A swimming pool on the roof of this concrete residence by Brazilian office Studio MK27 sits within the dense canopy of a coastal rainforest in São Paulo state (+ slideshow). (more…)
London-based Gilles Retsin Architecture has unveiled its entry for the Suncheon Art Platform competition, an arts center formed by a low, horizontal structure that frames a series of courtyards and squares in Suncheon, Korea.
These courtyards will be composed of four main public spaces —a central events courtyard, a sculpture courtyard, a garden courtyard, and an entrance square—each of which is intended to connect and nurture the various programs surrounding it.
The architects explained that “overall, the design will consist of 278 standardized, large-scale, engineered timber elements, which combine together into a highly differentiated spatial assembly. These blocks are initially structurally weak but gain strength through redundant combination.”
This system is a technologically advanced construction method based on Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL), a method of prefabricating stiff hollow tubes in straight or L-shaped pieces. The hollow insides of these tubes can then be utilized for HVAC installations, services, and museum lighting.
Furthermore, this construction method reflects traditional Korean architecture and timber construction, which features similar spatial organization and timber jointing.
Learn more about the project here, and see the winning design here.
News via Gilles Retsin Architecture.
Dezeen Book of Interviews features conversations with 45 leading figures in architecture and design. You can now pick up a copy for just £8 in our summer sale. (more…)
Light and Shadows is a contemporary apartment designed by C.H. Interior. Completed in 2016, it is located in Taipei, Taiwan. Photos courtesy of C.H. Interior
The Rijksmuseum, one of the largest museums in Europe dedicated to arts and history, made 250,000 works from its huge collection available for free online viewing or download.
During the golden age of sailing ships (roughly between 1584 and 1702), when Dutch ships dominated the trade routes of the world, the Netherlands became the first capitalist power in the west. The growing bourgeoisie class demanded a vast production of portraits and paintings, which enhanced trade, promoted the sciences and especially stimulated the arts. Few countries have such great quality artistic productions such as the Netherlands from that time.
The Rijksmuseum collection of paintings includes works by the leading masters of the seventeenth century. Names like Jacob van Ruysdael, Frans Hals, Fra Angelico, Rembrandt, and Vermeer are part of the collection. Works such as “The Jewish Bride” (1665), “The Nightwatch” (1642), “From Staalmeesters” (1662) by Rembrandt; “The Milkmaid” (1660), by Johannes Vermeer; “Winter Landscape” (1608), by Hendrick Avercamp; “Portrait of Couple Isaac Abrahamsz Massa and Beatrix van der Laen” (1622), by Frans Hals; and “Portrait of Adolf in Catharina Croeser” (1655), by Jan Steen, are available for free download.
All pictures are available in high resolution and users can explore the entire collection by artist, theme, style or similarity. To download, a simple registration is required or you can log in using your Facebook account. Then, just click on the option (download image) located below the selected artwork and save.
Access the Rijksmuseum page to download your free high-resolution images.
News Via Revista Bula
Our job of the week on the new and improved Dezeen Jobs is for a senior designer to work with Dutch designer Piet Boon, who recently transformed a former military hospital chapel into a restaurant (pictured). Visit the ad for full details of the position or browse more architecture and design opportunities on Dezeen Jobs.
Volume #48: The Research Turn contains the exhibition catalogue for BLUE: The Architecture of UN Peacekeeping, the Dutch entry at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia, by Malkit Shoshan. BLUE focuses on the most prominent footprint of the United Nations’ peacekeeping operations: the compound.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and increasingly since 9/11 and the ‘War on Terror’, warfare has moved into the city. While the wars of the 20th century were largely between nations, fighting over territorial sovereignty and along disputed borders, the wars of the 21st century have been internal and borderless. Today’s wars are being fought between large multinational coalitions of security regimes and insurgent networks. It’s not just war that has moved to the city though: the entire security apparatus has moved with them too, including its peacekeepers and their entire infrastructure. Today, United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations are taking place in hundreds of cities around the world and at a large scale.
BLUE aims to turn the spotlight on contemporary UN peacekeeping missions as an urban phenomenon. For the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, the Netherlands will explore architecture’s ability to improve the quality of the built environment – and with it people’s lives – by critically exploring its own role in UN missions and its frontiers.
BLUE: The Legacy of UN Peacekeeping Missions began as a research project and a dialogue between the Dutch Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, architects and other cultural actors. The Dutch ‘3D’ approach to missions – integrating Defense, Diplomacy and Development – is internationally regarded as innovative and progressive. By adding a fourth ‘D’ – Design – UN camps can be transformed from closed fortresses into catalysts for local development.
BLUE takes the Dutch Camp for the UN in Gao, Mali – Camp Castor – as its case study. Here the ‘blue people’, the Tuareg, and the ‘blue helmets’ of the UN meet; as do the desert and the Dutch approach, the nomads and settlement… BLUE – which as a color also represents boundlessness – exists at the intersection of architecture, human rights and activism. It emerges in times of conflict as the endless space of imagination and pragmatism that can produce alternative solutions. BLUE has the potential to improve life for millions of people.
BLUE is made up of a series of narratives based on conversations with military engineers, architects, anthropologists, economists, activists, policy-makers, journalists and novelists. Incorporating cultural and spatial explorations, BLUE positions architecture in three distinct ways: as research, identifying and making visible spatial challenges and opportunities; as a practice, improving people’s living environment; and as a critical cultural space, reflecting upon phenomenal transitions in society. With this approach, conflict can become a chance for architecture to reinvent both the built environment and itself.
Design for Legacy
There are about 170 UN peacekeeping bases located in rapidly growing cities in the Sahel. These compounds are there to accommodate UN personnel while they conduct missions. In order to not put additional pressure on scarce local resources, bases mostly provide their own water and electricity. They have basic infrastructure – a hospital, power plant, and waste treatment plant. The camps are rapidly built and are designed to operate as self-sufficient entities that have little need for interaction with their urban environments.
On the other side of their fences are the cities, which are mostly expected to multiply in size over the next twenty years. Many of these cities already struggle to provide residents with regular access to water and electricity. They have shortages of both food and housing. If armed conflicts and militarization continue to escalate in the region, resources will become even more scarce.
Design for Legacy aims to introduce architectural and design thinking into the planning and construction of UN peacekeeping bases. Currently engineered like machines with no civic or communal values, they could provide essential support local populations and leave behind a sustainable physical legacy that is beneficial to the development and stability of the local community once the mission is completed.
The UN itself talks about ‘Guidelines for the Integrated Approach’ – bringing together Defense, Diplomacy, and Development. What if we added a fourth ‘D’, for Design?
Architectural and urban design knowledge can bring together scales, disciplines, and stakeholders. By incorporating participatory practices, these could become important instruments for mission planning. It could help to generate alternative visions for the future of these areas and work towards a positive legacy.
In the end, the mission will be gone, but infrastructure, resources, and knowledge will remain behind with the local populations.
Four Steps for Sharing Space
Below is a four-stage process that describes how a UN base can gradually open up and share resources and knowledge with local populations. The four stages are linked to security regimes. These exchanges aim to empower the local population so that they can reconstruct and strengthen their own environment.
1. Exchange
A first interaction with the community during the construction phase of the base is important. In an uncertain security environment, relationships should be established at the start that facilitate knowledge exchange and carefully managed economic exchange, with some local sourcing. In this first exchange, UN forces should address local urgencies wherever and whenever possible.
2. Interface
The periphery of the base can act as an interface with the local environment if the right precautions are taken, even with relatively high threat levels. Here the civilian population can receive medical treatment and have access to water, food and electricity.
Inside the base, infrastructure such as water, electricity and sewage could be developed with a legacy in mind. The physical organization of the base could be designed so that it takes into account the future growth of the city and allow for an easy transformation of the base from being used by the UN to local inhabitants – from both an organizational and a technical point of view.
3. Shared space
Whenever possible, a shared space between the city and the base should be developed. This could be where UN peacekeepers and the local community develop and execute projects together. Here resources, education, trade, employment and cultural facilities could be designed to bring the locals and the UN together.
This area should be visually attractive, taking into consideration local culture. It could contribute to the establishment of a safe and secure environment for the local population as well as for the UN troops. The shared space should be developed gradually and in collaboration with the local community. It could be considered a hub and as a catalyst for local development.
By supplying resources and making knowledge available, local inhabitants can become empowered to develop their environment themselves. Schools and workshops could experiment with the production of resources by combining do-it-yourself solutions with both smaller and larger scale infrastructural production and maintenance. Spatial practices developed in the shared space could be replicated both in the city and on base.
4. Post-mission
At the end of the mission, the base should be handed over to the local population, and become an integral part of the city. Since bases have been developed with the idea of legacy in mind and have incorporated local techniques, the structures should leave behind valuable resources for the city.
Malkit Shoshan on How the City is a Shared Ground for the Instruments of War and Peace
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BLUE: Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions: Inside the Netherlands’ Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale
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Located in Praia del Rey, Obidos, this 4-bedroom detached villa has two floors, which are developed around a mezzanine. From the central positioning of the mezzanine it is possible to appreciate the dynamics of the various surrounding spaces. Strong ties are created between the house, the garden and pool – the outdoor living areas clearly visible from the inside through large west-facing windows. Walkways encircle the house; the outdoor leisure areas around the swimming pool and reflection pool, surrounded by extensive lawns, fruit trees and shrubs.
The main living room, with dining area and movie theatre, have a large fireplace as the central feature. Also on the ground floor, facing the pool and garden, are two rooms: a games room and a multipurpose room. Only accessible from the garden, and each with its own washroom facilities, these rooms are ideally suited as play/recreation rooms for teenagers and young people.
With the exception of the three rooms with views, the whole of the ground floor is clad with horizontal wooden slats. This “camouflage” allows the entry of light and ventilation whilst preserving the privacy of interior spaces such as the kitchen and washroom.
Access to the suites on the 1st floor, is via a flight of stairs designed in two distinct sections. The lower half are a solid structure made out of masonry, which end on a small landing before turning into an upper section of wooden floating stairs.
The mezzanine, used for circulating and as a reading area, looks out over a large terrace with spectacular views of the surrounding area. Off of the mezzanine are 4 individually designed suites. Each suite overlooks a different garden – gardens with a “zen-style” theme which are viewed through vertical wooden slats. The sea-facing suites each have a small covered veranda, which helps to bring the view into the room. The house is primarily south and west facing in order to make the most of natural sunlight and its relationship with the sea, garden and pool.
