Hasta La Ideas

This Central Institute of Technology (CIT) building in Perth, Western Australia by Lyons and local practice T&Z has a copper, silver and coloured metal panel facade.

The building brings together programs from three campus locations and provides a new library, lecture theatre and range of formal and informal learning spaces for students.

A large central foyer contains visible circulation for the building, fronted by a large clear glazed wall.

On the underside of the entrance canopy hangs the shell of a swimming pool, an artwork by Stephen Neille and Jurek Wybraniec.

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Here is some information from the architects:

Central Institute of Technology

Introduction

Lyons, an Australian wide architectural practice, in association with Perth architectural company T&Z were shortlisted in April 2006 to undertake a limited design competition sponsored by Central Institute of Technology (CIT). The competition was judged by CIT Senior Executive and Geoffrey London, the WA Government Architect at that time. Upon winning the design competition, the brief and concept design ideas were developed in consultation with the CIT Senior Executive and a range of user groups.

The project collocates a range of programs from three CIT campuses at Leederville, Subiaco and Mount Lawley to the new B2 Building site in Northbridge, bringing together teaching programs for architectural technicians, engineering technicians and beauty technicians. The programs are collocated with CIT’s Central Library and a diverse range of student learning spaces both formal and informal.

The Social Heart – Making a Campus Space

One of the key drivers of this project was to connect the existing buildings on Aberdeen Street and their 1970’s landscape, across Aberdeen Street, to make a larger urban space with the new building. The idea of the ‘social heart’ as a connecting device across the street became a critical design driver for the project. This space will become a focus for the campus but also a major entrance foyer to the learning commons and other educational spaces within the building.

The Social Heart foyer in effect triples the size of the implied urban space and connects the old building and the new building together. The social heart is half inside and half outside, barely separated visually by a large clear glazed façade wall running diagonal to the street grid. The space is designed as one space, indoor and outdoor, connecting together structural, formal and material languages to create a larger urban space. Stairs, ramps and lifts are all visible and highly accessible from the social heart to make way finding easy, and so the heart feels continually alive with movement.

The building has a very large floor-plate size, so the central sky lit atrium brings natural light deep into the library and learning environment. This atrium can be seen from the social heart at high level. Rooms are organised around the atrium with large windows looking into the space. The curved north side of the building is formed by the constraint of the adjacent underground road tunnel. Significant public entrances connect the building to its surroundings on its four corners. High levels of glazing at street level increase visually connectivity into and from the building. The large roof form slopes to follow the fall of the land to William Street.

A Visual Design Language for B2

Visually this building explores the relationship between the indigenous natural environment and the local mining industry in Western Australia, both aspects of which are represented in the educational functions within the building. Stratified open cut mines, precious metals, turtle shells, blackened sticks, metal mining bridges, black and white striped shadows in the atria, termite mounds in the red desert serve as a rich visual and programmatic narrative to inform the aesthetics of the building.

For instance the social heart was conceived of as an ‘excavation’ along the Aberdeen Street facade, or kind of gigantic man made cave, an extraordinary wondrous artefact. The mining engineering cultures are loosely represented with the industrially scaled blackened pipe structural columns ‘propping’ the overhanging building and glazed wall.

The lecture theatre in the social heart is like a rock in the landscape that has resisted the ‘dig’. The patterned concrete forming the external wall of the small lecture theatre under the stairs in the social is representative of a turtle shell which is an enduring symbol of the local indigenous culture.

The horizontal striations on the facade which provide deep sun-shaded overhangs to the windows are representative of an open cut mine or natural erosions in the landscape (like the Bungle Bungle Ranges). The copper, silver and coloured metallic facade panels reflect the wealth of natural resources in WA.

The architectural technician’s design studios are evidenced most strongly on the upper levels at the highest point an architectural house gable frame is rendered as a massive scale window, its mullions offset by noggings bracing at cross studs.

Interior ideas

Throughout the building a range of exposed finishes and junctions are designed to continually demonstrate the constructive nature of the building as a kind of living, heuristic environment for the occupants within. The approach to materials is to mix rawness, manufactured pattern and customised decoration to provide high levels of texture and visual interest within the interior.

The library/learning centre ceiling is flat off form concrete decorated in split circular acoustic panels conceived as a massive dot painting on a bare surface.

The red carpeted floor of the library is representative of the desert, and the project learning rooms are shaped like termite mounds protruding from the earth.

This turtle shell pattern is also repeated above the library one-stop-shop service desk – a floating shell adjacent to the dot-painted ceiling. The shell also wraps the upper level theatrette.

The library service desk is also like a down-scaled outback Wave Rock, a WA icon transported into the library in miniature form.

The bridge link across the atrium is reminiscent of a brightly painted yellow metal elevator cage extracted from the mine shaft and turned around and laid horizontal across the gap.

The skylight atrium walls are clad predominantly in white contoured metal sheet folding across the internal stairs and staff offices, ‘white for light’. The black stripes are like shadows in a bright world, laid into the space as a kind of orienting device.

Air-conditioning ducts are exposed and colour-coded to represent supply and return paths, adding to the constructed and ‘instructive’ nature of the interiors.

The Cloud

The swimming pool hanging on the underside of the entrance canopy is a piece of art by Stephen Neille and Jurek Wybraniec commissioned by CIT/Department of Housing Works in their percentage of budget for artists programme. Stephen and Jurek were selected from a range of artists’ submissions on the basis of a captivating notion – a cloud, a chrome swimming pool, a suburban symbol, a piece of nature.

There is also a kidney-shaped cobble stone inset in the social heart foyer, each cobble engraved with place names and meaningful moments in TAFE history. These cobbles are grouted up with ‘super-blue’ grout, again, an idea connecting the old world with the suburban swimming pool surround.

Sustainability

The building design has incorporated a number of ‘passive’ and engineering sustainability initiatives.

Windows to the north and west are heavily shaded by the ‘formal striations’ and the glass used is very high performance. The large windows along Aberdeen Street are shielded from the late afternoon heat by facing towards the social heart.

The skylight atrium will open automatically late at night to ‘purge’ the hot daytime air from the building interior and introducing new cool air for the morning occupants.

Stormwater from the roof is retained on site and settled prior to releasing into the city system.

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Internally the air-conditioning system is a modular one so that rooms that are unoccupied can be ‘turned off’ to save energy.

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The library has a low velocity underfloor air-conditioning system to bring in cool air at occupant level. The concrete ceilings and block work walls are exposed to take benefit of the ‘thermal mass cooling’ inherent in heavy materials and reduce maintenance.

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Low energy long life light fittings are also occupant controlled.

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See also:

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Business Faculty by Hoz Fontan Arquitectos	PKU University of Law by Kokaistudios	Warrnambool Campus Building by Lyons

Speaking of buildings coming apart, as we were in that last post, the mansion that is thought to have been the inspiration for the central location in The Great Gatsby is in the middle of being demolished. As the AP reports, construction equipment arrived this weekend and began to raze the 24,000 sq. foot house known as “Land’s End,” located on Long Island Sound in Sands Point, NY. Though there’s no solid, concrete evidence that Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald, and some claim it’s just local lore, it’s also easy to believe that the writer would have been aware of the place, as it, like many of the mansions that surrounded the area at one time, played host to “the likes of Winston Churchill, the Marx Brothers and Ethel Barrymore” during its heyday. Though the building had been purchased nearly a decade ago, the AP reports that upkeep had become too expensive for its owner who has decided to tear it down and build “five $10 million custom homes” in its place. For further reading and looking, here’s a good collection of links to photos and information from both its past and present. And to prove how far the poor building had fallen, here’s its appearance in a recent Forbes story about “creepy abandoned mansions.”

Update: Here’s video of the tear-down…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Avanto Architects of Helsinki have designed this whitewashed funeral chapel with a copper roof in Vantaa, Finland.

The building comprises three chapels of varying size and a bell tower.

The building is a steel and in-situ concrete construction with a copper roof and slate flooring.

The entrance path leads through a courtyard with a small pond to the foyer of the chapel.

A continuous skylight follows the route of a visitor attending a funeral, through the building to the graveyard of the older adjacent church.

The chapel is intended to last 200 years with materials chosen accordingly, including hand patinated copper.

More by Avanto Architects on Dezeen »
More stories about worship on Dezeen »

The following is from the architects:

Chapel of St. Lawrence

The Vantaa Parish Union held an open architectural competition in the spring of 2003 for the design of a new chapel in the vicinity of the historic Church of St. Lawrence. The area has been classified as a nationally important cultural environment. The winning entry, out of 194 proposals, was “Polku” (“Path”) by Avanto Architects.

Context, Massing
The old stone church with its bell tower remain the dominant features in the landscape. The new chapel ties together different aspects of the area without emphasizing itself. The chapel connects with the graveyard, leaving the old buildings with their own boundaries and territories untouched. It delineates the northern boundary of the graveyard and hides the service yard behind its back. The chapel has been divided in smaller parts to adapt with the scale of the surroundings. The stacked stone walls of the cemetery are echoed in the design – a series of three chapels of different sizes are nested within orthogonal masonry walls. A new bell tower in a corner of the chapel completes the composition and leads the eye skyward.

Structure, Materials, Lifespan

The building uses similar materials as the old structures in the area. The massiveness of the load bearing solid masonry walls balances changes in temperature and moisture. The lightly plastered and whitewashed walls are a bright, tranquil background for the events taking place in the chapel spaces. Apart from the walls, the building has a steel structure. The partition walls are in-situ cast white concrete and the roof is of patinated copper, like the roof of the church. The patina in all copper surfaces in the chapel has been added by hand. The ceilings and the glazed walls toward the graveyard in the chapels are covered with a patinated copper mesh; it functions as a screen between the outside and the spaces of the chapel. The mesh also decreases heat loads from sunshine. The low stone walls flanking the small gardens and courtyards use stone extracted from the site. The floors of public spaces are of slate.

The lifespan target for the chapel is two hundred years. The main structure will certifiably last that long and the natural materials used will age with dignity. A lifespan simulation was used as an aide for the design. An important factor in choosing the materials was locality in addition to longevity; and on-site building and an emphasis on craft were distinct features of the whole project. These ways of working ground the building in its surroundings and display the traces of handcraft.

Functionality

The experience of the mourner was the basis for the design process. The funeral is a unique and taxing event, and for it to go well and without disturbance is of the utmost importance. The architecture of the chapel is designed to assist the mourner, giving space for grief. The people attending the funeral follow a route through a series of sacral spaces, punctuated by intermediate rooms – along the route there is a continuous skylight. The intermediate spaces prepare the visitors for the next phase of the funeral. It is very silent in the chapel; the acoustics and ventilation have been designed especially with this in mind.

The spaces are situated on two levels, the sacral spaces, two chapels and a space for urn burials, and their entrance and lobby spaces, are on the ground floor. In the lobby there is an entry to the space for giving farewell to the deceased, which is located in the basement. The staff rooms are in-between the public areas, on the ground floor and in the basement. During the proceedings, the passage through the spaces is unidirectional. The routes used by different groups of visitors never cross.

The developer was committed to achieving a building of lasting quality. There was ample time given for planning and realization – there was an active dialogue between the designers and the client. The staff commented on the plans by taking part in a work group focusing on functional aspects. The designers accompanied the staff members in their daily duties so as to understand the work processes better. A uniform whole was achieved by having the interiors, furniture, artifacts and textiles, as well as the cladding for the organs designed in the same office as the architecture. The design process was aided by several models and prototypes that were commissioned during the planning stage.

Path

The chapel’s architecture is a depiction of the passage of a Christian soul from here to the hereafter. The route passes through the chapel, into the silent graveyard. The whitewashed masonry walls and a continuous skylight next to it lead from one space to the next, from the low and dark to the lofty and light.

We approach alongside the outer wall. The wall and the bell tower at its end speak of the earthbound journey and its ending. We turn the corner and, sheltered by an overhang, follow the wall, to a small courtyard – a small pond, with natural stones at its bottom. We enter a dimly lit lobby with a low ceiling, we can glimpse the entrance court and the old garden of the vicarage behind us. Here it is possible to stop for a moment and reflect on the experiences and life shared with the deceased.

We follow the skylight to the chapel. The chapel opens up, a high space terminating in the brightly lit junction of the masonry wall, where the deceased will be met by the mourners. The wall towards the graveyard is semi transparent, glazed with a patinated copper mesh on either side, a screen between this life and the hereafter. From the chapel we exit, under the cover of an overhang, through a small garden, to the graveyard. The path turns – but continues.

Art

An open competition was held in the fall of 2007 for art to be commissioned for the chapel. The competition was scheduled before the final construction documents were drafted, so that the art could be integrated as a seamless part of the architecture. Pertti kukkonen was awarded the first prize with his work “the Way of the cross”. Kukkonen was able to utilize the solid masonry walls with his work. In addition to the main pieces, the walls have been inlaid with “spirits” that shine through the light plaster surface. Pertti Kukkonen was responsible also for the demanding work of adding patina to the copper surfaces of the chapel.

Pekka Jylhä was awarded the second prize with his work “Sacred” – his sculptures of glass reflect light around them. The shared mission for both art and architecture is comforting the mourner.

Avanto Architects Ltd / Ville Hara and Anu Puustinen
Building type: Chapel
Competition: open Architecture Competition, 1st prize, 2003
Location: Pappilankuja 3, Vantaa, Finland
Year of completion: 2010
Gross Area: 1879 sqm
Total cost: 10 m€
Client: Vantaa Parish Union
User: Vantaa Parish Union
Developer: Vantaa Parish Union

Designers:

Architects:Avanto Architects Ltd / Ville Hara and Anu Puustinen (principal designer), Architects SAFA
Assistants: Felix Laitinen, student of Architecture; Tommi Tuokkola, Architect SAFA; Jonna Käppi, Architect ARB, SAFA; Piotr Gniewek, student of Architecture; Asami Naito, student of Architecture
Interior Designer: Avanto Architects Ltd / Kai Korhonen, Architect SAFA
Landscape Architect: Landscape Architects Byman Ruokonen Ltd / Eva Byman, Niina Strengell
Structural Design: R J Heiskanen Engineers Ltd / Kari Toitturi, Helena Lomperi
HVAC Design: Leo Maaskola Engineers Ltd / Jukka Sainio, Esa Leino
Electric Design: Veikko Vahvaselkä Engineers Ltd / Rauno Nyblom, Lassi Jalava
Lighting Design: Tülay Schakir
Acoustic Design: Akukon Ltd / Olli Salmensaari
Textile Design: Avanto Architects Ltd

Contractors

Prime contractor: Rakennuspartio Ltd
Electric contractor: Lassila & Tikanoja Ltd / Building Services / Electric Services
HVAC contractor: Sähköpeko Etelä-Suomi Ltd
Timber furniture contractor: Wooden Ltd
Metal furniture contractor: Selki-Asema Ltd
Metal mesh contractor: Inlook Ltd
Artists: Pertti Kukkonen, Pekka Jylhä
Organ constructor: Urkurakentamo Veikko Virtanen Ltd
Landcape contractor: Lemminkäinen Ltd and Suomen Graniittikeskus Ltd

See also:

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Sunset Chapel by Bunker Arquitectura	Kuokkala Church by Hirvilammi & Luonti	Farewell Chapel by OFIS Arhitekti

Our friends over at Architizer recently published a great infographic about retrofitting existing buildings to withstand the seismic shifts of earthquake-prone areas. They examined two of the more pro-active strategies for preparing older structures—mass dampers and base isolation. What does it all mean, you might ask? Mass dampers provide a counter-vibration to an earthquake. Base isolations basically decouples an above ground building from its below ground foundation. See the full infographic at the post here and check their cost analysis for retrofitting your building. Surprise, it’s not as much as you think.

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Amsterdam architects UNStudio have completed a new headquarters for the Dutch national tax offices and the student loan administration in Groningen, the Netherlands.

Called DUO², the 92 metre-tall building has a facade covered in horizontal fins to provide shade and reduce the need for artificial cooling.

The project comprises 2,500 work stations, underground parking for 1,500 bicycles and 675 cars and a public park.

More about UNStudio on Dezeen »

Photographs are by Christian Richters/View unless stated otherwise.

Here are some more details from UNStudio:

UNStudio/ Ben van Berkel realizes with consortium DUO² governmental offices for DUO– Education Executive Agency & Tax Offices in Groningen

A greener approach to tall buildings in the post-iconic age – The Dutch tax office moves to one of Europe’s most sustainable offices

A new, 92 meter tall complex of soft, undulating curves marks the skyline of Groningen. This asymmetric, aerodynamic construction is set amidst small, ancient woodland, sheltering rare and protected species. The project includes the design, construction and financing of two public institutions; the national tax offices and the student loan administration. The commission from the RGD (National Buildings Service) includes, besides the architecture, the management and building maintenance and care of facilities and services for a period of 20 years. Accommodating 2,500 workstations, parking facilities for 1,500 bicycles and 675 cars in an underground garage, the building will be surrounded by a large public city garden with pond and a multifunctional pavilion with commercial functions.

The architecture aims to present these institutions with a softer, more human and approachable profile. Tall buildings are generally associated with mid-twentieth century modernism. Their harsh, businesslike exteriors contain powerful, inaccessible-seeming strongholds. By contrast, the DUO and Tax offices deliberately cloak a commanding public institution in an organic, friendlier and more future-oriented form.

“We paid a great deal of attention to how people would move through the building. The office spaces are designed in such a way that they do not create simple linear corridors leading to dead ends, but instead each corridor has a route which introduces a kind of landscape into the building. You can take endless walks through the building, where there is a great deal of transparency, also towards the surrounding landscape.” Ben van Berkel

Attainability; a mix of affordable and responsible – reaping material benefits of integral design and construction with a Design Build Finance Maintenance Operate Contract

The governmental office complex is built as part of a far-reaching form of public-private partnership (DBFMO) that is designed to effectuate on a more efficient use of public funds. The design, construction, financing, managing and maintenance of the building was hosted by one consortium consisting of Strukton, Ballast Nedam and John Laing. This consortium won the competition for the project on the basis of a combination of esthetic, technical and financial criteria. UNStudio, as the architect of the project, collaborated with Lodewijk Baljon for the landscape design, Arup for the engineering and Studio Linse as the interior advisor.

The life-cycle approach of a DBFMO contract requires that all relevant experts (designers, lawyers, installation specialists, financial specialists, facility specialists) are involved from the start of the project in order to find the best, most cost effective and environmentally-friendly solutions for the continued use and maintenance of the building. This working methodology stimulates not only creative and innovative ideas, but facilitates a reduction of total costs over the entire contract period compared to the traditional means of contracting. In PPP projects contracts are not awarded to the lowest bidder, but to the party with most effective solutions providing the best value for money.

“In a PPP-construction you have to consider all the details concerning maintenance and the sustainable use of the building from the very early stages. It is a unique way to gather all the specialists and the end user around the table from the very outset of the project.”
Ben van Berkel

Exemplary sustainability

“The design contains numerous new innovations related to the reduction of materials, lower energy costs and more sustainable working environments. It presents a fully integrated, intelligent design approach towards sustainability.” Ben van Berkel

The project is one of Europe’s most sustainable large new office buildings. The RGD brief prescribed a future-proof building that couples flexibility and sustainability with an esthetic of sobriety. The architectural response to this has been to strive for an all-round understanding of the concept of sustainability, including energy and material consumption, as well as social and environmental factors. Thus the sustainability manifests itself in reduced energy consumption (EPC 0,74), as well as significantly reduced material consumption. Bringing back the floor heights from 3,60 m to 3,30 m resulted in a total reduction of 7,5 m. on the entire building, which also lessens the impact of the building on the surroundings. Both inside and outside the architecture generates a bio-climate that is beneficial to both humans and the local flora and fauna.

All-round architectural sustainability: a sum of many parts.

Fins
Sustainability and energy reduction have steered the design of the facade, which contains technical installations that are tailored to be durable and cause minimal environmental impact. The facade concept integrates shading, wind control, daylight penetration and construction in fin-shaped elements. These horizontal fins keep a large amount of the heat outside the building, reducing the requirement for cooling.

Concrete core activation
Another technical feature of the building that contributes to its sustainable character is the combination of concrete core activation and underground long term energy storage. This appreciably reduces the demand for external energy sources.

Individual climate control for each workspace
Creating a healthy, energy efficient interior climate and employee workspace comfort was also an important element in the design. Plenty of natural daylight and adjustable heating, ventilation and access to fresh air for individual workspaces contribute to the comfort of the workspaces throughout the building.

The 11-th floor
A high pressure ventilation system with natural air inflow and outflow via main engineering shafts and the facade grills on the 11th floor reduces the need for artificial ventilation

Future possibilities
In addition, the residual energy of the data center and offices can be used to heat the homes that will be realized in the future in the perimeter of the site.

Flexibility
And last, but not least, the building is designed so that it can be transformed into housing in the future without major structural modifications. Therefore, the locations of elevators, stairs and technical spaces have been carefully considered, and a structural grid of 1,20 m. has been deployed, rather than the conventional office grid of 1,80 m.

Conclusion
The inclusion of diverse passive and active environmental and energy efficient solutions has led to a building which is one of the most sustainable office buildings in the Netherlands.

Education Executive Agency & Tax offices, Groningen, the Netherlands, 2006 – 2011

Data:
Client of the consortium:
Dutch Government Buildings Agency (RGD)

Client UNStudio:
Consortium DUO² (Strukton, Ballast Nedam, John Laing)

Program: Office building (phase A); underground parking (phase B); public city garden, pavilion (phase C)

Building surface: 48.040m² offices, 21.000m² parking, 1.500m² pavilion
Building volume: 215.000m³
Building site: 31.134m²

Credits UNStudio:
UNStudio: Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos, Gerard Loozekoot with Jacques van Wijk, Frans van Vuure, Lars Nixdorff and Jesca de Vries, Ramon van der Heijden, Alicja Mielcarek, Eric den Eerzamen, Wendy van der Knijff, Machiel Wafelbakker, Timothy Mitanidis, Maud van Hees, Pablo Herrera Paskevicius, Martijn Prins, Natalie Balini, Peter Moerland, Arjan van der Bliek, Alexander Hugo, Gary Freedman, Jack Chen, Remco de Hoog, Willi van Mulken, Yuri Werner, Machteld Kors, Leon Bloemendaal, Erwin Horstmanshof.

Designteam:
UNStudio, architecture and interior
Studio Linse, interior
Arup, structure, installations
Lodewijk Baljon, landscaping
Buro van Baar, wayfinding
YNNO, internal logistics
Consultants:
DGMR, acoustics
EFPC, fire prevention
Ingenieursbureau Wassenaar, prefab structure
BTS Bouwkundig Tekenburo Sneek, drawing agency
ISS Nederland B.V, maintenance
Peutz, environmental technology
WUR (Wageningen University & Research centre), ecology
Strukton Bouw en Vastgoed, management and costing
Strukton Betonbouw, construction
Strukton WorkSphere, installations

Financial:
John Laing Infrastructure Limited, financial
RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) Capital Markets, financial
TCN SIG Real Estate Strukton Vastgoed, pavilion development
Allen & Overy LLP, legal
Sequoia, legal

See also:

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Galleria Centercity by UNStudio	UNStudio Tower by UNStudio	Burnham Pavilion by UNStudio