Hasta La Ideas

A dozen layers of concrete planters create a vertical garden on the facade of this house in Ho Chi Minh City by Vietnamese architects Vo Trong Nghia.

Built for a couple and one of their mothers, the building is 20m deep but just 4m wide, typical of the narrow but long ‘tube houses’ common in Vietnam.

Concrete planters span between the side walls to cover the front and back facades, and are spaced according to the height of the plants.

At the rear of the house, an exterior staircase is positioned between the planters and the back wall, while glazing separates the front of the house from the plants.

Automatic irrigation pipes fitted inside the planters allow for easy watering and maintenance.

A rooftop garden provides shelter from the noise and pollution of the streets below.

Inside the house, there are few partition walls in order to maximise views of the green facades and encourage ventilation. The rooflights also allow natural light to penetrate.

Sunlight pokes through the leaves of the plants to cast dappled shadows on the granite walls.

Photographs are by Hiroyuki Oki.

See more stories from Vietnam »

Here’s some more text from the architects:

Project Name: Stacking Green
Location: Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam
Completion: 2011

Architect’s Name: Vo Trong Nghia + Daisuke Sanuki + Shunri Nishizawa
Contractor: Thuan Viet Company + Wind and water House JSC.
Floor area: 250m2 (4 floors)

Whoever wanders around Saigon, a chaotic city with the highest density of population in the world, can easily find flower-pots cramped and displayed here and there all around the streets.

This interesting custom has formed the character of Saigon over a long period of time and Saigonese love their life with a large variety of tropical plants and flowers in their balconies, courtyards and streets.

The house, designed for a thirty-year-old couple and their mother, is a typical tube house constructed on the plot 4m wide and 20m deep.

The front and back facades are entirely composed of layers of concrete planters cantilevered from two side walls.

The distance between the planters and the height of the planters are adjusted according to the height of the plants, which varies from 25 cm to 40 cm.

To water plants and for easy maintenance, we use the automatic irrigation pipes inside the planters.

We named this tropical, unique and green house “Stacking Green” because its façades filled with vigorous and vital greenery.

Click above for larger image

The house structure is an RC frame structure widely used in Vietnam. The partition walls are very few in order to keep interior fluency and view of green façades from every point of the house.

During the day we get the varying light with the time of day trimmed by the top-light in the centre.

In the morning and the afternoon, the sunlight enters through the amount of leafs on both façades, creating beautiful shadow effects on the granite walls, which are composed of strictly stacked 2cm stones.

The green façade and roof top garden protect its inhabitants from the direct sunlight, street noise and pollution. Furthermore, natural ventilation through the façades and 2 top-lights allow this house to save a big energy in a harsh climate in Saigon.

Concerning these ecological approaches, we referred a lot to the bioclimatic principles of traditional Vietnamese courtyard house.

In this chaotic city, we defined the full variety of surrounding greenery as a context of Saigon and applied to the main concept of this house.

Although the Saigon townscape is getting uniformed and boring under the influence of the furious urban sprawl of recent years, we intended this house to inspire people to re-define and re-increase the greenery as the character of this city.

“Stacking Green” is just one small house, but it is generated from the context of Saigon. We hope that “Stacking Green” makes Saigon become more distinguished and fascinating with much more tropical greenery in the future.

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by Vo Trong Nghia appeared first on Dezeen.

An enormous frame surrounds a little window in the reconstructed stone wall that flanks this holiday home in northern Italy by Austrian architects Bergmeister Wolf (+ slideshow).

The wall previously belonged to a crumbling farmhouse in the small town of Sterzing and the remains of the old building are integrated into the structure of the new two-storey residence.

The architects employed traditional stonemasons to rebuild the wall without mortar and recreate its original appearance.

Other existing walls are re-clad with wooden shingles, which were pre-weathered to give them a silvery colour.

A charred timber garage is located just behind the house, while a sauna with a brown-rendered facade is positioned alongside.

Other Italian residences we’ve featured include a house with a four metre-high door and an apartment with honeycomb-patterned floors.

See all our stories about Italy »

Photography is by Günter Richard Wett.

Here’s some extra text from Bergmeister Wolf:

Next to the chapel, farmstead b, sterzing

The site is situated in a little village, above Sterzing, on a height of 1.400 m above sea-level. Out of a farmhouse with an old oven (made of stone) which were both fit for demolition a new holiday residence of the Brunner family should arise.

Together with the historical chapel an ensemble on the mountain should come into existence.

It was important for us to integrate a place to live, a sauna, a garage and a henhouse into the landscape. All new buildings were inserted into the landscape without changing the topography. They should be separated according to their function, form and material and still create a unity because of their positioning.

We worked with the found, the discovered – the landscape as well as the remains of the old farmhouse like the stone wall and the traditional materials as for example the shingles from the chapel.

The starting point was the old stone wall of the farmhouse for us. After a long search we finally found workers (stone artists) who were able to rebuild it according to old architecture without mortar. The structure was covered with shingles following the roof also on the soffit, they were exposed to wind and weather already 1 and a half year before in order to achieve a relatively uniform weathering , a silvery tone.

Simple materials, like the concrete ceiling which was roughly structured with laths, glass elements, as well as steel and wood characterize the interior. As a basic principle old materials were reused and combined with new ones.

At the same time, a sauna box belongs to the ensemble which is stuck in the territory. The simple element was supplied with earth-coloured plaster.

The roof is intensively covered with greenery. The jutting out and pending terrace is roofed but at the same time also open and offers a wonderful view over the valley.

On the other side there is the garage, an almost black cube in the landscape, covered with greenery, simple with small cut-outs and larch-wood laths.

A game between architecture, landscape and art should come to life.

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by Bergmeister Wolf appeared first on Dezeen.

Wooden shutters fold, tilt and slide open to let in the sun and keep out the burglars at this weekend cabin in New Zealand by architects Crosson Clarke Carnachan.

Located on the northern tip of North Island, the single-storey house has an entirely wooden structure with a black-stained facade.

Rooms are arranged either side of a corridor that spans the house, with bedrooms at the back where they face the ocean.

The open-plan kitchen and living room is located at the front and opens onto a barbeque deck that can also be screened behind folding shutters.

Other houses that can be closed up like bunkers include a residence with a steel drawbridge-like hatch and a house that transforms into a fortress by night.

See more projects in New Zealand »

Photography is by Simon Devitt.

Here’s some extra text from the architects:

Tutukaka House

Architect: Ken Crosson, Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects Auckland

Designed as a refuge from the frenetic city lives of the owners, the Tutukaka House provides relaxed holiday living.

The plan is organised around a central spine, with spaces orientated to specific views.

The open plan living area flows seamlessly onto a generous northern open deck to the view, and an alternative sheltered space with bbq and outdoor fireplace, to the north-west.

The bedrooms are in contrast more protected, with shutters that lift up to provide protection from summer sun, maintaining cooler temperatures.

Materials are primarily timber, with stained shiplap cladding and plywood linings.

Exposed structure is saligna, and flooring is kwila.

Click above for larger image

Translucent elements are used in parts of the roof and cladding, introducing a delicate light quality to the circulation space and outdoor fire area.

Click above for larger image

The house closes down with the use of sliding panels and hinged shutters, ensuring security is maintained when not in use.

Click above for larger image

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Carnachan Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

These London townhouses by architects Piercy & Company have chunky banisters formed from thickly layered birch plywood.

The stairs zigzag up from the basement floor to the second floor roof terraces of each of the three residences, which are located behind a listed wall within the conservation area of Bloomsbury.

The two-storey-high facades of each house are constructed from a sandy-coloured brick that is lighter in colour than the brown and red brickwork of the surrounding historic buildings.

The heights of the buildings intentionally line up with their neighbours, while window sills and lintels have been designed with matching proportions.

Perforated steel louvers shade the windows and skylights bring daylight into each house from above.

Other projects with interesting staircases include an empty tower and an Olympic Museum. See more staircases on Dezeen »

Photography is by Jack Hobhouse.

Here’s some more information from Piercy & Company:

Three contemporary townhouses in London’s Historic Bloomsbury

London, UK: Three contemporary townhouses have been completed in Bloomsbury, Central London. Designed by Piercy&Company for Great Marlborough Estates and located within the Bloomsbury Conservation Area, the townhouses marry contextual sensitivity with contemporary urban living.

The townhouses are adjacent to a number of Grade II listed buildings, a Grade II* listed Historic Gardens and bounded on one side by a Grade II listed wall. The buildings’ design echoes the materials, proportions and forms of the surrounding conservation area.

Heavily textured masonry and finely detailed stone cills, lintels and stringer courses create a contextually sensitive skin whilst the window proportions and generous floor to ceiling heights reflect those of the surrounding Georgian buildings. These fine grain details and proportional references interpret the existing language of the Bloomsbury Conservation Area into a contemporary idiom.

Inside, the layout of the internal spaces is highly flexible. The houses can be configured as 2, 3 or 4 bedrooms. In addition to upper floor bedrooms, the ground floor can be a lounge + study, or bedroom + study, or two bedrooms to make it a 4 bed house. This spatial fluidity responds to contemporary conditions of urban living where household compositions are varied and family living arrangements change over time.

The penetration of light down into the lower levels of the houses informs many aspects of the design; from the skylight playfully positioned above the top floor bath to the large corner windows and sliding glass doors which feature throughout. An open-plan kitchen and dining area at lower ground floor level leads onto a light-filled sunken courtyard which also provides private outdoor living and dining space beneath the historic listed wall.

A key architectural statement in each townhouse is a bespoke staircase, handmade in birch and ash. The staircase is fully revealed with open landings and internal glass partitions, naturally lit from above, allowing light to penetrate from roof to basement. This open staircase is only made possible through sophisticated fire engineering, including the use of domestic sprinklers.

Views over St Georges Gardens provide a green backdrop for many of the living/bedroom spaces. Careful alignment of laser cut shutters and louvres provides privacy to residents whilst preventing visitors to St George’s Gardens feeling overlooked.

As Piercy&Company’s Stuart Piercy describes:
“The site presented many issues with a beautiful grade II * garden and listed buildings to all sides – so it was very sensitive with an extremely vocal residents group. The key was to introduce a finer grain to the facade interpreting motifs from the conservation area in a contemporary language, while on the inside the opposite is true – we wanted large volumes of flexible light filled engaging spaces. For me the project’s success is that the spaces feel light and generous while the houses sit very gently in the context of the 300 year old gardens.”

Project Address 8, 9 and 10 Wakefield Street, London WC1N

Project Team Members
Client: Great Marlborough Estates
Architect: Piercy&Company
Project Manager: Paragon LLP
Structural Engineer: Pringuer-James Consulting Engineers
Mechanical and Electrical Engineers: Martin Design Associates
Main Contractor: Forcia Limited

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by Piercy & Company appeared first on Dezeen.

Belgian studio EXAR Architecture have replaced walls of brick and plaster with glass and Corten steel on this extension to a suburban house outside Brussels.

The new elevation is located at the rear of the house, where it projects towards the garden to increase the size of the ground-floor kitchen and first-floor bathroom.

Glazed walls slide open to connect the kitchen with the terrace outside, while a tall window upstairs offers a view out from a new shower area.

Other Belgian residences we’ve featured include a house with a facade of wooden sticks and an apartment in a listed building.

See more projects in Belgium »

Photography is by Marc Detiffe.

Here’s some text from EXAR Architecture:

The previous house offered tiny opening to the garden. The “back” rooms, kitchen, bathroom, previously considered as services, blocked the views from the house to the nice garden.

We decided to keep these functions but to open them widely, by creating large windows.

The kitchen – dining room offers an large open view to the vegetation. The bathroom has focused view to the trees.

Using an architectural expression counterpointing the existing style, we wanted to reinforce the coexistence between modern and old.

The steel by its delicacy and precision permits to create pure lines and deepness.

To obtain this dynamic, the steel structure is integrated to the thickness of the floor, and one tiny column present the angle of the former construction.

Finally, the choice of the corten, as finishing, brings softness, deepness and answer to the vegetation, by expressing the time going.