German designer Gitta Gschwendtner has created the furniture for a dedicated cancer treatment centre at Guy’s Hospital in London, completed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners earlier this year. Read more
Our job of the day from Dezeen Jobs is for a head of postgraduate programme at London’s V&A museum, which recently hosted a robot-fabricated pavilion inspired by the wings of beetles (pictured). Read more stories about the V&A or browse more architecture and design opportunities on Dezeen Jobs.
Adjaye Associates, alongside development manager Alchemi Group, have submitted a planning application for 5 Strand, a mixed-use scheme adjacent to London‘s iconic Trafalgar Square. Inspired and informed by the surrounding historic buildings, the new 5 Strand will include 62,000 square feet (5,760 square meters) of office space, 26 apartments, and two ground-level retail units.
The design’s most striking element is the repeated arches which make up the facade. This feature “draws from the architectural rhythms and forms of the context,” states David Adjaye in a press release, “to produce something both modern and contextual, elegant and distinctive.” The arches can be seen on all facades of the building, and on the undercroft which provides a separate entrance to the apartments from Craven Street. However on the front facade, which responds to the more “ceremonial” buildings on the Strand and Trafalgar Square, the arches are joined by columns to give the facade increased depth and complexity.
Given the project’s sensitive location within the Trafalgar Square Conservation Area, the design development extended over 12 months, with Adjaye Associates consulting with Westminster City Council, Greater London, WCC Highways Department, St James’s Ward, Historic England, Westminster Society, The Grand Buildings, and Northbank BID.
“The opportunity to work on the Strand, adjacent to the iconic Traflagar Square, is an immense honour and one that I do not take lightly,” said David Adjaye. “My team and I have undergone rigorous investigation into the history and development of this crucial piece of London’s urban fabric.”
News via Adjaye Associates.
From the architect. The house is located close to Brasília´s city centre. The previous owner of the house had planned to build a bigger one with 350sqm and two stories high. Instead, due to funding problems, he decided to build all the foundations of the house and only use it partially in a 150sqm, one story construction. He built the extra floor plan and covered it with a ceramic tile roof. Moreover, he sold the house without never going ahead with the expansion plan.
The value of the land often surpasses the price of the existing constructions, making it very common for people to buy old houses only to demolish them in order to make space for building new ones. The intention here was to build a bigger house in the same lot with a budget that was 35% lower than what was expected for a brand new construction. The idea to lower the final cost of the construction was to take advantage of the existing structure and re-use part of the existing walls.
The area occupied by the previous construction was not enough to fit the new program. Therefore, a new concrete grid created to expand its structure, create extra space and defined the outside casing. Due to the lack of regularity in the existing foundations, columns and beams, the new grid follows an “imaginary” pattern of growth inspired by the irregularity of the existing structure. It sits on both existing and new foundations and uses columns with two different sections: 40x40cm and 40x15cm.
The new grid works as a graft, connecting old walls and new ones and supporting the additional program of the extension. Porous brick walls intentionally arranged in the grid respond to different necessities of solar protection and privacy. Two steel structure pavilions added additional services to the house such as a garage, an outdoor kitchen and a sauna.
The use of steel in both the past and present is mainly associated with the success of grand industrial and civic structures. But due to the commercialization and standardization of steel profiles, its use in residential projects (thanks to its mechanical properties and fast installation) has resulted in complex and interesting solutions on a domestic scale.
Dive into these 15 construction details from residential projects that have made use of steel structures and cladding.
Today we live in a rapidly aging society. The shift in the population pyramid means that traditional healthcare systems need to be reimagined in order to efficiently support an increasing senior population. This added pressure on healthcare is significant–the number of older adults in the US alone requiring long-term healthcare support is set to increase from 15 million to 27 million by 2050. By partnering with designers, healthcare providers can create valuable responses to address these growing needs.
One building typology that expresses this designer-provider partnership are centers for healthy living (CHL). CHLs help to bridge the gap between the senior living and healthcare sectors, and go beyond simple clinic or exercise spaces. Taking a more holistic approach, they seek to become accessible destinations for programs that nurture wellness while providing a sense of place and community.
In a new downloadable report, Perkins Eastman have explored this typology in great depth by investigating existing CHLs. Through spatial and market research, case studies and user surveys, their findings identify strategies for improving upon the CHL model in the future. Read on for our summary of their discoveries.
Wellness has varied definitions and approaches–the report identifies eight dimensions of wellness in particular: emotional, environmental, intellectual, physical, occupational, spiritual, social and financial. In their research, the Perkins Eastman team found that there was more focus on the physical and social dimensions than the others. For a CHL to fully provide for their users, its physical environment and programs/service need to address all dimensions of wellness with equal thought.
CHLs are more than clinical facilities, and so should focus on education and prevention rather than just treatment. Most of this is down to the user experience with the space and services.
Spatially, environments should be inviting, with clear wayfinding and plenty of natural light. Co-location of amenities is also a chance to increase interaction. For example, by placing therapy and general fitness gyms next to each other, rehab patients are familiarized with the facility and are more likely to continue gym use even after finishing physical therapy. Circulation is another design opportunity, with accessible and appealing stairs or ramps encouraging users to move from floor to floor without relying on elevators.
As for services, research found that users are looking for variety. Programs and services should offer personal, individualized options that address physical fitness, nutrition, clinical, counselling, education, social, recreational, spiritual or self-reflective, and volunteer opportunities.
Long-term sustainability of the CHL itself is also important. This can be further broken down to economic, social, and environmental sustainability. To ensure this, an ear should constantly be kept out for new findings developments across multiple sectors. This convergence of ideas from healthcare, hospitality, senior living, sustainable building and market research can create a wellness that starts from the built environment itself.
This point also relates to long-term sustainability. As technology and lifestyles change, so too will the needs and requirements of the new generations aging into the user group. Therefore, spaces can’t afford to be functionally restrictive, especially when existing CHLs are already noting a lack of space (the average floor space of CHLs studied was 36,776 square feet, or 3,400 square meters). The report points out however, that flexibility does not automatically mean a one-size-fits-all environment, and that such spaces are often unable to support any one function well.
As mentioned earlier, the range of services provided by a CHL vary across different fields. By partnering with outside industry providers, the quality of services and programs can be increased while encouraging ties with the surrounding community. Furthermore, because of the many components of a CHL, it could also physically pair up with other buildings. As a base that could be “plugged into,” a CHL could share its facilities with hospitals, hotels, housing developments or even universities. Along with sharing resources, this “plug and play” approach would also help create intergenerational interactions between the different groups of users.
You can find the full report with detailed case studies, along with other papers from Perkins Eastman, here
Lyon Park House is a remodeling project completed by Robert M. Gurney. It is located in Arlington, Virginia, USA. Lyon Park House by Robert M. Gurney: “Lyon Park, in Arlington, Virginia is an “urban village” near Washington, DC. Most of the houses in this established neighborhood were constructed in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The houses vary in style, ranging from small single-story bungalows to larger wood and brick colonial revivalist..
Blue Crow Media in collaboration with editor Matthew Tempest has produced another alluring map — this time for modernists. The city of choice? Berlin. With its abundance of 20th-century architecture, the Modern Berlin Map highlights the details of fifty prominent buildings.
Matthew Tempest said – No twentieth century city has more ghosts than Berlin – and they live on its buildings. From the Kafkaesque Brick-Gothic Expressionism of its Weimar-era factories and churches to the chilling pomposity of its gargantuan Third Reich monsters, from the post-war coalface of Communism and Capitalism facing each other down over its most famous edifice – the Berlin Wall – to little-known Brutalist and sci-fi socialist structures.
Each building showcases the various forms of modernism: Expressionist, Bauhaus, Fascist, Soviet Realist, Modernist, Brutalist, Post-Modernist, etc. Structures like Bruno Taut’s Horseshoe Estate, Corbusier’s Berlin Unit for Living or the Third Reich’s Olympic Stadium all grace this new map. Berlin’s especially complex history has created a fascinating array of architectural styles, which its urban fabric has dutifully preserved.
“Its rebirth as the continent’s capital of cool comes with a blood-soaked and fractured past.”
The map itself is two-sided with an introduction to 20th century Berlin on one side and the map on the other. As Blue Crowe Media’s fifth exploratory guide, the company has perfected their art for arche-touring.
News Via: Blue Crowe Media
Close to avenue de Flandre and just a stone’s throw from the canal de l’Ourcq, rue de Nantes is a fairly traditional Parisian street of Haussmann and inner-suburb buildings.
The project gently inserts itself into a narrow parcel bordered by dense, adjoining housing. On the street side, it extends the building streetscape in a simple manner. On the garden side, the staggering from the 1st to the 6th floors creates large, private, south-facing terraces and allows for an unencumbered view of the sky.
The “L” shape and the general volumetrics allowed for the creation of a true, collective garden at the ground level, planted with tall trees. The three townhouses integrated into the overall volume look out onto this landscape. The building is clad with a façade of black enamel terracotta tiles whose reflections change depending on the quality and direction of the light. It provides an elegant and subtle continuity to the building constructed by Philippe Gazeau in 1993 for Toit et Joie on the facing parcel, situated along rue de l’Ourcq.
We created a small collective that blends into its urban environment with its simple salute and enlivens the center of the block with a beautiful version of convivial, green living. And to inject art into its everyday life, Atelier YokYok created a site-specific drawing on the common walls: silhouettes that choreograph the space and accompany the inhabitants in their daily movements.
SW6 Lightwell House is a private residence designed by Emergent Design Studios. It is located in London, England and was completed in 2016. SW6 Lightwell House by Emergent Design Studios: “This unique 19th century Lion House is located in an exclusive Fulham terrace. The main body of the building and its rear wing are carefully extended towards the rear and side in accordance with the historical constraints imposed by its..
Sig Nordal 