Hasta La Ideas

The sprawling topography of the Portuguese landscape provided the shape of this restaurant, guest house and wine showroom by architecture studio Carvalho Araújo (+ slideshow).

Sited just outside the town of Passos do Silgueiros, the building was designed by Carvalho Araújo for Portuguese wine brand Quinta de Lemos as a place where critics and customers can sample and critique different vintages.

Glass walls angle back and forth to give the concrete building its winding plan, which nestles closely to the rugged forms of the rocky hillside.

“The building’s drawing is developed starting from the topography, based in contour lines,” said the architects. “It defines an extensive course that represents the dimension of the territory on which it is placed”.

Visitors arrive at the building after traversing a winding pathway down from the road. Upon entering, they can either head into a large dining room, or make their way to one of three guest bedrooms.

The wine showroom is positioned just beyond, past a private indoor swimming pool that offers far-stretching views across the vineyards and hills.

A pair of long staircases tucked behind the building lead up onto the roof, which is covered with paving slabs and functions as a large viewing platform.

“The building is drawn by the land,” added the architects. “Its openings and orientation respect the main points of view over the vineyard, control of natural light and the discretion that is intended.”

Portuguese studio Carvalho Araújo also recently converted an old military police headquarters into an art and culture centre in Braga.

We also recently published a guest house at the Cloudy Bay winery in New Zealand and have previously featured an Italian winery with huge terracotta vaults and an asterisk-shaped restaurant and winery in China.

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Photography is by Hugo Carvalho Araújo.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

De Lemos

Answering the request for the conception and design for a gourmet restaurant, we developed the project with the idea of a guest house, private equipment as complement of the first. The group intends to relate to the wine production, and to frame this investment in a global brand strategy, instead of an isolated act in the territory.

The guest house doesn’t have a formal reception; the services create an intimate atmosphere, family like and exclusive. The bedroom is not just the private domain; it includes other spaces of social character, which makes this equipment different from the usual offer of temporary lodging. The bedroom is really a small house.

The association established with the wine production justifies the restaurant. It includes spaces for wine proofs, and a reserved area to discussion, analysis and wine critic, suggesting a flexible drawing for the space in all these uses.

The building’s drawing is developed starting from the topography, based in contour lines, as a reference to the platforms and the distant association that unites them in time, characteristic of wine’s production especially in the Douro and Dão region.

It defines an extensive course that represents the dimension of the territory on which is placed and is built in a level quota, being the direct result of the topography.

The building is drawn by the land, and its openings, orientations and internal definition of the program respect the main points of view over the vineyard, control of natural light and the discretion that is intended for the group, in spite of its apparent dimension.

The attractive point where the building is located creates a tension between the existent building and the new construction, being constituted as two poles, forcing the accomplishment of a course to relate them. The implantation of the new construction is just the continuity of that course; a drawing in the landscape, a built course leaning towards the beauty of the linear rhythm of the vineyards.

Architecture: Carvalho Araújo, Arquitectura e Design
Team: José Manuel Carvalho Araújo, Joel Moniz, Sandra Ferreira, Emanuel de Sousa, Ana Vilar, André Santos, Liliana Costa, Nuno Vieira, Pedro Mendes, Carlos Santos, José João Santos, Leandro Silva

Client: Celso de Lemos Esteves
Date: 2007 – 2012
Location: Passos do Silgueiros, 3500-541, Viseu, Portugal

Landscape: JBJC – João Bicho e Joana Carneiro, Arquitectura Paisagista, Lda Arquitectura de
Interior Architecture: Nini Andrade Silva
Engineering, management and supervision: Eng.o Carlos Pires
Contractor: Eduardo Oliveira Irmãos, Lda

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Carvalho Araújo appeared first on Dezeen.

The entire contents of this shop and cafe in Vienna can be hidden away behind a grid of white ceramic tiles.

Designed by Lukas Galehr of architecture collective MadameMohr, the Super Mari’ shop combines an Italian food store with a coffee shop and late-night bar, so its contents change depending on the time of day.

“The client asked for a space which was flexible and able to transform from a simple bar to a mini-market without much effort,” the architect told Dezeen.

Products ranging from pasta to washing powder are displayed within recesses in the tiled white walls, but can be screened behind panels that fold or slide across in front. These panels are also covered with tiles, disguising the locations of the display areas.

“In the closing hours most often the entire interior is closed so that only the tiles are visible, which gives the impression of an emptied-out swimming pool or a butcher’s shop,” said Galehr.

Paper shopping bags are patterned with the same grid and even the cover for the coffee machine looks like a tile-clad block.

Black tiles cover the floor, contrasting with the white walls, while monochrome pendant lights hang down from the high ceiling.

Lukas Galehr also recently completed a pizzeria with a spinning oven shaped like a giant disco ball.

Other interesting interiors from Vienna include a bar with a faceted ceiling of upside-down peaks and an office with a slide for Microsoft.

See more architecture and interiors in Vienna »
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Photography is by Jorit Aust.

Here’s some text written by Lukas Galehr:

Super Mari’

Super Mari’ is a very small Italian Café-Bar-Market in the heart of Vienna’s second district, designed by the young architects collaborative MadameMohr.

The client asked for a space which was flexible being able to transform for instance from a simple bar to a mini-market without much effort. A second request was that there should not be any fancy designer furniture nor any modern patterns or materials which would give the impression of something new and stylish.

The result is a space completely covered in black and white 10x10cm glazed tiles. All furniture are built in closets with intricate swivel mechanisms that allow the owner to change the line of goods in just seconds. All the appliances and bar utensils hide behind rotary-slide doors which are also covered with tiles on the outside.

In the early hours of the day when people are on their way to work they drop by just for a quick coffee and a Cornetto and a spremuta, while in the afternoon the range of goods expands from coffee beans to pasta and even washing powder. Most products are imported from Italy such as passalacqua coffee and pasta from vero lucano. In the late afternoon and evening the space transforms again to the bar where people have a quick aperitivo before they head to one of the numerous nearby restaurants. Many come back after dinner since the true espresso only tastes right at the bar.

In the closing hours most often the entire interior is closed so only the tiles are visible which gives the impression of an emptied out swimming pool or a butcher’s shop. Only insiders and regulars are not irritated by the always changing configurations of the shelves.

Location: Vienna, Austria
Client: Maria Fuchs
Space: 33m²

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Lukas Galehr appeared first on Dezeen.

Following our story about the extension of fashion designer Paul Smith’s Albemarle Street store, here are some more images of its new cast iron facade by London studio 6a Architects.

6a Architects abstracted Paul Smith‘s hand drawings to create a repetitive relief pattern of interlocking circles to cast in iron, a common material around the British capital.

“Cast iron forms an understated background to the city’s streets; its railings, gratings, balconies, and lamp posts,” said the architects.

Thin edges of the circles are embossed to cast shadows across the surface, which is patinated and marked from the casting process.

The facade covers an existing eighteenth century shop front, and its colour and style provides a sharp contrast to the other Georgian buildings in the Mayfair area of London.

Three small drawings by Smith have been cast directly into sections across the facade.

Curved glass cabinets protrude through the ironwork to display items of furniture, set against a white background.

At the entrance to the shop, the panels curve inward to the large stained oak doors.

Inside, the store features brightly coloured accents to match the designer’s furniture and an accessories room lined with dominoes – see our earlier story about the interior here.

6a Architects has previously completed the renovation of a contemporary art exhibition centre in east London and stripped back a derelict house to expose original structural features.

See more projects by 6a Architects »
See more design by Paul Smith »
See more architecture and design in London »

The text below is from 6a Architects:

The new Albemarle Street shop front for Paul Smith builds on a familiar material tradition in London. Cast iron forms an understated background to the city’s streets; its railings, gratings, balconies, and lamp posts. Paul’s brief was an eclectic collection of references, images, textures and traditions, encompassing military medals, woven hats and finely drawn gold ingots alongside sharp tailoring, the soft fall of cloth, craftsmanship and delight in surprise.

The ground floor rustication of the Georgian townhouse and the ornamental language of the 18th century shop front were reinterpreted and abstracted in a sinuous pattern of interlocking circles cast into a new solid iron facade. The repetition of the typical Regency shape brought an optical complexity, which with the play of sunlight and shadow turns the pattern into a deep surface texture. Seen obliquely it seems woven, like a fine cloth.

The surface is further enlivened by the latent makers’ marks of the casting process and the natural patination of the cast iron. A more intimate discovery is to be made in the trio of small drawings by Paul cast directly into panels scattered across the façade.

Curved windows project from the darkly textured iron as luminous vitrines, with a nod to the curved glass of the nearby arcades. A secret door of stained oak lies flush with the cast iron panels: the inverted carving of the timber recalls the mould and sand bed prepared for the molten metal.

The cast iron panels curve in to the recessed oak entrance door, a gently bowed iron step evokes worn away treads. Over time, the iron threshold will polish under foot, recording the life of the building in its material.

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store facade by 6a Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

News: billionaire technology tycoon Elon Musk has unveiled his vision for the future of design, with modelling software controlled by hand gestures linked to 3D printers.

In a movie published this week, Musk demonstrates a variety of motion capture, virtual reality and 3D printing technologies that his space transport firm SpaceX has been combining to improve their design and production methods for making rocket components.

“I believe we’re on the verge of a major breakthrough in design and manufacturing in being able to take the concept of something from your mind, translate that into a 3D object really intuitively on the computer and then take that virtual 3D object and make it real just by printing it,” Musk says in the movie.

The entrepreneur says that present methods of interacting with computers feel uncomfortable: “We try to create 3D objects using 2D tools, which just don’t feel natural.”

He explains that SpaceX has integrated sensor and visualisation technologies to develop a more natural and efficient method for designers to view and modify designs using gestures.

“If you can just go in there and do what you need to do – just understanding the fundamentals of how the thing should work, as opposed to figure out  how to make the computer make it work – then you can achieve a lot more in a lot shorter period of time,” he says.

In the film Musk demonstrates an interactive technology called Leap Motion that allows users to control visuals on a computer screen. He grabs, rotates and spins a wireframe model of a rocket engine by making simple hand movements in mid-air such as pinching and swiping.

He also shows the 3D wireframe technology projected onto glass, like the technology seen in sci-fi movie Iron Man. In a final demonstration, Musk shows how SpaceX has used Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets to edit a digital model of an engine in virtual space.

Elon Musk is also founder of Paypal and electric-car firm Tesla Motors. Last month he revealed designs for a supersonic Jetsons-style transportation system to link Los Angeles and San Francisco in just 30 minutes.

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for designing 3D-printed rocket parts appeared first on Dezeen.

News: the creator of an anti-diarrhoea pack for the developing world that was named product design of the year for the way it fits inside Coca-Cola crates has admitted that “hardly any” kits have been shipped this way, and has dropped the strategy in favour of more conventional packaging and distribution.

“Putting the kits in the crates has turned out not to be the key innovation,” admitted social entrepreneur Simon Berry in a radio interview broadcast last weekend.

Berry, founder of the ColaLife charity and the brains behind the Kit Yamoyo medicine pack, conceded that despite winning the Design Museum’s Product of the Year award last April for his idea, the strategy of piggybacking on Coca-Cola’s distribution network to get the remedy to remote villages hadn’t worked.

Instead, he said he is now focussing on creating a “value chain” to incentivise distributors and retailers across Africa. “That pack, sitting in that Coca-Cola crate, gets everyone very excited but it is quickly becoming a metaphor for what we’re doing.”

Berry travelled to the village of Kanchele in Zambia, where the product is being trialled, with BBC global business correspondent Peter Day as part of the programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

“I have to say Simon though, this is a bit of a con,” Day said on discovering the innovative strategy had been dropped. “You got this award for the design product of the year, very ingenious, very clever, because it fitted into a crate of bottles. You’ve abandoned the crate of bottles distribution now, so it comes in very conventional, ordinary packs. You’re nothing to do with cola now. In other words, the design is almost incidental.”

Berry replied: “We are piggybacking on Coca-Cola in the sense that we’re using their ideas, we’re using all their wholesalers, who are very well respected and know how to look after stuff, but putting the kits in the crates has turned out not to be the key innovation.”

Berry also conceded that the concept of delivering the kits in Coca-Cola crates hadn’t worked in an interview with New Scientist magazine last month.

“In the end, hardly any of our kits have been put into [Coca-Cola] crates,” he said. “Instead, what has worked is copying Coca-Cola’s business techniques: create a desirable product, market it like mad, and put the product in a distribution system at a price so that everyone can make a profit. If there is demand and retailers can make a profit, then they will do anything to meet that demand.”

Kit Yamoyo means “kit of life” in several African languages.  The pack contains oral rehydration salts and zinc to treat diarrhoea, and a bar of soap. The plastic outer shell, which was originally designed to fit in the gaps between bottles in a Coca-Cola crate, doubles as a measure and cup for the medicine.

Diarrhoea kills more children in Africa than HIV, malaria and measles combined. Last April, Berry’s kit was named winner of the product design category in the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year awards.

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award-winning design concept appeared first on Dezeen.