Hasta La Ideas

A pointed arch punctures the red concrete facade of this Portuguese visitor attraction designed by Lisbon architect Gonçalo Byrne to present the history of a fourteenth century battle between Portuguese and Castilian forces (+ slideshow).

The Centro de Interpretação da Batalha de Atoleiros was designed to host an exhibition dedicated to the story of the Battle of Atoleiros, the first clash of an eight-year period of Portuguese civil war that started when King Ferdinand I died without any male heirs.

Unable to situate the building on the historic battlefield, Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos created the centre in the nearby town of Fronteira, eastern Portugal, on a site overlooking a park.

The exterior walls are made from blocks of pigmented concrete and have a coarse surface intended to be reminiscent of the uneven construction of medieval buildings.

“The body of the building recalls the tactility of the traditional medieval construction, presenting rough textured surfaces very close to the primal textures achieved by human hand,” said the design team.

Slabs of schist, a fine-grained rock, are slotted between the layers of concrete to support the structure and give additional texture to the facade.

The pointed arch cuts right across the building to create a pair of glazed entrances beneath the shelter of the concrete. This glazing also wraps around the rear of the building to create a row of windows.

A curving wooden bench is positioned behind the windows, creating a seating area at the end of the exhibition trail where visitors are expected to look out across the park and recreate battle scenes with their imagination.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a project description from Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos:

Centre for Interpretation of the Battle of Atoleiros

Object

The Centre for Interpretation of the Battle of Atoleiros, in Fronteira, is a cultural equipment intended to raise social awareness on the several perspectives over the battle occurred on April 6th 1384, and its importance in the context of the dynastic disputes between the kingdoms of Portugal and Castela, by the end of the XIVth Century.

Given the impossibility on plotting the Interpretation Centre on-site, in the battlefield area, the City Council approved its plot in the town core, on a location with high visibility and inserted in an urban park system that simulates and evokes the old battlefield. During the visit to the Interpretation Centre, visitors will experience different visual perspectives of the battlefield, but also about the history, through its protagonists and authors, led by the hand of the painter Martins Barata.

A large bench, at the end of the exhibition circuit, presents urban park in all its dimensions, rehearsing another exhibition discourse, this made of vegetables and inert elements, a sculptural dimension that simulates the plains and the imagination refers to the Battle of Atoleiros.

Materials

The body of the building recalls the tactility of the traditional medieval construction, presenting rough textured surfaces, achieved by the use of pigmented concrete with raw and irregular expression, very close to the primal textures achieved by human hand. This texture is enhanced by interposing lines of schist slabs in the horizontal joints of the building.

As a whole, the building generates a gravitational presence; almost an earth sculpture dyed in its own tonalities, evoking time in the spontaneous patina patterns, resembling a stained vertical battlefield, between a small and a larger body, like the two armies in conflict.

Structure

The combined use of concrete walls and a structure formed by a concrete column/beam/slab system, allowed maximal area exploitation and the display of generous exhibition areas.

Through the completion of consoles the structure had acquired more complexity, allowing lateral glazing and motivating an open relationship between inner and outside areas, between exhibition and urban park.

Environment

Portuguese southern landscape has a golden/reddish tone. The reddish wash of the building tries to emulate those colours and patterns, therefore reinforcing a sense of belonging.

Colour and textures are also enhanced by the usage of the same pitch used on the urban park paving system, serving as an essential framework for the Interpretation Centre, yet reinterpreting the battlefield original landscape.

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tells the story of a Portuguese civil war battle appeared first on Dezeen.

A rooftop swimming pool with a glass floor cantilevers out beside the entrance to this house in Marbella, Spain, by Dutch office Wiel Arets Architects (+ slideshow).

Named Jellyfish House, the three-storey concrete residence was designed by Wiel Arets Architects with a rooftop terrace and swimming pool to allow residents to swim and sunbathe with a view of the Mediterranean sea over neighbouring houses.

The swimming pool projects out across a semi-enclosed terrace beside the house’s main ground-floor entrance, projecting ripples of light onto the ground below.

The rear wall of the pool also features a large interior window, allowing residents in the first-floor kitchen to look out at friends and family taking a swim.

“The searing Spanish sun constantly filters through the pool’s glass wall and floor, creating ripples of iridescent turquoise reflections throughout the entire house,” explained the design team.

Another indoor window creates a view through from the kitchen to a living room below the pool, where glass walls slide back to open the space out to the elements.

Staircases are also exposed to the weather and are divided into “fast” and “slow” routes, just like V House completed by the same architect last year.

The gently inclined slow route spans the length the house, connecting all three floors with the roof terrace, while the adjacent fast stair offers direct access from the exterior to the roof.

Five bedrooms are shared out between the ground and first floor of the building. On the ground floor, two single bedrooms share a central en suite bathroom, while a master bedroom sits beyond.

Two guest bedrooms can be found on the partially submerged basement level, which emerges from the ground at the south-eastern end of the site to offer a secluded extra terrace.

“Taking full advantage of the ever-present Spanish sun, the Jellyfish House is an avant-garde expression of luxurious living,” said the designers. “As most of its facades can be opened and as its staircases are mainly outdoor, the house’s ever shifting boundaries between inside and outside are curiously blurred.”

Other unusual details include a service elevator that allows food and drink to be sent up from the kitchen to the roof, televisions and audio devices that are recessed into the walls, and a first-floor sauna and steam room.

Photography is by Jan Bitter.

Here is some information from the architects:

Jellyfish House

Located in Marbella, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, the Jellyfish House’s neighbouring buildings block its view onto the nearby sea. Appropriately, it was chosen to cantilever the house’s pool from its roof, so that the beach and sea can always be seen while sunbathing or swimming.

The house is organised around two paths of circulation: a ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ set of stairs, which intertwine and traverse the house’s four levels of living. The ‘fast’ stair leads from the exterior directly to the roof; it is enclosed in glass, which physically separates it from the house’s interior, yet it is simultaneously open to the exterior elements, so that sand is not brought into the house when returning from the beach. The ‘slow’ stair – whose long treads and short risers lend it its name – spans the entire length of the house, from ground floor main-entry to roof; it is indoors yet also open to the exterior elements, further amplifying the house’s capacity for ‘interiority’.

The house’s rooftop pool is cantilevered 9 m southwest – toward the Sierra Blanca mountain range in the distance – and weighs nearly 60,000 kg. Equipped with an infinity-edge, its water merges with the sea in the distance. This pool has a glass-bottom floor and a panoramic window at its interior facing edge, both of which are 6 cm thick; the latter allows those in the kitchen to voyeuristically view those swimming, while a third window affords those in the kitchen a glimpse of the living room, whose terrace extends under the cantilevered pool.

The searing Spanish sun constantly filters through the pool’s glass wall and floor, creating ripples of iridescent turquoise reflections throughout the entire house. As such, the pool can be seen and experienced from nearly all areas of the house. Integrated within the pool is an underwater bench, which traces its length and also integrates a pool cover, so that it is out of sight when the pool is in use.

Five bedrooms are located throughout the house, with two guest bedrooms situated on the basement level that face outward and onto an extensive private terrace for the exclusive use of guests. As the ‘slow’ stair leads from the main entry to the guest bedrooms below, this area of the house is able to function as a separate entity.

The kitchen is strung along the southern facade of the house’s first floor, with all secondary appliances built into an adjacent and perpendicular hallway. The first floor is also the location of the sauna and steam bath. A small service elevator also allows, for instance, food and drink to be brought from the kitchen, or any other floor, up to the rooftop pool and terrace. This roof terrace features an oversized and custom-designed concrete table with an adjoining bench, which is contiguous to an angular chair for reclining while sunbathing.

The house’s structure is composed of poured in place white-concrete, supported by one column at the right-rear edge of its pool, and several smaller columns near the rear-dining terrace. All non-concrete walls were constructed with glazing, which allows sunlight to permeate the house. Multiple bedroom closets, whose obverse faces the ground floor hallway, are finished in translucent glazing to compound this sunlight diffusing strategy. Oversized and accordion-like folding panels of translucent glazing adjoin each dining or entertaining space, which, when opened, essentially expands the house’s numerous areas of living by nearly doubling their size.

All of the house’s audio-video equipment – such as its countless Bose speakers – are recessed into its ceilings and walls, which allows them to disappear within their context little noticed. Lighting illuminates all corridors and staircases, as well as underwater within the pool, ensuring the rippling effects of its reflections that shimmer through its glass floor and wall can also be experienced throughout the house at night.

Taking full advantage of the ever-present Spanish sun, the Jellyfish House is an avant-garde expression of luxurious living; as most of its facades can be opened, and as its staircases are mainly outdoor, the house’s ever shifting boundaries between inside and outside are curiously blurred.

Location: Los Monteros, 29600 Marbella, Spain
Program: Housing
Size: 650 m2
Date of design: 1998-2001
Date of completion: Winter 2013
Project team: Wiel Arets, Bettina Kraus, Lars Dreessen, Dennis Villanueva, Carlos Ballesteros
Collaborators: Paul Draaijer, William Fung, Johannes Kappler
Client: Private
Consultants: West 8, ABT BV, Cauberg-Huygen Raadgevende Ingenieurs BV, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos S.L.

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swimming pool with a glazed underside appeared first on Dezeen.

This symmetrical concrete house by Chilean studio Pezo Von Ellrichshausen is the first in a series of 12 holiday homes underway in the Spanish canton of Matarraña and will be followed by others designed by Sou Fujimoto, Didier Faustino and more (+ slideshow).

Casa Pezo is the first and so far only completed residence in the Solo Houses series – a project commissioned by French developer Christian Bourdais that invited a host of international architects to design a dream house with no constraints besides budget.

Architects Maurizio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen of Pezo Von Ellrichshausen based their house on the principles of “symmetry and homothety”, creating an evenly proportioned building that centres around a courtyard and swimming pool.

The main living spaces of the house are raised two storeys above the ground so that they float over the landscape. They’re supported by a chunky central column, which accommodates the building’s entrance and contains the swimming pool.

“Occupants feel a floating sensation as they hang over a podium that only sustains the centre of the building,” explained the design team.

To maintain the unyielding symmetry, the building has two identical entrances that are both accessed from a single staircase.

Once inside, residents use a spiral staircase to walk up to the house’s main floor, where a living room, dining room and pair of bedrooms are neatly positioned around the edges of the courtyard.

All four rooms have floor-to-ceiling glazing, which slides back to allow each one to be transformed into a terrace, while four balconies form the square corners of the plan.

The architects looked at the design of traditional Mediterranean courtyard residences when developing the layout and proportions of the plan. “The size of the swimming pool, a quarter of the patio, sets the standard for each the modules of the peripheral ring,” they said.

The sides of the pool and courtyard are lined with white ceramic tiles to provide a counterpoint to the bare concrete visible everywhere else around the building.

Casa Peso was completed in June 2013, but is set to be followed by 11 more projects from architects including Sou Fujimoto, Didier Faustino, Johnston Marklee and Takei Nabeshima.

Photography is by Cristobal Palma.

Here’s more information from Pezo Von Ellrichshausen:

Casa Pezo – the first of the solo houses collection

Chilean agency Pezo Von Ellrichshausen has completed Casa Pezo – Solo Houses’ first initiative of unique property development in Europe. The house is a belvedere situated in the breathtaking natural site Matarraña, two hours south of Barcelona. It overlooks the Natural Park of Puertos de Beceite.

This house is the first house completed by Solo Houses. Its project comprises building a dozen homes in the region, each designed by some of the most avant-garde international architects. Christian Bourdais, founder of Solo Houses, gives architects few restrictions when designing their interpretation of a second home. He believes that this specific type of habitat offers occupants and architects a freedom from preconceived notions of housing and an aperture to unique architectural design.

Maurizio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen designed a house, which dominates the landscape. A platform separates the structure from the mainland. Occupants feel a floating sensation as they hang over a podium that only sustains the centre of the building.

Casa Pezo is made of concrete. Its design is governed by symmetry and homothety. It plays with verticality and horizontality. Balance and rhythm begin at the entrance and is sustained throughout. Two sets of stairs and doors create a triangle on either side of a corner.

It is only once you have reached the upper floor that it becomes clear that the monolith flanking the podium is a swimming pool. Covered with ceramic tiling, the pool occupies the central part of a patio. It is a reference to Mediterranean architecture where a balance of warmth and shade is essential.

The size of the swimming pool, a quarter of the patio, sets the standard for each the modules of the peripheral ring. Beyond a rigorous geometric distribution, Casa Pezo is simple and minimal. A dining room, a living room and two bedrooms are filled with little furniture, mostly designed by the architects themselves. Large windows open completely to the outside. All indoor spaces have the possibility of becoming outdoor terraces.

The estate covers just under fifty hectares. Ten other houses, all designed by renowned architects, are planned. Each unique structure will be surrounded by 3 to 4 hectares of nature. This allows each home to fully integrate into an expanse landscape.

Architecture de Collection, the first agency specialising in the sale of outstanding 20th and 21st century architecture, markets the homes. Architects for the other homes include Sou Fujimoto, designer of the current Serpentine Gallery pavilion, Didier Faustino, Office KGDVS, Johnston Marklee, MOS Office, Studio Mumbai, or TNA Takei Nabeshima. For the price of a simple 100m2 apartment in a city, Solo Houses offers property with a creative concept.

Christian Bourdais believes in the principle of collecting original and unique designs. The business model is patterned following the Case Study House Program. A project that collected the most talented architects of 1950s to 1970s, in order to explore the concept of a modern and affordable vacation spot in California. Half a century later, each of these productions – 36 projects, not all of which have been constructed – has become a work of art. Amateur architecture collectors strive to own them. Solo Houses is a project of today. It is a reflection on our modern way of life. It is also based on the timeless art of living.

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of 12 architect-designed dream houses appeared first on Dezeen.

This movie shows how a redundant Second World War bunker in the Netherlands was turned into a sculptural visitor attraction by slicing it down the middle to reveal its insides.

The bunker was built in 1940 to shelter up to 13 soldiers during bombing raids and the intervention by Dutch studios RAAAF and Atelier de Lyon reveals the small, dark spaces inside, which are normally hidden from view.

The movie shows a diamond wire saw being used to cut a straight section through the centre of the monolithic structure, and a crane lifting it away to create a narrow slit.

It took 40 days to slice through the solid concrete bunker, which was one of 700 constructed along the New Dutch Waterline, a series of water-based defences used between 1815 and 1940 to protect the cities of Muiden, Utrecht, Vreeswijk and Gorinchem.

“Our aim with the project was to question the policies on monuments by doing this intervention,” Ronald Rietveld of RAAAF told Dezeen, adding that the bunker was subsequently elevated from a municipal monument to a national monument and is now part of the New Dutch Waterline’s bid for UNESCO World Heritage status.

The designers also constructed a set of stairs to connect the nearby road to a path that leads through the centre of the bunker onto a wooden boardwalk raised above the flooded area.

“The pier and the piles supporting it remind them that the water surrounding them is not caused by e.g. the removal of sand but rather is a shallow water plain characteristic of the inundations in times of war,” said Rietveld in a statement about the project.

Visible from the busy A2 motorway, the bunker is part of a 20-year masterplan begun in 2000 to transform the Dutch Waterline into a national park. It was completed in 2010 but was officially opened last year and recently won the Architectural Review Award 2013 for Emerging Architecture.

Here’s a project description from RAAAF:

Bunker 599

In a radical way this intervention sheds new light on the Dutch policy on cultural heritage. At the same, it time makes people look at their surroundings in a new way. The project lays bare two secrets of the New Dutch Waterline (NDW), a military line of defence in use from 1815 until 1940 protecting the cities of Muiden, Utrecht, Vreeswijk and Gorinchem by means of intentional flooding.

A seemingly indestructible bunker with monumental status is sliced open. The design thereby opens up the minuscule interior of one of NDW’s 700 bunkers, the insides of which are normally cut off from view completely. In addition, a long wooden boardwalk cuts through the extremely heavy construction. It leads visitors to a flooded area and to the footpaths of the adjacent natural reserve. The pier and the piles supporting it remind them that the water surrounding them is not caused by e.g. the removal of sand but rather is a shallow water plain characteristic of the inundations in times of war.

The sliced up bunker forms a publicly accessible attraction for visitors of the NDW. It is moreover visible from the A2 highway and can thus also be seen by tens of thousands of passers-by each day. The project is part of the overall strategy of RAAAF | Atelier de Lyon to make this unique part of Dutch history accessible and tangible for a wide variety of visitors. Paradoxically, after the intervention Bunker 599 became a Dutch national monument.

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half by RAAAF and Atelier de Lyon appeared first on Dezeen.

A bridge over a stream connects the two sides of this concrete house in India by Mumbai firm Architecture Brio (+ slideshow).

House on a Stream was designed by Architecture Brio as a weekend retreat near the town of Alibag, on a site with a stream meandering through it.

The architects chose to separate the master bedroom from the main part of the house containing the kitchen, dining room, living room and guest bedroom by arranging them on either side of the stream.

Monolithic concrete boxes containing the various rooms rest on the uneven ground and cantilever over the water, while trees grow in the gaps between.

“Like an organism trying to make most use of its resources and surroundings, the house with its several limbs reaches out into the landscape, making full use of the views within the site and dramatises special moments: a beautiful tree, a view of the mountains beyond or the cascading stream during the monsoon rains,” said the architects.

A walkway covered by a pergola links the bridge with the entrance to the larger part of the house. Next to it, a narrow swimming pool follows the course of the stream and adjoins a sheltered verandah that becomes an extension of the dining room when sliding doors are pulled back.

The living room and both bedrooms also feature doors that can be slid or folded back to open these spaces onto outdoor decks that bring the occupants closer to the surrounding nature.

The kitchen is located at the centre of the house, with a high ceiling containing a skylight contributing to the bright space, around which the other rooms are arranged.

By offsetting these surrounding rooms and raising the level of the living area, the architects intended to give each space a sense of autonomy, while strategically positioned windows create views from one part of the building to another.

Concrete cast against wooden planks gives the building’s exterior a textured finish, which will be enhanced as it gains additional patina over time. The natural aesthetic is enhanced by timber screens that cast delicate shadows on the floors and walls.

Photography is by Sebastian Zachariah.

The following project description is from the architects:

House on a stream

Landscape

With a stream running through the house, this retreat in Alibag is delicately woven into the landscape, alternately opening up and closing itself to the different characteristics of the site.

A multitude of medicinal and fruit bearing trees provide for an intimate ambiance and comfortable microclimate. Though seasonal, the stream bed allows for an interesting landscape feature throughout the year. The house is placed on the banks of the stream where it makes a sudden S-curve. A short walk along the stream before entering the house builds up an element of anticipation.

Like an organism trying to make most use of its resources and surroundings, the house with its several limbs reaches out into the landscape making full use of the views within the site and dramatises special moments: a beautiful tree, a view of the mountains beyond or the cascading stream during the monsoon rains. What started out as a Cartesian response to the site became deformed, stretched and pushed in.

Program

The house consists of two parts: the day areas of the house such as the dining/kitchen, the living room and entrance verandah are separated from the master bedroom by a bridge that spans across the stream.

Since the owners are passionate about cooking, the kitchen is made the heart and centre of the house, a large, inviting volume with a high ceiling and a skylight that floods the space with light.

This space forms the anchor of the house from where its various limbs branch out into the landscape around existing components of the site. The living room on the left is lifted off the ground to have a panoramic view of the mountain range in the distance. The guest room embraces an existing tree to create a courtyard and just peeks across the dining room to have a view over the length of the stream. The pool is aligned along the stream acting as a celebration of it during the monsoons, and a memory of it during the dry season.

Orientation

The orientation of the program is based on climatic considerations. The bedrooms are mostly west facing with large verandahs and get the evening sun.

The living rooms faces east once again with a large verandah. The kitchen, dining, and pool areas all look towards the north and are shaded by large trees. The south façade of the house is predominately closed and more solid with the exception of a picture window that frames the view out from the pantry to the fields beyond.

Monolithic character

While the external structural concrete shell contracts and expands in plan in section it does so as well. The external form of the house responds to site and its orientation and flows from high to low in accordance with the monolithic fluidity of its form. Internally, however, it responds to the creation of space, and directs the eye to frame a particular view.

The outside and inside are therefore apart and internal spaces are defined with volumes created by the changing thickness of the internal ceiling.

The heaviness of this mass however is reversed by the lightness of the white washed walls and ceilings. A central skylight and large sliding doors, which span from floor to ceiling and wall to wall bring in the outside into the interiors. The cantilevered ‘limbs’ of the living room and two bedrooms defy the heaviness of the concrete volumes. By not resting it on the ground the relationship with the landscape paradoxically is strengthened.

Internal relationships

A series of asymmetrical axis create a path of discovery through the house. The arrival path is aligned with the axis of the pergola, which embracing the pool enters the dining room on the left side. One corner of the dining room overlaps with the conically shaped volume of the kitchen. By shifting the axis of the dining room off the axis of the kitchen and raising the level of the living room, this becomes a more secluded space.

Furthermore it allows a glazed door in the kitchen to open up to the outside and view along the external living room wall. At strategic positions in the house steel framed box windows protrude through the concrete walls. Placed symmetrically on the interior walls they highlight specific elements of the site, such as the bark of a tree, or peek from the master pavilion to the main house.

Materialisation

The house is cast in plank-finished concrete with a vertical grain. The homogenous materialisation emphasises the sculptural quality of the house that is moulding itself about the site. Concrete being left exposed in the humid Indian climate, attracts a patina that becomes more rich and alive over time. More so the grey textured surface provides a muted surface against the vibrant green surrounding.

Elegant timber screens further soften the greyness of the con- crete. They not only form a buffer between the interior space and the exteriors, but also create an intensive play of shadow and light on the floors and walls.

Description: Weekend house
Location: Jirad, Alibaug, Mumbai, India
Size: 300 m2
Design: Architecture BRIO, Robert Verrijt + Shefali Balwani
Structural design: Vijay K. Patil & Associates
Realisation: September 2013

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that straddles a stream in India appeared first on Dezeen.