Hasta La Ideas

This timber-clad house extension in Norway by Oslo studio Rever & Drage features curvy towers that point outwards like periscopes (+ slideshow).

Located on a hillside in the outskirts of Molde, the single-storey house had only a small bedroom and bathroom on its western side, so Rever og Drage Arkitekter was asked to increase the size of both of these rooms.

Two towers with quarter-circle profiles were installed on the roof of the extension to function as lightwells. The first curves west to bring evening sun into the bathroom, while the second is pointed east to let morning sun into the bedroom.

The bedroom extends outwards by just over a metre while the bedroom is now more than three metres wider. Together, the rooms frame a small terrace in the south-east corner of the plot.

The clients asked for views across the water towards a mountain range, so the architect added generous windows to the southern elevations of both rooms.

The exterior of the building is clad with white-painted timber boards to reference both the white-painted brick and brown timber panels of the existing house.

“We initially wanted to make a clear distinction between the extension and the original building,” explain architects Tom Auger, Martin Beverfjord and Eirik Skogen Lilledrange. “At the same time we did not want to create too much contrast in terms of materials and formal means.”

The architects carried out all the construction themselves.

The small city of Molde is best known as the home of an annual jazz festival and Danish architects 3XN recently completed a cultural centre to be used there during the festivities.

See more architecture in Norway, including a wooden house overlooking the sea and a small gabled summerhouse.

Photography is by Tom Auger.

Here’s a project description from Rever og Drage Arkitekter:

Extension of single-family house, Pedervegen 8, Molde

The new owner of a detached house in Molde wanted an extension of an existing bath- and bedroom. The house was still in more or less its original 1962-condition and appeared as a time-typical house from this period. That is Scandinavian functionalism with a flat roof and brown exterior panels contrasted with white brick walls. Furthermore the house had an elegant and somewhat closed composition.

Above: floor plan – click for larger image

The owner wanted to get the evening sun in the bathroom (which was on the east side of the building) and to keep the morning sun in the expansion of the bedroom without being exposed to neighbours. Views of the spectacular mountain range to the south were required from both rooms.

We initially wanted to make a clear distinction between the extension and the original building. At the same time we did not want to create too much contrast in terms of materials and formal means. We chose to use wood cladding, as the existing building, while the colour of the new cladding was taken from the original bright brick walls. We also changed the orientation of the panels. In order to solve the requested light preferences we brought in a new form, the quarter circle, which we held for a type of basic shape that could easily relate to architecture of the early sixties.

Above: cross section through bedroom – click for larger image

The bathroom has a clear everyday zone in the innermost part with shower, toilet and sink, while the outer section provides the more time-spending bathroom artifacts; a bathtub, a wide window sill with a view and a door to the garden. The latter part has a skylight in the shape of a curve facing west. The room bathes in the late evening sun when the west-coast weather allows it. Tiles are sober in the inner part, whilst the outer part has a more festive consortium. The contrast between the inner and outer zones of the bathroom was in danger of being too hard. The relaxing ambiguity is that the outer zone suggests peace of mind in its use, yet at the same the form here is intense. While the inner zone, which reflects more efficiency, has a calmer expression in terms of colours and patterns.

The bedroom is long and has three different zones. First, a dressing-section with a large mirror and a backstage-like atmosphere. In the middle a lounge area with a fireplace and a generous window facing the green to the north. At the end of the bedroom is the bed with a large window and its view to the south. Over the bed a vaulted ceiling with a window heralding the morning sun as well as giving a view of the stars at night.

Above: cross section through bathroom – click for larger image

In retrospect, we were surprised at the modest exterior contrast between the extension and the original building. To a large extent we believe this is due to the fact that the selected wood panels have about the same size as the bonds in the original brick wall, so that these two surfaces relate. This is particularly evident in the north facade. Also, the quarter circles seem to work as form and at the same time they provide the building with a touch of relieving humour.

Architects: Rever og Drage
Location: Bjorset, Molde, Norway
Design Team: Eirik Lilledrange, Martin Beverfjord, Tom Auger
Area: 20 sqm

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Rever & Drage appeared first on Dezeen.

Revellers at this year’s Coachella festival in California can visit a silent disco inside a dome of colour-changing balls by Spanish designer Héctor Serrano (+ slideshow).

Produced by Borealis, the installation arm of Serrano’s studio, The Dome is built from nearly 1000 inflated PVC spheres with LED lights at their centres. “They’re kind of like beach balls,” Serrano told Dezeen.

Each LED is connected to a computerised system, which relays a combination of around 50 different patterns of light and colour. The program can be downloaded to a smartphone or tablet, making it easy to alter the sequence.

Cables fix each of the balls around the skeletal framework of the dome.

Serrano says he originally planned to rent a much smaller structure, but ended up using a dome that Coachella already owned.

“It’s four times bigger than our original proposal,” he explains. “We had to have the balls custom made in China to get them ready in time.”

The structure was installed for the two weekends of the annual music festival and will be dismantled later this month.

Héctor Serrano is based in London. Past projects by the designer include a speaker designed to look like a computer icon and a set of accessories for turning balloons into animal heads. See more design by Héctor Serrano.

Other designs we’ve featured from music festivals include tree-mounted urinals at Roskilde in Denmark and star-shaped lights from Burning Man festival in Nevada.

Here’s some more information from Héctor Serrano:

The Dome by Borealis for Coachella

Inspired by the Pantheon dome in Rome, the installation resemblance a cathedral of light, an art piece where the visitor is immerse in a 360º unique experience completely surround with light. The dome works as immersive environments when inside and as large scale sculpture when view from outside. The dome is made out of nearly 1000 spheres and LEDs that are used as a pixel, creating a volumetric environment with infinite patterns and possibilities.

Borealis is the installation division of Hector Serrano. The Dome launches on Friday 12 April and will be open for Coachella two weekends 12-15 and 19-21 and attended by more than 200,000 people. The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is an annual three-day music and arts festival, held in Indio, California in the Inland Empire’s Coachella Valley. The event features many music genres, including rock, indie, hip hop, and electronic music, as well as sculpture.

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at Coachella appeared first on Dezeen.

Light filters through hundreds of rectangular slits into this towering market hall in Ghent, Belgium, which is is one of the five finalists for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2013 (photos by Hufton + Crow).

Designed by Belgian studios Robbrecht en Daem and Marie-José Van Hee, the dual-gabled timber and concrete structure references the gabled forms of a nearby town hall to provide a grand shelter between the gothic structures of a church and belfry in the centre of the city.

The site had formally served as a car park, but the architects have paved over the ground surfaces to create a new public square.

The 40-metre-long Market Hall stretches across the square and is open on all sides, allowing pedestrians to enter from any direction.

Four chunky concrete feet support the asymmetric roof at each of its corners.

Glass squares clad the exterior surfaces of the building to protect the timber from the elements.

A fireplace is positioned inside one of the concrete feet for use during an annual festival and lets smoke out through a chimney in the roof.

The building was named on the shortlist for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture in January, alongside a nursing home in Portugal, a concert hall in Iceland, a timber canopy in Spain and a city park in Denmark.

Other market buildings completed in recent years include a concrete fish market in Istanbul and a farmers’ market shelter in Virginia. See more markets on Dezeen.

See more photography by Hufton + Crow on Dezeen or on the photographers’ website.

Here’s a project description from Robbrecht en Daem Architecten:

Market Hall & Central Squares Ghent, 1996-2012

Following two demolition campaigns for a world exhibition in 1913 and an administrative centre never built in the 60s, Ghent’s historic heart degenerated for decades into a desolate parking lot in between a suite of three adjoining Gothic towers.

In two consecutive competitions between 1996 and 2005, Robbrecht en Daem architecten and Marie-José Van Hee architects proposed their own programme, countering the initial competition requirement.

Rather than just providing an open space for events, they sought, by meticulously positioning a market hall, to rectify this deficiency and reinstate the presence of old urban areas that had become unrecognisable.

The building positions itself between Poeljemarkt, Goudenleeuwplein, and a new lower ‘green’ connecting to the ‘brasserie’, bicycle park and public toilets below the hall. And although the building clearly occupies a position on the 24,000m2 site, it fits in well.

Compared to St. Nicholas Church, Belfry and Cathedral, it assumes the heights of a lower group of buildings such as the adjacent town hall, from which it derives, mathematically, its profile.

As an urban interior, the inside embraces the passer-by with a dual modulated wooden ceiling, whose small windows scatter light inwards.

The exterior, the entire building in fact, seems to assume a respectful role relative to the nobler historic stone buildings, by using a wooden, almost humble, finish.

A glass envelope protects the wood and provides a soft shine, with the sky reflected, integrated. Large buffer basins to absorb rainwater, principles of low energy consumption for the brasserie, use of truly natural materials, the contribution of public transport and a clear vision about giving new value to the historic centre with its old spatial structures, are just parts that broadly flesh out ‘sustainability’ for the future. The centre of Ghent will again become a social spot for people.

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and Marie-José Van Hee appeared first on Dezeen.

Le studio d’architecture coréen Moon Hoon déjà présenté sur Fubiz, a imaginé l’excellente structure « Panorama House » située en Corée du Sud. Dans celle-ci, les équipes ont pensé avec talent une bibliothèque dans laquelle est intégrée un toboggan, permettant d’allier culture, amusement et design.

Here are the latest photographs of the OMA-designed Shenzhen Stock Exchange, set to complete next month in the Chinese city (+ slideshow).

Designed by Rem Koolhaas’ OMA back in 2006, the much-debated structure comprises a 250-metre skyscraper with a vast podium hoisted up around its waist, forming a canopy for a public plaza at its feet.

The three-storey podium is suspended 36 metres above the ground to create the large trading rooms of the Stock Exchange, while a landscaped garden will be accessible on its roof.

A strict grid of square windows generates the facade of the 46-storey tower, while the surrounding podium displays a zigzagging sequence of structural trusses.

Scheduled to complete in May, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange is OMA’s second-largest building in China after the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, which completed last year. The firm is also currently working on a second Shenzhen skyscraper in the city’s business district. See more architecture in Shenzhen or more projects in China.

Dezeen filmed a series of interviews with Rem Koolhaas, as well as OMA partners Reinier de Graaf and Iyad Alsaka at an exhibition about the firm’s work in London. Watch the movies or see all our stories about OMA.

Photography is by Philippe Ruault.

Here’s some extra information from OMA:

Shenzhen Stock Exchange

The essence of the stock market is speculation: it is based on capital, not material. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange is conceived as a physical materialization of the virtual stock market: it is a building with a floating base, representing the stock market – more than physically accommodating it. Typically, the base of a building anchors a structure and connects it emphatically to the ground. In the case of Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the base, as if lifted by the same speculative euphoria that drives the market, has crept up the tower to become a raised podium, defying an architectural convention that has survived millennia into modernity: a solid building standing on a solid base.

SZSE’s raised podium is a three-storey cantilevered platform floating 36m above the ground, one of the largest office floor plates, with an area of 15,000 m2 per floor and an accessible landscaped roof. The raised podium contains all the Stock Exchange functions, including the listing hall and all stock exchange departments. The raised podium vastly increases SZSE’s exposure in its elevated position. When glowing at night, it “broadcasts” the virtual activities of the city’s financial market, while its cantilevers crop and frame views of Shenzhen. The raised podium also liberates the ground level and creates a generous public space for what could have been what is typically a secure, private building.

The raised podium and the tower are combined as one structure, with the tower and atrium columns providing vertical and lateral support for the cantilevering structure. The raised podium is framed by a robust three-dimensional array of full-depth steel transfer trusses.

The tower is flanked by two atria – voids that connect the ground directly with the public spaces inside the building. SZSE staff enter from the East and tenants from the West. SZSE executive offices are located just above the raised podium, leaving the uppermost floors leasable as rental offices and a dining club.
The generic square form of the tower obediently blends in with the surrounding homogenous towers, but the facade of SZSE is different. The building’s facade wraps the robust exoskeletal grid structure supporting the building in patterned glass. The texture of the glass cladding reveals the construction technology behind while simultaneously rendering it mysterious and beautiful. The neutral colour and translucency of the facade change with weather conditions, creating a mysterious crystalline effect: sparkling during bright sunshine, mute on an overcast day, radiant at dusk, and glowing at night. The facade is a “deep facade”, with recessed openings that passively reduce the amount of solar heat gain entering the building, improve natural day light, and reduce energy consumption. SZSE is designed to be one of the first 3-star green rated buildings in
China.

The 46-storey (254m) Shenzhen Stock Exchange is a Financial Center with civic meaning. Located in a new public square at the meeting point of the north-south axis between Mount Lianhua and Binhe Boulevard, and the east-west axis of Shennan Road, Shenzhen’s main artery, it engages the city not as an isolated object, but as a building to be reacted to at multiple scales and levels. At times appearing massive and at others intimate and personal, SZSE constantly generates new relationships within the urban context, hopefully as an impetus to new forms of architecture and urbanism.

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by OMA nears completion appeared first on Dezeen.