Rotterdam studio Kraaijvanger has added two new buildings to a school in a suburb of the Dutch capital, The Hague, with pitched roofs and rustic materials that reference the site’s original role as a farm (+ slideshow).
Kraaijvanger‘s additions to the American School of The Hague include a sports hall and a larger barn-like building that houses a nursery, 12 classrooms and a gym for babies and children up to the age of six.
The new “barn” adjoins a sixteenth-century farmhouse that the architects are currently renovating. The site’s historic significance meant that the height and shape of the buildings had to correspond with the existing agricultural structures.
“We weren’t allowed to build any higher than the old farm buildings so we had to bury the lower storey below ground,” architect Annemiek Bleumink told Dezeen.
Wood is used for the external cladding to tie the buildings in with their rustic setting, as well as for internal beams and columns that continue the natural look indoors.
“Because the buildings are used by small children we wanted to use warm materials for both the exterior and the interior,” explained Bleumink.
Large windows in the sloping roof fill the nursery classrooms with natural light, while a glazed walkway traverses a void between that part of the building and an atrium housing the main entrance.
A bridge crossing a public road links the “barn” with the sports building, which has sloping roofs covered in plants that further emphasise the scheme’s agrarian aesthetic.
School as farmyard: expansion of the American School of the Hague with the Early Childhood Center & renovation monument farm Ter Weer.
As a farm with several buildings, The American School of The Hague in Wassenaar is expanded for The Early Childhood. This set-up fits the small scale of the area. On the location stood already the 16th century farmhouse ‘Ter Weer’. The farm is restored and incorporated into the whole. The entire complex is integrated into the environment and the landscape. The school has a capacity for 250 children from 0 to 6 years and includes a nursery, twelve classrooms, a gym and a multipurpose room. The entrance is in line with the arrival route over the Deijlerweg and is designed as a monumental glass heart between the farm and the ‘barn’.
Dialogue between old and new
The dialogue between the two buildings, can be felt both inside and outside. The expansion partly deepened to encrouch the monument is not too much. The new and the old are connected to each other by a bridge in the new atrium. The materialization of the new building refers to a barn by applying wood substructures, caps and wooden parts for wall cladding.
Program
The barn houses the classrooms. Because of the inclined slope they all recieve enough daylight. The classrooms are characterized by the entry of natural light, the use of healthy materials and the direct relationship with the surrounding landscape. In farmhouse are located the administrative functions of the school a lunch room for 100 children, a kitchen, a nursery, a library and a local labor.
The sports facilities are housed in a separate building. It contains a gymnasium, changing rooms, a canteen and the clubhouse of the local handball association. The building is designed as two interlocking volumes with sloping green roofs, matching the shape of the extension and rural character of the area. A large window is placed in the gymnasium overlooking the connecting bridge to the main building and offers insight from the school and outside play areas.
Around the school are several playgrounds to suit the different age groups. They are designed by design studio van Ginneken with greenery, seating and educational components such as a vegetable garden. Hedges, wooden fences and gentle slopes locks provide a friendly separation between the different squares. In an adjacent site parking there are gravel pavement and rows of trees between the parking.
The building is fully integrated into the environment and the surrounding landscape. The design of the landscape is based on the objectives of the school. A healthy environment where young children playfully learn why sustainability matters. By using water, natural materials and to show how energy is generated children come in a natural way in contact with this theme. The building makes use of solar energy, LED fixtures, cold and heat storage, wastewater reuse and craddle to craddle materials such as Accoya cladding.
News:an Islamic cemetery in Austria and a restored market hall in Iran are among the five winners of the 2013 Aga Khan Award for Architecture (+ slideshow).
Rabat-Salé Urban Infrastructure Project, Morocco
A health centre in Sudan, a reconstructed community in Palastine and a concrete bridge in Morocco were also named as recipients for the triennial accolade, which recognises architectural projects that exhibit social responsibility as well as design quality.
A jury including architects David Adjaye, Wang Shu and Murat Tabanlıoğlu selected the five winners from a shortlist of 20 projects and they were revealed at a ceremony in Lisbon on Friday night. A $1 million prize will be shared between the recipients, with allocations given to builders, clients and engineers, as well as the architects.
Here’s some more information about each winning project from the competition organisers:
Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery, Khartoum, Sudan
The Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery, which consists of a hospital with 63 beds, serves over 50,000 patients per year, drawing from a catchment area in eastern Africa of over 300 million people. The welcoming architecture “provides an exemplary prototype for the region as well as for the field”, remarked the Master Jury in their citation. The Centre meets the high technical demands of a hospital with complex functions, including three operating theatres, while providing a number of eco-friendly solutions to common problems. Mixed modes of ventilation and natural light enable all spaces to be homely and intimate. In addition to solar panels and special insulation techniques, the architects have reused 90 six- metre (20-foot) containers that had been discarded after being used to transport construction materials for the Centre.
Revitalisation of Birzeit Historic Centre, Birzeit, Palestine
The five-year project, which will eventually encompass 50 villages, is part of a rehabilitation master plan initiated by the Riwaq Centre for Architectural Conservation. The project has transformed the decaying town of Birzeit, creating employment and reviving traditional crafts. The Master Jury remarked that the project brought together “stakeholders and local craftsmen into a process of healing that is not merely physical but that is social, economic and political”. By focusing on towns and villages in the area under Palestinian civil authority – where an estimated 50 percent of the surviving historic structures are located and where most Palestinians live – Riwaq realised that it could save much of the local heritage while at the same time having greatest significant socio-economic impact.
Rabat-Salé Urban Infrastructure Project, Morocco
Linking Rabat and Salé to form an urban hub, the project was born out of a new vision of large-scale regeneration, one in which improved transportation and mobility were to be priority components of the larger urban plan. The project combines exemplary bridge design, infrastructure improvement and urban planning. As a result, the Hassan II Bridge has become a new icon for Rabat-Salé, reinforcing a modern, progressive, twin-city identity. The Master Jury remarked that the project was “a sophisticated and cohesive model for future infrastructure projects, especially in places of rapid urbanisation”.
Rehabilitation of Tabriz Bazaar, Tabriz, Iran
With origins in the 10th century, the Tabriz Bazaar has long functioned as a main commercial centre for the city. But by the late 20th century, it had begun to deteriorate. To rehabilitate the structures, which cover 27 hectares and over 5.5 kilometres of covered bazaars, a management framework was established that involved the bazaar community, municipal authorities and the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organisation (ICHTO). During the pilot restoration project, the government contributed 85 percent of the financial coverage and the bazaar community contributed 15 percent; in subsequent stages, the bazaar community – convinced of the value of the restoration – provided up to 90 percent of the funding. The Master Jury found that the project was “a remarkable example of stakeholder coordination and cooperation to restore and revitalise a unique structure”. Since 2000, numerous complexes within the bazaar have been rehabilitated, infrastructure has been improved and public facilities have been built.
Islamic Cemetery, Altach, Austria
Until recently, some Muslims in Austria would send their dead back to their countries of origin for burial. But the desire of Muslims to be buried in the countries of their birth led to the creation of a multi-faith, multi-ethnic group of actors, including local authorities and an NGO, to create a cemetery where funeral rites could be administered locally. The design was lauded by the Award’s Master Jury for the way it realised “the wish of an immigrant community seeking to create a space that fulfils their spiritual aspirations and, at the same time, responds to the context of their adopted country”. Inspired by garden design, it features roseate concrete walls, five staggered, rectangular gravesite enclosures, and a structure housing assembly and prayer rooms. The principal materials used were exposed reinforced concrete for the walls and oak wood for the ornamentation of the entrance facade and the interior of the prayer space.
News:Jean Nouvel’s One Central Park residential tower in Sydney will feature the world’s tallest vertical garden by inventor of living walls, Patrick Blanc.
Blanc, who has been designing living walls for over 30 years, has been working with Nouvel to install plants and vines up the 166-metre facade of Sydney’s One Central Park tower – which when completed later this year will become the tallest living wall in the world.
“The building, together with my vertical garden, will be an architectural work floating in the air, with plants growing on the walls – it will create a very special result that will be very new to Sydney,” said Blanc.
The vertical garden consists of 190 native Australian and 160 exotic plant species. The shrubbery covers 50 percent of the building’s facade and according to the designers intends to extend the greenery from the adjacent park onto the building.
The Central Park project by Ateliers Jean Nouvel consists of two adjoining residential towers that house 624 apartments. Nouvel’s towers are 116 metres and 64.5 metres in height and are part of a larger mixed-use development that includes apartments, shops, cafes, restaurants and office units.
The tallest tower features a large cantilever that contains 38 luxury penthouse apartments. On the underneath, there is a heliostat of motorised mirrors that direct sunlight down onto the surrounding gardens. After nightfall the cantilever is used as a canvas for a LED light installation by artist Yann Kersalé.
Public tours of Central Park project were held in June and the development is due for completion by January 2014.
News: Chinese architect Ma Yansong has revealed plans for a mixed-use complex in Beijing featuring skyscrapers, office blocks and public spaces modelled on mountains, hills and lakes.
Yansong, who leads Beijing studio MAD, designed the urban development for a site on the edge of Chaoyang Park, one of the largest city parks in the world. Rather than creating an obstacle between the city and the green space, the architect wanted to design buildings that bring the two districts together.
“By taking the natural beauty of lakes and mountains, the architectural complex can be read as a futuristic city landscape painting,” explained the designers. “High-rise buildings act as the peaks, individual office buildings as the slope, high-end offices as the ridge and residential buildings as mountain ranges, in combination with classical landscape elements like lakes, springs, forest, streams, valleys, rocks and peaks.”
Two skyscrapers overlooking the park will tower above the surrounding buildings, boasting striated volumes that reference organic rock formations.
The design is based on Yansong’s ongoing Shan-Shui City concept, which proposes a kind of architecture and urbanism that is influenced by nature and emotion, enabling city dwellers to reconnect with the natural world. The concept was first developed in the 1980s by Chinese scientists.
“The whole architectural complex does not look like it is ‘built’, but growing up naturally from its surrounding environment and recreating a new Shan-Shui space typology,” added the studio.
Ma Yansong’s latest design, Chaoyang Park project was launched at Times Square in New York city
At 6pm New York time, September 5th of 2013, a green building with distinct Oriental features designed by Ma Yansong was launched at Times Square in New York city. Located along the lake of Beijing Chaoyang Park, this city complex is the continuation “Shan-Shui City” – a design concept Ma Yansong has been pursuing. It is a new interpretation of China’s ancient natural philosophy in contemporary city. In this typical CBD area that is flooded with extreme-modernism buildings, Ma Yansong aims at infusing the vigorous Shan-Shui culture into the new urbanisation with this “Chao Yang Park” project.
Since this project is adjacent to the world’s second-largest city park, Ma Yansong hopes that it will not become the boundary that separates the park and the city. On the contrary, by introducing the Shan-shui elements into the design, the building and the park is to be merged into a whole landscape, so to have the nature extending into the city, and to create a land of idyllic beauty in the city. The design starts with the understanding that the park is part of the plot: by taking the natural beauty of lakes and mountains, the architectural complex can be read as a futuristic city landscape painting in which high-rise buildings act as the peaks, individual office buildings as the slope, high-end offices as the ridge and residential buildings as mountain ranges in combination with classical landscape elements like lakes, springs, forest, streams, valleys, rocks and peaks. As a result, the whole architectural complex does not look like they are “built” but growing up naturally from its surrounding environment and they recreate a new Shan-Shui space typology. People can feel both the grandeur of the holistic landscape and its exquisite inside scenery.
This project is an ecological complex mainly functions as offices and residential buildings. However, it goes beyond the usual concept of green building. It is a Chinese-featured green building developed with the “spirit of green”. What Ma Yansong concerns a lot about is to seek the new direction of contemporary architecture and city from the traditional culture. This also decides if Chinese architecture can find its own way for future urban development. The simulation of the landscape of an international metropolis should take over the traditional Shan-Shui spirit and restore the natural traditional values followed with the innovation of architectural forms and the transformation of urban structures. In conformity with this idea, Ma Yansong will proceed with his exploration and practice of Shan-Shui City.
News: Architecture for Humanity co-founders Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr have announced plans to leave the disaster-relief organisation they started 15 years ago.
Sinclair and Stohr launched Architecture for Humanity in 1999 to provide design and construction services to world-wide communities affected by natural disasters, but will now step down to undertake new ventures. Stohr will leave at the end of this month to pursue a career in television and web production, while Sinclair will remain in his position as executive director until April 2014, before moving on to focus on his own community projects. His replacement will be announced later in the year.
“It’s great to see something you started evolve into an institution,” commented Stohr. “We are excited about the future of the organisation and plan to continue lending support in whatever ways we can.”
Since launching, the San Francisco-based non-profit organisation has evolved into a global community of 63 local groups and has responded to 15 natural and man-made disasters with the completion of over 300 projects. The departure of its co-founders forms part of a new five-year vision that will see Architecture for Humanity increase its fund-raising and open new offices.
Before leaving, Sinclair will work alongside celebrity Jennifer Lopez to raise $1.5 million (£956,000) in support of future projects.
“Kate and Cameron’s vision and years of dedication and hard work leaves the organisation in a solid place to continue its leadership role in using architecture to solve humanitarian problems,” said board president Matt Charney. “They have built a world-class team of staff and volunteers committed to improving communities – both around the globe and in the US. I speak for the entire board of directors when I say we are extremely excited by the possibilities in front of us.”
Interview: forty years after he first met her, London design retailer Zeev Aram has launched a website dedicated to the work of his late friend, the modernist designer Eileen Gray. In this interview, Aram describes his working relationship with the elderly designer who, despite being frail and almost forgotten, could ” see with one eye what many architects couldn’t see with two eyes” (+ slideshow).
De Stijl side table, 1922
Zeev Aram is the owner of the Aram Store, which he launched in 1964 on London’s fashionable Kings Road. He introduced the work of many legendary designers to the UK, including Marcel Breuer, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Le Corbusier and Eileen Gray, who he first met in 1973.
Aram says that Gray, who was revered in the 1920s and 30s for her modernist furniture and architectural projects, was almost forgotten by the time he first encountered her and was “a bit bemused that somebody was interested in her work.”
Bibendum armchair, 1926
Working with Gray, who was in her early-90s at the time, Aram began to reproduce some of her most famous pieces, including the Bibendum armchair, the E1027 table, and the Tube Light.
The two became close friends and Gray would regularly visit Aram at his showroom to talk about design. “Working with her was very, very appealing because she knew exactly her mind,” recalls Aram. “With one eye she saw what many architects I know and admire couldn’t see with two eyes.”
Tube Light, 1927
A contemporary of Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer and J.J.P. Oud, Gray was a pioneer of tubular steel and glass furniture and her architecture projects, including two houses in the Alpes Maritimes in southeast France, are now considered among the most outstanding examples of modernism from the interwar period.
Aram feels that Gray deserves to be considered alongside “all the other big shots, like Le Corbusier, Mies, Breuer,” but because she chose a “quiet, modest life she was not included.”
Before she died in 1976, Gray offered Aram the exclusive license to reproduce her products, but he now struggles to find the energy to battle the copyists who continually produce imitations. “I’m not prepared to spend my life with lawyers and solicitors and in courtrooms to prove that we have the license and these people are charlatans,” he says.
E1027 table, 1927
The new website, www.eileengray.co.uk, features images and information about Gray’s products and a timeline of her extraordinary life, which is currently being made into a feature film called The Price of Desire starring Orla Brady and musician Alanis Morissette.
Here’s a full transcript of our interview with Zeev Aram:
Alyn Griffiths: When did you first meet Eileen Gray?
Zeev Aram: I met her in 1973. I think she was 92 or 93 and she was retired many years and living in her flat in Paris, but I actually met her here in London.
Alyn Griffiths: Did you meet with her to discuss licensing her products?
Zeev Aram: No, not at all. Actually, my knowledge of her was quite thin. I remembered reading about her many years earlier when I was in college and she was just part of the milieu of art deco artists and designers. I must admit I didn’t really remember anything about her.
But then, in the late sixties there was a very interesting article written by Joseph Rykwert in Domus magazine about her and that triggered my curiosity about this particular artist that nobody wrote about, nobody talked about, nobody had seen her work. Neither had I, and then in the beginning of 1973 there was a small exhibition that my friend, the architect Alan Irvine, mounted at the Heinz Gallery that used to be the RIBA gallery in Portman Square and he said come along, it’s a little exhibition but it’s very interesting. So I went to see it but there were only pictures, and about three or four pieces of furniture and one of her rugs, so not very impressive and I looked at the pieces and the photographs and then I asked him how can I get in touch with her because I think her work is very interesting and very important but seems to somehow slip the consciousness of everybody, including me.
Alyn Griffiths: What did you think was so important about it?
Zeev Aram: Well, when you see something that triggers your curiosity and interest, that’s a good enough reason to pursue it further. I didn’t know what would come out of it, I didn’t know if she would be at all interested in talking to me, but I did know that what I saw was good. I’d been around the design world for a while and introduced a few things to the country when we opened the store on the Kings Road in Chelsea, so I just wanted to see what’s going to happen.
E1027 house interior
Alyn Griffiths: What was she like as a person?
Zeev Aram: Descriptive wise, she was a frail little lady. She was wearing glasses and one glass was black because she got injured in her eye and couldn’t see in one eye. Very frail and very elegant, but not in an ostentatious kind of way. She was very shy but at the same time she knew exactly what’s what.
She used to come over to visit her niece, the painter Prunella Clough, who would drive Eileen to us and we would sit and have tea and talk about little things, always more generally about what do I think about design and the way it is going and the way architecture is becoming very anonymous and nothing to do with the person who designed it.
It becomes a statement of structure, not a statement of the person who designed it. When she retired, she lived in the Roquebrune flat for many years and she was always doing little models and mock ups and plans, so she never retired from the work, as such, she retired from the world of the work. When she visited we would wander around the showroom and she would ask about the new materials and the new techniques like injection moulding and ABS plastics. She wanted to understand what was going on.
Roattino, 1931
Alyn Griffiths: Did she ever talk about the past and her relationships with some of the great architects she has worked with?
Zeev Aram: Not really because actually, don’t forget we’re talking about a lady of 93. Her interest was never waning, but her energy was and her stamina was. So we constantly dealt with the work in hand, what we were doing. Whenever I raised something like that, she would say “that was a long time ago” and what that meant was, actually that’s not interesting to talk about now.
She was very much involved and she knew her value, but you see – Joseph Rykwert said in his article that she was completely left in the sidelines, and everybody rushed ahead and the last person actually to pay homage to her was Le Corbusier because in the late thirties he included her work in an exhibition he did. And since then, until this article as Rykwert said, it’s surprising that nobody has said, “Here’s somebody that’s really important”. Meanwhile of course, we have all the other big shots, like Corbusier, Mies, Breuer etc, and she’s not included.
E1027 table, Bibendum chair and Tube light
Alyn Griffiths: Obviously you think she should be?
Zeev Aram: Not only that she should be. Not mega importance like Corbusier, who did the Unité d’Habitation, which is a very important statement architecturally. He knew how to major in publicity. But because of her modesty, maybe because of her style of life, she chose the quiet, the modest. If you are modest and you don’t shout, nobody asks you to do anything. So that was what she was.
Working with her was very, very appealing because she knew exactly her mind. With one eye she saw what many architects I know and admire couldn’t see with two eyes.
She was so precise, so accurate and so confident. For her to sit on a chair such as Bibendum and say to me it should be 3cm wider. I mean, I’ve worked with many architects – nobody would even – yes they’d measure, maybe it needs to be a bit wider, let me see. Anyway, she was quite an interesting person.
Bibendum chair, 1926
Alyn Griffiths: What was your working relationship like?
Zeev Aram: We were just working on the furniture because she was actually a bit incredulous. She wasn’t taking it as a joke, but she was a bit bemused that somebody was interested in her work.
She wouldn’t say it, although after several times meeting I managed to pull out a little bit because when we got to know each other she relaxed more and there was a bit of small talk and so on. I did sense that she was somewhat disappointed, but not in a sort of a big way – ‘I’m a great person and nobody thinks of my name’, but disappointed that she was forgotten. And yet, she knew – I mean J.J.P. Oud invited her to Holland and then they made a whole issue of her work and Rietveld said that she was one of the greatest and still the world just passed by. She was disappointed with a small ‘d’. Without the content, that’s the way life is, she had her wonderful years, she had wonderful fame, she had a wonderful working life – with ups and downs, and that’s that.
By the time you become ninety and almost a recluse, you adopt to a certain view of the world and she wasn’t expecting anything. So when Alan told her that this guy was interested to meet her and do something with her designs, she apparently shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Me? My work? Who’d be interested in my work?’
Brick screen
Alyn Griffiths: Which of her pieces is your favourite?
Zeev Aram: I love them all because they’re like your children. Each one has got its own character, you like each one because of what it is and each one has got its own inherent function and beauty. So no, I have no favourites but I do like when I see three of the E1027 tables side by side. I think this is the most wonderful composition, just to see how one differs from the other and how she resolved the solution in the problem of the different tables, it’s wonderful.
Alyn Griffiths: You worked with Eileen until her death in 1976 and in that time she decided that you were going to have the world license to produce her designs exclusively. Was that important to you?
Zeev Aram: Yes, very. It’s very important, not because it makes me recognised and makes me important, it’s important because I think we still haven’t quite finished but we are getting there. When I decided that I would like to introduce the designs her name was not at all on the front line of anything design, worldwide I’m talking about, not the person. And I asked friends of mine, good friends, architects and designers to tell me about Eileen Gray. What do you know about Eileen Gray? Nine-and-a-half out of ten were sucking their teeth, saying the name reminds me of something but I can’t put my finger on it. I’m paraphrasing, of course.
Now, 30 years have passed: it took Zeev Aram to make it happen – I’m sure that there would have been someone else but there wasn’t, the fact is that we did it and now you are interviewing me not because she’s an anonymous person, but because she’s an important design person.
Occasional Tables, 1927
Alyn Griffiths: I wanted to ask you about having the exclusive license and how difficult it is to look after that and to make sure people aren’t imitating these designs.
Zeev Aram: Yes, the table I mentioned before, the E1027, at last count there was something like 120 companies producing them. All over the place. You see, companies like Herman Miller and Vitra and Cassina are making big investments in these things and even so they cannot prevent people copying some of the designs. I think it is very frustrating, I have a whole pile of them, of people, and I just think we have won a few cases in the States and Germany and so forth. But life is too short. I’m not prepared to spend my life with lawyers and solicitors and in courtrooms to prove that we have the license and these people are charlatans. Because I tell you, there are police forces all over the world trying to prevent crime, and it still happens.
People who want the proper thing, they’ll come to us. People recognise it, people are prepared to pay for it. Because people who understand quality that’s the way it is. People who want the cheaper stuff, they buy the cheaper stuff and if it doesn’t perform and it breaks down it’s part of life. You buy cheap, you get cheap. And it’s not because I’m bitter about it, I’m not. It’s a fact of life. After my last court case, which was some years ago in the States, I said never again will I go through anything against any company. Although we won the case in the federal court, all expenses paid etcetera, I am not prepared. It’s too much. Too much of me going into that.
Alyn Griffiths: You’ve just launched a website dedicated to Eileen Gray’s work. Why did you decide that now was the time to do that?
Zeev Aram: This is not a late show, not a late, late show. It’s a damn late response. It was just one thing after another. We kept on saying it’s nearly ready, its nearly there. Years of saying this! So you know what, Halleluiah that it’s done. Now it’s there and we’ll make the best of it. It’s still not quite right, it needs some adjustments done. But at least it’s there for anyone who is interested in Eileen Gray and wants to know about her.
Alyn Griffiths: And what about the movie? Do you think that’s going to help bring her to the attention of a wider audience?
Zeev Aram: I’m sure, because you know people do like to see a nice cinema movie and so forth. And don’t forget the big retrospective exhibition at the Pompidou that will be opening very soon in Ireland, at the IMMA. Very nice. The same exhibition comes over to Ireland. And from then I think it’s being negotiated to go over to the States and from there it probably goes to Tel Aviv.
So by putting her work in a more comprehensive way, not just little samples, on the world stage in these important venues, it’s bound to enhance her reputation. And I mean there are quite a number of books written about her as you probably know and so it is all helping her reputation. She’s not God, but if we talk about all these big names in the design world I think Eileen Gray should be one of them. You know, because she is that important as far as I’m concerned.
Alyn Griffiths: What is it about her work that is so unique and so special?
Zeev Aram: It’s not that bend, its not that weld, its not that proportion, it’s not that function – it’s none of that. You must ask why do I think that the sunlight is wonderful, that the sunset is so wonderful. And you can’t start enumerating them, listing them.
I really feel, and I’m not joking, I feel I have a blessed life that I’m able to walk between not only other designs which we have in the showroom, but to walk between Eileen Gray’s work and to see all the time something fantastic and something interesting and something which gives me great delight. And it’s not because it makes money you know, it’s not the money value here.
It’s the satisfaction to see the person who has been able to create such wonderful stuff and to anticipate what is going through our mind today, to anticipate this 50 or 60 years ago. And that’s what makes it great.
Cacti, gravel, concrete floors and a wooden bridge feature in this Brussels fashion boutique by JDS Architects (+ slideshow).
Danish architect Julien De Smedt of JDS Architects created the raw industrial interior for the two-storey Siblingsfactory shop, which opened last week in Belgium’s capital city. The store sells clothing and accessories for men and women, vintage furniture and a selection of homeware, plus the design team has also created a small magazine library where customers can sit down and have a cup of tea.
Fibreboard bridge
Raw concrete and white painted walls surround the retail space. A fibreboard footbridge spans diagonally across the double-height store entrance, while rows of thin cacti are planted in gravel along the edge of the mezzanine.
Ground floor
The ground floor features rows of clothing rails and a long wooden reception desk. Box-like shelves are hidden under a staircase and display products such as lamps and footstools.
Ground floor reception
Two white shelves are fixed to the concrete wall behind the reception desk and used to display accessories such as bags.
On the second floor there additional clothing rails and a selection of furniture pieces, including a bookshelf made from five stacked wooden boxes.
The architects positioned vintage furniture pieces around the store, alongside new products designed by Julien De Smedt and lamps by French lighting designer Marine Breynaert.
First floor
Siblingsfactory opened last week to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of clothing label Le Mont St Michel. Other brands on sale include A Peace Treaty and Studio Nicholson, and the store plans to donate a portion of its annual profits to children’s charity Afghanistan Demain.
Last week De Smedt launched Makers With Agendas – a new design brand with products ranging from solutions to natural disasters to coat hooks and tea sets. Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs spoke to De Smedt ahead of the launch. Read the full interview »
Marie de Moussac and Aymeric Watine, Siblingsfactory co-founders
Photographs are by Nico Neefs, courtesy JDS Architects.
Here’s a project description:
SiblingsFactory concept store
A concept store of 230m2 invented by the Belgian architect Julien De Smedt, pleasant and welcoming, ideal for beauty, quality and excellence in the heart of the Dansaert district in Brussels.
Marie de Moussac and Aymeric Watine, SiblingsFactory co-founders
In Siblingsfactory one finds a coherent and intelligent mix of fashion, design and contemporary art. One can enjoy a sophisticated selection of fashion and accessories for men and women, exhibitions, vintage furniture and design, a cup of tea and a library with art magazines.
To realise the project, co-founders Aymeric Watine and Marie de Moussac worked closely with the JDSA architects and its founder Julien De Smedt. The agency consists of young architects and designers who are known for projects such as the ski jump in Oslo and their collaboration with Muuto.
She studied communications at the EFAP (Ecole Française des Attachés de Presse et des Professionnels de la Communication). Marie then spent eight years working at a communication agency in Paris as a project manager. Marie is passionate about contemporary art and design and has a thorough knowledge of the art market.
In 2007, she works for an advertising agency in Kabul in Afghanistan and met Mehrangais Ehsan, founder of the association Afghanistan Demain, which aims to get children off the street and into school. A portion of the proceeds from the new Siblingsfactory concept store will be donated to the charity.
News: ICSID president Brandon Gien has told Dezeen that lack of entries to be World Design Capital 2016 was “because it is expensive,” after Taipei submitted the only bid.
Speaking to Dezeen at the Gwangju Design Biennale, International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) president Brandon Gien cited the current financial climate and high cost of hosting the event as a possible reason for the lack of interest in the project.
“It’s disappointing that only one city made it through, maybe it’s a sign of the economic times,” he said. “It’s perhaps an indicator that we need to look at World Design Capital so it’s not prohibitive for cities around the world to enter, because it is expensive.”
He hopes that a city from a developing country submits a bid next time around as he believes they would benefit the most from carrying the title.
“I would love to see developing countries around the world have the ability put themselves forward for World Design Capital,” said Gien. “It’s the people of those cities that probably need design the most.”
Last month the ICSID, which oversees the World Design Capital programme, revealed that the city of Taipei submitted the only bid with any potential to successfully quality for the accolade, which is awarded to one city every two years.
The Taiwanese capital passed the first evaluation phase last month, though Gien was unable to say what will happen if Taipei fails to qualify for the designation and simply proposed to “cross that bridge if we get there”.
He is confident about more interest for 2018 and said many cities have already expressed interest. “I know a whole bunch of cities in the pipeline wanting to put forward a bid for 2018, so maybe it’s just a cyclical thing,” Gien said.
This wooden nursery and elementary school complex in Lyon by French architects Tectoniques has hilly rooftops carpeted with plants that feature walkways for students to explore (+ slideshow).
Tectoniques built the two schools on a sloping site opposite a wooded parkland in the northern city suburb of Rillieux-la-Pape.
The two- and three-storey buildings were designed with V-shaped plans. The nursery school frames a garden, while the elementary school wraps around a narrow courtyard.
In certain places the plant-covered rooftops appear to emerge from the ground, created a series of slopes and pathways that children are encouraged to investigate.
“One of the project’s major characteristics is the relationship it establishes between architecture and nature,” said the architects. “The structures in keeping with their surroundings are, at times, allowing nature to more or less literally to get the upper hand.”
“The general profile is uniformly and deliberately low, harmonising with the slope in such a way as to minimise the excavation and foundation work,” they added.
The two schools operate independently, but share some facilities. A communal entrance provides a place for parents to congregate before and after school, and is linked to the village by a pedestrian pathway.
Timber cladding covers most of the building’s interior and exterior, but is interspersed with a few yellow-painted panels on the walls and ceilings.
Spacious corridors run between classrooms and feature floor-to-ceiling windows to increase natural light.
A vegetable garden grows on the perimeter of the school, plus a new gymnasium will be added to the site next year.
Photography is by Renaud Araud and the architects.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Paul Chevallier School in Rillieux-la-Pape
The Paul Chevallier school complex is situated in Rillieux-la-Pape, a northern suburb of Lyon. At 5,034 m2, it is an unusually large project; and this indicates the growing attractiveness of the area. The complex currently comprises a nursery school and an elementary school. In 2014, a gym will be added, which will also be available for community activities. The site occupies an entire block, close to the centre of the district. The two schools are functionally and administratively autonomous. While following on from each other, they make up a continuum, in an overall composition.
They are made up of rectangular modules in “V” formations enclosing internal spaces which, in the case of the nursery school, is a garden, and, in that of the elementary school, a patio. The design takes account of the sloping terrain. The structures in laminated KLH® panels have imposing planted-out roofs with overhangs. Lending its tone to the entire project, this extra “façade” represents the lyrical nature of the relationship between nature and architecture, in a Japanese-inspired atmosphere. It is accessible and visible from inside the buildings via the volumes of the first floor, part of which rises up over the roof and seems to float over this hanging garden.
Integration into the urban mosaic
The site is surrounded by disparate constructed forms that illustrate the historical development of the area. The old village stretches out along the Route de Strasbourg, and on the southern side there is a mix of apartment blocks and private housing developments. Dense, diverse plant life accompanies and modifies this urban environment. Across from the site is the wooded Brosset park, with, on its perimeter, the Maison des Familles, the Centre Social and the Ecole de Musique, whose functions are complementary to those of the schools.
The nursery school occupies a calm, sheltered position in a garden at the heart of the site, with an area of vegetation close to a château and some villas. The elementary school has a façade that gives onto Rue Salignat. The future gym will follow the alignment of the street. A pedestrian pathway leads to the entrance, organising the area where the parents congregate, and linking the schools to the village, as a prolongation to the existing axes of communication. It is lined by the structures themselves, thus leaving room for the playgrounds and gardens on the southern side.
Reconciling architecture and nature
One of the project’s major characteristics is the relationship it establishes between architecture and nature. The structures are in keeping with their surroundings, at times allowing nature, more or less literally, to “get the upper hand”. The general profile is uniformly, deliberately low, harmonising with the slope in such a way as to minimise excavation and foundation work. The project harmonises vegetation on the upper and lower levels. The volumes in wood are separated by the broad, planted-out roofs, with their waves of colour.
The inclined roof planes and broad overhangs energise the silhouette, and attenuate the massiveness of the blocks. This schema is an encouragement to strolling and dallying. It projects an impression of insouciance that is ideally suited to the world of children. From the inside, nature is framed by the large windows of the classrooms, and its close proximity makes it an element of the children’s educational needs. The landscapers have provided places of discovery and experimentation. There is a vegetable garden beside Rue Salignat, and a discovery path on the way to the canteen in the northern wing of the nursery school. There are also walkways on the roofs, which introduce the children to another ambiance.
Poetry and surprise
The two schools are unified by their broad, pleated roofs, the nursery school being lower down on the slope. The ground plan is simple, so that the children can easily find their way around. The geometry, and notably the passageways, contrast with the spatial intensity. The inner perspectives are telescoped or attenuated, depending on whether the walls are convex or concave. Views onto the outside world, and superimposed spaces, are always different, always new. There are multiple, changing, irregular facets. No two façades are the same.
The complex is labile, asymmetrical, surprising. In terms of organisation, the classrooms are rectangular, and can take thirty children comfortably. The collective spaces (library, concourse, music and computing rooms) stand out, in part, above the roofs. Large windows, sheltered by the roof projections and sunshades, open onto the playgrounds on the southern side. And the nursery school also receives natural light from the north. Access to the nursery school classrooms is through cloakrooms, via yellow perforated metal entry points that indicate a passage from one world to another.
The toilets and dormitories are shared by two classrooms, and there is customised furniture in three-ply spruce, from the cloakrooms to the cupboards in the classrooms. The passageways have their own character, and are the project’s main axes. The galleries, main entrance, hall, covered playground, corridors and terraces are carefully designed, spacious, with natural lighting, for easy occupation.
Wood in depth
Wood is a pre-eminent presence. Tectoniques generally uses wood frames for its school projects, but in this case there are wood panels throughout, for the walls, façades and floors. They are left exposed on the inside surfaces, giving solidity and depth to the walls and partitions. This impression of mass and weight creates an impression that is unusual for construction in wood, which by its very nature is light.
Apart from the foundations, slabs, ground floor and stairwells, everything is in wood, including the lift shaft. The outer aspect of the complex is characterised by overhangs that are 2.4 m long and 0.18 m deep. Structurally, the roof is made of KLH® panels, as mentioned above, while the upper storey has cavity floors in prefabricated laminates between OSB planking on dry slabs, with soft coverings.
The design-construction process is similar to certain techniques that have been used in Austria. Industrially-produced panels and more elaborate components are used for on-site dry assembly. This is one of the most ambitious project of its kind to be implemented in France, using a constructional approach that is one of Tectoniques’ specialities.
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