Architecture
Blossom Pavilion in Shanghai features steel “rocks” and a rooftop flowerbed
Shanghai studio Atelier Deshaus has teamed up with artist Zhan Wang to create a flower-topped pavilion supported by irregularly shaped slabs of stainless steel (+ slideshow). (more…)
A+U 550: Vo Trong Nghia Architects
Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.
From the Publisher: July 2016’s issue of a+u is dedicated to the works of Vietnamese architect, Vo Trong Nghia Architects. The issue features 18 works.
Above all, VTN’s work is concerned with how they can contribute as architects to cities and society in Vietnam and proposes three solutions for the rapidly-growing cities in the country, such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi: bamboo architecture, green architecture, and low-cost houses. Their work is informed by a renewed evaluation of traditional Vietnamese lifestyles, but it is not nostalgic.
Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.
Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.
The issue explores not only their signature bamboo architecture but also more recent green interventions in urban setting.
Can a single architect change the future of Vietnam’s cities? One hopes that Vietnam’s cities will be able to develop without losing sight of the best in the country’s traditions or its love of tropical greenery, light, and natural breezes.
Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.
Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.
Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.
Contents
Feature:
Vo Trong Nghia Architects
Statement: What Can Architects Do in an Age When Nature Is Being Destroyed by Human Acquisitiveness?
Vo Trong Nghia
Essay: The Meaning of Creating Architecture in Vietnam
Pham Thuy Loan
Diamond Island Community Center
Column: The Steel of the 21st Century: Bamboo
Takashi Niwa
Essay: Of Regionalism Past and a Sustainable Future:A Perspective on Vo Trong Nghia Architects
Nirmal Kishnani
Green Renovation 2
Nanoco – Panasonic Lighting Showroom
Essay Series: Engineering bamboo – a green alternative under basic research Part 3
Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel (Dirk E. Hebel, Felix Heisel, Alireza Javadian,Mateusz Wielopolski, Simon Lee, Philipp Müller,Karsten Schlesier)
Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.
Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.
Broadway Malyan to Design Additional Towers for Jakarta Business Park
Courtesy of Broadway Malyan
Broadway Malyan has been appointed to design eight towers for the CIBIS Business Park, a 12-hectare development in Jakarta, Indonesia. Previously, the firm developed the site’s original masterplan, as well as the design for Tower 9, and has since then been asked to additionally deliver Towers 1 through 8.
The goal of the overall project is to create a business village that reflects Indonesian culture, as well as international characteristics in order to bring people together in shared and mixed-use spaces.
The additional appointments for the other towers will help us to ensure continuity and integrity of the design approach and further the high quality office space in the area, noted Ed Baker, Director of Broadway Malyan.
Courtesy of Broadway Malyan
The project features a variety of sustainability measures, like underground parking to keep street levels pedestrian-friendly, green roofs, and rainwater management. Through these features, among others, the project has received LEED Platinum Pre-certification.
Tower 7 of the project will be a residential space, and all others will bring additional office space to the development.
Tower 9, the originally commissioned tower, is composed of 54,800 square meters of office and ground-level retail space, with the largest Grade-A office floor space in Jakarta, at 4,000 square meters. Tower 9 is expected to be completed this summer.
News via Broadway Malyan.
Simple materials shape Space Copenhagen’s interior for Musling restaurant
Soft brown leather seats and a grey-toned iron bar feature inside this seafood restaurant overlooking Copenhagen‘s Torvehallerne food market. (more…)
Gozu House / OPUS
© Isaac Ramirez
- Architects: OPUS
- Location: El Retiro, Urrao, Antioquia, Colombia
- Area: 500.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2015
- Photographs: Isaac Ramirez
- Project Managers Architects: Manuel Jaén, Carlos David Montoya Valencia, Carlos Andres Betancur
- Coordinator Architect: Manel Mérida Yeste
- Design Team: Mateo Marín, Santiago López Posada, Carlos Alberto Cano Bedoya, Juan Sebastian Restrepo
- Management And Construction: Construimos EA S.A.S
- Structural Engineering: Cydeca S.A.S
- Interior Design: Maria Paula Zuluaga
© Isaac Ramirez
From the architect. This House, located in a natural environment at 2,200 m altitude, pretends to opens, in a sensitive way, to the different surrounding landscapes of the place by proposing diffuse limits between the inside and the outside of the House. The social module is oriented towards the East, and the room’s module is oriented towards the West. They are connected through a central body of access in relation to the external spaces defined between both modules. A succession of folds in the vegetated cover evoke the movements of the mountains that configure the inner spatiality.
© Isaac Ramirez
Elevation
© Isaac Ramirez
Inside, the social area is part of a high roofing common space that allows observing the views of the Valley. A broad winding corridor connected to the central area and the intermediate patios distribute the access to the bedrooms that are open to the forest.
© Isaac Ramirez
The metal structure is shown with the reddish oxide in contact with the stone and the pinewood as the predominant materials of the House, both inside and outside.
© Isaac Ramirez
Plan 1
© Isaac Ramirez
The thermal inertia that provides the green roof joined to the strategies of solar caption through the skylights and the glass cover of the central module allows heating the inside and preserves the thermal comfort due to the variations in the temperature between day and night.
© Isaac Ramirez
Architects for Urbanity’s ‘Urban Womb’ is a New Women and Family Complex Facility in Seoul, Korea
Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity
Architects for Urbanity has released its designs for Seoul Urban Womb, a mixed-use women’s and family complex in South Korea. Located in Daebang-dong at the former site of the Seoul Women’s Shelter, the project aims to revitalize the current Seoul Women’s Plaza, a space previously described as “gloomy” and “deathlike.”
The new facility will serve as a connection between the Women’s Plaza and nearby train station, as a mix of public and private space, and is hoped to help “form creative culture, [teach] traditions, and expand the value of gender equality in family and community.”
Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity
Designed as “an organic womb that intensifies spatially and programmatically” throughout the site, the complex will consist of a large rectangular volume interrupted by a series of voids that define and connect the various programs throughout the facility.
Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity
Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity
The building will be organized into three programmatic volumes: the pixelated plinth, the vertical tower, and the horizontal roof slab.
Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity
Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity
The pixelated plinth contains the main functions of the building, such as an auditorium, family space, a youth center, food courts, production labs, and shops. The shape of this volume—an “urban living room”—is derived from its pieces, five stripes increasing in size, each of which contains a distinct program “and is positioned between related activities in order to maximize the efficiency of the building” and the user experience. This way when walking in the direction of one stripe, visitors encounter similar programs, but when walking perpendicularly, they find a cross-programmatic experience.
Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity
The tower of the building, located at the western edge, houses the boarding facilities and frames the event space. Each of the five floors above ground will feature twelve rooms and two meeting rooms, while the ground floor space will include a lobby and the Museum of Motherhood.
Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity
As an inhabited truss structure, the rooftop slab will house the conference and administration facilities for the building. “The whole floor is designed as a clear array of programmatic zones tied together by a perimetric circulation zone. Along the façade, the floor is programmed with informal and open-plan office areas. In the center of the floor and illuminated by two large courtyards are the conference rooms of various sizes, as well as meeting rooms and the vertical circulation cores.
Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity
- Architects: Architects for Urbanity
- Location: Seoul, South Korea
- Design Team: Irgen Salianji, Marina Kounavi, Karolina Szóstkiewicz, Stavria Psomiadi, Antony Laurijsen
- Area: 20500.0 sqm
- Photographs: Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity
News via Architects for Urbanity.
Party live streams Androp music video projected onto flowers
Reinier de Graaf Discusses Moscow’s Development and the “Major Stupidity” of Brexit
At the recently concluded Moscow Urban Forum, Renier de Graaf shared his opinion on a range of topics, from UK’s Brexit and the EU identity to OMA’s work in Russia, particularly in shaping the recent growth of Moscow. De Graaf is a partner at OMA and as director of the firm’s Think Tank, AMO, he produced The Image of Europe, an exhibition hoping to portray a “bold, explicit and popular” European Union. Thus, it comes as no surprise that de Graaf, along with Rem Koolhaas, is particularly outspoken about the recent events within the European Union.
Beginning in 2001 with the firm’s Barcode Flag for the EU, AMO has closely associated itself with developing the identity and iconography of the European Union. In a previous interview, De Graaf discussed how research and media become vessels for political agendas. AMO’s work with the EU, which includes the “Atlas of the European Union” and the “Hystory of Europe and the European Union,” certainly reflects that opinion. In the video, De Graaf described the Brexit as a “major stupidity” and stresses his opinion of national sovereignty as a myth, spawned by his belief that “politics is all about managing interdependence between countries in a global economy.” He has also recently written a personal blog regarding his thoughts on EU’s current situation.
Taking place at the Moscow Urban Forum following a round-table discussion called “News from the Future,” the interview also offered the perfect opportunity to question de Graaf on OMA’s involvement in Moscow, including working with the Strelka Institute and designing the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow’s Gorky Park. OMA also took part in the Moscow City Agglomeration Development Concept Competition along with nine other firms. When asked to weigh in on the development of city after the competition, he comments: “In a lot of other cities, interventions about public space are very cosmetic or they stop at the rhetoric. Here [in Moscow] there is an interesting degree of follow-up on the rhetoric.”
Ulterior Motives: OMA/AMO’s Reinier de Graaf on “Research,” Europe and the 2014 Venice Biennale
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Casa Pizzaro / A53 + Marc Mazeres
© Nicolás Fotografía
- Architects: A53 + Marc Mazeres
- Location: La Barceloneta, Barcelona, Spain
- Author Architectes: Juliette Boulard, Vasilki Arampatzaki , Marc Mazeres
- Main Contractor: OAK 2000
- Area: 53.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2016
- Photographs: Nicolás Fotografía
© Nicolás Fotografía
The project concerns the refurbishment of an apartment in Barceloneta that suffered through a number of different interventions over the years and had lost its beauty and charm. Our team was challenged to apply a new program and recover the apartment’s traditional character. The most important aspects included the improvement of both the natural illumination as well as the ventilation of the space.
© Nicolás Fotografía
© Nicolás Fotografía
The original layout of the apartment generated small, dark rooms with bad communication and illumination. The design focused not just on modernizing the space but also on simplifying the congested layout. We decided to eliminate the third bedroom, switch the position of the bathroom and the kitchen to gain floor area on the day zones and restore the interior balcony towards the patio to create cross ventilation in the apartment.
Plan
Section
Large parts of the interior walls were demolished to apply the new program and create an open space for the kitchen and the living room. The existing structural elements were reinforced with great care, while new metal elements were added. An elevated wooden floor was constructed for the passage of the mechanical and electrical services. The existing suspended ceiling was dismantled, uncovering the traditional Catalan vaulted ceiling that restored the apartment its full height. The ceramic tiles were dismantled to restore the flat’s original colorfoul tiled floors that were in good enough condition to be retained and refurbished.
© Nicolás Fotografía
Diagram
© Nicolás Fotografía
The aluminium-frame windows towards the street facade were replaced by wooden-frame ones to resemble the original facade of the building. A fixed horizontal interior window separates the kitchen and the bathroom, allowing for natural illumination to even reach the bathroom.
© Nicolás Fotografía
