Hasta La Ideas

L’artiste et designer Alex Chinneck a imaginé ce projet « From The Knee of My Nose to the Belly of my Toes », une maison de briques construite à Clifftonville reprise sous une forme pour le moins surprenante, comme si la façade avait coulé. Une initiative impressionnante à découvrir en images dans la suite.

UNStudio’s aim in designing the new laboratory and offices for the Japanese pharma-co Astellas in Bio Science Park was security of the scientific research center without sacrificing a pleasant, open working environment. To achieve this, the structure integrates the security concept inclusively with the frame of the building serving as an unconcealed enclosure. At the center is a courtyard surrounded by glass facades that provide sufficient daylight and transparency into each of the 3 work areas.

Security is an essential element in the design of the building, which houses both offices and an ultramodern laboratory for scientific research. Rather than approaching this issue in an exclusive way – by confining and fortifying the structure – the design for the Astellas building integrates the security concept inclusively, with the frame of the building serving as an unconcealed enclosure.

Equally essential to the design of the building is the creation of a pleasant, open and transparent working environment for Astellas employees, in addition to an agreeable and welcoming gesture to their international visitors. The organization and materialization of the building ensures clear views from each of the three areas within the main frame. Glass facades are employed to provide sufficient daylight, whilst also creating open visual communication throughout the structure.

The building frame integrates into one gesture three sections of varying heights, which together encircle an inner courtyard garden. Covering six floors on the west side of the building are the office spaces. A restaurant with a roof terrace is located on the lower floor of this area. The Eastern section of the building houses four floors of laboratories. 
The main entrance to the building is located on the South East and employs the concept of the hotel lobby to comfortably welcome employees and visitors from home and abroad. The floor to ceiling glass facades and large skylights of the expansive, 3.7 meter high lobby area provide visual links to both the inner garden and the surrounding street life. The Western side of the lobby area houses seating areas and meeting rooms. Direct access to the inner garden, which is based on traditional enclosed Japanese gardens, is possible from all three sections of the building.

Parking is provided at street level to the East of the building and in a sunken parking garage underneath the main structure. The ground floor of the building is raised to a height of 1.7 meters and is accessed by steps which lead to the lobby area from street level. The floor plans in the interior are flexible and based on the campus concept, where emphasis is placed on communication.

Glass and aluminum are the main materials used in the façade of the Astellas building in order to provide a lightweight structure which requires less material usage in its foundations. Lamellas are incorporated on each level of the façade in order to deflect direct sunlight. The glass panes are further coated to additionally reduce heat load to the interior. On the Northern side of the building, where sunlight is less prevalent, floor to ceiling glass is employed, with 4cm deep lamellas. The South and East/West facades respectively are furnished with lamellas with a depth of 30cm and 20cm. Parapets of 90cm are also employed on these facades in order to further reduce direct sunlight penetration. The building as a whole has an 89%-90% net to gross floor ratio, with an underground energy storage system further reducing energy usage. Color is introduced into the façade by means of a vertical variation in the four contrasting tones of the Japanese Manga animation films.

Designer: UNStudio

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(High-security without that prison-feel was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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The Yongjia World Trade Centre aims to create a new image for the WTC brand as well as a unique symbol for the new riverside city of Wenzhou. Set in the dense economic zone along the coast of Southeast China, next to the Yangtze River Delta region, the riverfront landscape is the unifying element in the overall design. The 5 towers that make up the center include top-floor residences, hotel suites, shopping/commercial areas, and of course, high-end offices for trade and businesses.

The notion of precious objects on a tray drives the main design concept, where the continuous podium landscape occupies the entire site and serves as a tray-like, green plain for the towers. The harmonious composition of the towers affords a unique image of the development from all different views. The composition will interweave with its surroundings, yet will remain recognizable as family of objects.
On the tower scale, “frames” underline the concept of neighbourhoods in the sky which create unique locations with distinct identities. So-called “eyes” are located where the frames overlap. These are commonly used spaces such as sky gardens and lounges for use by residents, or social gathering places for office areas that afford the best views towards the river and Wenzhou city center. Both the frames and the “eyes” enhance the character of this future city symbol.

Designer: UNStudio

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Yanko Design
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(Modern Trade by the River was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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Challenged by a long list of regulations and zoning codes, the Vail House in the hilly Los Angeles neighborhood of Silverlake manages to make the most of the unique terrain and city views. While such challenges often result in drab, boring architecture, Brooks + Scarpa Architects achieves the opposite with this awesomely abstract twisted box that is seemingly a part of rather than “apart from” the natural landscape.

Different than a classically modern approach, where the site conditions and the landscape are perceived as a mere backdrop for the building and remain untouched, this project is in large part directly related to the topography and engages with the landscape, diving into the hill at points and breaking away from it at others. Consequently, the building becomes an abstracted, faceted reading of the landscape that contains it.

Although the building appears to be a direct response to the topography, much of its shape actually derives from a translation of the complex setback and stepback requirements of the hillside ordinances as they relate to this site. The zoning codes require a lower building height towards the street and permitted a taller structure further up the hill. By that means, it was possible to build relatively close to the street and establish a relationship to the smaller scale in the surroundings, while being able to increase the height further back in the lot and thus taking advantage of the spectacular views.

Organized internally through a succession of planes that follow directly the course of the topography, the movement through the building reflects the experience of walking up the hill.

The building volume is created by a simple extrusion of a square, a neutral elongated twisted box that is projected into the site and sculpted along its contours. The folded roof is skewed where directed views or openings are desired.

The building’s movement on the site describes a spiral that begins at a lower point closest to the street, travels up the hill, and then turns back towards the street and the lake, overlooking itself and creating an enclosed court in the center.

This court serves as an entry to the building, covering a parking garage underneath, and is the first in the succession of planes. An 18’ high entrance hall divides the building into its private and public domains and demarks its upper and lower part. From here, the building slopes down to the private realm – the children’s room and the master bedroom, where the continuous, warping space ends in a window that takes up the entire section of the volume. The bathroom, steps up in the other direction, is completely dug into the hill and is lit by a skylight in the patio above. On the other side of the entrance hall, the stair leads up to the kitchen and dining room. A long window towards the hill allows air to circulate through the building from a low window in the living area and provides the necessary cross ventilation. A built-in stand-alone wooden box contains the guest bathroom and defines the transition between the kitchen and the living zone.

An excavation out of the corner of the building at the point where the roof is lifted makes room for a covered patio that can be entered through the dining area. From here, there is access to the back yard, a 15’ wide excavated space that continues the succession of planes from the inside, creating a transition from the interior landscape to the hill.

On the opposite side of the kitchen/dining area, the volume folds away from the hill, moving downwards and again towards the street, when it is dramatically cut off, leaving a framed view overlooking the Silverlake reservoir.

The physical usage of the landscape was not as important as the containment of the building within the landscape, the creation of an artificial landscape inside and the experience of the distant views. The folding of the volume and the openings on its interior facade make it possible to inhabit the space and simultaneously to view it from within.

One of the central questions of this project was how to achieve an economical design on a site that was almost impossible to build upon. An early scheme, a serene, two-story building that maintained the same absolute height throughout and established no relationship to the landscape, proved to be uneconomical because it required huge retaining walls. It became necessary to develop a strategy that would keep the retaining walls as low as possible. This was accomplished in the final scheme by adjusting the building height to the topography, using Structural Concrete Insulated Panels (SCIP), a lightweight, easily to assemble system that was more cost-effective to use than cast in place formed concrete walls. Conceptually, the structure was developed as an exo-skeleton against the earth with the inside forms and spaces contained by light gauge cold-rolled steel, which can be folded and penetrated as necessary. The SCIP panel construction provides a R-40 average insulation value for the entire house. In addition the SCIP panels are made from 100% recycled and post consumer foam and have a 50% fly-ash content in the concrete.

The Vail Grant House distinguishes itself from most conventionally developed projects in that it incorporates energy efficient measures that exceed standard practice, optimize building performance, and ensure reduced energy use during all phases of construction and occupancy.  The planning and design emerged from close consideration and employment of passive solar design strategies. These strategies include: locating and orienting the building to control solar cooling loads; shaping and orienting the building for exposure to prevailing winds; shaping the building to induce buoyancy for natural ventilation; designing windows to maximize daylighting; shading south facing windows and minimizing west-facing glazing; designing windows to maximize natural ventilation; shaping and planning the interior to enhance daylight and natural air flow distribution.

Furthermore, the building width was intentionally limited to 15’ throughout, reducing spans and simplifying construction. Solar panels placed on the slope behind the house produce enough energy to make this a completely self-sustained building. Small diameter pipes are inserted into the hillside and thru the SCIP panels bringing 60ºC air into the building for natural air-conditioning.  The large viewing window also allow the sun to heat the adjacent interior concrete slab creating natural convection that rises up the interior space and is vented at the uppermost portions of the building.  This will allow natural airflow for both natural cooling and solar radiant heating. When completed the Vail Grant Residence will be 100% energy independent.

By responding to the visceral aspects of the site, both physical and regulatory, a unique sustainable and economic design was achieved.

Designer: Brooks + Scarpa

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Yanko Design
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(Instinctual Architecture was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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The Aldar Headquarters located in Abu Dhabi stands alone as a striking modern marvel against a landscape of harsh desert and four-sided buildings. The semispherical structure is comprised of two circular convex facades linked by a narrow internal construction. The resulting clam shape has visual power that’s also symbolic of the area’s seafaring heritage and gives a renewed identity to the community. It’s atypical in every way!

Designer: MZ Architects

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Yanko Design
Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world!
Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design!
(Sides are so passé! was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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