Arch Daily |
- Fire Station in Houten / SAMYN and PARTNERS
- A•lava / Aalto University Wood Program
- DASA House / Snow AIDe
- DP Group Headquarters / SO
- Runner Camp Flagship Store / PRISM DESIGN + OFFICE COASTLINE
- Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance Hivision Center / Junglim Architecture
- Paris and Los Angeles Selected as 2024 and 2028 Olympic Hosts
- Morgan Phoa Library and Residence / Zoltan E. Pali + Studio Pali Fekete architects
- Call for Entries: 2018 Skyscraper Competition
- Look! Look! Look! / Studio Morison
- Bauhaus Houses, Eritrea's Capital and Ahmedabad's Walled City Among 20 Cultural Sites Added to UNESCO's World Heritage List
- Residential Building in St Sulpice / Lacroix Chessex
- Ling Institute / Isay Weinfeld
- Decades After the Rise of CAD, Architecture Is Going “Paperless”—For Real This Time
- Multi-Sport Pavilion and Classroom Complex / Alberto Campo Baeza
- 7 Abandoned and Deteriorating Latin American Architectural Classics
- The History of One of the Best Theaters in the World: Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires
Fire Station in Houten / SAMYN and PARTNERS Posted: 11 Jul 2017 08:00 PM PDT
From the architect. The municipal authority in Houten (Netherlands) commissioned the Samyn and Partners practice to build a small fire station on a site surrounded by lots of green space. The municipality of Houten has a hybrid fire fighting force : four professional firefighters, and around sixty volunteers. The building agenda set a requirement that there should be space to accommodate six fire engines. The theme in drawing up the design is the radical divi- sion of the roof structure from the internal organization. It represents the idea of the shelter, the independence of the shell from the building itself. The building's interior is in keeping with the client's requirements. The choice of a parabolic form for the roof is the result of the search for elegance of form, and also brings about an optimization of the structure. The fast method of construction was a further significant factor favoring this choice at the fundamental design stage. There is a two-way split of the interior. The south side has been conceived as a completely transparent space in which just glass has been used. Here, the firefighting equipment is kept in what resembles a large shop win- dow. This barely heated hall is intended to serve as a climatic buffer zone, both in winter and in summer. All the other functions have been gathered together in the northern half of the building, a construction built of load bearing brickwork. From the open corridors, there is a view onto the fire engines. The ground floor houses showers, changing rooms and the sanitary provisions as well as storage rooms for mechanical equipment. A conference room and a cafeteria for the firefighters are situated on the first floor. The office spaces are located on the second floor with storage rooms for technical equipment on top. In this socially problematic area of the city, it was asked to the 2200 five to seven years old schoolboys and schoolgirls of the 22 schools of the city to represent the epic of the firemen on DIN A3 - size panels. The 2200 panels, changing color as a flame from dark blue at the bottom over green an yellow to orange at the top, were laid out on the main brick wall of the Fire Station, renamed "house of the firemen". It resulted into a magnificent hieroglyph-like composition protected by the glazed façade. The project gathered all the families of Houten, so that an emotional link was woven between the population and the building. In this way, the "house" is protected from the vandalism it was like- ly to suffer before that, in each family, a little brother or a little sister's piece of artwork was integrated in the work. The glazed façade incorporates large overhead gates designed to allow the firefighting force to make a quick operational exit. The building's length runs in an east- west direction which allows the southern façade to incorporate photovoltaic cells. The fire station's overall form appears as a modern variant on the traditional theme of the shed. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
A•lava / Aalto University Wood Program Posted: 11 Jul 2017 07:00 PM PDT
From the architect. Designed and constructed by a team of 20 students from the Aalto University's Wood Program, the pavilion provides a sheltered stage for Annantalo, an art center for young people and families in the center of Helsinki, Finland. The stage is build as a semi-permanent building and will accommodate various art events from the school during the summers for the next five years. The stage is based on a square shape plan to provide a flexible and democratic space suitable for many types of presentations. The flexibility of the space intends to be a tools for the teachers and students of the school in there creative process. The design provides a main stage for artists and a 60 people audience, with the possibility to extend the show outside and host a larger event. A variation of triangular shapes that determine the walls and openings of the stage also serve as structural elements of the project. The geometry of the roof follows the same principles, raising up to emphasize the location of the stage by means of a set of beams forming a parabolic structure. The walls and deck structures were prefabricated from solid spruce wood in the program's workshop in Otaniemi and assembled on site. The glulam beams were factory made and assembled on site in one day. Plywood sheets for the covering were CNC cut to adjust to the geometry and assembled on site the same day. Each step of the project has been documented lovingly online through the official website (a-lava.com) as students tracked the many steps of building a quality design at full scale. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Posted: 11 Jul 2017 05:00 PM PDT
From the architect. A small town near Nakdong River is a place where the client spent his youth. He wanted to come back to his hometown and spend rest of his life in his new house. The site was the deepest place in town and a good place to overlook the town. There was a limitation of using site due to planned future road on the back of bamboo woods. To maximize green space, the house was placed following the shape of the boundary on the town side. The overall shape of the house is ascending from the entrance to the upper floor like a ridge. Since the client walks with difficulty by accident, most of his activities are need to be possible on one level. Circulation and space arrangement should be simple. The ground level is planned to be used by the client couple, and the upper floor level is for He has a son and a daughter. The main entrance is located one floor up from the street level. The porch covered by a big black roof is leading to the narrow corridor. Space followed by the curved wall is expanding in its volume dramatically at living space. From the living space, space is splitting to master zone, fitness area, and upper floor. While walking up on the steel staircase, bamboo woods appear through the windows. Resting at the bathtub is an important ritual for the client. The pine tree, which is seen through the square window at master bath is showing the changes of season. Horizontal windows in the upper floor rooms are showing framed view of the mountain and the bamboo woods. This house is about balance and contrast. One side facing the town is rigid and dark. The other side facing nature is soft and bright. Dark metallic brick and black zinc were used for Town faced façade. Bright limestone was used for curved façade which is face to bamboo woods. Inner space burst out from the entrance to living room. The volume of the space expands dramatically. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Posted: 11 Jul 2017 03:00 PM PDT
From the architect. The new headquarter for DP Group is a renovated 4 storeys building where the owner wanted to give a rebirth with natural aspects, in order to have it in return to their staffs. The glass courts with garden filled with natural light were introduced to give the new connection between floors and to revise the flow of all the working space. Some of the floor plate including the huge lifeless balcony were erased to insert those glass courts, skylights and tree to be the new staples of each space and let the working area happening around them. The balcony and building's frontal are embraced by the new expanded metal facade for sun shading and also to capture the potential of a sheltered open space. DP Group is actually a family business with a sense of warm working atmosphere. The owner's penthouse is placed on the top floor, and the executives' working duplex is at the very back of the building with it own stair and glass court for their privacy, almost like a family home office well connected to each other and looking after the whole company closely. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Runner Camp Flagship Store / PRISM DESIGN + OFFICE COASTLINE Posted: 11 Jul 2017 01:00 PM PDT
From the architect. This projects is Collaboration Design by PRISM DESIGN and OFFICE COASTLINE, It is a design concept called Urban Athletics from a desire to run healthy and stylishly throughout the city of Shanghai. As a design aspect, express as a large staircase in the space as if to go through lightly and refreshingly the difference in height of the Upper Highs in Pudong area from Puxi area of Shanghai the scenery. And get inspired from general industrial materials in the town as a material we are adopting it. Adopted gratings metal used at drains as the main unit, fusing UNIT, which is required for Boutique. And we use general industrial materials such as sound absorbing material, heat insulating material, concrete. As for the management side, with the 1-2F double layer stacking cut out, 1F is a store and shoes consulting experience area, 2F is a runner's platform such as GYM training function specialized for running, large space interactive exercise using LED display, shower room · locker etc. Urban workers run with the Sunrise and run with the sunset. That scene is Orange which is a brand color. They recommend start, a new lifestyle that is healthy and stylish in the Shanghai city. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance Hivision Center / Junglim Architecture Posted: 11 Jul 2017 12:00 PM PDT
From the architect. To replace demolish the small, old build a new training center will be better suited to the purpose of training. It was launched with the following goals: 1. Take advantage of the superior natural environment of Gonjiam. 2. Overcome the limited size of the actual site available for building within the boundaries of the site. 3. Address the problem of visual interference with the existing training center accommodation building and the cramped nature of the landscape. 4. Improve the recognizability of the facade of the training center that has been reduced by the existing trees (metasequoia). The main goal of the project was to create a single place in harmony with the surroundings while reflecting the above four issues. In other words, the project aimed to avoid "exaggerated forms" and "showy interiors" which are usually found in other training centers, and create a place in which trainees can communicate with one another in a forest by encompassing the surrounding forest. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Paris and Los Angeles Selected as 2024 and 2028 Olympic Hosts Posted: 11 Jul 2017 10:25 AM PDT Paris and Los Angeles will become the next Olympic host cities, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted unanimously to approve a plan simultaneously awarding the 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games to the competing cities. Which city will host each year, however, is still on the table – the two bid cities and the IOC will have until a September 13 conference in Lima to reach an agreement. If they cannot agree, solely the 2024 Olympics will be awarded, though this outcome seems unlikely after recent collaborations by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. "We welcome the executive board's decision to recognize two excellent bids from two of the world's greatest cities," said Garcetti prior to the vote. "We look forward to working together maybe not in competition but collaboration with Paris. "LA is ready to throw these Olympics in two months, if we were asked, or two decades if it came to that. LA is ready because the infrastructure, the love and the vision to make sure it's something that serves this movement and serves the people of our city." In a report issued last week, the IOC found both bids to be "outstanding" and more than capable of delivering a successful Games. Both cities' campaigns promoted the use of existing facilities as opposed to large-scale new construction, after arenas and developments built for the Games in both Athens and Rio have since been left abandoned and caused economic stresses for their respective countries. Learn more about Los Angeles' bid here, and Paris' bid here. News via New York Times.
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Morgan Phoa Library and Residence / Zoltan E. Pali + Studio Pali Fekete architects Posted: 11 Jul 2017 10:00 AM PDT
From the architect. Located in the Los Feliz area of greater Los Angeles, this project was a rare opportunity to restore and build onto a historically designated property originally designed by Wallace Neff in the 1920s. Work included the interior renovation of the family room, restoring the ceiling archways and demolishing its north facing wall for a new entry way. A carefully designed palette of hardscape introduced a balanced outdoor area, and a pool addition, lined with tiles from the historic Jackling House, designed by George Washington Smith and once owned by Steve Jobs, gave reason to further enjoy the southern California climate. A new two-story building, consisting of a garage on its first level and a private library on the second level, includes storage, a reading area and a powder room. The building addition's most distinct feature is its metal screen façade. The screens open like shutters for clear views of the property, and when shut, allows for privacy, sun shading and environmental control. The screen panels are made of bronze anodized aluminum – water jet cut for a precise and patterned variable apertures, referencing the original home's precast concrete window grilles. Although this is a contemporary design for the historic site, the building's form and exterior materials match the historic home. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Call for Entries: 2018 Skyscraper Competition Posted: 11 Jul 2017 08:15 AM PDT eVolo Magazine is pleased to invite architects, students, engineers, designers, and artists from around the globe to take part in the 2018 Skyscraper Competition. Established in 2006, the annual Skyscraper Competition is one of the world's most prestigious awards for high-rise architecture. It recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the implementation of novel technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution. It is a forum that examines the relationship between the skyscraper and the natural world, the skyscraper and the community, and the skyscraper and the city. The participants should take into consideration the advances in technology, the exploration of sustainable systems, and the establishment of new urban and architectural methods to solve economic, social, and cultural problems of the contemporary city including the scarcity of natural resources and infrastructure and the exponential increase of inhabitants, pollution, economic division, and unplanned urban sprawl. The competition is an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community. It is also a response to the exploration and adaptation of new habitats and territories based on a dynamic equilibrium between man and nature – a new kind of responsive and adaptive design capable of intelligent growth through the self-regulation of its own systems. There are no restrictions in regards to site, program or size. The objective is to provide maximum freedom to the participants to engage the project without constraints in the most creative way. What is a skyscraper in the 21st century? What are the historical, contextual, social, urban, and environmental responsibilities of these mega-structures? eVolo Magazine is committed to continue stimulating the imagination of designers around the world – thinkers that initiate a new architectural discourse of economic, environmental, intellectual, and perceptual responsibility that could ultimately modify what we understand as a contemporary skyscraper, its impact on urban planning and on the improvement of our way of life. SCHEDULE JURY AWARDS
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Look! Look! Look! / Studio Morison Posted: 11 Jul 2017 08:00 AM PDT
From the architect. Look! Look! Look! sees a striking sculptural pavilion created by internationally renowned artists Heather and Ivan Morison take centre stage at the National Trust's historic Berrington Hall in Herefordshire. The dusty pink structure inhabits the walled garden at the Georgian mansion, highlighting the importance of this piece of 'living history' as the final masterpiece by iconic Georgian landscape designer Capability Brown. The artists were inspired by the popularity of garden buildings or 'eye-catchers' such as these in the Georgian era. The folded form of the structure echoes the geometric shapes found in the interior design of the mansion, and it also bears more than a passing resemblance to a pineapple - inspired by eighteenth- century traditions of importing exotic fruit, particularly pineapples which are thought to have been once grown at Berrington. The artists spent more than a year researching Berrington's Georgian history and the significance of the walled garden which would have been used as a symbol of the family's wealth, cultivation and contemporariness. The resulting work tries to reconnect with some of the fundamental ideas, themes and activities that were present in the Georgian garden, to trace them out to wider Georgian life, and specifically back to Berrington Hall and the National Trust's collection. The artists first designed the structure in paper using origami, then worked with structural engineers, Artura, to bring the designs to life. The pavilion is built using a sunked metal foundation frame, held with screw anchors, with a timber structure over-laid with a special woven fabric which can withstand all weathers – in a pink colour chosen from a traditionally Georgian palette. The structure was broken down into 90 frames; each made up of an intricate jigsaw of cnc'd timber pieces, constructed at the artists' studios. The fabric was pulled over and fixed to each rhomboid and then assembled on site in the walled garden. The wooden cobbled floor is made from timber which is cut, brunt and then oiled to make it weather- resistant. The final piece looks strong and sculptural from far away, but takes on a translucent appearance from inside. The artists have also created bespoke, sculptural furniture housed inside the pavilion which echoes the geometric form of the structure. Both beautiful and functional, Look! Look! Look! is open to the public until December 2019 and will house a programme of events and activities including music and yoga. The project also marks the start of Berrington's plans to raise funds to research and restore its walled garden back to its Georgian origins. Look! Look! Look! Is part of Trust New Art – the National Trust's programme of projects are developed in partnership with Arts Council England, making new works by established and emerging artists available in unique and historic settings. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Posted: 11 Jul 2017 07:00 AM PDT UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, currently holding its forty-first annual session in the Polish city of Krakow, inscribed twenty new cultural sites on its World Heritage List, including the historic city of Ahmedabad in India, archaeological sites in Cambodia and Brazil, and a "cultural landscape" in South Africa. The Committee also added extensions to two sites already on the list: Strasbourg in France, and the Bauhaus in Germany. On the other hand, the historic center of Vienna was inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger as the Committee examined the state of conservation of one-hundred-and-fifty-four of its listed sites. The walled city of Ahmedabad, India's 28th cultural addition to the list, is strongly tied to India's independence movement; the city's Sabarmati Ashram was home to Gandhi from 1917 to 1930 before he left to undertake the Salt March, a major act of civil disobedience against the British Raj. Founded in the fifteenth century as the capital of the Gujarat Sultanate, the city later earned the title, "Manchester of India," due to its burgeoning textile industry. This varied history has left Ahmedabad with a rich architectural heritage: fort walls and gates, mosques, tombs, Hindu and Jain temples, and modern mills. The urban fabric, however, is the city's most unique element: traditional houses (pols) are densely packed along gated traditional streets (puras) with characteristic features such as bird feeders and public wells. Also included on the list was the Valongo Wharf Archaeological Site. Located in the former harbor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the structure provides the most important physical trace of the arrival of African slaves on the South American continent. An estimated 900,000 enslaved Africans landed on the stone wharf which contains floor paving in the characteristic pé de moleque style. The Committee also added the city of Asmara to the list. The Eritrean capital was initially developed as a military outpost for the Italian colonial power before it underwent various phases of planning between 1893 and 1941. This large scale construction program saw the application of the Italian rationalist idiom of the time to the city's governmental edifices, churches, mosques, and synagogues. Today, Asmara stands as an exceptional example of early modernist urbanism and its application in an African context. An important site which received inscription is the Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine in southern Poland. While the majority of the site is underground, the surface remnants of the mine's nineteenth-century steam water management system are of particular importance – they testify to the continuous efforts made over three centuries to drain undesirable water from the mines to supply towns and industries. Other examples of cultural sites that made it to the list include the island of Okinoshima in Japan, which provides a chronological record of the tradition of worship of a sacred island, and the international settlement of Kulangsu in China, where the urban fabric showcases the result of cultural fusion that emerged out of early-twentieth-century Sino-foreign exchanges. Furthermore, the Committee extended the bounds of the Bauhaus site in Germany, home to the movement which revolutionized architectural thinking and practice in the twentieth century. Originally comprising the groups of buildings and monuments located in Weimar and Dessau built under the direction of Walter Gropius, the site now includes the Houses with Balcony Access in Dessau–three-story brick blocks for low-income students–and the ADGB Trade Union School in Bernau built under the direction of Gropius' successor, Hannes Meyer. The List of World Heritage in Danger, designed to inform the international community of the present conditions of heritage sites, and to encourage corrective action, received two additions; Georgia's Gelati Monastery was removed. The Historic Center of the Austrian capital of Vienna received inscription on the list due to the threat it faces from high-rise projects that fail to comply with the Committee's decisions. The medieval Mamluk town of Hebron / Al Khalil in Palestine, a new addition to the World Heritage List, was simultaneously added to the endangered list. The town's distinctive housing typology of room arrangement according to a tree-shaped system, which has persisted through its Ottoman occupation, faces several threats today. Below we list the twenty new additions to the World Heritage List:
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Residential Building in St Sulpice / Lacroix Chessex Posted: 11 Jul 2017 06:00 AM PDT
From the architect. This residential building is the third project executed by Lacroix Chessex on Bochet street in St Sulpice village (Switzerland), between House Guignet and Villa Sabbatini. The building is composed of six residential appartments in co-ownership and can be thought of an addition of two single houses - two parallelepiped rectangles with their ridges - out of which a clover with straight edges would have been cut. One leaflet faces the north on the road side, where the entrance is situated, the other two face the south-east and the south-west. Each three floors is divided into two parts from the north to the south and is composed of two appartments of 4.5 rooms (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 kitchen opened on the living room, 1 veranda and 1 balcony). The spaces are accommodated in symmetry with the staircase situated in the center. Each appartment includes a wooden veranda on the South which allows the outdoor spaces to literally enter into the interior ones. The balconies have been conceived similarly at the south (on the south side) whereas the bedrooms are all oriented towards the west and the east. The main entrance, the kitchen, the dining and living rooms create all together a wide and complexe range of perspectives, with openings up to 180 degrees and with two floors in height for the appartments of the second floor. The various materials used for these appartments give a rather rough but warm atmosphere and invite for a longer stay: the wood in the bedroom floors, a stone floor in the living spaces, a concrete ceiling and white walls. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Ling Institute / Isay Weinfeld Posted: 11 Jul 2017 04:00 AM PDT
From the architect. Ling Institute building, located at a corner in the neighborhood of Três Figueiras, in Porto Alegre, is a volume that, seen from the street, is low and slightly raised from the soil, as an object hovering amidst the garden. The main façade, to the southeast, is practically solid – the one opening is the entry door, accessible through a winding ramp that rises above the garden. In contrast, the southwest façade is lighter and more transparent, with vertical fins to control the lighting from the inside. From the entrance and moving forward, visitors go along a succession of galleries. They give access, at different points, to the reception, the store, the café and a small area for exhibitions, before getting to the auditorium lobby. Each section along that gallery opens differently to the exterior, devised as to control the incoming light, according to its intended use. Thus, the first stretch receives screened lighting, through the vertical fins/glass panes mounted on the façade – the reception and store are in this section. Moving on, the café is to the right. Here, there is an alternation between a solid wall and a glass pane extending from floor to ceiling, with doors that open onto an open-air terrace. Finally, on the right again, there is the exhibition area and the auditorium vestibule, flooded by abundant natural lighting from the top. Finishes along the circulation/gallery are neutral, with white walls and ceilings and grey cement flooring. In opposition, the supporting areas, housed in open recesses along that circulation (store, café, auditorium hall and staircase), boast wood-paneled walls. Taking a different route, to the right of the main entrance, is the access to classrooms, meeting rooms, toilets and the stairs to the lower level. The lower level houses the event hall, show kitchen for classes, tasting room and administrative area. The kitchen was designed to hold cooking classes, but also serves to support events. It is connected to a tasting room – with a twelve-seat dining table – integrated in its turn to the side garden. The event hall allows for the organization of presentations, musical performances and various social activities. Wrapped in glass on two of its sides, it opens onto the back and side gardens. The prevailing finishes throughout this level are white walls and ceilings and hardwood flooring, except for the kitchen and tasting room, where the floors were covered in ceramic tiles. The building also features a second basement with parking, storage rooms, technical areas and staff locker rooms. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Decades After the Rise of CAD, Architecture Is Going “Paperless”—For Real This Time Posted: 11 Jul 2017 02:30 AM PDT If you visit an architecture office today, you may sense a slight change. The days of bulky desktops, ergonomic mouse pads and tower-high stacks of drawing sets are slowly giving way to digital pencils, tablets, and tons of architects' hand-drawings—both physical and digital. Architects across the globe are clearing their desks, literally, and utilizing emerging touchscreen tools and software for designing, sharing and collaborating. It seems possible that, for the first time in years, the architecture profession could revisit Bernard Tschumi's "paperless" studio which formed a key part of his tenure as dean of Columbia University's GSAPP in the mid-1990s. However, this time, "paperless" starts with a pencil, instead of a click. While Columbia University's "Paperless" studios of the early to mid 90s kicked off the shift toward computer aided designing and drafting, they were initially about questioning how architects think through the tools they are using for representation—ie drawing in all its forms. Students experimented with programs far and wide throughout all phases of the design process and that exploration has not slowed in the decades since, vastly expanding the number and type of programs architects use with fluency every day. However, there was one unexplored holdout in our digital design arsenal, and it just may be one of architecture's most beloved and fundamental tools: canary yellow trace paper. How do you sketch over a computer model? How can you mark up PDFs of construction drawings with both precision and ease; how much do you miss just sketching through a problem, and actually having something to show for it? Developments in touchscreen technologies have opened up a new world of possibilities for architects and designers, and they continue to unfold. With the touchscreen and a good digital pencil, architects can now add sketching, drafting, hand-drawn commenting and mark-ups to their digital workflow—and yes, even bring our good friend trace paper into the mix. Software made for architectural drawing means that scales, rulers, furniture, entourage, notation stencils, and a wide range of pens are at your disposal at all times. Sean Gallagher, director of sustainable design at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is one of the architects leading this charge and testing its limits. Tools like Morpholio Trace, the iPad Pro, and Apple Pencil are literally changing the way Sean works on a daily basis, and he's not alone. According to Sean, the simple fact is that the touchscreen software available today offers better precision and greater range than in the past, making it possible, once and for all, to clear his desk. Sean's love affair with the touchscreen began back in 2012. He realized that with the iPad he could instantly place photos and screenshots into a virtual notebook. "I'm a visual person, and can't think through an idea without collaging together sketches and images," he says. "It's a process I did manually for decades with my sketchbook." Now, he not only uses the iPad as a sketchbook but as his everything tool—enabling him to get rid of all other computers on his desk. "It has given me back the space to think, so now all I see in front of me is my library, sketch models and drawings; not keyboards, monitors, and mounds of paper." In the concept phase, Sean uses Morpholio Trace to sketch through ideas freely and with a full set of pens, pencils, brushes and markers at his fingertips, no matter where the idea strikes him. In the schematic design phase, those sketches start to take on scale as he goes back and forth with his team, fluidly drawing on top of models and diagrams. In Design Development, he finds himself constantly sketching details and marking up drawings with a red pen. Once the construction documents are issued, it is easy to continue markups as well as sketch on top of site photos to issue "SKs" and full job reports. While any team still relies on an array of software to bring a job to fruition, Sean's role, like many, is about communicating ideas, and that can now be done digitally. Several companies—Adobe, Autodesk, Concepts, and Morpholio—are making apps specifically for architects that make sketching on glass more or less similar to sketching with paper. The key difference is the ability to wield the computational advantages of greater precision, endless editability, duplicating, multiplying, layering, and so on, making the experience wildly more powerful than with paper. "It changed the static nature of my sketches, the process became less linear and more fluid, and I became more comfortable with sketching through ideas. The touchscreen interface has strengthened my love for sketching through ideas, and has really improved my craft." The moment when Sean used the Apple Pencil for the first time on the larger iPad Pro touchscreen, he knew there was no going back and began reconsidering his daily workflow. Since the widespread adoption of computer techniques such as CAD and BIM, the computer has come under fire for what many perceive as a tendency to alter the design process to its own ends; software is seen as a filter which restricts and shapes the architectural ideas available to architects. But contrary to popular wisdom, in a 2013 symposium at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Tschumi argued that in his own Paperless Studios, "the computer did not generate a new language, it simply accelerated the existing concerns of a talented group of people." Perhaps, having finally replicated and improved architecture's most intuitive processes, the second coming of paperless architecture is at last living up to the dreams of its predecessor. If you would like to try Morpholio Trace, you can find it here. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Multi-Sport Pavilion and Classroom Complex / Alberto Campo Baeza Posted: 11 Jul 2017 02:00 AM PDT
From the architect. Designed for the campus of the Francisco de Vitoria University in Pozuelo (Madrid), the building houses a sports center and classroom complex. It includes the use of sports halls, multi-purpose rooms, a gymnasium, swimming pool, physiotherapy, etc. The sports complex can also be used as a large multi-purpose area and meeting hall, facilitating a range of university activities. The design of the building is restrained and volumetrically adapted to the general layout of the campus in terms of maximum height and alignment. And it is intended to clearly differentiate the sports and teaching areas in terms of volume and façade material. The fundamental element of the project is a large translucent box of light, 60x50x12m, filtered and controlled, entering into a spatial relationship with the main square of the campus. Two clean, well-defined boxes are joined together by a low-rise building whose roof becomes an inter-connecting patio. The sports pavilion is designed with lightness in mind, in GRC glass fiber reinforced concrete, unlike the more closed classroom complex and low interconnecting building. In the volume of the sports complex the orientation of the various sides are valued differently, so that the facades of the southern dihedral, more exposed to sunlight, are enclosed in a prefabricated panel of GRC glass fiber reinforced concrete, while those of the northern dihedral are in translucent glass. The southwestern facade features a low strip of transparent glass highlighting the link with the main square of the campus. And this mechanism of transparency is repeated on the north eastern facade facing the upper patio. Thus a visual relationship is created between the square and the sports complex, while the southwestern façade of the classroom complex becomes a backdrop to the complex as a whole. The structure of the pavilion is in steel: a grid of pillars and beams on the facades and trusses to resolve the great roof span. All painted in white. The remainder of the structure is in reinforced concrete, with the unique feature of wide angled beams over the basement swimming-pool area. The result is a building of great sobriety and formal restraint. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
7 Abandoned and Deteriorating Latin American Architectural Classics Posted: 11 Jul 2017 01:00 AM PDT How many lives does a great work of architecture have? The first begins when it is built and inhabited, judged based on the quality of life it provides for its residents. The second comes generations later when it becomes historically significant and perhaps its original function no longer suits the demands of society. The value of such buildings is that they inform us about the past and for that reason their conservation is necessary. However, in Latin America, there are countless cases of buildings of great architectural value that are in tragic states of neglect and deterioration. Seven such examples are: 1. Los Manantiales by Félix Candela |
The History of One of the Best Theaters in the World: Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires Posted: 10 Jul 2017 11:00 PM PDT Considered as one of best buildings for opera in the world, the Colón Theatre in Buenos Aires is internationally renowned for its acoustics and its heritage value, showcasing the Italian and French influence on cultural architecture in Argentina. It is situated in a privileged location of the city´s downtown, between the streets Cerrito, Viamonte, Tucumán, and Libertad. Inaugurated on the 25th of May in 1908, it had a significant impact and is considered one of the most emblematic historical monuments of the country. The Colón operated in two different buildings: it was first located in front of Plaza de Mayo between the years 1857 to 1888, it was then moved in front of Plaza Lavalle, where one of the city´s most important railway stations was located. The Italian architect, Francesco Tamburini, completed the initial designs for the current theater in 1980. However, after his death in 1981, the plans were modified and construction began under his partner, architect Víctor Meano. Four years prior to the theatre´s inauguration, Meano was murdered and the completion of the project was taken over by the Belgian architect Jules Dormal. In 1989, the Colón Theatre was declared a “Historic National Monument” and between the years of 2006 to 2010 the building underwent a process of extensive conservation maintenance and technological modernization, which was carried out by Argentinean heritage specialists and technicians. The building showcases an eclectic style from the beginning of the twentieth century. It has a total surface area of 58,000 meters squared. The main room is shaped in the form of an Italian horseshoe: its small diameter measures 29.25 meters, and its large diameter reaches 32.65 meters with a high of 28 meters. It has a capacity of 2,478 seats and can fit up to 3,000 including those standing. Originally, the French artist Marcel Jambon painted the dome of the main room, but its subsequent deterioration around the 1930’s resulted that it was left for decades without decorative painting. In December of 1965, Raúl Soldi was hired to restore the dome, which was completed by March of 1966. In the center of the dome, a bronze chandelier hangs with a total weight of over a ton and a diameter of 7 meters. Within the dome, there is a space that allows musicians to generate different sound effects. The Colón Theatre has specialized production workshops that are able to prepare all the necessary elements for staging a show, meaning that the majority of the curtains, stage designs and costumes are made in the same building. For a theater of these characteristics, acoustic quality is an important virtue. The quality of the acoustics in the Colón Theatre is owed to the technical knowledge applied in the form of a horseshoe. As it causes a proper reflection of sound it becomes an echo chamber. Additionally, the architectural proportions of the room and the quality of the materials – the distribution of the wood, the tapestries, the curtain and the carpets- maintain an equilibrium that contributes to the favorable acoustic conditioning. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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