Hasta La Ideas

Slideshow: British architects HAT Projects have completed a seaside gallery in Hastings, England, with a shimmering exterior of black glazed tiles.

Positioned between a fairground and a fish market, the two-storey Jerwood Gallery has a U-shaped plan that folds around a private rear courtyard.

One large hall on the ground floor will host temporary exhibitions, while a permanent collection is housed within a series of domestic-scale galleries upstairs.

Pointed roof lights let natural light into rooms on both floors, which also include an education room, storage areas, a shop and a first-floor cafe.

Another seaside gallery that has opened in the UK in the last year is Turner Contemporary in Margate – see it here or see more stories about galleries here.

Photography is by Ioana Marinescu.

Here’s some more information from HAT Projects:

The Jerwood Gallery is a £3.3m new-build art gallery on the Stade in Hastings, part of a wider masterplan to develop a new public space and community uses on a former coach and lorry park occupying a pivotal seafront site.

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Hastings has a growing artistic community but is also one of the most deprived towns in the UK and the wider Stade project aims to assist in economic regeneration, through more year-round tourism and higher-income visitors, as well as culturally and socially through creating a facility that will bring national-quality arts experiences to all the community. It also aims to raise internal and external perceptions of the town through creating a new focus for civic pride and identity.

The site sits at the foot of the medieval Old Town, between the East and West Cliffs which dominate the townscape. The Stade – a Saxon word meaning ‘landing place’ – is an interstitial zone between the town and the working fishing beach, and the site is between the ‘Amusement Stade’ of fairground rides and penny arcades, and the Fishermens Stade of the Fishmarket and tall black net shops that are unique to Hastings.

In this extraordinary location, the gallery is conceived as a strong and civic building in a sensitive dialogue with its surroundings.

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Urban analysis

The masterplanning of the site (also undertaken by HAT Projects) involved detailed analysis of the townscape and urban grain of the area. In particular, the unique listed net shops – not found anywhere outside Hastings – give the eastern end of the Stade a very particular character and urban pattern, with small courtyards between the rows of huts. We felt that it would be important to continue this rhythm along the street, and also to consider views of the net shops very carefully in terms of the new building’s massing.

Lessons were also learnt from how some much larger buildings – in particular, the Fishermens’ Chapel – nestle among the net shops and use more permanent, solid masonry in contrast to the more provisional timber cladding of the huts. East Cliff House – a Georgian structure which was the first ‘gentleman’s residence’ to be built with a deliberate sea view – also gave clues in its massing and hierarcy of a semi-rusticated ground storey projecting to the street, and more elegant ‘piano nobile’ upper storeys set back.

The use of black glazed mathematical tiles on Lavender House, next to East Cliff House, was one of the leads behind the development of the glazed cladding for the Gallery. Robus Ceramics, the Kent- based workshop that produced the replacement mathematical tiles for its restoration, worked with us to develop the bespoke hand glaze for the cladding.

Masterplan and consultation

The brief for the wider site was developed to reflect the needs of the Old Town community in particular, and the traditions in Hastings of holding festivals and celebrations such as Jack-in-the- Green and Bonfire, which previously had no public space in which to focus. The medieval Old Town lacks any fully accessible community buildings and there is very little public open space due to the tight urban grain of the area.

The masterplan was developed with the participation of an extensive network of local groups and representatives. This included residents’ groups, heritage groups, local business, fishermen, arts and education providers, and other local community organisations. This ‘advisory group’ met monthly with HAT Projects and Hastings Borough Council to feed into emerging options and design approaches.
The emerging proposals were tested through several rounds of full public consultation in addition to the ‘advisory group’. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and laid the base for a strong local engagement with the project.

HAT Projects worked with Hastings Borough Council to procure the architects for the detailed design of the other masterplan elements. Tim Ronalds Architects were appointed and the project was completed on site in Spring 2011.

Design

The Jerwood Gallery is designed as a contemporary civic building in a sensitive dialogue with its surroundings.

Clad in hand-glazed black ceramic tiles which refract and reflect the changing seaside light, the gallery’s form is simple but carefully calibrated. It is broadly structured with a relatively inward-looking ground floor around a small internal courtyard, and a more outward facing first floor recalling the ‘piano nobile’ arrangement of a palazzo or villa.

On an urban scale, the building continues the rhythm of the net shops, creating pockets of public realm off the street. The two-storey mass is set to the south of the site, allowing the net shops to be glimpsed over the single-storey entrance and temporary gallery wing which is pushed to the street edge. Facing the public space, the glazing to the first floor cafe window slides back fully to form a covered balcony from which to spectate the festivals and events for which the Old Town is renowned.

Reflecting the character and scale of the Modern British art they will house, the internal spaces are more domestic in scale than industrial art-warehouse, although the space for temporary exhibitions tends towards the latter. The collection galleries generally have views north or east to the Old Town, or into the courtyard, and the arrangement is intended to encourage exploration through the building, discovering unexpected spaces and views, rather than a simple axial plan.

Sustainability

Sustainability has been embedded in the design from first principles, including the orientation and plan diagram of the building, as well as the approach to materials and servicing. All the galleries are naturally lit (with optional blackout in selected spaces) and the building is almost all naturally ventilated, with the exception of the collection galleries where the air-conditioning is driven entirely through ground source cooling. Eleven 120m-deep ground source probes provide all the cooling and 60% of the heating for the building. Solar thermal panels provide most of the hot water for the building, and rainwater is collected and recycled for use in the WCs.

The Foreshore Gallery is naturally ventilated with fresh air drawn through underground ducts from the courtyard through grilles in the floor, and extracted through automatically operating mechanical louvres in the rooflight lanterns. A mechanical supply and extract system is also provided for situations of high occupancy or when exhibitions require a closer acoustic control to the environment. The exposed concrete soffit and concrete floor provide thermal mass, and air can also circulate behind the wall lining, using the thermal mass of the blockwork behind.

Key facts
Gross external floor area: 1380m2 (excluding 80m2 courtyard and 56m2 terrace) Gross internal floor area: 1260m2
Construction budget: £3.3m
Project budget: £4m (not including art collection)
Anticipated CO2 emissions: 27kgCO2/m2/yr – 40% of the CIBSE benchmark for museums and galleries

Design team
Architect: HAT Projects
Structural engineer: Momentum
Services engineer: Skelly & Couch Quantity surveyor: Pierce Hill
Access consultant: People Friendly Design

Main contractor
Coniston Ltd

Subcontractors and suppliers
Glazed tile cladding: Agrob Buchtal Keratwin with bespoke black pewter glaze by Robus Ceramics, installed by ICS Ltd.
‘Plinth’ glazed brick: GIMA Feletto, installed by Dixon Brickwork
Buff brick: Winerberger Pearl Grey, installed by Dixon Brickwork
Curtain wall glazing: Schueco with Senior Systems sliding doors, installed by Prima Systems
Frameless glazing: bespoke system fabricated and installed by Prima Systems Aluminium windows/doors generally: Schueco, installed by Prima Systems. Frameless rooflights (lower roof): Bespoke system by ESB Services.
Aluminium framed rooflights (upper roof): Vitral, installed by ESB Services
Roof covering: Sarnafil, installed by ICS Ltd
Roof pavers (lower roof): Eurodec Bauhaus paver (bespoke product for this project), installed by ICS Ltd
Pavers (terrace) Marshalls, installed by ICS Ltd
Zinc roofing: Rheinzink, installed by T&P Roofing
Granite paving to courtyard: Marshalls
Rubber flooring: Dalsouple
Acoustic timber lining: Topakustik
Insulation: Kingspan generally
Terrazzo: bespoke mixes by Surtech Ltd
Precast concrete stairs: Ebor Concretes
Precast concrete planks: Milbank
Oak flooring: Reeve Flooring
Balustrades, steel screen: fabricated by Iron Designs
Bespoke timber doors: fabricated by DFC Joinery
Doorsets: Leaderflush
Paint (collection galleries): Papers & Paints
Paint (generally): Dulux
Tiles: Johnson Prismatics
Resin flooring: Altro, installed by Surtech Ltd
Polished concrete floor: Contech Ltd
Ironmongery: Yannedis
Bespoke joinery: Canterbury Joinery
Lighting: Deltalight; Erco; iGuzzini; Nimbus; Modular; Etap; Bega.
Signage: graphic identity by Rose Design, signage designed by HAT Projects, fabricated by Bull Signs

Spanish architects Cor & Asociados have completed a pearlescent music hall in a village near Alicante.

Shimmering porcelain tiles clad the multi-purpose auditorium, which adjoins converted civil guards quarters to comprise the new two-storey music centre.

Staircases encased within glass boxes link the existing U-shaped building to the extension.

The new block encloses a central courtyard for open-air music rehearsals.

Layered screens create overlapping fins on the interior walls of the auditorium, which are backlit in stripes.

Another recent project to feature ceramic tiles was a library with a mosaic rainbow at its centre – see the story here.

Photography is by David Frutos.

The following text was written by Cor & Asociados:

Music Hall and House in Algueña MUCA
Cor & Asociados. Miguel Rodenas + Jesús Olivares

The memory of existing architecture and the opportunity of a new program. Algueña is a small village in the interior of Alicante County, with a population of two thousand and an economy based in agriculture and marble industries.

We were asked for a building able to bring together all the activities related to music and culture that took place in the village, and also promoting its cultural future. We were commissioned to search for an opportunity, articulate it and carry it out. Under these circumstances, that also comprised the definition of an extensive musical schedule of activities and a maximum budget of 562.800 €, we proposed in a first phase the rehabilitation of old Guardia Civil’s quarter that was in disuse since the 80s.

That allowed us to have a surface area of 670 m2 that we only had to adequate, and the construction on a new Auditorium of 350m2 and 230 seats. In a second phase, we proposed the construction of a park with an open-air auditorium that will join the village and its zone of future urban development. The definition of the architectural program is the opportunity in this project.  Sometimes, as in this case, the decisions of the architects have to do more with the “building of an opportunity” and the creation of a dense and appropriate schedule of activities for the village, than strictly with the discipline, the aesthetics, the materiality, the form…

The intervention is located in the west entrance to the village, near from classical local wineries, in a city limit that the new urbanistic plan will develop around this plot. We propose to reserve a green zone beside the building, to develop in second phase an open-air auditorium and a garden with jacarandas, that will have enough entity to separate the new urbanistic development of the existing one, and generating a joining place and giving it ambiental quality. The responsibility in the approach and the impossibility of failing are important parameters in this kind of villages, where the opportunities come rarely, and there’s no possibility of increasing the budget. That’s why it is very important to construct a complex reality linked closely with the village, and auditing the process with all the agents and citizens involved.

Besides, in the plot exits a building of the 60s, an old Guardia Civil quarters, that is in disuse from years and that has a load-bearing wall structure in good state of maintenance. And its shaped in U with an interesting central courtyard for this architectural program. We propose to rehabilitate it for developing that program. The new construction is separated from the old by new adapted stairs that are enclosed in glass boxes lighted from overhead, that try to add fragility to the rotundness of the whole. The multipurpose hall houses 230 seats, these seats are moveable and the installations are able to accommodate different kind of functions, from a concert to a new year’s eve party, that’s why it also houses a warehouse where organize all these elements that allow use change.

The central courtyard is designed to house the rehearsals of the music band in open-air, or any other kind of functions as award giving parties, etc. without any fixed element. Moreover, it’s designed together with the back courtyard, in which we propose to develop another open-air hall. The intervention has a great potential to be used and we propose more for less. In the existing building we propose the rehabilitation without formal changes. Simply recovering all the old constructive techniques and turning them white with different grades of shine with the intention of generating tension between what the users remember about the building and what it is now, we search for surprise perceptions and the generation of a new surface. Instead the new hall is a blind box, a strange element because of its shape and dimensions. To emphasize this sensation we propose a cladding that vibrates and shines with a pearly-iridescent material.

The generation of a “low cost” landmark: vibration and brightness

The generation of this recognizable landmark, architecturally speaking, usually has to do with expensive budgets, amazing materials and sculptured shapes. However, this project generates this landmark with a low cost solution relying on two concepts, one concerns “psychology of perception” and uses vibration and brightness, and the other concerns shape and uses the rotund appearance with proportions similar to its industrial landscape. Brand architecture is used in big cities to offer a recognizable image that can be easily remembered and associated to a city and its values.

Using this kind of marketing at village level has to be reflected, because they only need a building for a determinate program. Here it allows starting sketching a strategy to reactivate the exterior image of the village, and helping strengthen it for the imminent economical change it’s immersed.

The ceramic: pearly and iridescent

The use of a ceramic surfacing with pearly and iridescent finishing responds the intention of generating a vibrant volume in constant change, due to lighting changes o observatory movements, this solution makes the building vibrate, changing its colour, saturation and profundity.

The bet on this material, made “exnovo” for this building, with the use of existing techniques of firing, vitrifying and metals deposition, give this appearance and respond to the necessity of not creating a tectonic or shape solution, but a perceptive one.

This technique is based on a porcelain base material that resists frost and is guaranteed in exterior. Each of these plates is pressed in dry and is fired 3 times: first of them at 950ºC to biscuit it, second to fire the white enamel and vitrifying the biscuit at 1180ºC in rapid cicle, and third that obtains the iridescent-pearly finishing or the metal reflections at 780ºC approximately. The opportunity of the project is the creation of an architectural program audited with the village. For many years music is an important part of the culture in Algueña. This building is the opportunity to bring together in a same space all the activities that are spread through the village.

The program departs form music realm and we lead it to a more indeterminate situation, linked to multipurpose uses.After doing the work of defining the architectural programs, that we developed in multiple meetings with different agents and citizens, the building houses a wide range of activities form music lessons, rehearsals and concerts of the municipal music band, the “rondalla” and choir, lessons and performances of the regional dance group, the “dolçaina and tabalet” group, rock bands, composition workshops and electronic music lessons; to exhibition rooms, conference rooms, assembly rooms, place to hold popular feasts, and even a municipal warehouse.

The music as social enhancer in a village

Music bands are a great valencian tradition because in almost every village and town it exists at least one of these musical groups. The musical quality of these bands is recognized around the world, some of them reaching more than 125 members.

These groups are not only cultural entities but also social, with a high degree of participation in the village that goes far beyond the music and concerns social integration, formation and group work. Algueña’s band is a good example of this. Each event or concert, and even the rehearsals are followed by the people; not only the results (concerts) are appreciated but also the process (rehearsals, auditions, lessons, meetings) are shared. As an example: as they have few cultural events, people assists to weekly rehearsals of the band.

As a result, in the Comunidad Valenciana exists a network of bands and music centers that are the birthplace of internationally prestigious musicians. This encouraged the creation in 1968 of the Musical Societies Federation of the Comunidad Valenciana. Its aim is to promote and spread the love, teaching and practice of music and enhancing associationism and allowing society a mean of cultural development. In Europe, the Comunidad Valenciana is the region where more music bands exist with Austria and Holland.

The historical marc of the building. Working with collective memories.

When you decide to work in an existing building with a profound historical mark, so profound as can be in a Guardia Civil quarter and checkpoint, it’s commonly assumed that one of the challenges of the project will be erasing that historical mark.

To do so we developed with the Art Agency “La Ballena Imantada”, directed by Luisa Martí, a social and artistic event in the building: “60 glances” whose objective was to take 60 artists paint during a day each one of the jambs and lintels of the doors and windows.

We generated a “transcendent social act” that brought together more than 500 people around the building among artists, musicians, spectators, familiars,.. allowing us to show the building while still in construction and start to weave a consensus atmosphere between the citizenship, detaching authorship and leave the building up to its future users.

This work concerning sociology and anthropology is vital in this project to provoke a shift in the collective memories.

See also:

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Library by Török és Balázs Építészeti	Theatre in Almonte by Donaire Arquitectos	Museum of Energy by Arquitecturia

Our video inside a workshop reviving the lost art of Turkish tiles

by
Gregory Mitnick

A celebrated Turkish art form dormant for more than 300 years, Iznik tiles play an integral role in Turkey’s Ottoman Empire history and the production of them today is a labor of love.

In 1993 economics professor Dr. Işıl Akbaygil visited some of Istanbul’s historic buildings and noticed that some of the tiles were as bright and clear as new, while others were dull and deteriorating. Research soon confirmed that these tiles were indeed special, though they hadn’t been made since the early 1700s and there was no historical record or documentation of how they were made.

Dedicated to reviving this lost art, she founded the Iznik Training and Education Foundation. It took around ten years for the Foundation, along with a host of government, preservation, research and university partners, to determine what made the tiles so unusual, to recreate the lengthy handmade production process, train local artisans and construct a manufacturing facility. Today the Iznik Foundation creates tiles for repair and restoration of historical buildings, pubic works (including large murals in Istanbul’s subway stations) and for private use.

The secret to the tiles is their composition, primarily ground quartz, which also makes up the bright glazes that adorn them. Quartz brings many purported health benefits, such as improved circulation and shielding from radiation, but they also have some practical features such as being temperature neutral (ideal for warm environments) and durable—these tiles are engineered to last 1,000 years.

Our video features Istanbul-based architectural historian Gökhan Karakuş, who takes us through the history and modern-day labor-intensive process of making these beautiful tiles.

Large-scale mosaic sculptures celebrate years of design collaboration

On the occasion of Milan’s ongoing Design Week, Bisazza pays homage to Alessandro Mendini with an exhibition at La Triennale di Milano. In celebration of more than twenty years of collaboration between the Italian mosaic tile company and the design master, the display features large-size works and installations from the Fondazione Bisazza and a loan from the Fondation Cartier in Paris.

Over the years, Bisazza and Alessandro Mendini have shared a creative dialogue stemming from a cultural and aesthetic affinity that have resulted in several works of art and installations. Curated and designed by Atelier Mendini, the more than 400-square-meter exhibit gathers iconic and gigantic sculptures, mostly covered with golden mosaic.

On the occasion of the exhibition, the book “Mosaico Mendini,” written by Stefano Casciani and published by Skira Editore, has been launched. The volume aims to trace all works designed by Mendini with Bisazza mosaics, including those commissioned by others, such as the Torre del Paradiso (Tower of Paradise) of Hiroshima, the Groninger Museum, and the metro lines in Naples.

See more of the stunning mosaic sculptures in the gallery below.

Anglo-Dutch designers Studio Glithero have created a series of vases and tiles decorated with shadows of plants captured on photosensitive chemicals. (more…)