Design Started on Expanded Indiana Convention Center

The Indiana Stadium and Convention Center Building Authority has selected Indianapolis-based RATIO Architects to lead a team of design firms in the planning and design of the $275 million Indiana Convention Center Expansion.

The project will add 270,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space and 125,000 sq. ft. of ballroom/meeting space to the existing structure.

The convention center is the economic engine that drives the local hospitality industry, an industry that provides 51,000 jobs in Central Indiana.
RATIO will lead the design team that includes three other local architects: BSA LifeStructures, Blackburn Architects and Domain Architecture.

The Convention Center master planning process started in June and will be finished in December. Design of the expansion and construction document creation is expected to begin in January 2007 and be completed a year later.

In spring 2008, the RCA Dome will be demolished to make way for the Convention Center Expansion construction. The Convention Center Expansion is scheduled to be completed in fall 2010.

Project challenges include creating a cohesive connection between the expanded Convention Center and the Indianapolis' Colts new home, Lucas Oil Stadium, on a limited amount of land; knitting the new construction with the existing facility to create an updated, consistent Convention Center; demolishing the RCA Dome to make room for the expansion; and constructing the Convention Center Expansion to allow the existing Convention Center business to maintain ongoing operations.

The building is expected to generate about $165 million a year in revenue from 20 new major conventions and trade shows when completed and an additional four to five large consumer shows each year.

A Dozen Design, Building Firms Join Clean Effort

Clean Air Counts, a Chicago-based program sponsored by the Metropolitan Mayor's Caucus, has launched a campaign featuring executives in beach attire frolicking on the Lake Michigan shoreline and celebrating the difference they've made in air quality.

As part of the campaign, executives of Jones Lang LaSalle and others are featured "playing on the beach" in ads in Crain's, Chicago Tribune and on billboards located on the Kennedy, Dan Ryan and other thoroughfares. Their voices can also be heard on WBBM and WGN Radio.

The purpose of the campaign is to reward successful campaign adopters and to encourage participation from other Chicago area businesses.

More than 300 organizations, including more than a dozen in construction and architecture, have joined the program and agreed to voluntary steps to reduce air pollution emissions.

Clean Air Counts is a collaborative partnership of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, U.S. Environmental Protection agency, city of Chicago and Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. The campaign offers a voluntary approach to targeting smog-inducing pollutants from unregulated sources and is coupled with an innovative quantification and reporting system.

For information, visit www.cleanaircounts.org on the Internet
or call 312-201-4508.

Two Midwest Projects Honored for Brick

Two Midwest projects were recently honored with Brick in Architecture Awards.

The Copernicus Center in Chicago was recognized in the Municipal/Government category, and McKinley Avenue at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., was honored in the Landscape Architecture category.

The program was organized by the Reston, Va.-based Brick Industry Association. It recognizes outstanding works of nonresidential architecture completed since 2001 in which clay brick is prominently featured.

A panel of five architects and three landscape architects from across the country judged the entries based on fulfillment of project goals, aesthetic interest and appeal and overall impression.

Winning entries are featured in the Brick Gallery on BIA's website, www.gobrick.com.

Indianapolis Architect Designs Wins International Competition

Indiana architect Chunsheh Teo's design of an African AIDS orphanage bested entrants from across the globe to win Architecture Sans Frontieres UK's international design idea competition.

His design, in combination with two other winners from the United Kingdom and Italy, will be used to create the design primer for a new 50-cottage cluster housing development that will accommodate 300 children affected by HIV/AIDS on approximately 10 acres of land in Mirand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

An architectural graduate with Ratio Architects, Teo's concept was chosen from an international pool of entries, including entries from Australia, the United Kingdom, Kenya, India, Portugal, the United States, South Africa, France and Chile.

"I was inspired to enter this competition not only because it challenges the 'design mind,' but also because it was for a great cause," Teo said. "Along with that, I'm always intrigued as to how other professionals and designers react to the same design challenge."

The competition asked designers to use their ingenuity to create a facility that emotionally and physically cares for AIDS orphans, incorporating innovative uses of everyday and recycled materials and analyzing special and beneficial formational relationships. The competition's purpose was three-fold: to generate ideas for the facility's design primer; to raise awareness about the problem of AIDS in South Africa; and to raise money for the project.

ASF-UK London creates and strengthens a network of individuals, built environment professionals and organizations who actively contribute to architecture, urbanism and sustainable design as a means of improving habitats of disadvantaged communities in the UK and abroad.

Catholic Charities Gets Client Award

Catholic Charities Housing Development Corp. is a recipient of the Quality Client Award from Detroit-based design firm Harley Ellis Devereaux.

The Chicago office of Harley Ellis had nominated the Catholic organization.

It was honored for proactive collaboration and mutually aligned values leading to many successful projects across Chicagoland.

The CCHDC's mission is to sponsor and develop affordable housing for senior citizens and other at-risk populations. Harley Ellis has assisted in this mission since 1989, completing 10 major projects, including the Bernardin Manor Senior Housing and Senior Center in Calumet City. A current project, the St. Vincent de Paul Senior Housing residence, is slated for completion in 2007.