Hasta La Ideas

Chilean architects Mathias Klotz and Lillian Allen have renovated a castle-like residence in Santiago’s Parque Forestal to create a restaurant, exhibition space and ice-cream parlour (+ slideshow).

The building is named “Castillo Forestal”, which means forest castle, but it was actually constructed at the start of the nineteenth century as a house for the park’s gardener. Over the years the building had become abandoned, so Mathias Klotz and Lillian Allen were asked to bring it back into use.

The architects began by demolishing previous extensions to the two-storey red-brick building, then added a new steel and glass structure that wraps around the north and east elevations.

“Our proposal was to demolish the successive extensions and replace them with a single-story volume housing an intermediate space between inside and outside,” said Klotz.

This structure accommodates the restaurant, creating a glazed ground-floor dining room and a first-floor terrace overlooking the park.

Additional dining areas are provided by the two main rooms of the original house, which have been renovated to reveal their interior brickwork. The architects removed various stucco details, but left cornices intact and painted them grey to match the steel framework of the new extension.

Bare lightbulbs hang from the ceiling in rows and have been clustered into groups of three on the first-floor.

The exhibition galleries and ice-cream parlour are also housed in the existing building, while customer toilets are located in the basement and the circular tower is set to function as a wine store.

We’ve recently featured new photographs of the first major project by Mathias Klotz, which was a home for his mother. Other projects by the architect include a holiday home for a family with 11 daughters.

See more architecture by Mathias Klotz »
See more architecture in Chile »

Photography is by Roland Halbe.

Here’s a project description from Mathias Klotz:

Castillo Parque Forestal, Santiago, Chile

The so called “Forest Castle” is in reality nothing more than a modest lodging built in the Parque Forestal on the occasion of Chile’s 1910 Centenary celebrations, to house the park’s gardener.

The park, which dates from the Centenary, was inaugurated at the same time as the Fine Arts Museum on the other side of the street. Over time the house lost its original function; it was extended and occupied on a temporary basis, and gradually deteriorated until it was abandoned altogether a number of years ago. For this reason Santiago city council tendered a 30-year concession to restore the structure and find a new use for the building.

Our proposal was to demolish the successive extensions and replace them with a single-story volume housing an intermediate space between inside and outside.

The two rooms of the original structure were restored, removing the stucco and leaving the brickwork visible, with the exception of the cornices. These were painted the same dark grey as the steel structure of the new volume, in order to link the two structures together and emphasise the original building.

The new uses it has acquired are a bookstore, restaurant, ice-cream store and exhibition space.

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and Lillian Allen appeared first on Dezeen.

Berlin architect and designer Sophie von Bülow knocked through walls between two residences to create this spacious apartment in her home city (+ slideshow).

Sophie von Bülow had to start from scratch when renovating the two apartments in the Prenzlauerberg district of Berlin, which hadn’t been touched since the Second World War.

“The apartments were totally time-worn,” Von Bülow told Dezeen. “Everything had to be done new, which was a lovely challenge.”

Two full-height gaps were created in the walls separating the adjacent apartments and the layout was rearranged to encompass both.

Von Bülow strived to restore and preserve the original features in the property. “We tried to keep the lovely details like the old art nouveau stucco, parts of the old timber piling and the beautiful windows,” she said.

Peeling wallpaper was removed so the walls could be replastered and painted neutral colours, while wooden floors was sanded and oiled.

The bathroom floor was replaced with a screed-like material created by German company Concreed, which was also formed into a sink mounted on a wall of white tiles.

Tables in the living spaces were also designed by Von Bülow, including the coffee table made from square steel tubes and topped with pigmented prestressed concrete.

Rooms are filled with an eclectic mix of furniture, fittings and ornaments including metal toolboxes used for storing small items and a scuffed red pig.

We’ve recently created a new Pinterest board full of apartment designs, which includes a renovated home in Barcelona with triangular floor tiles and a loft conversion in London with a combined staircase and bookshelf.

More projects in Berlin on Dezeen include a museum of architectural drawings with sketches etched into the concrete facade and an interior covered in wrinkly mirrors.

See more apartment interiors »
See more architecture and design in Berlin »

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by Sophie von Bülow appeared first on Dezeen.

The overhaul of the brutalist Park Hill housing estate in Sheffield, England, is another of the six projects nominated for the 2013 Stirling Prize (+ slideshow).

Architects Hawkins\Brown and urban designers Studio Egret West were commissioned by property developer Urban Splash to take on the renovation of the notorious social housing estate, which is one of the most famous examples of the “streets in the sky” typology that typified many post-war UK developments in the 1960s and 70s.

Influenced by projects such as Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation, architects at that time thought large housing blocks with communal open-air walkways would foster communities, but they instead became associated with antisocial behaviour, vandalism and crime.

In spite of its problems, the complex was Grade II* listed in 1998 for its architectural significance, as well as for its role as part of the city’s identity. This prompted Urban Splash to embark on a redevelopment to create a mix of social housing and private apartments, alongside offices, shops, restaurants and bars.

The design team began by stripping the building back to its gridded concrete framework. They then added a new facade made of simple glazing and brightly coloured panels.

By reducing the width of the “streets”, the architects were able to extend the size of the apartments, creating new street-facing windows and much-needed additional storage.

Giving residents a sense of ownership was an important part of the project, so patterned floor tiles and stained plywood details were added around the entrances to each home to provide a more domestic appearance. These details also vary between different clusters of homes, helping residents to orientate themselves.

Landscape architecture studio Grant Associates also worked on the project, designing gardens, courtyards and a large public square.

The first phase of 78 apartments is now complete and the first residents began moving in during January. Phase two is currently underway.

Park Hill phase one was named as one of the Stirling Prize nominees last week. Other projects to make the shortlist include an elliptical stone chapel and a museum that mimics volcanic formations.

Property developer Urban Splash has also been responsible for several other interesting projects, including a coastal staircase in a historic naval supply yard and an apartment block designed as “three fat chips stacked on top of each other”. See more projects by Urban Splash »

Other recently completed housing projects include a timber-clad retirement home near Paris and an apartment block with mirrored balconies in Winnipeg. See more housing on Dezeen »

Photography is by Daniel Hopkinson, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s a project description from Hawkins\Brown:

Park Hill

Working in collaboration with our client, Urban Splash, and design team members Studio Egret West and Grant Associates, we are bringing love, life and pride back to the Sheffield icon to make it a genuinely vibrant and sustainable community for the 21st century.

The first phase of 78 apartments has been completed and has been given a thorough face-lift and remodelled to 21st Century standards. The existing concrete frame has been repaired and a new façade installed and the iconic ‘Streets In The Sky’ have new balustrading. As well as saving an icon, figures compiled show that refurbishing the scheme has prevented 4 football stadia of material being taken to landfill and that the embodied energy in the concrete frame is equivalent to 3 weeks energy output from a power station.

At the lower levels of the building, the essential ingredients of a proper community will be combined with a new ‘high street’ of local shops, bars, pubs and restaurants.

A new landscape will revitalise the public realm for residents and visitors alike and reconnect Park Hill with the city.

This high-profile project hosted the RIBA Stirling Prize “after party” and has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale.

In January 2013 the first new residents and commercial tenants moved in, and with this defining moment the building started a new phase in its life.

The post Park Hill Phase 1 by Hawkins\Brown
and Studio Egret West appeared first on Dezeen.

A staircase doubles up as a bookcase inside this renovated apartment in Barcelona by Croatian architect Eva Cotman (+ slideshow).

Eva Cotman, who is based in Barcelona, re-planned the interior to accommodate a young couple, who requested a more open-plan layout.

“The project objective is to try to maximise the functionality of the space,” said Cotman, “but at the same time to not lose the identity of the neighbourhood and materiality of the existing building.”

The architect began by removing all non-loadbearing walls to create a large living and dining room along one side of the space, then added a new bedroom, bathroom and walk-in wardrobe at the back.

An old suspended ceiling was removed and then every surface was painted white – including the exposed brick walls and timber ceiling joists – to create a blank canvas for the new occupants.

The combined staircase and bookshelf is at the centre of the plan and leads up a new mezzanine guest room and storage area. This staircase also functions as an informal seating area.

For lighting, the architect used bright red cables to string bulbs around the ceiling joists.

We’ve featured several apartment renovations in Barcelona, including one with mosaic floors and one with furniture that folds out of the walls. See more architecture and interiors in Bacelona »

Photography is by Eva Cotman and Maria Ceballos.

Here’s a project description from Eva Cotman:

Raval Hideout

This project sets out to alter and improve an apartment situated in Raval, the Ciutat Vella district of Barcelona. An area used to be known for its nightlife as well as the insecurity, El Raval has changed significantly in recent years, and has become one of the touristic attractions in the centre of the city. Today it is home to many bars, restaurants, museums and art galleries, making it a popular neighbourhood among young professionals and students alike.

The clients are a young couple with a very active social life, enjoying fully all the cultural activities that Raval offers. In defining the new use of space, in accordance with the client’s needs, much attention has been given to maximise the entering of daylight and the visual interrelationships between the different parts of the house, each with its own identity. The aim was to give the occupant various possibilities to move from one space to another, to create diversity inside the apartment as well as to enable the clients to enjoy the diversity of the neighbourhood where they live.

The project objective is to try to maximise the functionality of the space for the new and contemporary use by the owner, but at the same time not to lose the identity of the neighbourhood and materiality of the existing building. The economic aspect was an important part of the project – it had to be a low-cost project done in a relatively short-time execution.

The apartment was previously ‘cleaned’: the walls were cleaned from cast, the cast ceiling was removed and all non-loadbearing walls were removed. The apartment wooden ceilings, as well as brick walls, are painted white to be a blank base for the activities of its future occupants.

The heart of the house is around the library, which separates the dining room from the built-in closet and, at the same time, joins the kitchen, dining room and the living room; it is an all-in-one element: staircase, bookshelf, closet and bench. The staircase leads to the small gallery located on the top of the closet, and is a space with a guest bed. This gallery also helps to access the storage, which is located above the kitchen and the entrance area. It is a compact apartment with multifunctional elements to provide flexibility and adaptability to different needs, in other words, a ‘mini-space’ with a ‘maxi-functionality’.

Architect: Eva Cotman
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Project area: 40sqm
Project year: 2013
Constructor: Dolmen Reformes

The post Renovated apartment in Ravel, Barcelona
by Eva Cotman appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish studio Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos has created an arts centre in Madrid by installing a flexible structure behind the concrete walls of an old industrial building (+ slideshow).

The renovated building functions as a research laboratory and exhibition space for Medialab-Prado, a city-funded organisation exploring the production and dissemination of art and digital culture.

La Serrería Belga, or The Belgian Sawmill, was built in the early twentieth century. For the renovation, architects María Langarita and Víctor Navarro decided to leave the facade of the old building intact and insert a more flexible structure inside, which they nicknamed La Cosa, or The Thing.

“[It is] a light and articulated structure with a certain pre-technological air that, infiltrated in the building, enables a large potential for transformation,” they explain.

The architects used lightweight and durable materials that can easily be taken apart and repurposed to facilitiate the changing needs of the organisation.

“Any duplication or incorporation of elements or solutions that had already been contributed by the Serrería building was avoided,” they say.

A three-storey volume was inserted into a void at the centre of the building and features translucent walls that can be illuminated with different neon colours.

A series of wooden boxes provides an entrance and smaller rooms elsewhere in the building. There are also new staircases, wooden furniture and blinds that function as projection screens.

Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos worked on a similar project to construct a nomadic music academy in a Madrid warehouse. Other buildings by the studio include a road-side restaurant and event space and a house with an irregular geometric platform.

See more architecture and interiors in Madrid, including a cinema in a former slaughterhouse.

Here’s some more information from Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos:

Medialab-Prado
Madrid, Spain

Perhaps more than anything else, it is the very strangeness of the diverging intentions found in the La Serrería Belga adaptation project for the Medialab-Prado that makes it possible for them to coexist, though not without a certain measure of irony.

The first of these caustic coexistences stems from a certain institutional schizophrenia. While the ‘Paseo del Arte’ was transformed into Madrid City Hall’s banner to attract international tourism, an architectural competition was simultaneously promoted in the same area, which would end up serving an institution that sponsored debates that were deeply critical of this model.

Medialab defines itself as “a space for the production, research and dissemination of digital culture and the confluence between art, science, technology and society”, and, in contrast to the traditional exhibition model, it promotes production as a permeable process, supplanting the figure of the spectator with that of the actor, or the figure of the mediator as a facilitator of connections.

La Serrería vs La Cosa is another pattern of coexistence that, like a conflicting dialect, facilitated the occupation of the intermediate space existing between both rivals, beyond the conventional concept of restoration.

La Serrería Belga (The Belgian Sawmill) was built in various stages starting in the 1920’s by the architect Manuel Álvarez Naya and it was one of the first architectural achievements in Madrid to employ reinforced concrete. For its part, La Cosa (The Thing), is the name that we have used to refer to the group of mechanisms, installations and facilities that, when assembled, made it possible to bring the building up to date with current requirements.

A light and articulated structure with a certain pre-technological air that, infiltrated in the building, enables a large potential for transformation. Ultimately, it is the coexistence of opposites that made it possible to think of the halfway point between these interlocutors not as a consummate product, but rather as an open, versatile process activated by its users.

These forms of coexistence created the scope for some of the strategies used in this adaptation:

» The appropriation of the existing building, not only as a historic narration, but also as a container for latent energies that have joined the project as effective material. Any duplication or incorporation of elements or solutions that had already been contributed by the Serrería building was avoided.

» The non-specific treatment of the spaces. This condition resulted in a homogenous approach to material solutions and the uniform distribution of installations.

» Thinking about the action as a stratification with different levels of change over time. Lightweight construction systems that can be disassembled were chosen, as were materials whose durability and adaptability will not condition future transformations.

» Looking at each new intervention as an opportunity to incorporate support systems for creative actions and research. This included solutions such as the use of double blinds as projection screens, taking advantage of voids in the existing structure to create a retro-projected floor, the use of the dividing wall as a digital facade and the design of La Cosa as a mechanism for digital experimentation.

Project: Adaptation of the Serrería Belga for the Centro Medialab-Prado location
Location: Madrid
Architects: María Langarita and Víctor Navarro
Collaborators: Elena Castillo, Marta Colón, Javier González Galán, Roberto González, Juan Palencia, Guillermo Trapiello, Gonzalo Gutiérrez, Paula García-Masedo

Surveyor: Santiago Hernán Martín
Structures: Mecanismo
Installations: Úrculo Ingenieros
Landscaping: Lorena García Rodríguez
Project date: January 2008
Client: Área de las Artes. Madrid City Hall
Budget: 1600 euros/m2

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Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.