Rows of rectangular windows are designed to frame rooms like an “advertisement board for well-designed living” on the facade of this apartment block in Tokyo by local studio PANDA (+ slideshow).
Located in Japan’s Asakusa district, the two-storey apartment block was designed by PANDA to create a home for an elderly couple to spend their final years together and provide a second apartment for rent.
Large black-framed windows create four rows across the bright white facade, allowing natural light to flood through the two apartments.
“It seems as if the facade becomes a picture frame in which lives inside the building emerge like vivid motifs of a painting, against the background of monotonous commercial buildings,” said the architect.
The apartments are stacked vertically and each have two floors of living space. Internal staircases are positioned at the front, creating double-height spaces behind the facade.
“Seen from the frontal road, the enclosed boxes containing different functions are visible through the open curtain wall,” the architect explained.
An entrance on the ground floor leads through to both apartments. The first accommodates living spaces, a bathroom and a bedroom on one floor, with two separate staircases leading up to a mezzanine loft and a storage area.
Wooden floors are spread throughout the apartment, while other surfaces are finished in white to match the exterior of the block.
The upstairs apartment features a similar layout and finish but has a smaller upper level, creating a roof terrace that can be accessed from both homes.
Photography is by Koichi Torimura.
Here’s some more text from PANDA:
Asakusa Apartments, Tokyo, Japan
This is an apartment building in a commercial area in the historical town district of Asakusa, Tokyo. Our clients, a couple in their 60’s, requested us to design their “final home” to enjoy the rest of their lives happily and comfortably, with attached rental housing units to secure a regular income after retirement. The site is placed adjacent to a park across the frontal road on the south side, while being surrounded by tall commercial buildings on three sides.
After reviewing the balance between construction cost and rental income, we decided to allocate some portion of their property for rental car parking for a steady income and use the rest to construct a building comprised of the client’s home and a rental apartment unit.
The building is a two-story wooden construction and our challenge is to build a wooden “curtain wall” facade, which would be atypical of regular wooden construction. It is because we intend to achieve the following purposes; one is to open up the facade to integrate the beautiful view of the park into the interior space, and another is that the facade is expected to act as a sort of “advertisement board” to promote a well-designed living environment of the apartment.
The building is comprised of two duplex housing units stacked vertically. Plans on 1F and 2F are flipped horizontally, except for a fixed position of the bathroom, toilet and stairs in the back, in order to locate lofts, in-floor storage and balconies effectively. Bearing walls on the front side are located between the stairs to the loft space and the bedroom, which are placed symmetrically in section.
Seen from the frontal road, the enclosed boxes containing different functions are visible through the open curtain wall. It seems as if the facade becomes a picture frame in which lives inside the building emerge like vivid motifs of a painting, against the background of monotonous commercial buildings.
Architect in charge: Kozo Yamamoto Structural engineer: a・s・t atelier Contractor: B・L home Structure: two-storey wooden Total floor area: 94.62 sqm Building area: 87.71 sqm
Australian architecture office Iredale Pedersen Hook has renovated a 1930s property in Perth and added an angular rear extension that contrasts with the traditional street-facing facade (+ slideshow).
Architects Adrian Iredale and Caroline Di Costa of Iredale Pedersen Hook own the house and have been gradually conducting renovations over the past four years to adapt it to the changing needs of their young family.
Mindful of preserving the property’s historic aesthetic while updating its functionality, the architects retained the front facade and based the faceted shape of the extension on the multiple sloping surfaces of the original roof.
“Folding forms developed from the existing roof achieve a reinterpretation of the surrounding streetscape and roofscape, binding old and new [as well as] historic and contemporary,” said the architects. “A Jekyll and Hyde quality, the street appearance remains almost untouched; a silent figure, a backdrop, the rear is the extrovert, complex and challenging.”
When viewed from the adjacent street, the house appears to retain the appearance of the Queen Anne Federation-style properties typical in the city’s Vincent district, which feature details reminiscent of the Baroque style of architecture that gained popularity in England during the early eighteenth century.
A key feature of this style is a sheltered verandah next to the entrance, which was popular with the Italian and Greek immigrants who moved to the neighbourhood following the First World War. The architects reintroduced this element to the building to enhance the connection between the house, the garden and the street.
The faceted extension extends upwards and outwards from the existing sloping roof at the rear of the property, which prevents it from being seen from the street.
Folding doors on the ground floor can be pulled back to connect the dining room and kitchen with a terrace that projects into the garden.
Above the terrace, the upper storey leans forward to shield the interior from the low summer sun and to make the most of views across the surrounding rooftops.
The facade of the extension is covered with fabric panels, which allow light to permeate and display shadows from the branches of nearby trees. Some of the panels at eye level can be opened to provide views of the horizon.
A cooling system that drips water down the fabric panels to chill hot air before it reaches the interior was based on the principle of the Coolgardie Safe – a traditional refrigeration technique employed by Western Australian miners to cool food.
The angular interior of the study and living room on the upper floor is entirely clad in plywood panels. The sloping back wall replaces the tiles of the original roof and provides a surface that Iredale and Di Costa’s two-year-old daughter uses as a slide.
As well as the roofline, the architects retained features including the chimney, which has been converted into a water collector, and a 1950s sliding door with an amber glass panel at the top of the stairs.
A multipurpose pavilion constructed in the garden features a pyramidal polycarbonate roof, culminating in a transparent panel that allows daylight to reach the interior and provides views of the sky.
Here’s a project description from Iredale Pedersen Hook:
CASA31_4 Room House
Conceptual Framework
CASA31_4 Room House re-interprets the role of memory, tradition and social and cultural value in a rich spatial experience that is simultaneous familiar yet unfamiliar. Our architecture preserves and reinterprets the past. History is layered but never erased. Fragments of the past continually remind us that we are only another layer in the rich and unfolding history of this place.
All spaces contain elements of the past, often manifest as objects of intrigue, the sloping floor (the former roof), the barge scrolls on the front fence, the roof tiles creating a musical score along the boundary, the chimney as water collector and the up-cycling of former building elements as decks, gates, architraves and furniture.
A front deck engages with the street, re-introducing the role and value of the front garden as social setting and meeting place, a past tradition by the immigrant Italians and Greeks that has almost disappeared in societies obsession with privacy and security.
Over the last 3 years we have explored our 1936 Queen Anne Mount Hawthorn Federation house scraping, layering, and peeling with 4 primary spatial ideas; the room to the interior, the room to the garden, the room to the horizon, the room to the sky.
The room to the interior explores what existed, years of layering, the art of construction, knowing what to keep, what to reveal and what to remove, knowledge gained from 13 years indulging in the past. Rooms become the embodiment of a city, a microcosm of the qualities that make a great city. The room to the garden focuses attention to the exterior at ground level, it is purposely heavy and grounded engaging with the earth, the section expands to the exterior, a series of folding screens layer the engagement.
A space of deep sensory delight, an architectural palette cleanser, transitions the ground and upper level, the eyes and nose are overpowered by the burnt and waxed plywood walls and the amber light cast by Nan’s 1950’s sliding door.
The room to the horizon filters the suburban roof tops, the screen abstracts the exterior world, the interior is one folded space formed through a play on the one point perspective that intensifies the horizon. Openable screens create a direct view framing the horizon, releasing the interior volume. The space is cooled with an interpretation of the old Coolgardie safe, water is dripped down the fabric cooling the outside air. The newly restored, 1956 Iwan Iwanoff Guthrie residence cabinet finds a new home after 15 years of storage in numerous architect’s garages. The roughly painted ‘I love Linda’ remains on the chimney, a rear window frames the distant Saint Mary’s Church.
The room to the sky creates a vertical spatial experience, a halo of love poems embraces us (former wedding installation) and at night a cross of light abstracted by polycarbonate awakens but unlike St Mary’s Church our little spire opens up to the heavens.
Contribution to lives of inhabitants
After 4 years of renovating it is now time to enjoy the richness and intensity of experience that this renovation has created. Every day is a different experience, one that is tender, unexpected, personal and embedded with history. The design enables our children and us to grow and evolve in a sequence of spaces that encourage engagement with each other and the dwelling and offers new ways of understanding and exploring family relationships and an understanding of space. Our house is simultaneous a memorial, playground, place of celebration, stage set, place of community interaction and most importantly ‘home’.
Program Resolution
The design exploits all areas of the site with an inherent flexibility for not only day to day use but the long term capacity to adapt to evolving and changing requirements as the family grows and ages.
It re-engages with the street and community allowing our children to play in safe environment connected to the street and house. Spaces are specific and flexible, while offering sufficient capacity for personal interpretation and use.
This project includes both a macro and micro approach to sustainability. It also extends the meaning of sustainability beyond environmental to include contextual, social, cultural and economic concerns.
This house will be a case example for the City of Vincent demonstrating the importance of preserving the 1935 Queen Anne Federation home with the capacity to embrace contemporary expectations of living, without comprising the street context or privacy of adjoining properties. The neighbouring house completes the street sequence of ‘twins’ and twins should never be separated.
The removal of material from site is minimised, an attitude of ‘upgrading’ ensures that materials once concealed for structural purposes are now used for furniture, decks, doorframes and architraves.
The upper and lower level spaces are protected from the low, intense summer sun with timber framed fixed and operable screens, the upper level is cooled with a manually operated reticulation system that drip feeds water on to the fabric, hot moving air is rapidly chilled, this is Perth’s largest ‘Coolgardie Safe’, a 19th century low-tech refrigeration system used by the Coolgardie WA gold miners to cool edible goods. Windows are strategically located to maximise cross ventilation or for winter heat gain (north facing highlight window with a deep reveal for shading).
All interior spaces preserve elements of the past, history is layered but never erased. Low energy light fittings, recycled light fittings, low water use and storage, pv cells and solar hot water systems all form part of the sustainable equation but is the focus.
Economy is achieved through re-cycling, restoring, re-interpreting building materials and historic traditions and minimising waste. This project represents a holistic approach to design and dwelling, where memories are preserved, carbon footprint minimised and the concerns of the broader community celebrated.
Folding forms developed from the existing roof achieve a re-interpretation of the surrounding streetscape and roof-scape, binding old and new/ historic and contemporary. A Jekyll and Hyde quality, the street appearance remains almost untouched, a silent figure, a backdrop, the rear is the extrovert, complex and challenging.
A front deck engages with the street, re-introducing the value of the front garden as social setting, a past tradition by the immigrant Italians and Greeks. A mosaic tiled seat offers a place to rest for neighbours. All exterior spaces contain elements of the past, often manifest as objects of intrigue.
As architect owners we were keen to maintain an open line of discussion that enabled details to be developed and refined as the project evolved. This often involved the capacity to re-use building waste. Our structural engineer and builder eagerly entered in to this arrangement in particular the role of the builder extended beyond the traditional role.
Architects: Caroline Di Costa Architect and iredale pedersen hook architects Architectural Project Team: Caroline Di Costa, Adrian Iredale, Finn Pedersen, Martyn Hook, Brett Mitchell, Sinan Pirie, Matthew Fletcher. Structural Engineer: Terpkos Engineering Builder: Hugo Homes Completion: December 2013
Milan 2014: Dezeen’s Dan Howarth braved the mad dash of Milan design week for the first time this year. He picks his top five projects (+ slideshow).
From the perspective of a first-time visitor, Milan’s design week seems vast. As well as the official Salone del Mobile, there are multiple design districts that spring up in different areas of the city. In the past these satellite showcases have provided some of the real highlights of the four-day dash that Milan often becomes.
Running, and sometimes sprinting, between locations in order to see as many exhibitions and installations as possible in four days, it quickly became clear that this year the best projects were scattered across different districts rather than concentrated in one place.
Although there was no one product that appeared to capture the collective imagination of the Milan crowds, the Salone offered plenty of new and innovative designs as well.
Starting with a highlight from the Brera Design District, north of the centre of Milan, the Nendo and COS collaborative installation was a Minimalist match made in heaven. The trail of painted COS shirts that meandered through Nendo’s series of metal frames was simple and ethereal. In the contrasting all-black basement below, an exhibition of Nendo’s design projects was also beautifully curated.
In the Tortona district – an old industrial area in the south of the city where exhibitions are usually held in former warehouses – Studio Job debuted a wallpaper collection created using patterns from the designers’ back catalogue. Motifs were taken out of projects ranging from catwalk designs for Viktor & Rolf to cabinets for Moooi; an original way to collate and reinterpret a varied retrospective of work.
The designs were rolled out side by side, down one wall and across the floor for the installation, creating a visually striking display that drew in both design aficionados and passers-by from the street.
Nika Zupanc‘s delicate collection for Sé was a highlight from the show at Spazio Rossana Orlandi, another satellite space curated by gallerist Orlandi in a series of buildings surrounding a courtyard. Zupanc’s work stood out not only for the sparing use of marble and delicate metal details – the furniture and lighting looked beautiful and cohesive presented together.
The refined shapes and smooth surfaces were a refreshing contrast to the craft aesthetic seen in many of the other projects displayed in the gallery and it’s courtyard garden.
This reminded me of Danish Modernist architect Arne Jacobsen’s designs for the SAS hotel in Copenhagen, which became hugely popular once they were put into mass production. We’ll have to wait and see if Jongerius’ design will achieve the same level of success, beyond their apparent popularity in Milan.
Over at Ventura Lambrate in the east of the city, a photo booth triggered by physical contact proved to be the most entertaining installation of the week. The Thermobooth by taliaYstudio takes a snap when users kiss, hug or high five. TaliaYstudio was also showing a collection of holdables at the Confessions of Design exhibition at the Rotonda della Besana in the east of Milan that offered a satirical take on the biggest tech-trend of 2014.
The Thermobooth created some awkward moments for visitors testing it out and members of the Dezeen team (not pictured above) shared a lot of love while having a go.
White ceramic tiles contrast with sections of chipboard inside this Reykjavik fashion boutique by local design office HAF Studio (+ slideshow).
Icelandic designers Hafsteinn Júlíusson and Karitas Sveinsdóttir of HAF Studio fitted out the four-storey shop interior for Danish clothing label SUIT. Located on a popular shopping street, the store sells a range of mens’ and women’s clothing.
Designer Hafsteinn Júlíusson said the glossy white tiles were chosen to create a contrast with the oriented strand board – a kind of engineered wood that was used for walls and joinery throughout the boutique.
“We wanted to add a bit of an unexpected twist,” Júlíusson told Dezeen. “We think these tiles enhance the refined roughness that we were aiming for.”
The tiles create geometric grids across parts of the wooden walls, but also extend down to cover sections of the concrete floor.
“More known for serving slaughterhouses or swimming pools, the tiles give a good contrast against the warm wood and the raw concrete,” added Júlíusson.
On the ground floor, strips of fluorescent lighting spell out the word ‘suit’, next to a tiled serving counter with low-hanging black pendant lamps, also designed by the studio.
Shelving units are mounted to the walls to display folded clothes, while other garments are piled up on benches or hung from orange clothing racks.
Cheeky phrases are printed onto the walls of the shop to help visitors find their way around – the words “Do you fit in?” highlight the entrance to the fitting rooms.
The clothing brand SUIT opened downtown Reykjavík recently. The store was designed by HAF Studio which is an Icelandic interdisciplinary design studio run by designers Karitas Sveinsdóttir and Hafsteinn Júlíusson.
The design intention behind the new store was to tie the brand’s raw and rough character together with clever and elaborate detailing. With this in mind, the HAF team created a space that offers a unique customer experience beyond that of the conventional clothing store environment.
The raw concrete floors and walls meet a warm OSB wood cladding where white glossy ceramic tiles give the store a refined finish. Finally orange and black fluorescent details create contrasts and highlights together with crisp lighting.
The Cheburashka table set for ceramics company Dymov was designed by Luca Nichetto and Lera Moiseeva to enhance and reinterpret the ritual sharing of food.
A large collective container has oversized handles and a lid that when placed upside-down becomes a flat surface for the serving spoon, which can also hang from either handle.
Two smaller bowls complete the set and can be stacked upside-down on top of the main container’s lid, creating a totem shape for storage.
Hand-engraved lines on the surface of the ceramics resemble a fishing net, appearing to wrap the containers.
“Cheburashka” is the ancient Russian word for the floats used by fishermen to support their nets and also the name of a popular big-eared Soviet children’s character, who bears a resemblance to the main container in the collection.
After being formed on the potter’s wheel and dried, the surface of the red clay pieces are polished using a hard smooth surface to close the pores and shine the material.
The pieces are fired at 950 degrees and then smoke-fired in an air-tight kiln filled with smoldering embers of wood chips and sawdust.
A chemical reaction allows the clay minerals to absorb the smoke and gives the products their dark appearance. Finally, the objects are polished using natural beeswax provided by local beekeepers.
Cheburashka was exhibited as part of the Walk the Line exhibition at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan last week.
“The idea is to show that the same kind of approach can create two objects that are completely different, one in porcelain and the other in ceramic, but with the same kind of energy and the idea of sharing with guests,” Nichetto told Dezeen at the exhibition.
Photography is by Lera Moiseeva and Luca Bragagnolo.
Milan 2014: fluid compositions of coloured glaze cover the ceramic tops of these metal-framed tables by German designer Elisa Strozyk (+ slideshow).
Strozyk created the table tops by covering them with different liquid glazes, which were then mixed together by rotating each piece and blowing air across the surface.
This technique makes the glazes “pool and mix together”, creating “traces of fluid movement and smoke-like patterns, which are solidified in the heat of the kiln,” said Strozyk.
Shades of grey, blue, brown and white swirl and blend together on the table tops, which have a reflective glass-like finish to them created by the glaze.
“Glazing clay is one of the oldest techniques to decorate products of everyday life,” said the designer. “The process of firing transforms the liquid suspension of metal oxides and powdered minerals into various glass-like surface-finishes.”
Strozyk also carved criss-crossing lines into the glaze on the surface of one table, allowing the ceramic base to show through the rust-coloured shades decorating the top.
The round ceramic tops sit on simple metal frames, which come in copper and steel and are available in three different sizes.
The tables were shown as part of the Berlin Design Selection in the Ventura Lambrate district of Milan last week.
Japanese studio Level Architects squeezed this all-black house onto a narrow plot in Tokyo‘s Fukasawa district, adding sloping offset walls around the lower floors to protect residents’ privacy (+ slideshow).
Confronted with a long, narrow site measuring 4.6 by 17.3 metres, Level Architects‘ main concern was to create a sense of spaciousness and introduce natural light to the four-storey interior of House in Fukasawa. But this had to be done without allowing other people to see inside.
“Rather than allowing the constraining width of the plot to be felt, the goal was to create the illusion of an open connection with the surrounding area while still instilling the sense of privacy desired by most home owners within Tokyo,” said the architect.
Privacy is achieved through the windowless surfaces of the two long facades. Walls also extend from the lower storeys on the building’s shorter sides to restrict views of the interior from the surrounding streets.
The sloping roofline at the rear of the property was dictated by local building regulations, while an inclined wall above the garage allows eastern light to enter the open-plan first floor and blocks direct light from the setting sun.
A skylight at the centre of the house creates a bright area over a white-painted iron staircase that extends between all four storeys. Featuring suspended treads and minimal balustrades, it allows daylight to permeate the lower floors.
The house’s living spaces are all located on the first floor. A double-height living room with full-height windows and a terrace deliberately contrasts with the low-ceilings of the space containing the kitchen and dining area.
Bench seating surrounds two sides of the living room, while a stepped unit mounted on the other wall creates a desk and shelving which continues onto the raised level that leads to the kitchen.
The ceiling heights of the two bedrooms above differ due to the changes in the height of the spaces below. One also opens out to a secluded balcony.
A narrow loft creates a quiet study at the very top of the house, while the ground floor accommodates bathrooms, a garage and traditional Japanese room lined with tatami mats.
Here’s some project text from the architects:
House in Fukasawa, Tokyo, Japan
Located in a quiet neighbourhood where the average house is 2 stories high, the site has a narrow dimension of 4.6 meters wide and 17.3 meters long; very typical of a Tokyo city centre lot. Though the site is narrow, the length of the site created a focal point in the design. Rather than allowing the constraining width of the plot to be felt, the goal was to create the illusion of an open connection with the surrounding area while still instilling the sense of privacy desired by most home owners within Tokyo.
In order to create that sense of privacy, a wall design was incorporated on the North and South sides of the home. The southern wall is cut away in a manner which allows the eastern light to fill the interior of the house, but at the same time shield the inhabitants from the harsh rays of the setting sun. The northern wall is utilised as a reflecting board by capturing the southern light and brightening the interior, all the way down to the first floor where light is hardest to reach.
The second floor level, which is completely open and connected, utilises a very high ceiling for the living room and a low ceiling for the kitchen to differentiate space. The living room is also designed with a set of steps running around three sides of the room to create a built-in sofa and activity space where cushions can be placed, amplifying the sense of openness. The centre of the house hosts an iron staircase and top light which allows for light to filter down through the house, generating unique atmospheres which separate the individual spaces.
The third floor is broken up by different room heights as a result of the design of the second level but which is all connected around the staircase. The Master Bedroom incorporates a slanted ceiling, a result of the setback code common around the city of Tokyo, but which adds a unique element to the room. The loft space opens up to the stairwell, exposing the room to the indirect light coming down from the ceiling window.
The design adjustments made in the section planning of the house emphasised the idea of a long house, one which generates a creative use of line-of-sight and height differentiations to create the sense of a house larger than its narrow width.
Architecture studio Piercy & Company has slotted a family house behind a nineteenth-century stable facade in south-west London, creating a pair of rusted gable walls with a glazed stairwell in between (+ slideshow).
Located within a conservation zone near Kew Gardens, the three-storey Kew House was designed by London studio Piercy & Company to respect the scale and massing of its historic surroundings, but also create a generous modern home for a family.
To achieve this, the architect retained the ageing stable wall at the front of the property, then replicated its shape to create a pair of matching two-storey wings behind.
Both of these were then clad with pre-weathered steel, providing a counterpoint to the old brickwork. In some places the steel covers the windows, but is speckled with irregular perforations that allow an exchange of light and views.
“The deep orange tones of the weathering steel and the perforations within this skin echo the dappled light and autumnal palette of nearby Kew Gardens,” said the architect in a statement.
A glazed stairwell connects the two wings, framing an entrance patio at the front of the property and a secluded courtyard at the rear. There’s also a large basement that spans the site to unite the wings on the lowest level.
The interior layout was arranged according to how the family expected to use the space, which the architect says “ranged over imagining the children running about the house, summer dinners spilling outside and the balance of quiet nooks with social spaces, to pragmatic concerns like drying laundry and how to build a boat in the basement.”
Both wings contain living rooms on the ground floor and bedroom spaces upstairs. The kitchen and family dining room is located on the northern side, with a laundry room and pantry, while a lounge sits at the southern end and is sunken below ground by a metre.
Referred to as “the snug”, this room also features exposed brickwork, built-in oak-veneer cupboards and a narrow curving lightwell.
“The [rooms] are intended to be informal but rich with incidental spaces, unexpected light and complex vertical volumes,” said the architect.
The large basement allowed the architects to establish an on-site joinery workshop during the build. This allowed the team to experiment with different construction techniques and put together bespoke panelling and furniture.
The space now functions as a place where one of the residents, who works as an engineer, can focus on personal projects.
Here’s the project description from Piercy & Company:
Kew House
Set within the Kew Green Conservation Area of south-west London, the four bedroom family house is formed of two sculptural weathering steel volumes inserted behind a retained nineteenth century stable wall. The brief evolved through a series of conversations with clients Tim and Jo Lucas, which ranged over imagining the children running about the house, summer dinners spilling outside and the balance of quiet nooks with social spaces, to pragmatic concerns like drying laundry and how to build a boat in the basement. In response, Piercy&Company designed the house as a built diagram of the way the family wanted to use the spaces, with an internal landscape of alternative routes and levels connecting expressive spaces aimed at creating moments of delight for adults and children alike.
First and foremost a family home, the spaces are intended to be informal but rich with incidental spaces, unexpected light and complex vertical volumes. The house is formed of a simple plan to make the most of the constrained site, reduce the building’s mass in the streetscape and respond to the living patterns of the family. Consisting of two rectangles; one slightly smaller, set back and sunken 1m lower, the wings each have living spaces on the ground floor and bedrooms above. Connecting the wings is a glass encased circulation link which allows light to pour into the house whilst providing breathing space between internal spaces.
The two shells housing the main living and sleeping areas are formed of 4mm weathering steel, a hardworking combination of structure and facade. The weathering steel is maintenance free, essential for the enclosed site, and is softened by a patchwork of expressed welds and perforated panels. The deep orange tones of the weathering steel and the perforations within this skin echo the dappled light and autumnal palette of nearby Kew Gardens. Inside, oak veneer panelling and Dinesen flooring are the basis of a light, natural and refined palette of materials.
A list of planning constraints – including a conservation area context, a change of use and no access on three sides – formed a backdrop to the project. To overcome these challenges Piercy & Company inserted the house behind a retained 19th century brick gable end and split the house into twin gabled forms in keeping with local massing. The natural patina of the weathering steel with its marks, stains and perforations giving the surfaces different characters depending on the exposure and orientation, anchor the form into its context and impart a sense of permanence.
Kew House was an experimental build, driven by the architect’s and client’s shared interest in a kit-of-parts approach and the self-build possibilities emerging from digital fabrication. The weathering steel shells were prefabricated in Hull and then craned into place and welded together.
CNC milling and the on-site joinery workshop were used to create bespoke panelling, furniture and cabinetwork that could be fitted by the client and a small team of architecture graduates, testing the theory that digital fabrication can reduce the distance between design and production. The implications of this technology for house building are manifold with bespoke fit-out on a budget becoming increasingly viable.
Client: Tim & Jo Lucas Architect: Piercy & Company Structural Engineer: Tim Lucas (Price & Myers) M&E Engineer: Arup Sustainability Consultant: Price & Myers Key Sub-Contractors: Commercial Systems International (CSI), Estbury Basements
Milan 2014: designers from MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group have created a shape-shifting table that reacts to human presence with a series of 1,000 tiny motors built into the frame (+ movie).
Named Transform, the table is divided into three separate surfaces, where more than 1,000 small squares attached to individual motors that are hidden from view.
When a user passes their hand across the surface, the individual squares rise up in sequence and create a ripple effect.
The table can also create abstract shapes on its own, and transfer objects across the surface, thanks to a series of pre-programmed animation sequences.
Transform was created by Daniel Leithinger and Sean Follmer and overseen by their professor Hiroshi Ishii.
“A pixel is intangible,” Ishii told Dezeen. “You can only use it through mediating and remote control, like a mouse or a touchscreen. We decided to physically embody computation and information.”
Hiroshi Ishii, head of concept design for Transform
According to the team, the concept is a look at how furniture could evolve in future. It forms part of the MIT Tangible Media Group’s Radical Atoms project, which explores human interaction with materials that are reconfigurable by computer.
“We don’t want the furniture to become more important than the motion. We want to make it feel like it’s a unified design and they are not separate,” said Amit Zoran, one of the product designers on the project.
Transform changes shape by a series of sensors that detect movement above the surface. However, the table could change according to the emotions of people around it, and create a melody to soothe those around the table, said its creators.
“Imagine, this is equivalent of the invention of a new medium. Painting, plastic, and computer graphics. It has infinite possibilities,” said Ishii.
White ceramic tiles create a brickwork pattern across the walls and roof of this Paris boutique designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates for Chinese lifestyle brand Shang Xia (+ slideshow).
Japanese firm Kengo Kuma and Associates previously designed the Beijing and Shanghai stores for Shang Xia. For the brand’s first retail space in Europe, the architects designed an interior covered in over 10,000 tiles that extends to a layered ceiling installation.
The studio chose rectangular tiles with a glossy surface to reflect light through the store, describing the material as having an edge “thin enough to pass through light”.
“We used the same material for tiles to hang from the ceiling and cover the space,” explained the studio. “Taking advantage of this glazed white surface that softly mirrors its environments, we set up a place like a cloud brimming with light.”
The tiles also form a backdrop for the shopfront display windows, creating a screen that alternates between solid and void.
Located on a corner plot close to Boulevard Saint-Germain, the oval-shaped boutique showcases a range of furniture, homeware, accessories and clothing.
A tiled partition divides the store and is punctured by rectangular recesses, creating display spaces for jewellery. Tabletops and boxy stools are positioned in front, where customers can take a seat while trying on jewellery.
Glass-topped storage cases present a range of accessories, while more recessed shelving on the perimeter walls are filled with homeware items.
Scarves and shawls are tied to silver railings near the entrance and racks of clothing are set into the outer tiled walls, along with a selection of furniture. Polished wooden floors feature throughout.
The design has a similar aesthetic to Shang Xia’s two stores in China. While the Beijing store contains a lattice of extruded aluminium sections, the Shanghai boutique features a faceted white interior.
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