Hasta La Ideas

Timber louvres and shutters form a protective shell across the exterior of this apartment building in Istanbul by Turkish studio Alataş Architecture & Consulting.

Screening the upper levels of a glazed curtain wall, the timber cladding cloaks the facade of the six-storey-high Ipera 25 housing block, creating a system of solar shading for the nine apartments contained inside.

Alataş Architecture & Consulting divided the wall into four long vertical strips, which project forward and backwards at different points to allow slices of glass to emerge from between each of the timber panels.

“The fractures and surface variations on the facade – wider than the architectural structures in the area – not only emerge as a contemporary interpretation of the bay windows of the surrounding buildings, but also allow the facade to be perceived in a more fragmented and ergonomic manner,” architect Ahmet Alataş told Dezeen.

Two one-bedroom apartments are contained on each of the first four floors. Living rooms are positioned at the front of every home and residents can open and close different shutters independently.

“The wooden elements allow a view of the street and create a bay window effect that establishes a link between home life and life on the street,” said Alataş.

A two-storey penthouse is located on the uppermost floors of the building, beneath an angled ceiling that follows the pitch of the roof.

Other recently completed housing blocks include a building with a pleated facade on the Canary Islands and an apartment block with diagonally stepped floors and ceilings in Japan. See more housing on Dezeen.

Here’s some more explanation from Alataş Architecture & Consulting:

The building is located on Tatarbeyi Sokak, is one of the most virginal and underdeveloped streets of the rapidly transforming Galata District under conservation. Comprised of eight 80-m2 studio flats and one 190-m2 penthouse up for sale, it has a total surface area of 1000 m2.

The building is a residential project that extends beyond the conventional codes of the already-built environment, yet manages to reproduce these codes, respecting the existing architectural fabric.

In this regard, it continues to find new solutions to the existing problems of architecture by utilizing contemporary technologies and taking into consideration the newly burgeoning socio-economic structure of the region, as well as the infrastructure, environmental conditions, climate, and solar movements.

The building is comprised of a wooden shell that covers the largely transparent living area in an uncompromising manner and set between two blind and extremely thin exposed concrete curtain walls.

The wooden components on the front elevation run parallel to the glass facade that evolves into a saddle roof and entirely cover the front and back of the building. Perceived as a gigantic blind facade from one perspective, yet appearing as a translucent veil from the other, the wooden surface also functions as a sun filter.

Comprised of parallel horizontal laths that angle at various points, the wooden element divides the facade into four as the middle segments expand outwards, towards the street; leaving the sides exposed, the wooden elements thus allow a view of the street and create a bay window effect that establishes a link between home life and life on the street.

While the building almost disregards the relationship with the street by refusing to repeat the conventional window spans in the neighborhood, it nonetheless revives its place within the context by reinterpreting the traditional bay window structure on the street.

Behind its impressive presence on the street, the building displays a plain and statuesque appearance that simultaneously blends into and stands out against the context without competing with the neighboring historic buildings in its critical approach.

As the design is concretized, the concept of the transparent surface of the wooden veil covering the two facades and the roof between two walls is maintained throughout without any qualms. The dilapidated appearance of the neighbouring building at arm’s length is perceived as part of the view and the transparent surface is not even partially compromised.

While this attitude and the spatial relationship of the interior and the exterior expands the interior volumes of the 80-m2 flats – born out of the new lifestyle needs and culture – towards the facade of the buildings across the street, the translucent nature of the building’s shell allows the street to feel broader and more spacious.

Architects: Alataş Architecture & Consulting
Location: Galata, İstanbul, Turkey
Design Team: Ahmet Alataş, Emre Açar

Architectural Group: Özge Güngör Ülüğ, Dilan Yüksel, Emir Elmaslar, Gabriella Colacicco
Area: 1,100 sqm
Year: 2011

Site plan – click for larger image

Ground floor plan – click for larger image

First-third floor plan – click for larger image

Fourth floor plan – click for larger image

Fifth floor plan – click for larger image

Cross-section – click for larger image

The post Ipera 25 by Alataş Architecture
& Consulting appeared first on Dezeen.

This social housing block on the Spanish Canary Islands was designed by local studio Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos with a pleated facade and three hidden courtyards.

Located in Las Palmas, the five-storey building contains eight apartments, each with at least three bedrooms. There are two per storey and the first pair is located on the first floor.

The pleated facade integrates a series of shutters, which fold back to reveal pastel-coloured undersides. Each pleat creates a small recess, helping to shade the windows from sunlight and shelter them from prevailing winds.

Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos added three separate courtyards within the plan and gave each one a different colour. A blue-painted courtyard sits at the centre of the building, while a green space is on one side and a yellow ocre courtyard is positioned at the back.

All three courtyards can be overlooked from the windows of the apartments above.

To deal with the intense temperatures on the island, the ground floor and facade integrate ventilated chambers, while air conditioning units are housed in the basement.

Other recently completed social housing projects include a pile of buildings outside Paris and a 16-storey tower in Barcelona. See more housing projects on Dezeen.

Here’s a project description from Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos:

Eight Inscribed Houses and Three Courtyards

The inscribed houses, with their small boundaries, are thought and built as a microcosm. The term inscribed, borrowed from geometry, induced us to find new qualities. The confinements of the irregular and broken limits of party walls, far from being perceived as a negative quality, heightened forms and bodies to us.

Conferring them the quality of limitless consequently made them infinitely manipulable in the interior.

Controlled spaces where container and contained elements establish dialogues which create a sequence of border spaces. These articulate a route that gently discovers three courtyards that filter natural light, dyeing it with shades of blue, ocher and green. Almost monochrome atmospheres. The diagonal relations between the common spaces frame cuts and fragments of the sky and are naturally ventilated and brushed with natural light.

Above: site plan

Every element plays a significant role. From the street to the deepest stay, one circulates along vestibules, courtyards, corridors, footbridges and slots of light. Telescopic houses, inscribed one on each other.

Above: floor plan concept diagrams – click for larger image

We formulate a dialogue to formalize the found tensions: between lines and thickness (those offered by the mismatch of alignments and party walls); between inner glances and outer tangencies. Thus, a vertical sequence of broken planes is drawn up, where light slides and shadows become more expressive throughout the day. We turn the only façade into a changing game. Simple origami, fold, unfold, that speaks thickness.

Above: cross section – click for larger image

Users, according to their needs or customs, will configure the image to the street within the possibilities of the proposed game.

 Above: facade design concept – click for larger image

The post Eight Inscribed Houses and Three Courtyards
by Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.

London firm Farshid Moussavi Architecture has won a competition to design an apartment block in Montpellier with designs for a tower made from a stack of rippling floor plates.

The Jardins de la Lironde tower will comprise eleven irregularly shaped levels, arranged in a seemingly random order to create balconies on different sides of the building.

A total of 36 apartments will be contained within the upper storeys of the building, while a restaurant will occupy the ground floor.

Lot 2, Jardins de la Lironde, is the first of 12 new buildings planned for the Port Marianne district. The brief for every structure is to create a “modern folly” that references the eighteenth-century chateaux built by wealthy merchants around Montpellier.

Farshid Moussavi Architecture will continue to work on the next stages of the project and construction is set to begin in 2014.

Above: typologies diagram

Iranian-born architect Farshid Moussavi launched her studio in 2011, after 16 years as co-director of Foreign Office Architects. Since then she has also won a competition to design housing outside Paris and completed the mirror-clad Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland.

Other recent projects in Montpellier include a government building designed by Zaha Hadid and a school for hotel management by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas. See more architecture in Montpellier.

Above: unit layout one

Above: unit layout two

Above: unit layout three

Above: unit layout four

The post Lot 2, Jardins de la Lironde by
Farshid Moussavi Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

This renovation of a crumbling 1960s tower block in Paris nicknamed “Alcatraz” topped the architecture category of this year’s Designs of the Year Awards and is in the running for the top prize to be announced tonight (+ slideshow).

The 16-storey Tour Bois-le-Prêtre, originally designed by French architect Raymond Lopez, contains 96 apartments in the northern outskirts of the city, but after 60 years of ageing and neglect the building needed a significant overhaul to bring the accommodation up to modern standards.

French architect Frédéric Druot teamed up with Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal of Lacaton & Vassal on the competition-winning redesign. Their renovation included extending the floorplates outwards to increase the size of rooms plus create new conservatories and balconies.

A facade of corrugated aluminium clads the new exterior of the tower, interspersed with large windows and glazed balconies. Floor-to-ceiling glass separates the apartments from the new terraces to let more natural light into each residence.

Architect Amanda Levete, on the Designs of the Year judging panel, described the project as “a clever and elegant solution” that is “far from the usual cosmetic approach that fools no-one”. She added: “Completed at half the cost of demolition and new build, this is an exemplary lesson in harnessing clever thinking and ingenuity to transform neglected parts of our cities.”

Tour Bois-le-Prêtre is one of the seven category winners of the Designs of the Year Awards, alongside a folding wheel and a medicine kit that can travel to developing countries in between Coca-Cola bottles. The overall winner is set to be announced later today.

Other renovated apartment blocks we’ve featured include a tower surrounded by ribbon-like balconies in the Netherlands. See more renovations on Dezeen.

Here are a few words from the architects and some project details in French:

The Bois-le-Prêtre Tower Metamorphosis

Conversion of 100 social dwellings, operation in occupied site and high environmental quality, 5 Bld du Bois le Prêtre, Paris 17ème

The project of metamorphosis of the “Bois Le Prêtre” Tower consists of a radical transformation of the conditions of comfort and habitability of the 100 residences of the occupied building. The tower built in 1962 by the architect Raymond Lopez, develops on 50m height, 16 levels serving each one 4 or 8 residences.

By addition of heated extensions, winter-gardens and balconies, the overall surface of origin of 8900m2 is carried to 12460m2. This new organisation of surfaces and the precise technical improvements make it possible to adapt the rental offer while meeting by the creation of new typologies the needs for the families, to return lime pit foot the access to all the residences, to reduce passively, the consumption of energies of more than 50%, mainly by the addition of the winter-gardens.

Maître d’ouvrage: PARIS HABITAT
Architecte mandataire: Frédéric Druot Architecture
Architectes associés: Anne Lacaton & Jean Philippe Vassal

Etudes Fluide: INEX
Etudes Structure: VP Green Economie : E2I
Acoustique: Gui Jourdan

Sécurité incendie et accessibilité: Vulcanéo
Pilote MOE: BATSCOP
Surface SHON: 12 460 m2 (dont 8900m2 existant)

Coût des travaux: 11,2 euros HT
Livraison (en cours): Octobre 2011
Missions: Mission de base + Diagnostic + Concertation
Spécificités: Travaux en site occupé Certification CERQAL HQE

Above: Tour Bois-le-Prêtre before the renovation

Above: typical floor plan – click for larger image

Above: long section – click for larger image

Above: cross section – click for larger image

Above: north elevation

Above: west elevation

Above: south elevation

Above: east elevation

The post Tour Bois-le-Prêtre by Frédéric Druot,
Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal appeared first on Dezeen.

An assortment of building typologies appear to be stacked on top of one another at this housing block in Middlesborough, England, by London architects FAT (+ slideshow).

The Community In A Cube (CIAC) building was first conceived as part of a larger masterplan drawn up by architect Will Alsop in 2004 for a site beside the city’s old docks. Other ideas for the development included a building shaped like a toaster and an apartment block resembling a stack of Jenga pieces.

The crash in the economy stalled almost all of these projects, so nearly ten years later FAT‘s cartoon-like building is the first and only project to complete. FAT director Sean Griffiths told Dezeen he is confident it won’t stand alone for long: “The developers were trying to add a bit of of pizazz and glamour, which I think was a great idea and I think it will in time spark more development.”

The nine-storey building comprises three tiers. At the lowest level, a gabled timber chalet sits alongside a row of shop units, which together support a six-storey apartment block in the middle section. Above this, two vernacular houses appear to be sitting on the roof.

“The idea was that it was like a little urban village,” said Griffiths. “It was about assembling disparate elements you would think of as incongruous into a collage that has an expression of community.”

He continued: “You have a thing that looks like a Swiss chalet on the ground floor, which was going to be the the local community pub. Then you have housing on the roof that taps into local culture. They’re not exactly ordinary houses, more of an aesthetic expression you’d be more likely to find in New England or Kent, but they become very odd because they sit on top on an apartment building.”

A total of 82 apartments are accommodated within the U-shaped plan and fold around a central south-facing courtyard. Balconies extend out over this space, while more are located in a large recess on the northern facade.

The architects used a variety of materials to give the building its colourful appearance. Purplish engineering bricks appear on the outward-facing elevations, while the walls flanking the courtyards and recesses are clad with timber and decorated with a black-painted lattice.

Apertures in the walls are created with a pattern of triangular, circular and square perforations. On the opposite side, the main stairwell is highlighted with geometric patterns in pink, green and blue.

“Our general philosophy about architecture is that much of it is very dull with no sense of exuberance, or any openness to a wider variety of influences and sources” added Griffiths. “This building is part of our expression that architecture should contribute something more memorable.”

The entrance to the building sits beneath a parapet of cloud motifs, where a single flight of stairs leads up to the terrace, then a spiral staircase winds up to the main access corridor on the second floor. This sequence was designed to encourage interaction between residents.

Heating and hot water for the building comes from a wood chip biomass boiler, plus the walls are heavily insulated to stop heat from escaping.

Architecture studio FAT, short for Fashion Architecture Taste, is run by three directors; Charles Holland, Sean Griffiths and Dezeen-columnist Sam Jacob. They’re also currently working on a house inspired by fairytales and recently completed a museum of copying at the Venice Architecture Biennale. See more architecture by FAT.

See more housing projects on Dezeen, including another pile of buildings in France.

Above: spatial organisation diagram

Here’s a project description from FAT:

FAT Architecture have recently completed CIAC, an £11.8M, 82 unit housing project in north east England. Designed for a joint venture client comprising developers BioRegional and Quintain, the brief was to deliver a highly sustainable, landmark housing project.

Above: site plan – click for larger image

The buildings simple block form is eroded and sliced by different housing typologies, courtyards, shared amenities, garden space and circulation routes to create a vertical community, from which its nickname ‘Community In A Cube’ is derived. The architectural language explicitly expresses the diversity of the buildings community to create a rich visual and spatial experience.

 Above: ground floor plan

Flats have generous 2.7m floor to ceiling heights, and are carefully planned to maximise dual aspect views that take advantage of the buildings waterside location. Circulation links the shared garden space with the public square below though planted terracing, encouraging a strong link between public, semi public and private space. The building addresses its surrounding public space with commercial units, a community centre and a pub to form a streetscape while its higher levels respond to the scale of the surrounding docks and city.

Above: first floor plan

Materially, the building uses a pallet of tougher brick to its exterior, responding to the industrial landscape of the old docks. Its interior court is lined with a softer, warmer timber to which graphic motifs and planting are used to add to its intimate, sheltered character.

Above: second floor plan

CIAC follows the “One Planet Living” principles developed by Bioregional and WWF to promote the concepts of sustainable living and ecological footprinting addressing carbon emissions, recycling, transport, materials, opportunities for on-site food production, water consumption, biodiversity, sustainable community structure, and access to pleasant outdoor space. Exceeding an Eco Homes Excellent rating, it’s sustainable design features include a high thermal performance for the external envelope and a wood chip biomass boiler which meets 100% of the buildings demand for heating and hot water as well as providing capacity for further neighboring developments.

Above: section from north to south

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by FAT appeared first on Dezeen.