Nader Tehrani: Current Work

Posted on May 30th, 2017 by Jalisa Joyner

Posted under: Lectures

On April 5th, Nader presented NADAAA’s current work at a public lecture at the Cooper Union as part of The Architectural League’s Current Work series.

He organized his lecture around three projects for schools of design: the Hinman Research Building at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne, and the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto. These projects explore the relationship of these buildings to spaces of scholarship, making, and the accidents that happen in between these moments and, “some kind of reciprocity between the institutions we [as architects] try to cultivate, and the spaces they foster.”

Edited video courtesy of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union.

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Doors Open Toronto: Previewing DFALD

Posted on May 29th, 2017 by Jalisa Joyner

Posted under: Events

On Saturday and Sunday, visitors were able to get a sneak peak of One Spadina with Doors Open Toronto. Doors Open was the first time the public had access to DFALD which opens this fall.  Visitors took self-guided tours through the renewed heritage building.

To hear more about Doors Open at DFALD check out CBC’s media coverage HERE. To learn more about construction at DFALD from Urban Toronto click HERE.

 

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MSD Shortlisted for Moriyama RAIC International Prize

Posted on May 25th, 2017 by Jalisa Joyner

Posted under: _Melbourne School of Design, Awards

The Melbourne School of Design has been shortlisted for the 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize. The Prize, awarded every two years, recieved entries from 17 countries this year. The shortlisted projects are by BIG, Tezuka Architects, Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, and NADAAA/John Wardle Architects. The winner of the 2017 Prize will be announced on September 19, 2017 at the RAIC’s gala event at The Carlu in Toronto.

Jury Comments:

“The spatial concept of an architecture school has become the social focus of the campus for all students.”

“It is a beautifully orchestrated space, thoughtfully detailed and well crafted.”

“It redefines the educational mission by engaging students with the entire building as a collaborative learning environment.”

 

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Domestic Tectonic: Translations Across Scales

Posted on May 22nd, 2017 by Lisa LaCharité

Posted under: Installations + Exhibitions, Lectures, Press

Nader Tehrani and Katie Faulkner presented the 2017 RISD Shoemaker Lecture on April 24, 2017 after the opening of the RISD Shoemaker Exhibit by NADAAA, Domestic Tectonic: Translations Across Scales, at the RISD BEB Gallery. Below is a summary and guide to the exhibit.

Domestic Tectonic occurs at a moment in our trajectory when the dialogue between research and practice has intertwined, not only in confluence, but in moments of friction when our design ambitions have not aligned with the possibilities of patronage, construction norms, or the fluctuations of the economy. The Rock Creek House, as such, does not so much represent the culmination of a form of thinking, but strategic compromise, reconciliation, and opportunism. The seeds for current thinking can be found in history, and many of the early works of both Office dA and NADAAA were houses. Taken together, the houses reveal not only speculation on the domestic realm, but also ways in which a small project may become an ‘amuse bouche’ for a larger construction.

Thus, we link the design and craft usually reserved for the scale of a home to the architecture of the very institutions that train the designers. Below are a few examples of these links as themes that stand out in our work: The first theme deals with the basic proposition of architectural composition in the context of typology, organization and configuration: each of these houses have explored the tensions between received conventions on the one hand –whether from history or the construction industry– and the idea of transformation and invention on the other. A second theme has transported each project into a research about the relationship between material units, their methods of assembly and the way in which means and methods might become transformative –formally, spatially, and technologically– as the basis for the production of new forms of knowledge. Thirdly, each project establishes some relationship with its site, if only as a reminder that architecture does not only operate in a vacuum, but also in a deeply entrenched relationship with its context, and hence a social, political and collective environment.

Below is an outline of the work included in the exhibit to provide a tour of the exhibition. The exhibition was organized around five episodes; each episode title is a link that provides additional information and context:

1 The Rock Creek House

As the centerpiece of the exhibit, the Rock Creek House represents the challenges of working with the infrastructure of an existing building, and how its history and embodied energy serves to advance an idea about resilience and preservation. At the same time, the project tests the limits of such a logic, radically transforming the southern side of the building to open it up to the landscape, framing broader views, letting in the sun, and consequently transforming the otherwise load-bearing brick wall into a curtain wall. The sectional excavations of the project are maybe its most transformative, effectively mining space out of an existing basement and attic to double the size of the house. Significant portions of existing brick were removed on the southern façade to make way for larger window sizes, and then subsequently recycled to expand the façade of the attic space: a conceptual cut and fill.

2 MOCK-UPS

The mock-ups in this exhibit are a key part of the research undertaken by NADAAA in collaboration with C.W. Keller & Associates to advance some of the material thinking of the project. Much of that thinking was aimed at organizing the house on the north-south grain of its structural walls and –with the insertion of diverse plywood elements– reinforcing that grain with the orientation of plywood laminations. These laminations then translate into butcher block stairs, picket railing, blank panel interior facades on the east-west grain, and a medium through which to organize all mechanical and electronic elements.

3- Tectonic Domestic Grid**

The grid of projects on the north-west corner of the gallery places this project in the context of other residential projects through which some of the key ideas have been iterated.

4 The Animations 

The projection wall brings the various projects into dialogue with each other through added images, and more importantly through animations that advance both the conceptual and experiential aims of each project.

5 The preface to the May 2016 issue of The Plan 

The preface to the May 2016 issue of The Plan is included as an introduction to the exhibit. It outlines some of our architectural preoccupations over the past years and how they have impacted the relationship between practice and pedagogy.

** Residences from left to right, top to bottom: Tongxian Art Center, Weston House, Newton House, Phoenix Residence, New Hampshire Retreat, Mill Road Residence, Villa Varoise (Dortoir Familial), Casa La Roca, House in New England

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Helios House Featured in 2017’s 10 Best Gas Stations

Posted on May 19th, 2017 by Jalisa Joyner

Posted under: Press, Things We Like

Helios House was #8! Read more HERE.

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DFALD WINS CANADIAN INSTITUTE OF STEEL AWARD

Posted on May 17th, 2017 by Jalisa Joyner

Posted under: _Daniels Building, Awards

DFALD won the Award of Excellence in the Architectural Category for the 2017 Canadian Institute of Steel Construction (CISC) Awards for its roof! The architectural category honors buildings in which architectural considerations predominantly influenced the design of the structure.

View photos of the Awards Ceremony HERE. Read more about DFALD’s steel construction HERE. And check out before and after images from U of T Daniel’s blog HERE.

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DFALD Preview at Doors Open Toronto

Posted on May 15th, 2017 by Jalisa Joyner

Posted under: _Daniels Building, Events, Things We Like

May 27 – 28, 2017

10:00am – 5:00pm, last entry at 4:00pm

The University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design is opening the doors to One Spadina for the first public preview of its new building, now nearing completion. It will be added to one of the many popular tours offered by Doors Open. Read more HERE.

Directions: Use the East Entrance. Cross Spadina Crescent on the east side using the lights at Russell Street

 

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Nader Selects His Favorite New NYC Architecture

Posted on May 10th, 2017 by Jalisa Joyner

Posted under: Press, Things We Like

Along with other architects, designers, and key influencers, Nader nominated his favorite recently constructed project in New York for Metropolis Mag.

“As with all other cities, New York City is challenged by a range of buildings that may not have an overt civic or public function to be celebrated as such. At the same time, infrastructural projects such as parking structures often end up becoming one’s threshold into the city: a front door. This modest project, located in the margins of a main promenade, brings attention to a latent iconic and urban function such a threshold could contain, and it does it with a certain economy.”

Read more HERE.

DELANCEY AND ESSEX MUNICIPAL PARKING GARAGE
designed by Michielli + Wyetzner Architects

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Nader In Conversation with Sarah Williams Goldhagen

Posted on May 9th, 2017 by Jalisa Joyner

Posted under: Events

Welcome to Your World: A Conversation with Sarah Williams Goldhagen and Nader Tehrani

Tuesday, May 9, 2017, 6:00 – 7:00 pm

Rizzoli Bookstore, 1133 Broadway, at 26th Street, NYC

Rizzoli Bookstore, HarperCollins, and The Architectural League of New York will present a conversation about Goldhagen’s newly released book Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives between author Sarah Williams Goldhagen and Nader. Read more HERE.

Book signing and reception will follow.

 

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The Globe and Mail Features DFALD

Posted on May 8th, 2017 by Jalisa Joyner

Posted under: _Daniels Building, Press

“After years of complex construction, it’s not quite done […] Yet it is already spectacular – one of the best buildings in Canada of the past decade, rich with arguments about how contemporary architecture, landscape and urbanism can work with history and build the city of the future.”

-Alex Bozikovic

Read more HERE.

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