Fabric Fabric is a flat material. It is used as a flexural surface of an object which is contacted to the human body such as clothes, bedding, and so on. We would like to interpret two-dimensional features of the fabric from a three-dimensional perspective by transforming it from a flat surface to a three-dimensional structure. This is done via stacking thin layers of fabric, not via a standard way like cutting, folding, or sewing.
Stacking Fabric Natural felt is a fiber-entangled texture that is produced by applying heat, moisture, and pressure to wool. It is widely used from the fashion field to the industrial field because of its flexibility and solidity of entangled fiber. Stacking these felt fabric reinforces its natural flexibility and satisfies simultaneously the function of a substantial furniture as well. And the mass of felt made by stacking fabric via a simple and primitive act provides the heaviness like concrete mass.
Floating Fabric The interior space of the cafe, ‘On ne sait jamais’, is consist of a bottom space where heavy felt furnitures are placed and an overhead space where floating fabrics are hanging. It is possible for the steel structures at the overhead space to move horizontally through the rail which is integrated with light fixtures. And it supports a rearrangement of the layout in order for the demand of users or an upcoming event at the cafe. The fabric hanging from the overhead structure is a very delicate translucent fabric which is distinct from the felt fabric at the bottom space. Being different from the heaviness of the stacking felt, the floating fabric provides sensitive movements responded by behaviors of visitors and micro airflow. How this strange but familiar space made by differences of material properties is going to be understood by visitors is ‘On ne sait jamais’.
* The French expression ‘On ne sait jamais’ means ‘You never know’.
From the architect. New campus building at Ruyton Girls’ School has opened with architecture and interiors by Woods Bagot.
Woods Bagot has designed a new education facility for one of Melbourne’s preeminent girls schools, Ruyton Girls’ School, transforming the site into a dynamic offering for students and staff.
The design sees a move away from traditional classroom planning framework where desks are lined in rows and a teacher educates from the front, to a model that prioritises natural light, flexible furniture and technology-enabled teaching and learning spaces for task-based, student-centred flexible learning.
Courtesy of Woods Bagot
Situated in the Melbourne suburb of Kew, Ruyton has a clear focus on personalised learning, an approach that exemplifies the shift towards student-centred learning where collaboration, creativity and critical thinking are all essential components.
Woods Bagot Principal Sarah Ball said the new building has elevated the campus with architecture and integrated interiors facilitating learning in a digital age.
Courtesy of Woods Bagot
“This project saw the existing Margaret McRae building demolished and a striking new facility erected in its place. The transformation has enabled additional amenity and application of best practice teaching and learning environments at the school.
“The design features reconfigurable furniture options and larger floor plates for increased flexibility, further supporting the move towards learning in the digital age and empowering students in the learning process within both formal and informal learning environments,” Sarah said.
Ground Floor
Woods Bagot Principal and Design Leader Bruno Mendes said the crafted design brings the social agenda inside, with a variety of zones including a significant breakout space offering the ability to be used as a secondary learning space and enabling students to spill out of classrooms as needed.
“With its fluid plan and organic form, the building subtly responds to the heritage Henty House built at the school in 1872. Sitting centrally within the school campus, the building embraces and celebrates the central gathering space for Ruyton students.”
Comprising four levels including a basement, the building sits within the heart of the campus. The entry has been positioned on the western elevation, while the building footprint at ground level has been deliberately reduced in area to ensure the landscaped footprint is maximised for students.
A complex sculptural form, there are two wings to the building. Circulation around the floorplate has been designed to be fluid, with the main circulation space highlighted by curtain walls that bring the flow of the breakout space of the main courtyard and link to a tennis court on the east side of the building.
1st Level
Timber veneer walls and bulkheads, timber joinery and blue stone flooring and carpets made of recycled fishnets, create a refined aesthetic finish. The colour palette has been intentionally pared back, with classrooms adding pops of blue in conjunction with the school colours.
The insertion of a new landscaped forecourt and external theatre along the south western frontage of the site was an important move in reinforcing the social agenda for the precinct as it aligned with the original masterplan also designed by Woods Bagot.
Courtesy of Woods Bagot
The western external performance area has been gently carved out of the building form with a timber clad soffit providing protection from the elements. The space serves a multitude of functions including a stage large enough to host Ruyton bands or ensembles, a formal and informal theatre and a sheltered space to sit during lunch breaks. The new performance area greatly enhances the central spine through the Ruyton campus and strengthens the social heart of the School.
“We wanted to give something back whereby the central courtyard continued to be the social hub with an external theatre for multi-use activity,” said Bruno.
“Working with a simple palette of neutrally-toned base materials, the girls’ blue uniform brings the space to life.” said Bruno.
Architecturally, the structure has a softness to the form as well as the materiality. In an unprecedented move, stone pavers normally used on the floor have been used in a vertical application. Four types of pavers with subtle textural and tonal differences added to the overall softness of the finish.
While factors such as sunlight proved a challenge for the design team, showing imperfections and misalignment of the pavers not normally visible in a horizontal application, Woods Bagot worked with the manufacturer of the product to refine and perfect its usage on the façade, resulting in an extremely satisfactory outcome for the client.
Ruyton Principal Linda Douglas said the Margaret McRae Centre embraces future-focused learning through its offering of varied and student focused facilities.
“The Margaret McRae Centre is an important hub of learning for the Ruyton community. Our work with Woods Bagot has enabled us to bring the expertise of learning and teaching, architecture and design together in a building that provides flexible and fluid learning spaces for students and staff.”
The new building is now the home base for Ruyton Year 7 and Year 8 students (ages 12 to 14), and incorporates the School’s science facilities, a dedicated multipurpose function space and drama studios.
United Nations Headquarters along the East River in Manhattan. The 460-foot-tall building, Meier’s tallest in New York City, will be primarily constructed of black glass and metal panels, marking a surprising departure away from Meier’s signature all-white aesthetic.
“We asked ourselves, can formal ideas and the philosophy of lightness and transparency, the interplay of natural light and shadow with forms and spaces, be reinterpreted in the precise opposite – white being all colors and black the absence of color?” explains Meier. “Our perspective continues to evolve, but our intuition and intention remain the same – to make architecture that evokes passion and emotion, lifts the spirit, and is executed perfectly.”
The building takes a minimalist approach to form, drawing attention to its considered “materiality, lightness, transparency and order.” The facade’s sleek, black-glass curtain wall presents a solid figure on its eastern elevation, interrupted only by an architectural cut-out at the 27th and 28th floors, while on the western side, balconies, canopies and corners have been introduced to break up the elevation into human-scaled elements.
Individual window modules span full floor-to-floor heights, and then subdivided into a system of operable window panels, joints and reveals. According to the architects, the use of black glass “unifies the façade, provides privacy for residents, and modulates the reflections of the context.”
The interiors of the 556 rental and condominium apartments have also been designed by Richard Meier & Partners, and will feature a material palette of white, gray and earth tones complemented by wood, plaster and glass. Residents will have access to a multitude of building amenities located on the second floor, including an indoor swimming pool, fitness center, child playroom, work room, game room, private dining room, and lounge.
Down at street level, a double-height glazed lobby space will act as a link to the site context, while retail space along First Avenue will inject urban activity into the building.
“The singular form of 685 First Avenue is borne of a desire to create an iconic building unique to Midtown Manhattan,” said Meier. “With advanced technologies and building materials, we seek an innovative and timeless design that adds to the history and roster of Manhattan’s landmark buildings. The architecture will be finely crafted, precise, elegant and striking. It is very meaningful to me personally to work in New York City, and to give something enduring to the city I call home.”
685 First Avenue is being developed by Sheldon Solow’s East River Realty Development, becoming Meier’s 19th designed project in New York City, with other designs including the Perry Street & Charles Street Condominiums, the Westbeth Artists’ Housing in the West Village, and the Aye Simon Reading Room at the Guggenheim Museum.
Location: 685 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States
Design Team: Richard Meier, FAIA, FRIBA; Dukho Yeon, AIA; Stefan Scheiber-Loeis
Project Manager: Richard Liu
Project Architect (Architecture): Sang-Min You
Project Architect (Interiors): Bori Kang, Hans Put
Project Team: Tetsuhito Abe, Diana Carta, Luis Arturo Corzo, Joseph DeSense III, Ana Paola Hernandez, Henry Jarzabkowski, Graham Kervin, Peter J. Liao, Jackson Lindsay, Cameron Longyear, Diana Lui, Sharon Oh, Greg Chung Whan Park, Luciana Ruiz, Anne Struewing, Xiaodi Sun, Yuanyang Teng
Owner & Developer: Sheldon Solow, East River Realty Development LLC
Major Building Materials: Glass and Aluminum Curtain Wall, Metal Panel, and Stone
Program: Residential Tower, Street Level Retail and below grade Garage
Floors: 42 floors above grade, cellar, and sub-cellar
Set in a Lisbon neighbourhood from the thirties, the apartment occupies the last two floors of a building, benefiting from views that from northeast are headed by urban landscape and from southeast, in turn, are dominated by great canopies of trees that inhabit a secular garden near by the building.
The strategic position of the apartment due to his urban context in articulation with domestic space issues prompted the project to focus on the following principles:
-Spatial and functional readaptation in order to explore crossed views, communicability and continuity of and between spaces in active articulation with the pre-existing constrains;
-Program organization and distribution through a logic that promotes clear distinction between social areas [terrace, living room, dinning room, kitchen, library] from service areas [laundry, wc, vertical accesses] on the groundfloor and private area [bedrooms] on the 1st floor;
Floor Plans
– Concentration of infrastructures, equipment and storage into functional walls and cores, in order to free up space;
– Enrichment of the relation between interior and exterior through the redesign of the openings, emphasizing the connection between those areas;
Sections
– Selection of materials that reinforce the natural light of the overall spaces through the extensive use of white color in articulation with the wood pavements and the ceramic tiles of the terrace;
MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE SPACE THE WALL Commited to create a unique living space, the large functional Wall, with its 11.5 meters long,(which concentrate equipment, storage, cooking area etc.) works simultaneously as scenario and as an operating background to support the diverse and multiple actions of the social space.
Mutable in its usage conditions, it allows various interactions and different hierarchies between spaces.
Panels that open to reveal the stairs and close to privatize the rooms, panels that open while cooking and close when the kitchen becomes an workspace, panels that extend or gather inside the cabinets gap to individualize spaces, and so are manageable from this structuring as an unifying element of the space.
THE LIVING ROOM ROOF If the Great wall, with its vertical expression, ensures the spatial continuity, also the design of ceiling contributes to this notion of extension and unification.
The rhythm of the beams that make up the horizontal plan of the social area, thus reinforces the initial and intuitive desire to create a large space, that goes through the full depth of the apartment, and is crossed by diverse environments, uses and actions.
The house is located in the first outskirts of Treviso, between others residential sites.
The place was previously occupied by a typical house characterized by a two slopes roof, main elevation towards south, rectangular plan and east/west orientation.
After various studies, we decided for a “T” shaped volume, maintaining the original part and imaging the extension like a graft.
So this started to develop an interesting theme: to represent the housing archetypical form instead having a plan not representing the housing typology.
Section
After sketches, models and various proofs we have been convinced about this realized form.
In this fase, it was very important to study the vertical distribution of the house. The stair become the foundamental tridimensional pivot of the building: the architectonic element that, linking the two plans, allow the circulation absorbing the slipping of the levels.
In fact, by going up the stair, we realise that the first level is slightly rotated compared to the ground one: this movement became the aim of the project.
We worked with the two slopes roof form in various other projects, after and before this one, starting from this basic shape.
We worked with this by breaking it, empting it, adding volumes, making them sliding rather than rotating, following the raunplan Loos logic. This form modification have a functional meaning: to adapt the archetypal house form to the ever new needs of living, trying to make the house the place of comfort, of family warmth, of everyday actions.
SketchUp developer Trimble has launched SketchUp Viewer, a new virtual and mixed reality app for the Microsoft HoloLens that will allow users to inhabit and experience their 3D designs in a completely new way. Using the holographic capabilities of the HoloLens, SketchUp Viewer creates hologram versions of models that can be placed in real-world environments – allowing architects to study and analyze how their buildings will react to their context while still in the design stage.
At today’s Trimble Dimensions keynote, architect Greg Lynn presented SketchUp Viewer for the first time, demonstrating the technology using his re-imagining of the Packard Plant in Detroit, commissioned as part of the “Architectural Imagination,” the U.S. Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale exhibition.
“Trimble mixed-reality technology and Microsoft HoloLens bring the design to life and bridge the gap between the digital and physical. Using this technology I can make decisions at the moment of inception, shorten the design cycle and improve communication with my clients,” said Lynn.
via SketchUp Viewer
SketchUp Viewer uses the newly launched AR|VR Extension for SketchUp Desktop, and is compatible with models from Trimble’s 3D Warehouse and the cloud-based collaboration platform Trimble Connect. Once in Tabletop mode, models can be scaled as needed to fit into the available space or to zoom into specific design details. Models can be moved, rotated, anchored and re-anchored in physical space, giving users the ability to walk around the project and examine it from any vantage point.
“What truly differentiates SketchUp Viewer from any other product on the market is the ability for users to transition seamlessly to an immersive experience,” explained Trimble. “Mixed reality enables unique opportunities to overlay physical models in real world environments; and as a completely untethered device, HoloLens allows users to move freely as they inhabit their digital surrounds.”
In addition to its visualization capabilities, SketchUp Viewer will also contain remote collaboration technology, allowing designers and consultants from around the world to review and cooperate on projects in real time.
“Empowering people to design and communicate better in 3D is part of our DNA. Across the SketchUp platform, we are dedicated to the idea that technology should get out of the way of our users,” said Chris Keating, general manager of Trimble’s SketchUp. “With SketchUp Viewer, we are taking another big step toward delivering the ultimate experience for designers and their clients—the experience of inhabiting their own work.”
More information on the SketchUp Viewer can be found here. The AR|VR extension for SketchUp Desktop can be found in SketchUp’s Extension Warehouse. Microsoft HoloLens devices are available for purchase from the Microsoft Store, here.
The Illuminated River Foundation has unveiled the six designs shortlisted to transform the river Thames in London by lighting up key bridges along the length of the river. The six teams were selected in September and asked to work their initial schemes into concept designs for the Westminster, Waterloo, London and Chelsea bridges. The teams comprise: Adjaye Associates; A_LA; Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Leo Villareal with Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands and Future\Pace; Les Éclairagistes Associés with ecqi and Federico Pietrella; and Sam Jacob Studio with Simon Heijdens. Read on to see all six designs.
Blurring Boundaries / Adjaye Associates
Adjaye Associates’ design aims to highlight the unique histories of each individual bridge, assembling a number of artists and designers to bring their own touch to each location. The cumulative effect of these interventions will be, as they describe it in their project description, “to reimagine the bridges not as connectors, but as the heart of London itself… they join to form a cohesive stitching for London’s heart, a vibrant new epicenter anchoring the two banks.” The design also includes a number of urban pavilions, with uses ranging from lookout towers to a new auditorium.
Full team: Adjaye Associates with Cai Guo-Qiang, Chris Ofili, Larry Bell, Jeremy Deller, Philippe Parreno, Richard Woods, Mariko Mori, Lorna Simpson, Teresita Fernández, Joana Vasconcelos, Angela Bulloch, Thukral & Tagra, Katharina Grosse, Glenn Ligon, Doug Aitken, Tomás Saraceno, onedotzero digital consultants, Plan A Consultants, DHA, Hurley Palmer Flatt, AKT II, AECOM, Arup, Sir Robert McAlpine, Tavernor Consultancy, DP9, Four Communications, Hayes Davidson digital visualisers, Bosch and iGuzzini.
The Eternal Story of the River Thames / A_LA
A_LA’s design focuses on exploring the river as a natural entity, which has constantly been ignored or even suppressed by the construction of the city around it. This is highlighted by continuous lighting along the river walls, creating “a constant thread of light through the city that gently illumines the expanses of foreshore exposed at low tide.” On the bridges, the lighting changes with the tides: at low tide the undersides of the bridges are illuminated, while at high tide the illumination shifts to the light up the bridges’ elevations.
Full Team: AL_A, Asif Kapadia, Simon Stephens, SEAM Design, Arup, GROSS. MAX., Mark Filip, Soundings and DP9.
Synchronizing the City: Its Natural and Urban Rhythms / Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s design also highlights natural rhythms, in this case the natural rhythm of daylight. In the “magic hour” when the sun has set, each bridge will begin to “fill up” with light, reaching its maximum illumination one hour after the sun sets. At this moment, a beam of light will be briefly directed towards the sky, offering a “night kiss” at the end of twighlight. The lighting for each bridge will be carefully calibrated to its position along the river, with the precise timing of this display varying depending on the exact timing of the sunset in that location, thus giving a visual representation of the rotation of the earth.
Full Team: Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Oliver Beer, Arup, Copper Consultancy, L’Observatoire International, Penoyre & Prasad, Jennifer Tipton and Transsolar.
Leo Villareal, the designer behind The Bay Lights on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, worked with London architecture firm Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands and placemaking agency Future\Pace to imagine a design which not only includes site-specific colored displays at each bridge, but also incorporates forward-looking strategic plans and partnerships which aim to control commercial lighting along the river and increase public engagement through a variety of installations.
Similar to the proposal by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the design by Les Éclairagistes Associés hopes to light each bridge at the opportune time between day and night, resulting in the timing of the bridges lighting being dependent on their precise location. In addition, the concept hopes to highlight London’s position as a global city by placing symbols of other global cities—specifically, faithful recreations of their lampposts—in the river itself, where they will be revealed to a greater or lesser extent depending on the height of the tides.
The design by Sam Jacob and Simon Heijdens seeks to create a three-dimensional “ribbon” of light between Chelsea and Wapping that forms an overlay on top of the river. The ribbon itself will be formed of multiple planes of projected light, which through their overlapping layers will form an ethereal representation of the river directly below; the lower edge of each plane will vary depending on the depth of the river, while the upper edge will change constantly based on real-time measurements of the movement of the surface. Similarly, the bridges will be illuminated with a shifting monochromatic light that causing the perception of their form “to wax and wane as the tide rises and falls.”
Hollwich Kushner Project Team: Matthias Hollwich, SBA, Marc Kushner, AIA, Robert May, Caitlin Swaim, Daniel Selensky, SJ Kwon, Alda Ly, Kate Scott, Amanda Azzahra, Fan Zhang, Gangandeep Singh, Ignas Kalinauskas, Jordan Doane, Jessica Knobloch, Patrick Herron, Taesoo Kim
Kss Architects Project Team: Pamela Lucas Rew, FAIA, Petar Mattioni, AIA, Joseph Alperstein, AIA, David Von Stappenbeck, AIA, Jessica Mangin, Gail Milano
Landscape Architect: Land Collective
Signage And Wayfinding Consultant: Bruce Mau Design
The Pennovation Center is a 20th century paint factory, transformed into a 21st century idea factory. The building is the centerpiece of a new, twenty-three acre development at the University of Pennsylvania known as Pennovation Works.
While much of the building is occupied by shared wet labs and efficient coworking areas, key social spaces tempt entrepreneurs to leave their desks and engage with their colleagues. These spaces are tucked into a new angular facade that reaches outward towards the Schuylkill River, featuring a conference room, coworking counter with a view of campus and the city, and bleacher seating where inventors can share ideas, pitch to investors, and gain crucial perspective. The building inspires creativity within, while simultaneously telling the world outside that Penn is committed to putting knowledge into action for the greater good.
“This is a unique business and technology incubator where innovators’ ideas go to work,” said Anne Papageorge, Vice President of Penn Facilities and Real Estate Services. “The Center is designed to bring together the University’s eminent researchers and students, along with the private sector, to foster creative exploration, entrepreneurship, new alliances, and generate economic development for the region.”
Diagram
Diagram
“Having personally navigated through the startup experience ourselves when we launched Hollwich Kushner and Architizer, we understand the needs and challenges of emerging companies,” said Hollwich Kushner Principal, Marc Kushner.
“Inventors love to invent things. That means a lot of time spent in labs hunched over workbenches and computers. We wanted to create a building that encouraged entrepreneurs to get up from their labs and pitch their ideas and socialize with their colleagues. That’s why we took all of the social action of the building and packed it into the spiky geometric facade” added Matthias Hollwich of Hollwich Kushner.
A beacon for the next generation of entrepreneurship in the region, the Pennovation Center will advance the dynamic role of the University as both an inspiration for and a facilitator of cutting-edge invention.
Architectural photographer Danica O. Kus has shared with us new images of BIG’s VIA 57 West. Having opened earlier this year, the “courtscraper” has already been the recipient of several awards, including its unanimous victory of the 2016 International Highrise Award last week. This new photoset takes us inside the public and private spaces of the 32-story building, including interior shots of the lobby, lounge, pool and the residential units.
From the architect. Villa Muurame is a wooden 3-story single-family home by Lake Jyväsjärvi in Jyväskylä, Finland. The spatial elements of the house (approx. 3m wide, 7.8 longa and 3.1 high) were pre-fabricated during the winter in the Muurametalot housing factory in Karunki, Finnish Lapland and the elements were erected in Jyväskylä after the snow had melted. The timber used is extremely slow grown and high quality Lappish spruce and pine.
The house is getting more private as one moves up the floors. The ground floor is an open space with collective functions, the bedrooms are on the second floor and on the third floor you get naked. Each floor has their own terrace or balcony and the second floor opens to an extensive roof garden.
Elevation
The house is warmed up during the harsh Finnish winters with geothermal heating, which also cools down the house during summers.
Sig Nordal 