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FOIT-ALBERT
ASSOCIATES
Foit-Albert Associates completes design of the new Niagara USA Official Visitor's Center
The new $2.2 million Niagara USA Official Visitor’s Center is a state-of-the art facility that will serve as an inviting landmark to serve tourists and other visitors to one of the wonders of the world – Niagara Falls. The 7,500 square foot all-glass façade building, the first new building built in Niagara Falls since 2006, is a destination to find out everything the region has to offer. Using touch screen displays and information kiosks, visitors have access to history and heritage including exhibits relevant to the Niagara area – the Falls, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario and the Erie Canal. Visitors also have access to hotel and attraction reservations and can locate area restaurants and shopping destinations. In addition, Foit-Albert’s design included 4,200 square feet for the Tourism and Convention Corp’s administrative offices, a conference room, and rest rooms. It will act as a beacon, inviting visitors during the day and guiding them in the evening,” said Beverly Foit-Albert, President of Foit-Albert Associates.
Foit-Albert Associates completes projects under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
Grist Mill Road Bridge over Stony Creek. Foit-Albert
Associates provided engineering design services, construction support,
and construction
inspection
for this
federally-funded, NYSDOT pass-through bridge replacement project.
Foit-Albert Associates Showcases Low Impact Design at the Fletcher Music Hall and Rain Garden at the Chautauqua Institution
The Fletcher Music Hall project consisted of a new single-story 6,000 square foot facility and one acre rain garden on the site of a former asphalt parking lot at the Chautauqua Institution School of Music. This building provides a 250-seat rehearsal and performance facility for voice, instrumental, operetta and large ensemble rehearsals. The beautiful and naturalistic landscaping on the one-acre site provides little clue about one of its most important underlying purposes. This landscape is a rain garden; an engineered bio-retention machine designed to filter contaminants out of the stormwater runoff. Designed by Dean W. Gowen, the Rain Garden retains, filters and slowly reintroduces rainfall back into the earth before otherwise entering the municipal storm water system. For the building itself, Foit-Albert designed roof massing and multiple cantilevers to collect and cascade roof runoff to the Rain Garden below. Other sustainable design features include white reflective roofs, photovoltaic panels, elimination of restroom facilities and many other site selection and design strategies. This project was awarded a Western New York AIA Merit Award 2008. Foit-Albert presented an in-depth presentation to the Business Gets Green Group. (click for pdf of presentation) For a complete project profile of the Fletcher Music Hall and Rain
Garden, click here.
Foit-Albert-designed Delta Sonic Heritage Farm at the Buffalo Zoo opens to the public.
The Delta Sonic Heritage Farm, designed by Foit-Albert architect Gwen Howard, had its ribbon-cutting and grand opening on May 20, 2010. The new $1.75 million exhibit features an authentic heritage barn originally built in the 1800s in nearby Wheatfield, NY. The barn was dismantled piece by piece and reassembled on location at the Buffalo Zoo. The exhibit includes animals common during the 19th century – Berkshire Pigs, Devon Cows & Southdown sheep, among others. The exhibit includes hands-on interaction with live animals, activities and games demonstrating the importance of a strong balance between wetlands for wildlife and modified spaces for farms and canals for human existence.
The project includes a reconstructed Erie Canal Packet Boat along with a replica of an Erie Canal lock as a key interpretive element. Foit-Albert Associates has participated in the development of every exhibit at this institution over the past decade, completing all of the first phase Master Plan improvements and initiating work of its later phases. This complex $26.8 million undertaking includes the Sea Lion Cove, Otter Creek, Vanishing Animals and EcoStation exhibits; the expansion of the Elephant holding and veterinary hospital facilities, and the acclaimed M&T Bank Rainforest Falls.
AIA Buffalo/WNY Design Awards Foit-Albert Assocates was honored once again by the American Institute of Architects for design excellence for work on the School of Music and the School of Art at the Chautauqua Institution.
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