Hasta La Ideas

A contemporary house inserted behind the crumbling walls of a ruined twelfth-century castle in Warwickshire, England, by Witherford Watson Mann is one of the six projects nominated for the 2013 Stirling Prize (+ slideshow).

The mediaeval Astley Castle was once the home of an aristocratic English family, but has stood as a ruin since the 1970s, when a devastating fire wiped out the hotel that occupied the building at that time.

Without a budget to restore the building, architectural charity The Landmark Trust launched a competition for the design of a holiday house that could be created within the decaying structure and announced London studio Witherford Watson Mann as the winner in 2007.

The architects designed a two-storey residence that would squat within the building’s chunky sandstone walls. Clay brickwork was used to infill gaps in the structure, creating a visible contrast between the new and old structures.

Laminated wooden beams form a new system of floors and ceilings, creating living areas and bedrooms in the oldest part of the castle.

The wooden roof also stretches over extensions added in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, but instead of blanketing these spaces it simply forms a hollow canopy, creating entrance courtyards that are exposed to the rain.

Four bedrooms, with space to sleep eight people, occupy the lower level of the house. An oak staircase leads up to the first-floor living room, where the architects have increased natural light by adding two new windows.

Astley Castle is one of six projects shortlisted for the Stirling Prize, which is awarded to the building that has made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year. Other projects nominated include an elliptical chapel and a museum that mimics volcanic formations.

Other castle renovations on Dezeen include one converted into a mountain museum and one used as an art gallery. See more castles on Dezeen »

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by Witherford Watson Mann appeared first on Dezeen.

The towering fortress of fairytale character Rapunzel inspired this steel-clad house extension that accommodates the three oldest daughters of Austrian architect Stefan Marte (+ slideshow).

Named Maiden Tower, the four-storey residence sits alongside the family’s existing concrete home in the Alpine district of Vorarlberg, western Austria, and is clad with oxidising steel to create a visible contrast between the new and old structures.

Stefan Marte, of Marte.Marte Architects, planned the building over four storeys, allowing each daughter to have her bedroom on a different floor to her sisters.

A corridor leads through to the extension from the existing house, arriving at a small library. Beyond this, the girls have their own separate kitchen and dining room.

A corner staircase leads up to the bedrooms, while doors lead out to a swimming pool and terrace in the garden.

Corten-steel panels clad three sides of the tower, while the east elevation features floor-to-ceiling glazing, offering views back towards the main house.

Additional windows and doors are dotted across the north and south elevations and can be concealed behind hinged steel shutters.

This is the third project by Marte.Marte Architects to feature on Dezeen recently, following a twisted bridge and a concrete holiday house.

See more architecture by Marte.Marte Architects »
See more houses in Austria »

Photography is by Marc Lins.

Here’s a project description from writer Marina Hämmerle:

Maiden Tower

What could match the massive presence of Marte’s concrete home, this raw, stony material, this self‐contained unit? Oxidising steel: just as raw, just as authentic in its expression and its properties. The interior impression remains the same – wood surfaces, warm colours, fine pores. The new exterior structure, on the other hand, is masculine, striving skywards, rising up from the surrounding landscape like the neighbouring pear tree. That behind the massive exterior lies a building of lightweight materials may be inspired by the tale of the Trojan horse.

A new space opens up between the two buildings, complemented by an in‐ground pool – uncompromising, hard, less sensible, but therefore all the more magical, idiosyncratic, and sensuous. Oxidising steel on the walls and bottom, encased like in a suit of armour. The tower also appears this way with its steel ventilation flaps to the north and south and fixed glazing to the east.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel… Through the library, down a few steps into the separate kitchen, and then through the dining room, facing the pool, the little princesses can climb the newel stairs to their bedrooms. There, they are presented with a view, on the one hand, of their parents’ protective house and, on the other, the nearby scenic forest. The spatial perspective mirrors this interplay of freedom and guidance, becoming a symbol of their possibilities for development within the family.

The whole structure seems so sealed off, but in terms of use, it not only offers an astonishing amount of free space, but also conveys respect and draws boundaries. This makes it possible to live together in a relatively small space and at the same time provides each person with opportunities for participation and private space.

What an unparalleled atmosphere for the girls. If it is true that the first few years of life shape our future spatial desires, then these girls will have had a very valuable personal experience that their future Prince Charmings will probably not have had: a life in manifest appreciation.

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Marte.Marte Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese studio FORM/Kouichi Kimura Architects has completed a family house in Shiga, Japan, that is 27 metres long but only 2.7 metres wide (+ slideshow).

Faced with an extremely long and narrow site, architect Kouichi Kimura designed both floors of the two-storey Promenade House with a simple layout, where sequences of rooms are connected by long corridors.

Most rooms open out to a corridor, making use of all available space. “As you proceed along the hallway you will see the spaces spread out, one after another,” said the architect.

A kitchen, dining area and living room occupy one space on the ground floor and feature windows that line the edges of the floor.

Steps at the back lead to a raised double-height study with a large rear window and a skylight overhead. A ladder leads from the study to the floor above, although residents can also use a staircase at the front of the house.

The corridor on the upper floor is divided in two. Silver curtains screen bedrooms and storages areas at one end, while the bathrooms are surrounded by turquoise walls, intended to give “an impression of cleanliness”.

Another double-height room is also contained on this floor and brings in light through clerestory windows. The architects refer to this space as a balcony, even though it’s completely enclosed by exterior walls.

Several polished concrete surfaces crop up though the building, while the floor in the living room is built from wood.

Kouichi Kimura set up his studio in Shiga in 1991. Other residential projects by the architect include House of Representation, which features a large light chimney, and House of Silence, designed to be deliberately alien to its neighbours.

See more architecture by FORM/Kouichi Kimura Architects »
See more houses in Japan »

Photography is by Takumi Ota.

Read on for a project description from the architects:

Promenade House

The project is for the house owned by a young couple and is planned at the unique site 4 metres wide and 35 metres deep.

The geometrical restriction of the site is reflected in the internal composition of the house. The building, with a width of 2.7 metres and a total length of 27 metres, is laid out in accordance with the narrow site to draw its outline.

The internal space has been planned to have a long narrow hallway, with which your body senses the site geometry. As you proceed along the hallway you will see the spaces spread out one after another.

The long hallway is extended from the entrance on the first floor, led by the footlight through the dining and living rooms, and connected to the raised study at the very end. It reaches to the idyllic view seen through the large opening of the study where the tapered line of sight from the entrance is opened up.

On the second floor, two hallways are planned to be extended from the staircase that has a top light. One has a green wall aiming for colour effect. The vivid green hallway surrounds the balcony, giving an impression of cleanliness to the adjacent bathroom and washroom.

The other is connected from the kid room through the bed room to the bridge at the open-ceiling space. It is designed to control light; the light through the light transmissive curtain separating the kid room, or the sunlight from the high-side light in the open ceiling space leads you forward.

The end of the hallway becomes a bridge, and the ladder installed there connects the upper and lower spaces to produce continuity.

The green wall is used at both ends of the building, providing more impressiveness of the total length. The hallways laid out in this house are the promenades that strongly impress the site geometry.

Architects: FORM/Kouichi Kimura Architects
Location: Shiga, Japan
Client: Private

Construction Year: 2013
Site Area: 166,08 sqm
Constructed Area: 124,3 sqm

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Kouichi Kimura Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Israeli architect Pitsou Kedem has renovated a 1950s house in Tel Aviv with a roughly hewn sandstone mosaic wall inside it (+ slideshow).

An Urban Villa was designed by Dov Karmi, one of Israel’s most celebrated modern architects, and Pitsou Kedem was asked to restructure the two-storey interior.

“The main idea was to preserve the spirit of the original design whilst implementing a contemporary, independent interpretation of the existing structure and its adaptation to contemporary technologies, materials and knowledge,” said Kedem.

Walls were whitened both inside and outside the house, while black-painted wood was used to construct the new staircase and louvred balustrade.

“These monochromatic hues provide the background for the original materials that we decided to preserve,” explained Kedem, referring to the limestone floor and sandstone wall left intact.

The architect selected furniture to complement the design, including an Eames chair, a marble kitchen counter and a vivid red sofa.

Other residential projects by Pitsou Kedem include a renovated apartment with a vaulted stone ceiling and a boxy white house. See more architecture by Pitsou Kedem »

Here’s more text from the architect:

An Urban Villa

In the 1950s what was known as the “International Style” was highly developed in Tel Aviv. It developed thanks to architects who studied at the Bauhaus Institute in Germany and who then returned to Israel to continue their work. One of the architects who led the “International Style” was Dov Carmi. He designed many, usually large, projects. One of his more restrained projects was an urban villa in the centre of Tel Aviv which he designed in 1951.

In his design, Carmi expressed his local interpretation of “Free Design” in which there is a continuous series of spaces created by light and shadow, view and movement without creating one large, single and open space.

My office executed a massive reconstruction of the structure which included the changing of the exterior facade and the division of the interior. The main idea was to preserve the spirit of the original design whilst implementing a contemporary, independent interpretation of the existing structure and its adaptation to contemporary technologies, materials and knowledge.

During the project, we took great care to create an experience of defined, intimate and continuous spaces in a relatively restricted area; and this without detracting from the overall understanding of the entire structure.

The house is simple and minimalistic with the light and the materials creating drama and vitality. The unique range of materials was preserved throughout the project.

The building’s external facades were painted white and the profiles chosen are decks painted black, similar to the Bauhaus style. The floor is of off-white concrete. These monochromatic hues provide the background for the original materials that we decided to preserve.

The central wall that divides the entry space was preserved in its original form, built from hewed, course sandstone constructed in a unique composition. The floor of the living room is wild, natural limestone of earth hues and changing sections. The wall and the floor symbolise the building in its original state. Around them is modern, minimalistic architecture which emphasis the space and the light. The project’s furniture was carefully chosen to complete the overall experience of a living urban villa that conducts a dialogue between two worlds and two separate eras.

Plot: 370 sqm
House: 300 sqm
Original structure’s architect: Dov Carmi, 1951
Renovation architect: Pitsou Kedem Architects 2010 – 2012
Design team: Pitsou Kedem, Noa Groman

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by Pitsou Kedem appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch architect Bastiaan Jongerius was commissioned by six families to design this group of houses around a communal courtyard in Amsterdam (+ slideshow).

The buildings were constructed on a plot of land in the city’s Jordaan district, which the city council had simply handed over due to contaminated soil and a number of buildings yet to be demolished.

Bastiaan Jongerius Architecten decided to retain and renovate two buildings on Elandsstraat to the north, creating a four-storey townhouse and a pair of maisonettes behind the rough brick and blue stone facades.

The architects then constructed a row of three new three-storey houses facing south onto Lijnbaansstraat, each with earth-coloured brick walls and wooden fenestration details.

A narrow alleyway leads from Elandsstraat into the L-shaped courtyard at the centre of the site, which is shared by all six residences.

Five homes have french windows that open out to wooden patio decks around the edge of the courtyard, while wooden balconies overlook it from both sides.

Interiors feature exposed concrete ceilings, white-painted timber walls and wooden staircases.

Another Dutch housing development completed earlier this year featured two rows of brick houses sandwiched between a pair of canals in the town of Den Helder. See more houses in the Netherlands »

Photography is by Milad Pallesh.

Here’s some text from Bastiaan Jongerius Architecten:

Six courtyard houses in Amsterdam

In 2004, three couples with children who were looking for suitable housing in the city centre decided to join forces in order to commission their own construction project. They set their sights on a plot of land between Elandsstraat and Lijnbaansstraat.

In order to avoid open tendering, the city council sold the plot complete with contaminated soil and buildings that had yet to be demolished. There was space for six housing units, enabling a further three families to join the project, and the six households then formed a ‘collective private commissioning body’.

The land was divided into six condominium units, each of which also included a one sixth portion of the communal garden courtyard. The design process was an intensive trajectory of endless discussions, structuring responsibilities and monitoring costs.

Architect and resident Bastiaan Jongerius designed a plan in which the edges of the plot are built on, giving rise to a central private courtyard.

Two buildings on Elandsstraat have been carefully incorporated in the existing facade frontage. The dwelling at number 133 is characterised by an abundant use of glass and wood, while the adjacent building, which houses an upstairs and a ground-floor dwelling (numbers 135 and 137), has a bluestone facade.

Behind the door, above which are the names of all the children who live in the complex, is an alleyway that leads to the garden courtyard.

Three pavilion-like dwellings, which are accessed via wooden steps, are situated here. The front doors and facade gardens of these dwellings are on Lijnbaansstraat.

The housing scheme has injected new life into this narrow cul-de-sac.

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Bastiaan Jongerius Architecten appeared first on Dezeen.