© Gabriel Castro

This article is part of our new “Material Focus” series, which asks architects to elaborate on the thought process behind their material choices and sheds light on the steps required to get a building constructed.

The Casa no Cerrado (Cerrado House) was designed by Vazio S/A office. It was built in Moeda, Minas Gerais and, according to the architects while it seeks to explore the plasticity of basic architectural elements, the project showcases this unappreciated and threatened natural area: the Cerrado. We spoke with architect Carlos M. Teixeira to learn more about his choices of materials and the challenges of the project. 

What are the main materials used in the project in question?

CMT: Exposed concrete, glass, aluminum, stained concrete, eucalyptus.

© Gabriel Castro

What were your main sources of inspiration and influence when they were choosing the materials used in the project?

CMT: Brutalist Architecture, engineering “works of art” (concrete viaducts and bridges) and some contemporary architecture graduates of the Architectural Association.

© Gabriel Castro

Describe how decisions on materials influenced the design of the project.

CMT: The house has a pool on the roof. The material choice reflects the idea of exposing the structure that houses the pool and the walls that surround it. There was not exactly a choice of material. It was more a decision to expose the structure of the pool-terrace.

© Gabriel Castro

What were the advantages that this material offered for implementing the project?

CMT: I believe that in this case, the reinforced concrete was the only structural option. The second most important material is eucalyptus used in the brises. It is a relatively cheap wood and, depending on proper maintenance, stands up well to the elements.

© Gabriel Castro

Did the choice of materials create any kind of challenge to the project?

CMT: Some of the facades and slabs are textured, others aren’t. The plywood, when new, yielded smooth surfaces; while re-used plywood (regardless of its form and condition) yields uneven surfaces. Some  material and worker mistakes and contingencies were accepted; some others were encouraged.

© Carlos Teixeira

How did you research suppliers and builders suitable for the materials used in the project?

CMT: Materials and design construction techniques do not require above average or specially skilled labor. Still, since it is a house built with local labor from the small town of Coin (5,000 inhabitants), it was necessary to accept some mistakes and inaccuracies.

© Gabriel Castro

Cerrado House / Vazio S/A
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© Juan Rodriguez

• Architects: Correia/Ragazzi Arquitectos
• Localization: 4960 Melgaço, Portugal
• Area: 621.35 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Juan Rodriguez , Cortesia de Correia/Ragazzi Arquitectos

• Collaborator: Juliano Ribas Silva, Marta Pinheiro de Almeida, Rita Breda
• Engineer : Omega
• Model : Patrícia Morais, Ricardo Amaral

© Juan Rodriguez

From the architect. A property composed of a house in ruins, cultivation land, vineyards and a pine forest. The clients intend to recover and augment the house in order to develop an agricultural/rural tourism accommodation, and also build a winery and wine tasting area, as they are producers.

© Juan Rodriguez

Floor Plan

© Juan Rodriguez

The expansion will result on a new volume in dialogue and similar relation as the existing one, next to the existent stone wall bellow. The volume is repeated, respecting the scale and tradition; at the recovered volume one will keep the granit walls and same roof tiles, the new volume reinvests himself with a contemporary materiality that enriches this dialogue. The interior finishes of both houses, in contrat with the harshness of the exterior, will be in wood.

Exploded Axonometric

Between the two volumes is created a green leisure area that corresponds to the green roof of the winery and wine tasting area, a volumetrically imperceptible volume, only denounced by the big opening on the stone wall that allows a view towards the vineyard and the existent water line.

© Juan Rodriguez

The proposal provides a better relation since the entrance of the plot, with the vineyards to one side and the two volumes that frame and value the existent terraces, which we intend to enhance and recover according to their original features.

Courtesy of Correia/Ragazzi Arquitectos

© Juan Rodriguez

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© Office KGDVS

Located close to the French border, one Belgian city has become a biannual fixture on the calendar for those who work with interior space. Since its foundation in 1968, Kortrijk’s (Courtrai in French) Biennale Interieur has been at the beating heart of interior-innovation, curated by leading figures such as Philippe Starck, Gio Ponti, and Verner Panton.

This year, for the Biennale’s 25th anniversary, Kersten Geers and David Van Severen (Office KGDVS)—a practice with strong roots in the city itself—have been invited to make their mark on the exhibition’s architectural and artistic programme. Their take on the show, entitled Silver Linings, marks a shift from the presentation of objects to the creation of full scale, complete interiors.

© Office KGDVS

© Office KGDVS

We look at INTERIORS in the broader sense: from our everyday living rooms to high-tech environments, to art installations and complete interiors. We want to offer a catalogue of the hypothetical world. The silver edition of the Biennale Interieur seems like the perfect place to realise that ambition. With INTERIORS we want to investigate and explore ‘inhabited’ space – in the form of a rich collection of interpretations that not only focuses on objects, but strives for a complete spatial experience.

© Office KGDVS

© Office KGDVS

In 2009 Office KGDVS master planned the Biennale’s home – the Kortrijk Xpo exhibition halls. Based on a grid of 5.7 meters, they added a grand loggia encircling the existing site and constructed new office space. The structural grid has become the modular framework for this year’s Biennale; their ambition is to develop the whole of the show’s setting into a “city” within the city – an urban indoor and outdoor space in which design, art, and architecture meet.

Plan. Image © Office KGDVS

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

© Frederik Vercruysse

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© José Hevia

• Architects: OHLAB
• Location: Palma, Balearic Islands, Spain
• Architect In Charge: OHLAB
• Team: Paloma Hernaiz, Jaime Oliver, Rebeca Lavín, Walter Brandt, Sergio Rivero de Cáceres
• Area: 196.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: José Hevia

• Quantity Surveyor: Jorge Ramón
• Structure: Jesús Alonso
• Energy Efficiency Advisor: Anne Vogt
• Project Management: Paloma Hernaiz, Jaime Oliver (architects), Jorge Ramón (quantity surveyor)
• Site Area: 1620m2
• Usable Area: 130m2

© José Hevia

From the architect. This house looks for the maximum energy efficiency adapting itself to the program, the solar orientation, the views and the slope of the terrain.

© José Hevia

The project optimizes the program grouping it in four boxes –kitchen, living-dinning, main bedroom and guest bedrooms- which can be used together or independently. Each box is placed carefully on the ground and rotates on its axis with precision to find the best views and orientation for their use. The bedrooms face the East, the garden and the Bellver Castle; the living and dinning room face South-east, the sea and the garden; the kitchen faces South and the vegetable garden; and in the attic over the living room, the terrace looks towards the view of the sea and its big window over the living room faces South allowing the winter sun to warm the main space of the house while the eaves of the roof protects from the summer sun.

Plans

Each box has large openings towards the best orientations and sights, and smaller openings on the opposite façade allowing cross ventilation and taking advantage of the East-West breezes of the place. The South openings are recessed to let the sun enter in winter and block it in summer, while the East and West openings have exterior shutters.

© José Hevia

The house has been designed according to PASSIVHAUS standards to achieve the maximum energy efficiency.

A rigorous infographic and thermal study has been made to ensure an optimal heat input, maximizing it in winter and minimizing it in summer.

© José Hevia

The façade has an exterior insulation system that increases the insulation thickness up to 15cm and strictly guarding all joints to completely avoid any thermal bridge. The infiltrations through the façade have been reduced to the minimum, and the hermeticism of the enclosure has been maximized to overcome pressurization tests in every space. The heat exchanger ensures air renovation wasting no energy and it is optimized to use the heat generated with showers’ steam and cooking to transform it into heating.

© José Hevia

Thanks to this design cooling is not necessary, which is typically an issue in the hot days of Mallorca’s summer, and the heating demand is only 11kWh/m2a (a typical house of this characteristics in Mallorca would have a heating demand of 85 to 100 kWh/m2a) which is solved with a small perimeter underfloor heating circuit. The energy to heat the hot water is obtained almost entirely from the solar thermal installation.

Scheme

The pitched roofs have a system for collecting rainwater, three of them get water for irrigation and general use while the fourth roof is “the clean one” and collects water for consumption. For this purpose two separate tanks, one of 40 m3 and another 8 m3, are arranged taking advantage of the gaps created between the housing and the slope of the terrain. With this measures the house is completely autonomous in terms of water. The garden includes a vegetable patch, low maintenance native vegetation and deciduous trees along the south of the house to protect from the summer sun.

© José Hevia

The project has been made with a low construction budget and a very low cost of energy maintenance. It is a home that promotes environmental and sustainability values, reporting savings and comfort without incurring additional economic effort.

© José Hevia

The house was finished last September and monitoring its performance has been key to value the results beyond the happiness and satisfaction of the clients. As of April the clients have not turn on the heat at all reporting an interior temperature (measured daily –day and night) for the winter between 21ºC to 24ºC, with exterior temperatures between 5º to 15º.

First winter living in the house and it had ZERO heating consumption (100% passive) and ZERO water expense (100% rainwater).

© José Hevia

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© Gergely Kenéz

• Architects: Építész Stúdió, Lépték-Terv
• Location: Budapest, Hungary
• Area: 22000.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Gergely Kenéz

• Építész Stúdió Team: Tamás Fialovszky, Richárd Hőnich, Benedek Sólyom, Gergely Kenéz, Gergő Jedlicska
• Lépték Terv Team: Barnabás Szakács, Sándor Liziczai
• Construction: 2015 – 2016
• Open Competition 1st Prize: 2012

© Gergely Kenéz

The project was the refurbishment of one of Budapest’s busiest downtown transport hubs, and the most visited public square on the Buda side. Due to the strict order of tramlines and roads, the main architectural and landscaping goal was to clean up and rationalize the inner parts, making the square a pedestrian priority public space with as many green areas as possible, in a way that does not interfere with the transferring crowd. The placement of the resting areas, filled with shrubs, trees, fountains and benches is based on an analysis of the crowd movement, providing the shortest route for each transfer and utilizing the least loaded patches, while leaving the heavy connections empty. 

© Gergely Kenéz

Site Plan

© Gergely Kenéz

A total reconstruction meant the demolition of old soviet-era bus stops, commercial pavilions and the old tramlines crossing and dividing the square. The only exception was the fan shaped metro station, which was engineered in the 70’s, but got crowded during the decades with small shops blocking transparency from all sides. This iconic building opened up, and became a transparent meeting point. The new constructions – the service buildings and tram stops – follow the raw materiality of the metro station, in a square where the color is provided by the crowd rather than the architecture.

© Gergely Kenéz

Plan 1

© Gergely Kenéz

Product Description. Concrete reliefs were created via various techniques by the industrial design collective S’39 HYBRID MANUFACTURE, to give artistic variance and appeal to the concrete surfaces of the new construction. Materials including textiles, minerals and rubbers cast into the concrete created a mix of micro-surfaces that composed different collages – the centuries old map of Buda and Pest for example.

© Gergely Kenéz

Elevation

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Courtesy of Zowa Architects

• Architects: Zowa Architects
• Location: Digana, Sri Lanka
• Area: 4300.0 ft2
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Courtesy of Zowa Architects

• Structural Engineer: Signet consultants
• Quantity Surveyor: Chula Jeewakaratna
• Contractor: M.Kalyanaratna

Courtesy of Zowa Architects

Tucked away in a remote mountain side off the Digana golf club road is Kurundu house ,a small 4 bedroom retreat for a busy financial consultant and his family. The site is a 132 perch bare plot except for a lonely Kohomba tree.

Courtesy of Zowa Architects

 There is no visible habitation in its immediate environs and one is immediately aware of the openness and loneliness. To add further drama it overlooks a branch of the Victoria reservoir which fills up during the rainy season, and in the far distance is the Hunnsagiriya mountains. 

Courtesy of Zowa Architects

The approach from the main road is a rough track winding through small village huts, vegetable gardens and large Mara trees and finally up a steep rocky lane that lands at the site.

Floor Plans

This is when one is confronted for the first time with the breathtaking  view.

With a stage like this, at the outset we thought we should have a grand central verandah space that can  somehow capture the explosive openness  of this place while focusing on the distance views beyond, this would be the focal element from where one could access the rest of the spaces such as bed rooms and utility spaces.

Courtesy of Zowa Architects

The design was conceived as two staggered 2 storey rectangles with the verandah in the center. Further taking advantage of the slope this space was made split level, the top tier gives access to bed rooms on either side while the bottom tier accesses the a living room, kitchen and staff areas.

Courtesy of Zowa Architects

Apart from acting as the central circulatory space it is also informal sitting areas, the bottom tier is more open and next to a lawn and swimming pool with 180 degree views, this is where one would hang out most days, the top tier is  different in mood and feel, the filtered light through the cinnamon sticks adding to its ambiance.

Courtesy of Zowa Architects

By using the level difference to bury half the structure, we managed to presents a nonchalant single story façade to the road. The façade is clad in cinnamon sticks which conceals a passage that leads to bed rooms as well as the entrance verandah.

Courtesy of Zowa Architects

A narrow wedge shaped cutout in the cinnamon stick façade gives access to the double height verandah. There is no front door.

Courtesy of Zowa Architects

The lower verandah gives to a third living space which is a closable glazed living room which can be air conditioned. This is a place of refuge when the lower verandah is not usable during thunderstorms or during the hot days of the year.  The two solid blocks are treated simply, with lean to roofs draining to a common concrete slab that gathers rain water.The walls are unplastered ,painted brick work,and floors are cut cement in the rooms and rubble paved in the verandah’s. The spaces immediately in front and back of the building is grassed, to give foreground to the building but the rest of the land will be left to go wild. 

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