Hasta La Ideas

An opaque box appears to balance over see-through walls of glass and perforated steel at this house and pet shop in Saitama, Japan, by architecture studio N Maeda Atelier (+ slideshow).

The pet shop occupies the ground floor of the building, while a two-storey house is contained in the precarious-looking upper volume and overhangs the glass facade to create a sheltered entrance to the shop.

“The upper unit presents a sharp contrast to the open, transparent lower layer, with its weighty, massive appearance almost like a heavily-armed tank defending the rather indoorsy life of the client’s family,” says N Maeda Atelier.

The plaster-covered walls of the house have a textured surface that the architects based on an image of a cloudy sky, with the same variations of light and dark. There are no sharp edges, as all four corners are chamfered.

“On a cloudy day, the floating mass looks as if it blends in with the sky, while its edges lose their individual materiality as they melt into the gradational clouds in the background,” says the studio.

Natural light floods into the house through a skylight that stretches across most of the roof. Rooms are arranged around a double-height atrium, allowing light to permeate most of the interior.

A kitchen, lounge and traditional Japanese room occupy the lowest level of the residence, while a spiral staircase leads up to a gridded metal mezzanine with a bedroom and bathroom beyond.

In contrast with the austere facade, the interior walls are lined with plywood, which the architects have sliced up into boards and coated with a thin layer of white paint.

The owner of the residence also runs the pet shop downstairs, so a second spiral staircase leads down from to the “dog-run” yard at the back of the building.

Other seemingly windowless houses featured recently from Japan include a monolithic white home in Miyazaki and a residence in Tochigi with a six-metre high living room. See more Japanese houses on Dezeen.

Photography is by Studio Dio.

Here’s more information from Norisada Maeda:

TORUS: Transcribing the Sky onto the Façade

Composition: First Floor

Basic composition of TORUS is a bilayer structure consisted of a white, half-amorphous box floating on the lower layer softly surrounded by glass and perforated aluminum panels.

The transparency and the openness of this layer is a natural solution for the functional requirement to expose the presence of the salon to prospective customers and other passer-bys, as well as to open up the ground outside the shop area surrounded by the curved perforated partitions as “dog-run” field where dogs can freely run around.

The apparently free line of the curved wall is actually based on our careful recognition of what we call the “welcoming zones”, i.e., the pocket areas required to open up to the urban context outside the building site. The cutting-outs of such zones as parking, entrance and spaces for outdoor equipment have resulted in the irregular curve of the wall as the output of such operations.

Composition: Second and Third Floors

The upper unit containing two floors within presents a sharp contrast to the open, transparent lower layer with its weighty, massive appearance almost like a heavily-armed tank defending the rather indoorsy life of the client’s family. With a closer look, the surface of the wall shows a texture similar to a handmade pottery instead of that of a flat, uniform industrial product.

Texture: Exterior Wall

The pottery-like texture is the result of painstaking manual operation of repeatedly applying and spreading the waterproof material onto the wall. Beside such a consideration to the close-up texture, the exterior of this second layer also involves our sensitivity to the longer-distance outlook of the building, which is realized by an operation of transcribing the sky onto the wall.

The transcription process is as following: first, we took a picture of the sky right above the site on the day of framework completion (phase 1); the picture was then abstracted into a gray-scale gradation graphic (phase 2), which we applied as the contour map of the undulating surface by carefully duplicating it on the four sides of the wall; finally, we covered the surface with finishing mortar while controlling its thickness (varied from 0 to 30mm) based on the contour lines – and thus emerged the ambiguous cloudy sky texture. The finished wall naturally takes on a feature of the sky with wispy clouds.

The treatment of the exterior wall has allowed us to produce quirky and blurry edges on the corners of the floating box, which is obviously different from the familiar sight of sharp edges of building corners fashioned with usual industrial materials, and thus make this architecture stand out in the ordinary cityscape.

On a cloudy day, the floating mass looks as if it blends in with the sky, while its edges lose their individual materiality as they melt into the gradational clouds in the background. TORUS is probably a rare architecture that looks much better under clouds than clear sky.

Interior composition: Internal Void (through second and third floors)

Let us move up into the massive floating box, which appears extremely exclusive of the surrounding urban context. Beside the entrance door is a small pocket space: although it is still an open-air space, it somehow bears an indoor atmosphere due to the careful treatment of proportions and openings. Right inside the entrance door is a huge void within the massive box.

This is the particular atmosphere inside TORUS, a doughnut-like geometry with one big opening within. While the outlook of the building implies ultimate closure, it embraces a surprisingly voluminous space or “The Outside” almost mistakable for a street or a patio – which is actually a glass-covered interior void.

Interior Texture: Internal Void

The prior factor of this “outside effect” is obviously the gigantic top light on the roof, but there is another, rather obscure one: the rugged interior wall finish.

The material itself is actually an ordinary, cheap plywood panel available in any hardware store in Japan. To give the particular tactile quality to this daily material, we cut the panels into narrow boards of 200mm width each and then manually removed the soft parts from each and every board to let the hard grains stand out on the surface.

With the finishing white paint (which needed a special preparation to evenly paint over the water-absorbing and non-absorbing portions of the surface), the ordinary material has been turned into a unique finishing material like this.

This extremely labor- and time-consuming work was all done by our staff and the students of the private school led by the chief architect Norisada Maeda, and it took about two months to finish all the boards necessary to fill up the interior wall of the building (it is unimaginable how much it would have costed if the work has been committed to professional carpenters and the painters…). The resulted difference may appear rather slight and obscure from a distance, but a closer look will show the rough, but also tasteful texture of the artificially aged wall.

General-purpose industrial materials like plywood panels usually require – or even boast of – ultimate evenness of their qualities, although they can never get rid of slight differences in, for example, their wood grains. It echoes with the contemporary consumers’ taste for orderly outlook of such evenly processed materials. We consider, however, such myopic taste for apparent cleanliness and/or orderliness as one of the big reasons for the qualitative poverty of today’s architecture.

Even the plywood boards have individual characteristics, like each and every human individual has different face and life history. The artificial aging treatment to expose the individual “wood” nature within each and every industrially-processed plywood is a sort of a manifestation of our homage to the wooden materials that make up the actual architectural space.

Summary

As described above, the particular focus in TORUS can be summarized as following: clear-cut segmentation of lower and upper layers; “cutting-outs” of spaces from the surrounding urban context; unique treatment of inside/outside; invention of new texture treatment. TORUS has come to life with these considerations blended in together to realize the true richness of a residential space in the given context.

The post Torus by
N Maeda Atelier appeared first on Dezeen.

This coastal holiday house and swimming pool by Mumbai practice WE Design Studio is positioned over a stone retaining wall in the hilly landscape of Alibaug, India (+ slideshow).

Accommodating a family of four, the single-storey residence has a rectilinear plan orientated to face a view of the Arabian Sea to the west.

A glazed wall stretches across the sea-facing facade, offering a panoramic view from the living room and two bedrooms positioned alongside. The panels slide open to lead out to the swimming pool and surrounding terrace.

WE Design Studio constructed the walls of the house from brick and they are coated in lime plaster to give a uniform colour.

“The brief was to build a compact house for a family of four, which is easy to manage and maintain,” architect Saahil Parikh told Dezeen. “We were given a very moderate budget to work with and the construction and material choices have been largely influenced by it.”

The pale-coloured exterior contrasts with the dark grey tones of the basalt stone retaining walls that surround the building. These walls lift the house up from the steeply sloping hillside in front, but also support an access road at the rear.

Flooring inside the house displays the same texture as the surface of the terrace outside, finished in a locally sourced limestone called Shahabad.

Other houses featured on Dezeen from India include a residence with a scooping concrete roof and a house with a rooftop swimming pool on stilts. See more architecture in India.

Photography is by Ira Gosalia.

Here are a few words from WE Design Studio:

House in Alibaug, India

This 3500 square foot single family house is located on a two acre hill in Kashid, Alibaug. The house comprises two intersecting monolithic volumes that are oriented to maximize a spectacular panoramic view of the Arabian Sea.

Two stone retaining walls made of locally available basalt wrap around the front and rear of the house. The articulation of spaces is governed by the different ways in which these volumes interact with the stone walls.

The pool and deck seamlessly integrate interior with the surrounding landscape, establishing a strong sense of continuity. The house is a result of a continuous negotiation between topography, programmatic requirements and economy.

The post House in Alibaug by
WE Design Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

Australian architect Christopher Polly has converted a small Sydney bungalow into a two-storey house by adding extra rooms behind and underneath.

The extension more than doubles the floor area of Cosgriff House, a family residence in the Sydney suburb of Annandale. At ground floor level the plan extends to accommodate a new bathroom, bedroom and study room, while the extra storey below adds a large open-plan living and dining room at the same level as the garden.

Christopher Polly designed the extension as an asymmetric volume that initially follows the hipped profile of the house’s original roof but then angles up further to let in light through high-level windows.

The structure features an all-black exterior combining fibre-cement panels with black window and door surrounds, designed to complement the brown tones of the original brickwork facade.

A new staircase leads down from the ground floor to the large basement living room. The base of the stairs never meets the floor, creating the impression of a floating structure, while new storage closets are tucked into the space beneath.

Glazed panels open the living room out to the garden beyond. The architect has also integrated a system of louvred shutters that can be used to screen this elevation when residents want more privacy.

Other recently completed houses in Australia include a Melbourne residence with the silhouette of three little buildings and a Queensland house designed to withstand cyclones. See more houses in Australia.

Photography is by Brett Boardman.

Here’s a project description from Christopher Polly:

Cosgriff House

The project retains its original envelope as part of its environmental, economic and planning values. A substantial lower ground living volume is sensitively inserted beneath the original fabric to harness the fall in the site towards the rear, extending deeply beneath the existing dwelling and outwards towards the garden to transform it – while a re-crafted rear ground floor above enfolds the existing rhythm of front rooms over the new lower ground below.

Both levels accept a modestly-sized lightweight addition which extrapolates existing wall alignments, gutter levels and enclosing wall heights – that at once, extends and subverts existing geometries to present an interpreted mirrored slice of the original vernacular form attached to the retained rear fabric. An eccentric roof form extrapolates the original southern roof plane to mitigate adjacent impacts – lifting to light and tree views to the east, while also folding upwards for access to northern light and sky through a sole fire-rated window along the boundary.

The majority of the project is carefully crafted within the retained masonry and hipped roof envelope. Vaulted ceilings and skylights carved within the original roof form expand volumes for access to light and sky within the middle of the ground floor – while consciously surrendered floor area permits a generous stair void that spatially expands to the lower level below, and upwards to views of the external environment to strengthen connections to its setting.

Utilities located deep within the semi-subterranean rear of the lower ground enable direct connection of the living space to the garden and jacaranda tree, while the re-worked ground floor above adds a bathroom, main bedroom and adaptable bedroom providing flexibility for future use as a study. Fenestration placement improves natural light access and promotes passive ventilation, assisted by ceiling fans and a roof venting system to exhaust trapped heat out of the original roof space.

Location: Annandale, Sydney Australia
Architect: Christopher Polly Architect
Structural Engineer: SDA Structures
Hydraulic Engineer: ACOR Consultants
Builder: R.G.Gregson Constructions

Land Size: 370 sqm
Floor Area: 167 sqm
Completion: December 2012

The post Cosgriff House
by Christopher Polly appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban developed these timber and earth houses for the rehabilitation of a Sri Lankan fishing village that was swept away during the 2004 tsunami (+ slideshow).

Developer Phillip Bay asked Shigeru Ban to design a prototype house that could be built cheaply using local materials and would be suitable for the tropical climate. The house was to form a template for the construction of 100 replacement homes in Kirinda.

“This was not going to be a traditional disaster relief effort where we go in and make homes really fast and leave,” said Bay. “I wanted to treat this like a development project.”

Ban’s design comprises a single-storey structure with walls made from compressed earth blocks and a pitched roof made from locally sourced teak and coconut wood.

Each house has two bedrooms, a hall and a sheltered courtyard, which residents can use as a dining room, social space or simply as a place to repair fishing nets.

Adaptable wooden screens divide the rooms, to suit a Muslim lifestyle. “This is the first time I’ve worked for the Muslim societies,” said Ban, “so before I built the houses I had a community meeting to find out what has to be carefully done depending on the generation, for example, we had to separate the man’s space and woman’s space.”

Ban also designed furniture for the residence, using wood from the rubber trees that are common to the region.

The Post-Tsunami Housing was completed in 2007 but was recently named as one of 20 projects on the shortlist for the Aga Khan Award 2013. Other projects on the shortlist include an Islamic cemetery in Austria and a reconstructed refugee camp in Lebanon. Five or six finalists will be revealed later this year and will compete to win the $1 million prize.

Shigeru Ban has also worked on a number of other disaster-relief projects. He devised apartment blocks made from shipping containers for victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011 and was one of several high-profile architects involved in the Make It Right housing project in New Orleans. See more architecture by Shigeru Ban.

Photography is by Dominic Samsoni.

Here’s a project description from the Aga Khan Award organisers:

Post-Tsunami Housing

This project provides 100 houses in a Muslim fishing village, in the region of Tissamaharama, on the southeast coast of Sri Lanka, following the destruction caused by the 2004 tsunami. Shigeru Ban’s aim was to adapt the houses to their climate, to use local labour and materials to bring profit to the region, and to respond to the villagers’ own requirements through direct consultation. For example, kitchens and bathrooms are included within each house, as requested by the villagers, but a central covered area separates them from the living accommodation, as stipulated by the government. The covered area also provides an entertainment space from which women can retreat to maintain privacy. Local rubber-tree wood was used for partitions and fittings, and compressed earth blocks for walls.

Location: Kirinda, Sri Lanka (Asia)
Architect: Shigeru Ban Architects, Tokyo, Japan
Client: Philip Bay
Completed: 2007
Design: 2005
Site size: 71 m2 for each house – Total site area: 3’195 m²

The post Post-Tsunami Housing
by Shigeru Ban appeared first on Dezeen.

Australian office Kennedy Nolan Architects used recycled bricks, concrete and rough-sawn timber to construct this courtyard house near the beach in Melbourne.

Merricks Beach House functions as a holiday home and is available to rent on a short-term basis, so Kennedy Nolan Architects was asked to create a flexible building with a structure durable enough to accommodate regularly changing occupants.

The single-storey house is arranged over three staggered levels that respond to the natural slope of the site. Rooms are laid out on a U-shaped plan, creating a large courtyard on the western side of the building.

Half of the house is given over to social spaces, on the assumption that temporary residents spend more time entertaining and are likely to have children around. To the south, a kitchen leads out to a dedicated barbecue deck, while a sunken living room opens out to the courtyard and a “bunk room” can be used as a second lounge.

Two bedrooms are lined up along the eastern side of the building and sit beside a single bathroom. There’s no need for much storage, so each room contains just the basic furnishings.

The recycled clay bricks were used to construct the lowest sections of the house’s walls and are visible both inside and outside the building. In most places they are painted white, but the architects left two unfinished circles to reveal the original colour.

Timber wraps over the tops and corners of the walls, while windows are slotted into gaps between the two different materials.

Merricks Beach House is one of several new houses in Melbourne featured on Dezeen recently. Others include a residence clad in slabs of travertine and a house with the silhouette of three little buildings. See more houses in Australia.

Photography is by Derek Swalwell.

Read on for more information from Kennedy Nolan Architects:

Merricks Beach House

This small house at Merricks Beach has been designed as a weekender that is available for short term rental. It needed to be an economical build and tough enough for the knocks of a rental market. It is two blocks from the beach. It has no views and had no existing trees on the site.

There are the usual line-up of rooms required, and in this instance it is a modest list; but what becomes a more interesting conversation is how you live differently in the weekender.

» No one needs to ‘own’ a bedroom
» No one needs to shower and leave quickly in the morning
» What you need to store is completely different
» You arrive and unpack; you leave & pack
» You spend more time with others; having guests stay over is common
» There always seems to be more children than adults!
» It is a place to enjoy each other

A courtyard typology ensures maximum privacy and access to northern winter sun, yet in this straightforward floor plan a number of ‘in-between’ spaces have been considered.

The bunk room which is located on the north edge of the internal courtyard has no doors and the king single bunks sit within their own alcove. This spacefeels dark and private and becomes a second living room when the house swells with people. Within this space thereare different places to be. There is no need for walls or doors. Light forms the threshold.

The coastal weekender is not just a summer dream. In winter the hearth is central to this house. Located between the kitchen and living room, a slow combustion fireplace defines another ‘in-between’ space. There is time here in the colder months to pull up a chair, chat or read. In summer this space dissolves into the open corner of the central deck.

A slight fall across the site allows for the house to have 3 levels. The living pit sits below the central timber deck. It is a soft floor that allows you to be low and look out over the skillion roof to the trees in the surrounding area. The pit edge becomes another of these in-between places. It is a place to sit and wide enough for a futon for an afternoon nap in the winter sun. The edge curves to become the hearth for the fire, finishing in a ledge for the television.

The materials of the build are a big part of what this house is about. It is not a precise build. It feels raw and tough. A language of masonry, concrete and timber was developed. The white painted brickwork to both interior and exterior walls is never punctured by windows. They are always walls, solid and straightforward. There are two moments where a circle has been left, telling the story of the recycled red bricks that the house is made from. The structural concrete slab, rough-sawn timber cladding and concrete block screen wall have been expressed with similar simplicity.

Location: Merricks Beach, Melbourne, Australia
Architects: Kennedy Nolan Architects
Project type: New house
Completion Date: May 2012
Site area: 850sqm
Floor area: 155sqm
Project Team: Rachel Nolan, Patrick Kennedy, Michael Macleod

The post Merricks Beach House by
Kennedy Nolan Architects appeared first on Dezeen.