© Aaron Pocock

• Architects: SCDA Architects
• Location: Singapore
• Architect In Charge: Soo K. Chan
• Design Team: Malcolm McCulloch, Edward Lau, Yap Shee Leng, Johnston Kor, Joyce Heng, Edo Adrianus Kartono, Chong Shu Mun, Ronilo Gabon, Earl Monroe Magale, Lee Kit Hung, Lydia Loke, Lois Kok, Venus Pagdunzulan, Nguyen Tien Dung, Yvonne Tan, Janice Kwa, Marianne Ponce Mateo, Goh Leena, Mariana Charters, Aleksandra Koroleva, Faye Marie Dy-Liacco, Wahyuni Kurniawati, Sumanee Ampansap, Johnson Chng
• Area: 7000.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Aaron Pocock

• Developer: Shelford Properties Pte Ltd
• Main Contractor : Hock Guan Cheong Builders Pte Ltd
• Structural Engineer: WEB Structures Pte. Ltd.
• M&E Engineer: Bescon Consulting Engineers Pte Ltd
• Quantity Surveyor : Rider Levett Bucknall Pte. Ltd.

© Aaron Pocock

From the architect. Set in a lush tropical landscape across the street from the Singapore Botanic Gardens, Cluny Park Residence comprises 52 units positioned over four storeys, each with private lift access. The condominium takes full advantage of its privileged location by the new UNESCO World Heritage site, with every unit sporting a large balcony bordered by angled fins that provide sun shading and division between neighbouring units, whilst directing and framing the views towards the Garden’s greenery.

© Aaron Pocock

© Aaron Pocock

© Aaron Pocock

The units’ full-height glazing dissolves the barrier between indoor and outdoor space, visually extending the interiors. Ground-floor apartments feature private patios and pools that are protected from the street and the adjacent lots by a layer of perimeter planting. The top two floors house duplex units, allowing for generous double-height living spaces and higher ceilings on the fourth storey. The condominium’s public facilities – which include a pool with a deck and Jacuzzi, a barbecue pit, and a gym – are situated on the roof level with unhindered 360-degree vistas accessible to all residents. 

© Aaron Pocock

Floor Plan

© Aaron Pocock

The façade is composed of glazing framed by light composite timber trimmed with extruded aluminum section, giving it a natural yet clearly structured look. This is carried over to the interiors, which employ a luminous colour scheme and feature subtle inclusions of wood in its many forms: it can be found in the white oak floors, textured brushed-cypress feature wall, and walnut wardrobe cabinets.

© Aaron Pocock

Product Brief: The most prominent materials of the projects are used on its façade: full-height glazing allows to maximize natural lighting within the apartments; composite timber, which clads the balconies, gives the building a warm, natural look, blending in with the surrounding greenery; extruded aluminum trims section accentuate the lines that compose the façade. 

© Aaron Pocock

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© Peter Clarke

• Architects: MDS
• Location: Clifton Hill VIC 3068, Australia
• Area: 500.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Peter Clarke

• Client: Birkenstock Australia
• Builder: emac Constructions
• Design Collaborator For Shop Furniture/Fitout: Cibi
• Structural/Civil: Hive Engineering
• Energy & Daylight Modelling, Mechanical Engineering: The Green Factory

© Peter Clarke

From the architect. The multi-award-winning design succinctly translates the brand’s core values into a spatial experience, intuitively illustrating Birkenstock’s commitment to craftsmanship and quality, to health and sustainability. The warm and contemporary design, with a hip feel and an holistic approach to sustainability, results in enjoyable spaces for both workers and customers.

© Peter Clarke

The scope 
The run-down heritage building was brought back to its former glory, extended and complemented by a contemporary fitout. The new headquarters consist of wholesale offices, workshop, courtyard, retail space, online store, and a warehouse with newly inserted Mezzanine storey as wholesale showroom.

© Peter Clarke

© Peter Clarke

The Concept 
The layout allows for spontaneous staff encounters, unifying different departments into one company culture through the design. A new central core connects, with staff amenities as meeting points between the levels. The shopfront becomes a single point of entrance, so all staff experience the ‘front end’, where shoe meets customer.

© Peter Clarke

Architecture follows values 
Birkenstocks are natural, handcrafted, healthy shoes. This is reflected in the design; from concept to detail, the HQ promotes a healthy lifestyle / workplace. Both natural materials and nature itself form an integral part of the design.

Plan 2

Healthy, Natural, Sustainable 
Carefully selected greenery is built into the sustainable design, working as ‘air-purifiers’ throughout : Remaining emissions / offgasing from low VOC materials get filtered and cleansed by the planting.

© Peter Clarke

An element of surprise 
Traditional materials/elements are put into new context : The shopfront uses natural grass for flooring, plants are replacing office screen partitions, plywood forms a complete interior covering all surfaces in some areas, and a ‘homely’ fireplace invites customers to relax at the tea bar within the shop.

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A view of the museum's interior courtyard.. Image © flickr user gorbould. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

One year after public outcry led the Frick Collection to abandon plans for a 6-story addition by Davis Brody Bond, the museum has announced its newest renovation plans: a major upgrade, enhancement and expansion of the institution’s facilities to be designed by Selldorf Architects.

The expansion plan will address the Collection’s needs to “accommodate the growth of its collections and programs, upgrade its conservation and research facilities, create new galleries, and—for the first time—allow for dedicated spaces and classrooms for the Frick’s educational programs,” while staying within the museum’s existing built footprint. Circulation throughout the Frick will also be redesigned to provide a more natural visitor flow through the building’s exhibition galleries, library and public spaces.

The museum along 5th Avenue. Image © flickr user shinyasuzuki. Licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

The appointment follows a rigorous 18-month process that considered 20 architects from around the world with experience in restoration and expansion of historic buildings and cultural institutions. Selected by The Frick’s Architectural and Long-Range-Planning Committee, Selldorf Architects stood out for their “creativity, vision, and approach, which respects the institution’s core goal of amplifying opportunities for intimate engagement with great works of art while preserving the domestic scale and aesthetic of the original home and the gardens.”

“Annabelle Selldorf is a visionary who creates elegant designs that seamlessly integrate the historic with the modern,” said Ian Wardropper, Director of The Frick Collection. “The firm understands and appreciates the value of institutional mission and has clearly demonstrated in past projects—such as New York’s Neue Galerie and the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown—how new designs can enrich, rather than overwhelm, already distinguished architectural spaces. Such an approach is essential to our project, which seeks to preserve the peaceful and contemplative experience that the Frick provides to its visitors.”

Selldorf Architects may be uniquely qualified for the project, considering their well-received renovation to the nearby Neue Galerie, which, like the Frick, was also originally designed in 1914 by Carrère and Hastings.

“We are honored to play a part in this critical moment of the Frick’s continued evolution,” said Annabelle Selldorf, Principal and lead designer at Selldorf Architects. “Success for the project will be a visitor experience that feels deeply familiar, authentic, and reassuring for those who know and love the Frick, and a welcoming and enchanting atmosphere for those visiting for the first time. We’re looking forward to working with the Frick to develop a gracious design befitting a great institution.”

The Frick and Selldorf Architects will now work together to develop conceptual designs for the project, with initial plans expected to be released in winter 2017–18.

News via the Frick Collection.

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© Jaime Navarro

• Architects: Ricardo Casas Design
• Location: Viale della Liberazione, 15, 20124 Milano, Italy
• Design Team: Ricardo Casas, Leonel Terres, Victor Miranda, Derek Salgado, Irene Luviano
• Area: 320.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Jaime Navarro

• Brand And Graphic Design: Liquen S.A. de C.V. Angélika Barbeyto
• Construction: ERREGI / Dario Riva, DUEBI INTONACI / Giovanni Briola, BRUSBAN COMPANY / Paolo Bandera
• Engineer And Systems: ARIATTA Ingegneria dei Sistemi S.r.l. / Cristian Zeni / Mimmo Blasi/ Andrea Patelli
• Furniture Production: Tecnoarredamenti Srl
• Sings And Prints: Expo Grafica Allestimenti
• Client: Liquen S.A. de C.V. (Sandro Landucci)

© Jaime Navarro

Bésame Mucho is a restaurant that seeks to position the real Mexican cuisine, named by UNESCO as intangible heritage of humanity in 2010, in the European market. The restaurant is located in Milan, capital of fashion, Italian creativity and economic engine of the country, located in the “Porta Nuova” area, few minutes from the historic Brera district, this new area of the city becomes a natural extension of the revitalized city center, and one of the major developments that establish the new business district of Milan.

© Jaime Navarro

The “Liquen” Agency, developed the brand concept Besame Mucho, was inspired by the Mexico of the 50’s, when Acapulco was considered the favorite Hollywood´s stars international destination.

© Jaime Navarro

The agency commissioned the firm RCD (Ricardo Casas Design) restaurant´s interior design, emphasizing the importance of creating an atmosphere in which clients live a “Mexican” experience; and Chef Mario Espinosa menu design, emphasizing the importance to include dishes that cover the different regions of Mexico and eliminating false concepts of Mexican food as burritos or nachos.

© Jaime Navarro

 Considering the requirements, it was decided to generate an open kitchen which functions as multiple scenario, where you can observe the ingredients and the way the food are prepared, or you can also take cooking classes, food or wine tastings, and know Mexican food brands and products.

Floor Plan

There is another element, which dominates the space due to its originality, scale and aesthetic level: the monumental chandelier hanging from the ceiling. RCD designers used the Acapulco chair, one of the most iconic elements of the 50’s. The piece is made up of forty blue chairs in three rows of concentric circles.

© Jaime Navarro

In order to generate a neutral base that gives uniqueness to the environment, most of walls and columns are covered with Italian handcrafted ceramic in dark tone, evoking the traditional Oaxaca black clay and, which was placed in a “thorn fish” way, simulating the pattern of Mexican baskets and textiles.

© Jaime Navarro

Some of the walls are covered with wallpaper in Mexican pink color, most used in vernacular architecture in the country and widely used by some representative architects of the modern movement in Mexico as Luis Barragán and Ricardo Legorreta. Another touch of color is achieved through the range of blue chairs, tableware and accessories.

© Jaime Navarro

Furniture is mostly made of natural wood. The Liquor Storage, an independent area in place, is located within a cube of concrete that has wooden shelves; fifty desk lamps recalling Moooi´s piece, Dear Ingo that was designed by Ron Gilad in honor of Ingo Maurer, illuminate it. A neon sign that says “Salud” gives the emphasis in this area, word that Mexicans use to say “cheers”.

© Jaime Navarro

Finally, bathrooms are covered with a special coating where people can write phrases and drawings with colored chalks.

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Courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection

History and geography lovers rejoice! You can now see and even download incredible maps from the David Rumsey Map Collection database. The website contains more that 71 thousand maps and images that span the 16th to the 21st century and illustrate everything from the seven continents, to the entire world and even celestial bodies. 

The maps and images serve as useful historical and artistic references, offering rare cartographic detail and insight into the visual organization of territories. The exceptionally high-resolution images can be filtered by place, author, and date of creation.

Courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection

Courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection

Courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection

Courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection

Courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection

Take advantage of this unprecedented resource!

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© Stale Eriksen

• Architects: Erbar Mattes
• Location: London, UK
• Architect In Charge: Demian Erbar
• Area: 100.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Stale Eriksen

• Contractor: Ireneusz Maduzia
• Structural Engineer : Thomas Hallam Consulting Limited
• Services Engineer: Environmental Engineering Partnership

© Stale Eriksen

The existing house, is the home of a family with two young children. The former ground floor layout was biased towards the front of the house. A playroom, dining space and kitchen were arranged within an undefined open space, oriented towards the street and the party wall of a neighbouring extension. The brief was to reconfigure and extend the ground floor in order to improve the connection to the garden.

© Stale Eriksen

The new ‘garden room’ inverts the former street-facing layout. Benefiting from the afternoon light, this space forms the new heart of the house, incorporating kitchen, dining and play area for the children. The kitchen layout is turned 90 degrees to face the garden.

Existing Floor Plan

Floor Plan

The flank and rear walls of the original extension were removed at ground floor level in order to accommodate the new extension with side return. The space is tectonically defined by the new structural elements, which bear the load of the floor above.

© Stale Eriksen

The former bay window arrangement was reinterpreted as one large opening with a deep window seat, corresponding with the depth of the first floor bay window. A movable oak framed window allows the space to open towards the terrace. The children’s toys are stored in large drawers underneath the upholstered window bench. 

© Stale Eriksen

A generous roof light, along the length of the room, washes the new party wall with natural daylight. Level access to the garden is via a 1.2m wide and 2.5m high timber framed glass door.

© Stale Eriksen

The existing narrow outdoor terrace was enlarged to form a patio. The pre-cast concrete window sill and masonry plinth serve as seating areas, while a new timber fence structures the garden and was designed to form a back rest along the masonry bench.

© Stale Eriksen

The former drawing room was reinstated in its original shape and new ancillary functions, grouped in the central area of the plan.

© Stale Eriksen

Lime washed masonry, precast concrete, and white oiled oak were used throughout. Precast concrete was used for the sill, lintel and copings. The precast elements are composed of white limestone aggregates and white cement, and sandblasted to a rough finish. The structural components were clad in oak veneer internally, matching the floor boards and built-in furniture. The work surfaces in the kitchen are formed of single concrete slabs with exposed aggregates and a honed finish.

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© Matt Oliver/ICE via Interesting Engineering

It’s a project out of every architect’s childhood fantasy: a 100 foot (31 meter) long suspension bridge, constructed completely out of LEGO.

Envisioned as part of the ongoing Bridge Engineering exhibition at London’s Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE), the massive bridge utilized over 250,000 individual LEGO bricks in shattering the World Record for the longest LEGO suspension bridge. Stretching further than the length of three London City Buses end-to-end, the bridge weighs in at over 1,600 lbs (75 kg).

© ICE via Londonist

The replica of the Severn Bridge, designed by certified LEGO professional Duncan Titmarsh and his company Bright Bricks with consulting from ICE Gold Medalist Dr. Robin Sham, took a team of builders nearly 650 hours to construct. The bridge was first assembled, and the world record broken, at Weydon School’s sports hall in Farnham, Surrey, before being relocated to its place within the Bridge Engineering exhibition.

© Matt Oliver/ICE via Interesting Engineering

© Matt Oliver/ICE via Interesting Engineering

“Bridges connect people and places, both physically and emotionally,” said Dr. Sham. “The ICE’s visionary Lego Bridge project connects civil engineers with the public, demonstrating the monumental accomplishments of civil engineering. Using familiar Lego bricks to demystify and showcase the extraordinary feats of engineers, I hope the next generation will be inspired to consider engineering as a career.”

© ICE via Londonist

© Matt Oliver/ICE via Interesting Engineering

In addition to the LEGO bridge, the Bridge Engineering exhibition also features a tour of notable bridges throughout British history and an interactive zone that encourages people to design their own bridges. The exhibition will be on display until April 2017.

Check out the video below to see how the LEGO bridge was designed and assembled, and learn more about the event here.

News via ICE, H/T Interesting Engineering, Londonist.

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© Nasser Malek

• Architects: JJRR/ARQUITECTURA
• Location: Monte Cáucaso, Lomas de Chapultepec V Secc, 11000 Ciudad de México, D.F., México
• Project Architect: José Juan Rivera Río
• Interior Design: José Juan Rivera Río
• Project Area: 750.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Nasser Malek

© Nasser Malek

From the architect. Located in a residential area of Mexico City, Caúcaso House rises one meter and thirty centimeters above the sidewalk in order to take advantage of the view, because the site is in a privileged point where the west is seen beyond the horizon and over the tops of the trees, leading to a basement level one meter below the sidewalk where the parking area and services are located.

© Nasser Malek

Ground Floor Plan

© Nasser Malek

On the first floor, through a double-height lobby, the social areas are oriented towards the west and two bedrooms are oriented to the east, both with bathroom and dressing room, giving the feeling of living on a single floor.

© Nasser Malek

On the second floor, through a bridge crossing the double height, is the master bedroom and a fourth bedroom, both with terraces, bathroom and dressing room.

Longitudinal Section

The house is built on a logical and exposed structure made of concrete, stone, steel and glass. In turn, the vegetation is an important part of the design.

© Nasser Malek

In the living and dining area, contained in the same space, a terrace runs parallel the entire length. Upon opening the glass doors, the terrace is integrated with the interior, cohabiting at the same time with the garden.

© Nasser Malek

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Mrs. Jane Jacobs, chairman of the Comm. to save the West Village holds up documentary evidence at press conference at Lions Head Restaurant at Hudson & Charles Sts. (1961). Public Domain

This article was originally published in the Literary Review of Canada as “Tunnel Vision: Why our cities need less Jane Jacobs.” It has been partially re-published with permission.

My introduction to Jane Jacobs was completely ordinary. Like many, many architecture students since its publication in 1962, I read The Death and Life of Great American Cities for an introductory course in urbanism. Jacobs was a joy to read, whip-crack smart and caustically funny, and she wrote in impeccable, old-school sentences that convinced you with their unimpeded flow. She explained her ideas in utterly clear and simple language. Planners are “pavement pounding” or “Olympian.” There are “foot people and car people.”

Why were we reading her? I expect it was to encourage us to look harder at the city, and to imbibe some of her spirited advocacy for experience over expertise. It was a captivating message and delivered at the right time. Today it seems as though everybody interested in cities has read at least part of Death and Life and found personal affirmation in it. Michael Kimmelman wrote, “It said what I knew instinctively to be true.” For David Crombie, “she made it clear that the ideas that mattered were the ones which we understood intimately.”

This quality was important, and one of the reasons that Jacobs endures in our culture is the facility with which we can identify with her. She is one of “us,” whoever that is—not an expert, more like an aunt than a professor. Her speciality was the induction of rules from patterns discovered by individual observation, like a 19th-century gentleman scientist. Her work gave seriousness to reactions that might otherwise be dismissed as taste, ignorance or prejudice.

Embed from Getty Images

Yet for all that, the Village, the neighbourhood she loved so fiercely and immortalized in Death and Life, has died. It was not levelled by the planners; it was slowly strangled by the invisible hand. Of course, it does not look dead. If anything, it looks recently repainted. But the vitality is gone. Its rich new residents have closed in on themselves, and more businesses serve tourists than locals. Writing in Slate recently, Peter Moskowitz bemoaned its state: “The same neighborhood Jacobs lauded for its diversity in the 1960s and ’70s is today a nearly all-white, aesthetically suburban playground for the rich.” But if Jacobs won, how did her neighbourhood lose?

Google Doodle for Jane Jacob's 100th birthday, May 4, 2016 (via <a href="http://ift.tt/2dCT6i7; Google Doodles Archive</a>)

“The starting point must be the study of whatever is workable, whatever has charm in city life,” Jacobs wrote in 1956. She appealed to pragmatism and common sense based on a conviction that her discoveries on the street could be generalized. Part of her near-mythic status comes from the fact that, at a historical peak of institutional power guarded by men, she was a woman who dared to make people trust their own eyes. As Marshall Berman wrote, Jacobs gave us “a language to appropriate our own experience.”

Embed from Getty Images

Her inattention to racism, whether in the form of American housing markets or in official policies like redlining, is well known—at least within the academy, and it was noticed before Death and Life was published. In 1961 her editor, Jacob Epstein, wrote her that he was worried about the absence of any discussion of the race issue: “I don’t think that you can proceed as though the question didn’t exist.” Jacobs replied that she had her reasons but no time to explain them. Sociologist Nathan Glazer wrote her that he agreed with Epstein, then shrugged off the concerns they both had as unrealistic: “on the other hand, you can’t do everything.”

Original illustration by Lisa Vanin (www.lisavanin.com) for the Literary Review of Canada

Step outside Jacobs’s crackling narrative, and suddenly all you can see is what she leaves out.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of things you do not see, especially if you are a middle-aged, middle-class white lady in 1950s New York. What you see depends on who you are, and many of Jacobs’s appealing dictums seem much less universal once you consider race, class, ethnicity or other less visible relationships of power. Tweak to those and step outside Jacobs’s crackling narrative, and suddenly all you can see is what she leaves out. It is unpleasant but it is necessary, for whoever today invokes her blindly invokes also her blindness.

Read the rest of the article at the Literary Review of Canada. 

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© Jérôme Ricolleau

• Architects: Atelier Didier Dalmas
• Location: 69260 Charbonnières-les-Bains, France
• Architect In Charge: Didier Dalmas
• Area: 250.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2009
• Photographs: Jérôme Ricolleau

• Other Participants: Agibat, Nicolas, Atelier.annegardoni (engineering consultancy)

© Jérôme Ricolleau

From the architect. Built on a ground with strong slope, the building takes advantage of the site by working on two levels.

© Jérôme Ricolleau

Indeed, on a low level a garage and a studio take place. We can also find all the technical elements necessary for the efficiency of the house. The accesses to these spaces are completely hide since the outside, by dint of the rigor of the drawing.

Long Section

Above the low level in lacquered aluminium, the main level is as “posed”. As if it placed naturally on it on one side and on the ground of other one, so catching up the slope. Its decline in cantilever on the east façade not only allows the living room to open up existing vegetation but also to cover the entrance and access to the garage.

© Jérôme Ricolleau

All the rooms of the house have natural light. Even the corridor, which is in the heart of the house, can enjoy natural light. Firstly, it is lighted by its roof window and secondly, by the glazed upper part of the thick wooden wall separating the rooms.

© Jérôme Ricolleau

The entire house has been realized in reinforced concrete combined with external insulation. The main cladding is in Anstrude stone. Its bright colour contrasts with the dark grey lacquered aluminium that is at the bottom.

© Jérôme Ricolleau

1st Level

© Jérôme Ricolleau

Inside, two pure materials meet. On the one hand raw concrete, the other of wood panels called “Tilly”. These are oak panels in the careful and delicate appearance that fit berries, hide a fireplace, and draw an office according to their precise pattern layout.

Product Description. The building is characterized by the purity of the materials that are used. The thin lacquered aluminium carpentry on the south facade contrast with the parapet. This one has an important overhang and its facing in stone of Anstrude, aims to be massive. From the entrance (East elevation), the facing turns around in facade and becoming a guardrail.

© Jérôme Ricolleau

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