Welcoming Bridge Boosts Safety

After a series of accidents injured residents of a high-rise apartment building serving Rockefeller University in New York City, officials recognized that they needed a bridge to get residents over the traffic swarming on and off a highway that separated the building from the campus.

A Warm Welcome From University Chilled-Water Plant

     A two-block-long chiller plant is a not self-evident way to say, "Welcome to the University of Pennsylvania!" But in the hands of architects Leers Weinzapfel, the plant has become an elegant urban gateway for an increasingly busy side of the campus. The university recognized that a new chiller facility could more reliably and economically serve its growing medical and reseacrh complex, but also saw that the best site for it was too prominent for such a large, utilitarian structure to be built undisguised. The architect won a competition for the structure, sponsored by Penn, with the deceptively simple strategy of wrapping the plant in an oblong scrim of perforated, corrugated metal panels. A running track encircling the enclosure and baseball field to one side restored athletic fields displaced by the plant.

Evolving Spaces: SAP Global Marketing Headquarters

     Last summer, SAP, the world's third largest software company, decide to move its marketing headquarters from a corporate headquarters at Walldorf, Germany, to New York's Greenwich villages. Selecting a historic printing building at the edge of lower Manhattan's former dot-com haven knows as Silicon Alley, the firm sought to establish an intimate yet dynamic work environment at the core of its operations.

LVMH Tower Offers a New Slant on New York City Zoning Rules

For a new America headquarters, the international luxury goods conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton wanted a design that would stand out from the trough of tall corporate towers and glossy shops of midtown Manhattan.the company got is wishes by going to the French architect, Christian de Portzamparc. The Pritzker-Prize winner came up with a slim, 60-foot-wide, 24-story tower with a multifaceted glazed facade of folded and chiseled wedge like planes that inventively responds to New York city's zoning regulation. De Portzamparc followed the rules calling for setbacks according to a sky-exposure plane, yet literally gave them a new slant.

Architecture Speaks Quietly at Dulwich Picture Gallery

It is a trick that view architecture know-how to insert into existing buildings modern additions that do not overstate the purpose they serve. Founded in 1811, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, England's oldest built-for-art gallery and a masterpiece of architecture, needed such treatment. Rick Mathers Architect succeeds in getting out of the way to allow this historic gem, to speak its mind. Damage in World War II, the building needed a complete systems and technical overhaul. the new addition offers the necessary visitor amenities, including a 60-person cafe and a multipurpose room for education, while respecting the original setting of the gallery. The complex form a cloister that defines a formal quadrangle facing a garden, which the cafe opens out to and which serves as a link to the main gallery.