January 4th, 2012 § Rachel
2011 Design Awards: 3six0 Architecture received a total of eight design awards last year.
At the AIAri Annual Design Awards 3six0 was recognized with all five Honor Awards, given for outstanding achievement in architectural design. more…
And at Rhode Island Monthly’s Design Awards 2011 3six0 was given two Gold awards and one Silver. more….
November 15th, 2011 § Rachel
October’s issue of Rhode Island Monthly announced this year’s Design Award-winning projects, including three of ours.
Our private residence project on the Pettaquamscutt River was awarded Gold in Residential Renovation.
The Paschke Danskin Loft took Gold in Residential Interior Design.
Wildflour Vegan Bakery & Juice Bar was awarded Silver in the Commercial Renovation/New Construction category.
January 31st, 2011 § Rachel
Dr. Downtown (David Brussat) has long deserved to be sued for malpractice, and the last few of his missives warrants this “J’accuse.” His constant attack on modernism is wearying, and not due to whining alone, but because it is unjustifiable as an intellectual stance. I recall his railing against Schoenberg, whom he’s obviously never listened to or read in depth, unaware of his carrying on traditions established by “classical” composers such as Bruckner and Mahler. Should Faulkner be deprived of his Nobel Prize because of his non-linear time-frames and polyphonic voicings? Would their equivalents in the visual arts be summarily dismissed?
All the buildings in Providence that Mr. Brussat condemns are those that offer the edgy pleasure of being harmoniously jarring within the urban context they help create: the Chace Center at RISD; Classical High School [Editor's note: replacing the writer's "Central" with "Classical" is the only editing change. Central High is in classical style; Classical High is modernist; I'm sure he meant that I condemn Classical High]; the recent Wheeler Gallery and Art Club additions. He has even solicited snide responses to the as yet unfinished Granoff Center at Brown, putting once again his bandwagon before the horses.
His campaign for the pretty as opposed to the beautiful (which engages and can redefine “the ugly”) coupled with his apparent fear of diversity and risk comes dangerously close to that supremacist ideal of blond blue-eyed sameness, championing the status quo at all costs. The 11/10/10 article concerning the foot-bridge contest is filled with misinformation and smug opinion. Friends differently wired than I have shared comments written on the blogosphere, mostly instructing Mr. Brussat about his business; these should be reprinted in a series of columns devoted to this important civic issue.
The column from 11/18/10, second paragraph, transposes what should be arising from your columnist’s mouth into the cry from a character enmeshed in a Reagan-era scandal. “Where do I go to get my reputation back?” could be a new beginning, unless this would be considered too modernistic a departure from entrenched mediocrity. Until this mea culpa is expressed, Mr. Brussat will be taken about as seriously as a cigar-store Indian.
Style is said by some to be the man. Mr. Brussat should be obliged to appear in public in a kind of personalized stock and pillory consisting of wide-brimmed hat and oversized buckled shoes (set off by yellow cross-gartered stocking) so he can follow his bliss undisguised, our roving Sturbridge village idiot, doomed to historical re-enactment.
Stuart Blazer
Providence
Stuart Blazer has been invited to work as occasional poet/critic in the RISD Department of Architecture since the 1990s.
David Brussat’s blog post containing this letter can be seen here.
Additional unpublished letters to the editor can be found in the blog post below.
January 4th, 2011 § Rachel
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Circa Restaurant, Memphis. Design (including wine wall) by 3six0 Architecture, completed in 2007. Photos by John Horner.
Wine wall on the New York set of “Top Chef All-Stars,” (Season 8: 2010-2011), completed in 2010, currently airing on Bravo.
December 15th, 2010 § Rachel
River View Towards Bay, rendering by studio amd
3six0 Architecture is part of a partnership with Friedrich St.Florian Architect called Studio Providence, LLC. Studio Providence collaborated with Odeh Engineers of North Providence on the design of the runner-up bridge proposal in the Providence River Pedestrian Bridge Competition. Our thanks go to David Odeh and Odeh Engineers and to John Kletzien and studio amd of Providence who provided renderings for the project.
For more on the conclusion of the competition, see today’s article in the ProJo.
Plan and Elevation
Systems and Details
Construction Sequence, animation by Odeh Engineers
September 24th, 2010 § Rachel
The city has decided to stage a limited design competition to select the designer for the Providence River Pedestrian Bridge which will replace the old Interstate 195 Bridge. Request for Qualifications was due on Friday, September 17, 2010. Forty seven firms submitted an RFQ. Finalists will be announced the week of September 27th. These finalists will be invited to submit designs by October 29th. Here is a link with more information about the competition announcement and the 47 firms that submitted an RFQ.
August 13th, 2010 § Rachel
Studio Providence’s decision to not release its pedestrian bridge design to the ProJo for David Brussat’s July 29th column was not driven by a desire for secrecy, but by our respect for the committee’s interest in getting great design built in Providence and the review process that is evolving towards those ends. Some of the comments posted on ProJo.com in response to Brussat’s column have been very insightful, including those by pablo fortuna:
If this is the new bridge to the Knowledge District it should be something bold and modern. This is a great opportunity to make a design statement for Providence as the Creative Capital. We have a half-dozen traditional bridges in Waterplace Park, let’s do something bold.
The claim of a secret conspiracy seems rather far fetched. As I understand it the committee has been meeting for months and they have been concerned that the designs submitted thus far, all by a single architect who was not selected by any public process, were too mundane and not worthy of the opportunity presented by this new site that will lead to the new Knowledge District — home to cutting edge research firms and the new med school.
Hearing of this frustration a local firm volunteered to sketch out an alternative just to get a discussion started — a design that has not yet even been shown to the committee. Their hesitancy to release the design to the public at this point comes entirely from a courtesy the new designers felt toward the committee and its deliberative process. As they have not yet been invited to show their design to the committee, it seemed inappropriate to suddenly be courting controversy in a newspaper column.
Instead the new team is urging the committee to consider opening the design process up to the public and to a variety of designers. To release their design to the Pro Jo before the committee has even seen it would be discourteous to the committee and disruptive of the open call and public review process they feel would best serve the city in this design process.
The charge in comments below about city taxpayer funds being wasted are also entirely wrong. If anything this is a great example of creative problem solving by the government and community leadership from the design community. We have now replaced a severely over-taxed and outdated I-195 bridge with a new bridge and a more thoughtful site placement of the interstate junction. As part of this exemplary project, much needed and much admired, the old bridge cannot be left as a rusting hulk, but must be removed with federal highway funds already budgeted for the new improved highway alignment.
Instead of spending $2 million on demolishing the existing stone piers, RIDOT realized they could preserve the elegant stone piers (the only attractive element from the original bridge) and recycle them and give the community a much needed pedestrian bridge with the money saved.
This was a brilliant example of our government working at its best. The Providence design community’s interest (all of them volunteering their time) in promoting a design discussion that would invite a variety of compelling and transformative bridge designs for the commtitee’s and the public’s review is equally proper and commendable.
Sadly an entirely false story about a non-existent “secret” cabal to force a horrific “modern” design upon an unsuspecting public seems to make for better newspaper copy.
One would hope that the real story of competent and thoughtful civil servants saving the public’s money while working cooperatively and cordially with a dedicated group of design professionals all volunteering their time would be worthy of coverage — and commendation — in a column dedicated to the design future of our downtown.
Perhaps the good doctor disagrees.
posted 8:21 PM on August 2, 2010 by projo.com member pablo fortuna
On thinking further about the good doctor’s concerns over alleged secret proceedings and his nostalgia for “traditional” approaches, some other observations seem appropriate.
Ironically, the “traditional” bridge design that Brussat is so stridently championing was actually the design that resulted from a “secret” process where only one architect was even permitted to present designs to the committee. But then again, a pre-determined selection process insuring a single favored architect must be better, because it is indeed a long-standing “tradition”.
That an honorable effort by Studio Providence to stimulate a public dialog over a variety of designs should be so entirely misrepresented in the newspaper as a “secret” “stealth” attack is indeed rich. For while disguised as a call for more public dialog, the column was actually the result of a classic insider leak and was intended as a preemptive strike against further dialog. The hope was to prevent the community from engaging in a more public review of a variety of bridge designs and to disparage a design not yet even presented for consideration.
Secret selection processes and irresponsible newspaper commentary deployed to obscure the truth for the benefit of the well connected are indeed quite “traditional” in the history of architecture.
But as Hamlet so aptly observed, there are some traditions more honored in the breech.
Let’s embrace a bold new world in Providence and welcome a public review of a wide variety of bold new designs. And may we boldly leave behind the tired “traditions” of political patronage, petty posturing and impoverished design.
Our city deserves nothing less.
posted 11:32 PM on August 2, 2010 by projo.com member pablo fortuna
July 29th, 2010 § Rachel
This morning David Brussat of the Providence Journal referred to Studio Providence’s pedestrian bridge proposal as ” the Sopwith Camel Gas Station design.” projo.com
Source: http://fpv-flieger.de/archiv/22-sopwithcamel.html
For those under 50, here’s what the Sopwith Camel looks like. We’re still trying to figure out how to combine it with the gas station.
Source: http://alloveralbany.com/images/gas_station_four_dollar_gas.jpg
Studio Providence, L.L.C. was established as a joint practice between Friedrich St. Florian Architect and 3SIX0 Architecture two years ago.
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