From the architect. BLEE HALLIGAN ARCHITECTS have added a new kitchen and dining room to a four storey victorian terrace house in Highbury, creating a bright new living space for the owner and their large family.
The frameless glazed side return extension projects out into the garden and in doing so creates a planted courtyard to the main house and a light-filled nook, big enough for a sofa.
Floor Plan
The glazed roof slopes down to the neighbouring property to reduce the impact of overshadowing without compromising the feeling of space and volume internally.
Crittal windows and doors were used throughout, opening up to the lush verdant garden. A roof extension was added as a home office, with full width glazing to allow panoramic views out over the garden below.
Product Description.Crittals were used in order to unify the elevation – fixed glazing, side-hung windows and doors provide a unified and consistent appearance when they are closed
City Guide publisher Blue Crowe Media and Deane Madsen, Associate Editor of Design at Architect Magazine, have collaborated to produce the Brutalist Washington Map, which features 40 examples of Brutalist architecture in Washington, D.C. This is Blue Crowe’s fourth architectural guide map, following their Brutalist London Map, Art Deco London Map, and Constructivist Moscow Map. One can only expect further releases on the horizon.
As more and more examples of classic Brutalism face demolition by neglect, we hope that putting these examples of D.C.’s Brutalist architecture on the map will foster public appreciation that ensures their longevity, said Madsen.
Of the 40 Brutalist structures highlighted on the map, many like the Hirshorn Museum and Dulles Airport are familiar, while others like the National Presbyterian Church may prompt a visit. With Brutalism’s increasing popularity, the creators of Washington D.C’s Brutalist Map hope to inspire readers to gain more knowledge.
Brutalism hit its stride in the mid 20th century, but it may be having a moment again. The style most notably associated with Le Corbusier’s initiative also worked its way into structures by Paul Rudolph and Louis Kahn. Brutalist architecture’s reinforced concrete and ominous impressions served government buildings particularly well due to the mandates for economic construction methods and unidentifiable appearances.
As the style sees a small revival, the two Brutalist maps in the collection may attract a large number of architects. The Washington, D.C. map is two-sided with an introduction to post-war construction and Brutalism, in addition to architectural details for each photo.
This article is part of our “Material Focus” series, which asks architects to elaborate on the thought process behind their material choices and sheds light on the steps required to get projects actually built.
In this exceptionally imaginative and thought-provoking exercise in perceptual shifts, Ithaca- & Brooklyn-based CODA transformed hundreds of humble plastic lawn chairs into a project in the Arts Quad at Cornell University. Viewed from afar as a spiky singular entity, close inspection reveals the simple, unpretentious repeated module. CODA explains, “the object’s features are no longer understood in terms of their use (legs, arms, seat) but in terms of their form (spikes, curves, voids) as, due to their rotation away from the ground, they lose their relationship with the human body.” We asked Caroline O’Donnell, principle at CODA, to explain the challenges faced in the development and construction of the fully-recyclable URCHIN.
What were the principal materials used in the project?
White plastic chairs (polypropylene).
Courtesy of CODA
In terms of materials, what were your biggest sources of inspiration and influence when selecting what the project would ultimately be made of?
We were interested in using an everyday object to play with the perception of the object. From afar, the aggregation appears as a singular (and furry) designed object. Upon approach, the viewer realizes that the unit of aggregation is a familiar object: a common chair that they have sat in before.
Describe how material decisions factored into concept design.
It was important not to damage the chairs in order for them to be reused after the pavilion is demounted. We needed to make minimal incisions, while allowing the curve of the overall pavilion to be constantly changing. We also needed the unique connections to be as invisible as possible to focus the attention on the chairs. After many tests, we settled on threaded rods of unique lengths that were connected by bolts through small incisions (ear-piercings) in the chair.
What were the advantages that these materials offered in the construction of the project?
There are no real advantages to using chairs in terms of construction, of course. The point is to make people think about everyday objects: where do these chairs come from? Where does the material come from? Can it be recycled? How am I doing with my own recycling practices? The thoughts go in two directions: one is towards recycling and ecological footprint, the other is re-thinking about the chair as a beautiful object..the way that the light comes through it, the curve of the back, the friendly spike in the upturned legs…
Courtesy of CODA
Were there any challenges you faced because of your material selection?
Many! While the chairs are rated structurally, they are rated only for sitting in the usual position, not having the loads in the directions that we had them. This was very difficult to calculate. We modeled it digitally and made mock ups and compared the results. Since they are outdoor furniture, the chairs are not fire rated and a fire rating was required from the City in order to get building permission.
Courtesy of CODA
Did you consider any other possible materials for the project, and if so how would that have changed the design?
We looked at a number of different chair types, but ultimately cost and the ubiquity of this chair won out. Someone asked me after a lecture if it would not be better to build this out of a standard material like plywood. They missed the point. It would of course be easier to build with a known material, but the point of the project is that moment of realization, a snap to reality, when the object becomes apparent, and a chain of other thoughts follow. It’s not necessarily easy, what we do, but it is not meant to be easy. It is meant to make you think.
Courtesy of CODA
How did you research and select providers or contractors for the materials used in your project?
We attempted to buy in bulk from the manufacturers, as well as to have the chairs donated. Eventually the best option was buying chairs at a discount from Home Depot. All of the chairs have unique connections (threaded rod) which were modelled in Grasshopper, and installed by our team. Chairs were built in vertical C-shapes inside over the course of a few weeks, then carried out to the site and installed together (36 C-shaped columns) in two days.
Linking the pedestrian bridge to the Congress Center to the Island “symbolizes the aim of moving forward, of the human evolution, and the scientific discoveries,” writes TARI-Architects.
Courtesy of TARI-Architects
Spaces within the museum are visually connected, allowing the visitor to journey through its fluid composition. An external exhibition area (complete with green roof) provides gorgeous views of the river, while its terrace steps gently kaleidoscope to the water’s edge. Internally, a spiral staircase centers itself as the main circulation (with an incredibly vast view of the museum on each landing).
Courtesy of TARI-Architects
Courtesy of TARI-Architects
In addition to promoting scientific discovery, the firm also focuses on the building’s sustainability, allowing the structure to adapt to its surrounding conditions — specifically the water level of the adjacent Nemunas River. A sun-shading system helps cool the building as well.
Courtesy of TARI-Architects
Courtesy of TARI-Architects
TARI-Architect’s main ambition was to promote Science Island as a place capable of cultivating a lasting relationship with science and understanding through hands-on activities through its extroverted character.
From the architect. Founded in 1921, the Concervatoire de Vanves today has 40 teachers for over 700 students. The new building, named Ode, replaces the cramped, dilapidated offices scattered around various places in the town, representing both a qualitative and quantitative leap. Acting as a music school and a performance theater, the facility is as much a teaching center as a disseminator of the musical and dramatic arts. The project is both a building and a public space with a piazza able to host open-air shows, located on a small square that provides a centrality that is mostly lacking in the area.
Located in a mixed urban fabric composed of constructions that each play their own partition, from houses to tall buildings, the new facility seeks appeasement and subtlety in the same way a musical composition organizes dissonant harmonies. The color white establishes calm and neutrality on volumes that nonetheless remain impressive, although some of it lies beneath the piazza. The visible part of this iceberg is a platonic cube that rises as an integral whole to its roof-terrace, a fifth wall covered with a metallic web that hides the technical equipment and evacuation air vents.
The coating is intended to be as smooth as possible with lacquered aluminum panels running from slab to slab, giving an inkling of the life inside. All exterior floors are faced with stone which extend to the building’s ground floor following a guiding line from the street towards a bay window opening onto the auditorium.
An orthogonal pattern controls the spaces with their highly varied dimensions and functions, from the dedicated rooms for percussion instruments, amplified music, piano, wind or vintage instruments to the dance and theatrical rooms, passing through the auditorium, a theater that is open to the public outside of teaching hours. As part of this orthogonal grid, the distribution scheme is repeated on all levels except for the ground floor. A generous hallway with stairs at either end provides access to the different rooms, each equipped according to its sound-proofing needs with airlocks or double doors. Teaching includes a vast sound spectrum from music played with vintage instruments to amplified music or gospel with either individual rooms or rehearsal rooms for a 70-musician symphonic orchestra. Besides the classrooms, the center also has a recording studio and a radio broadcast studio.
The auditorium has a proscenium stage and a seating capacity of 221; it can be configured for different kinds of shows (dance, plays, choirs, opera, concerts and contemporary music). There is a sound and light control room, an equipped grid above the stage, technical walkways over the hall and a retractable orchestra pit made of mobile panels in the shape of a concave shell to concentrate the sound for symphonies.
Acoustic constraints imposed several solutions, i.e. sound-proofing with the box in a box method and separation from the concrete structure. Sound-proofing applied to the ceilings and walls or smooth absorbent surfaces alternate with raised surfaces for rendering optimal sound. Double windows with a double-glazed frame combined with a single-glazed frame eliminate the risk of causing noise pollution to the vicinity. With the front windows permanently shut, double-stream ventilation ensures that the air remains fresh. All air vents are hidden, the lighting system built-in and the ventilation grids flush with the walls. The concept of spatial neutrality evacuates visual stimuli so as to place the emphasis on sound and instrumental lines with the plant-life of the patios as the only tangible reminder of the world outside of this microcosm’s walls. Removed from city noise, music takes pride of place.
In 2016 the Festival was visited by not less than 20 000 visitors and was committed to raising awareness in schools.75 kindergarten and primary classes took part in this new program.
The twelfth edition of the Festival will take place from 13th June to 18th June. The FAV in La Grande Motte will take place from 17th to 25th June 2017.
The FAV will keep to aware a wide public to architecture, to highlight a young generation of architects and to discover places from the urban heritage.
CALLS FOR APPLICATIONS :
– To realize 10 interventions for the FAV Montpellier – To realize 8 interventions for the La Grande Motte
Like every year, the FAV will offer to the visitors a path, a kind of architectural discovery. In Montpellier, it will take place in the town center ‘s private hostels, while in La Grande Motte it will invest the public space of the seaside town with the Jean Balladur’s specific architecture.
The deadline to submit your application is fixed on Friday, December , 2nd of 2016.
Download the information related to this competition here.
Title: Call for Submissions: Festival des Architectures Vives 2017
From the architect. 2007 four friends from Bavaria (southern german state), sat together in germanys capital city Berlin. They decided to do something against their notorious shortage of fellow players in “Schafkopf“, a card game only popular in Bavaria. The simple solution was the website http://www.sauspiel.de that soon became extremely popular. Seven years later the team had already grown to 14 people, meaning that the old office was not big enough any more. For their new home, the Sauspiel GmbH made a find in the district of Neukölln, very close to the better known Kreuzberg, a lively area commonly referred to as „Kreuzkölln“. On sale there was the raised ground floor of the old chocolate factory, that was soon to become the new Sauspiel headquarters.
The task was not an easy one. An open office and a flat hierarchy were to be combined with the need for a lot of storage space and a separate little flat to host guests. Sanitation facilities and a little kitchen were also missing. An especially interesting problem to solve was the power and data supply of the new workplaces in a building, without destroying the wonderful original material for such profane reasons.
All considerations were driven by the wish to show and preserve the existing in it’s original form. The removal of later additions and un-orderly structures was therefore the starting point for the spacial concept where the whole unit is reorganised only by adding two room-high installations.
Floor Plan
The design of the new shows a strong connection to the existing and plays between the poles of old and new. Seen from outside the new installations integrate and subordinate to the old. Taking a closer look though, one discovers that the new, especially it ́s insides, offers some great surprises.
In the main office on the lower level, the installation is a wall-like built-in furniture that separates the working area from the anteroom. It holds not only storage and an open kitchenette, but hides also toilets and a secret second entrance in it’s insides.
On the upper level (above the gateway through the building to the inner courtyard) the second installation shows itself more openly as a new element. The little „construction trailer“ contains another kitchen on the outside and a showerbath on the inside. This way the upper area can not only be used as a meeting and a lounge room but also as a little flat. With a separate entrance from the staircase, guests can be hosted here completely autonomous from the operating office.
From the architect. The client demanded a design for a residential apartment in 3 storeys, located in a middle-class district of Semnan city. With respect to negotiations with the client and in order to create a maximal usable area, the design switched from an ordinary apartment block of two separate units to two separate triplex and duplex units, because the client was interested in level differences in one single unit.
These two units were combined together on the main façade, letting maximum natural light in from the street. In the triplex unit, a central void was placed in the heart of the building to connect all the spaces together and to make all the spaces visible from there. The public and private spaces were also separated from each other by this void.
Section
Floor Plans
Placing 2 patios to allow the Day light enter to interior spaces (bedrooms and private hall) in triplex unit (A) and duplex unit (B), the both and to consider the area limitation of municipality roles. Wooden box as a monument and unique space at the core of triplex (A) and duplex units (B) plays a role as a visual and physical connection of the units . The steps transform to private hall in the hearth of wooden box in triplex unit at the mid-level between first and second levels.
Collaborators: Yang Yuqiong, Pedro Manzarno Ruiz, Giacomo Volpe, Bai Lu, Jin Xin, Zhang Tao (MOG Design), Jin Kuramoto & Ishibashi Tadahito (Balance Design)
From the architect. This sales center locates near the famous water town Zhujiajiao of Qingpu District in Shanghai, about 50 minutes’s way from the downtown by car. In such a quiet and natural environment with frondent trees around, TEAM_BLDG takes the connection between interior and outdoor spaces as the original intention of design.
Due to some restrictions on the time schedule and budget, TEAM_BLDG try to create a new kind relationship among the indoor space, out-door space and landscape in the simplest way.
They chose a special kind of aluminum grille frame with different height as the architectural expression of “cloud”, meanwhile this special frame makes a unconventional division on these several layers of space on the facade, which just meets the intention of this project. For example,they expand the use of grille not only on the facade but also the groud part, on the one hand, the ground part surrounded by grille becomes the courtyard; on the other hand, the 1st floor’s vitreous facade become completely transparent, makes indoor and outdoor’s segment more ambiguous.
Since the main entrance of the residential area and the sales center is connected by a circuitous bridge, every visitor has to walk through about 200 meters way to reach the sales center.
In order to provide this journey more interesting visual experience, TEAM_BLDG also use parametric software to design the grille. They rotate each aluminum strip with different angles to get the view changed with visual point. In the process of visitors gradually approaching the building, the surface of the building also has a virtual and actual change subtly and interestingly, bring visitors step moving scene with the feeling of veiled in mist.
After entering the courtyard, there is a 5 square meters’ small stage which is inspired by the local traditional custom called ‘village opera on water stage’. Normally this traditional opera stage is surrounded by water, and audience sits in the boat facing the stage. Then in TEAM_BLDG’s design, the stage is surrounded by 2 steps of waterscape and seats inbetween, it aims to bring visitors be personally on the scene of enjoying the performance on water.
As a sales center, client hopes to arrange more rest and communicating space except the basic commercial use space. In order to meet this demand, TEAM_BLDG put a super giant bookshelf as a layer connects partial space between 1st and 2nd floor. This multi-functional bookshelf plays an quite important role in the whole interior space that it is not only as a wall to separate business and leisure area, but also the staircases from 1st to 2nd floor as well as 2nd to 3rd floor together with the bar part are both part of this bookshelf, moreover, the connecting part between bookshelf and floor ‘grows’ out many seats for visitors to take a rest.
During the way from 2nd floor 3rd floor, visitors will go through a narrow and isolated space then suddenly entering a open bright gallery. In addition, the continued use of wood and cement starting from the 1st floor separate this gallery space into two parts, which also makes a rather clear division for the function use.
Location: Anangpur Village, Faridabad, Haryana 121003, India
Architect In Charge: Amit Khanna
Area: 140000.0 ft2
Project Year: 2014
Photographs: Courtesy of AKDA
Other Consultants: NIL
Courtesy of AKDA
Surrounded by a rapidly urbanizing village settlement, the 7 acre site is on the outskirts of New Delhi. The site’s existing rocky terrain posed a significant challenge to the spatial planning of the site. The project brief was to create a large warehousing facility that would be equipped with a high degree of automation. With the exception of the office block, the building would have minimal human occupancy. However, a comprehensive environmental and energy strategy became essential required to maintain habitable temperatures throughout the year.
Courtesy of AKDA
Planned in 3 incremental phases, the 140000 sqft structure is programmatically divided into 3 parts – the warehouse, the loading bay and the north-facing office block which is interlocked with the other two. This layout enables easy stacking of future expansion with no loss of efficiency in material/ man movement. Each block is designed from within, the individual requirements dictating the overall dimensions. The office is thin and narrow, facing the north through a glazed wall that brings in optimum daylight. The warehouses are largely square to enable efficiency, and the dimensions of robotic arms and stocking pallets dictate the spatial planning, including the 20’ high ceilings. The loading bay provides the interface between the two elements and also the exterior cargo area.
Courtesy of AKDA
Delhi has an extreme climate and a severely dusty micro-environment, both of which contribute to making buildings notoriously energy-intensive in trying to cool down ambient temperatures to human comfort levels. Traditionally, walls were made dramatically thicker than required for structural integrity, with the intent that the increased thermal mass would minimize heat gain. In modern times, a single skin façade is simply not adequate to reduce the temperature and air-conditioning is mandatory.
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Rather than overlay a conventional window-based punctured façade over the structural frame, the warehouse and loading bay are wrapped in a perforated brickwork screen.This screen shades a glazed dust barrier, recessed by 1200mm from the south and north facades, creating a buffer zone that cuts glare, serves as a utility zone and provides a high degree of passive insulation. The glazed barrier can be opened during good weather for ventilation and during extreme weather to allow for mechanical ventilation. The west facade is mostly blank with only a sliver of brick screen near the ceiling to permit evening illumination and the completely blank east façade faces the loading bay. The exposed brick unifies the various facades and minimizes the visual impact of the building on the surroundings.
Courtesy of AKDA
Additionally, the building is set nearly 4m within the ground, allowing for the parking, mechanical and canteen spaces to be naturally illuminated while the adjacency to the ground provides thermal insulation. The surrounding site is sloped away from the subterranean floor, saving costly retaining walls and providing views from within. These sunken areas catch rainwater for harvesting which is diverted to a local well. The roofs are covered with reflective tiling to minimize heat gain and a slim courtyard between the office block and loading bay helps draw out hot air from within the building.
Courtesy of AKDA
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Courtesy of AKDA
Post occupancy evaluation of the building shows a temperature differential of over 10degrees between the exterior and interior spaces. As if that wasn’t good enough, the light quality within the building is even, cool, bright, but without the glare. Which, in a climate like Delhi, is nothing short of a miracle.
Sig Nordal 