Pinterest Pride: An Homage

a/e ProNet has been an advocate for architects, engineers, and other design consultants for more than 20 years. This advocacy includes an abiding interest in protecting the integrity and sanctity of the products delivered by design professionals. We’re proud of what our clients can do and have done to better and beautify communities across the globe.

Taking that pride one step further, we’ve created a Pinterest board dedicated to showcasing the fantastic designs of our ProNet Members’ clients!

Buildings, bridge, amphitheaters, parks, homes, aqueducts, highways, theme parks, wineries, storefronts, and resorts surround and inspire us daily. But as Peter W. Jones, AIA, President of AIA Florida recently reminded us, “Behind every magnificent structure is an architect who helped create it.” In fact, behind every magnificent structure is a team of imaginative, experienced professionals who worked together to meet that goal. And we’re proud to say that many of those professionals are the clients of our members.

If you love design, follow our Pinterest board today!

The AIA recently published a profile of a/e ProNet client Mark Cavagnero Associates of San Francisco, CA. This year alone, this highly acclaimed firm has received the AIA California Council Firm Award, the Contract Interiors Award for Historic Restoration (UC Berkeley Durant Hall), and the IIDA Northern California Chapter Merit Award (East Bay Center for the Performing Arts). A full list of Cavagneros projects, clients, and awards can be found here.

The following is an excerpt of the AIA article entitled Mark Cavagnero, FAIA: Growing Big Ideas:

In 28 years of architectural practice, Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, has come to realize that his job is to give words and meaning to this voice that communicate ideas about clients, organizations, and communities… Cavagnero works mainly with public nonprofits and what he refers to as other “nonprofit-like” institutions. In addition to government clients at the city, state, and federal level, his firm works with cultural and educational institutions such as the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Oakland Museum of California, and the California Film Institute. Not surprisingly, when asked to distill key lessons from his years of practice, his thoughts immediately drift to concept and vision. Cavagnero has learned that it takes patience, active involvement, leadership, and a broad, generous understanding of function to execute a big idea, whether for a nationally recognized museum or a small community pool.

According to the company bio, “Mark Cavagnero Associates’ design process begins with a careful investigation of the client’s goals and the project site… The firm welcomes the constraints of program, site, and budget as frameworks within which to create engaging architectural spaces. It is in the focused response to these project elements that the essential character of each project finds its voice. The purity of response—in form, material, and relationship to light and context—is always the firm’s goal.” To read more about Mark Cavagnero Associates, visit the firm’s website.

We applaud this recognition of Cavagnero as an architect who champions the broader ideals of his field, and we urge everyone to read the full profile here

In honor of Easter Monday, we’d like to give a shoutout to a/e ProNet client CJK Design Group of San Francisco, California.

For CJK’s Founder and Principal, Christ J. Kamages, Architecture is spiritual work. The deep Christian Orthodox traditions of the Kamages family led Christ to consider a career in the priesthood. But an apprenticeship with Christopher Kantianis, AIA in Boston in the 1960s exposed him to architecture, design, and Byzantine theories and styles. An MIT science fair award for Byzantine Architecture, where he elegantly demonstrated how to place a round dome on a square base, permanently sealed his career and life mission. (Full Bio for Christ Kamages)

Kamages and his Design Team have a proven record of over two-hundred successfully completed projects. They stand ready to provide premier services that are reflective of each client’s vision and aspirations. Their deep appreciation of the spiritual diversity of their clients, their traditions and aspirations, has a major impact on CJK’s design approach and sensibility. (Full Vision for CJK Design Group)

On March 10, the Dome & Drum, Pendentives and Apse of the new Parish of St. Sophia in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania were revealed to a crowd of spectators. The impressive Byzantine temple was designed by a/e ProNet client CJK Design Group of San Francisco, California. Dr. George Kordis, the internationally renowned Iconographer, was present to give a short talk on the theological significance of the iconography inside the dome. The next day, the Parish blessed the 6th Century Justinian-inspired Crosses, also designed by CJK Design Group, and raised them into position over the enormous copper domes.

More details about the project, including photos of the dazzling iconography, can be found at PROCESS, CJK’s blog.

Congratulations to the Parish of St. Sophia on a spectacular new facility, and congratulations to CJK Design Group on a design both functional and beautiful, which stands as a beacon of the Orthodox faith.

There’s something happening in Vegas, and we’re happy to break the rules and share the event here. Construction began in earnest yesterday on the new 500-foot SkyVue observation wheel across from Mandalay Bay, a project for which ProNet client Wallace Morris Surveying, Inc. is providing engineering services.

More than 100 concrete trucks rumbled in before dawn on Thursday, March 1 to pour the foundation. Per the Las Vegas Sun:

The five-hour process, which began at 2 a.m., sets the stage for building the $200 million project that will change the landscape of the southern Las Vegas Strip.

Developer Howard Bulloch said passersby would see the wheel take shape this summer but the venue won’t open until July 2013.

“We have to build the wheel first before we build the retail building below,” he said.

The retail portion will include seven food-court options, five sit-down restaurants and a dozen stores ranging from clothing outfitters to electronics, Bulloch said. Developers declined to identify the establishments but said they would be recognizable names.

A 30-minute ride will take visitors 50 feet higher than Mandalay Bay with views facing north on the Strip.

The construction climate in Las Vegas has been notoriously sketchy since the global economic downturn in 2008, but Bulloch is pledging to see this project through to completion. Certainly, the SkyVue Observation Wheel will be a flashy ornament to the legendary city’s skyline, including 32 gondolas, each seating 24 people, and a 50,000-square-foot LED sign which will project from the wheel’s center. But better still, the wheel will ultimately employ a full-time staff of 500. Click here to see renderings of the envisioned project.

Congratulations, WMS!

Wallace Morris Surveying, Inc. (WMS) is dedicated to delivering professional land surveying services throughout Nevada and Arizona with a highly skilled professional team working together. It is also our mission to exceed your needs by dedicating to you a Professional Land Surveyor with years of surveying experience, respecting your need for timely services and by having the expert you hire be the actual person working on your survey. (Excerpted from the firm’s bio on the WMS website.)

Cream of the Crop: The 2012 AD100

As we perused the 2012 Architectural Digest Top 100 list of architecture and design firms, “trailblazers and standard-bearers whose work is imaginative, intelligent, and inspiring,” we were excited to see a few familiar faces! Congratulations to the ProNet clients who made the cut:

Allan Greenberg Architect has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Greenwich, Connecticut. As Architectural Digest’s profile notes, “Historically inspired facades, ample but thoughtful doses of ornament, and, of course, columns of all orders distinguish his celebrated work.”

Backen, Gillam & Kroeger Architects has offices in Sausalito and St. Helena, California. Principal “Howard J. Backen has a well-earned reputation among top Napa and Sonoma vintners as the go-to guy for beautifully designed houses and wineries alike,” according to the Architectural Digest profile.

McAlpine Tankersley Architecture is an Alabama firm whose portfolio “is replete with artistic houses fusing oriel windows, swooping slate roofs, and quirky asymmetrical wings.” The Architectural Digest profile also mentions “the company’s interior-design branch, McAlpine Booth & Ferrier Interiors, and the handcrafted furniture line produced by the McAlpine Home division.”

Once again, congratulations to our celebrated clients on this honor. And don’t forget to check out the rest of the 2012 AD100.

Since its June 2011 completion, the new Poetry Foundation Headquarters in the River North district of Chicago, designed by a/e ProNet client John Ronan Architects, has turned quite a few heads. First, it received a glowing write-up in the Architectural Record:

“In keeping with the art form it serves, the new Poetry Foundation is a respectful, restrained building that employs an economy of means and methods, just as a good poem employs an economy of language.”

Then, earlier this month, the graceful, angular building received the Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects. While this could be simply another feather in the hat of the prestigious Chicago architect, John Ronan continues to hold fast to the basic integrity at the foundation of his practice. In a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune, Ronan pointed out, “There’s sort of an ethical imperative when you’re doing public architecture to serve the public and not your own ego. Where do you want to put that money: on geometry, a weird shape, or put it [into interior] spaces?”

The following is an excerpt from the Jan. 15 Chicago Tribune profile of Ronan, a piece entitled Rising star John Ronan has risen:

“Last week was a good one for Ronan. His Poetry Foundation building, an austere but richly layered modernist design at 61 W. Superior St., won a prestigious Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects. And his South Shore International College Prep High School, at 75th Street and Jeffery Boulevard, was splashed across four pages of the January issue of Architectural Record magazine. Meanwhile, he’s leading the search committee for a new architecture school dean at the Illinois Institute of Technology.”

Anyone can see that the client is happy, too. In its official press release regarding the design award, the Poetry Foundation also likened Ronan’s design to a poem:

“Designed by the Chicago firm John Ronan Architects, the building, which includes 22,000 square feet of interior space and a nearly 4,000-square-foot public garden, takes its cues from the art form it represents. Like a poem that invites multiple readings, the space encourages repeat visits, revealing itself slowly over time.”

As in the appraisal of any kind of magic, it is difficult to measure the success of architecture. Certainly, every building has its measurable characteristics: functionality, a publicly pleasing aesthetic, green materials (per the Poetry Foundation HQ press release, the new structure is “built to comply with the US Green Building Council’s Silver Level LEED Rating System”). But beyond that, one must consider the measure of the intangible.

In this case, Ronan’s client believes the new structure accomplishes what Poetry Magazine founder Harriet Monroe’s original vision for her publication was in 1912, “A modest effort to give to poetry her own place.” We congratulate John Ronan Architects for all of these achievements.

a/e ProNet client Andrew Skurman Architects recently handled the interior redesign of a five-bedroom apartment in one of San Francisco’s loveliest buildings. The following is an excerpt from the article in the February 2012 issue of Architectural Digest:

“Skurman began by gutting the five-bedroom space, carving out a new master wing with his-and-her studies, dressing rooms, and baths, as well as a single sizable bedroom. He also softened the apartment’s straight lines by designing an oval entrance hall with a ceiling dome, adding another dome in the master bedroom, and constructing a graceful apse in the library. Like many classic Beaux Arts apartments, the Shansbys’ home now has gently curved crown moldings and elegant plasterwork, with fluted pilasters surrounding the doors and windows. (The dining room’s etched-mirror moldings, inlay, and door panels are the only details that survive from the preexisting interiors, which were designed by Valerian Rybar and Jean-François Daigre.)”

You can read the rest of the Architectural Digest article here.

Andrew Skurman Architects, an award-winning residential architectual design firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area, designs some of the most striking, sophisticated and architecturally appealing custom houses and interiors being built today.  The firm specializes in residences inspired by the classical architectural traditions of French châteaux, Mediterranean villas and Georgian country houses.  We draw from our extensive architectural library of European & American design and work closely with our clients to identify historical precedents that meet their needs, tastes and lifestyle. (Excerpted from the firm’s bio on the Andrew Skurman Architects website.)

San Francisco’s waterfront is ready for a new kind of upgrade. The proposed 8 Washington development was the combined vision of Landscape Architect Peter Walker of Berkeley-based PWP Landscape Architecture (a/e ProNet client) and Architect Craig W. Hartman of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. More details about the project can be found at 8washington.com.

The following is an excerpt of an article published in December by the World Interior Design Network (WIDN).

“[The 8 Washington Development] will lead to creation of pedestrian corridors which will connect Pacific Avenue and Jackson Street with The Embarcadero, a play space for children with interactive sculptural gardens, as well as an expanded health and aquatics centre. There will also be creation of cafés, restaurants and retail units, and centralized underground public parking lot for the Ferry Building Waterfront Area. The overall public open area and parks constructed as part of the project will extend over 30,000 square feet while an extra 40,000 square feet private recreation zone will be built inside a new fitness and outdoor aquatic centre.

The existing surface parking space will be transformed into a public park spanning 16,740 square feet as part of the project. Pacific Park will comprise a play garden spanning 4500 square feet. The garden will sport climbable art sculptures and interactive water features. There will be three separate zones consisting of play areas for different age groups. The look of the Park will be complemented through installation of various public artwork.

The Park will further feature rolling lawns which can be used as a play area for kids and a lounge area for adults. A cafe comprising outdoor seating will be located adjacent to the Park. There will also be additional rooftop café seating.

The park will encompass the fitness and aquatic centre through an expanded and upgraded Drumm Street Garden Walk and links south to the proposed Jackson Commons pedestrian corridor. The corridor will connect Jackson Street with The Embarcadero. The project will widen Jackson Commons. There will be creation of 6650 square feet of landscaped area which will feature cafes, restaurants, and retail units in its northern and southern portions.”

To read the full-text article please visit the WIDN website.

WIDN is a new information resource focused on the global interior design community. Its aim is to provide a free source of intelligence and inspiration to the industry, as well as to act as a hub for World Market Intelligence’s premium databases, software tools, consulting and research services which are aimed at industry professionals. Free-to-access services available at WIDN.com include daily news, newsletters, comment, opinion and project studies as well as an extensive database of products and suppliers.