Hasta La Ideas

News: British-Iraqi firm AMBS Architects has disclosed its designs for the first public library to be built in Iraq since the 1970s.

The 45,000 square metre building will be located on a teardrop-shaped peninsula at the heart of the Youth City masterplan dedicated to supporting and inspiring young Iraqis.

A double-curvature roof structure with an 80-metre span will create the world’s biggest single-span reading room.

The library will house a collection of over three million books, including rare manuscripts and periodicals, as well as computers, digital media resources and spaces for hosting performances and events.

A message is to be built into the design of the roof: when viewed form above it will display the word “read” written in the Arabic Kufic script.

“We have challenged the conventional library model, conceiving it as a modern, multi-functional public space,” says AMBS Architects co-founder and director Marcos De Andres. “We identified core activities and paid special attention to the exchanges we wanted to engender through use.”

The building is scheduled to tender later this year.

We recently featured a faceted library in France whose angled walls follow the lines of surrounding roads and spoke to the architect behind the winning design for a new parliament in Baghdad, who criticised the principle of “fashionable icon building”.

See all of our stories about libraries »

Here is some more information from the architects:

British-Iraqi architects announce first public library to be built in Iraq since the 1970s

AMBS Architects have revealed their ambitious design for the new Baghdad Library. The building brings together form, function, and cultural significance. The 45,000 sqm structure will be the central focus of a planned Youth City that has been designed to inspire Iraq’s younger generations.

The new Baghdad library scheduled to tender this year, will be a public space and cultural center designed to encourage intellectual, creative and social exchange. AMBS Architects, who were commissioned by the Ministry of Youth and Sport, hope to inspire a new model for libraries in Iraq and internationally with this elegant, multipurpose building.

Saad Eskander, Director of the National Library of Iraq said: “It is imperative for the new Iraq to consolidate its young democracy and good governance through knowledge. New libraries have a notable role to play by promoting unconditional access to information, freedom of expression, cultural diversity, and transparency. By responding to the needs of Iraq’s next generations, the new library, we hope, will play an important role in the future of our country.”

The project represents a crucial step in the rebuilding of Iraq, which has been underway since 2003. Over the past nine years AMBS founder Ali Mousawi has played a significant role in the country’s redevelopment. He said: “Before 2003 Iraq had almost collapsed after a thirteen year embargo and eight years of war. This kept the country isolated from the world and from modern technology. I had to leave Iraq myself in 1982 and returned in 2003 to assist with the rebuilding of the country, with the aim of revitalising Iraq and establishing a new vision for the future. What I saw when I returned and still see today is that the Iraqi youth are in many ways lost. They have been surrounded by violence, and for years there has been a lack of services and few opportunities for work or personal development. We hope that the library will help shape Iraq’s next generation of intellects and politicians, artists and writers, poets and musicians, doctors and lawyers, and change makers.”

AMBS Architects sourced New York based firm ACA Consultants, one of the world’s leading library consultants and planners, with the aim of building a collection of over three million books, including rare manuscripts and periodicals. The library will also house cutting edge technology for performance and events. State of the art computers and digital media will provide a vital resource for many young people who have limited access to such facilities AMBS Co-founder and Director Amir Mousawi said: “This will be an accessible library for all ages. Our ambition is to create a space where people can run a serious and consolidated programme of public events; art exhibitions, book clubs, theatre events, educational conferences, film screenings and workshops.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Sport and Youth said: “Our vision is to bring hope back to the young people, to build them a new cultural centre where they can express their talent and ideas. The whole library will be modern; it won’t simply be a place to find books, but a freely accessible place of knowledge.” The library is designed to engage and empower visitors, and to encourage open exchange. The building’s lightweight, single-span roof, creates a vast open plan space, allowing people to read and navigate the building logically. The practical and cultural importance of light is demonstrated through an encrypted message in the the design of the roof, which forms the word ‘read’ written in Arabic Kufic script. This is documented as the first word spoken by God to the Prophet (PBUH).

Functionality, intuitive organisation, and rational user-friendly design were all key concepts which shaped the building from the inside out. AMBS Co-founder and Director Marcos De Andres said: “The Baghdad Library is more than simply a sleek and strikingly beautiful structure – what makes this building truly remarkable is the user interface. Our focus was the building’s behaviour, and our systematic approach started with a creative dialogue; thinking rationally, reasoning and discussing how the building should work. We have challenged the conventional library model, conceiving it as a modern, multi-functional public space. We identified core activities and paid special attention to the exchanges we wanted to engender through use. Thoughts and ideas gave shape to a set of unique spaces, and little by little an ideal model was formed.”

Baghdad Library, Youth City, Iraq
Dates: Awarded November 2011, scheduled to tender late 2013
Project size: 45,000 sqm
Client: Ministry of Sports and Youth
Services Provided: Architecture

Location

In plan, the building takes the shape of a drop-like peninsula, which projects out onto a lake. The Library will be at the heart of the Youth City; a masterplan of 1,200,000 sqm, with over 30 new buildings, including residential, cultural, official and sports venues.

Roof structure

The library’s double curvature roof structure is formed by a two-way steel cable net with a span of 80m across, making it the biggest single span reading room in the world. The roof is comprised of modular panels which support both a photovoltaic system and arrangement of skylights. The skylights follow the curve of the roof and were designed specifically to allow constant levels of illumination into the reading areas.

Interior

The heart of the building is surrounded by floor plates, which form a cascading terrace and create a directional valley that contains the various reading areas and event spaces. The building features a continuous slot around the perimeter, which lets indirect light filter through to internal spaces on the lower ground floor. The floors and walls are designed to create flexible, functional spaces for different cultural, social and educational purposes.

Sustainability

AMBS Architects went beyond the brief to create a visibly sustainable building; a structure that will educate visitors about architecture and technology. This is communicated through the integration of solar panels into the roof, and subtly through the building’s mass, form and orientation, making it an example of both renewable energy and passive design. This represents our wider commitment to minimising environmental impact, optimising energy efficiency, and working towards a future where Iraq’s economy is not solely dependent on oil.

About AMBS Architects

AMBS is an international team of highly skilled architects, designers and engineers, delivering a two-fold expertise in Architecture and Project Management. Our approach puts into practice participation, creativity and interdisciplinarity, giving primary allegiance to a design process that directly engages the client and end user. AMBS has established itself as one of Iraq’s foremost architectural firms, with a growing team of 60 employees in offices in London, Baghdad and Basra.

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public library in Iraq appeared first on Dezeen.

New York studio HWKN has resurrected the nightclub of New York’s popular gay resort Fire Island Pines inside an asymmetric pavilion with criss-crossing timber braces (+ slideshow).

The Fire Island Pines Pavilion had been the main attraction of the Pines community since the 1980s, so when the building was destroyed by fire in 2011 HWKN was asked to rebuild it with an improved design.

The new building is a two-storey timber construction with a bar and terrace at ground floor level, plus a dance club and outdoor lounge on the first floor. There’s also a retractable roof so the club can be opened to the sky on warm summer evenings.

The corner of the structure appears to have been sliced away, angling the building’s terraces to face the nearby harbour and directing views towards new arrivals.

HWKN’s Marc Kushner explains: “When it is empty, [the new pavilion] is a muscular icon for the energy and vitality of the Pines – it visually welcomes every ferry that arrives to the island. As it fills with an afternoon crowd, the architecture fades in importance. The building becomes an armature to display the social spectacle of a weekend in the Pines.”

Bars on both floors feature zig-zagging outlines, intended to encourage more social encounters. Inside the nightclub, bleacher-style seating areas create viewing platforms and a rectangular skylight offers a window to the stars.

“We infused every space with a social engine, including the triangular bars that encourage casual meetings, the arena-like bleachers in the nightclub that put the ‘see and be seen’ opportunity into the third dimension and the inviting openness of the triangular facade frames,” comments HWKN’s Matthias Hollwich.

Hollwich and Kushner are the founding partners of HWKN. The studio’s most well-known project to date is Wendy, the giant spiky air-cleaning sculpture installed outside the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre last summer.

See more bars and nightclubs on Dezeen, including one with copper pipes stretching across its walls and one with chunky black trees inside.

Here’s some more information from HWKN:

Hollwich Kushner (HWKN) and Blesso Properties announce the near completion of the New Fire Island Pines Pavilion.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, so goes the Pavilion. The Fire Island Pines Pavilion, destroyed in 2011 by a devastating fire, is now near completion, once again giving the Pines community a central hub for culture and nightlife. The reincarnation of the legendary dance club is designed by New York-based Hollwich Kushner (HWKN) and developed by Blesso Properties.

“The building, located at the intersection of all traffic to and from the island, is shaped to become a part of the everyday way of life for the community by fitting in comfortably with the open, beachy, and modern feel of the Pines,” says Matthias Hollwich, co-founder of HWKN. “Going beyond that, we infused every space with a social engine, including the triangular bars that encourage casual meetings, the arena-like bleachers in the nightclub that put the “see and be seen” opportunity into the 3rd dimension, and the inviting openness of the triangular facade frames.”

The building’s form is sheared towards the harbour to visually welcome the over 800,000 visitors who arrive via ferry to Fire Island Pines every summer. The first floor offers a Welcome Bar to serve as a meeting place for all residents and visitors. The dance club encompasses the building’s second level, with a 2,400 square-foot dance floor and a 2,600 square-foot outdoor terrace which will host High Tea in the evenings, and double as an additional lounge at night. The Welcome Bar, the High Tea deck, and the Pavilion club space are all connected by an internal loop of stairs. Inside the club, stadium steps cascade out from one wall, creating an elevated view of the dance floor, with a skylight overhead providing a constant view of the starry night skies.

“The new pavilion is an architectural chameleon,” says Marc Kushner, co-founder of HWKN. “When it is empty, it is a muscular icon for the energy and vitality of the Pines – it visually welcomes every ferry that arrives to the island. As it fills with an afternoon crowd, the architecture fades in importance. The building becomes an armature to display the social spectacle of a weekend in the Pines.”

The building is an exercise in sustainability. Many of the design elements that make the space fun, like the massive retractable roof over the dance floor, serve a double purpose by providing passive cooling on hot summer nights. The decision to open half of the building to the outdoors vastly reduces the need for air conditioning, while also re-connecting people to the beauty of the natural environment in Fire Island. Additionally, the choice of finishes on the exterior and interior is calibrated to minimise material usage by exposing the Pavilion’s raw construction.

Hollwich adds, “When we started designing the Pavilion, we came to realise that we were not just reporting to Blesso Properties, but that there are also all of the Fire Island Pines homeowners and visitors who are our clients as well. We knew we needed to listen to all of them – and we believe we did, integrating everything we learned into the design of the new building.”

Throughout the entire rebuilding process, the team received hundreds of letters, emails and Facebook messages from Pavilion devotees offering ideas, critiques, and support for the new complex.

“In most of our projects, if I can achieve 90% of our design goals we view it as a triumph. In this case we got 100% as HWKN designed a flawless building,” says Matthew Blesso, Founder & CEO of Blesso Properties. “The design is incredibly bold, appropriately masculine and modern yet rustic. And they achieved this while meeting our diverse and demanding functional goals. The building will be a timeless icon for generations to come and I couldn’t be happier with the end result.”

The Pavilion’s reopening is perfectly timed with the 60th anniversary of the Pines, as the club has a long-standing heritage in the community. Originally built in 1985, it instantly changed the social landscape, imbuing it with the type of heartbeat only a nightclub can provide. The legacy of the Pines has been lovingly interwoven into every part of the new Pavilion, from the architecture to the programming.

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by HWKN appeared first on Dezeen.

News: a 1960s football stadium in Brazil has become the first of several in the country to be equipped with a solar-powered roof in preparation for next year’s FIFA World Cup.

The Mineirão Stadium in the south-eastern city of Belo Horizonte, originally built in 1965, has been fitted with a 1.4MW solar array on its rooftop.

The €12.5 million (£10.7 million) project will see energy fed back into the grid rather than being used directly by the stadium.

The next ground to be converted is the Mané Garrincha stadium in Brasilia, which will be fitted with a 2.5MW solar array providing enough solar energy to power nearly half the stadium.

Organisers had initially hoped to install solar arrays in all 12 of the 2014 World Cup venues, but with just over a year until the tournament starts, that target appears to have been lowered.

Earlier this year, the stadium in Rio de Janeiro that was set to host athletics tournaments during the 2016 Olympics was closed indefinitely due to structural problems with its roof.

We recently reported on plans for a new basketball stadium on the waterfront in San Francisco and news that construction has begun on a football stadium in Bordeaux, France, designed by Herzog & de Meuron – see all stadiums.

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ahead of 2014 World Cup appeared first on Dezeen.

These new photographs by Hufton + Crow show Herzog & de Meuron’s extension to the Messe Basel exhibition centre now that the three new halls are in use (+ slideshow).

Herzog & de Meuron replaced two of the older halls at the Messe Basel, which hosts Art Basel each June, with an extension that stacks three new ten-metre-high halls on top of one another to create volumes that appear displaced.

Brushed aluminium clads the exterior of the building and has a textured surface to create the impression of a basket weave.

Part of the extension bridges across the neighbouring Messeplatz public square to creates a sheltered area with a huge circular skylight.

Glazing surrounds the space and leads into a ground-floor lobby filled with shops, bars and restaurants.

The building was completed in February, but only opened to the public in April. Read more about the Messe Basel New Hall in our previous story.

Since completing the building, Herzog & de Meuron has also started construction of a football stadium in France and an outdoor bathing lake in Riehen.

The pair were also controversially chosen to design the new National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. See more architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.

See more photography by Hufton + Crow on Dezeen, or on the photographers’ website.

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photographed by Hufton + Crow appeared first on Dezeen.

Windows of various shapes and sizes give this weekend retreat on the south coast of Japan the appearance of a children’s shape-sorter toy.

Designed by Tokyo studio Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects, Nowhere but Sajima forms part of the Nowhere Resort, a series of rentable holiday homes on the Miura peninsula of Kanagawa Prefecture.

The house is located on the harbour of a small fishing village. It has a triangular plan, with rooms on three storeys.

Each of the windows lines up with a different room and the ceiling of every room follows the profile of its window.

The architects describe the rooms as “thin tube-like spaces” with views directed towards the ocean. “We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship,” they explain.

Sliding doors and screens allow different rooms to open out to one another, plus a circular cutaway provides views between the first-floor study and the storey above.

See more holiday homes on Dezeen, including a set of apartments above a yacht house on the Crimean coastline and a weekend fishing retreat in Germany.

Here are more details from Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects:

Nowhere but Sajima

Cutting resort environment out of urban environment

Nowhere resort is the resort program that is renting out weekly vacation house. Suggesting new urban lifestyle by making shorter the distance to weekend house from standard 3 hours up to 1 hour. The environment must get close to urban when shorten the distance, the issue comes to how to cut off resort environment out of there. Therefore Nowhere but Sajima comes to build long and thin tube-like spaces that bundle them into one home unit. The tube-like spaces are facing toward the ocean and at the same time intercept the sight from the next condominium. The building is controlling both privacy and scenery.

A home for guests

Nowhere but Sajima provides a temporary ‘home’ for its guests. The weekly rental service provided by Nowhere Resort is a relatively new method of operating resort properties in Japan, and allows different tenants the opportunity to inhabit a ‘home’ on a weekly basis. While the weekly term is short compared to a standard monthly rental and long compared to a hotel stay, this in-between length accommodates a new diversity of uses of a ‘home’. Serving as a space for exhibitions, as a classroom or for wedding parties, the unit easily adapts to the imagination and invention of the tenant and in doing so also re-defines the range of activities that can take place in the ‘home’. As well as accommodating the functions of work and business, the ‘home’ again becomes the space of many life events beside the basic function of ‘inhabitance’. In acquiring a new program for use, the ‘home’ regains the richness of activity that can take place all around of life.

The building, a triangular block composed of tube-like volumes heading to the ocean, stands on a point of reclaimed land in a small fishing village. While the site meets the seawall and directly faces the sea, it is also faces other buildings across the water. To provide adequate privacy without the use of curtains, narrow tube-shaped spaces were bundled together and angled to provide openings toward the sea. The orientation of these tubes naturally blocks the line of sight from the adjacent apartments and while gazing down the length of the tube from inside only the ocean can be seen. While providing an escape from the tide of urbanism characterising what we normally call a ‘resort’, the design still maintains the key aspects of the resort experience. We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship.

Location: Yokosuka Kanagawa, JAPAN
Principal Use: HouseStructure: RC 3 stories

Site Area: 132.09 sq.m
Building Area: 63.88 sq.m
Total Floor Area: 176.65 sq.m
Max Height: 9,459 mm

Architect: Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects
Client: Nowhere resort
Structural Engineer: Akira Suzuki/ASA
Services: EOS+
Electric Services: comodo
General Contractor: Heisei Construction

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Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects appeared first on Dezeen.