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The Best Materials for Architectural Models
Herzog & de Meuron Reveal Gasklockan Tower Design in Stockholm
Les Domaines Ott Château de Selle / Carl Fredrik Svenstedt Architect | CFSA
The Roof House / MILODAMALO
Tomonoki-Himawari Kindergarten / MAMM DESIGN
J Residence / DK-LAB
UMI / CAPD
Hezhitang Hot Spring / A-ASTERISK
United Place Botanic Gardens / Carr
Oslo House / Ramón Esteve Estudio
Villa Akoya / Studio Saxe
Madliena House / 3DM Architecture
MO Museum of Modern Art / Studio Libeskind
M16 House / NEBR arquitetura
Sagrada Família to Pay Off $41 Million Debt to Barcelona for Building Permits
City Cabin / Olson Kundig
Le Corbusier’s Restored Parisian Apartment Opened to the Public
House in Camino El Alto / Carreño Sartori Arquitectos
Why Architects Need to Get Dirty to Save the World
Snøhetta to Renovate Avant-Garde Theater in Nanterre, France with Dynamic Extension

The Best Materials for Architectural Models

Posted: 21 Oct 2018 10:00 PM PDT

For centuries, physical modeling has been a staple of architectural education and practice. Allowing the designer and client to explore a scheme in plan, elevation, and perspective all at once, the physical model aims to simulate the spatial relationship between volumes and to understand constructive systems.

Even in an age of ultra-high quality rendering, and virtual reality, physical material models represent a beloved, tried and tested method of conveying ideas both during the design process and at presentation stage. Whether through a rapid, five-minute volumetric test of paper models, or a carefully sculpted timber construction detail, careful choice of material can greatly assist the modeling process, allowing designers to remain abstract, or test physical properties of structural systems.

As a crucial step in the creative process, volumetric explorations can be crucial to the design of a project. Think of the works of Antoni Gaudí. Two-dimensional drawings (plans and sections) work together with physical models to provide a comprehensive representation of the design.

Reprodução fac-símile do modelo polifunular de Colonia Güell. Image via Wikipedia user: SecondNews licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

But, architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, in the Brazilian book "Maquetes de Papel" purports that models serve as support for the process, not for representation.
"It is the model as sketches ... The model you do as an essay of what you are imagining ... Like the poet when he scribbles, when he takes notice ... The model here is an instrument that is part of the work process. "(p.22)

OcupaçãoPMR - maquete reservatório de Urânia foto: André Seiti

Considering the challenges that arise during the creation of architectural models, we have compiled a set of fundamental tips and materials suggestions to assist you in your next modeling venture.

PAPER MODELS

Sulphite Paper

Thanks to its low cost and accessibility this material is most suitable for rapid volumetric testing or drawing of design plains. With scissors and some tape, you can generate a number of solutions quickly, easily, and cost-effectively, while still creating dynamic architectural objects.

Another feature to be considered is the thinness and, consequently, flexibility of paper models, which allows stress-free bends, curves, and inclinations. This also makes the material good for folding studies.

Card Stock

Plano Urbanístico Parque Dom Pedro II / Una Arquitetos

This material, when compared to paper, offers a thicker edge and rigidity, and is therefore frequently used for the volumetric experimentation of architectural objects with shapes without large three-dimensional curves. However, it is worth noting that in some cases, curved surfaces can be achieved by fastening cuts at the edges.

With a variety of colors, it also has excellent properties for site programming models. From a neutral base color to represent terrain, it is possible to design or represent the urban fabric using a pre-established color palette to indicate different uses and programs, allowing for a better understanding of spatial division and the uses of the buildings.

Card stock also allows for the design of isolated physical models. Using neutral colors (particularly white) it becomes possible to understand the effect of shadows with the aid of a light source such as a flashlight.

Frank Gehry uses this material; his signature designs include fluid forms, twisted planes and curves. He creates spontaneous models, as seen in Sketches of Frank Gehry (2005), directed by Sydney Pollack.

Screenshot do documentário "Sketches of Frank Gehry"

Paper Board / Chip Board

Campus da Universidade de Bocconi / SANAA

This paper has an even higher weight and strength. The difference between duplex and triplex board refers to the amount of layers in each. The material is ideally used in the development of volumetric mock-ups.

The architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha is adept at using this material for its simplicity and experimental speed.

Papéis Duplex e Triplex. Image © ArchDaily Brasil

It is worth mentioning that, together with the papers mentioned, some additional materials can be used, such as acetate sheets, to represent glass and glazing.

WOOD MODELS

Madeira balsa

Unlike paper models, wood models provide higher resistance and a greater level of detail. With this, one is also able to represent constructive techniques and spatial properties in an aesthetically-pleasing, although typically more expensive manner.

Within the family of wood used frequently in model making, Balsa is the one of the easiest to work with. The low thickness allows for precise cutting and joining of surfaces with wood or white glue. That being said, careful attention must be given when slicing perpendicular to the grain, to avoid chipping, or rough edges.

Many studios employ this model type for observing the constructive solutions in their interiors. The soft timber aesthetic also makes a great choice for presenting design proposals to the client in a considered, confident, professional methodology.

Balsa is also excellent for portraying contour lines when stacked. Unless you want to really put your cutting skills to the test, it's probably best to employ a laser cutter.

Sesc 24 de Maio / Paulo Mendes da Rocha + MMBB

Balsa also lends itself excellently to manipulation through sanding of edges, painting, or varnishing to create different finishes. Balsa is typically available as panels, or thin strips, allowing for experimentation in cladding, framing, sheets, and tiling.

FOAM MODELS

Foam is an excellent choice for rapid volumetric testing, with a foam cutter now a staple of university studios. Dozens of volumes can be generated in minutes, making the technique ideal for large-scale context modeling, where details such as pattern and facades are not as important.

Using carving tools, foam also allows for the creation of more defined, detailed sculptures, and landscaping features such as trees.

The possibility of dyeing the material also helps show schematization of the project. As with foam cutting, care is needed to avoid the spread of fumes from burning or dyeing the material. Choice of glue is also important, as some chemicals may melt the foam and weaken the model's rigidity.

Foam modeling is a favorite for university students in particular, due to its low cost, ready availability, and pleasing aesthetic when due care and attention is paid.

In the professional world, foam models are used by the architectural powerhouses Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and OMA.

PLASTIC MODELS

This low-cost material is often used for the development of topographical mockups. You can simply fasten a printed drawing on top of the plastic and cut.

Due to its low thickness, it might be necessary to join more than one layer with the same cutout to reach the desired final height.

Museu de Arte Contemporânea Lusitânia / Frederico Valsassina Arquitectos

Plastic models can be complemented with 3D-printed models, providing a base or context for more elaborate, detailed designs.

At different scales, materials and levels of detail, physical models are fundamental to research in the design process. Below we've collected 50 examples from projects and proposals already posted on ArchDaily.

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Herzog & de Meuron Reveal Gasklockan Tower Design in Stockholm

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 09:00 PM PDT

Gasklockan tower. Image Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron

Herzog & de Meuron have released more images of their Gasklockan tower project in Stockholm. First announced late last year, the design will replace a 1930s gasholder with a 90 meter tower. As the firm's first project in Sweden, Gasklockan tower is being created with developer Oscar Properties. The latest images showcase the interior of the project and details of the facade. Designed with over 300 apartments, the circular tower was inspired by the original gasholder on site.

Located in the north of Stockholm in Hjorthagen, Gasklockan tower is situated in an area designated the world's first National Urban Park. The site is characterized by an industrial complex designed by Architect Ferdinand Boberg from the late 19th century with two historical brick gasholders and buildings that served the gas production. A curved path will surround the hill providing calm spaces where people can meet, enjoy the new park or move ahead to the residential tower with a café, bistro & bar, offices and a kindergarten on the ground floor.

"Gasklockan is our first project in Sweden and the first building with this shape," said Jacques Herzog, co-founder of Herzog & de Meuron. "Its floor plan opens like the pages in a book to the surrounding city and landscape, maximising sun exposure and offering a variety of views. It offers a spatial experience not normally experienced when living in a tower." Wrapped in glass bricks of different shades of subtle colors, the façade references Boberg's brick gasholders. A wildflower public park will also be created by Piet Oudolf around the development.

Construction on Gasklockan is planned to begin by the end of 2018 with completion scheduled for 2022.

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Les Domaines Ott Château de Selle / Carl Fredrik Svenstedt Architect | CFSA

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 08:00 PM PDT

Architects: Carl Fredrik Svenstedt Architect | CFSA
Location: Côtes de Provence, 83460 Taradeau, France
Lead Architects: Carl Fredrik Svenstedt Architect
Architect: Tae in Kim, Camille Jacoulet, Thomas Carpentier, Clément Niau
Area: 4370.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Dan Glasser, Hervé Abbadie

Structure: Beccamel Mallard, Ingénérie 84
Landscape: Christophe Ponceau, Mélanie Drevet
Clients: Les Domaines Ott

Text description provided by the architects. Building in stone implies carving a mountain, the result imposing and profound, creating a presence with self-evident materiality. On this site, near the Cistercian Abbaye du Thoronet, building with stone extracted from Roman quarries places the project in a temporality resonant with the landscape.

The stone blocks, mathematical, are one by one metres by fifty centimetres thick, and weigh exactly one metric ton. They rise in equilibrium ten metres high, twist and turn. The walls dilate, filigrees of pure weight in the sun.

The winery and visitor's centre marks a new horizon in the Provençal landscape, a mineral presence anchored in the rolling vineyards overlooking the historic Chateau de Selle. Two walls in solid stone rise parallel to the road and wine terraces, the one curved to follow the speed of passing vehicles. The massive walls frame the winemaking process, sheltering the wine, work and visitors. The walls are both imposing and light, shifting as needed to become porous screens, providing views, access and ventilation.

The building is partially sunk into the hill, a thermally inert emergence optimised for winemaking. The slope allows for a natural gravitational flow and a coherent linear process, visible from the public esplanade and reception areas overlooking the cask-room and steel tank hall.

The sun warms the surface of the stone, soft as sand. Visitors can measure themselves against the human scale of the blocks, close enough to be touched. It is a meeting of the senses. What remains are the pines, the vines and the mountain.

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The Roof House / MILODAMALO

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 06:00 PM PDT

Architects: MILODAMALO
Location: Moscow, Russia
Lead Architects: Maksim Nizov, Maria Surkova
Area: 200.0 m2
Project Year: 2014
Photographs: Ilya Ivanov

Structural Engineer: Alexey Knyazev (Norvex NLK)
Client: Norvex NLK
Constructor: Norvex NLK
Interior Design: Ilya Nasonov, Alexey Knyazev (Norvex NLK)

Text description provided by the architects. The ordering party is the constructing company Norvex NLK specializing in glulam buildings. In its intent to design its new office building and the showroom the company decided to run a contest among architects. The key criterion was for the participants to express the versatile use potential of glued laminated timber in architectonic design of this building, to emphasize the modern techniques the material enables to work in, to find new visual solutions.

An important aspect of this project was the location of the building — it is situated in the area of the Artplay design cluster, the largest design center in Moscow. Artplay is located on the territory of the former "Manometr" factory which once was the largest tool-making factory in the USSR.

The space to have been built up was a small area above the bomb shelter facility which was not to be involved into the constructing process due to its status.

The winner was the ROOF HOUSE project designed by milodamalo architecture project team. The project was carried out in 2014. The main conception of the showroom was symbiosis of art, design and architecture inherited from the cluster's design. That is why milodamalo focused on a sculptured image, on a monumental size illustrating contemplations on movement when working on the shape. The versatility of using glued laminated timber has been reflected in different façades of the showroom.

The Southern façade, the central one that faces the main square, combines a bionic shape and a structural design solution thus exemplifying synergy between wood — the traditional material — and contemporary trends in design and art: pixel art, abstract sculptures, parametric architecture. An unexpected for a wooden building visual aesthetics is designed to create an image that will remain etched in the memory, the new "face" of the company that focuses not only on traditions but also on innovative, fresh approaches in architecture. A terrace arranged under the roof of the bomb shelter is located adjacent to the front façade. It provides space for events organized by Norvex NLK company or Artplay design center, being as well a recreational area for the company's employees.

The Eastern façade resembles a glitch image and extents from the Southern one in a protuberant cantilever form. A dynamic reticular structure defines direction, shapes the structure of the façade. This solution helps to draw a lot of light to the indoor premises. At the same time, the building having a mesh structure, it is possible to secure privacy of what is happening indoors even in the evening. The glitch effect that comes in different structures of the support and the main part of the building is designed to determinate the bulk of the building, to keep its simple shape.

The Northern façade is plain and concise. It is designed to fill the interior with soft reflected light. The cantilevered building hangs over the parking lot which is clearly seen from the Northern façade side. This design solution was necessary as the expanding of the office area was possible only through such kind of cantilever construction.

The structure of the building affects the perception of the interiors in the first place; the bionic façade unites the exterior and interior designs of the building: we can see the same textured façade structure indoors. An open staircase and the second source of light are designed to visually expand the space and to maximally preserve the natural lighting of the rooms. The direct sunlight shines into the rooms through the eastern mesh façade, and at the same time the reflected light hits the room from the northern side through the panorama windows creating a harmonious lighting of warm and cold. The roof has skylights transmitting natural light to the rooms of the second floor and reducing dependence on artificial light.

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Tomonoki-Himawari Kindergarten / MAMM DESIGN

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 05:00 PM PDT

Architects: MAMM DESIGN
Location: 1 Chome-10-12 Machiya, Arakawa, Tokyo 116-0001, Japan
Area: 933.41 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Takumi Ota

Structural Engineer: Ohno JAPAN
M/E Engineer: ZO Consulting Engineers
Lighting Designer: Izumi Okayasu Lighting Design
Graphic Designer: SWIMMING

Text description provided by the architects. Tomonoki-Himawari Kindergarten, located in Tokyo's Arakawa Ward, is a newly established private kindergarten with a capacity of 175 people. Seeing that the surrounding environment was densely populated by houses and factories, we aspired to create a space that would contribute to the growth of the children's minds and bodies, and where the teachers and children could feel surrounded by nature. To achieve this, we arranged the classrooms and playroom to encircle the lush, green, light-filled garden to create a courtyard that brings the outside in.

To correspond with the children's developmental changes, we set up diverse spaces such as classrooms with different ceiling heights, playhouses suspended above the courtyard, and outdoor corridors which are looped and differ in width so that the children can have a variety of spaces to play or rest in. Furthermore, the uses for each space was not decided beforehand in order to give the teachers and children the freedom to enjoy and use the spaces in ways that benefit them. As designers, we can appreciate the way spaces change for the people that use them.

To further stimulate and enrich the children's sensitivity, the entire facility is planted three-dimensionally in a way that showcases the four seasons and the changes in vegetation. As nature transforms with the seasons, the insects and birds that the vegetation attracts can be enjoyed by the children and their parents. Inspired by these surroundings, natural motifs such as insects, trees, etc. are hidden within and around the building as patterns and objects, so that the children can enjoy the space by constantly discovering new things. As architects, we hope the special moments and memories made at Tomonoki-Himawari Kindergarten stay with the children even after graduation.

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J Residence / DK-LAB

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 04:00 PM PDT

Architects: DK-LAB
Location: Yakarta, Indonesia
Lead Architects: Dong-Hyun Kim, Jayen Seung
Design Team: Jungim Kim, Yeojin Youn, Luong Trung Hieu, Thao Trang Nguyen
Main Contractor: PT Dasom
Structural Consultant: Ilmac Engineering
Area: 342.0 m2
Project Year: 2018
Photographs: Mario Wibowo

Text description provided by the architects. The residential site of central Jakarta is characterized as a series of narrow and deep rectangular shape. As the narrow side of the site is on the front road side, when the building is actually seated, only the short side of the elevation is exposed from the entrance road, which is likely to lead to a design emphasizing frontality of the residence. In fact, it is the typical scenery that shows two-dimensional elevations configured with fence and front surfaces.

Therefore, we have focused on how we can reveal the stereoscopic aspects of the house. In fact, a part of the elevation is taken out to set back and the second floor mass that are not parallel to the road were introduced in front to allow recognition of stereoscopic volumes at entry.

Triangular cut in the roof and an outdoor court garden inserted in the middle of the house also give variations to volumes laid out in the site, which eventually make indoor spaces more interesting.

In order to locate the outdoor programs like pool and gardens as close as possible to the living space, they dig into the mass and create a tight relationship with spaces around them.

The pool is closely surrounded by the living room right next to it and the master bedroom cantilevered out directly above. They create intimacy and coziness by being connected visually and physically.

Main living room integrated with dining and kitchen area is also enclosed by pool and the court garden which draws a lot of light deep into the house. Second floor library is connected to living room by opening above.

As a result, a variety of complex residential programs are piled up three-dimensionally in a narrow and deep site but still have rooms to breathe and to feel the openness. That's the significant strategy of how to convert the unfavorable site condition to more reasonable one.

The main stair is travelling right by these spaces and connecting each floor by as long distance as possible to experience nature everyday.

On the third floor, the triangular roofs were used for high ceiling rooms such as an indoor driving range, a gym and a theater. The stunning view from the terrace and the gaze overlooking the gym from the street serve as the main role of the third floor as objects on top.

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UMI / CAPD

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 02:00 PM PDT

Architects: CAPD
Location: Japan
Lead Architects: Kazuo Monnai, Hirokazu Ohara, Dai Tsunenobu, Kazuya Masui
Photographs: Daisuke Shima / ad hoc inc

Construction: Nishino Co., Ltd. (ASJ　HIKARItoMIZUnoMACHI STUDIO)
Structural Design: Hidetaka Nakahara(Q & Architecture)
Site Area: 385.55 sqm

Text description provided by the architects. The site is a parcel along the coast. The location is perfect for the sea, the sky and the greenery of the island. The client's desire to feel the sea at all times in his life was designed in particular, paying close attention to the arrangement of the buildings.

In order to sandwich the adjoining between the site and the sea, while assuming that the building is erected in the future adjoining, in a direction without the sight as much as possible, the aperture was provided while putting the diaphragm.

In this way, from the entrance through the stairs to the LDK, the superfluous things are not reflected and finished in a space that can be felt only the sea and the sky always. The parking space usually provided on the road surface, such as placing a part of the building in the back of the site, such as Pilotis, is a house that has been involved in the "sea" thoroughly.

Another theme of "Hotel-like living" I take advantage of the views of the scenery without feeling too much life, but the necessary functions (storage, etc.) are secured with the kitchen. I am planning to live in a hotel, not just a hotel.

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Hezhitang Hot Spring / A-ASTERISK

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 01:00 PM PDT

Architects: A-ASTERISK
Location: Qiqihaer, Heilongjiang, China
Lead Architect: Nakamura Nobuhiro
Design Team: Nakamura Nobuhiro, Yi Qin, Shigeno Yuji, Jie Lai, Wenping Wang, Zengcai He
Site Area: 169140 sqm
Height: 17.035 m
Area: 11357.0 m2
Project Year: 2014
Photographs: HIROMATSU Misae

Construction Drawing: Changzheng Dong, Yuting Chang, Shaohua Zhang, Ping Lin, Youfen Jiao, Huijie Wang
Interior Design: Nakamura Nobuhiro, Yi Qin, Shigeno Yuji, Jie Lai, Wenping Wang, Zengcai He / KANEMITSU HIROSHI DESIGN OFFICE(KANEMITSU Hiroshi) / SEA BASS(SUZUKI Chiho)
Landscape Design: Nakamura Nobuhiro, Yi Qin, Shigeno Yuji, Jie Lai, Wenping Wang, Zengcai He uji design（MAEDA Yutaka）
Signage Design: uji design(MAEDA Yutaka)
Lighting Design: Bonbori lighting architect and associates(KAKUDATE Masahide, NOZAWA Jun'ichiro)
Client: Mingdao group

Text description provided by the architects. We have designed hot spring facility with an accommodation complex called Hezhitang (meaning "crane hot spring". Qiqihaer's crane is famous in China) in Qiqihaer, Heilongjiang province, China. The project is close to Russian border near the great wetland called Zhalong where may tourists come to see migrated white cranes. The facility can accommodate 850 people at once and 2,000 visitors per day. Our main design considerations are as following.

Feeling of Security
The project is located in the severe environment in a snowfield stretched as far as the eye could see. Often the temperature here drops minus 40 degree Celsius. It is not a convenient metropolitan city, nor in topography of hills and valleys. Visitors are fascinated with the extraordinary nature in the beginning of travel, but the unusual scenery can make them feel desolate. We wanted to design the building to embrace visitors with feeling of security and relaxation. The powerful straighten volume of façade in black shows the presence in the white field to warmly welcome visitors.

Unity with the Wetland
In order to create a sense of unity to the Zhalong wetland, we have created horizontal tube shape as main spaces with the windows facing to the outside. After the long travel, the visitors arrive to this facility under diffusions of consciousness because of infinity view of horizon. We are showing the scenery of wetland through the tube architecture instead of showing it off directly so that it provides human-scale impression and sense of harmony to the visitors.

Visitor Experience
This hot spring bath facility is for people to enjoy unexpected experience far away from ordinal life. We wanted to give visitors surprises and delighted feelings as a journey in the building. In order to create the journey, we have emphasized differences of design elements. A sense of horizontal line connected to the wetland and black material at entrance hall provides excitement while visitors are checking-in. Then intentionally lowered ceiling at corridor makes visitors to calm. Then finally visitors are surrounded with hot spring bath with a strong sense of connection to the enormous wetland. We believe our architecture provides a sequence of unusual experience.

Efficient Management
Since the facility is built in inconvenient location, it is difficult to find sufficient number of staff. In order to minimise necessity of manpower, efficient circulation plan was carefully considered. There are three pillars of management: total management, cleaning/concierge and F&B. Typically these types of management requires individual entries, however we have made them located at backyard on North East corner so that they can be well connected and easy for cars to access. Also linen supply, which is one of the most complicated tasks for public bath operation, can be easily accessed from both men's and women's changing rooms.

We truly hope that our design and architecture is honoured in the city and forever loved among people visit there.

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United Place Botanic Gardens / Carr

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 12:00 PM PDT

Architects: Carr
Location: Melbourne Victoria, Australia
Project Year: 2018
Photographs: Sharyn Carins

Architecture: United Places boutique hotel demonstrates an architectural response of intense refinement and precision having created 3 levels of hotel accommodation and two floors of restaurant working to a set of rigorous site constraints.

The tracery of the Botanic Gardens plane trees, and the desire to primarily focus the occupants' connection to view from within, led to an architectural outcome echoing and enhancing the compelling play of shadow and light across the finely articulated façade.

The references to brutalist architecture are deliberate, reflecting an intent to create a building of obvious permanence juxtaposed with a jewel like quality of refinement in its fine bronze detailing.

Designed as an elegant, discreet blackened wall of steel fins, the ground floor entrance is stripped of ornamentation and superfluous detail, instead relying on a minimal, elemental palette of black metal blades, bronze metal screening and raw board formed concrete; a highly precise composition of materiality and form. Considered, refined, minimal, the ordered geometry handsomely contrasts with the wide glazed retail frontage.

With the priority being an unobstructed view line from within, the architecture layers a finely detailed filigree of precious metal framing, in the form of anodised bronze toned sections, as a subtle yet important built form narrative. The bronze section profile connects across the façade to frame vistas, whilst also acting as balustrade support and deep set handrail detail.

Expansive light wells are centred in the plan allowing dual aspect to all 12 suites and encouraging cross ventilation to each room.

Hotel suite balconies are lined in the same raw, textured Beton Brut concrete echoing the contextual qualities of the locale. The intermediary detail is an assembly of no less that 100 precast concrete sections, embedded with charcoal fragments that on closer inspection and touch present as a shimmering yet subtle jewel-like element.

Interiors: Drawn from the united themes of hotel as home, United Places demonstrates a design response of intense refinement and precision. This boutique hotel offers 12 highly curated suites on a compressed and narrow site within the heart of Melbourne's Botanic Gardens precinct.

A point of distinction and distraction in the streetscape, the entry reads as a permeable form permitting glimpsed views through to textural board formed concrete and black steel finned passage. The arrival experience is punctured by an asymmetrical conical void casting a perfect circle of light at the sun's peak, calling guests to explore the curious, kinetic artwork that hovers within it. This experience asks one to engage with texture, light and shadow at close range; quiet and harmonious, breaking focus from street level.

Binary concepts of extrovert and introvert form an underlying narrative throughout the guestrooms. Considered the 'extroverts', the suites to the North present as sociable and gregarious with connection and engagement to a dynamic and energetic street life below. Soft tones of desaturated green respond to the garden vistas and lush foliage of the botanic setting.

Conversely the Southern suites of the property are considered 'introverts'. Distinctly more private and secluded they offer a sense of retreat and sanctuary. Pink tones reflect the red brick materiality of the classic Melbourne industrial buildings and warehouses so prevalent to the South.

Interiors are further articulated with bronzed elements, echoing the architectural detailing of the façade. The wall light extrusion follows the exact profile of the balustrade, ensuring both technical and conceptual connection from exterior to interior. This radiates a warm glow across the hand-made quality of the custom render wall finish.

A celebration of the bathing experience is fundamental to the design concept. In an unexpected and unconventional move, ensuites appear as mirrored pods, centrally located within the guestroom, seemingly floating within the space. Acting more as a sculptural piece, the simple act of showering is transformed as direct views to an ever changing botanical garden aspect feel within reach. Privacy is ensured by the mirrored external surface as it reflects light and casts the guest within the pod into discreet silhouette.

The larger double guestroom suites offer an oversized, black sunken bath inserted at the edge of the space capturing 180 degree views of ancient tree tops and the iconic city skyline. Like bathing on the edge of a precipice, the experience is sensory and evocative.

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Oslo House / Ramón Esteve Estudio

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 11:00 AM PDT

Architects: Ramon Esteve Estudio
Location: Alicante, Spain
Authors: Ramón Esteve
Collaborating Architects: Anna Boscà, María Martí, Francisco Palomo
Design Team: Ramon Esteve Estudio
Interior Joinery: AELE
Furniture Provider: Cosín
Construction: Covisal Futur SL
Structural Calculation: Prodein
Area: 4828.3 ft2
Project Year: 2018
Photographs: Mariela Apollonio

Text description provided by the architects. CONCRETE BLOCK
The Oslo House is placed on a mountainside, in a residential state surrounded by pine trees and vegetation

CONCRETE BLOCK
The dwelling is composed of two overlapped bodies that are set back in order to generate a play of light and shadow. This play is reinforced by the openings in the oor slabs, which lean on a stone base adapted to the steep slope of the mountain.

The house lies gently on the ground, by means of a stone base adapted to the mountainside slope. The oor slabs have got openings that allow natural light inside, thus improving the link between interior and exterior.

The house opens widely as a viewpoint towards the sea, in contrast to the privacy provided by the rear façade, which includes the entrance to the house.

MATERIALITY
The coldness given by the materials of the walls contrasts with the warmth of the interior caused by the use of large wooden surfaces.

The structure is displayed on the façade, so we enter the house walking on the slabs. The ground oor has been extended to create an outdoor living pool, completed by a swimming pool which blends with the horizon.

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Villa Akoya / Studio Saxe

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 10:00 AM PDT

Architects: Studio Saxe
Location: Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Project Architect: Cesar Coto
Area: 302.0 m2
Project Year: 2018
Photographs: Andrés García Lachner

Structural Engineer: Sotela Alfaro
Electromechanical Engineer: Dynamo Studio
Builder: Gad Harel

Text description provided by the architects. Large terraces capture the wind and waves on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Set amongst idyllic white sand beaches and coconut groves, this low-key beach home was conceived to give its inhabitants not only a visual but also a literal connection to the sand and water where it belongs.

Horizontal roof planes create large indoor-outdoor spaces that integrate seamlessly and diffuse the perception of the home with its surrounding natural environment. Lightness and materiality are used to create a feeling of openness and airiness that permeates through the inhabitants.

The house was raised off from the ground by 3 steps allowing the inhabitants to have a more direct view of the waves and the beach break. This subtle move also helped to create a feeling of levitation above the landscape and protection. The house was then split up in 4 horizontal roof planes which, 3 for each bedroom and 1 for the main living area. This architectural strategy allows for every space to feel as the roof belongs to that specific location whilst dematerializing the edges of the home and creating the opportunity of cross ventilation between spaces. Controlled natural light then is allowed to permeate from 3 sides of every space making them feel more integrated to the surrounding landscape.

Traditional cinder block construction was used for the main structural walls of the house for its easy maintenance and durability. Light weight wooden roofs float above these walls and create large overhang extensions that protect the building from the elements whilst creating outdoor decks.

At Studio Saxe we believe that clever design should precede technology when designing a project. We use common sense bioclimatic strategies for temperature control to create spaces that require less energy consumption and provide an overall feeling of wellness. The "elevated" roofline above the walls of the house create the perfect opportunity for cross ventilation and controlled natural light. Long overhangs cool down the spaces during the day and protect from sun and rain. Active strategies are then introduced such as solar hot water, water collection, energy efficient systems, and others to supplement the passive cooling design of the project.

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Madliena House / 3DM Architecture

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 09:00 AM PDT

Architects: 3DM Architecture
Location: Swieqi, Malta
Lead Architect: Maurizio Ascione
Team: Rebecca Vella, Miguel Petrovic
Area: 2000.0 m2
Project Year: 2018
Photographs: Miguel Petrovic

Collaborators: ICI Ltd

Text description provided by the architects. Madliena House, placed on a site of nine hundred square meters in Madliena, Malta, is home to a lively young couple and two children. The concept from the very initial stages revolved around purity and boldness in design. The form of the building is essentially a reaction to the site on which it is situated, whereas the interiors were the tool used to bridge the gap between the aesthetic and function of the different spaces within the building.

This design is a means through which one may investigate the importance of natural factors - such as creating interesting spaces using light and shadow: a concept reminiscent of the Renaissance period and the 'Chiaroscuro' technique. At ground floor, the interior is flooded with natural light, entering through the floor-to-ceiling apertures - with the idea of the inside and outside merging to become one space. However a degree of flexibility was allowed for, through the use of controllable fabric screens which, when lowered, change the space into one which is more intimate and private. Natural Light infiltrates all four levels of the house, through two courtyards, which also serve to passively ventilate the house.

The different spaces within this family home were designed with the client - each and every intervention aimed at giving them full ownership and comfort within the property. Using materials and lighting, for example, to differentiate between areas of the house, a coherent design was maintained all throughout, while securing a balance between aesthetic design and the clients' daily needs.

Architectural Detailing, was considered as a means to subconsciously affect the way the space is perceived and, thus, subtly determining activities. Ultimately the design of the house was approached, in such a way to find a balance, and define the functions, of the house and its atmospheres.

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MO Museum of Modern Art / Studio Libeskind

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 08:30 AM PDT

Architects: Studio Libeskind
Location: Vilna, Lithuania
Architect Of Record: Do Architects
Area: 3100.0 m2
Project Year: 2018
Photographs: Hufton + Crow

Client: UAB MMC Projektai
General Contractor: Naresta
Plan Coordination: Baltic Engineers
Structural Engineer: Ribinis büvis
Acoustical Engineer: Akukon
Electrical Engineer & Installations: Baltic Engineers; APS
Mechanical Engineer & Installations: Baltic Engineers; Prosfera, Folisita, Baltic System
Façade Engineer & Installations: Curtain walls: Glasma Service
Furniture: Narbutas
Auditorium Seats: Audience Systems
Doors: Teckentrup, Sapa
Plumbing: Villeroy and Boch
Elevator: Kone

Text description provided by the architects. Designed by Studio Libeskind in collaboration with Do architects (Vilnius) and Baltic Engineers (Vilnius), the MO Modern Art Museum opened to the public on October 18 with a four-day celebration including a public talk by Daniel Libeskind in the Museum's auditorium and the inaugural exhibition, All Art Is About Us.

"The MO Modern Art Museum is a cultural milestone for the city of Vilnius and Lithuania as a whole. This new world-class institution will showcase local art and will explore its links with the global art scene," said Director of the Museum, Milda Ivanauskiene. "These never before seen works of art created behind the Iron Curtain will finally have a venue and international audience," added Ivanauskiene.

With a new public piazza located steps away from the historic medieval city, the 3,100 sq-meters museum stands as an expression of Vilnius past and present. The MO Museum is conceived as a cultural "gateway" connecting the 18th century grid to the medieval walled city. The concept is inspired by the historic gates of the city and references the local architecture both in form and materials.

"Having designed many large scale museums around the world, it was thrilling to design an intimate and iconic museum for a great collection of contemporary art," said architect Daniel Libeskind. "As someone who has a true appreciation for the history and beauty of Vilnius, I believe the building and its architecture will become a wonderful place to enjoy art and the spirit of the city," added Libeskind.

The rectilinear exterior façade is clad in luminous, white plaster that references the local materials of the city. As visitors approach the museum, they encounter a dramatic open stair that intersects the museum on a diagonal axis creating an expressive counterpoint to the minimalist façade. The stair cuts the façade open connecting the street with the upper levels of the museum giving way to an openness that flows between inside and out. At the top of the exterior stair is a stepped open air terraced roof that serves as a gathering area and place for public performances and talks. A five meter cantilevered fully glazed wall allows views from the galleries to the public terrace.

An emphasis on including public space is one of the most important features that the Studio incorporates into its designs for cultural institutions. At the MO Museum, situated in a dense urban context, almost a quarter of the site is dedicated to green space. At street level, a garden space will exhibit sculptures created by the winners of the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts.

"One of the reasons I am drawn to Studio Libeskind's work is that it is both iconic and democratic," said Museum Founder and Collector, Viktoras Butkus. "The MO Museum is the largest private museum in Lithuania, so it is important to me that museum expresses openness and reflects the ethos of the collection as well as the institution. The generous public spaces throughout the design play a vital role in communicating these ideas," added Butkus.

On the northern side of the building, visitors will enter though a two-story (8 meter tall) glazed entrance into a light filled lobby. Here, the theme of inside and out continues to play out with geometric interior skylights that cut through the building ushering in daylight to the lower floors and allowing views to the upper floors. An interior glazed opening offers visitors a peek behind the scenes and into the collection storage vault. These unexpected and sometimes playful moments continue throughout the museum.

Near the entrance, a black spiral staircase connects the main gallery with the lower lobby and punctuates the museum's core. The galleries are laid out as open floor plans that provide 1,300 sq. meters of exhibition space dedicated to both permanent and temporary exhibitions of the museum's ongoing collection. The Museum additionally includes a café, bookstore, educational areas, auditorium, as well as storage and administrative space.

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M16 House / NEBR arquitetura

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 07:00 AM PDT

Architects: NEBR arquitetura
Location: Brazil
Author: Edson Muniz
Team: Renata Lobo
Area: 290.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Maíra Acayaba

Construction: Edson Muniz

Text description provided by the architects. The M16 House is located amidst other homes in a gated community in the town of Carpina. In order to meet the clients' needs, the project provides a weekend house to host, reunite and be the occasion for family gatherings. As an immediate response to the 30m x 15m corner lot, the two regulating track floors follow a pragmatic division in the layout of the environments with a continuous design.

There is then the multiplication of perceptions and the appropriation of the site through the sequence of open spaces integrated into the natural landscape of the zone of the forest of Pernambuco, which reveals itself as a true scenario in front of the largest tested house. Having taken as a party a sequence of open spaces, attributed better ambiance in consonance with the place of predominantly southern solar orientation.

The pedestrian access of the house is led by a void, which receives a suspended staircase and establishes the connection of the social and service areas on the ground floor, and with the intimate area concentrated in the suspended prismatic volume. A large terrace on the corner appears as a design premise, welcoming the protagonist space and longer stay of the family. The shade designated by an expressive metallic pergola on galvanized steel plates painted in yellow indicates where three generations will be able to live and share their experiences.

The few walls in the ground floor and the rigor in the floor plan of the first floor allow closings that in a continuous and sequential way, talk among themselves to the horizontal yellow plane of the imposing pergolas. In these, the essence of the house is made, harmonizing with the blue of the hydraulic tiles and untying of the whole. This set of yellow and blue elements, present on the terrace and crowning of the building, is joined to the strong geometric rigor of the straight lines and compose pure volumes that seek to grant identity to the work.

Another notorious element in the composition of the house is the set of glass blocks arranged in different arrangements, solving questions of privacy and control in the passage of light contained through the translucent surface of the material. The structural system adopted was reinforced concrete, traditional and common in the region. The modular coordination was followed to the letter and guided the architectural conception following a structural reasoning, whose structure expresses a frank and direct relation with built formal party. The M16 House conveys the feeling of welcome to its guests. Whether for the minimal affective decoration or the regional touch of a genuinely simple and honest architectural language.

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Sagrada Família to Pay Off $41 Million Debt to Barcelona for Building Permits

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 06:00 AM PDT

Sagrada Família. Image © Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Família

The trustees of Barcelona's historic Sagrada Família have reached an agreement with the city council to pay off $41 million in debt for not having the appropriate building permits. As the New York Times reports, the saga has continued for more than a century, as an original building permit issued in 1885 by Sant Martí de Provençals was no longer valid when the town was absorbed into the city of Barcelona. Designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí in 1882, the Sagrada Família is still under construction 136 years later.

Sagrada Família. Image © Flickr User: Kah-Wai Lin, bajo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Church officials have agreed to pay off the debt over a 10 year period in installments. In exchange, they plan for the permit to help improve public transportation in the surrounding areas. "The Sagrada Família is an icon and the most visited monument in our city," Ada Colau, mayor of Barcelona, tweeted on Thursday. "After two years of dialogue we have made an agreement that will guarantee the payment of the license, secure access to the monument and facilitate local life with improvements to public transport and redevelopment of the nearby streets."

Sagrada Família. Image © Flickr User: haschelsax, bajo CC BY-ND 2.0

One of the best known structures of Catalan Modernisme, the Sagrada Família draws over three million visitors annually. Gaudi worked on the project until his death in 1926, in full anticipation he would not live to see it finished. Once completed, La Sagrada Familia will feature eighteen towers presenting a unique view of the temple from any single vantage point. Even as construction continues, older portions are undergoing cleaning and restoration. The temple has relied entirely on private donations since its inception, and has seen many delays due to lack of funding.

The Sagrada Família is set to be complete in 2026, the centennial of Gaudí's death.

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City Cabin / Olson Kundig

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 05:00 AM PDT

Architects: Olson Kundig
Location: Seattle, United States
Design Principal: Jim Olson, FAIA
Area: 2400.0 ft2
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Aaron Leitz

Project Manager And Project Architect: Renee Boone
Contractor: Dovetail General Contractors

Text description provided by the architects. Located in one of Seattle's most established residential areas, City Cabin's design answers the client's desire for a private urban retreat that would connect her to nature. Siting the 2,400-square-foot house on the northwest corner of the lot maximizes garden areas on the south and east sides. The home's staggered footprint allows for more glazing, which increases sun exposure and garden views from every room. With the goal of net-zero energy use, the home's design incorporates key sustainability features such as photovoltaic panels and an air-to-water heat pump. Planting mature trees and dense greenery onto the site helped transform an ordinary urban infill lot into a private refuge.

"The client wanted to feel like she was living in the wilderness when, in fact, her home is on a regular-sized urban neighborhood lot." – Jim Olson, Design Principal

City Cabin is organized around a central gathering space with two wings extending from it: one with the master suite and the other containing the guest room and storage areas. The heart of the home in plan as well as function, the central area, which consists of an open kitchen and living space, is a single volume defined by a 16-foot-high ceiling. Here, a full-height window wall overlooks the gardens to the southeast, and clerestory windows maximize solar gain and create a sense of lightness while maintaining privacy.

Materials and assemblies were chosen primarily for economy and sustainability, but the palette also draws inspiration from the client's extensive Native American art collection. The concrete floors are tinted with a custom red hue inspired by red cedar and ochre colors, while walls and ceilings are made of natural, unstained plywood chosen for its durability and simplicity. On the exterior, fir siding reclaimed from a nearby fruit storage warehouse will weather naturally with minimal maintenance. Durable galvanized steel roofing and beam endcaps complement the natural wood finishes, developing a rich patina with exposure. Along with reclaimed materials, the house incorporates several green strategies including a sedum green roof, reflecting the client's longstanding engagement with environmental conservation.

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Le Corbusier’s Restored Parisian Apartment Opened to the Public

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 04:00 AM PDT

The Fondation Le Corbusier has celebrated its 50^th anniversary with the unveiling of a restored apartment originally designed by the famous architect. The studio apartment on Nungesser-et-Coli in Paris was designed by Le Corbusier in 1931 for his own habitation and was completed in 1934.

The apartment underwent two years of restoration following its listing as a classified world heritage site in 2016 and is now open to the public.

Since its founding in 1968, the Fondation Le Corbusier has been devoted to "the conservation, knowledge, and dissemination of Le Corbusier's work" through opening schemes to the public, conserving architectural works, seeking world heritage status, curating exhibitions, publications, and providing financial support for research relating to the architect.

In celebrating its 50^th anniversary, the foundation has unveiled the completed renovation of Le Corbusier's Nungesser-et-Coli apartment in Paris. Designed in 1931, the apartment was Le Corbusier's home from 1934 to his death in 1965. Located at the top of the vibrant Molitor building, the 240-square-meter apartment offers views across Boulogne and Paris.

Having achieved classified world heritage status in 2016, the foundation treated the apartment to two years of careful restoration, mostly improving thermal conditions, replacing degraded materials, restoring the polychromy décor, and curating archives and documents.

The apartment is now open to the public on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays at 24, rue Nungesser et Coli, 75016, Paris. Reservations can be made on the foundation's official website here.

Last week, we published an AD Classics edition of Le Corbusier's celebrated Venice Hospital proposal from 1965.

News via: Fondation Le Corbusier

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House in Camino El Alto / Carreño Sartori Arquitectos

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 03:00 AM PDT

Architects: Carreño Sartori Arquitectos
Location: Lo Barnechea, Chile
Architects In Charge: Mario Carreño Zunino, Piera Sartori del Campo.
Area: 3175.3 ft2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Marcos Mendizabal

Structural Calculation: Vertical Ingenieros
Electrical Project: ICG S.A.
Sanitary Project: Patricio Vega
Landscaping: Carreño Sartori Arquitectos
Construction : Familia León

Text description provided by the architects. The house was thought based on the attributes of the north-west slope where it is located and the difficulties of the sloping construction. The land has a ratio of 1:10 from the road to the change of waters between the Cajón del Arrayan and the Cajón del Cerro Pochoco -in the outskirts of Santiago-, conserving flora and fauna endemic to Chile. It goes, in ascending form, from quillayes and litres, in the low part, until puyas and cactus in the top. On the hillside rise the warm wind currents of the afternoon, attracting the flight of different birds, including eagles and condors.

The house is inserted in this relationship between the soil and the wind of the pre-Cordillera.

After several observation and measurement visits, a tree-free place was defined -at an initial height of the site-, in which there is an open view of the nearby valley and the distant city.

A reinforced concrete base is proposed, stabilizing the ground in a large horizontal, with two terraces-miradors at its ends. On this topographical piece - which isolates and protects - a light and regular metal structure with axles at 3.2 meters is mounted, in whose grid the spaces are ordered.

This constructive and spatial logic is modified by the route of the sun and the distant views, incorporating a second order, configured by four oblique walls that orient the gaze and regulate solar radiation and winds, while allowing a continuous journey through the exterior perimeter of the house, always related to nature and terraces.

This external route is complementary to the interior route, which leads to a third and last terrace on the second floor that, like a bridge, returns to the continuity of the hillside where the Andes begins. In this way, the house maintains the two magnitudes with which these hills have traditionally been inhabited: the daily one -of smaller sizes and recurrent activities- and the geographical one -of larger sizes and occasional visits-.

The exterior walls -with internal chambers of natural ventilation- are painted black, like the trunks and shadows of the trees, prioritizing chromatically the different greens of the foliage. Inside, natural light is regulated with varnish and white according to the entrance of light to the enclosures and the reflection of the floors.

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Why Architects Need to Get Dirty to Save the World

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 02:30 AM PDT

Courtesy of the Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller

This article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine as "Why Architects Need to Get Dirty to Save the World."

Of all the terrarium-like experiments included in Lydia Kallipoliti's The Architecture of Closed Worlds: Or, What Is the Power of Shit? (Lars Müller/Storefront for Art and Architecture), Biosphere 2 is the most infamous. A steel-and-glass structure baking in the Arizona desert, it represents the hope and hubris of re-creating Earth on Earth. The project was launched by an alternative living group with a taste for theater, and tanked by disastrous management by Steve Bannon (yes, him). As such, it illustrates the risky arc that courses through Kallipoliti's 300-page volume—visions of utopia bending toward ultimate failure.

Early in the 2009 book Dreaming the Biosphere: The Theater of All Possibilities, author Rebecca Reider quotes one of Biosphere 2's creators as saying, "When you create a new world, you end up with all the problems in the world." Kallipoliti's anthology follows a similar doubling via 37 engineered environments, or "Living Prototypes," each carefully calibrated to isolate itself from the dynamics of spaceship Earth. First documented and analyzed by Kallipoliti and her student research teams at Syracuse University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for a 2016 exhibition at New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture, nearly every "closed world" presented here reflects the human fears and planetary crises that gave rise to its invention.

The Cunningham Sanitarium (1928) in Cleveland, for example, was a hermetically sealed steel globe built to treat diseases exacerbated by urbanization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Three decades later, Alison and Peter Smithson's bunkerlike House of the Future (1956) domesticated the specter of nuclear winter. And welcoming the new millennium was Grimshaw Architects' Eden Project (2000) in Cornwall, England, whose form, similar to that of Biosphere 2, suggested a second Earth, with its large, domed greenhouses topping a former clay quarry. For the price of admission, visitors can explore a brand-new ecosystem and remain oblivious to the destruction that once scarred the Edenic landscape.

© Katja Schultz. ImageThe Biosphere 2 in Arizona

Closed Worlds is divided into three main sections, bookended by Kallipoliti's slightly addled introduction and oblique conclusion: the aforementioned collection of "Living Prototypes"; a graphic timeline that tracks the environmental movement and the design speculation that fed off it; and "Encounters That Never Happened," a trio of lectures given as part of the exhibition programming.

As pods, geodesic domes, and autonomous houses are duly indexed, another kind of reflection takes place, this one of persona—Buckminster Fuller haunts the pages. Along with the Geoscopes he developed with John McHale, Fuller's Dymaxion and synergetic theories provide the logical template for the book's inward-looking case studies. His pervasive influence finds full expression in "Encounters That Never Happened," in which theorist Mark Wigley metabolizes Fuller, channeling the voluble visionary through his own body. The Bucky/Wigley avatar holds court in a transcript of a performance staged at the Cooper Union in February 2016 (which itself echoes a lecture given by Fuller in the same room some six decades earlier). The unquiet spirit argues for radio waves over walls and complains that no one ever listened to him: "So, I was sent here to tell you this story, and I was able to occupy that ridiculous body of the kid from New Zealand [Wigley]. And, of course, you still don't listen, but it's really nice to see 'Closed Worlds': it's like looking in a mirror."

A critical tension embedded in Kallipoliti's collection involves the difference between mirroring, doubling, or reflecting outward or inward. Looking in a mirror, we see only what we want to see—humanity's hopes and fears or its self-centered myopia—and as the Bucky/Wigley quote suggests, there's a risk of narcissistic self-indulgence. Many of the projects here represent feats of science, engineering, and technology, with architecture merely playing a bit part. The subsequent absorption of these works into architectural history has been largely aesthetic (inflatables, space frames, exposed infrastructure) or focused on ecocentric applications (green building, sustainability, cradle-to-cradle discourses). But Kallipoliti insists that we should be more concerned with their closed-loop systems and the "lurking anxiety for the future of habitation" they betray, "as well as how little we know about regenerative systems that rely on the premise of productive cycles."

Courtesy of Architect's Journal, via Metropolis Magazine. ImageThe "closed world" of shopping in Canada's West Edmonton Mall

This is borne out by a project like the Russian Bios-3 (1972), which situated humans as part of a metabolic link in a closed ecosystem. Designed to test the viability of long-term, closed-loop living, as would be needed in space, the "autopoietic machine" performed adequately; however, the crew grew increasingly independent of its ersatz ground control, and microfloral shifts threatened the biodiversity of the internal ecology.

Placed at center stage, feedback loops and bodily processes provide opportunities for architecture's progression, even if (and when) these metabolic systems fail. (Of Biosphere 2's series of failures, its mysterious 6 percent oxygen drop was suspected to be metabolic in origin—either the soil or the concrete of the building itself had begun absorbing oxygen.) "If the idea of circular regeneration, the crown jewel of sustainable enterprises, is a type of utopia, then arguably any idea of utopia ends up eating its own roots, as suggested by the word 'autodigestion,'" Kallipoliti writes. "As Manfredo Tafuri (1976) argued, there are no more utopias in the era of late capitalism. On the other hand, however, it is precisely this investment in the realm of impossibility, of redefining the reality of our built world and our disciplinary territories that allows architecture to reconstitute itself."

Image via Eden Project. ImageThe China Eden Project, Qingdao

Hence the book's scatological subtitle: Or, What Is the Power of Shit?

In a slippery section of her introduction that touches on Bataille, Freud, and the number of carbon dioxide emissions credits covered by the Kyoto Protocol, Kallipoliti argues that we should see solid waste as instrumental and alchemical, transforming from by-product to capital. She concludes her argument with a line from feminist theorist Donna Haraway: "I am a compost-ist, not a posthumanist: we are all compost, not posthuman."

The quote is irresistible. But given Kallipoliti's interest in closed worlds, it's somewhat out of context. It's taken from the 2015 essay "Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin," in which Haraway makes the case that our current Anthropocenic temporality (which Kallipoliti's human-centered closed worlds are both part of and trying to escape) has set off a major systems collapse. We've "drained, burned, depleted, poisoned, exterminated, and otherwise exhausted" nature and the earth's resources. It's too late for environmentalism (illustrated by the 1970s ecohouses included in Closed Worlds) or sustainability. Our closed-loop planet is now in the midst of a devastating chain reaction that affects all life forms, all terrains, all ecosystems.

About this Haraway writes, "Recursion can be a drag." And indeed, all the mirroring and metabolizing that forms a subtheme of Closed Worlds is ultimately a drag. While the book diligently tracks the failures of every project, there remains a sense that architectural analysis remains more or less detached from global exigencies. Shit won't save architecture if we stay in our bubble.

Courtesy of Graham Caine, via Metropolis Magazine. ImageGraham Caine's London Ecological House. Built while he was a student, the house was entirely self-sufficient, processing excrement and other household waste as fertiliser for the food supply

In response to Anthropocene consequences, Haraway calls forth the power of the Chthulucene, an epoch to follow our own. As the name implies this is a biologic creature rising from the compost, with tentacles to knit together kin and kind. "One way to live and die as mortal critters in the Chthulucene is to join forces to reconstitute refuges, to make possible partial and robust biological-cultural-political-technological recuperation and recomposition, which must include mourning irreversible losses," she writes.

Toward that sentiment, the most telling projects in Closed Worlds are the ones that aren't sealed airtight into neat bubbles—the ones that, as Frank Lloyd Wright supposedly said of all good architecture, leak. According to Kallipoliti, the Ecological House (1972) by Graham Caine, a student at the Architectural Association and member of the anarchist Street Farm collective in the early '70s, leaked all over the sensibilities of its south London neighborhood. Considered an eyesore by its protesting neighbors, the house was an ecological experiment, an "inhabitable housing laboratory" that would recycle and repurpose all waste. For two years, Caine and his family were part of the house's digestive loop. Without constant care from the architect, the living system would die.

"[T]he house's health was physiologically co-dependent with the dweller's health in an interlinked biological pattern," writes Kallipoliti. "[A]s Caine shows us, to effect change one needs to get involved and get one's hands dirty in architecture production." Under the Anthropocene or Capitalocene, getting dirty can be seen as an act of resistance to consumerism, a bulwark against state control, or simply a nose thumbed at polite society. But under the Chthulucene, we are all implicated in the inevitable failure to stave off the planet's cascading systems failure. In a word, we are in the muck.

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Snøhetta to Renovate Avant-Garde Theater in Nanterre, France with Dynamic Extension

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 02:00 AM PDT

Snøhetta has been announced as the winner of a design competition for the renovation of the avant-gardist Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers in Nanterre, France. The renovation seeks to breathe new life into the 1960s theater, known for its high-quality performances and global collaborations.

The renovations will include the addition of a 200-seat theater, and the reconfiguration of the building's restaurant, bookshop, and atrium space, with an emphasis on flexibility and natural light.

The scheme's foyer will feature a glazed façade overlooking surrounding parkland, combining with a perforated ceiling to allow natural light into the space. A series of platforms will separate ticketing, restaurant, and performance spaces, while a third theater, comprising 200 seats, will add to the scheme's existing 900-seat capacity.

To work with this cutting-edge theatre is an honor. We are deeply committed to following the great past and present of the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, whilst responsibility carrying its tradition into the future.
Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, Founding Partner, Snøhetta

The scheme will be developed in collaboration with SRA Architectes, theater consultant Kanju, the Departmental Service of Architecture and Heritage, and engineers Khephren, Egis, Elioth and SLETEC.

Work is scheduled to start in January 2020, with completion in early 2022.

News of the competition success comes days after Snøhetta was selected to design the El Paso Children's Museum in Texas.

News via: Snøhetta

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