Hasta La Ideas

Narrow slices of glazing break up the plain white facade of this residential extension in west London by Guard Tillman Pollock Architects, helping to visually separate it from the existing house.

Guard Tillman Pollock Architects added the two-storey extension to an Italian-influenced residence from the nineteenth century, which previously received little natural light as a result of small windows.

Rather than placing an extension at the north-facing rear of the building, where it would have spent most of the day in shadow, the architects designed a structure to sit alongside the original house and added large expanses of glazing to bring daylight through.

Two strips of glazing wrap over the top of the extension to create combined windows and skylights. One also forms a junction between the new and old structures.

“The arrangement of windows and rooflights allows sunlight to be reflected off the flank wall of the existing house and into the kitchen and dining room of the new extension,” architect Steven Pollock told Dezeen.

A change of level between the front and back of the site gives the extension two ground-level storeys. A pair of new doorways provide a link to the main house on the lower ground-floor level, while a glass bridge makes a connection on the floor above.

A kitchen and double-height dining area occupy the lower floor and feature sliding doors that open the space out to the garden. The floor above contains a study, as well as a small entrance lobby and cloakroom.

Photography is by Gareth Gardner.

Read on for a project description from Guard Tillman Pollock Architects:

Extension to Grade II Listed House, West London

The owners of this elegant semi-detached villa in west London wanted to extend the accommodation to create a better connection to the garden.

The original house is a listed structure that was constructed in the mid-nineteenth century as part of a number of similar Italianate detached and semi-detached villas. These Italianate villas have a small window to wall ratio compared to normal London houses. While this creates an elegant facade, the interiors of the houses are quite dark with minimal visual connection to the outside.

The rear of this house is north facing so much of the back garden is in shadow during the day. An extension at the rear of the house would receive little or no sunlight. The new extension is therefore built to the side of the house and separated from the original house by a glazed slot, preserving the original footprint of the villa and delineating the new from the old.

The early morning mid-winter sun rising over the neighbouring buildings is in alignment with the glass slot. Throughout the year the glass slot provides morning sun to the dining room. As the extension is positioned on the south-west side of the house, afternoon and evening sunlight is bounced off the flank wall of the original building through the glass slot to enliven the living space below.

The new extension is connected to the entrance hall by a glass bridge at ground floor level and linked to the main staircase at lower ground level. The lower floor of the extension provides a new light-filled kitchen and double-height dining area, opening onto the rear garden. Above the dining area, a galleried study overlooks the rear gardens and exploits the longer diagonal views. A small reception area and cloakroom is provided on the ground floor at the front of the new extension.

External sliding glass doors in the dining area are arranged to slide back into the walls so that the double height space can be opened up to the garden. The chimney breast acts as the focal point of the room and also helps to control overlooking from rear windows of adjoining properties.

At certain times of the day shafts of sunlight on the chimney breast in the double-height dining space contrast with the shafts of reflected light from the flank wall of the original house, the paths of these shafts of sunlight changing with the seasons.

Architects: Guard Tillman Pollock Architects
Location: London, U.K.
Structural design: Michael Biagent, Orla Kelly
Contractor: Chalk Hill Construction
Project Area: Original house: 264m2 Extension: 96m2

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News: Italian architect Renzo Piano has been commissioned to design a 27-storey residential tower beside his London skyscraper The Shard.

According to the Guardian, developer Sellar Property Group is again working with Renzo Piano to add another building to the site on the south bank of the Thames where his 310-metre glass skyscraper opened less than a year ago.

The architect will redevelop Fielden House, a 1970s office building on London Bridge Street, to create a residential block containing 150 apartments, a roof garden and a series of shops at ground level. Like The Shard, it will be financed by Qatari investors.

“It is intended that this new building will ‘float’ some 14 metres above the enlarged public realm space on London Bridge Street, opening up new access routes between the two levels and providing views down to Guy’s Hospital, Kings College campus and the proposed Science Gallery for the first time,” Sellar told the newspaper.

“A new generous staircase and a multi-level retail space will link the two levels, creating a new through route from the public plaza and bus station above to St Thomas Street below, significantly improving pedestrian circulation and quality of the public realm,” added the developer.

Photograph of The Shard is courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Visitors to London department store Selfridges can take a virtual reality tour created by technology company Inition inside a helmet by fashion designer Gareth Pugh (+ slideshow).

Gareth Pugh worked with Inition to create a “multi-sensory experience” called Monolith, installed at Selfridges for the Festival of Imagination taking place this month.

“The inspiration for this piece really came from the desire to create a totally immersive experience,” said Pugh. “I’ve always believed in the importance of fashion film and new technology as a means of communication.”

The visitor enters a soundproofed booth and completely covers their head with a pointy black helmet, which Pugh designed specifically for the installation based on costumes he created for the Royal Ballet.

Using an Oculus Rift virtual reality display embedded in the headpiece, the wearer is taken on a journey through monochromatic cityscapes, undulating walls and figures with silhouettes that are also similar to Pugh’s costumes.

“It’s an abstract narrative based on Gareth’s life, his works and his experiences,” senior creative at Inition Alex Lambert told Dezeen.

Once geared up, a 360-degree white environment is visible all around. “When you’re inside [the headpiece] you are transported to another world,” said Lambert. “It’s a totally immersive, full 360-degree virtual world that you can look around.”

The experience begins when staring at a spinning black cube found in the artificial world. “Aesthetically it looks very similar to Gareth’s work, and as soon as you look at that cube and it spins for a certain period of time it starts,” Lambert explained.

Hand rails are installed around the sides of the compact space in case the user loses their balance during the experience. Industrial music by London artist Matthew Stone accompanies the visuals.

The chamber is located in Selfridges’ menswear department on the first level, next to a selection of Pugh’s garments.

The project was developed as one of a series of experimental installations and pop-ups at the Festival of Imagination that runs all this month, as well as to coincide with the London Collections: Men fashion event that took place in the British capital last week.

Inition also collaborated with Dezeen to create an augmented reality shop at Selfridges for the festival, which features Zaha Hadid’s superyacht design and watches from our online store.

Other projects around the store include a temporary auditorium in the basement designed by OMA.

Here’s some more information sent to us by Inition:

Experience fashion designer Gareth Pugh’s virtual reality journey at Selfridges

Creative production company Inition produces a mind-bending virtual reality experience launched by Selfridges to mark fashion designer Gareth Pugh’s first appearance on the London Collection: Men’s Schedule.

The Monolith installation includes a futuristic cutting edge immersive journey into the inspirations and aesthetics of the acclaimed designer’s vision for his new collection.

Gareth Pugh says: “The inspiration for this piece really came from the desire to create a totally immersive experience. I’ve always believed in the importance of fashion film and new technology as a means of communication, but the team at Inition were able to propose a new and exciting way for us to approach this project. It’s an exciting opportunity to re-imagine my aesthetic in a totally new context.”

Pugh worked with Inition 3D artists to ensure the multi-sensory experience truly reflected his inspirations.

“This was a very exciting project to work on, as it was very creatively led but also had a number of new technical aspects that needed to be overcome in order to achieve the desired feeling that Gareth wanted to convey,” says Inition senior 3D artist Lee Spooner.

After entering a soundproofed chamber, users wear a characteristically geometric Gareth Pugh VR headset, which harnesses Oculus Rift technology to bring the 3D visuals to life. Virtual reality has never been used in a retail setting in such a way before.

With hand rails provided in case of momentary loss of balance, the two minute futuristic fashion film and part fairground ride begins, featuring monochromatic cityscapes, undulating walls and signature stark shapes, all underscored by an industrial gritty sound track produced by London based artist Matthew Stone.

Inition has been producing virtual reality experiences since 2001 but with recent advances in technology, imagination can now be less constrained, as perfectly illustrated by the Gareth Pugh’s Selfridges installation.

“Our history of creating bespoke experiences using emerging technology platforms was a natural fit with the pioneering work of Pugh and the innovative approach to retail taken by Selfridges. This is a market with huge potential for digital technologies and Inition is delighted to be pushing boundaries within this space,” says Ainsley Henn, Producer at Inition.

“It was nice to be able to let our creativity and imaginations run free, and early on we had a good understanding with Gareth about the direction he wanted this immersive experience to take,” says Lee Spooner.

Gareth Pugh continued, “The title, Monolith, is the perfect description for this piece: something singular and imposing, and in some way otherworldly. I imagine that each person will view it differently, but I would hope that it’s something memorable and engaging. Ultimately the installation requires a little commitment, you need to step into that world – from the padded sound proofed booth to the angular head piece required to view the installation… they’re all considered parts of this unique experience.”

The Monolith installation is now open to the public and is located in the Menswear department of Selfridges (London) on Level 1.

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and Inition installed at Selfridges appeared first on Dezeen.

A series of steel-braced oak staircases and bridges connect the different levels of this extension to the Manchester School of Art by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (+ slideshow).

London architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios designed the extension to link the original nineteenth century art school building to a 1960s tower, which was also refurbished as part of the project.

A bank of lifts ascends from next to the entrance to every storey of the tower, with bridges and staircases helping to unite the old and new buildings.

The new building provides additional studio, workshop and exhibition spaces for the school’s 3500 students and features a seven-storey glazed facade, which creates an exhibition and events space that can be seen from the street outside.

Behind the gallery-like facade is a longer, lower building containing studios, workshops and teaching areas, which were designed in an open plan format to encourage interaction between students from the 30 disciplines that share the space.

“Private spaces no longer exist,” described John Brooks, vice chancellor at Manchester Metropolitan University, of which the art school is now a faculty. “What you’ll find are lots of spaces that are intersected by passageways, walkways, stairwells and glass partitions, so whatever you’re doing is almost like a performance.”

Referencing the aesthetic of traditional local warehouses, the architects applied industrial materials including concrete, steel and glass throughout the interior, while the open spaces and comprehensive use of glazing fill the building with natural light.

“This building is all about light,” said architect Keith Bradley. “The way that we’ve created a series of cascading floorplates, almost like a landscape of floors, allows light deep into the space so that we can still get the combination of people working together but also get good natural daylight.”

Concrete is treated with different surface finishes to demarcate the spaces; smooth in most areas, but with a rough texture created by casting it against chunky chipboard on the walls of the staircases.

Four of the double-height columns inside the studio and workshop building feature a decorative pattern that was produced during the concrete casting process. The pattern was designed in the early twentieth century by Lewis F. Day, a former tutor at the school.

Oak was used to line the staircases and linking corridors, and provide a warm and tactile contrast to the raw materials that dominate the interior.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Manchester School of Art

Context

Celebrating its 175th birthday in 2013, Manchester School of Art is one of the oldest institutions of its kind in the UK. The school was established in the 19th Century to help keep the region competitive in an international market and support regional industry in a wider marketplace.

Now a faculty of Manchester Metropolitan University this remains an important objective for the Art school and a key part of the brief was to help the school bridge the gap between education and professional life.

The new building celebrates the inter relation of the various art & design disciplines and encourages 21st century students to work alongside each other and enjoy the crossover rather than concentrating always on the differences. With a huge front window, it is also a building that is proud of its product and shows the work to everyone who passes by.

Now one of the leading Art & Design courses in the country, the School has around 3500 FTE students across its various disciplines. Housed within a range of late Victorian and post-war buildings, the School forms the southern edge of All Saints’ Park, a green square at the heart of the city centre campus. The Art School Extension consists of an 8600-metre-squared new building of studios, workshops and a gallery; and a 9000m2 refurbishment of a 1960s Arts tower and plinth.

Concept

FCB’s design of the Manchester School of Art has provided an engaging and lively environment in which to work and study and helped re-assert both the art school and the university’s profile on the national stage. The Dean of the School, Professor David Crow, describes the scheme as “a hugely exciting arena where anything is possible and everything is relevant.”

The working heart of the building comprises open studios, workshops and teaching spaces (known as the Design Shed.) A second element is a seven storey Vertical Gallery. This is the linking piece between the existing 1960s arts tower (known as the Chatham Building) and the new studio building. This vertical gallery provides a showcase space for the output of the School and acts as a shop window to the school itself.

Hybrid Studio Space

The open studio space places a great focus on collaborative working in an atmosphere that is inherently creative. Students and MSA staff from a broad spectrum of contemporary design disciplines can work on projects in close communal proximity. This proximity encourages the sharing of ideas, techniques and methodologies in a way that was previously impossible.

The Hybrid Studio is also an environment in which students can proudly display their work in a setting that is light and easy to explore.

Materials

As a building for designers, and a place for teaching and learning about Art & Design the clarity and articulation of materials was crucial, as was the tonal and textural quality of the interior. The interiors are a study in concrete, with three distinct grades creating different atmospheres. Rough is used in back stairwells giving a sense of rawness and a factory aesthetic; double height cast concrete columns articulate the central spaces of the design shed, punctuated by four very special decorative concrete columns which were developed from an early 20th century wallpaper design by Lewis F Day, an eminent designer of his period, contemporary of Walter Crane a tutor at Manchester School of Art.

A secondary but important material is the use of oak linings to the stairs and linking corridors which span the vertical gallery. These provide a warmth to soften the hard edges of steel and concrete which form the structure.

Collaboration

Working with clients who are artists and designers on a building for training artists & designers was a wonderfully rich experience for us. The level of collaboration was exceptionally high and we worked with the client by testing processes, recrafting ideas and always seeing the design as an iterative, creative process.

Client: Manchester Metropolitan University
Construction value: £23 million
Commissioned: June 2009
Construction Start Date: April 2011
Completion: April 2013
Project Gross Area: 17320sqm
Cost Consultant: Turner and Townsend
Contractor: Morgan Sindall
Structural engineer: Arup

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bridges by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios appeared first on Dezeen.

Walls of dark brick connect the exterior and interior of this mews house in the north London borough of Hackney (+ slideshow).

Located next to the studio of its designers Form_art Architects in a traditional mews street, Blackbox house references the style of its archetypal brick neighbours but introduces light through a glazed courtyard and skylight.

“In contrast to the traditional mews architecture of solid brick enclosures with tiny windows and little daylight, this design is filled with light, but still respects the contextual language of a ‘solid box’,” explained the architects.

From the street, the house appears as a dark facade of slim Belgian brick punctuated with narrow horizontal and vertical windows, with the entrance concealed in an adjoining black wooden wall.

A lattice of wooden battens above the door enables daylight to reach a small brick-paved courtyard containing a birch tree and the entrance to the house.

The masonry that covers two sides of the courtyard continues across the wall that reaches into the open plan ground floor area and can be seen through the double-height glass screen that links the internal and external spaces.

A central staircase with a skylight above it allows light to spill down into the ground floor and divides the main living space and kitchen on one side from the dining room on the other.

A small landing at the top of the stairs leads to bedrooms on either side, the smaller of which is contained in a white box that projects over the dining area.

White walls and a further skylight at the far end of the living room enhance the brightness of the interior, which is intended to act as a gallery space as well as a home.

Photography is by Timothy Soar.

Form_art Architects sent us the following description:

BLACKBOX: Culford Mews London

The idea of the mews served as the starting point for Blackbox in more ways than just its physical location. In contrast to the traditional mews architecture of solid brick enclosures with tiny windows and little daylight, this design is filled with light, but still respects the contextual language of a ‘solid box’.

The design features of the entrance courtyard and staircase in this instance are key for the purpose of generating light into the heart of the house. As a result of the physical area given over to the courtyard, the ephemeral qualities created are ‘borrowed’ back so to speak.

This essentially refers to the light and views, with the staircase serving as a journey up Blackbox right through to the skylight. This can best be described as the layering of views and the ‘bouncing’ of light within the house.

Simultaneously developed as a house gallery and vice versa, the design is a continuation of Form_art’s work with artists and galleries, namely their current engagement with the Tate. The volume of space carved out by expressing the brickwork enclosure enables the inside to hold a pure white ‘floating’ box, suspended to further express the interior’s language of ‘objects’.

The project serves as a testimony to Form_art’s working ethos of generating work to test and develop ideas. This process provides Form_art with complete artistic freedom as designer and client and hence, there is an uncompromised approach from initial design through to completion.

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has brick walls inside and out appeared first on Dezeen.