Life, Wisdom, and Organic Growth – Speaking Willow
Designed to create an immediate interaction with visitors entering the Planet Word Museum in Washington DC, Speaking Willow is a 18-foot-tall electronic tree that is animated by lighting and audio recordings in different languages.
Designed by Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, the willow tree is a fitting metaphor to celebrate the word's rich linguistic diversity. Lozano-Hemmer is known for transforming intangible traces of human experience-voices, movement, touch, heartbeats into monumental displays of light, imagine, and sounds. The bell-shaped speakers installed directly beneath the tree's branches are activated by passers-by. Each speaker has been programmed with sample recordings of a different language. Our team at Laufs ED provided a structural engineering services.
Photos from Rebecca Murdock & Public Art Fund
We're delighted to share AUDI AG's new sustainable dealership concept store in Germany featuring an approximately 500 m² facade of Made of Air's novel biochar composite. The material is made from >85% atmospheric carbon content and acts as an engineered carbon sink.
By replacing a typical aluminium facade system, Made of Air's facade prevents the re-emission of ca. 12t of CO2 from waste biomass and avoids emissions. The building has been awarded Gold Status by the DGNB German Sustainable Building Council.
LED provided structural facade engineering services including fastener testing and Review for the design team, Made of Air, Berlin.
The new Mennica Legacy Tower three-story lobby façade in Warsaw is Poland’s largest glass cable net wall, opened in 2019. Class A office space inside the highrise tower can be entered via the one-way cable wall system, which has partial curved areas and utilizes a transparent glazing that “blurs the boundary between interior and exterior space” (Goettsch Architects, Chicago). LED provided full proof engineering structural & façade detailing review, including 1:1 IGU glass warp tests and 1:1 cable deflection & tension tests to assure high safety of the locally edge-clamped glazing and cable end fittings.
We are proud to have worked with Tishman and Mariani Metal on this full-service project (calculations-shop-fabrication) and have designed and engineered the transit hall/lobby curtain walls with blast-resistant building design throughout. Although LED worked together with Mariani Metal to complete almost all metal-related fixtures and assemblies in the transit hall, (w/ calculations and shop/fabrication drawings for these items) the brunt of the work relied on bomb-resistant glass wall design for the massive curtain walls and top hung 3-level glass floor system with intermediary bridges. The use of Duplex Stainless Steel was a key design element when engineering the curtain walls, mullions, transoms, brackets, and even nosing connections. Careful collaboration between Mariani and LED also allowed for a smoother and faster fabrication process which allowed for more installation time on-site.
LED has successfully reviewed the ultra-luxury condo glazed facade for Pritzker Prize winner Álvaro Siza's first-ever building in New York City, 611 West 56th Street, a unique 37-floor tall residential tower, developed by Sumaida + Khurana and Leny. This is also Siza's first-ever building in the US.
"Siza is world-renowned for the sculptural characteristics and purity of his buildings. The intricately constructed 80-residence monolithic tower will be wrapped in four sides of Perla Bianca limestone and reflect the subtle and refined detailing that Siza is known for."
Façade Contractor Aluprof developed, produced, and installed a bespoke unitized window wall system that seamlessly merges into the limestone skin with carefully placed joint lines. LED helped coordinate and PE-stamp all metal-glass envelope elements including all storefront facade types throughout.
The new addition for the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach has been opened to the Public this spring! Designed by Architect Sir Norman Foster from London and executed by USA specialty metal-glass contractor NEC, LED supported from NYC with detail engineering, full sets of shop and fabrication drawings for all specialty enclosure elements, from hidden glass edge toggles all the way to bespoke metal frames to support massive elegant entry doors.
More than seven years of planning, design, fundraising, and construction come to fruition with the grand opening of this total renovation. Our goal was to help detail- design a transparent, stringent weather-proofed feature facade that would provide ample amounts of sunlight into the museum spaces, while also securely protecting the artwork and sculptures inside from rain and debris, especially hurricane events. This included custom intensive 1:1 hurricane impact testing for structurally sealed jumbo-size & laminated safety glazing, including its visually minimized support conditions all around the panel.
“The Architects from Foster + Partners, including Norman Foster himself, immediately saw that the Norton needed to be ‘a museum in a garden’ and take advantage of the beautiful Florida sunrises and sunsets,” The new building has been transformed in many ways, but the strategic addition of so many windows–big ones–as well as a giant oculus in the Great Hall allows natural light to stream into the building, adding to a welcoming ambiance and allowing visitors to gaze into the sculpture garden or out at the majestic Banyan tree.” - quote by Scott Bernarde, Norton Museum of Art Director of Communications
photos below by Nigel Young | Foster + Partners Photographer
