Hasta La Ideas

Movie: a recently completed concrete house in São Paulo is depicted as a luxury home from the 1950s in the latest architecture film by Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan.

Kogan, founder of São Paulo office Studio MK27, worked with film producer Lea van Steen to produce the movie, which is entitled Modern Living and based on a Bauhaus film by the late architect Richard Paulick.

The movie centres around Casa Pinheiro, a family house comprising rectilinear concrete blocks that appear to be stacked on top of one another at perpendicular angles.

A large living and dining room occupies the ground floor of the building and can be opened out to the garden by sliding glass walls, while the middle floor accommodates four bedrooms with access to a roof deck and the uppermost level contains a separate family room.

In the film, these spaces are presented as “the latest innovations in housing construction and technology,” filled with gadgets and space-saving solutions, such as a built-in vacuum cleaner and chutes for laundry and rubbish.

A garage is tucked away in the basement and is shown in the movie as the storage area for the owner’s classic Corvette.

Security is also highlighted in the film, as a housekeeper demonstrates how post can be collected “in total isolation from the outside world” and how every space can be monitored using a CCTV system.

Architect Marcio Kogan worked as a film director in his early career and this is the third film he’s produced at one of his buildings, following a house filmed through the eyes of the client’s pet cat.

Other recent buildings by Studio MK27 include a photography studio with two folding walls and a house where two chunky concrete storeys are perched above a living room without walls. See more architecture by Studio MK27 »

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See more houses in Brazil »

Photography is Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a project description from Studio MK27:

Casa Pinheiro

The Pinheiro house is a puzzle game. Rotating three volumes around one nucleus generated not only a particular spatial dynamic, but also different visual relations between empty and full, between the private and semiprivate areas and the view of the city.

The site is located on the other side of the Pinheiros River, one of the main rivers that define and cut into the city of São Paulo, in an essentially residential neighborhood, Morumbi. From there it is possible to see the entire valley filled with gardened houses, the river and, on the other margin, another hill, the corporate area of the city drawing the metropolitan skyline with its typical skyscrapers.

The program boasts three floors: a garden, a terrace with fireplace and barbecue, home theatre, dining and living rooms, washroom, kitchen, four bedrooms, office and family room. In the basement: a garage, laundry room, utility rooms and a gym. The nucleus of the circulation is made of a continuous staircase joined in a structural wall. This block, which organises the structure and distributes the fluxes, is the pivot around which the boxes revolve.

The volumes are developed to create constant and distinct relations between the inner and outer spaces. The bedrooms on the second floor look out to the pool and take advantage of the deck above the roof of the living and dining rooms. The box comprising the bedrooms projects outwards over both sides of the first box. From one side, the cantilever determines the main entrance of the house and, on the other, it shades the terrace.

The spiral movement continues with the third box, supported by the second and projecting outwards over the first. It shades the window of the master bedroom and part of the deck while, simultaneously, creates new visual relations with the other bedrooms and the terrace.

All of the boxes are bare concrete frames. The living room and the bedrooms have their sides closed by freijó wooden folding panels which filter the light and allow for permanent crossed ventilation. The family room, on the top floor is enclosed by glass, to preserve the view.

The result strengthens interactions, the crossing of eye views and vectors through the garden: eyes that see the view and the treetops around the pool, eyes that are turned back to the house itself, its volumetry and, above all else, to its own life.

Project: Pinheiro House
Location: São Paulo, Brazil

Architecture: Studio MK27
Architect: Marcio Kogan
Co-architect: Lair Reis
Interiors: Diana Radomysler

Collaborators: Carolina Castroviejo, Carlos Costa, Laura Guedes, Mariana Simas, Oswaldo Pessano, Suzana Glogowski
Team: Andrea Macruz, Samanta Cafardo, Renata Furlanetto
Architecture collaborator: Fernanda Reiva

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Studio MK27 appeared first on Dezeen.

Our new Pinterest board is full of design by Japanese studio Nendo, including a fluffy-looking chair, a range of cutlery that looks as though it’s been carved from flint and a retail interior for shoe brand Camper. See our new Nendo Pinterest board »

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Italian designer Luca Nichetto has created a pavilion in Beijing with a facade covered in 1200 vertical brass tubes (+ slideshow).

Nichetto‘s pavilion sits within a garden and houses a range of design showrooms.

The tube facade is a reference to blades of grass and the landscaped setting in which the pavilion sits.

The brass tubes will oxidise and change colour naturally as time passes.

Behind the facade sit large bronze monoliths with generous windows revealing the exhibition spaces inside.

The reception and business area in the centre is clad in elm wood recycled from old houses in the Hebei province.

White plaster and concrete floors provide a plain backdrop for the products on sale in the showrooms.

The first floor mezzanine is lit by a large skylight, which is embedded within the exposed concrete beams.

The railings are decorated with gridded lattice work that references the plan of the building, and the same pattern is used for the window in the reception area, rugs and air-conditioning grids.

The pavilion opened to coincide with Beijing Design Week, which took place from 26 September to 3 October.

Other pavilions that have featured on Dezeen include an austere concrete pavilion in Lisbon with a staggered corridor and a hidden courtyard and a temporary pavilion by Shigeru Ban made from cardboard tubes. See more pavilions »

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by Luca Nichetto appeared first on Dezeen.

A cluster of seven house-shaped buildings makes up this cancer care centre in Næstved, Denmark, by Copenhagen firm EFFEKT (+ slideshow).

Rather than designing the facility as one large structure, EFFEKT planned a series of domestic-scale buildings with gabled roof profiles and arranged them around a pair of courtyards on a site at the Næstved Hospital.

“Varying roof heights and materials means that the building will have its own unique architectural character that clearly distinguishes it from the surrounding hospital buildings,” said the architects.

White fibre-cement boards are arranged horizontally across the exterior walls and roof of each block, apart from two facades that are clad in vertical timber boards to signify the positions of entrances.

The building was commissioned by the Danish Cancer Society and provides a centre where anyone affected by cancer can find out more about the illness or receive counselling. It is located close to the hospital’s cancer ward, providing easy access for patients and family members.

Each house-shaped building provides a different function and they include a library, a kitchen, private meeting rooms, a lounge, a shop, a gym and a healthcare facility.

“The houses offer a wide range of rooms for informal advice, therapy and interaction with a focus on the user’s comfort and wellbeing,” explained the architects.

Two courtyards are positioned between the buildings and feature paved areas filled with garden furniture.

Bookshelves cover entire walls, integrating small window seats, while a mixture of homely furnishings feature throughout.

Other cancer-care facilities we’ve featured include a series of Maggie’s Centres, which were developed in the UK to provide support to anyone affected by cancer and have been designed by architects including Snøhetta and OMA. See more Maggie’s Centres »

Another project we’ve published by EFFEKT is a visitor centre with a ramped green roof in Copenhagen.

Exterior photography is by Quintin Lake. Interior photography is by Thomas Ibsen.

Here’s a short description from the architects:

Livsrum – Cancer Counselling Centre, Næstved, Denmark

Livsrum is EFFEKT’s project in the competition for a new cancer counselling centre at Næstved Hospital in Denmark in collaboration with Hoffmann and Lyngkilde.

The centre is designed as a cluster of seven small houses around two green outdoor spaces.

Each house has its own specific function and together they form a coherent sequence of different spaces and functions such as a library, kitchen, conversation rooms, lounge, shops, gym, and wellness facilities.

The house offers a wide range of different rooms for informal advice, therapy and interaction with a focus on the users’ comfort and wellbeing.

A varying roof height and materials used means that the building will have its own unique architectural character that clearly distinguishes it from the surrounding hospital buildings.

With the location of the cancer counselling centre close to the hospital’s cancer ward, it is set for a closer collaboration between hospital staff and the Danish Cancer Society.

In the spring of 2013 the Danish Cancer Society staff and volunteers in Næstved expects to offer cancer patients and caregivers a warm welcome in the new cancer counselling centre.

Client: The Danish Cancer Society
Architect: EFFEKT
Engineers: Lyngkilde
Contractor: Hoffmann

Size: 740 square metres
Type: Cancer counselling centre
Site: Næstved, Copenhagen, Denmark

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by EFFEKT appeared first on Dezeen.

Beijing designers reMIX Studio created a string installation that guided visitors through a derelict building to a pop-up restaurant at Beijing Design Week 2013 (+ slideshow).

Entitled Paizi 38, reMIX Studio created the intervention as part of the urban regeneration of the historic Dashilar hutong in Beijing.

Lengths of string and a wooden path created a journey through three traditional courtyards, leading visitors over rubble and through holes in the walls.

Threaded through the doorways, the strings spanned room lengths in grouped arrangements.

In the final courtyard space, lightbulbs hung from the ends of the strings over dining tables at a temporary restaurant.

“The city builds millions of square metres every year at an uncontrollable speed whilst instead this project forces the investors, the designers, the city to a new slowed-down development,” said the practice.

Following the temporary intervention for this year’s Beijing Design Week, the space is to be turned into a boutique hotel.

At last year’s event a constellation of illuminated ceramic yoghurt pots were hung in the stairwell of a former bicycle factory and Nike shoe material was used to create a colourful web in a rusting gas tower.

See more installation design »
See more architecture and design in Beijing »

Here’s some more information from the designers:

This space will become after the Beijing Design Week a new boutique hotel that will be grafted into the existing building through precise insertions and punctual modifications.

These considerations are the premises and the constrictions of the temporary installation we are exhibiting today. Starting from the structural survey and the analysis of the actual spaces that in succession form an extended horizontal layered system – an unique feature for a building typology such as this one especially in this area of Beijing.

We propose a new connective path that reveals the existing building secrets and tunnelling throughout the architectural body it highlights in few observations points the quality and characteristics of the future intervention.

The system of new portals is a succession of points of view that, passing in the position where the new hotel circulation will be placed, forces the visitors into an unexpected journey; challenging his imagination and forcing him to redefine the meaning of “exploration”.

The path ends in the main room where a series of photographs taken from the Orchid hotel construction will show the quality of the future refurbishment.

The tunnel, branching in a three lines lighting feature marks visually the areas of the main space where the opening dinner of the Beijing Design Week will take place.

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by reMIX Studio appeared first on Dezeen.