Hasta La Ideas

A pattern of metallic bronze leaves covers the facade of this house in Mayfair, London, by British architecture firm Squire and Partners (+ slideshow).

Squire and Partners sandwiched the five-storey house between existing buildings, retaining an eighteenth-century facade in front.

The leaf cladding, made from 4080 folded aluminium pieces, was inspired by a nearby building covered with a Virginia Creeper plant.

The building’s facades have been designed to fit in with the different areas they face.

“The east and west portions of the building are finished with a stucco render to match the existing Waverton Street facade, with full-height bronze-framed windows of traditional Georgian proportions,” said the architects.

“A discreet Cotswold Buff brick facade with oak-framed windows then faces the more utilitarian Red Lion Yard,” they added.

The interior features five bedrooms, a swimming pool, gymnasium, cinema, a rooftop pavilion and two separate roof terraces.

A living wall of native plants grows down one side of a lightwell that features in the centre of the house.

Photography is by Gareth Gardner.

Other creative facades in London include a cast iron facade on the Paul Smith store in London, a faceted glass surface on a building in Oxford Street and an office building with four glazed slashes in the aluminium surface.

See more residential architecture stories »

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Mayfair House

Squire and Partners approached their commission to design a private house as a crafted building, sensitive to its Mayfair Conservation Area context but with a unique contemporary presence. Sited at a junction of streets and views, and being physically linked to a listed Georgian wall at the termination of Chesterfield Mews facing Curzon Street, the building responds to a variety of contexts and viewpoints.

The project involved the retention of an existing 18th century façade facing Waverton Street, and the design of a new building comprising three linked volumes to create a unique home in central Mayfair. The accommodation provides five bedrooms, a swimming pool, gymnasium, cinema, rooftop pavilion and two separate roof terraces.

Construction involved sandwiching the retained façade between two steel frames which was then suspended while piling and construction of the lower ground floor took place. This floor then became a platform from which excavation of the two basement floors and construction of the concrete frame above could happen simultaneously, speeding up the weather tightness of the site and fast-tracking the programme.

The east and west portions of the building are finished with a stucco render to match the existing retained Waverton Street façade, with full height bronze framed windows of traditional Georgian proportions. A discreet Cotswold Buff brick façade with oak framed windows faces the more utilitarian Red Lion Yard.

The middle part of the building is set back from the restored listed wall on Chesterfield Gardens to create a light well drawing daylight into the central spaces, and features a playful bespoke leaf façade.

The façade of this element takes inspiration from a facing building on Curzon Street, mirroring an established Virginia Creeper with a contemporary interpretation of leaves expressed as a metallic shingle.

The PPC coated folded aluminium leaves – 4,080 in total – subtly vary in tones of bronze to mimic organic growth patterns, and clad a three storey elevation facing Curzon Street including a rooftop pavilion.

At the centre of the c-shaped building internally, a grand double height space gives views into the light well which features a living wall planted with a variety of native plants.

Social spaces are located off the main double height volume, with the gymnasium, cinema and swimming pool situated in the two basement floors. Bedrooms are organised on the upper two levels, above which sits the stunning leaf- clad rooftop pavilion.

Westminster planning committee described the proposal as ‘striking’ and ‘raising the bar for design within the borough’.

Project Team
Client: Central Investment Properties Architect: Squire and Partners
M&E: Wallace Whittle UK Ltd
Structure: Heyne Tillett Steel
Quantity Surveyor: Rider Hunt
Planning Consultant: The London Planning Practice
Contractor: GPF Lewis Ltd
Interior Designer: Bill Bennette Landscaping: Haynes Design

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London studio Peter Barber Architects has added an L-shaped wing to an Arts & Crafts-style building in south-east London to create an advice and training centre for unemployed people (+ slideshow).

The new two-storey brick structure extends from the rear of the early twentieth-century offices of the Poor Law Guardians of Southwark, forming a quadrangle of new and old buildings around a paved courtyard.

Peter Barber Architects specified a sandy coloured brickwork for the construction of the new wing, setting it apart from the red brick and stone facades that have been restored as part of the renovation.

To complement the turrets and other decorative elements of the Arts & Crafts architecture, the studio added a three-storey periscope-shaped tower to the north-east corner of the complex.

There’s also a semi-circular wall recess with a half-dome roof, known as an exedra, framing one end of the central courtyard.

Balconies and doorways reveal the thickness of the new walls. Meanwhile, windows on some of the existing facades have been relocated, made visible by the mixture of new and aged bricks.

The architects carried out a full renovation of the old offices, which now accommodate the administration facilities of the employment agency, while the new buildings provide the training centre.

A community cafe is positioned along the eastern facade and can be accessed directly from the adjacent Havil Street.

Peter Barber Architects also recently completed another community building in London – a centre for drug and alcohol rehabilitation with a cantilevered upper storey. See more architecture by Peter Barber Architects »

Other community buildings built from brick include an open-air complex in rural Bangladesh and a hospice with gabled roof profiles in London. See more brick buildings »

Photography is by Morley von Sternberg.

Read on for more information from Peter Barber Architects:

Employment Academy

The Employment Academy is a state of the art training and advice centre in Southwark. It is set up to offer skills training and support services for long term workless people with the intention of helping them back into sustainable employment.

In 2009 PBA were approached by the charity Thames Reach to make a proposal for the refurbishment and substantial extension of ET Hall’s magnificent late Arts & Craft Poor Law Guardian’s building in Camberwell, south-east London.

Barber’s scheme is laid out around a delightful courtyard formed on two sides by a new L shaped training wing. Administration offices and a community café within the existing building form the remaining sides of the courtyard. The courtyard is conceived as the social heart of the project.

New buildings are built in a rustic brick in a manner which might be called picturesque. Thick walls facing the courtyard incorporate a dramatic inset terrace, window seats and a south-facing domed exedra.

Existing facades are handled as a complex patchwork of new and reclaimed brick, of new windows cut in and old ones bricked up.

ET Hall’s treatment of the eastern wing of his building is pretty quirky, all turrets and mini towers… so Barber’s scheme adds one extra in the form of a tasty little tower with an extraordinary brick vaulted roof.

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World Architecture Festival 2013: this year’s award for the best landscape project at the World Architecture Festival has gone to a botanical garden at a former quarry in Australia.

Situated in a former sand quarry in Cranbourne, outside Melbourne, The Australian Garden was designed by landscape studio Taylor Cullity Lethlean and plant expert Paul Thompson.

The garden is laid out as a journey through Australian fauna, from the desert to the coast, set among buildings and beside artificial lakes.

The garden showcases 170,000 plants across 1700 species, and is used by both researchers and the public.

“This garden brilliantly summarises the great variety of Australian flora as well as the large part of the country which is arid desert,” said the panel of judges. “Like a botanic garden, it is a collection of difference, but with a strong unifying set of journeys through the various landscapes.

“This landscape stood out with its originality and strong evocation of Australian identity without having to use any signs or words – just the beautiful flora of Australia’s countryside.”

Last year the World Landscape of the Year title was given to a riverside park in Singapore.

World Building of the Year 2013 was awarded to the Auckland Art Gallery and World Interior of the Year 2013 was presented to a tiled apartment in Barcelona.

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World Landscape of the Year 2013 appeared first on Dezeen.

World Architecture Festival 2013: the Future Project of the Year award at the World Architecture Festival has been given to a museum for China‘s maritime heritage, proposed in Tianjin.Brisbane studio Cox Rayner Architects’ waterside scheme consists of five halls that radiate out to the harbour, which will each contain different exhibitions.

The National Maritime Museum of China will sit in front of a large plaza for outdoor events, marked by an observation tower also acting as the museum’s energy plant. Completion is due in 2015.

“The project demonstrates a strong conceptual clarity,” the WAF judges said. “In its response to the sea, the design evokes a strong sense of the maritime experience. It brings together vast collections of elements of China’s rich maritime history and offers the visitor references to global maritime cultures. The jury looks forward to a realisation that maintains the integrity of the original idea.”

Future Project of the Year is awarded to conceptual or proposed architectural schemes. AECOM’s master plan for a gateway to Doha, Qatar, took the prize in 2012.

Other award winners at this year’s event include the Auckland Art Gallery, which took the World Building of the Year title, and a botanical garden in Australia that scooped World Landscape of the year. At WAF’s sister event Inside Festival, a tiled Barcelona apartment was picked as the best interior project.

See all our coverage of WAF 2013 »
See all our coverage of Inside Festival 2013 »

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wins Future Project of the Year 2013 appeared first on Dezeen.

World Architecture Festival 2013: the Auckland Art Gallery by Australian studio Frances-Jones Morehen Thorp has been awarded World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore.

Frances-Jones Morehen Thorp‘s Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki in New Zealand was designed in association with New Zealand studio Archimedia as an extension and refurbishment of the existing gallery, creating a new entrance and doubling the amount of flexible exhibition space.

Roofs over the forecourt, atrium and gallery spaces appear to float at different heights, patterned with wood panels on their undersides.

These canopies are designed to mirror the trees at nearby Albert Park, which can be seen through the large transparent walls of the exhibition spaces.

“Our inspiration was the beautiful natural landscape,” FJMT design director Richard Francis-Jones said after the announcement. “We saw the building as embedded in place. We wanted to use natural local materials, especially the beautiful kauri trees. But because these are protected, we could only use fallen trees or recycled wood.

‘The building is all about New Zealand, and it has the work of great Maori artists embedded in it.”

When the project won the Culture category at the awards yesterday, the WAF judges said: “This is a highly sensitive addition to Auckland Art Gallery which reanimates and reinvigorates the existing building. It responds brilliantly to context and site and gives the gallery a new architectural identity.”

The project beat 16 other category winners announced on day one and day two of the festival, including a whirlpool-shaped aquarium in Copenhagen by 3XN and two projects by last year’s winners Wilkinson Eyre.

Last year the World Building of the Year award went to Wilkinson Eyre Architects’ Gardens by the Bay project in Singapore. Watch our interview with the firm’s Paul Baker filmed moments after the announcement.

Dezeen is media partner for the World Architecture Festival, which concludes today at the Marina Bay Sands hotel and conference centre – see all our coverage of WAF 2013 here.

The event is held in conjunction with the biennial Inside Festival. This year’s World Interior of the Year was won by a tiled Barcelona apartment by David Kohn Architects. See all our coverage on Inside Festival 2013 »

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World Building of the Year 2013 appeared first on Dezeen.