Hasta La Ideas

Nick Willson Architects have completed a house in south-east London with sections of the facade clad in flint, timber and lead.

The joinery, flint wall and lead cladding were all hand-crafted on site.

The house is arranged into four parts linked via a central library and circulation route.

A large garden has been retained behind the house to allow for a vegetable patch and chickens.

Completed late last year, the house is sited within a conservation area and is the first built project by Nick Willson Architects.

Photography is by Gareth Gardner.

Other residential projects in London featured on Dezeen include King’s Grove by Duggan Morris Architects, Hearth House by AOC and 51A Gloucester Crescent by John Glew.

Here is some text from the architects:

Flint House, 11 Morden Road Mews

Nick Willson Architects have recently completed their first built work since setting up their small Shoreditch-based practice in January 2010.

We were appointed as architects by the clients and our brief was to design a beautiful new sustainable home for their imminent family at 11 Morden Road Mews in Blackheath, south- east London.

Click above for larger image

The key component of ‘Flint House’ was to combine new technology with an element of craft, which all too often is lost in new build houses. The house brings together a rich mixture of crafted elements: the flint wall, lead cladding and timber joinery, which are all made by hand, employing specialist trades people. We have created a completely bespoke home for the clients; we have designed unique windows and doors, distinctive kitchen joinery, specially integrated baby gates and custom-made door handles. A sustainable prefabricated timber frame created with a 3mm tolerance using a BIM model, also creates a highly insulated interior. From this large element to the infinitely small, every detail has been carefully considered, including a one-off dining table for the kitchen. This level of care and detail, creates a new home which is both sustainable and a perfect fit for the family.

Click above for larger image

For us, architecture is storytelling, from the evolution of a first sketch into a finished building – the client is central to this process and we develop the narrative together. During the early stages, the clients were keen to retain some of the existing 50’s cottage and build a traditional-looking house. However, as we pursued various design options, we convinced the clients that the existing, inefficient buildings should be demolished and replaced with a new- build, sustainable house. In response to the client’s concerns over the house being too contemporary and merely just another glass box, we proposed a pitched roof and the use of traditional crafted materials.

Click above for larger image

On plan, the house is divided into four wings – two to the west and two to the east. All four areas are linked by a central circulation route and library space, visually connected by a large glazed element next to the entrance. Externally, these different elements are expressed with a subtle palette of materials, which are in harmony with the surrounding buildings and reflect their orientation and function. The two west wings are clad in a mixture of split flint and render. Unifying the overall composition, the warm render is a constant background to the flint, which only covers the rear of the house. The east elevation, which brings together the landscape, home and garden, is enclosed in a ribbon of vertical oak cladding that runs from the ground floor, along the terrace and first floor walls. The house therefore has a strong element of texture and materiality, from the rough flint of the exterior to the smooth resin and white tongue and groove joinery, which wraps around the interior.

Click above for larger image

In a nod to Alvar Aalto, we wanted to bring the exterior into the interior with a strong connection to the garden and first floor balcony. To maximize natural light and to reinforce visual connections with the natural garden, all the windows and roof lights frame a view of the exterior trees and vegetation. This simple concept allows different levels of light to permeate the house as the seasons change. The reading seat in the library, which was conceived as a calm and contemplative space, faces the large chestnut tree in the garden. Although the house is situated just on the outskirts of London, this gives the feeling that you have escaped to the countryside.

Click above for larger image

One of our key philosophies of sustainability was realised in Flint House, with the use of the highly insulated timber frame, combining finn forest I joists and robust details for air tightness. The oak is English and A star rated in terms of FSC. In addition, solar thermal panels were fitted with smart meters to provide the house with sustainable heating. The house also makes use of natural ventilation and a sedum roof above the new garage.

Start date on site: August 2009
Completion: December 2010
Form of contract: JCT IFC 2005
Gross external floor area: 170 sqm
Construction costs: £600,000
Client: Private

Click above for larger image

Structural Engineer: Trevor Millea
Cost Consultant: Bonfield Ltd
Main Contractor: Modernarc Annual
CO2 Emission: awaiting confirmation

See also:

.

Ty Hedfan by Featherstone Young	Ty Pren by Feilden Fowles	Apartment building by Znamení Čtyř

Architects Grimshaw have completed an installation for London department store John Lewis that’s made of suspended cardboard tubes.

The tubes vary in length and sit in the circular holes cut from two vertical sheets of clear acrylic.

The design will debut at John Lewis’ Oxford Street shop for two months before moving around the UK to stores including Cardiff, Edinburgh and Liverpool.

The modular nature of the design allows for various configurations at each department store and designers can either use the tubes to display garments or as screens to enclose their collections.

Other projects by Grimshaw include bus shelters in New York, the RIBA Stirling Prize nominated Bijlmer Station in Amsterdam and an extension to the Excel Exhibition Centre in London.

Photography is by Lim/Grimshaw.

Here’s some information from Grimshaw:

John Lewis approached Grimshaw to provide a temporary exhibit and event space capable of showcasing a variety of designers within their store on Oxford Street.

This unique ‘pop-up’ installation called for an innovative proposal which fused exhibition design and architecture, whilst enabling John Lewis to express their brand in an exciting and striking space.

The installation will be initially located on the first floor at Oxford Street, and will subsequently travel to other John Lewis stores in the UK.

Click above for larger image

Comprised of simple cardboard tubes suspended in clear Perspex sheets, the modular panel design creates a flexible and enclosed environment of varying transparency. This flexibility allows for various configurations to be explored in different locations around the UK. A solution is formed with three easily fabricated panel types resulting in an events space which both draws the public in and screens off its surrounding environment, offering a degree of privacy.

Click above for larger image

The long-standing relationship between John Lewis and their collection of fabrics and materials is expressed with a selection of each wrapped around a tubular cardboard spine. The installation celebrates these objects and organises them in an unfamiliar way by creating views beyond and between the different panels. The tubes vary in both length and diameter; each one is suspended within two vertical sheets of acrylic, along with transparent joining rods which are visible amongst the tubes. The range of tube sizes creates a kit of parts whereby designers can choose to display within them or simply frame their exhibited retail range.

See also:

.

Paper Tower by Shigeru Ban	Mirror of Judgement by Michelangelo Pistoletto	Karis by Suppose Design Office

Architect Rafael Viñoly has completed a visual arts centre in Colchester, England, that is wrapped in polished golden metal.

These copper-aluminium panels create diagonal stripes across the curved exterior walls of the single-storey gallery.

The building is entitled Firstsite, as it is located on the site of one of the first Roman settlements in the UK.

A restored mosaic embedded in the floor of one room will be the gallery’s only permanent exhibit.

Visitors enter the crescent-shaped building through a tall glazed wall at one end.

A reception here leads through to the galleries and to an auditorium lined with fabric diamonds and lengths of timber.

Beyond the galleries, a café leads to an outdoor terrace.

Other shiny metal-covered buildings from the Dezeen archive include a copper-clad hair salon and an office with a face of aluminium shingles.

Photography is by Richard Bryant.

Here are some more details from the architects:

Firstsite, Colchester

The Building

The building plan is a modified crescent that wraps around a D-shaped eighteenth-century garden. It slopes upwards in line with the site topography, culminating in a monumental portico which frames the lobby with full-height glazing. Contemporary in both form and cladding, built on a steel frame and wrapped in TECU Gold (a copper-aluminum alloy), the building engages with the site’s axial geometry and the preexisting period architecture.

All construction took place at elevations above the Scheduled Ancient Monument datum line because buried archaeological artefacts precluded excavation. The building therefore floats on a concrete raft foundation which required no deep excavation. One of those artefacts, the Berryfield Mosaic, is set into the floor beneath protective glass, providing a glimpse of the history buried under the building. Internal levels work with the contours of the site; twelve different floor slab levels create subtle slopes that draw people through the building.

An interior promenade carries visitors from the vast entrance space through to the auditorium, University and Mosaic spaces, learning areas and main exhibition spaces, ending up at the café restaurant, MUSA. The curved form of the building creates the sense of a journey that allows visitors to encounter artwork as they walk through the building. The café restaurant at the end of this promenade provides social space lit by overhead clerestory windows; it includes an outdoor terrace which overlooks the adjacent gardens. Administrative space and galleries aligned on the inside arc of the building feature wide glazing that provides natural light and views of the adjacent eighteenth-century garden. Sensitive landscaping animates the open garden spaces, including artwork designed by artist Simon Periton installed September 2011.

In accordance with the design mandate to turn the traditional white cube gallery inside-out, extensive natural lighting and clear internal orientation is maintained by preserving sightlines to the outdoors. Floor-level strips of windows animate the design by revealing to visitors in the garden the movement of people inside, while also providing diffused light to the interior; clerestory windows give further natural light.

The Site

The site, near the town centre of one of Britain’s first Roman settlements, sits on Scheduled Ancient Monument land, with an intact Roman wall defining the southern boundary. Because archaeological remains are scattered throughout the site, maximum loads on the ground and a no-dig policy, the building had to impose a minimum load on the existing topography.

As the first project in the revitalisation of Colchester’s historic St Botolph’s Quarter, firstsite anchors the long-term development plan of an underused district. Rafael Viñoly Architects PC proposed a number of revisions to the original St Botolph’s Quarter master plan, all of which were subsequently adopted. The proposed building site was moved eastward, away from the town centre, redistributing the area of redevelopment. This faciliated a more sensitive relationship between the building and the historic assets of Colchester; specifically, by preserving the character of the north-south Queen Street/St Botolph’s Street corridor, which connects the Colchester Castle Museum (to the north) and the Colchester Town train station (to the south) with a gently curving street of historical buildings.

The new location situates the building in a park, creating new public space as an appropriate setting for a cultural destination. (A bus station was relocated to accommodate this new construction.) The site is now directly south of the eighteenth-century Grade I Listed East Hill House, which firstsite faces across a D-shaped garden that lends it its crescent shape, and whose Grade II gothic folly was separated from the house in the mid twentieth century by the construction of a bus station. Views from the museum to the first-century Roman wall emphasise the historical importance of this ancient structure. Other prominent nearby structures include Grade II Listed twelfth century St James’s Church and the Minories Art Gallery, the latter a red-brick Georgian townhouse that served as firstsite’s original home, and which has been a gallery since the 1950s.

Spaces

The auditorium is clad internally with diamond-patterned, suede-like acoustic fabric and overlapping European cherry timber shells. It will be used for film screenings, performances, lectures and presentations. Situated behind the Entrance space, it leads visitors on to the main gallery areas which are defined by a varied materials palette of an ammonia-fumed oak floor and angled/curving plasterboard walls. The Foundation for Sport and the Arts Gallery, a climate-controlled, museum-quality hanging space, is accompanied by many adaptable display opportunities. The flexible spatial configuration promotes interaction between visitors and artists, as spaces can be opened up to the galleries to encompass learning, artist residencies, and exhibitions. Programmed spaces are clustered, with the learning spaces in one area, conference and administration facilities in another, the galleries are concentrated near the centre of the building, and the café restaurant MUSA at the far eastern end.

The newly restored Berryfield Roman Mosaic is located at the heart of the firstsite building. Dating from around AD200, the mosaic was unearthed in 1923 by a local tenant on the site where firstsite now stands. The Mosaic originally formed part of the dining room floor of a wealthy Roman townhouse. After 80 years in Colchester Castle, the Mosaic has been painstakingly restored and returned to its rightful home, as firstsiteÊs only permanent exhibit. Its design consists of a central rose motif surrounded by four panels depicting sea monsters chasing Dolphins.
The Mosaic, which has been carefully cleaned and now benefits from a new lightweight backing, is displayed horizontally in a case embedded into the floor of the building.

MUSA, firstsiteÊs contemporary café restaurant will be open every day to gallery visitors and the general public. Award winning chef Paul Boorman will lead a talented young team in the kitchen to create an innovative modern British menu, applying cutting-edge techniques to traditionally inspired dishes. Open 8am ! 6pm Monday to Saturday and 10am ! 5pm on Sunday, diners can enjoy a drink at the bar and eat inside or on the terrace. On Sundays, there will be an all-day brunch menu available, and on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, MUSA will open from 7pm as a destination restaurant for Colchester and North Essex.

See also:

.

Carrasco Airport by Rafael Viñoly	Stem Cell Building by Rafael Viñoly	Cleveland Museum by Rafael Viñoly

London Design Festival 2011: architect David Chipperfield has installed two metallic glass pavilions outside the Royal Festival Hall in London as part of the London Design Festival

Copper-coated fabric mesh is sandwiched between vertical glass panels to create the bronze-coloured walls of one pavilion.

The walls of second pavilion are silver in colour, as they encase the same mesh coated in aluminium.

The project was delivered in collaboration with engineers Arup.

You can see all our stories about David Chipperfield here, and all our stories about the London Design Festival here.

Here are some more details from the London Design Festival:

Size + Matter is one of the London Design Festival’s cornerstones, pairing a leading designer or architect with a material or manufacturing process. We ask them to explore the dynamic between their own creativity and the material or process. As a result, since 2007, three million people have experienced this series of remarkable explorations – by David Adjaye, Shigeru Ban, Paul Cocksedge, Zaha Hadid, Amanda Levete and Marc Newson – at the Southbank Centre.

This year they are joined by one of the UK’s most important architecture practices, David Chipperfield Architects, who teamed up with structural engineers and glass specialists from Arup to create a composition using Sefar Architecture Vision fabric. The metal-coated fabric mesh, black on one side and metallic on the other, is layered between two sheets of glass and gives the installation’s panels both translucent and reflective qualities.

David Chipperfield Architects has created a sculptural dialogue between two identical forms, different only in their orientation and aluminium and copper finishes. Each form consists of a series of unframed laminated glass panels with corresponding coloured stainless steel connections. Two Lines oscillates between a sculptural relationship of two orthogonal forms and a regular series of simple vertical elements. The interlayer of 50% mesh gives a stronger materiality to the glass, appearing at times monolithic and dynamically translucent, changing over the course of a day. As a result, the installation creates a variety of different experiences as visitors move within and around it.

See also:

.

Timber Wave by AL_A and Arup	Perspectives by John Pawson	Textile Field by Ronan& Erwan Bouroullec

London studio Edward Cullinan Architects have completed a concrete and steel bunker to store the British Film Institute‘s entire film collection.

Located in Warwickshire, England, the BFI Master Film Store can archive up to 460,000 film canisters inside vaults with sub-zero temperatures and specified humidity levels.

These 36 vaults are externally clad in precast concrete panels to maintain a stable thermal mass.

At the front of the building is an entrance block wrapped in corrugated stainless steel panels, which features a steeply pitched sedum roof.

This block provides workshops, a meeting room and staff facilities, as well as airtight lobbies leading to the storage vaults.

We have recently published a number of bunker-like buildings on Dezeen – see all the stories here.

Photography is by Edmund Sumner.

Here are some more details about the project from Edward Cullinan Architects:

This autumn, the British Film Institute (BFI) has reached a major milestone in its long history of preserving the nation’s film heritage. The pioneering new building is ready to house the BFI’s entire master collection of acetate and nitrate film in closely controlled environmental conditions ideal for the long term protection of this priceless and vulnerable material.

The Project has been realised through the Screen Heritage UK (SHUK) programme, a nationwide initiative funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. One of its key objectives is to prevent the deterioration and loss of the nation’s films so that they can be made accessible now and in the future. The BFI cares for the most significant film collection in the world. It represents the history of the moving image in Britain from pre-cinema through to the present day. The collection has been stored over two sites; the new building consolidates the collection into an existing site in Warwickshire.

The building is designed by Edward Cullinan Architects who led a detailed feasibility study which concluded that the BFI’s existing archive buildings could not be suitably upgraded, and that a new ‘sub-zero’ storage facility large enough to house all master acetate and nitrate material should be constructed at the earliest opportunity.

The final technical solution is the result of intense research and collaboration between the architect, engineers, film experts and the BFI to define the best method for storing such a large collection of film sustainably for the next 50 years and beyond.

At just under 3000m², the new vaults will store up to 460,000 canisters of film in conditions of -5°C at 35% relative humidity, while the construction enables the building to sustain these conditions in an energy efficient way.

Pre-cast concrete panels provide the thermal mass required to limit temperature fluctuations. Although the building form is quite simple, consisting of 30 identical cellular vaults for nitrate and 6 vaults for acetate film, the specification requires extremely low air leakage rate and must withstand intense heat in the unlikely event of a nitrate film fire. Rigorous analysis, detailing, quality control and testing has been carried out to ensure the building will provide the sub–zero temperature, low humidity and fire prevention that the film requires for its preservation.

The building is the first of its kind to store large quantities of film in such cold and dry conditions; it will also achieve a BREEAM Rating of ‘Excellent’ for its sustainable features.

Click to enlarge image

Project Data

Design Team Appointed: July 2009
Construction period commenced: October 2010
Construction Cost: £9million
Cost per m2: £3,000
Planning approved: June 2010
Building occupied: September 2011
Practical Completion Date: December 2011

Click to enlarge image

Credits

Client: BFI
Architect: Edward Cullinan Architects
Structural Engineer: Curtins Consulting
Services Engineer: Couch Perry & Wilkes
Project Manager: Buro Four
Quantity surveyor: W H Stephens
CDM Coordinator: Arcadis
Main contractor: Gilbert Ash NI

See also:

.

EDF Archives Centre by LAN Architecture	A shop in a church by Merkx + Girod	The Rothschild Foundation by Stephen Marshall