Courtesy of Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas

Massimiliano and his wife and interior designer, Doriana Fuksas, have designed luxury villas for a 300-acre resort community at Is Molas Golf Resort in Sardinia, Italy. Envisioned as “inhabited sculptures,” the design includes four different prototypes of “eco-friendly, open-concept, and uniquely-designed villas” spread throughout the site of an 18-hole golf course designed by former professional golfer, Gary Player.

Courtesy of Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas

The first four villas will be unveiled this summer and eleven more are scheduled to be constructed in the fall. They range in size from 2,953 square-feet to 8,858 square-feet.

Courtesy of Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas

The four types are examples of “bio-architecture” and are constructed with mainly natural materials that will be sourced locally. The schematic design is an interpretation of the structures of the ancient Nuragic civilization, placing an emphasis on respecting the land and culture of the ancient civilization.

Courtesy of Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas

Once completed, the site will include 150 villas with a wide range of amenities including a beach club, upscale restaurants, boutiques, a fitness center, multiple bike paths, housekeeping services, personal chefs and butlers, pet care, and medical assistance, just to name a few.

Courtesy of Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas

“Is Molas is an experimental project which works with the elements of nature,” states Massimiliano Fuksas, in a press release. “These villas take the form of eroded structures which are shaped by the wind with open, free-flowing designs allowing both sun and wind to penetrate the walls of the villas. With this project man returns to live inside inhabited sculptures that are the new forms of design, surpassing the box, the cage, the closure, and experiencing a sense of freedom.”

Learn more, here.

http://ift.tt/1Wu2ZQG

© João Morgado

• Architects: Escritório de Arquitetos
• Location: 4940 Linhares, Portugal
• Architect In Charge: Nuno Flores
• Engineering: BO Associados
• Area: 120.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: João Morgado

© João Morgado

From the architect. Within the Paredes de Coura region, this construction dates from the year 1699 with secondary works in 1703. It’s integrated in a farm and was a farmer house. It follows the traditional architectural traits found throughout the rural landscape in the north of Portugal.

© João Morgado

In order to serve its new purpose for rural tourism the building was enlarged in order to work as an independent house with two bedrooms and a studio room. The addition of a wall was necessary. To keep the original character of the construction this new wall was built with similar width and stone.

© João Morgado

Facing south, the “L” shaped house allows the best use of its solar orientation with the creation of individual outdoor spaces that have separate access from each house.

© João Morgado

Floor Plan

© João Morgado

The reworked farmer house now functions as an independent building destined for modern rural tourism.

© João Morgado

http://ift.tt/1XotUfI

© Seventeen Playgrounds

The Dutch Structuralist architect Aldo van Eyck left his mark in Amsterdam – not only in the form of buildings but also, perhaps surprisingly, in the form of urban playgrounds. Over the course of his career he created a network of more than 700 playgrounds throughout the capital. Today, only a handful of these remain intact. A special publication, compiled by Denisa Kollarova and Anna van Lingen, revisits the seventeen remaining Van Eyck playgrounds in Amsterdam’s city centre. The following extract from the book seeks to introduce the project, and describe its urgency.

We live in an era in which there are not many carefully constructed playgrounds. We don’t like what we see. Have we—city decision makers, architects, designers, parents, friends —forgotten to be critical?

There are so many architects, artists and thinkers of the past who have proven that a playground can be much more than just generic plastic structures placed randomly, constructed by simply flipping through the pages of play equipment catalogues. One of them is Aldo van Eyck, who designed a large number of public playgrounds for the city of Amsterdam.

His playgrounds are something that all children growing up in Amsterdam in the ‘50s, 60’s and 70’s are familiar with. They played in the concrete sandpits, hung upside down on the tumbling bars or invented games in the igloo shaped climbing frames. Van Eyck’s playgrounds were a recognizable aspect of the city and at a certain moment there were over seven hundred different playgrounds throughout Amsterdam.

© Seventeen Playgrounds

Aldo van Eyck, Seventeen Playgrounds is a tour guide that brings you to several of these playgrounds in the centre of Amsterdam. The publication consists of seventeen chapters; per location we ‘guide’ you through a certain aspect of Aldo van Eyck’s designs for children. Some of the playgrounds in this book are still intact, others share their space with new play equipment and some have completely been modernized, only referring to Van Eyck with a lost climbing frame or a few jumping stones and the fact that a playground remains on a spot that Van Eyck once turned into a play space.

Today his playgrounds are rapidly disappearing and a new type of play equipment is taking over. Bright colours, plastic structures and animal-shaped elements seem to have set the tone, leaving little room for the imagination of the children using them. We feel that this change—and this is not only occurring in Amsterdam but is something cities worldwide are dealing with—is a huge loss.

© Seventeen Playgrounds

It is of great importance that we—citizens, parents, designers, architects, city decision makers—realise the necessity of high quality playgrounds. Aldo van Eyck’s work should be preserved so that it can function as an inspiration. Not only do we plead for the preservation of his playgrounds, but we hope that with this example of how to properly design for children, we can stimulate others to follow in his footsteps.

Parents should be invited to make demands for better playgrounds. City decision makers, designers and architects should realise that children are as important as other members of our society and that playgrounds are therefore as important as any other aspect of the public space. May all Dutch and foreign citizens feel free to join our mission: let’s give children the chance to grow up with the stimulating playgrounds that they deserve.

© Seventeen Playgrounds

Making Playgrounds Public

After many complaints about poor playing conditions for children in Amsterdam, upper-class citizens created the first playground of the city in 1880 on the Eerste Weteringplantsoen. Not much later a few playground-trusts arose throughout the city. Access to these supervised and closed-off play- grounds was restricted by membership. Apart from these there were barely any public playgrounds. Children played in the city’s parks with its many rules, on unsafe construction sites and on the streets. But the latter became difficult with the increasing number of cars that slowly drove them off the streets. Furthermore the post-war baby boom created a need for more space and better playing conditions for the city’s children: it became clear that changes had to be made.

Jakoba Mulder, second in charge of the Public Works Department, started the process of making playgrounds public. In 1947 she commissioned Van Eyck to design the first public playground, an experiment that became a huge success. From then on the department made sure that each neighbourhood was provided with at least one public playground. In total Van Eyck designed over seven hundred playgrounds (1947-1978) that together created a web throughout Amsterdam, giving children their own recognizable domain in the city. 

© Seventeen Playgrounds

You can purchase the book here.

http://ift.tt/1X6kxRa

© David Frutos

• Architects: INMAT Arquitectura
• Location: 30430 Cehegín, Murcia, Spain
• Author Architect : Jose Luis Lopez Ibáñez
• Area: 342.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2013
• Photographs: David Frutos

• Project Team: Jose Luis Lopez Ibañez
, Jose Maria Mariñoso Pascual, David Martinez Ponce, Virginia Garcia Tormo
, Maria Jose Garcia Morales
• Project Director : Jose Luis Lopez Ibañez
• Owner: Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Cehegín, Murcia
• Construction Manager : Mohoarquitectos (Pablo Garcia Mora)
• Municipal Technical Architect: Santos Pedro Guillamón Marcos
• Archaeologist And Director Of The Municipal Archaeological Museum : Francisco Manuel Peñalver Aroca
• Lighting Consultant: DRAIT Iluminación, Miguel Ángel Franco Cánovas
• Wine Consultant : Pedro Martinez Fernandez (Wine specialist-“Nariz de Oro” winner)

© David Frutos

The old cellar where we developed this project, funded by the European Union, belongs to a landmark building called “Casa de la Tercia”, constructed in the 7th century and located in the small town of Cehegín in Murcia ́s hilly interior. 

© David Frutos

The cellar is located on the semi basement of the building. 

Historically, the grapes were pressed in the building ́s courtyard and the juice flowed into the cellar traveling along channels carved into low- ceilinged limestone vaults, them into pine scuppers emptying into rows of a large wine jar in unglazed terra-cotta. The wine jars were partially sunken in the earth to keep the maturing vintage al cool temperatures until it was fully aged. 

© David Frutos

According with the project, we turn this interesting space into a gallery, with 342 square meters, where the main vault from the entrance is crossed over by a glass ramp that slopes gently down before leveling out to become a carpet of glass: a walkway that ́s transparent and colorless but full of fleeting reflections. 

© David Frutos

Section

© David Frutos

Here the visitors can enjoy of the exhibition. It consists mostly of panels suspended along the sidewalls, with illustrations and texts, taken from the book written by the Cehegín native and sommelier, Pedro Martinez.
At the far end, an open space hosts lectures and concerts, while the kitchen supports catered functions and cooking classes with wine pairings. 

© David Frutos

Crossing a wall we find the wine shop, with interesting details, for instance, the necks of the bottles gripped by built-in pine yokes. 

© David Frutos

At the bottom, we can find another small gallery and a kitchen. Here almost everything new is hidden as much as possible been. 

© David Frutos

Conceptually, raw steel and wood are very elemental materials that work well with the historic parts of the interior, respecting the handmade character and the patina of the time. 

http://ift.tt/1TacGNQ