Hasta La Ideas

This six-sided wooden cabin by Estonian designer Jaanus Orgusaar has walls that zigzag up and down and two circular windows resembling fisheye camera lenses (+ slideshow).

Designer Jaanus Orgusaar based the wooden house, called Noa, on the shape of a rhombic dodecahedron – a convex polyhedron with twelve identical rhombic faces. This creates a modular structure that can be extended with extra rooms, but that also feels like a round space from inside.

“The floor plan of the house is a hexagon, the walls and roof are compiled of identical rhombuses, therefore it is easy to continue the structure in space by adding the next module,” Orgusaar said. “The house lacks acute angles, therefore giving an impression of a round space.”

The 25-square-metre house is located in Estonia,

can be easily assembled or taken apart, meaning it can be transported elsewhere if needed.

It is built entirely from wood and its exterior cladding boards were soaked with iron oxide to give them a grey, weathered appearance intended to help the cabin blend into its surroundings.

Insulated wooden boards cover the roof to keep the interior warm, and the base of the structure is raised up from the ground to prevent damp.

“The building stands on three feet, not needing a foundation on the ground and is therefore also more cold-resistant than a usual dwelling,” explained Orgusaar.

Walls inside the cabin are plastered walls and painted yellow, and the space is furnished with a small kitchen and a dining table and chairs.

A terrace can be attached and used as a dining area in warm weather.

Orgusaar built the first house as a summer cottage for his family, and plans to add two more modules. The design is also being manufactured by prefabricated building company Katus and will be available for sale soon.

Here’s a project description from Jaanus Orgusaar:

Aiamaja Noa

Noa is an easily mountable sustainable living space, adaptable to a variety of landscapes and environments. The advantage is that one can always add a module to extend the housing step by step, with each module, ones “saves” a wall.

It is an invention by Jaanus Orgusaar, an Estonian designer-inventor. He built the first one for his own family, and plans to add two more modules. One module is 25 square metres.

The small house was brought to life from the need for a practical, sustainable and economical living space which would be easily mountable compiled from identical elements. The base element is a specific rhombus. The base for the structure is the rhombic dodecahedron.

The rhombic dodecahedron can be used to tessellate three-dimensional space. It can be stacked to fill a space much like hexagons fill a plane. Some minerals such as garnet form a rhombic dodecahedral crystal habit. Honeybees use the geometry of rhombic dodecahedra to form honeycomb from a tessellation of cells each of which is a hexagonal prism capped with half a rhombic dodecahedron. The rhombic dodecahedron also appears in the unit cells of diamond and diamondoids.

While looking for the perfect structure that would fill the space without void, Jaanus chose this unique structure for it is stable standing on three feet, stiff and because it spreads the tension evenly, and offers a synergy in space apprehension, having almost sacral feeling to its round space.

Jaanus is an inventor diving into the very bases of geometry. Many of his creations starting from shoes and fashion, product design and now architecture takes its inspiration from the sacred geometry, the five platonic solids and their inter-relations.

The building stands on three feet, not needing a foundation on the ground, therefore also more cold resistant than a usual dwelling. The house lacks acute angles, therefore giving an impression of a round space. The floor plan of the house is a hexagon, walls and roof compiled of identical rhombuses, therefore it is easy to continue the structure in space by adding the next module.

This kind of structure is simple and economical, yet strong, offering a great, almost timeless, sacral space experience. The little house is currently in use as a summer cottage for the designer’s family, the insides continue without interruption to the summer terrace that is used as a dining area. The house is situated at the brink of a forest in the very vicinity of a 200 year old pine tree and fur tree, therefore guests from the forest, as owls and squirrels are commonplace.

Materials used are all sustainable- wooden construction, floor and outside boarding, even roof- covered with thermo boards. The walls are plastered with limestone paste and painted with cottage cheese paint. The outside wall boards are soaked with iron-oxide to make the house grey fitting into the surrounding nature almost inconspicuously.

The round windows frame the view to the open space of endless fields. In the dark the windows reflect the space so that it creates an illusion of additional rooms in the dark.

Noa widens the concept of space offering a different space experience.

Author: designer Jaanus Orgusaar
Producer of first prototype: Jaanus Orgusaar
Producer: Woodland Homes
Photos: Jaanus Orgusaar and Terje Ugandi

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with wooden walls and fisheye windows appeared first on Dezeen.

Two Denmark architects have designed a concept for narrow apartments that fill tiny gaps between existing buildings.

Mateusz Mastalski and Ole Robin Storjohann’s project Live Between Buildings proposes a series of micro-home apartments for urban living. In the designs, the tiny living quarters are proposed in playful shapes including an X, an O, a tree, a cloud, a speech bubble and a space invader.

The designers have illustrated, in a series of diagrams, how their concept could work in highly dense cities such as New York, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Helsinki and London.

Mastalski and Storjohann’s concept recently won the annual New Vision of the Loft 2 design award, organised by roof window manufacturer Fakro. The competition asked designers to develop concepts for urban lofts spaces that would be functional, space-saving, energy-efficient and full of natural light. All entries had to include Fakro products, as well as others.

Fakro has said that the winning infill-loft dwellings could be realised entirely out of roof windows. “The possibility of shapes is endless,” the firm added.

In related news, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in the UK published a consultation about minimum space standards for new build homes.

Other micro-homes we’ve previously featured include Renzo Piano’s tiny wooden cabin at the Vitra Campus for one inhabitant and a mini prefabricated guest house that gets delivered by helicopter.

See more micro-homes »

Images are by Mateusz Mastalski and Ole Robin Storjohann.

The post Live Between Buildings by Mateusz
Mastalski and Ole Robin Storjohann appeared first on Dezeen.

Swedish architects Claesson Koivisto Rune will present a kit-of-parts for a prefabricated Scandinavian house in Milan this April (+ slideshow).

“The prefab/kit house market generally prefers fake historical over contemporary,” says Claesson Koivisto Rune, “and it is more than common that an architect has not been involved at all.” The team was keen to avoid this conservative approach and wanted to come up with a modern design that reflected current Swedish architecture.

With Tind House, they developed distinctive contemporary details for the roof shape, windows and doors of the flexible system, which can be constructed as a single-storey residence for a couple or a family home with two or three floors.

Each house features a roof with a gentle incline to match the housing vernacular in Sweden. The peak of the roof is flat, which the designers compare to the profiles of the Scandinavian Mountains.

Windows or skylights are generously sized to offer the best possible views and their frames are bevelled on the outside to create a rhythm with the rest of the facade, but each one sits flush with the interior walls.

“The greatest challenge was to meet the demands for a client-flexible house with maintained architectural integrity,” architect Mårten Claesson told Dezeen. “We had to establish a couple of strong feature principles – the roof shape, the full cut-out of windows and doors, and their side alignment between different floor and roof levels – that would define a house that could vary in size, colour and number of floors.”

Tind House is designed to sit on a level plan, but can easily be adapted to negotiate a sloping site. The layout can also be altered to suit different occupants and locations.

Ordinarily, the entrance and staircase are positioned at the front of the building and lead through to living and dining rooms at the back. Utility rooms, bathrooms and bedrooms are placed at the sides, plus extra bedrooms and bathrooms occupy the upstairs floors on the two- and three-storey buildings.

The house is manufactured by Swedish house builder Fiskarhedenvillan and will be presented at the Globo Art Space in Milan.

Claesson Koivisto Rune comprises a team of designers and architects, whose projects includes lighting and furniture, as well as architecture. They recently presented a collection of colourful pendant lamps and a set of solid brass coat hooks as part of Stockholm Design Week. See more design by Claesson Koivisto Rune, including a house on the Baltic island of Öland.

Other prefabricated houses we’ve featured include one in Portugal that costs the same as a family car and another home that’s lifted into place by a helicopter. See more prefabricated buildings on Dezeen.

Images are by Peter Guthrie.

Here’s a project decription from Claesson Koivisto Rune:

Claesson Koivisto Rune at Globo Art Space – Tind house

Claesson Koivisto Rune Architects is showing for the first time to an international audience their new house called Tind. Tind is a prefab house and represents a brand new typology for this particular field.

Globo being a manufacturer of sanitary porcelain, it is perhaps peculiar to show architecture during the Salone del Mobile. But Globo Art Space is not a commercial scene but a new gallery space offered by Globo to promote art, architecture and related culture in general.

Claesson Koivisto Rune is also a product and furniture design practice, but is during this event proud to present their architecture, by showing their most recent project. It will also be an example of the Scandinavian approach to living, not in the usual historic, modernistic context, but right now, right here.

The Tind* house is a new prefab house by Swedish Claesson Koivisto Rune Architects. Manufactured by Fiskarhedenvillan and provided to clients as a complete building kit.

The prefab/kit house market is traditionally conservative and generally prefers fake historical over contemporary. And it is more than common that an architect has not been involved at all. If this is from neglect on the manufacturers’ side or arrogance from the architects’ is difficult to know. What we do know, is that it is time for change.

We have built a house built on a concept built on a set of features. The prefab house needs to be flexible in size and configuration to accomodate individual families’ needs and individual locations. So in order to maintain the houses’ architectural integrity it is some strong features rather than exact dimensions that are important.

The first feature is the roof:

The traditional Swedish one-family house has a single-pitch roof. With its pitch angle not as steep as in Germany and not as gentle as in Italy, but in between. The Tind house’s roof starts with this typical Swedish pitch. But then the peak is cut off. So that the roof becomes somewhat of a hybrid between single-pitch and flat.

The second feature is the window niches:

First, windows are few, but big, and allocated to the most important walls, rather than many, small and on every wall. Second, every opening, window or door, is flush with the interior. Furthermore the thicknesses of the joists are disguised by bevelling the niche. This allows the house to become a rhythmic composition of wall and void, wall and void. Rather than the usual volume with punched holes.

The third feature is alignment:

The division between roof and walls is clear and sharp; like a waistline. Sharp is also the one-side alignment between windows on overlying floors. Every line and every cut aligns with another; with the next.

The interior layout is generous in spatial flow and efficient in actual flow. The entrance and staircase is at the core. Directly onward lies the communal living, dining and kitchen area. A second, side entranceway goes through a combined storage and wash room. For brushing off your shoes or dog from a muddy walk in the forest before entering the living areas. Bedrooms and bathrooms are either upstairs, downstairs or to the side end of the house. The general ambience is that of outdoor and indoor being connected.

* Tind is Norwegian for Mountain Peak. One difference between the Scandian mountain range and most other mountain ranges, such as the Alps, is the lack of sharp pointed peaks. This because the last big ice age shaved them off when retracting. In Scandinavia we find our mountains particularly beautiful because of this feature.

Above: Tind house one – ground floor plan

Above: Tind house one – facades

Above: Tind house two – ground floor plan

Above: Tind house two – first floor plan

Above: Tind house two – facades

Above: Tind house three – ground floor plan

Above: Tind house three – first floor plan

Above: Tind house three – second floor plan

Above: Tind house three – facades

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Claesson Koivisto Rune appeared first on Dezeen.

South Korean firm Mass Studies has developed a system of five pre-cast concrete modules for building South Korea’s answer to California’s Silicon Valley, starting with this flexible headquarters building for internet company Daum (+ slideshow).

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Named Daum Space, the five-storey office building is the first completed building on a previously undeveloped site on the island of Jeju, where the company have chosen to relocate. The architects describe this as a “rebellious attempt to move away from the urban setting” of South Korea’s cities and form a creative community “comparable to Silicon Valley”.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Mass Studies has prepared a masterplan for the whole 800-metre-long development site, showing ten buildings lined up alongside a stretch of designated rural zones.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

The 350-person Daum Space is positioned in the central section and demonstrates the construction system envisioned for each building in the complex.

“We thought of a way to create a system of structure that could potentially serve as the grammar for the entire territory,” explain architects Minsuk Cho and Kisu Park. “With these basic formal structures we were able to form various forms of vaulted or cantilevered spaces within large open planes, while also providing a way for the entire campus to grow organically to meet the unpredictable needs of the future.”

The 8.4-metre-wide concrete modules appear in five variations and can be used to create column-free spaces with spans of over 12 metres, as well as cantilevered canopies up to 6 metres deep.

The building is open on all four sides at ground floor level, revealing a series of social areas that include a cafe, an events space, a lounge and a games room.

Open-plan offices cover the double-height first floor, which is overlooked from above by a mezzanine library.

An auditorium is also located on the first floor, while smaller offices and meeting rooms can be found on the third and fourth storeys.

Joints between the concrete modules also create small enclosed spaces at each level, where the architects have located bathrooms, staircases and elevators.

Other projects we’ve featured by Mass Studies include a shop with green walls and a glazed exhibition centre. See more projects by Mass Studies.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Photography is by Kyungsub Shin, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s some more text from Mass Studies:

Context

Daum is an international IT firm based in Korea, primarily known for its web portal services. Unlike its competitors that are typically located in metropolitan areas, Daum has been planning to relocate its operation to an undeveloped site within Jeju Province (an autonomous island situated off of the southern coast of Korea) for the past 8 years.

Largely known as a major tourism hub, Jeju Province has been encouraging the implementation of other industries in the recent years, one of which is the development of the island’s technology-based industrial complex.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Considering the fact that the urban population of Korea has grown from 20% to over 80% in the last 50 years – which makes Korea one of the most urbanized countries in the world – Daum’s radical step of exiling themselves to the rural Jeju Province can be framed as a utopian gesture, comparable to Silicon Valley of the late 70’s in America, as a rebellious attempt to move away from the urban setting to reinvent an independent, creative work community.

Another dilemma that urban workplaces face in the 21st century is that while the nature of the working organization is becoming more horizontal, the spaces are becoming vertical. Therefore, the generous conditions provided by Jeju Province counters this problem as an opportunity to imagine a new type of spatial organization to match Daum’s creative, horizontal working organization.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Masterplan

Over the course of the next decade, Daum plans to gradually relocate its operations. For the development of the IT complex, Jeju Province has designated a vast, undeveloped land of 1,095,900 square meters on the island’s northern mountainside, in close proximity to Jeju University. Daum’s site, 300m wide and 800m long at its maximum, is the largest central plot within the development area, measuring 132,000 square meters and parallel to the main road in its longitudinal direction.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Given this scale, one can imagine Daum’s complex built progressively over time, a masterplan growing organically across the site’s green terrain. As a counteraction to the typical office park development – a homogeneous field of low-rise, non-contextual office blocks floating in a sea of parking lots – Daum’s masterplan is designed as a linear growth, dividing the site into opposing rural vs. urban zones and informal vs. formal zones. The urban zone will be defined by a dense, low rise, 70m wide and 800m long superstructure. This proposal allows functions to be optimized, supporting an efficient urban work zone – an “information superhighway,” symbolically as well as literally – and a vast area of park-like space dotted with facilities that will house community activities such as farming, sports, etc. Each of the buildings in the urban zone, no more than 5 floors high, are situated a floor level above the previous to accommodate the site’s gradual 60m rise, taking advantage of this gentle, uniform slope to connect the facilities at different levels. This progressive alignment promotes movement across the site vertically, horizontally and diagonally, effectively increasing the efficiency and unity of the masterplan.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Daum Space: Formal Structure

During the design process, we thought of a way to create a system of structure that could potentially serve as the grammar for the entire territory. To formalize this notion, we designed five elementary structural modules of 8.4m by 8.4m with variations of extrusional or rotational attributes, to either extend or to end the structure as necessary. As a combination of these modules, the structure expands horizontally and vertically.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

With these basic “formal structures,” we were able to form various forms of vaulted, or cantilevered spaces within large open planes, while also providing a way for the entire campus to grow organically to meet the unpredictable needs of the future.

As a result, large spaces of 12.6m spans or 6.3m cantilevers are supported by vertical piers with small 3.8m spaces within them, creating a field of spaces of various degrees of size and enclosure.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

As the first building within the masterplan, Daum Space is located near the center of the site, to provide the office space for the first 350 employees as well as other subsidiary functions.

As a combination of these modules, we were able to design the Main Center as a five-storey building that is open on all four sides, allowing the scenic views – a nearby forest to the west, Halla Mountain to the south, and the ocean to the north – to penetrate into the interior, creating a favorable working environment.

The ground floor serves the various shared / public functions. The cafeteria, an open lounge, a café, a small pavilion for Daum’s public relations purposes, a game room, a gym, and meeting rooms are located here, as well as an auditorium that is isolated from the work space.

The inclined site meets the entrance road on the southern end of the 2nd floor, where one enters the auditorium. The main entrance to the building is located further into the site, with an outdoor space separating the two entrances. The 2nd floor is provided with a double floor ceiling height and the largest open plan work space, composed of the reception area, office spaces, and a block of conference rooms with a library above it as the 3rd floor.

As one progress upward to the 4th and 5th floors, the floor areas become smaller, allowing for more isolated, intimate office spaces, project rooms and conference rooms, together with outdoor terraces (of either wooden decks or grass).

Module shapes – click above for larger image

Inside the piers, which act as the vertical structural elements on all floors, are round or rounded rectangular spaces for various core services, HVAC, stairs, elevators, as well as programs such as smaller meeting rooms, restrooms, and lactation rooms.

Concept diagram – click above for larger image

As a result, Daum Space has systematic rigor, but by creating an array of spaces of various scales and qualities, it feels like a village without being picturesque, as a vertical/horizontal field of spatial experiences which anticipates further growth in the near future.

Basement plan – click above for larger image

Name and site of the project: Daum Campus Masterplan & Daum Space
Architects: Mass Studies – Minsuk Cho, Kisu Park
Design team: Mass Studies – Hyunjung Kim, Jisoo Kim, Sungpil Won, Nikolas Urano, Sebastien Soan, Junghye Bae, Jangwon Choi, Kwonwoong Lim, Youngjoon Chung, Bhujon Kang, Zongxoo U, Taehoon Hwang, Sangkyu Jeon, Younkyoung Shin, Vin kim, Daeun Jeong, Yuseok Heo, Kyungmok Park, Wonbang Kim, Jieun Lee, Sanghoon Lee, Songmin Lee

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Structural engineering: TEO Structure
MEP Engineer: HANA Consulting & Engineers
Lighting Engineer: Newlite
Landscape design: Soltos Landscaping

First floor plan – click above for larger image

Client: DAUM Communications
Construction: Hyundai Development Company
Construction Manager: Hanmi Global Co.

Second floor plan – click above for larger image

Location: Jeju Province, Korea
Site Area: 1,095,000 m2 (masterplan) / 48,383 m2 (daum space)
Site Coverage Area: 3,720.38 m2
Total Floor Area: 9,184.16 m2 (including basement floor)

Third floor plan – click above for larger image

Building-to-Land Ratio: 7.69%
Floor Area Ratio: 15.90%
Building Scope: B1F + 5F

Fourth floor plan – click above for larger image

Structure: RC
Finish: Exposed Color Concrete, Wood Deck, Vertical & Roof garden
Cost: 13,510,000EUR (20,000,000,000 KRW)

Roof plan – click above for larger image

Design phase (beginning and ending month, year): 2008.4 – 2010.6
Construction phase (beginning and ending month, year): 2010.7– 2011.11

Section A – click above for larger image

Section B – click above for larger image

Section C – click above for larger image

Section D – click above for larger image

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Mass Studies appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen archive: one of our most popular stories this week was about a prefabricated house in Portugal that costs the same amount of money as a family car (top left) so here’s a roundup of other prefabricated designs that have been published on Dezeen. See all the stories »

See all our archive stories »