Planes, trains and automobiles inspired several of 2009’s mostjaw-dropping, significant projects. An Abu Dhabi hotel built over a Formula One racetrack, a Belgian high-speed train station,a San Jose, Calif. airport terminal and a transportable Atlantaschool addition all dazzled with their design and purpose.
winter 2010 13
{The Year in Review}
Influential Projects of 2009Perspective scoured the globe to uncover some of the most influential projects from the past year and found four that notonly evoke emotion, but were propelled by motion.
By Michele Meyer
F inally, an airport where passengers
want to linger. It starts with eye-catch-
ing and undulating aluminum panels on
the exterior and continues with a curved
ceiling inside the new North Concourse of
the Mineta San Jose International Airport
in San Jose, Calif., created by San
Francisco-based architecture and design
firm Gensler. The design was inspired by
San Jose’s 300 days of sunshine a year,
says Steve Weindel, Gensler’s Principal in
charge of design.
Nine years in the making, the $342
million concourse is only the latest step
in Gensler’s $1.3 billion modernization of
an airport with a widely scattered hodge-
podge of buildings from the ‘50s to the
‘80s. The firm tore down the oldest build-
ings, reconfigured the airport’s exits and
parking lots, and allowed for future con-
nections to both local and regional
(BART) mass transportation systems.
Nearly 25 Gensler designers brain-
stormed with San Jose-based Steinberg
Architects, 50 community groups and each
airport department to determine the city’s
needs now and in the future. Designers
saw what elements and materials worked —
and what didn’t — in the past, Weindel says.
Also challenging, the airport
remained open during construction, and
its downtown dimensions were hemmed
in by the Guadalupe River on one side
and freeways on the other three.
Gensler added texture and dimension
to the concourse’s narrow 1,600-by-90-foot
shape by including a sloped ceiling, a ser-
pentine carpet edge and swirls across an
epoxy terrazzo floor. The firm incorporat-
ed the earthy green and golden hues of
surrounding hills — avoiding sterility — and
a wall of Douglas Fir planks to warm the
concourse. “It’s also a nod to the area’s
agrarian past,” says David Loyola, Senior
Associate Design Director for Gensler.
“And in keeping with San Jose’s relaxed
lifestyle, we chose to create chair group-
ings, rather than rows, at gates.”
As an airport of the future, Mineta offers
the latest security and baggage systems.
And low-velocity displacement ventilation
near the floors cools only areas occupied
by passengers, unlike traditional air condi-
tioning blowing from the highest point.
“We can set the temperature 10
degrees warmer, while keeping people
just as comfortable and saving tremen-
dous energy,” Weindel says. That feature,
and the mesh filters-and-glass roof, help
the building consume 14 percent less
energy than current California energy
codes demand.
“So many airports could be anywhere.
We wanted an airport that couldn’t be
anywhere but San Jose,” Weindel says.
“The city wanted an airport that would
become an icon for the city and Silicon
Valley — and that’s what we delivered.”
{Project} Mineta San Jose International Airport {By} Gensler{Location} San Jose, Calif.
It starts witheye-catching
and undulatingaluminum
panels on theexterior.
PH
OTO
GR
AP
HY
BY
SH
ER
MA
N T
AK
ATA
14 winter 2010 www.iida .org winter 2010 15
A500-room hotel central to the new
$36 million Yas Marina/Formula
One racetrack in Abu Dhabi, United Arab
Emirates, is a sleek, space-age spectacle.
A canopy of 5,800 pivoting diamond-
shaped glass panels releases desert heat
and draws attention to the complex. What
do the shimmering shells represent?
Overturned boats, billowing Bedouin
tents or ornate Islamic jewelry?
“I like that the shell evokes different
things in people. That’s what gives art
and architecture longevity,” says
Principal Hani Rashid, co-founder of
Asymptote Architecture. “They want to
learn more.”
But Rashid and his partners had no
time to ponder. With only two years before
a non-negotiable opening of October 30,
2009, the date of the new track’s Formula
One Grand Prix, construction was a race
against time. “We had to design certain
aspects while building,” he says.
The firm moved 30 staffers from its
headquarters in New York to Abu Dhabi,
where they labored alongside 120
workers from local Dewan Architects
and Engineers. Bartenbach LichtLabor
GmbH, a lighting design firm based in
Innsbruck, Austria, handled the lighting.
While Arup Bridge of New York and ship
builders Centraalstaal B.V. of Groningen,
The Netherlands, created the 205-foot
long bridge connecting the hotel’s towers.
With no straight lines and huge win-
dows over the track, the bridge evokes a
futuristic racecar. Inside, Eurasian décor
and moody lighting fill the space.
The lobby continues the exterior’s
space-age modernity. “Everything cele-
brates speed, and the spirit and poetic
elegance of technology in yachts and
racecars,” Rashid says. Marble and
terrazzo tile floors are inlaid with
swooping metal stripes to depict motion,
while columns brandish brushed stain-
less steel in the spirit of auto bodies.
Yacht builders made the counters from
the same fiberglass and aluminum used
in ships.
Asymptote — which has produced
experimental art installations since
opening in 1989 — contributed the lobby’s
back-lit abstract sculptures, previously
shown at Venice’s Biennale and Kassel,
Germany’s Documenta art exhibits.
“We created atmosphere with colored
lights that are soothing, not flamboyant,”
he says.
Asymptote’s hallmark computer-aided
design allows for non-repetitive shapes.
These are equally arresting at the firm’s
40-story luxury residential Strata Tower
in Abu Dhabi, 166 Perry Street lofts in
Manhattan and the Perm Museum in
Perm, Russia.
While the world wrestles with a
weakened economy, Yas Hotel offers a
beacon of hope, Rashid says. “These
buildings are celebratory, and their
flourishes reflect the optimism of the
region — and our firm.”
{Project} The Yas Hotel {By} Asymptote Architecture {Location}Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
With no straight lines and hugewindows over the track, the bridgeevokes a futuristic racecar.
PH
OTO
GR
AP
HY
CO
UR
TES
Y O
F B
JOR
N M
OE
RM
AN
16 winter 2010 www.iida .org winter 2010 17
Trailers work well for horses — not
for students.
Yet “temporary” trailers with limited
lighting and cramped quarters sprout in
schoolyards across the nation. What’s
more: They never disappear.
That’s why Chicago-based Perkins +
Will concocted a new approach: a movable,
flexible building surrounded by gardens
to house students at ‘20s-era Druid Hills
High School in Atlanta while the firm also
expanded and updated its original building.
“We didn’t want the students to suffer,”
says architect Allen Post, Project Director
at Perkins + Will.
The firm named these transportable
classrooms — for which Perkins + Will
was given a 2009 Architecture for
Humanity award — PeaPoDs, because
“students are housed in a green way that
protects them during their development
and delivers nutrients,” Post says.
Toward that goal, buildings have roofs
higher on the sides than the middle, so
rainwater funnels into cisterns for growing
fruits and vegetables, which teachers can
then use to teach children about healthy
eating habits.
With sustainability in mind, the
designers built solar panels into the roofs
with light sensors so lights shut off on
bright days to lower energy bills. An over-
hang on the side of each building creates
shade while a transparent wall to the north
rises like a garage door so classrooms
expand to the outdoors in ideal weather.
“Studies show test scores and attendance
rise with natural sunlight,” Post says.
“Smart boards” digitize teachers’ notes
as they write them, which can then be
emailed to students. Desks and chairs are
separate, allowing teachers to group
students to fit teaching methods or class
subjects. “Research also shows children
move in chairs while they learn, and this
helps them focus,” Post says.
“We were wowed [by] how Perkins +
Will took temporary classrooms to a new
level,” says Sandhya Naidu Janardhan, the
Design Fellow on the Classroom
Challenge for San Francisco’s Architecture
for Humanity. “They used materials very
creatively to make flexible learning
spaces that are available to schools
around the world. It was a holistic
approach and works well within current
modular construction building codes.”
The project’s seven designers special-
ize in kindergarten through 12th grade
schools — and are motivated personally.
Most are parents under 35 and have chil-
dren under the age of five who most likely
will go to Druid High, says Post, father of
a 2- and 4-year-old. “I didn’t want my
children to learn in trailers. That was an
added incentive.’’
{Project} PeaPoD School {By} Perkins + Will{Location} Atlanta
An overhangon the side ofeach buildingcreates shadewhile a trans-parent wall to the northrises like agarage door so classroomsexpand to theoutdoors inideal weather.
PH
OTO
GR
AP
HY
CO
UR
TES
Y O
F P
ER
KIN
S +
WIL
L
Adingy neighborhood in Liège, a city
in eastern Belgium, might make
some architects cower behind grand, but
opaque, buildings. Not Santiago Calatrava,
a New York-, Paris- and Zurich,
Switzerland-based designer and architect
known for bridges and train stations.
Instead, Calatrava — who was named
one of Time magazine’s 100 most influ-
ential people in 2005 — created a trans-
parent, soaring cathedral of glazed glass
over 39 steel ribs. The building flaunts
not only the high-speed station beneath,
but also the Cointe Hills nearby. “There’s
no better way to celebrate the technolog-
ical achievement of high-speed transport
than to expose the working platforms
and dynamism of moving trains,”
Calatrava says.
When viewed by passengers within
the station, the canopies glimmer like a
single pearlized shell, creating a grand-
scale frame of Liège, he says. Departing
passengers see the slopes beyond,
echoed in the roof’s sinuous curves.
Despite its lack of a façade, the roof
announces the station’s presence.
Extended 476 feet beyond the terminal
building, it lets sunlight — but not rain —
fall on passengers using five train tracks.
The station tested Calatrava’s resolve
and required 13 years to complete in
September 2009, despite his expertise
designing stations in Lyon-Saint
Exupery, France, Zurich, Switzerland,
and Lisbon, Portugal.
“I had to replace the existing station
without interrupting train service or dis-
turbing the 36,000 travelers who pass
through the station daily,” Calatrava
says. “So we used a technique normally
employed in bridge construction. The
principal frames were assembled in an
area away from the trains and at night,
and the frames were pushed in groups of
six onto the principal supports. Only
short overnight closures were needed.”
To avoid a confusing maze, he
grouped ticket counters, waiting rooms,
shops and the bar-restaurant on a level
below the platforms. Glass blocks along
the tracks filter daylight to avoid a
subterranean feel. A series of pedestrian
bridges and basement-level walkways
connect three levels of parking to the
station. Blue limestone — historic to
the region — forms floors, plaza cobbles
and benches.
Calatrava wants his design to inspire
further rejuvenation throughout the
region. “The urban plaza directly in front
of the station will link the station back to
the Meuse River, providing a focal point
for renewal of the area as a whole,” says
the architect, who also designed the
Athens Olympic Sports Complex and an
expansion of the Milwaukee Art Museum.
He hopes surrounding asphalt car lots
will be developed into housing, offices and
hotels in the town known for steel manu-
facturing, aerospace, beer and chocolate.
In the meantime, exploring Liège is easi-
er for northern Europeans: High-speed trains
slash the trek between Brussels, Belgium,
and Paris by 68 minutes, and to Amsterdam,
The Netherlands, by an hour.
18 winter 2010 www.iida .org
{Project} Liège-Guillemins TGV RailwayStation {By} Santiago Calatrava{Location} Liège, Belgium
Departing passengers see the slopesbeyond, echoedin the roof’ssinuous curves.
PH
OTO
GR
AP
HY
BY
WW
W.P
ALL
AD
IUM
.DE
, BA
RB
AR
A B
UR
G/O
LIV
ER
SC
HU
H