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STACKED IN ITS FAVOR: Barbara Hillier’s vertical “stacked” design for the Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas makes moving between sessions and events easy for meeting attendees. The copper- wrapped building also is environmental- ly sustainable. It required a smaller foot- print of land, and will achieve efficien- cies in heating and air conditioning. Ninety percent of the water to be used in the building will come from a nearby lake.

The continuing streamof new technology will likely make smaller, more regional conventions a smart investment.

BARBARA HILLIER continued from page 48

’’ Rethinking spaces. The convention center borrows its formal arrangements from the performance hall, field house,

classroom building, art museum, and library—all of which are common to the college campus and universally are separate structures. For practical and economic reasons, convention centers are conceived as single structures where the connective out-

door spaces of the campus are replaced by the inescapable, interminable boulevards of carpet. Lining these boulevards with mobile kiosks is hardly the answer. Rules of thumb in the design and layout of convention centers have exhausted their shelf life. Spaces should be designed to stimulate the imagination and to comfort the senses.

BARBARA HILLIER is the lead architect for the Irving Convention Center at Los Colinas, in Irving, Texas, which is opening in early 2011. Hillier formerly was a principal architect at Hillier Architecture, which has won more than 300 awards for design and environmental responsibility, and at RMJM, the designer of the Scottish Parliament.

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pcmaconvene October 2010

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ILLUSTRATION © BARBARA HILLIER, AIA