Hasta La Ideas

The roof of this house in Paraguay can be lifted open like the lid of a box (+ movie).

Located in the countryside outside capital city Asunción, the house was designed by Paraguayan architect Javier Corvalán as the holiday home of a film-maker.

The owners are often away for long periods of time, so Corvalán was asked to create a building that could transform between a comfortable residence and a hermetically sealed box.

The base of the two-storey house is surrounded by walls of locally sourced sandstone, which support the concrete floor slab and galvanised-steel structure of the level above.

To raise the roof of the house residents simple wind a manual winch, causing the rectilinear structure to tilt open and reveal the kitchen and living room housed inside.

When closed, a pinhole allows the windowless space to function as a camera obscura, projecting an upside-down image of the surroundings onto the MDF panels that line the interior walls.

The bottom floor houses a bedroom and bathroom. Mezzanine glazing wraps around the edges of this space, creating a visual separation between the two floors.

Concrete tiles cover the floor, while the staircase leading upstairs is constructed from cantilevered stone blocks.

We’ve featured a couple of houses with moving walls and floors. Others include a residence that transforms from a villa by day to a fortress by night, plus a home with mobile walls and roof that can be moved to cover and uncover parts of the interior.

Other holiday homes completed recently include a prefabricated building in the shape of a cloud and a guest house with a patchwork timber facade.

See more moving buildings »
See more holiday homes »

Photography and movie are by Pedro Kok.

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Javier Corvalán appeared first on Dezeen.

Czech designer Martin Zampach has produced a range of hexagonal bowls that are each made from three interlocking wooden leaves.

Martin Zampach constructed the Poly Bowl using pieces of cork, coated with ash, maple and alder wood veneers to create different colours and textures.

Curved edges allow the pieces to slot together, forming the hexagonal shape.

“The flexible building materials allow for extreme shaping of the segments and when all parts are locked to form the bowl the structure gets its strength,” Zampach explained.

The designer also says that the pieces fit together in different arrangements, “to form illusional 2D and 3D ornaments”.

Marcus Zampach’s previous projects include a collection of handblown glassware with bottle tops that can be used as shot glasses.

Other bowls we’ve featured on Dezeen include some that are so thin they quiver in the wind, a collection made from shredded money and a fruit bowl with concentric circles milled from a slice of oak.

See all our stories about bowls »
See all our stories about tableware »

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Martin Zampach appeared first on Dezeen.

News: construction has begun on a new federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles designed by US firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM).

Scheduled for completion in the summer of 2016, the $319 million building is underway on a 1.5-hectare site between First Street and South Broadway and is set to replace the existing 1930s courthouse on North Spring Street.

Working alongside Clark Construction, SOM has designed the 10-storey building as a cube-shaped volume that will appear to hover over a solid stone base. It will feature a serrated facade, intended to maximise views whilst reducing solar heat gain for 24 courtrooms and 32 judicial chambers.

The US General Services Administration (GSA) says the new courthouse will be a “high-performance green building” that will feature an all-in-one cooling, heating and power system, as well as roof-mounted solar panels.

“Additionally, the high efficiency building systems, water-efficient fixtures, and advanced irrigation systems will help the building meet its energy and water conservation goals,” said the agency.

The Los Angeles Federal Courthouse is being constructed as part of a wider revitalisation of downtown Los Angeles, which is also home to Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall and the Los Angeles Cathedral. Other projects include a new Police Department headquarters, a building for the California Department of Transportation, a renovated Hall of Justice, and a newly developed Grand Park.

SOM is one of the largest architecture firms in the world. The office was behind the design of the Burj Khalifa, currently the world’s tallest building, and is currently working on plans for Singapore’s tallest tower. See more architecture by SOM »

See more architecture in Los Angeles »

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Federal Courthouse appeared first on Dezeen.

Separate schools for art and music are contained within the glass and timber walls of this academy in Latvia by Riga architects Made (+ slideshow).

Previously housed in independent buildings, Made created a single home for the music and art institutions that pupils in the west Latvian town of Saldus attend on top of their standard educational programme.

The facade is constructed from large timber panels fronted by glass profiles, which help to heat the air trapped in between and insulate the structure.

“Building structure and materials work as passive environmental control and at the same time exhibit [the building’s] functionality,” said the architects.

Chunks missing from the two-storey volume create sheltered patios on the ground floor and balconies on the first floor.

Bright colours distinguish the areas used by each faculty. Green denotes spaces for the music school and the blue zone is occupied by art students.

Staircases, walls and doors are coloured in these bright shades, which contrast with the exposed concrete walls and flooring.

Practice halls and libraries are located at the building’s centre, along with a double-height auditorium surrounded by rippled panels to improve acoustics.

Classrooms and studio spaces are situated around the perimeter so they benefit from the light coming through full-height windows.

The external walls are lined with lime plaster, absorbing humid air that could damage the musical instruments.

We’ve also published a primary school sports hall in Latvia inspired by chunks of amber washed up on the Baltic coast.

Our latest stories about schools include offset gabled volumes that form a new classroom and play area at an English infant school and angular concrete structures used to extend a Portuguese secondary school.

See more school design »
See more design for education »
See more architecture and design in Latvia »

More project details from Made follow:

The building of Music and Art school comprises two schools working separately until now. The classrooms are placed on perimeter, while practicing halls and libraries in the middle of the building.

Light courtyards are the result of the compact plan, providing a lot of daylight and reflected light in the middle of the school, and at the same time being spaces for both schools to interact.

The green colour in the interior marks the music school, while blue is for the art school. Large thermal inertia of the building and integrated floor heating deliver an even temperature regime.

The facade consists of massive timber panels covered with profile glass and is a part of an energy efficient natural ventilation system, preheating inlet air during winter.

Massive wood walls with lime plaster accumulate humidity, providing a good climate for people as well as for musical instruments inside the classrooms.

Building structure and materials work as passive environmental control and at the same time exhibiting functionality.

Inner concrete walls and massive wood walls visible through the glass exhibit their natural origin, which we find an important issue especially at education institutions.

There is no single painted surface on any facade of the school building, every material shares its natural colour and texture.

The post Saldus Music and Art School
by Made appeared first on Dezeen.

Brazilian studios MMBB and H+F Arquitetos reference tower blocks from the 1960s with this social housing complex flanking the Octávio Frias de Oliveira Bridge in São Paulo (+ slideshow).

The Jardim Edite Social Housing Complex replaces a large favela on the junction between Avenida Berrini and Avenida Marinho, a part of the city that has seen a boom in high-end real estate in recent years.

MMBB and H+F Arquitetos teamed up to design the complex, creating 252 new residences within three 17-storey towers and a pair of adjoining two-storey blocks.

Each unit has two bedrooms and an area of 50 square metres – the maximum permitted size for social housing in the city.

Public services occupy the ground-floor spaces, offering a healthcare facility, a children’s daycare centre and a catering school. There are also communal gardens and rooftop terraces for residents.

The architects deliberately left out any parking provision, which they hoped would deter local office workers from moving in. Instead, many of the favela’s original residents returned to occupy the new homes.

“For us it is a laboratory for investigating ideas for the kind of city we want to build here in São Paulo,” H+F’s Eduardo Ferroni told Architectural Record.

Other recent architecture stories from Brazil include a new art museum and art school in Rio and a concrete photography studio, also in São Paulo. See more architecture in Brazil »

Photography is by Nelson Kon.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Jardim Edite Social Housing Complex

The Jardim Edite Social Housing Complex was commissioned to replace a favela located on one of the most significant areas of recent growth in both the business and financial sector of the city of São Paulo.

To ensure the integration among the housing complex and its rich surroundings, the project articulated the housing program vertically and occupied the ground floor entirely by public facilities, available for the residential community as well as for the rest of the city, inserting the complex in the economy and everyday life of the region.

The rooftops of the public facilities also functions as a common area for the inhabitants, connecting housing buildings within each block, allowing for a secluded place for social interaction between the residents in the midst of the metropolitan scale of the surrounding area.

The project has a total area of 25.500 sqm, with 252 housing units of 50 sqm, a restaurant school (850 sqm), a basic health-care unit (1300 sqm) and a daycare center (1400 sqm).

Location: Av. Eng. Luís Carlos Berrini with Av. J. Roberto Marinho, São Paulo
Area: 25.714 sqm
Client: Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo – Secretaria Municipal da Habitação (Sehab/Habi)
Architecture: MMBB and H+F

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by MMBB and H+F Arquitetos appeared first on Dezeen.