Chile’s Regional Government has chosen New York-based Ennead Architects and local architects Cristian Sanhuerza and Cristian Ostertag to design a research center near Cape Horn, the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile.
The purpose of the Cape Horn Sub-Antarctic Research Center will be to promote study and ecological tourism in this ecologically diverse, albeit remote and sparsely populated, region, which includes a temperate rainforest. “It’s about as far south as you can get without going to Antarctica,” says Richard Olcott, a Principal at Ennead, reports Dezeen.
The site where the research center will be built is within the UNESCO Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve in Puerto Williams.
The research facility is a collaborative venture among the University of Magallanes, the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, the Omoro Foundation in Chile, and the University of North Texas. The center will house the Biocultural Research and Conservation Program led by Dr. Ricardo Rozzi, a native Chilean who is a professor at North Texas.
Ennead’s recent commercial projects include the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City, the Standard Hotel near New York City’s High Line, and the renovation and expansion of Yale’s Art Gallery.
The research center’s exterior will be constructed with maintenance-free Corten steel that forms a self-sealing layer of rust around the structure. The interior’s auditorium will be wrapped in wood, which Olcott suggests would be a bit like the inside of a boat.
Ennead says there will be three programs at the center: education, sustainable tourism, and subantarctic transdisciplinary research, each with its own pavilion. The center will also include a lecture hall and café, exhibition space, and apartments for visiting researchers.
The project should be completed by 2017.
Related Stories
| Nov 3, 2010
Recreation center targets student health, earns LEED Platinum
Not only is the student recreation center at the University of Arizona, Tucson, the hub of student life but its new 54,000-sf addition is also super-green, having recently attained LEED Platinum certification.
| Nov 3, 2010
Designs complete for new elementary school
SchenkelShultz has completed design of the new 101,270-sf elementary Highlands Elementary School, as well as designs for three existing buildings that will be renovated, in Kissimmee, Fla. The school will provide 48 classrooms for 920 students, a cafeteria, a media center, and a music/art suite with outdoor patio. Three facilities scheduled for renovations total 19,459 sf and include an eight-classroom building that will be used as an exceptional student education center, a older media center that will be used as a multipurpose building, and another building that will be reworked as a parent center, with two meeting rooms for community use. W.G. Mills/Ranger is serving as CM for the $15.1 million project.
| Nov 3, 2010
Virginia biofuel research center moving along
The Sustainable Energy Technology Center has broken ground in October on the Danville, Va., campus of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. The 25,000-sf facility will be used to develop enhanced bio-based fuels, and will house research laboratories, support labs, graduate student research space, and faculty offices. Rainwater harvesting, a vegetated roof, low-VOC and recycled materials, photovoltaic panels, high-efficiency plumbing fixtures and water-saving systems, and LED light fixtures will be deployed. Dewberry served as lead architect, with Lord Aeck & Sargent serving as laboratory designer and sustainability consultant. Perigon Engineering consulted on high-bay process labs. New Atlantic Contracting is building the facility.
| Nov 3, 2010
Dining center cooks up LEED Platinum rating
Students at Bowling Green State University in Ohio will be eating in a new LEED Platinum multiuse dining center next fall. The 30,000-sf McDonald Dining Center will have a 700-seat main dining room, a quick-service restaurant, retail space, and multiple areas for students to gather inside and out, including a fire pit and several patios—one of them on the rooftop.
| Nov 2, 2010
Cypress Siding Helps Nature Center Look its Part
The Trinity River Audubon Center, which sits within a 6,000-acre forest just outside Dallas, utilizes sustainable materials that help the $12.5 million nature center fit its wooded setting and put it on a path to earning LEED Gold.
| Oct 27, 2010
Grid-neutral education complex to serve students, community
MVE Institutional designed the Downtown Educational Complex in Oakland, Calif., to serve as an educational facility, community center, and grid-neutral green building. The 123,000-sf complex, now under construction on a 5.5-acre site in the city’s Lake Merritt neighborhood, will be built in two phases, the first expected to be completed in spring 2012 and the second in fall 2014.
| Oct 13, 2010
Editorial
The AEC industry shares a widespread obsession with the new. New is fresh. New is youthful. New is cool. But “old” or “slightly used” can be financially profitable and professionally rewarding, too.
| Oct 13, 2010
Thought Leader
Sundra L. Ryce, President and CEO of SLR Contracting & Service Company, Buffalo, N.Y., talks about her firm’s success in new construction, renovation, CM, and design-build projects for the Navy, Air Force, and Buffalo Public Schools.
| Oct 13, 2010
Campus building gives students a taste of the business world
William R. Hough Hall is the new home of the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The $17.6 million, 70,000-sf building gives students access to the latest technology, including a lab that simulates the stock exchange.
| Oct 13, 2010
Science building supports enrollment increases
The new Kluge-Moses Science Building at Piedmont Virginia Community College, in Charlottesville, is part of a campus update designed and managed by the Lukmire Partnership. The 34,000-sf building is designed to be both a focal point of the college and a recruitment mechanism to get more students enrolling in healthcare programs.
