Chatham County Agriculture & Conference Center
Chatham County Agriculture & Conference Canter (2013-2014) The Agricultural Department and its Cooperative Extensions share a common mission to preserve the traditional and regional farming techniques of plants, seeds and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem. The projects regional construction methods utilize off-the-shelf components to create a modern, refined take on the local barn vernacular. The unconventional use of pre-engineered structural steel frames exploits the systems’ inherent spatial possibilities, material efficiency and cost effectiveness, while creating an architecture of integrity and quality that stands the test of time and represents the cultural identity of the region. The pre-engineered structure, insulated modular and corrugated metal-panels and fiber cement board cladding, allowed for quick, low-impact assembly, reinforcing the County’s ethics of environmental sustainability. The rigid structural steel frame creates expansive interior spaces, generous connections with the lobby and exhibit hall, shaded verandas along the perimeter of the east and west wings, and engaging details. A relocated historic tobacco barn is a focal point of the employee courtyard.
The main entry of the 32,000-square-foot facility is representative of the regional front porch, which opens to the main lobby — utilized for registration and receptions. The 6,000-square- foot exhibit hall, located in the heart of the building, seats 400 people at tables and 800 theater-style, and can be subdivided into three smaller spaces. Three break-out classrooms in the east wing can be combined to create a larger meeting space. A centralized catering kitchen services large and small groups. The west wing of the building serves as office space for the Chatham County Agricultural Department and its Cooperative Extensions, which include the Soil and Water Conservation District, the Natural Resources Conservation, the Forestry Service, and the Farm Services Agency. These departments share a conference room, library, breakroom, and teaching kitchen, where members of the community learn back-to-basic, farm-to-table techniques to create a vernacular cuisine. Centralized dormers above the east and west wings allow natural light to illuminate common work and gallery spaces. |
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Pittsboro, North Carolina Architect of Record Hobbs Architects, PA Project Designers Melissa Meyer & Taylor & Grimsley Hobbs Draftsman Jake Battles Civil Engineers CE Group Structural Engineer Chatham County M.E.P. Engineers Jeff Johnson Consulting |
Turning Point Observation Platform
Turning Point Observation Platform (2012) The Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) connects art, nature and people to encourage creative educational experiences and human interactions. As part of a comprehensive storm water management initiative, the retention pond on the museum campus underwent extensive renovations to mitigate the negative effects of stormwater runoff from the museum buildings, surrounding parking lots and roads. The renovation included a new 90,000-gallon underground water storage cistern, rain gardens, drought-tolerant plantings, a fescue lawn and a new observation platform, known as the “Turning Point,” designed and built by the 2012 North Carolina State University Design-Build Studio.
Mimicking a natural wetland, the retention pond aesthetically controls and cleans storm water runoff before being collected to fill the Museum’s reflecting pools and to irrigate Museum Park. Peripheral terraces are planted with native perennials and ornamental grasses. As water moves across the multi-tiered ecosystem, pollutants are filtered via plant roots and soil particles. Fish, birds and insects contribute to the breakdown of pollutants. Turning northwest off a porous gravel pathway, an extension of the Reedy Creek Greenway system that runs through the park, the Turning Point Observation Platform abruptly faces the museum in a call for attention. Four steel posts hidden in the wetland grasses support a cantilevered ipe wood platform. A massive poured concrete wall, smooth on the platform side, roughly textured and rugged on the opposite side, protects — but doesn’t touch — the delicate platform, which appears to levitate above the marshy shore of the fragile ecosystem, as visitors witness a turning point into a new era of sustainability. |
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Raleigh, North Carolina Designer Melissa Meyer & D/B Studio Civil Engineers Stewart Engineering Structural Engineer Stewart Engineering Builder Melissa Meyer & NCSU & Design-Build Studio |
Saint Stephen’s Main Highway Pavilion
Saint Stephen’s Main Highway Pavilion (2007-2009) is LEED Gold certified. In 2011 the project won the Excellence in Architecture award, the Sustainable Building Award, and the People’s Choice Award from the American Institute of Architect’s Miami Chapter, as well as the Best LEED School (in South Florida) award from the U.S. Green Building Council. The pavilion houses four classrooms, a technology lab, a language lab, and administrative offices in a freestanding 13,418 sq. ft. addition to the existing Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Day School campus in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood. The Main Highway Pavilion is poured concrete, heavy masonry, and heavy timber construction. The floors are tinted, polished concrete. The school's tight construction schedule led the architects to design pine columns and trusses that were assembled off-site with steel plates and bolts. The pre-assembled components were trucked in and the building frame was erected in two weeks.
Saint Stephen’s Main Highway Pavilion models sustainable building practices and serves as a learning tool for the students. Curtain walls that define the building envelope on the east and west ends accommodate awning windows for natural ventilation. The curtain walls contain high-efficient glass that rejects heat while drawing natural day lighting into the building's core, penetrating clearstory windows that extend from the top of the interior partitions to the exposed tongue and groove decking on the underside of the roof. The pavilion utilizes a thermal energy storage system in which ice produced in a tank at night when it is cooler is used to augment peak loads during the day, resulting in a 40% reduction in source energy consumption and emissions. Captured rain water from the roof is stored in a below grade cistern and is used to irrigate the entire four acre campus. Free of VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) that are typically found in paints, adhesives, carpets and furniture, the schools healthy indoor air environment reduces the likelihood of illnesses and fatigue. Indigenous reclaimed hardwoods were used for all of the custom millwork, including built-in shelving and benches. |
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Coconut Grove Architect of Record Jenifer Briley Project Designers Melissa Meyer & Jenifer Briley Civil Engineers VSN Engineering Structural Engineer Don Shackleford M.E.P. Engineers L. Triana & Associates Landscape Curtis and Rogers LEED Consultant Gary Schlifer Photo Credit Deepack Chowdhury & J. Briley |
Vizcaya of Kendall
Vizcaya of Kendall (2005-2006) is a product of the Miami-Dade County Traditional Neighborhood Development Ordinance and is based on the Transect, a geographical cross-section of a region that is used to reveal a sequence of environments from rural to urban that vary by level and intensity of character. As per the Transect, the components of the built environment; the land-use, the lot, the building, the street, and all of the elements that comprise a successful immersive environment, are selected and arranged based on the notion that each plays a vital role in sustaining and enhancing the true nature and character of each of the particular Transect zones, resulting in the creation of a healthy, sustainable, and functional environment.
In Vizcaya of Kendall, no design decision was made in isolation. Strategic building placement and a diverse number of building typologies, densities and uses, combine with carefully designed green spaces to collectively create a place that serves both people and nature. Pedestrian oriented, the main street, or “El Prado”, is lined with arcaded, mixed-use buildings and is a grand avenue named after its predecessor in Havana, Cuba. The four-story buildings are composed of retail space at the ground level with residences above. A linear park in the center of “El Prado” leads to the communities’ main civic space, a town square, which is within easy walking distance of the entire community. The Vizcaya Town Square is the first authentic civic space in Miami-Dade County since the creation of Coral Gables. The district also has a wharf and adjacent promenade that is ideal for restaurants and outdoor cafes. The character of the residential enclaves of varied housing typologies such as, the Row House, the Courtyard House, the Sideyard House, the Park House and the Live-Work Units, is rooted in the historical precedents of South Florida's Mediterranean Revival and Mission Style architecture. The continuous unbroken facade of the row houses helps to define the street and is the result of a careful study of the relationship between the street and the building and the public and private realms. The single-family villas are inspired by American Colonial typologies, such as the Charleston Single House, the Courtyard House, and the Florida Masonry Vernacular. Pocket parks strategically placed throughout the community encourage interaction between neighbors. |
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Miami-Dade County Master Plan Duany Plater-Zyberk Architect of Record Rosello Balboa & Lordi Residential Project Manager Melissa Meyer Civil Ford Armenteros & Manucy Structural Zvonimir T. Belfranin M.E.P. Gerado Sixto Perez-Galceran Landscape Architect Douglas Duany Renderings Chris Ritter |
Marlin Bay Yacht Club
Marlin Bay Yacht Club (2004-2005) is located in Marathon, Florida, in the Florida Keys, approximately 50 miles from Key West on a 12.03 acre disturbed upland site that resides on the northern edge of altered Florida Bay shoreline. The property includes .33 acres of leased, previously dredged bay bottom. The site plan calls for a total of 87 single family units and 3 residential flats ranging in size from 1,870 to 3,672 square feet. The private, waterfront enclave is specifically designed for boating and fishing enthusiasts and includes a full service marina with 115 boat slips.
Two peninsula land splits project into the Florida Bay. Twenty-five single family units occupy the lower peninsula and a bay-walk and an observation tower occupy the upper peninsula. Ten single family units as well as the Dockmaster’s facility, which has a store, a lounge, offices, storage faculties, and 3 residential flats, reside on the western edge of a man-made boat basin. Nine single family units line the eastern edge of the basin. Twenty-four single family units, the Clubhouse, which houses a main hall, a conference room, offices, a spa, and exercise facilities, and lush landscaping, surround a beach entry pool and a tiki bar. In the southern corner of the site, 19 single family units surround three courtyards. Breakaway construction methods are used for all of the buildings. Inspired by the Victorian, Neo-classical, and post-modern, well-crafted architectural details of Seaside, Florida, the exteriors include carefully selected finishes, cantilevered balconies, heavy timber trusses, outriggers, and brackets, as well as generous overhangs and intimate outdoor spaces. Phase One, recently completed, has 10 different floor plans. Each features a gourmet kitchen and a 2-car garage, and some units have rooftop terraces and elevators. Large windows, flowing interior spaces, and high ceilings are designed to frame dramatic views. |
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Marathon, Florida Architect of Record John Nichols Project Designer Melissa Meyer & Team Civil Calvin Giordano & Associates Structural G.F. Consulting Engineers M.E.P. J.P.G. Engineering Group Landscape Architects Bradshaw, Gill & Associates Interior Design Howard Design Group Renderings Chris Ritter |
Smith Residence
The Smith Residence (1994-1995) is a 3,228 sq. ft. lake front passive and active solar home constructed with foam blocks called Insulated Concrete Forms or I.C.F.'s. Boasting an R-value of 21, the walls are fire, earthquake and termite resistant, and the layers of foam insulation provide excellent soundproofing as well as backing for drywall on the inside and stucco on the outside. A solar panel system provides electricity for hot water, appliances, and warms the water used in the radiant floor heating system that is embedded in the concrete floor on the first level.
Passive solar elements, such as south facing windows, allow the sun to also warm the radiant concrete floors, which along with a wood stove, heat the entire house in the winter. In the summertime a whole house fan circulates warm air out of the house and draws cool air in. A rain-water recycling system is used for an outdoor shower and to water the landscaping. A built-in through-wall recycling system allows all recyclables to be easily transferred and sorted from the kitchen to a recycling station outside. Skylights on the deck allow sunlight into a basement woodshop. |
Location
Rolesville, North Carolina Designers Randy Smith & Melissa Meyer Contractor Randy Smith Builders Randy Smith & Melissa Meyer Green Design Consultant Melissa Meyer |