Our job of the week on Dezeen Jobs is for an architect at Amsterdam-based UNStudio, whose recent projects include a retail and residential complex that combines curving forms with golden-hued aluminium (pictured). Visit the ad for full details or browse more architecture and design opportunities on Dezeen Jobs.
Ely Court is a 44-dwelling mixed-tenure regeneration scheme in London’s South Kilburn Estate. The scheme demonstrates the ability of a Local Authority to lead the process of enlightened city building, by commissioning and delivering housing of the highest calibre to integrate previously segregated communities.
Ely Court forms part of Phase 1b of the South Kilburn Estate Regeneration masterplan, a result of Brent’s rolling programme of invited design competitions for each phase. The scheme is the product of a collaboration for two sites within Phase 1b. ABA was invited by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands to design 44 dwellings on the Ely Court site, while LDS designed 144 units on the Cambridge and Wells site to the northeast.
In May 2016, the After Belonging Agency discussed the theme of the forthcoming Oslo Architecture Triennale—entitled After Belonging: a Triennale In-Residence, On Residence, and the Ways We Stay In-Transit—as part of In Therapy, the exhibition of the Nordic Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. The hour-long discussion, which also includes presentations by Shumi Bose and Füsun Türetken, begins with an in-depth description of how the Triennale intends to focus on the future challenges of migration by investigating how cities and architecture can react to large groups of people moving and resettling.
Oslo is Europe’s fastest growing city and it is expected that, according to statistics, half of its population will consist of immigrants by 2040. “This global circulation of people,” the Triennale believes, “creates new situations where our relationship to objects, places and belonging are changing.”
The After Belonging Agency comprises Lluis Alexandre Casanovas Blanco, Ignacio González Galán, Carlos Minguez Carrasco, Alejandra Navarrete Llopis, and Marina Otero Verzier.
After Belonging Agency Announce Conference Speakers for the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale
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A-856 is a residential project designed by UV Arquitectos in 2016. It is located in Hermosillo, México. Photos by: Luis Valle
All climates like exceptions. Warmer when it is cold. Cooler in the tropics. People do not resist thermal shock well. Nor do works of art. Such elementary observations have influenced the Louvre Abu Dhabi. It wishes to create a welcoming world serenely combining light and shadow, reflection and calm. It wishes to belong to a country, to its history, to its geography without becoming a flat translation, the pleonasm that results in boredom and convention. It also aims at emphasizing the fascination generated by rare encounters.
It is rather unusual to find a built archipelago in the sea. It is even more uncommon to see that it is protected by a parasol creating a rain of light.
The possibility of accessing the museum by boat or finding a pontoon to reach it by foot from the shore is equally extraordinary, before being welcomed like a much-awaited visitor willing to see unique collections, linger in tempting bookstores, or taste local teas, coffees and delicacies.
It is both a calm and complex place. A contrast amongst a series of museums that cultivate their differences and their authenticities.
It is a project founded on a major symbol of Arab architecture: the dome. But here, with its evident shift from tradition, the dome is a modern proposal.
A double dome 180 meters in diameter, offering horizontal, perfectly radiating geometry, a randomly perforated woven material, providing shade punctuated by bursts of sun. The dome gleams in the Abu Dhabi sunshine. At night, this protected landscape is an oasis of light under a starry dome.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi becomes the final destination of an urban promenade, a garden on the coast, a cool haven, a shelter of light during the day and evening, its aesthetic consistent with its role as a sanctuary for the most precious works of art.
Opposite House is a private home located in Scarborough Bluffs, in the outskirts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Completed in 2016, it was designed by Reza Aliabadi. Opposited House by Reza Aliabadi : “The Opposite House, is a commissioned private residence located on the Scarborough Bluffs, closer to the east edge of the Greater Toronto Area. The clients, a professional couple who both work from home and enjoy an active home..
The appearance of the office building has changed to an astonishing extent. It now looks spacious, light and airy. Only the thick concrete pillars give away that this is not new. The climate façade makes the building lighter and more energy-efficient. Winter gardens – bright open spaces with mature trees – have been laid out between the outer and inner façade. The highest winter garden admits daylight to the newly added underground conference centre. Floors have been cut away to create voids, admitting plenty of daylight to what used to be dark and gloomy worksites and creating a very attractive, open working environment.
The façade design combines good looks and well-thought-out technical performance. The orientation of the windows on each floor varies, giving the building a layered appearance reminiscent of the original façade. At the same time, the slanting façade sections ensure that reflected daylight penetrates far into the building and guarantee optimum circulation of ventilation air through the cavity. Moreover, the light-weight prefab facade cladding can be mounted quickly, cleanly and without undue noise.
Unique, Surprising Overall Concept
The architecture, interior design and garden lay-out combine to form a strong overall concept, which is worked out to the finest detail. The slanting lines of the façade are repeated in the walls of the conference units, the edges of the atria with built-in worksites and the design of the tree planters. The building is divided into three wings, which are given individual colour schemes – green, yellow and purple – for ease of orientation. These colours are repeated in the floor and wall finishings, and even in the choice of the plants in winter gardens and roof terraces. These features distinguish the design of the a.s.r. offices from that of a conventional office building, giving it a surprising, instantly recognisable look.
Open Office
The design of the work environment is based on flexibility, collaboration and casual meetings. The 2,800 flexible worksites provide room for 4,000 users. There is a great diversity of workplaces, like enclosed spaces for concentrated work or making phone calls, comfortable lounge areas for informal meetings and flexi-work tables for collaborative work. The public area, with a coffee bar, brasserie, conference centre, work lounge and restaurant, offers a varied and inspiring work environment.
Sustainable and Energy Efficient
The building has been rated BREEAM Excellent for sustainability. During construction 98% of the demolition waste has been recycled. For example, concrete rubble has been used to lay out bicycle tracks. Not only the building has been renovated, also a great deal of the old furniture has been redone and reused. With the new facade and building installations, including the climate ceiling, user responsive lighting and heath-cold storage, energy consumption has been reduced by over 50%. In addition, 1,200 solar panels have been placed on the roof. Green facades, birdhouses, roof gardens and beehives contribute to the local ecological structure. All these measurements allow the renovated buidling to compete with newly constructed buildings regarding sustainability.
The design for the new art gallery, one of the largest and most prominent in Beirut, is an adaptive reuse of a historic theatre, Masrah al Madina, which is converted into a space dedicated to showcasing prominent as well as up and coming Lebanese and Arab artists. Before being transformed in the 90s into a theatre, the underground space was as early as 1969 one of the first cinemas in the Middle East to project art and experimental movies of Fellini and Gavras as well as Soviet films.
Located mostly underground, the attempt was to create a smooth transition from the ground level to the lower gallery level, from the sidewalk to the catwalk, while bringing natural light to the buried space.
Starting with the existing theatre space, the intent was to preserve essential characteristic elements of the space, and introduce new elements that allude to the history of the space while serving its new program.
A new staircase, reminiscent of theatre promenade staircases, cascades its way down to the underground main gallery space from the ground floor, going through secondary office spaces. The cascading nature allows visual continuity between upper and lower levels, and daylight to pierce its way down to the basement.
The ceiling of the theatre has been renovated to highlight its steel catwalks, and transforming it into a repository for the gallery lighting, both ambient and accent lighting. A new electric chain hoist, usually hidden in the back of house, is fore fronted in the ceiling of the ground floor when needed, and is supported on exposed I beams that continue the industrial look of the gallery ceiling into the ground floor ceiling. The hoist would carry the art work crates down to the main gallery space, showcasing the back of house logistics and foregrounding them into the entry level.
Along the same lines, storage aisles on either side of the main gallery space were turned into intimate art galleries, the back of house becoming part of the foregrounded experience of art. A large archive gallery in the lower basement was also introduced for private client meetings.
From the mezzanine floor, the administrative offices, and that of the gallerist, have a full view of the gallery space.
