Hasta La Ideas

The locker room at the London School of Economics is now a village of cabinets with house-shaped profiles and bold graphics.

London studio Belsize Architects has completely overhauled the existing locker room, which is located in an awkwardly shaped two-storey space in the LSE‘s Old Building.

“The existing space was in bad shape,” architect Shahriar Nasser told Dezeen, explaining how the rooms were badly ventilated and filled with dark corners that made students feel uncomfortable and unsafe. “The school wanted us to make a place that is exciting and inviting for students,” he said.

The architects worked with a structural engineer to work out how many of the exposed columns they could remove. They then painted the remaining columns bright red and squeezed lockers into the spaces between.

“The height of the lockers is reduced to improve the lighting and to help students see what’s going on around them,” said Nasser.

He also explained how the gabled profiles of the lockers were actually designed to stop students placing items on top of them. “We realised as we were drawing them that they also had an interesting form,” he added.

Bold letters painted onto the lockers help students to find their way around, while the glazed entrance is fitted with a security lock that prevents anyone else gaining access.

This is the second project we’ve featured from the London School of Economics, following a custom-built lounge with boxy white furniture.

See more interior design on Dezeen »

Here’s a project description from Belsize Architects:

The Locker Room by Belsize Architects

London-based Belsize Architects were commissioned by the London School of Economics to design the refurbishment of the locker room in the LSE’s old Building.

The existing space was overcrowded, unfriendly and poorly ventilated. The steel structure supporting the building was badly corroded, and the existing lockers were ugly, insecure and in a poor state of repair. Low ceilings, which carried bulky services in many areas, made usage difficult and were a particular design challenge. Despite the limitations as to what could be achieved in such an area, Belsize Architects have produced an attractive and more pleasant space that is safe and secure, well-lit and ventilated, and one that uses the restricted space to its best advantage.

A new load-bearing structure containing fewer columns addressed corrosion issues, and created improved sight-lines and visibility across the new space. The area was also damp-proofed and new ventilation installed. A new staircase was also built to comply with modern building regulations and create additional locker space, and services pipes were re-routed against a wall, away from the main circulation spaces to improve headroom. The most noticeable change, however, was the introduction of bold colour and branding (in keeping with the LSE’s brand identity) to place emphasis on the main elements in the space, create contrast, and lift the space to create an attractive, friendly and contemporary environment.

Graphics play an important role in the design, and continue the branding language used elsewhere in the building. Oversized letters and numbers offer both distinctiveness and legibility. A light colour palette brightens the space and reduces the need for artificial lighting. A transparent box at the entrance provides the controlled access required, important passive surveillance and clear views through to the new area. The lockers are kept low in height to give views over the top, providing additional safety and security.

The project was completed in eight weeks over the 2012 summer break and cost £110,000.

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Belsize Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Hackney studio Levitt Bernstein has won a housing design competition with a proposal to turn disused parking garages into tiny pop-up homes.

Organised by architecture charity the Building Trust, the competition asked entrants to come up with proposals for any urban area of a developed country, to offer a solution to the shortages of affordable single-occupancy housing.

Levitt Bernstein suggests inserting prefabricated structures into redundant garages on housing estates in the London borough of Hackney. “The proposal targets under-used spaces in high density areas where land value is high and rising,” said architect Georgie Revell.

The structures would use parts that are both quick to assemble and easy to dismantle, so the architects are also recommending an accompanying apprenticeship initiative to teach the construction techniques to homeless people.

“This is a great opportunity to begin to deal with homelessness in an innovative and holistic manner,” said architect Sarah Jenkinson. ”We are excited about developing our proposals into real solutions especially in our local borough where housing is an asset that can be so difficult to obtain.”

The architects are now working with the Building Trust to work up detailed plans to take the project forward.

Hackney is also Dezeen’s home borough and this year we launched our own initiative to showcase world-class design and architecture in the area.

See more architecture and design from Hackney »

Here’s some more information from Levitt Bernstein:

Levitt Bernstein have recently been announced as winners from over 400 entries of the open international HOME competition run by Building Trust International.

The winning proposal uses temporary ‘pop-up’ structures to occupy redundant garages on existing housing estates in east London. HAWSE (Homes through Apprenticeships With Skills for Employment) was designed by Georgie Revell and Sarah Jenkinson in collaboration with a homeless charity and training academy. The intention is for the project to be delivered through an apprenticeship scheme with components manufactured off-site as a kit-of parts. The structures are quick to assemble and can be inhabited immediately with the components being demountable and reusable. The proposals not only offer a home but education opportunities in construction techniques, a way of regenerating street frontage and a practical interim solution between other development possibilities.

The competition brief asked for proposals to focus on low cost, single occupancy housing solutions in urban areas to respond to the deficit of affordable housing options. The competition had over 400 entries for both the professional and student categories and the judging panel was chaired by Building Trust, YMCA, Habitat for Humanity and Crash. Building Trust International launch their next humanitarian design competition on the 15th Oct focusing flood resistant housing in Cambodia.

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by Levitt Bernstein appeared first on Dezeen.

This terrace of eight houses by Peter Barber Architects is clad with timber shingles to match the neighbouring fences and sheds of a housing estate in east London (+ slideshow).

“The building sits at the rear of a 1960s council estate, where there are little rear gardens, rickety sheds and a patchwork of wooden fences,” Peter Barber told Dezeen. “Our building shares a similar aesthetic.”

The timber shingles also create an analogous pattern and texture to the brick walls of the surrounding residences, which face onto the same community garden as the new houses.

Each house has at least two small terraces, whether on the roof or at ground level, and Barber hopes over time these will “get planted and personalised by the people that live there”.

The largest residence has seven bedrooms, while one has six and the others have either three or four.

Half of the houses will be allocated to social housing tenants, while the other half will be sold.

Isometric diagram – click above for larger image

Other housing projects on Dezeen by Peter Barber Architects include 25 new houses elsewhere in east London and a new urban quarter in west London.

Site plan – click above for larger image

See more projects by Peter Barber Architects »

Floor plans – click above for larger image

Photography is by Morley von Sternberg

Here’s a few details from Peter Barber Architects:

Hannibal Road Gardens/Beveridge Mews

Hannibal Road Gardens is a social housing project set around a community garden in Stepney.

The proposal replaces a problematic strip of garages and creates a fourth side to a square within an existing housing estate with 3 slab blocks forming the other sides.

Typical ground floor plan – click above for larger image

The newly landscaped and densely planted community garden created in the centre of the square will be overlooked by a delightful new terrace of eight contemporary family houses.

The new row of houses is conceived as a continuation of the timber garden fences of the existing housing blocks, being constructed from timber and configured as a series of stepped and notched south east facing garden terraces.

Typical first floor plan – click above for larger image

The accommodation is predominantly made up of large family houses (3, 4, 6 bedrooms). These will be 100% affordable, 50% of which are to be socially rented.

Typical second floor plan – click above for larger image

Key features:

» High density, large houses created on a difficult, single-aspect site;
» Innovative notched terrace typology, creating a variety of amenity spaces and outlooks;
» All courtyard houses have their own front door and a minimum of two large courtyards / roof terraces;
» Great example of collaborative approach to planning, working closely with Tower Hamlets Planners and Highways Officers.

Typical roof plan – click above for larger image

Client: Southern Housing Group
Contract Value: c£1.5 million
London Borough of Tower Hamlets

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by Peter Barber Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

This timber-clad cafe by architect Tony Fretton was designed as an upside-down interpretation of the neighbouring Tower of London (+ slideshow).

“I wanted to design a building that engages directly with the architecture of the tower,” Fretton told Dezeen, after explaining how the central section of the cafe is like the castellated walls of the historic building that was used as a prison for centuries.

The battlements that line the upper edge of the tower reappear as windows along the base of the cafe, while the chestnut panels that cover the facade have been painted grey to match the old stone walls.

Fretton explained how other new buildings around the tower fall into two categories. While the recently constructed entrance to the tower has a “high-tech” appearance that relates more closely to the office buildings nearby, the “anonymous” refreshment counters look more like ”wooden garden buildings”, but Fretton said he “didn’t want to do either.”

One end of the building stretches out beneath the arches of Tower Bridge, while the other finishes in a zig-zagging canopy that shelters an outdoor dining area.

“If you’re sitting on the terrace you see the metalwork of the awnings in relation to Tower Bridge,” said Fretton. “From some angles they look like little sketches of buildings.”

A dining room that seats 100 occupies the majority of the building and a separate bar is positioned beneath the bridge. Visitors enter through a glazed lobby, while an original oak door leads into the bar, offering access in the evenings when the rest of the wharf is closed.

See more projects by Tony Fretton, including a museum of fine art in Denmark. Photography is by Peter Cook.

Here’s some text from the architects:

Tower Wharf Café London, UK

Tony Fretton Architects has completed a new-build café and restaurant in one of London’s and the world’s most historically significant locations, the Tower of London.

The site forms the intersection between Tower Bridge and the UNESCO world heritage site of the Tower of London on the historic Tower Wharf to the Thames overlooking the Greater London Assembly building and HMS Belfast. The new development has been commissioned by Historic Royal Palaces – the independent charity that looks after the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, the Banqueting House, Kensington Palace and Kew Palace.

Tower Wharf Café provides indoor and alfresco dining on the wharf, serving the 2.5 million tourists that visit the Tower of London each year. It adds to an assembly of pavilions, including a ticket office and river frontage kiosks. Positioned closer to the Tower and further from the main tourist entrance than these kiosks the new building demanded a design that is visibly striking and fanciful. It takes its cue from the Tower itself instead of the hi-tech architecture of the neighbouring City district or generic garden pavilion architecture.

The new building responds playfully to the Tower’s outer wall, an assembly of towers and curtain walls of differing height and form. It is made up of four linked volumes, housed in two discrete forms: one is like the castellated wall turned upside down with the space between the battlements becoming glazed recesses. The other is a long low-rise form joining the arch under Tower Bridge. Both are clad in rough sawn English Sweet Chestnut timber in a vertical formation. The timber is painted grey to match the hues and tones of the Kentish Ragstone rubble with limestone dressing of the Tower Walls and the Cornish granite blocks with Portland Stone dressing of the bridge. The use of rough timber continues the tradition of using the material in the utilitarian buildings that have historically occupied this site on the wharf.

The entrance is via a glazed lobby at the centre of the wharf elevation into a tall dining room and bar accommodating 100 covers. The dining hall opens out at the eastern end into an expansive glass-walled terrace serving an additional 60 covers. The terrace is paved with smooth sawn Yorkstone with elongated slabs demarking the remains of a historic wall on the site dating from the seventeenth century. A pitched roof of motorized retractable blinds and sophisticated guttering system ensures that the terrace can be used in all weather, providing alfresco dining against the backdrop of the Tower day and night throughout the seasons.

The dining hall is a light-filled space characterised by a central oculus skylight. A narrow band of glazing at the western end provides a light-of-touch interface between the new building and the arches, giving diners an unexpected view upwards to Tower Bridge. All of the windows are fixed with opening wooden side panels providing natural ventilation. The south elevation facing onto the wharf is fitted with electric blinds, which are perforated to allow ventilation during hot weather.

The arch under the Tower Bridge provides a setting for a more intimate cavernous oak lined bar and accommodates back of house kitchen and support functions beyond. The original solid oak door under the arches, which dates from the construction of the bridge in the 1880’s, provides a dramatic entrance through the bar to the restaurant when the wharf gates are closed at night.

At night, Erco ceiling lighting provides focused pools of light on each dining table. The building itself will be in shadow as diners inside and on the terrace will look out onto illuminated landmarks on every side.

Tower Wharf Café is a significant addition to London’s cultural and historical riverside. The design demonstrates sensitivity to the heritage of the Tower whilst acknowledging the popular culture of the wharf.

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Tony Fretton Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

News: the Sainsbury Laboratory by Stanton Williams has been awarded the 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize for the most significant contribution to British architecture this year.

A combination of limestone columns and concrete bands surrounds the exterior of the building, which provides scientific research facilities in the botanic gardens of Cambridge University.

Glass-fronted laboratories allow scientists to look out onto a courtyard at the centre of the building, beyond a double-height corridor filled with informal meeting areas.

Read more about the project in our earlier story.

The building was one of six shortlisted entries, including projects by OMA and David Chipperfield  – read more about each one here.

Previous winners include Zaha Hadid for the Evelyn Grace Academy (2011) and the MAXXI Museum (2010), and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners for the Maggie’s Centre in London (2009) – see all our stories about previous winners here.

See more stories about Stanton Williams »

Photography is by Hufton + Crow.

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wins 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize appeared first on Dezeen.