Hasta La Ideas

This house in the Bavarian countryside by local office SoHo Architektur has a kinked facade that provides different views from the living spaces and a pitched roof that references vernacular farm buildings (+ slideshow).

SoHo Architektur designed the family home for a sloping site on the edge of the small village of Landsberg and arranged the rooms so the living spaces have the best views, while a basement buried into the hill houses the entrance and a study.

“The main idea with this house was to manage the site to make the most of the views,” architect Alexander Nägele told Dezeen. “We organised the levels so from the living room you can see the Bavarian Alps in the south and the Lech river in the north.”

The building’s irregular facade features folds in the front and back, with windows looking out at difference aspects of the surrounding countryside.

When viewed from the access road at the end of the driveway the house appears to have a simple section with a pitched roof, which is intended to resemble typical local barns.

“We didn’t make many design decisions with this facade,” explained Nägele. “There are a lot of farm houses here that have the same facade and we just altered the size.”

The exterior is clad in vertical wooden planks that have been painted black to match the colour of the vernacular buildings nearby.

By burying the basement floor in the side of the hill, the architects were able to make the most of the building’s footprint while complying with local height regulations.

A pathway leads past the garage at basement level to a sheltered courtyard and the house’s main entrance.

A short staircase ascends from the courtyard to the garden which surrounds the building and can also be accessed from the ground floor at the rear of the property.

Concrete walls at the basement level continue up the stairs that lead to the large open plan kitchen, dining and living space, which features a fireplace built into an angular concrete wall.

The first floor contains the bedrooms and features warmer materials, including wooden boards lining the staircase and covering the floors.

Photography is by Zooey Braun.

The architects sent us this brief project description:

s_DenK

Being located at the hillside in a small Bavarian village the lot opens to the Alps in the South and the valley of the river Lech. By placing garage and house on different height levels it was possible to keep the original composition with a huge garden nearly untouched.

The access path bridges the height levels alongside the garage and opens up to a sheltered courtyard with gravel flooring. Entrances to house and office are located on this base level.

Some steps form a short cut to the garden. The next level houses the living area with huge South facing windows, featuring the view to the village and further on to the Alps, and an even opening to the garden in the North.

Narrow wooden stairs lead to the private rooms under the roof. The typical coloured and textured facade is a harmonious reference to the local context of the building.

The post s_DenK house by SoHo Architektur
has a kinked facade appeared first on Dezeen.

An old Yorkshire barn renovated into an elegant modern home was popular last week, so we’ve collected some of our favourite renovations from the pages of Dezeen onto a new Pinterest board. See our renovations Pinterest board »

Follow Dezeen on Pinterest »

The post New Pinterest board:
renovations appeared first on Dezeen.

A raw concrete house in Alicante by Spanish studio Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos becomes the scene for a string of mysterious murders in this series of images by photographer Luis Diaz Diaz (+ slideshow).

Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos designed the two-storey Casa Baladrar as a holiday house in the Spanish town of Benissa, but Luis Diaz Diaz chose to photograph the building as is it were a crime scene, rather than an attractive tourist destination.

“Every time I take pictures of houses I think about all of the things that could happen inside,” Diaz Diaz told Dezeen. “Many things happen in the life of a house, sometimes good sometimes bad; it can be robbed, or there could be a big party. So a house is the perfect place for creating a fantasy.”

One image features a man slumped over the mint-green frame of one of the house’s many large windows, while another features a woman lying behind a sofa on the terracotta tiles of the living room floor.

“I wanted to create a contrast between the clarity of the architectural lines of the house and these kind of weird events,” explained the photographer.

These architectural lines include a series of faceted ceilings that angle back and forth through the open-plan living room and kitchen, which occupies the house’s upper floor.

Architect María Langarita said they added these details to mimic the rugged topography that links the house with the sea. “We wanted a way to inhabit this rocky landscape,” she told Dezeen.

A series of bedrooms are located on the level below. Like the living room, each one can be opened out to surrounding terraces by sliding back glass doors and perforated metal shutters.

“Our goal was to make a very open house, so when the windows are open they disappear completely behind these lively green lattices and you don’t see any glass,” said Langarita.

Matching green glass tiles cover some of the lower walls. There’s also a swimming pool wrapping around part of the perimeter, which is depicted containing a body face-down.

Here’s a project description from Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos:

Casa Baladrar

The scattered and trans-European city that the mountainous coast of Alicante has become, houses a heterogeneous population that is drawn to the sun, the sea, the temperate climate, the convenient public services and the leafy greenery.

The promise of relaxing and hedonistic experiences captivates both seasonal tourists and long-term residents who see their expectations fulfilled amongst jasmine and bougainvilleas. The project draws from this context and is designed to meet the demands of multiple families in the summertime and as a haven for retirees the rest of the year.

The house rests on terraces that were once used for farming, which resolve the steep gradient of the terrain. The plot’s sloping nature means that there are some spectacular views of the sea from its upper reaches, while the lower portion looks over a wooded stream bed that carries water into a pebble-strewn cove.

The house takes advantage of the views and the breeze and makes the most of the uneven terrain and vegetation for the creation of small areas where activities can take place simultaneously, day and night. The existing trees were preserved and new species added in an effort to conquer the promising exuberance of local flora.

The interior spaces are arranged in a cascade, with common areas on the upper floor adjoining the terraces with their views, and bedrooms on the lower floor with access to the garden and swimming pool. The detail proposed for the openings eliminates all presence of glass when they are drawn back, transforming the house into an enormous porch that provides continuity between outside and inside activities.

The building uses the thermal inertia of the concrete and stone to its advantage, combining it with the lightness of the avocado green latticework and the glass tiles to create a cool and well-ventilated atmosphere. The house’s geometry and mineral quality reflect the impressive Peñón de Ifach and respond to a desire for time travel, with a minimum amount of maintenance.

Project: Casa Baladrar
Location: Benissa, Alicante
Architects: María Langarita and Víctor Navarro
Collaborators: Marta Colón, Roberto González, Juan Palencia
Structures: Mecanismo S.L.
Date: September 2009
Client: Private

The post Concrete house by Langarita-Navarro
photographed as a crime scene appeared first on Dezeen.

A series of pillars raise the interconnected rooms of this house by Benjamin Garcia Saxe Architecture above the tree tops of the surrounding Costa Rican forest (+ slideshow).

The San Jose office of Benjamin Garcia Saxe Architecture was asked to design the family home for a steeply sloping site, and chose to lift the building off the ground to optimise views of the Pacific Ocean.

Unlike nearby properties, the architects also wanted to avoid cutting into the landscape to create a flat piece of land on which to build.

“We essentially lifted the house up into the air on a series of piloti which gives the impression that it is floating above the hillside,” explained the architects. “By doing this we saved the immense cost of creating soil retention walls around the site.”

As well as making the most of views from the upper portion of the site, raising the building above the forest floor reduces its impact on the surrounding undergrowth.

“This common sense solution allowed us to create a very delicate intervention, one that allows the terrain to breathe whilst providing spectacular views out towards the ocean from the key location on the site,” the architects added.

The three cabins that make up the residence are arranged in a staggered formation to maintain sight lines towards the ocean from each room and from a linking corridor at the rear of the property.

Vertical shafts of bamboo lining the corridor allow a pattern of light and shadow to filter through onto the wooden decking.

Short bridges connect the circulation corridor to each of the rooms and to a terrace that zig-zags along the front of the property.

Large projecting roofs supported by a metal framework shelter the terrace from the sun.

Wooden shutters separating the rooms from the terrace can be folded back to open the spaces up to the outdoors and allow the breeze to ventilate the interiors.

The use of wood throughout the building helps to tie it in with its surroundings, while a bathroom facing the hillside and an outdoor bamboo shower bring the occupants closer to nature.

Photography is by Andres Garcia Lachner.

The architects sent us the following project description:

Casa Flotanta

The Gooden-Nahome family wanted to create a home on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica and they found an incredible site overlooking the ocean.

The biggest challenge we encountered was that their plot of land was predominantly comprised of a very steep slope, and the view of the ocean could only be seen from the upper-mid portion of the site. We saw this as an opportunity rather than a constraint and immediately considered an architectural response that was appropriate for these conditions.

Originally, we explored possibilities of creating large retaining walls and cutting back the soil in order to place the house, a technique typically employed for nearby buildings.

Ultimately, we decided to do the exact opposite and therefore allow the slope, the earth, the vegetation, water, and animals to flow underneath the house. We essentially lifted the house up into the air on a series of piloti which gives the impression that it is floating above the hillside.

By doing this we saved the immense cost of creating soil retention walls around the site. This common sense solution allowed us to create a very delicate intervention, one that allows the terrain to breathe whilst providing spectacular views out towards the ocean from the key location on the site.

Location: Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Date of Completion: November, 2013
Client: Gooden-Nahome Family
Area: Approx. 300 m2
Design Director: Benjamin Garcia Saxe
Project Coordinator: Daniel Sancho
Design Development: Soki So
Construction Documentation: Roger Navarro
Structural Engineer: Sotela Alfaro Ltd
Builder: Dante Medri

The post Casa Flotanta by Benjamin Garcia Saxe
Architecture is raised above a forest appeared first on Dezeen.

Ornamental doors and windows sit within recesses that appear to have been carved away from the coarse granite walls of this mausoleum in Minneapolis by American architecture firm HGA (+ slideshow).

HGA designed the Garden Mausoleum for Minnesota’s Lakewood Cemetery, a complex first established in 1871, after being asked to create burial space for 10,000 people, a new funeral chapel and a reception area for post-service gatherings.

Much of the structure is set into the side of a hill, allowing the neat surrounding lawns to extend up over the roof. All of the emerging walls are clad with dark blocks of granite that contrast with the bright white mosaic tiles lining their recesses.

Glass doors sheathed in decorative bronze grilles lead inside the building, where architect Joan Soranno and John Cook have used a variety of materials that include rich mahogany, oak, white marble and gleaming onyx to give colour and texture to walls and floors.

“Material selections draw on memorial architectural tradition as well as Lakewood’s own history,” they said. “Conventional funerary materials like granite, marble and bronze are reinterpreted within a twenty-first century architectural expression.”

A square doorway punctures a wall of granite within the building, leading from the main reception to a series of subterranean crypts and columbarium rooms that accommodate both coffins and urns.

Rectangular skylights bring a single shaft of daylight into each of the crypts, while the columbarium rooms each feature one circular roof opening that emerges on the roof at the centre of a grassy mound.

“The Lakewood Garden Mausoleum builds its meaning from the most common and indelible aspects of human experience – the immediacy of light and dark, the immutability of squares and circles, and the echo of stone surfaces,” said the architects.

Small courtyards are slotted between the crypts and are fronted by floor-to-ceiling windows that frame views out across the cemetery gardens.

Photography is by Paul Crosby.

Here’s a project description from HGA Architect and Engineers:

Lakewood Cemetery Garden Mausoleum

Since its founding in 1871, Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis has served as the foremost resting place for Minnesota’s distinguished citizens. Familiar names like Humphrey, Wellstone, Pillsbury, and Walker are found here, among a long list of local pioneers, heroes, civic leaders, industrialists and art patrons. The private, non-sectarian cemetery is laid over 250 acres of rolling landscape adjoining the city’s historic Grand Round’s parkway system. Lakewood Cemetery’s historical importance and impeccably manicured grounds make it a treasured landmark and community asset in the City’s Uptown neighbourhood.

Governed as a non-profit from its beginning, the Lakewood Cemetery Association recognised the need for prudent planning to ensure its vitality for the indefinite future. Despite the broad expanses of Lakewood’s grounds, a mere 25 acres remain available for future development. With an existing 1967 Mausoleum nearing capacity (due largely to the increased acceptance and interest in above ground burial and cremation) the Cemetery’s Board of Trustees commissioned a comprehensive Master Plan in 2003.

The lynchpin of the plan called for a new Mausoleum to expand above ground options for crypt and cremation burials, and to accommodate contemporary memorial rites and practices. The project, a new “Garden Mausoleum” called for burial space for over ten thousand people, a committal chapel, a much needed reception space for post-service gatherings, and new landscaping for the surrounding four acre site.

Challenged with the task of adding a large structure – 24,500 square feet – to a much beloved place, Joan Soranno, FAIA and John Cook, FAIA of HGA Architects and Engineers quickly committed themselves to a strategy that protected and enhanced the cemetery’s historic landscape. A large building, no matter how artful, was bound to detract from Lakewood’s pastoral beauty. Following an extensive site analysis, Joan and John chose to locate the building along the northern edge of a 1960’s era “sunken garden.” By placing the new Garden Mausoleum between the existing, two-storey mausoleum on the west and the cemetery’s 1910 Byzantine styled memorial chapel on the east, development is clustered around one location near the cemetery’s entry. This has the benefit of consolidating much of the high traffic and infrastructure to a discrete precinct within the grounds, leaving the vast majority of the original landscape and critical view sheds undisturbed.

Entering the cemetery from the main entry gates, visitors approach the new Garden Mausoleum along one of the cemetery’s many meandering roadways. Pivoting around a mass of towering pines and ancient gnarled oaks, the roadway gently inflects toward the Mausoleum entry – set back from the road with a small turn-around drive. A simple mass of split-faced grey granite, the entry’s chiseled clerestory windows and canted recesses hint at the building’s interior functions and complexity, while reducing the structure’s visual heft.

To the east of the entry, a green roof planted over the lower garden level seamlessly extends the cemetery’s manicured lawn to a newly created overlook. Minimally detailed railings, terrace paving, grass, and Juniper shrubs ensure uninterrupted views to such critical features as the nearby Chapel and the iconic Fridley and Pence monuments. Though essentially a flat lawn, neatly angled grass mounds dot the new turf like minimalist landform sculptures. The projections contain the skylights for the building’s subterranean spaces – a first suggestion to the visitor of the fusion between the building and landscape.

The Garden Mausoleum entrance at street level represents only a small fraction of the total building mass, and includes a reception room and lounge, a small business office, and catering facilities. A full two-thirds of the building lies below, tucked quietly into a south-facing hill and overlooking the lower garden.

At the main entry, framing a pair of bronze doors, intricate patterns of white mosaic tiles trace arcs and infinite loops across billowing surfaces neatly inscribed into the dark granite mass. The contrast of textures – light and dark, rough and smooth, rustic and refined – call upon both visual and tactile senses. The large glass doors, sheathed in bronze grilles that repeat the looping, circular motif of the mosaic tile, usher visitors into a serene space of folded mahogany walls, abundant prisms of daylight and distant views across a newly landscaped lower garden.

A generously scaled stair draws visitors from the entry to the lower garden level. To the west, a sweeping Venetian plaster wall directs mourners to a small chapel for committal ceremonies. Mitigating the committal chapel’s exposure to direct southern sun, tall window recesses are cut at deeply raked angles into the thick exterior wall – a strategy that both moderates the light entering the contemplative space and ensures a degree of privacy for grieving family members.

Returning to the lobby, a simple square opening cut into the rough granite wall marks the threshold between the active and communal spaces of the mausoleum, and the places of burial, remembrance, and individual contemplation. Stretching east, a single long hallway strings together alternating bays of columbaria (for cremated remains) and crypt rooms (for caskets). To the north, chambers are built entirely below grade, with each room illuminated by a single skylight; rectangular openings for crypt rooms, and circular occuli for columbaria. Here, beams of daylight trace arcs across the Alabama White marble walls. To the south, the projecting crypt rooms and interstitial columbaria form a series of intimately scaled courtyards, with each space directly tied to the lower garden’s landscape through large windows.

While geometrically similar, each interior chamber and projecting room is distinguished by subtle design variations that give each space a distinct personality and mood. Inset floors of luminous onyx alternate between honey yellow, jade green, and coral pink. Window and skylight orientations rotate and shift between rooms, variously framing a view to near or distant horizons, up to the tree canopy, or clear blue sky. The design recognises that in contemplating death – as in living matters – people have diverse perspectives and desire uniqueness. It respects that in designing a final resting place for ten thousand people, individuality, human scale, and a sensory connection to the natural world are paramount.

Material selections draw on memorial architectural tradition as well as Lakewood’s own history. Conventional funerary materials like granite, marble and bronze are reinterpreted within a 21st century architectural expression. The polychrome Chapel mosaics, for example, serve as a springboard for the white marble and glass tile pattern that owes as much to Byzantium and the organic tracery of the Chicago School as it does to geometric algorithms and funerary symbolism.

Included as a significant feature of the Garden Mausoleum project, the redesign of the four-acre site strengthens the connections between Lakewood’s distinctive architecture, while offering a serene setting for both small family services and larger community events. Formal relationships between the Chapel, the existing Mausoleum and the new Garden Mausoleum are reinforced by double rows of Autumn Blaze maple trees, a simple arrangement of walkways and parterres, and a long rectangular reflecting pool. Additionally, a grove of Hawthorne trees ameliorates the existing outdoor crypt walls on the east, while multiple exterior stairs improve access between the lower garden and the adjoining historic burial plots.

The Lakewood Garden Mausoleum, true to the Cemetery’s non-sectarian mission, builds its meaning from the most common and indelible aspects of human experience – the immediacy of light and dark, the immutability of squares and circles, and the echo of stone surfaces. An unabashed 21st century building, the design of the Garden Mausoleum is not going to confuse anybody about what is old and what is new.

Already a remarkable place before the Mausoleum broke ground, Lakewood’s landscape and its small campus of buildings are enriched because it is there – framing a view, completing an edge, and embracing human scale. At this cherished haven within the city, architectural progress meets history with grace and a newfound vitality.

The post Garden Mausoleum by HGA features rough
granite, white marble and gleaming onyx appeared first on Dezeen.