Asymmetric windows complete the angular timber-clad volumes of this nursery in Heilbronn, Germany, by local studio Mattes Sekiguchi Partner Architekten (photographs by Zooey Braun + slideshow).
Mattes Sekiguchi Partner Architekten designed the wooden Kleinkindhaus as a complex of playrooms and learning spaces for Heilbronn’s Waldorf School.
To complement the building’s green surroundings, the architects sourced Swiss pine to create an exposed wood-panelled facade and a bare wooden interior.
“The timber construction is a natural and elemental method of building,” architect Kristina Heuer told Dezeen. “The building is inspired by nature. It literally grows out of the site and unfolds like an organism.”
Situated between the existing school building and the kindergarten, the timber-clad nursery is inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s architectural theories promoting accessible spaces that open out to nature and are filled with natural light.
“The polygonal shape is a reaction to the surrounding landscape. It provides pleasant, sustainable and healthy space and therefore satisfies the social, physical, and spiritual needs of its occupants,” explained Heuer.
Angular windows puncture the exterior walls, while gill-like slits allow natural ventilation.
The elongated section of the building acts as a backbone for three protruding group activity rooms, connected by a long corridor. These rooms open out into an external play area and include areas for the children to rest.
“For us, it was very important to create a light and open environment for the children and nursery nurses,” said the architect.
The main entrance leads to a multi-purpose room and reception area for guests, while suspended orbs illuminate the way to the kitchen, office and storage rooms.
Other spaces include a computer room and a wardrobe where children can store their coats.
The free Waldorf school Heilbronn is situated in a green oasis, between two poles: the large-scale development of schools and the university in the north and east, and the heterogenous housing development in the west and south. The new Kleinkind-house was built between the main building and the kindergarten in a confined area.
An elongated ridge, opened by a multi-purpose room, houses the administration and the secondary rooms. It points the way to the arriving people, guides and accompanies their way and protects the attached three buildings of the group rooms like a strong backbone.
Those three group rooms stick like fingers into the green space, joggle with it and form individual south- facing open spaces. An in-between zone is formed between the group rooms and the backbone, which self- evidently construes the situation of entrance. Insides, it sets the space for public and semi-public movement and communication.
The whole building is polygonal reshaped in ground plan and elevation. The resulting flowing spaces follow the anthroposophical architectural idea of Rudolf Steiner. It creates diverse and high-quality spacial situations with different connections of views and outdoor spaces. There are places, which invite to stay, to play, to move, to learn or to rest. An open, light and friendly atmosphere couples with good clarity and easy orientation.
Using the wood planking façade and wood panelling interior walls, the wooden frame construction is made visualised and experienceable. The choice of material follows the logic of organic construction. On one side the building is integrated into the surroundings and on the other side it is conform to the users need for natural and harmonic building materials.
Milan 2014: London designer Lee Broom will launch these glass and marble vessels during a dinner party in the window of a Milanese design boutique next week.
Lee Broom‘s On the Rock wine and champagne glasses feature crystal bowls perched on top of Carrera marble bases.
“Fusing the delicate crystal with the heavy marble base plays with the idea of balance – both structurally and through the contrasting materials,” said Broom.
The surfaces of both materials are curved where they meet, so the glass looks like it could topple off.
The champagne coupe has a wider and flatter cup than the wine glass, as well as a taller, thinner stem.
The collection will be launched during the dinner at Spazio Pontaccio, Via Pontaccio 18, in Milan’s Brera district on 8 April, before the showroom opens to the public the day after.
A limited series of 30 wine glasses and 30 champagne glasses will also be available to buy from a pop-up shop at the boutique, along with a selection of Broom’s designs.
Behind the brickwork exterior of the new Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, England, architecture studio Haworth Tompkins designed a curved auditorium built from 25,000 reclaimed bricks (+ slideshow).
Haworth Tompkins was tasked with designing a new home for the popular theatre, previously housed in an nineteenth-century chapel, to make room for an expanding programme. Working on the same site, the architects tried to retain some features of the original building.
“The biggest challenge was to win over those who were worried the character of the Everyman would be lost in a new building,” project architect Will Mesher told Dezeen.
“The original Everyman had an informal character, described as somewhere you didn’t have to dress up to go to, but could wear a ball gown if you felt like it,” he said. “We tried to retain this spirit in the new spaces.”
The walls of the old building had to be carefully dismantled so that the bricks could be reused within the new theatre. These now form the main wall between the 400-seat auditorium and its surrounding foyer.
Photograph by the architects
Another distinctive feature of the new building is an animated facade where over 100 sunshades are etched with the portraits of some of Liverpool’s residents, taken by local photographer Dan Kenyon.
A glowing red sign in front references the original signage, while a row of large ventilation chimneys give the building a distinctive silhouette. The rest of the exterior is built from a typical local brick stock.
“It is a common material in the area, both in the nearby Georgian terraces and in the industrial and warehouse buildings to the rear, so brick serves to tie the theatre in with the surrounding streets,” said Mesher.
The building’s interior is laid out over split levels to negotiate a slope across the site. This means public spaces such as the bar and foyer are arranged over several storeys, creating a tiered route from the street to the auditorium.
A concrete structure is left exposed throughout these spaces and sits alongside a palette that includes black steel, oak and recycled iroko wood. “We looked for materials that would be robust and age well,” said the architect.
As well as the main auditorium, which features a thrust stage, the building accommodates a smaller performance space, a large rehearsal room, exhibition spaces and a writers’ room.
Photography is by Philip Vile, apart from where otherwise indicated.
Here’s a project description from Haworth Tompkins:
Everyman Theatre, Liverpool
The Liverpool Everyman is a new theatre, won in open European competition, for an internationally regarded producing company. The scope of work includes a 400 seat adaptable auditorium, a smaller performance and development space, a large rehearsal room, public foyers, exhibition spaces, catering and bar facilities, along with supporting offices, workshops and ancillary spaces. The entire facade is a large, collaborative work of public art. The design combines thermally massive construction with a series of natural ventilation systems and low energy technical infrastructures to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating for this complex and densely inhabited urban building.
The Everyman holds an important place in Liverpool culture. The original theatre, converted from the 19th century Hope Hall chapel, had served the city well as a centre of creativity, conviviality and dissent (often centred in its subterranean Bistro) but by the new millennium the building was in need of complete replacement to serve a rapidly expanding production and participation programme. Haworth Tompkins’ brief was to design a technically advanced and highly adaptable new theatre that would retain the friendly, demotic accessibility of the old building, project the organisation’s values of cultural inclusion, community engagement and local creativity, and encapsulate the collective identity of the people of Liverpool. The new building occupies the same sensitive, historic city centre site in Hope Street, immediately adjacent to Liverpool’s Catholic cathedral and surrounded by 18th and 19th century listed buildings, so a balance of sensitivity and announcement in the external public realm was a significant design criterion. Another central aspect of the brief was to design an urban public building with exceptional energy efficiency both in construction and in use.
The building makes use of the complex and constrained site geometry by arranging the public spaces around a series of half levels, establishing a continuous winding promenade from street to auditorium. Foyers and catering spaces are arranged on three levels including a new Bistro, culminating in a long piano nobile foyer overlooking the street. The auditorium is an adaptable thrust stage space of 400 seats, constructed from the reclaimed bricks of Hope Hall and manifesting itself as the internal walls of the foyers. The building incorporates numerous creative workspaces, with a rehearsal room, workshops, a sound studio, a Writers’ Room overlooking the foyer, and EV1 – a special studio dedicated to the Young Everyman Playhouse education and community groups. A diverse disability group has monitored the design from the outset.
Externally, local red brick was selected for the walls and four large ventilation stacks, giving the building a distinct silhouette and meshing it into the surrounding architecture. The main west-facing facade of the building is as a large-scale public work of art consisting of 105 moveable metal sunshades, each one carrying a life-sized, water-cut portrait of a contemporary Liverpool resident. Working with Liverpool photographer Dan Kenyon, the project engaged every section of the city’s community in a series of public events, so that the completed building can be read as a collective family snapshot of the population in all its diversity. Typographer and artist Jake Tilson created a special font for a new version of the iconic red ‘Everyman’ sign, whilst regular collaborating visual artist Antoni Malinowski made a large painted ceiling piece for the foyer, to complement an internal palette of brickwork, black steel, oak, reclaimed Iroko, deeply coloured plywood and pale in situ concrete.
The Everyman has been conceived from the outset as an exemplar of sustainable good practice. An earlier feasibility study had recommended a much larger and more expensive building on a new site, but Haworth Tompkins argued for the importance of continuity and compactness on the original site. Carefully dismantling the existing structure, all the nineteenth century bricks were salvaged for reuse as the shell of the new auditorium and recycled the timbers of the roof structure. By making efficient use of the site footprint Haworth Tompkins avoided the need to acquire a bigger site and demolish more adjoining buildings. Together with the client team they distilled the space brief into its densest and most adaptable form.
Having minimised the space and material requirement of the project, the fabric was designed to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating, unusual for an urban theatre building. Natural ventilation for the main performance and workspaces is achieved via large roof vents and underfloor intake plenums, using thermal mass for pre-cooling, and the foyers are vented via opening screens and a large lightwell. The fully exposed concrete structure (with a high percentage of cement replacement) and reclaimed brickwork walls provide excellent thermal mass, while the orientation and fenestration design optimise solar response – the entire west facade is designed as a large screen of moveable sunshades. Offices and ancillary spaces are ventilated via opening windows.
The building has taken almost a decade of intensive teamwork to conceive, achieve consensus, fundraise, design and build, and the design will ensure a long future life of enjoyment by a diverse population of artists, audiences and staff.
Irish designer Johnny Kelly has debuted a short movie that attempts to show how design impacts on everyday life using basic shapes and without words (+ movie).
Directed and designed by Kelly, Shape was written by graphic designer Scott Burnett, who is creative director of Dublin-based Studio AAD. The movie shows a day in the life of a nuclear family, but also illustrates some of the changes that happen over time “so slowly that we never really think about them”, Burnett told Dezeen.
“The characters are actually affecting the changes themselves in the film, everything changes and shifts to suit their needs,” said Burnett. “They’re very much part of the changes, the daughter understands this and has more control, the Dad doesn’t so is hijacked by a series of chairs.”
Commissioned by Pivot Dublin as part of its remit to promote the value of design, the brief for the film included a stipulation that no text or voiceover be used so it could be understood universally.
“Having tried to explain design, and particularly its value, to everyone from sisters and grandmothers to politicians and CEOs, I know that it usually takes about ten seconds until people start to glaze over,” Burnett told Dezeen.
“In the end we did the only sensible thing and decided not to try and explain design, but just to show it. Its prevalence, its impact, its role in everything we interact with.”
The film is set to be used in schools and classroom in Ireland as part of the MakeShapeChange campaign to raise awareness about design. This informed the style of the graphics, which aim to create something that is immediately understandable for a young audience.
“I like that it is simple enough to be watched small on a phone, in fact you could probably watch it at postage-stamp size and it would still make sense!” Kelly told Dezeen. “When it comes to characters, I find the simpler they look, the more you empathise with them. So I started with a square, circle and triangle and went from there – Saul Steinberg has a lot to answer for.”
“In a lot of ways, all we did was animate the idea that good design is invisible, which is the bit that’s always hardest to communicate to people who aren’t designers,” explained Kelly. “They get the ‘designer’ stuff, the added extra, all bells and whistles version, but it can be really difficult to explain the invisible bit.”
“We didn’t want to highlight supposed ‘good’ or ‘bad’ design – that’s not the aim with this film. Rather we wanted to show how almost every thing around us has been designed, and can and will be re-designed,” he added.
Pivot Dublin – the organisation behind Dublin’s bid to be named World Design Capital 2014 – worked with Dublin City Council to commission the project. Despite coming runner up to Cape Town, Pivot has continued with its original plan to promote the value of design in Ireland and is collaborating with other design capitals to use Kelly and Burnett’s film internationally.
Here’s some information about the film:
MakeShapeChange
As part of PIVOT Dublin, the city’s bid to become World Design Capital 2014, project initiator Ali Grehan thought that a simple animated film, that somehow explained what design was, would be a great way to expand the conversation, providing a way in for the wider public. Post bid, PIVOT Dublin has continued as planned to promote wider acceptance and use of design as a tool for positive change.
In 2012, Ali approached director Johnny Kelly to collaborate on making the film, and he in turn approached designer Scott Burnett to help write it. The challenge was to show what design was, and why it’s important in a way that could be understood universally, so without language. Simple. After exploring several ideas the team did the only sensible thing and decided not to focus on design at all.
MakeShapeChange is a project to get young people thinking about how the world is made around them and where design fits in. It’s grown from a film to a website to an education programme.
‘Shape’ is the short film at the heart of the project, highlighting the changes happening around us that we don’t ordinarily notice, and how they affect us. The website makeshapechange.com hosts the film and provides a prompt to Think Design. Breaking the film into a series of scenarios, it presents design within wide contexts, prompts curiosity and identifies some of the practitioners working in these contexts.
As part of the project we’re developing an initiative to get designers into schools to talk about what they do and the difference it makes. And to come full circle, while Dublin came runner up to Cape Town for World Design Capital 2014, both Cape Town and previous host Helsinki are keen to collaborate on projects that use the film to educate, connect and explain. We hope this network will grow to include more partners.
The project was commissioned by Pivot Dublin and Dublin City Council.
Directed & Designed by Johnny Kelly Written by Scott Burnett Produced by Ali Grehan Production company: Nexus Nexus Producer: Isobel Conroy Animators: Felix Massie, Joe Sparrow, Alex Grigg and Johnny Kelly Gif Wrangler: Alasdair Brotherston Editor: Steven McInerney
Thanks to Mark Davies, Sergei Shabarov and Chris O’Reilly Special thanks to Cllr Naoise O’Muiri and Dublin City Manager Owen Keegan for their support
Music & Sound Design: Antfood Ensemble: Andrew Rehrig (flutes), Will Bone (trombone, trumpets, tuba, baritone sax, tenor sax I, clarinets), Jesse Scheinin (tenor sax II), Wilson Brown (pianos, guitars, synths, percussion), Chris Marion (strings) Composition and Arrangement: Wilson Brown Sound design: Spencer Casey, Charlie Van Kirk, Wilson Brown and Pran Bandi Final Mix: Andy Baldwin
The Ice chandelier by Daniel Libeskind is made up of clear glass cells blown into angular moulds, creating icicle-like forms.
These pieces are arranged in a cluster and suspended from a reflective triangular plate. The glass sections can be reconfigured into different shapes.
When hung below a light source, the light shines through the glass shafts and illuminates the edges.
The glass pieces were hand-blown by craftsmen at Lasvit‘s Czech Republic factory.
“It is so gratifying to collaborate with skilled workers whose expertise derives from centuries of design intelligence and artistic ambition, yet who are willing to experiment and do things differently to help realise my ideas,” said Libeskind.
“I am always mindful when designing products, just as I am as an architect, to create something truly unique and functional,” he added.
The Ice chandelier will be exhibited at Officine Stendhal, Via Stendhal 35, in Milan’s Tortona district.
Milan 2014: Dezeen has teamed up with designjunction to create a free map of showrooms, boutiques, pop-up shops and department stores offering discounts to Visa Premium cardholders during the Milan furniture fair.
Some of Milan’s best shops have collaborated to run a series of offers as part of The Visa Shopping Promotion from 7 to 13 April 2014, exclusively available to Visa Premium Cardholders.
Included in the map are Italian menswear specialist Ravizza, furniture and design company Raw Milano and new department store Brian & Barry.
To access the map, visit www.thedesignjunction.co.uk/map. The map is compatible with mobile devices, tablets and desktop computers.
Milan 2014: these hand-blown glass bubbles by Dutch duo Studio Thier&VanDaalen that delicately spill out of their wooden frames have been created to house precious objects (+ slideshow).
Each design in Studio Thier&VanDaalen‘s collection can be used as a cabinet, light shade or vessel. Wenge wood frames appear to struggle to contain different shaped glass structures within.
The basis for the Round Square Cabinet range was “the fascinating effect of a floating bubble which adapts to its surroundings until it snaps,” explained designers Iris Van Daalen and Ruben Thier. “We had the dream to capture these temporary beauties in a tendril frame.”
To recreate this idea, the studio teamed up with Dutch glass blower Marc Barreda.
Wood has traditionally been used as a mould in free-hand glass blowing, but not as a permanent fixture for the glass to sit inside.
The frame was created first, then the glass was gently blown to swell through the gaps.
“The glass will mark the wood forever during blowing, therefore the wooden mould and its object in glass match perfectly together,” the designers said.
The Round Square Cabinet comes in a variety of sizes. A low rectangular frame features a gold fish bowl-shaped piece of opaque glass.
A taller variant, akin to a side table, features a piece of glass perched on top of a stand inside the frame.
The largest iteration of the cabinet has two frames stacked on top of the other. Inside, glass with a blue hue appears to be escaping the upper frame through the sides.
The collection will be on display from 8 to 13 April at Ventura Team Up exhibition in the Ventura Lambrate district during Milan’s design week.
Here’s some information about the project from the designers:
Round square glass bells to show your precious objects
When blowing soap bubbles in the air Iris & Ruben had the dream to capture these temporary beauties in a tendril frame. The fascinating effect of a floating bubble which adapt to its surrounding until it snaps, was the inspiration for a new series of objects in glass combined with wood by Studio Thier&VanDaalen.
They came up with the idea to blow a round bubble of glass in a square frame made from wood. To challenge two ancient handcrafts; free glassblowing and fine woodworking. Fascinated by the two different materials with their own unique properties and treatments; when combined, they have to deal with each other.
Wet wood is commonly used as a mould in free hand glassblowing. But never as a definitive part of the end object. Iris and Ruben saw this as a beautiful element to use in the end result. The glass will mark the wood forever during blowing, therefor the wooden mould and its object in glass match perfectly together. With this new method Studio Thier & VanDaalen created different objects, to show your precious objects.
During the Milan Design Week 2014 we launch this new evolution of our showcase cabinets: Round Square. Our dream finally came true, “soap bubbles” made from glass blown in wooden frames! Come and see it in real life, from the 8th until the 13th of April at Ventura Lambrate Team-up (B on the map). We called AIR Collaboration.
We worked at ‘Van Tetterode Glas Studio’ together with Marc Barreda to blow the glass pieces in wood.
Materials: glass & Wenge Variations: cabinet, light object, vessel etc. Size: diverse Year: 2014
This retirement home near Antwerp was designed by Belgian studio Areal Architecten around a pair of courtyards to avoid creating identical rooms along endless rows of corridors.
Areal Architecten wanted the Mayerhof Care Campus to be “a place to grow old with dignity”, rather than a sequence of characterless rooms.
“Such a scheme is a victory for the functionality of these buildings, but a defeat for the domesticity of it,” explained architect Jurgen Vandewalle.
The three-storey complex accommodates 148 residential units within a single building, which features a plan loosely based on a figure of eight. This allowed residences to be grouped into clusters around the two courtyards.
“Each room gets either a view towards these open spaces in the heart of the nursing home or to the green area around the building,” said Vandewalle.
The largest of the two courtyards is accessible to all residents, while a series of balconies and roof terraces provide accessible outdoor spaces on the upper levels.
Break-out spaces are dotted across all three floors to encourage residents to interact with their neighbours. There are also several common areas where they can dine or socialise together.
“Mayerhof Care Campus acts as a small town where functionality and domesticity merge into a fresh environment, and where social interaction, security and integration of people with different needs are in the centre,” added the architect.
The architect used a combination of timber and aluminium cladding to give the building its gridded facade. While the reflective metal provides horizontal stripes, the timber sections alternate with windows in between.
Areal Architecten has also completed three separate buildings on the site, which provide assisted living for up to 40 residents with disabilities. These structures feature masonry walls with exposed concrete beams.
Pathways run across the complex in different directions and three vehicular entrances lead into different car parking areas.
Read on for a project description by Areal Architecten:
Elderly Care Campus in Mortsel
Nursing homes and other social services are often interpreted according to the same pattern: countless rooms linked together by long corridors. Such a scheme is a victory for the functionality of these buildings, but a defeat for the domesticity of it. In care area Mayerhof the limits of this rational scheme are questioned, while space is created in which a community can grow. Various additions of communal and open areas add to the domesticity of the place.
By positioning the nursing home in a figure of eight on the site an infinite circulation that connects all the rooms on every floor with each other arises. In this functional diagram however, places where social interaction arises are inserted. At each corner of the figure open spaces create space for interaction. The linear corridor folds around two large voids, creating various perspectives and a sense of overview in the building.
As the program towards the upper floors is diminishing, terraces arise on every floor with an optimal orientation and protected from the wind. Each room gets either view towards these open spaces in the heart of the nursing home or to the green area around the building. The result is a very light volume that is bathed in natural light and space.
Besides nursing, three separate volumes provide assisted living, as stately sentinels overlooking the existing nursing home. Large openings with terraces located in a residential area that acts between the nursing home and the surrounding housing. All properties counting two or three facades allowing natural light to invade the living spaces are bundled with a widened corridor that houses the common functions.
The new buildings are implanted into the free space on the site around the existing nursing home, which remained in use during the works. After the demolition a green zone is liberated embraced by the new nursing home and assisted living residences. The joint residential area and the underground passage bind the different functions together. Otherwise they set themselves as autonomous parts, but live as integrated components of a unique residential care setting with a focus on lifelong living and care.
The choice for three entrances to the site, the construction of streets and indoor spaces and buildings that vary in size and appearance makes this new environment reminiscent of an urban fabric and is way different than the monotonous environments where such programs are mostly housed. The various functions dress in a different architecture. The nursing home is built in a reflective aluminium cladding used as canvas to the sunlight. The assisted living residences have a stately finish in masonry with exposed concrete ring beams.
Mayerhof Care Campus acts as a small town where functionality and domesticity merge into a fresh environment, and where social interaction, security and integration of people with different needs are in the centre. A community bound together by a rational structure, a place to grow old with dignity.
For the Archiportraits series, Federico Babina used architectural elements such as windows, columns, staircases and even floor plans to generate features including eyes, noses, frown lines and facial hair for a series of twentieth and twenty-first century architects.
Subjects also include Jean Nouvel, Daniel Libeskind and Bjarke Ingels. The intention in each case was to convey personalities and moods, as well as a likeness.
“A portrait is like the mirror of the soul,” said Babina. “The shapes and geometries that are designed by the architect become features for drawing his [or her] face.”
The Italian graphic designer came up with the idea after picking out the lenticular eye shape from Oscar Niemeyer’s Museu do Olho. “I started searching shapes in architecture to build a portrait,” he told Dezeen.
An upside-down illustration of the Sagrada Família becomes the neck and chin of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, while Norman Foster’s nose is provided by the Gherkin.
Frank Gehry’s Dancing House gives the architect his right ear and Rem Koolhaas features a nose shaped like the CCTV Headquarters.
Alongside Hadid, there are only two other women in the collection; Eileen Gray is drawn with a neck made from her Black Block Screen and Kazuyo Sejima is shown wearing an outfit resembling the Zollverein School of Management and Design.
“I do not want to be unflattering, I just like playing with architects and architecture,” said Babina.
“Every little detail is a key component of the whole mosaic,” he added. “I tried to develop an expressive and allusive abstraction in which I combined planar structures with three-dimensional shapes to achieve a kind of metaphysical expression.”
Other architects in the series include Frank Lloyd Wright, Gerrit Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Toyo Ito and Richard Rogers.
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