News: Zaha Hadid was named businesswoman of the year at the Veuve Clicquot awards in London last night.
Judges from champagne house Veuve Clicquot, which was helmed by Madame Clicquot in the early 19th century, commended Hadid’s “great zeal as a businesswoman” and her success in growing her firm, Zaha Hadid Architects, in a male-dominated industry.
The awards, now in their 41st year, are presented to business leaders who have shown entrepreneurship and financial success as well as a commitment to corporate social responsibility and their role in encouraging other women into the industry.
Hadid said: “It’s hard to believe, but it’s still difficult for women to break the business barrier. Through perseverance and hard work, I’ve been able to do so, but it’s been a long struggle. When I started my career in architecture it was very much a male-dominated industry, but in recent years I’ve seen a growing number of talented female architects join the profession and succeed.”
The Iraqi-born architect pipped other finalists including Dorothy Thompson, the chief executive of Drax power company, and Thea Green, chief executive of cosmetics brand Nails Inc.
3Gatti Architecture Studio will add a facade of opening and closing steel umbrellas to Foreign Office Architects’ Madrid Pavilion from the 2010 Shanghai Expo (+ slideshow).
The new cladding will replace bamboo louvres that currently surround the glazed walls of the building, which was originally designed by the former London studio to accommodate an exhibition about low-cost housing for the six-month-long world fair.
The pavilion was converted into a retail and office complex once the Expo was over, but two years on the bamboo had started to rot and the steel frames were showing signs of rust, so the owners asked 3Gatti Architecture Studio of Rome and Shanghai to come up with a new design.
3Gatti has developed a facade of parasol-like screens that each fold open from a spring-loaded central joint. “We came up with this idea because on sunny days here, Shanghai is full of people with umbrellas,” chief architect Francesco Gatti told Dezeen. “Here they are very common objects used for sun shading.”
Just like with the existing bamboo shutters, occupants will be able to adjust the shades to control the light levels within the building. “The previous design of the Madrid Pavilion was a system controlled by the users moving the folding shades horizontally,” Gatti added. “We just changed the shades into a more familiar object.”
The architects will use perforated Corten steel to create the surface of each umbrella, as well as the panels in between. The ground floor elevations will be glazed to allow more visibility into the shops at this level.
Here’s a project description from 3Gatti Architecture Studio:
Umbrella Facade – new facade for the ex Madrid Pavilion in the Shanghai Expo site.
After the 2010 Shanghai expo the Madrid pavilion needed to be renovated and transformed into a commercial building with retail and office functions. The old facade was built around a 1.5m wide terrace all around the building with bamboo louvers mounted on folding steel frames. In 2012 the bamboo got rotten and the frames rusted so the Shanghai Expo Bureau decided to replace the old bamboo skin with a new facade that could work in the same way: allow the people to open or close the shades so to protect glass facade from the sun in summer and allow more light in during the winter. We were commissioned to find an eye-catching concept that can follow those functions but also attract more people in the new commercial area.
If you visit China one of the first surprise you will find is that most of the women protect themselves from the sun using umbrellas and when actually rains most of the time they don’t mind to get wet without any protection. So when they asked us to protect a building in China from the sun this idea came up spontaneously: an umbrella facade.
The idea was to make each umbrella able to be controlled by a pulley to allow people to interact with it. Apart from the pulley the rest of the mechanism is identical to the one of the umbrella with the only difference that the mechanical parts are made of stainless steel, the frames of aluminum and the external surface of thin corten.
When the umbrellas are fully opened the facade is completely flat so that most of the sunlight and strong wind is blocked. If the umbrellas are opened the light is able to come fully inside and the umbrella sticks become attractive star-sticks with an aerodynamic shape not resistant to the wind preventing structural tensions in case of typhoons.
Architecture firm: 3GATTI Chief architect: Francesco Gatti Project manager: Bogdan Chipara Collaborators: Alessandro Paladin, Jennifer Yong, Zara Wang, Yichen Wang
Client: Shanghai World Expo (Group) Co., ltd. Location: UBPA , Shanghai Expo area Programme: Replace the old bamboo-louvers façade with a new facade. Area: 1330 m² Design period: November 2012 Construction period: Autumn 2014 Materials: Corten, aluminum and stainless steel
Australian architect Andrew Burns has installed a charred timber pavilion with deceptively curved walls in the garden of the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation in Paddington, Sydney (+ slideshow).
Named Crescent House, the structure was designed by Andrew Burns with a symmetrical geometry that comprises two intersecting arcs within a rectangular frame.
Visitors are invited to follow the curve of the walls to a secluded space at the pavilion’s centre, where light filters through tiny perforations to create a wall resembling the night sky.
The charred cedar cladding references the frequently occurring bush fires of the region. Meanwhile, the rectangular structure at the back frames a view of the hedge beyond.
“The pavilion has an ambiguous presence, between architecture and art object,” says Burns. “The structure responds to elemental themes: darkness and light, the wonder of the night sky, the arc of the sun and the presence of bushfire on this continent.”
Crescent House is the inaugural project in the Fugitive Structures programme, a series of temporary pavilions that will be installed annually in the Zen Garden of the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF).
Citing the Serpentine Gallery pavilions in London as an inspiration, the SCAF plans to invite emerging and mid-career architects to design four new pavilions each year.
‘Crescent House’ is the first in an annual series of temporary pavilions to be installed at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation in Paddington, Sydney. The aim of this ‘Fugitive Structures’ program is to engage a wide audience with architectural thought.
Two arcs are set within an apparently simple rectilinear form. The arcs bisect, creating a pair of infinitely sharp points and a threshold to the space beyond. This combination of fragility and robustness seeks to charge the conversations within the space with a particular quality.
The structure has an ambiguous presence; between architecture and art object. Through framing, it transforms an ordinary rose apple hedge into a landscape of beauty.
The pavilion responds to elemental themes; darkness and light, the wonder offered by the night sky and the burnt quality of yaki-sugi (charred cedar) recalling the presence of bushfires on this continent.
The pavilion and has been initiated and supported by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, BVN Donovan Hill, Andrew Cameron Family Foundation and the Nelson Meers Foundation.
Site plan – click for larger imageFloor plan
South elevation – click for larger image
East elevation – click for larger image
North elevation – click for larger image
West elevation – click for larger imageDetail section – click for larger image
En 2009, la vieille église de Valer, petite ville du sud-est de la Norvège, avait disparu sous les flammes. Le studio Cebra basé à Copenhague a proposé une nouvelle architecture pour l’édifice qui doit être construit au même endroit. Un parti-pris visuellement impressionnant, à découvrir en images dans la suite.
When it comes to innovations in staircases, we’ve seen ones that disappear (like this one and that one) but more often, it’s staircases doing double-duty as storage (like this and that) that tend to get the most blog ink. And it’s no wonder; stairs are handy places to stack things.
This South Korean house by architect Moon Hoon is the first new construction we’ve seen in which the staircase is specifically intended to do triple-duty: It’s a means of ascending & descending, it’s a storage unit, and it’s furniture.
“The basic request of upper and lower spatial organization and the shape of the site prompted a long and thing house with fluctuating facade which would allow for more differentiated [views],” writes Moon. “The key was coming up with a multi-functional space which is a large staircase, bookshelves, casual reading space, home cinema, slide….”
News: London firm Grimshaw has submitted plans for a 90-storey skyscraper in a suburb of Sydney, Australia.
The Aspire Tower, designed for a competition held by Parramatta City Council, will have spires reaching to 336 metres and a roof height of 306 metres – higher than the Q1 tower in Queensland, which is currently the tallest building in the southern hemisphere.
The Aspire Tower is designed to twist upwards from its street-level alignment, maximising sunny northern views for its residents and twisting inwards to the north to disperse the force of the wind.
As well as the 700 apartments arranged around 14 six-storey atriums, the tower will include a hotel, bars, restaurants and shops plus a viewing deck over the top two floors.
Grimshaw partner Andrew Cortese said the firm wanted to set a new standard in sustainable urban development. “We hope that the tower will be recognised as a landmark through its balanced achievement of programmatic and environmental innovations, its rationality and buildability, and its uniquely sculptural form,” he commented.
Grimshaw has submitted a Development Application on behalf of Parramatta City Council for a landmark mixed-use tower. The Aspire Tower emerged from a design excellence competition held by the Council and is set to establish a new benchmark for innovative, passive-environmental design in Australian high-rise developments. Designed to act as a catalyst project for Parramatta Square, the tower provides high density, urban residential living which is not only affordable but also sustainable.
As one of the tallest structures in Australia, the engineering of Aspire Tower consciously orientates itself to the wind and to sunlight. The highly adaptable facades accommodate all of the various planning arrangements of apartment type into a modular system. The tower’s striking sculptural form twists upwards from its Church Street alignment to maximise the capture of the sun, the breeze and northern views for its residents.
The accommodation within the tower is situated in two east and west facing wings which are connected to a perforated central core. These wings open up to the south to catch the prevailing air movements, while twisting inwards to the north to disperse the downward force of the wind. By resolving wind and ventilation, the tower creates a comfortable and accessible habitat at all levels, in both its private and public domains. The design has consciously set out to ensure that all apartments have an equity of view, ventilation and light.
Sitting 90 storeys above ground, the tower’s spires reach 336m, while the 306m roof height of the habitable terraces creates a distinctive silhouette for the city’s emerging skyline. The mixed-use nature of the tower also creates a new precinct with 700 residential apartments. These ‘vertical neighbourhoods’ are configured around 14 six storey communal atria with soft and hard landscaping. The precinct also includes 150 hotel rooms, bars, restaurants and retail as well as a spectacular public function including a restaurant space, experience centre and viewing deck over the top two floors.
The tower will also create a new public and civic realm for Parramatta. This new public realm, created from the re-development of Church Street and a new square on axis to St John’s Cathedral, forms the western precinct of Parramatta Square. A vibrant public domain will emerge from the activities on the square with the perimeter uses of retail, building lobbies and transport connections.
Speaking about the achievements and ambitions of the project, Grimshaw Partner, Andrew Cortese, said: “Grimshaw’s approach is derived from the practice’s research on the habitat of tall buildings and on the design of the public and environmental infrastructure of cities. Aspire Tower on Parramatta Square is a rare opportunity to invest in and construct a viable and vital piece of city-making.
“The project has the ability to transform its place and set a new achievable standard in affordable and sustainable urban development. We hope that the tower will be recognised as a landmark through its balanced achievement of programmatic and environmental innovations, its rationality and buildability, and its uniquely sculptural form.”
With a terrace sheltered beneath its overhanging eaves, this building by Japanese architects Kakuro Odagi and Daisuke Narushima functions as an information centre for prefabricated show homes in Yokohama (+ slideshow).
The two-storey building is positioned within the ABC Center, where visitors come to see full-size mock-ups of prefabricated houses, and serves as an administrative centre and an enquiries point.
Designed as a collaboration between Odagi, of Odagi Planning & Associates, and Narushima, of Narushima Architecture Office, the ABC Center House features a mono-pitched roof covered in skylights and solar panels, as well as mixture of different cladding materials that include timber and stone.
“In contrast to most model homes, where the building products pretend to be the surface of real materials, the real materials are applied in a graphical way in this building, as if they look like the imitated materials,” says Kakuro Odagi.
The architect also explains that, like the show homes, the building was designed without any reference to its industrial surroundings. “The architecture may be seen to be fitting into the daydream-like landscape at a glance, but it is free from the model-home park’s merchantability,” he adds.
The square-shaped skylights are dotted across the surface of the roof to bring natural light to both the outdoor terrace and a top-floor seminar room, which opens out to a narrow balcony.
Glass walls separate the terrace from a customer lounge and information desk on the ground floor, plus an office and storage area are located alongside.
ABC CENTER HOUSE is an administrative building in a model-home park located in the inhospitable area with factories and industrial plants in Yokohama city, Kanagawa prefecture. This two-storied building is used as an office where customers first come to get information and where various events and seminars related to homebuying take place.
Ground floor plan
In general, the model homes are remodeled almost every 5 years in an attempt to promote their own merchantability and are equipped with the latest technology and specifications. The relationship with the surrounding environment and other neighboring model homes are ignored, and as a result, self-contained houses based merely on commercial value are standing independently on the park. It is ironic that every design of the house, consisting of factitious and mass-produced materials that would appeal to the dream of the buyer, all look much the same and has no distinctive qualities at all. In response to this context, we intended to create a place where visitors can experience the openness of the space and its value. The architecture may be seen to be fitting into the daydream-like landscape at a glance, however, it is free from the model-home park’s merchantability.
First floor plan
A large shed roof with randomly-placed top lights covers the three parts of the building: the lounge connected contiguously to the terrace, the seminar room that looks like it has its interior and exterior reversed, and the semi-outdoor terrace under the eaves. It makes a gentle unity of the three spaces while maintaining each spatial identity. The terrace also serves as an intermediate space between the outside park and interior.
In contrast to most model homes, where the building products pretend to be the surface of real materials, the real materials are applied in a graphical way in this building as if they look like the imitated materials. This finishing gives a coordinated impression, seen from a distance, with the surrounding model homes in appearance of materials, while its actual contrary state can be seen from close by. Every material, whether it is for interior or exterior, is treated equivalently and mapped across the boundary of the adjacent room. The crossover of surface elements generates a relationship between the inside and outside space of the architecture itself and the one between architecture and landscape. Thus the outward extending space can be felt wherever you are: expansive space is created within a small building.
Cross section
Architect: Kakuro ODAGI (Odagi Planning & Associates) + Daisuke NARUSHIMA (Narushima architecture office) Location: Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan Structural Design: Yosuke KINOSHITA Structural System: Wooden Storeys: 2 Storeys Maximum Height: 8,950 mm Building Area: 81.86 sqm Total Floor Area: 93.44 sqm Project Year: 2012
News: American architect Rick Mather, whose projects included the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, UK, and the masterplan for London’s Southbank, has died aged 75.
His other award-winning work included the £20 million extension to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, London, which won a Civic Trust Award after its completion in 1999, the same year he completed an extension to Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London and was appointed to masterplan the city’s Southbank development.
Fubiz est fier de vous présenter aujourd’hui l’Issue 20 de son programme hebdomadaire Fubiz TV avec Sony Xperia. Au sommaire cette semaine, nous avons sélectionné le meilleur de l’actualité créative et nous avons eu la chance de rencontrer le DJ et producteur Pedro Winter (Ed Banger Records).
Livre de So Me « Travail Famille Party » – Compilation Ed Rec pour les 10 ans le 27 mai 2013 – Site Club75
This social housing block on the Spanish Canary Islands was designed by local studio Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos with a pleated facade and three hidden courtyards.
Located in Las Palmas, the five-storey building contains eight apartments, each with at least three bedrooms. There are two per storey and the first pair is located on the first floor.
The pleated facade integrates a series of shutters, which fold back to reveal pastel-coloured undersides. Each pleat creates a small recess, helping to shade the windows from sunlight and shelter them from prevailing winds.
Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos added three separate courtyards within the plan and gave each one a different colour. A blue-painted courtyard sits at the centre of the building, while a green space is on one side and a yellow ocre courtyard is positioned at the back.
All three courtyards can be overlooked from the windows of the apartments above.
To deal with the intense temperatures on the island, the ground floor and facade integrate ventilated chambers, while air conditioning units are housed in the basement.
Here’s a project description from Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos:
Eight Inscribed Houses and Three Courtyards
The inscribed houses, with their small boundaries, are thought and built as a microcosm. The term inscribed, borrowed from geometry, induced us to find new qualities. The confinements of the irregular and broken limits of party walls, far from being perceived as a negative quality, heightened forms and bodies to us.
Conferring them the quality of limitless consequently made them infinitely manipulable in the interior.
Controlled spaces where container and contained elements establish dialogues which create a sequence of border spaces. These articulate a route that gently discovers three courtyards that filter natural light, dyeing it with shades of blue, ocher and green. Almost monochrome atmospheres. The diagonal relations between the common spaces frame cuts and fragments of the sky and are naturally ventilated and brushed with natural light.
Above: site plan
Every element plays a significant role. From the street to the deepest stay, one circulates along vestibules, courtyards, corridors, footbridges and slots of light. Telescopic houses, inscribed one on each other.
Above: floor plan concept diagrams – click for larger image
We formulate a dialogue to formalize the found tensions: between lines and thickness (those offered by the mismatch of alignments and party walls); between inner glances and outer tangencies. Thus, a vertical sequence of broken planes is drawn up, where light slides and shadows become more expressive throughout the day. We turn the only façade into a changing game. Simple origami, fold, unfold, that speaks thickness.
Above: cross section – click for larger image
Users, according to their needs or customs, will configure the image to the street within the possibilities of the proposed game.
Above: facade design concept – click for larger image
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
