London’s Design Museum closes the doors of its Shad Thames building for the final time tomorrow, ahead of its move across town. In a Dezeen exclusive, Deyan Sudjic reflects on his favourite memories from the 10 years since he took over as director (+ photos by Luke Hayes). (more…)
Madrid’s Museo del Prado has announced the finalists for the competition to redesign and transform the museum’s Hall of Realms. Among the list are acclaimed firms OMA; Souto Moura Arquitectos; a team of Foster + Partners – Rubio Arquitectos; B720 Arquitectos – David Chipperfield Architects; Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos; Nieto Sobejano Architects; Stedebouw B.V.; Juan Miguel Hernández León – Carlos de Riaño Lozano; Garces de Seta Bonet Arquitectes – Pedro Feducci Canosa; and Gluckman Tang Architects – Estudio Alvarez Sala – Enguita and Lasso de la Vega.
Each finalist has previous experience in transforming older buildings into modern museums. They will now compete for the chance to reimagine the Hall of Realms of Madrid, providing the Prado with 2,500 square meters of new exhibition space and an additional 2,900 square meters for supporting spaces. The hall was once used by Spanish royalty and most recently served as the home of the Museum Del Ejercito, or Army Museum, before becoming a part of the Prado in October 2015.
The new hall could play host to a major exhibition on the relationship between Spain, the American Continent and the independence of Latin American countries. Four or five existing elements of the building will be preserved, and new space will be allocated to housing traveling exhibitions.
Final proposals for the competition are due on October 30, 2016, and the jury will select a winner before the end of the year.
News via EL PAÍS and Museo del Prado
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 buildings actually built.
The Great Wall of WA, designed by the Australian firm Luigi Rosselli Architects, and selected as one of Archdaily’s Best Building of the Year 2016, provides a unique example of rammed earth construction. At 230 meters in length, the Great Wall of WA is the longest structure of its kind in Australia and possibly the South Hemisphere, according to its architects. Built in remote North Western Australia, the building is made from locally available materials whose thermal properties help it to endure a variable climate. We spoke with the architect Luigi Rosselli to learn more about his compelling choice of material and the determining role it played in his concept design.
What were the principal materials used in the project?
Rammed earth mainly, with some Cor-Ten steel and concrete.
In terms of materials, what were your biggest sources of inspiration and influence when selecting what the project would ultimately be made of?
The landscape featured in North Western Australia, with its iron ore rich soil, sand dunes and harsh environmental and climatic constraints, served as a great foil for the imagination when developing this project. The remote and isolated location of the site also required a practical solution of sourcing materials locally. The rammed earth wall construction is composed of iron rich, sandy clay that is a dominant feature of the site, and pebbles and gravel were quarried from the nearby river bed and bonded with water from the local bore hole. The concrete slab contains gravel and aggregates from the local river, which lend a reddish color to its polished surface. In this hot and harsh climate using rammed earth made perfect sense, as the clay component of the wall has hygroscopic characteristics, and airflow along the wall draws moisture from it through evaporation. This evaporative cooling reduces the temperature of the wall in the same way sweat cools the body.
Describe how material decisions factored into concept design.
The 230-meter long rammed earth wall meanders along the edge of a sand dune, like a natural cut in the topography, reflecting the environment it inhabits. The wall is stepped to organically follow the natural curve of the landscape, while at the same time providing a level of privacy to each of the enclosed twelve residences buried into the sand dune. The use of the rammed earth, as well as the underground nature of the buildings, was chosen to maintain the residences’ cool and constant temperature. Designed according to these thermal mass principles, the accommodations represent a new approach to remote North Western Australia architecture: it moves away from the sun baked, thin corrugated metal shelters, and cools architectural earth formations naturally.
What were the advantages that this material offered in the construction of the project?
With the 450 millimeter thick rammed earth facade, and the sand dune to the rear and forming the roofs, the residences have the best thermal mass available, which makes them naturally cool in the subtropical climate. Rammed earth is a quarried mix of clay, sand, gravel and does not need any processing or energy intensive production like bricks and cement. Since the material was sourced in close proximity to the site, the material has relatively little embodied energy content. The awning roof is a Cor-Ten steel cyclonic shade frame, mirrored by a concrete slab on the ground. The deep awning roof is designed to keep the sun out during the hottest part of the day and invite the inhabitant to go outside and enjoy the cool evening breeze.
Were there any challenges you faced because of your material selection?
The energy efficiency provisions in the current Building Code of Australia are based uniquely on the thermal conductivity of a material. Thermal mass and hygroscopic characteristics are not factored. We had to employ Floyd Energy consultants to use a more sophisticated evaluation and simulation program that confirmed the superiority of a high thermal mass rammed earth construction.
Did you consider any other possible materials for the project, and if so how would that have changed the design?
Not really. In this part of the world we needed thermal mass, so any other alternative would be involving either brick or concrete, both of which would have to be imported. In the case of rammed earth, 90% was sourced locally.
How did you research and select providers or contractors for the materials used in your project?
We had already worked with rammed earth constructions in Sydney, so the knowledge has been evolved in house for some time with projects like Kirribilli House. Our providers and contractors were sourced locally from WA: the builder was Jaxon Construction, the rammed earth contractor was Murchison Stabilised Earth Pty Ltd, the structural consultant was Pritchard Francis, and the environmental consultant was Floyd Energy.
From the architect. Casa U is located in the suburbs of Mexico City in a very steep and hilly site overlooking the Valley of Mexico. The pronounced slope generated a sitting that emphasizes the intimate relationship between the spaces of the house with the site´s topography.
The parti questioned the typical sequence of a house, having its access in its roof to then descend into the private and social spaces of the house. A large number of trees served for tracing, framing the house and giving it more privacy.
The exterior facade is sober and simple, hiding the house beyond and making evident the relationship between slope and horizon. After an entry portal, a bridge extends the transition from the street and becomes an observatory. By stepping away from the slope, the house reduces its footing and frees up the most of green surface.
The stair becomes the core of the project, acting as the material axis and a threshold of light. It distributes to all levels and spaces making use of landings with framed views, bringing the landscape into the interior at different scales. The steps are strategically longer in some sections to slow down the person and allow for amore conscious act of transitioning between levels.
The top level holds the garage and access vestibule, being the next level down occupied by two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a master bedroom with private bathroom, a terrace and a studio, followed by the living room, dining and kitchen floor, and lastly a semi-buried level with a playroom and access to the lower garden.
The materiality responds to the function of the spaces. The highest volumes containing the bedrooms reach the clarity of the sky. The social level, the one with access to the gardens is expressed with a heavier nature using black stone rhythmically divided by small ridges that provide a continuous play of light and shadow mimicking the volcanic local stone. This two make the volume look embedded into the soil. Finally, an in between concrete is used for all of the volumes that contain service spaces.
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Edward James, one of the most eccentric and interesting twentieth-century collectors of surrealist art, arrived in Xilitla, Mexico at the end of the 1940’s. The British writer was captivated by the splendor of the landscape of “Las Pozas” (The Wells), where he created a fantastic home, which includes a unique sculptural space unlike any other in the world.
Surrealism, whose sources of creation are found in dreams and the subconscious, in theory, could never be used to build things in real life. Edward James – described by Salvador Dalí as “crazier than all the Surrealists together” – designed a sculpture garden that defies any architectural label and allows a glimpse of something new, moving between fantasy and reality.
Columns with capitals that look like giant flowers, gothic arches, dramatic gates, pavilions with undetermined levels and spiral staircases that end abruptly in mid-air, as if they were an invitation to the horizon. In short, Edward James made concrete flourish along the lush flora and fauna of Xilitla, making surrealist architecture possible.
Learn more below.
The Sculpture Garden
“Las Pozas” (The Wells) is a collection of concrete architectural structures and fantastic routes that make up a sculpture garden. A river with waterfalls runs through the garden and it is surrounded by jungle in a vast terrain. Its design was conceived by Edward James and Plutarco Gastélum in Xilitla, Mexico.
As the story goes, when they were exploring the Huasteca Potosina, a cloud of butterflies surrounded James and Gastélum while they were bathing in the river. The British writer interpreted this event as a magical sign. So, between 1947 and 1949, he began the construction of his version of the “Garden of Eden”.
During the first few decades, James focused his attention on horticulture. However, in 1962 a blizzard destroyed his collection of orchids. He then decided to build a perpetual garden and began to build concrete structures that resembled floral elements.
Since then, the sculpture garden has been converted into a source of creation and work for the locals. The entire construction of Las Pozas took about 150 people, including carpenters, bricklayers, and gardeners.
In 1984 Edward James died during a trip to northern Italy and in 1991 the doors of “Las Pozas” were opened to tourists.
“Las Pozas” and Its Lessons for Architects
Over the years, the sculptures gradually merged into a kind of random city, with harmony created by its structures and dialogue with its natural surroundings. Along its paths are hands and heads made of concrete, stone snakes, a bathtub in the shape of an eye – where James used to bathe in the pupil, surrounded by carp in “the white of the eye” – all with a tone of ruins, of something unfinished, taken by the jungle adding some mystery.
Walking through the Sculpture Garden is like exploring an undiscovered city. It’s almost as if its labyrinth paths fuel the desire to discover different corners and details. Upon entering, the architectural sculptures appear at different levels and views; it’s the place where you go to see and be seen.
In “Las Pozas” the viewer creates a new type of contact with the constructed work, the landscape, and all the other visitors. In a fantastic space like this, everyone seems to feel the same ambiance and all their thoughts stay within this environment. They are no longer bystanders concerned about day-to-day problems, everyone starts to live in the moment and reflect on each step taken.
In the first manifesto of the surrealist movement, André Breton defined it as: “… a dictated thought with the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt of any aesthetic or moral concern.” This idea is present in the architecture and in all creation behind “Las Pozas,” its buildings are built contrary to what we have learned in architecture school — they don’t offer a learning experience, but rather propose a discovery experience.
Clearly, these fantastic works could not be replicated in our ordinary cities, but they certainly present a new way of looking at the reality of architecture we produce every day. It is through new perspectives that we can imagine new ways of living.
For more information about “Las Pozas”, click here.
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The Furnished Void is a private residence renovated by Egue y Seta. It is located in Barcelona, Spain and was completed in 2016. The Furnished Void by Egue y Seta: “It wasn’t only paint, but textures, furniture, and the constant movement of those who inhabit this flat in Barcelona’s Eixample what has been placed over a deep and spotless white background that opens itself onto the streams of light entering..
