Computer keyboards are designed for utility primarily, with aesthetics often coming in second place if at all. Considering its purpose, that’s not exactly puzzling, but there are thankfully fresh new designs that are giving keyboards more refreshing visuals without changing the standard formula in any way. There are, however, also bolder attempts at carving a completely different character for the humble keyboard, without losing any of its functionality, of course, creating a product that is as much a work of art as it is a piece of engineering. One such piece is this all-metal “Icebreaker” keyboard, presenting a rather radical approach that aims for maximum impact by distilling the design down to its bare essentials, resulting in an almost brutalist form that takes its cues from that iconic steel-framed building in New York City.
The earliest computer keyboards came with a chunky wedge shape, not for the sake of appearances but almost out of necessity. It offered a naturally inclined plane that was more ergonomic than typing on a flat surface, although the designers of that period may have not been completely cognizant of that. It’s a design convention that today’s keyboards implement using foldable stands in order to accommodate varying user preferences as well as sleeker styles and thinner profiles.
The Icebreaker, in contrast, is unapologetic in embracing that wedge shape and does so in an almost extreme way. It’s actually more of a triangle than a wedge, with the angle facing the user presenting an edge that looks sharp enough to chop wood or even break ice, hence the name. The inclined plane naturally forces your hands to type at a fixed angle, but unlike the first keyboards of old, the design comes with built-in wrist support. When viewed from certain angles, like when the keyboard stands upright on one of its sides, it resembles the Fuller “Flatiron” Building in New York, a piece of architecture that is famed for its unusual shape that represents a cast-iron clothes iron.
Just like that building, or perhaps even more so, the entire keyboard is machined from aluminum, including the keycaps. Unlike your typical keycaps, these are completely concave circles. Even more interesting, the marks on the keys aren’t in the middle but are off to the corners, created using 300-micron micro-perforations. There are no other markings on the keyboard, no color or even backlighting, giving it an industrial aesthetic that borders on brutalism because of its raw, full metal appearance.
Of course, The Icebreaker isn’t just for show and it actually has one feature not found on most keyboards. There’s a programmable dial off the left of the keyboard, a useful tool for creators who constantly scroll through menus and options. It’s definitely an interesting piece of computer equipment, at least visually. Its actual usability and ergonomics, however, are still to be judged when the product actually becomes available for purchase.
AI has become a powerful and controversial tool that’s being applied to the creation of many things in different industries. The most well-known are, of course, images and text, but these same technologies can also be applied to other fields, even ones that are considered to require more human creativity than others. Music, for example, is believed to be an art that’s hard to master and difficult to quantify in a way that would be of use to AI, but that’s exactly what’s happening here with this “artifact from the future.” That said, the suitcase-sized synthesizer doesn’t completely wrest the act of creation away from your hands but turns it into a creative collaboration between man and machine.
Imagine having to only press a few buttons and you’ll have tunes that are specifically crafted to suit a given mood or genre. Most synthesizers simply give you the raw controls to mix and match to your heart’s content, but you’ll have to draw from your own creativity to actually come up with a pleasing harmony tailored to fit that situation. SPIN, the name for this AI-powered music synthesizer, actually helps you in this creative journey by serving ready-made ingredients to put into your mix without taking anything away from your freedom. It’s like the difference between buying a can of tomato sauce for a recipe versus making your own from scratch.
SPIN has buttons for different moods, genres, and sounds that you can mix and match to your heart’s content. How does happy death-metal disco sound? Why not try some dark jazz opera to really turn heads? Not every combination is going to work, of course, so you’ll still have to step in and fine-tune it to your tastes, no pun intended. And with sliders for BPM or duration and a turntable to scratch, you also have the tools to make your own style shine, with or without AI’s help.
The synth is just as much a work of art as it is a demonstration of the power of AI. A variety of off-the-shelf components are assembled to provide the brains and muscle behind the scenes, almost literally. You won’t see any of these while using SPIN, as all are hidden behind an interface and a design that’s meant to encourage playfulness and experimentation. Even the choice of bright yellow and white colors, unusual for most synth designs, emphasizes that rather jovial character.
Generative AI has been receiving a lot of flak, in no small part thanks to abuse and misuse of the technology rather than anything inherent. SPIN is an attempt to reverse that perception and present AI not only as something approachable but even fun to use. Given how it works, you won’t even have to worry about infringing on anyone’s copyright or intellectual property, leaving you free to explore that harmony between human creativity and machine learning.
Architecture studio Kohn Pedersen Fox has completed a terminal at Zayed International Airport in the UAE with an undulating roof informed by sand dunes and geometric patterns.
Formerly known as Abu Dhabi International, the airport‘s new terminal by Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) was designed as a “civic landmark” for the region and to double capacity to 45 million passengers.
Zayed International Airport features a glass facade and undulating roof
“From the outset, our goal was for the airport to serve the emirate and represent the city of Abu Dhabi, with a design that referenced its cultural and natural environment,” said KPF design principal Mustafa Chehabeddine.
“We established a design language for continuity and flow throughout the project, developing a set of guidelines that ensured each element of the terminal, from the check-in desks to the lighting chandeliers, felt as though it belonged in the building.”
The new terminal doubles the airport’s annual capacity to 45 million passengers
In order to minimise the impact of the desert sun, the undulating roof form was draped over the facade – reducing the amount of glazing needed as well as eliminating the need for external shading devices.
Inside, a 50-metre-high departure hall decorated with a mosaic stone flooring was housed under a single roof spanning 180-metres, supported by arches to create a largely column-free interior space.
The terminal is arranged into four themed piers
Organised with an X-shaped plan, the terminal was strategically designed by KPF to maximise operational efficiency – arranged into four piers that peel off from the terminal centre and are organised into themes of “desert, sea, city, and oasis” to aid way-finding.
Additionally, two four-storey buildings located at either side of the departure hall provide hotel rooms and offices for the airport.
“We were driven by focussing on customer experience and comfort while creating the most efficient building form,” said KPF director Jens Hardvendel.
“The X-shaped plan provides the greatest programmatic efficiencies, reducing the average walking distance between points for those leaving, arriving, or transferring from Terminal A.”
The interior features mosaic stone flooring and large supporting arches
A series of “landmarks” were placed in the interior, which were designed to balance the terminal’s large scale, direct passengers and provoke interest for visitors.
Among these landmarks is the Sana Al Nour, a 22-metre-tall and 30-metre-wide installation made from 1,632 individual curved leaves of translucent glass designed by Carpenter Lowings alongisde KPF.
Another installation, named The Shell, is located at the end of the passenger’s journey and features a sculpture made from polished brass and corten steel wrapped by a glass exterior.
“Landmarks” aid navigation through the airport terminal
Swedish furniture brand IKEA has released two images from a series of photographs taken by Annie Leibovitz, its first-ever artist-in-residence, showing people in their homes across the world.
The American photographer, who is best known for her portraits, travelled to twenty-five homes around the globe to take photos of people in their residences. She visited houses and apartments in Sweden, India, Italy, Japan, Germany, England and the US.
“The home has always been important in my work,” Leibovitz said when appointed artist-in-residence in 2023.
“I’ve been photographing people in their homes since I began,” she added. “It’s a way to understand who a person is. The advice I give to young photographers is to photograph their families. It’s one of the best ways to start.”
Annie Leibovitz photographed 25 homes for IKEA, including this one in Germany
Leibovitz’s photos for IKEA show a variety of different interiors in seven different countries.
“The result is a powerful photographic document that illuminates the nuances of life at home – across borders, ethnicities and professions,” the furniture brand said of the project.
The series, which comprises 25 photos in total, was commissioned by IKEA after its IKEA Life at Home Report showed that 48 per cent of people globally don’t feel the media represents their home.
The first two images released by IKEA, show the homes of Yusuke Onimaru in Japan and Maria Arrechea in Germany – specifically Onimaru’s ceramic workshop and Arrechea’s living space filled with friends.
Leibovitz’s photos will be shown as part of the IKEA+ exhibition in Paris, which will take place during Paris Fashion Week.
It will also feature a collaboration with online radio station Rinse and showcase the Tesammans collection made by IKEA together with Eindhoven-basd design duo Raw Color.
Six emerging designers from the Casa93 fashion education program are also taking part in the IKEA+ showcase. They worked with “home furnishing mentors” from IKEA to create designs that focus on upcycling and sustainable design.
The photography is by Annie Leibovitz for IKEA.
IKEA+ will take place on 28 Rue de Lappe, Paris, from 29 February to 3 March. For more worldwide events, exhibitions and talks in architecture and design, visit Dezeen Events Guide.
The sustainability of structural stone is dependent on how and where it is quarried and its reputation as an infinite material is misleading, warns Slovak-British architect Natalia Petkova in this Stone Age 2.0 interview.
“I would caution against claims of stone being a revolutionary sustainable material – we miss the opportunity to think critically when we reduce materials to ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ones,” she told Dezeen.
“The virtue of solid stone construction is case-specific and depends on where the stone comes from and how it is employed.”
Petkova is an architect and researcher who recently completed a PhD thesis exploring the structural use of stone in projects under construction in Spain, Switzerland and the UK, which is awaiting publication.
Dezeen spoke to her as part of its Stone Age 2.0 series, which is investigating the potential of the material as a viable, low-carbon, modern structural material.
Transportation of stone can offset carbon benefits
Petkova cautioned against claims that stone is a “limitless material” that can readily be extracted from the Earth’s crust and transported to construction sites. Instead, she believes accessibility to stone at a given site should be considered before using it.
“In an absolute sense, that’s true, but in reality, there are many limitations to its actual access,” said Petkova.
“Sometimes the appropriate stone is not locally available with respect to a given construction site.”
Top: Natalia Petkova completed a PhD thesis on structural stone. Above: she warns that the sustainability of structural stone is dependent on how it is quarried. Photo by Gianluigi Marin on Unsplash
One of the main reasons stone is considered a sustainable building option is because it is a natural material that requires minimal processing from being extracted from the ground to being used in construction, minimising its carbon footprint.
“We will see a lot more buildings being made from solid stone”
She added that the number of new quarries that could be opened to make stone accessible to more construction sites is limited, for reasons such as potential impact on local communities.
“Recent research carried out at ETH Zurich suggests that if stone is transported by truck beyond 200 kilometres, it might no longer make sense to employ it structurally in terms of carbon reduction,” Petkova explained.
“There are also political and anthropogenic limitations with people not wanting to have new quarries popping up in residential areas. These attitudes can of course evolve but it’s not a given.”
For stone to become a leading structural material, Petkova believes architects and engineers need to learn to look beyond what is “convenient”.
Yet, even with a full embrace of stone in the architecture industry, she is doubtful it can overtake go-to materials such as concrete, steel and timber in popularity.
“I do think we will see a lot more buildings being made from solid stone, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near replacing concrete or steel construction, or even timber,” said Petkova.
“Its success will depend on the capacity of diverse actors involved in the production of the built environment to really question their professional habits and to adapt these to stone.”
“Stone arguably imposes itself on design more than other materials”
While mass-produced materials come in predictable, standardised formats, the nature of stone is that there is variation in what is extracted. Because of this, Petkova said stone cannot follow a designed form like other materials can – the form of a building has to be designed to suit the stone provided.
“If it’s subjected to the logic of industrial or synthetic materials like concrete, stone will always be less convenient and risk being replaced,” she explained.
“Stone arguably imposes itself on design more than other, notably synthetic, materials do,” she continued.
“The idea of form following a given material challenges modernist approaches to building, which consisted of materials following form at all costs, be that financial or environmental.”
According to Petkova, dependence on uniform, highly processed building materials in the industry today is leading to a large amount of stone being wasted. In many quarries a stone that varies too much in colour or veining is discarded, she explained.
Rather than seeing imperfections as a hindrance, Petkova encourages the variability of stone to be embraced and seen as an opportunity to question our reliance on the modularity of other materials.
“The idea that you can entirely control what your building will look like falls apart with stone,” she said.
“It challenges us to reevaluate the pertinence of some of the expectations we have of industry-produced building materials, such as the absence of variation, or the notion of an aesthetic defect,” she continued.
“There is a relationship to regularity and predictability that we’ve become accustomed to with steel and concrete – not only have they been constantly available, but they also come as we draw them.”
Architects should draw on “long history of stone construction”
Petkova believes a close relationship between architects and quarry owners could help achieve this and encourage them to design truly sustainable stone buildings.
“There’s a clear benefit of being in direct contact with a quarry from an early stage in the design process,” she said.
Petkova argued there is also a lot to be learned from the past, rather than looking forward at ways to modify stone through measures such as prefabrication and reinforcement.
“It’s worth mentioning the potential of stone to challenge our approach to innovation is still overwhelmingly focused on novelty,” she criticised.
“During my fieldwork, on several occasions, I’ve observed engineers treating stone as matter to be engineered as if the limits of materials necessarily need to be pushed,” she reflected.
“I think a lot of the research around reinforcing stone today is exciting, but also see immense potential in drawing on the long history of stone construction and optimising structures through form,” she said.
This echoes the views of Steve Webb, who believes that the built environment needs to draw influence from the pre-fossil fuel era of building with stone to reduce the industry’s carbon impact.
Five interconnected, angular volumes form this library and tea-tasting room designed by Chinese architecture studio Atelier Xi on an ice-chrysanthemum plantation in Xiuwu, China.
Designed to resemble a “miniature village”, the library by Atelier Xi draws on the silhouette of the local village houses, as well as the composition of petals on a chrysanthemum flower.
The structure is comprised of five interconnected, angular volumes
“To avoid the imposition of a single large building on the flower field landscape, we divided the functions into five dispersed small cubic volumes,” founding principal Chen Xi told Dezeen.
“We envision a blossoming architectural space where every part opens up the flower field in various directions.”
The design references the silhouette of houses from the local village
Sat on a circular site within the plantation, the 316-square-metre cluster of buildings were interspersed with greenery and paved paths carved into the landscape.
The units were coated with white stucco and feature expansive facade openings which rise to a peak following the angular structural form.
Additionally, the volumes were each oriented in different directions to capture light throughout the day as well as capitalise on views of the surrounding landscape.
The volumes are interspersed by greenery on the site
The interconnected spaces accommodate a reading area, music room, lounge and tea-tasting room organised around a centralised lobby, with access provided by individual entrances as well as internal connections.
On the interior, concrete flooring, sweeping ceilings and curved walls lined with wood are complemented black steel window frames and light fixtures.
“The tension between the building’s soft interior and its angular exterior brings about a distinctive experiential quality shifting from day to night,” the studio said.
“In daylight, the white gable walls evoke the image of a northern village settlement. While at night, the silhouette dissolves into the darkness, emphasizing the soft interior space and offering dreamlike warmth.”
Each volume is oriented in a different direction to optimise views
In the tea-tasting room, built-in, wooden seating areas are fronted by expansive openings that look out towards the fields. Book shelving is also built into the reading room, following the wall’s curved form.
The remaining rooms contain flexible spaces for use by the community for activities such as agricultural workshops and musical performances, while meditation spaces, storage and services are divided from the main spaces by curved walls and partitions.
Concrete floors and curved wooden walls feature on the interior
Built in 2021, the opening of the library was delayed due to restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic that have since been lifted.
Lead architect: Chen Xi Design team: Zhu Jing, Huang Jiajie, Tian Di, Wang Weiguo, Weng Cekai, Zhu Zhu, Xu Zhiwei, Han Xiao Construction documents: Li Jianhui (architecture), Su Zhimeng, Huang Xiaolong (structure), Gan Bin, Xiao Liangmin (MEP) Lighting consultant: Visual Interaction of AURA
Foldable smartphones are an attempt at solving an old problem with two diametrically opposed goals. On the one hand, people want large screens that give them enough space for their content, from videos to social media to even work. On the other hand, they still want a device they can conveniently carry around, especially inside their pockets. Today’s generation of foldable phones similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold deliver a phone that does transform into a tablet, but the latter is admittedly still a small piece of screen real estate, even smaller than the iPad mini. Having a regular tablet-sized display requires drastically changing the design and construction of a foldable phone, which isn’t exactly easy to pull off, judging by the current state of foldables. That’s not to say that manufacturers haven’t been working on a feasible solution, and Samsung itself might be ready to unveil its answer this year to beat one of its rivals to the punch.
Designer: Samsung (via @Tech_Reve)
The current design of foldable phones has never been the endgame. If you reference Samsung’s concept video back in 2013, you will realize its ambitions go beyond this simple foldable design. A phone that unfolds into a tablet would definitely need more than just one fold, and the company’s display manufacturing arm has been working on such a screen for years now. In fact, it demonstrated in 2022 how close it was to an actually usable form, suggesting that such a device is not only plausible but might even be just around the corner.
A new rumor adds fuel to speculations that Samsung might, in fact, announce this “Flex S” triple foldable phone this year, maybe even alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. Samsung might be in a rush to push out this revolutionary new device due to rumors that long-time rival Huawei also has a tri-fold phone that it will be launching in the second half of 2024. Unsurprisingly, Samsung wouldn’t want Huawei to claim the title of “first,” even if the Chinese brand has extremely limited market reach these days.
A triple folding phone, under the prototype name of “Flex S,” will drastically change the game when it comes to foldables. Not only will it offer a much larger screen in tablet form, it also allows the collapsed phone form to retain a wider aspect ratio, unlike the Galaxy Z Fold designs so far. At the same time, it also offers new modes of use for the device, from a tent-like stand mode to a unique laptop mode that’s like having a mini dual-screen laptop.
That said, haste always makes waste and Samsung should have already learned its lesson five years ago. Even after years of R&D, the first Samsung Galaxy Fold (no “Z” in the name yet) was plagued with problems, especially when it came to reliability. Given how a new tri-fold design will once again test the durability of flexible screens, there will be even more risks and costs this time around. And with Huawei’s limited presence in global markets, Samsung has no need to be afraid of not being the first, but that has never stopped any company from rushing out a product launch anyway.
The Oscar-nominated set design for Poor Things aimed to create a “1930s studio movie with today’s technology”, the film‘s production designers have told Dezeen.
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things tells the story of Bella, played by Emma Stone, who has a child’s mind trapped in a grown woman’s body – a plotline that affected how the sets for the black comedy were designed.
“The script dictated our way into the world we were trying to make, and the first way in was to work out how Bella lived,” said Shona Heath, who co-created the film’s production design with James Price.
Bella’s house in Poor Things was informed by the Sir John Soanes museum
“Her interior world would have been created by [her father] Godwin Baxter,” she told Dezeen. “And he was a maverick doctor, a very precise and artistic man, who had fine taste and was an artist in his way.”
Ninety per cent of the action in the film takes place on large sets in Budapest, where the film was shot, with only a small part of it filmed in existing locations.
To create the interior for Bella’s home – built as large sets – Heath and Price took inspiration from the neo-classical Sir John Soanes Museum in London, which is filled with paintings, antiques and artworks collected by its owner in the 19th century.
The interior features padded rooms and lots of different textures
Playing with contrasts and different textures, they also focused on “splicing up” the architecture in a similar way to how the doctor, played by Willem Dafoe, splices up animals and other subjects.
“Art and very decorative surfaces suddenly had a very flat side to them,” Heath explained. “Or a heavy, textured wall was contrasted with a very sleek staircase, that sort of approach.”
“Bella’s room was also led by the fact that Baxter would have prepared it to house this dangerous toddler in a huge body, so he padded the room so she couldn’t hurt herself,” she added.
The sets for the house were built in Budapest
The duo thought extensively about the texture of the sets at the request of the director who, without their knowledge, shot parts of the film in black and white.
“[Lanthimos] was super keen on huge texture,” Heath said. “Whatever ever we were doing, he said to make it thicker, deeper, more of it, more texture.”
“He wouldn’t be specific about colour but I think the texture was what he knew would read well in black and white.”
While the first act is mainly set within Bella’s home and the operating theatre where Baxter makes hybrid animals – including a dog-chicken creature and a goat with the head of a duck – the film quickly moves on to depict Bella’s journey out into the world.
Shona Heath and James Price created colourful sets with maritime details for Lisbon
For these scenes, which take up most of the film, Heath and Price created a colourful set design that underlines the difference between Bella’s black-and-white upbringing and her coming-of-age experiences.
The designers used a mix of architectural references for the sets in Lisbon, the first city Bella visits.
“We looked for the fantastical in architecture wherever it would be and we had a massive library of architectural details,” Price said.
“We knew that we wanted it to feel like a real city in the sense that nothing was uniform,” he added. “That’s sometimes a problem with built sets; there’s a uniformity because that’s quick to do but I think we managed to avoid that with our set builds.”
The city’s architecture draws on buildings by Ricardo Bofill
Some of the architectural references used for Lisbon were “quite modern”, according to Price, who named the work of Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill as an example.
“For Lisbon, we combined modernist architecture with very medieval architecture,” he said.
“And added lots of mythical creatures,” Heath interjected. “We also put in owls and dolphins.” These are accompanied by maritime and nautical motifs, including fish and mermaids.
One of the film’s most important sets, in terms of impact on the story and dwell time in the film, was the brothel in Poor Things’ version of Paris.
The heavily ornamented baroque-style building features phallic windows and other details that hint at its use.
“[Its design] came from the script and it’s a comedic moment where Bella looks around and goes to what she thinks is possibly the idea of a hotel,” Heath said. “But how would she know – she hasn’t been in hotels.”
“She’s not off put by a huge penis and carvings of two naked women, there’s nothing that rings alarm bells or that she’s fearful of. It was just a moment of humour that we thought could be in the set.”
A baroque building in Paris has decorative phallic-shaped windows
While viewers spend less time with Bella in Alexandria, the set of the city – built as a large miniature rather than a full-size location – needed to underline an important plot point and give a condensed overview of an entire city.
“One of the ancient wonders of the world was the Alexandrian lighthouse,” Price said. “[The set] is a bit of a play on that and the idea of people in their ivory towers.”
To create the city, which is depicted as an island in the ocean rather than a city on the coast of North Africa, the designers also drew on a book about antique carvings called Cabinet of Curiosities.
The brothel was designed as a “comedic moment”
“They were beautiful ivory, I think 15th-century, carvings that looked like Star Wars towers or like Escher drew them,” Heath said. “They’re insanely modernist, but from way back.”
“We used them as inspiration along with the idea of the ivory tower – we were having a lot of fun with wordplay. And like with Lisbon, we had to distil a lot of information into a really small place that could be seen in an overview.”
The first scene in Alexandria is one of the few that was shot in an existing location – a restaurant the designers transformed into a breakfast room that resembles an “almost a pseudo Bond villain lair”. From here, the movie moves on to show the slums below the tower.
The Alexandria set was built as a large miniature
“In the slums, we also used the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymous Bosch – elements of the architecture we took from details within that painting,” Heath said.
“There’s a depiction of hell within it that is a craggy opening down into a fiery pit and that’s why we wanted the whole of Alexandria to almost become this fiery, blood-red sandstone.”
For the overall feel of Poor Things, Lathimos wanted Heath and Price to create a “1930s studio movie with today’s technology”.
“If we did that, we would create a new aesthetic,” Price said. “It’s not like making a pastiche of a 1930s movie; we’re not trying to make it look like it was made in the 30s, but making it like it would be made now.”
The Poor Things set design has received an Oscar nomination
The two designers have received an Oscar nomination for their production design together with Zsuzsa Mihalek, who was responsible for the set decorations.
The 96th Academy Awards, or Oscars, take place on 10 March 2024 and honour films released in 2023.
“We’ve got such a wonderful film to talk about and I really appreciate that,” Heath said of being nominated. “It could be a depressing film about death, but there is something celebratory about it and everybody’s together, so it feels amazing for James and me.”
“It’s such a complete film and it’s been quite wonderful to be able to talk about it,” Price added. “The love that people have for it speaks volumes.”
Called the Chapel of Music, the three-pronged concrete structure has concave walls, a curving elevated ramp and a circular auditorium with a translucent roof.
Vector Architects designs concave Chapel of Music for Chinese seaside resort
“Some of the most interesting work published these days”
Dezeen readers failed to reach a consensus about the structure.
Jb felt the design was outdated, commenting “the 1930s have landed in Aranya”. Chelsea Dennison also wasn’t a fan and suggested that the project was “poorly designed and executed”.
Taking a more diplomatic stance, Igor Pismensky wrote “I like the structure and interior but the ramp looks like an afterthought and not well integrated”.
On the other side of the argument, commenter JEA suggested that “Vector is doing some of the most interesting work published these days, regardless of the snark”. Z-dog was also in favour of the design, writing “that rooflight construction is beautiful.”
“Amazing spheres!” exclaimed Bigbull43, while Rd commented “I really appreciate their more sculptural work like this – the internal chasm is beautiful”.
Alfred Hitchcock was on the fence. “I don’t dislike it, but it’s a shame that it will use so much concrete when it could be mostly natural stone”, they said.
Commenter Don Bronkema wasn’t all that impressed, calling the building a “mere submarine, unless concrete floats”.
Called Forest Pillars, the house is wrapped in panels of corrugated metal, with daylight provided almost entirely by a fully-glazed clerestory window beneath the roof.
“Living in this house would drive me mad – it’s more like a cave without privacy”, wrote Leo. They acknowledged, however, that “the entrance doors are beautiful”.
Dik Coates wrote “I like the timber framing, but it does not appear to be that slender”.
Another commenter who couldn’t make their mind up was Mark Zudini. “I am trying hard to like it but the lack of windows at ground floor is a big one” they wrote. “I do like it in many other ways – it’s very poetic, a beautiful container”.
Dezeen is the world’s most commented architecture and design magazine, receiving thousands of comments each month from readers. Keep up to date on the latest discussions on our comments page and subscribe to our weekly Debate newsletter, where we feature the best reader comments from stories in the last seven days.
Located in Gangwon-do, Hoji Gangneung includes a family house for the owner and three guesthouses, along with a communal building.
Five buildings are arranged around a raised concrete ring
AOA Architects designed one of the four homes with an octagonal shape and central courtyard while another, named the Round House, has a semi-circular end.
The remaining two dwellings and the communal building have rectangular floor plans and differ from each other by their roof shape.
AOA Architects designed each structure with a different shape
The communal building has a mono-pitch roof and one rectangular house has a regular gable roof. The final house, named the Long House, features a gable roof with a raised central section topped with a skylight, creating an elongated light well.
“Every building has its own shape, size and character, allowing guests to enjoy each space distinctly through shadow play,” said AOA Architects principal Jaewon Suh.
Hoji Gangneung is located in the countryside in South Korea
AOA Architects took cues from countryside structures, such as warehouses and cabins, when designing Hoji Gangneung, aiming to create a project that references its surroundings while establishing itself as something new.
“The main concept and goal of the design is to build something familiar and also unfamiliar in a rural area,” Suh told Dezeen.
“For some, the Octagonal House looks like a nomadic tent and feels like an octagonal pavilion, the Long House looks like a milk carton or a grain warehouse, and the Round House looks like a slender piece of wood or a face with a hat, but these associations do not matter.”
A concrete ring elevated above the grassy landscape connects the five buildings, a decision the studio made to prevent the need for multiple paths.
“A circular shape was the best gesture to connect the five buildings at once,” Suh said. “As a result, while avoiding typical countryside alley shape and showing the main concept of the design, an artificial circular raised walkway was created.”
The buildings are made from textured concrete
According to the studio, the choice of concrete also deliberately juxtaposes the grassy landscape below.
“By raising a walkway slightly from the land, a tension between the gently floated concrete walkway and weak grasses of the land occurs,” said Suh.
AOA Architects covered the interiors of the homes in wood
The buildings are all built from textured concrete and topped by corrugated metal roofs.
In the communal building, the concrete structure is left exposed. Large glass doors spanning one wall open onto the concrete walkway and give views of the dwellings.
The concrete structure of the communal building is left exposed inside
The interiors of the houses are finished with wood to add a sense of warmth and “make one feel that they have entered a box of musical instruments”, according to Suh.
AOA Architects was founded in 2013 by Jaewon Suh and Euihaing Lee. The studio previously designed a Minecraft-themed apartment in Seoul with a stepped roof and red- and white-tiled exterior.
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