Hasta La Ideas

Dutch studio BaksvanWengerden has added a splayed concrete extension to a triangular brick house in north Holland (+ slideshow).

The single-storey extension projects from the rear of the 1930s house and is slightly more tapered on one side to create a subtly asymmetric shape.

Describing their decision to use concrete for the extension, architect Gijs Baks explained that its “robust and solid appearance” made it “a good match” for the brickwork of the existing house.

The architects also removed partition walls inside the building, creating an open-plan ground floor that opens out to the garden.

A new wooden staircase is boxed into the centre of the living room and leads to two more floors.

See more residential extensions here, including a Corten steel addition in Belgium and a bleached larch extension in Slovenia.

Photography is by Yvonne Brandwijk and Kaj van Geel.

Here’s some more information from BaksvanWengerden:

In the dune landscape of Bentveld, a villa park village between Haarlem and the North Sea coast, BaksvanWengerden Architecten is commissioned to renovate and enlarge a single-family house.

Ground floor plan

The house, built in 1932, was one of the first in the area. In the Zeitgeist of its era, the internal organisation was derived from the concept of separation of functions. This made the house feel small. The house appears as a prototype, with its long rooflines, overhanging roof eaves and solid materialization.

First floor plan

BaksvanWengerden developed a design which maximises the sense of generosity throughout the house. The open plan ground floor extends into the lush garden. Like a backbone, the new staircase binds all the functions within the house. The extension manifests itself simultaneously as a connecting as well as a contrasting entity. Its abstract, concrete materialisation and detailing emphasizes this ambiguity.

Second floor plan

Client: private
Programme: alteration and addition of a house
Gross floor area: 210m2
Project architects: Gijs Baks, Jacco van Wengerden
Contributors: Freek Bronsvoort, Milda Grabauskaite
Stuctural engineer: Ingenieursbureau Man, Amsterdam

Section

Interior designer: BaksvanWengerden Architecten, Amsterdam
Contractor: H&B Bouw, Sassenheim
Interior fit-out: Thomas Meubels, Amsterdam
Commenced: 03.2011
Completed: 06.2012

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BaksvanWengerden appeared first on Dezeen.

A braille printer and an electric suit to prevent muscle spasms were among the products for people with disabilities included in an exhibition curated by Swedish design body Svensk Form for the London Design Festival.

Above: Inerventions’ electrical body suit to prevent spasms in people with muscle dysfunction

Svensk Form organised Design For Every Body at the Swedish Ambassador’s residence in London last week to showcase Scandinavian products that improve people’s quality of life. Among the items were various products to assist people with disabilities or impaired movement.

Above: Braille Box printer by Index Braille

Svensk Form’s managing director Ewa Kumlin said the products were examples of “humanistic” design. “More and more designers like to work with the problems that really matter,” she told Dezeen. “This kind of human focus has always been the backbone of the Nordic design philosophy.”

Above: Tobii eye-tracking technology worn as glasses

Among the products were a braille printer by Index Braille and the Elektrodress by Inerventions, an electrical body suit that eases pain and reduces spasms in people with nerve disorders and muscle dysfunction.

Above: computer adapted with Tobii eye-tracking technology

Another product selected by Svensk Form was a computer add-on developed by technology company Tobii that allows users to control the screen with their eyes.

Above: John armchair by Peter Andersson for NC Möbler

There was also an armchair for people with impaired mobility by designer Peter Andersson for furniture manufacturer NC Möbler. The armchair has a higher seat than most, a handle at the back allowing it to be moved easily and a pocket for an iPad.

Following their appearance in London last week, Kumlin said the objects could soon form part of a travelling exhibition.

Dezeen recently featured a one-handed condom wrapper for people with disabilities as well as a series of stories about Paralympic design.

See all our stories about London Design Festival »

Here’s some more information from the organisers:

Following last year’s success, the Ambassador of Sweden, Ms Nicola Clase, again opens up her Residence for a fruitful exchange between Swedish and British design during the Paralympic Games and the London Design Festival. Some of Sweden’s foremost producers and designers will meet with their British counterparts in two seminars titled Design for Every Body.

In today’s design, we find a growing humanistic approach with the end user in focus, and designers wanting to work with problems that really matter. Several products will be shown at the Residence, each of which has a different target group and purpose, yet all of them are aiming to increase quality of life. Some are made to save lives, others to increase function at various occasions or stages of lives, or simply to make every day life a bit more enjoyable. The products will be on hand and available to test together with the people behind the products.

On show will be Elektrodress, which eases pain for nerve disorders; an innovative braille printer; tools to increase our senses; a computer screen directed by the eyes; a dignified and functional chair for old age; gear for the city cyclist; children’s safety helmets; an office chair for women, revolutionary sanitary products; rain coats for the urban chic, laid-back brogue slippers and much more.

This seminar is a collaboration between the Swedish Embassy in London, Svensk Form, the Swedish Society for Crafts and Design and the Association of Swedish Engineering Industries.

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curated by Svensk Form appeared first on Dezeen.

This factory-like building by architects Haworth Tompkins is the new home for print-making and photography at the Royal College of Art in London.

Named after British industrial designer and entrepreneur James Dyson, the Dyson Building also contains an innovation wing where start-up designers can launch their businesses.

At the heart of the building is a factory-like production room, referred to as the ‘machine hall’, which is filled with large printing machines and layout spaces.

Above: photograph is by Helene Binet

All the departments are arranged around this triple-height space and glass walls let students look across to see what’s going on in other studios.

Above: photograph is by Helene Binet

“What’s most successful is the way you can see everywhere,” architect Graham Haworth told Dezeen at the opening party.

Above: photograph is by Helene Binet

He went on describe the contrast between this building and the RCA’s 1960s Darwin Building, where “all the floors are stacked up on top of each other” and explained how Haworth Tompkins had tried to avoid this. ”We pushed the idea of a creative factory,” he said. “Just like Andy Warhol’s factory, a place of visible art production.”

Above: photograph is by Helene Binet

Raw concrete walls and surfaces recur throughout the building, which the architects hope will become gradually marked with traces of paint, glue, and other materials used by students.

Above: photograph is by Helene Binet

An exhibition room lines the building’s street-facing facade and a 220-seat lecture hall is located on the first floor.

Above: photograph is by Helene Binet

Now the project is complete, the architects are working on another building for the RCA, which will eventually link up with the Dyson Building and extend the length of the central hall.

Above: photograph is by Helene Binet

Haworth Tompkins also designed the Sackler Building, which accommodates the RCA’s painting school and is located next door.

Above: photograph is by Helene Binet

See more stories about the Royal College of Art here, including a series of movies we filmed at this year’s degree show.

Photography is by Philip Vile, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s some more information from the Royal College of Art:

Royal College of Art officially opens The Dyson Building in Battersea

The Royal College of Art, the world’s leading postgraduate art and design university and now in its 175th year, has opened a new academic building as part of a £61 million masterplan.

The Dyson building is named in honour of the British industrial designer, inventor and entrepreneur whose educational charity, the James Dyson Foundation, donated £5 million to support the development.

Designed by award-winning architects Haworth Tompkins, it is the most significant new development for the College since it moved to Kensington Gore in 1962 and will form the centre-piece of the RCA’s Battersea campus alongside the RCA’s existing Painting and Sculpture buildings.

It will connect with and provide a huge boost for ‘Creative Battersea’, which currently boasts the headquarters of fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, architects Will Alsop, Foster + Partners and the re-development of the Battersea power station site.

The building is home to the Printmaking and Photography programmes, providing state of the art facilities and studios for nearly 100 Master’s, Mphil and PhD students, as well as new offices for InnovationRCA, the College’s business incubator unit.

There is also a 220-seat lecture theatre and a gallery space which will be open to the public for talks and exhibitions, including the hugely popular RCA Secret postcard exhibition and sale which will re-locate to the Dyson building in March 2013.

For the first time in the College’s history all four fine art programmes will be based on one site, leading to a dynamic new synergy between the disciplines, and an exciting new chapter in the furtherance of the College’s fine art research.

Exploded block drawing – click above for larger image

The building is conceived as a creative ‘factory’ both in the industrial sense (as a place of industry), and through the reference to Andy Warhol’s Factory as a place of art production. An open, central ‘machine hall’ forms the heart of the building, designed to house the large printing machines used by students and technical staff to make work.

Site plan – click above for larger image

Centred around this space are the studios, offices and workshop facilities.

Section model – click above for larger image

A key characteristic of the RCA’s success is the fluid relationship between programmes. The building has been designed to create ‘horizontal drift’ between disciplines, and the creative processes take place in highly visible proximity to one another.

Section – click above for larger image

The cross-fertilisation of ideas that is present and encouraged on the programmes is also enhanced through the additional inclusion of InnovationRCA within the main building, blurring the boundary between the academic and the commercial.

Section – click above for larger image

InnovationRCA provides business support and incubation services to help students and graduates protect and commercialise pioneering design-led technologies successfully.

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Haworth Tompkins appeared first on Dezeen.

Concrete bricks create geometric patterns on the facade of this house in Québec by architects Kariouk Associates (+ slideshow).

Architect Paul duBellet Kariouk describes the arrangement as a “basket-weave” and it explains how it “takes a very coarse industrial material and makes something graceful out of it.”

“We came up with this pattern by buying a stack of the blocks and just playing with them in the office,” DuBellet Kariouk told Dezeen. “The use of small and large blocks creates a more varied shadow pattern that also helps to break down the scale of the house.”

The entrance sits at the base of a tall and narrow window, and leads into a double-height corridor that spans the length of the two-storey house.

Two bridges cross the corridor on the first floor, including one that is actually a suspended bathtub.

This bath belongs to the first floor bedroom, which is located beyond a dining room, kitchen and living room.

The family’s children use the rooms on the ground floor, which include two bedrooms and a television room.

Other residential projects we’ve featured in Canada include a glass photographer’s residence and a timber-clad extension.

See more projects in Canada »

Photography is by Photolux Studios, Christian Lalonde.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Chelsea Hill House

Design Challenge:
The logistical challenge was to create within a small home a segregation of spaces for the very different habits (privacy, acoustical, tidiness, etc.) of teenagers and adults while avoiding choppy spaces.

Design Solution:
The house is conceived as a very simple masonry volume: “the foundation of the family” which overlooks a beautiful river valley. The spaces most used by the teenagers, their bedrooms, a TV area, and sports equipment storage, are all placed on the ground level. Durable surfaces such as a radiant concrete floor are used throughout this level.

The formal areas of the house, the living area, dining area, kitchen, but also the master bedroom and bathroom, are all located upstairs and, as such, are given the most privileged views. Here, as well as on the stairway that leads to the main living level, more rich materials such as wood floors and glass railings are introduced with higher ceilings.

While all of the noisy and messy areas fall out of view by being placed directly beneath the living areas, the two levels are joined by the double-height entryway and hallway below. In this way, the primary living level is perceived to float lightly above the serene vista beyond. Though the home is constructed of fundamentally simple, industrial materials, one significant “cushy” indulgence was included: a bathtub suspended in the double-height space that looks over the valley. This tub, sunken in the floor, is accessed from the master bedroom and, if needed, is closed off from the adjacent living area by a sliding frosted-glass screen.

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Architectural team: Paul Kariouk, Chris Davis, Susan Gardiner, Cedric Boulet
General contractor: Sabean Custom Building (Stephen Sabean)
Structural engineering: The Paterson Group (Zbig Kisilewicz)

First floor plan – click above for larger image

Location: Chelsea, Québec
Project dates: 2006-2008

Second floor plan – click above for larger image

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by Kariouk Associates appeared first on Dezeen.

Stray balls aren’t a problem on the rooftop tennis court of this sports centre in western Poland by PL.architekci, thanks to the cage that covers the building (+ slideshow).

“The plot was too small to locate a tennis court on the ground, so we decided to put it on the roof,” architect Bartek Bajon told Dezeen. “We designed an eight-metre-high cage to protect people on the ground from falling tennis balls.”

The metal cage wraps the facade and roof of the two-storey building, creating the framework for a row of shutters that can be fastened shut across the glazed elevations.

Inside the centre, a two-storey climbing wall surrounded by a cafe and reception area sits in the crook of the L-shaped plan.

The climbing wall can be seen from almost every other part of the building, which includes bowling alleys, squash courts, a gym and a children’s play area.

Faceted staircases lead up to the rooftop tennis court, which Bajon says offers “picturesque views of the old town, park and lake”.

Other sports centres on Dezeen include a timber-clad football training centre and a sports hall with a rainbow-coloured facade.

See more stories about sport »

See more buildings in Poland »

Photography is by Bartosz Makowski.

Here’s some text from the architects:

Fala Park

Fala Park is a sports and recreation centre situated in the small and picturesque town of Wolsztyn, Poland, famous as the location of a locomotive roundhouse.

The new centre has been built on a former brownfield site bordering a historic park and offering views to a nearby lake.

Our intention was to take full advantage of the sites location by creating visual connections from the building to its attractive surroundings with the main internal spaces requiring natural light having views towards the lake.

A rooftop tennis court – Poland’s first – offers users an exciting platform to admire the far-reaching panorama of the town’s historic church towers and dense rooftops.

The form and massing of the building is derived from the spatial requirements of the sporting functions within.

Although initially Fala Park was supposed to be enclosed, we persuaded the investors to keep it open and welcoming; creating a new, inviting and energetic public space that seeks to strengthen the connections between the town, the park and the lake.

Along with the rooftop tennis court, Fala Park accommodates: 4 bowling alleys, 2 squash courts, a full height climbing wall, a gym with spin and fitness studios, a children’s play area, a mini-golf course, a cafe, and bike and Segway hire.

The building has been wrapped with semi-translucent, vertical brise-soleil panels arranged to create an expressive modular façade whilst reducing solar gain. Inside, contemporary and vivid interiors have been used to enable easy orientation within the entwining yet distinctive buildings functions. Bright accent colours and clear graphics and signage were used throughout to appeal to users of all ages.

A striking, green climbing wall, which can be seen throughout the building dominates the main interior space and acts as a notional ‘core’ and way-finding device for users.

The climbing walls distinctive form is also playfully expressed in the treatment of the stairs, furniture and other elements of the building. Even though Fala Park was completed on a very tight budget (jointly founded by EU grants and private equity) we believe we have succeeded in delivering a contemporary, playful and contextual building.

Ground floor plan- click above for larger image

First floor plan- click above for larger image

Second floor plan- click above for larger image

Section- click above for larger image

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by PL.architekci appeared first on Dezeen.