Hasta La Ideas

Slideshow: faceted shards of anodised aluminium cover the four pointed hulls of this maritime museum in northern Ireland dedicated to famously ill-fated ship the RMS Titanic.

London architects CivicArts are responsible for the original design concept and local practice Todd Architects worked alongside them to deliver the completed building, which opened to the public this weekend.

A five-storey-high glazed atrium is positioned at the centre of the building, giving visitors access to each of the nine galleries contained within the four wings.

Acid-stained steel plates line an 18-metre-high wall inside this atrium, intended by the architects to reference the metal panels that were used to cover the body of the Titanic a century before.

Elsewhere in the building is a banqueting suite containing a replica of the Titanic’s iconic wooden staircase, as well cafes, restaurants and shops.

See more museums here, including our recent story about a Ferrari automotive museum.

Photography is by Christopher Heaney.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

BRINGING THE £97m TITANIC BELFAST TO LIFE

Architects join forces to Deliver World’s Largest Titanic Visitor Experience

Titanic Belfast will open its doors to the world on 31st March, 2012. The world’s largest ever Titanic-themed visitor attraction and Northern Ireland’s largest tourism project, Titanic Belfast is the result of a successful collaboration between the Concept Design Architects and the Lead Consultant/Architect Todd Architects.

Located in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on the site where the famous ship was designed and built, Titanic Belfast’s six-floors feature nine interpretive and interactive galleries that explore the sights, sounds, smells and stories of Titanic, as well as the city and people that made her. The building will also house temporary exhibits, a 1,000-seat banqueting suite, education and community facilities, catering and retail space and a basement car park.

CivicArts/Eric R Kuhne & Associates and Todd Architects have worked together with Harcourt Construction and a range of other partners to ensure the successful completion of Belfast’s newest landmark. Harcourt Developments engaged CivicArts / Eric R Kuhne & Associates as master planners for the Titanic Quarter site in 2005, with the aim of transforming Queen’s Island into a dynamic new waterfront.

The master plan for Titanic Quarter seeks to create a 21st century centrepiece for Belfast, combining retail, residential, business and cultural elements, all spliced together with public parks, promenades and gardens. Titanic Belfast was conceived as the cultural lynch pin of the scheme, giving a form to the wish for a focal point to unite the site’s various heritage elements. Having first investigated options for recreating Titanic at various scales, it was decided to design an entirely original structure that could also convey the wider narrative of Belfast, its industries and its people.

Todd Architects were commissioned to begin working with CivicArts in August 2008, and together they submitted the detailed scheme for planning consent. The local Northern Irish practice went on to oversee one of the most ambitious and challenging construction programmes in the UK and Ireland. The 14,000 sq m building took three years to complete – the same length of time as Titanic itself – and is designed with the potential capacity to accommodate up to one million visitors annually.

Eric R Kuhne, Founding Partner of CivicArts / Eric R Kuhne & Associates, commented: “CivicArts / Eric R Kuhne & Associates has worked for seven years to conceive, design, and create an international destination in Belfast that celebrates five centuries of its maritime legacy including the building of the RMS Titanic. As Concept Design Architects we have created an architectural icon that captures the spirit of the shipyards, ships, water crystals, ice, and the White Star Line’s logo. Its architectural form cuts a skyline silhouette that has been inspired by the very ships that were built on this hallowed ground.”

“Behind this shimmering crystalline façade, four dynamic ships hulls hold nine galleries. Glass balconies overlook the shipyard, drawing office, slipways, and Belfast city centre. The five-storey central atrium is inspired by the majesty of gangways, gantries, cranes that filled the void between the Titanic & Olympic when they lay side-by-side upon the slipways.”

“Titanic Belfast restores RMS Titanic to these shores. Its design anchors the profound spirit of invention & innovation from a century ago in a new form that retells the epic story of the building of these great ships. The scale, location, interiors and stories within the galleries make this the largest and most authentic Titanic visitor attraction in the world. The architecture speaks of the genius of Belfast as one of the world’s great historic shipbuilding cities, capturing the essence of over 28,000 workers in the Harland & Wolff’s shipyards.”

Paul Crowe, Managing Director of Todd Architects, commented: “Todd Architects has invested almost four years of work into this truly global project delivering a building which has changed Belfast’s skyline and will help transform international perceptions of the city itself. Developing a building that reflected the ingenuity, ambition and scale of Titanic has been an immense professional challenge – one we are delighted to have met.

“Titanic Belfast has a complicated geometry, providing a challenging build programme which required ground-breaking construction techniques. Its stand-out exterior façade, which replicates four 90 ft high hulls, is clad in 3,000 individual silver anodized aluminium shards, of which two-thirds are unique in design. The resolution of the geometries involved required the use of sophisticated 3D-modelling, completed by Todds in-house, in a process of ‘virtual prototyping’ which we developed specifically for the project.”

“Titanic Belfast also incorporates the best design and technology available. For instance, the building adopted an integrated design approach in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III Guide Lines and is on course for a BREEAM Excellent status. Plus, like Titanic, the project was completed on budget and to a strenuous time constraint which demanded completion in advance of the forthcoming centenary of the Titanic’s maiden voyage in April 2012.

“This is a landmark development for Northern Ireland which we believe will demonstrate the ability of iconic architecture to shape internal and external perceptions. Belfast has come far in the past 15-years and a statement building such as Titanic Belfast reflects and reinforces the city’s renewed sense of civic pride and cohesion.”

Slideshow: the undulating oak underbelly of four auditoriums bursts through the glazed facade of this concert hall in Kristiansand, Norway.

Designed by Finnish architects ALA, the Kilden performing arts centre opened in January.

The curving wooden wall cantilevers out across the building’s entrance, creating a huge canopy that projects out towards the harbour.

Behind the glass, a sprawling entrance lobby spans the length of the building and leads onto a 1200-seat auditorium, a 750-seat theatre and two smaller halls.

Production facilities are located to the rear of the halls, as are workshops, storage areas and staff rooms.

Aluminium zigzags across the remaining exterior walls of the building and a series of windows create a grid within the folds.

We originally wrote about the project in 2008, when construction was first underway – see a set of visualisations here.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow.

Here’s a full project description from ALA Architects:

“KILDEN”, Performing Arts Center for Sørlandet

DESCRIPTION

The Performing Arts Centre “KILDEN” will house three organizations: the ‘Agder Theater’, the ‘Kristiansand Philharmonic’ and the ‘Opera South’.

The four performance halls are lined up in the mid-zone of the building leaving the production -spaces to the east and audience -spaces to the west side.

Further on the west along the waterside, a huge cantilevered roof will cover both the public city-space by the sea and the foyer space which provides access to the shows.

Waterfront-facade clad with local oak follows the forms defined by the halls and creates a surface separating real world from the illusional.

URBAN IDENTITY

The urban character of the new theatre- and concert hall building should not only express the functionality of the project. The building will have a major impact on the cultural identity of the city of Kristiansand and the whole region. The architectural expression has to be instantly recognisable and unique. There is a strong demand for a cultural landmark building.

Often in theatres the fly tower reflects the buildings function, acting simultaneously as a landmark. On this shore the role of the tower has already been taken by the silo. The signature image of the performing arts centre should be built with other means.

The main concept of the Teater- og Konserthus design is the series of performance spaces, which has been shaped out to act as a sign in the cityscape. This undulating, unified surface forms a dramatic lobby and foyer between the performance halls and the shoreline. The relationship of the building with the canal and the sea has strong tension and drama.

ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION

The undulating main façade acts as a surface separating reality from fantasy. This line is crossed as you step into the hall from the foyer. The other façades consist of a vertical folded surface giving the building a subdued elegant form, enhancing the foyer wall as the signifying form of the building. The audience is instinctively drawn towards the public foyer. The building has a desire to please the public, to be popular and understandable to everybody.

The foyer wall is built of local wood, most likely oak. This further emphasises the warm, inviting character of the foyer space. The vertically folded dark facades are made of sharply detailed, stained metal sheets, most likely of brass or copper.

The building is a sharp object with an almost exaggerated clarity of expression. It stands proudly in the rough industrial surroundings. The building creates elegant public and performing spaces and rough, functional production facilities. All this is combined into a shape of an elegant machine –a building as an instrument.

FUNCTIONAL CONCEPT

The striking exterior appearance of the project is the first thing the visitor experiences. It is, however, a result of a careful analytical design process. The main functional concept is to organise all the production facilities of the building along a straight indoor street wide enough for trucks and deliver sets, instruments and materials. The performance halls are arranged to the other side of the street.

The order of the auditoriums is determined by the relations to the production facilities, the relations to the exterior logistics, and the relations between the auditoriums themselves. The main stage theatre hall is located so that the stage opens directly to the set-building workshops. This unit is on the southern end of the building to allow for easier loading and unloading of material. The flerbruksal and the biscene are located on both sides of the main stage for easy co-operation and share of facilities.

The concert hall is located at the northern end of the production street. The underbelly of the auditorium creates a memorable beginning for the curving foyer wall. The support facility zone diminishes next to the concert hall, allowing for the chamfered corner of the volume at the tightest corner of the building site.

FOUR ZONES

The Theater- og konserthus consists of four parallel zones. The public foyer zone is the expressive, free flowing area of improvisation. The public meets each other. Temporary exhibitions and performances are presented. Parties and congresses are held. The foyer zone is easy to navigate- the public can easily find their way to the different auditoriums and support functions.

The auditoriums form the second zone between the foyer and the production street. They are conceived as individual, high-performance instruments for music and theatre production and performance. The architectural expression of the halls is formal and precise. They have a touch and feel of units with multiple uses and a very high level of technical functionality.

The production street is the third functional zone. The street is six meters wide and has full-height doors in both ends. The street ensures great flexibility between the auditoriums and the production facilities. The street also acts as an extra production and assembly space, as well as short-term storage.

The fourth functional zone consists of the production workshops, storage units and workplaces for the staff. This zone opens both to the production streets and the corridors directly above it, and to the outside through windows of the long eastern elevation.

SUSTAINABILITY

Public buildings are an integral part of a socially sustainable environment.

The materials are of local sources. Kristiansand was built on the export of oak to Europe in the 16th century: The main undulating façade of Kilden is built of local oak, CNC milled and fully treated in Kristiansand.

The other three facades are to be made of aluminium from the factory across the fjord. The concrete factory supplying the building site is located 200 meters down the pier. Where relevant, local companies are supplying the project with their expertise, workforce and materials.

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The building is heated and cooled by district systems covering the whole of central Kristiansand.

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Kilden will become a truly local social hub.

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LOCATION:
Kristiansand, Norway

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STATUS:
International Architecture Competition 2005, 1st prize
Construction start 2007
Core finished October 2010
Construction work complete July 2011
Opening January 2012

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COMPETITION TEAM:
ALA Architects ltd
Juho Grönholm, Antti Nousjoki, Janne Teräsvirta, Samuli Woolston

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PROJECT TEAM:
ALA Architects ltd / Helsinki, Kristiansand
in collaboration with:
SMS Arkitekter AS / Kristiansand

Acoustical designer:
BSA: RUP Acoustics / London with BS akustikk / Oslo
Theatre technical designer:
Theatre Projects Consultants / London
Building engineering:
Multiconsult AS / Oslo, Kristiansand
Mechanical Engineering:
Sweco Groner / Oslo
Electrical Engineering:
COWI / Oslo, Kristiansand

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CLIENT:
Teater- og Konserthus for Sørlandet IKS

Hjem

PROGRAM:
Approx. 27000m2
Concert hall with 1200 seats, Theatre-/Opera hall with 750 seats, multipurpose hall and small theatre hall, offices, workshops, rehearsal spaces, car park for 400 cars.

Slideshow: Danish studio NORD Architects have completed a cancer care centre in Copenhagen shaped like a cluster of houses.

The gables of each block are different, creating an irregularly faceted roof that the architects describe as being like origami.

The building has a hollow centre where a series of first floor balconies overlook a large courtyard.

Rooms inside are styled like domestic interiors to help recovering patients feel at home while they receive follow-up treatment.

We’ve also published a few Maggie’s cancer care centres from the UK – see them all here.

Here’s a project description from NORD Architects:

A Place for Recovery

Background

Getting cancer is like embarking on a journey, you don’t know where will end. It requires strength to cope with the disease and take on the new identity as a cancer patient. Research shows that architecture can have a positive effect on people’s recovery from sickness. A human scale and a welcoming atmosphere can help people to get better. Despite of this, most hospitals are hardly comfy. Just finding the way from the reception to the canteen can be difficult. If we want people to get better at our hospitals, we need to deinstitutionalize and create a welcoming healthcare. The Healthcare Centre for Cancer Patients designed by Nord Architects Copenhagen does just that.

Design concepts

The Healthcare Center for Cancer Patients in Copenhagen is conceived as an iconic building, which create awareness of cancer without stigmatizing the patients. Designed as a number of small houses combined into one, the center provides the space needed for a modern health facility, without losing the comforting scale of the individual. The houses are connected by raised roof shaped like a Japanese paper art origami, which gives the building a characteristic signature.

Entering the building you find yourself in a comfy lounge area manned by volunteers. From here you move onto the others parts of the house, which includes a courtyard for contemplation, spaces for exercises, a common kitchen where you can learn to cook healthy food, meeting rooms for patients groups etc.

Site conditions

The building is situated close to the city centre of Copenhagen in the same area as Copenhagen University Hospital (Rigshospitalet), so that patients can go to the healthcare center after their treatment at the hospital. On the other side of the road is the Panum Institute of Medicine.

Client: Municipality of Copenhagen Place: Copenhagen, Denmark
Year: 2009 – 2011
Size: 2500 m2
Budget: 56 mill kr
Architects: NORD Architects, Copenhagen
Engineer: Wessberg
Landscape Architect: NORD Architects, Copenhagen
Client advisor: Moe og Brødsgaard

Slideshow: the walls of this house in Tokyo by Japanese studio Apollo Architects & Associates stretch outwards around a secret balcony.

Projecting several metres in front of the two-storey house, the extended walls are supported by narrow columns and define the boundaries of a front entrance courtyard.

Narrow vertical windows frame the front door, which leads in towards bedrooms and bathrooms on the ground floor.

A cantilevered staircase with tapered treads leads up though the centre of the house to a living and dining room that occupies the entire top floor.

Apollo Architects & Associates have designed a number of interesting houses over the last few years – see a selection of them here.

Photography is by Masao Nishikawa.

More information from the architects is provided below:

RING

This project started with the plot which locates at a tranquil residential area in west Tokyo. The client is a high school teacher and his wife.

The first floor with slit windows lays a kids room, a main bedroom and a water area while the 2nd floor resolutely sets a family room with a large opening.

Taking the privacy into consideration, we adopted a court house with entrance attached and the wall encloses the south opening.

To answer to the coverage ratio, we set a grating balcony which functions as a gentle connection of the 1st and 2nd floor and as a stand to appreciate the view of the symbolized tree.

Making maximum use of the compact plot, the masters cherished modern furniture create lively and dynamic space which cannot be imagined from the outside.

Credit Information

Architecture: Satoshi Kurosaki/APOLLO Architects & Associates

Project Outline
Location: Kitayamacho Fuchu city Tokyo

Date of Completion: March 2012
Principal Use: Private House

Structure: RC
Site Area: 104.36m2
Total Floor Area: 88.98m2 (40.99m2/1F, 40.99m2/2F)

Structural Engineer : Kenta Masaki
Mechanical Engineer : Zenei Shimada

Material Information
Exterior Finish: Lath Mortar

Floor: Walnut Flooring & Tile/1F, Walnut Flooring & Tile/2F
Wall: Wall paper
Ceiling: Wall paper

Slideshow: Swedish architects Waldemarson Berglund were inspired by the slopes of a nearby ski resort to create these three slanted timber cabins in north Sweden.

Although they look like they’ve been tipped upwards by accident, the three Åre Solbringen residences were actually designed to follow the slopes of their hillside site and have level floors inside.

Only the perpendicular windows that intermittently puncture the wooden facade give any indication that the buildings are intentionally sloped.

Staircases spanning the length of each building link the five tiered floors inside, connecting bedrooms, a bathroom and a sauna on the upper storeys with a kitchen, living room and outdoor terrace on the levels below.

Last year another wooden house designed by Waldemarson Berglund was one of our most popular stories – see it here.

Photography is by Åke E:son Lindman.

The following text is from the architects:

Åre Solbringen

3 houses on Åreskutan’s southern slope. Partly, the houses’ shape is a consequence of the urban regulations. Partly, the form is also the consequence of a discussion on the site.

The commission was to divide the plot into three equal ones where houses for recreational use would be built.

The property is located just outside Åre’s centre, in Åreskutan south-facing slope, overlooking the river and the mountains.

Building designs in Åre are often half buried houses in 1 ½ plans with a sloping roof and big gables facing the views down the mountain, resulting in houses with only one really profitable floor.

The half-buried level is partly windowless, and the upper level is limited by its low, sloping ceilings.

According to the local regulations the plot could only be divided in the direction of the slope, with a minimum size of 800 m2, maximum built area of 120 m2, minimum distance to the neighbouring property 4,5 m and maximum height of 5,2 m.

Being the slope one of the conditions for skiing it was tempting to let the buildings doing so. Or at least to let them give that impression.

So we decided to make a building which would lay over the ground without disturbing the mountain, where all the rooms would have a generous height and windows with views.

A connection axis extents along the building’s long side, divided in four generously sized sets of stairs. This space allows a view of the whole house from the entrance to the opposite end.

Height difference between the highest and lowest points is 31 stairs, as in any other 1 ½ storey house with two stair cases.

The difference, though, is that this house has 5 individual levels. The upper levels house the hall, two bedrooms, bathroom and sauna, and the two bottom levels the kitchen and the living room, with a terrace facing south.

The house is completely built in a wooden frame system. Due to the limited width of the house it was possible to use standard pieces everywhere but in the floor slabs, built in glued laminated timber.

The wooden construction rests over brick slabs located across the longitudinal axis of the houses. A wide vent runs along this axis, allowing the eaves to meet the ground cleanly and ”tightly”. Wooden panels are the facade’s material, which will darken and turn greyish as they age.

The wooden windows and doors have a painted steel exterior framing and the roof is built in painted, folded metal sheets. The floors are in massive oak, whilst walls and ceilings are finished in white plasterboard.

Project: Åre Solbringen
2006-2012
Björnänge, Åre, Sweden
Architect: Waldemarson Berglund Arkitekter AB, Stockholm. Jonas Waldemarson, Paulina Berglund, Hanna Kucera Wengelin