A board-marked concrete chimney raises this house designed by US architecture firm Olson Kundig to “hover” above its surrounding in the Brazilian rainforest.

Rio House was built for a couple that wanted a secluded retreat after many years of living in Rio de Janeiro.

The 1500-square-foot (139.3-square-metre) house and its surrounding property is on the border of the Tijuca National Park, a tropical rainforest outside of Rio de Janeiro.

Two chunky concrete pillars hoist a horizontal steel volume above the ground raising the structure to the height of the lush rainforest canopy. Its compact form minimises its impact to the natural surroundings.

“The building hovers above the land and is a platform for the owners to appreciate and enjoy the beautiful Rio landscape,” said Olson Kundig design principal Tom Kundig.

“The agenda was simple – to make the house as small as possible in the big, beautiful landscape of the Tijuca jungle,” he added.

One of the concrete piers doubles as a fireplace that faces the outdoor seating, dining area and kitchenette on the ground level. This statuesque hearth is made from board-marked concrete that gains a streaked texture from the imprint of wood boards.

Concrete flooring on the covered patio is pigmented with red stain, while Brazilian wood planks cover the ceiling.

The raised rectangular volume comprises a marine-grade black steel frame made to withstand the region’s humid climate and prevent corrosion.

Large windows across its facade expose the interiors to the surrounding jungle. The south elevation offers views towards the city, ocean and Brazil’s famous Christ the Redeemer statue.

Inside, Olson Kundig has covered terracotta with coloured plaster to form walls, following a traditional building technique in Brazil. In the living room and bedroom, a row of large built-in bookshelves with attached desks span the length of one wall.

The concrete fireplace on the ground floor extends to the upper level where it faces a colourful striped rug and low-lying red couch.

Manual pivot windows and retractable walls operated by a wheel and pulley system act as natural ventilation systems to cool down the house.

Other environmental details added to the house include insect screens to keep bugs out and a solar water heating system.

Olson Kundig was established by architect Jim Olsn in 1966. Today Olson leads the practice with Kundig, Kirsten R Murray, Alan Maskin and Kevin M Kudo-Kin.

Kundig’s upcoming book showcases the architect’s highlights from his career at the firm, He selected 10 of his favourites for Dezeen, which included Rio House.

Other projects by the firm are an expansive house overlooking Hollywood’s Sunset Strip and a house in Costa Rica constructed with a number of local materials.

Photography is by Maíra Acayaba.

Project credits:

Design principal: Tom Kundig
Project architect: Edward Lalonde
Architectural staff: Fergus Knox
Gizmo design: Phil Turner, KB Architectural Services
General contractor: Construtora São Bento
Project manager/owner’s representative: Jose Luiz Canal
Structural engineers: MCE Structural Consultants, Mauro Jorge
Mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineers: WSP, GreenWatt
Lighting design: O- Lighting Design
Landscape Architect: Isabel Duprat Landscape Architecture
Façade consultant: Front
Steelwork: Eleve
Gizmo fabricator: 12th Avenue Iron

The post Olson Kundig Rio House is elevated on chunky concrete columns in Brazilian rainforest appeared first on Dezeen.

Burger King tweeted this photo:

I figured it was a gag, but it turns out Burger King in Germany is actually trying these out. “We wanted to reinforce the rules of high safety and hygiene standards that the BK restaurants are following,” a Burger King representative told Business Insider. “The do-it-yourself social-distance crown was a fun and playful way to remind our guests to practice social distancing while they are enjoying food in the restaurants.”

Eleven award-winning projects completed by students across the four year groups on the BSc Architectural Design course at INDA feature in this Virtual Design Festival school show.

The 11 featured projects were awarded prizes at the Thai design school’s end of year review and exhibition, INDA Parade. The show takes place annually, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 show was held in a virtual world that students entered using personalised avatars.

This year’s winning projects range from landscape and urban designs, through to schemes that explore sexuality and AI, demonstrating how architecture can connect to other disciplines.

University: International Program in Design and Architecture (INDA)
Course: BSc Architectural Design
Studio: Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4
Tutors: Surapong Lertsithichai, Sorachai Kornkasem, Scott Drake, Christo Meyer, Marie-Louise Raue, Alicia Lazzaroni, Antonio Bernacchi, Tijn van de Wijdeven, Paul Francis Feeney, William Bertram Hulbert, Michal Jurgielewicz, Patrick Donbeck, Payap Pakdeelao, Pratana Klieopatinon, Takanao Todo, Thomas Lozada, Chon Supawongse, Ekapob Suksudpaisarn, Pitchapa Jular, Eduardo Cassina, Per Stefan Svedberg, Hseng Tai Lintner, Warisara Sudswong and Liva Dudareva

Course statement:

“INDA is the International Program in Design and Architecture of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. It aims to nurture diversity in design approaches, methodologies, and sensibilities, based on a clear framework of constructive dialogue.

“The school is a four-year bachelor program founded in 2006 with a strong emphasis on design studios, considered as an opportunity to enquire, through architectural design, topics and methodologies relevant to the agenda of contemporary architecture, with a particular focus on Southeast Asian dynamics and specificities.

“Although INDA has adopted architecture as its principal topic of studio courses, it aims to show how architecture connects to other disciplines, such as landscape architecture and urban design, and thus to show how architecture is representative of design disciplines in general.

“INDA Parade is the main event of the school held at the end of each academic year, involving design studio reviews, exhibitions, lectures, and parties, happening concurrently and in the same space. It is meant to enable the community of students, instructors, alumni, guests, and the public to discover and celebrate students’ works collectively as an ongoing conversation. In 2020, challenged by recent events, INDA decided to use a social virtual reality platform as a complementary tool for exchanging and representing ideas, under the motto ‘Keep School Real’.

“This year all participants joined the review and exhibition worlds with their own avatars, interacting with others and exploring in great detail the many three dimensional models, large scale drawing boards and presentations in mixed media environment with live streams. The VR environment enabled the INDA community to regain the proximity that is so crucial to foster excitement and momentum.

“The event concluded with a public presentation of shortlisted works and the awarded projects are featured below. INDA Parade 2020, has been and still remains open and accessible to everyone, proposing experimental methods of interaction and engagement and breaking down the boundaries between the school and the public.”

INDA Parade 2020 was designed by Patrick Donbeck and Michal Jurgielewicz and is accessible here.

Unlimited Instructables by Mona Chananya Auttavoothisilpa, Year 1

“The project is a device aimed to enhance the educational potential of a kindergarten teacher in her interaction with pupils.

“It has been developed through interviews with an educator using Montessori education that facilitates the independent learning process of students. It is a dress containing toys and play components of different natures, whose use can be suggested subtly through precise postures of the instructor’s body.

“It has been progressively deconstructed from a jumpsuit, to a coat, to a series of flexible strips with embedded metal wires, that can be rearranged in multiple forms. Superimposed patterns introduce additional ways of exploring the toys, multiplying creative opportunities.”

Student: Mona Chananya Auttavoothisilpa
Project: Unlimited Instructables
Award: Y1 S1 Design Excellence Award
Course: Year 1
Project tutor: Antonio Bernacchi

Objective Randomness by Poon Tassaporn Sukhumdhanakul, Year 1

“While observing the area in front of Lumpini Park, I found a lot of mushrooms that keep on changing due to environmental conditions.

“I therefore studied Thai traditions of using mushrooms as a way to interpret numerology for lottery tickets. There are multiple objective methods to interpret mushrooms, but people seem to mainly seek for subjectivity, so this project intends to find a systematic pattern of subjectivity hidden in a sequence of unpredictable randomness.

“I created a protocol of mushroom numerology through which people would implant mushrooms in their skin and use a precise system of interpretation, ensuring unpredictable results.”

Student: Poon Tassaporn Sukhumdhanakul
Project: Objective Randomness
Award: Y1 S2 Design Excellence Award
Website: y1s2-20192020.tumblr.com/tagged/2-Poon-Tassaporn-Sukhumdhanakul
Course: Year 1
Project tutor: Antonio Bernacchi

SPI[RITUAL] by Pang Thongtor Nontavatit, Year 2

“The project looks into the current crystal mining business, crystals’ properties as a data storage medium, and the exploitation of miners by investigating the ideal conditions for crystal growth, overturning extraction economies, and preserving the growth of crystals within Madagascar’s mines.

“Speculating about how crystals can grow in alternative locations, the project intends to produce a space that is generated by carefully controlled environmental factors. It proposes a geological pavilion that grows along with Madagascar’s Famadihana — a sacred ritual believed to unite the spirit from generation to generation.

“Combining indigenous and modern architecture, SPI[RITUAL] transforms peculiar old mines into data centres and sites for community rituals.”

Student: Pang Thongtor Nontavatit
Project: SPI[RITUAL] Award: Y2 S1 Design Excellence Award
Website: y2s1-20192020.tumblr.com/tagged/5%20Pang%20Thongtor%20Nontavatit
Course: Year 2
Project tutor: Michal Jurgielewicz

Surface of Sexuality by Ann Ann-Pavinee Langenskiöld, Year 2

“This project proposes a Degenderisation Centre that serves as a gestation pond for the de-birth of sexuality, forming a critique on the history of the architecture of sex, where the critical moments – the panopticon, birth control pills, and sim card – exhibit our constant desire for arousal that was never fully met in the sexual realm.

“Embedded in the hyper-gendered hotspot of Bangkok’s biopolitical map, the facility comprises spaces that exercise hyper-awareness in the liberation of gender, where the dissection of our skin, argued as the universal erogenous organ, is the medium for the dissection of our gender.”

Student: Ann Ann-Pavinee Langenskiöld
Project: Surface of Sexuality
Award: Y2 S2 Design Excellence Award
Website: y2s2-20192020.tumblr.com/tagged/2%20Ann%20Ann%20pavinee%20Langenskioeld
Course: Year 2
Project tutor: Eduardo Cassina

Museum of the Present by Orm Santhila Chanoknamchai, Year 3

“In the increasingly privatised city of Bangkok, are we again losing our riverside public space and a historical and cultural reference to Bangkok?”

“The project rethinks the process of gentrification as a constant reconfiguration of everyday culture. A political framework is proposed in which the Old Customs House in Bangkok, currently in a state of transition, becomes a prototype for an alternative approach to urban renewal.

“The street becomes a route through the building, the existing character of the neighbourhood is activated and celebrated. If gentrification is taking ownership, The Museum of the Present is giving back ownership.”

Student: Orm Santhila Chanoknamchai
Project: Museum of the Present
Award: Y3 S1 Design Excellence Award
Website: y3s1-20192020.tumblr.com/tagged/6-orm-santhila-chanoknamchai
Course: Year 3
Project tutor: Marie-Louise Raue

Metabolizing Territories by Orm Santhila Chanoknamchai, Year 3

“Amidst the rising of petrochemical industries in Rayong, Thailand, the exploitation of heavy metal substances has influenced a new underground invisible environment – the Aquifer – putting in question confinement strategies on the landscape, suggesting a network of systems that responds constantly to seasonalities and fluctuations.

“The project imagines a plausible future cohabitation across the interrelated scales of humans and microorganisms, performing two main complementary strategies to metabolise and visualise this ‘guilty’ landscape through a series of ‘Inter-surface Artifacts’.

“Rethinking the notion of natural preservation, a repetition of cycles and patterns of dynamic and temporal reclamations would emerge, adaptable to seasons and anomalies.”

Student: Orm Santhila Chanoknamchai
Project: Museum of the Present
Award: Y3 S2 Design Excellence Award and Y3 Critics’ Award
Website: y3s2-20192020.tumblr.com/tagged/3-Orm-Santhila-Chanoknamchai
Course: Year 3
Project tutor: Alicia Lazzaroni

A(i)pophenia/An Age of Rediscovery by Nana Boonorm, Year 4

“From cave paintings, stories of mythical Nagas to bureaucracy, humans have always been obsessed with documenting their lives.

“Now, our human senses become obsolete in an ever-filling sea of data, drowning in information and noise. We created AI as a means to process what we couldn’t, but it could be our most human mistakes that become our strengths in rediscovering our data.

“By building from things other than what is given, we may build new aesthetics and relations, new concepts beyond borders of what has been hardwired within us. Nothing will be too magical, too mythical, or too crazy.”

Student: Nana Boonorm
Project: A(i)pophenia/An Age of Rediscovery
Award: Y4 S1 Design Excellence Award
Website: y4s1-20192020.tumblr.com/post/189505715334/age-of-rediscovery-in-an-era-where-everything-has
Course: Year 4
Project tutor: Michal Jurgielewicz

The Theatre of Deaf and Blind by Ploy Sitanan Teeracharoenchai

“In The Image of The City by Kevin Lynch, it is explained how the city’s elements can be interpreted differently by individuals.

“The klong (canal) is one of the most common city elements in Bangkok; it can be both an edge for pedestrians and a path for water transportation.

“The Theatre of Deaf and Blind moves, creaks, and animates in relation to Maharnark Canal’s changing tides, wave activity, and stage performances, providing a sensory experience for visitors where the building is both conductor and performer.

“Reverberation, sound, colour, tactility, and movement are some of the modes employed within this performance.”

Student: Ploy Sitanan Teeracharoenchai
Project: The Theatre of Deaf and Blind
Award: Y4 S2 Design Excellence Award
Website: y4s2-20192020.tumblr.com/tagged/3%20Ploy%20Sitanan%20Teeracharoenchai
Course: Year 4
Project tutor: Christo Meyer

Manifestation of Truth by Opal Nattakitta Chuasiriphattana, Year 4

“Truthfulness to many individuals derives from the concept of realism and honesty, however, I argue that honesty does not bring forward the actual truth, because ‘Truth is Subjectivity, and Subjectivity is Truth’.

“Truthfulness is heavily based on personal interpretation and how information is being exchanged. Thus, this project studies information and exchange through analysis of the structure of crowds of a Thai student protest against dictatorship in the 1970s.

“Research is gathered through methods of forensic archiving and conducting social experiments to understand the performative aspects of the protest.

“This led me to the proposal of the Performative City Parade: an event aimed for participants to experience the city through different interpretations of truth, instrumentalising the parade with forensic and performative elements, establishing a concept of Manifestation of Truth.”

Student: Opal Nattakitta Chuasiriphattana
Project: Manifestation of Truth
Award: Y4 Critics’ Award
Website: Phase 1 to 3 y4s2-20192020.tumblr.com/post/617202300682928128/information-and-exchange, Phase 4 y4s2-20192020.tumblr.com/post/617198260317192192/manifestation-of-truth
Course: Year 4
Project tutor: Tijn van de Wijdeven

Firescape by Boss Phatchanon Varanukulsak, Year 4

“In recent years, wildfires occur frequently all over the world due to climate change.

“In Thailand, wildfires also occur in deciduous forests, which is mostly spread from the monoculture of as corn and cane fields. Fires could harm evergreen forests too, but not before a deciduous forest.

“The project defines fire as a device of nature which will create and support a new cultural, economical and ecological value for the local community.

“The site was located in Huai Kha Khaeng wildlife sanctuary, which consisted of a large proportion of the animal population in Thailand due to the weighted overlay process. The design was divided into three layers of planning consisting of agriculture edge, fire-prone and firebreak.”

Student: Boss Phatchanon Varanukulsak
Project: Firescape
Award: Director’s Award
Website: y4s2-20192020.tumblr.com/tagged/2%20Boss%20Phatchanon%20Varanukulsak
Course: Year 4
Project tutor: Chon Supawongse

Gandhi Memorial Hall / The Embassy by Pimboon Wongmesak, Year 4

“The Gandhi Memorial Hall in Yangon is not a conventional candidate for preservation, but it hosted visits by Mahatma Gandhi to Burma’s Indian diaspora and played an important role in the independence of India – and consequently Burma.

“In reflection on this political significance, the building is to be restored and repurposed with a diplomatic program that critiques the relevance of foreign diplomatic missions in a context of power assertion, shifting national values and new mediums.

“This Indian embassy explores territoriality, memories, and aesthetic contrast, while introducing new interventions and program organisation within and above the existing structure – putting the past and present into frank dialogue.”

Student: Pimboon Wongmesak
Project: Museum of the Present
Award: Director’s Award
Website: y4s2-20192020.tumblr.com/tagged/10%20Pimboon%20Pimboon%20Wongmesak
Course: Year 4
Project tutor: Will Hulbert

Virtual Design Festival’s student and schools initiative offers a simple and affordable platform for student and graduate groups to present their work during the coronavirus pandemic. Click here for more details.

The post INDA architecture students present award-winning projects from virtual end-of-year show appeared first on Dezeen.

Hans Ulrich Obrist, Frida Escobedo, Stefano Boeri and others take part in this panel discussion about the relationship between art and architecture organised by Therme Art as part of Virtual Design Festival today. Watch the talk here live at 2:00pm UK time.

The talk is part of Therme Art‘s new initiative, Wellbeing Culture Forum, a programme of public online discussions that examine the role of culture and art during the coronavirus pandemic and how it can help to create healthy and sustainable urban environments.

Therme Art is the creative arm of the Therme Group and provides artworks to its spas and resorts around the world.

The first session of the series, titled Art in Architecture, will be co-moderated by the Serpentine Gallery‘s artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist and CEO and curator of Therme Art Mikolaj Sekutowicz.

Inspired by the Serpentine Galleries’ annual architecture pavilion, the first session will explore the relationship between art and architecture and the benefits of encouraging exchange between the two disciplines.

Past Serpentine Pavilion designers including Mexican architect Frida Escobedo and Japanese architect Junya Ishigami will feature on the panel, as well Sumayya Vally of Counterspace, the architecture studio that was commissioned to design the 2020 Serpentine Pavilion, which was recently postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Also on the panel is architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri and artist Torkwase Dyson.

Escobedo was behind the 2018 edition of the Serpentine Pavilion, which took the form of a courtyard framed by latticed walls made from grey concrete roofing tiles.

Ishigami designed the 2019 edition, a 350 square-metre “cave-like refuge” covered by a slate clad canopy that resembles a stone hill.

Counterspace is a Johannesburg-based architecture studio run by Vally, Sarah de Villiers and Amina Kaskar. They are the youngest architects to receive the Serpentine Pavilion commission and only the third all-female studio to be chosen to design it, following Zaha Hadid in 2000 and Frida Escobedo in 2018.

Italian architect and urban planner Boeri is known for his building and city designs that are covered in plants and trees, such as a vertical forest city in China designed to combat air pollution and a plan for a Mexican smart city covered in 7.5 million plants.

Dyson is an American artist whose work explores the connections between ecology, infrastructure and architecture.

Organised by Therme Art, the creative arm of the Therme Group, Wellbeing Culture Forum is a programme of public and private talks taking place every Wednesday throughout 2020.

Dezeen has partnered with Therme Art to broadcast three talks as part of Virtual Design Festival. The next event will take place on 17 June and will feature a panel discussion including artist and stage designer Es Devlin among others, discussing the importance of live events for the wellbeing of culture in society.

About Virtual Design Festival

Virtual Design Festival runs from 15 April to 30 June 2020. It brings the architecture and design world together to celebrate the culture and commerce of our industry, and explore how it can adapt and respond to extraordinary circumstances.

To find out what’s coming up at VDF, check out the schedule. For more information or to join the mailing list, email vdf@dezeen.com.

The post Therme Art and VDF present a live panel discussion on the relationship between art and architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

Paris architecture studio Ateliers O-S Architectes has added a concrete and weathering steel extension to a junior school in the village of Lugrin overlooking Lake Geneva.

Built alongside Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps in Lugrin, Switzerland, the school was designed to respect its scenic and historic context alongside a church and cemetery.

“It is an extension of a school integrated into a rich context, a site overlooking Lake Geneva nestled between a church and a cemetery,” said Ateliers O-S Architectes partners Vincent Baur, Guillaume Colboc and Gaël Le Nouëne.

“The challenge was to build a building with modern architecture that respects and reveals its environment,” they told Dezeen.

“This is the third time we have built adjacent to a cemetery, between life and peace, and the hilly landscape has been the very first point of our project inspiration to play with contrast and softness.”

The two-storey extension contains four classrooms on the ground floor, which is made from concrete, with a dining room occupying the timber-framed, Corten-clad first floor.

This dining space can be used as a multipurpose room for events as it has a separate dedicated entrance.

Ateliers O-S Architectes chose to use concrete and Corten to relate the school to the surrounding landscape and other buildings in the village of Lugrin.

“The building works on a mineral base in shuttered concrete with wooden pattern, expressing the soil, its tectonics, the rock that is extracted,” explained the architects.

“Corten came naturally as a response in dialogue with the roofs of the village in red and brown hues, but also because it is a raw material which absorbs and testifies to the evolutions of time.”

A concrete colonnade extends from the extension to connect the building to the existing school and frame a courtyard that is used as a outdoor playing area.

“The concrete colonnade structures the base, it rolls up to contain the new courtyard and comes to recreate a course, a boundary, a covered courtyard, a patio and then a sheltered path which links the existing school equipment and its new extension,” said the architects.

Within the block views of the lake and buildings in the surrounding village are framed by large windows that on first floor protrude from the Corten building.

“It is a project that is both closed and open, the framed views orient both on the great landscape, Lake Geneva, the Alps mountains, the sky but also the nearby landscape such as the playground, the existing school and the cemetery,” said the architects.

Ateliers O-S Architectes hopes that the project will continue and build on the architecture legacy of the village and the school, which was originally built in the 1850s and extended in the 1950s.

“It is a building whose scale, organisation of the plan, and orientation feed in continuity with the history of the place, local typologies while assuming one by one contemporary architectural writing.”

Paris based Ateliers O-S Architectes was founded by Baur, Colboc and Le Nouëne in 2007. The studio has previously designed a performing arts school and library beside a cemetery in Paris and built a sports hall in the north-west of the French capital.

Photography is by Cyrilel Weiner.

The post Corten and concrete school overlooks Lake Geneva appeared first on Dezeen.