Car brand BMW has worked with the US Paralympic team to create a racing wheelchair that they claim to be both faster and more comfortable than previous models. (more…)
BMW redesigns racing wheelchair for Paralympic athletes
Architecture
BIG and Foster both still in contention for Two World Trade Center tower
The developer of New York’s Two World Trade Center tower, Silverstein Properties, is uncertain whether it will retain Bjarke Ingels Group for the project or go with original architect Foster + Partners. (more…)
Atelier d’Architecture Michel Remon Wins Competition for Tel Aviv University Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Centre
Courtesy of Strelka KB
Atelier d’Architecture Michel Remon has been announced as the winner of the Open International Competition for the Tel Aviv University Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Centre. The French company has a history of designing buildings for technological purposes, including the National Research Centre for Scientific Research (Meudon, suburb of Paris), the Physics and Biology Laboratories for Ecole Polytechnique (Palaiseau, suburb of Paris), the National Solar Energy Institute (Savoy), and the Paris-Saclay Research Сentre of Air Liquide. In Tel Aviv, a matrix of vertical lines creates a “skin” over a three story, 6,000 square meter structure that will house 12 research labs – including those for physical, biophysical, and neural engineering, as well as molecular electronics, and others – in addition to offices and public areas. Once complete, the building will house 120 scientists and engineers as collaborators with one of the most significant universities in Israel.
Courtesy of Strelka KB
“We chose this competition because we like to challenge areas where science meets human endeavor and progress,” says architect Alexis Peyer. “Nanoscience and nanotechnologies are one of the humanity’s greatest endeavors. The most interesting and challenging aspect of this project was to design a very technical building specifically for scientific research while keeping a strong and iconic architecture dedicated to the Tel Aviv University campus.”
Courtesy of Strelka KB
The project requires exceedingly high precision – similar project often require errors not in excess of 1 millimeter per every 100 square meters – in what is called “complete design accuracy.” As labs typically consume five times more water and energy than a typical home or office, particular measures have been taken to ensure sustainability. These strategies include the vertical panels, which will help regulate natural light, special glass, which will optimize sun energy, solar panels and natural ventilation, which will be used for cooling, and a collection system that will retain and recycle rainwater.
Courtesy of Strelka KB
Atelier d’Architecture Michel Remon was named a finalist for the project in March, along with Zarhy+StudioPEZ Architects and Jestico+Whiles+Associates. The Competition stipulated that the University initiate private negotiations with each finalist to declare a winner by May 1st. The competition was launched on October 12th of last year and organized by Strelka KB, a leading urban planning consultancy for architectural competitions. The project is expected to be completed in 2020.
Casa Caldera / DUST
© Cade Hayes
- Architects: DUST
- Location: San Rafael Valley, Southeas Arizona, USA
- Area: 520.0 ft2
- Project Year: 2015
- Photographs: Cade Hayes
- General Contractor : DUST
- Project Manager: Jesus Robles, Cade Hayes
- Carpentry: Jay Ritchey
- Concrete And Masonry: Agustin Valdez
© Cade Hayes
The story of this place is rooted deep in the history and culture of the region.
The biodiversity of the region is part of the larger Madrean Archipelago, stretching from the Sonoran to Chihuahuan deserts. Defining parts of Southern Arizona, Southern New Mexico, and parts of Far West Texas with sky island ranges serving as beacons for life and inhabitants in the vast desert landscape. They are links in a chain that connect the northern end of the Sierra Madres in Mexico and are essential in the story of life in the region; in form of refuge and resource base for migrating tribes, birds, and predators moving through the vast openness.
© Cade Hayes
The San Rafael Valley’s topography and geology forms the headwaters of the Santa Cruz River. One of the only rivers that runs south into Mexico, and turns back north into the U.S. This river is vital to the story of habitance of this region for 10,000 yrs.
© Cade Hayes
Much of the human history lends itself to the geological events of the region millions of years ago. Large volcanic activity formed the landscape as we know it. This left behind the basin and range topography, as well as mineral and resource rich land that has been of value and use to the cultures that inhabited the region.
From native agricultural cultures, to nomadic hunter-gatherers, to conquistadors and missionaries, to pioneers, miners, cattle, and cowboys, to militia, migrants, and narcotraficantes., the San Rafael Valley in Southern Arizona is the quintessential landscape and folklore of the Wild West.
Site Plan
It is this history and context that Casa Caldera grows from. This small shelter is strongly informed by the climatic conditions; adapting to the natural, social, political, and economical environments. Each to its own weighted and varying degree. It is located 15 miles north of the international border between U.S. and Mexico.
© Cade Hayes
The house rises from the ground in a simple rectangular form made of Scoria. The material, Scoria, selected as the main building material in reference the Valleys Geologic formation and the color of earth and stone on and near the site, blends harmoniously with the landscape. Scoria walls are made from a porous, lightweight red volcanic aggregate which is mixed to form a self- supporting semi-fluid and rammed into formwork similar to the process of rammed earth.
© Cade Hayes
The clients request of having outdoor living and sleeping zones lead to the re-discovery of a local vernacular house planning typology that was used as the main organizing concept of Casa Caldera – a Zaguan.
Floor Plan
Casa Calderas livable space of 880 sq. ft. is broken into 3 small rectangular zones; 265 sq. ft. of living space, and 265 sq. ft. of sleeping/bathing space which are bisected by a central Zaguan, the main outdoor living space (270 sq. ft.) with a patio to the west (80 sq. ft.). The footprint of the house covers 1060 sq. ft. with a remote isolated patio down the hill of (100 sq ft.) (Total project sq. ft. 1160)
© Cade Hayes
Large bifolding metal doors on either end of the Zaguan connect the covered living space to the landscape beyond. To the east the Zaguan opens up like a full scale diorama and to the west the story book view stretches to the distant landscape across San Rafael Valley and the Patagonia Mountains. The bi-folding doors deliver natural light and harness passive cooling breezes when open and security when closed. The doors can be configured in a myriad of ways, as seasons, use, and lifestyle requires the owner to interact and respond, using the bi-folding doors to control the solar gain or harness the breezes in different ways. When the temperatures are appropriate the Zaguan is a protected covered space used for lounging, dining and sleeping.
© Cade Hayes
The Zaguan as a space offers the rare experience where one can slow down or stop altogether, and simply take in the natural environment in a single focused view and physically witness time passing.The only sources of heat are a wood burning stove and fireplace. Experientially, in the winter, the first thing one thinks of when they wake is fire. The smell of the Arizona Emory oaks burning further distinguishes the experiential nature of the house in the memory of scent. Cooling is achieved through the thermal offset of 18” thick scoria walls and the natural flow of air that moves through the Zaguan due to the positive and negative pressures on either side. Solar orientation was carefully considered in the placement of exterior windows, which were kept small to minimize direct solar heat gain in the summer.
Section
All of the windows are operable, as well as the kicks and transoms of the living room window wall, bedroom entry and slot windows that harness and pull air out of the Zaguan and through the living and sleeping zones. An extra door was added to the access to the sleeping zone, so that when both are open, the small wood burning stove can also heat the Zaguan space for dinner parties and small gatherings when desired. This operability further engages the owner as an active participant in the experience of the house.
An existing well provides water for the house, and a small solar electrical system sits away from the house to provide for basic electrical power use. Minimal lighting is used, all low voltage LED. Cooking, water heating and refrigeration are all powered by propane gas.
© Cade Hayes
Casa Caldera is almost entirely custom built. The scoria walls, steel windows, doors, hardware, leather pulls, wood siding, millwork, casework and framing were all fabricated and installed by DUST. The wood that is used on the ceiling and Zaguan walls is reclaimed sassafrass. Casa Caldera is entirely off grid.
Only thirty yards of waste, one roll-off, was created in the making of Casa Caldera.
© Cade Hayes
Technical Description:
The thick exterior walls were cast and rammed of pulverized red scoria sourced from northern Arizona. Scoria is an effective insulator due to the porosity provided by the aggregate and ramming methods.Scoria walls create the structure, finish and offer insulation and thermal mass all in one stroke. In addition to the porosity creating effective insulation, rigid foam insulation has been introduced within the outer 1/3 of the wall section.
© Cade Hayes
The specific method of creating the scoria walls used in Casa Caldera is primarily a result of a pioneer builder named Paul Schwam who developed his own mixing and delivery system over the past 20 years.
© Cade Hayes
A minimal structural grid of reinforcement is built upon concrete footings. Extra rebar is used as needed to form the integral beams, columns and heads that are all seamless in the final scoria shell. Formwork is erected in 4’ segments; in this case, Symons steel-ply forms were used. The dry lightweight volcanic aggregate and cement are put in the hoppers mixing machine custom made by Paul Schwam. The dry mix ratio is dialed in with an appropriate ratios and the introduction of just the right amount of water to produce a semi-fluid material. The ready to use mix finds its way to a conveying delivery system through a mixing auger at the bottom of the hoppers. Once the mix is on the conveying system is can travel on several conveying belts depending on height of the walls. Scoria is then delivered into the formwork in 12” to 18” lifts and lightly rammed by hand using small 2”x2” wood tampers. The process is repeated, adding more formwork as the walls rise until the top of wall is reached.
© Cade Hayes
Google Doodle celebrates urban design writer and activist Jane Jacobs
Today’s Google Doodle features an illustration of American writer and urban planning activist Jane Jacobs, who successfully campaigned against major infrastructure projects in New York and Toronto. (more…)
Glam Space / Bruno Lucas Dias
© Hugo Santos Silva
- Architects: Bruno Lucas Dias
- Location: R. Rosa Falcão, 3240 Ansião, Portugal
- Constructor: Carpintaria Carlos Ribeiro
- Area: 30.0 m2
- Project Year: 2016
- Photographs: Hugo Santos Silva
© Hugo Santos Silva
From the architect. The design for a shop in Rose Street Hawk in Ansião occupies an existing space with feature gloomy and dark.
Concept developed for a woman’s accessories store.
© Hugo Santos Silva
The functionality has resulted in an economic constructive solution, one material, slatted in pinewood
The introduction of a wooden element in the upper level of the store, transmits a character to the identity space, allowing the display of products area, privileged vision quota.
Diagram
Diagram
The design allows great flexibility and various hypotheses aggregation, various types of exposure, a versatility of occupation.
© Hugo Santos Silva
The new spatial configuration would change the relationship between the void and the built environment, by proposing relationships more proximity to the comfort in the lights, transparencies assumed a leading role in the definition of pure environments, white, wrapped in reflection
Diagram
Sections
LACMA Steadily Raises Funds for Peter Zumthor’s Campus Overhaul
© Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has announced two gifts totaling $75 million dollars, bringing the museum’s Peter Zumthor designed campus overhaul one step closer to reality, reports the Los Angeles Times. Elaine Wynn, one of the world’s top art collectors, has pledged $50 million dollars, and former Univision chairman A. Jerrold Perenchio has promised $25 million, bringing the total funds raised and approved to $275 million, just shy of halfway to the $600 million required for the project.
© Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner
The Zumthor design, now in its third major revision, evolved from a blot or tar-like form, later branching across Wiltshire Boulevard, and now has settled on a more rectilinear, S-like form. The project is backdropped by a flurry of museum expansions both in the United States and abroad, ranging from SFMOMA, to the Tate Modern, and the Museum of Modern Art. The LACMA building will begin its environmental review process this summer, with construction set to start in 2018 and conclude in 2023.
Read the complete story from the LA Times here.
Peter Zumthor & LACMA Unveil Revised Museum Design
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London Design Festival announces installations for 2016
Benjamin Hubert, Alison Brooks and dRMM are among the architects and designers that will create installations for this year’s London Design Festival, which is also set to include a crazy golf course designed by the late Zaha Hadid (+ slideshow). (more…)
“Design is improving the top line and the bottom line,” says PepsiCo CEO
Milan 2016: Indra Nooyi, CEO of giant food-and-drink conglomerate PepsiCo, established an in-house design team three years ago after noticing the brand’s products looked the same as everyone else’s. At an event in Milan last month she explained the impact it has had – and why she personally attended the design fair (+ transcript). (more…)
Dior Miami Facade / Barbaritobancel Architectes
© Alessandra Chemollo
- Architects: Barbaritobancel Architectes
- Location: 162 NE 39th St, Miami, FL 33137, USA
- Area: 1000.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2016
- Photographs: Alessandra Chemollo
- Facade: Barbaritobancel Architectes
- Interiors: Dior architecture based on Peter Marino concept.
- Footprint Area: 304 sqm
- Facade Surface Area: 1000 sqm
© Alessandra Chemollo
© Alessandra Chemollo
From the architect. Several Ideas, one intention.
The principal stake of the project is to design a building to Dior’s image.
The first natural approach is to gather the values which build Dior’s identity:
- France, Paris, Versailles,
- The ‘Haute Couture’,
- The elegance, the refinement,
- The excellence, the search for perfection, The
- know-how, the tradition, the culture,
- The creativity, the desire of innovation and delight,
- The nobility, the luxury, the beauty.
Haute Couture and Architecture can meet around these values. From this combination, a duality emerges, The Haute-Couture is linked to fashion, the ephemeral, and constantly needs to renew itself.
Sketch
Architecture transcends fashions and its image needs to outlive time that goes by and continue to represent de Dior spirit in a lasting manner.
© Alessandra Chemollo
More than a question of style, the Architecture is a question of light, proportion, and elegance. So, under the light, the sculptured white volume reveals its cut. Through large curved movements of white concrete, clear figures of the ‘plissée’ take shape, between which the spaces of the boutique slide in. The nobility of the smooth and delicate surfaces is given by a contemporary material made of ultra high-density concrete and by marble powder.
© Alessandra Chemollo
Section
The project also respects its «commercial» nature. The building does not want to appear as an institution or a museum; and its generous shop windows open to the immediate public place. The drawing is influenced by the suggestive inspirations of Miami, images of sun and beaches along with an idea of dynamism, youth, and contemporary design.
Architecture and Haute Couture unite in the common desire to seduce.
© Alessandra Chemollo
