Landscape architects EMF teamed up with architecture firm Ardèvol to remove over 400 buildings from a former holiday village in north-east Spain and transform the landscape into a series of meandering pathways and coastal viewpoints (+ movie).
Pegmatite tranch
The Tudela-Culip (Club Med) resort at Cap de Creus in Cadaqués had been a holiday destination for 900 tourists every summer, but in 1998 the coastal site was given protected status as a Natural Park and the resort was forced to close its doors five years later.
Illa de Portal Viewpoint
Working alongside over 50 specialist consultants, EMF and Ardèvol were able to deconstruct most of the buildings of the Tudela-Culip and restore the natural landscape amidst a series of architectural interventions.
Cubes Viewpoint
The most prominent addition to the site is the Cubes Viewpoint, a pair of Corten steel structures facing out to sea, while slabs of stone and more Corten steel were used to create seating areas and landmarks elsewhere around the park.
Tertiary pathways
Pathways are divided into a three-tier hierarchy. The main access road is laid in asphalt, secondary pathways are formed from concrete, and informal routes are defined by ankle-height metal railings.
Animal-rock silhouette identification markers
Small Corten panels scattered around the site feature cutaways that highlight how some of the natural rock formations resemble animals.
Photography is by Martí Franch, Pau Ardèvol and Esteve Bosc.
Read on for more details from the design team:
Tudela-Culip (Club Med) Restoration Project in the Natural Parc ‘Cap de Creus’
This project is a showcase for landscape driven nature restoration projects. It turns a demolition order, a purely and strictly habitat reclamation, into a creative landscape restoration development. Through necessarily inexpensive actions, the design skilfully construes and orchestrates the deconstruction as a combination of destruction and construction to celebrate the site’s peculiarities, both natural and cultural. It proposes ways to choreograph on-site visitors into a narrative that stimulates the culture in nature in an innovative approach to finally question whether erasing and voiding is just as valid as filling in and adding.
Location: Cap de Creus cape, Cadaqués, Catalunya, Spain Area: 90 ha Period of design: 2005-2007 Implementation period: 2009-2010
Landscape architects: EMF landscape architects – Martí Franch Collaborators EMF: M. Batalla, M. Bianchi, A. Lopez, G. Batllori, L. Majer, C. Gomes M. Solé, L. Ochoa, J.L Campoy Architects: J/T Ardèvol S.L. – Ton Ardèvol Collaborators Ardèvols: Raul Lopez, Cristina Carmona.
Commissioned by: Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, Medio Rural y Marino. Generalitat de Catalunya. Gestora de runes de la construcció S.A. Parc Natural del Cap de Creus.
Construction companies: Tragsa (deconstruction) Control Demeter and Massachs Excavacions S.L.U. (deconstruction, waste management, Restoration and re-urbanization) Jardinería Sant Narcís (invasive exotic flora extraction) Serralleria Ferran Collel (viewpoints, totems, terciary path, animal rock identification)
Swedish studio Belatchew Arkitekter wants to transform a Stockholm skyscraper into a wind farm by covering it in thousands of electricity-generating bristles.
Belatchew Arkitekter‘s Strawscraper concept for transforming Henning Larsen‘s Söder Torn tower involves adding a 16-storey extension over the top of the building, then covering the entire facade in hairy-looking plastic straws designed to move with the wind.
The straws would use piezoelectric technology to convert motion into electricity, without the noise and other environmental problems of a typical wind farm.
“What is usually considered to be the most static of all things, the building, suddenly comes alive and the construction gives the impression of a body that is breathing,” explain the architects.
Concept diagram
Completed in 1997, the 86-metre-high Söder Torn is one of the tallest residential towers in Stockholm. It was designed by Danish architect Henning Larsen, who famously walked away from the project after planning compromises caused the building to lose 16 of its intended 40 storeys.
Site plan
The new proposals would reintroduce the proportions first proposed by Larsen, adding a restaurant between the existing apartments and the new wind farm, as well as a viewing platform with panoramic views across Stockholm.
Here’s some more information from Belatchew Arkitekter:
Strawscraper – an Urban Power Plant in Stockholm
Belatchew Arkitekter presents Strawscraper, the first project to come out of the newly established Belatchew Labs. Strawscraper is an extension of Söder Torn on Södermalm in Stockholm with a new energy producing shell covered in straws that can recover wind energy.
What was supposed to become a building of 40 flights became 26. Söder Torn on Södermalm in central Stockholm was finalised 1997, but the architect Henning Larsen had already left the contract after having lost influence over the design of the tower.  Belatchew Arkitekter wants to give Söder Torn its original proportions and at the same time explore new techniques that could create the urban wind farm of the future. By using piezoelectric technology a large number of thin straws can produce electricity merely through small movements generated by the wind. The result is a new kind of wind power plant that opens up possibilities of how buildings can produce energy. With the help of this technique surfaces on both old and new buildings can be transformed into energy producing entities.
Furthermore, an additional aspect is revealed when the constant movement of the straws creates an undulating landscape on the facades. What is usually considered to be the most static of all things, the building, suddenly comes alive and the construction gives the impression of a body that is breathing.
The straws swaying in the wind gives the building a constantly changing facade further reinforced at nighttime with lighting in changing colours.
The straws of the facade consist of a composite material with piezoelectric properties that can turn motion into electrical energy. Piezoelectricity is created when certain crystals’ deformation is transformed into electricity. The technique has advantages when compared to traditional wind turbines since it is quite and does not disturb wildlife. It functions at low wind velocity since only a light breeze is sufficient for the straws to start swaying and generate energy.
The existing premise on top of the building is replaced with a public floor with room for a restaurant. The new extension creates, a part from the energy producing shell, room for the citizens with the possibility to reach a lookout platform at the very top of the tower with an unmatched view of Stockholm.
News: developers have unveiled images of Zaha Hadid Architects’ proposed 60-storey residential skyscraper in Miami, USA (+ slideshow).
Named One Thousand Museum, the building will be located on Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami.
The 215-metre-high tower will have a concrete “exoskeleton” structure.
“I really love Miami, but I don’t think the architecture matches the city,” Hadid told the Wall Street Journal earlier this year. “It’s a bit too commercial.”
“We wanted to avoid that generic, modernist typology,” she added. “We were interested in the idea of the tall building, and how it lands on the ground, how the structure is manifested.”
The interior images of the tower include items of furniture designed by Hadid.
Prices for the luxury apartments are expected to start at $4 million for a half-floor unit, rising to between $30 and $50 million for a duplex penthouse unit.
Windows of various shapes and sizes give this weekend retreat on the south coast of Japan the appearance of a children’s shape-sorter toy.
Designed by Tokyo studio Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects, Nowhere but Sajima forms part of the Nowhere Resort, a series of rentable holiday homes on the Miura peninsula of Kanagawa Prefecture.
The house is located on the harbour of a small fishing village. It has a triangular plan, with rooms on three storeys.
Each of the windows lines up with a different room and the ceiling of every room follows the profile of its window.
The architects describe the rooms as “thin tube-like spaces” with views directed towards the ocean. “We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship,” they explain.
Sliding doors and screens allow different rooms to open out to one another, plus a circular cutaway provides views between the first-floor study and the storey above.
Here are more details from Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects:
Nowhere but Sajima
Cutting resort environment out of urban environment
Nowhere resort is the resort program that is renting out weekly vacation house. Suggesting new urban lifestyle by making shorter the distance to weekend house from standard 3 hours up to 1 hour. The environment must get close to urban when shorten the distance, the issue comes to how to cut off resort environment out of there. Therefore Nowhere but Sajima comes to build long and thin tube-like spaces that bundle them into one home unit. The tube-like spaces are facing toward the ocean and at the same time intercept the sight from the next condominium. The building is controlling both privacy and scenery.
A home for guests
Nowhere but Sajima provides a temporary ‘home’ for its guests. The weekly rental service provided by Nowhere Resort is a relatively new method of operating resort properties in Japan, and allows different tenants the opportunity to inhabit a ‘home’ on a weekly basis. While the weekly term is short compared to a standard monthly rental and long compared to a hotel stay, this in-between length accommodates a new diversity of uses of a ‘home’. Serving as a space for exhibitions, as a classroom or for wedding parties, the unit easily adapts to the imagination and invention of the tenant and in doing so also re-defines the range of activities that can take place in the ‘home’. As well as accommodating the functions of work and business, the ‘home’ again becomes the space of many life events beside the basic function of ‘inhabitance’. In acquiring a new program for use, the ‘home’ regains the richness of activity that can take place all around of life.
The building, a triangular block composed of tube-like volumes heading to the ocean, stands on a point of reclaimed land in a small fishing village. While the site meets the seawall and directly faces the sea, it is also faces other buildings across the water. To provide adequate privacy without the use of curtains, narrow tube-shaped spaces were bundled together and angled to provide openings toward the sea. The orientation of these tubes naturally blocks the line of sight from the adjacent apartments and while gazing down the length of the tube from inside only the ocean can be seen. While providing an escape from the tide of urbanism characterising what we normally call a ‘resort’, the design still maintains the key aspects of the resort experience. We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship.
Location: Yokosuka Kanagawa, JAPAN Principal Use: HouseStructure: RC 3 stories
Site Area: 132.09 sq.m Building Area: 63.88 sq.m Total Floor Area: 176.65 sq.m Max Height: 9,459 mm
Architect: Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects Client: Nowhere resort Structural Engineer: Akira Suzuki/ASA Services: EOS+ Electric Services: comodo General Contractor: Heisei Construction
Site planGround floor planFirst floor planSecond floor planCross section oneCross section two
This house by Spanish architect Daniel Isern looks like a cluster of concrete cubes, stacked up on a steep hillside on the outskirts of Barcelona.
The rural site faces out towards the coast, so Daniel Isern designed the four-storey residence with balconies and terraces on three of its floors, as well as a pair of glazed sunrooms.
The form of the building comprises overlapping volumes that integrate several cantilevers. Isern explains: “The reduced dimensions of the plot and the desire to leave the minimum imprint on the land led us to seek out a floor plan which, matching the trees that surround it, emerges from a trunk well anchored to the land and opens up in branches on each floor.”
The entrance to the house is on the uppermost floor. There are no rooms at this level, so residents work their way downstairs to find a living room and bedroom on the next level down, a dining room below that and a master bedroom on the bottom floor.
A concrete walls extends out from the north and south sides of the house and integrates a storage area for firewood.
“For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life – the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.” Claude Monet.
The project for this house emerged from a very simple premise, to build on a very steep piece of land with a gradient of almost 100%, boasting wonderful views and on a tight budget. It was this highly complicated plot of land, surrounded by pine trees, that defined a good part of this project. The land, and its perspectives, constantly changing as the hours pass, the colour of the trees, the movement of sun and shadows…
On the one hand, the reduced dimensions of the plot and its complex orography, and on the other the desire to leave the minimum imprint on the land led us to seek out a floorplan which, matching the trees that surround it, emerges from a trunk well anchored to the land and opens up in braches on each floor, in such a way that each branch becomes the terrace of the upper level at the same time as it becomes the porch of the lower one.
All this helps create a very formal building, with huge cantilevers facing out to emptiness, the woods and the sea which lie before it. A structure which opens up to these views and the sun, and which thanks to the terraces and the porches confuse the interior with the exterior. A building which is equally formal in both its volume and the materials which compose it. Concrete, iron, timber and stone combining in a way that emphasises the character of each one. In the end, the whole building represents a dialogue between emptiness and fullness, between materials, between outside and inside; seeking out a balance between these highly contrasting parts.
Barcelona’s new design museum is an angular metal-clad structure designed by local studio MBM Arquitectes (+ slideshow).
The seven-storey Museu del Disseny de Barcelona is located on the edge of Plaça de les Glories, next door to Jean Nouvel‘s Torre Agbar office tower. Due to the level changes across the site, the building has part of its volume buried beneath the ground and has public entrances on two of its floors.
MBM Arquitectes divided the form of the building into two halves. The bottom section is a bulky volume with glazed walls and a grass roof, while the upper section is a top-heavy structure clad with pre-weathered aluminium panels on every side.
Set to open in spring 2014, the museum will combine the decorative arts, ceramics, textiles and graphic design collections of four existing museums, which have now closed their doors.
The main exhibition hall will be housed in the lower part of the building, while additional exhibitions will take place in galleries on the museum’s upper floors. Other facilities include a large auditorium, a small hall, a public library, education rooms and a bar and cafe.
The area surrounding the museum has been made into a lake, while the grass roof serves as a new public lawn overlooking the water.
The building is the work of MBM Arquitectes, the architecture studio formed by Josep Martorell, Oriol Bohigas and David Mackay, together with Oriol Capdevila and Francesc Gual. The edifice is made up of two parts: one underground (which takes advantage of the slope created by urban development of the plaza) and another which emerges at 14.5 m (at the level of Plaça de les Glòries).
Construction below the height of 14.5m: Most of the surface area of the building is situated below the 14.5m level and is where the more significant installations are housed. They are distributed over two floors and a gallery, and include the main exhibition hall, rooms given over to management and preservation of the DHUB’s collections, the main offices, Clot public library, the documentation centre (DHUBdoc) and rooms for research and educational activities, in addition to high-traffic services such as the bar, restaurant and store. Though below ground level, the basement floor receives natural light from a trench which is worked into the different ground levels and which features a huge lake, creating a dialogue with the outside. Lighting is reinforced with six skylights that look out over the public space and can also be used as showcases for the centre’s contents and activities.
Construction above the height of 14.5m: This part of the building projects over the width of Carrer d’Àvila and has the shape of a slanted parallelepiped. In accordance with the general urban plan it occupies a minimum footprint, primarily in order not to reduce the space earmarked for public use, but also because the vicissitudes of plans to demolish the elevated road and change the tramline route severely limit the space available. The building cantilevers out towards the plaça, enabling the construction potential to be met while at the same time establishing a display of urban architecture over the motorway. This block will house the venues for long- and short-term temporary exhibitions, as well as a small hall and a large auditorium.
Entrance to both parts or bodies that compose the DHUB headquarters is gained through a single vestibule with two points of access: one in Carrer d’Àvila and another in Plaça de les Glòries. Passage through this part of the building is almost inevitable, as it forms a kind of corridor connecting Plaça de les Glòries, the 22@ technological district and Poblenou.
All of the services situated in the basement area can be reached from this semi-public plaza, as well as those on the upper floors by means of a system of escalators, staircases and lifts. While the different spaces have diverse dimensions and architectural characteristics, overall they form a conceptual whole in which the auditorium stands aloft as a fundamental and crowning feature.
Only two materials are used in the building’s exterior, zinc plates and glass, bestowing an industrial feel with metallic accents on the building. The green carpet of the artificial flooring and bright graphics on the pavement are two of the primary components of the outside surfaces. In both cases, the elements employed (natural and manufactured) ensure sustainability and ease of maintenance. The lake, in addition to visually highlighting the work, creates a link between the different levels.
Japanese architect Kengo Kuma has completed a hotel in Miyazaki where guest rooms and dining areas surround a central courtyard and wedding chapel (+ slideshow).
Located on the site of a former factory, Garden Terrace Miyazaki comprises a single two-storey building that features bamboo-clad walls and a large sloping roof with overhanging eaves.
A faceted timber canopy shelters the entrance to the hotel, leading through to a reception where guests are faced with a view of the courtyard.
Kengo Kuma and Associates designed this space as a “calm and tranquil environment”, where a landscape of bamboo trees and pools of water provide a scenic setting to the glazed wedding chapel at its centre.
Restaurants and event rooms surround the other sides of the courtyard, while guest rooms are located on the first floor.
Here’s a short description from Kengo Kuma and Associates:
Garden Terrace Miyazaki
The hotel was built at a vast site near JR Miyazaki station, where a factory once stood. Around it houses and aparrments spread in no particular order.
Facilities of the hotel – guest rooms, banquet room and restaurants are arranged to circle the courtyard.
Loosely sloped roof came out as the result of each function underneath. It wraps the entire building – two-storey structure under the deep eaves.
Bamboo is planted and water is laid out in and out of the hotel and its courtyard, providing a calm and tranquil environment that stretches even to the residential area.
Completion: September 2012 Main use: hotel Total floor area: 4562.04 sqm
Wilkinson Eyre’s planned 235-metre-tall skyscraper, located in the Barangaroo South area near Sydney Harbour Bridge, will be occupied by a six-star luxury hotel, The Crown Sydney Hotel Resort.
The winning design is inspired by nature, according to the architects. “Its curved geometry emanates from three petal forms which twist and rise together,” said Paul Baker, director at Wilkinson Eyre.
“The first petal peels off, spreading outward to form the main hotel room accommodation, with the remaining two twisting together toward the sky.”
Chris Wilkinson, director of Wilkinson Eyre, said: “My ambition is to create a sculptural form that will rise up on the skyline like an inhabited artwork, with differing levels of transparency, striking a clear new image against the sky.”
The building will contain around 350 guestrooms and suites, four restaurants, a day spa, rooftop pool and high-end shops.
Crown Resorts chairman James Packer said the building would be an “instantly recognisable” landmark for the city.
“Its iconic curves and fine lines celebrate the harbour and create an architectural ‘postcard’ that will help attract international tourists and assist Sydney to compete with other global destinations,” he said.
Crown announces Wilkinson Eyre Architects as the Winning Design for Crown Sydney Hotel Resort
Crown Resorts today announced that Wilkinson Eyre Architects had been successful as the winning design for the Crown Sydney Hotel Resort. The joint judging panel unanimously recommended the Wilkinson Eyre design to Crown, following an extended competition to design the Crown Sydney Hotel Resort at Barangaroo South on the city’s harbourfront.
The final three designs by internationally renowned architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill, Kohn Pedersen Fox, and Wilkinson Eyre Architects were judged by a panel consisting of representatives from Crown Resorts, Lend Lease, the Barangaroo Delivery Authority and the NSW Department of Planning. All were praised for their professionalism and innovative designs. The firms presented their designs to the judges last week, and the panel made a formal recommendation to Crown on the suitability of each design and its ability to achieve the desired vision and outcomes for Barangaroo and Crown.
Crown Resorts Chairman, James Packer, thanked the judging panel and congratulated Wilkinson Eyre and its key architects Chris Wilkinson and Paul Baker. “Wilkinson Eyre have an incredible record of achievement and I am certain they will deliver Sydney an iconic building we can all be proud of. This great city deserves a building that is truly special and Wilkinson Eyre’s design delivers it. It’s a wonderful moment for Crown.”
Discussing the hotel’s iconic sculptural design, Mr Packer said: “When completed, Crown Sydney will be instantly recognisable around the world. Its iconic curves and fine lines celebrate the harbour and create an architectural ‘postcard’ that will help attract international tourists and assist Sydney to compete with other global destinations.”
On winning the design competition, Chris Wilkinson, Founding Director, Wilkinson Eyre Architects stated: “Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and it is a great privilege to design such a significant building on the waterfront. My ambition is to create a sculptural form that will rise up on the skyline like an inhabited artwork, with differing levels of transparency, striking a clear new image against the sky.”
Proposal by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture
Paul Baker, Director, Wilkinson Eyre Architects added: “The architecture takes its inspiration from nature, composed of organic forms that provide an abstract, sculptural shape; it does not try to mimic any particular plant or flower but is derived from the specificity of the site and the client brief. Its curved geometry emanates from three forms which twist and rise together. The first form peels off, spreading outward to form the main hotel room accommodation, with the remaining two twisting together toward the sky.”
Todd Nisbet, Crown’s Executive Vice President – Strategy & Development, said: “Wilkinson Eyre are world renowned for their sustainable and iconic designs and their great attention to detail. The Gardens by the Bay in Singapore is an absolute standout, becoming one of the most recognised tourism assets in the world and an iconic image that is instantly recognisable and linked to Singapore’s new identity as one of Asia’s most important gateway cities.”
In October 2012, Crown and Lend Lease invited a number of internationally acclaimed architects for their interest in participating in the Crown Sydney Hotel Architectural Design Competition. The brief to the architects stated: “Crown, Lend Lease and the Barangaroo Delivery Authority are seeking a bold and innovative design team to create Australia’s best hotel in Australia’s most exciting new precinct – a new landmark building on Sydney Harbour that will become a destination for international tourists and seekers of luxury.”
Proposal by Kohn Pedersen Fox
Subject to receipt of all necessary approvals and subject to finalisation of commercial arrangements between Crown, Lend Lease and the BDA, the Crown Sydney Hotel Resort will sit on the Lend Lease commercial site at the north western corner of Barangaroo South and will have approximately 350 guestrooms and suites. The typical guest rooms will be some of the largest in Australia and the suites and villas will rival the best in Asia. There will be four restaurants, a café, an ultra-lounge, day spa, roof top pool and luxury retail facilities.
On the planning and development processes to follow, Mr Nisbet, said: “The designs are a result of a design competition initiated by Crown and Lend Lease to select an architect for the Crown Sydney Hotel Resort and are not a formal part of the planning approval process. In the near future, Crown in collaboration with Lend Lease will engage in public consultation and seek approval from the Barangaroo Delivery Authority as landowner to lodge an application to the Department of Planning and Infrastructure for all necessary approvals.”
Lend Lease has an exclusive dealing agreement with Crown in relation to the development of the hotel resort at Barangaroo South and both parties are working towards final commercial arrangements. The Crown Sydney Hotel Resort Proposal is currently in Stage 2 of the NSW Government’s Unsolicited Proposal process.
News: work has begun on the OMA-designed headquarters of Denmark’s national centre for architecture in Copenhagen.
Scheduled for completion in early 2017, the 27,000-square-metre Bryghusprojektet is a mixed-use development on the site of an old brewery, which will include residential units, community spaces and a playground.
In the middle of the development will be the new offices for the Danish Architecture Centre, an organisation set up to spread knowledge about architecture and the built environment.
The centre will be surrounded by its own subjects of study and research, explains Ellen van Loon, who is OMA’s partner-in-charge on the project along with the firm’s co-founder Rem Koolhaas.
“Instead of stacking a mixed-use programme in a traditional way, we positioned the Danish Architecture Centre in the centre of the volume, surrounded by and embedded within its objects of study: housing, offices and parking,” said van Loon.
The centre will include exhibition areas, research facilities, conference rooms, an auditorium, a bookshop and a cafe.
The Bryghusgrunden Project is located on the harbor on the site of an old brewery, the Bryghusgrunden, one of the few remaining areas with the potential to link the city to the waterfront. The building itself will straddle the busy Christians Brygge ring road, creating new urban connections for pedestrians and cyclists between the waterfront and Denmark’s houses of government.
Construction begins today on the OMA-designed Bryghusprojektet in Copenhagen, Denmark. The 27,000 sq m mixed-use project will accommodate a new headquarters for the Danish Architecture Centre (DAC). The building will act as the missing link between the city centre, the historic waterfront and the culturally rich Slotsholmen district of Copenhagen.
OMA partner-in-charge Ellen van Loon explained: “Instead of stacking a mixed-use programme in a traditional way, we positioned the DAC in the centre of the volume, surrounded by and embedded within its objects of study: housing, offices and parking. The urban routes reach into the heart of the building and create a broad range of interactions between the different programme parts and the urban environment.”
Situated among landmarks in the history of Danish architecture, Bryghusprojektet shares with the indigenous modernism tenets of simplicity, monumentality and urbanity. The site is bound by a cluster of historic monuments, including the Christiansborg Palace and the Old Brewery, whilst sharing the riverside with many other bold, contemporary interventions.
To capitalise on the site’s potential, the building is an ‘urban motor’ to actively link the city and the waterfront. Providing a connection under the busy Christians Brygge, where entrances to the different program elements are strategically located, the site becomes both a destination and a connector at the hinge of the waterfront and the ‘entrance’ to the city.
Le photographe allemand Christopher Domakis parvient avec talent à montrer, grâce à des clichés minimalistes, toute la beauté de l’architecture. Des choix visuels intéressants permettant de profiter de l’harmonie et des contrastes de ces différents environnements. A découvrir en images dans la suite.
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