A detailed look at both the courtyard and northern façade systems at the Beaver Country Day School is featured in an article by Matthew Marani in The Architect’s Newspaper today. More HERE!
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Beaver Skins
Posted on May 24th, 2019 by Nicole Sakr
Posted under: _BEAVER R+D Center, Press
ECHOƧ FROM CINCINNATI
Posted on May 22nd, 2019 by Nicole Sakr
Posted under: Academic, Press
The University of Cincinnati’s Christoph Klemmt interviewed Nader for the School of Architecture and Interior Design (SAID)’s first publication of student work echoƨ. They discussed the role of architectural theory and material studies in today’s practice and academy.
“Students and young architects have gained unprecedented intellectual range due to their access to information and knowledge, and in turn, they have developed their agency as a result of the very same means. My particular interest is in the way in which material explorations-in the academy-have impacted the means and methods of construction, bottom up, in the construction industry; our ability to restructure innovation in the building industry is a result of this process.”
Read the full interview HERE.
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Daniels on Archdaily
Posted on May 8th, 2019 by Nicole Sakr
Posted under: _Daniels Building, Press
The Daniels Building is featured this week on Archdaily! Check it out HERE.
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Fleet Library in Monocle
Posted on April 24th, 2019 by Nicole Sakr
Posted under: _RISD FLEET LIBRARY, Press
Daniels Building in ‘The Plan’
Posted on March 28th, 2019 by Nicole Sakr
Posted under: _Daniels Building, Press
Raymund Ryan writes for The Plan on the Daniels Building:
“To design a school of architecture is an enticing albeit formidable prospect for any thinking architect. In the United States alone, there is the legacy of Mies van der Rohe at IIT, Paul Rudolph at Yale, and John Andrews at Harvard. These buildings from several decades ago were signature, standalone monuments to professional bravura and to the respective institutions. Three or four decades later, out in Los Angeles, SCI-Arc pursued a different, radically less expensive path, colonizing warehouses or factories first in Santa Monica, then in Playa Vista, and now in LA’s rapidly urbanizing Downtown. Echoing mid-century notions of the Museum as Temple and this more recent appropriation of industrial space for artistic production and display, these dueling typologies of the architectural academy find a synthesis in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto.”
“There, a grand Gothic Revival building – an isolated urban icon with many gables and embellishments – has been extended in line with the cardinal axes marking the site. Whereas this older edifice contains many small individual rooms, the new structure is essentially one contiguous studio instigating, on this rather tight lot, that modern dream of
“The new floor plate ascends to allow for a barrier-free mega-studio in which student activity is ideally unimpeded. An extraordinary new roof floats overhead:” it spans in the long direction without the intercession of columns and warps. It is filleted to allow for natural illumination.”
“It is a bravura gesture, this porous canopy sailing free above the heart of the reinvigorated institution. The architects worked through one-to-one mockups – with straight metal stud frames skinned in unusually thin gypsum – to determine curvature and to convince the contractor that this unorthodox construction technique was indeed feasible. Such lissome elements are telltale characteristics of this and other NADAAA projects, whether at the scale of a ceiling or a window or a handrail. The language of each building is not imposed through some academic or artistic diktat but emerges through
Read the full essay HERE.
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Beaver Research + Design Center in ARCHITECT Magazine
Posted on March 15th, 2019 by Nicole Sakr
Posted under: _BEAVER R+D Center, Press
ARCHITECT’s Katie Gerfen interviewed Katie and Nader for this piece on NADAAA’s design of “a nontraditional library” aka the Research + Design Center at Beaver Country Day School. See the full project feature HERE.
“This addition was going to be a library, but one rebranded into a research and design center. It’s got a strong fabrication component, and its notion of how a library is used is really quite different from any library addition we’ve ever done.” – KF
“There is a connection between the physical distribution of spaces in the addition and pedagogical model the school is working with. They eliminated what you would traditionally call the front door to the library and the insularity of a reading room, and the new ring that connects the auditorium wing, the arts wing, the fabrication wing, and the science wing flows around a courtyard. Essentially the library as we would know it has been exploded around this ring in its entirety and encompassed that continuity of space. The library is seen as a lively space where people come to learn how to do their work, to collaborate, and to make things.” – NT
“The great thing about this client and their method of teaching is the idea that you can take these spaces along the path and program them so that there are small and medium rooms for meeting, and larger classroom spaces—all occurring along what is essentially a ramp that allows an accessible route.” – KF
“The courtyard was a collaboration with landscape architect Gary Hilderbrand, and there was an intended dialogue between a bosque of birch trees that he had conceived of in the courtyard and the façades. We went through many different iterations of timber cladding elements—they became thinner and thinner, and then they became louvers.” -NT
“As we began to develop the architecture around the courtyard and this circulation, which would constantly have you confronting it—either coming down the gallery stairs as you look north or looking south from the fabrication space, it became clear how central it would be.” – KF
“We spent a lot of time with [acoustical engineer] Acentech aurally modeling the space, figuring out what could be hard and reverberative, what needed to be soft and absorptive” – KF
“This project also became an exercise about articulating and framing a didactic space of teaching and learning with certain details that trigger in the students’ minds that something in architecture is happening here. It’s not business as usual.” – NT
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Women in Construction: Katherine Faulkner
Posted on March 8th, 2019 by Nicole Sakr
Posted under: Press, Things We Like
Helbling features Katie in this year’s Women in Construction Week, asking her what inspires her, how she keeps the office aligned with its core values, and how she supports gender equality at NADAAA. Read the full interview HERE.
“The women of NADAAA are so strong and determined that I can’t imagine the firm functioning without them […] my advice to many young women is your career is defined by you. Constantly reflect on your values and ask yourself, “Is this what I really want to do?” There are many paths through the architectural profession. Whether it’s your role on a project, the culture of your employer, or the way you spend your working life – things change constantly. Question yourself, stand firm in your decisions, and execute.”
Happy International Women’s Day!
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ROCK CREEK HOUSE IN INTERIOR DESIGN MAGAZINE
Posted on January 14th, 2019 by Nicole Sakr
Posted under: _Rock Creek House, Press
Rock Creek House is on Interior Design Magazine’s list of amazing wood interiors!
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Daniels in Perspective
Posted on January 7th, 2019 by Nicole Sakr
Posted under: _Daniels Building, Press
Hong Kong based Perspective Magazine’s Rebecca Lo includes the Daniels Building in a Toronto round-up honing in on the building’s “key civic spaces that are simply extraordinary […] As episodes, each of these contributes to the larger narrative of Toronto, because they operate as public spaces for the city.” Read the full feature HERE.
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