Hasta La Ideas

Jay Gort from Hackney studio Gort Scott Architects argues that the beleaguered British high street is actually a thriving location of “collision and conflict” in this talk filmed by Dezeen at our Designed in Hackney Day last year.

Gort begins his presentation with an image by documentary photographer Mishka Henner showing onlookers at a gay pride parade in the English town of Oldham (above). “I’ve put this in here because I think it’s a really priceless photograph,” says Gort, who has worked with Henner on a number of projects.

“He uses the camera to strike up conversations with people, and to try and capture the places as well,” explains Gort. “That’s something that’s really important about our work, that whole idea of valuing what exists to start with.”

He goes on to show two drawings of London high streets (above and below) made by Fiona Scott, the architect with whom he founded Gort Scott Architects in 2007.

“I think these drawings start to show some of the amazing characterfulness and juxtapositions of different uses and building types that exist [on London’s high streets],” he says.

“A lot of people say the high street is dead,” he continues, “[but] nearly 60% of all London’s employment goes on near high streets, and there’s an amazing richness and vitality that is far from dead, actually. If you go down to Tooting, or up to Cricklewood, you’ll find a high street that isn’t about shopping – it’s about the representation of local communities in that area.”

The high street is a “physical device” where communities meet and where “collisions and conflicts happen”, he adds.

Introducing the Tottenham Public Room project (above) in north London, he says: “It’s a public space that can be used to try and encourage a trading of skills. Volunteers from the Tottenham area are trying to help a disenfranchised community, which was really splintered after the riots [in 2011].”

“We want to do buildings that have an impact, but we realise we have to operate a little bit by stealth in terms of getting into different areas,” he notes.

He goes on to introduce two very different forms of architecture that have inspired his practice, noting that he is most of all interested in atmosphere.

“Atmosphere is dictated by the structure, the scale, the light, the materiality, the orientation – where you’re placed within the city itself – and how all those things start to combine to have an impact on the kind of space,” he says, comparing a grand palace in Genoa (above) with a room of scaffolding props (below).

He finishes by introducing his firm’s most challenging project to date, a house on the Isle of Man (below). “Whereas Tottenham Public Room was going to be built for a temporary setting, this is going to hopefully last in a really harsh climate on the southern tip of the Isle of Man for a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years,” he says.

After experimenting with lots of different materials, the architects realised that the most successful buildings on the island were made out of traditional stone. “We thought, why not just build this thing out of stone [and] use a Welsh slate roof,” he says. “To just work with that palette of materials was really rewarding.”

Dezeen’s Designed in Hackney initiative was launched to highlight the best architecture and design made in the borough, which was one of the five host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as being home to Dezeen’s offices.

Watch more movies from our Designed in Hackney Day or see more stories about design and architecture from Hackney.

The post “High streets are places of collision
and conflict” – Jay Gort appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Rem Koolhaas’ OMA has won a competition to design a financial office tower in Shenzhen, China, the firm’s second building in the city after the soon-to-complete Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Located in the city’s business district, the 180-metre Essence Financial Building will be cut into two by a large outdoor terrace that will slice horizontally though the facade to open up a view of the nearby Shenzhen Golf Club.

Circulation routes will be sidelined to the edge of the floorplates, creating flexible office plans that can be adapted to suit different layouts and alternative uses.

Each facade will be designed in relation to the movements of the sun, as a deliberate move to minimise solar gain. East and west facades will be the most screened, while the south facade will feature graduated openings and the north facade will have the largest windows.

David Gianotten, partner in charge of OMA Asia, commented: “OMA is very excited about its continuous and deepening participation in Shenzhen’s development, especially as the city makes its latest evolution: from a manufacturing city into a services hub. This next generation of urbanism calls for a new generation of office towers of which the Essence Financial Building could be one.”

OMA’s first project in the city, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, is set for completion in April. Other recent projects by the Dutch firm include plans to redevelop Sydney’s Darling Harbour and a range of furniture for American furniture brand Knoll.

See more architecture and design by OMA, including a series of movies we filmed with partners Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf and Iyad Alsaka at the opening of the OMA/Progress exhibition in 2011.

Here’s a statement from OMA:

OMA has won the design competition for the Essence Financial Building in Shenzhen. The project, led by OMA Partners David Gianotten and Rem Koolhaas, and designed as a new generation office tower for Shenzhen, was selected from entries by four competing international and Chinese architectural practices.

The Essence Financial Building, located in the Financial Developement Area of Shenzhen, reflects on how the emergent forces in business and society could shape a contemporary office tower typology. The building challenges the many conventions that govern office tower designs, in particular the prevailing central core plan and curtain wall systems.

The Essence Financial Building shifts its core to the edge of the floor plate, resulting in large unobstructed plans that allow a variety of office configurations – and therefore working styles – that meet the demands of the contemporary services industry. Direct and open additional connections between floors can be created to cater for visual and physical contact between departments. The building rationalizes programs into unique volumes, which are then maneuvered to create the distinct form of the building, as well as a viewing platform overlooking the Shenzhen Golf Club, and shaded outdoor recreational spaces for staff.

Above: section – click above for larger image

The facade of the building is an architectural translation of the sun and solar gain diagrams, as well as to the views from each side of the tower. Each face thus takes on a unique pattern. The East and West facades are less penetrable, in response to the low-hitting sun, while the south facade has graduated openings the size of the windows increases down the building in proportion to the decrease of solar penetration. The north facade opens toward Fuhua First Road.

The project was developed together with SADI, YRG, SWA, Inhabit and AECOM.

The post OMA wins competition for second
Shenzhen skyscraper appeared first on Dezeen.

Rounded shingles create wooden scales across the walls of this small house in Hackney that architect Laura Dewe Mathews has built for herself (+ slideshow).

Nicknamed the Gingerbread House by neighbours, the two-storey house sits behind the reconstructed wall of a former Victorian box factory and its tall windows overlap the mismatched brickwork.

“I and the planners were keen to retain something of the original building envelope,” Laura Dewe Mathews told Dezeen. “The pale grey/blue bricks were part of the workshop when I bought it and the clean London stock bricks were infills.”

The architect drew inspiration from decorative vernacular architecture in Russia to design the cedar-shingle facade, then added windows framed by thick galvanised steel surrounds.

“I was keen that the cladding somehow softened the sharp silhouette of the overall, stylised building form and thought the round ‘fancy butts’ might achieve this,” she said. “Contemporary architecture can often be perceived to be severe and alienating and I wanted to avoid that. I hope the balance of the sharp galvanised steel window reveals and cills versus the round singles manages to be more friendly.”

To avoid overlooking neighbouring houses, all windows had to be placed on the north-facing street elevation, so Dewe Mathews also added a large skylight to bring in natural light from above.

A double-height kitchen and dining room sits below this skylight on one side of the house and opens out to a small patio. The adjoining two-storey structure contains a living room on the ground floor, plus a bedroom, bathroom and small study upstairs.

Walls and ceilings are lined with timber panels, while a resin floor runs throughout the house.

The building was the winner of the AJ Small Projects Awards 2013. Also nominated was a wooden folly that cantilevers across a garden lake and a reed-covered tower that functions as a camera obscura.

Scale-like facades have featured in a few buildings over the last year, including a university building in Melbourne and an apartment block in alpine Slovenia.

Photography is by Chloe Dewe Mathews.

Above: the original site

Here’s a project description from Laura Dewe Mathews:

Box House / “Gingerbread House”

This is the first new build project by Laura Dewe Mathews. The motivation for the project was to create a domestic set of spaces with generous proportions and lots of natural light while working with a limited budget.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

The site was originally part of the garden of an early Victorian end of terrace house in Hackney. It was first built on in the 1880s, to provide Mr Alfred Chinn (the then resident of the end of terrace house) with space for his box factory, making wooden boxes for perfume and jewellery.

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

In discovering the history of the site, Laura Dewe Mathews was drawn to assemble yet another box inside the original envelope of the factory.

Above: cross section through kitchen and dining room

The one bed, new-build house was recently completed using a cross-laminated timber super structure, placed inside the existing perimeter brickwork walls and rising up out of them. The timber structure has been left exposed internally. Externally the palette of materials is limited to the original and infill brickwork, round “fancy-butt” western red cedar shingles and galvanised steel flashings, window frames and window reveals. The soft shape of the shingles contrasting with the crisp edges of the galvanized steel.

Above: cross section through living room and bedroom

The form of the proposal was a response to tricky site constraints, common for urban developments in already built up areas. The neighbours’ rights to sunlight, daylight and privacy needed to be respected. Consequently the only elevation that could have any windows was the north facing, pavement fronted elevation. The proposal counters this with large south facing roof-lights; added to this, light is brought into the main living spaces via a new private yard.

Above: front elevation

At 80msq the result is a small yet generously proportioned house. At ground floor level it retains the openness of the original workshop while feeling a sense of separation from the street immediately adjacent.

Above: side elevations

Structural engineer: Tall Engineers
Main contractor: J & C Meadows, now incorporated within IMS Building Solutions

Above: rear elevation

Sub contractor/suppliers:
KLH – cross laminated timber super structure
Stratum – resin flooring
Vincent timber – cedar shingle supplier
The Rooflight Company – roof light supplier
Roy Middleton – bespoke joinery including kitchen
MPM engineering – stainless steel to kitchen

The post Gingerbread House
by Laura Dewe Mathews appeared first on Dezeen.

German studio Fabi Architekten has stacked a black building on top of a white building to create this house in the Bavarian countryside (+ slideshow).

A rectilinear white volume nestles against the hill at the base of the house, providing a combined bedroom and washroom, while a black building shaped like an archetypal house sits on the top and contains a kitchen, dining area and living room.

Glazed walls line the facades of both storeys, offering views out over the landscape. “The volumes open up to the natural space, the forest,” said Fabi Architekten. “[It is] a minimal intrusion into the hillside topography.”

On the upper floor, the glass doors slide open to lead out to a triangular roof terrace, while on the level below they provide a second entrance to the house.

The main entrance is positioned on the side of the building and is sheltered beneath the overhanging corner of the first floor.

A cantilevered wooden staircase connects the two storeys.

The house is located in Wenzenbach and was completed in 2012.

Other houses completed in Germany recently include a gabled house in Metzingen and a residence in Stuttgart with an inclining profile. See more architecture in Germany.

Photography is by Herbert Stolz.

Above: lower floor plan

Above: upper floor plan

The post Black on White
by Fabi Architekten appeared first on Dezeen.

The next intake of architecture students at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia will be accommodated in modular student housing with stark concrete interiors (+ slideshow).

Designed by Spanish studios H Arquitectes and dataAE, the housing isn’t assigned exclusively to architecture students but it is located alongside the Vallès Architecture School in Barcelona.

The project comprises a pair of parallel two-storey blocks positioned either side of a central terrace. Both buildings sit in the lowest point of a sloping site, which allowed the architects to create ground-level entrances on both storeys with a series of first-floor bridges.

Each of the 57 rooms comes with its own kitchenette and small washroom, but otherwise the interiors are left bare and unpainted with exposed concrete ceiling beams overhead.

“From the beginning we decided to give the students an empty home,” Xavier Ros Majó of H Arquitectes told Dezeen. “We decided to use the structural concrete of the modules as a finished interior material, so no plaster and paint were used. We actually love that the architecture students will have the opportunity of designing their home, –inside at least.”

A single module was used for each rectangular room, even though the client favoured modules containing two or more L-shaped rooms. This means all modules can be individually removed, relocated or added to in the future, as the needs of the university change.

The exteriors of both buildings are clad with galvanised steel. The architects have also recently added a polycarbonate roof over the central terrace so that it can be used as a sheltered venue for school events.

H Arquitectes has been established in Barcelona for over ten years. Past projects include a school gym in Barberà del Vallès and a wooden house in Vacarisses. See more architecture by H Architectes.

See more architecture in Spain »

Photography is by Adrià Goula.

Above: site plan – click above for larger image

Here’s a project description from H Arquitectes:

The new dwelling house for university students is located in the same block as the Vallès Architecture School. The project proposed intends to keep its balance among the existing buildings, outside areas and the new dwelling house, which is formed from two parallel to street blocks layed out over two floors and separated by a central atrium.

Above: block plan – click above for larger image

For it is a dwelling house for architecture students, we have come up with a program that permits intense connections among the users both individual and group level, owing to the interior flexibility of the apartments and the potential use of the atrium as an event space.

Above: apartment plan – click above for larger image

The project banks on industrialized construction by using just one housing module type made of pre-formed concrete without partition walls. Each unit has just the necessary fixed elements, simplifying finishing and installations. Most of the components are installed and assembled by dry-build systems so every module and its finishing can be dismantled and reused or highly recyclable. The building is laid out over two floors in order to take advantage of the existing topography making accessible entrances without the need of using elevators and to reduce a 50 percent of square meters in corridors and stairs. The central atrium is covered in order to create an intermediate bioclimatic space that makes increase the energy efficiency of the building and, at the same time, economizes the building enclosure.

Above: apartment section – click above for larger image

The cycle of life analysis demonstrates that this project saves up to 50 percent the energy associated to construction materials and a 70 percent the energy demand in respect to standard buildings according to CTE regulations.

Above: site section – click above for larger image

Project: Student Housing (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya)
Situation: Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona.
Authors: H Arquitectes (David Lorente, Josep Ricart, Xavier Ros, Roger Tudó) dataAE (Claudi Aguiló, Albert Domingo)
Collaborators: Ana Tamayo, Toni Jimenez, Blai Cabrero, Montse Fornés, Carla Piñol, Anna Bonet, Montse Quiròs (H Arquitectes), ÀBAC enginyers, Societat Orgànica
Customer: UPC / UTE Compact Hàbit i Constructora d’Aro

Above: long site section – click above for larger image

Competition: 1st Prize
Year of realization: 2009-12
Surface constructed: 2.400 m2
Constructor: Constructora d’Aro

The post Student Housing in St. Cugat
by H Arquitectes and dataAE appeared first on Dezeen.