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Coca-Cola has released a range of mixers packaged in Hutchinson glass bottles, the design used by the brand in 1894 when the product was first bottled.

The Hutchinson bottle used for the Coca-Cola Signature Mixers has a straight-sided silhouette and a bulbous neck.

The launch marks the first time that Coca-Cola has re-released the bottle in more than a century.

“We wanted to create a special glass shape to not only delineate the new range from classic Coca-Cola but to evoke the essence of mixology’s roots,” said Krista Webb Carney, design thinking capability director at Coca-Cola.

Keen to develop a “new look and feel for the brand”, Coca-Cola worked with branding agency Dragon Rouge to design a visual identity for the four bottles in the series: smoky, spicy, herbal and woody.

They opted for the retro aesthetic of the Hutchinson bottle over the better-known curvy Contour bottle – first introduced in 1916 – as a nod to the brand’s heritage.

“Working closely with creative agency, Dragon Rouge, we went back to our extensive archives and used the Hutchinson bottle as our inspiration, an iconic bottle shape that pre-dates the Contour bottle,” Webb Carney told Dezeen.

The new range of mixers, intended to be used with dark spirits like whisky and dark rum, are presented in bottles with a white label.

Each bottle has its own bespoke colour scheme for the cap, seal and lettering. The woody flavour is yellow-brown, spicy is red, herbal is green and smoky is purple.

Also on the label is Coca-Cola’s logotype and product information, printed in an all-caps, sans-serif typeface, which aims to “reflect the expertise and craft of the contemporary mixologist”.

This is the first time Coca-Cola has released beverages specifically designed to be mixed with alcohol.

Earlier this year, the drinks brand launched its very own typeface, designed by British graphic designer Neville Brody, marking the first time that the brand has had its own unique font in its 130-year history.

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This holiday home in Mexican beach town Zihuatanejo was designed by Zozaya Arquitectos to step down a steep slope towards the Pacific Ocean.

Casa Z sits high above the small town, which is a popular tourist destination on Mexico’s Pacific coast due to its warm climate and expansive beaches.

“The main concept of the project was to create a minimalist house with rich social spaces where users could enjoy the panoramic views and the climate of the region,” Zozaya Arquitectos said in a project description.

A natural stone wall hides the property from the street, revealing only the master suite perched above the rest of the home. Three narrow volumes stack vertically, providing residents with the best possible views of the ocean below.

An opening in the property wall reveals a few steps that lead down to a yard in front of the 470-square-metres home.

The middle level, at grade with this garden, is bookend by two concrete walls on the short end, while two sliding glass walls face the ocean and the garden, allowing the slender space to be almost completely open.

The open-plan kitchen, living and dining room leads out onto a terrace overlooking the water, where an infinity pool creates the illusion of a continuous body of water just outside the home. Here, wooden furniture and lush plants contrast the home’s exposed structural elements.

An exterior staircase leads to the guest bedrooms, one storey down. There are two suites on this floor, each of which enjoys a small terrace and an en-suite bathroom.

Black steel canopies support bamboo lattices that provide shade to certain areas, like the exterior staircase at the back of the house, or the kitchen and part of the terrace at the front. Irregular plaster walls add to the building’s handmade and tropical aesthetic.

“This mix of materials and local construction techniques gives the house a strong modern and tropical personality, successfully adapting to its context and being in harmony with nature,” said Zozaya Arquitectos.

Another concrete staircase brings residents from the living area up to the master bedroom, at the highest point of the home.  “This space frames the view and creates the sensation of flying in the air due the altitude,” said the studio.

To provide the most natural light to this space, Zozaya Arquitectos built two glazed openings, one facing the street and the other facing the Pacific Ocean. To protect the owner’s privacy, the street-facing windows are fronted by a tight lattice of bamboo slats, which filter light with an irregular pattern.

A similar shading system was recently used on a sustainable farmhouse in Brazil, by Studio MK27. In the popular Mexican surf town of Sayulita, Main Office renovated another home that steps down to the waterfront, providing living spaces on multiple different levels to accommodate the grade change.

Photography is by Rafael Gamo.

Project credits:

Leader of design & project: Architect, Daniel Zozaya Valdés
Project team: Enrique Zozaya, Ángel Sotelo, Luis Alonso, José Antonio Vázquez, Ana Karen Cadena, Esthela Valenzuela.
Construction company: Zozaya Arquitectos
Structural design: Omar Hernández

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NASA – We are going to the Moon, to stay, by 2024. And this is how…(Read…)

Inspirée par les reliefs des montagnes, l’architecte Karina Wiciak de Wamhouse Studio a récemment imaginé cette maison nommée «Pentahouse» puisque celle-ci épouse les formes du pentagone pour faire écho avec les massifs. Le béton a également été sélectionné en référence aux rochers que l’on retrouve dans la nature. Ainsi, bien que le design de ce projet conceptuel soit audacieux, son minimalisme et sa forme inusitée permettraient au bâtiment d’exister en harmonie avec un environnement sauvage.

Architecture office AP Valletta has restored an old coach house in the town of Balzan, Malta, adding a contemporary extension featuring a weave-patterned stone facade.

The Coach House occupies a building situated alongside the 18th-century Palazzo Bosio, which is located within a conservation area on the edge of Balzan’s historic centre.

The original building is thought to predate the main palazzo, and is likely to have always functioned as a service building. AP Valletta transformed it into a contemporary residence that retains its original character.

“The Coach House is the result of an approach which combines vernacular building technologies with contemporary design,” said David Drago, AP Valetta executive director.

“It takes into account the needs of today’s highly demanding environment while preserving our unique built heritage.”

First the architects restored the dilapidated structure to a suitable condition by repairing stone walls that were missing mortar joints and had been damaged by plants growing between the stones.

They also restored original openings in the walls before focusing on the addition of a first-floor extension that houses a new master suite and additional bedroom.

“In order to turn what used to be a one-storey service building into a home, an extension was designed and grafted on to the perimeter wall of the pre-existing structure,” the studio said.

“All extensions and their structural interventions were carried out in a way to ensure the protection of the existing building and the reversibility of new additions wherever possible.”

The vertical extension exactly follows the perimeter of the existing building and is clad in stone blocks laid at an angle to produce a pattern of geometric shadows.

Stone with a hue that matches the existing masonry was chosen to create a “woven stone facade that combines contemporary minimalism with vernacular building technologies”.

The building’s ground-floor rooms include a large living room and an adjacent space with corbels supporting a ceiling that exceeds four metres in height.

Some of the rooms on this level would originally have housed animals and a coach for the palazzo’s owner, Vincenzo Bosio.

Bosio was a commander of the knights of the Order of St John, which ruled Malta between the 16th and 18th centuries.

One of the main rooms on the upper floor of the coach house originally formed part of the palazzo. This space and the other rooms in the new addition are connected to the ground floor by a freestanding sculptural staircase.

The staircase extends through an opening in the original wall before pivoting 90 degrees. The treads of its upper section are supported by steel plates and a minimal balustrade that creates the appearance of the stairs floating in midair.

All of the structural interventions and extensions are executed in a way that protects the existing building and are reversible wherever possible.

The project was shortlisted in the New & Old – Completed Buildings category at the World Architecture Festival 2018, alongside projects including Heatherwick Studio’s Zeitz MOCAA museum in Cape Town, and an affordable extension to a temple school in Thailand.

Photography is by Alex Attard.

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