Manila WSB was planned to be a new 1 million SF mixed-use project located in Manila. The 61-story tower includes 492 residences. At 227 meters tall, upon completion, it will be one of the tallest skyscrapers in the Philippines. The complex includes an office tower is planned for the site with 22 floors at 125 meters tall.
In addition to extensive retail space, there is also a large, landscaped amenity terrace. A sports club including swimming pools, indoor sports hall, boxing and basketball facilities and several tennis courts is spread over two large floors.
Joe Moore contributed to this project as project architect in the office of Handel Architects.
with students from Youth Engagement Academy
The “Classroom of the Future” for Youth Engagement Academy (YEA), a unique school in Washington, D.C.’s public school system, requires a programmatic solution. YEA, an alternative, one-of-a-kind public school, was established as a collaboration between DC Public Schools (DCPS) and the Big Picture Company (BP) in the fall of 2008. DCPS maintains that all students receive four core curriculum classes that are required in the public education and meet the requirements for preparing student for the standardized DC-CAS testing. On the other hand, the BP model encourages students to identify an area of interest and a corresponding internship to gain exposure to real-world learning, thoroughly rooting learning in interest. To support the latter element, BP established a class (“Advisory”) that helps to direct students in their academic and professional development. The students are supported by an Advisory teacher at school, a mentor at work, and parents at home.
The development of YEA’s “Classroom of the Future” required a larger understanding of how YEA (now only 9th grade) would eventually function as an entire school, made up of four grades and eight Advisories. The school presented here provides a module for each subsection (grade) that would be conjoined to create the entire school. Within each module, three distinct volumes exist. The largest space, the flex space, provides a breakout space for activities or a study area for each grade. The next volume creates the classrooms/labs that are the most defined and most common volumes. Each grade would be provided four classroom/lab modules to account for each subject area taught in the core curriculum of DCPS. Each classroom/lab would be outfitted to best teach one subject area; Math, Science, English, or Social Studies. The smallest relative volume would be the Advisory room. Two Advisory rooms would be provided per grade to accommodate the structure and size of the school. This module approach allows for flexibility for future site conditions and an understanding of the program by way of the volumes.
The Advisory classroom component of the school is fundamental to YEA’s“Classroom of the Future.” The Advisory rooms are a place for students to come together as a group and provide a home room to keep their work. The Advisory room handles a range of activity that accommodates the students’ real-world learning curriculum provided by Big Picture. The following are ideas given by the Big Picture Company that depict the ideal Advisory classroom: a place to post each day’s advisory agenda, the ability to create a circle for advisory discussions, individual work spaces for students, individual spaces for students to store things, learning goals posted in advisory, advisory agreement posted, a clock, student mailboxes, a place for students to sign out of advisory, a calendar of important school events posted, student work exhibited, student Learning Plans posted, and art, plants, rugs, chairs that make the room cozy. The advisory module as shown in YEA’s “Classroom of the Future” is designed to provide such accommodations.
The design of the individual Advisory rooms will facilitate all of the needs of YEA. Every advisory module will be flooded with daylight, as windows are provided on each wall. Smaller tables are put end to end to make rows for lecture. The tables and chairs can be reconfigured to make a conference table for advisory meetings. This seating flexibility can be further used for different activities in the advisory module. The module is organized through the user’s orientation in the room. The exterior wall, typically south facing, is a glass storefront system that provides a visual connection with the outdoors. The wall provides café style seating, allowing a meeting place for students. The opposite wall, connecting to the flex space, is the utility wall. The utility wall provides a space for the students to store their belongings, post items, obtain mail, and access computers. The walls at each end provide work space. One end serves as the presentation wall with a SmartBoard and digital projector, while the other end is used for brainstorming and includes a marker board, a wall mounted roll of butcher paper, and bulletin board.
The Nassif Building is one of the largest buildings in downtown Washington. While being one of the largest, it also has to be one of the least recognized. To put it into perspective, the Capitol, one of most recognizable buildings in the world, is 30% smaller than the Nassif Building in floor area. While the Nassif Building will never, nor should it ever have the importance of the Capitol, it should be much more prominent in the Washington’s cityscape. Converting the existing exterior courtyard into an interior atrium creates a place to move through and linger in 365 days of the year. The atrium becomes a focal point for the Nassif Building, building a sense of community, a place to identify, functioning like a town square, creating a sense of place.
Joe Moore contributed to this building as designer in the office of RTKL.
In a GSA developer competition for a new building for National Center for Weather and Climate Prediction.
The design proposal made a contemporary architectural statement. Rather than relying on a single monolithic structure, or creating an innocuous suburban speculative box, an attempt has been made to create a strong headquarters identity with lasting integrity. Balancing a desire to be modern with sensitivity to site and context, the campus divides into four major elements.
The Front Bar, a four-story, gently arcing office building.
The Back Bar, a five-story structure with the buildings’ cores, critical mission spaces and additional office space
The Vortex, the central atrium between these two structures, a dynamic “found” space that connects to a series of shared functions.
The Skylab, which sits dramatically atop the Front Bar, spans the Vortex and pierces into the Back Bar.
Joe Moore contributed to this building as a designer in the office of RTKL.
The architectural strategy of instauration that is proposed, integrates the accumulated collective memory of the urban artifact. Instauration is the revealing and renewing of a site. An act of architecture as instauration allows a new meaning and use to be given to a dynamic and fixed form.
The historic Cyclorama building is re-presented in the Performing Arts Institute to allow one to rediscover and experience the spatial and formal qualities of this urban artifact. An urban resolution of this civic institution is seen in the linking of the residential neighborhood of the South End with the activity of the city along Tremont Street. The size of an entire city block, people can congregate or stroll through or around the edge of the building - participating in various ways. The Performing Arts Institute is a central unifying element with a landmark and civic focus for South End community life.
A challenge set forth by the General Services Administration and its Design Excellence Program led to a courthouse building that both participates in the immediate urban environment and complies with official security codes. The goal being a new face to an architecture of democracy; in this solution two building elements for the bureaucratic and the honorific characterize the city block. A pedestrian alley splits the two buildings, as it represents the secondary alley system of downtown and establishes a visual axis to the Nashville Custom House. Three separate circulation paths, one for the public, the judges (restricted), and the criminal (secure), access the main building. Public circulation is exposed by glass curtain walls down the center of the block, allowing the public to see the movement in the courthouse. Another major element is off of the courtrooms; the judges’ chambers sit beside winter gardens that provide natural light and private outdoor space.