Hasta La Ideas

Designed in Hackney: today’s featured designers in our London borough of Hackney showcase are Archer Architects, who inserted a Corten steel-clad hotel behind the facade of a derelict pub in Shoreditch.

The 26-room boutique hotel is part of the Shoreditch House private members club, located on Ebor Street just outside the southwest corner of the borough.

Completed in 2012, the Corten steel extension adds an extra three storeys onto the roof of the old pub to bring the height of the building up to match that of its neighbours.

Guests enter the hotel through a ground floor reception that leads to rooms upstairs as well as to a garden on the roof.

The renovated building also includes a day spa called the Cowshed, which occupies the old bar area and the basement.

Archer Architects comprises a team of architects and designers, led by director Stephen Archer. Their studios are located in the Tea Building on the corner of Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road, almost next door to this project.

Key:

Blue = designers
Red = architects
Yellow = brands

See a larger version of this map.

Designed in Hackney is a Dezeen initiative to showcase world-class architecture and design created in the borough, which is one of the five host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as being home to Dezeen’s offices. We’ll publish buildings, interiors and objects that have been designed in Hackney each day until the games this summer.

More information and details of how to get involved can be found at www.designedinhackney.com.

Photography is by Tim Soar.

This small rusty cabin designed by Oslo architects Manthey Kula provides public toilets along one of Norway’s tourist routes.

Completed in 2009, the Roadside Reststop Akkarvikodden is located north of the Artic Circle and replaces a former rest stop that was swept away in strong winds.

The welded Corten steel walls of the building are screened with glass on the inside to prevent rust rubbing onto the clothing of anyone using the facilities.

There are no windows on the walls, apparently so that visitors can have a break from the scenery.

You can read about Dezeen’s top ten toilets here, which includes a tree-mounted urinal.

Photography is by Paul Warchol.

Here’s a little more from the architects:

Roadside Reststop Akkarvikodden, Lofoten, Norway

Manthey Kula Architects

The project is situated in Lofoten, along one of the National Tourist Routes in Norway. There are eighteen such routes in Norway, all chosen for their spectacular and characteristic landscape. The facilities for the tourists that drive along these roads; such as rest stops, viewing platforms and links to local points of interest are carried out by architects and landscape architects with the purpose of offering an experience of both nature and design. By now 6 routes already have Tourist Routes status and 12 more are in the planning. The project will be finished by 2016.

The Roadside Toilet Facility at Akkarvikodden is built in connection with existing rest stop designed by landscape architect Inge Dahlmann/Landskapsfabrikken. The commission given to Manthey Kula was to design a toilet facility that could replace an existing structure that had been lifted off its foundations by the strong winds from the Atlantic Ocean. Lofoten is located at the 67th and 68th parallels north of the Arctic Circle in North Norway. The site for the project is extraordinary. The road runs on a narrow plateau between the mountains and the sea. Were the rest stop is the plateau widens out and one experience entering a space between the mountains from where the view to the horizon is very powerful.

The design had two aims. One was to make the small building very heavy so it would not be lifted off ground. The other was to make interiors that shut the scenery out. The first objective was of course very pragmatic, a direct response to the history of the building’s predecessor. The other objective was more obscure. The experience of the place, mountains and sea and the ever-present coastal climate is very intense. The restrooms were conceived to present a pause from the impressions of the surrounding nature, offering an experience of different sensuous qualities.

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The rest room is open only during summer season thus the building did not have to be insulated. Initially it was planned in concrete. However, after having checked the work of some local mechanical industries the designed changed to a body of welded plates. The structure of the small building is not unlike the structure of a ship: welded steel plates locally reinforced with steel flanges – every part specially designed for its specific use.

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The foundation and the two walls that supports the stainless steel sanitary equipment are cast concrete. Glass panes are 12 and 20mm thick. Doors are built in 5 mm stainless steel plates. Walls and roof are made of 10mm corteen steel. To prevent rust from discoloring the clothes of the visitors parts of the walls are lined with glass panels. In the smallest rest room one glass panel is mounted in the ceiling. In this panel one can see the reflection of the horizon.

Portuguese architects Comoco have added a weathered steel cafe and a wooden gazebo on the hill of a castle in the town of Pombal.

The two new structures accompany a set of repaved pathways, as well as a new castle entrance and reconfigured parking area.

The two-storey cafe is clad in Corten steel and features large windows that overlook the surrounding town.

Located near the bottom of the hill, the rectangular timber pavilion is constructed from evenly spaced wooden slats.

This isn’t the first castle project we’ve featured by Comoco Architects – read about a visitors centre with walkways built through and around a castle here.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a more detailed description from Comoco Architects:

Reorganization of Pombal Castle’s Hill. Pathways and Facilities
Comoco Arquitectos Luís Miguel Correia, Nelson Mota, Susana Constantino

Previous State

Throughout the last decades, Pombal Castle and its surrounding area have been doomed to seclusion from the core of the city at its feet.

For the ordinary city user, the Castle was only a background for the everyday, a mere identity reference that resonated with the history of the city more than with an actual experience of it. “Rua do Castelo”, a street defining the South and West perimeter where the hill meets the city, embodied the boundary that defined those two realms.

From that street, some connections with the walled precinct were possible. They were, however, just a vague memory of previous uses, and their conservation decayed progressively, hampering public use.

The area’s vegetation – nowadays uncritically cherished by the population – is, paradoxically, the result of the abandon to witch this area was devoted throughout most of the 20th century.

Aim of the Intervention

The project for the reorganization of Pombal Castle’s hill was launched by the city’s municipality with the goal of promoting the re-centralization of that area. The basic brief of the commission encouraged a design that would help fostering the use of that historic area by both residents and tourists.

A more elaborated programme was developed collaboratively by municipality’s politicians and technicians, together with the design team and enriched by the feedback delivered by the population at the proposal’s preliminary stage.

The basic premise was that the project should improve the connections between the urban areas at the bottom of the hill, the hill itself and the walled precinct.

The articulation with the Castle, the hallmark of the city, should be tackled in order to preserve its importance for the population’s shared identity.

To increase the area’s attractiveness some facilities should be created to answer needs such as car parking, comfortable and safe pathways, resting and contemplation areas and a cafeteria. Archaeological and preservation works should also be central to bring about and highlight the area’s history.

Description of the Intervention

The basic character of the intervention is an attempt to deliver an approach were the new designed elements should be clearly defined against the background of both the natural and the built pre-existing elements, without challenging the latters’ character, tough. The project defined three areas, each of which with a different approach.

In the first area, the south and west slopes of the hill, the approach was focused in the idea of flow. This idea was thus developed creating and highlighting connections between the urban areas at the bottom of the Castle’s hill, pathways along the slopes and gazebos to provide shelter and foster diverse experiences in the contact with the landscape. The materials used were prominently plastered walls, stone and grit pavements, and wooden structures.

In the second area, in the surroundings of the cemetery, the approach was concerned with the idea of a topographical design of the infrastructure. Both the parking area and the adjacent facilities were designed as topographical elements, concrete walls supporting the transition between sharp differences of levels.

Finally, the third area, surrounding the walled precinct, aims to enhance the Castle as the main built element of the area. The west access to the Castle was redesigned, including the platform at its bottom.

The surrounding area of Santa Maria’s Church was also redesigned to provide a public space that could foster its appropriation as a privileged stage for performances and other cultural activities. The material that is thoroughly used in this area is limestone, the same used in the main landmarks, the Castle and the Church’s ruins.

To work as a connector between these areas, a cafeteria was designed, proving thus an additional element to attract visitors to the area. To highlight its singular role in the overall intervention, the cafeteria was built using a metallic structure and finished with corten steel panels both on its façades and roofs.

It embodies, thus, the design’s strategy of affirming the new against the pre-existing preserving, however, the identity of the place. With this project we aimed at creating a delicate balance between nature and artefact.

Residents plunging into the swimming pool of this Stockholm house may feel like they’re in an aquarium.

The surface of the swimming pool is located on the deck of the upper ground level, but a large window in its concrete side faces visitors arriving on the floor below.

Designed by Swedish architects DAPstockholm, the three-storey Villa Midgård and its swimming pool are set into the inclining landscape.

Slate wraps the elevations of the house at the lower level, while Corten steel clads the facades of the upper two storeys.

A central crank splits the building into two halves, with different rooms on each side.

One half of the roof is covered in grass and the other half is occupied by a terrace.

Other houses with interesting swimming pools include a remote Australian lodge and a jumbled house in India.

Photography is by Åke E:son Lindman.

Here’s some more information from DAPstockholm:

A multi‐faceted house with a lot of attitude

When the client met with DAPstockholm they wished for a solid, secluded house with a maintenance‐free facade, a sense of ceiling height and a master bedroom with the benefit of morning sun.

They also wished for a solution where they could open up larger windows toward the scenery and have a sheltered space where they could sit and listen to the pouring rain.

This resulted in a multi‐faceted house where the shape and direction of the different volumes are based on various factors such as the terrain, the light conditions, the views and the privacy. The volumes give the house seven different facades.

This and the dramatic nature of the sloping site provide the house with a unique character. Cut‐ outs in the mountain give space for the outdoor seating areas. In the south‐east direction, outside the SPA, one of these creates a significant border between the arranged and the rampant garden.

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The second floor is suspended above the entrance floor to shadow and protect the yard. Here the infinity pool, made out of dark concrete, make you think of a deep forest lake adding to qualities of a wilderness where the water runs over the pool edge.

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The facade of the souterrain is made out of slate and the stair from the carport out of limestone. Grass covers the roof of the tallest volume and the roof terrace where it is themed with spruce. The house interior also exhibit materials that are close to nature such as walnut, ceramic granite and marble.

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“By using living materials the house will become more characteristic with age” says Calle Smedshammar, partner Architect at DAPstockholm.

Project: Villa Midgård
Architect: DAPstockholm
Area: approx 300 sqm
Number of rooms: Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, one toilet, common area, kitchen, living room, cinema, spa, guest room, wine cellar, storage and a tech room divided onto three floors.
Construction and Facade: Cast‐in‐place concrete structure and Corten steel with elements of charcoaled beech wood
Location: Stockholm
Client: Private
Status: Completed 2011
Landscape: In collaboration with Nod Combine
Paving for entrance and parking: White pigmented concrete
Carport: Cast‐in‐place concrete structure blasted into the side of the mountain and covered in vegetation

Dezeen archive: this week we featured a winery in the south of France and a see-through church in Belgium that are both made of Corten, so here’s a roundup of all our stories featuring weathered steel. See all the stories »

See all our archive stories »