hMa and the architecture of sound, water, + movement: DWi-P
hMa’s DWi-P (Digital Water i-Pavilion) is a new community center at Battery Park City across West Street from the World Trade Center Memorial site. hMa hired New York composer M.J. Schumacher to create a digital sound interpretation of water. hMa developed a digital interprentation of the score, and this image is etched on the building’s glass façade.
DWi-P supports the pedestrian life of Lower Manhattan through sound and movement. DWi-P offers the sound of WaTER, supported by stairs, walkways, and ramps through a transparent community building that welcomes Lower Manhattan visitors to Battery Park City. Sound and a green roof permeated by stairs, ramps and walkways, link the Battery Park City Ballfields to North End Avenue through DWi-P’s WaTER façade: a unique digital artwork, activated through cellphone technologies.
DWi-P’s façade makes an edge to the Murray-Warren Passage, a new parkway link between Murray and Warren Streets. Visitors to DWi-P can walk along the Passage, adjacent to the inscribed score, or move up through the building, using exterior stairs and ramps built into the facade. hMa Principal Meyers catalogs DWi-P and hMa’s collaboration with composer M.J. Schumacher in her recently published book, Shape of Sound (May 2014, Artifice Books London).
DWi-P’s internal program continues the theme of water: the pool room and swim program are the principal program areas in the building. DWi-P is operated by Asphalt Green, an organization that specializes in teaching swimming. Graduates of the program have participated with U.S. Olympic Swim Teams. The program includes visits by previous Olympic team members.
DWi-P is a LEED Gold certified building, with an emphasis on water. The building’s water systems include a grey water recycle system, and a fresh salt-water, heat recovery system for the pools.
Sound and Movement with Meditation Education
Won Buddhist Retreat is another hMa project with Sound and Movement as part of an overall architectural program. The Won Buddhist Retreat emphasizes sound through a program where sound is programmed. The meditation hall is programmed for silence; other areas are designated for conversation.
At Won Buddhist Retreat, programmed movement is determined through walking paths, courtyards, and shaped roofs. Walking paths include predetermined paths through residential and public courtyards, for silent meditation; and nature paths through meadows, from the residential areas to the public domain of meditation hall and visitor’s center.
Won Buddhist Meditation Retreat’s porches suggest where public walking paths begin. Walking paths suggest mathematically deterministic movements within an open, natural environment. Won Buddhist Retreat presents ‘nature framed’ : an open-ended, natural environment, where subtle distinctions differentiate a series of shaped pathways.
hMa approaches the design of the Queens Library through the idea of the garden. This page shows three different configurations of the garden.
The Hortus Conclusus (Latin: enclosed garden) is an essential aspect of the history of modern western garden design. Hortus Conclusus in the Medieval era referred to an enclosed, private garden.
In Queens, there is a contemporary history of enclosed ‘community gardens’, which are also enclosed gardens. In the Queens gardens, small plots are divided between the community, and each becomes a landscape portrait of its owners.
In 2011 landscape architect Piet Oudolf collaborated on a contemplative walled garden for the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion: a contemporary reinstatement of the original Hortus Conclusus: a walled garden for contemplation.
hMa is designing the Queens Library as a Walled Garden where visitors enjoy peaceful contemplation of ideas, within a garden.
Queens Library : a Hortus Conclusus for study and contemplation
Piet Oudolf designs rivers of grasses. In the Library, we see Rivers of Grasses as Books, with narratives made from letters. Hollis Library begins a conversation between gardens - human cultivations of Nature - and books - human cultivations of Ideas - with walls, floors, and ceilings that reference the walled garden of the Hortus Conclusus. The Garden is referenced
through materials, textures, and colors on the floors, ceilings, and walls.
Queens Library : a repository for books/ an escape from the urban realm
Hortus Conclusus includes pathways for walking, moving and thinking. hMa’s DWi-P opened to the public in 2014: a building that delaminates into gardens with paths that make the building envelop feel invisible on its site. DWi-P gives the sense of walking in nature both inside and outside the building.
At hMa's Queens Library, paths use natural colors to lead visitors from entry, to circulation desk, adult reading room, teens area, children’s library, and to the community room. hMa’s palette is based on an idea of movement through nature, from they entry, and through the library. Visitors are led from entry to the circulation desk by a moss-covered, wood wall that passes from the entry door, through the vestibule, to the circulation desk. The desk is designed to reference colors of flowers and grasses. The Library floors reference nature’s grasses, flowers, tree bark, and earth. Areas in the adult and children’s libraries are anchored as lawns, using ivy (adult’s), and grass (child’s) in the sitting and work areas. In the teen area, seating and work areas are more active, with stripes of flower references.
Walking, Moving, Thinking : transition to : Sitting, Reading, Thinking
a Hortus Conclusus for study and contemplation
Sverre Fehn’s Nordic Pavilion is one of hMa’s typology references for the Queens Library. Nordic Pavilion, designed in 1962, is still used today for gallery exhibits representing Sweden, Finland, and Norway. The Pavilion focuses on nature, with an open grid-roof of criss-crossing, thin, concrete beams, designed to simulate the effects of dappled sunlight passing through tree branches. The neutral whiteness of the concrete pavilion encircles, and emphasizes trees that grow through the roof.
At Queens Library, hMa also applied principles of movement through nature, based on ideas developed in their Master Plan for Battery Park City’s North Neighborhood. At BPC hMa used the the intertwining of nature, through the development of strategically located parks and green roofs, to develop a language of design based on nature and walking paths. hMa called the new grid developed at Battery Park City Woven Fabric. Woven Fabric defines cultivated green areas that weave the North Neighborhood together.
At Queens Library, hMa applies ideas about a woven fabric of nature-based materials through the library as a Hortus Conclusus: enclosed garden. The Hortus Conclusus includes the installation of mirrors above bookcases in the Child, Adult, and Teen reading rooms to create an illusion of a detached roof: the library as an exterior, walled garden.
Sitting Reading Thinking: the Space of Contemplation
Queens Library : a Hortus Conclusus for study and contemplation
hMa’s goal is to create the sense of a walled garden with edges defined by bookcases, and an interior filled with color and light. The Queens Library will be a garden for thinking and contemplation. The library’s walls are a barrier to the busy-ness of the urban street - an envelop that offers the peace and contemplation of the Hortus Conclusus.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines praxis as ‘that through which theory or philosophy is transformed into (a) practical… activity.’ In architecture, praxis refers to the practice of making buildings in critique with theory and the history of ideas. Praxis in architecture refers to a practice that builds with the integrity of theory behind every detail.
If you are an architect and practice, your work encompasses ideas, philosophies of making, and research. I separate the notion of a studio or atelier, from that of an ‘office’. An office references an architectural practice that intersects with commercial interests. Studio or atelier references a more elevated idea of practice as a philosophical and theoretical critique of building, or praxis.
Ring Collar: Investigation by Meyers. Signature is a mirror - homage to Leonardo da Vinci
As an architect who builds, teaches, writes, and produces art, I see architecture as a finely calibrated mirror. Architecture as praxis is akin to building the opposite side of our selves. By opposite, I refer to architecture as a critical operation: a mold or mask that allows us to see ourselves - as a reflection – similar to the ‘oppositional writing’ of Leonardo da Vinci. Architecture, by this definition, is similar to the butterfly’s cocoon or the Halloween reveler’s mask - a formal registration of our selves, at any given moment in time. By ‘selves’, I refer to the common identity of a larger group of citizens of a broader culture, and not to the singular person.
As a practitioner, I have an architectural practice, hMa, that is a reflection of my own mind, calibrated by a partner - Thomas Hanrahan – Dean of Pratt’s School of Architecture. I teach and am actively involved in architectural education. Until 2005 I was the core-coordinator at Columbia’s GSAPP; more recently I was the David Niland Chair at the University of Cincinnati; previously, I was a professor at Cornell’s School of Architecture.
Professional schools cannot operate successfully without architectural practitioners, both as part-time and tenured faculty – due to the necessary requirements of praxis. Without practicing architecture – it is impossible to understand how or what should be emphasized in the instruction of students of architecture. Praxis involves practice, teaching, and research.
Architects build things. Beyond studying the history of architecture, and doing an apprenticeship with a licensed architect, architects learn their craft by going into the field and making things. Architecture is critiqued in the public realm. Until a graduate of architecture has that experience, she or he cannot understand the process of praxis.
Architecture involves a series of mathematical equations that make space. At hMa (hanrahan Meyers architects), I have built projects, including Infinity Chapel, that reflect areas of human knowledge. Infinity Chapel presents a series of ideas about light, shadow, mathematics, and reflection. Mathematics and the properties of light include E = mc2, an equation that establishes equivalencies between mass, light, and energy.
At hMa’s Infinity Chapel, light-wells frame the walk from an entry at MacDougal Street, through a reading room, through a chapel, to an outdoor garden. Infinity Chapel’s light-wells are holes cut through the concrete floor, manifest as rectangular wood objects of varying heights and shapes at the ground-floor level of the building. The light-wells frame tubes of light that mark the path from street to garden. In the Sunday school below, light-wells appear as illuminated squares and lines in the ceiling. These reflect as formal figures of light on the floor.
hMa’s DWi-P, Digital Water i-Pavilion, is a community center in New York City, opposite the World Trade Center Memorial site. DWi-P is dedicated mostly to swimming, while offering a variety of other community activities. DWi-P’s largest public space is its pool room facing the exterior glass wall. The pools are also visible from a glass wall in the entry to DWi-P, one floor above. DWi-P’s main façade is a 550-foot long, transparent glass wall embedded with a frit pattern, representing a sound-score by New York composer Michael J. Schumacher: WaTER.
DWi-P is a building that unfolds and unravels into the landscape of Battery Park City through a series of ramps, stairs, and glass panels. The building’s roof is a public park with walkways and ramps that lead down to the Ballfields Park, east of the building. DWi-P’s east façade also faces the World Trade Center Memorial site, visible through its glass panels, etched with the Schumacher score.
Part of what defines us as humans is how we move our bodies through space. Contemporary marathons attest to the human capacity to out-run prey in the distant past, not by being faster, but by sustaining a slow, steady run, for days. There are connections for all of us, between walking, thinking, and speaking. As a species, we need to move through space to develop and maintain our brains. DWi-P and InfinityChapel facilitate walking, moving and thinking, through a sound-score at DWi-P, and through light at Infinity Chapel.
By understanding the human walk and limitations of movement, students learn how to detail and create space. The human walk has a certain length, width, and depth. These dimensions determine the basic aspects of building design, including the proper sizing of stairs, openings, and landings. It comes down to the scale of the human body. It sounds mundane; in reality, this is the basis of ephemeral creations, and praxis.
In addition to studies of human movement, light, and sound, hMa pursues the concept of ‘writing’ on/in buildings. Text on buildings captures ideas for future generations. The concept of ‘writing on the building’ partly determined the details of hMa’s glass wall at DWi-P, and the use of light at Infinity Chapel. hMa’s most recent application of writing on built form is a sculpture titled On-In Landscape: a collaboration with noted New York artist, Bruce Pearson. On-In Landscape is literally a constructed text by Pearson: Contains Real Hard Won Insight. hMa’s application of a sound-score to the façade at DWi-P, the use of light at InfinityChapel, and literal text in ‘On-In Landscape’, are examples of praxis.
hMa’s pursuit of praxis includes homage to the ideas of Marcel Duchamp and John Cage. hMa’s linkage between architecture and praxis includes musings on physics, time, and space, cataloged in my book, Designing with Light (DWL). DWL includes discussions with Harvard physicist Dr. Lene Hau whose ideas about light inspired Infinity Chapel. DWL pays homage to the oeuvre and writings of John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, and contemporary composers and artists, including Arvo Part.
Shape of Sound, published in 2014, chronicles hMa collaborations and discussions with sound artists and colleagues, including Stephen Vitiello, Eric Howeler, and Joao Onofre. Sound compositions, like architecture, reflect changing cultural memes. hMa uses sound, light, and text as secondary ‘mirrors’ - or filters - for the architectural process, and we see this also as part of our application of praxis to architecture.
The curriculum in schools of architecture lays the foundation for future architects. Praxis is an inherent aspect of the discussion within any architecture school. A depth of thinking and intellectual discourse acts as a scaffold for architectural education. Remove the practitioners or the theoreticians, and there is no praxis.
An abbreviated list of studios I have taught over the years cover topics investigated in hMa’s work: Line; Library of the Spoken Word; Time/ PassageWay; S o U n d. My design studio programs present a chronicle of ideas, tested in the academic environment, and applied in hMa’s design studio. For any architectural work to be a serious discourse, it must be pursued as praxis: built work, grounded in the history of ideas, theory, and philosophy.
I would like to end with a quote from a favorite poet, as we reflect on the notion of praxis, and how it relates to education and architectural practice:
‘Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper, or your self-confidence.’ (Robert Frost).
I would also like to end by giving a special ‘thank you’ to Professor Mara Marcu, whose serious and astute study and production in architecture provides an excellent example of praxis.
Architecture itself Is education and references ideas by its existence. For education, we present work by hMa Principal Victoria Meyers' students at the University of Cincinnati. Above: Images from Meyers' Seminar, 'Sound Urbanism/ Sound Ecology', at the University of Cincinnati. Meyers' seminar spent Spring 2014 ‘mapping’ sound sections through significant neighborhoods in Cincinnati.
Above, top of the image: student drawing of the Bridge over the Ohio River, separating Ohio and Kentucky. This is an area of intense industrial activity and shipping. Below, left side of the drawing: the Viaduct that crosses train tracks that lead to the main train station in downtown Cincinnati. When the Mid-West was a center of industrial manufacturing, there were hundreds of trains /day passing below this viaduct. Today there are a few trains/ day, and the train station is a museum. The sounds generated by trains coming through Cincinnati are different than they were 100 years ago.
In addition to drawings, students also made sound recordings of each section. The goal was to generate sections that explore visually and through sound, areas that register significant change to Cincinnati.
Above: Meyers' 2012 Graduate Studio at the University of Texas: Manhattanville M(w)EE. Students were asked to design a new Subway Station for the 125th Street Subway Stop in Manhattan. This is an area where the NYC Subway is elevated above ground. 125th Street is the lowest elevation in NYC.
This has become a significant stop on the # 1 Train because Columbia University is building a new Campus here. Students were asked to design a subway stop capable of handling 10,000 people /day. Each Student also developed a program to go with their stops.
We show two projects: one imagines a new Bio-Engineering Lab as a linear bridge over the elevated subway. The other project is a translucent Cube - an arts building - that hovers around the stop, with the subway passing through the base.
Meyers' Spring 2014 Studio, above. Meyers asked students to design a ‘Hacker-Maker’ building in downtown Brooklyn. The studio concentrated on the design of roofs, and open spaces for working.
The project from Meyers studio above, has a roof with fractal openings, where crystalline shaped skylights drop through the roof into the Hacker-Maker space. Hacker-Makers get randomly placed cubes to work in. The interface between two systems of form: the formalism of cubes and rectilinear space, juxtaposed to fractals and crystalline forms - creates a dynamic space for creative work.
Research is how we test our environment. It is ultimately - how human cultures grow. We are showing, above, hMa’s project - DWi-P - opened in 2014. DWi-P is a building that presents a complex overlay of Sound Composition / Glass// and Cell Phone Technology. DWi-P's glass Wall has a score etched on it, is embedded with Bluetooth, and has an App. The DWi-P App will read where visitors are in space, and visitors can point cell phones at the wall, and play the Schumacher composition, WaTER, etched on the glass as a frit pattern.
The image above shows Dr. Lene Hau, at Harvard. Dr. Hau is a Physicist doing research on the speed of light at Harvard. In 2006 hMa Principal Meyers wrote ‘Designing with Light’. For research on DWL, Meyers had several conversations with Dr. Hau.
hMa continued our conversations, and Dr. Hau had great influence on how hMa designed Infinity Chapel.
Materials make Reference to the world. Buildings (and landscapes) have meaning by how they are detailed with materials.
Materiality is important in hMa's projects, and is also important when we teach. Tactility refers to how we read space with our hands. The haptic sense is a way to understand space.
Glass is different from stone. Above, we show human hands, in reference to both materials. On the left - a hand touches glass; on the right, we show hand imprints on a stone cave wall in Patagonia.
Musicians and people who deal in sound understand materiality as timbre. Timbre is a term that describes the materiality of sound.
Timbre is affected, for example, by the materiality of a Musical Instrument. A metallic instrument wired for electricity sounds very different from the same instrument as an analog.
In architecture - timbre is registered through footsteps, or the voice. These can be ‘live’ and echo; or muted and soft. Both reactions are ‘soundings’ that give very different spatial readings. This reading relates partially at least, to the materiality of the space.
Large stone halls like Cathedrals sound different from small, informal residential spaces, where sound is muted by fabrics, and materials that absorb sound, and prevent reverberation.
Each space and each object in the hMa Diagram, above, has a ‘Timbre’: WaterFall Table has stainless steel beads that reference water; DWi-P is a glass façade that represents WaTER; the LightScore is a series of light waves, 'played’ onto concrete surfaces, at the Kitchen in NYC.
hMa uses stone, glass, steel and wood in projects, as a conscious way of referencing materials and Timbre in space. Trees are living organisms - cut using calibration to impose mathematic scaling onto an organic system. Digital Water i-Pavilion's (DWi-P) façade is a sound wall scored into equal divisions. At hMa's Holley House in upstate New York, parallel stone walls make a house.
Program is – whatever you - as the designer - make it. Program is like a movie script - it’s a fantasy. The program does not exist until the designer envisions it.
I will show four hMa Programs. The first program, shown above, is: Flatness of Space, or Infrathin, demonstrated by hMa's DWi-P and hMa's design for the Queens Museum of Art. Both of these are projects with complex programs, compressed within thin, compact sections, or Infrathin// or the 'Flatness of Space'.
hMa's program of 'Repetition' is demonstrated, above, by the Won Buddhist project, where repeating channels of wood as screens - and punched windows - create a clear sense of repetition in the buildings. To the right, benches and light lines at hMa's Infinity Chapel located in downtown Manhattan, create repetition. Above, the frit pattern of the Schumacher score on the facade of DWi-P, along with the repetition of steel mullions, creates a pattern of repetition at hMa's DWi-P, at Battery Park City in NYC.
hMa also creates programs based on 'Embedded Objects'. At the left, above, is hMa's Infinity Chapel, where a series of embedded spheres create a room with curved surfaces that filter light. At the right, Pratt Pavilion sits as an embedded object between two existing 19th century industrial brick loft buildings, at Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, NY.
Above, we show an hMa project to demonstrate 'buildings with sound as their program'. Shown above is hMa's Ojai Pavilion also referred to as : - ‘Sound Vortex’.
hMa has spent our career working on projects that approach - Zero - as in Zero Carbon Footprint, or Invisibility. hMa’s Logo consists of two crossing lines that represent the Cartesian Grid - with a series of wave forms crossing the x-axis. The waves represent energy - including our research and focus on sound and light.
hMa are Master Plan Architects for Battery Park City’s North Neighborhood. We Designed a Master Plan for the North Neighborhood including LEED energy standards for buildings and Green Street standards for streets.
This is Victoria Meyers' ‘Sound and Light Score’ designed to be played as blasts of light at the ‘Kitchen' space for performance and art (http://thekitchen.org/) in NYC.
hMa’s LightScore led to more complex collaborations with the composer who invited hMa to present at the Kitchen, Michael Schumacher. hMa hired Schumacher to write a score : WaTER - for hMa's design for a new community center, DWi-P (Digital Water i-Pavilion) at Battery Park City.
hMa placed a transcription of the Schumacher digital score for WaTER, onto and into the façade of our building, DWi-P, at Battery Park City. Above is hMa’s drawing of ‘the event horizon of connectivity’ through the glass façade of DWi-P.
Sound, a form of Energy Wave, has been a focus of research for hMa Principal Victoria Meyers for 20 years. Meyers presents her research on sound in her new book Shape of Sound. The diagram above shows the ‘sound field’ - generated by DWi-P at Battery Park City in New York.
This is hMa’s first major public project, Chattanooga Nature Interpretive Center, designed to showcase sustainable solutions to energy use. The building featured solar panels for sunlight, and wind and water turbines - all as passive energy sources for the building. Chattanooga Nature Interpretive Center is a building designed in response to temperature, sunlight, water collection, and environmental factors.
Silence is the base condition for Sound Urbanism and Sound Ecology. Sound Urbanism // Sound Ecology is the title of a course taught by Victoria Meyers architect in 2012 - 2013 at the University of Cincinnati's Graduate School of Architecture. Above: hMa's (Victoria Meyers architect) Won Buddhist Retreat, where the Meditation Hall was developed as an enclave of silence. This was achieved both through the site planning and landscape design (by hMa), and also by attention placed on sound-proofing in the building, in collaboration with Jaffe Holden Acoustics.
Silence is also featured in the works of John Cage, and Sarah von Sonsbeeck, above. Silence was a major aspect of the semester's studies, and included reviews of Cage's 4' - 33", Cage's monograph, 'Silence', above; Paley Park in NYC, designed by landscape architects Zion and Breen, which notably is not quiet, but filled with the sound of water, drowning out the sounds of New York City; and, more recently, the works of Dutch artist, Sarah von Sonsbeeck, including her piece, featured above, 'one square meter of broken silence'.
Humankind’s ideas about sound have evolved, starting during the era of cave dwellers, who took advantage of the aural environment in caves to enhance the sounds that accompanied cave painting rituals. Caves are reverberant, and the effect of sounds chanted within such environments have vastly different emotional effects from the same sounds chanted in an open field. Today, in the twenty-first century, we are beginning to ‘hear’ buildings that incorporate sound as an interactive aspect of the building façade (DWi-P). We also have buildings that use new technologies for sound isolation and sound projection, and digitally controlled systems that offer built sound environments that exceed the technical possibilities of sound rooms from past eras (EMPAC).
The making of architecture inherently relates to the creation of different sound environments, even if those aural environments are not an explicit part of the building program, and even if the architects and building clients are not aware that they have created an aural environment every time they build a project. The Sound Urbanism/ Sound Ecology course is aimed at making students of architecture, music, and the fine arts sensitive to the affect of built environments, and sound- marks within that environment, on our aural, or sound, ecology. The course will reinforce how architects and artists have control over the sound arena of the environments that they interact with, and will make musicians sensitive to performance environments to allow a better understanding about the aural possibilities of indoor and outdoor spaces.
Architectural design is the creation of an envelope that controls the sound, light, air and other forces of a specific location in space and time. In this seminar, we focus on the control of sound, and the identification of various factors that affect sound in the built environment. Buildings and outdoor spaces designed without sensitivity to the aural environment are also, often, not successful. Often, designers ignore the aural environment. But if sound is controlled, it makes an enormous difference to the experience of the building or landscape. When you go to see a movie, for example, sound is tightly controlled by the team who developed the film score. Rooms can be like film scores - and emphasize their public or private nature, through sound.
Cities and urban plans are intimately related to sound. The creation of cities in the past included the idea of an aural border (the edge of town): it represented the perimeter that a landscape would allow for the propagation of civic communication through the city’s main public buildings, including churches and church bells, fire stations and fire alarms to call out fire locations, factories and whistles to announce the start of the factory work day, as well as other civic institutions that use sound signals for civic communication. City planning includes the design of appropriate sound environments for residential areas, schools, libraries, or public performance venues.
Similarly, Victoria Meyers architect's 'LightScore' performed at the Kitchen space for Performance and Art in New York City, also explored the boundaries between form, space, light and sound.
Shown above, the 'Music Box' designed in 2009 for Michael Schumacher; and, adjacent, Michael Schumacher on piano. The Music Box is an Anamorph, in reference to Michael's work with Victoria, which involved a set of aesthetic propositions around the concept of sound, as a formal element, within the urban environment. The class will design their own concept for a Music Box as a class project, for UC Composer Dr. Mara Helmuth.
Formal sound spaces designed by hMa and Meyers include WaveLine, in Queens, New York. WaveLine is located near the Queens MoMA, and PS 1.
For more information about Sound Urbanism, see earlier posts by this blog. In 2014 Victoria will be publishing Shape of Sound, with Black Dog Publishers, London.
Victoria Meyers was the keynote speaker for the 2013 Archiprix in Ankara, Istanbul. To see an article about Meyers's trip, go to the link: http://www.mimarizm.com/Yarismalar/Detay.aspx?id=53464.
Above: Victoria Meyers architect presents her architectural works with hMa in Ankara, Turkey.
Victoria Meyers architect sits on the jury for the 2013 Turkish Archiprix
During the presentation Meyers spoke about her experience as an educator in architecture. She also presented ideas from her new book, Shape of Sound, published in May 2014 by Artifice Books of Artifice Books/ Black Dog Publishing, London.
The Jury was convened to recognize the best architectural works by students of architecture in Turkey. Award-winners appear in the image, below:
Meyers was invited to the event after being selected by a jury including Dr. Lale Ozgenel, a professor and Director of the School of Architecture in Ankara.
Shown above: the magazine cover, featuring the entry area, into hMa's Won Buddhist Retreat in Claverack, NY.
Victoria Meyers architect, of hanrahan Meyers architects, is featured in Konsept Projeler (translates to Concepts Projects), Turkey's premier design magazine, in their December issue. Meyers was in Turkey, as the International Juror for the 2013 Turkish Archiprix. After judging the Archiprix, Meyers gave a public lecture, describing her firm, hMa, and how she and her partner, Hanrahan, have developed new typologies, studying ideas for Hacker-Maker spaces. Meyers is currently studying Hacker Maker in her design studio at the University of Cincinnati's School of Architecture, where she is teaching a design studio, with the concept of a Hacker-Maker. Meyers is the David Niland Chair at the University of Cincinnati School of Architecture
Meyers also discussed her upcoming book, Shape of Sound, during her interview with Concepts interviewer, Baran Danis, and the effect that the study of sound as a formal issue, has also affected the development of hMa's designs.
The article is reproduced below. I hope they had nice things to say! They gave hMa a beautiful spread, including extensive views of Won Buddhist Retreat, Holley House, DWi-P, and Infinity Chapel. You can find out more about the magazine, here: www.konseptprojeler.com.
Shown above, hMa's DWi-P, a new public building by hMa, featuring a first, Digitally Interactive Facade. The building had a soft opening in November 2013. The building is planned to have a formal opening, in 2014, after the DWi-P App is published, and the facade comes 'online' as an interactive public space.
Above: More images of hMa's DWi-P (Digital Water i-Pavilion). During her talk at the conclusion of the Turkish Archiprix, Meyers discussed the work of hMa, and how the firm's investigations into contemporary space include Bio-Morphism, and self-replicating systems. DWi-P is a building that shows this research, as it is a self-replicating system, repeating details that hMa developed in earlier projects, mostly at Infinity Chapel.
Above: hMa's Infinity Chapel. Infinity Chapel investigates Sound, through the firm's concept of Snd.BX-2 sound boxes. Infinity Chapel includes five Snd.BX-2 sound boxes, which act as sound and light transmitters, connecting a lower level Sunday school to the upper level Chapel and Reading Room.
Above: hMa" Snd.Bx-2 Diagram, showing how sound and light form the sequence from MacDougal Street to a rear, outdoor Garden Chapel.
Another detail shot of the entry sequence into the meditation hall at Won Buddhist Retreat. Again, hMa applied ideas that the firm has developed around sound as a formal design element. The Meditation Hall is designed as a space of 'silence'. The Hall features state of the art sound dampening details. If the Buddhists close the doors to the hall, the main hall is completely sound isolated from the surroundings.
Above: hMa's Holley House. Holley House is two Pavilions that float in a landscape, separated by a walled structure. The walled structure acts as a primary support wall for both pavilions, but also creates a separate zone of entry to the two pavilions.
Holley House: two pavilions floated in a landscape; a Stone Wall (inspired by artist Andy Goldsworthy) creates a zone of Entry and Circulation between the two pavilions.
Above: more images of Won Buddhist Retreat. hMa won an AIA Honor Award for this project. The project included a 550-acre site, where hMa designed the Master Plan, as well as the design of five buildings. hMa designed the site (which was a Brownfield site), and the five new buildings, to have zero-carbon-footprint.
Above: Won Buddhist Retreat: All woods in the project are FSC woods. The image, directly above, shows the Buddhists in morning meditation practice, at sunrise.
The mirror analogy above, is from Meyers' lecture, discussing how hMa uses the concept of 'mirror' on hMa projects. By replicating details and ideas from earlier designs, hMa projects form an eco-system, based on principals similar to concepts of design in the work of Skylar Tibbits. hMa's work is a 'self-replicating system'.
Victoria Meyers: Designing With Light
New York Architects Victoria Meyers and Thomas Hanrahan believe that architecture is an environment, 'pure space', manifested in nature. The principals of hanrahanMeyers architects (hMa) have established themselves as unique visionaries, incorporating light and sound into their arresting designs of pure forms. Founded in 1987, the firm specializes in residences, art centers, and community spaces. They design spaces from a vision that connects visitors with the natural world.
www.designingwithlight.us
Victoria Meyers: Shape of Sound Architect Victoria Meyers analyzes the shape of sound; architecture and sound; form; materiality; windows; the urban sound scape, its politics, aesthetics and social character; reflection; virtuality; sound art; and silence.
Shape of Sound on Amazon
Victoria Meyers: Shape of Sound Victoria Meyers architect (Los Angeles, Ca.), principal of hanrahan Meyers architects (hMa) explores sound as it effects architecture, urban spaces, and landscapes. Contributors include hanrahan Meyers architects (featured on the book cover), Stephen Vitiello, Michael J. Schumacher, David Mather, Neil Denari, Bruce Pearson, Howeler and Yoon architecture, and Joseph Ketner.
hMa : Green Initiatives / Sustainable Architecture
United Nations Environment Programme "Environmental Knowledge for Change" this site is an incredible resource on environmental and social issues around the world
Greenopia NY hMa is proud to be featured as a "Greenopia Distinguished Business"
41 Pounds A campaign to stop junk mail (named for the number of pounds of junk mail the average American adult recieves in 1 year!)
The Conservation Fund As part of our nature based vision for architecture, hMa gives a percentage of the firm’s annual revenues to nature initiatives. This year, hMa funded ‘Wildlife Corridors’, through the Conservation Fund. ‘Wildlife Corridors’ provide natural zones through cities and towns that link animals with adjacent nature preserves. This initiative is one of several cutting-edge planning initiatives that forward thinking architects will be adopting as we seek to harmonize human habitats with nature and create sustainable development.
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