Dutch firm Lagado Architects have designed a temporary public toilet block with wide open sections in the roof so users can sit on the toilet and look up into the sky (+ slideshow).
Lagado Architects designed the Easehouse toilet block for the Singeldingen Foundation, a summer program with a pop-up coffee bar in the playground of Heemraadspark in Rotterdam.
“The open roof reinforces the idea of still being outside while providing the necessary ventilation,” Verhagen said.
“The trees above the roof give a protected and covered feeling and cast shadows into the interior and on the closed roof surfaces,” he added.
The dark green and brown building is split into two toilets, one for adults and one for children, neatly divided by a central entrance and a diagonal step.
The roof is an ensemble of four triangular sections, folding down into a point at the front entrance.
Architects Victor Verhagen and Maria Vasiloglou said they designed the public toilet block to have a low-tech and outdoor feeling.
Designed for use in summer, the building can be easily taken apart and transported.
Croatian firm NFO has revitalised the main square in the seaside city of Crikvenica by adding steps, terraces and textured paving to delineate the different zones (+ slideshow).
NFO won a public competition to transform the town square, which is linked to a promenade and provides inhabitants with an open public space looking out across the Adriatic Sea.
The architects kept their interventions to a minimum to maintain the views and enable the space to perform various functions.
Trees lining the promenade as it approaches the open plaza continue around its edges, providing shaded terraces for the eateries located along the perimeter.
An existing slope at the back of the site has been converted into a series of steps and terraces that create seating and separate the square from the streets that lead into the city.
A road running between the square and the marina has been paved in cobbles to create a haptic surface that encourages drivers to reduce their speed, while even bumpier cobbles warn pedestrians that they are nearing the road.
“The road is disconnected from the pedestrian zone with tactile barriers in tessellation for safety and to inform about the road without creating a visual barrier towards the sea,” the architects explain.
The redevelopment of Crikvenica’s public spaces is set to continue with the future renovation of a park and another square elsewhere in the city.
The public competition for regulation of the center of Crikvenica was announced in 2011 and the first phase of the project is now completed. After the works on shore line expansion 20 m towards the sea finished in 2012 first phase project, Stijepan Radić Square was completed in 2013.
With finalization of the main city square Crikvenica finally got the first representative public space. Next phases involve regulation of the rest of the city center including the Park of the fallen for homeland and the construction of City pavilion along with another square.
Concept of the square derives from The promenade and its main element, the tree line, one of the main traditions of city Crikvenica, that used to stop at the Stjepan Radić Square. The goal was to patch that crack and, as a result, to reintegrate south-east part of Crikvenica as a cohesive part of the city. That way Crikvenica becomes a central point of the long stretch of seaside promenades between small costal towns Dramalj and Selce and its public contents along the shoreline.
A tree line as a main element of the promenade forms a backbone which collects different public contents creating various ambients along the promenade. Stjepan Radić Square becomes a center towards which all the seaside movement gravitates and, as such, demands a large open space.
The promenade is pulled inside with its public contents (terraces) and along with the tree line it forms the main square with the only clear sea view in Crikvenica. Strong interventions were avoided so that the various usage possibilities on the main square would be possible.
The existing ground height difference is used to differentiate terraces from the open space of the square forming a staircase / sitting area on the contact zone of the square and terraces. Shaded terraces for catering contents became an audience space towards the sea and the square. Over-hangs were put among the tree tops for the protection from the sun and rain without damaging the main (clear) ambient of the square.
Viewpoints
The road as a negative factor with its mild and frequent denivelations “stone waves” in contrast with the square becomes an attraction for the cars and for the pedestrians, enabling comfortable and slow movement of all participants in traffic. The road is disconnected from the pedestrian zone with tactile barriers in tessellation for safety and to inform about the road without creating a visual barrier towards the sea.
Promenade
Project: Crikvenica Center – Stjepan Radić Square Programe: Public space Design year: 2011 Realized: 2013 Location: Crikvenica, Croatia Surface: 11 974 m2 Client: Municipality of Crikvenica (public architectural competiton 2011) Architect: NFO Design team: Kata Marunica, Nenad Ravnić, Dijana Pavić, Tatjana Liktar, Tamara Marić
Crinkled polished metal wraps around this electrical testing facility in northern Spain by ACXT Architects (+ slideshow).
ACXT Architects designed the building for electricity firm Arteche to test dielectric transformers on an industrial estate north of Bilbao.
Specific conditions are needed to conduct the tests, such as inner dimensions of 57 metres long, 30 metres wide and 27 metres high.
A Faraday cage, an enclosure formed by conducting material, encompasses the testing hall that houses spheres of silver disks atop columns of various heights.
A two-storey block containing meeting and observation spaces sits to one side of the main volume.
These rooms have long windows into the large testing chamber so the experiments can be recorded.
The facades of the smaller block are patterned with vertical stripes, mimicking the pleated metal wall behind.
The following text was sent to us by the architects:
This building is a High Voltage Laboratory, for testing dielectric transformers up to 850 kV, which requires to be a diaphanous vessel of 57m long, 30m wide and 27m high (inner dimensions), surrounded completely by a Faraday cage needed for the extremely precise measurements performed inside.
The main hall can be divided into three main spaces, suitable for carrying out the Impulse and Resonant Tests, and SF6 equipment tests.
Annex to the main space, there is a technical block with views into the testing room, which features two control rooms/reception, a meeting room and space for presentations and meetings for up to 60 people.
The new Laboratory is intended as both a laboratory of the most advanced technology in the sector, a representation of the ARTECHE bet on innovation, reflected in a polished metal facade that vibrates and breaks along its perimeter, allowing integration in a volume so important in the environment that is characterised by buildings significantly lower than this building, which reaches 30 metres.
Norwegian designer Kim Thome has installed a series of two-way mirrors that reflect vinyl stripes covering the walls of a London gallery (+ slideshow).
Kim Thome fixed multicoloured and black and white strips of vinyl to the walls of William Benington Gallery and placed three two-way mirrors on simple black frames in the centre of the room.
The semi-transparent surfaces produce optical illusions as the reflections are overlaid onto the background when viewed from different angles.
Thome says the pattern was divided into coloured and monochrome areas following the shape of the interior and “giving a new graphic element to the mirrors as the viewer explores the space.”
An additional suspended circular artwork features a diagonal pattern on one surface, which is reflected by two-way mirror material applied to the perpendicular plane.
William Benington Gallery presents Kim Thome’s first show with the gallery; Works on Reflection II.
Works On Reflection II is a spatial installation which is a result of a longer investigation exploring the ’reflective’. Using the gallery space as the canvas, the installation will use the ‘reflective’ as medium, or more specifically, a two way mirror. Colour, geometry and patterns are central in staging a fictional space for these to merge, creating an ephemeral ever-changing environment.
Three mirrors stand central in the gallery space interacting and reflecting the colour vinyl pattern on the walls. Semi-transparent and reflective material such as two-way mirror allows the fore and background to be manipulated by carefully controlling the surrounding elements.
Colour in the pattern divides the space into three separate areas following the gallery’s interior architecture, giving a new graphic element to the mirrors as the viewer explores the space.
In this work viewers are challenged by what the reflections reveal, another reality, far from what is visually expected, engaging the viewer to reconsider the objects reflected.
Portuguese artist Ana Rita Antonio has designed an installation based on fourteen different ways to replace a table leg by piling up other objects in its place.
The installation is a new chapter in her ongoing project called The Poetics of Miss Understanding and features an assortment of objects such as wellington boots, potted plants, a lamp, books, a broom and cardboard tubes taking the place of the missing leg.
These are stacked and balanced on top of each other at equal heights to balance a board supported by a single supporting trestle.
The artist also involves her own body by stacking books on her head, lying on the floor with books in a pile on her chest and standing on the table.
The installation is part of Oslo-based Ana Rita Antonio’s graduation piece from the Design LAB department at Amsterdam’s Gerrit Rietveld Academie.
She said the entire project was designed around her difficulties with the English language. “I often misspell words and this was one of the cases,” she explained. “As a mistake I added an ‘s’ in the title but I decided to embrace the misunderstanding and make myself into a character that understands problem solving.”
“The project is a design methodology in problem solving that embraces objects and daily life situations as working material, using whatever components are available to the situation there and then,” she added.
Ana said she has an extremely stubborn and idiosyncratic attitude in problem solving, as well as a belief that design is evolutionary and there will always be several imperfect solutions to a problem.
A labyrinth of brick walls, arches and courtyards are protected from flooding behind a man-made embankment at this open-air community centre in rural Bangladesh (+ slideshow).
Designed by Bangladeshi architect and URBANA founder Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury, the complex functions as the centre for a charitable organisation. It offers training programmes for the poorest individuals in Gaibandha, a town where most of the community are employed in agriculture.
The Friendship Centre is built on low-lying land surrounded by fields. Despite the threat of flooding, the cost of raising the building above the flood plain was too great so instead the designers created their own defence by building up the earth surrounding the site.
Each building within the complex is constructed from a uniform brickwork, creating a maze of pavilion-like structures. Each block has the same height and every rooftop is covered with grass.
“In the extreme limitation of means was a search for the luxury of light and shadows, of the economy and generosity of small spaces and of the joy of movement and discovery in the bare and the essential,” said Chowdhury.
The architect also compares the project to some of the ancient Buddhist monasteries constructed elsewhere in the region. “Simplicity is the intent, monastic is the feel,” he added.
Rooms are divided into two zones to separate reception and training rooms from dormitories and other more private quarters. There’s also a library, a conference room, a prayer space and a small shop.
Large openings in the walls bring natural light and ventilation through the buildings, while a sequence of small courtyards and pools allow cool air to circulate.
Excessive rainwater is collected in some of these pools and pumped into a nearby pond, while a complex network of septic tanks and wells prevents sewage mixing with flood water.
The Friendship Centre near the district town of Gaibandha, Bangladesh, is for an NGO which works with some of the poorest in the country and who live mainly in riverine islands (chars) with very limited access and opportunities. Friendship uses the facility for its own training programs and will also rent out for meetings, training, conferences etc. as income generation.
The low-lying land, which is located in rural Gaibandha where agriculture is predominant, is under threat of flooding if the embankment encircling the town and peripheries break.
An extensive program with a very limited fund meant that raising the structures above flood level (a height of eight feet) was not an option: nearly the entire available fund would be lost below grade. Being in an earthquake zone and the low bearing capacity of the silty soil added further complications. The third and final design relies on a surrounding embankment for flood protection while building directly on existing soil, in load-bearing masonry. Rainwater and surface run-off are collected in internal pools and the excess is pumped to an excavated pond, also to be used for fishery. The design relies on natural ventilation and cooling, being facilitated by courtyards and pools and the earth covering on roofs. An extensive network of septic tanks and soak wells ensure the sewage does not mix with flood water.
The ‘Ka’ Block contains the reception pavilion, offices, library, training/conference rooms and pavilions, a prayer space and a small ‘cha-shop’. The ‘Kha’ Block, connected by three archways, is for more private functions and houses the dormitories, the dining pavilion and staff and family quarters. The laundry and drying shed is located on the other side of the pond. There is no air-conditioning and the entire lighting is through LED and energy efficient lamps.
As in construction, so in conception – the complex of the centre rise and exist as echo of ruins, alive with the memory of the remains of Mahasthan (3rd century BC), some sixty kilometres away. Constructed and finished primarily of one material – local hand-made bricks – the spaces arc woven out of pavilions, courtyards, pools and greens; corridors and shadows. Simplicity is the intent, monastic is the feel.
The centre serves and brings together some of the poorest of poor in the country and, by extension, in the world, yet in the extreme limitation of means was a search for the luxury of light and shadows of the economy and generosity of small spaces; of the joy of movement and discovery in the bare and the essential.
Berlin-based Danish architect Sigurd Larsen has designed a collection of tables and benches with surfaces made from materials chosen to age well (+ slideshow).
Sigurd Larsen based the furniture on a standard square section steel frame, with oak, leather, copper and concrete used for the surfaces that the body comes into contact with.
“The furniture appears thin and light in order to put the horizontal surfaces with their special attributes into focus,” Larsen told Dezeen.
“I have always been very excited about materials that gain a higher quality the more you use them,” he added. “I hope that this ‘positive development’ over time will inspire people to keep and maintain their possessions longer instead of replacing them time after time.”
The Melbourne Project bench is available with a copper or steel table adjoining the leather surface, as a daybed or with an oak back rest. Tables come in dining and coffee table dimensions.
The furniture will be exhibited for four weeks from 1 September at the MINI Paceman store in Melbourne, Australia.
Shooting events during the 2016 Olympic Games will take place at this timber and concrete complex in north-west Rio by Brazilian studio BCMF Arquitetos (+ slideshow).
Located in Rio’s Deodoro zone, the National Shooting Centre was completed by BCMF Arquitetos for the 2007 Pan-American Games, alongside nearby facilities for archery, hockey, equestrian and modern pentathlon events. Since then it has been used as a regular training centre for the Brazilian Shooting Federation and the Brazilian military.
The building occupies a 15-hectare site, sandwiched between the motorway and a cluster of mountain peaks, and stretches east to west across its site to create a series of indoor and outdoor facilities for training and competitions.
“The project deals with the complex issues of a unique suburban context comprising a military district, a densely populated favela, a dilapidated industrial area, as well as a large expanse of native vegetation,” said architect Bruno Campos.
Grids of wooden baffles extend from the sides of the buildings to protect the shooting range from stray bullets and are surrounded by exposed concrete enclosures.
Indoor shooting areas are lined with glazing along the rear, allowing views in from the connecting corridors.
“Few materials, strong horizontal lines and an enigmatic grid of wooden baffles predominate in this stark venue,” said Campos.
Before the games commence in 2016, the architects will make several minor adjustments to the complex to bring it in line with Olympic standards. These include adding a temporary seating area to increase spectator capacity, improving security measures, and adapting signage and logistics.
Main photography is by Leonardo Finotti, aerial views are by Kaká Ramalho.
Here’s some more information from BCMF Arquitetos:
National Shooting Centre
The Deodoro Sports Complex was designed for the Rio 2007 Pan-American Games, including in the same cluster the Shooting, Equestrian, Archery, Hockey and Modern Pentathlon facilities. All venues already meet international standards, and need just minor adjustments and complements for the Rio 2016 Olympics. The cluster is already a world-class legacy, which has successfully triggered the renewal and further development of important suburban region.
The Shooting Centre has approximately 50.000m2 of built area, landscaped on a 150.000m2 site along one of the most important access vectors of the city (a hybrid of avenue and motorway). The project deals with the complex issues of a unique suburban context comprising of a military neighbourhood, a densely populated favela, a rough industrial area and a vast wild landscape all mixed together. Few materials, strong horizontal lines and an enigmatic grid of wooden baffles predominate in this stark venue located on a trapezoidal plot in a breathtaking valley surrounded by mountain peaks.
Architects: BCMF Arquitetos / Bruno Campos, Marcelo Fontes and Silvio Todeschi Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Project Team: Cláudio Parreiras Reis, Luciana Maciel, Lisiane Melo, Leonardo Fávero, Cristiano Monte-Mór, Ana Kawakami, Fabiana Fortes e Antônio Valadares Program: Shooting, Equestrian, Hockey, Archery and Modern Pentathlon venues Project management and General Coordination: Engesolo Engenharia Ltda Structure: Helio Chumbinho (Misa Engenharia)/ Lino Nunes de Castro (Globsteel) MEP: ENIT (Moshe Gruberger) Sports Consultant: Aqualar (Swimming Pool), Forbex (Grass Hockey) and Eduardo Castro Mello Overlay: John Baker (EKS) & CO-Rio 2007 Team (Gustavo Nascimento, Ana Paula Loreto & Izabela Hasek) Lighting: Godoy Associados Contractor: Construções e Comércio Camargo Corrêa (CCCC)
Graduate designer Mugi Yamamoto has designed an inkjet printer that sits on top of a stack of paper and eats its way down through the pile (+ slideshow).
The compact Stack printer by industrial designer Mugi Yamamoto is simply placed on top of a pile of A4 paper, rather than loading paper into the device in batches. The sheets are fed through rollers underneath the machine and exit on the top.
Yamamoto told Dezeen that his intention was to reduce the space taken up by a printer. “Thanks to this new way of printing it is possible to remove the paper tray, the bulkiest element in common printers,” said Yamamoto. “This concept allows a very light appearance and avoids frequent reloading.”
The designer looked at commercial printers and modified existing mechanisms to create the working prototype.
The printed paper creates a new pile on top of the machine. “It’s not endless – it might go up to maybe 200 sheets of paper,” Yamamoto told Dezeen.
Yamamoto completed the project while studying industrial and product design at Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL) in Switzerland. He was also selected as one of ten young designers to exhibit at this year’s Design Parade 8 at Villa Hoailles in Hyeres, France.
The designer was born in Tokyo and is currently undertaking a design internship in Nürnberg, Germany.
This kinked house in Japan by architects Horibe Associates has all its storage space along one edge to buffer sounds from a noisy road (+ slideshow).
“This home sits on a road that gets a surprising amount of traffic given how narrow it is,” said Horibe Associates. “To minimise the noise from cars and to ensure privacy, [we] concentrated storage spaces along the side of the house facing the road and added a hallway as a further buffer shielding the main rooms.”
Designed for a couple and their child in Tokushima Prefecture, the wooden structure is clad in horizontal strips of dark metal.
The profile of the roof peaks at the kink, echoing the shapes of mountains in the distance.
At the back, rooms have large windows that look out over the cherry blossom trees in the expansive garden.
Bedrooms are located in the entrance wing, next to a opening that leads directly out to the back from the front door.
Combined kitchen, living and dining space at the end of the house opens out onto a pointy terrace, screened from the road by timber trellis that continues the line of the roof.
A timber lean-to sits at the other end of the house, stained the same colour as the wood front door.
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