Vietnamese studio Vo Trong Nghia Architects has completed a house in Ho Chi Minh City with half of its floors screened behind hollow concrete blocks and the other half exposed to the elements (+ slideshow).
Working alongside architects Sanuki + Nishizawa, Vo Trong Nghia Architects designed the six-storey Binh Thanh House for three generations of a single family, adding curved concrete ceilings, a spiral staircase and gardens on each floor.
Alternating levels offer a mixture of both air-conditioned and naturally ventilated spaces. “The concept of the house is to accommodate two different lifestyles in a tropical climate,” said the architects.
The second and fourth floors have glazed facades that slide open, bringing natural light and cross ventilation through a pair of family living rooms that both occupy an entire storey. One features an undulating concrete ceiling, while the other is framed by a row of barrel vaults.
The hollow concrete blocks create patterned walls either side of the first, third and fifth floors on the building, allowing light to filter through to bedrooms, a kitchen, a small dining room and a home gym.
“Pattern blocks […] used to be a popular shading device in Vietnam to bring in natural ventilation,” said the architects. “While this house looks different from the stereotypical townhouses in Ho Chi Minh City, all the architectural solutions are derived from the local lifestyle and wisdom.”
These upper floors are staggered back and forth, creating balcony gardens on both sides of the residence, while the sunken ground floor accommodates a parking area.
Here’s a project description from Vo Trong Nghia Architects:
Binh Thanh House
Located in the centre of Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam, Binh Thanh House was designed for two families; a couple in their sixties, their son, his wife and a child.
The plot has a bilateral character, one is facing to a noisy and dusty street in a typical developing and urbanising area in the city and one is very close to a canal and Saigon Zoo with plenty of greenery.
Against a backdrop of this duality of its setting, the concept of the house is to accommodate two different lifestyles in a tropical climate; a modern and well-tempered lifestyle with mechanical equipments such as air-conditioners, and a natural and traditional lifestyle, utilising natural lighting and ventilation with water and greenery.
The house is composed of two different spaces positioned alternately. Spaces for modern lifestyle are allocated in three floating volumes wrapped by concrete pattern blocks. And the spaces between these three volumes are widely open to the exterior and allocated for the natural lifestyle where the residents enjoy wind, sunlight, green and water.
Three volumes are shifted back and forth to bring natural light into the in-between spaces, as well as to create small gardens on each floor. The bottoms of the volumes become the ceilings for the in-between spaces. These surfaces are designed with various curved shapes, providing each in-between space with different lighting effects.
Bedrooms and other small rooms are contained in the floating semi-closed volumes to enhance security and privacy. On the other hand, the open in-between spaces are designed to be independent living spaces for two families.
Pattern blocks, which used to be a popular shading device in Vietnam to bring in natural ventilation, are made of pre-cast concrete with 60cm width and 40cm height. It not only prevents the harsh sunlight and heavy rain but also enhances the privacy and the safety.
While this house looks different from the stereotypical townhouses in Ho Chi Minh City, all the architectural solutions are derived from the local lifestyle and wisdom. The house offers an interpretation of the ecological lifestyle in the modern tropical city. It is where modern and natural life are compatible with each other.
Architect Firms: Vo Trong Nghia Architects, Sanuki + Nishizawa architects Principal architects: Vo Trong Nghia, Shunri Nishizawa, Daisuke Sanuki Status: built in June, 2013 Program: Private house for two families Location: Binh Thanh, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam GFA: 516 sqm Site area: 140 sqm
South Korean architect Moon Hoon designed this home with missing corners for a figurine collector and his family (+ slideshow).
Moon Hoon designed the house for an empty plot beside a lake in Bangdong, an area of South Korea popular with tourists.
“The vacant site seemed to invite some kind of a sculptural object, unhindered by its neighbours, standing rather conspicuously,” said the architect.
Polygonal facades are created by slicing the corners off a narrow cuboid. On each wall these outlines are repeatedly scaled down and recessed until they form windows in the centre.
Conan House, which translates as Toy House, was designed for a local TV producer who wanted somewhere to display his toy collection.
“He is an avid collector of miniature robots and figures,” said the architect, “a hobby that started from an early age that has not stopped.”
Hoon created square niches in the railings that surround the central staircase to display the best objects in the client’s collection.
The staircase spirals up the centre of the building around a skylit atrium, dotted with the display cases all the way up.
More paraphernalia is stored on a wooden bookcase in the basement that nestles in the bottom of the stairwell and wraps around a study area.
Moving up the building, levels are staggered to separate the entrance and living room from the dining and kitchen area.
The main bedroom and ensuite bathroom sit a few steps down from two children’s rooms that share a window.
A red slide cuts across the atrium to join the play areas split over the top floors, which have a yellow ceiling and are lit by windows in the sliced-off corners.
Wooden floors and stair treads run throughout the dominantly white interiors. The entrance is through one of the cleaved wall junctions, easily noticeable from the outside as it’s painted red.
Bangdong is a famous place for sight seeing and leisure for nearby dwellers. It can be quite crowded during the holiday seasons.
The irregular plot of land situated right in front of Bangdong lake boasts a beautiful open view of the lake and a low mountain as a back drop. When visited for the first time, the vacant site seemed to invite some kind of a sculptural object, unhindered by its neighbours, standing rather conspicuously.
The client
He is a producer for a local TV station, with one kid and a lovely wife. His family visited my office one day and asked for a skip-floored house like Lollipop House, which they had seen in the magazines.
He was an avid collector of miniature robots and figures. A hobby that started from an early age, which has not stopped. His father was also an avid collector of natural stones shaped like something recognisable or possessing some abstract qualities. The collector gene was running in the family.
I am a playful architect. I have met the right client, who has kept his child-like mind intact with him. The design went through two alternatives, one each floor stacked and rotating, the other of a box with small broken floors moving up in a spiral.
Both had their ups and downs. The client chose the latter. The house has a central core that is used as an exhibition space and a railing for his toys.
The spiral and jagged floor levels follow the spiral stair case all the way up to the attic, where you can find a small red slide that traverses the void. The exterior expresses the inner spiral energy in a simplified form.
The spiral staircase is a place for movement, play and exhibition. It plays a central role in the house. the other functioning rooms such as living, kitchen, bedrooms are attached to the system.
The windows are placed in the centre of each wall, mimicking the concept and inviting ample amount of light. The void in the middle gives much vertical depth in a otherwise a compact house.
Interview: following the popularity of the hyper-realistic computer renderings of Staithe End house that we published earlier in the month, Henry Goss, the architect and visualiser who produced the renders, talks to Dezeen about how 3D visualisations are becoming indistinguishable from real photographs.
Goss set up architectural visualisation company Goss Visualisations in 2012, having started up his own architectural practice the previous year. In the interview, he reveals that he owes his visualisation style to well-known visualiser Peter Guthrie.
“I got into visualisation because of Peter,” Goss says. “Peter pretty much taught me everything I know in 3D Studio Max.”
He adds that knowing Guthrie was one of the reasons he decided to set up his own company: “I knew how much Peter was paid for his renders.”
Goss goes on to describe how he creates his renders, pointing out that he is unusual in the field because he starts out with Sketch Up. “It’s seen as a free bit of Mickey Mouse software,” he says. “But in actual fact, it’s really good.”
Farthings house render
Goss says that 3D renders are already almost indistinguishable from photographs, but are being taken to the next level by “the addition of real world imperfections. Scratches in metal, splinters and chips in timber boards, even fingerprints.”
However, Goss warns that rendered images can sometimes surpass the photographs of a building once it is completed. “There’s always a danger that the client will come along at the end and stick in a whole bunch of crap furniture,” he says. “Then the photographs of the building aren’t as good as the render and everyone calls you out on it.”
Here is a full transcript of the interview:
Ross Bryant: How did you get into visualisation?
Henry Goss: When I’ve worked in various [architecture offices] in the past, I’ve always been the graphic person because I always had a good eye for graphics. In quite a lot of these offices there will always be someone who is better at rendering than others and they will become the render bitch – the go-to person. I kind of just enjoyed it as a hobby almost. Also [leading visualisation artist] Peter Guthrie is a friend of mine and I knew how much Peter was paid for his renders!
Farthings house render
Ross Bryant: People have compared your rendering style to Guthrie, as well as that of Bertrand Benoit.
Henry Goss: Peter Guthrie and Bertrand Benoit are friends of mine. I got into visualisation because of Peter. He used to be an architect and then went down the visualisation route. I set up my practice at the same time and I’ve learnt 3D through him. That’s why a lot of people have compared my style to Peter’s; Peter pretty much taught me everything I know in 3D Studio Max.
Ross Bryant: How would you describe your visualisation style? How does it differ from other styles?
Henry Goss: I would describe both Peter’s visualisation style, and by association mine, as photographic. I generally think of architectural visualisation in three categories, all three of which are necessary to achieve a high-end result:
1. A technical understanding of the software, this may be obvious but it is impossible to have proper control without having a fairly good knowledge of the tools you are using.
2. An understanding of architecture. An architectural visualiser who has no real appreciation of their subject matter will never grasp the subtleties of what they are attempting to recreate.
3. An understanding of architectural photography. This is often the most overlooked and potentially most important aspect of the three.
Farthings house render
Ross Bryant: What software do you use?
Henry Goss: Largely I use SketchUp for modelling, 3D Studio Max and V-ray for rendering and Photoshop and Light Room for post-production. I also use Peter’s HDRI Skies exclusively these days, along with most of the architectural visualisation industry. Obviously, to make the images work at this level, you have all sorts of plug-ins but that’s essentially it.
The workflow I use isn’t actually used that much in the visualisation world; there’s a certain snobbery in the visualisation world about SketchUp because it’s seen as a free bit of Mickey Mouse crap software that architects use because they are too stupid to use real 3D programmes. But in actual fact, it’s really good.
Staithe End House render
Ross Bryant: Did your visualisation skills help you when you set up your own practice?
Henry Goss: When I started getting better at it and I was going to set up my own practice, I was like: “Well shit, if I’m going to set up my own practice, I need this level of quality.” And also if you haven’t built a project, you need high-end visualisations to get you noticed in the industry because that’s what people expect these days.
Staithe End House
Ross Bryant: Do you present photorealistic renderings to your clients from the outset?
Henry Goss: Early on, you don’t want to tie your own mind or your client’s mind down to a specific photo-realistic space, you want it to be much more about the early architectural image and the evocation of space and the ethereal nature of light. Later on, when the photorealistic render comes in, it’s partly marketing and partly a fascination with the fact that we have the technology that can achieve this.
Staithe End House
Ross Bryant: Why go to so much trouble with the images?
Henry Goss: Two reasons: Firstly publicity. Being a relatively young architectural practice our built portfolio is relatively small. The second reason is that I’m secretly a bit of a geek and I simply enjoy it.
Ross Bryant: How long does each image take?
Henry Goss: It’s hard to say as the set up for each job is so different. A simple render with few materials may only take a few days to a week to produce several images. A render with full CG environment such as Staithe End including scatter objects, grass, trees, gravel and procedural textures can take significantly longer. Staithe End was developed gradually over a period of about three months.
Staithe End House
Ross Bryant: Why are there no people in the Staithe End renderings?
Henry Goss: There are two main ways of adding people to renders, either by rendering a 3D modelled person or by montage in post production. The human brain is highly tuned to pick up subtle nuances of human appearance and movement and therefore it’s very difficult to achieve a convincing result. I usually add people if the message trying to be conveyed is about use and lifestyle, but I feel that, as with a lot of architectural photography, sometimes the pure nature of the architecture itself is better represented laid bare.
Ross Bryant: How soon will visualisations be indistinguishable from real photos? Or have we already reached that point?
Henry Goss: I think the likes of Peter Guthrie and Bertrand Benoit are pretty much there already, obviously it depends on the resolution of the image/photo. The thing that’s currently taking photorealism in architectural visualisation to the next level, most strikingly exemplified by the work of Bertrand Benoit, is the addition of real-world imperfections. Scratches in metal, splinters and chips in timber boards, even fingerprints.
Lode House render
Ross Bryant: Do photorealistic visualisations – and the way they are published on the internet – change the way people perceive architecture?
Henry Goss: I’m sure they do change people’s perception and I suspect for the architectural purist it’s a negative thing. Architecture as fashion and commodity has been widely discussed and the rendered image has been lambasted for perpetuating the notion of style over substance and image over experience. I even sometimes get people, possibly being tongue-in-cheek, saying, “you don’t need to go though the hassle of building that, you’ve got the pictures already.” It’s a difficult one as even though I like to think I interrogate architecture, I still regularly find myself flicking through a journal or website and only stopping when I’m seduced by an easily accessible sexy-looking image.
Ross Bryant: Can renderings look better than the finished building?
Henry Goss: The danger is that the client comes along at the end of it, sticks in a whole bunch of crap furniture and then the photographs of the building aren’t as good as the render and everyone calls you out on it.
Staithe End House
Ross Bryant: Why don’t the big architecture firms use photorealistic renderings to illustrate major proposals?
Henry Goss: The big companies are aspiring to a different artistic level, a different kind of integrity and so they don’t need the top end visualisations to convey their message. Any architectural image is essentially about conveying a message and in the architectural sketch you might be conveying the essence of a scheme in the simplest possible way.
I’m doing some renders at the moment for an office space and it’s essentially a developer who wants a wide-angled perspective so that they can say that’s where you sit and have your coffee, that’s where the sun comes in and there’s the strategically placed child with an obligatory balloon. But that’s the shot that shows everything, it shows the fact of what the space is, but it doesn’t necessarily show what it feels like. The high-end renders don’t necessarily show everything but they’re more evocative. You’re cropping down and trying to capture the essence of the space.
Ross Bryant: Where is architectural visualisation heading next?
Henry Goss: I see the whole industry heading in the direction where you have a single [digital] model [of a building]. This happens in a lot of the big commercial practices. They have a single model, which not only has all the architectural components, building services components and the structure and coordination of all things, but it’s also testing lighting levels and testing environmental factors.
Computer-aided design has now reached a level where it’s all becoming very integrated. The visualisation isn’t purely visualisation anymore – you can actually use the same [digital] models with the same lighting rigs to test real-life environments and real-life situations. I use it to a small degree but people take it to a greater degree where they are really testing the actual lux levels in a space on a full environmental model.
Je Ahn of London-based Studio Weave discusses how a series of design and build workshops are reintroducing architects to working on site in this movie by Stephenson/Bishop and Andy Matthews.
Studio Weave co-founder Ahn led this year’s Studio in the Woods summer workshop programme for students, architects and designers, first initiated by architect Piers Taylor of Invisible Studio to encourage a more hands-on approach to design.
“It started when a collective of architects came together as friends with the desire to make things with their own hands in the landscape,” says Ahn.
Participants use teamwork and communication to design and build as they go rather than drawing and planning off site.
“As architects we are getting pushed further away from what’s happening on site and the real world,” Ahn says. “You imagine things through your drawings and students are exactly the same, doing hypothetical projects that look beautiful… but how they’re actually built and realised is another matter.”
Sixty students, practising architects, furniture designers and sculptors spent five days creating timber structures amongst the woodland while camping on site last month.
Designers led five teams to build small shelters hidden in the trees, weave planks between tree trunks and create seating that skirts the edge of the woods.
The workshops take place in a different rural location each year. This year’s site was in Stanton Park, near Swindon in Wiltshire.
Swindon Borough Council acted like a client for the permanent structures, the first occasion this has happened in the programme’s seven-year history.
“This is the first time that we have a lifespan of these structures, which changed the dynamic of the design quite considerably,” says Ahn.
The designs were responses to a narrative about an imaginary community of industrious folk living around the site, created as part of a wider project that Studio Weave has been working on with the council.
“The Studio in the Woods workshop changed the way we practice and how we see things,” Ahn concludes.
Now in its seventh year, the people behind Studio in the Woods have taken the summer building workshop to public land for the first time. Located within ancient woodland just outside Swindon, the design and construction of five large timber structures was led by a group of award-winning architects, engineers, and furniture makers, with 60 participants who camp on-site for five days.
Studio in the Woods is an ongoing educational programme promoting the exchange of architectural knowledge and skills through experimentation and direct building experience. It was initiated by Piers Taylor in 2006 and continues to offer the opportunity to “learn by doing” in a reaction against the seeming disparity between designing a building and how it is realised; increasingly architects must imagine the making process through drawing. Studio in the Woods offers the chance to learn from the makers and work collectively.
Evening talks by invited speakers are organised for each evening once tools are put down for the day and before a group dinner. Participants include architecture students, practicing architects and a wider audience with an interest in sculpture, landscape and building with materials to hand.
This year’s workshop forms part of a wider project at Stanton Park and the adjacent Stratton Woods, to the north-east of Swindon. Over the last eight months, architecture practice Studio Weave has been working with Swindon Borough Council and the Woodland Trust on reinterpreting the two neighbouring woodlands and how the public perceives, uses and navigates them.
Set with the challenge to tie the sites together through one engaging narrative, Studio Weave have written a story surrounding a community of industrious woodland folk called the Indlekith, who live at a much slower pace to humans – a pace more akin to that of nature. The Indlekith are difficult to spot but clues of their existence lie in the smells, sounds, and textures of the woods. All five structures illustrate this narrative in a different way by responding to various characteristics of the woodland and how our senses interact with these.
Studio in the Woods 2013 was made possible by the generous support of Swindon Borough Council – the landowner of Stanton Park – making it the first time the workshop has had a client. This meant that health and safety has played an important role in designing for construction and lifetime use with the structures required to have a life span of five years, which has changed the dynamic of the designs from previous years.
Je Ahn, director at Studio Weave, says “Studio in the Woods provides an interesting solution to this problem of how to experience the parks. This is a design and build workshop where participants turn up without a design or knowing the site. They spend only a few days designing and building at the same time, responding very closely to the immediate context. There is minimal drawing but lots of communication and a strong emphasis on building the team.”
Chilean architects Mathias Klotz and Lillian Allen have renovated a castle-like residence in Santiago’s Parque Forestal to create a restaurant, exhibition space and ice-cream parlour (+ slideshow).
The building is named “Castillo Forestal”, which means forest castle, but it was actually constructed at the start of the nineteenth century as a house for the park’s gardener. Over the years the building had become abandoned, so Mathias Klotz and Lillian Allen were asked to bring it back into use.
The architects began by demolishing previous extensions to the two-storey red-brick building, then added a new steel and glass structure that wraps around the north and east elevations.
“Our proposal was to demolish the successive extensions and replace them with a single-story volume housing an intermediate space between inside and outside,” said Klotz.
This structure accommodates the restaurant, creating a glazed ground-floor dining room and a first-floor terrace overlooking the park.
Additional dining areas are provided by the two main rooms of the original house, which have been renovated to reveal their interior brickwork. The architects removed various stucco details, but left cornices intact and painted them grey to match the steel framework of the new extension.
The exhibition galleries and ice-cream parlour are also housed in the existing building, while customer toilets are located in the basement and the circular tower is set to function as a wine store.
The so called “Forest Castle” is in reality nothing more than a modest lodging built in the Parque Forestal on the occasion of Chile’s 1910 Centenary celebrations, to house the park’s gardener.
The park, which dates from the Centenary, was inaugurated at the same time as the Fine Arts Museum on the other side of the street. Over time the house lost its original function; it was extended and occupied on a temporary basis, and gradually deteriorated until it was abandoned altogether a number of years ago. For this reason Santiago city council tendered a 30-year concession to restore the structure and find a new use for the building.
Our proposal was to demolish the successive extensions and replace them with a single-story volume housing an intermediate space between inside and outside.
The two rooms of the original structure were restored, removing the stucco and leaving the brickwork visible, with the exception of the cornices. These were painted the same dark grey as the steel structure of the new volume, in order to link the two structures together and emphasise the original building.
Casa Moliner was designed by Alberto Campo Baeza as an introverted enclosure, with a clean white house surrounded by newly planted trees and a calming pool of water. Two-metre-high walls surround the site on every side, blocking views out as well as in.
“We raised high walls to create a box open to the sky, like a nude metaphysical garden with concrete walls and floor,” said the architect.
The three-storey house has two levels above ground, while a third floor is buried below the courtyard with sunken patios on each side. A staircase spirals up through the centre of the plan like a circular spine.
A library occupies the uppermost floor, creating a place for the poet to work. A wall of translucent glazing brings diffused light through the room, while a narrow window frames a single view across the neighbourhood.
“For dreaming, we created a cloud at the highest point,” said Campo Baeza, “with northern light for reading and writing, thinking and feeling.”
A single room on the ground floor forms a large living and dining area that opens out to the surrounding garden, while bedrooms and bathrooms are located downstairs.
Read on for a project description from Alberto Campo Baeza:
Moliner House, Zaragoza
To build a house for a poet. To make a house for dreaming, living and dying. A house in which to read, to write and to think.
We raised high walls to create a box open to the sky, like a nude, metaphysical garden, with concrete walls and floor. To create an interior world. We dug into the ground to plant leafy trees.
And floating in the centre, a box filled with the translucent light of the north. Three levels were established. The highest for dreaming. The garden level for living. The deepest level for sleeping.
Axonometric diagram one
For dreaming, we created a cloud at the highest point. A library constructed with high walls of light diffused through large translucent glass. With northern light for reading and writing, thinking and feeling.
Axonometric diagram two
For living, the garden with southern light, sunlight. A space that is all garden, with transparent walls that bring together inside and outside.
First floor plan
And for sleeping, perhaps dying, the deepest level. The bedrooms below, as if in a cave. Once again, the cave and the cabin. Dreaming, living, dying. The house of the poet.
Architect: Alberto Campo Baeza Collaborating architects: Ignacio Aguirre López, Emilio Delgado Martos Structure: María Concepción Pérez Gutiérrez Rigger: José Miguel Moya Constructor: Construcciones Moya Valero, Rafael Moya, Ramón Moya
Delicate glazing fits around a bulky concrete structure at this hilltop house in Toledo by Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza (+ slideshow).
With views stretching out towards the Sierra de Gredos mountains, the two-storey Casa Rufo was designed by Alberto Campo Baeza as “a hut on top of the cave”, with a sequence of ground-floor rooms overshadowed by a long and narrow rooftop podium.
A concrete canopy, described by the architect as like “a table with ten legs”, shelters a small section of the podium and is surrounded by frameless glazing, creating a transparent room that is visible from the surrounding garden.
A staircase leads directly down from here to the living and dining room below, where the architect has placed the entrance to the house.
Rectangular cutaways transform some of the rooms into open-air courtyards. Two bedrooms face in towards these spaces, rather than out through the exterior walls.
Another opening reveals the location of a parking garage, while a smaller void functions as a rooftop swimming pool.
A row of poplar trees was planted behind the house, helping to screen it from views from the north-east.
Alberto Campo Baeza lives and works in Madrid, and also teaches architecture at the Madrid School of Architecture. His other projects include Offices for Junta de Castilla y León, a glazed office block concealed behind a sandstone enclosure.
The brief was to build a house on a hilltop outside of the city of Toledo. The hill faces southwest and offers interesting views of the distant horizon, reaching the Gredos Mountains to the northeast.
The site measures 60 x 40 m and has a 10-metre slope. At the highest point, we established a longitudinal podium, 6 meters wide and 3 meters high, that extends from side to side the entire length of the site. All of the house’s functions are developed inside of this long box, the length of concrete creating a long horizontal platform up high, as if it were a jetty that underlines the landscape with tremendous force.
This long concrete box is perforated and cut into, conveniently creating objects and voids to appropriately accommodate the requested functions (courtyard + covered courtyard, kitchen, living room-dining room-hall, bedroom, courtyard + courtyard, bedroom, garage, swimming pool, bedroom, courtyard).
In this distribution the living-dining room opens to the garden while the bedrooms face onto courtyards open to the sky and garden, affording them the necessary privacy. The stairway connecting the upper floor is situated in the area behind the living-dining room.
Isometric diagram
On top of the podium and aligned with it, a canopy with ten concrete columns with a square section support a simple flat roof, as if it were a table with ten legs. Under this roof, behind the columns, is a delicate glass box. To protect the views of the house from the back, a simple row of poplars were planted.
Lower floor plan
Once again, the theme of the hut on top of the cave. Once again, the theme of a tectonic architecture over a stereotomic architecture.
Architect: Alberto Campo Baeza Collaborating architects: Raúl Martinez, Petter Palander Structure: Juan Antonio Domínguez (HCA) Surveyor: José Miguel Agulló Builder: José Miguel Agulló
A kindergarten play area shaped like a mountain surrounded by clouds has been completed by Japanese firm Moriyuki Ochiai Architects (+ slideshow).
Part of Piccolino Kindergarten in the southern Japanese prefecture of Kanagawa, the space was created primarily for art education and as a multi-purpose room for concerts, performances, exhibitions and children’s workshops.
Children can explore by crawling over and around the brightly coloured wooden seats and through archways and small passages. When seats are pushed against the mountain they form steps, allowing children to clamber up the mountain shape through the clouds.
The seats are also light enough to be picked up and stacked on top of or next to each other, creating new heights and spaces in the room.
Architect Moriyuki Ochiai said he chose the triangular shapes because they were the most simple and suitable for children to use safely. “The size of the equipment is a unit on which two little children can be seated together so they feel close to each other and can naturally be friends,” Ochiai told Dezeen.
Ochiai also explained that the height difference between adults and children brings about different ways to perceive and enjoy the environment. “A surface used as a counter by adults appears as a consecutive arch over houses to children,” he said.
“From a kid’s perspective, the mountain rises from the clouds changing gradually from white to brown, while adults looking down from the top of the mountain see clouds floating below,” he added.
Ochiai said he created the space to develop imagination, expression, communication and creativity skills for both adults and children. The renovated 90-square-metre floor space from an existing office building is in an area with lots of new housing projects where many families with young children live.
News: the builders behind this two-tower 47-storey skyscraper in Benidorm, Spain, have forgotten to include a working lift.
Spanish national newspaper El Pais has reported that one of Europe’s tallest residential skyscrapers, the 200 metre-tall Intempo tower in Alicante, has been built without a working elevator above the 20th floor.
Designed by Spanish architects Roberto Perez Guerras, the skyscraper features two symmetrical towers that are joined at the top with an inverted cone-shaped structure.
It was originally designed with 20 storeys, but developers later decided to extend it to 47 storeys – offering 269 homes. However they neglected to allow the extra room required by a lift ascending over twice as far.
This news comes as a further embarrassing blunder for the architects and construction team – following countless problems experienced during the project.
The project suffered its first setback in 2009, when the construction company involved went into liquidation. Later, an elevator fell with 13 people trapped inside and ambulances were unable to reach the site because vehicle access had been removed to save costs.
In 2008, the architects described the project on its company website as “a symbol of a new architectural philosophy”. The company said: “its features of comfort, design and elegance set a standard for the future of architecture and the city of Benidorm”.
“A majestic building, that will mark a before and after in architecture and town-planning in Spain,” said the architects.
The architects have since resigned from the project. The Intempo Tower is due for completion in December 2013, although it remains unclear how the missing elevator will be resolved.
Réflexion sur la prostitution et sur le contexte social et politique qui l’entour en Ecosse, cette série de dessins de Tommy Perman représentent les saunas disséminés dans la ville d’Edimbourg qui servent de façade aux maisons closes, tolérées dans le pays. Une très belles série de dessins à découvrir en images.
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