Hasta La Ideas

To create a full-length running track inside this refurbished gym in the Czech Republic, Prague studio QARTA Architektura added a translucent extension that projects out on stilts (+ slideshow).

Tyršův Stadion was first constructed in the 1960s as part of an athletics arena in Opava, but the building had fallen into disrepair and QARTA Architektura was asked to upgrade the facilities.

The gym covers the whole first floor, but isn’t large enough for all the athletes that want to use it. “Before the gym was too short to do inside sprints, long jumping and pole vaulting,” architect Tomáš Němec told Dezeen. “Because of this we extended the running track out of the building.”

The architects used polycarbonate for the translucent extension, but covered the existing facade with metal sheets and fibre cement panels. “The foundations were badly constructed, so these materials were chosen to resist the slight moving and cracking of the building,” said Němec.

Entrances are located on both sides of the building so that it can be used as a gateway to the outdoor track.

Other sports buildings we’ve featured recently include an indoor football ground in Portugal and a sports centre with a rooftop tennis court in Poland.

See all our stories about sports »

Here’s some more information from QARTA architektura:

Tyršův stadion / QARTA architektura

Qarta architektura designed a multi-purpose athletic gym within the complex Tyršův stadion in Opava. The old gym as a part of the athletic stadium in Opava, now Tyršův stadion from the time of normalisation socialism, built early in the 60s, was ready for demolition. Investor, the city of Opava, in the framework of the promotion of sport and culture, came to entering the regeneration of the gym. The work took Qarta architektura, whose undeniable advantage in the implementation was the fact that the studio knows the area very well.

The building is designed to be a natural gateway for the athletes when they enter the stadium. At the entrance to the gym, athletes are guided intuitively into locker rooms with complete facilities and then they can choose between a workout at the gym, or so-called “gate of champions” to enter the stadium. The whole building is formed from three blocks. One of them is a part of the indoor running track, which seems levitating in the air.

Above: building before renovation

The gym includes facilities such as indoor running track 60m, the long jump pits, height for the pole vault, universal surface that enables ball games. But mainly is a gym designed for athletes, the surface is in such standard to allow running and walking in track shoes. Another equipments are facilities for archery, fitness and room for judo with the tatami surface.

Above: building before renovation

Architects: QARTA architektura, David Wittassek, Jiří Řezák
Location: Opava, Czech Republic
Project Year: 2011
Photographs: Roman Polášek
Project Area: 2 244 sqm
Collaborators: Kateřina Immrová, Petr Kaňák, Petr Košárek, Tomáš Jung
Interior Design: David Wittassek
Budget: €1 600 000

Above: site plan

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: mezzanine plan – click above for larger image

Above: cross section one – click above for larger image

Above: cross section two – click above for larger image

Above: front elevation – click above for larger image

Above: rear elevation – click above for larger image

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QARTA Architektura appeared first on Dezeen.

This ridged limestone house by Athens studio decaArchitecture faces out over the edge of a cliff on the Greek island of Milos (+ slideshow).

Designed as a holiday home, VNC House nestles into the landscape on the south coast of the island beside a new orchard of olive trees and a stone guesthouse, also designed by decaArchitecture.

“Our office has often dealt with projects in raw rural settings where the natural beauty of the site is the most important contextual element,” architect Carlos Loperena told Dezeen. “Therefore, developing a clear landscape strategy from the beginning of the project was important.”

“We think of a house as a structure that instead of domesticating the landscape becomes an integral part of it,” he added. “We insert the building into the landscape, sometimes punctuating it and other times disappearing in it.”

The ridged roof of the main house staggers up like a staircase, following the slope of the land. “The form and material choice of the roof relates to the larger geological formations prevalent on the site,” said Loperena. “The inclinations, which extend towards the landscape, are also a way of diminishing the mass of the building.”

The two bedrooms and open-plan living room of the house occupy four wings, which branch out to the east and west to frame a series of terraces. An outdoor staircase leads down from the southern terrace to an infinity swimming pool positioned just beyond.

Meanwhile, the guesthouse on the western end of the site is completely submerged below the ground and a ramped courtyard separates the bedroom on one side with the bathroom opposite.

The sides of this small building fold outwards at one end to become the boundary wall of the entire property, preventing wild goats from getting into the vineyards and vegetable beds that are included in the orchard.

We’ve previously featured another project by decaArchitecture on the nearby Greek island of Antiparos.

See all our stories about Greece »

Photography is by Ståle Eriksen.

Here’s a project description from decaArchitecture:

VNC House in Milos, Greece

The site is a large parcel of land on the southern coast of the island of Milos, Greece. We were invited to design a small vacation home, but instead we interpreted the project as a challenge of designing both a house and a landscape.

The main house is the place where the raw qualities of the site are felt. The panorama opens to an undisturbed horizon and to a ragged coastline of chalk-like rock. These geological formations slope downwards and become steep cliffs as they reach the sea.

The building makes no allusion to a vernacular past but to the primitive forms which exist on site. The volume’s extremities slope in different gradients following the inclination of the rocky outcrops and the direction of the views.

The entire volume itself is shaped by the stacking, coursing and stepping of long limestone blocks. This limestone shell provides thermal protection and, like the cliffs, ages naturally over long periods of time.

An orchard of 550 olive trees was planted along with grape vines, vegetables and aromatic herbs. The vegetation is protected from wild goats with a winding stone wall of over 700 meters in length.

As the topography slopes downwards towards the sea, the stone wall increases in height to reveal the façade of a guest house which is otherwise hidden from view by the olive field above it.

The field is only interrupted by an incision in the ground, creating a small public space that can be transformed by sliding panels. The glass panels disappear into the walls to blur the distinction between indoor and outdoor life.

The guest house is just an inhabited retaining wall in the landscape and in that sense is purely part of it.

Above: site plan – click above for larger image

Above: main house isonometric plan – click above for larger image

Above: main house isonometric diagram

Above: guesthouse isonometric plan – click above for larger image 

Above: guesthouse isonometric diagram

The post VNC House in Milos
by decaArchitecture appeared first on Dezeen.

The top floor rooms of this house in Japan by Tato Architects are contained inside sheds that sit on the roof (+ slideshow).

Located in a residential area in Hyogo Prefecture, the house was designed for a family with two children. “The residents requested that, as the area has short hours of sunlight in winter, they’d like to bring in as much light as possible,” architect Yo Shimada of Tato Architects told Dezeen.

To achieve this, the architect designed two of the rooftop sheds like greenhouses with translucent polycarbonate walls that let light through into the study room and bathroom contained inside, as well as down to the ground floor spaces below.

A layer of translucent insulation prevents the bathroom walls becoming too transparent. “There is no problem because they are not clear enough to expose more than the silhouettes,” explained Shimada.

The third shed has opaque walls to create more privacy for a guest bedroom.

Ladders and a staircase connect the upstairs rooms with the living room and kitchen on the lower floor, which is slightly sunken into the site.

This reduces the height of the building and also brings the rooftop courtyard closer to the ground. “It was expected that the whole site could be used like a garden,” said the architect.

Two bedrooms are also located on the ground floor and were designed with wooden walls so that they would look like storage crates.

Other recent projects by Tato Architects include a house with stairs in its lightwell and a house that comprises a metal barn on top of a glass box.

See all our stories about Tato Architects or see more Japanese houses on Dezeen.

Here’s some more information from Yo Shimada:

Looking for the stable climate in the room

This is a house in the northern part of Hyogo Prefecture for a couple and their two children. The construction site is a part of a place surrounded by mountains and the sky is overcast most of the days.

I wanted to create light, stable indoor climate and came up with a plan of three sheds of house type arranged on a 1.8 m high, grey foundation platform.

The level of the first floor was lowered by 760 mm below the ground to get firm basement, as the site was slant before the development, and to get more stable performance of the floor heating system of foundation heat condensing type utilizing the terrestrial heat.

It was also expected that the whole site could be used like a garden as the rooftop neared the ground thereby.

The site is at the corner entering the residential area and I thought that lowering the rooftop would leave wide visibility to the surroundings of the mountains and the sky, and that it would be beneficial to the whole residential area.

Overhead courtyard

On the foundation platform I arranged three – for a bathroom, for a sunroom and for a guestroom.

The bathroom shed and the sunroom shed provide lighting and ventilation for the lower floor. They form a overhead courtyard in a sense. Especially the sunroom collects heat in winter, and exhausts heat in summer by the breeze through the five motor-operated windows.

The three sheds do not actually provide spaces for usual staying but cover the living floor on the foundation platform.

This resulted in keeping away from neighboring eyes and keeping in touch with eyes of children playing in the garden or nearby.

Accordingly, I think, both delicate closeness and distance to the surroundings have been realized.

The residential area including the site was developed in recent years and is the front for the fields to change further to building lots. It was anticipated that brand-new commercialization houses would be built one after another.

By constructing a house looking as small as a peasant’s work shed of such material as vernacular as corrugated panels in an agricultural area I expected for this house to be a tie for the prospective rows of such new houses and the rural landscape still existing.

For free behavior of things

Some box-shape volumes, such as storages and a lavatory were required in the house, and they were made to resemble boxes for packing. Through studying the method of fixing the balustrade onto the rooftop without damaging the waterproofing membrane benches were mingled with the balustrade.

A washstand is fixed to the stairwell serving as handrail as well. The sunroom is a greenhouse itself, where various elements are misused as reference elements. Construction elements, such as handrails and top lights, are mingled together with conventional things for dual serving.

The reason for such elaboration is that I wanted to give the indoor scenery a kind of freedom using everything happened to be there as bricolage. Various things the residents carry in are expected to behave freely.

About material

Corrugated polycarbonate panels are used for outer walls of bathroom shed and sunroom shed among the three sheds to take in solar radiation. Moisture and water absorbing and heat-retaining sheets of greenhouse use are inserted in between the corrugated panels and structure.

The inside of the walls are formed with heat insulating layer of polycarbonate clear hollow sheet. The ceiling and walls of bathroom are further filled up with light transmitting thermal insulation material of reproduced PET bottles.

To bring the second floor close to the first floor 50 mm square pipes are laid around the opening connecting both floors. They are sandwiched by the flooring material and the ceiling material to come up to 80 mm thickness. This opening is to be closed with a shade during extremely hot hours in summer and extremely cold nights in winter.

The outer walls of a foundation platform are covered with fiber reinforced cement board leaving space a little to make rainwater drops easily off the edges and also to provide shading. The RC part is provided with external heat insulation and broken cobblestones are laid all around it for drainage of rainwater and heat insulation.

Project name: House in Yamasaki
Location of site: Hyogo, Japan
Site area: 231.72m2
Building area: 93.68m2
Total floor area: 119.11m2
Type of Construction: Wooden
Program: house
Project by: Tato architects
Principal designer: Yo Shimada
Design period: Oct.2010 -Aug. 2011
Construction period: Oct.2011 – Feb.2012

Above: ground floor – click above for larger image

Above: first floor – click above for larger image

Above: long section – click above for larger image

Above: cross-section – click above for larger image

Above: north elevation – click above for larger image

Above: east elevation – click above for larger image

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by Tato Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Le photographe Richard Silver nous propose de découvrir une série très impressionnante de clichés panoramiques dans différentes églises, situées à New York. Avec des clichés montrant la beauté architecturale de tels édifices, découvrez cette série d’images dans la suite de l’article

This student housing block in Norway by MEK Architects is named MySpace, as the architects imagined the building as a social network where each of the 116 residents can get to know one another (+ slideshow).

Above: photograph is by Matthias Herzog

MEK Architects, comprising Spanish studio Murado & Elvira and architect Enrique Krahe, designed the housing block for the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim as part of the Europan housing design competition.

Above: photograph is by Matthias Herzog

Rather than group the building into separate apartments, the team decided to create large social areas that would unite every student, including a large lounge and a shared kitchen where everyone has their own separate storage area and fridge.

“The shared kitchen is the space where common life is negotiated,” explain architects Juan Elvira, Clara Murado and Enrique Krahe, and they describe how this ground floor space is used for social activities such as pancake contests and cooking seminars.

A lounge occupies most of the first floor and is divided into different areas, which students are encouraged to customise to suit their day-to-day activities.

Above: photograph is by Matthias Herzog

“The building can be looked upon as something that is unfinished, because it calls for permanent completion by its inhabitants in the search for a more satisfying community life,” say the architects.

Bedrooms line one edge of this lounge and also fill the four floors above, while study areas are positioned in the corridors and on balcony terraces, allowing students to easily work in groups.

The building is located at the end of two existing housing blocks and copies the roof pitches of its neighbours.

The facade is clad with pine and is painted in shades of grey and black.

Other student housing projects on Dezeen include a building modelled on a stack of baskets and a tower block with a patchwork of brown panelling on its facade.

See more stories about student housing »

Photography is by Miguel de Guzman, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s an explanation from MEK Architects:

‘MySpace’ student’s housing in Trondheim (Norway) is the outcome of a winning entry of Europan 9 by MEK Architects, Clara Murado, Juan Elvira and Enrique Krahe. The competition brief called for a student house between the Nidelva River and the main University Campus.

MySpace residence proposes the compression, transfer and conditioning of the relational capacities of urban space. Soon the client (a student-run association named SIT that looks after student room availability) showed the need to fit in some extra 40% rooms within the original volume, also lowering the already tight budget.

Above: photograph is by Matthias Herzog

Assuming the existing urban conditions, the student housing detaches as much as possible from the surrounding buildings and shapes its volume in order to extract potential from the views and sun. Open-air terraces are spread around the building. Through them, students can experience outside conditions and relate with the city and the far views.

In order to stress a local initiative that intends to promote Trondheim as a wood-friendly city, and also seeking new challenges about wood use in large buildings, the entire exterior volume of the building is cladded with fir (pine) wooden planks, displaying different treatments, compositions and layouts.

As a result of a special regulation that considers Elgesetergate as a road instead a street, no windows for rooms are allowed to be opened on that elevation. The front and the rear are thus conceived as thick containing membranes, while only corridors and lounge are able to look over the street.

The core of the building contains a multipurpose lounge with no hierarchy, or spatial definition, in which different ambiances are located. Room floors surround this lounge. The general layout is articulated by stripes occupying the space as they approach or distance the existing limits. Rooms mimic the building’s internal scheme, structured in functional bands (storage, prefabricated bathroom and a bed).

Since the construction started, and more details about the building were made public, a vibrant debate arose among residents-to be in specialized blogs and social networks. Architecture has still a long path to explore collecting data and seeking ways of transferring feedback into the making, just as information architects or videogame designers would do.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: second and third floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: fourth floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: fifth floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: roof plan – click above for larger image

Above: cross section – click above for larger image

Above: cross section evacuation stairs – click above for larger image

Above: cross section – click above for larger image

Above: longitudinal section – click above for larger image

Above: south elevation – click above for larger image

Above: east elevation – click above for larger image

Above: north elevation – click above for larger image

Above: east elevation – click above for larger image

Above: exploded axonometric diagrams – click above for larger image

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by MEK Architects appeared first on Dezeen.