Située non loin de Madrid, la Balcony House est un projet de 952m2 sur 3 étages de l’espagnol Joaquim Torres du duo d’architectes A-cero. Jouant sur des lignes horizontales et de grands espaces ouverts sur un environnement naturel superbe, le résultat est magnifique. A découvrir en images dans la suite de l’article.
Simply love the this Data Pouch – 2018 Future External HDD. It allows you to secure your important data with lock system and check the capacity of the HDD with a display system. Sharing data is also very easy and see its contents without interfacing with a computer.
Back in 1989 there were really only two supercars worth talking about: The Ferrari F40 and the Porsche 959. So it caused quite a stir when a car most of us Americans had never heard of, the Nissan Skyline GT-R, beat the all-wheel-drive Porsche 959’s track time in the rain at Germany’s famously demanding Nurburgring proving grounds.
Nowadays the Skyline is well-known among street racers worldwide, and in one of the Fast and Furious movies the protagonist even scores a coveted right-hand-drive version built for the Japanese market. (It is reportedly actor Paul Walker’s own personal car.) But what many may not realize is that the now aggressive-looking Skyline started out as a rather humble, boxy vehicle. Check out these unintentionally amusing Skyline commercials, and peep the styling evolution, from the 1960s onwards:
Mugi Yamamoto è giovane designer nato in Giappone e cresciuto in Svizzera; quest’anno si è laureato a Losanna e con il progetto di tesi, la stampante Stack, ha già fatto bingo. La stampante è stata recensita dai migliori blog di design, ma nel sito di Yamamoto sono pubblicati altri progetti che dimostrano sia grande inventiva che una rassicurante concretezza (guarda qui e qui).
Ad ogni modo il suo pezzo pregiato è questa stampante: dopo aver studiato le tipologie di stampanti in commercio è riuscito a produrne una versione originale, molto innovativa e plausibile. Stack è una piccola stampante di formato A4 di dimensioni ridotte grazie all’idea di portare all’esterno la carta da stampa. La stampante, infatti, va posta in cima a una pila di fogli, così che può pescare la carta non da un cassetto esterno ma dal mucchio sottostante. E’ evidente come questo prodotto abbia dei limiti ma le sue dimensioni compatte la rendono preferibile, per certi utilizzi, a una stampante tradizionale.
The unlikely gang of Johannes Vermeer, an inventor named Tim Jenison, and the magical double act of Penn & Teller got critics (and everyone else) buzzing at the recently wrapped Telluride Film Festival, where Tim’s Vermeer made its world premiere before heading north to the Toronto Film Festival, which runs through Sunday.
The documentary, directed by Teller and produced by Penn Jillette and Farley Ziegler, follows Texas-based Jenison who, after devouring David Hockney‘s 2001 book Secret Knowledge (which makes a case for the Old Masters’ use of camera-like devices), tries to adapt 17th-century technology for a DIY Vermeer. Part scientific investigation, part art historical mystery story, the film features appearances by Hockney, actor and artist Martin Mull, architect-turned-Vermeer expert Philip Steadman, and neurobiologist Colin Blakemore, who illuminates the optics and visual processing particulars. continued…
Purion is an ion air purifier designed as an integration into a traditional Agungi – or Korean fireplace made of natural stone and soil. While heating, the main device purifies and sterilizes air in the room while portable stick ionizers are charged wirelessly in the Agungi’s opening. Each can then be carried to other spaces in the home where they emit negative ions.
Instead of taking a cup off the shelf, filling it with water, and placing it in the sink to be washed… why not let the shelf itself to all the work?! The S2 mounts directly to the wall to act as a shelf, purifier, dispenser… and…. wait for it…. dish washer! Once used, a cup can be replaced on the unit to be mist-washed, UV sterilized, and hot-air dried.
Designer: Jung Hyun Min
– Yanko Design Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world! Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design! (Grab. Sip. Repeat. was originally posted on Yanko Design)
This wooden nursery and elementary school complex in Lyon by French architects Tectoniques has hilly rooftops carpeted with plants that feature walkways for students to explore (+ slideshow).
Tectoniques built the two schools on a sloping site opposite a wooded parkland in the northern city suburb of Rillieux-la-Pape.
The two- and three-storey buildings were designed with V-shaped plans. The nursery school frames a garden, while the elementary school wraps around a narrow courtyard.
In certain places the plant-covered rooftops appear to emerge from the ground, created a series of slopes and pathways that children are encouraged to investigate.
“One of the project’s major characteristics is the relationship it establishes between architecture and nature,” said the architects. “The structures in keeping with their surroundings are, at times, allowing nature to more or less literally to get the upper hand.”
“The general profile is uniformly and deliberately low, harmonising with the slope in such a way as to minimise the excavation and foundation work,” they added.
The two schools operate independently, but share some facilities. A communal entrance provides a place for parents to congregate before and after school, and is linked to the village by a pedestrian pathway.
Timber cladding covers most of the building’s interior and exterior, but is interspersed with a few yellow-painted panels on the walls and ceilings.
Spacious corridors run between classrooms and feature floor-to-ceiling windows to increase natural light.
A vegetable garden grows on the perimeter of the school, plus a new gymnasium will be added to the site next year.
Photography is by Renaud Araud and the architects.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Paul Chevallier School in Rillieux-la-Pape
The Paul Chevallier school complex is situated in Rillieux-la-Pape, a northern suburb of Lyon. At 5,034 m2, it is an unusually large project; and this indicates the growing attractiveness of the area. The complex currently comprises a nursery school and an elementary school. In 2014, a gym will be added, which will also be available for community activities. The site occupies an entire block, close to the centre of the district. The two schools are functionally and administratively autonomous. While following on from each other, they make up a continuum, in an overall composition.
They are made up of rectangular modules in “V” formations enclosing internal spaces which, in the case of the nursery school, is a garden, and, in that of the elementary school, a patio. The design takes account of the sloping terrain. The structures in laminated KLH® panels have imposing planted-out roofs with overhangs. Lending its tone to the entire project, this extra “façade” represents the lyrical nature of the relationship between nature and architecture, in a Japanese-inspired atmosphere. It is accessible and visible from inside the buildings via the volumes of the first floor, part of which rises up over the roof and seems to float over this hanging garden.
Integration into the urban mosaic
The site is surrounded by disparate constructed forms that illustrate the historical development of the area. The old village stretches out along the Route de Strasbourg, and on the southern side there is a mix of apartment blocks and private housing developments. Dense, diverse plant life accompanies and modifies this urban environment. Across from the site is the wooded Brosset park, with, on its perimeter, the Maison des Familles, the Centre Social and the Ecole de Musique, whose functions are complementary to those of the schools.
The nursery school occupies a calm, sheltered position in a garden at the heart of the site, with an area of vegetation close to a château and some villas. The elementary school has a façade that gives onto Rue Salignat. The future gym will follow the alignment of the street. A pedestrian pathway leads to the entrance, organising the area where the parents congregate, and linking the schools to the village, as a prolongation to the existing axes of communication. It is lined by the structures themselves, thus leaving room for the playgrounds and gardens on the southern side.
Reconciling architecture and nature
One of the project’s major characteristics is the relationship it establishes between architecture and nature. The structures are in keeping with their surroundings, at times allowing nature, more or less literally, to “get the upper hand”. The general profile is uniformly, deliberately low, harmonising with the slope in such a way as to minimise excavation and foundation work. The project harmonises vegetation on the upper and lower levels. The volumes in wood are separated by the broad, planted-out roofs, with their waves of colour.
The inclined roof planes and broad overhangs energise the silhouette, and attenuate the massiveness of the blocks. This schema is an encouragement to strolling and dallying. It projects an impression of insouciance that is ideally suited to the world of children. From the inside, nature is framed by the large windows of the classrooms, and its close proximity makes it an element of the children’s educational needs. The landscapers have provided places of discovery and experimentation. There is a vegetable garden beside Rue Salignat, and a discovery path on the way to the canteen in the northern wing of the nursery school. There are also walkways on the roofs, which introduce the children to another ambiance.
Poetry and surprise
The two schools are unified by their broad, pleated roofs, the nursery school being lower down on the slope. The ground plan is simple, so that the children can easily find their way around. The geometry, and notably the passageways, contrast with the spatial intensity. The inner perspectives are telescoped or attenuated, depending on whether the walls are convex or concave. Views onto the outside world, and superimposed spaces, are always different, always new. There are multiple, changing, irregular facets. No two façades are the same.
The complex is labile, asymmetrical, surprising. In terms of organisation, the classrooms are rectangular, and can take thirty children comfortably. The collective spaces (library, concourse, music and computing rooms) stand out, in part, above the roofs. Large windows, sheltered by the roof projections and sunshades, open onto the playgrounds on the southern side. And the nursery school also receives natural light from the north. Access to the nursery school classrooms is through cloakrooms, via yellow perforated metal entry points that indicate a passage from one world to another.
The toilets and dormitories are shared by two classrooms, and there is customised furniture in three-ply spruce, from the cloakrooms to the cupboards in the classrooms. The passageways have their own character, and are the project’s main axes. The galleries, main entrance, hall, covered playground, corridors and terraces are carefully designed, spacious, with natural lighting, for easy occupation.
Wood in depth
Wood is a pre-eminent presence. Tectoniques generally uses wood frames for its school projects, but in this case there are wood panels throughout, for the walls, façades and floors. They are left exposed on the inside surfaces, giving solidity and depth to the walls and partitions. This impression of mass and weight creates an impression that is unusual for construction in wood, which by its very nature is light.
Apart from the foundations, slabs, ground floor and stairwells, everything is in wood, including the lift shaft. The outer aspect of the complex is characterised by overhangs that are 2.4 m long and 0.18 m deep. Structurally, the roof is made of KLH® panels, as mentioned above, while the upper storey has cavity floors in prefabricated laminates between OSB planking on dry slabs, with soft coverings.
From preparation (long) to implementation (short)
The design-construction process is similar to certain techniques that have been used in Austria. Industrially-produced panels and more elaborate components are used for on-site dry assembly. This is one of the most ambitious project of its kind to be implemented in France, using a constructional approach that is one of Tectoniques’ specialities.
Area: 6,150 m2 Cost: €10.5 million Client: Muncipality of Rillieux-la-Pape Architects and surveyors: Tectoniques Engineers: BPR Ingénierie Générale, Arborescence Structures Bois, Indiggo Environnement Environmental approach: wood burning boiler, ground-coupled heat exchanger, wood frame, KLH panels, reutilisation of rainwater, solar-heated water for sanitary use
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