The house is located on the edge of a rock above a lake. The project preserves grown trees, emphasizes the view to the water, and allows access to the meadow in the middle of a forest.
Sketch
A simple cubic mass 15x15x4 m contains interior spaces formed in a more complex manner.
Organically moulded labyrinth of the interior habitable space allows more day- and sunlight, vistas out and through from the depth of the layout.
Ground Floor Plan
The house hovers over the landscape, it is not founded traditionally. A steel load-distributing modular raft is bedded on existing granite blocks – remnants of former mining. A 2×4 timber frame is erected on the raft. The roof structure is nailed trusswork. The roof is flat finished with extensive green. The façade is ventilated made of lumber. Windows are aluminium.
Twin Peaks is a private residence renovated by Luigi Rosselli Architects. It is located in Sydney, Australia and was completed in 2015. Twin Peaks by Luigi Rosselli Architects: “A Queen Anne style residence reveals its hidden character and history in the late night lights. Two crisp zinc roof gables, observing the shadows on the narrow footpath, guard the new entry door. The early 1900s bricks, shingles and Elizabethan windows have..
Sauna culture Sauna bathing is an essential part of Finnish culture and national identity. There are only 5,4 million Finns but 3,3 million saunas. Public saunas used to be common in bigger cities but now that most new apartments have sauna of their own, public saunas have decreased dramatically in number. There are only a couple remaining. As a sense of community is becoming a more and more important part of new urban culture, many new public saunas are being planned. With Löyly (meaning the steam that comes when you throw water on hot stones in a sauna) Helsinki will offer foreign visitors a public sauna experience all year round – a must when visiting Finland.
Process The project started from the city of Helsinki initiative. Hernesaari is a former industrial area on the Helsinki seashore that is being developed into a residential area. New uses are being developed for the area, while waiting for future changes to come. There is a cruise ship harbor in Hernesaari and the city wanted to activate the area with new functions and to serve visitors with new attractions. We started the project in 2011 designing a temporary sauna village at the furthermost end of the peninsula. The concept didn’t prove financially sustainable so the first client quit the project. We developed a floating sauna with the second client but the concept proved impossible as the site faces the open sea and a floating structure couldn’t withstand high waves and pressure from ice packs. The coastline will change with future development, but the city chose an area where the shoreline will remain as it is currently. We developed a new free form concept with triangular faces. The client changed once again and as actor Jasper Pääkkönen and Member of Parliament Antero Vartia finally got funding, the construction works could begin.
Context The site is unique. Being less than two kilometers away from the city centre, it is very central but at the same time the landscape is like in the outer archipelago. The plot is situated in a future coastal park that will be part of a broader “Helsinki park” connecting the capital city to the sea. The building was designed to be slim and elongated so as not to cut the narrow park strip. The volume is kept as low as possible so that it doesn’t block views from the future residential blocks. Instead of building a conventional building, the sauna is developed into an easy-going, faceted construction that is more part of the park than a conventional building. When the wooden building turns gray, it will become more like a rock on the shoreline.
Architecture The architectural idea is simple: there is a rectangular black box containing the warm spaces that is covered with a free form wooden “cloak”. Instead of being mere decoration, the sculptural structure made of heat treated pine has several functions. It provides people with visual privacy. However, the lamellas don’t limit the sea view from inside it, rather they function like venetian blinds and blocking the views from outside. There are sheltered outside spaces between the warm mass and cloak to cool down in between sauna bathing. The cloak forms intimate terraces between its slopes that serve as a place to sit. The structure protects the building from the harsh coastal climate. It shades the interior spaces with big glass surfaces and helps to reduce the use of energy to cool the building. Moreover, the stepped cloak forms stairs to climb on to the roof and look out terraces on top of the building. The construction forms a big outdoor auditorium for the future marine sports centre’s activities on the sea. There are around 4000 planks that were precisely cut to individual forms by a computer-controlled machine. The big wooden terrace is partly on top of the sea and you can hear the sound of the waves under your feet.
Spatiality The building consists of two parts: public saunas and a restaurant. The saunas and public spaces open up to the sea, with interesting views to city center and even to the open sea. The atmosphere is calm and the spaces dimly lit. Different areas are conceived as spaces within a space. Interesting views open between closed spaces as you move from one area to the next. You enter in the restaurant that is a light and open space. From there a dimly lit sauna path leads to bathing area. Shoes are left in a wardrobe before you go to a reception desk where you get a locker key and a towel. Dressing rooms and showers are separate for men and women. A leather curtain covering the door indicates entry into the unisex area, at which point visitors need to wear a bathing suit. Traditionally men and women bath separately and naked. We wanted to develop sauna culture so that there would be a possibility bath together with your friends not depending on the gender. This makes sauna experience available also for foreign visitors that might not be used to bathing naked.
Interior The interior architecture of the restaurant and the sauna lounge is by Joanna Laajisto Creative Studio. The objective of the design was to create an atmospheric restaurant which compliments the strong architecture of the building. The approach could be called soft minimalism. The challenge was to create intimate seating areas in the large hall like space with two walls of windows. People often feel most comfortable sitting their backs against the wall. The solution was to build a raised platform for the bar area which divides the space into two different areas. A wooden half wall anchors the long custom designed sofas which have a great view of the sea.
The main materials used in the interiors are black concrete, light Scandinavian birch wood, blackened steel and wool. All materials are durable and long lasting. The wood used is pressed, glued and slightly heat treated birch, a new sustainable Finnish innovation made of left over materials of the plywood industry that normally is burned to produce energy. This is how waste is turned into a beautiful recycled material. It´s manufacturing process produces a beautiful cool light color tone and heavy durability.
In addition to the long sofas, Laajisto´s office has used the glued laminated birch on walls, tabletops, the long bar and even in the unisex toilet sink. The upholstered chairs, which add softness to the space, are by Italian manufacturer Torre. All fabrics are soft natural wool by Kvadrat. The bar stools are by Gubi and the wooden chairs in the sauna lounge are by Finnish Nikari. The String lights designed by Micheal Anastassiades for Floss create a subtle rhythm to the space without blocking the views of the Baltic Sea.
Saunas There are three different saunas that are all heated with wood: a continuously heated sauna, a once heated sauna (that is heated in the morning before the sauna is open and stays warm all evening) and a traditional smoke sauna – a true rarity in an urban sauna. This is how you can experience all sorts of Finnish Löyly during a single visit. Between the saunas there is spa area with cold water basin and a fire place room to relax in, between or after sauna bathing. You can swim in the sea and in the winter there is an “avanto”, the whole in the ice for winter swimming – a popular hobby in Finland and our office name as well.
Sustainability The building is heated with district heating and electricity is produced with water and wind power. The building is first FSC-certified building in Finland and second in Scandinavia. Forest Stewardship Council’s certificate proves that wood material comes from responsibly managed forests. The restaurant serves organic food and sustainably caught fish.
Lighting brand Plumen is the latest to enter the children’s design market, adding strands of colourful bunting to its low-energy pendants (+ slideshow). (more…)
From the architect. This is a studio and residence built from the renovation and expansion of a small single-story building inside a factory campus. The original building is brick structure with slope roof. Now we take away the old roof and change it into three stories by making use of original brick walls and adding new light wooden structure walls.
Since the surrounding environment is relatively messy, we put office and workshop which is not so private on the first floor facing the campus and make the outside relatively close. the living functions are put onto the second floor from where the orchard and farmland on the west can be seen. The third floor consists two lofts and an outdoor terrace.
The functions are organized as a series of platforms, from office on first floor, then dining room, living room, kitchen on second floor, finally to loft and terrace on third floor, spiraling up the two-story high atrium.The height differences between the platforms are determined in a way that some of the terraces are floors as well as big seats where people can sit leisurely. Due to the adjustment of sightlines by design of openings, the messy factory is hardly seen from the living space and the main view becomes the orchard. These treatments create a very casual atmosphere that when friends come to visit, they can sit and chat in the living space naturally without any cabined feeling.
We set not handrail but walls with big openings surrounding the atrium. This has concerns about the space as well as the function of strengthening the structure. With these walls, the entire space cannot be seen at one sight. A layered space that is separated and connected at the same time is created.
From the architect. Located in a rather busy midtown of Jakarta, DeeRoemah is a renovation project of a two-storey house on a 280 m2 irregular shaped site which comprises of 1 master bedroom, 3 child/guest bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, office and storage.
Recognizing the potential of the surprisingly serene neighborhood, an honest design approach was developed for this particular project. The design should be humble and merge with its neighborhood. The main idea is simply to conserve the existing mass and modify it by utilizing the space under the roof on one side of the L-shaped building as a full story – letting it ‘naturally fit’ the urban setting.
On the first floor, the living room, dining room and kitchen are designed as transparent as possible towards the surrounding outdoor garden in which the existing trees are preserved to blur the inside-outside boundary, whilst each of every bedroom has the view of a small courtyard.
The semi public office on the second floor, which can only be accessed by the outdoor twirled stairs, also adapt the same level of openness as it is surrounded with clear glass looking through the terrace and garden. A see-through wooden plane (which is from re-used material of the waste from Furniture Factory) is positioned diagonally at one end as a natural shade where its honest craftsmanship accentuates the silhouette of a ‘kampong’ house. It also works as a building skin to cover inside the office activity from the outside and neighborhood.
Section
Supporting the concept, the range materials used for this project were simplified. The cement-textured finish dominates the entire house with a hint of raw wood detail on the façade and metal for the outdoor staircase.
The need of railing was decoyed by a gray planter box with dangling vegetation while to compress the actual height of the house, a new contoured garden was reset. The landscape element is effortlessly used to soften the whole design.
The main concern of this project is the client’s budget and the neighborhood.
The solution we took is to preserve the existing concrete structure and re-use some of the materials. This will cut the budget while also can work so that the new and renovated house not so-far different with its ‘kampong’ like neighborhood.
There are existing trees in the previous house that we preserve and integrate in the new design. The landscape and hardscape of this project really help to create an interesting ambience inside the house. It creates shades for the building while creating mood inside the house and living area.
The project is located at a tropical climate in Indonesia. It is important for the house to have a cross ventilation to keep up with the humidity while also use the passive energy. On daily basis, the glass doors and window are open. The natural air breezes in to the house. And the clear glass and skylight works well to insert the natural light all day long. The vertical garden and wooden panel help to create shades inside the house.
The re-used materials such as clay roofing and wooden panel on the façade of the building help the building to merge with its natural surrounding and its neighborhood. The newly construct upper level looks no different than the houses and other houses on neighborhood from the outside. The building holds critical cultural standpoint in the neighborhood. It is important so that the building and its habitant can communicate in the new area and creates no cultural and economical shocks that may appear, to the neighborhood.
Plates of weathering steel frame the tall doorway to this timber-clad home, designed by architects Design Base 8 and Omar Gandhi for a remote site on Canada‘s Cape Breton (+ slideshow). (more…)
From the architect. The mission to the architect is quite clear, the sales center must be finished in one week including 2-day design, 5-day construction.
For the sake of building up the sales center quickly, using thin-walled light gauge steel structure with sandwich board and polycarbonate sheet as bounding system is the only choice for architect.
The Violet Stream Villa is close to the beautiful Yangcheng Lake Peninsula in Suzhou, which is a city filled with the most famous transitional Chinese Garden. Architect wanted to apply spirit of gardens into the center. He created clear fence and complex inside place with dimed architecture and patio. He created a chiaroscuro and garden walking with constant climax in this center which was called by the architect, a net shell.
The red was used to cover some unavoidable flaws during the fast construction at first, turned out as a highlight landmark comparing to green trees and blue lake. The other conclusion the architect found is red could erase detail and volume while produce richness at the same time. As in HAMLET‘ I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space. ’
The center only stood there for 1 month. It was demolished after villas sold out as a result of eruptible real estate blooming. So the client called it, the instant red.
The Walmart Supercenter is generally considered one of the great antagonists of architecture around the world – the hulking behemoth who sold its integrity for the consumer convenience of having everything in one place. Though the first Walmart Supercenter didn’t open until 1988, big box stores have existed in some form since the 1960s, luring in shoppers with low prices and curbside loading lanes. For all the user psychology design that goes into them, the original designs of these buildings rarely pay much mind to their architectural or urban consequences, excluding a few notable exceptions.
Regardless, for the past 20 years big box stores have continued to prosper, prompting tenants to leave their homes and move on to even larger structures, leaving behind giant, open frameworks – for sale on the cheap. In a recent essay for 99% Invisible entitled Ghost Boxes: Reusing Abandoned Big-Box Superstores Across America, author Kurt Kohlstedt explores the architectural potential of these megastructures, drawing inspiration from the architects and communities that have successfully converted them into valuable assets.
Featuring long spans capable of accommodating a variety of program types, these structures have been renovated into libraries, churches, museums and apartment complexes in cities throughout the country. One example Kohlstedt points to is the McAllen Main Library, transformed from a Texas Walmart by MSR Design in 2011, which strategically partitions the open floor plan into human-scaled rooms and zones identified by bright colors and furniture patterns.
The article concludes that as the way we live and shop continues to change, our built environment will need to adapt, and all of the various typologies currently found in suburbia will take on new roles. And while in their current form, big box stores are widely unloved, Kohlstedt argues it is that precise distaste that may save them in the end:
“In many ways, these various suburban typologies are particularly well-suited to adaptation: no one cares about what happens to unloved structures, making them perfect candidates for complete transformations.”
