This kinked house in Japan by architects Horibe Associates has all its storage space along one edge to buffer sounds from a noisy road (+ slideshow).
“This home sits on a road that gets a surprising amount of traffic given how narrow it is,” said Horibe Associates. “To minimise the noise from cars and to ensure privacy, [we] concentrated storage spaces along the side of the house facing the road and added a hallway as a further buffer shielding the main rooms.”
Designed for a couple and their child in Tokushima Prefecture, the wooden structure is clad in horizontal strips of dark metal.
The profile of the roof peaks at the kink, echoing the shapes of mountains in the distance.
At the back, rooms have large windows that look out over the cherry blossom trees in the expansive garden.
Bedrooms are located in the entrance wing, next to a opening that leads directly out to the back from the front door.
Combined kitchen, living and dining space at the end of the house opens out onto a pointy terrace, screened from the road by timber trellis that continues the line of the roof.
A timber lean-to sits at the other end of the house, stained the same colour as the wood front door.
Pendant plus de 6 ans, le docteur Zhang Biqing a construit une villa-montagne sur le toit de son immeuble de 26 étages dans la ville de Beijing sans demander aucune autorisation légale pour cela. Une réalisation rocambolesque et incroyable aujourd’hui controversée par les habitants de l’immeuble à découvrir en images.
Here are some photographs of the renovated 1960s Mineirão Stadium in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, set to host matches during the 2014 FIFA World Cup (+ slideshow).
BCMF Arquitetos was commissioned for a complete overhaul of the 1960s football stadium, located on the edge of the Pampulha Lagoon. Originally designed by architects Eduardo Mendes Guimarães Júnior and Gaspar Garreto, the building features an oval-shaped structure with a rhythmic facade made up of 88 projecting ribs.
Photography is by Leonardo Finotti
The team stripped the building back to its shell, before adding a new roof, lowering the pitch, upgrading all services and infrastructure, and adding new shops and a dedicated football museum.
Photography is by Leonardo Finotti
“Since Mineirão is a protected building, the addition of new program could be solely made through the insertion of a platform at its base,” said the design team. “Subverting the classic notion of a podium, which refers to a horizontal building with a flat top surface, this platform is carved on the ground and shaped accordingly, creating semi-public squares set at different levels.”
Photography is by Leonardo Finotti
The lowering of the pitch helps to improve sight lines for spectators, while redesigned seating tiers at the lower levels increase the capacity to over 62,000 seats.
Structural analysis revealed that the structure had subsided by around 30 centimetres. This was corrected using hydraulic jacks and steel cables, before the architects added a cantilevered roof to shelter spectators.
Improvements to the surrounding landscaping involved creating an artificial topography that defines public plazas, seating areas and routes between the stadium’s entrances and the nearby Mineirinho Gymnasium.
Here’s some more information from BCMF Arquitetos:
New Mineirão
Inaugurated in 1965 (original design by Eduardo Mendes Guimarães Júnior and Gaspar Garreto) as the second largest stadium in the world, the Mineirão Stadium is located in the surroundings of the Pampulha Lagoon, close to Oscar Niemeyer’s and Burle Marx seminal work, being part of Belo Horizonte’s main postcard. As Brazil was chosen to host the World Cup 2014, opportunity came about to transform the traditional stadium, whose façade is heritage listed, into a contemporary multifunctional sports facility.
Photography is by Leonardo Finotti
The New Mineirão aims to go beyond its primary role as a world-class sports arena, also offering a range of services, commerce, culture and entertainment for the city, becoming a new hub of activities integrated to the modernist landscape of the leisure and touristic Pampulha complex.
Photograph is by Joana França
The instrument chosen to make this operation possible was a public-private partnership (PPP), determining that the redevelopment of the stadium would be undertaken by a company which, in return, would be granted its use for the next 25 years. The winner of the bid was Minas Arena Consortium, that invited BCMF Architects, renowned for their expertise in sports architecture, to be responsible for the renovation of the New Mineirão.
Photography is by Leonardo Finotti
In this context, to transform the “Pampulha Giant” into a modern multifunctional facility, the interventions proposed are both radical and respectful, reinforcing the monumental original structure within the iconic modernist landscape.
Photograph is by Joana França
As for the original architecture of the Stadium, basically only the outer “shell” remained: the 88 structural semi-porticos, the concrete roof and the upper tiers. The rest of the “core” was completely rebuilt to guarantee the total overhaul inside the arena, including the new extension of the roof, all the new program and infrastructure, besides the lowering of the pitch and the lower tiers redesign, improving the sight-lines for the new capacity of 62,160 seats.
Photography is by Leonardo Finotti
The renovation on the outside is total, with a new 200,000 sqm operational platform separating the spectators’ from the accredited flow. The “Esplanade” includes various facilities around the stadium, opened to the public as an immense landscaped plaza, visually linked to the Pampulha Lagoon. This platform is sculpted and moulded to the site as an artificial topography, integrated with the immediate surroundings, being perceived as a continuation of the street domain. Thus, the public is attracted by programs strategically distributed throughout the esplanade, creating areas with potential to generate activities and movement during all day, seven days a week.
Photography is by Leonardo Finotti
The project has also sustainable features, using solar energy, reusing rainwater, as well as efficient lighting systems, intelligent control of energy and so on (LEED Certification). After the event, many operational areas which are specific for the 2014 World Cup will have other uses (institutional, commercial and leisure programs), contributing for the economic sustainability of the complex.
Photography is by Leonardo Finotti
The New Mineirão points out ways in which sports mega events can leave a lasting legacy to the host-cities. Here, even though interventions are made on a stadium scale, they respond to the demands of larger scales, such as the neighbourhood, the landscape and the city itself. Thus, the ambition is that the urban domain should be invited into the realm and scope of the architecture.
Madrid firm OOIIO has designed a lopsided photo frame-shaped hotel that appears to have crashed into a cliff face near Lima in Peru.
The Unbalanced Hotel by OOIIO is to be built on the edge of a cliff near the city of Lima and will offer visitors a five star hotel experience. The hotel is designed to frame the views out over the Pacific Ocean like a picture frame.
“A hotel with these characteristics and dimensions constructed in a traditional way would be a visual barrier,” said the architects. “But, thanks to its [the hotel’s] peculiar shape, the landscape is now even more relevant – we have framed it!”
The leaning building will sink into the ground on one of its corners, and it will feature 125 rooms, restaurants, conference rooms, meeting rooms and exhibition spaces.
Sergio Gómez of OOIIO architects told Dezeen today that the firm’s private Latin American client is currently seeking a more suitable location for the hotel – originally planned for south of Peru’s capital city.
A meeting is to be held in Peru during October where a site will be selected. OOIIO told Dezeen that once approved, the Unbalanced Hotel will take up to two and a half years to complete.
Madrid-based OOIIO Architecture has developed a landmark hotel building in Lima, Perú.
We have designed this singular hotel for a Latin American promoter interested in creating a unique, innovative and worldwide recognisable building with a moderate investment.
The building is located in Lima, a city which is enjoying nowadays a constant growth.
The plot is located in front of the Pacific Ocean, in a quiet area outside of the city centre, hanging on a cliff with a relative height that appears due to the proximity of the Andes to the Pacific Ocean.
This interesting topography is what we take advantage of to start the hotel design.
A hotel with these characteristics and dimensions constructed in a traditional way would be a visual barrier, so we bet on a frame building that hosts a huge program that could block the ocean’s view, but thanks to its peculiar shape, the landscape is now even more relevant, we have framed it! And the observer will appreciate both, sea and land through our building.
The outstanding building silhouette immediately grabs pedestrian’s attention and it becomes actually a landmark for the more than 8 million inhabitants of Lima, and the whole Peru.
The building has 125 rooms but there are an important percentage dedicated to restaurants, conference rooms, meeting rooms, exhibitions, etc. the unique building’s shape will be the perfect frame to attract people and activities into it.
This hotel achieves an extra profitability due to the surprising, interesting and original design.
Status: Design Development Location: Lima, Peru Area: 16.070 m2 Design: OOIIO Architecture Team: Joaquín Millán Villamuelas, Lourdes Martinez Nieto, Cristina Vicario del Cojo, Patricia Moreno Blasco Client: Private
L’ex-skater pro et photographe brésilien Fabiano Rodrigues réalise une série d’auto-portraits à couper le souffle. Il se met en scène et joue avec les lignes architecturales d’endroits sublimes au coeur de la ville de Sao Paulo, dans laquelle il habite. Un travail époustouflant qui ne manque ni de précision, ni de poésie.
A row of raw concrete gables give a zig-zagging profile to this summer house by Swedish studio Tham & Videgård Arkitekter on an island in the Stockholm archipelago (+ slideshow).
Oriented towards the bay, the wide and shallow house was designed by Tham & Videgård Arkitekter to stretch across its site like a line of boathouses, creating five pitched rooftops with varying proportions.
One of the middle gables comprises a glass canopy, sheltering a terrace that splits the building into two separate volumes. This space functions as the houses’s entrance and offers an aperture from the edge of the forest towards the seafront.
Rather than following the timber-clad aesthetic shared by many of the archipelago’s houses, architects Bolle Tham and Martin Videgård chose a plain concrete construction with seamless eaves and minimal detailing.
“The client’s desire for a maintenance-free house inspired us to search for a way to design the house as an integral part of nature, where the material’s weight and colour scale connects to the archipelago granite bedrock, rather than a light wooden cottage,” they explained.
The concrete was cast against plywood boards, giving a subtle grain texture to the surface. This is complemented by ash window frames and wooden furniture.
The largest of the two volumes accommodates a living and dining room that spans three of the gables.
Wooden doors slide open to reveal additional rooms behind, including three bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. Ceilings inside some of the rooms are shaped into gables, extended from the main roofline, and many feature opening skylights.
The smaller second volumes contains a guest bedroom and bathroom, with an outdoor swimming pool just beyond. There’s also a concrete sauna located closer to the coastline.
Here’s a project description from Tham & Videgård Arkitekter:
Summerhouse Lagnö
The setting is the Stockholm archipelago, natural ground sloping gently down to the sea in the south, mostly open with a few trees and bushes. Unlike other projects we worked on located on more isolated islands in the archipelago without car access from the mainland, this site was relatively easy to reach also with heavy transports. This, together with the client’s desire for a maintenance-free house inspired us to search for a way to design the house as an integral part of nature, where the material’s weight and colour scale connects to the archipelago granite bedrock, rather than a light wooden cottage. The two building volumes are placed side by side and form a line that clarifies their position in the landscape, just at the border where the forest opens up out onto the bay. When approached from the north, the entrance presents itself as an opening between the buildings giving direction towards the light and water. It is a first outdoor space protected from rain by a pitched canopy of glass.
The exterior character of the house is derived from a number of transverse gable roofs, which connect to each other, and like boathouses in a line form a pleated long facade. This provides a sequence of varied room heights for the interior and create places in the otherwise completely open living room that stretches through the entire length of the main building. With a relatively shallow room depth and a continuous sliding glass partition out to the terrace, the space can be described as a niche in relation to the archipelago landscape outside. The small rooms are located along the north façade with access through a wall of sliding doors. They are lit by openable skylights and form smaller pitched ceiling spaces within the main roof volume.
Terrace, interior floors and facades are made of exposed natural coloured in situ cast concrete with plywood formwork. The interior is painted white with woodworks in ash. A sauna, a detached block of in situ cast concrete with a wooden interior, offers a secluded place near the beach and pier.
News: a 24 metre tall viewing tower that looks like a helter skelter and a student housing development in Oxford have been included in a shortlist for the ugliest building completed in the UK in the last 12 months.
Castle Mill housing, Port Meadow, Oxford, by Frankham Consultancy Group
Other projects running for the title of worst designed building include a sports centre in Wales – known to locals as ‘the dumpster’ – and an 25-storey residential tower in east London that one nominator described as a “hideous monstrosity blighting the skyline off Bethnal Green Road”.
Avant Garde, 34-42 Bethnal Green Road, London, by Stock Woolstencroft
The Castle Mill housing development that has been built near a beauty spot in Oxford was the most nominated project in the history of the Carbuncle Cup.
“A deeply unimaginative and impoverished design which would lower the spirits whatever its setting, but on the edge of one of central England’s most important and ancient landscapes, it is an outrage,” said one nominator.
Porth Eirias Watersports Centre, Colwyn Bay, Wales, by K2 Architects
The six buildings competing for the title are:
» Castle Mill housing, Port Meadow, Oxford, by Frankham Consultancy Group » Port Meadow, 465 Caledonian Road, London, by Stephen George and Partners » Avant Garde, 34-42 Bethnal Green Road, London, by Stock Woolstencroft » Redcar Beacon aka the Vertical Pier, Redcar, by Smeeden Foreman Architects » Porth Eirias Watersports Centre, Colwyn Bay, Wales, by K2 Architects » Premier Inn, Lambeth, London, by Hamiltons
Premier Inn, Lambeth, London, by Hamiltons
The winner will be selected by a jury that includes Building Design magazine executive editor Ellis Woodman and critics Owen Hatherley and Gillian Darley.
The winner will be announced on 30 August 2013.
465 Caledonian Road, London, by Stephen George & Partners
The release of this list coincides with the recent announcement of the shortlist for the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize, awarded to the best building by a British-registered architect.
Photographs are from anonymous nominators. The top image is of the Redcar Beacon by Smeeden Foreman Architects.
The six buildings that are one step closer to winning architecture’s wooden spoon…
Launched eight years ago, The Carbuncle Cup was designed as a humorous counterpart to the prestigious Stirling Prize. Since then it has become a regular – if controversial – fixture in the architectural calendar.
Even in times of economic turmoil, when few major projects are being built, hundreds of architectural travesties are allowed to pass through our planning system on a weekly basis. Few of these are ever truly exposed for the awfulness they represent – lazy design, compromised planning departments and cynical development.
After years of starchitect boom, this year Carbuncle Cup has returned to its roots, seeking out some of the worst everyday projects from across the country.
Our shortlist was whittled down from public nominations submitted to BD via email. Public comments on Bdonline supporting or against each nomination were considered during the shortlisting.
A final winner will be selected by a jury including BD executive editor Ellis Woodman and critics Owen Hatherley and Gillian Darley. The winner will be announced on August 30.
The Carbuncle Cup Shortlist 2013:
1. Castle Mill housing, Port Meadow, Oxford, by Frankham Consultancy Group
The Castle Mill housing development in Oxford is the most nominated project in the history of Carbuncle Cup. Since BD first named the development as one of this year’s nominees, the controversy surrounding the development has escalated further and it is now at the centre of a judicial review bid.
2. Port Meadow, 465 Caledonian Road, London, by Stephen George & Partners
Also in the student housing category is this rather excellent example of facadism which can be spotted on London’s Caledonian Road.
3. Avant Garde, 34-42 Bethnal Green Road, London, by Stock Woolstencroft
Sticking with residential monstrosities: this grossly over-scaled development in East London was bad enough before they gave it such an inappropriate name.
4. Redcar Beacon aka the Vertical Pier, Redcar, by Smeeden Foreman Architects
Redcar’s ‘beacon’; shape making gone horribly, horribly wrong.
5. Porth Eirias Watersports Centre, Colwyn Bay, Wales, by K2 Architects
Porth Eirias sports centre had so much potential before multiple revisions and cost cutting led to the Creation of this, known not-so-affectionally as ‘the dumpster’ by locals.
6. Premier Inn, Lambeth, London, by Hamiltons
The Premier Inn in Lambeth is a travesty in more ways than one – we shudder at its lumpen form and mourn the building demolished to make way for it.
Two blocks face each other across the forecourt of this symmetrical housing development in São Paulo by local firm Corsi Hirano Arquitetos (+ slideshow).
Situated in the outskirts of the city, Corsi Hirano Arquitetos split the eight social housing units into a pair of blocks either side of a large paved driveway where residents are encouraged to congregate.
The line of the roof extends out over the extruded glass-fronted boxes that house the staircases, creating shelters over the entrances. Half the residences have these stairs at the front and half have them at the rear.
Each home has an open-plan living space on the ground floor with two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, plus a small garden and an extra shower room out the back.
Wooden shutters, window and door frames break up the all-white surfaces.
Street-facing end walls of each block are detailed with vertical grooves and separated from the fence by a thin window, so that they appear to float above it.
The development is secured by grated metal gates that slide across the front of the drive.
Corsi Hirano Arquitetos sent us this project description:
The AV Houses bases itself in the valuation of the public space through an architectural commitment with collective sense possible of being expressed from the private property.
The void originated by the built elements provides the appearance of a new place, opposed to main preconceived occupations of independent parallel properties that establish no relations in itself or with public space.
Its strategy groups eight housing units in two blocks by which remaining areas delimit an intermediate space that becomes its main premise.
Contemplating the necessity for the largest site occupation ratio and preserving the internal areas demanded for each unity, the articulation of constructed and non-constructed limits configures the collective central patio of great proportions considering the site dimensions.
A modest architectonical complex but representative of an essence of space that consists in a social opportunity: architecture as a city generator and venue for its inhabitants.
Small windows scattered across the facade of this house extension outside Melbourne by Australian practice Wolveridge Architects limit the amount of direct sunlight entering the building (+ slideshow).
Wolveridge Architects designed the extension to provide additional bedrooms for the owners’ three young sons, who are now housed above a large garage.
The architects say that the composition of openings in the facade “is designed to restrict the inflow of undesirable west sun and provides a suitable level of visual engagement with the street.”
Anodised aluminium window frames contrast with the dark stained western red cedar cladding that covers the new addition and maintains the house’s existing material palette.
Inside the bedrooms, the windows are integrated into a geometric arrangement of cabinetry that creates storage and seating.
The extension also incorporates a new living area that is separated from the bedrooms by a large shaded terrace with views of the nearby forest.
This extension to an existing two storey dwelling provides essential additional living areas for a family with three young boys. The original structure made very little connection with the surrounding property and had deficiencies in access to northern light.
By bringing the façade dramatically forward towards the street it was possible to incorporate the three required bedrooms above a large garage on street level.
To separate the bedrooms from the new living area a north facing courtyard was introduced which also provides a terrific outlook towards the surrounding Moonah forest.
The block type form established from bringing the front of the dwelling forward and its western orientation influenced a design decision to create a complex series of openings in the façade, allowing for plenty of natural light to the children’s bedrooms within.
The composition of openings is designed to restrict the inflow of undesirable west sun and provides a suitable level of visual engagement with the street.
The cabinetry design integrates with the complex window arrangement on the outside, creating a playful sense within each bedroom.
The existing palette of dark stained western red cedar cladding and anodised aluminium window frames was carried through in the new work, integrating the original structure within the proposed design, but still providing a sense of separation.
Project name: Blairgowrie House Date of construction completion: 25/08/12 Project team: Jerry Wolveridge, Sina Petzold, Ricky Booth, David Anthony Builder and Construction Manager: Tim Prebble Structural/Civil Engineer: Don Moore & Associates Building Surveyor: Nepean Building Permits
Terracotta tiles resembling brickwork cover parts of this house extension in Dublin by Irish practice GKMP Architects (+ slideshow).
GKMP Architects removed the rear wall of the 1950s semi-detached house at ground level so the kitchen and dining area could be extended into the garden.
The extension was constructed from blockwork before white render and the decorative tiles were added.
The faceted shape of the new structure results in a series of angular interior spaces, while lower walls separate a patio from the garden.
“The angled walls create deep thresholds between inside and outside and make niches for benches,” the architects said.
A layer of sedum covers the roof of the new addition, making it appear to blend in with the garden beyond when viewed from the upper floor.
The project involves the refurbishment and extension of a 1950s semi-detached house in Glenageary, Dublin, Ireland.
The ground floor rear wall is removed to open the house to the south-facing garden. A series of cranked and faceted walls are made that enclose a new dining area and associated external terraces. The angled walls create deep thresholds between inside and outside and make niches for benches. They are made from blockwork and are faced in render and terracotta tiles.
The timber roof of the extension is covered in sedum to have a visual connection with the garden when viewed from the upper floor. A rooflight is made at the point of connection between the new and the existing to pull light into the plan.
GKMP Architects is a practice that designs high quality modern architecture. We place a strong emphasis on the careful and inventive use of materials, the qualities of light and the relationship between the building and its context. We consider these issues to be more important than working in a particular style and hope that each project will be a creative interpretation of the client, site, brief and budget.
Grace Keeley and Michael Pike graduated from UCD in 1998 and established GKMP Architects in Barcelona in 2003 before relocating to Dublin in 2004. The practice has designed a number of high quality housing and public space projects. We have received a number of awards including First Prize in the recent Docomomo Central Bank Competition. Our work has been published internationally and has also been included in a number of exhibitions, including the ‘Rebuilding the Republic: New Irish Architecture 2000-10 Exhibition’ in Leuven, Belgium in May 2011.
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