Hasta La Ideas

English architect John Glew has introduced new fenestration and a zinc-clad extension to this mock-Georgian house in north London, squeezing the new structure into a wedge of land between the house and its neighbour.

The tapered extension comprises a sitting room and pantry on the ground floor, and bedroom with a bath on the first.

51A Gloucester Crescent’s existing windows have been replaced with frames to match those of the new extension, while the existing facade will eventually be rendered a milky grey.

The extension’s interior has white plaster walls with brass light fittings, and oak skirting boards, picture rails and window reveals.

All photographs are by John Glew & Iris Argyropoulou.

Here’s some more from the architect:

51a Gloucester Cresecent London Nw1
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This addition and remodelling to a 1950s developer’s cottage comprises a two-storey timber-framed extension clad in silver-blue anodised zinc and new, vertically emphasised timber fenestration to the existing house.

We have sought to replace the pretence of a mock-Georgian building with a more credible plainness in order to create a new whole, in the process posing questions above and beyond the client brief; when adjusting or adding to a house of this kind how does one design and address what is appropriate to the ambition and discipline of architecture?

On the cladding of the extension, vertically banded standing seams rising 25mm beyond the building’s face create a secondary, fragile plane, effecting a thin, drawing-like tautness, as though the façade had been traced rather than constructed.

On the existing building –its new windows with their retained stucco frames close to the external brick face– the wall reads more as a surface than a solid mass, rhyming with the fenestration of the extension and reinforcing the effect of one impossibly thin surface over two very separate buildings.

Combined with the blue zinc cladding, the cinnamon-like ginger-brown paint on the new windows evokes a changing illusion of space through the optics of colour –either a flatness or a depth depending on lighting conditions and place of viewing.

An oversized window to the small new downstairs sitting room sits in a thin wall, while above, the smaller scaled-down window sits in a thick wall, forming an asymmetric bay –or bookend– which visually props up the old house. The brickwork of the existing house will eventually be washed with a milky Danish limestone render, intended, like the new fenestration, to complete the effect of a seamless new whole.

Inside, the reconfigured plan has created three additional rooms –a sitting room, a pantry and a bedroom with a bath. The plan form of the new extension has been determined by party wall negotiations and the need to accommodate the length of a double bed, the irregular site geometry creating a distorted and exaggerated horizontal and vertical internal perspective, acknowledged in the design.

The existing interior is transformed by restrained additions and seemingly simple interventions to the existing fabric: new vertically emphasised windows allow more light into the previously dark interior, opening up views to the front and back gardens and beyond, while throughout, brass light fittings and grey zinc-plated ironmongery provide a series of faint dotted elements placed strategically on the plain wall surfaces.

In the new sitting room and bedroom, powdery white plaster walls are bound by oak tri-ply window reveals and tall oak skirting and picture rails which project a mere 3mm beyond the walls. Like the zinc seams on the outside, the end grain of the oak tri-ply looks almost drawn on, a secondary two-dimensional frame around the windows and doors. The insubstantial colour of the plaster enhances the overall impression of fragility.

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While materials and detailing are consistent throughout, each new room has its own very particular qualities. In the sitting room the low-cilled, over-scaled window frames a view which resembles a traditional Japanese raked garden. In the bedroom, the base of a white enamel bath is sunk into a timber box while its curved rim rests on the lift-up top whose thin, rounded, articulated edges bely its weight and bulk.

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An unlined rooflight appears to hover just below the curved ridge of the sheet-like ceiling. The sparse aesthetic of the new rooms aims to achieve a calm but intense simplicity. Tempering the facade’s deliberate artifice, restraint is exercised throughout to calibrate the perception of spaces and to ensure that detail is always in support of the whole. Another potent characteristic of this project is the way in which the spaces described cannot be absorbed at once. The transformed exterior is unashamedly new but at the same time the building is a background, its composure and the ambition of its sophistication alluding to but never aping the crescent whose elegant characteristics surround it.

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Gallery extension by 6A Architects	Matilde House by Ailtireacht Architects	Key projects by Peter Zumthor

Re-imagined scaffolding hits the streets of NYC with three finalists’ winning prototypes

by Passa C

Protecting pedestrians from both debris and the rain, NYC construction scaffolding is a major part of the urban landscape yet mostly considered an inconvenient eyesore. With nearly 6,000 sheds spanning more than 1 million linear feet throughout the city, NYC Department of Buildings along with several partners challenged designers to re-think these sheds with the Urban Shed International Design Competition.

The team of nine judges—including Snøhetta director Craig Dykers (the architecture and design studio spearheading NYC’s National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion) and NYC Department and Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri—recently selected the three finalists who will advance to Stage II of the competition. During this phase each of the three designs will be built and installed on a job site in Lower Manhattan. The selected winner will receive city certification and the design will become industry standard and used for future construction projects.

The new sidewalk sheds will revolutionize the NYC cityscape as well as the pedestrian experience. The winning design should increase light and visibility, complement both commercial and residential facades, intuitively guide pedestrians, use more sustainable materials and make maintenance more economical. To see more of the final three designs and all of the entries, visit Urban Shed.

Photographer Nelson Garrido has sent us his photographs of this building by AGi architects of Spain and Kuwait, comprising three homes clad in white stucco and three homes in black stone. 

Called Black & White House, the project in Kuwait uses the two tones to differentiate between the six properties on three plots.

Residences are separated by terraces in between and pools on the ground floor.

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The information that follows is from the architects:

These six houses on three adjacent plots should be noticed for their bold black and white facade with far from being a decorative element reveals the very nature of this project.

Not a solid block but a labyrinth of outer spaces communicated with the dark stone cladding ribbon flowing from one to the other in 3 directions and provide natural light and cross ventilation in the houses at different levels.

Located on a main highway in Kuwait, the houses differentiate themselves from their surroundings by their stark façade design.

With two contrasting colours, the façade is designed to define the individual houses, while achieving unity amongst all six.

White stucco material is used as the base for all the houses, while dark grey bands of stone turn corners, go indoors, and climb up and down, creating flow and continuity throughout the project.

Each of the three adjacent plots divides to accommodate two houses: the front, facing the inner neighbourhood street and the back, facing the 5th Ring Road highway. Services shafts and exterior light wells separate the 2 houses on each plot.

The front villas are introverted courtyard houses. Large windows of the main spaces overlook this courtyard that create dramatic light and shadow contrasts, while smaller strip windows face the street. Various outdoor spaces are located at different levels to provide ample light into the adjacent spaces, in addition to creating outdoor terraces and a pool area on the first floor.

The back villas overlook a garden facing the highway. Volumetric spaces and dramatic light wells drive the visitors into the main entrance of the house, and lead them onto the garden, which not only extends the space to the landscape through large windows, but also acts as a buffer between the houses and the busy road.

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The landscape separates the houses from each other through different levels that ultimately create privacy and independence from each other.

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Natural light and ventilation are an important aspect of the design. Each house has a certain level of complexity in terms of spatial organization and relationship between indoor and outdoor. With every visit to the houses, one discovers new spatial and visual experiences.

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Different levels and careful program layout were studied to achieve maximum privacy from each other.

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Project Name: Black & White House
Type: Residential / 3,415 sqm
Location: Yarmouk, Kuwait

Design Team: Dr. Nasser B. Abulhasan, Joaquin Perez-Goicochea, Georg Thesing, Sharifa Alshalfan, Robert A. Varghese, Naseeba Shaji, Germana De Donno Lucia, Sanchez Salmon

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Interpretation Centre by Paulo Gomes	Casa Areia by Aires Mateus Architects	Aeroport Lleida-Alguaire by b720 Arquitectos

On a more positive note about an architect, just days after Zaha Hadid finally won herself a Stirling Prize, the Royal Institute of British Architects, along with the Queen of England, handed out an award that gets much less fanfare but is equally as respected, the Royal Gold Medal. This year’s winner is David Chipperfield, who won the Stirling last year and had met with the Queen back in January when he was knighted. The Guardian‘s Jonathan Glancey brings up the fact that this latest award comes packaged in some irony, given that the architect has had a somewhat contentious relationship over the years with building on his native soil, seemingly preferring to work elsewhere in Europe or the States (he also doesn’t like people taking photos of his buildings, but we already talked about that last year). Here’s a bit from Glancey:

“The big difference between working in Britain and Europe,” he once told me, “is that here you are not really expected to debate ideas. Money and marketing are what matter most. We live in an events culture in the UK. Architecture, arts and media are all increasingly driven by events agendas. Ideas are only valid if they fit into media schedules. Original debate has been overwhelmed.”

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This temporary pavilion with reflective purple scales that shimmer in the breeze has been installed in Beijing by New York architects SO-IL.

The pavilion – created as the main hub for the arts festival Get it Louder – was constructed in four days and will be dismantled and transported to Shanghai for the second leg of the festival.

Photographs are by Iwan Baan.

Here’s some more information from SO-IL:

TWO TEMPORARY STRUCTURES BY SOLID OBJECTIVES – IDENBURG LIU OPEN IN BEIJING AND NEW YORK

Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (SO – IL), winner of the 2010 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, has opened two temporary structures in Beijing and New York. SO-IL’s ”Flockr” pavilion serves as the central hub for “Get It Louder,” a biannual media and arts event taking place in Beijing through October 10th and in Shanghai October 22nd to November 7th. In New York, SO – IL was one of the winners of Sukkah City, a competition to design a small ritual shelter traditionally associated with the Jewish holiday Sukkot. SO-IL’s entry “In Tension” was displayed on Union Square in Manhattan on September 19th and 20th, and the project will be featured at the Center for Jewish History in New York until October 15th.

“We believe the importance of ephemeral architecture will increase in this prolonged era of uncertainty. The economic environment has become so unpredictable that short-term, low-cost projects are the most feasible. Yet this kind of project can also offer a perfect testing ground for larger scale work,” says SO-IL partner Florian Idenburg. “Temporary projects require a particular mindset. You have to quickly grasp the local condition and provide a lean and elemental solution that provides a sense of specificity— a fleeting mark—even if only for an instant.” The two projects reflect SO-IL’s interpretation of the distinctive moods of contemporary Beijing and New York, the latter more contemplative and considered, the former full of energy and gusto.

Flockr Pavilion for Get It Louder Get It Louder, an acclaimed biannual media and arts festival sponsored by Modern Media of China, features a series of lectures, screenings and exhibitions by over one hundred Chinese and foreign designers, artists, writers and filmmakers. Organized by an international team including Chinese curator and writer Ou Ning and design writer Aric Chen, this year’s theme “SHARISM” focuses on the relationship between public and private realms in the digital age. SO-IL was commissioned to design Get It Louder’s main pavilion, which serves as a central hub for the event and houses many of the festival’s activities.

SO – IL conceived the “Flockr” pavilion as a structure that responds to its environment while also creating a sense of place through its basic form. Covered with thousands of tinted mirrored panels, the skin reflects its surroundings and makes the changing contexts of this temporary and mobile installation—the cityscapes of Beijing and Shanghai— an integral part of its expression. In SO-IL’s experimental façade, only the top of each panel is attached to the structure, allowing the individual pieces to respond to wind and creating a kinetic skin that is permeable by light and air.

The pavilion’s structure is made out of 56 thin, flexible steel rods that connect at the bottom and the top into two large steel rings. The larger bottom ring frames the interior perimeter of the structure while the smaller top ring creates a skylight; the relationship between the two results in the pavilion’s curvilinear womb-like shape. The activities that take place within are gently enclosed by a dynamic pattern of thousands of flickering reflections.

“Because it is circular in plan and curvilinear in section, the pavilion does not discriminate any direction,” says SO-IL partner Jing Liu. “Once passing through the entryway, the interior is generous and encompassing. “We envisioned the pavilion as a place where ideas can flock together, be projected, pass through, and be nurtured and distilled.”

The structure was assembled within four days for the opening on Sept 20th and will be demounted and reinstalled within a week’s time for its use in Shanghai.

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