Bangkok architects all(zone) rearranged the forms found in typical standardised housing to create this family home in the Thai capital (+ slideshow).
The house is located in a middle class suburb of Bangkok and all(zone) based the design on the aesthetic favoured by local property developers.
A pitched roof motif unites the house with the adjoining garage and also appears inside, where it can be seen in the hallway of the upper storey.
Rectangular apertures punctuate the facade and the complex arrangement of internal walls, allowing light and views to permeate throughout the building.
“The superimposing system of walls works together with various positioned openings to slice and light the space of the house into several layers,” said the architects.
Pale render is used on the external and internal walls, while dark wood flooring and details create a contrast inside.
The house is located in a typical middle-class suburb of Bangkok where most of the residences are made by real estate developer’s housing standard system. It, then, borrows and recomposes the most standard elements into a new language, yet remains assimilated to the context – an extra-ordinary. The superimposing system of walls works together with various positioned openings to slice and light the space of the house into several layers.
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Project data Type: a single house Location: Ramkamheng 118 Road, Bangkok Total area: 550 sq.m. Owner: Mingmitpattanakul’s Family Architect: allzone, co.,ltd. Project team: Rachaporn Choochuey, Sorawit Klaimark, Namkhang Anomarisi, Tharit Tossanaitada Engineer: CM One co.,ltd. Contractor: Sittanant Co.,Ltd. Photographs: Piyawut Srisakul
This house in Saitama, Japan, by Naf Architect & Design looks like it’s been chopped in half and split open.
Architect Akio Nakasa of Naf Architect & Design designed the three-storey House Snapped for a couple and created two sections to separate the pair’s shared activities, such as dining and relaxing, from private ones, such as dressing and working.
“The composition of this residence was inspired by a phrase of the client couple, ‘stranger hours’,” said Nakasa. “This is a witty phrase describing the relationship of the couple, which is not always stereotypically close but sometimes distant like strangers.”
The smaller side of the building is intended to accommodate the “stranger hours” and contains bedroom and bathroom spaces, while the “shared hours” are assigned to living and dining rooms in the largest side of the house.
A round wooden column is positioned at the junction between the two sides, emphasising the appearance of a hinge.
Each room inside the house has a different floor surface, chosen to suit the activities taking place inside. A wool carpet was selected for the bedroom for its sound-absorbing qualities, while the kitchen and dining room has a mosaic floor that will reflect sound and one of the studies is covered with soft cork tiles.
“The height of the ceiling and flooring materials are chosen according to the nature of the space in order to increase the quality of the time the couple spends together,” added Nakasa.
The exterior of the house is clad with timber boards, painted in a vivid shade of blue, while the hinged middle features a contrasting white-rendered surface. A triangular lawn occupies the space in between.
Here’s a full project description from Akio Nakasa:
House Snapped
Two buildings, large and small, stand on L-shape plot adjoining at the corner. The form of the two buildings comes is as if one building snapped in two, and they are placed along the shape of the site.
A column stands at the adjoining corner of the two buildings, and four zones, yard, entrance, small and large buildings, are placed radially. Four zones can be shared or partitioned using sliding doors.
The composition of this residence was inspired by a phrase of the client couple, “stranger hours”. This is a witty phrase describing the relationship of the couple, which is not always stereotypically close but sometimes distant like strangers.
The antonym of “stranger hours” may be “shared hours”. The large building incorporates living room, dining room, and kitchen where the couple spend “shared hours” and the small building in the back of the plot incorporates bedroom, bathroom, and toilet where the couple spend “stranger hours”.
The height of the ceiling and flooring materials are chosen according to the nature of the space in order to increase the quality of the time the couple spends together, whether it is “shared hours” or “stranger hours”. For example, the living room has vaulted ceiling and flooring with high reflectance material for the voices to reach one another. The bedroom has low ceiling and flooring with sound absorption material to keep tranquility.
The yard, where the couple and their neighbours exchange greetings, is covered with soft lawn. The entrance, which accepts all kinds of guests, has whisper concrete finishing which gives more formal impression.
Four zones placed around the column may be flexibly used according to the situation, allowing a compact and comfortable lifestyle.
Name of the project: House Snapped Location: Saitama City, Saitama Category: detached house Structure: Wood construction Number of storeys: 2 storeys above ground Maximum height: 8.432 m Maximum eave height: 6.411 m Frontal road: 4.00m on the east Site area: 108.49m2 Building area: 51.04m2 Total floor area: 81.41m2 Completion: April 22, 2012 Architect: Akio Nakasa (principal architect), Daisuke Aoki
French architects RAUM have arranged a cluster of holiday apartments in Brittany around terraces that are connected by small alleys (+ slideshows).
The clients for the project were a couple who asked RAUM to create two holiday homes with adjoining studio flats on the Quiberon peninsula, which can be rented by one or more families.
The architects designed the buildings around a series of outdoor spaces, linked by passages that can be transformed from public to private areas by closing gates.
Interiors are given a minimal treatment to focus attention on the terraces, and all of the ground floor living rooms feature sliding doors that open onto the decking outside.
A small building in the southwest corner of the site houses one of the studio flats, while another is located above the garage.
Wooden flooring is used throughout the interiors and also creates a connection with the external decking.
Three separate sections built in different cities make up this steel-framed house in Nara, Japan, by Tokyo architects Megumi Matsubara and Hiroi Ariyama (+ slideshow).
Megumi Matsubara worked alongside Hiroi Ariyama of Assistant Studio to design House of 33 Years, which is made from a mixture of exposed raw materials including steel, timber, concrete, steel cables, clear corrugated plastic and glass panels.
Located next door to an ancient Buddhist temple, the house was designed for an elderly couple who decided to move house after 33 years living in their original home together.
Each part of the house was simultaneously built in three separate locations – the cities of Nara, Sendai, and Aomori – before being transported to the site and put together as one unit, which the architects felt would create an architecture that “moves”.
The roof shell was built in Nara, while the main rooms were built in Aomori from local timber. Meanwhile, a section of the first-floor was built at the Sendai School of Design and housed a farm in the school’s courtyard, before being transferred to Nara.
Architect Megumi Matsubara said the house’s location has a special meaning for the couple. “The husband is originally from Nara and had an attachment and melancholic nostalgia with the temple, having spent a considerable amount of his childhood there,” Matsubara said.
A layered arrangement of glass panes and wooden structures through the interior create different visual perspectives depending on where you stand inside the building.
“By framing views across different areas, images are continuously produced by the inhabitants’ movement,” Matsubara said. “Every image is given its own space of possibility, then overlaps as multiple additions to the home to update the family’s memories.”
Accessed by steel staircases and a wooden ladder elevated at different heights, the first-floor bathroom is cantilevered and offers residents a view of the temple’s bamboo forest while bathing.
This floor is the brightest part of the house, while the smaller, darker room on the ground-floor level is used as a bedroom. The combined living, dining and kitchen space is positioned at the back.
Megumi Matsubara & Hiroi Ariyama of the architecture firm Assistant are pleased to announce the completion of House of 33 Years after five years since the project’s inception. The House of 33 Years is a residence located next to the world heritage Todaiji Temple in Nara, Japan. The house was designed for an elderly couple who decided to move to a new house thirty three years after living in their first house.
The House of 33 Years is a house for a collector who collects memories, whose memory and future exist simultaneously in the same space. By framing views across different areas, images are continuously produced by the inhabitants’ movement. Every image is given its own space of possibility, then overlaps as multiple additions to the home to update the family’s memories.
In 2012, during the construction process, the fabrication of the house was partly supported by Aomori Contemporary Art Centre and Sendai School of Design. Its design/fabrication process has been an academic research subject of Adaptable Futures, Loughborough University, UK. The house has been awarded SD Review prize in 2010.
The house consists of multiple pavilions and rooms in wood structure that stand under the big steel-frame house. The relationship between the individual elements defines the character of the house as a whole. Its construction process has been pursued in three separate locations simultaneously; Nara, Sendai, and Aomori. In Nara, the exterior steel roof to cover the whole residence has been constructed on-site.
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Then, having accepted offers by two public institutions, Sendai School of Design and Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, to participate in their artist-in-residence programs, the duo decided to build an unknown experience by linking the two institutions through a single residential housing project, to eventually constitute the house in Nara.
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They broke House of 33 Years, which had been designed as a single house, into parts suitable for making in the two programs, so that the architecture would “move,” so to speak. Each work was also realised as an individual installation piece on which additional features were elaborated, responding to demands from the institution, characteristics of the space, and the chosen method of exhibiting.
Section C
In Sendai, Ghost House, a pavilion to sit on the roof, was built with the students of Sendai School of Design. The pavilion is an homage to Ghost House, one of the pavilions scattered on the large premises of the famous house of Philip Johnson and was given the same name. Over the summer it was sitting in the courtyard of a university campus and the students had grown a farm inside.
Section D
In Aomori, the main rooms in wood-structure was built and developed together with local carpenters, using materials available in Aomori, as an installation piece Obscure Architecture (House of 33 Years, Study), then to become a part of ‘Kime to Kehai’ exhibition at Aomori Contemporary Art Centre. This work always had a fresh look depending on the movement of the sunlight. Physically, this architectural work remained present in the same position, whereas the natural phenomena created by it kept flowing without stopping. After the exhibition period in each city, those elements were disassembled and loaded on a 4-ton truck, and carried to the destination, Nara, where they were recomposed to form the House of 33 Years.
Section D
Project name: House of 33 Years Location: Nara, Japan Architects: Megumi Matsubara and Hiroi Ariyama (Assistant Studio) Client: private Purpose: private residence Structural engineer: Mitsuda Structural Consultants Site area: 189 square metres Building area: 76 square metres Total floor area: 104 square metres Structure: steel frame, wooden Number of storeys: 2 storeys Construction period: March 2011 – June 2013
In this movie by film studio Stephenson/Bishop, architect Carl Turner describes the importance of flexibility in the London house he designed for himself and his partner, which last night was awarded the RIBA Manser Medal 2013 for the best new house in the UK.
Located in Brixton, south London, Slip House is a three-storey residence with walls made from planks of translucent glass and staggered upper floors that cantilever towards the street.
The house features a spacious ground floor that is currently used by Carl Turner as a studio for his architectural practice.
“The house is really flexible,” he explains. “We’ve got this amazing space on the ground floor that we’re currently using as our office and studio space, but the idea is that if we move out of there, we can use the whole space as a house again.”
The first floor accommodates an open-plan living and dining space, but Turner says this space could be easily converted into bedrooms if the ground floor was turned back into a living room.
“It’s a kind of frame structure and that allows us these open floor spaces that mean we can then have really flexible uses,” he adds.
Slip House was awarded the RIBA Manser Medal 2013 last night in a ceremony that also saw an addition to a twelfth-century castle in Warwickshire win the Stirling Prize. It was praised for sustainable features that include rooftop solar panels, a rain-water-harvesting system, a ground-sourced heat pump and a wildflower roof.
“Slip House demonstrates an admirable commitment to the creation of an exemplary low-energy house, with a suite of sustainable enhancements that are integrated effectively into the building design,” said the judges. “However, at no point do the sustainable ambitions of the project crowd out or dominate the refined quality of the spaces that are created.”
News:Arizona architect Nick Tsontakis has unveiled plans for a house that will straddle a mountain and be shaped like a manta ray (+ slideshow).
The $30-million two-storey building is designed by Nick Tsontakis to sit on top of Mummy Mountain in Arizona.
“The overall form of the home is reminiscent of a manta ray – even though this was not intentional – and from the air the structure looks like it’s swimming on top of the mountain,” Tsontakis told Dezeen. “I wanted to make the house design memorable and simple. It is organic, soft and liveable.”
Tsontakis told Dezeen that he came up with the concept to capture views of both the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale to the north and of Camelback Mountain and the city lights in Downtown Phoenix to the south. “It meant that I would somehow have to infuse the house into the mountain,” he explained.
A number of local guidelines restricted the scale of the design, said the designer. “We were not to exceed the height of the top of the mountain in the centre of the home and we had to draw a 20 degree line from the [mountain’s] pinnacle in all directions, which the house could not penetrate,” he explained.
Once completed, the property will contain six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, and will boast views across Paradise Valley from a series of viewing decks.
A ten-car garage located on the upper level will be accessed via a sloping road. On the same level there will be an entry hall and a pair of two-bedroom guest wings.
Stairs and elevators will descend to the main ground level, which will accommodate a master wing on the north side and a large living area to the south.
“The two wings will be connected with a tunnel bored through the mountain from north to south, and on the east a 2000 square-foot entertainment hall would be carved out of the mountain,” added Tsontakis.
The property is currently listed by Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty and is due for completion in 2015. Tsontakis told Dezeen that “the project is not under construction yet”, but that he is in conversations with “several interested parties.”
Vietnamese studio H&P Architects has built a prototype bamboo house designed to withstand floods up to three metres above ground (+ slideshow).
H&P Architects used tightly-packed rows of bamboo cane to build the walls, floors and roof of the Blooming Bamboo Home, along with bamboo wattle, fibreboard and coconut leaves.
Elevated on stilts, the house is accessed using wooden ladders that lead to small decks around the perimeter. The area beneath can be used for keeping plants and animals, but would allow water to pass through in the event of a flood.
The walls fold outwards to ventilate the building, plus sections of the roof can be propped open or completely closed, depending on the weather.
Inside, living and sleeping areas occupy the main floor, and ladders lead up to attic spaces that can be used for study or prayer.
The vernacular structure can be assembled in as little as 25 days and adapted to suit varying local climates and sites.
It has been designed as a house, but could also be used as a school classroom, medical facility or community centre.
“The house can keep people warm in the most severe conditions and help them control activities in the future, also contributing to ecological development as well as economic stabilisation,” said the architects.
Suspended sections of bamboo can be filled with plants to create a vertical garden on the facade.
At night, interior lighting shines through the cracks in the walls to make the building glow from within.
In Vietnam, the natural phenomena are severe and various: storm, flood, sweeping floods, landslides, drought, etc. The damage every year, which is considerable compared to the world scale, takes away about 500 persons and 1.2%-GDP-equally assets and reduces the involved areas’ development.
One solution to houses and homes for millions of these people is the goal of this BB (Blooming Bamboo) home.
From the bamboo module of f8-f10cm & f4-f5cm diameter and 3.3m or 6.6 length, each house is simply assembled with bolting, binding, hanging, placing.
This pulled monolithic architecture is strong enough to suffer from phenomena like 1.5m-high flood. Currently, H&P Architects is experimenting the model to suffer 3m-high flood. The space is multifunctional such as House, Educational, Medical and Community Centre and can be spread if necessary.
Example of closed and open house
From the fixed frame using f8-f10cm bamboo, the house cover can be finished according to its local climate and regional materials (f4-f5cm small bamboo, bamboo wattle, fibreboard, coconut leaf) in order to create vernacular architecture.
Therefore, the house can warm people in the most severe conditions and help them control activities in the future, also remarkably contribute to ecological development as well as economic stabilisation.
Angular cutaways create apertures through the walls, floors and ceilings of this house in the Bousou Peninsula mountains of Japan by architect Yuusuke Karasawa (+ slideshow).
Divided into eight equal portions, the wooden house was designed by Yuusuke Karasawa as a perfect cube with four rooms on each of its two floors.
Three-dimensional holes cut through the structure at the points where spaces meet one another, allowing views across different rooms as well as between storeys.
“The partition walls and ceilings of these eight spaces are interrupted by six small cubes that create gaps in the walls and ceilings, providing visual connections between the various rooms,” said Karasawa.
“Although I spaced the cubes out, the interrelatedness of their angles of inclination connect them, creating a sense of continuity,” he added.
The cutaway sections also help to distribute light through the house. “Beams of sunlight come from unexpected directions and crisscross within the interior, bringing out more layers of complexity to the already diverse interior condition,” Karasawa said.
Positioned on the eastern edge of Tokyo Bay, the house provides a weekend retreat for a family who play golf at nearby country clubs.
The four ground floor rooms comprise a kitchen, a living room, a studio and an entrance lobby, each with white walls and timber flooring.
A steel staircase winds up to the level above, where a large hallway and two bedrooms are accompanied by a glazed bathroom.
The timber-clad facade features lopsided square windows on each side, offering views out towards the surrounding mountainous landscape.
This is a weekend cottage situated within the deep mountains area of midland of Bousou Peninsula. The site is located on Kanou Mountain, Kimitsu city. Traditional Japanese painting artist, Kaii Higashiyama(1909-99) once mentioned that he was awakened to a landscape painting by the majestic ravine scenery of this site-this cottage is sitting on the slope looking down this ravine.
The exterior shape of this building appears to be a simple cube. However, the interior consists of two layers of the traditional square plan, while a cubic volume is inserted to the points of intersection produced by the wall surfaces, the floor surfaces and the ceiling that divide the space.
The intersecting angle of each cube is defined by the rule of an algorithm, producing the most prominent character of this project – that adjacent cubes are tilted in a definite angle against each other.
The rotation angle of the cubes defined by algorithmic rule dissects the interior volume into various spaces according to the header forms of the cutting plane, providing diverse spatial conditions as each individual room.
The interior produced by this method have diverse characteristics for each space although the certain sense of order is given to the whole building since the setting of the cube angle is not random.
This condition allows to experience the coexistence of the order and the diversity as antinomy based on the physical sensation of the space. It can be said that such coexistence of order and diversity is the most significant characteristic of the architectural space produced by an algorithmic rule.
Concept diagram
The toplight on the ceiling brings in the sunlight and filled up the room during the daytime. Beams of the sunlight come from unexpected direction and crisscrosses within the interior, bringing out more layers of complexity to the already diverse interior condition.
The initial rotation angle of the cube is fixed according to the slope angle of the site, therefore the magnificent natural scenery is reflected and articulated to the spatial conditions of the interior space. The occupants of the space can feel the sense of unity to the scenery visible outside of the windows.
This weekend cottage was completed under the unique methodology of configuring the spaces – while it exists within the grand nature, and its surrounding scenery is taken into the space. The result would be the new and original physical sensation and experience of the space.
Positioned in a shady location between two neighbouring buildings in Aichi, Japan, the wooden house couldn’t have many windows, so mA-style Architects added skylights around each side of the flat roof.
Daylight disperses itself through the interior by bouncing off both the ceiling beams and the laminated wooden walls.
“The design intended to create a space with uniformly distributed light by adjusting the way of letting daylight in and the way of directing the light,” said the architects.
Bedrooms and storage spaces are contained within two-storey boxes scattered through the interior. Rectangular openings lead into the spaces, plus those at first-floor are accessed using wooden ladders.
“Considering each box as a house, the empty spaces in between can be seen as paths of plazas and remind us of a small town enclosed in light,” the architects added.
A bathroom, a study space, bookshelves and a kitchen with steel surfaces line the perimeter of the open-plan space.
White-painted wooden panels clad the exterior of the rectilinear structure, including a sliding door that gives the house a corner entrance.
The site is in a shady location where a two-story neighbouring house closely stands on the south side, and even the shade and shadow on the path intensify the impression of darkness.
Therefore, the design intended to create a space with uniformly distributed light by adjusting the way of letting daylight in, and the way of directing the light.
By taking into consideration the space for the residents, the functions for living, and the relationship with the surrounding environment, creation of a diversity and richness in the house was intended by controlling the concept of light.
Along the edges of the 9.1m square roof, sky lights are made, as if creating an outline, in order to provide sunlight.
The roof beams narrow the sunlight, and the slightly angled clapboard interior walls with laminated wood reflect and diffuse the light.
As a result, soft and uniformly distributed light is created and surrounds the entire space.
Along the outline of lighting, work spaces such as a kitchen, bathroom, and study are arranged. Private spaces such as bedrooms and storage are allocated into four boxes.
The path-like spaces created between them are public spaces. Each box attempts to balance within a large spatial volume.
Light coupled with the rhythm of scale raises the possibilities of the living space for the residents.
Considering each box as a house, the empty spaces in between can be seen as paths or plazas, and remind us of a small town enclosed in light.
The empty spaces, which cause shortening or elongating of distances between people, are intermediate spaces for the residents, as well as intermediate spaces that are connected to the outside when the corridor is open, and these are the image of a social structure that includes a variety of individuals.
In terms of a natural component, in which light is softened by small manipulations, and of a social component, in which a town is created in the house, this house turned out to be a courtyard house of light where new values are discovered.
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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