Hasta La Ideas

Lisbon architect Nuno Simões of DNSJ.arq has completed a series of staircases and walkways to allow visitors to explore a historic cave near Évora, Portugal.

The project, at the Gruta do Escoural at Montemor-o-novo in Portugal’s Alentejo region, involved replacing degraded existing temporary steps with a new steel structure with ipê timber boards.

In addition, the architects built a new anti-chamber to protect the entrance and control thermal exchange between the exterior and interior of the cave system.

The sensitivity of the limestone caves, which are noted for their Paleolithic-era rock-art and funerary graves, meant that construction techniques that might damage the sensitive historic site, such as welding or in-situ concrete pouring, could not be used.

The assignment was to build a new structure to replace the former temporary structure, which was in very poor condition, and a new antechamber,” says architect Nuno Simões of DNSJ.arq. “We decided that this structure should be opaque and black in sharp contrast with the light colour of the limestone cave.”

He added: “The main concerns of the structure to allow visitors inside the cave was to be able to run a clean and dry construction, considering the impossibility of using construction techniques that would require welding or in situ concrete and the use of enduring materials capable of withstanding the passage of time in a particularly hostile environment.”

Human remains dating back 50,000 years have been found in the caves. The earliest occupants were Neanderthal hunter-gatherers, and later it was used as a funerary site during the Neolithic era.

The project was commissioned by the Alentejo cultural department and completed in 2011.

The post Gruta do Escoural
by Nuno Simões + DNSJ.arq appeared first on Dezeen.

Slideshow: stripy monochrome triangles are folded into facets around the walls and ceiling of this church hall in Linz, Austria, to create a cavernous interior.

Designed by Austrian firm X Architekten, the Oasis pastoral centre is sited in the grounds of a steel manufacturer, where it burrows into a sloping landscape.

This grassy landscape slopes up over the roof of the centre, while an angled metal pole emerges from the ground to provide a wonky spire near the entrance.

Beyond the entrance, a two-storey-high atrium splits the building to separate administrative rooms and workshops from the main hall, which incorporates a bar, a chapel and an event space.

A concealed courtyard occupies a space at the heart of the building and features a solitary, rusty bell that is stationary on the ground.

Other churches worth a look include one that is see-through and another with steel whirlpools on the roof – see both plus more here.

Photography is by David Schreyer, apart from where otherwise stated.

The text below is from X Architekten:

Oasis Pastoral care voestalpine

Task

The office for pastoral care in the diocese of Linz, to be located on the site of the steel company voestalpine, is to serve liturgical as well as secular purposes. The plot of land lies as a “no-man’s-land” between main roads and industrial estates and is in need of a new strong character.

Concept

The study of man and work within the steel company led to a complementary addition to the site through its “built landscape“.

Existing woodlands serve as a conceptional starting point, an “oasis for the people”, and the new built landscape retains this character by being embedded within a hillside.

Conventional church buildings would not be able to achieve their independent meaning in this area as the voestalpine’s site is mainly dominated by relatively high buildings.

Implementation

The building’s main artery, which cuts into the hillside, runs towards the entrances and widens as it approaches the green space, finally leading up to the woods along a sloping surface.

The embankment, made of dark slag-stone, is either poured into the embankment or processed as pebble dash. The cross, the edge of the wood and meadow as well as the wooden shed are situated up against the edge of the building.

The planting increases in density starting from the lawn, via a diversity of plants, towards the coniferous forest. Climbing the roof via walkways and stairs, one passes the steel car port as well as the garden associated with the apartment and youth area.

Above: photograph is by Rupert Asanger

The “built landscape” concept also determines the interior.

The “ravine” divides the functional areas including offices, meeting room and workshops from the social and religious areas including cloakroom, bar, event room and the chapel.

The recessed “bell court” radiates a contemplative mood with its squares and its bell placed at ground-level.

The hollow space under the bell serves to distribute the sound (like the bell in the mining shaft). A wooden and white coated shell divided into triangles unites the chapel, event room and bar as the main rooms of the social area.

This crystalline geometry creates an important meaning encompassing Saint Barbara as patron saint of both pastoral care and mining.

Above: photograph is by Rupert Asanger

Two sliding walls enable a choice of separate or connected rooms for different events.

The open room as a whole inhabits the chapel and bar and thus establishes a unique openness and integration.

Above: photograph is by Rupert Asanger

Location: Wahringerstraße 30, Linz, Upper Austria Client: Diocese Linz
Start of planning: February 2008 Completion: Summer 2011
Art in construction: Gerhard Brandl

Premises: 4.843 m2
Built-up area: 840 m2

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Manchester designer Liam Hopkins of Lazerian used waste cardboard from media company Bloomberg to construct a meeting area inside their London headquarters.

The recycled cardboard was pulped and reconstituted into triangular sections, which combine to create the cave-like Pupa structure.

The curved form wraps around a 14-seat table that also has a surface of tessellated cardboard.

The legs of the table and surrounding chairs were fabricated from dismantled timber pallets, while the padded chair seats are covered with leather offcuts.

We’ve published a few projects from product design studio Lazerian on Dezeen – see our earlier stories here, including a collection of candle holders shaped like laboratory beakers.

Photography is by Alex Maguire.

Here’s a bit more text from Hopkins:

Pupa is a habitat by Liam Hopkins of Lazerian within Bloomberg’s London headquarters made from reclaimed cardboard and pallets.

The form and aesthetics are inspired by natural habitats – cocoons, bee hives, spiders nests and weaver birds nests.

The ceiling assumes the appearance of a shelter; snug and cave like, but also references the vaulted ceilings of church naves.

The numbers which can be extrapolated from Pupa reflect the almost Sisyphean task faced, whether by human, bird or insect, to create these sort of  structures:

• 3,972 triangular cardboard borders make up frame
• 3,972 triangle inners fill the exoskeleton providing the cover
• 180 wooden pallets taken apart for chair frame and legs
• 11,000 nails removed from wooden pallets
• 252 leather offcuts from make up the chair seats

Constructed in triangular sections Pupa utilises the structural and acoustic properties of cardboard.

Computer design techniques were used to generate the form and the individual components were then extracted from the virtual model to create flat layouts that are glued together by hand.

The original Bloomberg cardboard arrived in damp bales so was pulped and re-constituted at a John Hargreaves factory in Stalybridge using machinery originally installed in 1910.

Here are some photographs of a renovated fortress in northern Italy that now features patinated steel bridges, an extended underground tunnel and concrete towers.

Austrian Italian architects Markus Scherer and Walter Dietl overhauled the site in 2009, when it hosted a regional exhibition.

The fortified site was originally constructed in the nineteenth century by the Habsburg family, who were nervous about revolutionary iedas spreading from France and catching on in their own neighbourhood.

Since then, it has been used as a gunpowder depot, army territory and as a venue for the 2008 European contemporary art biennale.

Two sandblasted concrete towers with horizontal fissures lead visitors through to a ticket office, shop, bar, restaurant and exhibition area.

Restored vaults provide exhibition rooms with newly exposed brick arches and steel staircases.

One of these staircases leads down into the extended underground tunnel, which was apparently once used to hide gold stolen from the Bank of Italy.

Steel bridges emerge from windows to create external routes between first and second floor rooms, crossing an artificial lake.

Elsewhere, the granite walls of all existing buildings onsite have been restored, while roofs have been waterproofed.

Other stories about renovated castles and strongholds include a castle converted into a mountain museum – see all our stories about castles here.

See also: our recent feature about about caves and grottoes.

Photography is by Alessandra Chemollo.

Here are some more details from Markus Scherer:

The Fortress of Franzensfeste

“Begun under Francis I in the year 1833 – completed by Ferdinand I in the year 1838”, reads the Latin inscription over the gate of the fortress. In just five years, over 6,000 workers and soldiers built a blocking position at one of the narrowest points in the Eisack valley. It has the dimensions of a small town and, with a surface area of 20 hectares, is the largest fortification in the Alpine region. With this monumental defensive work the Habsburgs hoped to halt the advance of the revolutionary changes provoked by the French revolution. Designed by regimental engineer Franz von Scholl, it consists of three autonomous sections: the upper, middle and lower fortress levels. It has clear and simple classicist lines; it is functional and impregnable. As the military threat did not materialise in the decades following its construction, however, the fortress rapidly lost its importance. By the end of the 19th century it was merely used as a powder depot. In 1918 Franzensfeste came under Italian rule and was used by the army until 2003.

Acquired by the province of South Tyrol, new opportunities for the preservation of this cultural monument have arisen: the former fortress is intended to become a place for meetings and cultural exchanges. In 2008 it was one of the four venues for the European biennale of contemporary art, Manifesta 7, and in 2009 it hosted the South Tyrolean regional exhibition.

The Meran architect Markus Scherer prepared the lower fortress level for Manifesta 7, an exhibition surface area of over 3600 m². Preservation of the buildings and the character of the fortress was paramount. The huge granite blocks making up the walls were restored, the roofs waterproofed and the windows repaired. Walled-off spaces were opened up and later additions removed. The size and extent of the complex are not at first obvious from the courtyard behind the main gate. The monolithic structures with small, regularly spaced window apertures are on different levels around the compound, connected by ramps. The lowest are lapped by the dark waters of the adjacent artificial lake. New galvanised steel railings and staircases have improved safety. Two windowless concrete towers with lifts and staircases link the buildings. The surfaces and the material used interpret the historical building method anew: they are concreted in irregular 30-70 cm sections, with a fine layer of sand between each. These layers were flushed out to produce an irregular horizontal joint pattern and granite sand was used to adapt the towers to the surrounding colour, with the surface roughened by sandblasting.

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These objects, with their military numbering, now accommodate a visitor centre with a ticket office and shop, as well as a bar, restaurant, a play area for children and, last but not least, a large exhibition area. Visitors to Manifesta are greeted by a seemingly endless series of rooms. The carefully restored vaults of exposed brick-work and the plastered walls, some decorated with murals, have retained the aura of the past. On one of the walls can be read “Immer vorwärts!”, always forwards, understandable in every language spoken in the Empire: let modern art breathe fresh life over the walls! New items such as grilles, handrails, doors and the two free-floating bridges over the lake, connecting two buildings, are all constructed of galvanised, patinated steel: the existing elements form a pleasant context for their cloudy black coloration.

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The existing tunnel, where the Bank of Italy’s stolen gold was found, was extended and a 22-metre long vertical shaft driven through the rock to connect the lower to the middle fortress. The black concrete stairway with its golden handrail (Kunst am Bau (The Art of Building) by Manfred Alois Mayr) spirals upwards like a sculpture.

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The stairs and lift end in the partially destroyed powder magazine. This was redesigned as the new entrance building, while the new adjacent building of compressed concrete (coloured to match the existing construction through the use of granite sand) provides the outside edges of the missing sections and contains all the sanitary and technical areas for the middle fortress.

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The remaining buildings have as far as possible been left as they were found. Only certain elements such as safety grilles, rails and ramps have been added and these, as in the lower fortress, are of galvanised, patinated steel.

Client: Autonome Provinz Bozen
Project managment: Arch. Josef March (main coordinator)
Geom. Hans Peter Santer (Project leader)
Hbpm Ingenieure – Ing. Julius Mühlögger, Ing. Gunnar Holzer (Project leader)

Architect: Markus Scherer, Meran with Walter Dietl, Schlanders
Construction supervisor: Markus Scherer, Meran – Klaus Plattner, Bozen
Collaborator: Heike Kirnbauer, Elena Mezzanotte
Structural engineering: Baubüro-Klaus Plattner, Bozen
Safety coordinator: Günther Rienzner, Bozen
Electrical and domestic engineering: Planconsulting, Burgstall
Finishing: 05.2009
Location: Festung Franzensfeste, Franzensfeste

See also:

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Messner Mountain Museum by EM2	Museum Extension by Nieto Sobejano	Jaffa Flat by Pitsou Kedem