In August of last year, many of the most precious landmarks of the ancient city of Palmyra were damaged or destroyed by the forces of ISIS in a violent, iconoclastic attempt to send a message to the rest of the world. Since the UNESCO World Heritage Site was recaptured in March, the question in the architectural preservation community has been how to rebuild and preserve the buildings. That process will begin, of course, with a thorough assessment of the damage.
Shortly after Palmyra was recaptured Iconem, a French company which specializes in the digitization of archeological sites, arrived in Palmyra to lead the survey. In partnership with the Syrian DGAM (Direction Générale des Antiquités et des Musées), Iconem was granted access to the city to survey the damage to the temples of Bel and Baalshamin, the Monumental Arch, the Valley of Tombs, and the museum—all sites which are of the most cultural value and therefore were the greatest targets of ISIS’s violence.
Iconem were so quick onto the scene that there was still a significant danger posed by mines that had not yet been cleared; however, by using a drone to capture the ruins, they were able to minimize this risk. With this photogrammetric survey, they have now produced a detailed 3D model of the Temple of Bel, with the other four sites to follow, which can be used by archaeologists and preservationists from around the world to propose strategies for reconstruction. In addition, a low-resolution version of the model is available for viewing by the public on Sketchfab, as shown above.
While the damage to the Temple of Bel may appear near-total, the survey by Iconem does give reason for hope: “The two temples and the arch have been demolished, but the majority of their component blocks are still present,” explained Iconem’s cofounder Yves Ubelmann. “They are spread across the area, but some of them are whole and have not been destroyed.”
It is hoped that with these 3D models, experts will be able to identify the pieces of these complex and priceless jigsaw puzzles to restore the site to its UNESCO-quality grandeur.
In addition to the Temple of Bel and the four other landmarks in Palmyra, Iconem and DGAM are partnering to document a number of other Syrian landmarks as part of their “Syrian Heritage” project. All of these models are being released as Sketchfab models on Iconem’s website here.
From the architects. Intended for permanent residence, this single-family home was set in a flat corner lot of a little more than 900m2 in a new parceling in the North of Pinamar (seaside town in the Coast of Argentina) where the building density does not exceed two houses per block.
Presence and absence. The house is lifted from the ground leaving 94% of the lot area free. This creates a circulation on the ground level in which the landscape of pines blends with the barking of dogs and the sound of girls running, cycling and shouting under the house.
On this level, a closed box (open on its upper perimeter –only 50cm before the closings reach the slab) is reduced to a minimum size to liberate the ground area under the house. This is a self-contained compartment with no pedestrian views to the exterior.
As we go upstairs, we can get a glimpse at the pine forest through horizontal slits and once there, the house opens to the uninhabited woody environment as a lookout. This is a simple plan: the public area is open on its sides and ends with a concrete wall which hangs with an opening, a cutout that frames the forest in front of the house. Towards the center of the lot, we find the shelter area: a master bedroom with en suite bathroom and a bedroom with a flexible enclosure that allows to use it as a bedroom and playroom, but also to divide it into a second bedroom –thanks to sliding panels – when there are visitors.
Structure. “Basically, architecture means to defy the laws of gravity, get rid of supports, to equilibrate. The rest is comfort, a little bit of comfort over here, a little bit of comfort over there.” Ärtigas Rosa-Villanova.
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Far from being a superfluous or banal decision, making the house float over the terrain was the key action that makes sense to the house. To liberate the zero plane. And to do this, the architecture is simple –or at least it looks so-. Two pairs of leaning columns and a few concrete walls carry the structural loads to the sand lot.
The leaning columns get the loads of two beams which, in turn, receive the loads of other two long beams from which the cable stays that support the slab/upper floor (ground floor roof) hang.
Over the upper slab, the large (height, thickness) short beams –far from being an oxymoron- detach themselves from the cover slab, enabling a fast circulation of rainwater below them.
Light. Every day throughout the year, with different intensity and varying according to the time of the day and season, the shadows cast from the hanging concrete screen on the East, the brisolei and vegetation on the West, the holes on the iron sheet on the ground floor or through the fold on the cover slab over the living room, slip into the house modifying the interior/exterior space perception and generate different atmospheres. Every day is different and so is each time of it.
The presence of leaning columns and an open air space under the cantilevers create light and shadow at the time that offer cool air in summer.
Climate. Along the Argentine coast, temperatures vary between -5°C in winter and +35°C in summer. Consequently, houses designed for permanent residence need to provide thermal comfort throughout the year. Concrete walls with expanded polystyrene core plates –found in the center of the formwork- were used in the construction of Alamos House. This simple action reduces the thermal loss between interior/exterior to a minimum and the chance of condensation produced by a temperature difference between the two sides of the concrete wall. Apart from the needed water-proof insulation, the cover slab was filled with cellular concrete. To the West, the glazed front façade offers views to the forest at the time that shelters a private one: different species of plants were placed as a green curtain along an 80cm wide metal shelf which produces shadows, gives privacy and works as an air chamber insulator. On the edge, running the length of the metal shelf, the brisolei -especially designed and manufactured for the house- breaks the views while it unifies and protects the house.
Material. Alamos House defines itself for liberating the zero plane-maximizing, thus, the use of the lot- and for its materials: the contrast between the concrete and its perfect finish (for those who think that the ‘flaws’ show the traces of the process), the texture of plaster in inner walls, the warmth of wood, the perfect horizontal surfaces and the wooden and marble counters in contrast with the polished concrete floors.
To reduce the costs of maintenance –which are measured in terms of money or energy/time of the users- was paramount. Therefore, the house was designed with materials that help reduce these costs to the minimum: structures of exposed reinforced concrete and industrials floors of polished concrete. The ground floor box was closed following a similar logic: a lightweight concrete wall coated in plasterboard in the inside and in corrugated galvanized iron sheet in the outside with an air chamber with glass wool in the center. At Alamos, wood of any kind was used for coating or exterior openings. The brisolei was made of galvanized iron while the railings and fences show galvanized parts as well as anti-corrosive painted iron.
Shape. The house does not need to have the shape of a chalet or duplex, but to shelter those spaces that allow its inhabitants to run, sleep, play, read, listen to music or gather with friends. The rest is nonsense, descriptive memory.
“… for it is not the walls, or the roof; neither is the floor that individualizes a house but the beings who live there with their conversations, laughter, loves and hates, people who impregnate the house with something immaterial but profound, with something so incorporeal as a smile on a face, even though it is through physical objects like carpets, books or colors. Since the paintings we see on the walls, the colors used to paint doors and windows, the design of the carpets, the flowers we find in bedrooms, the discs and books, even though they are material objects (as they also belong to the flesh, lips and eyebrows), they are, however, manifestations of the soul, since the soul cannot manifest itself to our material eyes but through matter, and that is a precariousness of the soul but also a subtle curiosity.” On Heroes and Tombs. Ernesto Sábato.
The Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, upon recommendation from Alejandro Aravena, have announced the Brazilian Pritzker Prize-winning architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha as the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, Reporting From the Front. Citing the “timelessness” of his work “both physically and stylistically” as “the most striking attribute of his architecture,” the board have also stated that “this astonishing consistency may be the consequence of his ideological integrity and structural genius.”
The citation continues: “He is a nonconformist challenger and simultaneously a passionate realist. His fields of interest are beyond architecture, in political, social, geographical, historical and technical realms. The role model he played for many generations of architects in Brazil, Latin America and everywhere is that of a person able to join shared and collective efforts as well as someone able to attract others to the cause of a better built environment.”
All space must be attached to a value, to a public dimension. There is no private space. The only private space that you can imagine is the human mind.
—Paulo Mendes da Rocha (May 26, 2004)
About Paulo Mendes da Rocha
“Paulo Mendes da Rocha spent his childhood between the city of Vitória, the harbour capital of Espírito Santo where he was born in October 1928 at his maternal grandparents’ house, and Paquetá Island, in the middle of Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, the national capital, where the Mendes da Rocha family lived.
The architect’s family moved to the city of São Paulo in 1940, where his father Paulo Menezes Mendes da Rocha was appointed Chair of the Naval and Harbour Resources of the Polytechnic School of the Universidade de São Paulo, which he directed from 1943 to 1947.
Still in São Paulo, Paulo Mendes da Rocha graduated from the Mackenzie Architecture School in 1954 and was able to build a solid carrier as a designer of houses, schools, apartment buildings, museums, furniture, theatre sets and several urban projects.
After graduation, he won a national project competition in 1957 for the construction of a gymnasium, the Clube Atlético Paulistano. This work brought him public recognition and also won the Grande Prêmio Presidência da República at the 6th Bienal of São Paulo in 1961. In 1968, the architect won the national project competition for the Brazilian pavilion at Osaka Expo 70 and traveled to that city to follow the construction development in 1969.
Amongst several international honours, he has been awarded the Honorary Fellowship from the Conselho Internacional dos Arquitetos de Língua Portuguesa, The Mies Van der Rohe Foundation Prize for his project for São Paulo’s Pinacoteca. Furthermore, he was selected in 2000 to represent Brazil at the 7th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. He received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2006.
In Brazil, the architect was twice honoured with the Ordem do Mérito Cultural, in 2004 and 2013. He also received the Troféu APCA (Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte) twice, in 2012 and 2015. Whilst working as an architect, Mendes da Rocha joined the world of academia thanks to his good friend, Vilanova Artigas, one of Brazil’s most remarkable architects. Both architects enhanced the School of Architecture of the Universidade de São Paulo with their social and humanistic views, which have had a major influence on many generations of architects and artists to come.”
Courtesy of Paulo Mendes da Rocha archive
The acknowledgment will be awarded on Saturday May 28th 2016 at Ca’ Giustinian—the headquarters of La Biennale di Venezia—during the awards ceremony and inauguration of the 15th Exhibition (which will open to the public at 10:00 am on the same day).
Venice Architecture Biennale 2016: Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha is to be awarded the Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Architecture Biennale later this month. (more…)
ROSSETTI has unveiled their design for a proposed development in downtown Detroit on the site of a currently unfinished jail. The project features a new MLS stadium with 20,000-25,000 seats, a training facility, a retail area, a parking structure for more than 5,000 cars, and four towers programmed for a hotel and residential and office spaces.
Courtesy of ROSSETTI
The proposed new gateway aims to transform this area of the city into a destination for sports, entertainment, retail, and hospitality, and will balance open pedestrian spaces with a “world-class urban environment for the city.” Once completed, the site will serve as an anchor for the future 300-acre entertainment district.
Courtesy of ROSSETTI
“Central to the project’s design is porosity and creating an uninterrupted experience between the public realm and physical buildings,” said Matt Rossetti, Detroit native and CEO and President of ROSSETTI, in a press release. “In it, we explore how to unite cities with nature, people with habitats, sports with culture. We endeavor to have all anchor developments facilitating pedestrian movement horizontally and vertically through a ‘green belt’ podium.”
Courtesy of ROSSETTI
The aforementioned podium can be used by the public from the ground level all the way to the rooftop nature trail, which will run about 8-10 blocks and connect the four towers. Large civic plazas will allow for different programming year-round and create a sense of community in the new district.
The development will also restore the city’s infrastructure on a larger scale by creating a connection between the center of the downtown area with the Eastern Market.
The design was commissioned by Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, with the acknowledgement of MLS Commissioner Don Garber. The next steps in the development of the project include further discussions between the City of Detroit, Wayne County, Rock Ventures, Platinum Equity, the MLS and other stakeholders.
New York 2016: US artist Nicole Nadeau has used one of her own breasts to create a mould for a collection of hexagonal tiles complete with pink nipples. (more…)
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced six winners for its RIBA South East Awards, which recognize architectural excellence in the regions of Kent, Surrey, East Sussex, West Sussex and the Channel Islands. These winners will be considered for a RIBA National Award, which will be announced on June 23. Winners of the National Award will then be eligible for the RIBA Stirling Prize later in the year.
The six winners of the RIBA South East Awards are:
The architects had previously worked with the clients on the refurbishment of their London home. Here the brief was to create a single living environment, allowing for entertainment, enjoyment and art. This was to be a calm and simple space where everyday activities could co-exist and all aspects of the surrounding landscape could be observed. There was no question about replacing the existing fisherman’s cottage and the form was conceived as a ‘cluster’ of small shed-like structures, referential to the local vernacular of pitched roof huts scattered along the beach front. The plan form of the proposed cluster was derived from the locations of the existing cottage and sheds, minimally adjusted to provide a simple living layout whilst maintaining a low impact on the ground ecology and sustaining the sense of randomness that was found in the original buildings.
The Gateway Interpretation Café in Peacehaven is an exemplar for retrofit design due to its holistic sustainability approach and collaborative local community-led approach. Although a relatively small project with a budget of £340k, it has attempted to ‘raise the bar’ for design in a pocket of deprivation in the south east. This modest building by Kaner Olette Architects is essentially a remodelling of an old maintenance depot, which was built in 1979 in brick and asbestos.
During the development of the wider masterplan with Allen Scott Landscape, it was identified that the building was in a strategically important location to form a link between the existing sports and community facilities to the new park areas and the South Downs National Park. Building on the ‘gateway’ concept, it was decided that the maintenance building was to be retained and remodelled. Whilst the footprint and roofline is broadly observed, the transformation is remarkable.
An economic new skin (around the brickwork to improve thermal performance) of zinc and sweet chestnut belies thoughtful detailing, with the ability to open up the café with large sliding doors in good weather. These act as security shutters when closed, but this is another example where good architecture appears to engender respect – the previous incarnation was the subject of constant vandalism.
Cinque Ports Street; Rye / Jonathan Dunn Architects
The scheme provides a mix of residential accommodation with six flats, two penthouses, a studio and a detached house, with two commercial units to the street frontage. A central courtyard marks the line of the town wall. JDA took design cues from the historic imagery of warehouses along the river front and from the traditional coastal architecture of the East Sussex. The intention was to emphasise the simplicity of the traditional forms and materials by creating a street front elevation with a dramatic angular roof line and simple elevational detailing and treatment. The pallet of materials has been limited to dark timber rain screen cladding, slate and render. Careful consideration was given to the only apparently randomly placed windows in order to maximise the views towards the Rother valley and catch the best light. The panels are pre-insulated in factory conditions to ensure a very tight, well-sealed external fabric.
The close relationship between developer, architect and owner-occupier has led to an important infill of an intricate mixed-use complex in an historic setting. The architects have skilfully tiptoed around the remains of the Medieval wall, as well as resolving issues of access, overlooking and parking on a tight site, to achieve a rich mix of commercial space and dwellings: apartments, houses and penthouses. The latter benefit from long views over the town and Tillingham Valley beyond, and from generous volumes created from the dancing roofline, which takes its references from the organic Rye roofscape.
The new house was allowed to be more architecturally expressive, responding to the site, its topography, views, orientation and the forms of the adjacent Oast House. The roof is lifted up and twisted around to face due south, to benefit the solar panels. The roof also collects rainwater for re-use throughout the site. The estate’s 150 acres of woodland supplies biomass to heat this development which is designed as ‘Code for Sustainable Homes’ Level 5. A rammed earth wall greets you as to enter the house. Elsewhere lime plaster is applied direct to masonry walls and ceilings.
The Grade II listed Oast House had suffered from insensitive conversion in the 1970s. All the joinery has now been redone in oak, the wall re-pointed using traditional lime putty mortar and the roof replaced with clay peg tiles. All this was done while retrofitting the building to ensure its carbon footprint was reduced by 80%.
The Narrow House; East Sussex / Sanei Hopkins Architects
The cool exterior does not prepare one for the assault on the senses that the privilege of an invitation inside brings (save for a striking sculpture peeping over the balcony and coloured lasers overhead in the front porch). The house is part-home, part-lookout and part gallery for an outstanding collection of artwork and sculptures. Many of the latter are kinetic, responding to noise or movement, adding an additional sense of life to the space.
John Soane’s influence purveys the house, with every conceivable inch of space utilised to exhibit or store this unique collection. Given the labyrinthine nature of the house, the main circulation is reassuringly simple with a single stair climbing from the front door with living and sleeping accommodation organised to one side. Even the stair treads are laser cut to spell out the shipping forecast in morse code for the observant visitor. At the end of the upward journey is a roof terrace (itself also a mini sculpture park) with breathtaking views out to sea.
Due to the geography of the region, protection from the elements became a recurring theme of this year’s visits. This house not only fronts a constantly-moving shingle beach, it sits below it. Hence, the high level-window sills of the lower floor bedroom are at beach level, reminding one of Lutyens’s eye-level tricks at Castle Drogo.
Set within the retained walls of an earlier building, Le Petit Fort offers an imaginative response to its setting and historical context through carefully considered contemporary architecture, a rich materials palette and fine craftsmanship. Le Petit Fort occupies the site of an earlier (now demolished) farmstead. This was constructed in the early 20th century and enclosed within massive granite walls, which have been retained and restored and which offer much needed shelter from the elements experienced only metres from the unforgiving Jersey shoreline. The reference to Napoleonic Martello towers and WWII fortifications is unavoidable and indeed intentional; so much so that this large house could be mistaken as part of that military collection from a distance. In fact the house was conceived to complete the concept of the ‘fort’ by building the missing fourth wall of the enclosure and creating a central element representing a ‘keep’. This three-storey entrance block, like the perimeter walls, is constructed from Jersey granite, reclaimed from the earlier building.
Villa U is a residential project designed by C.F. Møller in 2015. It is located in Aarhus, Denmark. Villa U by C.F. Møller: “Villa U is a two-storey single family home near Aarhus located in beautiful surroundings with scenic views. The house, which takes full advantage of the view and its proximity to nature on three sides, is organised around a tall double-height central space with skylights, accompanied by a..
