Honorable Mention: American Architecture Awards 2022
Consulate General of the United States Rio de Janeiro|Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | 2020

Architects: Richärd Kennedy Architects
Lead Architect: James Richärd
Associate Architects: HGA Architects & Engineers
Client: US State Department Bureau of Overseas Building Operations

The new American Consulate, designed to replace the existing, aging facility in Rio de Janeiro serves as a secure facility for efficiently processing daily visa applicants and represents the United States' diplomatic mission in Brazil. The basic organization of the site and buildings focuses entries, exterior event space, gardens, and primary pedestrian circulation along representational frontage established at the east and south edges of the site most directly connected to nearby public transportation options, plazas and greenspaces.

Service and utility functions are organized with increased density at the west and north edges. Consular visitors access the compound via the Consular Plaza in the northeast corner of the site. Beyond the security pavilion, visitors enter the Consular Garden and ascend an exterior ramp to a waiting area at the second level of the centerpiece building. Cantilevered from massive stone clad piers, the brightly colored ramp hovers over an extensive reflecting pool overlooking the compound gardens as it switchbacks below a second cable supported ETFE shade structure. As a literal extension of the project site, significant improvements to the public right of way surrounding the site upgrade the public streetscape providing a more welcoming shaded experience for pedestrians and a more seamless transition from the public way to the secure compound.

The diagram of the Chancery building portrayed as two towers connected by an elevated link takes inspiration from Sugarloaf Mountain and Morro da Urca, icons of Rio de Janeiro. These granite and quartz monoliths, connected in the air via cable car, were shaped by tropical, chemical weathering, resulting in a unique texture. This is architecturally reinterpreted as two towers, differing in height, set atop a plinth and bridged at the upper levels via a glass connector. The inward focused circulation/utility core of each tower is opaque, clad with textured, locally quarried gneiss slabs reflecting the materiality and geology of the surrounding mountains, while the outward facing program spaces are fully glazed wherever possible capturing daylight and views of the Guanabara Bay to the north and mountains to the South punctuated by the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer on the ridgeline. To balance view and daylight with solar gain the full height glazing is overlaid with an array of custom formed, perforated aluminum vertical shade fins.