“It’s when I sleep that I can see clearly”, the poet said. However, all of us want to see clearly also when we are awake. When we receive a commission to redesign an optic centre, we imagine a clear, bright, intelligent and rational space. We leave out any confusion or ambiguity, being conscious of the functions that are to be developed through the activity that we undertake.
Model
We set off from the existing store, with generous windows framed with natural wood. We do not intend to start from the scratch: we believe in the value of a well performed job and so we adopt the existing frames as if they were our own. Based on the frames made of 7×7 cm wood strips, we make up a 3D structure as a kind of scaffolding that joins the strips laterally and duplicates the mesh of the facade inside the shop. This way we generate a structure with a porch, or an atrium, which embraces the inner door in the centre, the display windows at each side, and structural pillars or elements of installations in the boxes formed between the empty spaces.
Just behind the atrium we find the customer service space and the shop, but also the workshop: one of the key points of our project. From the customer study that we carried out before starting the project, we understood that in this optic shop the workshop should not be a back shop as it used to be. That is why, just like in a restaurant with an open kitchen, we have made it participate in the central space, just filtered by a glass display of the major glasses in the optic shop. The closed rooms – the optician’s consulting room, the office, the storage and the service rooms – are placed like a tail, which the shop has at its left rear part. They help us make its shape more regular and absorb the level loss that this space has.
The optical glass windows lit up or backlit by the distribution or the furnishings confer to the space a character of a gleaming cloud. Only the recovered wooden structure, which stretches out to the atrium, dares to break the purity of the dominating whiteness: it is a commercial space full of experience, knowledge and innovation, where it is not necessary to fall asleep in order to see clearly.
New York 2016: the annual NYCxDesign festival is underway, and Dezeen’s Dan Howarth has selected seven of the showrooms and exhibitions not to miss during the citywide event. (more…)
Virtual Reality (VR) is about to change architecture forever, meaning that every firm needs to decide how it’s going to respond to those changes. That may sound like hyperbole, but 3D imaging and the benefits computers brought to the field pale in comparison to what VR brings.
Computer-generated images are, in many ways, an updated version of the hand-drawn renderings of the past. VR takes viewing models to a whole new level. Based on existing design software, it allows you to take 3D models and experience them in amazing new ways. So if your firm is thinking about whether or not to invest in VR technology now, here are a few reasons why you should stop considering and start changing how your architecture firm functions.
Here’s a chance to delve a little bit more into what makes the VR experience different for architects and their customers. Every architect knows that computer-built 3D renderings can only go so far in creating an accurate feel for a building. VR, however, takes this a large step forward by allowing the user to walk through and see each detail.
This translates into a competitive advantage: when a customer can experience a proposed building on a more visceral level, they’re more likely to choose your design. In one article, designer and visualizer Olivier Demangel described the shocking level of realism he experienced when using VR for the first time. He could hardly believe how different his experience of the structure was, as well as how close that experience was to the finished project.
So, to be frank, if your firm is offering simple computer renderings while a competitor offers VR, the consumer’s choice is going to be an easy one.
2. Be at the Forefront of an Enormous Industry Trend
This ties in very closely to the competition element. If your firm can be an early adopter of virtual reality technology applied to architectural design, you can be ahead of an enormously important industry trend. Being ahead can allow you to brand your company as an innovator in the virtual reality space.
Applying “first to use virtual reality in X application” to your marketing materials can mean gaining a long-term advantage in branding. Some firms are already buying VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive as they’re released, so time is running out to be ahead of this trend.
3. The Start-Up Costs are Low
The cost of adopting VR technology is relatively low. An Oculus Rift is $600 per unit, while the HTC Vive is $800. Other systems are currently in the works, but even when you add the computers usually required to accompany these headsets, you can get a VR setup for not much more than $1000. For most firms, if that VR set can win them a single extra client, it’s already paid for itself.
4. Skip Rounds of Reworking
When a client is able to experience a project in such stunning detail, they’re able to get a better feel for what they want and don’t want. That means less time your firm will spend reworking models and asking for another round of feedback.
Another way VR cuts time here is by allowing you to render things like lighting in real time. A client can switch lights on and off to see how different lighting setups affect the space. That kind of interactivity is both enjoyable from a client’s perspective, and also allows them to see every aspect of a design quickly.
5. Simulate Real-World Scenarios
Simulations can include something as simple as the lighting example above, but what about larger structures like office buildings, or even airports? Here, VR technology can allow designers to take real-world subjects and actually see how they interact with their environment.
For example, you can test your emergency exit systems by placing someone in an obscure part of a building and seeing how quickly they can exit using the signage system you’ve put into place. Computer models may be able to show us how people can exit the building, but they won’t touch on the psychology of how people react to their environments. These insights will make future buildings safer and more user friendly.
That’s only the beginning of where these kinds of simulations can take VR in architecture.
If you’re interested in trying out a virtual design service, now’s the time. The direction of this technology’s role in architecture is clear, as are the advantages of getting ahead of the trend. If you’re curious, you can always give it a try and see for yourself.
Eric Halsey is a historian by training who’s been interested in US small businesses since working at the House Committee on Small Business in 2006. He loves technology and is interested in VR and often writes for ViaTechnik.com.
Between 2014 and 2015, right after graduating, Italian architect Bonaventura Visconti di Modrone was invited to Anse-à-Pitres, a small village in the Sur Este department of Haiti, to build a housing complex for Ayitimoun Yo, an N.G.O. that helps local street children.
A meeting with the N.G.O founders fostered the idea of designing an anti-seismic building for the children, that could also serve as a resource (haven) to help them feel welcome and part of a family again.
The children, on the other hand, would need different areas; an indoor space to share with their housemates; a veranda to do their homework and spend time with their close friends; a lateral big open space to share with all the others. This subdivision is important considering the fact that there are children of different age and background.
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Since it was important that the building fit within the local architectural context, two of its typical elements were adopted: the lakou settlement and the Haitian rural house.
The first is a traditional way of arranging the houses around a central courtyard; this was reinterpre- ted by placing the houses in a line and leaving a big open space between the buildings. The second is a simple and clean rectangular-shaped house, with an open veranda that is cheerfully decorated and covered with a pitched roof. In the Haitian culture, the pitched roof especially means respect and acceptance, so it was included repeatedly, creating the characteristic shape of the unin- terrupted cover.
The Haitian climate is very hot and humid, so the roof structure is detached from the houses, al- lowing fresh air to breeze through and providing natural ventilation.
Diagram
Some of the project details, such as the colour of the bricks and of the concrete platform, were cho- sen directly by the children through workshops; this helped them to personalise their future houses and strengthened their feeling of ownership.
The main issue we faced during the construction was the organization of the logistics; many of the materials needed were bought in the Dominican Republic, mainly in the capital city of Santo Domin- go, which is a one-day trip from the construction site.
Furthermore, because of diplomatic issues between the two countries, it has been difficult to clear the goods through custom and transport them to the site.
All the other materials and components were customized on-site by local craftsman. The decision to employ local workers and artisans exclusively, led to the direct participation of the entire community and to the creation of a facility (site; place) that belongs to the area and to its architectural and cultural context.
Architectural and landscape photographer Jade Doskow is publishing the first hardcover, full-color monograph of her eight-year photography project on the post-utopian sites of the World’s Fairs, entitled Lost Utopias. Since 2007, the project has captured the remaining architecture and landscaping of international World’s Fairs at 26 sites in North America and Europe on large-format 4”x5” film.
The book is a collection of World’s Fair structures, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Atomium in Brussels, and the Space Needle in Seattle, “as they exist today, often repurposed, abandoned, or surrounded by a strange new environment unimaginable at the time of construction,” writes Doskow. “These sites exist as surreal, dreamlike time machines, simultaneously looking forward and back.”
Lost Utopias is expected to be completed by December 2016, and is still seeking funding on kickstarter. Learn more about, or help fund, the project, here.
The Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, upon recommendation from Alejandro Aravena, have announced the jury for the forthcoming Venice Biennale who will award the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, the Golden Lion for Best Participant in the International Exhibition Reporting From the Front, and the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant in the International ExhibitionReporting From the Front. They will also have the opportunity of awarding a maximum of one special mention to National Participations and a maximum of two special mentions to the participants in the International Exhibition.
Members of the jury include:
Pippo Ciorra (Italy), architect, critic and professor at Scuola di Ateneo di Architettura e Design di Ascoli Piceno (University of Camerino) and Venice’s IUAV. He has been a curator of exhibitions both in Italy and abroad. Since 2009, he is Senior Curator for architecture at the MAXXI in Rome
Sergio Fajardo (Colombia), professor of mathematics at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, former mayor of Medellín and governor of the department of Antioquia, recipient of the Americas Award for Excellence in Public Service in 2007
Marisa Moreira Salles (Brazil), publisher, editor, book designer and entrepreneur in the field of technology, founder of Arq.Futuro, a think-tank on architecture and the future of cities
Hashim Sarkis (Lebanon, USA), Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT, architect at Hashim Sarkis Studios, former Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD)
Karen Stein (USA), architectural advisor, Executive Director of the George Nelson Foundation, and faculty member of the Design Criticism program at the School of Visual Arts in New York
A trio of volumes are stacked one on top of each other to form this hillside residence near Tehran by New Wave Architecture, but each one is angled towards a different view (+ slideshow). (more…)
This stunning contemporary home is located in Bel Air, California, USA. The 7-bedroom, 12-bathroom home was designed by Paul McClean of McClean Design. It is currently for sale, price available upon request. Buy it now!
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced 17 winners for its RIBA South Awards, which recognize architectural excellence. These 17 regional award winners were drawn from a shortlist of 30 projects. Over the next few months, they will be considered for the RIBA National Awards, and then for the RIBA Stirling Prize.
The house sits between two worlds – a courtyard and a walled garden. The design is based on the desire to enjoy both a south facing aspect, yet also engage with the walled garden to the north. The house therefore becomes part of the rebuilt wall, part of the walled garden. With the overall height strictly controlled by planning restrictions and the site rising by two metres from front to back, the inner courtyard is part-sunk into the ground, increasing the sense of enclosure.
Davenies is a school in Beaconsfield, which provides education for boys aged 4 to 13. Established in 1940, it now comprises a collection of Listed and modern buildings, set around historic formal gardens. Crucial to its success is the holistic approach to learning, based on engaging the children with nature and maximising their connection to the world around them. In 2012 DSDHA were appointed to carry out the final phase of a 20-year masterplan to replace some of the most outdated blocks and provide ten classrooms for Reception level through to Year 4, generous breakout spaces, external play areas, a new library and a hall, along with staff facilities.
The Little Hall, Prestwood Infants School; Prestwood / De Rosee Sa
In 2014, Nick Clegg launched an initiative that every school child should receive a free hot meal at lunchtime. Responding to this, the brief set by Prestwood Infant School in Great Missenden was for a new dining space for 96 pupils and after-school club. The new facility would be located in one of the school’s playgrounds in place of two redundant storage sheds. De Rosee Sa, the architects; and local design practice PMR took inspiration from author Roald Dahl, who lived in the area for 36 years, and the Grand Feast Hall in his children’s book ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’: “We will make,” said Mr Fox, “A little underground village, with streets and houses on each side – separate houses for badgers and moles and rabbits and weasels and foxes. And every day I will go shopping for you all. And every day we will eat like kings”.
House 19 is designed as a two-storey dwelling. However, careful consideration has been given to the impact of the building on the site by expressing the two storeys on the north east elevation, and reducing the height on the southern elevation to a single storey by means of an eccentrically pitched roof form. The advantage of such a form is that it minimises the impact on the adjoining property to the south. And the southernly roof can be used to maximise the incorporation of photovoltaic cells both now and in the future – integration is subtle and elegant. The sustainability strategy is well thought through and works (ground source heat pump, earth tube vent system, low U-values) without resorting to a room full of technology.
The layout is deliberately not overly formal with grids, but at angles to allow an almost rural feel within the garden setting which is in shared ownership between all residents. Not only is the aspiration for the architecture high, but there is also an opportunity for social integration and shared responsibility. The ideas promulgated and put into practice by Eric Lyons have been properly understood and applied to achieve a result that in many ways is un-British as a methodology, but which could become ground-breaking.
Exhibition Mews is a prototype terrace of three affordable homes for social rent, built for Radian Group housing association. This project is the built outcome of Ash Sakula’s winning entry to an open design competition, with the brief to design affordable and highly sustainable new homes capable of replication on other sites within the town as part of the first phase of a wider regeneration of the area involving 3,350 new homes. Ash Sakula’s proposal features three houses, each comprising a highly insulated core of flexibly-arranged accommodation supplemented by an uninsulated entrance space opening onto an enclosed front garden. Importantly, the competition called for sustainable lifestyle suggestions to be embedded into the buildings themselves.
The Observatory Lymington / Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
The architects conducted interesting material studies into Shou Sugi Ban, and developed a greater understanding of how different timbers respond to the burning that gives them longevity. But the most interesting aspect of the project is not technical but human: the effect it has in engaging the local people and helping them to connect with artists and other interested parties. This is architecture acting as a catalyst for positive change, so it achieves more than its physical structure alone could do.
Mottisfont New Visitor Facilities; Romsey / Burd Haward Architects
Mottisfont Abbey is one of the National Trust’s most popular properties in the region: visited by over 250,000 people per annum, it is renowned for its rose gardens and its active contemporary arts programming. The architects were appointed in 2010, following an invited design competition with a brief to improve the entrance facilities at the historic estate. The new buildings are set between the existing car park and a tributary of the River Test. They house visitor arrival and ticketing space, a new shop with associated storage, office and staff room, visitor WCs and a covered external area that can be used as temporary café/sales space. The buildings are raised off the ground to avoid the flood plain, and arranged around a raised courtyard that connects to a new walkway and bridge, and to landscaped paths beyond.
Boldrewood Campus, University of Southampton; Southampton / Grimshaw
The 4.3 hectare Boldrewood Innovation Campus is the product of collaboration between the University of Southampton and Lloyd’s Register of Shipping and places the university at the forefront of maritime research. This collaboration ensures that students and researchers have access to real life case studies while Lloyd’s Register engineers have access to cutting edge research. Grimshaw are responsible for both the masterplan and all building design.
Winchester Cathedral Learning Centre; Winchester / Hampshire County Council Architects
The Dean and Chapter of Winchester Cathedral have been developing a programme of new and innovative opportunities for learning and participation at the Cathedral to increase access for a wider audience. The project has extended the learning facilities into a new building within the garden of No 10A The Close as well as remodelling the existing facilities. It provides a new auditorium which is a multi-functional and fully accessible space with the capacity for a whole school year group at a time. It will enable a much greater range of activities and bring a completely new perspective to understanding of life in the Cathedral’s past. The whole site is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument and surrounding range of buildings are Grade I listed.
This is far from pastiche, it has substance and demonstrates a real understanding of proportion, harmony, materiality and craft. The house feels settled internally – it does not feel like a new build. It fulfills all key criteria set out by the client; all the building elements are extremely well crafted throughout; the indoor air quality is excellent, and the detailing is exceptional at every turn. The staircase in particular is a well-considered composition. The bathrooms are particularly well handled with the tiles and other materials being reclaimed, making the bathrooms a real feature of the house. In fact all the spaces within the building are delightful, very well considered and composed.
Blavatnik School of Government; Oxford / Herzog & de Meuron
The Blavatnik School of Government seeks to improve, inform and support better public policy and government in every country of the world. The new home of the School of Government is prominently located between Woodstock Road and Walton Street, with Somerville College to the south and Green Templeton College to the north. The building has been designed as a precise geometric form which allows its important historic neighbours to maintain and improve their presence along Walton Street, whilst also opening up generous and inviting access into the new Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.
The local authority was South Oxfordshire District Council, whose planners have allowed the architects the freedom to express themselves within the constraints of the location. The elevations in particular demonstrate sensitivity with regard to their visual impact. The cantilever that achieves the half-basement level is clever, and the open plan layout maximises the apparent space, resulting in a home that feels bigger than it is volumetrically. The budget has been cleverly focused on key areas that work well and give maximum value. The green/grey stain to the cladding/windows help to soften the building, as does the use of local materials, for instance with the gabion walls which provide a solid grounding.
The Investcorp Building, St Antony’s College; Oxford / Zaha Hadid Architects
From 1961 the Centre occupied an old rectory on Woodstock Road and housed the university’s primary collection on the modern Middle East, with its specialised library, document and photographic archive. The new Investcorp Building doubles the space available for the Centre’s expanding library and archive, providing optimum conditions to conserve and manage the collections. The design is defined by the built and natural environments. It weaves through the site to connect and incorporate the existing protected buildings and trees, while its stainless steel façade softly reflects natural light to echo the building’s context.
The Ruskin School of Art; Oxford / Spratley Studios
This is a flexible building that works well for the students who need to be able to explore and experiment with their artistic skills. In between the academic years, new students will have opportunities to change the space internally: lights are on tracks and the studios can be remodelled accordingly, allowing for flexibility of use. Exposed services run along the ceiling, accentuating the industrial feel.
The brief for this historic and Grade II listed Giles Gilbert Scott building was, literally and metaphorically, to open the doors of the library to the public to enable them to embrace knowledge. This was combined with the technically challenging requirements of protecting the precious and very rare documents stored within the archive and ensuring their preservation for future generations.
Berman Guedes Stretton were engaged by Wolfson College in 2009 to provide a new building comprising a new lodge, a 155-seat auditorium, cafeteria, 12 academic offices, three seminar rooms and a group workspace to connect with the existing college on three levels. Two existing floors were to be converted into new library spaces adjacent to the existing beautiful, but very small, library and a third floor of existing offices was to be re-planned and refurbished.
