Courtesy of Sharon Lam

Previously we had a look at some of the strange habits of top architects. From drinking on the job to polyphasic sleeping, it turns out famous architects are a bunch of weirdos. But what about the rest of us? It’s not just the famous architects who are weirdos—it’s simply impossible to spend such long periods of time on the job without picking up a few strange habits along the way. Whether it’s the way we work, the way we interact with buildings, or things that don’t even seem odd until a non-architect points them out, those in architecture have some pretty strange habits.

1. Spending five hours looking for the right font

2. Smugly carrying a Moleskine around everywhere

3. An uncanny ability to spend hours in your office/studio and get absolutely nothing done at all

4. Planning travel itineraries around buildings

5. Always feeling like you deserve a coffee break

6. Thinking Bjarke Ingels is a bit cute

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7. Having imaginary conversations with Bjarke Ingels in the shower

8. Feeling up walls, columns, floors

9. Misplacing your metal ruler every five minutes

10. Misplacing your scale ruler every two minutes

11. Getting way too excited over a nice handrail

12. Dropping $30 (or more) on a pen

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13. Getting aroused by heavy paper stock

14. Thinking you have better taste than your non-architect friends

15. Alienating your non-architect friends by saying things like “tectonic” and “how have you never heard of Bjarke Ingels?”

16. Feeling incredibly grateful for hi-res transparent .pngs

17. Having way too many layers open in Photoshop

© Sharon Lam

18. Finding your wardrobe become more and more monochromatic

19. Really really appreciating a well-designed public toilet

20. Pointing out the thermal bridges in every steel building you see

21. Judging books by their cover

22. Having terrible time management despite years of thinking “this year will be different”

23. Including a famous building in your profile picture

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24. Feeling disappointed that your profile picture doesn’t have as many likes as it should, because of non-architect friends who don’t get it

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25. Abandoning your LinkedIn profile because you don’t like the way the website looks

26. Referring to architects by just their first name like “Zaha”

27. Referring to architects by made up nicknames like “Corby”

28. Referring to clients by made up nicknames… but only when they’re not around

29. Not being able to afford any of the furniture/gadgets/clothes you want

30. Waiting until payday to splash out on furniture/gadgets/clothes anyway

31. Religiously using Muji stationery

32. Getting starstruck around buildings

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33. Watching reality tv shows with judging panels and thinking they’re nothing compared to client meetings you’ve been through

34. Feeling way too important when wearing hi vis and hard hat on site

35. Finding masking tape in your hair

36. Fully understanding the business card scene in American Psycho

37. Spending all day rearranging furniture in a plan drawing

38. Overestimating how much you can do in a day

39. Underestimating the time you spend scrolling through the internet looking for “inspiration”

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Mola, creator of the Mola Structural Kit, is back at it with a second interactive structural kit aimed at changing the way people study and teach structures around the world. Mola sold over 4000 of their first kit across more than 50 countries in 2014, and now you can back the newest expansion on Brazilian crowdfunding website Catarse. 

Courtesy of Unknown

Mola 2 includes 144 pieces and a bilingual manual to expand on and broaden the possibilities of Mola 1, encouraging users to be even more creative and innovative. To that end, the makers have developed new adjustable length bars, lightweight connectors, and continuous connection parts that are fully compatible with the components from Mola 1.

Courtesy of Mola

Mola 1 enjoyed enthusiastic reception, becoming the most successful crowdfunding campaign in Brazil at the time of its release. The idea for the Mola Structural Kit originated with Brazilian architect Márcio Sequeira de Oliveira, who validated the accuracy of the model’s behavior in his master’s thesis at the Federal University of Ouro Preto in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Courtesy of Mola

Check out the team’s Catarse page to learn more about their endeavor and for information on how to purchase a kit. Or, check out the information below to see how you could win a Mola Structural Kit.

Giveaway

ArchDaily has teamed up with Mola for an exclusive giveaway. We’re offering our readers the chance to win one of 5 Mola Structural Kit 2 sets, or one of 5 of the original Mola Structural Kit 1 sets. For your chance to win, simply enter your details in the form below by 9am EST on Monday December 5th.

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Terms & Conditions:

• Winners for each of the five Mola Structural Kit 2 and five Mola Structural Kit 1 sets will be selected at random from the entrants into each draw.
• If the email address provided by a winning entrant does not work or the entrant does not respond in a timely fashion to claim their prize, then the prize will be redrawn and awarded to another entrant.
• By answering “yes” to the final question, entrants give permission for their email address to be provided to Mola.
• The email addresses of the winners will also be provided to Mola, regardless of their answer to the final question.
• The expected shipping dates of the prizes are: Mola Structural Model 1 – January 2017; Mola Structural Model 2 – August 2017.

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© José Hevia

• Architects: Bajet Giramé
• Location: Ronda del General Mitre, Barcelona, Spain
• Area: 140.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: José Hevia

• Author Architects: Pau Bajet Mena, Maria Giramé Aumatell
• Constructor: GID
• Collaborators: Gina Cebamanos, Huguet Mallorca, Imar, Ardèvol Associats
• Budget: 1000€/m2

© José Hevia

From the architect. The project consists of remaking a home in a 1970’s apartment in Barcelona. The former spaces were based on program requirements resulting in a series of small rooms and corridors with predefined functions. Those spaces were shaped by non-load bearing walls given its ‘properly modern‘ free plan. However, columns, beams and slabs were concealed within the internal partitions as shameful bones.

© José Hevia

The aim of the project was to make the apartment again (remake it), with significant setting and character changes. This would be achieved two-fold: by unveiling the hidden qualities of the 70’s architecture and by defining a new series of suggestive settings.

Axonometric

The project endows the former idea of free plan, but exposes it ‘as found’ leaving its (‘modern’) steel columns and beams freestanding with their rough welds, as well as uncovering the (traditional) gentle ceiling vaults; enhancing very specific qualities of the construction means of those 1970’s in Barcelona. This way an ‘infrastructural space’ is defined, as a permanent envelope in which smaller and temporary interventions will arrange ‘inhabitable settings’. A series of timber pieces are displayed within that envelope stressing the divorce between space and structure.

© José Hevia

Their shape, size and material qualities suggest places to be lived-in, from the sheltered interior of a panelled room to the gathering central space of the house.

© José Hevia

The story

This had been their place for the last 30 years. They used to live here with their children, though it’s been few years since the youngest one left. They were living alone with many empty small rooms still laid out as sons’ bedrooms. It was the typical flat from Sant Gervasi: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, flat ceilings, decent reception room with timber flooring, long corridors and separate maid-area with kitchen, bedroom, lavatory and service entrance. He enjoys cooking, but that dark kitchen was never thought for him to cook. The apartment was double-orientated: to the street (south) with large façade and generous windows and to the rear garden (north), however the internal maze of corridors and rooms prevented any sense of orientation and natural light to go through. They needed to remake their place.

Floor Plan

They recently got retired and spend more time at home. The space now crosses diagonally the house bringing the sunlight from one end to the other. He can see the street from the kitchen. She enjoys the unexpected walkways along the façade and around the large timber cabinets. The house feels much broader. The sight finds no end. They have a small panelled guest room for their grandchildren. There is another space where they have a desk and a sofa bed. They now appreciate the beauty of the triangular shape of the space, they understand the sequence of smaller and larger settings that their life occupies; they have a sense of orientation, a sense of place.

© José Hevia

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© Edmund Sumner

• Architects: John McAllen + Partners
• Location: Kericho, Kenya
• Area: 2800.0 m2
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Edmund Sumner

• Executive Architect: Triad Architects
• Ltd
Contractor: Esteel Construction
• Ltd
Multi Disciplinary Engineers: Arup (UK)

• Structural Engineers: Eng Plan (Kenya)

• Electrical And Mechanical Engineering: EAMS (Kenya)

• Qs: Barker and Barton (Kenya)

• Furniture Design: Studio Propilis (Kenya)

• Stained Glass And Artwork: John Clark, Glasspainter (Germany)
• Client: Diocese of Kericho


© Edmund Sumner

From the architect. Completed at the end of 2015, Kericho Cathedral is located in Kenya, approximately 250km South-West 
of Nairobi. It lies within the Highlands, west of the Great Rift Valley, enjoying magni cent views across tea plantations and surrounding hills. The Diocese was established in 1995 with a growing congregation and is led by the Most Reverend Bishop Emmanuel Okombo.

Site Plan

The Cathedral’s design creates a unique and sacred place for a congregation of 1,500 seated celebrants participating in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Mass under one giant unifying roof. The strikingly inclined roof and its ascending interior volume – over 1,375 square metres in size – are the key characteristics behind its design.

© Edmund Sumner

Bishop Emmanuel was particularly concerned to widen the nave as it approaches the altar to maximise the congregation’s engagement with the celebration of the Mass and its climax, the Act of Communion. It opens completely along both transepts to promote natural ventilation and allow the congregation to leave the building at multiple points and expand onto the landscaped terraces and gardens.

© Edmund Sumner

The aspiration was to create a structure that integrated seamlessly with its landscape setting, in both aesthetic and functional terms. The Cathedral’s tiled-roof is now a distinctive form in the rolling panorama of Kericho’s hills and valleys.

© Edmund Sumner

The architectural challenge has been to ensure Kericho Cathedral embodied the Catholic liturgy and embraced its local congregation in a way that serves the Faith and the special qualities of its location and community. We believe our response is distinctive and universally welcoming.

Section

Section

The ascending vaulted volume contained under a vast roof fuses African and ecclesiastically historic references. Care has been taken to shape the Cathedral’s space and express the building’s structure – the stone plinth, simply articulated, arched concrete frames and timber-ribbed vaulting are exposed in a strikingly crafted and honest manner.

© Edmund Sumner

The building’s simple palette of natural materials honours the faith and frugality of this rural African community. With the exception of the glass sheets used by the stained-glass artist, all the materials, including the Cypress timber (grown in Kericho), which was used for the ceiling, doors and furniture, and the clay tiles in the roof, were locally resourced and fabricated. The ceiling was constructed from finger-jointed Cypress timber slats, designed to accommodate the high range of humidity of the local environment.

© Edmund Sumner

The granite used for the sanctuary was sourced from Kenya, and the soap stone used for the statues was sourced from the town of Kisii, located south of Kericho. The ooring was laid from the machine- cut Nairobi Blue stone.

© Edmund Sumner

The practice has been committed to the involvement of skilled artisan trades and the improvement of local skills throughout the construction period. Some of these skills were used in the artwork situated in and around the Cathedral such as the striking mosaic on display. In addition the use of craft skills has assisted in the design of the ecclesiastical pattern for the roof which was designed by John Clark and was installed by local labourers.

Ground Floor

The complex geometry of the building was accommodated by an in-situ construction method specific to Kenya. The size of each structural frame required a complex pouring system for the concrete. The building’s cladding material was carefully selected as washed terrazzo, known for its self-cleaning attributes and was applied by hand. The Nairobi blue stone cladding of the podium was hand-dressed and fixed by local masons.

© Edmund Sumner

Buildability and the use of available local resources were key drivers for Kericho Cathedral. The project is designed to operate with modest energy, using natural daylight and few maintenance requirements. Its major impact in sustainability terms is therefore the materials with which it has been constructed, and the way they have been procured and managed through the construction process. Another key ambition was to minimise energy use, and consequently, reduce the building’s maintenance cost and obligations.

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© Christian Richters

• Architects: Bolles + Wilson
• Location: Hamburg, Germany
• Area: 8270.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Christian Richters, Mitja Schneehage, Cordelia Ewert

• Client: Groß & Partner Grundstücksentwicklungsgesellschaft mbH, Singapurstraße 1
• Work Stage 5 Harbour Masters Building: SPINE Architects GmbH
• Interiordesign Harbour Masters Building: DREIMETA, Armin Fischer
• Work Stages 6 9: Construction management, LV Baumanagement AG
• Structural Engineering: Ingenieurbüro Abel · Gebhart GmbH & Co. KG
• Service Engineers: WINTER Beratende Ingenieure für Gebäudetechnik Hamburg GmbH

• Building Physics: ITA Ingenieurgesellschaft für Technische Akustik mbH • Beratende Ingenieure VBI

• Fire Protection: hhpberlin- Ingenieure für Brandschutz GmbH (Niederlassung Hamburg)

© Mitja Schneehage

The Cinnamon tower was conceived as freestanding campanile – a pin on a piazza. This unexpected idea won the 2006 competition for the neo-gothic Harbour Masters Building and surroundings.

Site Plan

A tower was not anticipated in the competition programme, but the jury agreed that it anchors and at the same time leaves the only remaining historical building freestanding between the new megablocks of the ‘Overseas Quarter’.  

© Christian Richters

Slenderness is essential for a campanile. Over the course of its 8-year gestation this proportionality was respected – even while its function mutated from stacked restaurants to housing. The 13 x 16 m floor plan tapers towards the top. With a height of 56 meters the tower is 4-times higher than it is wide. 

Elevation

Section

How can such a thin chap be efficient?

The organisational answer is duplex apartments. Originally the concept foresaw seven apartments, each on 2 floors, a panoramic living deck on the upper level and bedrooms with punched windows below. Precise market analysis led to a variation of this formula: one triplex apartment at the top and some 1-floor apartments at lower levels. Built were ten apartments, four with 130 sqm, five with 185 sqm and one with 300 sqm. The tower has a gross floor area of 4.300 sqm and a volume of 16.000 cubic metres. At the ground level is a restaurant / commercial unit of 300 sqm.

© Cordelia Ewert

Strict high-rise regulations demanded an escape route from every floor via secure escape stair. The possibility to clean every window from the inside was also a criterion to be met. The spectacular view over Hamburg’s skyline and of the New Elbphilharmonie should not be blurred by smudgy windows. Room-high windows on three sides of the living deck also allow the tracking of incoming cruise ships. 

Plan

Facade panels of anodized aluminium sheets in different gradations of dark red correspond to the patchwork of BOLLES+WILSON’s neighbouring 2008 pavilion, the first realized component of the Harbour Masters ensemble. In sunlight these aluminium panels take on colourful nuances while on cloudy days they assume a darker, more serious Paul-Klee like nuance. This is a building that changes its character according to the incidence of light, a new figure on Hamburg’s skyline. 

© Cordelia Ewert

Product Description. The Facade panels of anodized aluminium sheets in different gradations of dark red correspond to the patchwork of BOLLES+WILSON’s neighbouring 2008 pavilion, the first realized component of the Harbour Masters ensemble. In sunlight these aluminium panels take on colourful nuances while on cloudy days they assume a darker, more serious Paul-Klee like nuance. This is a building that changes its character according to the incidence of light, a new figure on Hamburg’s skyline. 

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© Kouichi Torimura

• Architects: ICADA
• Location: Tsukishima, Chuo, Tokyo 104-0052, Japan
• Architect In Charge: Nariaki Chigusa
• Area: 67.2 m2
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Kouichi Torimura

• General Contractor: Tsuki-zo

© Kouichi Torimura

This is a renovation project that making a very special space between inside and outside of the wall of the house. We create this small house renovation in pursuit of human body in the space.

© Kouichi Torimura

This four-story building is for single person in Tsukishima, Tokyo. Tsukishima is a reclaimed area during Edo period where has a long history of local community.

© Kouichi Torimura

Floor Plans

© Kouichi Torimura

Although the building, “The house in Tsukishima” has a simple appearance, this is a conceptual housing project; it focuses on the relationship between human body and the living space. “The Ring” and “The Cross” are the two features We designed to realize the concept.

© Kouichi Torimura

The Ring
Is made of polished stainless. It is put between inside and outside of the wall so that the Ring creates extra ‘spaces’ is difficult to understand the depth. This ‘space’ is for the wall, not for human. This contradictory perception change the seemingly normal life space to those foreign.

© Kouichi Torimura

The Cross
Is made of wires and very light LED tubes and they are settled at the stairwell in a three dimensional shape. This lightning equipment “The Cross”, and its 3-D shape give us a feeling of alienation from the space so that those ordinary walls, ceiling and space easily turn to be symbolic things. 

© Kouichi Torimura

Our indication is that such “disappearance” of human body makes one’s mind closer to the space through the experience of living in this house. 

© Kouichi Torimura

Each furniture, lighting equipment and doors are exclusively designed for this building to provide modest symbolic attitude in the interior. Especially, the closet set at the center of the living room is made of transparent material shows the visual independency of the closet from the wall and wooden floor – the factors surround one’s body–.

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