Hasta La Ideas

Movie: in our final movie from garden trade show Spoga+Gafa, French designer Thibault Penven demonstrates his folding boat, which won first prize in the Unique Youngstar competition for outdoor products by young designers.

Called Ar Vag, which means “boat” in Penven’s native Brittany, the vessel is made of rigid fibreglass panels sewn into a foldable PVC skin.

The structure is stiffened by a wooden bench across the middle of the boat and two collapsible rods, which slide into loops along the rim like tent poles.

“This foldable boat is easier to use than an inflatable boat,” says Penven, who demonstrates in the movie how quick it is to put together and take apart.

“When you have a rigid boat it is so expensive to keep it on the shore, so I decided to design a boat that you can carry from home to the lake or the river.”

Penven developed Ar Vag as part of his course at Ecole Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) in Switzerland and admits that he was nervous when testing out his first prototype.

“At the beginning I was a little bit afraid,” he says. “But with this one, the yellow one, its very rigid and very stable. So you go straight and you are very [relaxed] inside.”

He adds: “It’s very strong. The weight of the boat is around 20-25 kilograms but it is still in development, so I’m trying to make it less heavy.”

See all our stories about boats »
See all our stories about ECAL »

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but this boat is very stable” appeared first on Dezeen.

Copper walls will gradually change colour from dark grey to rich brown on the exterior of this church archive in Nuremberg, Germany, by Hamburg office GMP Architekten (+ slideshow).

The seven-storey structure houses the archive of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bavaria and is located close to the main church building on the site of a former factory.

GMP Architekten designed a pinkish sandstone plinth for the base of the building. This allows it to nestle against the side of a hill, as well as to fit in with its neighbours.

“Seen from across the garden, the new archive appears as a continuation and extension of the Theological Seminary,” said the architects.

A glazed ground floor is sandwiched between this plinth and the copper-clad upper floors, which comprise two overlapping box-like volumes.

The oxidising copper panels are arranged vertically and interspersed between narrow metal stripes. Alternate panels extend down over windows, creating the appearance of columns.

“The natural metal surface will undergo various oxidation stages and colour changes until it finally develops a velvety, brownish appearance,” added the architects.

With 21 miles of shelving, the new facility doubles the storage of the church’s previous archive and provides an additional restoration workshop.

A reading room for visitors is located on the entrance floor and leads out onto a large terrace with views of the nearby Wöhrder lake.

GMP Architekten is best known for designing a series of stadiums, including three for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and three for the 2011 World Aquatics Championships in Shanghai. See more architecture by GMP Architekten »

Other archive facilities featured on Dezeen include a concrete and steel bunker for the British Film Institute and a Corten steel-clad archive for the city of Essen, Germany. See more archives »

Photography is by Heiner Leiska.

Read on for a project description from GMP Architekten:

State archive of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bavaria

Today, the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Bavaria is inaugurating its new archive in Nuremberg with a special ceremony. The new building, which was designed by architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp), took three years to build and is located on a former factory site in the direct vicinity of the existing main building. With 34 kilometres of shelving, the State Church archive now has more than twice the storage space compared to previously and, in addition, accommodates a restoration workshop and enough space for visitor rooms. In the “Memory of Evangelical Bavaria”, the Church is archiving – amongst many other original documents – letters by Martin Luther and documents by popes and emperors, as well as numerous historically important books and paintings. The State Church archive has been designed to include passive air conditioning of the archives.

The new building consists of two intersecting solid cubes which seem to float above a transparent receding ground floor. The structure rises from a basement floor about one metre high along the road, which develops into full storey height along the downward slope towards the south, including a large terrace which offers views of the Wöhrder See lake. The ensemble consists of a solitary building sculpture with main facades on all sides. It thereby confines the adjacent Zeissstrasse on the one side, and the garden of the Theological Seminary to the east on the other side. Seen from across the garden, the new archive appears as a continuation and extension of the Theological Seminary. The plinth of the reinforced steel structure is clad with reddish sandstone which forms a continuation of the existing sandstone wall and anchors the building in the landscape context. The external walls of the archive are finished in a shiny copper facade with a subtle vertical structure. The natural metal surface will undergo various oxidation stages and colour changes until it finally develops a velvety, brownish appearance.

Visitors enter the public areas of the archive via Veilhofstrasse. From there they also reach the lecture hall, which can also be used for exhibitions. This hall faces the corner of Veilhof-/Zeissstrasse in a manner that welcomes the public. The reading room faces both east and west and is located on the quiet garden side. The offices are located above, on two levels surrounding the archive areas, and provide easy access for members of staff to the repository. The repository areas themselves occupy four floors above the ground floor, as well as the two lower ground floors. Since the first lower ground floor extends out on the slope towards the south, access is available from Zeissstrasse to the workshop and functional rooms.

Design: Meinhard von Gerkan and Nikolaus Goetze
Associated Partner: Dirk Heller
Project Leader: Karen Schroeder
Design Team: Christoph Berle, Katharina Traupe, Monika Braig
Implementation Team: Christoph Berle, Miriam Bamberg, Judith Saile, Alexander Schnieber, Sui Jinying
GFA: 9,327 square metres
Client: Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bavaria

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Church of Bavaria by GMP Architekten appeared first on Dezeen.

Le créatif Sebastian Strasser a réalisé cette superbe publicité pour l’opérateur Vodafone. Intitulée « Add Power to your life » et pensée par l’agence allemande Jung von Matt/Alste, cette production Stink propose des effets spéciaux de grande qualité signée Time Based Arts sur un titre de Woodkid – Run Boy Run.

News: a complex of Nazi rally grounds in Nuremberg designed by Hitler’s favourite architect will undergo repairs costing €70 million (£60 million) to prevent the crumbling structures endangering tourists.

Around 200,000 visitors flock to the site in Nuremberg, southern Germany, each year but the monuments, designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer to last as long as Roman structures, have been gradually deteriorating since the end of the Second World War and are in danger of collapsing.

Nuremberg mayor Ulrich Maly told German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that the only other available choices are to fence off the grounds, which would “certainly not be an appealing story for the city”, or to renovate the site and prevent future accidents.

Some parts have previously been demolished, but Maly says this is no longer an option as the site is now listed as a historically significant memorial.

“It’s not about prettying up the city” he said. “We won’t be searching for true to original sandstone.”

The six-square-mile site featured as a backdrop for Nazi propaganda movie Triumph of the Will and includes 24 towers and a “Zeppelin Tribune”. It was used to host six Nazi party rallies between 1933 and 1938.

The first section of repairs are set to include a structural examination of the Zeppelin Tribune, including the mosaic-lined “Golden Hall” that the Fuehrer used for private audiences. It is understood that graffiti left on the walls by Allied soldiers after the war will be left intact.

Speer designed the buildings of the Reich to outlast the regime and used materials like granite and marble instead of steel and concrete in the hope that they would prove as enduring as classical monuments. In his “Theory of Ruin Value”, Speer wrote: “By using special materials and by applying certain principles of statics, we should be able to build structures which even in a state of decay, after hundreds or (such were our reckonings) thousands of years would more or less resemble Roman models.”

See more architecture in Germany »

Photograph is courtesy of Adam Jones.

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to be rebuilt appeared first on Dezeen.

German firm Archequipe has renovated a townhouse in Cologne’s Deutz district with a gabled facade that steps back and forth to respect the boundaries of a neighbouring residence.

Haus KLR was designed in the 1980s by architect Jutta Klare as a home for herself and her husband. Originally the five-storey building had housed an apartment for the couple’s in-laws on its second floor, but this space has now been converted into an architecture studio for Archequipe.

Thirty years ahead of its completion, the architects have given the building a facelift, re-plastering the staggered white walls that comprise the south, east and north elevations.

These offsets help to maximise the building footprint on each floor while respecting a guideline that required various setbacks on different storeys.

“The valid building law requested three metres distance between ground floor and the eastbound property line while the second floor required 4.5 metres distance to the same boundary,” explained the architects.

There’s also a south-facing oriel window that reinterprets the local 1930s vernacular.

Archequipe’s renovation included repainting the frames surrounding all the building’s windows, which are either square or made from combinations of square panels.

Stone floors were restored throughout both the studio and house, which includes a large dining room that opens out to the garden. Bathrooms were also overhauled on each floor.

Other houses we’ve featured from Germany include a renovated 1970s house in Offenbach and a gabled residence in the town of Metzingen. See more German houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Roland Unterbusch.

Here’s some more information from Archequipe:

House KLR

The House KLR was built 1982 in Cologne as a townhouse with two units. In these days it was one of the first realised buildings of the architect who designed it for her husband and herself. A rentable in-law apartment with a separate staircase was supposed to support the young couple financially.

The district Deutz, where House KLR is located, was traditionally regarded as a secondary part of Cologne, whose centre resides on the opposite side of the river Rhine. In the last decade the once neglected district Deutz evolved into a popular address within Cologne’s inner city.

Most parts of the neighbourhood were erected in the 1930s with 3-4 story residential buildings while the narrow building site of House KLR was used as a fruit and vegetable garden until the 1980s. The simple and practical post-war architecture, nowadays most common in German cities, dominates the area today.

One challenge regarding the design was to follow building laws while producing sufficient living space on the small plot. The valid building law requested 3.0 metres distance between ground floor and the eastbound property line while the second floor required 4.5 metres distance to the same boundary. In reaction to these demands a sculptural structure originated that seems to jump back and forth playfully multiple times.

The diversely leaping cubes led to additional useful surfaces which made the construction of a sufficiently spacious roof terrace for the in-law apartment possible. The two remaining facades – one facing the street the other the garden – were designed in the style of the sculptural structure of the east façade, thereby, preserving the element of the oriel present in the surrounding buildings. Besides the motif of the oriel the small window formats and the plastered facade as typical elements of the neighbouring housing were included into the design.

The main apartment reaches over the three lower levels, the entrance to the amount of the middle level. The kitchen and dining area are set in the lowest level, so that the garden can be used as an additional dining area during the summer. The garden is also regarded as a recreational area, as for his unique position – below street level and shielded by the enclosing wall – it gains the character of a lonesome oasis in the midst of the city. The bedrooms of the main apartment are located on the first floor and are connected with the two other floors through stairs within the apartment.

The in-law apartment is also structured as a maisonette, and reaches from the second floor till the attic. Today it accommodates the Cologne architecture office of archequipe.

In 2012, exactly 30 years after building House KLR, extensive renovation work was performed. All facades were newly-plastered. Roof sheetings and window benches were renewed, the windows painted in a corresponding color. Inside, the stone cottage floors were refurbished, and walls plastered smoothly. Bathrooms on all levels were completely renovated.

Architects: archequipe, Freie Architekten
Location: Cologne, Germany
Team: Jutta Klare, Bartosz Czempiel, Sebastian Filla

Area: 300 sqm
Year: 1982/2012

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by Archequipe appeared first on Dezeen.