Dezeen Wire: the Cité Radieuse housing estate in Marseille, one of the most famous works by Swiss architect Le Corbusier and the first building in his influential Unité d’Habitation project, has been damaged by fire in a blaze that began in a first floor apartment yesterday afternoon – Guardian
Before planning your next trip, be sure to review the newly crowned winners of the Travel + Leisure Design Awards, which will be featured in the magazine’s March issue (on newsstands next Friday). The 2012 winners range from the Zaha Hadid-designed Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi to the ultimate in travel-friendly apparel (the 1964 by Scott James blazer and Issey Miyake‘s eminently packable origami folding clothing). Many of this year’s favorites will come as no surprise, including the city-friendly Fiat 500 (best car) and Leica’s drool-worthy D-Lux 5 Titanium Set (best camera). Preston Scott Cohen‘s smart and sculptural Herta and Paul Amir Building at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art got the nod for best museum (edging out the Brad Cloepfil-designed Clyfford Still Museum, alas), and two NYC destinations—Jane’s Carousel Pavilion in Brooklyn and the Freitag Store—won for best public space and best retail space, respectively. Meanwhile, 2012 T+L Design Champion H.E. Mubarak Hamad Al Muhairi, the driving force behind Abu Dhabi’s transformation and evolution as a cultural and design capital, joins past honorees such as ubercollector Micky Wolfson, André Balazs, and Amanda Burden. Tasked with choosing “the best new examples of design” in 20 categories was a jury moderated by Chee Pearlman that included architect Billie Tsien, fashion designer Derek Lam, High Line pioneer Robert Hammond, and artist Michele Oka Doner. Keep reading for the full list of winners.
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Oriented strand board lines every wall, floor and ceiling inside this residential barn extension in Norfolk, England, by London studio Carl Turner Architects.
Black-stained timber clads the exterior of the gabled building, named Stealth Barn, and it sits perpendicular to a larger brick barn that the architects previously converted into a residence.
The interior is divided into rooms that allow it function as a guest house, although the clients also use the barn as a meeting place or studio.
Above: photograph is by Carl Turner
The OSB surfaces are intended to be reminiscent of the straw bales that fill the barns of many farms nearby.
Above: photograph is by Carl Turner
Another project we’ve featured from the agricultural landscape of Norfolk is an extension to a mill-keeper’s house – see it here.
Photography is by Tim Crocker, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s some more text from Carl Turner Architects:
Stealth Barn- Carl Turner Architects
Stealth Barn is a project that sits next to and complements Ochre Barn, a large threshing barn converted by CTA to a home and studio.
This addition was to provide a self-contained unit that could equally act as a guest house, studio or meeting place, depending on time of year and workloads: a retreat, but also a place of inspiration, enjoyment and a place of work and home without compromising the experience of either.
Above: photograph is by Jeremy Phillips
Sitting in the exposed expanse of the Cambridgeshire fens, it is a bold, simple form, reminiscent of the barn it accompanies.
Above: photograph is by Jeremy Phillips
Placed perpendicular to the existing barn, it stands to create and define a slightly more sheltered and casual garden which melts into the fens. This clear and simple move also hints at the memory of a former farm yard.
Above: photograph is by Jeremy Phillips
Stealth Barn pays respect to the form of the agricultural context but contrasts with the traditional barn. Stealth Barn is a sharp black mass – a shadow of the adjacent barn or a silhouette on the horizon.
It is a robust exteriorwrapped with a restricted palette, devoid of fussy detail, and formed to withstand its exposed position.
On the interior, this toughness is inverted through the inclusion of a warmer OSB; it wraps fully around the space to form angles reminiscent of the adjacent barns divided with straw bales.
Above: photograph is by Carl Turner
It also creates an immersive interior landscape with spaces simply disected in a semi open-plan manner to create compartments.
Each room has aspects overlooking the fields which, although open, are very much seen through and out of this interior, providing a sense of protection and warmth.
The arrangement of the main spaces into simple pockets is key to facilitating the barn’s multifunctional use – for it to become both a bedroom and a meeting room, a dining room and a studio space. It can be all of these things equally without ever feeling overly domestic or of business.
Stealth Barn is a project instigated and overseen by Carl Turner Architects.
We have acted as developer Architects and, in turn, the project has allowed the office scope to experiment, learn and test ideas.
It was completed at the end of August 2011.
Frank Gehry‘s Guggenheim and Jean Nouvel‘s Louvre, both in Abu Dhabi, haven’t been the only high-profile Middle Eastern projects placed on shaky ground due to the recent turmoil in the region. The Guardian is reporting that internationally-renowned architect Zaha Hadid has seen her firm’s profits cut by more than half because of the Arab Spring. Despite news like her winning the Stirling Prize for the second year in a row, and landing commissions like being included among starchitects who have built a parking garage in Miami, to even her inclusion in the Sunday Times‘ annual “Rich List,” the paper reports that the number of projects that have been put on hold due to the Arab Spring turmoil have taken “a toll on the financial position of her firm.” How bad is it? There have been 76 people laid off and “before tax slumped to £1.8m in the year to 30 April 2011 from £4.1m the year before.” While we’re certain things aren’t teetering on the brink for the celebrated architect, it certainly must be making things a bit more tricky in an already struggling industry.
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The Serpentine Gallery, who have learned to master the art of generating buzz about one annual project nearly year round at this point, announcing their pick for who will design the next one just as the one before it is fading from memory, have decided to up the ante even more so this year. They’ve just announced that this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, a temporary structure set up in London’s Hyde Park, will be designed by a reunited Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei. The two had previously collaborated on Beijing’s celebrated “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium ahead of the last Olympics in 2008. Weiwei’s gradual coming out against the project over labor and human rights issues was, for those not already in the art world, their first encounter with the artist Weiwei, whose outspoken views and clashes with the Chinese government have made him one of the most well-known and powerful artists today. With the Olympics coming to London in just a few months, and Weiwei now forced to work on projects from his virtual house arrest in Beijing, whatever the two parties come up with is sure to generate some nice press and an increased general interest for the Serpentine. Here’s a bit from the press release about what it’s going to look like:
This year’s Pavilion will take visitors beneath the Serpentine’s lawn to explore the hidden history of its previous Pavilions. Eleven columns characterising each past Pavilion and a twelfth column will support a floating platform roof 1.5 metres above ground. Taking an archaeological approach, the architects have created a design that will inspire visitors to look beneath the surface of the park as well as back in time across the ghosts of the earlier structures.
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Huge window bays project from the fat cylindrical volume of this apartment block in Tilburg, the Netherlands, by Dutch architects Bedaux de Brouwer.
Two apartments are contained inside the five-storey building, named Project Duikklok, which has an exterior of dark glazed bricks.
Spiral stairs connect both two-storey apartments with a shared lobby and garage on the ground floor, while each apartment has its own internal staircase.
Residents in the uppermost floors have access to a terrace on the roof.
Bedaux de Brouwer Architecten also recently completed a grey brick house with a shallow moat – see it here.
Photography is by Tim van de Velde.
Here’s some more explanation from Bedaux de Brouwer Architecten:
Duikklok
First half of 2011 an urban pavilion by Bedaux de Brouwer Architecten has arisen in the Primus van Gils Park in Tilburg.
Until now, this area in the city center had been characterized by an exceedingly patched up urban condition.
This pavilion by Jacq. de Brouwer intends to reconcile its parts.
Standing firmly in the middle of the park and being clearly visible from all angles the pavilion’s key ambition is to become a spatial conductor.
Dynamic connections to the surrounding greenery and the cityscape are forged.
Two apartments stacked on top of a shared entrance level make up a circular-shaped five level structure.
Rooms of both apartments that require privacy are grouped together on the third and fourth level.
The rooms are made introvert and are kept within the core.
The second and fifth level contain outward looking spaces.
Large sweeping window bays provide maximum panoramic views and have the advantage of allowing the use of large sliding window panes that open up the façade.
The window bays spiral upwards as if to actively search for optimum orientation.
Privacy and engagement are caught in a whimsical display of twisting and turning. Like a combination lock the bays latch into their final position.
By rendering the whole building in a dark glazed brick the impression of an amassing edifice is amplified. The suggestive weight grants the sweeping gestures tectonic forcefulness.
A distinctive brick-laying technique of recessed bed joints and omitted head joints makes the masonry at times appear almost like textile.
In its staged setting, this pavilion will be continuously at play to attune the space of the city.
Name: Duikklok
Address: Bisschop Zwijsenstraat 62, 5038 VB
Client: Interfour B.V., Berkel-Enschot
Design: Bedaux de Brouwer Architecten
Project-architect: Jacq. de Brouwer
Team member: Ingeborg Dankers
Structural advisor: Adviesbureau S. v. Boxtel – Tilburg
Contractor: Aannemersbedrijf Riebouw B.V.
Gross floorspace: 576m2
Gross Volume: 1853m3
Start construction: March 2010
Completion: March 2011
“Wendy does not play the typical architecture game of ecological apology,” say the architects of their boundary-pushing pavilion, shown here in a rendering.
Who’s tripping down the streets of the city, smilin’ at everybody she sees? Who’s reachin’ out to neutralize an airborne pollutant? Everyone knows it’s Wendy! That’s right, fans of emerging architectural talent, the spiky and proactive creation of New York-based HWKN (Hollwich Kushner) has been declared the winner of this year’s MOMA PS1 Young Architects Program, besting finalists Ammar Eloueini of AEDS Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio (Paris and New Orleans), Martin Felsen and Sarah Dunn of UrbanLab (Chicago), and the solid Cantabrigian (Massachusetts) contingent: Mariana Ibañez and Simon Kim of I|K Studio and Cameron Wu.
Now in its thirteenth year, the Young Architects Program program challenges each year’s winners to develop creative designs for a temporary, outdoor installation at MoMA PS1 that provides shade, seating, and water. HWKN’s “Wendy,” which will debut in Long Island City in late June, is composed of nylon fabric treated with a nifty titania nanoparticle spray to neutralize airborne pollutants. This summer, Wendy will clean the air to an equivalent of taking 260 cars off the road. “Wendy crafts an environment—not just a space,” note the architects of their 5,000-square-foot creation. “Spikey arms reach out with micro-programs like blasts of cool air, music, water canons, and mists to create social zones throughout the courtyard.” And speaking of summery social zones, HWKN also was recently tapped to design a new entertainment complex to replace the Fire Island dance club, Pavilion, that burned down last year. The firm is collaborating with Diller Scofidio + Renfro on the project.
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Architects T38 studio and Pablo Casals-Aguirre have completed a house in Tijuana, Mexico, with a twisted first floor that cantilevers across the garden.
The glass and concrete ground floor of the house contains bedrooms, bathrooms and living rooms that are easily accessible for the elderly couple that live there.
A floating concrete staircase leads up to the projecting first floor, which houses a guest bedroom and study.
The house is positioned on a triangular site with a narrow street facade and a pathway running along the side of the house leads down to the garden behind.
Other interesting projects in Mexico from the Dezeen archive include a concrete house with wonky windows and the world’s first space terminal for tourists – see them all here.
Photography is by Pablo Casals-Aguirre and Alfonso Medina.
Here’s some more text from T38 studio:
Located in Tijuana, México, Ph4 house’s main objective is to create a balance between privacy and openness, the project was mainly developed from two constraints.
The first one is that the house will be inhabited by an elderly couple, so most of the program is on the first floor, a long glass and concrete box which breaks in the transition between the public and private space. Superimposed is a solid volume which fragments itself in the opposite direction as the one below, ending in a 7 meter cantilever.
The second is the site, a triangle in which only 10 meters are facing the street, the rest of the perimeter is adjacent to other houses. It was decided to set the main volume on the center of the site, thus creating connections between interior and exterior along the succession of programatic spaces.
Click above for larger image
Project Architects: T38 studio + Pablo Casals-Aguirre Team: Alfonso Medina, Pablo Casals-Aguirre, Mauricio Kuri, Oscar González
Click above for larger image
Collaborators: Lucía Arroyo, Alina Castañeda y Adriana Medina. Construction: Taller38 Project Year: 2010
Construction: 2011
Site surface: 496m2
Built surface: 358m2
Location: México, Tijuana, Baja California.
The four concrete wings of this house in Girona, Spain, appear to hover in the air above an underground entrance (photographs by Filippo Poli).
Completed in 2010 by Barcelona studio Hidalgo Hartmann, the single-storey Casa Pocafarina has a cross-shaped plan that sits on four pillars and hovers a metre above the lawn.
The underground driveway tunnels down beneath the floor of an en suite master bedroom to arrive at a staircase that ascends into the heart of the house.
Two children’s bedrooms and bathrooms are situated in the wing opposite, while a living room and a dining room occupy the remaining two sides of the cross.
A square courtyard surrounded by glass is concealed at the centre of a building.
Photographer Filippo Poli also shot a concrete centre for rescued turtles, dolphins and birds by the same architects – see it here.
Here’s some more text from Hidalgo Hartmann Arquitectos:
Memory
The house is situated on a corner plot with some good views over the distant landscape.
In order to enjoy these views and avoid the neighboring buildings, the ideal configuration for the house was to create a compact form of cross which is placed at the center of gravity of the plot.
The four wings are oriented in a way that ensures the selected views from inside the house.
The whole volume is supported by four pillars and cantilevers out over the garden level at a hight of one meter.
The pillars itself are based on the lower ground floor of 8x8m that contains access to housing, the porch, garage and laundry.
On the top floor, the cross-shaped plan organizes the four wings around a central space, an exterior courtyard, that provides sunlight into the heart of the house.
The four wings contain the different functions of the house with the living room area and the kitchen-dining area connected with each other through the transparency of the courtyard.
Distributed on both sides of this main space there is the master bedroom with it’s own bathroom and the two children’s bedrooms also with a bathroom hidden by a concrete wall.
The use of concrete in its natural colour and made with wood slats all over the house reveals visibly the powerful construction that is needed to realise the idea in a coherent way.
Authors of the project: HIDALGO.HARTMANN, Jordi Hidalgo Tané, architect, Daniela Hartmann, interior designer.
Technical Architect: Rafel Serra Torrent, Technical Architect.
Collaborators: Torrent Rafel Serra, Technical Architect, Ana Roque, architect.
Promoters: Xevi Bartrina i Alba Sarola.
Construction: Estructures Olot S.L (concrete) LI-BRA S.L (general constructor) Fusteria Serra (Word furniture) Plantalech (Aluminium charpenter) Cuines Santi, Olot (Kitchen) Electrica Masaló (fluids instalation) Electricitat Quim (electrical instalation)
Hong Kong firm O Studio Architects have completed a stark concrete church on the side of a sacred mountain in China.
Named the Church of Seed, the building on Mount Luofu is formed of three curved walls that curl around the interior like the casing around the seed of a plant.
Vertical ridges in the surface of these inclined walls reveal the bamboo formwork that the concrete was cast into, while handmade bamboo furniture provides seating for 60 inside the central hall.
A large cross-shaped opening on the southeast elevation draws in soft sunlight in the mornings, while a solid west wall blocks out glare in the afternoons.
A staircase on the side of the church leads up to a rooftop observation deck.
We’ve featured all kinds of religious buildings on Dezeen, even a temple for atheists – see them all here.
Photography is by Jingchao Wen.
Here’s a more detailed explanation from O Studio Architects:
Church of Seed
Church of Seed is located at Luofu Mountain Scenery District – one of the seven famous Taoist Mountains in China.
Although there are various kinds of Taoist and Buddhist temples in this district, western religious element has not yet been found.
Besides developing private houses, the client in this project intends to develop a small church for the surrounding village people in order to widen the spectrum of religious culture.
This church provides not only worship and meditation space for Christians, but also recreational and gathering places for the surrounding village people.
Instead of promoting Christian religion actively and aggressively, the message of religion is communicated subtly through the play of light and shadow in this architecture.
Situated within the beautiful landscape of Luofu Mountain, Church of Seed has an area of 280m2 and can accommodate 60 people.
The design concept is triggered by the form of a seed – a famous metaphorical element in the Gospel stories.
A curve line follows the outline of a seed and marks the enclosing wall element. The curve is then split into three parts, and three entries are formed at where the curve wall splits: the south east facing wall has a cross shape opening which introduces morning sun into the interior; the west facing wall is solid and blocking the afternoon sun; the north facing wall is thicken to accommodate toilet facility.
The stepping roof terrace allows diffuse northern daylight into the interior and provides a dramatic headroom increment (3 – 12 meters) from the main entrance towards the worshiping space. Visitors can walk up to the stepping roof terrace, arrive at the observation deck and enjoy the distant view of mountain and water.
Church of Seed has a raw, natural and non-decorative material language.
The main structure is constructed by in-situ concrete with bamboo formworks. In-situ concrete construction is economically sound and practical for local builders. The bamboo texture left on the concrete surface reduces the massiveness of concrete wall and harmonizes with the surrounding trees and green landscape. Plus the transparent windows and doors, and the handmade bamboo furniture by local farmers, the presence of the church is humble and close to village life.
Although a seed is the starting point of this design, the church does not intend to literally illustrate its image.
The abstract form and space of the church is conveyed through the play of light, shadow, material and texture.
This is not a piece of architecture which purely celebrates its sculptural form, but a building which respects the natural environment and local culture.
Location: Huizhou, China
Site Area: 1200m2
Floor Area: 280m2
Status Built: 2010
Design Architect: O Studio Architects
Project Architect: Guangzhou Architectural Engineering Design Institute
Structure Consultant: Guangzhou Architectural Engineering Design Institute
M&E Consultant: Guangzhou Architectural Engineering Design Institute
Main Contractor: Maoming Construction Group Co. Ltd.
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