This luxury apartment building in Hong Kong references the local vernacular of overcrowded high-rise towers covered in ad hoc extensions.
International architecture firm Aedas designed the serviced apartment building for a small site in Mongkok, which is one of the world’s most densely populated neighbourhoods.
The architects drew on the local tendency to add balconies to apartments in tower blocks to maximise views, but “reinterpreted these structures in a modern way, using irregular protrusions to create unobstructed views for each apartment.”
High-density high rise housing in Mongkok
Aedas also added a living wall to the bottom of the facade that was “inspired by the home gardens which people create on the balconies”.
The living wall will introduce greenery to the busy street and will be supplemented by planting in the area vacated by setting the building’s podium back from the street.
Aedas designs a serviced apartment building in one of the most densely populated places on the planet
With a population density of 130,000 people per square kilometre, Mongkok, a neighbourhood in Hong Kong, is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Aedas was appointed to design a serviced apartment building in this hyperdense district, whose construction work commenced recently.
Standing on a site of 614 square metres, which is challengingly small, the building will offer serviced apartment accommodation to occupants. In the early post-war years, it was common to create illegal iron balconies for residential units in Mongkok to acquire maximum view. Aedas reinterpreted these structures in a modern way, using irregular protrusions to create unobstructed views for each apartment.
Typical floor layout
Inspired by the home gardens which people create on the balconies, Aedas designed a green wall that seemingly protrudes from the solid façade of the podium to further connect the building with the historical cityscape. This green wall will also enhance the quality of life for the neighbourhood by increasing the provision of greenery at the pedestrian level.
Ground floor layout
The building is set back from the street to allow more opportunities for planting, which creates a breathing space in the middle of the dense neighborhood and provides rare greenery. It also transforms the outdoor landscape space into an urban backdrop for the building’s public areas such as an entrance lobby on the ground level and a transit lift lobby on the second floor.
The design sets an example of contemporary interpretation of traditional architecture.
Third floor layout
Project: Composite Building at No. 78-88 Sai Yee Street Location: Hong Kong Architect: Aedas Client: Good Standing (Hong Kong) Limited Site area: 614 square meters Gross floor area: 5,514 square meters
Balconies shaped like greenhouses project from the facades of these apartment blocks in Nantes by French studio Block Architects (+ slideshow).
The trio of seven-storey concrete buildings form a new social housing complex, designed by Block Architects for the La Pelousière area of Nantes, western France.
Constructed from aluminium and glass, the balconies protrude from the west and east elevations of the structures and feature gabled profiles modelled on the prototypical shape of a shed or barn.
“The general built shape is taken from agricultural typology that existed in the history of the site, a barn at the scale of the landscape,” explained the architects. “The project searches to capture this materiality of the shed, through the use of an industrial cladding material.”
Some of the balconies are surrounded by a row of pine slats, creating a small fence that offers some privacy for residents.
“A domestic scale is taken from the suburban context close by and integrated by the addition of wood fences and greenhouses borrowed from the garden,” the architects added.
The apartments were designed so that each has windows on two different sides of the building, allowing for increased light and ventilation.
Folding glass doors lead out to the balconies, which can also be covered using roll-back fabric awnings.
Interior photography is by Stéphane Chalmeau. Exterior photography is by Nicolas Pineau.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Pradenn Social Housing
Simple and compact
The brief stands for 89 socials housings, 51 in rental and 38 in accession. The site is in an important development area of the Great Nantes called la Pelousière. The project tries to combine density, mixed-use and comfort for the inhabitants.
The project is inserted and interacting with its context. A gradation between public and private has been organised through built and landscaped sequences : access ramp, public space, parking on the public space or underneath the buildings, pedestrian path, halls, housings and loggias.
The general built shape comes from an agricultural typology, that existed in the site history, a barn at the scale of the landscape. The project searches to catch this materiality of the shed, through the use of an industrial cladding material. This simple and efficient shape also drives the fiction of a large ‘country house’.
Then, a domestic scale is taken from the close by suburban context and integrated by the addition of wood fences and greenhouses borrowed from the garden. This sample, as a copy / paste process, reminds to the collective the sums of individuals, and shows the residential and individual dimension in a collective building that tries to escape from its usual expression.
The three buildings are ‘placed’ on a concrete base, raised from the floor. The space in between is either open, where the parking is, or flanked by vegetated slopes in a continuity of the central plaza, integrating the buildings.
The whole project is a reinterpreted sample of the neighbourhood environment, put at the scale of building.
Thus the housings have mainly double exposure, from one side to another or in an angle. Every spaces have been studied to have exterior views and daylight. The greenhouses and their balconies are present in most of the housings, providing a large outside space.
The building has a structural principal of concrete walls in between the housings, crossing from one side to another. Being altogether compact and insulated from the outside, the building reaches the performance of the BBC-Effinergie label.
Apartments appear to be stacked up like boxes at this concrete housing block in Paris by French studio RH+ Architecture (+ slideshow).
Named Plein Soleil, the building was designed by RH+ Architecture with a 36-metre-long south-facing facade that features dozens of sunny balconies with sliding glass screens.
These loggia spaces also have a second function; they create a thermal buffer that allows daylight to penetrate the apartments whilst providing an insulating boundary against cold outdoor temperatures.
“The depth of these loggias allows tables and chairs to enjoy the sun,” said the architects. “It is both a balcony and a winter garden.”
Located in the north of Paris, the seven-storey building contains a total of 28 apartments in its upper levels, as well as a crèche on the ground floor and a car park in the basement.
The volume of the structure is intentionally staggered to relate to the heights of surrounding buildings, as well as to allow sunlight to reach the crèche garden at the rear of the building.
A mixture of studio flats and apartments of one, three and four bedrooms are located over six storeys. Many come with double-height living rooms and some feature decked terraces rather than balconies.
Communal corridors have been positioned along the edges of the building so that they can benefit from natural light.
Here’s a more detailed project description from the architects:
Plein Soleil
Location in the site
The situation of the plot at number 16 Rue Riquet is exceptional: largely visible from the corner of Avenue de Flandre, it is very close to the Bassin de la Villette and has a length of 36 metres of frontage facing south with a depth varying from 18 to 22 metres. The building at the corner of Avenue de Flandre constructed at right angles as well as the small buildings with adjoining ground floors gives to the western corner of the plot a very valuable “faubourg” touch.
On the other side of the same street, the large gable of number 14 allows the new building to be built upon. The whole of these characteristics bear a rich urban potential. Our project aims at making the most of it in the setting up and design of the new building.
1. The Program
The private owner has a vacant land of 700 square metres located rue Riquet in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, near le Bassin de la Villette and Avenue de Flandre. He has decided to build 28 free rental units with a crèche on the ground floor (run by the association “ABC childcare”).
Some options have come out as obvious:
» To develop an environmental approach in the first stage of the design, with the integration of engineering consultants specialised in “High Environmental Quality”, RFR Elements » To make the most of the linear facade » To gradually move west back from the neighbouring building and create views for the new building » To create a garden at the bottom of the plot and a way to lead to the block of flats from the rear on the north side
The objectives of the operation
The owner together with his project delegate AURIS has set the following targets:
» To get a building project both robust and lasting with an architectural signature » To optimise the building capacity in order to receive the bonus floor area ratio by getting the BBC Label with HQE certification
To create a building matching the values of project management particularly on the following aspects: aesthetics and urban integration, quality and sustainability.
To respect the following constraints:
» To create business premises on the ground floor to become later a crèche run by an association. » To optimise the design of the building in order to reduce operating costs and thus the costs charged to tenants. » To optimise maintenance costs. » To reduce energy consumption. » To offer a balanced distribution of typologies.
Envelope and environmental qualities
To secure a thermally efficient project, losses should be minimised. The thermal performance of the envelope has been obtained by the systematic elimination of thermal bridges.
That has been done by:
» The choice of insulation from the outside (material stands before the insulation slab nose). » The use of thermal break on the south side to detach the thermal structure at the front of the inner facade (unheated part) from the inside of the flats. » The choice of a console on the north side meant to carry for a limited period the floor of the corridors.
The south facade is organised on a principle of loggia. The thermal limit is located at the level of the 30% opaque and double-glazed very efficient inner facade. The exterior sliding window pane is a simple, slightly printed glazing for the bedrooms and transparent for the living-rooms. In winter and at the beginning/end of the mid-season that is to say during the heating period which usually runs from mid-October to mid-March, these loggias play the role of a buffer space whose function from a thermal point of view can be developed in three ways:
» function of protection of the inner glazing against the effects of the wind, which result in increased heat transfer and infiltration of cold air, » function of heat buildup when the weather is sunny and the loggia exposed to direct sunlight, the temperature is then higher than the outside temperature, » function of preheating the fresh air, the air intakes for mechanical ventilation being placed outside the rooms and lounges thus the loggia (appropriate as far as energy and thermal comfort are concerned).
As winning project of the call for low consumption building projects (BBC) from ADEME 2010, and having obtained the certification Cerqual H & E profil A, we have offered a philosophy of clean environmental approach. The project is part of a plot of high quality characterised by a significant linear facing south. Before the sketch work was carried out, the design team has focused on environmental issues so in our answer the issue is intimately linked to the architectural offer and rooted in fundamental elements of the quality of life.
Spatial organisation and environmental qualities
As far as the ground plan and spatial organisation are concerned, the qualities of the project are obvious: all flats are through and the bathrooms get daylight. What’s more, each flat opens widely on to the south side to capture the most of the sun.
The inner environmental qualities of our project consist in:
» A supply of free sun on the southern facade » Possibility of a through ventilation in summer, appropriate to refresh the flats at night and thus lob the peaks of heat » These qualities have a large impact on comfort but also on energy consumption: less heating needed in winter and in summer, no discomfort which would likely lead to the use of side air conditioners, disastrous in terms of energy and environment
We should also mention as highly appropriate from an environmental point of view the fact that the parts in common are mostly on the outside of the buildings: this will reduce heating consumption, artificial lighting and thus the costs.
2. The Building’s Setting in Terms of Sunshine
Making the most of the south facade can be achieved through the design of a thermal facade together with private outdoor spaces that increase the comfort and quality of the flats.
A thermal southern facade: the concept of loggia favours both summer and winter comfort. The loggia is a buffer zone consisting in two sliding glass walls that can open and close according to the variations of temperature.
This concept provides several functions:
» A function of protection: heat losses are reduced. » A supply of free heating by the sun: that heat is absorbed by the floor and the walls and released at night. » Given the 1.700 hours of sunshine per year, this supply is particularly significant in terms of energy savings. » The function of preheating fresh air, provided by controlled mechanical ventilation.
Provide comfort of use
This “thick” facade consisting in loggias running outside along the living rooms and the bedrooms provide a nice patio area. The depth of these loggias allows tables and chairs to enjoy the sun. As extensions of the living rooms some of the loggias have clear glass bays on two levels. This extra space can be opened or closed depending on the sunlight. It is both a balcony and a winter garden. As extensions of the bedrooms loggias have clear glass bays in the foreground and screened glass bays over the street. This treatment filters views and sunshine for more privacy.
3. Integrating the Project in the Context
West terraces – neighbouring buildings at number 18 rue Riquet have an identity of their own: they form a complex with a very “faubourg” touch in the type and height of the buildings and the imbrication of the plots.
It appeared to us that in many ways there was a strong connection between the project and this complex:
» There must be respect in the way the buildings are linked, the project must not crush the existing buildings nor pour too much shade on them » The project must offer flats widely opened on the outside with views to the west (good position, facing multiple directions). » Sunlight should reach the garden at the bottom of the plot.
For all these reasons we opted for gradually decreasing terraces on its western side. The terraces would run from west to east but also from south to north which allows light to reach the bottom of the plot. The choice of terraces and vegetal roofs make it even more pleasant for future residents and the neighbourhood.
Compliance with the local urbanism plan
Consistent with Parisian architecture and in accordance with the Local Urbanism Plan, the project suggests marking a base to ground floor by the building of a glass facade running all the imposed 3.20 metres of height. The two last levels stand back in conformity with the templates, so that the attic stands out. The yard created at the north east corner of the plot as an extension of the existing adjoining courtyards is there to create crossing flats.
4. Create Outdoor Space to Benefit Everybody
The project offers several types of outdoor spaces: A large courtyard with a real garden for the crèche on the ground floor. Keeping in mind the fact that the flat is located in a plant growing area, the two of them form a large open space of pleasant proportions: 150 square metres.
This creates a vegetal strip of land which can be enjoyed not only from the ground floor but also from the corridors of distribution and the west terraces. These buildings have an open outlook and leave perspectives free. And finally this garden is a valuable space for the buildings close to the imbricate plots.
As an extension of an already existing adjoining yard, a yard in the corner allows the creation of crossing flats and on a city scale to keep open spaces designed to let the housing block breathe.
Each flat except for the studios overlooking the courtyard owns a private outdoor loggia. The western corner flats even have a terrace facing southwest.
All flats are at least all-through flats. Those located on the western side face south-west and north. There is a flat on the ground floor with a 35 square metre terrace facing west. Except for the two rooms overlooking the courtyard, they all have private outdoor space. The ceilings are 2.50 metre high and on the west side living rooms have partial double heights(+ 1 metre). Typologies follow that pattern: seven studios, eight one-bedroom flats, five three-room flats, eight four-room flats.
This apartment block in Osaka Prefecture by Japanese studio EASTERN Design Office features recessed corner balconies that become incrementally wider towards the roof.
Named Step Tower, the ten-storey building is located within a shopping district in Ibaraki. Buildings here are typically four to five storeys, so EASTERN Design Office added larger openings at the parts of the building with views across the surrounding rooftops.
“The open space of each floor gets wider as the floor level becomes higher, and you can get a wider sky view,” said architects Anna Nakamura and Taiyo Jinno.
The exterior walls are rendered white and feature smooth edges that give a gentle curve to the corners of the balconies, which the architects compare to the hull of a ship.
“It makes you imagine the wave splashes that occur when the bow heads-on through the sea,” they said.
A shop occupies the ground floor of the building, while tiled walls on the side reveal the entrance to apartments on the nine floors above.
The first three floors each contain four one-room apartments, suitable for single occupants, and the six upper floors contain two- and three-bedroom flats designed to accommodate families.
Read on for a description from EASTERN Design Office:
Step Tower
A stark white ship that sails in the middle of the bustling sea of colours.
The ship floating on the ocean suddenly appears in a shopping centre. It evokes a feeling not of a resort area, but of an exotic corner of a town in some southern country. A feeling of a ship that comes across this area by chance.
Site plan
It makes you imagine the wave splashes that occur when the bow heads-on through the sea. It is a pencil building of 9.7 metre width and 21.6 metre depth. Big holds are designed for the balconies at the southwest corner. These holes become bigger as the floors go upwards from the bottom. You can have the same image when you look up the bow from under it.
It is simple, neat and clean. You look up the smooth and pure white exterior wall. This reminds you of a cool lifestyle in some southern country, or of being on a trip, and spending days at a tropical land in a quest of change of air.
It is an apartment house for rent built at Ibaraki-city in Osaka, a town with a population of 270,000. This town is not only a residential one, but it is now calling for the development of industrial areas for research and development facilities of universities and industrial firms. Therefore, the population is also increasing as an industrial town. This architecture is built at the shopping district, the centre of this town, which is located in front of the JR station.
It is a building of 10 storeys of RC structure consisting of a tenant space at the first floor, one room apartment houses for singles at 2-4 floors, and 2LDK and 3LDk for families at 5-10 floors.
The surrounding buildings are 4-5 storeys height. So it is not proper to have a big slit (opening section) for this building. The open space of each floor gets wider as the floor level becomes higher, and you can get a wider sky view. This idea is reflected in the design of this building.
Two blocks face each other across the forecourt of this symmetrical housing development in São Paulo by local firm Corsi Hirano Arquitetos (+ slideshow).
Situated in the outskirts of the city, Corsi Hirano Arquitetos split the eight social housing units into a pair of blocks either side of a large paved driveway where residents are encouraged to congregate.
The line of the roof extends out over the extruded glass-fronted boxes that house the staircases, creating shelters over the entrances. Half the residences have these stairs at the front and half have them at the rear.
Each home has an open-plan living space on the ground floor with two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, plus a small garden and an extra shower room out the back.
Wooden shutters, window and door frames break up the all-white surfaces.
Street-facing end walls of each block are detailed with vertical grooves and separated from the fence by a thin window, so that they appear to float above it.
The development is secured by grated metal gates that slide across the front of the drive.
Corsi Hirano Arquitetos sent us this project description:
The AV Houses bases itself in the valuation of the public space through an architectural commitment with collective sense possible of being expressed from the private property.
The void originated by the built elements provides the appearance of a new place, opposed to main preconceived occupations of independent parallel properties that establish no relations in itself or with public space.
Its strategy groups eight housing units in two blocks by which remaining areas delimit an intermediate space that becomes its main premise.
Contemplating the necessity for the largest site occupation ratio and preserving the internal areas demanded for each unity, the articulation of constructed and non-constructed limits configures the collective central patio of great proportions considering the site dimensions.
A modest architectonical complex but representative of an essence of space that consists in a social opportunity: architecture as a city generator and venue for its inhabitants.
Brazilian studios MMBB and H+F Arquitetos reference tower blocks from the 1960s with this social housing complex flanking the Octávio Frias de Oliveira Bridge in São Paulo (+ slideshow).
The Jardim Edite Social Housing Complex replaces a large favela on the junction between Avenida Berrini and Avenida Marinho, a part of the city that has seen a boom in high-end real estate in recent years.
MMBB and H+F Arquitetos teamed up to design the complex, creating 252 new residences within three 17-storey towers and a pair of adjoining two-storey blocks.
Each unit has two bedrooms and an area of 50 square metres – the maximum permitted size for social housing in the city.
Public services occupy the ground-floor spaces, offering a healthcare facility, a children’s daycare centre and a catering school. There are also communal gardens and rooftop terraces for residents.
The architects deliberately left out any parking provision, which they hoped would deter local office workers from moving in. Instead, many of the favela’s original residents returned to occupy the new homes.
“For us it is a laboratory for investigating ideas for the kind of city we want to build here in São Paulo,” H+F’s Eduardo Ferroni told Architectural Record.
The Jardim Edite Social Housing Complex was commissioned to replace a favela located on one of the most significant areas of recent growth in both the business and financial sector of the city of São Paulo.
To ensure the integration among the housing complex and its rich surroundings, the project articulated the housing program vertically and occupied the ground floor entirely by public facilities, available for the residential community as well as for the rest of the city, inserting the complex in the economy and everyday life of the region.
The rooftops of the public facilities also functions as a common area for the inhabitants, connecting housing buildings within each block, allowing for a secluded place for social interaction between the residents in the midst of the metropolitan scale of the surrounding area.
The project has a total area of 25.500 sqm, with 252 housing units of 50 sqm, a restaurant school (850 sqm), a basic health-care unit (1300 sqm) and a daycare center (1400 sqm).
Location: Av. Eng. Luís Carlos Berrini with Av. J. Roberto Marinho, São Paulo Area: 25.714 sqm Client: Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo – Secretaria Municipal da Habitação (Sehab/Habi) Architecture: MMBB and H+F
Blackened wood buildings teeter on the edge of a precipice at this housing development in Sweden by Scandinavian firm Arkitema Architects.
Arkitema Architects designed 22 family homes to skirt along the edge of a steep valley close to the centre of Gustavsberg town, just east of Stockholm.
“The Prästgården development is situated tranquilly at the top of a rocky area with views towards an undulating landscape and pine forest on all sides,” said the architects.
Two-storey houses are arranged in four terraced blocks that fan out along the edge of the crevice, around the bend of the access road.
As the land falls away at the back of the buildings, a series of stilts on the rocky outcrops are employed to hold up the structures.
Thick blackened wood walls frame individual houses and contrast the natural-coloured fir cladding on the end facades.
Wood is used to reference the local vernacular of buildings around the Stockholm archipelago.
Each identical unit contains living areas on the lower level and three bedrooms upstairs. Outdoor space is accommodated by a terrace in front of the house.
The homes sit at an angle to the road, causing each to be staggered slightly from its neighbours.
Roofs tilt upward towards the canyon and rooms at the back of the properties are glazed from side to side on both floors to make the most of views over the forest.
The architects sent us the following project description:
The development Prästgården lies close to the centre of Gustavsberg, Sweden – an area close to Stockholm with great natural qualities – close to the archipelago and still within commuting distance of Stockholm. The dwellings are subdivided into four groups of two storey row houses.
The Prästgården development is situated tranquilly at the top of a rocky area with views towards an undulating landscape and pine forest on all sides.
A special spot for a series of special buildings that have been carefully placed in a dialogue with the landscape, and with steep slopes and their differences worked into the lay out of the development resulting in a dramatic variation of the individual houses.
Each dwelling is framed and characterised by a characteristic black frame that varies with the terrain down each row, creating small terraces and big balconies. The houses have been placed on stilts, making them seem almost weightless as they climb the hills of Gustavsberg.
Apart from taking the landscape into account the dwellings also mirror the local vernacular architecture, referencing the traditional wooden houses of the archipelago.
The black natural colour of the facades is set off by natural coloured fir on all elements inside the black frame that melt with the landscape and the rocky nature of the site.
Long Island’s Sag Harbor, a quiet Hamptons escape, has long maintained a community that holds history and preservation paramount. For the last seven years, a project has been underway to meet local standards and reinvent one of the village’s iconic structures. …
Architect Alison Brooks talks about how residents come together in the streets of her firm’s Be housing project in Essex, UK, in this movie produced by Living Projects.
Alison Brooks Architects designed 85 homes in a variety of typologies as part of Newhall masterplan on the eastern edge of the Essex town of Harlow.
Nominated for the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize and announced overall winner at this year’s Housing Design Awards, the houses at the development, formerly named South Chase, reference the traditional local architecture.
“We were able to achieve narrower urban blocks, because they’re back to back and they’re terraced, and a denser overall masterplan,” Brooks says.
Keeping to the original masterplan, terraces create east-west streets and detached dwellings line north-south avenues, with apartment blocks at the corners of the site.
For the terraced houses, the firm cut courtyards and front gardens into each square plan. “We were able to develop a T-shaped plan, which means you enter the house at the centre and that central hole is the hub of the house,” says Brooks.
She also explains that the apartment blocks connect the scheme together: “They help the masterplan turn the corners in a slightly softer, more organic manner.”
Finally, she comments on how residents use the outdoor spaces to socialise. “They use the streets for street parties in the summer,” Brooks says. “Everybody opens up their kitchens on to their front courtyard… the street itself becomes a big party room, and that I think is a big achievement.” Read more about the project in our earlier post.
In this movie by producers Living Projects, architects David Mikhail and Annalie Riches explain how their Church Walk housing project created four compact but light and airy homes on the small awkward site of a former junkyard in north London.
The terraced brick building contains three houses spilt over different levels and one apartment, each with access to outdoor space.
In the movie, Mikhail talks about the issues of building on a tight plot: “The proximity of the site to our neighbours meant that the building stepped down to be only two metres high.”
He also explains how the zig-zagging geometry of the plan prevents overlooking from a nearby building that sits at a 45-degree angle to the site.
Riches discusses how they maximised the amount of accommodation on the small area of land by varying ceiling heights. “Whilst there are some low spaces where you sit down like living rooms and bedrooms, those are contrasted with having spaces like kitchens and dining rooms with very tall ceilings.”
“The scheme is about trying to grab light and views where you can find them,” she adds. “Small tight sites are where architects can really add value because we do have the skills to make the most of whatever assets are there. I don’t see any reason why the principles here – the use of light, building up to the street edge – couldn’t apply to lots of brownfield sites.”
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