(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)
Abstract
In 2015, HP invited us to submit one of our projects to be the subject of an international rendering competition. Excited about the idea, we instead proposed to use this opportunity to reconstruct English architect Sir John Soane’s Bank of England. Soane worked on the Bank of England’s labyrinthine walled complex for forty-five years, from 1788 to 1833, and it is considered his most important commission. The bank’s interiors were demolished in the 1920s to make way for Herbert Baker’s larger bank, which occupies the site today. The demolition of the original Bank of England building is one of architectural history’s greatest losses. Generations of architects have since relied on an incomplete set of floor plans, drawings, models, and historical photographs to study Soane’s building, and we thought a digital model could inspire a new generation of architects. What if architects today could virtually experience Soane’s spectacular use of neoclassical forms, natural light, and effects of scale? Modeling the bank would be too big a project for a single designer, but is perfectly suited for a crowdsourced effort. RAMSA teamed up with HP, Autodesk, NVIDIA, CASE, CGarchitect, and Sir John Soane’s Museum and Foundation to virtually reconstruct Soane’s Bank of England using BIM technologies and rendering software in a first-of-its-kind crowdsourced competition.
Melissa DelVecchio is partner and director of research at RAMSA (Robert A.M. Stern Architects), New York. She is committed to reinforcing the social, cultural, and environmental influences that give places identity and meaning. Melissa’s work synthesizes tradition and invention, building on an education that included an intensive study of classical architecture and subsequent immersion into contemporary design. Her proven ability to interpret and apply time-honored principles across all building types and styles informs her role as design lead for many of the firm’s most complex projects. As director of the firm’s research department, she oversees the comprehensive analysis of historical precedents, current markets, and pedagogical outreach that enriches all the firm’s work.
A versatile designer with a deep understanding of academic and cultural institutions, Melissa’s projects include the Pauli Murray and Benjamin Franklin Residential Colleges at Yale University, Schwarzman College the first LEED Gold-certified academic building in China, a college designed to educate the next generation of global leaders; and Wasserstein Hall at the Harvard Law School, developed in collaboration with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. She is currently working on the restoration and adaptive reuse of the Schwarzman Center at Yale, a historic Carrère & Hastings’ building undergoing a transformation into a social hub for the university community, and the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, the anchor for the University of Notre Dame’s new arts district.
Melissa is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects. She is a member of the Richard H. Driehaus Prize jury, honoring traditional architecture with an emphasis on sustainability, and the Rafael Manzano Martos Prize jury, which recognizes new traditional design on the Iberian Peninsula. She has served on design juries at schools, including Yale, the Rhode Island School of Design, and Notre Dame, where her contributions to the school were recognized with the 2018 Orlando T. Maione Award. Melissa has lectured extensively on the design of environments for living and learning. In spring 2021, she will serve as the Robert A.M. Stern Visiting Professor of Classical Architecture at the Yale School of Architecture.
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Thursday 16th June, 2022