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Arch Daily

From 2016 to 2017: Architecture and Our Future
VMS Investment Group Headquarters / Aedas Interiors 
Doblado House / Isauro Huízar
Beaufort Maritime Research Building / McCullough Mulvin Architects
Campaigners Battle to Save Ove Arup's Brutalist Dunelm House in Durham
LEnS House / Obra Arquitetos
How Combining Social Housing with Tourism Could Help Solve Havana’s Housing Crisis
Amir Shakib Arslan Mosque / L.E.FT Architects
This Concave Roof System Collects Rainwater in Arid Climates
30-Hectare–Olive Grove Converted to Eco-Friendly Public Housing Development

From 2016 to 2017: Architecture and Our Future

Posted: 30 Dec 2016 02:45 AM PST

TLDR; Best of 2016.

Dear readers,

This 2016 has been a hectic, frenetic year with complex geopolitical, social, and cultural issues placing our world at a crossroads of an uncertain future. Do we look back into the nostalgia of a safe past, or do we step up and be an active part of a hopeful future?

As architects we have a tremendous responsibility in this scenario; historically, our profession has shaped the collective ideas of the future, generation after generation, by weighing-in on the crises that arise in our societies. In the absence of clear leadership to guide us towards an inspiring future, this is our opportunity to serve as agents of change for the future we deserve.

ArchDaily's role is to provide inspiration, knowledge, and tools to the architects who will face the hyper-urbanization currently underway in our world. And I am happy that the orchestrated effort of our global team is working towards this ambitious goal, reaching more than 500,000 daily readers in our English, Chinese, Spanish, and Portuguese editions, taking advantage of the Internet to connect architects from every corner of the world and bring architectural inspiration and information exchange in an unprecedented way.

As we turned 8 this year, we unveiled a new site design and an improved building products catalog, both of which are under constant improvement thanks to the data we gather from more than 3 billion monthly events and interactions created when you use ArchDaily. One example is the "Recommend For You" widget that we launched in the sidebar of projects and articles, crafted specifically for each user and based on a recommendation engine built by our engineers and data scientists. We will continue to diligently focus on similar projects during 2017 by developing more data-driven solutions to help you navigate the vast amount of projects and knowledge that we have amassed in the "ArchDaily Iceberg." We're also dedicated to improving what we expect to be a useful tool in your daily design workflow, the My ArchDaily platform—a service already used by hundreds of thousand of architects to save and sort projects.

Our growth has also helped us connect directly with you, our users, in different ways. Reaching 2 million fans on Facebook and 1 million followers on Instagram has given us more robust settings to transmit knowledge and inspiration. Even live!

We are also teaming up with some of the world's most important construction materials manufacturers—such as Saint Gobain, CEMEX, Hunter Douglas, Equitone and more than 300 companies worldwide—to bring you compelling content and the latest industry news. By connecting the projects that we publish with invaluable data about the products used to realize them, we hope to enlighten architects about the palette of materials available to them.

Our team covered the year's most important events, including the Pritzker Prize, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Oslo Architecture Triennale, the Lisbon Triennale. In our coverage of the most anticipated of 2016, the Venice Biennale curated by Alejandro Aravena "Reporting From the Front", we explored new formats in order to highlight and show immersive experiences through 360º video content. Venice marked another important achievement for ArchDaily, as I was appointed as the curator for the Nordic Countries Pavilion.

Aligned with the initiative to provide more immersive content we launched our VR for Architects section.

And we will continue to work hard with our global team to bring you a curated selection of projects, together with news and articles that add value to the architects in their day to day efforts to build the future that we deserve, as you can see in our Best of 2016 section.

David Basulto
Founder & Editor in Chief

The best architecture of 2016

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VMS Investment Group Headquarters / Aedas Interiors 

Posted: 30 Dec 2016 09:00 AM PST

Interior Designer: Aedas Interiors 
Area: 1,200 m2
Project Year: 2015
Location: Hong Kong, PRC 
Director: Logan MacWatt
Client: VMS Investment Group (HK) Limited 
Photographs: Aedas Interiors

From the architect. Aedas Interiors transforms VMS Investment Group Headquarters into an art gallery.

When relocating to a new office there is a golden opportunity for a company to transform their culture and ethos. Aedas Interiors, when working with VMS Investment Group on their relocation to a whole floor in Exchange Square, was tasked with this transformation process and to create a new workplace environment that showcased the multi-faceted and versatile nature of the firm.

Our concept of forming an ‘art gallery’ look and feel provided the backdrop to house VMS’s various operations, extensive client areas and their growing art collection. Our device of framing key views, aspects and elements elevated them to being artwork in their own right. A strong hospitality element was created by positioning their café in the most prominent location at the entrance, providing immediate social connection to clients, visitors and staff.

The material palette is a selection of warm and natural materials creating a comfortable and inviting environment, while accent colours, furniture and unique artwork provide the drama and excitement.

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Doblado House / Isauro Huízar

Posted: 30 Dec 2016 07:00 AM PST

Architects: Isauro Huízar
Location: Nuevo Leon, México
Area: 170.0 m2
Year Project: 2015
Photography : 1826 Proyectos Fotográficos

Remodeling of existing building for housing project.

Doblado House is a project which originates from exploit a existing construction of approximately 75 m2 on ground level contained in an area about 260 m2. The architectural program express a housing for a couple and is distributed in service, kitchen and living room on ground floor; and at first level: it contains a studio, bedroom and bathroom. The existing construction is reinforced with a steel structure to load the new floor of the first level and a perimetral facade wall rises with a pedestrian access articulated to the house and another vehicle access on the opposite end. Finally the rest of the area is regenerated like lawn garden for outdoor activities.

The premise of the project aims to preserve an austere facade by the street, using apparent materials and avoiding refined finishes. The renovated and extended volume is intended as a dark monolith respecting the main existing ground level openings and generating enough more for the new level, seeking to avoid a concern in the composition of windows. In the interior is intended to use refined materials and finished as the wood and the plaster together with the use of clear and warm tones. This way an experience is described from exterior at the street with apparent and coarse materials up to a more sophisticated and cozy interior.

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Beaufort Maritime Research Building / McCullough Mulvin Architects

Posted: 30 Dec 2016 05:00 AM PST

Architects: McCullough Mulvin Architects
Location: Ringaskiddy, Co. Cork, Ireland
Architect In Charge: Valerie Mulvin
Area: 5450.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Christian Richters

The project - a Maritime Research Facility located beside the Lower Harbour in Cork – involves a tall element housing research spaces and a lower tank hall containing testing facilities. Conceived as a stone outcrop on the edge of the water, subject to the action of wind and sea, the plan form is driven by the size and relationship of the four testing tanks, used alternately still or agitated with paddle mechanisms and profiled floorplates to simulate wave action, coastal erosion, ocean floor modelling.

A large volume, long span space is required to facilitate a slow balletic movement of heavy lifting gantry cranes, instrument bridges, access gangways, suspended camera equipment, people and forklifts moving independently over each other and travelling along and across each tank – thus a series of 45m long trusses swing across the volume supporting a folded roof. Workshops cluster along the east side of the tank hall, indented for natural ventilation like gills of a fish or barnacles on a rock outcrop, while larger indents give access for deliveries (east) and people (west). Research spaces are stacked to the sea, open to light and views northwards. Continuing the indented nature of this addition on the edge of the Harbour, surfaces of the research tower are eroded deeply on north and east facades, analogous to the action of wind and water on driftwood, generating a series of indented planes on the elevation to the sea for windows and balconies.

The roof is geometrically resolved as a series of mathematically generated planes triangulated into different slopes, reflecting the Z-shaped swing of the trusses over the tanks mapped onto the fixed points of the workshops. Tension between the folded form above and the captured volumes beneath present an oscillating rhythm which intersects the serrated edges of the plan in a range of relationships.

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Campaigners Battle to Save Ove Arup's Brutalist Dunelm House in Durham

Posted: 30 Dec 2016 04:00 AM PST

Dunelm House with Kingsgate Bridge in the foreground. Image © <a href='http://www.geograph.org.uk/more.php?id=2935919'>Geograph user Des Blenkinsopp</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/'>CC BY-SA 2.0</a>

Campaigners in the UK have launched a petition to save Durham University's Student Union Building, also known as Dunelm House, after the university announced its intention to demolish and replace the brutalist structure earlier this month. Designed in 1966 by Ove Arup and the Architects' Co-Partnership, the building is perhaps the most important 20th-century edifice in a city that is better-known for its UNESCO World Heritage-listed cathedral and castle.

© <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/bods/7217845364/'>Flickr user bods licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/'>CC BY-SA 2.0</a>

Dunelm House and the adjacent Arup-designed Kingsgate Bridge are considered among the highlights of the legendary engineer's career, alongside such feats as the Sydney Opera House. The building sits on a steep bank on the River Wear, with multiple terraces facing out towards the river, while Kingsgate Bridge crosses the river at a slight angle to meet the with the building's entrance. Arup, who was born in the nearby city of Newcastle, was so fond of the two structures that he even requested for his ashes to be scattered from the Kingsgate Bridge after his death in 1988, while a bust of Arup sits near to Dunelm House's entrance.

© <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/tompagenet/5896599799/'>Flickr user tompagenet licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/'>CC BY-SA 2.0</a>

In explaining its decision to replace the building, the university cites an estimated repair cost of £14.7 million and states that "Dunelm House is not able to accommodate new uses" as part of its university estate masterplan. However, a petition launched by a group causing itself Save Dunelm House argues that a simpler solution to this problem is simply to revise the masterplan - while pointing out that recent new buildings constructed by Durham University have not shown themselves to be better value for money than the expected repair cost.

"Dunelm House has a gross internal area of 3,980 square meters, making the refurbishment cost an estimated £3,600 per square meter," explains the petition. "That seems like a lot of money, but it is cheaper than the cost of Durham University's new Ogden Center for Fundamental Physics (the new abstract timber building) which is costing £11.5 million for 2,478 square meters - that's a whopping £4,640 per square meter! Refurbishing the building could be cheaper than building new."

At the time of publishing, the petition has collected over 1,200 signatures. Visit the petition here to add your name.

News via Save Dunelm House and Durham University.

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LEnS House / Obra Arquitetos

Posted: 30 Dec 2016 03:00 AM PST

Architects: Obra Arquitetos
Location: São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
Architects In Charge: João Paulo Daolio, Thiago Natal Duarte
Area: 202.0 m2
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Nelson Kon

Collaborator: Diogo Cavallari
Construction: Truzzi Engenharia
Structure: Rodrigo Freitas engenharia
Landscape: Obra arquitetos
Lightning Design: Obra arquitetos
Model: Gabriel Jablonsky

From the architect. House built for a couple with the idea of providing a contemplative and reflective space. This theme was addressed in two ways:

A more intimate, where the whole house is organized around a small patio and differences in levels. This internal patio allows a visual contact between the surroundings of the house, bringing the residents' life together. Nature, on this small scale, can be observed according to the variations of the seasons.

A curved glass was drawn so that the patio space had no segmentation at its edges and space could be seen through a lens.

The theme was also approached on the scale of the landscape. The land has a wide view of the Serra da Mantiqueira. Thus, starting from the most intimate dimension, traveling almost a spiral, one can climb up on the landscaped roof and observe the landscape amplitude.

The levels were chosen so that it could be observed over the house of the left lateral neighbor, increasing still the perception of the amplitude of the Mountain range.

In this way the house appropriates the surrounding landscape. The mantiqueira mountain is part of the garden of the house.

For these purposes, the house, the inventiveness of solutions and details allow a simplicity and objectivity of the project, privileging comfort and not the spectacle.

The furniture of the house was designed specifically for this project, through the study "MOBLE furniture architecture"

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How Combining Social Housing with Tourism Could Help Solve Havana’s Housing Crisis

Posted: 30 Dec 2016 01:30 AM PST

The largest of the Caribbean islands, Cuba is a cultural melting pot of over 11 million people, combining native Taíno and Ciboney people with descendants of Spanish colonists and African slaves. Since the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro, the country has been the only stable communist regime in the Western hemisphere, with close ties to the Soviet Union during the Cold War and frosty relationship with its nearby neighbor, the United States, that has only recently begun to thaw. While the architecture in the capital city of Havana reflects the dynamic and rich history of the area, after the revolution Havana lost its priority status and government focus shifted to rural areas, and the buildings of Havana have been left to ruin ever since. Iwo Borkowicz, one of three winners of the 2016 Young Talent Architecture Award, has developed a plan that could bring some vibrancy, and most importantly some sustainability, back to Havana, the historic core of the city.

After half a century of poor maintenance within Havana Vieja, buildings are reported to be partially, or even entirely, collapsing at a rate of 2 every 3 days due to flooding, salt water corrosion, and overloading; as many as 20 families can be living in a villa originally designed for one. Despite a Cuban law preventing people from migrating into the capital, Havana is still struggling with a major housing crisis. According to a 2010 study, the island lacked around 500,000 housing units to adequately fulfil the nation's needs, but due to the collapsing buildings, this number is currently estimated to be somewhere between 600,000 and 1 million. Havana alone has over 100,000 people without an apartment to live in. In other words, suitable housing is high up on the list of the Cuban people's needs.

Existing alongside the country's housing crisis is its rapidly expanding tourism industry. Due to the country's communist rule, privately owned businesses such as hotels are essentially non-existent, in spite of the nearly 3.5 million tourists expected to visit the country in 2017 - with 90% of them, according to Borkowicz, expected to visit Havana. However, the government has allowed Cuban people to rent out rooms in their own homes since 1997, commonly known in Cuba as "casas particulares," responding to the touristic demand without having to build large hotels alien to the Havana landscape. This concept, as well as the desperate need for housing and possible local economic gain from tourism, is what inspired Borkowicz to develop a proposal to combine social housing with tourism in Havana Vieja.

Diagram showing infill plans. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

The idea is to merge the two by renovating existing, partially collapsed buildings around Havana Vieja, and adding vertical extensions to fulfil Borkowicz's plan to build with an average of 4 floors. Occasionally structures are designed from scratch when the existing building has collapsed beyond repair. As Borkowicz envisions the use of space in a 3:1 ratio of permanent versus temporary inhabitants, these buildings need to not only accommodate for the existing housing shortages in Havana Vieja, but must supersede them. Currently the housing shortages require 9,200 new housing units, with an assumed floor space of 70 square meters per unit. Borkowicz looked at 12 housing blocks already existing in Havana Vieja, using their volumes as a benchmark for calculations on his proposal of an average of 4 storeys per building and concluded that the total generated floor space from his project could amount to 105,812 square meters - 3 times as much space as is currently needed.

Section of Prototype 1. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

Spatial diagram of Prototype 1. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

Not only will this proposal provide more housing for the Cuban population, it will also serve as a source of income for the inhabitants, as they will be able to rent out more rooms to tourists. One of the main reasons for Cuba's housing crisis is the lack of financial support, however Borkowicz proposes that residents could repay loans over an estimated 10 year period, while still keeping around 10% of the revenue for personal use (estimated to total around 4 times as much as the average salary in Cuba). For locals, this sum of money can often buy them far more value for money, as some business run two pricing systems - one for locals and one for the foreigners. For example, Borkowicz has noted ice cream selling for 24 times the price when bought by a tourist.

Diagram showing relative locations of the 6 prototypes. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

As part of his research project, Borkowicz has established 6 prototypes, each responding to the individual situations on their site: Prototype 1 and 3 take place on existing plots housing single storey buildings in very bad condition that will be completely replaced; Prototype 2 addresses a similar pre-existing condition, but with a building still in good shape that can be built upon; Prototype 4 is an empty corner plot with only partial remains of its previous occupant, making it necessary to design the house from scratch; Prototype 5 connects two parallel streets by joining two existing buildings back-to-back, one on each street. Finally Prototype 6 is not a social housing project, but is suggested to take an empty corner plot and addresses the need for a co-working space that promotes small businesses.

Section of Prototype 4. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

Spatial diagram of Prototype 4. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

These houses are designed in such a way that the structural support, as well as the sewage or gas infrastructure, can remain entirely unchanged. Instead the transformation of space takes place by rearranging non-load-bearing walls, allowing for flexible floor plans whenever possible so that residents can arrange different combinations of hotel rooms, or alternatively expand their own apartment.

Possible plans of Prototype 5. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

"Casa particulars is not a hotel nor a guest room in somebody's house but a formula in-between. This significantly changes the way guests and hosts look at each other," explains Borkowicz in a booklet documenting his research. "Tourists can experience a more in-depth Cuban culture and Cubans won't feel like simple servants, but partners in an exchange of services and money - but also an exchange of stories, daily routine, and experiences. Both parties will hopefully get a chance to... learn from each other, while at the same time having access to a fully private zone in their rooms or flats."

Diagram showing uses of the common space in a prototype building. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

This kind of architecture requires a lot of common spaces that both permanent and temporary inhabitants can take advantage of; much more than in an ordinary Cuban apartment or AirBnb. Each of Borkowicz's prototype buildings is individually designed with respect to the existing situation on the plot, however all five residential plans include an open space with planted areas, often in the form of large inner courtyards. Also included are an open kitchen and living room; a "collective zone" on the roof, including a laundry station and an urban farming space; a zone for tenants to keep chickens, vegetables and herbs; and an "extension" of the space into the surrounding community around the entrance zone.

Section of Prototype 5. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

Spatial diagram of Prototype 5. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

In his designs, Borkowicz prioritizes natural ventilation, using both the main wide courtyard and smaller secondary courtyards to create cross-ventilation through rooms not directly connected to the street. Open space within the building is above the government's requirement of 15% of the total area, and the windows and courtyards are protected by permeable solar protection to allow for the passage of wind. In addition to this the design specifies staircases and railings that generate maximum airflow, using traditional Cuban wrought iron elements. The passive cooling system, taking place through underground pipes that suck air through the patios, are stabilized by the constant temperature below ground level of around 15 degrees Celsius.

Materiality of the housing projects. Image Courtesy of Iwo Borkowicz

In addition to the traditional wrought iron railings, Borkowicz's plan would support the production of Cuban ornamental ceramic tiles, which would be used to cover the roof, reflecting sunlight to prevent overheating. One of the more important choices in Borkowicz's design is to maintain the existing characteristics of Havana Vieja, with facades that reflect the classical, brightly colored and decorated buildings of the Cuban culture, preserving the tourist appeal of the area. No choice of color is specified, leaving the housing cooperative to personalize each house, hopefully helping them to identify more strongly with the project through the use of shapes, materials and colors that are so abundant within the Cuban culture.

Social, cultural and economic support that can be brought through architectural design is no easy task to accomplish, making the symbiotic relationship that arises from such a project a fantastically beautiful thing to witness. If the predicted deluge of US tourists is to find much more than rubble and homelessness in Havana Vieja, Borkowicz's proposal is not only beautiful, but desperately needed.

Correction update: This article originally stated that the "casas particulares" system was introduced in 1959. It was actually introduced in 1997.

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Amir Shakib Arslan Mosque / L.E.FT Architects

Posted: 30 Dec 2016 01:00 AM PST

Architects: L.E.FT Architects
Location: Moukhtara, Lebanon
Architects In Charge: Makram el Kadi, Ziad Jamaleddine
Project Team: Gentley Smith (Project Architect), Rafah Farhat, Elias Kateb, Alex Palmer, Nayef al Sabhan, Tong Shu, Shun-Ping Liu
Area: 100.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Iwan Baan, Ieva Saudargaite

Landscape Architects: L.E.FT Architects
Conservation Architect/ Owner Representative: Arch. Zaher Ghosseini
Engineering: Antoine Bou Chedid
Lighting Design: Maurice Asso- Hilights
Main Contractor: ACON
Carpet Design: L.E.FT with Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Carpet Fabrication: Moooi
Call To Prayer: Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Nisrine Khodr

From the architect. This small mosque of 100m2 included a renovation of an existing masonry cross-vaulted space and the addition of a minaret, grafted onto the existing structure as a symbolic landmark, next to the 18th century old palace. A new civic plaza was created in what was before an adjoining parking space, turning the frontage of the mosque into a public square with seating, water fountain, ablution space and shading under a newly planted fig tree.

Given the non-alignment of the existing structure with the required directionality to Makkah, the design approach was first set to correct the orientation though a series of physical transformations and additions. The directionality towards Makkah became the only tool/language mobilized to shape the new mosque and its surrounding, at all scales, from the interior of the mosque to the outdoor plaza

On the architectural level, the mosque's new slender minaret is linked horizontally through a gently concave canopy to a curved wall at the plaza level, delineating a portico for the mosque below and creating a transitional space between the interior of the mosque and the street as well as adding privacy for the mosque from the outside.

The envelope of the mosque is strictly formed of thinly sliced painted white steel plates, faithfully angled in a parallel direction to Makkah. When looked at obliquely from an angle, the steel plates stack to compose a complete and comprehensive volume of the mosque. Looked at frontally, the mosque's volume, through its thin planarity, disappears and blends with its visually rich historical backdrop, momentarily suspending belief in its actual presence.

Rather than the traditional inert Cube/Dome/Minaret volumetric expression of normative mosque architecture, the design offers a lighter reading of the typology, an ephemeral tectonic presence. The concave/convex planar surfaces of the new mosque brace the outside plaza and street in an extroverted geometry, and link it to the interior religious space which would have been usually hermetically enclosed. As we now know, these two spaces (the religious space within and the public space of the street without) were hybridized in the 'Arab Spring' uprisings where the public space of the city intersected the public space of the mosque.

Structure/Ornament/Words/Sounds

Atop the minaret, the word Allah (God) is folded bi-axially from the minaret's elements, becoming an integral structural element that is reinforcing the fragile steel armature, rather than being just an ornamental applique. The minaret becomes a frail element that without this calligraphy would fail structurally and break apart. Seen from one side, Allah is read in an affirmative solid form, a modern interpretation of calligraphy. Seen from the other side, Allah is read as a void, a doubtful absence, but also emanating the immaterial and ineffable idea of God, in reference to the lack of representation in Islam. It is also a deconstruction of the word from a metanarrative to a text that can be interpreted, through the creation of a physical rather than an optical lenticular. Here, the text is literally a construct, and writing/reading happens between the lines. The Minaret itself is the same height as the surrounding trees; and when seen frontally becomes transparent to blend with its context.

Below, at the curved wall entry to the mosque, the pixelated and equally structural word Insan (Human) is added to the steel plates, to create a Hegelian dialectic of God/Man. The juxtaposition of both renders the idea of humanity as an integral part of the equation with God, placed in a new dialectic, and becomes a reminder of the humanistic tradition of Islam, as referenced in noted Islamic theologian Mohammad Arkoun's book Humanisme et Islam – Combats et Propositions (Paris, Vrin, 2005) which places Islam at the origin of the18th century Enlightenment project.

Insan becomes the epicenter of the ground plane of the plaza.

As one moves around the mosque, the planar reading of the mosque formed by the steel plates becomes transparent, while the two words (Allah/Insan) becomes more apparent, and vice versa. The overall lightness of the mosque's tectonic sits also in a relational contrast to the heaviness of the Moukhtara's palace stone volumetric.

A fig tree shades the new plaza, and creating a book end along with the existing Olive tree on the other side of the street, alluding to the 'Fig and Olive' verse (souret at-teen) in the Quraan and referencing the importance of both trees in Christian tradition as well. At the threshold, the entry to the mosque's hall, which accommodates both women and men in the same space, is articulated with a chiseled glass façade holding two wooden doors that float within it.

Interior

On the inside of the existing structure, the minimal intervention involved a 'white-out' of the concave surfaces of the vaults, using special Lime mix brought from Aleppo in Syria, as well as the introduction of a new skylight that cuts the vaulted space to register the direction of the Quiblah wall towards Makkah, and bring light towards the Mihrab space.

Through the skylight, one can see the minaret in a visual looping of exterior back to the interior, linking visually the disassociation in typical mosques between the sound and the vision.

Similarly, the Mihrab is articulated with a concave reflective polished stainless steel arched wall that, though pointing towards Makkah, implodes this axiality by merging it visually with the wider context, bringing outside in, and distorting the interior spatiality of the mosque.

Towards the back of the mosque where the actual reading of the Quraan would happen, a wooden wall with the word iqra' (read) is articulated in relief. It references the Islamic scholar Youssef Siddiq's argument and interpretation that the first word in the Quraan, iqra', of which the Quraan word is a derivative, argued for a critical and contextual reading of the Quraan as a post-structuralist 'text' to be read critically, and not as a meta-narrative to be recited blindly.

The call to prayer, in collaboration with artists Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Nisrine Khodr, was re- interpreted along the same lines as a variation on the normative call to prayer by the idea of having it spoken rather than sung, in a return to the words where the listener focuses on the meaning rather than the melody.

Overall the design of the mosque is a celebration of the ethos of modernity as it relates tectonically to the notion of abstraction, of ephemerality, and representationally to the continuity of the humanism tradition in Islam. It represents a part of a cultural war of ideas that needs to be fought against the fundamentalist forces across religions, a war where architecture is a weapon.

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This Concave Roof System Collects Rainwater in Arid Climates

Posted: 30 Dec 2016 12:00 AM PST

Iran-based BMDesign Studios has unveiled Concave Roof, a double-roof system with steep slopes resembling a bowl for the purpose of rainwater collection in arid climates like Iran, where a lack of water could lead to mass displacement in the future.

Because precipitation in this area is less than one-third of that of the world average, and evaporation is more than three times higher than the world average, the concave roof system is designed to "help [make] even the smallest quantities of rain [flow down] the roof and eventually coalesce into bigger drops, just right for harvesting before they evaporate" explained the architects.

The outer shell of the roof system not only collects rainwater but also provides additional shading and allows air to move freely between it and the inner shell, acting as a cooling mechanism for both roofs.

At a school with 923 square meters of concave roof area, it is expected that 28 cubic meters of water could be collected, with an efficiency of about 60 percent. Further research for the system will focus on maximizing this efficiency.

Reservoirs connecting to the collection systems will be placed between building walls, allowing for further control of temperature fluctuation of indoor spaces due to the heat storage capacity of water, all of which will "[lower] the overall carbon footprint of much-needed air conditioning in this harsh environment."

Architects: BMDesign Studios
Location: Jiroft, Kerman province, Iran
Architect in Charge: Babak Mostofi Sadri
Design Development: Dena Bakhtiari
Design Team: Babak M Sadri, Dena Bakhtiari, Nazanin Esfahanian, Negar Naghibsadat
Structural Engineer: Sina Rostami

News via: BMDesign Studios.

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30-Hectare–Olive Grove Converted to Eco-Friendly Public Housing Development

Posted: 29 Dec 2016 10:00 PM PST

Philippe Barrière Collective (PB+Co) has created the urban plan for a new semi-rural/semi-urban development in Manouba, Tunisia. Utilizing an existing olive grove estate, the environmentally driven project includes collective housing pavilions among its ecological design composed of 4,475 salvaged olive trees, newly planted taller trees, and a wild botanical garden that fosters local biodiversity.

The urban plan centers around a green common, which serves as the nexus between services and housing pavilions while eliminating the need for roads within the development's perimeter. Placed around the rural park, amenities include administrative, health, and retail facilities; 3200 housing units; religious and cultural centers; an elementary school; a sports area; and a transportation hub. The green neighborhood represents a new strategy for interaction between community and nature, merging sustainable development with efficiency in housing design.

Based on bio-climactic principles, the project employs passive solar energy, modular solar protection, cross ventilation in every room, double orientation units, vertical chimney ventilation for fresh air intake, and local building materials. Additionally, with its own micro-climate, the biological community serves as a green reserve for local organisms.

News via: v2com

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