The library is conceived as a platform, with a unique intermediate post (10.80m range). All spaces are planned on a regular grid of 1.80m x 7.20m, which organizes all architectural and technical devices (lighting system, ventilation, furniture, façade, etc.) of the library in order to offer an open and flexible interior space.

The building envelop is designed as a “smart” skin, which controls internal spaces ambiance as well as views. The facade system is inspired by pine cone scales, which open or close according to the level of humidity in the air. The full height glass curtainwall is protected by wooden sun-shading, which angles changes along the facade according to the orientation of spaces. This system allows a gradual transition from protected zones to opened and transparent zones. This sun-shading is vertical for a better answer to the main western orientation of the building.

“There are a number of factors at play here that are contributing to one of the steepest construction downturns in generations,” says AIA chief economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “We have businesses nervous about expanding their facilities, a fragile financial sector, excess commercial space and general unease in the international economy. Things should begin to turn around midway through next year with retail and hotels expected to see the strongest growth, along with health care and amusement and recreation facilities.”

Altoon + Porter transformed the CentralWorld, from an introverted complex world trade center maze into an engaging functional space allowing visitors to be exposed to the elements of modern design. As the second largest shopping complex in Southeast Asia, CentralWorld is the civic heart of Bangkok’s main shopping district. The project has been redeveloped as a mixed-use center designed to bring the excitement of the annual New Year’s Eve countdown all year round. It includes retail, offices, entertainment, leisure and hospitality space, as well as a visually stunning seven-story high, 350-meter long glass façade capable of hosting a digital Media Wall with the potential to project multiple LED images, ticker tape and lasers. The new high-tech face of the phenomenal center looks out on a revitalized plaza complete with fountains and gardens.

The redesign transforms the existing eight-story maze by opening up the plan and optimizing vertical circulation including stairs, escalators and elevators to the space behind the glass façade. In addition, the entire complex is a transit oriented development by virtue of a new bridge link to an adjacent train.

Just days before ICSC announced the “Best-of-the-Best” awards, political upheaval struck in the Bangkok shopping district, where rioters torched a portion of CentralWorld. Fortunately the damage from that event only affected one-sixth of the retail space.

“I just can’t adequately express my sadness about it,” said Ronald A. Altoon, FAIA, partner of Altoon + Porter Architects. ”It’s just tragic, but the mall will be rebuilt,” he said. “It was not only the largest shopping center in Thailand, but also the best-performing, so I look forward to the next iteration.”

Altoon + Porter Architects’ project team included: James F. Porter, AIA, partner-in-charge; Ronald A. Altoon, FAIA, LEED® AP, CDP, partner-for-design; William J. Sebring, AIA, design partner; and Mitchell Lawrence, AIA, CSI, project manager.

Ennead derives from the Greek term for a group of nine and expresses the aspirations and dynamic spirit of the practice as an innovative, collaborative and ever-evolving studio environment at the forefront of contemporary architecture and design.

The partners also announced that they are creating Ennead Lab, a private foundation dedicated to research, education and advocacy. The foundation underscores the partners’ conviction that beyond individual, commissioned projects, a vital architectural practice has responsibilities to society to address challenging issues of immediate concern. In so doing, architecture can become an instrument for positive artistic, social, technological and ecological change.

Ennead Architects’ work is diverse in type, scale, and location and ranges from new construction to renovations and expansions to restorations and master plans.

The firm has designed numerous buildings and structures, including the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History, the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and the renovation of Carnegie Hall.

Paul Cocksedge Studio has designed Drop, a series of 3-metre high, polished, stainless steel discs situated on Festival Terrace that will reflect the buildings and landscape around the Royal Festival Hall. Cocksedge conceived Drop as “huge coins that have fallen to earth from a giant’s palm and buckled on impact.” In fact, the giant coins are magnetized to encourage human interaction, enabling passers-by to place spare pennies on the reflective surface, as a result altering the appearance of the installation. As more pennies are added, the work will evolve in front of the public’s eye as Drop’s surface becomes plated in copper. The ultimate aim is for each penny given, a pound will be donated to charity. Drop is being produced by FORMTEXX using its new process for creating double curvature facades.

In addition, architect David Chipperfield has created The Space in Between, a cityscape of nine modular blocks ranging from 2.8 metres to 5.8 metres high and covering 175 square metres. The Space in Between seamlessly transforms from shimmering towers in the sunlight to glowing, jewel-like beacons at night.

Chipperfiedls is working with Sefar®, a manufacturer of architectural textiles and glass manufacturer Bischoff Glastechink (BGT). With a light source hidden in the base of each block, as day turns to night each will begin to glow and the towers’ solidity, apparent in the day, will fall away, encouraging a new relationship between the cityscape and the audience. The installation, on Southbank Centre Square, is overlooked by the various elevated walkways at Southbank Centre as well as the street and surrounding plazas. The total composition oscillates between a large still life and a small cityscape where the space in between becomes the protagonist in the balancing of mass and space.

When producing the site-specific installation, Cosma aimed to create a transition space balanced between the frenetic modern activity of Times Square and the cool geologic calm of glacial ice that covered Manhattan millennia ago. The full experience of this piece comes from walking through the building, around the lobby and back out to the street. A reflective surface behind the glass enhances the play of changing light and colors that Times Square brings, and the deeply topographical textures invite pedestrians to touch and experience the art in a tactile way.

The glass installation wraps around the building’s entire lobby, spanning the two entrances.

“It’s an incredible piece and one that really lights up and enhances the space,” says Ed Piccinich, the executive vice president of SL Green, the real estate company that owns the building.

Working closely with Cosma, SCHOTT delivered 1,000 textured panels made of LF5 crystal glass for the project. The glass panels total 4,000 square feet and weigh almost 60 tons. Each textured panel fills an area 16- x 36-inches and is 2 inches thick. The individual panels rest on two hidden metal clips secured to steel columns. Four small mounting indent holes drilled into the top and bottom edges of each panel and nylon pins keep the panels locked in position. Glazing caulk was used to seal the joints between the panels.

“I’ve had extensive experience using SCHOTT glass,” says Cosma. “My main performance criteria for choosing SCHOTT were the color consistency, purity, transmission and uniformity of the glass. It’s the finest crystal glass in the world and I love working with it.”

For the atrium, the complexity of replicating the multifaceted twinkle of crystal, in a span of over 18 meters on a mountaintop, posed significant design challenges. A larger technical design team, led by Vancouver-based Stella Custom Glass Hardware, was involved early in the design process and worked closely with Cannon Design to devise the solution. A design was created that incorporated the use of Stella’s tension cables and point-supported glass hardware to sustain more than 90 uniquely shaped pieces of glass, angled at different directions in the 3D space.

“Sparkling Hill Resort has been an interesting project for our firm. This was a unique design, and proved quite challenging; in particular, how to actually support the glass in our crystal atrium,” says Christopher Rowe, MAIBC, MRAIC, LEED AP, vice president of Cannon Design. “By adding companies like Stella to the mix we were able to complete our original vision: a structure on a mountaintop that literally sparkles.”

“Creating the complex support structure for the atrium was a challenge,” adds Roy Lamont, president of Stella Custom Glass Hardware. “What makes Stella unique is we work collaboratively with the architects and designers from the beginning of a project, so we can make the architectural vision a reality.”

The glass and aluminum globe was manufactured by Super Sky Products Inc. of Mequon, Wis. Created as a custom skylight and installed by J.B. Mouton Builders, the structure rises 59-feet and reaches 47-feet at its widest diameter. Linetec finished the skylight’s aluminum framing in clear anodize.

“This provides a durable, protective exterior, giving it excellent wear and abrasion resistance. The resulting finish is the second hardest substance on Earth, second only to the diamond,” says Tammy Schroeder, Linetec’s marketing specialist. She adds, “The clear anodize also highlights the high-tech aesthetic of metal, which makes it a great match for this project.”

The glass area spans 7,815-square-feet and is comprised of clear, laminated, heat-strengthened lites featuring two, “cool white,” PVB interlayers. Fabricated by Prelco Inc., the laminated glass provides hurricane impact-resistance for the coastal zone and presents a cloudy, translucent appearance that is illuminated to enhance the visual effect.

In November 2009, Pixel Magic, which provides digital visual effects for motion pictures and television, announced it will open a Louisiana studio at LITE. The company plans to create 12 jobs within a year, ramping up to a total of 40 jobs in three years.

The center was designed to incorporate passive cooling, taking advantage of the site’s coastal Pacific winds. Private offices, for instance, are equipped with glass sidelites and operable clearstory windows to allow in natural light and air to move through the private and public spaces. Also, in the staff break room, an eight-panel SL70 NanawWall that’s 25-feet wide connects to an outdoor terrace. In the conference room a five-panel NanaWall system allows the room to be modified to accommodate large events while providing access to the covered patio and water feature.

“NanaWall provided the design team with a complete window-wall system that addressed our goals of connecting spaces to one another—both interior and exterior,” says Adam Woltag, AIA, LEED AP, associate partner with WRNS Studio. “The SL70 gave us the ability to open spaces up to the outdoors and drive home our desire to connect and ground the building to its context in a direct, honest and cost-effective way.”

As the centerpiece of Chabot College’s green intelligent building initiative, the CSSC deploys SageGlass as a strategic element of an integrated daylighting control system to manage sunlight and heat gain. The dynamic glazing tints or clears within minutes, helping reduce energy consumed for air conditioning, heating and lighting.

The CSSC also features radiant heating and cooling in the atrium’s concrete slab in lieu of traditional forced air heating and cooling. In addition, the facility is engineered with roof and ceiling “Air Scoops” to provide natural ventilation.

“The CSSC represents the first critical point of contact our new students have with Chabot College, and we believe strongly in optimizing occupant comfort factors that work in concert with energy efficiency design principles,” said Doug Horner, project manager with Chabot Community College. “This one-of-a-kind facility accomplishes this by using advanced design elements such as Acutherm diffusers that allow for adjustments to the thermal environment by each occupant. The CSSC also provides natural daylight in all occupied spaces and access to outdoor views, while controlling the amount of light in the building to reduce heat gain as a means of increasing the comfort level of occupants.”

From an energy efficiency standpoint, the CSSC is targeting an energy reduction of 42 percent based on LEED Energy & Atmosphere Credit 1 (EAc1) and a renewable energy production of 12.5 percent based on LEED EAc2.

“The design approach we’ve taken for the CSSC delivers exceptional energy efficiency, due in large part to a ductless heating and cooling system,” said Phil Newsom, senior project manager with tBP Architecture. “That system would not be possible without deploying SageGlass [which,] controls the amount of sunlight entering the two-story space. As a result, it’s become an architectural enabler that has allowed us to create an HVAC-free space.”

“The CSSC is an amazing facility that demonstrates how energy efficiency and occupant friendly design principals can complement one another by integrating best-in-class sustainability technologies,” said John Van Dine, chief executive officer with SAGE Electrochromics. “We are proud that SageGlass is a key element of this remarkable, highly sustainable facility.”