Hasta La Ideas

News: Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron has been granted planning permission for a school of government and public policy at the University of Oxford, UK.

The £30 million Blavatnik School of Government will be built within the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, masterplanned by architect Rafael Viñoly.

Herzog & de Meuron’s building will appear as stack of discs decreasing in size, unevenly aligned to create overhangs and terraces.

Inside, the building will be arranged like “an auditorium or a concert hall”, say the architects, with interconnected terraces stepping up from the ground floor to the upper levels.

Lower levels will house teaching and public spaces, while the quieter upper levels will be occupied by academics and research programmes. The top level will contain a library overlooking an outdoor terrace.

The building is expected to be completed in 2015.

The school was launched in 2010 with a £75 million donation by American philanthropist Leonard Blavatnik, and offers a one-year master’s degree in Public Policy with a curriculum drawn from across the university.

Herzog & de Meuron was recently chosen to design the new National Library of Israel in Jerusalem and shortlisted for a new headquarters for the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Sweden – see all architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.

Other projects at the University of Oxford include Zaha Hadid’s under-construction centre for Middle Eastern culture and Rick Mather’s extension to the Ashmolean Museum, completed in 2009.

Image is copyright Herzog & de Meuron Basel.

Here’s some more information from Herzog & de Meuron:

Blavatnik School of Goverment, Oxford, UK

Project 2011 – planned completion 2015

“The Blavatnik School of Government will become a global centre of excellence for the study of government and public policy. The School’s aim is to teach the practice of government and leadership in ways which will strengthen communities, create opportunities and foster cooperation across the world. The School offers Oxford University a new way to contribute to the world.” – Blavatnik School of Government Brochure

Such a vision requires a specific response and building. Our starting point is from the inside, from the heart of the building, the Forum. This space cuts through the school as a vertical public space connecting all the levels and programs together into one whole. Central to a school of government is the idea of openness, communication and transparency, the central forum takes this principle literally by stitching all levels together. In the first instance the Forum provides access between spaces, but more importantly it provides congregation, meeting and social spaces. In our proposal its arrangement is in many ways like that of an auditorium or a concert hall with a series of interconnected terraces that step up from the ground floor all the way to the upper levels of the School. Each terrace could operate as a separate space, for example as a study area or as part of one connected whole volume for a larger presentation. The Forum will be a space that allows and positively encourages communication and discussion, formal and informal, planned and accidental.

The Blavatnik School of Government will house teaching and academic spaces which are supported by meeting, administration, research and service areas which are all connected by the Forum. At its lower levels, the building houses large public and teaching programs. The upper levels around are occupied by academic and research programs that require a more quiet atmosphere to foster focus and concentration. Crowning the School will be the library research tower which overlooks an outdoor terrace, Library Square to the north, and the whole of Oxford beyond. The School offers a wide range of teaching-space types from small flexible seminar rooms to larger flat floor teaching rooms.

Prominently located at the southwest corner of the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter (ROQ) the School will be the first building pedestrians, visitors and students encounter when approaching this quarter from the south. The School has the potential to become a gateway into this new part of the University and a symbol of its development.

The immediate context is a complex situation with the adjacencies of St Paul’s Church and Somerville College to both sides and the Oxford University Press across Walton Street. The concept of the Forum in the interior sets the decisive and room-defining impulse for the entire building. This circular hollow also defines the exterior appearance of the school. Its cylindrical shapes show analogies to government buildings and universities in different places all over the world.

Our proposal of a series of shifted discs, pure geometric circles, is developed from the parameters of the site and plot boundaries. The shifting in floors creates overhangs and covered volumes and reflects the principles of the masterplan massing with the mass of the building moved northwest towards the centre of the ROQ site. The main entrance is located, in a classical manner, in the middle of the Walton Street elevation, centred underneath the main teaching floor of Level 1 whose circular geometry at Library Square is transformed into a rectangular form along Walton Street, resulting in a ‘Sheldonian’ like shape. The introduction of this orthogonal form addresses the historic setting in a classical manner, both continuing the line of the St Paul’s Church portico and echoing the symmetrical entrance of the Oxford University.

With this proposal we aim to provide a project that can act as a focal point both for the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter and the academic activity of the study of government and public policy; a landmark building housing a ground breaking School.

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for Oxford university building appeared first on Dezeen.

Walls of Corten steel and timber surround this house by McAllister Alcock Architects on a vineyard in Mornington Peninsula, Australia (+ slideshow).

Entitled Main Ridge Residence, the single-storey house features a central courtyard that is open to the north, as well as a protruding living room that projects eastwards to frame views towards the fields of a neighbouring strawberry farm.

“The site had no clear ‘hero’ views with which to orientate the building,” explains Victoria-based McAllister Alcock Architects. “However there were a series of lovely, albeit modest aspects… The architecture retains the memory of these existing landscape vistas and uses them as an ordering device.”

The house is divided into two main wings. The first stretches along the eastern edge of the site to accommodate a row of bedrooms and bathrooms, while the second wraps around the south-west corner and contains family rooms as well as a small guest suite.

These two sections are visually separated by materials, with the timber cladding lining the eastern side of the house and chunky Corten steel walls framing an entrance on the western facade.

Beyond the entranceway, an enclosed patio leads residents either into the house or through to the courtyard beyond, and is framed by walls of concrete.

Living and dining areas occupy a single space beneath a faceted plywood ceiling. A timber drum divides the space into two and contains a pantry and a spiral staircase, leading down to a wine cellar beneath the house.

Other recently completed houses in Australia include a Sydney bungalow into a two-storey residence and a Melbourne beach house built from recycled bricks and rough-sawn timber. See more Australian houses on Dezeen.

Exterior photography is by Derek Swalwell and interior photography is by Shannon McGrath.

Here’s a project description from McAllister Alcock Architects:

Main Ridge Residence, Mornington Peninsula, Australia

The Main Ridge house sits within an established working vineyard located on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. The brief was for a comfortable 4 bedroom family home with a visual connection to the vines and which provided an area suitable for entertaining the international guests who visit our clients’ winery.

We are ‘urban architects’, used to working with the constraints of existing built form and planning regulations and creating architecture in residual urban space. We consider our work to be contextual, an architectural response to the urban ‘found’ conditions. In this case the context for the house was abstract; the site had no clear ‘hero’ views with which to orientate the building. The best northern solar orientation faces away from the vines, while to the west an existing artificial cutting separated the house site from the vines and the view to the east was dominated by a large and visually ‘messy’ strawberry farm. However there were a series of lovely, albeit modest aspects: to the north a view beneath trees full of dappled light and a promise of what lies beyond; to the south a gentle rolling grassy slope terminating at the vines. The architecture retains the memory of these existing landscape vistas and uses them as an ordering device – externally with the form and placement of the new building and internally with the orientation of the inside spaces.

On approach the house is hidden by two 20 metre long angled weathered ‘Corten’ steel walls. On entering through a gap between the walls – reminiscent of the original cutting – the house and site reveal themselves. The residence is comprised of pavilions enclosing three sides of a sheltered, north facing courtyard. The courtyard design maximises northern light to the interior and creates zones within the home: one for more private family living and another that can also cater for entertaining guests. A sculptured limed plywood ceiling provides a horizontal ribbon linking the public and private areas of the main pavilion, and contributes visual ‘drama’ while still maintaining a comfortable residential scale. A pod-like timber ‘drum’ marks the pivot point between the public and private realms and hides a butler’s pantry, the staircase to the wine cellar, and sliding doors to zone the spaces.

At the start of the project our clients were not overly impressed with the attributes of their site and were not fond of the view to the strawberry farm. The design of the residence has changed our clients’ perception of their environs by carefully selecting and ‘framing’ vignettes so that the inhabitants are encouraged to pause, and appreciate the special characteristics of a landscape setting that has more ‘depth’ than just the strong graphic rows of grapevines.

Location: Main Ridge, Mornington Peninsula, Australia
Architects: McAllister Alcock Architects
Project Type: New House
Project Team: Karen Alcock, Clare McAllister, Maria Danos, Brett Seakins, Jack Tu

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McAllister Alcock Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

An opaque box appears to balance over see-through walls of glass and perforated steel at this house and pet shop in Saitama, Japan, by architecture studio N Maeda Atelier (+ slideshow).

The pet shop occupies the ground floor of the building, while a two-storey house is contained in the precarious-looking upper volume and overhangs the glass facade to create a sheltered entrance to the shop.

“The upper unit presents a sharp contrast to the open, transparent lower layer, with its weighty, massive appearance almost like a heavily-armed tank defending the rather indoorsy life of the client’s family,” says N Maeda Atelier.

The plaster-covered walls of the house have a textured surface that the architects based on an image of a cloudy sky, with the same variations of light and dark. There are no sharp edges, as all four corners are chamfered.

“On a cloudy day, the floating mass looks as if it blends in with the sky, while its edges lose their individual materiality as they melt into the gradational clouds in the background,” says the studio.

Natural light floods into the house through a skylight that stretches across most of the roof. Rooms are arranged around a double-height atrium, allowing light to permeate most of the interior.

A kitchen, lounge and traditional Japanese room occupy the lowest level of the residence, while a spiral staircase leads up to a gridded metal mezzanine with a bedroom and bathroom beyond.

In contrast with the austere facade, the interior walls are lined with plywood, which the architects have sliced up into boards and coated with a thin layer of white paint.

The owner of the residence also runs the pet shop downstairs, so a second spiral staircase leads down from to the “dog-run” yard at the back of the building.

Other seemingly windowless houses featured recently from Japan include a monolithic white home in Miyazaki and a residence in Tochigi with a six-metre high living room. See more Japanese houses on Dezeen.

Photography is by Studio Dio.

Here’s more information from Norisada Maeda:

TORUS: Transcribing the Sky onto the Façade

Composition: First Floor

Basic composition of TORUS is a bilayer structure consisted of a white, half-amorphous box floating on the lower layer softly surrounded by glass and perforated aluminum panels.

The transparency and the openness of this layer is a natural solution for the functional requirement to expose the presence of the salon to prospective customers and other passer-bys, as well as to open up the ground outside the shop area surrounded by the curved perforated partitions as “dog-run” field where dogs can freely run around.

The apparently free line of the curved wall is actually based on our careful recognition of what we call the “welcoming zones”, i.e., the pocket areas required to open up to the urban context outside the building site. The cutting-outs of such zones as parking, entrance and spaces for outdoor equipment have resulted in the irregular curve of the wall as the output of such operations.

Composition: Second and Third Floors

The upper unit containing two floors within presents a sharp contrast to the open, transparent lower layer with its weighty, massive appearance almost like a heavily-armed tank defending the rather indoorsy life of the client’s family. With a closer look, the surface of the wall shows a texture similar to a handmade pottery instead of that of a flat, uniform industrial product.

Texture: Exterior Wall

The pottery-like texture is the result of painstaking manual operation of repeatedly applying and spreading the waterproof material onto the wall. Beside such a consideration to the close-up texture, the exterior of this second layer also involves our sensitivity to the longer-distance outlook of the building, which is realized by an operation of transcribing the sky onto the wall.

The transcription process is as following: first, we took a picture of the sky right above the site on the day of framework completion (phase 1); the picture was then abstracted into a gray-scale gradation graphic (phase 2), which we applied as the contour map of the undulating surface by carefully duplicating it on the four sides of the wall; finally, we covered the surface with finishing mortar while controlling its thickness (varied from 0 to 30mm) based on the contour lines – and thus emerged the ambiguous cloudy sky texture. The finished wall naturally takes on a feature of the sky with wispy clouds.

The treatment of the exterior wall has allowed us to produce quirky and blurry edges on the corners of the floating box, which is obviously different from the familiar sight of sharp edges of building corners fashioned with usual industrial materials, and thus make this architecture stand out in the ordinary cityscape.

On a cloudy day, the floating mass looks as if it blends in with the sky, while its edges lose their individual materiality as they melt into the gradational clouds in the background. TORUS is probably a rare architecture that looks much better under clouds than clear sky.

Interior composition: Internal Void (through second and third floors)

Let us move up into the massive floating box, which appears extremely exclusive of the surrounding urban context. Beside the entrance door is a small pocket space: although it is still an open-air space, it somehow bears an indoor atmosphere due to the careful treatment of proportions and openings. Right inside the entrance door is a huge void within the massive box.

This is the particular atmosphere inside TORUS, a doughnut-like geometry with one big opening within. While the outlook of the building implies ultimate closure, it embraces a surprisingly voluminous space or “The Outside” almost mistakable for a street or a patio – which is actually a glass-covered interior void.

Interior Texture: Internal Void

The prior factor of this “outside effect” is obviously the gigantic top light on the roof, but there is another, rather obscure one: the rugged interior wall finish.

The material itself is actually an ordinary, cheap plywood panel available in any hardware store in Japan. To give the particular tactile quality to this daily material, we cut the panels into narrow boards of 200mm width each and then manually removed the soft parts from each and every board to let the hard grains stand out on the surface.

With the finishing white paint (which needed a special preparation to evenly paint over the water-absorbing and non-absorbing portions of the surface), the ordinary material has been turned into a unique finishing material like this.

This extremely labor- and time-consuming work was all done by our staff and the students of the private school led by the chief architect Norisada Maeda, and it took about two months to finish all the boards necessary to fill up the interior wall of the building (it is unimaginable how much it would have costed if the work has been committed to professional carpenters and the painters…). The resulted difference may appear rather slight and obscure from a distance, but a closer look will show the rough, but also tasteful texture of the artificially aged wall.

General-purpose industrial materials like plywood panels usually require – or even boast of – ultimate evenness of their qualities, although they can never get rid of slight differences in, for example, their wood grains. It echoes with the contemporary consumers’ taste for orderly outlook of such evenly processed materials. We consider, however, such myopic taste for apparent cleanliness and/or orderliness as one of the big reasons for the qualitative poverty of today’s architecture.

Even the plywood boards have individual characteristics, like each and every human individual has different face and life history. The artificial aging treatment to expose the individual “wood” nature within each and every industrially-processed plywood is a sort of a manifestation of our homage to the wooden materials that make up the actual architectural space.

Summary

As described above, the particular focus in TORUS can be summarized as following: clear-cut segmentation of lower and upper layers; “cutting-outs” of spaces from the surrounding urban context; unique treatment of inside/outside; invention of new texture treatment. TORUS has come to life with these considerations blended in together to realize the true richness of a residential space in the given context.

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N Maeda Atelier appeared first on Dezeen.

This house in rural England was designed by British architect Lucy Marston to reference old English farmhouses and features red brickwork, a steep gabled profile and a corner chimney (+ slideshow).

Located in the county of Suffolk, Long Farm is a three-storey family residence clad in a mixture of regional materials that includes terracotta roof tiles, lime mortar and timber details.

“We wanted to make a building that belonged on the site,” says Lucy Marston. “Familiar building elements and materials were carefully composed to create a house that is clearly of its time, but with an identity firmly routed in its locale. It was intended to be immediately recognisable as a Suffolk house that feels at home on the farm.”

Skylights are lined up along both sides of the roof, while large windows cover all four elevations, allowing light to filter into the house at different times of day.

A similar materials palette continues through the interior. Martson explains: “Whitewashed brickwork, painted timber linings and exposed ceiling beams were used to give honest depth, texture and character to a modern interior.”

The client works as a writer and requested quiet spaces for working as well as larger areas for entertaining guests or spending time as a family.

Marston thus added a a series of rooms on the ground floor that can be opened out to create a large living room or subdivided to create a “snug”, a reading room and a playroom for the children. There’s also a study across the corridor.

A large kitchen is located at the opposite end of this floor and features a dining table that can seat up to ten people, as well as a traditional farmhouse sink and a double stove.

Four bedrooms occupy the first floor and include two master bedrooms with private bathrooms, plus a pair of children’s rooms that can be combined to form one large room.

“The clients wanted to build a simple, modest building that would adapt to accommodate them as the family developed,” says the architect.

Other rural English houses featured on Dezeen include a converted stable block in Hampshire and a stone house on the Isle of Man. See more houses in the UK.

Photography is by Jack Hobhouse.

Here’s the full project description from Lucy Marston:

Long Farm, Suffolk

Long Farm is a new family home in rural Suffolk, England. The house sits high among a group of existing farm buildings, facing east across salt marshes and open fields, towards the sea.

We wanted to make a building that ‘belonged’ on the site and so the design emerged from its context. The steeply pitched roof and linear form were influenced by the traditional ‘long house’ form that can be seen throughout that part of the country.

Familiar building elements and materials – a corner chimney, brick and lime mortar, teracotta tiles and timber – were carefully composed to create a house that is clearly of its time, but with an identity firmly routed in its locale. It was intended to be immediately recognisable as a Suffolk house that feels at home on the farm.

Capturing the unique views around the house, in all directions was key. From the dawn in the east over the sea to sunset over the reed beds to the far west, windows and rooflights were placed precisely to track the sun and and views throughout the course of the day. Windows were kept large to frame dramatic views, but balanced with the occupants’ domestic desire for enclosure, privacy and warmth.

Internally, the vernacular references continue: a super-sized inglenook in the sitting room, a generous hall and landing that almost become rooms, window sills deep enough to sit in and a ‘farmhouse kitchen’ arranged around a large family table. Whitewashed brickwork, painted timber linings and exposed ceiling beams were used to give honest depth, texture and character to a modern interior.

The house was designed to accommodate a family of four with guests, with room for different age groups to carry out activities in different parts of the house.

As a writer with young children, the client had conflicting requirements, requiring solitude in order to work and also sociable interlinked spaces for the everyday bustle of sociable family life and frequent visitors.

The plan, an update of the traditional single room depth long house layout, was developed as a series of smaller rooms with their own identities (a playroom, a reading room, a snug).

These can be closed off and used separately with access via the hall or opened up with sliding doors to create a more fluid semi-open plan space. Likewise the childrens’ bedrooms can be opened up to form one big room or closed off for privacy.

The clients wanted to build a simple, modest building that would adapt to accommodate them as the family developed. They also wanted a building that would weather well, would require little or no maintenance and minimal energy to run.

At Long Farm, we aimed to make a building that was not only robust and flexible enough to age well over time, but one that aimed to be sustainable long term in an aesthetic sense, that had a timeless or ‘classic’ quality to it.

Landscape Consultant: Marie Clarke, Clarke Associates
Structural Engineer: David Cantrill, JP Chick and Partners
Contractor: Robert Norman Construction

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Lucy Marston appeared first on Dezeen.

This concrete staircase into the air by Lisbon architecture studio Ateliermob functions as a riverside amphitheatre on the banks of the Tagus in central Portugal (+ slideshow).

Positioned on the northern shore of the river near the village of Rio de Moinhos, the structure is built on the site of an old fishing boat dock that had fallen out of use due to regular flooding.

Ateliermob‘s brief was to create a public installation on the site. To withstand the changing water levels, the intervention needed a solid structure that would resist decay even if submerged for a few days a year.

The chunky concrete bleachers rise up in a northerly direction, facing a stage that cantilevers out across the riverbank. A telescope is mounted at the very top, while rectangular concrete benches and tables provide a picnic area on one side.

“The new element wipes out the boundary between land and water, projecting itself on the river, and on a flat terrain it erupts in the air as a reference in the landscape,” say the architects.

The Rio de Moinhos Open-Air Theatre is the latest in a series of riverside installations designed by Ateliermob for the banks of the Tagus since 2007.

Other amphitheatres on Dezeen include a summer theatre in Estonia and a stage set in Sicily designed by OMA.

Photography is by Zoraima de Figueiredo.

Read on for more details from Ateliermob:

Rio de Moinhos Open Air Theatre

Following an international competition for the banks of the Tagus River in four counties in central Portugal where ateliermob got the first prize, they were asked to design three projects in the municipality of Abrantes.

Located on the right bank of the Tagus River, near the village of Rio de Moinhos, the Cais das Barcas served as a fishing boat dock and transported people and goods between the two banks. Over the years, that space lost its essence, both due to the nearly non-existent maintenance as the constant flooding of the Tagus (the height of the pier is +18.00 m, and the 1979 flood overflowed the river, which rose to 31.00 m).

Following a study of the dynamics of the local population, which can be characterised as having intense activity in recreational and popular associations, and it was understood that an outdoor space that could serve as an informal area for groups and communities and that could withstand submersion for a few days of the year. The new element wipes out the boundary between land and water, projecting itself on the river, and on a flat terrain it erupts in the air as a reference in the landscape.

The project seeks to recreate a place that spring-starts from the renovation of the pier, adding new collective reference meanings and uses. A new space for the local people that acts as a gathering place for the community or as an idyllic meeting place. The entire area around the auditorium, parallel to the existing dock, is redrawn maintaining its natural character, yet providing it with urban furniture – benches and tables for a more effective use by the population. Rio de Moinhos has experienced a difficult relationship with the river, noticeable its urban morphology – from times of flooding to times of drought. Every year, during the rainy season, this structure may become partially submerse.

The proposed structure seeks to reclassify the area, creating a new meeting space for the local community. When no events are taking place, this amphitheatre will be ideal to contemplate the river, the landscape and from its highest point, Rio de Moinhos.

Project: Rio de Moinhos Open Air Theatre
Place: Rio de Moinhos, Abrantes, Portugal
Promoter: Câmara Municipal de Abrantes (city council)
Construction: Construforte – Sociedade de construções e Empreitadas, Lda
Architecture: ateliermob – Andreia Salavessa and Tiago Mota Saraiva with Vera João, João Torres, Ana Luísa Cunha, Zofia Józefowicz and Sophia Walk (competition: Carolina Condeço, Nuno Ferreira)
Structures: Betar Estudos – José Pedro Venâncio and Maria do Carmo Vieira
Lights: João Pedro Osório

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by Ateliermob appeared first on Dezeen.