This 27-storey Barcelonahotel by Ateliers Jean Nouvel is punctured by windows shaped like palm fronds and contains a huge atrium filled with palm trees and tropical vegetation (photos by Roland Halbe).
The firm led by French architect Jean Nouvel teamed up with local studio Ribas & Ribas to design the Renaissance Barcelona Fira Hotel for the Marriott hotel chain, and it is located in a part of the city that hosts a number of major trade fairs.
Photograph by Roland Halbe
The building comprises a pair of 110-metre towers that are joined at the top by a rooftop restaurant, terrace and swimming pool. The space between is enclosed by glazing, creating greenhouse-style atrium where staircases are interspersed with greenery from five different continents.
Photograph by Roland Halbe
The leaf-shaped windows are positioned in front of some of the hotel’s 357 rooms, most of which feature simple interiors with white walls, bedding and furniture, plus bathrooms lined with lime plaster.
Photograph by Roland Halbe
In addition to the rooftop restaurant, a Mediterranean restaurant is located on the fourteenth floor amidst the trees, while the ground-floor lobby offers a cocktail bar.
Photograph by Roland Halbe
One floor of the building is given over to flexible meeting rooms, offering space for up to 1000 people. Other facilities include a heated whirlpool and solarium and a fitness centre.
Architect Sergio Rojo has renovated a dilapidated nineteenth-century cultural centre to create a hostel for weary travellers on the Way of St James pilgrimage route in northern Spain (+ slideshow).
Sergio Rojo transformed the former liceo – an educational facility for arts and literature – to create a sanctuary in the town of Logroño in Spain’s La Rioja wine-growing region.
The town is a frequent stop for pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St James in Galicia, on Spain’s northwestern tip.
The building fell into disrepair at the beginning of the twentieth century, after a new theatre with similar facilities was completed close by.
“It seems that its different inhabitants, like the soup kitchen of the city or the funeral home, didn’t appreciate the strength of its outstanding architectural qualities and therefore didn’t take care of it,” said Rojo. “That is why the liceo fell into oblivion for decades until now.”
Rojo retained the surviving five wooden trusses and beams in the roof, but used new timbers to provide support directly beneath the tiles.
When entering through the restored facade, a hospital room is located to the right and a kitchen plus storage areas are on the left.
Straight ahead, a ramp leads up to a large communal dining room with red chairs, columns and light fixtures breaking up the plain white surfaces.
Two small sleeping areas and washrooms are situated behind the eating area on this floor, while the majority of the accommodation can be found on the floor above.
Upstairs, internal walls only extend to the height of a standard room to leave a open space under the roof so the large trusses can be appreciated.
A void contained by glass walls in the centre of the space brings daylight from a hole in the roof down to the ground floor.
Bunk beds are arranged in rows down the outer walls and bathrooms are clustered along the centre, plus there are two private rooms with ensuite bathrooms.
Three more double bedrooms are fitted in at the front of the property, facing onto the street.
A balcony on top of these is accessed via the same staircase that connects all three floors.
Read on for more information sent to us by the architect:
During the last years of the nineteenth century, this building hosted the Liceo Artísitico Literario, a cultural society which needed urgently a stage while the main theatre was being built.
Coinciding with the inauguration of the Teatro Bretón de los Herreros, towards the first years of the twentieth century, the decadence of the Liceo started.
It seems that its different inhabitants (like the soup kitchen of the city or the Pastrana funeral home, among others) didn’t appreciate enough the strength of its outstanding architectonic qualities, and therefore didn’t take care of it.
Fortunately, the power of the Way of Saint James has saved it from ruin, given that the new owners have found in it the perfect place for exploiting a pilgrim hostel.
Moreover, the restoration of this place has permitted to reinforce the urban links that existed among other Jacobean milestones as the stone bridge over the Ebro, the San Gregorio’s chapel or the imperial church Santa Maria de Palacio, first pilgrim hospice known in Logroño.
The recovering of the main facade, and above all, the original roof, elevated on five centenary wooden trusses, whose typology is a rare example at this part of the country, are the focal elements of the refurbishment.
En 1968, l’architecte espagnol Ricardo Bofill a bâti La Muralla Roja (Le Mur Rouge en espagnol) à La Manzanera en Espagne. Cette bâtisse fait référence à l’architecture nord africaine comme la Casbah. 50 appartements avec des entremêlements d’escaliers, de ponts et de plateformes colorés à découvrir.
Gaps between the three brick boxes of this house near Barcelona by local firm H Arquitectes can be transformed from enclosed rooms into covered patios by folding back glass doors at both ends (+ slideshow).
Located in the town of Sant Cugat near Barcelona, the house was designed by H Arquitectes for a couple with a large art collection, who wanted plenty of wall space and a strong connection between indoors and outdoors.
“One of the main goals was to achieve a close and essential relationship between the house and the garden in such a way that they both became the extension of each other,” the architects explained.
Instead of inserting large windows into the facade to connect the house’s interior with the garden, the architects enclosed the main living room and entrance hallway with full-height wooden doors that can be folded to one side to open these spaces up to the garden.
The entrance hall is simply furnished with a bureau by the doorway and leads through to a long outdoor table, while sofas and armchairs in the other interstitial space create a comfortable living area which the architects said acts as “a green house during winter and a fresh porch in summer.”
Both of the gaps between the boxes act as routes from the front of the house to the back and feature polished concrete floors that extend into the garden on one side and a gravel pathway on the other.
Load-bearing brick walls give the exterior of the three volumes a uniform appearance. In the living room and hallway the red brick becomes the surface of the interior walls, while in the other rooms the masonry has been whitewashed.
Windows are carefully positioned to make the most of the garden views while maintaining privacy where required, and feature traditional external roller blinds to protect the interior from the sun.
The box at the eastern end of the site houses three children’s bedrooms on the first floor and a playroom on the ground floor.
The single storey central box contains a large kitchen, while the third box provides the parents with a bedroom on the ground floor and a studio space above.
Concrete slabs sheltering the spaces between the brick volumes are left with a raw finish, creating a textured ceiling that continues throughout the ground floor rooms.
Brick is also used to clad the edges of a small swimming pool in the western corner of the plot.
Not so many jobs begin like this one, with an owners’ list of wishes and hopes for their new home. A list much closer to the principles and values architects usually work with, often secretly, than the ordinary expectations of those couples facing this unknown challenge. Lists always full of good intentions but often incomplete. This was the start, loaded with responsibility, yet an excellent start.
The plot, located in a residential area of Sant Cugat, near Barcelona, had enough good attributes to become the project main line. One of the main goals was to achieve a close and essential relationship between the house and the garden in such a way that they both became the extension of each other. All that, without falling into the unavoidable, often out of proportion, and so recurrent large glazed panels: they wanted walls, and we also did. A house with walls in a garden for an art collectors couple.
For those reasons, from the right beginning, the proposal searches the balance between placing the maximum number of rooms on the ground floor yet keeping the garden free from masonry work volumes. This idea is developed through a volumetric composition shaped in three boxes spread throughout the garden, almost aligned and located in the plot northern side creating a wide outer zone facing south. The first box, to the east, houses the children’s area with three single bedrooms upstairs and a playroom on the ground floor. The second one, in the centre, accommodates the main room: the kitchen, a nearly 30 square metre and 4 metre high room dominated by a large fireplace. The third box, to the west, contains the parents’ zone, with the bedroom at the garden level and a high ceiling studio on the first floor.
The spaces created between the three boxes are covered sheltering two different environments, open to the garden in north-south direction and can be closed with big folding windows. These spaces offer a very different atmosphere, much more related to the garden area than to the house. The first of these interstitial ambiences, between the children’s area and the kitchen, serves as entrance hall. The second one, bigger, between the parents’ zone and the kitchen, is the living room but not a conventional one: a green house during winter and a fresh porch in summer.
The residence is all circled by the garden, the most part of it facing south. The corner (west), sharp-shaped, gathers the kitchen garden and a pond to bath in. In the north, the distance between the green fence and the house varies between 5 and 6 metres and increases up to 9 metres at the uncovered car parking place. This space is connected through a 3 metres wide path, parallel to the east fence, with the main southern garden. The interstitial spaces of the house (entrance hall and living room) become connecting porches between the front and back gardens.
About volumes, the house is composed of three brick masonry cubes of different heights set parallel to the back street. Although having several dimension windows that depend on their function, the cubes are predominantly massive. Besides, the interstitial areas between cubes, covered by a concrete slab and framed by folding wooden glass doors, are essentially ethereal. Actually, the space becomes an open porch when windows are folded back.
According to its materiality, the house is built on double face brick load-bearing walls, using red masonry for the outer face while white painted inside; wooden window and door frames with traditional outer roller blinds as sunscreen when required. The house is conditioned with a geothermal heat pump and an under floor heating system that slightly refreshes the house during summer, avoiding an air conditioned system to dehumidify.
A landscape of stepped boxes covered in sisal displays products at this Barcelona boutique by local firm Arquitectura-G.
Arquitectura-G was commissioned by AOO, a shop that sells furniture and products from its own label and selected other brands, to transform a former warehouse into the retail space and office.
The stepped display begins next to the entrance and continues along one wall, rising in height and expanding outwards as it reaches the rear of the shop.
“The architects wanted to exhibit the objects as they deserve, in a unique way,” AOO cofounder Marc Morro told Dezeen. “They wanted the pieces to have a special presence from the street and once you are inside. The solution was a step that grows from the entrance to the end, and shows the objects as a cascade.”
The entire display unit is covered in sisal, a woven surface made from stiff plant fibres that gives it a robust and textural dimension, and provides a uniform backdrop for the products.
“Together with the architects we had a clear idea that the materials had to define clearly the aim of the shop, so we wanted a kind of a Mediterranean component,” said Morro. “For that there are a mix between white walls, warm lights and the toasted colour from the sisal.”
At the back of the space, the sisal continues across the floor of a studio space and up into a raised kitchen and lounge area, where it covers the base of the boxy sofas.
Photograph by Jara Varela
The narrowing floor space resulting from the projecting steps creates a gradual transition between the public space of the shop and this private area.
The back rooms can be completely closed off by sliding across a partition with a stepped profile that slots behind the display when not in use.
Photograph by Jara Varela
Mirror panels fixed to the side of the partition reflect the products and give the space the impression of added depth when it is slid across.
Simple lamp shades are suspended at different heights above the product display, with their black cords left exposed to contrast with the white walls.
Photography is by José Hevia unless otherwise stated.
A raw concrete house in Alicante by Spanish studio Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos becomes the scene for a string of mysterious murders in this series of images by photographer Luis Diaz Diaz (+ slideshow).
Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos designed the two-storey Casa Baladrar as a holiday house in the Spanish town of Benissa, but Luis Diaz Diaz chose to photograph the building as is it were a crime scene, rather than an attractive tourist destination.
“Every time I take pictures of houses I think about all of the things that could happen inside,” Diaz Diaz told Dezeen. “Many things happen in the life of a house, sometimes good sometimes bad; it can be robbed, or there could be a big party. So a house is the perfect place for creating a fantasy.”
One image features a man slumped over the mint-green frame of one of the house’s many large windows, while another features a woman lying behind a sofa on the terracotta tiles of the living room floor.
“I wanted to create a contrast between the clarity of the architectural lines of the house and these kind of weird events,” explained the photographer.
These architectural lines include a series of faceted ceilings that angle back and forth through the open-plan living room and kitchen, which occupies the house’s upper floor.
Architect María Langarita said they added these details to mimic the rugged topography that links the house with the sea. “We wanted a way to inhabit this rocky landscape,” she told Dezeen.
A series of bedrooms are located on the level below. Like the living room, each one can be opened out to surrounding terraces by sliding back glass doors and perforated metal shutters.
“Our goal was to make a very open house, so when the windows are open they disappear completely behind these lively green lattices and you don’t see any glass,” said Langarita.
Matching green glass tiles cover some of the lower walls. There’s also a swimming pool wrapping around part of the perimeter, which is depicted containing a body face-down.
Here’s a project description from Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos:
Casa Baladrar
The scattered and trans-European city that the mountainous coast of Alicante has become, houses a heterogeneous population that is drawn to the sun, the sea, the temperate climate, the convenient public services and the leafy greenery.
The promise of relaxing and hedonistic experiences captivates both seasonal tourists and long-term residents who see their expectations fulfilled amongst jasmine and bougainvilleas. The project draws from this context and is designed to meet the demands of multiple families in the summertime and as a haven for retirees the rest of the year.
The house rests on terraces that were once used for farming, which resolve the steep gradient of the terrain. The plot’s sloping nature means that there are some spectacular views of the sea from its upper reaches, while the lower portion looks over a wooded stream bed that carries water into a pebble-strewn cove.
The house takes advantage of the views and the breeze and makes the most of the uneven terrain and vegetation for the creation of small areas where activities can take place simultaneously, day and night. The existing trees were preserved and new species added in an effort to conquer the promising exuberance of local flora.
The interior spaces are arranged in a cascade, with common areas on the upper floor adjoining the terraces with their views, and bedrooms on the lower floor with access to the garden and swimming pool. The detail proposed for the openings eliminates all presence of glass when they are drawn back, transforming the house into an enormous porch that provides continuity between outside and inside activities.
The building uses the thermal inertia of the concrete and stone to its advantage, combining it with the lightness of the avocado green latticework and the glass tiles to create a cool and well-ventilated atmosphere. The house’s geometry and mineral quality reflect the impressive Peñón de Ifach and respond to a desire for time travel, with a minimum amount of maintenance.
Project: Casa Baladrar Location: Benissa, Alicante Architects: María Langarita and Víctor Navarro Collaborators: Marta Colón, Roberto González, Juan Palencia Structures: Mecanismo S.L. Date: September 2009 Client: Private
Spanish firm Nook Architects has renovated a Barcelonaapartment by adding patterned floor tiles plus a combined step and window seat leading out onto the terrace (+ slideshow).
The Casa Sal apartment in the Poble Sec district of the city is only three metres wide and 19 metres long.
Nook Architects covered the kitchen, bathroom and study with patterned ceramics to divide up the space visually. They then used wooden flooring for a softer look and feel in the rest of the home.
The kitchen acts as the hub of the apartment by linking the living room and the bedroom areas. Nook said they placed extra emphasis on the kitchen.
“For our client, the most important part was the kitchen which had to be the heart of the home; functional, resistant, lively, and very much on the lead in regards to the rest of the room.”
The brightly tiled kitchen leads on to the living room and a slightly raised terrace. Before work started the terrace was in poor condition and could only be accessed through a narrow, opaque door.
To make it feel more connected to the rest of the home, Nook fitted a window seat that doubles as a step with storage space underneath. By using the same material for the top of the bench and floor of the terrace they managed to integrate the terrace with the rest of the apartment. The sliding window doors also allow far more natural light into the room.
Like the kitchen and living room, the client’s bedroom is separated from the study by using floor tiles. Again, Nook used the eye-catching tiles to divide up the relatively small space.
It is becoming increasingly popular to use encaustic floor tiles in Barcelona, with many architects uncovering original flooring from the 1960s. In this case, with no original tiles to unearth, Nook’s client chose the tiles herself – a floral theme for the study, a checkerboard tile for the bathroom and geometrical patterns for the kitchen.
Here’s a project description from Nook Architects:
CASA SAL, Apartment in Poble Sec, Barcelona
For nook there are two different types of projects from the client’s point of view: that of an owner who will live on the dwelling, and those focused for an unknown user (for example, a rental apartment). On commissions for the first example, we try get to know the client’s day to day customs and habits as thoroughly as possible- anything that could have an effect on their way of life. This was the case of CASA SAL, where the refurbishment of a dwelling was shaped around personality of its owner.
On the other hand, we had to face de difficulties of the original geometry, a very compartmentalised rectangle, only 3 metres wide, and 19 metres long. On one of its ends lay a terrace in very poor conditions, elevated in regards to the dwellings floor level, which could only be accessed through a narrow, opaque door.
These were the premises we worked around in order to solve the architectural problems of the property and the functional requirements of our client. From the start, it involved teamwork, between the architects and the client.
For the client, the most important part was the kitchen, which had to be the heart of the home; functional, resistant, lively, and very much on the lead in regards to the rest of the room. The kitchen therefore articulates the rest of the spaces: on one side there’s the living room with Access to the terrace, and on the other the most private areas, her bedroom and study, a bathroom and a guest room.
To counter the sensation of the narrow proportions of the dwelling, we treated the pavement with fringes of different types of very eye-catching finishes, placing more resistant materials in the kitchen, bathroom, and study, and combining them with Wood for a softer look and feel on the rest of the home. Our client participated by choosing the different tiles used: a hydraulic mosaic for the kitchen with geometrical shapes, a floral theme for the study, and a checker board for the bathroom.
For the terrace, we had a double objective: to solve the deficient connection between it and the living room and to transform into source of natural light, giving it a purpose all year long. This is why we decided to open a large hole on the facade and placed a seating bench that doubles as a stair and storage area with bookcases and drawers. The same pavement was used to finish the terrace on the outside, and the bench on the inside, making the terrace part of the living room itself.
We understood from the beginning that even though our intervention was over, the client’s intervention had only begun. She now has a starting point based on a very familiar architecture to her past, her tastes, and way of live, which will evolve naturally and alongside herself.
A curving timber-clad wall divides the work space from a multipurpose meeting room at the offices of domohomo architects in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Domohomo architects renovated an abandoned shop and transformed it into a compact office with a separate area that can function as a meeting room, classroom or events venue.
The addition of a bulging masonry wall clad in pale timber creates two distinct spaces; a light-filled office containing a large desk, and a smaller room that can be rearranged depending on requirements.
Openings including a hatch in the curving wall facing the office and a door in the other side allow the sequence of spaces to be visually connected and supplement the natural light reaching the back room from a large window next to the entrance.
“Everything seems continuous and uniform, but it is nothing more than a subtle game of steps and gates that, according to its opening, allows us to discover new stays or, simply change the spatial configuration,” explained the architects.
The original asymmetric floorplan has been turned into a regular oblong by adding fitted cabinetry along the entire length of one wall, which also provides the office’s main storage.
The architects employed a palette of simple and affordable materials, including fabric fixed loosely to the ceiling to create a series of inverted vaults.
Vertical wooden boards extend along one wall of the office, continuing over the partition and surrounding the meeting room.
“We consider wood as an optimum material to meet all our demands, both for the inner envelope and for the preparation of all the necessary furniture,” said the architects.
Wood is also used for the floors throughout the offices, and offers a warm contrast to the slick surface of the cabinetry and the white-painted brickwork which is visible on the rear of the curving surface and some of the other walls.
Our Architectural Studio, domohomo architects, is located in a former shop that had been in disuse in recent years, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. It was the place we had chosen to develop our incipient profession, but we knew that the reform had to be governed by two very clear premises; on the one hand, the budget that we started was necessarily reduced and, on the other hand, we didn’t want to give up enjoying a warm and cosy stay to develop our daily task.
Delving into this second premise, we consider the wood as an optimum material to meet all our demands, both for the inner envelope and for the preparation of all the necessary furniture. Specifically, the front of cabinet that runs through the entire space takes special relevance, since he returned to the low a more orthogonal form and functions as a large container. In the end, thanks to the opening of booklet, we get that part of its interior to incorporate a general volume, depending on the needs of the moment.
Axonometric diagram showing new masonry
In contrast with this smooth and straight forehead, the rest is defined by curves and contra-curves of white timber. Apparently, everything seems continuous and uniform, but is nothing more than a subtle game of steps and gates that, according to its opening, allows us to discover new stays or, simply change the spatial configuration.
Axonometric diagram showing wooden surfaces
This fact is by no means capricious, but it is due to a very clear desire. From the beginning, we wanted that this reform is not limited to our professional office but that could also serve physical support to other creators to publicise their work. Therefore, generated two distinct areas, where the most exposed part is unveiled for our jobs, while the rear is deliberately more indefinite, well can function as meeting room, small classroom or venue.
Spanish architects Josemaria de Churtichaga and Cayetana de la Quadra-Salcedo have built themselves a rural retreat with wooden walls, projecting terraces, and a brilliant yellow door and chimney (+ slideshow).
Churtichaga + Quadra-Salcedo designed Four Seasons House for a gently sloping meadow approximately 100 kilometres north of Madrid, which had sat dormant since the architects purchased it 12 years earlier.
“After 12 years of contemplation, we decided to build a tiny house there, a refuge, a piece of landscape as a frame, a small inhabited threshold with two views, east and west,” they explained.
The architects developed the design around a yellow colour palette in response to the hues of flowers, leaves, bark and lichen that they’ve spotted in the landscape across the changing seasons.
“This is a humanised landscape of meadows, walls, ash, streams – a small-scale landscape, minimal, almost domestic, and where absolutely everything happens in yellow,” they said.
Part-buried in the hillside, the two-storey house was built from chunky wooden beams that slot around one another to create alternating corner joints.
The family living room sits at the centre of the upper-ground floor and opens out to terraces on two sides. The first cantilevers out to face distant mountains to the east, while the second projects westward towards a landscape of rocks and brambles.
Timber-lined bedrooms and study areas are located at the two ends and feature built-in desks and cupboards.
Wooden stairs lead down to the partially submerged lower floor, where an open-plan layout creates a space that can be used as a separate guesthouse.
Here’s a project description from Churtichaga + Quadra-Salcedo:
Four Seasons House
This is a humanised landscape of meadows, walls, ash, streams, a small-scale landscape, minimal, almost domestic, and where absolutely everything happens in yellow.
In spring poke all yellow flowers. In the summer, yellow cereal is yellow harvested in a yellow Castilian heat. Fall only comes here in yellow, millions of tiny ash leaves that die in a lingering and dry yellow. In winter, yellow insists in glowing flashes of yellow lichen on the gray trunks of ash trees. And here every machine is yellow, the signs are yellow, everywhere yellows…
We bought a meadow in this landscape 15 years ago, and after 12 years of yellow contemplation, we decided to build a tiny house there, a refuge, a piece of landscape as a frame, a small inhabited threshold with two views, east and west.
To the west, a nearby view of rocks, moss, brambles and ancient ash. And to the east, the distant dawn over the yellow mountains.
This double view and the thinking body finished to draw the house. Everything is small, everything is short, everything has a tiny scale. From outside, the view slides over the house.
The eye only stops at a yellow gate guarding the doorway, and a yellow chimney that warms it, the rest is invisible. And when sitting, stopping in the doorway, the house disappears and the world continues in yellow.
Location: Berrocal, Segovia, Castilla y León (España) Architects: Josemaria de Churtichaga, Cayetana de la Quadra-Salcedo Collaborator: Nathanael Lopez Contractor: Pablo Campoverde Area: 150 sqm
Voici de nombreuses vues impressionnantes prises depuis le ciel sur des lieux et des pays aux 4 coins du monde. New York, les pyramides d’Egypte et l’Arc de Triomphe à Paris sont assez reconnaissables mais il y a également des vues plus surprenantes comme ce cliché au milieu de l’Océan Indien. A découvrir dans la suite.
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