Slender columns support a canopy that sweeps around the front of this family residence in Japan’s Tokushima prefecture by Japanese firm Horibe Associates (+ slideshow).
Horibe Associates raised the single-storey wooden House in Naruto off the ground on concrete foundations to protect it against flooding, a common issue in the neighbourhood.
“The clients requested a design that dealt with the problem, as well as providing security, privacy, good natural light and air circulation, and a space that their children could run around in,” said the architects.
Access to the chunky wooden front door is via steps around one side of the curved facade or a ramp from the other, both covered by the porch.
The entrance leads through to a combined kitchen, dining and living room at the west side of the property, while bedrooms are positioned to the east.
Full-height sliding windows lead from these zones into a rectangular outdoor space.
A single tree is planted in the middle of this central courtyard, which is decked with the same wooden slats that run throughout the house.
“[We] proposed locating a large courtyard in the centre of the house that would let in light and air without sacrificing privacy,” the architects added.
The low window on the north wall leads into a play area with softer tatami flooring so the children can access the room directly from outside.
Storage space and a bathroom are accessed by a narrow corridor that buffers the ancillary rooms from communal space and completes the loop around the house.
This apartment block in Seoul by South Korean designers OBBA has a semi-outdoor stairwell screened behind a section of open brickwork in the centre.
The Beyond the Screen project by OBBA (Office for Beyond Boundaries Architecture) is located on a corner plot in the Naebalsan-dong neighbourhood of Seoul.
The five-storey building comprises two volumes bridged by the stairwell, and its volume is sliced externally by regulations such as setback lines and natural light requirements.
“The outer appearance is a single mass, however, it is actually two masses bridged by a semi-exterior central stairwell with a unique brick screen to the front and back, forming an H-shaped plan,” said the architects.
The upper four floors are divided into 14 residential units in four types, arranged on split levels so that each apartment is accessed directly from a stair landing.
The brick screen allows each apartment to have natural ventilation on three sides.
The pattern continues over the roof and covers selected apartment windows that would otherwise be severely overlooked by adjacent buildings.
“This screen filters the view into the building from the front, while allowing for the right amount of natural light and ventilation, creating a far more pleasant atmosphere in and around a stairwell,” the architects added.
A roof garden at the top provides communal outdoor space tucked behind a parapet wall, while the ground floor comprises a parking place on one side and a cafe on the other.
Seoul studio OBBA was founded in 2012 by Sojung Lee and Sangjoon Kwak, who previously worked at Dutch firm OMA and Korean firm Mass Studies.
Beyond the Screen is a new type of residential complex, located in Naebalsan-dong, Seoul. The existing condition of this residential neighbourhood is no different from most other neighbourhoods, with multiplex housing having held the majority.
The aim of this project was to offer a compact spatial richness for living, while finding new architectural solutions in satisfying the specific needs of the user, client, as well as contributing to the improvement of the typically generic townscape so familiar in Korea.
The building sits at a corner condition and is formed by a cutting and shaping of the volume by influences of the site regulations such as setback lines and natural light requirements.
The outer appearance is a single mass, however, it is actually two masses bridged by a semi-exterior central stairwell with a unique brick screen to the front and back, forming an H-shaped plan, with a skipped floor structure from the east to west.
This five-story building incorporates both residential and commercial functions – the first floor with a café and a piloti parking space, and from the second to fifth floors, four different unit types making up 14 different units in total.
From a user’s perspective, the design took into consideration the following four points:
Courtyard
Upon entering the building, one encounters the courtyard with a semi-exterior stairwell that provides access to each of the 14 units, with a unique brick screen to the front and back. This screen filters the view into the building from the front, while allowing for the right amount of natural light and ventilation, creating a far more pleasant atmosphere in and around a stairwell.
The sunlight that filters through the bricks makes for a lovely courtyard, allowing for an atmospheric transformation throughout the day, every day.
Natural ventilation
By splitting the building into two volumes, it allows all of the units to have three open sides, maximising the natural cross-ventilation throughout.
Roof garden
The roof garden is open to the sky, with a parapet wall at full-floor height, creating a private communal space for the residents.
Privacy
The brick screen walls, in their orderly staggered stacking construction, allows for privacy from the exterior gaze of the adjacent buildings into the semi-exterior, semi-public core of the building. This filter is applied, not only in the central core zone, but at specific moments where the building closely faces adjacent buildings. This adds to the privacy of each unit, while allowing for the residents of each unit the flexibility in ventilation, allowing each unit to breathe naturally.
The design also takes into consideration the client’s point of view, with an attempt to satisfy cost efficiency and profitability through quality design:
Area
The skipped floor structure allows residents to enter their units directly from the stair landings, eliminating unnecessary, dead public hallway space, and maximizing the area for exclusive use.
Cost Efficiency
With a limited construction budget, but aiming to satisfy all of the essentials for living, the design of the building and the units focused on only the absolute necessities, without being superfluous with custom materials and built-in furniture, but with quality materials and fixtures that were economical.
In order to provide the client with something new and different from the monotonous characteristics of the area, their needs were met through a quality of design that allows the building to stand apart within the existing streetscape of multi-family housing, both formally and in function, resulting in a new type of residential experience and use.
As designers, there was a need to find a new architectural solution for the unexpected and unplanned, such as the following:
Equipment
It is quite common for residential buildings to attach and expose air conditioning equipment on the exterior of the building. In order to keep to the intended design of all four elevations of the building, spaces were allotted for such equipment into the overall plan of the building, as well as an application of the brick screen system for ventilation and air circulation for HVAC.
To avoid illegal additions and extensions to the original design of the building in the future, which is a common practice in Korea, especially to buildings lacking a specific logic, there was a great focus in efficient spatial planning and design to allow for longevity in the initial design intentions and the spatial organization of the building.
A unique design calls attention from its surrounding neighbours and residents in sparking an interest in a new design sensibility, and to form and awareness and appreciation for beautiful buildings and well designed spaces for living. Due to the changes of living patterns in the city, the number of single to double occupancy living units has grown. Rather than contribute to the increase of thoughtless and monotonous residential typology, the focus of Beyond the Screen was to provide new architectural design solutions to improve the quality of compact living through and enrichment of spatial qualities and functions.
Architect Alison Brooks talks about how residents come together in the streets of her firm’s Be housing project in Essex, UK, in this movie produced by Living Projects.
Alison Brooks Architects designed 85 homes in a variety of typologies as part of Newhall masterplan on the eastern edge of the Essex town of Harlow.
Nominated for the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize and announced overall winner at this year’s Housing Design Awards, the houses at the development, formerly named South Chase, reference the traditional local architecture.
“We were able to achieve narrower urban blocks, because they’re back to back and they’re terraced, and a denser overall masterplan,” Brooks says.
Keeping to the original masterplan, terraces create east-west streets and detached dwellings line north-south avenues, with apartment blocks at the corners of the site.
For the terraced houses, the firm cut courtyards and front gardens into each square plan. “We were able to develop a T-shaped plan, which means you enter the house at the centre and that central hole is the hub of the house,” says Brooks.
She also explains that the apartment blocks connect the scheme together: “They help the masterplan turn the corners in a slightly softer, more organic manner.”
Finally, she comments on how residents use the outdoor spaces to socialise. “They use the streets for street parties in the summer,” Brooks says. “Everybody opens up their kitchens on to their front courtyard… the street itself becomes a big party room, and that I think is a big achievement.” Read more about the project in our earlier post.
Dezeen archive: here’s a roundup of some of the most beautiful Barcelona apartments we’ve featured with decorative geometric floor tiles (+ slideshow).
The most recent story from the Catalan capital to include ornate tile work is an apartment laid with triangular floor tiles that gradually change colour from green to red.
In this movie by producers Living Projects, architects David Mikhail and Annalie Riches explain how their Church Walk housing project created four compact but light and airy homes on the small awkward site of a former junkyard in north London.
The terraced brick building contains three houses spilt over different levels and one apartment, each with access to outdoor space.
In the movie, Mikhail talks about the issues of building on a tight plot: “The proximity of the site to our neighbours meant that the building stepped down to be only two metres high.”
He also explains how the zig-zagging geometry of the plan prevents overlooking from a nearby building that sits at a 45-degree angle to the site.
Riches discusses how they maximised the amount of accommodation on the small area of land by varying ceiling heights. “Whilst there are some low spaces where you sit down like living rooms and bedrooms, those are contrasted with having spaces like kitchens and dining rooms with very tall ceilings.”
“The scheme is about trying to grab light and views where you can find them,” she adds. “Small tight sites are where architects can really add value because we do have the skills to make the most of whatever assets are there. I don’t see any reason why the principles here – the use of light, building up to the street edge – couldn’t apply to lots of brownfield sites.”
London-based Moxon Architects has completed a contemporary glazed extension to this Grade II listed town house in south-west London.
Moxon Architects added a new top floor to the house and a rear extension on the lower ground floor to increase the total volume by more than a quarter.
They transformed the property by removing internal partitions and reconfiguring the layout, creating fewer rooms that provide larger open-plan living spaces.
“The driver for this scheme has been to treat the existing structure as a geometric guide for the setting out of new material and spatial interventions,” the architects said.
A two-storey atrium brings natural light into the lower ground floor and contains a limed oak staircase.
The staircase has an inbuilt library, retractable writing desk, secret compartments and library steps.
The lower ground floor opens onto a rear courtyard garden.
Moxon Architects have completed a grade 2 listed house conversion in Chelsea. The driver for this scheme has been to treat the existing structure as a geometric guide for the setting out of new material and spatial interventions.
The space has been radically reconfigured throughout, to provide a fewer number of larger and better rooms, with additions to the top and bottom of the house increasing its volume by over a quarter.
The original structure is retained internally as traces within the new layout – differential materials and finishes follow the extents of the previous structure across the walls, floors and ceilings of the new space.
This geometry sets up a framework for the use of the space: circulation and use has been established within these geometric confines, whilst simultaneously the house has become lighter and more open, reflecting the needs of the client.
The limed oak staircase overlooks a new double height which brings light deep into the lower ground floor and includes a high level library, pull out writing desk, secret compartments and library steps.
This house outside Barcelona by Spanish studio MDBA features a glazed living room that thrusts out towards the descending landscape (+ slideshow).
The three-storey family house is constructed over the edge of a hillside in the town of Sant Cugat del Vallès. Maria Diaz of MDBA wanted to take advantage of the panoramic views, so she designed an L-shaped residence that extends outwards at the rear.
Floor-to-ceiling glazing surrounds each rear elevation, plus a balcony stretches out beside the living room and kitchen.
In contrast, the front of the house has a white-rendered facade with square windows and a wooden front door.
“The form and the position of the house is a response to the shape and aspect of the plot, closed on the street side and open to the city landscape,” says the studio.
Steel I-beams support the weight of the projecting living room and extend up through the floors. A hillside patio is located underneath, while a terrace sits over the roof.
The house’s staircase is positioned next to the entrance, leading to three bedrooms on the top floor and a garage downstairs.
The form and the position of the house is a response to the shape and aspect of the plot, closed on the street side and open to the city landscape. Each level has its own relationship with the external space.
Vertical communication is a backbone that connects spaces on either side, it is closed at the entrance and it opens itself to the landscape in the upper floor.
Windows on the street define the landscape inside wall massivity and towards interior garden, the house opens itself looking to the city, massivity disappears and prevails the volume that looks for the landscape.
French designers Zébra3/Buy-Sellf have designed a prefabricated holiday home in the shape of a cloud that sits next to a lake in south-west France (+ slideshow).
Le Nuage (The Cloud) cabin by Zébra3/Buy-Sellf was designed for the Urban Community of Bordeaux (CUB) and is located in the Lormont commune just outside the French city of Bordeaux in south-western France.
It was originally designed as an art installation and is now used as a rural shelter for holidaymakers. “Sleeping in a comic-style hut […] is a unique urban experience,” said Zebra3.
The cabin is made from softwood, plywood, plexiglas and glass‐fibre reinforced plastic. It is painted white to look like a fluffy cloud and has thin slanted windows that offer views across the countryside.
Sitting on the side of the French lake and surrounded by leafy hills, the playful cabin shelters up to seven people.
It provides only bare essentials such as bedding. The cabin does not provide any electricity or water.
Grafton Architects added the four new buildings to the main campus of the University of Limerick, which straddles the River Shannon in the west of Ireland. Alongside the existing sports pavilion, world music academy and health sciences facility, the structures frame a new student plaza on the north side of the campus.
The architects selected different materials for the two types of building. “The language of the medical school is that of an educational institution while the student residences appear like three large houses,” they explain.
For the four-storey medical school, they added a facade of cool grey limestone that references the local architectural vernacular. An angled colonnade directs visitors into the building, where a full-height atrium leads through to laboratories and lecture rooms.
“[The atrium is] designed as a social space with enough room to stop and chat or lean on a balustrade/shelf and view the activity of the entrance and other spaces above and below,” say the architects.
The three student housing buildings zigzag along the northern perimeter of the plaza. Each block has a brickwork exterior with recessed windows and concrete sills.
Inside, floors are laid out with living rooms and kitchens overlooking the public square in front, while bedrooms face back to the quieter northern border of the campus. There are also sheltered meeting places carved out of the base of each block, leading through to the laundry room and bicycle store beyond.
As well as these buildings, the architects also added a new concrete bus shelter to the campus, with steps and ramps that negotiate the sloping ground.
Photography is by Denis Gilbert, apart from where stated otherwise.
Here’s a project description from Grafton Architects:
Medical School, Student Residences and Bus Shelter at the University of Limerick
The University of Limerick, in the South West of Ireland occupies a large territory, formerly a Demesne, and is situated on both sides of the lower reaches of the river Shannon, the longest and largest river in Ireland. Part of its most recent expansion to the north of this great river, accessible by pedestrian bridge from the existing campus, provides for the construction of a new medical school building and accommodation buildings for students attending the facility. These new buildings are also intended to address a large public open space which will ultimately become the focal point for this expansion of the campus to the North.
The aspiration is to combine faculty buildings and residences in a manner which encourages overlap and contributes to the life of the public spaces at the University. Aspects of the formal character are derived from an interpretation of the campus master plan which requires an organic approach to the making of public spaces on the north side of the river Shannon. Here the ground is sloping and remnants of the agrarian landscape pattern are still evident in the form of old field patterns and hedgerows.
This new suite of buildings combines with three existing, neighbouring institutions, the Sports Pavillion, the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and the Health Sciences Building, in order to make a new public space. The new buildings consist of a medical school, three blocks of student housing and a canopy/pergola forming a bus and bicycle shelter.
The Medical School, the last in a series of set pieces, acts as an anchor around which the other buildings now loosely rotate. The language of the medical school is that of an educational institution while the student residences appear like three large houses. The concrete bus shelter, together with the residences combine with the medical school to form a loose edge to the public space. The bus shelter canopy, steps and ramps negotiate the level change to the sports pavilion beyond.
Photograph by Alice Clancy
The central space slopes gently to the west. Three oak trees, stone seats and steps occupy a central level platform subtly providing a focal point before the space moves out, fracturing at the edges to connect to the residences, car parking and other faculty buildings. The surfaces of the public space move from hard to soft, south sloping grassed spaces, designed with and without furniture to provide for leisure and lingering. The buildings stand guard facing the public space, distinguished by their material.
Photograph by Alice Clancy
Limestone is used to represent the ‘formal’ central medical school, making reference to the limestone territory of County Clare in which this side of the campus is located. The stone wall is folded, profiled and layered in response to orientation, sun , wind, rain and public activity. A colonnade to the south and west corner acts as a gathering and entrance space. In contrast the north and east walls are more mute.
Photograph by Alice Clancy
In response to the deep plan, the roof-form is modulated to light multiple spaces, including the central circulation space, the clinical skills labs, the corridors, and a small roof terrace.
An open central stair connecting all of the primary spaces, threads through all levels of the interior, designed as a social space with enough room to stop and chat or lean on a balustrade/shelf and view the activity of the entrance and other spaces above and below.
Brick follows through to the residences from the existing accommodation buildings behind. Here the material is given depth and the facades deeply carved providing a form of threshold between the domestic interior and the public space that they overlook. All living spaces address the public space to the south east with the more private study bedrooms facing north east or north west.
The undercroft of the residences is carved away providing archways allowing pedestrian movement from the carpark and bus park to the north as well as forming sheltered social spaces for students. Large gateways open into the entrance courts of the housing blocks where stairs, lift, bicycles bins and common laundry facilities are.
Size: Medical School 4300m2, Student Housing 3,600m2, Pergola 180m2, Piazza 1.2ha, Date: Completed December 2012 Location: University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
Project Managers: Kerin Contract Management Structural and Civil Engineers: PUNCH Consulting Engineers Mechanical and Electrical: Don O’Malley & Partners Quantity Surveyors: Nolan Ryan Tweed Health & Safety: Willis Consulting Fire Safety and Access: G. Sexton & Partners
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