Hasta La Ideas

Rows of pivoting glass doors can be opened to allow air to flow through living spaces that open onto courtyards, terraces and lush gardens at this house in the Indonesian city of Semarang.

House of Inside and Outside is the first project designed by architect Tamara Wibowo, and was developed as a home for her young family in the port city on the north coast of Java.

The house is located on a corner lot in a hilly neighbourhood. The architect claimed her main intention was to create a 600-square-metre home that doesn’t feel too big and makes effective use of the site.

The property comprises a series of grey concrete blocks that are each dedicated to a specific function. One volume houses the living areas, another the office and garage, and the final contains the service quarters.

At the centre of the plan is a void containing a mango tree that has been growing on the site for decades. The tree was left undisturbed and marks the position of the entrance, which is covered by a bridge connecting rooms on the upper floor.

The entrance leads directly into a kitchen and dining area lined on both sides by glass doors that pivot open to allow air to waft through the space.

By seamlessly connecting indoors and outdoors, Wibowo’s design provides a range of comfortable spaces that can be used year round in this tropical climate.

“The house focuses on creating a sequence of experiences that brings the focus back to nature through spatial overlapping of indoor and outdoor rooms and presence of light coming through skylight and large openings,” the architect explained.

A short set of steps leads up from the tiled dining area to a lounge connected to an open-air patio sheltered beneath an overhanging corner of the first floor.

All of the main living spaces can be opened up to the central yard, which contains a lawn, swimming pool and several seating ares.

The large, recessed openings containing windows and doors on both levels of the house are lined with warm timber that contrasts with the cool grey concrete of the facades.

The materials used both externally and internally are kept in their raw state to maintain a sense of architectural honesty.

Built-in furniture throughout the interiors helps to create a clean and uncluttered feel, with teak wood joinery, polished-concrete flooring and exposed plaster on the walls introducing various tones and textures.

Photography is by Fernando Gomulya.

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A concrete and glass block projects out over the entrance of this red brick building in Brussels, which has been converted into offices for social services by WAW Architects.

The local architecture studio restored and redesigned the former orphanage, which was built in 1901, to create an office space for social services organisation OCMW Halle.

Period features, such as the the red brick facade, first floor chapel and rafters in the attic of Social House were carefully preserved, while the rest of the interior was gutted and slabs of steel and concrete inserted to create open-plan offices. The original walls are isolated from the new structure inside.

Jutting out from the side of the building on three irregular-shaped columns, the concrete and glass extension frames the entryway and holds a conference room.

Having moved the front door away from the busy main road, the architects inserted large bay windows into the blind street-facing facade to act as a “showcase” for the organisation.

“From the new central entrance a new circulation is conceived. Voids emphasise openness and promotes visibility and a better working environment,” the architects said in a statement.

In contrast with the traditional facade, the new offices, meeting rooms and first floor foyer are modern and industrial in style. Concrete surfaces have been left raw in some places to contrast with white walls and panels in bright colours.

Colour coding has been used throughout the office space, with green used for the walls and desk in the foyer. Staff kitchens are finished in red and blue, with matching corridors and doors.

The second-floor chapel with its vaulted roof and wood-panelled apse has been restored, with meeting tables and chairs surrounded by relics. An attic archive was added under the preserved rafters of the steep gabled roofs and spires.

Brussels has seen a number of high profile adaptive reuse projects in the past year. Stéphanie Willox, LD2 Architecture and Mamout converted a former cigarette factory into council offices with minimalist flair.

The city’s £109 million Centre Pompidou is to be built in a former Citroën car factory by a winning team of architects from noAarchitecten, EM2N and Sergison Bates.

Photography by Tim Van de Velde.

The post WAW Architects adds concrete extension to social services centre in former orphanage  appeared first on Dezeen.

Aluminum foil. Great for packaging food and for protecting your brain from being scanned by the government. Also great for repurposing into kitchenware. Youtuber Kiwami Japan looked at his roll of aluminum foil as not really a finished product but rather as a source of raw material. Doing something rather remarkable, he turned the foil back into a 4mm thick sheet of aluminum… and then carved a rather sharp and useful kitchen knife out of it.

What Kiwami does requires astronomical amounts of patience and passion and it’s no surprise that half the video runs at high speed. He first takes the roll, hammering it into a flat sheet before popping out the cardboard tube that’s inside. Then, using a stove flame, a pair of nose-pliers and a hammer, he further hammers away at the sheet, removing any air between the layers, and turns it into a flat piece of aluminum (which he taps against to show you it makes a clinking sound). The aluminum sheet is then cut into the shape of a knife, filed to perfection, and then sharpened against a whetstone. Kiwami then proceeds to add a wooden handle to it, finally finishing the product to make it a completely functional kitchen knife with a remarkably sharp blade that slices easily through cucumber. I guess it helps that the knife is food-grade because it came from food-grade aluminum foil.

Yes, you could just as easily go to the market and pick up a pretty good knife. You’d spend a dollar or two extra, and you’d get something more resilient and finished; but doing what Kiwami did displays immense amount of skill, patience, and drive… and he got a pretty nifty looking knife out of it that he can claim as a product of his own perseverance… something he has a lot of, judging from the fact that he’s made a knife out of raw pasta too.

Not a fan of knives? Japanese people are breaking the internet by polishing crumpled balls of aluminum foil into mirror-finished spheres. Check it out!

Designer: Kiwami Japan

Smaller, sleeker, and much more powerful than its predecessor, the Pico is our favorite Cube’s younger sibling. The size of your finger, Pico puts color knowledge at your fingertip, letting you record hues and shades from around you, to use as inspiration or reference for your work.

Partnering with the Pico app on your phone, you can record a vast multitude of colors from around you, giving them your own names, creating a color library of your life. Pico’s small size makes it easier to carry around with you, and it even comes with a hole for a lanyard, letting you hang it around your neck! A simple single button interface allows you to ‘click’ colors by simply placing the Pico directly on top of the color you want to capture and hitting the shutter button. Pico’s color matching engine allows it to perfectly capture color values, and even cross-reference them with color guides and standards, so whether you use those colors digitally or in print/paint, you know that what you see is what you get. Designed in black anodized aluminum, the Pico feels incredibly slick and premium and we’re putting it on our must-buy list for all designers!

Designer: Palette

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Activist and icon of the anti-apartheid movement, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has passed away at 81 years old. Married to Nelson Mandela for 38 years (and separated for 30 years because of his imprisonment), Madikizela-Mandela became an “international……

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