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(Ground)Breaking News

Page Updated May 5, 2008

News of underground buildings that are being contemplated or constructed will be added to this page as information becomes available.

If you are aware of new examples that are being considered, designed, or built, please let us know.

Planned

NEW Two key government commissions have approved plans for an underground museum at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.

The Jefferson County (Virginia) commissioners have endorsed plans to build an underground museum and visitors center near the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The museum would showcase the National Park Service's artifact collection relating to the Civil War.

A mostly underground expansion will be added to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Completion is expected in 2010. The expansion was included in I.M. Pei's original design of the building.

The Spaceport America, which will offer commercial flights on Virgin Galactic spacecraft, will be located near White Sands, New Mexico. Plans call for the energy-efficient headquarters to be a multi-level underground building. On September 4, 2007, architects Foster + Partners and design engineers URS Corporation released renderings of their design for the hanger and terminal facility. Construction is expected to begin in late 2008.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art announced in October 2006 that its underground expansion will be designed by Frank Gehry, who is normally identified with flamboyant facades. The New York Times quoted Gehry as saying, "To be under the covers and to try to make architecture that way is a fascinating thought. All architects are intrigued by subterranean things; I don't think I'm alone in that."

In late September 2006, San Francisco General Hospital announced innovative plans for a new building on its campus. A substantial part of the space will be in a basement level that will extend outward beyond the footprint of the new, 90-foot-tall building. This plan satisfies zoning restrictions on height as well as seismic code restrictions on the space between the new structure and neighboring buildings.

Pritzker laureate Renzo Piano is designing an underground addition to the Fogg Art Museum building at Harvard University. Construction is expected to begin in the summer of 2008 and continue for 12-15 months.

The Museum of Life and the Environment has been designed by William McDonough + Partners. It is planned as the "masterpiece" of a sustainable mixed-use development near Charlotte, North Carolina. Nestled into hillsides and bermed, the 120,000-square-foot complex will be covered with a green roof the architect describes as "an extension of the meadow going through to the river."

The architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is designing a new National Museum of the United States Army, to be located at Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Virginia. According to one of the leaders of the design team, the 255,000-square-foot earth-integrated building is intended to be "not an object in the landscape but collaborative with the terrain." Completion is expected in 2011.

An underground addition to the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island, is being designed by Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott. A construction schedule has not been announced.

Under Construction

NEW Construction is under way on the Amangiri Resort and Spa near Lake Powell in Kane County, Utah. The spa will be located in several caverns dug into rock cliffs.

Construction began in February 2008 on Conservation Hall, an underground meeting and entertainment facility on the grounds of the Tennessee Governor's residence in Nashville.

C&C Construction is building a community of semi-custom homes in Tucson. To evade the searing Arizona heat, many of the homes will include fully finished basements that will naturally remain 20-30 degrees cooler than the outdoors, resulting in substantial energy savings.

Construction is under way on the Roberts Proton Therapy Center at the University of Pennsylvania Health System in Pennsylvania. The 75,000-square-foot mostly underground facility willinclude five treatment rooms and support areas. It will be finished in 2009.

A September 2008 completion is expected for the new Raleigh Convention Center in North Carolina. It will include 150,000 square feet of underground exhibition space, extending under two surface streets.

Construction began on a visitor center for the US Capitol in Washington, DC, in July 2002; it is now scheduled for completion in the fall of 2008. The three-story, 580,000-square-foot structure will be hidden under 193,000 square feet of lawn on the east side of the historic building.

Recently Completed

NEW A renovation of Yale University's underground Cross Campus Library was completed in October 2007.

Recent Awards

A flurry of awards were announced in December 2007 and January 2008. Among the winners were:

ADDED An expansion of the Phoenix Convention Center includes 62,000 square feet of below-ground exhibition space extending under a street between two above-ground pavilions. Southwest Contractor named it the best Arizona project of 2007.

ADDED A reconstruction and expansion transformed the former Hasty Pudding Club at Harvard University into the New College Theater. The addition includes three stories below street level. Building Design and Construction gave the project a 2007 Gold Award in its Reconstruction category. Also receiving a Gold Award was the underground expansion of the Virginia State Capitol. The renovation and expansion of the Old Patent Office Building into the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum, which share a below-courtyard auditorium, won a Platinum Award for reconstruction.

Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens, Pittsburgh, "The Most Energy Efficient Conservatory in the World," Beyond Green 2007 High Performance Building Award from the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council.

Nelson-Atkins Museum addition, Kansas City, named one of six "favorite buildings of 2007" by Newsweek's architecture critic, Cathleen McGuigan.

Griffith Observatory addition, Los Angeles; Liberty Memorial museum, Kansas City; and Nelson-Atkins Museum addition, Kansas City, received 2008 Honor Awards from the American Institute of Architects.

Queens Botanical Garden Visitor's and Administration Center, Flushing, New York, named the Top New York City Green Building of 2007 by greenbuildingsNYC.