Construction has begun on the first Ismaili Center in the U.S. in Houston. The facility will serve Ismaili Muslims in and around Houston, which has the largest concentration of Ismaili Muslims in the United States with over 40,000 members.
The Ismaili Center will consist of 11 acres of gardens, courtyards, and terraces and a 150,000 sf, five-story, tripartite building featuring three eivans, or elevated open terraces. The building will include a main atrium, interior courtyards open to the sky, a prayer room or jamatkhana, library, social hall, exhibit hall, council chamber, black box theatre, classrooms, administrative offices, and a café and kitchen for catering events. The center also features a 155,000 sf, 600-car garage beneath the gardens.
Details reflect Islamic design and its historically rooted, rich architectural heritage, combined with Western design that fits Houston’s climate. The building’s exterior is made of matte, sand-colored marble, crafted to create a clean patchwork of tessellated patterns. Ultra-high-performance concrete panels from Monterrey, Mexico compose the atrium, while light-colored stone from Turkey mimics the look of Texas limestone.
Perforated concrete with German glass glazing behind it allows natural light to pour in while keeping the building cool. The building will glow at night, lit from within. All concrete on the project, including sidewalks, feature custom finishes.
The center’s prayer hall, measuring 115 by 115 feet, features a perforated metal ceiling, with three layers of millwork along the walls. The lobby has board form walls, where custom-cut strips of wood are installed at 29-degree angles to create a unique pattern. The eivans are supported by 49 star-shaped columns, the tallest of which is 50 feet.
The design had sustainability in mind and the owners will seek LEED Gold certification. The campus is located adjacent to the Buffalo Bayou and within a flood zone. The building itself is above the flood plain, and the privacy wall that surrounds the gardens allows water in to mitigate flooding in the surrounding area. Landscaping is designed to withstand a flood, and native plants in the garden will work to filter stormwater.
The project is using a 3-D model to ensure each part of the construction process is well coordinated, and a robotic total station created the layout of the jobsite, removing user error and ensuring that all aspects of the site are accurate, according to a news release. McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. broke ground on the project in October 2021, with completion expected in the fourth quarter of 2024.
On the building team:
Owner and/or developer: Ismaili/Ismaili Council for the United States
Design architect: Farshid Moussavi Architecture, collaborating with DLR Group
Architect of record: DLR Group, gardens are designed by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
MEP engineer: DLR Group
Structural engineer: DLR Group, collaborating with AKT II Engineers
General contractor/construction manager: McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. (Houston office)
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
29 Great Solutions
1. Riverwalk Transforms Chicago's Second Waterfront Chicago has long enjoyed a beautiful waterfront along Lake Michigan, but the Windy City's second waterfront along the Chicago River was often ignored and mostly neglected. Thanks to a $22 million rehab by local architect Carol Ross Barney and her associate John Fried, a 1.
| Aug 11, 2010
High-Performance Modular Classrooms Hit the Market
Over a five-day stretch last December, students at the Carroll School in Lincoln, Mass., witnessed the installation of a modular classroom building like no other. The new 950-sf structure, which will serve as the school's tutoring offices for the next few years, is loaded with sustainable features like sun-tunnel skylights, doubled-insulated low-e glazing, a cool roof, light shelves, bamboo tri...
| Aug 11, 2010
Inspiring Offices: Office Design That Drives Creativity
Office design has always been linked to productivity—how many workers can be reasonably squeezed into a given space—but why isn’t it more frequently linked to creativity? “In general, I don’t think enough people link the design of space to business outcome,” says Janice Linster, partner with the Minneapolis design firm Studio Hive.
| Aug 11, 2010
Special Recognition: Pioneering Efforts Continue Trade School Legacy
Worcester, Mass., is the birthplace of vocational education, beginning with the pioneering efforts of Milton P. Higgins, who opened the Worcester Trade School in 1908. The school's original facility served this central Massachusetts community for nearly 100 years until its state-of-the-art replacement opened in 2006 as the 1,500-student Worchester Technical High School.
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Palmer House Hilton Hotel & Shops Chicago, Ill.
Chicago's Palmer House Hilton holds the record for the longest continuously operated hotel in North America. It was originally built in 1871 by Potter Palmer, one of America's first millionaire developers. When it was rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire it became the first hotel in the U.S. to put a telephone in every room.
| Aug 11, 2010
BIM school, green school: California's newest high-performance school
Nestled deep in the Napa Valley, the city of American Canyon is one of a number of new communities in Northern California that have experienced tremendous growth in the last five years. Located 42 miles northeast of San Francisco, American Canyon had a population of just over 9,000 in 2000; by 2008, that figure stood at 15,276, with 28% of the population under age 18.
| Aug 11, 2010
Platinum Award: The Handmade Building
When Milwaukee's City Hall was completed in 1896, it was, at 394 feet in height, the third-tallest structure in the United States. Designed by Henry C. Koch, it was a statement of civic pride and a monument to Milwaukee's German heritage. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2005.
| Aug 11, 2010
Gulf Coast Hotel's Stormy Road to Recovery
After his initial tour of the dilapidated 1850s-era Battle House Hotel, Ron Blount, construction manager with Retirement Systems of Alabama, said to his boss: “You need a priest more than you need a contractor.” Those words were more prescient to RSA's restoration of the historic Mobile landmark than he could have known at the time.
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Products
14. Mod Pod A Nod to Flex Biz Designed by the British firm Tate + Hindle, the OfficePOD is a flexible office space that can be installed, well, just about anywhere, indoors or out. The self-contained modular units measure about seven feet square and are designed to serve as dedicated space for employees who work from home or other remote locations.
| Aug 11, 2010
8 Tips for Converting Remnant Buildings Into Schools
Faced with overcrowded schools and ever-shrinking capital budgets, more and more school districts are turning to the existing building stock for their next school expansion project. Retail malls, big-box stores, warehouses, and even dingy old garages are being transformed into high-performance learning spaces, and at a fraction of the cost and time required to build classrooms from the ground up.
