Hasta La Ideas

Faceted concrete blocks protrude from one side of this sports hall in Croatia, while its bumpy southern and western walls were made by casting concrete panels over a bed of stones (+ slideshow).

Designed by Croatian architect Idis Turato, the building is located in the small town of Krk, on the island of the same name, and it functions as both a sports hall for a primary school and an events space for the local community.

The building sits within a new public square surrounded by a mixture of churches, monasteries and school buildings, and the architect created different concepts for each of the building’s elevations to correspond with the varying architectural styles.

“One of the direct inspirations for all the facades and external walls of the hall were the existing walls of the surrounding monasteries,” Turato told Dezeen.

“The wall is the main concept of the hall, being different regarding the context that is in front of it,” he continued. “Each one of those monastery walls, dating back from different periods, have different textures and also different sizes.”

The northern side of the building fronts the town square and features a faceted concrete surface with a terrazzo finish and sliced openings that form windows.

“The monoliths on the facade that face the square are monumental and dominant,” said the architect. “They accentuate the representative character of the newly formed large public square in town, and are a direct reply towards the high towers on the square.”

The southern and western facades are built over the archeological remains of another monastery and a chapel, which were uncovered during the construction process. These dry stone walls informed the design of the new concrete elevations built on top, which were cast against small stones to create a textured surface that inverts the appearance of the existing structures.

“These ‘concrete innards’, as we call them, are a negative of the dry stone walls,” explained Turato. “Our wish was to make contemporary but simple concrete prefabricates that are visually different and recognisable, but also blend in as a continuation of the existing walls and their textures.”

The remaining elevation faces the school and is finished in white render to match the appearance of its neighbour, which was designed by Idis Turato a few years earlier.

The interior of the building is decorated in bold colours that stand out against the raw concrete interior. A first-floor balcony provides seating during matches and events, plus an underground tunnel creates a private route into the school.

Slabs of red terrazzo provide the surface of the surrounding square, intended to contrast with the pale colour of the concrete walls.

Here’s a project description from Turato Architecture:

Sports Hall and Public Square in Krk

One of the main focuses of the Turato Architects’ Hall and Square project in Krk was to finish an architectural dialogue started way back in 2005, when Idis Turato completed an elementary school, Fran Krsto Frankopan (with his former studio “Randić Turato”).

The new hall, which opened shortly before the summer of 2013, is situated in the very vicinity of the above-mentioned school, just across a narrow pedestrian street. The completion of the new sports building and public square was a crown achievement of the architect’s quest to complete an integral urban ensemble on top of Krk’s old town, thereby creating a newly defined focal point of high importance.

The newly built hall, aside from being a gym facility for the school pupils – who can now easily access it through an underground corridor – aims to meet demands of the local community as well, housing sports events as well as future cultural activities and public festivities on a larger scale. This is the reason why the north-eastern corner of the hall’s facade opens up onto the square, providing functional continuity of passing through and enabling them to become almost one.

The school-hall-square assembly is surrounded by several churches and monasteries, as well as by two tall church towers that act as the square’s vertical accents. Together, they all define and describe this wide public space, which, depending on occasion, can function both as a secular and an ecclesiastical pedestrian zone.

On the very site of the new hall there used to be an old student dorm, which had been used in past as a gym facility for the school. Prior to the hall construction it had to be demolished. The demolition, however, unearthed several new and important archaeological discoveries on the site, thus creating a whole new context for the hall itself.

All that had been found on the site had to be preserved as discovered. The architects took this fact to be crucial in redefining the concept according to the new input. This affected directly the very organisational scheme of the project. The excavated and preserved church and monastery walls were to become integral parts of the new building, with new walls and facades of the hall emerging directly from the restored, older ones.

Yet another contextual element was important in forming the shape and size of the building. These are the high walls, seen throughout the old town of Krk, especially around the aforementioned monasteries, enclosing the town lots, lining the narrow streets of the town. These site-specific structures surround the hall itself as well.

Behind these walls different stories are taking place daily, balancing between the public and the private, depending on the usage of the space enclosed. The high walls of the western hall facade, next to the Franciscan monastery, are then but a continuation of these town alleys. This is where the story of the walls, their origin, context and their shape began, resulting in variety of the facade walls, formally corresponding to the context, input and location.

Although seemingly set “back”, on secondary surfaces (the western alley and southern facade), the most recognisable and by far the most unique element of the hall itself is a wall consisting of original and striking prefabricated concrete elements. The architect named these the innards due to their origin and their fabrication, and the ambiguity of the impression they leave upon the viewer, due to a formal factor of its (un)attractiveness.

The innards are in fact unique precast elements produced as a negative of a dry stone wall, or more precisely – made by placing stones in a wooden mould, covering them with a PVC foil and pouring concrete over it all. In this way the negative of the stones forms the “face” of the precast element. This inverse building process, a simple and basic fabrication with a distinct visual impact, is an invention of the hall’s author. It happened as a result of researching simple building materials with a crafty bricklayer, with whom the architect had collaborated on several projects in the past as well.

On the other hand, the most representative facade of the hall, the one visually dominating the square, is the facade constructed out of six impressively large concrete monoliths, weighing up to 23 tons. The monolithic blocks are finished off with a layer of ‘terrazzo’, which is an ancient technique usually used for floor finishes, requiring hours of polishing by hand.

Here, however, the terrazzo is redefined and used vertically, fittingly renamed into a “vertical terrazzo”. While this sudden vertical use of the finish creates a shiny and finely shaded facade, its “normal” use, on horizontal surfaces, is recontextualised and rethought once again, since this finish, usually ‘reserved’ for interiors, is now used for exterior surfaces of the public square.

The red colour of the square’s terrazzo floor panels is in contrast to the lightness of the hall’s facade. Its smoothness and slip-resistance is achieved by application of a layer of epoxy after polishing.

The fourth facade, facing the school, with its formal look and finish (done in plaster lime mortar) confirms that the new building remains in a direct communication with the existing educational facility, sharing its function.

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features both faceted and bumpy facades appeared first on Dezeen.

Swiss firm Haberstroh Schneider Architekten has extended a house in Basel by adding a chain of three rooms, creating a new semi-enclosed courtyard that is filled with stepping stones (+ slideshow).

Haberstroh Schneider Architekten removed a number of previous extensions to reduce Haus von Arx to its original size, before adding the new volumes to the western edge of the building to provide a home office and library.

The architects designed the courtyard and stepping stones to allow the family to move between the existing house and the extension.

“We wanted this area, as small as it is, to be a space for contemplation, where movements slow down and one is not able to rush through,” they told Dezeen.

A sheltered porch creates a separate entrance for the extension, leading through to a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and then on into the small office.

The architects also added a guest bedroom and bathroom above the house’s existing garage, as well as a new swimming pool and pavilion on the east side of the building.

The exterior of the extensions is finished in white render, contrasting with the grainy grey-painted facade of the main house.

Existing living rooms and bedrooms were left to their original layout, but a curving staircase with iron balustrades was painted in a deep shade of green.

“We wanted to enhance the very elegant stairs so we decided to paint them a dark green that, besides contrasting with the rest of the house, is a colour used traditionally on the interior of historical, wealthy and important houses,” added the architects.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Haus von Arx

The former building – originally built in 1951 – had been extended, converted and renovated several times over the past years. As a consequence, it presented itself as an accumulation of heterogeneous rooms and styles.

In discussions with the new owner we developed the idea of reducing the building to both its original size and primary qualities.

The dismantling of all the old additional elements called for a controlled addition of new expansions.

These new volumes were clustered at the western side of the plot, touching the old building only in one place.

While the old building had been freed from any disturbing elements and thus restored to its classic elegance, the new cubes present a composition of simple and plastically reduced volumes.

The cubes, according to their different position, spacing and size, create fascinating passageway- and patio-situations with the old building.

To the south-western side of the plot we removed the former winter garden. In its place we constructed a generous, open garden pavilion which works well as mediating element between old building, pool area and the garden.

Architects: Haberstroh Schneider Architekten, Basel
Planners: Proplaning AG, Basel Schnetzer Puskas Ingenieure AG, Basel ProEngineering AG, Basel Stokar + Partner AG, Basel Locher, Schwittay Gebäudetechnik GmbH, Basel August + Margrith Künzel Landschaftsarchitekten AG, Binningen
Place: Binningen BL, Schweiz
Year of construction: 2012

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inside by Haberstroh Schneider Architekten appeared first on Dezeen.

Daniel Libeskind is the twelfth addition to our A-Zdvent calendar of architects. Pictured here is the New York architect’s extension to the Dresden Museum of Military History, which features a pointed steel and glass shard through the skin of the historic museum, but he also recently unveiled plans to build an angular apartment block in Berlin.

See more architecture by Daniel Libeskind »

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Daniel Libeskind appeared first on Dezeen.

Flaps in this range of clothing by Dutch fashion designer Pauline van Dongen open up to reveal solar panels, enabling the wearer to become a walking mobile phone charger (+ movie).

Pauline van Dongen collaborated with Christiaan Holland from the HAN University of Applied Sciences and solar energy expert Gert Jan Jongerden on the Wearable Solar project, which aims to integrate photovoltaic technology into comfortable and fashionable clothing.

“Wearable Solar is about integrating solar cells into fashion, so by augmenting a garment with solar cells the body can be an extra source of energy,” Van Dongen told Dezeen at the Wearable Futures conference in London. “It’s really about the true integration of technology and fashion, which can transcend the realm of gadgets.”

The dress features 72 flexible cells attached to panels on the front of the garment that can be folded outwards to capture sunlight. Forty-eight rigid crystal solar panels are incorporated into leather flaps on the jacket’s shoulders and waist so they can be revealed when the sun shines and hidden when not in use.

A standard charging plug connects the solar panels directly to a mobile device, and Van Dongen claimed that a garment exposed to direct sunlight for one hour could capture enough energy to charge a typical smartphone to 50 percent capacity.

Van Dongen said the comfort and weight of these garments could be improved by experimenting with flexible photovoltaic cells, adding that other hardware such as batteries also needs to be refined before wearable technology will become part of everyday life.

“Wearability is very important to my work because I am a fashion designer,” explained Van Dongen. “We’re dealing here with the human body and it’s not just a static body, it’s dealing with movement and expressions, a sensory surface so it’s very important to stress the wearability.”

“We’re not very far away from people actually wearing these garments that I design,” said Van Dongen, adding that the project team are also currently seeking investment to translate it into a commercially viable enterprise.

“I think it’s important to see which technologies are really ready to be implemented, how people would deal with them, how people would feel in those clothes, what it could mean to them. And of course looking at the cost of these technologies. If you’re integrating 80 solar cells then of course you’re adding to the cost and you have to look at how much people are willing to pay for it.”

The project is being presented at Wearable Futures, an event showcasing innovations in wearable technologies which is taking place in London from 10-11 December.

Here is some more information from the designer:

Wearable Solar

Solar cells have been constructed to capture solar light and convert it into electricity. Their internal structure is layered and resembles the stratified cells of the human body, which naturally interacts with sunlight. If a body is augmented with solar cells it will embody enough electrical power to become a real source of energy. For the Wearable Solar project, a coat and a dress have been designed placing solar cells close to the body.

The two wool and leather prototypes comprise parts with solar cells which can be revealed when the sun shines or folded away and worn invisibly when they aren’t directly needed. The coat incorporates 48 rigid solar cells while the dress 72 flexible solar cells. Each of them, if worn in the full sun for an hour, can store enough energy to allow a typical smartphone to be 50% charged. The Sun is the biggest source of energy on earth and now that fossil fuels are depleting, it’s time we come up with a sustainable alternative.

The multi-disciplinary team behind Wearable Solar is composed by: Pauline van Dongen, Christiaan Holland (Project leader Gelderland Valoriseert from the HAN) and Gert Jan Jongerden (Solar-energy expert).

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for charging a mobile phone appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen and MINI World Tour: Jacques Herzog of Herzog & de Meuron explains how the Pérez Art Museum Miami was designed so that everything is visible and there is no strict barrier between inside and outside, in our second movie from Miami.

“The building is a naked structure; everything you see is at the same time carrying, so structural, and space-making, so spaces defining and containing,” Herzog tells Dezeen.

“There is no inside/outside, there is nothing that is masked, so everything you get is doing all you expect from architecture. In that sense it’s a very honest or very archaic architecture.”

Herzog & de Meuron‘s Pérez Art Museum Miami opened to the public last week in downtown Miami and accommodates 3000 square-metres of galleries within a three-storey complex with a huge elevated veranda.

A car park is on show beneath the building, while a single roof shelters both indoor and outdoor spaces.

“Typologically you could say that this is a building built on stilts,” says the architect. “Layers end with a trellis-like roof and start with a platform which is also kind of a trellis, under which you can park your car and that also is open to the elements. Literally everything is visible, is part of the whole.”

The architect describes how galleries were designed to open out to the veranda so that “landscape would walk inside the building”.

“We wanted to do buildings that are transparent or permeable, so that inside/outside would not be a strict barrier,” he explains.

Exhibition galleries occupy the two lower floors of the museum and were organised to encourage a fluid transition between spaces.

“The special concept of the museum is this kind of sequence of spaces, which are more fluid,” says Herzog. “It’s a new kind of museum typology, which we believe was right to do here.”

The building also features an auditorium that doubles up as a connecting staircase.

“The auditorium staircase is an attempt to do more than just an auditorium – that would be a space that is closed and only used when there is a performance or conference – but to introduce it so that you have a grand stair leading people up to the main gallery floor,” says the architect.

He continues: “By means of curtains it can be subdivided, so it gives more opportunities to the curators and directors, and the people here.”

Bay windows puncture the walls of the first-floor galleries and contain benches that visitors can use to take a break from exhibitions.

“This is to give the windows more than just the role of being a hole in the facade,” adds Herzog. “This again is a transitional element between inside and outside, inviting people to rest, sit and warm up a little bit.”

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Museum “is a naked structure” appeared first on Dezeen.