Hasta La Ideas

En collaboration avec Pantone et le studio de design Knud Holscher, le distributeur danois Room Copenhagen a produit une collection de porte-cartes d’affaires aux couleurs vives inspirées des célèbres nuanciers Pantone.

Jonathan Woolf Architects used chiselled limestone to construct this family home near Nairobi, which is built into a hillside and topped by a heavy sloping roof (+ slideshow).

London-based Jonathan Woolf Architects designed Lost Villa as a home for 11 inhabitants in a forest outside Kenya’s capital city.

It comprises three blocks that cluster around a cloistered courtyard, forming separate but linked spaces for immediate family, grandparents and household staff.

A softly sloping roof binds the three buildings together and an opening in the supporting wall leads into the walled courtyard.

Limestone blocks were hand-cut and distressed to give the walls the appearance of ruins.

One two-storey block situated on the lowest part of the site is oriented to take in views across the forest valley, with family bedrooms and a living room on the upper floor and a guest suite below.

“We began by thinking of the ideal building in the landscape being a pavilion with orientation in all four directions,” Woolf told Dezeen.

“We placed that on the site with the best view of the valley and filled it with different living rooms and then added a second ‘pavilion’ for the bedrooms.”

The overhanging roof provides shade from the sun and protection against the monsoon rains. Residents can walk over its gently sloping surface – it was intended as a place to promenade and obtain better views of the scenery.

“The walls are like a found ruin, into which is imbedded a concrete slab, itself like the co-opted remains of some abandoned highway project,” explained Woolf. “Its projection defines the inhabitable spaces and acts as a large floor in the tree canopy of the Gigiri forest.”

Dormer windows project from the surface of the roof to bring light into the white painted spaces within. Shallow steps link some rooms, which are staggered to accommodate the sloping plot.

Two of the three blocks are single-storey, minimising the impact on the terrain, while the third is a chunky two-storey structure that occupies the foot of the site.

Carved dark wooden doors, collected by the clients from travels in India and Africa, are incorporated into the interior.

“These add to the narrative of the building itself as a found antique object – the artefacts seemingly from the original construction,” said the architect.

Solar panels generate electricity for the building, while rainwater is harvested in tanks beneath the courtyard.

The post Hewn limestone walls and an overhanging roof
enclose a hillside home in Nairobi appeared first on Dezeen.

La ville de Londres a prévu d’accueillir un nouveau pont qui se situera proche de Battersea Power Station pour faire la liaison entre les quartiers de Nine Elms et ceux de Pimlico. Une compétition a été lancée avec pas moins de 74 cabinets d’architectures. Voici une sélection des meilleures propositions.

The country’s first-ever women-only hotel, built at the turn of the 20th century, recently retook its original name—the Martha Washington—after passing through multiple owners in the last five years, and a fresh renovation. A big draw to this convenient……

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Monterrey studio Greenfield used walls of rammed earth and rugged stone to frame the rooms of this villa for the staff of an animal breeding facility in Mexico’s Maderas del Carmen natural park (+ slideshow).

Named The Cave, the building is located in Los Pilares, a 5,000-hectare conservation facility in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental mountains, where researchers are expanding herds of native animals such as the bighorn sheep.

The villa is used by the researchers as a space for relaxing and socialising, so there are no bedrooms. The main spaces are large living and dining areas with generous views out over the scenic mountain landscape.

Greenfield founder Kenji López Rivera based his design around a desire to use natural and recycled materials that could be sourced locally and would feel appropriate for the rural setting.

“Like in vernacular architecture, the building responds directly to the site where it is placed, with basic and even primitive volumes that rise with materials from the region, gaining colour and texture right from the landscape,” he explained.

Huge stones were used to create chunky walls around the southern and eastern sides of the building’s L-shaped plan. Elsewhere, rammed earth – a construction material created by compressing damp soil – forms walls of wavy layers that sit over a stone base.

The building’s structural framework was built using wood and concrete, while corrugated metal and hardwood sourced from abandoned nearby railway tracks were also utilised.

“Because of the nature and isolation of the place, it was important to use and reuse the resources of the area,” said López Rivera. “The constructive system combines river rocks, pine wood, rammed earth and concrete, which are elements rich in textures that mimic the multicoloured landscape that can be perceived during sunset.”

“The feeling while visiting the project resembles that of a cave, partially buried into the ground, providing a shelter from the exterior and allowing the user enjoy it from the warming interior,” he added.

The villa centres around a communal living area that is raised up higher than most of the other rooms. Concrete steps lead down from here to a large dining room with enough space for a group to dine together.

Both of these spaces feature walls of glazing that open out to terraces, giving occupants plenty of opportunities to look out towards the mountains and observe the local wildlife.

A small kitchen and barbecue area sit alongside one another at the south-west corner of the building. The bathroom occupies a triangular space on the opposite side of the corridor, while a winding passageway leads down to an underground wine cellar.

Photography is by Adrián Llaguno.

Project credits: 

Architecture: Greenfield – Kenji López Rivera
Collaborators: Melisa Avila, Esmeralda Salinas, Antonio Flores, Juan Tellez, Julia Briones, Dolores Maximino, Manuel Cruz

The post The Cave is a rammed-earth and stone villa
in a Mexico wildlife conservation facility appeared first on Dezeen.