Dezeen School Shows: a San Francisco fish market transformed into a bathhouse is included in Dezeen’s latest school show by students at the Academy of Art University in California.

Also included is a foldable and portable bed that combines a sleeping surface with storage for people who lack safe and stable housing and a house in Palo Alto that has a living green roof.

Academy of Art University

Institution: Academy of Art University
School: School of Architecture and School of Landscape Architecture
Course: NAAB Accredited M Arch 1, M Arch 2, B Arch MA, BA M Arch and B Arch IPAL programmes
Tutors: Mark Mueckenheim, Karen Seong, Sameena Sitabkhan, Mini Chu, Simon McKenzie, Maria Paz de Moura Castro King, Philip Ra, Eric Reeder, John-Michael Wong and Ethen Wood

School statement:

“We are a progressive design laboratory of highly passionate students and a distinguished faculty of practising architects who work together to explore the boundaries of architecture.

“Our interactive on-site and online studio experience harnesses digital tools to mentor students throughout our rigorous curriculum.

“We offer an excellent design education by developing each student’s capacity to synthesise critical thought, architectural vision and technical comprehension.

“Our programmes engage with current global issues, empowering students to be changemakers and leaders advocating for social equity.

“Our diverse international community enables us to propagate a unique cultural response to build a better world.”

Group project: Stay Over Programme Family Shelter

“Stay Over Programme (SOP) is a family shelter located at the Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School, which was piloted to address the overwhelming number of families in the district who lack safe or stable housing.

“In partnership with shelter residents, Dolores Street Community Services, 826 Valencia, and the BVHM school, students design and fabricate modular beds and storage units while reimagining the dining room/after-school area to improve user experience.

“During Community Workshops with the Stay Over Programme families, parents and children provided design input through various activities, such as exploring kids’ safe spaces and identifying what everyone needs for storage.”

Students: Edgar Castillo, Lowai Ghaly, Mazen Ghaly, Andrew Hart, Mohamed Meawad, Petros Peritos and Shadi Vakilian
Course: B lab Community-based Design Collaborative Project
Tutors: Karen Seong and Sameena Sitabkhan

Unveiling Lost Identities: Investigating Migration Problems in Chinese Architecture and Culture by Qiyang Xu

“During China’s rapid urbanisation, millions of rural villagers migrated into cities while leaving their children behind in villages.

“The separation from parents caused many children to display characteristics that include loneliness, misconduct and lack of confidence.

“In Zhaoxing village, with the development of tourism, local inhabitants have returned to work in their hometowns.

“The design aims to provide children with a warm place, help them regain their lost identities and give them a sense of belonging to a culture through the local architecture.”

Student: Qiyang Xu
Course: Master of Architecture Thesis M Arch
Tutors: Philip Ra, Ethen Wood and Mini Chu

Compost Tower – A new Typology for a Circular Economy by Kenan Beker

“The compost tower is a proposal for a new kind of sustainable waste centre for a future circular economy. When waste as a concept is eradicated, we can treat it as a nutrient or energy meant to be reintroduced to broader systems.

“The thesis proposes a facility for nutrient energy transformation and exchange. Rather than being located outside the city, the thesis proposes that these systems will be closely intertwined within the urban fabric as visible landmarks.

“As vertical embodiments of aerated static pile composting, these new building types will also deal with municipal waste and offer landfill alternatives.

“Future waste is proposed as a resource with the potential to be reintroduced into water systems, energy or heat.”

Student: Kenan Beker
Course: Master of Architecture Thesis M Arch
Tutor: Mark Mueckenheim

Boundary Connector – Future Port For Transforming the Defined Border Line between Hong Kong and Mainland China by Xiaoman Sun

“In 1986, Luohu port opened at the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border under the ‘one country, two systems’ policy to promote exchanges between the two areas.

“With the advent of the era of globalisation, the separating function of the border is still restricting the free flow of people and supplies.

“The living cycles and cultural circles of border residents continuously extend across the border and this process reconstructs the border space. This continually developing condition shows that the port is not just a line separating two places – instead, the port should be a place for cultural and economic exchanges.

“The project focuses on the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border and the residents living on this boundary, using architecture as a tool to resolve two different urban and social conditions.”

Student: Xiaoman Sun
Course: Master of Architecture Thesis M Arch
Tutor: Mark Mueckenheim

Cultural Exchange – Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco by Yi Ling Liao

“Since the nineteenth century, Chinese immigrants in the United States have made a significant contribution to the transformation and economy of California through mining, transcontinental railroad construction and through subsequent generations of active citizenship.

“The project seeks to establish street connections at three locations – creating spaces for art galleries and cultural attractions to promote interaction between tourists and residents alike.

“Cultural Exchange will reinforce Chinese culture by integrating an interpretation of cultural elements, establishing spaces of mixed opportunity.

“The goal is for Chinatown to retain its cultural identity while establishing a progressive public interface for residents and tourists alike.”

Student: Yi Ling Liao
Course: Bachelor of Architecture Thesis B Arch
Tutor: Maria Paz de Moura Castro King

Western Addition Community Center by Lowai Ghaly

“The Western Addition in San Francisco is a diverse neighbourhood with a large number of immigrants. This community centre provides services to immigrant families by guiding them through the immigration process and connecting them to different resources.

“To promote stronger connections between parents and their children, classes are offered for parents to learn English and for the children to learn their native languages and cultures.”

Student: Lowai Ghaly
Course: Bachelor of Architecture 4th year project ARH 410 studio course
Tutors: Karen Seong and Simon McKenzie

Bayfront Park Mission Bay, San Francisco, CA by Sol Lee

“Sol Lee embarked on a transformative project that is a testament to the power of creating spaces with profound meaning and purpose.

“This endeavour takes advantage of its stunning location by the Bay, with unparalleled views of the water and exceptional light quality throughout the day.

“The project capitalises on the restoration of an old fishing pier, positioned along the well-trafficked Bay Trail, to weave together the fabric of the community comprised of residents, tourists, workers and basketball enthusiasts.

“The design aims to carve out a strong, independent identity for the park, ensuring it’s not overshadowed by the presence of the nearby Chase Center.

“It aims to offer a sanctuary from the urban bustle, shielding visitors from noise and wind, while providing a multitude of vantage points for bay viewing and a dedicated observation area, enhancing the public’s engagement with the waterfront.”

Student: Sol Lee
Course: LAN 610 Landscape Architecture Design Studio
Tutor: Toni Bava

Speaking of Reality: Creating an Immersive Experience for Landscape Architectural Design Presentation using the Latest Technologies in the Field of Game Design by Jason Jeon

“This project explores how poster boards and videos have a limit in explaining architecture to teachers or clients.

“It explores different presentation methods and was informed by San Francisco’s annual Game Developers Conference.”

Student: Jason Jeon
Course: Landscape Architecture – Master’s Thesis

Residence Aerial by Justin Wagner

“This residential design in Palo Alto, California, exudes a serene yet vibrant charm, deeply rooted in a palette of native-inspired landscaping, embracing the local ecology and biodiversity.

“Sustainability threads through every element, from utilising drought-resistant plants to incorporating living green roofs, creating a space that’s as kind to the environment as it is aesthetically pleasing.”

Student: Justin Wagner
Course: Landscape Architecture Design Studio

Metamorphic Insertion – public bathhouse and spa by Maud Indiana Vikjord

“The Fisherman’s Wharf once held a special place in the heart of local San Francisco residents as a fish market on the coastal edge of the city.

“Today, it has a reputation as a tourist destination yet during the Covid-19 pandemic, travel restrictions left the area a virtual ghost town.

“The building, which occupies an entire urban block, is based on a continuous surface of concave and convex spaces inspired by the spatial and tectonic quality of an egg crate and on circular components made out of thirty different prefabricated concrete elements.

“The upper floor houses the bath, while the lower floor is inhabited by public restaurants, a spa surrounding a lush courtyard, and the changing and service areas of the bath.

“The project aims to bridge the gap between the two in a curated cultural bathhouse experience and an assortment of local businesses.”

Student: Maud Indiana Vikjord
Course: Master of Architecture Thesis M.Arch
Tutor: Mark Mueckenheim

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Academy of Art University. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

The post Ten architecture and landscape projects by Academy of Art University appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen Showroom: Romanian natural stone brand Piatraonline has launched a collection of textured surfaces created by etching graphic patterns into granite and marble.

The Raw stone collection from Piatraonline contains more than 100 different textures that can be cut into custom shapes and sizes.

Colours in the collection range from neutral greys to bolder shades like black and rust, with no two pieces exactly the same.

The high-tech processing technique means that the slabs are significantly thinner than conventional stone surfaces, using less material and making them easier to install.

“Using state-of-the-art technology the stone surface is finished to reveal the full depths of its character,” said Piatraonline managing partner Mariana-Bradescu Constantinescu.

“Unlike classic, perfectly polished, high-gloss finishes, the force, boldness and ruggedness of the Raw collection conveys a contemporary look to any interior design project.”

Granite and marble with a variety of grains is handpicked for the collection and processed using different pattern combinations.

The materials’ durability means the product is suitable for high-traffic areas like kitchens and bathrooms, or external use such as building facades.

Product: Raw stone collection
Brand: Piatraonline
Contact: arhikit@piatraonline.ro

Dezeen Showroom

Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.

Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.

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As someone who lives in a tropical weather country, having heavy duty blankets for indoors and outdoors isn’t really a priority. Even when I’m in an airconditioned room, I rarely use blankets as I’m not used to it. But when I was able to visit New Zealand during their winter season, I finally understood the need to have a good piece of blanket during those cold, dreary nights. What if you could get a “state-of-the-art” blanket that can also be worn as a sort of coat outdoors and is made from recycled materials?

Designer: Houdini x Rumpl

The Reconnect Puffy Blanket is the brand’s most technical blanket as it has a 2-layer waterproof hardshell to protect you from extreme weather conditions, Houdini-branded hardware, French seams, and an ultra-soft-to-touch finish. The hardshell is rated at 20,000mm H20 with a breathability of 15,000 g/m2/24h so it can protect you from heavy rain and wet snow in case you’re going outside with your blanket. It is made with 200g hollow-fiber insulationand with the Houdini C9 Ripstop so the blanket is comfortable and breathable and of course is durable so it should last you longer than most blankets.

Another great feature of this blanket is that it is sustainable and has 100% circularity. It is made from post-consumer recycled and recycled materials. They say that 1 blanket produced is equivalent to 66 plastic bottles that have been removed from landfills. If you’re going outdoors in really cold weather for some reason, the Reconnect Puffy Blanket has a Double-snap Cape Clip feature so you can turn it into a hands-free wearable that can act like a coat.

Of course a blanket that can act like coat is not the most fashionable of winter wear but being posh is probably not your first concern when you’re out in cold weather. If it’s comfort and protection from the elements that you’re looking for, the Reconnect Puffy Blanket seems to be a great option to keep you warm during those cold winter nights. The price tag of $200 seems pretty reasonable for something that has all these features.

The post Puffy blanket turns into an outdoor coat, is made from 100% recycled materials first appeared on Yanko Design.

The beloved restaurateur prepares an outdoor feast in honor of the new Añejo Cristalino Organico from Jose Cuervo’s Reserva de la Familia

In a field of agave plants stretching as far as the eye could see, lightning frosted the spiky tips of the succulents as thunder boomed overhead. Pelting rain drove in sideways under the roof of a makeshift restaurant where one of the best chefs in the world was getting soaked. Daniela Soto-Innes had prepared an outdoor feast in honor of the new Añejo Cristalino Organico from Jose Cuervo’s Reserva de la Familia line. She and her team had been working on the menu for days. There was to be squash blossom and lobster aguachile, lamb belly barbacoa and quince pot de crème to finish. Her guests were supposed to be drowning in tequila, not rainwater. 

The sudden storm brought drama and a change of plans. Soto-Innes, who has been called “the most vivacious woman in the world,” was cheerful as ever; every cook must be able to roll with the punches, but not just anyone can do it with such good-natured warmth. Her plating station was getting the worst of the downpour, so she abandoned her fine-dining vision and ran over to the communal table in the center of the gazebo bearing pots and pans straight from the stove. “It’s family style now, guys!” she laughed. “Help each other, serve yourselves!” Lubricated with tequila, increasingly damp diners were happy to bump elbows and load up each other’s plates in the flickering light. Sparkling cocktails made with the Añejo Cristalino Organico enhanced with harvest quince, lemon and orange bitters were refilled as fast as they were drunk. The mood was festive, convivial. By the time dessert was served, laughter was ringing out louder than the thunder.

Soto-Innes has moved back to her home country after extraordinary success in the US. Running NYC’s modern Mexican restaurants Cosme and Atla, she became a James Beard Award-winner at just 25, and the youngest woman ever to be crowned the world’s best female chef. But where to go after making culinary history at such a young age? Offers came pouring in for her to open restaurants in different cities. But a louder voice was calling her home. 

“I wanted to feel my roots. And I wanted to see what it was like to grow a seed in Mexico,” she says. “Everyone that I’ve encountered here has so much love for their story and their culture. I feel like a little kid in a candy store again, you know? And I wake up feeling extremely excited about what’s next.”

Soto-Innes cleared time to talk to Cool Hunting about the inspiration for her upcoming restaurant Rubra in the surf town of Punta Mita, how to drink her favorite spirit and the partnership with Reserva de la Familia that made her burst out into song.

Congratulations on Rubra! Do you have an opening date yet?

If everything goes well, we’re really pushing to open at the end of this year. 

What brought you to back to Mexico after NYC? 

Do you know when you have a feeling in your gut or in your heart, about what you want your next step to be? Even if you’re like, “I have so many things going on and I have the perfect job and if I stop this, it might not make sense, but I really wanna do this.” I feel like it happens to everyone. And sometimes we’re scared of starting over. But after the pandemic, I just felt it in my heart. Something was missing about learning more about my culture and myself. I wanted to come back to my roots and continue to be a student. 

For the world’s best female chef to say, “I want to be a student,” that’s really interesting.

My sisters and I grew up playing sports and we were always so competitive, but also we knew what a team was, and it was about starting over, practice and doing the best that you could do. In most sports you’re never the best—it’s your team. And you celebrate together, but you cannot just settle. I’m still young and I said, “I’m just going to go for it.” A lot of opportunities came my way, but I needed to slow down a little bit. My dream growing up was, one day I’ll work in New York for a really amazing chef.

And then you worked in New York and you were the amazing chef. 

I never thought that would happen, and I never thought it would happen so soon, to me. I always said, “it will happen to someone that is close to me and I will make sure that I’m there to support them.” And then it just happened. We were opening all these new restaurants, but there reached a point when I said, what else is for me to discover? 

Seems like you’re doing plenty of discovery now. 

When you open your own restaurants, for a chef, the easiest thing to do is the cooking. The hardest thing is, how does everything work together? The architecture, what is your kitchen going to look like, how is the space going to feel? I always have New York in my heart, but in Mexico, everything works differently. It’s a new chapter in our lives because I’ve worked with the same team for almost 10 years and they’re all here now. It’s the first time that I’ve lived on the coast in Mexico. It’s amazing, waking up with palm trees every day.

What are you noticing about the food and drinking culture here as compared to what you saw in New York? 

The culture is completely different. What I love about New York is the speed. Everyone is always like, “let’s go, let’s go.” Here, everything is a lot calmer, less rushed. There’s more music. Lots of music. Everybody says cook with the soul. But Mexican food is like a recital for me.

You seem so energized by it. 

I have so much energy. Mexican food is about the soul of the cook and the environment that they’re in. The storyline of the fields, the farmers, the agriculture, aligned with the sounds and the colors. So everything is like poetry. The chiles, the way they smell, the way they feel. We have so much variety of different cultures and cuisines in Mexico. We have all kinds of weather; snow, tropics, desert, mountain ranges. You can have a journey. You can feel like you are in Switzerland and still be in Mexico. If you go to Oaxaca, there are seven moles. If you go to Vera Cruz, you have the most amazing seafood, and the best vanilla that I’ve ever had. If you go to Tabasco, if you go to Chiapas, you’ll have little tiny tortillas that are so perfect, and if you go to the north, you’ll have these huge flour tortillas that make a beautiful dance. Sometimes Mexican food in the United States might just be red rice with mole and chicken in it. 

And similarly with tequila, I think some people have one idea of what it is or what it’s for. 

People think tequila’s a cheap drink for partying. No, it takes so long for the agave to grow. You can take a shot but it is not for shots. There’s art and complexity behind every bottle. For me, tequila is for sipping. In Spanish we call the sips abecitos, little kisses. 

That’s lovely! Have you tried the new expression?

It’s amazing. I tell everybody that it is like the Star Wars movie. When I saw the bottle, I felt… [singing the Star Wars theme song]

The dramatic music!

Yes, exactly, It’s so elegant and smooth. I think it’s extremely sexy and complex and very easy to drink. 

How did the partnership with Reserva de la Familia come about? 

I’ve been a huge fan of Reserva for a while. And my team has as well. And one day I got like 15 calls and I said, “what’s going on? Is everybody okay?” And they’re just like “Oh my God, we got the Reserva deal!” Everybody was so excited. It’s been a very lovely time. It feels already like a family, everyone is so kind and knowledgeable. I’m learning so much. 

Interview lightly edited for clarity

Belgian architecture studios Mamout and Stéphanie Willocx have refurbished a 1960s home in Hoeilaart, stripping away previous extensions to celebrate the “spirit and quality” of its original design.

Located in a wooded area, the Belgian home was originally designed in 1962 for a group of musicians.

It comprises a brick and glass pavilion and a concrete blockwork garage, which step down its gently sloping site.

Over time, numerous additions to the home and its garden had distracted from its original structures and their relationship to the landscape, and so its new owners tasked Mamout and Stéphanie Willocx with restoring this condition.

“The house was originally a cabin fully glazed and nested in nature,” Mamout founder Sébastien Dachy told Dezeen.

“With time, the previous owners have added many elements such as extra veranda, extra walls, and terraces, until it was unrecognisable,” he continued.

“We tried to get back to the fully-glazed house and we replanted nature just next to the house, so it feels like it is surrounded by vegetation, blurring again the distinction between inside and outside,” added Dachy.

By removing extensions to the home, the original frontage was restored with full-height, sliding glass doors. These open onto a terrace extending onto the roof of the former garage below.

A living, dining and kitchen area occupies the upper building, alongside the main bedroom and a study. Here, the original brick walls have been painted white and the wooden ceiling restored.

Metal kitchen counters, linoleum flooring and a curved wooden staircase in the dining area have been introduced, but chosen to echo the home’s original character.

“We highlighted the existing elements such as the wooden structure, the wooden ceiling, the brick walls, the doors,” Dachy told Dezeen.

“New elements, such as flooring in rosemary-green linoleum, the small round plywood staircase and the kitchen, were designed to integrate to the existing while subtly asserting their identity as new objects,” he continued.

The partially sunken concrete garage has been turned into a bedroom and bathroom for the client’s children, with a “stair tunnel” connecting it to the main home.

Its original garage doors have been removed and four tall windows now overlook the garden, which was curated by landscape architect Hélène Mariage to be a “naturalist punk garden” planted with a wide variety of species.

Mamout previously worked alongside Stéphanie Willocx, as well as local studio LD2 Architecture, to convert a former cigarette factory in Brussels into a council office.

Elsewhere in Belgium, architecture studio ISM Architecten also recently completed a mid-century house renovation. Named Beev, it was carried out to improve space efficiency.

The photography is by Séverin Malaud.

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