Hasta La Ideas

Chinese New Year begins today and celebrations in Hong Kong include Cantonese operas performed at a pop-up bamboo theatre in the new West Kowloon Cultural District.

William Lim of local architects CL3 designed the temporary structure in the same style as traditional bamboo theatres built since the 1950s.

Orange nylon sheets are stretched over the tiered roof to imitate the ancient palaces of Beijing’s Forbidden City, while colourful fabric signs mounted on bamboo scaffolding face out onto the street.

Red chairs, curtains and lanterns adorn the interior, while more lanterns and flags are hung up outside in red and gold, as both colours are considered lucky in Hong Kong and China.

For three weeks the West Kowloon Bamboo Theatre will occupy the site earmarked for the new Xiqu Chinese Opera Centre, which is being designed by Vancouver firm Bing Thom Architects and Hong Kong studio Ronald Lu & Partners Company Ltd, and is due to complete in 2017.

Foster + Partners won a competition to masterplan the West Kowloon Cultural District in 2010, beating designs by OMA and Rocco Design Architects. Herzog & de Meuron, SANAA and Renzo Piano are among the teams shortlisted to design a new visual culture museum for the area and Aric Chen has been appointed to curate it.

See all our stories about the West Kowloon Cultural District »
See all our stories about architecture and design in Hong Kong »

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by William Lim appeared first on Dezeen.

Hackney studio Gort Scott subtly added the outline of a cat’s ears to the facade of this feline veterinary clinic outside Cambridge (+ slideshow).

The architects wanted to create references to cats in the design, but agreed with the client that these details would be subtle. “After years of designing with human situations in mind, it was quite interesting also designing with cats in mind,” Jay Gort told Dezeen.

The building occupies a former joinery shed in the village of Fulbourn. Gort Scott covered the original facade with cedar slats and picked out the shape of the cat’s ears using wider sections.

“The screen was considered the most elegant and cost effective way of giving the building a more welcoming, joyful appearance in a context of fairly run-down sheds,” said Gort.

The building’s interior is reorganised, creating a large reception and waiting area at the front of the clinic. The reception desk is built from plywood and features ornate feet shaped like cat’s paws.

Beyond the reception are a series of consulting rooms, an operating theatre and a diagnostic laboratory, plus a large preparation room lit from above by skylights.

Interior walls are painted in calming shades of turquoise, with occasional details picked out in yellow.

Gort Scott is led by architects Jay Gort and Fiona Scott, whose past projects include a rugged stone house on the Isle of Man. Jay Gort also spoke at Dezeen’s Designed in Hackney Day last year, where he argued that the beleaguered British high street is actually a thriving location of “collision and conflict”.

Another veterinary clinic completed recently is a combined surgery and home in Japan.

Photography is by Angus Leadley Brown.

Here’s some more information from Gort Scott:

Cambridge Cat Clinic

The site for this new, cat-specialist veterinary practice was originally a joinery workshop, opposite an open field at the edge of Cambridge. Our client was a veterinarian establishing a new business.

Gort Scott obtained planning permission for change of use and remodelling of the existing building to also include a new cedar wood screen on the front elevation, with a suggestion of cats ears. Beyond this screen is a generous reception and waiting area with specially-designed furniture, and views back to the open field.

The main working area for the medical staff is a large multi-functioning ‘prep room’, which is top-lit by two generous skylights.

The scheme’s design includes many aspects that respond to the client’s considered approach to the welfare of her animal patients and their owners.

The building serves both as a general practice specialising in feline medicine, and also as a surgery, with a full operating theatre, lab and diagnostic area.

Above: site plan – click for larger image

Name of project: Cambridge Cat Clinic
Date of completion: 01/ 06/ 2012
Total contract value; £156,000

Credits list
Client: Cambridge Cat Clinic
Start on site date: 05/11/2011
Gross internal floor area: 224m2

Above: floor plan – click for larger image

Form of contract and/or procurement : JCT Minor Works contract
Structural engineer: Charles Tallack Engineering consultancy
Planning supervisor: AFP Construction consultants
Total cost : £156,000
Main contractor: Bob Black Construction Ltd.

Selected subcontractors and suppliers:
Windows: Velfac
Flooring: Forbo
Internal partitions: Rodecca
Joinery: Precision Joinery

Above: front elevation – click for larger image

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by Gort Scott appeared first on Dezeen.

Dans la lignée du Ice-Hotel Design, coup de cœur pour ce splendide « Hôtel de Glace » sous la forme d’une structure ouverte tous les hivers, à 10 minutes du centre-ville de Québec au Canada. Avec des sculptures et décorations de glace, une série d’images du photographe Xavier Dachez est à découvrir dans la suite.

Bold primary colours punctuate this stark concrete extension to a secondary school outside Lisbon by Portugese architect CVDB Arquitectos (+ slideshow)

Braamcamp Freire Secondary School, located in the Pontinha area just outside Portugal’s capital city, was originally built in 1986 as five prefabricated units.

CVDB Arquitectos restructured the dispersed units into a single building by connecting them with new corridors, creating what they call a “learning street”.

The school is now arranged around a central courtyard, created by joining up the existing buildings.

A series of punctured concrete walls support a new set of classrooms on one side of the courtyard and provide a sheltered area where pupils can gather.

The facades combine exposed in situ concrete and prefabricated concrete elements in order to minimise building and maintenance costs.

The windows have been recessed into the facade to create a series of vertical concrete louvres, each painted red, yellow or blue to add a flash of colour to the exterior.

Splashes of primary colours also punctuate the main staircase and selected interior walls, including the blue wall of sound absorbing concrete blocks.

The school hall is lined in vertical timber studs and acoustic panels.

We’ve featured a number of schools on Dezeen, including a gabled extension to an English boarding school and a Vietnamese school with open-air balconies – see all schools on Dezeen.

Other buildings in Portugal we’ve published lately include a home on a golf course complex outside Lisbon and a bright white building in the monastery town of Alcobaça – see all Portugese architecture.

See all schools »
See all buildings in Lisbon »

Photographs are by Invisible Gentleman.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

CVDB Arquitectos
Secondary School ES/EB3 Braamcamp Freire
Lisboa, Portugal

The Braamcamp Freire Secondary School is located at the edge of the historical centre of Pontinha, Lisbon. The site has approximately 17,380 sq m and borders an accentuated topography. The school is part of Pontinha’s urban fabric with the exception of its north boundary which faces an unconstructed valley.

The School was originally built in 1986, with five standardised prefabricated pavilions – a central one with a single storey and four two storey pavilions. These pavilions were organised along an east-west axis, connected by covered walkways. The existing school included a gym as well as an outside playground at a lower level and very disconnected from the buildings.

The rehabilitation project of the building was part of the Portuguese “Modernisation of Secondary Schools Programme”, which has been implemented by the Parque Escolar E.P.E. since 2007. The Programme’s objective is to reorganise schools spaces, to articulate their different functional areas and to open these schools to their local communities.

The project proposes to restructure the dispersed pavilion typology into one single building, to connect all the pavilions through interior circulation spaces. The new buildings are built to work as a link in between the existing pavilions.

The programme is structured as a learning street and a continuous path throughout the various building levels and floors. These pathways consist in a succession of several interior spaces, offering different informal learning opportunities. The learning street therefore articulates the various programmes of the school. The pathways are punctuated with social areas which actively contribute to interactions between students, the various educational programmes and the school community.

The school is structured around a central open space, a “learning square” that expands the “learning street” as an outside social central space of the school. The square’s relationship with the playground areas provides a strong relationship with the existing natural landscape and topography. The Square is open as an amphitheater connecting it to the playgrounds in the northern part of the school grounds.

This amphitheater is below the new classrooms building supported by a series of punctured concrete walls allowing students either to walk through them or to use them as places to sit, talking and playing. The facades of the school are essentially constituted in exposed in situ concrete and prefabricated concrete elements, to minimize maintenance costs. The concrete panels were carefully designed to respond adequately to each façade’s solar orientation.

In the interior spaces, adequate resistant materials were chosen for an intensive use and very low maintenance costs. The multipurpose hall has timber studs and acoustic panels. The circulation spaces walls are mainly done with concrete acoustic blocks. The social spaces present themselves as niches in bright colours.

Project: ES / EB3 Braamcamp Freire
Location: Pontinha, Lisboa, Portugal
Client: Parque Escolar, EPE
Total built area: 15,800 m2
Project and construction period: 2010 – 2012

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

Design Team: CVDB Arquitectos
Cristina Veríssimo, Diogo Burnay, Tiago Santos, João Falcão, Rodolfo Reis, Joana Barrelas, Adam Pelissero, André Barbosa, , Ângelo Branquinho, Ari Nieto, Guilherme Bivar, Hugo Nascimento, Inês Carrapiço, Irune Ardanza, José Maria Lavena, Leonor Vaz Pinto, Luigi Martinelli, Miguel Travesso, Silvia Amaral, Silvia Maggi

Above: upper floor plan – click for larger image

Landscape design: F&C Arquitectura Paisagista
Structure, foundations and services: AFA Consult

Above: section – click for larger image 

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by CVDB Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.

Today in unreal estate news, Barbie is looking to sell her Malibu dreamhouse. The listing of the fictional pink palace–a bargain at $25 million–is Mattel’s way of launching “a year-long global brand campaign” that will follow Barbie on a worldwide hunt for new digs (may we suggest Vilnius?). “It wasn’t an easy decision for Barbie to put her Dreamhouse on the market, but this move marks an unprecedented opportunity for her fans to get an inside look at her dreamy home,” said Lori Pantel, VP of global marketing for Barbie, in a statement issued today.

Mattel tapped L.A. broker Josh Altman, who you may recall from Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing, to handle the fictional sale. Despite the abundance of hot pink scrollwork and Victorian flourishes, the listing describes the three-story manse as “clean-line[d]” and “contemporary.” Elsewhere, real estate euphemisms tout the Dreamhouse as “innovatively scaled” and with “a truly unobstructed view of the ocean” (it has only three walls). And while $25 million is steep for a one-bedroom, where else are you going to find custom Pantone 219C hardwood floors? Adds Altman, “This is the only home in Malibu with a self-flushing toilet and fireplace that crackles even when it’s not on.”

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