Located close to Sagamihara station, approx. 40 min. from central Tokyo, “TRAYS”, a two-story apartment of 12 residential units stands in suburb residential area mixed with large apartment complexes and detached houses. Being designed within the framework of two-story wooden apartment building in architectural regulations, “TRAYS” materializes a quality comfort of privacy and space in living by introducing the concept of “TRAY”, a residential unit complete with dwelling unit, balcony, and porch as a detached house. “TRAY”s are stacked on top and aligned to form an apartment building.
“TRAYS” is built on maximum building coverage ratio as well as setback-line limit, utilizing the maximum volume allowed within the building condition of the premises. Porch, sandwiched between walls with arch shape opening, is a space in front of the door where tenants can put their bikes which also serves as corridor in continuation with “TRAY”s.
Diagram
Tenants need to go through the porches of other tenants to go outside the apartment, leaving ambiguity of the privacy of porch. With the limited number of tenants, 6 in each floor, we considered sharing porches is within the acceptable range. Glass wall facing the porch gives visible access to and from the interior, which can be adjusted with blinds.
Interior of “TRAY” is finished in white, partitioned by grey wall to segment porch, dwelling unit, and balcony. All residential units have lofts and high ceiling, making the maximum height of the two-story apartment almost 10 m. In proportion to the height of the apartment, outer walls of “TRAY”s are also high to secure the privacy from outside while diagonally cut walls in the balcony and porch allow intake of light and wind, defining unique form of the building.
As two-way evacuation route is not required by Building Standards Act, there is no evacuation route between the balconies, which contributes to the privacy of the balconies. The only openings in the balcony are glass wall, doors and window to the dwelling unit, and the balcony can be utilized as part of the dwelling unit.
The building condition of the premises allows three-story reinforced concrete apartment building, however two-story wooden apartment was chosen in consideration of rent balance. Being categorized as two-story wooden apartment with loft in building regulation, this apartment was designed as quasi-maisonette with better access to loft space which is spacious and habitable.
Courtesy of The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
The Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat have announced the winners of the 15th edition of the CTBUH Tall Building Awards. From over 100 submissions, the best buildings from four regions – the Americas, Asia & Australasia, Europe and Middle East & Africa – were selected, along with recipients of the Urban Habitat Award, the Innovation Award, the Performance Award and the 10 Year Award. The CTBUH will pick a global winner from the regional selections later this year.
The towers were chosen by a panel of architects from world-renowned firms and were judged on every aspect of performance, looking in particular for “those that have the greatest positive impact on the individuals who use these buildings and the cities they inhabit.”
“VIA 57 West is an inspired hybrid of the traditional courtyard block and high-rise tower. Its complex and intelligently orientated architecture maximizes occupants’ views to the Hudson River and activates the New York City waterfront with a dynamic new standard for integrated urban infill development.” – Juror Michael Palladino, Design Partner, Richard Meier & Partners Architects
“Shanghai Tower shows the greatest commitment to communal space in a tall building since Commerzbank Tower completed in 1997. It contains the world’s first truly ‘inhabitable’ double-skin façade on a skyscraper, which is not only remarkable for its intended greenery, but its incorporation into the tower’s overall ventilation strategy. The sacrifice of valuable floor area to realize this social amenity proves that the aspirations for Shanghai Tower went far beyond mere commercial gain.” – Juror Antony Wood, Executive Director, CTBUH
Yiorgis Yerolymbos, courtesy of Nice Day Developments. ImageThe White Walls / Ateliers Jean Nouvel
“The White Walls is a truly groundbreaking exercise in materiality, serving as a successful expression of the architectural and environmental values of the Mediterranean across the vertical axis. Extensive vegetation on the north façade and the presence of loggias on the south façade create a very real connection with nature, while the tower’s punctured concrete walls quite literally ‘bleed green’ with tangles of local plant species.” – Juror Karl Fender, Director, Fender Katsalidis Architects
“The Cube indicates a clear alternative to the extruded box typology that defines the majority of residential high-rises around the world, instead comprising a stack of completely unique villas in the sky. The tower is particularly successful in its structural design, which features a system of elegantly framed girder walls that add visual flair and allow for completely unobstructed floor plans.” – Juror Hashimah Hashim, Executive Director, KLCC Property Holdings Berhad
“The Wuhan Tiandi Mixed-Use Development demonstrates that a master plan for a tall building neighborhood can include vibrant public spaces that offer a high level of intimacy, walkability, and social design. The disposition of tall buildings combined with an animated public realm creates a vibrancy that is rarely found in newly created communities. The Wuhan Tiandi complex offers a high quality of life for those that live, work, and visit – a quality of life that rivals long established tall building neighborhoods found elsewhere in the world.” – Juror James Parakh, Urban Design Manager, City Planning Department of Toronto
“Walking along the base of Hearst Tower, you might not even realize that you are right next to one of New York’s greatest architectural achievements of the 2000s. Built directly on top of a 1920s office relic, the tower made the world reexamine what’s possible in terms of preserving historic low-rise buildings in a dense downtown core. There’s also something cathartic about the juxtaposition between its classically reserved base and contemporary diagrid structure above.” – CTBUH Trustee Timothy Johnson, Design Partner, NBBJ
“It is rare to see a commitment to upgrade an existing building to this level of environmental performance. The extensive documentation of its energy upgrades and sustainability initiatives speaks for itself; TAIPEI 101 has been the subject of a tireless and exhaustive effort to become one of the most sustainable tall buildings in the world, and it has been successful in this mission. In addition to a comprehensive set of green technologies and systems installed throughout the building, a rigorous occupant engagement program really puts this project in a league of its own.” – Technical Juror Bill Browning, Co-Founder, Terrapin Bright Green
“The Pin-Fuse system opens the door to realizing increased resilience in buildings constructed in highly active seismic regions. By providing just the right amount of give under pre-determined axial loads, the system is innovative for its tested impact on repair frequency, costs, and structural longevity for buildings that have experienced an earthquake.” – Technical Jury Chair SawTeen See, Managing Partner, Leslie E. Robertson Associates
For more information on the 2016 CTBUH Awards, visit their website here.
Creative Industries represent an 8% of the GDP for mexican economy. Inside Mexico City, the Colonia Condesa is identified today as a historical district because of the wealth of its modern architecture. It is also acknowledged as one of the most creative areas of Mexico City. Either recognized by its Art Deco or International style architecture, most contemporary architecture interventions of the area have been resolved primarily for residential use. Iñaki Echeverria’s office proposes one of the few solutions coming from contemporary architecture for designed workspaces in the area. Sonora 113 incorporates new architecture in the Colonia Condesa which resolves eight offices for creative industries in one of the most innovative districts of Mexico City.
Sonora 113 provides space for projects that require premier present- day spaces as an advertising agency or a well positioned office for interior design and architecture. The building also houses a commercial space on the ground floor.
To resolve this commercial space, the building design has preserved the original facade of the house. Thus, Sonora 113 coexists with the history of the neighborhood, while offering intelligent solutions to elite creative projects in one of the most creative neighborhoods in Mexico City.
Iñaki Echeverria’s office resolved from an area of just 8 meters wide and with 409 square meters in surface, an intelligent vertical solution of 2700 square meters of construction. This solution implies that the high degree of technical challenges defined Sonora 113 in its architectural design.
The building was designed in six levels and includes a square-a public access area of activity at the entrance of the building with a shop on the ground floor, plus an underground parking level.
An MVRDV designed library in Tianjin has topped out as part of the city’s Binhai Cultural Centre. The 34,200 square meter (370,000 square foot) building will join four other cultural institutions designed by Bernard Tschumi Architects, Bing Thom Architects, HH Design, and GMP – creating “cultural corridors” – that are part of a GMP-designed masterplan. The library program includes educational facilities, service spaces, book storage, archives, computer rooms, audio rooms, an auditorium, lounge areas, meeting rooms, offices, general reading areas, and those designed specifically for children and the elderly. Tianjin Binhai Library has been designed by MVRDV in collaboration with the TIanjin Urban Planning and Design Institute (TUPDI).
Courtesy of MVRDV
The library’s rectilinear outer envelope gives way to a topographic interior atrium that is centered by a spherical, mirrored auditorium. MVRDV compares the effect to a giant “eye” granting panoramic views of the building’s interior. The sphere is surrounded by terraced bookshelves that also double as seating and extend around the building’s exterior in the form of horizontal louvers. As the library’s exterior volume was stipulated in the site masterplan, MVRDV calls the “eye” an “inverted icon” or “central point and folly for the building.”
Courtesy of MVRDV
“The Eye is the centre of the library. It ‘hollows out’ the building and creates, out of bookshelves, an environment to sit, to read, to hang out, to climb and to access, to create an organic social space,” says MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas. “In its heart is the auditorium which mirrors the environment, giving a 360 degree panorama of the space inside; a truly reflective and pensive environment.”
Courtesy of MVRDV
Courtesy of MVRDV
Outside of functioning as a typical library, the building is meant to be both an education center and a connector from the adjacent parkland into the cultural district. As part of the 120,000 square meter (1.3 million square foot) masterplan by GMP, the complex is intended to be a junction for Tianjin’s CBD, old town, residential districts, commercial areas, and the government quarter.
Book Mountain Activity Zones
The library, MVRDV’s second project in Tianjin after TEDA Urban Fabric (completed in 2009), is anticipated to open in mid-2017.
From the architect. This peculiar and personal “loft” is located near Malvarrosa Beach, in the distinctive neighborhood of “El Cabañal” at Valencia City. The Origin house responded to the top floor of a very common type of town house between party walls. It’s accessed from the Street through a narrow staircase. The depth of plot required the existence of intermediate rooms that were illuminated and ventilated by a small courtyard; on the other hand, the kitchen and the “toilet” occupied the rear façade as attached parts, and connected through an ancient terrace that had been closed; Finally, throughout the house roof was a ceiling of plaster that hid the actual volume of the steep cover Gable.
Based on a program of basic needs that requires the existence of a single room and a terrace, the project arises as a “loft” in which the only closed part is the bath. In this way, the original volume is put in prospective value: all the interior partitions are deleted to create a unique space where everything happens.
The fundamental work was based, therefore, on removing and choosing what is going to stay. We only added a slight ‘platform’ that seems to float in the middle of space and contrasts in materiality with the rest of the original constructive elements.
Sections
Certain elements were preserved and brought to light, or even “reinterpreted” with another utility, so the past and the future of the house dialogue calmly:
-The anterior and posterior walls were left in the original brick wall, and the entire roof of wood beams was cleaned and restored.
-The old ceiling line was drawn in the space through various resources: with a few light volumetric changes, remaining the height of the original plaster cladding oh the pillars, and retaining the two main beams that supported it.
Floor Plan
-This preserved wood substructure became the space limit of the attic which is the bedroom, as well as used as part of the new railing glass.
-The small and narrow courtyard became a skylight which illuminates the heart of the House. An old window was preserved as a decorative piece, at the time that brought light to the dining area.
-The ancient woodwork was restored and painted in white to bring more light into the space. An old cupboard became a key piece that serves as a shelf, wardrobe, pantry and warehouse.
-The new linear kitchen which was situated in one of the walls was designed by contrast in gray tones that highlights two volumes twinned with a modern and clean image which moves away from the textures, colors and shapes of the rest of preserved woodwork.
Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter have been selected as the winners of an international competition to design The Icefjord Centre in the UNESCO-protected area of Ilulissat, Greenland. Beating out proposals from leading architects including Snøhetta, Rintala Eggertsson Architects and Kengo Kuma and Associates, the new pavilion will serve as an exhibition and gathering space for locals, tourists and researchers alike.
Courtesy of Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter
Selected by the jury for its “poetic, simple and visionary design,” the building takes the form of a giant wooden truss, allowing the structure to float delicately above the rugged landscape of the Sermermiut Valley. The framework is clad in wooden decking and twists to touch the ground on either end, providing access to the viewing platform on the pavilion’s roof. As the new starting point for the Ilulissat Icefjord World Heritage Trail, the roof deck will also contain gathering and informal seating areas.
Courtesy of Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter
Inside the building, a large exhibition area dedicated to telling the story of ice and human history will be located in the apex of the curving plan. Additional interior spaces will include a café and gift shop adjacent to the exhibition space, and research facilities, offices and support spaces along the wings. In section, the rotating geometry of the structure focuses views out to the glacier and surrounding landscape.
Courtesy of Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter
The project comes following the Icefjord’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 and will be realized in partnership between the Government of Greenland, Qaasuitsup Kommunia and the Danish philanthropic organization, Realdania. The pavilion is scheduled to open autumn 2020.
A gold pyramid and a suspended rock face feature in British artist Anish Kapoor‘s abstract set design for the English National Opera’s production of Tristan and Isolde (+ slideshow). (more…)
