Hasta La Ideas

An inflatable pavilion that looks like a soap bubble, by architects Plastique Fantastique, has been popping up around Copenhagen this month (+ slideshow).

Aeropolis is a transparent blow-up structure, designed by Berlin temporary architecture firm Plastique Fantastique, that can be inflated in any location and used as an enclosed event space.

The structure is made from a fire-proof PVC and when inflated industrial ventilators are used to retain the air pressure required to keep the bubble’s shape. Visitors enter the bubble through a zipped door on the side.

The Aeropolis pavilion has been used as an event hub for the Metropolis Festival 2013 in Copenhagen and has been erected in 13 locations, including a green park, under a bridge and inside a church.

Events held inside the bubble have included a light installation, dance performance, a star-gazing evening and a music concert.

Plastique Fantastique director Marco Canevacci told Dezeen the firm is looking to install the pop-up bubble at Remake Festival in Berlin.

Watch Aeropolis in use inside a church:

Here’s another movie, that features a yoga class taking place inside the bubble:

Our other stories that feature blow-up design include the entrance to last year’s Design Miami fair that was covered by inflatable sausages, a twisted tubular inflatable pavilion installed in east London and news that a giant inflatable rubber duck with be exhibited during Beijing Design Week 2013.

See more inflatable architecture and design »
See more pavilion design »

Here’s more information:

Aeropolis by Plastique Fantastique

The Aeropolis community centre breathes new life into the city, and make the invisible visible.

The architecture of the 100 m2 pneumatic installation allows maximal mobility and will be installed in 13 different locations during the Metropolis Festival in August 2013. On its tour of the various Copenhagen districts, it will be a base for urban activities with all kinds of changing themes – all curated together with staff from the local community centres.

The scenography changes with the specific environment: there’s meditation and yoga by the lake, it opens up towards the sky above us in a cemetery, it invites us to a soundless discotheque at one of the noisiest intersections in the city, it provides performance at Islands Brygge, martial arts at Superkilen and Karom competitions in Versterbro, it blows up inside a church and shows a future cultural centre in Valby.

About Plastique Fantastique

Plastique Fantastique is a collective for temporary architecture that samples the performative possibilities of urban environments.

Established in Berlin in 1999, Plastique Fantastique has been influenced by the unique circumstances that made the city a laboratory for temporary spaces.

Plastique Fantastique’s synthetic structures affect surrounding spaces like a soap bubble does: similar to a foreign body, it occupies and mutates urban space. Their interventions change the way we perceive and interact in urban environments. By mixing different landscape types, an osmotic passage between private and public space is generating new hybrid environments.

Regardless the way people view a bubble, walk around its exterior or move inside it, the pneumatic structure is a medium to experience the same physical setting in a temporary extraordinary situation. A Plastique Fantastique installation has the ability to remove a subject from its surrounding context and transfer them into a new spatial realm.

Plastique Fantastique creates light and fluid structures that can lie on the street, lean against a wall, infiltrate under a bridge, squeeze into a courtyard, float on a lake and invade an apartment to generate an “urban premiere”.

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Plastique Fantastique appeared first on Dezeen.

Our second project this week from British studio Simon Conder Associates is a timber-clad house built around a nineteenth-century railway carriage on Dungeness beach in Kent, England.

Simon Conder Associates designed El Ray beach house as the summer home for a family, who had previously lived in just the old carriage.

“We were asked by our clients to increase the accommodation area by approximately 50 percent and dramatically improve the environmental performance of the house,” said Simon Conder.

Completed in 2008, the house is located between two other shacks near the Dungeness power station. It features a bell-shaped plan, incorporating a sheltered front terrace and a pair of recessed courtyards that are protected from the prevailing winds.

The railway carriage is contained at the centre of house and accommodates a kitchen within its worn shell. A living room surrounds and opens out to all three terraces.

Different tones give a striped pattern to the hardwood exterior cladding. There are also ramps leading into the house from the surface of the beach.

A flat sloping roof acts as an observation deck with sweeping 360-degree views of the surrounding beach and ocean.

The walls, roof and floor are insulated using recycled newspaper, meaning very little energy is needed for heating, lights and ventilation.

In extremely cold weather, electric heating is powered by a rooftop wind turbine to heat beneath the floorboards in the two bedrooms and bathroom.

Simon Conder more recently completed a pair of timber-clad houses built on a steep hill in the town Porthtowan.

Other seaside houses in the UK include a shingle-clad house elsewhere on Dungeness beach, a small wooden house on the tip of the Isle of Skye and an experimental beach house at Maldon. See more British houses »

Here’s a project description from the architects:

El Ray, Dungeness Beach, Kent

Dungeness beach is a classic example of ‘Non-Plan’ and the houses that populate the beach have developed through improvisation and bodge. This scheme develops this tradition in a way that responds to the drama and harshness of the landscape.

El Ray is part of a group of five beach houses located immediately to the east of the huge Dungeness A power station. The original house consisted of a 19th century railway carriage with flimsy lean tos to the north and south. It was in extremely poor condition and too small to accommodate our clients and their growing family. We were asked by our clients to increase the accommodation area by approximately 50%, and dramatically improve the environmental performance of the house.

The new house incorporates the old railway carriage inside a highly insulated timber structure. The carriage forms the centre point of the main living area and accommodates the kitchen. A fully glazed southern elevation gives views out over the channel and a series of smaller slot windows on the other elevations give focused views of the adjacent lighthouse, coastguard station and nuclear power station.

The sloping roof deck acts as an observation platform with extraordinary 360 degree views of the beach and the sea. The plan incorporates two courtyards to provide shelter from the constant wind.

Environmental Performance

Environmental control is achieved through a combination of super insulation, passive solar gain, cross ventilation and a wind turbine.

The high levels of insulation in the walls, roof and floor ensure that heat loss from the building is minimal and very little energy is required for heating, lighting and ventilation. External glazing consists of a combination of double-glazed, low ‘E’, argon- filled frameless fixed lights and thermally-broken, aluminium sliding doors. The structural timber frame is constructed from lightweight engineered timber I-Joists, braced inside and out with a sheathing material manufactured entirely from wood waste. The insulation between the I-joists and studs is made from recycled newspaper. The external cladding and decking is made from an FSC certified hardwood called Itauba and the internal wall linings, floors and all joinery are constructed from FSC certified birch plywood.

A canopy projects out over the south deck to shade the living areas from the high summer sun, but allows the low winter sun to warm the house. When necessary a wood-burning stove, using drift wood from the beach, is used to supplement the passive solar gain in the winter months and in extremely cold conditions electric under floor heating, powered by the wind turbine, will heat the two bedrooms and the bathroom.

It is anticipated that the during the year the wind turbine will generate more electricity than the house will consume, meaning that the house can be run at carbon negative. The client intends to sell any surplus electricity generated by the wind turbine back to the National Grid.

Architects: Simon Conder Associates
Design Team: Simon Conder, Pippa Smith
Structural Engineer: Fluid Structures
Environmental Engineer: ZEF
Contractor: Ecolibrium Solutions
Construction cost per m2: £1,780.00
Completed: July 2008

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by Simon Conder Associates appeared first on Dezeen.

British firm Simon Conder Associates has built two wooden houses into the side of a steep hill in the English coastal village of Porthtowan (+ slideshow).

The client asked Simon Conder Associates for a family home and a smaller building housing an artist’s studio and guest apartment on a site overlooking a beach on the north Cornish coast.

Two existing houses were removed to make way for the new buildings, which are partly buried in the hill to avoid obstructing views from properties higher up the slope.

This steep incline created buildings with a single storey facing the road, but two storeys opening out towards the sea.

Large windows on the southern elevations help to bring natural light into both buildings. They’re shielded by deep verandahs that reduce heat gain in the summer but allow winter light to penetrate and warm the interiors.

The verandahs also provide balconies on the upper ground floor with views along the coast.

Other additions include a first-floor courtyard, accessible from three sides, and a large open-plan living room with a central wood-burning stove.

Other houses we’ve published recently include a residential development built on the edge of a steep valley in Sweden and a concrete house that staggers down a hillside in Greece. See more houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Paul Smoothy.

The architects sent us this project description:

Two Passive Solar Gain Houses in Porthtowan

The Site

These two new houses are located on a dramatic, south-facing hillside overlooking the beach in the village of Porthtowan on the north Cornish coast. The site has particularly fine views down the coast to St Ives. Surprisingly, for such a prominent and relatively remote coastal site, the new houses are surrounded by a suburban estate of bungalows dating from the 1950s.

The Clients

The two new houses are for the same client, a couple with a teenage son. The larger house, Malindi, will be used as the main family home.

The smaller house, Providence, will accommodate an artist’s studio at upper ground floor level and an apartment for visitors and family at lower ground floor level. Both houses replace much smaller and substandard houses owned by the client.

The Design Solution

To reduce the impact of the new houses on the landscape, and avoid blocking the view from the houses further up the hillside, both houses are built into the 1 in 7 slope of the hillside, so the houses are single storey on the road side and two storey on the seaward side.

The two adjacent sites face south and this orientation has been used to create two passive solar gain houses to minimise both the use of fossil fuels and energy costs. This has been achieved partly by fully glazing the southern elevations of the two houses and partly by using highly insulated, high mass construction for the remainder of the two houses.

To minimise the possibility of overheating in summer the glazed southern elevation is set back behind hardwood verandahs, which provide full width balconies at upper ground floor level and protect the interiors from the high summer sun, while allowing the much lower winter sun to penetrate deep into the two houses.

The external cladding, roof decking and verandah structures are all made from FSC certified hardwood which has been left unfinished to weather naturally to a silvery grey.

The post Two Passive Solar Gain Houses in Porthtowan
by Simon Conder Associates appeared first on Dezeen.

An austere concrete pavilion in Lisbon with a staggered corridor and a hidden courtyard will host events and exhibitions during the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, which kicks off next month (+ slideshow).

Designed by Portuguese architect João Quintela and German architect Tim Simon, the Kairos Pavilion is a permanent structure built from prefabricated concrete blocks that slot together without any adhesives or fixings.

A single large window punctures every elevation of the rectilinear structure, each leading into a corridor that lines the perimeter. This walkway steps both up and down, transforming from a sunken shelter into a raised viewpoint.

The highest points of the walkway offer views down into the centre of the pavilion, where a square courtyard functions as a stage for exhibitions, speakers or musical performances.

The floor of this space is also set down by 20 centimetres to accommodate a shallow pool of water, forming a mirror that reflects an image of the sky above.

The architects describe the project as an experiment with scale, light and time. “It’s an investigation about proportions and the relationship between the small scale of the isolated module and the large scale of the whole building itself in relation with the context,” they said.

Named Kairos, the building first opened in 2012 and has been used to host projects and talks by architects such as Alberto Campo Baeza, Aires Mateus and Pezo von Ellrichshausen. It will also feature in the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2013, which runs from 12 September to 15 December – more details in our earlier story.

Other concrete pavilions featured on Dezeen include a ribbed structure at the University of Porto and a playground pavilion in Dallas, Texas.

See more pavilions on Dezeen »
See more concrete architecture and design »

Photography is by Diana Quintela.

Read on for more information from the design team:

KAIROS Pavilion, Lisbon, Portugal

Synopsis

KAIROS is a project created in 2012 by the architects João Quintela and Tim Simon in partnership with the company’s prefab concrete Gracifer and with the Lisbon Architecture Triennale’s support as an answer to an inhibitor and unsustainable social and economic context, with the aim of encouraging, generating and presenting exhibitions in which Space appears as the central theme.

It’s a pavilion – non-profit project – that intends to receive site-specific installations proposed by architects and artists. These projects should be created as an original work developed for this space exploiting its characteristics and dialoguing with the ambiences through their own and personal research.

Following this concept, and moving away from the institutional circuit of museums and galleries, the space is intended to be public, free and open to all the participants and proposals that want to integrate the exhibition’s calendar and by this generate the meeting and interaction between different and multidisciplinary projects.

The invitation to participate and submit proposals in KAIROS Pavilion is open to architecture, fine arts, performance, theatre, music and other artistic languages in which the participants feel that fits inside this concept contributing to approach creators and public.

Project

To the linear and chronological time ‘CHRONOS’ opposes ‘KAIROS’, an undefined and symbolic time which cannot be measured except by its quality.

The building wants to put two apparently irreconcilable times in dialogue. Since the very ancient periods buildings aspire to the idea of the ‘eternal’ through a spatiality and materiality able to resist time. The great temples and cathedrals, completely made out of natural stone, continue to coexist with the contemporaneity. Concrete constructions represent undoubtedly the legacy of modernity and they recover as well this symbolic idea of eternity.

This confront between the temporary and the eternal is something worth researching through a general view to the possibilities that our time can offer us. This prefab solution is capable to deal simultaneously with these two aspects as it allows us working with a durable and resistant material dialoguing with continuous Time, through a modular construction and an easy assembly or disassembly.

KAIROS, created by João Quintela and Tim Simon, appears as a result of a spatial research referenced in history through the use of Matter, Light and Time. The Matter of the Concrete, the Light of the Sun and the Time built from both. It’s an investigation about proportions and the relationship between the small scale of the isolated module and the large scale of the whole building itself in relation with the context.

The space is built by a very easy and primitive constructive system of overlapping and joining pieces, taking advantage of their own weight without using any glue or screws. It’s a square plan building with an inside square patio. Thus, there exists a perimeter all around that consists in a path developed both on the lower and upper level, generating two similar spaces with completely antagonistic ambiences. One is covered and black while the other is exterior and bright.

The inner patio is defined by the mirror created through the water inside which reflects the sky and duplicates the space. This becomes the central element, inaccessible and contemplative, able to freeze time and build an intimate moment, a dialogue with the past. Becomes the most significant space and acquires symbolism due to his impossible conquer.

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and Tim Simon appeared first on Dezeen.

Here’s another small-scale project featuring strikingly realistic renderings – this time a timber-clad home in England by Ström Architects, who claim that investing in quality CGI is “more effective than advertising” (+ slideshow + interview).

Sited on the edge of the New Forest National Park in Hampshire, Woodpeckers is designed by Ström Architects as a two-storey holiday house with a glazed conservatory and a raised terrace wrapping the south and east elevations.

The structure of the house will comprise a prefabricated timber frame, allowing for a quick construction, while the dimensions have been generated using standard truss components that will help keep the project within budget.

Larch cladding panels will in time give a silvery grey colour to the external walls, plus a bulky brick chimney will create both indoor and outdoor fireplaces.

Architect Magnus Ström commissioned architect and visualiser Henry Goss to create the hyper-realistic renderings, which he also uses as a marketing tool to promote his three-year-old practice.

“It takes three years from inception to completion for a project, but I needed to have these projects on my website sooner and of a quality good enough for publication,” he told Dezeen.

Explaining how he found investment in advertising to be a waste of time, Ström said that presenting high-quality imagery has helped him to win work, earn press coverage and get projects approved for construction.

“Renders definitely help to convey a feeling of what you are trying to achieve. They also help to demonstrate top design quality,” he said.

He added: “I can say with confidence that current projects as well as numerous enquiries, even from abroad, have been linked to high-end visualisations.”

Dezeen recently interviewed Henry Goss about how 3D visualisations are becoming indistinguishable from real photographs. “The addition of real-world imperfections is taking architectural visualisation to the next level,” he said.

Other projects we’ve featured with lifelike visualisations include a prefabricated Scandinavian house and a triangular house in Sweden.

Read the full interview with Magnus Ström:

Amy Frearson: Why do you choose to invest in such highly detailed visualisations?

Magnus Ström: As a new practice, it has been very important to build up a portfolio of work, as as you have to be patient in architecture and I am not. It takes three years from inception to completion for a project, but I needed to have these projects on my website sooner and of a quality good enough for publication.

AF: How did you get started?

MS: When I first set up, I invested in some advertising, and this resulted in absolutely nothing. I then discovered Peter Guthrie, whose renders were the best I had ever seen. I immediately called him and said I wanted to work with him, although I at this stage didn’t have a project! As soon as I had a suitable project, I decided to smash my marketing budget and get him to render my project, which was a private house in Suffolk.

AF: What kind of press response did you have to those images?

MS: It immediately got loads of attention and was featured on several websites and magazines as far away as Australia. This played a big part in me being selected as the UK representative for Wallpapers Emerging Architects 2012, which in turn directly led to the commission of Woodpeckers. I have had an enormous amount of press interest in the project, although many have shied away when they realised it wasn’t built.

AF: Were there any negatives?

MS: The downside is that you show a finished project, which can put you in a difficult situation if [the press] doesn’t like it. However this hasn’t happened for me yet, and hopefully, as your clients select you in the first place, they will like what you do for them.

AF: Do you use the renderings as a design tool or just to present a resolved idea?

MS: I do build SketchUp models of all my projects – in particular to communicate with clients – but renders definitely help to convey a feeling of what you are trying to achieve. They also help to demonstrate top design quality. Since I set up my practice, I have been lucky to get 100% of planning applications approved. I think at times, particularly in sensitive areas, the images have helped to demonstrate the quality aimed for in the design and has successfully helped the planning application.

AF: Would you recommend the approach to other architects starting out?

MS: Overall, I think high quality renders have managed to promote my practice in a way that previously wouldn’t have been possible. This of course needs to be coupled with an on-line presence, whether through Facebook, Twitter, BEhance, Architizer or similar. So I can say with confidence that current projects as well as numerous enquiries, even from abroad, have been linked to high-end visualisations.

Read on for a project description from the architect:

Woodpeckers, New Forest, UK

“Woodpeckers” is a replacement house on a rural site on the edge of the New Forest National Park.

The design for the house, which is to be used mainly as holiday home, is constrained by planning issues that to some extent dictated the built footprint and its position on the site. Very tight size restrictions forced the design to push windows to the outside of the envelope, not allowing any overhangs which would be included in an area calculation, therefore reducing the actual built area. However, within the allowable area, there are provisions for inclusion of a conservatory, and one challenge was how to successfully integrate this with architecture devoid of the normal connotations of a lean-to structure.

The very simple building is also driven by economics of construction. The superstructure is a simple timber frame structure that will be pre-fabricated allowing a short erection time on site. Spans as well as the width of the house are decided by the performance restrictions of standard timber truss components. Fenestration is generated by floor to ceiling gaps in the timber façade.

The house sits on a platform that will create a terrace to the south and the east. This platform connects with a masonry chimney breast that provides both internal and external fireplaces. The platform, being raised slightly off the ground, allows a level connection between inside and outside terraces as well as raises the house off the ground, which in the winter months can be quite wet.

The proposed building will be finished in larch cladding that will weather to a slivery grey.

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Ström Architects appeared first on Dezeen.