London Design Festival 2016: British brand Another Country has unveiled its fourth collection, which includes tables, seats and a daybed inspired by the work of early 20th century designer Gerrit Rietveld (+ slideshow). (more…)
From the architect. The project is a renovation of a house for rent. The 50-year-old wooden house had been left to lie in ruin. The roofs had fallen down, the exterior walls had broken, and the floors, walls and ceilings had dismantled of those concept. In the circumstances, the house had been tolerated the invasion of animals and plants from outside and it seemed as if the house had been turning into feral; however, we could found out that the feral house involved a kind of aesthetics and potentiality.
These are openness, which tolerate all other existence as well as homogeneity of Japanese traditional house which structure, interior and exterior finishing, and fittings, all of those are comprised of just one single material, wood.
And then, we planned the space with intent to cause expansive usage with privacy and functionality, we raised existing elements up individually and formed an intermediate space that connect inside / outside by gradation. Moreover, we designed new things that put in the space without a decorativeness to adapt oneself to circumstances.
When the light steal in but dimly a kind of homogeneous space through the wooden fittings, those add dramas, and shows the scenery of the four seasons. In the feral house, there are aesthetics and inherent homogeneity of Japanese traditional wooden house. We tried to find a new way of openness while handling those carefully.
In November 2014, a volcano on Fogo Island, Cape Verde, erupted, spewing forth massive amounts of lava and destroying the homes of hundreds of people from the nearby village of Chã das Caldeiras. One of the buildings in the volcano’s wake was the National Park Cultural and Administration Center – a sleek, dark building designed by OTO Architects and winner of the 2015 ArchDaily Building of the Year Award for Cultural Architecture.
Captivated by the lunar landscape and the sudden destruction of architecture, architect Adrian Kasperski has designed three new speculative projects that respond to the events and culture of the island: A Volcanism and Culture Centre, a Vineyard and Hotel, and a New village to replace the leveled Chã das Caldeiras.
Volcanism and Culture Center
Designed to replace OTO’s Park Headquarters, this building is located on the border of two entirely different landscapes. Cutting into the ridge of the caldera, the program elements have all been placed below ground level, making the building disappear from a distance. A public square in the center of the building serves as the entrance, as well as a flexible space of respite. The glazed surfaces of the structure curve towards the center of the ridge, creating a perfectly framed view of the nearby volcano.
“Noticing the unusual nature contrast has awakened my imagination and became the starting point for the designed architecture,” says Kasperski. “The project was treated as an opportunity to create a “connection” between the inside and outside of the island.”
Vineyard and Hotel
The next project element is a facility that attempts to activate the area through alternative tourism sources – a hotel and vineyard. Ramps extending off of the park trail lead people to an observation deck offering panoramic views of the caldera, the volcano and the water.
“The whole refers to the terrain form – the view results from the topography, where the facility is located. On one hand the form is slightly raised above the ground level, forming a horizontal block, on the other hand, it is embedded in the rocky slope of the rising caldera. The central part was designed to be a generally accessible square. This solution allowed the consistent combination of the two functions,” say Kasperski.
New Village
The last intervention would be to construct a new village to which the displaced community could return. The village would be located near the new northern road to the caldera, and would contain important town facilities such as a school, a market and a church. To match the natural terrain, individual buildings would cascade along the hillside, linked together through a network of alleys, irrigation canals and pavilions. Interstitial spaces could be used as orchards or vegetable gardens to provide food for the community.
Other important elements would include an extension of the road to the caldera to create a loop of circulation, allowing for new distributions of traffic that could provide resources for additional new constructions of the island.
Hoping to see Fogo Island gain recognition for its unique beauty, Kasperski sees alternative tourism sources as the perfect solution to helping the island redevelop in a sustainable manner.
“The vision of the development of the Fogo island along with the active volcano caldera is a very complex project, because it combines the cultural issues, social issues, nature and architecture. The aim was not to create the building itself, but analysing the relations and processes of the human environment and interpreting it into the language of architecture.”
Designer Thomas Heatherwick has created an engineered double cover for design and lifestyle magazine Wallpaper that features a trellis-like opening system. (more…)
From the architect. The new Port House in Antwerp repurposes, renovates and extends a derelict fire station into a new headquarters for the port – bringing together the port’s 500 staff that previously worked in separate buildings around the city.
With 12 km of docks, Antwerp is Europe’s second largest shipping port, serving 15,000 sea trade ships and 60,000 inland barges each year.
Antwerp handles 26% of Europe’s container shipping, transporting more than 200 million tonnes of goods via the ocean-going vessels that call at the port and providing direct employment for over 60,000 people, including more than 8,000 port workers. Indirectly, the Port of Antwerp ensures about 150,000 jobs and has ambitious targets for future expansion to meet the continent’s growth and development over the next century.
In 2007, when the former 1990s offices of the Port of Antwerp had become too small, the port determined that relocation would enable its technical and administrative services to be housed together, providing new accommodation for about 500 staff. The port required a sustainable and future-proof workplace for its employees, representing its ethos and values in an ever-expanding local and international arena.
As the threshold between the city and its vast port, Mexico Island in Antwerp’s Kattendijk dock on Quay 63 was selected as the site for the new head office. The waterside site also offered significant sustainable construction benefits, allowing materials and building components to be transported by water, an important requirement to meet the port’s ecological targets.
Following the construction of a new fire station with facilities needed to service the expanding port, the old fire station on the Mexico Island site – a listed replica of a Hanseatic residence – became redundant and relied on a change of use to ensure its preservation. This disused fire station had to be integrated into the new project. The Flemish government’s department of architecture, together with the City and Port authorities organized the architectural competition for the new headquarters.
Zaha Hadid Architects’ design is informed by detailed historical research and a thorough analysis of both the site and the existing building.
Marc Van Peel, president of the Port of Antwerp, said: “There was only one rule laid down in the architectural competition, namely that the original building had to be preserved. There were no other requirements imposed for the positioning of the new building. The jury was therefore pleasantly surprised when the five shortlisted candidates all opted for a modern structure above the original building. They all combined the new with the old, but the design by Zaha Hadid Architects was the most brilliant.”
Working with Origin, leading heritage consultants in the restoration and renovation of historic monuments, ZHA’s studies of the site’s history and heritage are the foundations of the design which firstly emphasises the north-south site axis parallel with the Kattendijkdok linking the city centre to the port. Secondly, due to its location surrounded by water, the building’s four elevations are considered of equal importance with no principal facade. ZHA’s design is an elevated extension, rather than a neighbouring volume which would have concealed at least one of the existing facades. ZHA and Origin’s historic analysis of the old fire station also highlighted the role of its originally intended tower – a grand, imposing component of the fire station’s Hanseatic design. Its bold vertical statement, intended to crown the imposing volume of the building below, was never realised.
These three key principles define the design’s composition of new and old: a new volume that ‘floats’ above the old building, respecting each of the old facades and completing the verticality of the original design’s unrealised tower.
Like the bow of a ship, the new extension points towards the Scheldt, connecting the building with the river on which Antwerp was founded.
Surrounded by water, the new extension’s façade is a glazed surface that ripples like waves and reflects the changing tones and colours of the city’s sky. Triangular facets allow the apparently smooth curves at either end of the building to be formed with flat sheets of glass. They also facilitate the gradual transition from a flat façade at the south end of the building to a rippling surface at the north.
While most of the triangular facets are transparent, some are opaque. This calibrated mix ensures sufficient sunlight within the building, while also controlling solar load to guarantee optimal working conditions. At the same time, the alternation of transparent and opaque facade panels breaks down the volume of the new extension, giving panoramic views of the Scheldt, the city and the Port as well as providing enclosure.
The façade’s rippling quality is generated with flat facets to the south that gradually become more three-dimensional towards to the north. This perception of a transparent volume, cut to give the new building its sparkling appearance, reinterprets Antwerp’s moniker as the city of diamonds. The new extension appears as a carefully cut form which changes its appearance with the shifting intensity of daylight. Like the ripples on the surface of the water in the surrounding port, the new façade reflects changing light conditions.
The old fire station’s central courtyard has been enclosed with a glass roof and is transformed into the main reception area for the new Port House. From this central atrium, visitors access the historic public reading room and library within the disused fire truck hall which has been carefully restored and preserved. Panoramic lifts provide direct access to the new extension with an external bridge between the existing building and new extension giving panoramic views of the city and port.
The client requirements for an ‘activity based office’ are integrated within the design, with related areas such as the restaurant, meeting rooms and auditorium located at the centre of the upper levels of the existing building and the bottom floors of the new extension. The remaining floors more remote from the centre, comprise open plan offices.
Collaborating with services consultant Ingenium, ZHA developed a sustainable and energy-efficient design reaching a ‘Very Good’ BREEAM environmental rating. Despite the challenges of integrating with a protected historic building, high standards in sustainable design were achieved by implementing effective strategies at each stage of construction. A borehole energy system pumps water to a depth of 80m below grade in over 100 locations around the building to provide heating and cooling. In the existing building, this system uses chilled beams. In the new extension, it uses chilled ceilings. Waterless lavatory fittings and motion detectors minimise water consumption while building automation and optimal daylight controls minimise artificial lighting.
With constant references to the Scheldt, the city of Antwerp and the dynamics of its port, married with the successful renovation and reuse of a redundant fire station – integrating it as a fully-fledged part of its headquarters – the new Port House will serve the port well through its planned expansion over future generations.
Marc Van Peel said: “The architectural style of the original building, a replica of the former Hansa House, recalls the 16th century, Antwerp’s “golden century.” But now above this original, a contemporary structure in shining glass has been built, which I am sure, represents a new golden century for Antwerp.”
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has revealed the five finalists teams in competition to redesign the Port Authority bus terminal in west Manhattan: Arcadis of New York, Archilier Architecture Consortium, Hudson Terminal Center Collaborative, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, and Perkins Eastman.
The Port Authority Bus Terminal International Design + Deliverability Competition challenged architects to reimagine the current terminal building, built in 1950 and expanded in 1979, for the demands of modernday ridership. The terminal currently accommodates approximately 220,000 passenger trips and more than 7,000 bus movements on an average weekday, with demand projected to increase to 270,000 daily peak-hour passengers by 2020, and as many as 337,000 daily peak-hour passengers by 2040.
Continue reading to see each of the designs.
Arcadis of New York
The proposed design solution considers four themes in response to the interests of multiple constituencies for the Port Authority Bus Terminal: Purposeful Design, Certainty of Results, Encompassing Vision and Regional Connectivity. These themes establish a basis that challenges conventional assumptions about the Bus Terminal in order to enhance terminal operations while mitigating any potential negative impact on the community.
Archilier Architecture Consortium
In our design proposal for a new midtown bus terminal, Archilier Architecture and its team have created a new civic landmark that urbanistically knits together historic Hell’s Kitchen and the emerging Hudson Yards district, replacing what is now a ‘no-man’s-land’ with a vibrant multi-faceted public facility as part of a long-range master plan that heals what has been an open scar on the face of New York’s west side. This terminal will be New York’s “Next Great Place”.
Hudson Terminal Center Collaborative
The Hudson Terminal Center (HTC) Collaborative has developed an extraordinary approach for reinventing the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT), one that can bring about a transformative impact on the quality of life in Midtown West. Our innovative concept places a new terminal directly below the PABT site – as an underground facility – with seamless, naturally lit connections to adjacent city streets and subways. This innovative scheme will provide the potential for private equity development on the PABT site, as well as on nearby PANYNJ parcels that are currently occupied by the terminal’s existing bus and private auto ramp infrastructure.
Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
Welcome to Times Square West, a new district that redefines the southern edge of Clinton and connects the emerging neighborhood of Hudson Yards with the iconic office, cultural and tourist destination of Times Square. Designed around a new Transit Center west of 9th Avenue, Times Square West marks the next phase in the area’s evolution from a maritime community to a vibrant residential, cultural and commercial one. By relocating and downsizing the bus terminal and repairing the urban fabric severed by its ramps and tunnel approaches, Times Square West reintroduces mobility and human scale to this midtown neighborhood after a half century without them.
Perkins Eastman
The “Convergence” design vision for the new Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) leverages every single aspect of transit infrastructure, above and below ground, in order to create an iconic place in the City where people will want to live, work and visit, regardless of whether they are using any form of transit.
Key features of the Convergence design plan include:
For more information on the competition and the five finalists, visit the competition site, here.
News via The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
A huge, faceted glass volume sits on the roof of the new headquarters Zaha Hadid Architects has designed for Antwerp’s Port Authority (slideshow). (more…)
Referencing local precedents, the Bowtie House fuses modernist ideals with vernacular strategies, making use of a linearly organized plan to respond to the Ozark context.
Located by Fayetteville in Arkansas, this house for a couple frequently visited by their family is near the Ozark Mountains. Situated on a heavily wooded site, the 23’ wide house is oriented with its 94’ length running roughly northwest to southeast. This orientation allows tree-filtered light into the house during the mornings and late afternoons.
Sitting on a sloping terrain between two draws, the house’s program is distributed on three levels at the northwest end, with the main floor extending continuously to the southeast and minimizing the house’s foot print. The primary public spaces and the master bedroom are on the entry level to accommodate wheelchair access. The public program consists of the kitchen, dining and living areas. These areas operate as defined zones within one continuous space, opening vertically toward the southeast end of the structure where the living area seemingly continues to the outdoors as a porch. The living space is defined by the surrounding tree canopies rather than by the window walls, thus creating a rich ambiguity between inside and outside. In winter, the defoliated tree conditions allow filtered views of the distant Ozark Plateau horizon.
The exterior is clad in a shell of standing seam Galvalume panels on a stucco and wood board and batten system over a native stone base. The interior is finished out with extensive maple floors, trim, and cabinetry, with large custom maple and cherry doors.
A seating design aiming to tackle the problem of overcrowding on trains features in this week’s issue of Dezeen Mail, along with Moby’s criticism of a Zaha Hadid-designed hotel room and a zinc-clad home in a Wisconsin crop field (pictured).
Read Dezeen Mail issue 324 | Subscribe to Dezeen Mail
Sig Nordal 