WAM Plaza Design Competition

PROJECT: Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition / LOCATION: Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota TEAM MEMBERS: SEH - Landscape Architecture, Urban Design EE&K - Architecture Steve Dietz - Arts Program Curator Christopher Baker - Artist BLOG DESCRIPTION: The SEH team was selected as one of four teams for a design competition to redesign the Mississippi River Bridge Plaza on the University of Minnesota campus. The plaza, located on the east end of the Washington Avenue Bridge, is a critical public space at University of Minnesota, located adjacent to the newly expanded Weisman Art Museum (designed by Frank Gehry). Our team utilized this blog throughout the competition as a tool to communicate among our team's multidisciplinary & geographically diverse team members. An exhibition of all four short-listed teams' entries will be on display at the Weisman Art Museum's grand re-opening, beginning October 2, 2011. Teams will present their work to a jury on October 26, when a winner will be decided.

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here is a short video of the exhibition and public presentation party

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WAMchatter, October 26th, 7pm at the Weisman Art Museum

Please join us for our public presentation for the Plaza Design Competition at the Weisman Art Mueseum. A reception prior to the event will be held at the Weisman at 6pm with presentations to follow across the plaza from the museum in room 230 of the STSS building. See you then!

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Weisman Grand Reopening & Exhibition Opening

This weekend was the Weisman Art Museum Grand Reopening Gala (Saturday, Oct. 1) and WAMdemonium (Sunday, Oct. 2nd). The new expansion featured our team's design competition materials for a new public plaza at the east end of the Washington Avenue Pedestrian and Bike bridge. Kick off festivities started Saturday night. Bob Kost, Director of Planning & Urban Design at SEH, was invited to attend the reopening gala with hundred of arts patrons including the wold renown architect, Frank Gehry. It was an exciting weekend. We look forward to presenting to the professional jury and the public on October 26th.

See some of the pictures from the weekend's events below.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition Update

Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota 

The SEH team completed their submission for the Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition on Thursday, September 1st.  The timeline for selection of the winning entry among the four finalist teams is listed below.

October 1, 2011 Revealing: The Weisman Art Museum Grand Reopening Gala (Sold-Out)

October 2, 2011, 1pm WAMdemonium: WAM Grand Reopening & Exhibition of Design Competition Submissions

October 26, 2011, afternoon Team Presentations to Jury

October 26, 2011, 7pm Public Presentation of Designs, Weisman Art Museum

October 27, 2011 Decision Announced

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3-D visualization of plaza concept illustrated by team members at EE+K Architects a Perkins Eastman Co.

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Christopher Baker's "SWARM" art piece creates a programable sound and light project providing an interactive, variable user experience.   

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WAM Plaza, with its fully integrated ecology, landscape, architecture and new media public arts paltform can serve as a model for new public spaces at U of M.

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Rendered site plan illustrating an integrated plaza and new media arts platform. 

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Out of tortuous hours of plaza paving color studies, WAMZA Artsmaster, color ninja emerges   

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next spring, artist Karen Bausman is hoping to change all of that with the installation of a series of living walls, bringing a network of lush plant life to the Gansevoort Plaza.

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Piezoelectric walkway

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Public art in relation to LEED certification

I thought it was interesting that at least some of the criteria where public art might add points to LEED certification were issues we are thinking about for WAM Plaza. (Pay no attention to the "light pollution" part.)

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More soft seating from rebar - Bushwaffle

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Fiber Reinforced Plastic offers us weight and sustainabilty advantages

In looking for information on the embodied energy / sustainability characteristics for structural building materials to consider for our project I came accross some interesting information (see below) Although it pertains to auto-manufacturing, I think there are some favorable sustainable material characteristics. More investigation is warranted as to costs, availability, color, etc.

The embodied energy, structural weight, and transportation energy (fuel requirement) characteristics of steel, fiber-reinforced plastics, and aluminum were assessed to determine the overall energy savings of materials substitution in automobiles. In body panels, a 1.0-lb steel component with an associated 0.5 lb in secondary weight is structurally equivalent to a 0.6-lb fiber-reinforced plastic component with 0.3 lb in associated secondary weight or a 0.5-lb aluminum component with 0.25 lb of secondary weight. The total energy requirements of structurally equivalent body panels (including their embodied and life cycle transportation energies) are: steel (211.6 × 10 3 Btu), fiber-reinforced plastics (126.7 × 10 3 Btu), and aluminum (174.3 × 10 3 Btu). Fiber-reinforced plastics offer greatest improvements in embodied and total energy requirements, while aluminum achieves greatest savings in transportation energy.

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Suggestions for form and element refinment: bowl-shaped bleachers with radial intersecting green-walls; circular lawn, vertical stent-structure as primary campanile partially covered green wall panels and attached wall-screen elements.