Hasta La Ideas

Architecture practice Iconico Studio has designed this community centre near Mexico City to bridge an earthy wall and a stone plinth.

The Mexico City studio completed Moncayo Club House at the entrance to a “sleepy” residential neighbourhood on the outskirts of the Mexican capital.

A key feature of the community centre is the elevated slender structure, which extends over a roadway to offer better views of the surroundings, and signals the entrance to the complex from afar.

“The building is strategically located at the entry point to the neighbourhood, serving as a recognisable landmark for inhabitants and visitors alike,” said the firm in a project description.

The raised volume contains a gym and bridges the earth wall and the main three-storey body of Moncayo Club House.

“On a social level, the project is an attempt at giving back some of the urbanity a sleeping city usually does not offer; it intends to bring people together and thus fulfills their needs of community life,” the firm said in a project description. “It’s all about openness and not seclusion.”

Metal mesh covers the glass to offer glimpses of the cross-bracing metallic structure. This design helps maintain the privacy of the visitors and provide shade from the area’s harsh sunlight.

Black stone, meanwhile, is used to clad the volumes underneath.

The architect’s choice of simple, minimal materials contrasts the surrounding houses, which have a more traditional appearance.

“Aesthetically, the project is a contrast to the well-known single-family housing typologies, but also to the colourful earthy walls of its surroundings,” the architects said.

The top floor of the main building is occupied by a reception area. Glass doors run along the southern side and open onto a wooden deck and pool.

One level down, a multi-purpose space can be used for gatherings or community events. This area still receives natural light, due to a change in grade.

The studio continued the monochromatic palette inside, with details including black tiles with white speckles in the bathroom.

Mexico is currently experiencing a major boom in architecture and design. Other recent projects in Mexico City include a building shared by three brother by Taller Héctor Barroso and an entirely red building by CPDA Arquitectos that is made of coloured concrete and brick.

Photography is by Onnis Luque.

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Jim Sanborn created a sculpture containing a secret message. It sits on the grounds of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Yet no one has been able to solve it. Code breakers from around the world have tried for 30 years. They’re stumped. The artist meets with people like cryptologist Elonka Dunin who are desperate to solve the mystery at his Maryland studio every year or so. But Sanborn won’t divulge any clues. It’s too much fun keeping everyone guessing…(Read…)

2019 is going by fast! Check out the best fails of the year!..(Read…)

Curvy and bent wooden strips are laid out to resemble a wave in this installation in Maine, created by local designers Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B Nguyen.

Kavanaugh and Nguyen designed the Hubris Atë Nemesis installation for the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA), taking cues from the from the rough waters and wind in Maine.

Long, timber strips are layered across the floor and up the ceiling to fill the open-plan gallery space, with crests curling over entrances to other parts of the contemporary art gallery.

“The subject matter is borrowed from Maine’s rugged coastal landscape and the tradition of artists who have explored the interplay of its natural forces, people and built environment,” the designers told Dezeen.

Visitors can traverse over the wave-like design via a pair of wooden pathways that intersect in the middle of the space. They walkways are formed from boards that are arranged to gradually come apart.

“The path contributes to the experience of the work as a whole,” Kavanaugh and Nguyen said. “The viewer is made aware of the movement of the artwork through their own movement over the undulating boardwalk.”

“By unifying this relationship between the ‘path’ and the ‘piece,’ the viewer is completely immersed in the work, removing the layer of separation between art and viewer,” the designers added.

The cohesion of the all wooden Hubris Atë Nemesis causes the design, and the path that stretches across it, to fuse together as one experience.

Kavanaugh and Nguyen have worked together for more than a decade, specialising in work that experiments with materials. They were selected as the first recipients of the Center for Maine Contemporary Art’s fellowship award to create the installation.

The project’s name, Hubris Atë Nemesis, is a collection of three words found in Greek tragedies. Hubris describes arrogant confidence, which transforms to Atë​,​ a ruinous folly or madness, then onto Nemesis, a force of retribution that resets the natural order.

These different elements fuse together in the installation itself, as a reference to the natural environment.

“Like many paintings of the Maine coast, we hope this work captures a moment of suspense in a dynamic system – a snapshot with an uncertain future – and that it appears to be unwritten what the restored natural order should or might become,” the designers said.

Hubris Atë Nemesis shares similarities with a wood-stripped cocoon designed by students from London’s Architectural Association in Dorset, England.

Other designs featuring an abundance of wood are a ribbon-like installation by Sebastian Cox and Laura Ellen Bacon, a climbing structure by Kengo Kuma in Paris, a hollow pathway design by Thilo Frank,  woven hut within a Mumbai office and a rodded volume in Genoa evocative of sails.

Hubris Atë Nemesis is open to the public at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) in Rockland, Maine from 23 March to 16 June 2019.

Project credits:

Lead designers: Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B Nguyen
Team: Julia Raite, James Chute, Olivia Vanner, Ellery Chalmers, Cody Stack, Henry Austin, Sarah Southam, Victor Salvo, Bethany Engstrom, Justine Kablack, Sam Vail

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Plants and insects can thrive on the surface of these Green Charcoal bio-bricks, engineered as an alternative to concrete by researchers at the Indian School of Design and Innovation in Mumbai.

The researchers’ eco-friendly bricks are made of soil, cement, charcoal and organic luffa fibres — better known as loofah, the plant commonly used for bath sponges.

Another key ingredient is air. The bricks, named “Green Charcoal”, contain more air pockets than a standard concrete block, making them up to 20 times more porous.

These air bubbles, created by natural gaps in the loofah’s fibrous network, are important because they enable the bricks to harbour animal and plant life.

They also have a benefit for the humans who inhabit a Green Charcoal building. The project’s leads, Shreyas More and Meenal Sutaria, say the pores “act as thousands of tiny water tanks” to reduce the bricks’ temperature, cooling interior environments.

“This is aimed at creating a breathing state of architecture to ensure increased biodiversity in cities while providing healthy urban solutions for people,” said More.

More and his team came up with Green Charcoal as a result of ongoing research at the Indian School of Design and Innovation into potential healthy materials for construction.

Charcoal as an ingredient only appears in small amounts, on the bricks’ surface. It serves to purify the air by absorbing nitrates — a superfood for plants growing there.

More sees his team’s work as an extension of biophilic design, which focuses on providing a strong connection between humans and nature.

“In biophilic spaces, people are happier, patients recover faster, students learn better, retail sales are higher, workplace productivity goes up, and absenteeism goes down,” said More.

“If the facades of buildings, compound walls and dividers that follow the road network are built using the Green Charcoal bricks, they will not only clean the air or control rise in temperature but will also inspire positive societies.”

The bricks are lightweight as well as biodegradable. They need far less aggregate than standard concrete — another key advantage given the scarcity of sand, the most mined material in the world.

They still require cement, one of the world’s largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions, although it is a slightly reduced amount.

There is no need for metal reinforcement, as the luffa fibres provide all the necessary strength and flexibility.

The Green Charcoal team is currently exploring different surface treatments to create a variety of bricks.

The race is on to create more sustainable building materials for the construction industry.

Among other recent innovations are no-heat bricks made from urine, concrete made with carrot nanoparticles instead of cement, and structures grown from mushroom mycelium.

More called on architects to collaborate with engineers and scientists to help get healthy materials like his Green Charcoal to the point where they are commercially viable.

“Today, because of the increasing integration of the design, science and engineering domains, designers and architects are not mere specifiers of materials but rather can define the compositions of materials or even create materials for desired functions,” he told Dezeen.

“We must believe that interior and architecture materials cannot simply be manufactured for structural, longevity and cost benefits,” he continued.

“Over and above, they need to be highly performative with attributes like pollution control, climate responsiveness, sound absorption, thermal barriers, shape and colour changing, biodegradable, recycled and promoting the health and wellbeing of the people inhabiting the space.”

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