Hasta La Ideas

Architects CZWG have completed a bronzed, hexagonal library that leans across a dock in south London.

Situated beside a public square in the area of Canada Water, the four-storey building has a perforated facade of anodised aluminium and a green sedum roof.

The two-storey-high library is located at the top of the building, surrounded by an overlooking mezzanine providing study areas.

Rows of skylights let daylight illuminate the zigzagging bookshelves and a central staircase thats spirals down to the floors below.

On the ground floor are a performance space seating 150 spectators and a cafe, while community meeting rooms and offices occupy the first floor.

CZWG also recently completed a Maggie’s Centre for cancer care in Nottingham – see pictures of it here and here.

Photography is by Tim Crocker.

Here’s some more information from CZWG:

Canada Water Library, Southwark

In response to Southwark Councils brief, CZWG’s key challenge was to design a space which would accommodate the distinctly different requirements of the main users groups – adults, children and young persons in a building where the floor area required for the library space was far larger than the available footprint for the building on the given site.

The design of the new library needed to avoid multiple levels which would have cut off the interaction between the different user groups and also demanded a higher level of staff to service the library. CZWG’s solution to this problem was to create an inverted pyramid for the overall form of the building.

Besides allowing for the main library space to be on one floor – this design solution also positively responded to other design considerations such as minimising solar impact on the south elevation which needed big windows to enjoy the views over Canada Water basin.

The diagonal wall also reduced the external envelope area (the diagonal wall is less than the sum of a vertical wall and a horizontal soffit) and also catering for the requirement for raked seating in the community performance space.

The design keeps the uses on the ground floor to the necessary and welcoming ones, so as to minimise the footprint of the building for the benefit of the surrounding public space, the plaza and views, particularly of Canada Water Basin.

A public plaza space is proposed to the north of the library enclosed to its north and east by buildings with residential upper floors above commercial space at ground floor.

There are opportunities to provide active frontage to the plaza; create a “fifth elevation” on the roof which will be visible from surrounding developments and incorporate a green roof.

Shops and cafés spill out onto the plaza from both these buildings and the library encouraging short visits and interactions with the library other than to go to study.

The library will sit at the edge of a new civic plaza which has been designed to allow for a farmers market, large TV screenings, festivals and a host of other events and activities.

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Together they will form part of a dynamic new town centre for Canada Water, which includes approximately 900 new homes, new retail and public space.

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The building is clad in aluminum sheets that are anodised in a light bronze with sequined perforations, giving it sculptural appeal and striking visual effects. The library also has excellent green credentials, with a ground source heat pump, grey water harvesting and a green sedum roof.

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From the double height atrium, a timber-lined central spiral staircase travels up to the expanding shape above which is the library floor. On the library floor level the Children’s and Young Adults areas have been designed to ensure a flexible layout space to cater for multi-use activities.

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There will be designated areas for study and contemporary methods of learning will be incorporated throughout the building including free Wi-Fi access.In addition to the study facilities there are meeting rooms for hire.

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At ground floor level the café space will encourage people to enter the building from the plaza to discover all the facilities the library has on offer – they may participate or enjoy an event, attend a reading group, check their emails, browse the new books or have a quiet time with a coffee and a daily paper.

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Project name: Canada Water Library, Southwark
Client: Southwark Council
Address: Canada Water, Southwark, SE16 2YS
Status: Completed
Construction Start: Summer 2009
Completion: November 2011
Construction Cost: £14.1m
Area: 2,900 m2
Contract Type: GC/Works/1 With Quantities (Traditional)

A ridged cloak of glazing will surround the extension to an art centre in Utah proposed by Californian architects Brooks + Scarpa.

The new wing of the Kimball Art Centre will almost triple the size of the existing building, adding new studios and exhibition areas.

A glazed ground floor lobby will wrap around the buildings at ground floor level, connecting the historic block with the extension.

This lobby will open out to a large plaza that will also be used as a workspace for artists in the adjacent metalwork, welding and glass studios.

You can read more stories about studios for artists here.

Here’s a more detailed description from the architects:

Brooks + Scarpa Unveils Proposal for The Kimball Art Center – “The Kimball Cloud”

Brooks + Scarpa has released their proposal for the roughly 22,000 square foot addition to the existing 12,000 square foot 1929 historic structure located in the heart of downtown Park City at the corner of Main Street and Heber Ave.

The design concept for the new Kimball Art Center is to perceptually bring the mesmerizing and seemingly endless deep blue Park City sky directly into the space of the city. Despite the time of year or weather conditions, the sky always seems to quickly return to its infinite and hypnotic clarity, with rarely a cloud in the sky. It provokes a kind of indelible wonder; a dreamlike state of mind that engages the viewer, heightens their sense of awareness, and brings a sense of vitality to the place. The Kimball “Cloud” delivers a new experience and expands art into the broader Park City community, creating a new social space for the 21st century.

The building’s façade creates a visual icon, a glowing beacon that can be seen and experienced from a distance and immediately adjacent. The upper floors are composed of a conventional glazing system that is covered by a rain screen made from a translucent honeycomb material. This translucent, faceted skin is not only aesthetic, but also plays a role in the building’s thermal performance. Below this envelope, the new ground level façade is constructed of very transparent glass and opens directly to the street, while delicately connecting and weaving into the heavy mass of the existing historic Kimball building. Spatially, the lower floor is absorbed into the adjacent existing building and the city, while the upper floors overhang the more transparent level below. The new ‘cloud’ building appears to levitate above the site, while the historic structure feels solid and grounded to the earth. This illusion enhances the buildings, giving them a collective strength that neither building could possess individually.

Interior spaces delicately knit together passive and active uses, allowing the community to view and/or participate in the artistic experience. Rather than simply displaying art for view, the new design reveals to the community the very process by which art is created. Every feature of the building is multivalent and rich with meaning—performing several roles for functional, formal and experiential effect.

At the corner of Main Street and Heber Ave, the creation of a large exterior court links directly to the 20-foot high metal-smithing, welding and glass studios that would use this court daily as their outdoor workspace. The façade between the exterior court and studio is visually clear, opening the Art Center to public view. Large sliding panel doors open and connect the exterior and interior together, so artist and students can use the court seamlessly from inside to out. This court, located midway between the existing Kimball ground floor and basement levels, is connected directly to the street, and allows most of the working studio spaces to be visually linked to the street corner. These spaces flow from the court deep into the building linking the new structure with the existing building. In this configuration, the existing basement is opened up and connected to Main Street along with the existing Kimball ground floor and the new structure. Creating this split-level design at the street level on Main Street and Heber Avenue, serves several other important purposes: it allows for great flexibility, affording the Art Center the ability to easily divide and use the ground level for a variety of purposes and functions, both large and small, while still remaining visually open and not feeling like separated smaller rooms.

The heart of the Art Center, the process by which art is made, is connected to the street corner. Passerby can see deep into the building, viewing people working throughout several studio spaces, the main exhibition space and the many other spaces that are visually linked together. Rather than simply displaying art to the community, the process itself is on display.

The stairwell ascending through the centre of this Tokyo house is illuminated from a skylight and glows through translucent glass partitions.

Designed by Japanese firm Takehiko Nez Architects, the three-storey residence has a stark interior of unfinished plywood and streaky white paint.

The house is named Urban Hut and has an open-plan layout on each floor that will accommodate a brother and sister.

You can also see more projects that look like they aren’t quite finished by clicking here.

Photography is by Takumi Ota.

The following text is from Takehiko Nez:

Urban Hut

The young clients, sister and brother, lost parents at their teens, lived in the downtown Tokyo. Modest, rough and tough house to have a strong hold on the changes of the times like weeds is suitable for them.

The house without finish on façade stands in disordered scenery of typical downtown.
It was required maximum floor in the compact box on 30 square meters’ site and basic performance as a private house.

The central staircase with the roof light sends sunlight to each spaces through the studs and stairs rising to the top floor without a landing to the middle floor.

The partitions of translucent glass and plywood give the adequate relationship and privacy in the two completely different rhythm and pattern of life.

It can be called an urban vernacular house that is compactly made by the raw material like a corrugated cardboard house, made with skin and born like a hut, stacked with thin objects and narrow spaces in the tiny lot.

If the house’s magnetism is not greatest at completion but greater gradually for the lifespan, creator’s role of the house should be inherited from architects to residents to accustom itself to their lifestyle.

Tolerance letting residents’ imagination intervene is designed as stacking spaces with half scale, shallow blank gap, and incomplete finishes. It is pleased that clients are managing to live comfortably with unexpected discovery beyond the pre-established imagination.

Architect: Takehiko Nez Architects

Status: completed July 2011
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Collaborators:
Structure: ASA
Contractor: Shinei

Site area: 30.37sqm
Total floor area: 44.26sqm

This wooden house in Yokohama by Japanese architects Suppose Design Office has a garden behind its walls and a roof terrace beneath a ceiling.

After entering though the front door, residents must first cross a pebbled courtyard filled with plants to access the rooms of the three-storey house.

One staircase leads down to bedrooms on the sunken ground floor, while another leads up a first-floor living room.

The terrace and a bathroom occupy the second floor above, separated from one another by nothing but glazing.

Suppose Design Office have designed quite a few interesting houses – see more of their projects here.

Photography is by Toshiyuki Yano.

Here’s a little more information from the architects:

House in Seya

We have all ways have been interested in Nature.

Nature that expresses time and change are some aspects that we try to incorporate in Architecture.
Everybody feels and knows that the sky, sea, and forest are big but why does everyone feel this way? Would it be that when a person feels lost in the scale of things they start to feel that the thing is big.

Scale is something important in architecture. That it why always think of size and height. If nature and architecture were to be the same and to have a close relationship with each other then when the scale is taken away from architecture or scale is added to nature then there might be a new relation ship created between architecture and nature.

The house in Seya is on a small site located in a residential area. The client works in a flower shop and wanted a house that looks in harmony with flowers and vegetations.

It is the norm to erect walls to enclose a space for a building but for the house in Seya we decided to enclose the outer space. This resulted in the creation of a space where it is neither a garden nor a room.

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The outer shell was built like a wooden storage and once the residence moved in to the space, by time there will be an increase in plants, book shelves or painting in the space will have the same quality as what nature where everything is in a state where it is neither finished nor unfinished.

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It was important that the client accepted that this architecture was in the process of change and that it came from the idea of adding scale to Nature, which resulted in the nature become closer to architecture and an architecture closer to nature.

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Rather then creating architecture that is completed but to create an architecture that is unfinished which lead to the creation of a new relationship between the internal and external spaces.

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The creation of this uncompleted space gives the space the quality to accept any kind of elements to be placed and give true strength to the versatility of the space. The uncompleted state can produce a rich space and we would like to continue to think about thee kind of space.

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Location: Seya,Yokohama,Kanagawa,Japan
Principal use: single family house
Structural Engineer: Ohno Japan
Main Structure: Timber construction ( subset of structure is Concrete )
Site Area: 73.22 sqm
Building area: 36.09sqm
Total floor area: 57.03sqm
Completion : April. 2011
Design period: August. 2009 – September. 2011
Construction period: February. 2010-February. 2011
Project team: Suppose design office | Makoto Tanijiri, in charge: Ai Yoshida

Following our recent roundup of stories featuring ice and snow, here’s a timber lodge outside Prague that was photographed days after a blizzard.

The two-storey house was designed by Czech architect Martin Cenek and was completed this time last year.

Larch batons clad the upper level and also create brise soleil shutters across windows on the south-facing elevation.

A living room occupies one half of the ground floor and opens out to a wooden deck at the rear.

Elsewhere, steel rods suspend a staircase that leads up to bedrooms and bathrooms on the first floor.

You can see more projects from the Czech Republic here, including a tea house with a tall roof and a combined art gallery and shoe store.

Photography is by the architect.

Here’s a detailed description from Cenek:

House on the outskirts of Prague
Zdiby, Czech Republic

The plot on the outskirts of Prague, protected by a forest from the north and sloping very gently into the fields to the south, seemed ideal for an energy efficient house.

The final design that was developed for this young family of 3 (planned to grow to 4) is a timber house, energetically very close to the passive house standard, employing natural materials, but mainly trying to be as simple and rational as possible. These two are for us also very important aspects of sustainable architecture.

The house is oriented parallel to the neighboring “catalogue” house and creates a clear contrast to its pitched roof and pseudo-classical details, but its ambition is not to overshadow it or criticize it. By its orientation on the plot the house creates a natural barrier between the road to the north and spacious garden on the south side.

The concept was based on a composition of simple volumes arranged into a compact and clear shape. The whole first floor is clad in larch battens which are also used on the shading panels that slide in front of south and east oriented windows and on the balustrade of the first floor terrace (above the carport). This wooden “basket” of the first floor rests on two transverse grey walls – one on the west side and the other east side of the house.

The ground floor volumes – of the day zones of the house itself as well as the one of the garden storeroom are inserted between the two grey outer walls and are finished in reddish rendering. The space between these volumes creates the carport and allows passage between the garden and the road.

The house opens to the south with a terrace directly extending from the living room and connected with it thanks to the extensive glazing of the south wall (glazed in its full length) shaded by means of a wooden brise-soleil. In the future the terrace should grow further to the south and a swimming pool of the same width is also planned.

The north side of the house is more compact and its main feature is a strip window above the level of the flat roof which provides zenithal light to the bathrooms. This sloping part of the roof also serves to mount solar collectors.

The interior layout tries to open up the living (day) zones of the house as much as possible. Sliding floor to ceiling doors then allow different options of connecting or closing the various zones of the house (living and work/service on the ground floor, children and parents on the first floor). The aim was to minimize corridors and lost spaces. The main feature of the central part of the house is a very light staircase suspended on steel rods from the ceiling.

All the built in furniture is simple and white, the aim of the design being to let it blend into the walls and thus give more importance to the occupants of the house and their life.

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The structure of the house consists of very simple two-by-four timber framing, with all constructions open to water vapor diffusion. All glazing is made of insulated triple window panes in wooden frames (or frameless in case of the living room).

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Heating – a simple small electric boiler and low temperature floor heating on the ground floor, very simple radiators on the first floor in combination with air heat recovery system. Water is heated using the thermosolar collectors and an integrated heat storage tank. As the heat losses of the house are relatively low, the fireplace in the living room is purely an aesthetical feature.

Architect: ing.arch. Martin Cenek (*1982)
Completed: 2010
Project: 2007-2009

Total floor area: 145m2 + carport 20m2
Built-up area: 120m2 (including garden storeroom and carport)
Energy losses: 3,5kW

Collaboration:
ing.arch. Vitezslav Cenek (garden design, supervision of construction site)
ing. Martin Trmal, ing. Martin Ruzicka – Penatus (production drawings)
ing. Jan Margold, ing. Roman Forfera (structure)
ing. Roman Schneider (heating)
ing. Martin Janko (ventilation)
Jiri Holub (water and waste management)
Petr Manek (electrical)

Selected suppliers:
Penatus s.r.o. (main supplier)
Kauri – Pavel Mikes (staircase)
Jiri Malek and Vestavstyl (built-in furniture)
Esentier s.r.o. (bathroom equipment)