Wooden furniture forms sections of staircases at this house in Japan by Tato Architects (+ slideshow).
Japanese studio Tato Architects incorporated items of furniture into the circulation and structure of the three-storey house in Itami, a city in Hyōgo Prefecture.
“Architecture and furniture are mingled,” said architect Yo Shimada. “I keep trying to create freedom in rooms as if all of [the furniture] is just randomly placed and used by chance.”
Steps up from the middle floor are created by solid drawers that appear to be pulled out from a dresser, which can still store items inside. A low coffee table provides the first tread.
The furniture fills the gaps between an otherwise white metal staircase ascending to the top floor.
“I always think the way of dealing with stairs is important in houses, especially in small ones, said Shimada. “One of the general methods is to place a stair at the middle of one room allocating functions on both sides.”
This central floor functions as an open-plan living space, with the slightly raised seating area connected to the kitchen via two small tables.
A small toilet is housed in what looks like a freestanding cupboard.
A second staircase leads down to ground level, descending beneath the dining table and through the top of a wardrobe, with the final steps also containing drawers.
The main bedroom and bathroom are located on this lower floor, either side of the entrance and stairs.
With a slanted roof at one end, the top storey has spare room for an office and guest bedroom plus a small terrace.
Corrugated metal clads the outer walls of the house, which are each set back half a metre from the edge of the plot to comply with Japanese planning regulations for dense urban areas.
Here’s the project description sent to us by the architects:
Widening interspace to utilise
Many of the requests to us for designing a house are accompanied with a prerequisite of ensuring a house for a nuclear family at an extremely subdivided lot, to which we cannot easily apply the manners of architecture having been accumulated for long time in Japan. We repeated trials and errors while designing as we think we are in the formative period for a new manner.
This time was not the exception as well. For this level of density of urban houses, where outer walls of the adjoining houses do not touch each other, the civil law demands 500 millimetres setbacks of outer walls to form interspace of 1000 millimetres in width in-between those.
We have kept thinking if it is used more effectively. In this project, we gave 400 millimetres more setbacks from the boundary line of the north eastern adjacent land. As a result, there was 1400 millimetres wide interspace as a passage, which was 900 millimetres in width from the border of the adjacent plot, utilised by placed an entrance in the middle of the side wall faced to the interspace, which realised to minimise space for routing in the house.
The setback ensured the eave as high as about nine metres avoiding the north side slant line. Non-structural walls were pushed out outward providing space for closets etc. Accordingly, it provided bigger space containing facilities such as a toilet than as it looked from interior space like furniture, which brought ambiguity in perception of space.
Architecture and furniture
When I have the honour of seeing an architect-designed house, I sometimes feel as if design furniture is telling messages. I wonder if it is right to summarise by saying “respect the original space and don’t bring any unnecessary things”, but it seems almost like a strong desire as much as to say not to fill the space with anything does not deserve it. Although I cannot say I don’t have such desire at all, I still aim to create space where a variety of things can be brought in and used in everyday life much more freely.
In this house, architectural elements such as stairs, a laundry space, closets, hand rails and toilets are made as if those are furniture. Except for those, there are only floors. As such, architecture and furniture are mingled and those meanings become relative each other, in which way I keep trying to create freedom in rooms as if all of those are just randomly placed and used by chance.
I always think the way of dealing with stairs is important in houses, especially in small ones. One of the general methods is to place a stair at the middle of one room allocating functions on both sides. Although it maximises usable area, it leaves the question if it brings rich spatial experience to live seeing every inch of the house and a stair all the time.
The ceiling of the dining room in this house is 3776 millimetres in height, which is determined to make the space under the staircase landing usable as routing. By making it extremely thin, the rest of the height was divided into 1880 millimetres downward and 1850 millimetres upward. Although those are tight dimensions, you can go through between two layers minding your head.
I think it is favourable for a house to have such a scale of physical bodies. Therefore, the dining table was placed over the stair between the ground floor and the first floor leaving space for residents to pass under it. Bodies appear and disappear under the table as residents go up and down the stair.
Once you slide the entrance door and slip into inside of furniture, you reach under the dining table, where faced to a big wall receiving sun light coming through the south window. You see the white wall softly lit from the north as you step on the small stool. To the second floor, you step on the sofa, furniture like a drawer, and the thin stair. At every steps toward upstairs, light conditions change as the direction and the size of space change. Stairs as choreography for spatial experience of this small, thin space.
As the site is located in the back of a narrow cul-de-sac and carrying-in by vehicle was limited, the structure with light materials such as 100 by 100 millimetres H steel sections for columns and beams, braces with round bars, 75-millimetre deck plates for the floor construction was applied. Those resulted in reducing the amount of steel materials, and the total construction cost to about as same as that of a wooden house.
The horizontal stiffness of floors was acquired with horizontal bracings of six-millimetre flat bars and 50-millimetre squared tie beams beneath concave parts of the deck plates. Floors on different levels were fixed to the columns at both ends so that the continuity of stiffness between those was still kept.
Product news: German designers Till Grosch and Björn Meier have created a modular office furniture system that can be arranged in a variety of groups and islands (+ slideshow).
Interior designers Ophelis asked Till Grosch and Björn Meier to develop pieces of furniture to occupy areas between workstations in an office.
The Docks collection includes chairs, tables, shelves and cabinets that can fit together to form open-plan meeting spaces, small pods for individual work and areas for rest and relaxation.
The pieces are made from aluminium with an oak veneer and high-pressure laminate, while seating is upholstered in a range of pastel-coloured fabrics.
The Berlin-based designers said with an unlimited amount of possible combinations, they focused on designing the individual parts so that each configuration is perceived as self contained furniture.
“We see Docks as a flexible ingredient in the constantly changing world of work and due to its modular nature it is designed to continuously keep evolving in line with the needs of a transforming work culture,” they said.
“Lamps and side tables can also be docked by slotted panels and by simple indentation they become an integral part of the furniture islands,” they added.
New York studio Asymptote has designed a faceted performing arts centre for South Korea that references the curved rooftops of ancient Buddhist temples and pavilions (+ slideshow).
Proposed for a site that connects the city of Sejong with a park and river, the Sejong Center for Performing Arts is designed by Asymptote as an asymmetric building accommodating a grand auditorium, a small theatre and a cinema.
The architects combined a series of flat and curved surfaces to generate the multi-faceted form of the building, intended to relate to various Korean architectural styles.
“By confronting different aspects of the site the architecture sets out to capture the city’s vitality and history, by alluding tectonically to the spirit and flavours of local Korean architectural traditions,” said the architects. “The curved and mathematically precise roofs of nearby pavilions and temples are quoted here and set against the stoic solidity of traditional monumental buildings.”
Some of the exterior walls will integrate outdoor cinema screens, while a glass facade will function as a huge shop window to present some of the theatrical activities taking place inside.
Entrances are to be positioned on the east and west elevations, creating a lobby that cuts through the centre of the structure. This axis will lead directly to cafes, ticket desks and waiting areas.
Asymptote’s design for a new centre of performing arts for the city of Sejong in South Korea celebrates the city’s emergence and growth as a place of stature and culture. The proposal calls for an architecture centred around notions of contemporary urbanism as expressed through a distinctive and unique envelope and object-bulling perched on an open site that connects the city, a park and nearby waterway. By confronting different aspects of the site the architecture sets out to capture the city’s vitality and history by alluding tectonically to the spirit and flavours of local Korean architectural traditions. The curved and mathematically precise roofs of nearby pavilions and temples are quoted here and set against the stoic solidity of traditional monumental buildings also part of the surroundings.
The new Sejong arts centre is designed to seamlessly connect to the city fabric where the two main entrances to the building are placed along an east-west axis that cuts diagonally across the site. As this axis passes through the building’s interior it connects the upper foyer of the arts centre with the city centre to the west and the riverside park and museum district to the east. The treatment of the main urban facade as a large multi-story glass expanse creates a theatrical display and show window into the world of performance and theatre. With its intricate patterns of louvres the facade performs environmentally as well as aesthetically providing a compelling and dramatic backdrop to the exterior public space that it overlooks.
The interiors are designed to make for a theatrical setting for the audiences gathering and using the buildings spaces. Two theatres and nested into the buildings interior as well as cafes, reception and waiting areas cinemas and other functions. The notion of bundling and ‘packing’ the buildings function into a singular experience and form allows for both utility and a powerful and ‘episodic’ interiority and experience. The New Sejong Performing Art Center is a centrepiece for the city, a gathering place of history, contemporary culture, performance and spectacle.
3D sectional diagram
Date: 2013 Size: 15,000 sqm Location: Sejong, South Korea Architect: Asymptote Architecture Design Partners: Hani Rashid, Lise Anne Couture Project Director: John Guida Design Team: Danny Abalos, Bika Rebek, Du Ho Choi, Hong Min Kim, Project Team” Matthew Slattery, Valentina Soana, Mu Jung Kang, Client: Multifunctional Administrative City Construction Agency (MACCA) Local Architect: EGA Seoul Structural Engineer: Knippers Helbig Stuttgart- New York Environmental Design: Transsolar Inc. New York
News: glow-in-the-dark roads, a childbirth training kit in a back pack and spicy paper that keeps food fresh have been announced among the winners of the world’s biggest design prize, the INDEX: Award (+ slideshow).
Earlier this evening in Elsinore, Denmark, design organisation INDEX: Design to Improve Life announced five winners of the annual award, that showcases international design projects that address world challenges such as climate change and poverty.
Fresh Paper
This year there are two winners from the award’s community category and three winners from the body, home and play categories. The five projects will share €500,000 – the largest design prize in the world.
Scroll on for more details of the winners:
Copenhagen Climate Adaptation Plan
Copenhagen Climate Adaptation Plan – community category
The Danish capital city of Copenhagen has won the community category award for it’s Climate Adaptation Plan. The environmental strategy is intended to be a framework for sustainable design solutions. The plan includes creating designated green roofs and water boulevards in the streets to direct rainwater into designated spaces.
Here’s a short film about the strategy:
FreshPaper – home category
A simple sheet of paper called FreshPaper by Fenugreen has won the home category award. The paper product is infused with a mixture of spices that keeps fruits and vegetables riper for 2-4 times longer.
“The design is a remarkable way of re-thinking, re-purposing and re-combining an old tradition with industrial knowledge into an easy-to-use everyday consumer product for everyone,” said jury member Patrick Frick.
Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi – play category
A tiny computer that intends to teach young people about computer programming has picked up the play category award. The micro computer, called Rasberry Pi, was designed in 2006 by a computer scientists from University of Cambridge.
Jury member and founder of Design Indaba conference, Ravi Naidoo said: “We must prepare our kids better for an even more digitalised world, and not just envelope them in ready-made tech as we have been doing so far. Let’s take it to the next level and live creative lives instead of leading edited lives.”
Smart Highway
Smart Highway – community category
The second winner in the community category was Smart Highway – an interactive road designed by Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde in collaboration with Dutch firm Heijmans Infrastructure.
The project proposes to place interactive, glow in the dark visual tools that would inform drivers when roads are slippery and charge an electric car whilst driving.
The Natalie Collection
The Natalie Collection – body category
A birth simulation learning kit in a ruck sack by Laerdal Global Health has won this years body category award. The Natalie Collection is made up of three devices for training birthing assistants in essential child birth care.
The three tools are a low-cost reusable suction device to clear airways of newborn babies, a baby mannequin for training in newborn care and resuscitation methods and a wearable bag for simulating essential care during child birth.
“A pilot would not fly a plane without proper training and flight-simulation. So why should a midwife be any different?” said Naidoo.
The Natalie Collection
This year the organisation received over 1000 competition nominations from 73 countries. A jury that included Ravi Nandoo and Paola Antonelli, curator of design and architecture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), selected 59 finalists earlier this year, from which the five winners were selected.
All five have been awarded €100,000 and an exhibition of the nominees and winners will be open in Copenhagen’s King’s Gardens through to 29 September 2013.
German designer Samuel Treindl has made a clock, lamp and other products from shapes cut out of existing furniture (+ slideshow).
Samuel Treindl from Münster in Germany used what he called a “parasite strategy” to create new products from existing furniture items and intends for the final pieces to reflect the manufacturing process.
In the collection – called Parasite Production – Treindl created a clock from material cut from a peach cabinet and a desk lamp from shapes cut out of an Ikea PS cabinet.
More recently the designer cut a range of components such as a hooks and hinges from a brass book shelf.
His process means that the original cabinets can still be used. “In order to work in a more economic way, I superimpose different objects on a single metal sheet,” said Treindl. “So the same material would be used twice.”
All of the objects have been produced in Germany as limited editions. Triendl’s work will be exhibited at London’s Mint Shop during London Design Festival next month.
This work is based on a parasitic strategy. The cabinets and other products are produced simultaneously. The results therefore reflect the manufacturing process and history of the production.
As a producer and designer I have to pay attention to the manufacturing of a product, but also to offcuts and loss of material.
In order to work in a more economic way, I superimpose different objects on a single metal sheet. So the same material would be double used. And the question is, where is here the rest? According to which other objects are currently produced, the obtained ornaments as well as the thickness of the material of the shelf can differ.
Example: If an industrial company produces spoons and forks, I will make a spoon shelf. If lamps are produced, I make a lamp cabinet. That way, I don’t want to design furniture, but I create a process which uses industrial production for generating and designing objects.
Material: brass steel, aluminum, powder-coated, laser cutting method. The IKEA PS cabinet/lamp was hand-cut.
Japanese firm Naruse Inokuma Architects has designed a shared occupancy house in Nagoya with communal areas for eating, cooking and relaxing that encourage the residents to interact in different ways (+ slideshow).
Naruse Inokuma Architects says the building was designed in response to the increasing demand in Japan for houses where unrelated individuals share kitchens, living spaces and bathrooms.
Whereas most of these homes are adapted from existing properties, the architects based this new build on the principles of communal living and the need “for complete strangers to naturally continue to share spaces with one another.”
Bedrooms with identical dimensions are arranged across the building’s three levels, with the voids between them housing an open plan living, dining and kitchen area and a rug space on the first floor.
“The shared and individual spaces were studied simultaneously and, by laying out individual rooms in a three-dimensional fashion, multiple areas, each with a different sense of comfort, were established in the remaining shared space,” the architects explain.
A dining table near the entrance provides seating for large groups, while the kitchen counter, sitting room and rug space offer alternatives for smaller gatherings.
The 13 bedrooms each have a floor area of 7.2 square metres and the total floor space for each resident equates to 23 square metres, which the architects believe compares favourably to the world’s many one-room apartments.
This is a plan for a newly-built “share house,”* a singular model of housing, even within the architectural industry. The “share house” is an increasingly popular style of living in Japan, somewhat close to a large house, where the water systems and living room are shared by the residents.
What makes it different from a large house, however, is that the residents are not family and are, instead, unrelated strangers. So a special technique in both its management and its space becomes necessary for complete strangers to naturally continue to share spaces with one another.
In this design, focus was given to the fact that it was a newly constructed building, and the share house spaces were created through a reconsideration of the building’s entire composition.
The shared and individual spaces were studied simultaneously and, by laying out individual rooms in a three-dimensional fashion, multiple areas, each with a different sense of comfort, were established in the remaining shared space.
While the entrance hall with its atrium and dining table space are perfect for gatherings of multiple people, the corner of the living room and spaces by the window are great for spending time alone.
The kitchen counter is suitable for communication between a relatively small number of people. The rug space on the 1st floor is the most relaxed of all the spaces.
Through the creation of such spaces, the residents are able to use shared spaces more casually, as extensions of their individual rooms.
At the same time, the individual rooms, which seem to have the same character in plan, are all different due to their relationships to the shared space, defined by characteristics like their distance and route from the living room.
While this share house has such rich shared spaces and spacious 7.2 square sized individual rooms, its total floor area divided by the number of residents amounts to a mere 23 square meters per person.
* Share House = a model of a residence in which multiple unrelated people live and share a kitchen, bathroom and living room. In Japan, demands for share houses are increasing, mainly for singles in their 20’s and 30’s. Most of these share houses are provided by renovating single-family homes or dormitories.
Dutch studio Mecanoo has completed Europe’s largest public library in Birmingham, England, with a sunken amphitheatre, rooftop gardens and a shimmering facade clad with interlocking metal rings (+ slideshow).
Sandwiched between a 1930s building and a 1960s theatre, the new Library of Birmingham fronts one of three piazzas that comprises Centenary Square. The building is made up of a stack of four rectangular volumes, which are staggered to create various canopies and terraces.
Mecanoo designed the exterior of the building to reference the city’s jewellery quarter, adding a filigree pattern of metal rings over golden, silver and glass facades.
Inside, these rings cast patterns of shadows onto the floors of the reading rooms in the middle levels of the building.
“I didn’t want to make a brick building, because we needed a lot of light, but I didn’t want to make a glass building either,” architect Francine Houben told Dezeen. “It’s so beautiful to sit inside because of the reflections and the shadows, and the changing of the weather. It’s different from December to June.”
A gently sloping floor allows the building to negotiate the level change from the front to the back of the site, but also leads visitors down to the fiction area at the back, then down to the children’s library and music section at the base of the building.
“We needed many ground floors,” said Houben, “so we introduced a ground floor, a mezzanine, a mid-lower ground floor and a mid-mid-lower ground floor in the form of gently descending terraces.”
The lowest level extends out beneath Centenary Square, where the architects have created a sunken circular courtyard that functions as an informal amphitheatre.
The three main reading-room floors branch out from a staggered rotunda at the centre of the building, integrating rows of bookshelves and clusters of study spaces. There are also benches and stools lining the perimeter, offering views down the square below.
Archives and research spaces occupy the levels above, while an oval space at the top of the structure houses the Shakespeare Memorial Room – dedicated to the library’s extensive collection of works by English playwright William Shakespeare. Dating back to 1882, the room has been relocated twice from former library buildings.
Plant-filled terraces cover two of the rooftops, creating spaces for visitors to read and study outside.
Referring to the library as a “public palace”, Houben told Dezeen how she sees the building as an important landmark for the city community. “I think libraries at this moment are the most important public buildings, like cathedrals were many years ago,” she said.
Read on for a project description from Francine Houben:
A People’s Palace
In June 2008 I visit Birmingham for the first time of my life. Mecanoo is one of seven international architecture firms shortlisted to design the new Library of Birmingham integrated with the Repertory Theatre (REP). In this project, the written and the spoken word will be united. The client wants to select the best team to help them realise their ambitions for an innovative and world-class library that will become the largest library in Europe with ten thousand people expected to visit every day.
Birmingham is a multicultural British city of a little over one million people from very different backgrounds. It has many identities, both culturally and architecturally. It is not only Europe’s youngest city with 25% of the population under 25 years old but it’s also a student city with 50,000 students, second in student population only to London.
Library of the future for Birmingham
I meet library director Brian Gambles and his staff, he tells us enthusiastically that “the Library of Birmingham will become a centre of learning, information and culture that will help to foster Birmingham’s knowledge economy. It is intended to become the social heart of the city; a building connecting people of all ages, cultures and backgrounds. The modern library is no longer solely the domain of the book – it is a place with all types of content and for all types of people. The library’s influence will also extend beyond the physical boundaries of the building, its global digital presence allowing the public to access content from anywhere in the world.”
Shakespeare Memorial Room
The very first Library of Birmingham dates back to the year 1865. This building burns down in 1879, along with most of the collection. After the fire a group of citizens unite to form ‘Our Shakespeare Club’, a civic pride movement that brings together one of the most comprehensive Shakespeare collections in the world. When the Victorian Library opens its doors in 1882 at Radcliff Place, it incorporates a Shakespeare Memorial Room, a reading room designed especially for the Shakespeare Library by John Henry Chamberlain, a member of the city’s Shakespeare club. In 1974, the Victorian Library is replaced by the Central Library at Paradise Circus a brutalist building designed by architect John Madin. The Shakespeare Memorial Room is dismantled and stored. Twelve years later it is reassembled in the School of Music, located next to the Central Library. The intention is to integrate the Shakespeare Memorial Room in the new library.
James Watt and Matthew Boulton
Besides the extraordinary Shakespeare Collection, the library staff shows us their unique historic photo collection as well as original drawings and notebooks by 18th and 19th century inventors James Watt and Matthew Boulton. The Birmingham Music Library has extensive special collections. Music groups such as Black Sabbath, UB 40, Electric Light Orchestra, Duran Duran and The Streets are all “Brummies” from Birmingham.
The ‘Red Line’
For three days my husband and I endlessly walk through this city I’ve never been to before. I observe and photograph everything that catches my eye in order to unravel the essence of the city and the people. In the evening we go to a performance at the REP Theatre. From our hotel we try to take the shortest route by foot to the theatre but on our way we are blocked by highways that cut through the city centre. After the show we decide to follow the crowd and discover they take a logical, informal pedestrian route right through the heart of the city. I call this route the ‘Red Line’ as it connects the Bullring Shopping Centre, New Street Station, New Street, Victoria Place, Centenary Square, the ICC, the canals, Brindley Place and the Westside. The new library site is located in the middle of the Red Line next to the existing REP in Centenary Square.
The rhythm of architectural history
Two things strike me during our walks. First, when following the Red Line, the entire architectural and urban history of Birmingham passes by like a film. The city breathes a rich industrial history: Gothic buildings from the 17th, 18th and early 19th century, Victorian Classicist buildings such as Birmingham Town Hall from 1834, as well as many Victorian buildings made with beautiful craftsmanship. Birmingham has more canals than Venice. These narrow canals were created in the 18th and 19th century in order to guarantee the supply of coal. Also in this frame are buildings such as the Baskerville House from the early 20th century and concrete buildings such as the existing library from the 1960s, the ICC from the eighties, and the Bullring Shopping mall with the Selfridges blob from 2003. Scattered around the city, the steel skeletons of gas holders catch my eye.
Gently sloping hills
The second thing I notice is that Birmingham is built on gently sloping hills. It’s a green city, except for the city centre. I love these soft hills. They remind me of my native province of Limburg in the South of the Netherlands. I notice the way train tracks cut through these hills and valleys, appearing and disappearing in the landscape. Birmingham is the geographical centre of the UK and a junction of the British railroads. One train tunnel runs underground diagonally through Centenary Square. It occurs to me that we can surely build underground here, whereas in my own country this is a challenge. This idea becomes a source of inspiration.
Dream
After three days my dream slowly starts to take shape. Back at the office we develop our ideas further. Does the client expect us to make an icon? For sure we do not want to design a building that is just another “incident”. We want to make a building that brings coherence to the urban network of Birmingham. Our dream is to create a People’s Palace: inviting, welcoming, inspiring for all ages and backgrounds – a real public building that also creates an outdoor public space. One that entices passers-by to enter and embark on a journey of discovery. We imagine visitors moving from one floor to the next through interconnected and overlapping rotunda spaces that serve as the main vertical circulation route. Changing vistas and view lines unfold as you navigate through the building. On the lower levels the route continues below ground nearly to the train tunnel that passes in front of the building, and resurfaces in Centenary Square. At this point this interior route weaves itself with the ‘Red Line’ route revealing a piece of the inner library world to the public.
Team as a symphony orchestra
In August 2008 the Mayor announces that we have won. I feel confident. I trust that we can make a strong design within the tight one year time schedule. A contractor is to be selected within three months. Mecanoo has a strong team and a lot of experience with libraries and theatres. We also have architectural, urban planning, landscape, interior design and restoration disciplines in house. The Mecanoo team can work together as a symphony orchestra and along with a compact interdisciplinary consultant team. We open our Mecanoo UK office in Birmingham and roll up our sleeves!
Our search for the essence of the city continues. Local historian Carl Chinn guides us through Birmingham and explains that building materials used to come from local sources – hence the many buildings made with red and blue bricks and the extensive use of steel. Limestone was the material of choice to represent the international city in the 19th or 20th century. Examples of this are Town Hall and Baskerville House. In the last fifty years additional materials included: concrete, glass, modern red bricks and aluminium disks. So which material are we to use amidst the composition of this city?
The rhythm of the city: not one but two buildings
We want our design to fit into the rhythm of the city, so we make a critical decision that the Library integrated with the REP Theatre will not become one building, but two. Together with Baskerville House, they will form an ensemble of three palazzos along a square, each with its own materialisation – first, Baskerville House, a limestone building from 1938, then the REP Theatre, an optimistic concrete building from 1971. Between them is the library of 2013 with its metal filigree façade of interlocking circles. We propose the three identities to be reflected in Centenary Square: a more formal area in front of Baskerville House containing the Hall of Memory, an open event space in front of the REP and the Symphony Hall, and a more intimate soft landscaped space in front of the library.
In February 2009, I have lunch with Graham Winteringham, architect of the Repertory Theatre. I meet a respectable, enthusiastic man of age and a faithful visitor of the REP. “How did you actually come to this project?” I ask him. He tells me that he studied architecture in Birmingham after the Second World War. First he designed the small Crescent Theatre with a revolutionary 360 degree rotating stage. Because he was the only architect in Birmingham with theatre experience, he was commissioned in 1964 to design the theatre for one of the most influential theatre groups in the history of English theatre, the REP. He told me that the project was actually a nightmare. The program requirements were a hall with 900 seats, without balconies. Another salient detail in this program was that there had to be many more men’s than ladies’ toilets because the audience was mainly male! In 1964, the building is contracted, but the Wilson government orders all public projects on hold. Winteringham must wait three and half years, and in this time, his mind is still designing. But he can no longer make changes, no matter how many reasons there are to do so. Originally, the plan was to have a reflective pond in the front, so he designs arched windows. The water would reflect a beautiful scene. This pond never came to be. Stairs as exterior sculptural elements connecting the underground parking garage also never left the page. A steep slope that looks out of place at the rear of the building is a remnant of the idea to make Cambridge Street one storey lower, making it level with the abrasive highways that cut through the centre of Birmingham. Cambridge Street was never lowered.
I describe our first ideas to Graham Winteringham. We don’t intend to demolish the REP, but to maintain the unique hall in the shape of a Greek theatre. We want to restore the original auditorium and foyer and improve the façade by deep cleaning it and replacing the glass with high performance glazing. However, we intend to renew the entire back of house: the theatre technology, logistics and workshops. He is very glad to hear his building will not be demolished.
I realise that this architect has seen four master plans for the city come and go. In the thirties, it was the Grand Plan of a French signature in all public buildings, a monumental type of Champs Elysées. Three buildings have been built in the classical, monumental spirit with limestone facades, including Baskerville House and the circular Hall of Memory in front of it. The Second World War draws a line straight through the Grand Plan. In the sixties, a master plan reflecting the spirit of the times is produced: optimistic grand gestures, many demolitions, space for cars and lots of concrete. A new central library forms the transition to the old city centre. In 1974, a sculptural, brutalist building opens its doors. An influential city architect determines that the facade is created not of marble but in modern pre-cast concrete panels. The REP is also from this period. The master plan of the nineties – the era of urban renewal – generates a large conference centre, the ICC, next to the REP, with a concert hall on the other side of Centenary Square. This is indeed a successful project as Birmingham becomes the conference centre of the UK, second only to London.
In 2008, Birmingham works on its fourth Big City Plan with the new library and the REP as the most important buildings. I feel a great responsibility to bring every period of the last century together at last, in a sustainable way for the coming century.
The three palazzo’s are all on the sunny side of Centenary Square. We make a large inviting canopy at the entrance that welcomes visitors to both the library and the REP, protecting them from the rain and shading them from the sun. The foyers of both buildings are to be connected. At the transition, the Studio Theatre is located, merging the spoken and the written word.
Once the urban strategy is determined, we conduct several massing studies in order to discern the most appropriate relationship between the new building, its immediate surroundings and the wider city. The result is a building form with three stacked volumes, each connected to the city at a different scale – the lower volume and terrace relating to Centenary Square, the middle volume to the district, and the upper volume to the city scale.
The stacking of the library volumes creates an opportunity for outdoor gardens, each one relating to the city at a different scale. The lower terrace – The Discovery Terrace – overlooks Centenary Square, and is the most public. In contrast, the upper terrace -The Secret Garden – has a more introverted, intimate atmosphere, reflecting its elevated position in the building. The sloping beds of the garden respond to the gentle slopes around Birmingham.
Perceived as an extension of the street, the library’s interior journey is intended as a sequence of events and experiences, each discernible from the next. The potential for extending this concept to the exterior was explored and is expressed both in the circular outdoor amphitheatre on Centenary Square and a ‘crowning’ rotunda on top of the building which houses the Shakespeare Memorial Room.
The layout of the library is organised for maximum public accessibility. One might expect the archives to be placed in the basement of the building, but in collaboration with Brian Gambles, we decide to bring the archives up. When the archives are buried in lower levels, no one sees them. The archives of Birmingham are something to be very proud of, something worth putting on display.
The most public functions are on the ground floor which simplifies the expected flow of 10,000 visitors per day. We need many ground floors, so we introduce a ground floor, a mezzanine, a mid-lower ground floor and a mid-mid-lower ground floor in the form of gently descending terraces. Finally a spacious lower ground floor, which is extended until the edge of the train tunnel, reaches out into Centenary Square. The stepping terraces allow the soft northern light to enter deep into the interior space and the amphitheatre in the square provides yet another source of daylight penetration. The children’s library is located on this floor along with the music library. The outdoor circular amphitheatre sets the tone as a performance space. We imagine the sound of a grand piano filling the air, beckoning the passers-by above to peer into the space below and stay a while.
A sequence of rotundas
It’s the cross section that drives the building and is based on a sequence of rotundas with the Book Rotunda at its centre. The Book Rotunda connects three floors with three main functions: the Public Library, The Discovery Terrace with the gallery and the Research Library. The Book Rotunda itself has five floors. It is an iconic space that celebrates books and can also be used for different kinds of events. Via escalators and travelators visitors can make their own journey through the Book Rotunda and the building. A round lift leads to The Secret Garden. On this floor are also staff offices and meeting rooms for public use. The Shakespeare Memorial Room on the roof can be reached directly by lift. This public lift with stairs featuring a Mecanoo Blue core forms a point of orientation to visitors making their journey through the library.
With its many different functions, the library is wrapped in a filigree pattern of metal circles which are bold and refined interlocking stories of industrial heritage, jewellery, people and knowledge. The large circles may symbolise the craftsmanship of the steel industry while smaller ones might refer to the 200-year tradition of craftsmanship of the gold and silver smiths of the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham unique in the UK and around the world. Every visitor – every Brummie – can provide their own interpretation, comparing them to the Olympic circles or to the Lord of the Rings. In fact, the façade of the building is designed primarily from within. Entering the library, the repeating circles generate shadows and reflections creating an unforgettable world inside the building. It is an inner world with its own panorama of continuously changing shadows, dependent upon weather, time of day and seasonal expression. With its rotundas and its façade, the building is an ode to the circle: an archetypical form that embodies universality, infinity, unity and timelessness.
In the many meetings we have with the enthusiastic and involved user groups, we decide to create an interior that is both flexible and timeless, bold and refined, as well as easy to maintain. In the library the main materials and colours are natural stone, white ceramic flooring, oak, Mecanoo Blue, gold, glass and metal, as well as fleeting circles and shadows. In the Repertory Theatre the main materials and colours are concrete, white and red. Inside and outside we try to create a bold and refined building that reflects the spirit of Birmingham.
Spanish architecture studio Ábaton has developed a micro home that can be transported on the back of a lorry and placed almost anywhere (+ slideshow).
Ábaton chose dimensions of nine by three metres to provide just enough space for two people and also allow the transportable house to be hoisted onto the back of a truck.
“The proportions are the result of a thorough study by our architects’ team so that the different spaces are recognisable and the feeling indoors is one of fullness,” said Ábaton.
Externally the home is clad entirely in grey cement-board panels, creating a monolithic form.
However, some of these panels hinge open to reveal sliding glass doors in the front and windows to the sides.
A combined living room and kitchen is positioned in the centre with a bathroom and bedroom either side, all under a gabled roof that reaches 3.5 metres at its peak.
Spanish fir wood stained white lines the interior, which is furnished with products by Spanish design brand Batavia.
The unit can be manufactured in four to six weeks and assembled in just one day.
The architects provided us with the following information:
Ábaton is proud to present its brand new project Portable Home ÁPH80
Twenty-seven square metres, sectional and for immediate placement.
Ábaton has developed the ÁPH80 series as a dwelling ideal for two people, easily transported by road and ready to be placed almost anywhere. The proportions are the result of a thorough study by our architects’ team so that the different spaces are recognisable and the feeling indoors is one of fullness.
It is a simple yet sturdy construction made of materials chosen to provide both comfort and balance. ÁPH80 embodies the principles and objectives of Ábaton: wellbeing, environmental balance, and simplicity.
ÁPH80 has three different spaces measuring 27 square metres (9×3): a living room/kitchen, a full bathroom and double bedroom. Its gabled roof is 3.5 metres high indoors. Most of the materials can be recycled and meet the sustainable criteria that Ábaton applies to all its projects. It blends in with the environment thanks to its large openings that bring the outdoors inside.
The use of wood throughout the building not only adds calmness and balance but it is also hypoallergenic. The sourced wood comes from regulated forests (will regrow to provide a wide range of other benefits such as further carbon storage, oxygen generation and forest habitat).
Technical Data
The outside is covered with grey cement wood board. Ventilated façade with ten-centimetre thermal insulation around the building. Solid timber structure manufactured through numerical control; inside timber panels made of Spanish Fir Tree dyed white. ÁPH80 has been designed and manufactured fully in Spain.
Manufacturing time: four to six weeks. Assembly time: one day. Transportation by road.
We are currently developing simpler series that can be added to the ÁPH80 to suit every particular need, creating larger spaces and contributing to the project’s versatility.
As this year’s European Capital of Culture, the coastal city in southern France has recently seen heavy investment in public buildings and temporary event spaces along its harbour.
More recently, Japanese designer Kengo Kuma completed the FRAC Marseille arts centre for the Provence Alpes Cotes d’Azur region with a chequered glass facade.
The MuSe Museum by Italian architect Renzo Piano has opened to the public in Trento, Italy, and features angled profiles that echo the shapes of the nearby Dolomites mountains (+ slideshow).
Photograph by Stefano Goldberg
The science and technology museum forms part of a wider regeneration by Renzo Piano Building Workshop of Trento’s Le Albere district, a riverside site that formerly housed a Michelin tyre factory. The museum is positioned at the northern boundary of the new neighbourhood, beyond housing, offices, a hotel and a new public park.
Photograph by Stefano Goldberg
Comprising a mixture of steel and glass panels, the dynamic roofline juts up and down between three- and six-storey heights to create a rhythm with the mountains beyond, as well as to divide the building into four sections.
Photograph by Shunji Ishida
“The idea of the roofs was important because we are in a deep valley, and the area is really visible from above,” project architect Danilo Vespier told Disengo magazine. “You just need to drive half an hour into the mountains and you can look down on the area as if it was an architectural model.”
Photograph by Alessandra Gadotti
The two central sections accommodate exhibitions dedicated to natural history, from mountains to glaciers. These galleries centre around a full-height atrium where taxidermied animals and skeletons are suspended below a large glass ceiling.
Photograph by Enrico Cano
A huge glass-fronted lobby provides an entrance to the museum, leading visitors to the top of the building so that they make their way down through the exhibits. To its east, an adjoining block contains administration and research departments.
Photograph by Stefano Goldberg
The smallest section of the building is positioned on the western side and functions as a greenhouse for cultivating tropical plants, which are irrigated using rainwater collected from the rooftops.
Photograph by Enrico Cano
The entire building is built over a pool of water that emerges around some of the edges. A series of canals feed into the pool from the streets of the new masterplan, while the Adige river runs along the southern boundary of the site.
Here are some extra details from Renzo Piano Building Workshop:
The Ex-Michelin Area – The “Le Albere” District, Trento
Overview
The area extends from the railway line and Palazzo delle Albere, on Via Monte Baldo, up to the left bank of the River Adige.
This area has an extremely high potential, but is constrained between two physical and psychological barriers to the east and west: the railway, separating the area from the town’s nearby historical centre, and Via Sanseverino, which acts as an urban boundary between the area itself and the river’s natural environment.
Photograph by Shunji Ishida
The project is mainly aimed at reintegrating the existing urban landscape and exploiting the site’s relationship with the river environment by making better use of its natural resources.
Photograph by Paolo Pelanda
The project’s secondary goal is to urbanise these localities, which for social and cultural reasons have become marginalised with respect to the rest of the city, by including a range of different structures (such as residences, office buildings, shops, cultural venues, conference centres and recreational areas) and by concentrating their volumes within just one sector of the area in order to free up enough space for a large park.
Photograph by Shunji Ishida
This new district is primarily characterised by its innovative urban fabric, which features a specific dimensional hierarchy of roads, pathways, squares and open spaces.
Photograph by Shunji Ishida
Via Sanseverino and Via Monte Baldo provide Road access to the area. This new urban fabric is also relatively traffic-free. It is restricted to residents, taxis and public transport, and offers numerous pedestrian walkways that wind into the courtyards of certain building complexes.
The new district therefore offers an atmosphere of meeting places, open spaces, workplaces and trade areas, where individuals can easily get around on foot and explore the large number of aggregation points within this widely varied environment.
Photograph by Shunji Ishida
The main east-west streets, which traverse the railway embankment in order to unite the new road scheme with that of the existing urban fabric, are lined along their entire length by two rows of trees, and lead directly into the park area on the shores of the River Adige, where cultural and recreational centers are expected to arise.
In accordance with the plans that have already been established by the City Council, it will be necessary to construct new railway underpasses for vehicles and pedestrians, to render this connection both physically and visually feasible.
Photograph by Enrico Cano
The construction volumes have even been calculated based upon an examination and careful analysis of the City of Trento’s historic centre, as well as the way in which the different activities will occupy the urban spaces themselves and the proportions between the width of the streets and the heights of the surrounding buildings.
Photograph by Enrico Cano
In fact, due to the height, the cadence and dimensional scale of the buildings themselves, which are comparable to those of the city’s historic centre and the existing industrial structures, the project favours a horizontal interpretation of the relationship between the new buildings and the open spaces foreseen by the design.
The entire new district will feature a number of 4 to 5 storey buildings, with an in-line or courtyard layout, along with the presence of two “special objects”, serving as aggregation points at all hours of the day, for both the complex’s residents and the rest of the city.
The new Trento science museum is located in the northern portion of the new district foreseen for the Ex-Michelin area, and is housed is what is known as the A-block, situated at the end of the main pedestrian route that connects the area’s higher-end activities with the functions of the greatest public interest. It is also located in close proximity to the new public park and Palazzo delle Albere, with which it will boast a respectful and productive relationship.
The idea was based on establishing a perfect compromise between the need for flexibility and the desire for a precise and consistent response to the scientific content of the cultural project itself. The museum’s magnificent exhibition themes can even be recognised in the form and volumes of the structure itself, all while maintaining the flexible layout typical of a more modern museum.
In addition to the volumetric interpretation of the museum’s scientific contents, the architectural design has also been dictated by the museum’s relationship with its surrounding environment: or rather the new district, including the park, the river and Palazzo delle Albere. Thus, all these inputs have physically taken shape thanks to the clearer definition of the specific architectural elements that make up the rest of the district itself, above all in terms of its tertiary, residential and commercial functions.
The building is made up of a sequence of spaces and volumes (solids and voids) resting (or seemingly floating) upon a large body of water, thus multiplying the effects andvibrations of light and shade. The entire structure is held together at the top by its large roof layers, which are in complete harmony with its forms, thus rendering them recognisable even from the outside.
Starting from the east, the first structure houses functions which are not available to the public, such as administrative and research offices, scientific laboratories and ancillary spaces for on-site staff. Next, we find the lobby. It is aligned with the main axis of the district and traverses the entire depth of the building towards the north, overlooking the park area outside Palazzo delle Albere.
The scientific themes of the mountain and the glacier are subsequently dealt with through a series of exhibition spaces, which gradually rise up from the basement level and nearly “break through” the roof, thus creating an observation point immersed within the environment, from which a true “simulation” of the real experience can be enjoyed. This experience is highlighted by ample exhibition spaces on two or three levels, with ceilings high enough to welcome extremely large sets and backdrops.
The building’s shape and/or “rain forest” function also serves to define is interior space and functionality. In fact, the building represents a large tropical greenhouse which, during certain periods of the year, is even capable of establishing a functional relationship with the specific exhibition stands (even outdoors), in which water, lighting and greenery often play a key role in defining the visitor’s natural surroundings.
The educational and laboratory services for the public are offered in a series of aboveground structures located alongside the exhibition areas, thus promoting interactive experiences for each individual subject matter.
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