Hasta La Ideas

Seaweed pillows were used as cladding for this holiday house on the Danish island of Læsø by architecture studio Vandkunsten and non-profit organisation Realdania Byg (+ slideshow).

The Modern Seaweed House revisits the traditional construction method in Læsø, where for many centuries trees were scarce but seaweed has always been abundant on the beaches. At one stage there were hundreds of seaweed-clad houses on the island but now only around 20 remain, which prompted Realdania Byg to initiate a preservation project.

The team enlisted Vandkunsten to design a new house that combines the traditional material with twenty-first century construction techniques.

“Seaweed is at the same time very old and very ‘just-in-time’, because it is in many ways the ultimate sustainable material,” Realdania Byg’s Jørgen Søndermark told Dezeen.

“It reproduces itself every year in the sea, it comes ashore without any effort from humans, and it is dried on nearby fields by sun and wind,” he continued. “It insulates just as well as mineral insulation, it is non-toxic and fireproof, and it has an expected life of more than 150 years!”

Rather than just piling the seaweed onto the roof, the designers stuffed the material into netted bags and attached it in lengths across the timber-framed walls and roof of the house. More seaweed was enclosed in wooden cases to use as insulation behind the facade and beneath the floors.

“By using seaweed in the construction, we not only secure the continued supply of seaweed for use on the historic houses, we also reintroduce a material to the modern building industry which is CO2-reducing, environmentally friendly and sustainable in a broader sense,” said Søndermark.

The interior walls are lined with wooden boards, framing a series of rooms intended to house two families. A double-height living room and kitchen forms the centre, while bedrooms are located at the ends and in the loft.

“Our project has demonstrated that seaweed has remarkable acoustic properties,” added Søndermark. “This creates surprisingly comfortable rooms, while the ability to absorb and give off moisture contributes to regulate the indoor climate.”

As well as building the new seaweed house, Realdania Byg has restored the seaweed roof of Kaline’s House, a 150-year-old residence next to the site. The team hopes the two projects will inspire more seaweed architecture and restoration in Læsø.

“The seaweed houses on Læsø are physical testimony to the culture and the life that have characterised the building tradition on the island for centuries,” said Realdania Byg director Peter Cederfeld. “It is our hope that others will embrace the experiences from this project and develop the ideas even further.”

Seaweed has also been used in a few lighting designs recently, including for a series of laser-cut lampshades. See more stories about seaweed »

Photography is by Helene Høyer Mikkelsen and Realdania Byg.

Here’s a press release from Realdania Byg:

The cultural heritage of Læsø: A resource in sustainable building

On the small island of Læsø in Denmark, a several hundred-year-old building style has formed the basis on which a new holiday house has been built – the Modern Seaweed House. The house is designed by Vandkunsten firm of architects and developed by Realdania Byg as a holiday house built in wood, covered and insulated with seaweed. The Modern Seaweed House is carefully adapted into the landscape and has a wonderful interaction with nature, the historic buildings and Læsø’s unique cultural history. The Modern Seaweed House is now to be sold – but the ideas live on.

The Modern Seaweed House is part of the Realdania Byg project ‘Seaweed Houses on Læsø’ that also includes ‘Kaline’s House’ – a listed seaweed house from 1865, purchased and carefully restored by Realdania Byg in 2012. The seaweed houses on Læsø are an exceptional part of the cultural heritage of Denmark – and the world. Originally, several hundred of these seaweed houses were found all over Læsø while only approximately twenty remain today. The traditional seaweed houses were built using a timber frame construction with robust seaweed roofing – an abundant resource in the small and modest fishing community. ‘Kaline’s House’ is one of these houses.

The Modern Seaweed House is not a replica of the building style of the past but a development inspired by the architectural history of Læsø. In contrast to the historic houses, on which the seaweed is stacked high on the roof, the Modern Seaweed House is more contemporary and tight in its expression. The visible seaweed has been stuffed into bolsters made of knitted nets attached to the façade in lengths. At the same time, seaweed is used invisibly for insulating floors, walls and ceilings enclosed in wooden cassettes. These prefabricated building modules comprise the framework of the house.

A sustainable resource

When seaweed was used in the past as a building material it was due to the fact that seaweed was found just outside the door, it was free, had a long-term durability, was very effective as insulation, naturally protected against vermin and putrefaction, and, finally, there was lots of it. These very preconditions make seaweed of current interest as a building material, especially in the light of the present attention to the topic of sustainability. The Modern Seaweed House fulfils expected 2020 demands, and, thereby, will have extremely low energy consumption.

At the same time, LCA (life cycle analysis) calculations have shown that the house actually has a negative carbon footprint. The almost exclusive use of organic materials, including seaweed used as both insulation and roofing material, causes the amount of CO2 accumulated within the house to exceed that which has been emitted during the production and transportation of the building materials.

In a broader view

With the ‘Seaweed Houses on Læsø’ project, Realdania Byg wishes to focus on the unique tradition of Læsø using seaweed as a building material – both the immediate need to ensure the architecture of the past and the at least equally relevant need to develop the architecture in a sustainable approach. This way, seaweed is also ensured for restoring the historic houses.

Realdania Byg’s project to develop and preserve seaweed houses on Læsø is one among a variety of existing projects that aim to secure the survival of the distinctive seaweed roofs on Læsø. The initiative is carried out in unison with enthusiastic inhabitants of Læsø, other foundations as well as the Danish Agency for Culture who are all involved in the effort to save this rather exceptional part of the cultural heritage of Denmark – and the world.

The Modern Seaweed House has shown that eelgrass has a lot of qualities. Besides its excellent insulating property and long-term durability, which in itself offer a lot of potential, it has been discovered through practical application that seaweed has exceptional acoustic properties. This creates surprisingly comfortable rooms while the ability to absorb and give off moisture contributes to regulate a good indoor climate. The numerous qualities provide a wide range of applications in modern, sustainable building.

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Vandkunsten and Realdania Byg appeared first on Dezeen.

The southernmost tip of Scotland’s Isle of Skye is the setting for this small wooden house by local firm Dualchas Architects (+ slideshow).

The single-storey house was designed by Dualchas Architects as the holiday home for an English family, who have been visting the island for years and wanted a more permanent base.

Unlike the gabled buildings that typify the island’s architectural vernacular, the house has a rectilinear form with large windows and deep alcoves. Larch panels clad each elevation, arranged in horizontal stripes.

“The proportions, massing and siting of this house are derived from traditional forms,” say the architects, explaining how the building manages to fit in with its surroundings. “Despite its obvious abstraction from the local vernacular it remains a house rooted in its place.”

The body of the house is divided into two blocks, with three bedrooms lined up on the rear side, and living and dining rooms running along in front. A bathroom, utility room and entranceway are sandwiched into the space between.

Small patios were added to three sides of the house to catch the light at different times of the day. The largest spans the length of the living room, while the second and third are positioned beside the kitchen and main bedroom.

The living room also sits slightly lower than the rest of the rooms, corresponding with the natural slope of the landscape.

Another wooden house completed on the Isle of Skye is Rural Design’s Fiscavaig Project, with a glazed northern elevation facing out across the landscape. See more architecture in Scotland.

See more holiday homes on Dezeen, including a courtyard house near the beach in Melbourne.

Photography is by Andrew Lee.

Here’s a description from Dualchas Architects:

Tigh Port Na Long, Aird of Sleat

The Singletons had been visiting Skye with their dogs for many years. They love the landscape and positively enjoy the unpredictable weather and choose to eat outdoors in all seasons. They brought to us photographs of their main home in Lancashire which is simple and minimal, a CD of their favourite music and the encouragement to do something different.

The site is at the end of the road at Aird of Sleat. It has a sense of the end of the world, shore access and extraordinary views back to Knoydart, Morar, Ardnamurchan and down the coast to the island of Eigg. There are views on 3 sides and it was decided to tuck the bedrooms behind the main living spaces to enable us to create a terrace from the kitchen for the morning light, a terrace from the dining space for the afternoon light and a terrace off the main bedroom for the evening light.

The design developed into 2 distinct forms with a stepped foundation to give additional height to the main living space and to allow views across the dining space from the kitchen to Eigg beyond the fireplace. This step in the foundation corresponded precisely to the slope in the landscape. The link between the 2 forms houses a utility room and shower room.

The proportions, massing and siting of this house are derived from traditional forms; narrow in span and tight to the ground. It is clad in a skin of narrow larch cladding walls and roof. It fits in to the township settlement pattern and sits quietly in its place on the edge of its world. Despite its obvious abstraction from the local vernacular it remains a house rooted in its place and a direct response to both site and brief.

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by Dualchas Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Argentinean studio Adamo-Faiden has overhauled an ageing townhouse in Buenos Aires with the addition of a rooftop courtyard and an underground yoga room.

The house had been used in various guises throughout its history, most recently as an apartment block, and Marcelo Faiden and Sebastian Adamo were asked to restore the building as a home for the Venturini family.

The architects began by removing superfluous partitions and stripping the structure back to its basic form. They then re-planned the layout and worked out where they could add extra rooms.

“Our intervention can be summarised in three actions: extraction, redescription and addition,” they explain.

An extra roof inserted over the house’s old courtyard encloses the new basement-level yoga room, which is lit from above by a strip of skylights.

The surface of this roof also provides a new ground-floor patio, allowing the family to open out their living room to a secluded outdoor space.

Another storey added over the roof of the building provides a room that can be used for guests. This leads out to the new rooftop courtyard.

The roof of this extension has a V-shaped profile, making it the most noticeable addition to the traditional facade.

Adamo-Faiden has worked on a number of residential projects in Buenos Aires. Others include a fabric tensile structure at a renovated apartment and social housing installed on top of existing homes. See more architecture by Adamo-Faiden.

Other houses we’ve featured from Argentina include a residence comprising two brick boxes and a brick house wrapped in a band of white concrete. See more architecture in Argentina.

Photography is by Cristobal Palma.

Read on for more text from Adamo-Faiden:

Venturini House

The house is located close to the Abasto Market, transformed into a commercial centre. Like the market, the house where the Venturini family presently lives has homed a variety of different uses. At the time of the construction the house functioned as a house for rent. Its organisation responded to a very common typology in the city of Buenos Aires. Small houses were located towards the interior of the block, whereas the one belonging to the owner was the facade to the street. The devaluation of this area of the city towards the middle of last century brought about the occupation of the main house, being transformed into a tenement house.

Our intervention can be summarised in three actions: extraction, redescription and addition. The first of them meant the recovery of the original spatial structure. The second phase of the project was simply based on labelling again each of the spaces in order to adapt the existing structure to contemporary way of life. Finally, the last action was based in two precise additions. The first of them was the materialisation of a mezzanine floor which allowed us to simultaneously cover a yoga room in the basement and to give support to an exterior expansion for the living room area. At last, the construction of a light structure on the roof, for multiple uses, made visible the optimism that follows the revaluation of the city as a way of new crowning for the property.

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by Adamo-Faiden appeared first on Dezeen.

Roughly hewn concrete gives a rocky texture to the walls of this Alpine holiday home by Austrian studio Marte.Marte Architects (+ slideshow).

The four-storey Mountain Cabin was constructed by Marte.Marte Architects on the side of a hillside in Laterns, Austria, and boasts far-stretching views of the surrounding mountains and forests.

Two rectangular openings wrap around the rectilinear body of the house, dividing it into two and creating a sheltered outdoor terrace on the upper-middle floor. This level functions as the building’s entrance and can be accessed via a staircase at the rear.

A second staircase spirals down from this floor to bedrooms and storage areas on the lower levels and up to an open-plan kitchen and living room on the uppermost floor.

Smooth concrete walls and ceilings are left exposed inside the house and contrast with the rugged surface of the facade. Floors, doors and window frames are oak, as is much of the furniture.

Square windows are dotted around each elevation and are the only other interruption to the clean lines of the facade.

“The openings punched into the double-walled concrete shell are transformed into framed landscape paintings,” says the studio, describing the views from the windows.

We’ve published a few houses in the mountains of Austria, including a boxy concrete house surrounded by sloping meadows and a cabin built from locally sourced spruce, fir and elm. See more houses in Austria.

Other winter retreats we’ve featured include a snowboarding cabin in Canada and a contemporary Alpine chalet. See more winter retreats on Dezeen.

Photography is by Marc Lins.

Here’s a project description from Marte.Marte Architects:

Mountain cabin in Laternser valley

At the edge of a wooded ravine, beneath the imposing wooden house of the Catholic Community of Sisters, the small tower building rises from the steep hillside.

Striking and modest in appearance, it stretches up out of a small hollow situated on a narrow path along the edge of the forest.

The only change made to the hillside is the driveway and the terrain has been left in its original form.

Fitting into the landscape as if it were a barn, the building, which is a fine example of the homogeneous use of materials, in this case, carefully hewn rough concrete, stands out against the meadow green and winter white. Its ashy-gray colour only contrasts slightly with the heavy oak front doors and the anthracite-coloured handrails blend in with the branches of the surrounding forest. As if they were punched into the walls, the square windows of different sizes are spread out across the walls, and their full effect is only achieved at the corners.

The integration of the outer surfaces requested by the client is a kind of artifice. At the entry level, which is accessible via a flight a steps, the structure narrows down to two supporting corner columns, which not only provides guests with the unique opportunity to look through the building while at the same time enjoying a panorama view of the surrounding landscape, the whole time protected from the elements, but also lends the entrance a sense of significance.

Inside the column, a spiral staircase connects the living area on the upper level with the two more private areas on the lower level, where the bedrooms and relaxation areas are interlocked like a puzzle. Semantically speaking, this gesture of the tower creates archetypes of fortified structures and abstract computer figures in your mind’s eye, making the tower seem familiar and strange at one and the same time.

Inside, the openings punched into the double-walled concrete shell are transformed into framed landscape paintings by wide, matte solid oak window frames that do not take up much wall space. These framed windows direct the guest’s attention to the prominent mountain chain, the gentle slopes and the dense forest grove.

Besides the raw concrete surfaces and the untreated oak floors, doors and fixtures, the black metal surfaces complement the harmonious, austere combination of materials. The client and architects haven’t built a flimsy holiday house, but instead a place of retreat that will remain standing for generations, despite any forthcoming changes of climate and landscape.

Client: private
Planning: Marte.Marte Architekten
Location: 6830 Laterns-Vorarlberg-Austria
Site area: 485.4 sqm
Gross floor area: 102.6 sqm
Floor area: 87 sqm
Built-up area: 43.03 sqm

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Marte.Marte Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

This plain white house in Osaka Prefecture was designed by Japanese architect Takeshi Hamada to look as simple as a block of tofu (+ slideshow).

The three-storey residence was created for a family, who asked Takeshi Hamada for a basic rectilinear house “like a block of tofu” with lots of natural light and a living room on the ground floor.

To achieve this, the architect designed a white-rendered building with windows on its sides rather than its front, then added a triple-height living room at the centre of the plan.

Windows surround the living room on two of its walls, while glass doors lead out to a secluded courtyard beyond.

Three bedrooms are located in the corners of the first floor, connected by balcony corridors that overlook the room below.

“The design features a high ceiling above the living room to bring the light from the garden area into the house and at the same time create a continuum between the upper and lower floors,” says Hamada.

Staircases and ramps inside the bedrooms lead to mezzanine lofts at the top of the house, where residents can also look down to the ground floor.

“Some of the loft space is exposed through the atrium and some is closed, so there is an adjustable connection between public and private space,” adds the architect.

House T is one of several houses Takeshi Hamada has completed and named with a letter. Others include House A, which has a stark concrete multi-purpose space on its ground floor, and House K, which features an arched entrance.

See more houses by Takeshi Hamada »
See more houses in Japan »

Photography is by Yohei Sasakura.

Here’s a project description from Takeshi Hamada:

House T

The site is in a quiet residential suburb on the outskirts of Osaka Prefecture. It is nearly 34 ‘tsubo’ in area, (111.67 sqm), completely surrounded by other properties except a 4 metre section directly north, which faces a narrow side road.

The client requested the following three things. First of all, the house must be full of light! Next, the exterior must be extremely simple – like a block of tofu. Finally, the plumbing fixtures and living room must be on the ground floor.

According to these requests, and after judging the piece of land, I decided on a plan for a house that opened out widely on the south side. By then closing the plan completely on the north side, a simple exterior was achieved, with a light and open interior. The first floor contains the living and dining areas, a tatami mat room, kitchen, bath and laundry areas. The living room and tatami room surround the private garden. The design features a high ceiling above the living room to bring the light from the garden area into the house and at the same time create a continuum between the upper and lower floors.

On the second floor are the main bedroom and children’s rooms. Each of the rooms has a loft space and attic storage space. Some of the loft space is exposed through the atrium and some is closed, so there is an adjustable connection between public and private space. The atrium provides a continuum between the public first floor and private second floor.

The central living area with two atrium spaces, a bridge and lofts link to form a complex labyrinth.

Name of construction: House T
Location: Osaka Prefecture, Neyagawa City
Period of construction: August, 2012 to December, 2012
Extent of structure: wooden construction, two-storey

Land area: 111.67 sqm
Building area: 64.85 sqm
Total floor area: 1110.65 sqm (first floor: 61.59 sqm, second floor: 49.09 sqm)

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Takeshi Hamada appeared first on Dezeen.