Nikola Olic, an architectural photographer based in Dallas, Texas, has a thematic focus on capturing and reimagining buildings and sculptural objects in “dimensionless and disorienting ways.” His studies, which often isolate views of building façades, frame architectural surfaces in order for them to appear to collapse into two dimensions. “This transience,” he argues, “can be suspended by a camera shutter for a fraction of a second.” In this second series shared with ArchDaily, Olic presents a collection of photographs taken in Barcelona, Dallas, New York City and Los Angeles.
From the architect. The Zig Zag Building replaces a 1950s office block on Victoria Street in central London, close to The Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, with exemplary new office space. Colonnades at various scales indicate and define the entrances to the various different types of accommodation housed within the broader scope of our project e.g. offices, housing, restaurants, shops, bars, etc. Situated between a cathedral and a town hall, the design seeks to mediate between these two in terms of size and scale and to establish a credible and pleasurable urban spatial order connecting together the grain of this part of Westminster.
Sketch
The relationships between the inside and outside of the building are articulated as a series of thresholds in carefully calibrated, shaded, open-able, yet mostly transparent façades that nonetheless appear solid from afar. Layers of shading not only add scale to the elevations, but also vary across the different orientations, offering occupants the possibility of the enjoyment of fresh air and natural light – along with the virtuous preservation of natural resources.
On the upper levels, above the retail accommodation at ground and 1st floor, the office facade has six principal components. The first is the internal structural columns, which are circular with minimal diameter.
This avoids an awkward relationship with the second element, the curtain wall, which has C31 anodized pale bronze-coloured stable-door style openable panels set up on a 1.5m grid and 3m panel. At least 2.5% of an office floor area must be openable façade to enable the fire brigade to purge smoke after a fire, and around the same proportion needs to be insulated. We have combined these two parameters to create a shutter that enables cross ventilation and which forms a Juliette balcony when fully opened. The façade works in tandem with the energy strategy for the building generally.
Capillary cooling in the concrete floor slab, combined with chilled beams, creates the possibility of omitting a conventional suspended ceiling, thus creating a floor-to-ceiling height of over 3.3m. In front of the curtain wall, and separated by a 50mm gap, are the third element, 3.7m x 65mm thick anodized fins of varying depths, that shade the façade from solar gain from the east and west. At the lowest level, the fins are set at 1.5m centres and are 600mm deep, gradually diminishing in width and depth on successive floors i.e. as they get closer together they cast more shadow, and thus their depth reduces accordingly to conserve materials. This has the effect of making the building appear taller and more statuesque.
The fourth element is the horizontal cill that shades the facade from the south midday summer sun and which remains a constant depth throughout. The fifth element is a hanging translucent glass ‘doily’ protects the façade from solar gain and glare arising from spring and autumn midday sun, which is not quite at the zenith at noon but nonetheless often intense. The doily is made up of laminated glass with a printed inter-layer depicting a variety of images of onyx. Finally, the “zigzag” geometry of the building exaggerates the play of light and shadow across the façade, and this variety is complimented by patterns made as occupants open different parts of it on warm days.
Sketch
The translucent doilies register another layer of inhabitation and respond to seasonal and diurnal time, as, in the winter months, they begin to glow towards the end of the working day. Terraces are planted with trees and flowers, emphasizing still further the presence of the natural world within the working lives of the inhabitants. Concern for the well-being of inhabitants is balanced by the care taken in the design of the landscape by Vogt, and is reflected in the art works of Rut Blees-Luxemburg and Timorous Beasties. The Zig Zag Building was pre-let to Deutsche Bank and to Jupiter Asset Management. The project won the Best Office Building award at The World Architecture Festival, held in Berlin in November 2016.
Monolith House is a private residence renovated by Rara Architecture. It is located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and was completed in 2016. Monolith House by Rara Architecture: “Our mission was to reinstate the old home’s glory through highlighting it’s simplistic characteristics and its overall form. We stripped it right back to a neutral state. The height of the rear addition had the potential to dwarf the original heritage home, so,..
From the architect. English for Fun, founded in Spain in 2011, uses a revolutionary method for children of any age or physical condition to learn English using their five senses. English for Fun is a place for all children to learn. This pedagogical approach is based in the idea that every child is special and unique.
The new center for English for Fun wanted to be a representation of this innovative teaching method, a place to booster creativity, imagination, and to stimulate all five senses.
This commission represented an opportunity to investigate how design can shape experience and affect the subject in processes of playing and learning.
Ground Floor
The Reggio Emilia approach is an educational philosophy based in a self guided and very open interpretation of learning. It is based in three core principals:
• the child as an active part of the learning process. it is based in a non-guided way of playing where the kids have their own interpretation of natural and artificial play-objects.
The proposal should overcome the cliches of spaces designed for kids, being non figurative and open to multiple interpretations. The goal was to create a space in the spirit of the adventure playgrounds where the play-objects, not toys, only develop their full potential in the interaction with the kids. The design should operate at the adult scale as much as the kids’ scale, so it was important to create spaces that only children could inhabit and own. The answer was to propose a tinker tray, where all the objects involved in the play and learning process could be storage, the work produced exhibit and where the kids could also feel that they are part of it. The strategy was proposing a thick structure instead of thin partitions to configure the class room space, an inhabitable wall that will storage all furniture and objects when not in use, making the reconfiguration of the class very easy. The broken geometry of the structure creates a series of nooks, that will be inhabited by the kids. The different typologies of objects were reduced to the minimum, establishing a generic module that can be used in multiple ways. It is not a chair, or table, or tower, or play kitchen, or car, or box for stones, or helmet, but all the above.
Axonometric
The function of this thick inhabitable wall was twofold, first creating little spaces to be own by the kids, and second to provide storage space facing both, the classroom and the corridor, so the space that usually only serves as circulations is now activated and can be used as common ground for kids, teacher and parents. It also transforms the corridor into a showcase of the learning process, blurring the limits between the classrooms, and expanding the perception of the space, avoiding the conventional compartmentalisation of the classrooms.
One to Three is a residential project designed by Create + Think Design Studio in 2013. It is located in Taipei City, Taiwan. Photos by: Figure x Lee Kuo-Min Studio
One to Three is a residential project designed by Create + Think Design Studio in 2013. It is located in Taipei City, Taiwan. Photos by: Figure x Lee Kuo-Min Studio
One to Three is a residential project designed by Create + Think Design Studio in 2013. It is located in Taipei City, Taiwan. Photos by: Figure x Lee Kuo-Min Studio
One to Three is a residential project designed by Create + Think Design Studio in 2013. It is located in Taipei City, Taiwan. Photos by: Figure x Lee Kuo-Min Studio
One to Three is a residential project designed by Create + Think Design Studio in 2013. It is located in Taipei City, Taiwan. Photos by: Figure x Lee Kuo-Min Studio
From the architect. The project started with an unconventional request from an open minded couple: within a very tight budget, to convert a windowless 200m2 garage into a house.
The proposed intervention intended the clearest reading possible of the existing structure, emphasising its strength. While the garage was careless and grey, the house is clean and white; its materiality is flat, its light is abstract.
Two generous bathrooms were included behind a curved wall, where a broken corner was before; the walls and ceilings were painted in white and the floor covered in a continuous polished concrete surface; the existing skylights we’re rethought. No other change felt necessary.
Carefully placed elements organize the living areas: a marble kitchen, curtains, potted plants. Along with the furniture, the free standing elements carry the flexible identity of the house, hinting its domesticity while punctuating the abstract volume with color.
Sig Nordal 