© Shannon McGrath

• Architects: Jarchitecture
• Location: Rhyll VIC 3923, Australia
• Design Team: Jason Gec, Jorja Gec
• Area: 360.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Shannon McGrath

• Engineer: Meyer Consulting
• Builder: Brent Casbolt Builders

© Shannon McGrath

From the architect. The site is engrossed by nature and aspect, therefore the design competes by being bold, sharp and textural. This boldness and form is also an expression of the clients and their family expanding out of their current holiday house, a caravan.

© Shannon McGrath

A solid black box expands out of the ground from nothing into a duality of aspect and function, picking up more materials as it expands toward French Island and Western Port Bay. The top storey acts as a self-sufficient lookout for when it is in use by a single couple, while downstairs acts as a family extension, with focus placed on play around the pool, spa, barbeque deck and cinema. Upstairs is decadent in its finishes and complex plan while downstairs is laid out and finished more simplistically; there is a play off between warm rustic materials and contemporary decadence.

© Shannon McGrath

Ground Floor Plan

© Shannon McGrath

The design aims to be bunkered down and of the site, then grow, expand and lift from it. The views, planning setbacks, site orientation, prevailing winds and land fall all promoted an Easterly aspect; so we acted accordingly. We then went about making the most of the less than ideal solar orientation of the house by exposing the slab to the North, blocking the Westerly winds and sun, limiting openings to the South/street and controlling the morning sun.

© Shannon McGrath

The site specifics and clients brief presented a challenge for environmental design but we prevailed by including the following initiatives in the design.

• Exposed slab to collect solar energy with 15-20% recycled fly ash
• Highly durable decking material of recycled plastic and timber
• Highly insulated and durable double-glazed UPVC windows
• High grade timber cladding that will grey gracefully
• Solar heated pool
• Highly-insulated walls, floor and ceiling
• Minimal southern and western glazing
• Optimized cross ventilation

The design has a highly efficient layout and a more complex aesthetic than the inhabitants might have expected. In both ways the design breaks from their current conventions and provides a new way of being. The clients constantly say they can’t wait to get back to the house; what more could a designer want?

© Shannon McGrath

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© Paul Warchol

• Architects: Sage and Coombe Architects
• Location: 625 Father Capodanno Blvd, Staten Island, NY 10305, USA
• Project Team: Jennifer Sage, FAIA (Principal)/ Peter Coombe, AIA (Principal)/ Joshua Keay, AIA (Project Architect)/ Julia Tate, AIA (Architect).
• Area: 135000.0 ft2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Paul Warchol

© Paul Warchol

From the architect. Built as part of New York City’s Design Excellence program within both the Department of Parks and Recreation and the DDC, the Ocean Breeze Indoor Athletic Facility sits within a new 110-acre park being developed as a part of former Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative, whose primary goal was to bring large scale regional parks to every borough. Located on Staten Island’s Eastern Shore, the building overlooks the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, lower Manhattan, and the Freedom Tower.

© Paul Warchol

Now in the final stage of construction, Ocean Breeze has been open for track events since November 2015. Raised above one of the few remaining areas of native upland coastal grasslands on the island, Ocean Breeze’s minimal interior footprint – largely comprised of an open-air parking area – enhances both views and the potential for natural ventilation, while protecting the building from storm surges and rising tides.

Diagram

By far the most state-of-the-art track facility in the region, the fieldhouse program includes a 200m hydraulically banked track that can convert from six banked lanes during competition events, to eight flat lanes to accommodate large practice sessions.  Meeting USATF, NCAA, and IAFF competition standards, the track boasts seating for 2,500 people, concessions, meeting rooms, restrooms and service areas, as well as a fitness center serving neighboring communities.

© Paul Warchol

The project integrates green building principles through the use of daylight harvesting, photo-sensor informed lighting controls, on-site storm water management, recycled materials, and a “cool” roof which has spare structural capacity for future photovoltaic technology. All mechanical systems utilize high efficiency equipment, which is monitored and controlled through a networked building management system.

© Paul Warchol

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Plastique Fantastique‘s pneumatic structures were originally conceived in 1999 through necessity: “The fact that we used plastic was just due to the fact that we had no money,” explains the firm’s founder Marco Canevacci. “So, plastic was just the cheapest material we could imagine, and you can join parts very easily and you can create very simple architectures. By using a hot air blower, those architectures become warm places to stay.” By using warm air to inflate the structures, their office became a landscape of heated pods in an otherwise cold space. However, through their continued experiments over almost two decades, Plastique Fantastique’s pneumatic interventions have now come to make the case for an ephemeral, temporary, and whimsical architecture. Their work now continues a lineage started by the experimental utopian group Haus-Rucker-Co, whose own pneumatic structures of the 1960s were disposable, free-wheeling creations which both literally and metaphorically played with the boundaries of a world they saw as staid, rigid, and dull.

Last year, Plastique Fantastique was invited to the 180 Creative Camp held by Canal 180 in Abrantes, Portugal, where their giant, inhabitable Strawberry Ice Cream Cone took over a public place to provide a unique and fun spatial experience. To mark this event, Canal 180 produced a short film highlighting some key recent projects by the firm and documenting the construction of their latest work. Watch the video above, and read on to see more images of the installation in Abrantes.

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© Punto Avi

MVRDV’s design for the Dutch exhibition “Hola Holanda” at the Book Fair of Bogotá (FILBO) features a modular system of crates that will be repurposed as neighbourhood libraries after the Book Fair ends. Avoiding the waste of resources created by one-time pavilions, the Dutch firm has introduced a playful element of sustainability to the fair, maintaining its spirit even after the event ends.

© Punto Avi

FILBO, is one of Latin America’s most important trade events, partnering with a guest country each year to host a main pavilion. This year, the Netherlands and Colombia partook in an exchange of knowledge and culture, with an exhibition designed by Dutch designer Irma Boom and the Dutch Embassy in Colombia.

At the center of this activity, MVRDV’s pavilion circumvents the common problem of pavilions and exhibitions disappearing after an event, rather than benefiting surrounding communities. The pavilions within the Dutch exhibition were designed as a collection of over one thousand “vividly coloured” wooden creates, which can be easily deconstructed and re-assembled.

Circular Bookshop. Image © Punto Avi

Each unit uses standardised wooden panels, leaving little waste material, and allowing “unlimited possibilities for reconstruction throughout their lifetime.” After the event, the pavilions will be distributed throughout Bogotá as libraries, and social and education spaces.

Exhibition Layout Diagram. Image Courtesy of MVRDV

“Our design is a village, an accessible, democratic design for all, executed in the best Dutch spirit with some fun,” says MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs. “But it was important also to comment on the trade fair system. Instead of trashing an expensive pavilion after a short use we wanted it to be reused adding long term value to the city.”

Exhibition Front. Image © Punto Avi

The exhibition will be open until May 2. 

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© Alejandro Arango

• Architects: Plan b arquitectos , M+Group
• Location: Envigado, Envigado, Antioquia, Colombia
• Project Team: Juan Camilo Garcés, María Clara Osorio, Carlos Blanco, Daniel Tobón, Esteban Hincapié, Santiago Mora
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Alejandro Arango, Vásquez Villegas Fotografía

• Ecosystem: Bosque montano, Montaneforest
• Project Managment: Felipe Mesa, Federico Mesa, Andrés Felipe Mesa Trujillo
• Constructor: Ríos Constructores
• Client: Ríos Constructores

© Alejandro Arango

From the architect. 1. Adaptability to the sun

This building settles in plan to an irregular and tight plot which imposes its perimeter shape. For a better adjustment, the program is fragmented in to two big apartments in each level, leaving in the middle a long shaped hall which allows to change the direction, turning to find the most favorable position obeying simultaneously with a strict urban regulation regarding the setbacks and visual control towards other buildings. Its shape is also the shape of the plot.

2. Program

In section the building adapts to the high inclination of the plot, leaving the main access at street level, 4 inferior levels for parking, 13 above levels of apartments and a final level with a terrace, common areas, gardens and a pool. In the first nine floors there are ten and eight apartments of one level, and in the final four floors, four apartments of two floors and double height in the social area. The area of these apartments varies between 160 and 280m2, they are thought to be for big, conventional and families with children. 

© Alejandro Arango

Duplex Floor Plan 1

© Alejandro Arango

3. Tropical surroundings

Although in plan the both built volumes have variations in their orientation, in reality its main façades and most extensive, face the strong sun of the morning and afternoon in a tropical environment without seasons and constant climatic conditions. To maintain the building in shade throughout the year longitudinal and continuous eaves have been proposed. They gain and lose depth according to the spaces they protect, always widening in the social areas and in the bedrooms and decreasing in service areas. Balconies and terraces are always located in the interior of the façade’s perimeter and the windows are always positioned in between eaves. Strategic openings have been considered to favor cross ventilation in the interior of the apartments.

© Vásquez Villegas Fotografía

4. Direct contact with the street.

Before impermeable urbanism, this buildings tries to do the opposite: instead of closing itself completely inside a control fence, its outline is exposed to the street, it can be touched and it locates in the first level the access booth and premises for a café which can be used by both the neighbors and the community in general.

© Alejandro Arango

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