ArchDaily

Arch Daily

Vitsœ HQ and production building / Vitsœ and Martin Francis
Ice Cold Ornament: Here Are Some Great Reads Paired With Frozen Desserts
Cristalleries Planell Civic Center / H Arquitectes
Plot # 1282 / DW5 Architects
Wuhan Financial City No.1 Courtyard Life Experience Center / gad
Gable House / Sheri Baby Architects
Winners of the Mosul Housing Competition Address the Housing Crisis in Iraq
David Chipperfield Architects to Lead Masterplan for Minneapolis Institute of Art
Amani Library / Social Practice Architecture
15 Incredible Photos of Architecture at Nighttime: The Best Photos of the Week
How a Norwegian Infrastructure Project is Using Virtual Reality to Improve Public Buy-In
House MM / Chris Collaris Architects
Spotlight: SANAA

Vitsœ HQ and production building / Vitsœ and Martin Francis

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 10:00 PM PDT

Architects: Vitsœ and Martin Francis
Location: Royal Leamington Spa, United Kingdom
Area: 39581.0 ft2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Dirk Lindner

Structural Engineer: Eckersley O'Callaghan
Building Environment And Services Engineer: Skelly & Couch
Delivery Architect: Waugh Thistleton Architects
Landscape Architects: Kim Wilkie and Wilder Associates
Industrial Sustainability Consultancy: EPSRC Centre for Industrial Sustainability, University of Cambridge
Construction Management: JCA Concept Construction

Text description provided by the architects. British furniture manufacturer, Vitsœ, has officially opened its new HQ and production building in Royal Leamington Spa. Vitsœ has led both the design and construction of its new home to bring together a rigorous and diverse group of over 30 specialists in their fields.

Spanning 135 metres in length, 25 metres in width and 6 metres in height, the new HQ and production building will allow for the continued worldwide sales growth of Vitsœ's Dieter Rams-designed furniture. Vitsœ exports to over 60 countries with shops in London, New York, Los Angeles and Munich.

Like the company's definitive 606 Universal Shelving System, the new building is an extension of Vitsœ's long-term system-thinking. Built as a kit of parts, it can be refined and adapted in response to the changing needs of all it serves – company, people and environment – for many decades to come.

The new HQ, has been realised by an in-house Vitsœ team working together with an eminent yacht designer, adept environment and services engineers, sought-after structural engineers, delivery architects leading in engineered timber, acclaimed landscape architects, specialist timber fabricators as well as top industrial-sustainability academics.

Introducing timber-framing on a grand scale, the building is the first in the UK with a structure made entirely of a newly developed beech laminate-veneer (LVL). This high performance engineered hardwood permits beams and columns to have smaller cross sections than softwood glulam, thereby offering greater elegance to the timber structure. Vitsœ has used northern European beech in its furniture since the company was founded in 1959.

A place of making and creativity, the new HQ embraces offices, research and development, showroom, museum, software development, product assembly, kitchen and dining, overnight accommodation and more.

Vitsœ's new home is naturally ventilated and naturally lit during daylight hours via its north-facing saw-tooth roof-lights. Prevailing wind provides cross ventilation while the high ceiling height allows heat to rise for comfort in summer.

Windows bring the outside in, connecting employees to the surrounding landscape, while passers-by may glimpse activities within. The kitchen and dining area face directly north offering a panoramic view of the silver birch trees in the adjacent urban community wood.

The landscape has been designed by landscape architect Kim Wilkie to sit at one with the building and reflect the undulating ridge-and-furrow fields of the Midlands. Long grass will provide evaporative cooling to help keep the building cool in summer.

Vitsœ has settled in Royal Leamington Spa due to its central location amidst Vitsœ's supply chain; its excellent transport connections; the community's rich industrial heritage; the close proximity to the universities of Warwick and Coventry; and the town's distinguished architecture.

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Ice Cold Ornament: Here Are Some Great Reads Paired With Frozen Desserts

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 09:00 PM PDT

Ice Cream Books is a conceptual art project with a rather predictable, if not delightful, output: "great reads paired with frozen desserts." The work is beguilingly simple and stunningly direct – wafer cones act as columns and space frames, ziggurats and buttresses, all supporting popular tomes.

And so, for little other reason than pure gratification—and to ease you into your Monday morning—enjoy these books paired with (largely structurally sound) frozen desserts!

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Cristalleries Planell Civic Center / H Arquitectes

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 08:00 PM PDT

Architects: H Arquitectes
Location: Les Corts, Barcelona, Spain
Author Architects: David Lorente, Josep Ricart, Xavier Ros, Roger Tudó
Collaborators: Blai Cabrero Bosch, Montse Fornés Guàrdia, Toni Jiménez Anglès, Berta Romeo, Carla Piñol, Xavier Mallorquí, Andrei Mihalache
Area: 1694.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Adrià Goula

Text description provided by the architects. This public facility houses an adult education centre, a language standarization consortium and a hotel on a triangular plot in the Parliament district. Two of the three sides of the site area defined by the heritage-listed frontage of the former Planell glass factory, built on Calle Anglesola in 1913. The building makes use of the entire plot, acting as an intrinsic part of the urban landscape, although the triangular shape and the classified façades prevent it from occupying the entire site.

The programme is distributed across four levels which are set back from the south-facing heritage facade. The resulting atrium reconciles construction and heritage, improves the natural lighting for the classrooms and provides a heat and sound barrier. This long, narrow courtyard is reproduced at the northern vertex, which exhausts the geometry but acts as a relational system between the administrative uses of the building and the exterior.

The building section shows how it controls and manages the air under natural conditions. In winter, it is necessary to control heat loss due to air renewal, redeem the heavy internal load built up due to the inertia of the wall structure, and draw fresh air in from the atrium, which thus acts as a natural air recycle. In summer, the heat has to be dissipated by moving the largest possible volume of air and fresh air must be strictly natural, based on solar chimneys and caps that apply the Venturi effect.

Cross-ventilation between the courtyards is ruled out by the programme and the need to avoid conflicting noises. The building therefore gives each strip of usage space a long structural break where the air circulates vertically, ‘pulled upwards’ in the chimneys by the power of the sun, which also give the building a silhouette and a distinctive, transparent materiality.

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Plot # 1282 / DW5 Architects

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 07:00 PM PDT

Architects: DW5 Architects
Location: Beirut, Lebanon
Area: 25800.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Ieva Saudargaite, Bahaa Ghoussainy

Text description provided by the architects. Plot # 1282 is a residential project located on the northern periphery of Beirut at the proximity of one the city's abandoned and unused railway terminal, military barracks, leftovers of agricultural land and a 30‐meter wide highway. The zone in which our project is located is not presently considered residential. The project's program consists of 95 industrial lofts with surfaces ranging from 100 square meters to 650 square meters on a total built‐up area of 25,800 square meters.

The floor slabs are organized around nine exposed cores, each core feeding a maximum of two apartments per floor. The proposed lofts feature high ceilings (5.3 meters) with open space plans and minimal interior partitioning. With a surface area of 5,400 square meters, the site perimeter is 430 meters of which less than 12 meters are facing a public access road. This implies that 97% of the site periphery faces parcels on which buildings could be erected at some point in the future.

In its present state, the site enjoys unobstructed panoramic views on all orientations through the totality of the perimeter of the plot. As a result of that, all proposed loft spaces enjoy full transparency of their facades with openings that span from floor to ceiling on all exterior elevations. In an unforeseeable future, as the surrounding plots get built, and with the gradual densification of the immediate environment, the full apertures of our facades will face unpredictable situations that our project's morphology responds to by its continuous setback on the totality of the perimeter of the site and the gradual recess of the floor plates. This gesture should guarantee generous breathing corridors along all the site's peripheral limits for our project and the future buildings of the surroundings.

In many sectors along the periphery of Beirut, relatively high exploitation factors are applied on zones that are still undeveloped. In the absence of a master plan, the rapid gentrification of these sectors has led to catastrophic urban conditions. In most cases, the general guidelines of the very complex and archaic municipal building laws are the only leading rule and reference on which developers build their schemes. In such situations, it is becoming increasingly difficult to define the integration of a project and its relationship in the long term with the neighboring sites. Our proposal for Plot # 1282 does not only celebrate the present state of its environment, the absence of buildings and the scarceness of the urban fabric on which it sits, it also anticipates the future expansion of its surroundings and its rapport with the unpredictable conditions that will be implied by the development of the sector.

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Wuhan Financial City No.1 Courtyard Life Experience Center / gad

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 05:00 PM PDT

Architects: gad
Location: Wuhan, Hubei, China
Area: 4949.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Fan Yi, Zhang Zefeng, Huang Jinrong

Text description provided by the architects. The city develops and changes rapidly while architecture remains because of its lasting feature and embodies emotional memory and historical value. The contrast of new and old buildings are everywhere in the city, which is exactly the mark of the changing times.

Development and Change of City Interface
The experience center is located in the central area of Wuhan city where architectural forms of different attributes, structure, and styles can be found.

The old plant next to the project with the industrial development marks of Wuhan City gives a strong contrast to a series of newly developed buildings across the street.

Based on the contrast of new and old interfaces, gad architects have a bold idea. Co-existence of traditional and modern elements can make the city appear more vivid and harmonious. How to avoid defects under current conditions and fully present the architectural dialogue in the design become the primary design concern.

Architectural Expression of Balance and Tension
Architectural form aesthetic feeling and humanistic connotation gradually become the windows of brand expression. Appropriate architectural expression form with tension is an aesthetic feeling of balance. The building maintains a certain distance from the old plant. Taking the façade and the northeast side, Wanda Plaza as the main interface, the project can achieve the maximum window-dressing effect, which not only hides the current street mess from view but also exhibits brand image.

The space property is defined by the plane layout naturally. "+" type plane layout takes the intersection as the base point. The external building space is separated into four totally different places that create four places of different functions and properties internally.

The long-span overhanging appearance symbolizes the ambition of getting rid of gravity. Combining lightness and heaviness contrast of the materials, the architecture further strengthens the contrast of the new and old buildings. Here, the street corner image of conflicted feeling is more obvious.

Responding to Traditional Architectural Style，Courtyard Landscape
If architecture form is the direct illustration in modern language, the courtyard would be the implicit reflection of traditional elements in space.

The central courtyard of the building decreases crossing in terms of the flow line. Compared with the architectural form of western churches, the center adopts Chinese courtyard landscape form and reduces attention from people; the sinking-style inner courtyard further emphasizes space levels, makes the space more vivid, and brings the precious natural light to the pile solid space as well. Here, "light" extends becomes the medium to connect the inner and outer space.

Once arrived, visitors can feel the considerate and unique concerns for their psychological feelings from the designer. The outer courtyard landscape adopts the traditional winding path form. The winding path leads to another liking going up the stairs. The paths correspond to the multi-courtyard levels of the architectural inner spa extend the time of psychological feelings.

The architectural style of full tension and direct expression of the experience center integrates with the winding and peaceful style of the landscape, which is succinct, direct while being exquisite and euphemistic. "+" form reflects the architectural expression of the era nature and symbolizes the fierce waves of the era through abstract architectural form, which is exactly its unique charm.

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Gable House / Sheri Baby Architects

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 01:00 PM PDT

Architects: Sheri Baby Architects
Location: Sandringham, Australia
Area: 217.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Lisbeth Grosmann

Building Surveyor: Tony Middling
Builder: Ryan Gregory
Structural Engineer: Bernhard Waschl
Site Area: 491 m2

Text description provided by the architects. Gable House is an Edwardian timber cottage in Sandringham, close to the train station, shops and beach. Typical of many of the period houses in the area, a previous extension had added a room on the back incorporating the main bedroom, kitchen and meals area but this space suffered the ailments of a south orientation and poor room configuration.

We needed to consider how this space could be better utilized. The client was comfortable that they didn't need a bigger house, just one that worked better. The design brief was to provide a spacious, light-filled, open plan area at the back that better connected to the backyard and corrected the lack of privacy between the main bedroom and living area. The existing house already measured 207 m2 and with a site area of 491 m2, the client was reluctant to sacrifice any backyard nor overcapitalize on the relatively small site.

The period house at the front was retained, incorporating 3 good-sized bedrooms, formal lounge, dining room and original hallway. The bathroom and laundry were refurbished and reworked to include a separate powder room. At the rear of the house, the new addition was kept as small as possible to retain the rear garden and meet Council requirements for site coverage. 2 gable roof forms were added, one each for the main bedroom and family area, to lift the ceilings and give a quality of spaciousness.

The master bedroom was extended slightly to provide a walk in robe and ensuite and its entry reworked to obscure views to it from the living area. The kitchen and living area were flipped to connect the kitchen with a new outside deck, while the lofty gable roof form was extended over the deck as a timber pergola. When the glazed sliding stacking doors are open the whole thing becomes an outdoor space and the interior and exterior work really well together.

To catch the sun a new window and skylight were carved into the east side of the house at the end of the kitchen, providing lovely moments of sunlight at different times of the day. The kitchen bench juts out under the skylight as a timber breakfast bar. Passive energy design  The new window and skylight offer the south facing kitchen and meals area great solar access. The kitchen and meals area are organized to enjoy these moments of sun, while orientated and connected to the south facing backyard.

Sustainability
 Most of the existing house was retained or reworked, reducing waste. The roof is insulated with Kingspan Air-cell and R3.5 batts. R3.5 batts were also added to the existing ceiling. New lightweight walls are insulated with R2 batts and sisalation and the floor is fitted with new R2 insulation. All new windows are painted Australian hardwood timber frames with low E clear double glazing. The house uses low energy LED lighting. The existing floor ducted gas heating system was retained and reworked to suit the alterations, as was the existing evaporative cooling system.

Materials
 The house sits in a street of predominantly light colored, timber houses. The materials selected were chosen for their quality and aesthetics. The client sought a relaxed, neutral interior that sat comfortably with the original Edwardian and proximity to the beach. The interiors are fairly restrained white spaces with subtle shifts in tone and texture by use of wall tiles, brick, and timber.  The kitchen is a white 2-pack with a reconstituted stone bench top and incorporates a recycled Blackbutt breakfast bar. Site painted finishes are low-VOC. The roof sheeting is Zincalume. The new timber flooring is Blackbutt and finished with Bona Traffic. The ceramic tiles are from Classic Ceramics.

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Winners of the Mosul Housing Competition Address the Housing Crisis in Iraq

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 09:00 AM PDT

In Iraq, as an estimated 900,000 people return home to the city of Mosul after liberation, many of the returnees will only find desolation. The Tamayouz Excellence Award, Rifat Chadirji Prize focuses on bringing global awareness as well as global talent toward addressing the social issues Iraq faces through design.

This year's theme, "Rebuilding Iraq's Liberated Areas: Mosul's Housing Competition" asked applicants design prototypes for affordable housing. The winning housing proposals selected by the jury are practical, inspiring, and scalable, while adding capacity and density. The competition received 223 submissions from 42 countries. The Top 20 entries will be featured in a traveling exhibition that will visit Amman, Baghdad, Boston, Beirut, Milan, and London. Read on to learn about the three winning proposals and seven honorable mentions.

The Rifat Chadirji Prize got its namesake from Iraqi architect, theorist and author, Dr Rifat Chadirji. Chandirji's work, both in thought leadership and built projects, has influenced the built environment and holds significance today. The founder of the Tamayouz Excellence Award, Ahmed Al-Mallak said, "all contributing ideas responding to the humanitarian crisis is heartwarming. This competition had the value of reflecting difficult and controversial situations but through a reasonably optimistic lens. Although the competition finished, our work starts now to help organizations responsible for the reconstruction efforts."

First Place: Re-Settlement by Anna Otlik of Wroclaw, Poland

The tessellating and evolutionary project, Re-Settlement by Anna Otlik, takes into consideration the immediate needs of the city of Mosul, as the anticipated 900,000 displaced citizens return, but also longer-term needs for community and public services. The first phase of re-settlement is an informal process, with catalyst points determined organically by the returning community. With a matrix of modules, the settlements can then grow, densify, and evolve through the proposed rule-set. The judges panel states that Re-Settlement "considers the situation at all the relevant scales and stages, from initial emergency housing to a full-fledged neighborhood." Otlik's design takes inspiration from the vernacular Iraqi architecture, with the incorporation of outdoor spaces "it complements the fabric and the density of the city," as described by the Judging Panel.

Second Place by Mariia Chorna & Oleksandr Kostevych of Wroclaw, Poland

"It has a kind of familiarity. It has got variety and expandability. It encourages self-build, but not manufacturing. It is a building approach, not industrial. It brings it to a personal level," commented the Judging Panel. Two students of the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology came together to make this proposal. It begins with a 5x5x3 meter grid infrastructure provided by the city, that then will be fitted-out by the tenants. Having the individual returnees build their own partitions creates an aesthetic diversity but also creates a sense of ownership. The infrastructure allows family units to take on as many modules as needed for the number of occupants. The team designed fit-outs for these units for as few as 3 and as many as 8 occupants.

Third Place: The Five Farming Bridges by Vincent Callebaut Architectures of Paris, France

The Five Farming Bridges is a proposal to rebuild the 5 Mosul bridges that crossed the Tigris River which were destroyed to encircle ISIS. With a reference to the hanging gardens of Babylon, this proposal "offers a vision of a positive future to restore the self-confidence of war refugees" as described by Vincent Callebaut Architectures. The new bridges are to be inhabited and contain urban farms and agriculture for food production. The design proposes many passive systems for a sustainable future and improved quality of life for the tenants. The Judging Panel selected the Five Farming Bridges because "this proposal directed to two of Mosul's most immediate needs: housing and the reconsideration of its bridges, and yet at the same time uses the historical precedent of an inhabited bridge and yet speaks to the future in its morphology and construction".

Honorable Mention: The Big Mosulian Family by Ali Nashwan and Fatima Ehsan of Mosul, Iraq

The Big Mosulian Family proposal takes a different approach, providing a home for those that lack family -- the homeless, orphaned, and elderly. The project aims to provide a network for the community to raise future generations in a healthy society.

Honorable Mention: Over Ruins by Mina Saadatfard Ali Arzaghi, Parham Ostovar & Zahra Haghi of Shiraz, Iran

Over Ruins responds to the rubble of the previous Mosul, and offers a housing complex that is raised, to allow for a street level market, to revive local businesses, and create a sense of belonging and community. The Judging Panel adds, "building the market over the ruins, which allows of the the ruins to remain, so there is the incorporation of memory into everyday life which makes a powerful idea [...]"

Honorable Mention: People's Habitat by Marek Rytych, Natalia Ciastoń & Tomasz Hryciuk of Warsaw, Poland

People's Habitat takes solutions from Arab architecture to create modules for the 4x4 meter grid modular system which incorporates patios, elevated gardens, and housing units.

Honorable Mention by Mostafa Alani of the United States

Taking the larger problem, and addressing it in two phases, Alani's proposal is comprised of the Seeds, and the Metamorphosis. The Seeds addresses immediate relief with housing necessities, while the second phase, Metamorphosis addresses the larger urban scale, as the city develops.

Honorable Mention: A City without Fences by Tay Othman of San Francisco, United States

A City without Fences focuses on removing barriers within the city, visually and physically to create a safer for vibrant Mosul. As a strong anti-war statement, the project is proposed on the Al Kindy military site, and repurposes the site for mixed-use residential with amenities and shared public spaces.

Honorable Mention: TIE by Triplicity Architects of Stuttgart, Germany

In order to created a resilient and independent community, the new development will build off the remaining patterns the city has left behind through the framework. The proposal uses the infrastructure from ISIS and adapts it for urban needs such as transportation and utilities.

Honorable Mention: Becoming Home by Philip Turner, Andrew Weston & Chris Williamson of London, United Kingdom

Designed by Weston Williamson + Partners, Becoming Home is a type of masterplan strategy to address the imminent needs for building homes while also responding to the long-term needs of the city to regrow. The proposal focuses a lot of attention on the skills available the the buildability of the units, such as a gabion walls constructed with rubble.

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David Chipperfield Architects to Lead Masterplan for Minneapolis Institute of Art

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 07:00 AM PDT

Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Wikimedia <a href='http://https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minneapolis_Institute_of_Arts.jpg#/media/File:Minneapolis_Institute_of_Arts.jpg'>user Alvintrusty</a>. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

The Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) has selected David Chipperfield Architects to lead the design of a new masterplan for the museum that will "enhance the visitor experience and to expand the community's access to the museum as a community resource."

The planning process will aim to diagnose potential improvements and provide a conceptual solution for a long-term growth plan for the Museum. Several pressing needs have already been identified, including improved parking facilities, additional art storage and increased and improved public gathering spaces. The Museum also hopes to question the current visitor circulation, as well as consider upgrades to their restaurant and auditorium.

David Chipperfield's Museo Jumex in Mexico City. Image © Simon Menges

"We are thrilled to work with David Chipperfield," said Kaywin Feldman, Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and President of the museum. "Mia has seen tremendous growth in recent years, with repeated record-setting visitor numbers. Our growing collections, innovative exhibitions, and accessible public programs have fueled this growth, and we want to ensure we have the facilities needed to provide inspiring visitor experiences as we embrace an ever-broadening, diverse audience. We are confident that David Chipperfield Architects' impressive track record and clear understanding of our museum's needs will help us achieve this goal."

David Chipperfield Architects has a distinguished portfolio of museum projects, including master plans, renovations and additions to the The Menil Collection, Houston; Neues Museum, Museum Island, Berlin; The Royal Academy of Arts, London ; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; and the Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach am Neckar, Germany, among others.

News via Minneapolis Institute of Art.

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Amani Library / Social Practice Architecture

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 06:00 AM PDT

Architects: Social Practice Architecture
Location: Unnamed Road, Tanzania
Lead Architects: Patricia Báscones, Lara Briz
Area: 105.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Lara Briz, Patricia Báscones

Collaborators: Kibaoni inhabitants and international participants

Text description provided by the architects. In Tanzania, building with earth represents the past and is associated with poor living conditions. Traditional materials and techniques adapted to the environment are abandoned in favor of importing expensive and sometimes energy-inefficient materials and products, such as concrete blocks, from which only manufacturers in more advanced economies benefit. The project aims to bring back earth as a modern and sustainable building material, using traditional handcraft and simple methods, for continuing a local rural building tradition. It also encourages local and international participation and can serve as an example for future building developments to improve the quality of Tanzania's rural housing.

The Amani library´s architecture provides different kinds of spaces and uses to promote a different approach to reading and learning, as an alternative to the typical frontal approach to lessons. Enclosed by thick earth walls and with access from the school, there is a multidisciplinary room for workshops meetings and lessons. The reading room is light and open with one of the façades connected to the verandah, creating a large space for recreation and movement.

The project is mainly constructed from using two materials: soil excavated from the site and locally collected wood. On-site production offered the possibility of employing local material and the same excavated soil for wall construction. The perimeter of the library is built with load-bearing walls using the rammed earth technique. Apart from its structural capacity, the earth regulates indoor humidity and temperature, saves energy and reduces environmental pollution. Also, it is re-usable and saves expenses in material acquisition and transportation. Local handcraft can be found, among others, on the cypress doors and the bamboo enclosure at the verandah, as a way of promoting and strengthening the participation of local craftsmen, as well as raising awareness to the value of cultural heritage.

The construction of Amani Library was carried out in a short timeframe of four months through a workshop with both Kibaoni inhabitants and international participants. The workshop was regarded as a learning experience through an immersive, collaborative design-build project. The approach carries a developmental character, acting as "seed", as it seeks to form a knowledge base that can contribute to the potential return of traditional materials and techniques in solving the problem of low-cost housing in rural environments.

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15 Incredible Photos of Architecture at Nighttime: The Best Photos of the Week

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 05:00 AM PDT

With Halloween just around the corner, this week we have prepared a special edition of Photos of the Week featuring nighttime images. Undoubtedly, this effect is among the most spectacular and difficult to achieve in architecture photography. Working in the absence of light is not a simple task for photographers, but by playing with the artificial lights in buildings (and, usually, some dramatic HDR effects) it is possible to achieve adequate exposure for incredible results. Below is a selection of 15 images from prominent photographers such as Ketsiree Wongwan, Laurian Ghinitoiu and Philippe Ruault.

Philippe Ruault

Seattle Central Library / OMA + LMN

Virginia Cucchi

Pavilion Ponderosa / Paolo Cucchi Architects

Bitter Bredt

Denver Art Museum / Studio Libeskind

Laurian Ghinitoiu

TIRPITZ / BIG

Ketsiree Wongwan

Flower Cage House / Anonym

Edward Hendricks

House 24 / Park + Associates

Fernando Alda

Las Hojas House / OsArquitectura

Beer Singnoi

Townhouse with Private Garden / baan puripuri

Hélène Binet

Westbourne Grove / Russell Jones

Marc Goodwin

MK5 House / ORTRAUM

André Pihl

Malmö Saluhall / Wingårdh Arkitektkontor AB

Iwan Baan

New Art Museum / SANAA

John Horner

Rock Creek House / NADAAA

Pure Architect

Peak Office / Pure Architect

Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

Vigário House / AND-RÉ

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How a Norwegian Infrastructure Project is Using Virtual Reality to Improve Public Buy-In

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 02:30 AM PDT

The complex rail project will involve building 10 kilometers of new track, two tunnels, and one new transit station. Image Courtesy of Bane NOR

This article was originally published by Aurodesk's Redshift publication as "Norwegian Rail Project Adopts Immersive Design for Public Engagement and Buy-in."

For a disruptive, 10-kilometer-long rail project that won't even break ground until 2019, public officials and local residents of Moss, just south of Oslo, Norway, have been given an unusually vivid preview that, in the past, only the designers would have seen at this stage.

"We set up a showroom in the city where the public can come to view the project in a theater setting, and the feedback has been quite nice," says Hans Petter Sjøen, facility management coordinator for Bane NOR, the year-old, state-owned company responsible for developing, operating, and maintaining the Norwegian national railway infrastructure. "Project members also have been receptive. They tell us that they have seen dimensions on the big screen that they did not see in person."

Unlike the single viewer wearing a headset, the 180-degree, virtual reality (VR) theater used by the project takes multiple viewers on a simulated ride into an immersive design world, navigating with Navisworks Simulate. An accompanying Building Information Modeling program (BIM Track) allows users to make comments in real time, creating a dialogue between Bane NOR and the Rambøll/Sweco design team.

The VR showroom lets the public visualize what the new station will look like. Image Courtesy of Bane NOR

"One day each month, we make sure to have one of our people available in the VR showroom to answer any questions the public may have," adds Jarle Rasmussen, Bane NOR's project manager. "Once we begin construction in 2019, I think there will be even more interest from people who want to see how it will look when it's completed in 2024. Already, though, I think it's made it a lot easier for them to accept."

The VR program was created by a joint venture of Scandinavian engineering giants Sweco and Rambøll Group, based in Stockholm and Copenhagen, respectively. Already in planning for more than a year, the complex project will involve building 10 kilometers of new track, two tunnels, and one new transit station. The project reunites the successful team that's currently engaged building a 75-kilometer double-track InterCity Line between Sørli and Lillehammer, north of Oslo. Last fall, that project's innovative use of BIM and 3D simulations earned the Rambøll-Sweco ANS team first place in the Infrastructure category at the 2016 AEC Excellence Awards.

An alternate view of the new rail station. Image Courtesy of Bane NOR

According to the award citation: "By using 3D simulations, BIM helped the project team design, visualize, and negotiate environmental complexities. A total of 120 design and approval participants used BIM tools as a central platform to design, propose, analyze, share, build, and comment throughout the entire project."

For the newer, 10-kilometer project south of Oslo, the team has again used all of those features. And since January 2017, the immersive VR program has employed Autodesk InfraWorks to make the collaboration even more visceral for both the team and the public.

"The idea for featur[ing] a theater-like experience came from Samuel Andersson, one of our BIM coordinators," notes Oskar Karlsson, Sweco's BIM manager on the project. "He had seen information about the VR lab at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) in Ås [located roughly 30 kilometers south of Oslo], where they have this big screen. So our first suggestion was to take the experience of a 180-degree screen to give more info to the project team. It lets them see how the site develops during the whole project, as well as how it will look when it's done."

Karlsson adds that Bane NOR has instituted requirements on the project to ensure the signaling system along the rail track is up to code for the train driver and for the rail. The VR lab, which the building team calls its "B Lab," has improved the group's ability to meet those requirements, he says. "When we realized that we could also use it to help us locate things better, we used it for locating all the signaling along the route," Sjøen says.

The VR project takes viewers on a simulated ride through an immersive design world. Image Courtesy of Bane NOR

"This is the first time I'm aware of where we have done this," says Christina Hegge, Rambøll's project manager, referring to the expanded use of VR and augmented reality (AR) on an infrastructure project. "But this is definitely the future, so I think we will be using it more and more."

Hegge says the team is now engaged in technical detail planning, creating tender documents for turnkey construction of both preparatory works and actual rail engineering works. Preliminary site work is just getting underway.

So far, only the building team, the owner, and other stakeholders have used the university's big-screen experience to enhance their collaboration. The public, for its part, has been encouraged to use the showroom in Moss for walk-in tours with the VR headsets. Feedback from both groups has been encouraging.

Bane NOR has instituted project requirements to ensure the signaling system along the rail track is up to code. Image Courtesy of Bane NOR

"Traditionally, we had only used 2D drawings, so we asked ourselves, 'How could we use technology to be more engaging?'" Rasmussen says. "Buildings today have come quite a long way—many don't even have physical drawings. But infrastructure is not quite there yet. Hopefully it will be one day, but that won't be in the near future. Our facilities are still too spread out over many kilometers, and even years, for us to go completely without paper."

Still, both Sjøen and Rasmussen agree that the future pace of technological change is hard to gauge. Both started in the rail industry in 2003, and when asked together if they could have imagined 14 years ago the type of technology that they would be using today on these projects, they answered in unison, laughing: "Not at all!"

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House MM / Chris Collaris Architects

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 02:00 AM PDT

Architects: Chris Collaris Architects
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Area: 60.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Tim van de Velde

Structural Engineer: Vissers & Vissers B.V.
Contractor: Hagoort Bouw B.V.
Interior Stairs And Cabinets: Luc Schoenmakers Interieur/Decorbouw
Client: Private

Text description provided by the architects. In the North of Amsterdam an old and decayed brick house has been replaced by a complete new and sustainable house with timber cladding on the walls and roof. The old house was very limited in gross area and volume. With ultimate stretching within the context of the current allocation plan, Chris Collaris Architects has made a design for a new house. The new house still has a relatively small ground floor area (60 m2) but its' inside volume has a significant increase and a much more spacious feeling.

The roof lines were bound to restricted heights. By cantilevering the lower parts outside the main building volume, the upper level of the house increases. A house with a high ceiling on every floor level and an extra attic is the result of this design feature. The extra win is a dry walk along the North facade while walking underneath the cantilevering roof part towards the entrance.

The design of the house is based on the passive building technology. The facades and roof are built with sandwich panels with high density insulation and all connections with the window frames have been sealed double. The facades and roof parts are finished with black timber cladding of wax conserved pinewood. The building system with a steel skeleton and sandwich panels is very uncommon for its' use in single private housing. It is much more common in use for large factory halls with less precise building details. In this house the building system has been altered and tailored in such a specific way that the reference to its' characteristics being used in large factory halls completely has vanished.

In detail, all edges, corners and joints in the exterior have been made as minimal as possible. Very small incorporated gutters at the roof edges cause a water curtain in heavy rainy weather. A flower window cuts through the wood cladding of the front facade and the bathroom window cuts through the wood cladding of the roof. Black solar panels are positioned exactly within the roof cladding, and the roof edges are clad with the wax conserved and black painted pinewood too.

The old and decayed brick house has not vanished completely. Roof tiles and wooden floors have been used in the garden and the inner brick layer of the old house has been used again in the interior of the new house. A central positioned core with bricks and a staircase with cabinets made of birch multiplex divide the living spaces into living, kitchen and a diner room. A central and light void alongside the stairs maximizes the interior space of the ground floor.

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Spotlight: SANAA

Posted: 29 Oct 2017 01:00 AM PDT

Grace Farms / SANAA. Image © Dean Kaufman

Founded in 1995 by architects Kazuyo Sejima (born 29 October 1956) and Ryue Nishizawa (born 7 February 1966), SANAA is world-renowned for its white, light buildings grounded in the architects' Japanese cultural origins. Despite the white exteriors, their architecture is far from modernist; the constant incorporation of ambiguity and doubt in SANAA's buildings is refreshing and playful, taking the reflective properties of glass and brightness of white to a new level.

Before founding SANAA, Sejima graduated with a Masters Degree in architecture from Japan Women's University in 1981, going on to work at Toyo Ito and Associates before establishing Kazuyo Sejima and Associates in 1987. Sejima was subsequently named the Japan Institute of Architects' Young Architect of the Year in 1992. Nishizawa was hired to work at Kazyuo Sejima and Associates after graduating from Yokohama National University in 1990, and together they founded SANAA in 1995. Two years later, Nishizawa founded Ryue Nishizawa and Associates, and as such the architects describe SANAA as being made up of three firms, coming together to discuss and critique ideas.

Louvre Lens / SANAA. Image © Julien Lanoo

The two architects were the second to win the Pritzker Prize as a duo, in 2010. Capturing what SANAA's architecture represents, the Pritzker jury stated that "they explore like few others the phenomenal properties of space, lightness, transparency and materiality to create a subtle synthesis." Sejima has also commented on the firm's consistent use of the color white as a method to avoid a hierarchy in their architecture, bringing light everywhere instead of being intensified in certain spaces. Their democratic diffusion and circulation of light also reflects on their aim to create feelings of continuity and community in public spaces, evident in Grace Farms, which won the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize for 2014/2015.

New Museum / SANAA. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu

This layered translucence and unclear boundaries between spaces can be seen in many of their famous works, including the Louvre-Lens Museum, completed in 2012; the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, completed in 2007; and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan. These public areas also demonstrate SANAA's ability to construct spaces that people can enjoy together, while still taking part in individual programs.

The 2009 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion / SANAA. Image © Iwan Baan

Check out more completed works by SANAA as well as the individual firms of Sejima and Nishizawa in the thumbnails below, as well as more coverage on the firm after those:

Pritzker Ceremony / SANAA

SANAA's Grace Farms Wins the 2014/2015 Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize

Kazuyo Sejima Explains the Influence of Light and the Color White in SANAA's Work

Iwan Baan on Light and the Louvre Lens

Cloud-Shaped Pavilion is SANAA's Latest Work in Naoshima

Kazuyo Sejima's Sumida Hokusai Museum in Tokyo Photographed by Laurian Ghinitoiu

Video: Louvre-Lens / SANAA

SANAA's Zollverein School of Management and Design Photographed by Laurian Ghinitoiu

The Berlage Archive: Kazuyo Sejima (2002)

Watch SANAA's Grace Farms Come to Life in this Time Lapse

Video: Shibaura House by Kazuyo Sejima

Video: Teshima Art Museum / Office of Ryue Nishizawa