Victoria Meyers : Invisible Buildings

Infinity Chapel in Construction : Victoria Meyers architect

Infinity Chapel- chapel view looking out toward future outdoor chapel garden.  Post: Victoria Meyers architect

In construction - curved wall and stair to mezzanine, from Chapel.  Post: Victoria Meyers architect

This post shows hMa's Infinity Chapel in progress, approximately one year prior to the chapel's opening to the general public.  Infinity Chapel was designed as an acoustical box, and Jaffe Holden Acoustical engineers collaborated with hMa partner Victoria Meyers to fine tune the Chapel's acoustics to accomodate sound, including chamber music ensembles.

NY Apartment design by hMa featured in Met Home's Glamour : Making it Modern Book

 

Green architects Hanrahan Meyers architects (hMa) are pleased to announce the publication of Metropolitan Home's Glamour : Making it Modern.  The book features hMa's Ash 4 Ways / White Space Apartment both inside and on the cover.

hMa Green Architects are well known for being the authors of the design guidelines for the Solaire Apartment Tower in New York City  -  the first Green residential apartment tower in the United States.  hMa wrote the Solaire guidelines as the Master Plan Architects for Battery Park City's North Neighborhood.  As the BPC Master Planners, hMa overviewed the construction of over 5 million square feet of Sustainable, Green architecture.  hMa was also responsible for overviewing the development of over 100 acres of sustainable Landscaping.  hMa specializes in building Green Architecture, including Zero Carbon Footprint houses.

More about the book from barnesandnoble.com:

'Glamour. It's hard to define yet most know it when they see it. Today, glamour may still invoke the sophistication and refinement of the golden years of Hollywood art deco, but country, industrial and even nature glamour have joined the more traditional modes.

The 21st century has brought glamour-and her sisters, decoration and ornamentation-back into home design news. Today's most cutting-edge homes embrace design of every kind from every corner of the globe. It's a marriage of disparate styles that finds no contradiction. Glamour is in vogue in homes that are castles (literally) and in one-bedroom rentals at the fringes of downtowns.

Looking at homes recently featured in Metropolitan Home, Glamour, Making It Modern reconsiders them through the following sections:

• concepts: looks at the defining general notions of Modern Glamour, such as sheen and scale,
• objects: examines elements of home decoration which are inherently glamorous,
• rooms: tours homes where everything comes glamorously together.'

With a directory of the designers, some of the best in the business, and a list of resources for available products, Glamour, Making It Modern is purely inspirational and absolutely accessible.  The book includes the White Space / Ash 4Ways apartment designed by hanrahan Meyers architects (hMa).  hMa are an internationally known architectural firm specializing in award-winning design that is also at the cutting-edge of Green architecture.  

For more information about hanrahan Meyers architects, and to see more of the firm's cutting-edge Green Designs, visit their website:  www.hanrahanMeyers.com.

Click here to view more photos of Ash 4 Ways / White Space Apartment on hanrahanmeyers.com

Click here to view and/or purchase the book at barnesandnoble.com

 

Houses of Sagaponac : Glass House: Contemporary ResidenceGreen Home Design; American Houses; Modern American House; Victoria Meyers Architect

Victoria Meyers architect (hMa) was recently contacted by Richard Reinhardt, who took over the Houses at Sagaponac Development, and asked to revisit hMa's design for the original development.  hMa's new house design is a modernist glass box poised on top of an artificial 'ground plane' (the lower level of the house housing the bedrooms, garage, and swimming pool).  hMa's house design is scheduled for construction in 2009.

bird's eye view facing the street.  Victoria Meyers architect

About the Houses at Sagaponac project (http://www.housesatsagaponac.com/)  :

"Houses at Sagaponac is an acclaimed development by the late Harry J. Brown with the assistance of Richard Meier.  The project features 34 summer houses designed by internationally recognized architects to acheive design excellence on a modest budget and scale, leading to a community by and for thinking people.  The houses represent an appreciation of artistic vision and sensiblity, challenging the current standards of gradiosity and repetition."

American Dream: Houses at Sagaponac was published by Rizzoli NY in 2003.

 

swimming pool:  Rear elevation of the house includes a pool, as well as an outdoor poolhouse. Post: Victoria Meyers architect

www.hanrahanmeyers.com

http://www.housesatsagaponac.com/

Urban Reserve in the Wall Street Journal: Victoria Meyers architect

The following is from an article published in the Wall Street Journal on 5/01/2009.

" Some residential suburban communities insist on tiled roofs; others dictate color palettes and lot sizes. Often, the goal is to capture the look of a time in the past, before modern living and high housing costs changed tastes and materials.

But a small number of new developments is taking the opposite tack. Here, buried amongst a middle-class community and near the Central Expressway, is a street where the construction of Colonials and Tudors is expressly forbidden. Even mid-century modern is considered passé. "Make no mistake. It's a dictatorship and I make the rules," project developer Diane Cheatham says half-jokingly.

The result is Urban Reserve, a 13-acre development devoted to contemporary design. Pass a neighborhood of standard issue brick tract ranches and turn onto Vanguard Way and suddenly one confronts what looks like scene from a science fiction movie...."   -written by Nancy Keates

Click here for the full article and slideshow at wsj.com

Top left:  Exterior of See-Thru House:  Victoria Meyers architect for the Urban Reserve development.  Above : Interior view, See-Thru House

Learn more about See-Thru House on hanrahanMeyers.com

New hMa blog: Cultural Conversations

Cultural Conversations is a new blog from Victoria Meyers architect dedicated to culture and life as experienced in the American Landscape. 

Here's a sampling if what's to come:

 

Shown above:  Singer, song writer Dave Alvin, with Willie Dixon.   Next to Dave and Willie:  an image of the American landscape, in the mid-west.  Next to that:  an image of Holley House, Garrison, NY. 

www.culturalconversations.com

Light in ArchitectureDesigning with Light by Victoria Meyers; Natural Light; Natural Light in Residences

Victoria Meyers architect's (hMa) book, Designing with Light, features projects by hMa that use natural light to create architectural space.

 

 

exterior detail: hMa's Holley House in Garrison, NY  Post: Victoria Meyers architect

interior: Holley House

Post: Victoria Meyers architect

 Several of hMa's projects, including Holley House, Ash 4Ways (featured on the book's cover), Pratt Pavilion, and the Battery Park City Community Center, DWi-P (Digital Water i-Pavilion), feature light as a major design component.

gallery view: hMa's Juliana Curran Terian Pratt Pavilion  Post:  Victoria Meyers architect

Pratt Pavilion is a 10,000 square foot stainless steel pavilion designed by hMa to create the entrance into Pratt's new 200,000 square foot Design Center.  Steel panels that clad the Pavilion were provided by Bruce Gitlin's company,

Designing With Light by Victoria Meyers architect on Amazon.com.  

Ash 4Ways, designed by Victoria Meyers architect.  The loft project features Ash used in four different finishes.  Read about the apartment in 'designing  with light'. 

To read more about hMa's use of natural light, go to the book's website, www.designingwithlight.us.  To see more of hMa's projects, visit their website, www.hanrahanMeyers.com.

Victoria Meyers architect featured in ArchNewsNow

 

Victoria Meyers architect (hMa) was quoted in an article by Norman Weinstein entitled, “WORDS THAT BUILD: Translate Images Into Touching Performances”.  The following is an excerpt from the article, which is part of a series by Norman Weinstein focusing on the foundations of architecture: oral and written communication:

A crucial and commonplace communications breakdown between architect and client occurs when an architect does his or her detailed presentation. The architect and educator Victoria Meyers addresses this disconnect incisively: “Space is an abstract art and it is difficult to communicate to a client ahead of time what they are buying into. We will build very specific physical models and computer models, we’ll do renderings, we’ll provide material samples, and I know exactly what the space consists of before it goes into construction. Still, it’s always a shock for the client.”

Read the full article here.

 

Infinity Chapel  Post: Victoria Meyers architect.  View of the Chapel, as presented to the client by the architects, during design.

View of Infinity Chapel, built.

Infinity Chapel is a new chapel in New York's Greenwich Village, one block north of Washington Square Park.  Victoria Meyers architect worked with Jaffe Holded acoustics to make the chapel into a perfect acoustical box.  The Chapel is used by the clients, Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist, for services, and is also used frequently by local chamber music groups, who appreciate the acoustics of the space. 

Sustainable Design featured on houzz: Victoria Meyers architect Green Home Design; American Houses; Modern American House

hMa has been added to houzz, "the Flickr of design idea sites."

Featured projects include Ash 4-Ways, Delmonico-Washburn Residence, Glaser Residence, Holley House, Holley Loft, and Singer Residence.  More information about these residences can be found here, at hanrahanmeyers.com.

 

Singer Residence Victoria Meyers architect

Shown above is an interior garden at Singer Residence.  Singer residence is a sustainably house in East Hampton, New York, using FSC cedar cladding, and high-efficiency hvac systems, to create a highly efficient, green residence for a couple in the Hamptons. 

For more about hMa, visit our website, www.hanrahanMeyers.com.

hMa Designs Modern American Museum Projects :Jane Philbrick; rammed earth sculpture garden; modern american museum

hanrahan Meyers architects came to public attention in 1987 when the firm designed the winning entry for a new Nature Interpretive Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Since then, hMa has designed several award-winning buildings, and the firm also has forged a strong connection with the arts, collaborating with several artists on public sculpture projects.

In 2007 hMa’s Pratt Pavilion, a sculptural art gallery in the center of Pratt Institute’s main campus opened to international acclaim and attention.  The gallery reflected hMa’s firm commitment to working with arts groups, and the final building includes a twenty foot tall public gallery with state-of-the art facilities for show-casing the work of several international designers in various arts who are graduates of Pratt Institute’s many arts programs.  Since it’s opening, Pratt Gallery by hMa has showcased the work of internationally famous industrial designers, graphic designers, fashion designers, as well as the aspiring work of Pratt students and faculty.

exterior view, Pratt Pavilion, featuring hand-rubbed stainless steel panels from Milgo Bufkin

left: entrance to hMa's Pratt Pavilion Gallery and Design Center; right: view of hMa's Pratt Gallery on opening day. Click here to view all photos of Pratt Pavilion at hanrahanMeyers.com

An important aspect of hMa’s work on Pratt Pavilion includes their ability to work creatively with local artisans and suppliers of specialty finishes to achieve fantastic results within a limited budget.  When Pratt Pavilion’s exterior façade finish was in question due to budgetary constraints, hMa contacted Board member Bruce Gitlin and his company, Milgo Bufkin, to arrange a collaboration to produce the exterior cladding for the building.  The resulting panels, hand-rubbed stainless steel panels, are a major factor in the success of the final project.

Jane Philbrick is among the artists who hMa has worked with on past projects, including an installation for Socrates Sculpture Park, Vox Harbour.   In addition to working with Ms. Philbrick on Vox Harbour, hMa also produced a Master Plan for Socrates Sculpture Park in 2000.  Pictured above: Jane Philbrick's work in progress, "Rammed Earth Sculpture Garden", at the Skissernas Museum, Lund, Sweden.