Australian architect Raffaello Rosselli has repurposed a corroding tin shed in Sydney to create a small office and studio apartment (+ slideshow).
Photograph by Richard Carr
Rather than replace the crumbling structure, Raffaello Rosselli chose to retain the rusty corrugated cladding of the two-storey building so that from the outside it looks mostly unchanged.
“The humble tin shed is an iconic Australian structure,” he explains. “As the only remaining shed in the area it is a unique reminder of the suburb’s industrial past.”
The architect began by taking the building apart and replacing its old skeleton with a modern timber frame. He then reattached the cladding over three facades, allowing room for three new windows.
The frames of the windows are made from sheets of Corten steel that display the same orange tones as the retained facade. “The materials have been left raw and honest, in the spirit of its industrial economy,” adds Rosselli.
In contrast with the exterior, the inside of the building has a clean finish with white walls and plywood floors in both the ground-floor living space and the first-floor office.
Photography is by Mark Syke, apart from where otherwise indicated.
Here’s a project description from Raffaello Rosselli:
Tinshed
The humble tin shed is an iconic Australian structure. The project was to repurpose an existing tin shed at the rear of a residential lot, in the inner-city suburb of Redfern, Sydney.
Photograph by Richard Carr
Located on a corner the existing shed was a distinctive building, a windowless, narrow double-storey structure on a single-storey residential street. As the only remaining shed in the area it is a unique reminder of the suburb’s industrial past.
Original building
The project brief was to create a new use for the building as an office space and studio. The shed in its current state was dilapidated and structurally unsound. The original tin shed was disassembled and set aside while a new timber frame was erected. The layers of corrugated iron accumulated over generations of repair were reassembled on three facades.
Corten steel window boxes cut through the form and extend out over the lane and street, opening up the once windowless space. The materials have been left raw and honest, in the spirit of its industrial economy. The west face was clad in expressed joint fibre-cement panels, while plywood floors and joinery add warmth to the interior.
A bulky concrete first floor balances above pale brick walls and tall grasses at this family house in Brazil by São Paulo architect Guilherme Torres (+ slideshow).
The two-storey house in Maringá has a square ground floor plan, while its upper floor is an offset rectangular volume that gently cantilevers over the edge of one wall.
Unlike the opaque brick walls of the lower level, this top floor is clad with latticed mashrabiya screens that bring light and ventilation into the family’s bedrooms, but also maintain privacy.
Guilherme Torres explains: “As soon as I saw the gently sloped plot surrounded by other houses, the idea of this large panel came to me, to ensure privacy for both the residents and their neighbours.”
The ground floor is split into two parts, with a large courtyard and swimming pool between. One half contains living and dining rooms, while the other functions as a pool house with a pair of changing rooms and an additional dining area.
Various furniture pieces by Torres are dotted through the building, alongside a selection of items by other Brazilian designers. “The decoration follows a jovial and Brazilian style,” explains the studio.
Landscape architect Alex Hanazaki designed the setting for the building, adding the Texan pampas grass that brushes against the outer walls.
Here’s a project description from Studio Guilherme Torres:
BT House
São Paulo-based architect Guilherme Torres has developed ideas which fuse the modern and the traditional. Guilherme’s own house, designed by the architect himself, bears a chequered wood design, a kind of brise soleil called mashrabiya, which is a classic feature in Eastern architecture.
It was later assimilated by the Portuguese, who brought it to Brazil. This element, with its powerful aesthetic appeal, was adapted to this residence in the south of the country, and acts as a wooden ‘curtain’, allowing air flow, dimming light and also serving as a security feature.
“As soon as I saw the gently sloped plot surrounded by other houses, the idea of this large panel came to me, to ensure privacy for both the residents and their neighbours.” This monumental house stands out as a huge rectangular monolith with two large brickwork blocks in contrast with the upper volume in concrete. A few columns, huge spans and strategic walls create exquisite fine gardens that make up a refuge for this young couple and their two small children.
The decoration follows a jovial and Brazilian style with an alliance of Guilherme Torres’ design, including sofas and tables, and other great names of Brazilian design such as furniture designed by Sérgio Rodrigues and Carlos Motta. The composition of overlapping these Brazilian styles with international design is balanced by pieces from Tom Dixon and Iranian carpets, all sourced by the architect.
The garden, designed by Alex Hanazaki has given the house an ethereal atmosphere due to the movement of Texan plume grass.
Bunk bed booths provide sleeping sanctuaries at this hostel in Split, Croatia, by local designer Lana Vitas Gruić (+ slideshow).
The new hostel houses 15 beds divided between two rooms accessed from a lobby, which features branding also by Gruić of Atom Design.
In the largest room, colourful units with simple white rails and ladders each house two beds, while the blue block in the centre of the largest room is double-sided to accommodate four.
Two more units are situated in a smaller all-white room, with an extra bed raised high above the ground that appears to balance on lockers.
Desks and shelves accompanied by a mixture of chair styles offer space for guests to eat or use laptops within the dorms.
Photos of lesser-known sites around the city have been blown up to cover walls.
Owners Mila and Toni Radan worked with Gruić to convert the disused apartment, located close to the city’s port and historic Diocletian’s Palace. “From the beginning, it was our desire to create a comfortable, functional and modern space that has the spirit of a Split street,” they say.
Split has got a new hostel. Emanuel Hostel is located in Tolstoy Street and is part of the apartment house from the first half of the 20th century. Mila and Toni Radan, the owners of the hostel, adapt completely ruined apartment into a hostel with 15 beds. Toni, who is otherwise engaged in adaptations of similar objects, creates forms and deployment of space, and interior design and visual identity is done by Split designer Lana Vitas Gruić (Atom Design Studio).
From the beginning, it was our desire to create a comfortable, functional and modern space that has the spirit of a Split street. The design was created as a product of fusion, conjuction of the hostel’s name meaning, identity of the Mediterranean climate and the tendency of creating a design hostel. The style is eclectic, as evidenced by the contrast of clear, modern lines of bed forms with chairs and accessories from the 50s and 60s of the last century.
In addition to being a place to relax, refresh and sleep, the hostel can serve as a space for socialising – a kind of a living room with internet service and free breakfast so it does not have exclusively a transitional character of typical of hostels, but a warm, pleasant and airy space that is not only a “dorm”.
Since in the Mediterranean life is always happening outside, on the streets, and there is a strong culture of cafes, we transferred that same street and exterior onto the hostel’s interior walls with photos of Split motifs. To avoid banalisation, photo-wallpapers’ motifs are not the much-vaunted ones of Split such as towers, peristyle, waterfront or street moments of a full market-place and fish-market. We have tried to achieve a fine blend of an outdoor and indoor living, a street object like barrel beside an armchair which is part of someone’s living room. From such approach we interpret relaxed quality, almost modesty, that nonetheless does not occur by accident, but as a result of a methodical work and experience.
Hostel Emanuel is a place with a story and a family project which primarily arises from the enthusiasm and the special spirit of its owners and all who participated in that process.
Ten years after completing the Ílhavo Maritime Museum in Portugal, Lisbon studio ARX Portugal has extended the building by adding an aquarium dedicated to codfish (+ slideshow).
The aquarium is contained within an angular metal-clad structure, positioned over a white concrete base. Bridging a public plaza, the building sets up a winding route between the existing museum and its accompanying research centre.
ARX Portugal placed the aquarium tank at the centre of a spiralling pathway, allowing visitors to look into the water from different heights and positions.
The architects explain: “The visitor’s path is a spiralling ramp, a journey that begins in suspension over the tank and turns into a diving mode of gradual discovery, an experience of immersion in the cod habitat.”
An informal auditorium offers a stop along the route, where visitors can learn more about the fish, while extra facts and pictures are printed across the walls.
A private basement floor houses technical equipment needed to maintain the tanks and there’s also storage space to house the museum’s archive.
The codfish aquarium connects two other buildings and sets a complex built ensemble, united around the subjects of the sea and fishing. In this unusual structure, the Maritime Museum is the place of memory, the Aquarium the space for marine life and CIEMAR, installed in the old renovated school, the research centre for the activities of man linked to the sea.
In articulating these three units the building is both an autonomous urban equipment that relates to the context and defines a public space, but it is also a building-path, which develops in a spiral around the tank as it connects the Museum to the old school.
In a context of small scattered houses, it is shaped by the interstices of this urban domestic fabric and establishes a new public domain. But in doing so it breaks into two horizontally overlapping bodies searching for a scale of transition.
In its proposed matter duality, the white concrete body emerges from the ground and sets the basis for defining a square. The floating black body of metal scales sets the height of the square, in a public urbanity redefined into three dimensions.
At the heart of the building we find the fish and the sea. The visitor’s path is a spiraling ramp, a journey that begins in suspension over the tank and turns into a diving mode of gradual discovery, an experience of immersion in the cod habitat. The informal auditorium, with extensive visibility into the aquarium, marks a pause in the visit for contemplation and information about the life of this species.
All technical components of control are placed in the basement, guaranteeing a subliminal operation of all the life support systems, the quality of the seawater, the control of air temperature and even the new reserves of the Maritime Museum.
Location: Ílhavo, Portugal Owner: Ílhavo Municipality Project: 2009–11 Construction: 2011-12 Architecture: ARX PORTUGAL, Arquitectos Lda. José Mateus Nuno Mateus Work Team: Ricardo Guerreiro, Fábio Cortês, Ana Fontes, Baptiste Fleury, Luís Marques, Sofia Raposo, Sara Nieto, Héctor Bajo
Structures: TAL PROJECTOS, Projectos, Estudos e Serviços de Engenharia Lda. Electrical and Telecomunications Planning: Security Planning AT, Serviços de Engenharia Electrotécnica e Electrónica Lda. Mechanical Planning: PEN, Projectos de Engenharia Lda. Sanitary Planning: Atelier 964
Nine stone cabins are sheltered beneath a single thatched roof in this addition to a hotel resort in Nha Trang, Vietnam, by architecture practice a21studio (+ slideshow).
The buildings nestle into the rugged landscape of the I-Resort, forming an uneven row that wraps around a pair of staggered outdoor swimming pools and also includes a small bar and restaurant.
The architects at a21studio used indigenous techniques to construct the cabins, helped by a team of local masons and carpenters. Walls are built from locally quarried stone, while the roofing is made from timber and coconut leaves.
“The wooden roofs are constructed in a traditional way with mortise and tenon joint techniques,” explain the architects. “These joints are easy to assemble and the connections are very strong, neat and hard to wobble.”
The layout of each cabin is the same; a living room occupies one side of the space, while a toilet and washroom are tucked away at the back and a small paddling pool sits at the front.
Patterned tiles add a mixture of colours to the interior walls and floors. Windows are circular and entrances are positioned along the sides.
The bar and restaurant also shelters beneath the thatched roof and is positioned at the centre of the plan. This space is filled with reclaimed furniture and features a wall covered in old doors.
9 spa is a set of nine hotel houses with spas, mud and mineral baths together with a small bar and restaurant, located in the centre of the group. The buildings are perched in the folds of halfway terrace up to a rock mountain and looking down to the service area, which has run business from two years ago. On this side, the project is received a lot of rain but lacked of wind from the river.
Using indigenous building techniques and materials, and adopting local custom as the key to managing the project, both architecturally and otherwise, 80 village masons, carpenters and craft persons were enlisted to build the hotel in a period of 9 months. The project was designed as a combination of dry-stacked stone with wood structure, quarried right on the site. All other materials such as coconut leaves and used furniture are used on the same manner.
The houses are set up in different specific angles and placed separately by a distance to let rain water go down easily from the top of mountain. The spaces between the blocks make an entrance lobby for each house. Moreover, it helps to increase ventilation for the whole area. The wooden roofs are constructed in a traditional way with mortise and tenon joint techniques. These joints are easy to assemble and the connections are very strong, neat, and hard to be wobbled. Unlike old buildings, in which these techniques are adopted popular, 9 spa is structured with lighter and lissom looks. Above this wooden structure, the roof is divided into 3 layers, including 20 mm thick wood panels, which gives an aesthetic look to ceiling and links all beams together, water proof and 30 mm coconut leaves, respectively. Besides, the project also makes use of old furniture from nearby buildings such as doors, tables and chairs or patterned tiles, give the buildings a distinctive look, the beauty or serenity of old items that comes with age.
The bar, with less than a dozen seats and the wooden floor, faced out to a garden looking to public resort, which makes the hotel hideaway from eventful area downhill. The level of restaurant floor was above from the ground, thereby linking the outside space to the interior and offering a new viewpoint to the customers, while not touching to existing nature. On the other words, by any means necessary, nature is treated as the core value to the whole building, that its beauty can be contemplated at every corner of the project. That could be a row of mountain far away through a rounded window or a garden view is enframed as a picture by unusual opens. In conclusion, a group of nine hotel houses are linked by a continuous wooden roof, reflecting its surrounding environment and landscape. By using local materials as rock and wood together with adopting old furniture, 9 spa gives an extraordinary value to the existing project.
Client: I-resort Location: Nha Trang, Vietnam Project area: 1080 sqm Building area: 450 sqm Materials: rock, wood, coconut leaf, used furniture and tiles Completed: 2013
Interview: German industrial designer Richard Sapper has launched a new website chronicling his work dating back to the 1950s. In an interview looking back on his career he tells Dezeen how he turned down the chance to work at Apple, how design has been “degraded” by commercialism and how 3D printing could help solve unemployment (+ slideshow).
Speaking from his home in Milan, Sapper, 81, recounts how Steve Jobs once tried to lure him to work for Apple, “but the circumstances weren’t right because I didn’t want to move to California and I had very interesting work here that I didn’t want to abandon.”
Tizio desk lamp, Artemide, 1972: photograph by Serge Libiszewski
When asked if he regretted turning Jobs down he said: “Sure I regret it – the man who then did it [Jonathan Ive] makes $30 million a year!”
TS 502 radio, Brionvega, 1963: photograph by Serge Libiszewski
In a career spanning almost 60 years, Sapper has designed iconic products including the Tizio lamp, the ThinkPad range of laptops for IBM and the 9091 whistling kettle for Alessi.
Grillo Telephone, Siemens Italtel, 1965: photograph by Roberto Zabban
Sapper says that he admires the work of Jonathan Ive and Steve Jobs at Apple, citing the company as an exception in an industry he feels has been “degraded” by an overriding focus on profit. “If a company asks me to design something, the first thing I hear is how much money they’re making, how much money they want to make, and I’m expected to produce the difference.”
9090 espresso coffee maker, Alessi, 1978: photograph by Aldo Ballo
Richard Sapper was born in 1932 and was first employed as a stylist with Daimler Benz in Stuttgart. He founded his own studio in Milan in 1959 and worked as a consultant for many of Italy’s leading companies, including Brionvega, Fiat and Pirelli.
ThinkPad 701, IBM, 1996: photograph by Aldo Ballo
He is renowned for his work with technology brands, including IBM, for whom he has been chief industrial design consultant since 1980.
Algol portable TV set 3rd edition (first designed with Marco Zanuso), Brionvega, 1985: photograph by Aldo Ballo
When asked about 3D printing and its impact on the design industry, Sapper describes it as “a huge revolution,” and adds, “it is revolution that allows anyone who has such a machine the possibility to produce something that they have invented themselves. This can help to reduce the problem of unemployment because people are able to produce something without having to be employed.”
9091 kettle, Alessi, 1983: photograph by Aldo Ballo
Despite his prodigious career, Sapper says he launched a new website, designed by London studio Julia, because “I’ve been working in design for over 50 years and most people still don’t know my work.”
Sapper XYZ monitor arm system, Knoll, 2012: photograph by Jens Mortensen for Knoll
Here’s a transcript of Richard Sapper talking with Alyn Griffiths from Dezeen:
Alyn Griffiths: Your website documents a career going back all the way to the 1950s. How has design changed in that time?
Richard Sapper: There have been enormous changes. When I was young and starting out, industrial designers all worked for somebody who owned a company. Some of those company owners wanted to make good-looking things because there is pleasure associated with good forms. In many ways these people were idealists. They didn’t make more money because they made a beautiful design. Today, it seems to me that money is the only reason to make design.
If a company asks me to design something, the first thing I hear is how much money they’re making, how much money they want to make, and I’m expected to produce the difference. It is a completely different relationship and it isn’t as much fun to work in such a relationship. From that point of view, my profession has degraded.
Alyn Griffiths: So do you think there are too many products and too many designers today?
Richard Sapper: There are certainly too many products and too many designers, and the idea behind design has changed. Today it’s all [about] money. Back then it was just an interest in producing something beautiful. And this is very similar to the interest a designer has in making a design. They want to do something beautiful. If you find a manufacturer who has the same interests then it is easy to work together. Today, most of my clients are so big that there is no one person who is responsible for the appearance of the product.
Apple has been a real exception because it was a company that, up until last year, still worked as my old clients used to work. They would come and see what I do, they would tell me their opinions and it was just [Steve] Jobs who did that. He absolutely wanted to make beautiful products.
Alyn Griffiths: You never worked for Apple did you?
Richard Sapper: Jobs once wanted to hire me to do the design of Apple [computers] but the circumstances weren’t right because I didn’t want to move to California and I had very interesting work here that I didn’t want to abandon. Also, at that time Apple was not a great company, it was just a small computer company. They were doing interesting things so I was very interested, of course, but I had an exclusivity contract with IBM.
Alyn Griffiths: Do you regret it at all?
Richard Sapper: Sure I regret it – the man who then did it makes $30 million a year! [Laughs] so how can you not regret it?
Alyn Griffiths: How have technologies like 3D printing changed the processes of designing and manufacturing?
Richard Sapper: 3D printing is changing not only the way design is made – that has already happened – but it is also changing the way things are produced. In a few years, many things that are now produced in big factories will just be done at home.
Alyn Griffiths: Do you think that’s a good thing?
Richard Sapper: Yes, I think so. It’s a huge revolution, and it is revolution that allows anyone who has such a machine the possibility to produce something that they have invented themselves. This can help to reduce the problem of unemployment because people are able to produce something without having to be employed.
Alyn Griffiths: Do you not worry that the quality of design will deteriorate?
Richard Sapper: I think it has already deteriorated! [Laughs] I’m always asked, ‘Was there more good design when you were young, or is there more good design design now?’ My answer is that there is more good design now, but really good design was rare when I started and is still rare now.
Alyn Griffiths: Are there any designers working today who you admire?
Richard Sapper: Of course, I admire Jonathan Ive’s work very much. But you mustn’t forget the contribution of Steve Jobs because they worked so closely together.
Alyn Griffiths: What makes a good design for you?
Richard Sapper: It has to transmit a message to whomever is looking at it, or who has it in their hand. What message is another question, but it has to tell them something.
Alyn Griffiths: What you are currently working on?
I’m currently working on several things; one is an LED ceiling lamp to illuminate a whole room, I’m working on a system to support computer monitors for Knoll, which is a big project that I have been working on for five years. I’m also working on computers for Lenovo and I’m a consultant for IBM, so I have stuff to do!
This elliptical chapel near Oxford by London studio Niall McLaughlin Architects contains a group of arching timber columns behind its textured stone facade (+ slideshow).
The Bishop Edward King Chapel replaces another smaller chapel at the Ripon Theological College campus and accommodates both students of the college and the local nuns of a small religious order.
Niall McLaughlin Architects was asked to create a building that respects the historic architecture of the campus, which includes a nineteenth century college building and vicarage, and also fits comfortably amongst a grove of mature trees.
For the exterior, the architects sourced a sandy-coloured stone, similar to the limestone walls of the existing college, and used small blocks to create a zigzagging texture around the outside of the ellipse. A wooden roof crowns the structure and integrates a row of clerestory windows that bring light across the ceiling.
Inside, the tree-like timber columns form a second layer behind the walls, enclosing the nave of the chapel and creating an ambulatory around the perimeter. Each column comprises at least three branches, which form a latticed canopy overhead.
Niall McLaughlin told Dezeen: “If you get up very early, at sunrise, the horizontal sun casts a maze of moving shadows of branches, leaves, window mullions and structure onto the ceiling. It is like looking up into trees in a wood.”
A projecting window offers a small seating area on one side of the chapel, where McLaughlin says you can “watch the sunlit fields on the other side of the valley”.
Photography is by the architects, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s a detailed project description from Niall McLaughlin Architects:
Bishop Edward King Chapel
The client brief sought a new chapel for Ripon Theological College, to serve the two interconnected groups resident on the campus in Oxfordshire, the college community and the nuns of a small religious order, the Sisters of Begbroke. The chapel replaces the existing one, designed by George Edmund Street in the late nineteenth century, which had since proved to be too small for the current needs of the college.
The brief asked for a chapel that would accommodate the range of worshipping needs of the two communities in a collegiate seating arrangement, and would be suitable for both communal gatherings and personal prayer. In addition the brief envisioned a separate space for the Sisters to recite their offices, a spacious sacristy, and the necessary ancillary accommodation. Over and above these outline requirements, the brief set out the clients’ aspirations for the chapel, foremost as ‘a place of personal encounter with the numinous’ that would enable the occupants to think creatively about the relationship between space and liturgy. The client summarised their aspirations for the project with Philip Larkin’s words from his poem Church Going, ‘A serious house on serious earth it is… which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in…’.
On the site is an enormous beech tree on the brow of the hill. Facing away from the beech and the college buildings behind, there is ring of mature trees on high ground overlooking the valley that stretches away towards Garsington. This clearing has its own particular character, full of wind and light and the rustling of leaves.
These strengths of the site also presented significant planning constraints. The college’s existing buildings are of considerable historical importance. G.E. Street was a prominent architect of the Victorian Age and both the main college building and vicarage to its south are Grade II* listed.
The site is designated within the Green Belt in the South Oxfordshire Local Plan and is also visible from a considerable distance across the valley to the west. The immediate vicinity of the site is populated with mature trees and has a Tree Preservation Order applied to a group at the eastern boundary. The design needed to integrate with the character of the panorama and preserve the setting of the college campus and the surrounding trees.
The mediation of these interlocked planning sensitivities required extensive consultation with South Oxfordshire District Council, English Heritage and local residents.
The starting point for this project was the hidden word ‘nave’ at the centre of Seamus Heaney poem Lightenings viii. The word describes the central space of a church, but shares the same origin as ‘navis’, a ship, and can also mean the still centre of a turning wheel. From these words, two architectural images emerged. The first is the hollow in the ground as the meeting place of the community, the still centre. The second is the delicate ship-like timber structure that floats above in the tree canopy, the gathering place for light and sound. We enjoyed the geometry of the ellipse.
To construct an ellipse the stable circle is played against the line, which is about movement back and forth. For us this reflected the idea of exchange between perfect and imperfect at the centre of Christian thought. The movement inherent in the geometry is expressed in the chapel through the perimeter ambulatory. It is possible to walk around the chapel, looking into the brighter space in the centre. The sense of looking into an illuminated clearing goes back to the earliest churches. We made a clearing to gather in the light.
The chapel, seen from the outside, is a single stone enclosure. We have used Clipsham stone which is sympathetic, both in terms of texture and colouration, to the limestone of the existing college. The external walls are of insulated cavity construction, comprising of a curved reinforced blockwork internal leaf and dressed stone outer leaf.
The base of the chapel and the ancillary structures are clad in ashlar stone laid in regular courses. The upper section of the main chapel is dressed in cropped walling stone, laid in a dog-tooth bond to regular courses. The chapel wall is surmounted by a halo of natural stone fins. The fins sit in front of high-performance double glazed units, mounted in concealed metal frames.
Photograph by Denis Gilbert
The roof of the main chapel and the ancillary block are both of warm deck construction. The chapel roof drains to concealed rainwater pipes running through the cavity of the external wall. Where exposed at clerestory level, the rainwater pipes are clad in aluminium sleeves with a bronze anodised finish and recessed into the stone fins. The roof and the internal frame are self-supporting and act independently from the external walls.
A minimal junction between the roof and the walls expresses this. Externally the roof parapet steps back to diminish its presence above the clerestorey; inside the underside of the roof structure rises up to the outer walls to form the shape of a keel, expressing the floating ‘navis’ of Heaney’s poem.
The internal timber structure is constructed of prefabricated Glulam sections with steel fixings and fully concealed steel base plate connections. The Glulam sections are made up of visual grade spruce laminations treated with a two-part stain system, which gives a light white-washed finish.
The structure of roof and columns express the geometrical construction of the ellipse itself, a ferrying between centre and edge with straight lines that reveals the two stable foci at either end, reflected in the collegiate layout below in the twin focus points of altar and lectern. As you move around the chapel there is an unfolding rhythm interplay between the thicket of columns and the simple elliptical walls beyond. The chapel can be understood as a ship in a bottle, the hidden ‘nave’.
RIBA competition won – July 2009 Planning Consent – June 2010 Construction – July 2011 Practical Completion – February 2013 Construction Cost – 2,034,000
Most of dustpans sold are a design of low esthetic value. My intention was to design a simple, refined in form and functional solution – an object enjoyable to use. The key innovation is the use of the dustpan’s handle as a funnel. Thanks to that you won’t have problems in removing the dust even to a small bathroom dustbin. The set can be hung in a cupboard or storeroom on the loop attached to the end of the sweeper.
The sweeper is made of natural horsehair and beechwood, because natural hair sweeps better than its synthetic equivalent. The wooden handle covered with oil is nice to touch, well balanced and comfortable to hold.
The project was made in collaboration with a Warsaw craftsman who has been producing brooms and brushed for many years. The design of the dustpan allows the technology of injection moulding to be applied. The plastic was used in order to obtain a streamlined shape which the waste can easily go through.
The project is a reflection on a dull object of everyday use. An object we often use but rarely pay attention to. I wanted to create an object which, thanks to its esthetic and functional quality, would slightly enhance the quality of our lives and make everyday chores more pleasant.
This twelfth century watchtower overlooking the Umbrian countryside was reconstructed into a holiday retreat by architect Christopher Chong (+ slideshow).
Chong and his partner Seonaid Mackenzie bought the Torre di Moravola in a ruined state, missing a roof and some walls, and spent six years making the structure safe then liveable.
“Establishing the structural stability of the tower, whilst removing all the debris that had accumulated from collapsed walls and roofs, was pretty dangerous as one never knew for sure if there would be a wall collapse,” Chong and Mackenzie told Dezeen.
Originally constructed to oversee the feuding neighbouring communes of Montone and Umbertide in central Italy, it has been resurrected to house seven suites of various sizes with shared entertainment and outdoor spaces.
“The benefits of the structure were that it had many historical features and as it emerged, as we slowly removed the trees and bushes surrounding it, a great aspect,” they recounted.
Steel and concrete elements were inserted to help stabilise the building and contrast with the stonework.
“Whilst building, the fact that no wall was straight or perpendicular meant that continual assesment and remeasurement of the structure was required,” they said.
Guests arrive at the medieval tower from a long gravel drive which culminates in a circular piazza to the north of the property.
Steps hugging the side of the stone wall lead up to communal living spaces, which can also be accessed from a metal staircase with translucent glass treads that doglegs up an atrium with concrete elements.
Entrances on the lower ground floor provide routes to dining and kitchen areas. Atria either side of the central tower allow daylight to filter into the public areas and draw cool air from the lower passages up through the roof.
A double-height space occupies the top of the tower, providing a living area for the main suite plus a library on the steel mezzanine, which was introduced to brace the structure.
Balconies scattered around the building provide vistas over the tiled roofs and to the surrounding hills and valleys.
Outside, a reflecting pool with a hidden fire pit is surrounded by sunken seating on the west terrace, while an al-fresco dining area is located to the east.
Located up a slope to the north and aligned to the same axis as the tower, a 25-metre infinity pool offers 360-degree views across the countryside.
Chong and Mackenzie also restored a smaller building on the site for themselves, adding a slatted timber storey on top of original stonework. Plans to convert more run-down outbuildings into accommodation and spa facilities are pending planning permission.
Torre di Moravola is a medieval watchtower situated along the ridge of a mountain overlooking the Carpini valley, Umbria, Italy. It has been restored with a modernistic design approach to the interiors, auxiliary buildings and pool areas to create a contemporary retreat.
Outbuildings, gardens, terraces and a 25-metre infinity pool have been aligned on an axis with the tower to maximise the 360 degree views over secluded valleys, unchanged since medieval times, and giving the sensation of being completely removed from the modern world.
Four external terraces surround the tower: on the east side a large formal dining terrace with classic Umbrian views. To the south an open viewing pavilion forms an inner courtyard with herb gardens. The West terrace has a stone reflecting pool with sunken seating areas and overlooks the olive groves. A large piazza and point of arrival for cars is on the North. The property has six hectares of land with oak forests and fields containing olives and fruit trees. Solar panels provide energy for hot water and heating. Rainwater is collected for irrigation.
Within the tower the character of the public and private areas are one where the best historical aspects have been preserved and contrasted with contemporary design and materials, heightening the sense of Moravola’s history and resulting in a synthesis of the ancient exterior with sleek pared down modernity.
Public areas are arranged on two levels and act as a pivot from the centre of the tower, easily accessible from all seven suites. Two interlinked reception rooms are on the first floor and the kitchen and dining areas on the ground floor have ready access to the terraces for dining.
Lower ground floor plan
There are a total of seven suites arranged off the central axis that runs through the tower linking the gardens terraces and pools. All suites have direct private access to the outside terraces and also to the internal spaces within the tower, this gives a sense of separation and privacy.
Upper ground floor plan
The main tower suite is at the highest point of the original tower; the sitting room is a double height space with watch-gallery and stone fireplace. The bedroom has magnificent views over the Carpini valley. A changing room leads to a private roof top terrace and stone bathroom with massage area.
First floor plan
Four of the suites have been designed as individual towers: bathrooms with heated sunken stone baths, massage and changing areas are on the lower level with floating steel stairs leading to the bedrooms above, each with wonderful views over the valleys. The character of the interiors is one of highly refined comfort and pared down purity, these are cool contemporary tower suites.
Second floor plan
The West suite is on one level with a sitting area overlooking the West terrace, it has a large bathroom with stone bath and shower and two basins. The West room is on one level on the ground floor it has a vaulted bathroom with an arched wall made of translucent alabaster.
Fifteen conical bamboo columns support the roof of this waterside cafe designed by Vo Trong Nghia Architects at a hotel in central Vietnam (+ slideshow).
Referencing the shapes of typical Vietnamese fishing baskets, the top-heavy bamboo structures form a grid between the tables of the open-air dining room, which functions as the restaurant and banqueting hall for the Kontum Indochine Hotel.
Vo Trong Nghia Architects designed the restaurant without any walls, allowing uninterrupted views across the surrounding shallow pools of water, and beyond that towards the neighbouring river and distant mountains.
The roof of the structure is clad with bamboo but also contains layers of thatch and fibre-reinforced plastic. In some places the plastic panels are exposed, allowing natural light to permeate the canopy.
There’s no air conditioning, but the architects explain that the surrounding waters and the shade of the overhanging roof help to keep the space cool, even in the hottest seasons.
“By providing shadow under the bamboo roof and maximising the cool air flow across the water surface of the lake, the open-air indoor space successfully operates without using air conditioning,” they say.
All of the fixings for the columns are made from bamboo rather than steel and were constructed using traditional techniques, such as smoke-drying and the use of bamboo nails.
“The challenge of the project is to respect the nature of bamboo as a material and to create a distinctive space unique to bamboo,” say the architects. “The bamboo columns create an inner lining, giving the impression of being in a bamboo forest.”
Bridges cross the water to provide access to the cafe from three sides, plus a concrete and stone kitchen is positioned at the back.
Read on for a project description from Vo Trong Nghia Architects:
Kontum Indochine Café
Kontum Indochine Cafe is designed as a part of a hotel complex along Dakbla River in Kontum City, Middle Vietnam. Adjacent to Dakbla Bridge, a gateway to Kontum City, the cafeteria serves as a breakfast, dinner and tea venue for hotel guests. It also functions as a semi-outdoor banquet hall for wedding ceremonies.
Located on a corner plot, the cafe is composed of two major elements: a main building with a big horizontal roof made of bamboo structure and an annex kitchen made of concrete frames and stones.
The main building has a rectangular plan surrounded by a shallow artificial lake. All elevations are open to the air: the south facade faces the main street along Dakbla River, the east to the service street, the west to a restaurant and banquet building belonging to the hotel complex and the north to the annex kitchen which serves the cafe. By providing shadow under the bamboo roof and maximising the cool air flow across the water surface of the lake, the open-air indoor space successfully operates without using air conditioning even in a tropical climate. The roof is covered by fibre-reinforced plastic panels and thatch. The translucent synthetic panels are partly exposed in the ceiling to provide natural light in the deep centre of the space under the roof.
The roof of the main building is supported by a pure bamboo structure composed of 15 inverse-cone-shaped units. The form of these columns was inspired by a traditional Vietnamese basket for fishing which gradually narrows from the top toward the base. This open structure maximises the wind flow into the building during the summer, while resisting harsh storms during the windy season. From the cafe, hotel guests can enjoy a great panoramic view of the mountains and Dakbla River framed by the bamboo arches. The bamboo columns create an inner lining, giving the impression of being in a bamboo forest and show the continuity to the mountains as seen from the cafe.
The challenge of the project is to respect the nature of bamboo as a material and to create a distinctive space unique to bamboo.
The material characteristics of bamboo are different from that of timber or steel. If the details and construction methods of timber or steel structures are applied to bamboo structures, the advantages of bamboo may be impaired. For instance, using steel joints kill the cost benefit of bamboo structures. Steel pin joint generates too much local loads which is not appropriate for bamboo, which tends to be subject to buckling.
In this context, we use traditional treatment methods (soaking in mud and smoking out) for the treatment of bamboo, and we use low-tech joint details (ratten-tying and bamboo nails), which is suitable for bamboo structures. The columns at Kontum City are prefabricated before their erection to achieve the appropriate quality and accuracy.
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