Windhover Contemplative Center Stanford University, Architect, California Architecture Project
Windhover Contemplative Center : Stanford University
San Francisco Building by Aidlin Darling Design Architects, California, USA
Aug 9, 2013
Windhover Contemplative Center Stanford University
Design: Aidlin Darling Design, Architects
Designed by Aidlin Darling Design, Stanford University’s Windhover Contemplative Center Breaks Ground
Center conceived as a unification of art, landscape, and architecture to both replenish and invigorate the spirit
image from architects
The Windhover Contemplative Center, Stanford University
San Francisco, CA – Designed by Aidlin Darling Design, The Windhover Contemplative Center on the campus of Stanford University, broke ground on Monday, July 29th. The firm, recipients of the Smithsonian’s 2013 National Design Award, used Nathan Oliveira’s meditative Windhover paintings as inspiration to design the one-story, 4,000 square foot spiritual retreat to promote personal renewal.
The space is intended for quiet reflection throughout the day and will provide a place of refuge from the intensity of daily life for Stanford students, faculty, and staff members. The project is slated for completion by Spring 2014.
image from architects
The Windhover Center is located in front of Roble Hall, adjacent to a natural oak grove. The extended progression to the building’s entry through a long, private garden sheltered from its surroundings by a line of tall bamboo, will allow visitors to shed the outside world before entering.
image from architects
The Center will include three rooms featuring five large paintings by the late artist Nathan Oliveira. Within, the space opens fully to the oak glade beyond, while louvered skylights wash the 15 to 30 foot-long paintings with natural light, unifying art, architecture, and landscape. Thick rammed earth walls and wood surfaces will further heighten the visitor’s sensory experience acoustically, tactilely, olfactory, as well as visually.
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Benches and cushions will be strategically placed to allow members of the Stanford Community to quietly view the paintings inside, as well as the oak grove and the Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden outside. The building, enclosed in glass, will allow viewing of the Oliveira paintings from the exterior as well as from within, at all hours of the day and night.
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Water, in conjunction with landscape, will be used throughout as an aid for meditation; fountains within the main gallery and the courtyard will provide ambient sound, while a still reflecting pool and garden to the south reflects the surrounding trees. The Center is being designed in conjunction with Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture.
images from architects
About Aidlin Darling Design
With a shared interest in exploring design across a wide range of scales, programs, and disciplines, Principals Joshua Aidlin and David Darling started Aidlin Darling Design in 1998 as a woodshop. Based in San Francisco, it is a multidisciplinary design firm with a broad focus, which includes institutional, commercial, and residential architecture, as well as furniture, landscape, and interior design.
With an emphasis on designing for all of the senses, Aidlin Darling Design has cultivated a team that strives to deliver the highest level of project management, service, and design. Aidlin Darling Design acts as a creative hub for an extended network of builders, fabricators, artists, engineers, chefs, and other collaborators.
This collaborative process provides an open and impassioned exploration with clients and partners, and enables a clear understanding of appropriate solutions. Each project reflects a desire to uncover an inherent spirit of place and interpret constraints as catalysts for performative design. The individual character of each project emerges through poetic spatial relationships, material richness, and exacting detail.
The firm has garnered over 90 regional, national, and international awards including The 2013 National Design Award for Interiors, a James Beard Award, an AIA COTE Top Ten Award, two American Architecture Awards from the Chicago Athenaeum, an International Civic Trust Award, and several awards from the AIA, IIDA, and ASLA. For more information, please visit: http://www.aidlindarlingdesign.com
Windhover Contemplative Center Stanford University – Building Information
Location: Stanford University, San Francisco, CA, USA
Architect: Aidlin Darling Design
Joshua Aidlin, Principal in Charge
David Darling, Principal
Roslyn Cole, Project Manager
Kent Chiang, Senior Designer
Melinda Turner, Designer
Landscape Architect: Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture
Structural Engineer: Rutherford & Chekene
Civil Engineer: BKF Engineers
Lighting Designer: Auerbach Glasow French
Acoustical Consultant: Charles Salter Associates
Daylighting and MEP Schematic Narrative Consultants: Loisos + Ubbelohde
Windhover Contemplative Center Stanford University images / information from Aidlin Darling Design
Location: Stanford University, North California, USA
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