Articles by Paula Pintos

The John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center was founded in 1970 to advance transportation innovation for the public good, and its new building in Cambridge, Massachusetts—designed and engineered by SOM—furthers this critical mission. Conceived as a vertical campus, this building brings the entirety of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe Center under one roof, with laboratories, data centers, offices, and amenities that were once spread across several structures. After five decades of operation within a fenced campus in the Kendall Square neighborhood, the U.S. DOT Volpe Center is now finally part of the public realm, in a structure that achieves a high level of building performance.

On the eastern outskirts of Hanover, the new headquarters of Continental AG designed by HENN consolidates several functions previously spread across the city in a single location. Its dynamic design reflects the company’s evolution from a pure tire manufacturer to an innovative technology group in the German automotive industry.

A small park is laid out eastward along the street and the setback frontage of the neighboring residential buildings. A dilapidated row of houses to the west prevents it from being extended westward. The new office building cannot resolve that urban dilemma, but it can keep the situation open for a future solution. While the ground floor is positioned to align with the residential buildings to maintain the longer-term urban development objective as a viable option, the three upper floors project above the plaza in front, making full use of the maximum allowable volume. As a result, the Sparkasse building has a spacious forecourt that is open to the public. The lobby is oriented towards this ‘plaza’, from which the building is entered centrally, giving direct access to the events room and the staff café.

The Apollolaan is a prominent green avenue in Amsterdam’s south district, within a unique neighborhood defined by Berlage’s architecture from the early twentieth century, and the iconic Hilton Hotel by the Dutch modernist H.A. Maaskant. In the late 1980s, the JP Morgan Bank organized a design competition for its new office located at a corner site along the Apollolaan. The monolithic design by Wim Quist with a largely opaque façade – suiting the security needs of the bank – was favored against other competition entries, including that of OMA. As the building transformed from the space for a single financial institution into rental offices in the subsequent years, the original design could no longer meet the new functional needs, or the anticipation of the tenants to work in a more open work environment connected with the neighborhood.

With its facades now completed, the Masaryčka building in Prague is defined by circulation routes which will provide access to new civic spaces for the city. Accommodating the continued growth of the city’s corporate sector with office spaces designed to meet 21st-century working patterns, the 28,000 sq. m Masaryčka office and retail development incorporate seven stories within its eastern section and nine stories at its western end.