Holy Spirit Church- Phase 2 MR

UOA work on religious spaces continues with the development of the Holy Spirit Church. Conceived as both a place for worship and a haven for the human spirit at large, the building acts as a catalyst for thought, prayer, and space gazing. In essence the visitor is faced with the possibilities inherent with the ideal life journey, a sort of "loop" system that reflects the essence of humanity.

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

Urban Office Architecture

THE HELSINKI GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM                                                                                                                               

THE INVERTED COURTYARD = VIEWS THROUGH

The Concept for the Helsinki Guggenheim Museum departs from the idea of the traditional museum courtyard type. By rotating the typological court 90 degrees , the Guggenheim acts as a Framing Device which integrates Helsinki  Skyline within the Form of the Building. Its aim is to connect with the physical landscape and operate as a testing ground for artists, architects and designers, as it provides unique opportunities to create overlapping installations against the surrounding architecture. The Museum is thus present on the  Bay front as both an memorable shaped architecture as well as a porous interface, allowing views to and through from all points surrounding it.

G- SHAPED = OPEN AND CLOSED TERRACES

By adding a third supporting bay to the Inverted Courtyard, the building achieves both a covered deck as well as an open-air terrace. This promotes the greatest possible number of events and public activities. Especially focused on the mission to provide a venue for Nordic Design and Architecture, the open air courtyard is meant to allow for a showing stage that will expose installations to the local weather. The covered stage will be used by those shows which require some protection from rain and snow such as concerts, sculptures and outdoor theatre. The Building can be seen from across the bay as a symbolic flipped “G”, both symbolic for its Institution and Iconic for the city of Helsinki.

MAXIMUM SPACE = MAXIMUM LIGHT

The Building shape is further defined by adapting to the importance of Natural Daylight (both direct sunlight and overcast weather) as exterior surfaces are being slanted to allow for Solar exposure. Skylights are created to permit indirect uniform natural light to the top floor Main Galleries, while large high efficiency glass reflective surfaces are located towards the bay to permit light bounce and views towards the water.

URBAN INTEGRATION = ICONIC FRAMING

Taking into special consideration the importance of the Park views, the building shape and angled surfaces are further defined by the alignment with the Main and Usbenski Cathedrals so that their view is both perceived and framed via the Guggenheim vertical courtyards from the elevated view of the park.

EXHIBITION DESIGN = FOCUS ON  UNREPEATABILITY

Inside the spaces fully exploit the three-dimensionality of the vertical and horizontal structure creating dramatic and innovative opportunities to envision ne  The Museum is thought as a provoking  counterpart to traditional exhibition design.  Featuring a combination of interactive glass, Nordic wood and plaster the spaces are in tune with Finnish avant-garde and technology driven life. It is expected that a fully customized digital environment will be designed in collaboration with the museum during the final design stages.

Conceived as a series of angular planes, the interior path is both linear and organic, offering a variety of options to circulate and explore. Stairs, escalators elevators and ramp-like planes allow visitors to dictate how to view the spaces, recreating at each visit a new experience.


Urban Office Architecture
Carlo Enzo, Principal Architect
Massimo Marinelli, Principal Architect
Team:
Wamaris Rosario
Xia Fan
Arash Fattahi
Emre Goktay

Simge Gungor

AVIATOR'S VILLA

Aviator's Villa
Named a "Top Modern Home" and "Best Modern Villa" by Architecture and Design Magazine ["...Awesome House With Unique Astonishing Design...], published in over 100 hundred magazines, books and blogs, including Designboom, Curbed, A AS Architecture, Morphae and Inhabitat, UOA's Aviator's Villa is definitely the quintessential Modern House Retreat.
This project explores the idea of flight as a powerful motivator for architectural darings.
The house, designed for a retired Pilot, the Aviator, is organized as an analogical continuum of dis-assembled flight components. Similarly to how the “Air Body” wraps an airplane all around, and completely, so is the House “exposed” to air on all its sides, in an orbital fashion.

The House, sited on a hilly parcel next to a small lake in the New York area of Duchess County, plays on the concept of being fully surrounded by water as well, as the swimming pool to the south side of the house mirrors the water body of the lake on the north side. The Architecture is thus imagined as a floating piece between two water bodies and fully surrounded by air.

Similarly to how a plane would steer and point through currents, simultaneously aimed at its destination and navigating the prevalent currents, the House turns and torques to face both the sky, the surrounding views and the waters. The House looks south, north and west predominantly. Articulated as a vertically extending volume and a cantilevered prow, the main house is oriented to allow maximum daylight in. Large open glazed panes are mounted on riveted metal frames, further screened by perforated metal paneling or brise soleils. These elements are meant to replicate the texture of clouds of one plane fending through the skies, while mitigating the high sun rays and producing soothing shadows within the home interiors.

The house is thus designed as a minimal sequence of three primary spaces: the large 30 feet tall living/study and kitchen/dining area, the cantilevered 40 feet bedroom, and the Library. This last floating volume is imagined a “Memory Box”. Accessible only through and directly from the Bedroom, the Library is thought both of as a container of memorabilia of the Owner’s past, as well as a space for reflection and study. Its large window opening faces the wooded areas outside, while a more secluded area in the rear is lit by a zenithal skylight whose view is directed to the cantilevered volume of the bedroom above.

The house for an airplane pilot (the aviator) is both expressive and simple in its architectural morphology. A series of hidden spaces are tucked between the two main spaces and are revealed through the monumental circulatory staircase ascending to the bedroom at the top. The path through the house rooms is articulated via a sequence of programmatic functions: living, bath, sleeping and studying. This sequence is imagined vertically and one- directionally, inviting the Owner to follow a disciplined and timed journey through the house. In some way the arrival at the upper level bedroom and sitting room is viewed as a daily final retreat, a long lasting time which won’t require the descent back into the lower floor kitchen and living room. Spaces are meant to be lived independently and uniquely, as a counterpart to standard living where all spaces are directly adjacent.

Credits:
Urban Office Architecture
Carlo Enzo, Principal Architect

Team:
Wamaris Rosario
Morteza Ramezani

Contact:
Urban Office Architecture
Carlo Enzo
66 west broadway suite 306, New York, NY 10007
Email: uoa@uoa-architecture.com
www.urbanofficearchitecture.com

Helsinki Central Library

The new Helsinki central library serves as an extension of the natural park surrounding it. The park filters itself into the library traveling from the West to the East of the city block becoming “trapped” into building structure. The park pushes the masses both horizontally, North and East, and vertical, ground to ski. The result is a U shape building elevated thought a ramp traveling from the ground level and culminating in a roof terrace. Furthermore, the horizontal force of the park divides the building into two wings, North and East and transforms itself into an interior reading garden. Horizontally, the building is connected by the café at the ground level and the restaurant and sauna at the top level liked by a direct elevator.  The trapped park forms two panoramic windows seeking to scape looking in the direction of the parliament building to the West and Alexandria to the South. All the knowledge brought into the library by the city through the park makes the new Helsinki central library the brain of the metropolis; a direct receiver and transmitter of information and excitement clearly reflected by its constant ever-changing program of events and its permanent collection of knowledge.  

DURA MATER

The BRAIN of the Metropolis

HELSINKI CENTRAL LIBRARY

“Dura Mater is a thick and dense, inelastic, fibrous membrane which lines the interior of the skull. Its outer surface is rough and fibrillated and adheres closely to the inner surface of the bones, forming their internal periosteum, this adhesion being most marked opposite the sutures and at the base of the skull. Its inner surface is smooth and lined by a layer of endothelium. it send four processes inwards, into the cavity of the skull, for the support and protection of the different parts of the brain.” [Gray’s Anatomy,  Henry Gray and H.V. Carter]

The concept for the New Central Library of Helsinki is based on the  Human Brain, metaphorically connecting the city  of Helsinki with its natural creative engine, the Library,. Alike the Human Brain, whose various areas meet different functions, the library is organized in very different zones and functions, some completely opposite in characther and nature.

These funtions are all “kept together” by the exterior building envelope which creates a sort of continuity and consistency throughout the building. Similar to the Dura Mater of the brain, the Library envelope carries information both to its users and as a response to the environment around it.

Spirit, Mind, Body

The Library is accessible on its roof via a ramp that begins at grade on the main piazza. The promenade ascension is both a physical experience of the changing city scape and the spiritual counterpart to the idea of “change” in mind. Similar to Dante’s journey, the sloping uphill can be experienced as a transformative moment, arriving at the top floor room which faces  south towards Alexandria and the Finnish Parliament.

IMPACT OUT

Alexandria and the Parliament

The Library ultimate view points are the two large window-rooms of the top floor restaurant, Jazz bar and Sauna. These spaces face west and south, aligning respectively with the Parliament and House of Music, and the trajectory of the Alexandria Library in Egypt. These views activate a connection to the past, present and future of the library and welcome visitors to re-experience it in a forward thinking dimension.

IMPACT IN

Full space and Lobby Garden

Inside the Library spaces are diverse, complex and exciting. Organized around the central garden lobby, which can be designed as an enclosable winter garden, the two main wings of the library and the east and west bridges act as extension branches from the central garden core, similarly to the beautiful and serene areas created around the trees.

URBAN LOCI

Reciprocal Feeding

The Library acts as a receiver and emitter of information creating a “8” figure loop with the city of Helsinki and the World at large. Different from an enclosed enclave which protects knowledge, the Dura Mater Central Library collects and spreads knowledge at the broadest possible scale.

MAIN STRUCTURAL SOLUTIONS AND HVAC TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS

(Operational principle and factors affecting the energy performance)

OVERALL TECHNICAL STRATEGY:  DURA MATER PERFORMANCE ENVELOPE

This building is designed to use the building envelope as the primary thermal and electrical generator and regulator and uses the district heating, cooling and grid electricity as efficient back-up. The technical systems of this building are primarily housed within the multi-layered assembly of the building envelope carrying an interior and exterior narrow planar cavity or plenum for the flow of energy and material (hydronic heat, ventilative air, DC electrical). A translucent insulative core of aerogel, luminous concrete or motorized shading is bounded on both interior and exterior by these cavities and the surface is enclosed with and interior and exterior dual pane insulated glazing units.  This sophisticated jacket allows overall capillary-scale distribution of heat, air and electricity to all areasof the building and assists the building to distribute, balance and exchange the heat produced and heat consumed; fresh air delivered and stale air exhausted, electrical energy generated and electrical energy consumed in a constant flow of self-regulation, assisted by a full network of skin-integrated sensors. 

The intelligent envelope plugs into the four vertical shafts at the north end, south end and center of the building plan to gather distribution vertically and connect to the building center mechanical area in order to plug into a central brain unit, heat exchange, electrical control, water to water heat pump, air supply and exhaust, as well as the connection to the district heating and cooling.

ENERGY SUPPLY SOLUTION

The building will utilize district heating and cooling along with grid electricity only when the collection, exchange and balancing capacity of the intelligent envelope requires additional energetic input.  Water-to-water heat pumps will be employed to provide cooling and/or heating required for the building as the inputs required to balance the whole of the integrated system flows.

The building envelope incorporates building integrated photovoltaic panels (BIVP) in the exterior insulated glazing unit on surfaces facing SE, S and SW to produce electrical power.

The building envelope operates as a neural network of production collection and distribution for heat, air and electricity, coordinated by a large network of sensors throughout the same surfaces.  These are connected together through a central responsive logic and uses the district heating and cooling connection and grid electricity as back-up when required or more efficient than the building scale.

HEATING

Heat is gathered through the hydronic medium such as glycol in the exterior capillary cavities from solar radiation and collected from the continuous full-envelope flows of the hydronic system and air system with a central heat exchanger. The building heat pump efficiently boosts the skin collection with much higher efficiencies and the intelligent HVAC controls use the district heating when more efficient than the building scale collection. The insulated translucent envelope assembly will carry the hydronic heat medium such as glycol on the interior cavity or narrow plenum, providing radiant surfaces throughout the building to heat the occupants and spaces. 

STRUCTURES

The U value of the continuous envelope is kept as a super insulated assembly of U=0.102 W/m2K.  This is typical for the dual pane IGU, hydronic or air plenum, aerogel core, plenum plus dual pane IGU. For the glazed areas that provide view, a quad-pane IGU becomes the core of the two plenum spaces and the interior and exterior additional dual IGUs.

Exterior capillary plenums between the translucent insulated core of the envelope assembly and the exterior IGU provide areas for collecting solar thermal heating of water on clear days and BIPV in the exterior IGU generate electrical energy when solar energy is available. Interior thermal mass in the floors and structural members will buffer the potential temperature swings and help to naturally regulate the temperature in the building.

WINDOWS

The entire envelope acts, in various degrees, as a light transmitter, but there are areas that become “windows” with clear glass for views in and out, especially to the plaza to the west, the large north view, the framed south views and the views to the courtyard.  These are composed of the typical multi-layer skin described above, with the core aerogel removed and the expanded plenum dedicated to shading provision. The spectrally selective exterior insulated unit allows through only about one quarter of the potential heat gain with a g value of 0.27 and the low-e coating reduces radiant transfer from inside the building to the exterior.   Conductive heat loss is limited by the dual-dual IGU assembly with a U value = 0.372 W/m2K. 

The glass is butt-glazed and adhered to a unitized structural phenolic frame system that is low-conductance, a low thermal-expansion coefficient and isolates the exterior glass thermally.

Solar shading is integral in the core area of the envelope plenum and is tuned to the orientation with horizontal and vertical louvers motorized and operated with the responsiveness of the neural network of sensors and central programmed controls to shield the direct sun when either visually uncomfortable or a thermal liability.

LIGHTING

Lighting for the main spaces is provided by both the translucent skin and window/skylight areas so that lighting is first and primarily through available daylight and moves seamlessly through controls to an efficient electrically lit building during the dark hours. Smaller spaces share the same strategy with fewer clear window areas to minimize heat loss.  Daylight and occupancy sensors in the building envelope will deliver information to the controls to maximize the use of daylight and to keep the interior from becoming darker than desired.  The lighting system will integrated into the inside surface of the skin and interior partition walls and ceilings as LED diffusing panels powered by the DC distribution system of the envelope.  This daylight and diffuse electrical light will be complimented with strategically placed arrays of small highly efficient LED sources to add sparkle and localized area lighting.  These are also managed by an intelligent control system, a smart node that will respond to the system of deployed sensors.  This is designed to ensure that the electric lighting is glare free and will supply only the light needed.

Installed lighting power will be an average of 5 watts per square meter, while the effective lighting power density due to day light and occupancy response will be 1.8 watts per meter square.

VENTILATION

Ventilation air is introduced to the building through the four vertical shafts and gathered into the central mechanical space to be thermally moderated by the exhaust air through heat exchange.  The fresh air is distributed via the interior plenum of the building envelope which contains small valves to release the pressurized air to the interior spaces, much like an under floor air plenum that is instead incorporated into the envelope itself.

Ventilation will be provided to provide the stated air change rates. This air will be minimally conditioned to be delivered at close to room temperature. Additional heating, cooling and dehumidification will be provided via heat pumps or district heating/cooling systems based on the seasonal carbon/energy profile of these resources.  A high-efficiency heat recovery wheel will be provided to capture free heating or cooling from the building relief or exhaust stair stream. Additional free heating will be provided by capturing” greenhouse effect” heat from the double-wall system.

Demand controlled ventilation will be provided via CO2 and VOC sensors strategically located within the building envelope.  The SFP values include 2.5 for the central mechanical ventilation including heating, cooling, heat recovery, 2.0 for the central mechanical ventilation including heating and cooling, and 0.5 for the envelope-local ventilation within the spaces.

COOLING

Cooling is a small load for the climate and since the building envelope is designed to be a continuously responsive envelope balancing out heat sinks and heat sources, additional cooling requirements will be much lower than additional heating requirements. Nevertheless, cooling may be needed for occupant comfort.  The courtyard places a primary role is providing access to natural ventilation through the courtyard skin, which is operable for air movement, unlike the exterior building skin. Intake through the courtyard skin and exhaust through the vertical stacks of the building allows natural air flow during months when the outside temperatures are comfortable. If the capacity of the thermal mass and natural ventilation to cool the building is exceeded, district cooling and/or the building heat pump will provide cooler fluid to circulate through the envelope interior plenum, providing radiant cooling for comfort.

District or heat pump cooling will be provided for network rooms and other spaces with high heat loads and/or controlled 24 hour cooling needs.

DOMESTIC HOT WATER

The integrated envelope carries fluid that can be exposed to the solar radiation and collected for domestic hot water.  This will need to be supplemented during the winter months with heat pump or district hot water that can be utilized for domestic hot water generation via heat exchanger for large restroom fixture groups. Single isolated restrooms will utilize instantaneous electric water heating.