Hasta La Ideas

Californian studio Belzberg Architects has built a concrete culinary school in Mexico City, offering a range of facilities to the local Jewish community, including rooftop yoga and art galleries.

The 650-square-metre Taller Estrella Jafif is located in Bosques de las Lomas neighbourhood, where a large majority of the city’s Jewish community moved to between the 1950s and 80s.

The brief given to Santa Monica-based Belzberg Architects was to provide local residents with a cookery school that conforms to Jewish religious dietary laws, known as kosher.

As the project developed, the firm decided that the building should also become a hub of cultural and sports activity for its users.

“The building’s programme expanded to provide the surrounding community with a venue for small events and gatherings,” said Belzberg Architects.

“In addition to offering kosher cooking classes, the space hosts art exhibitions, yoga classes, large catered celebrations and a variety of other activities, allowing the neighbours to stay local rather than travel miles through Mexico City’s protracted traffic.”

The cookery school occupies the ground floor of the building, wrapping around a central courtyard. The kitchen is placed towards the front of the building, with glass doors offering views to and from the adjoining dining room.

Concrete walls are imprinted by vertical wooden planks, and are complemented by exposed concrete beams and rough wooden flooring. These stripped-back finishes were chosen so the room could be adapted for different uses.

For example, the long wooden table in the centre can be moved to create an open gallery, with the bare walls providing a backdrop for displaying artwork.

“The material palette of the project strikes a balance between achieving an expressive, modern design and a simple backdrop appropriate for any use,” Belzberg Architects said.

“Board-formed concrete, exposed beams, and weathered wood floors express the construction technique, while emphasising the double-height scale of the main space.”

A large glazed wall is fitted with sliding doors that open from the dining room to the yard. The patio is topped with a glass roof, while printed concrete walls match those inside.

The outdoor space is sparsely populated, apart from a tree that grows from a large planter, but dining benches can be moved from inside to provide seating for reading.

Decorative details are added by tiles that pattern the wall running along the edge of the plot. This wall extends from the yard, beside a ramped and stepped walkway – also covered by a glazed roof – and ending at the entrance.

It forms one of the building’s many access points, intended to keep separation between different events and activities. Two doors from the driveway provide access to the kitchen, while a landscaped outdoor staircase on the other side of the building leads up to events on the roof terrace.

Visitors can access the interior through glass doors into a homely styled through-space. A wooden door detailed to match the markings of the concrete walls opens to an office and a reception room on the other side, and a wooden staircase with a glass balustrade that leads to toilets on a mezzanine level.

There is also a mezzanine on the opposite side of the building, above the kitchen floor, where staff rooms are placed.

Taller Estrella Jafif is among a number of cookery schools of architectural merit. Other examples include a cookery centre in Seoul based on European factory interiors and one in an contemporary shed.

Photography is by LGM Studio.

Project credits:

Architect: Belzberg Architects
Project team: Hagy Belzberg (partner-in-charge), David Cheung (project manager), Ashley Coon (designer)
General contractor Grupo Anima
Landscape architect: Estrella Jafif
Interior designer: Estrella Jafif

The post Kosher cookery school in Mexico City features board-marked concrete walls appeared first on Dezeen.

Apartment Therapy recently ran an article by Shifrah Combiths entitled 9 Things No One Needs Anymore and Should Declutter. The list includes DVDs, DVD cases, CDs, file cabinets, a stockpile of pantry and household items, wall calendars, physical inspiration (mood boards, etc.), paper lists, and take-out menus. The recommended alternatives were almost all digitally focused: streaming services for movies, Amazon’s Subscribe and Save service, scanned papers, etc.

The good part about this list is it can challenge you to think about whether the physical items you have are indeed the best answer for you. Maybe you really do want to eliminate one or more of these things from your space and use other options.

But I can think of many situations where eliminating these items isn’t the best choice. Combiths acknowledges some of these, noting that people may want DVDs for road trips and CDs for playing in the car. Some people’s minds work better with wall calendars, and they also help some families.

But the following are some other reasons people may want to hold onto the items that “no one needs any more:”

• They aren’t comfortable using digital options. My father, who is in his 90s, is not going to scan his papers and keep them in the cloud, as Combiths suggested.
• They live somewhere with slow internet connectivity. Streaming movies just isn’t a good option for everyone.
• They have budget constraints. Streaming services cost money. Keeping some DVDs and CDs (especially ones that children play repeatedly) and borrowing others from the library may be better options for some people. A good scanner costs money that people may not have, too.
• They just work better with paper, at least in certain circumstances. Some people really like their paper lists, even if they acknowledge the benefits of digital ones. You’ll still find a wide variety of paper lists for sale: to-do lists, shopping lists, and more — as well as paper planners that include both calendars and lists. And not everyone is going to find that a Pinterest board works as well for them as a physical vision board.
• They have a real need to stockpile at least some items. I stockpile a lot of water, some food items, cat litter, and more because I want to be prepared in case of an earthquake.
• They are movie fans who like all the supplementary material that comes with DVDs and usually isn’t available from a service like Netflix. They may also like more obscure titles that aren’t readily available through streaming services.
• They have disabilities that make digital options less attractive. For example, not all websites work well with screen readers. And Hulu was recently sued because it didn’t provide the audio description tracks that are available for many movies and TV shows, describing what’s going on for those who cannot see it.

So yes — you may well find that you don’t need all or most of the items in the Apartment Therapy list. But it’s perfectly okay if you do if you do need or want some of them. Lists like this are useful if they get you to reconsider what you’re saving, but you’re the ultimate authority on what works for your particular situation.

Post written by Jeri Dansky

A collection of the best news bloopers that made the internet laugh in 2017..(Read…)

The Size of Life 2..(Read…)

This is a video of a group of drunk youngsters performing some late night air-skateboard tricks in a Denny’s parking. Haha…(Read…)