Hasta La Ideas

Slender grey brick walls protrude from the front of fine arts museum Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts Lausanne, which Barcelona studio Barozzi Veiga created in the Lausanne city centre. 

The studio won an international competition to design both art museum the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts Lausanne (MCBA) and the masterplan for the city’s new art district, where the museum is located, in 2011.

The art district, Plateforme 10, was established near Lausanne’s central train station and covers more than two hectares.

“Since the beginning we have been thinking about a design for the new art district to be not just a detached entity in the city but also as a trigger project for the redevelopment of the abandoned area by the railways,” Barozzi Veiga co-founder Fabrizio Barozzi told Dezeen.

“Our approach pursued the intention to transform and give back to the city that central large urban space that at, that time, was unused and fragmented.”

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts Lausanne, which holds more than 10,000 works of art, was built on the site’s southern edge, parallel to the train tracks. The 145-metre-long building features a distinctive ridged facade that is meant to reference its industrial surroundings.

“The project carries and expresses the memory of the site, echoing the former industrial condition with pragmatic forms, rigorous geometry and hard, sharp lines,” the studio said.

A 19th-century train hall previously located in the space was demolished, but Barozzi Veiga preserved its arched window for the art museum – which is longlisted in the cultural building category for Dezeen Awards 2020.

“The old arched window becomes the main protagonist of the building façade from the railway and, once within the foyer, it reveals its full role as a substantial structuring component of the new building’s sequence of spaces,” Barozzi said.

The building is “relatively hermetic” in order to protect the museum’s collections. An almost closed facade faces the train tracks to the south while opening up more towards the northern side, where there is a new public plaza.

“We decided to implement a brick facades which could offer a texture, a vibrant pattern to the blind monolithic elevation and, simultaneously, it could evoke the industrial history of the site,” Barozzi explained.

“On the square, the vertical blinds’ rhythm breaks the massiveness of the monolith and reveal the openings,” he added. “At night, these brick blinds serve as a canvas to diffuse the interior light coming from the museum.”

Inside, the studio used terrazzo for the floors and plaster for the walls, both in a light grey hue, with the ground floor functioning as an extension of the public space outside. The upper levels, which house the exhibitions, have been given wooden floors.

Barozzi Veiga aimed to reach “the highest sustainability standards” when constructing the building. The architect said it “follows the Swiss label Minergie ECO, the SMEO procedure and the grey energy calculation, according to The Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA) 2023″.

“The compactness of the form, the use of natural light to light up the interiors and the high flexibility of the spaces, which allows for different public events to take place within the walls of the museum, are among the essential architectural features that contribute to make the MCBA a sustainable building,” Barozzi added.

Lausanne’s two other major art institutions, photography museum the Musée de l’Elysée and the museum of contemporary design, Musée de Design d’Arts appliqués Contemporain, will also open in the art district in 2022.

Both museums will be housed in one building designed by Aires Mateus, which won a 2015 competition.

Barozzi Veiga also recently completed a trapezoidal riverside arcade for the Tanzhaus dance centre in Zürich.

Photography is by Simon Menges, unless stated otherwise.

Project credits:

Authors: Fabrizio Barozzi , Alberto Veiga
Project leader: Pieter Janssens
Project team execution phase: Claire Afarian, Alicia Borchardt, Paola Calcavecchia, Marta Grządziel, Isabel Labrador, Miguel Pereira Vinagre, Cristina Porta, Laura Rodriguez, Arnau Sastre, Maria Ubach, Cecilia Vielba, Nelly Vitiello
Project team competition phase: Roi Carrera, Shin Hye Kwang, Eleonora Maccari, Verena Recla, Agnieszka Samsel, Agnieszka Suchocka
Local architect: Fruehauf Henry & Viladoms
Project manager: Pragma Partenaires SA
Structural engineers: Ingeni SA
Services engineers: Chammartin&Spicher SA, Scherler SA, BA Consulting SA
Façade consultant: X-made SLP
Lighting consultant: Matí AG

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This bauble-box is brutalist beauty at its best! The Mesh, by Mexico-based Shift is a concrete organizer that allows you to store all your small belongings and customize how you store them too! Designed to work well in any space, the Mesh can be placed on your work-desk, bedside table, mantelpiece, dressing table, or even your bathroom. The concrete setup comes with a toothed base, and containers with notches that dock right into the grooves/teeth. The layout opportunities are endless, and you can even use the grooved base to route cables, rest stationery, and even dock your phone! The concrete components cone in a variety of monochrome hues, and blend into the decor well, whether it’s your desktop, dressing table, or the shelf right beside your main door. The fact that the containers (and base) are slip-cast in porous concrete means the Mesh doesn’t mind a little bit of water, making it ideal for the bathroom, or even to plant tiny succulents around your workspace! Whether it’s your tech, stationery, accessories, EDC, keys, plants, or even toiletries, the Mesh does a pretty remarkable job of storing your stash and allowing you to arrange them exactly the way you like. Plus, the modular nature of the Mesh means you could easily expand your storage by purchasing additional units!

Designer: Shift

Architecture studio OA+ has threaded a path through this adobe brick and wood house in Envigado, Colombia that leads from its entrance to woodland at the rear.

Extending from a grassy hill on the site, the green roofs staggered over the residence are intended to blend it in with its surrounding in the neighbourhood of Alto de las Palmas, which translates as top of the palms.

“Casa Carmen protrudes from the mountain, requiring the need to make an impact with its surroundings by means of a habitable green roof, which extends throughout the project and over all spaces of the house,” said OA+, which is based in Medellín.

Alto de las Palmas is located in Envigado, a municipality southeast of Medellin that is 2,550 metres above sea level.

Because of its high altitude, the house is fragmented into three volumes laid in a Z-shape through the site, in order to create sheltered gardens and terraces.

“The high altitude of the location, subject to adverse climatic conditions in terms of temperature and wind demanded the project adopt principles of architectural composition to improve the comfort and bioclimatic conditions of the house,” the firm added.

The programme is fragmented into three areas across the 650-square-metre property, which is mainly arranged on the ground floor.

They are threaded with a pathway that leads from the entrance to the forest at the rear to merge the house with nearby nature trails.

“From the point of access, the aim was to generate a route that continues and flows through the family room until reaching the forest,” OA+ explained.

“The private spaces lead to the nearby nature reserve characterised by a dense stand of native trees and small natural stream that descends from the mountain.”

The walkway starts as large stepping stones and then cuts between an open-plan kitchen, lounge and dining room in the middle volume and a south-east facing deck with a dining table and jacuzzi.

It ends outside the bedroom volume, which contains three rooms with en-suite bathrooms, walk-in closets and north-facing terraces.

A reddish abobe clay brick is predominantly used to create the walls of the volumes, with a number of smaller blocks clad in wood boards. These materials, along with concrete flooring, were chosen because of the way they would weather over time.

“Wood, clay adobe, and concrete are proposed to achieve the beauty of their natural properties in the long-term, taking into account that these materials stand the test of time allowing one to witness the project age and adapt to the landscape over generations,” the studio said.

Similar materials are also used throughout the interiors of the house, giving a warm feel and rustic aesthetic. Large expanses of glazing provide views of the surrounding grassy hills, while clerestory windows and rooflights offer additional natural light.

Casa Carmen also has a basement containing a laundry room, spa zone and a gym.

Other residential projects designed to respond to the landscape in Colombia is a tiny black cabin overlooking the Andes mountains, which architect Alfonso Arango built next to his childhood home.

Photography is by Mateo Soto.

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Latin American architecture firm Gómez Platero has unveiled a design for a circular monument in Uruguay to remember coronavirus victims.

The proposed World Memorial to the Pandemic is a large sculpture designed to be installed on water off the coast of Uruguay.

Designed by Gómez Platero, it is intended to offer visitors a sensorial experience and safe place to reflect and remember victims of Covid-19. If built, it will be the first large-scale memorial to do so, according to the studio.

“Architecture is a powerful tool to transform the world,” director and lead architect Martín Gómez Platero said. “It is, above all, a collective and historical reality, made of small fragments which survive over time and become culture.”

“By creating a memorial capable of activating senses and memories in this way, we can remind our visitors – as the pandemic has – that we as human beings are subordinate to nature and not the other way around.”

A long pedestrian walkway will extend from the waterfront to the main ring-shaped platform, which will measure 40 metres in diameter. At the centre of the sculpture there will be a 10-metre-wide hole where rocks and water underneath will poke through.

Its concave surface will be constructed using concrete, while its underside will be faced with Corten steel, a durable material that requires little maintenance as it will naturally weather over time as the terrain and water level around the sculpture change.

The space offers a refuge from the noise and sights of urban life and will allow visitors to be surrounded by nature. Up to 300 people can congregate on the platform at a time while still maintaining a safe social distance from one another.

To minimise the impact on the natural environment the studio will pre-assemble a portion of the structure in its workshop and complete construction on site.

Gómez Platero is currently working with the Uruguayan government to select a site for the memorial that will not adversely impact the environment and will benefit the larger community.

It estimates that the World Memorial to the Pandemic memorial will take six months to build.

Since late 2019 Covid-19 has infected over 22 million people worldwide and resulted in over 777,000 deaths. The pandemic forced cities around the globe into lockdown, closing businesses and schools.

Other architects and designers have also proposed memorials to commemorate those that lost their lives during the coronavirus pandemic.

They include Italian architect Angelo Renna who suggested planting 35,000 trees in a Milan stadium and Miró Rivera Architects, who envisioned a bowl-shaped structure and burial site for Jordan’s Dead Sea.

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Producer Ricky Reed (known for his work with Lizzo, Maggie Rogers and others) taps vocalists Leon Bridges and Kiana Ledé for the third single from his forthcoming album, The Room. A delicate tune, “Better” is about returning home to the people and places you love most. “She said she’d be OK and I had to trust her / Sometimes you gotta leave you don’t even wanna,” the pair sings on the chorus. Watching the video on YouTube also results in funds raised for The Solutions Project, “a non-profit that connects artists and fans with frontline communities to the climate crisis.” Reed’s label, Nice Life, will match the total donation up to $30,000. So far, the video has raised over $10,000 through views (or $20,000, including Reed’s pledged match).