Brexit: London and other UK cities need to take “radical action” and introduce their own work permits so design firms can thrive after Brexit, according to former government policy adviser Rohan Silva. (more…)
The MIT School of Architecture’s Self-Assembly Lab has teamed up with Google to create Transformable Meeting Spaces, a project that utilizes woven structure research in wood and fiberglass pods that descend from the ceiling, transforming a large space into a smaller one. Designed as a small-scale intervention for reconfiguring open office plans—which “have been shown to decrease productivity due to noise and privacy challenges”—the pods require no electromechanical systems to function, but rather employ a flexible skeleton and counterweight to change shape.
This skeleton is composed of 36 fiberglass rods, which are woven together into a sort of textile or cylindrical braid. Thus, the structure behaves “like a Chinese finger trap: The circumference of the pod shrinks when it’s pulled, and expends when relaxed.”
Expanded fully, the pods measure about ten feet in diameter and eight feet tall, providing space for up to eight people to either sit or stand inside.
Furthermore, the inside of the spaces are lined with felt, so as to dampen outside noise.
We’ve had four people sitting in there at tables, or standing in there for a meeting, said MIT Self-Assembly Lab’s co-director, Skylar Tibbits. We also thought it could be a sort of nap pod. It’s more about the transformation of space rather than trying to present what happens in that space. We’re just trying to create different capabilities.
Research on the project is ongoing, and in the future, will be concentrated on applying these transformable materials to larger-scale architectural practice, for instance in retractable stadium roofs. With such technology, the Lab hopes that stadium roofs or even stadiums themselves, among other systems, could be collapsed after use without major disturbances to the urban landscape.
Learn more about the project here.
News via Fast Company Design and the MIT Self-Assembly Lab.
Blee Halligan Architects has renovated and extended a house on Highgate Hill in north London, using black gridded glazing and pale brickwork to frame views into the back garden (+ slideshow). (more…)
Most Loved: in our next exclusive movie, Janne Kyttanen explains how the the delicate flower-shaped lamp he designed in 2002 demonstrated how 3D printing could be used to create desirable objects for the home. (more…)
Private House is a home designed by Christopher Ward Studio. It is located in Reggio Emilia, Italy and was completed in 2015. Photos courtesy of Christopher Ward Studio
In Hidden Dimension, Boston-based Russian photographer Anna Yeroshenko converts a series of architecture photographs into three-dimensional structures. The work is intended to transform the viewer’s perspective of forgettable utilitarian buildings and encourage a closer look at the physical and social impacts of the built environment on our everyday lives.
Architecture has always been my subject, said Yeroshenko. I was hoping to create an absurd, impossible environment that would make the viewer feel displaced, cramped, or desolate, and also to draw a parallel with the real built environment and how it affects us.
Yeroshenko begins by photographing buildings she considers ugly and cluttered in Boston, being careful to omit distracting environmental context. Without preconceiving of the final result, she folds the photos in order to give herself authorship over her surroundings through a series of iterations. Finally, mimicking the style of architectural renderings, Yeroshenko uses artificial light to photograph the final sculptures without contradicting the original light source.
News via: Anna Yeroshenko
From the architect. The Paul Bourget neighborhood has long been a « terra incognita » of the ParisianThe Paul Bourget neighborhood has long been a « terra incognita » of the Parisian cityscape. To the outside it is a citadel hanging above the tumultuous traffic on the « périphérique » ring expressway and the swirling canopy of the Kellerman Park. Inwards it’s a modest piece os post-war urban planning boom, introverted and peacefully forgotten. With a striking sense of community, so close and yet so distant from the hustle of the nearby Porte d’Italie. Do we know of other places in Paris where residents seem to come « out of the woods » to enter the city ?
Looking like two gentle urban « Totoro » figures, the project stands on the site of a previous building scrapped down after it caught fire. It sets the mood for the gradual uplifting of the whole area around a central garden opening on the beautiful western horizon ranging above the Kellerman Park towards the Charlety stadium.
Most of the apartments enjoy this breathtaking metropolitan view, extending to spectacular balconies suspended in mid-air. They also benefit from features bringing extra comfort to everyday life that required cleverness and perseverance to fit inside the dense tower blocks required by the urban masterplan: living rooms are larger than asked by the client and true closed kitchens, large landings offering sunlight and views to the outside, and real wood flooring in all apartments. Because social housing is not « all in the façade » architecture !
To break the built mass each block is split in two to form four pavilions marked by the sharp contrast of their outer skin materiality.
Facing the west: a dress of stainless steel reflecting in the urban skyline atmospheric variations of rain, blue and gray skies or flaming sunsets. The perforated patterns of the steel plates play an active part in breaking down the loud humming of the expressway and its reverberation towards public space. Towards the central garden, fluted larch façades bring the vibrating, sensitive and intimate scale of wood.
Cut volumes generated by urban rules, topped by Totoro’s ears. It looks a bit like a city drawn by children … This instantly familiar and rambunctious world is highlighted by the double-height community hall and its cozy garden, strategically set at a corner next to a small square. A Place long awaited by the neighboring residents to create a mixed-generation social hotspot around various activities ranging from art studio to cooking, NGO meetings and gardening.
No show off, but the patient turning of programmatic, codes, site and cost constraints into strong statements serving quality of life and pride in a rising anew neighborhood.
Parus is a private apartment located in Kiev, Ukraine. Completed in 2016, it was designed by Rina Lovko. Photos by: Sergey Polyushko
Swiss studio Züst Gübeli Gambetti has completed a long, narrow building that steps up a grassy hillside, to provide extra teaching space at an ETH Zurich university campus (+ slideshow). (more…)
Sig Nordal 