Les équipes de Delugan Meissl Associated Architects ont réalisé ce projet appelé The Festival Hall of The Tiroler Festspiele Erl. Située en Autriche, cette superbe structure sombre d’apparence est en réalité un théâtre, permettant ainsi de sublimer par l’architecture les évènements programmés dans ce lieu de culture.
Spanish collective Grupo IUT built a tower of straw bales on the outskirts of Guimarães in Portugal (+ slideshow).
Located in an area of farmland near the road into Guimarães, the Agricultural Mountain stood 13 metres high and contained 288 straw bales.
The bales were piled up in a tiered ziggurat formation around a thin metal structure, which supported an elevated room accessed by a narrow door.
The structure remained rigid and secure due to the assembly pattern of the straw bales and the way they compressed under their own weight, so no other reinforcement was needed.
“We visited Spanish and Portuguese farms to study the material. It is usual to see big straw bale ‘mountains’ in the Iberian farms,” IUT Group told Dezeen. “Normally the farmers have only nine layers of straw bales, but we arrived at 15 layers because we changed the construction system and we redrew the shape.”
Above: photograph is by Nelson Guarrido
“We are sure, after studying the Agricultural Mountain’s behaviour, that we can have a bigger height,” they added.
Above: photograph is by Nelson Guarrido
When the installation was taken down at the end of September, the straw was re-used by local horse stables.
Above: photograph is by Sara Lazaro
Grupo IUT is a collective comprising architects Nuno Miguel Lima Cruz and Bruno Martins Afonso Gomes plus designer António da Silva Lopes.
Above: photograph is by Nelson Guarrido
The project was one of the winners of Performance Architecture, an international competition organised by MoMA curator Pedro Gadanho to create temporary urban interventions for the European Capital of Culture 2012.
Above: plan
We’ve featured a number of temporary installations in Guimarães this year, including a cinema that requires visitors to crawl in like centipedes, a set of swings that generate electricity and a project to turn the city’s fountains into playgrounds.
Above: section
See all our stories about Guimarães »
See all our stories about pavilions »
Photography is by Carina Oliveira except where stated.
Here’s some more information from Grupo IUT:
agriCultural Mountain
Temporary urban intervention at the Guimarães 2012 European Capital of Culture.
Technical data
Authors: IUT Group: Nuno Miguel Lima Cruz (architect), Bruno Martins Afonso Gomes (architect), António da Silva Lopes (designer)
Consultant: Joaquim Carvalho (civil engineer)
Support: Jofebar and Herdade das Barradas da Serra
Site: Guimarães, Portugal
Client: Guimarães 2012 European Capital of Culture
First prize winner of the Performance Architecture International Competition
Exhibition period: August 13th to September 30th, 2012
Project numbers: Installation with a 13,60×13,60m base and total height of 13,00m.
288 straw bales of 2,7×0,8×0,9 m and 300 kg each, in a total of 86400 kg and 560 m3 of wheat, produced in about 25 hectares of land, which will feed 15 horses for about 1.5 years.
Context
The Agricultural Mountain project was one of the winners of the international competition Performance Architecture, aimed at choosing proposals for five temporary urban interventions in the scope of Guimarães 2012 European Capital of Culture. The competition intended to draw up architectural and urban strategies that, in reactivating performance art approaches, provided new directions as to the roles of architects, artists and designers in the urban context. The competition selected multidisciplinary teams proposing temporary concepts and structures that would stimulate the appropriation of controversial public spaces by the city inhabitants.
Approach
Cultural activities are mainly urban happenings. Rural people and rural areas are usually outside the mainstream circuit of the cultural industry. This proposal aims to bring the cultural phenomenon to the agricultural realm.
Concept
The project explores the paradox of an ephemeral monument creation. It’s an artificial mountain placed at the city outskirts, outside the dense urban core, at an agricultural area called “Veiga de Creixomil”. This area represents a microcosm of the Ave river valley diffuse city, where Guimarães is a center piece, characterized by a great dispersion of the urban settlements, creating a blurred distinction between the urban and the rural areas. It is located in the only uncultivated terrain of the region, next to the highway access to Guimarães, highly visible by the city visitors arriving by car.
The proposal distinguishes itself from the immediate surroundings by its vertical scale (12,70m height) in opposition to the horizontal plain, producing an immediate impact to the public as soon as they arrive to town. It has a wide base, like a ziggurate, that narrows up into a tower with salient corners. The intervention wants to be a landmark, as the ancient Guimarães Castle tower is, but also wants to be visited and conquered, instead of a military defensive fortress. It is an invitation for the public use, to climb it, seat and rest. The scale is big and almost superhuman, forcing the visitor to touch the straw and escalade. The interior space is appropriate to small events and a quiet space to lounge. The outside space creates a natural auditorium suitable for wider audiences and to enjoy the view.
Materials, construction and demolition
This pyramidal volume was built just by piling up a total of 288 big size straw bales (2,80×0,90×0,80m with 300kg each) around a guiding thin metal structure with no other structural function than supporting the interior elevated floor. The construction is stable to vertical loads (gravity) taking advantage of the geometry of the proposal and the good compression qualities of the material. The stability to horizontal loads (wind or earthquakes) is guaranteed by the squared shaped plan with four close corners and the straw bales assembly system allowing a completely locked structure with no need to use mortar or other reinforcement. This is a rather unknown construction material, inexpensive and totally reusable. This intervention, notwithstanding its volume, left no trace in the landscape and no waste afterwards. The idea was to reinvent a temporary usage for this raw material the fields produce. After the temporary exhibition period all straw bales were reintroduced for consumption by local horse breeders.
The post Agricultural Mountain
by Grupo IUT appeared first on Dezeen.
“Slope smooth-surfaced window ledges and projections at
45 degrees to minimize bird perching and roosting.”
I like my anti-bird idea better: Cat-shaped gargoyles.
During my earlier days in a divey Brooklyn apartment, with every Nynex Yellow Pages I threw at a cockroach, I never thought to blame the building’s architect. I still wouldn’t think to, but the U.S. Center for Environmental Health believes that design can play a large role in pest prevention, and to prove it they’ve put together an 89-page document showing exactly how.
The document, called Pest Prevention by Design, is a comprehensive look at how architects can design or retrofit structures to minimize whatever the local pests are: Rodents, roaches, bedbugs, pigeons, termites, you name it. In the study’s eyes, pests are more than a mere inconvenience; bedbugs can make entire buildings uninhabitable, termites can affect structural integrity, and as they point out, “An occasional trail of ants in the home may be a mere nuisance, but even a single ant in a surgical ward can have grave consequences.”
The points illustrated range from understanding the local environment…
…Constructing a building in an urban center, where subways provide a vast network of tunnels in which rodents travel, requires a different design approach than a building in a rural area.
…to designing specific building features…
[Designing] built-in access to critical areas greatly assists pest management professionals in the early detection of wood-boring pests, potentially saving building owners thousands of dollars in wood replacement.
…to materials choices.
Avoid use of ceramic outside corner tiles. Ceramic tiles located in heavily used areas are highly prone to breakage. Broken tiles provide access to voids that can harbor pest insects. Durable outside corners, such as metal or plastic, are preferred alternatives.
While the document won’t be formally released until mid-next-month, San Francisco’s Department of the Environment has made a preliminary copy available here.
La nouvelle station de l’art Toledo a été dessinée par l’architecte Oscar Tusquets Blanca pour le métro de Naples et a été inaugurée en septembre dernier. Avec cette mer de mosaïques Bisazza pensée par William Kentridge, les voyageurs peuvent se rendre dans un lieu au design magnifique à découvrir dans la suite.
This angular black concert hall was designed by Delugan Meissl Associated Architects to contrast with the curved white playhouse it accompanies in Erl, Austria (+ slideshow).
The Passionsspielhaus, or “Passion Playhouse”, was constructed in the 1950s as a Christian theatre but since 1998 is has also hosted summer operas and orchestras as part of the Tyrol Festival.
Delugan Meissl Associated Architects designed the new Festival Hall as a winter concert venue for the festival and its faceted shell spikes out from the landscape as a single monolithic volume.
“The building’s form and positioning both relate to the impressive landscape setting defined by the rock formations in the back, and to the dynamic presence of its neighbouring historical counterpart,” say the architects.
A staircase sunken into the hill leads down to the building’s entrance, where visitors are directed through a clean white lobby into the timber-lined auditorium.
The architects explain: “The transition from the foyer into the concert hall is accompanied by spatial and atmospheric change: dynamism, variability and asymmetry give way to maximum concentration, static calm and orthogonality.”
A strip of glazing slices across the west elevation to frame a panoramic view of the surrounding meadows from a first floor gallery, which provides a second route into the hall.
Delugan Meissl Associated Architects won a competition to design the building in 2007 and it was completed in August.
The architects previously designed a Porsche Museum in Germany, which we featured in 2009.
See more concert halls on Dezeen, including a pearlescent music hall in Spain.
Above: site plan
Photography is by Brigida González.
Here’s some more information from Delugan Meissl Associated Architects:
The geometry of the Festival Hall developed from the topographical conditions, placing it in an adequate relationship with the existing Passionsspielhaus. The building’s form and positioning both relate to the impressive landscape setting defined by the rock formations in the back, and to the dynamic presence of its neighboring historical counterpart. This existing building and the new one are oriented towards one another. They complement and elevate their respective architectural articulation of the reference to the landscape by interacting visually with one another.
Above: lower floor plan – click above for larger image
The new building increases existing qualities of the natural and architectural environment. Aside from the geometry, colour also enhances the duality between old and new. While the white surface of the Passionsspielhaus stands out optically during the time of the summer festival, the changing of seasons brings upon a cromatic reversal of the ensemble. The configuration of the Festival Hall resembles a tectonic stratification. Its crevices and faults lying in between indicate the way into the building’s interior. At nighttime the incisions and folds in the distinctive facade allow insight into the radiant foyer.
Above: upper floor plan – click above for larger image
Access
The topographic imprint on the new building is consequently continued within its interior. The deisgn idea is guided by two defining parameters: the interrelation between the interior and the surrounding natural space as well as the spatial configuration of a functional, internationally acclaimed concert hall. Flowing visual and functional spatial references define the architecture. Areas with diverse usage and geometry show the creative engagement with communication and calm, dynamism and concentration. The sequences of movment are subtly guided by the sensory experience of the rooms. The access staircase is integrated into the landscape thus guiding visitors into the building.
Above: cross section through foyer – click above for larger image
Functions
Cloakroom and reception desk are situated near the entrance. The foyer – an asymmetric construction volume – allows manifold views onto the surrounding nature as well as onto the neighboring Passionsspielhaus. A staircase running in the opposite direction leads onto the upper gallery where the impressive relationship between interior and exterior space can be experienced again through the ample west façade made of glass. This level also hosts the building’s secondary functions. Orientation, room sequence and functional relations are integral parts of the architectural dramaturgy: ample communication areas, retracting and expanding circulation areas and varying room hights translate the building’s tectonic geometry in a sensory manner. In a consequent and effective way, the approach to the concert hall is staged through a gentle surge of the entrance level. The respective levels of the foyer are connected with the concert hall through two entrances. The latter is situated in the centre of the building like a shell, its rear part being anchored in the rock. The transition from the foyer into the concert hall is accompanied by spatial and atmospheric change: dynamism, variability and asymmetry give way to maximum concentration, static calm and orthogonality.
Above: cross section through auditorium – click above for larger image
Materials
Like the succession of rooms, the materials concept is equally defined by a sensorial perception of the respective usage areas. Differentiations in geometry, haptics and surfaces of room elements increase the senorial experience of single function areas and facilitate orientation. The shine in the foyer during the winter’s sunset increases the communicative character of this area of encounter. Following the metaphor of an exposed jewel, the concert hall is defied by a distinct change of materials: wood surfaces and subdued colours create a warm room composition of tense quiet thus directing the visitors’ attention onto the performance to follow. Multiple technical equipment and the possibility to transform the hall allows a varied use which reaches far beyond the function of a classical concert and festival venue.
The post Festival Hall Of The Tiroler Festspiele Erl
by Delugan Meissl Associated Architects appeared first on Dezeen.
That quote by James Lynch, founder of the UK-based Fforest Camp getaway, is the only substantial block of text on a Tumblr called Beaver Brook. Info on the page is light, but it appears to be run by a collective of artist friends, documenting their adventures as they erect a bunch of cabin-studios in wooded Sullivan County (upstate New York).
That quote by James Lynch, founder of the UK-based Fforest Camp getaway, is the only substantial block of text on a Tumblr called Beaver Brook. Info on the page is light, but it appears to be run by a collective of artist friends, documenting their adventures as they erect a bunch of cabin-studios in wooded Sullivan County (upstate New York).
Les équipes du studio londonien Platform 5 Architects ont pensé ce pavillon de jardin très réussi appelé « Shoffice ». Situé au nord-ouest de Londres, ce mélange entre une cabane et un véritable bureau semble être sorti du sol et se marie parfaitement avec le lieu. A découvrir en images dans la suite.
Change is afoot at the New York Public Library, which tapped Foster + Partners to mastermind an ambitious expansion that will more than double the public space within the 42nd Street building while preserving the 101-year-old landmark’s facade and its original interiors. Norman Foster joined NYPL President Anthony Marx last week at the library to unveil the initial schematic designs, which call for a new 100,000-square-foot lending library along with enhanced spaces for scholars, writers, and researchers. The video below offers an animated sneak peek at what the library will look like in 2018, once the project is completed. Entering through the library’s Fifth Avenue entrance, the camera travels on an east-to-west axis through the building’s first floor.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
A house named after its Z-shaped roof, designed by Hohyun Park and Hyunjoo Kim for the top of a steep hill near Seoul, is behind the last door on our Christmas A-Zdvent calendar. Read more about Z-house »
The post Dezeen’s A-Zdvent calendar: Z-house
by Hohyun Park and Hyunjoo Kim appeared first on Dezeen.
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