Hasta La Ideas

London studio PATALAB Architecture made the most of the space inside this awkward-shaped residence in the north of the city by running a staircase along the entire rear wall and adding a door that folds around a corner (+ slideshow).

PATALAB Architecture inserted the two-storey apartment into the converted upper levels of a historic shop building in Hampstead Village. The team planned the interior as a series of tiers, hence the name Cascade House.

The first step in the renovation was to add an extra storey at the rear of the building. The architects then created a long route that leads directly from the entrance all the way up to this new top level, allowing it to function as both corridor and stairwell.

Skylights bring natural light into the stairwell, while inside walls are lined with pine panels that have been sand-blasted and stained black.

“This was one of our most challenging design projects in terms of creating a sense of space at a very confined site in a listed building,” said studio founder Uwe Schmidt-Hess. “By introducing the internal timber panelled staircase facade and creating a very intense spatial sequence, the apartment feels much bigger than it actually is.”

The timber staircase treads are also stained black, as are floors throughout the apartment, helping to create a sense of unity through each of the spaces.

Upon entering, the first room to arrive at is the combined living room and kitchen. The unusual door sits at one of the corners of this space, comprising two halves that concertina into the wall so that they don’t get in the way when open.

There’s also a window between this room and the stairwell to help light filter between the two spaces.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Cascade House

‘Cascade’ staircase and right-angled door boost the sense of living space at a listed building conversion in Hampstead Village, London.

Building a luxury two-bedroom apartment as an extension to the modestly sized dimensions of an existing retail premises in this Georgian building in the very heart of London’s Hampstead village, while providing occupants with a heightened sense of living space, was the design challenge for PATALAB Architecture.

The Grade II listed building, on the corner of Hampstead High Street and Perrin’s Court, consists of three storeys of floor space. The rear of the building extends to two floors. The design solution for creating a two-storey dwelling and giving it a feeling of enhanced space was to create a new mansard-roofed third storey at the rear of the building. This has maximised the headroom in the new living room/kitchen area inside while minimising visual mass externally, thereby satisfying the listed building requirements of the local planning authority.

A new access staircase for the apartment runs for most of the building’s depth, at the back of the new accommodation, adding to the sense of space. There is a short, right angled turn at the foot of it, leading to the street entrance door. The visual effect of the continuous fall of black-stained timber staircase treads, together with the double storey living space, has given the new dwelling its name, Cascade House.

The staircase is well lit by roof skylights and has a grain textured facade of pine panels one side of it which has been sandblasted to enhance the surface texture and stained black to increase the graphic effect. This gives an impressive, continuous, feature-like quality to the entrance space.

The sense of space has been further enhanced by the creation of a right-angled entrance door to the living room/kitchen area, an unique design feature. An internal window in the living room wall provides extra daylight exposure to the stairwell, as well as providing a double light aspect to the living space.

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Iconic works from artists including Piet Mondrian, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Marcel Duchamp and more are reinterpreted as cross-sectional drawings of buildings in this series from Italian architect and illustrator Federico Babina (+ slideshow).

The collection of 27 images, entitled Archist, playfully interprets the styles and themes of some of the world’s greatest artists including Picasso, Salvador Dali and Joan Miro, and imagines them as architectural forms.

Babina explores the symbiotic relationship between architecture and art, and how they would interact with each other.

“Art and architecture are disciplines that speak and lightly touch each other,” explained Babina. “The definition and function of architecture is changing constantly with the development of contemporary art.”

The artist tried to imagine what a house designed by Dali or a museum designed by Miro might look like.

“A sculpture is like a micro-architecture, a facade can become like a painted canvas and a building can be shaped as in the hands of a skilled sculptor,” he said.

Among some of the most recognisable works is Roy Lichtenstein’s comic-book style and block colour schemes laid over a Modernist-style house on stilts.

Sliced images of Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych are spread across rooms decorated in bright colours with two Campbell’s tomato soup cans placed atop the rectangular building.

Damien Hirst’s 2005 piece Wrath of God featuring a shark set in formaldehyde and his colourful dot series Mickey are used to bring a modular building to life.

An eclectic and almost random arrangement of shapes make up the Picasso building, echoing the artist’s dabblings with Cubism.

Marcel Duchamp’s building, meanwhile, draws on the artist’s Roue de Bicyclette, reinterpreting it as a pulley system watched over by the Dadaist’s Fountain urinal.

Salvador Dali’s distorted and surrealist shapes are propped up by wooden stilts and feature windows resembling an eye and nostril in Babina’s interpretation.

Joan Miro’s Dancer is used to liven up a square building with the addition of circular and square windows and a deep blue finish.

“Painting, sculpture and architecture have always been complementary disciplines that influence each other and grow and develop among common paths,” Babina concluded.

The artist is planning on turning this and some of his other work into a book.

Previously, Babina created an illustrated series of film sets in self-contained cross sections called Archiset. He also designed an alphabet of illustrated letters that depict buildings by 26 famous architects.

Here’s some information from Federico Babina:

Can a work of art be a building ?

ARCHIST is a playful interpretation of the expressive language and aesthetic of some of the most popular artists. I enjoyed creating 27 “paintingsprojects” which represented 27 different artists.

There is a Symbiotic Relationship an implicit partnership between Architecture and Art, different art branches meet in many fields.

Art and architecture are disciplines that speak and lightly touch each other, the definition and function of the architecture are changing constantly with the development of contemporary art.

In this exercise of style I took pleasure imagining architecture steeped of art, designed and constructed through the interpretation of an artist’s language.

Art, architecture and sculpture are historically linked by an unbreakable thread, we find examples of paintings and sculptures having a direct influence on architectural design.

It is easy to find the art hidden behind an architectural shape or see reflected a geometry of a building painted on a canvas. It is impossible to conceive of the history of art in exclusion from that of architecture.

Painting sculpture and architecture have always been complementary disciplines that influence each other and feed to grow and develop along common paths.

A sculpture is like a micro-architecture, a facade can become like a painted canvas and a building can be shaped as in the hands of a skilled sculptor.

I like finding the hidden architecture in parallel universes, in this sense, the illustration helps me to explore alternative languages.

I tried to imagine how it would have been a house designed by Dalí or a museum designed by Miró.

These images represent an imaginary and imagined world of shapes that uses the brush to paint architecture.

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Designer Martino Gamper has curated an exhibition at London’s Serpentine Sackler Gallery featuring classic and contemporary shelving systems that display objects chosen by friends and colleagues including Ron Arad, Marc Newson and Ross Lovegrove.

Gamper‘s exhibition at the recently opened Serpentine Sackler Gallery includes shelving products dating back as far as the 1930s, which the London-based designer selected for their iconic status or to demonstrate how they relate to the objects they contain.

Among the products presented as part of the Design is a State of Mind exhibition are classic shelving systems by designers including Gaetano Pesce, Ettore Sottsass, Ercol and Gio Ponti, as well as contemporary products from companies such as Ikea.

Each shelving product is used to display objects borrowed from the personal archives of Gamper’s friends and colleagues, including Newson, Arad, Lovegrove, Jurgen Bey and Sebastian Bergne.

Gamper said: “There is no perfect design and there is no über-design. Objects talk to us personally. Some might be more functional than others, and the emotional attachment is very individual. This exhibition will showcase a very personal way of collecting and gathering objects – these are pieces that tell a tale.”

The prototypes and inspirational curios selected by the designers include a paperweight in the shape of a bird’s foot lent by Enzo Mari and a collection of objects made at the Leach Pottery in St Ives, chosen by Max Lamb and Gemma Holt.

Practical metal shelving from Dexion displays objects from Ron Arad’s personal archive, including a table he made from a Singer sewing machine base with a dartboard top.

Some of Gamper’s own designs feature in the exhibition, including his rainbow-like arrangement of veneered modular units called L’Arco della Pace.

Gamper also chose to include a large archive of contemporary furniture manufacturing catalogues from around the world.

Two spaces at the centre of the Serpentine Sackler Gallery provide the setting for events organised by Gamper as part of the exhibition.

The designer identified a range of activities that demonstrate how people interact with furniture and products, including cooking, eating, reading, listening, writing, playing, drawing, dreaming and working.

Design is a State of Mind is running concurrently with an exhibition at the main Serpentine Gallery that showcases the work of American artist Haim Steinbach, who is known for including found and made objects in his art.

Gamper’s exhibition, which runs until 21 April 2014, is the second major design exhibition to be staged by the Serpentine Gallery, following the Design Real show curated by Konstantin Grcic in 2009.

The Serpentine Sackler Gallery opened earlier this year following its renovation and extension by Zaha Hadid, who added a swooping tensile fabric canopy to a brick building that was once a gunpowder store.

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News: American 3D printing firm 3D Systems has created a robotic suit that combines printed parts with motorised components to help paralysed patients stand and walk.

3D Systems claimed that its Ekso-Suit, which fits onto the user’s legs and back to support the natural walking motion, is the “first ever 3D printed hybrid Exoskeleton robotic suit”.

Boxtel’s thighs, shins and spine were 3D-scanned to create a three-dimensional digital model on which the shapes of the flexible printed parts of the exoskeleton are based.

This process enabled the designers to create a support structure that is a perfect fit for Boxtel’s body and provides a framework for the mechanical actuators and controls that power the suit, which were developed by California-based exoskeleton specialist, Ekso Bionics.

Shifts in the user’s weight activate sensors connected to battery-powered motors that drive the legs, resulting in a natural and weight-bearing gait despite the lack of muscular function.

Boxtel tested the suit by walking around the Hungarian capital, Budapest, at an event hosted by Californian higher education institution Singularity University.

“After years of dreaming about it, I am deeply grateful and thrilled to be making history by walking tall in the first ever 3D printed Ekso-Suit, made specifically for me,” said Boxtel.

“This project represents the triumph of human creativity and technology that converged to restore my authentic functionality in a stunningly beautiful, fashionable and organic design,” she added.

3D Systems president and CEO Avi Reichental said: “I believe that the most beautiful and functional designs have already been patented by nature, and inspired by Amanda’s incredible spirit, we were able to harness nature’s beauty with 3D printed functionality and freedom of creation to allow her body and spirit to soar.”

The South Carolina firm is engaged in other projects that use 3D scanning and printing technologies to create customised devices for medical applications including preoperative surgery, surgical drill and saw guides, dentistry and orthodontics.

“3D Systems has long been a pioneer in patient-specific devices, integrating our cutting-edge 3D capabilities with robotics to better serve humanity opens new and unimaginable frontiers,” added Reichental.

The robotic components of the suit are based on technologies that Ekso Bionics has been developing since 2005. The company’s products help to augment the user’s strength and its HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier) suit has been tested by the American military as a way of enhancing the capabilities of soldiers in the field.

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DMOA Architecten has transformed a former hunting lodge in Belgium into a family home, retaining the eight piers of its original brick facade as a garden feature (+ movie).

La Branche was first built in the eighteenth century on the site of a castle in the woods of Heverlee, Belgium. Originally a home, it later became a hunting lodge but was left vacant 15 years ago.

DMOA Architecten refurbished two brick blocks and created a new one-storey volume that links the two. The eight piers of the original facade, which gave its name to the property, were retained as a free-standing screen in front.

“When you walk through the house you feel continuously that you are in a nexus between old and new,” said Luis Querol of DMOA Architecten.

The new flat-roofed single-storey volume holds the living and dining areas. It has custom-made windows and timber cladding in black-tinted afzelia.

Cupboards are made of smoked oak veneer, the floor is natural oak, and the kitchen is a combination of brown Corian and smoked oak veneer.

The new addition makes a U-shaped plan, connecting with the two brick gabled buildings that sit at right angles to it to form a central courtyard.

The house is now home to a family with four children, whose bedrooms are within the brick-built wings.

Floors and walls in the master bathroom are painted black.

Photography by Thomas Janssens. Video is by Luis Querol.

Here’s a project description the architect sent us:

La Branche

The project is a peaceful combination of old and new. The new part is a sober black canvas looking at the garden from behind the old walls.

In several places remnant parts of the old walls are kept as garden elements, an aspect that strengthens the atmosphere. When you walk through the house you feel continuously that you are in a nexus between old and new.

The project consists of the renovation of an old resting place for hunters in the woods of Heverlee (Belgium), transforming it in an comfortable and modern dwelling for a family with four children.

One of the three wings of the U-compositions was removed except of the facade wall, which remains with the name that gave title to the old refuge and now to its renovation “La Branche”.

The sides made of brick contain the private rooms of the family meanwhile the dark volume accommodate the living and the kitchen in permanent connection with the pool and the outside garden. The dark colours of the interior design contrast with the high brightness that gets inside through the large windows.

Project Title: La Branche
Architects: DMOA Architecten
Collaborators: Benjamin Denef, Charlotte Gryspeerdt, Matthias Mattelaer; Lien Gesquiere
Localization: Heverlee, Belgium
Site area: 2200 sqm
Floor area: 655 sqm

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