Hasta La Ideas

A glazed reading room appears to float over the still waters of a shallow pool at this town library in Maranello, Italy, by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki and Italian architect Andrea Maffei (+ slideshow).

The curving glass facade wiggles back and forth to form the building’s perimeter, while study areas behind the glass offer visitors a view out across the water towards the ivy-covered walls that bound the site.

“The volume is mirrored on a body of water that reflects the intense color of the ivy onto the surrounding walls and surfaces,” said Andrea Maffei.

The glass facade straightens up at the building’s entrance, although a semi-circular canopy extends outwards to continue the curved outline.

Beyond the reception, a single reading room occupies most of the ground floor and is filled with white furniture that can accommodate up to 90 visitors at a time.

“In the interior of the building the absolute white resin pavement and white furniture captures the green hues of the greenery that is reflected from the continuous glazed surfaces of the curvilinear façade,” added Maffei. ”The light that pervades the open space of the library is exhibited in a play of reflections that bounce from the white elements of the furniture, the floors and structure, to the water and the continuous transparent glass.”

A local history archive and small playroom are also located on this floor, while stairs lead down to a digital archive, lecture space and meeting room in the basement.

Maffei previously spent several years working in Arata Isozaki‘s Tokyo studio and the pair have since teamed up on a number of projects that are underway elsewhere in Italy.

Other projects we’ve featured by Arata Isozaki include a modular office block in Barcelona and an inflatable concert hall he designed with Anish Kapoor.

See more libraries on Dezeen, including the Folkwang Library where glass walls look like marble.

Photography is by Alessandra Chemollo.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

The new Town Library in Maranello, Italy, designed by architects Arata Isozaki and Andrea Maffei, opened to the public on November 19, 2011. Built near the center of the city, it substantiates the effective synergy between a public administration that of Maranello – which is investing in pursuing an architecture of quality – and the designers: Arata Isozaki, one of the most celebrated masters of contemporary Japanese architectural culture, and Andrea Maffei, Italian architect who worked in Isozaki’s studio in Tokyo for several years and is now co-designing with him several projects in Italy, currently in development.

The building defines a rarefied space that is perfectly placed within the urban fabric. Its sinuous profiles are bound by glass plates that follow its contour: reading becomes an “open” experience by means of the transparent membrane that forms the façade. It manifests as an interaction between knowledge and the contemplation of the landscape that surrounds the library.

The building expresses a dialogue with the urban fabric through the transparency of its body. The objective, on the part of the architects, was to establish a direct interaction with the city. Situated within a residential area, the library takes the place of a pre-existing building whose traces can still be found as the northern, eastern and southern exterior walls. These walls are covered with ivy, which along with the reflecting pools at the foot of the glazed perimeter make up the new natural horizons that are offered to the readers and patrons of the library.

As of today, the new Library in Maranello offers the community an environment in which to read, study, learn and enjoy a space that is suspended over a body of water and enveloped by greenery.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: basement plan – click above for larger image

Above: roof plan – click above for larger image

Above: section aa – click above for larger image

Above: section bb – click above for larger image

The post New Town Library in Maranello by
Arata Isozaki and Andrea Maffei appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: Japanese designers Nendo used glass from old Coca-Cola bottles to make these bowls with dimpled bases, which are meant to resemble the classic green bottles with their tops sliced off.

The Bottleware collection was made by Nendo for Coca-Cola by recycling glass bottles that had deteriorated through repeated washing and filling.

The dimpling on the base of a glass bottle is designed to protect it from dramatic changes in temperature during the fizzy-drink production process, so Nendo chose to retain this feature to tell a story about the way glass is made, used and recycled.

The collection was shown at the Design Tide Tokyo trade fair this month alongside a huge mound of crushed recycled glass, illuminated from below to cast a green glow inside the room.

Recent Nendo projects we’ve featured include a chair wrapped in hundreds of metres of fishing line and a Starbucks outlet that works like a library, where customers take books to the counter to order their coffee.

See all our stories about glass »
See all our stories about Nendo »

Photographs are courtesy of Coca-Cola.

Here’s some more information from Nendo:

Bottleware

Coca-Cola’s “contour bottle” has been a brand icon since its inception in 1916. It is also recyclable: after each use, the bottle can be collected, washed and refilled for further use. This tableware collection is made from bottles that have deteriorated over the course of extensive recycling, and can no longer be used for their original purpose. We were captivated by the particular green tint known as Georgia Green, and by the fine air bubbles and distortions that are a hallmark of recycled glass, so decided to create simple shapes that would enhance these traits. But we also wanted users to feel a remnant of the distinctive bottle in the new products.

Our solution was to create bowls and dishes that retain its distinctive lower shape, as though the top had been sliced off. The dimpling on the bottle base that added to mitigate hot impacts during the production process is not ordinarily a strong visual feature, but it’s a particular characteristic of glass bottles and visible to anyone who picks up the bottle to drink. Keeping these ring-shaped dimples on the base of our bowls and plates also helps to convey important messages about the way that glass circulates between people as it’s made, used and recycled for further use, and about the connections it makes between people in this process.

Product Information:

Bowl S : φ125 H70(mm)
Bowl L : φ190 H100
Dip Dish : φ100 H35
Dish S : φ155 H40
Dish L : φ240 H45

Bottleware exhibition at DESIGNTIDE TOKYO 2012

The installation design for Coca-Cola’s Bottleware presentation space at the main site of DESIGNTIDE TOKYO. Bottleware is tableware made entirely of glass that has been recycled from no longer usable Coca-Cola bottles. We built mounds of crushed recycled glass from 7000 bottles, and placed lights inside them to illuminate the entire space with the bottles’ iconic green hue. The Coca-Cola presentation space is a passageway between two exhibition halls. Visitors entering it from the left find an explanation of the project’s design process, and visitors arriving from the right the explanation of its manufacturing process. Our circulation plan envisaged a space that people would want to traverse.

Exhibition Information
Date : 31st Oct – 4th Nov. 2012
Place : Tokyo Midtown, Roppongi

The post Bottleware by Nendo
for Coca-Cola appeared first on Dezeen.

by Adam Štěch Founded in 1885, Prague’s Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design is the most progressive art school in the Czech Republic today. Nestled among the ateliers and studios of prominent Czech artists and designers in the center of Prague, the school is housed within a neo-Renaissance palace built…

Continue Reading…

Stripy glass screens obscure views between rooms at this dental clinic in Torres Vedras, Portugal, by MMVArquitecto (+ slideshow).

Patterned with vertical stripes of green and black, the semi-transparent walls surround the reception and waiting area of the clinic and are made from recycled glass panels of different thicknesses.

“The inspiration came from a block of ice,” architect Miguel Marques Venâncio told Dezeen, and explained how he wanted to “potentiate the reflections and the vibrations of the light, creating a perception of space that is constantly mutating.”

Narrow recesses fold around the walls and ceilings, and are illuminated from behind to provide channels of light.

Apart from the colourful screens, the clinic has an all-white interior that is only interrupted by a handful of red and blue chairs within the three surgery rooms.

See more stories about dentists on Dezeen »

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s some more information from MMVArquitecto:

The challenge is based on the re-interpretation of a Dental Clinic, in the search of a new clarity and spatial character.

The site is located on a first floor of a common building in the centre of Torres Vedras. The space requires a new image to provoke new atmospheres, new sensations.

The desire of creating a distinguished space in the city, more paused, contemplative, a space of reflection, leading to the discovery of the importance of silence and of spaces apparently empty yet full of drive.

An experimentation where the selection of materials is sustained by the nobleness of the materials. That experimentation is essentially realised with the immaterial architectural element, which is space.

Working with space, is determined by perception, paths, light, reflections, transparencies, fluidity.

The mass composed by a summary of recycled glasses, potentiates the reflections and the vibrations of the light, by creating a perception of space that is constantly mutating.

The search of a timeless space, with a plentitude of senses, where light is filtered in different ways, gives poetry to spaces, dignifying them.

Location: Torees Vedras, Portugal
Client: R. Leal
Architect: Migues Marques Venâncio

Collaborators: B. Pedrosa (project, digital images), V. Vázquez (project), M. Álvarez (project), T. Palos (models, drawings)
Construction supervision: MMVArquitecto
Construction company: António Manuel Nogueira Cesário

Plan – click above for larger image and key

Long section – click above for larger image

The post Dental Clinic by
MMVArquitecto appeared first on Dezeen.

Liquid Glass est le titre d’une série de splendides clichés réalisés par Jean Bérard Fotografia. Réalisées au sein de leur studio situé à Mexico City, ces images mélangent avec une maîtrise impressionnante le verre et le liquide permettant de créer une illusion. A découvrir dans la suite.