Iran is “on the verge of a new era for architecture” according to local architects, resulting in a boom in contemporary residential and infrastructure projects. We’ve pinned some of the best examples to a new Pinterest board, including a bridge encouraging pedestrians to “wander and get lost” and a Tehran apartment block with faceted window frames.
Follow Dezeen on Pinterest | See more Iranian architecture in our archive
From the architect. The V-OFFICE project is an office building renovation project. The old building structure that was used as the editing studio and office will be minimally improved. The building’s exterior design pays attention to the elements and proportions to be used for decorating the building facade to create an image of a new building and uniqueness of the building to be memorable.
Building exterior facade design development will be using V-shaped corners stretching out with new arrangement as the new elements with appropriate placement and proportion to the original building. The original building materials will still be used on some part. The elements arrangement on the new building walls will be done with regard to the consistency of the old building material. It also takes into account the direction of sunlight so it can be used most valuably but not too much. The use of materials that are light, can be molded easily, and easy to maintain will make the building seem quaint and more interesting.
Interior decoration will focus on polished concrete flooring to make it easier to maintain and modify for various applications. Minimum disturbance to the building structure, exposing the pipeline system, electrical system and air conditioning,most decoration will be done with steel frame, steel grating, black aluminum frame.
From the architect. Set on the 10 x 40 metres piece of land the entrance of Bangna House confronts a narrow lane. With a factory and storage at the back, the physicality of the land and its surrounding environment are conditional to space management. This rectangular plot forces all rooms to be placed from the front to the back, upstairs and downstairs.
The house is divided into two zones. The front zone contains downstairs bedroom for the mother and upstairs bedroom for the sister. The back zone accommodates upstairs bedroom for the family of the house owner and downstairs shared space that includes kitchen, dining room and bathroom. The living room, which locates on the lower level crossing the two zones, offers a sense of comfort and belonging to everyone in the family whereas the middle courtyard provides both privacy and indoor green space. It also softens the hardness of this irregular-shape house, a house that looks like a piece of Swiss cheese with lots of holes.
The building line legal drilling holes wherever possible to increase the house’s intake of natural light, no matter how strange the last form looks like.
Overlapping angled fins clad in pre-rusted steel extend from the front of this crescent-shaped office building in Surat, India, by Mumbai architect Sanjay Puri (+ slideshow). (more…)
The Sydney Opera House is one of the most iconic buildings in the world. A momentous achievement in design and engineering, the building quickly cemented itself as a defining feature of the Australian cultural landscape. But the realization of the building was not a straightforward one, and almost immediately after the project was awarded it became fraught with controversy and uncertainty. At the center of this controversy was the architect, Jørn Utzon, who eventually resigned after mounting conflict with the state government. Now, this period of Utzon’s life will be chronicled in a new feature length film, Utzon, The Man Behind the Opera House, reports The Guardian.
Utzon, a relatively unknown architect at the time, agitated the conventional Australian architectural climate with his radical competition-winning design for the Opera House in 1956. The dynamic nature of the proposal required innumerable iterations to perfect the structure of the soaring “sails,” and tight deadlines saw construction begin before documentation was complete. As the construction process wore on, more problems arose, and Utzon’s relationship with the financing state government began to sour.
His mounting ostracization eventually hit breaking point in 1965 when newly appointment state premier Robin Askin began to openly blame Utzon for the issues. Utzon resigned in 1966, returning to Denmark and washing his hands of the project. The Guardian reported that the film’s producers believe this story holds the right amount of drama for a feature film, with the film’s screenwriter, Petter Skavlan, proclaiming that the “epic battle between the architect and the corrupt Askin government is perfect movie material.”
Utzon returned to the project decades later, working on additions and redesigns before his death in 2008. However, he never returned to Australia, and never witnessed his monumental design in person. Despite the Order of Australia Medal being awarded to him in 1985 and the Pritzker Prize in 2003, the trials of the process stayed with Utzon until he died.
It is this dramatic process without resolution that the film’s creators were so drawn to. The film’s producer, Jan Marnell said: “We have a world wonder. We have its creator – who wasn’t allowed to see his dream fulfilled. We have creativity versus bureaucracy and political manoeuvring ranging from friend to foe. We have an outstanding architect with streaks of megalomania and genius, and his vengeful opponents who plot to get him out of the country. What do they want? In the end, they want to take back what they believe should have been theirs in the first place.”
News via The Guardian.
AD Classics: Sydney Opera House / Jørn Utzon
From the architect. There are few buildings as famous as the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. Arguably considered the eighth wonder of the world, the opera house has a long history behind its design.
//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js
Bordeaux-based atelier d’architecture King Kong has unveiled their design for the new NH hotel at the Toulouse Blagnac airport in France. Both elegant and inviting, the hotel’s warm atmosphere is achieved through the acoustic and thermal qualities of the sweeping ground floor area, which opens onto the exterior spaces.
The building consists of 150 hotel rooms, a business center, restaurant and fitness center. The bar, restaurant and terrace, located on the upper levels of the building, are “intimate in feel,’’ while offering unrestricted views.
An expansive terrace unfolds around the building’s prow. Its base, distinguishably surfaced with gabions, houses the building’s service facilities. A partially cantilevered volume above the base accommodates MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) activities.
The “Razzle” pattern employed on the front/face of the building aims to “dispel the monotony of an unbroken façade,’’ atelier d’architecture King Kong states in a press release. The pattern, positioned vertically, is thus in a “syncopated rather than serial fashion.” “Each hotel room corresponds to 3 strips in the pattern, of which two comprise windows,” explain the architects. This gives each room a unique character.
Y-shaped columns rise from the base of the building, echoing the design of the façade. Atelier d’architecture employ an “elegant’’ color palette throughout – black, white, gold and red – to voice the expansion of the NH brand, and that of Blagnac airport. Thus, the building functions as a “showcase for the airport’s shimmering horizons.’’
Despite being located within close proximity to the airport, the building reflects its surrounding environment with hanging gardens, green roof terraces and gabions, a natural habitat for plant growth. The gravel-covered rooftop houses several solar collectors, designed as a ‘‘fifth façade’’ to be experienced by those flying overhead.
News via atelier d’architecture
Graduate shows 2016: architecture student Evan Wakelin has produced drawings that juxtapose the old and new homes of migrants in Toronto, to convey the emotional and physical upheaval these people experience (+ slideshow). (more…)
From the architect. The evolution of living in our cities more and more tries to embrace nature, almost negating the urban character of neighborhoods. The design for a renovation and additions to a townhouse in Brooklyn is generated from the idea of fusing the interior space with the outdoor landscape through the creation of ground-up pavilions with specific experiential qualities.
Two main pavilions have been juxtaposed to the existing building— in a way to have an unobstructed view of the garden through the windows and also blurred views — obtained from the partial over imposing of a wooden screen to the addition facades. The exterior cladding is achieved layering vertical wooden slats of Shou Sugi Ban (or Yakisugi), an ancient Japanese exterior siding technique that preserves wood by charring. The two volumes are devoted to sound/vision and smelling/tasting activities and they complement the existing functions with natural light being the main component of the white bare interiors minimally furnished.
The experience is extended to the landscape outside where the original bluestones have been restored and reused as the material for the hardscape that leads the user to a third volume: a shed-like typology balloon frame construction. This third programmatic element is providing the function of isolation for meditative activities and it serves as a winter plants shelter for the garden.
The sectional shape of the three pavilions revolve around the presence of skylights with different configurations that capture the sun and the diffused light reflecting from the trees, making the interior changing with the seasons and further connecting with the exterior.
Philippe Barriere Collective (PB+Co) has released the plans for a Bio Climatic Health Care Facility at an eco-resort in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. The facility includes a Chelation Clinic, Integrated Dental Domes, Healing Clinic, and individual bungalows for private patient residences.
Overall, the alternative medical center intends to combine wildlife discovery, nature conservancy, and outdoor activities as part of the patients’ healing processes.
Overlooking the Al Ain Lake is a tower set on pilotis, so as to minimize its impact on the lake’s coastline, and still attract a wide variety of birds, frogs, fish, insects, and more.
An external textile veil shelters the entirety of this tower, like a “loose cap,” shielding the building from the sun, and providing a buffer air zone that constantly circulates air.
“The parachute veil is layered over a super-pressure balloon which crowns the tower. The size of the balloon changes according to need, allowing the buffer air zone to increase in size or retract,” describe the architects in a press release. Furthermore, cool air from underground is utilized to “refresh the air contained by the veil,” which reduces air conditioning consumption within the building.
The design started in 2006 before the project was put on hold from 2007 until 2014, when it was definitively halted.
Learn more about the project here.
News via Philippe Barriere Collective (PB+Co).
