From the architect. This project starts from the center and is one of the most multi-purposed buildings the agency has ever undertaken: 56 apartments, a nursery school, a center for social reintegration and offices. It is in Nantes (western France), right in the middle of the historical old town, not far from the Beaux-Art museum. This very urbanized installation surrounds and highlights a wooded garden that has been preciously preserved.
The facilities are on the ground floor, and the entirely windowed outer walls are drawn with great precision along the street. They blend into the landscape in the depth of the inner garden and progressively embed into the slope to lodge their garden-roofs in the shade of the cedar trees. The tiered façades of the apartments stretch along the street. The building is split by two wide breaches along its top to provide neighbors with views of the inner landscape and residents triple exposures, extended by the angled loggias that overlook the street or garden. As well as views of the Saint-Clément church steeple and the nearby Jardin des Plantes. The contemporary architectural language is intentional with all of the outer walls decorated in horizontal metallic cladding and bands, between which are inserted shutters, louvers and stainless-steel panels with curtain-like folds. The garden at the building’s center illustrates another conception of town-center density that is both generous and landscaped.
Product Description. The contemporary architectural language is intentional: buildings are insulated by the exterior, all of the outer walls decorated in horizontal metallic cladding, sometimes in lacquered sheet metal, sometimes pleated in mirror stainless-steel, ensuring the facades durability, between which are inserted shutters, louvers and stainless-steel panels with curtain-like folds. Each element is set on a 1m wide and 2.20m high framework, wedged between the horizontal bands that ensure the C + D regulatory.
These panels are complemented by sliding doors for loggias and accordion shutters, also in mirror stainless steel, in line with the glazed chassis of the rooms, and living rooms not protected by balconies.
These devices ensure the building thermal performance and allow everyone to control light and views, to preserve comfort and privacy.
As 2016 comes to a close, we want to extend our sincerest thanks for your continued support during this past year; it has been our most inspiring and successful yet as we continue to connect to architects all over the world.
On behalf of the entire ArchDaily team, we are very excited to share a special feature – 2016’s most visited projects and articles. This selection features the most relevant and noteworthy content created and shared over the past 12 months.
Here’s to a wonderful, architecture-filled 2017!
From the architect. Throughout the past century, the line of train and metro tracks through the district of Sants (Barcelona) has been an open wound in its urban fabric, dividing the district into two virtually unconnected parts along an 800-metre section, from Plaza de Sants to calle Riera Blanca, creating the resulting urban dysfunctions in terms of acoustic pollution and deterioration of the surroundings.
In the year 2002 the city’s administration decided to start up an urban renewal project for the Sants railway corridor. Having ruled out the option of putting it underground, it was decided to confine it inside a lightweight, transparent box for a good part of the section, with the roof being turned into an 800-metre-long raised and landscaped boulevard which would later be extended along the neighbouring municipalities as far as Cornellá, giving rise to a 5-km-long “green corridor”.
The structure that holds up the building/container is comprised of prefab concrete parts in a sequence on a diagonal which adopts the shape of a great Warren beam evoking the old railway bridges, leaving large empty triangles that lend themselves to glazing them over to allow a view of the train passing through the city, reducing its acoustic impact to a minimum. Not fully glazing the building allowed three great green inclines to be built which rise from the lowest levels right up to roof level. These embankments “anchor” the building into its setting allow the roof vegetation to spill down to the lateral streets and support pedestrian ramps that provide a “natural” access to the roof.
The building’s roof dominates the surrounding streets in heights of between 4 and 12 metres and in consequence its gardens have been turned into a vantage point over the city. They start with a great umbraculum acting as a gateway into the gardens, which are structured along two linear routes: one in the north side of the roof, with a great deal of shade provided by the trees, and another one on the south side, which is permanently in sunlight. The intermediate space between the two routes is configured as the backbone of the gardens, based on the configuration of a complex artificial topography with high density of trees and rich plantings of shrubs and ground cover, chosen according to a highly selective colour palette. The elevations present in the topography, reinforced by the density and the strategic position of the tree groves, favour the creation of spaces in which the passers-by lose the feeling of being in a city and are immersed in a natural environment.
The most widely used types of trees are Tipuanas, Sophoras, Koelreuterias and Malus ‘Evereste’, characterised by their yellow and white flowers. The shrubs and ground cover have been distributed around the lawns, with Bulbine, red salvia, wild roses and Hedera Helix in the sunniest parts and Hedera Helix, Vinca, Gaura and Lantana in the more shaded areas.
Can you spot the hikers in this picture from Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve in Colorado? It’s easy to lose your perspective when looking at the tallest sand dunes in North America. A park of year-round adventure, there’s a particular beauty about this special place in winter, when snow hides in the curving shadows of the dunes. Photo by Patrick Myers, National Park Service.
UNStudio and textile manufacturer MDT-tex have completed the Eye_Beacon Pavilion for the Amsterdam Light Festival. Serving as a ticketing and information booth for event goers, the pavilion’s design draws inspiration from the festival’s 2017 theme of biomimicry, specifically the bioluminescent organisms of the deep sea world.
“Similar to deep sea creatures that use bioluminescence to signal, attract and inform, the Eye_Beacon uses choreographed light sequences to alert visitors to its dual function as both a sculpture and an information point for the festival,” said UNStudio’s Ben van Berkel.
“Along with the effect of the pavilion partially overhanging the Amstel River, the twist that connects the two halves of the structure emphasizes the crossing point between the land and water routes of the festival.”
Located along the western bank of the Amstel River by the ‘Blauwbrug’ bridge, the structure acts as the connecting point between the festival’s ‘Watercolour’ canal route and ‘Illuminade’ land installations.
The pavilion design consists of two cube forms connected by twisting surfaces, parametrically modeled to optimize the efficiency of fabrication and installation. The result is a system of 250 panels of unique dimensions constructed from tensile textile modules developed in partnership with MDT-tex.
The panels are overlapped to reveal glimpses of the interior and to display focused LED projections, giving the pavilion a constantly changing composition of light and color.
“The collaboration between UNStudio and MDT-tex, combined with the expertise that MDT-tex has built-up over the years, led to the development of new forms that required innovative and advanced textile engineering. The evolution of the form-finding and technical translation to contemporary future orientated sustainable materials marks the ‘twist’ within this outstanding partnership,” said Markus Müller-Feist, Managing Director / Owner MDT-tex.
Inspired by Ben van Berkel’s dual function concept, the MDT-tex system has also been designed for use in future projects, including functions as lighting and water harvesting systems.
You can see more installations from the Amsterdam Light Festival, here.
Additional Credits:
Lighting Supply and Installation: Zumtobel
Lighting Content Consultant: Florian Licht, Licht & Soehne
News via UNStudio.
Used vehicle sales were up another 3.2 percent during the third quarter of the year, and it’s easy to understand why. The average transaction price for a new vehicle is on the rise, with that figure now surpassing $34,600.
The choice seems pretty obvious if you’re shopping for a car and you’re on a budget: buy used. The thing is, if you’re not careful, buying a pre-owned vehicle can be more trouble than it’s worth—and more expensive than you thought.
Here are 5 steps you can take to help make sure you don’t get taken in when buying a used car.
There are literally hundreds of different car and truck models on the market which makes narrowing the field an important first step. You’ll want to think long and hard about the kind of vehicle that best meets your needs—whether it’s a small hatchback or a large pickup—and then go online to see what the experts have to say about the leaders in that segment. And by “experts,” that includes real-world owners, too. A particularly helpful source is U.S. News & World Report. That site essentially crowd-sources its car reviews by basing them on consensus opinions from other auto-related resources.
See Also: What Science Says About The Car You Drive
Beyond doing your homework to pick a certain type of car, it’s just as vital to research the exact vehicle you’re thinking of buying. This is where a vehicle history report comes in handy. It can tell you information like accident history, the number of previous owners, open recalls and even give details about documented maintenance. Many used vehicles at major selling sites already supply these reports. But if they don’t, definitely ask for one.
Research and reports are invaluable, but they’re not infallible. There’s no replacement for having a knowledgeable, independent mechanic thoroughly inspect a possible purchase. (To be clear, that’s even the case if you’re considering a used car from a dealership, where a tech already has checked out the vehicle.) If you don’t have a mechanic you can trust, you can contact a company like Alliance Inspection Management, which will even send one of its pros out to your location. A comprehensive inspection starts at $129. That’s certainly better than having to pay for extensive repairs further on down the line.
If you don’t have a mechanic you can trust, you can contact a company like Alliance Inspection Management, which will even send one of its pros out to your location. A comprehensive inspection starts at $129. That’s certainly better than having to pay for extensive repairs further on down the line.
See Also: How to Find a Good Mechanic in the Age of Social Media
Now that you’ve gotten your mechanic to sign off on the car, it’s time for the real judge—you. Feel it out and be sure that you’re going to like driving the car for a while. Are the seats comfortable enough? Is there enough headroom and legroom? Are controls within easy reach? What about the driving experience? If the ride’s too rough or the car feels too slow on a test drive, imagine years and years, and miles and miles, of the same issues.
Although used vehicles can be a lot less expensive than new ones, they’re still a significant investment. The average transaction price for a pre-owned compact car was $11,929 at the end of September. It’s a lot of cash to come up with, and if you finance, note that the average loan payment on a used vehicle during September was $378 per month.
Moreover, there are ongoing costs to take into account, like gas, insurance, and routine maintenance, along with the likelihood of at least some repairs. A used vehicle should fit into your budget before you worry about fitting one into your garage.
For more tips, check out this CARFAX infographic about car value.
The post Caution: 5 Steps to Take Before Buying a Used Car appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
From the architect. Cabo de vila is a house for a young couple that wanted a house that doesn’t look like a regular house. When we first meet the place for the house, the approach to the location give us the central mote for the project. We wanted a shape that can fill the void left by the valley and at the same time we wanted this new shape to embrace and reflects the surrounding green areas giving its users a special perspective on the landscape.
The proposed volume materializes its shape through two concrete slabs with its concave sides, allowing a light glass and wood wall to unroll between them, which in a positive and negative game let the interior of the house communicate with the exterior.
Inside, the house reflects the way of living of his owners. The central courtyard welcomes anyone who enters the house and organizes all the common spaces around it like a no end space. Here, there are no barriers between the different spaces, only an organic geometry that establishes hierarchies between them and that allows mutual visual contact. The private spaces of the house are hidden behind a curtain wall that surrounds the courtyard as well as the garage and the service areas. Like in the common areas the main bedroom is a fluid space without doors, where the hierarchy of the relations between the closet the bathroom and the sleeping area shapes the space.
With raw materials inside and outside, the house establish a perfect connection with the surroundings ready to grow hold with the nature.
