Hasta La Ideas

Italian studio Park Associati has overhauled a 1960s office block in Milan and added new glass and burnished aluminium facades (+ slideshow).

The six-storey Palazzo Campari block was recently purchased by financial services firm Morgan Stanley, who wanted to adapt the fifty-year-old building and bring it up to modern standards. “The client wanted to turn a very inefficient building, very expensive to maintain, into a very efficent building,” the architects told Dezeen.

Park Associati re-planned the building with a more flexible layout by rationalising routes through the building and opening up the ground floor to accommodate additional uses.

“The aim of the new scheme is to provide a maximum level of flexibility in terms of the division of the internal spaces, with a sense of uniformity given by the system of the internal lighting and improved access and circulation,” said the architects.

The original facades were replaced to create a more energy-efficient envelope. Along Via Turati the new elevations feature perforated and pressed aluminium panels that are back-lit by night, while the walls along Via Cavalieri are dominated by glazing.

A landscaped courtyard is still concealed at the heart of the building and has been reworked with strips of planting and circular paving patterns.

Other recently compelted office renovations include a 1950s office in Hamburg adapted by J. Mayer H. and an updated Art Deco building in London by David Adjaye.

See more office architecture »

Photography is by Andrea Martiradonna.

Here’s some more information from Park Associati:

Building refurbishment for “La Serenissima” offices
Via Turati, Milano

The building known as “Palazzo Campari” was designed in the 1960s by Ermenegildo and Eugenio Soncini in the heart of Milan and was one of a series of buildings that emerged during the economic boom years, representing a new aspect of corporate identity for Italian industry. It was originally characterised by the burnished colour of the metal structure of the facade, tinted glass of the curtain walling and the brown metallic paint used for the smaller block in via Cavalieri given over to residential use.

When it was built, it was considered to be modern and technologically advanced, even experimental. Today however, many of its undeniably attractive aspects have become outdated with regards to current standards of building construction. For this reason the new owner, aware of its quality and evocative presence, decided to bring in architects to redesign the complex.

With respect to the original layout, the aim of the new scheme was to provide a maximum level of flexibility in terms of the division of the internal spaces with sense of uniformity also given by the system of the internal lighting and improved access and circulation.

Other elements central to the design were the use of additional space at ground floor level as well as an overall reworking of the structure of the elevations, made much more open and vibrant especially on via Turati and part of via Cavalieri.

With the elevations pulled back with respect to the original boundary it has been possible to eliminate cold bridging – at the time not considered – the useful floor area has been shifted allowing new spaces to be built at ground level, now given over to tertiary use.

The landscaped courtyard meanwhile, the heart of the original scheme, has been retained and reworked into a bright new design.

The new elevations are the main feature of the design. On via Turati boxes in perforated and press-formed aluminium in a burnished colour (lit up at night) are used in a rhythm that enables the elevation to be reworked also to ensure maximum flexibility in terms of the division of the internal spaces.

In the courtyard a close relationship has been created between the interior and exterior; on via Cavalieri the original lower elevation that is in direct relation with the nearby Cà Brutta, appears sleek and flat, with predominant use of grey for the glazed surfaces, smooth and reflecting its historic surroundings.

Client: Morgan Stanley Sgr S.p.A.
Location: Via Turati 25-27, Via Cavalieri 4, Milano
Schedule: 2008 – concorso, 2008 – 2010 Progettazione, 2010 – 2012 Cantiere
Gross Floor Area: Slp 7988.84 mq
Construction Cost: 11.000.000 Euro
Architect: Park Associati (Filippo Pagliani, Michele Rossi)

Project Team: Marco Panzeri, Project Manager, Alice Cuteri, Andrea Dalpasso, Marinella Ferrari, Stefano Lanotte, Marco Siciliano, Paolo Uboldi, Fabio Calciati (rendering)
Site supervision, Structural, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering: General Planning
Design Team: Giovanni Bonini, Loris Colombo, Walter Cola, Luca Dagrada, Franco Pesci, Paolo Rossanigo, Roberto Villa, Luigi Zinco

Artistic Site Supervision: Park Associati, Arch. Marco Panzeri
Project Management: ECHarris Built Asset Consultancy
Landscape Project: Marco Bay Architetto
General Contractor: Mangiavacchi e Pedercini S.p.A.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image and key

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by Park Associati appeared first on Dezeen.

Korean architects AND imagined this hotel on Geoje Island as a hand of outstretched fingers, with rooms and balconies pointing out in different directions (+ slideshow).

Containing just five suites and a cafe, the small concrete hotel sits beside the seafront in the small fishing village and was designed to give each guest a different view of the surrounding archipelago.

“We planned the building to be recognised as a single mass as one approaches, yet we wanted the five units to be independent and private,” AND‘s senior researcher Lee, Kyoung Tae told Dezeen. “The intention has resulted in a building form that reminds you of fingers pointing at the archipelago, or a sea creature like an octopus.”

The entire structure appears as a solid mass of concrete, including the balconies. Windows sit in deep recesses, revealing the thickness of the walls.

“The monolithic quality of concrete reflects the architectural concept well,” said Lee. “Also, the pattern left on the surface after taking off the formwork gives the building an organic quality.”

Guest rooms inside the three-storey building are arranged over five split levels and each suite comes with a balcony and a small kitchen.

The hotel is one of several planned additions to the village intended to encourage tourism.

South Korean studio AND is based in Seoul. Past projects include the cedar-clad Villa Topoject and the Skinspace art studio with a wall of wooden scales.

See more architecture in South Korea »

Photography is by Kim, Yong Gwan.

Above: concept diagram

Here’s a project description from AND:

Aggrenad

Sea + Archipelago

The site sits in front of the sea where the famous sea battle between Korea and Japan took place in the 16th century, which caused the return of General Lee Sun Shin back to the Korean navy. There still are attempts to search the remains of the historic Turtle Ship in the sea.

Above: site plan

While listening to the famous story from the client, the winding coastline and the varying water level of the archipelago create the continuously changing landscape. The small islands are like buildings and the sea is like streets and squares.

Above: ground floor plan

Mass + Individual

Unlike other well-known beaches in the island, the site is located in a small fishing village slightly off from the major tourist area. The residents of the village mostly work in the fishing industry and have long been living in the area for generations. Recently, there have been changes in the village. The town plans to construct the Battle of Chilchunryang Memorial Park and a beach to attract more tourists.

Above: first floor plan

Within these changes the owner plans to build a small Guesthouse. Soon, the site will be a place where the public (mass) visits and the memories are accumulated. Isn’ it better to offer individual frames of the landscape for them rather than to offer a monotonous scene like a souvenir photograph? How shall we construct an architectural device that produces different images of the same place?

Above: second floor plan

Aggregation + Monad

The building is formed like how fingers are branched out from a hand forming different parts. It is the aggregation of unique rooms, yet at the same time, it is an organic monad. Each unit is cantilevered out towards the sea as if fingers are pointing at the nearby islands. This allows each unit to frame the surrounding landscape in a unique way. This three story building is consisted of five rooms and a small cafe, and the rooms stacked in five split levels. The floor and the ceiling of each unit are stretched out toward the different directions, and at the end of each unit is a small balcony, which opens up toward the sea and the sky.

Above: front elevation

Project Name: Aggrenad
Design: AND
Construction: Kim, Dong Shik
Location: Geojesi, Gyeongsangnamdo, Korea
Site: 433.00m2
Construction Area: 121.26m2
Gross Area: 198.55m2
Floors: 3
Structure: RC
Materials: Exposed Concrete

Above: north elevation

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by AND appeared first on Dezeen.

A perforated plastic skin casts spotty shadow patterns onto the facade of this office building in Albacete, Spain, by Cor & Asociados (+ slideshow).

The four-storey building is the headquarters for the Confederation of Employers of Albacete (FEDA), a nonprofit organisation that supports the activities and growth of local businesses, and it is located in a developing neighbourhood between the city centre and an industrial estate.

Architects Cor & Asociados designed the building with a dual skin, so the thin layer of transparent plastic overlays white-rendered concrete walls.

“Our intention was to cover the volume of the building with a veil capable of bluring it and making it change,” said architects Miguel Rodenas and Jesús Olivares. “We wanted the building to react to the variations of weather and the movement of users with different levels of brightness and textures.”

Rectangular openings in the perforated plastic appear from certain angles to line up with windows behind, when in fact some are larger, some are smaller and some are shifted slightly to the side. The architects explain: “The strength of the simple volume is balanced by the volatile and delicate effect that the facade system gives. All this creates a slight feeling of strangeness”.

Entrances lead into the building from both the east and west elevations and connect with an atrium containing glazed elevators and a central staircase.

Meeting rooms run along the north and south edge of the ground floor, while offices, seminar rooms and lecture halls are located on the three upper storeys.

Spanish studio Cor & Asociados are based in Alicante. Past projects include a pearlescent music hall and a funeral home arranged around four courtyards.

See more architecture in Spain, including a recently completed kindergarten with a coloured stripe facade.

Photography is by David Frutos.

Here’s a longer project description from Cor & Asociados:

Central Office of FEDA Confederation of Employers of Albacete

The Confederation of Employers of Albacete (FEDA) is a nonprofit organization representing and supporting the business network in the region. Due to the evolution of its activities and growth of services, the organization raised the idea of bringing together in a sole building all the installations that were scattered throughout the city of Albacete. This idea was the seed of this project.

From the beginning it became apparent that this initiative would be a milestone for Albacete, because FEDA has a high level of representation in the city, and because it offers many services to its companies. Besides, the new building aspires to endow new life to a new neighborhood which is being built between a hard industrial and services center, Campollano estate, and the city center.

We have designed this project from the idea of ‘diffuse limits’ and ‘blur’ architecture. Our intention was to cover the volume of the building with a veil capable of bluring it and making it change. We wanted the building to react to the variations of weather and the movement of users with different levels of brightness and textures.

Looking at it from outside to inside, the skin would feel ‘fleshy’, full of shades and thick. And at the same time it would appear as a distant and undefined object, so that the observer doesn’t have a stable reference, and could not keep a static link to the building and remember only an image. On the contrary the building would respond to the user in movement generating different glances and changing perceptions.

In the opposite view, this second skin had to be perceived as a space with constant shape and without scale changes. Likely, the inner façade with the windows is the one able to defragment the building because the windows are very large compared to the human scale. This makes the user relate with the exterior skin, that has small scale holes and polimeric texture, in a closer way. But, again this feeling is distorted by the separation of the two layers. From inside, the perception of the façade system had to “fluff up” the limits of the building.

The project is solved between two poles: the strong and clear volume, compared to the delicate and blurring façade. The strength of the simple volume is balanced by the volatile and delicate effect that the façade system gives. All this creates a slight feeling of strangeness while perceiving this diffuse landmark.

One of the most significant parameters at the architectural level has been the concretion of the program, its definition and characterization. And, in parallel, the opportunity for FEDA to upgrade their organizational processes.

Together with the directors, workers and users we created a map of needs, and we did a rearrangement and reorganization of internal work processes. All this, permitted a spatial change: from a system of cubicles to a more open space floor, where the horizontality among self-managed teams is more evident, and helped with the implementation of technological informational and documentation systems.

This new organization forced the project to solve two problems: first, the creation of a flexible and reprogrammable floors, and, second the adaptation of the working atmosphere.

For the first problem we proposed a reticular structure with few columns, allowing a redistribution of the program according to the needs of the future; and second, a technical floor and ceiling that carries all facilities. With all this we can leave floors completely free for use.

And regarding the second, FEDA required from the beginning that people who worked in the building will enjoy a high level of comfort, and, on our part, we wanted to create a ‘highly emotional’ spaces to work. The solving of the problem became a challenge.

We tried to create a friendly relationship with the user. The small vegetation organizes the access. Its materiality, temperature, resonance … even the opening speed of the automatic doors, make the user subtly feel that he has entered into an attenuated area. And it’s interesting to note how people lower their voices naturally when they enter the building. We could not exactly say why, but it’s probably due to the lighting and its ability to dazzle, or the sound absorption without echoes, or the proportions of the space, or more probably, all this experiences combined.

The access space extends from side to side of the floor between opposing facades. This is the first part of ‘interior void’ that articulates the building. From this space you can access all floors, and in it, information sites, exhibition and meeting places are located.

We tried that this space had a very controlled atmosphere. You can feel how the perception of something heavy is inverted to the perception of lightweight. Where the lighting was different and the sound controlled, where always exists indoor-outdoor relationship. However the scale is not a person’s scale. We have tried to introduce the contradictions of the blurring exterior facade into the core of the building.

And finally, we have designed open work spaces with high thermal and acoustic conditioning. We have built an extremely neutral area that invite users to bring their objects. We want the workers build their workplaces in highly emotional way. We believe that this will build a new landscape less anodyne and more interesting and real. A transparent landscape whose reality becomes evident to someone who enters the enclosure to get the collective support of the organization.

Above: site plan – click for larger image

This project works the relationship between the person and the building through the materials and conditioning, trying to improve the sensory and emotional perception of the workspace by its workers, members and visitors. This is a way of re-humanizing architecture and, as far as we’re concerned, this is an obligatory step to rethinking workplaces.

Above: ground floor plan – click for a larger image

Above: first floor plan – click for larger image

Above: second floor plan – click for larger image

Above: third floor plan – click for larger image

Above: roof plan – click for larger image

Above: basement floor plan – click for larger image

Above: long section – click for larger image

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headquarters by Cor & Asociados appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: Danish design studio KiBiSi used a compound of stone and resin to produce these candle holders for Danish design brand Menu (+ slideshow).

KiBiSi’s Weight Here candle holders for Menu are made from Polystone, a mixture of plastic resin and powdered stone often used in kitchen countertops.

Cast iron rings separate the candles from the Polystone bases

The collection comprises a thin candle holder and candelabra plus a chunky candle holder and candelabra.

The objects are intended to reference the shapes of traditional chamber candlesticks and candelabras, according to KiBiSi.

Other candle holders we’ve featured on Dezeen include one that looks like a half-finished sketch and another set with handy inner compartments – see all candle holders on Dezeen.

We’ve published lots of products by KiBiSi, including magnetic bike lights that turn on when snapped together and a desk that can be raised and lowered by cranking a handle – see all design by KiBiSi.

See all candle holders »
See all homeware »

Here’s some more information from KiBiSi:

Weight Here is a family of candle holders featuring distinct historic references to the iconic typology of chamber candlesticks and candelabras. The designs revisit the standard candlestick appearance and dimensions, and are natural extensions of these made to fit today’s candles.

Weight Here comes in four versions: S and M for ordinary candles and L and XL for block candles. The cast iron parts acknowledge historic artisanal techniques and the Polystone references KiBiSi’s link to modern architecture. These materials provide the candlesticks with a grounded feel and a solid no-nonsense appearance.

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for Menu appeared first on Dezeen.

London studio Marques&Jordy has won a competition to design a series of motor showrooms in China and has conceived the first centre with a ribbon-like form inspired by the curved bodies of sports cars (+ slideshow).

The Oasis Exhibition Centres are planned for a number of locations across China, but the first will be located on a site in the Longquan District of Chengdu.

The 60,000-square-metre building will be broken down into three parallel segments, each with a different set of folds that Marques&Jordy compares to the “curvy and sexy lines of cars and movement”.

Each section will be coloured bright red as a nod to the colour favoured by automotive brands such as Ferrari. Architect Yu Jordy Fu explained: “With the Oasis Expo Centres, we are transforming the love for sports cars into sensational architecture.”

Pathways will weave through the spaces between the three sections, while narrow silvery bands on either side will form canopies and balconies for the upper floors of the building.

Describing the unusual form of the proposals, Jordy added: “It’s commonly believed that China has no creativity and all buildings look the same, as copies of each other. This couldn’t be further from the truth. China’s cities are an inspirational burst of creativity and engineering.”

The centre will accommodate exhibition rooms and events spaces for a showcase of different motor brands. Construction is scheduled to begin in September 2013.

The exhibition centre is the latest in a string of radical proposals for buildings in China. Others recent designs include a pair of museums by Steven Holl, with one the inverse of another, and a skyscraper inspired by spacecraft.

Last year China had more tall buildings under construction than any other country in the world. Chinese architects Neri&Hu recently told Dezeen that architecture projects in China have been “half-assed”, while curator Aric Chen said that contemporary China needs to “slow down”.

See more architecture in China »

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by Marques&Jordy appeared first on Dezeen.