Hasta La Ideas

This towering commercial block in Ginza, Tokyo, by Amano Design Office features a faceted aluminium facade reminiscent of a crumpled-up sweet wrapper (+ slideshow).

Tokyo-based Amano Design Office was asked to design an eye-catching building that would entice shoppers from Ginza’s Central Street to a second shopping street just beyond.

The nine-storey tower accommodates small units that can be used as either offices or shops. Apart from the glazed ground floor, each storey is concealed behind a double-layer facade that comprises a perforated metal exterior and a clear glass interior.

The architects used computers to generate the faceted aluminium form, then added a floral pattern to soften the appearance.

“In the neighbourhood of mostly modernist architecture with horizontal and vertical or geometric shapes, the building has a proper feeling of strangeness, attracts special attention and has an appeal as a commercial building,” they explained.

Lighting installed behind the metal panels is programmed to change colour depending on the season, switching between shades of red, blue and green.

“The facade becomes a part of the interior decoration and obviates the need for window treatments such as blinds or curtains,” added the architects.

Other commercial buildings from Japan with unusual facades include a herringbone-patterned boutique designed by OMA and a Tokyo bookstore covered in hundreds of interlocking T-shapes. See more architecture in Tokyo »

Photography is by Nacasa & Partners.

Here’s the project description from the architects:

Dear Ginza Building

The client is a developer company. It purchased a long-sought after lot in Ginza, and planned to build a commercial/office building. The building site is on the Ginza 1-chome Gaslight Street, which is one street behind the Ginza Central Street. It is on the back side of the Mizuho Bank and Pola Ginza buildings on the Central Street. The atmosphere is quite different from the gorgeous Central Street, and the site is on an empty street which is often seen behind the street with large-sized buildings. Attracting as many people as possible into such a street is our task. The client desired the building to be a gorgeous existence. In addition, the designer desired to provide a “slight feeling of strangeness” to the passersby that would attract them to the building.

Considering the views from the inside, simply obtaining openness with glass seems futile, since the outside scenery is hopeless. Therefore, a double skin structure is employed, which consists of glass curtain walls and graphically treated aluminium punched metal. The facade becomes a part of the interior decoration and obviates the need for window treatments such as blinds or curtains. By using a double skin, reduction of the air conditioning load and the glass cleaning burden was also intended.

The irregular facade design was determined by computing a design to avoid arbitrary forms and to approximate forms in nature. We thought that a well-made incidental form would likely be a less-disagreeable design. In the neighbourhood of mostly modernist architecture with horizontal and vertical or geometric shapes, the building has a proper feeling of strangeness, attracts special attention, and has an appeal as a commercial building. The abstract flower graphic is used to balance the impression of the facade, i.e., to free it up from becoming too edgy.

By computing the design, individual aluminium punched panels are irregular with different angles and shapes, yet all fit into a standard size, resulting in excellent material yield. To avoid being clunky, an extremely lightweight structure is required. Therefore, much caution was taken in its details. The coloured LED upper lighting, which is installed inside the double skin, entertains the passersby with different programs depending on the season. Expected tenants included a beauty salon and aesthetic salon, and the expectations are materialising.

Building location: Ginza-1-chome, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Completion year: March 2013
Designer: amano design office
Collaborators: Atorie Oica, Azzurro Architects
Construction firm: Kumagai Gumi Co.,Ltd.

Main use: store building and office building
Lot size: 187.20 sqm
Building area: 155.55 sqm
Total floor space: 1300.02 sqm
Maximum height above rail level: 31.955 m
Structure: steel frame
Number of stairs or stories: nine storeys above ground and one underground story
Main material: aluminium graphic punching metal, extruded cement panel

The post Dear Ginza Building by
Amano Design Office appeared first on Dezeen.

Perimeter skylights throw light across a grid of exposed wooden ceiling beams inside our second house this week from Japanese studio mA-style Architects (+ slideshow).

Positioned in a shady location between two neighbouring buildings in Aichi, Japan, the wooden house couldn’t have many windows, so mA-style Architects added skylights around each side of the flat roof.

Daylight disperses itself through the interior by bouncing off both the ceiling beams and the laminated wooden walls.

“The design intended to create a space with uniformly distributed light by adjusting the way of letting daylight in and the way of directing the light,” said the architects.

Bedrooms and storage spaces are contained within two-storey boxes scattered through the interior. Rectangular openings lead into the spaces, plus those at first-floor are accessed using wooden ladders.

“Considering each box as a house, the empty spaces in between can be seen as paths of plazas and remind us of a small town enclosed in light,” the architects added.

A bathroom, a study space, bookshelves and a kitchen with steel surfaces line the perimeter of the open-plan space.

White-painted wooden panels clad the exterior of the rectilinear structure, including a sliding door that gives the house a corner entrance.

Led by partners Atsushi and Mayumi Kawamoto, mA-style Architects has also completed a house with small attic spaces tucked into the triangular roof and an elevated house that points out like a giant rectangular telescope.

See more architecture by mA-style Architects »
See more Japanese houses »

Photography is by Kai Nakamura.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Light Walls House

The site is in a shady location where a two-story neighbouring house closely stands on the south side, and even the shade and shadow on the path intensify the impression of darkness.

Therefore, the design intended to create a space with uniformly distributed light by adjusting the way of letting daylight in, and the way of directing the light.

By taking into consideration the space for the residents, the functions for living, and the relationship with the surrounding environment, creation of a diversity and richness in the house was intended by controlling the concept of light.

Along the edges of the 9.1m square roof, sky lights are made, as if creating an outline, in order to provide sunlight.

The roof beams narrow the sunlight, and the slightly angled clapboard interior walls with laminated wood reflect and diffuse the light.

As a result, soft and uniformly distributed light is created and surrounds the entire space.

Along the outline of lighting, work spaces such as a kitchen, bathroom, and study are arranged. Private spaces such as bedrooms and storage are allocated into four boxes.

The path-like spaces created between them are public spaces. Each box attempts to balance within a large spatial volume.

Light coupled with the rhythm of scale raises the possibilities of the living space for the residents.

Considering each box as a house, the empty spaces in between can be seen as paths or plazas, and remind us of a small town enclosed in light.

The empty spaces, which cause shortening or elongating of distances between people, are intermediate spaces for the residents, as well as intermediate spaces that are connected to the outside when the corridor is open, and these are the image of a social structure that includes a variety of individuals.

In terms of a natural component, in which light is softened by small manipulations, and of a social component, in which a town is created in the house, this house turned out to be a courtyard house of light where new values are discovered.

The post Light Walls House by
mA-style Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Mirrored walls and glass ceilings transform this office interior in Shanghai into a labyrinth of reflected light and imagery (+ slideshow).

Shanghai studio AIM Architecture designed the office for Soho China, the property developers behind Zaha Hadid’s Galaxy Soho and Wangjing Soho projects, and it occupies a space in the company’s Fuxing Plaza complex.

The space functions as a showroom, so the architects wanted to show customers the raw condition of the office units available to rent.

“As Soho rents out the offices in this building in bare shell state, the main design idea is to show the customers what they are actually getting, and at the same time add a layer of inspiring luxury to it,” they said.

Ventilation ducts and other service pipes are visible through a continuous glass ceiling, while glass floors surround individual meeting rooms.

Mirrored partitions alternate with glass screens and windows, juxtaposing views between rooms with framed apertures of the Shanghai skyline.

“The glass-only approach allows a complexity that emerges from a simple choice,” added the architects.

The entrance to the office is via an all-white corridor, where strips of light are reflected to create the illusion of a never-ending grid.

Other offices filled with mirrors and glass include a Tokyo office with a hidden slide and a production studio in New York with translucent screens and glass partitions. See more office interiors »

Photography is by Jerry Yin, Chief Architect, SOHO China.

Here’s a project description from AIM Architecture:

Glass office by AIM Architecture for SOHO China

An all glass and mirror inner cladding exposes the infrastructure of SOHO’s new office building in Shanghai. The glass creates manifold reflections of the sales models and meeting rooms, while leaving the original height and structure in view. This creates a ‘double reality’ that merges with the stunning views of downtown Shanghai.

Membrane ceilings create extra attention for the models. Light and surfaces reflect throughout the space, even further diffused by half see-through mirrors. Some of the floors are islands of stone or carpet, to create static moments to offset this sea of reflectivity.

As SOHO rents out the offices in this building in bare shell state, the main design idea is to show the customers what they are actually getting, and at the same time add a layer of inspiring luxury to it.

The glass-only approach allows creating a complexity that emerges from a simple choice. That is what makes this project bold and layered at the same time.

This project by AIM Architecture is part of Fuxing Plaza, a large mixed-use complex (140.000m2) that hopefully will boost more energy and surprises for the city.

Date of realisation: September 2013
Design team: Wendy Saunders, Vincent de Graaf, German Roig, Carter Chen and Jiao Yan.
Client: SOHO China

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by AIM Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

Small attic spaces are tucked between the ribs of a triangular roof at this house extension in Japan by mA-style Architects (+ slideshow).

Japanese firm mA-style Architects designed the timber roof as a series of V-shaped frames, which sit over a rectilinear base and create triangular windows at each end.

Added to the west side of a family house, the Koya No Sumika extension provides a separate living and dining space for a couple and is connected to the main building by a glass and timber passageway.

“The young couple desired feelings of ease and spaces that ensure quiet and comfortable times,” said the architects. “The extension is designed as a minimum living space and pursues both maintaining distance and retaining fertile relationships.”

Small pockets slotted into the sides of the living area provide storage spaces for books and plants, as well as study areas with wooden desks and chairs.

A set of protruding wooden stairs and a separate ladder lead to the compact attic spaces overhead, as well as to a bed deck at the front of the building.

Bare light bulbs hang down from the triangular ceiling sections to illuminate the space.

Other mA-style Architects projects we’ve featured are an elevated house in the shape of a giant rectangular telescope, a wooden house lifted off the ground and curved like the hull of a boat and a metal-clad house with a smaller wooden house inside. See more Japanese houses »

Photography is by Kai Nakamura.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Koya No Sumika

This is an extension plan for a young couple’s house next to the main house. The main house is a one story Japanese style house with about 200m2, which is commonly seen in rural areas.

It is a big house with many rooms and mainly consists of large spaces for people to gather and to provide hospitality. However, the young couple desired feelings of ease and spaces that ensure quiet and comfortable times.

A simple extension may enable each of the house’s residents to live completely separated, but the relationship between the families and the connection with the main house might be lost.

Therefore, by utilising the functions for living in the main house, the extension is designed as a minimum living space, and pursues both maintaining distance and retaining fertile relationships.

The extension is attached by a connecting-corridor on the west side of the main house. This enables the residents to switch their mindset before entering into the other living space, and the common garden maintains a proper sense of distance. By relying on the main house for the large kitchen, bathroom, and future children’s room, only a few functions for a living space are required for the extended part.

The living spaces are aggregated into a simple continuous structure, which consists of small, 2m high, U-shaped bearing walls. A V-beam roof truss is made with 62mm panels and structural plywood on both sides, and it is topped with a 69mm thin roof.

By overlapping the bearing walls and the V-beam frame, and by using a variety of finishes, contrasting spaces are created and a sense of scale in the vertical direction is born in the flat house. By doing so, as the residents’ living scenes unfold, light and air freely circulate in the space, and the people’s lines-of-sight extend beyond the area in a state of freedom. We intended to leave a rich blank space that fosters the imaginations of the residents.

The post Koya No Sumika by
mA-style Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Riders can use their iPhone as the dashboard for this electric bike designed by Spanish transport firm The Electric Mobility Company.

A free app allows the user to connect their Apple iPhone with the Xkuty One bike, and set parameters such as maximum speed, acceleration style and battery consumption. The phone then clips to the centre of the handlebars to act as a speedometer and monitor battery life.

Using the iPhone’s gyroscope, which monitors orientation and angular momentum, the app can be programmed to call an emergency contact if it senses a collision or fall.

The Electric Mobility Company claims it is “the world’s first electric bike with full iPhone integration”.

“Xkuty was born from our belief that we need to change the way we travel,” said the company’s CEO Carlos Felipe. “The objective was to develop an affordable, intuitive and simple alternative to the more traditional urban transportation.”

The silent bike can reach speeds of 35 kilometres-per-hour and features hydraulic brakes at the front and back. Seat and handlebar grip colours can be chosen from a range of bright shades, with helmet trims to match.

The model will from cost €2800 (£2360) once available and a waiting list for the product has been set up on the company’s website.

Other bicycles on Dezeen include one that can be pedalled with hands and feet at the same time, and another made from the same strong and lightweight plastic used in fighter jet canopies.

See more bicycles »
See more transport design »

Here’s some more information from The Electric Mobility Company:

Xkuty One: No Noise, No Fumes, No Sweat!

The Electric Mobility Company introduce Xkuty: the world’s first electric bike with full iPhone integration.

Innovative urban transport company, The Electric Mobility Company, are announcing the launch of their revelation in modern transport; Xkuty One, the first fully iPhone integrated electric bike.

Xkuty is the whole package

Xkuty’s beautifully simple design makes it the perfect city companion. From the commuter vehicle of smartest businessman to the round-town runaround of the city fresher, its clean lines and fully customisable design makes Xkuty a hit with anyone who sees it. And Xkuty’s not just beautiful, it’s intelligent too! The Xkuty ethos focuses on efficiency, sustainability and environmental awareness. With its light frame and silent electric motor, Xkuty allows you to tour the city with no noise, no fumes and no effort!

Xkuty wants to make the world a better place

“Xkuty was born from our belief that we need to change the way we travel,” says Carlos Felipe, CEO of The Electric Mobility Company. “The objective was to develop an affordable, intuitive and simple alternative to the more traditional urban transportation. We wanted something that offered more than just function to the rider, something deeper that put the the emphasis on emotion and the relationship between vehicle and rider. Thus, Xkuty was born.”

Xkuty loves your iPhone (and your iPhone loves Xkuty right back)

Thanks to the Xkuty App, available to download free from the Apple App Store, your iPhone becomes the control panel of your Xkuty, allowing you to modify the key parameters of your bike: set your maximum speed, control the power curve, select various acceleration styles and even adjust battery consumption with ECO and Sport modes.

The Xkuty App not only allows you to control your Xkuty throughout the ride, but also keeps an eye on your bike when you’re not around! Using the iPhone gyroscope, if it detects your Xkuty has fallen over it automatically calls the number of your choice to alert you.

Xkuty has friends in high places

In conjunction with Aspar team, Xkuty saw its debut during the twelfth season of 2013 Moto GP at Silverstone Circuit, a celebration of speed, engineering and motorcycling. The Aspar team will have six Xkuty bikes as support vehicles for the next two seasons, throughout the Championships which will be held in San Marino, Spain, Malaysia and Japan.

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The Electric Mobility Company appeared first on Dezeen.