© Flickr cc user edward stojakovic

99% Invisible has recently published a review of rotary jails, a strange prison architecture system in which cell blocks turn to align with the position of a single door, in the attempt to create better security. Used around the early 20^th century, this odd, carousel-like technology spread across the United States in mainly Midwestern towns.

Learn more about the phenomenon of rotating jails, at the 99% Invisible article, here.

News via 99% Invisible. 

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Shredder Building / Shinjuku, Tokyo. Image © Nikola Olic

Nikola Olic, an architectural photographer based in Dallas, Texas, has a thematic focus on capturing and reimagining buildings and sculptural objects in “dimensionless and disorienting ways.” His studies, which often isolate views of building façades, frame architectural surfaces in order for them to appear to collapse into two dimensions. “This transience,” he argues, “can be suspended by a camera shutter for a fraction of a second.” In this second series shared with ArchDaily, Olic presents a collection of photographs taken in Barcelona, Dallas, New York City and Los Angeles.

Crying Windows / Barcelona, Spain

© Nikola Olic

Mirror Façade / Barcelona, Spain

© Nikola Olic

Something Missing / Dallas, Texas

© Nikola Olic

The Blue Green Mile / Dallas, Texas

© Nikola Olic

The Smoking Building / New York City

© Nikola Olic

Read Between the Façades / New York City

© Nikola Olic

Subway Curves / New York City

© Nikola Olic

The Diagonal / New York City

© Nikola Olic

The Trying Angles of Triangles / New York City

© Nikola Olic

The Cross / Los Angeles, California

© Nikola Olic

You can see more from his series, here.

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© Hufton and Crow

• Architects: Lynch Architects
• Location: London, United Kingdom
• Area: 3500.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Hufton and Crow, David Grandorge, Tim Soar, Sue Barr, Rory Allen, Tom Lee , Tom Roreby, Nikita Shergil

• Structural Engineers: Pell Frischman
• Service Engineers: Grontmij
• Landscape Architects: Vogt
• Artist: Timorous Beasties
• Client: Land Securities

© Tim Soar

From the architect. The Zig Zag Building replaces a 1950s office block on Victoria Street in central London, close to The Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, with exemplary new office space. Colonnades at various scales indicate and define the entrances to the various different types of accommodation housed within the broader scope of our project e.g. offices, housing, restaurants, shops, bars, etc. Situated between a cathedral and a town hall, the design seeks to mediate between these two in terms of size and scale and to establish a credible and pleasurable urban spatial order connecting together the grain of this part of Westminster.

Sketch

The relationships between the inside and outside of the building are articulated as a series of thresholds in carefully calibrated, shaded, open-able, yet mostly transparent façades that nonetheless appear solid from afar. Layers of shading not only add scale to the elevations, but also vary across the different orientations, offering occupants the possibility of the enjoyment of fresh air and natural light – along with the virtuous preservation of natural resources.

© David Grandorge

On the upper levels, above the retail accommodation at ground and 1^st floor, the office facade has six principal components. The first is the internal structural columns, which are circular with minimal diameter.

© David Grandorge

This avoids an awkward relationship with the second element, the curtain wall, which has C31 anodized pale bronze-coloured stable-door style openable panels set up on a 1.5m grid and 3m panel. At least 2.5% of an office floor area must be openable façade to enable the fire brigade to purge smoke after a fire, and around the same proportion needs to be insulated. We have combined these two parameters to create a shutter that enables cross ventilation and which forms a Juliette balcony when fully opened. The façade works in tandem with the energy strategy for the building generally.

Skecth

© Rory Allen

Detail Sketch

Capillary cooling in the concrete floor slab, combined with chilled beams, creates the possibility of omitting a conventional suspended ceiling, thus creating a floor-to-ceiling height of over 3.3m. In front of the curtain wall, and separated by a 50mm gap, are the third element, 3.7m x 65mm thick anodized fins of varying depths, that shade the façade from solar gain from the east and west.  At the lowest level, the fins are set at 1.5m centres and are 600mm deep, gradually diminishing in width and depth on successive floors i.e. as they get closer together they cast more shadow, and thus their depth reduces accordingly to conserve materials. This has the effect of making the building appear taller and more statuesque.

© Tim Soar

The fourth element is the horizontal cill that shades the facade from the south midday summer sun and which remains a constant depth throughout. The fifth element is a hanging translucent glass ‘doily’ protects the façade from solar gain and glare arising from spring and autumn midday sun, which is not quite at the zenith at noon but nonetheless often intense. The doily is made up of laminated glass with a printed inter-layer depicting a variety of images of onyx. Finally, the “zigzag” geometry of the building exaggerates the play of light and shadow across the façade, and this variety is complimented by patterns made as occupants open different parts of it on warm days.

Sketch

The translucent doilies register another layer of inhabitation and respond to seasonal and diurnal time, as, in the winter months, they begin to glow towards the end of the working day. Terraces are planted with trees and flowers, emphasizing still further the presence of the natural world within the working lives of the inhabitants. Concern for the well-being of inhabitants is balanced by the care taken in the design of the landscape by Vogt, and is reflected in the art works of Rut Blees-Luxemburg and Timorous Beasties. The Zig Zag Building was pre-let to Deutsche Bank and to Jupiter Asset Management. The project won the Best Office Building award at The World Architecture Festival, held in Berlin in November 2016.

© David Grandorge

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© Imagen Subliminal

• Architects: Lorena del Río, Iñaqui Carnicero
• Location: Madrid, Spain
• Other Participants: Takuma Johnson, Monica Molinari, Paula Manzano
• Area: 1050.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Imagen Subliminal

© Imagen Subliminal

From the architect. English for Fun, founded in Spain in 2011, uses a revolutionary method for children of any age or physical condition to learn English using their five senses. English for Fun is a place for all children to learn. This pedagogical approach is based in the idea that every child is special and unique.

The new center for English for Fun wanted to be a representation of this innovative teaching method, a place to booster creativity, imagination, and to stimulate all five senses.

© Imagen Subliminal

This commission represented an opportunity to investigate how design can shape experience and affect the subject in processes of playing and learning. 

Ground Floor

The Reggio Emilia approach is an educational philosophy based in a self guided and very open interpretation of learning.  It is based in three core principals:

• the child as an active part of the learning process. it is based in a non-guided way of playing where the kids have their own interpretation of natural and artificial play-objects. 

© Imagen Subliminal

• the built environment of the school is considered the third teacher, only after teachers and parents. 

• the process of learning has to be made visible

© Imagen Subliminal

The proposal should overcome the cliches of spaces designed for kids, being non figurative and open to multiple interpretations.  The goal was to create a space in the spirit of the adventure playgrounds where the play-objects, not toys, only develop their full potential in the interaction with the kids.  The design should operate at the adult scale as much as the kids’ scale, so it was important to create spaces that only children could inhabit and own. The answer was to propose a tinker tray, where all the objects involved in the play and learning process could be storage, the work produced exhibit and where the kids could also feel that they are part of it.  The strategy was proposing a thick structure instead of thin partitions to configure the class room space, an inhabitable wall that will storage all furniture and objects when not in use, making the reconfiguration of the class very easy. The broken geometry of the structure creates a series of nooks, that will be inhabited by the kids. The different typologies of objects were reduced to the minimum, establishing a generic module that can be used in multiple ways. It is not a chair, or table, or tower, or play kitchen, or car, or box for stones, or helmet, but all the above.  

Axonometric

The function of this thick inhabitable wall was twofold, first creating little spaces to be own by the kids, and second to provide storage space facing both, the classroom and the corridor, so the space that usually only serves as circulations is now activated and can be used as common ground for kids, teacher and parents. It also transforms the corridor into a showcase of the learning process, blurring the limits between the classrooms, and expanding the perception of the space, avoiding the conventional compartmentalisation of the classrooms.

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