Occupying one of the largest undeveloped parcels in the Washington, D.C. area, the $2.5 billion HQ2 complex will be planted with hundreds of native plants, run on 100-percent renewable electricity via solar panels and a local solar farm, and make use of high-performance glazing and built-in solar shading to reduce heating and cooling needs.

The “Helix” building was designed with biophilic principles in mind, just like Amazon’s The Spheres HQ in Seattle (both designed by NBBJ). The spiral-shaped building will be located in the northeast corner of PenPlace and feature two walkable paths of landscaped terrain spiraling up its exteriors. Inside, employees will find both formal and casual meeting spaces in a greenhouse-like environment full of planting areas and living walls.

“The exterior of the structure will feature two paths for employees to engage with colleagues in meetings or to take in views of Arlington, the Potomac River, and Washington, D.C. The Helix will also be home to an artist-in-residence program and a meeting center, and it will be open to the public and community to enjoy two days per month,” Amazon stated in a press release. “We can’t wait for everyone to see this unique and thoughtfully designed space come to life.”

The review process encouraged Amazon to add features like solar panels, bike lanes, and green space to PenPlace, including a tree-lined “green ribbon” pathway that slices through the complex. The company also agreed to contribute $30 million to an Arlington fund to subsidize preserving and building affordable housing as part of its negotiations. Arlington residents hope that additional concerns will be addressed in the future, including providing additional community resources like space for a library, but some are skeptical that the public will feel comfortable using a green space full of surveillance cameras on a corporate campus.

Amazon’s arrival comes amidst growing inequality, gentrification, and displacement in the larger D.C. region, and the 25,000 jobs it plans to add to the area could contribute to the problems rather than alleviating them. Virginia wooed the company with millions in direct cash subsidies on the condition that its new Arlington hires earn an average of $150,000 a year. Unfortunately, clusters of higher paying jobs for specific skills like technology tend to elevate the local cost of living and push out lower wage earners. Since Amazon’s HQ2 announcement, aviation giant Boeing has also announced a move to Arlington, and more companies are expected to follow.

The post Amazon’s HQ2 Will Bring Big Changes — and a New Landmark — to Arlington first appeared on Dornob.

Sponsored by the National Women’s History Museum and Chief, a female networking organization, the 6′ X 6′ display was commissioned to symbolize the proverbial glass ceiling finally being shattered with Harris’ election.

“This will just be a wonderful visual emblem of this moment in time and hopefully people will reflect a little bit on all the barriers that have been broken by her election,” said Holly Hotchner, president and CEO of the National Women’s History Museum, adding that “Representation matters, especially at the ballot box. And the inauguration of Kamala Harris as the first woman, and first woman of color, to serve as Vice President of the United States is a landmark moment in American history.”

Harris, a daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, has been the “first” many times in her career as a lawyer and politician. She was the first woman and person of color to be the San Francisco District Attorney, and the first woman and Black person to become California’s Attorney General. She followed that position as the first Black U.S. senator from her home state. With her inauguration as Vice President, she has broken three more barriers: first woman, first Black person, and first Asian American to hold that office. Harris is also the first Vice President to attend a historically Black college, Howard University.

Entitled “Glass Ceiling Breaker,” the installation was created by Swiss artist Simon Berger, known for his amazing fractured designs, in partnership with creative agency BBH New York and production company M ss ng P eces.

Berger first experimented with his distinctive technique in 2016, explaining that “I hit the glass directly with the hammer, so that cracks and impacts occur. Hard hits create abstraction and I ‘paint’ with targeted fine hits.”

“I like creating beautiful things through destruction,” he told Artnet News. “I am pleased and proud to be able to make a contribution in this matter.”

Berger used a photo of Harris taken by New York photographer Celeste Sloman as a model while he tapped tiny fissures into a piece of 350-pound safety glass to create her larger-than-life face.

The exhibition also featured a QR code linking visitors to an Instagram Spark AR that featured an augmented reality experience of Harris’ “glass-breaking moments.” A video with overlapping images of Bergen at work and the achievements of women’s rights pioneers also accompanied the likeness.

“Today’s progress is built on the legacy of the women who came before — the trailblazers, like Kamala, who raised their voices, marched for their rights, and ran for elected office; the women who cracked glass ceilings so that other women could shatter them,” Hotchner says. “It is a true honor to join BBH and Chief as partners in this remarkable installation honoring this critical turning point in the fight for representation, Vice President Harris, and the numerous women throughout history who demanded a seat at the table.”

“This artwork not only celebrates Vice President Kamala Harris, a woman who embodies this mission, but it recognizes the women who came before her and those who’ll come after,” says Lindsay Kaplan, co-founder of Chief. “Today, only 23 percent of executive roles are held by women. We hope this exhibit will show women of all backgrounds that they can change that percentage, assert their voices, and open doors as they shatter barriers.”

In her own acceptance speech of the Vice Presidency, Harris made similar remarks when she thanked “the generations of women…who throughout our nation’s history have paved the way for this moment tonight…I stand on their shoulders.”

The art was on display from February 4th to the 6th against the backdrop of the Washington Memorial and has since been moved to the New York headquarters of Chief.

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As usual when the White House changes hands, the Biden Administration immediately got to work refreshing the Oval Office decor, looking through the White House archives and borrowing artwork and artifacts from museums and galleries around the country. This time around, a few clear themes emerged: a return to tradition, a little more diversity, and a nod to the new administration’s reverence for science.

A Painting of Benjamin Franklin

Bye-bye Andrew Jackson, the slave-owning U.S. President responsible for travesties like the Trail of Tears. His portrait, chosen by Trump, has been replaced by a painting of world-renowned scientist and founding father Benjamin Franklin. Other newly displayed paintings include portraits of the famous rivals Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson and a flag-themed 1917 painting by Childe Hassam last seen during Obama’s tenure.

The Resolute Desk

Biden could have chosen from six Presidential desks, and speculators thought he’d go for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway desk formerly used by George H.W. Bush due to his love of trains. But surprisingly, the Resolute Desk (also used by Barack Obama) is one Trump choice that remains. What he did get rid of, however, is the red button on a fancy little hardwood box that Trump used to summon a butler with a platter of Diet Cokes.

Clinton-Era Drapes

Many of Trump’s choices reflected his desire to “bring back the luster and the glory” of the office, including the bright and shiny gold drapes behind the desk. President Biden stayed in the same color zone but selected darker, more toned-down yellow drapes first installed by the Clinton administration. Biden also replaced the beige starburst rug designed by former First Lady Laura Bush with a royal blue rug from the Clinton years.

Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks

Civil rights icons have found places on the sideboard and beneath Franklin’s portrait, including busts of Latin American labor leader and folk hero Cesar Chavez (borrowed from the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in California, and replacing one of Trump’s father), a bust of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and a bust of Rosa Parks.

The British tabloids are in a frenzy over the administration’s choice to remove a bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, replaced with one depicting former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Other new additions include a statue of an Apache rider on a horse, formerly owned by late Hawaii senator Daniel Inouye, and a bust of Robert F. Kennedy.

3.9-Billion-Year-Old Moon Rock

Displayed on a bookshelf beside the Resolute Desk is a moon rock in a protective case, which came from the United States’ last mission to the moon in 1972. Loaned to the White House by NASA “in symbolic recognition of earlier generations’ ambitions and accomplishments, and support for America’s current Moon to Mars exploration approach,” according to NASA’s website, the gray, diamond-shaped rock was procured by special request. President Biden reportedly wanted the rock “as a reminder of the ambition and accomplishments of previous Oval Office occupants.”

All images courtesy of AP

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The owner of a 1938 brick townhouse in Washington D.C. wanted to put solar panels on his roof, but the city’s Historic Preservation Office refused. Board member and architect Chris Landis said that he “[applauded the owner’s] greenness and desire to save the planet. And I realize that we are in crisis, politically as well as sustainably. But I just have this vision of a row of houses with solar panels on the front of them and it just — it upsets me, as somebody who’s supposed to protect the architectural fabric of the neighborhood.”

This stance isn’t uncommon, and as efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change ramp up, battles like this will probably only increase. Some people may find it jarring to see solar panels on full display atop historic structures, but there isn’t always an easy way to disguise them. And, with the planet in the state it’s in — why should we?

This new development of prefabricated row houses certainly isn’t historic, but it proudly puts solar power front and center. The more we see this kind of design in action, the more ridiculous protests against installing them on any type of building will seem. Created by Street Monkey Architects, these custom-designed houses in Örebro, Sweden feature angled roofs that place solar panels in a visible location to capture as much sunlight as possible.

The point of these houses is to make them as environmentally friendly as can be, including off-site fabrication that reduces waste and impact at the construction site. Even better, each module arrived at the site with fully finished walls, bathrooms, and kitchens.

The firm explains that: “Our first row-house project was within commuting distance to Stockholm in a city called Upplands Väsby. The project is composed of seven row houses, and they sold out in less than two weeks. It was built with passive house principles and solar panels, which make it extremely energy efficient and, as a result, it won a sustainability award from the municipality. So it is not surprising that the client wanted to duplicate it in another location.”

“The other location turned out to be Örebro, Sweden, and it was more urban site than the one in Upplands Väsby. It was also a corner lot in contrast to the Upplands Väsby site, which was flanked by a park and a forest. We wanted to design for this change without changing the construction of the prefabricated modules. We did so by customizing the roof and by using the same facade materials in different ways. The result gave us three versions of the same house. In the park setting, we lowered the roof to soften the volume, and we used white plaster and wood ribs over steel for the facades… [therefore] the benefits of off-site production and repetition are reaped but the project is still contextualized.”

Obviously, there’s a huge contrast between these modern row houses and the historic ones found in places like Washington D.C., and preserving historic structures is certainly important (and usually, much more sustainable than demolishing them to build something flimsier). It’s also important to remember that preservationists help prevent design atrocities like Victorian houses with hideous 1970s retrofits. But on solar panels, at least, it’s in the best interest of everyone to soften our ideas of what’s “too ugly” or “too contemporary” to include.

The post These Modern Prefab Row Houses Were Made for Solar Power first appeared on Dornob.

Talks of this $2 billion redesign began back in 2012, but it wasn’t until this year that it was actually given the go-ahead by the National Capital Planning Commission. Even so, it’ll still probably be another 20 or 30 years before the 17-acre South Mall campus begins its redevelopment. The aim of the overhaul is to unify the museums and research centers by eradicating inefficient building systems and introducing modern spaces to create a natural flow — as opposed to the current layout, which is said to “plague the area” and make each building seem isolated from the rest.

The site in question includes some of the Smithsonian’s oldest buildings, including a “castle” that was built in 1855, which itself will soon be restored to serve as the centerpiece of the entire redesign. BIG hopes that by rejuvenating the Castle, they will take away its cold, practical feel (it’s currently being used as an administrative center) and use it to enhance the visitor experience by focusing its development on public access.

Located in front of the Castle is the Enid A. Haupt Garden and underground Ripley Center. The new masterplan calls for part of the garden to be “peeled up” in order to showcase the Sackler Gallery and National Museum of African Art below it, similar to the style of Paris’ Louvre Museum. The BIG team is also planning to demolish the large and isolating concrete wall situated in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, opening things up to allow fluid access to the National Mall and creating an outdoor area perfect for larger art installations.

Who is BIG?

The Bjarke Ingels Group is a London, New York, and Copenhagen-based firm that was formed in 2005, consisting of designers, architects, urbanists, inventors, researchers, and landscape professionals. The firm is well known for its involvement in international projects that combine technological achievements, economic systems, and global communications.

Their website reads: “Like a form of programmatic alchemy we create architecture by mixing conventional ingredients such as living, leisure, working, parking, and shopping. By hitting the fertile overlap between pragmatic and utopia, we architects once again find the freedom to change the surface of our planet, to better fit contemporary life forms.”

BIG is determined to preserve the historical elements of the Smithsonian campus, having been extremely selective of the architects they’ve brought on board to help with the transformation. Ultimately, their goal is simply to bring modern accessibility to an authentic build, allowing more people to enjoy the things that history has gifted us. The institution’s old buildings are going to be enhanced in terms of strength and utility, but they will still retain their original characters.

The project is expected to be completed in 2034 and will span an area of 123,703 square meters. We can’t wait to see how it all comes to fruition!

The post D.C.’s Smithsonian Institution Gets a BIG Overhaul first appeared on Dornob.