Hasta La Ideas

A grand top-lit atrium forms an entrance to concerts, recitals and classrooms at this music school in Manchester by local architects Stephenson: ISA Studio (+ slideshow).

As part of Chetham’s School of Music, the new building by Stephenson: ISA Studio is constructed alongside the school’s existing medieval quadrangle to provide it with a 350-seat concert hall and a 100-seat recital hall, as well as additional classrooms and practice rooms.

The foyer occupies a triangular triple-height space at the centre of the building. Six huge fins stretch across the ceiling, moderating daylight flooding in from above.

Mezzanine corridors lead into classrooms and practice rooms, which are lined with timber slats to improve acoustics. The main auditorium is currently an empty shell and will be fitted out once the school secures extra funding.

The building has an exterior of red brick, designed to fit in with the industrial architecture of the city.

Strip windows wrap the curved corners of the structure, while protruding lintels form strong horizontal stripes.

“The form of the building reflects the fluid forms of musical instruments,” says the studio. “The elevations are expressed horizontally and are influenced by the musical stave and pianola.”

The ground floor comprises a three-tiered split level, allowing the building to amble down its sloping site. The entrance and foyer are positioned on the middle level, while performance areas are set below and classrooms sit above.

A bridge links the new spaces with the existing campus to the south. There’s also a cantilever in one corner to avoid a river that cuts across the corner of the site.

Other music schools to feature on Dezeen include a college with a bulging timber concert hall and a school inside a former seventeenth century convent.

Photography is by Daniel Hopkinson.

Here’s some more information from Stephenson: ISA Studio:

Chetham’s School of Music

Chetham’s School of Music is the largest world class music school in the UK and is unique to the region. The existing medieval building contains the first public library in England, which boats amongst its’ scholars Karl Marx and is an architectural gem. It is currently not readily accessible to the public and one of the main design principles was to create a dialogue between the existing buildings, the new school and its wider context.

The musical heart of the school is in a building which is no longer fit for purpose and the school has outgrown its current building provision for teaching and learning through its increased success and profile.

Our brief was to create a unique contemporary new building for the musical and academic teaching facilities, providing a state-of-the-art environment which will be a fitting platform for the students. A public auditorium will allow Chetham’s students to display their talents to the public. The building itself will provide an iconic opportunity for the educational and cultural standing of Manchester to consolidate its position on the international scene.

Architectural Response

The site varies in elevation by approximately 6m from the bottom of Walkers Croft to Victoria Station Approach. We propose to use the height difference as a datum to reinforce the diversity of the buildings’ programme. The performance spaces and their associated service spaces are located below the datum whilst the music and academic classroom accommodation is placed above the datum. The main public entrance, foyer and ensemble rooms are located on the datum itself. A new bridge link allows daily secure access for the staff and pupils from the existing school campus to the south.

The building is conceived as a carved solid, rising from the south adjacent the grade 1 medieval building, to a fulcrum above the main entrance to the north. The form of the building reflects the fluid forms of musical instruments and the island nature of the site. The elevations are expressed horizontally and are influenced by the musical stave and pianola.

Many challenges of the site have influenced the form and structure of the building. The river Irk runs in a culvert along the route of Walkers Croft and cuts across the site at the south western corner requiring the upper floors of the music school to cantilever substantially at this point. Due to the city centre location and the sensitive acoustic requirements of the music teaching and performance spaces most of the internal rooms are independent floating boxes. The Concert Hall has a complete independent internal structure floating on springs.

This is a project that sits at the core of the ambitions of the Manchester city region, which is looking to preserve and enhance its unique assets for the long-term benefit of its people.

The post Chetham’s Music School
by Stephenson: ISA Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

Swedish design trio Front have created a giant, three-headed shower installation constructed from a maze of standard copper pipes (+ slideshow).

Sofia Lagerkvist, Charlotte von der Lancken and Anna Lindgren of Front created the WaterDream installation for bathroom brand Axor as part of a project to explore the future of the bathroom.

Rather than propose a high-tech solution, the designers decided to expose the copper pipework that is usually hidden from view. “We used our personal perception of the shower and showering to draw attention to the technology behind the wall, which is often concealed,” explains Charlotte von der Lancken.

“We played around with the most elementary components that are used to bring water to us – pipes, valves, couplings, and funnels,” added Front’s Sofia Lagerkvist.

Philippe Grohe, head of Axor and the grandson of the founder of parent company Hansgrohe, said: “Front show how something that is normally hidden from view can become a visually appealing and valued spatial construct.”

The installation was unveiled last week at Axor’s headquarters at Schiltach in the Black Forest, Germany, along with a second shower-light installation by Japanese designers Nendo.

Here’s the full press release from Hansgrohe:

Axor presents new “WaterDream” with Front and Nendo.
Re-thinking the shower – the search for a new archetype.

For 20 years now, Axor, the designer brand of Hansgrohe SE has been developing alternative visions for the bathroom as a living space. “In this regard, the focus is not primarily on the products, but on providing additional scope for creative development, for breaking down established behavior patterns, and for conducting an open, interdisciplinary dialogue,” says Philippe Grohe, Head of the Axor brand. Axor continuously engages in this dialogue with various internationally renowned design partners, which from now on also include the Swedish design trio Front, and the Japanese design studio Nendo. Following on the heels of Phoenix Design, Jean-Marie Massaud, Patricia Urquiola and the Bouroullec brothers, Front and Nendo now present their own personal Axor WaterDream. “Within our overall understanding of the use of space, the interaction with water, and the multifaceted individual needs of people, we focused specifically on the shower this time, interpreting it anew with Front and Nendo,” Philippe Grohe, the grandson of the company’s founder Hans Grohe, explains.

Living and showering: back to the origins

The invitation to re-think the shower produced two installations that couldn’t be more different from each other: whereas Nendo draws inspiration from an emotional living space outside of the bathroom, Front explores the technical origins of the water installation. Despite operating within different cultural contexts, the visions developed by the two design studios have one thing in common. Both present new archetypes in a charming and captivating manner: light and water pathways are re-interpreted in surprising and unconventional ways, and long-established functional and spatial separations between the living and bathroom spheres are challenged.

Front: a visual appreciation of water pathways

The Axor WaterDream created by Sofia Lagerkvist, Charlotte von der Lancken and Anna Lindgren allows us to experience the path water takes in its most original form. “Front show how something that is normally hidden from view can become a visually appealing and valued spatial construct,” says Philippe Grohe. “We used our personal perception of the shower and showering to draw attention to the technology behind the wall, which is often concealed,” explains Charlotte von der Lancken. “It was important for us to foster an awareness of what is the most archetypal aspect of the bathroom – the installation itself.” “For this reason, we played around with the most elementary components that are used to bring water to us – pipes, valves, couplings, and funnels,” adds Sofia Lagerkvist. With a simplicity that is characteristic of Scandinavian design, Front present their Axor WaterDream as an homage to artisanry and to the aesthetics inherent in technology and installation.

Axor, the designer brand of Hansgrohe SE, successfully realises “Designer Visions for Your Bathroom”. In cooperation with Axor, leading product designers, architects and interior designers develop their vision for the bathroom as a living space. The Axor collections offer a great number of unique and sustainable solutions to create personalised bathrooms of the highest aesthetic and technological levels. To date, Axor design partners include Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Antonio Citterio, Front, Jean-Marie Massaud, Nendo, Phoenix Design, Philippe Starck, and Patricia Urquiola. They all contribute towards making life in and around the bathroom a little more meaningful and beautiful. The Axor brand is headed by Philippe Grohe, grandson of the company’s founder Hans Grohe.

The post WaterDream by
Front for Axor appeared first on Dezeen.

Ithaca design studio CODA has installed a wall that squirts water and is clad with skateboard offcuts in the courtyard of MoMA PS1 in New York.

Party Wall was the winning entry of this year’s Young Architects Program, an annual contest organised by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for a temporary installation offering seating, shade and water during the outdoor events of the MoMA PS1 contemporary art gallery.

CODA‘s installation is a steel-framed structure that functions as a giant aqueduct. Water travels alongs the top of the wall and is forced by a pressure tank to form a fountain, feeding a misting station and a series of paddling pools.

The cladding is made from interlocking wooden panels, recognisable as the offcuts from a skateboard manufacturer. There are also 120 removable elements that can function as benches or tables.

Water-filled plastic pillows are suspended inside the structure and help weight it down. At night, these inflatable elements are illuminated and glow through the gaps in the facade.

Party Wall will remain in place until the end of August and will be used during the annual Warm Up event – a showcase of experimental music and sound.

CODA fended off a shortlist of five architects to win the competition in January, becoming the fourteenth studio to participate in the programme. Last year’s installation was a blue spiky air-cleaning sculpture by HWKN, while previous editions have been completed by SO-IL, Interboro Partners and Ball-Nogues.

See more stories about MoMA and MoMA PS1 »

Photography is by Charles Roussel.

Here’s some more information from MoMA:

The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 Present Party Wall by CODA, winner of the 2013 Young Architects Program, at MoMA PS1 in New York

The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 announce the opening of Party Wall, the CODA (Caroline O’Donnell, Ithaca, NY)–designed winner of the annual Young Architects Program (YAP) in New York. Now in its 14th edition, the Young Architects Program at MoMA and MoMA PS1 is committed to offering emerging architectural talent the opportunity to design and present innovative projects, challenging each year’s winners to develop creative designs for a temporary, outdoor installation at MoMA PS1 that provides shade, seating, and water. The architects must also work within guidelines that address environmental issues, including sustainability and recycling. CODA, drawn from among five finalists, designed a temporary urban landscape for the 2013 Warm Up summer music series in MoMA PS1’s outdoor courtyard.

Party Wall is a pavilion and flexible experimental space that uses its large-scale, linear form to provide shade for the Warm Up crowds, in addition to other functions.

The porous facade is affixed to a tall self-supporting steel frame that is balanced in place with large fabric containers filled with water, and clad with a screen of interlocking wooden elements comprised of donated from Comet, an Ithaca-based manufacturer of eco-friendly skateboards.

The lower portion of the Party Wall’s facade is capable of shedding its “exterior,” as 120 panels can be detached from the structure and used as benches and communal tables during Warm Up and other diverse events and programs such as lectures, classes, performances, and film screenings.

A shallow stage of reclaimed wood weaves around Party Wall’s base to create a series of micro-stages for performances of varying types and scales. At various locations under the structure, pools of water serve as refreshing cooling stations that can also be covered to provide additional staging space or a shaded area from the direct sunlight.

Party Wall’s steel-angle structure is ballasted by water-filled “pillows” made of polyester base fabric that will be lit at night to produce a luminous effect. Party Wall acts as an aqueduct by carrying a stream of water along the top of the structure. The water is projected from the structure, via a pressure-tank, into a fountain that feeds a misting station and a series of pools.

“CODA’s proposal was selected because of its clever identification and use of locally available resources—the waste products of skateboard-making—to make an impactful and poetic architectural statement within MoMA PS1’s courtyard,” said Pedro Gadanho, Curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design. “Party Wall arches over the various available spaces, activating them for different purposes, while making evident that even the most unexpected materials can always be reinvented to originate architectural form and its ability to communicate with the public.”

“CODA developed an outstanding, iconic design that will support the many social functions of our large-scale group exhibition EXPO 1: New York, while creating a unique and stunning object for our outdoor galleries,” added Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at MoMA.

The other finalists for this year’s MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program were Leong Architects (New York, NY, Dominic Leong, Chris Leong); Moorhead & Moorhead (New York, NY, Granger Moorhead, Robert Moorehead); TempAgency (Charlottesville, VA, and Brooklyn, NY, Leena Cho, Rychlee Espinosa, Matthew Jull, Seth McDowell); and French 2D (Boston, MA, and Syracuse, NY, Anda French, Jenny French).

The post Party Wall by CODA
at MoMA PS1 appeared first on Dezeen.

A long white staircase leads straight to the top floor of this small house in Tokyo by Japanese office Apollo Architects & Associates.

The two-storey house accommodates both a family home and a photographer’s studio, so Apollo Architects & Associates designed a building that can be split into two when necessary.

The lower level contains the studio and a bedroom, while the upper floor houses an open-plan living room and kitchen. A ladder also leads up from here to a mezzanine loft, which can function as a guest bedroom or children’s playroom.

The house has an asymmetric profile, created by a lopsided roof. Clerestory windows run along the steepest edge of this roof to bring in light without overlooking the neighbours.

“An unblocked sky view from the skylight has the effect of making one forget that the house is in a densely populated residential area,” explain the architects.

The gently sloping staircase forms the house’s main entrance, leading up beside an angled wall to meet the first-floor balcony. “[The stairs] function as a novelty to invite visitors,” say the architects.

A small patio is sheltered below and can be used as a direct entrance to the photography studio.

Led by Satoshi Kurosaki, Apollo Architects & Associates has completed several residential projects in recent months. Others include a house with skylights in the roof and holes in the floor plates and a surgeon’s residence with courtyards behind its walls. See more architecture by Apollo Architects & Associates.

Other houses completed in Japan this year include a residence inside a monolithic white cube and a house with a crooked blue spine. See more Japanese houses.

Photography is by Masao Nishikawa.

Here’s a project description from Apollo Architects & Associates:

Arrow

This SOHO house is built on a portion of the lot of the owner’s parents’ house. Part of the first floor is used as a photo studio, and the living spaces are made on the second floor where the entrance is located. Since the divided lot is long and narrow, an exterior design was required that utilises the depth of the approach while considering the distance from and contrast with the main house.

By employing an open style with glass walls for the photo studio facade on the first floor, an intermediate space, albeit small, is unified with the exterior and brings comfort.

The shallow sloped approach-stairs to the second floor entrance nicely match the sharp inclined wall and constitute the characteristic facade, and as a result they function as a novelty to invite visitors. The pitched roof formed by the regulation on the north side creates a unique exterior and interior appearance. Light from the slit-shaped skylight on the peak of the roof casts dramatic shadows in the entirely white-coloured room. An unblocked sky view from the skylight also has the effect of making one forget that the house is in a densely populated residential area.

The second floor is an open one-room space, including the loft space that is accessed by a ladder, and can be used for multiple purposes. The rhythmic continuation of the “diagonal” elements, which are glimpsed in many spaces, creates a comfortable unease in the room.

One of the characteristics of this house is the non-existence of a clear border between ON/OFF, since the living space, where one can play with a variety of natural lights, is used as a space for taking photos.

Architecture: Satoshi Kurosaki/APOLLO Architects & Associates
Location: Shinagawa ward Tokyo
Date of Completion: March 2013
Principal Use: Private Housing
Structure: Steel Framing

Site Area: 118.36m2
Building Area: 46.43m2
Total Floor Area: 84.22m2 (42.11m2/1F, 42.11m2/2F)
Structural Engineer: Kenta Masaki
Mechanical Engineer: Zenei Shimada

The post Arrow by Apollo Architects
& Associates appeared first on Dezeen.

It’s the time of year for graduate shows and summer workshops, and our World Design Guide update picks out the New Designers exhibition in London and Domaine des Boisbuchet classes in rural France.

New Designers takes place in two parts and the second, which showcases industrial, graphic, spatial and animation design, takes place from 3 to 6 July at the Business Design Centre. We’ve been reporting a number on graduate shows over the past few weeks – see all our coverage here.

We’ve also added three more events to the guide:

» Domaine des Boisbuchet: 16 June – 14 September
» Creatives Unfold: 1 August – 8 September
» Operae: 11-13 October

See all events in the World Design Guide »

You can also add World Design Guide events to your calendar so you never miss a thing. For more information or to submit an event for inclusion in the World Design Guide, please email hello@worlddesignguide.com.

www.worlddesignguide.com

The post World Design Guide update:
July appeared first on Dezeen.