Hasta La Ideas

Our latest Spanish apartment with a colourful tiled floor is this renovated residence in Toledo by local studio Romero Vallejo Arquitectos (+ slideshow).

During the refurbishment of the second floor apartment in the Spanish city, Romero Vallejo Arquitectos covered the floor in patterned ceramics to remind the couple living in the apartment of their childhood homes.

“The concept of the floor is rooted in our clients’ family memories,” architect Sara Romero told Dezeen.

New green and pink tiles were designed in reference to the historic colours and patterns of Spanish ceramics, with the help of local craftsmen.

“The tiles were produced in close collaboration with local artisans, who we usually work with in designing new products based on traditional elements,” said Romero. “For this project, we carried out colour research based on a traditional tile design.”

A border of green tiles separates each block of patterned designs and links each space together.

All other surfaces including built-in cupboards, cabinets and full-height doors are white, apart from kitchen units picked out in a bright pink colour from the tiles.

As the clients have no children, the original layout has been opened up by reducing the number of bedrooms.

One of the two bathrooms has a translucent glass wall that creates a silhouette of whoever is in the shower.

We recently created a new Pinterest board full of apartment interiors, which features a loft conversion in north London with a combined staircase and bookshelf plus a Japanese home with a sunken circular living room.

Other projects from Toledo in our archive include the refurbishment of a museum dedicated to Renaissance artist El Greco and four new concrete apartment blocks that already look abandoned.

Photography is by Juan Carlos Quindós.

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Romero Vallejo Arquitectos sent us the following text:

Internal renovation of an apartment in the neighbourhood of Santa Teresa, Toledo, Spain

Located on the second floor of a block of flats in a residential area of Toledo, the apartment has six small rooms comprising of a living room, kitchen and four bedrooms, which are all connected via a dark and narrow corridor.

Our clients, a couple with no children, require more spacious, comfortable and lighter living areas, without completely changing the original layout of the apartment.

Our proposal is, therefore, to reduce the number of bedrooms and reorganise the rooms in order to make better use of the existing sources of light and ventilation, which will also improve accessibility and energy efficiency.

The main challenge is how to combine the traditional layout with a modern and functional design and how to provide continuity between the various rooms, whilst also allowing them a suitable degree of independence. In order to achieve these objectives, all woodwork will be made to measure: floor-to-ceiling doors disguised within the furniture, wardrobes, chest-of-drawers, bookcases, shelving, kitchen units, etc.

A coloured carpet, contrasting with the pale coloured walls and ceilings, covers the entire floor of the home, reinforcing the continuity between the various spaces. Whilst the size, type and colour of the decorative floor tiles correspond to the scale and identity of each room. As such, the layout works as both a sequence of individual units as well as a singular, continuous space.

The use of traditional material for joining, such as hydraulic cement tiles, is closely linked to the owners’ family memories. This type of flooring is produced locally by hand, allowing us to qualify the pigmentation of the decorative motifs according to needs.

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Romero Vallejo Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.

A kindergarten play area shaped like a mountain surrounded by clouds has been completed by Japanese firm Moriyuki Ochiai Architects (+ slideshow).

Part of Piccolino Kindergarten in the southern Japanese prefecture of Kanagawa, the space was created primarily for art education and as a multi-purpose room for concerts, performances, exhibitions and children’s workshops.

Children can explore by crawling over and around the brightly coloured wooden seats and through archways and small passages. When seats are pushed against the mountain they form steps, allowing children to clamber up the mountain shape through the clouds.

The seats are also light enough to be picked up and stacked on top of or next to each other, creating new heights and spaces in the room.

Architect Moriyuki Ochiai said he chose the triangular shapes because they were the most simple and suitable for children to use safely. “The size of the equipment is a unit on which two little children can be seated together so they feel close to each other and can naturally be friends,” Ochiai told Dezeen.

Ochiai also explained that the height difference between adults and children brings about different ways to perceive and enjoy the environment. “A surface used as a counter by adults appears as a consecutive arch over houses to children,” he said.

“From a kid’s perspective, the mountain rises from the clouds changing gradually from white to brown, while adults looking down from the top of the mountain see clouds floating below,” he added.

Ochiai said he created the space to develop imagination, expression, communication and creativity skills for both adults and children. The renovated 90-square-metre floor space from an existing office building is in an area with lots of new housing projects where many families with young children live.

Other kindergartens featured on Dezeen include a kid university with a courtyard of mulberry trees in Spain, a small wooden nursery in a public garden in Camden and a doughnut-shaped kindergarten in China.

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Photography is by Atsushi Ishisda/Nacasa & Partners.

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Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

British studio MoreySmith delved into the archives of online fashion retailer Asos for textiles patterns to use while refurbishing the brand’s London headquarters (+ slideshow).

MoreySmith overhauled interiors as Asos doubled the space it uses at the art deco Greater London House, formerly the Black Cat Cigarette Factory in the north London borough of Camden.

The fashion company originally occupied the second and fourth floor in part of the building, but took over the bottom three storeys of the same portion to form a coherent office space. “It was the first time the company has been on adjacent floors, so we wanted to connect them all together visually,” MoreySmith design director Nicola Osborn told Dezeen.

A large Asos logo hovers above the reception desk on the ground floor, positioned in front of vertical slats wrapped in material used for the brand’s clothing designs. “The initial brief was to create brand identity as soon as you came into the ground floor,” said Osborn. “The fins are behind the reception are all Asos materials.”

A new staircase links the floors the company now takes up, connecting the ground floor reception to a cafe on the first level and a coffee bar on the second to create a central hub.

Wooden stair treads are decorated with pictograms, which look like labels added to shipping boxes the company uses to distribute its goods worldwide. Glass-fronted offices and meeting spaces are made semi-translucent by light geometric motifs that also reference fabric designs.

Hidden behind the serving area of the cafe, a private dining room doubles as an extra conference space. A mixture of furniture styles populate the employee lounge areas and casual meetings take place in an open environment with booth seating.

We filmed a couple of movies with MoreySmith director Linda Morey Smith while she was a judge for the Inside awards 2011. During these interviews she spoke to us about her office designs for drinks brand Red Bull and Sony Music.

Other offices for fashion brands on Dezeen include the OMA-designed G-Star Raw headquarters in Amsterdam and the west London base of Net-A-Porter.

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Read on for more information from Morey Smith:

Architectural designers MoreySmith have completed the newly-expanded headquarters for online fashion retailer Asos at Greater London House.

The extensive 100,000-square-foot refurbishment has more than doubled the space Asos currently occupies in the building.

MoreySmith’s new design includes a flexible events space, a showcase/press area, fashion-themed meeting rooms, open-plan offices and a tour route for visitors where they can follow the full journey of a garment from inception to completion, showcasing the innovative fashion and technology-led business.

New staircases connect three floors at the heart of the office space; including a reception, café, meeting rooms and coffee bar. This central hub brings a dynamic and dramatic impact to the Asos brand identity and gives a creative and welcoming space for more than 1200 people, to collaborate and breakout from the open plan workspace.

MoreySmith has created a space which acts as a window to the Asos brand, taking inspiration from Asos’s values and commitment to maintaining a high caliber of employees.

“Asos had a very clear vision which was to create the next chapter in the Asos success story, designing a space where people want to be, where they can innovate together and continue to build the story.”

Home to a variety of companies, the vast former Black Cat cigarette factory was reinstated in the late 1990s to its original art deco grandeur, an architectural icon to 1930s design. Asos’s expansion reflects the company’s significant growth in the last year, where its active customer base rose 35% to 5.4 million across 160 countries.

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by MoreySmith appeared first on Dezeen.

One level of this London boutique designed by Studio Toogood is bright and minimal, while the other looks like a dark nightclub.

Studio Toogood divided the two-storey Browns Focus store so daywear is displayed in a clean, white space in the basement and eveningwear can be browsed on the darker upper level. “A brilliant-white basement represents daywear and a midnight-blue minimalist ground floor taps into the spirit of dressing for the evening,” said the studio.

Shoppers step up from street level to the upper floor or descend into the basement, which can be glimpsed through a floor-level window in the entrance.

Welded-steel panels, neon lighting and blue-tinted glass are all used on the upper floor to create an atmosphere more like an underground music venue.

Garment rails are formed from metal pipes suspended from the ceiling, bent into rectangles or hoops.

A midnight blue blob serves as the counter and a blue spun-metal disc with a light behind is attached to the wall above.

Surfaces in the basement are all white, only broken up by colourful woven rugs and stacks of iridescent boxes.

Changing room door handles appear to be made from scrunched-up pieces of paper set in plaster.

Studio founder Faye Toogood‘s furniture populates both floors, including vitrines made from metal lattices that are black upstairs and white downstairs.

The white mesh is also used for a seat and screens downstairs, alongside display counters built from piles of sawn wood lengths.

We’ve recently featured another Studio Toogood project: a fashion store that combines raw concrete and colourful fabrics.

Other recent retail interiors on Dezeen include an ochre-coloured boutique in Katowice, Poland, and a UK bakery with a magpie’s nest motif engraved into the counter.

Earlier this year we published a laundrette in Barcelona that also looks like a nightclub.

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The following text is from Studio Toogood:

Browns Focus by Studio Toogood

Browns Focus, one of the world’s leading destinations for newly discovered talent and emerging designers has been re-launched into a new and extended space with a new interior designed by Studio Toogood.

The space, set across two floors, is divided thematically – a brilliant-white basement, representing daywear, and a midnight-blue minimalist ground floor that taps into the spirit of dressing for the evening.

The club-like darkness of the ground floor has a postindustrial feel, with black rubber, welded steel-panelled displays, a graphic constructivist clothes rail and a sophisticated touch of blue-tinted glass.

By way of contrast, the area downstairs is glowing white and minimalist; walls of white mesh and rubber with a lacquered floor are offset by irregular display platforms, assembled from rubberised timber offcuts.

Both floors feature exclusive furniture designs by Faye Toogood, including her iconic mesh jewellery vitrines and a striking biomorphic cash-wrap counter. The result is a carefully balanced retail environment that complements and highlights the brand’s design-led fashion collections.

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Studio Toogood appeared first on Dezeen.

News: new office technologies and a move towards collaborative, open-plan offices are leading to declining performance among workers, according to a new workplace design study by architects Gensler.

The 2013 US Workplace Survey found that workplace effectiveness in America has fallen by 6% since 2008, when the firm carried out its first survey.

“Extended workdays, new distractions, and downward pressure on real estate costs are compromising the effectiveness of the U.S. workplace,” says the survey. “Strategies to improve collaboration proved ineffective if the ability to focus was not also considered.”

Distracting noise and visual stimulus in open-plan offices is one reason for the drop, according to Matthew Kobylar, regional workplace practice area leader at Gensler.

“As you squeeze more people in, the chances of being distracted by noise and visual distractions increases,” Kobylar told Dezeen.

Employers have moved towards open-plan offices over the last ten years to reduce real-estate costs, as they can fit more people into the same amount of space.

Firms have justified this by claiming open-plan offices increase opportunities for collaboration, Kobylar said, but he added: “Cramming people in does have an impact on effectiveness. Just because you can see your colleagues doesn’t mean you’re going to collaborate with them.”

To counter this, workplace designers should provide a variety of “secondary” workspaces where workers can concentrate on individual or group tasks, away from distractions – and to prevent them from creating distractions themselves.

“Open plan is quite effective as a general space but there are times when you need to focus on collaboration, and it fails to support that,” Kobylar said.

Quiet areas, spaces or booths for quick meetings and workspaces with views can all help create a balanced, and more effective, office environment, according to Kobylar.

“It allows them to get away from the distraction,” he said. “We’re telling our clients, don’t give up on open plan but acknowledge that people need balance.”

Writing about the reports finding on the company’s blog, Gensler principal Janet Pogue said the research does not mean that open-plan offices don’t work. “Our research shows that effective work can happen in both open and enclosed environments,” she wrote. “Even private offices are not as effective as they were in 2008.”

Instead, the decline in worker effectiveness is down to changing work patterns, including an increase in multitasking and in particular the introduction of always-on technologies such as email, mobile phones and virtual conferencing.

“The world has changed in the last five years, shifting the way we work,” Pogue wrote. “We have more distractions and interruptions, including 24-hour technology demands. Most of us have more on our plates and have to multi-task to get everything done. Collaborating with virtual colleagues takes tremendous concentration and effort. And if effectiveness is declining across the board, open plan offices aren’t at fault.”

In their survey, Gensler found that companies that offered a “balanced workplace” with a variety of different workspaces for different tasks outperformed those offering just one option.

“Achieving balance in a workplace is a delicate process,” Pogue explained. “The first priority is to optimize the functionality of primary workspaces. Design elements must mitigate noise and provide access to colleagues while minimizing distractions. It’s also important to design a pleasing space where people actually want to be. A balanced workplace also provides a healthy dose of alternative workspaces where groups of one to four people can seamlessly transition from individual work to group work or a person can simply go into an enclosed room and shut the door to concentrate or take a call.”

To compile the report, Gensler surveyed 2,035 “knowledge workers” in firms across the USA. They found that only one in four operate in optimal workplace environments. “The rest are struggling to work effectively, resulting in lost productivity, innovation and worker engagement,” the report says.

“Our survey findings demonstrate that focus and collaboration are complementary work modes. One cannot be sacrificed in the workplace without directly impacting the other,” says Diane Hoskins, Gensler co-chief executive officer. “We know that both focus and collaboration are crucial to the success of any organization in today’s economy.”

“Balanced workplaces where employees have the autonomy to choose their work space based on the task or project at hand are more effective and higher performing,” she added.

Kobylar said that as well as increasing pressure on workers, technology could help increase effectiveness if used properly. Tablet computers, smartphones and wifi – technologies that didn’t exist when Gensler carried out there first workplace survey in 2008 – allow staff to move between different work environments according to the tasks they are working on.

“Technology has moved on a lot in the last five years,” he said. “You can be mobile in the office. You can pick up your kit and go.”

Pogue said that employees should create “secondary spaces” where noisy activities such as meetings and conference calls can take place, adding that spaces that allow between two and four people to hold meetings are the most in demand.

“The availability of secondary workspaces is particularly important for creating a balanced workplace,” she wrote “The proximity and availability of secondary work environments can bring balance to a workspace and help occupants work more effectively, both by providing the spaces they need to perform a variety of activities and moving noise and distraction-creating activities away from desks and into more appropriate spaces.”

She concluded: “To really drive performance, companies must create work environments where workers can shift between various work modes and feel comfortable working privately or collaborating with colleagues.”

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are “struggling to work effectively” appeared first on Dezeen.