Hasta La Ideas

Istanbul Design Biennial: this project by Antwerp design studio Unfold explores how 3D-printed objects created from identical digital files can be as varied and unique as hand-made objects (+ movie + slideshow).

Above: objects produced by Unfold. Photograph by Kristof Vrancken

Called Stratigraphic Manufactury, the project involved designing a range of bowls and vases on a computer and sending the digital files to small-scale producers around the world, who then manufactured them in porcelain using open-source 3D printers.

Above: objects produced by Unfold

“We sent out seven of our designs,” said Dries Verbruggen of Unfold. “They weren’t allowed to touch the data but they could choose the materials and machines they used.”

Above: objects produced by Eran Gal-Or

The resulting objects, which vary according to the type and consistency of porcelain used and the accuracy of the printer, are on show at the Adhocracy exhibition at the inaugural Istanbul Design Biennial.

Above: objects produced by Jonathan Keep

Verbruggen compared the flaws and idiosyncrasies of the digitally-generated objects to the “unique tool marks” left by a craftsman.

Above: object produced by Unfold

The producers who took part were Jonathan Keep from the UK, Eran Gal-Or from Israel, and Tulya Madra & Firat Aykaç and Mustafa Canyurt, both from Turkey. Unfold have also collaborated with local Turkish ceramists to operate a manufacturing unit and shop at the biennial.

Above: object produced by Eran Gal-Or

The project was commissioned by Joseph Grima, curator of the Adhocracy exhibition and editor of Domus magazine. In an interview with Dezeen about the show, Grima said that open-source technologies like 3D printing amount to a “cultural revolution“.

Above: objects produced by Jonathan Keep

The biennal continues until 12th December.

Above: objects produced by Unfold. Photograph by Kristof Vrancken

Unfold was founded in 2002 by Design Academy Eindhoven graduates Claire Warnier and Dries Verbruggen.

Above: objects produced by Jonathan Keep

We previously featured a virtual potter’s wheel designed by Unfold and we also filmed a movie in which Verbruggen explains how it works.

Above: 3D printer. Photograph by Kristof Vrancken

We’ve reported on a number of projects involving 3D printing recently, including 3D printed vessels distorted by computer algorithms and news that gun enthusiasts are 3D printing open source weapons.

See all our stories about 3D printing »
See all our stories about Unfold »
See all our stories about ceramics »

Here’s some more information from Unfold:

Unfold is pleased to announce its participation in the inaugural Istanbul Design Biennial. The Biennial opened on October 13 and will run till December 12. Joseph Grima, curator of the Adhocracy exhibition, invited Unfold to present Kiosk 2.0 and commissioned a new project featuring Unfold’s continuing work on ceramic 3D printing and its implications on design and manufacturing: Stratigraphic Manufactury.

In Stratigraphic Manufactury, Unfold builds on its Stratigraphic Porcelain series started in 2010 with its internationally acclaimed installation l’Artisan Electronique and explores methods of manufacturing and distributing design in the dawning era of digital production. Stratigraphic Manufactury is a new model for the distribution and digital manufacturing of porcelain, which includes local small manufacturing units that are globally connected. One that embraces local production variations and influences.

A set of digital 3D files of designs presented last spring in Milan by Unfold has been e-mailed to various manufacturers around the world who have acquired the 3d printing production method that Unfold pioneered and open sourced in 2009. They were instructed not to alter the digital files but were free to incorporate personal and local influences and interpretations during the production.

These new sets will be presented in Adhocracy in the context of a local manufacturing shop. In collaboration with Turkish ceramists, a manufacturing unit will become operational for the duration of the Istanbul Design Biennial: Stratigraphic Manufactury Istanbul, estd. 2012.

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by Unfold appeared first on Dezeen.

A grid of red sandstone panels dominates every side of this university library in Katowice, Poland, by architects HS99 (+ slideshow).

Architects Dariusz Herman, Piotr Smierzewski and Wojciech Subalski arranged the rectangular panels in a brickwork-style pattern to ”relate to the raw clay bricks on the neighbouring buildings,” but used a different scale.

Gaps between the panels create hundreds of narrow windows, which become slivers of light all over the facade after dark.

HS99 won a competition back in 2002 to design the library, which houses a series of scientific and economic collections for the University of Silesia and is the first stage in a campus-wide redevelopment.

Three large floors form the main volume of the library, matching the scale of the neighbouring university campus buildings, while three upper floors with a smaller footprint create a slab-like tower at the north-east corner.

The architects planned this taller block as a visual marker for students, directing them towards the public square that lines the edge of the building.

Students enter the library through a three-storey-high atrium, which leads to reading rooms, group study areas, conference rooms and individual workspaces amongst the bookshelves.

Above: photograph is by Tomasz Zakrzewski

“The interiors are zoned to respond to the many ways in which research and study can take place,” Smierzewski told Dezeen. “We’ve create a wide variety of environments ranging from social to intimate.”

Above: photograph is by Tomasz Zakrzewski

Precast concrete panels cover the interior walls, while grated ceilings offer glimpses of the mechanical systems behind them. ”The utilitarian materiality and finishing alludes to the Silesian region’s heritage rooted in mining and other forms of heavy industry,” said Smierzewski.

Other libraries on Dezeen include a glass pyramid by MVRDV and a golden library by COBE and Transform.

See more stories about libraries »

Photography is by Jakub Certowicz, apart from otherwise stated.

Here’s some more information from HS99:

Katowice – CINiBA (The Scientific Information Centre and Academic Library)

In 2002 a competition was launched by the University of Silesia for the design of a new library that would provide a world-class didactic facility for scientific research. The flexibility the winning proposal offered proved to be its major strength when, after securing a building permit, the program was modified to also include the collections of the University of Economics with no changes to the exterior form.

The Scientific Information Centre and Academic Library (Polish acronym: CINiBA) anchors the new campus redevelopment plan to be implemented in the coming years.

Located at the intersection of the east-west axis that forms the spine of the campus, and the north-south axis which connects the recreational grounds by the river to land set aside for further university expansion, the library reinforces the axial organization which has so far been poorly articulated. A central university square at the foot of the library, the FORUM, generates a civic gathering place that opens onto the library’s grand three storey atrium.

The height of the library has been determined by the average height of buildings on the university campus. The north elevation surpassing this height is directed towards the FORUM and houses the library’s closed stacks. This elevation emphasizes the rank and function of the FORUM and is in dialogue with the existing tall buildings which close the east-west axis.

The facades, clad in a repetitious fabric of rich kahan red sandstone, relate to the raw clay bricks on the neighbouring buildings without the connotation of scale inherent to a singular brick element. The exterior treatment abstracts the building’s function of organized book storing while introducing a notion of mystery inseparably connected to books.

Site plan – click for larger image

The lack of discernible scale produces a monolith when seen from afar that is gradually familiarized. Details such as the decreasing proportions of the façade tiling, the irregular cut of the sandstone slabs, as well as the windows carefully nested inside become visible.

Ground floor plan – click for larger image

The fenestration projects a stunning patchwork of light onto the FORUM at night, yet in the daytime allows diffused light to permeate into the library’s reading rooms. The resulting strongly introverted interior composition of the library floors focuses one’s attention onto the books while calming the space. Partial isolation from the external world not only influences the atmosphere within but also introduces a flow of time detached from the pulse of the surrounding city.

First floor plan – click for larger image

Location: Katowice, ul. Bankowa 11a
Client: Consortium of the University of Silesia and University of Economics in Katowice
Design: SARP Competition No. 924: 12.2002 (1st prize)
Building Permit Secured: 2004

Second floor plan – click for larger image

Construction: 2009-2011
Building Footprint: 2 910 m2
Total Floor Area: 10562 m2

Longitudinal section – click for larger image

Volume: 62 560 m3
Net Floor Area: 12 273 m2
Gross Floor Area: 13 260 m2

Cross section – click for larger image

Maximum Volume Storage: 2 000 000 books
Volumes Currently Held: 340 000 books (open collection); 460 000 books (closed collection)

North elevation – click for larger image

Team: HS99, Dariusz Herman, Piotr Smierzewski, Wojciech Subalski,
Cooperation: Rafal Sobieraj, Adam Kulesza, Jacek Moczała, Wojciech Słupczyński
Structural Design: Jan Filipkowski, Joanna Jacoszek, Jerzy Rawski, Mariusz Staszewski

West elevation – click for larger image

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and Academic Library by HS99 appeared first on Dezeen.

Visitors to the Adhocracy show at the Istanbul Design Biennial are confronted with a plotter taking the text of the Open Source Architecture Manifesto from a Wikipedia page and writing it onto a wall. (+ slideshow)

Created by Walter Nicolino and Carlo Ratti of Carlo Ratti Associati, the plotter updates the text as the Wikipedia page changes.

The project began last year when Joseph Grima, editor of Domus magazine and curator of the Adhocracy show, asked Ratti to write a manifesto for open-source architecture.

“I said yeah sure, but let’s do it in an open-source way,” Ratti told Dezeen. “So we set up a page on Wikipedia.”

Ratti, who is director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT, invited contributors including Nicholas Negroponte, John Habraken, Paola Antonelli and Hans Ulrich Obrist to contribute to the page to create an evolving document that was published in Domus in June 2011.

“It’s funny because the editors of Wikipedia kept erasing it until it was published in Domus, and then it became kind of ‘legal’,” says Ratti. “So now it is a page on Wikipedia and people keep on adding to it, changing it and so on. It keeps on evolving.”

In Istanbul the suspended plotter writes the manifesto on a large whiteboard mounted on the wall on the staircase at the Adhocracy exhibition, crossing out and overwriting passages as they are edited on Wikipedia and starting afresh as soon as the text is completed.

The plotter is based on similar principles to Hektor, a wall-mounted plotter that paints with a spray can. “There was a prototype of a similar plotter called Hektor – there’s a couple of them online  that were doing things on a piece of paper,” says Ratti. “But here the idea was to do it on an architectural scale, on a big wall.”

See our interview with Joseph Grima about the Adhocracy exhibition and read more about open design on Dezeen.

Here’s some text from Carlo Ratti Associati:

Open Source Architecture Manifesto

2012 / Istanbul TURKEY

When Domus approached Carlo Ratti to write an op-ed on the theme of opensource architecture he responded with an unusual suggestion: why not write it collaboratively, as an open-source document? Within a few hours a page was started on Wikipedia, and an invitation sent to an initial network of contributors. The outcome of this collaborative effort is presented in an article published in Domus in June 2011. The article is a capture of the text as of 11 May 2011, but the Wikipedia page remains online as an open canvas — a 21st century “manifesto” of sorts, which by definition is in permanent evolution.

A year after the article’s publication, in the summer of 2012, the idea of recapturing the text in its current state of mutation was born. However, it was not to be envisaged as a new publication, but rather a piece of the exhibition, Adhocracy, curated by Joseph Grima for the first Istanbul Design Biennal. The studio carlorattiassociati envisioned a canvas on which a free flowing pen writes, erases and constantly rewrites the different versions of the Wikipedia page, indicating corrections, deletions and development of the manifesto in its continuous state of change.

A vertical plotter on a large whiteboard welcomes visitors to the exhibition; its contents are generated in real-time from a script that constantly compares the various versions of the Wikipedia page. Starting each time from one of the numerous updates written online, the pen retraces its steps to incorporate all the users’ contributions. Once it reaches the end, it begins once again, relentlessly in pursuit of the latest version of our open source manifesto, OsArc.

For more information, and to read the article published in Domus (June 2011) visit: senseable.mit.edu/osarc

For details of the exhibition Adhocracy, part of the Istanbul Design Biennal running until December 2012 visit: istanbuldesignbiennial.iksv.org/adhocracy

Team: Carlo Ratti, Walter Nicolino, Pietro Leoni (project leader), Antonio Atripaldi, Giovanni de Niederhausern, Enrico Gueli, Franco Magni

Special thanks to Officine Arduino / FabLab Torino

The post Open Source Architecture Manifesto
by Carlo Ratti Associati appeared first on Dezeen.

Towering steel mushrooms create a layered canopy over the roof of this glazed office block in Tbilisi, Georgia, by Italian architects Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas (+ slideshow).

Named the Tbilisi Public Service Hall, the building houses an assortment of government organisations that include the National Bank of Georgia, the Ministry of Energy and the Civil and National Registry Agency.

Seven overlapping glass blocks surround a central service hall where customers can obtain passports, marriage registration, and other permits and documents.

There’s no additional roof over this hall, creating a 35-metre-high space beneath the shelter of canopy structures.

The architects compare these structures to trees, and refer to their curved uppers as “petals” or “leaves”.

Different departments are contained inside each of the seven perimeter blocks and a series of bridges connect them at the upper levels.

This building is one of a number of new infrastructure projects we’ve featured in Georgia in recent months – see more stories about Georgia.

Other projects we’ve published by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas include an Armani store in New York and the bright red Zenith music hall in France – see more stories about Studio Fuksas.

Photography is by Studio Fuksas.

Here’s a project description from Studio Fuksas:

Tbilisi Public Service Hall, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2010-2012

The Tbilisi Public Service Hall is situated in the central area of the city and it overlooks the Kura river.

The building is made up of 7 volumes that contain offices (each volume is made up of 4 floors located on different levels). These volumes are placed around a “central public square”, which is the core of the project, where there is the front office services. Offices are connected to each other by internal footbridges that stretches on different levels.

Volumes and the central public space are towered above by 11 big “petals” that are independent both formally and structurally from the rest of the building. Three of those big petals covers the central space. The petals, different for their geometry and dimension, reaches almost 35 meters and they are supported by a structure of steel pillars with a tree shape, visible, as well as the petals, externally and internally from the building.

Among the petals, that are at different levels, are the glass facades. The main characteristic of these facades is that these have been released completely from the structure of the petals, allowing relative movements between the facade and the spatial network structure of coverage. This decision was taken to prevent that any movement of the cover, mainly due to oscillations for snow loads, wind or thermal expansion, can lead to the crisis of the glass.

The Tbilisi Public Service Hall includes: the National Bank of Georgia, the Minister of Energy, the Civil and National Registry.

Project: Tbilisi Public Service Hall
Sirre: Tbilisi, Georgia
Address: Sanapiro Street 2
Period: 2010-2012
Client: LEPL Civil Registry Agency – Giorgi Vashadze / LEPL National Public Registry Agency

Architects: Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas
Project leader: Emiliano Scotti
Project tem: Riccardo Ferrari, Matteo Malatesta
Model makers: Nicola Cabiati

Surface:
Superficie totale costruita: 42.000 sq m
Volume total construction: 265.000 cubic metres
Main hall surface: 4 385 sq m
“Leaves” surface: 24 800 sq m
Structural glass (enclosure): 2 390 sq m
Facade: 11 800 sq m
Parking Plots: 838 (426 coperti)

Engineering: Studio Sarti, AI Engineering
General contractor: Huachuan Georgia Company LTD

Program:
National Bank of Georgia
LEPL Civil Registry Agency
LEPL National Public Registry Agency
Ministry of Energy
Civil and National Registry Agency: 280 public desk
Press Room: 290 MQ (150 seats) + Foyer 100 m²
Retails and Facilities: 400 m²
Terraces: 1860 m²

Material:

Structure: reinforced concrete and steel
“Leaves” structure: tridimensional steel reticular
“Leaves” coating: glass fiber and epodossic resine
Facades: structural glass and cellular glass

The post Tbilisi Public Service Hall by
Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas appeared first on Dezeen.

Hackney studio Gort Scott used locally quarried stone for the rugged grey walls of this house on the Isle of Man, UK (+ slideshow).

Located in the grounds of a country house, the two-storey building is split into two apartments that include a guesthouse on the top floor and a residence for an au pair on the ground floor.

Grey slate covers the roof, which pitches upwards to create an asymmetric gable at one end of the house.

“One of the building’s primary successes in our view is its presence in the wider landscape,” architect Jay Gort told Dezeen. “The striking silhouette rises from the high point of the site and shares a relationship with some of the other figures that punctuate the horizon.”

Gort also explained how guests staying in the top floor apartment will spend most of their time at the main house, so a concrete staircase and balcony provide a route over the stone wall that separates the two buildings.

This staircase, which features stainless steel balustrades, is the only entrance to the upper floor, so the small garden and driveway belong exclusively to the ground floor residence.

As well as using regional materials, the architects also specified traditional construction methods that would suit the local contractors. “We decided to tailor details to suit their expertise and skills,” said Gort.

Other rural houses we’ve featured include a slate-clad house in Wales and a renovated farm building in the south of England.

Photography is by David Grandorge.

Here’s some more information from Gort Scott:

Isle of Man House

Isle of Man House is the first stand-alone new building for London-based architecture practice Gort Scott. The building is a part of a privately owned estate, made up of a collection of buildings and gardens, in a dramatic windswept rural setting.

Gort Scott produced a strategic plan for this estate in 2008, and the house and its garage represents the first of three proposed new buildings. A new swimming pool house, also designed by Gort Scott, is currently on site.

Site plan – click above for larger image

Set on the rocky Scarlett peninsular, on the island’s South coast, the cottage is built from local Castle Town Stone. The cottage covers two floors and contains two separate apartments each 80m2 in floor area. Emerging from the Castle Town Stone perimeter wall, the building’s cuboid form tapers up into an asymmetric Welsh slate roof pitch that leans into the Irish Sea winds. The building stands at the high point of the site and is intended to sit as a figure in the landscape; the profile of the roof was considered from a number of surrounding vantage points.

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image and key

The client requested two discrete apartments, one for guests and another for an au pair; this required the cottage to have differing relationships to the main house and to the estate as a whole. The upper floor guest apartment residents would spend time at the estate’s main house, so Gort Scott’s design provides an entrance through a walled garden to the rear of the building, connected directly to the main house along a stone path. A drive leading into the estate arrives at the door of the ground floor au pair apartment, allowing a degree of separation from both the main house and upper guest apartment. Locating the stairs to the guest apartment into the estate’s walled garden means the house’s modest garden and parking area can be used exclusively, and privately, by the ground floor residents.

First floor plan – click above for larger image and key

Inside, both apartments have a simple open-plan layout of living and kitchen areas leading onto two double bedrooms and a bathroom. The upper apartment is entered using the external staircase, leading into the kitchen, then into a double height living and dining area. This space is naturally lit by a skylight and by a floor to ceiling window, which opens onto a generous seaward-facing steel balcony. The ground floor apartment is entered through the living and kitchen area that has aspects across neighbouring fields, the estate grounds and towards the sea. Glass entrance doors that lead onto a patio area are sheltered by the upper apartment’s balcony.

Section – click above for larger image

The thick external walls of the house have a blockwork cavity wall construction with an outer face of 250 millimeter thick Castle Town Stone. The stone was quarried from Pooil Vaaish, a few miles from the site. These walls support a beam and block floor and a timber and steel roof structure. The dark colour and the roughness of the traditionally laid stonework are contrasted by the crisp pre-cast concrete window and door surrounds that emphasise the composition of windows on the four sides of the building.

Elevation one – click above for larger image

There are essentially three parts to the form of the building, the main body of the house that is abutted by a table-like terrace to the front and an external stair to the rear. The terrace and stair are constructed in slender, exposed in-situ concrete, with stainless steel balustrades, and were conceived as large pieces of external furniture.

Elevation two – click above for larger image

Structurally these two elements are independent of the estate’s main house, but are ‘pressed’ into the house’s external wall so that the concrete supports are flush with the face of the stonework and appear as concrete ‘veins’ in the surface of the stone walls. This detail is repeated for the wind post in the garage building. The tone and finish of the in-situ concrete was chosen to marry with the pre-cast window surrounds.

Elevation three – click above for larger image

Professional Services
Contractor: Nick Ingam
Quantity Surveyor: Berrie, Millar & Cox
Structural Engineer: Structural Engineering Services Ltd
Stonemason: Dennis Quayle

Elevation four – click above for larger image

Materials / Suppliers
Precast concrete: Lancashire Precast & Brick
Windows: Veka
Roof: Natural Welsh Slate
Castletown Stone: Pooil Vaaish Quarry

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by Gort Scott appeared first on Dezeen.