Zaha Hadid Architects is one of 11 international firms designing a studio apartment at a new McDonald’s charity house in Hamburg to accommodate the relatives of children receiving hospital treatment nearby (+ slideshow).
Set to open this summer, the latest in a series of Ronald McDonald Houses will be located near the Altona Children’s Hospital and will offer accommodation to family members who have travelled far from home to accompany seriously ill children.
Apartment 5 by Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid’s design for Apartment 5 features built-in furniture, wooden fittings and recessed lighting, intended to create a “marine look” and make the space feel larger than it really is.
Apartment 5 by Zaha Hadid
Described by the firm as “two half shells”, the room will have a wooden base created by parquet flooring and walls that curve up from the ground, and a clean white upper section.
Apartment 5 by Zaha Hadid
“The wooden shell with its continuous curvatures – from the parquet floor to the inbuilt furniture pieces such as the floating bed and the elevated secretary – lends warmth and a tactile quality to all surfaces that can be reached, touched and played in,” said the architects.
Apartment 5 by Zaha Hadid
“The inbuilt furniture and the position of the bed within the space leave a large floor space for the family to sit and communicate, and for the kids and siblings to play on,” they added.
Apartment 7 by Manuelle Gautrand
Other studios designing apartments include Spanish office Estudio.Entresitio, who proposes a “neutral and cozy” room with furniture that folds away, and French architect Manuelle Gautrand, who has designed a nest-like space made up of wooden platforms.
Coup de cœur pour Stefan Bleihauer, un photographe allemand qui a réalisé une série de photographies intitulée « Amber ». Il s’intéresse aux usines et aux coins reculés d’une Allemagne en construction. L’orange et le bleu saturés, pétants se marient avec l’atmosphère grisâtre pour lui redonner les couleurs de la vie.
Focus sur le recensement des tours les plus étranges et loufoques du monde, sorties de l’imaginaire des architectes. Entre le Klimwand Climbing Tower, les tours San Gimignano ou encore l’Hôtel Ryugyong en Corée du Nord, voici une sélection en images à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.
A triple-height gallery housing a collection of prized paintings is concealed behind the wooden shingle facade of this house in Stuttgart by German architecture studio (se)arch (photos by Zooey Braun + slideshow).
Located to the south of the city, the gabled four-storey Haus B19 was designed by (se)arch as the home for a family of five, but the architects were also asked to include a gallery where the occupants could present a collection of artworks by “old masters”.
Three of the house’s exterior walls are clad from top to bottom with handmade Alaska cedar shingles, which will naturally fade from a warm yellow colour to a silvery grey tone. Meanwhile, the south-facing rear elevation is glazed to offer views of the distant mountains.
The lofty gallery is positioned on the northern side of the building and is separated from living areas by a bulky concrete core that contains small rooms, utility areas and the main staircase.
A kitchen is one of the spaces contained within the concrete volume, and it features windows on both sides to allow views between the gallery and a large living and dining room on the southern side of the house.
Sliding glass doors allow the living room to be transformed into a loggia. This design is repeated on the first floor, where three bedrooms open to a balcony spanning the width of the building.
A selection of walls throughout the house are painted with a dark shade of pink, standing out against the exposed concrete of the central structure and the warm brown joinery of kitchen units, doors and bookshelves slotted into its recesses.
Clerestory windows bring light down into the gallery at eaves height, while a narrow skylight along the ridge of the roof lets daylight flood into a master bedroom on the uppermost floor.
The bathroom is on the first floor and includes a window offering residents a view down to the gallery when taking a bath.
The double pitch roof building is located in a peaceful residential area in the south of Stuttgart.
The building houses a family of five and offers living space on several levels and it creates space for a private exhibition area. The client has a collection of paintings with works by old masters and the gallery space is an adequate framework. The floor plan principle consists of a functional bar in the centre of the building. This divides the gallery space and family living. This massive concrete core, which extends over all four floors, includes serving elements such as stairs, kitchen, bathrooms as well as technical supplies.
This also creates an exceptional entree: behind the door, the porch extends into the gallery space, which rises to below the fully glazed roof ridge. The closed, painted in warm brown north face offers a serene setting for the paintings, which will be staged by the interplay of natural and artificial light. In combination with the brittle surfaces of the concrete bar, this dynamic sculpture emerges anywhere in the room and captivates with a delightful interplay.
The living room on the south side is communicative family meeting place, a room with fireplace and dining area. Floor-to-ceiling glass doors open it over the entire width of the building of the offshore loggia and provide a view into the landscape. Similarly, the private retreat rooms on the two upper floors benefit from the beautiful distant view of the Swabian Alb. Picturesque perspectives, however, offers the bathroom on the first floor, which holds a glass eye contact with the gallery. Openings in the serving rail provide visual references and link free gallery and living room together.
Structurally, the concrete core, which results from the massive garden level is covered by a solid wood construction, which describes the outer shell of the building. The outside of the timber construction is covered with wooden shingles. The shingles of Alaska cedar are split by hand and are not only extremely durable, they gradually get a silver-grey patina and envelop the house with its natural environment.
This small wooden pavilion was modelled on the design of a rural shed and added to an old museum in Germany by architects Von M (+ slideshow).
Bauernhaus Museum Wolfegg is an outdoor museum consisting of old relocated farmhouses that visitors can explore to discover the area’s rural way of life from 1800 to 1900.
Stuttgart-based firm Von M designed the BMH pavilion as a multifunctional space for exhibitions, events and workshops. It’s the only new structure on the site so needed to fit in aesthetically.
The building is clad in silver-grey spruce, while the gabled roof is covered with sheets of grey zinc.
Hinged wooden shutters open at intervals along the side walls and the main entrances are via glass doors at each end.
Architect Dennis Mueller told Dezeen that the building was always intended to be a simple structure.
“The context of the pavilion is quite unique so we needed a clear idea to react to the artificial but strong and old-looking context,” he said.
“The roof and the wall cladding have the same colour to achieve the monochromatic and calm appearance,” he added.
Photography is by Dennis Mueller.
Here’s a project description from Von M:
BHM Pavilion “Kulturschuppen”
The starting point for the design of a new building on the Wolfegg museum area was the need for a room that can be multifunctionally used. In this room special exhibitions as well as minor events and museal pedagogical workshops should take place.
Very essential in this connection was the location of the pavilion within the museal context. The new building complements the main entrance of the open-air museum around the already existing buildings “Blaserhof” and “Zehentscheuer” that had been transferred to Wolfegg as “museum – buildings” earlier.
Because of this prominent neighbourhood that aims at attractiveness in its entity, the new building had to subordinate itself under the existing housing of the museum area. Thus the pavilion is to be understood as a fine complement of the farmhouse ensemble, not as a centre of it.
Functional agricultural buildings served as an analogy for the conceptional design. The pavilion makes use of the characteristic shape and materials of a typical shed in a rural environment thus fitting in the environment of the transferred buildings.
Still, the monochrome colour design as well as the minimalist detailing distinctly demonstrate the exceptional position of the pavilion in the midst the farmhouses of former centuries.
Also structurally the pavilion aims at a preferably simple and clear principle. Massive spruce plywood panels define the interior in a rhythmical interplay with the opening folding shutters.
Because of the restriction on one single material of the simple industry quality surfaces a quiet and strong atmosphere emerges in an interplay with the surfaces of the roof elements and the spruce floor, both untreated.
Nearby shed used a reference for the design
The bright character of the interior on the one hand, contrasts the dark-grey exterior coating of the pavilion on the other. Thus it also stresses the interplay of open and closed wall surfaces as well as the transition from inside to outside.
A hotel in Munich is stretched, twisted, distorted and exploded in this series of 88 manipulated photographs by Spanish photographer Victor Enrich (+ movie).
Victor Enrich, who also works as a 3D architectural visualiser, based the entire series of images on one view of the Deutscher Kaiser hotel, a building he passed regularly during a two-month stay in the city.
Some images show parts of the building turned on their sides, while others show sections of it duplicated or sliced away. Some shots show it curving into different shapes and some show it pulled it apart.
Describing the manipulation process, Enrich told Dezeen: “What I basically do is create a 3D virtual environment out of a 2D photograph. The process involves capturing the perspective, then the geometry, then the materials and finally the lighting.”
“The techniques I use are often described as ‘camera matching’ or ‘perspective matching’ and several 3D software packages provide functionalities that allow you to perform this,” he explained, but added that he tends to add do a lot of the work by hand to “reach the level of detail needed to achieve high photorealism”.
“Then is just a matter of time, much time, spent working on it,” he said.
Other images in the series include one where the top of the building is transformed into a floating orb.
There’s also one where the tower features zigzagging walls, and another where the base of the building is missing and the tower is raised up on pilotis.
Enrich previously worked on a similar series of manipulated images, called City Portraits, which adapted images of other buildings in Munich as well as structures in Riga and Tel Aviv.
“The experiment started in 2005 and I’ve done several buildings, all from cities where I’ve stayed for periods longer than a year,” he said.
“If everything goes well, there will be some new works about some American cities during 2014,” he added.
This black house by German studios Fabian Evers Architecture and Wezel Architektur is raised up over a translucent base where the client’s truck can be stored (+ slideshow).
Located on a busy street near Tübingen, Germany, the building needed to accommodate both a residence and a workshop, so Fabian Evers Architecture and Wezel Architektur decided to lift all the living spaces off the ground and create a garage underneath with a parking space for the client’s Unimog – a cult four-wheel drive vehicle produced by Mercedes Benz.
This prompted the architects to name the project House Unimog.
“The concept was to stack the two different uses on top of each other in order to minimise the footprint on the site and to orient the living rooms from the street towards the landscape,” said Fabian Evers.
Opaque corrugated cladding covers the first-floor walls and roof, while the lower level is surrounded by translucent polycarbonate with matching ridges, allowing daylight to permeate the workshop.
“The workspace is filled with filtered natural light during the daytime, and turns at night into a light box which glows into the neighbourhood,” said Evers.
A staircase extends up along one of the outer walls, leading through to the domestic spaces via a sheltered south-facing terrace that can be used for various activities, from al fresco dining to chopping wood for the fire.
Glass doors connect the terrace with an open-plan living and dining area, with a bathroom and bedroom positioned beyond.
Oriented strand board lines the walls and ceilings of all three rooms, and a wood-burning stove provides heating.
Here’s some more information from Fabian Evers:
House Unimog
The unusual task and the difficult building site was at one hand a big challenge but on the other a big potential. The owner requested a workshop for his Unimog and a small residential unit.
The site is located directly next to a street with heavy traffic and is surrounded by small private houses and farm buildings. A crucial parameter was the very tight cost frame.
The concept was to stack the two different uses on top of each other in order to minimise the footprint on the site and to orient the living rooms from the street towards the landscape. The result is a vertically developed house. The variation of the two different uses reflects itself through the facade: The lower part of the workshop is clad with translucent polycarbonate elements.
The workspace is filled with filtered natural light during the daytime, and turns at night into a light box which glows into the neighbourhood. The living space presents itself with its anthracite facade as a monolithic volume. Precise set windows and a generous south-oriented loggia enables beautiful views into the surrounding landscape.
The chosen materials for the facade and inside the building underlines the pragmatic and reduced design concept: a house which is rather located in the typology of a rational farmhouse or of a workshop than a classical residential house.
Project: low budget house – private house with mit workshop Client: private Period: 2011 – 2012 Floor area: 120 m2 Costs: 170.000 Euros
Site planGround floor planFirst floor planCross section
Le photographe allemand Lucas Zimmermann a profité de la brume qui tombait dans la région de Weimar en Allemagne pour capturer des feux de signalisation. Des traits de lumières du plus bel effet dans ces clichés appelés « Traffic Lights », à découvrir dans une série d’images dans la suite.
News: architect Daniel Libeskind has unveiled plans to build an angular apartment block in Berlin that will feature a gleaming metallic facade.
Daniel Libeskind, whose previous Berlin projects include the Jewish Museum, designed the eight-storey building for a corner plot on Chausseestrasse, in the Mitte district of Berlin.
Set to complete in 2015, the building will accommodate shops at ground level and 73 residences on its upper storeys.
The facade will be clad using a specially developed stoneware tile with a reflective metallic coating, which the studio claims will be both self-cleaning and air-purifying.
Large asymmetric windows will be added to maximise natural light within the building and parking will be located underground.
A penthouse apartment at the front will feature a double-height living room, as well as a roof terrace looking out across the city.
Describing the building, Libeskind commented: “Even as my studio is often called upon to design skyscrapers these days, I continue to love to build homes, the basic unit of human life.”
Here’s a more detailed description from Studio Daniel Libeskind:
Daniel Libeskind returns to Berlin to build and apartment building in centre of city
Studio Daniel Libeskind has just unveiled the design for a residential building in Berlin that, upon completion in 2015, is expected to brighten the already emerging neighbourhood of Chausseestrasse. With large angular windows designed to catch maximum light, canted walls, and a metallic-coated ceramic facade, the 107,000 sq. ft. (10,000 m2) Chausseestrasse 43 occupies the corner of a block in central Berlin. Says the architect: “Even as my studio is often called upon to design skyscrapers these days, I continue to love to build homes, the basic unit of human life.” In this case, Libeskind is adding a dash of brightness and transparency to a key spot in Berlin, one that also happens to be located directly opposite the headquarters of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service.
Daniel Libeskind’s challenge was to create 73 desirable one- to four-bedroom apartments on a more or less rectangular plot a little less than half an acre (16,000 sq. ft.), accommodating attractive retail on the ground floor, underground parking, and a common outdoor area. The architect achieved this and more. The dramatic coda is found at the top, where a penthouse apartment, perched on the prow of the building, embodies the ultimate in inside/outside urban living. Here, a double-height living room is lined on one side by a sloping wall of obliquely shaped windows, which leads out to a patio overlooking Berlin. A floating stairway ascends to an open-plan living area, bedrooms are tucked into the rear, and the ceiling sweeps up to a height of 21 feet.
The facade cladding is an innovative three‐dimensional stoneware tile that Libeskind designed with the Italian company Casalgrande Padana. The geometric ceramic panels not only create an expressive metallic pattern, but they possess surprising sustainable properties such as air purification and they are self-cleaning.
This cathedral for modern living occupies a piece of land where the Wulffersche iron factory once operated before being expropriated from its Jewish owners during World War II.
The Berlin-based real estate developer, MINERVA, is handling the technical and economic implementation of Chausseestrasse 43 in partnership with the Berlin-based property developer, econcept. The 20-year-old MINERVA specialises in real estate development for commercial and residential projects, such as the contemporary Alexander Parkside apartment and hotel complex that recently opened in Berlin. Econcept specialises in the construction of new residential buildings, such as the Palais KolleBelle, a new residential complex in Berlin inspired by the architecture of 19th-century Paris.
This new metro station in Leipzig, Germany, by Swiss architect Max Dudler comprises a 140 metre-long tunnel made up of illuminated glass blocks.
The Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz S-Bahn station is one of four stops along the new Leipzig City Tunnel railway line that has been under construction for over ten years and is set to open next month, creating a new link between some of the city’s major stations.
Swiss architect Max Dudler, whose previous projects include a glowing library and a castle visitor centre, won a competition to design the station in 1997 with his proposal for a glowing tunnel with a gently curved concourse and raw concrete details.
Back-lit glass blocks are arranged in groups within a concrete framework to create large glowing squares across the entire length of the walls and ceiling.
“The seemingly endless repetition of the same element in the course of the slightly curved, light-filled hall increases the sensation of the dimensions of this already large structure,” said the studio.
The station platform is covered in pale terrazzo and interspersed with concrete volumes that form seating areas and signage boards.
“All station furnishings of the station are arranged as geometric concrete sculptures,” added the studio.
Entrances are positioned at the north and south ends of the platform, where solid concrete staircases are sandwiched between escalators. At street level, these entrances are contained within rectilinear structures that were also constructed using glass blocks.
Photography is by Stefan Müller.
Here’s a project description from the design team:
Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz Station
S-Bahn trains will cross beneath the centre of Leipzig from December 2013. This is when the 5.3 kilometre long city tunnel Leipzig, a joint development of Deutsche Bahn AG and the Free State of Saxony, will be completed. Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz / Platz der Friedlichen revolution station on the southern end of the historic city centre is one of four stations of the major project that is currently one of the largest inner-city infrastructure projects in Europe.
The design of the station is based on architect Max Dudler’s successful competition entry from 1997. The Swiss architect’s impressive 140 metre long and 20 metre wide station concourse has just recently been awarded the city of Leipzig’s architecture award.
The station concourse, with a rectangular section and a slight longitudinal curve, is situated 20 metres below ground. Walls and ceilings of the elongated, column-free hall are clad with large, backlit prefabricated glass blocks set into a framework of fair-faced precast concrete. This gives the station concourse a bright and spacious feel. Extreme repetition of one and the same motif makes its actual dimensions almost intangible for passengers.
The light-coloured, jointless terrazzo flooring of the insular platform acts as a quiet counterpoint to the seemingly endless pattern of the walls. All necessary station furniture is arranged on the platform in the shape of geometrical concrete sculptures, all functions such as seating, timetables and ticket machines having in a sense been subtracted from or carved out of the concrete cubes.
The station concourse’s supporting structure of precast reinforced concrete is not visible behind the glass block cladding. The wall elements of the glass block envelope are anchored to a steel substructure on the tunnel wall. The ceiling elements are suspended from the building shell.
Passengers access the station through the entrances on the north and south ends of the station that are fitted with solid staircases, escalators and elevators. The architectural design of the two entrances is in deliberate contrast to the filigree, seemingly transparent station concourse. As soon as they dip beneath the surface of the square, the staircases and their inner casings are made entirely of fair-faced concrete. The minimalist, almost coarse design conveys an impression of descending towards the interior of the earth, as if it was tunnelled directly into the rock.
The stairs and the platform combine seamlessly into a monolithic ribbon. Similar to the station concourse, the aboveground entrance buildings have also been fitted with glass block components. They will help bring the square to life when illuminated at night.
Wilhelm Leuschner was a social democrat politician and part of the resistance against National Socialism. Formerly known as Königsplatz, this square in Leipzig was renamed Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz in his honour in 1945. In 2013 it was finally renamed “Platz der Friedlichen Revolution” to honour the important role it played during German reunification.
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