Planes, trains and automobiles inspired several of 2009’s mostjaw-dropping, significant projects. An Abu Dhabi hotel built over a Formula One racetrack, a Belgian high-speed train station,a San Jose, Calif. airport terminal and a transportable Atlantaschool addition all dazzled with their design and purpose.

winter 2010 13

{The Year in Review}

Influential Projects of 2009Perspective scoured the globe to uncover some of the most influential projects from the past year and found four that notonly evoke emotion, but were propelled by motion.

By Michele Meyer

F inally, an airport where passengers

want to linger. It starts with eye-catch-

ing and undulating aluminum panels on

the exterior and continues with a curved

ceiling inside the new North Concourse of

the Mineta San Jose International Airport

in San Jose, Calif., created by San

Francisco-based architecture and design

firm Gensler. The design was inspired by

San Jose’s 300 days of sunshine a year,

says Steve Weindel, Gensler’s Principal in

charge of design.

Nine years in the making, the $342

million concourse is only the latest step

in Gensler’s $1.3 billion modernization of

an airport with a widely scattered hodge-

podge of buildings from the ‘50s to the

‘80s. The firm tore down the oldest build-

ings, reconfigured the airport’s exits and

parking lots, and allowed for future con-

nections to both local and regional

(BART) mass transportation systems.

Nearly 25 Gensler designers brain-

stormed with San Jose-based Steinberg

Architects, 50 community groups and each

airport department to determine the city’s

needs now and in the future. Designers

saw what elements and materials worked —

and what didn’t — in the past, Weindel says.

Also challenging, the airport

remained open during construction, and

its downtown dimensions were hemmed

in by the Guadalupe River on one side

and freeways on the other three.

Gensler added texture and dimension

to the concourse’s narrow 1,600-by-90-foot

shape by including a sloped ceiling, a ser-

pentine carpet edge and swirls across an

epoxy terrazzo floor. The firm incorporat-

ed the earthy green and golden hues of

surrounding hills — avoiding sterility — and

a wall of Douglas Fir planks to warm the

concourse. “It’s also a nod to the area’s

agrarian past,” says David Loyola, Senior

Associate Design Director for Gensler.

“And in keeping with San Jose’s relaxed

lifestyle, we chose to create chair group-

ings, rather than rows, at gates.”

As an airport of the future, Mineta offers

the latest security and baggage systems.

And low-velocity displacement ventilation

near the floors cools only areas occupied

by passengers, unlike traditional air condi-

tioning blowing from the highest point.

“We can set the temperature 10

degrees warmer, while keeping people

just as comfortable and saving tremen-

dous energy,” Weindel says. That feature,

and the mesh filters-and-glass roof, help

the building consume 14 percent less

energy than current California energy

codes demand.

“So many airports could be anywhere.

We wanted an airport that couldn’t be

anywhere but San Jose,” Weindel says.

“The city wanted an airport that would

become an icon for the city and Silicon

Valley — and that’s what we delivered.”

{Project} Mineta San Jose International Airport {By} Gensler{Location} San Jose, Calif.

It starts witheye-catching

and undulatingaluminum

panels on theexterior.

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14 winter 2010 www.iida .org winter 2010 15

A500-room hotel central to the new

$36 million Yas Marina/Formula

One racetrack in Abu Dhabi, United Arab

Emirates, is a sleek, space-age spectacle.

A canopy of 5,800 pivoting diamond-

shaped glass panels releases desert heat

and draws attention to the complex. What

do the shimmering shells represent?

Overturned boats, billowing Bedouin

tents or ornate Islamic jewelry?

“I like that the shell evokes different

things in people. That’s what gives art

and architecture longevity,” says

Principal Hani Rashid, co-founder of

Asymptote Architecture. “They want to

learn more.”

But Rashid and his partners had no

time to ponder. With only two years before

a non-negotiable opening of October 30,

2009, the date of the new track’s Formula

One Grand Prix, construction was a race

against time. “We had to design certain

aspects while building,” he says.

The firm moved 30 staffers from its

headquarters in New York to Abu Dhabi,

where they labored alongside 120

workers from local Dewan Architects

and Engineers. Bartenbach LichtLabor

GmbH, a lighting design firm based in

Innsbruck, Austria, handled the lighting.

While Arup Bridge of New York and ship

builders Centraalstaal B.V. of Groningen,

The Netherlands, created the 205-foot

long bridge connecting the hotel’s towers.

With no straight lines and huge win-

dows over the track, the bridge evokes a

futuristic racecar. Inside, Eurasian décor

and moody lighting fill the space.

The lobby continues the exterior’s

space-age modernity. “Everything cele-

brates speed, and the spirit and poetic

elegance of technology in yachts and

racecars,” Rashid says. Marble and

terrazzo tile floors are inlaid with

swooping metal stripes to depict motion,

while columns brandish brushed stain-

less steel in the spirit of auto bodies.

Yacht builders made the counters from

the same fiberglass and aluminum used

in ships.

Asymptote — which has produced

experimental art installations since

opening in 1989 — contributed the lobby’s

back-lit abstract sculptures, previously

shown at Venice’s Biennale and Kassel,

Germany’s Documenta art exhibits.

“We created atmosphere with colored

lights that are soothing, not flamboyant,”

he says.

Asymptote’s hallmark computer-aided

design allows for non-repetitive shapes.

These are equally arresting at the firm’s

40-story luxury residential Strata Tower

in Abu Dhabi, 166 Perry Street lofts in

Manhattan and the Perm Museum in

Perm, Russia.

While the world wrestles with a

weakened economy, Yas Hotel offers a

beacon of hope, Rashid says. “These

buildings are celebratory, and their

flourishes reflect the optimism of the

region — and our firm.”

{Project} The Yas Hotel {By} Asymptote Architecture {Location}Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

With no straight lines and hugewindows over the track, the bridgeevokes a futuristic racecar.

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16 winter 2010 www.iida .org winter 2010 17

Trailers work well for horses — not

for students.

Yet “temporary” trailers with limited

lighting and cramped quarters sprout in

schoolyards across the nation. What’s

more: They never disappear.

That’s why Chicago-based Perkins +

Will concocted a new approach: a movable,

flexible building surrounded by gardens

to house students at ‘20s-era Druid Hills

High School in Atlanta while the firm also

expanded and updated its original building.

“We didn’t want the students to suffer,”

says architect Allen Post, Project Director

at Perkins + Will.

The firm named these transportable

classrooms — for which Perkins + Will

was given a 2009 Architecture for

Humanity award — PeaPoDs, because

“students are housed in a green way that

protects them during their development

and delivers nutrients,” Post says.

Toward that goal, buildings have roofs

higher on the sides than the middle, so

rainwater funnels into cisterns for growing

fruits and vegetables, which teachers can

then use to teach children about healthy

eating habits.

With sustainability in mind, the

designers built solar panels into the roofs

with light sensors so lights shut off on

bright days to lower energy bills. An over-

hang on the side of each building creates

shade while a transparent wall to the north

rises like a garage door so classrooms

expand to the outdoors in ideal weather.

“Studies show test scores and attendance

rise with natural sunlight,” Post says.

“Smart boards” digitize teachers’ notes

as they write them, which can then be

emailed to students. Desks and chairs are

separate, allowing teachers to group

students to fit teaching methods or class

subjects. “Research also shows children

move in chairs while they learn, and this

helps them focus,” Post says.

“We were wowed [by] how Perkins +

Will took temporary classrooms to a new

level,” says Sandhya Naidu Janardhan, the

Design Fellow on the Classroom

Challenge for San Francisco’s Architecture

for Humanity. “They used materials very

creatively to make flexible learning

spaces that are available to schools

around the world. It was a holistic

approach and works well within current

modular construction building codes.”

The project’s seven designers special-

ize in kindergarten through 12th grade

schools — and are motivated personally.

Most are parents under 35 and have chil-

dren under the age of five who most likely

will go to Druid High, says Post, father of

a 2- and 4-year-old. “I didn’t want my

children to learn in trailers. That was an

added incentive.’’

{Project} PeaPoD School {By} Perkins + Will{Location} Atlanta

An overhangon the side ofeach buildingcreates shadewhile a trans-parent wall to the northrises like agarage door so classroomsexpand to theoutdoors inideal weather.

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Adingy neighborhood in Liège, a city

in eastern Belgium, might make

some architects cower behind grand, but

opaque, buildings. Not Santiago Calatrava,

a New York-, Paris- and Zurich,

Switzerland-based designer and architect

known for bridges and train stations.

Instead, Calatrava — who was named

one of Time magazine’s 100 most influ-

ential people in 2005 — created a trans-

parent, soaring cathedral of glazed glass

over 39 steel ribs. The building flaunts

not only the high-speed station beneath,

but also the Cointe Hills nearby. “There’s

no better way to celebrate the technolog-

ical achievement of high-speed transport

than to expose the working platforms

and dynamism of moving trains,”

Calatrava says.

When viewed by passengers within

the station, the canopies glimmer like a

single pearlized shell, creating a grand-

scale frame of Liège, he says. Departing

passengers see the slopes beyond,

echoed in the roof’s sinuous curves.

Despite its lack of a façade, the roof

announces the station’s presence.

Extended 476 feet beyond the terminal

building, it lets sunlight — but not rain —

fall on passengers using five train tracks.

The station tested Calatrava’s resolve

and required 13 years to complete in

September 2009, despite his expertise

designing stations in Lyon-Saint

Exupery, France, Zurich, Switzerland,

and Lisbon, Portugal.

“I had to replace the existing station

without interrupting train service or dis-

turbing the 36,000 travelers who pass

through the station daily,” Calatrava

says. “So we used a technique normally

employed in bridge construction. The

principal frames were assembled in an

area away from the trains and at night,

and the frames were pushed in groups of

six onto the principal supports. Only

short overnight closures were needed.”

To avoid a confusing maze, he

grouped ticket counters, waiting rooms,

shops and the bar-restaurant on a level

below the platforms. Glass blocks along

the tracks filter daylight to avoid a

subterranean feel. A series of pedestrian

bridges and basement-level walkways

connect three levels of parking to the

station. Blue limestone — historic to

the region — forms floors, plaza cobbles

and benches.

Calatrava wants his design to inspire

further rejuvenation throughout the

region. “The urban plaza directly in front

of the station will link the station back to

the Meuse River, providing a focal point

for renewal of the area as a whole,” says

the architect, who also designed the

Athens Olympic Sports Complex and an

expansion of the Milwaukee Art Museum.

He hopes surrounding asphalt car lots

will be developed into housing, offices and

hotels in the town known for steel manu-

facturing, aerospace, beer and chocolate.

In the meantime, exploring Liège is easi-

er for northern Europeans: High-speed trains

slash the trek between Brussels, Belgium,

and Paris by 68 minutes, and to Amsterdam,

The Netherlands, by an hour.

18 winter 2010 www.iida .org

{Project} Liège-Guillemins TGV RailwayStation {By} Santiago Calatrava{Location} Liège, Belgium

Departing passengers see the slopesbeyond, echoedin the roof’ssinuous curves.

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