Bangkok architects all(zone) rearranged the forms found in typical standardised housing to create this family home in the Thai capital (+ slideshow).
The house is located in a middle class suburb of Bangkok and all(zone) based the design on the aesthetic favoured by local property developers.
A pitched roof motif unites the house with the adjoining garage and also appears inside, where it can be seen in the hallway of the upper storey.
Rectangular apertures punctuate the facade and the complex arrangement of internal walls, allowing light and views to permeate throughout the building.
“The superimposing system of walls works together with various positioned openings to slice and light the space of the house into several layers,” said the architects.
Pale render is used on the external and internal walls, while dark wood flooring and details create a contrast inside.
The house is located in a typical middle-class suburb of Bangkok where most of the residences are made by real estate developer’s housing standard system. It, then, borrows and recomposes the most standard elements into a new language, yet remains assimilated to the context – an extra-ordinary. The superimposing system of walls works together with various positioned openings to slice and light the space of the house into several layers.
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Project data Type: a single house Location: Ramkamheng 118 Road, Bangkok Total area: 550 sq.m. Owner: Mingmitpattanakul’s Family Architect: allzone, co.,ltd. Project team: Rachaporn Choochuey, Sorawit Klaimark, Namkhang Anomarisi, Tharit Tossanaitada Engineer: CM One co.,ltd. Contractor: Sittanant Co.,Ltd. Photographs: Piyawut Srisakul
Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza has extended a house he completed 25 years ago in Madrid by adding a boxy white studio in the garden.
First completed in 1988, Turégano House was designed by Alberto Campo Baeza as the home for graphic designer Roberto Turégano and his partner, actress Alicia Sánchez.
The couple requested the addition of a small garden studio to serve as a workplace for Turégano.
Campo Baeza’s concept for the main house had been to create a simple white cube, so for the extension he decided to create a volume that appears to be an exact quarter of the existing structure.
“Next to the ‘cubic white cabin’ we built a little white box,” he explained.
Glazing is positioned at the two ends of the building, offering residents a view right through, while the two long elevations are left as austere white surfaces.
To strengthen this relationship with the house, the architect installed an identical stone floor inside the studio. “Thus the two pieces are in complete harmony,” he added.
The final addition to the space is a circular skylight, intended as a counterpoint to the strict rectilinear arrangement maintained elsewhere.
Here’s a project description from Alberto Campo Baeza:
Little White Box
Next to the “cubic white cabin” we built a little white box.
Some time ago I wrote a text entitled “Boxes, little boxes, big boxes”. And my first box-project that I created and built was Turégano House, in Pozuelo-Madrid, almost 25 years ago. A white cube measuring 10x10x10 metres: a “cubic white cabin”.
So now to celebrate the event after all these years Roberto Turégano y Alicia Sánchez, who are now more friends than clients, have asked me to build this new piece. Alicia Sánchez is one of the leading actresses of the Spanish stage and Roberto Turégano one of our foremost graphic designers. And this little piece will be his studio at the foot of his house.
The result is very simple: a little box measuring 10x5x3 metres, as if it were a quarter of that cube. The new piece is in line with the existing one in its external walls and the use of the same stone floor ensures continuity with the house inside and outside. Thus the two pieces are in complete harmony. The short external walls of the new white box are entirely open, transparent and continuous. A large circular skylight in the ceiling is the counterpoint to this spatial arrangement.
Partitions that don’t reach the ceiling create the illusion of a larger space in this renovated flat in Japan by Naruse Inokuma Architects (+ slideshow).
Naruse Inokuma Architects completed the single-storey renovation in an older building and retained the existing ceiling beams, painting sections of the ceilings in five subtly different pale colours.
The arrangement of colours doesn’t match up with the positions of the wooden divisions, so the individual rooms feel more spacious because the edge of the ceiling extends beyond the wall and can’t be seen.
“We kept all the partitions at a height below the beams to create connected spaces while maintaining a sense of privacy,” said the architects.
“The colours emphasise an expanse of space beyond the separate rooms and alter their expression dramatically with the smallest change in lighting,” they added.
The compact flat includes two bedrooms separated by an atelier, plus a large combined living and dining room. The kitchen and bathroom are separated by the main entrance hall.
Wooden furniture and floorboards also feature throughout the flat.
This is a renovation project for an old, 80m2 flat. Here, creating an expanse of space within a small, limited area was our biggest theme.
We kept all the partitions at a height below the beams to create connected spaces while maintaining a sense of privacy. The ceiling, crisscrossed with beams, was painted in five kinds of pale colours.
Slightly shifted from the layout of the rooms, these colours emphasise an expanse of space beyond the separate rooms and alter their expression dramatically with the smallest change in lighting. Although they compose the small interiors of an 80m2 space, these rooms feel as though they embrace the wide-open sky that changes in expression every moment of every day.
This house in Saitama, Japan, by Naf Architect & Design looks like it’s been chopped in half and split open.
Architect Akio Nakasa of Naf Architect & Design designed the three-storey House Snapped for a couple and created two sections to separate the pair’s shared activities, such as dining and relaxing, from private ones, such as dressing and working.
“The composition of this residence was inspired by a phrase of the client couple, ‘stranger hours’,” said Nakasa. “This is a witty phrase describing the relationship of the couple, which is not always stereotypically close but sometimes distant like strangers.”
The smaller side of the building is intended to accommodate the “stranger hours” and contains bedroom and bathroom spaces, while the “shared hours” are assigned to living and dining rooms in the largest side of the house.
A round wooden column is positioned at the junction between the two sides, emphasising the appearance of a hinge.
Each room inside the house has a different floor surface, chosen to suit the activities taking place inside. A wool carpet was selected for the bedroom for its sound-absorbing qualities, while the kitchen and dining room has a mosaic floor that will reflect sound and one of the studies is covered with soft cork tiles.
“The height of the ceiling and flooring materials are chosen according to the nature of the space in order to increase the quality of the time the couple spends together,” added Nakasa.
The exterior of the house is clad with timber boards, painted in a vivid shade of blue, while the hinged middle features a contrasting white-rendered surface. A triangular lawn occupies the space in between.
Here’s a full project description from Akio Nakasa:
House Snapped
Two buildings, large and small, stand on L-shape plot adjoining at the corner. The form of the two buildings comes is as if one building snapped in two, and they are placed along the shape of the site.
A column stands at the adjoining corner of the two buildings, and four zones, yard, entrance, small and large buildings, are placed radially. Four zones can be shared or partitioned using sliding doors.
The composition of this residence was inspired by a phrase of the client couple, “stranger hours”. This is a witty phrase describing the relationship of the couple, which is not always stereotypically close but sometimes distant like strangers.
The antonym of “stranger hours” may be “shared hours”. The large building incorporates living room, dining room, and kitchen where the couple spend “shared hours” and the small building in the back of the plot incorporates bedroom, bathroom, and toilet where the couple spend “stranger hours”.
The height of the ceiling and flooring materials are chosen according to the nature of the space in order to increase the quality of the time the couple spends together, whether it is “shared hours” or “stranger hours”. For example, the living room has vaulted ceiling and flooring with high reflectance material for the voices to reach one another. The bedroom has low ceiling and flooring with sound absorption material to keep tranquility.
The yard, where the couple and their neighbours exchange greetings, is covered with soft lawn. The entrance, which accepts all kinds of guests, has whisper concrete finishing which gives more formal impression.
Four zones placed around the column may be flexibly used according to the situation, allowing a compact and comfortable lifestyle.
Name of the project: House Snapped Location: Saitama City, Saitama Category: detached house Structure: Wood construction Number of storeys: 2 storeys above ground Maximum height: 8.432 m Maximum eave height: 6.411 m Frontal road: 4.00m on the east Site area: 108.49m2 Building area: 51.04m2 Total floor area: 81.41m2 Completion: April 22, 2012 Architect: Akio Nakasa (principal architect), Daisuke Aoki
French architects RAUM have arranged a cluster of holiday apartments in Brittany around terraces that are connected by small alleys (+ slideshows).
The clients for the project were a couple who asked RAUM to create two holiday homes with adjoining studio flats on the Quiberon peninsula, which can be rented by one or more families.
The architects designed the buildings around a series of outdoor spaces, linked by passages that can be transformed from public to private areas by closing gates.
Interiors are given a minimal treatment to focus attention on the terraces, and all of the ground floor living rooms feature sliding doors that open onto the decking outside.
A small building in the southwest corner of the site houses one of the studio flats, while another is located above the garage.
Wooden flooring is used throughout the interiors and also creates a connection with the external decking.
Three separate sections built in different cities make up this steel-framed house in Nara, Japan, by Tokyo architects Megumi Matsubara and Hiroi Ariyama (+ slideshow).
Megumi Matsubara worked alongside Hiroi Ariyama of Assistant Studio to design House of 33 Years, which is made from a mixture of exposed raw materials including steel, timber, concrete, steel cables, clear corrugated plastic and glass panels.
Located next door to an ancient Buddhist temple, the house was designed for an elderly couple who decided to move house after 33 years living in their original home together.
Each part of the house was simultaneously built in three separate locations – the cities of Nara, Sendai, and Aomori – before being transported to the site and put together as one unit, which the architects felt would create an architecture that “moves”.
The roof shell was built in Nara, while the main rooms were built in Aomori from local timber. Meanwhile, a section of the first-floor was built at the Sendai School of Design and housed a farm in the school’s courtyard, before being transferred to Nara.
Architect Megumi Matsubara said the house’s location has a special meaning for the couple. “The husband is originally from Nara and had an attachment and melancholic nostalgia with the temple, having spent a considerable amount of his childhood there,” Matsubara said.
A layered arrangement of glass panes and wooden structures through the interior create different visual perspectives depending on where you stand inside the building.
“By framing views across different areas, images are continuously produced by the inhabitants’ movement,” Matsubara said. “Every image is given its own space of possibility, then overlaps as multiple additions to the home to update the family’s memories.”
Accessed by steel staircases and a wooden ladder elevated at different heights, the first-floor bathroom is cantilevered and offers residents a view of the temple’s bamboo forest while bathing.
This floor is the brightest part of the house, while the smaller, darker room on the ground-floor level is used as a bedroom. The combined living, dining and kitchen space is positioned at the back.
Megumi Matsubara & Hiroi Ariyama of the architecture firm Assistant are pleased to announce the completion of House of 33 Years after five years since the project’s inception. The House of 33 Years is a residence located next to the world heritage Todaiji Temple in Nara, Japan. The house was designed for an elderly couple who decided to move to a new house thirty three years after living in their first house.
The House of 33 Years is a house for a collector who collects memories, whose memory and future exist simultaneously in the same space. By framing views across different areas, images are continuously produced by the inhabitants’ movement. Every image is given its own space of possibility, then overlaps as multiple additions to the home to update the family’s memories.
In 2012, during the construction process, the fabrication of the house was partly supported by Aomori Contemporary Art Centre and Sendai School of Design. Its design/fabrication process has been an academic research subject of Adaptable Futures, Loughborough University, UK. The house has been awarded SD Review prize in 2010.
The house consists of multiple pavilions and rooms in wood structure that stand under the big steel-frame house. The relationship between the individual elements defines the character of the house as a whole. Its construction process has been pursued in three separate locations simultaneously; Nara, Sendai, and Aomori. In Nara, the exterior steel roof to cover the whole residence has been constructed on-site.
Section A
Then, having accepted offers by two public institutions, Sendai School of Design and Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, to participate in their artist-in-residence programs, the duo decided to build an unknown experience by linking the two institutions through a single residential housing project, to eventually constitute the house in Nara.
Section B
They broke House of 33 Years, which had been designed as a single house, into parts suitable for making in the two programs, so that the architecture would “move,” so to speak. Each work was also realised as an individual installation piece on which additional features were elaborated, responding to demands from the institution, characteristics of the space, and the chosen method of exhibiting.
Section C
In Sendai, Ghost House, a pavilion to sit on the roof, was built with the students of Sendai School of Design. The pavilion is an homage to Ghost House, one of the pavilions scattered on the large premises of the famous house of Philip Johnson and was given the same name. Over the summer it was sitting in the courtyard of a university campus and the students had grown a farm inside.
Section D
In Aomori, the main rooms in wood-structure was built and developed together with local carpenters, using materials available in Aomori, as an installation piece Obscure Architecture (House of 33 Years, Study), then to become a part of ‘Kime to Kehai’ exhibition at Aomori Contemporary Art Centre. This work always had a fresh look depending on the movement of the sunlight. Physically, this architectural work remained present in the same position, whereas the natural phenomena created by it kept flowing without stopping. After the exhibition period in each city, those elements were disassembled and loaded on a 4-ton truck, and carried to the destination, Nara, where they were recomposed to form the House of 33 Years.
Section D
Project name: House of 33 Years Location: Nara, Japan Architects: Megumi Matsubara and Hiroi Ariyama (Assistant Studio) Client: private Purpose: private residence Structural engineer: Mitsuda Structural Consultants Site area: 189 square metres Building area: 76 square metres Total floor area: 104 square metres Structure: steel frame, wooden Number of storeys: 2 storeys Construction period: March 2011 – June 2013
Compact balconies puncture the solid white facade of this social housing block in Mallorca by Spanish architects RipollTizon (+ slideshow).
RipollTizon designed the building for low income families in Palma de Mallorca’s Pere Garau neighbourhood. It contains 18 apartments, ranging between 35 and 68 square metres, and includes a mixture of one, two and three bedroom apartments.
The corner block forms a six-storey tower, but drops down to three storeys on one side to meet the height of surrounding buildings.
“The result is a solid column with excavated voids where the openings are presented as scenes stacked upon each other,” said architect Pablo Garcia.
The building is divided into two different halves – separating apartments for rent from those for sale. Each side have its own entrance, with separate elevators and staircases with perforated brickwork screens.
The apartments have simple interiors, with white walls and tiled floors, plus each one has its own private balcony.
“The excavated terraces are the intermediate elements that relate interior and exterior while offering a private scenery that is built-in the facade of each dwelling,” added Garcia.
The building replaces a former block of courtyard houses. It sits on a base of grey blockwork and gently projects out towards the street.
The project is located in ‘Pere Garau’ neighbourhood. The area was formerly characterised by blocks of single family houses with inner courtyards that followed a typical grid plan. Once the district became central in the city, amendments to the urban planning increased the building volumes significantly and changed the typology to collective housing.
The project takes part of this transformation by redefining a corner plot, resulting from the addition of two former houses, into a new public housing building. The building is conceived according to the new volume specified by the urban planning and playing within its established rules: building depth and cantilevers to the street (of which half of its total permitted area can be enclosed by walls).
The proposal takes advantage of this situation to generate the mechanisms needed to link the housing with their immediate surroundings through controlled openings ‘excavated’ in the building mass. The result is a solid volume with ‘excavated’ voids, where the openings are presented as scenes stacked upon each other.
A small universe of stories organised under no apparent order, and whose arrangement emerges from the dialogue that the building establishes with its urban context. The different rooms of the houses are arranged along a central stripe containing the service areas. The excavated terraces are the intermediate elements that relate interior and exterior while offering a private scenery that is built-in the facade of each dwelling.
Client: Institut Balear de l’Habitatge – IBAVI (Balearic Public Housing Institute) Location: Capità Vila St. – Can Curt St. Palma de Mallorca Architects: Pep Ripoll – Juan Miguel Tizón Project area:2.816,55 metres squared Budget: 1.156.320,90 EUR Start of design: 2008 Year of completion: 2012 Collaborators: Pablo García (architect) and Luis Sánchez (architect) Quantity surveyor: Toni Arqué Structural engineer: Jorge Martin Building services: David Mulet Contractors: Contratas y Obras S.A.
Swedish firm Tengbom has designed a ten square-metre wooden house for students.
Linda Camara and Pontus Åqvist of Tengbom architects worked in collaboration with students from Lund University in Sweden to create the living unit, which is meant to be “affordable and sustainable”.
“Through an efficient layout and the use of cross-laminated wood as a construction material, the rent is reduced by 50 percent and the ecological impact and carbon footprint is also significantly reduced,” said Camara.
Inside the unit there is a small kitchenette with shelving and green storage cupboards, a small bathroom and a loft for sleeping that is accessed via small wooden steps fixed to the wall.
Two window shutters on the lower level can be folded down to use as a dining table and a desk. Under the loft area there is a hammock.
“The main issue was to design really smart units with no unnecessary space,” Camara told Dezeen. “Only well-designed space is afforded when designing for small living.”
The unit is constructed from cross-laminated wood that was sawn and shaped by timber firm Martinsons and mounted on site by Swedish building firm Ulestedt.
“Since this is a fairly new material on the Swedish market, we wanted to show the qualities, such as the possibilities to make the non-rectangular forms,” Camara said. “It is easier to make round corners than sharp 90-degrees.”
In 2014, 22 of the student units will be built and ready for students in Sweden to move into.
A student flat of only 10 square metres is currently exhibited at the Virserum Art Museum in the county Småland, Sweden.
Tengbom Architects has designed a student flat for students which is affordable, environmental-friendly and smart both in terms of design and choice of materials. The project is a collaboration with wood manufacturer Martinsons and real estate company AF Bostäder.
To meet the needs of students in a sustainable, smart and affordable way was the key questions when Tengbom in collaboration with students at the University of Lund was designing this student flat of 10 square meters. The unit is now displayed in Virserum Art Museum. In 2014, 22 units will be built and ready for students to move into.
To successfully build affordable student housing requires innovative thinking and new solutions. The area in each unit is reduced from current requirement, 25 square meters to 10 square meters through legal consent. This truly compact-living flat still offers a comfortable sleeping-loft, kitchen, bathroom and a small garden with a patio. Through an efficient layout and the use of cross laminated wood as a construction material the rent is reduced by 50 % and the ecological impact and carbon footprints is also significantly reduced.
Energy efficiency is a key issue when designing new buildings. Choosing right material and manufacturing methods is vital to minimise the carbon emission and therefore wood was chosen for its carbon positive qualities, and as a renewable resource it can be sourced locally to minimize transportation. The manufacturer method was chosen because of is flexible production and for it’s assembling technique which can be done on site to reduce construction time.
By exhibiting this well planned and sustainable student flat we want to challenge the conventional views and show new ways of thinking. What is good living? What materials can we use? To meet the future in a sustainable way we must be innovative in all aspects and have the courage to break new ground, says Linda Camara at Tengbom Architects.
In this movie by film studio Stephenson/Bishop, architect Carl Turner describes the importance of flexibility in the London house he designed for himself and his partner, which last night was awarded the RIBA Manser Medal 2013 for the best new house in the UK.
Located in Brixton, south London, Slip House is a three-storey residence with walls made from planks of translucent glass and staggered upper floors that cantilever towards the street.
The house features a spacious ground floor that is currently used by Carl Turner as a studio for his architectural practice.
“The house is really flexible,” he explains. “We’ve got this amazing space on the ground floor that we’re currently using as our office and studio space, but the idea is that if we move out of there, we can use the whole space as a house again.”
The first floor accommodates an open-plan living and dining space, but Turner says this space could be easily converted into bedrooms if the ground floor was turned back into a living room.
“It’s a kind of frame structure and that allows us these open floor spaces that mean we can then have really flexible uses,” he adds.
Slip House was awarded the RIBA Manser Medal 2013 last night in a ceremony that also saw an addition to a twelfth-century castle in Warwickshire win the Stirling Prize. It was praised for sustainable features that include rooftop solar panels, a rain-water-harvesting system, a ground-sourced heat pump and a wildflower roof.
“Slip House demonstrates an admirable commitment to the creation of an exemplary low-energy house, with a suite of sustainable enhancements that are integrated effectively into the building design,” said the judges. “However, at no point do the sustainable ambitions of the project crowd out or dominate the refined quality of the spaces that are created.”
News:Arizona architect Nick Tsontakis has unveiled plans for a house that will straddle a mountain and be shaped like a manta ray (+ slideshow).
The $30-million two-storey building is designed by Nick Tsontakis to sit on top of Mummy Mountain in Arizona.
“The overall form of the home is reminiscent of a manta ray – even though this was not intentional – and from the air the structure looks like it’s swimming on top of the mountain,” Tsontakis told Dezeen. “I wanted to make the house design memorable and simple. It is organic, soft and liveable.”
Tsontakis told Dezeen that he came up with the concept to capture views of both the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale to the north and of Camelback Mountain and the city lights in Downtown Phoenix to the south. “It meant that I would somehow have to infuse the house into the mountain,” he explained.
A number of local guidelines restricted the scale of the design, said the designer. “We were not to exceed the height of the top of the mountain in the centre of the home and we had to draw a 20 degree line from the [mountain’s] pinnacle in all directions, which the house could not penetrate,” he explained.
Once completed, the property will contain six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, and will boast views across Paradise Valley from a series of viewing decks.
A ten-car garage located on the upper level will be accessed via a sloping road. On the same level there will be an entry hall and a pair of two-bedroom guest wings.
Stairs and elevators will descend to the main ground level, which will accommodate a master wing on the north side and a large living area to the south.
“The two wings will be connected with a tunnel bored through the mountain from north to south, and on the east a 2000 square-foot entertainment hall would be carved out of the mountain,” added Tsontakis.
The property is currently listed by Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty and is due for completion in 2015. Tsontakis told Dezeen that “the project is not under construction yet”, but that he is in conversations with “several interested parties.”
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