Hasta La Ideas

This apartment conversion in Bilzen, Belgium, by C.T. Architects is designed as a stylish home for a wheelchair user and features practical storage including shelves built into either end of an angular dining table.

Local office C.T. Architects adapted a space which was previously used as storage for an apartment block into a compact home that incorporates several accessible features.

Architect Nick Ceulemans wanted to create a home “that does not look at all like a dwelling for a physically challenged person.” Ceulemans said: “In fact, while many of the design solutions were inspired by necessity, they would all be welcome in any urban small loft.”

The first thing to be done was to adapt the building’s main entrance by adding a ramp to the owner’s front door and provide a new communal entrance to the other flats.

Inside the small apartment, a bright living and dining area is connected to the bedroom by a corridor that is wide enough to comfortably accommodate a wheelchair.

Wet areas and storage spaces are grouped together to free up as much floor space as possible inside the 80 square-metre apartment, which also includes a small terrace accessed through sliding glass doors from the bedroom.

As well as the shelving incorporated into the dining table, the headboard of the bed functions as a desk with integrated storage.

A specially designed hybrid lighting fixture and electrical hub on the desk in the bedroom features a rotating beam that can direct light towards the work surface or the bed and provides convenient charging points.

Materials and finishes used throughout the interior were chosen to enhance the apartment’s bright and relaxed feel, with the textured floors and doors adding warmth and tactility.

“A sense of unity and calm is created by using white walls and ceilings combined with rough-sawn oak floors and sliding doors hiding the storage space, bathroom and toilet,” explained the architects.

Electrically height adjustable kitchen units drop down to make the cupboards easier to reach, while the position of a lamp in the living and dining space can be adjusted by swinging it away from the wall.

Photography is by Tim Van de Velde.

Here’s some more information from C.T. Architects:

A home without boundaries

The project includes the conversion of a ground floor apartment, previously used for storage, into an accessible and wheelchair friendly living space for an accident victim. The result is an apartment that does not look at all like a dwelling for a physically challenged person. In fact, while many of the design solutions were inspired by necessity, they would all be welcome in any urban small loft.

To create an accessible residence, C.T. Architects changed the main entrance of the building block to create a ramp to the client’s front door and a new communal entrance for the upstairs neighbours. The apartment itself was transformed completely.

By clustering the wet areas and storage space into two compact volumes, the architect was able to bring natural light into the long and narrow canyon- like layout that is organised into a conventional succession of increasingly private spaces: living room and dining area near the main entrance, a central corridor – at a comfortable width for wheelchair passage – and with an efficient kitchen on one side and the bathroom on the other side, and then the bedroom/study in the rear.

Sliding glass doors lead from the bedroom/study onto a small back terrace. A sense of unity and calm is created by using white walls and ceilings combined with rough-sawn oak floors and sliding doors hiding the storage space, bathroom and toilet. The kitchen designed by C.T. Architects is electrically height-adjustable which provides a wheelchair-bound user with the ability to reach everything easily.

Nick Ceulemans from C.T. Architects also designed key pieces of the furniture to meet the client’s specific needs and preferences and to comply with Belgian disability codes. He designed the dining table with built-in shelves at both ends and a flexible swing-arm wall lamp above this table (also presented at this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan).

In the bedroom, Nick Ceulemans designed the double-duty bed with a desk at its head, an adjacent wall of bookshelves and a hybrid light fixture/electrical hub that swivels to illuminate both bed and work surface and to provide outlets at a convenient height for the user.

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Japanese architect Shimpei Oda has reworked the dark interior of a humble 1920s house in Kyoto to bring natural light into living spaces and create a small gallery that opens to the street (+ slideshow).

With a width of just 4.1 metres, House in Shichiku is typical of the long and narrow houses built in many of Japan’s dense urban districts, nicknamed “eel beds”, and the challenge for Shimpei Oda was to work out how to bring daylight inside.

“Because the next building was way too close, the inside of the house was so dark, even in the daytime,” said Oda.

The two storeys of the house were re-planned to ensure each of the main rooms received natural light, whether from a window or through openings in the walls or ceilings.

According to Oda, the house had suffered several poor quality renovations in the past, so missing walls and pillars had to be replaced.

“The existing structure was arbitrarily shifted and newly inserted structures and reinforcements were painted with white colour,” he said.

The small gallery is located on the ground floor and is fronted by a square grid of nine windows, some of which fold open to provide a direct access from the street.

The main entrance sits alongside and leads through to a generous open-plan space that functions as a living room, dining space and kitchen.

Bathroom and toilet facilities were considered least in need of natural light, so are grouped together in the space between the living room and gallery.

A lightweight steel staircase with a zigzagging profile leads directly up to a home office with bedrooms on either side. Exposed wooden columns and joists support the roof, while large openings help to bring light through each space.

Photography is by Shinkenchiku-sha.

Here’s the project description from Shimpei Oda:

House in Shichiku

This was the renovation of a house which was built in the 1920s and the house was surrounded by old rows of houses. The house with a frontage of 4.1 metres and depth of 12.8 metres was like so-called “sleeping places of an eel”.

Because the next building was way too close, the inside of the house was so dark even in the daytime. The house had been illogically renovated at several times before so that important pillars and walls were missed.

A resident hoped to live with furniture and paintings. A studio, sanitary, and home office were inserted as volumes of the structure. Those intended not only to reinforce the house but also to softly divide spaces to up and down and left and right.

The whole image was glimpsed from openings and slits which were widely opened and the volumes itself were painted with white colour so that the texture could visually stand up to indicate the depth and extent.

The front of the studio opened to alley was changed from a shutter to windows. To change to the well reflective material of lean-to roof, it functioned as a reflector and could get the natural lightning to the inside so it diffused to bright all. Also, it was concerned the transition of brightness by time.

The existing structure was arbitrary shifted and newly inserted structures and reinforcements were painted with white colour. Those were created the context of time but functionally which meant to indicate those things mixed naturally without any conflicts. The softly divided space may be able to use by any discoveries for the living, studio, and home office as extension with the factor of furniture and paintings which may increase in the future.

Project name: House in Shichiku
Location of site: Kyoto, Japan
Site area: 83.50 sqm
Building area: 53.60 sqm
Total floor area: 91.00 sqm
Type of Construction: wood
Program: house

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This conceptual restaurant covered in a patchwork of textiles is the final instalment in Polish designer Karina Wiciak’s series of fantasy interiors.

Karina Wiciak of Polish studio Wamhouse designed the twelfth and final imaginary restaurant in her XII collection to look like it’s been made from discarded material.

Titled Szmaciarnia, which means “rag-house” in Polish, the interior employs patches of leftover fabric stitched together haphazardly to form surfaces.

These grey, blue and beige materials cover walls, ceilings and the restaurant’s bar.

“Szmaciarnia is not a tribute to the idea of ​​recycling, but proof that the elegant interior may not just be created with popular glass or metal,” said the designer.

“The rough texture of the fabric does not need to be associated with cheapness and mediocrity, and the possibilities of its application are still endless,” she added.

Fabric is also draped over a reception desk and small swatches are used to form lampshades. The remaining surfaces are coloured white to provide a contrast.

Furniture such as chairs and stools first appear to be made from marble, but on closer inspection the veins in the material turn out to be stitched seams.

Other designs in the collection are inspired by a slaughterhouse, a sewing room and an artist’s studio.

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restaurant by Karina Wiciak appeared first on Dezeen.

German firm Buero Wagner has designed a bar for mixology company Gamsei with ceramic bottles of ingredients hanging from a metal grid on the ceiling (+ slideshow).

Munich-based Gamsei specialises in using foraged and locally sourced ingredients for their cocktail blends.

The brand wanted to encourage drinkers to watch the barmen mixing their cocktails, so Buero Wagner designed seating as two sets of solid oak steps that rise to meet two opposing walls, while the bar tenders make the drinks at two bars in the middle.

“Gamsei is a wholly integrated concept that turns the event of drinking a cocktail into a novel experience,” said Buero Wagner.

“By eliminating the common separation of bartender and guest, here the interaction is key and everybody has a front row seat: from either side guests can enjoy a view onto the two centrally placed bars,” the designers added.

An oak cupboard and shelving unit covers the whole of the far wall, part of which opens up as a hidden door into the bathroom.

Oak shutters can be pushed up to reveal the coffee machine and the many shelves are used to store dried leaves, herbs and white ceramic bottles full of Gamsei’s self-made liqueurs, syrups and essences.

These bottles also hang in neat lines from a black steel mesh covering the celling.

Just like Gamsei’s drinks, the wood, steel and ceramic used for the bar were all locally sourced.

Gamsei opened in 2013 and is owned and founded by Australian bartender Matthew Bax.

The Buero Wagner designers who completed this project were Fabian A. Wagner and Andreas Kreft.

Here’s a project description from the designers:

GAMSEI

Sex on the Beach, Cosmopolitan, White Russian. A cocktail bar is usually rated by the quality of the classic drinks (and their modern adaptations), but those who hope to get a taste of them at Gamsei, may either look elsewhere, or dare find out what a Lavender Drunk Bee is made of.

Juniper schnapps, verjuice, lavender honey. When owner and head bartender Matthew Bax opened Gamsei 2013 in Munich’s trendy neighbourhood Glockenbach, he introduced hyper-localism to a field of practice which had until then been mainly confined to the food scene.

At Gamsei, ingredients for cocktails like Lavender Drunk Bee, Mid-Life Crisis and Frühlingserwachen, are either wildly foraged by Bax and his team or grown by local artesian farmers, thus reestablishing a connection with local products, region and culture and offering something that is unique in its kind.

Bax, an Australian artist and founder of three bars among which award winning bar Der Raum in Melbourne envisioned his fourth as an antidote to the globalisation of cocktail bars; why drink the very same cocktail in every bar you go to in the world? Why not experience the excitement of the new when sipping a cocktail?

The bar interior, designed and executed by Fabian A. Wagner of Buero Wagner (Munich, Germany) with Andreas Kreft, is a clear continuation of this philosophy – looking for surprising configurations whilst paying a tribute to the local Bavarian culture and craftsmanship.

The ambience of a typical Bavarian beer hall has been applied to the 40m² interior through amphitheater-style benches against opposing walls thus eliminating the common separation of bartender and guest, here interaction is key and everybody has a first row seat: from either tribune guests enjoy a view onto the two centrally placed bars and follow how Bax and his team mix, shake and stir up the cocktails. Also the bars have been stripped of all boundaries: workspace and bar are one.

Dried flowers, herbs and leaves are stored and displayed in a wooden built-in cupboard that stretches the full length of the back wall; Besides ingredients, also the coffee machine and even the doors to the bathrooms and laboratory are seamlessly integrated and can be flexibly displayed or disguised behind lattices. Tribunes, bars and cupboards are executed in solid oak with a natural oil finish.

White ceramic bottles are suspended from a black steel mesh attached to the ceiling, which contain self-made liqueurs, syrups and essences, in-between which light bulbs make for a reduced lighting scheme by night. Just like Bax’s cocktail ingredients, Buero Wagner procured all materials such as wood, ceramics (custom-made by Gefäß & Objekt) and steel locally, and worked in close collaboration with local carpenters and manufacturers to produce custom-made solutions.

Gamsei is a wholly integrated concept that turns the event of drinking a cocktail into a novel experience. The refreshing take on the cocktail bar extends further: bartenders, dressed in uniform leather aprons, serve their guests an amuse-gueule such as “Biersand”, after taking their coats upon entering, and the tribunes on either side – to be climbed only without shoes – allow for sports broadcasts.

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ingredients from ceiling of cocktail bar appeared first on Dezeen.

Portuguese studio CVDB Arquitectos has created a tapestry museum with vaulted ceilings, marble walls and funnel-shaped skylights inside a twelfth-century hospital building (photos by Fernando Guerra + slideshow).

The Tapestry Museum is located on the edge of a plaza in the small Portuguese town of Arraiolos, which is famed for the embroidered wool rugs and carpets that have been in production there since the Middle Ages.

CVDB Arquitectos planned the interior of the two-storey building so that galleries on both floors surround a double-height atrium with an arched ceiling.

Square windows offer views through into the galleries on the two long sides, while a single first-floor balcony at the far end offers a vantage point where visitors can survey the space.

A local marble combining shades of grey and white covers the atrium floor and continues through the rest of the ground-level spaces, occasionally wrapping up onto the walls.

“It’s a very local material,” architect Joana Barrelas told Dezeen. “Because we were refurbishing an existing building that is itself very noble, we wanted to use a material that has the same character.”

Vaulted ceilings added during the eighteenth century were retained and repaired in the galleries and multi-purpose spaces of this floor. Each have been painted white and feature decorative mouldings.

Marble staircase treads lead up from the atrium to the larger exhibition rooms on the top floor, where the floor surface switches to Brazilian oak that has been left unpainted to display natural yellow and pinkish hues.

“It’s a different noise as you walk over the first floor, rather than the ground floor,” added studio co-founder Diogo Burnay.

The roof and first-floor ceilings were completely restructured to create a series of funnel-shaped skylights, allowing light to filter evenly through each of the galleries.

Only one room maintains the old roof construction, which comprises a row of wooden trusses topped by a long narrow skylight.

Glazed doors reveal a first-floor terrace with a marble bench. From here, guests can look out over the town or down to a small courtyard just below.

The historic exterior of the building was restored and repainted, while a new staircase was added at the rear to allow tapestries to be easily transported in and out of the building.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Scroll down to read text from CVDB Arquitectos:

Tapestry Museum in Arraiolos

The Tapestry Museum in Arraiolos occupies an existent building that once was Espírito Santo Hospital. The building is located in the main square of Arraiolos (Lima de Brito Square), a small town in Alentejo, Portugal. This public space streamlines the town’s social and cultural life. It gathers the Municipality and some commercial services. The Tapestry Museum contributes to consolidate the character of the square as qualified public space, in the urban tissue of Arraiolos.

The existent building congregates a diversity of interventions and transformations registered along its history. Some of its features needed to be preserved and integrated in the rehabilitation process. The project is based on the adaptation of a contemporary architectural language to the existent building, in order to guarantee a consistent exhibition path explaining the process of making Arraiolos’ Tapestries and their history.

The rehabilitation process was developed in compliance with functional programme requirements and technology demands. The programme is organised according to a central axis which contains the access and distribution areas. The central distribution space establishes the connection between the three main public areas of the building (temporary exhibition/multipurpose room on the ground floor; exhibition area on the first floor and education services on the ground floor).

This space is considered the core of the Tapestry Museum. The architectonic features of the space rely on its double-height and vaulted ceiling. The existence of window-like openings and passages allows a diversity of visual connections through the core to the surrounding areas.

In the ground floor of the building, the vaulted ceilings were preserved. In the multipurpose room the structural system was remade with metallic beams, according to a contemporary architectonic language.

The intervention in the first-floor ceilings was more comprehensive. All the roof area was replaced by a set of ceilings shaped as “inverted funnels” with a skylight on the top. The structure of the roof was maintained only in one room, characterised by a sequence of wood trusses topped by a long skylight.

There’s a new light over the old Espírito Santo Hospital, coming from the new Tapestry Museum, a building that enhances the cultural life of Arraiolos.

Location: Lima e Brito Square, Arraiolos, Portugal
Architecture: CVDB Arquitectos – Cristina Veríssimo and Diogo Burnay with Tiago Filipe Santos
Design team: Joana Barrelas, Rodolfo Reis, Ariadna Nieto, Ângelo Branquinho, Hugo Nascimento, Inês Carrapiço, José Maria Lavena, Laura Palma e Miguel Travesso.

Structure, foundations and services: AFA Consult
Landscape: F&C Arquitectura Paisagista
Rehabilitation consultant: Prof. Arq. José Aguiar
Client: Câmara Municipal de Arraiolos
Total cost: €1.000.000,00
Gross area: 1.200,00 sqm

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features marble walls and vaulted ceilings appeared first on Dezeen.