The 65th Street Lincoln Center pavilion in New York, a multi-use project housing Lincoln restaurant, the new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and the Laurie Tisch Illumination Lawn, has earned national recognition in the 2011 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel awards program (IDEAS2).
In honor of this achievement, members of the project team will be presented with awards from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) during a ceremony in the Hauser Patron Salon on the second floor of Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, just across 65th Street from the pavilion, on Wednesday, November 9.
Conducted annually by AISC, the IDEAS2 awards recognize outstanding achievement in engineering and architecture on structural steel projects around the country. The IDEAS2 award is the highest, most prestigious honor bestowed on building projects by the structural steel industry in the U.S.
The project team members include owner Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York; design architect and interior designer of the restaurant, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York; executive architect, FXFOWLE, New York; and architect and interior designer of the film center, Rockwell Group, New York; structural engineer Arup (AISC Member), New York; and general contractor Turner Construction Company (AISC Member), New York.
The 65th Street Lincoln Center pavilion is a National award winner in the category of projects $15 Million to $75 Million, making it one of only eight projects around the country to receive the National honor. Each year, the IDEAS2 awards honor National and Merit award winners in three categories, based on constructed value: projects less than $15 million; projects $15 million to $75 million; and projects greater than $75 million. Each project is judged on its use of structural steel, with an emphasis on creative solutions to project requirements; design innovation; aesthetic and visual impact of the project; innovative use of architecturally exposed structural steel; technical or architectural advances in the use of steel; the use of innovative design and construction methods; and sustainable design.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is one of the largest and best-known arts complexes in the world, with 12 independent companies and 15 venues bringing a wide range of events to five million visitors per year. Over the past decade, the center has undertaken an ambitious modernization of its midcentury campus. The central design challenge: reactivating the connection between the 16-acre campus and its Manhattan neighborhood, increasing the visibility of resident organizations and drawing in new audiences.
One of the key architectural solutions to emerge from the modernization project is the new 65th Street Lincoln Center pavilion. Topped by a striking warped green roof and housing a glass-walled restaurant, the pavilion is a distinctive yet accessible urban form that fulfills complex programmatic requirements while maintaining much-needed public space on the campus.
In addition to creating an iconic shape that stands out among its rectilinear neighbors, the pavilion's unique geometry addresses a number of practical concerns. The lowest point of the structure brings the roof flush with the plaza, extending a friendly invitation onto the grass to both Lincoln Center patrons and casual passerby. The twisting planes tilt the 7,200-sf lawn away from 65th Street, reducing visitors' exposure to noise and traffic.
"This pavilion is a substantial element delicately inserted into an existing urban space," commented Robert Theel, AIA, regional chief architect and director, Design & Construction Division, General Services Administration Great Lakes Region, Chicago, and a judge in the competition.
The open, serene atmosphere is carried into the 11,000-sf restaurant, called Lincoln, which features an exposed central kitchen flanked by four public dining areas. Glass walls and a contoured mahogany ceiling frame views to the outside and draw the public's gaze inward. Accessible from both plaza and street level, Lincoln has been praised as one of the nation's best new restaurants since its September 2010 launch.
The simple, streamlined form of the pavilion gives no indication of the complex, densely packed facilities beneath. In addition to three new subterranean Lincoln Center Film Society theaters, the restaurant sits atop the central utility plant, which provides chilled water and stream to the entire campus.
The layout for the geometry of the pavilion's steel superstructure follows the mathematical principals and main generating lines of a rectilinear hypar. As a result, straight steel members were able to be used for all floor beams. Thoughtful rationalization of the architectural form and use of steel for the primary structure simplified fabrication and enabled rapid construction. The latter was particularly important due to Lincoln Center's need to remain open throughout the design and construction process. The design team and contractors exchanged 3D models, further easing fabrication and aiding interdisciplinary coordination.
Arup's structural design thoughtfully addresses the requirements of each programmatic element. Metal decking with concrete poured on top forms the warped floor structure. Columns at regular intervals transfer vertical loading into the existing building. An additional layer of transfer beams underneath the columns transfers vertical loading around the movie theaters and the central mechanical plant into existing footings. On one end, the lower tip of the hypar sockets into the existing waffle slab of the plaza, allowing the transfer of lateral loading into the existing shear diaphragm. On the opposing side, braced frames transfer horizontal loading into the ground.
Throughout the five-year design and construction period, the project team created and coordinated multiple document packages corresponding to the logistical challenges and sequencing of the work, consistently exercising a high level of oversight to minimize conflicts and mitigate unforeseen field conditions.
The new pavilion and improved facilities will enable Lincoln Center to continue providing world-class performances to local, national and international audiences for decades to come. With its unique space-generating structure, complex interface of new and old, and challenging logistical and scheduling requirements, the pavilion pushed New York City's design and building community to the boundaries of existing construction technologies.
The 14 IDEAS2 winners for 2011 were chosen from nearly 100 submissions received by architectural and engineering firms throughout the U.S. Each submission is reviewed and award winners are selected by a nationally recognized panel of design and construction industry professionals.
The IDEAS2 award dates back over 70 years to the earliest years of AISC's existence. Roger E. Ferch, P.E. president of AISC, said, "The entire 65th Street Lincoln Center pavilion project team has shown how structural steel can be used to create structures that combine beauty and practicality. The result is a pavilion that serves its patrons extremely well, while providing an example of what can be achieved when designing and constructing projects with steel." BD+C
Related Stories
| Nov 16, 2010
Architecture Billings Index: inquiries for new projects remain extremely high
The new projects inquiry index was 61.7, down slightly from a nearly three-year high mark of 62.3 in September, according to the Architecture Billings Index (ABI). However, the ABI dropped nearly two points in October; the October ABI score was 48.7, down from a reading of 50.4 the previous month. The ABI reflects the approximate nine to 12 month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending.
| Nov 16, 2010
Brazil Olympics spurring green construction
Brazil's green building industry will expand in the coming years, spurred by construction of low-impact venues being built for the 2016 Olympics. The International Olympic Committee requires arenas built for the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro meet international standards for low-carbon emissions and energy efficiency. This has boosted local interest in developing real estate with lower environmental impact than existing buildings. The timing couldn’t be better: the Brazilian government is just beginning its long-term infrastructure expansion program.
| Nov 16, 2010
Green building market grows 50% in two years; Green Outlook 2011 report
The U.S. green building market is up 50% from 2008 to 2010—from $42 billion to $55 billion-$71 billion, according to McGraw-Hill Construction's Green Outlook 2011: Green Trends Driving Growth report. Today, a third of all new nonresidential construction is green; in five years, nonresidential green building activity is expected to triple, representing $120 billion to $145 billion in new construction.
| Nov 16, 2010
Calculating office building performance? Yep, there’s an app for that
123 Zero build is a free tool for calculating the performance of a market-ready carbon-neutral office building design. The app estimates the discounted payback for constructing a zero emissions office building in any U.S. location, including the investment needed for photovoltaics to offset annual carbon emissions, payback calculations, estimated first costs for a highly energy efficient building, photovoltaic costs, discount rates, and user-specified fuel escalation rates.
| Nov 16, 2010
CityCenter’s new Harmon Hotel targeted for demolition
MGM Resorts officials want to demolish the unopened 27-story Harmon Hotel—one of the main components of its brand new $8.5 billion CityCenter development in Las Vegas. In 2008, inspectors found structural work on the Harmon didn’t match building plans submitted to the county, with construction issues focused on improperly placed steel reinforcing bar. In January 2009, MGM scrapped the building’s 200 condo units on the upper floors and stopped the tower at 27 stories, focusing on the Harmon having just 400 hotel rooms. With the Lord Norman Foster-designed building mired in litigation, construction has since been halted on the interior, and the blue-glass tower is essentially a 27-story empty shell.
| Nov 16, 2010
Where can your firm beat the recession? Try any of these 10 places
Wondering where condos and rental apartments will be needed? Where companies are looking to rent office space? Where people will need hotel rooms, retail stores, and restaurants? Newsweek compiled a list of the 10 American cities best situated for economic recovery. The cities fall into three basic groups: Texas, the New Silicon Valleys, and the Heartland Honeys. Welcome to the recovery.
| Nov 16, 2010
Landscape architecture challenges Andrés Duany’s Congress for New Urbanism
Andrés Duany, founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism, adopted the ideas, vision, and values of the early 20th Century landscape architects/planners John Nolen and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., to launch a movement that led to more than 300 new towns, regional plans, and community revitalization project commissions for his firm. However, now that there’s a societal buyer’s remorse about New Urbanism, Duany is coming up against a movement that sees landscape architecture—not architecture—as the design medium more capable of organizing the city and enhancing the urban experience.
| Nov 16, 2010
Just for fun: Words that architects use
If you regularly use such words as juxtaposition, folly, truncated, and articulation, you may be an architect. Architects tend to use words rarely uttered during normal conversations. In fact, 62% of all the words that come out of an architects mouth could be replaced by a simpler and more widely known word, according to this “report.” Review this list of designer words, and once you manage to work them into daily conversation, you’re on your way to becoming a bonafide architect.
| Nov 16, 2010
NFRC approves technical procedures for attachment product ratings
The NFRC Board of Directors has approved technical procedures for the development of U-factor, solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC), and visible transmittance (VT) ratings for co-planar interior and exterior attachment products. The new procedures, approved by unanimous voice vote last week at NFRC’s Fall Membership Meeting in San Francisco, will add co-planar attachments such as blinds and shades to the group’s existing portfolio of windows, doors, skylights, curtain walls, and window film.
