The artist, who goes by the forum username Bobdobbs, anticipated that the curvaceous facade of the 37-storey tower at 20 Fenchurch Street could at certain times of the year create light reflections up to 600% brighter that its surroundings buildings, using a simple 3D mock-up of the volume.
“A clear hot late September/October day may throw up some very interesting lighting effects,” he wrote on a thread at website SkyscraperCity. “I’m fairly confident that the difference, from measurement, is about 600% brighter! I know where I wouldn’t want to stand!”
3D mock-up of the reflection created by Bobdobbs
Comparing the project to nearby skyscraper The Shard, which is reported to have dazzled train drivers, Bobdobbs added: “The Shard’s death ray will be nothing compared to this.”
The news emerges as developers Land Securities and Canary Wharf take emergency action to prevent more damage being caused by intense glare from the nicknamed “Walkie Scorchie”, which is said to have melted vehicles, cracked pavement tiles and even started a small fire.
“Following approval from the City of London, we will be erecting a temporary scaffold screen at street level on Eastcheap within the next 24 hours,” said a spokesperson. “This solution should minimise the impact on the local area over the next two to three weeks, after which time the phenomenon is expected to have disappeared.”
They added: “We are also continuing to evaluate longer-term solutions to ensure this issue does not recur in future.”
Philip Oldfield, a tall buildings expert from the University of Nottingham, has suggested that amendments to Rafael Viñoly’s initial concept could be to blame. “It seems the original design included small horizontal balconies on the south facade rather than the continuous glass facade as built now,” he told The Independent. “This would have surely mitigated any significant glare like we are seeing at the moment.”
Other preventative measures that could be taken include adding small fins to the exterior or applying a special coating that reduces the impact of the reflections.
by Gavin Lucas Brutalist concrete architecture from the 1960s and 1970s might not be to everyone’s taste, but for Manchester-based design studio Dorothy, such buildings are the objects of no small amount of affection—as a new series of illustrated prints attests. Continue Reading…
British fashion designer Paul Smith has extended his Albemarle Street store in London to include a room lined with dominoes and a patterned iron facade by 6a Architects (+ slideshow).
Paul Smith took over the building adjacent to his existing shop in London’s Mayfair district to create a new flagship store on the corner of Albemarle and Stafford streets, which opened last Friday.
Menswear, womenswear, accessories and furniture are all displayed across rooms of various sizes.
In some spaces garments are hung on simple metal rails and in others they are folded on wooden shelves.
Selected items are laid out on tables with sculptural wood tops and thick metallic stands.
Square wood tiles are used for the floor in the men’s zone, with ceramic tiles and timber planks in womenswear areas.
In the accessories room 26,000 dominoes line the walls, forming a pattern of scattered dots that looks like an encrypted code.
The dominoes are flipped over where used above shelves to provide a less chaotic background to display the accessories against.
Red picture frames and a blue staircase match the colourful upholstery of Paul Smith’s furniture.
London studio 6a Architects designed a bespoke cast iron store front based on Smith’s hand drawings.
Transparent cylindrical pods protrude through gaps in the iron panels and act as display cases for furniture pieces.
The basement has also be turned into a flexible gallery space and will host a series of exhibitions throughout the year.
The imposing facade incorporates Paul’s hand drawings in bespoke cast iron panels designed in conjunction with 6a architects.
The interior is decorated with an eclectic mix of stunning design pieces and intricate details, such as the 26,000 dominos covering the accessories room walls.
Significantly extending the pre-existing Paul Smith shop on the corner of Albemarle and Stafford Street, the new space expands into the neighbouring building and will sell clothing and accessories for men and women as well as a selection of furniture.
The basement has been converted into a flexible gallery space that will host the work of various artists throughout the year, starting with Walter Hugo’s portraits during Frieze art fair.
News: Rafael Viñoly’s Walkie Talkie skyscraper in London is reflecting a beam of light intense enough to melt cars, according to a series of recent reports.
Claims surfaced over the weekend that the glare from the curvaceous glass facade of the 37-storey tower – currently under construction at 20 Fenchurch Street – have caused vehicle paintwork to melt and bodywork to distort.
Engineer Eddie Cannon, who parked his Vauxhall Vevaro beneath the building, told local newspaper City AM: “The van looks a total mess – every bit of plastic on the left hand side and everything on the dashboard has melted, including a bottle of Lucozade that looks like it has been baked.”
Tiling company director Martin Lindsay suffered a similar fate, claiming that the panels surrounding his Jaguar XJ had been warped. Attacking property developer Land Securities, he said: “They’re going to have to think of something. I’m gutted. How can they let this continue?”
Land Securities has acknowledged the claims and is promising to look into the matter. “As a precautionary measure, the City of London has agreed to suspend three parking bays in the area which may be affected while we investigate the situation further,” said a spokesperson.
The skyscraper, nicknamed the Walkie Talkie due to its distinctive profile, is set to be the first London building completed by Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly, who is based in New York. This recent controversy has prompted critics to rebrand the building “Walkie Scorchie”.
The skyscraper is scheduled to complete in 2014 and will feature an elevated garden and observation deck that will be open to the public.
Two miles from the coast in the southern English county of Suffolk, the 2.5 hectare site is located in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and surrounded by farmland.
British studio Ström Architects designed the house to be built over foundations of a previous structure that burnt down, beside an existing outdoor pool.
It will be orientated at an angle to the ruins, to make a clear distinction between the two and to face the best views.
“The building is set like this so that it can be read on its own and thus touch the existing site lightly,” said the architects.
Flooding is prevalent in the area so the home will be raised 1.5 metres off the ground, with a ramped walkway following the geometry of the old building connecting it to the garden.
The design is long and thin to reference the local vernacular, with glazing along most of the west elevation. Dark wood panels will cover rest of this facade, while Corten steel is to clad the other three sides.
All the rooms are on the ground floor apart from the master bedroom and bathroom, which will fit into the small volume on the roof. Construction is due to start later this year.
The site is located in Suffolk two miles inland the coast, and lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site itself forms part of an overall land ownership of 2.5 hectares surrounded by agricultural land.
The current site has foundations, ruins and some low walls from a house that burned down eight years ago; there is also an existing outdoor pool. Immediately to the west of the pool and ruins, there is a small area of open grass that runs up to the edge of a beautiful copse of mature oak trees. The site is located on the edge of flood zone two and three, and requires a raised floor level 1.5 metres above the old cottage.
The clients’ brief was for a country house – ‘a dream in a wood’, a peaceful place to relax, regenerate, and think of new ideas. The existing site with the pool, ruins and low walls has a very strong presence, and we wanted to keep this as an important part of the site. The design is linear and has picked up on the building form – the ‘long cottage’ found in the locality, and we see the design as an evolution of the longitudinal cottage.
The building sits above the ruins and the edge of the pool, as to respect the current site, but also to deal with the raised floor level that is required, due to the potential flood risk. The building is also set like this so that it can be read on its own, and thus touch the existing site lightly. The building is orientated towards the west-south-west, and sits on an angle above the existing ruins facing the best views as well as creating a clear juxtaposition of geometry to the ruins.
A two-storey element punctures through the roof, and contains a master bedroom suite at the first floor. This is positioned towards the existing coach house, thus minimising the impact of the building on the more open site to the south. This two storey element is recessed from both the west and east facades as to reduce the scale and the appearance of the building.
The building is entered via a bridge that spans from higher ground and above the ruins. This sets up the whole philosophy of the house, even before you actually enter, as well as successfully dealing with safe egress form the house to higher land in case of a flood.
Dutch studio Mecanoo has completed Europe’s largest public library in Birmingham, England, with a sunken amphitheatre, rooftop gardens and a shimmering facade clad with interlocking metal rings (+ slideshow).
Sandwiched between a 1930s building and a 1960s theatre, the new Library of Birmingham fronts one of three piazzas that comprises Centenary Square. The building is made up of a stack of four rectangular volumes, which are staggered to create various canopies and terraces.
Mecanoo designed the exterior of the building to reference the city’s jewellery quarter, adding a filigree pattern of metal rings over golden, silver and glass facades.
Inside, these rings cast patterns of shadows onto the floors of the reading rooms in the middle levels of the building.
“I didn’t want to make a brick building, because we needed a lot of light, but I didn’t want to make a glass building either,” architect Francine Houben told Dezeen. “It’s so beautiful to sit inside because of the reflections and the shadows, and the changing of the weather. It’s different from December to June.”
A gently sloping floor allows the building to negotiate the level change from the front to the back of the site, but also leads visitors down to the fiction area at the back, then down to the children’s library and music section at the base of the building.
“We needed many ground floors,” said Houben, “so we introduced a ground floor, a mezzanine, a mid-lower ground floor and a mid-mid-lower ground floor in the form of gently descending terraces.”
The lowest level extends out beneath Centenary Square, where the architects have created a sunken circular courtyard that functions as an informal amphitheatre.
The three main reading-room floors branch out from a staggered rotunda at the centre of the building, integrating rows of bookshelves and clusters of study spaces. There are also benches and stools lining the perimeter, offering views down the square below.
Archives and research spaces occupy the levels above, while an oval space at the top of the structure houses the Shakespeare Memorial Room – dedicated to the library’s extensive collection of works by English playwright William Shakespeare. Dating back to 1882, the room has been relocated twice from former library buildings.
Plant-filled terraces cover two of the rooftops, creating spaces for visitors to read and study outside.
Referring to the library as a “public palace”, Houben told Dezeen how she sees the building as an important landmark for the city community. “I think libraries at this moment are the most important public buildings, like cathedrals were many years ago,” she said.
Read on for a project description from Francine Houben:
A People’s Palace
In June 2008 I visit Birmingham for the first time of my life. Mecanoo is one of seven international architecture firms shortlisted to design the new Library of Birmingham integrated with the Repertory Theatre (REP). In this project, the written and the spoken word will be united. The client wants to select the best team to help them realise their ambitions for an innovative and world-class library that will become the largest library in Europe with ten thousand people expected to visit every day.
Birmingham is a multicultural British city of a little over one million people from very different backgrounds. It has many identities, both culturally and architecturally. It is not only Europe’s youngest city with 25% of the population under 25 years old but it’s also a student city with 50,000 students, second in student population only to London.
Library of the future for Birmingham
I meet library director Brian Gambles and his staff, he tells us enthusiastically that “the Library of Birmingham will become a centre of learning, information and culture that will help to foster Birmingham’s knowledge economy. It is intended to become the social heart of the city; a building connecting people of all ages, cultures and backgrounds. The modern library is no longer solely the domain of the book – it is a place with all types of content and for all types of people. The library’s influence will also extend beyond the physical boundaries of the building, its global digital presence allowing the public to access content from anywhere in the world.”
Shakespeare Memorial Room
The very first Library of Birmingham dates back to the year 1865. This building burns down in 1879, along with most of the collection. After the fire a group of citizens unite to form ‘Our Shakespeare Club’, a civic pride movement that brings together one of the most comprehensive Shakespeare collections in the world. When the Victorian Library opens its doors in 1882 at Radcliff Place, it incorporates a Shakespeare Memorial Room, a reading room designed especially for the Shakespeare Library by John Henry Chamberlain, a member of the city’s Shakespeare club. In 1974, the Victorian Library is replaced by the Central Library at Paradise Circus a brutalist building designed by architect John Madin. The Shakespeare Memorial Room is dismantled and stored. Twelve years later it is reassembled in the School of Music, located next to the Central Library. The intention is to integrate the Shakespeare Memorial Room in the new library.
James Watt and Matthew Boulton
Besides the extraordinary Shakespeare Collection, the library staff shows us their unique historic photo collection as well as original drawings and notebooks by 18th and 19th century inventors James Watt and Matthew Boulton. The Birmingham Music Library has extensive special collections. Music groups such as Black Sabbath, UB 40, Electric Light Orchestra, Duran Duran and The Streets are all “Brummies” from Birmingham.
The ‘Red Line’
For three days my husband and I endlessly walk through this city I’ve never been to before. I observe and photograph everything that catches my eye in order to unravel the essence of the city and the people. In the evening we go to a performance at the REP Theatre. From our hotel we try to take the shortest route by foot to the theatre but on our way we are blocked by highways that cut through the city centre. After the show we decide to follow the crowd and discover they take a logical, informal pedestrian route right through the heart of the city. I call this route the ‘Red Line’ as it connects the Bullring Shopping Centre, New Street Station, New Street, Victoria Place, Centenary Square, the ICC, the canals, Brindley Place and the Westside. The new library site is located in the middle of the Red Line next to the existing REP in Centenary Square.
The rhythm of architectural history
Two things strike me during our walks. First, when following the Red Line, the entire architectural and urban history of Birmingham passes by like a film. The city breathes a rich industrial history: Gothic buildings from the 17th, 18th and early 19th century, Victorian Classicist buildings such as Birmingham Town Hall from 1834, as well as many Victorian buildings made with beautiful craftsmanship. Birmingham has more canals than Venice. These narrow canals were created in the 18th and 19th century in order to guarantee the supply of coal. Also in this frame are buildings such as the Baskerville House from the early 20th century and concrete buildings such as the existing library from the 1960s, the ICC from the eighties, and the Bullring Shopping mall with the Selfridges blob from 2003. Scattered around the city, the steel skeletons of gas holders catch my eye.
Gently sloping hills
The second thing I notice is that Birmingham is built on gently sloping hills. It’s a green city, except for the city centre. I love these soft hills. They remind me of my native province of Limburg in the South of the Netherlands. I notice the way train tracks cut through these hills and valleys, appearing and disappearing in the landscape. Birmingham is the geographical centre of the UK and a junction of the British railroads. One train tunnel runs underground diagonally through Centenary Square. It occurs to me that we can surely build underground here, whereas in my own country this is a challenge. This idea becomes a source of inspiration.
Dream
After three days my dream slowly starts to take shape. Back at the office we develop our ideas further. Does the client expect us to make an icon? For sure we do not want to design a building that is just another “incident”. We want to make a building that brings coherence to the urban network of Birmingham. Our dream is to create a People’s Palace: inviting, welcoming, inspiring for all ages and backgrounds – a real public building that also creates an outdoor public space. One that entices passers-by to enter and embark on a journey of discovery. We imagine visitors moving from one floor to the next through interconnected and overlapping rotunda spaces that serve as the main vertical circulation route. Changing vistas and view lines unfold as you navigate through the building. On the lower levels the route continues below ground nearly to the train tunnel that passes in front of the building, and resurfaces in Centenary Square. At this point this interior route weaves itself with the ‘Red Line’ route revealing a piece of the inner library world to the public.
Team as a symphony orchestra
In August 2008 the Mayor announces that we have won. I feel confident. I trust that we can make a strong design within the tight one year time schedule. A contractor is to be selected within three months. Mecanoo has a strong team and a lot of experience with libraries and theatres. We also have architectural, urban planning, landscape, interior design and restoration disciplines in house. The Mecanoo team can work together as a symphony orchestra and along with a compact interdisciplinary consultant team. We open our Mecanoo UK office in Birmingham and roll up our sleeves!
Our search for the essence of the city continues. Local historian Carl Chinn guides us through Birmingham and explains that building materials used to come from local sources – hence the many buildings made with red and blue bricks and the extensive use of steel. Limestone was the material of choice to represent the international city in the 19th or 20th century. Examples of this are Town Hall and Baskerville House. In the last fifty years additional materials included: concrete, glass, modern red bricks and aluminium disks. So which material are we to use amidst the composition of this city?
The rhythm of the city: not one but two buildings
We want our design to fit into the rhythm of the city, so we make a critical decision that the Library integrated with the REP Theatre will not become one building, but two. Together with Baskerville House, they will form an ensemble of three palazzos along a square, each with its own materialisation – first, Baskerville House, a limestone building from 1938, then the REP Theatre, an optimistic concrete building from 1971. Between them is the library of 2013 with its metal filigree façade of interlocking circles. We propose the three identities to be reflected in Centenary Square: a more formal area in front of Baskerville House containing the Hall of Memory, an open event space in front of the REP and the Symphony Hall, and a more intimate soft landscaped space in front of the library.
In February 2009, I have lunch with Graham Winteringham, architect of the Repertory Theatre. I meet a respectable, enthusiastic man of age and a faithful visitor of the REP. “How did you actually come to this project?” I ask him. He tells me that he studied architecture in Birmingham after the Second World War. First he designed the small Crescent Theatre with a revolutionary 360 degree rotating stage. Because he was the only architect in Birmingham with theatre experience, he was commissioned in 1964 to design the theatre for one of the most influential theatre groups in the history of English theatre, the REP. He told me that the project was actually a nightmare. The program requirements were a hall with 900 seats, without balconies. Another salient detail in this program was that there had to be many more men’s than ladies’ toilets because the audience was mainly male! In 1964, the building is contracted, but the Wilson government orders all public projects on hold. Winteringham must wait three and half years, and in this time, his mind is still designing. But he can no longer make changes, no matter how many reasons there are to do so. Originally, the plan was to have a reflective pond in the front, so he designs arched windows. The water would reflect a beautiful scene. This pond never came to be. Stairs as exterior sculptural elements connecting the underground parking garage also never left the page. A steep slope that looks out of place at the rear of the building is a remnant of the idea to make Cambridge Street one storey lower, making it level with the abrasive highways that cut through the centre of Birmingham. Cambridge Street was never lowered.
I describe our first ideas to Graham Winteringham. We don’t intend to demolish the REP, but to maintain the unique hall in the shape of a Greek theatre. We want to restore the original auditorium and foyer and improve the façade by deep cleaning it and replacing the glass with high performance glazing. However, we intend to renew the entire back of house: the theatre technology, logistics and workshops. He is very glad to hear his building will not be demolished.
I realise that this architect has seen four master plans for the city come and go. In the thirties, it was the Grand Plan of a French signature in all public buildings, a monumental type of Champs Elysées. Three buildings have been built in the classical, monumental spirit with limestone facades, including Baskerville House and the circular Hall of Memory in front of it. The Second World War draws a line straight through the Grand Plan. In the sixties, a master plan reflecting the spirit of the times is produced: optimistic grand gestures, many demolitions, space for cars and lots of concrete. A new central library forms the transition to the old city centre. In 1974, a sculptural, brutalist building opens its doors. An influential city architect determines that the facade is created not of marble but in modern pre-cast concrete panels. The REP is also from this period. The master plan of the nineties – the era of urban renewal – generates a large conference centre, the ICC, next to the REP, with a concert hall on the other side of Centenary Square. This is indeed a successful project as Birmingham becomes the conference centre of the UK, second only to London.
In 2008, Birmingham works on its fourth Big City Plan with the new library and the REP as the most important buildings. I feel a great responsibility to bring every period of the last century together at last, in a sustainable way for the coming century.
The three palazzo’s are all on the sunny side of Centenary Square. We make a large inviting canopy at the entrance that welcomes visitors to both the library and the REP, protecting them from the rain and shading them from the sun. The foyers of both buildings are to be connected. At the transition, the Studio Theatre is located, merging the spoken and the written word.
Once the urban strategy is determined, we conduct several massing studies in order to discern the most appropriate relationship between the new building, its immediate surroundings and the wider city. The result is a building form with three stacked volumes, each connected to the city at a different scale – the lower volume and terrace relating to Centenary Square, the middle volume to the district, and the upper volume to the city scale.
The stacking of the library volumes creates an opportunity for outdoor gardens, each one relating to the city at a different scale. The lower terrace – The Discovery Terrace – overlooks Centenary Square, and is the most public. In contrast, the upper terrace -The Secret Garden – has a more introverted, intimate atmosphere, reflecting its elevated position in the building. The sloping beds of the garden respond to the gentle slopes around Birmingham.
Perceived as an extension of the street, the library’s interior journey is intended as a sequence of events and experiences, each discernible from the next. The potential for extending this concept to the exterior was explored and is expressed both in the circular outdoor amphitheatre on Centenary Square and a ‘crowning’ rotunda on top of the building which houses the Shakespeare Memorial Room.
The layout of the library is organised for maximum public accessibility. One might expect the archives to be placed in the basement of the building, but in collaboration with Brian Gambles, we decide to bring the archives up. When the archives are buried in lower levels, no one sees them. The archives of Birmingham are something to be very proud of, something worth putting on display.
The most public functions are on the ground floor which simplifies the expected flow of 10,000 visitors per day. We need many ground floors, so we introduce a ground floor, a mezzanine, a mid-lower ground floor and a mid-mid-lower ground floor in the form of gently descending terraces. Finally a spacious lower ground floor, which is extended until the edge of the train tunnel, reaches out into Centenary Square. The stepping terraces allow the soft northern light to enter deep into the interior space and the amphitheatre in the square provides yet another source of daylight penetration. The children’s library is located on this floor along with the music library. The outdoor circular amphitheatre sets the tone as a performance space. We imagine the sound of a grand piano filling the air, beckoning the passers-by above to peer into the space below and stay a while.
A sequence of rotundas
It’s the cross section that drives the building and is based on a sequence of rotundas with the Book Rotunda at its centre. The Book Rotunda connects three floors with three main functions: the Public Library, The Discovery Terrace with the gallery and the Research Library. The Book Rotunda itself has five floors. It is an iconic space that celebrates books and can also be used for different kinds of events. Via escalators and travelators visitors can make their own journey through the Book Rotunda and the building. A round lift leads to The Secret Garden. On this floor are also staff offices and meeting rooms for public use. The Shakespeare Memorial Room on the roof can be reached directly by lift. This public lift with stairs featuring a Mecanoo Blue core forms a point of orientation to visitors making their journey through the library.
With its many different functions, the library is wrapped in a filigree pattern of metal circles which are bold and refined interlocking stories of industrial heritage, jewellery, people and knowledge. The large circles may symbolise the craftsmanship of the steel industry while smaller ones might refer to the 200-year tradition of craftsmanship of the gold and silver smiths of the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham unique in the UK and around the world. Every visitor – every Brummie – can provide their own interpretation, comparing them to the Olympic circles or to the Lord of the Rings. In fact, the façade of the building is designed primarily from within. Entering the library, the repeating circles generate shadows and reflections creating an unforgettable world inside the building. It is an inner world with its own panorama of continuously changing shadows, dependent upon weather, time of day and seasonal expression. With its rotundas and its façade, the building is an ode to the circle: an archetypical form that embodies universality, infinity, unity and timelessness.
In the many meetings we have with the enthusiastic and involved user groups, we decide to create an interior that is both flexible and timeless, bold and refined, as well as easy to maintain. In the library the main materials and colours are natural stone, white ceramic flooring, oak, Mecanoo Blue, gold, glass and metal, as well as fleeting circles and shadows. In the Repertory Theatre the main materials and colours are concrete, white and red. Inside and outside we try to create a bold and refined building that reflects the spirit of Birmingham.
Simon Conder Associates completed the Black Rubber Beach House in 2003 and it was the first building in the UK clad in this particular kind of rubber waterproofing.
Built as a fisherman’s hut in the 1930s, the house had been through a number of changes and extensions over the years. This most recent adaption involved stripping the building back to its timber frame and replacing all of the walls.
Photograph is by Stephen Ambrose
Interior and exterior surfaces were clad in spruce plywood, before the rubber skin was stretched across the facade.
“This project demonstrates that the careful choice of low-cost materials combined with the innovative use of new products can create domestic architecture of real quality at very low cost,” said Simon Conder. “It also shows that it is possible to design a building in the context of the bodged ‘squatter architecture’ that typifies Dungeness beach.”
Two large living rooms take up most the house’s interior. A small bedroom and bathroom are tucked into one corner, while an additional guest room is housed inside the silver Airstream caravan parked adjacent to the house.
Photograph is by Stephen Ambrose
The kitchen and dining room features timber-framed glass walls that open out onto a wooden deck.
In the bathroom, the bath is cantilevered out over the beach and features a long rectangular window that maintains a bather’s privacy, whilst allowing a view towards the sea.
Photography is by Chris Gascoigne, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Black Rubber Beach House, Dungeness, Kent
This project demonstrates that the careful choice of low cost materials combined with the innovatory use of new products can create domestic architecture of real quality at very low cost. It also shows that it is possible to design a building in the context of the bodged ‘squatter architecture’ that typifies Dungeness Beach, which both re-invigorates this tradition and captures the unique spirit of the place. Although this project started life as a conversion project, by the time it was finished 75% of the fabric was effectively new build. This reflects the fact that when the original roofing and cladding were removed the softwood framework behind was found to be virtually non-existent, and it is something of a mystery how the building had not previously been blown away by the winter storms.
Dungeness Beach in Kent is a classic example of ‘Non Plan’ and the houses that populate the beach have developed through improvisation and bodge. This scheme develops this tradition in a way that responds to the drama and harshness of the landscape. The original building, which itself is the product of a series of changes and extensions since it was built as a fisherman’s hut in the 1930s, has been stripped back to its timber frame, re-structured, extended to the south and east to capture the extraordinary views, and clad both internally and externally in Wisa-Spruce plywood. This plywood provides all the internal finishes, including walls, floors, ceilings, doors and joinery. Externally both walls and roof are clad in black rubber, a technically more sophisticated version of the layers of felt and tar found on many local buildings. The bath is cantilevered out over the beach giving dramatic views to the sea. Internally priority has been given to maximising the living areas and the house only has one small bedroom. Visitors are accommodated in a 1954 Airstream caravan which is parked next to the house, the silver of the aluminium caravan providing a striking visual contrast to the black rubber.
The project is the first to use EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer) rubber waterproofing to clad an entire building. The main advantages of the material can be summarised as follows:
» Water resistant yet vapour permeable » Withstands extremes of temperature between -50°C and +130°C » Elongation of over 400% with no degradation over time » Resistant to ozone and UV » No fire risk » A natural product » Individual elevations including cut-outs for doors and windows can be manufactured in the factory with vulcanised joins between roll widths.
The Wisa-Spruce plywood used for both the interior and external cladding of the timber frame was chosen specifically because it comes from managed forests in Finland.
One of the characteristics of the beach environment is the constant wind and this, in combination with the black rubber cladding, combines to provide an energy efficient internal environment. In summer windows on opposing sides of the house are left open to provide positive cross ventilation which effectively dissipates the potential heat gain through the black rubber. In the winter the windows are generally closed and the black rubber acts as a heat sink with the result that the use of the back up heating system is minimised.
Architect: Simon Conder Associates Design Team: Simon Conder and Chris Neve Structural Engineer: KLC Consulting Engineers Contractor: Charlier Construction Ltd EPDM Sub-Contractor: AAC Waterproofing Ltd Completed: November 2003
Our second project this week from British studio Simon Conder Associates is a timber-clad house built around a nineteenth-century railway carriage on Dungeness beach in Kent, England.
Simon Conder Associates designed El Ray beach house as the summer home for a family, who had previously lived in just the old carriage.
Photograph by Paul Smoothy
“We were asked by our clients to increase the accommodation area by approximately 50 percent and dramatically improve the environmental performance of the house,” said Simon Conder.
Photograph by Paul Smoothy
Completed in 2008, the house is located between two other shacks near the Dungeness power station. It features a bell-shaped plan, incorporating a sheltered front terrace and a pair of recessed courtyards that are protected from the prevailing winds.
Photograph by Paul Smoothy
The railway carriage is contained at the centre of house and accommodates a kitchen within its worn shell. A living room surrounds and opens out to all three terraces.
Dungeness beach is a classic example of ‘Non-Plan’ and the houses that populate the beach have developed through improvisation and bodge. This scheme develops this tradition in a way that responds to the drama and harshness of the landscape.
Photograph by Paul Smoothy
El Ray is part of a group of five beach houses located immediately to the east of the huge Dungeness A power station. The original house consisted of a 19th century railway carriage with flimsy lean tos to the north and south. It was in extremely poor condition and too small to accommodate our clients and their growing family. We were asked by our clients to increase the accommodation area by approximately 50%, and dramatically improve the environmental performance of the house.
The new house incorporates the old railway carriage inside a highly insulated timber structure. The carriage forms the centre point of the main living area and accommodates the kitchen. A fully glazed southern elevation gives views out over the channel and a series of smaller slot windows on the other elevations give focused views of the adjacent lighthouse, coastguard station and nuclear power station.
The sloping roof deck acts as an observation platform with extraordinary 360 degree views of the beach and the sea. The plan incorporates two courtyards to provide shelter from the constant wind.
The high levels of insulation in the walls, roof and floor ensure that heat loss from the building is minimal and very little energy is required for heating, lighting and ventilation. External glazing consists of a combination of double-glazed, low ‘E’, argon- filled frameless fixed lights and thermally-broken, aluminium sliding doors. The structural timber frame is constructed from lightweight engineered timber I-Joists, braced inside and out with a sheathing material manufactured entirely from wood waste. The insulation between the I-joists and studs is made from recycled newspaper. The external cladding and decking is made from an FSC certified hardwood called Itauba and the internal wall linings, floors and all joinery are constructed from FSC certified birch plywood.
A canopy projects out over the south deck to shade the living areas from the high summer sun, but allows the low winter sun to warm the house. When necessary a wood-burning stove, using drift wood from the beach, is used to supplement the passive solar gain in the winter months and in extremely cold conditions electric under floor heating, powered by the wind turbine, will heat the two bedrooms and the bathroom.
It is anticipated that the during the year the wind turbine will generate more electricity than the house will consume, meaning that the house can be run at carbon negative. The client intends to sell any surplus electricity generated by the wind turbine back to the National Grid.
Architects: Simon Conder Associates Design Team: Simon Conder, Pippa Smith Structural Engineer: Fluid Structures Environmental Engineer: ZEF Contractor: Ecolibrium Solutions Construction cost per m2: £1,780.00 Completed: July 2008
British firm Simon Conder Associates has built two wooden houses into the side of a steep hill in the English coastal village of Porthtowan (+ slideshow).
The client asked Simon Conder Associates for a family home and a smaller building housing an artist’s studio and guest apartment on a site overlooking a beach on the north Cornish coast.
Two existing houses were removed to make way for the new buildings, which are partly buried in the hill to avoid obstructing views from properties higher up the slope.
This steep incline created buildings with a single storey facing the road, but two storeys opening out towards the sea.
Large windows on the southern elevations help to bring natural light into both buildings. They’re shielded by deep verandahs that reduce heat gain in the summer but allow winter light to penetrate and warm the interiors.
The verandahs also provide balconies on the upper ground floor with views along the coast.
Other additions include a first-floor courtyard, accessible from three sides, and a large open-plan living room with a central wood-burning stove.
These two new houses are located on a dramatic, south-facing hillside overlooking the beach in the village of Porthtowan on the north Cornish coast. The site has particularly fine views down the coast to St Ives. Surprisingly, for such a prominent and relatively remote coastal site, the new houses are surrounded by a suburban estate of bungalows dating from the 1950s.
The Clients
The two new houses are for the same client, a couple with a teenage son. The larger house, Malindi, will be used as the main family home.
The smaller house, Providence, will accommodate an artist’s studio at upper ground floor level and an apartment for visitors and family at lower ground floor level. Both houses replace much smaller and substandard houses owned by the client.
The Design Solution
To reduce the impact of the new houses on the landscape, and avoid blocking the view from the houses further up the hillside, both houses are built into the 1 in 7 slope of the hillside, so the houses are single storey on the road side and two storey on the seaward side.
The two adjacent sites face south and this orientation has been used to create two passive solar gain houses to minimise both the use of fossil fuels and energy costs. This has been achieved partly by fully glazing the southern elevations of the two houses and partly by using highly insulated, high mass construction for the remainder of the two houses.
To minimise the possibility of overheating in summer the glazed southern elevation is set back behind hardwood verandahs, which provide full width balconies at upper ground floor level and protect the interiors from the high summer sun, while allowing the much lower winter sun to penetrate deep into the two houses.
The external cladding, roof decking and verandah structures are all made from FSC certified hardwood which has been left unfinished to weather naturally to a silvery grey.
Here’s another small-scale project featuring strikingly realistic renderings – this time a timber-clad home in England by Ström Architects, who claim that investing in quality CGI is “more effective than advertising” (+ slideshow + interview).
Sited on the edge of the New Forest National Park in Hampshire, Woodpeckers is designed by Ström Architects as a two-storey holiday house with a glazed conservatory and a raised terrace wrapping the south and east elevations.
The structure of the house will comprise a prefabricated timber frame, allowing for a quick construction, while the dimensions have been generated using standard truss components that will help keep the project within budget.
Larch cladding panels will in time give a silvery grey colour to the external walls, plus a bulky brick chimney will create both indoor and outdoor fireplaces.
Architect Magnus Ström commissioned architect and visualiser Henry Goss to create the hyper-realistic renderings, which he also uses as a marketing tool to promote his three-year-old practice.
“It takes three years from inception to completion for a project, but I needed to have these projects on my website sooner and of a quality good enough for publication,” he told Dezeen.
Explaining how he found investment in advertising to be a waste of time, Ström said that presenting high-quality imagery has helped him to win work, earn press coverage and get projects approved for construction.
“Renders definitely help to convey a feeling of what you are trying to achieve. They also help to demonstrate top design quality,” he said.
He added: “I can say with confidence that current projects as well as numerous enquiries, even from abroad, have been linked to high-end visualisations.”
Amy Frearson: Why do you choose to invest in such highly detailed visualisations?
Magnus Ström: As a new practice, it has been very important to build up a portfolio of work, as as you have to be patient in architecture and I am not. It takes three years from inception to completion for a project, but I needed to have these projects on my website sooner and of a quality good enough for publication.
AF: How did you get started?
MS: When I first set up, I invested in some advertising, and this resulted in absolutely nothing. I then discovered Peter Guthrie, whose renders were the best I had ever seen. I immediately called him and said I wanted to work with him, although I at this stage didn’t have a project! As soon as I had a suitable project, I decided to smash my marketing budget and get him to render my project, which was a private house in Suffolk.
AF: What kind of press response did you have to those images?
MS: It immediately got loads of attention and was featured on several websites and magazines as far away as Australia. This played a big part in me being selected as the UK representative for Wallpapers Emerging Architects 2012, which in turn directly led to the commission of Woodpeckers. I have had an enormous amount of press interest in the project, although many have shied away when they realised it wasn’t built.
AF: Were there any negatives?
MS: The downside is that you show a finished project, which can put you in a difficult situation if [the press] doesn’t like it. However this hasn’t happened for me yet, and hopefully, as your clients select you in the first place, they will like what you do for them.
AF: Do you use the renderings as a design tool or just to present a resolved idea?
MS: I do build SketchUp models of all my projects – in particular to communicate with clients – but renders definitely help to convey a feeling of what you are trying to achieve. They also help to demonstrate top design quality. Since I set up my practice, I have been lucky to get 100% of planning applications approved. I think at times, particularly in sensitive areas, the images have helped to demonstrate the quality aimed for in the design and has successfully helped the planning application.
AF: Would you recommend the approach to other architects starting out?
MS: Overall, I think high quality renders have managed to promote my practice in a way that previously wouldn’t have been possible. This of course needs to be coupled with an on-line presence, whether through Facebook, Twitter, BEhance, Architizer or similar. So I can say with confidence that current projects as well as numerous enquiries, even from abroad, have been linked to high-end visualisations.
Read on for a project description from the architect:
Woodpeckers, New Forest, UK
“Woodpeckers” is a replacement house on a rural site on the edge of the New Forest National Park.
The design for the house, which is to be used mainly as holiday home, is constrained by planning issues that to some extent dictated the built footprint and its position on the site. Very tight size restrictions forced the design to push windows to the outside of the envelope, not allowing any overhangs which would be included in an area calculation, therefore reducing the actual built area. However, within the allowable area, there are provisions for inclusion of a conservatory, and one challenge was how to successfully integrate this with architecture devoid of the normal connotations of a lean-to structure.
The very simple building is also driven by economics of construction. The superstructure is a simple timber frame structure that will be pre-fabricated allowing a short erection time on site. Spans as well as the width of the house are decided by the performance restrictions of standard timber truss components. Fenestration is generated by floor to ceiling gaps in the timber façade.
The house sits on a platform that will create a terrace to the south and the east. This platform connects with a masonry chimney breast that provides both internal and external fireplaces. The platform, being raised slightly off the ground, allows a level connection between inside and outside terraces as well as raises the house off the ground, which in the winter months can be quite wet.
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