Hasta La Ideas

Italian office Studio Galantini has upgraded the wooden structure of a 1970s chapel in north-west Italy so that it can be used for summer services, music recitals and theatrical performances.

The Cappella Sant’Anna, or Saint Anna’s Chapel, was first built in 1973 in the Italian hamlet of Torre del Lago, but had been out of use since 2010 after parts of the structure were declared unsafe.

In the summer of 2013 Studio Galantini took up the task of repairing the structure. “We were captured by the structural purity and by the formal simplicity of the chapel, qualities that totally integrate it into nature,” explained architect Marco Biondi.

With help from structural engineer Renato Terziani, the architects replaced around half of the building’s framework, which comprises three triangular frames and a series of supporting crossbeams. They also repaired the old steel fixings.

The original moss-covered roof was retained, revealing the building’s true age. “The substitution of the overlay with new elements would have permanently damaged the harmony with the landscape, created by time going by,” said Biondi.

The two ends of the chapel remain open to expose the interior to the elements – a feature of the original design by engineer Vardemaro Barbetta. Barbetta named the chapel Sant’Anna, after the mother of the Virgin Mary, but also after the name of his own mother who initiated the project.

Photography is by Paolo Del Freo.

Here’s some extra information from Studio Galantini:

Galantini’s Firm: Sant’Anna’s Chapel recovery

Galantini’s Firm in Pisa, with the support of Renato Terziani as structural engineer, was involved in the recovery project of the Sant’Anna Chapel. The work was shaped around the full philological and compositional rightness and sensitivity, paying particular attention to the usage of technology and careful intervention techniques.

The chapel arises in the Lagomare residential complex that is located at Torre del Lago, Viareggio’s hamlet (LU). It stands inside the “Parco Naturale di Migliarino San Rossore Massaciuccoli” area, very close to the sea.

The Church, consecrated to Sant’Anna, was built on the engineer Vardemaro Barbetta’s project in 1973, following the engineer’s mother will whose name was Anna. The architectural work is highly characterised by the structural work: three gantries are settled by two balks that statically frame a three hinges portal. The hinges are made of steel and they are placed at the foot and at the top of the structure, resolving the work architecturally and structurally.

Because of the ageing of the wood in 2010 the structure was considered unsafe and declared not accessible, notwithstanding an offhand and structurally decontextualised past recovery action. A support for the balks, made by steel sections and welded batten plates, set up a mixed load-bearing structure.

The recovery work began in April 2013 and finished the 8th of August. The work was designed with no compromises: the technical complexity of the work was accepted to preserve the compositional integrity of the structure and the physics of the materials. The landscaped value of the overlay was preserved too, because of its integration with the surrounding pinewood.

This accomplishment was reached recreating the wooden parts and recovering the mechanical essentiality of the steel hinges. To accomplish that project, the work was realised suspending the structure using a scaffolding specifically designed for that aim; moreover the scaffolding was able to bear the efforts and the load transmitted during the substitution of the ground bases and of the degraded wooden parts.

Project: recovery of Cappella Sant’Anna

Designer: Studio Galantini

Engineer: Renato Terziani

Constructor: Antica Toscana

Client: Parrocchia di San Giuseppe

Location: Torre del Lago, Viareggio, Lucca

Completed: 2013

The post Studio Galantini rebuilds wooden frame
of small Italian chapel appeared first on Dezeen.

French office Topos Architecture used timber cladding and a pitched roof to give this kindergarten in Mayenne, France, a domestic appearance that the architects thought would be more welcoming to children (+ slideshow).

Named Maison de la Petite Enfance, which translates as House of the Early Childhood, the single-storey complex provides preschool education facilities for 100 children up to the age of five.

Topos Architecture, whose previous projects include a larch-clad nursery in Nantes, planned the building as three zones. Classrooms and activity spaces are positioned at the rear, while staff rooms and storage facilities run along the front, and a sequence of patios and gardens are sandwiched in between.

Narrow strips of Douglas fir provide a uniform cladding across the outer walls and roof of the structure, and were also used for the perimeter fences. “The use of a wood facade gives a unity and a natural tone to the whole building,” said the architects.

Windows face inward towards the patios and gardens, while the sloping roof is topped with a chimney-like structure that houses an attic filled with ventilation equipment.

“Overlooking the entrance of the building, the roof has a double slope that gives it the silhouette of a house – an architectural line that is also included in the typology of the surrounding urban fabric,” said the architects.

Four large multi-purpose rooms are contained within the building and can be subdivided to accommodate different activities.

Other spaces include a dressing room where children can put on and take off their coats, a sheltered entrance where parents are encouraged to interact and a network of corridors that help to prevent children bringing dirt inside.

Photography is by Jérôme Blin of Collectif Bellavieza.

Here’s a short project description from Topos Architecture:

Conception and construction of the House of the Early Childhood

The House of the Early Childhood, located in Mayenne, between the city Centre and the new railway station district, is an urban building of a single level.

The architects have imagined a soft and welcoming architecture for children, for parents, but also for nursery nurses.

In this way, the building is based on a domestic and hospitable universe: presence of wood outside but also inside, reception and common spaces user-friendly, roof partially built in double slope, omnipresent natural light, generous vegetation.

The garden (800 m2) is an outside room really private and there are four patios that give rhythm to the common spaces.

This centre welcomes from now on 90 children in 1300 m2.

This building is emblematic on environmental plan. It has received from Certivéa, the certificate of conformity to the label for High Energy Performance. Certivéa certifies that it’s in accordance with the BBC level and with the requirements of the Effinergie brand.

Location: Mayenne (53) – France
Surface: 1 300 m2
Architects: Topos Architecture
Children in the House: 90
Project owner: Ville de Mayenne (City of Mayenne)

The post Timber-clad kindergarten with “the silhouette
of a house” by Topos Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese architect Ryue Nishizawa has teamed up with design studio Nendo to create a hillside pavilion, filled with stools designed to look like troops of wild mushrooms (+ slideshow).

Nishizawa, who is best known as one half of architecture duo SANAA, worked with Nendo to construct the wooden pavilion on a steep hillside on the campus of Kyoto University of Art and Design.

The smooth timber roof of the structure follows the incline of the hill and is supported by dozens of narrow timber columns. In some places these are anchored into the ground and in other spots they are fixed to the surface of an outdoor staircase.

“The pavilion’s spatial experience is intended to remind visitors of walking in the mountains under thick tree cover,” said the designers.

Curved steel tubes were used to make a series of stools both inside and outside of the shelter, and were designed with different shapes and sizes to mimic the way fungi grows in the wild.

“We wanted to design architectural elements that would ‘grow’ naturally from the space, rather than to put furniture in a room,” the designers explained.

Some stools form an extension to the staircase balustrade, while others wrap around columns and some interlock with one another.

The university plans to plant a grove of Japanese plum trees on the site next to the pavilion. “Their fragrant early spring blossoms will only add to an already beautiful site,” added the designers.

Here’s a project description from Nendo:

A small pavilion “roof and mushrooms” in Kyoto

A small pavilion on the campus of Kyoto University of Art and Design, born from a collaboration between architect Ryue Nishizawa and design office nendo. The location: a steep hill face covered in luxurious vegetation.

On a clear day, you can almost count the 36 crests of the hills that line Kyoto’s eastern edge. The adjacent area is earmarked for a new grove of Japanese plum trees, and their fragrant early spring blossoms will only add to an already beautiful site. Nishizawa used a single roof to incorporate these elements into the pavilion’s design.

The roof is subtly inclined to follow the angle of the site. Dipping under it, visitors realise that the roof, delightfully and ambiguously, is also a wall.

The pavilion’s spatial experience is intended to remind visitors of walking in the mountains under thick tree cover.

To date, many of Nishizawa’s buildings have felt like bright, open and airy fields or gardens, and the furniture inside them like wildflowers that blur the boundary between interior and exterior space while adding brightness and colour.

But for the shady interior of this wooden structure, clinging onto the hillside exposed to the elements, we thought that furniture like fungi would be much more appropriate.

Our mushroom-like stools for the space were handmade by artisans to slightly different shapes and sizes, giving a more natural effect.

The stools’ layout – clustered at the base of pillars, or in the nooks and crannies by stone walls and staircases – evokes the way that mushrooms growing the wild, and details like a handrail that transforms into a mushroom continue the metaphor.

We wanted to design architectural elements that would ‘grow’ naturally from the space, rather than to put furniture in a room.

The post Roof and Mushrooms pavilion
by Nendo and Ryue Nishizawa appeared first on Dezeen.

Walls of weathered stone and timber surround this gabled family retreat by British studio McLean Quinlan Architects on the Devon coastline in south-west England (+ slideshow).

McLean Quinlan Architects located the building against a slope, in a position that offers views of both the surrounding countryside and the ocean.

Wooden panels clad the long sides of the building, while the gabled ends are constructed from stone and the pitched roof is covered with grey slate.

The architects intended this materials palette to reference the aesthetic of American summer houses. “The clients had in mind initially elements of a New England beach house, and so external materials of green oak boarding were used together with the local stone,” said architect Kate Quinlan.

A protruding stone wall marks the house’s entrance, leading through a heavy wooden door to a “mud room” used for drying wetsuits and storing wet-weather clothing such as overcoats and wellington boots.

An open-plan kitchen, living room and dining area occupies most of the ground level, and includes a children’s play area, a large larder for storing food and a laundry space.

A staircase spans the width of the house, leading up to a first floor containing five bedrooms and three bathrooms – offering plenty of space for guests. A second staircase is hidden amongst the closets, ascending to an attic with two extra bedrooms.

Other waterside holiday homes on Dezeen include a raw concrete summerhouse on a Swedish island, a house clad with seaweed pillows in Denmark and a small wooden house on Scotland’s Isle of Skye. See more holiday homes »

Photography is by Will Scott.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Morthoe House

The house in located a small village on the North Devon Coast. It was built as a holiday home for the family, and designed to maximise the number of bedrooms and open living space.

The site is accessed down a long drive and the building is tucked up against the slope of the site to make the most of the long views down to the sea from the upper levels.

A stone gable end is the first glimpse you get of this building with a dark industrial chimney dark against grey stone.

The clients had in mind initially elements of a New England beach house, and so external materials of green oak boarding was used together with the local stone.

The resulting building is simple in form. A neat pitched volume coupled with a generous entrance porch.

This provides a formal entrance and provides direct access to a large mud room for drying wetsuits wet from days out surfing, and drying out muddy boots from walking the costal paths.

The building is split down the centre by a central stair. On entering the hall opens up to a double height space with views of the garden.

The main living space is open plan, with a separate games space for the kids and the practical necessities of a large larder and laundry.

Up the open tread stairs, on the first floor the spit volumes separate the master bedroom suite from the main bedroom wing.

Here there is a long corridor with a single pane window at the far end leads to 4 double bedrooms.

Half way along is a ‘secret stair, tucked amongst the linen cupboards, which winds up to take you to to two further attic bedrooms above.

The post Mortehoe House by
McLean Quinlan Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

This wooden holiday house by Swedish studio Strömma Projekt Max Holst Arkitektkontor is perched on the edge of a gorge in Vindö, an island on the Stockholm archipelago (+ slideshow).

Strömma Projekt Max Holst Arkitektkontor designed the single-storey house on a series of black concrete plinths, elevating it above the gorge so that surrounding trees appear at eye level from the windows.

The dark timber exterior is surrounded by a sheltered deck, leading into a combined kitchen, living and dining room, while two children’s bedrooms are connected to a playroom and sit adjacent to a bathroom and sauna.

Large windows offer views out into the woodland from all four sides of the house, while wooden ceiling beams are left exposed beneath the gabled rooftops.

Timber lines the walls, ceilings and floors throughout the house, complemented by wooden furniture and kitchen units.

“The material palette is simple and essentially rooted in local building traditions,” said the architects.

Wooden steps lead down to an exposed deck beneath the main house, then onwards to a small shed stacked with firewood at the end of a narrow walkway.

Other holiday homes we’ve featured include a cluster of holiday apartments around terraces connected by small alleys, a tiny wooden cabin containing a sauna and bedroom and a riverside house raised on tree trunks to prevent flooding.

See more holiday homes »
See more Swedish architecture and design »

Photography is by Hannes Söderlund.

Here’s some information from the architects:

Holiday house Vindö

The site is located on Vindö, an island in the Stockholm archipelago, Sweden. Upon first glance the site appears a fairly typical archipelago plot with granite outcrops, pine trees and blueberry bushes but soon reveals it’s unusual dramatic topography presenting an exciting opportunity to the architect Max Holst as well as for the developer Strömma Projekt.

The building stands on a ridge bordering a 10 m deep drop into a gorge. In which a number of magnificent trees, mostly pine but also some hardwood grow. On the sheltered terrace and in the house one finds the tops of these trees at eye level.

The orientation of the ridge dictates the building’s form and the spatial subdivisions and the spatial emphasis is on the large living, dining and kitchen space, which leads onto to a large sheltered terrace towards south/east.

Children’s bedrooms are of a modest scale with a master bedroom located to the east. As a buffer between the living and sleeping areas, a bathroom and is located.

The hallway acts as a spacious playroom to the neighbouring the children’s rooms. The material palette is simple and essentially rooted in local building traditions.

Tectonically, the house is composed on black concrete plinths and exposed timber rafters highlight the repetition of a 120mm module on which the construction is based. The only setback from this strict systematisation occurs in the bathroom where the room is simply not suited for these measurements.

Room dimensions fell easily into place, becoming an exercise in creating dynamic spaces with a constant connection to the sky and surrounding forest, all within this framework.

The post Holiday House Vindö by
Max Holst Arkitektkontor appeared first on Dezeen.