Holiday Reception Recap

Thank you to everyone who came out for our annual holiday party, held at our offices earlier this month.  The event was a chance for us to show our appreciation for our loyal clients and friends.  The main attraction was an exhibit of watercolor and acrylic paintings by Tom Cullins, who has built an impressive portfolio of representational and abstract paintings, exploring the light, form, and detail of his surroundings in Vermont and Greece.  His work has recently been shown elsewhere in Burlington, Shelburne, and at a two-person exhibition in Kea, Greece.

The night was also a celebration of the life of Kathy Lamoy, who was an essential part of our office for 19 years.  A healthy portion of the proceeds from the sale of Tom’s paintings went towards an education fund for Kathy’s daughter, Chelsea.  And we are happy to say that almost all of the paintings in the show were quickly sold.  There are still a few unclaimed works, and many are still on display.  So if you missed the opening reception, you are welcome to stop by our offices between now and the end of year to view this original artwork.

Here are a few photos from the event, and more are posted on our facebook page.

  

Field Excursion

posted by Matthew Bushey

It’s an annual tradition in our office that once a year, we step aside from our desks for a few hours and make a group pilgrimage to visit a few works of architecture and design that we hope will serve to inspire and inform.

This time around, we visited three TruexCullins projects that opened their doors for business over this past year: Church & Main restaurant in downtown Burlington; the new FBO facility for Heritage Flight at the Burlington International Airport; and the wonderfully bright renovation to the Kindergarten and 1st grade wing of the Hinesburg Community School.

Our tour started with a delicious lunch at Church & Main, the new restaurant at the bottom of Church Street that just opened over Columbus Day weekend. (I recommend the Chicken and Waffles, found under the “Your Comfort Zone” section of the menu: a perfectly cooked boneless filet of crispy fried chicken served on a savory herbed corn waffle topped with a bourbon & bacon gravy. Yum!)

But of course, we were focused on the Interior Design: TruexCullins Interiors assisted with the furnishings, lighting, and finishes in this renovated space, formerly occupied by the popular Smokejacks restaurant. For the rebirth as Church & Main, the bar has been pulled forward towards Church Street, and a variety of seating options are available in the dining room in the back half of the space, including flexible tables and intimate semi-circular booths.

       

Our next stop was the impressive Heritage Aviation facility at the Burlington airport. Richard Deane led a tour of the 60,000 square foot building that was completely stripped and rebuilt from an old Army National Guard hangar.We started in the lobby, where the immense structural crossbracing gives you the first indication that this is a space with high ambitions.  As we continued through the building, the well appointed interiors were evident in everything from the executive conference rooms to the public restrooms. Up on the roof, we walked along one of the largest green roofs in New England, set amidst a 19 kW PV array and within view of the adjacent 100 kW wind turbine, the first ever installed at an airport location. This super-green facility was the 2010 winner of Efficiency Vermont's Best of the Best Award in Commercial Building Design & Construction, and is receiving LEED Silver Certification.

Our last stop was to the Hinesburg Community School, which only 2 weeks earlier had opened the doors on their new Kindergarten and grade-1 wing. This renovation was the work of Matt Wheaton in the Education Studio, with interior designer Rebekah Bose. This was the perfect way to end our day: there is no better way to appreciate the work that any of us do than to hear from those who use it on a daily basis. And at this place, the last stop on our tour, we were lucky enough to speak with the teachers who are benefiting from the renovation, a space they simply refer to as a “gift”. There was a smile on everyone’s face as we listened to the very kind words of the Principal, Bob Goudreau. He described the transformation in the attitude of the students, teachers and parents who have walked down these halls.

The classroom wing has been reconfigured, with the addition of new lighting, colorful finishes, and skylights that punctuate the ceiling in a staggered rhythm marching down the hall. This newest wing of the Hinesburg Community School is a space that facilitates learning, but also makes learning fun.

Passive House design comes to Vermont

Posted by Rolf Kielman, AIA, LEED AP

The Passive House: it sounds like some kind of strategic mind game for buildings. In actuality, this is a very positive development for designing better buildings.

In the quest for more knowledge about these passive houses, I spent last weekend with Marc Rosenbaum at the Yestermorrow Design-Build School. The course he was teaching dealt with the comprehensive process involved in the design of Passive House. The Passive House is a rigorous process for ensuring dramatically improved energy performance. This process has been stringently refined by (who else?) German design professionals. It is applicable to larger scale buildings as well, and many European structures are being built to these standards.

The continued increase in world-wide energy costs has led to higher performance expectations for the buildings we design. The Germans and the Japanese have established standards that mandate a low level of energy consumption per square meter of building area. These standards will soon be coming to North America. I would not be surprised to ultimately see performance criteria established for our buildings much as we already have mileage criteria for automobiles.

During the 1970s, I (and many others) designed low energy homes. These homes often had renewable energy collection systems and were either super insulated or double envelope houses. At the time, we did little to rectify air leakage or utilize much more than the crudest methods to measure building performance. Nevertheless, those buildings became the precedent structures that our design colleagues around the world are now emulating and improving on.

The principal behind the making of Passive House is simple: provide houses (or any building) with an exceptional thermal blanket. So exceptional, that all one might need to heat the house is a single candle or some form of minimally fueled heating device. The higher cost of fuel has spurred the European Communities to accelerate their quest for the more “perfect” building. Many of us in North America are again in quest of this perfection.

A Passive House is more than just an ultra thick blanket of insulation, however. The “blanket” must be designed to minimize air leakage, and as we all know, it can get stuffy under a blanket that doesn’t offer some modicum of ventilation. Enter an effective ventilation system that supplies fresh outdoor air. Ventilation is essential, but when we ventilate in our cold climate we dump lots of warm, stale air into the winter night. So, we ventilate with what is called an energy or heat recovery ventilator. In slightly more moderate climates (such as much of Germany), an ERV is about all that’s needed to heat a super-insulated and non-leaky home.

Here in northern Vermont we need a little extra heat, and this can be provided by an electric heating coil placed within the ductwork of the ERV. Or, if a little romantic bio-fuel is desired, one could install a pellet or wood stove, perhaps with a hot water coil on the back to provide supplemental hot water for showers and washing dishes. Increasing in popularity is a mini-split air-to-air heat pump. These devices extract heat from outside air and add it to your interior heating needs. The advantage to these little babies is that they can run in reverse in summer and help cool your house. This device runs on electricity as well. It should be stressed that the heat load, even in our climate, is minimal. For the electric heating coil or heat pump, a photovoltaic array on the roof would supply the electricity required for the coil/pump as well as supplying additional renewable power for your home’s lighting and electrical needs.

I believe the idea behind passive House is sound. Spend a little extra money on the building envelope and save money on the cost of a heating plant and distribution system. The Passive House has fewer moving mechanical parts and very high overall building performance. Save money on heating fuels (the cost is only going up), and dump less carbon into the air. All is good.

A couple of other points worthy of discussion: with a sound building envelope, fresh air supply and a modest heating source, we still need natural light to live and grow. While windows are vastly improved with regard to thermal effectiveness, they still fall far short of a well-insulated wall. So Passive House logically places windows on the south side with more modest amounts of glass on the east, west and north. A good window on the south side of our houses, even in the Vermont winter, is still a net heat gain, so this glazing contributes heat to the house’s needs.

Passive House is a great idea. The certification process looks complicated, but the design and calculation principals are sound. A good rule of thumb is keeping the shape of your home straightforward… even box-like. Think of our ancestors who populated much of the New England landscape. Their buildings were remarkably straightforward and often the more elegant for that simplicity. That simple beauty lies at the root of our building traditions and Passive House seems like an idea that New Englanders will embrace.

Holiday Reception

Please join us as we celebrate the holidays with a special exhibit of paintings by Tom Cullins,

Thursday December 2nd from 5pm - 8pm at our offices at 209 Battery Street in Burlington.

 

Tom's paintings represent a lifelong exploration of abstract composition, color and light, built on his 40 year architectural career and inspired by his observations of Greece and Vermont.  You can see a selection of some of his work at cullinsart.com

A portion of the proceeds raised from the sale of the artwork will benefit the Chelsea Education Fund, in memory of Chelsea's mother and longtime TruexCullins employee Kathy Lamoy.

We hope to see you there!

 

PechaKucha Burlington Vol. 1 - See you there!

Check out this cool event happening in Burlington this week...

Thursday, November 4, 6:00 PM at the Fleming Museum's Marble Court

PechaKucha Night (PKN) is a worldwide phenomenon that began in 2003 in Tokyo. It offers the opportunity for a broad range of participants to present their projects, ideas, thoughts, and designs at a fun, informal, and fast-paced gathering. Drawing its name from the Japanese word for the sound of "chit chat," PKN uses a quick and concise 20 x 20 presentation format that allows you to show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. You describe your project as the images forward automatically. The Fleming is delighted to welcome this exciting new event to Burlington. Join PKN BTV for a take on our community's creative pulse! Drinks and snacks will be on hand with music selected by Ryan Miller of Guster! Learn more about PechaKucha at their international website, here.
  

Adults: $5, Students: $3; PechaKucha Night - devised and shared by Klein Dytham architecture. Media Sponsorship provided by Seven Days.

For more information:

Please visit http://www.flemingmuseum.org/

Call 802.656.0750 or Email fleming@uvm.edu

Follow PKN BTV on FACEBOOK

Parking and Directions

Also listen to this recent NPR story on PechaKucha.

OneDegreeTV: Heritage Aviation's 'smarter, greener building'

Our friends at LoveTomorrowToday created this fantastic new video featuring our client Heritage Aviation and its new green facility, designed by TruexCullins.  Take a look here!

This project has been recognized with two awards:  The Burlington Business Association's Hertzel N. Pasackow Architectural Excellence Award and Efficiency Vermont's Best of the Best Award in Commercial Building Design & Construction.  We also anticipate that this project will receive LEED Silver Certification this fall.  

A Terrific Article About the Vermont Foodbank's Kingsbury Farm

Please take a moment ot read this wonderful article about Kingsbury Farm in a recent issue of Seven Days.  You may recall two blog posts from last year written by David Epstein, who is on the Board of the Vermont Foodbank http://truexcullins.blogspot.com/2009/10/vermont-foodbanks-kingsbury-farm-part-i.html and http://truexcullins.blogspot.com/2009/10/vermont-foodbanks-kingsbury-farm-part.html.  David has been involved with the Kingsbury Farm project providing master planning and architectural design services.

Banking on Fresh

A pioneering partnership brings local produce to Mad River Valley food banks
By Lauren Ober 10.06.10, Photo: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur of Nancy Smith

 

Wednesdays this summer and fall have been like Christmas at the Kingsbury Market Garden in Warren. That’s when volunteers from area food shelves come to pick up their cases of fresh produce. The bounty can sometimes be overwhelming — on a recent Wednesday, for instance, when the selection makes Ruth Haskins of the Duxbury Elf’s Shelf squeal.

 

“What do we have today?” she asks farmer Aaron Locker as he carries bins of vegetables to her car.  Locker ticks off a list of produce: russet potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, onions.  “Oooh, yes!” Haskins says, her face lighting up.

 

The 178 families her food shelf serves will be thrilled — Locker’s broccoli has been a huge hit with Haskins’ clients. They can’t get enough of it, she says.

 

If it seems unusual for food-shelf staff to be picking up produce from a local farm much as CSA members collect their weekly allotments, that’s because it is. Most food shelves get their food from federal commodities programs and donations from individuals and businesses. When they offer fresh produce, it often comes from gleaning — collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields.

 

The Kingsbury Farm and the 10 food shelves and meal sites of the Mad River Valley have forged a unique partnership in its inaugural year. They’ve teamed up to give families who are at risk for hunger or experiencing it access to fresh produce every week during the growing season. Their link: the Vermont Foodbank.

 

Read more...

11th Annual Roland Batten Lecture : Humanitarian Architecture

We are pleased to announce that our own Rolf Kielman will be speaking at the 11th annual Roland Batten Lecture on Wednesday, October 20th at 5:30pm, at 301 Williams Hall on the UVM Campus. Rolf will be presenting a talk on Humanitarian Architecture: a presentation of essential built work in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The event is free and open to the public.

Projects will be presented from Latin America, Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Most of these projects address essential housing, educational and community needs. Those involved in the implementation of these projects include architects, builders, planners and an extensive network of volunteers and non-government agencies. These necessary works are often of a design-build nature and utilize local resources, labor and building materials. Indigenous methods of construction shape the basic approach but new and sustainable methods of detailing and building are used to ensure improved durability.

The projects presented are situated in Guatemala, Uganda, Mozambique, Guinea and Bangladesh. They range from modest cooking facilities and dormitories, to schools and community centers. The work highlights the increasing involvement of young designers, engaged individuals and volunteer organizations who working to improve the quality of life in areas fraught with poverty and the impact of natural disasters and environmental degradation.

Rolf will also describe several ways in which you can become involved in this kind of work and local organizations and firms that you might wish to contact.

This is the 11th Annual Roland Batten Lecture, a series created in honor of our friend and colleague, architect Roland Batten who passed away in 1999. This event is sponsored by the Roland Batten Memorial Fund, TruexCullins, and the University of Vermont's Visiting Artists, Art Critics and Art Historians Lecture Series. We hope to see you there!

2010 Art Hop & aiaVT Home Tours

Even though we will not be an Art Hop stop this year, we will be out hopping on Sept 10th and 11th.  Hope you are planning to go to this year's Art Hop too.  Be sure to check out the newly renovated Maltex Building on Pine Street, a recently completed TruexCullins' Workplace Studio project.  For more information  visit  http://www.seaba.com/.

And after you've taken in all the art and culture the Art Hop has to offer, explore some local residential architecture during aiaVT's 2010 Home Tours, also on September 11th.  Titled Innovation & Tradition, this year's tours feature six homes designed by local architects, including a South Farm House designed by TruexCullins. For more information visit http://www.aiavt.org/.

Top Five: Tables

posted by Matthew Bushey, AIA 

The kids are heading back to school and we’re starting to think about fall in Vermont.  To close out this summer-long series of top-five lists on the blog, I’m turning back to furniture design, a field of study that for many architects is an unencumbered source of design purity. 

I started the summer with a review of my top five favorite chairs.  To wrap up the series, I’m looking at the chair’s natural counterpart: the table.  This list includes some classics, and some new innovations, but they’re all noteworthy for their design integrity and bold statements. 

1.   FUSION TABLE by Aramith

Many tables have multiple uses, but the Fusion Table actually changes itself to accommodate two functions: it is a regulation-sized billiards table, and a beautifully modern dining table.

I saw this table in person at NeoCon a few years ago and have been intrigued with the concept ever since. The wood dining surface removes to reveal a quality slate pool surface beneath, with just enough room for ball and cue storage.  Because standard pockets would have hung down too far for dining, the table uses stretch nylon fabric to collect the balls that reverts back when not in use.  And if that weren’t all, the table accommodates the difference between the standard 30” dining height and the 33” height for game play.  The table’s legs rise up 3” with an auto-locking and auto-leveling mechanism that ensures a level playing surface at regulation height.

Pool tables take up a lot of space in a house, so this could be the answer if you need to multitask to fit everything in.

2.  CAMPFIRE PAPER TABLE by Turnstone

Turnstone, a division of Steelcase, recently rolled out their Campfire collection of casual workplace furnishings that are designed to promote creative interactions based on “feel-good” places such as beach-side cabanas and park benches.

The Paper Table is the office version of gathering around the campfire.  A giant pad of white paper functions as the table’s surface so that you can brainstorm with coworkers, make a quick note, tear off a sheet, and reveal a clean page underneath. It’s also available with a glass top that you can scribble on with dry-erase markers.

As much as I like this table, I liked the design prototype even more.  The original concept was much larger, with a donut-shaped paper top that was visible along the edge.  The whole thing was a giant spool of paper.  But I’m told you practically needed a forklift to move the thing, so when it came time for production, they had to scale it down a bit.

3.  NOGUCHI COFFEE TABLE by Herman Miller

This classic table by Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi was originally created in 1944.  The Noguchi Coffee Table is a brilliantly simple design consisting of only three elements, a freeform glass top and two interlocking solid wood legs.  It is a perfect balance between art and furniture.  The piece presents a feeling of delicate fluidity, but it is in fact a very sturdy and durable table.

The Noguchi Coffee Table is available through Herman Miller.  You will know yours is an authentic Noguchi, and not one of the many copycats out there, by the signature that is printed along the longest edge of the glass top.

4.  CUBE TABLE by Brent Comber 

Our interiors department is constantly scouring the furniture market looking for unique pieces for use in our projects.  This is one of my favorite finds that we proposed recently for a ski resort project.

The cube table is a single block of solid Douglas Fir.  It comes in three sizes: 14.5”, 15.5”, or 17.5” square.  The large one weighs in at a whopping 110 pounds of solid wood.  It looks simple, but this is actually an extremely difficult piece to produce.

The artist is Brent Comber, a woodworker who crafts furniture and sculpture out of his studio in British Colombia.  According to Comber, this is the most difficult piece of his to reproduce successfully.  The cube table takes a natural material and shapes it into a form that is by definition unnatural:  the cube is the only form that does not occur in nature.  This is the beauty of the piece: a statement of man exerting his will upon a material.

5.  EAMES MOLDED PLYWOOD COFFEE TABLE by Herman Miller

As an Eames fan, I have to include one of the classic mid-century modern Eames tables in my list.  The molded plywood coffee table, designed in 1946, utilizes the same bent plywood techniques that Charles and Ray perfected throughout their career.  The round top of this table is slightly indented to form a tray, and the bent plywood legs are a perfect match to their famous molded plywood chairs.  This table is a classic because of its simplicity in design, strength in form, and functional clarity.

Questions?  Comments?  Let me know what you think.  And thanks for reading.

Top Five: Exterior Skins

posted by Matthew Bushey, AIA

Summer is starting to wind down, and we’re enjoying these last few days of late August.  So too are we nearing the end of our 10-part series of Top Five lists of our favorite products and places.

To prove that I care about more than just what’s on the inside, this week I review my top five exterior cladding materials.  Some of these products can be found on our own buildings designed by TruexCullins, but I didn’t work on any of these projects personally, so I feel I’m still able to provide somewhat of an unbiased opinion.

1.   Parklex Facade

You may have seen this new façade go up on the Maltex Building on Pine Street.  This TruexCullins project included the interior and exterior renovation of a 1960s office building. The lower half of the front of the building is clad with Parklex exterior panels.

What looks like a simple wood panel is actually a highly engineered product designed to withstand the forces of nature, suitable for even our harsh Vermont winters.  Technically speaking, it is a high-density stratified timber panel manufactured from kraft paper treated with resins.  The panel is factory-finished with a wood veneer that is resistant to UV radiation.  The product comes in 4x8 sheets in 8 colors.  The “gold” color was used at the Maltex building.

Parklex is a Spanish company.  We also looked at one of their competitors who makes a similar product, Prodema, which is also from Spain.

2.  EcoClad Exterior by Klip Biotechnologies

The EcoClad Exterior panel is one of the newest products from Joel Klippert, the inventor of that popular green countertop material, PaperStone. 

EcoClad is a bio-composite panel that comes in standard 4 x 8 sheets.  It is available in 10 wood grains and 8 matte colors, all as stock products, and custom color matching is available.  Like Paperstone, this product is made primarily from FSC-certified post-consumer recycled paper with a water-based co-polymer resin binder.  The difference here is that bamboo strands are added to the mix, a rapidly-renewable resource that adds strength, durability, and scratch resistance.

So far, there are very few installations of EcoClad, probably due at least in part to its high price.  But I hope it catches on, as it is a beautiful, sustainable cladding material with a truly modern look.

3.  Highway Signboard Backing

This new house, recently completed on Chase Street in Burlington, is unlike any of its neighbors.  Designed by architect Christian Brown, the home features some creative exterior skins.

What I find most unique about it, at least on the exterior, is the use of highway signboard backing as an exterior cladding material.  This is a novel use of a relatively inexpensive material.  Exterior wood panels (like Parklex) or composite panels (like EcoClad) are normally pretty expensive, but I imagine this is a much cheaper solution.  It might help to have a friend who works at the state highway department.  This material is what they use to make highway road signs, so you know it’s rigid, water resistant, and can withstand a fair amount of force.

If you’d like to take a closer look, this project is one of the houses that is on the upcoming AIA Vermont Home Tour, September 11^th from 10 to 3pm.  The theme for this year’s tour is “The Tradition of Innovation”.  For more info, click over to http://www.aiavt.org/, or jump directly to this PDF of the event postcard that describes all six homes that are on the tour.

4.  Insulated Metal Panels by Metecno

The Heritage Aviation facility at the Burlington airport was recently expanded to include this renovated aircraft hangar and Fixed Based Operation for the private charter airline.  The 1955-era Army National Guard hangar was stripped to the underlying steel and concrete shell and then outfitted with a new high-performance exterior envelope.  One of the key components in this new envelope is the skin of insulated metal panels.  The product used here was Metecno, but we would also recommend another brand, Kingspan.

The core material is a laminated polyiso insulation.  The gurus at Building Science Corp have touted polyiso as one of the best choices in rigid insulation, so we know that the laminated panel is a great way to provide wall insulation and finish material in one easy step.  The panels lock together to form a continuous skin around the entire building.

What I like about the composition of the Heritage Building is the random mix of colors and the proportion of the individual pieces.  This façade proves that insulated metal panels need not be reserved for suburban warehouses or undecorated sheds.

5.  Corrugated Metal Panels by Centria

For the last entry, I’m going back to the Maltex building.  This time, I’m looking at the corrugated metal skin along the top of the façade.  These metal panels are from the Concept Series by Centria.  They are a ribbed panel with interlocking joints and concealed fasteners.

What’s most striking about this installation is how the signage is built right into the skin.  The lettering and the graphic logo were cut directly out of the metal using a high-precision waterjet.  The profile of the corrugated metal gives the graphics a deeper relief and increased dimension.

What used to be a nondescript painted concrete block box has been made into something of a modern landmark. The ribbed metal marries nicely with the Parklex wood skin, and together, this new palette of materials complements the beauty of the original 1899 brick structure.  What I like best about this façade – and many of the other projects in this list of five – is the unconventional use of the materials that are all too often used in mundane ways. 

What do you think of these five building skins?  Leave a comment below.  And come back next week for my final post.

Top Five: Las Vegas Interiors

posted by Matthew Bushey, AIA

I have a love/hate relationship with Las Vegas.  I’m drawn to the bright lights and architectural wonderland, but after a few days, the sensory overload starts to get to me, and I start to long for the tranquil mountains of Vermont.  On a deeper level, I struggle with the fabricated authenticity of the mega-resorts, and the environmentalist in me loathes the scale of flights, lights, and air conditioned rooms in such a fragile desert environment.

But let’s put these issues aside for a moment and focus on the merits of Sin City: it is one place a designer can go to find everything under the sun: the good, the bad, and the ugly.  It is a laboratory of design ideas, and every few years, the whole thing reinvents itself. 

During our latest trip to Vegas (strictly business, of course), a lot of our attention was focused on the hotels of the brand-new CItyCenter development, still celebrating their grand opening.  But some of our favorite interiors were located elsewhere on the strip as well.  These are our top five Las Vegas interiors.  (click the photos below to zoom in for a closer look.)

1.   TWIST at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel

In an earlier post, I mentioned the new ARIA hotel, the centerpiece of the 18-million square foot CityCenter mega-development.  This is the largest and most expensive commercial project in the history of the U.S.  At the front of CityCenter, directly facing Las Vegas Boulevard, sits the 47-story Mandarin Oriental, a non-gaming hotel and residential tower designed by Kohn-Pedersen Fox.  The lower half of the building is comprised of hotel guestrooms and suites, while the upper half is the residential portion.  When entering the building, you immediately zip up to the 23^rd floor Sky Lobby, where you’ll find the registration desk, Mandarin Bar, and Twist Restaurant.

Twist by French chef Pierre Gagnaire was designed by Adam Tihany of Tihany Design, one of the marquee names of architects and designers brought in to design the CityCenter development.

The restaurant interior is illuminated with 300 glass globes that seem to float from the ceiling.  The walls are finished with sculpted art panels that look like cracked eggshells.  This motif is picked up again on the menu and table linens.  And surrounding it all are floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Las Vegas strip.

 

     

2.  FIAMMA TRATTORIA & BAR at MGM Grand

This space in the MGM Grand has a lot going on.  The Fiamma Trattoria is an Italian-inspired restaurant but has a very modern, “upscale rustic” design.  It is very Vegas, edgy with a hint of romance.

Materiality takes a back seat to light and form.  The restaurant has dark wood floors, modern furniture, and dramatic lighting.  We were especially drawn to the backlit marble tabletops, and the chainmail fireplace flue surround.

The space lacks an overall cohesion to pull everything together, and I’m not sure if the overindulgent explosion of forms pairs well with the simple flavors of Italy.  But still, there are so many clever and attractive moves here that it warrants a spot on my top five.

3.  VDARA HOTEL LOBBY

The Vdara hotel is a smaller, quieter, non-gaming hotel that is located next door to ARIA, on the more private side of the CityCenter site.

The opening of CityCenter just last year marked a huge break from the themepark approach of the latest chapter in the history of Vegas hotels.  Up until now, the grandest spaces on the strip were built as reproductions (or variants) of world cities such as Paris, Venice, and New York.  These spaces are replicas of something else.  They are fakes.

CityCenter turned the page on that chapter, with an array of hotels and residences based on nothing more than pure architectural modernism.  I see here a use of original design as a means of achieving authenticity.  It makes sense, then, that CityCenter also invested so much in an impressive collection of modern art.  MGM Resorts, the owners of CityCenter, spent $40 million for 15 original pieces that are sprinkled throughout the buildings and grounds.

One of the best spots to experience some of these masterworks is the main lobby of the Vdara Hotel.  Behind the reception desk is one of Frank Stella’s most prominent pieces, “Damascus Gate Variation I”, from 1969, an 8 x 32 foot shaped canvas of semicircles in luminous colors.  It was reported to us (by the amiable young girls behind the reception desk) that MGM paid $5 million for this piece.  Just a few steps away, hanging in the main lobby opposite the Bar Vdara, is “Lucky Dream” by Robert Rauschenberg, a 1999 collage of found images that is heralded as one of his masterpieces.  Around the corner, in the concierge lobby, is a new commission by the American artist Peter Wegner: “Day for Night, Night for Day”, two towering sculptures of colored paper on opposing east and west walls, 34 and 45 feet tall, respectively.  And right outside is another new commission by the sculptor Nancy Rubins, “Big Edge”, a 57 by 75 foot long conglomeration of rowboats, canoes and other water vessels merging into a gravity-defying “blooming flower”.

Together, these pieces constitute some of the best works from some of the biggest names in Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Post-Modernism.

4.  WOLFGANG PUCK BAR & GRILLE at MGM Grand

The Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grille is an airy, summery space that stands as a peaceful retreat within the harsher environment of the jarring casino.  The restaurant opened in 2004 in the MGM Grand.

Wolfgang Puck forever changed the culinary scene in Vegas with the opening of his signature restaurant, Spago.  This Bar & Grille is a continuation of the celebrity-chef phenomenon, with a thoughtfully designed interior.  As described on wolfgangpuck.com, “Designer Tony Chi combines the energetic feel of the beach lifestyle and the cool beauty of a garden to capture the essence of the casual elegance of the California dining experience”.

We liked the simple wood furniture, with thoughtful details like the accentuated barstool feet sitting on a light wood floor.  Tablecloth fabric is stretched over ceiling panels arranged overhead.  And there is a playful use of translucency and transparency in the patterned glass that surrounds you.  The whole thing feels like a summer picnic.

5.  FIX at the Bellagio

Many Vegas interiors are offensively busy, bombarding you with an explosion of forms and colors, intended to get your heart pumping.  At the Fix restaurant in the Bellagio hotel, you’re greeted with a soothing atmosphere of flowing forms that are just as exhilarating as anything you’d find elsewhere on the strip, but without the tacky razzle dazzle.

The interiors of FIX are based on a simple gesture that is carried consistently throughout the entire space.  The restaurant is enclosed from floor to ceiling in curved Costa Rican padouk wood.  Even the mechanical systems are integrated into the flowing curves.  If you look carefully, you’ll see the wood planks dip slightly to reveal a fresh air register.  Some very complicated coordination took place here to make this seem as simple as it does.

You can’t tell by these photos, but the space is also completely open on one side to the main floor of the Bellagio casino, allowing for prime viewing.  The sinuous curves enveloping the entire room provide a sheltered sanctuary from which you can safely observe the debauchery beyond.