News: Italian architect Renzo Piano has been commissioned to design a 27-storey residential tower beside his London skyscraper The Shard.
According to the Guardian, developer Sellar Property Group is again working with Renzo Piano to add another building to the site on the south bank of the Thames where his 310-metre glass skyscraper opened less than a year ago.
The architect will redevelop Fielden House, a 1970s office building on London Bridge Street, to create a residential block containing 150 apartments, a roof garden and a series of shops at ground level. Like The Shard, it will be financed by Qatari investors.
“It is intended that this new building will ‘float’ some 14 metres above the enlarged public realm space on London Bridge Street, opening up new access routes between the two levels and providing views down to Guy’s Hospital, Kings College campus and the proposed Science Gallery for the first time,” Sellar told the newspaper.
“A new generous staircase and a multi-level retail space will link the two levels, creating a new through route from the public plaza and bus station above to St Thomas Street below, significantly improving pedestrian circulation and quality of the public realm,” added the developer.
Photograph of The Shard is courtesy of Shutterstock.
The recent flurry of critical missives and tweets over MoMA’s decision to demolish the next-door American Folk Art Museum (AFAM), designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, has got me thinking about Harley Earl. The square-shouldered vice president and head of design at General Motors introduced stylised curves, chrome, and sex appeal into an industry driven by function. His most significant contribution to American culture, however, may be not the tail fin but planned obsolescence.
The idea that a manufacturer builds the death (by uselessness or tastelessness) into the birth of an object was once radical. It transferred the decision about when a product reaches the end of its life from the producer to the consumer. Could your sense of self-worth – your Cadillac, your iPhone – weather one more season before becoming démodé? Today, upgrading is a function of Moore’s law, the observation that technology gets exponentially smaller and more powerful every two years. It’s like breathing: one inhale, one exhale.
Architecture — or really I should say buildings, excusing for the moment the theoretical or speculative options — has largely been spared the frequency of model changes. This slower epochal cycle owes less to a belief in Vitruvius’ firmitas, utilitas, venustas than to the economic fact that buildings cost more than a Chevy. Then there’s the social contract that buildings, even not exactly great buildings, should stick around awhile.
Yet MoMA‘s decision to follow Diller Scofidio + Renfro‘s recommendation to start fresh on 53rd Street, just thirteen years after the AFAM‘s celebrated opening, leads us to reconsider architecture’s obsolescence. Perhaps we need to steel ourselves for more rapid architectural cycle. Harvey Earl introduced new auto body models every three to five years. Too slow. Our era trades on the pop-up, the art-fair tent and the pavilion. The breathless pace of the internet only underscores design as a temporary, consumable product to be traded over mobile devices. To know the American Folk Art Museum is to Instagram the American Folk Art Museum.
Yet in all this churning through history, we have to remind ourselves that Williams and Tsien’s museum is considered the first new significant piece of architecture built after 9/11. You could even say that its facade of alloyed bronze panels, pockmarked from pouring hot metal onto bare concrete in the casting process, represented New York City’s toughness, resiliency, and belief in art, folk art, and art of the people in the face of adversity.
In his 14 December 2001 review, New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp lauded the building, writing:
“We can stop waiting for state officials to produce plans for redeveloping the city’s financial district. The rebuilding of New York has already begun. The new American Folk Art Museum in Midtown, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, is a bighearted building. And its heart is in the right time as well as the right place. The design delves deeply into the meaning of continuity: the regeneration of streets and cities; the persistence and mingling of multiple memories in the changing polyglot metropolis; and the capacity of art to transcend cultural categories even as it helps define them.”
In retrospect, Muschamp’s effusive wordsmithing borders on hyperbole. Yet in focussing on the cultural context in which the building was born, it captures much of what is missing from current discussion (which tends to be markedly concentrated on functionality and new square footage). If we practice the rules of obsolescence, the death of this signature piece of architecture was designed in at the beginning.
As much as I would want to praise the American Folk Art Museum for pointing a way forward out of that dark time, the structure is no phoenix. From the beginning it was anachronistic. This is its downfall.
Although completed in the new millennium, it is an artefact from the 1990s, or to crib from Portlandia, an artefact from the 1890s. Muschamp’s title suggests as much: Fireside Intimacy for Folk Art Museum. “Our builders have largely dedicated themselves to turning back the clock,” he writes of Williams and Tsien’s obsessive attention to materiality.
The museum is a little too West Coast for midtown – too much like somethign from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, before computation took command. Its design values everything the current art and real estate markets reject: hominess, idiosyncrasy, craft. By contrast, Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s scheme emphasises visibility and publicness. The same could be said for an Apple store.
A message from MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry posted on the museum’s website touts that the new design will “transform the current lobby and ground-floor areas into an expansive public gathering space.” Indeed, the much talked-about Art Bay, the 15,500-square-foot, double-height hall in the scheme, walks a fine line between public space and gallery. Fronted with a retractable glass wall and designed for flexibility, the Art Bay is so perfectly attuned to the performance zeitgeist, that it makes Marina Abramović want to twerk.
When the plans to demolish AFAM first surfaced in the spring of 2013 and the efficacy of its galleries to support MoMA collections came into question, I rebutted the suggestion that the cramped layout was flawed, suggesting instead that we see it within the legacy of the house museum, akin to Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, where the architect spent his later years arranging and rearranging his antiquities. Or even a sibling of 101 Spring Street, Donald Judd’s SoHo studio and residence now preserved as an artefact of contemporary art history and an exemplary piece of cast iron architecture. Fiscally rescued from obsolescence, these are zombie edifices: institutions frozen in time and largely immune from market ebbs and flows.
The sad fate of the American Folk Art Museum comes on the heels of a rough year. Cries of #saveprentice, although loud in the Twittersphere, ultimately fell on deaf ears so Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital (1970) in Chicago fell to the wreaking crews this past autumn. Richard Neutra’s Cyclorama Building (1962) in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was also deemed defunct and unfashionable. Michael Graves’ Portland Building (1982) might be next, given reports of the cost to maintain the postmodern icon.
Past preservation movements grew out of grassroots efforts such as the Miami Design Preservation League, which formed in 1976 to save what would become the city’s Art Deco district, or the Los Angeles Conservancy, galvanising two years later to save the Los Angeles Central Library. Is the future of preservation advocacy or apathy?
The Tumblr #FolkMoMA, initiated and curated by Ana María León and Quilian Riano, dragged the fate of AFAM – a pre-internet building – into the age of social media. The hashtag set the stage for a robust dialogue on the subject and a much-needed commons for debate, but failed to save architecture from capital forces.
In weighing in to protest or eulogise the passing of the American Folk Art Museum, perhaps what we mourn is not the building per se, but a lingering sentimental belief that architecture is an exception to the rules of obsolescence. This building strived to represent so many intimacies, but ultimately its finely crafted meaning was deemed disposable.
Fingers may point at the ethics of Diller Scofidio + Renfo’s decision to take on the project or wag fingers at MoMA’s expansionist vision, but the lesson here cuts deeper into our psyche. Architecture, as written in long form, exceeds our own life spans and operates in a time frame of historical continuity. Architecture writ short reminds us of our own mortality, coloured by mercurial taste.
Russian studio Wowhaus has transformed a four-lane highway beside Moscow’s Moskva River into the city’s first year-round park, featuring rows of trees, fountains, cafes and artists’ studios (+ slideshow).
Photograph by Alexander Minchenko
Extending from the northern perimeter of Gorky Park, the Krymskaya Embankment project creates pedestrian pathways and cycle routes alongside the southern bank of the river, connecting with the Central House of Artists gallery building and Muzeon Fallen Monument Park.
Photograph by Alexander Minchenko
Starting at the Krymskaya Bridge, Wowhaus divided the stretch into four zones that each accommodate different activities, then used a wave motif to unite various design elements that include cobbled paving, wooden benches, buildings and pathways.
Photograph by Alexander Minchenko
“The central design element of the embankment is the wave,” said the architects. “Wave-shaped benches, and pedestrian and cycling waves create an artificial landscape.”
“In summer the wave-shaped multi-level layout can be used for walking, cycling or roller skating, while in winter it is a perfect setup for sledging, skating or skiing,” they added.
The first zone encompasses the area in front of and underneath the bridge. It includes a wooden stage for outdoor performances, as well as a series of sheltered benches made from reconstituted stone and wood.
Photograph by Alexander Minchenko
The next section accommodates the artists’ studio and exhibition spaces, which are contained within a 210-metre-long structure featuring wavy roof profiles.
Photograph by Alexander Minchenko
A riverside pathway runs along beside the structure, leading on to a fountain area behind. Here, jets of water are laid out on a 60-metre-long grid to create an interactive water feature, flanked by rows of linden trees designed to reference classic French streetscapes.
Photograph by Olga Ascension
The final zone, entitled Green Hills, includes landscaped areas interspersed with winding pathways and various pavilions. Wooden benches slice into the hillsides and are surrounded by rowan trees, apple trees and hawthorns.
Photograph by Olga Ascension
Here’s a project description from Wowhaus:
Krymskaya Embankment
A once unappealing Krymskaya embankment, only recently separated from the Muzeon park and the Central House of Artists, has been transformed beyond recognition: what once was a road has turned into a lane for pedestrians and bicycles. Fountains have been set up, wave-shaped artist pavilions have replaced a chaotic exhibition area and small hills with benches scattered about have become part of the landscape park thus extending a green strip from Gorky park on the other side of the Krymsky bridge.
Objective
To turn a quiet four-lane road into a new city landmark, thereby bringing life to the deserted area of Muzeon park between the Central House of Artists and the Moskva river.
Photograph by Olga Ascension
Solution
To link the Krymskaya embankment to a 10 km pedestrian and cycling route that starts at Vorobievy Gori and to replace the road with a landscape park with distinct transit and sport features while preserving the artists’ exhibition zone.
Photograph by Olga Ascension
The transformed Krymskaya embankment is the first year-round landscape park in the centre of Moscow. In summer the wave-shaped multilevel layout can be used for walking, cycling or roller-skating while in winter it is a perfect setup for sledging, skating or skiing. The central design element of the embankment is the wave: wave-shaped benches, pedestrian and cycling waves create an artificial landscape.
The park zone was divided into four parts: an area in front of the bridge, an artists’ zone around a “Vernisage” pavilion, the Fountain Square and “Green Hills”. When planning each zone, the view from the other bank was also considered.
Photograph by Alexander Minchenko
Under the Krymsky Bridge
A transit zone connecting Gorky Park with the Krymsky embankment has become a popular spot and also provides shelter from the rain now that a stage, and two wooden amphitheatres have been built. 28 artificial rock and metal benches illuminated from the inside are scattered along the way as an amenity for pedestrians and cyclists from Muzeon to Gorky park.
The entrance of Muzeon is a 210 metre wooden vernissage with a wave-shaped roof (the pavilion was designed by Asse Architects).
Photograph by Olga Ascension
Fountain zone
The fountain zone which is the central element of the new park, faces the Central House of Artists and is separated from the river by a linden alley. A fountain jet, 60 metres long and 14 metres wide, is one of the options of the so called “dry” fountains when the edge of the water is level with the paving. The fountain has an internal system of dynamic lighting that allows various lighting patterns.
49 lindens were planted in a classic French park order to the north-east of the fountain on the embankment. A special planting technology, used in Russia for the first time, allows walking and cycling on these lanes without causing damage to the trees.
Photograph by Olga Ascension
“Green Hills”
When planning this part of the pedestrian route special attention was paid to the artificial landscape and plantation. Hills designed for walking and resting were furnished mainly with steppe plants. Trees and bushes with decorative crowns like lindens, hawthorns, rowan trees and ornamental apple trees were planted on hills from where one can contemplate and admire the scenery.
Photograph by Alexander Minchenko
The artificial relief is accentuated by wave-shaped wooden benches and beach beds that are “cut” into hills between walking lanes. There is also an artificial pond in this part of the park.
Photograph by Alexander Minchenko
Pavilions
In accordance with the bureau’s project there are three pavilions on the Krymskaya embankment, the fourth one will be completed by the end of 2013 and will replace a gas station. Pavilions will be used as cafes, stores and bike rentals.
Pavilion near the fountain square is designed by Darya Melnik and the cafe-pavilion in the “Green Hills” zone is designed by Anna Proshkuratova. The bike rental pavilion closest to the 3rd Folutvinsky Lane is equipped with a concrete roof ramp for bikes or skateboards, designed by Roman Kuchukov.
Photograph by Olga Ascension
All pavilions feature an extensive use of glass, some of them even use structural glass shapes – U-shaped toughened glass with high-bearing capacity.
Photograph by Olga Ascension
Lighting solutions
To make the park accessible and attractive for guests 24 hours a day, planning takes into account night time illumination, especially the point lighting of certain landscape elements. Ornamental lamps that are installed in groups among plants on the hills illuminate the area and create a striking visual. All the lanes are illuminated as well so that pedestrians and cyclists do not get lost.
Photograph by Olga Ascension
On the Fountain Square the “dry” fountain together with the linden alley make up a lighting composition that combines the dynamic colour lighting of the fountain jets with the softer warm-white illumination of the regular rows of the linden alley.
Area of the Krymskaya embankment:45 000 m2 Length of the embankment: 1 km Area of planting: 10 700 m2 Planting: 44 726 perennial and ornamental plants, 96475 bulbous plants, 485 trees and bushes. Number of flowerbeds and hills: 34, 3 of which are breast walls Area of paving: 24 318 m2 Length of bicycle lanes: 4684 m2 Light: 1419 light fixtures Fountain info: fountain dimensions – 12m х 60 m, 203 sprayers Area of pavilions: pavilion on the Fountain Square – total area 275 m2, pavilion on “Green Hills” – total area 35 m2, bike rental pavilion: total area 200 m2.
Bureau partners: Dmitry Likin, Oleg Shapiro Leading project architect: Mikhail Kozlov Architects: Maria Gulida, Alena Zaytseva, Roman Kuchukov, Darya Melnik, Tatyana Polyakova, Anna Proshkuratova, Anastasia Rychkova, Tatiana Skibo, Yarmarkina; with the participation of Yuriy Belov, Anna Karneeva, Olga Lebedeva, Anastasia Maslova Senior project engineers: Dmitry Belostotsky, Ivan Mikhalchuk Planting: Anna Andreeva Lighting: Anna Harchenkova Constructors of pavilions: Nussli (consulting), Werner Sobek Artificial landscape consulting: LDA Design Fountain and electricity engineering: Adline Chief design contractor: MAHPI
Photos: Olga Alekseenko, Yuriy Brazhnikov/Village, Nikolay Vasiliev, Olga Voznesenskaya, Elizaveta Gracheva, Darya Osmanova
Australian office Tribe Studio has hollowed out the centre of a 1920s house in Sydney to create angular ceilings and a wide entrance to the garden (+ slideshow).
Tribe Studio created House Chapple by retaining the original 1920s frontage of the old bungalow, renovating the interior and replacing a later extension at the rear.
“The challenge of this house was to achieve sun and privacy while appreciating both aspects,” said the architects. “Our client wanted to retain the romantic elements of the house and its sense of humility in a suburb of flashy new builds.”
The architects removed a suspended ceiling in the centre of the house, creating a double-height living space with pyramid-shaped ceiling profiles. They also added skylights at the top and installed pendant lights with long cables.
“We allowed light into the centre of the plan, promoting stack-effect ventilation and reinforcing the unusual order of operation of the house,” they added.
A street-facing sunroom is positioned above the garage, with views out across Sydney Harbour. The room opens out into the main living space that includes a lounge, kitchen and dining area.
Three bedrooms, a TV room and a study are positioned along the sides of the main space.
At the rear, the wide entrance opens onto a wooden deck flanking a garden with a long rectangular swimming pool.
Polished wooden floorboards and white walls feature throughout, while the brick exterior walls have been painted white.
With fantastic harbour views and a northerly orientation to the street-front and a wonderful garden and existing pool to the rear, the challenge of this house was to achieve sun and privacy while appreciating both aspects.
The house has been in our clients family since the 1960s. An important part of our brief was finding a balance between new and old architecturally and sentimentally.
Our client wanted to retain the romantic elements of the house, and its sense of humility in a suburb of flashy new builds. She was simultaneously keen to have a new start in this house and have it feel her own.
The strategy is a modest one: retain the original 1920s bungalow frontage and replace a poor 1960s addition at the rear.
The primary move is to cave out central part of the plan as living spaces with clear views to the front (harbour) and back (garden). The central band of living space is contained on either side by cellular ribbons of bedrooms and utility.
The living space occupies the area underneath the peak of the original roof. The ceiling is removed and a series of distorted pyramid ceiling voids are created within the original geometry, allowing light into the centre of the plan, promoting stack effect ventilation and reinforcing the unusual order of operation of the house.
On the high side of the site, the master bedroom is nestled against an existing cliff-face, juxtaposing its harbour view and a close encounter with mossy sandstone and a cheeky orchid garden.
The intention is modest: a replacement addition that is fully concealed from the street and minimal facelift to the front.
This children’s library with rammed earth walls in Burundi, Africa, was built by Belgian studio BC Architects and members of the local community, according to an open-source design template (+ slideshow).
The Library of Muyinga is the first building of a project to build a new school for deaf children, using local materials and construction techniques, and referencing indigenous building typologies.
BC Architects developed the design from a five-year-old template listed on the OpenStructures network. They adapted it to suit the needs of the programme, adding a large sheltered corridor that is typical of traditional Burundian housing.
“Life happens mostly in this hallway porch: encounters, resting, conversation, waiting,” explained the architects. “It is a truly social space, constitutive for community relations.”
Rammed earth blocks form the richly coloured walls and were produced using a pair of vintage compressor machines. They create rows of closely spaced piers around the exterior, supporting a heavy roof clad with locally made baked-clay tiles.
“The challenge of limited resources for this project became an opportunity,” said the architects. “We managed to respect a short supply-chain of building materials and labour force, supporting the local economy and installing pride in the construction of a library with the poor people’s material – earth.”
The wide corridor runs along one side of the building, negotiating a change in level between the front and back of the site. Glass panels are slotted between columns along one of its sides and hinge open to lead through to the library reading room.
Here, bookshelves are slotted within recesses between the piers, while a large wooden table provides a study area and a huge hammock is suspended from the ceiling to create a more informal space for reading.
Wooden shutters reveal when the library is open. They also open the building out to the area where the rest of the school will be built, which is bounded by a new drystone wall.
“A very important element in Burundian (and, generally, African) architecture is the very present demarcation of property lines. It is a tradition that goes back to tribal practices of compounding family settlements,” said the architects.
High ceilings allow cross ventilation, via a pattern of square perforations between the rammed earth blocks.
Here’s a more detailed project description from BC architects:
The Library of Muyinga
Architecture
The first library of Muyinga, part of a future inclusive school for deaf children, in locally sourced compressed earth blocks, built with a participatory approach.
Our work in Africa started within the framework of OpenStructures.net. BC was asked to scale the “Open structures” model to an architectural level. A construction process involving end-users and second-hand economies was conceived. Product life cycles, water resource cycles en energy cycles were connected to this construction process. This OpenStructures architectural model was called Case Study (CS) 1: Katanga, Congo. It was theoretical, and fully research-based. 5 years later, the library of Muyinga in Burundi nears completion.
Vernacular inspirations
A thorough study of vernacular architectural practices in Burundi was the basis of the design of the building. Two months of fieldwork in the region and surrounding provinces gave us insight in the local materials, techniques and building typologies. These findings were applied, updated, reinterpreted and framed within the local know-how and traditions of Muyinga.
The library is organised along a longitudinal covered circulation space. This “hallway porch” is a space often encountered within the Burundian traditional housing as it provides a shelter from heavy rains and harsh sun. Life happens mostly in this hallway porch; encounters, resting, conversation, waiting – it is a truly social space, constitutive for community relations.
This hallway porch is deliberately oversized to become the extent of the library. Transparent doors between the columns create the interaction between inside space and porch. Fully opened, these doors make the library open up towards the adjacent square with breathtaking views over Burundi’s “milles collines” (1000 hills).
On the longitudinal end, the hallway porch flows onto the street, where blinders control access. These blinders are an important architectural element of the street facade, showing clearly when the library is open or closed. On the other end, the hallway porch will continue as the main circulation and access space for the future school.
A very important element in Burundian (and, generally, African) architecture is the very present demarcation of property lines. It is a tradition that goes back to tribal practices of compounding family settlements. For the library of Muyinga, the compound wall was considered in a co-design process with the community and the local NGO. The wall facilitates the terracing of the slope as a retaining wall in dry stone technique, low on the squares and playground of the school side, high on the street side. Thus, the view towards the valley is uncompromised, while safety from the street side is guaranteed.
The general form of the library is the result of a structural logic, derived on one hand from the material choice (compressed earth blocks masonry and baked clay roof tiles). The locally produced roof tiles were considerably more heavy than imported corrugated iron sheets. This inspired the structural system of closely spaced columns at 1m30 intervals, which also act as buttresses for the high walls of the library. This rhythmic repetition of columns is a recognisable feature of the building, on the outside as well as on the inside.
The roof has a slope of 35% with an overhang to protect the unbaked CEB blocks, and contributes to the architecture of the library.
Climatic considerations inspired the volume and facade: a high interior with continuous cross-ventilation helps to guide the humid and hot air away. Hence, the facade is perforated according to the rhythm of the compressed earth blocks (CEB) masonry, giving the library its luminous sight in the evening.
The double room height at the street side gave the possibility to create a special space for the smallest of the library readers. This children’s space consist of a wooden sitting corner on the ground floor, which might facilitate cosy class readings. It is topped by an enormous hammock of sisal rope as a mezzanine, in which the children can dream away with the books that they are reading.
The future school will continue to swing intelligently through the landscape of the site, creating playgrounds and courtyards to accomodate existing slopes and trees. In the meanwhile, the library will work as an autonomous building with a finished design.
Local materials research
The challenge of limited resources for this project became an opportunity. We managed to respect a short supply-chain of building materials and labour force, supporting local economy, and installing pride in the construction of a library with the poor people’s material: earth.
Earth analysis: “field tests and laboratory tests” – Raw earth as building material is more fragile than other conventional building materials. Some analyse is thus important to do. Some easy tests can be made on field to have a first idea of its quality. Some other tests have to be made in the laboratory to have a beter understanding of the material and improve its performance.
CEB: “from mother nature” – After an extensive material research in relation with the context, it was decided to use compressed earth bricks (CEB) as the main material for the construction of the building. We were lucky enough to find 2 CEB machines intactly under 15 years of dust. The Terstaram machines produce earth blocks of 29x14x9cm that are very similar to the bricks we know in the North, apart from the fact that they are not baked. Four people are constantly producing stones, up to 1100 stones/day.
Eucalyptus “wood; the strongest, the reddest” – The load bearing beams that are supporting the roof are made of eucalyptus wood, which is sustainably harvested in Muramba. Eucalyptus wood renders soil acid and therefor blocks other vegetation to grow. Thus, a clear forest management vision is needed to control the use of it in the Burundian hills. When rightly managed, Eucalyptus is the best solution to span spaces and use as construction wood, due to its high strengths and fast growing.
Tiles: “local quality product” – The roof and floor tiles are made in a local atelier in the surroundings of Muyinga. The tiles are made of baked Nyamaso valley clay. After baking, their color renders beautifully vague pink, in the same range of colors as the bricks. Each roof surface in the library design consists of around 1400 tiles. This roof replaces imported currogated iron sheets, and revalues local materials as a key design element for public roof infrastructure.
Internal Earth plaster: “simple but sensitive” – Clay from the valley of Nyamaso, 3 km from the construction site, was used for its pure and non-expansive qualities. After some minimal testing with bricks, a mix was chosen and applied on the interior of the library. The earth plaster is resistent to indoor normal use for a public function, and has turned out nicely.
Bamboo: “Weaving lamp fixtures” – Local bamboo is not of construction quality, but can nicely be used for special interior design functions, or light filters. In a joint workshop with Burundians and Belgians, some weaving techniques were explored, and in the end, used for the lamp fixtures inside the library.
Sisal rope: “from plant to hammock” – Net-making from Sisal plant fibres is one of the small micro-economies that bloomed in this project. It took a lot of effort to find the only elder around Muyinga that masters the Sisal rope weaving technique. He harvested the local sisal plant on site, and started weaving. In the pilote project, he educated 4 other workers, who now also master this technique, and use it as a skill to gain their livelihood. The resulting hammock serves as a children’s space to play, relax and read, on a mezzanine level above the library space.
Concrete “when it’s the only way out” – For this pilot project, we didn’t want to take any risks for structural issues. A lightweight concrete skeleton structure is inside the CEB columns, in a way that both materials (CEB and concrete) are mechanichally seperated. The CEB hollow columns were used as a “lost” formwork for the concrete works. It is our aim, given our experience with Phase 1, to eliminiate the structural use of concrete for future buildings.
Project Description: Library for the community of Muyinga Location: Muyinga (BU) Client: ODEDIM Architect: BC architects Local material consultancy: BC studies Community participation and organisation: BC studies and ODEDIM Muyinga Cooperation: ODEDIM Muyinga NGO, Satimo vzw, Sint-Lucas Architecture University, Sarolta Hüttl, Sebastiaan De Beir, Hanne Eckelmans Financial support: Satimo vzw, Rotary Aalst, Zonta Brugge, Province of West-Flanders Budget: €40 000 Surface: 140m2 Concept: 2012 Status: completed
News: Michael Graves’ seminal postmodern work the Portland Public Services Building is under threat of demolition, following news that the 32-year-old building needs more than $95 million worth of repairs.
Also known as the Portland Building, the 15-storey municipal office block in Portland, Oregon, was completed by American firm Michael Graves & Associates in 1982 and is credited with being one of the first major buildings of postmodernism, yet its demolition is one of several options under consideration by city officials following a recent analysis of the building’s condition.
According to the assessment, a complete overhaul of the building would require $95 million (£58 million), while replacing it or relocating could cost anything between $110 million and $400 million (£67 million and £243 million).
The Portland Building has been plagued with major structural problems and defects ever since its completion, many of which are attributed to the tight $25 million budget of the original construction.
The recommendation of the report was to renovate the structure, which would take two years and require finding a temporary home for 1300 employees that currently work in the building. However, city commissioners have branded it a “white elephant” and are considering pulling down both this building and a neighbouring courthouse to make way for an all-new public services complex.
“My reaction is we should basically tear it down and build something new,” long-standing commissioner Dan Saltzman told local newspaper The Oregonian, describing the building as “a nightmare for people who work there”.
“There’s got to be a better option than putting another $100 million into a white elephant,” added Nick Fish, who oversees the city’s water and environmental services bureaus.
Responding to the news, architect Michael Graves described the Portland Building as “a seminal project”, as recognised by its addition to the USA’s National Register of Historic Places in 2011. “Of course my preference would be to repair the existing structure,” he said.
Architectural historian Charles Jencks underlined the importance of the building in his influential book The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, where the author wrote: “The Portland still is the first major monument of Post-Modernism, just as the Bauhaus was of Modernism, because with all its faults it still is the first to show that one can build with art, ornament, and symbolism on a grand scale, and in a language the inhabitants understand.”
Proposant une vue incroyable, cette maison située sur le haut de San Gabriel au nord de Los Angeles propose de superbes espaces mais aussi la possibilité de garer plusieurs voitures. Une création réalisée par Anonymous Architecture qui propose d’aménager le toit de la résidence en terrasse et place de parking.
News: New York architect Daniel Libeskind has unveiled images of a timber-clad building to house physics researchers at Durham University in north-east England.
The £10 million Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics will be located beside the university’s existing physics department on South Road and will accommodate two growing organisations – the Institute for Computational Cosmology and the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology.
Studio Daniel Libeskind won a competition to design the building back in July, but has only just revealed images following the news that over £5 million of charitable donations have been made towards the project.
“This new building will provide a tremendously stimulating environment and foster even closer synergies between the two Institutes’ research areas,” commented Martin Ward, head of Durham’s physics department.
Public consultation on the design will take place later this month, and the building is due to complete in 2015, subject to planning approval.
Cette structure à double niveau très réussie appelée Maison Unimog réalisée par Fabian Evers Architecture pour un client privé. Ayant un budget limité à 175 000 euros, cette construction joue avec talent sur les matériaux utilisés et l’aménagement de l’espace. A découvrir dans la suite.
A triple-height gallery housing a collection of prized paintings is concealed behind the wooden shingle facade of this house in Stuttgart by German architecture studio (se)arch (photos by Zooey Braun + slideshow).
Located to the south of the city, the gabled four-storey Haus B19 was designed by (se)arch as the home for a family of five, but the architects were also asked to include a gallery where the occupants could present a collection of artworks by “old masters”.
Three of the house’s exterior walls are clad from top to bottom with handmade Alaska cedar shingles, which will naturally fade from a warm yellow colour to a silvery grey tone. Meanwhile, the south-facing rear elevation is glazed to offer views of the distant mountains.
The lofty gallery is positioned on the northern side of the building and is separated from living areas by a bulky concrete core that contains small rooms, utility areas and the main staircase.
A kitchen is one of the spaces contained within the concrete volume, and it features windows on both sides to allow views between the gallery and a large living and dining room on the southern side of the house.
Sliding glass doors allow the living room to be transformed into a loggia. This design is repeated on the first floor, where three bedrooms open to a balcony spanning the width of the building.
A selection of walls throughout the house are painted with a dark shade of pink, standing out against the exposed concrete of the central structure and the warm brown joinery of kitchen units, doors and bookshelves slotted into its recesses.
Clerestory windows bring light down into the gallery at eaves height, while a narrow skylight along the ridge of the roof lets daylight flood into a master bedroom on the uppermost floor.
The bathroom is on the first floor and includes a window offering residents a view down to the gallery when taking a bath.
The double pitch roof building is located in a peaceful residential area in the south of Stuttgart.
The building houses a family of five and offers living space on several levels and it creates space for a private exhibition area. The client has a collection of paintings with works by old masters and the gallery space is an adequate framework. The floor plan principle consists of a functional bar in the centre of the building. This divides the gallery space and family living. This massive concrete core, which extends over all four floors, includes serving elements such as stairs, kitchen, bathrooms as well as technical supplies.
This also creates an exceptional entree: behind the door, the porch extends into the gallery space, which rises to below the fully glazed roof ridge. The closed, painted in warm brown north face offers a serene setting for the paintings, which will be staged by the interplay of natural and artificial light. In combination with the brittle surfaces of the concrete bar, this dynamic sculpture emerges anywhere in the room and captivates with a delightful interplay.
The living room on the south side is communicative family meeting place, a room with fireplace and dining area. Floor-to-ceiling glass doors open it over the entire width of the building of the offshore loggia and provide a view into the landscape. Similarly, the private retreat rooms on the two upper floors benefit from the beautiful distant view of the Swabian Alb. Picturesque perspectives, however, offers the bathroom on the first floor, which holds a glass eye contact with the gallery. Openings in the serving rail provide visual references and link free gallery and living room together.
Structurally, the concrete core, which results from the massive garden level is covered by a solid wood construction, which describes the outer shell of the building. The outside of the timber construction is covered with wooden shingles. The shingles of Alaska cedar are split by hand and are not only extremely durable, they gradually get a silver-grey patina and envelop the house with its natural environment.
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