Webs of red parachute cables take the place of traditional balustrades between the two levels of this office that architects Joe Fraher and Lizzie Webster have built as an extension of their London home (+ slideshow).
Named The Green Studio, Fraher Architect‘s new two-storey workplace was designed to allow its two directors greater flexibility in balancing a growing workload with raising a young family, and it is located on a compact site in the garden of their two-storey house.
The criss-crossing cables extend from the angular double-height ceiling of a ground-floor workplace to the floor’s edge of a small mezzanine office, creating two colourful nets that the architects say are strong enough to hold a person’s weight.
We wanted to keep visual permeability and wanted something that didn’t feel like a balustrade,” Webster told Dezeen. “You can sit in it to read, and if you fell onto it, it would catch you.”
The architects ensured that gaps between cables are never wider than ten centimetres to minimise the risk that someone might slip through them by accident.
“The form of the cord stretches and bridges to visually emphasise the faceted angles of the studio walls,” added Webster.
A wooden staircase with integrated drawers and cupboards connects the two storeys and was custom-made by the architects’ joinery company Fraher + Co.
Bespoke desks and shelves were built on both floors, creating a pair of desks upstairs for the two directors and four more workspaces on the ground floor. There are also pegboards on the walls to accommodate ad-hoc fixings.
High-performance glazing and thick insulation were added so that the office needs no heating, plus natural ventilation helps to keep the building cool in summer.
The exterior of the extension is clad with stainless steel mesh, while plants and wildflowers grow across the roof.
Read on for more information from Fraher Architects:
The Green Studio
Sited opposite the Butterfly House, The Studio is a garden based creative home work space for our architectural practice. Situated in the south east of London, the building was driven by the directors need to balance a young family with an increasing workload.
The studio’s shape and orientation has resulted from a detailed sunlight analysis minimising its impact on the surrounding buildings and ensuring high levels of daylight to the garden and work spaces.
The split levels and grounded form helps to conceal its mass and facilitates the flowing groundscape transition between the garden and studio. Clad in a stainless steel mesh, the terraced planter beds and wild flower green roofs will combine to green the facade replacing the lost habitat.
Carefully orientated high performance glazing combined with super insulation and a robust natural ventilation strategy means the building requires no heating or cooling. Hot water for the kitchen and shower are provided by a large solar array and thermal store.
The project was completed in October 2013 and delivered to a tight budget and deadline.
All the joinery was designed, fabricated and installed by the practice’s sister company Fraher + Co.
A faceted roof made from a shimmering copper-bronze alloy covers this extension by British firm Emrys Architects to a pair of Georgian townhouses in London (+ slideshow).
Emrys Architects was asked by property management firm GMS Estates to modernise and extend its offices, which occupy two former residential properties on Great James Street in Bloomsbury.
The architects installed a new two-storey structure at the rear of the buildings to create additional rooms and improve connections between existing workspaces.
“The client wished to break out from the confined spaces of the Georgian terrace to allow easier communication between each other whilst retaining some delineation between departments,” explained the architects.
“Our solution was to retain and enhance the grandeur of the terrace and to introduce an entirely new structure in the tight land-locked space to the rear to create a dramatic transition from old to the new,” they added.
The triangular sections of the metal roof angle up and down to create varying ceiling heights inside the new structure, lining up with different parts of the old brick buildings.
“We took the existing heights of key points around the perimeter and used this for inspiration for an unusual triangulated roof form,” said the architects.
Inside, recessed lighting highlights the edges of each plane, while triangular skylights bring daylight into the space from the corners.
A cantilevered wooden staircase leads down to the lower level, where wooden ceiling joists have been left exposed.
A meeting room is contained at the centre of this floor and occupies an old barrel-vaulted brick structure that was formerly used as a vault.
Glass doors help to bring in extra daylight and lead out to small courtyards, plus both levels feature oak parquet flooring.
Here’s a project description from Emrys Architects:
Great James Street
Two Grade II* listed Georgian properties that have been the head offices of GMS Estates for generations have been redeveloped for the 21st Century. A melee of unconnected post-war extensions and dank lower ground spaces has been replaced with two storeys of striking contemporary work space.
Background
32-33 Great James Street comprises two five storey terraced townhouses built between 1720 and 1724. The terrace is one of the few remaining intact Georgian streets in London, close to Grays Inn in Bloomsbury. The properties suffered bomb and fire damage during the Second World War and were patched-up shortly after with a series of rear extensions. This annex contained poor office accommodation and some areas were in such bad condition that they were only suitable for storage.
GMS Estates are landowners and landlords who own many properties in Central London and take pride in keeping them to a high standard. Having recently completed several refurbishments of residences and offices for the rental market, they realised that their own accommodation was hampering their productivity and staff well-being.
The boardroom at 32 Great James Street was spectacular with original oak panelling and portraits of previous company chairmen, accessed from an oak panelled staircase. However, other areas of the building were jammed with staff in various rooms on different levels. Internal communication involved moving up and down the stairs, opening fire doors and bumping into tired office furniture and trailing wires. The team felt disconnected from each other. Many rooms lacked adequate natural light and felt oppressive. Some of the post-war extensions were damp and warren-like. Furthermore, the organisation was growing and could not easily be contained within the existing structure.
The GMS brief to Emrys Architects was to identify ways of better utilising the property within the constraints of the existing listed buildings and their outbuildings. They required Great James Street to be a flagship headquarters and although steeped in tradition, GMS happily embrace contemporary architecture.
Interiors
The client wished to break out from the confined spaces of the Georgian terrace to allow easier communication between each other whilst retaining some delineation between departments.
Our solution was to retain and enhance the grandeur of the listed terrace and to introduce an entirely new structure in the tight land-locked space to the rear to create a dramatic transition from old to the new.
Following an audit of the existing outbuildings, it was agreed with the local authority to retain some elements. The most notable feature was the existing silver vault, a brick barrel-arched structure that included a heavy steel door. Whilst this was not ideally located, it was used as the starting point for the space plan of the lower floors and became an unconventional meeting room.
The new structure is on two levels and is accessible from the Georgian terrace at both lower ground and ground floors.
The work spaces have been configured to allow departments to occupy clearly demised areas, yet still allow full connectivity between groups. Departments are positioned in areas that have the best natural light and access to the external courtyards. There are no physical divisions between each place.
An asymmetric lofted ceiling sits under the new roof with recessed lighting accentuating the geometric planes. A double height void is cut out at the rear and a cantilevered timber staircase rises through to connect the floors. Use of roof lights and glazed access to courtyard areas has ensured that the building is flooded with light.
Chevron oak parquet floor runs throughout the new offices and timber joists on the lower floor have been left exposed and lime washed.
Faced with the restriction of the land-locked site, we took the existing heights of key points around the perimeter to the rear of the listed building and used this for inspiration for an unusual triangulated roof form.
In order to maximise the potential of the space and introduce drama, certain elements of the roof shape were pulled upward increasing the internal floor-to-ceiling heights. The contemporary folded roof form is complemented by the use of a copper bronze alloy in a flush rain screen arrangement, the patina selected to harmonise with the existing townhouse.
The walls adjacent to the light wells are fully glazed and additional windows and roof lights added to maximise light penetration into the plan.
The structure is made up of a series of folded triangular plates that are self-supporting when all panels are in place. These are retained by a continuous light-weight steel ring beam that ties all the panels together and prevents them from sliding away. Triangular roof lights are placed outside this ring beam and allow light to penetrate down to the lower ground floor.
Long section
Outcome
“Emrys Architects have taken unusable areas and created stunning new offices that have transformed our working day.” – Tom Gibbon, Managing Director, GMS Estates
Cross section
Architects: Emrys Architects Location: Bloomsbury, London WC1 Type Of Project: Refurbishment and Extension Structural Engineers: Elliott Wood Partnership Project Architect: Gwilym Jones Design Team: Glyn Emrys, Matt Blackden, Nuno Meira, Gwilym Jones Client: GMS Estates Funding: Private Tender date: December 2012 Start on site date: 4th March 2013 Contract duration: 36 Weeks Gross internal floor area: 440sqm – 4,734sqft Form of contract and/or procurement: Traditional /JCT Standard Form of Building Contract Total cost: £1m
Paris studio Marchi Architectes layered up timber slats of different thicknesses and proportions to give an irregular texture to the walls of this sunken house extension in Normandy, France (+ slideshow).
Adélaïde and Nicola Marchi designed the single-storey Black House to accommodate a new open-plan kitchen, dining room and lounge for an existing family house, allowing the owners to reconfigure their current layout.
The structure extends from the rear of the property, but is set at the lowest level of the site so that it is barely noticeable from a road running alongside.
Black-stained timber cladding covers the walls and roof of the extension, allowing it to look like the shadow of the main house, while the textured surface was designed to help it blend in with the surrounding woodland.
“The dark timber cladding plays with light and shadows so that the extension disappears in the shade of the forest around,” said the architects.
Shutters are clad with the same material and can be slid across the windows to screen the interior.
Inside, a two-stage staircase folds around one corner to create routes into the extension from different storeys of the house. There’s also an extra door leading straight out to the garden.
The kitchen is tucked into the corner beneath the staircase, while the dining table sits in the middle of the space and the living area is positioned at the far end.
A pair of skylights help to distribute natural light through the room and heating is provided by a wood-burning stove.
Read on for a short project description from Adélaïde and Nicola Marchi:
Black House
The client wanted to move the living spaces to a more open and transparent space, in order to free some spaces in the old house. A unique volume is set up, arranging kitchen, living and dining room. From the interior, wide views are offered to the garden and landscape.
The extension is connected to the existing house as a structurally light volume, as not to overload the foundations. The project is minimal: the volume is integrated in the surrounding, partially recessed in the topography of the ground to stand lower than the street level.
The dark timber cladding plays with light and shadows so that the extension disappears in the shade of the forest around.
Program: Housing Size: 80 m2 Date of design: 2010-2013 Date of completion: 2013
Berlin practice Sauerbruch Hutton has renovated and extended a former Prussian military uniform factory to accommodate its own offices and an artist’s studio.
Sauerbruch Hutton added a two-storey extension with a grey render and zigzagging roof that contrasts with the listed brick building, which is the largest in a cluster of former barracks.
“The building as a whole appears to be made of two halves – a historic brick ‘base’ and a new addition,” the architects told Dezeen.
A long glass wall running along the centre of the renovated second floor separates a series of offices from a large open-plan space, while a staircase cast from concrete connects the two new storeys.
The new third floor contains a reception area and conference room that flank a gallery leading to a library and a series of smaller offices and meeting rooms.
Roof lights in the extension introduce daylight into the offices, while large windows frame views of the trees outside.
Sauerbruch Hutton also created a studio and apartment for conceptual artist Karin Sander in the eastern portion of the building.
Studio spaces with skylights, bedrooms, a kitchen, a library and a living room are spread across two storeys, with a roof terrace providing outdoor space.
A cast concrete wall separates the expansive 5.5-metre-high studios from the living spaces, with an opening connecting the main studio to the raised reference library.
Israeli studio SO Architecture added this auditorium and gallery to a hilltop war memorial in Nesher, Israel, and tilted it upwards so that it faces towards the sky (+ slideshow).
SO Architecture designed the concrete auditorium building as an extension to the existing structure, which commemorates Israeli soldiers that died in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War but previously was only used once a year on the country’s national memorial day.
The new building provides a community hall for events, film screenings and other activities, as well as an exhibition gallery charting the history of the site, which served as a guarding post during the war.
The exhibition space, called the Remembrance Gallery, is filled with photographs of fallen soldiers. These cover boxes installed along the walls, where victims’ families can store items that preserve the memories of their loved ones.
In the auditorium, rows of ascending timber bleachers provide seating, while a large window fills the space with light and offers a view out over nearby Haifa Bay.
Dark grey paint covers the exterior of the extension, uniting it with the existing memorial. A concrete plaque adorns the side of the old tower, and a golden Star of David is positioned at the top.
“The concrete relief was made in the 1950s by the artist Michael Kare as part of the transformation of the building from guarding post to a memorial,” added the architects.
Stepped landscaping and a viewing platform have been added to the south of the site, joining an existing limestone square and a children’s playground.
Here’s a project description from SO Architecture:
Nesher Memorial
Nesher Memorial was built on a basis of an historic preservation building that was used in the past as a guarding position. In ’48 war the position’s used as protection to the residents of Giv’at Nesher. The building is located in the heart of a quiet neighbourhood, on a hilltop, surrounded by a large square and a children’s playground.
Prior to the construction works, the building was neglected and was used in favour of the public only once a year – in the National Memorial Day, then it was open for a tour and impression of memorial pictures, as a part of the public ceremony for the memory of the fallen.
Nesher municipality asked SO Architecture office to expand the square surrounding the building so it will enable multiplayer events, and to redesign the building and add functions to it, so that it can serve the public throughout the year as a gathering space.
The main architectural idea was to add to the existing building an auditorium structure that could be used for different kinds of public activities such as lectures, film screenings, activities of youth groups, etc., along with preservation of the historical memory.
The auditorium
The auditorium reveals its insides geometry to the park and the city surrounding, by its inclined façade. This geometrical act has an additional meaning in creating a symbolic geometry that communicates with the memorial concept, and the function of the building as a monument.
A large window is located at the edge of the auditorium, facing north and thus brings a soft light into the auditorium and enables a breathtaking view at the landscape of Haifa bay. In a poetic allegory to reality, the window function as a bright ending to the inner space, and thus symbolises the balance between the bereavement pain and the light and hope in the living world.
The memory space
A box for each fallen, with its picture on it, is hanged on the wall of the memory area inside the building. Inside it, there is a room for storage of memorial personal belongings that the family and the municipality can put. In the space itself there is a place for seating and communion with the memory books and the memory of the fallen.
The centre of the memory space is lighted by long and narrow windows that were the shooting slits in the original guarding position, and by upper skylight windows from the original historic building. The memory space was designed in a modular manner, so that if necessary, it will be possible to add additional boxes without any difficulty.
The original building contours regarding to the addition, are marked and highlighted through aluminium bars that were sediment in mortar and emphasise the contours of the old building regarding to the new addition. The materials that we used in the building are simple.
The floor in the memory space is a concrete floor. The ceiling along the whole building is covered with oak planks, so that it creates a warm atmosphere. The auditorium area was also covered with wood, and sponge padded seats. An access to disabled was also arranged.
The gatherings’ square on the front of the building, was designed on the basis of the existing square. The works in it included suitability and accessibility to the disabled, creating grandstand steps in the edges to enable a more comfortable viewing, and an addition of another viewing site at the southern end of the square. The finishing material of the square is a visible concrete that delimits the steps, and grey concrete blocks.
This extension to a woodland home in Ontario by Canadian studio UUfie features charred cedar walls and a mirrored entrance (+ slideshow).
Japanese architect Eiri Ota and Canadian architect Irene Gardpoit Chan of UUfie designed the small cabin, named Lake Cottage, to add large living and dining rooms to a family house beside the Kawartha Lakes.
The structure has a steeply pitched roof covered with black steel, while its two gabled ends are clad with cedar that has been charred to protect it from termites and fire.
“Lake Cottage is a reinterpretation of living in a tree house where nature is an integral part of the building,” said the architects, whose past projects include an apartment with velvet curtains for partitions.
The entrance sits within a sheltered recess that spans the front of the cabin. Mirrored panels cover the sides and ceiling of the space, intended to integrate the building with the forest by reflecting the surrounding trees.
A living room occupies a rectangular central space, while the dining room forms a link to the existing house.
A staircase made from a single log leads up to the first-floor attic, where walls follow the steep angle of the roof. Rounded wooden shingles decorate one side and are visible from the living room through a row of internal windows.
Timber panels line walls, floors and ceilings elsewhere in the cabin, and a wood-burning stove keeps the space warm during cold winter months.
Lake Cottage is a reinterpretation of living in a tree house where nature is an integral part of the building. In a forest of birch and spruce trees along the Kawartha Lakes, the cottage is designed as a two storey, multi-uses space for a large family. The structure composed of a 7 metre-high A-frame pitch roof covered in black steel and charred cedar siding. A deep cut in the building volume creates a cantilever overhang for a protected outdoor terrace with mirrors to further give the illusion of the building containing the forest inside.
This mixture of feeling between nature and building continue into the interior. The main living space is design as a self-contained interior volume, while the peripheral rooms are treated as part of the building site. Fourteen openings into this grand living space reveal both inhabited spaces, skies and trees, equally treated and further articulated with edges finishes of interior panel kept raw to show the inherit nature of materials used. This abstract nature of the interior spaces allows imagination to flow, and those spaces that could be identified as a domestic interior can suddenly become play spaces. A solid timber staircase leads to a loft which has the feeling of ascending into tree canopies as sunlight softy falls on wall covered in fish-scaled shingle stained in light blue.
Using local materials and traditional construction methods, the cottage incorporated sustainable principles. The black wood cladding of exterior is a technique of charring cedar that acts as a natural agent against termite and fire. Thick walls and roof provide high insulation value, a central wood hearth provides heat and deep recessed windows and skylights provide natural ventilation and lighting.
Lake Cottage is designed with interior and exterior spaces connected fluidly and repeat the experience of living within the branches of a tree.
Title: Lake Cottage Location: Bolsover, Ontario Architect: UUfie General contractor: Level Design Build Principal use: cottage Total floor area: 65.00sqm Structure: wood Design period: 2010.1-2010.8 Construction period: 2010.10-2013.1
London studio Denizen Works has overhauled a cottage in Scotland‘s Outer Hebrides by rebuilding the original structure and adding two extensions modelled on agricultural sheds (+ slideshow).
Architect Murray Kerr of Denizen Works completed this project for his parents, who had bought an ageing house on the Isle of Tiree and planned to renovate it and live there for five months of the year.
After discovering the original structure was beyond repair, the architect had to instead rebuild it before adding two new wings that are designed to reference the local agricultural vernacular.
“The concept was to create a traditional cottage with agricultural sheds around it, as if the building had grown organically over time,” Kerr told Dezeen.
The stone cottage now functions as a guest house, with bedrooms on both floors and a generous living room.
Behind it, a bunker-like structure is used as the main house. The exterior of this building is made from galvanised steel and corrugated fibre cement, and it has a curved roof profile.
The upper level houses a large timber-lined kitchen and dining room, while stairs lead down to an en suite bedroom that is slightly sunken into the ground.
“The idea was to create a robust outside, contrasting with the light and airy space inside,” said Kerr.
The base of the structure is created from the same stone as the cottage walls, helping to tie the two structures together. “After rebuilding the old house, we had some stones left over, so we reused them elsewhere,” added the architect.
A third wing was also added and serves as a utility area. It contains a laundry area, a wet room where residents can clean sand off their shoes and a studio that children can use for painting.
We were commissioned in October 2010 to produce a design for a new house on the site of a ruined, B-listed black-house on the Isle of Tiree on the west coast of Scotland. We developed a concept that comprises two houses, a Living-house and a Guesthouse, linked by a Utility wing. Together the elements combine to create a bold insertion into the landscape while reflecting the character and heritage of the island.
In keeping with the philosophy of Denizen Works, the language of the house was driven by an examination of the local vernacular, materials and building forms with the architecture of the Living-house and Utility taking their lead from the local agricultural buildings combining soft roof forms, chimneys and corrugated cladding.
Setting off the utilitarian accommodation is the Guesthouse with its deep-set stone walls, black and white palette and black tarred roof resulting in a building that is tied to the landscape and unmistakably of Tiree.
The Site
Tiree is the western most of the Inner Hebrides, accessible from the mainland via ferry services from Oban or by air from Glasgow airport and enjoys more hours of sunlight than any other location in the British Isles. At around 7.8 ha and with a population of around 750, the island is highly fertile providing fantastic grazing land for livestock due to the mineral rich ‘machair’ that covers the land mass.
Located on the southern coast of the island, House No.7 is accessed by a grass track and enjoys fantastic views of Duin bay to the south and a typical Tiree landward aspect of lightly undulating machair and traditional housing settlements.
Like most places on Tiree, the siting of the house is very exposed, with no natural land mass or vegetation to provide shelter from the wind. The design challenge, given the exposure to the elements, was to create a design that maximises shelter from the wind giving places of shelter on all sides, while allowing sunlight to penetrate and warm the house inside and out while utilising the breeze to aid natural ventilation.
Site plan
Architecture
The Living-house, containing living/kitchen/dining spaces with master bedroom below, functions as the social heart of the new home. The living space is a half level up from the entrance with the master bedroom sunk into the landscape with views to the sheltered garden. Access to the garden, created by the removal of the sand blow build up around the existing cottage, and the beach is from the southern end of the space.
The Guesthouse is constructed in the stone from the original cottage containing two guest bedrooms, a bathroom and a quiet snug/entertaining room with an open link to the main hall in the utility.
The Utility is the functional heart of the building containing laundry facilities along with a wet room in which to clean off the sand from the beach or fish scales from the sea and a studio/lego room for painting and play. This third element, with the feel of a covered outdoor space, seamlessly links the other elements of the house allowing family and guests to interact as they choose.
The interior of the house offers a counterpoint to the robust architecture of the exterior, filled with natural light; the finishes are intentionally robust with inspiration for the palette taken from local Tiree architecture. Heating is provided through an air-source heat pump.
A twisted angular roof oversails this extension to a suburban house in Melbourne by Australian architects March Studio (+ slideshow).
March Studio, which is best known for designing a series of stores for Aesop, was tasked with renovating an existing bungalow in Kensington and adding an extension that doubles the size of the interior.
For the existing house, the architects retained the Edwardian facade but re-planned the interior to accommodate only bedrooms and bathrooms.
The new two-storey structure extends from the rear of the house. The architects excavated part of the ground, allowing them to create a concrete basement and parking area with a timber-clad ground-floor level above.
“The new extension is not meant to be sympathetic to an older style but rather has been shaped by the clients’ brief, solar access and one of Melbourne’s best views back onto the city,” said the architects.
The angular black-zinc roof extends over a large living and dining room, and is angled up at two corners to allow light to filter in through clerestory windows.
“This simple twisting operation grabs light and views,” said the architects. “The action and drama of the twist is expressed and amplified on the ceiling below by a series of hand-plugged timber battens.”
The concrete structure on the level below contains a children’s playroom with circular glass skylights overhead, as well as a wine cellar, a laundry room and a bathroom.
A car can be parked beneath the projecting upper level, while a terrace and garden are positioned just beyond.
The building is named Mullet House, as a reference to the hairstyle that different at the back than at the front. According to the architects, a passerby has described the house as “formal up front with the party out the back”.
Here’s some text from the architects:
Mullet House
Situated in Melbourne’s inner-city suburb of Kensington, ‘The Mullet’ performs contorted gymnastics in order to facilitate an ambitious brief on a small, yet opportunistic site.
The clients, Scott Smith and Phoebe Moore, wanted to commission not only a new and comfortable home, but also sought a challenging design. Running a family business in construction, Scott and Phoebe’s own home would become an opportunity for them to showcase their own capabilities.
A Heritage overlay shaped the design for the front of the dwelling, requiring that the cottage facade and first few rooms flanking Hardiman Street be retained and renovated, (red roof and all). This is where the formality is, the face to the heritage land of Eastwood Street blends seamlessly with its cottage neighbours. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms are resolved into the pre-determined Edwardian shell, freeing up the new extension for the living areas.
The fun begins to emerge when rounding Hardiman Street. ‘I don’t like it’ – says one of the locals half way through construction. ‘It’s not in keeping with the area…’ The new extension is not meant to be sympathetic to an older style but rather been shaped by the clients’ brief, solar access and one of Melbourne’s best views back onto the city.
The balancing act that the local resident detested emerged when the brief called for off-street parking. The house would straddle the parking area, and even with the grade of Hardiman Street to advantage, excavation was unavoidable. Since a digger would be coming to site anyway, the opportunity to dig a little deeper and sink a large concrete box (along with the children in it) was far too good to refuse.
Buried within the concrete box is the rumpus room, wine cellar, laundry, and an additional bathroom. The box is capped with a concrete lid and garnished with strategically placed, trafficable glass skylights. The monolithic form anchors the new building into the side of the hill and is finished internally by the rough reality of building – and being – underground.
The concrete lid of the concrete box is not only the ceiling for below, but also the floor in both the kitchen and exterior deck. The pivot around which the other spaces are spun, the kitchen serves all parts of the house, while the dining and living areas are tucked up above the garage and closer to the night sky of Melbourne’s city lights. Timber battens clad the extension, wrapping the three spaces together and providing a linear base for the last hovering piece.
Soaring above the living spaces is the black zinc roof. On the northern edge the roof is pulled up to increase natural light to the northwest corner, and pushed down to the neighbouring building on Hardiman Street on the northeast, so as not to overshadow it. On the south side, the operation is reversed, and the southwest corner is lifted to create a framed view of the city. This simple twisting operation grabs light and views from two corners and anchors the remaining two with rain heads falling to collection tanks. The action and drama of the twist is expressed and amplified on the ceiling below by a series of hand-plugged timber battens.
Dutch Design Week 2013:Dutch firm Bierman Henket architecten has added an extension shaped like a rugby ball on top of a neo-classical museum in the city of Zwolle (+ slideshow).
Bierman Henket architecten created the extension for The Museum De Fundatie, which is housed in a former courthouse designed in 1838 that now contains a collection of international art, sculpture and curiosities.
Located on the edge of a market square that links the medieval city centre to an area of nineteenth-century parkland, a shortage of space around the museum and the technical complexity of extending underground led the architects to propose placing the extension on top of the existing building.
The architects explained that their design “couples the classical, static building with the fluid dynamics of a contemporary extension in a vertical direction.”
Eight steel columns pierce the original building and support the two-storey extension, making it structurally independent.
The extension’s exterior is covered in 55,000 three-dimensional tiles produced by Royal Tichelaar Makkum with a blue and white glaze that helps the structure match the colour of the sky.
The curving, open spaces inside the extension contrast with the typical arrangement of adjoining exhibition halls found in the old building.
A large window on the northern side fills the interior with daylight and provides visitors with a panoramic view of the city.
The project won the Spatial Exterior category at the Dutch Design Awards last week, with the selection committee commenting that: “the project generates a huge impact in the city” and “has an incredible presence”. The top prize at the awards went to fashion designer Iris van Herpen’s collection featuring 3D-printed garments.
The architects sent us this project description:
Museum De Fundatie, Zwolle Extension: 2010-2013
Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle, situated on the border between the mediaeval city centre and the open 19th century parkland with its canals, has been extended with a spectacular volume on the roof of the former Palace of Justice.
The courthouse on Blijmarkt was designed by the architect Eduard Louis de Coninck in 1938 in the neo-classical style. De Coninck intended this style of architecture to symbolise the unity in the legislation of the new kingdom. The building has a double symmetry with a monumental entrance and a central entrance hall extending over two floors.
On the city side the free-standing building is slightly recessed in relation to the unbroken, mediaeval façade of Blijmarkt. Together with the classical façade structure of a tympanum on Corinthian columns, this gives the building a solitary character.
The building is also free-standing on the canal side, in the green zone of Potgietersingel. The canals were laid out as a public park in the English landscape style in the second half of the 19th century, following the demolition of the city walls.
Due to its location the building became a link between two distinct worlds: one an inward-orientated, mediaeval, fortified city with a compact and static character and the other a 19th century park with an outward-orientated, dynamic character.
In 1977 the building ceased to function as a Palace of Justice and it was converted into offices for the Rijksplanologische Dienst, the government planning department. A mezzanine was constructed in the two high court rooms. Since 2005, following internal renovation by architect Gunnar Daan, the building has been the home of Museum De Fundatie.
The museum has an extraordinary collection including works by Rembrandt, Saenredam, Turner, Monet, Rodin, Van Gogh, Mondrian and Van der Leck. In addition, the museum organises modest, but much discussed exhibitions. Under Ralph Keuning’s directorship these temporary exhibitions became so successful that extension of the museum became unavoidable. Despite the inherent problems of extending the palace in the historical city centre, the museum resisted the temptation to abandon this national monument and opted to extend it.
Bierman Henket architecten designed the extension of the former courthouse in 2010. Architect Hubert-Jan Henket succeeded in persuading the client not to add an extension next to the existing building: this would have destroyed its solitary and symmetrical character. An underground extension proved spatially too complicated. Instead Henket designed an extension with an autonomous volume on top of the monumental building.
In the same way that the Palace of Justice links two worlds in a horizontal direction, Henket couples the classical, static building with the fluid dynamics of a contemporary extension in a vertical direction.
The superstructure, just like the substructure, is symmetrical in two directions, but the shape rather resembles a rugby ball. Together, the two totally-different volumes form a new urban entity. There are also two contrasting interpretations in the interior: the classical succession of rectangular museum halls below versus the fluid, open spaces in the elliptical volume above.
Right from the outset, both the Rijksdienst voor Cultureel Erfgoed, the department responsible for the preservation of monuments and historical buildings, and local conservation societies were enthusiastic about the radical concept for the expansion. Under the motto preservation through development the customary debates and public inquiry procedures were considerably shortened. Planning permission was granted in record time.
Straight through the existing building, eight steel columns stand on eight individual foundations. The columns support the new extension – with two exhibition floors that total 1,000 m2. So, structurally and architecturally, the extension is independent of the old building.
The extension – also called the Art Cloud – is clad with 55,000 three-dimensional ceramic elements produced by Koninklijke Tichelaar in Makkum. Together, the mixed blue-and-white glazed tiles measuring 20×20 cm and 10×10 cm, form a subtle surface which, depending on the weather, merges into the heavens. On the northern side daylight floods into the two, new exhibition floors through a large, glazed pane in the tiled superstructure. Inside, visitors have a panoramic view of the city.
With the extension, the original central entrance hall has been carried through as an atrium where the two museological worlds converge. A glass lift in the atrium conveys visitors to the various floors. The stairways are located on the outer part of the floors. In the old building they are stately and straight, in the new development they are flowingly curved.
A glass passageway runs between the existing building and the extension − where new and old meet. On the one side visitors look into the atrium and on the other they have a view of the city and the underside of the tiled extension. With its aim of presenting contemporary and old art in one building – Museum De Fundatie now has a new, truly-unique identity.
Small attic spaces are tucked between the ribs of a triangular roof at this house extension in Japan by mA-style Architects (+ slideshow).
Japanese firm mA-style Architects designed the timber roof as a series of V-shaped frames, which sit over a rectilinear base and create triangular windows at each end.
Added to the west side of a family house, the Koya No Sumika extension provides a separate living and dining space for a couple and is connected to the main building by a glass and timber passageway.
“The young couple desired feelings of ease and spaces that ensure quiet and comfortable times,” said the architects. “The extension is designed as a minimum living space and pursues both maintaining distance and retaining fertile relationships.”
Small pockets slotted into the sides of the living area provide storage spaces for books and plants, as well as study areas with wooden desks and chairs.
A set of protruding wooden stairs and a separate ladder lead to the compact attic spaces overhead, as well as to a bed deck at the front of the building.
Bare light bulbs hang down from the triangular ceiling sections to illuminate the space.
This is an extension plan for a young couple’s house next to the main house. The main house is a one story Japanese style house with about 200m2, which is commonly seen in rural areas.
It is a big house with many rooms and mainly consists of large spaces for people to gather and to provide hospitality. However, the young couple desired feelings of ease and spaces that ensure quiet and comfortable times.
A simple extension may enable each of the house’s residents to live completely separated, but the relationship between the families and the connection with the main house might be lost.
Therefore, by utilising the functions for living in the main house, the extension is designed as a minimum living space, and pursues both maintaining distance and retaining fertile relationships.
The extension is attached by a connecting-corridor on the west side of the main house. This enables the residents to switch their mindset before entering into the other living space, and the common garden maintains a proper sense of distance. By relying on the main house for the large kitchen, bathroom, and future children’s room, only a few functions for a living space are required for the extended part.
The living spaces are aggregated into a simple continuous structure, which consists of small, 2m high, U-shaped bearing walls. A V-beam roof truss is made with 62mm panels and structural plywood on both sides, and it is topped with a 69mm thin roof.
By overlapping the bearing walls and the V-beam frame, and by using a variety of finishes, contrasting spaces are created and a sense of scale in the vertical direction is born in the flat house. By doing so, as the residents’ living scenes unfold, light and air freely circulate in the space, and the people’s lines-of-sight extend beyond the area in a state of freedom. We intended to leave a rich blank space that fosters the imaginations of the residents.
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