Hasta La Ideas

A raw concrete house in Alicante by Spanish studio Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos becomes the scene for a string of mysterious murders in this series of images by photographer Luis Diaz Diaz (+ slideshow).

Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos designed the two-storey Casa Baladrar as a holiday house in the Spanish town of Benissa, but Luis Diaz Diaz chose to photograph the building as is it were a crime scene, rather than an attractive tourist destination.

“Every time I take pictures of houses I think about all of the things that could happen inside,” Diaz Diaz told Dezeen. “Many things happen in the life of a house, sometimes good sometimes bad; it can be robbed, or there could be a big party. So a house is the perfect place for creating a fantasy.”

One image features a man slumped over the mint-green frame of one of the house’s many large windows, while another features a woman lying behind a sofa on the terracotta tiles of the living room floor.

“I wanted to create a contrast between the clarity of the architectural lines of the house and these kind of weird events,” explained the photographer.

These architectural lines include a series of faceted ceilings that angle back and forth through the open-plan living room and kitchen, which occupies the house’s upper floor.

Architect María Langarita said they added these details to mimic the rugged topography that links the house with the sea. “We wanted a way to inhabit this rocky landscape,” she told Dezeen.

A series of bedrooms are located on the level below. Like the living room, each one can be opened out to surrounding terraces by sliding back glass doors and perforated metal shutters.

“Our goal was to make a very open house, so when the windows are open they disappear completely behind these lively green lattices and you don’t see any glass,” said Langarita.

Matching green glass tiles cover some of the lower walls. There’s also a swimming pool wrapping around part of the perimeter, which is depicted containing a body face-down.

Here’s a project description from Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos:

Casa Baladrar

The scattered and trans-European city that the mountainous coast of Alicante has become, houses a heterogeneous population that is drawn to the sun, the sea, the temperate climate, the convenient public services and the leafy greenery.

The promise of relaxing and hedonistic experiences captivates both seasonal tourists and long-term residents who see their expectations fulfilled amongst jasmine and bougainvilleas. The project draws from this context and is designed to meet the demands of multiple families in the summertime and as a haven for retirees the rest of the year.

The house rests on terraces that were once used for farming, which resolve the steep gradient of the terrain. The plot’s sloping nature means that there are some spectacular views of the sea from its upper reaches, while the lower portion looks over a wooded stream bed that carries water into a pebble-strewn cove.

The house takes advantage of the views and the breeze and makes the most of the uneven terrain and vegetation for the creation of small areas where activities can take place simultaneously, day and night. The existing trees were preserved and new species added in an effort to conquer the promising exuberance of local flora.

The interior spaces are arranged in a cascade, with common areas on the upper floor adjoining the terraces with their views, and bedrooms on the lower floor with access to the garden and swimming pool. The detail proposed for the openings eliminates all presence of glass when they are drawn back, transforming the house into an enormous porch that provides continuity between outside and inside activities.

The building uses the thermal inertia of the concrete and stone to its advantage, combining it with the lightness of the avocado green latticework and the glass tiles to create a cool and well-ventilated atmosphere. The house’s geometry and mineral quality reflect the impressive Peñón de Ifach and respond to a desire for time travel, with a minimum amount of maintenance.

Project: Casa Baladrar
Location: Benissa, Alicante
Architects: María Langarita and Víctor Navarro
Collaborators: Marta Colón, Roberto González, Juan Palencia
Structures: Mecanismo S.L.
Date: September 2009
Client: Private

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photographed as a crime scene appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish architects Josemaria de Churtichaga and Cayetana de la Quadra-Salcedo have built themselves a rural retreat with wooden walls, projecting terraces, and a brilliant yellow door and chimney (+ slideshow).

Churtichaga + Quadra-Salcedo designed Four Seasons House for a gently sloping meadow approximately 100 kilometres north of Madrid, which had sat dormant since the architects purchased it 12 years earlier.

“After 12 years of contemplation, we decided to build a tiny house there, a refuge, a piece of landscape as a frame, a small inhabited threshold with two views, east and west,” they explained.

The architects developed the design around a yellow colour palette in response to the hues of flowers, leaves, bark and lichen that they’ve spotted in the landscape across the changing seasons.

“This is a humanised landscape of meadows, walls, ash, streams – a small-scale landscape, minimal, almost domestic, and where absolutely everything happens in yellow,” they said.

Part-buried in the hillside, the two-storey house was built from chunky wooden beams that slot around one another to create alternating corner joints.

The family living room sits at the centre of the upper-ground floor and opens out to terraces on two sides. The first cantilevers out to face distant mountains to the east, while the second projects westward towards a landscape of rocks and brambles.

Timber-lined bedrooms and study areas are located at the two ends and feature built-in desks and cupboards.

Wooden stairs lead down to the partially submerged lower floor, where an open-plan layout creates a space that can be used as a separate guesthouse.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a project description from Churtichaga + Quadra-Salcedo:

Four Seasons House

This is a humanised landscape of meadows, walls, ash, streams, a small-scale landscape, minimal, almost domestic, and where absolutely everything happens in yellow.

In spring poke all yellow flowers. In the summer, yellow cereal is yellow harvested in a yellow Castilian heat. Fall only comes here in yellow, millions of tiny ash leaves that die in a lingering and dry yellow. In winter, yellow insists in glowing flashes of yellow lichen on the gray trunks of ash trees. And here every machine is yellow, the signs are yellow, everywhere yellows…

We bought a meadow in this landscape 15 years ago, and after 12 years of yellow contemplation, we decided to build a tiny house there, a refuge, a piece of landscape as a frame, a small inhabited threshold with two views, east and west.

To the west, a nearby view of rocks, moss, brambles and ancient ash. And to the east, the distant dawn over the yellow mountains.

This double view and the thinking body finished to draw the house. Everything is small, everything is short, everything has a tiny scale. From outside, the view slides over the house.

The eye only stops at a yellow gate guarding the doorway, and a yellow chimney that warms it, the rest is invisible. And when sitting, stopping in the doorway, the house disappears and the world continues in yellow.

Location: Berrocal, Segovia, Castilla y León (España)
Architects: Josemaria de Churtichaga, Cayetana de la Quadra-Salcedo
Collaborator: Nathanael Lopez
Contractor: Pablo Campoverde
Area: 150 sqm

The post Churtichaga + Quadra-Salcedo built their
Four Seasons House in an idyllic meadow appeared first on Dezeen.

British studio Snook Architects has overhauled a dilapidated eighteenth-century barn in Yorkshire to create a modern home with chunky wooden trusses, exposed brickwork and a double-height family kitchen (+ slideshow).

Cat Hill Barn was first built as an agricultural shed, but had been abandoned for years and was on the brink of ruin after previous owners had inserted a truss structure that was too weak to support the roof, causing the outer walls to bow.

Snook Architects was tasked with rebuilding the internal structure and roof of the barn, removing a floor added previously by a local architect, and transforming the space into a two-storey family home.

“Structurally the building was in a worse state than we first anticipated,” architect Neil Dawson told Dezeen. “As well as removing the entire roof, which frankly was on the verge of collapse, we ended up having to secure all external walls by means of a steel structural frame that sits within the existing masonry.”

The team replaced the existing roof structure with a system of pegged oak trusses that are revealed in the double-height kitchen and dining room at the centre of the building.

“Spatially we wanted to retain the spirit of the place by allowing the barn to reveal itself and its double-height volume at key points,” said Dawson.

A glazed first-floor gallery overlooks this space from above, leading through to bedrooms at both ends of the first floor, while living rooms and guest bedrooms occupy the end sections of the ground floor.

“Planning of the project concentrated on creating drama within the existing structure by focusing on the tension and release formed between constricted single-height spaces and the double-height volume of the barn,” said the architect.

Interior fittings and finishes were designed to respect the honest utilitarian aesthetic of the old barn and include a stone fireplace, timber-framed windows and a poured concrete floor.

Photography is by Andy Haslam.

Here’s a description from Snook Architects:

Cat Hill Barn

Cat Hill Barn is the complete renovation and refurbishment of a previously dilapidated grade II listed barn in South Yorkshire. Originally built in the late 1700’s as agricultural storage for the neighbouring Cat Hill Hall, the building in recent years stood neglected and was at the point of complete ruin.

Snook have secured the existing structure of the barn with a new internal steel framework and rebuilt the previously collapsing roof. The project has attempted to retain much of the working aesthetic of the barn utilising a stripped down utilitarian palette of material.

Planning of the project also concentrated on creating drama within the existing structure by focusing on the tension and release formed between constricted single-height spaces and the double-height volume of the barn.

Brief

Prior to the appointment of Snook Architects the owners of the barn had commissioned a feasibility study from a local rural architect. Despite not having any prior construction experience both Mr and Mrs Wills were disappointed with the outcome. The scheme essentially inserted a new floor throughout the full length of the barn and created a series of boxes over the two floors. All drama and sense of space within the barn structure was destroyed.

Through a mutual client of Snook and Mr Wills, Mr Wills discovered the work of Snook Architects and set up a competitive interview with Snook and another practice. It was the production of Snook’s speculative feasibility study that largely set up the brief. In presenting the scheme and having a critical discourse about the previous scheme both the clients and Snook discovered a mutual appreciation and understanding of the essence of the project: a need to retain the sense of the barn in both use of volumetric space and utilitarian finish. It was this mutual understanding that ultimately won Snook the project.

Planning

However, despite an almost immediate synergy with the client and owners of the barn a less successful understanding was achieved with the local planning authority. Despite repeated attempts at dialogue with the local planning and conservation officer an application was ultimately refused. Reasons cited were numerous but all ultimately pointed to the planning and conservation officers feeling that the scheme was too ‘domestic’ (despite both the spaces and finishes proposed being anything but domestic). Following the refusal Snook launched an appeal and after removing a small balcony from the gable end permission was successfully granted almost 16 months after initially starting the project.

The project then stalled for a further couple of years as with the credit crunch in full swing the owners of the barn found it impossible to sell their current home to raise funds for the conversion of the barn. Finally, in summer 2011 Mr and Mrs Wills were able to sell their house, a caravan was purchased, drawings were resurrected, and the scheme began on site later that year.

Structure

Both client and architect had always been aware of the perilous state of the structure with the architect and structural engineer instructing the owners to seal the barn and keep out. It was no exaggeration to state that the roof could have literally collapsed in at any moment. In short when previous owners had rebuilt the barn they had installed trusses that were both too weak and too short for the cross sectional span.

To exacerbate matters the completely inadequate trusses were supported on breeze block corbels which were also crushing towards wholesale failure. In short the trusses were collapsing and pushing the perimeter walls out. Walls were seriously bowed out and it was immediately apparent that both the roof and the perimeter walls could literally collapse at any moment.

Method of Construction

Construction of the superstructure was relatively straight forward. The roof and one of the main perimeter walls were carefully taken down, a new steel supporting frame was inserted inside the building and walls and the roof were then re built around the steel frame (using the existing material).

Budget / Programme

Budget on the project was incredibly tight with the project initially tendered @ £231,000 and ultimately delivered for £234,383 – an astounding £710/sq.m (including all finishes).

Construction programme on the project at tender was nine months and it was delivered in just short of ten.

The post Old Yorkshire barn converted into a
modern home by Snook Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

A wooden ladder and a pair of winding steel staircases link the rooms of this lofty house in Sapporo, Japan, by Jun Igarashi Architects (+ slideshow).

Named Case, the three-storey residence was designed by Japanese firm Jun Igarashi Architects to centre around a family living room with a seven-metre-high ceiling, from which residents can see into almost every other room of the house.

The first of two lightweight steel staircases curves up from the living room to lead to a wooden mezzanine just below the roof, which can be used as a study, a children’s playroom, or simply as a corridor.

Another staircase winds down from this level to a bedroom on a second mezzanine, while a third platform is positioned directly above and can be accessed by climbing a wooden ladder that clips around the edge of the floor.

All three wooden lofts are connected to ceiling by slender steel rods, which double as supports for handrails that extend around both the floors and the staircases.

A full-height partition runs along one side of the living room to separate it from the adjacent kitchen, but a large rectangular hole in its centre allows a view into not only this space, but the bedroom and storage level overhead.

Rather than adding simple doorways between rooms on the ground floor, the architects built three curvy corridors that extend out beyond the house’s rear wall. One leads to bathroom spaces at the back, while another sits at the end of a long and narrow entrance lobby.

Externally, the house is surrounded by vertical wires that the architects hope will become a framework for climbing plants.

Photography is by Daici Ano.

Here’s a short project description from Jun Igarashi Architects:

Case

This house is located on the suburb of the city of Sapporo. The site is a typical suburban subdivision and height difference between the road is large. Footprint isdetermined by building coverage and wall retreat of the architectural law and the slope of the site approach.

I set the long corridor of entrance as a buffer zone (windbreak room) between the large heat load space.

Because of the site area is small, to set the buffer space into the inside is difficult. So I spread the thoughts and invent the space of growing plant on stainless steel wire around the house as the new type of buffer zone between outside and inside.

Location: Sapporo, Hokkaido
Principal use: Private residence
Design period: 2011
Construction period: 2011-2012

Architects: Jun Igarashi Architects
Structural engineer: Daisuke Hasegawa & Partners
Construction firm: Oooka Industry

Site area: 197.50 sqm
Building area: 50.52 sqm
Total floor area: 80.84 sqm
Number of storeys: 3 above ground
Structure: Timber frame

The post Jun Igarashi’s Case house comes
with two twisting staircases appeared first on Dezeen.

Architects Mette and Martin Weinberg have overhauled a 1940s cottage in Denmark to create a modern home for their family, complete with timber-lined walls and cosy furnishings.

Weinberg Architects collaborated with fellow Danish architects Friis & Moltke on Villa Weinberg, situating it on a corner plot in Højbjerg, a residential area of Aarhus.

Polished concrete floors feature through the house and while some rooms have been painted white, the main living spaces are lined with oil-treated oak boards.

“We used the wooden boards to obtain a warm, cosy feeling to the living room – a social space,” architect Mette Weinberg told Dezeen. “They also help to form a close relationship to the garden space, in an atmosphere and material overhaul.”

Large windows frame views of the surrounding gardens, where flowerbeds are covered with bark chips to recreate the architects’ dream of a little house in the middle of a forest.

The main bedroom opens out onto a small inner courtyard, while a kitchen, study and extra bedrooms make up the rest of the ground floor.

A combined wooden bookshelf and staircase in the living room leads up to the first floor, where a large study and roof terrace also overlook the garden.

In contrast with the natural wood of the house’s interior, the exterior of the house is clad with black-painted timber panels.

Photography is by Mikkel Mortensen.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Villa Wienberg, Denmark

A quiet heart, a setting sun

Both outside and inside, the atmosphere is cooling and calming. As soon as the foot touches the ground of this protected corner-plot, a special feeling wraps itself around you like a soft shawl: A feeling of being pleasantly, mysteriously alone in one of the great forests of Finland – or perhaps of stepping into a universe, where Yin and Yang finally found their perfect balance and harmony. It is quite difficult to believe that actually you are in a very traditional residential neighbourhood, Højbjerg, situated in suburban Aarhus.

Until recently, this little corner-plot nested a small summer cottage, built during wartime in 1942 and later almost hidden behind tall trees. The cottage has now been integrated into a brand new, tall and very ambitious black beauty.

The walls are planked on the outside and the villa opens to its surroundings with windows that are perfectly proportioned for the double purpose of inviting nature in as well as creating a cozy and cooling private space.

The villa, which has been awarded the City of Aarhus Architecture Prize 2008, playfully breaks the strictly square shape of the plot in a careful orchestration of angles and split-levels.

The way it seems to organically grow into the rich vegetation of pine, temple-tree and rhododendron leaves the baffling impression on the beholder that this villa simply grew out of the ground!

Light and Shadow

It was the joint creative forces and dreams of architects Mette and Martin Wienberg that led to this exciting and untraditional framework around their family-life. Atmosphere was the keyword and contrast was an important tool: By creating a covered entrance in a quite strict style dominated by black wood and concrete, they wanted to enhance the experience of the movement from architectural serenity to the open garden – which is organically structured, but sharply defined by raised sleepers that frame and contrast the soft lawn which lies in their embrace almost like a green lake.

The plants and the trees are essential to the design: All the flowerbeds are strewn with coarse bark-chips in order to enhance the illusion of “The little house in the forest” and the natural mosaic of the foliage creates changing patterns of shadows and filters the light: This couple did not seek the great panorama, but rather a dynamic variety of intriguing views bringing a unique atmosphere to each and every room.

Project name: Villa Wienberg
Location: Aarhus, Denmark
Engineer: Tri-consult A/S
Architect: Friis & Moltke A/S and Wienberg Architects/ www.wienbergarchitects.dk
Area: 184 m2
Construction period: 2007-2008
Text by: Susanne Holte

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Friis & Moltke contains cosy oak-lined rooms appeared first on Dezeen.