Hasta La Ideas

As a practicing designer I worked in “structural package design,” i.e. bottles. I had zero leeway in volume control; if I was tasked to CAD up a 500mL bottle, the internal displacement had to be precisely 500mL up to the fill line. And the folks in Marketing often determined the height of the bottle (to stand taller than the competitors on the store shelves), reducing my options further.

My question is for those of you with flatware design experience. Are you allowed to determine the diameters and volumes of plates and bowls, or is that Marketing- or BOM-dictated? I ask because if you can, you are essentially controlling how much food people might consume by providing physical boundaries.

I ask this because it’s come out that wine glasses have been steadily growing in volume for the past 300 years, going from about 66mL to a whopping 449mL. That’s a factor of seven.

Then

Then

Then

Then

NOW

According to The Guardian the discovery was made a Behavior and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge, who have been studying and measuring the volume of wine glasses from the 1700s up to the present day. That 18th-Century wine glasses were smaller doesn’t surprise me; I imagine manufacturing limitations at the time meant small glasses were easier to produce. But nearly half a liter of rotgut in a single glass sounds like a bit much to me; who is behind this decision? Designers? Marketers? Manufacturers?

Or maybe booze manufacturers. As you’d expect, increasing the size of the glass means people drink more–even when the serving portions are kept the same:

Prof Theresa Marteau, director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge, who led the research…and her colleagues carried out an experiment at the Pint Shop in Cambridge, altering the size of wine glasses while keeping the serving sizes the same. They found this led to an almost 10% increase in sales.

The Guardian puts forth a less nefarious theory about who’s behind the size increase:

The Wine and Spirits Trade Association said sociological trends were probably part of the reason for the growing wine glasses.

“The size of a wine glass reflects the trend and fashions of the time and is often larger for practical reasons” said the WSTA chief executive Miles Beale. “Red wine, for example, is served in a larger glass to allow it to breathe, something which perhaps wasn’t a priority 300 years ago.”

Mixed with both slaked lime and natural pigments (in fact, the original cream color used in the 1500s), milk from the Pope’s cows—raised at the papal summer residence, Castel Gandolfo—is being used to paint the Vatican’s Belvedere Castle. This is a……

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To truly understand the capabilities of a design house, it makes sense to immerse yourself in a world of their creation. This is exactly what one experiences when entering Roman and Williams’ brand new Guild New York—a 7,000-square-foot showcase of……

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San Francisco studio Klopf Architecture has renovated and expanded a mid-century modern home in northern California that was built by pioneering post-war real-estate developer Joseph Eichler.

The 2,285-square-foot (212-square-metre) dwelling is located in the San Mateo Highlands neighbourhood, which features numerous modern homes built by Eichler in the 1950s and 1960s. Eichler, who died in 1974, is credited for introducing modern-style housing subdivisions to America.

The project, called the Mid-Mod Eichler Addition Remodel, was commissioned by a young couple with two small children, who had a strong appreciation for Eichler homes.

“They are minimalists with a modernist’s eye who, along with their tasteful modernist art objects and furniture, were looking for an updated and upgraded modernist home,” said San Francisco-based Klopf Architecture, who worked on the project in collaboration with Outer Space Landscape Architects and Coast to Coast Construction.

“The goals were to maintain the Eichler style while bringing in high quality, more current materials and updating what was already there.”

Situated on an irregular wedge-shaped lot, the low-lying house totalled 1,880 square feet (175 square metres). To make it a big larger, the team created an addition that extends into the home’s side yard, and contains an office and guest room.

Taking design cues from the original home, the addition features exposed wooden ceiling beams and dark bronze door frames. Large expanses of glass help reduce the visual impact of the new volume.

“The addition needed to be transparent so it would not appear massive and take up the side yard,” the team said.

Various modifications were made to the existing parts of the home. Bathrooms, storage areas and the entry zone were enlarged, and new ceramic tile flooring was installed. A new radiant floor heating system was put in place, replacing the former one, which was leaking.

The team was able to retain most of the home’s original mahogany panelling, which was re-stained to bring out the richness of the timber. Damaged panels that were beyond repair were replaced.

The project also entailed updates to exterior spaces, including a new barbecue area, a fire pit with seating and drought-tolerant plants. The home’s original plywood siding was retained and refreshed.

Between 1949 and 1966, Eichler built over 10,000 modern-style dwellings for the middle class in California. Klopf Architecture has renovated dozens of Eichler homes, including one in the nearby town of Mountainview, while architecture firm Michael Hennessey recently refreshed a 1965 Eichler house in San Francisco’s Diamond Heights neighbourhood.

Photography is by Mariko Reed.

Project credits:

Klopf Architecture project team: John Klopf and Angela Todorova
Landscape architect: Outer Space
Contractor: Coast to Coast
Structural engineer: Brian Dotson Consulting Engineer
Energy consultant: Energy Compliance Services

The post Klopf Architecture updates mid-century modern Eichler home in Silicon Valley appeared first on Dezeen.

Continuing our review of the year, architecture editor Jessica Mairs looks at the themes that dominated construction in 2017, from outlandish shipping container designs and fantasy skyscraper concepts, to the demise of brutalist housing stock.

Plant-covered buildings sprouted up everywhere 

We published more proposals for plant-covered buildings this year than ever before. Among the 15 plans – some under construction and others simply concepts – is Thomas Heatherwick’s 1000 Trees development in Shanghai. As the name suggests, the building will eventually be covered in foliage dispersed across 1,000 columnar planters.

Vo Trong Nghia Architects carried on the trend by completing a pair of bamboo-covered homes in Ho Chi Minh City, one of which won a category award at this year’s World Architecture Festival, while Stefano Boeri unveiled plans to build smog-eating “vertical forests” from Nanjing to Mars.

(Im)plausible shipping container proposals

While repurposing shipping containers isn’t entirely a new idea, proposals have been ramping up in ambition this year, from hot tubs and swimming pools to back-yard offices and football stadiums.

This year’s most-read story was for a particularly striking proposal for a home made from a splayed arrangement of bright white cargo containers in the Californian desert.

Also hugely popular with readers was a Brooklyn house made from stacked containers, angled as if capsizing into the pavement.

Gender imbalance

The year began on a hopeful note for gender equity with Denise Scott Brown – famously denied her share of the Pritzker Prize – being awarded the Jane Drew Prize for women in architecture. But progress seems to have taken multiple backward steps, as a raft of poor industry decisions ensued.

Along the way, UK Construction Week employed actors in “Vegas show girl” outfits to lure in customers, Dezeen’s former editor Anna Winston wrote about the industry’s culture of quietly condoning sexist behavior, and Bjarke Ingels was forced to defend accusations of sexism in the upper rungs of his firm.

We rounded off the year by revealing the depressing findings of a Dezeen survey, which found that just three of the world’s biggest architecture firms have a female leader.

Cross-laminated timber buildings became a reality 

One of the world’s tallest cross-laminated timber buildings completed last month in London, after years of anticipation about what heights solely engineered wood and glue might take construction.

British furniture brand Vitsœ also used the material for its new “intentionally unfinished” headquarters and workshop in Royal Leamington Spa, and OFIS Arhitekti used cross-laminated timber to create a robust mountain cabin in Slovenia.

The first hybrid timber tower was also given the go ahead in the US, where Skidmore, Owings & Merrill are tipped to be advising on new guidelines for timber construction.

Renewed focus on social housing

A fatal fire at Grenfell Tower brought the state of social housing – especially post-war stock – very much into the spotlight in the UK, with architects condemning the system as “dangerous, ugly, cruel and uncaring”.

The discussion continued in Australia with the private sell off of the Sirius building, and in the UK with the demolition of Robin Good Gardens, and the redevelopment of Park Hill and Thamesmead estates.

But while a large portion of 2017 was spent bemoaning the present condition of social housing, the Royal Institute of British Architects awarded its highest accolade, the Royal Gold Medal, to “pioneer of quality public housing” Neave Brown.

Fantasy skyscraper concepts took off 

This year welcomed a bumper crop of avante-garde skyscraper concepts with varying levels of viability.

Clouds Architecture Office proposed suspending the world’s tallest skyscraper from an asteroid and having residents parachute to the ground, while Haseef Rafiei anticipated a 3D printing skyscraper that could dispense modular homes like a vending machine.

Oiio bucked the trend and billed its proposal for a huge bending tower in New York as the world’s longest building.

Brutalist buildings continued to diminish 

As 2017 draws to a close, the bulldozers have also closed in on Robin Hood Gardens. After years of failed petitioning to have Alison and Peter Smithson’s east London estate saved, it is now being razed – save a single apartment being preserved by the V&A museum.

The final weeks of the year also spelled out an ominous future for the Sirius apartment block in Sydney, which has been put on sale for private development by the New South Wales government.

Pastey pink facades

The hottest colour trend of 2017 was millennial pink, despite what Pantone would have you believe. The craze that began its life in interior and accessories firmly crossed over into architecture, with Duggan Morris choosing the hue for the facade of a major Kings Cross development.

Numerous other pink-tinged projects also emerged: Simon Astridge added a dusty pink extension to a London home, Productora painted a Californian bungalow in the hue and Extrastudio used pigmented mortar to give a former winery in southern Portugal a new lease of life.

Japanese-inspired interiors

A London house extension with a sunken, Japanese-style bath kicked off the trend for Japanese-inspired interiors at the beginning of the year, by being crowned the winner of the Don’t Move Improve! 2017 home improvement award.

Another overhaul of a Victorian house in London continued the theme, pairing tatami matting and smoked-oak panelling with raw plasterwork to reference the Japanese heritage of the clients.

Further afield, Japanese restaurant chain Nobu converted a 1950s beachfront hotel into a high-end, Japanese-inspired retreat in California.

Moving buildings

Pulleys, motors and cranks continued to mesmerize in 2017, from the bronze tubes drifting across the facade of Thomas Heatherwick’s Fosun Foundation events space in Shanghai to the pivoting “solar wings” of Foster + Parters’ Dubai Apple Store.

At the low-tech end of the spectrum, Fernando Abellanas suspended a minuscule sliding artist’s studio on tracks below a bridge in Valencia and Olson Kundig designed a house in the American West with a tilting 7-metre glass wall – both operated by hand cranks.

The post Dezeen’s 10 biggest architecture trends of 2017 appeared first on Dezeen.