An asymmetric tunnel leads through an all-black facade to a bright and spacious interior at this house in Chiba Prefecture, Japan (+ slideshow).
Designed by Tokyo studio Sugawaradaisuke, Kiritoshi House provides the home for a family of four on the rural perimeter of a residential district in Oamishirasato.
While the black-painted front elevation presents a blank face to the street, the rear features a glazed wall that opens the house out to the neighbouring fields.
“The client’s goal was to link the interior of the house with the scenery outside, letting the family live intimately with the surrounding environment,” said architect Daisuke Sugawara.
The interior spaces are arranged to complement this arrangement, with bedrooms grouped together at the front of the house and an open-plan living room and kitchen leading out to a terrace at the rear.
“The building provides an expansive view that allows the natural sunlight and fresh air in the house,” added Sugawara.
A wooden panelled floor runs through the house and is mirrored by a matching ceiling in the living room. Walls between are painted white and feature a series of triangular openings and facets.
This house is designed for a married couple with two children, and is located in Oamishirasato, Chiba Prefecture. The building provides an expansive view that allows the natural sunlight and fresh air in the house, so that the residents enjoy the life in the green ambience.
The building sits on the borderline between the new residential area and the pastoral fields. The client’s goal was to link the interior of the house with the scenery outside, letting the family live intimately with the surrounding environment. The exterior is finished as a simple box, allowing the residence to blend in easily with the rest of the surroundings.
The interior spaces are constructed according to the three-dimensional cellular structure, and in the middle is the largest space for the family members to gather. This maximises the physically sensed largeness and at the same time, each room’s storage capacity.
The relativeness of the scenery, space and body changes dramatically by moving from each space to space. The physical perception experienced in this house is like that in an excavation (=”Kiritoushi”) – the fusion of both natural and artificial dimensions.
British fashion designer Paul Smith has extended his Albemarle Street store in London to include a room lined with dominoes and a patterned iron facade by 6a Architects (+ slideshow).
Paul Smith took over the building adjacent to his existing shop in London’s Mayfair district to create a new flagship store on the corner of Albemarle and Stafford streets, which opened last Friday.
Menswear, womenswear, accessories and furniture are all displayed across rooms of various sizes.
In some spaces garments are hung on simple metal rails and in others they are folded on wooden shelves.
Selected items are laid out on tables with sculptural wood tops and thick metallic stands.
Square wood tiles are used for the floor in the men’s zone, with ceramic tiles and timber planks in womenswear areas.
In the accessories room 26,000 dominoes line the walls, forming a pattern of scattered dots that looks like an encrypted code.
The dominoes are flipped over where used above shelves to provide a less chaotic background to display the accessories against.
Red picture frames and a blue staircase match the colourful upholstery of Paul Smith’s furniture.
London studio 6a Architects designed a bespoke cast iron store front based on Smith’s hand drawings.
Transparent cylindrical pods protrude through gaps in the iron panels and act as display cases for furniture pieces.
The basement has also be turned into a flexible gallery space and will host a series of exhibitions throughout the year.
The imposing facade incorporates Paul’s hand drawings in bespoke cast iron panels designed in conjunction with 6a architects.
The interior is decorated with an eclectic mix of stunning design pieces and intricate details, such as the 26,000 dominos covering the accessories room walls.
Significantly extending the pre-existing Paul Smith shop on the corner of Albemarle and Stafford Street, the new space expands into the neighbouring building and will sell clothing and accessories for men and women as well as a selection of furniture.
The basement has been converted into a flexible gallery space that will host the work of various artists throughout the year, starting with Walter Hugo’s portraits during Frieze art fair.
This brick courtyard house by Auckland studio Glamuzina Paterson Architects sits at the foot of a mountain in New Zealand’s Otago region (+ slideshow).
Lake Hawea Courtyard House was designed by Glamuzina Paterson Architects as a rural home for a retired couple, who requested a building that “sits on the ground with weight and permanence”.
Photograph by Patrick Reynolds
Occupying a square plot, the single-storey house has an L-shaped plan that folds around the north and east sides of a secluded central courtyard, allowing morning and afternoon sunlight to penetrate the interior spaces.
Photograph by Patrick Reynolds
The walls are constructed from uneven bricks, giving a bumpy texture to the outer surfaces, and large recesses are infilled with a mixture of timber panels and glazing.
“The house is an enquiry into where a site begins and ends,” said the architects. “The use of rusticated bricks creates a material relationship with the site and anchors it firmly to the ground, along with a textural palette that allows for a constantly shifting interpretation of scale.”
Alongside the usual living, dining and bedroom spaces, the architects added a music room and a quiet room, designed to accommodate the residents’ various hobbies.
Entrances to the house lead in through the courtyard, plus a garage in the site’s south-west corner offers parking spaces for a pair of cars.
Photography is by Samuel Hartnett, apart from where otherwise stated.
Read on for a description from Glamuzina Paterson Architects:
The Lake Hawea Courtyard House
The Lake Hawea Courtyard House is grounded in rural land at the foot of Mount Maude in the Otago region. The house is an enquiry into where a site begins and ends – how to define the edges of the project and the way that landscape may be inhabited.
Firmly dug into the earth, its low form and simple square plan recalls the modest language of early settler buildings in the region that utilise low slung, stone construction to deal with the extreme environment.
This idea of a singular form clad with simple materials, drove the exploration into the material and formal qualities of the house.
In their written brief the clients requested “a building not built on a domestic scale, that might have been part of a bigger building that sits on the ground with weight and permanence”.
Photograph by Patrick Reynolds
The couple planned to retire to the house so spaces were described by unusual titles, such as the quiet room and the music room that represented their respective hobbies.
The brick amour of the Courtyard facade wraps the house and large central courtyard, framing views to the lofty mountains and low plains.
Living, dining and sleeping spaces occupy the northern and eastern edges, favouring the predominant direction of the sun, while niches and overhangs in the building envelope protect it from the hot, dry summers and harsh winters.
The courtyard bunkered in the landscape responds to the immediate context within which it is placed and allows the building to address continuous enclosure and protection from the prevailing north-east wind. The use of rusticated bricks creates a material relationship with the site, and anchors it firmly to the ground, along with a textural palette that allows for a constantly shifting interpretation of scale. The strategies of shifting roof planes and concrete floor plates enables the house to articulate the relationship of form to land, this in turn is mediated by a plinth that is expressed as a low recessed wall wrapping around the building connecting the mass to the ground and acting as an organisational tool for apertures.
As Ted McCoy once commented: “The good thing about isolation [is that] one had to learn for oneself, by looking at surroundings.” The courtyard house reflects these values.
This bright white house in Toyokawa, Japan, was designed by architects Studio Velocity with a squashed diamond shape to maximise space without overlooking the neighbours (+ slideshow).
Named Forest House in the City, the residence appears to have been stretched across its rectangular site in a way that allows space for small gardens filled with trees beside each wall.
“The site is abutted on three sides by houses, all with windows facing the site,” said Studio Velocity architect Miho Iwatsuki. “Responding to this, we created a forest-like outdoor space that radiates from the site’s four corners like ripples on a pond.”
The architect also compares the curving shape of the house to the organic growth of trees: “Plants make decisions about where to unfurl leaves and extend branches according to the presence and position of plants and other objects in their environment,” he said. “We were interested in designing architecture that exhibits a similar quality.”
A hair salon occupies the ground floor of the two-storey building. A simple spiral staircase winds up to the level above, where the rooms of an open-plan family home are arranged around the perimeter of a central bathroom.
Two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen form the four corners of the floor and feature sharply pointing windows. There’s also a circular balony that sticks out over the west-facing garden.
Creating architecture shaped by the environment plants
Plants make decisions about where to unfurl leaves and extend branches according to the presence and position of plants and other objects in their environment. We were interested in designing architecture that exhibits a similar quality.
Section one
In this project, we carefully investigated the site and its surroundings, allowing these to shape our building. The site is abutted on three sides by houses, all with windows facing the site. Responding to this, we created a forest-like outdoor space that radiates from site’s four corners like ripples on a pond.
Section two
The diamond-shaped space remaining at the centre of the site became the house’s interior. Viewed from the street and neighbouring buildings, the house and its outdoor space – both derived from relationships within the site – resemble a forest, suggesting a new architectural ideal.
Section three
Location: Toyokawa-city, Aichi Principal use: private residence, shop Site area: 245.30 sqm Building area: 72.00 sqm Total floor area: 137.80 sqm Structure: steel frame Number of storeys: 2 storeys
Exposed brickwork, pegboards and adaptable wooden display units feature in this Dublin clothing store by Irish studio Designgoat (+ slideshow).
Designgoat exposed the structural layers of a four-storey building to create the industrial interior for clothing and accessories brand Indigo & Cloth.
The main retail space is located on the ground floor and houses clothing, accessories and a coffee bar over a raw concrete floor.
Exposed brickwork lines the interior walls, while an adaptable shelving and display system enables the shop owners to customise the way they display products.
“The shelving on the ground floor was designed by us and built to be flexible,” Designgoat director Ahmad Fakhry told Dezeen. Each shelf can sit flat for displaying shoes and products, or at an angle to display magazines.
A long wooden display counter stretches along the centre of the space and doubles up as a coffee bar. The counter, benches and stools are all made from solid white ash and glass, and feature custom-made steel sockets for their powder-coated white legs.
On the back wall of the store, two pine pegboards are used for displaying accessories such as hats, shoes and bags.
The store extends to the first floor, where black painted steel and oak clothing rails display more clothing and products.
The second floor accommodates an office with customised light fittings and desks, while the top floor is being refurbished to create a photography studio, meeting space and storage area.
Named ImagineHouse, the one-room residence is designed by A.Masow Design Studio for a woodland area located 15 kilometres outside of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city.
“The customer required a home that will be isolated from the noise, dirty air and bustle of the city,” explained architect Almasov Aibek.
Clear glass walls will surround the building, sandwiched between a pair of thick concrete slabs for the floor and roof. Wooden louvres positioned over the glass will offer shading and some privacy.
Solar panels will be fitted to the roof to provide electricity, while rainwater will be collected and stored beneath the house so that it can be purified and recycled.
Almasov Aibek modelled the building in 3ds Max during the design process, then used Adobe Photoshop to create the life-like presentation images. “I mentally lived in this project for several days,” he told Dezeen.
This timber structure clad in recycled food packaging houses a temporary library and book exchange and was designed and built by architecture students in Cēsis, Latvia (+ slideshow).
Summer school students and tutors from Riga Technical University (RTU) modelled the Story Tower on a giant wooden lamp, creating a sheltered destination for people to duck inside and find something to read.
Shelves are integrated within the tapered walls and are filled with books on the lowest levels, placing them at easy-reaching height for visitors.
Students spent two weeks designing the miniature library and built it over three and a half days using reclaimed materials.
The frame and floor were made from locally-sourced soft timber, while recycled Tetra Pak juice cartons were folded, cut and mounted to create the waterproof roof shingles.
Students attached a total of 2250 shingles to pre-fabricated panels, then carried them to the site along with the wooden frames.
Now complete, the book exchange is stocked with unwanted books from a local library that is currently undergoing a refurbishment.
“We sought to use the locally established concept of a free book exchange to create a dialogue between diverse groups and individuals of the town,” said the design team. “[It is] a place where books can be deposited before making a journey, exchanged after finishing a journey or simply borrowed while waiting for a bus.”
The structure is semi-permanent and will stay in the town square until the main library re-opens in 18 months time.
“The tower’s location is the precise point where local shifts taking place within the town are most visible,” the team added, referring to its position between the train station, bus terminus and library.
The Story Tower is the built result of the Building Works Unit run by Theodore Molloy, Niklavs Paegle and Thomas Randall-Page during two weeks in August at the RTU International Architecture Summer school, Cēsis, Latvia 2013.
Designed and built with 9 students, the Story Tower sits in the small city of Cēsis in a busy square between the train and bus station and the civic library and is built intirely from locally sourced and recycled materials – Timber and Tetra-Pak.
We sought to use the locally established concept of a free book exchange to create a dialogue be- tween diverse groups and individuals of the town. A place where books could be deposited before making a journey, exchanged after finishing a journey or simply borrowed whilst waiting for a bus. The tower’s location is the precise point where local shifts taking place within the town are most visi- ble. It is the front door step of Cēsis where the rhythm of the town is most exposed.
The form of the building was conceived as an urban scale lamp, providing light and a place to read 24 hours a day. During winter when day light is short the tower will act as an illuminated external reading room. The building is semi perminent and is designed to stand until the library re-opens in its refurbished premises in 18 months time.
The 2 week workshop guides students through an accelerated production process, compressing local research, brief development, conceptualising, designing, detailing, fabrication, construction, and use in to only two weeks. The workshop allows students to understand the implications of actions early in the design process by feeling their effects first hand.
The Story Tower itself was designed at the beginning of the second week and constructed in three and a half days. It is comprised of three simple elements: a floor to welcome people in, a book shelf structure, and upon this a roof/lampshade to shelter the user.
The floor and structure are from locally sourced soft wood and the cladding is made form Tetra Pak shingles, a material more commonly used for milk cartons. Our workshop was donated a 100kg roll of tetra pack that was damaged and therefore unusable for cartons however we saw huge potential in the material as it is designed to be water proof and is easy to fold, cut and fix.
The team spent a day making 1:1 scale silver origami mock-ups exploring how we could best use the material reflecting light, creating openings, and most importantly shedding water. All 2250 shingles were individually hand made buy the students and fixed to prefabricated panels before they were carried to the site along with the prefabricated frame elements. This streamlined process allowed the team to construct a building with just two days spent on site.
The team also built a relationship with the local library and its staff who are currently undergoing an overhaul of their premises and stock and are in the process of refurbishing the existing library. Through conversation the director agreed to stock the book exchange from their unwanted books and to maintain the structure for the future as a public library out-post. The concept of a book ex- change also links into a local problem whereby many people, particularly of the older generation, have collections of books that they no longer want.
In a post-internet age books find themselves between intrinsic worth and monetary irrelevance, many are both as valuable as ever but with out resale value. The Story tower was designed to celebrate the individual reader and the notion of sharing and exchange.
Viewed from a distance the population of Cēsis, like many regional towns across Europe, can be seen to be shrinking. When viewed close-up however, this local shift has a more human dimension. What emerges is a small but important flow of newcomers to the town bringing new ideas, stories and ventures. The Tower, at the interchange of these diverse groups stands as a monument for the stories brought by new arrivers and the long survivors of Cēsis.  Tutors: Theodore Molloy, Niklavs Paegle, Thomas Randall-Page Students: Artūrs Tols (LV), Christof Nichterlein (DE), Dumitru Eremciuc (MD), Natascha Häutle (DE), Rūta Austriņa (LV), Signe Pelne (LV), Tanja Diesterhof (DE), Ulkar Orujova (AZ), Zoe Katsamani (GR).
Product news: Australian designers Nicholas Karlovasitis and Sarah Gibson have added dining and coffee tables to their range of timber stools with metal collars at the tops of their legs.
The duo own Sydney design company DesignByThem and created the different sized Partridge tables and stools from solid white ash timber coated with a natural wax finish.
They can be self assembled with aluminium brackets that sit neatly against the legs and underside of the seat or table top.
“Our aim with the Partridge tables is to create simple balanced forms that will endure physically and aesthetically,” said Karlovasitis. “We feel that using a warm and tactile material is comforting and allows us to achieve this.”
Two miles from the coast in the southern English county of Suffolk, the 2.5 hectare site is located in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and surrounded by farmland.
British studio Ström Architects designed the house to be built over foundations of a previous structure that burnt down, beside an existing outdoor pool.
It will be orientated at an angle to the ruins, to make a clear distinction between the two and to face the best views.
“The building is set like this so that it can be read on its own and thus touch the existing site lightly,” said the architects.
Flooding is prevalent in the area so the home will be raised 1.5 metres off the ground, with a ramped walkway following the geometry of the old building connecting it to the garden.
The design is long and thin to reference the local vernacular, with glazing along most of the west elevation. Dark wood panels will cover rest of this facade, while Corten steel is to clad the other three sides.
All the rooms are on the ground floor apart from the master bedroom and bathroom, which will fit into the small volume on the roof. Construction is due to start later this year.
The site is located in Suffolk two miles inland the coast, and lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site itself forms part of an overall land ownership of 2.5 hectares surrounded by agricultural land.
The current site has foundations, ruins and some low walls from a house that burned down eight years ago; there is also an existing outdoor pool. Immediately to the west of the pool and ruins, there is a small area of open grass that runs up to the edge of a beautiful copse of mature oak trees. The site is located on the edge of flood zone two and three, and requires a raised floor level 1.5 metres above the old cottage.
The clients’ brief was for a country house – ‘a dream in a wood’, a peaceful place to relax, regenerate, and think of new ideas. The existing site with the pool, ruins and low walls has a very strong presence, and we wanted to keep this as an important part of the site. The design is linear and has picked up on the building form – the ‘long cottage’ found in the locality, and we see the design as an evolution of the longitudinal cottage.
The building sits above the ruins and the edge of the pool, as to respect the current site, but also to deal with the raised floor level that is required, due to the potential flood risk. The building is also set like this so that it can be read on its own, and thus touch the existing site lightly. The building is orientated towards the west-south-west, and sits on an angle above the existing ruins facing the best views as well as creating a clear juxtaposition of geometry to the ruins.
A two-storey element punctures through the roof, and contains a master bedroom suite at the first floor. This is positioned towards the existing coach house, thus minimising the impact of the building on the more open site to the south. This two storey element is recessed from both the west and east facades as to reduce the scale and the appearance of the building.
The building is entered via a bridge that spans from higher ground and above the ruins. This sets up the whole philosophy of the house, even before you actually enter, as well as successfully dealing with safe egress form the house to higher land in case of a flood.
Located beside the river in Daugu, the ARC River Culture Pavilion was one of the Four River Pavilions at the international fair. Each pavilion presented an exhibition on the Four River Restoration Project, an initiative that seeks to preserve the ecosystems of the rivers Han, Nakdong, Geum and Yeong San.
Asymptote designed an bowl-shaped structure clad in ETFE plastic pillows, which give a quilted texture and silvery colour to the exterior walls.
The building sits at the peak of a man-made hill. Visitors enter through a underground tunnel that leads through to exhibition galleries both above and below ground.
The main exhibition space features a 60-metre-long projection screen, which allows moving imagery to surround the space.
“While the exterior of the ETFE clad structure captures the quality of the changing light with the open sky and river landscape as backdrop, the darkened and hermetic interior of the main structure houses an immersive multimedia environment illuminated only by projections of the abstracted and re-conceptualised qualities of the surrounding site,” said the architects.
The roof of the building accommodates a large observation deck, featuring a cafe and a reflective pool of water.
“The architecture enables the visitor’s experience to be an alternating play between a ‘real’ experience of the water, sky and landscape that surrounds the building, and a virtual experience as presented through multimedia,” added the architects.
The ARC – River Culture Multimedia Theatre Pavilion
The architecture of the River Culture Pavilion (ARC) is an powerful formal statement that combines nature, technology and space. The bold curved form of the ARC is perched on a peninsula that juts into the river and surrounded by an awe-inspiring natural environment. The building is a strong focal point set against a stunning panoramic landscape. The architecture is comprised of a vessel-shaped form that is clad in silver fritted ETFE pillows that through a play of transparency and geometry creates an ephemeral effect.
This atmospheric quality of the building enclosure is heightened by light reflections from shallow pool of water that surrounds the base. While the visible portion of the building sits atop an artificially formed landscape, the exhibition gallery concealed below is the space through which the visitors enter. While the exterior of the ETFE clad structure captures the quality of the changing light with the open sky and river landscape as backdrop, the darkened and hermetic interior of the main structure houses an immersive multimedia environment illuminated only by projections of the abstracted and re-conceptualised qualities of the surrounding site. The architecture enables the visitor’s experience to be an alternating play between a ‘real’ experience of the water, sky and landscape that surrounds the building, and a virtual experience as presented through multimedia. This experience culminates on the roof where a large reflecting pond reflects the sky and an observation terrace enables the visitor to overlook the site and its natural surroundings from yet another perspective.
Completed: June 2012 Size: 3,200 m2 Location: Daegu, South Korea Architect: Asymptote Architecture Design Principlas: Hani Rashid, Lise Anne Couture Project Directors: Josh Dannenberg, John Guida Design Team: Brian Deluna, Duho Choi Allison Austin, Rebecca Caillouet, Gabriel Huerta, John Hsu, Susan Kim, Ryan Macyauski, Yun Shi, Penghan Wu, Hong Min Kim Client: Kwater Korea Local Architect: EGA Seoul Structural Engineer: Knippers Helbrig Stuttgard
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