This northern California cabin by Mork-Ulnes Architects is clad in tar-coated timber and sits atop a concrete plinth – measures that both help protect the structure from heavy snowfall. (more…)
La Mantilla answers the functional mix programme defined for the mixed development zone Jacques Cœur in Montpellier. With an approximately 32,000 m2 surface area, it provides shops, restaurants, housing, a student residence, offices and a public car park.
The complex is designed as a coherent built landscape and organised around an interior garden that acts as its federating element, exemplifying the approach taken to the ongoing design of this city. Three grand staircases lead up to the 1st floor level hanging garden that provides users and residents with a pleasant social space opening onto the city. As well as the staircases, there are also a number of openings that contribute to creating a feeling of transparency and lightness.
On the southern side, Place Pablo Picasso marks the gateway to the city. Particular emphasis is placed on the verticality of the buildings, whose silhouettes rise up from the surrounding landscape, underlining this new urban identity and providing a strong signal. On the northern side giving onto the Jacques Coeur Lake, the view opens generously onto the hanging garden with its cafés and restaurants linking the public and private gardens.
Like other projects designed by the studio, a unifying element, in this case a white mineral mantilla, is used to encompass the architectural language of La Mantilla while offering a reinterpretation of Mediterranean architecture. Its pattern takes the form of a lattice that wraps around the balconies and loggias, providing subtle tonal variations that change with the time of day.
From an environmental point of view, the project complies with Low Energy Consumption Building standards and reflects the studio commitment to sustainable development.
By simultaneously placing emphasis on both the use of the building and its users, the design is a highly contemporary project that avoids all fleeting architectural fashions. It is simply a building in the city, both generous and useful.
From the architect. The continuous impact of climate dynamics, armed conflicts, non stop urbanization and economic upheavals present a distinct need for a hybrid architectural topology to deliver parallel solutions for food and shelter in each distressed region. This is a dual-purpose shelter and modular insect farm bounded into one structure. It’s intended for the impending food crisis, where people will need access to good sources of alternative protein, as raising livestock is not possible at our current rate of consumption and resource extraction. The United Nations has mandated insect sourced protein is a major component to solving global food distribution problems. This impacts the diets of all peoples across the globe.
In an advanced economic setting, this farm can introduce a sophisticated and ultra-sanitary method of locally harvesting insects for the production of cricket flour in fine cuisine recipes. It can also serve to be a new topology for a specialty restaurant, eatery, storehouse or similar architectural program. Introducing crickets into the modern American/ European diet is not a simple task, but there is precedent. For example, a few decades ago American’s did not wish to eat raw fish. Yet positive change materialized after sushi was introduced on a culturally refined and hygienic level. The same kind of approach needs to be embedded in the cultivation of crickets to achieve the cleanliness, quality, and purity of the farm-to-table system. Over two billion people eat insects every day; it’s time to reintroduce them into the diets of the remaining population.
Raising cattle, pigs, and chicken for meat products all require immense amounts of fresh water. Harvesting insects for food typical takes three hundred times less water for the same amount of protein. Our project aims to maximize access to nutrient resources and to deal with and support local communities in anticipation of post-disaster scenarios. This also targets societal upgrading strategies in both developed and developing countries as the temporary shelter easily coverts to a permanent farming system/ eatery after the crisis has dissipated.
Structurally, the shelter can be minimized into easily manufactured and replicable elements such as a simple CNC plywood archway with linked off-the-shelf plastic containers as infill surface. The current version of the structure is more customized to account for solar orientation, airflow and varied spatial programs internally. A computational model was used to parametrically align all of the individual containers to match the archway splines. Each pre-ordered container was modified to add ventilation screens, flexible insect sacks, locally controlled louvers, and permeable feeder ports with rotating locking mechanisms. The wind quill ventilation component magnifies the sound of cricket chirping in columns of vibrating air.
The scheme has a multipronged focus on international hunger solutions, sustainable food distribution methods and modular compact architecture. A project of this type is built for areas in calamitous need both present and future. We understand that our role in the complex system of global cooperation is to seek holistic solutions that integrate interdisciplinary knowledge and citizen participation for shelter and subsistence farming. It is essential to understand the physical, social and cultural substrate of developing territories in which food and refuge is simultaneously critical.
Designers are losing the understanding of the nature and potential of materials gained from creating things by hand, according to Apple’s Jonathan Ive. (more…)
With the conclusion of this year’s Met Gala, on Thursday the public will have their first look at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new spring show, “Manus x Machina“. According to the museum, “[the exhibition] will explore [an] ongoing dichotomy, in which hand and machine are presented as discordant tools in the creative process, and question the relationship and distinction between haute couture and ready-to-wear.” Occurring in the museum’s Robert Lehman Wing, a 1975 expansion by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, the exhibition design has been developed by Shohei Shigematsu of OMA New York. Organized by Andrew Bolton, the Curator of The Costume Institute, the exhibition will feature over 100 samples of “haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear, dating from an 1880s Worth gown to a 2015 Chanel suit.” Read on for a small preview of the exhibition, fashion, and spectacle of Manus x Machina, on view from May 5 – August 14.
British designer Thomas Heatherwick‘s elevated park over the Hudson River has been given the go ahead by planners and will start construction this summer. (more…)
From the architect. Villa +, detached house, steel frame construction and wooden cladding. The villa is located in the middle of an island in the IJ lake next to Amsterdam. The living and dining area on the ground floor are surrounded by glass. The private garden and living room are located slightly deeper. The four bedrooms and study room on the first floor have shutters; the façade is therefore completely close. It is a “heavy” block on the transparent ground floor; it provides more shelter and privacy despite the transparence facades.
Clerkenwell Design Week 2016: Benjamin Hubert’s London studio Layer has unveiled designs for a made-to-measure wheelchair that will be manufactured using 3D-printing technology. (more…)
With just over a month to go before London’s Tate Modern opens its new Herzog & de Meuron-designed wing, Instagram users have been sharing images of the angular brick structure. (more…)
From the architect. Addressing the needs of a growing campus, UCR’s new Student Recreation Expansion project supports the physical well-being of its students and creates a new campus hub for social and academic interaction. Integrating with an existing building, the expansion transforms the site into a holistic recreation environment reinforcing the connection between mind and body, and addressing the challenges of context, environment, and identity.
The new addition preserves an existing at-grade pedestrian thoroughfare while connecting seamlessly with the University’s existing recreation facilities. This was achieved by locating the majority of wellness functions on a cantilevered second floor “bridge” linked to the existing building across a shaded breezeway.
The curved open plan is a contiguous space with a variety of view orientations and visual connections to the lower levels. The ground floor features extensive shading from the cantilevered upper level, and is defined by open glazed fitness areas loosely defined by the opaque volumes of the MAC gym and a circular locker room clad in UCR’s campus blend brick. The design weaves together multiple recreation activities including jogging, rock climbing, fitness, basketball, indoor soccer, weights, physical therapy and swimming. The open concept creates dynamic relationships between the various components enhancing the building’s potential as a place for social engagement.
Students wanted interior spaces to be open and interconnected and capture broad views across campus and to the surrounding mountains. Additionally, the project was required to achieve exemplary energy performance exceeding California’s Title 24 mandate by 30% and acquiring LEED Gold Certification. To achieve these goals, a perforated metal scrim shades the upper floor glazing substantially reducing heat gain and glare while maximizing views and daylight. The shape of this unique undulating screen was derived by mapping the mean annual movement of the sun to generate an optimal shading response. It creates a strong visual identity for the building within the campus context and animates the exterior facade as it changes in transparency and reflectivity throughout the day.
