See the latest from our recruitment site Dezeen Jobs, including positions with NBBJ, Brodie Neill and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (pictured), which has appointed David Chipperfield to redesign its southwest wing. This is also the last chance to apply for roles with Grimshaw, Aesop, Wilkinson Eyre and more… (more…)
The Reserve House is a residential project completed by Metropole Architects. It is located on the Dolphin Coast, South Africa. Photos by: Grant Pitcher
London Design Festival 2016: Polish designer Olga Bielawska has used slices of marble to create the illusion of a table draped in striped silk (+ slideshow).
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Little Architect is a program at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Created in 2013, the program is focused on teaching architecture to primary school age children, obtaining amazing results with more than 2,400 children from different backgrounds receiving architectural lessons. They are especially focused on running their program in low-income areas and state schools in London.
“Our responsibility as architects is not just to design but also to bring architecture to society and to create an awareness about urban issues and contemporary architecture within the people who inhabit it,” says Dolores Victoria Ruiz Garrido, author and director of the program.
What is Little Architect?
Little Architect is an education program teaching architecture and the urban environment in primary schools, both in and outside London, led by the Architectural Association School of Architecture. They teach schoolchildren aged 4 to 11 how to observe, understand and enjoy architecture, and to become active citizens in what they hope will be a more sustainable future.
Their in-school workshops are delivered in partnership with the class teacher and have been embedded into the UK national curriculum. The team is helping children achieve their learning targets through architecture and art, while the program provides the opportunity for children to think and communicate about buildings and cities through drawings. These drawings are used as a communication tool.
“We encourage children to create new, futuristic urban environments and to pay attention to the amazing world around them,” says Ruiz Garrido. “We want to trigger a new relationship with contemporary architecture and its local surroundings, encouraging children to care for but also to be critical of the cities we all inhabit.
How does Little Architect work?
The workshops last for a minimum of two hours. Architecture is an ideal tool for integrating STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Maths) into any school topic, allowing Little Architect to create strong links with History, Science, Geography and Literacy. One of their main objectives is to foster creativity. The team has developed a timeline-based methodology where they are also incorporating cartoons, movies, and books relating to children’s popular culture.
“For most of our children, in an overpopulated and expensive urban environment like London, it will be nearly impossible to afford a ‘lovely house with a garden and a garage,’ which is hardly even a reasonable sustainable model to foster. We have to change their expectations or at least give them other valuable options. It is serious stuff! If we don’t improve the way architecture is being perceived by children today, and if we don’t talk to them positively about vertical architecture, communal areas and communities, shared spaces, urban walkability, etc, we are betraying them by setting them up for a future of disappointment and unfulfilled dreams,” says Ruiz Garrido, highlighting this issue as one of the main aspects of the program.
“The way we design our cities is changing for the better. The participatory model, the community voice and a fluid dialogue between citizens and politicians is highly demanded. Today, it is more necessary than ever that we are educated from a young age in architecture and sustainable living. If we want better cities, we need committed, empowered and informed citizens acting together for our future.”
Below are a series of case studies discussing the various ways that Little Architect’s objectives have been incorporated into the school curriculum, with descriptions provided by Little Architect.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, Number 11: “Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”
Two Year 5 (1 Session Each)
LA Teacher: Dolores Victoria Ruiz & Sylvie Taher
School Teacher: Rosie Chapleo & Khalida Walid
Little Architect designed double-sided A3 postcards for the students to draw and send to the Mayor of London, suggesting future projects for their local area. The main idea was to empower young children to have a sense of ownership over their future city and to teach how architecture can have a positive impact on the environment and on people’s happiness.
Objectives
The main objective is to encourage students to engage with both the design and management of their city.
Encouraging the Young Voice
Part of the aim of this workshop was to encourage students to trust their own views about the city. As such we had a discussion in which we asked students to tell us what they did and did not like about the current city. One young boy said that he never felt that he could talk about his own views, and he felt encouraged to hear that his opinion did matter. In many instances the team asked students to explain their views, asking why they did or did not like something. This helped them to become more articulate about their views.
Results
Once the students had finished their drawings, the team asked them each to write a description of their project and to explain to the Mayor of London why their proposal would be a useful addition to the city explaining how it relates to sustainability in general and the UN Sustainability Goal 11 in particular. The results were spectacular as students really gained an opportunity to create thoughtful and beautiful drawings.
Little Red Riding Hood in your Local Area
Year 2 (1 Session)
LA Teacher: Dolores Victoria Ruiz & Patrick Morris
School Teacher: Sophie Klimt
The main objective of this workshop was to engage children with their local area through their Literacy topic: Little Red Riding Hood. The team included as part of the lesson’s material, images of themselves and their classmates, as well as images of Little Red Riding Hood. The students then had to work together to create a collage. Many students based their collages and their stories around their own very personal engagement with the area.
Objectives
The main objectives of this workshop were:
Talking about Urban Evolution
The team started by showing a Key Note presentation about the local area and had it had changed from the past through to the present. In this presentation, we showed a variety of images which related to everything from urban artifacts to buildings and infrastructure. It is important for us to convey to students that the city is a constantly changing place, and as such as citizens of the city, they are able to change it for the better.
Learning through Games
The images were ordered in such a way that the same area was shown several times, from the past through to the present. We then asked students to “spot the difference.” Students were very engaged in this game and noted numerous things which had changed, such as the way buildings are inhabited, the amount of traffic on the streets, and even the change in shops and shop signage.
Conclusions
The children were very excited to see that pictures of them had been printed out to be used in the collage and they used all the provided images. Many students based their collages and their stories around their own very personal engagement with the area and chose very familiar buildings to create their collage.
Learning about the Planets of the Solar System. December 2016
Year 5 students (2 sessions)
LA Teachers: Dolores Victoria Ruiz, Natasha Sandmeier
School teachers: Victoria Wiley, A. Reynolds
The presentation was structured in eight parts in order to coincide with each of the eight planets in the solar system. In each of the sections, the team showed the relationship of the planet to the sun and the earth, and then went into the details of its environment. Given that the environments are so incredibly different, we then started to propose different types of structures, which would be suitable for each of the planets. For example, gaseous planets might need floating structures; where planets further from the sun might need a form of architecture, which can deal with the cold.
For each of these planets and their corresponding environments, the team found examples of existing architecture to inspire the students. As we went through the presentation we always tried to highlight the point that it is very important that architecture responds to its environment. The children learned about sustainable architecture at the same time they were learning about planets and climate.
Find more information about the program here.
Visionary, cutting-edge, pure: these are the values that currently characterize Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. (“Automobili Lamborghini”). Since 1963 this company does not create cars but four-wheeled dreams, design and Engineering masterpieces that reached every continent and became legendary in the world because of their visionary and pioneering features. An international legend with an Italian heart. A legend that, starting from 2018, will be enriched by a further exciting chapter.
Made in Italy and known as the “Urus” project, the third model of the House of the Bull will soon be leading the market as the new Made in Italy luxury icon: a supersport car among the SUVs. In order to celebrate this event, along with a new enlargement of its base, Automobili Lamborghini intends to innovate the places of the legend inviting all the designers to imagine two monumental landmarks at the entrance of its historic plants.
How to reflect the character and the values of one of the most renowned and valued brand of the international scenario in an architectonic installation? How to architecturally interpret the DNA of one of the most representative brands of the automotive history?
This is the challenge of Lamborghini Road Monument, the competition of Automobili Lamborghini to build two architectonic landmarks aimed at marking the entrances of Sant’Agata Bolognese and its plant. Two landmarks to celebrate the legend and sculpt in matter the history of speed, power and innovation.
Aimed at creating an internationally known intervention, Lamborghini Road Monument will soon mark contemporary architecture significantly. Moreover, it will give the opportunity to value the talent of the designers working for the House of the Bull, which is one of the most prestigious and renowned brands in the world.
Jury
Prizes
All the awarded proposals will be transmitted to architectural magazines and websites and will be hosted in international exhibitions. All the finalist proposals will be published on YAC’s website.
Calendar
Discover more on: http://ift.tt/IXd70i
Contact us at: yac@yac-ltd.com
Download the information related to this competition here.
Embedded in the mellow, undulating landscape of Southern Styria sits Haus T, right on top of a hill, where it naturally blends in with the surrounding vineyards. Due to materiality and formal restraint, it forms a whole with the countryside as it stands confidently on the edge, gable facing the valley.
The small vintner’s house, which used to be the wine press house until early in the 20th century, served as starting point for the single-family detached home. The historical vaulted cellar is made of stone and more than 400 years old. Therefore, it is the oldest part of the house, which was remodelled in the 1960’s and had been uninhabited in the last few years. The building-owners, two winegrowers, decided to make the old vintner’s house their retirement home, as the nearby vineyard has been their professional and private centre of life for so many years now.
According to form and function, the new building is divided into two building structures: A rectangular cube with a pitched roof was built above the vaulted cellar – a homage to the former building, that stood in same alignment and similar cubature on the gently descending northern slope. The monolithic construction of coloured isolation concrete, the structure of the rough sawn wooden plank formwork as well as the sparse square openings provide the building with an introverted character. This is why the gallery as well as sleeping and wet areas are located inwardly as places of retreat. The brown colour tone and the haptic texture of the concrete walls convey comfort. Only well-chosen sections of the 360°-panorama are uncovered by several windows with broad wooden frames.
On the eastern side of the building lies an orthogonally adjoining, planar and elongated building structure, which incorporates the living room, the cooking and dining area, as well as a garage. This ceiling-high glazed part of the detached house with an overhanging flat roof made of displayed solid timber, enables the surrounding scenery to diffuse into the building. This way, there is no apparent dividing line between inside and outside, so that nature and building seamlessly merge into one another.
When entering the house through the northern entrance, one looks straight through the anteroom into the living room, that can be separated from the cooking and dining area with a piece of furniture and can furthermore be used as guestroom. A service zone with a small bathroom, lavatory and storage room divide the living quarters from the garage. All interior walls are designed as furniture walls made out of darkened ash wood and comprise wardrobe, kitchen, shelves and sliding doors. Thus, the entire living area can either be viewed as one room or it can be separated into two sections by the furniture walls.
Via the open kitchen and the dining area one reaches the intersection of the two building structures. A split level leads to the old wine cellar and the installations room or upstairs to the gallery. The smooth transition from kitchen to living area and gallery is separated from the bedroom by the bathroom and a walk-in closet, both of which have been set up as boxes in the gable space.
The simple materiality of the interior is congruent with the exterior appearance of the building. Apart from fair-faced concrete and timber, individual elements like the gentle pillars and the banisters are made of black steel. The flush-mounted windows inside of the wall, the plank flooring and the staircase are crafted out of oak wood. Roof, windowsills and garage door are made of copper, that changes its brownish grey colour over time and either creates a contrast to or a homogenous scene with the surrounding landscape depending on the season.
Interior Project is a residential project designed by Buro 108 in 2016. It is located in Moscow, Russia.
I used to work in the home furnishing industry, so every fall I keep an eye on the latest interior design trends that are featured at the High Point Market in North Carolina. I love the High Point blog and featured trends in Pinterest. It’s a great place to inspire me to add unique touches to refresh my home with new colors and textures. It’s also fun to see new..
Peter Barber Architects has completed a row of terraced houses in London’s Stratford, featuring a monolithic brick facade punctuated by recessed arches and balconies. (more…)
From the architect. To provide the urban monumentality required of a judicial institution and the serenity necessary to handle delicate cases that affect people’s lives, the new Béziers Court is seen as stacks of three layers of rock. At each level, steps and patios locate between these quarry blocks. The stepped masses encourage daylight to enter, creating internal landscapes, like an oasis.
They to protect the premises from any intrusive view. As such, security of the facades and confidentiality are attained with ease.
The transparency of the foyers gives glimpses of the shady central patio garden, planted with tree ferns, that accesses and links the public waiting areas and courtrooms.
Built-in furniture within public areas and office furniture have been designed to ensure comfort and to fit in perfectly with the volumes of the reception and work areas.
Monochrome, through its irregularities the sandblasted and hammered concrete gives a rustic material strength and thickness. A symbol of justice, the parvis is here an antechamber, the sheltered outside institution; open to urban life it soothes, protects and welcomes.
Sig Nordal 