Hasta La Ideas

This cluster of wooden cabins in Norway by architecture studio Rever & Drage features a hut with a retractable roof and a pair of sheds that slide open to frame views of a nearby fjord (+ slideshow).

Rever & Drage were asked to create a multi-purpose facility near to the client’s existing summerhouse, which they planned to used as a toolshed, a rain shelter and a camping area.

The architects responded by designing a group of three structures surrounding a small patio, entitled Hustadvika Tools. Each building integrates folding or sliding mechanisms, allowing them to be adapted for different activities or to suit changing weather conditions.

The largest of the three buildings is a rectilinear hut with a roof that slides forward, creating a canopy for the patio in front. Rather than exposing the interior to the elements, the open roof reveals a layer of glass that lets light into the space, but protects it from rain.

“Making the roof slide back and forth gave the project a tiny hint of Leonardo da Vinci activity, with its wheels, wires, sliding beams and counterweights,” said architects Tom Auger, Martin Beverfjord and Eirik Lilledrange.

The other two cabins function as storage areas and feature doors that slide apart. The rear walls of both sheds are glazed so that when open they allow views through to the coastline.

“The building in its closed position gives somehow the impression of an old prudent virgin preparing herself for the winter storms, whilst in its open position it is a decorated shed blooming in the midsummer night,” said the architects.

The structures are subjected to a daily spray of salt water from the strong tides, so they architects treated the wood with a layer of tar to protect it from corroding.

“The tar, whilst bringing out the visual depth of the wood, also makes the building quite charming in the low evening sun,” added the architects.

Photography is by Tom Auger.

Here’s a project description from Rever & Drage:

Hustadvika Tools

This small but multifunctional building was designed and constructed, both as an answer to the clients need for a wind-and-rain shelter at their outdoor summer house-piazza, and as a combined tool-shed and special-occasion-sleep-under-the-stars-facility. A complex program for a modest building, making way for double-functional elements and architectural ambiguity.

The site at the utmost north-western-coast of Norway, presented it with some harsh and always changing weather conditions including a daily spray of salt water.

Finally the building turned out looking both new and old. The main forms, in their abstract expression and lack of cornice, are typical modern looking, while the exterior surface is typical old-school with the wood panels coated in tar, just like the traditional waterproofing for local wooden boats. The tar, whilst bringing out the visual depth of the wood, also makes the building quite charming in the low evening sun.

The building in its closed position gives somehow the impression of an old prudent virgin preparing herself for the winter storms, whilst in its open position it is a decorated shed blooming in the midsummer night. All over the final result is also a Stonehenge-like place to be with its high and heavy features transported there from hundreds of miles away.

If the sun is out, but the northern wind is a bit chilly (which is a typical condition in this area), sliding out the doors from the smaller sheds will form a continuos embracement of the small piazza. At the same time the back walls of the sheds are made of glass, such that the ocean view is maintained.

If the weather is warm, but there is some rain in the air, the upper roof of the main building can be slid out by an electrical engine, simultaneously uncovering a skylight inside.

This glass roof is the main-roof of the building in terms of waterproofing, leading water away from the piazza to the back of the building, whilst the wooden roof on top is tilted the opposite way, to face the stronger western winds and also taking the snow burden during winter.

Making the roof slide back and forth gave the project a tiny hint of Leonardo da Vinci-activity, with its wheels, wires, sliding-beams and counter-weights.

In this problem-making, as much as problem-solving, the building generates interested smiles from engineer-hearted passers-by, as well as solving the original program and satisfying the clients.

Project name: Hustadvika Tools
Architects: Rever & Drage Architects
Design team: Tom Auger, Martin Beverfjord, Eirik Lilledrange
Location: Hustadvika, Norway
Area: 15 sqm

The post Wooden sheds by Rever & Drage
with sliding doors and a retractable roof appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese architect Kazuhiko Kishimoto designed the ground floor of this house in Yokohama with barely any walls so it can function as a gallery and seating area for members of the local community (+ slideshow).

Kishimoto, principal of Kanagawa studio acaa, planned the lowest level of the timber-clad Beyond The Hill house as a series of courtyards and wide staircases that stagger downwards to follow the decline of a steeply sloping site.

Wicker cushions encourage people to sit on the staircases, plus there’s also a circular hollow that allows a group to sit together and have lunch.

According to Kishimoto, the client asked for a house that would be open to the community. “My answer to the requirement was to build the house ‘afloat’,” he explained.

“The wood deck, tilted towards the sloped road in front of the house, creates a place where the internal and external areas of the house meet and interact,” he added.

A square courtyard is open to the sky at the centre of the building and sits next to a glazed double-height space that functions as the informal public gallery.

Two staircases within the courtyard lead up to different parts of the building. The first ascends to a small office tucked into the south-east corner of the first floor, while the second leads up into the private spaces of the house.

The kitchen is positioned next to the house’s entrance and is the largest room in the building, as it is used by one of the residents to host cookery classes.

A wide staircase rises up from the kitchen to the second floor, which begins with a dining room. Some stairs curve outwards at the corners to form seats and one extends along the edge of the room to create a worktop.

“In daily life, of course, the space serves as the family’s living room,” said Kishimoto.

Bedrooms are located beyond the dining room. One opens out to a balcony, while the other features a raised platform with storage spaces underneath and a ladder that offers a route up to the roof.

Photography is by Hiroshi Ueda, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s a project description from Kazuhiko Kishimoto:

Beyond The Hill

A gallery in the centre creating communications and connecting the house and community

The house stands on a site facing a narrow, steep slope. Across the street is a wood, which promises a pleasant view with fresh greenery in summer and crimson foliage in autumn.

The client’s request was a residential house containing a small gallery and office. The request suggested that the house must be open to the town community. My answer to the requirement was to build the house “afloat”. To be precise, the gallery is the only grounded room, which is surrounded by a breezy and sunny wood deck raised at about 1m.

Round hollow on the deck floor accommodates a round bench, where people can sit and enjoy meals while watching over the wood view. The space may also serve as the external gallery. The wood deck, tilted towards the sloped road in front of the house, created a place where the internal and external areas of the house meet and interacts.

The residential area and office can be approached via respective staircases. The internal space of the residential area consists of a dining kitchen on the right and facing the wood, and a floor on the left, surrounding the courtyard and spirally ascending.

The dining kitchen has a wide counter table suitable for accommodating cooking classes the madam organises, and the uneven floor provides various corners for different number of guests to sit down. In daily life, of course, the space serves as the family’s living room.

Location: Yokohama, Kanagawa
Date of Completion: January 2013
Principal Use: Residence, Office, Small gallery

Site Area: 132.47m2
Total Floor Area: 158.39m2 (66.32m2/1F, 79.00m2/2F, 13.07m2/garage,)
Architecture: Kazuhiko Kishimoto / acaa
Structural Engineer : Takahiro Suwabe

The post House by Kazuhiko Kishimoto has a public
seating deck and gallery underneath appeared first on Dezeen.

News: architects Rem Koolhaas and Foster + Partners will work alongside Hollywood power-couple Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin to create a new ocean-side cultural quarter at Miami Beach in Florida (+ slideshow).

Faena Miami Beach will include an arts centre by Rem Koolhaas/OMA, a beachside condominium tower by Foster + Partners, and a restoration of the landmark Saxony Hotel by husband-and-wife team Luhrmann and Martin.

The all-star cast has been assembled by Argentinian hotelier and property developer Alan Faena, who presented the plans during the Art Basel and Design Miami fairs in the city earlier this month.

“In Miami Beach we are creating a new epicenter for the city,” Faena said. “Acting as curators, we are commissioning a group of standout talents to create an urban installation without equal.”

Faena Miami Beach will stretch six blocks along Collins Avenue, between 32 Street and 37 Street, and extend from the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Creek waterway.

Koolhaas’ Faena Arts Center, due to open next year, consists of a cubic volume and a cylindrical volume, both featuring diagonally banded facades.

The development will also include two further projects by Koolhaas: the Faena Bazaar retail building and Artists-in-Residence Center and Faena Park, an automated car parking garage.

“We were invited to design three buildings – an arts center, retail bazaar and car park,” said Koolhaas. “These distinct functions are linked by a sequence of public domains including a plaza, courtyard and marina dock.”

“Culture is at the core of Faena’s vision, and has been the driving force for our collaboration in Miami Beach,” Koolhaas added. “By curating their neighborhood with programmatic diversity, Alan’s sphere of influence will likely extend beyond this development to the rest of Miami Beach.”

Foster + Partners’ 18-storey residential tower, Faena House, will feature distinctive wraparound, Argentinian-style “alero” covered terraces on each floor (“alero” is the Spanish term for a projecting eave).

“We were talking about the nature of indoor and outdoor living, remarking on how much one used the alero, the outdoor terrace,” said Brandon Haw, senior partner at Foster + Partners. “This really became very much the leitmotif of the project.”

The aleros will be up to 37 feet (3.3 metres) deep and the glazed walls of the apartments will feature sliding glass doors up to 12 feet 6 inches (3.8 metres) wide, allowing the terraces and interior spaces to be used seamlessly.

The building will also feature a lobby with water pools to help cool the ground floor.

Film director Luhrmann and production designer Martin, whose credits include The Great Gatsby and Moulin Rouge, will oversee the renovation of the Saxony Hotel. Built in 1947, this was once one of the most glamorous luxury hotels at Miami Beach. Luhrmann and Martin will oversee the design of the 168-suite hotel – including the interiors and the staff uniforms – as well as curating entertainment in the theatre, cinema and public spaces. The hotel is due to reopen in December 2014.

The project is the latest in a string of new developments by high-profile European architects in Miami, which is rapidly establishing itself as the most architecturally progressive city in the USA. New apartment towers by Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron and Bjarke Ingels Group have been announced this year, while OMA recently won a competition to rebuild the Miami Beach convention centre.

Faena Miami Beach is the first project outside Argentina by Faena, who previously turned a stretch of abandoned docklands at Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires into a thriving arts-led urban quarter, featuring the Faena Hotel designed by Philippe Starck and the Faena Aleph residential buildings by Foster + Partners.

Visualisations are by Hayes Davidson.

The post Koolhaas and Foster to work alongside
Hollywood duo on Miami Beach appeared first on Dezeen.

Visitors to this lakeside concrete tower in the Netherlands can scale its walls, jog up to an observation deck on its roof, or sail a zip wire across the water from a balcony (+ slideshow).

Designed by Eindhoven studio Ateliereen Architecten, the Beldert Beach Adventure Tower is part of a outdoor activities park surrounding Beldert Lake in the centre of the Netherlands.

Colourful treads are set into the concrete on two sides of the structure, allowing climbers to scramble their way up the entire 19-metre height of the tower and arrive at a viewing platform on the roof.

Those less willing to climb can take the stairs, which wind up through the centre of the tower but burst through the walls in three places before ending up at the top.

“Functionality and visibility were the basic principles for this design,” said architect Bram Hurkens. “We choose a clear shape, which is formed by the stairs, going inside and outside of the structure.”

Bright yellow balustrades allow the staircase to stand out against the concrete, and match one of the three colours used for the climbing treads.

“This way the route up is marked and the building has a cheerful and sunny appearance,” added Hurkens.

The zip line is attached to a balcony 11 metres above the ground, while a kiosk is located at the base of the tower offering drinks and snacks.

The tower was constructed from 11 prefabricated concrete modules stacked on top of one another.

“The tower is designed in such way that the centre of gravity is always located above the footprint,” said the architect.

The Beldert Beach logo was imprinted into the concrete during the casting process.

Here’s a project description from Ateliereen Architecten:

Adventure tower in concrete at Beldert Beach

For our client in the Betuwe – Holland Evenementen Groep – Ateliereen designed an adventure tower at Beldert Beach, which is a recreational lake.

The tower can be used for climbing and other group activities and there is a small kiosk included in the building. There is a viewing platform at a height of nineteen meters, which offers a view over the water, the wide area and the Holland Evenementen Groep.

Functionality and visibility were the basic principles for this design. We choose a clear shape, which is formed by the stairs, going inside and outside of the structure. The stairs have a prominent, bright yellow colour. This way the route up is marked and the building has a cheerful and sunny appearance.

The tower is constructed in prefab concrete rings, a robust material with a high-quality finish. The function of the tower is recognisable because the coloured climbing routes contrast with the silver-like background. The project is an addition to the activities of the Holland Evenementen Groep and a new impulse for the beach.

The eleven prefabricated concrete rings all have unique dimensions. In the rings at the top, the logo of Beldert Beach is poured into the surface, so no flags are needed.

The rings are approximately 3 x 5 meters. The peculiarity of casting these rings is that only one mold is used, which had to be converted after each ring working from the biggest element to the smallest.

Moreover, the architectural concrete requires a high quality surface with little room for errors. The different sloping walls have been an extra challenge whilst pouring and stacking. The tower is designed in such way that the centre of gravity is always located above the footprint, also during the stacking of the rings.

The kiosk is built with prefabricated walls. By opening the yellow shutters guests are invited to buy a snack at the counter.

Completion: November 2013
Client: Holland Evenementen Groep, Zoelen
Architect: Ateliereen Architecten, Eindhoven
Building contractor: Van Arnhem Bouwgroep, Culemborg
Concrete manufacturer: Mombarg Beton B.V., Doetinchem
Copyright pictures: Ateliereen Architecten

The post Ateliereen Architecten’s concrete observation
tower features a climbing wall and zip line appeared first on Dezeen.

British architect Alex Graef has combined two art deco apartments in Vienna to create a home with clean white walls, restored oak floors and a row of artificial skylights (+ slideshow).

Alex Graef renovated the two nineteenth century apartments to create an occasional home for an art collector. The architect designed a series of bright spaces with large open walls and built-in shelves to create places for hanging paintings and displaying small sculptures.

One side of the residence contains the bedroom, library and kitchen, while the other side accommodates the living room, dining room and study.

A series of pre-Columbian sculptures are dotted throughout the apartment to tie the spaces together and are highlighted by new lighting fixtures.

“A layer of directional spotlights highlight the sculptures, each of which is visible from another, and thereby directs the flow through the space,” Graef told Dezeen.

More lighting sits within three slices in the ceiling above the kitchen, creating the effect of a row of skylights.

“The artificial skylights and deep-recessed dimmable ceiling spots provide basic uniform light levels to the space,” added the architect.

Original oak parquet floors were restored on one side of the apartment, while the other side features new terrazzo flooring.

Sliding doors between rooms are upholstered in a textured white fabric.

The bathroom is contained behind newly added partitions and features dark tiled walls that contrast with the bright white of the rest of the residence.

Photography is by Michael Nagl.

Here’s a project description from the architect:

Beletage Apartment in Vienna

London architect Alex Graef remodelled and furnished a large apartment in a 19th century building in Vienna for a non-resident client.

A deep plan, created by combining two adjacent apartments, was unlocked by demolishing all central partitions and inserting a series of gently rotated volumes containing bathrooms and ancillary spaces. An existing collection of pre-columbian miniature sculptures was used as a narrative device and installed as permanent client to host their often absent occupiers.

This created fictional views and axial relationships, which helped to determine and communicate a geometry that meets and transports often sparse but ever changing daylight deep into a large central space.

There it is met by a layered system of artificial lighting which looks to augment, complement and play, starting with a dominant central artificial skylight and using brightly lit wall faces and suspended lighting objects to mark moments and give structure to an otherwise free flowing spatial sequence.

The subtlety of light colour and intensity is enhanced by white as the dominant for all visible surfaces, helped by an interplay of different textures, reflections and refractions. Gaps between hard white volumes are filled by soft upholstered, white textured sliding doors, while inside surfaces of bathrooms and visible furniture use dark heavy materials and moments of bright colour.

Through large openings to an outer rim of existing rooms which are restored with their original wooden floors and traditional stucco, colour enters the white central space and further adds to its complexity and ever changing atmosphere.

Architects: Alex Graef Associated Architects Ltd (Alex Graef, Marek Dziubas, Christoph Eppacher, Natascha Madeiski, Heidi Lee, Thomas Dunning)
Consultant Engineers: Hollinsky and Partners, Vienna

The post Viennese apartment with pretend
skylights by Alex Graef appeared first on Dezeen.