Please Don't Look At This Fortress Embassy In Guayaquil

Photo from U.S. Consulate Guayaquil's website 

The U.S. Consulate in Guayaquil, Ecuador, has moved to a new location, and apparently that's it in the photo above.

In case you are wondering about that small "c" in parentheses in the image, it's merely a copyright mark and not a classification marking. Of course it isn't a classification marking, because the building's exterior is in the public view and not classifiable.

But on second thought, maybe that photo and any others like it should be classified, because I can't believe the Consulate wants anybody to see that monstrosity of a building. I'm partial to fortresses and all, but really, that one is making me get in touch with the architect within me, and he thinks the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) should tear that thing down and start over.

Honest to Jane Loeffler, that is a strange and ugly building!

Here's OBO's press release:

In an important symbol of our commitment and enduring relationship with Ecuador, U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador, Adam E. Namm, presided over the dedication of the new U.S. Consulate General in Guayaquil today.

The new multi-building complex provides employees with a safe, secure, and modern workplace. Situated on an 11.25-acre site in the San Eduardo neighborhood, the new Consulate General includes a new office building, two access pavilions, a service/utility building, and parking.

The $66.5 million project incorporates numerous sustainable features to conserve resources and reduce operating costs, including an energy recovery unit that reduces the need for heating and cooling, water-conserving plumbing fixtures, and the use of regional and recycled materials.

The facility was designed by Page Southerland Page, LLC of Arlington, Virginia and constructed by Contracting Consulting and Engineering, LLC of Annapolis, Maryland.

Since 1999, as part of the Department’s Capital Security Construction Program, the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has completed 109 new diplomatic facilities and has an additional 36 projects in design or under construction.

OBO’s mission is to provide safe, secure, and functional facilities that represent the U.S. government to the host nation and support our staff in the achievement of U.S. foreign policy objectives. These facilities should represent American values and the best in American architecture [sic, believe it or not], engineering, technology, sustainability, art, culture, and construction execution.

OBO's press kit for the project is currently mixed up, and the link for New Consulate Guayaquil's fact sheet takes you to New Embassy Benin.

That's too bad, because I'd like to find out how much OBO paid to Page Southerland Page, LLC of Arlington, Virginia to design that place. Considering that the total project cost was only $66.5 million, or less than half of what a typical new embassy or consulate costs, I'm guessing the design end was practically an afterthought.

Now I'll spend the rest of the day shaking off the inanity of that image.
 

A Kind Word For Fortress Embassies, From A Surprising Source

The Washington Diplomat had an article on embassy architecture versus security the other day (America’s Embassy Building Boom Fortifies Diplomacy, Security Abroad), which I thought was only mildly interesting until I got to the obligatory quote from Jane Loeffler. She is our foremost - only? - historian of diplomatic architecture, and premier critic of Fortress Embassies, and no article on the subject would be complete without her remarks.

Normally in an article of this sort, Dr. Loeffler provides unrelenting criticism of defensive embassy architecture, and then it's left to some poor Department spokesman or project architect to put up a weak rebuttal about the need for security. But this time, Dr. Loeffler played for the other team. After others had made the customary attacks, she had the concluding statement:  

The 2012 fiscal year budget for new construction is about $1 billion. So why should taxpayers support the construction of secure new embassies in low-threat countries like Latvia or Malta?

"People shouldn't have to work in high-risk situations doing such important work for our country," Loeffler said. "Diplomacy is our most important initiative and it's so much less expensive than war. We need to make the buildings attractive and functional, but they're also targets so they need to be secure."

"People shouldn't have to work in high-risk situations doing such important work for our country." Damn straight. I will add that the risks of terrorism can be high even in purportedly low-threat countries such as Latvia and Malta. For example, that new secure embassy in Malta replaced one that was located inside a multi-tenant commercial office building, a type of property in which it would never have been able to achieve satisfactory security.

If we are serious about moving our people out of high-risk situations and into better and more secure buildings, then our new embassies will inevitably have to have certain fortress-y characteristics. I'm not saying we need to go medieval and do the whole castle-on-an-island, but our embassies will need features such as setback distance from surrounding streets if they are to be reasonably well-protected against physical attack.

That is why I am 100 percent in agreement with the new Design Excellence initiative for new embassies. I say, turn the architects loose to do what they do best, which is to satisfy the client's needs in a better way than the client himself is capable of imagining.

Incidentally, you can see what the old not-so-excellent embassy construction program created over the past ten years by checking out these architectural mugshots that the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations has made publicly accessible for your information.

Design Concept Selected for New U.S. Embassy London

The winner of the design competition for a new U.S. embassy in London was announced today:

U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Louis B. Susman, and Acting Director of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations, Adam Namm, announced today that KieranTimberlake of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has won the design competition for the New London Embassy.

KieranTimberlake’s design met the goal of creating a modern, welcoming, timeless, safe and energy efficient embassy for the 21st century. Their concept most fully satisfied the requirements outlined in the design competition’s mission statement. The concept holds the greatest potential for developing a truly iconic embassy and is on the leading edge of sustainable design. KieranTimberlake is an architectural firm known for its commitment to innovation and environmental responsibility.

Starting with 37 architectural submissions, the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations narrowed the list to nine firms. A distinguished jury of both American and British leaders in the fields of architecture, academia and diplomacy selected four firms for the final phase of the competition.

The four firms explored the symbolism of the embassy, its presence and position in the cityscape of London. Their goal was to create a building and site complex with a timeless quality to appropriately represent the United States of America in the United Kingdom.

The four competing architectural firms, KieranTimberlake, Morphosis Architects, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and Richard Meier & Partners, worked for nearly a year and made presentations to the jury which then recommended the winning design.

As KieranTimberlake moves forward with the design of the building, the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations and KieranTimberlake will be actively engaged in the consultation and planning process involving the Mayor’s office, the Wandsworth Borough Council, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, as well as residents in the area to ensure that the new embassy provides an appropriate home for the United States of America in London.

The anticipated ground breaking on this landmark embassy will be in 2013 with a goal to complete the construction in 2017.

The WaPo has a story on the winning design concept today with quotes from architectural historian Jane Loeffler, that archenemy of Fortress Embassies:

Jane Loeffler, author of "The Architecture of Diplomacy," a history of U.S. embassy facilities, praised the selection.

"They really want to make this a positive statement and it looks like they are doing that," said Loeffler. "It is very fashion forward, but it's not just trendy; it has rationale and science behind it."

-- snip --

The winning design's emphasis on sustainability isn't just trendy architectural positioning, argues Loeffler. It is symbolically important as a diplomatic gesture. It also demonstrates how sustainability and security are interwoven in embassy architecture. A structure with its own water and energy sources isn't just kind to the environment, it's self-reliant during a crisis. Loeffler cites the example of the U.S. Embassy in Haiti -- an exemplar of the State Department's recent more fortress-like structures -- which withstood last month's devastating earthquake and has kept functioning through the aftermath.

The winning firm is tooting its horn today, and provided the public with several conceptual renderings of that symbolic-secure-sustainable design, such as the one above.

The concept looks perfectly fine to me, not that I know anything about art. I see that it provides the necessary setback distance from potential vehicle-borne explosive devices via barriers that are discretely cut into the landscaped hillside on the back of the building and by the water feature on the front (prediction: before construction is finished, DS will be blamed for requiring moats), and, according to the WaPo story, the facade of the building is designed of blast-resistant glass and polymer skin.

I'm sure this building can be made fully compliant with all the current embassy security standards, however, I expect it will be at a far greater cost than would have been the case with a more conventional concrete-and-punched-windows building. If the State Department chooses to do one artsy new embassy in London at the cost of three or four unrefined standard design embassies in other places, well, that's a management decision, and I assume the people in charge must have made that trade-off after due consideration.

I also note that this new embassy will contain just the chancery building, and none of the other stuff that has commonly been provided on new embassy complexes for the last ten or so years - no Chief of Mission Residence, Marine House, warehouse, parking lots and service bays, etc. Of course, I suppose that one advantage of building a new embassy in a nice place like London is that you don't need to provide the on-site amenities that are required in the third world, such as commissaries and recreational facilities. Because of that downsized space requirement, the London embassy can be built on a site of only five acres, versus the ten or more acres that are customarily needed to meet new embassy space requirements.


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Second thoughts:

Upon some reflection, I see that what we have here, security-wise, is a modern version of the motte-and-bailey castle, a type of fortification that was common in the UK once upon a time. Elegantly simple, and culturally sensitive to boot.

Now, just so long as the British no longer build trebuchets, the new embassy ought to be in good shape.