Shelves are supported by dowels slotted into pegboard walls at a new store for skin and haircare brand Aesop in the Hamptons, New York (+ slideshow).
Designed and built by New York studio NADAAA, who previously completed another Aesop shop in San Francisco, Aesop East Hampton has pegboard walls around three sides of its interior and a free-standing basin at its centre.
Dowels of different sizes can be slotted into various places on the walls to change the arrangement of shelves for displaying the brand’s signature brown-glass bottles. Walls above and below are painted in a pale shade of blue.
The central sink – a key feature in Aesop’s stores – is made from a Vermont soapstone that is typical in north-American bathrooms, while the taps are fixed to copper pipes.
Aesop is pleased to announce the opening of a signature store in the Hamptons, and to take up residence in an area that has been home to many gifted creative spirits – Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, Frank O’Hara and Jean Stafford among them.
In recognition of the Hamptons’ cultural and maritime heritage, Aesop East Hampton presents a tableau of practical and programmatic objects within a simple installation. Digitally fabricated pegboard panels line the walls, with dowels of varying lengths inserted to support orderly product display. A basin crafted from Vermont soapstone – a material long used for wash sinks in northeast United States – occupies the central space, with taps employing the simple copper valves often seen in the neighbourhood’s carefully constructed gardens. A picture window opening onto the sidewalk allows for abundant natural light.
News: One World Trade Center in New York has become the world’s third-tallest building after topping out at a height of 541 metres.
A 124-metre steel spire was installed last Friday, pushing the skyscraper’s height to 1776 feet – a number commemorating the year of America’s independence.
One World Trade Center is now the tallest structure in the USA and the third-tallest in the world, although there is debate over whether the spire is actually a removable antenna – a vital distinction in measuring buildings.
Built at a cost of $3.9 billion, the tower also has the distinction of being the most expensive office building in the world.
Previously known as the Freedom Tower, the building is located in the northwest corner of the site where the former World Trade Center towers were destroyed in the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Originally designed by Daniel Libeskind – the architect behind the masterplan for the entire Ground Zero site – the tower underwent numerous revisions before US firm SOM was brought in to oversee its design.
When finally completed it will offer 241,000 square metres of commercial office space as well as observation decks, TV broadcasting facilities and restaurants.
Product news: cable clutter is hidden away under the lid of this extension lead from Swiss design brand Punkt.
The ES 01 socket hub by Colombian designer Georges Moanack conceals five plugs under its cylindrical cover.
A central button allows all five devices to be turned off at once.
“I wanted to make crawling under furniture to untangle cables a thing of the past, and the design challenge was to find an attractive and accessible solution to this problem,” says Moanack.
The power cord is three metres long and there are six different socket types available for different countries.
Like all Punkt. products, it comes in red, black and white.
Punkt. launches its third product: the ES 01. The ES 01 is an original extension socket that has been designed to tackle a ubiquitous lifestyle problem: cable clutter. The ES 01 plugs 5 sockets and is available in a range of versions to comply with the different power supply standards of a wide selection of countries.
Punkt. ES 01: finally a solution to the cable clutter that plagues modern lifestyles and makes a mess of interiors. All of your cables and plugs converge neatly in the ES 01 extension socket, tucked away under its sleek rounded lid. Convert cable chaos into a clean design feature for the home or office.
No hiding power stations under furniture, no crouching down to untangle dusty cables, and no power damage to your devices; just an attractive, sturdy design piece that blends in well with all interiors and simplifies cable management. Get organized and power your gadgets and devices with the ES 01!
The young Colombian designer Georges Moanack designed the ES 01 under the art direction of Jasper Morrison. The ES 01 combines Georges’ fresh outlook with Jasper’s talent and experience, resulting in an ingenious solution to a ubiquitous problem.
Walls of Corten steel and timber surround this house by McAllister Alcock Architects on a vineyard in Mornington Peninsula, Australia (+ slideshow).
Entitled Main Ridge Residence, the single-storey house features a central courtyard that is open to the north, as well as a protruding living room that projects eastwards to frame views towards the fields of a neighbouring strawberry farm.
“The site had no clear ‘hero’ views with which to orientate the building,” explains Victoria-based McAllister Alcock Architects. “However there were a series of lovely, albeit modest aspects… The architecture retains the memory of these existing landscape vistas and uses them as an ordering device.”
The house is divided into two main wings. The first stretches along the eastern edge of the site to accommodate a row of bedrooms and bathrooms, while the second wraps around the south-west corner and contains family rooms as well as a small guest suite.
These two sections are visually separated by materials, with the timber cladding lining the eastern side of the house and chunky Corten steel walls framing an entrance on the western facade.
Beyond the entranceway, an enclosed patio leads residents either into the house or through to the courtyard beyond, and is framed by walls of concrete.
Living and dining areas occupy a single space beneath a faceted plywood ceiling. A timber drum divides the space into two and contains a pantry and a spiral staircase, leading down to a wine cellar beneath the house.
Here’s a project description from McAllister Alcock Architects:
Main Ridge Residence, Mornington Peninsula, Australia
The Main Ridge house sits within an established working vineyard located on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. The brief was for a comfortable 4 bedroom family home with a visual connection to the vines and which provided an area suitable for entertaining the international guests who visit our clients’ winery.
We are ‘urban architects’, used to working with the constraints of existing built form and planning regulations and creating architecture in residual urban space. We consider our work to be contextual, an architectural response to the urban ‘found’ conditions. In this case the context for the house was abstract; the site had no clear ‘hero’ views with which to orientate the building. The best northern solar orientation faces away from the vines, while to the west an existing artificial cutting separated the house site from the vines and the view to the east was dominated by a large and visually ‘messy’ strawberry farm. However there were a series of lovely, albeit modest aspects: to the north a view beneath trees full of dappled light and a promise of what lies beyond; to the south a gentle rolling grassy slope terminating at the vines. The architecture retains the memory of these existing landscape vistas and uses them as an ordering device – externally with the form and placement of the new building and internally with the orientation of the inside spaces.
On approach the house is hidden by two 20 metre long angled weathered ‘Corten’ steel walls. On entering through a gap between the walls – reminiscent of the original cutting – the house and site reveal themselves. The residence is comprised of pavilions enclosing three sides of a sheltered, north facing courtyard. The courtyard design maximises northern light to the interior and creates zones within the home: one for more private family living and another that can also cater for entertaining guests. A sculptured limed plywood ceiling provides a horizontal ribbon linking the public and private areas of the main pavilion, and contributes visual ‘drama’ while still maintaining a comfortable residential scale. A pod-like timber ‘drum’ marks the pivot point between the public and private realms and hides a butler’s pantry, the staircase to the wine cellar, and sliding doors to zone the spaces.
At the start of the project our clients were not overly impressed with the attributes of their site and were not fond of the view to the strawberry farm. The design of the residence has changed our clients’ perception of their environs by carefully selecting and ‘framing’ vignettes so that the inhabitants are encouraged to pause, and appreciate the special characteristics of a landscape setting that has more ‘depth’ than just the strong graphic rows of grapevines.
Location: Main Ridge, Mornington Peninsula, Australia Architects: McAllister Alcock Architects Project Type: New House Project Team: Karen Alcock, Clare McAllister, Maria Danos, Brett Seakins, Jack Tu
The watchtowers, walls and pathways of a historic fort were repaired and rebuilt as part of this restoration project in the 2000-year-old city of Thula, Yemen, one of 20 projects shortlisted for the 2013 Aga Khan Award.
Prolific as a centre of Sabaean civilisation in the fifteenth century, the ancient walled city contains many well-preserved houses and mosques. However, locals were concerned that the arrival of a new road in 2004 would threaten their cultural heritage.
“[It] will cause a lot of problems in the future, damaging the architectural elements and the features of the landscape and the terraces of the town,” explained architect Abdullah Al-Hadrami, who responded to the development by working alongside the Social Fund for Development and a group of local residents to preserve the architecture.
The team repaired the old watch towers and the large Bab al Mayah gate, and rebuilt the walls of burial grounds and terraces.
They also restored the fort’s pathways and waterways, including a large cistern that is still in use.
Here’s a short project description from the Aga Khan Award organisers:
Thula Fort Restoration
Threatened by the disruption that might ensue from the construction of a road, the Thula community, with the help of The Social Fund for Development, has undertaken a series of historic preservation projects to protect cultural assets, including rebuilding the walls of burial grounds and walls of agricultural terraces, restoring the Bab al Mayah gate, watch towers, paths and waterways, and repairing the cistern that remains in use to this day.
Thula is well-known for artefacts from the Sabaean period and its prototypical massive stone architecture. During the preservation process an archaeological site was discovered with gates and walls that should provide further insights into the Sabaeans and their civilisation.
Location: Thula, Yemen (Africa) Architect: Abdullah Al-Hadrami, Sana’a, Yemen Client: The Social Fund for Development, Thula Local Council Completed: 2011 Design: 2004 Site size: 8,754 sqm
The armrests of these chairs by Swedish designers Claesson Koivisto Rune reach out as though asking for a hug.
The Hug range by Claesson Koivisto Rune for Italian brand Arflex features deep, thin arms that angle upwards and outwards.
“The friendly and welcoming gesture, seen most clearly in the ‘open-armed’ position of the armrests, is meant as a universal invitation, saying ‘come, sit with me a while and I’ll put you at ease,'” say the designers.
The upholstered seat, backrest and arms sit on a wooden plinth supported by legs in a contrasting colour.
The Hug collection includes a dining chair, a lower side chair and a high-backed club chair that’s more enclosed.
An opaque box appears to balance over see-through walls of glass and perforated steel at this house and pet shop in Saitama, Japan, by architecture studio N Maeda Atelier (+ slideshow).
The pet shop occupies the ground floor of the building, while a two-storey house is contained in the precarious-looking upper volume and overhangs the glass facade to create a sheltered entrance to the shop.
“The upper unit presents a sharp contrast to the open, transparent lower layer, with its weighty, massive appearance almost like a heavily-armed tank defending the rather indoorsy life of the client’s family,” says N Maeda Atelier.
The plaster-covered walls of the house have a textured surface that the architects based on an image of a cloudy sky, with the same variations of light and dark. There are no sharp edges, as all four corners are chamfered.
“On a cloudy day, the floating mass looks as if it blends in with the sky, while its edges lose their individual materiality as they melt into the gradational clouds in the background,” says the studio.
Natural light floods into the house through a skylight that stretches across most of the roof. Rooms are arranged around a double-height atrium, allowing light to permeate most of the interior.
A kitchen, lounge and traditional Japanese room occupy the lowest level of the residence, while a spiral staircase leads up to a gridded metal mezzanine with a bedroom and bathroom beyond.
In contrast with the austere facade, the interior walls are lined with plywood, which the architects have sliced up into boards and coated with a thin layer of white paint.
The owner of the residence also runs the pet shop downstairs, so a second spiral staircase leads down from to the “dog-run” yard at the back of the building.
Basic composition of TORUS is a bilayer structure consisted of a white, half-amorphous box floating on the lower layer softly surrounded by glass and perforated aluminum panels.
The transparency and the openness of this layer is a natural solution for the functional requirement to expose the presence of the salon to prospective customers and other passer-bys, as well as to open up the ground outside the shop area surrounded by the curved perforated partitions as “dog-run” field where dogs can freely run around.
The apparently free line of the curved wall is actually based on our careful recognition of what we call the “welcoming zones”, i.e., the pocket areas required to open up to the urban context outside the building site. The cutting-outs of such zones as parking, entrance and spaces for outdoor equipment have resulted in the irregular curve of the wall as the output of such operations.
Composition: Second and Third Floors
The upper unit containing two floors within presents a sharp contrast to the open, transparent lower layer with its weighty, massive appearance almost like a heavily-armed tank defending the rather indoorsy life of the client’s family. With a closer look, the surface of the wall shows a texture similar to a handmade pottery instead of that of a flat, uniform industrial product.
Texture: Exterior Wall
The pottery-like texture is the result of painstaking manual operation of repeatedly applying and spreading the waterproof material onto the wall. Beside such a consideration to the close-up texture, the exterior of this second layer also involves our sensitivity to the longer-distance outlook of the building, which is realized by an operation of transcribing the sky onto the wall.
The transcription process is as following: first, we took a picture of the sky right above the site on the day of framework completion (phase 1); the picture was then abstracted into a gray-scale gradation graphic (phase 2), which we applied as the contour map of the undulating surface by carefully duplicating it on the four sides of the wall; finally, we covered the surface with finishing mortar while controlling its thickness (varied from 0 to 30mm) based on the contour lines – and thus emerged the ambiguous cloudy sky texture. The finished wall naturally takes on a feature of the sky with wispy clouds.
The treatment of the exterior wall has allowed us to produce quirky and blurry edges on the corners of the floating box, which is obviously different from the familiar sight of sharp edges of building corners fashioned with usual industrial materials, and thus make this architecture stand out in the ordinary cityscape.
On a cloudy day, the floating mass looks as if it blends in with the sky, while its edges lose their individual materiality as they melt into the gradational clouds in the background. TORUS is probably a rare architecture that looks much better under clouds than clear sky.
Interior composition: Internal Void (through second and third floors)
Let us move up into the massive floating box, which appears extremely exclusive of the surrounding urban context. Beside the entrance door is a small pocket space: although it is still an open-air space, it somehow bears an indoor atmosphere due to the careful treatment of proportions and openings. Right inside the entrance door is a huge void within the massive box.
This is the particular atmosphere inside TORUS, a doughnut-like geometry with one big opening within. While the outlook of the building implies ultimate closure, it embraces a surprisingly voluminous space or “The Outside” almost mistakable for a street or a patio – which is actually a glass-covered interior void.
The prior factor of this “outside effect” is obviously the gigantic top light on the roof, but there is another, rather obscure one: the rugged interior wall finish.
The material itself is actually an ordinary, cheap plywood panel available in any hardware store in Japan. To give the particular tactile quality to this daily material, we cut the panels into narrow boards of 200mm width each and then manually removed the soft parts from each and every board to let the hard grains stand out on the surface.
With the finishing white paint (which needed a special preparation to evenly paint over the water-absorbing and non-absorbing portions of the surface), the ordinary material has been turned into a unique finishing material like this.
This extremely labor- and time-consuming work was all done by our staff and the students of the private school led by the chief architect Norisada Maeda, and it took about two months to finish all the boards necessary to fill up the interior wall of the building (it is unimaginable how much it would have costed if the work has been committed to professional carpenters and the painters…). The resulted difference may appear rather slight and obscure from a distance, but a closer look will show the rough, but also tasteful texture of the artificially aged wall.
General-purpose industrial materials like plywood panels usually require – or even boast of – ultimate evenness of their qualities, although they can never get rid of slight differences in, for example, their wood grains. It echoes with the contemporary consumers’ taste for orderly outlook of such evenly processed materials. We consider, however, such myopic taste for apparent cleanliness and/or orderliness as one of the big reasons for the qualitative poverty of today’s architecture.
Even the plywood boards have individual characteristics, like each and every human individual has different face and life history. The artificial aging treatment to expose the individual “wood” nature within each and every industrially-processed plywood is a sort of a manifestation of our homage to the wooden materials that make up the actual architectural space.
As described above, the particular focus in TORUS can be summarized as following: clear-cut segmentation of lower and upper layers; “cutting-outs” of spaces from the surrounding urban context; unique treatment of inside/outside; invention of new texture treatment. TORUS has come to life with these considerations blended in together to realize the true richness of a residential space in the given context.
This house in rural England was designed by British architect Lucy Marston to reference old English farmhouses and features red brickwork, a steep gabled profile and a corner chimney (+ slideshow).
Located in the county of Suffolk, Long Farm is a three-storey family residence clad in a mixture of regional materials that includes terracotta roof tiles, lime mortar and timber details.
“We wanted to make a building that belonged on the site,” says Lucy Marston. “Familiar building elements and materials were carefully composed to create a house that is clearly of its time, but with an identity firmly routed in its locale. It was intended to be immediately recognisable as a Suffolk house that feels at home on the farm.”
Skylights are lined up along both sides of the roof, while large windows cover all four elevations, allowing light to filter into the house at different times of day.
A similar materials palette continues through the interior. Martson explains: “Whitewashed brickwork, painted timber linings and exposed ceiling beams were used to give honest depth, texture and character to a modern interior.”
The client works as a writer and requested quiet spaces for working as well as larger areas for entertaining guests or spending time as a family.
Marston thus added a a series of rooms on the ground floor that can be opened out to create a large living room or subdivided to create a “snug”, a reading room and a playroom for the children. There’s also a study across the corridor.
A large kitchen is located at the opposite end of this floor and features a dining table that can seat up to ten people, as well as a traditional farmhouse sink and a double stove.
Four bedrooms occupy the first floor and include two master bedrooms with private bathrooms, plus a pair of children’s rooms that can be combined to form one large room.
“The clients wanted to build a simple, modest building that would adapt to accommodate them as the family developed,” says the architect.
Here’s the full project description from Lucy Marston:
Long Farm, Suffolk
Long Farm is a new family home in rural Suffolk, England. The house sits high among a group of existing farm buildings, facing east across salt marshes and open fields, towards the sea.
We wanted to make a building that ‘belonged’ on the site and so the design emerged from its context. The steeply pitched roof and linear form were influenced by the traditional ‘long house’ form that can be seen throughout that part of the country.
Familiar building elements and materials – a corner chimney, brick and lime mortar, teracotta tiles and timber – were carefully composed to create a house that is clearly of its time, but with an identity firmly routed in its locale. It was intended to be immediately recognisable as a Suffolk house that feels at home on the farm.
Capturing the unique views around the house, in all directions was key. From the dawn in the east over the sea to sunset over the reed beds to the far west, windows and rooflights were placed precisely to track the sun and and views throughout the course of the day. Windows were kept large to frame dramatic views, but balanced with the occupants’ domestic desire for enclosure, privacy and warmth.
Internally, the vernacular references continue: a super-sized inglenook in the sitting room, a generous hall and landing that almost become rooms, window sills deep enough to sit in and a ‘farmhouse kitchen’ arranged around a large family table. Whitewashed brickwork, painted timber linings and exposed ceiling beams were used to give honest depth, texture and character to a modern interior.
The house was designed to accommodate a family of four with guests, with room for different age groups to carry out activities in different parts of the house.
As a writer with young children, the client had conflicting requirements, requiring solitude in order to work and also sociable interlinked spaces for the everyday bustle of sociable family life and frequent visitors.
The plan, an update of the traditional single room depth long house layout, was developed as a series of smaller rooms with their own identities (a playroom, a reading room, a snug).
These can be closed off and used separately with access via the hall or opened up with sliding doors to create a more fluid semi-open plan space. Likewise the childrens’ bedrooms can be opened up to form one big room or closed off for privacy.
The clients wanted to build a simple, modest building that would adapt to accommodate them as the family developed. They also wanted a building that would weather well, would require little or no maintenance and minimal energy to run.
At Long Farm, we aimed to make a building that was not only robust and flexible enough to age well over time, but one that aimed to be sustainable long term in an aesthetic sense, that had a timeless or ‘classic’ quality to it.
Landscape Consultant: Marie Clarke, Clarke Associates Structural Engineer: David Cantrill, JP Chick and Partners Contractor: Robert Norman Construction
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