US Embasy Manual

Failed Prototypes 2 A Visual History of the American Embassy 3 Back to the Center: Urban Embassies 4 STUDY: Communicating Diplomacy through Form 13 STUDY: Building Iconography 22 Blast Load Analysis 25

Construction Element Guide 29

US Embassy Case Study 33

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E M B A S S Y O F T H E F U T U R EA New Global Prototype fot the United States of America

1Failed Prototypes

3.A.1 - Urban Embassies

2A Visual History of the American Embassy

2.A.1 - Historical Prototype Diagram

2A Visual History of the American Embassy

2.A.1 - Historical Prototype Diagram

2Security and Perimeter Requirements

3Back to the Center: Urban Embassies

3.A.1 - Urban Embassies

Embassy of the Future

Since the 1950’s it has been the diplomatic mission of the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations (OBO) to provide secure, safe, func-tional, and properly maintained facilities for the conduct of U.S. diplomatic services and for the promotion of U.S. interests worldwide. Since then, threatening changes to international security and diplomatic operations has shifted the original goal of producing friendly local buildings and diplomatic presence toward compound-like building complexes and centralized institutions. Largely as a reaction to the increased number of global bombings directed at US Embassies during the late 1980s, OBO facilities have become more analogous to bunker construction than architec-tural design. At the global level, embassies have been removed from urban centers, and the daily diplomatic operations and consular services have been forced to work from these margins.

Moving towards a new era of diplomatic responsibility, the Standard Embassy Design’s joint study Embassy of the Future suggests that rigorous security concerns should not be constructed to the detriment of projecting a visible and positive diplomatic presence of US Embassies in the world’s urban centers. PEG’s Embassy of

“ I have to say that we are in this beautiful space, and we like that. We do have to overcome how far we are from downtown. You do feel like fortress America. I know there are valid security concerns, and I don’t know what the answer is, but we need to keep thinking about it.” - Foreign Ser vice Officer

the Future Prototype aims to manage risk while maintaining the diplomatic necessity of urban presence. A series of attempts at developing a global US Embassy prototype began under the supervision of Secretary of State General Colin Powell in 2005. Void of concrete results, a follow-up study in 2007 set out with many of the same goals. During this brief time span, the OBO had opened 68 new buildings and added 29 more to their already lengthy list of projects under construction. Now well over 100 embassies have now been built without meeting any of the concrete research goals set out by Powell. In February 2009 a third call was issued to qualified design professionals in search of the same proto-type. It is the goal of PEG’s research on the US Embassy to fulfill this demand by producing a global embassy prototype that deals with the performative and representational demands of the building type across a wide spectrum of political and diplomatic climates (i.e. from global leader-ship allies to warring nations). It is the suggestion of PEG that an architectural prototype must construct the image of new US Embassies across a gradation of iconographic, representational, and material strategies in conjunction with politically calibrated massing strategies.

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3.A.1 - Urban Embassies

Historical Plans

“ My belief is that our Foreign Service is building-centric. We know how to engage from anembassy or a consulate; without a building, things are much less clear. However, our presenceis what we are doing, not the buildings.” — Foreign Ser vice Officer

Existing Urban Embassies Existing Embassy Plans

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3.A.1 - Urban Embassies

“ I have to say that we are in this beautiful space, and we like that. We do have to overcome how far we are from downtown. You do feel like fortress America. I know there are valid security concerns, and I don’t know what the answer is, but we need to keep thinking about it.” - Foreign Ser vice Officer

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3.A.1 - Urban Embassies

“ I have to say that we are in this beautiful space, and we like that. We do have to overcome how far we are from downtown. You do feel like fortress America. I know there are valid security concerns, and I don’t know what the answer is, but we need to keep thinking about it.” - Foreign Ser vice Officer

Climatic Massing Variation

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4STUDY: Communicating Diplomacy Through Form

2.A.1 - Primatives Diagram

Primatives

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2.A.1 - Convex Diagram

Convex

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2.A.1 - Convex Diagram

Convex

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2.A.1 - Convex Diagram

Concave

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2.A.1 - Convex Diagram

Concave (cont.)

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2.A.1 - Concave Diagram

Concave (cont.)

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2.A.1 - Concave Diagram

Concave (cont.)

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2.A.1 - Concave Diagram

Concave (cont.)

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2.A.1 - Concave Diagram

Concave (cont.)

5STUDY: Building Iconography

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6Blast Load Analysis

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7Construction Element Guide

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AAppendix: US Embassy Case Study

ASecurity / Branding Wall Systems

AFin Wall Details

AFin Wall Details

ABlast Wall Details

ABlast Wall Details

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