News: “An architecture challenge doesn’t come much better than this,” says David Chipperfield, who has been named winner in the competition to design a new home for the Nobel Prize in Stockholm (+ slideshow).
David Chipperfield Architects saw off competition from Swedish studios Wingårdh and Johan Celsing Arkitektkontor to land the prestigious commission to create the Nobel Center – an exhibition centre and events venue for the award that recognises advances in science and culture.
“I think all projects are important but this project has enormous meaning, not just for the city of Stockholm but internationally. An architecture challenge doesn’t come much better than this,” said Chipperfield.
The architect’s vision is for a shimmering brass-clad building on the waterfront. It will be fully glazed on the ground floor, opening out to a new city park on the sunny south-eastern side of the site.
“The jury finds the lightness and openness of the building very appealing and consistent with the Nobel Foundation’s explicit ambition to create an open and welcoming centre for the general public,” said Nobel Foundation executive director Lars Heikensten, who was a member of the judging panel.
“We view the winning proposal as a concrete interpretation of the Nobel Prize as Sweden’s most important symbol in the world. Stockholm will gain a building – magnificent but without pomp, powerful yet graceful – with qualities like those the City Hall gave the capital a century ago.”
Fellow jury member Per Wästberg added: “We view the winning proposal as a concrete interpretation of the Nobel Prize as Sweden’s most important symbol in the world. Stockholm will gain a building – magnificent but without pomp, powerful yet graceful – with qualities like those the City Hall gave the capital a century ago.”
As well as hosting the annual award ceremony each December, the building will provide a public centre for exhibitions, educational activities, events and meetings.
Proposed site plan
“It can be spectacular on its greatest night, but also it can be very useful and functional and working the rest of the year,” said Chipperfield.
New York architect Louise Braverman has completed an arts centre in the Portuguese town of Botica dedicated to the work of abstract artist Nadir Afonso, who grew up nearby (+ slideshow).
The Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso was designed by Louise Braverman to reflect its location on the boundary between Botica and the surrounding countryside. Situated next to a major new motorway intersection on the outskirts of the town, the building is separated into two parts, with cultural facilities facing the road and exhibition spaces at the rear.
Glazed walls enclose the corner of the ground floor facing the busy road, offering a welcoming glimpse of an interior that features a photomural of the artist.
A cantilevered roof juts out above the entrance and shelters this corner of the centre, while a rectangular box projecting from the upper section of the facade frames a view through the building.
The ground floor space is filled with colourful furniture that complements enlarged versions of the artist’s sketches, arranged in a continuous band above the glass walls of the reception.
From the lobby, visitors can access a library, a cafeteria, a multi-purpose events room and ground floor exhibition halls at the rear of the building.
The ceiling above the library curves down to accommodate the banked seats of an auditorium above, which can be accessed via a staircase leading up to a balcony.
The portion of the centre containing the galleries is partly embedded in a steeply sloping hillside and is covered in a turfed roof featuring paving arranged to reflect the geometric patterns prevalent in Afonso’s art.
A short flight of steps provides access to the upper storey of centre from the roof garden, while a long staircase along one side of the building enables those passing to catch a glimpse of the art.
This staircase is flanked by a retaining wall constructed using stone salvaged during the site excavation, which can be seen from inside the galleries. These large chunks of stone were laid without mortar using a technique called cyclopean masonry.
“Since the exhibition walls are shorter than the exterior walls, visitors can view the art against a background of the surface of the rustic stone of the recycled cyclopean retaining walls, creating a unique feeling of viewing art within a lavish grotto,” said the architect.
The space between the exhibition halls and the retaining wall enables daylight to reach the interior, but minimises direct sunlight that could damage the artworks.
A gap between the two parts of the building at the base of the staircase can be used as an outdoor dining space for the cafeteria.
Louise Braverman Architect designs Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso, An Art Museum That Links an Emerging Urban Center with its Pastoral Environs
Merging architecture and landscape, the recently completed Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso links an emerging urban centre with its pastoral environs. The 20,000-square-foot single artist museum fuses a light, lucid contemporaneity with the rich materiality and sustainability of Portuguese design to honour one of Portugal’s most beloved native sons, the artist Nadir Afonso (1920-2013).
As well as paying homage to the artist, who formerly practiced architecture with Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, the Centro, along with the artist’s foundation in nearby Chaves, will serve as an engine driving economic, cultural, and community development in the region. Sliced into a steep hillside, the new museum is divided into two distinct, but connected, parts: a light-filled cultural center looking out upon the intersection of a national highway and City Hall; and, nestled in the back, a vast, below-grade exhibition space topped by a green-roof park.
The Urban Face
In the double-height Entry Hall, a photomural of the artist and a continuous band of his sketches provide punches of bright colour visible from the street. From here, the exhibition hall, outdoor café, children’s library and stairway to the auditorium beckon, as does the exterior auditorium that is designed to encourage informal civic engagement.
The Pastoral Side
Embedded in the hillside below a sustainably planted green roof, the exhibition hall is the heart of the museum. Since the exhibition walls are shorter than the exterior walls, visitors can view the art against a background of the surface of the rustic stone of the recycled cyclopean retaining walls, creating a unique feeling of viewing art within a lavish grotto. While encouraging the perception of an indoor/outdoor layering of space, the proximity of the walls to the interior both blocks degrading direct sunlight and allows indirect daylight to reduce the museum’s carbon footprint. The green roof park, designed in the spirit of Nadir Alonso’s geometric patterns and the tradition of Roberto Burle Marx, also naturally modulates internal temperature while offering aesthetic delight to the community.
Architects: Louise Braverman, Architect Location: Rua Gomes Monteiro, Boticas, Portugal Architect in charge: Louise Braverman Design team: Artur Afonso, John Gillham, Yugi Hsiao, Jing Liu, Snow Liu, Medha Singh Area: 1858 sqm
Local architect: Paulo Pereira Almeida, Arq. Consulting architect: Artur Afonso, Arq. Landscape architect: Maria João Ferreira, Arq. Structural & plumbing engineer: JP Engenharia, Lda. Electrical and mechanical engineer: M &M Engenharia, Lda. Fire safety engineer: Palhas Lourenço, Eng.
Amongst the bustling 24-hour shopping district of South Korea‘s capital city, Zaha Hadid has completed a 38,000-square-metre cultural complex with a twinkling aluminium facade (+ movie).
Inaugurated on Friday, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) by Zaha Hadid Architects provides Seoul with a hub for art, design and technology, plus a landscaped park that serves as a much-needed green oasis, and a public plaza linking the two.
The building features a shapely facade made up of 45,000 aluminium panels of varying sizes and curvatures. This was achieved using advanced 3-dimensional digital construction services, making DDP the first public building in Korea to utilise the technology.
Described by the designers as “a field of pixilation and perforation patterns”, the backlit facade is speckled with minute perforations that allow the building to transform from a solid entity by day into an animated light show by night.
“The design integrates the park and plaza seamlessly as one, blurring the boundary between architecture and nature in a continuous, fluid landscape,” said Zaha Hadid Architects in a statement.
The complex is made up of eight storeys, of which four sit above ground level and four are set below the plaza. Facilities include exhibition galleries, convention and seminar rooms, a design museum, and a library and education centre.
Voids puncturing the surface of the park offer a look down into the spaces below, and also allow daylight to permeate the building.
The building opened on 21 March to mark the start of Korean Fashion Week, but is also hosting five art and design exhibitions, alongside a collection of Korean art from the Kansong Art Museum.
Here’s the project description from Zaha Hadid Architects:
Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP)
The DDP has been designed as a cultural hub at the centre of Dongdaemun, a historic district of Seoul that is now renowned for its 24-hour shopping and cafes. DDP is a place for people of all ages; a catalyst for the instigation and exchange of ideas and for new technologies and media to be explored. The variety of public spaces within DDP include Exhibition Halls, Convention Halls, Design Museum, Library, Lab and Archives, Children’s Education Centre, Media Centre, Seminar Rooms and Sky Lounge; enabling DDP to present the widest diversity of exhibitions and events that feed the cultural vitality of the city.
The DDP is an architectural landscape that revolves around the ancient city wall and cultural artefacts discovered during archaeological excavations preceding DDP’s construction. These historic features form the central element of DDP’s composition; linking the park, plaza and city together.
The design is the very specific result of how the context, local culture, programmatic requirements and innovative engineering come together – allowing the architecture, city and landscape to combine in both form and spatial experience – creating a whole new civic space for the city.
The DDP Park is a place for leisure, relaxation and refuge – a new green oasis within the busy urban surroundings of Dongdaemun. The design integrates the park and plaza seamlessly as one, blurring the boundary between architecture and nature in a continuous, fluid landscape. Voids in the park’s surface give visitors glimpses into the innovative world of design below, making the DDP an important link between the city’s contemporary culture, emerging nature and history.
The 30,000 square metre park reinterprets the spatial concepts of traditional Korean garden design: layering, horizontality, blurring the relationship between the interior and the exterior – with no single feature dominating the perspective. This approach is further informed by historic local painting traditions that depict grand visions of the ever-changing aspects of nature.
DDP encourages many contributions and innovations to feed into each other; engaging the community and allowing talents and ideas to flourish. In combination with the city’s exciting public cultural programs, DDP is an investment in the education and inspiration of future generations.
DDP’s design and construction sets many new standards of innovation. DDP is the first public project in Korea to implement advanced 3-dimensional digital construction services that ensure the highest quality and cost controls. These include 3-dimensional Building Information Modelling (BIM) for construction management and engineering coordination, enabling the design process to adapt with the evolving client brief and integrate all engineering requirements.
These innovations have enabled the team building DDP to control the construction with much greater precision than conventional processes and improve efficiencies. Implementing such construction technologies make DDP one of Korea’s most innovative and technological advanced constructions to date.
DDP opens to the public on 21 March 2014 by hosting Korean Fashion Week. DDP will also host five separate design and art exhibitions featuring works by modern designers as well as the prized collection of traditional Korean art of the Kansong Art Museum.
This shell-like concrete structure with triangular slices is an auditorium designed by Luxembourg studio Valentiny HVP Architects for an annual music festival in the Brazilian town of Trancoso (+ slideshow).
Nearly complete, the Teatro Mozarteum Brasileiro will provide a performance venue for the Música em Trancoso, a week-long music festival that takes place every March in the popular beach town on Brazil’s Bahia coast.
The festival was founded by architect François Valentiny of Valentiny HVP Architects, with partners Sabine Lovatelli, Reinold Geiger and Carlos Eduardo Bittencourt. Now in its third year, the event will have its own permanent auditorium capable of hosting indoor and outdoor audiences.
Two large triangular openings in the curved concrete facade provide entrances for the two separate seating areas. These are positioned alongside one other and can accommodate up to 1100 people each.
A neighbouring structure, known as the facilities building, houses ancillary spaces, including rehearsal rooms, meeting areas and a bar.
The triangular windows of this building are decorated with engraved bronze panels, created by Brazilian artist Maria Bonomi.
“The engravings refer to both the local nature with its impressive cliffs and the birth of the Brazilian nation,” said the studio.
Photography is by Jean de Matteis and Valentiny HVP Architects.
Here’s a project description from Valentiny HVP Architects:
Música in Trancoso Festival
The Música em Trancoso 2014 Festival, to be held March 15th through March 22nd, the third grand event that celebrates arts, promotes education and transforms music as a tool for social integration, announces this year’s wide range of activities.
After two years of meticulous planning, the first Música em Trancoso Festival was held in March 2012. It was the result of the dream of four friends, music lovers and social activists who wanted to create an event to bring together young musicians and established artists while at the same time promoting the natural beauty of the Trancoso region and stimulating economic and social development.
The Festival’s critical and popular success was immediate and can be measured by the outstanding performances of more than 200 musicians before 10,000 spectators.
Every year for eight days in a series of free concerts and accompanying musical events between Carnival and Easter, the village of Trancoso welcomes performers and soloists of international recognition in classical music as well as the greatest names in Brazilian popular music.
Its founders are Sabine Lovatelli, president of Mozarteum Brasileiro, one of the most acclaimed associations devoted to the diffusion of classical music in Brazil; Reinold Geiger, president of the L’Occitane group; Carlos Eduardo Bittencourt, entrepreneur from Trancoso, Bahia; and the Luxembourgish architect François Valentiny, internationally known for designing theatres and cultural venues.
Música em Trancoso has three interrelated activities, which take place throughout the event: – Performances at the Teatro Mozarteum Brasileiro. – Masterclasses in the “Facilities” building, adjoining the theatre – Music Initiation Classes for children and teens from public schools in the Trancoso and Arraial d’Ajuda region
The Mozarteum Brasileiro Theatre
From the bold design by architect François Valentiny, the Mozarteum Brasileiro Theatre has two different overlapped audiences, one indoor and one outdoor, each with 1,100 seats.
Design as well as acoustics of the theatre, are in charge of Valentiny architects, Luxemburg, known for their designs of cultural venues including the Concert Hall Saarbrücken (Germany), the House of Mozart – Kleines Festspielhaus Salzburg (Austria) and the Luxemburg Pavilion Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
The Mozarteum Brasileiro Theatre also includes an annex, “The Facilities” building, with eight rehearsal rooms, spacious bar and meeting rooms. With a design which contrasts curves with triangular openings, totally integrated with the natural environment of Trancoso, the building brings imposing panels, etched in bronze, from the renowned Brazilian artist Maria Bonomi. The engravings refer to both the local nature with its impressive cliffs and the birth of the Brazilian nation.
News: British designer Thomas Heatherwick has unveiled plans to create a new art gallery at the V&A Waterfront museum in Cape Town by hollowing out sections of a grain silo complex.
Presented at the Design Indaba 2014 conference this week, Heatherwick Studio‘s proposal is to give the V&A Waterfront a building dedicated to contemporary African art within the cluster of 42 concrete tubes that make up a historic grain silo structure.
“How do you turn 42 vertical concrete tubes into a place to experience contemporary culture? Our thoughts wrestled with the extraordinary physical facts of the building,” explained Thomas Heatherwick.
“There is no large open space within the densely packed tubes and it is not possible to experience these volumes from inside,” he continued. “Rather than strip out the evidence of the building’s industrial heritage, we wanted to find a way to enjoy and celebrate it. We could either fight a building made of concrete tubes or enjoy its tube-iness.”
A elliptical section will be hollowed out from the centre of the nine-storey building to create a grand atrium that will be filled with light from a glass roof overhead. Some silo chambers will be carved open at ground level to accommodate exhibition galleries, while others will accommodate elevators.
Heatherwick added: “Unlike many conversions of historic buildings that have grand spaces ready to be repurposed, this building has none. The project has become about imagining an interior carved from within an infrastructural object whilst celebrating the building’s character.”
Layers of render and paint will be removed from the existing facades to reveal the raw concrete of the silos, while windows will be created from bulging transparent pillows.
“Thomas Heatherwick understood how to interpret the industrial narrative of the building, and this was the major breakthrough,” said V&A Waterfront CEO David Green. “His design respects the heritage of the building while bringing iconic design and purpose to the building.”
Named Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), the building will be a partnership between V&A Waterfront and entrepreneur Jochen Zeitz, whose art collection will provide the museum’s permanent exhibition within some of the 80 proposed galleries.
Education facilities and sit-specific exhibition areas will be provided within the existing underground tunnels. Other features will include a rooftop sculpture garden, an art conservation facility, bookshops, and cafe and restaurant areas.
Heatherwick will partner with local firms Van Der Merwe Miszewski, Rick Brown Associates and Jacobs Parker on the delivery and fit out of the museum.
Read on for the press release from V&A Waterfront:
V&A Waterfront unveils architectural plans by Heatherwick Studio for the historic Grain Silo Complex
Imagine forty‐two 33-metre high concrete tubes each with a diameter of 5.5 metres, with no open space to experience the volume from within. Imagine redesigning this into a functional space that will not only pay tribute to its original industrial design and soul, but will become a major, not-for-profit cultural institution housing the most significant collection of contemporary art from Africa and its Diaspora.
The brief given to Heatherwick Studio was to reimagine the Grain Silo Complex at the V&A Waterfront with an architectural intervention inspired by its own historic character. The project called for a solution that would be unique for Africa and create the highest possible quality of exhibition space for the work displayed inside.
The V&A Waterfront’s challenge to repurpose what was once the tallest building on the Cape Town skyline caught the imagination of internationally acclaimed designer Thomas Heatherwick and his innovative team of architects.
This was a chance to do more than just appropriate a former industrial building to display art, but to imagine a new kind of museum in an African context.
The R500‐million redevelopment project, announced in November 2013 as a partnership between the V&A Waterfront and Jochen Zeitz will retain and honour the historic fabric and soul of the building while transforming the interior into a unique, cutting‐edge space to house the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA). Considered the most extensive and representative collection of contemporary art from Africa, the Zeitz Collection has been gifted in perpetuity to this non‐profit institution by ex‐Puma CEO and Chairman, Jochen Zeitz. The collection will be showcased in 9,500m2 of custom‐designed space spread over nine floors, of which 6,000 m2 will be dedicated exhibition space.
Heatherwick Studio, based in London, is recognised internationally for projects including the UK Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, The London 2012 Olympic Cauldron, the New Bus for London and the redevelopment of Pacific Place, a 640,000m2 complex in the centre of Hong Kong.
For the Zeitz MOCAA project, Heatherwick Studio will partner with three local delivery partners; Van Der Merwe Miszewski (VDMMA), Rick Brown Associates (RBA) and Jacobs Parker. Jacobs Parker will be the lead designer for the Museum fit out.
The key challenge has been to preserve the original industrial identity of the building, which is heritage listed, and to retain choice pieces of machinery to illustrate and maintain its early working character. Heatherwick Studio has met the brief with characteristic boldness and creative flair. The final design reveals a harmonious union of concrete and metal with crisp white spaces enveloped in light.
The solution developed by Heatherwick Studio was to carve galleries and a central circulation space from the silos’ cellular concrete structure to create an exceptionally spacious, cathedral‐like central atrium filled with light from an overhead glass roof. The architects have cut a cross‐section through eight of the central concrete tubes. The result will be an oval atrium surrounded by concrete shafts overhead and to the sides. Light streaming through the new glass roof will accentuate the roundness of the tubes. The chemistry of these intersecting geometries creates an extraordinary display of edges, achieved with advanced concrete cutting techniques. This atrium space will be used for monumental art commissions not seen in Africa until this construction.
The other silo bins will be carved away above ground level leaving the rounded exterior walls intact. Inside pristine white cubes will provide gallery spaces not only for the Zeitz MOCAA permanent collection, but also for international travelling exhibitions. Zeitz MOCAA will have 80 galleries, 18 education areas, a rooftop sculpture garden, a state of the art storage and conservation area, and Centres for Performative Practice, the Moving Image, Curatorial Excellence and Education. Heatherwick Studios have designed all the necessary amenities for a public institution of this scale including bookstores, a restaurant and bar, coffee shop, orientation rooms, a donors’ room, fellows’ room and various reading rooms. The extraordinary collection of old underground tunnels will be re‐engineered to create unusual education and site specific spaces for artists to dialogue with the original structure.
Cylindrical lifts rise inside bisected tubes and stairs spiral upwards like giant drill bits. The shafts are capped with strengthened glass that can be walked over, drawing light down into the building.
The monumental facades of the silos and the lower section of the tower are maintained without inserting new windows. The thick layers of render and paint are removed to reveal the raw beauty of the original concrete.
From the outside, the greatest visible change is the creation of special pillowed glazing panels, inserted into the existing geometry of the grain elevator’s upper floors, which bulge outward as if gently inflated. By night, this transforms the building’s upper storeys into a glowing lantern or beacon in the harbour.
An aluminium canopy speckled with triangular perforations shelters the space between old and new buildings at Mexico‘s National Film Archive and Film Institute, recently renovated by Rojkind Arquitectos (+ slideshow).
Mexican firm Rojkind Arquitectos was tasked with upgrading the existing facilities of the campus in Xoco, south of Mexico City, as well as adding extra cinema screens, an outdoor amphitheatre and additional storage vaults for the film archive.
Rebranded as Cineteca Nacional Siglo XXI, the complex is used a cut-through from a local metro station, which prompted the architects to create a sheltered space at the centre of the campus that functions as both a public gathering area and a lobby for the buildings.
“We didn’t want it to feel like you’re in the lobby of a commercial cinema, we wanted it to feel more like a university campus, with everything floating in a park” said studio founder Michel Rojkind.
The aluminium-clad canopy curves downwards to form the facade of a pair of new buildings. These accommodate four extra screening rooms, bringing the overall total up to ten, and create a two-storey zone for shops, cafes and seating areas.
“The added amenities have turned the campus into a favourite gathering space not only for moviegoers but also for Xoco residents and workers who have appropriated the space as if it were their backyard,” said the design team.
Two archive vaults were added to the existing four, making room for 50,000 extra reels of film, and a museum dedicated to the history of Latin American cinema was constructed.
Car parking areas previously dotted around the campus have been consolidated into a single six-storey building, creating space for planted landscaping and the new 750-seat amphitheatre.
Photography is by Paul Rivera, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s a project description from Rojkind Arquitectos:
Cineteca Nacional Siglo XXI
Located in the southern quadrant of Mexico City, the National Film Archive and Film Institute of Mexico is home to the most important film heritage of Latin America. Its campus occupied an underutilised site of considerable dimensions within the strangled town of Xoco. This historic town, once surrounded by agricultural land, now sits deep within the urban sprawl and faces extinction due to economic and political pressures from developers and municipal authorities which covet its privileged location.
Photograph by Jaime Navarro
The existing complex dated from 1982, when a fire destroyed part of the campus and most of its archive, and was a “temporary” facility never well suited for its purpose. Additionally, thousands of people cross the grounds daily as they walked to and from one of the city’s nearby metro station, Estación Metro Coyoacan.
Facing total renewal, Cineteca’s original project brief included the expansion and renovation of the existing complex incorporating additional vault space and four more screening rooms. But in response to the immediate urban condition, additional restorative work needed to be done to reclaim part of the site as public space, give relief to the dense new-development – filled surroundings of Xoco and accommodate the constant flow of pedestrians and casual visitors.
Photograph by Jaime Navarro
First, surface parking was consolidated into a six-storey structure freeing 40% of the site. Then the pedestrian friendly “back entrance”, located across the street from the historic town’s cemetery, was reactivated – 70% of Cineteca patrons use public transportation and arrive by foot. The reclaimed space now houses the new program organised along two axes, one perpendicular to the street of Real Mayorazgo becoming the main pedestrian entrance and the other perpendicular to Av. México-Coyoacán for both car and pedestrian access.
Photograph by Jaime Navarro
The axes intersection became a new 80m x 40m public plaza sheltered from the weather by a hovering canopy connecting the existing complex with the new screening rooms. Clad in composite aluminium panels, with varied size triangular perforations, the roof structure wraps around the new screening rooms and becomes their facade. The sheltered space functions as the foyer for the old and new screening rooms and can accommodate additional program options such as concerts, theatre, exhibitions, etc.
An outdoor amphitheatre, extensive landscaping and new retail spaces were added to the original program expanding the possibilities for social and cultural interaction and exchanges, and giving the complex a university campus feel.
The new screening rooms seat 180 each and the existing screening rooms were updated with current technology. Overall the complex can now seat 2,495 visitors in indoor theatres. The outdoor amphitheatre has a 750-person capacity. Two new film vaults were also added to the site, increasing Cineteca’s archive capacity by 50,000 reels of film. Parking capacity was also increased by 25% to a total of 528 cars.
The thousands of people that use the grounds everyday now find welcoming unrestricted public space: commuters still walk back and forth across the campus in the morning and evening, medical staff from a nearby hospital stop by to eat their lunches at noon, students hang out at the park in the afternoon, and moviegoers attend free outdoor events in the evening. The added amenities have turned the campus into a favourite gathering space not only for moviegoers but also for Xoco residents and workers who have appropriated the space as if it were their backyard.
Two dance studios at the top of this copper-clad music conservatory in Paris by local studio Basalt Architecture project outwards from the facade to capture plenty of natural daylight (+ slideshow).
Basalt Architecture designed the Conservatoire Claude Debussy for a site on the edge of the 17th arrondissement, where it sits between classic Haussmann buildings to the south and more recent tower blocks to the north.
The boxes containing the dance studios cantilever from the northern facade and appear to reach towards the nearby residential towers.
“Creating a dialogue with the city, dance halls in the upper part seem detached with a particular volume that meets the residential buildings to the north,” the architects told Dezeen. “Largely glazed, they offer soft and uniform light, oriented to the north.”
The conservatory’s entire exterior is clad in a shimmering skin of copper panels, which reference the colour of the nearby sandstone church of Sainte-Odile and the recent residential buildings.
“Copper allowed us to create a facade whose playful folds and perforations play with light by filtering sunlight during the day and sifting light outward at night,” said the architects. “Copper is used as a natural material and its oxidation participates in the life of the building.”
Hinged shutters on the facade facing the busy Rue de Courcelles feature perforated patterns which are arranged in different configurations to produce a random effect and to help shade the studios.
A 300-seat auditorium at the centre of the building steps down from the ground floor to a stage at basement level, with surrounding circulation spaces leading to other facilities including practice rooms and the dance studios.
Wide corridors receive natural light from central skylights and windows surrounding a small courtyard, lending the interior a degree of transparency that contrasts with the monolithic facade.
Windows allow views into some of the dance studios and practice rooms from outside or from internal circulation areas.
Materials throughout have been chosen for their practical, ecological and acoustic properties.
The courtyard on the second floor features wooden decking, walls and a raised planted bed.
The architects sent us the following project description:
Music Conservatory in Paris’ 17th Arrondissement
Building a new conservatory in Paris’s 17th arrondissement is part and parcel of a new urban script that will mark the morphology and profile of this building located on the edge of Paris.
Located on a plot of land between two high-rise buildings, the conservatory stands at the interface of architectural scripts linked to the city’s building heritage. On the edge of the 17th arrondissement to the south Haussmann-style buildings look across at social housing of a more recent period. So the conservatory is located at a strategic point due to its theme, i.e. the 17th arrondissement’s history is closely linked with French music, and building this new edifice has to be worthy of this past.
It is strategic due to its urban location, located as it is on the rue de Courcelles, an important corridor for entering the city with its sight-line extending from the Boulevard Périphérique (ring-road) between two architectural eras and styles.
It is also the beginning of a new building fringe on the rue de Courcelles while waiting for the Consistory building. Aligned along the rue de Courcelles, the project is an oscillation from down to up through the play of external surfaces. It sends a strong signal through the city, a 20-metre-high benchmark in a green alley dominated by vegetation.
Visible from the Périphérique, its architectural treatment identifies it as a value-adding element by separating it from the publicity landscape that exists along the Parisian ring-road. Given its appearance and location, it is in constant dialogue with the city. On the one hand the dance studios in the upper floors with their expansive windows participate actively in the building’s visual signal by standing out from the city with a specific volume that responds to the apartment buildings to the north. On the other side to the south, the building’s pleated skin and its perforations that dialogue with the classic Haussmann-style buildings with their sturdy architecture.
Our project has been designed from inside to outside; we have conceived of the conservatory as a place for exchange, emulation, a crossroads of practices. This is the idea that has driven the project from the auditorium at its heart to the music rooms. Because that is how we have perceived the facilities. A place where people play, learn, dance and create. Sounds and movement emerge from this swirl of activities, this school of practice. Which is how the volumes came to life: a skin perforated by the beat of the melody that emerges and takes shape in the outer walls.
The script is there with the volume folding and undulating in the light and the beat of the perforations that enliven it by day and by night. A place of movement and emulation, the interior and exterior volumes shimmer and move, reinforced by the play of passageways and aerial walkways, the materials sometimes reflecting, sometimes absorbing the light like the paramount acoustics of the place.
Although the exterior volume, an urban signal and catalyst of the rue de Courcelles’ recomposition, is intended to be monolithic with shape and folds that enwrap it–like the works of Christo–we have sought to dematerialise the core interior space to render it impalpable and vital.
Local firm Brasil Arquitetura designed the expansion of the existing Praça das Artes complex, situated in a densely built neighbourhood of São Paulo, around a central plaza and paved thoroughfare that extends to the streets bordering three sides of the site.
A complex arrangement of modular buildings interspersed among the existing urban fabric accommodates various events spaces, facilities and infrastructure for the centre, which is home to several musical and dance organisations.
In some places the new additions project outwards to create sheltered walkways or hover in gaps between other buildings, marking entrances to the centre and presenting a uniform presence on all sides of the site.
“The new buildings are mainly positioned along the boundaries of the site and, to a large degree, lifted off the ground,” said the architects. “Thus, it was possible to create open spaces and generous circulation areas, resulting in the plaza which gives the project its name.”
The historic facades of a former musical conservatory and a cinema have been retained and integrated into the scheme, with the conservatory undergoing a programme of restoration including the renovation of its first floor concert hall and the creation of an exhibition space on the raised ground floor.
“These historic buildings are physical and symbolic records, remains of the city of the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century,” the architects explained. “Restored in all aspects and converted for new uses, they will sustain a life to be invented. Incorporated into the project, they became unconfined from neighbouring constructions and gained new meanings.”
The new buildings are predominantly rendered in concrete coloured with ochre pigment, with a tower housing offices, toilets, changing rooms and building services standing out due to its red pigmented concrete surfaces.
An angular staircase encased in concrete and glass connects the plaza with the first floor of the tower, providing access to the concert hall.
Windows scattered across the facades sit in places where acoustic performance is a key consideration, while floating floor slabs, acoustic walls and ceilings made from gypsum and rock wool also help to optimise acoustics throughout the building.
PRAÇA DAS ARTES Performing Arts Centre – São Paulo
“… one thing is the physical place, different to the place for the project. The place is not a point of departure, but rather a point of arrival. Realising what this place is, is already doing the project.” – Álvaro Siza
Some architectural projects are dominant in large open spaces, in favoured conditions and visible from a distance. Other projects need to adapt to adverse conditions, minimal spaces, small wedges of long plots, leftovers between existing constructions, where the parameters for developing the project are dictated by these factors.
Praça das Artes is part of the latter category. It is not by a voluntary decision or by opting for one or the other approach, by this or the other direction to be taken, that lead us to a conceptual choice and conclusion. It is the very nature of the place; our comprehension of it as a space resulting from many years – or centuries – of socio-political factors that shaped the city.
To understand the place not only as a physical object, as Siza says, but as a space of tension, with conflicts of interest, characterised by underuse or even abandonment, all this counts. If on the one hand the Praça das Artes project has to account for the demands of a programme of various new functions, related to the arts of music and dance, it also has to clearly and transformatively respond to an existing physical and spatial situation with an intense life and a strongly present neighbourhood. Moreover, it must create new public common spaces using the urban geography, local history and contemporary values of public life.
We may say that, in this case, to design a project is to capture and to invent a place at the same time and in the same strategy.
The place of the project
The physical place, in the centre of São Paulo, is made up of a series of plots that are connected in the middle of the urban block and have fronts to three streets. This situation is a result of the mistakes of an urbanism that was always subordinated to the idea of the plot, the logic of private property. As almost the entire city centre, the area is chaotic in terms of building volumes and common sense principles of sunlight and natural ventilation. It is an accumulation of underused or vacant spaces, abandoned, forgotten, awaiting to be of interest to the city once again.
The architecture of the former Dramatic and Musical Conservatory and the Cairo Cinema portray marks and memories of different eras. At the same time, the place presents a privileged situation in view of its surrounding humanity, being full of diversity, vitality, a mixture of social classes, conflicts and tensions typical of a large city, living together and the search for tolerance. Shortly, it is a place rich in urbanity.
The programme
The project has a rich and complex programme with a focus on musical and dance activities, besides public uses of coexistence, which permeate the entire complex.
The module of the Resident Performing Arts companies houses the Professional bodies: the Municipal Symphonic Orchestra, the Experimental Repertory Orchestra, the Lyrical Choir, the São Paulo Choir, the City Ballet Company and the Municipal String Quartet. The module faces rua Formosa (Anhangabaú) and incorporates the façade of the former Cairo Cinema.
The module of the Schools and public uses accommodates educational and common spaces – the Municipal Music School, the Municipal Dance School, a restaurant and common space. The module occupies volumes that lift up from the ground on avenida São João and rua Conselheiro Crispiniano. The street level underneath the building volumes is practically unobstructed. The kiosks along the edge of the plaza, newspaper booths, cafés, snack bars, a library – are a continuation of the existing uses along the street, bringing the urban life to the interior of the new architectural complex.
The module with a large public car parking occupies the underground floors on avenida São João (the former Saci Cinema) and rua Conselheiro Crispiniano.
The module of the Conservatory includes the restoration and adaptation of the former Dramatic and Musical Conservatory and a new tower on the plot next to it, facing avenida São João. On the raised ground floor of the historic building there is a space for exhibitions and events. The concert hall on the first floor was carefully restored to once again stage musical shows. The new tower next to the Conservatory houses the arts collections and historic archives of all the bodies of the project. The addition to the historic building houses the vertical circulation system, administrative offices and building services.
The Project
Since the initial site study, the former Conservatory, restored and converted into a concert hall and an exhibition space, represented the anchor for the project. The new buildings are mainly positioned along the boundaries of the site and, to a large degree, lifted off the ground. Thus, it was possible to create open spaces and generous circulation areas, resulting in the plaza which gives the project its name. This paved plaza can be accessed from rua Conselheiro Crispiniano, avenida São João and, in the next construction phase, also from rua Formosa (Anhangabaú) via a flight of stairs, which connect the different levels of the streets.
The new volumes reach from the centre outwards towards the three adjacent streets. A series of interconnected buildings in exposed concrete, with ochre pigments, accommodate the various functions and is the main element establishing a new dialogue with the neighbourhood and with the remaining constructions that will be incorporated into the project, the former Conservatory and the façade and foyer of the former Cairo Cinema.
These historic buildings are physical and symbolic records, remains of the city of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Restored in all aspects and converted for new uses, they will sustain a life to be invented. Incorporated them into the project, they became unconfined from neighbouring constructions and gained new meanings. The historic building on Avenida São João came into being as a commercial exhibition space for pianos in 1986, then gained an extension to become a hotel and shortly after was transformed into a musical conservatory, even before the creation of the Municipal Theatre, for which it is a precursor, in certain ways, and the training centre for the musicians who would then make up its orchestra.
A new addition to the Conservatory was built, which works as a pivot point for all departments and sectors within the complex. All administrative offices, vertical circulation (stairs and lifts), entrance and distribution halls, toilets, changing rooms, and shafts for building services are concentrated in this building, which is the only one coloured with red pigments. Towards the plaza, a sculptural triangular staircase built in concrete and glass allows for a direct access between the level of the plaza and the first floor, where the concert hall is located.
Besides the coloured concrete, the windows represent an important part of project. They are either externally attached or placed within the opening. In the rooms with special acoustic requirements, the windows are fixed and attached to the building from the outside with 16mm-thick glass; in other spaces awning windows are used.
In order to satisfy the high requirements in preventing the propagation of noise and vibrations, specific details were used, such as floating slabs, acoustic walls and ceilings made of gypsum panels and rock wool, a system called acoustic isolation.
The administrative office areas of the extension to the Conservatory are equipped with a raised floor, which means that electrical, logistical, and communication installations can be adapted freely for allowing a greater flexibility in the arrangements of the work spaces. It was possible to achieve large spans without intermediate columns by using shear walls, thus guaranteeing complete flexibility of the internal spaces and unobstructed external spaces on the plaza level.
Ornamental doors and windows sit within recesses that appear to have been carved away from the coarse granite walls of this mausoleum in Minneapolis by American architecture firm HGA (+ slideshow).
HGA designed the Garden Mausoleum for Minnesota’s Lakewood Cemetery, a complex first established in 1871, after being asked to create burial space for 10,000 people, a new funeral chapel and a reception area for post-service gatherings.
Much of the structure is set into the side of a hill, allowing the neat surrounding lawns to extend up over the roof. All of the emerging walls are clad with dark blocks of granite that contrast with the bright white mosaic tiles lining their recesses.
Glass doors sheathed in decorative bronze grilles lead inside the building, where architect Joan Soranno and John Cook have used a variety of materials that include rich mahogany, oak, white marble and gleaming onyx to give colour and texture to walls and floors.
“Material selections draw on memorial architectural tradition as well as Lakewood’s own history,” they said. “Conventional funerary materials like granite, marble and bronze are reinterpreted within a twenty-first century architectural expression.”
A square doorway punctures a wall of granite within the building, leading from the main reception to a series of subterranean crypts and columbarium rooms that accommodate both coffins and urns.
Rectangular skylights bring a single shaft of daylight into each of the crypts, while the columbarium rooms each feature one circular roof opening that emerges on the roof at the centre of a grassy mound.
“The Lakewood Garden Mausoleum builds its meaning from the most common and indelible aspects of human experience – the immediacy of light and dark, the immutability of squares and circles, and the echo of stone surfaces,” said the architects.
Small courtyards are slotted between the crypts and are fronted by floor-to-ceiling windows that frame views out across the cemetery gardens.
Here’s a project description from HGA Architect and Engineers:
Lakewood Cemetery Garden Mausoleum
Since its founding in 1871, Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis has served as the foremost resting place for Minnesota’s distinguished citizens. Familiar names like Humphrey, Wellstone, Pillsbury, and Walker are found here, among a long list of local pioneers, heroes, civic leaders, industrialists and art patrons. The private, non-sectarian cemetery is laid over 250 acres of rolling landscape adjoining the city’s historic Grand Round’s parkway system. Lakewood Cemetery’s historical importance and impeccably manicured grounds make it a treasured landmark and community asset in the City’s Uptown neighbourhood.
Governed as a non-profit from its beginning, the Lakewood Cemetery Association recognised the need for prudent planning to ensure its vitality for the indefinite future. Despite the broad expanses of Lakewood’s grounds, a mere 25 acres remain available for future development. With an existing 1967 Mausoleum nearing capacity (due largely to the increased acceptance and interest in above ground burial and cremation) the Cemetery’s Board of Trustees commissioned a comprehensive Master Plan in 2003.
The lynchpin of the plan called for a new Mausoleum to expand above ground options for crypt and cremation burials, and to accommodate contemporary memorial rites and practices. The project, a new “Garden Mausoleum” called for burial space for over ten thousand people, a committal chapel, a much needed reception space for post-service gatherings, and new landscaping for the surrounding four acre site.
Challenged with the task of adding a large structure – 24,500 square feet – to a much beloved place, Joan Soranno, FAIA and John Cook, FAIA of HGA Architects and Engineers quickly committed themselves to a strategy that protected and enhanced the cemetery’s historic landscape. A large building, no matter how artful, was bound to detract from Lakewood’s pastoral beauty. Following an extensive site analysis, Joan and John chose to locate the building along the northern edge of a 1960’s era “sunken garden.” By placing the new Garden Mausoleum between the existing, two-storey mausoleum on the west and the cemetery’s 1910 Byzantine styled memorial chapel on the east, development is clustered around one location near the cemetery’s entry. This has the benefit of consolidating much of the high traffic and infrastructure to a discrete precinct within the grounds, leaving the vast majority of the original landscape and critical view sheds undisturbed.
Entering the cemetery from the main entry gates, visitors approach the new Garden Mausoleum along one of the cemetery’s many meandering roadways. Pivoting around a mass of towering pines and ancient gnarled oaks, the roadway gently inflects toward the Mausoleum entry – set back from the road with a small turn-around drive. A simple mass of split-faced grey granite, the entry’s chiseled clerestory windows and canted recesses hint at the building’s interior functions and complexity, while reducing the structure’s visual heft.
To the east of the entry, a green roof planted over the lower garden level seamlessly extends the cemetery’s manicured lawn to a newly created overlook. Minimally detailed railings, terrace paving, grass, and Juniper shrubs ensure uninterrupted views to such critical features as the nearby Chapel and the iconic Fridley and Pence monuments. Though essentially a flat lawn, neatly angled grass mounds dot the new turf like minimalist landform sculptures. The projections contain the skylights for the building’s subterranean spaces – a first suggestion to the visitor of the fusion between the building and landscape.
The Garden Mausoleum entrance at street level represents only a small fraction of the total building mass, and includes a reception room and lounge, a small business office, and catering facilities. A full two-thirds of the building lies below, tucked quietly into a south-facing hill and overlooking the lower garden.
At the main entry, framing a pair of bronze doors, intricate patterns of white mosaic tiles trace arcs and infinite loops across billowing surfaces neatly inscribed into the dark granite mass. The contrast of textures – light and dark, rough and smooth, rustic and refined – call upon both visual and tactile senses. The large glass doors, sheathed in bronze grilles that repeat the looping, circular motif of the mosaic tile, usher visitors into a serene space of folded mahogany walls, abundant prisms of daylight and distant views across a newly landscaped lower garden.
A generously scaled stair draws visitors from the entry to the lower garden level. To the west, a sweeping Venetian plaster wall directs mourners to a small chapel for committal ceremonies. Mitigating the committal chapel’s exposure to direct southern sun, tall window recesses are cut at deeply raked angles into the thick exterior wall – a strategy that both moderates the light entering the contemplative space and ensures a degree of privacy for grieving family members.
Returning to the lobby, a simple square opening cut into the rough granite wall marks the threshold between the active and communal spaces of the mausoleum, and the places of burial, remembrance, and individual contemplation. Stretching east, a single long hallway strings together alternating bays of columbaria (for cremated remains) and crypt rooms (for caskets). To the north, chambers are built entirely below grade, with each room illuminated by a single skylight; rectangular openings for crypt rooms, and circular occuli for columbaria. Here, beams of daylight trace arcs across the Alabama White marble walls. To the south, the projecting crypt rooms and interstitial columbaria form a series of intimately scaled courtyards, with each space directly tied to the lower garden’s landscape through large windows.
While geometrically similar, each interior chamber and projecting room is distinguished by subtle design variations that give each space a distinct personality and mood. Inset floors of luminous onyx alternate between honey yellow, jade green, and coral pink. Window and skylight orientations rotate and shift between rooms, variously framing a view to near or distant horizons, up to the tree canopy, or clear blue sky. The design recognises that in contemplating death – as in living matters – people have diverse perspectives and desire uniqueness. It respects that in designing a final resting place for ten thousand people, individuality, human scale, and a sensory connection to the natural world are paramount.
Material selections draw on memorial architectural tradition as well as Lakewood’s own history. Conventional funerary materials like granite, marble and bronze are reinterpreted within a 21st century architectural expression. The polychrome Chapel mosaics, for example, serve as a springboard for the white marble and glass tile pattern that owes as much to Byzantium and the organic tracery of the Chicago School as it does to geometric algorithms and funerary symbolism.
Included as a significant feature of the Garden Mausoleum project, the redesign of the four-acre site strengthens the connections between Lakewood’s distinctive architecture, while offering a serene setting for both small family services and larger community events. Formal relationships between the Chapel, the existing Mausoleum and the new Garden Mausoleum are reinforced by double rows of Autumn Blaze maple trees, a simple arrangement of walkways and parterres, and a long rectangular reflecting pool. Additionally, a grove of Hawthorne trees ameliorates the existing outdoor crypt walls on the east, while multiple exterior stairs improve access between the lower garden and the adjoining historic burial plots.
The Lakewood Garden Mausoleum, true to the Cemetery’s non-sectarian mission, builds its meaning from the most common and indelible aspects of human experience – the immediacy of light and dark, the immutability of squares and circles, and the echo of stone surfaces. An unabashed 21st century building, the design of the Garden Mausoleum is not going to confuse anybody about what is old and what is new.
Already a remarkable place before the Mausoleum broke ground, Lakewood’s landscape and its small campus of buildings are enriched because it is there – framing a view, completing an edge, and embracing human scale. At this cherished haven within the city, architectural progress meets history with grace and a newfound vitality.
Lisbon office Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos has designed a Jewish cultural centre in the historic heart of Trancoso, Portugal, with a sharp corner that bisects two narrow cobbled streets (+ slideshow).
Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos teamed up with Oficina Ideias em linha to develop the Center for Interpretation of Jewish Culture Isaac Cardoso on a derelict corner plot in the heart of the city’s densely packed medieval streets, which were once known as Trancoso’s Jewish quarter.
“Starting from a ruined allotment, the aim was to re-erect a building that reinforces the corner geometry, still displaying an acute angle on the intersection of two narrow streets, and establishing a symbolic gesture in the context of Jewish urban culture,” said the architects.
The building’s outer surfaces are covered in a seemingly haphazard arrangement of granite slabs, with narrow windows allowing restricted views of the interior and adding to a feeling of solidity that echoes the construction of its traditional neighbours.
An entrance on the building’s west facade leads to a lobby and a narrow corridor that encircles a central room called the Master Pit.
“The massive character of the building is also reflected on the interior design and ‘excavated’ spaces, like a sequence of voids sculpted from within a large stone monolith,” the architects explained.
The double-height room at the building’s core acts as the main religious space and is influenced by historic Jewish synagogues. It contains a raised platform with a lectern for readings and a nave with wooden shutters.
A long aperture high up on one wall allows people on the upper storey to look down into the worship space.
A geometric pattern of boxy skylights channel daylight into the central room, which is completely clad in panels of wooden strips that give the space a warm tone.
The wooden cladding features relief decoration that accentuates the height of the space and is also used on the nave to create the appearance of columns and an arch.
The pointed corner of the centre contains an exhibition room with a large, low window facing the street.
A projection room is tucked away at the rear of the building, while the upper storey is used as a women’s room and additional exhibition space. Bathrooms and technical facilities are contained in the basement.
Center for Interpretation of Jewish Culture Isaac Cardoso
Object
The Interpretation Center was plotted in the dense urban fabric of a medieval fortified village, in an area once referred as the Jewish quarter of Trancoso. Starting from a ruined allotment, the aim was to re-erect a building that reinforces the corner geometry, still displaying an acute angle on the intersection of two narrow streets, and establishing a symbolic gesture in the context of Jewish urban culture.
Altogether, the irregular granite slab stereotomy and tiny fenestrations define the elevation towards the two confining streets. The massive character of the building is also reflected on the interior design and “excavated” spaces, like a sequence of voids sculpted from within a large stone monolith. For the exception on this sense of mass, the building is provided with the existence of a large glazing which allows visibility over the Master Pit, a core that enhances all the Jewish culture symbolism with the presence of water.
The excavated granite mass, where the openings are also crafted with a special plastic approach, prevents overall perception of interior space from the outside, also controlling lighting, recreating and reinterpreting some of the most expressive features of Jewish Architecture in Beira Interior region.
The main room, which refers to the sacred space of the Sephardic Synagogue and the Synagogue of Tomar (also in Portugal) has the most obvious inspiration, rising in the stony mass of the building on all its height, filtering the sunlight to the inside through a ceiling where the complex geometry veils and shapes the perception of all sacred space. This area differs from the others not only for its size, but also for the lining of the vertical strained panelling in glazed wood, providing an inner atmosphere bathed in golden light. The religious space is dominated by the texture and the sense of rising by the wood cladding of the walls, giving it a temperature and a particular colour and smell.
Given the small size of the building, unique geometry and privileged location within the urban medieval tissue of Trancoso, the option pointed towards one outer shell is insulated and coated with granite slabs providing a ventilated façade solution. The structure of reinforced concrete column / slab, with walls filled with brick masonry is fully lined, on the inside, with walls and ceilings of acoustic control plasterboard.
Interior details
Environment
Outside paving and coatings have the same nature, made with regional granite slabs, keeping the colours and textures of the urban environment inside the fortified village and castle guard.
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