Arch Daily

From Pastel Pink to Pastel Blue: Why Colorful Architecture is Nothing New
One Up Two Down / Mccullough Mulvin Architects
Franz Kraler's Showroom / Studio Marastoni Architetti e Ingegneri Associati
House Between Pillars / Camp Design
Underground Forest in Onepark Gubei / Wutopia Lab
Boombox House / 2m2 architects
Bird House / Jamison Architects
Construction Begins on Project to Transform Railway Hangar into a Mixed-Use Library in The Netherlands
Glass Farmhouse / Olson Kundig
World Architecture Festival Announces the 2017 Awards 'Super Jury'
POP XYZ / Triptyque
Zaha Hadid Architects Breaks Ground on Sky Park Development on Industrial Site in Bratislava
MW House / Riofrio+Rodrigo
Bring New York's Never-Built Projects to Life With This Kickstarter
"Don't Blame Me!": 6 Projects That Were Disowned by High-Profile Architects
56 Leonard Street / Herzog & de Meuron
Advice For Procrastinator Architects
Maidan Tent - Architectural Aid for Europe's Refugee Crisis
Galeotas House / Appleton & Domingos
Look Inside a Collection of Parisian Architecture Offices, Photographed by Marc Goodwin and Mathieu Fiol

From Pastel Pink to Pastel Blue: Why Colorful Architecture is Nothing New

Posted: 22 May 2017 09:00 PM PDT

Debenham House, 8 Addison Road, Kensington, by Halsey Ricardo (1905-1908). Image Courtesy of Hidden London

In this essay by the British architect and academic Dr. Timothy Brittain-Catlin, the fascinating journey that color has taken throughout history to the present day—oscillating between religious virtuosity and puritan fear—is unpicked and explained. You can read Brittain-Catlin's essay on British postmodernism, here.

Like blushing virgins, the better architecture students of about ten years ago started to use coy colors in their drawings: pastel pink, pastel blue, pastel green; quite a lot of grey, some gold: a little like the least-bad wrapping paper from a high street store. Now step back and look at a real colored building – William Butterfield's All Saints' Church, Margaret Street, London, or Keble College, Oxford, or the interior of A.W.N. Pugin's church of St. Giles in Cheadle, UK. They blow you away with blasts of unabashed, rich color covering every square millimetre of the space.

Folk art is full of color: two exceptional mid-century Modernist designers—the American Alexander Girard and the Hungarian-born British textile designer Tibor Reich—returned to it time and again for inspiration. Indeed, Girard's 10,000-piece collection now fills an entire wing of a museum. But elsewhere, Modernism tried to 'educate out' bright colors to the extent that today they are not mentioned in polite company, however much you might enjoy buying colorful objects for your home.

A view into the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament of St Giles' church, Cheadle, by A.W.N. Pugin (1840-1846). Acknowledgments to Michael Fisher. Image © Mark Titterton

There is evidence of this everywhere. See how critics responded to MAKE's 2008 wedge-shaped buildings for the Jubilee Campus for the UK's University of Nottingham: the pinks and reds of the facades were either derided or completely ignored. There was no attempt to interpret them. Not even the bright red cladding of the recent vast MAS in Antwerp was discussed in terms of what it might mean. Only later do architects emerge from the embarrassment of confronting color – Piers Gough said at the time that he chose a deep blue for the Circle in Bermondsey because it was the "nicest color" in the Shaws of Derwen catalogue; nearly thirty years later he talks about it as a "landscapey" color, of the sky or of the water.

And "landscapey" is what it is. Many of the problems with color are to do with an innate puritanism among clients of architecture. This has religious (or possibly superstitious) origins, perhaps based on a terror of earthly passions. The evangelical churches in England, for example, devised a programme of systematically eradicating color from their buildings, explained in the popular handbook Repitching the Tent of 1996 which tells them how to do precisely that. It is a long tradition. The multi-colored interiors of church after church were whitewashed initially during the Reformation across Europe, then smashed during the English Civil War, then both re-whitewashed and re-smashed Europe-wide in Catholic churches during the 1960s and 1970s.

Keble College Chapel, Oxford, by William Butterfield (1867-1883). Image © Timothy Brittain-Catlin

Puritans have problems with things that they don't understand; their instinct is to attack. And somehow their fear of color became conflated with Modernism's horror of 'dishonesty', perhaps because it was 'dishonest' to add color to building materials. Yet Pugin himself had offered a perfectly logical basis for incorporating color into architecture. Since he was also acutely aware of how precisely he should be spending his time in order for the Revival to have the maximum effect, the fact that he ornamented his buildings in this fastidious, detailed way indicates how important he thought it was. William Morris' organic designs have outlived his other achievements, and it was one of C.F.A. Voysey's wallpapers, not a white building, that made Henry van de Velde exclaim that "Spring had come all of a sudden." One of the scarcely mentioned features of the destroyed library at the Glasgow School of Art is that the timber sticks of the balustrade that projected from the gallery were scooped out and painted to resemble tumbling seasonal leaves. The room was, as James Macaulay has put it, a "sacred grove," lit irregularly from curious perforated lanterns between the 'branches' of the timber detailing.

All Saints' Church, Margaret Street, London, by William Butterfield (1849-1859), photographed by Keith Diplock. Image © Timothy Brittain-Catlin

Terry Farrell's remodelling of the Comyn Ching triangle near Covent Garden (1978-1985) is remarkable for a number of reasons; one is that you cannot tell at first sight what is new and what is old, breaking the 150-year-old convention that new work must always be distinct. But it is also worth looking at it from the point of view of the use of color around its doors and windows. You notice Farrell's blue-green porches much more than the brickwork around then; it is perverse to ignore them in the interpretation of his design. Surely Farrell had seen the extraordinary building—"explosive" is how the Pevsner guide describes it—five minutes away, at the corner of Charing Cross Road and Old Compton Street. The two frontages here consist of an assertive Edwardian Baroque frame with aggressive Gibbs surrounds placed improbably high up, filled in with deep green tile-clad walls rather as if the ruins of Rapunzel's tower, by Piranesi, were looming above a primeval forest. The building was conceived by C.H. Worley in 1904 who designed for it a little brother a few doors down, on the corner of Moor Street. One way of looking at this is that Worley's forest has been tamed to become Farrell's internal garden.

If color is about engagement with nature, it is also about is engagement with life. Look at the Debenham House in Addison Road in Kensington, designed by Halsey Ricardo in 1905 for the proprietor of the Oxford Street department store. This building is sensational in its use of color. Ricardo, according to the architect and critic Harry Goodhart-Rendel, was "dark, Jewish, spectacularly good-looking, musical and a typical architectural amateur." Since Goodhart-Rendel was his cousin, he modestly failed to add that Ricardo came from one of the most brilliant families in Britain.

Right: 99A Charing Cross Road, by C.H. Worley (1904). Left: Courtyard porch at Comyn Ching, by the Terry Farrell Partnership (1978-1985). Image © Timothy Brittain-Catlin

As an 'amateur', and as a confident, clever, rich man, Ricardo could also ignore any carping from professionals or critics. It is difficult to see much of the house from the street because of a tall hedge, currently covered by a taller hoarding. But stand on the other side of the road and raise your eyes. The whole structure is gleaming: what would anyway have been a lush Edwardian villa sparkles from head to foot in fabulous mottled greens and blues. The interior—a favourite location for film directors—is clad in vibrant tiles and mosaics. Ricardo had seen the same blue skies that we see; like us he had seen cherry trees in full bloom such as the one along the same street that today screens the house behind it as if a delicious veil of pink chiffon had been thrown across the facade.

The Debenham House plays not only with memories of Mediterranean seas and forests, but also with a cross-current of London trees, and the London sky as the sun passes through it; also of shiny London shops and broad London culture. In that way it hints at how we see a continent of ideas that have come to rest here. At the back of my mind is the feeling that very good-looking buildings, in common with very good-looking people such as Ricardo, have completely different lives from the rest of us. But specifically, the Debenham House shows that an intense, sophisticated use of color in architecture is not only a sign of high intelligence and exceptional cognitive awareness, but also of what can happen when architects are brave enough to ignore the robotic incantation of trite modernist truisms about the "honesty" of grey materials that, in reality, signify nothing.

Understanding British Postmodernism (Hint: It's Not What You Thought)
In this essay by the British architect and academic Dr. Timothy Brittain-Catlin, the very notion of British postmodernism-today often referred to as intimately tied to the work of James Stirling and the the thinking of Charles Jencks-is held to the light. Its true origins, he argues, are more historically rooted.

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One Up Two Down / Mccullough Mulvin Architects

Posted: 22 May 2017 08:00 PM PDT

Architects: Mccullough Mulvin Architects
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Area: 170.0 ft2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Christian Richters

One Up Two Down is an urban courtyard house in central Dublin built on a very tight budget; the site was carved out of an existing plot along the filled-in branch of the Royal Canal near Phibsborough.

The scheme fills the rectangular site and works to maximise open space- a walled and stepped front garden, the main rooms with bedrooms below and living space over, an internal courtyard and a studio to the rere. The roof offers another garden space. The facade bricks from the original ruined house were retained and used to build the front façade.

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Franz Kraler's Showroom / Studio Marastoni Architetti e Ingegneri Associati

Posted: 22 May 2017 07:00 PM PDT

Architects: Studio Marastoni Architetti e Ingegneri Associati
Location: 39034 Toblach, Bozen, Italy
Architect In Charge: Luca Marastoni
Area: 1300.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Marco Zanta

Construction: Stoll & Bachmann s.r.l. – Toblach
Light Design : Glip – The lighting partner – Quinto di Treviso
Hydraulic: Kraler s.r.l. - Innichen
Electrician: Elektro Mair & Seeber - Toblach

From the architect. This building completes the area dedicated to luxury shopping in Toblach, South Tyrol of Franz Kraler's brand.

The project was born to expand the exhibition space of the structure and to link the original building to the surrounding area at the same time. In 2009 the first part of the project saw the complete reconstruction of the historic building with the complete refurbishment of the structure on the basis of an ancient project of the early 1900s.

The approach to the project therefore has a strong departure from the historicity of the building and the nature of the territory by type and nature of the materials.

The materials are of course the ones in our area and the construction typology that adopts large windows results from the fact that they want to melt the building with the surrounding environment.

The expansion that finds its execution in the summer of 2016 is the natural consequence of this evolutionary process.

The project is spread over an area of 1300 square meters to create about 300 square meters of multifunctional space, a 600 sqm partially covered square and a series of accessories.

Small volumes of the building were demolished, and in their place there was room for a partially undercover building, which has as its main objective to be discovered slowly by the visitor without flaunting magnificence but revealing itself slowly until the message is fully understood.

It is the earth, the mother of this place, and from within it precious jewels come out of us and look to marvelous prospects. But to grasp these aspects you have to enter inside the belly, discover how good this one can have, never stop at the first distracted look.

And then the great wall of 24-carat gold leaf symbolizes the importance of what's under the building, and the great eye on the dolomites gives us the opportunity to concentrate better on what we carefully look at every day without attention.

Even in this second chapter, eco sustainability of intervention is of course the absolute protagonist, exasperating the concept of home climate to reduce consumption and dispersion to a maximum, transferring to commercial architecture for some years to this part is done in residential

The care of the detail emphasizes the simplicity of the guidelines and the genesis of the few materials adopted for the intervention, making clear the spaces and functions. The new structure is a sort of gift that the Kraler Family has conceived for its place of origin by mixing business with a space available for events and events, made by anyone to mix the public with the private benefit of living local.

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House Between Pillars / Camp Design

Posted: 22 May 2017 03:00 PM PDT

Architects: Camp Design
Location: Koganei, Tokyo, Japan
Lead Architects: Yusuke Fujita, Naoko Aramaki
Area: 119.24 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Kentahasegawa

Structure Engineers : Takahashi architecture atelier
Planner・Developer : Ribita inc./ Yukiko Nomoto, Asami Tanaka, Moe Motozu
Constructor: Hanabusa Construction
Site Area: 140.18 m2
Building Area: 59.62 m2

From the architect. This project is one of the series "HOWS Renovation" of Ribita (a Japanese developer mainly focusing on renovation project). This project is a project aimed at renewing the market value by renovation taking vacant houses as social assets. In this project, Ribita purchases a vacant house, sells after repairing, so the design starts from the situation where there is no owner. For this reason, we assumed a family with children in the 3 to 40s, thinking about a versatile and variable housing.

The Japanese traditional wooden framework method consists of modules with pillar spacing of 1間 (= about 1820 mm). Therefore, the distance between the pillars also follows the size. We made it possible to install fittings between most of the pillars, and with the fittings tailored to the module, the owners themselves created a boundary which was easily exchangeable. And we set up a space called "between the pillars" which goes through the center to the 1st and 2nd floors. "Between the pillars" becomes an intermediate area when changing plans by movement of joiners, and more patterns are born. In addition, movable furniture is also designed according to the module, and it is an element to set with the fittings.

This is an old new house that changes shape according to changes in lifestyle and family composition, depending on Japanese traditional wooden framework method standards and fittings.

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Underground Forest in Onepark Gubei / Wutopia Lab

Posted: 22 May 2017 01:00 PM PDT

Architects: Wutopia Lab
Location: Shanghai,China
Chief Architect: YU Ting
Project Architect: ZHANG Shuojiong
Area: 1000.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: CreatAR - AI Qing & SHI Kaicheng

Design Consultant: ArchUnits
Lighting Design: Gradient Lighting
Special Lighting Design: YU Ting, ZHANG Shuojiong - Tangtang's cloud
Material: wood-like aluminum material, white oak, latex paint, acrylic, parquet floor

"Even in the most luxurious district, reading is still an indispensable, heartwarming place" - Yu Ting

Is everyone in the metropolis an island?

This project is the last part of Onepark Gubei community club, which has already completed other spaces such as fitness, yoga, SPA, swimming pool, coffee, children's playground and so on. But as same as all senior districts, the community club had not done a great job for residents to be together, the reality behind the luxury is always loneliness of the independent families. The developer finally decided to build the neighborhood center, hoping residents could get to know each other here. But what kind of place can attract residents? Conference, reading room, children's library, gallery, audio-visual room? Or the combination of them? This willing for the future and the uncertainty of execution allow the architects to explore a more socialized proposition: how to use buildings as a tool to activate the meaning of community centers under the condition of restrictive internal open, and to further promote the communication of neighborhoods.

All past are preludes

Onepark Gubei is a high-end residential district and a fertile place in Shanghai. Developers carefully developed and maintained the district to guarantee the buildings, space and living quality on a superb level. The district's public area and the overall environment has a high-end tradition, showing a serene elegant and elite ritual. The architects use this as a last design sentence, with a contrast to create a soft, relaxed reading space as the next sentence. To plant a knowledge of forest in the marble Community Club, hoping the residents can be gently wrapped in the warmth of the soft environment, so that they could remove the busy material life and return to the familial relaxed atmosphere. Here they would be willing to know people in the same community and promote communication between each other, thus activating the social potential of the neighborhood.

As the material conditions gets better, spirit needs more room to highlight its warmth to people. The architect's idea of the free reading and art scene moved the owners. They were commissioned to redesign the project which had already started construction. In the specific implementation, the architects use the most reasonable and economical way to intervene in the design changes. Without changing the original structure, zoning, norms and other design basis of the case, the entire space environment completes its reborn. On the entrance floor (upper floor), the curvature wood looking aluminum plates softly rise and fall, cloud-like chandeliers meandering through the place, as if the courtyard green is invited to the inside and refined to form a forest-like free space. Community residents can remove the mask in social life and have a relaxed communication here with a joy of the festival.

The grand step acts as a leading role to make the upper and lower floors together, not only the flow of people, light can also pour down along the grand step from the outside into the lower floor.

The lower floor is different from the upper one, which is a quieter dual space. The demand for communication is reduced, visitors here would be more focused in reading and appreciating art painting. As people need to be sunk, the architects used a large area of black to weak the degree of activity, and further use black and light to create a more private, meditative space in the wings as well as the bathroom. Thus creating most mysterious mood of bathroom within the whole community. Finally, the neighborhood center reached the architect's vision of free communication and thinking.

Humanities and technology, Let's have both fish and bear's paw

In order to achieve such a soft and free place, we used a large number of forefront concept of digital and technology. Each curve, groove and tongue on different plates are optimized through Programming design and directly produced by the NC machine tools to be installed on site. Although we created a very humanistic mood in building the environment, in the design and construction methods, we use latest technologies in the sense of the time- this is also a kind of Dual representation.

Murakami Haruki once said, "Everyone has a forest of their own, maybe we had never been there, but it is always there. Lost people are lost, met ones will meet again."

The architect specially created the inside forest for the neighborhoods within Onepark Gubei.

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Boombox House / 2m2 architects

Posted: 22 May 2017 12:00 PM PDT

Architects: 2m2 architects
Location: Jinju-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea
Architect In Charge: Lee Junghee
Area: 256.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Shin Kyungsub

From the architect. In Korea, in the late '70s and early '80s, boombox was a familiar sounding device that played radio and cassette tapes. When my school went on a picnic, some students brought a boombox, and we all shared loud music coming out of its speaker with classmates. Boombox reminds me of memories of cassette tapes with loose film in it and stimulates nostalgia at that time. They consumed popular culture in the midst of a rapid economic development in their teenage years, and received the same level of education as their contemporaries from other advanced countries. Now they became the main generation of the society that have family and raise children. Boombox House is a rental house project that targets this specific generation.

The location is a detached residential area of Chungmugong-dong, Jinju City. Chungmugong-dong is an innovative city newly created by the relocation of LH (Korea Land and Housing Corporation). In this area, which is actively equipped with urban infrastructures until now, apartment houses rapidly came in first, and single houses are also coming in one by one. The site is a typical single residence in any planned city, but it is located at the corner of the road, so it has a fan shape, not a rectangular shape. So, we started to use this original differentiation of the land as a design element to emphasize its form.

It is a rental house that presupposes popularity and universality, but it is necessary to have the speciality that is appropriate for the target which shares the sensitivity of a certain generation. Attempts to escape the familiarity of the original without a great deviation were also an interesting task given to the architect. The planned duplex house was an inevitable choice to increase the profitability of the building owner while at the same time being a safeguard to ease the awkwardness of a detached house to a generation familiar with the apartment. And, A and B houses were designed not in a simple symmetry but in different ways, so that residents could choose a space that suits their individuality and preference.

"A" house has a courtyard and a living room on the first floor. The interior wall of the living room has a look with exterior brick finish extended to the room. It is different from the general method of stacking bricks by stacking bricks every other layer with twist looking, omitting vertical construction joints. Opening the living room window leads to the courtyard where there is a open area in which indoor is extended to outdoor. This place was occupied by a couple in their mid-30s with a 4-year- old child. House B has a living room with exposed concrete walls on the second floor, and a staircase that goes up to the third floor extends to the rooftop courtyard. In the private roof-top yard, various activities are available to suit the resident's preferences. This place was also occupied by a late 30s couple with two children aged 7 and 5 years old. A house has a ground floor facing the ground, and house B has a rooftop garden facing the sky. I imagine, someday, the two neighbors will be sharing their own yards each other. This part of the design was intentionally planned, so it is an ideal figure that can be fully predicted.

Boombox House is located in a new city that has not been completely filled and waiting to be connected and communicate with neighbors. The main mass of the building with the highlighted front round gives the effect that it looks bigger than the actual scale. To give lightness to this appearance, we twisted the mass that opens up and down and brought it out. Although bricks are used as exterior materials, there is no monotony in the conventional way, and it is in a hetero typical form, but it is not showy. I hope that the boom box house where comfort and color difference are confronted will be a new but familiar house in the innovative city of Jinju.

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Bird House / Jamison Architects

Posted: 22 May 2017 10:00 AM PDT

Architects: Jamison Architects
Location: Gold Coast QLD, Australia
Architects In Charge: Mark Jamison, Angela Jamison
Area: 323.0 ft2
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Scott Burrows

Builder: H2 Homes
Cabinetry: Ashmore Joinery
Structural Engineer: Reinmac

From the architect. Standing in the living room, one feels like they are in a bird house. Surrounded by bushland and tall gums the 'Bird House' was designed to have a strong connection to its setting and the abundance of native flora and fauna on the site. The design really brings the outside in, maximises immediate and distant views and encompases the benefits of natural light and natural cross-ventilation.

Essentially the home comprises of two pavilions connected by a central grassed courtyard which is a special green space in the heart of the home. The courtyard is surrounded by openable laser-cut screens and provides a unique entry and arrival experience. The courtyard changes dimension throughout the day and night; by day it offers shade and filtered light through the screens, by night it frames the starry sky and provides a beautiful, private outdoor room to spend time together gathering around the fire bowl and enjoying outdoor movie nights that are projected onto the western wall where the external artwork (flying ducks) can be removed. As the screens are openable the space can be intimate or opened up to connect to the surrounding landscape. The laser-cut screens are used in other areas of the home to provide screening for shade, privacy and separation of space.

The Bird House has an extremely efficient plan and the illusion of space is maximised through the use of a void and floor to ceiling glazing enabling a greater connection to the environment. Exterior cladding is carried through from the courtyard wall, to the entry of the main pavilion and draws people upstairs to the open plan living area where views of the bushland and Gold Coast can be appreciated. Passive solar design principles, and cost effective materials and construction methods have been utilised to create a home that is functional, environmentally efficient and a pleasure to live in.

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Construction Begins on Project to Transform Railway Hangar into a Mixed-Use Library in The Netherlands

Posted: 22 May 2017 09:35 AM PDT

Construction has begun on the LocHal, a new mixed-use complex in Tillburg, The Netherlands. Designed by CIVIC Architects (a submember of The Cloud Collective) in collobaration with Braaksma & Roos architecten, Arup and Inside Outside, the project will be located in a former Dutch Railways hangar and maintenance facility, serving as a catalyst for the redevelopment of the city's 75 hectare railway district. Opening up the area to the public, LocHal will offer visitors a large public hall and plaza, work spaces, conference areas, galleries, a library, a music hall and restaurant.

"The spatial design suits the idea of an open and productive work area. Next to 'retrieving knowledge' the LocHall will be equipped for 'making knowledge' and for co-creation," explain CIVIC architects. "All this will happen in an open landscape of stairs and in open work spaces and studios, each with their own atmosphere. This combination of workspaces and creative rooms and studios can be found throughout the building. This will lead to a unique environment to organize affairs and business."

The building will adaptively condition the existing hangar space, using a climate concept catered to the needs of a roofed forum, with both localized and overall strategies. A stairscape seating area will be heated and cooled, and office spaces will feature their own sub-climates, allowing for energy efficient and optimal comfort within the monumental space.

The LocHal is expected to open in 2018.

Read the full project description by CIVIC Architects below:

In the Tilburg railway zone, the construction of the LocHal took off this week. Within the contours of the monumental locomotive hall, CIVIC architects in collaboration with Braaksma & Roos Architecten and Inside

Outside, designed a large public building. The project houses a public library, workspaces, conference rooms, exposition spaces, an art school, a glass music hall and an elevated foyer overlooking the city. The building adds a contemporary layer to the ancient typology of the library. It functions as a public space where visitors can read and lend books and other media but at the same time are stimulated to collectively share and develop new knowledge.

PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE ATELIER

The spatial design emphasises the concept. Large open spaces, stairs en open floors add to the value of the monumental hall and the idea of an 'open' library. The generous entrance in the new south facade connects the building with the most important routes in the railway zone. The visitor enters the LocHal at the large open public hall where all the functions in the building intersect. The stairs and terraces in this hall offer spaces to read and work and can also be used as exposition or performance space and debating area. With every step upwards the program and use of the space turns calmer and lighter. The public hall is flanked by two rows of impressive columns that guide the visitor through the building.

Six mobile and full height textiles offer the possibility to isolate workspaces or to temporarily transform the landscape of stairs into a theatre- or lecture hall. Spread through the building are so-called ''Stijlkamers": public workspaces with a specific theme and atmosphere. The library collection is organized around these chambers. The landscape of stairs connects with the co-working centre of Seats2Meet, which is itself surrounded by meeting halls. On the top floors, the individual workspaces of the library are situated next to a 60-meter-wide winter garden (the City Balcony) that offers a view over the city.

A NEW MONUMENT

The architectural language of the LocHal is robust, sturdy and timeless. The repetitive structure, structural clarity and robust detailing strengthen the existing architectural qualities of the industrial monument. Four materials are applied: concrete, steel, wood and glass. A new floor is casted onto the existing concrete floor and the current lubrication pits are covered with a crosscut wooden floor. The ascending concrete landscape of stairs is partially finished with wood. Steel concrete floors are visibly suspended from the old crane construction. Staircases and closed volumes are made of either structural or blue steel cladding. Higher in the building, the elements turn more refined. Light enters from everywhere. The large textiles provide the LocHal with the necessary softness and warmth. The fabrics also have an acoustic function: they make it possible to isolate a concentration space in the middle of the busy urban hall.

The design of the new architecture relates to the existing structure in size and material: smooth blue steel planes versus the existing patina of the compiled columns and crane tracks, moving textiles follow the crane rails and the wooden stairs refer to the industrial crosscut wood. The city balcony is suspended above the entrance. On this new structure, the glass façade and roof have been designed as a contemporary interpretation of the existing hall. The steel curtain wall on the ground floor is in size fully tailored to the existing railways running through the building. This curtainwall can be partially opened at specific points so railway wagons equipped with green gardens can still be driven in- and outside.

A PUBLIC INTERIOR

The building is open to the public 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. The opening hours and accessibility of the different functions differ. For every situation, the right accessibility can be organised. With this flexibility, a public activity in the public hall combined with use of the kitchen can be organised with the rest of the building closed off. The building is climatized locally and adaptively conditioned for mixed use. The open city hall has an intermediate climate that renders it suitable as an indoor forum, seats on the landscape of stairs are heated and cooled and the offices have their own sublimate. This creates a flexible and comfortable interior climate while preserving the monumental shell.

PUBLIC INTERIOR AS CATALYSER FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT

The construction of the LocHal catalyzes the redevelopment of the 75ha Spoorzone in Tilburg. An area in the middle of the city previously used by NedTrain for the production and maintenance of trains. The building connects and activates public roads all around. Its location in the middle of a public transport node and the transparency of its construction will turn the building into an attractive hub for sharing knowledge and information for the entire region.

INTENSIVE CO-CREATION

In an intensive process of co-creation, the three offices CIVIC Architects, Braaksma & Roos and Inside-Outside made the architectural design. Arup was responsible for all other advisory services. Binx is responsible for engineering and construction. The library of Midden Brabant has appointed Mecanoo to provide the furnishment design.

News via CIVIC Architects - The Cloud Collective.

Architects: Civic Architects, The Cloud Collective
Location: Tilburg, The Netherlands
Architect: CIVIC - TheCloudCollective
Restoration Architect: Braaksma & Roos architecten
Interior & Textiles: Inside Outside – Petra Blaisse
Interior Design Library: Mecanoo architecten
Construction Management: Stevens van Dijck Bouwmanagers & Adviseurs
Technical Consultants: Arup (structural design, installation design, building physics, sustainability, lighting design, fire safety advise and acoustic design)
Contractor Engineer & Build: Binx Smartility
Advisors Binx Smartility : DNDP construction engineers (executive architects); F. Wiggers construction and engineers office (executive constructor); ABT Wassenaar (construction physics, acoustics, fire safety); SOM (building exploitation); Linneman advise and construction (BREEAM certification)
Glass Lounge: Octatube
Design & Coordination: CIVIC - TheCloudCollective, Braaksma & Roos architects, InsideOutside and Arup
Area: 11200.0 m2
Project Year: 2018

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Glass Farmhouse / Olson Kundig

Posted: 22 May 2017 08:00 AM PDT

Architects: Olson Kundig
Location: Oregon, United States
Architect In Charge: Jim Olson
Area: 1440.0 m2
Project Year: 2008
Photographs: Tim Bies , John Clark

From the architect. Surrounded by wheat fields on a high-altitude plateau stand a small glass house and a solid, traditional barn. The owners, inspired by Philip Johnson's Glass House, wanted a refuge that opens up to the prairie and mountains. The structures are conveniently close to each other and enjoy a sense of isolation at the end of a long country road. The roof of the wood-frame barn, which houses farm equipment below and guest rooms above, was inspired by the local vernacular and is echoed in the shed roof of the glass house.

Three sides of the house consist of high-efficiency glass framed with steel; on the north is a solid exterior wall. Inside the transparent shell, living, eating, and sleeping areas surround an enclosure that contains the bathroom, study, and storage. The house rests on a concrete slab supported on a concrete foundation. In this way, the heat-absorbing and—releasing thermal mass is isolated from the ground plane. The window system combines transparency with energy-efficiency. Heat loss and gain is managed largely by the orientation of the house: on the south side, an eyebrow, or light shelf, deflects midday summer sun but admits low-angle winter sunlight.

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World Architecture Festival Announces the 2017 Awards 'Super Jury'

Posted: 22 May 2017 07:30 AM PDT

2015 World Building of the Year Winner, The Interlace (Singapore) / OMA and Ole Scheeren. Image © Iwan Baan

The World Architecture Festival (WAF) has announced four internationally recognized names as members of the Super Jury that will judge the awards program at the 2017 Festival in Berlin this November. After the selection of winners from across 31 categories on the first two days of the event, category winners will present to the Super Jury, who will decided the winners of the World Landscape, Future Project and Completed Building of the Year Awards.

Leading this year's Super Jury will be jury chair Robert Ivy Chief Executive Officer of the American Institute of Architects. He will be joined by Nathalie de Vries, Director & Co-founder of MVRDV; Ian Ritchie, Founder of Ian Ritchie Architects; and Christoph Ingenhoven, Founder of Ingenhoven Architects.

These four join the list of over 80 festival judges made up of influential figures from the architecture world, including Gert Wingårdh, Sergei Tchoban, Sanjay Puri, Robert Konieczny and ArchDaily's David Basulto.

In addition, the deadline for entries to the 2017 WAF Awards has been extended to June 2nd, 2017, giving architects one last chance to submit their projects for the prestigious awards slate. For more details on how to enter the WAF Awards please visit www.worldarchitecturefestival.com

The 2017 World Architecture Festival will be held at Arena Berlin in Germany from 15-17 November 2017.

News via WAF.

WAF Reveals Theme for 2017 World Architecture Festival
THE ENTRY DEADLINE IS TODAY! World Architecture Festival (WAF) has announced the theme for the tenth edition of the conference: 'Performance.' Held November 15-17 at the Arena Berlin in Germany, the festival will focus on the topic of performance in architecture.

World Architecture Festival Launches Manifesto for the Architectural Profession
The World Architecture Festival has announced the launch of the 10th edition of the event referred to as the "Oscars of architecture" by launching the "WAF Manifesto," which identifies key challenges the profession will face over the next ten years.

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POP XYZ / Triptyque

Posted: 22 May 2017 06:00 AM PDT

Location: Vila Madalena, São Paulo, Brazil
Area: 8000.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

Authors: Carol Bueno, Greg Bousquet, Gui Sibaud, Olivier Raffaelli
General Manager: Luiz Trindade
Projects Manager: Bianca Coelho, Beatriz Hipólito
Visual Comunication: Felipe Alves
Collaborators: Marcella Verardo, Murillo Fantinatti, Pedro de Mattos, André Mathias, Vinicius Capela, Paula Megiolaro, Luis Canepa, Daniele Groszmann
Incorporation: Idea!Zarvos.
Landscaping: Rodrigo Oliveira.
Structure: Gama Z.
Installations: Tesis.
Air Conditioner: Willem Sheepmaker & Assoc.
Lightning: Estudio Carlos Fortes.
Waterproofing: PROASSP.
Topographic Modeling: Topografia.com.
Fundations: Portella Alarcon.
Construction: Lock Engenharia

From the architect. The particular urban base of Vila Madalena neighborhood in São Paulo defined the project created by Triptyque Architecture: a residential complex built in Arapiraca Street. The integration with its context - a neighborhood of old houses, close to bars and restaurants - was the main objective of Triptyque's architects, in order to make a natural dialogue between the 8000m2 volume of construction and its relief.

For this, the architects decided to split the complex into eight randomly distributed blocks, each one with an independent access, whose the position guarantees the best view and optimizes the ventilation and the natural luminosity. A ninth block shelters the elevators, the shafts and the stairs, it concentrates the exits of the metallic footbridges: place of circulation and socialization between the inhabitants.

The result is a configuration of apartments allowing for privacy equal to independent houses. With generous terraces and a wide ceiling-height, the units varies from studio to triplex and can have different layouts. The shared area in the upper floors and particulary the walkways, are bathed in sunlight and ventilated by the wind.

The collective memory of Vila Madalena takes place in the choice of coatings, which the predominance of projected concrete - rough and rustic material, almost primitive, in graphite color - is a reference to the very used coating for the old constructions of the district.

The historical reference also appears in ceramics, as a mention to the Portuguese, the first immigrants who occupied the region. The blue and white azulejos, a tribute to the artist Athos Bulcão, cover all internal facades. Smooth and reflective, they give life to the facades while illuminating the center of the ground. The apparent layers of the gabions give a brutalist aspect to the whole.

The vegetation plays a central role in this project, whether in the plats attached to the walkways, as in the ground-floor, where the green density creates an atmosphere of urban forest under the building. As if the building spring up from the jungle, opening like a square to the city.

At the building's both entrances, the porosity fades the limit between the ground and the sidewalk creating a blurred boundary between the public and the private, and thus revealing the generosity of the project as a whole. "We have designed the Arapiraca building integrated to its context, but at the same time, with a striking and innovative presence," conclude the Triptyque Architecture's partners.

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Zaha Hadid Architects Breaks Ground on Sky Park Development on Industrial Site in Bratislava

Posted: 22 May 2017 04:30 AM PDT

Zaha Hadid Architects have broken ground on the construction of a new 5.5 hectare development in Bratislava, Slovakia. Known as 'Sky Park,' the master plan will transform an abandoned site in a formerly industrial area of the city into a 20,000-square-meter park and mixed-use community containing more than 700 apartments and 55,000 square meters of office and retail space.

ZHA was selected as the winners of the competition for the site in 2010. The development will fill a much-needed gap in the city's housing market, where a majority of the existing housing stock is located within 'paneláks,' a type of housing block quickly constructed during the country's postwar housing shortage.

"Sky Park is an important link between Bratislava's contemporary culture, emerging nature and history," said Patrik Schumacher, principal of Zaha Hadid Architects.

At the heart of the site, the historic Jurkovičova Teplárne heating plant designed by architect Dušan Jurkovič – which had recently been threatened with demolition – will be preserved as a cultural monument and repurposed within the Sky Park development. Unlike other competition proposals, which featured enclave-like perimeter blocks, ZHA's design will allow public access to the historic site and park, allowing the area to become an integrated part of the surrounding community. Other public amenities wil include an amphitheater, playgrounds, picnic sites, running tracks, a sports field, a dog park and an orchard.

"Sky Park is currently one of the most important Penta projects, not only due to the size of the investment, but also due to the overall significance for our capital city, with its concept and solution of public spaces," commented Jozef Oravkin, partner in Penta Investments, the project's developer.

The project will be built over two phases: Phase 1 will feature three residential towers and 4,200 square meters of office space, while Phase 2 will add an full office tower, a restaurant pavilion and an underground parking structure. Nearly 60% of the apartments from Phase 1 have already been sold.

With preparatory work now underway, Phase 1 of the project is slated for completion in late 2019.

News via ZHA.

Architects: Zaha Hadid Architects
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Zha Design: Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher
Zha Master Plan And Concept Design Project Architects: Jens Borstelmann and Thomas Vietzke
Zha Project Director: Jim Heverin
Zha Project Architect: Craig Kiner
Zha Project Team: Brian Dale, Javier Rueda, Evgeniya Yatsuk, Ganesh Nimmala, Theodor Wender, Irena Predalic, Moa Carlson
Executive Architect: GFI a.s.
Area: 55000.0 m2

Zaha Hadid Architects Reveal Ecological Residential Complex for the Mayan Riviera
Zaha Hadid Architects has revealed plans for a new ecologically-considered development located on a lush site along the Mayan Riviera in Mexico. Known as Alai, the complex will offer a nature-focused living experience while preserving a large portion of the forested site for species restoration.

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MW House / Riofrio+Rodrigo

Posted: 22 May 2017 04:00 AM PDT

Architects: Riofrio+Rodrigo
Location: Asia District, Peru
Architect In Charge: Roberto Riofrio, Micaela Rodrigo
Electric Design: Ing. Jaime Alca Yañez
Area: 400.0 m2
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Juan Solano Ojasi

Work Team: Yvonn Jhong Coquis
Structure: GCAQ ingenieros civiles
Water And Plumbing Installations: Ing. Roberto Pain Peralta
Building: EF Contratistas

From the architect. The relief of the desert hills, an extension of the Andes mountains that reach the sea, characterize the geographic space where the project is located. The proposal for this seasonal house sought to establish a direct relationship with the surrounding environment via the structure's main volume and with the materials and textures used.

A first block is planted in an "L" shape, this directs the view of the main rooms of the house towards the nearest hills. The second "L", made up of service rooms and entrances, is a smaller scale than the main block and serves to establish a direct relationship with the street. In an effort to articulate a connection, an open space is used to bring together all sectors of the house.

There is an ongoing dialogue between the environment and the house. The concrete material, the language of repetitive rhythms through the pillars and columns, the green roof and the landscaping emphasize this dialogue as well as grant the project the defining character of recreational and rest housing.

The first block is divided into a main house with living room, dining room, kitchen, wine cellar and a bedroom. Connected through the open courtyard there are secondary and guest bedrooms. The service block includes laundry, bedrooms, car parking, kitchen and a storage space.

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Bring New York's Never-Built Projects to Life With This Kickstarter

Posted: 22 May 2017 03:30 AM PDT

Buckminster Fuller Dome 1961. Image Courtesy of Metropolis Books

The "Never Built" world so far includes Never Built Los Angeles, a book and exhibit, and the book, Never Built New York. Now, the Queens Museum hopes to continue the exploration into the New York that might have been with a Never Built New York exhibition and has launched a Kickstarter campaign with a goal of $35,000 to make it happen. The exhibition, curated by Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin and designed by Christian Wassmann, will explore 200 years of wild schemes and unbuilt projects that had the potential to vastly alter the New York we know today.

Frank Gehry Guggenheim Museum 2000. Image Courtesy of Metropolis Books

Opening September 2017, the crowdsourced funds will bring the show to life for the first time with original drawings, renderings, newly-built models, and 3D visualizations. As an added bonus for supporters, the available rewards for contributing to the Kickstarter include an exhibition print, special access to the exhibit, and even one of the 3D printed models from the exhibit. The funding will go to support the gallery installation, showing rarely-seen models, drawings and sketches--including more than seventy models to be installed on the Museum's Panorama of the City of New York model.

Rufus Gilbert Gilbert's Pneumatic Railway. Image Courtesy of Metropolis Books

By seeing the visions of what New York could have looked like, visitors to the exhibit also get to understand the backstory of why the city looks the way it does today. Some of the most visionary and innovative concepts for New York also give visitors an insight into the design process of the creative minds that dreamt them up. Many of the unrealized designs highlight the fact that society's most pressing social issues are entirely tied up in the built environment; some of the craziest schemes were in response to perceived social problems that still ring true today. The Queens Museum hopes that public support for the Kickstarter can start a community dialogue about addressing these problems in innovative ways.

Thomas Hastings and Daniel Chester French National American Indian Monument 1908. Image Courtesy of Metropolis Books

The Kickstarter campaign and the exhibit itself is a chance to inhabit a world that never was. Fall down the rabbit hole and you'll find yourself among well-known names but unfamiliar surroundings. Could you picture a glass dome covering Manhattan? Buckminster Fuller did, in the interest of creating a perfect climate year-round. What if the Sixth Avenue Elevated Line was instead a pneumatic railway, complete with Gothic arches and Corinthian columns? Ellis Island, too, could have looked much different before it became a national monument. Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned it as an entirely self-contained city of the future with air-conditioned domes and moving sidewalks. The exhibition will allow you to forget, for a time, the reality of what came to be and instead spend an extended daydream with some of the most visionary creative thinkers of the past two centuries.

Charles Lamb's Diagonal Plan. Image Courtesy of Metropolis Books

To support the exhibition, visit their Kickstarter page here.

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"Don't Blame Me!": 6 Projects That Were Disowned by High-Profile Architects

Posted: 22 May 2017 02:30 AM PDT

© <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/tseedmund/5351328288/'>Flickr user tseedmund</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/'>CC BY 2.0</a>

Construction is an exercise in frugality and compromise. To see their work realized, architects have to juggle the demands of developers, contractors, clients, engineers—sometimes even governments. The resulting concessions often leave designers with a bruised ego and a dissatisfying architectural result. While these architects always do their best to rectify any problems, some disputes get so heated that the architect feels they have no choice but to walk away from their own work. Here are 6 of the most notable examples:

1. Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia

© <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Opera_House#/media/File:Sydney_Opera_House_-_Dec_2008.jpg'>Wikimedia user Diliff</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en'>CC BY-SA 3.0</a>

While now widely considered one of the most iconic examples of 20th-century architecture, Jorn Utzon's stunning Sydney Opera House emerged despite a bitter conflict with the New South Wales government and Utzon's eventual resignation. Utzon's relationship with Sydney's Minister for Public Works Davis Hughes was extremely contentious. When Utzon wouldn't budge on his intricate wooden window, corridor, and seating designs, Hughes scoffed and labeled the architect an "impractical dreamer." As the ensuing battle between vision and budget worsened, Utzon, who infamously referred to the debacle as "Malice in Blunderland," dramatically quit. He never returned to Australia, and never saw the completed Opera House in person.

2. Copenhagen Opera House, Copenhagen, Denmark

© <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/18378655@N00/2894726149/'>Flickr user James Cridland</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en'>CC BY 2.0</a>

Danish architect Henning Larsen didn't know what he signed up for when he agreed to design Copenhagen's newest opera venue for client Maersk McKinney Møller. Møller, cofounder of shipping conglomerate Maersk would entirely fund the $500 million building, giving him total control over Larsen. The two repeatedly bickered over most of the projects details. The most controversial element was Møller's insistence on metal ribbons of the facade, strangely resembling a radiator grill of a midcentury American car. Larsen even threatened to quit the project, but never went through, fearing a lawsuit from Møller. By the time the building opened in 2004, Larson had called the project "a failed compromise" that resembles "a toaster," and before his death in 2013 he made further attempts to distance himself from the project, including a 2009 exposé on the building's construction titled You Should Say Thank You: A Historical Document about the Opera.

3. Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles, California

Courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Studio Pali Fekete architects, AMPAS

In 2014, Zoltan Pali of Culver City-based SPF Architects resigned from his collaboration with Renzo Piano on the new Academy Museum, currently under construction next to LACMA in Los Angeles. The complicated project essentially amounts to an ambitious theater orb tacked on to the back of the renovated 1930s May Company Building, which Pali was already in charge of the renovating when Piano was brought on to design the orb in 2012. When Pali bowed out, The Hollywood Reporter uncovered internal conflict between the two architects; however, this conflict was denied by the museum itself.

4. Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Ithaca, New York

This peculiar structure was the work of famed British architect James Stirling and his partner Michael Wilford. What was supposed to be Cornell University's grandest venue ended up a homely hodgepodge due to unexpected rises in cost and awkward changes. The difficulties associated with the site's proximity to a gorge meant the original grand lobby had to be nixed in favor of a downsized side entrance. What was meant to be a heroic veneer of brick and limestone was substituted for tan stucco and cheap marble. The Schwartz now amounts to a confused, underused facility, with both architects expressing frustration and dissatisfaction with the finished project.

5. Città delle Culture Museum, Milan, Italy

David Chipperfield exonerated himself from his $60-million museum for Milan shortly before its opening in 2015. After the architect expressed discontentment with the cost cutting stone flooring used, a highly publicized battle ensued. When Culture Minister Filippo Del Corno insisted the Chipperfield was an unreasonable architect to work with, he responded by claiming that the flooring turned the building into a "museum of horrors."

6. Philharmonie de Paris, Paris, France

Also in 2015, renowned French architect Jean Nouvel not only sought to legally divorce himself from Paris's newest concert hall, he actually boycotted the opening. "The architecture is martyred, the details sabotaged" Nouvel lamented in an editorial for French newspaper Le Monde about the behind schedule, over-budget monstrosity. While the building has been praised for its exceptional acoustic properties, the exterior remains a butchered interpretation of Nouvel's intentions. The architect was so distraught that he claimed his client held a genuine "contempt for architecture, for the profession and for the architect of the most important French cultural program of the new century."

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56 Leonard Street / Herzog & de Meuron

Posted: 22 May 2017 02:00 AM PDT

Architects: Herzog & de Meuron
Location: 56 Leonard St, New York, NY, United States
Project Architects: Herzog & de Meuron
Executive Architect: Goldstein, Hill & West Architects
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Iwan Baan

Client: Izak Senbahar, 56 Leonard LLC, c/o Alexico Group LLC, New York, USA

From the architect. The high-rise tower is an important ingredient within the contemporary city. However, towers have come to be defined solely by their height and, as a type, they have become anonymous. Typical residential towers, while successful in aggregating the living unit, often fail to improve upon the living environment. The multiplication of units within simple extruded shapes produces repetitive and anonymous structures with no extra benefits or architectural qualities despite the incredible densities they achieve. For those who live in these structures, this experience of sameness and repetition can be relatively unpleasant. 56 Leonard Street acts against this anonymity and repetitiveness, emanating from so many towers of the recent past. Its ambition is to achieve, despite its size, a character that is individual and personal, perhaps even intimate.

The project is conceived as a stack of individual houses, where each house is unique and identifiable within the overall stack. A careful investigation of local construction methods revealed the possibility of shifting and varying floor-slabs to create corners, cantilevers and balconies – all welcome strategies for providing individual and different conditions in each apartment. At the base of the tower, the stack reacts to the scale and specific local conditions on the street, while the top staggers and undulates to merge with the sky. In-between, the staggering and variation in the middle-levels is more controlled and subtle, like in a column shaft.

To break-up the tendency towards repetition and anonymity in high-rise buildings, 56 Leonard Street was developed from the inside-out. The project began with individual rooms, treating them as "pixels" grouped together on a floor-by-floor basis. These pixels come together to directly inform the volume and to shape the outside of the tower. From the interior the experience of these pixels is like stepping into a series of large bay-windows.

The strategy of 'pixelating' rooms also happens in section, creating a large number of terraces and projecting balconies. While careful to avoid directly overlooking a neighbouring apartment, these outdoor spaces provide indirect visual links between people – maybe strangers – who share the building. Aggregated together, these houses-in-the-sky, form a cohesive stack, a vertical neighbourhood, somewhat akin to New York's specific neighbourhoods with their distinctive mix of proximity and privacy in equal measure.

The top of any tower is its most visible element and, in keeping with this, the top of 56 Leonard Street is the most expressive part of the project. This expressiveness is driven directly by the requirements of the interior, consisting of ten large-scale penthouses with expansive outdoor spaces and spacious living areas. These large program components register on the exterior as large-scale blocks, cantilevering and shifting according to internal configurations and the desire to capture specific views, which ultimately results in the sculptural expression of the top.

Meanwhile, the base of the tower responds to the special character of Tribeca. This is a part of New York characterized by a wide range of building scales - from small townhouses to large industrial blocks and the ubiquitous high-rise buildings of downtown. By grouping together 'pixels' of various sizes, including lobby, parking decks and housing amenities, the tower reflects and incorporates each of these neighbourhood scales.

The overall appearance of the tower is very much a result of accepting and pushing to the limit simple and familiar local methods of construction. As a volume, the building has extreme proportions – at the very edge of what is structurally possible – and given its relatively small footprint, is exceptionally tall and slender. The building also shows its structural 'bones' and does not hide the method of its fabrication underneath layers of cladding. Instead, exposed horizontal concrete slabs register the floor-by-floor stacking of the construction process and exposed in-situ concrete columns allow the scale of the structural forces at work to be experienced from within the interior. The system of staggering, setbacks and pixelation is further animated through operable windows in every second- or third- façade unit. This unusual feature for high-rise buildings also allows occupants to directly control fresh air intake.

Together these different strategies – considering the tower from the inside-out, responding to local scales, and maximizing the potential of local construction systems – produce a building where only five out of the 145 apartments are repeated. Furthermore, no two floor plates are the same, giving those who will live in this project their own unique home characterized by distinct moments of individuality within the overall stack.

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Advice For Procrastinator Architects

Posted: 22 May 2017 01:00 AM PDT

Collage: "The Storm" by Pierre-Auguste (87.15.134). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-. [1] (January, 2007), under public domain + Emoji One [Wikipedia], under license CC BY-SA 4.0. Image © Nicolás Valencia

Scrolling through memes of cats in disguise. Checking if food has magically appeared in your refrigerator every ten minutes. Obsessively arranging books on your shelf by color. Renaming your computer's folders. In short, we seem to thrive on any irrelevant activity to avoid starting a reading, essay, model, or project. Procrastinate now, work later. Your future self can take care of business, after all.

As we suffer through long and strenuous projects, it is likely that we have all slipped into procrastination in order to avoid our next task. Not only do we avoid confronting work at the office or university studio, but also those personal errands which, if we dedicated ourselves, would enhance our daily lives. Below, based on our own experiences and expert opinion, and in order to avoid a host of other jobs around the ArchDaily office, we present 10 tips for architecture procrastinators, helping you to focus on the site analysis diagrams you should probably be doing right now!

1. Do not expect to be in the mood. Just do it.

How many times have began your 'to do list' by looking for the perfect environment to work in? You look for a wide table, a comfortable chair, and soft lighting. Wouldn't coffee make you work faster? What music will you listen to? After half an hour of crafting the perfect cappuccino and composing the ultimate study playlist, you end up discarding your work plan because you never had the necessary frame of mind to face it.

Timothy Pychyl, a Canadian psychologist and academic at Carleton University (Ottawa), in a World Economic Forum article regarding procrastination, says that we are deceived into believing that our state of mind must fit the activity we are doing. "I must admit that I rarely feel [ready to do my next task], and it does not matter if I do not feel it," he explains.

Instead of focusing on your emotions, focus on your next task, he advises.

2. Break larger tasks into small pieces.

'Owning the world's largest architecture firm' is an overly simple idea, but in reality, it requires several smaller steps rather than one large leap. Doesn't it sound ridiculous to plan on owning the world's firm, without a broken-down vision about how do achieve it? The same principle applies for your workshop assignment - the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Procrastination is often associated with bad emotions, studies have suggested. When a task is daunting or overwhelming, it becomes much easier to postpone it with GIFs of your favorite TV series. Pynchyl suggests that a good step is to break your tasks into small steps. Each completed step will make you feel better and increase your self-esteem as you face the next stage.

3. Define deadlines.

After months of working on your thesis, you are within hours of the delivery and you think "if I had more time, I would have done so much of this differently." Of course, it would be wonderful to have all the time in the world to worry only about this one project. The same goes for all your long-term ideas that you have never materialized ... because you always felt as though it can be left for another day! What happened to those swimming lessons? What about traveling the world? Someday you'll start, but not now, right?

By not defining deadlines, your ideas will always stay in your mind, but may not be enacted. Think about your plans and set a deadline, accomplishing them in stages and small steps. It may not ensure success, but it will provide you with a specific, achievable long-term goal.

4. Plan your calendar.

Want to plan without using apps? It's time to meet Bullet Journal, a very simple system created by designer Ryder Carroll. You will only need pencil and paper, and unlike other methods where they ask you to adapt to them, Bullet Journal is easy and clear to structure.

Bullet Journal allows you to view the status of your projects in a semester, monthly, weekly and daily, as tasks (.), Notes (-) and events (°). As you complete your daily activities, you delete them. If you do not reach it, you can postpone them (>), and if you delay it a lot, you will probably realize that it is not relevant, or it is necessary to rephrase or divide it into a sequence of more specific activities.

The feeling of progress is always satisfactory, but if you multitask, you may never know that feeling, because there is always something else to do. Bullet Journal makes a difference.

5. Do not connect your WhatsApp account to your computer. Never.

If social networks distract you while you work, adding your WhatsApp account to your computer is not a good idea. When you finally get into the rhythm of working, a badly timed yet hilarious meme from a friend can destroy your momentum.

It is important to separate spaces: it is like sleeping, having lunch and studying in bed. It becomes much more difficult to effectively use a room or an object if you associate it with too many activities.

6. Turn off WiFi on your phone. If it is urgent, they will call you.

You may be nervous about temporarily disowning Whatsapp on your computer, thinking "What if someone needs me?", The answer is simple: leave your cell phone without the internet and connect only when you give yourself a break. If it is urgent, they will call you. If you really want your work ethic to take off and soar, put your phone in flight mode.

That meme that was sent to you by Whatsapp can wait.

7. Separate the urgent from the important.

Self-described "professional procrastinator" Tim Urban, creator of the blog Wait But Why, suggests that there are different types of procrastinators (some are distracted by watching GIFs and others cleaning their room), but none of them focus on their long-term goals. Too many people prioritize momentary urgency over long-term importance.

Supported by the Eisenhower Matrix, Urban states that we should spend our time on what is really valuable, that is, on "important and urgent" (a set of drawings for tomorrow's client) and on "important but not urgent" (winning the Pritzker Prize, for example), because that's where, according to Urban, "people thrive, grow and flourish."

Unsurprisingly, most procrastinators spend their energies on the "urgent and not important," apart from when deadlines are looming.

8. Structure your week and your times according to your abilities.

It is unrealistic to ask that we be efficient 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but we do know that there are times when some work better than others. It may be early mornings through to the afternoon, or early afternoon through to the evenings. It may be earlier in the week when we have more energy, or closer to the weekend when we can see the finishing line. Allocate the most important and urgent tasks for your peak performance hours, leaving more trivial, monotonous tasks for when your mind and body need a chance to cool down.

9. Face the fear of failure

Yes, this title sounds as though it came direct from Master Yoda, but it's true: procrastination and perfectionism usually walk hand in hand. Productivity consultant Julie Morgenstern explains to The New York Times that waiting until the last minute gives perfectionists the perfect excuse: they did not have enough time. If you do not get to work, you cannot be critiqued on tangible ideas, and thus you postpone the possibility of being wrong. It's a flawed logic.

In this regard, corporate coach Rory Vaden explains that "the most productive people tend to focus on progress over perfection." As you we know, in all projects, the first drafts will differ greatly from the final project. The road is long and full of entanglements, mistakes, successes and a lot of perseverance. As Yoda would say, "do or do not, there is no try."

10. Concentration comes while you work.

In the book Daily Rituals, author Mason Currey explores the routines of the great minds of our society. Whether prioritizing long walks to concentrate like Tchaikovsky or Beethoven; Organizing strenuous working days like Frank Lloyd Wright, or painting naked like Le Corbusier, they all built their schedules in order to do the best work possible, for the passion that finally pushes them to work.

When you work, concentration will inevitably come at some point. That is the best advice.

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Maidan Tent - Architectural Aid for Europe's Refugee Crisis

Posted: 21 May 2017 11:00 PM PDT

© Bonaventura Visconti di Modrone, Leo Bettini Oberkalmsteiner

Over the past two years alone, more than a million people have fled the Syrian conflict to take refuge in Europe, strenuously testing the continent's ability to respond to a large-scale humanitarian crisis. With the Syrian Refugee Crisis still unresolved, and temporary refugee camps now firmly established on the frontiers of Europe, architects and designers are devoting energy to improving the living conditions of those in camps fleeing war and persecution.

One emerging example of humanitarian architecture is Maidan Tent, a proposed social hub to be erected at a refugee camp in Ritsona, Greece. Led by two young architects, Bonaventura Visconti di Modrone and Leo Bettini Oberkalmsteiner, and with the support of the UN International Organization for Migration, Maidan Tent will allow refugees to benefit from indoor public space – a communal area to counteract the psychological trauma induced by war, persecution, and forced migration.

The process behind Maidan Tent began in 2016, with the design team making eight visits to the refugee camp, and reflecting on their conversations with refugees. They recognized a psychological 'migration trauma' within the community, the result of dangerous journeys in improvised or unsafe rafts across the Mediterranean Sea.

In refugee camps, a sprawling arrangement of tents and containers, and a lack of common areas can generate alienation and disorientation. The design team, therefore, believe that the public, organized common area offered by Maidan Tent can allow the community to play, interact, and empathize under a moveable, sheltered, expressive structure. The word 'Maidan' is itself derived from the Arabic for 'square', further reflecting the scheme's dedication to social interaction.

Maidan Tent covers an area of 200 square meters aluminum structure is covered by a water, wind, and fire resistant textile, offering a sheltered, safe environment for up to 100 people. The shelter is inherently flexible, with standardized components allowing for easy installation and maintenance, and eight modular spaces which can be adapted for a range of uses. The scheme's circular shape is a conscious attempt to invite people to enter from any direction, where a series of semi-private spaces can enable refugees to establish personal relationships.

Pending additional funding, Maidan Tent aims to be operational by the summer of 2017. The cost of the Maidan Tent is projected to be €50,000, a small price to pay for a medical and psychological center, a playground for children, a gathering place to eat, buy and sell goods, learn and teach, pray, discuss and exchange ideas. Most importantly, replication of the center can offer temporary respite for millions of refugees as global leaders search for a solution to one of the largest humanitarian crises of our time.

Donations to the ongoing fundraising initiative for Maidan Tent can be made here.

News via: Maidan Tent.

7 Architectural Solutions for Asylum Seekers Shown by the Finnish Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale
The 2016 Venice Biennale may have officially closed in November, but many of its constituent parts continue to have a life beyond the confines of Venice. From Border to Home, the exhibit hosted by the Finnish Pavilion, showcased the results of an international architecture competition between October and November of 2015 that called for residential solutions for asylum seekers that offer both short-term shelter for refugees and long-term impact on the surrounding community.

Humanity and Art Entwined - How NADAAA's Exhibit Became Blankets for Syrian Refugees
Jordanian artist Raya Kassisieh, with the support of American firm NADAAA, has repurposed her exhibit from the Amman Design Week in Jordan to create blankets for Syrian refugees and Jordanian families. The Entrelac exhibit, created by Kassisieh and NADAAA, consists of 300kg of hand-knit, un-dyed wool which was later cut and stitched to create blankets for those fleeing the Syrian Civil War, now approaching its sixth year.

Abeer Seikaly's Structural Fabric Shelters Weave Refugees' Lives Back Together
Whether from political unrest or natural disaster, refugee crises around the world seem to fill the headlines of late. These events inspired interdisciplinary designer Abeer Seikaly's conceptual emergency shelter, entitled " Weaving A Home," which received a Lexus Design Award in 2013.

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Galeotas House / Appleton & Domingos

Posted: 21 May 2017 10:00 PM PDT

Architects: Appleton & Domingos
Location: Av. da Índia, Lisboa, Portugal
Architects In Charge: Isabel Domingos, João Appleton
Area: 3150.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

Foundations And Structures Project: Eng. Júlio Appleton, Inês Avó Almeida, A2P
Demolition Project: Eng. Júlio Appleton, Inês Avó Almeida, A2P
Water Supplier Project: Eng. João Guimarães, NaturalWorks
Drainage Project: Eng. João Guimarães, NaturalWorks
Electrical Installations Project: Eng. Tiago Costa Oliveira, NaturalWorks
Communication Installations Project: Eng. Tiago Costa Oliveira, NaturalWorks
Gas Installations Project: Eng. João Guimarães, NaturalWorks
Air Conditioning Project: Eng. Guilherme Carrilho da Graça, NaturalWorks
Acoustic Project: Eng. Guilherme Carrilho da Graça, NaturalWorks
Fire Protection Project: : Arq. Paulo Ramos, ETU
Exteriors Spaces Project: Arq. João Junqueira, Arq. Nélia Martins
Waste Management: Eng. João Guimarães
Security Plan: Eng. Nuno Appleton

From the architect. Galeotas House is a set of several buildings originally dedicated to storage and housing, constructed between the18th and the 20th centuries and considerably damaged at the starting point of the project development. The intervention aims at preparing the site to host the headquarters of UCCLA - União das Cidades Capitais de Língua Luso-Afro-Amero-Asiáticas - and CAL - Casa da América Latina -.

Located in the river front of the city, surrounded by Rua da Junqueira and Avenida da Índia, the site faces the embankment constructed during the 19th and the 20th centuries. The first register of this complex in the city plans dates from 1807. However, this document only shows the west side building of the complex. It is necessary to wait about a hundred years to see the whole complex represented in Silva Pinto’s 1911 plan. The site includes industrial / storage areas on the ground floor and residential areas upstairs with some humble apartments, probably occupied by employees, and another one, whose bourgeois character indicates the occupation by the factory owner. All buildings – east, south and west – compose a U form.

The project responds to different functions organized into four sectors: 1) restaurant / cafeteria, on the west building’s ground floor, which can be used as an independent program if necessary; 2) UCCLA’s administrative area, placed at the south and west volumes; 3) CAL’s administrative area, located in the south building; 4) shared programs, namely the auditorium and the exhibition room, occupying the ground floor of both south and east (new one) buildings. The main entrance to the site is granted by a covered passage which connects Avenida da Índia to the interior garden around which the complex is organized.

From here it is possible to access the restaurant and both UCCLA and CAL’s receptions. Other entrances exist at Travessa dos Algarves, correspondong to former accesses to the apartments now changed into service entrances to the restaurant. Finally, new entrances are created at the east front, notedly from the parking area.

Placed in the older building of the site, at the west side, the restaurant has a capacity for up to 200 people. Inside, where the existing pavements and the missing arch are restored, the ceiling structure is left apparent, contributing to emphasize the tectonic character of this room. The restaurant also offers an esplanade area facing the south side of the garden. Both exhibition room and auditorium, used by UCCLA and CAL, may me function apart from the rest of the complex. To assure this, there is an entrance court from the parking area that allows independent access to these spaces beyond working hours.

The foyer – function assigned to the new constructed volume - is a sprawl space attached to both auditorium and exhibition room. Its contemporary image is provided by a wooden and glass structure that wraps up the whole east volume.

The UCCLA and CAL administrative areas are distributed along the facade, following a modular sequence fixed by the rhythm of the openings emplacement, using a compartment system that grants a flexible use of the space. Technical installations also relate to this module, taking advantage of the openings’ rhythm.

The project is meant to keep all existing elements of cultural relevance. The east constructions are preserved in order to protect the complex’s historical memory. This old storage space gives place to the auditorium - a multi functional space with 88 seats – where one can still see the existing wooden structure. Many technical aspects, namely acoustic ones, resulting from the option of safeguarding the existing volume, are solved by the use of wooden wall finishing (iroko planks).

In fact, wood plays an important role in establishing connections throughout the intervention, creating continuity between different parts of the complex, between old and new. Its use on floor and ceiling structures – glued laminated timber with national pinewood -, doors and window frames – iroko or red Scotch pine wood– floor planks and stairs – riga oak – spans the whole complex. Outside, the presence of wood in the glued laminated structure (Douglas fir) contributes to the new volume’s contemporary image. This structure also acts as a brise-soleil for the foyer.

In general, the project’s decisions lead to floor preservation – exception to the main stairs’ hall – and to the integration of new roofs.

Tiles Project

The tiles project, from architects Catarina and Rita Almeida Negreiros, is one of the key elements of the intervention. It promotes the perception of this project as an intervention that calls for continuity instead of rupture.

The work developed in the south volume consists of coating its east, south and west’s facades. Knowing that the 19th century original tiles were only enough to cover a third of the facade, it was necessary to create new tiles based on a simplification of the original motif. This motif – a stamped pattern in a single tile – is decomposed by the isolation of one element of the original pattern in each of seven variants. New tiles can be distinguished from the original ones, reflecting its new production techniques.

Starting from a dense composition of original tiles, placed in the lower part of the facade, the arrangement of the seven new types of tiles creates an effect of dilution towards the top of the facade, where totally white tiles are used solely.

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Look Inside a Collection of Parisian Architecture Offices, Photographed by Marc Goodwin and Mathieu Fiol

Posted: 21 May 2017 09:00 PM PDT

Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin, alongside Mathieu Fiol, has recently completed the fifth collection of his "ultra-marathon of photoshoots" – this time in la Ville Lumière, Paris. Following Goodwin's insight into the spaces occupied by Nordic architectural offices, his look at studios both large and small lived in by London-based practices, his lens on a collection of Beijing-based studios and, most recently, his and Felix Nybergh's study of studios in Seoul, the project has now focused on the French capital.

Architecture-Studio

In this space since: 1973
Number of employees: 150
Former use: herbalist
Size: 2650sqm

Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW)

In this space since: 1992
Number of employees: 95
Former use: art gallery
Size: 1500sqm

Périphériques Marin + Trottin

In this space since: 2000
Number of employees: 15
Former use: metal tube merchant
Size: 240sqm

LAN

In this space since: 2009
Number of employees: 27
Former use: clothing workshop
Size: 150sqm

DATA

In this space since: 2016
Number of employees: 17
Former use: artists' lofts
Size: 265sqm

Laisné Roussel

In this space since: 2011
Number of employees: 18
Former use: joinery and later manufacturer of food colorant
Size: 375sqm

Philippe Rizzotti

In this space since: 2016
Number of employees: 6
Former use: CIAT (Centre International des Arts de la Table) showroom
Size: 110sqm

Richez Associates

In this space since: 2007
Number of employees: 72
Former use: office
Size: 950sqm

archi5

In this space since: 2006
Number of employees: 34
Former use: printer of vinyl record sleeves
Size: 900sqm

Nicolas Dorval-Bory

In this space since: 2011
Number of employees: 2
Former use: electrical shop
Size: 21sqm

Martinez Barat Lafore

In this space since: 2014
Number of employees: 2
Former use: private dwelling
Size: 100sqm

Thomas Raynaud (BuildingBuilding)

In this space since: 2010
Number of employees: 5
Former use: private dwelling
Size: 50sqm

PARC

In this space since: 2010
Number of employees: 10
Former use: printing house
Size: 95sqm

Jean-Paul Viguier et Associés, Architecture et Urbanisme

In this space since: 1995
Number of employees: 110
Former use: medical supplies warehouse
Size: 1500sqm

Jean-Paul Viguier et Associés. Image © Marc Goodwin

Tanka Klyne

In this space since: 2013
Number of employees: 2
Former use: scooter parking space
Size: 30sqm

XTU

In this space since: 2014
Number of employees: 20
Former use: office space
Size: 100sqm

Look Inside a Selection of Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish Architecture Offices, Photographed by Marc Goodwin
Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin has recently completed "the ultra-marathon of photoshoots:" twenty-eight architectural offices in twenty-eight days, spread across four capital cities - Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Helsinki. His aim was to understand what sort of spaces architects in the Nordic countries operate in, and how they differ between each respective country.

Look Inside a Collection of London-Based Architecture Offices, Photographed by Marc Goodwin
Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin has recently shot the second collection of his "ultra-marathon of photoshoots" - in London. Following his unique insight into the spaces occupied by Nordic architectural offices (based in Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki), Goodwin has turned his lens to a broad collection of practices in the British capital, captured in just seven days.

Look Inside a Collection of Beijing-Based Architecture Offices, Photographed by Marc Goodwin
Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin has recently completed the third collection of his "ultra-marathon of photoshoots" - this time in Beijing. Following his unique insight into the spaces occupied by Nordic architectural offices (based in Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki) and his look at studios both large and small lived in by London-based practices, Goodwin has turned his lens to the burgeoning number of offices in the Chinese capital.

Look Inside a Collection of Seoul-Based Architecture Offices, Photographed by Marc Goodwin and Felix Nybergh
Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin , in cooperation with Felix Nybergh, has recently completed the fourth collection of his "ultra-marathon of photoshoots" - this time in Seoul.

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utorak, 23. svibnja 2017.

Arch Daily

1. Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia

2. Copenhagen Opera House, Copenhagen, Denmark

3. Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles, California

4. Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Ithaca, New York

5. Città delle Culture Museum, Milan, Italy

6. Philharmonie de Paris, Paris, France

1. Do not expect to be in the mood. Just do it.

2. Break larger tasks into small pieces.

3. Define deadlines.

4. Plan your calendar.

5. Do not connect your WhatsApp account to your computer. Never.

6. Turn off WiFi on your phone. If it is urgent, they will call you.

7. Separate the urgent from the important.

8. Structure your week and your times according to your abilities.

9. Face the fear of failure

10. Concentration comes while you work.

Architecture-Studio

Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW)

Périphériques Marin + Trottin

LAN

DATA

Laisné Roussel

Philippe Rizzotti

Richez Associates

archi5

Nicolas Dorval-Bory

Martinez Barat Lafore

Thomas Raynaud (BuildingBuilding)

PARC

Jean-Paul Viguier et Associés, Architecture et Urbanisme

Tanka Klyne

XTU

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