Hasta La Ideas

Seaweed pillows were used as cladding for this holiday house on the Danish island of Læsø by architecture studio Vandkunsten and non-profit organisation Realdania Byg (+ slideshow).

The Modern Seaweed House revisits the traditional construction method in Læsø, where for many centuries trees were scarce but seaweed has always been abundant on the beaches. At one stage there were hundreds of seaweed-clad houses on the island but now only around 20 remain, which prompted Realdania Byg to initiate a preservation project.

The team enlisted Vandkunsten to design a new house that combines the traditional material with twenty-first century construction techniques.

“Seaweed is at the same time very old and very ‘just-in-time’, because it is in many ways the ultimate sustainable material,” Realdania Byg’s Jørgen Søndermark told Dezeen.

“It reproduces itself every year in the sea, it comes ashore without any effort from humans, and it is dried on nearby fields by sun and wind,” he continued. “It insulates just as well as mineral insulation, it is non-toxic and fireproof, and it has an expected life of more than 150 years!”

Rather than just piling the seaweed onto the roof, the designers stuffed the material into netted bags and attached it in lengths across the timber-framed walls and roof of the house. More seaweed was enclosed in wooden cases to use as insulation behind the facade and beneath the floors.

“By using seaweed in the construction, we not only secure the continued supply of seaweed for use on the historic houses, we also reintroduce a material to the modern building industry which is CO2-reducing, environmentally friendly and sustainable in a broader sense,” said Søndermark.

The interior walls are lined with wooden boards, framing a series of rooms intended to house two families. A double-height living room and kitchen forms the centre, while bedrooms are located at the ends and in the loft.

“Our project has demonstrated that seaweed has remarkable acoustic properties,” added Søndermark. “This creates surprisingly comfortable rooms, while the ability to absorb and give off moisture contributes to regulate the indoor climate.”

As well as building the new seaweed house, Realdania Byg has restored the seaweed roof of Kaline’s House, a 150-year-old residence next to the site. The team hopes the two projects will inspire more seaweed architecture and restoration in Læsø.

“The seaweed houses on Læsø are physical testimony to the culture and the life that have characterised the building tradition on the island for centuries,” said Realdania Byg director Peter Cederfeld. “It is our hope that others will embrace the experiences from this project and develop the ideas even further.”

Seaweed has also been used in a few lighting designs recently, including for a series of laser-cut lampshades. See more stories about seaweed »

Photography is by Helene Høyer Mikkelsen and Realdania Byg.

Here’s a press release from Realdania Byg:

The cultural heritage of Læsø: A resource in sustainable building

On the small island of Læsø in Denmark, a several hundred-year-old building style has formed the basis on which a new holiday house has been built – the Modern Seaweed House. The house is designed by Vandkunsten firm of architects and developed by Realdania Byg as a holiday house built in wood, covered and insulated with seaweed. The Modern Seaweed House is carefully adapted into the landscape and has a wonderful interaction with nature, the historic buildings and Læsø’s unique cultural history. The Modern Seaweed House is now to be sold – but the ideas live on.

The Modern Seaweed House is part of the Realdania Byg project ‘Seaweed Houses on Læsø’ that also includes ‘Kaline’s House’ – a listed seaweed house from 1865, purchased and carefully restored by Realdania Byg in 2012. The seaweed houses on Læsø are an exceptional part of the cultural heritage of Denmark – and the world. Originally, several hundred of these seaweed houses were found all over Læsø while only approximately twenty remain today. The traditional seaweed houses were built using a timber frame construction with robust seaweed roofing – an abundant resource in the small and modest fishing community. ‘Kaline’s House’ is one of these houses.

The Modern Seaweed House is not a replica of the building style of the past but a development inspired by the architectural history of Læsø. In contrast to the historic houses, on which the seaweed is stacked high on the roof, the Modern Seaweed House is more contemporary and tight in its expression. The visible seaweed has been stuffed into bolsters made of knitted nets attached to the façade in lengths. At the same time, seaweed is used invisibly for insulating floors, walls and ceilings enclosed in wooden cassettes. These prefabricated building modules comprise the framework of the house.

A sustainable resource

When seaweed was used in the past as a building material it was due to the fact that seaweed was found just outside the door, it was free, had a long-term durability, was very effective as insulation, naturally protected against vermin and putrefaction, and, finally, there was lots of it. These very preconditions make seaweed of current interest as a building material, especially in the light of the present attention to the topic of sustainability. The Modern Seaweed House fulfils expected 2020 demands, and, thereby, will have extremely low energy consumption.

At the same time, LCA (life cycle analysis) calculations have shown that the house actually has a negative carbon footprint. The almost exclusive use of organic materials, including seaweed used as both insulation and roofing material, causes the amount of CO2 accumulated within the house to exceed that which has been emitted during the production and transportation of the building materials.

In a broader view

With the ‘Seaweed Houses on Læsø’ project, Realdania Byg wishes to focus on the unique tradition of Læsø using seaweed as a building material – both the immediate need to ensure the architecture of the past and the at least equally relevant need to develop the architecture in a sustainable approach. This way, seaweed is also ensured for restoring the historic houses.

Realdania Byg’s project to develop and preserve seaweed houses on Læsø is one among a variety of existing projects that aim to secure the survival of the distinctive seaweed roofs on Læsø. The initiative is carried out in unison with enthusiastic inhabitants of Læsø, other foundations as well as the Danish Agency for Culture who are all involved in the effort to save this rather exceptional part of the cultural heritage of Denmark – and the world.

The Modern Seaweed House has shown that eelgrass has a lot of qualities. Besides its excellent insulating property and long-term durability, which in itself offer a lot of potential, it has been discovered through practical application that seaweed has exceptional acoustic properties. This creates surprisingly comfortable rooms while the ability to absorb and give off moisture contributes to regulate a good indoor climate. The numerous qualities provide a wide range of applications in modern, sustainable building.

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Vandkunsten and Realdania Byg appeared first on Dezeen.

The rural Lo Barnechea commune in the north-eastern area of Santiago city is the setting for this small oak-clad house by architectural firm emA (+ slideshow).

The 76-square-metre rustic home was designed by emA founders Orlando Etcheberrigaray and Klaus Matuschka for a farm keeper who looks after the 500 hectare site, which features a public mountain biking park.

“Access to the area is public, but controlled,” Etcheberrigaray told Dezeen. “It is only open for biking or jogging as this is an area of ecological preservation.”

The Hijuela El Durazno Caretaker’s House is intended to blend naturally into the surrounding environment. A dark vertical roof made of a metal structure and covered in asphalt shingles incorporates eaves, vents and a chimney system that prevent overheating. Thermal insulation in the drop ceiling retains heat during colder weather.

Oak wood cladding on the exterior walls is 70 millimetres thick, offering the house further thermal resistance. “This is important because the land is located in a pre-mountainous area,” Orlando told Dezeen.

Built by construction company Nautilus, the house sits on metallic stilts making it less invasive on the surrounding ground.

Other Chilian residential homes include a concrete rural retreat balanced on a dry-stone wall and a hillside house with board-formed concrete and a grained texture of timber screens.

See more Chilian residential projects »

Here’s the full press release from emA:

Hijuela El Durazno Caretaker’s House
Lo Barnechea, Santiago-Chile

The assignment was to build a small house for the keeper of a farm which corresponds to an ecological reserve in the urban limit of the city of Santiago. This place, despite being private property, was to have free access to practice mountain biking.

The rural condition of the place, the weather and the idea of creating a point of access and control to the place, led the architectural typology of the house. This worked on two concepts: dark vertical roof and natural coloured wood walls. These conditions, in addition to the black coloured windows, allow the house to be a neutral building in the natural environment. The red access door contrasts with the rest of the house. The location of the house was chosen to meet project requirements and to optimise the sunlight.

The roof protects from water and snow in winter and high summer insolation. This was supported by the use of eaves, to which were incorporated vents. These vents work together with the upper chimney to generate a flow of air in between the ceiling, helping to prevent overheating in the warmer months. For the colder months, we worked with thermal insulation in the drop ceiling, allowing the temperature to keep warm inside.

The oak wood cladding of the exterior walls is 70 millimeters thick. The faces of the wooden parts were placed without brushing and were ordered regularly. This result is external walls of high thermal resistance with a regularly ordered composition and great texture.

In the inner development, the program is divided into two areas, according to privacy requirements. Oriented towards the north-east are the bedrooms and bathrooms. Oriented towards the north-west are the living room and kitchen. In front of the house, we generated a covered outdoor space, which serves as access and porch.

The construction of the house was done mostly with metallic structures and wooden plates which allowed a quick installation. The house is supported on metallic stilts allowing it to be less invasive with the ground surface. Thermal insulation is incorporated inside the walls, in ceilings and floor slab.

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by emA appeared first on Dezeen.

Last week we had a plaster cast made on a 3D printer and now here’s a light made out of a plaster cast.

Formed from hospital bandages used to make casts for broken limbs, the GIBS pendant light was developed by South Korean designer Juyoung Kim of Metafaux Design.

Kim produced the light in the same way that a plaster cast for a broken limb is made, soaking plaster-impregnated bandages in water and then wrapping them to form a shell.

However instead of wrapping the bandages around a limb, Kim used a glass belljar as his mould.

When the plaster hardens, Kim removes the thin structure from the mould and fits a lightbulb inside.

“This pendent lighting is made with plaster bandages, which we use in hospitals,” says Kim. “As it’s made by hand and finished differently, all the products have individually different light shading, and different details on the surfaces.”

Kim adds: “I think when the material of the product is interpreted in different ways that wasn’t mean to be, people will recover unexpected interest about the object, and it could be good starting point of a making conversation.”

Kim completed an MA Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins, London, in 2009 before returning to Seoul to start Metafaux Design, which specialises in using unexpected materials to make products.

“The meaning META + FAUX has its own paradoxical idea,” Kim explains. “As it’s pronounced as [métə-foʊ], which subsequently reminds the sound of ‘metaphor’ in homonymous, the all work and projects indicate some implicit signifiers in order to convey new perspective and distinctive experience to people.”

“It may be inferred as cultural crossover, or mixture of art and craft, and blowing the boundary between conventional tradition and modern design philosophy. Moreover, it doesn’t just demolish the formal and trends, but recreate and reinvent them through eclectic, experimental methods.”

Other lights made of unusual materials we’ve published include a desk light made of floppy rubber, a collection of pendant lights made of cable ties and lampshades made of seaweed.

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Juyoung Kim of Metafaux Design appeared first on Dezeen.

British illustrator Toby Melville-Brown imagines impossible architectural structures in his latest drawing series.

The Tower Series depicts three fantasy skyscrapers, each intended to explore a different architectural scenario.

“Through drawing, I try to convey my obsession with civilisation,” explains Toby Melville-Brown. “I’m not commenting on environmental issues, nor condemning our excessive nature; I’m merely fascinated with the synthetic landscape we have constructed around ourselves.”

Favela Arch presents an entire city’s worth of buildings piled up as a single structure, as a way to overcome a scarcity of land. Melville-Brown describes it as “like barnacles clinging to a rock”.

Regency Tower is intended as an oversized trophy, celebrating the ingenuity of mankind, while Power Station is an industrial building on a mega scale.

“Each explores a different facet as to why we build the way we do,” adds Melville-Brown.

The artist is selling 30 limited edition screen-prints of Tower Series from The Print Club in London.

Other fantasy architectural illustrations we’ve featured include Tom Ngo’s Architectural Absurdities, which feature a building made of stairs and an impossible lighthouse. See more architectural illustrations »

We’ve also published several fantastical photography projects, including a series of flying houses and giant Lego buildings. See all stories about manipulated photography »

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Toby Melville-Brown appeared first on Dezeen.

A staircase doubles up as a bookcase inside this renovated apartment in Barcelona by Croatian architect Eva Cotman (+ slideshow).

Eva Cotman, who is based in Barcelona, re-planned the interior to accommodate a young couple, who requested a more open-plan layout.

“The project objective is to try to maximise the functionality of the space,” said Cotman, “but at the same time to not lose the identity of the neighbourhood and materiality of the existing building.”

The architect began by removing all non-loadbearing walls to create a large living and dining room along one side of the space, then added a new bedroom, bathroom and walk-in wardrobe at the back.

An old suspended ceiling was removed and then every surface was painted white – including the exposed brick walls and timber ceiling joists – to create a blank canvas for the new occupants.

The combined staircase and bookshelf is at the centre of the plan and leads up a new mezzanine guest room and storage area. This staircase also functions as an informal seating area.

For lighting, the architect used bright red cables to string bulbs around the ceiling joists.

We’ve featured several apartment renovations in Barcelona, including one with mosaic floors and one with furniture that folds out of the walls. See more architecture and interiors in Bacelona »

Photography is by Eva Cotman and Maria Ceballos.

Here’s a project description from Eva Cotman:

Raval Hideout

This project sets out to alter and improve an apartment situated in Raval, the Ciutat Vella district of Barcelona. An area used to be known for its nightlife as well as the insecurity, El Raval has changed significantly in recent years, and has become one of the touristic attractions in the centre of the city. Today it is home to many bars, restaurants, museums and art galleries, making it a popular neighbourhood among young professionals and students alike.

The clients are a young couple with a very active social life, enjoying fully all the cultural activities that Raval offers. In defining the new use of space, in accordance with the client’s needs, much attention has been given to maximise the entering of daylight and the visual interrelationships between the different parts of the house, each with its own identity. The aim was to give the occupant various possibilities to move from one space to another, to create diversity inside the apartment as well as to enable the clients to enjoy the diversity of the neighbourhood where they live.

The project objective is to try to maximise the functionality of the space for the new and contemporary use by the owner, but at the same time not to lose the identity of the neighbourhood and materiality of the existing building. The economic aspect was an important part of the project – it had to be a low-cost project done in a relatively short-time execution.

The apartment was previously ‘cleaned’: the walls were cleaned from cast, the cast ceiling was removed and all non-loadbearing walls were removed. The apartment wooden ceilings, as well as brick walls, are painted white to be a blank base for the activities of its future occupants.

The heart of the house is around the library, which separates the dining room from the built-in closet and, at the same time, joins the kitchen, dining room and the living room; it is an all-in-one element: staircase, bookshelf, closet and bench. The staircase leads to the small gallery located on the top of the closet, and is a space with a guest bed. This gallery also helps to access the storage, which is located above the kitchen and the entrance area. It is a compact apartment with multifunctional elements to provide flexibility and adaptability to different needs, in other words, a ‘mini-space’ with a ‘maxi-functionality’.

Architect: Eva Cotman
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Project area: 40sqm
Project year: 2013
Constructor: Dolmen Reformes

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by Eva Cotman appeared first on Dezeen.