Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen Wire: a glazed skyscraper being constructed across the street from the Renzo Piano-designed Nasher Sculpture Centre in Dallas is creating so much glare that it is damaging artworks, burning plants and dazzling visitors – New York Times

Originally completed in 2003, the museum features a glazed roof that was intended to let gentle levels of daylight inside. However, the arrival of the new tower has forced curators to install light-blocking panels for a recent exhibition.

Read the full story here.

See more projects by Renzo Piano here, including the recently completed Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum extension.

Slideshow: these ridged metal walls enclose the facilities of an outdoor swimming pool that Spanish firm Arquitecturia have just completed in the town of Tortosa.

Located right beside a busy road, the single-storey building folds around the perimeter of the pool to maintain privacy for swimmers.

The building has a concrete frame, which extends beyond the entrance to create an exterior canopy.

Other swimming pools we’ve featured include one inside a ramshackle timber basin – see more here.

Photography is by Pedro Pegenaute.

Here’s some more information from Arquitecturia:

Exterior Swimming Pool and changing room in Tortosa.

The facility is located on the Jesus Road, between the Canal de l’Ebre and the Barranc de la Vall Cervera, and it is accessed from a public space prior to widening of the pavement on this road.

One of the aims of the project is to provide the pools a space removed from the Road and the wind, that overlooks the canal and the future of sports area, as well as to provide a good orientation to optimize its use. As such, the linear structure between the road and the swimming pools sets up as a backdrop that holds the area for outdoor activities.

The boundaries between inside and outside are explored by the structure of concrete and the facade system made of metal profiles. Between these two elements, there ase spaces like porches, patios, shades… areas of ambiguity that dilute and confuse the relationship between inside and outside.

The project is structured around the public space and entrance arcade, with the bar positioned to one side serving as a vantage overlooking the future running track, and the lobby on the other side, drawing the eye to the outdoor pools. The space outside the pools is shaped by a series of shaded areas that connect the three functional units: bar, changing rooms and lobby.

Click above for larger image

You go into design because you want to create things, and you go into industrial design to create things that will be mass-produced. And mass production, by definition, involves factories and marketing people and finance guys and sales forces, and everyone gets a say. So you quickly learn that unless you’re a design superstar, you don’t really get to create things on your own terms. Unless you keep things small.

That’s why I find this story so fascinating. Joel Allen was a Canada-based software developer who bottomed out financially after his company went broke in the ’00s. He taught himself carpentry, and soon set his sights on building a killer treehouse. The rudiments of a design were provided by architecture student friends, and Allen subsequently set about making his dream a reality.

The story is insane on so many levels. First of all, the treehouse is illegally sited on “Crown land,” or what’s known as State land in the United States—government-protected forests. Secondly, Allen had to hand-carry all of the materials out to the site (and carry the construction waste back out to fulfill his goal of keeping the site as pristine as possible). Thirdly, when his construction was interrupted by helicopter traffic from the nearby Olympics, he had to partially dismantle the structure and camoflauge it to avoid detection. Fourthly, building something structurally sound—let alone level—on a tree clinging to a sharply-sloped mountainside is an engineering feat you’d expect to farm out to a firm specializing in such. Allen pulled it off largely by himself and later, with the help of a girlfriend.

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Beyond the arched entrance of this metal-clad house in Kadoma, Japan by architect Takeshi Hamada is a corner light well surrounded by windows and balconies.

Every room inside the three-storey House K faces this lightwell, with living and dining rooms on the first floor and bedrooms on the storey above.

A staircase connecting each of the floors is positioned behind glass-panel walls at the centre of the house.

This time last year Takeshi Hamada completed a house with a bare concrete gallery at its base – see it here.

Photography is by Yohei Sasakura.

The text below is from the architect:

House K Concept

A small, starkly white cuboid house built for a modest budget in a crowded residential area.

Environs and site for construction

This relatively small-sized 20-tsubo (66 square meter) property is in Kadoma city in Osaka Prefecture, a short distance from the local railway station.

The surrounding area was developed on a small scale several years previously for residential construction, and this was one of the remaining unsold lots.

The neighboring buildings are typical three-storied residences, with very little open space between constructions.

A daytime visitor to this cul-de-sac sees clusters of chattering housewives in the roadway outside the houses, and hears the sounds of children at play.

Construction design

I designed a simple white box consisting of three floors. A light well extends vertically through all three floors and the inner space is ranged around it.

Each of the rooms faces this light well, so while maintaining privacy from outside eyes, light floods the entire interior and there is a healthy air flow throughout.

#First Floor

A spacious entranceway, bath-laundry space and multi-purpose room occupy this floor, and by converting the low-ceilinged space under the stairway into an arched tunnel, the constrictiveness is relieved and a sense of playfulness is created

#Second Floor

The maximum possible floor space is a kitchen and living/dining room. The staircase was purposefully placed in the center and flanked by glass doors on both sides.

Opening and closing the doors tailors this flexible space, adjusting the volume for a variety of needs.

This design allows a maximum of area to be utilized as one continuous space, even on a small plot of land, and the inner balcony and light well increase the airy flow effect.

#Third Floor

On the top floor are two bedrooms and a large balcony. Each area is contained within the outer walls of the light well which form the box-like shape of the house, and create a gentle sense of security.

House Name: “House K”
Location: Kadoma city, Osaka, JAPAN
Construction: September 2011 – January 2012
Structure: Wooden Structure

Site Area: 65.27 sq m
Building Area: 38.68 sq m
Floor Area: 97.69 sq m 1F（30.01 sq m）2F（36.90 sq m）3F（30.78 sq m）

Slideshow: we’ve already featured three artists’ studios from Canadian Fogo Island, making this wooden hut on legs the fourth (photographs by Bent René Synnevåg).

Designed by Saunders Architecture of Norway, Bridge Studio has an angled body that projects out towards a lake.

A wooden bridge connects the square glazed entrance with the lichen-coated granite of the surrounding terrain.

The base of the building slopes at the same angle as the roof to create two tiered floors inside.

On the upper tier is a built-in desk that faces a large window, while a wood-burning stove and small kitchen occupy the lower level.

A solar panel mounted further up the hill generates all the electricity the studio needs.

So far four of the six planned studios are complete. You can see the other three here.

Here’s some more information from Saunders Architecture:

Bridge Studio Deep Bay, Fogo , Newfoundland

As with all the Fogo Island Arts Corporation’s Art Studios, Bridge Studio is paired with a traditional Newfoundland Saltbox house, this one is located in Deep Bay, the smallest community on Fogo Island with a population of one hundred and fifty people. The Bridge Studio’s Saltbox House is a freshly painted, in sharp contrast to its dilapidated condition, only a few months previous. A local carpenter who is putting the finishing touches on the house, points out the project’s double-hung, wood frame windows that were crafted at the local woodshop, initiated and operated by the Shorefast Foundation.

The trek to the Bridge Studio from the Deep Bay House looks short on a map. Of course, on the ground is a different matter as the topography enters the equation and one navigates the rocky landscape of the lichen clad granite outcroppings on this sublimely beautiful stretch of coastline leading to Bridge Studio, an art studio, completed in June 2011 by the Fogo Island Arts Corporation.

Along the winding path one encounters short runs of wooden stairs and ramps, installed in critical locations to help visitors ascend some of the trail’s steeper inclines. After walking about twenty minutes, the first sign of the Bridge Studio is an isolated solar panel (and battery enclosure) mounted on a hilltop to take full advantage of the Island’s limited sunshine. These solar cells generate electrical power for the near-by Bridge Studio, dramatically located on a steep hillside overlooking the calm waters of an inland pond.

The first impression of the Bridge Studio is its abstract quality. From the side elevation, it ap- pears as a windowless wood-clad parallelogram, hovering above the landscape, propped up by four piers and connected by a sixteen-foot bridge to the adjacent hillside. As one approaches the three hundred and twenty square foot studio, it becomes more transparent – with a generous glass entry and a large square window at the other end of the room.

Viewed from the glass entry, the ceiling from the entry slopes up to the top of a large picture window at the opposite end of the room. The picture window’s sill is flush with a built-in desk, the perfect place to write and contemplate the view. To mirror the sloped ceiling, the floor of the Bridge Studio is composed of two levels. The lower area, that accommodates an entry area, long counter and wood-burning stove is divided from the upper area by a short run of stairs. From the entry, the perspectival aspect of the project is augmented by alignment of the four-inch painted spruce planks that line the ceiling, the walls and floor.

From the aerial photographs, the isolation of the Bridge Studio becomes apparent, a highly restrained, slightly distorted, elongated box sited on an outcropping of rock, overlooking a sheltered pond of water. The form, although resolutely contemporary recalls a traditional Newfoundland fishing stage (in the local nomenclature) a wooden vernacular building, typical of traditional buildings associated with the cod fishery in the province. It was in these fishing stages, equipped with cutting tables, that fishermen would clean and salt the once plentiful codfish that was distributed worldwide.

It is an interesting twist that the Bridge Studio echoes this vernacular form, once a typical sighting in any Newfoundland outport. The fishing stage and the cod give way to the studio and the production of art. The Fogo Island Arts Corporation creating an opportunity for a roster of accomplished artists to generate works of art that in turn enrich the international scene of contemporary art.

Client: Shorefast Foundation and the Fogo Island Arts Corporation
Architect: Saunders Architecture – Bergen, Norway
Team architects: Attila Béres, Ryan Jørgensen, Ken Beheim-Schwarzbach, Nick Herder, Rubén Sáez López, Soizic Bernard, Colin Hertberger, Christina Mayer, Olivier Bourgeois, Pål Storsveen, Zdenek Dohnalek
Associate Architect: Sheppard Case Architects Inc. (Long Studio)

Structural Engineer: DBA Associates (Long Studio)
Services Engineer: Core Engineering (Long Studio)
Builder: Shorefast Foundation
Construction Supervisor: Dave Torraville
Builders: Arthur Payne, Rodney Osmond, Edward Waterman, Germain Adams, John Penton, Jack Lynch, Roy Jacobs, Clarke Reddick
Construction photos: Nick Herder
Text: Michael Carroll

Size: 130 m2
Location: Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada
Status: Finished 2011

Photography: Bent René Synnevåg

Here are the other three Fogo Island studios we’ve featured:

Squish Studio by Saunders Architecture

Tower Studio by Saunders Architecture

Long Studio by Saunders Architecture