Hasta La Ideas

News: architect David Adjaye has been commissioned to design a fashion hub in Hackney as part of efforts to regenerate the area after the 2011 riots.

The £100 million Hackney Fashion Hub will be supported with £2 million from a regeneration fund set up by the Greater London Authority to help businesses and retailers affected by the rioting.

Working with Manhattan Loft Corporation, the developers behind the restoration of London’s St Pancras Renaissance hotel, Adjaye will create a permanent retail space in two buildings to include shops, a cafe, restaurant and design studios.

“Our proposals offer a beacon for Hackney Central,” said Adjaye. “The buildings will create a light-filled, compelling environment that captures Hackney’s creative energy, gives local residents a sense of pride in their built environment and provides an exciting new draw for visitors.”

The area is already home to a small cluster of fashion outlets for luxury brands Burberry, Pringle and Aquascutum.

In 2006 the Tanzanian-born architect was shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize for his Whitechapel Idea Store, a glass-fronted community building in another deprived part of east London. A year later he was awarded an OBE for services to British architecture.

Last year Adjaye completed two neighbourhood libraries in Washington DC and topped a list of Britain’s most influential black people – see all architecture by David Adjaye.

See more architecture and design from Hackney.

Here’s the full press release:

New Hackney Landmark Looks Set to Create Hundreds of Jobs in East London

Renowned architect David Adjaye has been commissioned to design a new landmark for Hackney: a world class fashion development in E9.

Manhattan Loft Corporation, the developers behind the St Pancras Renaissance restoration and Chatham Works are looking to build a new ‘fashion hub’ on Morning Lane and Chatham Place.

As part of the plans, which will be submitted to the London Borough of Hackney at the end of March permanent retail space will be provided across two buildings over five and eight floors.

The buildings will be located on Morning Lane. Alongside leading fashion houses offering customers the opportunity to buy discounted goods, design studios will also be created where up and coming local designers can showcase and sell their products; making the fashion hub a unique centre for Hackney’s design community.

The hope is that the provision of a permanent fashion hub will create hundreds of jobs for local people.

It will be the UK’s first inner-city fashion outlet centre, providing a complete shopping experience.

Harry Handelsman, Chief Executive of Manhattan Loft Corporation, said: “The aim of this fashion hub is to establish a focus in Hackney Town Centre for the promotion of both local and international brands involved in the design, manufacture and sale of retail products.

“It will deliver major investment and lasting regeneration to this part of London and we hope to be able to encourage more creative people to bring companies such as Tatty Devine, Black Truffle and Fabrications into the area. We are incredibly excited about making the heart of Hackney an international focal point for the world of fashion.”

Jack Basrawy, of Chatham Works said: “We’ve been working closely with Hackney Council’s Ways into Work scheme, a programme that supports the unemployed, so that Hackney residents are at the front of the queue for the new jobs. Pringle and Aquascutum are already employing Hackney residents. Our proposals will hopefully create even more job opportunities for local people.”

David Adjaye, Principal Architect of Adjaye Associates, who was named Most Influential Black Figure of 2012 and is recognised as producing some of the best building designs in the world, said: “Our proposals offer a beacon for Hackney Central. The buildings will create a light-filled, compelling environment that captures Hackney’s creative energy, gives local residents a sense of pride in their built environment and provides an exciting new draw for visitors.”

Digby Nicklin, Commercial Director of Commercial Estate at Network Rail, said: “Across the capital, we are working with our neighbours to open up and renovate arches to attract niche entrepreneurs and build business communities.

“Working with small business through arch development schemes we are also helping to regenerate parts of London and creating employment opportunities.”

The permanent world class fashion development will replace the temporary structures which have already been created on site by Manhattan Loft Corporation and Chatham Works and which currently house leading fashion brands Pringle and Aquascutum.

Work has already started to convert the railway arches in Morning Lane between Churchwell Path and Link Street into new retail spaces; also designed by Adjaye Associates these will sit alongside the new development.

The plans for the development will see some 7,000 square metres of new retail space created for fashion outlets, a café, restaurant and design studios.

In addition to new open space, pedestrianised areas and signage will be created to encourage visitors to explore Hackney Central and visit Mare Street, Narroway and other surrounding retail areas.

Hackney Council, Network Rail and the Mayor of London have provided support for the scheme, which is set to create jobs for local people and benefit local businesses, with the expected increase in visitors to the area. Local people are currently being consulted about the plans. If granted permission in the summer of this year the fashion hub could be built by 2016.

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outlet in east London appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Danish studio Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and American firm Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA) have been chosen to design a Lego visitor experience centre in Billund, Denmark.

Scheduled to open in 2016, the Lego House will tell the story of the famous Danish toy brand while offering educational and play activities for children and families.

BIG founder and partner Bjarke Ingels said: “It is one of our great dreams at BIG that we are now able to design a building for and with the Lego Group.

“I owe a huge personal debt to the Lego brick, and I can see in my nephews that its role in developing the child as a creative, thinking, imaginative human being becomes ever stronger in a world in which creativity and innovation are key elements in virtually all aspects of society.”

Hans Peter Folmann, senior director of the Lego House project, said BIG and RAA won the competition because they had “the best understanding of the idea behind the Lego brick, Lego play and Lego value”.

“At the same time they possess a wealth of experience in architecture and museum design,” he added. RAA’s work includes the London Transport Museum and the Museum of Jewish History and Tolerance Center in Moscow, while BIG has won competitions to design a cultural centre in Bordeaux and a national gallery in Greenland.

Construction of the Lego House in Billund – also the location of the Legoland theme park – is scheduled to start in 2014.

Back in 2007, BIG presented a Lego model of to propose a cluster of high-rise buildings in Copenhagen – see all architecture by BIG.

Other Lego projects we’ve featured include 676 miniature Lego towers made by MVRDV and a Lego greenhouse built in London’s Covent Garden – see all news about Lego.

Here’s the full press release from Lego:

International architects to design Lego experience centre in Denmark

Denmark’s Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA) of America will team up with the Lego Group to design the physical home for “The Lego House” in Billund, Denmark.

The name has been decided for the Lego experience centre due to be built in Billund, Denmark. Scheduled to open in 2016, the facility will welcome approx. 250,000 annual visitors and will be called: The Lego House. Construction of The Lego House in the centre of Billund is expected to start in 2014.

”The Lego House will be a place where people can enjoy active fun but at the same time it will be an educational and inspirational experience – everything that Lego play offers. The experience centre will give us the opportunity to show how children learn through Lego play. We’ll be able to combine academic knowledge about the developmental aspects of play with the brick itself – enabling children and their parents to see and feel what Lego play offers. And woven into the situation we’ll be able to relate the story of our company in a dedicated way, reflecting our values,” says Lego owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.

Two architectural practices have been chosen to design The Lego House: one is a Danish company, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the other an American, Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA).

“In our competitions for the project these two companies had the best understanding of the idea behind the Lego® brick, Lego play and Lego values. At the same time they possess a wealth of experience in architecture and museum design, and I’m looking forward to our companies’ teaming up to produce outstanding settings and exciting experiences for future visitors to The Lego House,” says Hans Peter Folmann, Senior Director, Lego Huset.

RAA is acclaimed for its work around the world on large-scale educational experiences, including US FIRST (home of Junior First Lego League), the London Transport Museum and the Museum of Jewish History and Tolerance Center in Moscow.

“We are thrilled to be part of creating the Lego house that will be devoted to the builders of tomorrow. Playing, learning and creating with Lego Group’s international team of architects, thinkers and builders is a cherished commission for any designer,” says Ralph Appelbaum.

Danish architect company BIG is among other projects known for the Danish Expo Pavilion 2010, the West57th Street courtscraper currently under construction in New York, and the soon to be opened Maritime Museum north of Copenhagen.

“It is one of our great dreams at BIG that we are now able to design a building for and with the Lego Group. I owe a huge personal debt to the Lego brick, and I can see in my nephews that its role in developing the child as a creative, thinking, imaginative human being becomes ever stronger in a world in which creativity and innovation are key elements in virtually all aspects of society,” says Bjarke Ingels, founder and partner, BIG.

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visitor centre in Denmark appeared first on Dezeen.

Students arriving at and departing from this school in Zaragoza, Spain, often obstructed sports games in the playground, so architect Guzmán de Yarza Blache decided to lift one of the sports courts up out of the way (+ slideshow).

Raised up by one storey, the new elevated sports court sits at the entrance to Lasalle Franciscanas School. It is held in place by concrete pilotis, creating a sheltered entranceway underneath that can also be used as a general playground.

Yarza Blache, a director at J1 Arquitectos, was asked to complete installation of the structure during the six week summer holiday period, so he specified a prefabricated concrete structure that could be built in just a few days.

Two layers of steel fencing were added to create see-through walls, which are curved over at the top to prevent balls from escaping. The outer layer sits within a Corten steel planting box, so that ivy can grow up and eventually surround the court.

Ramps extend down from both sides of the structure, leading to an infants’ play area on one side and an entrance to the building on the other.

Since its opening, children at the school have nicknamed the structure “The Whale” in reference to its bulbous shape.

Other playground structures completed in recent years include a pavilion featuring funhouse mirrors and a building with fairytales engraved into its facade. See more stories about schools.

Photography is by Miguel de Guzmán.

Here’s a translated project description from the architect:

Elevated Sports Court at Lasalle Franciscanas School

The commission is originated by the need from the school to augment the total surface of the courtyard that due to the great amount of students and parents that usually gather during the day, can sometimes obstruct the correct developing of the sports and leisure activities that should take place in it.

The courtyard is 33 metres wide by 35 metres long and has a south-east orientation. It is formed by the existing school that has a U form with two wings, one from the 50’s and another one from the 70’s.

The fact of being a school meant that we had to accomplish the building works exclusively during the summer months. That fact made immediately think about a prefabricated concrete structure that could be built in a couple of days, and that could also solve the 13 meters distance that we wanted to cover in the ground level.

The necessary elimination of the two existing trees in the courtyard gave another of the key drivers of the project; the inclusion of vegetation in the new structure. To do so we have designed a 70 metres long corten steel flower pot from which almost three hundreds of ivy plants grow, that in a few years will have covered the whole metallic bubble.

That metallic bubble is formed with a double layer of galvanized steel, so one of the layers can help the ivy grow while the other one can resist the practice of teenager ball-related sports.

The ground level hosts a garden-bench with an organic shape that includes different species of plants and allows the parents and the students to sit down and observe. The relation of the new volume with the rest of the school also had to be solved, for which a soft 45-meter ramp was designed to connect the ground level with an intermediate level and the elevated court.

Another organic ramp was also included to let the children from the infantile area get out to their courtyard´s zone, also in the ground level and partly under the court.

The later visits to the school have revealed the success of the project and its fast iconic assimilation by the students, who have kindly called it “The Whale”.

Architect: Guzmán de Yarza Blache
Finishing Date: September 2012
Location: Calle Andrés Piquer 5, Zaragoza.Spain
Client: Lasalle Franciscanas School
Built Surface: 350 sqm
Budget: 290.000 Euros

Contractor: GM Empresa Constructora
Collaborators: Ana Guzmán Malpica, Julien Luengo-Gómez
Quantity Surveyor: Jose Manuel Arguedas
Structure: Josep Agustí de Ciurana, PRAINSA

Above: ground level plan – click for larger image

Above: court level plan – click for larger image

Above: roof plan – click for larger image

Above: long section – click for larger image

Above: cross section – click for larger image

Above: long elevation – click for larger image

Above: side elevation – click for larger image

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Guzmán de Yarza Blache appeared first on Dezeen.

British artist Richard Wentworth has collaborated with Swiss architects GRUPPE to build a pop-up wooden auditorium in the atrium of Central Saint Martins art and design college in London (+ slideshow).

The structure is named Black Maria, after Thomas Edison’s first movie production studio. Built entirely from wood, it was also inspired by both the timber scaffolds historically used in the industrial areas of King’s Cross and the building-site hoardings that surround much of the area today.

A tiered seating area is positioned at the front of the installation and is framed behind a wooden screen, creating what the designers refer to as an “inhabitable billboard”.

Large audiences can surround the structure during open presentations or talks, while more intimate performances can be accommodated by placing screens over the facade and closing off the space from its surroundings.

Two extra entrances are located on the back of the structure. One goes in at ground level, while the other features a grand staircase that leads into the top of the auditorium through an enclosed foyer.

Both GRUPPE and Richard Wentworth emphasise that the installation is also an informal meeeting area, where students can spend time during breaks.

Wentworth explained: “You have to magnetise some venues more than others so that people who feel that they are there ‘by accident’ are mixed with people who have a clear ‘sense of purpose’. This is an obvious condition of metropolitan space.”

Black Maria was installed in the Granary Building of Central Saint Martins this week and will remain in place until 12 March. The school was designed by architects Stanton Williams and is only in its second year of use.

Other recently completed timber installations include a cabin filled with coloured light and smoke and a wooden chamber installed at the Venice Architecture Biennale. See more installations on Dezeen.

Here’s a project description from the design team:

Black Maria by Richard Wentworth and GRUPPE

Black Maria, by Richard Wentworth and Swiss architecture practice GRUPPE, is part of RELAY, a nine-year arts programme that is enlivening the new public spaces at King’s Cross and turning the area into a destination for discovering international contemporary art that a celebrate the area’s heritage and its future. The second commission in the King’s Cross series, Black Maria, is a structure that acts as a place of meeting, based around discussion, performance and moving images.

Launching on 12 February 2013 for an initial 28 days, with the potential to be brought back at a later date, the Black Maria comprises a collection of spatial elements of varying sizes that recall an early film studio of the same name. The structure will be installed in The Crossing, in the Granary Building, the new home of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. The Crossing brings together several departments of the art school, new commercial tenants at the development, a restaurant and the public, which Wentworth and GRUPPE see as the ideal conditions to create a place of exchange.

The emphasis is on flexibility and happenstance, both in terms of the construction’s physicality and in the programming being arranged around it. Black Maria sits at one end of The Crossing, facing the larger part of the hall as a kind of inhabitable billboard with a staircase auditorium behind it. The talks happen “within” the billboard, allowing for different kinds of audience on either side of it: a more intimate audience within the structure; and another potentially much larger audience outside the structure. The billboard makes use of a large door to allow events to be either closed and private, or open to the hall and public. Black Maria recalls the vital but forgotten timber scaffolds used to build King’s Cross’ industrial past, and building site hoardings used today. In a related sense the Black Maria is a support structure for the community activities in the hall today.

Richard, who has lived near King’s Cross since the 1970’s, has witnessed and chronicled the transformation of the area through projects such as ‘An Area of Outstanding Unnatural Beauty’, created for Artangel in 2002. Much like Black Maria, the Artangel work was an experiential one, encouraging visitors to walk into apparently unremarkable shops and alleyways around King’s Cross and see them from a fresh perspective. Black Maria has the potential to transform the somewhat neutral crossroads at the entrance to Central Saint Martins into a destination where people can attend scheduled talks and screenings, but also just find a place to sit, gather, eat lunch and chat.

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and GRUPPE appeared first on Dezeen.

OMA has revealed designs for a department store in Kuwait City that draws inspiration from the galleries of a traditional Arab market.

The Exhibition Hall project, led by OMA partners Rem Koolhaas and Iyad Alsaka, proposes a three-storey shopping centre inside the existing 360° Mall and will include a public events space as well as shops.

Retail galleries will be laid out in long passages like a historic souk and will be divided using partitions with circular cut-outs.

Each floor will be naturally lit and the entire store will feature a translucent facade.

Construction is set to begin in 2014, with completion scheduled for later the same year.

Foster + Partners worked on a similar concept for The Souk shopping centre in Abu Dhabi, which combines high-end boutiques with independent local food and craft markets.

OMA also previously developed a masterplan for a new mixed-use quarter in Kuwait City. Other projects in the Middle East were outlined by Iyad Alsaka in an interview we filmed at the studio’s exhibition at the Barbican in London. See more recent projects by OMA, including plans for a new skyscraper in Shenzhen.

See more architecture in Kuwait »

Here’s the full statement from OMA:

The Exhibition Hall, a new retail concept in Kuwait, by OMA

OMA is designing a new department store concept in Kuwait City. The Exhibition Hall, in the popular 360° Mall, will showcase the creativity of the region alongside international fashion brands through a flexible curated retail space, featuring cultural programs, exhibitions and installations. The project is led by OMA partners Iyad Alsaka and Rem Koolhaas, in partnership with Tamdeen Real Estate Co.

Above: floor plans – click above for larger image

The Exhibition Hall, as both department store and public event space, aims to re-establish the historic Kuwaiti connection between culture and commerce to form a contemporary public forum for the city. Comprising 9,400m2 over three floors, the Exhibition Hall will be suffused with natural light during the day, and present a glowing aspect to the street at night through a new translucent façade.

A series of galleries – reminiscent of the long passages of the Souk – will introduce a space which brands can develop as they wish. Multifunctional partition walls with circular cut outs will accommodate transversal access and offer exciting shifting views. Within this polymorphous environment customers will discover curated galleries devoted to cultural events.

Above: concept section

The Exhibition Hall continues OMA longstanding interest in inventing new possibilities for retail spaces, which includes the Prada Epicentres in New York and Los Angeles, department store boutique designs for Viktor & Rolf and Coach, and an exhibition on the history of Galeries Lafayette in Paris.

The project is developed with Kuwait’s 360° Mall management, Majed Al-Sabah and Giacomo Santucci, and overseen by OMA project architect Alessandro De Santis. Construction is scheduled for the beginning of 2014 and will be completed within the same year.

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by OMA appeared first on Dezeen.