From the architect. Spectrum Apartments is situated on a site with three frontages. It was critical that the architecture address and activate all three frontages but also be of a single architectural language.
The project is expressed as strips of building mass to exemplify the diverse cultural context of Box Hill. The “strips” geometrically alternate over the floor plates to create highly articulated façades. The terminations of the “Strips” are expressed with brightly coloured fascia around the balconies, adding a vibrant presence to the public realm.
Diagram
To increase the public amenity of the occupants of the apartment, the internal circulation areas are open to the sky, acting as a “lung” to the development. This “lung” would provide for additional daylighting and natural ventilation while allowing for vegetation to populate the open atrium.
From the architect. Project is to design a space for MR. Homes that is a real estate agency providing all-inclusive real estate services – searching on mobile application, real estate transaction, and comprehensive facility managements. The space needs to act as a hub for tenants, landlords and real estate specialists as well as other potential customers for their derivative services as MR. Homes’ business going on.
They need seven booths where consultants work, meet customers, and make contracts. Suggestion was to deploy all-inclusive furniture every two meters. The furniture includes customer seating for two, a printer, and cabinet. Consultants sit perpendicular to their customers so as to give help easily. All-inclusive furniture module reflects MR. Homes’ all-inclusive business concept.
In the middle, a lounge is arranged in the form of exemplary home – 24 square meter studio which is their major type of property dealt with. This is made of painted lines on the floor and pieces of furniture on them. This is a half virtual space where customers walk around and get a sense of scale. It mediates experiences between the virtual world (on the App.) and the real world (property viewing). By the lounge, a communal table and Untitled Display Wall help define space identity. Communal table is basically for the long time waiting customers, but is also for the meeting place for the local. Untitled Display Wall is made up of movable shelves on the display rack. Here customers can collect curated information on living – local daily life, real estate, architecture and interiors. Tools rental corner is a part of the wall, where people can rent tools often necessary when moving in, such as monkey spanner and hammer drill. As such, Untitled Display Wall can be composed in any ways, as their business extends.
Model
Elevation
Materials
The biggest challenge during the project was the limited construction cost. Therefore, usable finish materials are narrowed down to cheapest ones. It is inevitable to rethink the conception of finishing – finishing with non-finish materials, using raw industrial materials such as plywood and Galvalume with minimum surface treatment. It is thought raw materials’ rough feeling could be mitigated with combination of wood and steel. Clear epoxy coated concrete floor is presented with vivid line drawing. Exposed ceiling is lit up by up-lighting solution. By these efforts, ‘raw’ is can be evaluated as pure, rather than rough.
Apple has debuted a series of new interior features at its latest store on San Francisco’s Union Square, designed with UK architecture firm Foster + Partners (+ slideshow). (more…)
Japanese firm Domino Architects has renovated an apartment in Tokyo by installing wooden partitions instead of building new walls (+ slideshow). (more…)
From the architect. Thai TV production office ‘Green 26′ received a full renovation by architect Anonym. Located in a town-home (Bangkok) Anonym created contrasting green and white ceiling, floor and walls feature throughout the 62 square meter office for the client. Anonym wanted to link both the past and future uses of the building by white epoxy flooring runs the length of the space.
Plan
A covered walkway was placed in the structure’s unused backyard space and provides extra brightness to the rooms by reflecting light. and a new inner courtyard was created. The working space is simple and spacious, furnished by a long desk in dark green and contrasting white chairs. Framing the desk is a green wall and sloping ceiling, equipped with simple light fittings.
Green is heavily used in the interior because it’s the client’s favorite color, name of the company, but also to represent the natural elements brought into the space by Anonym.
Penda has designed a landscape for Hyderbad, India, inspired by the country’s stepwells and water mazes. When completed, the 8,000 square meter (85,000 square foot) Magic Breeze Landscape will serve 145 apartments in a development by Pooja Crafted Homes. Some of the landscape’s signature features will be its bamboo coves, flower gardens, water displays, and built-in benches. The steps found throughout the landscape will double as planters for flowers, herbs, and grasses, that will serve as a communal garden for residents.
Courtesy of penda
The landscape’s maze-like characteristics allow for different experiences of the environment depending on the speed and purpose of the users: a wide, straight road is for runners, fast walkers, and emergency vehicles, a narrower walking path accommodates residents who want to quickly arrive at their apartments, and a third path takes more itinerant visitors onto the steps and through gardens in a more leisurely and transportive manner. The parks stepped and rectilinear appearance may for some recall the mid-century modern landscapes of Lawrence Halprin, or Dan Kiley’s roof gardens for the Oakland Museum; building by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo.
Courtesy of penda
Magic Breeze Landscape is scheduled to begin construction this summer.
British architecture firm Foster + Partners has opened the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to its industrial design work at London’s Aram Gallery (+ slideshow). (more…)
Important examples of Postmodern architecture in the UK are under threat, warns heritage campaign group the Twentieth Century Society, which is holding a conference this weekend to kickstart a wider movement to protect them. (more…)
