North-facing view of The Sweepers by Wang Shugang at the O'Donnell Athenaeum Phase I Museum. Photo: ©Mauricio Rojas, Courtesy of UT Dallas

UT Dallas opens Morphosis-designed Crow Museum of Asian Art

In Richardson, Tex., the University of Texas at Dallas has opened a second location for the Crow Museum of Asian Art—the first of multiple buildings that will be part of a 12-acre cultural district. When completed, the arts and performance complex, called the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum, will include two museums, a performance hall and music building, a grand plaza, and a dedicated parking structure on the Richardson campus.

Museums

Bjarke Ingels' Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art conceived as village of 12 pavilions

The 60,000-sm Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art in Suzhou, Jiangsu, China recently topped out. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the museum is conceived as a village of 12 pavilions, offering a modern interpretation of the elements that have defined the city’s urbanism, architecture, and landscape for centuries.

Cultural Facilities

Baltimore’s National Aquarium opens 10,000-sf floating wetland that mimics the harbor’s original tidal marsh habitat

The National Aquarium in Baltimore has opened the National Aquarium Harbor Wetland, a 10,000-sf floating wetland that mimics the Inner Harbor’s original Chesapeake Bay tidal marsh habitat. Located between Piers 3 and 4 on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the $14 million project features more than 32,000 native shrubs and marsh grasses.

Museums

The Tampa Museum of Art will soon undergo a $110 million expansion

In Tampa, Fla., the Tampa Museum of Art will soon undergo a 77,904-sf Centennial Expansion project. The museum plans to reach its $110 million fundraising goal by late 2024 or early 2025 and then break ground. Designed by Weiss/Manfredi, and with construction manager The Beck Group, the expansion will redefine the museum’s surrounding site.

Museums

Dec 2, 2014

Main attractions: New list tallies up the Top 10 museums completed this year

The list includes both additions to existing structures and entirely new buildings, from Frank Gehry's Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris to Shigeru Ban's Aspen (Colo.) Art Museum.

Nov 14, 2014

Bjarke Ingels unveils master plan for Smithsonian's south mall campus

The centerpiece of the proposed plan is the revitalization of the iconic Smithsonian castle.

Every aspect of the Centerlocation, materials, utilities, operation and usemee

Nov 12, 2014

Chesapeake Bay Foundation completes uber-green Brock Environmental Center, targets Living Building certification

More than a decade after opening its groundbreaking Philip Merrill Environmental Center, the group is back at it with a structure designed to be net-zero water, net-zero energy, and net-zero waste.

Marine Education Centre in Malm, Sweden. Renderings: Nord Architects

Nov 7, 2014

NORD Architects releases renderings for Marine Education Center in Sweden

The education center will be set in a landscape that includes small ponds and plantings intended to mimic an assortment of marine ecologies and create “an engaging learning landscape” for visitors to experience nature hands-on.

Nov 5, 2014

The architects behind George Lucas' planned Chicago museum unveil 'futuristic pyramid'

Preliminary designs for the $300 million George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art have been unveiled, and it looks like a futuristic, curvy pyramid.

Iber Camargo Foundation. Photo: Ricardo Rmx via Wikimedia Commons

Nov 3, 2014

IIT names winners of inaugural Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize

Herzog & de Meuron's iconic 1111 Lincoln Road parking garage in Miami Beach, Fla., is one of two winners of the $50,000 architectural prize.

Photo courtesy Postoak/Wikimedia Commons

Oct 29, 2014

Diller Scofidio + Renfro selected to design Olympic Museum in Colorado Springs

The museum is slated for an early 2018 completion, and will include a hall of fame, theater, retail space, and a 20,000-sf hall that will showcase the history of the Olympics and Paralympics.

Photo credit: Jens Lindhe, courtesy of Henning Larsen Architects

Oct 23, 2014

Prehistory museum's slanted roof mimics archaeological excavation [slideshow]

Mimicking the unearthing of archaeological sites, Henning Larsen Architects' recently opened Moesgaard Museum in Denmark has a planted roof that slopes upward out of the landscape.

The research can help designers identify which products should be subjected to e

Oct 16, 2014

Perkins+Will white paper examines alternatives to flame retardant building materials

The white paper includes a list of 193 flame retardants, including 29 discovered in building and household products, 50 found in the indoor environment, and 33 in human blood, milk, and tissues.

Photo courtesy Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities

Oct 15, 2014

Harvard launches ‘design-centric’ center for green buildings and cities

The impetus behind Harvard's Center for Green Buildings and Cities is what the design school’s dean, Mohsen Mostafavi, describes as a “rapidly urbanizing global economy,” in which cities are building new structures “on a massive scale.”