Hasta La Ideas

Canadian architecture firm Atelier Schwimmer has contrasted planks of charred wood with pale wood to form a cabin for brothers overlooking a lake in Canada.

Chalet Lakeside is located on a wooded site that faces Lake Brome in a small town east of Montreal.

Atelier Schwimmer constructed the 3,200-square-foot (297-square-metre) cabin for two siblings who enjoy outdoor activities and wanted a place to escape city life.

The residence comprises a single rectangular volume with a gabled roofline and recessed walls. For the cladding, the studio charred larch wood, while the set back portions are left exposed and treated with a natural oil.

“This play of dark and light increases the singular aspect of the house,” the studio said.

Large glass sliding doors and a wood deck wrap around a back corner of the cabin. Windows and doors on all sides are oriented to face the grassy property, dock and lake.

Inside, a portion of the ceiling is cut away to give height to the open-plan living space. The design in the space revolves around a concrete fireplace in the centre of the room.

Logs are inserted inside a glass box within a void cut into the centre of the monolithic volume.

“The design was developed around a fireplace set beside a triple-height area that makes it visible from everywhere within the cabin thus generating a canyon of hospitality,” it added.

Concrete covers the floors and the walls, while the ceilings are panelled with pale wood planks. An L-shaped plywood bench forms a seating area against a window with a lake view.

Attached to the ceiling is a climbing rope that extends from the peak of the gabled roof down onto the living room floor.

Wood steps form the staircase that leads to the upper level, where the four bedrooms and a family room are located. Three rectangular skylights above the stair landing brighten the hallway that is open to the lower level.

Other projects overlooking lakes in Canada include a charred cedar residence and boathouse anchored on a wood deck and a black house in Quebec with a terrace that extends over the water.

Photography is by Adrien Williams.

Project credits:

Team: Felix Schwimmer, Francesca Fiaschi
Consultants: PercoDesign, Steve St-Hilaire
Structural engineer: Yannick Pelletier
Hydro engineer: Yves Leblanc
Construction: Dunfab construction, Guillaume Dumas

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Climate activist group Architects Climate Action Network has called on Foster + Partners to pull out of a controversial new private airport in Saudi Arabia – or resign as a signatory of the Architects Declare movement.

In a letter to Foster + Partners, ACAN said the architect should withdraw its involvement with Amaala, a luxury resort on the Red Sea coast, where it is designing a private airport terminal and control tower.

Architects “should not be working to expand aviation”

“Our network strongly believes that UK architecture practices should not be working to expand aviation in the midst of this climate emergency,” the letter states.

ACAN said Foster + Partners should “pause [its] involvement in aviation expansion until such time as the sector has achieved carbon neutrality.”

Last month Amaala unveiled Foster + Partners’ “mirage-inspired” design for an international airport at the huge Saudi resort, with is set amid 4,155 square kilometres of land in the Prince Mohammad bin Salman Natural Reserve.

Foster + Partners has come under fire for designing the private airport in Saudi Arabia

The airport, which will exclusively serve the luxury resort, is expected to open in 2023 and handle a million passengers per year.

Masterplanned by engineering consultancy Egis, the airport will feature “climate-controlled hangars that will be available for private jets”.

Foster’s involvement in the project at a time of growing awareness of the need to decarbonise the global economy has generated controversy.

Foster + Partners should “consider stepping down from Architects Declare”

ACAN said the project is incompatible with the London architect’s position as a founding signatory of Architects Declare, a network of practices supposedly committed to tackling the climate emergency.

“As a founding signatory of Architects Declare you have publicly proclaimed that we are in the midst of a climate emergency, which poses an existential threat to much of life on this planet,” says ACAN’s letter.

“If you are unwilling to relinquish your involvement in aviation expansion and find yourselves unable to reconcile these projects with the [Architects Declare] declaration points, we suggest that you consider stepping down from Architects Declare for the time being, in order to safeguard the integrity and credibility of the initiative,” the letter says.

ACAN describes itself as “a network of individuals within architecture and related built environment professions taking action to address the twin crises of climate and ecological breakdown.”

Architects Declare has “principle of not naming and shaming”

The organisation emerged out of the Extinction Rebellion protests in London last year and takes a more proactive stance than Architects Declare, which last week said it would not take action against signatories that worked on projects that contradicted their climate pledges.

“We have a principle of not naming and shaming our colleagues in the industry,” Architects Declare said in response to the controversy over Foster’s involvement in the Amaala project. “The onus should be on signatories to live up to the pledges they have made.”

Architects Declare was launched in May last year in the hope of triggering a “shift in behaviour” in construction and buildings, which are responsible for around 40 per cent of global carbon emissions. Founding signatories include Foster + Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects and Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners.

Originally a UK movement, Architects Declare now has signatories in over 20 countries around the world.

Located on Saudi Arabia’s northwestern coast, the private Amaala resort will feature 2,500 hotel rooms and more than 800 villas and apartments and estate homes plus 200 luxury stores spread between three distinct developments called Triple Bay, Coastal Development and The Island.

The aviation sector is responsible for an estimated 4.9 per cent of global carbon emissions. Passenger numbers are predicted to double to 8.2 billion a year by 2037.

The full text of ACAN’s letter to Foster + Partners is below:

Dear Foster + Partners,

RE: Recently announced new Amaala resort airport

We’re writing to you as Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN), a network of individuals within architecture and related built environment professions taking action to address the climate and ecological crises. Following the announcement of your Amaala resort airport, we are concerned about this project and your continuing involvement in aviation expansion.

Our network strongly believes that UK architecture practices should not be working to expand aviation in the midst of this climate emergency. Aviation is an extremely carbon-intensive mode of transport. Expanding aviation capacity cannot be reconciled with meaningful action to achieve the rapid global decarbonisation that is urgently required. The way humans are living on this planet is fundamentally unsustainable and pursuing a business as usual approach will not bring about the change that we all know is necessary.

As a founding signatory of Architects Declare you have publicly proclaimed that we are in the midst of a climate emergency, which poses an existential threat to much of life on this planet. You have made pledges including to “Evaluate all new projects against the aspiration to contribute positively to mitigating climate breakdown, and encourage our clients to adopt this approach.”

As such, ACAN respectfully ask that you:

1. Withdraw your involvement in the Amaala resort airport. 2. Pause your involvement in aviation expansion until such time as the sector has achieved carbon neutrality.

If a practice of your status, influence and renown were to walk away from aviation expansion, this would have a significant impact and send a compelling message about the urgent need to scale back the most extreme forms of extractivism.

If you decide to continue with this project and aviation expansion more broadly, we wish to know how you are reconciling that position with your Architects Declare commitments and the global imperative for rapid decarbonisation. We invite you to open a dialogue with us on these matters.

If you are unwilling to relinquish your involvement in aviation expansion and find yourselves unable to reconcile these projects with the declaration points, we suggest that you consider stepping down from Architects Declare for the time being, in order to safeguard the integrity and credibility of the initiative.

Fundamentally this letter invites you to consider what your role will be in this extraordinary historical moment. Will you continue with business as usual, enabling a system that is pushing life on earth closer to the brink of disaster? Or, will you find the leadership and courage to make some difficult and uncomfortable decisions?

Whether or not humanity is equal to the task of contending with this crisis may depend in large part upon the cumulative effect of many such decisions. We hope that you will consider the above carefully before deciding how to proceed.

We very much look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely

ACAN

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Sameep Padora & Associates has designed a Hindu temple complex partially surrounded by a moat for the village of Nandyal in Andhra Pradesh, India.

The architecture studio created the stepped temples from local black limestone slabs to create a modern take on the traditional Hindu temple forms.

“More than the temple being different from its predecessors, I think it’s more like a variant,” said Sameep Padora & Associates principal Sameep Padora.

“Modernity wasn’t really a preoccupation for the design of the temple,” he told Dezeen. “It was about how the temple was located in its physical context, the available resources and what real value we were able to create using the temple as a catalyst.”

The complex contains two tower-topped shrines, along with an elongated building that contains a kitchen for preparing offerings, public toilets and the priest’s quarters. Alongside the temples is a water tank, known as a Pushkarini.

Sameep Padora & Associates based the arrangement of the buildings and water pond on a 10th-century temple that is located in Tirupathi, southern India.

“The planning of our temple carries forward the historic precedent of temple plans which addresses the two shrines and the bathing pond for the deity at the entry,” explained Padora.

“It uses many of the same tropes like the elaborate horizontality in the construct of most traditionally temple design but abstracts that further,” he continued.

“All of the planning was done in dialogue with temple priests who had inputs on what was placed where according to tradition.”

Integrating a water pool into the temple complex was one of the most challenging elements as the area chosen for the building was relatively arid.

To create it the architecture studio diverted water from a nearby quarry into an area of low lying land and to create a water retention basin that was planted with vegetation to naturally clean it.

“This single programmatic addition, begins the dialogue, between the temple form, the access steps and the water,” he continued.

“It becomes an architecture that is part landscape and part building, modulated through the module of single corbel creating a scale that is both intimate and distinct.”

Black limestone slabs were used to create steps that rise out of the pool. These slabs were also used to create the stepped forms of the temples, which are planted with greenery on the lower levels to buffer the interiors from the heat.

The larger of the pair of spire-topped temples contains the Balaji shrine, while the smaller temple contains the Varahaswamy shrine.

The combination of the water and traditional spire-topped temples defines the religious space said Padora.

“The temple precinct through its association with the water takes two distinct forms of sacred spaces, the temple shikhara – spire above the sanctuary, and the kund – stepped water tank, and integrates it into a single manifestation of the sacred precinct,” he added.

Sameep Padora & Associates is a Mumbai-based architecture studio that has previously designed a Buddhist education and meditation centre built using rammed earth that contains volcanic dust and a school library topped by an undulating brick roof.

Photography is by Edmund Sumner.

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Planter Designs that are worthy of your plants of Instagram! Every plant parent knows the joy you see in a fresh new leaf, a bud that signals the flower that shall bloom or even a sprouting seed. Being a proud plant parent myself, I know how important it is that my plant get a planter that can hold them and be the perfect companion for my plant. Why can’t a planter do more than just hold the plant? That is the question asked and answered by designers across the globe, giving us this unique collection that holds plant-lights, a planter side-table, and even a plant-based air purifier!

You love plants, plants love light, you love light, you’ll both love the Mygdal plant light! Nui Studio’s revolutionary lighting solution not just because the luminaire is a completely self-sustaining ecosystem where the plants can grow undisturbed, but also because of its one-of-a-kind electrically conductive glass coating. It actually streams the electricity invisibly along the surface, so there’s no need for a cable connection between the power source and the LED. Bring even windowless spaces to life with a plant light!

I have to hand it to designer Pei-Ju Wu, for the clever way they have integrated a planter, side table, and lamp, into this amazing piece of furniture that you can place in your living room. The lines are blurred due to the multiple functionalities of this piece, but the ingenious way they complement each other and come together as the Oasis is commendable. Picture this – you have a planter at the base of a table, which keeps green thanks to the integrated LED lights and stays hydrated via the clever funnel found at the center of the tabletop. Excess water simply drips down to the collection tray and evaporates back into the air.

With the design that looks like a cross between a terrarium and an Apple Homepod, the Briiv by Sean Sykes & James Whitfield is a modern-looking air purifier that adds a touch of green to your apartment. The filter comes with a special, sustainably-grown, dried moss on the inside that naturally purifies the air by trapping harmful particles, killing microorganisms, and releasing clean, fresh air. Sitting underneath the moss are multiple bio-filters, including one made from loosely woven coconut fibers, another filter comprising carbon-infused hemp, and a woolen microfiber filter that together combines to filter particles as small as PM 0.3 while also trapping and neutralizing bacteria, molds, and other volatile organic compounds to give you air that’s been freshened naturally, in a filter that’s designed to be the equivalent of as many as 3000 house plants in one device.

Air O is the perfect fusion of a purifier and a planter that not only frees up and make corners of your home look tidy, it also gives your interior style a minimalistic upgrade. The designer Sheng-Wen Wang’s idea to combine plants with an air purifier was like adding a turbocharger to make the appliance perform better while retaining the soothing presence of plants. The appliance is designed to look like a luxury plant holder with pineapple-like grooves that add texture to the otherwise matte black gadget. Air O’s sleek make it a perfect fit in any space and you won’t have to worry about a bulky air purifier being an eyesore in your home. Also, the plant really elevates the environment apart from having emotional benefits.

The one-of-a-kind Terraplanter was developed by Eran Zarhi, an industrial designer and botanophile who wanted to make hydroponics easy and accessible. The Terraplanter comes in an inverted conical format, and stores water inside while the plant grows on the textured vertical walls of the outer surface. The Terraplanter, however, isn’t a single planter. It’s in fact, a cluster of 1,400 tiny planters that let you grow nearly hundreds of plants in/on the same pot, like a micro-farm… all thanks to the Terraplanter’s textured design. The reverse-knurled texture on the outside walls of the Terraplanter actually plays a very important dual-purpose. Think of each one as a miniature planter. They hold the seeds during the germination phase and act as textured walls for roots to latch onto when the plant has fully grown. These cells leech water from inside the planter, supplying them in precise quantities to the plant outside, so your plant always gets the exact right amount of water it needs. Not only does this mean you never have to worry about soil, aeration, or fertilization, you literally don’t need to worry about watering your plant either! Just fill the Terraplanter’s inner reservoir with enough water and the porous terracotta surface actually does the job of distributing water to each plant individually and effectively.

Created by designer Ekaterina Shchetina, Fluidity serves a double function. A comely white dish rack by day, the multipurpose dish rack has an alter ego; it serves as a planter, or to be precise there are two built-in planters on its sides. Fluidity is designed in such a way that the run-off water from the freshly washed dishes trickles down to the roots of the plants, irrigating and nourishing them. The base, thanks to its fluid form, allows the water to be directed to the plant containers. Perforated at the bottom, the containers are filled with clay pellets and coconut fiber, to control the water environment of the plants and to keep the drainer base free from water residue.

The Brot by Benditas Studio is a lamp and planter combined into one slick, terracotta package. The lamp provides nourishment to a tiny kitchen-garden that you can literally pick from and use in your meals. The upper half of the Brot lamp houses the light, while the lower half acts as a torus-shaped vessel for growing plants. A stainless steel tray sits inside the lower half, acting as a holder for the plant. You can sow a variety of seeds in the Brot, and the process is pretty standard. The seeds need to be soaked in advance before being planted, and can then be placed in the Brot’s lower half. They need to be moistened (probably using a spray/spritzer) 2-3 times a day, and within a week you’ve got yourself a perfectly healthy, homegrown set of herbs or sprouts to use in your meals.

Technically not a planter, the GreenFrame is a floor screen divider, plant pot holder, and a lighting fixture, all in one. Comprising of a minimalist ash wood frame, the rectangular structure by  Johan Kauppi of Kauppi & Kauppi (for Glimakra of Sweden) can hold up to three potted plants. LED lights line the ceiling of the frame. The illuminated frame functions not only as a light fixture but help in nurturing and growing the plants indoors, especially during winters in areas with minimal daylight hours. The frame also serves as a splendid divider, creating privates spaces in bustling offices. Larger sized plants with wholesome leaves help diffuse sounds and encourage privacy even more. On the days when you feel like cutting off from the noise, just replace the frame with a board to absorb the noise and give you a complete separation from the world!

The Pico planter is a smaller, more effective, and more convenient sibling of last year’s Herbstation, which led the movement to empower people to grow their own greens. Given that as much as 50% of your greens’ nutrition gets lost from the time it is harvested to the time it takes to reach your plate, and that you never really know where the products you buy is actually coming from, Pico, by Arun Raj, Karanvir, Vaishnavi and Sumedh, was designed to let you grow your own greens in the freshest of conditions, without any chemicals or wastage, and for free! It’s tiny, portable, and frankly adorable design is reminiscent of a Tamagotchi, but here’s where things were designed to get easier. The Pico actually comes with its own sun-mimicking growth light and a self-watering reservoir, so you literally have to do the bare minimum of charging it and replenishing the water supply once every week and the plant practically grows itself.

The Mesa makes for a pretty decorative planter to be placed inside your house, along with a nice indoor plant. Sam Lavoie capitalized on the fact that planters are usually placed against walls and near power outlets, giving you a product that can easily be plugged into a socket in the wall quite inconspicuously. The vacuum fits right in the planter and charges once docked can be easily used by pulling it out and powered using the standby button on the base. The vacuum’s design elegantly complements the planter, and while home appliances usually come in pretty standard glossy finishes and in black or white, the Mesa explores earthy terracotta as a potential color and texture for the vacuum and the planter. Needless to say, it clearly works!

“Tai Star Valianti smashes his own record (from home) for the most Jenga blocks stacked on one vertical Jenga piece. His kids seem eager to knock it over at the end! 😂”..(Read…)