Courtesy of Places Journal

Narrative has a powerful place in architecture, and some of the most enduring narratives come in the form of fairy tales. A recent series by Places Journal brings the two directly together, exploring “the intimate relationship between the domestic structures of fairy tales and the imaginative realm of architecture.” The curation team reflects this duality, with the diverse collection put together by writer Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer. Read on for a quick look at four new additions to the series released by Places Journal this week.

Tiddalik the Frog by Snøhetta

Courtesy of Places Journal

“What brings real pleasure in life is often unusual, wouldn’t you say?” In this Australian Aboriginal Dream Time tale, Tiddalik the frog quenches a desperate thirst until the earth is dry. The other animals try their best to make him laugh to release the water from his swollen body, but it is not until Tiddalik sees the “unusual”—the platypus—that he begins to laugh. Snøhetta see Tiddalik’s swing “between laughter and apathy” reflective of architecture’s need to “intertwine aesthetic value with ethical value.”

Flatland by Ultramoderne

Courtesy of Places Journal

Written by a math teacher, Flatland is a story that takes place in a two-dimensional world existing on a very large sheet of paper. Sounds a bit like a drawing set, no? In both the fairy tale and Ultramoderne’s architectural response, flatness does not “allege a lack of imagination,” but becomes a richly generative constraint.

Gripho by Smiljan Radić

Courtesy of Places Journal

It is the idea of the gripho more than the gripho itself that led to its inclusion in the series. While its dictionary definition is “a winged creature with the head of an eagle and the body of a lion,” what is even more magical is the fact that something like a gripho exists in popular thought. Just as griphos play testament to the importance of play and imagination to our world, so do Smiljan Radić‘s physical collages, “a model for a building that nobody knows what is going to be.”

The Seven Ravens by Bernheimer Architecture

Courtesy of Places Journal

It’s tough being one of eight children, especially when the other seven of your siblings get turned into ravens and you have to walk to the ends of the earth, dismembering yourself in the process, to get them back. So goes the tale of The Seven Ravens and its intrepid heroine. Bernheimer Architecture respond with a magnifiable drawing, playing with scale just as the fairytale plays with “many events in several scales, in simultaneity.”

These four stories are simply the latest installments of Places Journal‘s Fairy Tale Architecture series, a set of articles which now includes 16 articles going back 5 years. You can see the entire Fairy Tale Architecture series here.

http://ift.tt/2hTbPJ1

© Robin Hayes

• Architects: Vida Arkitektkontor
• Location: Stockholm, Sweden
• Architects In Charge: Leo Beccari, Ellen Westerin
• Area: 100.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Robin Hayes

© Robin Hayes

Real Estate Brokers Behrer & Partners are a highly renowned broker firm with quality conscious client’s. Vida were asked to design two of their Office Boutiques in Stockholm. 

© Robin Hayes

© Robin Hayes

For us – Real Estate Brokers has some of the least interesting shop windows. When you move through the city, we wanted Behrer & Partners to be an addition to the city rather than a subtraction. This has been our main focus throughout the projects and as a consequence, we replaced the old exterior glazing and doors with massive oak doors, oak framing and original neon tube signs in order to make them more beautiful, inviting and expressional. 

© Robin Hayes

Plan 1

We moved on to work with ways to divide the compact Offices into different spatial entities, tailoring them for the different functions that were on the clients wish list. We wanted the divisions to be as informal and elegant as possible, therefore we created different vertical levels within the space. Thus, after we first recreated the street inside the shop by putting down concrete flooring (harshly mimicking the concrete paving on the sidewalks) we made massive elevated wood podiums. City life continues inside the shop around the podiums, but on the podiums the brokers have their individual workspaces where they can work relaxed and at home. A combined shelving system (for real estate- home exposure, open storage and espresso bar) is the core information bearer that allows the rest of the Boutique to almost be un-furnished, and calm.

© Robin Hayes

Plan 2

Behrer & Partners puts a lot of effort into their relations – be it to clients, coworkers and friends – therefore a tree was planted in each Office Boutique, as a symbol.

© Robin Hayes

Product Description. A central feature in both projects are the elevated podiums. To give them a massive appearance we used Almedals wood block flooring with L-elements around the edges. We used pine flooring and panels in one project to go with the purple desktops and cabinets and oak in the other to go with the green desktops and cabinets.

http://ift.tt/2hSTITB

© Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso / Pedro Iván Ramos Martín

• Architects: Óscar Miguel Ares Álvarez
• Location: Valladolid, Spain
• Area: 2000.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso / Pedro Iván Ramos Martín

• Technical Architect: Javier Palomero Alonso
• Collaborators: Bárbara Arranz González, Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso, Dorota Tokarska

© Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso / Pedro Iván Ramos Martín

The housing for the elderly in Adeamayor de San Martin (Valladolid) can not be understood without its context. Located on the border of a saline hidden wetland (Salgüeros de Aldeamayor) the aridity of the terrain and the infinite horizontality of the Spanish agricultural esplanade – dotted with small masses of pine trees – dominates the landscape, conditioning the implementation of any structure or artifact. In turn, our approaches were held by insistent ideas: provide our elderly with kind environment which promote to be in touch with nature, with the sun, but also enhancing the close relation between inhabitants of the building; the neighborly relations among chairs in the front door of the houses that are so recognizable in the rural areas of Castilla y León.

© Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso / Pedro Iván Ramos Martín

On the arid plain of the Castilla y León landscape we have placed a building formed by white concrete blocks paired in a striated way, marking an intense but subtle border with the ground.

© Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso / Pedro Iván Ramos Martín

Floor Plan

© Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso / Pedro Iván Ramos Martín

The exterior is abstract and hard, as the environment. A seemingly insurmountable barrier, a shell to protect the interior that becomes kind, warm and complex. The external severe geometry contrasts with the inner complexity. The rooms are generated as small cells that clump together organically around the courtyard, creating interstitials and areas of relation, both to the courtyard itself as the interior. The perimeter corridor becomes a place rich in nuances and spaces in the manner of a small town where people can speak in front of the door of their room-houses fleeing the classic configuration of such centers more close to lugubrious hospitals than to kind and welcoming buildings. We wanted places that would allow the close relationship between inhabitants; the neighborly relations among chairs in the front door of the houses that are so recognizable in the rural areas of Castilla y León. More than a residence, the project aims to search for be a real home, so that psychological factors had to be essential in the project approach.

© Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso / Pedro Iván Ramos Martín

Section

© Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso / Pedro Iván Ramos Martín

These cells make up the internal connecting paths of the building and coexist with public areas: activity room, fitness room, medical consultations and the large room where has been to create a careful spatiality natural lighting to create a peaceful and seductive atmosphere.

© Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso / Pedro Iván Ramos Martín

The whole work has been governed by the use of simple and cost-effective materials, without fanfare. Geometry, spatiality, light and careful treatment color and textures to get a warm and cozy interior protected by an abstract and rhythmic limit to the exterior.

http://ift.tt/2i1T6J7