Arch Daily |
- St Mary at the Quay / Molyneux Kerr Architects
- Green Apartment / Special Project Venediktov
- inSports Beijing / Powerhouse Company
- MIT Develops Multi-Material Design System Slated to Become “Photoshop of 3D Printing”
- Pathways Innovation Center / Cuningham Group Architecture + MOA
- Competition-Winning Design Proposes Wood Housing Addition to Fourth-Century Aqueduct in Istanbul
- Bunker Hill: The Memories of LA's Lost Neighborhood
- Townhouse / Les Ateliers Tristan & Sagitta
- Ubiquity and Uniformity: Why Toronto's Condominiums All Look the Same
- Portocarrero Palace Restauration / César Egea + Antonio Raso + Pedro Dugo
| St Mary at the Quay / Molyneux Kerr Architects Posted: 07 Jan 2017 09:00 PM PST  © Andy Marshall
 © Andy Marshall St Mary at the Quay, Ipswich reopens on 17 October 2016, as a heritage and wellbeing centre, 68 years after being boarded-up due to a dwindling congregation and WW2 bomb damage. This £5.1m regeneration project sees the rescue of a mediaeval grade II* listed building through a unique partnership between The Churches Conservation Trust and the charity Suffolk Mind.  © Andy Marshall  Section  © Andy Marshall Ipswich had been at the height of merchant and maritime prosperity between 1450 and 1550 when the church was constructed. At that time, the building found itself at the heart of the town surrounded by the houses of the wealthy. However, over the 19th and 20th centuries and as the town centre grew away from the quayside, St Mary found itself in an increasingly deprived and industrial backwater. The building was in a sorry state when saved from demolition in 1958 – stone decaying both internally and externally, the south side of the building suffering from structural movement and the under floor having been flooded with sewage.  © Andy Marshall Work on the current project began in 2008 when Suffolk Mind visited the building and saw potential to create a good working environment with strong historical links to the local community. A two year period of careful negotiations with the then English Heritage (now Historic England) was required before listed building consent was granted to add the 2 storey consulting room extension and to make the internal mezzanine interventions. A similar period was required for fundraising and successfully bidding to the HLF for a £3.6m grant. Identifying suitable contractors was difficult but after having done so, two phases of work on site has taken almost 2½ years.  Ground Floor Plan The insertion of the mezzanine structure to the south aisle has reason: it replaces ungainly internal concrete buttresses which were added in the 1960's – work which required careful temporary support of the building followed by pre-loading of the steelwork to receive lateral loads.  © Andy Marshall Considerable internal stone decay had been caused by rising saltwater from the ground. The insertion of stainless steel sheet barriers into the nave arcade columns below floor level has completely halted moisture movement and stone damage. All columns have been repaired carefully.  First Floor Plan The church and extension have underfloor heating throughout and all colours and materials have been chosen to sit comfortably with the limited palette of the existing building. Care was taken in cleaning and repairing the hammerbeam roofs and the new mezzanine deck has been designed to be as structurally slender as practicable (150mm) so that visually the intervention appears delicate and understated.  © Andy Marshall The project partners are grateful to the HLF for the £3.6m grant. Molyneux Kerr Architects are grateful to the CCT and Suffolk Mind for placing their trust in the practice's partners.  © Andy Marshall  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Green Apartment / Special Project Venediktov Posted: 07 Jan 2017 06:00 PM PST  © Andrey Avdeenko
 © Andrey Avdeenko Oleksii Venediktov a designer and architect from SPECIAL PROJECT VENEDIKTOV, has reorganized an apartment inside a high-rise residential building in a new home for a young family.  © Andrey Avdeenko The apartment is situated on the 30th floor of one of the highest buildings in Kiev. It's panoramic windows open a spectacular view of the city and the Dnieper River.  © Andrey Avdeenko The construction of the building, specifically its concrete frame, suggested the need to divide the living space into separate functional zones. The opportunities presented by the existing plan of the premises, were also factored into the future optimal apartment plan. The customers asked us to create an individual design, for unique living quarters. While discussing the project, we quickly found out how lucky we were to have similar tastes in design. We offered to use a rich color palette for this design concept; the colors of the interior should be highly compatible with the space, light, and shadows.  © Andrey Avdeenko An illusion of a larger space, compared to the actual parameters of the area, is created through the sophisticated color palette. The colors of the interior vary depending on different shades of natural light, and are changed significantly in artificial lighting. That is why it was crucial to make the photographic survey of the site both at daytime and at night.  © Andrey Avdeenko We favor minimalism and Scandinavian style, modern design objects, authentic materials, and original surfaces. In order to emphasize its texture, we decided to paint the concrete. We are confident that the future belongs to interiors, capable of triggering emotions.  © Andrey Avdeenko The apartment contains an open space consisting of the living room and the kitchen separated by a glass wall which allows light to freely pass through. The entrance hall, that includes the guest bathroom, is part of the open space providing access to the panoramic view from the window right from the doorway.  © Andrey Avdeenko  Floor Plan  © Andrey Avdeenko Perpendicular to the hall, there is a corridor leading to the private section, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Special premises accommodating a home office, a home cinema, and a bar, from inside which you can enjoy the beautiful view.  © Andrey Avdeenko The "Green Apartment" keeps altering its looks throughout the day; the interior is different in the morning, the day, and the evening, changing the atmosphere of the apartment with it.  © Andrey Avdeenko  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| inSports Beijing / Powerhouse Company Posted: 07 Jan 2017 12:00 PM PST  © Powerhouse Company
 © Powerhouse Company Powerhouse Company has completed its most recent project in Beijing, China. The 1,000 m2 project, located on the ground floor of the Yintai centre at Guomao, is a multifunctional social venue with ski and snowboard simulators, a sports area and dance club, all shaped in a white mountain landscape under a warm golden sky.  © Powerhouse Company The project is located between JianWai SOHO and the Park Hyatt hotel. The site is the latest addition to John Portman's Yintai Centre, and with a full glass facade it gives the project great exposure in the CBD area of Beijing.  Floor Plan Powerhouse Company was asked by developer Yintai to design the interior for their ski and sports experience centre called inSports. This high-end multifunctional venue facilitates activities like virtual skiing, virtual sports and endurance classes, while placing them in a social setting. Projections on floor and walls create a wide array of simulated environments. During the night the area is turned into a dance club.  Bar. Image © Powerhouse Company inSports follows a new trend in Chinese retail where live action and participation becomes an integral part of the retail experience.  Mountain platform and simulator. Image © Powerhouse Company The simulators function like a sideways treadmill; you can move left and right on your skis or snowboard while looking at a large screen with a projection of an idilic, dazzling snow slope which finely follows your movement for optimal experience results.  Axonometric This virtual aspect of the skiing intrigued the design team, and they created the concept of a digital summit scenery. Large triangles on a variety of platforms visualise mountains that organise the multifunctional area in a natural yet fluent way. The main seating elements around the ski simulators are integrated into the mountain shapes, and the triangular language is continued in central interior elements like the bar with DJ-booth and reception desk. The mountain landscape is constructed in white corian, which forms a harmonious contrast with the light grey sports floor and the golden anodised aluminium ceiling panels. The bold interior columns are cladded in large mirror panels making the structure disappear. A softer edge is given to the space with dark fabric panels, which cover the walls and improve the acoustics of the space. The bar and reception desk are both a combination of golden triangles and frosty white marble. A snowlike gradient covers the facade, and creates a beautiful and soft winter feeling for this cool new venue in China's capital city.  © Powerhouse Company  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| MIT Develops Multi-Material Design System Slated to Become “Photoshop of 3D Printing” Posted: 07 Jan 2017 06:00 AM PST Following last year's introduction of MultiFab, a multi-material 3D printer, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has pioneered a system for designing multi-material objects. The new interface, Foundry, is meant to be accessible to non-programmers, whereas multi-material 3D printing technology has historically been prohibitive both with respect to cost and user-friendliness.  Courtesy of MIT CSAIL The team at MIT hopes that Foundry will become 3D printing's analog to graphic design's Photoshop. To aid rapid prototyping, the platform enables the designer to assign distinct material properties to each part in a composite print. For example, it could produce a dental appliance containing a rigid, tooth-like material connected to a softer and more malleable material to merge with the gums. The software is compatible with any commercially available multi-material printer. Currently, users must import geometry from traditional CAD software into Foundry to designate material composition, but the researchers are looking into integrating Foundry into CAD programs. Additionally, the team hopes to add the capability to preview a part's behavior. Learn more about Foundry at DesignNews.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Pathways Innovation Center / Cuningham Group Architecture + MOA Posted: 07 Jan 2017 05:00 AM PST  © Astula
 © Astula From the architect. A new state-of-the-art high school designed by Cuningham Group Architecture, Inc. (Cuningham Group ®) is providing students with an interactive and personalized learning experience and exposure to future career opportunities. Pathways Innovation Center offers junior and seniors in the Natrona County School System in Casper, Wyoming, an interactive and personalized education through four academies focused on multiple disciplines, including engineering and design.  © Astula "The goal is to inspire kids who are not necessarily planning to move on to four-year colleges," says Scott Krenner, the project's Design Lead and Associate at Cuningham Group. "Rather than follow a traditional vocational approach, this high school presents new pathways to success; a way to shine that may not be found in standardized tests. Here, their inventive thinking and new skills are much more visible."  © Astula Cuningham Group worked with a local partner, MOA Architecture, to design a 38-acre campus, which also includes the new Roosevelt High School. The Pathways program is open to all juniors and seniors in the school district.  1st Floor Plan  2nd Floor Plan At the center of Pathways Innovation Center is "Fabrication Hall," a 5,000-square-foot, two-story common space surrounded by labs equipped with cutting-edge technology, and is meant to encourage teams from all academies to collaborate on projects. The architects' innovative design concept for Fabrication Hall was inspired by private sector facilities, including Boeing in Washington state, where engineering and design teams work under one roof.  © Astula "This is a unique space that you don't see at other schools," Krenner says. "It is fully sun-filled and large enough to build homes and solar-powered airplanes." The hall has 16-feet-high, custom-fabricated glass bay doors that fully open to the outside. On the inside, the hall is viewed from glass-walled design spaces, including a "floating blue box" overlooking the hall for informal learning.  © Astula "This approach creates a conversation between academic disciplines, including construction, woodworking, metals, welding, robotics, arts and furniture making," he says. "It's an incubator for prototyping. Ideas are generated and then connect with the different academies at the school. As the Fabrication Hall, the transparent design stimulates synergy and is a celebration of student achievement."  © Astula  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Competition-Winning Design Proposes Wood Housing Addition to Fourth-Century Aqueduct in Istanbul Posted: 07 Jan 2017 04:00 AM PST  Courtesy of Sinan Gunay Sinan Günay and Nurhayat Oz of Superspace have won second prize in the MetsäWood competition, The City Above the City, which called for architects to design wooden extensions to city centers. With their project, Colliding Lines and Lives, the team designed a series wooden housing modules to be appended to a fourth-century Roman aqueduct archway in Istanbul. Built by the Roman emperor Valens, the archway was an important water supply for the Romans and Ottomans but later lost its significance and functionality with technological and infrastructural advancements, leaving it an unutilized landmark in the city.  Courtesy of Sinan Gunay  Courtesy of Sinan Gunay In the district of Fatih, 921 meters of this archway remains, which becomes the foundation for the Colliding Lines and Lives proposal.  Courtesy of Sinan Gunay  Courtesy of Sinan Gunay
 Courtesy of Sinan Gunay  Courtesy of Sinan Gunay  Courtesy of Sinan Gunay News via: MetsäWood.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Bunker Hill: The Memories of LA's Lost Neighborhood Posted: 07 Jan 2017 01:30 AM PST The "living memories" of Los Angeles are seen and sensed in the way that space is occupied in the city; the traces left behind by what has been. "Lost Hills," a short documentary by LA-based television station KCET, is a snapshot of LA's lost neighborhood, Bunker Hill, that in 1955 was approved for "slum clearance." As a result, the entire area was removed almost without a trace - Angels Flight, a funicular railway that transported residents from Bunker Hill to the city center, is the only remaining structure after reopening half a block away from its original location in 1996. Bunker Hill was originally an area inhabited by upper-middle class people, but that changed in the 20th Century when those people began to move away. This made it somewhat easier for LA to erase the history of the Hill in order to make way for functionality, following late 20th Century modernist thinking. Illustrating how space is so strongly tied to memory and emotion, the video depicts what one interviewee calls an "absence [that] makes a presence"; the city is the materialization of memory, partial and partly erased.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Townhouse / Les Ateliers Tristan & Sagitta Posted: 07 Jan 2017 01:00 AM PST  © Giaime Meloni
 © Giaime Meloni The apartment of Carole and Robin is located on the ground floor of a mansion of the XVIIth arrondissement in Paris. Taking advantage of a private garden with terrace, when the family grew, Carole and Robin preferred to buy the apartment on the 1st floor to accommodate the children's room rather than move.  © Giaime Meloni The main challenge of this renovation was to find the place of a staircase as discreet as possible. The work was delivered as a screw-in kit. This technique allowed us to produce in the workshop a  © Giaime Meloni thermolacquered paint, much more resistant than a painting done on the spot. The use of metal offered a light writing to the work with whose thickness does not exceed 25mm!  © Giaime Meloni The partnership architect / artisan / engineer allowed to realize a technical feat by suspending the staircase to the upper floor! As often in Paris, space is precious. Although they are appreciable, the storage spaces cause loss of habitable surface. We imagined a large piece of furniture. 7 meters long for 60 cm deep, and suspended at 2.10 meters from the ground. It thus occupies no square meter!  © Giaime Meloni In the child's room, the distinction of two spaces allows the two brothers to define their respective territories. This old bourgeois building is composed of architectural elements: solid wood doors, enamelled handles, moldings, rails, rosettes. We have tried through our project to conserve and magnify these elements. For example, the blue partition in the children's room is not continuous up to the ceiling. It ensures the separation between the rooms and the staircase. It houses a glass floor that allows daylight on the steps. It allows to preserve and to stage the old molding making the turn of the piece!  © Giaime Meloni  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Ubiquity and Uniformity: Why Toronto's Condominiums All Look the Same Posted: 06 Jan 2017 11:00 PM PST  Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects In June last year, PARTISANS published Rise and Sprawl: The Condominiumization of Toronto with architecture historian and critic Hans Ibelings. An effort to contextualize the role of the condo in Toronto's unprecedented and intense growth over the past ten years, this thoughtful, if provocative, work offers a scathing criticism of the architecture (or lack thereof) deployed in much of the recent residential constructions in the city. It is a formal demand that the city be built more thoughtfully. Alex Josephson is a founding partner of PARTISANS, one of Toronto's youngest and more innovative architecture practices. Only in its fifth year, PARTISANS has already earned accolades and awards from the American Institute of Architecture, the Ontario Association of Architects, Architect Magazine, Interior Design Magazine, and the World Architecture Festival (WAF). Randy Gladman, Vice President of Development at Toronto-based Triovest Realty Advisors, sat down with Alex in his Yorkville apartment, which overlooks some of Toronto's architectural masterpieces—Hariri Pontarini's McKinsey & Company Headquarters, Robert Stern's One St. Thomas, Mies van der Rohe's Toronto-Dominion Centre, and the University of Toronto's MacDonald Block—to probe some of the criticisms offered in Rise and Sprawl and explore why PARTISANS felt the need to publish a work sure to infuriate precisely the developers they desire as clients and the city planners they need for project approvals.  Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects This interview with Alex Josephson has been conducted by Randy Gladman. It has been edited by Nicola Spunt and abridged for publication by ArchDaily. Randy Gladman: Rise and Sprawl bills itself as "a call to action for how we can become better city builders." Generally speaking, I agree with the underlying thesis, namely that condo tower development in Toronto can, should, and must be done better than it has been until now. The book criticizes the "sheer ubiquity and relative uniformity of towers—from their glass facades and anemic colour schemes, dominated by grays, greens and beiges, to their rectangular volumetrics and rigid floor plans." But is this unique to Toronto? Alex Josephson: You're right, it's not unique to Toronto. Similar condominiumization crazes have struck other cities, like Vancouver and Hong Kong. The tower shaped in the form of a question mark on the cover of the book is something we call the "WTF Tower." It's a rhetorical gesture: What the fuck are we doing to our skylines? It absolutely applies to other cities; we just happened to be getting PARTISANS off the ground during a moment in history when it was happening to Toronto, so it made sense to adopt our city as a lens through which to explore the phenomenon. The main difference is that the quality of the condos we're building here is inferior, from an aesthetic and performance perspective, compared to those being built elsewhere. Take SHoP's proposed design for Brooklyn's first supertall skyscraper. It's gorgeous. Nothing we've done here even comes close to that kind of beauty and rigor. RG: Can you elaborate on what you mean by "performance"? AJ: We have to stop building towers that are the equivalent of radiators in the sky. We do not create proper thermal breaks between our balconies and the actual floor plates of buildings, so our condos gush heat. We're using window wall systems that have an 18-year shelf life—less than the average lifespan of a condo's mortgage amortization—after which they will start to fail. Even the buildings that are being marketed to the one-percenters—ostensibly the developments that could afford to set a higher bar—aren't well-proportioned or made from durable materials. Why aren't we demanding better? I always think of the Athenian Oath. If you were a citizen of Athens 2000 years ago, you had to pledge to leave the city more beautiful than when you arrived. The city came first. The collective good came first. This ethos drives the work we try to do at PARTISANS.  Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects RG: I'm still trying to understand if this is a Canadian phenomenon, though. The book describes Canadians as people who like to play it safe, which "stym[ies] our appetite for innovation." Is a desire for safety and safe thinking necessarily at odds with forward-thinking design? Aren't the Nordic European countries, which are known for their more ambitious architectural thinking and design, also known for their risk aversion? AJ: This idea of risk management and safety as distinctly part of the Canadian brand isn't entirely new, but I think it's become more prominent since 2008. After the global economy collapsed, we patted ourselves on the back and said, "Ha, look at us, we didn't allow subprime." The rest of the world thought our rules were the epitome of conservative stability. When it comes to the Scandinavian countries, the main difference is that they have design economies. Look at Denmark, Holland, Norway, Japan… not only do they value design, they export their talent. Denmark has a significant design GDP and takes its design history very seriously. We absolutely don't see that in Canada. Case in point: The Province of Ontario recently released a new Culture Strategy that initially didn't even mention architecture and design whatsoever. When enough people made a fuss, they were finally included at the eleventh hour. It's sad because when it comes to architecture, you're fundamentally talking about real estate, one of the most important enablers of growth. As a country, we simply have not yet embraced architecture or design as important drivers of culture and economy.  Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects RG: The book describes condo towers as "spreadsheets in the sky," the "material manifestation of the developer's profit margin." But surely this is not just a Toronto phenomenon. Aren't the majority of cities developed with a close eye on profit? AJ: It isn't just a Toronto phenomenon, agreed. Again, we're using the city as a lens because we're seeing firsthand the extent to which we're abusing the sky and the streets here at home. But the answer comes back to density. The cost of building increases with every storey you don't give to a developer. Anything above twenty stories is inconsequential from street level. So whether it's twenty or a hundred storeys, I'm mostly indifferent. We are so obsessed in Toronto with height. But height equals money. If we can figure out a way to allow for more height in exchange for better design, we'll end up with better buildings. But that kind of logic is just not embraced by the city planning culture here. RG: So you're suggesting that the City should allow developers to go nuts on height as long as they use the extra revenue from that height to improve the design? Isn't the city already doing that through 1% for Art and Section 37, which allow developers to negotiate extra height in exchange for paying back into infrastructure, public art, parks, and affordable housing to improve urban culture? AJ: I would ask this: Why are the projects themselves not the site of culture? Architecture itself should perform as public art. These municipal strategies have become an apology for offensive architecture that doesn't give back, for podiums that don't provide a fine-grain pedestrian experience. Everyone—the City officials, the developers, and the community members—should be thinking more dynamically. We can't just use one speed. We need more subtlety, more thoughtfulness.  Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects RG: But apart from the rare vanity project or institutional edifice, how are these things to be funded if not by some form of profit motive? AJ: The profit motive will always drive the project, there's no question. But let's be honest here for a second. It's a known fact that Canadian architects get paid less than anywhere else. A respected architect just told me that after Mexico City, Toronto pays its architects less than any other OECD country in the world. It's not a joke. We're in a race to the bottom of the fee barrel here in Ontario. To make architecture fees as much as 25% higher would amount to a rounding error on the proforma of most of these bigger condo projects. Buildings don't get better because of a huge increase in capital expenditure. They get better because an architect has time to work the design out and is paid properly to do so. I mean what do you think? Do architects get paid enough to do what they do? RG: As a developer managing large and small projects, that's tough for me to answer because I only see the landlord side of the equation. We are incentivised to build high-quality products on a reasonable, market-driven budget. So yes, on the one hand, part of me feels that architects are paid enough to do what they do because their rates are determined by market forces and I believe in market efficiency. When proposals and invoices come in from the architects on our projects sometimes we're surprised at how high they are. For example, my team may request what would seem to be a pretty simple change order and the next thing we know we're being billed for 40 hours of design time. Did someone really spend an entire week making this change? But on the other hand, as someone who pours a lot of professional and personal time into trying to make Toronto a better city, I do wonder if buildings could be better if architects had more time and resources to think through their designs. But that's a tough sell for developers.  Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects AJ: One of the arguments we make in the book is that it's a mistake to believe beauty and profit are mutually exclusive. What do you think about that proposition? How can we work out the math so that it supports more beautiful, higher performing condo design? RG: I think it's up to the architect to delineate the value proposition. I interpreted Rise and Sprawl as your attempt to educate developers (and others) about how our buildings are failing in comparison to the achievements seen internationally. So maybe it's not a math issue but rather a requirement to clarify the value of the design ethos to which you refer. But I don't think it's entirely fair to lay it all at the heels of developers. You write about how the "[d]evelopers, architects, city officials, and community groups alike are engaged in a broken process that simply isn't promoting innovative or notable urban design." Can you talk about how you see the process as broken? AJ: One of the big problems in Toronto, among other things, is that we have architecture without architects. The difference between a mediocre building and a great one is not as stark as some believe it to be. It's about thoughtfulness. Fundamentally, the reason these buildings look the same is because they're being repeated and recycled. The same window wall systems, the same curtain wall manufacturers, the same balcony designs. It's also partly due to a kind of stalemate among the key players. The perception is that the city planners are overwhelmed, the developers want height, height, height, but don't really care about design, and the communities are angry and always poised to say no. So you have this general misalignment even though we are all fundamentally trying to build a city together. The problem is we're doing it on a site-by-site basis. What's the bigger vision for the city? Rise and Sprawl puts all these projects side by side, including their marketing slogans and elevation designs; it is quite fascinating what results. They are practically identical! Things need to change.  Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects RG: "The advent—and virulence—of the condo tower has enabled the vertical urbanization, and arguably, suburbanization, of city centres." As a native Torontonian, I see a direct correspondence between what you guys call "condominiumization" and major improvements to the city's urban and cultural fabric. How is intensification "suburban"? Does culture not follow from density? AJ: There's a subtle but critical distinction I think some people are missing about the book: We are not criticizing condominiumization; we are criticizing condo architecture. We support density and we support condos. Toronto has become a much more vibrant city as a result of the condo boom. But the values that are driving the designs are suburban. The virulent spread of homogeneous design? That's practically the definition of suburban. The radiator balconies I mentioned? They're the result of a hard-wired fantasy that, as Canadians, we all have some kind of God-given right to an outdoor space, namely a back or front yard. And parking lots. Why do we still own and drive cars in the downtown core? This is a serious problem totally born out of a suburban driving mentality. Then there are the pools, which, in our climate, are barely open four months out of the year. Pools are a suburban luxury. It also bears remembering that between the passing of the Greenbelt legislation and changes to planning laws, which started to encourage taller buildings, developers who once made their fortunes on low-density suburban tract housing rebranded and became players in the downtown core. But they're essentially doing the same thing they did before: producing low-quality, fast and dirty extrusions that obey the same logic as a horizontal series of streets that sprawl. But like we say in the book, they've turned the sprawl on its side and shot it vertically into the air. The retailing logic is also similar to the ways they negotiate leases and designs for suburban shopping malls. They make covenants with anchor retailers like Shoppers Drug Mart or Loblaw, and we end up with curtain or window walls that bear no resemblance to the rest of facades and fine-grain retail on the rest of the street. All of this is what we mean by suburbanization.  Rise and Sprawl. Image Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects RG: "The proliferation of insipid towers is essentially the mass production of vertical housing that, with the help of patent brand strategies and faux fancy amenities, masquerades as an aspirational lifestyle choice. Marketing materials target and then attempt to seduce very specific demographics. Ultimately, condos are like any other commodity—mass produced, financially ratified products that preempt choice and manufacture desire in the same turn." I find some of the language you guys use sometimes borders on snobbish elitism. Many of the amenities actually are "fancy." Contemporary art in the hallways, heated indoor pools, well-appointed skydecks—these are luxury amenities that many Canadians aspire to have. I grew up with and work with many people who are very proud of living or owning in these kinds of buildings. They feel like they own a piece of the Canadian dream. Are you sure these buildings are masquerading or are they truly aspirational? AJ: From a Canadian perspective, yes, some of these buildings might be wonderful. But we have to judge ourselves by the standards of great architecture in the rest of the world. I have to go back to performance. If you are driving a 1975 Volvo because you've never seen a 2016 Audi A6, and then you learn about the Audi and discover you've paid the same amount, how would you feel? You'd be pissed. I can understand that our perspective may come across as snobbish, but the conclusions are informed by experience and research from around the world. We are trying to tell Canadians they are not living the dream. It's bullshit. The finishes are cheap and the buildings are not going to last; the architecture isn't going to prove to be timeless. We are not assailing the Canadian dream. We are just trying to encourage everyone to look around! In Scandinavian countries they are already building 20-storey towers made of wood. We can't build that in Canada. There's a 17-storey condo being constructed of wood in lower Manhattan right now. In Norway and Denmark there are 20-storey wood towers going up. We are one of the most prosperous forest-based economies in the world and what are we allowed to build out of wood? Six storeys. It makes no sense. We're not living in high-performance buildings on ANY level. It may seem like we are, but that's only because we're not used to seeing the alternatives here. You're buying a 1975 Volvo for the price of a new Audi A6 when you could have had a fucking A6. I guess, at least, a 1975 Volvo is cool.  Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects RG: Beyond a brief list of 11 recommendations, the book doesn't really offer a sustained discussion about how things can be done better. "Building density is critical, but doing so in responsible, diverse, and beautiful ways using sustainable materials needs to be the rule, not the exception." Great! What are those ways? What are the long-term cultural and economic benefits of design and how should they be implemented into high-density residential development going forward? AJ: There was a big internal debate at PARTISANS about how the book should be structured. We were faced with a conundrum: either we could make distilled, point-form recommendations, as we did, or we could go long-form and really dive deep into the details. Ultimately, we decided that the latter would have made for a more boring book, and we wanted Rise and Sprawl to spur a conversation. The eleven points at the end have clear ramifications; they don't pull any punches. They may seem cute, but if you think about them deeply, we believe they are hugely meaningful. RG: My larger critique of the book is that it seems like it's really just the first chapter of a much larger investigation that you need to write. AJ: Yes, agreed. The whole point was to write something that would get people talking. I mean look, you and I are discussing it right now! Books are incredibly important, but they can become static and irrelevant unless you continue to find ways to keep the story alive. This is precisely the way we see the conversation continuing to unfold—through dialogues with different people in different formats. Maybe it's super idealistic but, hopefully, some real change can come out of that. We've already started working on another book on the relationships between architecture, time, culture, and politics. It will take another couple of years before that's complete. But Rise and Sprawl is part of a much bigger project that our studio will remain interested in: how we can build better cities and culture through better architecture and design.  Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Portocarrero Palace Restauration / César Egea + Antonio Raso + Pedro Dugo Posted: 06 Jan 2017 09:00 PM PST  © Javier Orive
 © Javier Orive From the architect. It is a 16th century Palace in which different architectural stages and building overlaps are distinguished to the present day. The building is cataloged according to the PGOU of the locality with in the Catalog of Protected buildings, elements and urban groups of interest.  Site Plan The Palacio Portocarrero, together with its Spanish-Mudéjar style botanical gardens surrounded by Almohade walls from the 11th-12th centuries, forms a spectacular complex that is located in the heart of Andalusia, between Cordoba and Seville. It is an architectural jewel that was hidden and in ruins and after years of careful restoration it shines again.  © Javier Orive A beautiful architectural monument cataloged BIC (Well of Cultural Interest) that owns a very rich history millenary mixture of civilizations that goes back to year 105 d.C. In Roman times. The Palace Portocarrero offers its Roman legend, archaeological remains both Roman and Arab and a building with areas of the fifteenth and sixteenth century mainly.  Elevations - Sections  First Floor Plan Touring the palace and strolling through its gardens, we are surrounded by its grand and magical atmosphere, an exclusive look at the Spanish culture and an aristocratic way of life through the centuries. A walk through time. Today, regained its former splendor, is available to organize any type of event.  © Javier Orive For 25 years now, the owners, Moreno de la Cova-Ibarra, dedicate their efforts to the restoration of the palace, devastated during the civil war, to achieve the reality that today we can contemplate and enjoy.  © Javier Orive Throughout these years, projects, formalizations, actions and interventions have been carried out, which have been collected with their corresponding projects.  © Javier Orive  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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