UNITED STATES
The $99 million Rafik B. Hariri Building, which opened earlier this year as the new home of Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, has cleaned up at the Washington Business Congress Craftsmanship Awards. The building comprises 15 conference rooms, 15 classrooms, 34 breakout rooms, 11 interview rooms, a 400 seat auditorium, two lounges and 120 faculty offices. A glass atrium serves as the core new building. At the awards, the building was honoured for its slate and copper roofing, exterior stone masonry work and glass fibre reinforced gypsum panels.
UNITED KINGDOM
Khoury Architects has submitted designs for a pair of homes sunk into the ground on a garden site in the West Midlands. Andrew Khoury and project architect, Becky Smith, came up with the design for the two homes, which both have one floor below ground level to avoid overdevelopment of the site. The design also proposes two exposed concrete structures which rise no more than 3.5m above ground level, with extensive glazing and louvred panels to capture solar energy. Both buildings will have sedum roofs to help them blend in with its surroundings.
KAZAKHSTAN
Danish practice BIG has beaten Lord Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid and been awarded first prize in the open international design competition for Kazakhstan's new National Library. The building, located in Astana, will serve as an intellectual, multifunctional and cultural centre, with a primary goal of reflecting the establishment and development of a sovereign Kazakhstan. "The design of the National Library combines four universal archetypes across space and time into a new national symbol: the circle, the rotunda, the arch and the yurt are merged into the form of a Mobius strip," said Bjarke Ingels, BIG founding partner.
SCOTLAND
The administrator in charge of rescuing Scotland's centre for architecture and design has begun talks with potential funders to bail it out. This comes in the wake of the centre accumulating a $484,000 funding gap caused by a drop in commercial income. In July, Vitra announced that it was shutting the doors to its showroom in the centre. Joint administrator, Bruce Cartwright has made 24 out of 57 staff members redundant and is expected to soon hold talks with senior council and government officials. One option being considered for the Lighthouse is to turn the council-owned building into a council-run business centre.
UNITED STATES
Although the International African American Museum in Charleston doesn't have an estimated cost or a timetable for construction, it does have a site and an award winning design team. Architects Curtis Moody of Moody Nolan and Antoine Predock, as well as Ralph Appelbaum, whose international company is considered the pre-eminent museum designer, are all forming plans on the Museum, to be located at the site at Calhoun and Concord streets. The price-tag has risen above $61 million, with the final amount most strongly influenced by how quickly the city can raise the money needed to build it.
