Hasta La Ideas

Dutch architects Concrete designed flattened parasols of rusted steel to shelter the terraced restaurant outside a historic castle in Girona, Spain.

The canopy is composed of twelve steel-coated discs that overlap one another to cover up to 200 diners at the restaurant.

Gaps between circles on the canopy surface are filled with glass.

Transparent curtains can be hung around the parasols to provide additional protection from the wind.

Surrounding the courtyard is the fourteenth century castle, which was converted into a boutique hotel back in 1999.

This story is our third in recent months to feature a converted castle – see our earlier stories about castles converted into museums in Germany and in the Alps.

Photography is by Ewout Huibers.

More information has been provided by the architects:

Program: a terrace covering to accommodate 200 people.

Short design story

Hotel Castell D’emporda located in Girona, Spain offers a signature restaurant including a large terrace with great views over the surrounding landscape. Concrete designed, at the clients’ request, a roof or covering for this terrace with the possibility to create an enclosed space with full wind and rain protection. One of the design conditions was to create a covering that works in harmony with the historical and listed building. Additionally we wanted to maintain the terrace feeling while be seated under the covering.

Click above for larger image

In principle a terrace is an outdoor space where one can enjoy the weather. If necessary, you need a parasol for sun or rain protection, but there is almost no obstruction between the visitor and the view. The solution was to create abstract parasols. 12 Circles in divers diameters are placed randomly on the terrace. Where the circles touch they melt together, the open spaces between circles are filled in with glass. The circular parasol shapes enhance the feeling of being in an outdoor environment on a terrace. The shape of the covering appears as a separate almost temporary element, leaving the ancient building untouched.

A glass roof or a winter garden would to much become a building, create a feeling being inside a structure and would also appear as an extension of the building, damaging the ancient character.

The top and edge of the parasols are made in rusted steel, seeking harmony with the ancient building and the natural environment. The white painted steel columns and ceiling create an open and light outdoor atmosphere under the parasols. Transparent sliding curtains can be hung easily in colder periods but always stay open. When the mistral winds suddenly appear the whole terrace can be closed in a couple of minutes.

Round and square marble tables and two white leather lounge couches create different seating facilities. Underneath one parasol a circular outdoor bar is placed. The restaurant now has his own name: Margarit.

Click above for larger image

History Castell d’Emporda

Castell d’emproda was build in 1301 on a hill nearby the small city of La Bisbal close to Girona (Spain). The castle has been owned for centuries by the Margarit family. In 1973 Salvador Dali wanted to buy the castell for his wife, but the owner refused a payment in artworks. Since 1999 Castell d’emporda has been transformed into a boutique hotel.

Project: Castell D’emporda
Client: Albert Diks, Margo Vereijken – Castell D’emporda – La Bisbal, Girona

Concept, architecture and interior: Concrete
Office address: Rozengracht 133 III
Postal code: 1016 lv
City: Amsterdam
Country: the Netherlands

Project team concrete: Erikjan Vermeulen, Rob Wagemans, Cindy Wouters, Melanie Knuewer

Advisors:
Building regulations: Figa Arquitectos – Girona
Structural advice: Bellapart Construction – Olot

Contractors and suppliers:
Steel construction and corten steel: Bellapart Construction – Olot
Groundwork, ceilingwork and electrical: Burgos Gasull – la bisbal
Transparant curtains: Iaso – Lieida
Bar, loungeseating and tables: Roord Binnenbouw – Amsterdam
chairs: Academia – Italy
lighting: Modular

Covered area: 250m2
First briefing: januari 2011
Opening: june 2011
Duration of construction: 2 months

See also:

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Tree Restaurant by Koichi Takada	Metropol Parasol by J. Mayer H.	Pormetxeta Square by Xpiral and MTM

Last week, I questioned whether Kickstarter was the appropriate ‘marketplace’ for Dario Antonioni’s “Botanist Minimal,” suggesting that the bench had somehow transgressed the scope of Kickstarter as a crowdfunding platform. After all, the concept is already realized in full and Antonioni is simply raising funds to, er, jumpstart retail production.

Of course, I’m not one to challenge his choice of funding (especially if/when it hits the $20K mark)… much less the team at Kickstarter, who effectively co-sign on any projects that make it to the campaign stage (i.e. go live). Nevertheless, it’s worth examining Raleigh-based T-shirt purveyors CityFabrics, who are arguably in a similar situation with their campaign for “Wear You Live.” (Ironically, “Botanist Minimal” is offering T-shirts as lower-tier rewards, a typical reward for large-scale projects.)

First things first, the design itself is pretty nice: while I don’t agree with some of the cropping decisions, the “figure/ground” effect is atypical enough to feel fresh, imparting just a bit of abstraction to otherwise familiar imagery. The “thumbtack” pin is also a nice touch.

The best part about this small business project has been the interaction with our community. This type of map is so simple that it allows anyone from elementary school students to grandparents the ability to visually tell a story about their place. This Kickstarter project is an attempt to share our civic-minded, story-telling tools with more and more people. It’s our belief that the more people talk about their place, the more people will be involved in their community.

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Voici une expérience originale réalisée pour la marque d’Eric Singer : Shwood. Une paire de lunette totalement conçue à partir d’une planche de skateboard. Un travail sur le bois, expliqué et présenté en images par Joe Stevens sur une musique de T.Rex et du groupe The Black Keys.

Previously on Fubiz

• India Skateboards
• Skateboarding from every Angle
• Carving the Mountains

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As a special thank you, Core77 readers can receive a discount to this year’s symposium.
Register today by selecting “Group Fee.” Under: “How did you hear about Transform?” check “OTHER” and note Core77.

Core77 is proud to be a Media Sponsor for this year’s Transform2011 symposium, hosted by the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation in Rochester, Minnesota. A groundbreaking multidisciplinary gathering, Transform2011 will focus on the challenges of the health care delivery system through the lens of design—disruptive ideas, innovation, social media, games, technology development, advocacy, environments and shifting populations. The focus of the annual symposium is to encourage partnership, participation and engagement from professionals across disciplines with a common goal to affect change in the healthcare delivery system.

This year, Transform has invited a powerhouse of design thinkers and business leaders to participate in the symposium including William Drenttel (DesignObserver), John Thackara (Doors of Perception), Mariana Amatullo (Designmatters), Chris Hacker (Johnson & Johnson), James Hackett (Steelcase) and our own Allan Chochinov, just to name a few. We recently told you about a unique opportunity to be part of the conversation through the iSpot challenge and gave you a look into the Mayo Clinic CFI’s design process. Today we’re digging in a little deeper to learn more about the potential of design to transform our current healthcare delivery system.

Transform2011: Designing Solutions. Inspiring Health.
September 11-13
Rochester, Minnesota

Core77 had an opportunity to speak with two of this year’s speakers: Doug Powell (AIGA and HealthSimple) and Maggie Breslin (Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation). Read on to hear more about their perspective on this year’s conference.

When Doug Powell’s daughter Maya was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, he and his wife Lisa Schwartz Powell embarked on a project to create a well-designed tool to help demystify and manage the disease. The result was Type1Tools, a kid-friendly, intuitive educational product with an emphasis on colorful graphics and simplified information. In 2005, the Powells created HealthSimple to bring their approach to a broader audience. As a designer who has worked to bridge the gap between design and the healthcare industry, Powell has a unique perspective on the ways that design can help shape the future of the healthcare industry. Powell explains the urgency and importance of bringing designers and healthcare professionals to the same table:

We need to illuminate to the embedded leaders in the healthcare community what the real opportunity is and the breadth of that opportunity. In certain pockets, design is being implemented and utilized really pretty effectively. For example, the Mayo Center for Innovation is really a leader in this space—in patient room design they look at what that environment is like and what opportunity is there to create an experience for the patient that has a potentially positive effect on their health. That’s revelatory; that’s really a huge, huge step. But, at the same time there’s lots of open opportunity for designers to effectively make our case. Thus far, we’ve done an okay job of that but we need to continually do better to refine our story, keep finding new ways to connect with that audience and introduce new examples of effective design in the healthcare space.

Maggie Breslin, Senior Designer/Researcher at the Center for Innovation, pioneered the role at the Mayo Clinic in 2005. The organization was one of the first groups to embrace design as an inroad to healthcare solutions, bringing designers in-house in the mid-aughts. With a background in communication and media, Breslin brings a unique perspective to not only her role at the Center for Innovation, but also as a a designer. We spoke with Breslin about the importance of storytelling and the role of design in working to bring about new solutions for the healthcare delivery system.

Core77: Can you kind of tell us a little bit about just the importance of storytelling in your work, both as a designer and the Mayo Clinic?

Maggie Breslin: One of the sort of mini founding principles of the Center for Innovation is this real commitment to the idea that you can be multi-disciplinary and that any kind of solution to our healthcare delivery problem is going to come by bringing people together who haven’t normally been at the table to think about the problem and to think about solutions and to really engage each other in the way of advancing ideas.

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