Hasta La Ideas

This apartment block in Osaka Prefecture by Japanese studio EASTERN Design Office features recessed corner balconies that become incrementally wider towards the roof.

Named Step Tower, the ten-storey building is located within a shopping district in Ibaraki. Buildings here are typically four to five storeys, so EASTERN Design Office added larger openings at the parts of the building with views across the surrounding rooftops.

“The open space of each floor gets wider as the floor level becomes higher, and you can get a wider sky view,” said architects Anna Nakamura and Taiyo Jinno.

The exterior walls are rendered white and feature smooth edges that give a gentle curve to the corners of the balconies, which the architects compare to the hull of a ship.

“It makes you imagine the wave splashes that occur when the bow heads-on through the sea,” they said.

A shop occupies the ground floor of the building, while tiled walls on the side reveal the entrance to apartments on the nine floors above.

The first three floors each contain four one-room apartments, suitable for single occupants, and the six upper floors contain two- and three-bedroom flats designed to accommodate families.

Other housing projects by EASTERN Design Office include a concrete house with slits for windows and a residence punctured by circular holes.

See more architecture by EASTERN Design Office »
See more architecture in Japan »

Photography is by Koichi Torimura.

Read on for a description from EASTERN Design Office:

Step Tower

A stark white ship that sails in the middle of the bustling sea of colours.

The ship floating on the ocean suddenly appears in a shopping centre. It evokes a feeling not of a resort area, but of an exotic corner of a town in some southern country. A feeling of a ship that comes across this area by chance.

It makes you imagine the wave splashes that occur when the bow heads-on through the sea. It is a pencil building of 9.7 metre width and 21.6 metre depth. Big holds are designed for the balconies at the southwest corner. These holes become bigger as the floors go upwards from the bottom. You can have the same image when you look up the bow from under it.

It is simple, neat and clean. You look up the smooth and pure white exterior wall. This reminds you of a cool lifestyle in some southern country, or of being on a trip, and spending days at a tropical land in a quest of change of air.

It is an apartment house for rent built at Ibaraki-city in Osaka, a town with a population of 270,000. This town is not only a residential one, but it is now calling for the development of industrial areas for research and development facilities of universities and industrial firms. Therefore, the population is also increasing as an industrial town. This architecture is built at the shopping district, the centre of this town, which is located in front of the JR station.

It is a building of 10 storeys of RC structure consisting of a tenant space at the first floor, one room apartment houses for singles at 2-4 floors, and 2LDK and 3LDk for families at 5-10 floors.

The surrounding buildings are 4-5 storeys height. So it is not proper to have a big slit (opening section) for this building. The open space of each floor gets wider as the floor level becomes higher, and you can get a wider sky view. This idea is reflected in the design of this building.

Location: Osaka, Japan
Site Area: 384.38 sqm
Total Floor Area: 1,548.85 sqm
Structural Engineering: IHARA STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS
Contractor: Matsumotogumi Co., Ltd

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EASTERN Design Office appeared first on Dezeen.

This kinked house in Japan by architects Horibe Associates has all its storage space along one edge to buffer sounds from a noisy road (+ slideshow).

“This home sits on a road that gets a surprising amount of traffic given how narrow it is,” said Horibe Associates. “To minimise the noise from cars and to ensure privacy, [we] concentrated storage spaces along the side of the house facing the road and added a hallway as a further buffer shielding the main rooms.”

Designed for a couple and their child in Tokushima Prefecture, the wooden structure is clad in horizontal strips of dark metal.

The profile of the roof peaks at the kink, echoing the shapes of mountains in the distance.

At the back, rooms have large windows that look out over the cherry blossom trees in the expansive garden.

Bedrooms are located in the entrance wing, next to a opening that leads directly out to the back from the front door.

Combined kitchen, living and dining space at the end of the house opens out onto a pointy terrace, screened from the road by timber trellis that continues the line of the roof.

A timber lean-to sits at the other end of the house, stained the same colour as the wood front door.

This is the fourth project we’ve featured by Horibe Associates in the last month. Others include a charred wooden house with an arced profile, a family residence fronted by a sweeping canopy and a combined home and dog salon.

Other popular Japanese houses we’ve featured lately include a dazzling white abode with a shallow reflecting pool and a cedar-clad house with a garden that snakes between its rooms.

Photography is by Kaori Ichikawa.

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by Horibe Associates appeared first on Dezeen.

Here are some photographs of the renovated 1960s Mineirão Stadium in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, set to host matches during the 2014 FIFA World Cup (+ slideshow).

BCMF Arquitetos was commissioned for a complete overhaul of the 1960s football stadium, located on the edge of the Pampulha Lagoon. Originally designed by architects Eduardo Mendes Guimarães Júnior and Gaspar Garreto, the building features an oval-shaped structure with a rhythmic facade made up of 88 projecting ribs.

The team stripped the building back to its shell, before adding a new roof, lowering the pitch, upgrading all services and infrastructure, and adding new shops and a dedicated football museum.

“Since Mineirão is a protected building, the addition of new program could be solely made through the insertion of a platform at its base,” said the design team. “Subverting the classic notion of a podium, which refers to a horizontal building with a flat top surface, this platform is carved on the ground and shaped accordingly, creating semi-public squares set at different levels.”

The lowering of the pitch helps to improve sight lines for spectators, while redesigned seating tiers at the lower levels increase the capacity to over 62,000 seats.

Structural analysis revealed that the structure had subsided by around 30 centimetres. This was corrected using hydraulic jacks and steel cables, before the architects added a cantilevered roof to shelter spectators.

Sustainable technologies were also prioritised. As reported earlier this year, the stadium is the first in the world to be fully powered by solar energy, and uses rainwater harvesting to reduce its water consumption.

Improvements to the surrounding landscaping involved creating an artificial topography that defines public plazas, seating areas and routes between the stadium’s entrances and the nearby Mineirinho Gymnasium.

A number of large projects are underway in Brazil, as the country prepares for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. Other recently completed projects include a new art museum and art school in Rio and a huge social housing complex in São Paulo.

See more architecture on Brazil »
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Here’s some more information from BCMF Arquitetos:

New Mineirão

Inaugurated in 1965 (original design by Eduardo Mendes Guimarães Júnior and Gaspar Garreto) as the second largest stadium in the world, the Mineirão Stadium is located in the surroundings of the Pampulha Lagoon, close to Oscar Niemeyer’s and Burle Marx seminal work, being part of Belo Horizonte’s main postcard. As Brazil was chosen to host the World Cup 2014, opportunity came about to transform the traditional stadium, whose façade is heritage listed, into a contemporary multifunctional sports facility.

The New Mineirão aims to go beyond its primary role as a world-class sports arena, also offering a range of services, commerce, culture and entertainment for the city, becoming a new hub of activities integrated to the modernist landscape of the leisure and touristic Pampulha complex.

The instrument chosen to make this operation possible was a public-private partnership (PPP), determining that the redevelopment of the stadium would be undertaken by a company which, in return, would be granted its use for the next 25 years. The winner of the bid was Minas Arena Consortium, that invited BCMF Architects, renowned for their expertise in sports architecture, to be responsible for the renovation of the New Mineirão.

In this context, to transform the “Pampulha Giant” into a modern multifunctional facility, the interventions proposed are both radical and respectful, reinforcing the monumental original structure within the iconic modernist landscape.

As for the original architecture of the Stadium, basically only the outer “shell” remained: the 88 structural semi-porticos, the concrete roof and the upper tiers. The rest of the “core” was completely rebuilt to guarantee the total overhaul inside the arena, including the new extension of the roof, all the new program and infrastructure, besides the lowering of the pitch and the lower tiers redesign, improving the sight-lines for the new capacity of 62,160 seats.

The renovation on the outside is total, with a new 200,000 sqm operational platform separating the spectators’ from the accredited flow. The “Esplanade” includes various facilities around the stadium, opened to the public as an immense landscaped plaza, visually linked to the Pampulha Lagoon. This platform is sculpted and moulded to the site as an artificial topography, integrated with the immediate surroundings, being perceived as a continuation of the street domain. Thus, the public is attracted by programs strategically distributed throughout the esplanade, creating areas with potential to generate activities and movement during all day, seven days a week.

The project has also sustainable features, using solar energy, reusing rainwater, as well as efficient lighting systems, intelligent control of energy and so on (LEED Certification). After the event, many operational areas which are specific for the 2014 World Cup will have other uses (institutional, commercial and leisure programs), contributing for the economic sustainability of the complex.

The New Mineirão points out ways in which sports mega events can leave a lasting legacy to the host-cities. Here, even though interventions are made on a stadium scale, they respond to the demands of larger scales, such as the neighbourhood, the landscape and the city itself. Thus, the ambition is that the urban domain should be invited into the realm and scope of the architecture.

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by BCMF Arquitetos appeared first on Dezeen.

The owners of a house designed to showcase their collection of toy bears have brought Thai design studio Onion back to extend the display cases into the garage (+ slideshow).

Onion originally renovated the house at the Cha-Am Beach resort in Thailand to include cabinets for Be@rbrick ornamental bears and have now created a new exhibition area inside the garage for over seventy bears.

The studio designed an L-shaped cabinet that takes up two walls of the garage, made from matte white laminated plastic and fronted with glass. “Be@rbrick cabinet brings light to Bear Garage,” Onion said. “It somehow transforms the entire space.”

Faceted surfaces inside the cases extend outward to merge with the ceiling.

Down the longest side, the height of the display space decreases from the top and bottom, plus the figures are spaced closer together towards the garage door.

Paired with distorted black perspective lines across the sloping surfaces and progressively smaller shelves, the eye is tricked into thinking the bears increase in size.

Each bear design sits on its own shelf with room to be accompanied by smaller versions, individually illuminated by an LED spotlight.

Along the shorter wall, the bears are packed in tightly and shelves are spaced to accommodate different sized figurines.

Additional strip LEDs are hidden in and behind the ledges. A large window allows the display to be viewed from the living room.

More stories we’ve featured from Thailand include aerial photos that reveal the angular geometries of a rooftop swimming pool and a stairwell resembling a giant wedge of Swiss cheese. See more architecture and design in Thailand »

Here is the project description from Onion:

Be@rbrick cabinet

In the longer part of the cabinet, Be@rbrick shelves are increasingly wider and further apart. Each shelf is individually customised. The first one, where Be@rbrick Detroit Metal City stands, has the same width as the 1000% Be@rbrick shoulder whereas the last shelf, where Daftpunk Be@rbrick is on display, is double that width. As an effect, the 1000% Be@rbricks queuing along on these shelves seem progressively smaller until its size is reduced by half at the corner of the space. The best viewpoint to perceive this is at the middle of the Garage where the cabinet elevation can be observed.

The shorter side of the L-shape cabinet is a much simpler shelving system. The objective is to display as many Be@rbrick figures as possible. They stand close to each other and in continuity along the racks. Seventy figures at least are on display in this limited space of 4.8 metres high. It works as a background when the cabinet is observed from the diagonal viewpoint.

What unites the two design solutions is the idea of shopfront. The entire Be@rbrick cabinet is bright and white as if the toy figures are in luxurious window displays. LED strip-down-lights and LED strip-up-lights illuminate the shorter part of the cabinet. If the shelves are for 1000% Be@rbrick the number of strip-down-light will be more than those for 100% Be@rbrick. This is to uniform the illumination. For the longer part, there are two lighting systems, namely LED strip-down-lights and LED spot-lights. The strip-lights are between the ceiling and the rear wall. They are partly hidden from sight and partly shown through the edge of ceiling slope. Spot-lights are placed in the black square boxes that are increasingly larger in scales and in gaps through out to the corner of the space. Each light bulb precisely spots on each 1000% Be@rbrick. Lighting systems emphasise the effect of perceptual distortion.

Materials play an important part in the design. They are the matte white laminated plastic sheet, black mortises and transparent glass. On the frontal plane, the vertical mortises of six-millimetre wide are gradually spread out. These lines are the foreground of the cabinet. On the rear wall, a perspective of a room is drawn by using three-millimetre wide mortises. These thin lines are the pattern of conceptual depth. They make the cabinet appears deeper much less than set a background for the distortion of Be@rbrick size. Glass walls that envelop the entire cabinet has no frame. They are perpendicular. Again, the perception of Be@rbrick reflections is distorted at the corner of the room. Be@rbrick toys seem to have their double images that are thiner or fatter than themselves.

Be@rbrick cabinet brings light to Bear Garage. It somehow transforms the entire space. Cabinet ceiling that folds in various angles give shades to the whole Garage ceiling. Its steep slope extends itself from the inside to the outside of the cabinet. This darker shade of grey leads the gaze to a brighter space, that is Be@rbrick window display. Bear Garage, in this light, is far from being a car storage.

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by Onion appeared first on Dezeen.

This bright red tower resembling the head and neck of a monster was constructed by Dutch designer Frank Havermans as the beacon for a fire station in a small Dutch town.

With a height of almost five metres, the kinked steel tower stands on a grassy mound outside the fire station in Borger and was designed by Frank Havermans to draw attention to the building – a glass structure by Dutch studio AAS Architects at on a road junction outside the town centre.

“KAPKAR/BB-N34 is a kind of an alien appearance,” said the designer. “It attracts people’s attention but also raises questions.”

The body of the tower is painted red to match the colours of the fire engines, plus a large red light is housed inside the upper section and glows out towards the road.

“I designed a fire lamp that functions as a watchful eye in front of the building, close to the roads and roundabout,” said Havermans.

Metal sheet and tubes give the structure a machine-like aesthetic, intended to reference the equipment used by the fire fighters.

Frank Havermans runs an architecture, design and art studio in the Netherlands. Past projects include a sunken concrete pavilion that was cast against tree bark.

Other monstrous structures to feature on Dezeen include public toilets shaped like headless dinosaurs and a robotic octopus.

Here’s more information from Studio Frank Havermans:

KAPKAR/ BB-N34 beacon

The fire department of the town of Borger since several years dwells in a new fire station, which is strategically replaced from the centre of the village to a location at the crossroads of the local highways N34 and N374. Here the right direction to the calamity can be chosen efficiently. The new building (AAS Architects) is an elementary box, which is organised in a simple and efficient way. The service entrances are places at the lower level at a walled courtyard. All service spaces are placed below ground level. Through this all the attention is placed to the nice fire engines that are exposed on the higher level in a kind of window box. The building also has something anonymous and because it is a volunteer fire department there is not much human activity. And if there is activity it most of the times happens out of sight at the walled courtyard. From the “so called’ landmark function building in my vision is no question, and that is not really necessary as well, it is a modest fire station in a small village. But it can use some extra attention that mark the fire station and the people who are volunteering. The firemen also desire that and asked clearly for that. For this I designed a fire lamp that functions as a watchful eye in front of the building close to the roads and roundabout. KAPKAR/ BB-N34 is a kind of an alien appearance that is placed on a two metre-high ellipse shaped hill. It attracts people attention but also raises questions. From all sides on the provincial highway you can see it clearly. It does not look like something familiar and on the other hand is fits to its surrounding in a naturally way. It looks like the fire department purchased a new instrument. What’s the function of this new device? These questions rise when people pass the station.

The construction looks technical and alien at the same time. It is almost five metres high and consists of a kinked metal construction that functions as a stand that hold a large disk shape lamp. The whole targets at the roundabout. It strikes by its expressive appearance and by its red light plane that attracts the attention. The construction self is made of metal sheets and tubes which are painted fire red, the official fire department colour. The construction refers to the equipment used by the corps without pointing it out directly. The lamp itself is constantly radiating a red light through the visor. As a 24/7 watchful eye the lamp points out that there is a system of always alert people in the community even if they are not present and visible in the fire department itself. It shows the community that something is about to happen, is happening or has happened the last hours. Even when the firemen are back and everything is quite again, the watchful eye reminds the community of the local hero’s who take care of all the fires and other calamities.

Location: Fire department Borger-Odoorn, Borger (The Netherlands)
Address: Poolse Bevrijderslaan 100, Borger
Manufactured by: Frank Havermans and Koos Schaart
Involved companies: Koos Schaart production, George Hoekstra engineering
Commissioned by: CBK Drenthe, Monica Boekholt and the municipality of Borger-Odoorn
Fire Department building by: AAS Architecten, Groningen

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by Frank Havermans appeared first on Dezeen.