Coup de coeur pour Plasma Studio, qui a imaginé ce superbe complexe résidentiel appelé « Dolomitenblick ». Situé à Sesto en Italie dans la province de Bolzano, ce concept est une véritable réussite architecturale qui propose 6 lieux de résidence. L’ensemble est à découvrir en images dans la suite.
New York’s Grand Central Terminal is an ideal spot for a flash mob–remember when Moncler Grenoble’s stone-faced model-dancers took to the floor in Carlo Mollino-inspired skiwear? As part of the big 100th birthday bash, the insta-happening experts at Improv Everywhere recruited 135 LED-flashlight-wielding performers to light up Grand Central’s grand windows, mesmerizing passersby. The impressively choreographed affair, a project cooked up with MTA Arts for Transit, was something of a homecoming for Improv Everywhere, which in 2007 staged “Frozen Grand Central,” a flash freeze that has racked up 32 million views on YouTube. Watch both successful “missions” below.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
This wooden folly cantilevers across a garden lake to create a meditation room and children’s play den for a family living in Hampshire, England (+ slideshow).
Nestled amongst the trees at the water’s edge, The Forest Pond House is the first built project by London studio TDO and has a curved body constructed using sheets of plywood and copper.
The architects combined two concepts for the design of the structure. “The children’s den programme was about hiding and playing in the woods, and the meditation programme was about focus, relaxation and immersion in the environment,” architect Tom Lewith told Dezeen.
A glazed end wall frames a view out across the surface of the pond and the floor staggers down to create a window seat for one or two people.
Lewith explained: “Cantilevering over the pond was important to us, as we wanted the space to physically straddle the forest and pond in the same way we crossed over the two programmes. We saw the forest being dark, mysterious and busy – a place for kids to have fun. The pond we saw as more about meditation with its reflection and calm.”
The ceiling angles upwards above the window seat, exaggerating the contrast in proportions between the front and rear of the folly.
On the exterior, one wall is coated with blackboard paint to encourage children to draw pictures straight onto the building.
Tom Lewith launched TDO in 2010 alongside fellow graduates Doug Hodgson and Owen Jones. The Forest Pond House was one of 24 projects nominated for the AJ Small Projects Awards 2013.
Other follies completed in recent months include a wooden playhouse with folding window hatches and a wedge-shaped pavilion with a pool of water inside.
Photography is by Ben Blossom.
Here’s some more information from TDO:
Located in rural Hampshire, The Forest Pond House is both a space for meditation and a children’s den in the woods. Made from timber, glass and copper, it lies on the bank of a pond at the foot of a family garden.
The Forest Pond House encapsulates the ethos of TDO’s founders. Their architecture is joyful and inventive. Their buildings complement their surroundings. For them, the way in which people experience a building is paramount.
Above: site plan – click above for larger image
Three alumni of London’s Bartlett School of Architecture and Royal College of Art formed TDO Architecture in 2010. The Forest Pond House was built over nine months for £7,500 and is their first completed building.
Above: floor plan – click above for larger image
The Pond House combines contrasting surroundings and contrasting uses to striking effect. It nestles between the dark drama of the forest and the bright calm of the water. Black, angular sides address the forest; light, curved surfaces and sheet glass address the pond. As well as mirroring the Pond House’s environment, the design creates its dual functions. The dark elevations serve as blackboards for drawing in the woods. A rising floor shrinks one corner down to the size of a child. The brighter end of the Pond House, with its single source of light and bench looking onto the water, offers focus and a place for reflection.
Above: section – click above for larger image
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by TDO appeared first on Dezeen.
Chinese studio Archi-Union has converted an office block in Shanghai into an art gallery with a concrete staircase twisting through its middle (+ slideshow).
The facade of the building remains unchanged but the interior spaces are entirely renovated to accommodate two exhibition galleries and a bar, with a glazed atrium sandwiched between.
Made up of six components, the contorted concrete staircase creates a spiralling route through the three split-level floors, while additional corridors cut across at different levels.
“Faced with the change in the use of the building, we first deconstruct the straightforward logic of the space and blur the functions’ interface,” says Archi-Union.
“The complex logic of the staircase form breaks the traditional two dimensional layer relations, but it’s not an arbitrary treatment out of control,” add the architects. “Every perceived line has its logical necessity; but the curving surface softens this logic, it gives the visitor a feeling between rationale and randomness, creates an exciting spatial feeling at the edge of conflicting ideas.”
A permanent exhibition occupies the ground floor gallery and is dispersed between a collection of rectilinear space dividers. A second gallery for special exhibitions sits directly above, but is instead sectioned off by undulating surfaces.
Recesses in these new volumes provide display areas for artworks, while a doorway in the first floor gallery leads through to a small seating area referred to as “the teahouse”.
A smaller exhibition room is also located on the first floor, while the floor above contains a meditation room, a study room and a staff kitchen and dining room.
Archi-Union is a Shanghai-based studio led by Philip F. Yuan. The studio previously created a similar concrete staircase in the Tea House library, which was one of our most popular stories of 2012. Another recent project is the Lan Xi Curtilage restaurant and members’ club in Chengdu.
See more recent architecture in China, including a new mixed-use complex by architect Steven Holl.
Photography is by Xia Zhi.
Here’s the full project description from Archi-Union:
Jade Museum by Archi-Union
Located in the high-density Xuhui District, in downtown Shanghai, Jade Museum is a renovation from an office building. For this project we were commissioned to convert the noncomplex office space into a multi-functional communication art museum on the premise of keeping the original building structure. Faced with the change in the use of the building, we first deconstruct the straightforward logic of the space and blur the functions’ interface. We implement the tools of digital design early in the conceptual phase, to help us rebuild the logic of space and translate the folding of the circulation flows into a folding of space itself.
Different layers of functions are organized around the main circulation space, facing the central courtyard. The simple single-layer mode was redefined with the introduction of a non-linear space. The simple vertical and horizontal circulation movements influence each other in the inserted space, the blur of the interface and boundaries make the space fold and integrated. The circulation flow adapts itself to this incision in the body of space. The antithesis between sloping and balance, continuity and boundary turns the simple coexistence of elements into a discussion of geometry. The complex logic of the staircase form breaks the traditional two dimensional layer relations, but it’s not an arbitrary treatment out of control: steps, door openings, handrails, beams and roof are distinguished components of the building structure that have a delicate and reasonable interconnecting relation. Every perceived line has its logical necessity; but the curving surface softens this logic, it gives the visitor a feeling between rationale and randomness, creates an exciting spatial feeling at the edge of conflicting ideas.
The folding of circulation lines and the twisted form of the inserted space create an entrance on the first floor, which faces the central courtyard. The permanent exhibition hall is located in front of the entrance. Via the stairs near the exhibition hall, one reaches the VIP exhibition space. The curving walls divide space into several micro spaces and also guide the visitors’ flow. The artworks are placed into the curving walls. Resting and communication space peer from behind these walls. In front of the VIP exhibition space is the teahouse, which is connected to the outdoors terrace.
Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image and key
Digital fabrication, as a methodology, is implemented throughout the design and construction process. Non-linear form and geometrical decomposition lie in the core of fabrication. The abstract multi-dimensional surface generated by the computer is decomposed into workable and controllable CNC panels; their exact position controls the 3D assembly. The curving form is transferred into linear machine logic closely following the geometrical principles. The three-dimensional space that the traditional two-dimensional drawings cannot express is eloquently expressed through the fabrication logic. This combination of digital lofting and CNC fabrication reduced the construction budget and at the same time improved construction quality and speed without compromising the design integrity.
Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image and key
In addition to geometry and fabrication, light, as a third key-element in design coordinates with the folding, irregular spatial module and the flowing exhibition hall design to enhance this multi-dimensional experience.
Above: second floor plan – click above for larger image and key
Project Name: Jade Museum
Location: Xuhui District, Shanghai
Area: approx 1000 sqm
Design/Completion: 2012/2013
Client: Jade Museum
Architect: Philip F. Yuan / Archi-Union Architects
Design Team: Alex Han, Fuzi He
Above: ground floor axonometric – click above for larger image
Above: first floor axonometric – click above for larger image
Above: staircase concept diagram and plans – click above for larger image
Above: staircase sections – click above for larger image
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by Archi-Union appeared first on Dezeen.
An entrance concealed behind a ceramic mural leads down into a sunken living room and courtyard at this house in São Paulo by Brazilian architects Terra e Tuma.
Designed for architect and studio director Danilo Terra and his family, the three-storey Maracanã House was constructed on a tiered site in the city suburbs, where the lowest level of the ground is a storey below the street.
Terra e Tuma constructed the house using concrete and left chunky block walls exposed around both interior and exterior spaces.
The ceramic mural hovers just in front of the entrance and is a piece that artist Alexandre Mancini created especially for the house.
The tiles display a maze of angular lines and shapes, interspersed with the occasional red dot. “I worked with a particular shape, a red dot,” explained Mancini. “I believe it points to and emphasises the rhythm of the composition.”
Once inside, this entrance is revealed to be on a mezzanine middle floor, where concrete staircases lead up to first floor bedooms or down into the open-plan living and dining room.
Large glass doors open the living room out to the courtyard garden beyond, while a second sunken courtyard is positioned at the front of the house beside a tall window stretching all the way up to the roof.
Other recently completed houses in São Paulo include one clothed in golden aluminium and one with concrete upper storeys perched above a living room without walls. See more architecture in Brazil.
Photography is by Pedro Kok.
Here’s a project description written by architect Daniel Corsi, translated into English by Monika Sönksen:
São Paulo. In this city, which contemporaneity is able to perform the most extraordinary urban contrasts for us, living can reveal an encouraging condition.
In search of a place where this could be experienced, the idea of an elementary residence acquires the character of a happening. Thus, as this house decided to silently place itself at the westerly metropolitan meanders, is how it is presented at Maracanã Street.
The plans which define the geometry – opaque in grayish materiality, clear in glass surfaces or vibrant on the access mural – shows its presence like a new event around the bucolic surroundings, where curious people wonder this new construction. Its discordant geometry in relation to the traditional houses of the neighborhood surprises upon the moment when it conceals any territorial definition, admitting as an element and as a public event, takes possession of the street which allows to be perceived. Through its whole property’s occupation as it is available, it shares its limits as if internalizes the surrounding and though arises its unique place.
More than a space, its levels gradually form a path through which outside and inside merge in a proper and continuous shape. The house discovers new possibilities to the limitations of the scanty plot, whose complexity exceeds horizontal and vertical routes which invariably leads to a new spacial experience, capable to elucidate singularities of the district’s geography.
Being in the house of Maracanã Street is being in Lapa; is to live together with its peculiarities, stamped in the expectation to discover until where its spaces can conduct us and the possibility it offers the contemplation of neighbours reddish roof constructions and the church facade which crowns the district, while the sunset at São Paulo’s horizon gets unveiled.
Entering the house doesn’t mean to set apart the city, which leads us to it or to close off a disconnected universe. Its access has to be discovered from behind the ceramics mural painted in black, white and red compositions. Entering the house means, simply to transpose a succession of spaces, now narrow, now lightened, now shady, which leads us always to new experiences.
Above: lower floor plan – click above for larger image
The house’s arrival happens from the emptiness, which is a viewpoint to the living space and also an identification area of its functional sections: social and services below, intimate above. Like the city streets, the lights between their spaces enlightens every directions, through big glass openings which sets against the solidity of the concrete materiality which it is built.
Above: middle floor plan – click above for larger image
Which way some arrives, which way some passes, which way some goes? Through the space, through the emptiness. Going around or staying, that’s how its extension is discovered. We can find ourselves immersed in its lower pavement, defined by concrete plans, by the gardens and by the backyard which shape the ambiance, or we can go through vertically until the gliding plan of the roof unveils the sky in a special instant leaving us as observers of the city whose point of view is this house’s roof top.
Above: upper floor plan – click above for larger image
The house is a living infrastructure. The pavements which configures a succession of perspectives is subtle protected by the presence of big glass frames. The handling of the technique and the use of minimum materials, as if it where stones over stones in its essence, confirm that Architecture can undress the present temporary superficialities and elevate only the spacial essence.
Above: roof plan – click above for larger image
The shelter, the protection to the fundamental, comprehend the nature into what the house is destinated and the sense it assumes, for those who are witnesses. Nothing more is needed for the contemporaneus city living. Here is the fundamental residence, unique and revealed.
Above: long section from courtyard to street – click above for larger image
Above: cross section through living room
Above: cross section through mezzanine
Above: cross section through staircase
Above: front elevation
Above: side elevation
Above: rear elevation
Above: side elevation
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by Terra e Tuma appeared first on Dezeen.
The rippled aluminium cladding of this climbing centre in northern Italy is dotted with tiny perforations that allow the walls to become see-through after dark (+ slideshow).
The Vertikale Kletterhalle, or vertical climbing gym, was designed by architects Martin Mutschlechner and Barbara Lanz of Stadtlabor, in collaboration with local architect Wolfgang Meraner in the town of Brixen.
By day the building appears as an opaque box with a crumpled exterior inspired by the ripples of a curtain, but once the sun goes down the interior becomes visible and reveals climbers scaling the 15-metre wall inside.
“We wanted the building to be hermetic during daytime and completely transparent at night,” Mutschlechner told Dezeen. “The first idea was to create a curtain and the waving of the facade was added to create a moiré effect. It was very important for us to have a facade that changes transparency during the day and changes pattern if you move around the building.”
Climbers also benefit from the perforated facade, as it offers them a view towards the Dolomite Mountains on the horizon during the day. “The climbers love the transparency and bright interior,” said Mutschlechner.
An additional climbing wall is mounted onto the building’s exterior so that climbers can choose to be subjected to the elements.
The metal panels also form part of a multi-layered building envelope that incorporates a climate control system providing natural ventilation, heat storage and anti-glare filters.
Other unusual climbing centres completed in recent years include a centre with tread-like indents in its concrete facade and a climbing wall contained in a windowless yellow cube.
See more stories about climbing walls or see all our stories about sports centres.
Photography is by G.R. Wett.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Indoor Rock Climbing, Brixen
The indoor rock climbing hall in Brixen arises close to the historic center and is therefore – compared to other similar sport infrastructures – designed with a high aesthetic and artistical claim.
Nature and landscape are transported into the building through a transparent façade design; at the same time, the inside remains visible to the outside. The multi-layer facade creates a moiré effect, generating always new impressions for the moving observer and both the users inside as also the viewer outside in a dynamic relationship to the climbing gym provides.
In the planning of the climbing hall, ecological aspects and sustainability were essential. Through detailed planning and a sophisticated climate control system with multi-layer façade assembly, ventilation and heat storage by intermediate zones in the facade construction, as well as creation of thermal mass in the building. With the use of solar energy, the seasonally changing façade envelope and natural ventilation, mechanical cooling is not necessary and results in significant cost savings for construction and operating costs.
The climbing hall is south-facing from the new town square, facing north from the upper City Park a connection to the new underground car park is provided; the disabled access guarantees also the use for therapeutic purposes.
The open design of the climbing hall with free-standing climbing towers allows a view outwards on park and square, as well as inward on the entire hall. The technical concept makes the climbing hall suitable for sport climbers and recreational climbers, for training and competition.
Client: Community of Brixen, Italy
Architecture: ARGE Mutschlechner, Architekten Lanz, Arch. Wolfgang Meraner
Contractor: Frener & Reifer
Installation Engineering: Transsolar
Light advice: Halotech, Zumtobel
The post Vertikale Kletterhalle Brixen by
Stadtlabor and Wolfgang Meraner appeared first on Dezeen.
A living and dining room with six-metre high ceilings sits at the centre of this small white house in Japan by architects Shinichi Ogawa & Associates (+ slideshow).
The house was designed with a square-shaped plan, creating a symmetrical building where all rooms surround the central living space.
The entrance sits at the centre of the east facade and leads straight into the living room, so there was no need to add any extra corridors.
A wall of bookshelves lines the edge of this room, while a long narrow skylight spreads natural light across the space and glass doors lead out to private courtyards at the north and south ends of the house.
“It is a house for a client who is a great reader,” says Shinichi Ogawa & Associates. “He can live enjoying his reading time in this quiet but rich space, feeling the change of seasons thanks to the closed courtyards.”
The architects add: “The toplight makes it an impressive space, giving sky view and natural light from the upper side.”
Bedrooms and a bathroom wrap around the west and north sides of the house and an office is positioned in the south-east corner so that the client can work from home.
Library House is located in a residential area in Tochigi and is constructed from concrete.
Shinichi Ogawa first established his studio in the 1980s and has offices in Tokyo and Hiroshima. Past projects include the long narrow Minimalist House in Okinawa and Cube House in Kanagawa, which also features a double-height living room.
See more houses designed by Shinichi Ogawa & Associates, or see more stories about Japanese houses on Dezeen.
Above: site plan
Above: floor plan
Above: section north to south
Above: section west to east
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Shinichi Ogawa & Associates appeared first on Dezeen.
London studio Bureau de Change has combined two terraced houses in London by punching through original walls and adding a glazed kitchen and a floating staircase (+ slideshow).
An earlier extension behind the two properties had already created a route between them but Bureau de Change took this one step further by converting the two sides into a single property, with a new self-contained apartment upstairs.
The new kitchen is inserted into the space beneath the extension, so that it appears to burst out from beyond the original line of the brickwork. Brick walls are also exposed inside the kitchen, while island worktops sit at the centre of a polished resin floor and skylights line the edge of the room.
“We were very sensitive to how materials and colour were used to create a coherent identity for the house and balance between the old and new,” said architect Billy Mavropoulos. “In the extension, the coolness of the polished resin floor is warmed by the large reclaimed brick walls.”
Interior walls are removed on both sides to allow rooms to open out to each other and sliding glass doors lead out from the kitchen to the garden.
“We didn’t want to be constrained by the old format, we wanted to address it as a single family space,” added Mavropoulos. “A key part of this was identifying a new ‘heart’ for the home.”
This heart is created by a slatted timber box at the centre of the house. A series of wooden treads cantilevers from the side of this box to create a new staircase, while a second set of stairs is contained behind the timber to provide access to the upstairs apartment.
Other recent London extensions include a house with a combined staircase and study and a residence with two tapered volumes projecting into the garden.
See more residential extensions on Dezeen »
Photography is by Eliot Postma.
Here’s some more information from Bureau de Change:
HomeMade by Bureau de Change Design Office
‘HomeMade’ is the first residential scheme by London-based design studio Bureau de Change. The project takes two neighbouring properties and merges them into a single family home with a new extension providing a kitchen and living space at the rear of the property.
Above: concept diagrams – click for larger image
The first design step was to connect the two properties by opening up many of the dividing walls and creating openings to give visibility, access and a more unified feel.
Above: former ground floor plan
A new ‘heart’ is created through an oak-wrapped box which sits at the meeting point between the original house and the new family space. Within this box is contained storage, partitions and a new cloakroom. At its edge sections of timber are peeled at right angles to form an open staircase leading to the floors above.
Above: new ground floor plan
Beyond this core sits the new kitchen and dining space – created by wrapping the entire rear facade in glass, as though the two buildings are being physically pulled together by the glazing.
Above: new first floor plan
This 11 metre-long façade consists of tall sliding glass doors which blur the boundary between the inside and outside. At the edges, the glass doors ‘climb’ over the original building, creating skylights and windows with the same finish and detailing. Inside this space, the steel kitchen islands are hidden within two oversized resin shells which appear to have been pulled up from the floor.
Above: long section
Inside the house, original features have been retained or reused wherever possible. But at the rear, the character of the new extension is also adopted in the first floor where new windows form large glass walls in the bathroom and at points, are extruded to create seating. Throughout the house the differences between old and new, light and dark are celebrated.
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Bureau de Change appeared first on Dezeen.
The Bunkie is a collaboration between Evan Bare of 608 Design and Nathan Buhler of BLDG Workshop. It began as an experiment in ideas that cross bounda..
London studio alma-nac has staggered the floors of this extension to a 2.3 metre-wide terraced house in south London to help bring natural light in through a sloping roof.
The narrow house is located in the former stable access between two properties and suffered from poor natural light due a lack of outward-facing walls.
“With such a narrow and deep plan the existing building was claustrophobic,” alma-nac partner Tristan Wigfall told Dezeen. “The key driver in developing the proposal was ensuring that natural light was able to penetrate deep into the plan to create rooms that felt spacious and light.”
The architects extended the house at the rear, then added a gently sloping roof dotted with skylights to allow natural light to enter rooms on each storey. This addition allows space for a new ground floor dining area, an extra bedroom on the first floor and a study on the second floor.
Floors on the two upper storeys fold up to meet the new roof at a perpendicular angle. “One of the key aspects was cranking the floor plates so that the main rooms, orientated towards the southerly rear of the property, had increased head-heights and improved the outlook to the garden and sky,” said Wigfall.
Storage was a key consideration and the architects have added a new dressing room on the first floor, a loft above the top floor and even a cupboard behind the head of the bed.
Slate tiles clad the walls and roof of the extension. “We liked the idea of the material continuing from the slope of the roof on to the vertical rear facade,” added the architect.
An oak-framed door punctures the slate surface and leads out from the dining area to the garden.
Other recently completed house extensions in London include a house with a wall of books and an orangery with an oak-screened staircase. See more residential extensions on Dezeen.
Photography is by Richard Chivers.
Here’s some more information from alma-nac:
Alma-nac were approached by a young couple in order to investigate the possibilities for extending and enhancing an existing terraced house on the busy high street of St John’s Hill, Clapham, London.
The uniquely narrow property, measuring just 2.3m internally throughout, presented certain challenges in reorganising the spaces. This was coupled with a strict budget within which to work; the property had been re-valued since the original purchase and the bank loan was based on the difference of the increased value.
It is understood that the location of the property was the original stable access to the rear of the high street. The resulting narrow proportions meant that the centre of the house was dark and gloomy. The building was laid out over three floors with cramped bedrooms facing on to the noisy high street and small sash windows of the study and bathroom to the south facing rear. At ground level the entrance lobby doubled up as a dining room and a piecemeal existing rear extension gave limited access to the garden through the kitchen.
The neighbouring property, an art gallery and studio at ground level and apartment above, had extended almost to the full depth of the plot with a terraced rear facade. An immediate response might have been to continue this form with a series of terraces forming the new rear facade. However, the complexity of constructing multiple terraces and roofs meant that this option was deemed prohibitively expensive as well as proving problematic in terms of bringing light into the centre of the plan.
A response to this was to form a continuous slate-clad sloped roof creating a simple and easily understood construction method. This material treatment is continued on the rear facade and reflected in the slate shingle ground cover of the rear garden.
In order to enhance the sense of space within the newly formed rooms the floor plates at each level were cranked, allowing an increased floor to ceiling height and encouraging light to penetrate deep in to the plan. A light-well was formed over the central stair by opening up the ceiling to the sloped roof. This allows natural light to flood deep in to the plan at first and second floor levels and provides a natural stack effect when the rooflights are opened. The brick flank walls are left exposed at the top of the stairwell to convey the original building roof shape.
A key consideration was storage space and every corner of the property has been utilised, from the bed-head with integrated storage, loft space over the top bedroom and compact bathroom layouts. The elongated form of the main bedroom at first floor level allowed for the creation of a dressing room area so that the bedroom space remains uncluttered of furniture. The design of the roof build-up ensured the minimum depth (250mm) in order to maximise the space internally and achieving a high U-value (0.14 W/m2K).
The staggered window pattern on the rear elevation plays with the scale. The rooflights are organised to allow views through to the exterior along the corridor side and to illuminate the top section of the sloped ceiling.
Architect: Alma-nac Collaborative Architecture
Design team: Tristan Wigfall, Alice Aldrin-Schrepfer
Contractor: McGovern Carpentry & Design
Interior Styling: Nina Wigfall Interior Design
Structural Engineer: Train and Kemp
Party Wall Surveyor: John D Shafee & Co
Building Control: NHBC
Above: site plan
Above: exploded axonometric diagram – click for larger image
Above: plans (ground, first, second, roof) – click for larger image and key
Above: long section – click for larger image and key
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by alma-nac appeared first on Dezeen.
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