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….

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Five Questions With: Kyna Leski and Chris Bardt

By Patrick Anderson
PBN Staff Writer

3six0 Architecture and Design in Providence has had good years before, but this year the firm pulled in all five honor awards given by the American Institute of Architects Rhode Island Chapter at its annual award ceremony. One of the awards was for the Providence River Pedestrian Bridge Design, created jointly with Architect Friedrich St. Florian as Studio Providence LLC, which came in second in an international design competition. In an email interview, company principals Kyna Leski and Chris Bardt spoke about the bridge competition a year later and their other projects.

PBN: What was your reaction when you learned 3six0 had won five AIA honor awards this year?

LESKI AND BARDT: A quiet sense of gratitude. The AIA awards are an anonymous acknowledgement of a job well done. This means a lot to us.

PBN: Did it take some of the sting out of coming in second in the Providence River pedestrian bridge competition to see that design honored, or did it make it that much more frustrating that your bridge will not be built?

LESKI AND BARDT: Many people felt stung by the end game of the process for the Providence River Pedestrian Bridge competition. Having nowhere to turn, they came to us. We were told stories from other designers, businessmen, politicians, prominent figures in the community and other individuals who share a love and concern for Providence. This award doesn’t change the process or what will be built on the river. But it confirms what we [and others] think would be best for Providence.

PBN: Aside from the pedestrian bridge, what design that won this year are you most proud of?

LESKI AND BARDT: That’s like having to name a favorite child. We are especially proud of the Rhode Island-based projects. Each had really challenging, unusual issues and modest budgets. These awards celebrate that good design can happen, even under highly constrained circumstances.

PBN: When you look at all the projects that won awards this year, specifically yours, do you see any common ideas or threads running through them?

LESKI AND BARDT: It seems to us that the judging didn’t fall along stylistic or other simplistic lines but recognized designs that were tailored to the specific situation of each project. Any threads that ran through the winning projects have more to do with economic trends or environmental conditions of our region.

Specific to our projects, we arrive at each through a search for something essential, which for us is spatial in nature, a way of making relations cohere in a fundamental way.

PBN: What exciting projects does 3six0 have in the pipeline now that may turn up at future award ceremonies?

LESKI AND BARDT: We’re working on really diverse projects, from a house on the water in South County, to a little cottage in Foster, to a new building for a growing non-profit in Providence, and yes they are all challenging, that’s what makes them so exciting.

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Two new posts on my experience in China and how it came into the workshop I taught at the China Academy of Art can be found at designintelligences.wordpress.com , “Something out of nothing; sense out of nonsense & Finding your way. . .” can be found here and “Workshop at China Academy of Art” can be found here. The students who were part of this workshop are currently continuing this work in developing proposals for social housing in China. Jiang Weihua, a CAA faculty who taught this workshop with me, is continuing with these students and is working on a book of this work.

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Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.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.

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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

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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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All of this comes to mind when thinking of one beginning, one set of beginnings, a Rashomon set of stories of beginnings of a project that started more than 35 years ago. The stories, not the authorship of the project, may cohere.

The project involves an idea, the birth of an idea back in the early sixties, in New York. It involves one of countless ideas that went into the making of Lincoln Center, more specifically, the making of the Opera House in Lincoln Center. And more specifically than that, the idea behind the origin of the points of light that drop from its ceiling. I am referring to the design of the Chandeliers in the Metropolitan Opera House.

Metropolitan Opera House Chandeliers

You may have seen them. They make a spectacle at the start of every performance, an explosion of light refracting from crystals that ascend, literally ascend, to the ceiling to announce the beginning of an opera.

Genesis, the ultimate beginning, makes one think of the first book of the Bible for its believers, the origin of the universe as The Big Bang for non believers. Interestingly, physical evidence for The Big Bang was developed at about the same time as the Metropolitan Opera House design was being developed. With optical telescopes, the space between stars and planets is black; but with a radio telescope, a glow is visible; this glow is cosmic radiation. In 1964, scientists explained that this radiation is leftover from the origin of the universe, the first physical evidence of The Big Bang.  There was excitement in the media about this discovery. The world was looking up and out into space. The U.S. and Soviet space program was in full swing. This context is the basis of a story of origin of the design of the chandeliers.

About the same time, a year earlier to be precise, The Austrian Government announced that it would make a donation to the new Metropolitan Opera House: a set of crystal chandeliers for its foyer and auditorium.  In July of 1963, Hans Harald Rath of J. & L. Lobmeyr, a celebrated Viennese crystal and chandelier manufacturing company, came to New York to discuss the design of the chandeliers with Wallace Harrison of Harrison and Abramovitz,  the architect of the Opera House itself.

Three years ago, I met Leonid Rath, the grandson of Dr. Rath at the ICFF.  Both Leonid and his brother Johannes are the current head of J. & L. Lobmeyr. Mr. Rath was in New York to begin discussions of the dismantling and cleaning of the Met’s chandeliers. He told me that when his grandfather and WKH met to discuss the chandeliers, Harrison gave Hans Harald Rath a book on galaxies. This book served as inspiration for the chandeliers’ design. The crystals are held by metal rods that radiate out from the center of the chandeliers, making them appear like starburst constellations. They were installed in May 1966 and became known as sputniks, after the Soviet space satellites, from the night the Met opened.

On Sept. 13 1966, 3800 people were in the audience for opening night of the Opera House. It was an exciting evening, the world premiere of Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra. The first ovation exploded as the curtain was lifted and 21 chandeliers rose toward the ceiling.  Wallace K. Harrison, Hans Rath and my father were there. This brings me to a second story of the chandeliers’ genesis.

The genesis of genesis has an Old English origin of gignesthai meaning birth. The etymological dictionary entry states, “be born…see KIN.” While birth is the beginning of one that is distinct; kin carry shared family lines and history.

My father, Tad Leski, far left, with draftsman, and Wallace K. Harrison far right.

My father, Tadeusz Leski is an architect; and a painter. He was a designer for Harrison and Abramovitz.  Harrison was a painter and an architect like my father. He was also a statesman, a businessman, and spent time in high profile social circles being [1] linked by marriage, socially and professionally to the Rockefeller family. This consumed his time.  My father, who entered H&A in 1953, straight off the boat, so to speak, was a recent immigrant to this country. He had survived the war; fighting as a Pole in the French army getting captured and escaping work camps. He ended up in London where he finished architecture school and had just left England with his wife and young daughter and a portfolio of drawings under his arm. Harrison recognized the artist and architect in my father. They were close because of it. So close, that my father designed and built a house for our family on a piece of property adjacent to Harrison’s own house. It seemed to me that Harrison was drawn to my father and the kind of conversations they could have. They could converse by standing over sketches, marker or pencil in hand. I imagine that my father’s English wasn’t so good back then; but, he could draw beautifully. These exchanges were recluse for Harrison. He got to speak his favorite language of gesture, mark, space and form. It was a respite from the countless board meetings that I am sure Harrison had to attend.

My father was the designer for the Metropolitan Opera House—as he was for many H&A projects. And he prepared the initial design sketches as he always did, countless fast perspective sketches done in marker or ink and white paint washes on trace, vellum or even cardboard. He would meet with WKH and separate them out based upon strengths and weaknesses. The sketches would become orthographic projections—or plan, section and elevation, and models. Eventually the design would be rendered with a ruling pen and gouache.

My father, Tad Leski on the job site of the Metropolitan Opera House. He is standing to the left of Wallace K. Harrison

Along the way, in preparation for one of the meetings, my father was hurriedly finishing a perspective sketch of the Met’s interior. One fault of my father’s was that he never knew when to stop a painting or a drawing until it was too late. He would obsess over the work, changing one thing and adding another until, as he used to say, “he made a mess of it.” His disgust with the work because of the one too many changes, would make him abandon it; and only then was it done. So he was characteristically “finishing” this sketch of the Met’s interior with markers and india ink. In the rush to finish, as a charged brush traveled from a bottle of ink; it happened, a splatter –a fat drop of black ink—fell from the brush. The splatter extended across the image, resembling an explosion of fireworks. “Boże” (oh god) my father thought. “I made a mess of it.” He dabbed the splatter to soak up some ink.  And then he thought that it looked like the explosion of light from a chandelier. He added white paint to the splattered droplets and attached them with lines so that it could be interpreted to be the points of refracted light projecting from an abstracted chandelier.

One of hundreds of interior sketches for the Opera House by Tad Leski

Harrison thought the sketches were great. And he particularly liked the idea of the exploded geometry of the splatter as the form of the chandeliers.  An accident was the genesis of the Chandeliers of the Metropolitan Opera House. A drop of ink followed the laws of gravity, surface tension and impact instead of the intentions of the artist. This moment of genesis is suspended like a drop of ink over a page just beyond where my father had intended and before an idea of exploded geometry came to light.

Origins are critical in establishing authorship. But like any beginning, the origin of a work of art or invention is not crystal clear. Constellations, the dots of light in the sky that we connect and name, are imaginary. They inspire myths of princesses, heroes, winged horses and sea monsters. We mentally connect the dots of light as mnemonic devices. Narrative connections serve our imagination and memory. The actual physical locations of these points of light are stars light years away from us, spread out in three and four dimensions. From another point of view, away from the Earth, the constellations would not be recognizable and could not be connected the same way. Different points of view inspire different stories which inform memory and shape what we know.

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Paleus Melisanda: Blue Vevet by Alfred DeCredico

I am Alfred DeCredico’s friend and colleague. This chapter of our friendship and colleagueship started with the words, “he’s gone,” on the phone.

Honor him; “yes,” but I am not done with Alfred DeCredico. There are some artists or architects whose work you absorb pouring over pages for years and then you’re full. I did that with Louis Kahn’s work and I’m done. There are friends that part company, move-on—done. I’m not done with Alfred DeCredico. The world is not done with Alfred DeCredico. And I want to think about continuing.

So I made a list.  This is  A L F R E D  V.  D E C R E D I C O :

Ask, “What do you think about _________?”

Lobster bisque, a bushel of oysters and seaweed, Osso bucco, peach tart.

Fight the censors.

Recognize the intelligence of others.

Eat the bone marrow.

Drawing is everything.

Vice Versa

Deconstruct chaos.

Elixir of life.

Cohere Entropy.

Really laugh.

Everything isn’t wrong with double negatives.

Don’t hide in the politically correct.

In-tolerate intellectual laziness.

Couragio.

Open mind vices.

_______________________

Alfred  DeCredico died on Saturday December 26, 2009.  He was an Artist & a Professor of Foundation Studies Drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design.  A memorial service was held for him on Saturday, April 10th.

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On December 10, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Institute of Architects held its annual awards ceremony at the Narragansett Towers in southern Rhode Island. This year we submitted East Side Addition (Residential), Old Stone House Inn (Adaptive Reuse), Old Stone House Spa and Restaurant (Interior), and Au Bon Pain (Commercial/Industrial) –all four received Merit Awards in their respective categories. Take a look at our submissions and view other winners on AIA/RI’s website.

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