Clerkenwell Design Week 2016: London designer Kia Utzon-Frank has created a set of sculptural cakes that look like blocks of solid polished stone. (more…)
Kia Utzon-Frank disguises cakes as geometric marble sculptures
Architecture
Church Saint John Paul II / VZ Arquitectos
© Enrique Villar Pagola, Juan Carlos Quindós
- Architects: VZ Arquitectos
- Location: Av. Miguel de Cervantes, 8, 47130 Entrepinos, Valladolid, Spain
- Author Architects: Enrique Villar Pagola, Rodrigo Zaparaín Hernández
- Collaborators: Fernando Vassallo Magro (architect), Javier Martínez Pérez (altarpiece sculptor), Lope Hierro Martín (draftsman)
- Area: 920.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2008
- Photographs: Enrique Villar Pagola, Juan Carlos Quindós
- Promoter: Archbishop of Valladolid
- Builder: Construcciones Fernando Ribero e hijos
- Date: project: january 2006, final: june 2008
- Cost: 520.000 €
© Enrique Villar Pagola, Juan Carlos Quindós
The Church of St. John Paul II is situated in a residential estate, on a parcel of land set in a green space with access from a street with little traffic. This is a small church destined for use by the residents of the area. What was suggested was a building with a rounded volume, taking into account the recesses in the landscape, with the intention of generating a sculptured piece which illustrates its character as an outstanding edifice.
© Enrique Villar Pagola, Juan Carlos Quindós
The massive total volume is broken down into parts when it is transversed. It spreads out under the awning which covers the atrium in the exterior and the bell tower. It has been dealt with as a solid body which has been excavated until reaching the final result. The apertures for light are concentrated in the bases connected to the accesses.
© Enrique Villar Pagola, Juan Carlos Quindós
The whole edifice has been built with two materials: a granite base which adjusts itself to the height, together with a covering of limestone which gives it its massive character. The finish of the parapets without coping of any other material contributes to increase the idea of a rounded volume.
© Enrique Villar Pagola, Juan Carlos Quindós
In the interior the building has been designed as a singular nave with double height which expands into a lateral nave where the chapel for the tabernacle as well as auxiliary spaces can be found. The choir is found “floating” in the middle of the nave, further forward compared to its traditional placement. In this way a gradual sequential access to the interior has been created which commences in the outdoor pedestrian public space. This continues rom the covered exterior atrium with its awning to the interior glazed atrium, the crevice of light before reaching the base of the choir and the progressive uncovering of the altarpiece while the entire space of the nave is inundated with zenithal light.
Plan
Section
The interior has also been treated in a sculptured manner, fostering the excavated volumes which push the space generating entrances for natural light from three directions connected to the orientation of the sun during the day. It has been attempted that the light sources are hidden from view. An interior level has been established to the base which forms the chapel of the tabernacle, the back of the presbytery and the auxiliary spaces joined together with a latticework made of strips of wood.
© Enrique Villar Pagola, Juan Carlos Quindós
© Enrique Villar Pagola, Juan Carlos Quindós
The central nave is covered with a series of prestressed concrete beams which form a continuous plane and hide the electrical and other systems. That way a massive compact volume is formed by the lateral closures, the roof beams and the choir platform is supported by and floats over the continuous base. The carpentry of the interior, the benches and the church furniture, unified by the use of “Iroko” wood, provide warmth and an intimate scale in the central nave.
© Enrique Villar Pagola, Juan Carlos Quindós
The altarpiece, which is the work of the sculptor Javier Martinez, has been conceived as scenographic, specially worked for the scene which it represents. Special attention has been given to light, the background and the spatial relationships between the figures.
© Enrique Villar Pagola, Juan Carlos Quindós
Interview with Zvi Hecker: “Good Architecture Cannot Be Legal; It Is Illegal!”
Heinz-Galinski School Berlin, Germany, 1995. Image © Michael Krüger
Throughout the course of his career, the forms present in Zvi Hecker‘s work have undergone significant changes – from the rigidly geometric shapes of his early work such as his Ramot Polin housing and Synagogue in the Negev Desert, to his more freeform recent works like the Jewish School he designed in Berlin. Hecker, though, sees all of his works as both consistent with each other and individual, describing himself as “an artist whose profession is architecture.” In this interview from his “City of Ideas” column, Vladimir Belogolovsky speaks with Hecker about his inspirations and the ideas that underpin his career.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: I visited the Heinz-Galinski school here in Berlin where your original idea came from the pattern of sunflower seeds; it was not the first time you used it. Could you talk about your fascination with the sunflower, and why you think it is a good guiding principle for a building?
Zvi Hecker: Well, one can’t qualify it as a blueprint for every building. This one was the first Jewish school built in Berlin after the Holocaust. Coming from Israel, I wondered—what could I bring to the children of Berlin? A flower is a natural present and a sunflower is a common flower in Israel. What began as a sunflower evolved into a series of continuously changing images. Already in the construction stage, it looked to some like a kind of a small city with winding streets and courtyards, not really a building. Later on when the schematic model of the load-bearing walls was made, we were surprised to find out that “pages of an open book” were hidden in our design. We didn’t realize it earlier—in Hebrew, school is Beth-Sefer, which literally means “house of the book.”
Heinz-Galinski School Berlin, Germany, 1995. Image © Zvi Hecker
VB: So if you wanted to be clever, you could say that you conceived the school as the house of the book from the beginning.
ZH: But if I began with the idea of a book, I would certainly end with the sunflower. [Laughs.] Because it is the transformation from one idea to another that happens in the process of design. No matter which way the process begins, it is the result that counts. One can start with “a” to finish with ”k” or hopefully with “z.”
Heinz-Galinski School Berlin, Germany, 1995. Image © Zvi Hecker
VB: Going back to the sunflower, you said that it is a good gift to the children of Berlin. But you’ve used the sunflower metaphor in the past as well. So it is a recurring idea in your work. Could you elaborate why?
ZH: You know, during World War II, we were deported to Siberia from Soviet-occupied Polish territory. Then we were sent to Samarkand, in Uzbekistan. There during the afternoon, after the classes at primary school, I sketched the local Uzbek houses. That’s when I became an architect. It was a time of a food shortage and the sunflower was helpful… So the sunflower has a personal meaning for me. And it is also nature’s greatest phenomenon. The formation of its seeds follows the mathematical sequence of the golden section. It provides great nutrition, its vibrant color radiates to great distances… What else could nature do for us?
Heinz-Galinski School Berlin, Germany, 1995. Image © Michael Krüger
VB: Speaking about your school project, you said that the “dynamic and organic character of the sunflower resonates with the nature of education.” How so?
ZH: Well, the school was first a sunflower, then a city, then a book… But in a way, it remains a sunflower. And it is not as if Zvi Hecker has built a sunflower, nothing like that, but because the walls, facing the sun, reflect the sunlight deep into the classroom’s interior. The unique nature of the sunflower, not its form, is at work here. The way children assimilate knowledge is reminiscent of the way the sunflower captivates the sun’s rays. Education is the illumination of the mind. And I think that education at this school goes on not only in the classrooms. The architecture of the building is a source of education in itself.
Heinz-Galinski School Berlin, Germany, 1995. Image © Michael Krüger
VB: Your school is not just a realization of one unique building. It is consistent with what you have done before and since. It is a work in progress. It is your manifesto in the making, is that right?
ZH: For me, the greatest human invention is bread. You take the flour, yeast, water, salt—nothing special—and you bake the most delightful foodstuff. The same is true for architecture—you mix cement, sand, water—nothing special—and you get a beautiful concrete. You know, Frank Lloyd Wright once said: “Ladies and gentlemen, a brick is worth ten cents, if you give it to me, I will turn it into gold.” It is the magic of transformation—what you make out of what you take. And this alchemical process is a life-long labor, not just for one building.
What seems to be consistent in my work is the absence of free-standing buildings for people to go around in admiration. You know, you can’t go around the Jewish school, there is nothing to see. You have to go inside, even though you will still be outside. My buildings very often tend to interchange into a semblance of a city; its walls shape buildings, squares, and courtyards, providing an enclosure and a sense of security.
Spiral Apartment House, Ramat Gan, Israel, 1989. Image © Zvi Hecker
VB: Some of your early residential projects are based on a repetition of the same modular, and other projects are freer, based on such imagery as hands and spirals with all spaces being unique. Are these different ideas or are they part of one idea?
ZH: As a student of Alfred Neumann it was natural for me to use modular geometry as a kind of matrix and grammar for the architectural design. But of course it was only the way to make the idea intelligible, not an aim in itself – rather a kind of scaffolding taken off when the building is completed. Later on, images like the palm of a hand, a maple leaf, or a sunflower imposed their own syntax. An organic metaphor runs through many of my designs.
Spiral Apartment House, Ramat Gan, Israel, 1989. Image © Zvi Hecker
VB: You are perceived as an “artist-architect.” Is that how you see yourself?
ZH: I see myself on both sides of the art spectrum. I regularly exhibit my artwork in art galleries and show my architectural projects in architecture museums. Sometimes I hear people say, “So, you are really an artist.” I suppose it is a compliment, since being an artist seems to be better than just being an architect. [Laughs.] I don’t deny that I am an artist and I answered, ”I am an artist whose profession is architecture.”
Spiral Apartment House, Ramat Gan, Israel, 1989. Image © Zvi Hecker
VB: Do you intend your buildings to be works of art?
ZH: I believe an artist’s path is toward transcendence. I hope that my designs, when built, will be considered works of art within architecture, but who can predict it? We also don’t know what our children will become but we must provide them with the best possible education. This is what the process of design is all about, broadening the intelligence of our designs.
Spiral Apartment House, Ramat Gan, Israel, 1989. Image © Zvi Hecker
VB: Would you say you are a signature architect? Is that the intention—to find your distinctive voice and express it artistically?
ZH: Distinctive voice is a very poetic expression; I like it, though I think I am rather looking for a distinctive voice for each of my designs. If one detects a certain coherence in my “oeuvre” it is a natural result of what I stand for; what I believe in, it is not a conscious attempt toward a distinctive diction of mine, but rather a faithfulness to what is manifested in the design.
Ramot Polin Housing, Jerusalem, Israel, 1975. Image © Rudolf Klein
VB: Isn’t that the intention of every architect?
ZH: Personally, I try to satisfy my common sense and eventually refine the intelligence of my design. But I am not trying to attain a particular expression that would be distinctly mine. It would anyhow be fruitless. I believe that if you cultivate your own garden something will grow out of your seeds. As a young architect, I consciously avoided Le Corbusier’s example, but it was very tempting. Some of my generation fell into this trap. I liked Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture and his arrogant posture. You know, Bruce Goff once told me about Wright’s reaction to one of his latest designs: “Bruce, who are you trying to scare?” And then he added, “but we do scare them sometimes.” [Laughs.]
Ramot Polin Housing, Jerusalem, Israel, 1975. Image © Rudolf Klein
VB: You like testing your clients and exploring your limits.
ZH: I am an artist after all. You know, real art and real architecture cannot be totally legal; very often both are in direct conflict with legality.
Spiral Apartment House, Ramat Gan, Israel, 1989. Image © Zvi Hecker
VB: These are some radical thoughts! What do you mean?
ZH: Well, look at my Spiral Apartment House in Ramat Gan, Israel. It has its illegal twist. One can question, for example, the legality of the changes I made in plans during the construction phase, plans that were approved by the building authority and bought on paper by the people. They wanted to sue me. The construction was stopped repeatedly because of complaints from the neighbors. In order to keep going, it needed the assertion of my personal will and total dedication, by working by myself on the scaffolding. This illegal provocative element is not foreign to art; it is a kind of disruptive agent that upsets the established order.
Ramot Polin Housing, Jerusalem, Israel, 1975. Image © Rudolf Klein
VB: So do you see yourself as a radical architect?
ZH: Not at all. The so called “radical designs” play egalitarian games and look very commercial. I would gladly consider myself as the architect of the pyramids in Egypt, temples in Greece, or castles in Spain. I am a traditional architect because I try to address the basic traditional needs of the people. If someone sees me as a radical, it is most probably because of the way I interpret those needs in contemporary terms.
Ramot Polin Housing, Jerusalem, Israel, 1975. Image © Rudolf Klein
VB: Well, being radical is also a tradition—building something that never has been done before, whether pyramids, temples, or castles. Part of architectural tradition is breaking traditions, that’s what you mean. You teach architecture; do you have any particular ways of doing that?
ZH: The architectural tradition is the richest and oldest of all the arts, and is also very well documented, for over 4,000 years now. But at some schools of architecture, teaching begins with so-called modern architecture. I think students would learn more if exposed to the way cities like Rome, Paris, Barcelona, and Krakow were masterfully expanded by nineteenth-century architects. They were the real modern architects!
Synagogue in the Negev Desert, Military Academy, Israel, 1969. Image © Zvi Hecker
VB: You’ve said: “Architecture is above all an act of magic . . . due to the fact that it hides more than it reveals. What we look at, what we see, is only a reflected image of what we cannot see: architecture’s soul.” Do you think architecture’s soul is always hidden?
ZH: Architecture’s soul can’t be seen. Like in the plays of Anton Chekhov—we can only guess what the sisters in the Three Sisters feel like, as they are unable to spell it out. That is why these plays are always contemporary; silence is never outdated. The same is true for architecture. The silence of what can’t be seen creates the architectural form and its invisible soul.
Synagogue in the Negev Desert, Military Academy, Israel, 1969. Image © Henry Hutter
VB: Do you ever tell your students what architecture is?
ZH: I don’t know what architecture is; I only know what architecture is not. I have to discover it for myself in each new project. You may find some common threads in my work, though it seems to me that I always start from zero. I believe so. For me, designing a building is like cooking a meal. I try not to reheat the old stuff, but start with ordinary ingredients in hopes of arriving at an extraordinary taste.
I like working with limitations. It is all about overcoming and exploiting difficulties. As a result, some of my buildings look as if they were always there. That’s a very good sign.
Synagogue in the Negev Desert, Military Academy, Israel, 1969. Image © Zvi Hecker
VLADIMIR BELOGOLOVSKY is the founder of the New York-based non-profit Curatorial Project. Trained as an architect at Cooper Union in New York, he has written five books, including Conversations with Architects in the Age of Celebrity (DOM, 2015), Harry Seidler: LIFEWORK (Rizzoli, 2014), and Soviet Modernism: 1955-1985 (TATLIN, 2010). Among his numerous exhibitions: Anthony Ames: Object-Type Landscapes at Casa Curutchet, La Plata, Argentina (2015); Colombia: Transformed (American Tour, 2013-15); Harry Seidler: Painting Toward Architecture (world tour since 2012); and Chess Game for Russian Pavilion at the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale (2008). Belogolovsky is the American correspondent for Berlin-based architectural journal SPEECH and he has lectured at universities and museums in more than 20 countries.
Belogolovsky’s column, City of Ideas introduces ArchDaily’s readers to his latest and ongoing conversations with the most innovative architects from around the world. These intimate discussions will be a part of the curator’s upcoming exhibition with the same title to premier at the University of Sydney in June 2016. The City of Ideas exhibition will then travel to venues around the world to explore ever-evolving content and design.
A version of this interview was previously published by uncube. It was shared with ArchDaily by the author, with permission from uncube.
BUS Architecture designs modular play facility for cities with limited space
Korean firm BUS Architecture’s Undefined Playground unfolds to transform crowded city space into a public sports facility for football, tennis, basketball or Frisbee (+ slideshow). (more…)
Valeria House / Luciano Kruk + María Victoria Besonías
© Daniela Mac Adden
- Architects: Luciano Kruk, María Victoria Besonías
- Location: Valeria del Mar, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Architect In Charge: María Victoria Besonías + Luciano Kruk
- Area: 190.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2013
- Photographs: Daniela Mac Adden
- Collaborators: Arch. Diorella Fortunati, Juan Martín Antonutti, Federico Eichenberg, Pablo Magdalena
- Plot Area: 1245 sqm
© Daniela Mac Adden
The place
It is ground in a new development, with lush vegetation and crossed by tall dunes. The lot allows a dual income through a cul de sac at its narrowest or from the street on the opposite front. The peculiarity is that in both situations the sharp difference in height between the street and the lot becomes difficult access to the house.
© Daniela Mac Adden
The customers order was a house to move into at different times of the year that would have four bedrooms, the master with en-suite bathroom, two for the children with a shared bathroom (with multiple places to sleep as they are often accompanied by friends) and a fourth bedroom for guests with some independence, also with bathroom. The meeting place should be integrated with the kitchen and be as generous as possible. A reservoir for saving different beach items and a semi-covered garage is also required.
© Daniela Mac Adden
The proposal
It is certainly the particular batch already described, which gives uniqueness to this home.
© Daniela Mac Adden
His sharp relief, the characteristics of its accessibility, quantity, quality and position of its trees were crucial project issues.
Ground Floor
The house was planned as a compact volume that could be located in the existing forest glade. Since this place matched the highest point of the property, it was decided to solve all the main rooms on that level giving to them an overview and the possibility to extend to the outside through generous expansions.
© Daniela Mac Adden
Following this first decision was proposed to place part of the program (in this case the sector guests) at a lower level for a smaller plant and resolve this function the height difference of the main floor with access to the lot.
Section
The resulting prism has two very distinct façades, facing SE, quite closed with one major breach in the social sector access; the opposite, the NO, large openings, determined with a series of vertical partitions not reach the floor. This resource provides unity to a façade that has different uses, as well as give some privacy to environments and protects the incidence of sunlight directly over the openings.
© Daniela Mac Adden
The functional organization
You enter the property from the cul de sac, and that level garage, storage and access to guest sector appears. Going up a level through a concrete staircase you get to the main floor. Once you are inside the area aside of bedrooms and bathrooms and to the opposite side, the staircase that descends to the guest sector so that it is connected to the rest of the house if so required.
Upper Plan
The area of family reunion overlooks both sides of the lot and has an expansion. The master bedroom is at the end of the most intimate area and also has an expansion.
© Daniela Mac Adden
Construction
The house is built with two basic materials: exposed concrete and glass.
The exposed concrete structure is, cladding and floor and has no external termination, interior.
© Daniela Mac Adden
The structural proposal is simple: it is supported by inverted slabs or simple beams, except in one end of the prism which is solved with a major cantilever column to release the access area.
Section
The cover is solved by simply giving a minimum slope to the last slab to rapidly produce runoff of rainwater. H21 concrete was used with the addition of a fluidizing to this mixture with small amount of water, when dried, resulting not very compact and require sealing. The few hollow brick interior walls are plastered and painted, the floor is concrete screed cloths divided by plates of aluminum.
© Daniela Mac Adden
Furniture
Except the double bed, armchairs and chairs, the rest of the equipment of this property is resolved in concrete. Even the beds of the secondary bedrooms are resolved perforated cantilever slabs.
These Fantastical Architectural Illustrations Are Made Using Autocad
HOUSE PATTERN. Image Courtesy of Fabiola Morcillo
Fabiola Morcillo Núñez, an architect from the University of Chile, is 26-years-old and has been formally drawing under the name 1989 for about a year and a half. Her illustration project uses basic tools of architecture to build fictitious and imaginary spaces based on Asian architecture and pop art.
Fabiola is aware of the design benefits of paper and uses its abilities to imagine spaces without any limits.
“Architecture as a discursive tool has helped me a lot in constructing my own form of representation,” says Fabiola who is inspired mostly by Eastern culture. At school she had the opportunity to participate in the Ocho al Cubo (Eight Cubed) workshop, which brought eight of the most important architects of Japan to 8 of the most important architectural schools in Chile. Among the visiting architects were Sou Fujimoto, Sanna, Atelier Bow Wow and Kengo Kuma.
METABOLISM. Image Courtesy of Fabiola Morcillo
There she met and spoke with some of the previously mentioned architects, and was introduced to Asian architecture, a theme that has followed her for the rest of her life. Other themes include the limits of space and their deconstruction through questioning ways of living, building visual layers and the multiplicity of results produced in her work.
This illustration belongs to the study of a bath made for the cassette art for No Problema Tapes "The Void" by the artist Babexo. Image Courtesy of Fabiola Morcillo
“The story that left an impression on me was the concept of Kengo Kuma’s ‘Museum of Hiroshige,’ which is inspired by an illustration by Hiroshige — ‘Sudden Shower Over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake’ — in which the image composition is described as an overlap of a series of layers, “The layers of the land,” says Fabiola. She was influenced by the beautiful interactions between art, history, daily life, and in this case, architecture. This led to her first illustration as 1989.
Later she decided to draw her favorite works and daydream about them creating pop images containing fantasies, objects and impossibilities.
LOCAL. Image Courtesy of Fabiola Morcillo
“I like to take several references, be alert to life itself, be very observant and have a broad sense of understanding of beauty and the tools of creation that are presented throughout the day, for example; the internet, books, movies, the street, travel, personal stories, aesthetic preferences, dreams, philosophy etc.”
LOCAL. Image Courtesy of Fabiola Morcillo
“I’m on an endless quest for history and for my life, trying to unite many concepts and display them in a single image.”
In her recent work she created cover art for a NIET CHRIST album (Cristian Nieto) for the label No Problem Tapes, called “Metabolism”. For this project the concept was devised by both thinking about music and reflecting on her favorite subjects. After this process she made two illustrations of the outside and inside of the building “Nakagin Capsule Tower” by Kisho Kurokawa, trying to show the nostalgia and beauty of the Japanese Metabolism architectural movement.
From China with love. Image Courtesy of Fabiola Morcillo
Fabiola’s meticulous work doesn’t move away from the digital world that she has been immersed in throughout her career. She uses Autocad to make her drawings, bringing technical drawing to the world of illustration.
1989. Image Courtesy of Fabiola Morcillo
Currently the artist is doing projects abroad in Taiwan and local collaborations with illustrator Bito Riveros. You can follow her Fan Page here.
Wooden cabins and tents on stilts provide accommodation at South Korean glamping site
Seoul studio ArchiWorkshop has completed a luxury camping facility near the South Korean capital, which comprises three wooden cabins and a cluster of membranous sleeping pods raised above the rocky terrain on stilts (+ slideshow). (more…)
Robert Greg Shand Architects Design a Spectacular Contemporary Home in Singapore
No. 2 is a private residence located in Singapore. Designed by Robert Greg Shand Architects, it was completed in 2016.
Patrick Jost Creates an Addition for a Private Residence in Malvern
Malvern House is a remodeling project completed by Patrick Jost in 2015. The home is located in Malvern, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Malvern House by Patrick Jost: “The project involved a small, inter-war semi-detached house which despite the local council’s Heritage B grading, appeared to have very few significant features or attributes. From the outset, this posed challenges to achieving the client’s enthusiastic brief. The planning restraints meant that..
The Architectural Imagination: Inside the US Pavilion for the 2016 Venice Biennale
The Architectural Imagination / curated by Cynthia Davidson and Monica Ponce de Leon. The US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu
As part of ArchDaily’s coverage of the 2016 Venice Biennale, we are presenting a series of articles written by the curators of the exhibitions and installations on show.
The Architectural Imagination presents twelve new speculative architecture projects designed for specific sites in Detroit but with far-reaching applications for cities around the world.
As the home of the automobile industry, the free-span concrete factory, Motown, and techno, Detroit was once a center of American imagination, not only for the products it made but also for its modern architecture and modern lifestyle, which captivated audiences worldwide.
Today, like many post-industrial cities, it is coping with the effects of a declining population and an urban landscape pockmarked with blight. Nonetheless, having emerged from bankruptcy, there is new excitement in Detroit to imagine the city’s possible futures, both in the downtown core and in its many neighborhoods.
Believing in the potential of architecture to catalyze change, the curators selected visionary American architectural practices to address these futures.
The Architectural Imagination / curated by Cynthia Davidson and Monica Ponce de Leon. The US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu
With the help of an eleven-member Detroit advisory board, they also selected four sites for the projects: a lot in Mexicantown, a riverfront post office, parcels along the Dequindre Cut, and the Packard Plant.
The Architectural Imagination / curated by Cynthia Davidson and Monica Ponce de Leon. The US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu
The architects worked with Detroit residents to understand neighborhood aspirations before devising the programs and forms exhibited here. The projects not only demonstrate the value and diversity of the architectural imagination but also have the potential to spark the collective imagination, and thus launch new conversations about the importance of architecture in Detroit and cities everywhere.
