Chan Krieger Sieniewicz and NBBJ Announce Merger

NBBJ, a global architecture and design firm, and Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, internationally-known for urban design and architecture excellence, announced today a merger of the two firms that will create an integrated team of over 700 architects, urban designers, planners and interior designers. The Chan Krieger Sieniewicz team, including its five principals, will continue in their current roles. As part of the transition to the NBBJ name, the Cambridge office will operate as Chan Krieger NBBJ.

More than three years of collaboration as the design team behind the new 530,000 square-foot Building for the Third Century at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) led to a growing interest by principals in both firms to establish a more formal and far-reaching alliance. “We were initially brought together with NBBJ when MGH suggested we team up and combine what the client saw as complementary abilities,” said Alex Krieger, Founding Principal of Chan Krieger Sieniewicz and Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. “As we worked with our colleagues at NBBJ, we realized we shared the same values and studio culture, only on a different scale.”

Full Press Release

NBBJ Website

Larry Chan Elected BSA President for 2010

Larry Chan FAIA has won election as vice-president / president-elect of the Boston Society of Architects. He will serve as vice-president in the coming year, with 2009 BSA president Jim Batchelor FAIA, and will assume the presidency in 2010.

The BSA is the eastern Massachusetts regional association of approximately 4,000 public, professional and affiliate members and is the largest branch of the American Institute of Architects.

Alex Krieger Edits Urban Design

Urban Design, edited by Alex Krieger and William S. Saunders, was published in February 2009. From the publisher’s book description:

“Fifty years ago a landmark conference at Harvard University established urban design as a distinct architectural and planning practice. Today, with the world’s urban population surpassing three billion people, urban design has become more crucial than ever. Indeed, the concerns that initially brought leading architects and city planners together—including concerns over sprawl, pollution, and aging infrastructure—have only intensified over the past half century.

In Urban Design, Alex Krieger and William S. Saunders have assembled prominent figures in architecture, planning, and landscape design to look back on the evolution of the discipline of urban design; assess the current state of the field; and anticipate the challenges posed by the unprecedented rate of urbanization, particularly in the developing world, and how the profession will need to adapt in order to confront them. The volume opens with excerpts from transcripts of the 1956 Harvard conference followed by essays that contextualize and critique its assumptions and ambitions. Subsequent essays address such topics as the social conscience of urban design and stake out the competing sensibilities in the field, from New Urbanism to avant-garde.”

Purchase the book from: Amazon or University of Minnesota Press.

A synopsis of the book's themes, written by Alex Krieger, is available at Planetizen.

Shanghai Bund Design Receives 2009 Cityscape Award

The Shanghai Bund Master Plan is the winner of the 2009 Cityscape Award for Architecture in Emerging Markets within the Master Planning category.

"The Awards reward excellence in architecture and design from the emerging regions of the Gulf States, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, South America and South and East Asia and Latin America and seek to recognise and reward Architects and their entries that have shown outstanding designs, performance, vision and achievement in key emerging market and project areas."

Full list of Award Winners

Greater Boston Food Bank Opens

In April 2009, the Greater Boston Food Bank officially opened the doors to their new Yawkey Distribution Center in South Boston.

The new building, designed by Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, allows the Food Bank to distribute up to 50 million pounds of food to needy Boston families every year.

For more information, view the Greater Boston Food Bank's press release.

Greater Boston Food Bank page at CKS.

The Park School Featured on archrecord.com

The Park School, which was completed in August 2008, was recently featured at The Architectural Record's website. The website presents a slide show and a spec sheet of relevant products and information.

The Park School renovation was the culmination of a campus master plan that Chan Krieger Sieniewicz completed in 2001.

The Park School page at CKS.

CKS Designing a New Arts Building for Suffolk University

The building, scheduled for completion in 2010, will house the University’s undergraduate and graduate programs for fine arts, graphic design and interior design as well as several general purpose undergraduate classrooms. A television studio and production facilities for Suffolk’s Department of Communications and Journalism will also be accommodated within the building.

The site is characterized by a complex physical relationship between the historic Beacon Hill context, the McCormack State office building on Ashburton Place and the Garden of Peace and Saltonstahl complex. The building design also includes renovations to the existing State owned Roemer Plaza that will serve as a new forecourt to the building as well public space for the state office complex. The facade includes sophisticated and subtle uses of clear and translucent curtain wall glazing and stone and masonry base materials.

University of Botswana Strategy and Master Plan Led by CKS

The project constitutes an academic, physical and financial plan for the creation of a third University of Botswana campus near the town of Maun in Northwest Botswana. The new campus will fulfill the tertiary education goals of the country by increasing educational access and quality. The site sits adjacent to the famed Okavango Delta, the largest inland delta in the world, and a major wildlife destination in Southern Africa.

The project team, led by Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, produced an academic and staffing plan, a strategic environmental assessment and a financial plan that was reviewed by the University and agencies at the national and local levels. The preferred faculty emerged as one focused on sustainability and environment appropriate to the setting at the gateway to the Okavango Delta. The Maun Campus will be composed of four schools; School of Cultural and Heritage Studies; School of Applied Ecology; School of Tourism and Hospitality Management; School of Entrepreneurship; and the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Center, expanded as a research institute in natural resource management.