NADAAA recently had the privilege of collaborating with VLA Dance and their Director & ChoreographerVictoria Awkward on the set design for their latest work ‘In The Space Between’. Through contemporary dance, the work “challenges audience members to explore uncomfortable spaces between”. Using our workshop NADLAB we were able to both fabricate and install the set pieces ourselves for the dance company at Boston Center for the Arts.
The new NADAAA-designed Adams Street Branch Library has opened in the Adams Village neighborhood of Boston. We are so pleased to see this project completed for the Dorchester community!
Mayor Kim Janey and leadership from the Boston Public Library spoke at the opening on Saturday:
I am thrilled that the new and improved Adams Street branch will once again provide an accessible, inclusive place for the Dorchester community to gather, learn, and grow. My local library played a huge part in my upbringing. Libraries like the Adams Street branch continue to bring joy and essential services to residents of all ages.
– Mayor Kim Janey
We’re thrilled and we hope the community will be, too. The old branch was much-loved, but this completely new building certainly raises the bar.
– David Leonard, President, Boston Public Library
Local press on the Adams Street Branch opening:
The exterior of the 13,450-square-foot building is striking, its sharp angles finished with glazed terra cotta panels and copper. Inside, the space is brightened by floor-to-ceiling windows that offer substantial views of the surrounding neighborhoods, a lovely rock garden, and beyond to the Blue Hills. Overhead, the undulating ceiling is accented with wood-beam baffles meant to mimic the peaks of the roofs on neighboring homes.
Led by Dennis Wedlick, this program series, organized by AIANY Custom Residential Architects Network and co-hosted by the BSA Residential Design Committee, explored the unique perspectives of six practitioners who were recipients of the 2020 AIANY + BSA Residential Design Awards including NADAAA for the Villa Varoise. Watch NADAAA’s joint episode with Paul Schulhof HERE. (Above is our video contribution which describes the design and construction process behind the home.)
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AIANY + BSA Res Arch Now: Lunch/Learn with The 2020 Award Winners, 6 Unique Stories & Perspectives on Residential Architecture Commissions. (Hosted by AIANY CRAN + BSA Residential Design Committee.) register for all three events here 1.5 Credits each.
Part One: Taking Shape Stories, Conversations about New Construction and the Materials, Methods, Means.
Nader joins Harriet Hariss, Dean of the Pratt Institute School of Architecture and Robert Kirkbride, Dean of the Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments to discuss “crossing the digital divide” in their end-of-year exhibitions. Register HERE.
A sneak peek of NADAAA’s installation planned for La Biennale di Venezia 2021: How will we live together?
The cross-laminated timber (CLT) portico will define the edge of the Giardino delle Vergini. It is, at once, a civic yet domestic structure, operating at the scale of the lagoon on the waterside, while intimate and responsive to the garden on the other. Attenuated as it is, it anticipates community, whether in isolation, physical distancing, or social engagement.
The portico exposes a latent grain when it is routed on a diagonal axis, revealing V-shaped herringbone configurations that are an innate part of the layout of the stacked timber. This pattern speaks to the structure of the wood being used, it also speaks to the ornament it exposes as a result of a semantic richness of its own. It speaks to Venice and to a tradition of iconography its construction systems have held for centuries.
Brigitte Shim of Shim-Sutcliffe will moderate a conversation between John Wardle, Nader Tehrani, Stefan Mee, and Arthur Chang this Wednesday, July 22nd at 7pm EST via Zoom. The conversation will focus on collaboration as a critical process of exchanging, transforming, and evolving ideas.
PLEASE CONTACT NICOLE SAKR AT NSAKR@NADAAA.COM FOR THE ZOOM LINK.
The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture’s End of Year Show 2020 will take place online in a virtual Foundation Building exhibition. The virtual exhibition is made possible through a collaborative effort between Architecture faculty, students, and staff, who have developed this special event using Unreal Engine gaming technology. The Show will open this Wednesday, June 17th at 5pm.
“Mounting this exhibition has been no small feat for our faculty and students who needed to not only curate and assemble its material, but to model the spaces of The Cooper Union as a virtual scaffolding for the work. To be finalizing this exhibition at a time when our world is confronting centuries of systemic Black racism has brought even more weight and meaning to the potential of their extraordinary work. All of our design studios considered a wide range of themes, engaging challenges of natural disaster, social struggle, environmental decadence, and problematic histories, in addition to the larger impact of infrastructures at the geographic scale—complex systems and events which we know negatively affect people of color, underrepresented minorities, those without access to education or health care, and communities suffering from economic inequality. In creating this virtual space, we have hoped to frame the all-important spaces of The Cooper Union as we know them, but also to inhabit them in ways that take advantage of the virtual, suspending disbelief in conventional constraints. Thus, we hope that this exhibition is a judicious and critical curatorial lens into our space of learning, demonstrating the significance of how and why we design our own environments.” – Nader Tehrani
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We wanted to update you regarding where NADAAA’s operation stands as we all confront the COVID-19 virus.
Your companies’ health and welfare, as well as that of our community and staff, is a top priority for us. Our firm has a robust technology platform that allows us to provide seamless service to all clients anywhere, anytime. Our team is meeting online every morning to go through project goals, deadlines, and priorities. We continue to meet with all teams each day to ensure the proper flow of information in order to meet deadlines. We will work to ensure as little disruption to your projects as we can accommodate.
Employee safety and wellness is a top priority, and we have implemented a firm-wide response plan prohibiting non-essential travel. We have a quarantine-with-pay protocol in place, should an employee be exposed to the virus or is sick in general. Every employee has a business laptop or home desktop with a robust BIM/communication support platform and may work from home if needed.
We intend to attend meetings via Webex, SKYPE, video, or phone calls; should an in-person meeting be required please let us know and we will set it up. That said, we respect that each employee has their own comfort level and we will allow them to act accordingly. In the event that employees are out sick, or unable to come to a meeting, we can make allocations for the principals to attend all necessary meetings, following appropriate physical-distancing protocols. In addition, we are sensitive to the uncertainty employees may be feeling and are communicating with them on an ongoing basis, reinforcing they can work from home and instilling confidence that we support them. The same goes for you and all of our clients. We are committed to you and getting through this period together.
Let’s keep the communication channels open. With respect, health, and safety!