The project is the renovation of an existing 1980s rigid steel frame warehouse building. Existing interior partitions were removed and three distinct program elements of classic car showroom, entertainment area and spec. offices, were inserted into the large open volume. The showroom program has an industrial aesthetic that compliments the cars and utilizes the prefabricated building system.
One Thousand Museum is a 62-storey residential tower opposite Museum Park in Miami. With views across Biscayne Bay, this popular 30-acre park was redeveloped in 2013 as one of downtown Miami’s primary public spaces and includes the city’s new art and science museums.
Chicago, IL (March 3, 2020) – Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Dublin, Ireland, have been selected as the 2020 Pritzker Prize Laureates, announced Tom Pritzker, Chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the award that is known internationally as architecture’s highest honor.
“Architecture could be described as one of the most complex and important cultural activities on the planet,” remarks Farrell. “To be an architect is an enormous privilege. To win this prize is a wonderful endorsement of our belief in architecture. Thank you for this great honor.”
Urban Institute of Ireland, photo courtesy of Ros Kavanagh
As architects and educators since the 1970s, Farrell and McNamara create spaces that are at once respectful and new, honoring history while demonstrating a mastery of the urban environment and craft of construction. Balancing strength and delicacy, and upholding a reverence of site-specific contexts, their academic, civic and cultural institutions, as well as housing developments, result in modern and impactful works that never repeat or imitate, but are decidedly of their own architectural voice.
“For their integrity in their approach to both their buildings, as well as the way they conduct their practice, their belief in collaboration, their generosity towards their colleagues, especially as evidenced in such events as the 2018 Venice Biennale, their unceasing commitment to excellence in architecture, their responsible attitude toward the environment, their ability to be cosmopolitan while embracing the uniqueness of each place in which they work, for all these reasons and more, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara are awarded the 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize,” states the 2020 Jury Citation, in part.
“Within the ethos of a practice such as ours, we have so often struggled to find space for the implementation of such values as humanism, craft, generosity, and cultural connection with each place and context within which we work. It is therefore extremely gratifying that this recognition is bestowed upon us and our practice and upon the body of work we have managed to produce over a long number of years,” says McNamara. “It is also a wonderful recognition of the ambition and vision of the clients who commissioned us and enabled us to bring our buildings to fruition.”
Their native Ireland, an island replete with mountains and cliffs, informs their acute sensitivities to geography, changing climates and nature in each of their sites. Their buildings consistently remain purposefully rich, yet modest, enhancing cities and lending to sustainability while responding to local needs. University Campus UTEC Lima (Lima, Peru 2015) is located on a challenging site with a highway sunk in a ravine on one side and a residential neighborhood on the other. The result is a vertical and cascading building responding to both site and climatic needs. Its open spaces were designed to deliberately welcome cooling breezes of the ocean and minimize the need for air-conditioning. At the Offices for the Department of Finance (Dublin, Ireland 2009), the selection of local limestone used in thick panels grants strength to the building. Windows recessed or flush with the façade have grills below them to circulate fresh air throughout the building. Exposures on all sides of the building, atypical of the architecture in this city, offer panoramic views.
University Campus UTEC Lima, photo courtesy of Iwan Baan
Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, School of Economics, photo courtesy of Dennis Gilbert
The architects are continuously conscious of the dialogue between the internal and external, evidenced by the mingling of public and private spaces, and the meaningful selection and integrity of materials. “What we try to do in our work is to be aware of the various levels of citizenship and try to find an architecture that deals with overlap, that heightens your relationship to one another,” illustrates Farrell. Universita Luigi Bocconi (Milan, Italy 2008) fosters community between its occupants and the vibrant city that extends well beyond the vertical campus through its ground floor public space, which continues indoors, and its floating canopy that overlaps the ground below, engaging passersby with students. Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, School of Economics (Toulouse, France 2019) features brick buttresses, ramps and courtyards, which are metaphors for the city filled with bridges, walls, promenades and stone towers. North King Street Housing (Dublin, Ireland 2000) is intentionally void of external design elements to resonate with the restraint of the neighboring warehouses.“The collaboration between Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara represents a veritable interconnectedness between equal counterparts,” states Pritzker. “They demonstrate incredible strength in their architecture, show deep relation to the local situation in all regards, establish different responses to each commission while maintaining the honesty of their work, and exceed the requirements of the field through responsibility and community.”
Town House Building, Kingston University, photo courtesy of Ed Reeves
Farrell and McNamara have mastered proportion to maintain a human scale and achieve intimate environments within tall and vast buildings. “They have tried, with considerable success, to help us all overcome what is likely to evermore become a serious human problem,” explains Justice Stephen Breyer, Jury Chair. “Namely, how do we build housing and workplaces in a world with over half of its population dwelling in urban environments, and many of them who cannot afford luxury?” A contoured theater floor at the Solstice Arts Centre (Navan, Ireland 2007) creates a physical nearness between audience members and performers.
The generous placement of open spaces, windows, glass curtain walls and exposed ceilings allows natural light to filter through a passage of rooms, creating impressions of light through large and small spaces, and within the interlocking areas that compose Institut Mines Télécom in Palaiseau (Paris, France 2019).McNamara states, “Architecture is a framework for human life. It anchors us and connects us to the world in a way which possibly no other space-making discipline can.” Farrell continues, “At the core of our practice is a real belief that architecture matters. It is a cultural spatial phenomenon that people invent.”The pair established Grafton Architects in 1978 in Dublin, where they continue to practice and reside. In just over forty years, they have completed nearly as many projects, located in Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Peru.Farrell and McNamara are the 47th and 48th Laureates of the Pritzker Prize, and the first two recipients from Ireland.
After 5 years of design and construction, ODA New York has completed Denizen Bushwick, 1.2 Million SF residential wonderland featuring 911 apartments, 20% affordable housing units, 15 mega-murals, 100,000 SF of outdoor space and a full suite of curated amenities. ODA designed the entire development, architecture, interiors and landscape design.
To date, Denizen is one of ODA’s largest projects, and one of the largest residential projects in NYC. With it, ODA envisions a more connected future for this area. Denizen is welcoming and inclusive of the community around it, while providing a sense of ownership and personalization for the people living there. In areas of rising urban density, ODA is working to create transparency and belonging through art, public space and community involvement.
This downtown Seattle condominium captures the essence of the Pacific Northwest. An existing apartment was stripped to the studs and reworked to create a warm and masculine urban retreat for an Alaska-based bachelor. “The client is a single Northeasterner who has lived in Alaska for decades, “notes Tim Pfeiffer, designer and co-founder of Hoedemaker Pfeiffer. “He wanted a city landing pad for himself and for visits with daughters home from school. The view was the main event and the desire for an open inviting living space to entertain friends and family, with the flexibility to sleep three when the family is together. A blend of Northwest urban gentility and rustic Alaskan textures blended to create a warm, inviting, masculine home.”
Drawn to this historic Italianate residence, a landmark in Capitol Hill’s Harvard-Belmont Historical District, the new owners knew they needed a design firm that would respect the home’s historic exterior yet bring a modern sensibility to the interiors, which had long ago been compromised through a series of ill-conceived remodels. The palazzo-style residence—built in 1910 (one year after the famed Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and designed by Washington, D.C. architects Hornblower and Marshall)—had been commissioned by noted entrepreneur, lawyer, and railroad executive Samuel R. Hill. The five-story, 11,000-square-foot home is built entirely of cast-in-place concrete. Unique in construction, the house is thought to be the oldest of its kind on the west coast. Channeling the innovative spirit of the home’s original construction and owner, a strategy was devised to bring the home into the 21st century. The multi-phased approach involved preserving as much of the exterior of the house as possible while re-envisioning the floor plans of each of the five floors for contemporary living.
This custom modular home was designed to leverage existing prefabrication methods by working within factory limits to efficiently produce a home specific to the client and the site. Here, the client’s brief called for a casual, light-filled summer retreat, centered on maintaining a fluid indoor-outdoor connection with exterior spaces for lounging, playing, and entertaining.
While the house is larger than the nearby cottages, it was important to the clients to be a good neighbor. So, the main level is broken into two smaller volumes and clad in weathered gray cedar. Without a formal front door, a welcoming tree-lined autocourt leads to an entry deck. This covered deck is created by a spanning second story that defines the threshold between public and private.
“The design of this home explores organic forms inspired by the topography, shoreline, and water to enhance the connections between interior and exterior, the built and the natural.” –Kirsten R. Murray, FAIA, Design Principal.
This single-family home for a couple with young children provides an open, flexible living space that supports family life, as well as an adjacent workshop and garage for the owner’s avid interest in car restoration. Gently curved roof forms are inspired by the topography of the site and Lake Washington’s undulating shoreline, creating a sculptural grouping of buildings on the site. A light approach to landscape preserves the site’s existing trees, including a Japanese maple that frames the front entry. Durable materials provide long-term, low-maintenance protection against the wet climate.
This project was developed on a flag shaped hillside lot in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles. The orientation of the site is within a canyon where the sun rises from above a steep hill behind the flat building pad. The favorable views from this lot are on the opposite side of the suns path, looking downhill towards the neighborhood canyon. The design challenge was to orient the building towards the view, while allowing sunlight to illuminate the core of the building from the opposite direction. In addition, the local municipality has an overlay zoning regulation which limits the use of skylights and prohibits single level flat roofs, requiring an additional secondary flat roof which must cover at least 30% of the total roof area.
The Sharp House is designed as a minimalist desert retreat for a retired couple for NYC. Located just north of Santa Fe New Mexico on five acres of land. The house was designed with the intention to be as economical as possible. The construction of the house is exposed cast in place, reinforced concrete with large glass exposures to the north and south to allow for solar gain and cross ventilation. The interior spaces accommodate 2 bedrooms, dining, kitchen, living areas and bath with a square footage of 1500. The design intention was to maintain honesty with the materials and that all geometries of the architecture reflect the program of the house. The neo-brutalist approach to space is reflected as a by-product in the buildings appearance. The house is a declaration against the gloss of mainstream architectural practice which tend to focus on the exterior “decorative” façades and arbitrary forms. The Sharp house stands in contradiction to this. In addition, the house reflects a sound approach to its ecological impact and carbon footprint. The large expanses of thermal mass allow the building to regulate interior temperature while naturally ventilating itself. It’s a back to basics approach with less becoming more.
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