Exposed timber beams branch out from the tops of columns that support the roof of this cafeteria in the Ushimado district of Setouichi city in Japan by Niji Architects (+ slideshow).
Designed by Masafumi Harada of Tokyo office Niji Architects with AI Design and OHNO JAPAN, the cafeteria is used by employees from a nearby construction company and by members of the local community.
The architects developed a cross-braced timber frame made from Douglas fir columns with a section of 120 by 120 millimetres and beams of 180 by 120 millimetres, which supports a corrugated metal roof and is left exposed inside the single-storey building.
“The detailing and materials used [are] intentionally designed to appear unrefined to create a relaxing atmosphere helping visitors to unwind within the space,” explained the architects.
Throughout the interior, materials are used in their raw state, with chunky chipboard covering the ceiling and walls, bare light bulbs hanging from black cords and poured concrete used for the floor.
One side of the building is covered in full-height glazing, which is fixed directly to the timber frame using plywood battens. Translucent glass on the opposite facade provides privacy while allowing more light to reach the interior.
A kitchen at one end of the building can be seen from the main dining hall, which adjoins a lounge area containing comfortable seating and exercise equipment.
Photography is by Masafumi Harada.
Here’s a short project description from the architects:
This cafeteria is a timber framed, single-story building located in Ushimado of Setouchi city, Okayama prefecture, Japan.
It serves as a canteen for a local construction company as well as a cafeteria for the local community.
The building structure and its finishes are kept simple and the presence of the building is kept to a bare minimum.
The building design focuses mainly on its primary function as a cafeteria for the local people and to familiarise itself to the community.
The folded metal plate roof is directly fixed to the 3 m grid timber structural frame, which consists of 120 mm x 120 mm timber used for columns, foundation, bracings and 180 mm x 120 mm timber beams.
The building completes itself with glass walls, which are fixed directly to the timber structure with timber battens.
The detailing and materials used intentionally designed to appear unrefined to create a relaxing atmosphere helping visitors to unwind within the space.
With a single large internal space and full aperture to the external views, this highly transparent building becomes a bright, open and inviting cafeteria.
We believe this construction method can also be used for other building types. It can be a prototype of new prefabricated timber construction with endless possibilities for further development.
Project name: Cafeteria in Ushimado Location of site: Okayama, Japan Building area: 166.32 m2 Total floor area: 144.00 m2 Type of Construction: Timber structure Number of stories: 1F Building height: 3.37 ｍ Principal use: Shop (Cafeteria) Project by: Niji Architects + AI Design + OHNO JAPAN Principal designer: Masafumi Harada / Niji Architects Construction: UG Giken Design period: August 2012 – December 2012 Construction period: January 2013 – April 2013
Finish
Structure: Exposed timber structure Roof: Folded metal roof External façade: Clear float glass t=10 mm with glass film Window: Wooden sash window and aluminum sash window
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A flat-pack wooden bicycle that can be assembled in less than an hour has gone into production (+ slideshow).
PedalFactory claims the Sandwichbike can be unpacked and put together in just 45 minutes. “If you can make a sandwich, you can make a Sandwichbike,” the company declares.
The single-speed bike is constructed from 19 parts that are packaged and delivered in a box along with the tools required to assemble it.
The frame is made from panels of weatherproofed beech plywood and is held together by milled aluminium cylinders.
Stainless steel spokes sit within the 26-inch tyres. The completed model weighs 17 kilograms.
Pedalfactory was co-founded by designer Basten Leijh, who originally developed the bike with his Amsterdam design studio Bleijh for the 2006 International Bicycle Design Competition in Taiwan.
The bikes are now available to order and the first deliveries in Europe will coincide with the official launch event, taking place in Amsterdam on Sunday. International orders will be dispatched early next year.
Read on for more details from the designers:
Product launch Sandwichbike: innovative designer bike now in production
The Sandwichbike will be launched in Amsterdam on Sunday 1 December 2013. This innovative wooden bicycle that already drew unprecedented attention worldwide in the design stage is now being shipped.
After a period of extensive research and development the bicycle has now gone into production. The Sandwichbike can be delivered worldwide from December 1, 2013 onwards. The prototype was recently exhibited at various fairs and websites and was an instant hit among bicycle lovers and design.
The Sandwichbike is a unique product on all fronts: material, design and production method. Its distinctive frame is composed of two weatherproof beech wood panels. Its advanced production technology makes self-assembly easy while a high quality standard is maintained.
Postal package
The bicycle is flat packed in a box containing the parts as well as all the tools needed. This creates a great unpacking experience. For enthusiasts, putting the bicycle together is part of the charm and the logistical benefits are huge as this enables worldwide delivery. Anyone from Amsterdam to Honolulu can receive a Sandwichbike by post.
Assembling a Sandwichbike is easy and takes less than an hour. “If you can make a sandwich, you can make a Sandwichbike.”
Pedalfactory
The Sandwichbike is a Pedalfactory B.V. product. Co-founder Basten Leijh (also: Bleijh Industrial Design Studio) designed and developed this bicycle. Leijh is an expert on bicycle design and innovation. Among many other product innovations Leijh developed a city-bicycle that could be locked by twisting the handlebars.
This 25-metre wooden lookout in the Czech Republic by Mjölk Architekti is named Cucumber Tower in an attempt to discourage association with phallic forms (+ slideshow).
Constructed from larch, the tower has a straight shaft with a curved top, which accommodates a rooftop viewing platform looking out across the Czech woodland and on towards Germany and Poland.
“We called it a cucumber due to a certain shape similarity, and also in order to avoid other vulgar associations,” architect Jan Vondrák of Mjölk Architekti told Dezeen.
The architects designed the tower before finding a site or a client. It was then commissioned by the mayor of the town Hermanice for a rural site along a Czech mountain range called the Ještěd-Kozákov Ridge.
The structure took three months to build and comprises a pair of staircases arranged in a double-helix foramtion. The exterior is made up of vertical, bolted lengths of wood and is supported by curved wooden slats, which act as cross bracing.
Five curved lengths make up a larch balustrade for the staircase and guide visitors to the top.
Photography is by Roman Dobeš.
Here is some information from the designer:
The Cucumber tower
One of our showcase projects was born shortly after our architecture office was founded.
We moved to a house on the Jested ridge and spent two weeks thinking about what we actually wanted to do as architects. And just like that, without a commission, without a specific setting in mind, we came up with the design of this observation tower.
Situating buildings in an open landscape is an unusual architectural discipline, yet in northern Bohemia it has a long tradition that we can take up with confidence.
Once the design was finished, we started looking for a customer. Naive, you say? Not a bit! Within a month we found an enthusiastic taker – the mayor of Hermanice, Mr. Stribrny.We found ourselves at a meeting of the town council in earnest discussion about how to carry out this project.
During the following couple of months, we received a building permit and secured EU funding for an extensive project involving the construction of a network of bicycle trails whose center point was to be the Hermanice observation tower.
This chair by Copenhagen designer Thomas Bentzen for Danish design brand Muuto has armrests made of folded plywood.
The Cover wood and plywood chair by Thomas Bentzen for Danish brand Muuto is made without any metal parts. Instead it is locked together by the bent veneer armrests.
“I aimed for a crisp and vivid expression in the plywood while looking for a solid and grounded look in the frame and base of the chair,” said Bentzen. “Three years of play and hard work in the making has resulted in a light yet strong armchair, playing and taking the moulded veneer to its extreme.”
The chair comes in ash or oak, lacquered in black, grey, dark grey, red, green or natural.
Copenhagen designer Bentzen started his own studio in 2010 and is co-founder of design collective Remove.
This “bioclimatic” house on the edge of Lyon in France features a timber frame, cladding of larch and composite timber, and a planted roof (+ slideshow).
Lyon architects Tectoniques introduced a range of measures to maximise the environmental and thermal performance of the house -called Villa B – along a north-south axis, with plenty of glazing on the south facade helping with solar gain.
The house is built using dry construction methods and features a prefabricated modular timber frame built on a concrete slab with larch cladding covering the exterior.
Floor-to-ceiling windows on opposite facades provide uninterrupted views through the ground floor of the house and incorporate the doors that lead to patios on either side.
“Consistency is created between the building and the external spaces, which enhance each other,” said the architects. “Thus the living area becomes larger than the space delimited by the walls.”
Adjoining the building’s west facade is a garage covered in black composite timber panels that extends to create a canopy above the entrance to the main living space. Adjustable shutters function as a brise soleil to regulate the amount of sunlight reaching the interior during the warmer months.
An island in the centre of the open-plan ground floor houses utilities including kitchen appliances and units, a bathroom and access to the basement. Built-in storage covers the full length of this room, freeing up the rest of the floor space.
Wood is used throughout the interior, with furniture and storage constructed from pale wood panels. The floors are made from poured concrete and white plasterboard walls keep the spaces bright.
Four bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs are organised around a central circulation space at the top of the stairs.
For architects, designing a house is an adventure, but reality is often not as easy as foreseen. The site is complicated, the neighbours are unhappy, the unforeseen factors are really not foreseen, construction work is not as fast as planned, the ecological goals are difficult to reach, and the contractors are not as qualified as specified, and so on – the list is long. In this situation, the architect will be the arbitrator and the ground-breaker. In the end, the construction seems simple and natural.
The story of the Villa B. follows the classic scenario of construction on a bare site, at the edge of a city, in the middle of market gardens, on a strip of land that is well-oriented.
Averse to the stereotypes of the private housing development on the edge of which it is located, and inspired by the image of F.L. Wright’s Usonian Houses and Case Study Houses, the designers make use of the site’s potential to apply the basic principles of the bioclimatic approach. The house quickly takes the shape of a compact whole that presents a simple timber cube very open to the surrounding landscape. As always, Tectoniques avoided the temptation of designing this scheme with a predetermined form to match a desired image, but instead asserted a principle of “no design”.
The bioclimatic approach, a pure attitude to architecture
Benefiting from a long experience of dry construction and timber frame construction, and well-versed in environmental questions for more than twenty years, the firm chooses to design with a bioclimatic approach. It experiments with several options and technical solutions with which it builds a strategy.
Looking into different options for construction and thermal aspects, the firm investigates different technical possibilities for insulation, heating and air handling, from which it chooses a consistent solution that is appropriate for the family’s ways of life and their ability to adapt to induced behaviour.
Priority is given to a house that serves the users, the idea that they have of it, how they plan to live in it and how to make the site their own. This is the basis of the architect’s work: then the technology follows.
The scheme takes the form of a compact house, well placed in the middle of its site, with a high-performance envelope. Oriented north-south and very open on the south side to benefit from solar gain, the house divided space in two gardens with terraces with very differents and complementary uses and atmospheres.
The plan: through views and transparency, intermediate and multipurpose spaces
The plan is efficient, almost square, measuring 10 x 11m. Along the west of the ground floor is a garage finished in black pannels timber composite, extended by a canopy. Free and open, it is organised around a central core that contains the services: cellar, networks, shower/bath room, and kitchen. All the rooms form a ring around this hub. Uninterrupted through views and continual contact with nature are maintained by using sliding partitions and large glazed areas facing each other.
A strip of ancillary and storage areas runs along the full height of the west wall. The overall scheme creates a multipurpose space, open onto the south and north gardens and the patios. Consistency is created between the building and the external spaces, which enhance each other. Thus the living area becomes larger than the space delimited by the walls.
The house faces due south. Largely glazed, it benefits from solar gain, while being protected by brise-soleil adjustable louver sun breaks to control stronger sunshine in the summer, spring and autumn. Open onto the south and east, its upper floor is closed on the north, and the west side only has small openings for the showers and bathrooms.
Since the local climate is strongly contrasted, with peaks of heat and cold, this plan layout allows maximum occupation of the patios according to the seasons, sheltered from the wind. In the long term, a variety of intermediate and peripheral elements may enhance the existing and vary the spaces, according to the weather and the seasons, such as arbours, canopies, pergolas, etc.
On the upper floor, the system is reversed: the layout organisation starts from the core and opens onto the bedrooms. Following the principle of separation of daytime and night- time areas, the upper floor is occupied by four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The bedrooms face south and east, while the bathrooms open to the west.
In addition to the clearly-identified living areas, the house has intermediate and multipurpose spaces. This is the case on the ground floor, which, with its sliding partitions, can have several layouts; also, some rooms that are not set aside for any specific purpose can be reconfigured according to the time of day e.g. study-laundry-computer room or guest bedroom-study-music room. This adaptability is a response to the need to manage both privacy and communal life within the family home.
Simple structure
The construction is simple. It is a timber- framed house, erected on a concrete slab, with a concrete topping laid on the upper floor. The structure is a prefabricated modular system. The roof insulation consists of 40 cm thick expanded cellulose wadding, and the wall insulation consists of mineral wool with woodwool on the outside, giving a total thickness of 32 cm. The woodwool slows down warming and cooling of the house by a lagging effect.
On the ground floor, three large triple-glazed panels – with a fixed part and a translating (tilting) opener – run along the elevation at ceiling height and frame the landscape. They avoid interrupting the views by door and window frames, and they draw the eyes towards the outside. On the upper floor, in the bedrooms, low tilt-and-turn windows have a fixed window-breast at bed height.
On the facades, perforated larch cladding is fixed to double 5 x 5 cm wall plates to further increase the ventilation effect. The cladding gradually greys naturally, without any treatment, with uniform silvery tinges. Inside, a lining of knot-free, light-coloured polar panels is used with great uniformity for built-in cupboards, furniture and storage elements. Elsewhere, white plasterboard adds to the soft, brightly-lit atmosphere of the house.
South facadeNorth facade
Thermal strategy
Space heating is mainly provided by floor heating on the ground floor and the upper floor. It is supplied by a condensation gas boiler and solar panels. The double- flow ventilation system is connected to a glycolated ground-air heat exchanger laid at a depth of between 2.00 and 2.50 m to the north of the house, which supplies air at a constant temperature of 12°C. When necessary, the exchanger can provide additional ventilation at night. During cold peaks, wood-burning stove covers additional heating needs, calculated for the overall volume and instantaneously, particularly
for the upper floor. Waxed concrete and floor heating provide very pleasant thermal comfort. The concrete topping, which is chosen despite the timber structure, provides uniformity of floors on the ground floor and upper floor, in bedrooms, showers and bath rooms. In addition, the roof is planted with a sedum [stonecrap] covering, and rainwater is collected in an underground tank.
All of these systems require some control to function as well as possible. This is a technical matter that needs a certain degree of mastery, which is acquired empirically and requires the occupants to take an interest in them and to change their habits.
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A spiralling stack of chunky wooden blocks forms this staircase designed by architecture studio QC for an apartment in Poland.
QC, which is based in Rzeszów, created the staircase during the renovation of a two-storey apartment for a young couple and it comprises a pile of spruce blocks that fan out around a central pivot.
The blocks are glued together and connected with steel rods, plus some have been anchored to the wall with additional rods.
“The idea was to make the stairs a ‘box on box’, composed of monolithic wooden steps prepared for easy assembly for any handyman,” architect Lucjan Kuc told Dezeen.
To give each block a unique worn appearance, Kuc poured water over the wood and then dried it out in a kiln so the material would expand and crack.
“The only problem was the drying of such large dimensions; to obtain a satisfactory result the wood was dried three times in the kiln dryer,” said Kuc. “This process made the wood hard, so it deforms and is lightly cracked in a definitive way.”
“The reason for drying parts of the stairs was the only technical solution, but the final ‘weathered effect’ can add a whole charm,” he added.
The staircase connects an open-plan kitchen and living room on the ground floor with a first-floor bedroom and bathroom.
Photography is by the architects.
Here’s some a project description for the entire apartment from QC:
Split Flat
A functional and at the same time elegant and simple split-level flat designed and made by QC, a young architectural firm. The design concept was to fully utilise the metric area of this small flat, making a comfortable space for a couple of young people who value harmony, quietness and order.
The integration of the kitchen into the living room has given a fully open daytime zone in the ground floor. The zone area, comprising the kitchen and the living room, has become mobile – it gets smaller or larger depending on the circumstances. When watching pictures or projecting them on the wall with a projector, you can feel that the area of the living room expands to include the kitchen. The occupants of the flat can use the daytime zone according to their needs. The predominating white colour has been complemented by wooden features: a high wooden table and a black sofa that completes the final effect.
When entering the flat mirror hanging along the entire length and width of the wall on the left. The mirror does not only make the space look larger but also functions as a toilet/utility room door.The architect has decided to mount a suspended ceiling to camouflage the gas installation, retaining the air inflow at the same time, and to gain additional lighting effects.
Simple and austere, the wooden stairs connect the day-time zone to the night-time one.
“For the flat design I adopted a certain principle. The big patches of space were made at the lowest expense possible but the details were in turn selected carefully, which translated into higher costs. With one exception: The stairs, which have become a distinctive element of the entrance zone, were made in a very simple and cheap way. With no compromise to the quality of the details,” the architect explained.
For the second floor, the architect applied a functional system including a bathroom, a wardrobe and a sleeping room. The effect is a perfect private space for the young couple.
Spanish designer Jorge Penadés has devised a chair made from simple wooden boards that collapses into a backpack (+ slideshow).
Penadés deliberately made the seat easy to deconstruct and transport at the expense of its comfort.
“Luxury is not anymore a matter of comfort,” said the designer. “Nowadays, luxury is to be able to decide where you want to have a moment of peace, a chance to escape from hectic activity of contemporary lifestyles.”
The furniture is constructed without screws or glue and simply slots together with small brightly coloured metal connectors.
“The system works through connections inspired by traditional wooden joinery that can be assembled and disassembled by hand, with small gestures,” Penadés explained.
“This fact allows the user to move easily with the seat from one place to another, emphasising dynamism as the object´s inherent purpose,” he added.
The components can be packed into a sling comprising leather patches and adjustable ratchet straps, and carried around on the user’s back.
The design is a continuation of the young Málaga-based designer’s graduation project from the Escola Superior de Disseny i d’Arts Plàstiques in Barcelona and will be on show as part of Product Design Madrid at the Architectural Association in the city from 21 to 24 November.
Here’s some more information from Jorge Penadés:
Nomadic Chair: a temporary seat for one person
Responding to society´s current and future needs born from modern culture, this project explores the potential of temporary furniture.
Reducing comfort to the minimum in order to enlarge mobility to the maximum, Penadés encourage us to reconsider our ideas of contemporary furniture and give them new meanings in a more ephemeral context.
This project is based on a structure without any kind of screws, nails or glue. The system works through connections inspired by traditional wooden joinery that can be assembled and disassembled by hand, with small gestures in (approx) 2 minutes. This fact allows the user to move easily with the seat from one place to another, emphasising dynamism as the object´s inherent purpose.
Jorge Penadés is currently investigating new possibilities of temporary furniture in order to create a collection of pieces within the same principle, understanding furniture as itinerant objects rather than static.
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