has a canyon that runs through the entire project with stairs going up and down, so it really promotes active circulation and wellness.”

And in the end, that kind of wellness, along with the project’s other sustainability initiatives, is exactly what Hickman has built her career around, stemming from those early projects with Lincoln Logs. “Most of us are seeking meaning in our lives, a sense of purpose and value,” Hickman says. “The sustainable design movement opened that door wide open for me.”

Project: Horton Plaza
Location: San Diego
Anticipated Completion: Summer 2022 
Size: 1 million square feet
Design Architect: RIOS
Executive Architect: Retail Design Collaborative 
Environmental Analysis: Atelier Ten
MEP Engineer: Integral Group
Blackwater Consultant: NSU
Structural Engineer: Miyamoto International
Contractor: Turner
Interior Designer: RIOS
Landscape Designer: RIOS

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