HOUSTON CENTRAL STATION PROPOSAL BY SNOHETTA

Snohetta were awarded the winning title for their Houston Central Station in Texas by an enthustiastic jury. The fact that Houston has a large amount of annual rainfall was the backbone of Snohetta’s proposal.

Snohettas concept involves an ingenious canopy at the exiting station which harnesses Houston’s heavy rainfall and turns it into a positive attribute; sheltering passengers from the wind and rain whilst supplying them with an aesthetically pleasing water feature.

The design sought to incorporate the concept of water by channeling rain down concrete spouts, thereby allowing users to interact with and experience water.

The elegant arching structure contains within columns slices that direct the water to the drain pipes below. The cut-outs also provide visual and lighting interest for those awaiting the next train.

Though visually engaging the interaction between users and water might present some practical problems: the areas of the platform where water is directed would have to be avoided, causing congestion and removing valuable open space on an already narrow platform.

GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS BY SNØHETTA

Oslo - and U.S.-based Snøhetta and global giant AECOM have scored a major commission: designing a new stadium in San Francisco for the Golden State Warriors, an NBA team.

The “sports and entertainment complex” will rise on “the crumbling” Piers 30-32 and will overlook San Francisco Bay. According to an official statement from the NBA, “the parties are in the final stages of negotiating the agreement.” 

In regards to the decision, Joe Lacob, CEO of the Warriors, cited Snøhetta’s “extensive experience with ambitious waterfront projects” and its “familiarity with San Francisco through their work on the SFMOMA expansion.”

He added: “All you have to do is look at what they’ve done for the new National Opera House in Oslo and the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt to see what is possible at Piers 30-32.”

The venue will not only serve the professional basketball team, but will also accommodate concerts, conferences, and other large-scale events.

“The Warriors have set ambitious goals for their team and their sports and entertainment complex, which are really very exciting,” stated Craig Dykers, senior partner at Snøhetta.

“They’re interested in connections to the entire Bay Area and creating a venue that’s useful for many people on many levels.”

Location: San Francisco, USA

Architect: Snøhetta

Venue footprint: 170 000 square feet

Venue height: 135 feet

Venue seating capacity: 17 500

Venue total square footage: (excluding practice facilities and meeting rooms): 740 000 square feet

Practice courts: 21 000 square feet

Community event room: 10 000 square feet

Parking spaces: approximately 630, piers 30-32 currently parks 1500 cars

Retail: 105 000 square feet

Open space: 333 000 square feet

SNØHETTA: WINNER OF THE “BUSAN OPERA HOUSE” COMPETITION

Poche ore fa lo studio norvegese ha comunicato di aver vinto il concorso per la nuova Opera House a Busan in Corea del Sud. Kjetil T. Thorsen, partner di Snøhetta, ha presenziato la riunione comunicando che “ Siamo molto felici di aver vinto, penso che abbiamo realizzato un progetto bello e funzionale.” 

Alle osservazioni sulla similitudine con l’Opera House di Oslo, Thorsen afferma: “non c'è assolutamente alcuna replica. Ogni progetto è diverso ed unico, ma abbiamo portato con noi una parte elementi del Teatro dell'Opera di Oslo Busan, e quindi si può dire che abbiamo portato con noi i migliori.”

Opera House di Busan è quasi grande come quella ad Oslo, ma con una sala principale leggermente più grande; la sala ospiterà 1.800 spettatori, il pubblico di Oslo invece ha 1358 posti a sedere.

I lavori avranno inizio l'anno prossimo, e si prevede il completamento dell’edificio al più presto nel 2015. Mentre Opera House di Oslo ha un costo di 4,2 miliardi di euro, il Busan Opera House costerà "solo" 1, 2 miliardi di euro. L'OPera House di Busan sarà realizzata nel porto esterno e anch questo aspetto, di un edificio sulle sponde del mare, conferma le analogie con l'Opera House di Oslo, probabilmente la migliore nel mondo.

WOLFE CENTER FOR THE ARTS BY SNØHETTA

The Wolfe Center has at its very core a unique program that unites a diverse range of art studies into a socially enterprising facility meant to encourage lively interaction among students and faculty alike.

It is a place not only for students of the arts but for all students to approach knowing that they will find a place of quiet distinction and boundless energy.High value is placed on the creation of open and democratic places within the design breaking down the barriers that might otherwise exist between people of divergent interests.

Wolfe Center provides a grand open hall that greets the visitor from the main entrance. Sunlit and spacious, the lobby provides views upward to the lounges, classrooms and studios of the art, music and drama departments on the second level of the Center.

Situated at the heart of the building the Donnell Theater seats 400 and can be used for a range of performance venues. The vast agrarian plains of northwestern Ohio, the gently meandering rivers flowing northward toward the great lakes and the unbroken horizons across the cultural landscape of fields and farms allow for a unique framework of context.

Nearly 20.000 years ago glacier shelves scoured this landscape and on their retreat northward the ice left vast plateaus of rich soils and uncovered geology. The cultural complex creates a memorable link between the vast openness of the ancient plateaus that characterize this landscape and the dynamic and contemporary notion of fostering openness between the arts.

At the center of the building will be a horseshoe-shaped theater. The remaining rooms and performance spaces will wrap around the theater, making the building structurally and economically efficient. The Wolfe Center will also use natural light in its design, as well as incorporating many energy-saving and eco-friendly measures to reduce operation costs and give the building a sustainable edge. Architects expect the building to receive LEED certification, with the possibility of Silver if all points are achieved.

Snohetta was selected from a pool of over 150 applications for the design of the Wolfe Center, after they were commissioned to design the Memorial Museum Pavilion at the site of the World Trade Center in New York.

According to Dr. Katerina Rüedi Ray, Director of the School of Art at BGSU, the firm was chosen for a variety of reasons. “In the end, Snohetta got the project because, for one, they really were the strongest designers in the pool and had the most collegiate and collaborative method of working. They have a very horizontal office. It’s not much of a pyramid in terms of hierarchy. Bowling Green works in the same way. I’ve worked in a number of different institutions, and this one is by far the most collaborative institution. We were also investing in a firm that we would probably not be able to hire years down the road. Snohetta also won the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2009, Europe’s most prestigious architectural award,” Rüedi Ray says.

Construction of the building is estimated to cost $40 million. It will be the first building designed by Snohetta to be completed in America (though not the first commissioned) and is the first building on BGSU’s campus to use an international architectural firm. Most of the newer buildings being constructed on campus were designed by regional firms.

Rüedi Ray concluded, “It’s not atypical, but for the arts building it was really nice to have that investment, financially and culturally. Going with a really important architectural firm confirms that the arts were deemed an important focal point of the university. We feel really fortunate.”

Location: Bowling Green, OH, USA

Architects: Snøhetta

Architect Of Record: The Collaborative, Inc

Architect Of Record Team: Michael DiNardo, Jim Sarks, Don Myers, Lisa Crawford-Nusser

Design Team: Craig Dykers, Vanessa Kassabian, Elaine Molinar, Nicolas Rader, Scott Melancon

Landscape: Claire Fellman, Knut Bjørgum

Area: 98,000 sq ft

Client: Bowling Green State University

Year: 2011

NATIONAL OPERA AND BALLET BY SNØHETTA

The government wished that the operahouse should be a monumental building which would mark Norway as a cultural nation as well as highlighting the social and cultural importance of The Norwegian Opera Ballet.

The building should be a landmark within architecture, construction, use of materials and technical solutions.

Four diagrams, which were part of the entry, explain the building’s basic concept.

”The wave wall”

Opera and ballet are young artforms in Norway. These artforms evolve in an international setting.

The Bjørvika peninsula is part of a harbour city, which is historically the meeting point with the rest of the world.

The dividing line between the ground ’here’ and the water ‘there’ is both a real and a symbolic threshold.

This threshold is realised as a large wall on the line of the meeting between land and sea, Norway and the world, art and everyday life. This is the threshold where the public meet the art.

”The Factory”

A detailed brief was developed as a basis for the competition.

Snøhetta proposed that the production facitities of the operahouse should be realised as a self contained, rationally planned ‘factory’.

This factory should be both functional and flexible during the planning phase as well as in later use.

This flexibility has proved to be very important during the planning phase: a number of rooms and room groups have been adjusted in collaboration with the end user.

These changes have improved the buildings functionality without affecting the architecture.

”The Carpet”

The competion brief stated that the operahouse should be of high architectural quality and should be monumental in it’s expression.

This carpet has been given an articulated form, related to the cityscape. Monumentality is achieved through horizontal extension and not verticality.

One idea stood out as a legitimation of monumentality: The concept of togetherness, joint ownership, easy and open access for all.

To achieve a monumentality based on these notions we wished to make the opera accessible in the widest possible sense, by laying out a ‘carpet’ of horizontal and sloping surfaces on top of the building.

This carpet has been given an articulated form, related to the cityscape.

Monumentality is achieved through horizontal extension and not verticality. The building connects city and fjord, urbanity and landscape.

The conceptual basis of the competition, and the final building, is a combination of this three elements – the wave wall, the factory and the carpet.

The operahouse is the first element in the planned transformation of this area of the city.

In 2010 the heavy traffic beside the building will be moved into a tunnel under the fjord.

Due to its size and aesthetic expression, the operahouse will stand apart from other buildings in the area.

The marble clad roofscape forms a large public space in the landscape of the city and the fjord.

The public face of the operahouse faces west and north – while at the same time, the building’s profile is clear from a great distance from the fjord to the south.

Viewed from the Akershus castle and from the grid city the building creates a relationship between the fjord and the Ekerberg hill to the east.

Seen from the central station and Chr. Fredriks sq. the opera catches the attention with a falling which frames the eastern edge of the view of the fjord and its islands.

The building connects city and fjord, urbanity and landscape.

The materials, with their specific weight, colour, texture and temperature, have been vital to the design of the building.

It is the materials which form the defining elements of the spaces.

It is the meeting of the materials which articulates the architecture through varied detail and precision.

Project: New Operahouse in Oslo

Location: Oslo, Norway

Typology: Operahouse

Scope: Arch, L Arch, Int,

Planning: Full Contract

Size: 38,500 m2

Client: Ministry of Church and Cultural Affairs

Schedule: 1st prize int. comp. Built 2008