Clark Art Institute's Expansion in Final Phase

A few weeks ago, the Clark Art Institute held a press breakfast here in New York announcing the final phase of its expansion project. Admittedly, I’ve never made the trek up to the Berkshires, where the museum is situated, but I am surely tempted now. The Clark’s project brings together three major names of the architecture world: Pritzker Prize–winning Tadao Ando, Annabelle Selldorf, and landscape architect Reed Hilderbrand. The expansion isn’t due for completion for another two years, but until then, the institute has offered a preview of what these powerhouses are doing for the campus.

Osaka-based Ando is behind the new Visitor, Exhibition, and Conference Center, which will become the new main entrance and, thus, the first visitor encounter. Key design highlights include a light-filled glass concourse connecting the original museum to the new center; a massive reflecting pool (designed with Hilderbrand); a cafe/dining zones; and a multipurpose pavilion for installations or special events.

At first glance, one might find the minimalist center to be too simple or ordinary, but when I look back at Ando’s previous works (e.g. Water Temple and Church of Light, both in Japan), I’m reminded of Louis Kahn, whose Philips Exeter Academy library in New Hampshire alerted me to the fact that there was such a thing as “architecture” in my teenage years. Works such as these are all cerebral to me, as compositions one needs to experience first-hand to be stirred and moved. My hope is that, when viewing the new center and its reflecting pool, it’ll be as contemplative and spiritual an experience.

Selldorf is perhaps best known around here as the architect who gorgeously updated the Neue Galerie, as well as created the library-chic aesthetic of Abercrombie & Fitch stores that continue to pack in young fashionista crowds. Her role in this expansion is a renovation of the original museum building that will add more than 5,400 square feet of gallery space.

Here she’s showing some restraint so as to not disrupt the Clark’s original atmosphere. Of note will be new galleries for decorative arts that will offer intimate scale and residential-like finishes that complement decorative objects and furnishings. Selldorf is also leading the renovation of the institute’s Manton Research Center, a 1970’s structure that houses a library and administrative offices; her design will add a public courtyard-style reading room, bookstore, and coffee bar.

Hilderbrand’s plan for the 140-acre campus calls for a sweeping landscape design that’s environmentally sensitive. The main attraction will be the tiered reflecting pool, done in collaboration with Ando, which can be crossed via footbridge. The pool also acts as a reservoir, harvesting stormwater for reuse in plumbing and irrigation. Two miles of walking trails will provide greater and managed access to the site’s meadows, woodlands, and streams, and trail markers will inform visitors of the area’s geological features or conservation initiatives.

All images courtesy of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

Responding to a Flurry of Retail Growth: Designing to Address New Consumer and Operational Demands on China’s Retail Sector

By Cho Suzumura, Principal, MulvannyG2 Architecture

 
Here’s a quick testament to China’s growth: Its retail sales grew by 16.6 percent in the first five months of 2011, up from 14.8 percent for all of 2010. (United States-based retail sales for 2010 were 6.7 percent.)

But China’s continuing economic flurry also masks certain challenges its retail sector faces: the sophistication of Chinese consumers has markedly increased while the size and complexity of retail operations have grown unwieldy. The repercussions of each hold opportunity for architects and designers who recognize this gap between what exists and what could be—and can quickly offer value to this burgeoning market.

Let’s rethink architecture

As spending has escalated, Chinese consumers’ expectations have also increased, and there’s mounting pressure for China’s somewhat homogenous retail landscape to diversify. The challenge for local retailers, largely those in second- and third-tier cities, will be to ascertain how best to shape the design and development of more cosmopolitan marketplaces—one that focuses on satisfying not only what consumers want but what they desire, all while delivering memorable retail experiences.

The challenge

But what does a marketplace that offers greater differentiation look like? And in terms of a business structure, how can we, as designers, efficiently and effectively approach the two-headed business model—merchandising plus real estate development—to create one healthy retail entity?

Here’s a tangible example: Department store chains have focused on expanding their business throughout China to meet consumer demand and to position themselves as branded retailers against increasing foreign competition. For instance, a large, Beijing-based department store chain is expanding into six or seven different regions every year. The chain has reached a critical mass and now realizes there are limits to the area of the sales floor. As a solution, they’re turning to the shopping center concept to promote balanced, financially healthy shopping environments. But this is a paradigm shift that requires the navigation of new architectural talent, leasing, and operational territory.

As China’s retailers consider their operational strategies and changing marketplace, an important thing to keep in mind is that the key to successful differentiation is to implement a lifestyle merchandising strategy as opposed to a strategy driven by the sale of commodities. The design should define a targeted demographic, based on research and the understanding of what appeals to members of that group, and offer places, experiences, and things that appeal to its identity. This is how the most successful Western retailers stay not only afloat but ahead.

Cho Suzumura’s (Cho.Suzumura@MulvannyG2.com) more than 30 years of experience includes designing specialty stores, department stores, and shopping centers worldwide. Cho’s insight helps clients interpret and adopt retail system paradigms internationally. As a former director at Millennium Development Co. in Japan—owners of SOGO and Seibu department stores—Cho’s specialty is designing to appeal to lifestyle drivers.

A Hypothesis for the Future of Healthcare Design Training

 
What will training facilities for emergency staffers look like in the future? That’s the question the Herman Miller is seeking to discover via a collaborative design experiment with Yuri Millo, M.D., at the Washington Hospital Center MedSTAR's (Medical Shock Trauma Acute Resuscitation) new Simulation in Training Environment Lab (SiTEL) Clinical Simulation Center in Washington, D.C.

The Sitel facility (soft opening June 2011) was converted from a former bank space in the span of only four months, with the help of locally-based Burt Hill Architects. While the 6,500-square-foot space is minimalist in design and aesthetic style at best (we’re talking the barest of bones here—the concrete floor is exposed and all “room” dividers and furnishings are either on wheels or transitory in nature), its success in function and educational forethought pushes the innovation beyond what any flashy visuals might do.

Herman Miller worked with Doctor Millo to rethink how ER training and simulation spaces could be improved to enhance learning and better prepare professionals for the high-paced, oftentimes chaotic atmosphere associated with working in the ambulatory department. Traditionally, this training is held at the parent hospital in small-sized, individual classrooms. While this allows staff to easily take training onsite, it greatly limits their on-hands knowledge and practical application of the course materials, as well as poses noise issues. According to the doctor, this sort of training doesn’t need to be onsite as a sterilized environment is not required for simulations. “It’s about learning,” he says.

As such, the flexible learning space features a layout that can be reconfigured at a moment’s notice to align with the variety of daily simulation training courses being offered, and reflection areas for additional instruction and break time. The interiors are rearranged about every four hours (one per each daily course), which can be accomplished by just two employees.

The open floor plan view is only broken by four, floor-to-ceiling glass-walled classrooms positioned in a circle at the facility’s core. The glass is slightly etched and shaded at eye-level to maintain transparency but provide the necessary privacy for learning focus, as well as provide an intrinsic divider between the six simulation zones (shown below)—three partiion-separated sections on each side are equipped with functioning hospital equipment and high-tech simulation dummies—that line the left and right walls.

 
Here, trainees can practice real-life roleplaying that mimics care in an ER, with multiple beds, treatment areas, and “patients.” Observation stations on each side are equipped with LCD screens to monitor and record the sessions and 360-degree cameras in the ceiling spaces capture every moment. Once simulations are complete, students can reflect in the “learning lounges,” (shown below) a cluster of Herman Miller-customized workstations that offer privacy and technology for simulation games on computers.

 
“It’s a living lab experiment, and a testament to the functionality of design. It’s a really smart space in that we don’t restrict ourselves to one set-up—like in a theater where you have one stage that can house different scenes and plays,” says Doctor Millo.

With initial success, the team is expanding the concept in the coming months—a twin facility will open in October in Baltimore, and another is expected this winter in Boca Raton, Florida, while plans to create a model in a Canadian medical educational facility is also on the books.

“This is the hospital of the future,” Doctor Millo adds. “Students today don’t want to accept the old tradition of learning through reading a book—they want to be hands-on. This facility offers that and has already be shown to increase attendance among younger generations.”

 --Stacy Straczynski

 

 

The Ultimate 'Axor Experience' Is in the Details

 
Axor’s first North American design studio, Axor NYC, opened on September 19 in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Axor, the designer brand of kitchen and bath manufacturer Hansgrohe, is recognized globally for its exclusive collaboration with world-renowned architects and designers. Axor NYC showcases the entire Axor line of products for the United States, and features multiple vignettes and interactive working displays. Pictured above is the Axor Urquiola collection, designed by Patricia Urquiola. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Oleg March)
 
 
 
More of the sunlit space is showcased in this alternate view of pieces from the Axor Citterio Collection (above). Axor Brand Manager Philippe Grohe worked closely with Milanese architect Pietro Ferruccio Laviani to create the overall design of the space. Their visions were brought to life by the United States-based team Vincent Bandy and Andrew Reyniak, who worked hand-in-hand with the Axor and Hansgrohe USA teams.

Axor NYC is as a valuable resource for the industry and design-savvy public. Designers, architects, and consumers can visit the space, work with a product specialist and create a specification for their project. Swiss furnishings manufacturer Vitra occupies the first floor of the building and shares a portion of the second floor space.

 
The Axor Urquiola vignettes (above) create a great backdrop for the wide range of events that will be held in the space, including educational seminars, interactive demonstrations, and designer discussions.

 
The brand new Axor Citterio Single-Hole Faucet, Tall takes center stage (above). Every detail was addressed to ensure that visitors have the ultimate “Axor experience,” from a fully functional kitchen to a chic, yet comfortable conference/work area for specification reviews with the Axor Studio Manager.


--DDI, sister publication to Contract magazine

The Front of Retail Design: Store Windows Showcase

Retail shows off its visual prowess in the annual Store Windows Showcase from DDI, sister publication to Contract magazine. Take a look through these top eye-catching storefronts that are designed to draw in shoppers, and tell us in the comments section which ones are your top picks and why.

 
Anthropologie’s April 2011 windows at its Troy, Michigan, store celebrated Earth Day with this cork creation. Inspired by Anthropologie’s partnership with the Cork Forest Conservation Alliance (CFCA), the windows featured recycled cork wine stoppers, both left in their normal color and dyed. More than 4 million corks were donated by the CFCA, customers, and local businesses to create these giant, decorative plant balls. (Credit: Photos courtesy of Matthew Addonizio, Sabrina Ray and Rachael Gasperoni.)

 
Displayed at Hugo Boss’s 14th Street location in New York’s Meatpacking District, “Beautiful Things” featured an interactive neon window experience that the retailer collaborated on with artist Erika deVries. Written in deVries’s 7-year-old son’s handwriting, the phrase “I see beautiful things around you” glows from the windows. Hugo Boss invited onlookers to participate in the piece by photographing themselves standing within the “Beautiful Things” lit signage, and then posting the picture to Hugo Boss’s Facebook wall. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Hugo Boss.)

 
Saks Fifth Avenue New York originally used this Butterfly Router design as prosceniums framing each window on Fifth Avenue during the holidays, but Sanne Planting, associate director of windows production, revamped the idea and brought it back for Saks Fifth Avenue’s May 2011 window displays.
(Credit: Photo courtesy of Michael Ross.)

 
In May 2011, Bergdorf Goodman’s major Fifth Avenue windows in New York City were the site of an exhibition of 45 clothing items and accessories lent from the archives of Alexander McQueen. Designed by David Hoey, Bergdorf’s senior director of visual presentation, the window environments are replete with references to the late Alexander McQueen’s fashion designs, his runway shows, his inspirations and his verbal musings. The window exhibit was in tandem with the opening of “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Credit: Photos courtesy of Zehavi + Cordes.)

 
These windows for the Calvin Klein collection on New York’s Madison Avenue feature this enlarged, sepia-colored bird. Designed by Dale Rozmiarek, senior vice president at Calvin Klein Inc., the display was created to evoke the strength, intensity and power that describe the Calvin Klein brand. (Credit: Photos courtesy of James Lattanzio.)

See more inspiring storefront designs at DDI's Store Windows Showcase, Part I and Store Windows Showcase, Part II galleries. 

Student Hubs: The New Campus Hot Spot

 
By Jeff Vredevoogd

As summer turns to fall, schools everywhere are preparing for a flood of students, and this year’s incoming class may be more connected than ever before. Yet while technology continues to support the ongoing evolution in teaching and learning, research shows there’s no substitute for direct face-to-face collaboration. This need for constant collaboration and connection is driving the emergence of a new type of learning space across college campuses—“hub zones” that offer a place for students to meet, gather, and work together.

Students look for spaces that help them connect with others before, during and after class. But what makes a hub hubbable? How much campus space should be dedicated to these zones? How can college administrators support the design of these spaces?

A survey of higher education facility planners, architects, and designers, Hub Life: Insights that Shape Campus Spaces. Simultaneously, we gathered insights from students–-primary users of hub spaces on campus-–inviting them to highlight their hubs in a short video contest submission. The results reveal some interesting touch points about hub zones:
 
• They enable teamwork. More than 70 percent of respondents identify collaboration as the primary benefit of hub zone learning. It may seem obvious that people depend on hubs when they need to hold team sessions, work on group projects, and meet with others.

• Technology is top priority. Nearly half of respondents note technological capability (WiFi and electric power) as being important to hub design and layout. Technology needs to be there as an enabler–like a sail on a boat rather than the anchor tying the user to one place.

• Accessibility is key. On average, up to 30 percent of space in student buildings, residence halls and libraries is allocated for hub zone use. As you walk a facility, you quickly see examples of hub spaces, even in areas you didn’t expect.

• Design to adapt. Flexibility is the number one trend in hub zone furnishings, including ease of maneuverability and white board access. At the same time, adaptive spaces are multi-use spaces, with elements that don’t always include casters.

• Size matters. The majority of respondents say zones should be designed for less than 10 people. Most facilities have more dedicated spaces (classrooms, conference rooms, etc.). Hub zones fall everywhere else. They are the places where planned or unplanned activities take place.
 
These results reinforce something we all know—a college campus is a dynamic, humming, communal place. Successful learning spaces, including hub zones, encourage engagement, which drives deeper levels of learning. The design and planning that goes into hub creation reinforces the diverse learning styles, design requirements and activities that these hubs support. 
 
To learn more about hub zone design and the research survey, contact herman_miller_education@hermanmiller.com.
 
As director of Herman Miller Education, Jeff Vredevoogd leads the effort to expand the understanding of evolving learning trends and the impacts on higher education environments. With more than 25 years experience in the commercial furniture industry, Jeff partners with higher education leadership to develop spaces that have a positive impact on teaching and learning. He is a member of Educause, the Society for College and University Planning, and Acuho-i.

Scoring with Sustainability

There’s no denying that sustainability offers not only a winning strategy for environmental protection but for the reduction of operation costs as well. As such, many sports organizations like the NFL and MLB have put their own colors aside in recent years to jump on board with the “green team” and renovate America’s stadiums to feature a variety of technologies for clean energy.

 
Most recently, plans were announced this week for a solar installation at FedExField, home of the Washington Redskins. Design firm DLR Group and NRG Energy will collaborate to install 8,000 panels across 850 spaces in the stadium’s Platinum A1 Parking Lot—which will generate up to two megawatts (MW) of electricity—and about 200 translucent solar panels will be placed on the exterior of the NRG entry plaza at Gate A pedestrian entry ramp. The plaza entrance also will house two sculptures of football players created with thin film solar technology to produce even more energy for the stadium.

Additionally, 10 electric vehicle charging stations from NRG’s eVgo^sm charging network will be added to the grounds and kiosks in parking lot A1 and the NRG entry plaza on the west corner of FedExField will provide fans with information about renewable energy and NRG clean energy solutions. The project will be complete this September in time for the 2011 NFL football season.

 
Also set for a September completion is an energy-saving endeavor which will allow Lincoln Financial Field, home to the Philadelphia Eagles, to become the world’s first sports stadium to fully convert to self-generated renewable energy. Solar Blue will cover the stadium’s façade with 2,500 solar panels, set 80 20-foot wind turbines atop the stadium rim, and operate a 7.6 megawatt onsite dual-fuel cogeneration plant to save an estimated $60 million in energy costs. All of the technologies will be controlled via an executed monitoring and switching technology.

 
The Seattle Seahawks announced in May that they are striving to decrease their carbon footprint, too. Solyndra solar panels will be installed by McKinstry to the roof of Qwest Field. The thin-film, tube-shaped CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, and selenide) solar cells will cover 2½ acres (80 percent) of the stadium. Light reflecting off the stadium’s existing “cool roof”—which serves to reduce heat absorption—should add to the production of electricity as it is captured by the new panels. Qwest Field’s utility costs are expected to shrink by 21 percent. The project expects completion sometime this summer.

 
Solar Blue has also held a relationship with the Boston Red Sox. GroSolar installed a solar thermal system manufactured by Heliodyne Incorporated on the roof of Fenway Park’s fifth floor media level in 2008. Thirty-seven percent of the gas used for heating is offset by the system, avoiding 18 tons of CO2 emissions. (The amount of emissions conserved can be compared to not driving a car for 43,611 miles!) Solar Blue is now considered the official energy conservation partner of the baseball team and Fenway Park.

 
Across the country from the Red Sox lies the first existing ballpark to attain LEED Silver status, San Francisco’s AT&T Park. In 2007, Solar Design Associates was commissioned by the Giants baseball team to install 590 Sharp solar panels to supply energy to Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) customers in the San Francisco area. The stadium’s Diamond Vision scoreboard also is sustainable—it uses 78 percent less energy than the ballpark's original scoreboard.

It’s great to see that sporting venues are picking up the pace on sustainable design, especially since they hold such a prominent spot in the public eye. But it seems that these types of projects still have a long way to go when it comes to transitioning to the greener side of the fence. Why do you think stadiums have been so slow to renovate to decrease their carbon footprint? What can designers do to encourage facility managers and team owners to invest in green design?

--Raysha Armbrustmacher

Belly Up to the Container Bar

Once a dull neighborhood, Austin’s Rainey Street was in need of an invigorating transformation—and there’s nothing like an iconic bar with a unique design to do the trick. Scheduled to open December 31, Container Bar will be constructed of stacked recycled metal shipping containers assembled to form a central courtyard. Bridget Dunlap, a local nightlife owner with three other bungalow-style venues in the area, is the first to take on such a concept in Austin.

 
New flooring, windows, and artistic accents will enhance the containers, giving each box its own identity via the interior decor. The bar will be fit with classy bathrooms, air-conditioning, and eco-friendly LED lighting. For fun, a movie screen and stage will be included among other amenities. The exterior will remain weathered. Container Bar will be a LEED compliant space.

Contrary to popular belief, Dunlap is not an interior designer but rather a businesswoman; despite the lack of a design background, she has pulled together authentic spaces with a few objects as inspiration, allowing for the rest to fall in place.

 
"Anyone who knows me will tell you that I get easily bored, so I worked out my creative juices and restlessness through developing my ideas for Rainey Street. I love the rough look of the old shipping containers,” says Dunlap. “Container Bar will be a stunner.”

Dunlop's endeavor is just another instance of shipping container architecture to hit the news in recent years. What do you think about the salvaged container trend? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
 
--Raysha Armbrustmacher

Rethinking Details: How to Stretch Your Hospital Design Budget

 
By Doug Bazuin, senior healthcare researcher for Herman Miller Healthcare

When we design hospital patient rooms, we know that fast-paced medical advances and unpredictable shifts in government policy mean the facilities we design today must survive many changes.  But we need to keep smaller changes in mind too. Over time, these small details can add up to either big savings or big costs for the facility, depending upon the level of consideration we give them in the design process. 

Discussions with more than 550 healthcare professionals reveal that a positive patient experience and good infection prevention are two of the most important patient room design goals and the areas where details most matter. 

Preparing for changes

In designing a comforting patient room, a detail often overlooked is soiled linen. Oftentimes, a beautiful patient room design must utilize a less-than-attractive solution for dirty laundry disposal. One option for such situations is to hide the receptacle behind a door in a cabinet, but this requires extra steps for the caregiver.

The same can happen with exposed gloves and sharps receptacles. For gloves, organizing them by size and or type can help and concealing them in a cabinet also can be a good option. A solution for the institutional sharps container may be to mount it to a tool rail so its location can be changed with minimal disruption to the room.

Hand sanitizer brands and vendors can change frequently, which means new dispensers also tend to be frequently replaced. The cost of repairing the drywall and touching up the paint every time a dispenser is changed typically is not considered in the initial purchasing decision. Similarly, research uncovers that many automatic/touchless paper towel dispensers in patient rooms needed to be removed, due to the surplus noise they generated. Any initial cost savings were eliminated by the cost of needing to change dispensers. 

Asking these questions early on can solve some of these problems before they occur:
• What is the preferred process for handling soiled linen?
• Who empties the hamper and how often?
• Are there any good options for disguising the hamper?
• Can paper towel dispensers be hidden?
• How frequently will towel and soap dispensers be changed?
• How often do the locations or sizes of glove boxes and sharps receptacles have to be changed?
• Would the initial cost of a tool rail mounted on the wall to make changes nondestructive be less than ongoing wall repairs?

Small solutions for greater infection prevention

Despite the uncertainty and frustration associated with infection prevention issues, hospitals demand infection control measures. How a hospital applies infection prevention measures to its patient rooms can have a big impact on design choices.

In our research on hand washing, we focused on the sink and faucet design of the caregiver hand-washing station.

If the primary purpose of the hand-washing station is just that, then temperature control might not be required.  A touchless faucet that automatically mixes hot and cold water to achieve a selected temperature may be a good choice. But surprisingly, concerns about overly sensitive sensors have trumped the infection control advantages of not having dirty hands touch the handle. New technologies to improve sensor performance continue to deliver better results.

If the care process requires hot water drawn from this faucet for giving bed baths rather than the bathroom sink, the water temperature needs to be controlled with foot pedals or wrist blade handles. Foot pedals allow for independent operation of hot and cold water and are touchless, but they can be difficult to clean.

Here are some infection control questions to be asked when designing a patient room:
• Have you sufficiently engaged your infection prevention professional in the design of details?
• Does your infection prevention professional require the soiled linen hamper to have a lid?
• Which works best for how you need the faucet to operate—wrist blade handles, foot pedals, or sensors?
• Will the automatic sensing faucet operate on batteries, power, or emergency power? And if you choose a battery-operated faucet, has a preventive maintenance plan been put in place?
• Do the size, shape, location, and operation of the sink and faucet help prevent the spread of infection?

In the end, it always pays to sweat the small stuff. What other small details in healthcare design do you feel can help hospitals and other medical facilities keep up with changes?

Doug Bazuin is a senior healthcare researcher for Herman Miller Healthcare. He possesses 10 years of new product development experience and has been involved with several new product launches.

Reflecting on NeoCon® 2011

While many NeoCon® attendees and exhibitors are "extreme veterans," I have managed to gain a wealth of knowledge in my now two years at the annual design trade show, as well as create memories suit to look back on once I completely transform from student to professional upon graduation.

Creative showroom concepts such as Haworth's color blocks, Allsteel's situated classroom settings, Boyd Lighting's simplictic display of Roger Thomas fixtures and InterfaceFLOR's transformation to rich organic patterns reminds me that presentation is key. There were also great presentation examples on NeoCon's temporary floors. Silestone's exhibit GLIMMER featured project from Yves Behar's Fuse Projects presented at his 2010 NeoCon keynote, and Architecture for Humanity, Chicago's Food Desert Caravan on their "Life" collection quartz blocks.

From last year to this year, I would say the biggest change of in my experience, is getting a crash course in multi-tasking being an exhibitor working with the Casual For Contract Booth, being an attendee and citizen blogging with Designer Pages. (I certainly kept busy! But I did find some time to relax in a seat from Allsteel's Inspire Collection, shown above.) But I think it is safe to say that my greatest experience was having the opportunity to meet other students and young designers and share what we all wanted to contribute to the design industry. My generation is so optimistic and their outlook on the future of the industry has me excited all over again. I can't wait!

-- La Keisha Leek, design student blogger for Contract