Dezeen Watch Store: the latest tactile timepiece by inclusive design company Eone is available to pre-order at Dezeen Watch Store, two years after the launch of the acclaimed Bradley. (more…)
From the architect. The Outside
Two resources have been used to resolve the initial difficult matter of the very limited presence of the existing building within the public space: using industrial materials that work in harmony with the port environment in which it is located and an express reference to binomial art-technique using the rhythms of punch cards used by Joseph-Marie Jacquard (1752-1834) in their looms from 1805.
The relationship between technical and artistic production today is reflected especially in the use of new pillars and modes of expression. De-contextualisation as a means of assessment of an isolated object and its integration in a different type of system connects past and present, reflecting the necessary and fruitful transfer of knowledge and experience between various disciplines. This relationship encourages curiosity and strives, consciously or unconsciously, to deepen, develop and advance knowledge and communication.
The Interior Spaces
The internal layout of the centre, is conceived as a fluid space, where in a continuous sequence, the visitor takes a journey bringing them closer to the contents on display, preparing them emotionally for the move from the noisy “outside world” into a space that allows “an inner experience” which if where we want the visit to be focused. This idea is embodied as a strategy, a certain fragmentation and visual shutdown that slowly takes us to different places, using different enclosure areas that serve as a filter and allow you to gradually discover each space in their true magnitude.
It is laid out on two floors Level 0 (access) and Level -1. Level 0 is made up of various areas and free access: cafe, shop, luggage lockers, and space for young audiences and temporary exhibitions.
Level -1 includes the rooms housing the collection. It is the first sample collection, intended to stay in Malaga for 2½ years, the five topics are: metamorphosis, self-portraits, the faceless man, the political body and the body in pieces, including works from the Pompidou Centre in Paris, with exhibition curator Brigitte Leal, head curator of heritage, deputy director of the National Museum of Modern Art. This floor hosts the multipurpose room / auditorium with a capacity for 121 people.
Empty Spaces
The cultural centre is structured around two areas that assume different characters: the empty outside space and the central exhibition space.
The empty outside space is perceived as an element of urban reference allowing us to always maintain the indoor-outdoor relationship. The space is not accessible, but provides “a window” from which to look inside.
It serves as a central element and organises the service spaces, these are arranged around the access, shop, luggage storage area and access to the collection.
For a first showing, Daniel Buren has produced a piece of work using coloured vinyl entitled “Incubated”.
The central exhibition space is made up of a central vacuum inside, which the visitor discovers during the process of immersion in the tour, and once at the access level, has a first glimpse of this space, although very fractional, through the vertical slats. It is the space around which the whole building is organised, with a large covered atrium, and takes on the character of a unique and distinctive space as its size and the versatility of its facilities can accommodate very diverse works. It is 8 metres high and its central area totals around 1,000 sqm.
Both areas share a common internal language using vertical wooden slats that establishes a dialogue between them.
Tours
The two connecting spaces between levels 0 and -1 have also been designed with a distinct character:
The central ramp-ladder, as an extension of the public space, is a fluid and slow declining space, which, almost in a processional manner, brings visitors to the collection preparing them to be challenged by the artistic proposal and deep content that lies within.
The wooden staircase, a serene and friendly space, provides a memorable image to close the experience.
The tours are accessible by lifts that connect the two levels.
Exhibition Rooms
The Pompidou Centre in Málaga, besides the central hall with three rooms for semi-permanent use, has a temporary exhibition hall and a workshop for young audiences.
Cozy beautifully proportioned rooms, expectant containers, equipped with all the systems required to accommodate the most demanding of collections.
Multipurpose Room
It poses as versatile space, with a seating system concealed under the floor that allows its use as a diaphanous room or an auditorium for 121 people. (made by FIGUERAS).
Service Space
The Pompidou Centre in Málaga also has a luggage storage area, shop and cafe.
Technical spaces
Spaces that house the air conditioning systems, security, catering and several others are arranged within a perimeter ring that allows the development of management and maintenance tasks without interfering with the operation of the centre.
It incorporates a forklift with independent access from the parking basement.
Externally there are no elements that “invade” the public space, so that the cover becomes a neutral outer space to accommodate the diverse activities of the Centre.
New York-based architecture firm, Leong Leong, created an installation inspired by “the experience of moving through landscapes in a Ford Edge,” for the third annual Sight Unseen OFFSITE exhibition as a part of the citywide NYCxDESIGN festival.
Titled TOPO, the installation was a scaleless environment composed of more than one thousand foam rollers. Collectively, they form a landscape “that is both an intimate sanctuary and an expansive horizon.” The installation was situated in a room of mirrors, giving the effect that it extends indefinitely.
“TOPO explores the experience of driving and the interior of a car as seamlessly merging into the environment, dissolving distinctions interior/exterior, open/closed and figure/field,” Leong Leong told ArchDaily in an email.
Designed in collaboration with ARUP, the exhibition also transforms the acoustic depth of the space through acoustic actuators that are scattered throughout the design, acting as an “interactive sound bath which creates a constantly changing field of sound,” according to Leong. “The mood of the space can transform radically because the sound is constantly changing. You can lay, sit, roll, have a seance…whatever.”
Architecture and automotive design have a long history together,” said Dominic Leong, partner at Leong Leong in a press release. “Beginning with the Italian Futurists’ fascination with the new perceptions of space and time enabled by the speed of the automobile to Le Corbusier’s infatuation with the engineered efficiency of the automobile — we are now seeing architecture and automotive design’s common interest in not just form and functionality, but in how we interface and relate to our environments. TOPO explores the experience of driving by dissolving the distinction between inside and outside, creating the perception of multiple environments within a single immersive space.”
French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has sculpted marble into a convincingly rippling pool for his Petite Loire installation, created for this year’s International Garden Festival (+ slideshow). (more…)
When hearing the word “skybridge” or “elevated walkway,” what often comes to mind is a narrow, glassed-in pathway perhaps crossing between two office buildings or hospital concourses; a narrow artery whose only purpose seems to be keeping people dry and away from cars as they walk from meeting to meeting. But this wasn’t always the case – in the 1960s, skyways were seen as radical urban inventions that would bring city circulation into the 3rd dimension. Championed in the United States by architect Victor Gruen, following ideals espoused by both CIAM and Team 10 in Europe, the skyway movement took hold in cities all over the world with varying degrees of success, but rarely with the fluid connections between levels originally envisioned by its designers.
The past decade had seen a renewed interest in the skybridge as an architectural element. Projects like Steven Holl’s Linked Hybrid complex in Beijing (2009) and Horizontal Skyscraper in Shenzhen (2009) feature elevated circulation connecting users to various buildings within a complex. Proposed dual towers by Dutch firm MVRDV in Seoul (2011) and BIG’s Cross # Towers (2015) are also connected via bridges containing public program. But where these designs utilize the skybridge successfully, they still remain independent entities rather than circulatory networks. Perhaps the best recent example is New York’s High Line (2009-2014), where the elevated park also works to navigate pedestrians through Manhattan’s west side.
This new interest brings us an opportunity to look back at the ways skyways have succeeded (in places such as Hong Kong) and failed (as in Cincinnati, alongside many American cities). In this article from Places Journal, Jennifer Yoos and Vincent James explore the origins and the political climates that surrounded the inception of elevated systems in cities such as Minneapolis/St. Paul, Dallas, Calgary and Hong Kong, and systems that could have been in New York City. As city density continues to increase and technology evolves, skyways may return as a way to bring public space to all levels of the city.
Read the entire article, “The Multilevel Metropolis,” here.
From the architect. This two storey walkout residence for a professional couple in Northwest Calgary negotiates a steeply sloping site with dramatic views of the Foothills and Rocky Mountains. The design was developed in response to both the unique characteristics of the site, and to the clients’ desire for an uncluttered, light filled, and accessible living space.
The house addresses the street with a subdued single storey façade, while the private, semi-enclosed courtyard described by the two wings of its L-shaped plan is enveloped by two storey curtain wall designed to take full advantage of the property’s views.
The plan consolidates the house’s private functions within a maple-clad volume, while its public functions are organized in a series of overlapping social spaces, framed and codified by the use of white lacquered millwork. These two halves of the residence’s program are connected visually across the courtyard space and spatially by a promenade running parallel to both the consolidated block of private spaces and the curtain wall.
Materially, the house draws on a limited number of sources: the public skin is comprised primarily of corrugated aluminum with inset planes of cedar at window apertures, while the private faces of the plan are clad in curtain wall glazing. The interior finishes show similar restraint, allowing light and shadow to describe the spaces while providing a complementary environment for the clients’ collection of contemporary art.
Foster + Partners‘ Craft + Manufacture: Industrial Design exhibition is currently on display at The Aram Gallery in London. It is the firm’s first exhibition dedicated to the industrial design work they have created over the past fifty years. It shows how “the science, art, and craft of making things” has been the foundation of the firm, and how the “collaborative nature of the design team pioneered by Norman Foster” has been translated into their architectural practice.
The exhibition looks at the industrial design team’s contributions to their architectural projects, including seating at the Cathay Pacific Lounge at the Hong Kong Airport, and furniture designed for the Maggie’s Cancer Center in Manchester.
The exhibition contains a variety of projects including designs for chairs, tables, shelving units, and even wind turbines, to name a few. Through these objects, viewers are able to understand how the practice believes in the seamless transition between structure and form at a range of scales.
“I have always had a very close relationship with the making of things – I find it impossible to separate the process of design from the process of making,” Norman Foster, Chairman and Founder of Foster + Partners, said in a press release. “The diversity of the practice’s work is a logical outcome of the way we have evolved through our core activity of designing buildings. For me, the constant theme that flows through our work is the fusion of the humanistic and poetic dimensions of an object, and the technical precision of industry – more succinctly craft and manufacture.”
The exhibition will run until July 2.
Learn more, here.
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.
Spain is one of the countries where the practice of architecture has been most affected by the economic crisis. There are few places on earth where such large numbers of buildings were built in such a short period of time. The lack of reflection over whether these projects were necessary or valid resulted in the subsequent abandonment of many buildings when their completion or maintenance was discovered not to be economically viable. Their appearance throughout Spanish territories has generated a collection of unfinished buildings where the factor of time was eliminated from the formula for making architecture.
Using photography as a filter to portray this reality, the Pavilion’s central space represents the optimistic view of those who have fought back against this recent past, understanding these inherited constructions as an opportunity.
The “Unfinished” exhibition, presented in the Spanish pavilion at the Biennale, seeks to direct attention to processes more than results in an attempt to discover design strategies generated by an optimistic view of the constructed environment.
The exhibition gathers examples of architecture produced during the past few years, born out of renunciation and economy of mens, designed to evolve and adapt to future necessities and trusting in the beauty conferred by the passage of time. These projects have understood the lessons of the recent past and consider architecture to be something unfinished, in a constant state of evolution and truly in the service of humanity. The current moment of uncertainty in our profession makes its consideration here especially relevant.
British studio Bennetts Associates has completed a house in a historic English town that is partly set into its sloping site and features a material palette chosen to complement the surrounding architecture (+ slideshow). (more…)
Field Way Bach is a private home located in Waikanae, New Zealand. It was designed by Parsonson Architects in 2014. Field Way Bach by Parsonson Architects: “This small holiday bach looks over the dune tops to the Esplanade Reserve in Waikanae, New Zealand. It was designed for a family who have owned the property for more than 30 years. An uninsulated 2 storey cabin was altered, insulated, reclad and extended…
