Hasta La Ideas

A wooden treehouse with circular perforations is suspended from the ceiling inside this space for a south London theatre company for disabled children, echoing round patterns on its facade (+ slideshow).

Designed by London firm Hawkins\Brown, the Oily Cart theatre company headquarters sits in the Grade II listed annexe of Smallwood primary school in Wandsworth.

The theatre was created to give children who have disabilities and learning difficulties a place to express themselves artistically.

“Oily Cart works with children who have multiple and complex learning difficulties, helping to bring theatre to audiences who might not otherwise have the chance to experience it,” architect David Bickle told Dezeen.

The exterior of the building features an original soot-coated brick facade and an existing Victorian staircase, which leads up to the studio.

“We were very careful to retain as much of the original structure as possible and wanted to incorporate the same energy into the building as the theatre puts into its productions,” Bickle said.

The architect also installed a bright yellow aluminium lift dotted with black and white spots, which connects the playground outside to the theatre and provides access for disabled children.

“The golden lift, which rises up to the theatre, creates a link between the ordinary outdoors and the extraordinary world of the theatre inside,” Bickle added.

The top of the lift shaft was inspired by the traditional Dutch gables that line the roof of the primary school and is designed to mirror the original Victorian architecture.

On exiting the lift, the first floor lobby leads into an office and admin area with a mezzanine level above. The architects were given permission to remove a dividing wall and create a multipurpose timber treehouse punctured with circles, which hangs over the space.

“The circular theme that runs throughout the build was inspired by the scented bubbles the theatre use to get in touch with their audience,” Bickle explained. “The circular motif that runs across the facade and treehouse are designed to be effervescent like the bubbles themselves.”

Spotlights built into the underside of the wooden cube are designed as an extension to the circular pattern and illuminate a table in the centre of the office.

Upstairs, the timber meeting room extends into the roof and features skylights that fill the box with natural light.

The firm also improved existing studio and storage areas to create a workshop for building original props on the ground floor. The addition of a costume wardrobe, furnished with sewing machines and work benches, allows for every element of the theatre’s productions to be managed on site.

The architects used a bold colour scheme throughout the structure, coating interior walls with primary colours to differentiate between the spaces.

A white-walled group room with suspended strip lighting offers space for the children to take part in drama workshops, while a combined lounge and kitchen provides a place for the children to relax in between rehearsals.

Oily Cart theatre was recently nominated for a Royal Institute of British Architects London Award.

Photography is by Tim Crocker.

Here’s some more text from Hawkins\Brown:

Oily Cart Theatre, Wandsworth, London

Located in the annexe of the Victorian Grade II listed Smallwood Primary School based in Tooting, Wandsworth, Oily Cart theatre works entirely with children, many of whom have complex disabilities and often attend special needs schools. The theatre group aims to provide cultural stimulation for these often under-serviced audiences.

Stirling Prize nominated architects, Hawkins\Brown, worked with the Oily Cart theatre to create an inspiring and playful scheme in keeping with the theatre’s ethos. The complete development of Oily Cart productions is housed in the annexe, from inception and management through to prop building, costume design and rehearsals. The scheme dramatically improves workshop, rehearsal and storage facilities for the theatre and reconfiguration of spaces as well as improving working conditions within office spaces.

The original theatre had poor accessibility for its occupants and one of Hawkins\Brown major interventions was the addition of an external lift with patterned anodised aluminium panels to access the first floor of the theatre, formerly only accessible via an external staircase.

Bold colours were used throughout the theatre to aid with orientation around the spaces and a new mezzanine level insert was added to the building that acts as a flexible meeting room, as well as clean and dirty workshops to make all of the necessary props, sets and costumes for the theatre.

The resulting building creates an inspiring, bright and tactile space for children to lean and play, as well as reusing and recycling materials and found objects from the site.

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headquarters by Hawkins\Brown appeared first on Dezeen.

Austrian firm Coop Himmelb(l)au has completed a major new concert venue and music school in the Danish city of Aalborg, which claims to be “one of the quietest spaces for symphonic music in Europe” (+ slideshow).

Located on the edge of the Limfjord – the body of water that bounds the city – the House of Music was designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au as a cultural hub that accommodates both a 1300-seat performance venue and a music college.

The architect worked closely with an acoustic consultant to develop a curvaceous auditorium that will offer exemplary acoustics. This is encased within a U-shaped volume that contains the classrooms and rehearsal areas of the school.

“The idea behind the building can already be read from the outer shape. The school embraces the concert hall,” said Coop Himmelb(l)au principal Wolf D. Prix.

Externally, the building’s facade is a composition of boxy volumes, undulating roof canopies, circular windows and latticed walls of glazing.

According to Prix the design is intended to represent the unity between music and architecture: “Music is the art of striking a chord in people directly. Like the body of musical instruments this architecture serves as a resonance body for the creativity in the House of Music.”

Visitors enter through a five-storey-high atrium with a concrete staircase winding up through its centre. This provides access to different levels of the auditorium, but also leads to an observation area facing out over the fjord.

Windows within the interior offer glimpsed views into the auditorium from the surrounding spaces. There are also three smaller performance spaces located underneath the foyer.

Water-filled pipes run through the concrete floor slab to provide heating in winter and help keep the building cool in summer. This will be controlled as part of an intelligent building management system.

The House of Music opened with a thirteen-day extravaganza of concerts, performances, film and fireworks.

Scroll down for the project description from Coop Himmelb(l)au:

House of Music as a creative centre for Aalborg

After four years of construction, the “House of Music” in Aalborg, Denmark was ceremoniously opened on March 29, 2014 by the Danish Queen Margrethe II.

This cultural centre was designed by the Viennese architectural studio Coop Himmelb(l)au as a combined school and concert hall: its open structure promotes the exchange between the audience and artists, and the students and teachers.

U-shaped rehearsal and training rooms are arranged around the core of the ensemble, a concert hall for about 1,300 visitors. A generous foyer connects these spaces and opens out with a multi-storey window area onto an adjacent cultural space and a fjord. Under the foyer, three more rooms of various sizes complement the space: the intimate hall, the rhythmic hall, and the classic hall. Through multiple observation windows, students and visitors can look into the concert hall from the foyer and the practice rooms and experience the musical events, including concerts and rehearsals.

The concert hall

The flowing shapes and curves of the auditorium inside stand in contrast to the strict, cubic outer shape. The seats in the orchestra and curved balconies are arranged in such a way that offers the best possible acoustics and views of the stage. The highly complex acoustic concept was developed in collaboration with Tateo Nakajima at Arup. The design of the amorphous plaster structures on the walls and the height-adjustable ceiling suspensions, based on the exact calculations of the specialist in acoustics, ensures for the optimal listening experience. The concert hall will be one of the quietest spaces for symphonic music in Europe, with a noise-level reduction of NR10 (GK10). Thanks to its architectural and acoustic quality, the concert hall is already well-booked: there will be concerts featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with violin soloist Arabella Steinbacher and the Danish National Radio Orchestra with soprano Mojca Erdmann in April.

The foyer

The foyer serves as a meeting place for students, artists, teachers, and visitors. Five stories high with stairs, observation balconies, and large windows with views of the fjord, it is a lively, dynamic space that can be used for a wide variety of activities.

The energy concept

Instead of fans, the foyer uses the natural thermal buoyancy in the large vertical space for ventilation. Water-filled hypocaust pipes in the concrete floor slab are used for cooling in summer and heating in winter. The concrete walls around the concert hall act as an additional storage capacity for thermal energy. The fjord is also used for cost-free cooling.

The piping and air vents are equipped with highly efficient rotating heat exchangers. Very efficient ventilation systems with low air velocities are attached under the seats in the concert hall. Air is extracted through a ceiling grid above the lighting system so that any heat produced does not cause a rise in the temperature in the room.

The building is equipped with a building management program that controls the equipment in the building and ensures that no system is active when there is no need for it. In this way, energy consumption is minimised.

Planning: Coop Himmelb(l)au, Wolf D. Prix & Partner ZT GmbH
Design Principal/ CEO: Wolf D. Prix
Project Partner: Michael Volk
Design Architect: Luzie Giencke
Project Architect: Marcelo Bernardi, Pete Rose
Design Architect Interior: Eva Wolf

Local Architects: Friis & Moltke, Aalborg, Denmark
Acoustics, Audio-Visual & Theatre Design and Planning Consultant: Arup, New York, USA
Landscape Architect: Jeppe Aagaard Andersen, Helsingør, Denmark
Structural Engineering: Rambøll, Aalborg, Denmark;
B+G Ingenieure, Bollinger und Grohmann GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany
Mechanical, Electrical and Fire Engineering: Nirás, Aalborg, Denmark
Cost consultant: Davis Langdon LLP, London, UK
Lighting Design Consultant: Har Hollands, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Interior Design Consultant: Eichinger Offices, Vienna, Austria

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invites orchestras to Aalborg appeared first on Dezeen.

Children can clamber onto the curved roof of this community library in China, which architects John Lin and Olivier Ottevaere designed for an earthquake-damaged village in Yunnan Province (+ slideshow)

Ottevaere and Lin led a team from the University of Hong Kong to design The Pinch, a library and community centre built as part of a government reconstruction following the 2012 Yunnan earthquakes.

Situated in the mountain village of Shuanghe in south-west China, the library and surrounding plaza offers a meeting place for local residents, as well as a space where children can play and read.

“Villages in China often prioritise building houses over community spaces and community programs, even though it is an important aspect of village life,” Lin told Dezeen.

“Although the government provided an open plaza for the reconstruction, we wanted to help introduce a program which would activate the site. By adding the library, we have created an important public and communal facility in the village,” he explained.

The library features a twisted shape that bends out to meet an elevated stretch of pavement, allowing visitors to walk over the roof and look out towards a new basketball court.

Inside, rows of books sit on shelves made from interlocking timber frames, which are suspended from the ceiling and hover just above the floor.

Simple school benches offer flexible seating, while polycarbonate plastic doors and windows front the building.

The project was part-funded by the University of Hong Kong. Forming part of a knowledge exchange project, the design team worked with a local timber company to learn about native wood and regional construction techniques.

Here’s a project description from the design team:

The Pinch: library and community centre

The Pinch is a library and community centre in Shuanghe Village, Yunnan Province, China. The project is part of a government-led reconstruction effort after an earthquake in Sept 2012. The majority of village houses were destroyed, leaving the residents living in tents for up to one year. After the earthquake the government has sponsored new concrete and brick houses and a large central plaza. During the first site visit, the houses remained incomplete and the plaza was a large empty site.

The University of Hong Kong decided to sponsor the design and implementation of a new library building. Located in the new but empty public plaza, it would serve to activate the community and provide a physical memorial for the event. The site of the library is against a 4 meter high retaining wall. The design spans across this level difference and acts as a bridge between the rebuilt village and the new memorial plaza. Emphasising its location in a remote mountain valley, the design responds visually to the space of the valley, offering stunning views across a dramatic double curved roof. The structure itself rises to a peak, a monument to the earthquake and rebuilding effort.

As a Knowledge Exchange Project, the construction involves collaboration with a local timber manufacturing factory. The process resulted in the development of a surprisingly diverse form through simple means. A series of trusses is anchored between the upper road level and lower plaza level.

The form of each truss changes to create both a gradual incline (to bring people down) and then a sharp upward pitch (to elevate the roof). The trusses were covered in an aluminium waterproofing layer and timber decking. On the interior, the trusses extend downward to support a floating bookshelf. Simple traditional school benches are used as chairs. The polycarbonate doors can open to create a completely open space extending out to the plaza.

Rather than submitting to the abandonment of wood construction (as with the houses after the earthquake), the project reasserts the ability to build contemporary timber structures in remote areas of China.

Location: Shuanghe Village, Yunnan Province, China
Design: Olivier Ottevaere and John Lin / The University of Hong Kong
Construction: Kunming Dianmuju Shangmao Company
Funding: Supported by the Knowledge Exchange Impact Award, HKU
Project Team: Crystal Kwan (Project Manager), Ashley Hinchcliffe, Connie Cheng, Johnny Cullinan, Jacky Huang
Size: 80 sqm
Cost: 130,000 rmb
Unit Cost: 1600 rmb/sqm

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into a playground appeared first on Dezeen.

New York architect Louise Braverman has completed an arts centre in the Portuguese town of Botica dedicated to the work of abstract artist Nadir Afonso, who grew up nearby (+ slideshow).

The Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso was designed by Louise Braverman to reflect its location on the boundary between Botica and the surrounding countryside. Situated next to a major new motorway intersection on the outskirts of the town, the building is separated into two parts, with cultural facilities facing the road and exhibition spaces at the rear.

Glazed walls enclose the corner of the ground floor facing the busy road, offering a welcoming glimpse of an interior that features a photomural of the artist.

A cantilevered roof juts out above the entrance and shelters this corner of the centre, while a rectangular box projecting from the upper section of the facade frames a view through the building.

The ground floor space is filled with colourful furniture that complements enlarged versions of the artist’s sketches, arranged in a continuous band above the glass walls of the reception.

From the lobby, visitors can access a library, a cafeteria, a multi-purpose events room and ground floor exhibition halls at the rear of the building.

The ceiling above the library curves down to accommodate the banked seats of an auditorium above, which can be accessed via a staircase leading up to a balcony.

The portion of the centre containing the galleries is partly embedded in a steeply sloping hillside and is covered in a turfed roof featuring paving arranged to reflect the geometric patterns prevalent in Afonso’s art.

A short flight of steps provides access to the upper storey of centre from the roof garden, while a long staircase along one side of the building enables those passing to catch a glimpse of the art.

This staircase is flanked by a retaining wall constructed using stone salvaged during the site excavation, which can be seen from inside the galleries. These large chunks of stone were laid without mortar using a technique called cyclopean masonry.

“Since the exhibition walls are shorter than the exterior walls, visitors can view the art against a background of the surface of the rustic stone of the recycled cyclopean retaining walls, creating a unique feeling of viewing art within a lavish grotto,” said the architect.

The space between the exhibition halls and the retaining wall enables daylight to reach the interior, but minimises direct sunlight that could damage the artworks.

A gap between the two parts of the building at the base of the staircase can be used as an outdoor dining space for the cafeteria.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Louise Braverman Architect designs Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso, An Art Museum That Links an Emerging Urban Center with its Pastoral Environs

Merging architecture and landscape, the recently completed Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso links an emerging urban centre with its pastoral environs. The 20,000-square-foot single artist museum fuses a light, lucid contemporaneity with the rich materiality and sustainability of Portuguese design to honour one of Portugal’s most beloved native sons, the artist Nadir Afonso (1920-2013).

As well as paying homage to the artist, who formerly practiced architecture with Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, the Centro, along with the artist’s foundation in nearby Chaves, will serve as an engine driving economic, cultural, and community development in the region. Sliced into a steep hillside, the new museum is divided into two distinct, but connected, parts: a light-filled cultural center looking out upon the intersection of a national highway and City Hall; and, nestled in the back, a vast, below-grade exhibition space topped by a green-roof park.

The Urban Face

In the double-height Entry Hall, a photomural of the artist and a continuous band of his sketches provide punches of bright colour visible from the street. From here, the exhibition hall, outdoor café, children’s library and stairway to the auditorium beckon, as does the exterior auditorium that is designed to encourage informal civic engagement.

The Pastoral Side

Embedded in the hillside below a sustainably planted green roof, the exhibition hall is the heart of the museum. Since the exhibition walls are shorter than the exterior walls, visitors can view the art against a background of the surface of the rustic stone of the recycled cyclopean retaining walls, creating a unique feeling of viewing art within a lavish grotto. While encouraging the perception of an indoor/outdoor layering of space, the proximity of the walls to the interior both blocks degrading direct sunlight and allows indirect daylight to reduce the museum’s carbon footprint. The green roof park, designed in the spirit of Nadir Alonso’s geometric patterns and the tradition of Roberto Burle Marx, also naturally modulates internal temperature while offering aesthetic delight to the community.

Architects: Louise Braverman, Architect
Location: Rua Gomes Monteiro, Boticas, Portugal
Architect in charge: Louise Braverman
Design team: Artur Afonso, John Gillham, Yugi Hsiao, Jing Liu, Snow Liu, Medha Singh
Area: 1858 sqm

Local architect: Paulo Pereira Almeida, Arq.
Consulting architect: Artur Afonso, Arq.
Landscape architect: Maria João Ferreira, Arq.
Structural & plumbing engineer: JP Engenharia, Lda.
Electrical and mechanical engineer: M &M Engenharia, Lda.
Fire safety engineer: Palhas Lourenço, Eng.

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pays tribute to local painter Nadir Afonso appeared first on Dezeen.

Shigeru Ban‘s design for an art gallery opening this summer in Aspen, Colorado, has been demonstrated by a new architectural model, following news that the Japanese architect will receive this year’s Pritzker Prize (+ slideshow).

Set to open on 9 August, the new Aspen Art Museum will be a four-storey building containing six separate galleries, more than tripling the amount of exhibition space in the museum’s current facility.

Shigeru Ban designed the 3000 square-metre building for a site at the corner of East Hyman Avenue in downtown Aspen. Its primary feature will be a basket-weave cladding that wraps around two elevations.

A grand staircase will be slotted between this woven exterior and the interior structure. There will also be a glass elevator dubbed the “moving room” that will connect galleries at the northeast corner.

Glass floors will allow visitors to see between storeys, while a sculpture garden located on the roof will offer views towards Ajax Mountain.

The inaugural exhibition will feature the work of artists Yves Klein and David Hammons, but the museum also plans to host an exhibition dedicated to Shigeru Ban’s humanitarian housing projects.

Here’s some more information about the gallery from Aspen Art Museum:

The New Aspen Art Museum

Located on the corner of South Spring Street and East Hyman Avenue in Aspen’s downtown core a few blocks from Aspen’s main skiing/snowboarding mountain, Ajax Mountain, the new AAM is Shigeru Ban’s first U.S. museum. Of its design, Ban states: “Designing the Aspen Art Museum presented a very exciting opportunity to create a harmony between architecture and Aspen’s surrounding beauty while also responding to the need for the dialogue between artwork, audience, and the space itself.”

Ban’s vision for the new AAM is based on transparency and open view planes—inviting those outside to engage with the building’s interior, and providing those within the opportunity to see their exterior surroundings as part of a uniquely Aspen Art Museum experience. The new Museum features 12,500 square feet of flexible exhibition space in six primary gallery spaces spread over the museum’s four levels – more than tripling the amount of exhibition space in the museum’s current facility. The galleries have a ceiling height of fourteen feet, most infused with natural light.

Visitors will enter the new AAM through a main public entry on the north side of the building along East Hyman Avenue, which allows access to the main reception area, as well as the new AAM’s two ground floor galleries. From there, visitors may choose their path through museum spaces -ascending to upper levels either via Ban’s “moving room” glass elevator in the northeast corner of the new facility, or the grand staircase on the east side of the facility perpendicular to South Spring Street. The grand staircase – an interstitial three-level passageway situated between the building’s woven composite exterior grid and interior structure – is intersected by a glass wall dividing the stairway into a ten-foot-wide exterior space, and a six-foot-wide interior space. The unique passage allows for the natural blending of outdoor and indoor spaces and will feature mobile pedestals where art will be exhibited.

After climbing the grand staircase to the roof deck sculpture garden, visitors will enjoy unparalleled, sweeping vistas of Aspen’s internationally recognised environment. This will be the only unobstructed public rooftop view anywhere in town of the iconic Ajax Mountain. The roof deck will also be an activated exhibition and event space, with a café and bar and outdoor screening space. Shigeru Ban envisioned that visitors would navigate the new AAM the way a mountain is navigated when skiing or snowboarding – by proceeding to the very top of the building and descending from floor to floor.

Other features of the museum’s architecture include: “walkable” skylights that will assist in illuminating the single main gallery on the second level; two galleries, an education space, bookstore/museum shop and on-site artist apartment on the ground floor; and, on the new AAM’s lower level, three galleries, art storage, and art preparation spaces.

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Shigeru Ban’s new Aspen Art Museum appeared first on Dezeen.