Hasta La Ideas

Réalisée par Flatlight Films pour la promotion de la Laponie, cette vidéo magnifique nous emmène dans une région boréale aux paysages incroyables. En effet, cette création pour Only In Lapland permet de promouvoir avec poésie cette région du monde au-delà du cercle polaire arctique. A découvrir dans la suite.

This children’s playhouse by Barcelona architects Anna & Eugeni Bach has stripy wooden walls, folding window hatches and a ladder instead of stairs.

The architects designed and constructed the folly at their parent’s farm in southern Finland, following a request from their children for a house of their own.

Assembled from nothing but locally milled spruce, the structure comprises two connected modules with roofs that pitch in different directions.

One side of the playhouse contains a double-height room, while the opposite half comprises two storeys.

We’ve also previously featured a playhouse inside a clothes store – take a look here.

Photography is by Tiia Ettala.

Here’s some more text from Bach Arquitectes:

Playhouse

When an architect couple has young kids, there will arrive a day when they ask:

– Mom, dad… You´re architects, aren’t you?
– Yes…
– And you make houses for people?
– Yes, of course…

And then comes the key question:

– So why don’t you do a house for us?

In such a situation, there are two possibilities: find an excuse to avoid it, or promise them that you will make a house especially designed for them.

We found ourselves in this stuation last summer, and we promised them that we would build a house for them on their grandparents farm in Finland. And, of course, at the kids insistence we fulfilled our promise.

The cottage is mainly based on a section: the structure is very simple, repeated in two equal modules but oriented in opposite directions. One of these modules is double-height (to the scale of children), which allows an adult to enter the house without having to bend. The other module has two levels, connected by a simple ladder allowing a more complex game inside.

This simple starting point means that from the outside, the house acquires the presence of an almost abstract object, without reference to the scale; while inside, when crossing the two modules you can identify the prototypical section of a childish house, with the typical symmetrical roof, like those we drew ourselves when we were kids.

The interior becomes what children understand as an essential house: a larger space that could be the living room, a lower space where the kitchen could be imagined and a higher ground where there could be the rooms. The abstract nature of the interior spaces allows a child´s imagination to flow, and those spaces that could be identified as a domestic interior can suddenly become the dungeon of a medieval castle, or the attic in the main tower from which to shoot arrows at enemies.

The construction of the house took two weeks. It was all built by two persons (ourselves, plus two little helpers), and was an educational process as rewarding as pedagogic: children saw and understood that things are achieved with effort, and that you can build your own dreams.

For the structure and the floors we used spruce wood from the grandparent´s farm, from trees planted by the kids´ great grandfather and cut by their grandfather. The rest of the wood was bought at the hardware store, from small wood sawmills in the area.

The whole house is made of wood; structure, floors, walls and roof, using traditional construction techniques used in Finnish barns such as leaving a nail distance between slats to ventilate the house, or a roofing system made from a simple overlapping of grooved wooden planks to prevent the ingress of water.

Only a small galvanized flashing helps protecting the wood cuts at the facades.

The house was painted with vertical white stripes, which persist on the roof and help to explain the original section of the project. The rest of the wood is left untreated, so that over time it will take a grayish hue that will increasingly contrast with the painted surfaces, showing more obviously as time goes on, and also symbolising how children get older.

These strips give a festive character to the volume, likening it to a fair house or an old beach changing hut, although in this case, its location in a rural environment, surrounded by apple trees, adds a more dreamlike character.

Author: Anna & Eugeni Bach, architects
Collaborators: Uma and Rufus Bach
Project dates: From July 20th to July 21st 2011
Work site dates: From August 10th to August 24th 2011
Built surface: 13,50 m2
Budget: 800 €
Promoter / owner: Uma and Rufus Bach
Constructor: Self built (Anna & Eugeni Bach)
Address: Pälölä farm, Nummi Pusula, Finland.

Cuisine meets design in a Finnish concept restaurant during Stockholm Design Week

On 7th February Stockholm welcomes design lovers as the annual Stockholm Design Week kicks off again. Timed to run alongside the Furniture & Light Fair, Finnish concept restaurant Hel Yes! will set up a special space on Skeppsholmen Island in the center of Stockholm.

Hel Yes! first entered the design fray during the 2010 London Design Week, hailed as one of the highlights of the festival itself as it tied together the disciplines of food and design with a sophisticated site-specific installation.

With Helsinki having been named Design Capital of the World in 2011, Hel Yes! gets another chance to shine as creative founders, restauranter Antto Melasniemi, artist Klaus Haapaniemi and designer Mia Wallenius bring their diverse skills to the new location.

London’s Hel Yes! was focused mainly on food and design, but Stockholm’s concept looks more toward the social aspects of gathering to eat, played out against neo-paganistic iconography devised by Haapaniemi, whose graphic forms of fauna and far-off galaxies will fill the 100-square-meter space. “Everybody on the team is interested in mysticism and Finnish pagan aesthetics,” explains Wallenius. “The textiles create a vast architectonic element and are part of creating a unique cosmos.”

In the months leading up to the opening, the founders worked with Finnish choreographer Kenneth Kvarnström and his dancers at Helsinki Dance Company to incorporate key elements of interaction and movement to the latest iteration of Hel Yes! More than just dance, the heightened sensory experience builds sections of choreography into the cooking and preparation of the food. “There’s no distinction between the dancers and the waiters. We’re trying to create a logical entirety with the audience being a part of it—more of an event than a performance,” explains Melasniemi. According to the chef, it’s about more than just food. “I’m not so much of a technician but have found myself getting more and more into the whole experience and concept of the dining ritual,” he says, explaining that when he eats out, he spends more time looking at the movement of the waiters, the sommelier’s delivery or the angles of tables and chairs.

As with the last Hel Yes! close attention to detail guides every aspect of the experience, from the special waitstaff uniform to the beer and vodka selection. Even the tablewear is drawn together from swap meets, in which residents from the Mylittala community are asked to hand over their old pieces from legendary Finnish brand Iittala and share the memories attached to each piece, in exhange for a free dinner. More advanced choreography fills the venue throughout the evening, including the introduction of an orchestra with a section of instruments crafted from whale bone. As for the food itself it’s likely to be a true showcase of Finnish cuisine and ingredients by chef whose vision goes beyond the food itself and transcends into a spectacularly memorable dining experience.

Hel Yes!

7-11 February 2012

Eric Ericsonhallen, Kyrkslingan 2

111 49 Stockholm, SE

Danish architects BIG seem to have a thing for skiing on rooftops and have designed some more buildings that double up as ski slopes, this time for a resort in Lapland.

Visitors to the Koutalaki Ski Village in Levi will be able take an elevator up to the rooftops of the four accommodation blocks and ski back down.

The competition-winning buildings will surround and shelter a public square that can be used for ice skating and music performances.

Cafes and bars will occupy the lower floors of the buildings, while the top floor of one block will offer panoramic views of the surrounding snow-covered landscape.

You can also read about BIG’s earlier proposals for a combined power plant and ski slope here, or see more stories about skating, skiing and sledging in our recent feature.

Here’s some more information from BIG:

BIG Unveils A Ski Resort In Lapland

BIG wins an invited competition for a 47.000 m2 ski resort and recreational area in Levi.

The future Ski Village will transform the existing Levi ski resort into a world class destination, offering top quality accommodation and leisure services for skiers of all levels and demands. The proximity to the Kittilä airport ensures easy access to the resort attracting international visitors to Levi village and the whole Lapland region.

The Finland-based developer Kassiopeia Finland Oy is investing in its local region as it currently owns and operates Hotel Levi Panorama, Levi Summit Congress Center and Hotel K5 Levi and above and beyond has interests in developing the exquisite Koutalaki area.

“BIG’s visionary approach of combining unique types of accommodation and amenities along with the leisure activities offered at the resort, left the jury in awe.

BIG’s ambitious plan challenges traditional thinking and we believe that the collaboration between Kassiopeia Finland and BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group will rise to the occasion.” Jury, Kassiopeia Finland Oy.

Located on a gentle slope, the existing Levi ski center provides the framework for the future Koutalaki Ski Village which is conceived as an extension of the summit and the existing cluster of buildings in Koutalaki.

BIG proposes to create a series of buildings that radiate out from a central square and whose ends touch the ground to create four freestanding buildings that each provide access to the roof and allow the skiers to descend from the resort’s rooftop downhill in any direction.

The soft curves of the undulating roofs of the four buildings create a visual continuity of the natural land­scape while lending the whole village the unique character of a skislope skyline that creates an inhabited mountain top.

“The Koutalaki Ski Village is conceived as an extension of both the summit and the resort. Grown from the natural topography rather than dropped from the sky – the ar­chitecture extends the organic forms of natural landscape creating an inhabitable as well as skiable manmade mountain.

As a result, our design for the Koutalaki Ski Village creates a new hybrid integrating distinct identities such as village and resort, shelter and openness, cozy intimacy and natural maj­esty, unique character and careful continuity – or simply – architecture and landscape.” Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Partner, BIG.

The four build­ings arc around a central square to create a new bustling village plaza at the heart of the resort, which is sheltered from the wind yet open and inviting to the surrounding landscape.

The plaza allows ice skating and music events and is connected to a bowl like yard with cafés and bars created by the lower interior heights of the new buildings. The intimate atmosphere of the spaces created here contrasts the open views from the summit.

The whole resort area is connected through a network of paths that prioritizes skiers and pedestrians. Access to the roofs happens through central elevator cores allowing skiing down either towards the courtyard or the piste. An elevator located centrally in the hotel provides access to the roof top restaurant with a 360 degree panorama views of the landscape and plaza.

”When first visiting the future Koutalaki village site you realize the proximity to the ski slopes but at the same time the importance of creating a connection for skiers as well. The gentle slope away from the main ski system seems to offer the solution for a unified proposal that creates maximum connectivity for skiers and pedestrians.” Jakob Lange, Partner-in-Charge, BIG.

All accommodation units offered at the new resort enjoy beautiful views of the surrounding nature, including the eight private villas which are situated at different elevations to provide an undisturbed panorama, while the elevated private gardens serve as an extension of the landscape. The villas embrace the snowy landscape and allow the snow in all its forms become a part of the architecture itself.

“Instead of creating design solutions that aim at dealing with snow by shoveling or moving it, we want to create a village that utilizes the full potential of snow. When it is caught on the façade the window frames become a living part of the landscape, adapting to changes in the weather. The light granite façade enhances the intimate relation with the nature.” Hanna Johansson, Project Leader, BIG.

While the four buildings simulate real ski slopes during winter time, combining the essence of a ski resort – skiing, relaxation, rec­reation and dwelling, the roofscape of the buildings during summer will be just as attractive serving as a green continuum of the surrounding natural landscape for hiking and pic­nics.

Name: Koutalaki Ski Village
Size: 47.000m2
Client: Kassiopeia Finland Oy
Location: Levi, Finland

Partners in Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Jakob Lange
Project Leader: Hanna Johansson
Team: David Tao, Erik de Haan, Jeff Mikolajewski, Jesper Victor Henriksson, Lucian Racovitan, Maren Allen

Imagine waking up in a glass bedroom by the waterside on a remote Finnish island. 

Helsinki architect Ville Hara and designer Linda Bergroth of Hel Yes! launched their combined greenhouse and shed kit for the gardening market in 2010 and has Bergroth customised the prototype to create her own summer house, adding a wooden floor, solar panels for lighting and steps made of reclaimed bricks.

She can enjoy the open views across the lake while all the clutter is hidden in the storage compartment at the back.

The modular parts can be bought in 4 different variations through Kekkilä Garden in Finland and Hasselfors Garden in other Scandinavian countries.

The Finnish pine and toughened safety glass components can be self-assembled on site.

See more work from the designers at Hel Yes! here. As for greenhouses, we recently published one made completely out of lego bricks – see our earlier story.

Photography is by Arsi Ikäheimonen

Here’s some more text from the designers:

Garden Shed by Ville Hara and Linda Bergroth for Kekkilä Garden

Garden Shed is designed by architect Ville Hara and designer Linda Bergroth for Kekkilä Garden’s Home & Garden collection. It is a unique prefabricated garden shed that combines a green house with storage space and comes in ready made elements that can be assembled by simply using a screwdriver. The Garden Shed is made from Finnish pine and safety glass and equipped with automatic openers to control the temperature inside.

It is designed to fit in the Scandinavian landscape and has a traditional gabled roof – typical in the area because of the weather conditions. The product comes in natural wood and can be painted according to taste and the surrounding area. The wall elements function as support for folding shelves: glass shelves for the greenhouse that allows the sun reach all the plants and wooden shelves in two sizes for storage use.

At the end of the season, when garden furniture and big tools have to be taken indoors- the shelves can be folded away to maximize floor space.The double doors in the storage part were inspired by the old multilayered sewing/tool boxes that allows you to see the whole content at one simple gesture. The big doors allow natural light to come in and allows you to easily see and reach everything.

The product was launched in 2010 and was awarded with the Garden Product of the Year prize. It is available through Kekkilä Garden in Finland and by Hasselfors Garden in other Scandinavian countries.

The Green shed shown in the pictures is designer Linda Bergroth’s summer cottage. The designer had one of the early prototypes built to her summer cottage -a distant island in eastern Finland. The Garden shed in used as an extra bedroom during the summer months. It is customized by adding a wooden floor in the greenhouse part and solar panels to enable lighting. Stairs and pavings are made from local recycled bricks.

Designers: Ville Hara and Linda Bergroth
Client: Kekkilä Garden (Finland) Hasselfors Garden (other Scandinavian countries)

See also:

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Naust paa Aure by TYIN tegnestue	Holiday Cabana by Damith Premathilake	Hölick Sea Resort by Edlund, Palmer + Ingman