Hasta La Ideas

Indian practice Studio Terratects has completed Urul, a house on a forested site in Kerala, India, which features a mud-plastered interior.

Designed for a client engaged in environmentalism, the home in Wayanad has a natural material palette intended to evoke nature as much as possible.

Studio Terratects has also celebrated local craftsmanship and “artisanal techniques” throughout to help connect Urul to its context.

“The core concept behind the design was to create a residence where every corner and element narrates a unique story of craftsmanship and nature’s interplay,” principal architect Roshith Shibu told Dezeen.

“The design integrates artisanal techniques and natural materials, resulting in a home that feels both thoughtfully crafted and organically connected to its environment.”

Urul has a clean-cut geometric form. The lower level of its front portion is contained within a cuboidal, earth-toned block, left open on one side to make space for a terrace.

Its upper level has a smaller footprint, enclosed by black and grey walls with large windows. It is topped by a flat roof with deep eaves to shelter a balcony.

Additional volumes intersect to form the remainder of the home, including a pale grey form and an earth-toned block that are connected by a glass link.

A black C-shaped volume extends from one side of the home’s raised ground floor, perforated with a circular opening that forms the front porch.

Accessed by a small flight of steps with a wooden handrail, this sheltered porch opens into a bright living area, bordered on one side by a fully glazed wall with sheer floor-to-ceiling curtains.

The living space is further brightened by white sofas and a skylight near the home’s entrance, while wooden furnishings give the space a natural feel.

Wooden battens line the ceiling and add texture to the room, in tandem with exposed structural elements made of concrete and steel.

In addition to the other materials, mud plaster made with locally sourced earth was used across the interior walls.

“In designing this residence, the material palette was chosen to reflect the client’s environmentalism and desire for a nature-inspired, earthy home,” said Shibu.

“Mud plastering was selected for its thermal insulation properties and natural aesthetic, with the added significance of bearing the fingerprints of the local tribal community, telling a story of traditional craftsmanship.”

A walkway extends from one side of the living space, where a wooden workstation runs along a wall lined with woven artwork. Behind this is a small courtyard.

“The arrangement of the spaces, including the outdoor areas, was guided by a commitment to creating a harmonious flow between the indoors and the natural surroundings,” said Shibu.

“Key considerations included maximising natural light, ensuring optimal ventilation, and fostering a seamless transition between the home’s interior and its external environment,” added Shibu.

“Functional zones are arranged to promote both privacy and social interaction, ensuring that each space serves its purpose while contributing to the overall harmony and balance of the residence,” he continued.

Other spaces on the ground floor include a bedroom illuminated by floor-to-ceiling glazing, a kitchen and dining room that borders a small courtyard and a bathroom. Beside the walkway is a winding staircase surrounded by walls with geometric cutouts and irregular voids.

The upper level of Urul features rooms designed to blend with the outdoors, including a generously sized terrace and a second bedroom. The walkway to the terrace borders an interior void decorated with hanging lights, offering views of the home’s ground floor.

Other recently completed Indian homes include a curving home with walls lined with discarded toys and compressed earth blocks and a rammed-earth home informed by vernacular building techniques.

The photography is by Prasanth Mohan.

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Among the many discoveries we experienced on a recent trip to Seoul’s Jeju Island is the bountiful scent of Hinoki, a cypress tree native to East Asia. Hinok is a local brand that leverages Hinoki-infused water to create fresh smelling room spray, laundry, hand and body products. This travel kit is a great way to to discover two of their signature items—the Hinoki Spray To Go (100ml) and the Hand Balm Mini (20ml). The spray is 100% Hinoki water with no other ingredients; the Hand Balm uses Hinoki water instead of purified water and both are upcycled. You may not easily be able to visit Jeju Island, but these items bring a little of its magic to you.

An updated, postmodern value framework for architecture preservation is needed to protect buildings that are young or ubiquitous as well as those that are exceptional, writes Owen Hopkins.

It’s not uncommon for architects and clients to disagree. In fact, it’s often better that they don’t entirely see eye-to-eye. A lively exchange of ideas and opinions often leads to a better building.

However, it is unusual for a client – or rather funder in this case – to disagree so much with one aspect of the design that they leave a letter hidden inside anticipating its future removal and their ultimate vindication. Yet, as was reported last week, this is exactly what happened when a column in the foyer of the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London was removed as part of Selldorf Architects’ controversial remodelling of Venturi Scott Brown’s famous scheme.

It is hard to imagine any other Grade I-listed building in Britain being treated this way

The letter, from the project’s funder, John Sainsbury, who died in 2022, relayed how he thought the column was a “mistake” that “we would live to regret” and how his future self would be “absolutely delighted that your generation has decided to dispense with the unnecessary columns”.

Anywhere else this would simply be an amusing incident and example of the age-old tussle between architect and client. But here it brings to the fore once again the argument around the Sainsbury Wing’s transformation, of which the removal of these columns is a part, and, more broadly, about the preservation – or lack of it – of postmodern architecture.

Whatever one thinks of Venturi Scott Brown’s work or the alterations now underway, it is hard to imagine any other Grade I-listed building in Britain being treated this way.

The very idea of postmodern heritage presents something of a paradox when it comes to preservation and listing, with buildings of that era frequently evading many of the categories by which decisions of “significance”, and ultimately of value, are made. Partly as a result, postmodern buildings are increasingly being lost, with the furore over the Sainsbury Wing following contentious redevelopments of several seminal projects in the USA, such as Helmut Jahn’s Thompson Center in Chicago and Philip Johnson’s AT&T building in New York.

It pays to be suspicious of decision-making systems that claim any kind of objectivity, as the listing system inherently does. And the fate of these and countless lesser-known examples of postmodernism points to the deficiencies and broader ideological underpinnings that determine why some buildings are deemed worthy of preservation and others allowed to be heavily altered or even demolished.

One of the great ironies of the prevailing concept of heritage is the extent to which it is founded on a modernist value system. This, weirdly, is one part of the modernist philosophical edifice that still stands, arguably stronger than ever. But this close connection is really no surprise given the way their histories are intertwined, with many conservation movements arising in response to the modernist wrecking-ball being directed at historic cities in the 1950s and ’60s.

We urgently need more open, inclusive and progressive understandings of heritage

To prove the point, just look at the language that the UK Government uses in its Principles of Selection for Listed Buildings, which talks of buildings’ “importance”, “significance” and “virtuosity”, their “innovation”, “distinction”, “merit” and “rarity”, and how they might “represent” or “illustrate”.

While it’s possible for a building to meet these criteria in any number of ways, running through them is the assumption that a building’s value is predicated on the extent to which it has broken new ground and somehow driven architecture as a whole forward, as opposed reflecting existing trends. It’s a way of assigning value that is still frequently taken for granted – and not just in architecture – yet is entirely ideological, reflecting a belief in the idea of architectural “progress” and development that, quite aside from questions of style or aesthetics, was at the core of the modernist world view.

This doesn’t just affect postmodern architectural heritage, of course, but shapes how we designate and value heritage of all kinds. And, despite attempts by well-intentioned heritage officers to negate it, results in a system structured to exclude certain buildings and the people and histories connected to them.

Indeed, this is not a simply a question of the built environment, but of how our collective histories are written and by whom. In an ever more politically polarised and divided world, we urgently need more open, inclusive and progressive understandings of heritage. So, instead of the exclusive and restrictive modernist concept of heritage, how about a postmodern one that actively embraces the possibility of multiple value systems?

But what would this mean in practice? Well, rather than valuing buildings for their originality or uniqueness, we might privilege those that are commonplace or ubiquitous, buildings that aren’t exceptional and instead part of everyday life like shopping centres, multiplex cinemas, leisure centres or housing estates.

Then there’s the requirement that buildings stand the test of time, reflected in Historic England’s rule that buildings have to be 30 years old to be eligible for listing. It’s why we lost buildings like Terry Farrell’s TV-am in North London (pictured) – a wonderfully bold and colourful building that epitomised the energy of the early 1980s, but for that reason soon went out of fashion and was remodelled before anyone thought of listing it. So, let’s invert the 30-year rule and specify that buildings can’t be demolished until 30 years after their completion.

Heritage is not about the past, it’s about what we value enough to preserve for the future

One of the things that counts against a building when being considered for listing is alterations. Which brings us back to the Sainsbury Wing, a building that was always conceived by its architects explicitly as an addition to the National Gallery, and thereby in the modernist concept of heritage is of inherently lesser value.

But what if we looked at alterations not as things that harm a building’s significance, and instead as positive evidence of its changing use, thereby enhancing its value? Sometimes the modification is actually more valuable than the original, which is certainly the case comparing Venturi Scott Brown’s addition to William Wilkins’ uninspired original building.

A criticism of the above approach is that it ultimately leads to the preservation of everything. This may not be a bad thing given the urgent need to change fundamentally our attitude to demolition. But more realistically a postmodern concept of heritage could inform an alternative, supplementary set of principles for listing.

For example, it would be relatively straightforward to create a carbon-based value system, so that buildings with particularly high embodied carbon are automatically preserved. Or it could be stipulated that those buildings with a vital social or public purpose should be preserved – at a stroke protecting every council house in the country.

Heritage is not about the past, it’s about what we value enough to preserve for the future. Changing how we designate architectural heritage will also change what new architecture is produced. If we restrict the demolition of buildings with high embodied carbon, it will undoubtedly lead to few new ones getting built.

Yet, a more inclusive concept of heritage arguably has an even bigger role to play in helping ensure a diverse and pluralist built environment, and in turn helping pave the way for a more open politics and culture. A city that has room for every building has room for everyone.

Owen Hopkins is an architecture writer, historian and curator. He is director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University and was previously senior curator at Sir John Soane’s Museum and architecture programme curator at the Royal Academy of Arts. He is the author of eight books, including Lost Futures: The Disappearing Architecture of Post-War Britain (2017) and Postmodern Architecture: Less is a Bore (2020).

The photo is by Richard Bryant.

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Chinese interior studio Various Associates has completed an irregular pyramid-shaped flagship store for drone brand DJI in Shenzhen, China.

Located at OCT Harbour on the shores of Shenzhen Bay, the flagship store was designed to demonstrate the Chinese drone company’s latest technology.

The 4000-square-metre store contains spaces for product display, a gallery, customer service area and an event space in four floors, in addition to a public park called DJI Oasis, which is used for drone flights.

The multi-facated facade was clad in granite with large triangular windows on the angled surfaces facing the park, which is connected to the second floor via an outdoor, zigzagging staircase.

Gentle ramps in the park lead visitors into the store, while forming a series of triangular patterns, responding to the same geometric form of the architecture.

To minimise the direct sun exposure from the glass facade, Various Associates inserted an “interior skin” of stainless steel louvres to the outer shell of the building.

The second layer forms an origami shape on the ceiling that corresponds to the outer shape.

“We hope to solve the problems of site mobility and sun exposure through a holistic program, and simplify the visual complexity of the interior walls and window sills, while retaining the original geometric aesthetics of the site architecture,” explained the Shenzhen-based studio.

“The newly added ‘interior skin’ filters the sunlight, casting unique daylight patterns throughout the day, creating a sense of outdoors.”

On the ground floor, DJI‘s drone products are displayed on custom-made tables in angled shape of the brand’s classic drones’ propeller blades.

They are lit from above by lights, which are same shape, suspended from the ceiling.

The third floor of the building contains the Hasselblad Experience Station – a joint display area for DJI and Swedish camera and lenses brand Hasselblad.

The gallery-like space with a darker tone contrasts the bright and airy product section downstairs, which is used for showcasing the photography created by DJI and Hasselblad.

The building is topped with the 15-meter-high DJI Horizon Hall, which was designed as an event venue. According to the studio, the dramatic geometric space naturally draws visitors to look up upon entering, evoking the actions of watching a drone taking off.

Various Associates is an architecture and interior design studio founded by Dongzi Yang and Qianyi Lin in 2017. Elsewhere in Shenzhen, the studio previously designed a cafe and cocktail bar that emulates a small cosy cabin.

The photography is by SFAP.

Project credits:

Architect: Various Associates
Chief designers: Qianyi Lin, Dongzi Yang
Project management: Hanqun Cai
Design team: Yuwen Deng, Zebing Li, Benzhen Pan, Chao Luo, Junrui Zhang, Qian Xie, Yue Zhang
Lighting design: GD Lighting Design
MEP design: Tongji Architects
Structural design: Tongji Architects
Contractor: HECIAN

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Promotion: Japanese portable lighting brand Ambientec is, for the first time, organising its own events as well as showing at trade fairs to showcase its products.

The brand said augmenting its approach is part of a push to keep its identity fresh and innovative.

Prompted by the fact that Milan design week’s biennial lighting show Euroluce did not run this year, Ambientec chose to organise an event in collaboration with fragrance brand Fueguia 1833. Ambientec said it expects to be back at Euroluce next year.

Titled “Scent of Light”, the event showcased Ambientec’s new Fotica lamp, designed by Kensaku Oshiro.

Based on a concept of the combined power of lighting and scents to evoke emotions and memories, it took the form of an exhibition takeover in Fueguia’s showroom in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele.

Also in Milan this April, Ambientec presented its new limited-edition Remli lamp at the Rossana Orlandi Gallery.

Designed by Tokyo studio We+, the body of the lamp is made from recycled rubble and debris, drawing upon materials which would otherwise be sent to landfill.

Then, exhibiting for the first time at 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen in June, Ambientec continued this event-based approach to promoting its products.

It took part in a joint exhibition curated by Danish designer Signe Hytte. Titled “Enter the Salon”, the exhibition imagined the home of a fictional poet set in a historic townhouse.

Ambientec used Hytte’s exhibition as an opportunity to introduce its new N-TL01 table lamp.

The Japandi-style lamp is designed by Danish architecture studio Norm Architects but also the result of a collaboration with multiple Japanese manufacturers.

The underside of the lamp’s frame is made of wood, developed with wooden-furniture manufacturer Karimoku, while its lampshade was made from traditional Japanese washi paper with the help of heritage Kyoto-based lantern maker Kojima Shoten.

Intended for use in intimate settings, the lamp uses an LED light source specially developed by Ambientec to ensure the lampshade is evenly illuminated without internal components being revealed.

Founded in 2009, Ambientec specialises in portable, rechargeable and waterproof lamps designed to soothe.

Rather than prioritising manufacturing efficiency it emphasises the longevity of its products, providing an after-sale maintenance and repairs service.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for Ambientec as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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