Design Team

FOR MORE than a decade, the architectural firm of Ellerbe Becket has been a leader in the design of sports arenas for professional and collegiate basketball and hockey teams, including the MCI Center in Washington, the First Union Center in Philadelphia and the Fleet Center in Boston.Now it's part of the team that has been commissioned to design a $90 million, 17,000-seat arena to replace Cole Field House at the University of Maryland's College Park campus.The Kansas City, Mo., office of Ellerbe Becket is working with Design Collective of Baltimore to design the arena, which will be used primarily for men's and women's basketball and campus events.

Avant-garde director JoAnne Akalaitis has staged Nicholas Rudall's new translation of Euripides' "The Trojan Women," now in previews at Washington's Shakespeare Theatre.Collaborating with the same design team -- set designer Paul Steinberg, lighting designer Jennifer Tipton and costume designer Doey Luthi -- she worked with on her recent New York production of "The Iphigenia Cycle," Akalaitis envisions Troy as a conglomeration of concentration camps, where the inmates wear gray prison garb and the stage is lighted by naked bulbs in cages.

Designing Maryland's museum to celebrate black history, cultureThe Architectural Review Board's criticism of the proposed design for the Maryland Museum of African-American History and Culture was right on target ("On museum front, form vs. function," July 28).The drawing of the museum in The Sun was bland. It doesn't evoke any feeling of Africanism or of the contributions by African-Americans to Maryland. It shows no pride.What is lacking is a significant African-American presence on the design team.

WHEN GOUCHER College moved from midtown Baltimore to Towson starting in the late 1940s, the first academic building on its new campus was Van Meter Hall.As the college grew over the years, the building became outmoded because it lacked high-tech features such as laptop computer connections and classrooms designed for multimedia presentations and teleconferencing.But this fall it is ready for another 50 years of service, after a $5.5 million expansion and modernization that enables it to accommodate the college's expanded curriculum and teaching methods.

One of the nation's leaders in theater restoration has been recommended to head the design team that will help bring Baltimore's historic Hippodrome Theater back to life.Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, the New York-based design firm that transformed the New Amsterdam Theatre in Times Square for Walt Disney Co. and is working to restore Radio City Music Hall, is the first choice of a panel that met recently to choose an architect to guide restoration of the old vaudeville house at 12 N. Eutaw St.The Maryland Stadium Authority is coordinating the $35 million project, which is seen as a key to revitalizing downtown Baltimore's west side.

A Pigtown man has filed a $10 million federal lawsuit claiming that the Baltimore Ravens stole the idea for the team logo from a sketch he drew in his spare time.Frederick E. Bouchat, 31, who works as a security guard at a state office building downtown, alleges that he drew his logo in December 1995. Six months later, the Ravens and NFL Properties Inc. unveiled the official logo, which Bouchat's lawyer described as "a virtually identical copy.""What we're talking about here is the little guy who was ignored in the rush to market a product," said the lawyer, Howard J. Schulman.

Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke weighed in yesterday with his opinion of the giant crab sculpture proposed for Baltimore's Rash Field, suggesting it needs more seasoning."

And now, "The Crab."Having launched the Columbus Center and the Children's Museum, the Schmoke administration is poised to present "Blue Crab Park" as the Inner Harbor's coming attraction.On the same bill: "Natural History Spiral," "Info/Picnic Park," "Science Playground" and the "Wet & Wild Water Park and Skating Rink."Those ideas came a step closer to reality yesterday when the Baltimore Development Corp. announced plans to hire the design team that proposed them. The team's assignment will be to guide a $7.5 million overhaul of 20 acres of downtown Baltimore's most prominent shoreline.

There's a developer in town who insists that the best way to judge the design of a tall building is by the extent to which a giant gorilla would want to climb to the top.Such a romantic notion may work for King Kong and Fay Wray, but will it sell condominiums in Baltimore?That's the question of the hour for the designers and developers of 100 HarborView Drive, the 27-story, $80 million tower that opened this fall just south of Federal Hill.After nearly a decade of planning and construction, it is finally possible to see how well developers Richard Swirnow and Parkway Holdings Ltd. lived up to their promise of creating a world-class, resort- like community on Baltimore's waterfront.

One has the feel of an old schoolhouse. Another retains the grandeur of historic Mount Vernon. A third reflects the creativity of Maryland's largest fine arts institute.All three are residential projects in Baltimore, and all three have been judged to be among the area's best buildings. The Barrister Court apartments in Washington Village, the Peabody Inn in Mount Vernon, and The Commons, a student housing complex in Bolton Hill, were chosen to receive honor awards in the 1993 design awards competition.

Solar arrays, "green" roofs and storm-water management that doubles as civic art and takes place only when it's raining are among the ideas for improving the environment in the redevelopment of downtown Columbia, a consultant told residents this week. Town Center could be a "city within a garden," said Keith Bowers, a landscape architect on General Growth Properties' design team -- a vibrant place that makes use of renewable energy and is built with local materials so that little energy is expended to bring supplies here.

It's close to downtown and open to the sky, and features sweeping views of the city beyond. There's an asymmetrical field with enough nooks and crannies to keep the game interesting - plus a state-of-the-art scoreboard, luxury skyboxes and all the creature comforts fans could want. Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992? Yes, but also Nationals Park on the Anacostia riverfront in 2008. Sixteen years after Baltimore broke the mold with its "newfangled, old-fashioned" ballpark, Washington has joined the list of cities that can boast they have a new, baseball-only stadium in a prime urban setting.

The last time they worked in Baltimore, the architects of BTA+ were crafting one of the city's most high-profile projects - the Harborplace shopping pavilions that helped rejuvenate the Inner Harbor. Now they've been selected to recommend ways to revitalize another part of town - the 100-acre Charles North urban renewal area between Penn Station and Charles Village. The commission represents the first time the Massachusetts-based firm has been hired to work in Baltimore since the waterfront marketplace opened in 1980, and it marks a reunion of sorts for several team members.

Today's column is about an important subject that is not really on everyone's mind: the never-ending choices in women's underwear. There was a time when, if I needed underwear, I only needed about 30 seconds to shop for it. It was hanging in a plastic three-pack on a rack in the back of the women's department. My choice was limited to: size. That's because "color" was the ever-unflattering brilliant white. This type of underwear had an elastic waistband that, as its name indicates, came up to the waist, and two similarly, boringly appointed leg holes.

City officials have chosen a Baltimore design team to rework the Inner Harbor's Rash Field and to build a parking garage below it. Architects from Ziger/Snead and Thomas Balsley Associates will begin immediately working with neighboring community and business leaders and city officials to brainstorm ideas for the new park. The 9-acre park at the southern end of the harbor opened in 1976. Officials hope to have the work done by 2009 so that Baltimore can again be a stop for the popular yachting event, the Volvo Ocean Race.

A team of architects will begin planning the future of Towson today, and its location couldn't be more telling: a vacant retail space. Working out of a studio that once housed a Borders bookstore, the team will tackle the challenge of re-creating a downtown that attracts businesses while appeasing traffic-weary residents. It has invited the public to share its ideas on growth in the Baltimore County seat at a public forum tonight at Towson University and a series of panel discussions through Tuesday.

The county-sponsored, weeklong charrette for the future development of Columbia's Town Center was billed as an all-access pass for residents to be involved with planning the vision for the community's downtown. But a meeting behind closed doors with the Columbia Association and one of the design team members - during which the idea of tearing down the association's current building was discussed - has some crying foul. On Thursday, Columbia Association Board Chairman Joshua Feldmark hastily called a meeting of the group with a Design Collective Inc. contract worker to discuss the future of the association's headquarters.

Tomorrow, Columbians will get to see the result of the weeklong intensive design gathering that involved a few hundred residents brainstorming their visions for the planned community's downtown. A draft master development plan for Columbia's Town Center put together by the Baltimore firm Design Collective Inc. and based on residents' ideas is to be revealed at 2 p.m. tomorrow at General Growth's Spear Center. Bill Mackey, the county's planning supervisor, said that while tomorrow will be the design team's final presentation, residents will still be asked for input.

Large sheets of white paper filled with Columbians' visions for Town Center line the hallway leading to the Spear Center at General Growth Properties' downtown headquarters. Written in red, black, blue and green markers, they list the hopes and concerns residents expressed at the start of the weeklong intensive design gathering that began Saturday and will result in a master development plan for Columbia's downtown. A few samples: "We don't want giant office buildings outlining the crescent area - we want award-winning architecture!

Howard County has started sending out e-mail invitations and buying advertisements for the weeklong intensive design gathering that will result in a master development plan for Columbia's downtown. About 100 people have signed up for the meetings this month. All residents are welcome to attend the eight-day charrette, scheduled for Oct. 15-22, and county officials are hoping people will register as soon as possible. "We would like to have as many people who would like to come," said Bill Mackey, the county's planning supervisor.