Hasta La Ideas

News: America’s first fully digital public library without a single book is set to open this autumn in San Antonio, Texas, and will be based on the design of an Apple store.

BiblioTech is being touted as America’s first bookless public library system, with the prototype site in San Antonio hoping to offer 150 e-readers, 50 computer stations, 25 laptops and 25 tablets to local readers.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said he was inspired to pursue the project after reading a biography of Apple founder Steve Jobs. “If you want to get an idea what it looks like, go into an Apple store,” he told a local newspaper.

Describing himself as an avid reader with a collection of 1000 first editions, he explained that the bookless library is a timely response to the rise of tablets and e-books. “Books are important to me,” he said. “But the world is changing and this is the best, most effective way to bring services to our community.”

“You will be able to check out a book, read it on-site. It will be a learning environment – you’ll be able to learn about technology itself as well as access a tremendous amount of information,” he added.

Library users will be able to read books on any of the devices in the library, take out an e-reader for a short period of time, or even load books onto their own e-reader.

Last month we reported on Foster + Partners’ plans to overhaul New York Public Library by inserting a contemporary lending library into unused reading rooms.

We’ve featured lots of libraries on Dezeen, including a library in Italy surrounded by a shallow pool of water and another in France with a knobbly concrete facade.

See all our stories about libraries »

Images are courtesy of Bexar County, Texas
Top image of e-reader from Shutterstock

The post America’s first bookless library
to open in Texas appeared first on Dezeen.

Walls of books fold around a wooden staircase in this renovation and extension to a north London home by Hackney studio Platform 5 Architects.

“A key part of the brief was to house the client’s extensive collection of books,” Platform 5‘s Patrick Michell told Dezeen. “We proposed a double-height library wrapped around a stair.”

The oak bookcases stagger up around the edge of the stairwell, finishing at a first-floor study space that cantilevers out over the room below. “The dramatic space was perfect for a small desk perched off the landing, with views to the floor below and out through the window,” said Michell.

Platform 5 Architects also added an extension to the kitchen, doubling the size of the space to accommodate a new dining area with an exposed brick wall.

“We used exposed brickwork in the extension to link the room with the garden by continuing the garden wall into the interior,” said Michell. “London stock brick is an essential part of the character of the city and it forms a beautiful backdrop to a domestic interior.”

The zinc-clad extension gives the rear of the house a new elevation with a large glass door and L-shaped window seat.

Wooden ceiling beams run along the length of the extension and create modular shelves along the top of the new brick wall.

A kitchen island counter is made from exposed concrete, which the architects also used for the surface of the floor. “The robust finish sits comfortably with the muted tones and texture of the exposed brickwork and oak,” explained Michell.

London-based Platform 5 Architects was founded in 2006 and is headed up by Michell and partner Peter Allen. Previous projects include a modest glass extension to a house in Dalston.

Other residential extensions to complete recently include a dark brick extension near Lille and a rooftop addition in California.

See more residential extensions on Dezeen »

Photography is by Alan Williams.

Here’s some more text from Platform 5:

The owners were keen to introduce contemporary interventions to create modern living spaces, while retaining and highlighting the Arts & Crafts influenced decorative aspects of the original house. A key element to the brief was the need to house an extensive book collection.

A simple palette of oak, brick and concrete were used on the interior to link the different spaces and built in furniture was designed to create stage sets for domestic life.

Above: ground floor plan

The main feature is a double height library built around a staircase at the heart of the house where oak panels and shelves lined with books create an intimate atmosphere. The stepped arrangement of the shelves mimics the stairs to give a sense of upward movement through the space, while at the top a small study has been incorporated into the landing; a peaceful area to work, overlooking the ground floor.

Above: first floor plan

To the rear, a new kitchen side extension was built by resting a zinc-clad oak structure onto the party wall. Timber spars diffuse light from above, and create a series of niches against the wall. The existing rear elevation has been remodelled, with a large pivot door and a sitting area with slide-away corner glazing overlooking the garden.

Above: long section – click above for larger image

The post Book Tower House
by Platform 5 Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Dutch architecture studio Universe Architecture is planning to construct a house with a 3D printer for the first time.

The Landscape House will be printed in sections using the giant D-Shape printer, which can produce sections of up to 6 x 9 metres using a mixture of sand and a binding agent.

Architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars of Universe Architecture will collaborate with Italian inventor Enrico Dini, who developed the D-Shape printer, to build the house, which has a looping form based on a Möbius strip.

3D printing website 3ders.org quoted Ruijssenaars as saying: “It will be the first 3D printed building in the world. I hope it can be opened to the public when it’s finished.”

The team are working with mathematician and artist Rinus Roelofs to develop the house, which they estimate will take around 18 months to complete.

The D-Shape printer will create hollow volumes that will be filled with fibre-reinforced concrete to give it strength. The volumes will then be joined together to create the house.

In 2009 architect Andrea Morgante used the D-Shape printer to create a 3m high pavilion, which was the largest object ever created on a 3D printer at the time.

In October last year, architects Softkill Design unveiled a proposal to print a house based on bone structures.

See all our stories about 3D printing.

The post Dutch architects to use 3D printer
to build a house appeared first on Dezeen.

One building is the inverse of another at this pair of museums that architect Steven Holl has designed for a new city quarter of Tianjin, China.

The Ecology and Planning Museums will be located within Tianjin Eco-City, a new city quarter under construction on China’s east coast that is set to accommodate at least 350,000 inhabitants.

Steven Holl Architects conceived the Planning Museum as a large cuboidal building with a series of blob-shaped voids piercing its volume, while the neighbouring Ecology Museum will have a non-linear form that copies the shape of these openings.

The architects compare the buildings to the Chinese concept of yin and yang, which symbolises the natural balance of the universe. “The Planning Museum is a ‘subtractive’ space, while the Ecology Museum is an ‘additive’ complement,” they explain.

Visitors to the Ecology Museum will spiral through floors of exhibitions dedicated to the evolution of the galaxy, the biology of the earth and the development of the human race. These will include a large balcony of living exhibits that can be rotated with the changing seasons.

The Planning Museum next door will contain exhibitions related to technology and development, from transport and infrastructure to architecture and industry.

A public plaza will be positioned between the two museums and a high-speed tram will connect the site with the Eco-City’s main business district.

New York-based Steven Holl Architects recently completed the Sliced Porosity Block office complex in Beijing. Other projects in China by the firm include the Linked Hybrid complex of eight connected towers in Beijing and a “horizontal skyscraper” in Shenzhen.

See more architecture by Steven Holl »
See architecture in China »

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Tianjin Ecocity Ecology and Planning Museums Tianjin, China

On reclaimed salt pan and polluted tide flats at Bohai Bay, China (just over a two hour drive from Beijing), a new city for 350,000 inhabitants is being built from scratch. Founded as a collaboration of the governments of Singapore and China, this new Eco-City aims to demonstrate state of the art sustainable aspects. One third of the city is already constructed, and substantial completion is projected for 2020.

The Ecology and Planning Museums are the first two buildings of the cultural district of Eco-City Tianjin. The Planning Museum is a “subtractive” space, while the Ecology Museum is an “additive” complement, a reversal of the space carved out from the Planning Museum. Like the Chinese “Bau Gua” or “Yin Yang,” these forms are in reverse relations.

Both museums will be 20,000 m2 with a service zone connecting them below grade, bringing the total construction to 60,000 m2. A high speed tram running between these two museums connects to the central business district of Eco-City.

The Ecology Museum experience begins with an orientation projection space next to a restaurant and retail opening to the ground level. From there, visitors take the elevator to the highest exhibition floor. Visitors proceed through the three ecologies in a descending procession of ramps: Earth to Cosmos, Earth to Man, Earth to Earth.

Above: site section – click above for larger image

Exhibits for Earth to Cosmos speak to the vast complexities of intergalactic ecology, from the beginnings of the universe and its governing forces, to the formation of planet Earth and its place in the galaxy. Visitors learn that ecology is a subject much larger and deeply rooted than is currently inscribed in the modern discourse.

Above: Ecology Museum front elevation

Descending to lower levels in the museum, the visitors arrive at Earth to Human. Exhibits take a turn to explore ancient and current schools of thoughts regarding Spirit and Matter, while revisiting Earth’s creation myths from various cultures. Exhibits also narrate Man’s origins and imprint on earth over the ages, concluding with the “Manmade Ecology” exhibit where current schools of ecology are shown.

Above: Ecology Museum side elevation

At the last section of the 3-Ecologies exhibits, the Earth to Earth section covers the extensive history of planet Earth from its formation in the Hedean Eon through Pangea, formation of the continents and the Ice Ages. The understanding of the origins of our eco systems provides a background to learn about our modern times and the ecological challenges we face as changes in earth atmosphere, global warming, melting of the polar cap and sea level raising.

Above: Ecology Museum rear elevation

At the ground floor, the Earth to Earth Exhibition turns clockwise, moving down towards the Ocean Ecology Exhibition located under the reflecting pond of the plaza. Exhibits on the ocean’s various eco systems are naturally lit with shimmering light from the skylights at the bottom of the pond.

Above: Ecology Museum side elevation

Four outdoor green roof terraces open out from Level 2 (Earth to Earth) with living exhibits changing with the seasons.

Above: Planning Museum front elevation

The Planning Museum, entered directly from the shared public plaza defined by the two buildings, opens to an introduction area and a temporary exhibition area. A large Urban Model Exhibition (all of the Eco-City) is followed by a theory and practice zone. Digital projections will facilitate the potential to update and increase information. Transportation and industry exhibits follow on Level 2 with escalators loading to an interactive section and 3D Cinema on Level 3. On Level 3, there is a restaurant with views out to the sea. Escalators lead to Level 5 with Green Architecture, landscape and water resources exhibitions. This skylit large open top level has access to the green roofscape.

Above: Planning Museum side elevation

The nearby Bohai Sea site has an ancient history as part of the Great Ridges of Chenier, which developed over thousands of years. The huge mounds of shells, a magnificent testimony to the power of nature, inspire the sliced edges of the mounds defining the public space around the new Ecology and Planning Museums.

Above: Planning Museum rear elevation

A slice through the mounds, like a slice through time, exposes these shell specimens embedded in concrete. People can also walk to the tops of the mounds for great views of the cultural buildings with the Eco-Forum and government center across the river in the distant view.

Above: Planning Museum side elevation

The post Tianjin Ecocity Ecology and Planning Museums
by Steven Holl Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Suzanne O’Connell of Hackney studio The Decorators introduces a temporary restaurant in a local market and a community event on top of a multi-storey car park in this movie filmed by Dezeen at our Designed in Hackney Day.

Above: Ridley’s Temporary Restaurant

O’Connell looked back at The Decorators’ work over the past year as part of the day’s Pecha Kucha talks, a presentation format where 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each.

Above: the site of the temporary restaurant

“A lot of what we’ve done over the past year, because we’re a new practice, is about rehearsals and testing public space,” says O’Connell as she introduces a temporary restaurant in east London’s Ridley Road market. “It’s not just about designing the space, but about designing the programme for that space.”

Above: constructing the restaurant

Collaborating with London studio Atelier ChanChan, The Decorators set up a restaurant that encouraged visitors and locals to exchange raw ingredients for a cooked meal.

Above: section showing the restaurant’s moving table attached to a pulley

“We didn’t really have a brief, so we spent two or three months doing research on the market, speaking to the traders, our core collaborators, and trying to figure out what existed there,” says O’Connell.

“We wanted to find a mechanism where we could bring people together and bring an alternative economy to the market.”

The Decorators came up with a system where diners could look over the shopping list on the restaurant’s blackboard, purchase an ingredient from the market and swap it for their lunch, with enough left over for the restaurant to serve an evening meal.

“With the design, we wanted to highlight the process of what was happening,” says O’Connell, explaining that the studio came up with a table that could be winched up from the ground floor kitchen to the first floor dining room.

“We were playing with the normal etiquette of how you share a meal,” she says, “and we also played with the way the knives and forks were placed, and glasses, so it was a way of having a shared collective experience.”

Above: the first floor of the restaurant with the table seen on the floor below

The second project O’Connell introduces is a collaboration with Croydon Council and Kinnear Landscape Architects to make use of Croydon’s empty car parks before they’re eventually demolished.

Above: kitchen staff prepare plates on the ground floor

“On first investigation of Croydon, all the places seem quite empty,” she explains, “but on further investigation you see there’s actually a buzz of activity – you’ve got Croydon College, you’ve got Fairfield Halls, you’ve got the skaters; so the car park becomes a great opportunity to bring all these people into the public space together.”

Above: the table is winched up to the first floor dining room

The Decorators planned an event for the roof of the multi-storey car park to include a cook-out by a local barbecue chef, five-minute speeches from locals outlining their visions for the town, and a football game. “All of the teams are from various stakeholders and they’re playing for this future idea of what Croydon can be,” explains O’Connell.

Above: Croydon, south London

“This is an experiment, we don’t really know how it’s going to go, but we hope that the results from this event will inform the architectural interventions over the next year,” she concludes. The car park event took place in October last year.

Above: diagram for an open event on top of a multi-storey car park

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.

Above: plan for a social space in Croydon

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

The post “A lot of what we do is about testing public
space”– Suzanne O’Connell of The Decorators appeared first on Dezeen.