Hasta La Ideas

This house in Belgium by Ghent studio Graux & Baeyens Architecten is broken down into cubic volumes that are staggered to let more light into each room (+ slideshow).

Located in the village of Mullem, the bright-white building accommodates a family house and a small practice for a physiotherapist.

Graux & Baeyens Architecten were restricted from building too close to neighbouring houses, so were only left with a narrow plot to fit the house onto. This meant all rooms had to be organised on a linear axis with the physiotherapy practice tacked onto the end.

“Planning regulations required a minimum clear gap of four metres between the neighbours on both sides of the already narrow site, which meant that the building’s organisation had to be very efficient with space,” explain architects Basile Graux and Koen Baeyens.

Rooms are staggered back and forth on both floors of the two-storey building, adding space for additional windows on the protruding walls. As well as letting in more light, this prevents any problems with overlooking the neighbours.

All bedrooms are positioned on the ground floor, freeing up space on the upper storey for an open-plan living and dining room with views out over the village rooftops. Different areas are loosely defined by the set backs in the walls, while balconies are slotted into the recesses.

To integrate a parking space for the family car, the architects added an extra wall and shelter beside the house’s entrance.

Other interesting houses in Belgium include a residence in a former laundry building and a glass house with a sunken swimming pool. See more architecture in Belgium.

Photography is by Luc Roymans.

Here’s a more detailed description from Graux & Baeyens Architecten:

House DZ in Mullem, Belgium

New construction of a private house + physiotherapist practice

The general concept of the building is responsive to the narrow plot and dense program as required by the clients. The brief was for both a family home and a physiotherapy practice.

Planning regulations required a minimum clear gap of four metres between the neighbours on both sides of the already narrow site, which meant that the building’s organisation had to be very efficient with space.

The first step in working with these limitations was to switch the traditional dwelling program. The daylight functions (kitchen, dining, living & terraces) are located on the first floor with bedrooms and bathrooms located on the ground floor. This allowed for better views from the spaces on the first floor along with much more natural light entering the most commonly used spaces. The monolithic volume was then separated into smaller blocks which could shift to achieve maximum direct sunlight entering the building along with selecting specific and beautiful views.

The first floor is kept open plan but the shifting rooms also act to define and separate the different spaces without actually creating physical divisions. Each space is visually connected but has its own atmosphere due to the location of the windows and shifting of the blocks. By shifting the blocks on the first floor balconies are also created for the kitchen and lounge space.

The windows were carefully placed in the facade to capture surrounding views in particular the green areas to the east of the site and also to allow direct sunlight into the living spaces. The south facade is kept closed for privacy and to block the sun when its at its highest point.

On the south west facade the windows are placed perpendicular to the neighbours. This is once again to maximise the amount of natural light entering the building and to ensure privacy for both the neighbours and our own clients.

An efficient and sustainable volume is achieved due to the compact nature of the building along with its orientation to maximise natural sunlight wherever it’s possible.

The buildings compactness is also evident with the efficiency of the program. The client requested a physiotherapy practice to be incorporated into the building. The ground floor is defined by a narrow corridor which has two stairs mirroring each other.

One stairs connects the bedrooms and bathrooms to the living areas on the first floor. The public stairs connect two physiotherapy practices one on the ground floor and one on the first floor. These stairs separate the private and public functions but also help to bring light into the ground floor and to open up the corridor space, creating an airy and pleasant entrance to the building.

The client also had a requirement for a car port and garden shed on the ground floor. These program requirements were used within the sites limitations to achieve their function and also define private external spaces.

The car port acts as a private and secluded entrance for the physiotherapy practice and the garden shed defines a terrace which is secluded from the neighbours and opens out into the garden. External steps lead up to the lounge area connecting the first floor living functions to the garden.

Address: Mullem, Belgium
Client: family DZ
Design: 2009-2010
Interior design: 2010-2012
Start construction: January 2011
Finished: February 2012
Site area: 810 sqm
Built area: 263 sqm
Design architect: Graux & Baeyens Architecten
Project architect: Graux & Baeyens Architecten

Materials:
– Facade Facade System on EPS insulation
– Construction concrete and brick
– Windows Aluminium

Above: concept diagram

Above: ground floor plan

Above: first floor plan

Above: cross-section

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Graux & Baeyens Architecten appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese architect Takato Tamagami used the golden spiral of the Fibonacci mathematical sequence to plan the twisted proportions of this house in Hokkaido, Japan (+ slideshow).

The house is named Northern Nautilus as a reference to this spiral shape and is positioned on the side of a hill overlooking a park to the north.

“We imagined that if we made the house high enough, they will have a nice view towards the park and the panorama of the town on the hill,” said Takato Tamagami.

The volume of the house comprises two overlapping blocks, with one running parallel to the street and the other rotated through 30 degrees. Floor levels are different in each block and create a series of split levels.

“We created a dynamic spiral flow of circulation and form,” added the architect. “Light and view transform in multiple ways as you move up and down the space.”

A dining room and kitchen are located at the very top of the house and feature a double-height window with a view out over the park.

Two staircases lead down from this room to a mezzanine floor in the middle of the house. One winds down into a living room, while the other descends into a private, window-less study that is used by the client’s wife.

One bedroom is slotted into the corner of this storey, plus two more are located on the ground floor below.

The split levels of the house create a large storage area between the floors in the centre of the house. A parking garage is also integrated into the volume, with a shelf above for storing a canoe.

Tokyo-based architect Takato Tamagami launched his studio in 2002. Past projects include N-House, which comprises two homes tangled around each other, and a showroom with a curving chasm for an entrance.

See more houses in Japan »

Here’s a project description from Takato Tamagami:

Northern Nautilus

This house for a young couple stands on a lot in a readjusted land on a hill. The site faces a street on the north, and is surrounded by neighboring houses on the other three sides. It seemed like a rather commonplace urban condition at first, but we were excited to discover a good view of a park below, located across the street towards northeast direction. We imagined that if we made the house high enough, they will have a nice view towards the park and the panorama of the town on the hill, and enjoy seasonal changes of trees from there. So our design started from providing a large window towards the park view on top floor.

The building consists of interlocking volumes of cuboid located parallel to the site and cube rotated by 30 degrees to face the park. Plan of the cuboid is based on golden proportion and spatial division is determined by logarithmic spiral. By giving order to spatial proportion and composition, one can provide a sense of stability and comfort in living environment. This is a classical design method that had been adapted by many architects in the past.

We added a new step to this method that is extracting the square and rotating it. As a result we created a dynamic spiral flow of circulation and form. Light and view transform in multiple ways as you move up and down the space.

Each volume has floor on different level and each floor is allocated for specific use, and the floors step up continually and extend outwards. The gap between mezzanine ceiling and top floor is used as storage space.

Garage is placed in a part of rotated cube and the ceiling is made high enough to accommodate a canoe, as the client loves outdoor sports. And we made storage space above the garage so that they can load and unload outdoor sport goods directly from the car.

Each space has different ceiling height. Entrance hall has a 6.6 meter-high void space and as you go up ceiling height of each living space gets lower. Living room on the mezzanine level is 3.9 meters high and dining room on the second floor is compressed to 2.2 meters high. Here the sense of horizontality is emphasized to enhance visual experience. As you approach the full-width window a bright panoramic view of trees and surrounding townscape opens up dramatically.

Study/book storage is located in that middle on the mezzanine level, which is used as private room of the client’s wife. It is visually inaccessible from the rest of the house, except that it is visually connected to the double-height bedroom so the couple can feel each other’s presence while maintaining some privacy. She can go down there from the second floor using stairs located behind the kitchen, so it is easy take a break from housekeeping and enjoy her free time.

By splitting floor levels we were able to separate living spaces while maintaining a sense of togetherness at the same time.

Above: concept diagram

The couple stands by the dining room window and sees neighborhood children playing cheerfully in the park. When they have a child on their own he/she will eventually join there. From this window they will keep an eye on growth of all children and their hometown.

Above: ground floor plan

Above: middle floor plan

Above: top floor plan

Above: section

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Takato Tamagami appeared first on Dezeen.

This suburban family house in Japan by architect Yoshiaki Nagasaka is pretending to be a cabin in a forest (+ slideshow).

Yoshiaki Nagasaka describes his concept for the house as “a series of contradictory aspirations”, which include rooms that can be both large and intimate and private and open.

The architect has therefore designed a single-storey house that is divided up by sliding plywood partitions, with a gabled roof that creates a variety of ceiling heights for different rooms.

The residence is located between the cities of Nara and Osaka. It contains a living room, dining room, kitchen and traditional Japanese room as one large family area, while the main bedroom and two children’s rooms are tucked away at the back.

Both children’s rooms feature mezzanine lofts, separating beds from play areas. Sliding plywood screens also cover these lofts so that they can be opened out to the rest of the house when necessary.

An informal corridor runs through the centre of the building and is lit from above by a long narrow skylight. Walls are lined with cedar boards and are punctured by clusters of differently sized windows.

The house is entitled Hut In Woods, as a reference to the woodland that historically covered the area but has since been interspersed with housing developments. As a nod to this, the architect has planted trees in the surrounding garden. “We propose to replant original vegetation on the house plot, regenerating the plant cover in 10 years,” he adds.

Other recently completed Japanese houses include a home that points out like a giant telescope and a residence with a shimmering glass-brick facade. See more Japanese houses on Dezeen.

Photography is by Yasunori Shimomura.

Here’s some more information from Yoshiaki Nagasaka:

Hut in woods – a house that accommodates contradictory aspirations within comfort

The site is situated in the vicinity of two cities; the metropolitan city of Osaka and Japan’s oldest city, Nara, a place of important historic buildings and wilderness. “Hut in woods” is located in a residential area developed during Japan’s economic boom during the late 60s and 70s. The mounds of wild woods nearby are still visible between the housing developments.

We had a series of contradictory aspirations at the start of design process for our future house: how could we create comfortable space encompassing:

Aspiration one – “living with nature, but with the convenience and security of living in a city”

To achieve this goal, we propose to replant original vegetation on the house plot, regenerating the plant cover in 10 years. We will encourage the neighbours around the site to do the same by opening a part of our plot to the public where they can participate in seedling, aiming to create a chain of wood cover in the spaces between the houses.

Aspiration two – “large, bright open spaces as well as small intimate spaces”

Three bedrooms in small sizes of 2no.x5.2sqm and 1no.x 6.2sqm. We designed the diurnal spaces by, combining the living, dining and kitchen areas and a Japanese style living room as one large open space of 35sqm. A 15cm wide continuous light slit spans the roof ridge and accentuates the openness. Sunlight drawn from the slits tells occupiers time and seasonal changes.

Two small bedrooms are positioned for children to be able to build their own area, their ‘castle’, as they grow and achieve their independence. Under the ceiling height of 3.8m, a bookshelf wall and the sleeping areas of the loft space above the cupboards create a playful 3 dimensional space. Once the children are grown and leave the house, their ‘castles’ can be adapted into study rooms for wife and husband.

The main bedroom of 6.2sqm has a reduced ceiling height of 1.98m. The space is cosy and calm with dimmed light levels.

Aspiration three – “to be closer, yet allow privacy, between family members”

A large multi-purpose table in the main living room is a focus for family activities. The double height children’s bedrooms have dual level sliding screens made of ply sheet that can control privacy in relation to the open area. Throughout the house, these sliding screens act as partitions for each space. In their temporary positions, as in a traditional Japanese house, the screens cushion the divisions within the house.

Aspiration four – “to be a traditional, yet also an original, contemporary house”

A local building contractor specialised in hand made wood construction with local cedar was also hired to design the structural joints and junctions for the house. Within the exposed traditional structural elements, the design is infused with a contemporary feel, achieved through a close collaboration between architect and master builder.

The main wall receives natural light with a contemporary twist while the joints and main pillar are visually symbolized in a traditional manner. Plywood sheet, a conventional material, has been crafted in a traditional way for the partitions and fittings as well as visually framing the landscape context of the house.

A contemporary sprit is manifest in the contrasts between the traditional details and its expression in the house that meets our aspirations for the architecture. Modern life is saturated with a variety of materials, we accommodate this in our design. Elements drawn from contemporary life blend beautifully in the light and shadow of everyday existence in nature.

It will take some time until the area grows back to woods but a house is not a transient object. We believe the vegetation should grow back gradually together with the family and community.

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Yoshiaki Nagasaka appeared first on Dezeen.

This house beside a mountain in South Korea has a curved grey-brick facade that its architects compare to the body of a fish (+ slideshow).

Designed by Seoul studio JOHO Architecture, The Curving House is a two-storey residence near Mount Gwanggyosan with a view out across the rural landscape.

Concrete pilotis lift the house off the ground, making room for a sheltered parking area underneath, while the curved facade frames the patio out in front.

“The fundamental challenge was not only solving the parking problem but also creating a space for both parking and gardening to coexist,” explains studio principal Jeonghoon Lee. “The shape of the mass – resembling a concave lens – was created by both the parking needs and the topographical condition of the lot.”

The architects used two different kinds of silvery bricks to give texture to the exterior walls. They also added polished stainless steel, which functions as a mirror to reflect the surrounding trees.

“The ash-coloured bricks embrace the concrete surface as fish scale,” says Lee. “If the bricks reveal themselves by the change of light and shadow, the stainless steel de-materialises itself by making itself disappear in nature.”

A staircase tucked underneath the building provides the only entrance and leads up into a double-height living room with a kitchen and bedroom on either side.

Borrowing concepts from traditional Korean homes, these rooms are separated by sliding screens that can be folded back to create one continuous space. A long narrow balcony also stretches across the front.

Two staircases each lead to different rooms upstairs, with a multi-purpose room on one side and a prayer room on the other.

Other Korean residences completed recently include a house and studio with a scaly facade and a home surrounded by timber baton screens. See more architecture in South Korea.

Photography is by Sun Namgoong.

Here’s the full project description from Jeonghoon Lee:

The Curving House – Sinbong-dong, Yongin

There is no home for parking

I remember that it was a winter day after snowing when I first visited the site. It was a rare residential lot with an open view to the south at the dead end of a small path beneath Mt. Gwanggyo. What was unique about this lot was that it was very hard to turn the car to come out of the path after more than 2 cars parked, because it was a small path only 4m in width. Ironically, the fundamental challenge was not only solving the parking problem but also creating a space for both parking and gardening to coexist. It was closely related to the lifestyle of home owner to decide whether to create a garden directly accessible from the living room or to emphasize a visual garden. To resolve this issue, the overall shape was formed to encase the lot with more curves and lifted about 2 m from the ground using pilotis for more efficient parking. The shape of the mass resembling a concave lens was created by both the parking needs and the topographical condition of the lot.

The line penetrates the sky

The mountains penetrate the sky and the sky contains the mountains as nature. Here, the mountains form lines and the lines remember the mountains in the land. The terrains of Mt. Gwanggyo flow low above the lot and the lot displays the entire view as if it responds to the graceful flow. At this site, the land is the proof of space and everything about the substance. The shape created here contains the sky as an earthenware jar and displays the potentiality of land as a spatial substance. It draws a shape, but creates a space that shows the sky outside the shape to hide itself in nature. Should the line be hidden in nature or should the nature be displayed in the hidden line? This was the essential challenge of this land and the sincere response to the background. This is directly related to how the topographies should be interpreted in Korean traditional spaces. Korean traditional spaces have pursued the shape that is not completely hidden in nature yet beautifully harmonized with surrounding nature. It is based on the post-dualistic beauty of harmony that proves its existence while hiding in nature rather than dominating nature with its shape and lines.

The flow of light contained in silver scale

The ash-colored bricks (traditional bricks) embrace the concrete surface as fish scale while slightly altering the angles. The traditional bricks used for this project have silver water-repellent coating on the surface and show sentimentality different from the rough surfaces of their tops and bottoms. The bricks with two different surfaces were piled to form a certain pattern from angles 1° through 25°. In other words, the variation of angle is another way how the outer skin in the shape of a concave lens facing south defines its existence. The shadow of the brick wall caste as the sun moves converts the flow of lines into the subtle change of the outer skin. The variation of the brick surface is intended to read the entire mass differently according to the perspective of incomer and the perspective of viewing the images from the mountains.

Contrast and harmony of texture

The rough texture of the traditional bricks interprets the lot in a different way in combination with the property of highly reflective stainless steel. The skies and nature reflected on the stainless steel surface distort what the true substance is to break the boundaries between shapes and texture. Unlike the rough texture of ceramic bricks, the stainless steel used on the front and on the side reflects the surrounding landscapes to make itself disappear. If the bricks reveal themselves by the change of light and shadow, the stainless steel de-materialises itself by making itself disappear in nature. Such contrasting textures have different properties and confront each other in a single mass, but they ultimately establish balance through the extinction and reflection of light.

Space as a flow of nature

The pilotis for parking naturally serves as an opening for air ventilation. The summer breeze coming down from the mountain ridge circulates the air around the building thus reducing the heat load. Also, each room has windows for cross-ventilation and is planned to allow natural circulation of air. The motorized window on top of the living room can release heated air in summer for air circulation triggered by the difference in temperature known as stack effect. The staircase to the north is planned to serve as a buffer of air against the freezing northwestern winds in winter to minimize heat loss. The front windows facing the south allow sufficient sunlight in winter to maximize energy efficiency with natural sunlight. In particular, the ceiling is also diversified to invite as much natural light as possible into the building to control illumination naturally.

New technical interpretation of traditional space

The flow of space was borrowed from the method of handling the flow of air in traditional Korean homes. In detail, the pilotis on the bottom expands the surface of volume exposed to outer air to reduce the load of heat energy and allows natural ventilation in summer. This is similar to the principle of open living rooms in Korean traditional spaces. It means that the entire building allows ventilation to keep the building cool. In winter, on the other hand, the concrete floor is made as thick as possible as a thermal mass, similar to Ondol floors of Korean traditional architecture for maximum insulation, to block the cold air from the underground. Also, the interior space of the second floor has an open living room, bedroom, and kitchen which can be divided and combined flexibly with sliding doors for different needs. This is a modern reinterpretation of the variable space of Korean traditional homes that can be used either as a big room or as smaller individual rooms.

Architect: Jeonghoon Lee
Design Team: JOHO Architecture(Il-Sang Yoon, Gae-hee Cho)
Use: Housing
Location: 678-2, Sinbong-dong, Suji-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Completion: 2012.10
Construction: Dong-jin Chea(DL donglim construction)
Client: Im-jeong Choi

Material: Exposed Concrete + Ash-colored Brick + STS panel(mirror type)
Site area: 529.00 sqm
Building area: 140.57 sqm
Building to land ratio : 26.57% (<40%)
Floor area ratio: 35.22% (<100%)
Building scope: 3F

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click for larger image

Above: second floor plan – click for larger image

Above: roof plan – click for larger image

Above: long section – click for larger image

Above: short section – click for larger image

Above: front elevation – click for larger image

Above: side elevation – click for larger image

Above: rear elevation – click for larger image

Above: side elevation – click for larger image

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by JOHO Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

This house in Toronto by Drew Mandel Architects features pale grey stone walls and an overhanging top storey (+ slideshow).

Home to a family of four, the two-storey residence sits at the edge of Cedarvale Park, a steeply sloping ravine surrounded by woodland.

Drew Mandel Architects used locally quarried stone blocks in three different sizes to create irregular courses on the building’s exterior. To contrast, zinc clads the cantilevered first floor and richly coloured walnut covers a selection of surfaces inside the house.

“The restrained and limited material palette avoids unnecessary ornamentation in order to focus one’s attention on the site, natural light, and movement through modulated open spaces,” say the architects.

The volume of the house is broken down into modules, which step back and forth on both floors to create two patios at ground floor level and a vegetable garden on the roof.

The architects explain this as a “pushing and pulling” that mediates between the residential context at the front and the woodland area at the rear. “The sculptural expression solves programmatic requirements, maximises views, provides natural light, and enhances the promenade and transition from suburban streetscape to very primal forms of nature,” they add.

A glazed single-storey block at the back contains the living room and offers a view back towards the park.

The overhanging first floor cantilevers out beside it and hovers above an outdoor swimming pool. To support the weight of the cantilever, the architects added a single concrete wall and a series of concealed trusses.

A double-height dining room is positioned at the centre of the house and splits the first floor into two wings. A mezzanine corridor runs between.

Other Canadian houses completed in recent years a house built with concrete bricks in Québec and a timber-clad house on a hillside.

See more architecture in Canada »

Here’s some more information from Drew Mandel Architects:

Cedarvale Ravine House
Toronto, Canada

The Cedarvale Ravine House is a 3350 square feet home for a family of four that is located at the edge of the Toronto Cedarvale Ravine. The ravine system, the most distinctive feature of Toronto’s geography, comprises of extraordinary arteries that flow through the city giving unique access to the wilderness. This infill house sits on a typical mid-town residential neighborhood street, but opens to protected woodlands at the rear of the property. The building mass is formed by pushing and pulling the desired volume across the site. It is further manipulated with void spaces. The sculptural expression solves programmatic requirements, maximises views, provides natural light, and enhances the promenade and transition from suburban streetscape to very primal forms of nature.

The circulation of the house weaves through a modulation of intimate and expansive spaces and courtyards that lead to a glass-enclosed single-storey space at the rear of the property. This is the kitchen and family room, the heart of the house. It also defines the south edge of the courtyard. This volume has been pushed down to one storey in order to permit light to the interior and views out to the ravine. Large expanses of glass dematerialise the monolithic stone building and dissolve boundaries between the interior and exterior.

The building is clad in custom local Ontario stone masonry units. 2″, 3″ and 4″ tall stone courses are laid in an irregular sequence. The random lengths of stone range from 1′-0″ to 4′-0″ and intend to emphasise the horizontal lines of the building.

Above: site plan – click for larger image

At the second floor, a zinc-clad cantilevered superstructure frames views from the inside and gestures to the woodlands. It floats above and beyond the main stone volume and allows the re-naturalised ravine plantings to be brought farther into the site. A lap pool reflects light into the space under the second floor cantilever where a family can enjoy outdoor activities around the pool and barbeque.

Above: ground floor plan

The reaching superstructure is the structural feature of the project. Its one storey high trusses are embedded in walls and are supported on an exposed slender column. Column supports are reduced by diffusing the overturning forces into both the roof and floor diaphragms. A series of space-defining vertical planes and a mass concrete wall are used for lateral resistance. The floating rear volume is complimented by a carport cantilever reaching to the front property line. Its structure is a three-point steel framing system with wood infill, sitting on cantilevered concrete walls.

Above: first floor plan

The private areas located on the second floor feature operable floor-to-ceiling glazing with sliding interior wooden shutters. The system allows one to control sunlight, privacy, air flow, and noise as desired.

Above: long section one – click for larger image

The second floor diverges into two wings separated by a double height dining space and its adjacent open courtyard. This connection space is traversed by a bridge that leads to access to a green roof.

Above: long section two – click for larger image

It contains a vegetable garden for family meals, while insulating the one-storey family room-kitchen below. Both the courtyard and the green roof spaces support the local conservation authority’s interest to have the rear of the property re-naturalised as part of a larger ravine stewardship program. With much of the rear planted, these green spaces provide additional amenity space and more complex and modulated volumes. The ravine is brought to the foreground at the second floor spaces.

Above: elevation – click for larger image

The restrained and limited material palette of stone, walnut, and concrete avoids unnecessary ornamentation in order to focus one’s attention on the site, natural light, and movement through modulated open spaces. The Cedarvale Ravine House provides opportunities to celebrate the everyday rituals of residential life and enhances the slow unfolding experience of a special site.

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by Drew Mandel Architects appeared first on Dezeen.