Hasta La Ideas

Vienna design collective Mostlikely modelled this Alpine lodge on the wooden agricultural barns of surrounding mountain villages.

Mostlikely wanted to design a building that would be suited to a modern family lifestyle, but that also wouldn’t look out of place amongst the traditional architecture of its locality in Kitzbühel, Austria.

“This coherent architectural landscape allows for a romantic identity as well as regional authenticity and serves as the layer stone of the tourism industry in this area,” said the designers.

Rather than replicating the design of the local houses, they took the form of an old barn as the model for the house’s shape and appearance.

“The typology of the barn with its brick-built, massive socket that contrasts its open hayloft seemed to suit today’s needs better than the traditionally poor-lit farmers house of the old days,” added the designers.

Named The Barn, the three-storey house comprises a base of bare concrete rather than brickwork, and a wooden upper section with a gently sloping roof that helps prevent a large build-up of snow.

The architects collaborated with sculptor Stefan Buxbaum on the design of the concrete, using a corrosive chemical to engrave images of flowers and fishes into the surface to reference the “myths of the mountains”.

Living and dining rooms occupy the middle floor of the building and include double-height spaces with views up to the exposed wooden roof beams. A wood-burning stove sits between the kitchen and dining room, while glass doors lead out a large balcony terrace.

A metal staircase ascends to a top-floor mezzanine and descends to three bedrooms located on the ground floor.

Photography is by Mostlikely and Maik Perfahl.

Here’s a project description from Mostlikely:

The Barn – Edition Kitzbühel 2012. Living like a wild emperor. Staged Authenticity.

To build a one family house in the region of Kitzbühel architect Mark Neuner and the team of mostlikely took a better part of the design process as a research quest on how to build in a contemporary way without neglecting the historic traditions. Questions with great significance in an area where tradition not only weighs heavily on old houses but hardly any new houses that are more daring are to be found at all.

This coherent architectural landscape allows for a romantic identity as well as regional authenticity and serves as the layer stone of the tourism industry in this area. To respect and preserve the substance of the idyllic mountain village Going am Wilden Kaiser (the name of the mountain which literally translates to “Wild Emperor”) mostlikely chose to stage the well-known and proven in a new way.

The ideal model

Numerous walks through the environment and a deep dive into the history as well as the cliches associated with the area helped to analyse, measure and document the surroundings. These physical and mental excursions would then lead to a visualised outline of the plan that was full of variety and complexity. This way of “working in pictures” at the beginning of the design process enabled us to get a stronger connection with the space. This approach eventually led mostlikely to the barn instead of the traditional house to play the model for the further development. The typology of the barn with its brick-built, massive socket that contrasts its open hayloft seemed to suit today’s needs better than the traditionally poor-lit farmers house of the old days.

Concrete Flowers (or Fable and Flora)

The point of culmination for the idea of the barn was the socket. Instead of brick, concrete was the material of choice and the magic could take place: flowers and creatures that would slightly remind the myths of the mountains would grow – thanks to a corrosion technique – on the especially designed and each separately cast concrete panels. Moreover in an almost manic cooperation with the sculptor Stefan Buxbaum mostlikely was able to create panels of concrete almost as light as a feather so that even the automatic garage door would open and thus be integrated invisibly in the facade of the building.

Proven but progressive

In the living areas of the house especially designed furniture, walls made from exposed concrete and most prominently the wooden roof timbering that would dominate the shape and feel of the upper floors would connect the shapes of the past with modern living styles just naturally without insinuating.

Unpretentious and natural as a barn should be, a new typology of housing in the mountains was born: “Scheune Edition Kitzbühel 2012” its name.

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based on an agricultural barn appeared first on Dezeen.

Slovenian firm Svet Vmes Architects has converted the unused entrance of a school in Ljubljana into an undulating green lounge featuring spotty walls and big cushions (+ slideshow).

The 144 year-old grammar school, one of the oldest in the city, was built with two entrances that were originally used to separate girls and boys entering the building.

Svet Vmes Architects was tasked with transforming the defunct second entrance into a space where students can relax and socialise, which they named School Landscape.

The architects retained existing mouldings and architraves, but printed a dissolving pattern of green polka-dots on the lower half of the walls.

Wavy green benches used for lounging and sliding run along the side walls and are covered with large squishy cushions, while a staircase is sandwiched in between.

“The enclosure is formed with wavy bands with different gradients of one material,” said the architects. “With this element we broke the hard, uneven space and transformed it into a new, soft, single space.”

A projector screen, loudspeakers and WiFi were also installed so students can watch movies and study in the space.

Photography is by Matevž Paternoster and Agencija Umer.

Here’s a project description from Svet Vmes:

School Landscape

Ledina is one of the oldest grammar schools in Ljubljana. It has operated for 144 years. The school plan has a characteristic ‘U’ shape, with two main entrances that were once used as separate entrances – for boys and girls. Due to safety reasons only one is in use today, while the second one is closed and has no function.

The idea was to create a new ‘semi-public’ school space for leisure activities of students during recess, before and after school. The enclosure is formed with wavy bands with different gradients of one material. With this element we broke the hard, uneven space and transformed it into a new, soft, single space.

As internet is indispensable in everyday life of pupils, the room has wireless internet, loudspeakers and a projector to ensure a more relaxed ambience. The place becomes a multi used school landscape where students can rest, socialise, watch movies, get information, listen to music, and organise lectures or performances by school DJs.

Interior and graphic design: SVET VMES Jure Hrovat, m.i.a., Ana Kosi, u.d.i.a., Ana Krec, m.i.a., Tina Rome, m.i.a.
Wallpaper printing: Neoprint d.o.o.
Construction works: GP KB gradbeništvo d.o.o.
Rubber waves: INTERFLOORING d.o.o., talne obloge, inženiring, interier
Carpenter: Mizarstvo Meznaric d.o.o.
Investor: Ledina Grammar School
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Year of completion: 2013

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replaces an old school entrance appeared first on Dezeen.

Narrow slices of glazing break up the plain white facade of this residential extension in west London by Guard Tillman Pollock Architects, helping to visually separate it from the existing house.

Guard Tillman Pollock Architects added the two-storey extension to an Italian-influenced residence from the nineteenth century, which previously received little natural light as a result of small windows.

Rather than placing an extension at the north-facing rear of the building, where it would have spent most of the day in shadow, the architects designed a structure to sit alongside the original house and added large expanses of glazing to bring daylight through.

Two strips of glazing wrap over the top of the extension to create combined windows and skylights. One also forms a junction between the new and old structures.

“The arrangement of windows and rooflights allows sunlight to be reflected off the flank wall of the existing house and into the kitchen and dining room of the new extension,” architect Steven Pollock told Dezeen.

A change of level between the front and back of the site gives the extension two ground-level storeys. A pair of new doorways provide a link to the main house on the lower ground-floor level, while a glass bridge makes a connection on the floor above.

A kitchen and double-height dining area occupy the lower floor and feature sliding doors that open the space out to the garden. The floor above contains a study, as well as a small entrance lobby and cloakroom.

Photography is by Gareth Gardner.

Read on for a project description from Guard Tillman Pollock Architects:

Extension to Grade II Listed House, West London

The owners of this elegant semi-detached villa in west London wanted to extend the accommodation to create a better connection to the garden.

The original house is a listed structure that was constructed in the mid-nineteenth century as part of a number of similar Italianate detached and semi-detached villas. These Italianate villas have a small window to wall ratio compared to normal London houses. While this creates an elegant facade, the interiors of the houses are quite dark with minimal visual connection to the outside.

The rear of this house is north facing so much of the back garden is in shadow during the day. An extension at the rear of the house would receive little or no sunlight. The new extension is therefore built to the side of the house and separated from the original house by a glazed slot, preserving the original footprint of the villa and delineating the new from the old.

The early morning mid-winter sun rising over the neighbouring buildings is in alignment with the glass slot. Throughout the year the glass slot provides morning sun to the dining room. As the extension is positioned on the south-west side of the house, afternoon and evening sunlight is bounced off the flank wall of the original building through the glass slot to enliven the living space below.

The new extension is connected to the entrance hall by a glass bridge at ground floor level and linked to the main staircase at lower ground level. The lower floor of the extension provides a new light-filled kitchen and double-height dining area, opening onto the rear garden. Above the dining area, a galleried study overlooks the rear gardens and exploits the longer diagonal views. A small reception area and cloakroom is provided on the ground floor at the front of the new extension.

External sliding glass doors in the dining area are arranged to slide back into the walls so that the double height space can be opened up to the garden. The chimney breast acts as the focal point of the room and also helps to control overlooking from rear windows of adjoining properties.

At certain times of the day shafts of sunlight on the chimney breast in the double-height dining space contrast with the shafts of reflected light from the flank wall of the original house, the paths of these shafts of sunlight changing with the seasons.

Architects: Guard Tillman Pollock Architects
Location: London, U.K.
Structural design: Michael Biagent, Orla Kelly
Contractor: Chalk Hill Construction
Project Area: Original house: 264m2 Extension: 96m2

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features vertical slices of glazing appeared first on Dezeen.

Employees meet in octagonal timber gazebos at the San Francisco headquarters of technology company Cisco by local interior designers Studio O+A (+ slideshow).

Studio O+A created the interior for Cisco‘s primary San Francisco workplace, after the company acquired WiFi firm Meraki in November 2012 and needed more space.

Located in the city’s Mission Bay neighbourhood and overlooking the waterfront, the 110,000-square-foot office is split over two floors. It was designed to maximise daylight and provide communal areas based on feedback the designers received from staff.

“O+A surveyed Meraki’s employees to find out what they liked about their old, much smaller headquarters,” said the designers. “A consensus emerged for natural light, plenty of collaboration space and preservation of the company’s tightly-knit culture.”

Wood-frame pavilions that are partially enclosed with triangular panels provide intimate meeting spots and break up the large floor plate.

Timber-clad walls feature padded niches in which individuals can recline with their laptops.

Seating areas are sunk beneath floor-to-ceiling windows to prevent them blocking the light into the deep open-plan areas.

Giant whiteboards and blackboards give the employees opportunities to write and sketch ideas over the walls, while notes and memos can be pinned to cork panels.

Levels are connected by a wide open staircase, which has wooden stadium seating integrated at its base.

The mix of flooring types includes carpet, wood and astroturf, and a varied palette of colours is used for walls and furniture.

Green electricity cables run up the white corridor walls and across the exposed concrete ceilings to power the overhead lights.

The hallways are wide enough for workers to cycle or skateboard between zones.

A large roof terrace provides views across San Francisco bay towards the baseball stadium, the Bay Bridge and downtown.

Studio O+A has designed offices for quite a few technology companies around California. The studio completed both Facebook and AOL‘s headquarters in Palo Alto, as well as the Silicon Valley HQ for Evernote.

Photographes are by Jasper Sanidad.

The text sent to us by Studio O+A follows:

The panoramic view of San Francisco’s waterfront visible from Cisco’s new offices in some ways sets the theme for O+A’s design. From almost any angle the visual impact is of light, spaciousness, bright colour, long sight lines.

Meraki, which was recently acquired by Cisco Systems, makes wireless routers—and takes pride in the elegance of their design.

O+A sought to build the space the way Meraki builds its products – with an emphasis on simplicity and seamless ease of use. But it was also mindful of the importance to the company’s identity of the Cisco-Meraki merger.

Located in the rapidly changing Mission Bay neighbourhood, Cisco’s 110,000-square-foot suite of offices now becomes the company’s principal San Francisco location.

At the outset O+A surveyed Meraki’s employees to find outwhat they liked about their old, much smaller headquarters. A consensus emerged for natural light, plenty of collaboration space and preservation of the company’s tightly-knit culture.

The size of the new space and the prominence of its floor-to-ceiling windows made collaboration and natural light relatively easy bills to fill.

O+A’s design offers a variety of meeting spaces formal and informal, indoor and outdoor, many of them bathed in the crystalline light of San Francisco Bay.

The scale and the light support both a rich palette of colours and design elements tailored to the broad canvas: a wide staircase with integrated stadium seating at its base, a meeting room showered from above with hanging tillandsia plants, an outdoor deck with views of the baseball park and Bay Bridge.

Maintaining Meraki’s cozy ambience in the hangar-sized complex proved more challenging. O+A’s solution was to create a medley of small gathering spaces within the large footprint.

Sunken seating brings intimacy to horizontal common areas while preserving broad sight lines. Yurts, cabanas and phone rooms offer varying levels of enclosure. And throughout the office informal lounge spaces allow passing colleagues to sit down and talk.

Despite the richness of the finishes and the wide array of typologies deployed, this is not a project that feels overly “designed”. One of O+A’s goals was to give Cisco a canvas on which to paint their own pictures.

In lieu of pervasive branding graphics, O+A provided ubiquitous chalkboards, whiteboards and corkboards so that Cisco’s employees could sketch, write and pin-up graphics meaningful to them.

As might be expected of the company’s strongly do-it-yourself culture, mobility and adaptability were big factors in the selection of furniture and workstations. These are people who like to move things around.

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wooden meeting pavilions appeared first on Dezeen.

A geometric pattern of skylights frames views of the sky from inside this angular white residence in Tokyo by Japanese firm Atelier Tekuto (+ slideshow).

Named Monoclinic House, the building was designed by Atelier Tekuto to accommodate a small three-level home for the client as well as a pair of compact studio apartments for rent.

When viewed from the street, the house appears to have no perpendicular edges. The skylights, which comprise a square and four triangles, are positioned on a diagonal surface that could be described as a wall or a ceiling.

“We have designed a few polyhedron houses, as they are often effective solutions in small and congested lots in urban residential districts,” said the architects, explaining how the angular surfaces also help rainwater to drain off the walls.

The main residence is positioned at the front of the building. The living room is on the first floor and benefits from a five metre-high ceiling at the front, allowing the skylights to bring daylight through both this space and a mezzanine bedroom above.

“One of the key concepts was to ‘design the sky’, because when designing a house in an urban context surrounded by buildings, the sky is the most important natural element in direct contact with architecture,” added the architects. “The top plane of this polyhedron form becomes a large top light, connecting the living space with the sky.”

A spiralling staircase with cantilevered metal treads leads down to another room that can be used as a garage or workshop, while the two single-room apartments are tucked away behind.

Entrances are positioned at different points around the perimeter, including one that is recessed into a narrow front wall.

All of the outer walls are covered with white render, while concrete surfaces are left exposed throughout the building’s interior.

Photography is by Toshihiro Sobajima.

Here are some more details from Atelier Tekuto:

Monoclinic

This house consists of a garage and two studio-type apartments for rent. Our client asked me to design architecture similar to “Reflection of Mineral” that we completed in 2006. Therefore basic concepts of ‘Mineral’ are taken into consideration. In order to further evolve from our previous design we focus on the following three issues:

1. Form should be carefully considered to protect white walls from dirt from rainwater.
2. Design and detailing of large skylight
3. Selection of materials to minimise cost.

The living room provides a unique and impressive space; it is narrow (15.8 m2 in floor area), its highest ceiling height is 5.5 metres, and a large quadrilateral skylight (18.2m2) connects the space to the sky. Square panel, punctured with smaller square in the middle, is inscribed in the quadrilateral shape, and dramatic contrast of light and shadow provides a new perceptive experience.

I have been exploring possibilities of polyhedron architecture in small lots of Tokyo for ten years. Moreover it is my long-time challenge to liberate one’s five senses with eye-opening spatial. This project is one of such successful cases.

Date of completion: September 2013
Location: Setagaya-ku, Tokyo
Program: Private house + apartments for rent
Site area: 85.92 sqm
Building area: 42.61 sqm
Total floor area: 90.82 sqm
Structure: Reinforced concrete
Architectural design: Yasuhiro Yamashita and Azusa Ishii/Atelier Tekuto
Structural engineer: Jun Sato and Yoshihiro Fukushima/Sato Structural Engineers
Construction: Yoshiya Uchida and Masaru Shibasaki/Uchida Sangyo

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with a pattern of pointy skylights appeared first on Dezeen.