Hasta La Ideas

French designer Claire Lavabre has made a mirror that only works when it’s placed in front of a dark shape painted on the wall.

A partial reflection is visible in the bevelled frame if it is placed in front of a white surface but the reflection becomes clear when the glass overlaps with dark matte paint.

Claire Lavabre used specially treated ultra-reflective glass that also retains high transparency. The effect is an enhanced version of looking at your reflection in a darkened window on a sunny day, or from a lit room when it’s dark outside.

Lavabre says she wanted to explore surfaces that are both reflective and transparent, overlapping images to create new perspectives. She’s proposed a series of six different geometric shapes and colours to be used with the frame. “In this way the mirror can be appropriated – people can choose the colour they prefer and it can adapt to different places,” Lavabre told Dezeen.

The project was developed during Lavabre’s studies at École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle (ENSCI) in Paris, where she graduated in December last year. It will be shown at the Design Parade 8 festival as part of an exhibition of work by ten young designers at Villa Noailles in Hyères, France, from 5 to 7 July.

New York designer Joe Doucet recently created a mirror as a tribute to victims of Hurricane Sandy that gives the impression the viewer is partially submerged, while Canadian studio The Practice of Everyday Design has designed a mirror that displays ghostly reflections on its buffed stainless steel surface – see more mirrors on Dezeen.

Here’s a short project description from the designer:

Reflet

In this project I had a particular interest in reflections. Reflections appear on surfaces that are transparent and reflective at the same time. A tree reflects in a lake, in a train window. I like the overlaying of different images. When we look through the surface it is transparent. The surface tends to disappear like glass. On the contrary, when we look at a reflection on glass, this surface exists. It finds a presence by sending us our own image.

A geometric shape is drawn on a wall with paint. The frame of the reflective surface is leant on the wall. When this geometric shape and the reflective surface intersect, the reflection increases and this installation finds use. The geometric shape’s colours and shapes are numerous. Reflection system: wood frame, glass, paint. Variable shape and size.

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Claire Lavabre appeared first on Dezeen.

This house in western England by London studio Paul Archer Design features a mirrored facade that slides across to cover the windows (+ slideshow).

Surrounded by gardens, Green Orchard house is designed to camouflage with the landscape, so Paul Archer added huge panels of polished aluminium to the walls. “The outer reflective panels will pick up the colours of the landscape, the idea being to make the structure almost invisible,” he says.

The panels are well insulated and connected to a motorised system, so that the client – Paul Archer’s mother – can transform the building into a thermally sealed box with relative ease.

The house has two storeys, including one that is sunken into the inclining landscape. The living room, dining room and kitchen occupy an L-shaped space on the ground floor and lead out to terraces on both the south-west and north-east elevations, designed to catch the sun at different points of the day.

The master bedroom is also on this floor, while three extra sleeping rooms are located on the sunken lower level. Part of this floor emerges from the ground, allowing enough space for a few high-level windows.

A wood-burning stove is positioned at the centre of the plan and provides all of the house’s heating. A 93-metre well supplies fresh water, which can be heated via thermal solar panels on the roof.

“Whilst unashamedly contemporary in its design, Green Orchard is a sensitive response to its location, integrating appropriate materials and functional details to create an innovative and tangible solution to current environmental issues,” says Archer.

Several buildings with mirrored walls have cropped on Dezeen recently. Others include an Australian visitor centre for botanic gardens and a six-sided art museum in Ohio.

See more mirrored buildings »
See more houses in the UK »

Photograph is by Will Pryce, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s the full project statement from Paul Archer:

Green Orchard: A Zero Carbon House
Compton Greenfield, South Gloucestershire, UK

Green Orchard is a new 200 sq m carbon-neutral house designed by Paul Archer Design. Set within 2,675 sq m of landscaped gardens in the green belt of South Gloucestershire, the house benefits from spectacular views over the Severn Estuary.

Having earned a reputation for highly contemporary residential extensions and renovations predominantly in an urban setting, Green Orchard is the practice’s first new-build detached single-family dwelling commission. The project brief called for a Californian case study house with green credentials, which would permit seamless outdoor/indoor living whilst delivering a zero carbon agenda.

The house replaces a dilapidated single-storey dwelling with a contemporary low-rise four-bedroom home. Set within landscaped gardens without the constraints imposed upon typical urban projects, Green Orchard is designed in the round, with all four elevations taking advantage of views out and access to the garden. Maximising its rural setting, the house adopts the methodology of a passivhaus typology without the single orientation.

The main living spaces and master bedroom are located on the ground floor with direct access to the garden. An excavated sunken level creates a second floor for additional sleeping accommodation, ensuring a low-rise profile that embraces the natural topography of the site.

The house incorporates four bedrooms (two of which have en-suite facilities), a main bathroom, a workshop space, kitchen, dining and living area. All living spaces are open-plan with a wood burning stove at the heart of the plan and plant room located on the floor below, to give a greater sense of openness and maximise views and sunlight. Two external terraces connect to the garden and are orientated to catch the sun at different times of the day.

The outer skin of the building is made of bespoke hand-crafted full-height panels, which are electronically motorised to slide open fully. The panels are highly insulated and allow the occupants to control and vary the thermal performance of the house depending on the time of the day and year. The panels are constructed of locally sourced timber and clad with mirrored aluminium to reflect the landscape and camouflage the structure in its surroundings.

The house and landscape have been designed with specific intention to reduce the consumption and requirement for energy: a wood-burning Stuv stove is the only heat source; water is supplied by a 93 metre bore hole; thermal solar panels on the roof yield heating for 80% of the house’s water; and photovoltaics provide all electric use when taken over the yearly cycle. A green roof embeds the property into the landscape, filtering out pollutants from the surrounding air and acts as an effective active insulation. It keeps the building cool in summer and warm in winter, reducing the requirement for excessive energy production.

Set in gardens cultivated by the client, Green Orchard is screened from its neighbouring properties and road frontage. A sunken driveway and raised garden reduces the visual impact of the house and planting provides a tranquil setting from which to enjoy the countryside views.

Green Orchard is the second house the practice has designed for the same client, practice director Paul Archer’s mother and her husband. The plan allows for easy navigation and access to all areas whilst generous room sizes and a flowing internal layout ensures that manoeuvrability is unhindered, an essential consideration when designing for a client in their later years.

An innovative house has been achieved on a modest budget by designing the entire house to accommodate modular off-the-shelf interior units. The client has taken a hands-on approach to deliver high quality finishes by contributing their own expertise, from the design and planting of the garden to the carpentry of the exterior sliding panels and manufacture of the interior glass balustrades.

Whilst unashamedly contemporary in its design, harnessing the latest in green technology, Green Orchard is a sensitive response to its location, integrating appropriate materials and functional details to create an innovative and tangible solution to current environmental issues, presenting a way forward in designing for a sustainable future.

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Paul Archer Design appeared first on Dezeen.

Always a high point of our NYC Design Week, Noho Design District has fast become a destination for up and coming and established designers looking to introduce their latest work outside the conventional confines of…

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Avec son projet Projecto Nuvem, l’artiste argentin Eduardo Coimbra nous propose de marcher à travers les nuages grâce à une superbe installation. Proposant une interaction avec les curieux s’approchant, cette création composée de 5 « lightboxs » de 4,7m de hauteur est à découvrir en images dans la suite.

This mirror-clad visitor centre by Australian firm Charles Wright Architects was designed to be invisible amongst the surrounding trees of the Cairns Botanic Gardens in Queensland.

Comprising two buildings and a dividing promenade, the visitor centre was designed as a gateway to the gardens, which contain a selection of tropical plants from northern Australian rainforests as well as from across Southeast Asia.

Charles Wright Architects drew inspiration from the suit worn by the alien-hunter in the 1987 movie Predator to give both buildings a reflective outer coating that would play down their impact on the park landscape. “We proposed a design which literally reflects the gardens as camouflage for the building,” explain the architects.

Rather than cover the surfaces with a single polished plane of metal, the architects added a series of flat panels that break the facade down into facets. Each one sits at an incrementally different angle and helps to muddle the reflected images.

The pedestrian promenade runs across the site from east to west. To the north, one building contains a cafe and exhibition area for visitors, with a multi-purpose hall and a courtyard amphitheatre, while to the south a second block accommodates staff offices that open out to a long and narrow terrace.

Both buildings have non-linear shapes, generated by the routes of predefined pathways and locations of mature trees. They also have to nestle against the landscape at one end where the ground starts to climb upwards around them.

Charles Wright Architects have offices in Melbourne and Shanghai. The firm also recently completed a house that can withstand powerful cyclones. See more architecture in Australia.

See more stories about mirrors on Dezeen, including a polished steel pavilion by Foster + Partners and a playground pavilion in Copenhagen.

Photography is by Patrick Bingham Hall.

Here’s a project description from Charles Wright Architects:

Cairns Botanic Gardens Visitors Centre

Conceptual framework

We set-out to design a “green” building which represents a paradigm shift for Cairns, moving away from the conventional building vernaculars toward new and progressive solutions that can be applied anywhere on a tropical latitude. There was a collective desire to attract both national and international attention, which would also aid in creating new opportunities and connections to existing facilities, communities and groups.

Public and cultural benefits

A new, iconic gateway into the botanic gardens and tanks arts centre precinct – “a democratic public space under-cover” – a challenging new architecture for the tropics which will act as an attractor to assist Cairns in its mission to be seen as a progressive city nationally and globally significant.

Relationship of built form to context

Council called for the building to be long, low and blending seamlessly with the surrounding environment (ideally invisible). We proposed a design which literally reflects the gardens as camouflage for the building with visual effect similar to the suit as worn by the alien hunter in the original 1987 Predator film. We sited the new building to straddle and activate the pedestrian promenade linking the gardens with the Arts Centre, acting as an open and flexible conduit into the interpretive and performative spaces.

Program resolution

The functional brief was very tight for the allotted site and constrained by existing paths, roads, easements, mature trees and a gradient that made the delivery of universal access particularly challenging.

The northern block contains the café terrace and opens to the major interpretation display and information space.

The southern block is an office building for council staff with a naturally ventilated corridor serving a linear sequence of cellular office spaces that all open out to the shared staff terrace on the south. This thin plan configuration encourages maximum use of passive cross-ventilation, augmented by efficient ceiling fans. Individual AC control when combined with an insulated internal thermal mass helps to minimise annual energy use through a mixed mode operation.

Above: site plan – click for larger image

Integration of allied disciplines

The project team had a collective desire to develop a world-class ESD, flexible office and mixed use public facility which wasn’t reliant on complex technological solutions or costly maintenance. We collaborated closely with council’s public artist to incorporate art glass within the glazed promenade facades.

Cost/value outcome

The client engaged in the choice of costed design strategies for the planning and form. There were significant mutual benefits such as the non-briefed inclusion of the informal amphitheatre as an alternative to excessively high retaining systems. The project was delivered under budget.

Above: sections – click for larger image

Sustainability

ESD initiatives include solar panels for feedback into the energy grid, stormwater harvesting tanks, mixed mode air-conditioning systems, low energy light fittings throughout, low water usage fittings, long life cycle efficiency materials and construction, solar treatment to all windows, naturally ventilated circulation corridors and shaded exposed thermal mass internally.

Response to client and user needs

Cairns Regional Council sought fresh and challenging ideas to create a memorable piece of tropical architecture, which has unquestionably been achieved. The Visitors Centre has already become a new landmark for the city.

Above: elevations – click for larger image

Principal architect: Charles Wright Architects
Project team: Charles Wright, Richard Blight, Justine Wright, Katja Tsychkova
Project manager/s Charles Wright Architects / Cairns Regional Council / Aecom
Builder: Hansen Yuncken

Structural & Civil consultant: ARUP Pty Ltd
Hydraulics consultant: CMRP Pty Ltd
Electrical & Mechanical consultant: WSP Lincolne Scott Australia Pty Ltd
Quantity surveyor: Turner & Townsend
Landscape architect: JNP Pawsey & Prowse
ESD / Energy Efficiency consultant: Brad Pinches Consulting

Size: GFA 1415m2, cost $4.7 M
Time to complete: 4 months Design & Documentation, 10 months construction
Council: Cairns Regional Council
Client: Cairns Regional Council
Design software used: Autodesk AutoCad & Revit

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by Charles Wright Architects appeared first on Dezeen.