Hasta La Ideas

Squeezed between two existing buildings in Barcelona, this family home by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes features a steel frame, a timber facade and two street-facing balconies (+ slideshow).

Spanish studio Alventosa Morell Arquitectes designed CP House for a 15-metre-long site in the Nou Barris district of Barcelona.

Sandwiched between a high-rise apartment block and a smaller building with an ornamental facade, the four-storey structure mediates between the two contrasting heights.

The architects’ aim was to create living spaces separated from the hubbub of the busy street, but to also funnel as much natural light as possible into the cramped site.

They fronted the building’s facade with large sections of wood that can be used to open or close off the interior to the street, while the two staggered balconies on the uppermost floors allow residents to observe people coming and going.

“The outdoor settings aren’t a welcoming zone for a family house,” said the architects, describing the typical street noise. “It gets the maximum of decibels according to regulations.”

The street-facing facade presents a fortress-like appearance with its high solid walls, while the more secluded rear elevation features a series of terraces, slotted between large panels of glazing and slatted timber shutters.

“While the main facade was thought to give privacy and protect from the daily noise, the back one was designed to have as much light as possible,” said the team.

This arrangement led to the creation of two separate zones within the building, divided by a staircase that rises through a central atrium.

Living and entertaining spaces are oriented towards the back of the house, while the bedrooms sit behind the street-facing facade.

The stairs have slim white railings and timber treads that match the wooden elements of the facade. Portions of the white-painted atrium are faced in this same timber to homogenise interior fittings.

Integrated lighting around the edges of the panelling gives the walls a peripheral glow.

“The most dominant architectural feature is the access of natural light inside the different spaces and rooms,” said the architects.

“This is due to a system of folding shutter blinds, that protect from the extra solar radiation, and a succession of vertical spaces and skylights.”

Surrounded by white balustrades, the landings function as indoor balconies that overlook the glass-fronted living spaces below.

The ground level rises towards the back of the house, where a low concrete wall surrounds a patio adjoining the galley kitchen and dining room.

In the wetroom, an arrangement of multi-tonal blue tiles are incorporated to inject colour into the otherwise monochrome white space.

Photography is by Adrià Goula.

Project credits:

Architects: Alventosa Morell Arquitectes: Josep Ma. Alventosa, Marc Alventosa y Xavier Morell
Technical Architect: GOPSE, Elíes Sanz Espada
Principal Builder: Global Projects
Wood finishes and wood windows: Soldevila Construcció i decoració en fusta
Ilumination project: Viabizzuno Barcelona + Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

The post Alventosa Morell slots a four-storey house
between two blocks in Barcelona appeared first on Dezeen.

Quando vidi i lavori di Stefano Colferai per la prima volta ne rimasi folgorato. La sua impeccabile manualità lo ha portato a lavorare sempre di più con la plastilina, materiale con cui plasma le sue creazioni. Anche se passa gran parte del suo tempo con le mani in pasta, questo è il suo desktop.

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Helsinki-based Studio Puisto used hanging basket seats, strips of timber and potted plants for the interior of this 20-room hotel in Tampere, Finland (+ slideshow).

Located within a converted industrial building, the Dream Hotel was designed by Studio Puisto to accompany the pre-existing Dream Hostel in the same building, offering an additional 20 boutique suites with en suite bathrooms.

The architects designed the rooms to be fairly basic to keep costs low, focusing on creating private sleeping space. Seating is provided in the hallways, which are designed to act as communal living spaces. This arrangement was also intended to integrate some of the ideas of shared space from the hostel into the hotel.

“Rather than fulfilling the conventional hotel standards, it tries to offer everything that a guest really needs for a good nights sleep,” they said.

Half of the rooms – those with double beds – have street-facing windows, while the twin rooms, positioned off-grid in the middle of the complex, have clerestory windows that bring in light from the corridors.

“The open character of the industrial building is strengthened by placing the rooms as separate units in the open space,” said the architects, “thus creating a feeling of being in a public park in between individual volumes.”

Wooden cocoon chairs are suspended from the ceiling on lengths of rough-fibred rope in the corridor that runs outside the bedrooms.

Soft furnishings with turquoise and evergreen coloured textiles contrast with the neutral tones of the space, which has a course-textured beige carpet.

Slim strips of multi-tonal timber line the white and grey walls to mark the bedroom entrances, and are used inside to stripe the walls behind the beds. Timbers criss-cross the white painted ceilings to give a coffered appearance.

“To create a peaceful warm atmosphere and at the same time use materials responsibly, there is an extensive use of natural materials,” said the team.

A meeting room is situated on one side of the floor plan, and there is a communal kitchen that is also available to hostel guests. The hotel owners hope these features will add value over a conventional hotel experience.

The Dream Hotel was recently selected by British tabloid the Daily Mail as one of the top ten “poshtels” in Europe.

Photography is by Patrik Rastenberger.

Project credits:

Architectural design: Studio Puisto Architects
Interior design: Studio Puisto Architects
Construction: Cajamäki Oy

The post Studio Puisto’s Dream Hotel extends
a popular hostel in a former warehouse appeared first on Dezeen.

Transparent resin blocks peppered with flowers form the seat and arms of the Miss Blanche Chair by Shiro Kuramata – letter M in our alphabetical Christmas countdown.

Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata created the Miss Blanche Chair in 1988, three years before his death.

The armchair is named Miss Blanche after the character Blanche DuBois in the 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire, written by American playwright Tennessee Williams.

Plexiglass roses are suspended in the transparent resin blocks used to create the seat and arms of the chair.

The flowers are allegedly a homage to a corsage worn by actress Vivian Leigh while portraying DuBois in a 1951 film adaption of the play.

The roses are poured into the liquid acrylic mixture by hand, before the material slowly dries and hardens.

A curved sheet of glass-like acrylic stuck vertically into the seat forms the back, causing the chair to weigh around 70 kilograms.

Produced by the designer’s studio Kuramata Design Office, the Miss Blanche Chair balances on four pink aluminium tubes.

MoMA San Francisco is among the museums that have the chair in their permanent collections, and an edition of the design was auctioned at Christie’s in London for £46,000 in October 1997.

Kuramata was a member of the Memphis group in the early 1980s and was responsible for furnishing boutiques for Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake in New York, Paris and Tokyo later in the decade.

Dezeen is publishing an A to Z of iconic chairs to count down the days until Christmas. Catch up with the list so far »

The post Dezeen’s A-Zdvent calendar:
Miss Blanche Chair by Shiro Kuramata appeared first on Dezeen.

Earlier we showed you a movie Hayao Miyazaki never made, and here we can show you a piece of one that he did. The last piece, in fact, of the last movie he’ll ever make, by most accounts; though the globally-beloved animation master has announced—and rescinded—his retirement before, this time he’s rumored to be quitting for good.

So here we have something akin to watching Frank Lloyd Wright draw his last line, or Harley Earl shaving his last piece of clay. And it happens in a cramped-looking, low-ceilinged office lit by fluorescents, with an actual pencil and paper.

Not sure if you caught it, but the clip is significant as he changes the final meaning of the entire movie (The Wind Rises) by changing a single syllable of a single word uttered by one of the characters.

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