Hasta La Ideas

Architecture office VATRAA has reused bricks salvaged from the demolition of an existing sidewall to construct this extension to a Victorian house in north London.

The owners of the house in the borough of Camden had lived in the property for 15 years before asking VATRAA to design a rear extension housing a new kitchen and dining area.

The project’s main objective was to introduce a functional and contemporary addition that respects the original features of the Victorian house.

An existing sidewall extension was demolished to create space for the 16-square-metre wraparound structure, which uses the salvaged bricks to create a vertical pattern on the new facade.

“We required the contractor to undertake the demolition with care in order to reclaim all bricks from the side and rear walls, which were then used to build the extension,” architect Bogdan Rusu told Dezeen.

The matching bricks help the new addition to complement the existing facade, while the extension’s pitched roof references a section of the original building’s roofline.

The new volume is angled to face the most attractive portion of the garden and to allow for a side door providing everyday access to outside.

A large opening containing simple sliding doors maximises natural light and views of the north-facing garden.

The project brief called for an “all-white” interior with accents of colour, so VATRAA incorporated a circular blue window at the centre of the gabled facade.

“The round window with its blue stained glass is the only colour insertion,” Rusu pointed out. “By matching the colour of the other stained glass windows found in the original building, it brings energy into the space while reconnecting the new and the old.”

The interior features a pared-back palette, combining whitewashed brick with other light materials that contribute to the bright and spacious feel.

“While respecting the white palette, we played with different textures and patterns,” Rusu added, “including hexagonal tiles, rectangular bricks and cellular beams that bring character and react in the presence of natural light.”

The steel cellular beams are used to help separate the new extension from the original building, both structurally and visually.

The circular holes in the beams also allow light to penetrate and lend the space a distinct identity.

VATRAA was founded in 2018 by Anamaria Pircu and Bogdan Rusu. The studio focuses on using a project’s constraints as a catalyst for creative problem-solving, resulting in characterful buildings that are tailored to their users’ requirements.

Longlisted for emerging architecture studio of the year at the Dezeen Awards 2021, VATRAA’s previous projects include an award-winning London council house renovation featuring pink-toned plaster walls and an oversized window.

The post VATRAA adds brick-clad gabled extension to Victorian house in Camden appeared first on Dezeen.

With two weeks left to take part in the Dezeen Awards 2021 public vote, here is an update on votes cast so far in each of the 12 architecture categories.

The public vote, which closes on 11 October, allows readers to vote for projects and studios shortlisted in the architecture, interiors, design, sustainability and media categories, as well as architects and designers in line for the studio of the year awards. Winners will receive a special certificate.

Voting is open for another two weeks so get started today!

Click here to vote ›

Public vote winners announced in October

Public vote winners will be announced 18-22 October. The public vote is separate from the main Dezeen Awards 2021 judging process, in which entries are assessed by our star-studded panel of professional judges.

We’ll be announcing the Dezeen Awards 2021 winners online in late November.

Who’s in the lead?

With 36,011 votes received so far, here is a snapshot of which projects and studios have received the most support. There’s still time to influence the results so keep voting!

Urban house

45 per cent – Bat Trang House by VTN Architects
15 per cent – Imaise house by Tatsuya Kawamoto + Associates
15 per cent – Villa Fifty-Fifty by Studioninedots
14 per cent – CH house by ODDO Architects
11 per cent – Fitzroy Bridge House by Matt Gibson Architecture + Design

Rural house

26 per cent – NCaved by Mold Architects
24 per cent – Xerolithi by George Sinas
22 per cent – Mazul by Revolution
12 per cent – Mt Coot-Tha House by Nielsen Jenkins
Nine per cent – Casa Ter by Mesura
Seven per cent – Setoyama by Moriya and Partners

Housing project

42 per cent – Punta Majahua by Zozaya Arquitectos
24 per cent – Agorahaverne: Ibihaven by Tetris A/S
12 per cent – Baochao Hutong Mirror Yard by DAGA Architects
11 per cent – La Trobe University Student Accommodation by Jackson Clements Burrows Architects
11 per cent – Stone Garden by Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture

Residential rebirth project

33 per cent – Ørsted Gardens by Tegnestuen Lokal
21 per cent – Quarter Glass House by Proctor and Shaw
20 per cent – Jūra Spot by JSC Šilta Šiaurė
17 per cent – Fitzroy Bridge House by Matt Gibson Architecture + Design
10 per cent – Pony by Wowowa

Civic building

35 per cent – Cinema Le Grand Palais by Antonio Virga Architecte
23 per cent – The Bodø City Hall by ALL
17 per cent – My Montessori Garden by HGAA
15 per cent – Antoine de Ruffi School Group by Tautem Architecture and BMC2 Architectes
10 per cent – House of Nature by Revaerk

Cultural building

30 per cent – Pannar Sufficiency Economic and Agriculture Learning Centre by Vin Varavarn Architects
27 per cent – Hall of Immortality at Longshan Cemetery by Studio 10
16 per cent – Baoshan WTE Exhibition Center by Kokaistudios
15 per cent – Yabuli Conference Center by MAD Architects
13 per cent – Babyn Yar Synagogue by Manuel Herz Architects

Business building

32 per cent – Nodi by White Arkitekter
26 per cent – Sanya Farm Lab by Clou Architects
20 per cent – Guha by RAW Architecture
15 per cent – Frizz23 by Deadline Architects
Eight per cent – Imatra Electricity Substation by Virkkunen & Co. Architects

Hospitality building

65 per cent – Vedana Restaurant by VTN Architects
15 per cent – Ziedlejas Latvian nature spa and wellness resort by Open AD
Eight per cent – PokoPoko Clubhouse by Klein Dytham Architecture
Seven per cent – The Museum Hotel Antakya by EAA-Emre Arolat Architecture
Six per cent – Presence in Hormuz 2 by ZAV Architects

Rebirth project

39 per cent – Helfštýn Castle Palace Reconstruction by Atelier-R
23 per cent – Art Barn by Thomas Randall-Page
20 per cent – Revitalization of Prague riverfront area by Petr Janda / Brainwork
14 per cent – Gare Maritime by Neutelings Riedijk Architects
Five per cent – Zvonarka Bus Station by Chybik+Kristof

Small building

32 per cent – Bamboo Bamboo, Canopy and Pavilions by llLab
30 per cent – The Olive Houses by Mar Plus Ask
19 per cent – Hill Country Wine Cave by Clayton Korte
15 per cent – Peach Hut by Atelier XI
Five per cent – Alive by The Living

Landscape project

42 per cent – Heito 1909 by ECG International Landscape Consultants
29 per cent – Alpine Garden: Preserve Indigenous Culture and Native Plants by Z’scape
15 per cent – Sunac Yunyang In Huanan by Qidi Design Group
Eight per cent – Back to the neighbourhood,The Playscape, Children’s Community Centre by Waa
Six per cent – Haoxiang Lake Park by Elandscript

Sustainable building

54 per cent – The Arc at Green School Bali by Ibuku
13 per cent – CiAsa Aqua Bad Cortina by Pedevilla Architects
8 per cent – The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design by The Miller Hull Partnership and Lord Aeck Sargent
Seven per cent – Welcome to the Jungle House by CplusC Architectural Workshop
Three per cent – Kamikatsu Zero Waste Center by Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP/ Yamada Noriaki Structural Design Office

The post See who’s ahead in the Dezeen Awards 2021 public vote architecture categories appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen has teamed up with Holcim to host a live talk about Striatus, a 3D-printed concrete footbridge that the building material company built in Venice with Zaha Hadid Architects and Block Research Group at ETH Zurich. Watch live from 3:00pm London time.

Moderated by Dezeen’s chief content officer Benedict Hobson, the talk will explain how the Striatus bridge was conceived, designed and constructed, and explore the implications that the project has for the future of construction.

Striatus is a 16-metre-long bridge built by the Block Research Group at Swiss university ETH Zurich and Zaha Hadid Architects, in collaboration with concrete 3D-printing specialists incremental3D. The project was made possible by Holcim with its custom-made proprietary concrete ink.

The unreinforced arched bridge comprises 53 hollow blocks, each printed from 500 layers of concrete, which are held in place solely through compression.

Philippe Block, founder of the Block Research Group at ETH Zurich, will appear on the panel alongside Shajay Bhooshan, senior associate at Zaha Hadid Architects and founder of ZHA CODE, the firm’s computational design research group. Representing Holcim on the panel is Nollaig Forrest, the company’s head of communications and public affairs.

Block is a professor at the Institute of Technology in Architecture at ETH Zurich, where he leads the Block Research Group with Dr Tom Van Mele. He is also director of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research in Digital Fabrication.

He studied architecture and structural engineering at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and then at MIT in the US, where he earned his PhD in 2009.

Block Research Group is known for innovative experiments in engineering, including self-supporting structures made of mushroom mycelium and an armadillo-like stone canopy that supports itself without glue.

Bhooshan is a senior associate at Zaha Hadid Architects and founder of the Computation and Design group at Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA CODE).

Alongside his role at Zaha Hadid Architects, Bhooshan is also a PhD candidate at the Institute of Technology in Architecture, ETH Zurich, where he works at Block Research Group as a research assistant.

Additionally, he works as a studio master at the Design Research Laboratory master’s degree program at London’s Architectural Association.

Previously, he worked at London-based stadium architecture firm Populous, and completed his master’s degree at the Architectural Association in 2006.

Forrest is head of communications and public affairs at Holcim. Prior to this, Forrest acted as vice president of corporate communications at Firmenich, a producer of fragrance and flavour ingredients.

She has also held senior communications roles at Dow, DuPont and the World Economic Forum, and is a member of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium Advisory Council.

To find out more about Holcim, visit the company’s website or follow it on Instagram.

The post Watch our live talk with Zaha Hadid Architects, ETH Zurich and Holcim on their 3D-printed concrete bridge Striatus appeared first on Dezeen.

Developer Unboxed Homes has created a terrace of customisable homes in Peckham, south London, which were designed by architecture studio Poulsom Middlehurst.

Described by the developer as “London’s first custom-build homes”, the houses on Blenheim Grove were designed to be sold as structural shells so that people buying the properties could customise the interior layouts and finishes.

“We believe that we are the first to offer ‘new build shells’ to Londoners,” said Unboxed Homes founder Gus Zogolovitch.

“We are not trying to maximise our returns at Blenheim Grove, we are trying to make something new,” he told Dezeen.

“Building an airtight, watertight, structurally sound shell which has the flexibility for customers to design a space that works for them.”

Each of the three-storey houses was designed by Poulsom Middlehurst so that a variety of layouts could be created within the split-level buildings.

Unboxed Homes could then sell them either as raw weathertight structures or as finished homes.

The developer believes that the partially finished homes give buyers the flexibility of a self-build home, but without much of the associated hassle.

“There are literally millions of people who would like to self-build their own home,” said Zogolovitch. “However, this remains really hard.”

“The idea of Blenheim Grove was to make it easier for people to self-build by having us do a lot of the work for them,” he continued.

The homes are an example of a slowly emerging trend for customisable homes, said Zogolovitch.

“Custom build is when a developer gets involved in the process of a self-commissioned home,” he said.

“In our case at Blenheim Grove, we have built the shell, in other cases in other parts of the country, customers buy serviced plots and then build their own homes,” he continued.

“Custom build has the opportunity and chance to make self-build a reality for many hundreds of thousands if not millions more people.”

The five houses, two of which have now been split into apartments, stand alongside a railway track near Peckham Rye Station.

As the site narrows, the smallest house is nearest the station with the largest at the other end of the terrace.

The homes were built in light brick and each have a sunken outdoor space alongside the road and a large terrace between the second and third floors.

“We wanted to create a terrace of shells, which we felt struck the right balance between leaving the owner with enough scope to be creative and to fit it out themselves and yet to remove a lot of the headaches of self-building,” said Zogolovitch.

Although Zogolovitch is extremely positive about the benefits of custom-build housing, building the terrace at Blenheim Grove was delayed by several years.

“The development has taken far longer than expected,” said Zogolovitch.

“The complexity of what we are doing, while simple to explain, is completely new in the development landscape,” he said.

“This means that every single person on the project had to operate at the top of their game – sadly our industry is rife with people who take little pride in what they do and we had to deal with lots of problems on site. This led to delays which led to customers dropping out of the project.”

To date, Unboxed Homes has sold four of the houses, including the two that were split into apartments.

“We have now finished the shells and have sold four – with just one home remaining, which we will be fitting out to a basic specification – the idea being that people want space not specification – it’s another experiment!”

Despite the issues on the project, Zogolovitch believes that custom build could be one solution to supply the houses needed in the UK.

“We are unquestionably in a housing crisis – not only do we build poor quality poorly designed homes, but they are also environmentally damaging and very poor value for money,” he said

“If we want to change the hegemony of the volume house-builders we need to create houses that are fit for 21st-century living,” he continued.

“It is by putting the power of choice into the hands of the occupier that we will break the crisis.”

Project credits

Developer: Unboxed Homes
Architect: Poulsom Middlehurst
QS: Measur
Engineering: Michael Barclay Partnership

The post Unboxed Homes unveils “London’s first custom-build homes” appeared first on Dezeen.

You probably don’t need me to remind you of the phrase “Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey”. Chances are, it automatically plays in your head whenever you’re turning a faucet, screwing a bolt, or just about working with pretty much anything that has threading on it… but there is a marvel of engineering that defies this notion – it’s called the dual-threaded screw. Discovered and popularized in 1892, the dual-threaded screw is famous for the fact that it supports both clockwise and anti-clockwise nuts.

Designer: MetMo Design

Click Here to Buy Now: $99. Hurry, less than 72 hours left!

Challenging the notion of ‘righty tighty lefty loosey’, dual-threaded screws let you use nuts that tighten in either direction. You could ask an engineer what the practical application of such a screw is, although from my own personal experience of watching mechanical videos on YouTube, it’s definitely interesting and baffling to see how you can tighten this unique screw in practically any direction you want. If you’re having trouble visualizing it, the MetMo pen brings that unique engineering detail to your office stationery set.

The MetMo Pen (short for Metal in Motion) is a metal pen with a machined outer body, featuring the unique dual-thread design. Created for the fidget-enthusiast and the curious-at-heart, the pen comes with two nuts that screw onto it, and lets you experience the quirky joy of watching how this crazy little concept works.

With its machined metal body (featuring the diamond-shaped dual thread design), the MetMo pen is as visually beautiful as it’s tactile. Equipped with a Parker-style refill on the inside, the pen is a sheer pleasure to write with, but its highlight is definitely its unique fidget-feature.

Each MetMo comes with two nuts (that rotate in reverse directions). Made entirely from metal with carefully considered tolerances, these nuts turn the MetMo into the ultimate fidget toy, allowing you to slide them around, move them up and down, flick them with your thumb, and watch them as they rotate in opposite directions, but travel up or down the pen in the same direction.

The MetMo even comes with its own threaded case that lets you easily rotate to either conceal or reveal the entire pen. I’m realizing more and more that words don’t do justice to exactly how bonkers fun the MetMo is, so just go ahead and look at the pictures below or the video above!

The pen comes in two variants – machined either from solid aluminum or solid brass. Both are equally well-balanced (and are a pleasure to hold and write with) although the aluminum weighs a mere 31.5g (1.1 ounces) while the brass variant is much heavier at 92.7g (3.2 ounces) for a more premium, weighted writing experience.

The pen measures 150mm in length and fits all standard parker-type refills. The tip of the pen retracts in too (by rotating the base), and paired along with the two nuts, makes for an incredibly addictive tactile experience that’ll keep you occupied for hours! The aluminum Metmo pen costs $104 while the brass pen has a price tag of $142 – they ARE made from solid metal, after all, with no glue or plastic parts (which means they’re designed to last longer too). For an additional $34, you can even get yourself the add-on brass case for the MetMo!

Click Here to Buy Now: $99. Hurry, less than 72 hours left! Raised over $200,000.