Hasta La Ideas

Chinese studio Neri&Hu has inserted a stainless-steel shed into a Shanghainese lane house for Blue Bottle Coffee‘s latest cafe in Shanghai, which opened to the public last week.

Located in Zhangyuan in one of the area’s 140-year-old traditional Shikumen mansions, Neri&Hu‘s design for the coffee shop aims to evoke “an intimate and nostalgic experience and bring back the memories of ‘home’.”

Shikumen, also known as lane houses, is a traditional type of Shanghainese house that was popularised during the 19th century. They usually feature high brick walls that enclose a small front yard, with residential units arranged close to one another in narrow alleys.

For this project, Shanghai-based Neri&Hu kept the existing brick walls, wooden doors and windows of the original architectural facades but replaced the interior wooden structure with concrete.

The formerly separate units in the building were removed to form a large open space for the cafe. A stainless-steel shed was erected at the centre of the space to serve as the main coffee bar area.

The structure of the shed was built with brushed, perforated and bent stainless steel to maximise the transparency of the space and contrast the heavy palette of the existing architecture.

The areas around the bar hold seating arrangements including long benches, low stone tables, wooden stools, and vintage walnut furniture, which were chosen to reflect the traditional lifestyle in Shikumen.

Neri&Hu also nodded to the informal constructions that people living in Shikumen houses used to extend their private spaces into the alleys, by adding metal rods and small platforms to existing structural columns.

The steel span of the coffee shop shed and its integrated lighting design came from the clothes-hanging-rods and street lamps commonly seen in the old Shikumen homes.

Blue Bottle Coffee was founded as a small roastery in Oakland, California, in 2002 and has since grown into a chain of cafes across United States and Asia.

This is the third Blue Bottle Coffee shop in mainland China. The first one was opened in February this year, designed by Schemata Architects, followed by the second one designed by Keiji Ashizawa Design in August, all located in Shanghai.

Neri&Hu also recently turned an old textile factory in Beijing into the headquarters of a Chinese pastry brand.

The photography is by Zhu Runzi.

Project credits:

Partners-in-charge: Lyndon Neri, Rossana Hu
Associate-in-charge: Qiucheng Li
Design team: Jiaxin Zhang, Xi Chen, Peizheng Zou, Shangyun Zhou, Greg Wu, Luna Hong
FF&E design and procurement: Design Republic
General contractor: Blue Peak Image Producing Co.,Ltd

Dezeen is on WeChat!

Click here to read the Chinese version of this article on Dezeen’s official WeChat account, where we publish daily architecture and design news and projects in Simplified Chinese.

The post Neri&Hu inserts shed into old lane house for Blue Bottle Coffee shop in Shanghai appeared first on Dezeen.

From the renovation of a major London landmark to a “treeless treehouse”, we select 10 of the most notable British architecture projects completed this year as part of our review of 2022.

This year’s roundup of UK architecture also features an intervention at an 800-year-old building, a rammed-earth yoga studio and a mammoth infrastructure project.

Read on for Dezeen’s top 10 UK architecture projects of 2022:

The New Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, by Niall McLaughlin Architects

Niall McLaughlin Architects won the 2022 RIBA Stirling Prize for the brick and timber library it designed at Cambridge University’s historic Magdalene College.

The building’s materials and form were designed as a nod to the college’s older buildings, with load-bearing brick elements, chimneys, timber floors and gabled roofs. RIBA president Simon Allford hailed the project as “the epitome of how to build for the long-term”.

Find out more about The New Library at Magdalene College ›

Battersea Power Station, London, by WilkinsonEyre

One of London’s most recognisable landmarks, Battersea Power Station finally reopened this year more than 40 years after being decommissioned.

Architecture studio WilkinsonEyre inserted shops, office space for tech giant Apple and 254 apartments into the former power plant, while Ralph Appelbaum Associates created an elevator viewpoint at the summit of one of the famous chimneys.

Next door sits the rippling Prospect Place, the first UK housing scheme by Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner Frank Gehry also completed in 2022.

Find out more about the Battersea Power Station redevelopment ›

Forth Valley College Falkirk Campus, Falkirk, by Reiach and Hall

Built to replace a 1960s building deemed no longer fit for purpose, this 21,000-square-metre campus housing specialist teaching facilities is defined by its humble palette of pale brick, concrete and aluminium.

Reiach and Hall Architects described the project’s external appearance as “low key, reflecting the modesty of an institution that seeks to serve”.

Production studio Stephenson& made a short film about the college that was published on Dezeen.

Find out more about Forth Valley College Falkirk Campus ›

Elizabeth line, London, by various architects

After a series of delays, the central section of the £18.8 billion Elizabeth line finally opened in London this year, representing the biggest expansion to the city’s underground railway network for more than a century.

Nine different architecture studios were appointed to design the various London stations, with Grimshaw Architects leading a consortium ensuring line-wide consistency.

In an interview with Dezeen head of architecture for the Elizabeth line Julian Robinson described the project’s designs as taking a “more mannered, a more rationalised approach”.

Find out more about the Elizabeth line ›

Clifford’s Tower viewing deck, York, by Hugh Broughton Architects and Martin Ashley Architects

Clifford’s Tower has a bloody history reaching back to the year 1068, with the 13th-century stone keep gutted by fire in 1684.

Hugh Broughton Architects worked with conservation specialists Martin Ashley Architects to protect and radically transform the tower’s interior, adding a timber deck to partially cover the ruin and provide a viewpoint overlooking the surrounding city.

Find out more about Clifford’s Tower ›

Red House, Dorset, by David Kohn Architects

Red House, in rural Dorset, was designed to look like a child’s drawing of a house from the outside, albeit with unusual twists like the oversized eaves, patterned brickwork and vibrant green detailing.

The project was named House of the Year 2022 by RIBA, with the jury praising the way it “confronts our expectations of a house in a beautiful setting”.

“We’d like to think that our Red House is surprising, if not entirely shocking, to a contemporary audience,” David Kohn told Dezeen.

Find out more about Red House ›

The Newt yoga studio, Somerset, by Invisible Studio

Invisible Studio created a yoga studio with rammed-earth walls and a roof clad in copper shingles at The Newt in Somerset hotel in England.

Set within the hotel’s vegetable garden, the yoga studio has an insular design, with a single opening at the apex of its curving sculptural roof.

Find out more about the yoga studio at The Newt ›

333 Kingsland Road, London, by Henley Halebrown

This mixed-use scheme in Hackney combines a primary school with an 11-storey residential tower all in earthy-red concrete and brick, sitting above a base of commercial units fronted by a sturdy loggia.

London studio Henley Halebrown was handed the Neave Brown Award for Housing for the project, established to recognise the UK’s best new affordable housing projects.

Find out more about 333 Kingsland Road ›

Penfold, London, by De Matos Ryan

Named after a character in classic children’s cartoon Danger Mouse, Penfold is a 4.1-metre-high playhouse created in the garden of a London home by architecture studio De Matos Ryan.

The pyramidal timber structure, dubbed a “treeless treehouse” by the architects”, is only accessible via a low crawlspace. Inside, two levels are connected by a timber and rope ladder and lit by an openable skylight at the pyramid’s apex that automatically closes when it rains.

Find out more about Penfold ›

The Den, Tighnabruaich, by Technique

Architecture studio Technique combined a pair of flats adjoining an old house to form a one-bedroom cottage clad in weatherproof black metal externally and combining exposed original stonework, red steel and beech plywood inside.

Sitting on a hillside in the Scottish village of Tighnabruaich, The Den has a panoramic outlook over the Kyles of Bute, a narrow sea channel.

Find out more about The Den ›

The post Dezeen’s top 10 UK architecture projects of 2022 appeared first on Dezeen.

In 2014, the AMP Centre—formerly the tallest building in Sydney, Australia—was slated for demolition. After realizing the environmental consequences and CO2 output this would cause, the owners opened an architectural competition to see how the building could be “upcycled” instead. This year, the renewed building, designed by 3XN, opened as an expanded 49-story skyscraper that has been named World Building of the Year 2022 by the World Architecture Festival. Now dubbed the Quay Quarter Tower, the building retained 95% of the original skyscraper’s core as well as over two-thirds of its structure. The architects’ method involved erecting a new structure directly beside the old one and “grafting” them together, forming a larger, contemporary building unified by a glass facade. When compared with removing and constructing a new structure, this approach has been more sustainable and cost-effective, saving 12,000 tons of CO2 and $150 million AUD. Read more about it at CNN.

Image courtesy of AdamMork/3XN

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban‘s studio has designed a pair of wood-clad housing blocks in Belgium named Ban, which will sit alongside a courtyard “where people can unwind”.

Due to complete in 2025, Ban will comprise a low-rise, six-storey block and a 25-storey tower, containing a total of 295 residential units.

Under construction in Antwerp’s Nieuw Zuid neighbourhood, the project is named after Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Ban, who is the founder of Shigeru Ban Architects.

The studio has also designed an outdoor area for the scheme that will be landscaped by Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets to evoke a Japanese courtyard garden and offer a place in which people can relax.

“I wanted to create a place where people can unwind,” said Ban.

“A green environment is relaxing. In Japan, we have a term for that: shinrin-yoku. Relax by immersing yourself in greenery.”

The Ban housing will feature alongside a series of other buildings by leading architects in the Nieuw Zuid neighbourhood, which is being developed by local developer Triple Living.

This includes the recently completed Palazzo Verde, or the Green Palace, by Italian studio Stefano Boeri Architetti, which has a facade covered in more than 1,000 plants, and the concrete Tim Van Laere Gallery by Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen.

Ban is being constructed with a hybrid structure of wood, concrete and steel. This is in an effort to limit the use of concrete throughout the project.

The wooden elements of the structure will be complemented by wood cladding that will encompass both buildings.

Ban’s smaller structure, named Block 21, will have a U-shaped plan, while its 800-metre-high tower, named Block 24, will be L-shaped.

The two buildings will be connected below ground by three subterranean levels containing commercial spaces.

Inside the blocks, the apartments will range in size from one to three bedrooms. There will also be duplex penthouses.

All the homes will be light-filled, with windows and terraces placed to frame views of the Scheldt River and Nieuw Zuid Park.

Japanese architect Ban founded his eponymous studio Shigeru Ban Architects in Tokyo in 1985. He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2014 and more recently was announced as an ambassador for the EU’s New European Bauhaus in 2021.

His studio often opts for wood in its projects, with other recent examples being an open-air platform for meditation in Japan and a curved Swatch Headquarters in Switzerland.

The visuals are courtesy of Triple Living. 

The post Shigeru Ban designs wood-clad housing blocks in Antwerp appeared first on Dezeen.

Our smartphones are veritable gateways to wonderful new worlds, and tablets are their larger cousins that can expand your view, literally. The powerful features they provide and the colorful screens they offer rich experiences that fit perfectly with modern lifestyles. They come with a steep price, however, both literally and figuratively, especially when it comes to comfort and eye health. When you’re reading a lot of things, like books or even websites, a smartphone or even a tablet might actually be the worst device for you. Fortunately, eBook readers have been around for quite a while now, offering a much-needed reprieve and a better experience that now come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The Onyx BOOX Leaf 2 is one of the latest to join that growing army, and we give it a thorough test to see if going back to basics spells its victory or its doom.

Designer: Onyx

Aesthetics

Ever since the first generations of eReaders came about via Amazon’s Kindle brand, expectations of these devices in terms of aesthetics have been pretty low. They’re generally small slabs of black plastic that are handy, portable, and utterly uninspiring, designed to let you enjoy content without distractions or getting in the way. While the objective might have been good, it makes the presumption that book lovers don’t actually pay attention to the appearances of their reading materials, which is quite the opposite when you consider how much attention they pay to book covers.

Fortunately, the Onyx BOOX Leaf 2 has learned from the lessons of the past and arrives as quite a fine-looking piece of hardware. Yes, it’s still made of plastic, which has both advantages and disadvantages, and it’s a smudgy piece of plastic at that. You might find yourself obsessively wiping its back very often just to maintain its pristine appearance. It doesn’t have anything in the way of decorative elements, and the only parts that literally stick out are the power button and page turn buttons. It clearly embraces minimalism’s best aspects.

It also applies a design language that’s now common to phones and tablets, meaning it is largely flat on all sides, save for round corners. The edges are plain and clean, broken only by holes for the speakers, the microphones, the microSD card slot, and the USB-C port. The back is also completely flat, unlike the tendency of most eReaders to bulge a bit. Fortunately, it doesn’t affect comfort and usability at all.

The BOOX Leaf 2 comes in two colors that differ in minor yet significant ways. The black review unit that we have has the E INK screen completely flush with the frame, protected by a layer of glass. This makes it trivial to wipe off dirt or anything else that accidentally drops on the display. The white variant, on the other hand, has the E INK panel completely exposed but sunken into the body of the device. Its advantage is that there is no glare or reflection from a glass layer that could get in the way of your reading.

Ergonomics

Despite their basic and almost crude looks, eReaders have always been designed to be easy to carry and hold in one hand to make reading for hours on end a comfortable experience. That has remained true save for larger devices, and the BOOX Leaf 2 is gladly no different. With only a 15g difference in weight (the black model is heavier because of the glass), both variants are light and small enough to carry in a large pocket. Given how some of Onyx’s devices have been growing in size lately, it’s definitely a nice break and a return to roots.

What makes the BOOX Leaf 2 even more ergonomic is that one of the edges extends a bit, forming an area that your hand can conveniently hold without accidentally touching the screen. Even better, there is a rocker button that you can press to turn pages, saving you from having to lift your other hand to touch or swipe at the screen. Admittedly, the lack of demarcation between the two halves of that button could be a bit disorienting but it is definitely not a deal-breaker.

Even better, the device has a G-sensor that can detect the orientation of the device and adjust its contents accordingly. What this means is that you can comfortably use the BOOX Leaf 2 whether you’re right-handed or left-handed since you can rotate the device to where you’re most comfortable rather than letting its form dictate the way you use it. This is one of the major flaws of eReaders with “spines” like this, so it’s great that Onyx has finally resolved it.

Like all E INK displays, the BOOX Leaf 2’s screen doesn’t emit light on its own, but it does include front lighting to let you read in the dark. These lights don’t shine in your direction, saving your eyes from strain. There are two lights, cold and warm, that you can adjust independently to mix to your tastes. Contrast can also be adjusted on a per-app basis, so you can have different settings for different reading apps, depending on what you’re comfortable with. All in all, the BOOX Leaf 2 lets you decide how you want to use it rather than dictating its terms.

Performance

Today’s eReaders are a far cry from yesteryears models when it comes to hardware and power. Although not in the realm of phones and tablets, the BOOX Leaf 2’s quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of expandable memory are plenty for something that is designed for just reading. Then again, the device is definitely more than your average reading device.

It runs Android 11, which means you can install a wide variety of apps on it, even those that might not make sense on an eBook reader. It also supports running Google Play Store, and although it needs some extra steps to enable, you won’t have to go out of your way to get it up and running. These two facts alone open a whole world of content and uses for the device, including watching videos or playing mobile games. For reading, it also means you’re not locked into a single content provider and still have access to Amazon, Kobo, and other libraries of your choosing.

The BOOX Leaf 2 bears a 7-inch E INK Carta 1200 display with a resolution of 1680×1264, giving it a rather high pixel density of 300PPI. That means that content will always be crisp and clear, at least as far as grayscale content goes. It is definitely a pleasure to read eBooks and manga on the device, though the size makes it less ideal for certain types of content. You will find yourself pinching to zoom a lot on newspapers and magazines, which could be inconvenient but definitely not unusable.

Like almost all of Onyx’s devices, the BOOX Leaf 2 offers four display modes that speed up the refresh rate at the expense of resolution and quality. For the majority of reading content, you’ll want to be on Normal mode for the best quality with a bit of ghosting. But if you ever feel the need to watch black-and-white videos or play games, the fastest “X” speed will make do. The device does have two speakers and two mics for multimedia, but these are more for recording voice notes or playing podcasts than for a multimedia experience.

What the device doesn’t have is a Wacom digitizer layer, which means it doesn’t support the use of a stylus for taking handwritten notes or sketching. That feature has always been an extra for eReaders, though it has now become more common that even Amazon added it in the Kindle Scribe. It doesn’t take away anything from the BOOX Leaf 2, though, and its simplicity might actually appeal to more readers, especially those with more limited budgets.

Sustainability

Because of its plastic construction, the Onyx BOOX Leaf 2 suffers from the same sins as almost all eBook readers when it comes to environmental impact. There are some eReaders, including a few from Onyx, that do use metal, but these do come at the cost of adding some heft to the device. Given its objective to be a basic eReader, Onyx had to prioritize portability and price above other aspects, and we can’t really fault it for that.

What makes the overall longevity of the device a bit more worrisome, however, is its lack of any sort of dust or water resistance guarantee. Given how delightful it is to use, owners might be tempted to bring it anywhere and everywhere, forgetting that it might not be able to withstand accidents. That, in turn, would mean having to either repair or replace damaged parts, which adds to the BOOX Leaf 2’s negative impact on the environment in the long run.

Value

Onyx is one of the most prolific eReader manufacturers these days, aiming at almost every market segment and price tier. Its most recent slate of devices has focused a lot on powers and features, even going as far as introducing a true Android tablet with an E INK display and user experience. Given that trend, some of the brand’s fans may have feared that Onyx has forgotten its roots and snubbed those with simpler needs. The BOOX Leaf 2 is clear evidence that it isn’t so.

At $199.99, the BOOX Leaf 2 is clearly targeted at entry-level users, those who just need a no-frills eBook reader with none of the extra bells and whistles. At the same time, however, the device isn’t really lacking in any feature, especially when it comes to support for apps and almost all kinds of digital content imaginable. As far as a comfortable and pleasant reading experience is concerned, the BOOX Leaf 2 comes close to perfect, and that price tag easily pays for itself over time if you’re any type of bookworm.

Verdict

It might come as a surprise, but people do plenty of reading on their phones compared to watching videos or playing games. That includes reading from the Web or social media, activities that would eventually tire eyes out, if not damage them in the long run. E INK displays are designed exactly to make reading comfortable and enjoyable, and the Onyx BOOX Leaf 2 delivers that kind of experience in an ergonomic and flexible package. Sure, we wished the device had a more sustainable form and that the company would take bolder steps in that direction, but other than that, there are very few flaws to note on this device. Plain yet elegant, simple yet powerful, the BOOX Leaf 2 offers a well-rounded eReading device with a price tag that many will be able to reach.

The post Onyx BOOX Leaf 2 Review: Simple Does It first appeared on Yanko Design.