This week we’re rounding up popular homes from Dezeen’s Pinterest boards that use fireplaces to create cosy living spaces – including a Norwegian cabin and a Finnish winter retreat. Read more
Italian designer Lella Vignelli, who together with husband Massimo formed the “first couple of modern design”, has died aged 82. Read more
Brightly painted shipping containers are stacked one on top of the other to house bunk beds at this hostel in Nha Trang, which also features aerial bridges and giant communal hammocks. Read more
Our job of the day from Dezeen Jobs is for a full-time professor in product design at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (pictured). Browse more architecture and design opportunities on Dezeen Jobs.
Dezeen’s videos received over 30 million plays in 2016. For our review of the year, studio director Ben Hobson has selected the 10 that sum up the year, including our interview with Bjarke Ingels at the opening of this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion and our video tribute to the late Zaha Hadid. Read more
A former factory in Beijing has been overhauled to create a studio and home for a calligraphy artist, featuring bright white galleries and a sloping roof with stepped windows. Read more
The Lunar watch by Hong Kong-based brand Ziiiro, which tells the time with light and dark segments, is now available to purchase from Dezeen Watch Store. Read more
Rows of metal sun louvres slotted between structural concrete fins help to shade the glazed facade of this university building near Tel Aviv by local architects David S Robins and Dan Price. Read more
In 2017, British news magazine The Economist will move to a new home, leaving behind its iconic home of 52 years, Economist Plaza.
The project represents the first major commission by British duo Alison and Peter Smithson, who would go on to have esteemed careers as champions of the Brutalist style. Located at 22 Ryder Street, not far from Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace, Economist Plaza marked a significant breakthrough in tall building design, replacing the traditional streetfront of a podium and tower design with stairs and a ramp leading to an elevated plaza from which 3 buildings would rise.
Watch the video above to learn the story behind the project, and read more about the legacy the Economist will leave behind, here.
News via the Economist.
Spotlight: Alison and Peter Smithson
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From the architect. The project involved the rehabilitation of a former boarding school built in the late nineteenth century, in the area of Cerro Alegre in Valparaíso. In a slope and with access to two pedestrian streets, the building is located above the Dimalow promenade overlooking it with its main facade while releasing a backyard towards the Caracoles passage. The property built in masonry and wood, was originally a compact building of two floors, facing north and south while being attached to other buildings on both sides to the east and west.
The condition of the building was good except for some specific places (facade to the south) that were affected by moisture and termites. The entire house had suffered numerous interventions due to its successive uses (housing, boarding school, home for women). The intentions of the project were to accommodate the building for its new purpose while recovering its original character, to improve the living conditions of the property and to improve the relationship of the building with the environment by strengthening the public space. All interventions and changes such as non-original interior subdivisions of the house were removed, leaving only the original structure of floors and walls. A courtyard was opened in the center of the original volume providing light and ventilation to all areas. A new underground level was built accommodating the warehouses, cold storage rooms, technical facilities and rooms for the staff so the rest of the building can be used completely for its main purpose.
In order to form a continuous facade, an urban characteristic of patrimonial neighborhood, the service yard was transformed into a new facade. Dimalow and Caracoles passages are now connected through an axis linking both entrances. The program considered the implementation of a bar-restaurant, exhibition hall, game room, meeting room, conference room, radio and local design store.
Sig Nordal 