Hasta La Ideas

Illuminated glass droplets full of bubbles appear to fall from the ceiling in this installation by Japanese studio Torafu Architects (+ slideshow).

The Water Balloon installation at the Konica Minolta Plaza Gallery in Tokyo was created by Torafu Architects for the Eco & Art Award 2014 exhibition.

The designers worked with a glass artist to form a series hand-blown bulbs from recycled material.

Each fluorescent lamp is a different shape and patterned with bubbles created during the blowing process.

“The bubbles inside each unique shape help produce a distinctive ethereal light,” said the designers.

Suspended from wires at various heights around the small room, the 36 “water balloons” pulsate with light in the dark space.

“We strived to create a space where [visitors] can catch a glimmer of a new natural environment,” the designers added.

Photography is by Masaki Ogawa.

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of light for Tokyo installation appeared first on Dezeen.

This wooden pavilion with a protruding canopy was designed by Ramser Schmid Architekten to offer a sheltered outdoor seating area for visitors to the city library in Zug, Switzerland (+ slideshow).

Swiss studio Ramser Schmid Architekten worked with landscape firm Planetage Landscape Architects to create the public pavilion for a new city park occupying the derelict space between the library’s two buildings, located within a historic arsenal.

The space was already home to a basement car park, which extends out from the edge of the landscape. Rather than burying this under more landscaping, the team chose to encase it behind a slatted timber screen and build a mushroom-like pavilion on top.

“The pavilion with its widely projecting roof creates a new sense of identity for the old Zeughaus site,” architect David Dick explains in his project description.

The structure is made from timber blocks, which are arranged in a pattern that resembles brickwork. Regular spaces create a rhythm of openings, revealing the supporting beams behind.

“In analogy to the retaining wall’s veil of wood, a transparent shell of horizontal wooden slats around the pedestal was designed in order to embellish the poor quality of the existing buildings rather than to hide them,” said Dick.

Planetage Landscape Architects surrounded the structure with shrub beds and low hedges, which line the edges of footpaths connecting the two library buildings with the city’s pedestrian pathways.

Photography is by 
Ralph Feiner.

Here’s a project description from Ramser Schmid Architekten:

City Park Zug

The area to be newly designed consisted mainly of the space between two locations of the local library: the main building in the south and the ancient arsenal, in which additional rooms had been installed into in 2011. The clients, the city and the canton of Zug asked for a public city park that was to be linked to the historic city’s pedestrian walks. The main goal of the park was to connect both sites of the library.

One of the main challenges was the fact that an underground car park from the 1970s partly juts out of the tilted terrain and its driveway divide the area into two sections.

The commonly accomplished competition entry by Planetage Landscape Architects and Ramser Schmid Architects was the winner of the 2010 competition. The jury report mentions the “surprising and yet persuading configuration of the terrain edge”. Instead of hiding away the underground car park’s volume by banks of earth, the planners accepted the presence of the building and decided to additionally expose it, extend it and to strengthen it by a wooden wall cladding. The car park now appears as a retaining wall, which separates the upper level with the old arsenal and its terrace from the lower part.

The lower level serves as public traffic area for the underground car park on the one hand. An array of shrub beds bordered by low hedges has been provided, which accompanies the footpaths towards the site and which can be seen as a spatial analogy to the existing Old Town’s gardens in Zug.

The staircases to the upper level pass by the retaining wall that is covered with vertical wooden slats. The cladding serves several purposes: besides being a fall protection, it highlights the built structures and facilitates orientation onsite. Protruding elements of the old underground car park, like for example an emergency exit, are masked. Visible transitions between new and 40-year old concrete surfaces are obscured with the new supplements, without hiding away the massive presence of the building.

The upper level located in front of the newly installed research library in the old arsenal is designed as a wide and open park. Generous and versatile lawns, a water basin, flexible seating configurations provide for a relaxed atmosphere.

The pavilion with its widely projecting roof creates a new sense of identity for the old Zeughaus (arsenal) site. The placement of the pavilion on the very top follows the inner logic of the complex: the mushroom-like pavilion is built on the lift shaft and the ventilation station of the 10-storey underground car park below. The technical section that protrudes the car park’s roof is amplified and used as a pedestal for the cantilevered roof construction. In analogy to the retaining wall’s veil of wood, a transparent shell of horizontal wooden slats around the pedestal was designed in order to embellish the poor quality of the existing buildings rather than to hide them. The cladding depicts the vertical subconstruction as well as the roof’s radially arranged laminated beams and reveals, solely by its geometry, the constructive design of the supporting structure.

Landscape architecture: Planetage Landschaftsarchitekten
Team: Marceline Hauri, Christine Sima, Ramon Iten, Helge Wiedemeyer, Thomas Volprecht
Modification of the car park and pavilion: 
Ramser Schmid Architekten
Team: Christoph Ramser, Raphael Schmid, David Dick, Isabel Amat, Lena Bertozzi, Elena Castellote, Patrick Schneider
Technical Planners: 
Schnetzer Puskas Ingenieure, 
d-lite Lichtdesign
Site Manager:
 Kolb Landschaftsarchitektur

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built beside Swiss library appeared first on Dezeen.

Black panels of corrugated iron clad the exterior of this lakeside wooden cabin in rural Victoria, Australia, by local firm Branch Studio Architects (+ slideshow).

Branch Studio Architects originally designed the Pump House to give the clients space for storing a water pump and other equipment needed to maintain their farmland property, but the compact shed also doubles as a quiet lakeside retreat.

“The original brief was for a temporary shed-like space to house the water pump and other farm equipment as well as to provide the owners with somewhere sheltered to have a cup of tea when they came to hang out with George, their horse, on the weekends,” said architect Nicholas Russo.

“Although the project eventually developed into something slightly more extravagant, the modesty of the original ambition is still evident in the ‘no-frills’ detailing and rugged materiality of the finished building,” Russo added.

Sections of corrugated Colorbond iron clad the asymmetric roof and two side walls, which feature narrow horizontal windows.

The front and rear walls are entirely glazed, so the owners can open the interior to a deck overlooking the lake.

The main space in the building is an open-plan living room and kitchen featuring a wood-burning stove. A central bathroom divides this space from a studio and bedroom at the rear, which offers views out into the countryside.

The interior is lined with unfinished low-grade plywood and rough-sawn timber boards. “The timber was used to create a soft, warm, cocoon-like interior which is a direct contrast to the robust external shell,” Russo told Dezeen.

The cabin is entirely self-sustaining. Along with wood fired heating, it features solar panels and tanks for collecting and recycling rainwater.

Here’s a project description from architect Nicholas Russo:

Pump House

Typically an architectural outcome is the product of a lengthy design, documentation & construction process where the ‘vision’ is communicated to both client and builder predominantly through detailed drawings and a paper-trail of addendums, RFI’s & variations.

The Pump House was different. Constructed and largely conceptualised by the owner on free weekends and rainy Mondays, the compact, re-locatable structure is more a product of rigorous discussion than that of resolved drawings… that’s not to downplay the careful consideration that was applied to the details of the house, it’s just that the way this project evolved meant that things could, more often than not, be resolved through a conversation on site and detail etched into the clay with a rusty nail.

The nature in which this project was realised meant that our involvement was quite informal as we were consulted with on an ad-hoc basis during the design & construction solely in regards to architectural detailing and the overall architectural outcome. It was exciting to be involved in a project where we could focus purely on the aesthetic and architectural outcomes of a building.

Having worked on a couple of challenging projects with the owner (a carpenter) previously, we often found ourselves deliberating over ideas revolving around establishing a methodology to design & build small scale structures that would achieve both a simplicity of construction as well as a successful architectural outcome. We regularly discussed the possibility of developing an architectural alternative to the conventional ‘off the shelf’ house and we were united in our refusal to concede that architectural detailing, simplicity of construction and affordability were mutually exclusive.

The Pump House was driven by the intersection of these three prerequisites – it had to be a considered response (architectural detailing), it had to be easy to build (simplicity of construction) & it had to be cost effective (affordability) – and in many ways is an architectural prototype that tests our responses to these age old dilemmas… it’s very much like a 1:1 concept model based on ideas which evolved through our discussions and previous experiences.

The Pump House is a celebration of the ordinary. Uncompromising in it’s simplicity, there is a rigid adherence to some very modest but key ideas about doing away with the unnecessary. Agricultural materials (Colorbond iron, low-grade plywood & rough sawn timber) are put together with carefully considered old-fashioned craftsmanship (custom made on-site windows, doors & joinery) to create something much more than the sum of their parts. In plan, the compact internal spaces arranged simply around a central service core provide only the very basic requirements of uncomplicated living, an idea that is reinforced by the uncomplicated nature of the architecture.

A semi-permanent structure, the Pump House sits softly on its site adjacent to a large dam and on the threshold between the open paddocks and the bush land surrounds. Large expanses of glazing along with a North/South orientation allow the sunlight and the wide-open green spaces to penetrate into, and seemingly pass through, the internal volume giving the condensed areas a sense of spaciousness. The formal gesture of the black box external shell creates a robust metal ‘cocoon’ within the landscape that is directly contrasted by the warmth of the timber lined internal spaces. A large horizontal window along the western facade provides the only penetration of the metal cocoon while also allowing afternoon light to filter through the dense treetop canopy and into the spaces.

The original brief was for a temporary shed-like space to house the water pump and other farm equipment as well as to provide the owners with somewhere sheltered to have a cup of tea when they came to hang out with George (their horse) on the weekends …and although the project eventually developed into something slightly more extravagant, the modesty of the original ambition is still evident in the ‘no-frills’ detailing and rugged materiality of the finished building.

The Pump House is fully ‘off grid’ and self-sustainable utilising rainwater tanks, wood heating and solar power.

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is a metal-clad lakeside retreat appeared first on Dezeen.

Paris studio Yoonseux Architectes added wooden surfaces and red floors to this school classroom building in the French city of Livry Gargan, to echo the autumnal tones of neighbouring trees (+ slideshow).

Built to accommodate the expanding number of pupils attending J. Jaurès Primary School, Yoonseux Architectes‘ extension occupies a site between two of the school’s existing buildings.

It provides a sheltered courtyard and three classrooms, linked together by a long corridor that faces the playground from the front of the building.

A wall running along the back of the site provides a backdrop for the carefully positioned trees, which can be seen from inside each of the classrooms.

“We conceived of the project as an ‘open edge’, not as a ‘wall to divide’,” said the architects. “To ensure this idea we made a garden along the boundary. All of the new classes orient toward this garden.”

Large windows along the back wall of the classrooms frame views of the trees, while knotted timber boards clad the walls to enhance the connection between the interior and the garden.

“[With] this choice of material it is our intention to extend the garden to be inside the building,” said the architects. “Visible from the classrooms, its architectural treatment identifies the garden as a value-adding landscape element extending up to the sky.”

The underside of the roof covering the courtyard and the wall adjacent to the building’s entrance are also covered in wood to create a warm and welcoming space for children to play.

Just two concrete columns support the 15-metre span of the roof, offering minimal disruption to the space underneath.

Horizontal metal bars separate the courtyard from the garden and allow sunlight to filter through, creating a pattern of light and shadow on the ground.

The corridor that extends past the classrooms features a translucent glass wall that permits partial views of the playground.

In this space, the use of wood continues on the doors and their surrounds, as well as low storage units and simple wooden coat pegs that are fixed to the wall in two staggered rows.

Photography is by Fabrice Dunou.

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to match autumnal tree leaves appeared first on Dezeen.

Milan 2014: objects made out of lava from Mount Etna in Sicily will be presented by design duo Formafantasma in Milan next week (+ slideshow).

Sicilian-born Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi of Formafantasma experimented with cooled lava from the volcano’s eruption last year to create the De Natura Fossilium collection, made in collaboration with Gallery Libby Sellers.

“When Mount Etna erupted on 20 November 2013, the dramatic event was broadcast by a haunting noise of rumbling stones and a vast plume of dark smoke that completely obscured the sun,” said the designers.

“Mount Etna is a mine without miners – it is excavating itself to expose its raw materials.”

After the eruption, the lava cooled and solidified into dark grey basalt rock. Formafantasma collected samples of the rock from Etna and nearby Stromboli, which they melted and blew to create glass, wove into fibres for textiles and milled into various shapes.

“When we experimented with the melting, mouth blowing and casting of lava, the research and tests took a really long time,” Trimarchi told Dezeen. “The difficult part was to understand the right cooling time of the material. We had thousands of tests made that just cracked during the cooling time.”

The pieces were used to create stools, coffee tables and a clock with linear forms that reference the work of Postmodern designer Ettore Sottsass.

Paired with brass elements, the rock has been cut to reveal strata and textures formed as it cooled quickly.

A crater of powdered stone forms the base of a circular clock, which has brass hands that turn inside the depression.

Sections of the tables and stools patterned by the air holes formed in the rock are held in place with brass plates and secured with threads.

The glass was mouth-blown into vessels or moulded into boxes shaped like the dwellings at the foot of the volcano.

A black mirror suspended on a string over a brass frame is balanced using a chunk of rock.

Formafantasma’s collection will be shown at Palazzo Clerici in Milan city centre from 8 to 13 April.

Here’s some more information sent to us by the designers:

“When Mount Etna erupted on 20th November 2013, the dramatic event was broadcast by a haunting noise of rumbling stones and a vast plume of dark smoke that completely obscured the sun. After the smoke, black earthen debris began showering down over the villages and cities within the immediate vicinity of the mountain. From the highway through to the Greek theatre in Taormina, everything was covered with black. Mount Etna is a mine without miners – it is excavating itself to expose its raw materials.”

Studio Formafantasma, in collaboration with Gallery Libby Sellers, present De Natura Fossilium – an investigation into the cultures surrounding this particularly Sicilian experience to bring both the landscape and the forces of nature together as facilities for production.

As in their previous projects Autarchy (2010) and Moulding Tradition (2009), Formafantasma questions the link between tradition and local culture and the relationship between objects and the idea of cultural heritage. De Natura Fossilium is a project that refuses to accept locality as touristic entertainment.

Instead, the work of Formafantasma is a different expedition in which the landscape is not passively contemplated but restlessly sampled, melted, blown, woven, cast and milled. From the more familiar use of basalt stone to their extreme experiments with lava in the production of glass and the use of lavic fibers for textile, Formafantasma’s explorations and the resulting objects realize the full potential of the lava as a material for design.

In homage to Ettore Sottsass, the great maestro of Italian design and an avid frequenter of the volcanic Aeolian islands, this new body of work takes on a linear, even brutalist form. Geometric volumes have been carved from basalt and combined with fissure-like structural brass elements to produce stools, coffee tables and a clock. The clock itself is deconstructed into three basalt horizontal plates to represent the passing of hours, minutes and seconds. A brass movement spins around the plates, shifting three different ages of lavic sand that have been sampled from three different sites on Stromboli.

Lavic glass, procured by remelting Etna’s rocks, has been mouth-blown into unique vessels or cast into box-like structures that purposefully allude to the illegal dwellings and assorted buildings that have developed at the foot of the volcano. Drawing on their own vocabulary, these solitary glass boxes and mysterious black buildings have been finished with such archetypal Formafantasma detailing as cotton ribbons and Murano glass plaques. By returning the rocks to their original molten state Formafantasma are reversing the natural timeline of the material and forcing a dialogue between the natural and manmade.

A black, obsidian mirror that is suspended on a brass structure and balanced by lavic rocks continues this line of narrative, as the semi-precious glass like stone is produced only when molten lava is in contact with water. Formafantasma have also investigated the tensile properties of lavic fibre and woven two different wall hangings.

These pieces combine illustrative references to both the Greek mythological gods of Mount Etna and the microscopic views of lavic rock’s geological strata as ascertained through the designers’ collaboration with the Volcanologist Centre of Catania (INGV). As a sustainable alternative to carbon fiber, Formafantasma’s use of lavic fibre has effectively reappropriated a conventionally high tech material for artisanal ends.

While the collection focuses on a specific locality, the project has been developed in collaboration with a number of European experts: from the CNC cutting of basalt in Sicily to the scientific analysis of lavic stones at the INGV of Catania, through the experiments with lava as glass at both the Glass Museum in Leerdam and Berengo Studio in Murano, to the brass developments with Carl Aubock in Vienna and the textile works with the Textile Museum in Tilburg. The collection is also accompanied by a photographic series by long time collaborator Luisa Zanzani.

All works are part of an edition, available exclusively through Gallery Libby Sellers, London. Supported by Creative Industries Fund NL.

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to create furniture collection appeared first on Dezeen.