Municipal Hall Design Sample

Bjarke Ingles Group (BIG) has demonstrated an innovative architectural solution for Tallinn’s New City Hall, the new administrative building for the city government, situated on near about 35,000 m2 plot close to the Linnahall building. Designing a crucial public building like this requires inputs from users and neighbors; citizens and politicians, and therefore, this concept have been envisioned as capable to adapt any sorts of unexpected demands. This new town hall will provide transparency on both political overview of demands, desires and problems of the public and public imminent into the political procedures. If this design comes true, the coordination between people and government will become easier and lot more efficient than ever.

North Richland Hills Municipal Complex North Richland Hills, Texas

MESA, in conjunction with Brinkley Sargent Architects, prepared a master plan and landscape design for the site of the North Richland Hills Municipal Complex. The new campus will merge the Public Safety, Municipal Court, and current City Hall facilities together into one campus at the center of an 80-acre mixed-use development. The anticipated development will include retail, restaurants, entertainment, and City Point Plaza, a 1-acre public plaza located in front of the New City Hall that will host a variety of public events.

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Budapest City Hall by Erick van Egeraat Flip 31 October 2008 | 13 comments More: 

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Dutch architect Erick van Egeraat has won a competition to design a new city hall for Budapest, Hungary.

The project combines restoration of the existing 18th century building with 40,000 square metres of new construction.

The ground floor will comprise a public square, retail facilities, cafés, restaurants and a theatre to be used for conferences and exhibitions.

The upper floors will consist of rented and city offices, and a hotel. The design also incorporates access to the underground station where the old city walls are displayed.

The project is due for completion in 2012. Images © (EEA) Erick van Egeraat associated architects. Here's some more information from Erick van Egeraat: -Erick van Egeraat builds new City Hall for Budapest Erick van Egeraat has won the international competition to design the City Hall in the centre of Budapest. From a field of 18 participants, an international professional jury selected his proposal, which combines restoration of the existing 18th century baroque building and new, futuristic wings to create a contemporary Main Square. This proposal makes an end to a period of almost three centuries of uncertainties at this unique plot in the Heart of Budapest.

In accordance with the objectives of the competition, this new City Hall, with its open courtyards and flexibility of use, will reflect transparency and democracy, will act as a Forum for the people of Budapest and will attract tourists. It will at once re-introduce pedestrian flow from the main street to the river Danube and offer a spectacular view of the city from the platform on top of the entrance gate. “This project provides a unique opportunity to both boost the economy of the city of Budapest and create an attractive new city centre for all”, says Erick van Egeraat.

Erick van Egeraat’s design is based on combining three distinct functions: culture, commerce and administration. It proposes direct access to the underground station, where the old city walls are excavated and on display. At ground floor level, the building is entirely open to the public and comprised of, among others, retail facilities, cafés and restaurants. The upper floors mainly host rentable offices, city offices and a design hotel.

The entire façade reflects the transition between old and new, between closed and open by forming a visual wall along the main street. The existing building with its closed, baroque façade is continued in a semi-open structure of organic columns, which in turn open up into a gate-like structure defining the entrance to the new complex.

The Cultural Forum is the most public space within the program and is strategically located in the centre of the complex. It incorporates a multifunctional theatre, which can be used for conference and exhibition purposes. According to Erick van Egeraat, “the Forum acts as the connection point between the past and the future, between the historical chapel space and the new building, and between the historic and the contemporary baroque to complement and emphasize each other. At the same time it interlinks all forms of culture, education, entertainment and politics.” The new City Hall will comprise 118.000 square metres of gross floor area, 40.000 square meters of which will be newly built. The project’s completion is scheduled for 2012.

City Halls serve a critical role in hosting municipal offices and services, but they are almost as important architecturally, as they leave a visual legacy for the city they represent. San Diego's mayor is lobbying to build a new one, Las Vegas will see its new one open in 2012, and Rotterdam has chosen Rem Koolhaas' design for its new city hall. We looked around the world to find city halls that were architecturally unique whether it be in scale, materials, or just how they relate to their surroundings.

Home | Green Guide | San Diego City Center to get a green makeover

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The new San Diego City Center is on its way to be, what the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability labels it, one of the greenest buildings ever built on the West Coast. Gerding Edlen Development of Portland, Ore. proposes to transform it into an environmentally friendly city center. The $432 million project will seek to blend sustainability with development. Jetson Green reports its design to be beyond LEED Platinum, with the obvious focus on the water issue. City Center will also have the council chambers, some sustainably designed residential edifices, a fire station, a theater and some public gathering spaces. ‘State of the art’ design with some green specs:

The green design will certainly add about 5 percent to its entire cost. Accordingly, its green makeover will incorporate:

• Solar panels will be there to provide 8 percent of City Hall’s electricity. Gerding Edlen proposes to cover the 37,000 square feet of the roof area and side-facing sun shades with photovoltaic panels. • The building complex would recycle as much waste water as the fresh water it uses. Gerding Edlen’s hypothesizes net-zero water use that recycles water. Water from the city’s sewers will be treated at the City Hall site. It can be used for nondrinking purposes there and the surplus will be pumped out for use elsewhere. • The city center will make use of wind turbines and generate ample energy to supply it with 9,000 to 12,000 annual kilowatt-hours. • Instead of traditional air conditioning, the building would be cooled by chilled water running through beams. • Indoor lighting will be ensured via sun’s rays during the day. • The buildings will have solar thermal panels for water heating. The designers will rely on the “heat island” effect that is so common in the urban areas. Just the outlines, as of now:

What they’ve put together is very laudable and admirable, but it’s very light on detail. It just feels like they threw everything in here that they think might work. And, without doing the engineering and design, it’s a little meaningless.

Says Irene Stillings, Executive Director of the San Diego-based California Center for Sustainable Energy Well, I fear that Irene may be right. It’s not advisable to praise what’s in production. One of the specs says that the city center will flaunt wind turbines, but these are site-specific and it’s not sure if they’ll work here.

Image title Design via Sasaki Associates After nearly four months of gathering information and gauging interest in redesigning City Hall Plaza, Mayor Marty Walsh's Request for Ideas (RFI) has come to a close. That means the City of Boston is one step closer to overhauling one of the most polarizing urban landscapes this side of the prime meridian.

Sasaki Associates – which has had a hand in such local and increasingly popular projects as The Lawn on D, Sea Change: Boston and the Bruce C. Bolling Building – responded to the mayor's RFI in innovative fashion.

Taking to the Twittersphere, Sasaki brass solicited ideas directly from Boston residents and non-natives on what they'd like to see change on City Hall Plaza, or, if not changed completely, added or subtracted.

They compiled responses on cards, shared them on social media using the hashtags #PlazaPlus and #CityHallPlaza, and sifted through the innumerable hopes and wishes for the approximately eight-acre sprawl of brick and concrete.

"Re-envisioning City Hall Plaza requires two parallel initiatives, a major renovation of the physical space and an inventive programming agenda," said Nina Chase, a landscape architect with Sasaki.

The RFI broadly called for "an inviting and attractive public forum that is robustly used by residents and visitors."

With that in mind, Sasaki's City Hall submission was based on the following four guidelines:

Extend the Plaza into the City + Leverage Cultural Capital

Design for Civic and Human Scale + Populate with Variety

Preserve City Hall's Character + Activate Underused Space

Enhance Infrastructure and Natural Systems + Showcase Boston's Innovation

But Sasaki being a preeminent design firm, they don't merely want to tell you how they're piecing together a re-imagining of City Hall Plaza. They want to show you.

From the installation of benches, Hubway stations, pop-up cafes to matching programming like more music festivals, food truck gatherings and public art installations, here's what's on Sasaki's, and much of your, minds.