Hasta La Ideas

Now accepting submissions through 1 April 2014, social media (and more) service Google+ renews their Saatchi Gallery partnership with a competition embracing moving photography. Google+ just unveiled Motion, a…

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The floors of this open-plan apartment in London by local studio Form Design Architecture are covered with timber boards salvaged from an old Welsh chapel (+ slideshow).

Named Bermondsey Warehouse Loft, the residence is located within an industrial building that was once used as a tin and zinc factory, but now houses offices and apartments.

Form Design Architecture, whose own offices are located on the building’s ground floor, was originally asked to make minor alterations to the apartment, but ended up refitting the entire space and creating a living space based on a New York loft-conversion.

As well as the pine floorboards, the interior features exposed brick walls that have been painted white.

“Having previously lived in New York, [the client] was keen for the apartment to feel more like a warehouse loft reflecting the industrial character and scale of the space,” said architect Mike Neale.

Existing partitions were removed and the space was loosely divided into different areas for sleeping, exercising, eating, relaxing and working, each with adjustable lighting.

An island of cupboards and surfaces forms the kitchen, while a sleeping area is concealed behind a sliding door.

“The client is actually someone who likes things to be quite organised, and we spent quite a lot of time with him to really work out how he would use the space, without actually physically dividing it up,” Neale told Dezeen. “Perhaps ‘zones without walls’ would describe it.”

“Obviously some of these elements are fixed, like the kitchen and the long desk across the end, but the remainder is intended to be flexible and adaptable,” Neale added.

Photography is by Charles Hosea, unless otherwise stated.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Bermondsey warehouse loft

Fully reconfigured open-plan loft apartment within a converted warehouse with flexible zones for dining, relaxing and exercise plus washing/dressing/utility spaces concealed within a ‘floating’ white acrylic solid surface-clad block.

Our client initially approached us to carry out some minor alterations to his apartment to better meet his needs. In discussion with him, the conclusion was reached that, having already had the apartment refitted once which did not work for him, the existing fit-out should be completely stripped out and a more radical approach adopted.

Detailed discussions established how the client wanted to use the space and identified elements of the original fit-out that were not needed, such as a second bedroom and bathroom, allowing a more relaxed, flexible live/work environment tailored specifically to his requirements.

Having previously lived in New York, he was keen for the apartment to feel more like a warehouse loft reflecting the industrial character and scale of the space, which the previous 2 fit-outs had lost beneath raised floors, lowered ceilings and partition walls.

Storage, bathroom and utility functions are contained within a sharply-detailed block which appears to be ‘parked’ in the corner of the now fully revealed 17m x 6m Loft. A similarly detailed linear counter block, supplemented by the adjacent fridge/freezer and ‘coffee larder’ concealed in the end of the main block, provides the cooking area.

Our client says that he sometimes wakes up in the morning and still cannot quite believe that he is living in his ideal apartment. On Open House weekend, having initially intended to go out for the day, he delighted so much in the reactions of visitors upon entering that he found himself enthusiastically explaining the apartment’s features.

With the exception of the unfinished Pitch Pine plank floor (not actually original, having been salvaged from a Welsh Chapel, but the type of flooring that the warehouse would originally have had), all surfaces and fittings including exposed brickwork are finished in white; the crisp machine-made quality of the HiMacs solid acrylic finished kitchen and service blocks setting them apart from the more hand-made and time-weathered surface textures of the original Industrial building.

Surface finishes within the service block are all in dark grey, accenting the idea of a fruit or jewel-case-like object with a smooth exterior skin contrasting with a darker, more sensual core. Removal of previous sub-divisions allows shafts of sunlight from the newly-exposed windows in the South and West walls to animate the space to supplement the softer light from the almost fully glazed North wall which faces the courtyard of the building.

At one end of the open Loft, a concealed sliding wall allows the sleeping area to be fully enclosed if required. At the other, a full width desk and shelf, also finished in white HiMacs, provide a work area for the photographer owner. The problem of trailing cables is removed by a continuous cable tray along the back of the desk, covered by lift up flaps.

Programmable latest-technology low energy LED lighting from Zumtobel and AlphaLED, controlled by a Lutron system, allows different settings for a range of activities (work / gym / cleaning / watching TV) at the touch of a button.

Project Team: Malcolm Crayton (director, FORM design architecture), Mike Neale (project architect, FORM design architecture)

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with floorboards salvaged from a chapel appeared first on Dezeen.

by Eva Glettner To view Lisa Swerling’s “Glass Cathedrals” for the first time is a magical and powerful experience. Perhaps it’s the dimensions that grab you, or how the real and the surreal blend together, or the…

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Irish architects O’Donnell + Tuomey mapped sight lines along the narrow streets of the London School of Economics campus to generate the faceted red brick structure of the university‘s new student centre (+ slideshow).

The Saw Swee Hock Student Centre consolidates all of the university’s student facilities under one roof at the LSE‘s historic Aldwych campus. Designed by architects Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey, the seven-storey-high building has an irregular faceted shape informed by the angular geometries of its site and surroundings.

Walls angle inwards along the eastern facade to give the centre a recessed public entrance that lines up with approaching streets to the north, south and east.

“The public space at the threshold of the student union, on axis with St Clement’s Lane, creates a place of exchange; a spatial bowtie that intertwines circulation routes, splices visual connections between internal and external movement, and pulls pedestrian street life into and up the building,” said the architects.

“Like a Japanese puzzle, our design is carefully assembled to make one coherent volume from a complex set of interdependent component parts,” they added.

Red brick was used to construct the walls of the building using a typical flemish bond. In some places the material forms solid walls, while in others it creates perforated screens across windows.

“The perforated planes are constructed from a single leaf of brickwork with spaces in the flemish bond pattern to allow light to both infiltrate the interior spaces and filtrate out at night to create a pattern effect,” said the architects.

Spaces within the building accommodate a variety of functions, including an events venue, a bar, a cafe, a gym and dance studios. There are also prayer rooms, offices and multimedia facilities.

Designed to resemble a “lived-in warehouse”, the building has an exposed structure that combines steel columns and trusses with concrete floor slabs.

Floor plates differ in shape and size on different floors. Angular stairwells are positioned at three corners of the building, while a spiral staircase is positioned near the entrance.

“Space flows freely in horizontal plan and vertical section, with stairs gently twisting and slowly turning to create a variety of diagonal break-out spaces at landings and crossings throughout the building,” said the architects.

An assortment of windows and skylights ensure that each corridor receives daylight, and an events hall in the basement can be naturally lit though a row of clerestory windows.

The building will open next month, but its surrounding landscaping is not set to be finished until the summer.

Photography is by Dennis Gilbert/VIEW.

Here’s a project description from O’Donnell+Tuomey Architects:

Saw Swee Hock Student Centre, London School of Economics

Client Brief

The brief was to bring student facilities together under one roof. The multi-functional building includes a venue, pub, learning café, media, prayer, offices, gym, careers, dance studio and social spaces. The brief asked for the “best student building in the UK” and had the aspiration for BREEAM Excellent rating. The design achieved BREEAM Outstanding.

Planning Constraints

The site lies within the Strand Conservation Area. The context was complex and the site was restricted by surrounding building lines. Specifications were closely monitored by Westminster planners, who supported the ambition for a contemporary design integrated with its setting. Throughout the building process, the planners maintained a commitment to the enduring quality of carefully crafted construction.

Street Life

The site is located at the knuckle-point convergence of narrow streets that characterise the LSE city centre campus. The faceted facade operates with respect to the Rights of Light Envelope and is tailored to lines of sight, to be viewed from street corner perspectives and to make visual connections between internal and external circulation. The brick skin is cut along fold lines to form large areas of glazing, framing views. Analysis of the context has influenced the first principles of a site specific architectural design.

Embodiment

The building is designed to embody the dynamic character of a contemporary Student Centre. The complex geometries of the site provided a starting point for a lively arrangement of irregular floor plates, each particular to its function. Space flows freely in plan and section, with stairs turning to create meeting places at every level.

Construction, Colour and Atmosphere

London is a city of bricks. The building is clad with bricks, with each brick offset from the next in an open work pattern, creating dappled daylight inside and glowing like a lattice lantern at night.

The building has the robust adaptability of a lived-in warehouse, with solid wooden floors underfoot. The structure is a combination of reinforced concrete and steelwork. Steel trusses or ribbed concrete slabs span the big spaces. Circular steel columns prop office floors between the large span volumes and punctuate the open floor plan of the café. Concrete ceilings contribute thermal mass with acoustic clouds suspended to soften the sound.

There are no closed-in corridors. Every hallway has daylight and views in at least one direction. Every office workspace has views to the outside world. The basement venue is daylit from clerestory windows.

Inclusive Design

The building is designed with accessibility and inclusive design as key considerations. Approaches are step free. Floor plates are flat without steps. Circulation routes are open and legible with clearly identifiable way-finding. Services are located at consistent locations. The central wide stair was carefully designed to comply with standards and details agreed with the approved inspector.

Architect: O’Donnell+Tuomey Architects
Executive Architect: O’Donnell+Tuomey Architects
Structural Engineer: Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners/Horganlynch Consulting Engineers

Services + Environmental Engineer: BDSP
Security / Fire / Acoustics / Transport & Logistics / Venue: Arup
Catering: Tricon Foodservice Consultants
Access:David Bonnett Associates
Archaeology: Gifford
Project Manager: Turner & Townsend

Quantity Surveyor: Northcroft
Planning Consultant: Turley Associates
Party Wall Consultant: Anstey Horne
Building Control Consultant: Carillion
CDM Coordinator: Gardiner & Theobald
Main Contractor (D&B): Geoffrey Osborne Limited

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student centre at London School of Economics appeared first on Dezeen.

London studio Hayhurst and Co. used pale white larch to wrap walls and furnishings both inside and outside this beach house-inspired extension to a family residence in Hampstead, north London.

Hayhurst & Co. added the two-storey extension to the rear of a four-storey Victorian property that had previously been converted into a pair of maisonettes. Named Hampstead Beach House, it replaces an older brickwork extension to provide extra rooms for the downstairs residence.

“Our clients wanted to reconfigure their home over the ground and first floors of the property to enable a better use of space for them and their young children,” explained architect Nick Hayhurst.

The white-stained larch cladding covers the garden-facing elevation of the new structure. Window shutters are fronted with the same material, allowing them to camouflage with the wall, and a pair of large glass doors open the interior out to the garden.

A large family kitchen and dining room takes up the ground floor of the extension and features a tiled concrete floor that extends beyond the exterior wall to create a new patio in the garden.

Hayhurst describes this feature as “a rug” that “pulls the organisation of the internal and external areas together”.

This concept is reinforced by the addition of larch benches and planters along the edge of the garden, which form a continuation of the larch-fronted cupboards that run along the edge of the kitchen.

A new double-height study was slotted into a space in the central section of the house. Lined internally with plywood, it benefits from a skylight overhead and can be closed off from the kitchen to provide a private workspace.

New spaces on the first floor allowed the addition of a second bathroom and an extra bedroom.

Photography is by Kilian O’Sullivan.

Here’s a project description from Hayhurst and Co:

Hampstead Beach House

Hayhurst and Co. have extended and reorganised a house in north London to create a series of bright, well-connected spaces with new windows and light natural material finishes.

For the design and reconfiguration of this ground and first floor property in Hampstead, north London, Hayhurst and Co. started with the placement of a clear, clutter-free new space in the centre of the plan; like a rug in the middle of a room around which furniture and activities are organised. This rug – the tiled surface – extends to the outside and pulls the organisation of the internal and external areas together.

A white-stained larch cladding wraps around the inside and outside of the spaces to form seats, planting beds, storage areas and the kitchen units similar to the way that furniture is arranged around the perimeter of the rug in a traditional cellular room. The cladding extends to form the rear elevation of the extension and includes openings for windows with larch-clad shutters.

The reconfigured maisonette created a new kitchen, dining area, space for an armchair and has a ply-lined study in the middle of the plan lit from a skylight that can be closed off from the rest of the living areas to provide a private workspace.

Originally built as a single Victorian house, this four-storey property just south of Hampstead Heath had been converted into a pair of two-storey maisonettes in the 1970s and the lower floors extended to create extra space. These extensions created a series of dark, cellular spaces with little sense of fluidity between the existing rooms or connection to the garden.

Our clients wanted to reconfigure their home over the ground and first floors of the property to enable a better use of space for them and their young children. This involved creating a new, family-size kitchen to the ground floor with a direct relationship to the garden and rearranging the first floor spaces to provide a second bathroom and guest bedroom.

The property is located within a conservation area in the London Borough of Camden and is a typical example of Victorian terrace housing where the street frontage has retained its original character whilst the rear of the properties have undergone extension, alteration and adaption over time to suit the individual needs and demands of their occupants.

Our alterations to the property provided only 7m2 of new floor area – infilling the remaining return to the ground floor – but allowed the rear of the property to be opened up into a practical, full-width space without any significant loss to the rear garden. The alterations also included a separate study and created an additional bedroom to the first floor.

Architect: Hayhust and Co.
Structural Engineer: Iain Wright Associates
Contractor: Square Foot Solutions

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extension to London residence appeared first on Dezeen.