News:
WiD - KC | March Newsletter
Please see the attached March Newsletter, featuring information on this weeks Monster Design Rally.
City of Raytown | RFP for Downtown Redevelopment Services
The City of Raytown, MO has issued a developer-led Request for Proposal for the redevelopment of 3.78 acres in the heart of Downtown Raytown. Interested development teams may obtain an electronic copy of the RFP by contacting Tom Cole, Economic Development Administrator at 816.737.6091 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Call for Nominations | MARC’s Regional Leadership Awards
Since 1992, the Mid-America Regional Council has annually recognized individuals and institutions that have made outstanding contributions to the region. The recipients of MARC’s Regional Leadership awards have advanced a vision of a strong, healthy region, demonstrated commitment to its growth, and encouraged others to support and work towards that vision.
Recipients may be current or past elected officials; individuals employed as professionals within governmental organizations; institutions or agencies, including governmental units or sub-units, businesses, foundations, civic or non-profit organizations or educational institutions; or volunteer leaders in public or private organizations. Current members of MARC’s Board of Directors are not eligible for nomination.
Submit nominations online at http://www.marc.org/nominations.htm. Deadline is March 24, 2010.
First Green Shopping Center awarded LEED® Platinum
The Green Circle Shopping Center announced today that it has been awarded LEED® Platinum established by the U.S. Green Building Council and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI). As of completion date, this is the first of its type in the nation.
“I believe we need to continually communicate with all parties involved in order to orchestrate a successful and innovative building. The Green Circle Shopping Center, transformed from a radical idea to becoming the nation’s first LEED Platinum shopping center through creative thinking and effective communication”, says Matthew Hufft, President of Hufft Projects, LLC.
The 23,000 square foot center incorporates recycled materials, utilizes sources of renewable energy, and maximizes energy efficiency. Site location was treated with great sensitivity. The conventional shopping center would clear the site of trees and maximize parking and retail space. As a sustainable alternative Green Circle preserved over 40 existing trees on site and in doing so provided building tenants and customers with green space for recreation and
visual relief. Green Circle Shopping Center achieved LEED certification for energy use, lighting, water and material use as well as incorporating a variety of other sustainable strategies. These features include:
• Photovoltaic Panels
• High Performance Glass
• Green Roof
• Recycled Wood Composite Siding
• Geothermal System for heating and cooling 100% of building
• Cistern to collect rain water to use for irrigation and toilet flushing
• Angular Rood for maximum daylight use
In addition to the sustainable strategies, technologies, and materials, the center’s most ambitious goal is the education of the public. The accessible roof top deck provides the opportunity to interact with the green roof and photovoltaic panels. A visitation center has literature and informative displays which help the public understand the goals of the center and why sustainable design is critical for the quality of the environment and future generations.
“The green building movement offers an unprecedented opportunity to respond to the most important challenges of our time, including global climate change, dependence on non-sustainable and expensive sources of energy and threats to human health,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, U.S. Green Building Council. “The work of innovative building projects such as Green Circle is a fundamental driving force in the green building
movement.”
Call for Artists | 2010 Kansas City Chalk and Walk Festival
Once again, the Kansas City Chalk and Walk Festival (a Missouri not for profit 501C3) is returning to the Urban Core,
on Father’s Day Weekend, Saturday, June 19 and Sunday, June 20, 12010, at Crown Center Square. (hours: Saturday, 11:00am to 8:00pm, Sunday, 11:00am to 6:00pm)
A free event, the festival will feature over 100 pastel paintings of every sort imaginable (2010 themes will be: Originals, Alice in Wonderland, and the Masters) The best part is watching the diverse group of artists at work, young and old, amateur and professional, their art evolving during the two days.
In addition, the 2010 Children’s Creative Corridor will provide families with several creative projects, and a large space where children can chalk for free.
While visitors (over 7,000 in 2009!) and artists work on their creative art projects, entertainers will sing, dance and perform.
We invite you to partner with our festival by becoming an artist and/or sponsoring a square for the two day event. Please e-mail us at:
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for “call for artists application” and/or sponsorship information.
Obama nominates Ayers to be next Architect of Capitol
By Jordy Yager
President Barack Obama nominated Stephen Ayers to be the next Architect of the Capitol on Tuesday, weeks after the House moved to strip the White House of a role in the selection.
For the past three years, Ayers has served ad-interim as the acting-Architect of the Capitol (AoC), which oversees the maintenance and oversight of the majority of the Capitol campus’ infrastructure. His predecessor, Alan Hantman, stepped down after spending 10 years in the position.
Obama’s nomination comes less than three weeks after the House passed a measure that would eliminate the White House from the AoC selection process. The selection of the AoC has required the president’s decision and the Senate’s confirmation since 1997, when Bill Clinton appointed Hantman to be the 10th architect.
The measure’s sponsor, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers have argued that the White House should not be involved in the selection process by nominating a candidate because the AoC’s job is solely concerned with the activities of Congress and has nothing to do with any other branch of government.
“I appreciate the trust the Congress and the Leadership has placed in me, and I thank President Obama for nominating me,” Ayers said in a statement on Tuesday. “I look forward to leading the organization as we continue to build upon our successes over the past several years.”
In an interview with The Hill last year, Ayers said that he would accept the job “in a heartbeat” if he were nominated and approved.
The office of the AoC is charged with maintaining more than 16.5 million square feet of facilities, including the expansive multi-million dollar Capitol Visitor Center (CVC), and more than 450 acres of property that fall under the Legislative Branch’s jurisdiction.
Instead of a presidential nomination, Wasserman Schultz’s proposed a selection committee that would consist of the Speaker of the House, the Senate president pro tempore, the House and Senate majority and minority members, the chairmen and the ranking members of the House Administration Committee, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and the House and Senate Appropriations committees.
Wasserman Schultz’s office also did not immediately return requests for comment as to how Obama’s nomination of Ayers would affect the fate of her measure.
As the selection process stands, Ayers, like all presidential nominations, will have to go before the Senate to be approved.
In his first months in office, Ayers became the focus of outrage for many lawmakers who balked at the doubling cost of the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) and demanded that he provide a better plan of accountability for its construction. But since the CVC’s opening more than a year ago, lawmaker opinions have been relatively positive of Ayers’s job performance.
Members have advocated for the past two years that a permanent AoC is needed to properly address the growing backlog of Capitol maintenance issues, if for no other reason than it would give Ayers job security and the advantage of planning the scope of the AoC for the long-term.
Ayers has indicated to Congress that the AoC’s office has more than $600 million in deferred maintenance and more than $800 million in renewal projects, with $900 million of the total $1.4 billion being urgent or high priority.
Every month Ayers’ staff submits thousands of numbers to him for inspection, from every malfunctioning elevator on Capitol Hill to every minute of paid overtime. Ayers said he keeps track of where more attention needs to be paid and where pennies can be saved through a metrics and measures system that then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani used to transform New York City.
“Since taking over as acting architect in 2007, Stephen has demonstrated the caliber of leadership required to run such an intricate organization charged with the important responsibility of preserving and enhancing the Capitol complex for Members, staff and the millions of visitors who pass through each year,” said Lungren, the ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee, which oversees the functions of the House.
Ayers is licensed architect with the state of California and has been with the office of the AoC since 1997.
2010 Crayons to CAD Competition and iBuild Showcase
Inform students of the Architect’s and construction professional’s place in the future of green sustainable construction:
The National Institute for Construction Excellence (NICE) will be hosting students and teachers from Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas School Districts in the 2010 Crayons to CAD Competition and iBuild Showcase Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at the Metropolitan Community Colleges Business & Technology Campus. NICE is asking industry professionals to participate in the event by volunteering for positions like Crayons to CAD project judge, iBuild escort, coordinator and/or safety observer.
Please contact Robin Floyd at (816) 283-3860 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for volunteer registration and information. Visit our website at http://www.crayonstocad.org.
NCARB | ARE 4.0: One Year and Counting
In July 2008, NCARB released the latest version of the Architect Registration Examination® (ARE®) in test centers throughout the United States and Canada. For the first year, ARE 4.0 was administered concurrently with ARE 3.1. In July 2009, ARE 3.1 was discontinued, and now ARE 4.0 is the only version of the ARE available to candidates.
ARE 4.0 continues to assess a candidate’s knowledge, skills, and abilities to provide various services required in the practice of architecture. The new format decreased the number of exam divisions from nine to seven by combining related content. The new structure allows candidates to demonstrate cognitive knowledge (multiple-choice) and applied ability (graphic vignette) for the specific content covered by each division of the ARE.
Prior to the launch of ARE 4.0, NCARB conducted a recognized standard-setting process utilizing multiple panels of licensed volunteer architects to recommend a passing threshold (aka “cut score”) for each of the “hybrid” divisions. These recommendations were subsequently reviewed by NCARB’s Committee on Examination and approved by the NCARB Board of Directors.
Historically, candidates have performed better on the multiple-choice divisions of the exam than the graphic divisions. Six of the seven divisions now contain the combined multiple-choice and graphic vignette format. Based upon this information and predictions derived from the cut score recommendations, the NCARB Board of Directors anticipated that the new ARE 4.0 format would initially result in lower pass rates.
Due to the nature of the combined format, the pass rates for all six of the hybrid divisions declined within expected parameters as compared to the corresponding ARE 3.1 content. The seventh division, Schematic Design (formerly Building Planning), in which the content remained virtually unchanged between ARE 3.1 and ARE 4.0, has maintained consistent pass rates compared to previous years.
Recently, NCARB published the division pass rates for all ARE 4.0 administrations conducted between July 2008 and June 2009 on our web site. To ensure the validity of the scoring process, these pass rates have been reviewed by the Council’s testing consultants and were found to be within acceptable psychometric standards.
ARE 4.0 Pass Rates – July 2008 to June 2009
Programming Planning & Design: 54%
Site Planning & Design: 63%
Building Design & Construction Systems: 53%
Structural Systems: 65%
Building Systems: 66%
Construction Documents & Services: 59%
Schematic Design: 70%
Pass rates will typically decline whenever significant changes are made to any exam’s format, test specification, or cut score. NCARB has also found this to be true throughout the history of the ARE. As candidates become more familiar with the changes and additional resources become available, the pass rates typically increase slowly. NCARB has reviewed the first six months of examination administrations as compared to the second six months and already see signs that this trend will hold true for ARE 4.0.
More information about the ARE can be found at our web site www.ncarb.org.
Missouri Bank, BKS Real Estate, and Helix Awarded Art though Architecture “Gold Level”
Missouri Bank, BKS Real Estate, and Helix Architecture + Design Awarded Art though Architecture “Gold Level” Art Achievement for site-specific commission by Kansas City artist Archie Scott Gobber at new Missouri Bank Brookside Branch Drive-Thru
Missouri Bank, BKS Real Estate, and Helix Architecture + Design have been awarded highest level “Art Achievement” by Art through Architecture (AtA) for commissioning “DREAM,” a new, site-specific art installation by Kansas City based artist Archie Scott Gobber. The project was commissioned as part of the architectural renovation of the historic former Star Motors building at 7 West 62nd Terrace in the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City, MO.
Gobber’s installation animates one long wall of Missouri Bank’s new vehicular drive-thru, which runs straight through the center of the building. It features large-scale, hand-painted aluminum letters (each approx 93”x84”) spelling “DREAM,” which float off of a brightly painted, horizontally-striped background spanning the length of the drive-thru, some 90 feet long.
“DREAM has an appearance of movement from the first viewing of the letters to the powerful stripes that run the length of the wall,” said Gobber, who is known for smart text-based artworks that often draw inspiration and meaning from pop culture and current events. “Contained in the work is LED lighting that glows from behind the letters as if spray-painted, a street artist nod that is common to my paintings. A skewed arching perspective within the letters, combined with a painted drop shadow that looks a foot thick, makes for an imposing message – as imposing as one chooses to see it. I see DREAM as a hopeful, humanist, nostalgic and proud statement by a local bank that is committed to people. It says ‘You’re in the right place.’”
Missouri Bank, which opens for business February 22, will also occupy approximately 5,000 square feet of interior space, with a glass wall facing the art installation, such that it will be highly visible from the bank’s interior. The building, owned by BKS Real Estate, will provide space for several additional tenants, both retail and office.
Reeves Wiedeman, a principal at Helix Architecture + Design, identified the potential for incorporating an art component into the project from an early stage, and contacted Art through Architecture to help facilitate this process.
“Parking being at a premium in Brookside, it was George Gilchrist [of BKS Real Estate] who came up with the idea of bringing the bank’s vehicular drive ‘literally’ through the middle of the building instead of sticking it out in the parking lot like most banks typically do,” he said. “Helix saw potential in the idea of creating a new kind of drive-thru facility where customers could feel (almost) like they’re driving right into the bank’s lobby when making a transaction. The 90 foot long “blank” wall on one side of the drive-thru presented a unique architectural challenge visually, which is why we decided to collaborate with a local artist.”
Through Art through Architecture, a partnership of American Institute of Architects-Kansas City and Charlotte Street Foundation, new architectural projects may earn Gold, Silver or Bronze levels of Art Achievement by dedicating a percentage of the total construction budget to collecting artworks, commissioning temporary or permanent artworks, and/or including artists on design teams. AtA facilitates this process by providing a web-based database at http://www.ArtArch.org, featuring work by some 90 artists selected for the program through a competitive process, and by providing hands-on support for project implementation, from artist selection through completion. This commission has qualified for the highest level, Gold Art Achievement.
Gobber was awarded this commission, funded by Missouri Bank and BKS Real Estate, through a two-phased process. First, the clients and architects reviewed the work of artists featured on AtA’s website database, narrowing to a short-list of finalists. These artists were then invited to develop specific proposals for the site, which they presented during studio visits last summer, at which point Gobber was selected. He worked with Helix as well as Harren-Laughlin Construction to integrate his project into the overall building design and construction.
“Gobber took full advantage of the situation by creating a dazzling and provocative piece that not only complements but enhances the architectural design,” said Wiedeman. “The end result completely changes the perception of what drive thru facilities can be. And, Brookside gets a great piece of local, contemporary art.”
“DREAM is a spectacular addition to the building,” said Grant Burcham, President and CEO of Missouri Bank. “Not only does it make an ordinary drive-through extraordinary, it speaks to our entrepreneurial niche. Entrepreneurs are dreamers by definition!”
“We are very pleased with the public support we have received for participating in the Art through Architecture program for both our Crossroads bank, and our new Brookside bank,” he added. “The response has been so overwhelmingly positive, we would not consider another project without participating in the program.”
“We are really pleased to be a part of DREAM,” said George Gilchrist, BKS Real Estate. “The work of Archie Scott Gobber has enhanced the building so much, and added the final touch to the tremendous work and vision of Helix Architecture + Design and Missouri Bank. We are thankful to everyone involved for their work on this great addition to Brookside.”
“This is my largest and most involved work to date,” noted Gobber. “I’m really proud to have a permanent work in one of the great neighborhoods of Kansas City, the city in which I choose to live.”
About Art through Architecture:
The mission of Art through Architecture (AtA) is to support artists and the arts community in the Kansas City area and to enrich architectural practices and architect-client relationships by providing architects and clients with incentives and tools to collect, commission, place, and integrate artwork by Kansas City artists into their processes and projects. For more information about the Art program, visit http://www.ArtArch.org, or contact Kate Hackman, Administrator, Art through Architecture Art Committee/Associate Director, Charlotte Street Foundation, at 816.994.7731 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Green Energy Conference: Sustainable KC 2010
Join us on April 8th for the SUSTAINABLE KC 2010 Green Energy Conference which brings together construction, engineering, design and facilities professionals for a one-day conference exploring the realities of optimizing energy use, applying renewable energy strategies, and navigating the growing sustainability construction market.