Hasta La Ideas

Architecture studio Woods Bagot has completed the latest stage of a weathered seaside house in Australia that has been 20 years in the making.

Designed as a home for Woods Bagot CEO Nik Karalis, the St Andrews Beach Villa began in 1999 as a simple shack on Mornington Peninsula.

Over the years it has gradually evolved into what is now a five-bedroom villa with a pool, cabana, glasshouse and full-width deck.

“Longevity of design in historic houses is not unusual – many European villas took 10-30 years to build,” Karalis told Dezeen.

“In our case, it was a combination of increasing family needs and also a detailed understanding of place and context.”

Over time St Andrews Beach Villa has been adapted and altered to deal with its challenging site.

The peninsula is subject to intense winds, constantly shifting sand-dunes and a high concentration of salt in the atmosphere, which speeds up the corrosion of materials.

“The project could not be transported anywhere else in the world,” said Karalis.

“It is a building intensely sensitive to place, recognised most importantly by the locals and the surf community.”

St Andrews Beach Villa is a simple steel box raised on supports with a panoramic living space facing south-west towards the sea.

A 25 metre-wide stepped deck is cut through by a passage that leads into the undercroft, slotted below to provides a more intimate, sheltered space.

The villa’s entrance sits on its sheltered rear facade, where a steel ramp leads up to a reception area and also to the pool and cabana.

Bedrooms sit arranged along this more sheltered, northern side of the plan, while the glazed front provides far more exposure.

This theme of contrasts continues in the exterior finishes. The rear and sides of the villa have clad with a rainscreen of jarrah wood panels, through which north light can filter in.

Internal finishes have been created through a mixture newer elements and old, worn materials from St Andrews Beach Villa’s previous iterations

“The villa’s ongoing deterioration inspired the material selections, and the details celebrate the temporality of all things,” said Woods Bagot.

“A deliberate juxtaposition of eroded and resilient surfaces, of mundane and exquisite materials, reflect a sensitivity of a beguiling nature.”

Although the latest stage of expansion has been complete, the practice still view the villa as an ongoing design experiment that will continue to respond to its site over time.

“There are still more areas of development in response to both the personal, emotional journey but also further sensitivity to the site’s ecological potential,” said Karalis.

“It could go on for a whole life time and into the next generation. Design never rests.”

Woods Bagot has previously created several residential projects that respond to their environments through their form and materials.

On the coast of Victoria, the practice designed an arc-shaped stone house overlooking the sea, and in Melbourne, a block of zinc-clad apartments reference their industrial context.

Photography is by Trevor Mein.

The post Woods Bagot CEO’s rugged beach house evolves again appeared first on Dezeen.

Le photographe d’architecture David Cardelús a récemment effectué une mission pour la Casa Vicens de Antoni Gaudí. Considéré comme un bijou architecturale barcelonais, le bâtiment est inscrit au patrimoine mondial de l’UNESCO.

La maison est considérée comme la première œuvre architecturale remarquable de l’architecte espagnol. Il s’agit d’un bâtiment grandiose, orné de motifs orientaux et de garnitures aux couleurs vives, typique du style Gaudí. Si les pièces n’ont pas été modifiées, la maison a désormais une dimension culturelle et une fonction de musée. L’idée est de présenter cette œuvre incontournable, de décrypter son langage architectural et le développement du Modernisme à Barcelone.

David Cardelús, est né et a grandi à Barcelone. Après avoir étudié la photographie, le cinéma et la vidéo, il est aujourd’hui maître de conférence en photographie d’architecture à l’Université Pompeu Fabra ELISAVA. Ayant réalisé d’autres série photo comme à la Crypte Gaudí ou encore le Palau Güell, David Cardelús espère un jour avoir photographié tous les bâtiments du célèbre architecte catalan.

Plaster, concrete and shiny steel merge to form the greyscale interiors of this menswear store in Zhengzhou, China, which has been designed by Atelier Tao+C.

Set inside what Atelier Tao+C describe as a “banal” shopping centre, the JHW store has been designed to be an “austere, monochrome” space.

To achieve an all-grey aesthetic, the studio has covered surfaces throughout the two-storey boutique in Shanghai plaster – a finely-ground mixture of granite stone and cement.

Shanghai plaster was typically applied to the facade of art deco-style buildings in Shanghai during the 1920s.

“Reusing this once-popular yet forgotten material, we seek to evoke memories of the most dynamic and creative era and city to convey a more ‘local’ sense of the street,” explained the studio.

The studio is also hoping that the use of a material distinctive to China will subtly reflect the ethics of the brand, which aims to promote domestic fashion brands and emerging local designers.

Perforated sheets of steel have then been erected in a continuous line around the store’s periphery, forming a “lightweight inner shell”. As sunshine seeps through from the windows directly behind, the floor is dappled with spots of light.

Steel has also been used to craft blocky display plinths and thin rails from which clothing items are hung.

Decor has been restricted to simple strip lights, which are suspended horizontally and vertically in a grid-like arrangement.

A part of the existing ceiling has been cut away to form a double-height void in the store. It’s interrupted by a couple of concrete structural beams and a transparent walkway that diagonally crosses the second floor.

A glass box that the brand can use as a display or installation space appears downstairs, where it appears to burst through the store’s front elevation.

The floor directly in front of the service counter has also been recessed to form a small, stage-like area where talks can be held.

This is one of the few projects that Atelier Tao+C has completed outside of Shanghai, where its office is based. The studio has previously overhauled one of the city’s traditional lane houses, inserting a lightwell at its centre to brighten the interiors.

It has also renovated a Shanghai apartment to feature floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, turning the space into one huge library.

Photography by Tian Fang Fang.

The post Grey tones pervade interiors of Zhengzhou’s JHW store appeared first on Dezeen.

How do you jog on a treadmill in space? How do you lift weights in a zero-gravity atmosphere? Exercising in outer space sounds like a rather strange problem because there isn’t much you can do that’s effort intensive, only because things are rather effortless in a situation without gravity!

The answer to how astronauts exercise in space is ‘friction training’. An astronaut’s physical fitness is paramount to the success of a space mission, and exercise equipment can often be bulky, occupying precious space in a rocket pod. Gyms built for space are often incredibly compact, multi-purpose pieces of equipment that use inertial technology to work your muscles, giving you the perfect workout with a decreased chance of injury. Friction training can be used down here on earth too. It’s efficient, and allows you to perform concentric and eccentric workouts with minimal risk of strain… and it has the ability to be compact enough to carry around in your hand.

Meet the Handy Gym. It isn’t a piece of equipment, it’s an entire gym that is capable of exercising every part of your body. Developed using NASA’s isoinertial technology, Handy Gym gives you access to one of the most scientifically backed workout methods of all time. After all, if it’s good enough for the international space station, it’s good enough for earth, right? The Handy Gym uses a pulley system and two solid steel inertial discs. Multiple accessories allow you to work different body parts, exercising your arms, legs, core, allowing you to stay fit, bulk up, lose weight, or even recover from injuries. Handy Gym is small enough to fit into a suitcase with the rest of your clothes, or in your dressing room drawer, to be used any time you want to work out. It weighs approximately 2 pounds too, so you can carry it anywhere you please. Designed for an effective, and more importantly safe workout, the Handy Gym packs a Bluetooth module too that lets you track your progress as you exercise, while the app even guides you through using the tiny multi-purpose device to work all parts of your body. Designed for three level of intensities, the Handy Gym comes with a choice of three steel discs ranging from low to medium and high power, while its set of accessories ensure that you get the entire gym experience in a deceptively small product that was designed to be quite literally out of this world!

Designer: Manuel Montes

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Handy Gym: Portable, Powerful & Effective Inertial Training

Perform strength training exercises anywhere, anytime with this conical pulley device with NASA-based inertial technology.

Handy Gym offers functionality and efficiency comparable to expensive inertial pulleys and superior to large gym machines. This kind of strength training method is independent of gravity and it allows for anywhere resistance training without lifting even one pound… while offering stronger and safer fitness results.

Save money with their portable device.

Did You Know?

Isoinertial technology was developed for NASA in the 1990s to solve the problem of loss of muscle mass suffered by astronauts after long periods in space where, for lack of gravity, they could not exercise their muscles through conventional weights.

How Does Handy Gym Work

Presented in the form of a compact accessory of a two-pound, contact accessory, Handy Gym contains two inertial discs capable of converting its turn in strength of resistance. It comes with the accessories necessary to make it portable – from your home to the outdoors, you can now workout at any time!

Handy Gym also comes with a wide variety of gripping elements that allow you to perform up to 200 different exercises and work any muscle group you want.

Benefits of the Handy Gym.

Below: How to Use the Handy Gym

Below: Product Description

Accessories.

Encoder data and power test.

Below: Handy Gym in Use

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Pour la sixième édition des 36 Days of Type de 2019, Alex Palazzi, graphiste, artiste de mouvement et créateur de jouets d’art basé à Barcelone, s’inspire d’une source inattendue : les insectes. Intitulé Insects vs. Numbers, Palazzi utilise ses talents d’artiste pour créer de superbes visuels sur le thème des insectes. Il recrée le numéro 5 qui ressemble à une peau parsemée de moustiques, un numéro fantomatique 3 façonné par des toiles d’araignées ou un nid d’abeille numéro 6 grouillant d’abeilles. Certaines images peuvent ne pas être désagréables, mais – fan d’insectes ou non – vous ne pouvez pas nier que les résultats sont fantastiques. Voir plus de travail de Palazzi sur son site Web et Instagram.