Hasta La Ideas

Comme chaque année, Louis Vuitton et Des Quatre nous propose un tour du globe en vidéos avec une collection de films mis en images par Romain Chassaing. Découvrez ces 4 vidéos splendides de Louis Vuitton City Guide 2013 autour de Paris, New York, San Francisco et Tokyo dans la suite.

Japanese studio UID Architects often place gardens inside buildings and this house in Fukuyama is no exception (+ slideshow).

The two-storey family house is nestled amongst an assortment of high-rise buildings, which “shut out the sunlight” according to architect Keisuke Maeda.

Instead of adding windows to the facade, Maeda specified a series of skylights and clerestory windows to bring daylight in from above to the living room, kitchen and children’s room on the top floor.

The indoor garden occupies a double-height space at the centre of the residence and also acts as a lightwell for the entrance lobby at the front of the ground floor.

A grid of bookshelves provides a balustrade around the edge of the courtyard, which is also the location of a wooden staircase connecting the two floors.

Maeda explains how a traditional Japanese townhouse occupied the site previously and also had a garden at its centre, which he believes creates a connection between “past and present”.

This is the third project we’ve recently featured by UID Architects, following a house with sunken rooms and a renovated townhouse.

Other projects by the studio include a timber house at the foot of a mountain and a residence comprising four cedar-clad blocks.

See more Japanese houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Hiroshi Ueda.

Here’s some information from UID Architects:

Renewal of a form / lasting sense of scale

This is a reconstruction of a house in the centre of the city. The site has 5 meters for lateral directions, and 18 meters for longitudinal one.

This is a north‐south site formed like machiya. The family is consisted of two children and their parents.

The feature of this site is surrounded by buildings on east and west side, and faced on the south road; there is a 30-meter-high car park building. This shuts out the sunlight.

Since the site has many conditions, we thought that it would be comfortable space that we can feel basic elements such as sunlight and wind, and that we succeed to a form which nagaya have had.

As regards to the plan, we put every rooms along with the inner garden that contains the element coathouse has.

Thanks to the shape of the section like 凸, every room that run from north to south can get homogeneous sunlight and wind.

The element of the exterior of a building from inner garden make a room give space like exterior, and depth, so we can feel a vague condition.

Cut-through axonometric – click above for larger image.

The house takes in building-wind possibly from first floor, and go by through the inner garden.

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image.

Which the leaves are trembling in the breeze, visualize wind, sound and sunlight. That helps making a space as if we were in the forest despite in the city.

First floor plan – click above for larger image.

Thanks to the hanging wall run from west to east and ceiling height, every rooms is connected as one room providing each territory, and frame construction, the house takes in many elements of exterior from free section.

Section – click above for larger image.

As we renewed the garden of nagaya that built before, as we make people be aware of the sense of scale that nagaya has. We thought that will be only point that can connect past to present.

Section – click above for larger image.

Location: Fukuyama, Hiroshima, Japan
Name project: Town-House
Architects: UID – Keisuke Maeda
Structural consultants: Konishi Structural Engineers – Yasutaka Konishi, Takeshi Kaneko,
Landscape consultants: Toshiya Ogino Environment Design Office – Toshiya Ogino
General contractor: Yamato Co.Ltd – Monden Umayahara
Structural system: steel construction
Site area: 95.41 sq m
Built area: 75.56 sq m
Total floor area: 138.23 sq m
Date of completion: March 2011

The post Machi House by
UID Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

This timber-clad cafe by architect Tony Fretton was designed as an upside-down interpretation of the neighbouring Tower of London (+ slideshow).

“I wanted to design a building that engages directly with the architecture of the tower,” Fretton told Dezeen, after explaining how the central section of the cafe is like the castellated walls of the historic building that was used as a prison for centuries.

The battlements that line the upper edge of the tower reappear as windows along the base of the cafe, while the chestnut panels that cover the facade have been painted grey to match the old stone walls.

Fretton explained how other new buildings around the tower fall into two categories. While the recently constructed entrance to the tower has a “high-tech” appearance that relates more closely to the office buildings nearby, the “anonymous” refreshment counters look more like ”wooden garden buildings”, but Fretton said he “didn’t want to do either.”

One end of the building stretches out beneath the arches of Tower Bridge, while the other finishes in a zig-zagging canopy that shelters an outdoor dining area.

“If you’re sitting on the terrace you see the metalwork of the awnings in relation to Tower Bridge,” said Fretton. “From some angles they look like little sketches of buildings.”

A dining room that seats 100 occupies the majority of the building and a separate bar is positioned beneath the bridge. Visitors enter through a glazed lobby, while an original oak door leads into the bar, offering access in the evenings when the rest of the wharf is closed.

See more projects by Tony Fretton, including a museum of fine art in Denmark. Photography is by Peter Cook.

Here’s some text from the architects:

Tower Wharf Café London, UK

Tony Fretton Architects has completed a new-build café and restaurant in one of London’s and the world’s most historically significant locations, the Tower of London.

The site forms the intersection between Tower Bridge and the UNESCO world heritage site of the Tower of London on the historic Tower Wharf to the Thames overlooking the Greater London Assembly building and HMS Belfast. The new development has been commissioned by Historic Royal Palaces – the independent charity that looks after the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, the Banqueting House, Kensington Palace and Kew Palace.

Tower Wharf Café provides indoor and alfresco dining on the wharf, serving the 2.5 million tourists that visit the Tower of London each year. It adds to an assembly of pavilions, including a ticket office and river frontage kiosks. Positioned closer to the Tower and further from the main tourist entrance than these kiosks the new building demanded a design that is visibly striking and fanciful. It takes its cue from the Tower itself instead of the hi-tech architecture of the neighbouring City district or generic garden pavilion architecture.

The new building responds playfully to the Tower’s outer wall, an assembly of towers and curtain walls of differing height and form. It is made up of four linked volumes, housed in two discrete forms: one is like the castellated wall turned upside down with the space between the battlements becoming glazed recesses. The other is a long low-rise form joining the arch under Tower Bridge. Both are clad in rough sawn English Sweet Chestnut timber in a vertical formation. The timber is painted grey to match the hues and tones of the Kentish Ragstone rubble with limestone dressing of the Tower Walls and the Cornish granite blocks with Portland Stone dressing of the bridge. The use of rough timber continues the tradition of using the material in the utilitarian buildings that have historically occupied this site on the wharf.

The entrance is via a glazed lobby at the centre of the wharf elevation into a tall dining room and bar accommodating 100 covers. The dining hall opens out at the eastern end into an expansive glass-walled terrace serving an additional 60 covers. The terrace is paved with smooth sawn Yorkstone with elongated slabs demarking the remains of a historic wall on the site dating from the seventeenth century. A pitched roof of motorized retractable blinds and sophisticated guttering system ensures that the terrace can be used in all weather, providing alfresco dining against the backdrop of the Tower day and night throughout the seasons.

The dining hall is a light-filled space characterised by a central oculus skylight. A narrow band of glazing at the western end provides a light-of-touch interface between the new building and the arches, giving diners an unexpected view upwards to Tower Bridge. All of the windows are fixed with opening wooden side panels providing natural ventilation. The south elevation facing onto the wharf is fitted with electric blinds, which are perforated to allow ventilation during hot weather.

The arch under the Tower Bridge provides a setting for a more intimate cavernous oak lined bar and accommodates back of house kitchen and support functions beyond. The original solid oak door under the arches, which dates from the construction of the bridge in the 1880’s, provides a dramatic entrance through the bar to the restaurant when the wharf gates are closed at night.

At night, Erco ceiling lighting provides focused pools of light on each dining table. The building itself will be in shadow as diners inside and on the terrace will look out onto illuminated landmarks on every side.

Tower Wharf Café is a significant addition to London’s cultural and historical riverside. The design demonstrates sensitivity to the heritage of the Tower whilst acknowledging the popular culture of the wharf.

The post Tower Wharf Cafe by
Tony Fretton Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Golden Moon est une énorme structure architecturale temporaire qui imite une lanterne géante. Le dôme a été conçu par les architectes Kristof Crolla et Adam Fingrut, dans le cadre du Festival de Lee Kum Kee Wonderland Lanterne à Hong Kong. Un spectacle son et lumière, à découvrir en images dans la suite.

Even before CNN decided to display the biorhythms of undecided voters at the bottom of the split screen, we found presidential debates unsatisfying. Sure, they occasionally result in Camelot, novel collective nouns (“binders of women”), and the further glorification of beloved muppets, but too often, the “debate” devolves into two people alternating between shouting bullet points at each other and grinning through gritted teeth. Hang on, design fans, don’t abandon the democratic process just yet. The final presidential debate, to be held Monday night in Boca Raton, Florida, will offer a couple of touches that are right of your creative alley.

Our friends at Mohawk, they of the fine papers, announced today that they’re behind the printed materials for the big event. The Cohoes, New York-based company provided the papers for everything from press releases and programs to car decals and commemorative posters at the request of Océ, a debate sponsor. And then there’s the venue itself: Lynn University’s Keith C. & Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center, designed by Newman Architects. “The space is designed with flexibility in mind,” says Herbert Newman, whose New Haven, Connecticut-based firm was tasked with providing a facility that would serve both the University as a teaching environment as well as the community as an income-generating venue. “The design conveys a shared sense of participation of audience and performer.“

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