Plasma Studio designed the Cube House on a steep site between two existing properties in the village of Sesto, high in the Dolomite mountains.
Triangular sections of the facade jut out to meet the slope, fusing the building with the site.
Main access to the house is past two parking spaces on the lower level dug into the hillside.
The staircase dog-legs up through the centre of the house, surrounded by the living, dining and kitchen area on the first floor. Bedrooms occupy the top storey.
Generous south and east-facing balconies and terraces double the amount of useable floor space. “We opened the facade as much as possible in order to widen up the tight interior,” said the architects.
The house is wrapped in slanted wooden slats, which help to screen balconies and terraces from the main road while still offering views to the mountains through angled openings.
Facing the hill behind, the back corner of the property is rendered white like the surrounding buildings and punctured with small rectangular windows.
Here’s the project description from Plasma Studio:
The major constraints of this project, its steep site, compressed between existing buildings and very limited allowance of development volume have shaped the form of this house.
Ground floor plan
It is inserted into the earth with two covered parking spaces to the front from where a small stair case leads up to the main living zones in the first floor and further to the bedrooms in the second floor.
First floor plan
Compact circulation
Because of the limited available floor area the staircase and circulation had to be designed in a very space-saving way – this lead to the continuous organisation in the first floor: the single functions cooking, eating and living are positioned around the circulation core in order to give connectivity and privacy at the same time to the single activities.
Second floor plan
The staircase and built-in furniture piece, which is storage, oven and service cavity at the same time, divides and connects as a short cut at the same time. On the second floor the single sleeping rooms are connected to each other in the shortest possible way.
Long section
View and shelter
Given prominent location of the site directed towards the south and the Dolomites we opened the facade as much as possible in order to widen up the tight interiors – on both main floors ample balconies and terraces double the available floor area and offer great places to play for the kids and rest for the parents.
South elevation
In order to provide shelter from the views of the passing by road a layer of wooden sticks was wrapped around the big openings directed to the south – depending on the varying size of the openings they provide different degrees of shelter and intimacy.
This slatted structure by architects Plasma Studio looks like it’s crawling over an apartment building in the Italian Dolomites (+ slideshow).
Plasma Studio were faced with the dual tasks of adding a circulation space and a new family home to an existing block in the South Tyrol village of Sesto, close to the Austrian border.
“An under-utilised roof space gave way to an angular crown, connected to a ground floor reception space and architectural office by the host’s renovated spine,” said the architects.
The structure appears to grow out of the hillside, snaking up the back of the building as a series of faceted planes.
Two levels are housed inside the extension, which uses the sloping site so the lower floor nestles against the top floor existing building but opens out onto a garden on the same level behind.
Inside, bedrooms face on to a corridor lit by a glass chasm that extends up and over the building.
An open-plan living, kitchen and dining area are housed in the upper storey, which sits at a slight angle to the structure below to further differentiate it.
The large balcony on this level looks out to the forested hills and snow-capped peaks on the other side of the valley.
These two floors are linked by internal and external staircases, and also connect to the circulation core that provides access to each of the six apartments in the whitewashed building underneath.
The architects sent us the project description below:
Paramount Residence Alma
This project was conceived to fulfil a two-part problematic: (1) Residence Alma -a Tyrolean guest house with 6 holiday apartments from the 1960s adorned with a pitched roof – was due for a common circulation and service core, and (2) the project architect, Ulla Hell, was looking for a new home for her young family of five in the mountain community of Sesto. The result: an under-utilised roof space gave way to an angular crown, connected to a ground floor reception space and architectural office by the host’s renovated spine.
Extension diagram
Having already made their mark on nearby Residence Königswarte with the addition of the Strata Hotel in 2007, Plasma Studio sought to follow a similar skin organization. A timber strip section in larch wood was borrowed from the neighbouring Strata and extruded along two paths. The first stretches across the site, picking up the topography on either end of the building and climbing to enclose a third storey balcony. Here, the edge skirts around the existing footprint, leaving corners exposed to acknowledge its presence.
A second path draws the timber skin up from behind, folding around the chimney to return to the ground. Interstitial spaces between the exterior walls and wooden bands swell at ground level to offer sheltered outdoor living spaces. The design team employed parametric modelling software to optimize the density of these timber strips and their metal substrustructure, balancing budget, aesthetics, privacy and views. This approach allowed for flexibility throughout the design phase and output shop drawings for pre-fabricated elements at an efficient pace.
Roof plan diagram
The Alma addition departs, however, from the Strata in its approach to volume. The practical constraints of a multi-room hotel structure called for a regular distribution of modules along a connecting spine. The perceived volume was achieved through horizontal sections around free-flowing terrace spaces. With the Alma, we took advantage of a more flexible program to create unique spatial conditions. These interior volumes are rendered legible from the exterior by the timber strips–an honest depiction of the playful activity within.
The interior of this family home is characterized by 360-degree views. Perhaps the most spectacular of these being a view of the sky through an incision over the central stair. This opening delivers an immediate reading of exterior weather conditions, collecting precipitation and receiving direct sunlight.
Elevation diagram
The main living spaces are split over two floors with first floor bedrooms off a skylit corridor, and an open plan kitchen, dining and family room encircling a fireplace on the second floor. By grouping functional elements in orthogonal cores, the surrounding space is liberated. The exterior walls of the main living spaces collapse inwards to catch light, views and varying degrees of enclosure.
All living spaces in the private residence have direct access to the outside through a series terraces or gardens. Its multiple access points include: a main entrance through an internal connection to the neighbouring house, a series of openings that follow the natural topography, and an external stair connecting the third floor terrace to the garden. Each inhabitant has come to find their own favourite route.
Isometric diagram
Limited material and colour palettes give strength to the space, with splashes of colour in the children’s washroom. The otherwise white walls provide a backdrop for an ever-changing display of shadows from the pleated roof above.
As the extension sits within the steep topography, substructural elements were developed in reinforced concrete, while the superstructure was built from prefabricated cross laminated timber (CLT) insulated with wood fiber and sealed with black bitumen. The outer skin in larch wood strips on a galvanized steel structure was determined according to cost and aesthetics by the aforementioned parametric model. A consistently limited colour code was applied to the exterior, allowing the volume to dissolve into the surrounding hillside when viewed from afar.
Through its use of form, materials and views, this newly completed addition flirts with its context at three scales. The first, and most immediate, with its host: as an addition to the Alma residence, it shares a newly renovated core, carrying the fractal geometry from the roof down to Plasma’s Italian office through the Alma’s cartesian skeleton. The second, with its neighbour: together the Strata and the Alma define the next generation of the family-owned hotel complex. And finally, with its terrain: the sculptural addition acts, not as a parasite, but as a mediator between the existing house and surrounding topography, extending from the landscape like a lichen.
Jagged copper balconies emulate the topography of surrounding landscape as they fold around the exterior of this apartment block in north-east Italy by architects Plasma Studio (+ slideshow).
Positioned beside the Dolomites, the three-storey Dolomitenblick building contains six holiday homes that each face north-east towards the mountains.
A diagonal recess slices down the centre of the facade, separating the balconies of different apartments and breaking down the volume of the building.
“This incision becomes the main defining element of the building,” explains Plasma Studio. “From the cut at either side a strip unfolds that forms the balustrade of a generous covered balcony and ends into the surrounding topography.”
The whole facade also slopes backwards to match the incline of the sloping land, finishing with an asymmetric interpretation of a traditional gabled roof, which the architects were asked to incorporate by the local planning authorities.
“Slightly deformed, it merges with our design intention but also with the traditional typology of pitched roofs,” say the architects, explaining how they wanted to explore the “new potentials of a traditional typology”.
Inspired by local farmhouses, the architects used larch to clad the walls behind the pre-oxidised copper balconies, as well as the floors and walls inside each apartment.
They also made various depressions into the ground, adding low-level windows and a tunnel leading into an underground parking area beneath the building.
The building is located on a hillside in the Dolomites, at the end of a residential area.
Above: location plan
The volume has been developed mainly from its pragmatic functional request to host 6 independent apartments with one common circulation: through a cut that marks the main access and the division of the units the volume is splitted into 2 halves. Besides its functional meaning this incision becomes the main defining element of the building: from the cut at either side a strip unfolds that forms the balustrade of a generous covered balcony and ends into the surrounding topography. Following the steep natural hillside with each floor the strips and the façade jump back.
Above: site plan
Programme
The building hosts 6 generous holiday homes, all directed to the sun and the panoramic view of the Dolomites. Each private unite is designed to get a maximum of privacy: through the division of the whole building volume into 2 parts, through the stepped balustrades which avoid insight from the above unit and from the passing by street. Each apartment gets an extension of the internal living area by a covered sun and view facing terrace which at each floor ends in a small private garden. Local larch wood defines internal and external living areas. Floor to ceiling glazing allows the maximum view and energetic gain as directed to south, external sun blinds and the overhangs of the above balconies minimize overheating during summertime.
Above: apartments level one plan
The main circulation is very compact and a continuation of the volume defining gap and repeats the use of the local larch wood and the color code of the façade.
Above: parking level plan
Material
Sitting at the edges of a residential area with a very eclectic and non-coherent appearance we focus to contrast these surroundings by simply generating a volume which grows out of its natural surrounding topography and blends again into it, by minimizing the used materials to a very local, almost vernacular code: larch wood and pre oxidised copper. Both the copper and the larch wood are exposed to a natural change of colour by the atmospheric influence of sun, rain and snow. Through the repetition of the colours of old, close-by farmhouses with dark, sunburned larchwood facades this building volumes blends into its natural surroundings.
Above: front elevation
Focus was given to the design of the copper balustrades which start from the natural topography, grow, become balustrades, attach to the building where the gap defines the volume, peel again off and end finally in the surrounding topography. When peeling off, the metal sheets which are divided into horizontal strips describe a curved hyperbolic-parabolic geometry: crafts knowledge is brought to its extreme.
Above: side elevation
The dark copper surrounds the volume from all sides, the strips form a second layer which gives shelter from and insight and finally define the roof as a continuation of the overall façade and volume. The form of the roof itself derives from local planning regulation which allows only a pitched roof in this specific building plot: slightly deformed, it merges with our design intention but also with the traditional typology of pitched roofs by not simply repeating but rather exploring what new potentials of a traditional typology can be.
Above: rear elevation
Project: residential building with 6 units and underground garage Client: private Size: 1.050 sq m Location: Sexten / Sesto Italy Completed: Summer 2012
This illuminated, webbed steel structure at the 2011 Xi’an International Horticultural Expo in China is the second project to be featured on Dezeen this week by London architects Plasma Studio.
The structure is named the The Guangyun Entrance, as it frames the main visitor entrance to the expo site.
It is anticipated that climbing plants will grow over the trellis frame and create a green roof.
The Guangyun Entrance operates as infrastructure and fulfils the role of bridging the main road that dissects the site. It channels visitors from the plaza at the entrance where they congregate and orient themselves, plotting their direction. Their path over the bridge rises 7m and offers vantage points to gain an overview of the different zones of the Expo displayed ahead. Bridge design often has two lanes: one for incoming and another for outgoing traffic. However in this case, the flows are uneven and change throughout the day.
With inspiration taken from rush hour escalator traffic in the London Underground stations, the bridge has been devised with three lanes, so the middle lane can switch direction from incoming in the morning to outgoing later in the day. These three bands read as interwoven braids, and together with a surrounding trellis roofed structure, they give the appearance of bands of landscape peeling off and rejoining the mass at the end of the journey. Between the three bands are green areas and a water feature for visitors to stop, rest and enjoy the view.
Above, an open trellis steel structure forms the shading device that is intended to become naturally overgrown with climbing plants, thus forming a green roof, and suggests the theme of the Expo to distant onlookers. The lightweight roof has been developed together with Arup engineers as an innovative integral structure that appears as beams seemingly free-floating in space.
The Guangyun Entrance has been conceived as a landbridge with a tensegrity trellice structure that will gradually become overgrown by greenery.
International Competition: 1. Prize, 2009 Project: 2009-2011 Opening: April 28th 2011 Completion: March 2011 Client: Chan-Ba Ecological District Architecture: Plasma Studio, BIAD Landscape Design: GroundLab, LAUR Studio, Beijing Forestry University Engineers: John Martin and Associates, Arup
This pavilion by London architects Plasma Studio is located at the heart of the 2011 Xi’an International Horticultural Expo, which is currently taking place in China.
The Creativity Pavilion is formed of three angular volumes that cantilever out across the lake, creating a shelter for visitors to walk or sit below.
The shape of the building follows the lines of landscape project Flowing Gardens, also designed by Plasma Studio alongside landscape architects Groundlab, which is a series of jolting pathways directed towards the pavilion.
Here are some more details from the press release:
Opening of Xi’an Expo Press Release
The next big event in China after the Beijing Olympics and Shanghai Expo with a projected 12 Mio visitors for the coming 6 months, Xi’an International Horticultural Expo has officially opened.
The ancient city of Xi’an- home to the Terracotta Army and many buildings of unique historical significance- is using this opportunity to focus on the current challenges from its recent growth and transformation. The expo is situated in the Chan-ba Ecological District, a former sandpit where the water was severely degraded in the 1980s. Two decades of work has restored the ecosystem and this expo is able to demonstrate what can be accomplished through the use of the most advanced technology, ideas, and material. Another challenge that the Expo is starting to address comes from the context of China’s rapid urbanisation process: how to create a sustainable urbanism and provide universal access to open space and nature?
The Creativity Pavilion is located on the edge of the lake as the endpoint to the central axis that starts with the Gate Building, and is the starting point for the water crossing by boat. It ties in with a series of piers that follow the landscape jutting out into the water. The built volume is interwoven with the articulating ground, producing continuities on many levels integrating the landscape and building together.
From this flows the organization of the building massed as three parallel volumes within the landscape, flowing through and underneath, leading to the piers, the volumes themselves hover as cantilevers over the lake. The fluid experience of passing through the landscape continues inside, where all zones are interconnected through the looping system of ramps.
Through its materiality the building again manifests itself as an extension of the ground with its floors and interior walls made from concrete and bronze is used as expression of local identity.
With the advent of LED lighting units suitable for outdoor lighting, ewo, the Bolzano-based, international manufacturer of high quality lighting systems asked Plasma Studio to develop a new type of street light for this radically new technology.
Starting from the conceptual diagram of the street lamp as a combination of vertical shaft and horizontal light-emitting beam and looking at birds and flowers for reference, Plasma developed Tagliente as a fluid transition between the vertical and horizontal directions.
Challenging the omnipresent and generic status of street lamps, this angular multi-facetted sculpture appears different from every angle and invites the casual passer-by to wander around it in order to grasp its form. By being ambiguously between industrial and natural form, we experienced that the object’s relationship to context has been surprisingly versatile.
The light was first exhibited at Plasma Studio’s Nodal Landscapes exhibition at the DAZ Berlin where it formed a dynamic extension to the orthogonal grids of a typical Berlin “Hinterhof” around it. It is now displayed in front of ewo’s headquarter building, a contemporary context that enables it to articulate the link between the natural rocky backdrop and the man-made orthogonal structures.
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