Toshiharu Naka of Tokyo-based Naka Studio added an asymmetric roof with overhanging eaves to this house in a Japanese skiing village to create a huge sheltered terrace for residents (+ slideshow).
Located within a patch of woodland in Nagano Prefecture, Villa in Hakuba was designed to adapt to a dramatically changing climate that switches between heavy snowfall in winter and soaring temperatures in summer.
Toshiharu Naka said he wanted to create a house that could open itself up to the surrounding woods, unlike the typical houses of the area that are raised a metre off the ground to protect them from deep snow.
“As a result, these houses are visually and functionally separated from the surrounding nature,” he explained.
To avoid this, the architect built a large polycarbonate roof canopy that shelters both the house and patio from snowfall.
“This large roof, made of polycarbonate panels to bear the weight of severe snow, is transparent to gain a lot of sunlight onto the roofed terrace. So, we can enjoy time and light in the forest,” he added.
Three ladders are positioned around the edges so that residents can hang curtains around the terrace. In summer these are nets to keep out mosquitoes, while in winter they are made of plastic to keep the heat in.
Sliding glass doors connect the patio with the main family room, which accommodates living, dining and kitchen areas, but can also be transformed into a bedroom by extending the length of a built-in bench.
Stairs lead up to a small study on an intermediate floor, then continue up to a larger bedroom space on the first floor.
The bathroom is housed within a small shed at the centre of the terrace and residents can use one of the ladders to climb onto its roof.
Exterior walls are clad with pale cedar siding and a concrete floor slab enables a passive geothermal heating system that gently warms and cools the house.
Photography is by Torimura Koichi.
Read on for a project description from Toshiharu Naka:
Villa in Hakuba
This small villa is an environmental device, where we can find ourselves as a part of nature throughout the year.
This villa is built in Hakuba, famous for its international snow resort. In this area, many houses have ground floor, which is set at 1 metre high from the ground because of the deep snow. As a result, these houses are visually and functionally separated from the surrounding nature.
So, I set the large roof upon the site at first, which enables a floor continuous with the ground level. This large roof, made of polycarbonate panels to bear the weight of severe snow, is transparent to gain a lot of sunlight onto the roofed terrace. So, we can enjoy time and light in the forest.
These architectural components work as a passive system at the same time. The floor, continuous with the ground, gains geothermal heat to store the slab under the floor. Surrounding snow works as an insulation in an environment below the freezing point. The transparent roof builds double skin, which enables natural ventilation by sunlight in summer and avoids ice dam problem in winter.
Portuguese architect Álvaro Fernandes Andrade has completed a training facility for Olympic-standard rowers where angular white volumes snake across a tiered landscape of grassy slopes and dry-stone walls (+ slideshow).
The Pocinho Centre for High Performance Rowing is located in Portugal’s Douro Valley, a wine region that is classified as a World Heritage Site, so Andrade designed a structure with most of its body buried underground.
The building is divided into three zones that each accommodate different activities. The first and largest section is the accommodation, which comprises a total of 130 dormitories that stagger down the hillside.
The other two sections are labelled as “social” and “training” and are housed within the white-rendered concrete blocks that jerk across the surface of the complex like a huge faceted serpent.
“The two more dynamic and productive major areas impose themselves on the landscape, spreading out along several different levels in large white, formally dissimilar and volumetrically complex structures,” said the architect.
The entrance to the complex sits within a sunken tunnel. This runs parallel with the rows of staggered dormitories, which are revealed above ground as descending roof terraces with long narrow skylights.
“Terraces and clusters of buildings, abrupt, tense connections tearing through terraces, steep ramps, and stairs between walls, usually in the open, are all covered here in order to meet the needs of the program,” said Andrade.
Communal areas where resident athletes can relax are located at the highest point of the hillside to allow views out over the scenic countryside, while training and workout areas are tucked away behind.
Currently the facility accommodates training for up to 130 people, but could be extended in the future to allow this number to increase to 220.
Here’s a project description written by Álvaro Fernandes Andrade and translated into English by Jed Barahal:
High Performance Rowing Centre, Pocinho, Foz Coa, Portugal
Memory
The guiding principles and strategies of the project for the Pocinho Centre for High Performance Rowing play their part in a dense and inextricable mixture that includes the peculiarities and identity of a pre-existing, specific “place”, the characteristics and demands of a very recent program, and the needs and wants of the architectural act.
If we fall back on references that are closest to us, such as Fernando Tavora (with whom I was lucky to have studied in my first year of college, the last year he taught at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto), along with all that Siza Vieira thought and said (a lot) and wrote (not a lot, but much better designed and engineered), we need to appreciate the various meanings contained within this “place”, in particular as a cultural “thing” and, most notably here, the landscape of the Douro River Valley as a World Heritage Site, and the specific ancestral expression of man’s intervention and transformation of the landscape.
For the demands of a very recent program, as is this case of a complex developed specifically for training and preparing high performance, Olympic level athletes, there is no or very little “historical precedent to put the words in the mouth of the president,” as Sting put it a few years ago. For architects, in general, this only makes the challenge of the project more exciting. This case was no different.
As regards the needs and wants of designing (as if architecture were not also a conscious act of will and innovation), they in turn also played out within “pre-existing” requisites (such as ensuring “Mobility and Accessibility for All”, and the essential values of “Sustainable Development”), and those that materialised during the design process, such as the problem of taking on a large program (8,000 m2/84 rooms/approx. 130 users), with the prospect of future expansion (up to 11,500m2/170 rooms/approx. 225 users) in a possible subsequent expansion phase of the housing area, without a significant impact on size and the landscape.
In the resulting complex interaction, the decision to structure the program in three fundamental components (Social Zone, Housing Zone and Training Zone) merges with the (re-)interpretation of two elements of secular construction of the Douro landscape: the ubiquitous terracing, a recurring form of “inhabiting” this markedly sloping valley (read here “inhabit ” as “extracting bread from the earth”), and the large white bulks of the buildings set in the landscape, in particular of the large wine-producing estates, formally complex and varying in size (often resulting from building over a long period of time, due to successive changes in the requirements of working the land).
Between them we find terraces and clusters of buildings (often between them and the river as well), abrupt, tense connections tearing through terraces, steep ramps, and stairs between walls, usually in the open, are covered here in order to meet the needs of the program.
But the choice of structuring/separating the program into three distinct zones is also a help in the effort to place the most-used zones on the same level, while minimising eventual movements between levels, something that surely will not be foreign to the history of physical and spatial transformation of this valley, which we are only trying to reinterpret.
The above is also an expression of the typical understanding of the history of architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto… not as an end in itself, but as one more element brought to the drawing board/computer, in coordination with other design problems.
Concurrently, the set of aforementioned options, accepted or adopted, allowed for a more organised coordination of the principles of passive management of the building’s energy. In the housing area, used for longer periods of time with less physical activity, the “skin” exposed to the elements has been limited , and the structures leant up against and dug into the ground (as the Eskimos do with their igloos). Rooftop greenery reinforces this insulation. Complementing the use of passive solar energy, the rooms have skylights facing south, in search of the sun, taking into account the general Northern exposure of the entire complex. The walls of the rooms, in naked concrete, reinforce simultaneously the meaning of “land”, “home”, of protection, of this component of the program, and allow for optimal storage of solar thermal energy captured through the skylights which, during the heat of the Douro summer, are shaded from the outside.
As a bonus, stars can be seen from the beds. And in conjunction with the necessary windows and welcome natural light in the halls leading to the rooms, we have made it possible that, from outside, the shale terraces and what covers them “float”, consciously rejecting any direct imitation. Even the irregularity of the plans of the housing area, rather than contributing to the “irony” of imitation, serves the relationship between a systematic and repetitive component of the program (the rooms cells), and the need for close proximity of these with other areas, whether for servicing the rooms themselves (kitchenettes, small social areas, laundry rooms for individual use, etc.) or for services such as machinery, equipment, storage, etc. This irregularity has a role in the interplay between repetition and identity, fragmenting the protracted spaces and long visually undifferentiated corridors, punctuating them with limits of perspective and unique spaces as they expand.
However, even considering the above, this combination of conditions and design options does not prevent the quantitatively most significant component of the program from being “diluted” into the land/landscape, and the future expansion of the desired number of rooms at the centre from being carried out without major disruptions to the general logic of the project (also because the whole project has been developed taking into account the prospect of maximum use of the land).
It may be added, in reference to this component of the program, that in spite of the limited size of the housing area, all of the rooms built at the level of the access hall can be used by athletes in wheelchairs. Just by removing and placing the supports in the bathrooms of these rooms, athletes with physical constraints may choose their rooms, and they can lodge in the same areas as the rest of their team, without having to be relegated to some convenient corner, in rooms “for the disabled”.
Having defined the structures and the contours of the land, the site and the programmatic component of “lodging”, the two other more dynamic and “productive” major areas (Social Zone and Training Zone), impose themselves on the landscape, spreading out along several different levels in large white, formally dissimilar and volumetrically complex structures.
Adopting a language and expressiveness of their own, and emerging as the most visible components of the project, they express the meaning of project and transformation, in contrast with the “shyness” of the terraces. Developed in conjunction with research on the characteristics and physical needs of each of the programmatic components, they emphasise the particularities of the relationship of these with the setting.
The communal areas for rest and relaxation take over the higher levels and look out over the countryside. Turning their backs to these are the training and workout areas, in an attempt to reflect the logic of effort and concentration that high performance athletes know so well.
Along with these particularities, they also foster different interactions with the previously outlined principles, in interdependent relationships of cause and effect. Formal complexity coordinates the development of a specific image with, for example, the freedom to control solar exposure through windows between summer and winter, or from east to west. In other words, the ostensible randomness of shape actually guarantees direct exposure to the winter sun through glass, as well as shade from the excruciating heat of summer. An effort was made to insure respect for the particularities of this system of construction, an element that is inseparable from questions of language that come into play. With a system of construction that includes facades and ventilated rooftops, double thermal insulation, and a system of “dry-wall construction”, we have attempted to equate questions of sustainable development, allowing, for example, for the disassembly and recycling of materials at the end of their life cycle.
An engaging and exciting challenge for the architect, the centre was also a challenge in investigation of the forms and processes of the integration of the specificity of “new” themes, such as accessibility and sustainability, which we seek to define, indefinitely, as… architecture. Only architecture. Without labels. Without adding labels that only lessen it, such as “environmental”, “green”, “accessible”, or “sustainable”. If there is anything missing from this work of architecture, it is those who, I think, architects really work for: the people who will use it.
Zaha Hadid Architects is one of 11 international firms designing a studio apartment at a new McDonald’s charity house in Hamburg to accommodate the relatives of children receiving hospital treatment nearby (+ slideshow).
Set to open this summer, the latest in a series of Ronald McDonald Houses will be located near the Altona Children’s Hospital and will offer accommodation to family members who have travelled far from home to accompany seriously ill children.
Apartment 5 by Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid’s design for Apartment 5 features built-in furniture, wooden fittings and recessed lighting, intended to create a “marine look” and make the space feel larger than it really is.
Apartment 5 by Zaha Hadid
Described by the firm as “two half shells”, the room will have a wooden base created by parquet flooring and walls that curve up from the ground, and a clean white upper section.
Apartment 5 by Zaha Hadid
“The wooden shell with its continuous curvatures – from the parquet floor to the inbuilt furniture pieces such as the floating bed and the elevated secretary – lends warmth and a tactile quality to all surfaces that can be reached, touched and played in,” said the architects.
Apartment 5 by Zaha Hadid
“The inbuilt furniture and the position of the bed within the space leave a large floor space for the family to sit and communicate, and for the kids and siblings to play on,” they added.
Apartment 7 by Manuelle Gautrand
Other studios designing apartments include Spanish office Estudio.Entresitio, who proposes a “neutral and cozy” room with furniture that folds away, and French architect Manuelle Gautrand, who has designed a nest-like space made up of wooden platforms.
British studio Snook Architects has overhauled a dilapidated eighteenth-century barn in Yorkshire to create a modern home with chunky wooden trusses, exposed brickwork and a double-height family kitchen (+ slideshow).
Cat Hill Barn was first built as an agricultural shed, but had been abandoned for years and was on the brink of ruin after previous owners had inserted a truss structure that was too weak to support the roof, causing the outer walls to bow.
Snook Architects was tasked with rebuilding the internal structure and roof of the barn, removing a floor added previously by a local architect, and transforming the space into a two-storey family home.
“Structurally the building was in a worse state than we first anticipated,” architect Neil Dawson told Dezeen. “As well as removing the entire roof, which frankly was on the verge of collapse, we ended up having to secure all external walls by means of a steel structural frame that sits within the existing masonry.”
The team replaced the existing roof structure with a system of pegged oak trusses that are revealed in the double-height kitchen and dining room at the centre of the building.
“Spatially we wanted to retain the spirit of the place by allowing the barn to reveal itself and its double-height volume at key points,” said Dawson.
A glazed first-floor gallery overlooks this space from above, leading through to bedrooms at both ends of the first floor, while living rooms and guest bedrooms occupy the end sections of the ground floor.
“Planning of the project concentrated on creating drama within the existing structure by focusing on the tension and release formed between constricted single-height spaces and the double-height volume of the barn,” said the architect.
Interior fittings and finishes were designed to respect the honest utilitarian aesthetic of the old barn and include a stone fireplace, timber-framed windows and a poured concrete floor.
Cat Hill Barn is the complete renovation and refurbishment of a previously dilapidated grade II listed barn in South Yorkshire. Originally built in the late 1700’s as agricultural storage for the neighbouring Cat Hill Hall, the building in recent years stood neglected and was at the point of complete ruin.
Snook have secured the existing structure of the barn with a new internal steel framework and rebuilt the previously collapsing roof. The project has attempted to retain much of the working aesthetic of the barn utilising a stripped down utilitarian palette of material.
Planning of the project also concentrated on creating drama within the existing structure by focusing on the tension and release formed between constricted single-height spaces and the double-height volume of the barn.
Brief
Prior to the appointment of Snook Architects the owners of the barn had commissioned a feasibility study from a local rural architect. Despite not having any prior construction experience both Mr and Mrs Wills were disappointed with the outcome. The scheme essentially inserted a new floor throughout the full length of the barn and created a series of boxes over the two floors. All drama and sense of space within the barn structure was destroyed.
Through a mutual client of Snook and Mr Wills, Mr Wills discovered the work of Snook Architects and set up a competitive interview with Snook and another practice. It was the production of Snook’s speculative feasibility study that largely set up the brief. In presenting the scheme and having a critical discourse about the previous scheme both the clients and Snook discovered a mutual appreciation and understanding of the essence of the project: a need to retain the sense of the barn in both use of volumetric space and utilitarian finish. It was this mutual understanding that ultimately won Snook the project.
Planning
However, despite an almost immediate synergy with the client and owners of the barn a less successful understanding was achieved with the local planning authority. Despite repeated attempts at dialogue with the local planning and conservation officer an application was ultimately refused. Reasons cited were numerous but all ultimately pointed to the planning and conservation officers feeling that the scheme was too ‘domestic’ (despite both the spaces and finishes proposed being anything but domestic). Following the refusal Snook launched an appeal and after removing a small balcony from the gable end permission was successfully granted almost 16 months after initially starting the project.
The project then stalled for a further couple of years as with the credit crunch in full swing the owners of the barn found it impossible to sell their current home to raise funds for the conversion of the barn. Finally, in summer 2011 Mr and Mrs Wills were able to sell their house, a caravan was purchased, drawings were resurrected, and the scheme began on site later that year.
Structure
Both client and architect had always been aware of the perilous state of the structure with the architect and structural engineer instructing the owners to seal the barn and keep out. It was no exaggeration to state that the roof could have literally collapsed in at any moment. In short when previous owners had rebuilt the barn they had installed trusses that were both too weak and too short for the cross sectional span.
To exacerbate matters the completely inadequate trusses were supported on breeze block corbels which were also crushing towards wholesale failure. In short the trusses were collapsing and pushing the perimeter walls out. Walls were seriously bowed out and it was immediately apparent that both the roof and the perimeter walls could literally collapse at any moment.
Construction of the superstructure was relatively straight forward. The roof and one of the main perimeter walls were carefully taken down, a new steel supporting frame was inserted inside the building and walls and the roof were then re built around the steel frame (using the existing material).
Budget on the project was incredibly tight with the project initially tendered @ £231,000 and ultimately delivered for £234,383 – an astounding £710/sq.m (including all finishes).
Construction programme on the project at tender was nine months and it was delivered in just short of ten.
Our second project this week from South Korean studio Mass Studies is a series of cafe and exhibition pavilions scattered across the rocky grounds of a museum at the Seogwang Dawon tea plantation on Jeju Island (+ slideshow).
Tea Stone
Mass Studies designed the trio of new buildings for the O’Sulloc Tea Museum, an exhibition centre dedicated to the history of Korea’s traditional tea culture, and dotted them along a pathway winding between the main building and the surrounding green tea fields.
Tea Stone
Unlike the circular form of the museum, the three pavilions were all designed as rectilinear volumes with similar sizes and proportions. Two are positioned on either side of a gotjawal – the Korean term for woodland on rocky ground – so that they face one another through the trees.
Tea Stone
The first pavilion, named Tea Stone, is a two-storey concrete building that accommodates new exhibition spaces and a classroom where visitors can watch and participate in tea ceremonies.
Tea Stone
Positioned close to the existing museum, the building has a polished dark concrete exterior that the architects compare to “a black ink-stone”.
Tea Stone
“The glossy black surface of the building reflects the surrounding environment, that is, the gotjawal forest and the sky, making it possible to exist and give a sense of heaviness and lightness simultaneously,” they said.
Tea Stone
Large expanses of glazing create floor-to-ceiling windows at both ends of the building, meaning anyone within the tea classroom can look out onto a still pool of water.
Innisfree
A shop and cafe building is the next structure revealed to visitors as they make their way across the grounds. Named Innisfree, the structure is glazed on all four sides to create views through to the tea fields beyond.
Innisfree
“Initially planned as a ‘forest gallery,’ the space was opened to the forest as much as possible, and designing all four walls with glass allows one to enjoy the scenic surroundings from any given spot,” said the architects.
Innisfree
Timber panels clad the upper sections of the walls, but were left unmilled on one side to give a rough texture to the pavilion’s facade.
Innisfree
Wooden ceiling rafters are exposed inside both Innisfree and Tea Stone, and help to support the saw-toothed roofs of the two buildings.
Innisfree
The last of the three pavilions is an annex containing staff areas, storage facilities and toilets. The walls of this building are made from stone, allowing it to camouflage against its surroundings.
Innisfree annex
Photography is by Yong-Kwan Kim.
Here’s a project description from Mass Studies:
Osulloc
Context
The scenic landscape of Seogwang Dawon, its main attraction being the tea farm, is located in Jeju Island, at a mid-mountain level, in a gotjawal (traditionally, Jeju locals call any forest on rocky ground “gotjawal”, but according to the Jeju Dialect Dictionary, “gotjawal” refers to an unmanned and unapproachable forest mixed with trees and bushes). The Osulloc Tea Museum, Tea Stone, Innisfree, and the Innisfree Annex are located at the northwestern side of the Seogwang Dawon tea fields, with the gotjawal to the north, and facing the green tea fields to the south.
Innisfree annex
The area is currently in the middle of a large scale development, where to the southeast the Shinhwa Historic Park is being developed, and to the southwest, the English Education City. The Aerospace Museum is immediately adjacent to the site to the northwest, and because of such surrounding developments, the road at the front of the site has been expanded into the 30m wide, Shinhwa Historic Road.
Innisfree annex
As for the walking tour course, the Jeju Olle-gil 14-1 course and the Jeoji-Mureung Olle approach the site from the green tea field on the other side of the road and leads to the northwestern side of the Osulloc Tea Museum, after passing through the front of Innisfree, across Tea Stone, and arrives at the 8km long ‘Path of Karma (Inyeoneui-gil)’, which starts from the Chusa-gwan (Hall) of Daejeong-Eub among ‘Chusa Exile Path (Yubae-Gil)’, and arrives at the Osulloc Tea Museum.
Tea Stone
Tea Stone
Tea Stone, planned to accommodate additional functions, is immediately adjacent to the Osulloc Tea Museum, and is a simple box, extending 20.3 x 11m on the slope of a hill.
The main structure of this building, which connects to the Chusa Exile Path, a Jeju Olle trail, resembling a black ink-stone, is a polished black concrete mass. The glossy black surface of the building reflects the surrounding environment, that is, the gotjawal forest and the sky, making it possible to exist and give a sense of heaviness and lightness simultaneously.
Tea Stone
From the rear exit of the Tea Museum, a 1m wide basalt path crosses a dry creek and connects to the basement level of the Tea Stone, into a dark space, where one can experience and learn about fermented teas. A narrow staircase leads up into a triangular space, the Chusa Exhibition Gallery, on the first floor. The Chusa Exhibition space acts as the front room of the tea classroom. It faces the Tea Museum to the west, and has a dark glass exterior façade, making visible the landscape outside, yet able to contain the soft interior lighting.
Tea Stone
As one passes through this space and enters the tea classroom, where workshops and lectures take place, the preserved gotjawal forest is revealed through the glass facade. From the tea class space, the concrete walls of the Chusa Exhibition space act as pillars that support 10m long cantilevered concrete beams that form and shape the perimeter of the roof structure. Wooden rafters sit in a single direction within the structure of the concrete roof support, and makes up a saw-tooth type ceiling on the entire roof. This wooden ceiling provides a warm environment, and at the same time, allows for a soft reflection of natural light. The structure, without other support, allows for the tea classroom to have three glass sides, and it maximises the feeling of openness as continued out to the gotjawal forest. The fireplace to the north also adds warmness to the space.
Tea Stone
Two sides of the tea classroom, the north and south, used a dark glass, and a clear transparent glass for the east window toward the Innisfree building located across the gotjawal. With a 42m wide gotjawal in between, the two buildings face each other, creating a silent tension and as well as directionality to ones gaze.
A shallow, polished black concrete pool sits adjacent to the glass window, reflecting the building and the forest, heightening an aura of tranquil stillness for the tea classroom.
Tea Stone
Innisfree
Innisfree is located on the highest point of the hill, and is a rectangular building, with the same width as that of the Tea Stone. The two building face each other in axis with the gotjawal in-between.
Initially planned as a ‘forest gallery,’ the space was opened to the forest as much as possible, and in designing all four walls with glass allows one to enjoy the scenic surroundings from any given spot. The materials used for the interior finishes come from the surround natural environment, such as wood and basalt, so that the 34.8 x 11m store and café space functions as one with nature.
Innisfree
A wall made out of cut stone, flush flat on one side, sits at the entrance. Through the glass doors, one enters the Innisfree shop, and to the right is the café, and through the transparent, frameless glass window, one can take in a panorama of the landscape of the surrounding tea fields to the east.
A 3.5m wide deck along the front of the café, as well as the folding doors between the café and deck makes it possible to have all sides ‘open’, making it possible to eat, drink, and relax in nature.
Innisfree
A 6.3 x 5.3m basalt stone volume attached to the north side of the building includes a preparation room on the first floor, and stairs that lead down to the underground kitchen and mechanical rooms, etc., all to supplement the main café space.
Similar to the Tea Stone, the wooden rafters, in a saw-tooth type ceiling throughout the entire roof of Innisfree provides a warm atmosphere and soft natural light.
Along the upper portion of the southern façade is an awning made out of roughly cut shingles, blocking direct sunlight. The north, east, and west sides are finished with milled shingles. All four shingled surfaces will weather together, naturally, as time passes.
Innisfree
Innisfree Annex
The Annex Building holds facilities such as a warehouse and a bakery, etc. and was designed to be seen not as a building, but rather the backdrop to Innisfree. The exterior wall facing the green tea fields utilises a stone fence, a material that that comes from the existing land, and is to be seen as a continuation of an element of the surrounding landscape (Jeju Island is known for the scenic stone fences that mark property, paths, and undulate with its natural terrain).
Innisfree
The land is raised about 1.5m to reduce the 3.5m high stone fence (exterior wall) to mimic the natural topography. Three courtyard gardens are placed inside and outside of the Annex Building, and by planting tall trees, it minimises the presence of the building when viewed from outside. The end of the building closest to Innisfree is the public bathroom, and from there, in sequence are the bakery, the employees’ dining hall, and the warehouse. To the rear of the stone fence, which sits symmetrically to the external wall of the bathroom, is the access and loading space for service vehicles.
Innisfree
Osulloc Extension
Providing more seating in the café, the extension was designed to minimise changes to the existing form and space, with a 3m-wide addition, following the curvature of the café space toward the north.
The interior extension utilises the existing curved windows, with the new exterior curve offset at a 3m distance, and was designed so that the extension is in harmony with the language of the existing building. Following this café extension, the length of the kitchen was expanded in the same direction, while the added cafe space is separate from the main circulation to allow for a space more quiet and calm. The new extension is faced with folding doors, and the entire space achieves a continuous flow to the landscape to the north, in fact becoming part of the outdoor space.
Berlin collective The T-Shirt Issue has sliced up jersey fabric to create four faceted garments that capture stages of a sweatshirt melting into the ground (+ slideshow).
Hande Akcayli, Murat Kocyigit and Rozi Rexhepi of the The T-Shirt Issue deconstruct the everyday garment into new forms.
“Our approach is to take an incredibly common object like a T-shirt and break it into its smallest meaningful elements to build a new piece free from the strictures of the original,” they said.
Their latest project, Melt, takes a long-sleeved sweatshirt and breaks it down in four stages until it becomes a flat puddle of jersey.
Starting with an easily recognisable faceted form, each subsequent piece is more crumpled and folded as if it has melted.
The sleeves merge with the body of the top and the hem splays outward until it becomes horizontally flat.
“With Melt we shape and deconstruct the ego in real life,” said the designers. “Each polygon stands for a different facet of the persona, symbolising the process of development, connected through personal experience. With each step, the ego increasingly lets go of social structures and self-centredness. What remains is a melting pot of possibility.”
To create the designs, high resolution 3D scans of a sweatshirt were reduced to just 360 polygons and the creases where the shapes met were exaggerated.
A 3D animation tool was used to morph the shape into three more forms, reducing the amount of polygons each time.
Data visuals showing the four stages of the sweatshirt “melting” in elevation
Jersey fabric was then laser cut using a card pattern and sewn together, stiffened with thick paper on the inside to keep the forms rigid.
News: spectacle-wearing tech fans will soon be able to use Google Glass for the first time after the tech giant today unveiled four designs for frames to hold prescription lenses (+ slideshow).
The tech giant has also unveiled two designs for shades and five new colours for the original Glass product, giving a total of 40 different combinations for the high-tech device.
“It’s our first collection of new frames,” said Isabelle Olsson, lead Glass designer at Google’s secret Google X research lab.”We’re finally at the beginning point of letting people wear what they want to wear [when using Glass].”
Google split frames
The move sees Google positioning Glass as a customisable lifestyle accessory for the first time, as well as making it available to people who already need to wear glasses.
“This is the next step in the evolution of our design and truly gives wearers the opportunity to make Glass one’s own,” said the company. “This announcement also allows us to serve a new demographic (people with glasses) and starts a new area of the eyewear industry, ‘smart eyewear’.”
Google thin frames
Olsson’s team developed four different spectacle frames based upon popular contemporary designs, which they refer to as curved (pictured top), thin, split and bold. The small display sits above the user’s right eye as in the regular Google Glass. They also developed two sunglasses styles, called classic and edge.
The frames, which will cost $225, are sold separately from Glass, which costs £1,500. This means they can be worn with or without the clip-on high-tech element.
“The frames are accessories,” Olsson told Dezeen. “You detach the really expensive and complex technology from the style part. You can decide to have a couple of different frames so you don’t need to get another Glass device.”
Google bold frames
Google was prompted to launch the spectacles following feedback from its 10,000 “explorers”, the initial cohort of bloggers, coders and others who were chosen by Google to try the product. Some of these people called for a version of Glass that would work for those who require prescription lenses and who could not wear the product over their existing eyewear.
Google edge shades
Manufactured in Japan and made of titanium, the spectacle frames will be available in a range of styles and three colours. Lenses will be supplied by the user’s own optician. Google has also partnered with VSP, the insurance firm that oversees 80 percent of the US for eyecare and vision insurance.
Google classic shades
“There actually aren’t that many styles [of spectacle frames] out there – perhaps about eight,” Olsson said. “We looked at the most popular styles and then condensed them into these really iconic simplified versions of them.”
Olsson joined Google X in 2011 and has led development of Glass from early prototypes, when the product was “still a phone attached to a scuba mask”. She previously worked at industrial design company Fuseproject.
Google active shades
Glass users can send texts, read email, take photos and gain directions from the small screen that sits in front of the right eye. These functions are activated by the user tapping the glasses legs or saying out loud “OK Glass”. They can then toggle through functions using the voice-activated operating system.
Google Glass is not yet available on widespread consumer release. After the rollout of the explorer program in the USA this year, the firm plans a consumer launch in the USA toward the end of 2014. There is no planned release date yet for the UK.
This house in Montreal by Canadian studio naturehumaine has a facade of dark brickwork, while its rear elevation is clad with steel panels that are divided into separate black and white sections (+ slideshow).
Montreal-based naturehumaine gave the building a brick facade so it would fit in with the typical houses of the surrounding neighbourhood, but created a contrast at the rear by adding steel panels that help to visually separate the two main floors.
The bricks used for the facade are glazed on one side, so the architects positioned some facing forwards and others facing backwards to create a random pattern.
Named Alexandra Residence, the three-storey house was built as the home for family of four, but it also contains a small home office.
“The project was built for and by a contractor who we work with often,” architect David Dworkind told Dezeen. “He wanted a live/work building for his young family of four that he could also run his contracting business out of.”
The family requested a lot of natural light in their home, so naturehumaine inserted a lightwell along the southern side of the house that allows daylight to filter in as it bounces off the wall of the top-floor office.
“In an effort to bring light into the lightwell of the house, we came up with the concept of the ‘white box’ which runs east-west and reflects the southern sun light back into the house,” said Dworkind.
The entrance to the house is positioned parallel to an open-plan kitchen. This space flows through into a dining area and living room beyond, which opens out to a patio overlooking the back garden.
A wooden staircase leads up to the first floor, where a trio of bedrooms are arranged around a central bathroom.
The client’s priority was to maximise the natural light in their new live/work house in Montreal’s Mile-Ex district. This was made challenging by the east-west orientation of the infill lot. However, our design fills even the core of the house with light through the implementation of a 2 storey light-well which runs the length of the southern side of the house.
Additional light is reflected into this light-well by the client’s office space – a white volume that sits atop the northern edge light-well. Spaces on the second storey also benefit from the light well’s luminosity; the walls adjacent to it are fully glazed and a floor to ceiling piece of frosted glass brings a very soft light into the bathroom.
The expressive back facade of the house is defined by the angular geometry of the floating steel box. The front facade, however, is composed primarily of bricks to conform with the heritage character of the neighbourhood.
Two disjointed apertures break up the brick façade and are lined in aluminium. As only one side of the brick was glazed, a random mix of forward and backward facing bricks were laid to create a more dynamic façade.
Type: Live/work house Intervention: New construction Location: Alexandra Ave, Montreal, Canada Area: 3300 sqft Completion Date: 2013
Samuel Wilkinson‘s Babylon stationery collection for design brand Lexon contains a pen, a pen pot, scissors, a stapler, a tape dispenser and an alarm clock.
“I wanted to create an aesthetic, tactile set of objects that work as well in the office as the home,” Wilkinson told Dezeen. “Each object has its own individuality but still looks coherent in a group.”
Made from a thick injection-moulded plastic in a matte finish, all the pieces feature vertical creases down the curvaceous forms that create multi-faceted shapes based on rock formations. Each design is comes in its own bright colour and the entire range is also available in slate grey.
“We were searching for an distinct surface treatment that could elevate the series and tie all of the objects together,” Wilkinson explained. “Through our research we came across inspiring images of rock strata, such as the The Wave, on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes in Arizona.”
The twelve-sided alarm clock has raised markings on the face to indicate the hours, with white hands for telling the time contrasted by a green alarm hand.
Controls and battery are stored inside the rear case, which is held to the face with magnets and cut at the end so it sits the correct way up on the desk.
A refillable ball-point pen that comes in ink blue is shaped to flow into its weighted stand.
The scissor handles are designed to be comfortable for both left and right-handed users. A tall stand completely covers the blades when stored away.
Coloured bright yellow, the stapler is moulded to hide the hinge at the back and can rest either horizontally or vertically.
Tape loads into the top of the green dispenser, which appears to squeeze around the wheel from the wide weighted base.
There’s also a ten-sided pen holder that includes a soft inner base to muffle the noise created when writing implements are dropped in. Photography is by Sylvain Deleu.
Sweeping lengths of concrete create curving canopies around the perimeter of this golf clubhouse on South Korea’s Changseon Island by Seoul architecture firm Mass Studies (+ slideshow).
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
The clubhouse was designed by Mass Studies to provide dining and spa facilities for the South Cape Owner’s Club golf resort and it is located at the peak of a hill, where it benefits from panoramic views of the sea.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
Described by the architects as being like “a pair of bars bending outward”, the building’s plan comprises a pair of curving single-storey blocks that are both sheltered beneath one X-shaped roof.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
“The two curvatures of the building engage with specific moments of its immediate surroundings, hugging the existing context – the rocky hill to the east, and the vista out toward the cape to the west,” said the designers.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
The curving canopies follow the bowed walls of the two blocks, but also integrate a series of smooth folds that present dramatic changes between light and shadow.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
“From a distance, the appearance of the clubhouse reads horizontal, demure, and subtle,” explained the architects. “However, once in and around the clubhouse, one begins to have a dramatic experience through the perspectival exaggerations and the views framed by the illustrious canopy edges.”
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
The western arm of the building accommodates the dining areas. A banqueting hall and restaurant are positioned at opposite ends of the block, and both feature fully glazed facades that open out to terraces around the perimeter.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
In contrast with this transparent structure, the eastern wing of the clubhouse has an opaque concrete facade that maintains the privacy of club members using spa facilities, but brings light in through clerestory windows.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
Areas for men and women are divided between the two halves of the block, but both lead out to private outdoor pools offering views of either the coastline or the distant landscape.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
A patio is also sheltered beneath the roof to create an entrance for the clubhouse. There’s a skylight in the centre to allow daylight to filter into the space, while a pool of water is positioned directly underneath.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
Here’s a project description from Mass Studies:
Southcape Owner’s Club: Clubhouse
Located on Changseon Island in Namhae Province, at the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, is a resort development – the Southcape Owner’s Club – with several complexes that are strategically positioned throughout the dramatic topography of the archipelagic region.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
The apex of the resort is the Clubhouse, which in plan is essentially a pair of bars bending outward. The two curvatures of the building engage with specific moments of its immediate surroundings, hugging the existing context – the rocky hill to the east, and the vista out toward the cape to the west. Simultaneously, the composition of the curved masses allow the building to also embrace what is to the north and south – a grand entry round-about, and a remarkable ocean view to the south, respectively.
Photograph by Yong-Kwan Kim
An open central zone is formed, anchoring the entire complex in a culmination of an impressive entrance patio under a sculptural open-roof, a reflection pool directly below, and a spectacular framed view of the South Sea. To the east are the more private spa facilities, and to the west, the more public restaurant, private dining, and event facilities.
Photograph by Yong-Kwan Kim
There is a contrast that takes place, not only programmatically, but also in materiality – solid vs. transparent. The spa area is mostly designed as a closed mass, with a slightly open 1m clerestory running along the entire length of the solid exterior walls and roof, progressing to a fully open release at both ends of the volume, which allows for an outdoor terraced bath for both the men’s and women’s spas with views out to the South Sea and waters beyond the landscape to the north. The dining areas are all glass-clad with extended perimeter terraces to all sides, offering a sense of openness out to the waters and landscape.
Photograph by Yong-Kwan Kim
The sculpted roof of the Clubhouse is derived through a geometric rigour driven by the systematic structural organisation, which is a response to the three-dimensionality of the natural context. The depth of the curved steel beams are revealed, as if it were a vacuum-formed white concrete membrane, where a series of vaulted concrete canopies ultimately form an x-shaped, exploded circle in plan.
Photograph by Yong-Kwan Kim
The 3m canopies that outline the entire roof not only function as a shading device, but follow the overall architectural language, as the edge conditions change in direction, up and down, from the north to the south side of the building. It adds to the sensuous movements that are portrayed throughout the building.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
From a distance, whether from the deck of a boat afloat the South Sea, or from a distance in the rolling landscape of the island, the appearance of the Clubhouse read horizontal, demure, and subtle. However, once in and around the Clubhouse, one begins to have a dramatic experience through the perspectival exaggerations and the views framed by the illustrious canopy edges.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
The Southcape Owner’s Club Clubhouse is a seamless, continuous, and complete object in nature, with a shape in plan that creates a complex relationship with the surroundings, in rhyme with the ria coastline of the archipelagos that are unique to this region.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
Type: Sports, Golf Clubhouse Location: Namhae, Korea Site Area: 23,066.16 sqm Site Coverage Area: 7,955.98 sqm Total Floor Area: 15,101.56 sqm Building-to-Land Ratio: 34.49% Floor Area Ratio: 20.39% Building Scope: B2, 1F Structure: RC, SC Exterior Finish: White Exposed Concrete, Serpentino Classico, Travertine Navona, Broken Porcelain Tile Interior Finish: Serpentino Classico, Travertine Navona, Solid Teak Wood, Venetian Stucco
Photograph by Wan Soon Park
Architects: Mass Studies Structural Engineer: Thekujo MEP Engineer: HANA Consulting & Engineers Civil/Geotechnical Engineer: Korean Geo-Consultants Co. Ltd. Lighting Engineer: Newlite Landscape design: Seo Ahn Landscape Construction: HanmiGlobal Co. Ltd. Client: Handsome Corp.
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