This Tokyo house by Japanese office Atelier Tekuto features a huge triangular window that angles up over the rooftops of surrounding houses to bring daylight in from above (+ slideshow).
The four-storey house is located within one of the city’s many dense residential areas, so Atelier Tekuto tried to make the most of natural light by framing a view of the sky and clouds, hence the project title Framing the Sky.
“We realise that skylights are the most important openings in urban houses,” said the architects. “It is because the sky is the only element of nature left in the urban context, and the skylight serves as an interface between people and nature.”
The huge window is positioned above a double-height living room on the second floor. It is set at an angle to bring light right across the space, and through to a kitchen and loft bedroom just behind.
“When you stand under this large skylight, you feel plenty of sunlight showering onto your body,” said the architects.
The two lower levels of the house both meet the ground, which allowed the architects to separate the main entrance from the garage access.
A small study sits behind the garage and has a ceiling of glass blocks to bring light in from above. These become the floor of the entrance corridor, leading residents through to a staircase that features wooden treads and a balustrade made of vertical pipes.
Wooden joinery features throughout, from the shelves and cupboards in the kitchen to desks, sideboards and seating areas elsewhere in the house.
This house is situated in an urban residential district at Aoyama in Tokyo. The polygon-shaped site has a 2.7 meter gap therefore we located the garage entrance on the basement floor on the south side and the main entrance to the house on the first floor on the west side.
The program requested by the clients are as follows; garage and bicycle parking space on the basement floor; main entrance, bathroom and master bedroom on the ground floor; Living room /dining space with kitchen on the second floor; and children’s room in the loft space. The main design concept of this house is “framing the sky”.
We focus on the relationship between nature and people in the city. We realise that skylights are the most important openings in the urban houses. It is because the sky is the only element of nature left in the urban context, and the skylight serves as an interface between people and nature.
The volume of the house is decided according to height restriction lines, and the size of the skylight is determined according to the maximum glass size.
When you stand under this large skylight, you feel a plenty of sunlight showering onto you body. It makes you feel that you are a part of nature in this blue urban sky.
Location: Tokyo, Japan Building use: private house Site area: 69.15m2 Building area: 38.72 sqm Total floor area: 77.44 sqm
Construction: Reinforced concrete (basement) + steel Architectural design: Yasuhiro Yamashita – Atelier Tekuto Constructional design: Jun Sato – Jun Sato Structural Engineers Construction management: Takahiro Watai – Nissho Kogyo Co.Ltd.
Portuguese studio Armazenar Ideias used blocks of white marble to build this cube-shaped mausoleum for a family living in the city of Póvoa de Varzim (+ slideshow).
Rather than replicating the classical structures typically built for Portuguese families, Pedro Matos of Armazenar Ideias wanted to design a more modern and simplistic vault for the Gomes family, who originated from Venezuela.
“There are different values to be represented in architecture now,” Matos told Dezeen. “Not so much the old solemnity and ‘baroque thinking’ associated to death, but a much more simple and essential way to interpret it, detached from the excess of symbolism.”
The architect sourced the purest marble he could to build the walls of the mausoleum, creating a grid of white squares around the rear and sides of the structure.
“The project tries to relate itself with the sacred theme,” said Matos. “The facades carry the weight of a temple and are made of the whitest marble we could find, the colour of purity to Catholicism.”
Some of these panels are slightly displaced, allowing narrow openings to puncture the rear wall.
To contrast with the bright marble, the facade of the vault is made from reflective black glass, intended to reflect the surroundings and give privacy to the interior.
“The black mirror asks everyone to look at themselves before entering,” added Matos.
Darker marble lines the interior of the building and a single brass cross is positioned against the far wall.
Local firm Brasil Arquitetura designed the expansion of the existing Praça das Artes complex, situated in a densely built neighbourhood of São Paulo, around a central plaza and paved thoroughfare that extends to the streets bordering three sides of the site.
A complex arrangement of modular buildings interspersed among the existing urban fabric accommodates various events spaces, facilities and infrastructure for the centre, which is home to several musical and dance organisations.
In some places the new additions project outwards to create sheltered walkways or hover in gaps between other buildings, marking entrances to the centre and presenting a uniform presence on all sides of the site.
“The new buildings are mainly positioned along the boundaries of the site and, to a large degree, lifted off the ground,” said the architects. “Thus, it was possible to create open spaces and generous circulation areas, resulting in the plaza which gives the project its name.”
The historic facades of a former musical conservatory and a cinema have been retained and integrated into the scheme, with the conservatory undergoing a programme of restoration including the renovation of its first floor concert hall and the creation of an exhibition space on the raised ground floor.
“These historic buildings are physical and symbolic records, remains of the city of the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century,” the architects explained. “Restored in all aspects and converted for new uses, they will sustain a life to be invented. Incorporated into the project, they became unconfined from neighbouring constructions and gained new meanings.”
The new buildings are predominantly rendered in concrete coloured with ochre pigment, with a tower housing offices, toilets, changing rooms and building services standing out due to its red pigmented concrete surfaces.
An angular staircase encased in concrete and glass connects the plaza with the first floor of the tower, providing access to the concert hall.
Windows scattered across the facades sit in places where acoustic performance is a key consideration, while floating floor slabs, acoustic walls and ceilings made from gypsum and rock wool also help to optimise acoustics throughout the building.
PRAÇA DAS ARTES Performing Arts Centre – São Paulo
“… one thing is the physical place, different to the place for the project. The place is not a point of departure, but rather a point of arrival. Realising what this place is, is already doing the project.” – Álvaro Siza
Some architectural projects are dominant in large open spaces, in favoured conditions and visible from a distance. Other projects need to adapt to adverse conditions, minimal spaces, small wedges of long plots, leftovers between existing constructions, where the parameters for developing the project are dictated by these factors.
Praça das Artes is part of the latter category. It is not by a voluntary decision or by opting for one or the other approach, by this or the other direction to be taken, that lead us to a conceptual choice and conclusion. It is the very nature of the place; our comprehension of it as a space resulting from many years – or centuries – of socio-political factors that shaped the city.
To understand the place not only as a physical object, as Siza says, but as a space of tension, with conflicts of interest, characterised by underuse or even abandonment, all this counts. If on the one hand the Praça das Artes project has to account for the demands of a programme of various new functions, related to the arts of music and dance, it also has to clearly and transformatively respond to an existing physical and spatial situation with an intense life and a strongly present neighbourhood. Moreover, it must create new public common spaces using the urban geography, local history and contemporary values of public life.
We may say that, in this case, to design a project is to capture and to invent a place at the same time and in the same strategy.
The place of the project
The physical place, in the centre of São Paulo, is made up of a series of plots that are connected in the middle of the urban block and have fronts to three streets. This situation is a result of the mistakes of an urbanism that was always subordinated to the idea of the plot, the logic of private property. As almost the entire city centre, the area is chaotic in terms of building volumes and common sense principles of sunlight and natural ventilation. It is an accumulation of underused or vacant spaces, abandoned, forgotten, awaiting to be of interest to the city once again.
The architecture of the former Dramatic and Musical Conservatory and the Cairo Cinema portray marks and memories of different eras. At the same time, the place presents a privileged situation in view of its surrounding humanity, being full of diversity, vitality, a mixture of social classes, conflicts and tensions typical of a large city, living together and the search for tolerance. Shortly, it is a place rich in urbanity.
The programme
The project has a rich and complex programme with a focus on musical and dance activities, besides public uses of coexistence, which permeate the entire complex.
The module of the Resident Performing Arts companies houses the Professional bodies: the Municipal Symphonic Orchestra, the Experimental Repertory Orchestra, the Lyrical Choir, the São Paulo Choir, the City Ballet Company and the Municipal String Quartet. The module faces rua Formosa (Anhangabaú) and incorporates the façade of the former Cairo Cinema.
The module of the Schools and public uses accommodates educational and common spaces – the Municipal Music School, the Municipal Dance School, a restaurant and common space. The module occupies volumes that lift up from the ground on avenida São João and rua Conselheiro Crispiniano. The street level underneath the building volumes is practically unobstructed. The kiosks along the edge of the plaza, newspaper booths, cafés, snack bars, a library – are a continuation of the existing uses along the street, bringing the urban life to the interior of the new architectural complex.
The module with a large public car parking occupies the underground floors on avenida São João (the former Saci Cinema) and rua Conselheiro Crispiniano.
The module of the Conservatory includes the restoration and adaptation of the former Dramatic and Musical Conservatory and a new tower on the plot next to it, facing avenida São João. On the raised ground floor of the historic building there is a space for exhibitions and events. The concert hall on the first floor was carefully restored to once again stage musical shows. The new tower next to the Conservatory houses the arts collections and historic archives of all the bodies of the project. The addition to the historic building houses the vertical circulation system, administrative offices and building services.
The Project
Since the initial site study, the former Conservatory, restored and converted into a concert hall and an exhibition space, represented the anchor for the project. The new buildings are mainly positioned along the boundaries of the site and, to a large degree, lifted off the ground. Thus, it was possible to create open spaces and generous circulation areas, resulting in the plaza which gives the project its name. This paved plaza can be accessed from rua Conselheiro Crispiniano, avenida São João and, in the next construction phase, also from rua Formosa (Anhangabaú) via a flight of stairs, which connect the different levels of the streets.
The new volumes reach from the centre outwards towards the three adjacent streets. A series of interconnected buildings in exposed concrete, with ochre pigments, accommodate the various functions and is the main element establishing a new dialogue with the neighbourhood and with the remaining constructions that will be incorporated into the project, the former Conservatory and the façade and foyer of the former Cairo Cinema.
These historic buildings are physical and symbolic records, remains of the city of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Restored in all aspects and converted for new uses, they will sustain a life to be invented. Incorporated them into the project, they became unconfined from neighbouring constructions and gained new meanings. The historic building on Avenida São João came into being as a commercial exhibition space for pianos in 1986, then gained an extension to become a hotel and shortly after was transformed into a musical conservatory, even before the creation of the Municipal Theatre, for which it is a precursor, in certain ways, and the training centre for the musicians who would then make up its orchestra.
A new addition to the Conservatory was built, which works as a pivot point for all departments and sectors within the complex. All administrative offices, vertical circulation (stairs and lifts), entrance and distribution halls, toilets, changing rooms, and shafts for building services are concentrated in this building, which is the only one coloured with red pigments. Towards the plaza, a sculptural triangular staircase built in concrete and glass allows for a direct access between the level of the plaza and the first floor, where the concert hall is located.
Besides the coloured concrete, the windows represent an important part of project. They are either externally attached or placed within the opening. In the rooms with special acoustic requirements, the windows are fixed and attached to the building from the outside with 16mm-thick glass; in other spaces awning windows are used.
In order to satisfy the high requirements in preventing the propagation of noise and vibrations, specific details were used, such as floating slabs, acoustic walls and ceilings made of gypsum panels and rock wool, a system called acoustic isolation.
The administrative office areas of the extension to the Conservatory are equipped with a raised floor, which means that electrical, logistical, and communication installations can be adapted freely for allowing a greater flexibility in the arrangements of the work spaces. It was possible to achieve large spans without intermediate columns by using shear walls, thus guaranteeing complete flexibility of the internal spaces and unobstructed external spaces on the plaza level.
Stockholm 2014: young designers Erik Olovsson and Kyuhyung Cho have designed a series of clothing racks that resemble the regular shape of a wave (+ slideshow).
The SINE collection by Erik Olovsson and Kyuhyung Cho is named after a sine wave – a mathematical term used to describe a wave with a perfectly even oscillation.
The wave-shaped rails are intended to space out hanging items evenly.
The range also includes a range of hangers for clothes, belts and scarves, as well as a little hanging bowl for jewellery and other accessories.
Each rack base is made of marble while the rails themselves are made of powder-coated aluminium. The hangers are made of steel.
“Our focus was to explore different senses of form and object, loose and tight, bold and thin, heavy and light to find our own contrast and balance,” said the designers.
“As a result of that, SINE has harmonious contrasts – soft and straight lines, light aluminium and heavy stone, openness and closeness,” they added.
Made in a range of blue, black, green and white, the racks and hangers were exhibited at the Greenhouse showcase of young talents as part of Stockholm Furniture Fair.
This concrete Second World War bunker in Hamburg has been converted into a renewable energy plant and visitor centre by urban development company IBA Hamburg (+ slideshow).
IBA Hamburg restored and expanded the 42-metre-high ruined concrete shell, which had remained unoccupied since the end of the war. Working with German energy firm Hamburg Energie, the company transformed the bunker into a plant that provides heat and electricity to the surrounding neighbourhood.
Photograph by Bernadette Grimmenstein
“After standing empty for more than sixty years, followed by a seven-year project development and construction phase, this war monument has been transformed into a sign of the dawn of a climate-friendly future,” said IBA director Uli Hellweg.
Photograph by Martin Kunze
The imposing structure is circled by a balcony towards the top, above which sits four cylindrical forms at each corner that are connected by the cantilevered ledge. A public cafe that spills out onto the balcony through a glass wall and an event space were also added on the upper level.
Photograph by Bernadette Grimmenstein
To make the building safe to occupy, concrete was sprayed onto the disintegrating facade to stabilise it and thermal insulation was added to keep the cafe warm. Inside, the bombed floor slabs were removed and replaced plus an elevator and staircases were added.
Photograph by Martin Kunze
A two-million-litre water reservoir sits at the centre of the structure, acting as large heat buffer. This is fed by heat from a biomass thermal power plant, a wood burning unit, a solar thermal system on the roof and waste heat from a nearby industrial facility. The heat is redistributed to surrounding buildings in the district.
Photograph by Martin Kunze
Rows of photovoltaic panels covering the south facade and a thermal power station feed power into the electricity grid. The cafe contains an interactive monitor that displays current energy production data and visitors can take guided tours around the plant.
Photograph by Bernadette Grimmenstein
The bunker has been supplying energy to Hamburg’s Reiherstieg district for a year and the public facilities opened six months ago.
Here’s some more information from IBA Hamburg:
Energy Bunker: World First in Heat and Electricity Supply
From a war memorial to a green power plant: the Energy Bunker in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg, created by HAMBURG ENERGIE and the International Building Exhibition IBA Hamburg, is the first project of its kind in the world. For exactly a year the Energy Bunker has been supplying heat energy to the residential buildings in the surrounding area. Six months ago it opened to visitors and has become a major attraction. The development of this remarkable joint project is now complete and is being celebrated with an opening ceremony and the unveiling of two plaques.
Photograph by Bernadette Grimmenstein
“Today we are here to mark a project that encapsulates the philosophy of the IBA Hamburg more than any other,” said IBA director Uli Hellweg. “After standing empty for more than sixty years, followed by a seven-year project development and construction phase, this war monument has been transformed into a sign of the dawn of a climate-friendly future. Not only does it produce clean energy to supply the district, but also demonstrates how local resources can be used to produce and store heat. With its viewing platform, permanent exhibition, and café, the Energy Bunker also makes an appealing visitor attraction. Almost 100,000 people have visited the Energy Bunker so far.”
Photograph by Bernadette Grimmenstein
Dr Michael Beckereit, director of Hamburg Energie, said, “The Energy Bunker has been supplying heat energy since October 2012, and since March 2013 it has also been providing electricity. Its performance and network are gradually being extended. By the final stage of expansion we will be supplying 3,000 households with heat from the Bunker and generating over 2.5 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.”
Photograph by Bernadette Grimmenstein
At the heart of the project is a two-million-litre water reservoir that acts as a large heat buffer inside the Energy Bunker, and serves as the centre of a local heating network for the Reiherstieg district. The reservoir is fed by the heat from a biomass thermal power plant and a wood burning unit, as well as a solar thermal system on the roof. This is supplemented by the waste heat from a nearby industrial plant. By bringing these different sources of energy together in an effective way, the Energy Bunker is able to supply the adjacent Global Neighbourhood with heat, and in future will be capable of providing heat to most of the Reiherstieg district. At the same time it feeds into the public grid green electricity from the thermal power station and the photovoltaic unit fitted to the south façade.
Diagram of the Energiebunker
History of the Energy Bunker
The 42-metre-high flak bunker on Neuhöfer Strasse was built during World War II. After the end of the war this concrete behemoth could not be blown up without endangering nearby tenements, so the British Army restricted itself to destroying the interior. On the outside, however, the bunker remained more or less intact. From then on, the ruin stood in the middle of the residential area, largely unused and in danger of collapsing. In 2006 the conceptual planning for converting the building into an Energy Bunker began, and 2010 saw the first static tests carried out. Safety, restoration, and conversion tasks on the bunker could only begin in 2011. The total cost of the work amounted to €26.7 million. As a flagship project, it was funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Hamburg Climate Protection Concept.
The clients are the IBA Hamburg (restoration and expansion of the building) and HAMBURG ENERGY (energy supply). As part of a joint opening ceremony Uli Hellweg and Dr Michael Beckereit have now unveiled the IBA plaque and the ERDF sign.
Designer Konstantin Grcic has produced a collection of furniture that combines industrial sheet glass with pistons, hinges and cranks for his latest exhibition at Galerie Kreo in Paris (+ slideshow).
Grcic collaborated with a traditional glass workshop in Frankfurt, Germany, to produce the collection comprising a chair, tables, chests, shelving and a vertical cabinet from the same float glass commonly used in architectural projects.
“Glass is not an obvious material for making furniture but it is a very intriguing material,” Grcic told Dezeen. “It is an industrial material, which is an aspect that I like about it.”
The transparency of the glass contrasts with fittings made from the black silicone typically used to minimise damage to glass surfaces, and the furniture also employs industrial gas pistons to introduce movement and an element of interactivity.
“These gas pistons – which are another industrially pre-fabricated product – create movement in a very magical, soft way,” said Grcic. “I think it adds another quality to the furniture that makes it more human.”
In the example of the chair, the pistons are linked to a lever that can be used to alter the position of the backrest, while round tables incorporate a piston that makes it easy to fold the top down.
A large table has four telescopic pistons attached to a crank that adjusts the height of the surface, simple boxes feature lids that close smoothly without any danger of breakage, and a book shelf incorporates wooden blocks that can be slid sideways like sprung bookends.
“Because the gas piston makes the movement so precise and controlled, it gives a lot of confidence,” Grcic pointed out. “These pistons are industrial products but each one is customised, so we specify exactly what it is used for. It is very beautiful – almost scientific – how they accurately adjust the piston to just be what we need, with a very soft, almost automatic movement.”
Grcic said he believes that there is a stigma that affects people’s relationship with glass furniture: “As well as the perception that glass is cold, there is a psychological belief that maybe it is fragile and could break and hurt you. [With these pieces] I am forcing you to interact, to touch it and interact with it and to overcome this psychological barrier.”
The exhibition’s title, Man Machine, is borrowed from an album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, and Grcic claimed it was chosen to represent the meeting of “the human heart and the machine, the mechanical precision, the cogs, the cold industrial aesthetic with something that is softer, more poetic, more emotional.”
The designer, who is renowned for his industrially manufactured products for brands including Vitra, Magis and Emeco, said that projects such as this one and a previous collection of painted aluminium furniture he designed for Galerie Kreo offer an opportunity to experiment with ideas that might eventually filter into his commercial work.
“I think in design it is not necessary that we push these boundaries all the time but sometimes it is really good and the gallery provides the freedom to experiment and to try things,” the designer claimed.
“My work for galleries is very much informed by my thinking as an industrial designer,” he added. “The gallery is a laboratory for ideas that I would eventually love to see being developed on an industrial scale. Only by creating them do you understand their potential, how they work and how they could be developed further on an industrial scale.”
This house by Japanese architect Shogo Aratani clambers over a steep rocky site in Hyogo, so it was named Krampon after the spiky devices that strap onto shoes to improve grip for climbing (+ slideshow).
Shogo Aratani designed the two-storey house for a site with an 11-metre change of level from front to back, so he divided the building into a series of blocks that stagger up to follow the slope of the hill.
“We decided to place volumes along the sloped ground to minimise excavation,” said the architect. “We designed the spatial sequence in relation to the landscape by placing three volumes along contour lines.”
The three rectilinear volumes fan out around a triangular central section that accommodates the houses’s main staircase, but which also functions as a small library. Books can be stored on shelves around the three edges of the space, as well as within the gaps between treads.
The living rooms are all positioned on the upper floor of the house to offer the best views of the surrounding neighbourhood, and open to a large wooden roof deck.
A skylight above the living room reveals the branches of a camphor tree and cherry tree at the top of the site, while the kitchen features a stainless steel countertop and glass doors leading out to a narrow balcony.
Black powder-coated metal panels clad the exterior walls. There’s also a concrete retaining wall framing a driveway at the lowest level of the site.
Photography is by Yutaka Kinumaki.
Here’s a project description from Shogo Aratani:
Krampon
This is a residential area where the magnificent nature still remains. The site is situated on a sloped land among natural forest. Two large trees with beautifully shaped branches (one is a camphor tree and the other a cherry tree) stand on top of the site. These trees are integrated into the residential design.
The entire site is steeply sloped, and the gap between the top and the bottom is as large as approximately 11 meters. And the ground composed of a rock bed is extremely hard. Considering these landscape conditions, we decided to place volumes along the sloped ground to minimise excavation.
In order to provide the best view, the main spaces are located on the top floor and the other interior spaces are connected along the slope down to the street level. We designed the spatial sequence in relation to the landscape by placing three volumes along contour lines.
The upper volume is placed right underneath the two large trees. A skylight is provided in the living room to see the trees above. The volume on the north is allocated for bathroom. The volume on the lower level contains private rooms on the first floor and a wood-decked terrace on the roof, accessible from the living room. We place stairs with the same inclination as the ground at the intersection of the three volumes. The stair space is used as a library, while the stairs are designed to accommodate a large number of books.
By designing the three volumes along the landscape, diverse activities are generated and one can enjoy unique spatial sequences as they are.
A sizeable volume of rock was excavated upon construction of the garage, and it is reused as exterior finish on pavements and steps along the entryway.
Location: Hyogo, Japan Principal Use: House Structure: timber frame Site Area: 360.35 sqm Building Area: 104.53 sqm Total Floor Area: 136.65 sqm (84.05m2/1F, 52.60m2/2F) Structural Engineer: S3 Associates Inc. Construction: Amerikaya Co.,Ltd.
A corner appears to have been sliced away from this hilltop house in Portugal by architect Manuel Aires Mateus (photos by Fernando Guerra + slideshow).
Manuel Aires Mateus – who alongside brother Francisco runs Lisbon studio Aires Mateus – teamed up with Ana Cravino and Inês Cordovil of fellow Lisbon office SIA Arquitectura to design House in Fontinha for a site outside the rural town of Melides.
Positioned at the peak of a hill, the two-storey house was conceived as a lookout point offering views out across the Fontinha Estate, but was also planned to offer the same seclusion as a typical courtyard residence.
“The house is designed in the balance between a courtyard house, with a protected core relating to the sky, and an opening to the distant ocean view,” said the architects.
The building occupies a cross-shaped footprint. Rooms are arranged around three quarters of the plan, while a rectangular terrace extends out from the middle and a swimming pool runs along one side.
The base of the structure is set into the ground, creating level entrances on both floors. “The topography is modelled, to protect it from the access road, and release the view,” said the architects.
Instead of rectilinear shapes, each block is also gently tapered to make the building appear larger than it actually is.
The sliced-off corner creates a partial arch on the lower level of the building and accommodates an entrance to a living room.
This curved shape reoccurs within the houses’s minimal white interior, in the arched ceiling that spans the stairwell.
The house contains three bedrooms, all located on the upper floor. The two smaller rooms sit bedside one another at the back, while the master bedroom is positioned beside the swimming pool and features its own marble-lined shower area.
The kitchen is also on this floor and features a worktop with a skylight overhead, as well as a triangular fireplace recessed into a corner.
Three pivoting glass doors open the spaces of this floor out to the terrace, offering residents the opportunity to survey the landscape.
Here’s a short description from Manuel Aires Mateus:
House in Fontinha
On the Grândola crest, the house is designed in the balance between a courtyard house, with a protected core relating to the sky, and an opening to the distant ocean view.
The topography is modelled, to protect it from the access road, and release the view. The perimeter delineates the internal lodgings and its transitions. High volumetric spaces, occupied by elements that define functions and atmospheres.
Location: Melides, Portugal Date of project: 2009-2011 Date of construction: 2012-2013
Architecture: Manuel Aires Mateus With: SIA arquitectura Collaborators: Ana Rita Martins Client: Nuno Correia de Sampaio Engineer: Betar | Promee | Campo d ́água Constructor: Mateus Frazão
Surface Area: 130 + 108 sqm Building Area: 160 + 130 sqm Site Area: 50000 sqm
This six-sided wooden cabin by Estonian designer Jaanus Orgusaar has walls that zigzag up and down and two circular windows resembling fisheye camera lenses (+ slideshow).
Designer Jaanus Orgusaar based the wooden house, called Noa, on the shape of a rhombic dodecahedron – a convex polyhedron with twelve identical rhombic faces. This creates a modular structure that can be extended with extra rooms, but that also feels like a round space from inside.
“The floor plan of the house is a hexagon, the walls and roof are compiled of identical rhombuses, therefore it is easy to continue the structure in space by adding the next module,” Orgusaar said. “The house lacks acute angles, therefore giving an impression of a round space.”
The 25-square-metre house is located in Estonia,
can be easily assembled or taken apart, meaning it can be transported elsewhere if needed.
It is built entirely from wood and its exterior cladding boards were soaked with iron oxide to give them a grey, weathered appearance intended to help the cabin blend into its surroundings.
Insulated wooden boards cover the roof to keep the interior warm, and the base of the structure is raised up from the ground to prevent damp.
“The building stands on three feet, not needing a foundation on the ground and is therefore also more cold-resistant than a usual dwelling,” explained Orgusaar.
Walls inside the cabin are plastered walls and painted yellow, and the space is furnished with a small kitchen and a dining table and chairs.
A terrace can be attached and used as a dining area in warm weather.
Orgusaar built the first house as a summer cottage for his family, and plans to add two more modules. The design is also being manufactured by prefabricated building company Katus and will be available for sale soon.
Here’s a project description from Jaanus Orgusaar:
Aiamaja Noa
Noa is an easily mountable sustainable living space, adaptable to a variety of landscapes and environments. The advantage is that one can always add a module to extend the housing step by step, with each module, ones “saves” a wall.
It is an invention by Jaanus Orgusaar, an Estonian designer-inventor. He built the first one for his own family, and plans to add two more modules. One module is 25 square metres.
The small house was brought to life from the need for a practical, sustainable and economical living space which would be easily mountable compiled from identical elements. The base element is a specific rhombus. The base for the structure is the rhombic dodecahedron.
The rhombic dodecahedron can be used to tessellate three-dimensional space. It can be stacked to fill a space much like hexagons fill a plane. Some minerals such as garnet form a rhombic dodecahedral crystal habit. Honeybees use the geometry of rhombic dodecahedra to form honeycomb from a tessellation of cells each of which is a hexagonal prism capped with half a rhombic dodecahedron. The rhombic dodecahedron also appears in the unit cells of diamond and diamondoids.
While looking for the perfect structure that would fill the space without void, Jaanus chose this unique structure for it is stable standing on three feet, stiff and because it spreads the tension evenly, and offers a synergy in space apprehension, having almost sacral feeling to its round space.
Jaanus is an inventor diving into the very bases of geometry. Many of his creations starting from shoes and fashion, product design and now architecture takes its inspiration from the sacred geometry, the five platonic solids and their inter-relations.
The building stands on three feet, not needing a foundation on the ground, therefore also more cold resistant than a usual dwelling. The house lacks acute angles, therefore giving an impression of a round space. The floor plan of the house is a hexagon, walls and roof compiled of identical rhombuses, therefore it is easy to continue the structure in space by adding the next module.
This kind of structure is simple and economical, yet strong, offering a great, almost timeless, sacral space experience. The little house is currently in use as a summer cottage for the designer’s family, the insides continue without interruption to the summer terrace that is used as a dining area. The house is situated at the brink of a forest in the very vicinity of a 200 year old pine tree and fur tree, therefore guests from the forest, as owls and squirrels are commonplace.
Materials used are all sustainable- wooden construction, floor and outside boarding, even roof- covered with thermo boards. The walls are plastered with limestone paste and painted with cottage cheese paint. The outside wall boards are soaked with iron-oxide to make the house grey fitting into the surrounding nature almost inconspicuously.
Diagram showing the rhombus dodecahedron shape design for the cabin
The round windows frame the view to the open space of endless fields. In the dark the windows reflect the space so that it creates an illusion of additional rooms in the dark.
Noa widens the concept of space offering a different space experience.
Author: designer Jaanus Orgusaar Producer of first prototype: Jaanus Orgusaar Producer: Woodland Homes Photos: Jaanus Orgusaar and Terje Ugandi
Gaps between the three brick boxes of this house near Barcelona by local firm H Arquitectes can be transformed from enclosed rooms into covered patios by folding back glass doors at both ends (+ slideshow).
Located in the town of Sant Cugat near Barcelona, the house was designed by H Arquitectes for a couple with a large art collection, who wanted plenty of wall space and a strong connection between indoors and outdoors.
“One of the main goals was to achieve a close and essential relationship between the house and the garden in such a way that they both became the extension of each other,” the architects explained.
Instead of inserting large windows into the facade to connect the house’s interior with the garden, the architects enclosed the main living room and entrance hallway with full-height wooden doors that can be folded to one side to open these spaces up to the garden.
The entrance hall is simply furnished with a bureau by the doorway and leads through to a long outdoor table, while sofas and armchairs in the other interstitial space create a comfortable living area which the architects said acts as “a green house during winter and a fresh porch in summer.”
Both of the gaps between the boxes act as routes from the front of the house to the back and feature polished concrete floors that extend into the garden on one side and a gravel pathway on the other.
Load-bearing brick walls give the exterior of the three volumes a uniform appearance. In the living room and hallway the red brick becomes the surface of the interior walls, while in the other rooms the masonry has been whitewashed.
Windows are carefully positioned to make the most of the garden views while maintaining privacy where required, and feature traditional external roller blinds to protect the interior from the sun.
The box at the eastern end of the site houses three children’s bedrooms on the first floor and a playroom on the ground floor.
The single storey central box contains a large kitchen, while the third box provides the parents with a bedroom on the ground floor and a studio space above.
Concrete slabs sheltering the spaces between the brick volumes are left with a raw finish, creating a textured ceiling that continues throughout the ground floor rooms.
Brick is also used to clad the edges of a small swimming pool in the western corner of the plot.
Not so many jobs begin like this one, with an owners’ list of wishes and hopes for their new home. A list much closer to the principles and values architects usually work with, often secretly, than the ordinary expectations of those couples facing this unknown challenge. Lists always full of good intentions but often incomplete. This was the start, loaded with responsibility, yet an excellent start.
The plot, located in a residential area of Sant Cugat, near Barcelona, had enough good attributes to become the project main line. One of the main goals was to achieve a close and essential relationship between the house and the garden in such a way that they both became the extension of each other. All that, without falling into the unavoidable, often out of proportion, and so recurrent large glazed panels: they wanted walls, and we also did. A house with walls in a garden for an art collectors couple.
For those reasons, from the right beginning, the proposal searches the balance between placing the maximum number of rooms on the ground floor yet keeping the garden free from masonry work volumes. This idea is developed through a volumetric composition shaped in three boxes spread throughout the garden, almost aligned and located in the plot northern side creating a wide outer zone facing south. The first box, to the east, houses the children’s area with three single bedrooms upstairs and a playroom on the ground floor. The second one, in the centre, accommodates the main room: the kitchen, a nearly 30 square metre and 4 metre high room dominated by a large fireplace. The third box, to the west, contains the parents’ zone, with the bedroom at the garden level and a high ceiling studio on the first floor.
The spaces created between the three boxes are covered sheltering two different environments, open to the garden in north-south direction and can be closed with big folding windows. These spaces offer a very different atmosphere, much more related to the garden area than to the house. The first of these interstitial ambiences, between the children’s area and the kitchen, serves as entrance hall. The second one, bigger, between the parents’ zone and the kitchen, is the living room but not a conventional one: a green house during winter and a fresh porch in summer.
The residence is all circled by the garden, the most part of it facing south. The corner (west), sharp-shaped, gathers the kitchen garden and a pond to bath in. In the north, the distance between the green fence and the house varies between 5 and 6 metres and increases up to 9 metres at the uncovered car parking place. This space is connected through a 3 metres wide path, parallel to the east fence, with the main southern garden. The interstitial spaces of the house (entrance hall and living room) become connecting porches between the front and back gardens.
About volumes, the house is composed of three brick masonry cubes of different heights set parallel to the back street. Although having several dimension windows that depend on their function, the cubes are predominantly massive. Besides, the interstitial areas between cubes, covered by a concrete slab and framed by folding wooden glass doors, are essentially ethereal. Actually, the space becomes an open porch when windows are folded back.
According to its materiality, the house is built on double face brick load-bearing walls, using red masonry for the outer face while white painted inside; wooden window and door frames with traditional outer roller blinds as sunscreen when required. The house is conditioned with a geothermal heat pump and an under floor heating system that slightly refreshes the house during summer, avoiding an air conditioned system to dehumidify.
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