BIG Architects has designed an inflatable mobile pavilion to be displayed at three Danish events, including its original site at the Roskilde Festival 2016. Known as SKUM (Danish for foam), the structure met the challenge of creating an installation that has the ability to be both permanent and fully transportable by creating a whimsical, bubble-like form that can be blown up in just 7 minutes.
Courtesy of BIG
Drawing inspiration from the inflatable castles of the architects’ childhood years, SKUM is powered by two wind turbines, which keep the structure rigid and smooth. At this year’s Roskilde Festival, it served as the VIP bar area for Danish beer company Tuborg, providing a 120 square meter canopy to shield festival goers from the sun. After sunset, the structure comes to life, as color-changing LED lights illuminate the pavilion in a full palette of colors.
Courtesy of BIG
Courtesy of BIG
Courtesy of BIG
Courtesy of BIG
Courtesy of BIG
After completing its run at the festival, SKUM will travel to Charlottenborg Palace in Copenhagen for the Chart Art Fair, and then will continue on to the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum.
Spanish-Mexican studio LaSelva has released a collection of small concrete accessories for the home in collaboration with designer Iván Zúñiga (+ slideshow). (more…)
From the architect. The architectural project thought of a house that should provide plenty of space for a middle-aged couple that often hosts friends and family, spending most time with their kids and grandchildren.
The edification was set in as suburban district, in an enclosed allotment, build upon three different lots that, when gathered, sums up to 1.740m². Even though the lots where unified, the occupation by the house was thought in a way that one of the lots kept unoccupied, making it possible to be commercialized forward on.
Ground Floor Plan
First Floor Plan
The view that surrounds the edification shows an old sugarcane factory, surrounded by native woods and the gorgeous Piracicaba River, main character in the city. The sight was one of the pillars when the team initiated the conception of the architectonic solution.
The entire house’s terrain was lifted-up, providing privacy without the need of higher visual barriers and guarantying the overwhelming surrounding view to the spectator that stands in the social area on the main pavement.
The architects wanted to bring into the house all this gardens and abundant nature. In order to do this, the conception defined the edification in two main rectangular volumes, laying one on top of the other in the shape of a cross. This ways the building would provide the landscape views to every enclosed space.
In the upper volume, there are three suites and a large TV room, established at the crossing point between both volumes. The lower volume gave place to an office, lavatory, laundry room and a home wine bar.
At some points, the lower volume needed covering. The solution given in these cases used green covering, providing gardens to the upper spaces as well.
The upper volume projects itself beyond the lower one on both sides. In one side, held also by a concrete wall, the upper rectangle stands over a large living room while, underneath the other side, the garage and main access to the house take place.
To overcome the structural difficulties, a mixed structure was the right choice, always exploring the material in its high qualities.
Section A
Section B
Concrete walls, steel beams and tensors compose the structure that marks the façade with its own aesthetics, showing the bolts and welding on an industrial and contemporary look.
The concrete elements show the molds, as well as the wood grains. The molds layout distribution were matrix to the dimensioning of the construction components like marble flooring, joints in the aluminum panels on the façade and distribution of luminaires, woodwork paintings and all interior design.
Concerned about the afternoon sun incidence on the west face of FMG Monte Alegre, the Urbem architects proposed an unusual solution. Practical, beautiful and of easy assembling, a cold camera panel, coated with aluminum compound was applied as walls on the west side, as well as a thick concrete wall providing thermos-acoustic coverage to the insides.
The overall result is a house that brings the gardens and landscapes into its interior, highlighting its apparent structural solutions and large and integrated spaces with generous natural light.
Sig Nordal 