Alventosa Morell slots a four-storey house between two blocks in Barcelona

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).

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

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.

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

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.

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

“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.”

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

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.

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

“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.

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

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.

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

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.

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

“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.”

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

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

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

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.

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

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

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

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

CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes
Basement floor plan – click for larger image
CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes
Ground floor plan – click for larger image
CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes
First floor plan – click for larger image
CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes
Second floor plan – click for larger image
CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes
Roof plan – click for larger image
CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes
Section one – click for larger image
CP house by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes
Section two – click for larger image

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

Link About It: This Week's Picks: Obama learns to code, an addictive digital spirograph, Behance's year in review and more in our weekly look at the web

Link About It: This Week's Picks

1. Obama Learns to Code
Last year when President Barack Obama delivered a YouTube speech encouraging young kids to learn to code, he hadn’t actually had any coding experience himself. To kick off this year’s Computer Science Education Week, POTUS……

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Cmd-Shift-3: Stefano Colferai

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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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Saint Pancras Hotel Interior

Situé aux abords de la gare de Londres, l’hôtel St. Pancras Renaissance London a rouvert ses portes après huit années de restauration des studios d’architecture Manhattan Loft. L’ambition était de créer un hôtel intégrant l’ensemble de la technologie de pointe d’aujourd’hui dans un bâtiment qui n’avait jamais permis une telle disposition : un coût de plus de 200 millions de livres pour remettre cet immeuble emblématique sur pieds.

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Studio Puisto's Dream Hotel extends a popular hostel in a former warehouse

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).

Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto

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.

Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto

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.

Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto

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.

Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto

“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.”

Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto

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.

Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto

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.

Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto

“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.

Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto

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.

Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto

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

Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto
Floor plan – click for larger image
Dream Hotel, Tampere, Finland by Studio Puisto
Section – click for larger image

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a popular hostel in a former warehouse
appeared first on Dezeen.

Star Wars Creature Plush Keep You Warm at Night

These Star Wars Creature Plushs from thinkgeek. There are six different creatures to choose from..(Read…)

Dezeen's A-Zdvent calendar: Miss Blanche Chair by Shiro Kuramata

Miss Blanche Chair by Shiro Kuramata

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.

OS & OOS upholsters Keystone chair in Raf Simons' Kvadrat textiles

Keystone chair by Os & Oos

Eindhoven studio OS & OOS have unveiled a version of their Keystone chair upholstered in textiles from the Raf Simons collection for Danish company Kvadrat.

Keystone chair by Os & Oos

Produced by Danish firm Please Wait to be Seated, the upholstered chair was designed by OS & OOS as a more practical version of its concrete and ceramic predecessor, and is built around a wooden frame.



The Keystone chair features three distinct elements that, according to designers Oskar Peet and Sophie Mensen, are “abstracted and reassembled” interpretations of three key elements found in Roman bridges.

Keystone chair by Os & Oos

Peet and Mensen describe these as: “spanners – elements which connect the bridge to the surface and ensure this foothold does not slide or move – the elemental building blocks, and the keystone, which when inserted completes the fundamental arch shape.”

The back is formed by a chunky angled element, representing the spanner, while another arched-shaped section forms the seat. These two pieces are joined together by the triangular-profiled “keystone”, which sits the opposite way round to how it would in a bridge.

Keystone chair by Os & Oos

Each of these parts has been covered in a different textile from the collection designed by fashion designer Raf Simons for Kvadrat, which launched earlier this year.

“The three separate elements of the chair remain, but upholstered in three different colours and textiles from the collections,” said the designers, who saw the fabrics at Milan interior design store Spotti during this year’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile in April.

Keystone chair by Os & Oos

“We were rather [impressed by] how well the textile worked in contrasting combinations, which led us to the idea of using it for the Keystone chair,” they told Dezeen.

With a concrete backrest and ceramic seat, the original chair was “as far from a commercial product as it could get,” said Peet and Menson. “We almost see that chair as a pure investigation in construction, form and function.”

Keystone chair by Os & Oos

The initial design weighed around 450 kilograms and was “built and formed around the idea of using weight as the concept,” but the Raf Simons textiles have been used to soften its appearance for the new model.

“We didn’t expect the two chairs to feel so different from each other to be honest,” Peet and Mensen said. “Proportionally they share everything together, but the tactility of the materials really set them apart. The use of concrete and stone fits so well with the original concept as does using textile for the lighter version, it just seems to fit.”

Original Keystone chair by OS & OOS
Original Keystone chair by OS & OOS

The post OS & OOS upholsters Keystone chair
in Raf Simons’ Kvadrat textiles
appeared first on Dezeen.

Say It Ain't So: Miyazaki Animates His Final Frame!

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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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Winter Snow Essentials for Women: Five snow-specific products that put aesthetics on par with form and function

Winter Snow Essentials for Women


For those in the Northern Hemisphere, winter is here to stay (at least for the next few months) and while it may seem grim, it also means getting back to all your favorite cold weather activities. For many who are drawn to the mountains, skiing and……

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