Yashar Nijati—known as Yash—was lucky to try hummus for the first time in Allepo, Syria, which set the bar pretty high. Upon returning home to Vancouver following a summer in Beirut, Abu Gosh, Jaffa, and Amman in 2009, Yash found that the same…
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Anyone with an eye for minimalist design will tell you, less is more. But do Dieter Rams’ sagely timeless words apply to restaurant design? Vancouver-based Scott and Scott Architects believe so. And with a budget of just over $15,000 and 750 square…
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Neighbour, a small men’s clothing boutique in Vancouver’s Gastown area, gets the mix just right through owner Saager Dilawri’s personal picks of lesser known brands and unique collaborations. Since the shop’s opening, Dilawri has consistently impressed us with quality and variety, so we decided to meet with the entrepreneur…
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Having grown tired of life in established firms, Vancouver-based architects Susan and David Scott ditched their digs in favor of the road less traveled, founding Scott and Scott Architects to focus on designing projects in more challenging environments. Launching today, 21 February, the small shop proudly introduces their first…
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Greens find a new home in the city with self-watering windowsill planters from Patch. The brainchild of founder and CEO Kent Houston, the planters are just one part of Patch’s solution for bringing agriculture into personal living spaces. The environmentally and community driven start-up focuses on educating people about…
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After working for 10 years at Predator creating protective gear for water sports and skateboarding, designer Matt Kelly wanted to work on a different kind of project. Partnering with Sen-Huy Tan, a friend and a noted industry designer, the duo set to work designing a helmet that balanced protection…
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Shanghai architects Polifactory have developed a concept for a rammed earth house that generates energy from a lake on its roof.
Designed for a rural site in Vancouver, the self-sustaining HOUS.E+ would use turbines embedded in the walls to produce electricity from water being pumped through a system of pipes.
Additional electricity would come from photovoltaic panels on the rooftops of five blocks that rise above the water and any excess power could be fed back into the national grid.
Rooms would be set 2.5 metres below ground level, where they would be heated in winter and cooled in summer from an underground pump that uses the surrounding earth as a heat source or sink.
Two courtyards at this level would let daylight down onto the sunken floor, while more natural light would filter in through skylights.
Inhabitants would also be able to harvest their own food by cultivating an ecosystem of fish, seafood and plants beneath the surface of the water.
Polifactory developed the concept for a competition organised by The Architecture Foundation of British Columbia for a redesign of the typical regional house.
We also recently featured a self-sustaining house in rural China, which you can see here.
Here’s some text from Polifactory:
Hous.E+ is designed to combine new and old techniques in order to create a not only a resourceful building regarding energy efficiency and sustainability but also well equipped to actively respond to future demands of smart grid systems where energy surplus is distributed and agriculture within the city is a reality.
Above: solar energy and geothermal heat exchange
Designed for a competition in Vancouver, called “100 Mile House”, this project is more than just a concept, but reality with a twist. Therefore, it is based upon existing smart technologies, but goes a step further on solutions that haven’t been explored so far. In this house water is not only stored and re-used but also is part of a cycle that generates power throughout a series of wall embedded micro hydro-turbines. Unnecessary transportation of materials is avoid making a significant difference into the overall carbon foot print emission balance.
Above: hydropower
Hous.E+ is build upon a rammed earth wall technique that is unaffected by rain, fire or pests, plus it doesn’t require any further finishing. The walls act like breathing structures, allowing air exchange without significant heat loss, working naturally as a thermal mass, storing heat in winter and rejecting in the summer, eliminating the need for air conditioning.
Above: aquaponics healthy food growth
Hous.E+ is set to produce more energy than it consumes.
The post HOUS.E+
by Polifactory appeared first on Dezeen.
Fusing photograms and cell phone snaps in an exhibition exploring the evolution of photography
In his current exhibition, “Neither Camera Nor Companion” at Blanket Gallery in Vancouver, Berlin-based artist Mark Soo has created a series of photographs which thoughtfully and cleverly take the viewer on a journey through photographic history. By drawing on his fascination with how culture and technology have continuously influenced photography, Soo manages to combine magnified digital noise, darkroom processing, and crisp photogram silhouettes with striking results.
Very broadly, my work often begins by looking at the relationship between culture, technology and the ways they have influenced each other. So this series of works, originally titled “Madame Guillotine“, started with wanting to find a different way to juxtapose digital and analog photography in a way that blends both, rather than keeps them separate.
What I did was to make a photograph that literally fuses a technique dating from the earliest days of photography, the photogram, with something emblematic of the direction of photography today, which are digital photos taken with a cellphone. In the end, all these things ended up coming together in a traditional analog darkroom.
I started by taking a bunch of digital images of prints of the French Revolution with my low-res cellphone, and transferred them to a negative. I then took the negatives into the darkroom and printed them as traditional color photographs. In the printing process, I placed various objects on the photographic paper in order to produce a photogram on top of the printed image. In some sense you could say these works function as a condensed history of photographic technique. Partly what I liked was how the detailed organic shapes of the photograms contrasted with the grid of digital pixels in a way that I hadn’t experienced before.
I traveled to France a few times over the last year and while there, I got interested in the guillotine and its history—gruesome stuff for sure, but definitely fascinating. I ended up taking photos with my phone of anything related to the guillotine, without thinking much about what exactly I was doing. So they were snaps of images in books mostly—pictures of pictures. Anyhow, I started to think about the guillotine blade, and how it resembled the shutter of a camera; this got me thinking about photography in relation to the French Revolution.
Then I started to see parallels between what was occurring on a political level during the French Revolution, with this tremendous shift in photography happening today—the digital revolution: in both instances people are moving from the perceived traditions and hierarchies of the old world toward something they feel is more democratic. As traditional photolabs are closing, places like Flickr and Instagram, or Google Images, are becoming more indispensable to how we consider image-making in general. I thought it was particularly interesting, on an abstract level at least, to draw comparisons between these two points in history.
“Neither Camera Nor Companion” is showing at Vancouver’s Blanket Gallery through 21 April 2012.
Danish architects BIG have unveiled proposals for a 150-metre-high skyscraper in downtown Vancouver.
The architects are working alongside a team that includes developer Westbank, consultants Dialog, Cobalt, PFS, Buro Happold and Glotman Simpson, as well as local architect James Cheng.
The 49-storey residential building will have a twisted form that is set back from the adjacent motorway flyover to prevent any windows or balconies from overlooking it.
Nine floors at the base of the tower will accomodate offices, shops and restaurants, which will spill out onto a series of public plazas that stretch underneath the elevated highway.
Here’s some more information from BIG:
BIG contributes to Vancouver skyline
The 490-foot-tall Beach and Howe mixed-use tower by BIG + Westbank + Dialog + Cobalt + PFS + Buro Happold + Glotman Simpson and local architect James Cheng marks the entry point to downtown Vancouver, forming a welcoming gateway to the city, while adding another unique structure to the Vancouver skyline.
BIG’s proposal, named after its location on the corner of Howe & Beach next to the Granville Street Bridge in downtown Vancouver, calls for 600 residential units occupying the 49-story tower, which would become one of the city’s fourth tallest buildings.
The tower is situated on a nine-story podium base offering market-rental housing with a mix of commercial and retail space. BIG was commissioned by Canada’s premier real estate developer Westbank, established in 1992, with over $10 billion of projects completed or under development, including the Shangri-La luxury hotels in Vancouver and Toronto.
“We have brought together the best talent available in Vancouver and Europe to create a truly world class project that will enrich not only the particular neighborhood, but also the city and its quest to become creative, sustainable and affordable city.
Architecturally, the Beach and Howe tower will introduce a new building typology to the Vancouver skyline and will create a dramatic gateway to downtown Vancouver that speaks to the emerging creative economy in the city”, Ian Gillespie, President, Westbank.
The tower takes its shape after the site’s complex urban conditions aiming to optimize the conditions for its future inhabitants in the air as well as on the street level. At its base, the footprint of the tower is conditioned by concerns for two significant neighboring elements, including a 30-meter setback from the Granville bridge which ensures that no residents will have windows and balconies in the middle of heavy traffic as well as concerns for sunlight to an adjacent park which limits how far south the building can be constructed. As a result the footprint is restricted to a small triangle.
“The Beach and Howe tower is a contemporary descendant of the Flatiron Building in New York City – reclaiming the lost spaces for living as the tower escapes the noise and traffic at its base. In the tradition of Flatiron, Beach and Howe’s architecture is not the result of formal excess or architectural idiosyncrasies, but rather a child of its circumstances: the trisected site and the concerns for neighboring buildings and park spaces.” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.
As the tower ascends, it clears the noise, exhaust, and visual invasion of the Granville Bridge. BIG’s design reclaims the lost area as the tower clears the zone of influence of the bridge, gradually cantilevering over the site. This movement turns the inefficient triangle into an optimal rectangular floor plate, increasing the desirable spaces for living at its top, while freeing up a generous public space at its base.
The resultant silhouette has a unique appearance that changes from every angle and resembles a curtain being drawn aside, welcoming people as they enter the city from the bridge.
“The tower and base are a reinvention of the local typology, known as “Vancouverism.” In this typology, slender towers are grouped with mixed-use podiums and street walls that define human-scale urban environments. The aim is to preserve view cones through the city while activating the pedestrian street,” Thomas Christoffersen, Partner-in-Charge, BIG.
The tower’s podium is a mixed-use urban village with three triangular blocks that are composed of intimately-scaled spaces for working, shopping, and leisure which face onto public plazas and pathways.
The additional public space adds to the existing streets, giving the neighborhood a variety of open and covered outdoor spaces of various scales which transform the site under the Granville Bridge into a dynamic and iconic mixed-use neighborhood hub.
“Vancouver has already embarked upon an urban experiment in creating a super dense residential downtown – to increase pedestrian activity and street life.
With this project we attempt to continue this process of densification by reclaiming a site beneath the bridges that would otherwise be lost as a lifeless “black hole” in the urban fabric.
The diagonal canopies of the vehicular flows above create a new form of weather protected urban space, turning the large infrastructure in to a niche for social life.” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.
The courtyards created by the building volumes, roofs and terraces are all designed to enhance views from the Granville Bridge and the residential units above.
The canted, triangular clusters of green roofs create a highly graphic and iconic gateway to and from the downtown core, reinforcing the City of Vancouver’s focus on sustainable cities.
The exterior façades respond to the various solar exposures which is integral to the overall sustainability concept.
The building will strive for LEED Gold Certification.
NAME: Beach and Howe St.
CLIENT: Westbank Projects Corp.
LOCATION: Vancouver, Canada
SIZE: 653,890 sf / 60,670 m2
COLLABORATORS: Dialog, Cobalt Engineering, Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg Urban Design, Buro Happold, Glotman Simpson, James KM Cheng Architects
PARTNERS-IN-CHARGE: Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Christoffersen
PROJECT LEADER: Agustin Perez-Torres
TEAM: Julianne Gola, Marcella Martinez, Chris Malcolm, Karol Borkowski, Michael Taylor, Alina Tamosiunaite, David Brown, Tobias Hjortdal, Alexandra Gustafson
Found objects and custom pieces with a vintage industrial aesthetic fill a Vancouver storefront
Inspired by the nostalgia of old wooden docks, mills and factories that once thrived in Vancouver, Union Wood Co.‘s recently opened shop in the city’s developing Downtown-Eastside community is a haven for those who covet vintage, repurposed and industrial objects.
After a stint working as a garbage collector, Union Wood Co. founder Craig Pearce discovered his love for things that other people discarded. “I would only buy used clothes. I started collecting things I would find in alleys. I started making things out of old wood. I didn’t like anything to be new.” What started off as a few pieces for friends quickly turned into a series of contracts to make things for those beyond his social circle. By 2009 Pearce had created a full-fledged business, which recently expanded into a storefront as well.
The shop not only acts as a source for found objects and antiques, but also produces its own line of products and furniture. On a recent visit we fell for the shop aprons made from rigid denim, hand-cut leather straps and vintage brass hardware. The hammered brass rivets and bolts make the straps easily removable, allowing the aprons to be washed when needed. The online shop also currently features handsome vintage treasures like a collection of one-off Victory Cups you can get engraved and an aged brass marine spotlight.
Using wood reclaimed from salvage yards and demolition sites, Union Wood Co. also creates furniture pieces that are solid, bold and one-of-a-kind. The company also works directly with clients to produce custom pieces.
Head over to the Union Wood shop to see their current stock, or contact sales[at]unionwoodco[dot]com for custom inquiries.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
