Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto by 📸: @worldtravelgeo
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From the architect. Bibliothèque Alexis de Tocqueville is a public library for the metropolitan region Caen la Mer in Normandy, France.The 12,000 m2 multimedia library is located at the tip of the peninsula that extends out from the city of Caen to the English Channel. Its key position – between the city’s historic core and an area of Caen that is being developed – supports the city’s ambition for the library to become a new civic center. The library’s glass facade visually connects the adjacent park, pedestrian pathway and waterfront plaza to the interior and together with two large ground floor entrances at both sides of the building, enables a fluid interaction of the library with its surroundings. On the upper floors, the urban belvedere provides unobstructed views in all four directions.
The building’s cross-shaped design responds to the urban context, with each of the four protruding planes of the cross pointing to a landmark point in Caen: to the historical sites of the Abbaye-aux-Dames in the north and the Abbaye-aux-Hommes in the west, to the central train station in the south, and to the area of new construction in the east. At the same time, the geometry of two intersecting axes is informed by the library’s programmatic logic. The four planes, each housing a pedagogic discipline — human sciences, science and technology, literature, and the arts — meet in a large reading room on the first floor, to encourage maximum flow between the departments. This main library space is carved out of the center of the solid cross, defining the building’s design as an opposition between mass and void.
As a civic center where people meet and share knowledge and information, public space is at the core of the library’s design. At the entrance level on the ground floor, there is a large open space with a press kiosk and access points to an auditorium with 150 seats, an exhibition space and a restaurant with an outdoor terrace on the waterfront. The first floor contains a large variety of work and reading spaces and 120,000 documents, with physical and digital books placed side-by-side in the bookshelves. The digital extension of the physical collections, integrated within the bookshelves, is one of the new multimedia features of the library. The top floor of the library is occupied by a space for children, as well as offices and logistics. The archive and special historical collections are stored in safe and dry conditions in the concrete basement, protected from the surrounding water by an innovative waterproof membrane applied on the inner side of the concrete walls.
Besides the kitchen, the bathroom often takes top priority when building or renovating a home. However, choosing a look is not always easy, so here we have gathered 13 stunning bathrooms from previously published projects to provide inspiration in your own designs. Each is filled with inspiring ideas for your own project; from relaxing tubs to sleek showers, one of these bathrooms is sure to suit your style.
The first steps in the evolution of the physical space of the bathroom that we know of today occurred in Scotland, where the first rustic latrines were constructed, and in Pakistan, where systems of pipes of cooked mud embedded in brick constructions have been found. These innovations date back to 3000 BC, later evolving into the first vats, toilets and ceramic pipes of the Minoan nobility, then to the copper plumbing of the Egyptians (who used their baths to celebrate religious ceremonies), then to the Romans, who transformed personal hygiene into a social act with public baths, covered with tiles.
During the middle ages, a widespread lack of concern for hygiene arose, but plumbing systems resurfaced in the early seventeenth century – although some of this era’s most impressive constructions, such as the palace of Versailles, did not include bathrooms. The early industrial revolution in England also did not contribute much, since the rapidity of urbanization and industrialization caused an overcrowding that was very difficult to control. It was only in the 1830s that an outbreak of cholera in London forced the authorities to launch a campaign to incorporate sanitary facilities into homes, taking the first step towards the toilets with cisterns that we use today.
Today the bathroom as a space has gone beyond its purely hygienic function and has entered into an exclusive area of its own design. Now, regardless of whether you are a bath person or strictly a shower person, these 13 awe-inducing bathrooms take daily cleansing to a whole new level.
+ Returning Hut / FM.X Interior Design
+ Takapuna House / Athfield Architects
+ Tigh Port na Long / Dualchas Architects
+ Caterpillar House / Sebastián Irarrázaval
+ Refugi Lieptgas / Georg Nickisch + Selina Walder
+ Casa L / Serrano Monjaraz Arquitectos
+ Can Manuel d’en Corda / Marià Castelló + Daniel Redolat
+ Apartment Refurbishment in Pamplona / Iñigo Beguiristain
+ Grow / APOLLO Architects & Associates
+ Fagerstrom House / Claesson Koivisto Rune
+ House On The River Reuss / Dolmus Architects
Need more inspiration? Check out our Pinterest bathroom board.
Washington Monument – Washington D.C. – USA (by Mark Fischer)
This article was originally published by Autodesk’s Redshift publication.
You are walking through an elegant house, admiring the large living-room windows, the paintings on the wall, and the spacious kitchen. Pendant lights cast a soft glow, the terrazzo flooring gleams beneath your feet, the furnishings feel inviting. Then you take off the virtual-reality goggles and resume your meeting.
This scenario is becoming increasingly common as more architects incorporate virtual reality (VR) into their practices. Along with its cousins—augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR)—virtual reality allows designers to push the boundaries of visualization, giving colleagues and clients new ways to experience and understand a building or space long before it is actually built. With VR, architects can transmit not just what a building will look like, but also what it will feel like.
“Traditionally in architecture, you have blueprints and scale models, and 3D modeling has been around in force for the last 20 years,” says Jeff Mottle, president and CEO of CGarchitect Digital Media Corp and publisher of CGarchitect, an online magazine and community for architectural-visualization professionals. “VR plays into these traditional methods because the two fit closely together, more than the manufacturers actually realize.” Manufacturers still mostly view VR for gaming rather than enterprise solutions—but that is changing, according to Mottle, who just moderated a panel about these emerging technologies at this year’s Autodesk University Las Vegas.
With the dizzying rate of technology advancement and growing options, here are four considerations for firms thinking of entering this brave new virtual world.
Virtual reality has been around in some form for decades (with the first head-mounted systems debuting in 1968), but the technology has not been elastic or advanced enough to have widespread application until now. With advances in mobile technology, which placed high-resolution imagery into everyone’s hands, VR has experienced an explosion in the past two years.
Widely available head-mounted displays (HMDs) such as Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive, Microsoft HoloLens, and Google Cardboard have brought VR into the mainstream and made it more affordable (although costs generally still run from hundreds to thousands). Facebook’s purchase of Oculus for $2 billion in 2014 also offered the industry a highly visible boost.
“One of the challenges is everything is changing so quickly,” Mottle says. “Not everyone has the time or resources to try every one of these HMDs, so we’re trying to get the dialogue going to discuss the pros and cons.”
According to a survey in CGarchitect, the leading users of VR for architectural visualization are in Europe (40 percent) and the United States (21 percent), with commenters saying that the technology will be revolutionary for the industry. Nearly 70 percent of respondents are using VR/AR/MR in production or planning to do so in 2017, while 77 percent were experimenting with the technology or planning to do so.
VR is the immersive, full-headset experience that most people associate with this technology. “With virtual reality, you’re immersing yourself into a virtual environment and closing yourself off completely from the outside world,” Mottle says. “Depending on which device you’re using, you could do room-scale VR and ‘walk’ through the space.” (And with grid guidelines in your virtual world, you won’t accidentally walk into a real wall.)
With augmented reality, data and/or instructional information are animated over the real-world view, often through smaller devices such as a mobile phone or tablet. Pokémon Go is a popular consumer example of an augmented-reality app; a professional use case would be an engineer remotely teaching a mechanic how to repair something.
Then there’s MR: Mixing together aspects of VR and AR, MR takes virtual objects and overlays them onto the real world. Two people (say, an architect and a structural engineer based in another country) can be networked into a virtual world where they can interact together with a virtual building on a real site.
One benefit of VR is that it can be rendered at different Levels of Detail (LOD), so an architect in the early design phase could have an immersive experience in a non-photorealistic room, just to get a sense of spatial relationships and massing. Or the experience could be hyperreal, so that a VR video could have soft sunlight filtering down through a clerestory window, with the sound of birds chirping outside (for client presentations).
Increasingly, architects are integrating VR hardware such as HTC Vive and Oculus with BIM software. “This will allow architects and clients alike to truly understand the spatial qualities of the project,” says Kim Baumann Larsen, an architect and the VR advisor for The Future Group. “This spatial understanding should make clients more confident in the design and reduce time spent in meetings and the use of lateral design revisions.”
Mobile VR solutions using cardboard headsets and a smartphone are another increasingly popular solution. “The architect can render stereo 360 panoramic images directly from the BIM software such as [Autodesk] Revit or using a visualization tool like 3ds Max with V-Ray, and publish the images to the web using third-party services like VRto.me or IrisVR Scope,” Larsen says.
VR requires a fair amount of expertise, and it’s challenging for architects to find work time to experiment with the technology. “For the most part, VR relies on gaming engines to develop these immersive experiences,” Mottle says. “That has a whole different workflow and paradigm than architecture.”
He hopes that manufacturers will see the potential for developing VR solutions specifically geared toward architecture. Already, some firms are translating BIM data into VR with platforms such as Autodesk LIVE and Stingray, which maintains important building data that other gaming systems don’t capture. For now, though, gaming systems tend to focus on creating idealized end-user VR experiences rather than applications for iterative building-project design and construction.
The more architects get involved with VR, the more they can shape the future marketplace. “I’d really like to see these VR companies realize that there’s a market beyond gaming and the consumer market,” Mottle says. “I would like them to see that there are some huge opportunities and synergies with the design world.”
But Larsen says architects shouldn’t wait to dig in: “Get a PC-based VR system like the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift for exploring design from BIM tools, and play with mobile VR using cardboard and Gear VR and Google’s View to distribute your designs in VR to clients and collaborators alike. The most important thing is to start experimenting.”
At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experience of life; the thorns should never be plucked from his roses. – Ellen Key
So, I won’t go into detail about my kids or anybody else’s but I think it’s safe to say that there are a lot of us who have and are experiencing the disappointment and guilt brought on by our grown kids doing stupid shit!
What constitutes “stupid shit” can be relative. But no matter what it is, we know it when we see it!
We’ve worked so hard for our kids!
We’ve sacrificed and prayed for them, giving them everything we had- Every. Single. Day!
And then what do they do?
Do they use all the knowledge and wisdom we have given and invested in them to make the world a better place?
Do they use all the gifts and talents …some of which cost a pretty penny to bring to the surface!
Do they go out in the world sharing all the love and kindness that you have showered over them all of their lives?
Do they lead by example?
Do they shine like bright beacons of light helping others to find their way?
Do they pray and always put God first.
Do they use common sense?
Do they make decisions based on logic, prayer, and reason?
Do they respect themselves and others?
Do they honor and appreciate your investment in them by going into the world representing the best of who you hoped they’d be?
The answer is Yes, sometimes they do but then sometimes, they do stupid shit!
Sometimes, they go into the world and live a life that has no resemblance to your love, sacrifice or who you taught and raise them to be!
Then you ask yourself, “how did this happen?!” And in comes the guilt!
You wonder to yourself, what did I do wrong? What could/should I have done differently? Maybe I should have spent more time on this and less time on that?
I mean the list of “what-ifs” and “maybes” are infinite!
And then after the guilt comes the disappointment!
You try to hide your disappointment because you don’t want to make things worse than they already are and you hold on to the desperate belief that at some point (soon!), they’ll come to realize all the stupid shit they’re doing and make some hard changes!
But until then, it is heart-wrenching and heartbreaking to watch because you can see their potential! You know that they can not only do better but they have the talent, knowledge, and skill to do absolutely whatever they can image!
But instead, they do stupid shit!
But I’ve come to realize a couple of things.
First, I’ve realized that sometimes, it’s not just disappointment and guilt that we feel when our kids mess up, we can also feel embarrassed!
And we feel embarrassed because we think about all those other young adults we know that actually look like they’ve got it together. Then we do that terrible thing that always, always makes everything worse…we compare!
Why can’t you be like your cousin Tommy? Why can you be like your friend, Mary? Etc. Etc.
Doing this never helps anybody!
And then the other thing I’ve realized is that we (parents) have done our share of stupid shit too! And some of us are STILL trying to figure some things out!
So, even though it can be very difficult at times, whenever I feel myself in the throes of disappointment, guilt and embarrassment over my kids, I do this;
• I reflect on my own moments of shittery, both yesterday’s and today’s.
• I remind myself that no matter how much ownership I feel for who they are, their lives are their own.
• I remember that some of my greatest revelations were gained through great hardship and bad decisions.
• I trust in the seeds of faith and hard work that I have planted in their spirit.
• I trust that they know God and when they are ready they will turn to Him for answers.
• I trust in God’s promise that He will never leave them or forsake them.
• And I pray that I am granted the necessary strength, patience, wisdom, and faith to keep believing that they will be fine, that they will be better than fine in fact!
• And most of all, I pray that I stay diligent in knowing that our adult children are God’s children. And that they must now answer to Him for the decisions they make and the actions they take.
• Finally, I try to commit more of my time and energy to doing those things that make me better and stronger in body, mind, and spirit.
In the meantime, I’m trying to stop the habit of dreaming for my kids and getting disappointed when they don’t live up to them. They are responsible for manifesting their own dreams now!
It’s time for me to let go!
See Also: The Problem of the Perfect Parent
The post Dealing with Disappointment When Your Grown Kids Do Stupid Sh*t! appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
House of Mirrors is a private residence renovated by Nook Architects. It is located in Barcelona, Spain and was completed in 2016. House of Mirrors by Nook Architects: “The projects we have done so far have had very centric locations within the city of Barcelona: Ciutat Vella, Eixample, Gràcia, Poble Nou… This time, however, it was at the centre of it all. Located in Plaça Catalunya, the first thing we..
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has released its Home Design Trends Survey for the third quarter of 2016, which focuses on community and neighborhood design. According to the Survey, homeowners are generally expressing more interest in community development, as indicated by the popularity of thoughtful community design with access to amenities.
There is additionally, according to the Survey, a demand for walkable neighborhoods, access to public transportation, and multi-generational housing, as well as a demand for more and larger glass windows, driven by building technologies like smart glass windows.
Furthermore, “infill development along with an increasing demand for tear-down properties is a signal that urban housing continues to grow denser.”
Learn more about the 2016 Home Design Trends Survey at the AIA’s interactive infographic, here.
News via: The American Institute of Architects (AIA).
From the architect. Beets & Roots is a casual fast-food restaurant set in the heart of Berlin-Mitte. The restaurant integrates the idea of modern, healthy and honest fast-food to supply guests with vitamins in an atmosphere reminiscent of an American Diner.
The space sets the foundation of the brand and has been designed with future locations in mind.
The environment is fully integrated – the use of tiles across the bar, floors and walls create connections between the coloured zones that divide the space into the four main areas of the restaurant.
With a lighting concept that consists of irregular neon halos in contrasting warm and cold tones and Mary Lennox’s planting concept the atmosphere is balanced and with a good conscience.
