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July 30, 2009 By: Category: Home Design, Modern Home
This New Contemporary Family House with Green Technology is designed by Eldridge Smerin.
This house is designed as a new contemporary family house to replace an existing bungalow on 400 square meters site. It’s situated in Ulcombe, Kent. The construction process was optimized as much as possible by prefabrication of many elements. Green technology was used as much as possible in a series of rectangular volumes on two levels around a screened courtyard. Cross laminated solid timber panels form these volumes and finished with panels of slatted timber and glazed. Timber panels also cover a lot of interior walls and have a waxed finish. Two levels of the house are linked by an open spiral staircase of plywood. There are also an indoor swimming pool and double garage on the site.


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July 29, 2009 By: Category: Architecture
This Stryker New Medical Technology Facility is designed by ESA Architects, located in Newbury, Berkshire, United Kingdom.
Although the building has been designed for the specific needs of the client, requiring some deep-plan assembly areas, an important aspect of the original brief was to ensure that the base-building could revert back to a regular ‘institutional’ office building that conformed to typical BCO codes of practice.

Externally the proposed building uses a palette of three materials; glass, bronzed metal cladding and cellular translucent polycarbonate panels to the assembly areas.
The consultant team included Cushman Wakefield (Project management), Meinhardt (M+E and Structures), Stuart Pearson (Landscape), Peter Bretts (Highways), WT Partnership (QS) and Barton Wilmore as Planning Consultants.

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July 25, 2009 By: Category: Architecture
This Sears Tower Renovation is designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, located in Chicago, United States
According to the U.S Department of State, buildings account for an estimated 36 percent of overall energy use, 65 percent of electricity consumption, 30 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions and 12 percent of water use in America. Green improvements to Sears Tower are aimed at reducing electricity use by 80% in just four years, equating to 68 million kilowatt hours or 150,000 barrels of oil per year. The architects firm responsible for the retro-design, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, has also designed a 50 storey highly sustainable tower to accompany Sears Tower on its south side which will draw power from the improved efficiency measures and work as a net-zero energy development.

Sears Tower’s Chicagoan neighbour, Merchandise Mart, was an earlier example of monumental eco retrofitting in America gaining LEED Silver and becoming the world’s greenest certified commercial building. As the world’s tallest tower for 24 years, the retrofitting of Sears Tower will be a significantly larger undertaking, with all 110 stories incorporated in the changes.

Improvements include removing all 16,000 single-pane windows and swapping with modern replacements, modernizing the tower’s 104 high speed elevators, harnessing renewable energy through turbine and solar technology, introducing green roofs to reduce storm water run-off and improve insulation as well as creating the world’s tallest vistas for tenants and upgrading facilities throughout to use more efficient technology.
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August 05, 2009 By: Category: Architecture, Home Design
Located in St. Louis, United States, Power House was designed by Cannon Design with new interior design.
“This award represents the final feather in the cap for the Power House project team,” notes Thomas Bergmann, AIA, LEED AP, project principal. “LEED® Gold certification was one of the key goals when we began this project.” Built in 1928, the Power House, an original part of the Municipal Service Building complex, still occupies an entire block of downtown St. Louis. Until the 1980’s, the Power House component of the complex provided coal-fired steam heat to a dozen downtown buildings. After standing vacant for nearly 30 years, Cannon Design purchased the historic Power House in 2007, providing all design, development and construction management services for the project. The exterior shell and original structural steel were fundamentally sound but use for a large, thriving design practice required significant imagination and rigorous design analysis.

Every component of the building’s interior is new and designed both to current life-safety codes as well as the USGBC’s standards for environmental sustainability. Designated as a landmark by the National Historic Register, the “Revival style” exterior has been fully restored. Having a relatively small “foot print” but a massive volume offered the opportunity for the addition of new floors necessary to accommodate continuing growth in St. Louis. The concept of “mezzanines” has preserved the signature arched windows on the north and east elevations and provided wonderful gallery and exhibit space for the firm and the community. Additional external modifications include the creation of a 3,500 sf urban garden. The interior, which was essentially an empty shell, was completely rehabilitated, with installation of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical infrastructure.

Cannon Design is an ideas based practice, ranked among the leading international firms in planning and design for healthcare, science & technology, education, sports & recreation and government clients. At present, the firm employs a staff of 800, delivering services in 17 offices throughout North America, as well as abroad in Shanghai, China, and Mumbai, India.


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July 15, 2009 By: Category: Architecture

With the creation of a new Library / Learning Resource Center, the once exclusively vocational college now offers associate degrees, enabling the students to transfer to four-year colleges and universities. Strong formal elements; grand portal, bisecting spine, elegant stair and bridge, play against the structural grid, forming a lively entry courtyard and sculpting the relationship to context and the spatial experience of users.

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