Hasta La Ideas

The bent plywood back of this chair by Danish design brand ShapingYourDay slots into a hole in the seat and is attached with two screws (+ slideshow).

Designers Karina Mencke and Marcus Vagnby created the chair as part of a collection that also includes barstools, benches, dining tables and coffee tables for their own label, ShapingYourDay.

The chair’s rounded backrest narrows to a tongue-like section that curves underneath the seat.

A visible brass screw fixes the back section to a loop that curves up from the rear of the seat, and another screw underneath locks the two pieces in place.

“The Viggo chair has a two-shell structure, which gives the chair its high seating comfort and distinctive design expression, different from all other chairs,” said the designers.

The chair is made from veneered plywood, in the tradition of some of the classic chairs created by Danish designers such as Arne Jacobsen and Grete Jalk in the 1950s and 1960s.

Padding can be added to the seat and back and upholstered in various fabrics.

An accompanying dining table has legs formed from two pieces of curving wood fixed together with brass screws, which match those used on the chairs.

ShapingYourDay launched the Viggo collection at the DesignTrade event in Copenhagen earlier this month.

Photography is by Kasper Harup-Hansen.

Here’s some more information from the designers:

Viggo furniture collection

As designer you don’t contribute to the big picture in every project, but once in a while you realize that you actually made a difference, you added something new, something meaningful.

We feel that it is the case with our new Viggo chair and furniture collection.

And what is the chance, to actually obtain added seating comfort and a unique design expression to a product like a chair? See for you self, in our opinion this is a new chair classic!

Words from the designers who started it all: We have worked with product design and architecture for numerous customers worldwide for more than a decade. In 2012 we started the brand ShapingYourDay, as a space for us to create and produce unique and functional lamps at affordable prices without compromising on quality and form. The brand has been an absolute success!

After two years of designing and developing, our dream and ambition to contribute with new classic designs to the long standing Danish furniture tradition, is coming true. We are proud to present the new Viggo furniture collection.

The Viggo collection includes chairs, barstools, benches, dining tables and coffee tables.

Viggo Chair

The Viggo chair has a two-shell structure, which gives the chair its high seating comfort and distinctive design expression, different from all other chairs. The back and seat of the chair merge together and create a comfortable seating flexibility. A single visible brass screw connects the back with the seat of the chair, leading to its honest and contemporary look. The chair is available in wood veneer with or without upholstered seat and back. Proudly produced in Denmark.

Viggo Table

The Viggo table stands out with its simple and honest design. The light construction with the two parted legs ensure stability in an elegant and simple expression. The angle of the table legs provides ample room for chairs and increases stability further. A well-balanced table, an honest and classic Danish Design. Can be ordered in several sizes, materials and with added extensions.

Proudly produced in Denmark.

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Spanish firm Nook Architects has renovated a Barcelona apartment by adding patterned floor tiles plus a combined step and window seat leading out onto the terrace (+ slideshow).

The Casa Sal apartment in the Poble Sec district of the city is only three metres wide and 19 metres long.

Nook Architects covered the kitchen, bathroom and study with patterned ceramics to divide up the space visually. They then used wooden flooring for a softer look and feel in the rest of the home.

The kitchen acts as the hub of the apartment by linking the living room and the bedroom areas. Nook said they placed extra emphasis on the kitchen.

“For our client, the most important part was the kitchen which had to be the heart of the home; functional, resistant, lively, and very much on the lead in regards to the rest of the room.”

The brightly tiled kitchen leads on to the living room and a slightly raised terrace. Before work started the terrace was in poor condition and could only be accessed through a narrow, opaque door.

To make it feel more connected to the rest of the home, Nook fitted a window seat that doubles as a step with storage space underneath. By using the same material for the top of the bench and floor of the terrace they managed to integrate the terrace with the rest of the apartment. The sliding window doors also allow far more natural light into the room.

Like the kitchen and living room, the client’s bedroom is separated from the study by using floor tiles. Again, Nook used the eye-catching tiles to divide up the relatively small space.

It is becoming increasingly popular to use encaustic floor tiles in Barcelona, with many architects uncovering original flooring from the 1960s. In this case, with no original tiles to unearth, Nook’s client chose the tiles herself – a floral theme for the study, a checkerboard tile for the bathroom and geometrical patterns for the kitchen.

Photography is by nieve.

Here’s a project description from Nook Architects:

CASA SAL, Apartment in Poble Sec, Barcelona

For nook there are two different types of projects from the client’s point of view: that of an owner who will live on the dwelling, and those focused for an unknown user (for example, a rental apartment). On commissions for the first example, we try get to know the client’s day to day customs and habits as thoroughly as possible- anything that could have an effect on their way of life. This was the case of CASA SAL, where the refurbishment of a dwelling was shaped around personality of its owner.

On the other hand, we had to face de difficulties of the original geometry, a very compartmentalised rectangle, only 3 metres wide, and 19 metres long. On one of its ends lay a terrace in very poor conditions, elevated in regards to the dwellings floor level, which could only be accessed through a narrow, opaque door.

These were the premises we worked around in order to solve the architectural problems of the property and the functional requirements of our client. From the start, it involved teamwork, between the architects and the client.

For the client, the most important part was the kitchen, which had to be the heart of the home; functional, resistant, lively, and very much on the lead in regards to the rest of the room. The kitchen therefore articulates the rest of the spaces: on one side there’s the living room with Access to the terrace, and on the other the most private areas, her bedroom and study, a bathroom and a guest room.

To counter the sensation of the narrow proportions of the dwelling, we treated the pavement with fringes of different types of very eye-catching finishes, placing more resistant materials in the kitchen, bathroom, and study, and combining them with Wood for a softer look and feel on the rest of the home. Our client participated by choosing the different tiles used: a hydraulic mosaic for the kitchen with geometrical shapes, a floral theme for the study, and a checker board for the bathroom.

For the terrace, we had a double objective: to solve the deficient connection between it and the living room and to transform into source of natural light, giving it a purpose all year long. This is why we decided to open a large hole on the facade and placed a seating bench that doubles as a stair and storage area with bookcases and drawers. The same pavement was used to finish the terrace on the outside, and the bench on the inside, making the terrace part of the living room itself.

We understood from the beginning that even though our intervention was over, the client’s intervention had only begun. She now has a starting point based on a very familiar architecture to her past, her tastes, and way of live, which will evolve naturally and alongside herself.

Architects: nook architects
Location: Barcelona, España
Year: 2013

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window seat to Barcelona apartment renovation appeared first on Dezeen.

Views of Peter Zumthor‘s Bruder Klaus Field Chapel and a rippled timber reindeer observation pavilion by Snøhetta are among the 16 shortlisted photographs for the 2013 Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards, a selection of which go on show in London next month (+ slideshow).

Organised by architectural stock photography website Arcaid Images, the awards were divided into four categories – exterior, interior, sense of place and buildings in use – and the winning images were selected by a panel of judges including architects Zaha Hadid, Eva Jiřičná, and Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

The overall winner was a shot of the viewing platform perched high above a fjord at the Trollstigen Tourist Route in Norway by Berlin photographer Ken Schluchtmann, who has a total of four images shortlisted.

Italian photographer Duccio Malagamba was named runner-up for his image depicting the contorted steel form of Coop Himmelb(l)au’s Dalian International Conference Center in China, and was also shortlisted with an internal view of the same building and a shot of Herzog & de Meuron’s Olympic Stadium in Beijing.

A view of the Shangri-La tent at Glastonbury Festival by UK-based Jim Stephenson made the list, as did a view by Belgian photographer Tim Van de Velde of a market hall in Ghent with a zigzagging roof.

Other well-known projects pictured include 3XN’s whirlpool-shaped Blue Planet aquarium, photographed by Denmark-based Adam Mørk, and MAD’s twisting skyscrapers, captured by Canadian photographer Younes Bounhar.

The winners were first announced at the end of 2013 and a selection of nine will go on show inside a renovated factory at 7–9 Woodbridge Street, London, from 28 February to 25 April.

Here’s some additional information from Arcaid:

The Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards at Werkstatt

Sto presents Werkstatt – meaning workshop in German – a showcase for the whole Sto Group and a new East London cultural establishment with a lively program of exhibitions, talks, workshops and consultations. The inaugural exhibition is Building Images: The Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards 2013 which shows the breadth and invention in both architecture and photography today.

Arcaid Images is a photographic resource representing images from all aspects of the built world, ancient and modern, iconic and ordinary. The Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards started in 2012. This year’s judges were: Zaha Hadid, Ivan Harbour, Catherine Slessor, Eva Jiricna and Graham Stirk.

The exhibition will present nine shortlisted photographs including The Awards’ winner Ken Schluchtmann’s photograph of ‘Nasjonale Turistveger’ Trollstigen, Norway. A building suspended in clouds next to a waterfall, which highlights the magical nature of architecture and its power within a landscape.

Friederike Meyer: “Described as much more than mere reproductions, Schluchtmann’s images penetrate to the very essence of his subjects. They distil light and colour in a long process involving both analogue and digital techniques, imbuing photographs with an unusually sculptural depth. Some say they create incarnations of design in the way that other photographers create incarnations of fashion.”

Other remarkable photographs being shown in large scale c-type prints beauty include Adam Mørk’s ‘exterior shortlisted’ photograph of The Blue Planet, Denmark and in ‘the buildings in use category’ Fernando Guerra’s striking image of Pátio des Escolas, Portugal.

The Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Award aims to put the focus on the skill and creativity of the photographer.

The judges and the viewers are asked to look beyond the architecture to the composition, light, scale, atmosphere, sense of place and understanding of the project.

The exhibition mirrors the innovation available in this three-storey renovated factory in the heart of Clerkenwell. A full range of Sto Group’s products are at Werkstatt for architects to play and create with, including glass and rendered rainscreen cladding, seamless acoustics, facade elements and photo catalytic interior paint coating.

Werkstatt also extends out from its hub in Clerkenwell to offer connections to Sto’s international network of technical experts with local and global knowledge. Werkstatt is a workshop for international designers and architects to meet, hear, see, be inspired, photography in relaxed surroundings with a backdrop of Sto innovation.

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go on show in London appeared first on Dezeen.

A series of pillars raise the interconnected rooms of this house by Benjamin Garcia Saxe Architecture above the tree tops of the surrounding Costa Rican forest (+ slideshow).

The San Jose office of Benjamin Garcia Saxe Architecture was asked to design the family home for a steeply sloping site, and chose to lift the building off the ground to optimise views of the Pacific Ocean.

Unlike nearby properties, the architects also wanted to avoid cutting into the landscape to create a flat piece of land on which to build.

“We essentially lifted the house up into the air on a series of piloti which gives the impression that it is floating above the hillside,” explained the architects. “By doing this we saved the immense cost of creating soil retention walls around the site.”

As well as making the most of views from the upper portion of the site, raising the building above the forest floor reduces its impact on the surrounding undergrowth.

“This common sense solution allowed us to create a very delicate intervention, one that allows the terrain to breathe whilst providing spectacular views out towards the ocean from the key location on the site,” the architects added.

The three cabins that make up the residence are arranged in a staggered formation to maintain sight lines towards the ocean from each room and from a linking corridor at the rear of the property.

Vertical shafts of bamboo lining the corridor allow a pattern of light and shadow to filter through onto the wooden decking.

Short bridges connect the circulation corridor to each of the rooms and to a terrace that zig-zags along the front of the property.

Large projecting roofs supported by a metal framework shelter the terrace from the sun.

Wooden shutters separating the rooms from the terrace can be folded back to open the spaces up to the outdoors and allow the breeze to ventilate the interiors.

The use of wood throughout the building helps to tie it in with its surroundings, while a bathroom facing the hillside and an outdoor bamboo shower bring the occupants closer to nature.

Photography is by Andres Garcia Lachner.

The architects sent us the following project description:

Casa Flotanta

The Gooden-Nahome family wanted to create a home on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica and they found an incredible site overlooking the ocean.

The biggest challenge we encountered was that their plot of land was predominantly comprised of a very steep slope, and the view of the ocean could only be seen from the upper-mid portion of the site. We saw this as an opportunity rather than a constraint and immediately considered an architectural response that was appropriate for these conditions.

Originally, we explored possibilities of creating large retaining walls and cutting back the soil in order to place the house, a technique typically employed for nearby buildings.

Ultimately, we decided to do the exact opposite and therefore allow the slope, the earth, the vegetation, water, and animals to flow underneath the house. We essentially lifted the house up into the air on a series of piloti which gives the impression that it is floating above the hillside.

By doing this we saved the immense cost of creating soil retention walls around the site. This common sense solution allowed us to create a very delicate intervention, one that allows the terrain to breathe whilst providing spectacular views out towards the ocean from the key location on the site.

Location: Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Date of Completion: November, 2013
Client: Gooden-Nahome Family
Area: Approx. 300 m2
Design Director: Benjamin Garcia Saxe
Project Coordinator: Daniel Sancho
Design Development: Soki So
Construction Documentation: Roger Navarro
Structural Engineer: Sotela Alfaro Ltd
Builder: Dante Medri

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Architecture is raised above a forest appeared first on Dezeen.

Ornamental doors and windows sit within recesses that appear to have been carved away from the coarse granite walls of this mausoleum in Minneapolis by American architecture firm HGA (+ slideshow).

HGA designed the Garden Mausoleum for Minnesota’s Lakewood Cemetery, a complex first established in 1871, after being asked to create burial space for 10,000 people, a new funeral chapel and a reception area for post-service gatherings.

Much of the structure is set into the side of a hill, allowing the neat surrounding lawns to extend up over the roof. All of the emerging walls are clad with dark blocks of granite that contrast with the bright white mosaic tiles lining their recesses.

Glass doors sheathed in decorative bronze grilles lead inside the building, where architect Joan Soranno and John Cook have used a variety of materials that include rich mahogany, oak, white marble and gleaming onyx to give colour and texture to walls and floors.

“Material selections draw on memorial architectural tradition as well as Lakewood’s own history,” they said. “Conventional funerary materials like granite, marble and bronze are reinterpreted within a twenty-first century architectural expression.”

A square doorway punctures a wall of granite within the building, leading from the main reception to a series of subterranean crypts and columbarium rooms that accommodate both coffins and urns.

Rectangular skylights bring a single shaft of daylight into each of the crypts, while the columbarium rooms each feature one circular roof opening that emerges on the roof at the centre of a grassy mound.

“The Lakewood Garden Mausoleum builds its meaning from the most common and indelible aspects of human experience – the immediacy of light and dark, the immutability of squares and circles, and the echo of stone surfaces,” said the architects.

Small courtyards are slotted between the crypts and are fronted by floor-to-ceiling windows that frame views out across the cemetery gardens.

Photography is by Paul Crosby.

Here’s a project description from HGA Architect and Engineers:

Lakewood Cemetery Garden Mausoleum

Since its founding in 1871, Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis has served as the foremost resting place for Minnesota’s distinguished citizens. Familiar names like Humphrey, Wellstone, Pillsbury, and Walker are found here, among a long list of local pioneers, heroes, civic leaders, industrialists and art patrons. The private, non-sectarian cemetery is laid over 250 acres of rolling landscape adjoining the city’s historic Grand Round’s parkway system. Lakewood Cemetery’s historical importance and impeccably manicured grounds make it a treasured landmark and community asset in the City’s Uptown neighbourhood.

Governed as a non-profit from its beginning, the Lakewood Cemetery Association recognised the need for prudent planning to ensure its vitality for the indefinite future. Despite the broad expanses of Lakewood’s grounds, a mere 25 acres remain available for future development. With an existing 1967 Mausoleum nearing capacity (due largely to the increased acceptance and interest in above ground burial and cremation) the Cemetery’s Board of Trustees commissioned a comprehensive Master Plan in 2003.

The lynchpin of the plan called for a new Mausoleum to expand above ground options for crypt and cremation burials, and to accommodate contemporary memorial rites and practices. The project, a new “Garden Mausoleum” called for burial space for over ten thousand people, a committal chapel, a much needed reception space for post-service gatherings, and new landscaping for the surrounding four acre site.

Challenged with the task of adding a large structure – 24,500 square feet – to a much beloved place, Joan Soranno, FAIA and John Cook, FAIA of HGA Architects and Engineers quickly committed themselves to a strategy that protected and enhanced the cemetery’s historic landscape. A large building, no matter how artful, was bound to detract from Lakewood’s pastoral beauty. Following an extensive site analysis, Joan and John chose to locate the building along the northern edge of a 1960’s era “sunken garden.” By placing the new Garden Mausoleum between the existing, two-storey mausoleum on the west and the cemetery’s 1910 Byzantine styled memorial chapel on the east, development is clustered around one location near the cemetery’s entry. This has the benefit of consolidating much of the high traffic and infrastructure to a discrete precinct within the grounds, leaving the vast majority of the original landscape and critical view sheds undisturbed.

Entering the cemetery from the main entry gates, visitors approach the new Garden Mausoleum along one of the cemetery’s many meandering roadways. Pivoting around a mass of towering pines and ancient gnarled oaks, the roadway gently inflects toward the Mausoleum entry – set back from the road with a small turn-around drive. A simple mass of split-faced grey granite, the entry’s chiseled clerestory windows and canted recesses hint at the building’s interior functions and complexity, while reducing the structure’s visual heft.

To the east of the entry, a green roof planted over the lower garden level seamlessly extends the cemetery’s manicured lawn to a newly created overlook. Minimally detailed railings, terrace paving, grass, and Juniper shrubs ensure uninterrupted views to such critical features as the nearby Chapel and the iconic Fridley and Pence monuments. Though essentially a flat lawn, neatly angled grass mounds dot the new turf like minimalist landform sculptures. The projections contain the skylights for the building’s subterranean spaces – a first suggestion to the visitor of the fusion between the building and landscape.

The Garden Mausoleum entrance at street level represents only a small fraction of the total building mass, and includes a reception room and lounge, a small business office, and catering facilities. A full two-thirds of the building lies below, tucked quietly into a south-facing hill and overlooking the lower garden.

At the main entry, framing a pair of bronze doors, intricate patterns of white mosaic tiles trace arcs and infinite loops across billowing surfaces neatly inscribed into the dark granite mass. The contrast of textures – light and dark, rough and smooth, rustic and refined – call upon both visual and tactile senses. The large glass doors, sheathed in bronze grilles that repeat the looping, circular motif of the mosaic tile, usher visitors into a serene space of folded mahogany walls, abundant prisms of daylight and distant views across a newly landscaped lower garden.

A generously scaled stair draws visitors from the entry to the lower garden level. To the west, a sweeping Venetian plaster wall directs mourners to a small chapel for committal ceremonies. Mitigating the committal chapel’s exposure to direct southern sun, tall window recesses are cut at deeply raked angles into the thick exterior wall – a strategy that both moderates the light entering the contemplative space and ensures a degree of privacy for grieving family members.

Returning to the lobby, a simple square opening cut into the rough granite wall marks the threshold between the active and communal spaces of the mausoleum, and the places of burial, remembrance, and individual contemplation. Stretching east, a single long hallway strings together alternating bays of columbaria (for cremated remains) and crypt rooms (for caskets). To the north, chambers are built entirely below grade, with each room illuminated by a single skylight; rectangular openings for crypt rooms, and circular occuli for columbaria. Here, beams of daylight trace arcs across the Alabama White marble walls. To the south, the projecting crypt rooms and interstitial columbaria form a series of intimately scaled courtyards, with each space directly tied to the lower garden’s landscape through large windows.

While geometrically similar, each interior chamber and projecting room is distinguished by subtle design variations that give each space a distinct personality and mood. Inset floors of luminous onyx alternate between honey yellow, jade green, and coral pink. Window and skylight orientations rotate and shift between rooms, variously framing a view to near or distant horizons, up to the tree canopy, or clear blue sky. The design recognises that in contemplating death – as in living matters – people have diverse perspectives and desire uniqueness. It respects that in designing a final resting place for ten thousand people, individuality, human scale, and a sensory connection to the natural world are paramount.

Material selections draw on memorial architectural tradition as well as Lakewood’s own history. Conventional funerary materials like granite, marble and bronze are reinterpreted within a 21st century architectural expression. The polychrome Chapel mosaics, for example, serve as a springboard for the white marble and glass tile pattern that owes as much to Byzantium and the organic tracery of the Chicago School as it does to geometric algorithms and funerary symbolism.

Included as a significant feature of the Garden Mausoleum project, the redesign of the four-acre site strengthens the connections between Lakewood’s distinctive architecture, while offering a serene setting for both small family services and larger community events. Formal relationships between the Chapel, the existing Mausoleum and the new Garden Mausoleum are reinforced by double rows of Autumn Blaze maple trees, a simple arrangement of walkways and parterres, and a long rectangular reflecting pool. Additionally, a grove of Hawthorne trees ameliorates the existing outdoor crypt walls on the east, while multiple exterior stairs improve access between the lower garden and the adjoining historic burial plots.

The Lakewood Garden Mausoleum, true to the Cemetery’s non-sectarian mission, builds its meaning from the most common and indelible aspects of human experience – the immediacy of light and dark, the immutability of squares and circles, and the echo of stone surfaces. An unabashed 21st century building, the design of the Garden Mausoleum is not going to confuse anybody about what is old and what is new.

Already a remarkable place before the Mausoleum broke ground, Lakewood’s landscape and its small campus of buildings are enriched because it is there – framing a view, completing an edge, and embracing human scale. At this cherished haven within the city, architectural progress meets history with grace and a newfound vitality.

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granite, white marble and gleaming onyx appeared first on Dezeen.