Hasta La Ideas

News: the Rio de Janeiro stadium that was set to host athletics tournaments during the 2016 Olympics has been closed indefinitely due to structural problems.

The Joao Havelange Olympic Stadium, known locally as the Engenhao, will have to undergo roof repairs before it can be declared fit for use.

Rio’s mayor Eduardo Paes said he had been told that the structural problems could pose a risk for spectators, depending on the wind speed and temperature.

“On that basis, I immediately decided to close the stadium until we had more details,” he told a news conference.

“It’s simply not acceptable that a stadium which was inaugurated such a short time ago now has to face this sort of situation.”

Designed by architects Carlos Porto and Gilson Santos, the stadium opened late and over budget in 2007 and is currently the city’s main football venue while the Maracana Stadium is rebuilt for this year’s Confederations Cup and the 2014 World Cup.

Rio intends to build only nine permanent sites and six temporary venues for the 2016 Olympics in an attempt to avoid the legacy of ‘white elephant’ sporting venues suffered by former host cities Athens and Beijing.

Other sports venues we’ve reported on lately include Zaha Hadid Architects’ successful bid to design the new national stadium for Japan and a competition-winning design for a football stadium in Ethiopia with stands built into mounds of earth – see all stadiums.

Photograph is by the Brazilian Foreign Office.

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Huge vertical louvres give a pleated appearance to this family house in Kyoto by FujiwaraMuro Architects (+ slideshow).

The louvred facade curves around the south-east edge of the house to follow the shape of a road running alongside. Two-storey-high windows are slotted between each of the louvres to allowing natural to filter evenly through the wall, casting a variety of shadows across the interiors at different times of the day.

“The movements of the sun can be felt inside the house all throughout the year,” explain architects Shintaro Fujiwara and Yoshio Muro.

The entrance to the house is positioned beyond the louvres and leads into an open-plan living and dining room that occupies most of the ground floor.

A bedroom sits at the rear of this space and is entirely filled by a double bed, but residents can open this room out to the living room with a set of sliding partitions.

A staircase is tucked into the rear corner of the living room and leads up towards a children’s bedroom on the first floor. This floor is set back from the wall at the rear, creating a balcony overlooking the level below.

From this room, another staircase ascends towards the bathroom and washroom, then heads up again to reach a small rooftop terrace.

Shintaro Fujiwara and Yoshio Muro founded FujiwaraMuro Architects in 2002. Past projects include House of Slope, with a corridor coiling around its floors.

See more Japanese houses on Dezeen, including a converted warehouse with rooms contained inside a white box.

Photography is by Toshiyuki Yano.

Here are a few words from Fujiwara Muro:

House in Muko

A mezzanine-floored residence consisting of a single-roomed space, located on a fan-shaped site.

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

The movements of the sun can be felt inside the house all throughout the year. Light coming from the east strikes the louvered boards before entering the house and reaching deep into its interior. Direct sunlight from the south traces a shower-like path of lines as it penetrates into the building. Light coming from the west reflects off the walls of this house with an open stairwell before entering it.

Above: first and second floor plans – click for larger image

Location: Muko, Kyoto, Japan
Principle use: single family house
Site area: 295.67 sqm
Building area: 56.36 sqm
Total floor area: 100.19 sqm
Project architect: Shintaro Fujiwara, Yoshio Muro
Project team: Fujiwarramuro Architects
Structure: timber

Above: long section – click for larger image

Above: cross section – click for larger image

Above: east elevation

Above: south elevation

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FujiwaraMuro Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Turkish firm Yalın Mimarlık has won a competition to design an archaeological museum on the site of the ancient city of Troy in north-west Turkey (+ movie).

Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism selected a team from Yalın Mimarlık led by Ömer Selçuk Baz for the project at the UNESCO World Heritage site in the province of Çanakkale.

First excavated in 1870, Troy is famous for the mythical siege narrated in Homer’s Iliad, and the extensive remains discovered at the site reveal the earliest contact made between the civilisations of Asia and the Mediterranean.

The museum will take the form of a large cube clad in Corten steel panels, accessed via a ramp leading underground.

From the subterranean level, visitors will be able to walk up ramps leading through the exhibition spaces to a rooftop terrace.

The programme also includes conservation laboratories and storage space for the collection, which includes ancient artefacts dating back some 3000 years, as well as activity areas, a shop and a cafe and restaurant.

Last year Dezeen was in Turkey for the Istanbul Design Biennial, where organiser Bülent Eczacıbaşı said his country needed better design for its cities and products – see all stories from the Istanbul Design Biennial.

Other projects in Turkey we’ve featured include a seaside temple made from chunky chipboard and a proposal for a swimming pool under an inverted dome – see all Turkish architecture.

Images and movie are by Cihan Poçan.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Omer Selcuk Baz and his team in Yalin Architectural Design has won first prize in the National Architectural Design Competition for the Museum of Troy, one of the most famous archeological sites in the world, listed as UNESCO World heritage site. With a history of 5000 years and a significance for the development of European Civilization, Troy represents artistically and historically a profound cultural influence from the time of Homer to the World War I.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey, the organiser of the competition expropriated 10 hectares for the purpose. The museum is planned to be constructed close to the archaeological site, adjacent to the village of Tevfikiye in Canakkale. It will conserve and exhibit the artifacts unearthed at the site. The museum contains conservation and restoration labs, 2000 sq m of storage, permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, activity areas, café, restaurants and retail facilities as well as access to natural environment.

The competition, which was opened in January 2011, received 132 project submissions. Some major architectural firms from Turkey were to be found among them. The jury, composed of prominent names such as Cengiz Bektas, Han Tumertekin, Murat Tabanlioglu, Ayten Savas and Ali Ihsan Unay, convened between 27-29 May 2011 in Ankara. The results were announced on 31 May.

The approach of the winning project by Omer Selcuk Baz sets the design concept upon communicating the visitors a world beyond their perception, with roots and stories in history. The design concept gradually disconnects the visitors in part or completely at certain thresholds from the physical context to reconnect them again. The cubic form of the building is reminiscent of an excavated artefact.

About the building

The design concept must engage in a situation beyond the physical context of the environment. It must look back at a civilisation that lived a while in history, and it must generate a feeling beyond the physical structure. At this point, the preferred approach to design is to segregate the visitors gradually at certain thresholds and to integrate them again. To disconnect the visitors partly or totally from the physical context and then reconnect them.

The design gathers all supportive functions underground on one floor. This floor is not recognised from the ground level and is concealed under a landscape. The exhibition structure is perceived as a robust object on a 32 x 32 metre square plan rising through a split from underground. The visitors descend into the structure along a 12 metre wide ramp. While descending, they come near to the structure in the horizon. Landscape and earth disappear gradually, leaving solely the sky and the structure behind.

Once underground, the visitors find themselves on a circulation band. A rust red earth-coloured exhibition structure rises through the transparent roof. The rusty metal (Corten) coated structure is timeworn and, just like the broken ceramics unearthed from the excavation site nearby, it recalls a lived history. The history of the material and the architectural design evokes a connection between past and present.

Ascending through the ramps towards the top, one gets a view of the landscape, the fields and the ruins of Troy through the slits on the facades. The rooftop enjoys a generous terrace with a splendid view where one imagines Troy’s distant and near history, the memories of the land and its future ahead.

Architects: Yalin Architecture Design
Location: Troy, Canakkale
Architectural Design: Ömer Selçuk Baz, Okan Bal, Ozan Elter, Ece Özdür, Melek Kılınç, Sezi Zaman, Ege Battal, Lebriz Atan
Exhibition: Deniz Unsal, Lebriz Atan, Ece Özdür
Illustrations and Animations: Cihan Poçan

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Museum of Troy appeared first on Dezeen.

News: British architect Terry Farrell has been chosen to lead an independent review of the UK’s architecture policy.

Culture minister Ed Vaizey has tasked Farrell, whose best-known buildings include Charing Cross Station and the MI6 building in central London, with producing a report on architecture and the built environment by the end of the year.

The review will take a broad look at the current state of architecture in the UK, considering education, cultural heritage, the economic benefits of architecture and the government’s role in promoting high quality design in the built environment.

An 11-strong advisory panel selected from the fields of architecture and design – including architects Alison Brooks and Sunand Prasad as well as designer Thomas Heatherwick and writer and thinker Alain de Botton – will meet four times before Farrell completes the report.

“Many countries have an effective architecture policy and I intend to learn from what has worked elsewhere and also learn from all those involved here in architecture and the built environment,” stated Farrell. “Architecture and the built environment is so important to us culturally, economically, socially and environmentally.”

Others on the panel include Hank Dittmar, chief executive of The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community, and Peter Bishop, formerly the Mayor of London’s advisor on design.

“Good design builds communities, creates quality of life, and makes places better for people to live, work and play in,” commented Vaizey. “I want to make sure we’re doing all we can to recognise the importance of architecture and reap the benefits of good design and I’m delighted Sir Terry Farrell has agreed to undertake this independent review.

“I now urge all those within the architecture and built environment industry to make sure they get involved and contribute their views.”

Last year the government was criticised by the industry for introducing guidelines for new school buildings that banned curved and glass walls in favour of “simple, orthogonal forms”, a decision slammed by RIBA president Angela Brady as having “too much focus on short term savings.”

Farrell’s 442-metre Kingkey 100 skyscraper is currently the tallest building in Shenzhen and tenth tallest in the world – see all architecture by Terry Farrell.

Photograph by Farrells.

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architecture review appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen and MINI World Tour: we speak to architect David Adjaye, fresh off the stage from his presentation at Design Indaba, about his relationship with Africa and why he believes the continent provides a great opportunity for architects. 

Adjaye was born in east Africa, to Ghanaian parents, before moving to London at 14. He explains that, after graduating from the Royal College of Art, he felt the need to return to the continent where he grew up.

Above: Nairobi, one of the photographs taken by Adjaye for his research

“I wanted to revisit the continent of Africa” he explains, “but I wanted to revisit it, not through the lens of my parents or through any kind of formal experience, tourism or anything. I wanted to claim it for my own.”

He spent 11 years, from 1999 to 2010, visiting the capital city of each country on the continent “to try to understand the nature of the cities in Africa, to understand their past and their present, to understand their history and their geography.”

Through this research, which was published as a seven-volume book, Adjaye realised the importance of Africa’s unique geography. “It became clear to me that the political map of Africa that we have is a very difficult way to understand the continent,” he says. “Fundamentally, the way we should be looking at it is through geography.”

Adjaye created his own map of the continent (below), divided into six distinct geographic zones, which, he believes, have shaped African culture. “In these [zones], all the civilisations of Africa have manifested themselves,” he says. “Their unique identities come from that, the artefacts of the continent reflect that geography.”

This realisation was important to Adjaye’s own approach to architecture. “I wanted to create a blueprint for how I wanted to work on the continent,” he explains. “I didn’t just want to make contemporary architecture with the usual references of anonymous abstracts and global things, I wanted to find a way of making architecture that could take onboard issues that are big, but also specific enough to make unique objects.”

Adjaye believes that, despite the continent’s considerable problems, Africa presents a great opportunity for architects. “GDP growth over the last decade is anything between 10 and 15 percent, which is extraordinary. It’s greater than what China was doing,” he explains. “This economic drive is changing the political paradigm because as people are becoming more wealthy they are starting to question politically their structure.

“What’s amazing is that, unlike working in Europe or America at the moment, [as an architect] in Africa you can try to ascribe a new paradigm. If you get the right political agency and the right construction environment, you can make extraordinary moments in architecture. That for me is very exciting.”

This movie features a MINI Cooper S Countryman.

The music featured is by South African artist Floyd Lavine, who performed as part of the Design Indaba Music Circuit. You can listen to Lavine’s music on Dezeen Music Project.

Political map of Africa above is courtesy of Shutterstock.

See all our Dezeen and Mini World Tour reports from Cape Town.

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opportunity” – David Adjaye appeared first on Dezeen.