Hasta La Ideas

High concrete walls enclose a secret garden around this residence for a poet in Zaragoza – our second story this week from Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza.

Casa Moliner was designed by Alberto Campo Baeza as an introverted enclosure, with a clean white house surrounded by newly planted trees and a calming pool of water. Two-metre-high walls surround the site on every side, blocking views out as well as in.

“We raised high walls to create a box open to the sky, like a nude metaphysical garden with concrete walls and floor,” said the architect.

The three-storey house has two levels above ground, while a third floor is buried below the courtyard with sunken patios on each side. A staircase spirals up through the centre of the plan like a circular spine.

A library occupies the uppermost floor, creating a place for the poet to work. A wall of translucent glazing brings diffused light through the room, while a narrow window frames a single view across the neighbourhood.

“For dreaming, we created a cloud at the highest point,” said Campo Baeza, “with northern light for reading and writing, thinking and feeling.”

A single room on the ground floor forms a large living and dining area that opens out to the surrounding garden, while bedrooms and bathrooms are located downstairs.

Our first story this week about Campo Baeza featured a bulky concrete house on a hilltop in Toledo.

See more architecture by Alberto Campo Baeza »
See more houses in Spain »

Photography is by Javier Callejas.

Read on for a project description from Alberto Campo Baeza:

Moliner House, Zaragoza

To build a house for a poet. To make a house for dreaming, living and dying. A house in which to read, to write and to think.

We raised high walls to create a box open to the sky, like a nude, metaphysical garden, with concrete walls and floor. To create an interior world. We dug into the ground to plant leafy trees.

And floating in the centre, a box filled with the translucent light of the north. Three levels were established. The highest for dreaming. The garden level for living. The deepest level for sleeping.

For dreaming, we created a cloud at the highest point. A library constructed with high walls of light diffused through large translucent glass. With northern light for reading and writing, thinking and feeling.

For living, the garden with southern light, sunlight. A space that is all garden, with transparent walls that bring together inside and outside.

And for sleeping, perhaps dying, the deepest level. The bedrooms below, as if in a cave. Once again, the cave and the cabin. Dreaming, living, dying. The house of the poet.

Location: Avda. Ilustración, 40, Urbanización Montecanal, Zaragoza
Client: Luis Moliner Lorente
Surface area: 216 sqm

Architect: Alberto Campo Baeza
Collaborating architects: Ignacio Aguirre López, Emilio Delgado Martos
Structure: María Concepción Pérez Gutiérrez
Rigger: José Miguel Moya
Constructor: Construcciones Moya Valero, Rafael Moya, Ramón Moya

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Alberto Campo Baeza appeared first on Dezeen.

Chevron motifs taken from military uniforms are interspersed around this cafe at London’s Royal Arsenal Riverside by Paul Crofts Studio (+ slideshow).

London-based Paul Crofts Studio referenced the area’s history of producing arsenal when designing the Cornerstone Cafe in part of a former munitions store.

“The warehouse building was part of a larger complex of munitions factories supplying all the armed forces during the First World War,” Paul Crofts told Dezeen.

Created by tessellating wood and white solid surface tiles, the chevron patterns that cover one wall and the counter front are based on the V-shaped badges used on army and navy uniforms to indicate rank or length of service.

“The inspiration for the chevron pattern was derived from the insignia on military uniforms and the repetition of the pattern was inspired by archive photos showing the endless stacks of the munition shells,” said Crofts.

The studio stripped back the interior to the original brick and render wall finishes and installed wooden seating booths with green upholstery along one side.

In the centre of the cafe, oak tables with white powder-coated metal legs are printed with grey and white arrows that alternate with the wood.

Various shapes and sizes of Paul Crofts’ Nonla pendant lights are suspended from the ceiling, positioned between the white truss beams.

Blackboard menus are mounted on the walls between strips of hot-rolled steel above oak display boxes for storing crockery and dry snacks.

Paul Crofts Studio also recently completed a bakery with a graphic based on a magpie nest etched into the wooden counter.

The most popular cafes we’ve published lately include a Bucharest coffee shop with 276 cups suspended from the ceiling and a waterside bistro in Vietnam with a roof supported by conical bamboo columns.

Photography is by Chris Tubbs.

See more cafe interiors »
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Paul Crofts Studio sent us the project description below:

The cafe can be found in the industrial setting of the former factories and warehouses of Royal Arsenal Riverside, an area famed since the seventeenth century for producing munitions for the Royal Navy and armed forces. The building has been stripped back to a shell, while retaining character and authenticity.

Paul Crofts Studio’s scheme for the cafe leaves original features intact and exposed, while inserting new elements to contrast with the existing fabric of the building.

A chevron motif derived from the insignia on military uniforms can be found throughout the scheme, seen on the table tops, oak display boxes, and the counter and display wall. Banquettes upholstered in a military green create a delineation between old and new, running in a continuous line from the window reveals to the waiter station by the main door.

Bespoke solid oak tables, featuring the chevron motif screen-printed in a mixture of grey and white, have metal powder coated legs inspired by an industrial workbench. The Nonla lights by Paul Crofts – a contemporary interpretation of a traditional utility light fitting – appears in various sizes, while unfinished hot-rolled steel is used to line the kitchen walls and for the wall-mounted menus.

The scheme’s focal point is provided by the service counter and display wall, the design of which provides a deliberately new intervention to contrast with the rough surfaces of the existing interior. Created from a combination of solid wood and CNC-routed HI-MACS solid surface material in pure white, the chevron motif is inset in an irregular pattern to take the design from wood on one side, to white on the other. Display shelves are edged with a brass trim.

The industrial look is leavened by the use of clean white and warm timber, with homely café chairs by Hay and chalk boards behind the counter adding to the relaxed atmosphere.

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Paul Crofts Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

A kindergarten play area shaped like a mountain surrounded by clouds has been completed by Japanese firm Moriyuki Ochiai Architects (+ slideshow).

Part of Piccolino Kindergarten in the southern Japanese prefecture of Kanagawa, the space was created primarily for art education and as a multi-purpose room for concerts, performances, exhibitions and children’s workshops.

Children can explore by crawling over and around the brightly coloured wooden seats and through archways and small passages. When seats are pushed against the mountain they form steps, allowing children to clamber up the mountain shape through the clouds.

The seats are also light enough to be picked up and stacked on top of or next to each other, creating new heights and spaces in the room.

Architect Moriyuki Ochiai said he chose the triangular shapes because they were the most simple and suitable for children to use safely. “The size of the equipment is a unit on which two little children can be seated together so they feel close to each other and can naturally be friends,” Ochiai told Dezeen.

Ochiai also explained that the height difference between adults and children brings about different ways to perceive and enjoy the environment. “A surface used as a counter by adults appears as a consecutive arch over houses to children,” he said.

“From a kid’s perspective, the mountain rises from the clouds changing gradually from white to brown, while adults looking down from the top of the mountain see clouds floating below,” he added.

Ochiai said he created the space to develop imagination, expression, communication and creativity skills for both adults and children. The renovated 90-square-metre floor space from an existing office building is in an area with lots of new housing projects where many families with young children live.

Other kindergartens featured on Dezeen include a kid university with a courtyard of mulberry trees in Spain, a small wooden nursery in a public garden in Camden and a doughnut-shaped kindergarten in China.

See all our stories about kindergartens »
See more architecture and design in Japan »

Photography is by Atsushi Ishisda/Nacasa & Partners.

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Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

A twisted entanglement of tree branches appears to grow organically from the beams of Paris’ Palais de Tokyo museum in this installation by Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira (+ slideshow).

Designed by Henrique Oliveira to look like an impossibly tangled Gordian Knot, the Baitogogo sculpture is installed within an exhibition space at Palais de Tokyo as a mass of tree-like plywood branches.

“Creating a spectacular and invasive Gordian Knot, Henrique Oliveira plays with Palais de Tokyo’s architecture, allowing a work that combines the vegetal and the organic,” said the exhibition curators.

An existing grid of columns and beams appears to morph into the twisted branches. “Through a form of architectural anthropomorphism, Henrique Oliveira reveals the structure of the building,” added the curators.

The large installation was created from reclaimed tapumes – a plywood material traditionally used in Brazilian towns to construct the hoardings around construction sites. Oliveria collects the discarded tapumes from the streets of São Paulo, where he both lives and works.

The veneer-like strips were bent into shape and nailed together to form the installation’s branches. Further wooden veneers were fixed to the structure to give it a bark-like texture and appearance.

Here’s a film showing the making of Baitagogo:

The Baitogogo exhibition is open at the Palais de Tokyo museum in Paris until 29th September 2013.

Earlier this year we posted a slideshow of all our favourite stories about indoor forests and trees which includes a 30-metre-long poplar tree that protrudes a kiosk in Indianapolis and a beauty salon in Osaka that has birch trees wedged between the floor and ceiling.

See more stories about trees »
See more installations »

Photographs are courtesy of Henrique Oliveira.

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at Palais de Tokyo appeared first on Dezeen.

Belgian artist Nick Ervinck has masked the unattractive rear facade of a building in Ghent by constructing a gigantic yellow blob with a bar inside (+ slideshow).

Named Cirbaots, the huge sculpture is attached to the rear of Zebrastraat, a mixed-use building that houses art galleries, apartments, and a hotel and lounge. New apartments constructed recently behind the building had revealed windowless facades never intended to be seen, so Nick Ervinck was asked to place a large sculpture in front.

“For me it was really challenging to do something at that scale,” he told Dezeen. “The idea was to put a bar inside the sculpture, so it was almost like hiding one sculpture underneath another.”

Describing how he came up with the idea for the blob-like form, Ervinck explained: “I started with the idea of water, then came more to the idea of fabric, of a cloth or a veil.”

The bright yellow form folds around the new bar – set to be fitted out by designer Peter Vermeersch – and its colour matches an earlier installation created by the artist on another side of the building.

The structure was assembled from seven parts that were manufactured offsite and then hoisted into place. “We had to close one of the most important streets in the city for two days,” revealed Ervinck.

The main body is made from polyurethane foam, which was sculpted by hand based on a computer-generated design. The exterior was then built up with a layer of fibreglass and painted polyester.

“It still fells like one really big veil,” said Ervinck, reflecting on the completed form. “On one hand it’s very much a sculpture, but on the other it’s completely figurative, like a huge piece of fabric that’s glowing.”

Other installations to feature on Dezeen recently include an arched screen with hundreds of building-shaped holes and a melting brick wall. See more art and design installations »

Here’s some more information from the designer:

CIRBAOTS

With this monumental project for Zebrastraat in Ghent, Ervinck bundles some current topics and personal interests: the architectural discourse between blobs and boxes, the art historical motif of the veil and the social and political tension between public and private, and outside and inside. This monumental sculpture should be a meeting point that bridges the separation between public and private, and between inside and outside. Moreover, it elevates the “rear” of the building or neighbourhood to a visual attraction.

Blobs and boxes

This monumental sculpture is so to speak grafted on the building and illustrates the contrast between the conventional models of the architecture (box) and the virtual design (blob). It is a contrast between rigid and organic forms and between physical and virtual. While most architects favour only one single of these schools in design, Ervinck choose with this design resolutely for a third way: the synthesis of both. Inspired by architects like Will Alsop and Greg Lynn, Ervinck explored the potential of digital design methods for the sculpture. For Zebrastraat he designed an organic form that seems to loosen the cube, but at the same time can not exist without the latter. This tension between the solidity of the base on the one hand, and the sculpture coming to life on the other, was already treated by Ovid (the sculptor Pygmalion creates Galathea from a cut stone) and in the 17th century, beautifully visualised by Bernini (Daphne’s legs are half part of the base and half free). In the work of Nick the blob and the box form as it were two identities that attack, embrace and reject each other and merge together. This monumental work is not only a study of the media sculpture, it also challenges its existence conditions (mass, dimension, matter and gravity) in a radical way.

Veil

Covering with fabric or a veil is an art historical theme with a long tradition. Pliny associated the curtain with illusionism and interactivity: he described how he fooled the artist Parrhasius Zeuxis by asking him to slide a painted curtain. The contemporary artist Michelangelo Pistoletto worked further on this tradition with his work ‘Green Curtain’ (1962-1965). The artwork for Zebrastraat is also about such illusion: using digital design and mathematical formulas the illusion of a fabric is created. This substance seems loosely draped over the underlying matter. It invites so to speak the viewer to lift the veil and to see what lies hidden beneath it. Associated to this are questions about the role of art in society and the imperative of participation and engagement of the viewer relative to the artwork. This artwork also refers to the Belgian identity which is intertwined with surrealism.

The German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach accented the nakedness of his figures by a transparent veil. The veil is a very ambivalent pattern: firstly it hides the information, but at the same time it also emphasises what is hidden under the cloth. The sculpted fabric stands for transformation: it conceals and reveals the matter. This art work for Zebrastraat is finally a monumental poetic ode to the volume and shape: the fundamentals of sculpture.

Public and Private

Because this work responds to the social specificity of the real estate project in Zebrastraat, it has, besides its artistic relevance, also a profound social significance.

First Ervinck plays with the concept of ‘rear’. These facades were originally not intended to be seen from the street. Now the land was bought, these facades play a new role in the streetscape. Ervinck wants to upgrade the – often unappreciated – rear of the building, and even attribute it a public function. With this work he also thinks about how art can be integrated into society.

By “covering” part of the facade with a veil, Ervinck reflects secondly on the processes of spatial appropriation. Its imposing structure reflects an increasingly problematic division between public and private, and a privatisation process that since the 15th century has become increasingly compelling. Claiming common property in order to transform it into a profitable product is today common practise in all segments of society. The protection of certain areas (think of Fortress Europe) – and the related division between “us” and “them” – is surmounted by a political act. This separation is always characterised by a tension between protection and confinement. Ervinck does not want to draw a radical line between inside and outside. He would rather create a meeting point, which will functionally be realised by the installation of a bar at the bottom of the sculpture. Just as the world has not gone away, when you close your eyes, the architecture does not disappear when it is shielded. It has been transformed and is part of the common area.

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Nick Ervinck appeared first on Dezeen.