Hasta La Ideas

Designed in Hackney: next up in our showcase of design talent from Olympic host borough Hackney is Stoke Newington studio Loop.pH, who have installed this umbrella-like canopy of illuminated lace at the entrance to London’s Kensington Palace.

Inspired by the ceremonial lace that has been worn by the British royal family for centuries, the light installation is made from over 4 kilometres of electroluminescent wire and is decorated with Swarovski crystals.

The structure will be on show to the public when the palace reopens next week, following a large restoration programme.

Mathias Gmachl and Rachel Wingfield founded art and design studio Loop.pH in 2003 and have since designed a number of installations using lace-making techniques. We first featured them back in 2007, when they created a glowing structure that reacts to movement, then again in 2009 when the project was featured in an exhibition at the V&A museum. See all our stories about their work here.

Their office is located on Stoke Newington Church Street, just down the road from Dezeen.

Key:

Blue = designers
Red = architects
Yellow = brands

See a larger version of this map

Designed in Hackney is a Dezeen initiative to showcase world-class architecture and design created in the borough, which is one of the five host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as being home to Dezeen’s offices. We’ll publish buildings, interiors and objects that have been designed in Hackney each day until the games this summer.

More information and details of how to get involved can be found at www.designedinhackney.com.

Designed in Hackney: today’s featured designers in our London borough of Hackney showcase are Archer Architects, who inserted a Corten steel-clad hotel behind the facade of a derelict pub in Shoreditch.

The 26-room boutique hotel is part of the Shoreditch House private members club, located on Ebor Street just outside the southwest corner of the borough.

Completed in 2012, the Corten steel extension adds an extra three storeys onto the roof of the old pub to bring the height of the building up to match that of its neighbours.

Guests enter the hotel through a ground floor reception that leads to rooms upstairs as well as to a garden on the roof.

The renovated building also includes a day spa called the Cowshed, which occupies the old bar area and the basement.

Archer Architects comprises a team of architects and designers, led by director Stephen Archer. Their studios are located in the Tea Building on the corner of Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road, almost next door to this project.

Key:

Blue = designers
Red = architects
Yellow = brands

See a larger version of this map.

Designed in Hackney is a Dezeen initiative to showcase world-class architecture and design created in the borough, which is one of the five host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as being home to Dezeen’s offices. We’ll publish buildings, interiors and objects that have been designed in Hackney each day until the games this summer.

More information and details of how to get involved can be found at www.designedinhackney.com.

Photography is by Tim Soar.

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.

Click above for larger image

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.

Click above for larger image

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

Sports brand Nike have opened an east London store where shoppers can see themselves reflected on motion-sensitive LED walls.

Named NikeFuel Station, the store is located at Boxpark, a temporary shopping centre made from shipping containers in Shoreditch, in the London borough of Hackney.

Runners visiting the store can learn which shoe styles are best suited to them using a digitized treadmill or read information about other products by interacting with touchscreens.

Diagonal wooden panels on the walls reference the architecture of the first ever Nike store in Portland, Oregon, but are adorned with LCD countdowns instead of the painted digits on the original walls.

The NikeFuel Station will be one of the first stockists of the Nike+ FuelBand, a wristband that tracks your movements and gives you points for being more active – read more about it here.

We’ve also filmed a couple of movies with Nike’s global creative director Andy Walker, who gave us a guided tour of the store – keep your eyes peeled for these on Dezeen Screen in the next few days or see all our stories about Nike here.

Hackney is one of the five host boroughs for this years Olympic Games, as well as home to Dezeen’s offices, so we’re currently celebrating design talent in the area –  find out more here.

Here’s some text from the brand:

Nike Opens First Ever NikeFuel Station in London

Introducing The NikeFuel Station & NikeiD Studio at Boxpark, East London

Nike opens the world’s first ever NikeFuel Station – a retail space like no other designed for today’s digitally enabled athlete. Featuring a seamless mix of innovative digital services and physical consumer experiences, the store is set to re-define the retail landscape forever.

The cutting-edge store, which is located on the ground floor at Boxpark, the world’s first ever pop-up mall, features engaging digital experiences designed to enable and inspire runners to be the best they can be. From May, NikeFuel Station at Boxpark will also be one of the select stockists of the Nike+ FuelBand, an innovative wristband that tracks movement throughout the day to help motivate and inspire users to be more active.

NikeFuel Station at Boxpark experiences and services include:
• Floor-to-ceiling motion sensing, interactive LED walls designed to encourage you to move more and demonstrate NikeFuel – a new metric that is the measure of a person’s athletic activity
• Nike+ FuelBand interactive experience created in conjunction with AKQA – an engaging motion sensitive installation where consumers see a life-size, digitized reflection on an LCD wall that reacts to movement to create a stunning piece of digital art that can be shared with friends via social networks. The faster you move, the more spectacular the results!
• Augmented reality tools to bring product technologies to life giving consumers access to interactive, animated product information
• ‘Digital mannequins’ – motion sensitive intelligent mirrors that reveal film footage of local runners wearing key products from the store
• Interactive touch screens – providing consumers with information about Nike+ products, forthcoming Nike+ Run Club sessions and the ability to purchase products from the entire Nike collection via Nikestore.com
• Weekly Nike+ Run Club – free running club open to all East London runners
• Physio and nutritionist services – free regular consultations with physios and nutritionists for Nike+ Run Club members
• Gait Analysis – in-store treadmill to allow consumers to ensure runners purchase the right shoe to match their running style

Andy Walker, Global Creative Director, Nike said: “Nike is changing the face of retail with the opening of Nike+ FuelStation at Boxpark. Nike+ products and services have merged the physical and digital worlds to help inspire and enable athletes of all levels to be the best they can be. Now we’re taking this approach one step further by combining innovative products with digital services and interactive multimedia experiences to create a state-of-the-art retail environment.”

Designed entirely in-house by the Nike Brand Design team, the store mixes futuristic interior design and architecture with features inspired by the first ever Nike store, which opened in Portland in 1973. Just like the original store, Nike+FuelStation at Boxpark features the iconic ‘chevron’ shaped bleacher wall coverings that have been given a modern twist with embedded LCD ‘counting’ numbers replacing the hand painted digits seen on the originals.

NIKEiD Studio at Boxpark

Nike is also opening a separate NIKEiD Studio on the first floor of Boxpark where consumers can design and customise their own performance and lifestyle footwear with the help of consultants drawn from the local design community.

The NIKEiD space has a completely unique look and feel to the NikeFuel Station. Focusing on craft and creativity, the space is a fusion of a luxury boutique, a tailor’s workshop and a design library.

The main feature of the space is a 20 metre long oak bookcase that follows the same ‘chevron’ structure as the bleachers in Nike+ FuelStation. The bookcase is filled with a vast collection of inspiring design titles and showcase products to motivate consumers to design their ultimate Nike shoe.

Other features include four individual design stations set into gym-inspired tables, and two larger design stations using 55” plasma screens to enable groups of friends to collaboratively create designs.

The NIKEiD space is also the first Nike store outside of the US to feature the ‘Bowerman Wall’, an interactive 92” touchscreen wall which showcases an audio visual library of Nike’s heritage. True to the essence of customization the entrance to the space will be a canvas for local artists to showcase their creativity through the lens of Nike innovations.

The new NikeFuel Station and NIKEiD Studio are open now at Boxpark, 2-4 Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch, London, E1 6GY.

A electronically controlled stone wall slides across the facade of this house in Warwickshire, England, to conceal a large window.

Designed by British architects Baynes & Co, Wickstead Lodge replaces a traditional vernacular house that formerly occupied the site.

The moving wall was created to overcome a planning requirement stating that the new house should have only small windows, like its predecessor.

Narrow gaps in the stonework let light pass through the wall into the dining room behind.

The whole of this lower floor was also set just below ground level so that the two-storey house wouldn’t be taller than permitted.

We also recently featured a house in Bath constructed from a similar pale stone – take a look here.

Photography is by Stuart Whipps.

The text below is a description from Adrian Baynes:

The project was a new house to replace an existing one.

The planning authority imposed considerable constraints in terms of massing, roof height, materials & design.

They wanted a replacement single storey house, with small windows, of traditional construction.

The client wanted a two storey, contemporary house.

The solution was to sink the building into the ground and create three gables so as to minimise the impact from the road.

However from the rear it is a substantial two storey development.

The biggest difficulty was the planners requirement for small windows to match those in the original house.

The answer was to install the largest double glazed window available and then construct a steel framed stone wall in front of it.

The stone was bonded in place so as to allow the light to penetrate through the joints.

However the entire wall was mounted on an geared electric motor powered track to allow it to move like a giant curtain.

By careful engineering the wall was mounted without any top support.

The building was constructed with stone gables & a matching brick, with terne coated stainless steel roof with roll batten joints to replicate a traditional lead roof.