Hasta La Ideas

London studio AY Architects has constructed a small wooden nursery in a public garden in Camden. Scroll down to see a pair of cute axonometric drawings (+ slideshow).

The Montpelier Community Nursery provides affordable day care for children between the ages of two and five, so AY Architects had to design a building that would be inexpensive to both build and run.

The architects designed three large skylights to maximise natural lighting, then angled them across the roof to a north and south orientation.

“The building is more or less located on the footprint of the previous nursery building in order to not disturb the existing beautiful garden,” architect Yeoryia Manolopoulou told Dezeen. “We then decided to sculpt the roof diagonally so that we could get better daylight.”

The building has an all-timber construction, with slender columns both inside and outside. White-washed timber panels were used to build the walls and roof, while the exterior is clad with black-stained larch decking.

Floor-to ceiling windows stretch along the north-west elevation to allow the playroom to open out to an enclosed garden playground. There’s also a projecting canopy to permit sheltered outdoor activities.

“The design of the new building takes its inspiration from the unique setting within the public gardens,” say the architects. “Indoor-outdoor play is central to the design concept and the garden environment is considered central to the children’s learning experience.”

A layer of sedum gives the building a green roof.

The nursery was one of 52 winners of this year’s RIBA Awards, alongside a faceted auditorium and a shimmering seaside gallery.

Other kindergartens featured on Dezeen include one under construction in Vietnam that will have a vegetable garden on its roof. See more kindergartens on Dezeen.

Photography is by Nick Kane.

Here’s a project description from AY Architects:

Montpelier Community Nursery by AY Architects

Tucked away within Montpelier Gardens in Kentish Town London and surrounded by the rear of terrace houses, the new building is planned around a central flexible playspace that generously opens out to a garden of mature trees. Indoor-outdoor play, children’s learning through nature, the experience of a wonderful bright and airy space, and the architects’ continual engagement with parents, staff, children and the local community are central to the success of this project.

The nursery is a registered charity and voluntary organisation, providing the most affordable childcare for 2-5 yrs old available in Camden. Its size and low-budget limits did not prevent the architects from creating an imaginative and highly poetic space.

The nursery had been operating from a dilapidated and unsafe portakabin with a lifespan of only 15 years, originally built in 1983. AY Architects initiated a proposal for its demolition and replacement with a new building in an effort to secure affordable childcare and a sustainable building for the community for the long term. They worked closely with the neighborhood in their mutiple roles as local architects, former parents, trustees and voluntary members of the nursery’s management team. In January 2009 they coordinated a successful application for a Capital Grant which would cover the project’s costs and pursuaded London Borough Camden to give full support to their initiative.

The brief was for a larger and environmental friendly facility that could provide an increase from 18 to 24 nursery places. The footprint increased from 90 to 130m2.

The design of the new building takes its inspiration from the unique setting within the public gardens. It is planned around a large flexible playspace that generously opens out to the external green space distinguished by a concentration of mature trees. Indoor-outdoor play is central to the design concept and the garden environment is considered central to the children’s learning experience.

The superstructure is made up of cross-laminated timber panels with an exposed internal white wash finish. The exterior of the building is clad with ebony-stained fsc siberian larch decking to give the building a robust skin. The dark exterior allows the building to sit contently within the park and amongst the trees trunks.

A series of glue-laminated timber columns echoes the verticallity of the surrounding trees while the roof is designed to maximise daylight and allow natural ventilation. Three strip windows with north-south orientation span the plan diagonally. The orientation of the openings welcomes the sun to enter the building when it is low to take advantage of solar gain in colder months, while large overhangs block out the sun when it is hot to prevent overheating. The larger north-facing roof window brings in an abundance of daylight and facilitates cross ventilation.

The south wall of the main playspace includes a large window and shutter looking directly onto the public gardens, and also offers a slender low bench to be used by the neighbours. In this way the nursery gains a greater level of interaction with the community, contributing to a safer and more enjoyable green space.

The nursery is designed as an energy efficient building in operation and low carbon in construction. A mixed sedum blanket forms the roof finish, contributing to local biodiversity and water retention.

The building recently won an RIBA London Regional Award 2013 and an RIBA National Award 2013. It is listed among 52 buildings across the UK and Europe, competing for further special RIBA awards, including the Stephen Lawrence Prize and the Stirling Prize. It is one of 13 buildings in London competing for these awards.

Funding award: Early Years Capital Grant £476,000
Project Budget: £476,000
Area: 136m2 internal gross
Architects: AY Architects
Structural engineer: Price & Myers
Low carbon consulting engineers: King Shaw Associates
Main contractor: Forest Gate Construction Ltd
Timber subcontractor: KLH UK

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by AY Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

News: London firm Allford Hall Monaghan Morris has applied for planning permission to construct a 27-hectare headquarters for Google in London’s King’s Cross.

The new UK headquarters will consolidate Google‘s London operations into a single building, replacing existing offices in Covent Garden and Victoria with an 11-storey structure that stretches 330 metres from Regent’s Canal towards King’s Cross Station.

AHMM‘s designs feature a steel-framed structure with cross-laminated timber panels. Bold primary colours will be picked out on the exposed steel members, intended to reference the painted metalwork of the neighbouring railway stations.

AHMM director Simon Allford commented: “This building is underpinned by cutting edge design intelligence and technologies to provide a sophisticated twenty-first century working environment for Google’s staff.”

“The architectural approach, which has taken inspiration from King’s Cross and St Pancras International railway stations, complements the local area’s strong industrial heritage and will be a building London can be proud of.”

Construction will start early next year and the building is set to complete in 2017. Shops, cafes and restaurants will occupy the ground floor and the rooftop is set to be a garden.

Google’s current office in Covent Garden was designed by PENSON and features Union Jack flags and vegetables allotments, while the Victoria headquarters by Scott Brownrigg contains dodgem cars, red telephone boxes and beach huts.

Other Google offices we’ve featured include Google Tokyo, with references to traditional Japanese culture, and Google Tel Aviv, with a make-believe beach and slides. The company is also working on a 100,000-square-metre campus for California. See more stories about Google.

London firm AHMM is led by Simon Allford, Jonathan Hall, Paul Monaghan and Peter Morris. Recent projects include a hospice designed to look like an oversized house.

Here’s some extra information from the design team:

Designs for Google’s King’s Cross UK HQ Revealed

Google has today confirmed submission of a Reserved Matters application to Camden Council, with designs for its new £650m UK headquarters. The one million square foot building will make up part of the 67-acre King’s Cross development scheme.

As part of one of the largest urban regeneration schemes in Europe, Google’s building is expected to generate 1,500 construction jobs. Overall, it is estimated by King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership (KCCLP) that the development will have 35,000 people working there once the whole development is complete.

Subject to approval, work will start on the new UK headquarters early in 2014, with completion scheduled for late 2016, through to 2017. The new building will house all London-based Google staff, who will relocate from current premises in Victoria and Holborn.

Google has long-held aspirations to house all London-based staff under one roof. King’s Cross, a rapidly-transforming area of London with incredible potential for growth and employment, was identified as an ideal place to locate the office, the first purpose-built headquarters built by Google anywhere in the world.

The exceptional transport connections, allowing easy access within London and the UK, as well as areas of Europe, were another attraction, and it is hoped that these will help establish the area as a new hub for technology, media and telecoms companies.

Google acquired the long lease of the 2.4 acre site from KCCLP, who are making the Reserved Matters application on Google’s behalf.

Commenting on Google’s decision to build their UK headquarters at King’s Cross, Dan Cobley, Google UK’s Managing Director said: “Building our new headquarters in King’s Cross is good for Google and good for London. We’re committed to the UK and to playing a role in the regeneration of this historic area.”

The architects, AHMM, has been working on the plans for nearly two years, taking inspiration from the area’s unique industrial heritage.

Commenting on the design, Simon Allford, Director of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, said: “This building is underpinned by cutting edge design intelligence and technologies to provide a sophisticated twenty first century working environment for Google’s staff. The architectural approach, which has taken inspiration from King’s Cross and St Pancras International railway stations, complements the local area’s strong industrial heritage and will be a building London can be proud of.”

The 1,000,000 (gross) sq ft new UK headquarters features 725,000 sq ft of office space and around 50,000 sq ft of retail space at ground level. The building ranges in height from seven storeys at the south end closest to King’s Cross Station to 11 storeys at the northern end overlooking Regent’s Canal.

The building has been designed to meet the highest standards of environmental sustainability, ensuring low energy usage and incorporating state-of-the-art materials. Much of the internal structure will be constructed using steel framing with cross laminated timber panels – a first for a contemporary building of this scale. The aspiration is to achieve BREEAM Outstanding and LEED Platinum ratings and deliver an overall carbon saving of 40%.

The external design of the building pays homage to the broad industrial history of the local area, including steel columns, pre-cast concrete panels and low-iron glass. Bolder colours will be introduced through painted steelwork, taking inspiration from architectural elements nearby, including the metalwork at St Pancras International.

Speaking about the significance of the project, David Partridge, director of Argent (King’s Cross) Ltd. said: “This project is hugely important for King’s Cross and underlines our commitment to support world class design. It will attract further investment into the wider area and act as a catalyst for the local economy and the community which we are building.”

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new London headquarters appeared first on Dezeen.

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London architect Dingle Price has revamped a warehouse in Hackney to create a bright spacious home and studio for a painter and his family.

Dingle Price began by stripping the interior of the old Victorian warehouse where the artist and his wife had already been living for several years. Making use of an existing mezzanine, the architect divided the space in half to create two-storey living quarters on one side and a double-height studio on the other.

“This idea of subdividing the space into equal parts led to a concept of inserting a house within the studio,” Price told Dezeen. “The position of the existing mezzanine decided which half would be which.”

North-facing skylights allow daylight to flood the inside of the studio, where high ceilings offer enough room for several large canvases.

Windows puncture the partition wall so residents can look into the studio from their two upstairs bedrooms.

“It’s quite an internalised world,” said Price. “When you’re in there you don’t really look out. It’s a kind of internal landscape where, instead of looking at a landscape, you’re looking across a sequence of spaces.”

Walls and ceilings are plastered white throughout and there are a mixture of both painted and exposed pine floorboards.

Other artists’ studios to feature on Dezeen include a series of buildings on a Canadian island and a faceted house and studio for an artist in Spain.

Photography is by Ioana Marinescu.

Here’s a project description from Dingle Price:

House for a Painter

Attracted by the large volume and excellent natural light, the artist and his wife lived and worked in this warehouse building in an ad hoc manner for some years, before the arrival of their first child necessitated a more formal inhabitation.

Dingle Price Architects proposed the insertion of a two storey house with a front facade overlooking and animating the studio space which attains the character of a small piazza or garden, a feeling further enhanced by the large landscape paintings in progress.

The design draws on the symmetrical character of the existing building to provide a series of interconnected rooms of varied scale and proportion. The existing interior consisted principally of white plastered walls, and both unfinished and white painted pine floorboards. Rather than introducing new materials, we chose to adopt and extend the use of this palette – staircase and cabinetry are constructed from southern yellow pine planks, and the elevation of the residence if partially clad in painted pine boards of a matching width to the floorboards.

Whilst the residence can be entirely or partially closed off from the studio when necessary, opening the doors and shutters reveals scenic views across the internal landscape.

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Dingle Price Architects appeared first on Dezeen.