Giada is a unique case of Chinese-owned, Italian-designed fashion branding—and so far the only existing case in the world of luxury. The Asian side is invested in by RedStone…
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Danish office BIG has designed a triangular viewing platform for Brooklyn Bridge Park that angles up from the ground like a huge fin (+ slideshow).
The wooden platform will be constructed as part of BIG’s overhaul of Pier 6 – the southernmost end of the park that is located beside the famous suspension bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Raised off the pier by over five metres, the structure will feature a stepped surface that leads visitors up to two corner viewpoints. From here they will be able to look out towards the bridge, the Statue of Liberty and New York City beyond.
A series of thin steel columns will hold the platform in place, creating a sheltered space underneath that will be furnished with tables and chairs, but could also function as a small events area.
A flower field and several trees will be planted at the other end of the platform to welcome visitors into the park.
BIG, led by architect Bjarke Ingels, also recently worked on a park in Copenhagen that featured miscellaneous street furniture from 60 different nations. See more architecture by BIG »
Other landscape architecture featured on Dezeen includes Louis Kahn’s Four Freedoms Park in New York and a series of undulating bridges and promenades in Copenhagen. See more landscape architecture »
Here’s a project description from BIG:
Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6 Viewing Platform
The Pier 6 viewing platform is a triangular structure at the northwest corner of Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Sloping upwards 17.5 feet (5.3m) in height from the foot of the large gathering lawn, the platform provides magnificent views of the surrounding harbour, the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan skyline, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
In conjunction with the adjacent greenery, Pier 6 will be dominated by a flower field and treed areas giving the area seasonal displays of colour. The surface of terraced stairs, softly illuminated, will allow for large and small events and is fully ADA accessible. The pavilion, a cross-laminated timber structure supported by thin steel columns, is brightly lit with up-lights and provides shade, shelter and space for indoor activities.
Movable site furniture underneath the platform will accommodate a variety of programs, from food carts and picnicking to community events and small performances.
Program: Public Space
Status: In Progress
Size in m2: 560
Project type: Competition
Client: Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy
Collaborators: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Knippers Helbig, Tilotson Design Associates, AltieriSeborWieber,Pantocraft, Formactiv
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Partner in charge: Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Christoffersen
Project Leader: Iannis Kandyliaris
Project Manager: Martin Voelkle
Team: Ho Kyung Lee, David Spittler, Dennis Harvey, Isshin Morimoto
The post Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6
by BIG appeared first on Dezeen.
A gently sloping roof shelters the staggered indoor and outdoor spaces of this small wooden house by Japanese firm Case Design Studio in rural Japan (+ slideshow).
Tokyo-based Case Design Studio designed the single-storey house for a couple and positioned it amongst the trees of a woodland area in Nagano Prefecture.
The low roof extends out to shelter a wooden deck at the front of the house, which functions as the main entrance.
The interior is laid out on a zig-zagging plan, forming a large open-plan living space with extra rooms tucked in the corners.
Timber flooring runs though the space, matching a timber ceiling overhead, while a compact kitchen is sectioned off on one side.
Small square tiles line the interior of the bathroom and a wide window offers views from the bath towards the trees outside.
A wood-burning stove provides warmth and hot water for the house.
Wooden shelves outside can be used as storage space for firewood, positioned alongside a garage and a large timber barn.
Case Design Studio more recently completed a small house lifted off the ground by a single central pillar.
Other Japanese houses on Dezeen include a tall angular house in Tokyo, a house with a storey that cantilevers over the garden and a house containing asymmetric tunnels.
See more Japanese houses »
See more architecture and design in Japan »
Photography is by the architects.
Here are a few project details from the architects:
Architect: Yokota Norio and Kawamura Noriko
Location: Kitasaku Nagano
Completed: 2011
Program: house
Family: couple
Site area: 2317m2
Gross floor area: 95m2
Scale: One storey
Structure: Wooden
The post House in Oiwake by
Case Design Studio appeared first on Dezeen.
News: Danish firm Henning Larsen Architects has won a competition to design the replacement city hall for a Swedish city that’s set to be relocated after mining caused huge underground cracks in the area.
The move has been planned for nearly a decade, after the state mining company warned city officials in 2004 that excavating more iron ore would destabilise the ground beneath the city of Kiruna, northern Sweden.
Around 2500 flats and a total of 200,000 square metres of shops, offices, schools and healthcare buildings will be rebuilt over the next 20 years on a new site two miles east, and the city hall is the first public building to be affected.
Henning Larsen Architects’ competition-winning proposal features a circular building with a crystal-shaped inner structure that is intended to resemble iron ore deposits.
Parts of the 1950s hall will be recycled where possible, including an original bell tower that will be reinstalled in the public square surrounding the new building.
The circular plan is designed to bring as much light as possible into the interior spaces, which will be arranged with offices around the perimeter and public facilities in the centre.
“Kiruna’s new city hall is a democratic building, open to everybody,” said studio director Peer T. Jeppesen. “Inside the building, the democratic process is supported by the interplay between offices at the periphery and public functions at the heart of the building.”
Completion is scheduled for 2016.
Henning Larsen Architects recently won the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture for the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Reykjavik, Iceland and are currently working on the new Copenhagen headquarters for Microsoft. See more architecture by Henning Larsen Architects »
Here’s some more information from Henning Larsen Architects:
New city hall in Kiruna designed by Danish architects
Henning Larsen Architects in collaboration with Tema Landscape Architects Sweden, WSP Engineers Sweden and UiWE Cultural Designers have won the competition for a new city hall in Kiruna in Northern Sweden. The city hall will mark the beginning of the development of an entirely new city centre in Kiruna.
The city hall consists of two building volumes. The inner building is shaped like a crystal inspired by the great deposits of iron ore in the area’s underground. The outer building floats like a ring around the crystal, protecting it against the rough weather conditions of the region.
“It has been important for us to get the best out of the rough weather and wind conditions and allow as much daylight into the building as possible”, says Peer T. Jeppesen, Director and Partner at Henning Larsen Architects. “Kiruna’s new city hall is a democratic building, open to everybody. Inside the building, the democratic process is supported by the interplay between offices at the periphery and public functions at the heart of the building.”
The round shape of the new city hall creates a better microclimate both inside and outside. The shape allows 17% more daylight to pour into the volume. The city hall has already been named The Crystal. It is inspired by the city’s special character, culture and history. Kiruna’s existing city hall is a unique piece of architecture from 1958, which was designed by Artur von Schmalensee. The new city hall refers to the old one in several ways. The bell tower from the listed city hall will be re-used in the square, just as materials and building parts will be re-used to the extent possible.
“The Crystal is a city hall that we can be proud of, and we are delighted to present this particular proposal as winner today. In the assessment, we have sought help from several experts and various reports. We have also had many comments from the public, and naturally, we have considered these in the jury work, too”, says Lisbeth Nilsson, Chairman of the Jury.
Kiruna Municipality is moving the existing city hall and surrounding buildings, because of the effect of the excavations on the city’s underground. A total of 2,500 flats and 200,000 m2 of commercial, office, school and healthcare buildings will have to be moved by 2035. The city hall is the first large building to be affected by the excavations. Thus, the new city hall becomes the starting signal for the new city centre in Kiruna. According to plans, it is to be inaugurated in 2016.
The post Henning Larsen Architects to design
town hall for a relocated city appeared first on Dezeen.
Ghent studio Open Y Office has extended a house in Belgium, adding a concrete structure that could also function as a standalone residence (+ slideshow).
Located in the town of Herent, the extension was designed by Open Y Office with stark concrete walls that contrast against the white-painted brick exterior of the old house, which is a converted post office.
“The inhabitants wanted an extension that was flexible enough to be transformed in time to a separate unit with its own bed and bathroom,” said the architects.
The volume of the building appears as two rectangular boxes stacked on top of one another, with the upper storey slightly overlapping the ground floor below.
An open-plan living area occupies the first floor and overlooks a garden with a new swimming pool.
A glass passageway leads through to the existing house, plus large timber-framed windows open the room out to a long and narrow balcony.
The ground floor below contains storage areas and a garage with timber panelled doors.
Concrete steps with a steel balustrade lead into the house via an entrance on the first floor.
Other residential extensions we’ve recently featured include a London home with a walk-on glass roof and an extension in Dublin covered with terracotta tiles that look like bricks.
See more residential extensions »
See more architecture and design in Belgium »
Photography is by Tom Janssens.
Here’s a short description from the architects:
House Wiva
This OYO story takes you to Herent, where the extension of a private residence captures its surroundings.
The inhabitants wanted an extension that was flexible enough to be transformed in time to a separate unit with its own bed and bathroom.
OYO emphasised the contrast between the new shape and the old volume, which used to be an post office. You can see the concrete floating above the garden.
From the point of view of the residents, the extension creates exciting views from the new living room. The two volumes are connected with a light wooden footbridge that functions as entrance but also clarifies the different volumes.
Architects: OYO – Open Y Office
Location: Herent, Belgium
Type: Single family house extension
Area: House extension 110 m2
Year: 2010
The post House Wiva by
Open Y Office appeared first on Dezeen.
A l’occasion du London Design Festival, la designer Najila El Zein a imaginé cette structure « Wind Portal » en collaboration avec Maurice Asso à l’interieur du Victoria and Albert Museum. Faite de 5 000 moulins de papier, cette création d’une hauteur de 8 mètres est à découvrir en images dans la suite.
Artificial grass blankets one wall of this renovated house in Switzerland by local studio Dubail Begert Architectes (+ slideshow).
Architects Sylvain Dubail and David Begert were tasked with improving the thermal efficiency of the two-storey 1970s house in Saignelégier, north-west Switzerland.
After adding extra insulation, they installed a new facade intended to reference the surrounding ground surfaces.
The rear wall is covered with artificial turf to match the garden lawn, while corrugated fibre-cement panels clad three walls and the roof as a nod to the grey tarmac of the road.
The architects compare the appearance to agricultural structures. “The house refuses the romantic and nostalgic ode to the bygone campaign and scoops out its inspirations contrariwise from the contemporary farm sheds,” they said.
Interior spaces are kept simple, with clean white walls and floors, wooden furniture and ceilings, plus a few details picked out in green.
Other projects on Dezeen to feature artificial grass include a cook-for-yourself restaurant in Lithuania and the former home and studio of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein.
See more houses in Switzerland, including one with a corner missing from its roof and one lifted off a hillside on gigantic concrete columns.
Here’s some more text from Dubail Begert Architectes:
Transformation residential house Saignelégier
Located in a residential area, this house built in 1974 is isolated outside to answer contemporary thermal requirements.
The facades plays on the theme of the mimicry with the materials of the floors of the outdoor spaces: place of access in bitumen and grassy garden. The three facades road side and the roof are coated with plates of fibre-cement corrugated anthracites (eternit), the facade garden side is coated with artificial turf.
The surface of outside spaces is extended so at the farthest and tends to remove the home in its stereotypic context of a neighbourhood of houses, delaying so in doubt the icon of sacrosanct single-family home.
In the middle of a quarter of villas of the years 70-80, composed in the majority of houses drawing inspiration from the traditional farm of the Swiss Jura mountains, the house refuses the romantic and nostalgic ode to the bygone campaign and scoops out its inspirations contrariwise from the contemporary farm sheds, to remind of the past close to a residential quarter and ask the question of the rurban sprawl and the maintenance of environmental heritage.
Indoors, reality plays wood between the white and according to the level of privacy of areas.
The post House renovation in Saignelégier
by Dubail Begert Architectes appeared first on Dezeen.
Sponsored content: Detroit is known for many things; from the revolutionary sounds of Motown to the hum of the American automotive industry, but it’s no secret that the city has fallen on hard times. While the surface may appear bleak,…
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Archtober is nearly upon us, and the designtastic autumnal fun gets off to an urbane start with City Modern, celebrating the best in New York design and architecture. Now in its second year, the collaboration between Dwell Media and New York magazine kicks off next Friday with a Meet the Architects celebration, followed by a weekend of City Modern home tours in Manhattan and Brooklyn (the one pictured at right is “Skyhouse,” a project by architect David Hotson and interior designer Ghislaine Viñas that occupies a previously vacant four-story penthouse at the summit of one of the oldest surviving skyscrapers in NYC). The week continues with programming led by New York design editor Wendy Goodman and Dwell editor-in-chief Amanda Dameron, including a sure-to-be-stimulating conversation among Paola Antonelli of MoMA, the one and only Michael Bierut, and architecture critic Justin Davidson about “What Design can Do For New York City.” Get the full scoop on all eight event-packed days here.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Le Conarte a fait appel à l’agence mexicaine Anagrama pour créer un espace de lecture pour les enfants au sein d’un entrepôt, situé dans un ancien site industriel. Le résultat est une plateforme ultra design et multi-fonction surplombée par des luminaires aux formes asymétriques et colorées. Un projet superbe à découvrir.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
