Postcard from the Future of Convention Centers

Photo by Annie Rose Palmer

Recently, I sat beside my daughter, Annie, as she clicked through her laptop, showing me photographs of a recent trip that included a layover in Reykjavik. I grabbed her elbow as something familiar shimmered by: It was the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre, dazzling like a jewel in Iceland’s summer evening sunshine.

I was struck, not just by its beauty, but the fact that it turned up in Annie’s travel photos at all. She's never been one to take snapshots of statues and landmarks. Her eye tends to look for shapes and textures in her environment, and to illuminate how they combine to create new forms: clouds pooling on the side of a mountain or the afternoon light slicing across a stone floor.

So it was exciting to see the Harpa Centre there, its glass walls gleaming like fish scales and seeming to float in the Atlantic Ocean -- because a seamless environmental fit was exactly what the architects had envisioned as they designed the center.

For our cover story "Show Places," last October, Convene reached out to leading architects, including Peer Teglgaard Jeppesen, of Henning Larsen Architects, which designed the Harpa Centre, to ask, “What will the conference center of the future look like?

Here is part of of Jeppesen's answer:

One important feature will be the inclusion of local characteristics and local identity. The conference center will not be anonymous; rather, it will be characterized by a richness of local spirit, presenting the conference-goer with features and experiences characteristic to the local environment.

We also talked to Mark Reddington, a principal at LMN Architects, which designed the award-winning Vancouver Conference Centre, who said:

The design of convention centers is increasingly about creating an integrated urban experience -- a piece of the city that offers an authentic experience of place and that is connected in meaningful ways to the surrounding urban fabric and natural environment.

The convention center of the future, "first, will be more about making a city," Reddington said, "than making a building."

Do You Know Your Meeting's WalkScore?

There probably is research showing how much attendees love to meet in walkable cities, but all you really have to do is think back to a meeting you attended where the convention center and hotel was within easy range of shops, restaurants, and maybe even a little green space. Now think of a meeting where you felt more or less marooned without a shuttle bus. Most people -- all other things being equal -- would choose the first option.

If walking is important to your attendees, there is a tool called WalkScore that allows you to gauge the walkability of properties you are considering for a meeting. It's not perfect -- it doesn't factor in crime rates, for instance, or distinguish between the length of city blocks -- but it's a good starting point. (I plugged in the addresses of the last two hotels I stayed at, and WalkScore's assessment was spot on.)

Music City Center Construction Cam

Nashville's new convention center, the Music City Center, has been a long and often politically bitter time coming — but ground has now been broken on the 1.2-million-square-foot development, which is set to open in early 2013. Music City Center, a pet project of Nashville Mayor Karl Dean for several years, will when it opens sport more than 50 meeting rooms, two ballrooms, 36 loading docks and a 350,000-square-foot exhibit hall "acoustically designed to double as a concert hall." The new convention center will even have a park-like "green roof."

This past week, according to Nashville TV station WSMV, "construction crews [began] blasting and drilling on the far side of the Country Music Hall of Fame to remove about 360,000 tons of rock before work begins on building the new convention center."

As such, convention center geeks might be interested to know that a fun "construction Web cam" is available via OxBlue Construction Camera Service. Click here to see how the new Music City Center is coming along. (Answer: Not much just yet, but there's a cool time-lapse option so you can watch the progress thus far.)

We'll all have to watch and see whether Music City Center lives up to this quote by Mayor Dean:

"Modern convention centers don’t have to be big boxes. They can be architecturally attractive buildings that fit into the fabric of a neighborhood."