Hasta La Ideas

An austere concrete wall screens the transparent lower floor of this house in southern Brazil, while the overhanging upper storey is masked behind a layer of timber slats (photos by Leonardo Finotti + slideshow).

Designed by MAPA, an architecture collective based in Brazil and Uruguay, XAN House is a summer residence located near the beach in Xangrilá, a small town south of Porto Alegre.

The ground floor is dedicated to the family’s communal activities while the upstairs level contains bedrooms, and the architects chose to highlight this difference through the use of different external materials.

A single-storey concrete wall stretches across the site, from the north-west to the south-east, screening the ground floor from the street. Behind it, the rest of the walls feature floor-to-ceiling glazing that allows residents to open their living spaces out to the landscape.

“A summer house is a space full of freedom, a place to enjoy an outdoor life,” said the architect. “This fact conditioned the way the project was faced.”

The positioning of furniture divides the space up into different zones for cooking, dining, reading and relaxing. The ceiling overhead is exposed concrete, while the floor is covered with tiles that continue outside the walls.

Upstairs, large balconies extend the length of the floor, creating overhangs that shelter both the front entrance and a rear patio. One balcony belongs to the master bedroom and en suite, while the other sits alongside two smaller bedrooms.

Both balconies and rooms are surrounded by the timber screen, but sections of it fold open to reveal windows.

“Visual filters in the expansion spaces next to bedrooms allow open-air experiences of another nature,” added the architect.

Photography is by Leonardo Finotti.

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raw concrete with slatted timber appeared first on Dezeen.

Twenty huge aluminium petals fold around this 42,000-seat stadium that sports architecture firm Populous has completed in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, ahead of the FIFA World Cup kicking off this summer (+ slideshow).

Arena das Dunas is one of six new stadiums constructed for the international football tournament in 2014 and will be used to host four group stage matches in the city of Natal. It also serves as a new home stadium for local football clubs ABC FC and América de Natal.

Populous gave the stadium a steel truss structure made up of petal-shaped modules. Clad externally with aluminium tiles, these elements provide an asymmetric form intended to reference the sand dune landscape surrounding the city.

Translucent slices of polycarbonate fill the gaps between each petal, allowing more natural light to penetrate the stadium.

“We have designed a stadium and a masterplan that showcases the aesthetics of the beautiful surrounding area of das Dunas and will create a great atmosphere for the World Cup 2014,” said Populous senior principal Christopher Lee, who led the project.

The stadium can seat 42,000 spectators, with the first row of stands just 15 metres away from the action. Up to 10,600 of these seats can be temporarily removed if necessary, plus four VIP lounges each create private viewing areas for 1000 guests.

The species of grass used for the pitch was selected for its suitability to the region’s hot climate. It can be irrigated using recycled rainwater, collected from the roof as part of an integral drainage system.

Once the tournament is over, the building is expected to host other sports events, music concerts and trade shows. It is also surrounded by a 22,000-square-metre plaza that could become a centre for activities.

“The arena is in the city centre and after the World Cup we can set up a commercial area between the access ways,” said stadium director Charles Maia. “Since the beginning, the arena was designed as a multipurpose venue that can be used year-round. Our goal is to make it profitable.”

Arena das Dunas was officially inaugurated at the end of January and is one of four all-new stadiums designed for the FIFA World Cup 2014. These will join two older venues that have been completely rebuilt and six others that have undergone extensive renovation.

Here’s a project description from Populous:

Populous designed Arena das Dunas officially opened ahead of 2014 World Cup

The Arena das Dunas in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, which will host four group stage matches during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, has been inaugurated by President Dilma Rousseff.

The world’s leading sports architecture practice, Populous, designed Arena das Dunas including the landscape and masterplan of the surrounding areas. The venue, which was inspired by the coastal city of Natal’s sand dune landscape, has a capacity of 42,000 with 10,600 removable seats and has been delivered on time.

The Dunas Arena is designed to be a multipurpose venue. The main stadium will host sports events, trade shows and concerts, and the stadium’s 22,000m2 outdoor plaza will also host events.

The first matches at the stadium took place on 26 January when the state of Rio Grande do Norte’s main soccer teams faced each other in a double round: América-RN vs. Confiança-SE for the Northeast Cup, and ABC vs. Alecrim for the Rio Grande do Norte State Championship.

The local soccer clubs ABC and América have signed an agreement with the Dunas Arenas management consortium to use the venue for their home games for the next 20 years.

Arena Design

The arena’s design is unique. Its facade and roof are integrated and made up of 20 petal-shaped modules, designed to be higher on one of the stadium’s sides, giving the impression that the sand dunes – which are common in the region – are moving. The design also enables more ventilation and light to come into the stadium.

The petal-shaped structures of the roof are made of steel trusses, covered on the outside with aluminium tiles, with thermal and acoustic insulation. Internally, they are coated with a PVC prestressed membrane. The parts are joined by translucent polycarbonate, which allows light to come through.

The Dunas Arena’s roof was also designed to capture rainwater. Gutters collect the water and take it to nine tanks below the lower stands. As a result, up to 3,000 cubic meters may be captured and reused in the lavatories and for irrigating the pitch.

Fans going to matches and events at the stadium will notice a new standard of comfort and safety. In total, there are 21 access ramps to reach each of the four stadium levels, in addition to elevators that connect the indoor car park directly with the 39 boxes. The Dunas Arena also has four lounges that can accommodate up to 1,000 people, 25 food and drink kiosks, as well as 30 restrooms.

There are four types of seats, identifiable by varying shades of blue: general public, hospitality, VIP and Executive VIP. In addition, 521 seats are reserved for people with disabilities.

A security team in the arena’s command and control centre is able to monitor images recorded by 200 cameras with facial-recognition capability in the ground’s external and internal areas. The PA system is integrated with the stadium’s two 64 square metre screens, allowing for information and match statistics to be clearly displayed to the crowd.

Players will also notice improved match conditions. The Bermuda Tifton 419 grass species used for the pitch is ideal for the region’s hot climate, and the drainage system allows for matches to be played even on extremely rainy days.

With the first row of stands only 15m away from the pitch, fans will be close to the action. In addition, the arena’s lighting system, which uses 306 floodlights, provides uniform and consistent visibility, eliminating shadows and facilitating TV broadcasts using Full HD technology.

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for FIFA World Cup 2014 appeared first on Dezeen.

This reflective metal-clad box containing a restaurant rises like a periscope above a small shopping complex in São Paulo by French-Brazilian architecture office Triptyque (+ slideshow).

Triptyque was asked to create a building that incorporates three shops, a bar, an art gallery and a restaurant with a VIP room, and decided to locate the latter inside a cantilevered metal box called the Observatory.

“Located in a street where the buildings are next to each other, the Observatory is not a stage in addition, it is a building on a building, the city on the city,” said the architects. “It opens a new dimension of growth straddling the shopping complex and overlooking the Oscar Freire neighbourhood of São Paulo.”

The reflective top-floor structure appears to hover above the rest of the three-storey building and is supported by a series of columns that reach to the ground level.

Stainless steel panels covering the exterior of the Observatory create distorted reflections of the surrounding streetscape, which can be seen up close from the open terrace on the storey below.

At street level, customers enter three shops contained in narrow units arranged in a staggered formation that step back from the pavement of the Rua Oscar Freire.

The restaurant’s main space is housed on the first floor, with the kitchens above and a lift providing access to the VIP room at the top of the building. A ramp leads from the street down to the basement level, which houses parking and services for the building.

Triptyque based the multi-storey arrangement of the complex on the Spatial City theory developed in 1959 by Hungarian-born French architect Yona Friedman, who imagined inhabitable structures raised on piles to free up space below.

“It is an artificial topography composed of megacities above ground responding to the problem of rapid population growth in large urban areas in the world,” said the architects.

The architects also recently transformed a 1920s building in São Paulo into a creative arts space for drinks brand Red Bull, featuring a huge steel awning covering the roof.

Photography is by Leonardo Finotti.

The architects sent us this project description:

The Observatory

The architecture agency Triptyque was commissioned to design a complex in São Paulo with three shops, a restaurant, a bar and an art gallery. The shops should have access to the city while the restaurant had to be housed in the upper floors.

The complex was designed as a binary metal structure: a “ground” level that receives the shops, and a “space” level called “the Observatory” which houses the restaurant where the group of Franco- Brazilian restaurateurs Chez Group has created its new meeting place: Chez Oscar.

Located on a street where the buildings are next to each other, the observatory is not a stage in addition, it is a building on a building, the city on the city. It opens a new dimension of growth spanning the shopping complex and overlooking the Oscar Freire neighbourhood of São Paulo.

Massive and cubic volume, the observatory is balanced on an asymmetric structure which imparts kinetic and operates a disruption between the street level and spatial scale effect. Completely covered with stainless steel, reflections are distorted and blurred over time and tropical storms.

In this design, the architects of the agency Triptych were strongly inspired by the concept of the space city of Yona Friedman created in 1959. It is an artificial topography composed of mega cities aboveground responding to the problem of rapid population growth in large urban areas in the world. It draws a three-dimensional city that multiplies the original surface of the city with elevated planes, and thus created a new map of the territory.

The building The Observatory Oscar Freire grasps architecture as a dynamic form, between materiality and potentiality, open to users interaction as well as environmental conditions. It was inaugurated in October 2013.

Project : Freud/Oscar Freire
Localisation : R. Oscar Freire 1128, 1134, 1138 e 1142, Jardins São Paulo
Start of project (year): 2010
Delivery (year): 2012
Surface: 675 sqm
Built surface: 1400 sqm

Architecture: TRIPTYQUE
Associates: Greg Bousquet, Carolina Bueno, Guillaume Sibaud and Olivier Raffaelli
General coordinator: Luiz Trindade
Project manager : Aline D´Avola

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over São Paulo shopping complex appeared first on Dezeen.

A square wall covered in plants announces the presence of this concrete housing block in São Paulo by Brazilian architecture studio TACOA (photos by Leonardo Finotti + slideshow).

Entitled Vila Aspicuelta, the terrace of eight compact houses sits perpendicular to the adjacent street, but its north-facing end wall provides a growing area for a variety of bushy plants and shrubs.

Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez and Fernando Falcon of TACOA chose to plan the building as a series of maisonettes rather than as a simple housing block, meaning that each residence would have more than one floor and its own private access.

“The eight houses that compose Vila Aphins challenge the logic of vertical buildings: the different units are disposed side by side horizontally, and function vertically,” said the architects.

The building is raised off the ground to create parking spaces at ground level. Eight separate concrete staircases lead up to each of the residences, creating a zigzagging volume along the western edge of the block.

The first floor of every house is a living area with a kitchen counter and enough space for a dining table.

A second row of staircases leads up to bedrooms and bathrooms on the next level up, while a third set of stairs ascends to private gardens on the roof.

Wooden screens cover a wall of windows in the bedroom and bathroom of each home, but fold back to reveal a row of balconies at the rear.

The east-facing orientation of these windows ensures that the houses are filled with sunlight in the mornings but are shaded during hot afternoons.

Photography is by Leonardo Finotti.

Here’s some extra information from TACOA:

Vila Aspicuelta

The eight houses that compose Vila Aphins challenge the logic of vertical buildings: the different units are disposed side by side horizontally, and function vertically.

The street continues through the villa, partially covered by the building, and gives access to the staircase of each individual unit. The parking lot, gardens and common areas are also placed on this street.

On the first floor of every house, one single area provides space for the kitchen, dining and living. The second floor was conceptualised as a private area, a bedroom with a balcony and garden and a bathroom. Finally, on the rooftop, an open air plaza is set, with individual spaces.

The eastern orientation of the villa enables the houses to enjoy sunny mornings, shady afternoons and crossed ventilation. The western facade hosts the access stairs of the houses and unifies all the units, providing the vila its wavy project identity.

Architect: TACOA Arquitetos – Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez and Fernando Falcon
Collaborator: Eloá Augusto Gonçalves

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housing block by TACOA appeared first on Dezeen.

This performing arts centre in São Paulo by Brasil Arquitetura features huge concrete volumes lifted off the ground to create accessible public spaces and has been named on the shortlist for the Designs of the Year awards, announced this week (+ slideshow).

Local firm Brasil Arquitetura designed the expansion of the existing Praça das Artes complex, situated in a densely built neighbourhood of São Paulo, around a central plaza and paved thoroughfare that extends to the streets bordering three sides of the site.

A complex arrangement of modular buildings interspersed among the existing urban fabric accommodates various events spaces, facilities and infrastructure for the centre, which is home to several musical and dance organisations.

In some places the new additions project outwards to create sheltered walkways or hover in gaps between other buildings, marking entrances to the centre and presenting a uniform presence on all sides of the site.

“The new buildings are mainly positioned along the boundaries of the site and, to a large degree, lifted off the ground,” said the architects. “Thus, it was possible to create open spaces and generous circulation areas, resulting in the plaza which gives the project its name.”

The historic facades of a former musical conservatory and a cinema have been retained and integrated into the scheme, with the conservatory undergoing a programme of restoration including the renovation of its first floor concert hall and the creation of an exhibition space on the raised ground floor.

“These historic buildings are physical and symbolic records, remains of the city of the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century,” the architects explained. “Restored in all aspects and converted for new uses, they will sustain a life to be invented. Incorporated into the project, they became unconfined from neighbouring constructions and gained new meanings.”

The new buildings are predominantly rendered in concrete coloured with ochre pigment, with a tower housing offices, toilets, changing rooms and building services standing out due to its red pigmented concrete surfaces.

An angular staircase encased in concrete and glass connects the plaza with the first floor of the tower, providing access to the concert hall.

Windows scattered across the facades sit in places where acoustic performance is a key consideration, while floating floor slabs, acoustic walls and ceilings made from gypsum and rock wool also help to optimise acoustics throughout the building.

Photography is by Nelson Kon.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

PRAÇA DAS ARTES
Performing Arts Centre – São Paulo

“… one thing is the physical place, different to the place for the project. The place is not a point of departure, but rather a point of
arrival. Realising what this place is, is already doing the project.” – Álvaro Siza

Some architectural projects are dominant in large open spaces, in favoured conditions and visible from a distance. Other projects need to adapt to adverse conditions, minimal spaces, small wedges of long plots, leftovers between existing constructions, where the parameters for developing the project are dictated by these factors.

Praça das Artes is part of the latter category. It is not by a voluntary decision or by opting for one or the other approach, by this or the other direction to be taken, that lead us to a conceptual choice and conclusion. It is the very nature of the place; our comprehension of it as a space resulting from many years – or centuries – of socio-political factors that shaped the city.

To understand the place not only as a physical object, as Siza says, but as a space of tension, with conflicts of interest, characterised by underuse or even abandonment, all this counts. If on the one hand the Praça das Artes project has to account for the demands of a programme of various new functions, related to the arts of music and dance, it also has to clearly and transformatively respond to an existing physical and spatial situation with an intense life and a strongly present neighbourhood. Moreover, it must create new public common spaces using the urban geography, local history and contemporary values of public life.

We may say that, in this case, to design a project is to capture and to invent a place at the same time and in the same strategy.

The place of the project

The physical place, in the centre of São Paulo, is made up of a series of plots that are connected in the middle of the urban block and have fronts to three streets. This situation is a result of the mistakes of an urbanism that was always subordinated to the idea of the plot, the logic of private property. As almost the entire city centre, the area is chaotic in terms of building volumes and common sense principles of sunlight and natural ventilation. It is an accumulation of underused or vacant spaces, abandoned, forgotten, awaiting to be of interest to the city once again.

The architecture of the former Dramatic and Musical Conservatory and the Cairo Cinema portray marks and memories of different eras. At the same time, the place presents a privileged situation in view of its surrounding humanity, being full of diversity, vitality, a mixture of social classes, conflicts and tensions typical of a large city, living together and the search for tolerance. Shortly, it is a place rich in urbanity.

The programme

The project has a rich and complex programme with a focus on musical and dance activities, besides public uses of coexistence, which permeate the entire complex.

The module of the Resident Performing Arts companies houses the Professional bodies: the Municipal Symphonic Orchestra, the Experimental Repertory Orchestra, the Lyrical Choir, the São Paulo Choir, the City Ballet Company and the Municipal String Quartet. The module faces rua Formosa (Anhangabaú) and incorporates the façade of the former Cairo Cinema.

The module of the Schools and public uses accommodates educational and common spaces – the Municipal Music School, the Municipal Dance School, a restaurant and common space. The module occupies volumes that lift up from the ground on avenida São João and rua Conselheiro Crispiniano. The street level underneath the building volumes is practically unobstructed. The kiosks along the edge of the plaza, newspaper booths, cafés, snack bars, a library – are a continuation of the existing uses along the street, bringing the urban life to the interior of the new architectural complex.

The module with a large public car parking occupies the underground floors on avenida São João (the former Saci Cinema) and rua Conselheiro Crispiniano.

The module of the Conservatory includes the restoration and adaptation of the former Dramatic and Musical Conservatory and a new tower on the plot next to it, facing avenida São João. On the raised ground floor of the historic building there is a space for exhibitions and events. The concert hall on the first floor was carefully restored to once again stage musical shows. The new tower next to the Conservatory houses the arts collections and historic archives of all the bodies of the project. The addition to the historic building houses the vertical circulation system, administrative offices and building services.

The Project

Since the initial site study, the former Conservatory, restored and converted into a concert hall and an exhibition space, represented the anchor for the project. The new buildings are mainly positioned along the boundaries of the site and, to a large degree, lifted off the ground. Thus, it was possible to create open spaces and generous circulation areas, resulting in the plaza which gives the project its name. This paved plaza can be accessed from rua Conselheiro Crispiniano, avenida São João and, in the next construction phase, also from rua Formosa (Anhangabaú) via a flight of stairs, which connect the different levels of the streets.

The new volumes reach from the centre outwards towards the three adjacent streets. A series of interconnected buildings in exposed concrete, with ochre pigments, accommodate the various functions and is the main element establishing a new dialogue with the neighbourhood and with the remaining constructions that will be incorporated into the project, the former Conservatory and the façade and foyer of the former Cairo Cinema.

These historic buildings are physical and symbolic records, remains of the city of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Restored in all aspects and converted for new uses, they will sustain a life to be invented. Incorporated them into the project, they became unconfined from neighbouring constructions and gained new meanings. The historic building on Avenida São João came into being as a commercial exhibition space for pianos in 1986, then gained an extension to become a hotel and shortly after was transformed into a musical conservatory, even before the creation of the Municipal Theatre, for which it is a precursor, in certain ways, and the training centre for the musicians who would then make up its orchestra.

A new addition to the Conservatory was built, which works as a pivot point for all departments and sectors within the complex. All administrative offices, vertical circulation (stairs and lifts), entrance and distribution halls, toilets, changing rooms, and shafts for building services are concentrated in this building, which is the only one coloured with red pigments. Towards the plaza, a sculptural triangular staircase built in concrete and glass allows for a direct access between the level of the plaza and the first floor, where the concert hall is located.

Besides the coloured concrete, the windows represent an important part of project. They are either externally attached or placed within the opening. In the rooms with special acoustic requirements, the windows are fixed and attached to the building from the outside with 16mm-thick glass; in other spaces awning windows are used.

In order to satisfy the high requirements in preventing the propagation of noise and vibrations, specific details were used, such as floating slabs, acoustic walls and ceilings made of gypsum panels and rock wool, a system called acoustic isolation.

The administrative office areas of the extension to the Conservatory are equipped with a raised floor, which means that electrical, logistical, and communication installations can be adapted freely for allowing a greater flexibility in the arrangements of the work spaces. It was possible to achieve large spans without intermediate columns by using shear walls, thus guaranteeing complete flexibility of the internal spaces and unobstructed external spaces on the plaza level.

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concrete boxes projecting over a public plaza appeared first on Dezeen.