Hasta La Ideas

Slideshow: the windows of this school extension in Girona, Spain, are concealed behind a perforated metal skin.

Designed by Spanish architects Javier de las Heras Solé and Bosch Tarrús, the new wing contains two classrooms, a laboratory and tutorial rooms within a narrow, single-storey structure.

The block benefits from a south-facing facade, so adequate levels of daylight filter through the perforated walls to the rooms inside.

The architects also added a second wing, where rooms that include a canteen are contained behind a traditional glazed facade.

See more buildings with perforated facades in our recent special feature.

Photography is by Adrià Goula.

Here’s a little more text from the architects:

Roses IES Cap Norfeu extension.

The aim of this project is the alteration and extension of IES Cap Norfeu in Roses.

The intervention involves the enlargement of the school complex in the site’s north region with two small PB buildings that surround one of the existing buildings in operation.

Two strategies are considered to face this programme:

1a. Group two classrooms, the lab, the teacher and tutorial department in one container, a light box which rests on top of a solid base. It is placed parallel to the warehouse and open to the schoolyard. A large south oriented building, protected by a lattice which leaves the light needed for using the schoolyard and which formally closes the box structure, delivering an abstract picture.

2a. Group the canteen-catering-bar, the dressing rooms, the alumni association, AMPA and the warehouse in one section. Its shape is the result of introducing all of these applications in the site’s region between the workshop and its own limit. Construction follows the formal language of the existent building.

1st prize, restricted competition

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Address: Carrer Ponent 11 17480 (Girona)
City: Roses
Region: Alt Empordà

Project: November 2007
Construction date: December 2010 / October 2011
Authors: Javier de las Heras Solé – Bosch Tarrús arquitectes scp
Arquitecture contributors: Mercedes Sánchez Hernández, Asunción Belda Esteban

Contributors: Blàzquez-Guanter arquitectes consultors d’estructures, Proisotec, enginyeria, Jordi Roig Fontseca, arquitecto técnico
Site Management: Javier de las Heras Solé, arquitecto
Executive management: Sònia Cuevas, arquitecto técnico ( Summa,sa )

Promoter: Gestió d’infraestructures SAU GISA
Contractor: Arcadi Pla, SA

Slideshow: German architects Schneider+Schumacher have completed an underground gallery that creates a bulge beneath the lawn of the Staedel Museum in Frankfurt.

Almost 200 circular skylights arranged in a grid across the lawn let light filter down into the exhibition hall, while the artificial hill creates a domed central ceiling.

The garden remains accessible to visitors, who can walk over the translucent skylights.

Entry to the new gallery is via a staircase in the museum’s main foyer.

Schneider+Schumacher won a competition to design the extension in 2008 – check out our earlier story to see the original renders.

You can see a selection of other underground projects on Dezeen here.

Photography is by Norbert Miguletz.

Extension of the Städel

In Fall 2007, the Städel Museum held a competition for extension work to be carried out on the museum, whereby eight prominent German and international architecture firms were invited to take part: Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York; Gigon/Guyer Architekten, Zurich; Jabornegg & Pálffy, architects, Vienna; Kuehn Malvezzi Architekten GmbH, Berlin; Sanaa Ltd / Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa & Associates, Tokyo; schneider+schumacher Planungsgesellschaft mbH, Frankfurt/Main; UNStudio, Architects, Amsterdam and Wandel Hoefer Lorch + Hirsch Müller, Frankfurt/Main.

In February 2008, an international jury chaired by Louisa Hutton (architect BDA, Berlin) announced Frankfurt architects schneider+schumacher as the competition winners. “An excellent choice,” were the words used by the press when reporting on the announcement. “A shining jewel by day, a pool of light by night,” applauded the competition jury.

The new building adjoins the garden wing completed at the start of the 20th century and itself the first extension of the original museum building, which was built on Frankfurt’s Schaumainkai in 1878. In contrast to any of the extension work carried out to date, the new section of the museum will not be above ground; the generous new space planned by schneider+schumacher will be located beneath the Städel garden.

The new exhibition space will be accessed via a central axis from the main entrance on the museum’s river side. By opening the two tympanums to the right and left of the museum’s main entrance foyer, visitors will be able to reach the Metzler Foyer level.

A staircase will then lead from this area down into the 3,000-square-meter museum extension beneath the garden. The garden halls’ interior the will be characterized by the elegantly curved, seemingly weightless ceiling, spanning the entire exhibition space. 195 circular skylights varying between 1.5 and 2.5 meters in circumference will flood the space below with natural light as well as form a captivating pattern in the garden area above.

Outside, the green, dome-like protrusions, which visitors will be able to walk across, will lend the Städel garden a unique look and create a new architectural hallmark for the museum.

“Frankfurt will not only gain a new, unique exhibition building,” declared the competition jury, “but as a ‘green building’ it will also be very much abreast of its times.” The generously spacious, light-flooded garden halls will be the new home of the contemporary art section of the museum’s collection.

Slideshow: our second project this week by Stuttgart architects Werner Sobek Design is a huge cantilevered altar that was temporarily constructed in Freiberg, Germany, for the pope’s visit last year (photographs by Zooey Braun).

The 20-metre-long solid canopy sheltered the leader of the Catholic church during an open-air mass, while the supporting structure behind housed a sacristy and other rooms.

Elements of the steel frame were bolted and clamped together rather than welded so that the structure could be easily disassembled.

Some chairs used to furnish the altar were reused from the pope’s previous visit, while any new furniture was relocated to nearby churches after the event.

See this week’s other story about Werner Sobek here.

The text below is from the architects:

Altar for the Papal visit 2011 in Freiburg/Germany

On the occasion of his third visit to Germany, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated an open-air Mass on 25th September 2011.

The Mass was held on a green space at the airfield in Freiburg. As already done for the Papal visit in Munich 2006, Werner Sobek was asked to design a weather protective Altar roof.

The Altar consisted of a sacristy for the Holy Father and various other adjoining rooms for ministrants, etc.

A translucent roof floating 15 m above the Altar protected the area against all weather conditions.

Most parts of the construction material could be reused or recycled after the Mass. During the design phase the focus was put on the materials which do not have to be welded or glued. Joints were only made of bolted, rotating, or clamp joints.

This not only enabled a quick mounting but also served for the quick dismantling and a clear separation of the used materials. Furnishing was also carried out according to reusability.

Most parts of the furniture were made for the Altar for the Papal visit in 2006. Newly designed furniture could be reused in churches.

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The supporting structure of the Altar was a steel framework covered with laminar wood. The rear wall and the roof were made of a structural steelwork which was covered with fabric panels, each of them sized 3.6 x 2m and made of PVC polyester and especially in the roof area of PTFE-coated glass fibre fabric.

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The roof construction did not need a special structure even though it cantilevered 20m. It could be solved with a standardized support system usually carried out on temporary bridges.

Architects: Werner Sobek, Stuttgart/Germany
Planning time: 2011
Construction time: 2011
Services rendered by Werner Sobek: design and overall planning
Client: Erzbischöflisches Ordinariat Freiburg

Slideshow: while the face of this waterside house near Amsterdam is cloaked in perforated aluminium, the rear is entirely glazed so that residents can watch the sun setting.

Designed by Dutch architect Hans van Heeswijk for himself and his family, the Rieteiland House is located on the recently developed island of IJburg and has three floors that face out across the water, as well as a basement below.

Openings in the floorplates create double height spaces in both a large ground-floor dining room and a first-floor living room.

A staircase core is also driven through the full-height of the building to house storage closets, a toilet for every floor and a dumbwaiter.

Three bedrooms occupy a portion of the ground floor, while a fourth is situated on the top floor diagonally opposite a screened roof terrace.

More windows are screened behind the perforated metal facade, but can be revealed using electronic controls inside the house.

You can see more houses in the Netherlands here, including one buried beneath a mound of earth.

Photography is by Imre Csany of Studio Csany.

Here’s some more text from the architect:

Architect Hans van Heeswijk designed the Rieteiland House for himself and his family. In fact, the attractive plot of land is part of a newly established island at IJburg on the outskirts of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It asked for a house that is completely oriented on panoramic views to the park and landscape. It is carefully sited so as to create views to unobstructed daily sunsets.

The intention was to maximize the relationship with the terrain, and create surprise between an austere closed front and the opposite effect in the interior.

To achieve this, the boxlike street façade is completely cladded with perforated aluminium panels, of which some can open electrically to make way for the windows behind them.The aluminium panels are punctuated by perforations that show a pattern of reflecting waves. The façade on the water side is completely made out of glass panels and sliding doors.

The house is an elongated rectangular block of three floors and a basement. Inside, the aesthetic shifts and the space literally opens up. Most of the floors have a double height and are open. In this way the house can be seen as a sort of spatial grandstand. This creates a panoramic view towards the west, the water and the park, on every level.

A roof terrace adjacent to the bathroom on the second floor provides a place to sit unseen. Every night magnificent sunsets can be watched from the house, thus creating a special holiday atmosphere.

In the core of the house, a three floors tall service ‘tower’ (‘magic-box’) contains a toilet on each floor, storage spaces, installation shafts and a dumbwaiter. For acoustical reasons this block is cladded with distinguished small wooden wenge slats.

The house is more than architectural design; there are a series of products designed for the house: majestic large dining tables seating twelve people with a glass top for the interior and another with perforated rvs top for outside use. A collection of door and window fittings designed for the house, is included by manufacturer Post & Eger to their collection as ‘Wave’. Bookshelves, fireplace, a cooking island with a built-in mobile trolley are only few of the other specials for the house.

Particular attention is paid to the energy. It uses heat and cold storage in the soil, a heat pump and solar collectors on the roof. Sustainability is addressed by an efficient and compact design, good insulation, the effective use of available energy, the use of natural materials and assembly techniques.

Slideshow: one huge window stretches across the black facade of this house overlooking the bay in Osaka.

Designed by Japanese architect Daijiro Takakusa, the two-storey-high House-dT incorporates a soundproofed drumming studio with an artist’s workshop above.

A silhouette of a tree decorates the wall behind the window, where a staircase connects the living and utility rooms with bedrooms upstairs.

We’ve featured quite a few houses in Japan this week – see them all here.

The text below is from Daijiro Takakusa:

The site of “House-dT” is in the new residential area of the Osaka southern part, and can overlook Osaka Bay.

I designed this house in this site for husband whose hobby is playing a drum , and wife who is a painter.

They requested four things to the design of the house.

The one was that they would live calmly every day looking Osaka Bay, and the two was that husband would have a studio for playing a drum completely, the three was that wife would have a atelier which could open a drawing class in the future, and the four was that they would have a large yard for a barbecue party.

In order to realize their requests in this narrow site, I piled up the atelier on the studio, and arranged a well space between these spaces and the living space for that the noise from the studio and the atelier would not be get across to the living space.

And I filled these all spaces in the simple box form, and arranged the box aslant in this site in order to take the large yard.

Since the well space will be passed on the way to every rooms, I considered that the well space would be the most important space, and decided to make this well space into attractive space.

I prepared the big window in one side of this well space from which Osaka Bay could be overlooked, and decided to use the other side of this well space as a canvas on which wife would draw the picture.

The theme of the picture was taken as a big tree , since I expected that the picture would protect this family, and husband’s first name “Daiki” means a big tree in japanese.

Since I considered that the view of Osaka Bay which would be overlooked from the interior, and the picture of a big tree were the most important for this house, I decided to design the house as simply as possible.