“A House in Trees” locates in a small narrow land, which was divided with the area of 5×15(m) in Tu Son town, Bac Ninh, Vietnam. This area is facing rapid industrialization and urbanization. There are several problems with the site such as noise and smog from traffic; and negative effects from industrial zone. The main façade is faced west.
The house is designed for a couple and their teenage daughter and son. The functions include 3 bedrooms with toilets, a living room, a kitchen, a garage and store and an entertainment room, worship, laundry. The owners want a house that could improve their living condition.
Plans
In this project, we propose 2 voids inside the house in order to solve the problems. The first void is placed at the entrance, which creates a padding to avoid the smug; shapes are created to avoid direct natural light.
The second void is placed at the center of the house, which plays as a point to balance the nature. At this space, nature is appeared with its elements such as trees, natural light,the wind, and rains.
Section
Stairs and lobbies are in the center connecting spaces. People may feel that they walk on the top of trees when moving in the space.
A garden is opened to the central void, connecting living room, kitchen and dining room. The owners can feel natural light, trees, wind and rain in their bedrooms. At any space inside the house, the owner still could get in touch with nature directly.
“A house in trees “was born with its unique context. Through this project, we want to balance the nature in order to make better living condition for people while urbanization and industrialization are impacting badly to the environment.
Set within a relatively recent subdivision upon the side of Mt Martha, the Split House negotiates a complex range of conditions typical of emerging coastal developments. New houses for ‘downsizers’ in a suburban mode, paved driveways and letterboxes prevail, vying for the expansive views to Port Philip Bay, and backed by the relatively wild, coastal woodland of Mt Martha Public Park. Construction works are ongoing in the area; completed houses with gardens at varying stages of maturity are punctuated by empty lots cleared of all vegetation.
Within this context the Split House provides a range of spatial relationships to its site and the broader territory that carefully balances the owners’ desire for privacy and engagement with their surrounds. The house comprises 2 relatively simple volumes linked by a splayed stair that also acts as a seating area for people to gather, listen to music, sit in the sun. Occupying separate levels that follow the natural contours of the site, the 2 pavilions provide a separation between the upper, main living/master bedroom zone and rumpus room/guest bedrooms below. Through the curation of windows and doors a range of direct and indirect connections to the landscape provide multiple opportunities for occupation throughout the year. Smaller elements, such as integrated seating, stairs and study nooks provide spaces for quiet contemplation, juxtaposed with larger communal areas for family and friends to come together.
At its inception the landscape and spaces in-between the house were conceived as of equal importance as the building itself; screens and finely detailed pergola elements provide sheltered zones around the house that reveal themselves as a sequence of distinct spaces with varying qualities of light and shadow.
Three new sessions have been announced for the 2016 World Architecture Festival (WAF), held from November 16-18 in Berlin, Germany. Adding to the impressive list of speakers at the event will be Ben van Berkel, founder of UNStudio, who will lecture on “Superliving – from exclusive to inclusive”; Carlos Zedillo of Infonavit discussing “Architect as instigator”; and Qutub Mandviwala, MQA, who will present on “Housing and cultural difference.”
Said Ben van Berkel about the event: “It is essential to understand that ‘housing for everyone’ is not simply a matter of providing homes for all, it is also a question of what the home of the future should be; how we can meet the demands of all future residents and provide housing that fulfils their varied and changing needs.”
This theme of this year’s festival is “Housing For Everyone.” Inspired by a variety of influences, markedly the condition of displaced communities of political and disaster refugees, lectures will focus on “the growing understanding of how demographics and global urbanization are forcing change; and the imperatives to create shelter at one end of the spectrum, and sufficiency for occupation and investment at the other.”
International architects, including David Chipperfield, Ole Scheeren, Louisa Hutton, and BIG’s Kai-Uwe Bergmann, will also give live critique on shortlisted schemes, before the culminating session where one project is selected as World Building of the Year. Last year, the grand prize was awarded to The Interlace by Ole Scheeren.
According to event organizers, the WAF is a “unique international forum for exchange, learning and network between architects, while celebrating the world’s building of the year.”
See the full list of speakers, here; and find more information on this year’s event, including the entire schedule of events, on the WAF website, here.
ArchDaily readers can receive a 10 per cent discount on passes – by visiting the website and using the WAF discount code: ARCHDWAFD16
The usefulness (and, at times, unintended hilarity or abhorrence) of Google’s autocomplete function is nothing new. The screenshots, listicles and articles dedicated to exposing humanity’s curiosity, bias and, alas, stupidity have circulated the interwebs since the “Search Suggestion” feature was launched in 2008. As you type a query, topic or name into the the search bar, you are served search predictions, which the company describes as “related to the terms you’re typing and what other people are searching for.”
The explanation continues (emphasis ours):
How search predictions are made Search predictions are generated by an algorithm without human involvement. The algorithm is:
• Based on objective factors, including how often others have searched for a word. • Designed to reflect the range of info on the web. Because of this range, the search terms you see might sometimes seem strange or surprising.
In 2013, Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai launched an ad campaign for UN Women that used actual search suggestions to reveal staggering assumptions about gender. A few months later, Slate published a story that exposed how the search suggestions for scientists were… less than flattering.
So what can this great algorithm tell us about architecture—and perhaps more intriguingly, about a more universal perception of architecture and its practitioners? Not surprisingly, the algorithm suggests that people want to know why architects wear black, how to pronounce Bjarke Ingels and why it’s “hard” to be an architect. But as we inspect Google’s suggestions we are exposed to less obvious queries. The public wants to know if buildings have 13th floors. (?!?!) They are curious as to whether or not we can have tattoos, piercings and families (yes, yes and YES). Is the late Zaha Hadid related to model Gigi Hadid? (No.) Do architects work inside or outside? (good question, it depends).
You may be asking yourself, “Ok… and? This is relevant to me, an ArchDaily reader who clearly knows the answer to all of questions, because…?” We get it. But consider this a handy guide if you meet someone who is just starting architecture school, or if you have to deal with Aunt Martha at Thanksgiving. Tell them what architects do and what architecture is about. Explain your stance on whether or not architecture is art. Tell them that they can’t commission Frank Lloyd Wright to design their house, but Frank Gehry is still in the business. Clarify that architects do need to be licensed but they are not required to drive (or even like) Saabs. And lament that in spite of all of the training and time spent laboring over how to build humanly-habitable spaces, people are most interested in Lego architecture. *sigh*
The new building, with four in it’s size different, residential units, is located on the edge of the village wermatswil. The facade of charred and then brushed wooden laths, gives the building a pavilion-like expression.
Site Plan
Each of the four units, partly lying side by side and partly on above the other, are aligned at the panoramic mountain-view respectively the sunny forrest side. The inner apartments are arranged around two courtyards, lightened with daylight, guiding the sunlight into the kitchen and the living room already early in the morning.
Randy’s Donuts shop and sign (a “decorated shed”) by Extra Medium (CC BY 2.0). Image via 99 Percent Invisible
Though the Las Vegas Strip may be garish to some, with its borderline intrusive décor and “pseudo-historical” architecture, some professional architects, most notably Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown, have become captivated by the “ornamental-symbolic elements” the buildings present. The two architects developed the curious design distinction between a “duck” and a “decorated shed”, depending on the building’s decorative form. In his essay for 99% Invisible, Lessons from Sin City: The Architecture of “Ducks” versus “Decorated Sheds”, Kurt Kohlstedt explores how the architects implemented their knowledge of ornamentation in their own works and began an architectural debate still ongoing today.
“Duck” versus “decorated shed, with Big Duck in Long Island (upper right). Image via 99 Percent Invisible
Venturi and Scott-Brown developed their terminology after studying the Las Vegas Strip over the late 1960s and early 1970s, inspired by the exaggerated incorporation of decoration in the city’s skyline. A “duck” is defined as: “where the architectural systems of space, structure, and program are submerged and distorted by an overall symbolic form.” They took inspiration from an actual duck-shaped building called the Big Duck, where one could buy ducks and duck eggs, making it obvious to passers-by what they would find inside. A “decorated shed” on the other hand, is “where systems of space and structure are directly at the service of program, and ornament is applied independently.” That is what Venturi and Scott-Brown advocated.
Guild House by Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. Image via 99 Percent Invisible
One of their most well-known buildings is the Guild House, completed in 1963, implemented symbolism and historical references, and came to be an early example of Postmodern architecture. The Guild House was built for elderly residents, featuring Classical orders and structure-specific signage implemented in the façade. Most famous is the golden antenna placed on the roof to symbolize the most popular pastime of the building’s inhabitants: watching television. However, this ornament was later removed.
Vanna Venturi House by Robert Venturi featuring playful and non-structural ornamentation. Image via 99 Percent Invisible
Venturi and Scott-Brown’s criticism towards the “duck” approach was that by “rejecting explicit frivolous appliqué ornament” this Modernist architecture “has distorted the whole building into one big ornament.” Critics have challenged their “duck”-“decorated shed” duality ever since it emerged in the architectural discipline, however, this challenge of ornamentation in contemporary architecture remains. Is minimalism really so far from the dreaded “duck”? Kohlstedt argues that both are examples of “form follows function”, albeit that the “duck” is taking it to extremes.
This article was originally published on TiP, Balmond Studio and is republished here with permission.
When an atrocity occurs how do we unpack the truth, using the learnings of architecture, science and art to seek justice?
Dealing with this complex issue is architect Eyal Weizman, founder of the ground-breaking research group, Forensic Architecture (FA) at Goldsmiths University, of London.
His team of architects, filmmakers, designers, lawyers, scholars and scientists are hired not by the State, but instead work with international prosecution firms, NGO’s, political organisations and the UN, to investigate ‘crime scenes’ – like forensic detectives.
Using a variety of techniques, FA works with multiple sources such as satellite imaging, social media, and testimonials, to build up a complete picture – interdisciplinary analysis which can be presented as fact, often in law courts.
FA’s work is far reaching. The team have investigated air strikes in Syria, war operations in Gaza, drone activity in Pakistan, Gaza and Yemen, migrant crossings in the Mediterranean Sea, and environmental violence and genocide in Guatemala. Most recently FA created a virtual reality reconstruction of the notorious Saydnaya prison camp in Syria for Amnesty International. The team travelled to Turkey to interview five survivors and used their testimonials to visualise an interactive, audio and digital map. Available to view online, it’s a potent campaign tool. It also revealed new insights on emotion, memory, trauma.
The work of Forensic Architecture is unique, ambitious and necessary. Here Eyal discusses how it all began, the power of interdisciplinary thinking, memory technologies, and why he wants to create a forensic academy.
How It All Began
It started as a strange experiment. Here we were, a few architects, artists, theorists, philosophers, lawyers and scientists. We were writing about the history of architecture, trying to see how architecture is presented as evidence. And we started thinking: what does it mean when the introduction of architectural language is applied to legal language – that is court and other political forms? We wanted to see how a very particular design intelligence or architectural intelligence can come to bear on issues that other forms of investigation cannot penetrate.
And so we formed a forensic agency without any training, without any knowledge of the field, besides me having written a few books on the history of forensics. We had this incredible idea but no clients – slowly we asked around and started investigating the things that were important to us, what we were politically committed to, like various issues in Palestine for example.
And then the flood began. We started receiving commissions when the world of international law, of political activism, environmental activists and human rights prosecutors started realising there was a missing analytical narrative frame that was incredibly important and just not around.
via TiP, Balmond Studio
Architecture Assemblage
If you think about it most human rights violations and acts of state violence take place now not in open areas but places in cities and buildings.
In contemporary wars, from Pakistan to Palestine, most people of those that die, die inside buildings. The majority of those die in their own home – this is a significant shift. This also means the house and building itself bears the traces of what has happened in it.
From here, starting from space, we can start recreating the history, undertaking an archaeological study of the present, interrogating the present through the way it has manifested itself in space.
When we started, architecture was the object of the analysis – i.e the building as an index. Slowly it shifted: how do you take all those other traces and activities happening in space and make sense of it? We created what we call the architecture assemblage, by which we locate those evidence elements in relation to each other in space. Thus space becomes an optical device, a means of synthesising and of cross-referencing, of navigating between various bits of evidence.
Forensic Aesthetics
When you are a Forensic Scientist, you usually work for the police or the state.
We never work for the state; we never accept any work from the state. We always work for civil society groups, for political activists or Freedom of Rights organizations. That means something very important. It means that we are a counter forensic agency. That also means that we do not have at our disposal the very same means that the state has.
If you wanted to take a purely scientific forensics we would need scientific labs and technologies and high resolution information and a big meta-data database.
Instead we have fragments and traces; we have signals with which we confront between.
We confront the denial of state. The state would both perpetrate violence and it would deny that it has done so, like in drone strikes and the Israeli killings that we investigate for example. They do the killings and then say ‘no we haven’t done that’. So you go against lies and here there is something that we call the Forensic Aesthetics.
Forensic Aesthetics is something that is beyond the calculable. It is something that allows you to reach people and convince them by taking them there in a very subjective manner by connecting to characters and to testimony, or by other means, through techniques and sensibilities that come from the arts.
This is an important thing that we do. We always want to change the position and point of view of the way the state is looking at something. We will try to look at it from the point of view of the victims themselves and kind of disturb and subvert, to a certain extent, the ‘truth’.
An investigation is always an assortment of techniques to work together. You need to build a case, and building a case is always weaving threads of various sources so each of the things that we do would cooperate or contradict another piece of information that we have. That would create another trajectory of analysis that we can then untie and move on from.
One thing about our work is that we never end with the physical causes of the event but we will go after the political reality and political reasons that enable that event. So if we research a day in the Gaza war, we could ask in what kind of world such a day can happen? What are the geopolitical, military, ideological and sometimes even financial conditions that enable such days? If we look at the shooting of a Palestinian kid in the West Bank we would ask, in what kind of reality of domination could such killing take place? You would always interrogate and you always start from a molecular level and scale out immediately into the macro level.
via TiP, Balmond Studio
Plume Analysis
There are truths that are beyond science, inaccessible of science – we try to use our architectural intelligence to unpack. Our work is a combination of artistic aesthetic sensibilities, architectural intelligence, and technology. It is never technology itself. It is technology filtered through these other sensibilities.
The Plume Analysis technique actually came about through a study of art history. (Plume analysis is used by FA. It analyses the movement of clouds released in warfare, such as those that appear after a bomb explodes.)
The problem of representing clouds in painting has been a recurring problem throughout art history since at least the Renaissance.
Various techniques from- Masaccio to Constable to Ruskin- have been used to capture that kind of constant metamorphosis of clouds and the way in which people were thinking about mapping those mutating objects in the air.
The reason that we are doing it is that we had to sequence and understand a very complex event: a one-day battle, one-day attack that happened in Gaza on 4th August 2014 as part of the war on Gaza.
We had thousands of sources, images and clips but had no meta data. We had to sequence them in time and space to create what I mentioned before, the architectural image.
We could not do it by looking at the plans on the ground so we created a huge Cloud Atlas.
Think of the Cloud Atlas’ of the 19th century, of Luke Howard and others that was a mapping and classifying of meteorological cloud.
However, smoke clouds are different kinds of clouds. They are anchored in the earth but they continuously morph and mutate. It is exactly their transformation and being able to capture them in an archive and database of clouds which allowed us to move from one image to another, to triangulate the images to see if those images repeat in any of the others. We calculated these to assist in mapping out the war.
We are looking at clouds as architecture, as definite volume that constantly mutate, techniques of parametric design as such. It’s almost like the final validation of blob architecture where you look at parametric architects using various algorithms too. We were using similar techniques, using the metamorphosing architecture of the clouds, but for a very different reason. Not for a design reason but to expose the history of a massacre.
All the techniques are at the intersection of artist, architect and scientist.
via TiP, Balmond Studio
Memory And Emotion
We are now developing the architecture of memory technologies. With witnesses to violent crimes, traumatized witnesses often, the closer they get to the essence of testimony and to the very heart of violence itself, they tend to forget or there is repetition and distortion in memory. Often when those witnesses are willing to recreate their testimonies we can help them by building architectural models with them.
For example, Hania Jamal in our team went to Istanbul, meeting with a group of Syrian refugees who were in a prison there.
The individuals arrived at the prison blindfolded and experienced horrific conditions and were tortured in that building but never saw the building.
They could only record it by counting footsteps, of seeing light and dark as they walk through the building and pass windows, a slither of floor tiles and the texture of the floor. They might just remember the acoustics, hearing other people being tortured, remember climbing stairs etc. By working with several witnesses, getting these different memories over the same space we were able to create the reality of that prison.
Something that is very important is that the memory often distorts space. It elongates corridors; it enlarges spaces where pain was experienced. It is very important to keep those errors in the models we make because those errors contain another truth, they contain the truth of trauma. The errors sometimes contain more truth than faithful description, if you understand the paradox.
So this time we were developing something between architecture, acoustics and testimony.
We have also developed a new technology that we are calling ‘Pattrn,’ posted as an Open-source.
This is a crowd sourcing Human Rights monitoring software that aims to put the victims of violence as also the Human Rights researchers.
People can basically upload information onto that platform from situations in conflict. The software finds repetition and logic within the relation between different incidents.
If we have developed architectural, sound, or plume analysis, we can teach everybody to do that so it can be shared and undertaken. We do not want to keep the expertise to ourselves. We want to create a forensic academy in which we can train people to do this themselves.
via TiP, Balmond Studio
Climate Change And Conflict
Part of our new research is looking at the relationship of climate change and environmental destruction, conflict in places such as the forests from Guatemala and Brazil. We are very disturbed by the way in which the whole discussion around climate change is framed as if it was collateral. What we strongly believe is if we look at climate change from the point of view of colonial history you can see that the transformation of the climate has always been a project of colonial modernity. Colonizers wanted to make the desert bloom. Colonizers wanted to make the forests into productive fields. Colonizers wanted to make the arctic warmer. Now we are suffering the consequences of it. Looking at it from this perspective, you look at climate change as a battlefield – it is a literal battlefield between colonizer and postcolonial state and indigenous people.
On this we are working in close collaboration with environmental scientists and also with indigenous communities such as Waimiri-Atroari in Brazil in areas of the Amazon which has been deforested. This combination of indigeneity and science is important.
Being An Architect
To thrive as an architect relies on optimal conditions of capital and political will to support it. When these conditions exist it seems we take them for granted. When one of those conditions gets screwed up, it becomes impossible to build- either physically impossible or morally impossible. Of course, for an Israeli, to build right now in the areas of Palestine is to support the economy of domination which persistently and consistently rob Palestinians of their dignity, of their freedom and their basic human rights. So, it’s not that I have anything against architecture; on the contrary I always have this desire. There is always a sketchbook of ideas that I would realise if I could at some point. But right now I believe that my architectural intelligence is best used to create those conditions in which architecture could thrive, before the point zero which those conditions for architecture could actually exist.
If we need to resist an existing regime, the way to resistance is multiple. Forensics is not the most important. It’s part of a puzzle. It’s part of a nexus of actions which will include political and other forms of civil society action. I don’t think the Israeli regime is the most murderous. The murder and bloodshed that is happening around the world is persistently skilled and undemocratic and is treated as democracy. It is not an affront to me as an Israeli or a Jew, but as an architect.
Eyal Weizman is Professor of Spatial and visual cultures and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University Of London. He is a founding member of the architecture collective, DAAR in Beit Sahour/Palestine. His books include Mengele’s Skull, Forensic Architecture and The Least of all Possible Evils.Forensic-architecture.org.
From the architect. Built on a area of 7962 square meters with strong slope, the school complex of Fontaines-sur-Saône knew how to take advantage of the site by fitting into the slope, offering school playgrounds to the South and assuring comfortable connections with urban public space.
The entrance of the establishment is designed by the joint between the two esplanades (top and bottom), underlined by low walls of retraining structure accompanying a generous staircase of main access. An elevator and a banister assisted the entrance.
Since the high square, a standing space between the built and the Rigot Vitton avenue, allows to reach the nursery school entrance hall. This temporization allows to manage effectively entrances and taken out of pupils.
Sections
Volumes of evolution room and premises of the nursery school, come to affix in a forged concrete wall which allows to protect the school rooms of the activity of Simon Rousseau avenue. So, the remarkable element of the program as is the evolution room, comes in belvedere on the city and forms an urban hall underlining the entrance of the establishment.
Every class takes advantage of an important natural lighting because light shaft, settled in bottom of the class, ensure the homogeneity of illumination.
The school complex was realized in armed concrete associated with insulation around. The final facing being an alternation of stones from Anstrude (clear tint) and wood cladding (pre-tinted).
Ground Floor Plan
Established on an area forced by demolition and reconstruction of the new school complex in busy site, the establishment satisfies, from the on, the constraints of safety and accessibility.
Furthermore, he offers to the city of Fontaines-sur-Saône, a strong urban signal.
Product Description.The building is characterized by the purity of the materials that are used. Since the Simon Rousseau avenue, the forged raw concrete asserts the mass of sub-meanly and give, by contrast, an effect of lightness to the high part dressed pre-tinted wood and stone from Anstrude. Behind the raw concrete hide the technical premises. Above, is located the set of the uses bound to the learning of young pupils.
The interior of a postproduction studio FRAMEHOUSE is located in a renovated multifunctional building on Miletičova street in Bratislava. Studio covers an area of 145 m2 divided into two floors and plays with materiality, minimalism and morphology. Motto “simplicity is beauty” architects are trying to undermine the motto “simplicity is beauty” with occasional spatial elements. Call words are wood, concrete and a bit of metal.
The entrance to the studio is via reception, located in the parterre of the building situated in the pedestrian promenade. Reception desk dominates the space with its angled concrete form, resembling a stone growing from concrete floor. Edginess of the desk is complemented by a sinuous pattern of a large-format wall cladding made by oiled plywood plates with dimensions of 2000x1250mm. This plywood cladding stretches through the entire reception area, via a staircase up to the spaces on the second floor and creates the impression of integrity and continuity of the space divided by floors.
Axonometric
In the middle of a geometric staircase is a levitating spatial mesh of welded roxor rods, which in addition to its primary function as a handrail serves as a shelving unit and for interior greenery.
Just opposite the staircase is an open-space area for studio boss. Next to it are the most important areas of the studio, online and 3D workstations. Online workstation is designed as a showroom for clients with a dominant cranked concrete desk and ian editing stage with theater-like seating for the presentation of work. This department is enclosed by an atypical glazing/plywood wall that separates it from additional areas of the studio. One such additional area is also a meeting/coffee bar with a multifunctional plywood box. Behind this place of rest and good coffee are toilets, 3D workstation and technology room with computer racks.
Product Brief. Sinuous pattern of a large-format wall cladding made by oiled plywood plates with dimensions of 2000x1250mm. This plywood cladding stretches through the entire reception area, via a staircase up to the spaces on the second floor and creates the impression of integrity and continuity of the space divided by floors.
Isfahan, at all times, has been a garden city, however, nowadays only a few gardens have survived. During the development of the city, beautiful gardens have turned into the streets or highways of the neighborhood. In this change, population migrate to the city skirt and the border towns grows day by day. The client of this project which has been located in one of the border towns of Isfahan had decided to live in the garden as well.
Cities, nowadays, have been changed into noisy places, while, then urban landscape is constantly yelling of restlessness and uncertainty, a plain mansion has been constructed between the garden, which provides a room for silence and listening to the sounds of nature.
Basement Floor Plan
Ground Floor Plan
First Floor Plan
Considering the regulations of building in these cities which these rules and conditions in many cases could restrict the designers, but in this scheme these limitations, pretext design of the project. height limits up to 8 m about 15% occupancy permit in the north part of the land did not meet the need of client for more than 450 sq. gross floor area, which leads the design to have the third floor below ground level, Moreover, based on same regulations, blocks should be divided by hedge, short walls and fence from the Street and their neighbors which causes them to be seen from the cells around.
In the original idea, our land is divided into two parts, one of which is below ground level of the street and the other is like a sunken courtyard. With this approach that we stylized, private spaces, the pool and the courtyard of the house remains protected and unseen, as well as, sunken courtyard helps to provide comfort zone in the house by softening warm and arid desert air in the summer.
Sig Nordal 