Let me say it is really hard for
the city of this big turnout tonight

I think is a tribute to Mark he has
to just leave her out of it for

I use market like Good golly
I joke around and so I.

Have.

A good generosity of tongue is for
and so over this room Mark will be

with up here you know
share target you all over

there is a world famous architect
founder of House members will say.

You gotta be honest L.B. apart from
Georgia Tech before ninety six to.

Get M.R. through you know Philadelphia
as well course is a members

of OK I also is the holder
of the bill to zero from

zero zero zero if you're Give us
this one would Congress design it.

In two thousand to make a.

National Burckhardt director for
the whole of the National

they are on board with former players and
some of the revenue for

players You do have a convention.

I was a person I was over there.

I was like you heard moved by the work.

And so there's their own words
that you're use the money to but

some of that you might want to
play by a text where if you know.

That that's true of questionable U.G.A.
Museum of Art I mean yeah forming an art

center all you do is get something called
up here on the Georgia Tech campus

to blow up that stuff I could
eventually serves only Chicago but

also in Charlotte Washington D.C.
and most real.

New Georgia go on C.N.N. Center.

To the southeast no quarter of a T.
you see from a building and

up but
up comes also a fantastic dark eyes.

Someone you love those
watercolors I can tell you.

That you're good architect people that
start somewhere they are I hope everybody

I can hear the next issue going out
every last little some of the hours

I hope will be complete the revelation
of the stuff comes down we might presume

to have a show of his work here and
you're sure some of those working.

For you.

Will have left this to your group.

Most of our colleagues classics up until.

About half the college of our students I
think we march through I say thank you for

your generosity.

What.

A life we were lucky to have worked with
the mark of the US I think this is for

you here is how most of your
fish away her distinguished or

your architectural design.

With the solution of the grid
as we said by his friends and

colleagues Mark is actually.

I believe you were well known for his work
with the Sox this is true for the Post and

Courier wall cladding systems Yeah
because it really brought back knowledge

to the students here I took some of
the students I guess over a year ago

this course and one of them said you know
how to draw you into the details for

yourself and Mark stuff half hour and
explain to the pieces of how we

could work with the first time I really
understood why Roy for all these years so

the value of that will be to mark your.

Absolute future Well first
Westpac No it was by

the fact we were reduced to university
school work to have a Bachelor of press.

Back to refer to picture Bruce from
Waterloo I've just gotten to started

this from Rock New York City
which is why we go for

the execution of groundbreaking.

And approached by going to Gratian
over this what was met with

all of your burst of architecture
engineering and cultural values

first principles approach to go if you're.

A suitable work with your Marcus
top architectural design research

in the studio or I've just heard
a story broke you have several students

who are doing your right so

there stumble just enough for
fall apart so.

You're done with this actually good for
you still pretty directly for

a lot of the work I do believe you
have are good for everybody or

critical practice these are some
of the worst you could do.

The C.C.T.V. the waters and.

The star of Rose York so look out on the
ocean cultural center with friends yeah.

Sure all wily Rex just a fellow I suppose

you know looks widely known as work
right now we look forward to your

duties up.

Very much.

For having me here
tonight it's my pleasure.

In discussing this.

This schedule talk this evening.

And I talked a little bit about.

Talking a little bit about what crunk is
bringing to Georgia Tech you know both for

the benefit of current and future students
but also for the professional faculty and

also a little bit for the professional
community at large in Atlanta.

And.

Secondly perhaps for
the first time to actually show

what these studios have been
to Bell because there are.

Not that clear I think everyone
what is actually happening.

There they're not so direct in
the structures of those studios and

you'll you'll see that I have
had a difficult time editing

something is a very shortly documented
somethings are very extensively documented

in all of this run through
that Leica like wildfire but

what I've done in this
presentation is to give you this.

First kind of formal little
blurb about our work.

And for the first time ever in a talk
I will actually read it because

we actually wrote this and it's part of a
fully We're creating for the practice but

it also describes what does and
so if you'll bear with me so

front is a design consultancy with offices
in New York Seattle San Francisco and

Hong Kong and at this moment I would like
to acknowledge the presence of the former

Georgia Tech grad and current associate at
front who is in our Hong Kong office who

for whatever reason quintessentially
happens to be here tonight I would live

please stand up.

On that note I would
also point out curiously.

I'm not like the apologist for Georgia
Tech but out of a firm of forty staff nine

people are Georgia Tech grads and there
isn't a partner that has a connection

with Georgia Tech and four of those people
were actually hired prior to me actually

joining to teach here and the others
have been hired subject currently and

those people are remarkable and
incredibly town talented and

are just kind of doing groundbreaking
work some of which Evans work you'll see.

Tonight.

So for the professionals the background
and structural mechanical and

environmental engineering architectural
design and fabrication front

is a collective of creative individuals
who bring specialist expertise to product

owners consultants and con structures
empathetic to our client's values and

aspirations we leverage our device diverse
expertise in the skills essential to

the successful delivery of
the contemporary building on below within

an overall project vision by engaging
fully with our partners in the design and

construction industry we
provide strategic advice and

intensive collaboration in the realisation
of innovative solutions and Poseidon

design across the world through first
principles analysis material research and

system design technical
review mockup fabrication and

pre-construction testing factory and
field quality oversight and

continuing discourse our firm aims to
create adaptive ways of thinking and

making an emergency mode of practice since
this establishment in two thousand and

two front is celebrated the completion
of more than one hundred built works.

And participation in no less
than three hundred projects

many of which are still under
construction or in design currently.

This isn't even includes design at all
scales and complexity is from high rise

commercial buildings and corporate
headquarters to educational and cultural

institutions from single family residences
to condominium and hotel towers and

from historically sensitive interventions
and expansions to the digital fabrication

of art installations through
involvement in teaching and research

at internationally renowned schools and
universities in America Europe and Asia.

Should just highlight my partner Bruce
Nagel is actively engaged as a faculty

member at Princeton and then works and
you Penn and proud as well my

partner Michael is involved
with the California.

College of the arts formerly with U.C.L.A.

Hong Kong University Martin Reeses
teaching studios at Hong Kong University.

The bell as well as teaching Hong Kong
University and so all the associates and

partners of the firm are deeply
engaged in education and

it's my privilege to be
here doing it right now.

So we also speak very very broadly.

And deal with all the ship
of industry standards and

guidelines one of my partners Richard
Green who's a structural engineer and

Poseidon engineer par excellence is
actually the chairman of the Ask him

Committee on structural glass offering
the New Glasgow to the United States and

also leading in the global effort to
harmonize structural glass code across

all continents in Asia and Europe and in.

North America and
that experience knowledge

actually comes down directly into
the students that we teach or.

To Front occupies a position at
the forefront of its specialism and

continually endeavors to expand its
knowledge base and challenge convention

attuned to the cultural and technological
needs of the future global building

industry we proposed a statically
sensitive environmentally and

socially responsible economic and
secure advance solutions and

then to savation of the diverse and
complex requirements and projects and

this is more of an acknowledgement
front has enjoyed accounts lists

of many talented and devoted individuals
proximately one hundred two who had each

made a significant contribution to the
collective and whose distinct character

remains in the culture of our group and
many past calling to become clients and

other collaborators reemerge in different
roles in a community that is constantly in

flux and in contact so we wish to thank
all of our clients collaborators and

colleagues with whom we have
worked over more than a decade and

to recognize the spirit in which
the collective After took place and

we appreciate certainly
the opportunities we've been offered and

I know that all of our work
at fronted by referral and so

would relish those that are coming
in new relationships and prior.

So we took a little
while recently to figure

out what product actually does because.

I had a very difficult time
telling people what we do and

most of our kind of new clients
usually have a kind of limited or

misconception about what it is we end up
actually providing of the service and

it's I think the kind of only thing to
say is that the commonality is it's

essentially still facade related specialty
structures related specialty art or

industrial design related we
don't do full buildings it's

just not something that's in our kind
of game we do pieces of buildings so

these ten words here basically distill out
actually our formal scope of services that

we provide to clients so a strategy
which is really about first principles

initial consultation about what is it
someone wants to build what is the cost

model what is the kind of code environment
what is the environmental strategy what

are the key values and what are the kind
of you know differentiating performance

criteria that are going to drive the
viability of even conceptualizing this and

whether it's a the government client or
a private developer and we're reviewing

their development pro-forma we get
involved in a lot of jobs at the kind of

conceptual stage even in terms of
the status in the brief design

it's the core of what we do we
kind of we're always designing

we're always drawing we're always
documenting and making but it's a design

we can design literally anything that
pertains to the building on the analysis

This simply means all forms of engineering
determination constructibility review

structural analysis environmental
analysis all of these things basically

are technical competencies that
the firm has to bring as a kind of.

Is the kind of necessary prerequisite
to even play in the game of facade

engineering research this for
me is much more kind of ambiguous

let's just say it's time that we stand
trying to be on the kind of leading and

leading edge trying to figure out
something that hasn't been done before and

just essentially it's a really.

This process of tire kicking in order
to kind of find no you know how can we

proceed with the next thing but I need to
understand in in fronts world research for

us is basically in the near future
trying to apply new ideas and

new technologies that can be deployed on
a job that we're working on right then and

there and so the level of certainty and
accountability and so forth that you need

even competitiveness in terms of
procurement is very very difficult and

so we don't actually engage
in kind of long longer of

kind of like looking research which let's
just say corporations or universities or

government kind of search labs can do and
instead we have a kind of constellation of

relationships with those kind of entities
in order to feed into our kind of near

term research needs data this is
our work from them within bins

too narrow data is just the numbers it's
basically the matrix is like the kind of

digital definition of everything you ever
want to build and in that there's this

kind of beautiful idealistic world
about what we can all do we know that

Georgia Tech is deeply entrenched
in data and as are we and

we do it in a way which is basically
platform agnostic extraordinarily kind of

neutral just say the totally pragmatic way
in order to execute this set of ideas for

this project what tools do we need

how do we deploy them how do we
kind of figure out what they are.

Management so for
quite a while front kind of did eight

years of design build we actually
executed over twenty five.

Design build projects to
continue probably an argument of

twenty five million dollars.

Of work and
that's not being the facade work but for

us it's a certain indulgence
into the realm of total

accountability total financial
risk total kind of liability.

In terms of dinner and performance and so
forth and so we have leveraged the kind of

other side of the design
build its variance to say.

We understand the justice we understand
cost we understand live delivery in terms

of litigation and all the kind of statutes
of limitations are going to project and so

openly the management part of that is now
the kind of song consulting side of what

we do for clients that has come out of the
kind of hard knocks school of design build

and it really fuels our ability to
take on risks on the design consulting

side that clients wouldn't necessarily
otherwise trust a consultant to do and

this leads to a kind of world of
prescriptive design which is a kind of

really old school kind of building but
kind of an emerging trend for

clients that want competitive advantage
in their procurement strategies so

procurement is the next one and this
is really saying how do you want to buy

something and we know in the facade world
it's there a difficult it's very tricky

it's entirely based on culture people and
you know economic considerations and

the viability of different companies and

the whole global kind of infrastructure
of government creation and risk so

we've become experts at procurement
advice it ties into the kind of

strategy part of it but we get down into
the woods and we actually administers

tenders a negotiation and so forth
fabrication this is the part of it where

we are actually understanding how
things are made in the world and

can actually enable the making of those
things and the documentation that goes

with it quality This is the enforcement
side this is where we're very

physically in factories we're reviewing
shop drawing reviewing our Q.C.

kind of models were on site we're
doing kind of performance testing

structural testing error when seismic
testing whatever we need to do

to imperiously verify that the things
that we're designing actually work

and then last.

It is education education both internally
education for peers and clients and

of course engaging in the broader world of
academic education which is what we do.

So.

This was a first pass I
made at trying to list.

The immediate people that came to
mind that have directly supported and

impacted our studio.

So we have Tom been flooded want to
read it although he has even the now

Alan there we have Richard of
George John and Michael and

then Vulcan Chuck Russell Mr Rudolph my
CO instructor illustrious constructor for

the first two semesters of which
I'm deeply grateful Marcello for

now who's a Ph D. candidate

put upon me by truck which burned
out into a great relationship.

Trip and Jake and Susan and then the admin
team Lucy Rachel Robin Susie and kind of.

You know from the school we've had all
the support of course we've had lots

of other support from different
people on the academic and

in the administration to make this all
happen but you know when you listed out

these are these are the two that
we dealing with the last two and

a half years on a fairly intensive
basis to make this even happen and

then we have a list of guest critics and
then additional sponsors and

supporters people that have actually our
either with us such as the Studio X.

folks can be a university various
fabricators who have donated materials

over time and then a whole series of
people like at the Greg Linter and

at the City of Toronto and
other architectural practices

that have hosted us visit in and
advised us through our kind of studios and

the bottom we have the five studios
the Hong Kong Studios current and

all of the names of all the students
of participated in so far and

this is the kind of full acknowledgement
to everyone so thank you for

participating in this experiment and
we're going to keep.

And.

So.

This kind of that was Part one Part two is

really kind of bragging rights.

I know it's.

It's great to say.

That we have a lot of experience and so
forth but you got need to understand front

as a small company and
the people who are directly involved in

a vast number of the projects
that I will show you and

unlike larger corporate firms where you
may have a tremendous kind of asset of

built projects that kind of collective
knowledge isn't necessarily shared cross

all the kind of people in those practices
and I would characterize them all but

I know in our practice it's intensely
collaborative and the kind of level of

community awareness and knowledge of
these projects is really really broad and

so in celebration of these one hundred
projects here I'm going to show you

what they are but only show you into
slides so China Central Television

the six million square foot king
of Delhi University of Science and

Technology where we actually did all
twenty five buildings with age OK and

it's the world's largest lead
platinum certified project.

Wiley theater and out of.

The road art museum in
East Lansing Michigan with.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner in
Boston with friends of piano

trained carousel in Brooklyn and
with to the young new Dell.

The recently opened Kimball or

museum the extension to the consulate
heals the number of runs on.

This is typical Maurice Darwin Martin
has visitor center next to the right

Darwin Martin house up
in Buffalo New York.

The big name Museum of Art
special exhibition gallery

in Centennial Texas with French architect
named jump of the game assertion

the four pound Carson run the piano again
the Morgan Library in New York City.

No Hedda were very proud to have done
the World Trade Center Memorial Museum.

The new museum modern contemporary art and
on the Bowery in New York was Santa.

And this is the Normandy interpretive
center at Omaha Beach designed by some of

the group this is right next to the
cemetery looking over the English Channel.

The North Carolina Museum
of Art with Tom Pfeiffer.

And recently completed the pairs or museum
with her stardom wrong in Miami Florida.

The St Louis armies the I'm extension
with David Chipperfield nature OK.

Seattle library with own
main element theater for

a new audience the recently
completed project the only dedicated

Shakespeare Theater in New York City with
Hugh Harvey this is new for me three.

This is the two lead of Museum of Art
certainly one of the projects that was

instrumental in winning
the crystal prize for Santa.

The water art center
with her son tomorrow and

this is the landmark Mandarin Oriental
compass and Fox in Hong Kong.

The Mandarin Oriental this of
the sixty story version of that

in Las Vegas also a kid and
items in the ocean.

And then the little sister to C.C.T.V.

the television cultural center
also a Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

In Beijing this is an architect
of the Greek in order forty three

story hotel a residential building in
New York City next to Bryant Park and

then this is Carlos the bottom of.

The firm's Eastman the Cooper Square
hotel next to the Cooper Union

in New York City this is a little hotel
that it's an edition to the maritime

were telling anyone know that
New York City is by hand.

A tiny little thing for the Hyatt
group little addition to the end.

Who held on Sunset Boulevard.

On that list and then this is with
Richard Meyer it helps an entity which is

the research and Headquarters in.

Italy it's one of the first
successful five or

concrete million systems
that we've done and

it was the precursor to the work that
we did on the pair of their museum.

This is an office building producing
the Tong in Osaka you know laminated

on ICS and glass and
with Rem Koolhaas this is the new

court rocks child's Bank
headquarters in the city of London.

And in the fabrics process
this is part of the new

massive Novartis rebuild
campus in Switzerland.

Which is designed also by Santa.

With Rob Rogers in New York this is an
addition or replied to a one nine hundred

twenty S. building in Oklahoma City next
to the headquarters for Sandra generally.

And then this is this recently completion
of the stock exchange with on May we did.

And then this is in Mexico City this is
the New York Life reform and three forty

two tower with a French Canadian Mexican
architect named John Mitchell coming in.

And this is a Barco project with
the docs for Amos Rex This is a.

Very claim project very kind of hotel
in Williamsburg designed by Morris

arge me and I don't know if you
know anyone who knew the forest but

Morris with all the rusty partner
prior to all the house in the way and

the need to go to the practices and
continued intern or New York in New York

princeling one hundred eleven thousand
here with John Doe Highland twenty three

with Neil de Nari one sixty six
Perry Street With thousand two hundred

fifteen Union Square with Aaron Chen and
Perkins Eastman.

Forty one is fifty seven three with
blank cartridges built in going twenty

feet wide.

And this is for somebody.

In Washington with a small firm
in New York called Ben Henson.

Jerry bill of our who is now on a bit of
a tear doing tons of work in the city

as one of the earlier projects
I'm with Eighteenth Street

another Jared project at two forty five
ten next the High Line three forty five

with twelve street all covered classic
condominium in the West Village and

then this is close to
proper condominium building

this is the Frank Gehry building where
he worked on six Kerry buildings five of

them unfortunately did not get built this
one did of work principally involved in

the glass cladding to the exterior
Stude steel eggs the skeleton.

I want try to defend it.

There's a lot of work that's
actually not very different but

we do we take pleasures in
many different kinds of work.

Two point three million square foot link
hybrid housing project receiving all

the countertop building your own habitat
actually go to the building in the world

of the two year environmentally it's doing
all the right things massive geothermal

excellent construction ratio external
motorized blinds time into B.M.'s just I'm

about part of cooling cross
ventilation at a macro scale

the projects doing everything
it needs to be doing.

And trends all of this on the ball and
via their day this is also.

Sort of an acclaimed affordable housing
project in the Bronx designed by Grimshaw.

Which is visually all prefer.

A little more on to the high end housing
this is a toddling from Billy Chan

this is the only private residence for
Renzo Piano ever designed which is for

the puts their family nothing
Colorado this is a bar house

for Peter Gluck also in Austin
this is a project in Lake George

this is a close mall project
up in the rural Canada.

Project and.

Austin Texas.

Another piece in Lake George this
one that in Montauk in the long trip

to Long Island with Martin.

This one job more up in Connecticut.

And the need of two tiny little pavilions
that we did with minutes of show of mass

studies in the Digital Island in Korea you
know the location that has a tragic ferry

accident.

Probably Hill.

Bluetongue which is on this one.

Million dollars staircase for who don't.

Believe it or not this is Ted under
seventy thousand five hundred water

bottles tension supported in the middle
of his restaurant for more emotive.

Reason I say we made a little mark up and

thought I'd Arctic indoor office in
New York we were kind of blown away.

And this is.

A project for a subsidiary of D.F.S.
in Hawaii using subtractive lean

build a C.N.C. cut limestone.

And then this is another variant on
that for the same company in Hong Kong.

And then this is the third store we
also use instructively milled limestone.

As this kind of like brand identity for
that company and this is home run crew

in Toronto this is home run prevent who
were both designed by Jensen Goldstein

our first job with work AC actually their
first job as you know work a C.V. the.

Principal there a madrassa was just in
the care of the from the university

grad school architecture.

Very good friend of ours and was a little
bit more of their work later on.

This is a tiny little bit of we till I did
kill that we got it on to a building in

D.C. tiny little lobby renovation
in New York private archaeology and

somebody's backyard in
suburban Philadelphia.

Complete got job of
the historic townhouse.

Buy for the Hechsher Foundation for
Children.

On the Upper East Side of Manhattan and

the architect of this
is also in one video.

We engineered over the last of
the highlight to produce the video.

This is the computer gallery also done
by and in the well in the audience.

This project.

Knows no boundaries it seems in terms
of it's a claim not only we are so

proud that the building ended up
on the cover of DOMAs magazine and

not only the picture of
the building was not included but

the basically a graphic representation
of the analysis software or

representation of the you know it's of
done by evident Jeff Koch also a grad of

the school was on the cover of darkness
magazine and more significantly.

This project and pieces and parts of
it have now been adopted as part of

the permanent collection of the Museum
of Modern Art in New York City.

This is the kind of athletic
facilities Battery Park.

Tiny little kiosks ballistic rated kiosks
for the New York City Police Department.

Tishman Spiers addition to the.

Peter Cooper style doesn't town make
a house project that they acquired and

then discords and sell them later at
a mash loss the Story Corp a billion

air Clifton architect this is one of our
favorite recent projects we ended up doing

the design build just as a design for
a temporary way finding installation.

Was whether Downtown Alliance in lower
Manhattan and the architects was actually

a graphic designer named on the floor they
have a great website called on Neuvirth

dot com And so this is that project.

Like attention supported series of
aluminum plates with luminescent tape

with a kind of multi colored pattern onto
a tiny hole through this kind of times for

Visitor Center in New York
with the X Y R picture and

then a few more institutional
buildings this is the.

The reason Sampson's Cornell
University College of human ecology

this is an adaptive reuse project for the
requiring of a nine hundred fifty seven

lawn in a synagogue White Plains New York.

This is the design build project that
we did called Lincoln Square synagogue.

Which is totally nuts that took
us seven years to build it.

For many reasons but
this is all laminated fabric and

it's been designed as a kind of metaphor
for the five schools of the Torah.

Little Sisters of the Assumption
family health service and

very proud of this one of
the A man with candle heating for

the Milstein Hall call of architecture and
planning.

And with McArdle so that this is
the New York University Global Center for

Academic and fertile lake facing onto
Washington Square Park at N.Y.U. this is

actually a lemonade in stone subtractive
Lee waterjet milled into these patterns.

Architectural research opposition to
the Princeton University School of

Architecture Rutgers University Business
School and architect those recently

completed Sheila Johnson design center
the main kind of lot of the intentions for

a person school design the city
of New podium skylight editions

this is an addition to
the Edward Rolleston feelings of C.L.V.

that we're going to finish and so
we put three kind of large domes with

the cladding on the top of them this
large kinetic wall and pavilion for

Marble for banks for the for
the university journalism school.

And this is a jewel case large medical
center a project a plant grow New Jersey.

Also corporate health care
this is the University of

Washington Medical Center with Perkins and
will.

And closer to home in terms
of working with Mack and

we had a wonderful collaboration with them
prior to coming down to Atlanta and this

is the Yale University Health Services
buildings up in New Haven clip art.

Text This is the Denver Justice Center.

Ice in Denver Colorado and then this
is a good grub by Bob SIEGEL Which

is on the kind of cover of The Black Book
of exemplary projects and practices for

the G.S. a government's kind of
services agency for construction and

it's the border crossing station and
callous name on the Canadian border.

The Barclay Center.

With eight home and shop architects.

We worked three and a half years for
Gary partners designing the stadium and

towers and then it all went well apart and

then on this job we were retained by
the successful curtain all contractor and

we completed all of the complete
design engineering shop drawings and

fabrication drawings for the project and
then this is the jazz Island Marina

hotel you know the dove in with wasn't.

But it was completed in two thousand and
nine.

So that's the end of Part two.

So it's rather rhetorical.

With kind of like an inventory
of what we have to offer and

bring to the school and
I know like you know no criticism but

one of my wonderful curd students
basically included C.C.T.V.

precedent recently and was unaware
that her teacher actually did it.

Or didn't decide anyway so I said OK
that's cool but I'm going to share with

you a case study in the building
that you can understand inside that.

It's all good.

So.

I don't have time to present
all of this work here but

this is the Brooklyn studio so
I want to start close to home

it's my neighborhood where our offices
are and the the above at the base of

the Brooklyn Bridge here on the Brooklyn
side is such a kind of profoundly in.

Trysting area and it's going through such
a kind of change where you know the story

of this is the Brooklyn Bridge kind of
killed its own kind of like a warehouse

infrastructure full landing with the
ferries that used to go across the river

just kind of like put up and died
because the bridge killed all that and

all of the sudden like the neighborhood
underneath it became very dangerous for

a long period of time really kind
of disinvested and then of course

the Brooklyn has had its kind of like you
know explosion over the last twenty years

this is of course one of the most valuable
most desirable kind of tourists locations

in the city and there were three projects
happening simultaneously maybe more but

one was a kind of new theatre project
to be built on a kind of civil war era

archaeological remnant of the tobacco
warehouse one was an empty site

that was being developed into a Mickey
project by the developer two trees and

the other one was a hotel safe and
that was also done for auction and

now all three of those projects
are now under construction or

nearly completed and so this is the first
studio maybe mean I easily kind

of slightly underestimated even though I
should have underestimated the amount of

work that goes into building mock ups
split the team into three groups and

this is why Tom blew the budget
in the first semester.

So this is a totally kind of non-linear
sequence or do they have time at it but

this is this is one of the current
first mock ups for that building that

you're just looking at which is just
kind of an amazing amount of work and

what I want you to kind of take away as I
flip through these things is the kind of

diversity of artifact that gets generated
by the student groups it's like whether

it's physical model digital models and all
the digital modeling starts becoming in

the service of making the making of other
models the process to make a model and

you know we understand that we're not
doing full scale performance types.

But the way I structured these
these studios was based on the.

In a way I see the world Longfellow
because I'm not a technocrat

I don't I mean we're pretty good
technically but we we don't see

the world that way we see the world as
a series of kind of desires and needs and

we basically want to partner with people
to make those visions a reality and so

why understanding of on the globe is
it's the same credible thing where

everything is is basically collapsing
today whether you have security or

environmental performance or you know
just branding or you know the name and.

There's so many kind of computing
requirements now on the on the low and

then the overriding kind of concern
about a static formalism is a crisis

you know we all like to kind of stick
our heads in the sense of time and

say it should be entirely performative but
it's not that's a lot you know

you basically have a whole ton of kind of
you know different competing interests and

formalism is always important you know
it's always kind of critical and it's

always there and it's always reconcilable
with many other kind of contradictions we

like to demonize you know architects that
have done projects that were failed or

gone over budget and committed.

You know that that may be a kind of
part responsibility for them but

in the end there's a there's a team why I
titled the lecture cooperation as a team

that failed that failed to actually
take its kind of mandate seriously or

not to investigate what it needs to be
doing in a serious way and I think even

you know crazy dynamic
freeform you know projects.

Are totally a cue ball and must be
accountable to all of the kind of criteria

and often like when you look at
the guys Island Hotel project.

And one can say well it was done at
enormous cost for twenty two months and

still fulfill all of its requirements
in a kind of responsible way so

I don't take one or the other and
I think what we did in the studios is

basically put forward a real
proposition in terms of the real side

a real type of project that was
undergoing and basically start engaged.

The entire kind of cultural political and
economic near of the space within

which they're operating which is for
me why travel in the studio context is so

important I for one want to I mean I've
just traveled like an enormous amount

even as a young person and I know it
kind of led to my kind of world view and

being adored E.-Tec using
Tom's generosity I I

do feel that it's something that can
materially and directly impact people's

education which is a form dislocation and
new experience of going to somewhere else

where they've already traveled a lot or
not at all I mean there are people

who are in our studios have not gone out
of two states in the United States and

then they're going overseas I mean for
me that's kind of really.

So to engage that place as a kind of
foreigner as a stranger to really kind

of sink your teeth in and then to have to
kind of argue and reconcile opinions and

values with your colleagues and
then to come up with a design that is both

performing that actually
is beautiful it's a for

me the kind of key thing about how these
figures are structured is basically

to promote a sense of personal
discovery and for students to also try

to test their own voice some students are
actual I mean they've already arrived they

have a personal project they're completely
there and they're kind of on their way and

other people are really
looking at references and

their physical environment around them and

it's hard to pass judgement it's hard to
critically situate yourself one relative

to another and the risk is in my view as
people just become a gnostic about it and

actually just try and focus on a kind
of narrower range of problems for

as I think the real struggle is not there
you know to say I don't like this or

do like that or condemn those things but

it's to be able to critically and

gauge the terms of what other
people have tried to achieve on for

their work you know did they achieve
their work whether I like it or not.

So this is the we just went
through the hotel project and

then these are the study models for
the theater project

this image actually is the kind of
key thing you can see the sort of.

The the remnant of the tobacco
warehouse which is just a wall and

then this image is this kind of really
conceptual representation of this kind of

black reflective soffit
to both provide a kind of

door covering to this public
space that gets used for

things like smallness Bergan other
kind of festivals and so forth.

And the theater is being
built into the space here and

while this project never kind of like
landed a result in some architecturally

it actually was very suggestive and
it resulted in a kind of very beautiful

mockup I mean there is
without the kind of.

Team development of this sort
of concept I mean none of them

I think were into a kind of language
of at least poor formal instruction but

here they are basically trying to play
that game and then you know the question

is Well what do we understand in terms of
material you know what does this mockup

become I mean part of
what I do tell people is.

Tom just so you know the students
are never guaranteed to build a mockup.

If they can't develop the Collect diction
of an actual architectural design proposal

and believe in it so strongly that it
warrants being studied empirically at one

to one scale then we'll just keep
the money will move to the next of us.

So that's the kind of threat to
the students to the incentive to either

kind of get along or go away.

And getting along is also a kind of
Georgia Tech that people here do like

to get along at least that's my
experience really to get along.

And I actually am kind of in a benign

way sort of promoting that
sort of level of you know.

Combat.

You know because people people
need to kind of argue for

their ideas they need to convince each
other you know if you can't convince

somebody it's either your arguments
not good enough or you know you're not

actually you know being diplomatic enough
or you're being rude or whatever it is I

mean this is kind of whole body of kind of
empathy about how you actually cooperate

to actually move something forward that's
critically significant that actually

advance of the architectural design and
this is the way it works in the real world

this is the way all these projects
are actually done with a great project

is realize it's because it had a great
team you know that's the practice is about

one thing I love about this
is he under him today who.

Did all the fabrication
drawings of the script for

these glass panels which were
generously fabricated for

free by our friends in China and they
were sent over my asking on several times

to keep to see his predication drawings
and he did and then he sent them out and

then the glass arrived like a month later
or three weeks later or something and.

Two thirds of the glass
panels were inverted.

Amazing up and look at this just have.

You can see the difference in the
materiality some of them are really shiny

and some of them are kind of like Matt and
Sheen the matte surface is the applied or

pacified paint to the backside
of what was intended.

And the irony is that
actually looks better.

And so when they actually studied it all
they said are OK Let's just listen install

it backwards because they do fit as
a pattern it's just the finishes reversed

and so I immediately offered
Qian a job because I knew he

would never forget the consequences.

And it's an egregious consequence because
his two colleagues would never let him

kind of hear the end of it because it was
his responsibility to do that and he is.

Pretty awesome I have to.

So let's just roll through this because
this is the one that is the least edited

but might be quite enjoyable Yes
we have complete mix trucks.

As still very fun we had tilted.

For stepping in the concrete.

So this is them basically the milled
all of the rear legs to the glass and

they've done their own
structural silicone bonding to

it.

And then this is the hotel
project which uses a kind of zinc

screen to it.

And there's a kind of a brick formed
zinc screen that form the kind of hole

in the glass of the old recess and
this is kind of clear story and

each one of these makes up
the kind of hotel room unit

with a kind of rendered architectural
concrete interior finish and you can see

it actually the rendered in concrete
with a kind of sliding glass doors.

It's a pretty remarkable effort to get
that block of done so to see these

three markups and kind of close proximity
to each other was pretty exciting and

even though they're all highly imperfect
the kind of imperial I think learning

you know being able to kind of touch
things and understand you know in the year

after that went into it just how sensitive
many of these kind of small issues all are

OK finally.

So what I've done here is I
interlaced some current front work

which is either under construction or
in the design.

I'm not going to be showing all
the studies the finished work part of why

I also wanted to show you the one hundred
built projects is there's a code requisite

in the studio which is a seminar and
the seminar is a series of at least twelve

case studies one point five to three
hours long that are very immersive and

those projects that you saw
are the fodder for those case studies and

because we have course have the knowledge
of the documentation first hand them

why it became what it was
what were the problem for

the end of mitigation was it kind
of success for other reasons.

Becomes part of the story so it's almost
like a Business School case study approach

for these kind of
representative projects so

this is a project that we're doing
currently reading through from Barclays

written in Brooklyn this is
designed by a ten architect.

And it's a all residential project but
it has the retail and the theatre and

a library for
the library on the ground floor.

And so we work through the design with
a lever and an architect us on this with

the developer two trees and
then the way he this had to be built

was really very canonical to to create
these kind of like faceted Yama trees with

all these kind of randomised fenestration
is actually very difficult doesn't look

at that conflict you magically but
I guarantee you it is it's a nightmare and

to hand build this kind of facade is
a nightmare from a cost him point and so

the idea of doing it as
what we've been doing for

ten years which is large scale
panelized wall systems with a border of

water barrier insulation mainstream
details punch windows and so forth with

basically treated like unitized curtain
wall see it like it's a ten by forty foot

panels with exclusions around the edge
that all install like megacolon unit has.

Most of the punch window for the very good
environmental either very good in terms of

their performance but we've actually kind
of worked with one company in particular

over that long time and the their bid
on this was very high because they want

to leverage the fact that there's no
competition and so to tree said there's

another company in Central Pennsylvania
that actually are very good the forty year

history of parallel constructions and
they've they funded us

to advance their system design up to
the same level as the competition and

then they nominated us to go work for
that contractor

to do all of their digital geometry
extraction to fabrication and that

actually get under the hood in terms of
their internal processes to help them and

Russia training them we're not actually
holding back the knowledge we're training

them in terms of the digital processes
that we're doing in order for them to

actually engage in forms of automation
of strip of production from design for

the very interesting project that way and
so what you're looking at here is really

just beginning a kind of sequence of
slicing and dicing the building and

then generating kind of like grids upon
grids and then speaking to an attribute

layers and layers of definition of
plant windows and P Talk units and

you can see this is kind of like full
lines that go through the sides what

are the mega panel kind of mapping grid
what is the sub panel nothing grid.

Coordinating all the bracket location slot
clearances you know everything you can

possibly imagine is going into this so
this is the mega panel not you can see

this new vertical joint line continuity
this is the sub panel kind of mapping

on the different sides and
all of this is done through a grasshopper

using our own plug in L A front which
is the tool that the team in the office

would have this part of have
basically created the ability

through elephant to generate interest
in the levels of attribution to og.

X. and rhino and to create datasets in
Excel and so what we then do is we do kind

of interactive overlays onto that data set
to generate exports and then export could

be anything could be like more information
it could be to be drawing to be drawing

templates it could be three part files it
can be whatever we need downstream through

all the kind of vendors in order to make
this happen and then this is the drawings

of the performance clock up which were
getting under construction now and

then you can see eventually the level
of detail extrusions flashing

you know window detail all begins
to kind of result in the design.

One thing we're working on right now
this is five men had West Hudson Yards

it's an existing building this is
the David Brody bond building that's built

like a bridge structure over the Hudson
railway yards you're Penn Station and

then just horrendous one this
through direct employment

from Brookfield Properties to do it
in dock to bring its reclining in

we're currently at the one point seven
million square foot building and

flood required under way in New York City
so that's kind of what the building like

and so
we just played with this cute notion of.

For no lens is quite still corporate
building it's going to be.

This kind of folded curtain wall
that kind of riffs off of the sloped

edges of the building.

One thing I want to kind of point
out to use that this little slab.

Of this little going to be in here.

Is there because it's supporting
the new curtain wall and

it's actually going from column to
column the building originally was

cast in precast and what we discovered is
that the precast was a sheer will call

the biscuit span from column to column and
never voted the slab edge of the slab and

it was never designed to actually hold
the curtain wallowed as the lucky no

edge means not really there's no rebar
in there there's no capacity and

so we actually have to take
the precast out put in a second.

A series of steel beams that actually
stand right close to the floor slab and

then hang the curtain wall
off of all that new steel So

there's a kind of basic diagram there
kind of a metaphorical reference.

To a new elevation.

And then this is basically all kind
of brittle geometry management

basically taken out of
the building as the survey not and

the beginning to map on all of the new
grids using kind of like wire frames and

then this was used eventually
to kind of place and

if the building and generate all of
the eventual setting out bills and

quantities complete take offs which
basically lead to the design package for

the contractor to take over and
then from to these the took on not.

And currently we are at.

The stage now where we finished our
performance mock up with pretty exciting

so what you look at
here is really we're so

New York City if a building doesn't
have a flat vertical wall and

it's over certain height you need to
build an integrated maintenance rail and

the idea that you can build a folding
cane rail inside of them only in

with these kind of radius is on a sharp
curve geometry is unprecedented and

so if anyone knows you've heard was what
we do is we basically took the Earth elect

and pushed it far vacs of that we could
actually radius corner of profit kind of

range green line and then that what
we didn't approve of proof of concept

commissioned an entire facade
access test by simulating the real

geometries at a facility in
Madrid with an article crane and

basically tested the gondolas to introduce
could happen and eventually that whole

assembly gets built into the unitized War
So this is like small incremental kind of

levels of innovation but honestly without
this the job could not have been built

with that design in time it's just
like not possible from code standpoint

you must have the rail system and

have that geometry this had to be funded
in advance of the tender by the cry.

So there we go to Montreal here we're at
our performance lock up the three story

mark up.

And that's all now under production
Now here's the interior lobby.

And then in context the final bill.

We're also working currently with
M B J on the spheres project for

Amazon in Seattle it's a three and
a half million.

Square foot project.

Which is mostly office towers and we're
not actually engaging the office hours

are strictly doing the spheres which
are half for people half for plants.

I won't go into all
the technical the criteria but

it's a very very delicate balance between
humidity corrosion conversation for

the synthesis appropriate light
levels over heating because you're

supposed to be able to sit here in the
space drinking coffee use your laptop and

not have water dripping on your head.

Very very delicate balance.

And so this is now.

In the kind of.

Early stages of collaboration
with a contractor.

This is a study model that and B.B.'s team
built This is actually just the primary

building structure onto which goes
the kind of secondary lattice structure

which is the glazing grid which you can
see the Seymour in the can even India and

then right here we've built a key
on I would say Georgia Tech built

a two hundred thousand element and
analysis model based on the means and

methods designed preferred by
the contractor or in order for

us to independently assess their
engineering so we had to parallel that for

the new year and then we went through
all the kind of modalities of this

I should also mention will partnered
with Magnus and commends and

who's doing the primary structure and
this is an integrated model of using.

This increment six structure and
the facade structure and

of course what happened was it proved
that the stiffness of the skin of

the outsiders to stiffen it was attracting
load from the primary structure and

begin to share a load basically
ripped itself apart and then worked.

So that was good to go through at
that stage and now we're actually

moving forward into refining the design
putting in additional releases and

making sure that eventually the good or

something will performance markup that
actually works there everything you

see here is a kind of front generated
structural analysis model that we would

normally never go to this kind of depth
but for this particular project it made.

Necessary sense you'd
only have a choice and

here's the first kind of visual markup.

Produced by the contractor.

Second studio so this is Mexico City but
you didn't mention we went to Mexico City

with trolls who don't and as you can see
drove there with our compatriots and

a few guests that were
hosting us along the way.

For this is them not smile.

And this is the sort of stuff.

This is a troll.

I thought of myself a good portrait
of him but I never sent it to him so

family nice looking so handsome.

Kind of like a blurry
background perfect for.

One.

So.

This studio documentation is more
than material so the site is

this kind of terminations of the Reforma
pulled back part it's an existing

project that one of the front clients have
your Sanchez is actually doing the project

actually went on hold and when we got
involved it was really excellent because

we went down we saw how they are and
his associate Marianna past gave us a two

hour download presentation of all
the criteria for their entire original.

Design.

And all of that kind of political
rejection of the design and why it had to

change and so we were able to take that
point of change as art a part of our

studio and actually now several years
later the start of the project up again.

So there is just lots of kind of
struggles about how to do a kind of

two million square foot integrated mixed
use Project it's built on a bus shelter I

mean on bus station it's one of the major
city interchanges it's built on the subway

station it has lots of kind of the Jasons
it's the park to the city it's

kind of a nexus point between the kind
of central business district and

one of the kind of nicer
entertainment areas of the city and

so there is just like a tremendous numbers
of kind of formal iterations just kind of

begin understanding questions
of I Can this city in the city.

And so these are I'm not going to explain
the whole project but I mean these

are kind of artifacts models that were
being built that one two thousand scale

with a five hundred scale one to two
hundred scale this is a beautiful.

Formal study that actually was the kind
of breakthrough somebody made this and

then almost everyone else in the team said
this is beautiful and no matter what we

kept doing we kept coming back to this the
kind of single tower versus double tower

the height versus something that was built
out in a kind of more difficult mousing of

landform park roof structure that had
multiple kind of modes of entries and

ways of getting in the round the bust
circulation that I could knit

cities together the city together
in different parts and so

as a kind of park Here's a diagram this
is actually whatever went well and

so there was lots of studies
of about the kind of like

podium areas quality of life it's
tension supported kind of screens

this was a stunning model that was
built to study a potential mock up.

You know put it in.

All sorts of other various study models
and there are probably maybe twenty models

of that size that were built trying to
study different kind of formal expressions

here and there's a model that's built up
that studying all the kind of circulation

routes underneath trying to wrestle
with circulation very difficult and

we're trying to deal now with like cores
and four plates and curtain walls and

environmental questions of the building
the screens around the building.

And then this is the kind
of more urban scale

model.

There's not much of this in these
presentations but there's a shocking

amount of hand sketching and whiteboarding
that goes on in these studios to struggle

and these are some of the final plans that
got involved with the tower Tower that you

pretty viable with the Course kind of
serious it steps up as it goes it emerges

into a kind of twenty story hotel at the
top that's an interim type of structure

for the proud and the because the two new
tube structure nestled on a kind of two

core structure on the bottom.

In the core sensibly located to the left
side in the course of the four plates

move up they all kind of move.

And then there's lots and lots of kind of
analysis and diagramming and circulation

something that we do in the studios to
try and understand how it works and

then here's for elevation and then this is
all I would like once you say OK I'm going

to build the stuff a corner of the curtain
wall I'm not going to have a glass for

the glass is too big and some of my
fourteen feet the glass but even though.

There's elements to this mock
up that are kind of the now.

But the team really got into
the questions about well what

what is the spend on an office building
do we need to spend what we wanted

How do we integrate the blinds What is
the shape of the mines in this case

the shape they're all diamond shape.

What is the corner of million look like
how do you attach a kind of screen to this

so this is the kind of beautiful
sequence of things to study how

this release of the A hangs off
the side of the curtain wall and

then there's this kind of moment of
transition where it begins to peel away

and you see the kind of steel
eggs a skeleton of the Bristle a.

Just incredible kind of level of effort
going into making these mock ups or

rather competent three dimensional sketch
here what the shape of the motion might be

positively captured system unifies
curtain wall very plausible for

sections quite well detailed and
worked out.

Something that I can even define.

And this is the way the millions were
simulated basically built up with these

kind of profiles all of the plexi was
built with these kind of milled snap

pieces that were still
ten thousand off of.

The actual rods and supporting them.

Like that.

And then here Packard is working for
us now on the Canadian Parliament.

Building of his pieces for the screen so
this is a pretty big construction.

And then finally we can see kind of
the selection of a millions of white is

that kind of interior fish or in the first
light off color you know there's actually

a lot of very subtle questions that
were answered in this sort of walk up.

And then here are some renderings
that the team did that are to my mind

quite compelling and they could be as good
as anything that's been done out there

today.

And then a real dot This is
the capital market authority

tower four hundred meters you within.

OK and Riyadh in the King of
dual financial district and

this is it right now.

This is just pretty pictures.

This is great in.

The world with.

Every building under
construction at the same time.

Doing a science center and

aquarium there right now has just
been awarded to the contractor.

The lovely the new the really nice tower
the stage OK General Contractors the.

Bin Laden Saudi group.

It's triple glazed.

Double louis coating gas fillings.

Exterior horizontal bristle lasers.

Angled ceramic frett exterior
glass Priscilla's but

has a double directional exterior
sun shading system and an excellent

kind of insulating you value and
they understand they're even going to air

condition your building you want to keep
the air conditioning inside the building.

And so they didn't.

They didn't.

Cut any corners on the project.

Another I mean the belt project.

This is the drawing of project and
Sharman with and

they need.

You have are going into
much detail on these but

this is more again work in process so
you know kind of what we're up

to.

Trying not to characterize it I can say
though that there was a incredible level

of analytical invention that went into
it in the software development and

the automation of the import into this.

Friend software for analysis to do this
in any kind of sensible iteration and

I've been giving a kind of
funny slide which is this

this structural optimization took over
this much load back to the base building

structure.

Through shape up to my position and

other from the bottom I think
this is the Mahanta Khan tower.

By all the Sharon.

Who is the former partner of Graham
gold of all is now based in Beijing.

Here's the sales office
the model of the building and

this is the sales office the sills office
actually has a replica of both types of

curtain walls one is this unitized
curtain wall that has this kind of

like mini articulate in bay window
that we strangely call the crust.

And then this is the other part of
it which is the retail pavilion

That's all this kind of
crazy interlocking glass.

And then this is the project under
construction now I think it's about

halfway up now this is a nice segue
into our drawn to the studio.

So this is the model that
our drama students built.

So.

This tower this is a beautiful drawing.

This is a very well result
really I like destroying a lot.

So the back story here is we chose
this site in Toronto that represents

the kind of epicenter of the kind of media
fashion district in the city right next to

trying to International Film Festival and
it's a site owned by David Mirvish one of

the kind of you know leading sponsors
of the arts in the city of drawn and

David where Bush hired Frank Gehry
who originally born in Canada

to build no less than three
eighty six storey towers

two on this side one on the adjacent
site and there really will mark a.

Really remarkable towers and
I thought those that project sponsored

by somebody from the city represented
a kind of point of inversion a point of

inflection in the city's sense of itself
it had some big things before it had me

that are of the sixty's you know France
by Seagram's until slammer in the end and

then they had they had they had
to do you know I have paid to

the Congress Bank headquarters for
some serious hardcore large corporate

architecture in drug of the seven
million person city now.

But this one is these three towers were

of the same scale as what was in
the downtown a few blocks away and

represented a kind of new stake on what
the future of the city was going to be.

And of course a very controversial and
I mean from Toronto thought this was

an interesting project for
our students to both critically review and

assess the kind of program the building
the function of the building and

also deal with the kind of a formal
exploration of three difficult because

you're basically going up against friend
Gary just kind of like a tough call and

all the resources he can bring to
bear on that design but the city we

want to go see the city and we we we told
them that we're doing this project and

then they rolled out the gentleman in Greg
Winter who is actually formally the head

of the city of Toronto and apartment and
now he's he's the second in command but

he's the guy negotiating the deal
with Mirvish and Gary and

he took an interest in seeing us and
basically spent an hour out of his

time explaining the entire history of city
planning in Toronto but more importantly

explaining how it works what the kind
of negotiated mechanisms are because

almost everything being built right now is
not as of right but as long as you pay to

play you can build whatever you want but

these three hundred sixty three towers
are just considered too much and

too too far and
how the city actually deal with this and.

So we went ahead and we met with many
architects and drawn we all city and

we we did our project and
what some there is they

did the project kind of big up based
on the big issues the big issues were.

Very wanted to rip down the entire
block of heritage building.

Which was kind of pretty controversial and
then he went on.

In a city council basically went
on record saying there's only two

buildings in the entire city in
trouble that are actually were saved.

But it was kind of a pretty tough
statement of course they did a whole P.R.

kind of way damage control of that.

But the adaptive reuse question was
a question that basically played our

students you know I mean isn't Gary
going to be better than these kind

of like three storey warehouses like what
is the significance of these buildings and

why not just rip them down.

You know and in the end.

They reveal to me later they voted five
five there's ten students in the class and

there are five there are some there are a
house divided but the preservation of this

one and in the end the scheme was
developed with the Dr of reuse

approach the other thing that we talked a
lot about was the economics of Kerry's two

towers on that one site and while
certainly that would get them the highest

resell in Canadian history there's no
question and maybe it makes sense but

the almost of that they were proposing
a very expensive in relative terms and

the Omble of the ratio to floor
area was very very disadvantageous

plus the building core was so slender
that the current construction premium for

the concrete and steel reinforced core and

structure was also very very damaging my
my assessments of this project actually

had very little economic sense
delivery to it and so the students

on the team basically started bringing
the program up they reduced the amount of

residential they incorporated a larger
facility for the interior calling of arm

design interest was a part
of the original program.

They kept all the existing buildings put
in a kind of hotel which wasn't in the mix

and we discussed a lot how there's like
a different kind of economic model for

each one of these parts within a kind
of like multi-stakeholder building and

you know some of them are other kinds
of a long time from the government and

funded similar based on
resale some of the rental and

revenue base some of the bids from these
operators you know there's a different way

of funding also into parts of the big
projects and so they didn't really scale

the building back that much but they
just basically consolidated the mass and

started going up to about
a forty story baseline and

then went all the way up to about eighty
stories on the one side of the site.

Now.

Without getting in to too
much kind of speculation our

city planning friend Greg Winter and
came to our final review and

reviewed the entire project and
formally Of course it's through

the speculations the reinforced
concrete exterior facade for

a one thousand foot tower
which has some precedence so

I supported it from a kind of
more speculative standpoint but

that didn't really going
to make Greg that happy but

what he didn't take away was these
debates over the big questions and

what he told me since
the studio was that he was

able to use our studio as a way of
visually evaluating all sorts of things.

And so what happened was after our
studio was finishing the final review

city council voted the project
down the merge guaranteed and

threatened to kind of go to war council or
atom bomb his or great guys stepped up and

said hold on this is a good project for
the city we need this job let's

do something here so he suggested a closed
door three month fourteen stakeholder

set of workshops to try to figure
out how to reconcile differences and

it took five months and
in May They revealed a real.

Scheme.

On this site completed
up to reuse was retained

single tower moved to the far right.

And they rationalize the geometry
they included a forty story

honchos a contractual reference
to the other towers and

they did something that maybe
was just part of the deal but

it's something I actually believed was
the right thing which is they gave Gary

the tallest building in the city they
let him exceed the Bank of Montreal

headquarters by another ten meters which
they were not previously willing to do

they had this whole kind of planning on
the local about the morphology of the city

and said this tower is
going to be down here.

But by the yielding the other
tower reducing the mass and

actually going higher it's
a way that her project and

right now it's received none of this kind
of like city approval and so forth and

I can tell you not officially
that we had this much influence.

But it's really it's real and
it's actually quite exciting that

these projects that started this kind of
something few radical and up through Gage

and in local people in local practices
might actually stirred weeds I mean I know

it a lot of projects that get set up it's
formally an engagement a collaboration of

the studios here that are saying you
know we had if you have sponsorship and

there we are dealing with a problem
that's actually only done this way but.

My approach here is to not have so
many rules and

to let the students kind of
find their own bandaid and

explore kind of formal language with their
own kind of those other constraints.

So speaking strictly about materiality
on this this project think they propose

the kind of concrete facade which
we're doing this cast in place

architectural concrete facades of two
hundred forty hundred fifty feet high.

Continuous pores and

this is the tower that they
proposed which is pretty muscular.

Kind of central It's a sort of
like charcoal gray concrete.

Various news looking for music his T.V.
set are over there.

Built incredible flight models forty
different kind of legs record of massing

models and this is kind of where they were
this is like this kind of good Derrius

super expressionistic sort of tower
which eventually to my surprise

started getting disciplined into
this this is actually what.

People thought was a better
solution a more elegant solution.

Is kind of double core of this idea this
kind of tower merging into one tower and

having these kind of transfer decks we
also had a guy Gen in the studio who

is a dual degree structural engineer and
he actually worked out an entire kind of

structural transfer system to use the
concrete walls load bearing and then come

up with kind of a mega truss belt at the
transfer of floors which are the kind of

common sky lobbies transfer in between all
the kind of functions of the building.

And then we got Christa curve from
Mexico to custom fabricate a specific

piece of curved glass for them but
two weeks in the truck it from Mexico and

we made this kind of cast concrete mock up
and you can see the the what's interesting

about these markets sometimes like look at
the interior wall the entire wall is so

deep and so massive but that actually was
what you required to make a tube of it to

concrete structure for a tower of the
scale and then the with the black concrete

on the outside is actually
the kind of architectural skin and

you can see in section here
the air water barrier and

six inches of insulation is actually shown
in all of their technical detail and

it showed all the kind of slip resisting
connections back to structure and

so to say like you know can you do insight
cast architectural concrete facade On

thousand foot tower I think I think
the answer is yes you can and I know S.

A Well I'm certain the release of
already done fifty sixty stories.

Architectural exterior which
was concrete on our towers.

And then this isn't just
some pictures of our

review standing on the mark of the funny.

Vulcan.

And while drawing from very clinical
in the studio are he thought things

to build for more kind of expressive
they're very competent very very serious

kind of set of documentation whole board
for barn mental analysis of buildings

of the form of the Holborn
structural climate.

And this kind of incredible slate model
there's them I think this is actually

very very similar to what
Frank is going to build.

Shockingly similar and you can see on
the right side is the Bank of Montreal and

this will be almost exactly the same
height as what's being proposed this

is the mass again here
is original proposal.

And that's probably what life is.

And then they build this one two hundred
model the sort of sectional exploration

through all of the structure all the
program out of carious all the residential

units.

And then they had this kind of
plate printed black study model

just to start kind of evaluating what kind
of the color of course there was lots

of mistakes them for
the concrete lots of discovery use.

Interesting appreciate it.

So back to some front work this is
a very brief series there this is.

This is like I would love
Elena This is Evan project as well.

So sixteen years ago I worked for
Foster and Partners and it took a sixteen

years to come back and for them to believe
that we had anything to offer them.

And so they gave us our first

commission which was the four hundred
ten meter mixed use Office and

hotel project in Beijing it was very
close to China Central Television.

The amount of I mean Fosters
is obviously very competent

both environmentally technically and
geometrical And so for

us to kind of like go toe to toe with
them in collaboration is pretty exciting.

And Evan has done a spectacular kind
of job in terms of this kind of like

optimization you'll know the kind of
sinew his double curved geometry of

the entire building one hundred percent
clad on a flat truck with a little panel.

And another aspect of the project that's
quite exciting is it's this kind of

give actual interface between the diagonal
exterior cladding interfacing with

Arabs and mega structural
exterior nodal column grid and

on top of it it's a cavity wall system up
the entire height of the building and so

these diagrams are it was more Building
Maintenance Unit integration which we're

doing as well here's a kind of image of
the talking panels which if you've seen

from from partner Smithsonian roof in D.C.
is the kind of similar approach.

Here's a three dimensional model
of how we're going to handle

this sort of like a popping panel.

With variable geometry and then here you
can see the mix of the eight mega columns

secondary diagonal kind of bracing the
interior cavity wall the exterior cavity

exterior single glazing interior kind
of ideas and then we have air intake at

the exterior cladding that actually
travel sideways and then set aside.

For exterior ventilated the sides of.

Another door detect a product
here our friend Patrick de veau

has actually done a shocking
amount of very competent drawings

considering it's not that long since he
graduated and what we're doing here this

is the west block of parliament in
Canada and the new House of Commons is

being put into that courtyard that
you can see here and while there's

very kind of this several new classical
buildings around the world that have.

A kind of addition to them like that.

It's much easier to deal with this is
one of the only Victorian buildings

that actually has a glass dome being
put on top of an enclosed corridor and

so we have these kind of like months ours
to deal with we have crusting to deal with

chimneys to deal with we have these
gigantic ventilation towers in there with.

And on top of it this is North America's
largest oldest very masonry building

built in the eight hundred sixty S.
And there's no reinforced feeling that.

It's a million square feet and
the entire structure for

the glass roof has to be independently
supported off of new foundations and

courtyard and no load no surcharge
of rain to surge of snow and

ice nothing can be put on to
the adjacent building structure so

this would have to kind of
maintain all of those things.

But the.

House of Commons.

Now.

One thing about being in Parliament is
that they have incredible kind of security

and broadcasting requirements it is

they have a think of it I keep a load
of basically the kind of information

technology group that they have to
handle a certain minimum like levelling

all of the cameras need to be
able to respond there has to be.

A certain minimum diffusion through the
thing that has an environmental narrative

because it's a pool
structure a glass roof.

Is of the drawings of the kind of mock
up that was being proposed to understand

the entire geometry of this thing so I
know this is a bit kind of relentless and

you might not appreciate it but.

Front is on the consulting side of the
equation here the architect is our carbon

forty acres of that's Moss of Montreal
our copper they're kind of competent

big corporate from and
they're partnered with forty years for

that Moss who are like Canada's
leading historic preservation

Julia Dershowitz runs the preservation
team and we go to university.

And so she's the kind of authority
on how one would have a fancy glass

addition to one of Canada's treasures.

So I was extraordinarily flattered
to be asked to be you know

and normal gouvernement who in dark up
didn't know he would have this Canadian so

he flew down a month to
New York to meet us and he.

Basically spent an hour of his to our
interview talking about the relatively

recent Canadian Gold Cup win at the event
Cooper Olympics and we got the job.

So these drawings here so

this is the tender package I'm just going
to because it's a great set of drawings so

not only did we do a complete the model
complete definition of the entire

still structure we didn't hear the primer
still but we had been responsibility for

the steel and then we had in the entire
enclosure has a full a light system so

you can see below the bottom layers of
her true structure than the lay like

all glass layer light system with some
acoustic panels then there's a maintenance

access grille thing interesting
little kind of truss and structure

then there's is alterable kinetic
louvered a lighting control layer and

then there's the exterior glass flavor
plus a country or story system.

And without explaining it I'm just going
to show you the level of documentation

that went into this.

Which again I'm going to call a particular
done kind of like an incredible job.

From someone who's
relatively inexperienced.

And just kind of stepped up in
a kind of rather shocking way.

So one thing that was difficult was even
though it was a complete bin project.

Contracting rules in the public works for
the leading government had it that

we still had to reduce the geometry and
complete definition of every element to

the to the conventional construction
package which doesn't always happen and

the kind of rigor that we had to
go through to make this happen

is pretty serious kind of a higher
level than you would normally so

all we're going to belittle pathologies
of every layer of the system and

actually work through here.

And then we didn't extract into every
single panel that every life panel every

roof panel is taken from the build
model this is an index of

every single piece of
glass from the project.

This is all of the ladylike
panels on the project.

And it's tripled with double that and
it is three layers of defense

from the waterproofing standpoint
totally flush called planar design.

And no caps all the edge gutters
the snow retention guards

lightning protection the side access tile

integration.

Chimney encapsulation
then towering calculation

mansard roof integration OK this temple.

The body will then up were so
nice to send me through this

series of slide which thank God is
far more edited than anything else.

This is really funny I got to
make fun of these guys like

you know in the in
the they they kind of art.

The previous studio and then the first day
they met with monks themselves before they

met me and they wrote a constitution
on how to govern themselves.

I thought there was going to present and

in the post-mortem we kind of discussed
of the constitution hold up and

I think the answers as they
get it was a useful document.

But this is also just breaking
down tasks for highlighting

who it is basically driving the show who
is tasking everyone else who is kind of

maintaining the pace of the project the
next list is physically who it is in task

of documenting all of the work that is
being generated whether it's sketches or

photographs or research or whatever it is.

And then there's a whole series of kind
and listings this is basically a large

cruise port terminal on the water and in
Istanbul and it's a site that has recently

been auctioned off to a thirty year
build operate transfer developer and

the main thrust of the studio is that it's
an inappropriate development model for

such a critical site
in a place like Turkey

where there's such kind of
incredible historical context and

you know the thrust of the studio
came into saying this should be.

The land should be reclaimed for public
amenity use that should be a kind of civil

and iconic identity for the city but it
should still be terminal it should still

have like those facilities it should still
have seven hundred parking spots it should

still have subgrade vehicle or access for
a tractor trailers and taxis and

buses for the port terminal it should
still have one point two million square

feet of mixed use commercial development
hotel has prevented for the developer and

it all should be built with one hundred
percent site coverage for Civic Park and

public amenity So
eventually the project became kind of a.

Landform architectural project and.

This is that we're looking at here like
intermediate schemes of trying to do.

What is actually one building but build
with a kind of like almost New Urbanist

sensibility onto a massive kind of carbon
plant so it's still one mega project that

has the kind of scale and identity of
something that's kind of broken up here's

a one to ten scale model and then this is
starting to track through ideas about soft

landscaping continuity of like a park or
areas that go through it and then.

The whole thing evolved into say well why
aren't we kind of building a kind of like

common level roof over this and actually
making it a usable continuous park

while accommodating the program and.

So this diagram emerges where you've got
parking on the subgrade on the far side

you've got the port terminal in your side
and then you've got all of the one point

two million for food program still broken
into the sort of like urban blocks but

then this is kind of a large land for

a lot of the begins to kind
of emerge over the building.

And this was.

Built other kind of wonder thousand
level there's an idea of a building

a wonder one scale mock up of the kind of

brilliant tiling pattern that merges
between hard scaping and substation

What is the edge condition look like where
you skylights look like in this thing and

this is all kind of worrying what
are the tiling pattern look like.

Trying to study it three dimensionally
because this kind of combination of

intense poor infrastructure
with this kind of soft.

Cityscape above that kind of scale of
the adjacent to lot of neighborhood.

And then it begins to emerge again
into this kind of more sculptural free

form that has almost the same kind of like
prosody and density at the ground level

and you can see that in a kind of one
to two hundred scale cardboard study

model which is like the second or
third iteration at this scale and

then it becomes a very very
kind of fluid study it.

Result design integrating all
of the retail hotel landscaping

civic functions of
incorporating a library and

site very detailed kind of tiling
pattern in grids and then we have

an actual final presentation model at
this point we were hosted by Studio X.

of Columbia University in a stumble by
are friends all do it again and Studio X.

in January is hosting an installed
exhibition of the studio's work and

one thing you should know is that during
our visit there we got access to Mr

solder Bengalee who actually is
the developer who owns the site and

he kind of expressed that he was
an architect selection favors.

The rumors hundreds of them
got over what I'm sure.

And he basically said like

we're very very interested in
seeing what you come up with.

So the provocation is that this on its
own is not viable from a developer's

pro-forma but if you actually had a kind
of multi-stakeholder economic strategy for

this dealing with the city with the
Parks Department with the port terminal

authority and dealing with a retail
developer and you actually created

a strategy for this it's a little bit more
like the narrative of the drama studio

saying how can you create a richer more
dynamic more complex kind of community mix

actually move this project forward.

And these models literally got
created in the last couple of days and

they're on their way to
assemble as we speak.

And this is the one two thousand kill
file you know that's going as well and

the one to one scale
model should be built.

By a fabricator in Istanbul so

that little mini mock up you saw is almost
like a steady market for the real market.

This is by a mall Andras and
Dan would work.

He sees it's a conference for
the state of the ball and

this is all still.

In terms of fronts work.

This is a blending of all of our kind of

skill sets the ultimate
kind of challenge and.

What was kind of.

Really incredible.

And a very unusual for that experience was
after we won this competition supporting

work a CD and abstain for this job.

We met with the owner and the owner it
was actually back tell Bechtel's kind of

invented into the government government.

And they basically have a thing called
the National Snuffy and now they're going

trouble which is their national incident
building at all these infrastructure

projects and this building is just one of
the buildings that they're building but

this gentleman then theory said your
industry is broken and we don't.

Want to have a facade constructed from
Europe we don't have that subcontractor

from China.

We want to own the design.

Because Gabon doesn't have
a domestic the Saddam to three

at the moment you start making deals for
single source turnkey for

German you know overseas
location eventually

you succumb to all the kind of contract
all disputes that eventually emerge and

the project will be held to ransom at some
point due to those inevitable conflicts

that will come up out of projects such as
this whether it's labor problems whether

it's material import export problems
ownership design issues and so

we were contracted to do complete
prescriptive design down to

the fabrication document of every
single component on this facade.

And to work as a consultant to the
architect going through all of the kind

of collaborative design optimizations
that one would kind of do in our role.

Partway through the process
what was interesting

Robert someone insertions
a structural engineer but they were.

They were resourced I think or capability
not for I mean for availability reasons

to do been on the project and because
we were doing prescriptive design for

the company on below we only interface
with the primary building structure so

then we proceeded basically to secure
a contract to do the complete them for

the primary seal based on Robinson's
engineering and then we work through

a grasshopper to generate and export
it to Ted will be eighteen directly and

handed over the entire steel been model
to the Turkish healing company and

all of the steel now is
currently under fabrication.

We didn't steal connection details but
still by the subcontractor detail in

company so we're giving them all
the elements and orientations and the

geometry.

So these are some series
of optimization for

those garden areas.

Which are pretty complex after a while
this is all double shingle stone sheets.

And in the end we tried to reduce it down
to about forty five types with the unified

bracketing strategy.

We also had responsibility for
the procurement So we work as a kind of

Sikandar facade construction manager
to back down basically producing

a complete build the quantities geometry
and we did the prequalification for

the shortlist and
subcontractors all the negotiations and

the commercial negotiations the Turkish
general contractor and Co was.

Artist in that whole process because in
the end whatever negotiations between

ourselves that tell and
go to happen with the subcontractors

the final commercial arrangement is
to know that that some contract or

to anchor the Turkish general contractor
and have them execute their work under

those terms but backed off still owns
the design so if those subcontractors do

not perform instead of basically having a
single source person they have an arguable

where they can say to the guy producing
secondary facade steel you're out give it

to somebody else that's still making the
stone somebody still making the glass and

so forth and so this is like the high
seas of the kind of you know.

High risk global flood
projects that this is still

trucking.

And this work here is in part done
by just from our card Lena Klein.

Aldridge.

Serious Christian.

And that's the front door.

We also build these kind of early
Stone selection mock ups for

the president of the bone.

Basically using all of these
North African limestone.

The building is mainly
being built to inaugurate

hosting the African National Congress.

And coursed symbolically they want
the stone to be from the continent

of Africa even though all
of the build in Italy.

One of the gardens.

So this is the Hong Kong studio.

Course the work hasn't been done yet.

And we're going there on
September twentieth thanks to tell

the eleven students myself.

And our site is just in the lower
left there it's the Hong Kong Academy

the Performing Arts Foundation Hong Kong
for me is an interesting place.

My father in law is from Hong Kong I live
there personally for six years working

with Foster and
Partners in the Hong Kong airport and.

It's such a rich incredible
place culturally and

it's dynamism is incredible but it's a
place that has a chronic identity problem

and of course after the ninety ninety
seven handover to the mainland it's

it's become intensified because it's no
longer just a question of commercial and

cultural identity it's now political.

And it's going to be very interesting
time to be there the city certainly of

the extraordinarily pragmatic city very
workman like very serious international

but how it operates but there is a very
powerful emerging cultural scene there and

it's it's it's kind of.

Made made manifest by the fact
that they've sponsored this kind

of incredible commitment
to the arts which.

Which is manifest in this
this is the West Cullen

cultural district which is the blood of
the competition eventually Foster and

Partners prevail over
Remco all the others.

But while this is very impressive
the there's a universal criticism

of that saying basically building
seventeen arts facilities in a single kind

of mega district is
obviously a kind of top down

the authoritarian approach even it's like
a forty three billion Hong Kong dollars.

Investment in the arts which if
spent in the kind of bottom up

user oriented community initiated approach
would yield far far more dynamic and

compelling results and would fuel
the city's cultural scene in our view

to a much greater degree so this is
the kind of presence the backdrop for

the studio is the Hong Kong cultural
scene and Hong Kong has one very

competent tertiary arts degree granting
institution for the Performing Arts and

it includes film and television which if
you're aware of Hong Kong film is one of

the best in the world it's an incredible
scene very very dynamic and

then of course it goes everything from
classical ballet classical opera to

Chinese opera and dramatic arts and
so forth are all of that in here and

what we're one of the task in this group
with is to do their research go there and

basically come up with a twenty
five year vision plan for

how this tertiary institution can fuel the
future of the Hong Kong cultural scene.

And to basically crash land
on their existing facility

which is this building from one
thousand nine hundred four.

And because Hong Kong is such an inability
to build a privately financed kind of

facility.

This building is still used for

major commercial productions while
being at the school at the same time so

they have a kind of local inadequacy The
second criticism of the work of cultural

district is they can't get their act
together to actually build the facilities

there's only two of them that are actually
currently underway and all of the other

ones are troubled and if you know the kind
of arts industry you need a kind of three

year financial planning window to actually
produce the kind of show or production you

need at least a one year logistical window
to actually execute with commitments for

soldiers and people don't even know what
the facilities are going to exist it's

like it's a complete kind of collapse
of faith and trust and activity and.

People believe you have to go elsewhere
and so are are kind of pieces here is

can we actually propose a kind of.

Renovation an augmentation or replacement

on this site which is actually on
Hong Kong Island on the waterfront side.

Not necessarily just as an indictment but
as a kind of counterpoint

to the kind of centralism of the kind
of west Helen cultural district and

how can we actually build something in
this location that stitches together

this part of the city actually
creates a kind of new I call.

In this location because of expecting the
proposed building to be at least three to

four times the biggest this and my core
question that is really about again

architectural language formalism identity
I can do a city in this place and

what does that mean in the kind of current
home come context because in all formal

considerations there's a kind of crisis
architecturally and Hong Kong has

finally gotten to a point where it's him
it's always been hard Foster partners and

now me on and that's the way and so forth
to do a lot of the kind of big buildings.

But only recently in the past five
years hasn't been hiring Zaha Hadid or

Todd Williams in the return or you know
other more kind of culturally recognized

design architects to start building
institutions what should the city and that

definitely also show the kind of moment
of the offering should be to bring in.

More sensitive more kind
of critical architecture

to a broader audience
across the whole city.

So.

The last thing Eleanor that this is
actually what the architectural services

department the government has built
back in the one nine hundred eighty S.

This is their national
public library from Kong.

But the buildings that are going
on this is the with Calvin

map here is a big exhibition I've been so

this is the end what's the kind
of metropolitan our museum.

Will buy you heard so.

Damali won this competition.

And then the counterpoint building is
this Which front happens to be involved

with which is the sheets you
Chinese are percenter by Big Tom

the Canadian architect out of Vancouver.

And so these two projects which
are probably the most aspirational ongoing

projects to be built for the current
context and so hopefully we're going to go

talk to the architects of these
projects or at least this one and.

With your gums a bit.

So I hope this gives you a pretty good
idea of who we are what we're doing what's

on the desk and what we're doing with the
students and I hope the message is clear

that by interlacing their work
with our work that the kind of

artifacts of the kind of investigation the
kind of issues is actually very similar.

It's very similar and

I think the efforts that are made by
these roughly fifty students have been.

Quite frankly as we tackle will.

Perhaps if you join me I'm thinking
of recognising their efforts and

thinking tubs of who are putting
their efforts please do.

To.