300 Colorado is a 390,000 SF Multi-Use Commercial Building in Austin, Texas. Pickard Chilton is proud of this Class A Tower because its the first building constructed by Pickard Chilton in Austin. According to Pickard Chilton’s project list, 300 Colorado implements a “high-performance curtain wall” and has a design plan that “promotes wellness and offers abundant natural light, fresh air and dramatic views of Ladybird Lake.” To start, the curtain wall is an interesting aspect to billet for this building. This will increase the thermal efficiency of the building and is a great aspect to have, yet normally thermal efficiency is substandard to aesthetics and fancy facades. I like how they combined the two and provided an aesthetically pleasing exterior that is also functional in performance. Second, Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) has recently been a spotlight issue for many Mechanical and Electrical Professionals(MEP). ASHRAE Standards are used to dictate the minimums for air quality, temperature, and humidity inside common occupied and unoccupied spaces. With a focus on natural light and fresh air flow, 300 Colorado takes that standard and goes above. I love to see a building that takes the time needed to really get a solid IEQ plan. Finally, you have to stop and see what the people are saying about it. Towers, a local news agency in Austin, describes a scene where the consumer was worried this building would be just “another glass box”. The article goes on to reassure readers that this will be avoided with a state-of-the-art curtain wall and glossy steel façade that Austin will love. This seems to be accurate as now the that the building is erected, I can see how it is so much more than a glass box. Pickard Chilton always seems to surprise me by literally thinking out the proverbial box and getting the best product for their clients. I definitely approve.

Information From:

300 Colorado. (2021). Retrieved 12 November 2021. https://www.pickardchilton.com/work/300-colorado

Rambin, J. (2021). Retrieved 12 November 2021. Say ‘Howdy’ to 300 Colorado, Topped Out at 32 Floors in Downtown Austin. https://austin.towers.net/say-howdy-to-300-colorado-topped-out-at-32-floors-in-downtown-austin/

Eighth Avenue Place is a Pickard Chilton project located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Pickard Chilton heralds this building as “Canada’s first and North America’s second LEED-CS Platinum high-rise”. This is a great achievement for construction culture as LEED Certified structures are slowly implemented throughout the world. With a LEED Certification of Platinum, Eighth Avenue Place has set an even higher standard that many construction groups will need to try and emulate in the future. Pickard Chilton delivers a wonderfully designed and constructed building with Eighth Avenue Place. This glass and steel masterpiece is a multi-use commercial space with diners, offices, public spaces, and a year-round winter garden on the roof. Skyrise Calgary, a local news agency in Canada, describes the building with the following: “It is a physical manifestation and affirmation of the city’s connection to the Alberta landscape and the independent spirit of its people.” With the focus on recycled materials, energy savings, and environmental integration, Eighth Avenue Place serves as a beacon of hope for Canada and the rest of the world. More emphasis needs to placed on LEED Certified structures for future construction as this is seen to be the “right” way to provide consumers with a healthy, sustainable space. The invention of this rating system provides architects and general contractors a way to be responsible builders. It is up to us, as consumers, to hold them responsible to that higher standard.

Information from:

Eighth Avenue Place. (2021). Retrieved 12 November 2021. https://www.pickardchilton.com/work/eighth-avenue-place

Eighth Avenue Place | SkyriseCalgary. (2021). Retrieved 12 November 2021. https://calgary.skyrisecities.com/database/projects/eighth-avenue-place

2+U is another Pickard Chilton project that was designed and built in Seattle, Washington. The idea that Pickard Chilton had, while designing this Class-A Office Tower, was that the building should have a sense of biomimicry and be able to infuse itself into the surroundings. Pickard Chilton claims 2+U was “envisioned as a first-of-its-kind Urban Village” designed to allow for pedestrian traffic to move freely underneath the canopy-like presence of the towers. Within this canopy, a wide array of restaurants, local shops, and outlet spaces are provided to mimic the Pike Place Market nearby. I believe this to be a really fun way to incorporate the office space with the local populace. To many in Washington, the public space is a sacred area meant for congregation and comradery. Pickard Chilton emphasized these values by emulating an open-air tree system which allowed 2+U to maximize the pedestrian walkways, provide weather protection year-round, and profit local businesses along with increasing morale amongst the workforce. Sarah Lloyd from the Curbed Seattle News Group reported on the new towers from the local perspective and provides these words: “Apart from the dedicated creative space, Skanska is currently working with local arts boosters 4Culture on putting together programming to activate the outdoor space.” It seems that Skanska had walkability and the neighborhood experience at the forefront of the corporate brain trust. This is an inspiring principle within the corporate world to begin listening to the community members that will be affected most by their development projects. Instead of placing an eye sore of a building that would take away from Seattle’s city plan, 2+U has found a way to improve the quality of life for Seattle residents while still getting the 2-tower system they wanted.

Information from:

2+U. (2021). Retrieved 12 November 2021. https://www.pickardchilton.com/work/2u

Llyod, S. (2021). Skanska’s 2+U towers carve out pedestrian and creative space. Retrieved 12 November 2021. https://seattle.curbed.com/2018/3/15/17117214/second-university-towers-construction-photos

Akamai Headquarters is a 19-story mixed used building designed by team members at Pickard Chilton. It is located on 145 Broadway in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is designated as the Phase 1 of 3 Phases for the Cambridge Area. This 480,000 gross square foot structure attempts to bridge all of the offices and collaborative areas together via what Sasaki, the interior designers on project, call “The Aka-Mile”. The building was constructed to facilitate a collaborative air. This concept acts as a thread that travels throughout the entire corporate building transfixing one spatial idea to the next . From the lobby entrance to library spaces, cafes, and work areas, “The Aka-Mile” is connected using pathways and interconnecting stairwells that allow the individual to travel freely through the environment without a feeling of displacement or alienation of corporates members. In addition, Pickard Chilton focused on a flexible floor plan and high ceilings to provide plenty of natural lighting and aesthetic character to each and every space. All-in-all, I consider this building to be an interesting take on the collaborative environment. The aesthetics are gorgeous, and the strip lighting used inside this glass and steel beast is truly inspiring. Each strip line of lighting coordinates with lines and directions on a global map. This allows the company offices to be approximately aligned with the world thus imprinting the global scale of their business to the satellite offices in place.

Information acquired from:

Akamai Headquarters. (2021). Retrieved 11 November 2021. https://www.pickardchilton.com/work/akamai-headquarters

Akamai Technologies Global Headquarters. (2021). Retrieved 11 November 2021. https://www.sasaki.com/projects/akamai-technologies-global-headquarters/

Shuri Castle is in Naha, Okinawa, Japan and is considered one of the most famous examples of Okinawan architecture. Shuri Castle was a Ryukyuan stronghold in Okinawa and represented the Ryukyu Kingdom’s Royal Palace. I was stationed in Okinawa while I was serving in the United States Marine Corps. I lived about 1 hour from Shuri Castle and would visit frequently to enjoy the extravagant courtyard plaza or have a Grand Tea Ceremony in the Royal Gardens. During my chaotic run in the U.S.’s hardest and most intense branch, Shuri Castle was a stark contrast which allowed me to find my tranquil center and enjoy life.

Buildings, such as this, were built to extort our feelings of awe and majesty. It was a royal palace used to host Kings and Emperors during times of old. Yet, I found myself revealing not in the awe of beauty, even though there was much beauty to be enjoyed, but admiring the silence and tranquility within it. Shuri Castle felt almost haunted when I visited it. The locals reveled in the silence and almost nobody spoke aloud. The movements and pace through the area was slow and not rushed. The world itself seemed to slow down in this oasis of time.  

The Okinawans clearly honored this castle as a home of their once great ancestors, and they treated it as such. To speak out loud felt like an insult. To move erratically or rush ahead was seen as uncouth. One was always expected to be a better version of themselves for it felt as if the ancestors were watching you in this house of haunted pasts. Overall, it was an experience of understanding and solemn tranquility. To be at home with the past, in order to understand who we are to be in the future.

Gallogly Hall tries to fit in the aspect of OU’s Cherokee Gothic architecture, coined by Frank Llyod Wright, yet it manages to separate itself from the pact via ingenuity and modernism. The Gothic aspect of the building was diminished with the abolition of grotesques from the façade. In their place, is a steel-reinforced concrete building with a brick façade focusing on angularity and tight lines. The brick façade helped to allow the building to fit into its surroundings on the outside, but a look on the inside will reveal the true inspiration and reason for why I chose this building.

 At first I was not impressed with Gallogly Hall as a structure aesthetically, its just more of the same design with a facelift. After attending OU for a couple years and learning about LEED, I finally began to understand what a brilliant and marvelous building we had here on OU’s campus. I grew up under the social stigma of climate change and how’s its all “fake”, so this eye-opening experience ended up changing both my way of thinking and my way of designing.

Gallogly Hall is the first Gold-Certified LEED Building on OU’s Campus. With that title, Gallogly Hall stands high over the other buildings on campus, not in architectural design, but in forethought and implementation. Sustainability and green building are the way to our future, and Gallogly Hall gives me hope. A hope that the energy and environmental conscious minds of Oklahoma can prevail in an area where climate change is more myth than reality.

Upon entering the Oklahoma City National Memorial, I am often filled with dread and sorrow. These feeling should not be admonished but embraced for the understanding of what occurred and what should never occur again. I was old enough to remember the original Murrah Federal Building, and my grandpa worked at a Lincoln/Ford card dealership nearby to the building. As a kid, my family would visit the area to see my grandpa, and we would always stop off to have food and explore the area.

The OKC National Memorial itself was the headquarters of the Law Journal Record Publishing Company. It remained after the bombing and stands as the only remaining structure in that plaza square. After the incident, my family and I would visit the outdoor memorial repeatedly, yet I had never entered the actual OKC Memorial building until a few months ago.

Upon entering, I was immediately apprehensive of the “get a ticket and get in line” scheme that was occurring. I thought it was going to be a tour-based guide and didn’t feel like being touted around. I realized soon that this was not the case and proceeded to read and learn about all the exhibits. I was blown away by how much detail, information, actual rubble, survivors’ stories, and much more.  Every fact and tale pushed me further into the narrative, and I was fully immersed into finding out how the Murrah Building held in some areas and collapsed in others.

The true purpose of this memorial building was to be dedicated to another building. It was built for one building to honor another. The architectural style was not discussed. The color of the façade was not discussed. What was discussed? The structural supports that held after the bombing. The strength of the foundation that survived and managed to keep the entire building from imploding. The outer beams that held up the floor above a nursery to prevent catastrophic failure. This helped to bring into perspective not only what we are putting on the outside of our buildings to look pretty, but also how we build the inner parts to ensure that “pretty” can stand up long enough for people to get out.

The Cusco Cathedral was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me. My brother and I decided to take a trip to Cusco, Peru to hike Machu Picchu. A couple friends joined us, and we took a 10-day trip through this beautiful landscape. We began in Cusco, Peru then worked our way past Salcantay Peak, and finished all the way at Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu was beyond description in terms of spiritual and visual extravagance, yet I normally find myself remembering this cathedral more often than not.

During our stay in Cusco, I may have visited this basilica about 6-7 times. I was drawn to it by the unique Spanish architecture. If I remember right, it is a Gothic-Renaissance style Basilica resembling Spain’s dominant architecture style at the time, especially for Catholic Churches. The fine carvings and filigree, covering the building, always took my breath away; not to mention, the gold inlay paintings and murals on the inside of the structure. It was a glowing beacon in the center of Cusco’s sprawling urban center that seemed to bring a certain level of elegance to the relatively run-down areas surrounding it.         

While there, you could tell the level of importance and significance the Peruvian locals placed on this building. For example, there was no talking allowed during service or when there is a congregation. Also, you were not allowed to take pictures of anything inside the building. Finally, there was a no lingering policy, especially if you were not there to pray and show respects. The level of reverence bestowed upon this National Landmark really drives home how integral the church was to their everyday lives.