STUDIO architecture and urbanism magazine is currently accepting proposals for our forthcoming issue TERRIFIC.
Several urban practitioners have defined semantic and urban categories as trying to control possible derivatives existing outside ordinary and everyday practices, transmitted in a terrific and kaleidoscopic variation of commonly used perceptions. Moreover, architecture and urbanism often look toward the investigation of alternative cognitive grids to look to the city beyond traditional cultural mechanisms, giving continuously sense to the of renovation of the discipline. It means looking through what is good and what is bad, what is right and wrong, beautiful or not, conformist or anarchic.
The word terrific went through a transformative process that took a couple of centuries; first a situation of terror, then something extremely huge, now something amazing. STUDIO#11 TERRIFIC wants to explore the meaning, relationship and etymological expansion which have characterized the city project. Which are the dazed, extravagant, curious, unpredictable, attractive and also immoral and narcotic situations that give sense to urban changes? Which micro-situations of the human geography can potentially trigger huge transformation processes, to be considered in a positive or negative way among time? Which semantic changes of concepts are able to represent huge revolutionary trajectories in the architectural and urban practices?
STUDIO #11 TERRIFIC refers to those practices, concept, theories and institutional arrangements which knew radical changes over time, vibrantly reconfiguring the meaning of sense of architectural products and city development.
Download the information related to this competition here.
A+Awards:we’re launching a major collaboration with Architizer profiling winners from its A+Awards. First up is this house in the Mexican highlands, with rammed-earth walls made from soil excavated on site (+ slideshow). (more…)
The UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (commonly referred to as UNESCO) has named 17 projects in 7 countries by revolutionary Modernist architect Le Corbusier to their list of World Heritage Sites. Given to places of special cultural or physical significance, the designation will help to protect and preserve the buildings for future generations. Citing Le Corbusier’s inventive architectural language, UNESCO praised the collection of projects for “[reflecting] the solutions that the Modern Movement sought to apply during the 20th century to the challenges of inventing new architectural techniques to respond to the needs of society.”
“The inscription on the World Heritage List of 17 buildings of sites by Le Corbusier represents a strong encouragement to continue all along Le Corbusier’s built work to maintain this living heritage and to hand it down to future generations,” said Fondation Le Corbusier President Antoine Picon in a statement. “It also contributes to the understanding of that complex and fragile legacy and helps its dissemination to the widest audience.”
Continue after the break for the full list of projects and images.
From the architect. There are only a few instances in an architectural career where a client and an architect’s vision unify into an immaculate and complete expression of art and architecture. We were very fortunate to work with a couple who, devoted to the ideals of minimalism’s stark allure, asked us to design a house in the foothills of Tucson, Arizona, located in the profoundly diverse Sonoran Desert. The owners’ refined sense of contrast required a “modern, minimal home: a pristine box that seemed to have landed in the desert.”
The house’s hillside location required that we take advantage of the boundless vistas while protecting the owners’ carefully curated collection of art and modernist furniture as well as the desert itself. These diverging conditions resulted in the elevation of the major living spaces to the upper floor. The considerable programmatic shift reduced the footprint and the construction impact, as well as reiterating the owners’ vision of gently touching down upon the earth. Kevin Howard’s assertion that “The desert is very slow to heal” can be seen in the surgical location of the residence around and within the numerous Saguaros on the site.
The inclusion of gallery space and its appropriate protective measures overlaid the architectural program. Miesian glass walls were replaced with a studied array of spotless shadow boxes protecting deeply recessed glass panes. The clients shared their inspiration and enthusiasm for Renzo Piano’s Atrium in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. The interior stair acts as a tectonic centerpiece, contrasting the formal execution of the main atrium while matching its clarity and refinement in detailing. This Atrium houses the bulk of the owners’ art collection and connects the upper and lower floors of the residence. The height allows the living spaces to breathe and provides a new appreciation of the various pieces of art as they are viewed from different positions in the house. A single continuous skylight centered down the middle of the gallery marks the passage of time without harming the cherished art held within. The main living and dining spaces face south, framing the view of the desert below in a perfect unobstructed volume.
Working in architecture is always a challenging experience in which you just never know what might happen next. That said, there are a number of things we can collectively relate to as a part of this industry. Here we’ve created a list of things we’re all too familiar with—whether that relates to finishing projects, working with clients, or just dealing with people that totally don’t even know what goes on in architecture. Which ones did we miss?
1. Sometimes, there’s nothing quite as relaxing as putting on your headphones, listening to your favorite music, and working on a drawing or model.
5. That feeling when you send a drawing to the plotter and hope that a) it’s working b) you’re printing on the right kind of paper and c) the drawing is oriented correctly.
6a. That inner sense of victory when your printing bill comes out much cheaper than you anticipated.
6b. That inner sense of failure when your printing bills comes out way more expensive than anticipated.
6c. That inner sense of dread when you are about to look at your printing bill because let’s face it… you have NO CONTROL over this.
7. When you’re feeling a bit too good about a project, that’s when you know something bad is about to happen.
8. Splurging on books that you don’t have time to read… because you like them as “objects.”
9. Spending the first hour of an all-nighter cursing your situation and promising to make it the last… but you somehow never follow through afterwards.
10. That inner feeling of zen when you’re effortlessly reloading all your files after a computer crash because you backed up on a cloud.
11. Similarly, that sense of accomplishment when you find a good use for a little sketch that you decided to scan for “record-keeping.”
12. When you’re doing something completely unrelated to architecture but inspiration suddenly hits you and you just have to drop everything to draw it on any flat surface.
13. Walking around the studio/office and asking people to close programs they aren’t using because there’s only a limited number of software licences available.
14. If you’re having a conversation with a non-architect about architecture, you pretty much assume that the non-architect will (only) mention Frank Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright or Zaha Hadid. If you’re lucky, you might even get Mies van der Rohe.
15. That cringe-worthy moment when some non-design professional uses an overused cliché like “Less is More”… as if they understood the actual context of that line.
16. When you hit the hay after a massive deadline and don’t come back to life until at least 12 hours later.
17. Explaining how to do something on BIM takes a lot longer than doing it yourself–but you’re too stubborn and explain it anyway in the vain hope that one day you won’t have to explain it again.
18. The perplexed sense of joy when the guest critics/clients are unexpectedly enthusiastic about your project.
19. If in doubt, throw the blade out! Nothing feels better than having 10 fingers intact because you always worked with fresh blades and a metal ruler.
20. When you’re learning new software, and you try a command from a different program and it does exactly what you want it to do.
21. The bliss of discovering a shortcut for a tedious task when you’re watching somebody else work.
22. The first stroke of an X-acto blade on foam core…and it feels like slicing butter.
23. Having to make peace with the past version of yourself that was too lazy and/or incompetent to correctly document professional experience for the registration exam.
25a. Knowing all too well that last minute changes rarely do a project any good but you still go ahead and make a final tweak… and your project falls apart.
25b. Knowing all too well that last minute changes rarely do a project any good but you still go ahead and make a final tweak… and your project has never looked better.
26. And finally…that enormously satisfying feeling of leaving the studio at 5 pm on a Friday with a finished project/to do list.
Architects In Charge: Michał Czerwiński, Marcin Jurusik, Ewa Gajda, Katarzyna Błaszkiewicz, Maciej Rudnicki, Agnieszka Nowicka, Katarzyna Kwiatkowska, Jacek Hawrylak, Marta Sękulska, Patrycja Michalak – Dębiec
Area: 8450.0 sqm
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Courtesy of WXCA
Team: Szczepan Wroński, Paweł Grodzicki, Krzysztof Budzisz, Zbigniew Wroński
Acoustics: Phd. Piotr PekalaI (AKUSTIX)
Façade Technology: PROFA
Landscape Architecture: RS AK
Technical Projects: CHODOR-PROJEKT Sp. z o.o. (now BIURO PROJEKTÓW BUDOWNICTWA Sp. z o.o.)
Construction: Katarzyna Micigolska
Instalations: Karolina Wozniak
Investor: University of Warsw
General Contractor: ANNA-BUD sp. z o.o.,
Contacts: Rafal Adamski, Grzegorz Snochowski
Site Area: 35,577 sqm
Gross Covered Area: 3,700 sqm
Usable Area: 6,500 sqm
Cost: $30000000 PLN
Courtesy of WXCA
Plan
Courtesy of WXCA
From the architect. The Swietokrzyskie Mountains are an unique place for geologists, as there are exposed rocks illustrating 560 million years of Earth’s history located on a relatively small area. A few steps in this area is like turning back time by 100 million years. The fact that the layers of rocks of different ages located around Checiny are now on the surface, is a unique phenomenon on a European scale.
Courtesy of WXCA
From the cultural point of view, our location is approx. 500m away from the ruins of a medieval royal castle situated on an adjacent hill and near the small town of Checiny with a preserved medieval urban layout.
Courtesy of WXCA
Plan
Courtesy of WXCA
The main objective of the concept is to split the functions into separate buildings. This way we achieved five two-storey buildings connected with a glass corridor.
Courtesy of WXCA
The rectangular blocks of the buildings were scattered around the quarry like freshly loosened stone blocks that are the reminiscent of the former function of this place. The geometric shapes of the buildings, as compared to the background of the aforementioned 30 m rock wall, create a connection between what is natural and what is processed with the human hand, making us reflect on the importance of natural resources and their management. The intention of the project was to create forms that will not dominate, but complement its unique location.
Courtesy of WXCA
Plan / Section
Courtesy of WXCA
Function (Architecture and use of space): The ECEG complex is comprised of five buildings. First main building includes representative functions: an entrance lobby connected to the canteen and a foyer with an auditorium hall for 240 people. The second building is a research laboratory facility with geological laboratories where the found specimens are subjected to pre-treatment. Then the created formulations are analyzed in chemical, geophysical and geological mapping laboratories. The whole technological line is connected with an education area enabling young students of geology to participate in the process.
Courtesy of WXCA
The other three buildings are intended as a hotel base. Building 3 was designed with a higher standard intended for the staff and guests of the facility, and building 4 as an accommodation base for students. The hotel buildings have been designed with double rooms. Each room has a large window with a comfortable, wide desk designed in such a way so as to form a whole with the window. Thanks to this, users will be able to peacefully explore knowledge and contemplate the surrounding landscape.
Courtesy of WXCA
MATERIALS The project is located in old, exploited quarry in region of Holy Cross Mountains which are a unique place of geologists illustrating 560 million years of Earth’s history, 500m away from the ruins of medieval royal castle. The rectangular blocks of the buildings were scattered around the quarry like freshly loosened stone blocks that are the reminiscent of the former function of this place. The façade is made of different fractions, chipped stone block of limestone, geologically identical with the quarry rock.
Courtesy of WXCA
RENEWABLE ENERGY The main source of heating and cooling for the buildings are heat pumps with a ground heat exchanger. The lower source consists of 91 wells drilled 120m deep. Heat pumps will work in the “water” / “glycol” system. In addition, water is also heated thanks to the solar installation in the form of solar collectors placed on the roofs. Landscape design and green roofs are preserving naturally occurring plant species in this area like grassland swards.
In an effort to build a sense of community, the spaces between the buildings will be made into three public areas: Sniephof will feature a semi-public courtyard, Sniephaven will be a marina for recreation and a harbor for small boats, and Puntsniep—the tip of the peninsula—will become the area’s main square that connects via pedestrian bridge to the historic center of Diemen.
Housing within the project is aimed at a target group of starters, empty nesters, and elderly people. Parking for these apartments will be integrated underneath the inner courtyard.
MVRDV has moved into a new studio in central Rotterdam, featuring multicoloured meeting rooms, a plant-covered chandelier, an oversized dining table and a staircase that doubles as a seating area (+ slideshow). (more…)
