Arch Daily |
- MyChelsea Boutique Hotel / Design House Liberty
- Plastic House II / Unit Arkitektur AB
- House with a Chandelier / AB CHVOYA
- Marmara University Faculty of Theology Mosque / Hassa Architecture Engineering Co.
- Huateng Pig House Exhibition Hall / Leekostudio
- TS HAMAMOTO BLD / CAPD
- Klein House / MHNDU
- Studio Gang Reveals Concept Designs for California College of the Arts Campus
- Mountain House / Armando Montero
- 6 Star-Studded Teams Shortlisted in Adelaide Contemporary International Design Competition
- Nossa Senhora de Fátima Chapel / Plano Humano Arquitectos
- NEXT Architects' Zalige Bridge Transforms Into Stepping Stones During Flood Conditions
- Marcon House / Ramella Arquitetura
- From Affordable Housing to Climate Change, San Francisco Is a Microcosm of Global Urban Challenges
- Es Puig D'En Valls Sports Center / MCEA | Arquitectura
- New Algorithm Finds The Greenest City in The World
- Spotlight: Gottfried Böhm
| MyChelsea Boutique Hotel / Design House Liberty Posted: 23 Jan 2018 07:00 PM PST  © Jack Hobhouse
 © Jack Hobhouse Text description provided by the architects. MyChelsea is a niche boutique hotel located in the heart of Chelsea. With the brand of MyHotels set in unique locations that complement their surroundings, this hotel does just that. Drawing on the beautiful gardens and annual flower shows of Chelsea, the hotel design creates an experience where botany and nature come together to provide a serene environment for hotel guests and visitors alike. Upon entering, the lobby space draws focus to our bespoke light feature surrounded by walls painted in raven black.  © Jack Hobhouse  Floor Plan 1  © Jack Hobhouse In the main conservatory, the monochromatic backdrop of the design allows the greenery of the tropical array of plants to stand out. This is supplemented with DH Liberty Lux Pear lights which provide an organic counterpart to the existing structural framework of the greenhouse. These organic layers are juxtaposed with carefully sourced geometric furniture inclusive a distressed bar with stone top and white oak floors laid in an angled geometry. In the bedrooms, delicate dewdrops from our DH Liberty Lux collection drip from the ceiling as hexagonal concrete tiles wrap the walls of the bathrooms and honeycomb mesh integrates into the bespoke joinery.  © Jack Hobhouse  © Jack Hobhouse We've also created a raw delicatessen which serves guilt free and healthy desserts, raw juices and salads from Tanya's Kitchen. The consistent juxtaposition of organic and geometric forms create a series of spaces that feel effortless in their totality and provide an aligned brand identity for the MyHotel Chelsea and its future guests.  © Jack Hobhouse  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Plastic House II / Unit Arkitektur AB Posted: 23 Jan 2018 06:00 PM PST  © Per Nadén
 © Per Nadén Text description provided by the architects. West of Gothenburg lies Sweden's fourth biggest island – Hisingen. Travelling from the centre of Gothenburg towards the western side of Hisingen, you first pass Volvos industrial production units before reaching the coast and the ferry terminal which connects Hisingen to the northern archipelago. Just north of Hjulvik´s ferry terminal, a shift in the landscape occurs - from Hisingens plains (former seafloor) to Bohusläns coastal landscape with its ancient and sweeping outcrops of gneiss and granite. The last kilometre to the site winds and rises before finally you are rewarded with a great view back towards the ferry terminal. This area is called Hästevik. The clients for the Plastic house II are the same as for our first built house ten years before – Plastic house I. They have now bought this real estate, some kilometres from the old house, and wanted to complement the existing summer house with a new single-story house. _1.400.jpg?1516714302 "Floor Plan 1") Floor Plan 1  © Per Nadén The family has three kids. Hästevik has, as many areas, been transformed from having mostly summer houses to become a permanent residential area. Building permits have been handed out liberally and small houses have been replaced with bigger ones. The effects on nature have been so considerable that almost no trace of the original coastal character is left. Basements have been sunken into the mountains, crevices and valleys levelled and fundaments introduced, creating terraces and lawns. The sweeping lines and the exposed mountains natural to the West coast have been blown away, bit by bit. For us, two things were fundamental during the design process of Plastic house II. First to maximize the fantastic view and second to minimize the impact on nature. We can basically demount the house and the only thing left would be the 19 holes drilled in the mountain for the pillars. To reduce the footprint further the drains have been placed above ground and covered with a layer of earth.  © Per Nadén We strove to keep the design simple and at the same time retain a luxurious feel as in the Case Study Houses built in the early fifties in California. A kind of glamour camping. A simplicity and comprehensibility in the built structure but with generous living qualities. At the same time, we tried to build in dissonances both in the material palette and the actual geometric composition, to avoid too much of a classic modernism. The floor plan is simple - private areas facing east and the public area, with direct access to the adjacent granite rocks, facing west. The division between the two parts lies at the centre of the house, along with the longitudinal axis. The public area with kitchen and living room can be separated from the kid's living area by means of a sliding door.  © Per Nadén The house is supported by 19 circular 80 mm columns. Each column is placed in a drilled hole (300 mm deep) and has been fixed with an expanding plaster. The locations and the heights of the columns have been measured in on-site to enable prefabrication before the galvanization. The columns support three HEA 200 beams that support the whole house. All steelwork is galvanized and powder-coated in white. The complete steel construction was carried out in two weeks. On top of the steel, a prefabricated wooden frame was mounted in less than three weeks. The underside of the house has been covered with white perforated corrugated aluminium. Due to the exposed position, all other metalwork consists of coated aluminium. The windows have been built with Schüchos system. The facade is a development of the system we created for Plastic house I. A façade with 5 mm opaque PMMA is taped with velcro acrylic foam tape mounted on standing sheet metal studs, to avoid exposed fixings and to handle the thermal expansion. The sheets can then easily be demounted if need of replacement.  Section  © Per Nadén  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| House with a Chandelier / AB CHVOYA Posted: 23 Jan 2018 04:00 PM PST  © Alexey Naroditsky
 © Alexey Naroditsky Text description provided by the architects. The object designed for the festival "ARCHSTOYANIE-2017". Theme of the festival was the question "How to live?".  Sketch A house with a chandelier is a residential unit for two people. The house is made of wood and has no windows. The only opening is located in the ceiling. It connects the opaque volume of the house and the transparent volume of the skylight, where the chandelier is located. During the day, the house is lit by natural light. In the dark, the chandelier illuminates the interior of the house, but also shines outward.  © Alexey Naroditsky  Section A passerby can see that inside it is cozy, but the life of the inhabitants is completely hidden from the eyes of outsiders.  © Alexey Naroditsky  © Alexey Naroditsky  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Marmara University Faculty of Theology Mosque / Hassa Architecture Engineering Co. Posted: 23 Jan 2018 02:00 PM PST  © İsmail Hakkı Gurbetçi
 © İsmail Hakkı Gurbetçi Text description provided by the architects. Marmara University Faculty of Theology Mosque was designed as an interpretation of classical Ottoman architecture tradition by using today's language. The project is based on the fractal rotational movement which is seen in the universe from micro-scale to macro-scale, reveals seeking of a new perspective in terms of abstraction, stylization and interpretation of tradition in mosque architecture, by combining concepts of "the part in the whole" and "the whole in the part" with fractal form of nautilus and millenary traditional "kırlangıç" ceiling technique. The Project has a 30.000 sqm built area consisting of an urban square, a mosque, which can accommodate 4500 worshippers, and a cultural centre under the mosque and square.  © İsmail Hakkı Gurbetçi  Site Plan  © İsmail Hakkı Gurbetçi The culture centre including classrooms, conference hall, exhibition spaces, book cafe and cinevision rooms, was considered as an attraction centre of social life. With all these functions, the project constitutes the concept of "complex", group of buildings gathered together in the urban scale with its urban square. Dialectics of human-space relations, considering tawhid, the oneness of God concept and poetics and its phenomenology in classical architecture, was combined in this project by today's materials and construction techniques. The most important criteria for designing the mosque is stylization, by reason of that poetics of space in Ottoman architecture is still uncomprehended and is unable to go beyond.  © İsmail Hakkı Gurbetçi Today, such poetics of space is perceivable in only classical mosques, and was not discussed in mosque architecture because of that tradition had broken away. Through lack of this concept, some projects as trials were designed as either bad repetitions or as providing only prayer requirements with a completely functionalist style, ignoring the poetics of space. Therefore, this mosque was designed in a convenient way in relation to its precedents and as a reaction to "classical mosque-modern mosque" contradiction, in order to create a new style with new materials. The mosque, dodecagon plan, was built as steel construction above a reinforced concrete base. The central dome, 35 m in diameter and 35 m high, forms by joining 12 steel columns, ascending step-by-step.  © İsmail Hakkı Gurbetçi Load-bearing columns link to an internal wall of the dome with steel beams in the form of traditional Turkish triangles. Over the ridge rib, there is multiple-stage spiral structure. At the top point, there is a skylight inspiring from muqarnas and the crescent of the main dome mounts over it. As for the interior space, to comprehend the image of the structure from the inside, movement of spiral glass structure and it's joining with glass muqarnas cover at the top are also seen from the interior of the mosque. Here, unlike the outside, the person is surrounded by the structure which they perceive from outside. In order to strengthen the centre of projection in interior space, glass spirals and glass muqarnas cover on the top, 6 waw letter on the centre of the circle, and the fountain and pool emphasize the centre reaching to heavens.  © İsmail Hakkı Gurbetçi  Section 2  © İsmail Hakkı Gurbetçi  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Huateng Pig House Exhibition Hall / Leekostudio Posted: 23 Jan 2018 12:00 PM PST  © Yong Zhang
 © Yong Zhang Keep the natural light with the lighting tube in the hog house exhibition hall  © Yong Zhang .jpg?1515891790 "Section") Section Clever combination of water treatment system and the house design  © Yong Zhang From "the coming of the Holy Spirit" to "flying pigs"  © Yong Zhang  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 23 Jan 2018 11:00 AM PST  © Daisuke Shima / ad hoc inc
 © Daisuke Shima / ad hoc inc  First Floor Plan Text description provided by the architects. The premises is a residential area with many ordinary houses. In such a site environment, I wanted to avoid buildings that would give a sense of oppression around the company as a company building, and started a plan.  © Daisuke Shima / ad hoc inc In consideration of the privacy aspect to the surroundings, the opening is eliminated as much as possible, but the interior is bright enough with the top light and the glass surface on the floor. Also, after the sun goes down, the light of the office falls to the 1st floor parking lot and fulfills the substitute for indirect lighting.  © Daisuke Shima / ad hoc inc Within the office, excluding the accounting office space, it was a free desk for industries spending most of the worksite. It is possible to respond flexibly by not having to fix the desk for meetings and meetings with many people, as well as to make necessary communication at each place you like.  © Daisuke Shima / ad hoc inc  Section It is a special example of office building in a residential area, but it fulfilled the necessary functions firmly, and it became a harmonized building with the surroundings.  © Daisuke Shima / ad hoc inc  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 23 Jan 2018 09:00 AM PST  © Justin Alexander
 © Justin Alexander Text description provided by the architects. Located in the eastern suburbs of Sydney with distant views to Sydney Harbour, this irregular shaped site with a narrow street frontage, a steep slope from front to rear and sandstone rock shelves posed a significant challenge to the architect.  © Justin Alexander The brief was to create a practical family home that captures the panoramic views of the Harbour and provide a warm and relaxed atmosphere with plenty of light and generous amenity. The existing tennis court to the south was to be retained, and the associated tennis pavilion refurbished and altered.  © Justin Alexander  Ground Floor Plan  © Justin Alexander The project was conceived as a group of two pavilions set around a central courtyard where the spaces can freely flow from inside to outside, permitting both pavilions access to eastern and northern light. The house is set as closely as allowable to the western boundary, pulled away from the neighbouring property to the east for solar gain and greater views.  © Justin Alexander The narrow site entry was widened by cutting back the existing sandstone rock boulders to allow for a generous entry stair nestled alongside the rock face. The wide cantilevered concrete treads follow the shape of the rock and lead up to the entry door.  Section The Ground floor level accommodates a mix of formal and informal rooms on different levels and a large covered outdoor terrace beside the pool. The first floor accommodates a parent's retreat making the most of the northerly aspect and views, with the children's bedrooms located on the top floor. The existing tennis pavilion was retained as a guest house with a new level added to house a gym.  © Justin Alexander To emphasise the sense of seamless spaces the architectural material palette of dark metal, timber, stone and off-form concrete makes its way to the inside of the house with beautifully designed interiors. The client had a strong sense of style and a very good understanding of materiality, form and space. The design process was a true collaboration between client, architect and interior designer where every detail was discussed intensively and resulted in a beautifully finished home.  © Justin Alexander  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Studio Gang Reveals Concept Designs for California College of the Arts Campus Posted: 23 Jan 2018 08:00 AM PST .jpg?1516742161 "© Studio Gang") © Studio Gang Studio Gang has revealed concept designs for their campus master plan for the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco. Currently split between facilities in San Francisco and Oakland, the new unified campus will bring together the school's various art and design programs into one "vibrant indoor-outdoor environment." The design concepts aims to become a "highly sustainable model for the future of creative practices," arranging programs into upper and lower ground levels to encourage interaction and cross-departmental osmosis. .jpg?1516742148 "© Studio Gang") © Studio Gang "Conceived as a creative ecosystem that strengthens relationships between people, ideas, and practices, the design extends the main academic building of the existing San Francisco campus into a new campus yard framed by a layered "double ground" of art-making facilities and landscapes," explain Studio Gang. On the ground plane, indoor-outdoor makerspaces will support large, physically intensive work, while the "upper ground" level will contain smaller scale art-making spaces, outdoor classrooms and informal meeting areas. The two levels will be connected visually throughout with courtyards and glazed openings, and will connect physically through a terraced landscape. .jpg?1516742135 "© Studio Gang") © Studio Gang "Its flexible plan makes the different programs more visible to one another, promoting interdisciplinary interactions and providing adaptability as new needs, uses, and technologies develop," add the architects. "Together, this layered environment functions as a laboratory where students and faculty can explore materials, processes, and tools. Incorporating passive strategies and sustainable systems allows the campus to function as a closed-loop, net-positive system, supporting healthy, progressive spaces for art making and ensuring resiliency for the future." Located within the burgeoning art and design district known as DoReMi, the campus will be integrated into the wider community through the introduction public amenities and green spaces. News via Studio Gang
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| Mountain House / Armando Montero Posted: 23 Jan 2018 07:00 AM PST  Courtesy of Armando Montero
 Courtesy of Armando Montero Text description provided by the architects. In early 20th century, the spontaneous colonization of the Aysén region in Chilean Patagonia generated an anonymous architecture of carpenters. They built hundreds of cabins and barns: small and primitive machines to inhabit. This house continues the search for functional forms of construction in the region, where efficiency must guide every step of the process.  Courtesy of Armando Montero The house is located to the East of the central axis of the Patagonian Andes. The house faces North, with views towards the East, North and West, which allows for the sun to illuminate and keep warm the interiors throughout the day. For the construction, we exclusively used native wood from local loggers with sustainable extraction plans. The structure of walls, beams and roof is made of Coigüe, while the inner lining is of Lenga.  Courtesy of Armando Montero For the outer covering tile, we used Coigüe and Cypress. The foundation structure is made of reinforced concrete. The wooden beams in the floor and roof structure are in a single piece.  Courtesy of Armando Montero The first level has a large main space with openings to the North, East and West with an open view of the Coyhaique Valley. The North-facing terrace, its walls and the eaves of the roof, frame a box of 12 x 5.6 meters. To the South are the functional programs: access, library, staircase, bathrooms, loggia, greenhouse. The second level has bedrooms to the North, and bathrooms and circulations to the South.  First floor plan The roof structure contains a third level with a multipurpose room. Due to its location, the house functions as a meteorological and solar observatory. It is possible to witness the bad weather fronts crossing over the Patagonian Andes, dissolve into clouds and disappear in the Argentine pampa. The sun passes on the other direction, marking equinoxes favorably on the facade.  Courtesy of Armando Montero  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| 6 Star-Studded Teams Shortlisted in Adelaide Contemporary International Design Competition Posted: 23 Jan 2018 06:30 AM PST  An aerial view of downtown Adelaide. The University of Adelaide can be seen on the left side of the photo. © Wikimedia user Normangerman at English Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 Update 1/23/18: The jury for the competition has been announced as the architects arrive on site for walkthroughs. Six star-studded teams have been shortlisted in the Adelaide Contemporary International Design Competition, which is seeking to create a new contemporary art museum and public sculpture park on a significant site near the University of Adelaide and the Adelaide Botanic Garden in Adelaide, Australia. Selected from 107 teams made up of over 500 individual firms, the six shortlisted teams were chosen through the "outstanding quality" of their initial submissions and for the complementary strengths of each of the team members. "This is an extraordinarily rich list of diverse creative partnerships of architects looking to complement their talents by working with both peers and smaller talented practices. The final decision was very demanding but these are the teams that convinced us through the outstanding quality of their submissions," said Nick Mitzevich, Director, Art Gallery of South Australia. .jpg?1516735664 "Adelaide Contemporary International Design Competition shortlisted teams visit the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2018. Photo: Nat Rogers") Adelaide Contemporary International Design Competition shortlisted teams visit the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2018. Photo: Nat Rogers The six shortlisted teams are:
Teams will now move on to the next competition stage, where they will produce conceptual designs for the site. Each team will visit the site in January, and will receive an honorarium of AU$90,000 for their competition work. The submissions will be revealed to the public in April, with a winner to be selected in May. "The six teams all showed a strong connection with Adelaide – and understood that our aim is not to create an off-the-peg architectural icon but a piece of Adelaide, an entity that will be sustainable and polymathic in the way it enhances the social, cultural and architectural fabric of the city," added Mitzevich. The jury for the competition is as follows: Michael Lynch AO CBE (Chair), Chair, Sydney Community Foundation and Chair, Circa
The competition is organized by Malcolm Reading Consultants. Learn more about the project on the official competition website, here.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Nossa Senhora de Fátima Chapel / Plano Humano Arquitectos Posted: 23 Jan 2018 05:05 AM PST  © João Morgado
 © João Morgado Text description provided by the architects. The construction of this building came from the desire to have a chapel at the National Scout´s Activities Camp (CNAE), in the municipality of Idanha a Nova, central region of Portugal, for the XXIII National Jamboree of Portuguese Catholic Scouts, which involved about 22,000 participants, and to join the other definitive buildings that this scouting center has.  Sketch The chosen location is privileged, in a plateau area, central in the CNAE, surrounded by a rural environment, with an extraordinary panoramic view, that also impelled the design of the building.  © João Morgado The spacial experience begins with the access route to the chapel, a gradual passage to a more introspective environment. This space is delimited by a wood fence, composed of spaced poles, sufficient to delimit the space, but purposely open, showing a chapel available to all who pass by. Crowning the entrance there is a bell, acclaimer of Christian life, and allusive to the catholic Scout association of Portugal and to the XXIII National Camping.  © João Morgado The chapel is dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima and is inspired by the scouting experience: outdoor life, camping, the tent, and by the sobriety and simplicity of buildings and lifestyle. The pointy edges of the building allude to the scout’s scarf, the symbol of vow and commitment of this movement.  © João Morgado The chapel was thought out as a large tent, with open doors to everyone, at all times: a constant welcoming point for shelter, contemplation and introspection. It´s very simple form, as a classical tent, is formed by a gable roof, adapted to receive all visitors. The structure approaches people in the entrance area, where the volume is lower and narrower, closer to the human scale, and stretches forward and upward, elevating the user to something higher, facing a dazzling landscape in background, that amplifies these sensations. This intimate setting is allied to the scout and Christian spirit of communion with nature.  Sketch  Sketch The east / west orientation of the chapel enables the sunrise to illuminate its interior space, and the sunset to fill the place with an immensity of colors, tones and ambiences, that arouse the eye and sustain the architectural arrangement. In fall and winter, the light emphasizes the tranquility of the place, and the unadorned symbiosis between building and landscape.  © João Morgado The entrance point, where the building resembles the scouts scarf, and the way it rests on the neck, is also marked by the presence of water, that is “born” here. Here emerges a watercourse, that invites to visit the chapel and the Mystery that it celebrates. This course evokes the long and rich biblical and liturgical symbology. The water crosses the whole space of the chapel, on a path that develops into the altar - the central place of any Christian celebratory space - and then into the landscape, directing the user to the cross, which is outside the chapel, in the same alignment.  © João Morgado The cross points out the landscape and consolidates the feeling of amplitude and projection to the Divine.  © João Morgado The large cross, implanted at the landscape, with its imposing and yet delicate form, tapers as it gains height, and testifies the solemnity of the place.  Plan The alignment of these liturgical elements is arranged along a path that is covered by the architectural form, which while protecting, also projects the user upwards and towards the landscape, unifying the purposes of the formal and conceptual design of the building.  © João Morgado The wood and zinc structure give a simple and protective external aspect to the temple, and creates a cozy interior ambience. Inside, the covering is supported by 12 wooden beams (an allusion to the Apostles) revealing the constructive simplicity and truth.  © João Morgado With a total length of 12m, the structure reaches its highest point at 9m, after the Altar, where the raising of the main beam increases the space depth, and highlights this sacral point.  © João Morgado The chosen materials integrate the building in the surroundings, the scout practice, and in the architectural concept. Wood is a material widely used by scouts in their constructions. It is a natural and traditional material, which provides solidity and comfort. Zinc, also a traditional material, here chosen not only for its excellent qualities of tightness, but also for the feeling of protection it confers.  © João Morgado The altar, the fountain and the path of water are permanent elements of the building, and are made of stone, a natural and noble material. The chair, the ambo, the support of the ceremonial candle, the base of the figure of Our Lady of Fátima and the benches of the assembly are movable. These elements are made of solid wood, worked in a simple, almost crude form, cleared of additional elements, letting function overlap decoration.  Detail Light, an important theme in architecture and religious expression, was designed to highlight the expressiveness of all interior and exterior space. Due to its location, in a rural environment, the chosen artificial lighting is discreet and harmoniously distributed. At night the illumination highlight´s and frames the building with the surrounding nature and stars above. The light comes from underneath, and projects itself in the edified set, and in the great cross, enriching the dimensions of the architecture, and giving it ethereal dimensions.  © João Morgado A single point of light stands out from the rest of the illumination, and falls from the top of the structure's shaft, over the altar, consecrating the reverence of this element. The chapel serves the scout community, and permit celebrations for a greater number of people. In these cases, the assembly can be in the large exterior space, leaving the celebrant facing the landscape, which transforms the whole chapel into an altar. This is a spiritual place, a simple, sacred existence. It invites to reflection, in encounter with faith, while looking forward, to a higher horizon.  Axonometric  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| NEXT Architects' Zalige Bridge Transforms Into Stepping Stones During Flood Conditions Posted: 23 Jan 2018 04:30 AM PST  © NEXT Architects. Photography: Rutger Hollander In a country famous for its below sea level towns, combating flooding has been a key challenge for Dutch designers for centuries, resulting in the construction of numerous dikes, levees and seawalls across the country. But when tasked with creating a new pedestrian link across an urban river park in Nijmegen, NEXT Architects and H+N+S Landscape Architects decided to try a different approach: to celebrate the natural event by designing a stepping stone bridge that only becomes useful in high water conditions. Known as the Zalige Bridge, the structure was completed in March 2016, but only just was given the opportunity to prove itself in January 2018, when water levels in the park rose to 12 m NAP+, the highest point in 15 years. The bridge acts as an extension of an elevated pathway that takes visitors across the river and floodplains. During dry times, a ground level pathway lined with concrete benches provides access to the raised structure. But as water levels begin to rise, this path is submerged, and the benches become the new 'stepping stones' that allow visitors to cross.  © NEXT Architects. Photography: Jeroen Bosch  © NEXT Architects. Photography: Jan Daanen By limiting access, the architects believe the presence of the water is celebrated in a poetic way. "While the water was rising, the bridge was reachable only through stepping stones, becoming the ultimate place to experience the high water," explain the architects. "Eventually, also the stepping stones submerged, making the bridge inaccessible. As a crest above the river, the bridge emphasizes the dynamic character of water by letting people see and experience the changing river landscape."  Courtesy of NEXT Architects  © NEXT Architects. Photography: Rutger Hollander  Courtesy of NEXT Architects "All designs by NEXT architects start from the unique characteristics of a place. This bridge is built on the floodplains; this fact was used to design a bridge that strongly connects and interacts with the river landscape; as a path over the water," explains Michel Schreinemachers, partner NEXT architects. "It makes people experience of the changing water levels." News via NEXT Architects  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Marcon House / Ramella Arquitetura Posted: 23 Jan 2018 03:00 AM PST  © Marcelo Donadussi
 © Marcelo Donadussi Text description provided by the architects. The tapering terrain for the lake was instrumental in staggering the broader front plant and narrowing in the back, and its ground floor needs plan had to be expanded to a mezzanine because of the lake's bottom views since the living room narrowed. The stepped decking on the back porch, just past the living room, was also a solution to approach the lake from the patio and made integration with the landscape and gardens more attractive.  © Marcelo Donadussi  Section  © Marcelo Donadussi The apparent brick and concrete house sit in a condominium of lots in Xangri-la, south coast of Brazil, and its interior living is strictly connected to the integration with the landscape and gardens, which the family sought in a beach house. Its more blind facade of openings houses a garage-porch with a small garden in the background that merges into the living room with double height and mezzanine. Its interior, in textures of concrete, wood and brick details follows a reference to the external façades, it leaves everything cosy in an architectonic composition in perfect harmony.  © Marcelo Donadussi The volume of the deposit of beach items with a higher right foot for planks and fishing articles in the front of the house generated more imposing to the earthy façade that is softened by the horizontality of the green cover slab in apparent concrete. The design of the landscaping done by the architect had the function of delimiting the spaces of the land with a garden created to grow and to follow the changes of the house during the time."Limo, mosses, stains on concrete and brick, are marks that time leaves in the house and transforms it during the time, as well as its garden that behaves in different ways according to the time of year."  Sketch 1  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| From Affordable Housing to Climate Change, San Francisco Is a Microcosm of Global Urban Challenges Posted: 23 Jan 2018 01:30 AM PST  © <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/sagesolar/11909989624/'>Flickr user sagesolar</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/'>CC BY 2.0</a> This article was originally published by Common Edge as "John King on San Francisco, Oakland, and the Challenge of Affordable Housing." John King has covered the urban design beat for the San Francisco Chronicle for 17 years now. That's long enough, in other words, to have written about a handful of economic booms and subsequent busts. But the Bay Area is a unique beast. No other region in the country has been as thoroughly transformed by the digital revolution. And it's a transformation that continues to this day. Shortly before the New Year, I spoke to King about the fate of San Francisco, the Oakland renaissance, and his 4-month long fellowship in Washington, DC.
Martin C. Pedersen: How does the recent death of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and the political uncertainties created by that affect the urban design issues boiling in the city? John King: Ed Lee was the former City Administrator and before that, head of the Department of Public Works: he ran the city in a methodical way and wasn't design-focused at all. Instead of having architectural aspirations, his emphasis the last few years has been the need to produce more housing. It's interesting: the notion of development vs no-development is no longer part of the debate in San Francisco. This is quite a change from past decades. Where you get the fissures now is in the fine print: What should the percentage of market rate to affordable housing be? What should be the tangible spin-offs of commercial development? There is a real strong political consensus behind the idea that we can live with lots of development, but we need to have clear, measurable community benefits from it. There's an area called Central SoMa, where developers want to build large structures, mostly tech space but some housing, at heights of up to 400 feet. There's been online voting and community meetings to ask the various interest groups: how would you allot impact fees from these buildings? What's important to you? Is it parks? Is it an affordable housing fund? Is it job-training money? The idea is to put together a toolkit with all the details spelled out so that when the plan goes to the planning commission and the Board of Supervisors—theoretically, this spring—boosters can say: here's the development we're expecting, here are the benefits from it, and here's exactly how these benefits would be allotted. MCP: This all seems completely rational to me. JK: It is. But in San Francisco, the battles involve fine-grain arguments like, "Oh, if it's only 27% affordable housing, instead of 33%, we shouldn't allow this." If people agree on 90% of the issues, they'll fight bitterly over the remaining 10%. MCP: What's going on across the Bay? What are the issues in Oakland? How do they play out differently from San Francisco? JK: A lot of the issues are the same ones playing out in large cities across the country: Gentrification. Who are you building for? How does development empower all segments of the community, rather than just the caricature of the millennial with a job in tech? This is quite a change because until now, Oakland has been missed by just about every economic boom of the last forty or fifty years. MCP: Fifteen years ago it's one of the things I used to ask all my Bay Area friends about. In my typical New York-centric way, I'd ask: "Why isn't Oakland becoming Brooklyn?" JK: In past booms, what tended to happen was that San Francisco would overheat and developers would say, "This is crazy, here's Oakland, it's a ten-minute BART ride from downtown San Francisco!" They'd trot out plans, option parcels, maybe they even get development rights. Then the boom would go bust, and all those plans would blow away. This current boom, which essentially kicked into overdrive in 2012, is now going into its sixth year. That's enough time for developers to put out the plans and actually things get moving. Downtown Oakland has at least two residential towers going up right now. Others have all their approvals and the sites have been cleared. There is also a lot of five-story infill housing going up. MCP: I remember when Jerry Brown was mayor, his goal was to bring 10,000 residents to downtown Oakland. JK: Exactly. It's considerably beyond that now. Downtown Oakland has a completely different feel to it than downtown San Francisco, more of a midwestern feel. In a good way. The streets are a bit larger. They're quieter. There are nice 1920s buildings, sprinkled throughout, and then layers from the '60s and '70s. All this fits together in a way that's odd but feels absolutely right. There's one block where a developer is proposing a market-rate condo tower—which would be the first one downtown in nearly 20 years, by the way—and the block is wonderfully Oakland. It's this odd mish-mash of things that have floated in there over the years: a Buddhist temple, a Chinese bakery, a hipster coffee shop, a job training center. You'd hope that future development won't erase all of that.  Downtown Oakland. Image © <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/eoringel/3472913945'>Flickr user eoringel</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/'>CC BY 2.0</a> MCP: It seems to me that the gentrification/displacement issues are even more fraught in Oakland than they are in San Francisco. Is that how you'd characterize it? JK: That's not how San Francisco would characterize it—though I do think it's accurate. In San Francisco, the battle in some ways was pretty much lost a decade ago; the issue now is, how do you win the small victories to at least maintain and hold onto some semblance of diversity. In Oakland, there's a sense that maybe you can still keep that unique urban grain. No one is entirely sure how. That's the issue at hand. MCP: How are Oakland and San Francisco approaching climate change? JK: The Bay Conservation and Development Commission was established in the 1960s to save the bay. It is the governing body that can approve changes to anything within one hundred feet of the shoreline. About 12 years ago, it started to work on getting the idea of climate change and sea level rise on people's radar. The agency did that very provocatively, with compelling maps and an ideas competition. But when the commission then started to push for a stronger role in regulating what happens along the water, it ran into a lot of opposition from builders. The commission's leadership has subsequently changed, and it's more concerned with staying on good terms with business. But the agency's priorities haven't changed—this is the key issue affecting the future of the bay—and it has kept pushing forward. You've also got political consensus around the idea that development along the bay needs to be keyed to sea level projections for 2100. Of course this stirs up tensions, because a lot of the land in San Francisco where you can still build large amounts of housing is directly on the bay. So the official city line is these projects would have to be done with an eye toward sea level rise projections of sixty-six inches by 2100. This isn't a number plucked out of thin air: In 2012, the state had the National Research Council conduct a sea level rise study geared specifically to California, and that was the upper range forecast. That was a pretty aggressive estimate for the time. Now, whenever I write about these waterfront projects, people say, "How on earth can the city be doing this? It should be banning all development along the water."  Voters in San Francisco will be asked to fund a $350-million bond to repair and restore the seawall, protecting the Embarcadero and the financial district behind it. A new wall would respond to both seismic and sea level rise issues. Image © <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/rotron/33462837201'>Flickr user rotron</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/'>CC BY-ND 2.0</a> MCP: You know that officially underestimating the extent of possible sea level rise is a national phenomenon. In Louisiana, they wrote a coastal master plan in 2012. They just finished revising it for 2017. And all of the "worst case" scenarios in 2012, became the "best case" scenarios for 2017. No one wants to own up to the truth, even when they believe the truth. JK: One facet of the waterfront projects here is that most of them are big enough to have a lot of buffer space. On Treasure Island, they're going to have a 300-foot deep waterfront park. It will be raised up. But the idea is to leave room for a lot of attractive berms, as needed. Space to retreat, if need be. MCP: For the next four months you'll be a Mellon Fellow in Urban Landscape Studies, at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. Tell me what you'll be doing? JK: One of the things that's fascinated me the past few years are the changing notions of public space. After the 2008 recession, you saw all this creativity from architects, planners, and landscape architects, many of whom didn't have a lot of paying work, coming up with ideas. How do we do parklets? How do we close irregular intersections and create public plazas? How do we, essentially, rethink the public realm? The thinking about urban spaces is so creative and wide-ranging: It can be bottom-up planning, a High Line type of thing, a Millennium Park sort of thing. At the same time there are real security concerns, quality of life issues, and concerns about what happens when public space is privately managed and funded. The result is this tension between an ever-wider array of spaces available to people who live in or inhabit a city—and the implicit restrictions on who uses them, and what populations actually feel welcome within them. MCP: Many of these spaces aren't truly public. JK: Exactly. There are spaces that I make a point of going to just because it's clear that I'm not wanted. One facet of research at Dumbarton Oaks is that part of it is overseen by Harvard's Graduate School of Design, and the Mellon Foundation gave the GSD a grant for to have semester-long urban landscape fellowships each year. I'll be chewing on the question of, basically, what are urban spaces in today's American city? And I'll be looking at cities beyond Washington or San Francisco. For instance, how has Taylor Woodrow Park in Dallas functioned? What's happening in Atlanta with the BeltLine? The beauty of a fellowship like this is that it's the exact opposite of journalism. This is an opportunity to take a step back and look for common themes, and how we begin to start thinking about urban spaces as an urban nation. I feel I've done a good job writing about how these issues play out in San Francisco. But San Francisco is a different dynamic than New Orleans or Denver or Boston. How do similar issues play out from city to city? Beyond that, how do you write about them? It will be like nothing I've ever done before. It's going to be a lot of fun. Martin C. Pedersen is executive director of the Common Edge Collaborative. A writer, editor and critic, he served as executive editor at Metropolis magazine for nearly fifteen years.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Es Puig D'En Valls Sports Center / MCEA | Arquitectura Posted: 23 Jan 2018 01:00 AM PST  © David Frutos
 © David Frutos Text description provided by the architects. The project of the EsPuig d'en Valls Sports Center was conceived in two distinct phases; the first of these consisted of the covering of the two existing outdoor courts; the second was the design and execution of the enclosure of its perimeter.  © David Frutos When, during the execution of the first phase, we receive the brief for the design of the enclosure, our main aim was to achieve an element of fusion between the interior and its broader setting, so as not to lose the essence of this outdoor space for the practice of sport, which had been used as such by teams from EsPuig d'en Valls for years.  © David Frutos _(1).jpg?1516619144 "Site Plan") Site Plan  © David Frutos Indeed, it was during the implementation of the first phase that we discovered the intensity of the shades of colour that the sun projected onto the building from first light (due to the absence of obstacles to the east) until dusk. For this reason, the introduction of these fleeting tones of natural light into the newly defined space has become a fundamental element in the project, one which gives continuity in time to the sporting essence of the existing space, which previously was completely open.  © David Frutos  Ground Floor  © David Frutos essence of the existing space, which previously was completely open. To define this relationship of permanent change between the interior and exterior,we worked with the six surfaces of the building: its ground, which introduces a blue colour, so evident in the Balearic landscape; its ceiling, of corrugated aluminium, with a reflective capacity which provides a fusion of all elements in the development; and the four walls, materialized through the combination of blind panel walls and lattice walls of 24 cm exposed white brick with sufficient permeability to allow for the compositional overlapping of two opposing facades and the introduction of the colours of the environment as part of the composition of each of these. .jpg?1516619188 "Elevations") Elevations On the western facade, the lattice panels are aligned according to the horizontal line marked by the stream that runs alongside the building; the eastern facade breaks this linearity to allow for a reflection of the broken lines of the mountainous horizon beyond; the southern facade, which provides the main access, incorporates a lattice fabric in a continuous state of changing colours, and as such constitutes the most representative element of the whole plot.The material selected for the lattice (white open brick), as well as providing notable nuances of colour according to the sun’s position, these ranging from ochre at certain hours of the day to pure whites, allows for the inclusion of a 24cm thick wall which greatly inhibits the entry of water into the enclosure, even in adverse weather conditions.  © David Frutos As a result seeking a close relationship between interior and exterior, the building is able to take full advantage of the prevailing climatic conditions, in order to attain a system of ventilation and natural lighting, and which leads to a level of energy consumption close to zero.  © David Frutos  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| New Algorithm Finds The Greenest City in The World Posted: 23 Jan 2018 12:00 AM PST  Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Public domain photography available at <a href="https://visualhunt.com/re/a5a68d">Visualhunt</a> There are different methods for estimating how green a city is. We can count the parks, add up all green areas, quantify only the forested areas, specify the number of trees planted, and more recently, according to this new, we can now analyze inhabitants perspective. A team of researchers led by Newsha Ghaeli, at MIT's Senseable City Lab has developed a method to find out how green an urban space is from the perspective of pedestrians. Images taken from Google Street View are processed by an algorithm that estimates the percentage of each image that corresponds to trees and other types of vegetation. "It is important to understand the number of trees and treetops that cover the streets, as this is what we perceive in cities," Ghaeli said. Check out below the top 10 greenest cities according to the algorithm. Titled Treepedia, the study generates vegetation maps that present levels of "foliage" for each location. These are combined to result in the Green View Index (GVI), an index that determines how green the urban space is from the perspective of those who walk the streets. Among all the cities analyzed until now, Singapore leads the list with a GVI of 29.3%, followed closely by Sydney and Vancouver. On the other side of the spectrum, Paris is the grayest city, with a GVI of only 8.8%. Lack of vegetation in urban centers is often associated with health problems and high levels of stress among citizens. In this sense, Ghaeli's research may offer interesting data to understand urban problems related to public health and the well-being of people in cities. See the list of the ten greenest cities according to the Senseable City Lab study: 1. Singapore (GVI: 29.3%) Reference: Wired.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 22 Jan 2018 10:00 PM PST .jpg?1484858103 "Neviges Mariendom. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu") Neviges Mariendom. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu The career of Gottfried Böhm (born January 23, 1920) spans from simple to complex and from sacred to secular, but has always maintained a commitment to understanding its surroundings. In 1986, Böhm was awarded the eighth Pritzker Prize for what the jury described as his "uncanny and exhilarating marriage" of architectural elements from past and present. Böhm's unique use of materials, as well as his rejection of historical emulation, have made him an influential force in Germany and abroad.  Gottfried Böhm (center) with son Paul Böhm in the foreground. Image © Lichtblickfilm Köln / 2:1 Film Zürich. Photograph by Raphael Behinder Born to a third-generation family of architects, Böhm began working at his father's firm after studying engineering and sculpture at Munich's Technische Hochschule and Academy of Fine Arts, respectively. After working in Germany and the United States, and his father's later passing, Böhm took over the Cologne-based firm in 1955.  St. Theresia Church (1955-1956) in Mülheim, Germany. Image © <a href='https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_theresia_koeln-buchheim_20090215.jpg'>Wikimedia user Elya</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en'>CC BY-SA 3.0</a> For many years, Böhm's commissions followed the legacy of his father. In this early period, which extended into the 1960s, Böhm worked exclusively with churches, as his father was a renowned architect of Catholic churches and cathedrals. But Gottfried deviated from his father Dominikus' Expressionist style, introducing formalism to the practice with clean, geometric surfaces, often rendered in red brick with small glass elements. Cones, pyramids, and cylinders stacked on top of one another create a clear and direct representation of the sacred.  St. Josef Church (1957) in Grevenbroich, Germany. Image © <a href='https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Grevenbroich_St._Joseph_1_2009.jpg'>Wikimedia user Elya</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en'>CC BY-SA 3.0</a> At the St. Josef Church in Kierspe, Germany (1957-1959), a low, brick wall—originally made of poured concrete—frames the courtyard. The conical peak and bell tower rise above the rest of the humble structure, a motif typical of Böhm's earlier work. The church also features some of the architect's signature stained glass roses, which appear throughout many of his religious buildings.  Neviges Mariendom. Image © Yuri PALMIN Diminishing opportunities for church commissions through the late 20th century allowed Böhm to expand his practice to include town halls, apartments, museums, and other cultural buildings. In contrast to the brick and straightforward geometry of his early career, Böhm began to incorporate sharp edges, crystalline shapes, and new materials. Changing construction technology in Germany popularized the use of poured concrete and glass over steel frames, and Böhm integrated these into his work without sacrificing his values of humanism for inexpensive repetition. His concrete forms bring a brutalist human element to the work: they are precise but imperfect, aged in ways the architect could not anticipate. .jpg?1484858092 "Neviges Mariendom. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu") Neviges Mariendom. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu The Bensberg Town Hall (1963-1969) is one such project. Stories of thick concrete slabs sandwich seamless glass, creating a rationalist base for the tower, which rises up in layers of spiraling windows towards a blocky crown. Its color harmonizes with the neighboring town castle, an example of Böhm's prevailing desire to create connections through time.  Bensberg Town Hall (1963-1969) in Bensberg,Germany. Image © <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/seier/3301293417'>Flickr user seier</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en'>CC BY 2.0</a> Check out Gottfried Böhm's most famous work, the celebrated Pilgrimage Church in Neviges, via the thumbnails below, and more of our coverage of Böhm below those: Gallery of Gottfried Böhm: the Son, Grandson, Husband and Father of Architects - 1 Experience the "Brutal Faith" of Gottfried Böhm's Pilgrimage Church in Neviges  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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