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 New Nationals Park Opens in Washington, D.C.
An energetic crowd of more than 40,000 helped inaugurate the new Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., on March 30. The ballpark, a collaboration of Kansas City-based HOK Sport and architect-of-record D.C.-based Devrouax + Purnell Architects and Planners PC, recently was awarded LEED® Silver certification, the first major league ballpark to be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. AIA President Marshall Purnell, FAIA, design principal at Devrouax + Purnell, led the way in working with the city and giving the ball park a design unique to Washington, D.C., while HOK Sport plied their experience to make the facility a top-drawer baseball experience.   “It’s a Ballpark”
AIA President Marshall Purnell, FAIA, talks about the new Nationals Park
“It’s not a stadium, it’s a ballpark,” says AIA President Marshall Purnell, FAIA, of the new Nationals Park in Washington D.C., referring to the more intimate, bucolic nature of a venue specifically for baseball. Purnell, design principal at Devrouax + Purnell, was instrumental in the ballpark’s design, and his Washington, D.C., firm served as architect of record. “Our firm focused on what could make the ballpark uniquely Washington,” he enthuses. Devrouax + Purnell formed a joint venture with Kansas City-based HOK Sport to create the state-of-the-art ballpark, recently awarded LEED® Silver certification, a first for Major League Baseball.
 Ralph Rapson, FAIA Remembered
Modernist architect, educator, urban planner, painter, sculptor, and graphic, fabric, and furniture designer Ralph Rapson died March 29 at his Minneapolis home. He was 93. A Fellow of the Institute and the 1987 recipient of the AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion, Rapson’s life is a litany of accomplishment. He headed the University of Minnesota School of Architecture for 30 years. “He was the dean of Minnesota’s architecture community and the last of the second generation of Modernists in America still practicing,” notes Thomas Fisher, Assoc. AIA, current dean of the school. “His passing ends an era in American architecture as well as in the history of the school, and he will be very much missed by the thousands of people he influenced.”
 Architecture Week Begins with a Triple Launch
An April 8 open house at the AIA headquarters building in Washington, D.C,, kicked off this week’s celebration of Architecture Week with the debut of the Blueprint for America exhibition and its on-line Mosaic display, announcement of the Internet-based Shape of America program, and the initial release of the book Architecture: Celebrating the Past, Designing the Future.
Architecture Week—established in 2007 in conjunction with a congressional resolution and presidential proclamation marking the AIA’s 150th anniversary—will be observed this year from April 7–13.
AIA Podcast Offers Insights on Coping with Unfavorable Business Conditions
Just posted is a 25-minute on-line discussion of the current economic situation, how it affects architects, and how firms can position themselves to cope with business conditions that are looking increasingly unfavorable. AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA; firm management consultant Michael Strogoff, AIA; and small-firm practitioner and educator Marjorie Callahan, AIA, provide their insight into how to keep your firm going strong by keeping in touch with clients, targeting the firm, making tough staffing decisions, diversifying, making wise project decisions, and otherwise positioning yourself for the inevitable market upturns. To listen to this discussion, click here. |
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