The Berggruen Institute, a think tank founded in 2010 by philanthropist and investor Nicolas Berggruen, recently unveiled plans for a new Los Angeles campus designed by Herzog & de Meuron. The low-density campus will be built on a site in the eastern portion of the Santa Monica Mountains and comprise meeting and study spaces, scholars’ residences, and gardens.
The campus will be built along a mountain ridge that was scraped and flattened in the 1980s to cap a landfill. The ridge will be turned into a linear park or a gardened plinth landscaped with drought-resistant plants.
Rendering courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron.
Herzog & de Meuron’s design is as much a landscape vision as an architectural project. The campus will concentrate development within previously graded areas to limit topographic changes. In addition, 415 acres of the 447-acre site will be preserved as open space. The campus will also make use of infrastructure that is already in place, such as Serpentine Road, which will connect Sepulveda Boulevard to the Institute’s main entrance. Existing public hiking trails will be maintained and improved and provide access to the Institute campus.
The new campus’s main facility will be built on the far southern end of the site’s eastern ridge. A horizontal structure, dubbed the Frame, will “hover” 12 feet above the ground and be supported by just a few building elements. A large courtyard garden will exist at the center of the main building while the main functions of studying, living, and convening are located within the Frame on one level with occasional mezzanine spaces. A collection of live-work lofts, meeting rooms, study spaces, offices, artists’ studios, media spaces, dining areas, and reception areas will all exist within the Frame.
Rendering courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron.
A sphere that sits within the courtyard and contains a 250-seat lecture hall will become the tallest structure on the Berggruen Institute campus, rising 45 feet above the roofline of the Frame. A second, smaller sphere sits atop the Frame and serves as a water storage tank. When combined with the lecture hall, the frame offers a total of 137,000 sf with 26 Scholars-in-Residence units and 14 Visiting Scholars units.
Rendering courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron.
North of the frame will exist the second main element of the campus; Scholar Village, 26,000 sf of residential use for scholars and guests. The third and final main element is located on the northern end of the eastern ridge and is dubbed the Chairman’s Residence. The Chairman’s Residence is a 26,000-sf compound that includes a library, conference room, dining and catering facilities, and staff quarters. Just north of the Chairman’s Residence is a heavily landscaped area that serves as a buffer zone between the Institute and the neighboring MountainGate community.
Rendering courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron.
Related Stories
| Aug 12, 2014
First look: Calatrava's futuristic Main Building opens at Florida Polytechnic University
The $60 million structure is wrapped in a bright-white, aluminum pergola for dramatic effect and solar shading.
| Jul 30, 2014
Higher ed officials grapple with knotty problems, but construction moves ahead [2014 Giants 300 Report]
University stakeholders face complicated cap-ex stressors, from chronic to impending. Creative approaches to financing, design, and delivery are top-of-mind, according to BD+C's 2014 Giants 300 Report.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction market benefits from improving economy, new technology [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Following years of fairly lackluster demand for commercial property remodeling, reconstruction revenue is improving, according to the 2014 Giants 300 report.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Construction Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Structure Tone, Turner, and Gilbane top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction contractor and construction management firms in the U.S.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Engineering Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Jacobs, URS, and Wiss, Janney, Elstner top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction engineering and engineering/architecture firms in the U.S.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Architecture Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Stantec, HDR, and HOK top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction architecture and architecture/engineering firms in the U.S.
| Jul 23, 2014
Architecture Billings Index up nearly a point in June
AIA reported the June ABI score was 53.5, up from a mark of 52.6 in May.
| Jul 21, 2014
Economists ponder uneven recovery, weigh benefits of big infrastructure [2014 Giants 300 Report]
According to expert forecasters, multifamily projects, the Panama Canal expansion, and the petroleum industry’s “shale gale” could be saving graces for commercial AEC firms seeking growth opportunities in an economy that’s provided its share of recent disappointments.
| Jul 18, 2014
Contractors warm up to new technologies, invent new management schemes [2014 Giants 300 Report]
“UAV.” “LATISTA.” “CMST.” If BD+C Giants 300 contractors have anything to say about it, these new terms may someday be as well known as “BIM” or “LEED.” Here’s a sampling of what Giant GCs and CMs are doing by way of technological and managerial innovation.
| Jul 18, 2014
Top Construction Management Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Jacobs, Barton Malow, Hill International top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest construction management and project management firms in the United States.
