Hasta La Ideas

London studio Peter Barber Architects has added an L-shaped wing to an Arts & Crafts-style building in south-east London to create an advice and training centre for unemployed people (+ slideshow).

The new two-storey brick structure extends from the rear of the early twentieth-century offices of the Poor Law Guardians of Southwark, forming a quadrangle of new and old buildings around a paved courtyard.

Peter Barber Architects specified a sandy coloured brickwork for the construction of the new wing, setting it apart from the red brick and stone facades that have been restored as part of the renovation.

To complement the turrets and other decorative elements of the Arts & Crafts architecture, the studio added a three-storey periscope-shaped tower to the north-east corner of the complex.

There’s also a semi-circular wall recess with a half-dome roof, known as an exedra, framing one end of the central courtyard.

Balconies and doorways reveal the thickness of the new walls. Meanwhile, windows on some of the existing facades have been relocated, made visible by the mixture of new and aged bricks.

The architects carried out a full renovation of the old offices, which now accommodate the administration facilities of the employment agency, while the new buildings provide the training centre.

A community cafe is positioned along the eastern facade and can be accessed directly from the adjacent Havil Street.

Peter Barber Architects also recently completed another community building in London – a centre for drug and alcohol rehabilitation with a cantilevered upper storey. See more architecture by Peter Barber Architects »

Other community buildings built from brick include an open-air complex in rural Bangladesh and a hospice with gabled roof profiles in London. See more brick buildings »

Photography is by Morley von Sternberg.

Read on for more information from Peter Barber Architects:

Employment Academy

The Employment Academy is a state of the art training and advice centre in Southwark. It is set up to offer skills training and support services for long term workless people with the intention of helping them back into sustainable employment.

In 2009 PBA were approached by the charity Thames Reach to make a proposal for the refurbishment and substantial extension of ET Hall’s magnificent late Arts & Craft Poor Law Guardian’s building in Camberwell, south-east London.

Barber’s scheme is laid out around a delightful courtyard formed on two sides by a new L shaped training wing. Administration offices and a community café within the existing building form the remaining sides of the courtyard. The courtyard is conceived as the social heart of the project.

New buildings are built in a rustic brick in a manner which might be called picturesque. Thick walls facing the courtyard incorporate a dramatic inset terrace, window seats and a south-facing domed exedra.

Existing facades are handled as a complex patchwork of new and reclaimed brick, of new windows cut in and old ones bricked up.

ET Hall’s treatment of the eastern wing of his building is pretty quirky, all turrets and mini towers… so Barber’s scheme adds one extra in the form of a tasty little tower with an extraordinary brick vaulted roof.

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Peter Barber Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Swedish studio Claesson Koivisto Rune has fitted out this Japanese showroom selling European ceramics using pale wooden display furniture and potted plants (+ slideshow).

Swedish architects Claesson Koivisto Rune designed the interior for Ceramika’s flagship store in the city of Matsumoto in the mountainous Nagano Prefecture.

The retail space in a former city hall by the river was stripped out and then fitted with neutral painted walls, timber flooring and a range of custom-designed wooden furniture.

“The colours and materials of the interior were chosen to harmonise with the porcelain, which is mostly blue and white,” said the architects.

The showroom is laid out in a simple grid, with display units positioned in rows and shelving on the walls. “The aim was to create a space which was strict yet humble,” the architects explained.

The display tables comprise wooden frames with side panels that can be removed and opened up to provide extra shelving below, and grey curtains can be used to divide the space.

The designers used their own products including their Heart Chair for David Design plus designs for Tacchini and Wästberg for the remaining furniture and lighting.

There is also a small shop area selling books and a cafe with indoor and outdoor seating.

Other projects we’ve featured by Claesson Koivisto Rune include a house in Sweden that curves around an oak tree, a stove for the developing world and a collection of wicker lighting, which launched during London Design Festival last month.

See all our features about Claesson Koivisto Rune »
See more interior design »
See more design and architecture in Japan »

Photographs are by Takumi Ota.

Here’s a project statement from the architects:

Ceramika ceramic tableware showroom, shop and cafe

The Ceramika showroom is located in Matsumoto in the mountainous Nagano Prefecture, some 200 km northwest of Tokyo. Matsumoto is not a very big city, but it is a centre of traditional crafts, such as wood, lacquerware and fabric. Oddly perhaps then that the cups and plates and bowls at Ceramika are European and not Japanese. But this is what modern Japan is about. Opened up to the world while never deviating from the very strong Japanese heritage of aesthetics and quality.

In line with these principles was the commission to design the Ceramika flagship store given to the Swedish architects Claesson Koivisto Rune – undeniably Scandinavians, but well accustomed to Japan.

Ceramika is represented with shops in every major city throughout Japan and through mail order and online business, but Matsumoto is the home town.

The Ceramika showroom is located in the city centre in a former City Hall building along the Matsumoto river. The space was completely stripped and the new interior is deliberately simple but with meticulously refined details. The layout is on a strict repetitive grid.

The colours and materials of the interior were chosen to harmonise with the porcelain which is mostly blue and white.

The project was a fruitful collaboration between the architect and the client. The client and owner of the Ceramika showroom, Mr. Hiroshi Arai, took a personal pride in attending to the quality and execution of every detail in the project.

The wood furniture was designed by Claesson Koivisto Rune and manufactured by carpenter master Hoshino-san. This made it possible to use smaller proportions and have a much higher degree of refinement, than usually in a project like this.

Many of the pieces in the project was designed especially by Claesson Koivisto Rune and manufactured locally in Japan. Such as the display furniture, tables and clothes hangers. Other pieces also designed by Claesson Koivisto Rune were produced by manufacturers such as Almedahls, David design, Tacchini, and Wästberg.

The aim was to create a space which was strict, yet humble. As an enhancing frame for the ceramic objects at display and a section of illustrated children’s books from around the world!

And – last but not least – the small cafe with both indoors and outdoors seating.

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Rune Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Modular panels fold around the exterior of this electricity station in rural Denmark by Scandinavian firm C. F. Møller (+ slideshow).

C. F. Møller was commissioned by Danish energy company Energinet to design the gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) station, used to control the flow of electricity on its way from Dutch wind farms to the Danish areas where it will be used.

The project forms part of a wider government scheme to upgrade the visual appearance of the country’s power grid.

The first switchgear station has been built in Vejen from prefabricated wooden components on a steel frame.

“Since it is a design concept and the first in a series of new stations, the exterior cladding is something that can be varied according to the location and context,” architect Julian Weyer told Dezeen.

“The first station now completed is clad in pre-weathered zinc panels, chosen mainly for their low maintenance, good recycling potential and the interesting play of light as reflected on the folded surfaces,” Weyer added.

Each modular unit of the exterior has a sloping roof and sides that triangulate to add stability.

They create a row of gill-like openings ranged along the sides of the structure, admitting daylight and allowing glimpses of the GIS units from the outside.

“With the progressing daylight, the folded surface creates an ever-changing play of shadows, altering its appearance all day long and all year round,” said the architects.

Exposed wooden fibreboard panels line the interior, contributing to the acoustics of the building.

Other projects we’ve featured by C. F. Møller include a proposal for the world’s tallest timber-framed building, an art and craft museum with a frosted glass exterior and illuminated fracture lines and a state prison in the format of a small village.

Other infrastructure projects featured on Dezeen include a combined power plant and ski slope that blows smoke rings, a biomass power station covered in panels planted with indigenous grasses and pylons shaped like giants marching across the landscape.

See more architecture and design by C. F. Møller »
See more stories about infrastructure architecture »

Here’s some information from the architects:

Gas-insulated Switchgear Stations

The Danish Parliament wishes to upgrade the visual appearance of the Danish power grid. Therefore, C. F. Møller has been hired to create a new design concept for switchgear stations for
Energinet.dk. The first 400 kW station is now ready for operation.

As a result of the new design concept, Energinet.dk has decided not to construct a new large open-air switchgear station in Vejen, Jutland, but instead build a gas-insulated switchgear station – also called a GIS station.

The idea of the design concept has been to give the technical enclosure of the station, placed in the open landscape, a distinct architectonic profile, and at the same time maximise the future flexibility.

This GIS (gas-insulated switchgear) station is one of the nerve centres in the Danish power grid, through which increasing volumes of sustainable energy – mostly wind power – will be transported.
The GIS station is an important part of 175 kilometres of new 400 kW high voltage cable running from Kassø in Southern Jutland to Tjele in central Jutland.

The link has been built to upgrade the power grid and to ensure that wind power from Danish wind farms is transported to the areas where it is needed. The GIS station is linked to a total of six aerial cable systems.

The enclosure has been designed as a series of modules, each consisting of a lightweight shell with a slanted roof and a folded exterior surface which adds lateral stability. Arranged in series, the modules create a transparent, gill-like envelope with triangular openings, letting ample daylight into the interior and allowing glimpses of the GIS units at the heart of the building.

All this gives the design an unmistakeable and strong sculptural and facetted identity. With the progressing daylight, the folded surface creates an ever-changing play of shadows, altering its appearance all day long and all year round.

Client: Energinet.dk
Size: 1,650 m² (450 m²workshops and 1,200 m² GIS building)
Address: Vandmøllevej 10, Revsing, 6600 Vejen in Denmark (and various sites across Denmark)
Year of project: 2010-2013
Design architects: C. F. Møller Architects
Executive architect: Kærsgaard & Andersen
Landscape: C. F. Møller Architects

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by C. F. Møller appeared first on Dezeen.

This bulky concrete school of art, design and architecture was completed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando at the University of Monterrey in Mexico and is one of over 300 projects being showcased this week for the World Architecture Festival in Singapore (+ slideshow).

Housing studios and teaching rooms for over 300 students, the Centro Roberto Garza Sada de Arte Arquitectura y Diseño was designed by Tadao Ando as a six-storey concrete block with a huge triangular void at its centre.

This void exposes the underside of the building, creating the appearance of a twisted structure, and creates a large sheltered entrance for staff, students and visitors below.

Additional openings elsewhere around the building provide outdoor corridors and meeting areas, as well as an open-air amphitheatre.

The six storeys of the building accommodate different creative disciplines. Digital facilities occupy the first two floors, while visual arts can be found on the second floor. Textiles and photography share the third floor, model-making workshops are grouped together on the fourth floor and the top storey is home to the fashion department.

The building was completed earlier this year. It was nominated in the Higher Education and Research award category at the World Architecture Festival and received a commendation from the judges earlier today. Follow Dezeen’s coverage of WAF 2013 »

Japanese architect Tadao Ando is best known for projects that combine raw concrete with slices of light, such as Church of the Light (1989) and Row House (1976). Other recent projects by the architect include a concrete house on the edge of a cliff in Sri Lanka and the Issey Miyake Foundation research centre in Tokyo. See more architecture by Tadao Ando »

See more university buildings »
See more architecture in Mexico »

Photography is by Roberto Ortiz.

Here’s a project description from the design team:

Centro Roberto Garza Sada de Arte Arquitectura y Diseño

Roberto Garza Sada Center for Arts, Architecture and Design (CRGS) is a 6 storey building with height of 5.4 metres between each level. Built in an area of 20,700 square metres. The building has a modulation of supports (columns) arranged in a grid of 9 metres per side, having 3 modules in the short side and 11 in the long one.

The main support structure is based on 4 frames in the long direction, spaced 9 metres one from another, and describing free spaces of about 80 to 65 metres. The main frames are stabilised trough a secondary structure which allows it to have the required stiffness to be structurally stable.

The structural concept is based on the principle of composite action, that is, elements of structural steel-lined concrete and united so that both receive and transmit efforts jointly (the concrete is not only architectural but structural).

The finishes of the building are:
» Granite floors or concrete polishing, epoxy-coated
» Apparent concrete walls, plaster, drywall or resin panel
» Ceiling drywall or prefabricated resin panel

Additionally it has windows of aluminium (profiles with thermal break) and insulated glasses with a low-e face are included in areas of direct exposure to the sun’s rays. The windows system is reinforced by a system of automated blinds and linked to the lighting control system for a more efficient system. Architectural design concentrates most of the windows in three main holes that come from the rooftop to the floors below that allow the natural lighting and ventilation of the building.

The VRV air conditioning system provides high efficiency in electricity consumption for the divided spaces configuration of the building. Lamps are high efficiency and with electronic ballast that is linked to an intelligent system that detects heat, motion and daylight by sensors strategically located through the building. The system regulate the environment of each space providing the lighting required for the development of activities, while they save energy by allowing most of the lighting to be natural.

Electric and voice-data systems feature the best technology, in order to provide users with the most suitable conditions for the performance of academic functions in each space of the building.

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Arquitectura y Diseño by Tadao Ando appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: the Apollo lighting range by east London studio International has gone into production (+ slideshow).

International launched their range of layered modular aluminium lampshades at designjunction last month during the London Design Festival.

Designers Marc Bell and Robin Grasby showed their first product in an installation of over 200 lights at the annual design festival.

We first published the Apollo lights in 2012 when they were exhibited as prototypes at imm cologne – see our previous story here.

The lighting series is based on a standard screw cap holder, which allows the user to layer combinations of shades.

The shades come with laser-cut slits or in solid aluminium, allowing the user to control the amount of light dispersed.

The full lighting range is now available to buy direct from the designers as well as a number of UK and European retailers.

Other products shown at designjunction were the Hatton and Hyde ranges by Assemblyroom, Joined + Jointed’s first collection and the latest designs by Another Country.

See more design by International »
See more lighting design »

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by International appeared first on Dezeen.