Hasta La Ideas

This hotel by Mexican architects Gracia Studio comprises 20 separate cabins dotted across the landscape in one of Mexico’s wine-making regions.

Located in the Valle de Guadalupe, the single-storey huts are lifted off the ground on steel frames so that they impact as little as possible on the earth below.

Corten steel panels overlap one another to clad the exterior walls and the pitched roofs are covered with corrugated panels of the weathered metal.

Each room contains one ensuite bedroom and opens onto a small wooden deck.

Other hotels in rural areas we’ve featured include triangular huts proposed a deserted beach and a hotel at a Norwegian hunting lodge.

Photography is by Luis García.

Gracia Studio provided the information below:

Endémico Resguardo Silvestre

Located in Valle de Guadalupe «Mexico’s Wine Country», Baja California, Endémico Resguardo Silvestre is a set of twenty independent rooms of twenty square meters each, operated by Grupo Habita, a Design Hotels member; established within a surface of 99 hectares, part of the Encuentro Guadalupe development, which includes a winery as well as a residential area.

One of the principal premises was not to interfere directly the land, as part of the philosophy of the project is to respect nature in every possible way.

The availability of steel by our client leads to the design of the clean structure with this material, which elevates the skeleton of the room, to avoid contact with the soil.

The employment of corten steel to cover it, which over time changes its color, achieving harmony between the environment and the building.

The approach of the design of the room comes from the concept of a “deluxe” camping house, covering the guest’s basic needs, being in contact with nature and the environment.

Project Name: Endémico Resguardo Silvestre
Principal: Arq. Jorge Gracia | graciastudio

Collaborators: Javier Gracia, Valeria Peraza, Enrique de la Concha
Construction: graciastudio

Surface:20 rooms of 20 square meters each.

Place and year: Valle de Guadalupe, Ensenada, México | 2011

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by Gracia Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

Architect John Lin has adapted the traditional style of a rural Chinese courtyard residence to create a village house that is entirely self-sufficient.

Lin, who is an architecture professor at the University of Hong Kong, designed the house in Shijia Village, north-eastern China, as a model that would encourage village residents to be less dependent on outside goods and services.

A number of courtyards are contained behind the walls of the house, accommodating a pig pen and an underground biogas boiler that generates energy from the animal waste.

Wide staircases provide areas for planting crops, which can be fertilised using leftover slurry from the boiler and dried on the roof of the house.

During the rainy season the roof is also used to collect water, which filters down into a large container and can be stored throughout the year.

Just like a traditional village residence, the building has insulating mud walls, but also features a concrete frame to increase earthquake-resistance and a latticed brick exterior that provides both shade and natural ventilation.

House For All Seasons recently won first prize in the AR House 2012 awards. Last year’s winner was a house covered in rubber and the winning project in 2010 was a house with shutters weighted by concrete balls.

Here’s a press release from the Architectural Review:

Constructing China: Award-winning Architects Lead the Way

The Architectural Review presents its prestigious 2012 House Award to Chinese architect John Lin, joining an international community of critics who are recognising the excellence and innovation of contemporary architects working in China today.

This is the year of the Chinese architect. The Architectural Review has presented its 2012 House Award to John Lin, a Hong Kong-based architect whose innovative work takes him into the interstices of the extraordinary transformation underway in China’s cities, towns and rural areas.

Lin’s winning project is an updated version of the vernacular mud brick courtyard house that populates China’s vast rural areas.

His design for a modern prototype of this traditional locus of rural life, increasingly at risk, brings together both old and new, incorporating concrete technology with original mud brick construction.

Central to the design is the idea of self-sufficiency. The multifunctional roof provides a space for drying food, steps for seating and a means to collect water in the rainy season.

Four courtyards accommodate, among many household activities, a place for keeping pigs and an underground biogas system that produces energy for cooking.

The entire structure is surrounded by a brick screen wall that protects the mud walls and shades the interior.

According to Lin, his contemporary update of the traditional Chinese rural house will help “villages [reduce] their dependency on outside goods and services”.

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By “evolving” rather than “preserving”, he says, “we’re actually working to prevent a rural ghetto.”

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Catherine Slessor, awards jury chair, notes that “Lin’s new twist on an old format points the way to responding to China’s unprecedented housing challenges in original ways, by retaining the best of the past while embracing a rapidly changing future.”

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by John Lin appeared first on Dezeen.

Focus sur Regina Silveira, une artiste brésilienne renommée qui s’amuse à jouer avec les visiteurs et spectateurs pour créer des illusions. Avec entre autres des créations grandeur nature et des choix esthétiques très réussis à découvrir à Lodz en Pologne. Le rendu se dévoile dans la suite de l’article..

These London townhouses by architects Piercy & Company have chunky banisters formed from thickly layered birch plywood.

The stairs zigzag up from the basement floor to the second floor roof terraces of each of the three residences, which are located behind a listed wall within the conservation area of Bloomsbury.

The two-storey-high facades of each house are constructed from a sandy-coloured brick that is lighter in colour than the brown and red brickwork of the surrounding historic buildings.

The heights of the buildings intentionally line up with their neighbours, while window sills and lintels have been designed with matching proportions.

Perforated steel louvers shade the windows and skylights bring daylight into each house from above.

Other projects with interesting staircases include an empty tower and an Olympic Museum. See more staircases on Dezeen »

Photography is by Jack Hobhouse.

Here’s some more information from Piercy & Company:

Three contemporary townhouses in London’s Historic Bloomsbury

London, UK: Three contemporary townhouses have been completed in Bloomsbury, Central London. Designed by Piercy&Company for Great Marlborough Estates and located within the Bloomsbury Conservation Area, the townhouses marry contextual sensitivity with contemporary urban living.

The townhouses are adjacent to a number of Grade II listed buildings, a Grade II* listed Historic Gardens and bounded on one side by a Grade II listed wall. The buildings’ design echoes the materials, proportions and forms of the surrounding conservation area.

Heavily textured masonry and finely detailed stone cills, lintels and stringer courses create a contextually sensitive skin whilst the window proportions and generous floor to ceiling heights reflect those of the surrounding Georgian buildings. These fine grain details and proportional references interpret the existing language of the Bloomsbury Conservation Area into a contemporary idiom.

Inside, the layout of the internal spaces is highly flexible. The houses can be configured as 2, 3 or 4 bedrooms. In addition to upper floor bedrooms, the ground floor can be a lounge + study, or bedroom + study, or two bedrooms to make it a 4 bed house. This spatial fluidity responds to contemporary conditions of urban living where household compositions are varied and family living arrangements change over time.

The penetration of light down into the lower levels of the houses informs many aspects of the design; from the skylight playfully positioned above the top floor bath to the large corner windows and sliding glass doors which feature throughout. An open-plan kitchen and dining area at lower ground floor level leads onto a light-filled sunken courtyard which also provides private outdoor living and dining space beneath the historic listed wall.

A key architectural statement in each townhouse is a bespoke staircase, handmade in birch and ash. The staircase is fully revealed with open landings and internal glass partitions, naturally lit from above, allowing light to penetrate from roof to basement. This open staircase is only made possible through sophisticated fire engineering, including the use of domestic sprinklers.

Views over St Georges Gardens provide a green backdrop for many of the living/bedroom spaces. Careful alignment of laser cut shutters and louvres provides privacy to residents whilst preventing visitors to St George’s Gardens feeling overlooked.

As Piercy&Company’s Stuart Piercy describes:
“The site presented many issues with a beautiful grade II * garden and listed buildings to all sides – so it was very sensitive with an extremely vocal residents group. The key was to introduce a finer grain to the facade interpreting motifs from the conservation area in a contemporary language, while on the inside the opposite is true – we wanted large volumes of flexible light filled engaging spaces. For me the project’s success is that the spaces feel light and generous while the houses sit very gently in the context of the 300 year old gardens.”

Project Address 8, 9 and 10 Wakefield Street, London WC1N

Project Team Members
Client: Great Marlborough Estates
Architect: Piercy&Company
Project Manager: Paragon LLP
Structural Engineer: Pringuer-James Consulting Engineers
Mechanical and Electrical Engineers: Martin Design Associates
Main Contractor: Forcia Limited

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by Piercy & Company appeared first on Dezeen.

La Triennale est une institution culturelle italienne située à Milan. Chaque année depuis son inauguration en 2007, le Triennale Design Museum propose des expositions internationales et divers évènements. Le lieu se dévoile de façon incroyable dans une série d’images à découvrir dans la suite.