Hasta La Ideas

British artist Richard Wentworth has collaborated with Swiss architects GRUPPE to build a pop-up wooden auditorium in the atrium of Central Saint Martins art and design college in London (+ slideshow).

The structure is named Black Maria, after Thomas Edison’s first movie production studio. Built entirely from wood, it was also inspired by both the timber scaffolds historically used in the industrial areas of King’s Cross and the building-site hoardings that surround much of the area today.

A tiered seating area is positioned at the front of the installation and is framed behind a wooden screen, creating what the designers refer to as an “inhabitable billboard”.

Large audiences can surround the structure during open presentations or talks, while more intimate performances can be accommodated by placing screens over the facade and closing off the space from its surroundings.

Two extra entrances are located on the back of the structure. One goes in at ground level, while the other features a grand staircase that leads into the top of the auditorium through an enclosed foyer.

Both GRUPPE and Richard Wentworth emphasise that the installation is also an informal meeeting area, where students can spend time during breaks.

Wentworth explained: “You have to magnetise some venues more than others so that people who feel that they are there ‘by accident’ are mixed with people who have a clear ‘sense of purpose’. This is an obvious condition of metropolitan space.”

Black Maria was installed in the Granary Building of Central Saint Martins this week and will remain in place until 12 March. The school was designed by architects Stanton Williams and is only in its second year of use.

Other recently completed timber installations include a cabin filled with coloured light and smoke and a wooden chamber installed at the Venice Architecture Biennale. See more installations on Dezeen.

Here’s a project description from the design team:

Black Maria by Richard Wentworth and GRUPPE

Black Maria, by Richard Wentworth and Swiss architecture practice GRUPPE, is part of RELAY, a nine-year arts programme that is enlivening the new public spaces at King’s Cross and turning the area into a destination for discovering international contemporary art that a celebrate the area’s heritage and its future. The second commission in the King’s Cross series, Black Maria, is a structure that acts as a place of meeting, based around discussion, performance and moving images.

Launching on 12 February 2013 for an initial 28 days, with the potential to be brought back at a later date, the Black Maria comprises a collection of spatial elements of varying sizes that recall an early film studio of the same name. The structure will be installed in The Crossing, in the Granary Building, the new home of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. The Crossing brings together several departments of the art school, new commercial tenants at the development, a restaurant and the public, which Wentworth and GRUPPE see as the ideal conditions to create a place of exchange.

The emphasis is on flexibility and happenstance, both in terms of the construction’s physicality and in the programming being arranged around it. Black Maria sits at one end of The Crossing, facing the larger part of the hall as a kind of inhabitable billboard with a staircase auditorium behind it. The talks happen “within” the billboard, allowing for different kinds of audience on either side of it: a more intimate audience within the structure; and another potentially much larger audience outside the structure. The billboard makes use of a large door to allow events to be either closed and private, or open to the hall and public. Black Maria recalls the vital but forgotten timber scaffolds used to build King’s Cross’ industrial past, and building site hoardings used today. In a related sense the Black Maria is a support structure for the community activities in the hall today.

Richard, who has lived near King’s Cross since the 1970’s, has witnessed and chronicled the transformation of the area through projects such as ‘An Area of Outstanding Unnatural Beauty’, created for Artangel in 2002. Much like Black Maria, the Artangel work was an experiential one, encouraging visitors to walk into apparently unremarkable shops and alleyways around King’s Cross and see them from a fresh perspective. Black Maria has the potential to transform the somewhat neutral crossroads at the entrance to Central Saint Martins into a destination where people can attend scheduled talks and screenings, but also just find a place to sit, gather, eat lunch and chat.

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and GRUPPE appeared first on Dezeen.

Rounded shingles create wooden scales across the walls of this small house in Hackney that architect Laura Dewe Mathews has built for herself (+ slideshow).

Nicknamed the Gingerbread House by neighbours, the two-storey house sits behind the reconstructed wall of a former Victorian box factory and its tall windows overlap the mismatched brickwork.

“I and the planners were keen to retain something of the original building envelope,” Laura Dewe Mathews told Dezeen. “The pale grey/blue bricks were part of the workshop when I bought it and the clean London stock bricks were infills.”

The architect drew inspiration from decorative vernacular architecture in Russia to design the cedar-shingle facade, then added windows framed by thick galvanised steel surrounds.

“I was keen that the cladding somehow softened the sharp silhouette of the overall, stylised building form and thought the round ‘fancy butts’ might achieve this,” she said. “Contemporary architecture can often be perceived to be severe and alienating and I wanted to avoid that. I hope the balance of the sharp galvanised steel window reveals and cills versus the round singles manages to be more friendly.”

To avoid overlooking neighbouring houses, all windows had to be placed on the north-facing street elevation, so Dewe Mathews also added a large skylight to bring in natural light from above.

A double-height kitchen and dining room sits below this skylight on one side of the house and opens out to a small patio. The adjoining two-storey structure contains a living room on the ground floor, plus a bedroom, bathroom and small study upstairs.

Walls and ceilings are lined with timber panels, while a resin floor runs throughout the house.

The building was the winner of the AJ Small Projects Awards 2013. Also nominated was a wooden folly that cantilevers across a garden lake and a reed-covered tower that functions as a camera obscura.

Scale-like facades have featured in a few buildings over the last year, including a university building in Melbourne and an apartment block in alpine Slovenia.

Photography is by Chloe Dewe Mathews.

Above: the original site

Here’s a project description from Laura Dewe Mathews:

Box House / “Gingerbread House”

This is the first new build project by Laura Dewe Mathews. The motivation for the project was to create a domestic set of spaces with generous proportions and lots of natural light while working with a limited budget.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

The site was originally part of the garden of an early Victorian end of terrace house in Hackney. It was first built on in the 1880s, to provide Mr Alfred Chinn (the then resident of the end of terrace house) with space for his box factory, making wooden boxes for perfume and jewellery.

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

In discovering the history of the site, Laura Dewe Mathews was drawn to assemble yet another box inside the original envelope of the factory.

Above: cross section through kitchen and dining room

The one bed, new-build house was recently completed using a cross-laminated timber super structure, placed inside the existing perimeter brickwork walls and rising up out of them. The timber structure has been left exposed internally. Externally the palette of materials is limited to the original and infill brickwork, round “fancy-butt” western red cedar shingles and galvanised steel flashings, window frames and window reveals. The soft shape of the shingles contrasting with the crisp edges of the galvanized steel.

Above: cross section through living room and bedroom

The form of the proposal was a response to tricky site constraints, common for urban developments in already built up areas. The neighbours’ rights to sunlight, daylight and privacy needed to be respected. Consequently the only elevation that could have any windows was the north facing, pavement fronted elevation. The proposal counters this with large south facing roof-lights; added to this, light is brought into the main living spaces via a new private yard.

Above: front elevation

At 80msq the result is a small yet generously proportioned house. At ground floor level it retains the openness of the original workshop while feeling a sense of separation from the street immediately adjacent.

Above: side elevations

Structural engineer: Tall Engineers
Main contractor: J & C Meadows, now incorporated within IMS Building Solutions

Above: rear elevation

Sub contractor/suppliers:
KLH – cross laminated timber super structure
Stratum – resin flooring
Vincent timber – cedar shingle supplier
The Rooflight Company – roof light supplier
Roy Middleton – bespoke joinery including kitchen
MPM engineering – stainless steel to kitchen

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by Laura Dewe Mathews appeared first on Dezeen.

London studio alma-nac has staggered the floors of this extension to a 2.3 metre-wide terraced house in south London to help bring natural light in through a sloping roof.

The narrow house is located in the former stable access between two properties and suffered from poor natural light due a lack of outward-facing walls.

“With such a narrow and deep plan the existing building was claustrophobic,” alma-nac partner Tristan Wigfall told Dezeen. “The key driver in developing the proposal was ensuring that natural light was able to penetrate deep into the plan to create rooms that felt spacious and light.”

The architects extended the house at the rear, then added a gently sloping roof dotted with skylights to allow natural light to enter rooms on each storey. This addition allows space for a new ground floor dining area, an extra bedroom on the first floor and a study on the second floor.

Floors on the two upper storeys fold up to meet the new roof at a perpendicular angle. “One of the key aspects was cranking the floor plates so that the main rooms, orientated towards the southerly rear of the property, had increased head-heights and improved the outlook to the garden and sky,” said Wigfall.

Storage was a key consideration and the architects have added a new dressing room on the first floor, a loft above the top floor and even a cupboard behind the head of the bed.

Slate tiles clad the walls and roof of the extension. “We liked the idea of the material continuing from the slope of the roof on to the vertical rear facade,” added the architect.

An oak-framed door punctures the slate surface and leads out from the dining area to the garden.

Other recently completed house extensions in London include a house with a wall of books and an orangery with an oak-screened staircase. See more residential extensions on Dezeen.

Photography is by Richard Chivers.

Here’s some more information from alma-nac:

Alma-nac were approached by a young couple in order to investigate the possibilities for extending and enhancing an existing terraced house on the busy high street of St John’s Hill, Clapham, London.

The uniquely narrow property, measuring just 2.3m internally throughout, presented certain challenges in reorganising the spaces. This was coupled with a strict budget within which to work; the property had been re-valued since the original purchase and the bank loan was based on the difference of the increased value.

It is understood that the location of the property was the original stable access to the rear of the high street. The resulting narrow proportions meant that the centre of the house was dark and gloomy. The building was laid out over three floors with cramped bedrooms facing on to the noisy high street and small sash windows of the study and bathroom to the south facing rear. At ground level the entrance lobby doubled up as a dining room and a piecemeal existing rear extension gave limited access to the garden through the kitchen.

The neighbouring property, an art gallery and studio at ground level and apartment above, had extended almost to the full depth of the plot with a terraced rear facade. An immediate response might have been to continue this form with a series of terraces forming the new rear facade. However, the complexity of constructing multiple terraces and roofs meant that this option was deemed prohibitively expensive as well as proving problematic in terms of bringing light into the centre of the plan.

A response to this was to form a continuous slate-clad sloped roof creating a simple and easily understood construction method. This material treatment is continued on the rear facade and reflected in the slate shingle ground cover of the rear garden.

In order to enhance the sense of space within the newly formed rooms the floor plates at each level were cranked, allowing an increased floor to ceiling height and encouraging light to penetrate deep in to the plan. A light-well was formed over the central stair by opening up the ceiling to the sloped roof. This allows natural light to flood deep in to the plan at first and second floor levels and provides a natural stack effect when the rooflights are opened. The brick flank walls are left exposed at the top of the stairwell to convey the original building roof shape.

A key consideration was storage space and every corner of the property has been utilised, from the bed-head with integrated storage, loft space over the top bedroom and compact bathroom layouts. The elongated form of the main bedroom at first floor level allowed for the creation of a dressing room area so that the bedroom space remains uncluttered of furniture. The design of the roof build-up ensured the minimum depth (250mm) in order to maximise the space internally and achieving a high U-value (0.14 W/m2K).

The staggered window pattern on the rear elevation plays with the scale. The rooflights are organised to allow views through to the exterior along the corridor side and to illuminate the top section of the sloped ceiling.

Architect: Alma-nac Collaborative Architecture
Design team: Tristan Wigfall, Alice Aldrin-Schrepfer
Contractor: McGovern Carpentry & Design
Interior Styling: Nina Wigfall Interior Design
Structural Engineer: Train and Kemp
Party Wall Surveyor: John D Shafee & Co
Building Control: NHBC

Above: site plan

Above: exploded axonometric diagram – click for larger image

Above: plans (ground, first, second, roof) – click for larger image and key

Above: long section – click for larger image and key

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by alma-nac appeared first on Dezeen.

London designer Ab Rogers believes this student housing project he recently completed in London could set a blueprint for compact modern living in the city (+ slideshow).

Scape is a housing block for 600 students in London’s East End and contains study bedrooms that are no more than 12.5 square metres in area. Inspired by sleeping quarters in train carriages, the rooms feature space-saving measures such as cupboards that double up as desks and seating in the windows.

Ab Rogers says his vision was to “create a forward-thinking design language for small spaces that would appeal to a young target audience and be able to be reapplied in other environments”.

Corian surfaces give each room a clean white aesthetic, plus each one includes brightly coloured furnishings in one of six vivid shades.

“For the Scape project, we started with the rooms, which are highly engineered pieces of industrial design given a domestic veneer,” said Rogers. “Each is an individual pod, made off site.”

Block colours also aid orientation through the building, as a bright red staircase spirals up from the reception to floors that are each labelled with a different colour.

“The common parts needed to support a complicated social infrastructure for socialising, study and care for hundreds of young people,” added Rogers. “Dynamic integral wayfinding systems and vibrant colour codings knit the buildings’ internal parts together, while the individual rooms offer complete calm for every occupant.”

The accommodation is accompanied by two restaurants; a cafe named The Kitchen and a Pan-Asian restaurant entitled Box Noodle. Students can either dine inside, or order takeaway to eat in their rooms.

The Kitchen (above and below) comprises a busy European-style cafe with bright green chairs and suspended yellow lighting.

Box Noodle (below) features a more minimal interior furnished with long tables, wooden stools and narrow red pendant lights.

Scape welcomed its first occupants in September 2012.

Another student accommodation concept was recently revealed by MEK Architects, whose MySpace housing in Norway was modelled on the concept of a social network. See more stories about student housing.

Photography is by John Short.

Here’s a project description from Ab Rogers Studio.

A rethink of student accommodation by Ab Rogers Design

In September 2012, SCAPE, an innovative rethink of student accommodation, will welcome its first occupants. Two minutes walk from Mile End tube station in East London, its 600 rooms might be small, at 12.5m2, but have been perfectly conceived by Ab Rogers Design. Created for serious study and student socialising, cupboards turn into desks and the bed becomes a bar. Each room has its own compact bathroom and neat fitted kitchen, as well as a window seat that makes the most of all the available light.

Ab Rogers Design was inspired by the railroad couchette, and looked to other examples where space is limited and function is key, such as submarines, yachts and caravans, to come up with a solution that has maximized efficiency and minimized any loss of usable floor or wall area. The result is rooms that are innovative, livable and attractive. Materials include Corian, foil wrapped furniture and woven textiles, and each room has a simple colour scheme, matching white with lemon yellow, turquoise, vermillion, violet, electric blue or spring green.

For the communal areas and the bar, deli and restaurant, ARD has looked to multi-use public places such as museums and galleries and introduced a system of partitions on tracks and grids that allow spaces to be reconfigured to best suit the changing needs of the building. Colourful and flooded with light, it’s hoped that these areas will be at the heart of the community.

There are two affordable, high quality restaurants on site, The Kitchen, which is an all-day deli café, and Box Noodle, which offers a fresh take on Asian-fusion cooking. A state of the art fitness centre will be opening soon, below the main accommodation.

Design: Ab Rogers Design
Architect: Ernesto Bartolini, DA Studios
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Praline Design
CLIENT: Grosvenor House Group PLC
CONTRACTOR: HG Construction

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by Ab Rogers Design appeared first on Dezeen.

London firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has completed NEO Bankside, a set of six-sided apartment blocks beside the Tate Modern art gallery on the edge of the River Thames.

Like the Centre Pompidou and many other buildings designed by studio founder Richard Rogers, the four towers feature external bracing systems that form a steel diagrid across the facades.

These supports carry the weight of each structure, preventing the need for load-bearing walls inside the building and in turn allowing flexible layouts on different floors.

“A key feature is the external bracing, which allows a fantastic amount of flexibility inside the apartments,” explained Graham Stirk. “All the walls internally are non-structural, which means we have been able to open up the floor-to-ceiling space much higher than in a conventional apartment. That has enabled us to maximise daylight and the views.”

The towers range from 12 to 24 storeys in height and all four feature balconies on the north and south elevations.

“The four pavilions make up a family of buildings, a series of four towers of different heights bound by a very strong three-dimensional geometry,” said Stirk.

The exposed steel structure is also intended as a nod to the industrial heritage of the area, which was once home to a large oil-fired power station (now Tate Modern).

Behind the braces, the walls feature a grid of glass and timber panels that are strategically positioned to give floor-to-ceiling windows to the living rooms and bedrooms of the apartments contained inside.

Above: 3D diagram

Glazed lift towers are also placed on the outside of the structure and rise up the west facades. “Everyone can move through generous lobby spaces and enjoy the ride and the river views in the glazed external lifts going up to their apartment. There’s something really quite nice about that,” added Stirk.

Above: concept diagram one – routes north to south

The development provides 217 apartments in total and and is surrounded by gardens and pathways designed by landscape architects Gillespies.

Above: concept diagram two – diagonal views

Richard Rogers Partnership became Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners in 2007 and has since completed the Stirling Prize-winning Maggie’s Centre for cancer care and the Bodegas Protos winery in Peñafiel, Spain.

Above: concept diagram three – elevator locations

Above: typical floor plan

See all our stories about Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners »

Photography is by Edmund Sumner.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

NEO Bankside

NEO Bankside comprises 217 residential units in four hexagonal pavilions ranging from 12 to 24 storeys and a six-storey office block, located next to the Tate Modern, one of the most visited museums in the world.

All the buildings of the scheme take their cues from the immediate context and it is the quality of the entire ensemble – rather than the individual parts – which creates drama.

The overall design hints at the former industrial heritage of the area during the 19th and 20th centuries, responding in a contemporary language which reinterprets the colouration and materials of the local architectural character. The steel and glass pavilions fit perfectly into the Bankside landscape; oxide reds of the Winter Gardens echo those of Tate Modern and nearby Blackfriars Bridge, while the exterior’s timber clad panels and window louvres give the building a warm, residential feeling. The pavilions’ distinctive external bracing system has removed the need for internal structural walls and created highly flexible spaces inside the apartments. The bracing is located outside of the cladding plane allowing it to be expressed as the distinct and legible system which gives the scheme much of its charismatic language. Glazed lift towers provide all occupants great views of London and the river, and a dynamic expression of the vertical circulation on the eastern side of each building. Winter gardens are enclosed, single-glazed balconies at the north and south ends of each building, suspended from the main structure on a lightweight deck with large sliding screens. They act both as enclosed terraces and additions to the interior living space.

A generous public realm is also created at ground level with landscaped groves defining two clear public routes through the site connecting the riverside gardens outside Tate Modern through to Southwark Street. The permeability through the site was a key driver of the design and the imaginative arrangement of the pavilions provides residents with generous accommodation and maximum daylight.

Landscape designers Gillespies has created a series of richly-detailed garden spaces around the footprint of the apartment pavilions. The final landscape features soft planting inspired by native woodlands, balancing beautifully with the contemporary lines of the buildings. Unusually in the heart of a city, the outdoor spaces offer NEO Bankside’s residents opportunities to engage with nature, and create a new micro-ecological environment in this established urban setting. The elegant and peaceful landscaped gardens integrate NEO Bankside with the neighbouring Tate Modern and its surroundings, and provide public access during the day as well as a secure, private environment for residents to enjoy.

Gillespies’ landscape design was developed to provide optimum private residents’ gardens, while separating them distinctly from the public routes. An innovative landscape strategy was introduced from the outset to define the threshold between private and publically-accessible spaces. This definition has been achieved through the use of richly-planted berms, pebble-lined moats, stone-lined cuttings and narrow walkways that combine to create a strong sense of identity for the site. The long planted berms are a recurring signature that channel north/ south movement and act as a threshold between private and public space, dissected by a network of residents’ pathways. The berms also complement Tate Modern’s landscape, binding this site into its wider context.

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Harbour + Partners appeared first on Dezeen.