Hasta La Ideas

by Dora Haller When a navy blue Aston Martin with a cream-caramel interior stopped in front of Heritage-Paris’ atelier, founder and owner Cyril Saulnier figured the driver must be lost. Turned out it was a…

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Projet de plus de 6 mois, le français Nairone a réalisé une illustration sur un mur pour le studio de création français Hellohikimori. Un travail d’une grande précision et d’une belle qualité, magnifié dans une vidéo réalisée par Valentin Petit. Un rendu réussi à découvrir sur Fubiz dans la suite de l’article.

The facades of well-known buildings in Paris, New York and Brisbane have been reduced to a series of patterned surfaces and silhouettes in this series of images by French photographer Alexander Jacques (+ slideshow).

Jacques’ Architectural Pattern series captures the exteriors of buildings without any surrounding context, transforming them into abstract surfaces that the author says can offer new perspectives on what many perceive as ordinary.

“We spend all day walking past these buildings without raising our heads to glance at them,” explained Jacques. “They are part of our daily lives, but we do not pay attention to them or we just think they’re plain ugly.”

The collection of 25 images is documented on Jacques’s website and includes buildings by celebrated architects and firms such as Renzo Piano, SOM, Johann Otto von Spreckelsen and Kisho Kurokawa.

The photographer came up with the idea during a visit to New York, after taking a picture of a brick building in Soho. “When I returned to NYC for the second time, at the end of my studies, I had a higher sensitivity to graphics.”

“I was more interested in the buildings than the rest of New York folklore. I saw lines and patterns everywhere. It was amazing. I spent whole days looking to the sky,” he explained.

Other images from this city include a close-up of the Mc-Graw Hill Building at the Rockefeller Centre, which looks more like a piece of woven fabric than an office building.

“Sometimes I am surprised how a facade that I see with my eyes can make a picture. First we forget that it is a building, then the lines and perspective transform everything. In the end we only see the pattern,” said Jacques.

In Paris, Johann Otto von Spreckelsen’s Grande Arche becomes a series of gold and blue diamond-shaped boxes, while the pod-like rooms of the Tour Novotel are transformed into a series of neatly arranged poppies, broken up by lines of silver.

The gentle flowing lines of Jean-Paul Viguier‘s Coeur Defense, Europe’s biggest building by floor space, are shown as squares and rectangles changing from shades of royal and sky blue, to white and teal.

Jacques hopes to continue the series by visiting more cities, including Hong Kong, Shanghai and Dubai. Prints of the photographs are available to buy via the website.

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A seven-storey block of flats by Guérin & Pedroza Architects is the latest addition to a project transforming the site of a nineteenth century fort outside Paris into a new residential district (+ slideshow).

The Issy-les-Moulineaux fort was one of 16 built around the French capital between 1841 and 1845 that played a part in protecting the city from Prussian invasion. It became wasteland after it was decommissioned and was bought from the Ministry of Defence by the local government in 2010.

Public facilities were built, including fitness trails, a swimming pool and a bowling pitch for future occupants, and further plots sold on to a series of developers.

Parisian firm Guérin & Pedroza‘s contribution, situated in the northern part of the fort with views over eastern Paris, is one of four blocks built by developer Bouygues Immoblier as part of the project.

The shape of the block respects the original outline specified by over-arching masterplanners Architecture Studio.

It contains 74 flats, ranging from studios to five bedroom homes, arranged along central corridors. Rather than create uniform volumes, the architects made each flat unique by hollowing out or filling in the facades to create balconies, loggias and terraces.

Each intervention is clad in a gold material to make it stand out further.

Hot water and heating is provided using geothermal energy provided by a 700-metre-deep well and heat pumps, and waste collection is also handled underground with a pneumatic removal system.

Photography is by Paul Kozlowski.

More from the architect:

Project description 

A contemporary history

During the period of the Prussian invasions, the politician Adolphe Thiers erected defensive walls around Paris named after him. Between 1841 and 1845, 16 forts were built around the city. One after the other, they lost their military status. Among these military wastelands, the Issy-les-Moulineaux fort, known today as the “Digital fort”, an eco-district project carried out notably by Bouygues Immobilier. This grouping gathers 18 blocks of residential flats, a day nursery and two school complexes.

Concerning leisure, the curtains have been recycled into two-kilometre-long fitness trails; a swimming pool and a bowling pitch have also been created. If the programme has somehow been thought as a garden of Eden, the developers have meant to give digital touch with a systematic optical fibre cabling of the buildings and home automation.

An ellipse to fill in

Within this multi-authors programme, the building lies within a wider urban project with various authors. The general plan of the fort and of thus the shape of the blocks was designed by the French team of Architecture Studio which won the 2000 competition. Guerin & Pedroza chose to respect that shape while giving it a strong identity. The seven-storey building has 74 flats —from studio to five-bedroom— arranged along central corridors. The bigger ones are duplexes.

The situation of the villa in the northern part of the fort, along a north/south axis, offers a special view on the east of Paris and opens widely to the south on orchard. Each flat is made specific by hollowing out or filling in the façades. Thus, the orientations either follow the original geometry of the building or that of new the openings.

A precious and useful touch

A series of polymorphous inclusions make the regularity of the general plan more dynamic. A bright golden cladding adds value to those spaces carved into the white volume. It stages the balconies, loggias and terraces where the inhabitants will enjoy the outer living areas. At sunrise and sunset, lights and reflections will be enhanced for the pleasure of the users.

About environment

Four hectares out of twelve are dedicated to green spaces and most notably an orchard that counts 350 trees spread around the villas. Concerning sustainable development, two 700-metre-deep geothermal wells have been set and cover 78% of the production of hot water and heating needed for the whole fort. A pneumatic waste collection system gathers all the rubbish into two spots at the entrance of the fort, thus avoiding trucks within the site. Besides, all the flats located on the ground floor enjoy a private garden.

Technical details

Programme: 74 low-energy flats (studio to 5-bedroom)
Location: Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine, France)
Client: Bouygues Immobilier
Architects: Guérin & Pedroza Architects
Collaborators: F.Mouly and S. Videment
Builder: Bouygues Bâtiment
Total surface area: 4016m2
Material used: Concrete structure, aluminium clapboard cladding, thermo-lacquered aluminium railing, thin coating over external wall insulation, and white PVC exterior window and door frames.
Cost: 7,23 millions euros off tax

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News: work is nearing completion on an upgraded first floor for the Eiffel Tower that will offer visitors the opportunity to walk over a glass floor or host events and conferences 57 metres above the ground.

The first floor is currently the most spacious but least visited storey of the iconic Parisian structure, but this reconstruction by French studio Moatti-Rivière Architects – the first in 30 years – is set to transform it into an attractive destination filled with restaurants, shops and event spaces.

The architects conceived the 5000-square-metre floor as “a real urban space with its streets, its buildings and its central space, 57 metres above ground”, and are replacing existing pavilions with a series of new self-contained structures boasting modern facilities and impressive views.

An educational pathway will reveal the history of the building, while a glass floor will wrap the outside of the towers’s central opening to offer visitors a vertiginous experience.

The reconstruction will enable disabled access, which before now has been severely restricted. It also introduces sustainable technologies, such as solar power, rainwater harvesting and wind power and low-energy LED lighting.

Here’s a project description from Moatti-Rivière Architects:

The Eiffel Tower’s 1st floor is going to have a face-lift

New buildings and entirely redeveloped public spaces to make the Tower’s 1st floor once again one of Paris’ most spectacular and attractive locations, 57 meters above the city

Since the last transformation of the 1st floor 30 years ago, the Tower has welcomed more visitors than during its first century of existence! The pavilions and public spaces of the 1980s are obsolete and not adapted to the number of visitors, the visitors’ expectations and technical standards.

The floor reorganisation project includes: rebuilding the reception and conference rooms to turn it into one of Paris’ most attractive event spaces; rebuilding the pavilion dedicated to visitor services, particularly restaurants and shops; creating an entertaining and educational museographic path; and finally, creating two spectacular attractions: discovering space on the monument and its esplanade thanks to glass flooring and balustrades and an “immersion” film promising strong emotions.

Important goals linked to the sustainable development policy implemented at the Eiffel Tower: accessibility and reducing its carbon footprint.

Today, disabled people are unable to access most of the 1st floor of the Tower. With this reorganisation all visitors, regardless of their disability, will be able to enjoy the whole space and all its services and contents.

New building standards, solar energy for heating, wind energy, hydraulic energy, rainwater recovery, LED lighting: various techniques will be implemented to help improve the Tower’s energy performance.

An “influenced” architecture, designed entirely in diagonals and transparency by the architects Moatti-Rivière, providing an improved experience of the Tower and Paris and respect for the monument and its history.

The new pavilions are influenced by the pillars designed by Gustave Eiffel. They hug the Tower’s slant. The volumes are incorporated in the depths and curves of the pillars. Service areas are placed next to the gables to preserve the central transparency.

The floor is designed as a real urban space with its streets, its buildings and its central space, 57 meters above ground. It gives a close view of the city and of the Tower itself. It is a knowledge space where the inside of the “Tower object” can be explored.

The project offers an improved experience of the Tower and Paris, an entertaining sensory experience, a journey of the senses and knowledge.

The redevelopment has been designed and carried out by the architects Moatti-Rivière architects, in consortium with Bateg for the construction. The latter won the design-construction contract in October 2010.

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nears completion appeared first on Dezeen.