In this unique issue of TocciToday we would like to share with you some Design We Love. Whether architectural, graphic, industrial or fashion, good design is one of our great passions at Tocci. Our online gallery changes frequently, but in this issue we are featuring three projects that have recently made us stand up and say: “YES!” Cultivating our appreciation for the art and science of great design plays a huge role in our journey toward more effective teamwork. We become more trustworthy when clients and architects know we sincerely care about design, and that is when the project really begins to blossom.

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Great design never goes out of style, a prime example is the work of Rafael Guastavino, (and his son Rafael Guastavino y Esposito) the Spanish architect and builder who immigrated to the United States in 1881. Guastavino patented a special tiling system that appears in a huge number of architecturally important and famous buildings around the country.

Albany Education Building, Albany, NY

“In Spain, Guastavino revived an ancient form of tile and mortar building that had been used for centuries. This technique, called the boveda catalana, or Catalan vault, featured long flat tiles placed in layers held together by a mixture of Portland cement and cow bay sand. The technique was also known as “timbrel” vaulting, a term that suggested the membrane of a timbrel, an old percussion instrument similar to a tambourine.

Though the tiles were light, their placement enabled them to withstand a great deal of weight, resulting in self-supporting arches. The strength of the vaults and arches came from a curved geometry held in a state of monolithic cohesion. The sturdiness of Guastavino’s structures has often been compared to the natural strength of eggshells. The style was both visually striking and practical: Not only were the structures strong, they were fireproof. These curved surfaces became his personal trademark.” www.answers.com

His elegant vaulted ceilings, spiral staircases, illustrated domes and decorative courseways grace over 1000 buildings on the U.S. National Historic Register including: the Boston Public Library, Ellis Island, the New York City Subway Stations, the Oyster Bar, St. Bartholomew and St. Thomas in New York City and the Duke University Chapel in Durham, North Carolina.

In 1900 Rafael Guastavino opened a factory that manufactured his patented tile in Woburn Massachusettes and it just so happens that a certain construction manager we know is now headquartered in that historic building. Everyday Tocci employees enjoy working in a space that inspires us with its rich architectural history.

Tocci recently came across the design work of Joe MacDonald and we were dazzled by his research on parametric modeling. Joe MacDonald is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His seminars explore naturally occurring organizational systems and their influence on built ecologies, new materials, and construction assembly innovations.

Joe MacDonald is a founding principal of Urban A&O, a design firm based in New York City, specializing in parametric modeling and research. He regularly incorporates his academic research into practice at the scales of building, exhibitions, and product design. Four operating principles describe the philosophy of the firm’s work: material exploration; the use of emerging technologies to design and fabricate form; multi-disciplinary collaboration; and the cultivation of social interaction and education through design within the public realm. The theme of architecture as an opportunistic interface for technology and space–simultaneously physical and social–is central to their investigations into future building materials and construction methods.

Below is a piece he did called: The Bone Wall.

Continuity and connectedness, two indicators of topological form, are intrinsic to nearly all digitally generated patterns. Through this experiment, MacDonald aimed to advance this definition, through architectural means, into a three-dimensional context. He uses advanced algorithmic/parametric software to extend the concept of pattern to a point where the basic element or cell incrementally changes in morphology over the course of its run. All 72 cells that make up the wall are based on one single generative configuration.

Text taken from the Harvard GSA and StoreFront for Art and Architecture

This concept car by the BMW design team came out a year ago, but it still feels as fresh and avant-garde as the day it drove out of the studio. We discovered this car at a recent IPD symposium and, much like IPD, the Gina light model represents a completely new direction of thought. The design team took the risk of throwing the rule book out the window and considered building a car the way it might appear in a dream. While the Gina light model currently resides at the BMW museum in Munich, we hope such transformative thinking will make its way into production soon. We will let the video and photos speak for themselves.

For a full design brief click here.

BMW Gina Light Model

On June 26th, 2009 Tocci was honored by a visit from China’s top academic institutions and government ministries in the building industry. The group consisted of members of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, P.R. China, the China Academy of Building Research, the Shanghai Xiandai Architectural Design (Group) Co, Ltd and the Tsinghua University.

The delegation was visiting to learn about the cutting edge tools, practices and processes in the construction industry in the United States. With recommendations by Autodesk, Inc. they selected just one architect, one owner, one engineer and one builder to visit that exemplified the best practices in these areas. Tocci was honored to be chosen for our pioneering work in VDC and IPD.