Reflected geometry,foreground and building horizon, at the entrance.

The addition of new entrance and waiting room and renovation of the facade unifies the two existing buildings

Our client, Dr. Lance Baltzley, Newberry Animal Hospital, has taken ownership of the two Gainesville Aalatash Animal Hospital locations; NW 39th Avenue and South Main Street. The South Main Street location is currently under renovation. The renovated hospital will have . . .

• new naturally lit waiting room
• separate cat and dog waiting areas
• double the amount of exam space
• double the amount of treatment space
• more accessible reception and restrooms
• pleasant landscape
• large, open yard for boarding guests

Project Location (911):
1609 South Main Street, Gainesville, Florida 32601

Design-Build Contractor: Mandese White Construction, Inc.

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Before… showing two separate buildings and dismal street presence.

In July 2012, MW Bender Architecture and Single Speed Design of Cambridge Massachusetts and New York City was short-listed to compete in the National Design Competition for the Cade Museum of Creativity and Invention. 25 national firms submitted qualifications, our team was one of six to be shortlisted. Our design entry was ranked second of the six competing firms. The competition jury included both local and national members. See SsD’s Cade page too.

The Cade Museum program asked for something different from an ordinary museum. It was to be an interactive container for ideas. Our team agreed that the building the Cade Idea occupies cannot be ordinary and must be thought of as a tool for shaping the mind. The way we experience space is tied dynamically to the shape of our thoughts. The history of the mind is a history of technologies; symbolic communication, orality, literacy, information, systematics… not to mention the many machines we have developed to accessorize ourselves. Architecture embodies the technologies of the day. Norman Doidge in his book, The Brain That Changes Itself, suggests that we engage in redesigning the brain. A scientist may change brains to sharpen perception and memory, increase speed of thought, and heal learning problems. Are scientists the only ones who can train affects on the brain? We think not. Architects can. Our design for the Cade Museum accepts this challenge and seeks to arm visitors with not only new knowledge but with new methods of thinking. We envision the Cade museum as a literal instrument of change.

Aggregated interlocking abstract volumes create connection within the museum and around the museum.

Employing a strategy of intersection, we envisioned the diverse programs of the Cade Museum as interlocking units of a whole. The diagram below demonstrates the process of aggregating and interlocking abstract volumes. This strategy maximizes available space and paradoxically provides the framework for freedom. Choices and views are multiplied through both axial and diagonal paths through the building. The joint at which different volumes intersect is the moment their respective seals “break”. This break provides productive “leaks” for both the architecture and its program. This technique helps us achieve controlled instability as well as cross-building connectivity. The “leaks” can be either positive (where one volume’s walls physically intersect another) or negative (where the joints of intersection are “cut” to provide views and intellectual migration).

The diverse programs of the Cade Museum as interlocking units of a whole

Tall and short volumes provide a sense of progression from one space to the next so that we can generate our own narratives. Strategically placed windows and skylights fold the dynamism of natural light into the experience of the interior so that the building undergoes subtle transformations throughout the day.

Diagonal Section

On the eastern side, covered terraces and voids intersect the museum with the landscape and its activity.

While a museum is a destination it is not simply a standalone object. It can be embedded in its specific site, and it can also generate it. We conceived of our open-ended system to take in and to define the site. Just as creativity thrives from contingencies, the porous configuration of our boxes encourages alliances with the existing landscape, urban edges, and the site’s narrative histories.

Spatial Flexibility/Operable Walls

Within the Cade Museum, we seek to obtain the delicate balance between program flexibility and curatorial control. To do this we designed a system of pivoting opaque glass walls that can swing in plan and lift in section. They can enclose the lobby for a special event or they can open and serve as a filter to and from the outside. Visitors can watch movies on them, or staff can use them as ad-hoc demonstration areas. It is important to create conditions where even very intelligent people can become ignorant in the right kind of way.  “People tend to take on the characteristics of a room… They feel glamorous in a glamorous space, and rich in a rich space.” (Lehrer “the discredited”, Disruptive Design) Wouldn’t they feel intelligent in an intelligent space? Or baffled in a baffling space? We want people to suspend their intelligence and be baffled to open up the world of the invention; thoughts that don’t always make sense, but just might make progress.

PROJECT CREDITS:

architect
SsD: John Hong  AIA, LEED + Jinhee Park AIA (principals in charge)
Mark Pomarico, Evan Cerilli, Adam Molinski, Eva Valdecantos, Quentin Leroy, Lily Wube

associate architect
MWBa: Stephen Bender AIA, LEED AP (competition team manager), W. Brian Smith, Michael Richmond, Yufeng Zheng, Jeff Skoda-Smith

structural design
ARUP, Boston: Patrick McCafferty

structural engineer
Wayland Structural Engineering, Gainesville

energy and sustainability
Ravi Srinivasan, Gainesville

landscape architect
Buford Davis + Associates, Gainesville

mechanical engineer
Campbell Engineering of North Florida, Gainesville

On December 7 2012 I received the email from the USGBC indicating our Platinum status. What a relief!

Achieving LEED certification is fairly straightforward but it requires planning, execution and follow up. I need to thank the members of our team who contributed toward the success of this certification.

Thanks go first to Tom for having the desire to do something different and share it with the world, and the tenacity it required to keep going. It is, after all, for the betterment of the world that he went through all this! He’ll be sharing for a long time. It is a very generous project. Thank you Tom.

Thanks go to my design team engineer Greg Wayland.

Thanks to the builders. The project would have been very different were it not for Ben Bressack, Building Contractor and John Andrews, welder, who led the container efforts. Thanks also to Jim Kesl, Jim White and Jeremy Brown for a can-do anything attitude.

Thanks to the City of Gainesville, Building Department, under the leadership of Building Official Doug Murdock and Inspector Tom Panico, for being a true partner in the building process; for finding solutions rather than problems. Thanks for the support of Planning and Development Director Erik Bredfeldt and Planning Manager Ralph Hilliard.

Thank you to Jennifer Langford, AIA, CNU, PA and the USGBC Heart of Florida Chapter for sponsoring and coordinating a few of our public tours.

Finally, and not least, thanks to our green team, led by Mary Alford, PE, LEED AP, for their ideas, suggestions, tracking and accountability. Helping along the way were Mike Amish (now with Sustainable UF), Tricia Kyzar, Theresa Spurling-Wood.

If you are interested to see what it takes, or maybe go after it yourself, see the information visit the USGB site, LEED for Homes!

Tom’s shipping container home is in the news again! Check out the coverage at http://firstcoastnews.com.

fox-shipping-container-home-first-coast-news-01

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Winning Entry by Elaina Berkowitz and Roland Faust. Check out the Gainesville Sun story by clicking the picture.

View the MWBa competition blog with all the results here. MW Bender Architecture, LLC, organized and ran the University at 14th Design Competition, sponsored by SC Ventures I LLC, and Gainesville Real Estate Management Company, Inc. The goal of the competition was to challenge University of Florida School of Architecture students to engage with the space and activity surrounding the campus by offering the unique opportunity to design, develop, fabricate, manage and build their design under the supervision of an architect. Nine entries were received. Winners were announced May 24, 2012.

MWBender Architecture teamed up with SsD (Single speed Design, Boston, founded by my Harvard friend and roommate, John Hong and his partner Jinhee Park) for the Cade Museum Foundation Museum design competition.

25 teams submitted qualifications and six were selected. We are one! Check out the news here. Check out the other firms at this page. Be sure to check out the foundation’s mission, goals, summer lab offerings and the 3rd annual Cade Prize. And, of course, don’t be shy; support the Cade!

]]> http://mwbender.com/?feed=rss2&p=1923 0 http://mwbender.com/?p=1896 http://mwbender.com/?p=1896#comments Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:22:54 +0000 Yufeng Zheng http://mwbender.com/?p=1896

Competition Winner U14 by Elaina Berkowitz + Roland Faust

click the image to visit the competition website