This office and workshop for a theatre designer in Osaka was designed by Japanese studio Mattch to look like a glazed box hovering between two solid curtains (+ slideshow).
Nagoya-based Mattch wanted to reference the profession of the client with the design of S-Office, so developed a building with an L-shaped outer structure that frames the activities of its occupants like actors on a stage.
“A curtain of the stage opens and becomes the background,” explained studio co-founder Takenaka Ryuji.
Each floor of the three-storey building has a different function, so was given a different-sized floor plate. The middle storey is the largest, so it projects ahead of the ground floor to shelter the entrance and create the impression of a floating structure.
Inside, a turquoise-painted steel staircase spans the height of the building and is lit from above by a large skylight.
This contrasts with a series of exposed steel ceiling beams that have been picked out in red, as well as other structural details highlighted in shades of blue and yellow.
The ground floor accommodates a double-height workshop for producing props, while an office for quiet work is located on the split-level first floor and the upper level contains a top-lit meeting room.
The office uses a half-landing as part of its floor space. It also features wall-mounted shelving units that follow the diagonal line of the exposed steel bracing.
These shelving units reappear on the second floor, this time in a horizontal arrangement. Here, they line a semi-circular alcove which holds the meeting area.
This space is illuminated by a cluster of colourful pendant lamps and looks out onto a glazed conservatory with a pitched roof.
London studio Haptic references eroded granite rock formations commonly found around the Norwegian coastline with the curving form of this layered timber staircase, created for an office interior in Oslo.
Strategy and corporate finance firm Arkwright asked Haptic to design the interior of its new offices, which are located in a converted harbour warehouse in Oslo’s Aker Brygge area.
Upon entering the offices on the upper floor, staff and visitors are confronted with a monolithic reception desk made from stained black timber slats.
Behind the desk, the wooden strips become more spaced out, creating curving walls that surround a back office and transition into the wall behind the staircase.
“The design is inspired by svabergs – large granite stone formations that are typical for the area – rounded and polished by icebergs thousands of years ago,” the architects described.
The staircase descends to a lounge area and incorporates widened treads that offer spaces for casual seating.
Furniture scattered around this space includes tables with organically shaped surfaces and sofas with layered backrests that echo the form of the stairs.
Skylights and an original arched window overlooking the harbour fill the white-walled lounge with natural light.
Haptic created a variety of different environments for working and relaxing throughout the offices, including a James Bond-themed executive lounge.
Located in a windowless space in the middle of the lower level, the room features wood-panelled walls and leather furniture intended to create an intimate and sophisticated feel.
A bookcase built into one of the walls is also a secret door that pivots to connect the room with the corridor outside.
Televisions built into two of the walls can be viewed from the sofa in the lounge space or from a long conference table, while one of the other walls contains a bar and fridge.
Arkwright is a European consultancy that specialise in strategic advice. A new office space has been created for 40-50 employees, including workspaces, reception and back office, kitchen canteen, meeting rooms, breakout space and a “James Bond” room. The office is located in the prime harbour front location of Aker Brygge in Oslo, Norway, in an old converted warehouse building with a large arched window as its centrepiece.
The office is entered on the top floor. A new reception “sculpture” incorporates back offices, reception desk and a large stair/amphitheatre that straddles a double height space. The design is inspired by “svabergs”, large granite stone formations that are typical for the area, rounded and polished by icebergs thousands of years ago.
Special effort has been made to create a variety of spaces within the offices, incorporating green walls, double height spaces, and a special “James Bond” room.
The “James Bond” room is a windowless bunker-like space, sitting deep in the building – a difficult space to work with. This seemingly unpromising space has been transformed into an executive lounge for quiet contemplation, creating a private, intimate and calming atmosphere.
Project: Arkwright – Aker Brygge, Oslo Typology: Office Fit out Client: Arkwright/NPRO Year of Construction: 2013-2014 Architect: Haptic Architects Team: Nikki Butenschøn, Anthony Williams
A suspended steel staircase is completed by a piece of wooden furniture in this renovated Oslo loft by London studio Haptic (+ slideshow).
Haptic created the split-level Idunsgate apartment in the upper levels of a nineteenth-century apartment block. The new staircase connects living spaces on the lower storey with a mezzanine above, but also creates a subtle divide between the kitchen and lounge.
Made from powder-coated white steel, the staircase hangs down from a ceiling beam and wall overhead. Its narrow vertical supports form a balustrade, while open risers allow views through from below.
As the stairs descend, they stop before reaching the floor, so residents have to step down over a piece of wooden furniture that functions as both a chest of drawers and a window seat.
On one side of the staircase is a white-painted living area featuring a low-slung sofa and white mesh chair, while the other side is a kitchen and dining area finished in dark grey.
“The original kitchen was tight, inefficient and north facing,” said architect Tomas Stokke, describing the old layout. “By moving it into the common areas we could create a light, airy and spacious space that becomes the social heart.”
An oak worktop doubles as a breakfast bar with room for two. There is also a small fireplace that creates a cooking space at the end of the kitchen worktop.
A double-height bathroom sits beside the living area and is finished in polished concrete and grey stone. The bath and shower are raised up, so residents have to climb up a small staircase to access them.
Upstairs, the hallway connecting the bedroom with the stairs becomes a viewing platform over the living space below. It also leads out to a small sheltered roof terrace.
The apartment is in the top floor of a 19th century apartment building in central Oslo in Norway. Purchasing the loft space above the apartment enabled the client to do a full scale refurbishment of the loft, bringing the two floors into one, unified space.
Through a thorough three-dimensional survey of the apartment and careful assessment of the means of escape, we were able to incorporate every nook and cranny and even part of the stairwell into the design.
By fully utilising the level changes and opportunities we could introduce spatial drama with substantial vertical sight lines. The en-suite bathroom to the master bedroom is organised over three levels by incorporating found spaces. A sunny terrace has a large glass wall that brings evening light deep into the apartment. Some loft space has been sacrificed to create a double height space over the living room.
The centrepiece of the apartment is the feature staircase connecting the two levels. A modular, powder-coated, white steel stair is suspended between the joists and connects to a low storage/sofa unit that runs along the front façade.
The bathroom incorporated several level changes, and by using large scale 100x300cm tiles, the impression is of one that is carved out of a single block of stone.
The original kitchen was tight, inefficient and north facing. By moving it into the common areas we could create a light, airy and spacious space that becomes the social heart and integrates with the rest of the apartment. A small fireplace is integrated into the kitchen worktop and the kitchen fronts are painted to match the colour of the fireplace.
This conceptual design for a family home by postgraduate architecture student Gonzalo Vaíllo Martínez features a fluid structural frame, a skeletal staircase and a skin incorporating blinds that open and close like gills (+ movie).
Starting with the standard functional spaces required by a single family residence, Vaíllo Martínez based the form of the house on scientific advances in fields such as microcellular systems and biogenetics.
“Everyone has in mind what the standards of a normal house are today,” Vaíllo Martínez told Dezeen. “They are the principles established in Modernism, where spaces were separated by function and the aim was how to relate these spaces to one other and the surroundings.”
“This project is based on this distribution of the program in a very simple but strict way,” he continued. “The house is an exercise in blending a much more complex, multiple and emotive architectural language with a common single family house program.”
Designed as a modular system that can be adapted to any site, this version of the house was developed for a sloping plot at 2217 Neutra Place in California, which is located between two houses designed by Modernist architect Richard Neutra. Vaíllo Martínez feels these houses represent the outmoded typologies of twentieth century architecture.
“When the system is moved into a real location it evolves and mutates according to the constraints defined by the surroundings,” he explained. “It can be placed anywhere and the specific conditions of each location will modify the house in one way or another.”
The house comprises three interconnected units, with an entrance leading to pods containing various services which are partially submerged in the hillside and connected to the main living areas below by a fluid staircase.
A third unit housing the bedrooms and a terrace is detached from the main structure and raised above the ground at the bottom of the site.
Using 3D computer modelling processes that enable surfaces to expand, contract and respond to different parameters, the shape of the house was animated and deformed to match the topography of the site.
The fluid skeleton is intended to be constructed from structural concrete, with the complex facade panels and tangled supporting framework produced using 3D printing processes.
Organic louvred panels incorporated into the building’s skin open and close like gills, while other openings stretch and widen to adjust the amount of light entering the interior.
Vaíllo Martínez suggested that, although the building may appear unrealistic, it could be constructed today using contemporary technologies and manufacturing methods.
“We have more than enough technology not only to design projects such as this one, but also to materialise them,” he claimed. “This is not science fiction or something possible in the near future, it is possible today if we push the boundaries of the resources we have now. Budget is another issue.”
Here’s some more information from Vaíllo Martínez:
2217NPL House, Gonzalo Vaíllo Martínez
Located in the outskirts of Los Angeles, the starting point of the design is based on the standards of a single family house. The exuberance of the form is the tool that develops an aesthetic able to corrupt the original principles and establish a negotiation with the contemporary way of life in a day-by-day house.
The project is thought as a continuous mixture of conventional elements that create an emotional empathy with something that is familiar for everyone (social memory), combined with external contaminations that brings new behaviors and perceptions of the spaces.
The house is divided into three units. The first one is a half-underground piece, which contains the main entrance and the services of the house. The public areas are located in the second one (on the ground) and in the last one appears the private rooms, which detach from the ground. In this way, the three units are positioned in the same height and it is the relationship with the sloped topography that defines each piece structurally.
The aggressive exterior made out of the combination of a wire-linework, mobile facade panels and metallic surfaces, creates a contrast with the soft and continuous interiors.
A spiral of wooden strips surrounds a staircase in the restaurant of this Strasbourg hotel, designed inside a former equestrian academy by Paris studio Jouin Manku (+ slideshow).
Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku of Jouin Manku overhauled the eighteenth-century building that previously functioned as the royal stud to create the 55-room Les Haras de Strasbourg hotel and adjoining restaurant.
“The interior design for the hotel and brasserie is characterised by its authenticity and modernity,” said the designers. “A particular idea of luxury and comfort inspired by the equestrian world, restrained and subtle.”
Oak elements encircle the curving staircase linking the two floors of the brasserie, forming handrails on one side and a balustrade round the top of the void.
The staircase sits between a circular bar and open kitchen at the entrance level, where informal seating and a few dining table are located.
The timber elements extend from the spiral across a wine rack along the back wall.
Upstairs, guests dine beneath the original wooden roof supported by chunky beams and columns.
Private booths are created within pods and large curved seats covered in saddle leather, while long tables extend down the length of the space to accommodate larger parties.
Stonework around the windows has been left exposed and the walls are finished with rough plaster.
The wood structure is also highlighted in the simple bedrooms, which are painted white and decorated with leather details on the headboards and furniture.
Horse graphics in the reception hint at the building’s original use.
Here’s some extra information from the studio:
Les Haras de Strasbourg
Les Haras de Strasbourg is a hotel and restaurant project unlike any other.
Composed of a the four-star hotel and Michelin 3-starred chef Marc Haeberlin’s first brasserie, Les Haras presents an original solution to the question many provincial cities are facing: how to redevelop and harness the potential of their architectural heritage.
Managed by the Institute for Research into Cancer of the Digestive System (IRCAD), presided over by Professor Jacques Marescaux, the project allies architectural creativity and technological innovation, two particular areas of French expertise, with philanthropy, an unprecedented mix for a historic redevelopment project in France.
As conceived by Agence Jouin Manku, the interior design for the hotel and brasserie is characterised by its authenticity and modernity, a particular idea of luxury and comfort inspired by the equestrian world, restrained and subtle.
Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku have expressed their vision of this former stud farm and historic site, in a design that is both elegant and simple.
They have deliberately chosen to limit the range of materials used; solid wood, natural full hide leather and blackened or brushed metal to transpose the original life of this emblematic Strasbourg building into something resolutely contemporary and simple, whose architectural details attest to the studio’s creativity.
A dramatic oak staircase with a sweeping handrail connects the five storeys of this Victorian convent building in south London, which has been converted into four homes by John Smart Architects (+ slideshow).
The Old St John’s Convent and Orchard was renovated by London firm John Smart Architects to create four five-storey properties that retain the original order of the facades while adding modern interventions and overhauling the interiors.
“The distinctive Victorian skin was largely renovated and reinstated to retain as much of the character of the original convent as possible,” the architects told Dezeen.
“New interventions remained largely hidden where possible on the front facing facade, whereas the back facade required opening up to benefit from the south facing aspect and to improve visual connections with the large gardens,” they added.
Extensions to two of the properties incorporate large windows and Juliet balconies looking out onto the garden, and are clad in pale limestone that contrasts with the existing facade.
“Moleanos limestone was chosen as a pure, unapologetically modern solid element which contrasted against the original London brick,” said the architects.
Inside one of the extensions, a double-height void rises from the lower ground floor kitchen and dining area to a reading room above that features a glass balustrade to retain views of the garden.
The kitchen floor is made from polished screed, while oak was used for built-in cabinetry and an adjoining partition that screens the utility area.
A fluid oak staircase at the centre of the house was constructed from staves with standardised sections and assembled on-site. The wood was exposed to ammonia fumes to darken its colour.
Just two types of wedge-shaped staves were used to build the inner and outer curves that form the handrail and the stringer supporting the treads.
“The stairwell concept was to design a heavy vertical sculptured element, providing a solid core to the overall programmatic framing of the house,” the architects explained. “The building’s history meant it felt appropriate for the staircase to have a strong robust presence, which suggested dark oak.”
On the original main floor of the convent, a large oak bookcase acts as a dividing wall between a living area and the staircase.
The bookcase is constructed from the same fumed oak as the staircase, creating visual consistency between these two vertical elements while contrasting with the pale herringbone wooden floor.
Bedrooms and bathrooms are contained on the second and third storeys, with the staircase continuing to a roof terrace fitted between two sections of the sloping roof.
Set within a tree lined neighbourhood in South London; a distinctive local landmark has been attentively refurbished and crafted into four elegant houses. The Old St John’s Convent and Orchard at 17 Grove Park has been given a fresh lease of life through combining the rich history of the original Victorian building with new contemporary spaces and interventions. Each house is set over 5 floors and spans over 4000 square feet.
The Great Room Floor
Conceived as an open single space, the Great Room Floor provides three distinct areas within the original ground floor of the convent, whilst still maintaining an open dialogue across the floor.
Library
The oak library unit forms a central ‘furniture wall’ in the Great Room. Concealed full height doors allow space to flow freely around it, creating a fluid space. The fumed oak joinery relates to the fumed oak stair, bringing the verticality of the central core into the spatial dynamic.
Staircase Design
The five-storey oak stair is constructed using staves of standard section sizes that were laminated into a bespoke form. Crafted in a workshop, the elements were assembled on-site into a seamless flight that rises through the core of the house. Detailing is reduced to a minimum – just two types of wedged-shaped staves were used to achieve the inner and outer curves of the stair, which serves as both stringer and handrail.
Kitchen and Dining
At the heart of each house is a cooking and dining space situated under a dramatic six-metre high double height void. Framed by a full height oak window and sliding door, it has vistas onto the gardens and terrace beyond. Inside merges with outside, giving a garden backdrop to cooking, eating and entertaining in one light-filled room. The double aspect space can be used to create two distinct atmospheres if desired, each with their own ambiance, for casual family dining and more structured formal dining. A monolithic polished screed floor unifies the space while storage and utility are concealed neatly behind bespoke cupboards and timber clad walls. The kitchen itself is crafted from fumed oak with framed black granite oak doors and an Italian white marble worktop.
The Object élevé is an oak and black steel installation commissioned by designer Just Haasnoot for his home in Wassenaar, an affluent suburb in The Hague.
It combines storage and access to the upper floor via a series of open frame boxes.
Handmade in Mieke Meijer‘s Eindhoven workshop, the industrial nature of the piece sits in deliberate contrast to the pale blue walls and muted tones of the residence that was built in the 1930s.
“The construction, built from both standing and suspended parts, largely consists of open frames allowing the design’s transparent character to be maintained,” explained Meijer.
The staircase is based on the samba system of alternating steps to allow the staircase to rise at a steep angle, while still remaining comfortable to walk up and down.
The lower half of the steps features wide pieces of oak integrated into the shelving and storage unit. These also serve as spaces for plants and ornaments and form part of a desk.
Halfway up the steps however, the design and purpose of the stairs changes. The steps become smaller, and form part of a suspended structure.
It features a large flat piece of oak that acts as a shelf and display, and space for a makeshift bookcase.
Beside the desk sits a cupboard with three shelves slotted into the lower structure to complete the piece.
“We were inspired by the photographs of Bernd and Hilla Becher,” said Meijer. “The Bechers’ black and white photography is renowned for the systematic photo series of industrial buildings that closely resemble each other in function and design. We reconstructed these buildings into functional installations.”
The Dutch design studio also took inspiration from the German photographers’ work in one of their earlier pieces, the Winding Tower 01 table.
This Berlin townhouse by architecture office XTH-Berlin features doors that open like drawbridges, sloping floors that function as slides and nets that cover holes in the floors (+ slideshow).
XTH-Berlin inserted staggered floors throughout the building’s 12-metre height to accommodate various living spaces, with bedrooms housed in slanted concrete volumes at the first and third levels featuring flaps that can be used to slide from one level to the next.
The house’s entrance contains wardrobes, a bathroom and a spare room that can be hidden by drawing a full-height curtain, while a gap in the ceiling provides a view of the zigzagging levels that ascend to the top of the house.
Two concrete-walled bedrooms situated above the ground floor feature sloping wooden flaps that can be raised to connect these rooms with a platform where the piano sits.
A gap in this platform level allows light and views between the storeys and is covered in netting to create a safe play area.
A staircase leads past the two bedrooms to a living room containing a bathroom that can be cordoned off using a curtain.
The third bedroom is connected to this living area by a gently sloping wooden bridge, while another flight of stairs leads to a reading platform.
A final set of stairs continues to the top floor kitchen and dining room, which opens onto a large terrace.
This open-plan level features a skylight that adds to the natural light entering the space through the full-height glazing.
A minimal palette of materials is used throughout the interior, including concrete, pinewood flooring, steel railings and laminated spruce used for dividing walls, stairs and doors.
The house is located beside a park marking the site of the former Berlin Wall. Entrances on either side of the property lead to a multipurpose space for storing bikes, clothes and shoes.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Townhouse B14
The house is all about space and light.
Developed by the section it has a continuous space stretching out over the total height (12 mts), length and width of the building: from entrance hall and playing area to a music level to a living room with an open bath to a reading area to the kitchen with terrace.
This open space is zoned by two concrete elements ‘hung’ between the firewalls. They contain the private (bed) rooms. Due to their slants views are possible through the entire house.
Only few materials determine the interior space: fair faced concrete for the solids, plaster for the firewalls, glued-laminated spruce for dividing walls, stairs and doors, and pinewood planks for the floors, besides steel for the railings, glass for the facades and fringes for filtering views and light. Interiors like the shelves and trunks are designed by us.
According to the site along the former wall – the no-man’s land between East and West – now the Berlin Wall Memorial, the house has a severe outside contrasting the coloured balcony houses opposite in the former West.
The house is built on a trapezoid lot of land of 118 m2 with a small garden in the southeast towards a residential path and the wide side of the house to the northwest facing the plain of the Berlin Wall Memorial which is mainly a park. It’s part of a settlement of 16 townhouses, the two neighbouring houses are by XTH-berlin as well.
The nearly all-over glazed facades are structured by steel girders, which span from one dividing wall to the other and take over the cross bracing. Two lines of fringy draperies in front of the ground and second floor provide screen and cover the window frames.
Technically we use a heat pump (pipes going 80 mts into the ground) with panel heating and rainwater tanks in the garden for use in the toilets.
You enter the house from both sides: From the north beneath the concrete solid in an area with wardrobe, bathroom and the building services room. From the south directly in the living space which opens to the very top of the building. This is the level to put the bikes, do handicrafts, play kicker, a spare room and a storage room can be separated by a curtain.
The stairway leading up crosses the first concrete element with two sleeping rooms inside. Few steps up you reach the music area, a gallery with a horizontal net as a fall protection.
The two sleeping rooms can be opened to this area by the use of 2,5m x 1,5m big elevating flaps (which besides to slide and play are used to ventilate the sleeping rooms to the quiet side of the house). Further up you are on top of the first concrete element: Here you find the classic living space with sofa and oven, but also a bathroom included, to partition by curtain.
Via a bridge you enter the second concrete element, containing another sleeping room. The sloped wall is becoming a huge pillow.
Continuing your way up you come to an intermediate level, which is mostly used as a reading area, looking back down you view the small garden on the back side of the house and the memorial park in front.
Another stairway and you reach the highest level on top of the second concrete element: kitchen and dining area, opening to a terrace. A huge roof light (through which the stack-effect ventilates the to a maximum glazed house) lets the midday sun shine deep down on the lower levels.
An orange staircase zigzags back and forth across the atrium of this science faculty building that Canadian firm Saucier + Perrotte Architectes has completed for a Quebec college (+ slideshow).
The angular staircase connects all six storeys of the Anne-Marie Edward Science Building, which was designed by Saucier + Perrotte Architectes at the heart of the John Abbott College campus near Montreal.
The building has a folded form that angles around an existing ginkgo tree. The main entrance is positioned inside the fold, while a diamond-shaped space at the rear accommodates the atrium and staircase.
The architects compare the staircase with the gingko, describing it as an “architectonic tree” that connects the departments of each floor, comprising physics, biology, chemistry, nursing, prehospital emergency care and biopharmaceuticals.
“The landscape flows into the foyer, becoming an interior topography, which transforms at the fulcrum of the building into a light-filled, vertical circulation space connecting the sciences,” they said.
The vibrant orange provides the only colour in an otherwise monochrome interior. Ground-floor seating areas are finished in the same colour, while a weathered steel facade at the northern end of the building echoes similar tones.
“The grand staircase and seating elements comprising the interior ‘tree’ weave these orange hues throughout the building, just as the weathered steel of the north facade and the ruddy masonry courtyard surfaces relate back to the historic campus tiles and brick,” said the architects.
Other facades are glazed with varying transparency, revealing the staircase to the rest of the campus whilst maintaining the privacy of the laboratories.
Here’s a more comprehensive description of the building from Saucier + Perrotte Architectes:
Anne-Marie Edward Science Building at John Abbott College
Located on a campus designed along Lac St-Louis in the first decade of the twentieth century, John Abbott College is home to more than 5000 post-secondary students, faculty and staff members. Its new Science Building, designed by Saucier + Perrotte Architectes, is a state-of-the-art facility intended to foster the interdisciplinary nature of science, collaborative study and experiments, and the need for formal and informal learning. Designed as a showcase for sustainability, the singular, iconic form promotes a variety of pedagogical approaches through flexible classrooms, laboratories, learning centres, and informal spaces where ideas can be exchanged and creative interaction can unfold.
The new building houses the College’s sciences – Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Nursing, Prehospital Emergency Care, (Paramedic), and Biopharmaceutical departments – positioning the sciences and health technologies at the heart of the John Abbott campus. Sited carefully to preserve the logic of the radial organisation that drove the initial campus planning, the new architecture becomes a node of activity on the campus.
The architecture stems from the landscape, taking cues from its context. On the site is a majestic gingko tree that was envisioned as a centrepiece for a beautiful, collegial, outdoor gathering space. The building’s form first extends from the campus centre, then folds to frame a public courtyard around this tree. The landscape flows into the foyer, becoming an interior topography, which transforms at the fulcrum of the building into a light-filled, vertical circulation space connecting the sciences. An architectonic tree, analogous to that of the adjacent gingko, this atrium space contains the grand staircase and branches that extend through the building as built-in way-finding elements and benches. The vertical link thus becomes a public interior garden, emphasising the connection between the natural environment and the type of learning that takes place within the building.
The permeable ground floor of the building permits the landscape and users to flow into and through it with ease. The project thereby functions as a hub and a passage to various parts of campus. The volume above frames views to the lake, landscape, and the town of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue. Together with the labs and student spaces along the east and west facades, the learning centres situated along the south facade – directed toward the centre of campus – give students a feeling of inhabiting a virtual balcony overlooking the verdure and lake below.
The building is composed of a glass material palette – vividly reflecting the sky, landscape, and adjacent historic buildings – its angled surfaces giving new, unexpected perspectives toward various parts of the campus. Each of the long facades is predominantly composed of a single glass tone of opalescent white, light grey, or dark grey. The result is a subtle, perceptual play between the hues of the juxtaposed facades, especially as the sunlight changes throughout the day or depending where one is standing in relation to the building. The slight shifts in glass tones add to a heightened perception of the architecture; under varying lighting and shadow conditions, for instance, the facade contrasts may be accentuated or, conversely, take on a uniform tonal appearance that would be impossible if the surfaces had been the same hue.
In certain circulation zones, the building skin gradually changes from translucent to transparent, allowing the building to be perceived as continuously changing – even dematerialising – within the campus. Programmatic functions (offices, learning centres and laboratories) are given clear expression as they come into contact with the building skin so that those outside can readily identify the functions showcasing the sciences. The north and south facades of the pristine glazed form appear suddenly sliced or truncated, given over to the elements, and weathered so as to evoke the colours and textures found throughout the college. The grand staircase and seating elements comprising the interior “tree” also weave these orange hues throughout the building, just as the weathered steel of the north facade and the ruddy masonry courtyard surfaces relate back to the historic campus tiles and brick. Through its dialectic with the existing architecture, the new project is both contemporary in form and harmonious with the historic campus.
Main floor levels contain individual departments to preserve continuity between professors, classrooms and laboratories for each science, favouring work, study and quiet contemplation. The central atrium space allows easy access to other levels, fostering connection, communication, and sense of community between disciplines. Movement converges at this central node of the building, which becomes an active zone throughout the day, allowing for spontaneous exchange of ideas. Exhibitions and activities take place in the foyer, permitting students and visitors to derive benefits and inspiration from cross-disciplinary ideas.
The building has been conceived with the welfare of its occupants in mind (it is currently targeting LEED Gold certification). The first priority was to provide an environment that supports active and engaged learners and nourishes enthusiasm for life-long learning. To contribute to the healthiest environment possible, important factors such as indoor air quality and levels of noise are controlled. Natural light and natural ventilation play a vital role in the life of the building, being present throughout. Furthermore, as the building privileges views outward, occupants will remain in contact with the exterior campus landscape. The central atrium space allows natural air circulation as well as the exhausting of air at the roof level. Operable and user controlled office windows also promote a healthful environment. The building takes advantage of geothermal energy – one of its signature features – to provide heating and cooling for the building, thereby reducing energy consumption, and therefore cost, over the long term.
Dutch firm Unknown Architects has modernised a small seventeenth-century house by adding a large wooden structure that incorporates a staircase, storage facilities and sofa (+ slideshow).
Unknown Architects was careful to restore some of the 200-year-old building’s character and spatial simplicity by removing the non-original partitioned walls and suspended ceilings.
Located in the Dutch city of Leiden, the house’s ceilings were purposefully left uncovered to contrast with the more modern plastered walls and bamboo furniture in the rest of the property.
Working with a limited space, the architects designed a bamboo staircase that merges into a fixed sofa with integrated storage space, similar to the design of a ship’s cabin.
The sofa also acts as a pull-out guest bed, providing views of the garden through floor-to-ceiling glass doors at the back of the building.
Keeping to their client’s preference that the kitchen was the hub of the home, Unknown Architects combined it with the living space to take over the entire ground floor.
The kitchen table, work surfaces and storage space are all made of bleached nutwood, which acts as a natural accompaniment to the white, compact kitchen units.
The first floor has a master bedroom overlooking the property’s garden through floor-to-ceiling windows, and a children’s room intersected by a bathroom.
Unknown Architects was founded in 2012 by students Daan Vulkers and Keimpke Zigterman. They are currently involved in a number of projects in both Leiden and Amsterdam, where they are based.
Unknown architects completed the renovation of a 17th century house in the historic city centre of Leiden
Unknown architects is established by two students, studying at the Technical University in Delft. During their studies they became curious about working with clients. As a part of the honours programme they started this project, where they tried to translate the ambitions and wishes of a client in a design proposal. This cooperation turned out so well that this client decided to commission unknown architects for their first project, which was completed in November 2012.
All the non-authentic parts of this monument, like partition walls and suspended ceilings, were removed to bring back the authentic character and spatial clarity. In this relatively small house three fixed multifunctional furniture elements were added.
The ground floor functions as office and second bedroom. One bamboo furniture element incorporates storage space and a platform, covering a guest bed which can be pulled out.
An important wish of the client was to make the kitchen ”the heart of the house” where all activities could come together. This was translated in two kitchen elements, made out of bleached nutwood. The central element includes a table, kitchen dresser and a fixed bench that shields the stairwell and provides the best sightlines to the outside.
Cross section
On the second floor we added one small dresser made of bamboo shielding the stairwell and providing a place to sit under the dormer.
The walls are finished with white clay plaster. The uncovered ceilings are intentionally kept as we found them and form a contrast with the new.
Client: DoorZigt B.V. Location: Leiden, The Netherlands Program: renovation of house and office Gross floor area: 75 m2 Project architects: Daan Vulkers, Keimpke Zigterman Interior design: unknown architects Contractor: Bouwbedrijf Degewij Interior fit-out: Klaas Olthoff Keukenmakerij, Intopmaat
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