Hasta La Ideas

A massive concrete frame wraps over the top of this house in South Korea by A.M Architects and shelters a traditional narrow porch (+ slideshow).

The house near the town of Bongsan-myeon also features an assortment of freestanding walls and projecting canopies.

“The concept of ‘architecture like promenade’, which accumulates spacial experience is well expressed in piled walls with sequential views of the interior and exterior, serving as an element to add a sense of depth and the direction of entry,” said A.M Architects.

Beginning with a straightforward cuboid, the architects removed boxy sections to create voids in the building’s facades and reduced these volumes to surfaces that act as a backdrop for three trees planted around the boundaries of the site.

The rectangular frame that surrounds the front of the building casts dynamic shadows onto the toenmaru – a narrow wooden patio that can be accessed from the study.

A freestanding concrete wall signals the main entrance to the house, which is accessed via a short flight of wooden steps.

As well as the front steps, wood is used for the terraces and to clad one section of the building’s front facade, providing a warm contrast to the stark cast concrete walls.

From inside the entry hall a window directly opposite provides a view of one of the trees at the back of the property.

A corridor traversing the house from east to west culminates in a window on the east elevation that looks out at another tree.

The house’s bedrooms, study and living room are arranged off this central corridor, which incorporates a skylight to introduce natural light into the space.

The main living room at the west end of the corridor connects to the kitchen and dining area and to a large wooden deck that projects into the garden.

Low windows provide additional daylight and views of the gardens outside, while a tall window looks out towards a distant mountain that is framed by the large concrete rectangle.

Photography is by Kim Jae Kyeong.

Here’s a project description from A.M Architects:

MUN JEONG HEON

Architecture like Promenade

The concept of Architecture like Promenade, which accumulates spacial experience, well expressed in piled walls with sequential view of interior and exterior, which servers as an element to add sense of depth and the direction of entry.

The controlled form of the entrance placed in the entry part is an objet for moving toward another space. On going into the entry space, the house, surrounded by horizontal free-standing walls floating in the air, appears overlapped. Free-standing walls of exposed concrete to emphasise horizontal stream are used as a method to attract people’s eyes and become visually magnified.

The light of nature falling long in dynamic angles through the cantilever decoration beam protruded from the flat surface of the wall, the light of nature falling is naturally ushered to the deck in front of the entrance with the property of concrete, and makes the place of main entrance recognised with free-standing walls. Also, the glance extending long along the stream of free-standing wall stays a little far in the foot of the mountain passing over spindle tree fence.

Enter the inside, over the transparent window, we can see a tree in the back yard along the grass extending the floor all in one, which is the architectural element to induce boundless horizontal extension of the space visually.

As soon as we go into the living room along the corridor, we can feel the energy of the extended light going down softly through the ceiling. The composition of walls repeating solid and void serves as an element of architectural promenaded which makes us feel the outside and inside space sequentially with the natural light, and guides the direction of entry with tension.

Free-Standing Walls for Selective View

The inner garden seen from the living room expressing the changing seasons with free-standing walls for selective view keeps an indirect eye on the landscape of distant mountain hanged at the end of exposed concrete free-standing walls through toenmaru connected visually with the study. Such architectural element becomes a device to draw nature selectively, and to makes a metaphoric communication between interior space and exterior space possible.

The domain created through a layer and a layer communicates with nature along with various forms of walls controlling the visual and spatial movements. Organic setting up of interior and exterior spaces connecting to corridor, back yard, living room, inner garden, study and toenmaru creates the architecture of incessant relationship and stream.

Architects: A.M Architects
Architect in charge: Kim Tae Yun
Location: Taehwa-ri, Bongsan-myun, Kimcheon-si, Kyeongsangbuk-do, Korea
Area: 99.82m2

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is surrounded by a huge concrete frame appeared first on Dezeen.

Australian studio BLOXAS adopted elements from Japanese architecture to reorganise the spaces of this Melbourne residence around a courtyard then added a new timber-clad extension shaped like a periscope (+ slideshow).

Located in the suburb of Fitzroy North, the renovated open-plan house was designed by BLOXAS to provide a “dynamic mix of spaces” for a family of four who had previously spent many years living and working in Japan.

The building has an L-shaped plan that wraps around the long north-facing courtyard. A wooden deck runs along the edge of the lawn as an imitation of the traditional Japanese engawa – a narrow veranda –  and prompted the residence to be named Engawa House.

“This design was structured around the concept of engawa,” explained architect and studio principal Anthony Clarke. “This space offers a transition between the yielding comfort of the grassed courtyard and the polished concrete floor of the interior.”

Three red brick chimneys belonging to the old structure are dotted through the house. One sits along the street-facing southern elevation, forming a visual break between the white-painted weatherboards cladding the original house and the black-stained plywood walls of the extension.

Comparing the building to a red brick factory across the street, Clarke added: “The black stained plywood exterior of the facade will age sympathetically with the warehouses surrounding it, offering a unique composition against the retained brickwork fireplace.”

Living, dining and kitchen areas occupy a large rectilinear space at the centre of the house and can be opened out to the courtyard by sliding back a series of floor-to-ceiling glass doors.

A staircase leads up from the living room to a mezzanine study, from which residents can survey activities going on beneath them.

New timber-framed windows puncture the facade and a bathroom wraps around another of the old chimneys.

Photography is by Peter Bennetts.

Read on for a project description from Anthony Clarke of BLOXAS:

Engawa House

Melbourne’s inner-north has a distinct European feel of community living. Small houses compel people towards local parks and curbside gardens, blurring the threshold between public and private. The Engawa House in North Fitzroy, embraces this atmosphere, as the dynamic and historical patchwork of the surrounding context becomes part of each living space.

The clients, a family of four, described a space offering them a feeling of discovery, through a variety of intersecting planes, and the layering of natural light. They required a relocated central bathroom, kitchen, dining, living, additional bedroom with ensuite, as well as a mezzanine office and external entertaining area.

A full facing northern wing, mixing a combination of single and double storey forms, attaches itself to the front rooms of the existing house. The simple orientation takes advantage of the full range of views from the mezzanine, whilst being sympathetic to its elevational context. The living, dining and bedroom/en suite skirt a large and long courtyard garden, maximising sustainable performance, and offering northern light into each new program.

This design was structured around the concept of “Engawa”, referring to an exterior hallway on the side of a traditional Japanese dwelling. This space offers a transition between the yielding comfort of the grassed courtyard and the polished concrete floor of the interior. It also offers a transitional space for informal seating.

The open living and mezzanine enhance a visual and auditory connection, with a distinct lack of privacy, embracing the family’s already strong connection.

Rather than competing with the streetscape, BLOXAS utilised council restrictions to invite exploration yet maintain integrity. The striking black form signposts the street corner and its palette of styles.

The Engawa House interplays scale and height, contributing to the elevational rhythm of the red factory brickwork, single-storey weatherboard terraces and the multi-storey residential context.

Large timber windows to the southern boundary invite the engagement between neighbouring residents and the clients of the Engawa House.

Underpinning the projects conceptual idea was a very tight budget. The addition provides a smaller overall footprint than the previous plan, now maximising the site’s potential. The black stained plywood exterior of the facade will age sympathetically with the warehouses surrounding it, offering a unique composition against the retained brickwork fireplace. This facilitated a high quality interior where the client desired a more minimal and refined finish.

Architect: Black Line One X Architecture Studio
Location: Fitzroy North, Melbourne, Australia
Builder: Zachary Spark Constructions
Project Year: 2013
Furniture: Ross Gardam, Earl Pinto

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and courtyard veranda to Melbourne house appeared first on Dezeen.

This all-black house in the Yucca Valley desert was designed by Los Angeles office Oller & Pejic to look “like a shadow” (+ slideshow).

Located within the borders of the Joshua Tree National Park, where sunlight is often painfully harsh, Desert House was designed by husband and wife architects Monica Oller and Tom Pejic as a volume that would be easy to rest the eyes on.

They explained: “Our client had given us a brief but compelling instruction at the start of the process – to build a house like a shadow.”

Despite its remote rural location, the house was constructed on a site that had been flattened in the 1960s. This meant the building couldn’t be staggered down the slope and was instead designed with a mostly level floorplate that ends at the edge of a precipice.

“The house would replace the missing mountain that was scraped away, but not as a mountain, but a shadow or negative of the rock,” said the architects, explaining how they imagined the design early on in the process.

The two wings of the house sprawl out across the site, framing various outdoor spaces. A courtyard is sandwiched between the bedrooms and living spaces, while a swimming pool sits in the south-east corner and a sheltered triangular patio points northwards.

“We wanted the experience of navigating the house to remind one of traversing the site outside,” added Oller and Pejic.

The open-plan living room and kitchen forms the the largest space of the house. Floor-to-ceiling windows open the space out to the courtyard and offer panoramic views of the vast desert landscape.

Both this space and the adjoining bedroom wing feature black walls inside as well as out, intended to create a “cave-like feeling”.

“During the day, the interior of the house recedes and the views are more pronounced. At night the house completely dematerialises and the muted lighting and stars outside blend to form an infinite backdrop for contemplation,” said the architects.

Here’s a project description from Oller & Pejic:

Black Desert House

Oller & Pejic Architecture is a husband and wife architecture partnership located in Los Angeles, California.

This project began with an e-mail and a meeting in fall of 2008 for a house in Yucca Valley, which is located near Palm Springs, east of Los Angeles in the high desert near the Joshua Tree National Park.

We had completed two projects in Yucca Valley and occasionally received inquiries about projects in the desert. In the midst of the economic downturn typically these inquiring led nowhere. We had just had our second child and things were looking rather uncertain. We decided to meet with Marc and Michele Atlan to see if their project was a reality. Even from the first communications, Marc’s enthusiasm was noticeable.

After the first meeting, we found that we shared a common aesthetic and process and after seeing the property we knew this was a project like nothing else we had done, really almost a once in a lifetime opportunity. There was no looking back, we immediately began work on the house.

Beyond the technical and regulatory challenges of building on the site – several previous owners had tried and given up – there was the challenge of how to build appropriately on such a sublime and pristine site. It is akin to building a house in a natural cathedral.

Our client had given us a brief but compelling instruction at the start of the process – to build a house like a shadow. This had a very specific relevance to the desert area where the sunlight is often so bright that the eye’s only resting place is the shadows.

Unfortunately, the site had been graded in the 1960s when the area was first subdivided for development. A small flat pad had been created by flattening several rock outcroppings and filing in a saddle between the outcroppings. To try to reverse this scar would have been cost prohibitive and ultimately impossible. It would be a further challenge to try to address this in the design of the new house. The house would be located on a precipice with almost 360 degree views to the horizon and a large boulder blocking views back to the road.

A long process of research began with the clients showing us images of houses they found intriguing – mostly contemporary houses that showed a more aggressive formal and spatial language than the mid-century modern homes that have become the de-facto style of the desert southwest.

We looked back at precedents for how architects have dealt with houses located in similar topography and found that generally they either sought to integrate the built work into the landscape, as in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and later Rudolf Shindler or to hold the architecture aloof from the landscape as in the European modernist tradition of Mies van der Rohe. While on a completely virgin site, the lightly treading minimalist approach would be preferred, here we decided that the Western American tradition of Land Art would serve as a better starting point, marrying the two tendencies in a tense relationship with the house clawing the ground for purchase while maintaining its otherness.

The house would replace the missing mountain that was scraped away, but not as a mountain, but a shadow or negative of the rock; what was found once the rock was removed, a hard glinting obsidian shard.

Concept in place, we began fleshing out the spaces and movement through the house. We wanted the experience of navigating the house to remind one of traversing the site outside. The rooms are arranged in a linear sequence from living room to bedrooms with the kitchen and dining in the middle, all wrapping around a inner courtyard which adds a crucial intermediate space in the entry sequence and a protected exterior space in the harsh climate.

The living room was summed up succinctly by Marc as a chic sleeping bag. The space, recessed into the hillside with a solid earthen wall to lean your back against as you survey the horizon is a literal campsite which finds its precedent in the native cliff dwellings of the south west.

The dark colour of the house interior adds to the primordial cave-like feeling. During the day, the interior of the house recedes and the views are more pronounced. At night the house completely dematerialises and the muted lighting and stars outside blend to form an infinite backdrop for contemplation.

The project would never have come about without the continued efforts of the entire team. The design was a collaborative effort between Marc and Michele and the architects. The patience and dedication of the builder, Avian Rogers and her subcontractors was crucial to the success of the project. Everyone who worked on the project knew it was something out of the ordinary and put forth incredible effort to see it completed.

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to look “like a shadow” appeared first on Dezeen.

This Tokyo house by Japanese office Atelier Tekuto features a huge triangular window that angles up over the rooftops of surrounding houses to bring daylight in from above (+ slideshow).

The four-storey house is located within one of the city’s many dense residential areas, so Atelier Tekuto tried to make the most of natural light by framing a view of the sky and clouds, hence the project title Framing the Sky.

“We realise that skylights are the most important openings in urban houses,” said the architects. “It is because the sky is the only element of nature left in the urban context, and the skylight serves as an interface between people and nature.”

The huge window is positioned above a double-height living room on the second floor. It is set at an angle to bring light right across the space, and through to a kitchen and loft bedroom just behind.

“When you stand under this large skylight, you feel plenty of sunlight showering onto your body,” said the architects.

The two lower levels of the house both meet the ground, which allowed the architects to separate the main entrance from the garage access.

A small study sits behind the garage and has a ceiling of glass blocks to bring light in from above. These become the floor of the entrance corridor, leading residents through to a staircase that features wooden treads and a balustrade made of vertical pipes.

Wooden joinery features throughout, from the shelves and cupboards in the kitchen to desks, sideboards and seating areas elsewhere in the house.

Photography is by Toshihiro Sobajima.

Here’s some information from Atelier Tekuto:

Framing the Sky

This house is situated in an urban residential district at Aoyama in Tokyo. The polygon-shaped site has a 2.7 meter gap therefore we located the garage entrance on the basement floor on the south side and the main entrance to the house on the first floor on the west side.

The program requested by the clients are as follows; garage and bicycle parking space on the basement floor; main entrance, bathroom and master bedroom on the ground floor; Living room /dining space with kitchen on the second floor; and children’s room in the loft space. The main design concept of this house is “framing the sky”.

We focus on the relationship between nature and people in the city. We realise that skylights are the most important openings in the urban houses. It is because the sky is the only element of nature left in the urban context, and the skylight serves as an interface between people and nature.

The volume of the house is decided according to height restriction lines, and the size of the skylight is determined according to the maximum glass size.

When you stand under this large skylight, you feel a plenty of sunlight showering onto you body. It makes you feel that you are a part of nature in this blue urban sky.

Location: Tokyo, Japan
Building use: private house
Site area: 69.15m2
Building area: 38.72 sqm
Total floor area: 77.44 sqm

Construction: Reinforced concrete (basement) + steel
Architectural design: Yasuhiro Yamashita – Atelier Tekuto
Constructional design: Jun Sato – Jun Sato Structural Engineers
Construction management: Takahiro Watai – Nissho Kogyo Co.Ltd.

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skylight designed to “frame the sky” appeared first on Dezeen.

A corner appears to have been sliced away from this hilltop house in Portugal by architect Manuel Aires Mateus (photos by Fernando Guerra + slideshow).

Manuel Aires Mateus – who alongside brother Francisco runs Lisbon studio Aires Mateus – teamed up with Ana Cravino and Inês Cordovil of fellow Lisbon office SIA Arquitectura to design House in Fontinha for a site outside the rural town of Melides.

Positioned at the peak of a hill, the two-storey house was conceived as a lookout point offering views out across the Fontinha Estate, but was also planned to offer the same seclusion as a typical courtyard residence.

“The house is designed in the balance between a courtyard house, with a protected core relating to the sky, and an opening to the distant ocean view,” said the architects.

The building occupies a cross-shaped footprint. Rooms are arranged around three quarters of the plan, while a rectangular terrace extends out from the middle and a swimming pool runs along one side.

The base of the structure is set into the ground, creating level entrances on both floors. “The topography is modelled, to protect it from the access road, and release the view,” said the architects.

Instead of rectilinear shapes, each block is also gently tapered to make the building appear larger than it actually is.

The sliced-off corner creates a partial arch on the lower level of the building and accommodates an entrance to a living room.

This curved shape reoccurs within the houses’s minimal white interior, in the arched ceiling that spans the stairwell.

The house contains three bedrooms, all located on the upper floor. The two smaller rooms sit bedside one another at the back, while the master bedroom is positioned beside the swimming pool and features its own marble-lined shower area.

The kitchen is also on this floor and features a worktop with a skylight overhead, as well as a triangular fireplace recessed into a corner.

Three pivoting glass doors open the spaces of this floor out to the terrace, offering residents the opportunity to survey the landscape.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a short description from Manuel Aires Mateus:

House in Fontinha

On the Grândola crest, the house is designed in the balance between a courtyard house, with a protected core relating to the sky, and an opening to the distant ocean view.

The topography is modelled, to protect it from the access road, and release the view. The perimeter delineates the internal lodgings and its transitions. High volumetric spaces, occupied by elements that define functions and atmospheres.

Location: Melides, Portugal
Date of project: 2009-2011
Date of construction: 2012-2013

Architecture: Manuel Aires Mateus
With: SIA arquitectura
Collaborators: Ana Rita Martins
Client: Nuno Correia de Sampaio
Engineer: Betar | Promee | Campo d ́água
Constructor: Mateus Frazão

Surface Area: 130 + 108 sqm
Building Area: 160 + 130 sqm
Site Area: 50000 sqm

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a cross-shaped plan and a missing corner appeared first on Dezeen.