The seat of the advertising and movie sound production company is a remarkable place, the place in which the paths of many different people: actors, lectors, clients and team employees intermingle. The same way, there intermingle the paths of sound and images in audio and sound montage rooms. There is a lot going on here. All that jazz needs to be restrained and arranged – divided and separated, so that both work and breaks between the recordings provide necessary relaxation.
Our primary design task was to create an arranged, representative entrance – a spacious common area. The company seat is located in a terraced house from the 80’s, rather dimly lit and with undersized interiors.
Exploded Axo
The ground floor space, where a receptionist welcomes the visitors, was completely redesigned. There is a coatroom and a room with a large table designed for meetings with a large number of participants. We also prepared separate rooms for the administration and accounting as well as some quiet nooks for casual meetings. And, of course, a lavatory.
The design needed to be economical since the building is only rented.
The real challenge here was a tough deadline imposed by the investor – a holiday period. The assumption was not to interfere with the large amount of tasks which the company employees have to complete during the year. All tiers underwent renovation which included renovation of the staircase and development of new designs of the recording and sound editing studios. However, the major part of the renovation related to the ground floor area.
Apart from the rearrangement of the areas and functions on the ground floor, our design included development of partition walls, which is a reference to the divider wall structures in 2b4 buildings. We teasingly didn’t fill them in with the acoustic insulation material that would absorb the noise. We left (and designed) structure framework and emphasized their aesthetics by filling them with semitransparent polycarbonate panels. Transverse divisions of the wooden structure form marvelous shelves for books, magazines and binders.
Thanks to this solution the interiors became more spacious. The activities performed in individual rooms are hardly seen, however, the light from the garden spreads throughout the whole ground floor.
All structures and furniture are made of varnished pine wood, the filling panels are made of semitransparent polycarbonate and the ground level floor is covered with grey rubber flooring. The walls were painted white and additionally we placed a mirror in the waiting room to make the room even more spacious. To complement the interior we used standard luminaires and simple and affordable furniture from a well-known megastore.
The Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) has announced that Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, of the Los Angeles-based firm Johnston Marklee, have been named Artistic Directors for the 2017 event. Following a successful inaugural run in 2015, the second edition of the biennial will take place from September 16 – December 31, 2017.
Speaking exclusively to ArchDaily, Artistic Directors Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee said:
“We are thrilled with the invitation to be the Artistic Directors for the second edition of the largest exhibition of contemporary architecture in North America. To have a global platform to address current ideas and showcase the talent in the field of architecture in a city with such an extraordinary architectural pedigree is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
Johnston Marklee. House is a House is a House is a House is a House. Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial / Tom Harris, 2015
Since 1998 the practice has worked on residential, commercial, and institutional work with a particular focus on the arts. They frequently collaborate with artists, visual designers and writers to, in their own words, “broaden the breadth of [their] design research” in order to maintain “permeable boundaries for greater results.”
The practice is jointly led by Sharon Johnston, a graduate of Stanford University, and Mark Lee, a graduate of the University of Southern California. Both have studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Also announced was the addition of Todd Palmer, formerly of the National Public Housing Museum, as the Biennial’s Executive Director. He will work alongside the CAB board to establish the Biennial as a “world-class cultural attraction for the city.”
Under the theme of “State of the Art of Architecture,” the inaugural Biennial was North America’s first and largest international exhibition dedicated to the display of contemporary architecture, featurings works from over 120 architecture and design offices from more than 30 countries. Over half a million people from all over the world attended the event.
“The Chicago Architecture Biennial’s return in 2017 confirms Chicago as an architectural hub,” said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “Last year’s edition was a resounding success, and I’m pleased to see the great planning and support for the second Biennial, which will be even better. Not only is the Biennial’s return a testament to our city’s architectural significance, but it speaks to Chicago’s place as one of the world’s cultural destinations and our place in the world of architecture and design.”
An emerging sector of construction is developing new systems that manage to not only reduce construction times and costs, but also solve the housing problem in Mexico’s most disadvantaged areas. Originating from previously known construction techniques, national companies are venturing into international markets by proposing new models of construction that use fewer materials and have a greater structural strength and greater comfort. They’re also introducing smart materials adaptable to any construction need.
As part of this new industry breakthrough, Juan Manuel Reyes from Armados Omega and architect Jorge Capistrán have developed a new, low-cost construction system which also reduces construction time by 50%. It uses single module blocks and doesn’t require binders, mixtures, or skilled labor.
Block ARMO, developed by Armed Omega, debuted in late 2015 in an official press release by the Mexican Council for Science and Technology, in which Juan Manuel Reyes said the company’s goal “is to provide new construction systems to further contribute to Mexican society meeting the demand for decent housing.”
The manufacturing process for the stone blocks uses production methods based on recycled materials and low water consumption. The team of developers is interested in releasing to the market a new system of self-building at different scales and for different needs.
Courtesy of techBA
According to Jorge Capistran, who patented the innovative system putting it into practice in 2009 for a project developed by the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL), he has built more than 300 homes in Sierra Negra, Puebla.
Juan Manuel Reyes explained that “the system consists of six pieces of self-assembly that are self-supporting. A metal rod is inserted every 80 centimeters, with no need for a special foundation, creating a structure where you can install pipes and wiring without any problems.”
Courtesy of ARMADOS OMEGA
The idea of this particular assembly, which is similar to a puzzle, is that extensive training or side building systems that complicate the assembly process or generate high building costs are no longer required.
“This construction method helps workers because they don’t need any extensive training to implement the system” said the director Juan Manuel Reyes.
Courtesy of techBA
With a manufacturing plant in Cholula, Puebla, the Mexican company continues to create new elements that diversify the product and function as decorative elements with various finishes, colors, and textures in the piece, with the hope of replacing traditional systems, reducing costs all while contributing significantly to the construction sector and housing in Mexico.
Iconic building in the cultural and heritage landscape since 1991, the Museum of Stella Matutina, known as Musée de France, has witnessed a major renovation (37329m2 of total built area and landscaping encompassing the museum and surrounding buildings). Driven by a new scientific and cultural program, this project has focused on both, the buildings of the original sugar factory, and the museum trail, with a set of enriched collections and the use of innovative multimedia and interactive technologies. The project implementation covered the rehabilitation of the buildings, restoration of the collection items and the museographical aspect. The team of L’Atelier architectes was in charge of all operations on site, including the ones of environmental remediation, restoration of machines and transport of heavy collection items from their locations in-situ. A five-year adventure for the team of L’Atelier architectes, responsible for coordination with some forty companies.
The museographic thought, which preceded the architectural one, consisted of looking at the old factory not only as a reminder of the history of the industrial and sugar sectors of the island, but also the base for a speech about the history of a territory, its settlements and its people.
The raw materials of the existing museum, the buildings of the old factory, the collection holdings and documentary resources were put together to reconstruct the history. This story, narrated by the museographer Laurent Laidet, places the building in the heart of the subject.
The tour of the new museum is written in five chapters unfolding over 1200 linear meters (3600 m²). If the tour sets out and explains the transformation of sugar cane and its successive innovations, the Stella Matutina museum is also intended as a tool to understand the history of Reunion society, strongly shaped by the sugar industry, and a tribute to the men and women who have built the Island as we know it nowadays and who gave it its identity.
Additional spaces have also been allocated for the functioning of a modern museum: conservation, exhibition, mediation, broadcasting, didactic spaces …
Ground Floor Plan
Design embedded in the site
The team of L’Atelier architectes moved to the site of the old factory during the whole design phase. An important task of appropriation of the site, its environment and its history was undertaken by the architectural team. A special insight was also made possible thanks to the cooperation with former workers of the factory. This enhanced understanding of the site and its light, the integration of the factory in the landscape, the history of the region and its inhabitants.
The challenge was to restore the original area and enhance the factory that has a strong symbolic attribute. Eventually, the museum is only the old factory, which has been revealed. Gateways and multiple split levels which rendered the museum unreadable were removed. The factory relives and extends its entirety and majesty.
The modification is deliberately light on the exterior of the factory. It was limited to the change of the outer part of the building in order to identify it better as a museum, marking its transition from an industrial into a cultural building. A slightly nobler treatment has been chosen with the use of copper cladding.
The northern facade has been cladded with louvers. This large horizontal cladding ventilates the building while protecting it from sunlight. In addition, it provides a beautiful natural light inside which varies according to the time of day. From far away, the façade vibrates and sparkles in the sun ‘like sugar’.
Discrete extensions that blend into the “landscape”
The additions and extensions, which match the clients desires on having an archive centre, a temporary exhibition hall and an amphitheater, were placed in such a way that Stella’s silhouette remains unchanged. The extensions are hidden in the contours of the existing building and they do not alter the perception of Stella in any way and especially its silhouette as it emerges. It can be discovered gradually from La Route des Tamarins, the main highway that connects the north to the south of the island.
About 60 machines were refurbished and staged in the museum. Some, by their large size, were restored in situ, with all the precaution that this job requires, on a site under construction. More generally, the restoration of nearly 600 collection items allowed local actors to take advantage of skills’ transfer from experienced personnel.
The task of management of Stella construction site was complex, because of the number of contractors to coordinate (40 contractors), almost archaeological precautions required tor restore different historical layers of the factory, new technologies loaded by numerous multimedia devices – the museum has 48 multimedia devices including a 4D movie theatre, with a total of 25 km of network cables built in.
The discovery of asbestos in the soils has required the implementation of a complex and innovative pollution control process which lasted for nearly a year.
Sections
A didactic and heritage space open onto the ocean
Endemic plants, fruit trees, shrubs, aromatic herbs: the landscaping of the gardens creates an educational, leisure and heritage space for the visitors. The gardens and outdoor spaces, completely renovated, consist of several pathways as well as external spaces dedicated to diverse events.
Erik Giudice Architecture has released its proposal for a transit station at Södra Munksjön, in Jönköping, Sweden, a design that was created as an entry for the station area ideas competition, which recruited four firms to create a new station as a part of the area’s larger expansion plan.
Based on the idea of connecting the city and its surrounding nature, the station proposal utilizes light and a playful wooden canopy structure to create a portal from Jönköping to Munksjön, a lake on its opposite side. The “matchstick” structure of the station additionally pays homage to the city’s past as Tändsticksstaden, a famous matchstick capital of Sweden.
Courtesy of Erik Giudice Architecture
Using a combination of wood and polycarbonate panels, the structure will provide partial shade, as well as views over the surrounding lakes and forests, for its travelers.
Courtesy of Erik Giudice Architecture
Transparency and openness helps sunlight reach below the cover and onto the platforms and other areas, ensuring that all areas of the station have access to light with entrance areas on all sides, making the spaces above as well as below the viaduct feel safe and secure for all users – described the architects.
Courtesy of Erik Giudice Architecture
Courtesy of Erik Giudice Architecture
Conceptualized as a “living room in the forest,” the project is “green” not only in its use of materials but also in its incorporation of nature. Local tree species like ash, pine, and oak will be planted in areas of the station where the canopy dips down and is anchored into the streets.
Furthermore, the polycarbonate portions of the canopy will feature solar panels on the south side of the building, and rainwater will be harvested and reused in planted areas on site.
Courtesy of Erik Giudice Architecture
The use of wood and curbed, creates irregular surfaces helping to absorb and diffuse noise from the train and other traffic and adds to a more peaceful atmosphere, a place where people are invited to linger and relax – said the architects.
Long, circular ramps will guide visitors to the upper level of the station, where they can walk and take in views of the lakes, forest, and city.
The lower level of the station will host a number of different uses including ticket offices, shops, cafes and restaurants. It is where other modes of transportation connect with and within the train station. It has been designed to favour easy access for all users and a good flow of both pedestrian and motorized traffic in and around the station through the use of wide sidewalks, large entrance areas and transparency which offers excellent visual orientation.
Choreographies, an installation at the 4th Lisbon Architecture Triennale by Pedro Alonso and Hugo Palmarola, presents the construction of building sites as cultural and political archetypes. By critically contesting comic films and animated cartoons released in the United States and the Soviet Union between 1921 and 1980, it presents construction sites as places in which ideology and imagination were combined through the choreographic movements of hanging steel-beams in the US, and flying concrete-panels in the USSR. These building components symbolize the construction of the modern world, the technological optimism of industrialization, the relevance of the building process over the completed building, and the standing of workers—welders, riveters and crane operators—against the vanishing figure of the architect.
These Choreographies are presented by a simultaneous projection of two looping films, screening selected fragments from movies and animated cartoons in order to stress both the symmetries and differences between the USA and the USSR in, for example, opposing beams to panels, riveters to welders, and skyscrapers to housing blocks. This selection highlights the mise-en-scène of buildings sites in film, including visual gags on Taylorism, parodying the industrial production of steel beams and concrete panels.
In America, Harold Lloyd’s silent comedy Never Weaken (1921) was the first comic film presenting a steel beam that casually comes through the window of a building. As it does, Lloyd performs all sorts of acrobatic movements in the context of the skyscraper construction boom and the economic prosperity of the 1920s. This film later became a fundamental reference to the work of various animation studios including Looney Tunes, Walt Disney and Fleischer, each having their own well-known characters to conduct feats similar to Lloyd’s. This is the case of Bosko, Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Olive Oyl, Porky, Mr. Magoo, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, Daffy Duck, and Droopy, in short animations such as Hold Anything (1930), Building a Building (1933), A Dream Walking (1934), Bridge Ahoy (1936), Porky’s Building (1937), The Riveter (1940), Rhapsody in Rivets (1941), Nix on Hypnotricks (1941), Construction Mayhem (1949), Homeless Hare (1950), Child Sockology (1953), Tot Watchers (1958), Cat Feud (1958), Pent House Mouse (1960), Base on Bawls (1960), Bad Day at Cat Rock (1965), Skyscraper Caper (1968), Droopy’s Restless Night (1980), and Droopy’s Good Luck Charm (1980).
Courtesy of Pedro Alonso & Hugo Palmarola
In the Soviet Union, it was Cheryomushki (1963)—a film based on an operetta by Dimitri Shostakovich—which praised the newly established policy towards the use of large-concrete panel construction, a building technology promoted in the 1950s by Nikita Khrushchev. This movie had a climax in the frenetic dance of a couple on top of a panel while being transported through the air. Cheryomushki and the later comedies Operation Y and Shurik’s Other Adventures (Operatsiya Y i drugie priklyucheniya Shurika, 1965), were followed by many other short animations that took the theme of the flying panel, such as The Story of a Crime (Istoriya odnogo prestupleniya) (1962), How the House Was Built to the Kitten (Kak kotenku postroili dom) (1963), Granny’s Umbrella (Babushkin zontik) (1969), At the Port (V portu) (1975), the opening animated cartoon of The Irony of Fate, orEnjoy Your Bath! (Ironiya sudby, ili S lyogkim parom!) (1975), and I’ll get you! (Nú,! pogoduí!) (1976).
How the House Was Built to the Kitten (Kak kotenku postroili dom), URSS, 1963, producida por Soyuzmultfilm y dirigida por Roman Kachanov.. Image Courtesy of Pedro Alonso y Hugo Palmarola
In these animations, steel-beams and reinforced-concrete panels are denoted as weightless elements that reach the sky thanks to technology, construction and architecture. In the United States these cartoons gave value to skyscrapers and their role in the development of capitalism. In Soviet Russia these films took the choreographic movements of panels carried by cranes, symbolizing egalitarianism and a raw aesthetic that took up some principles of constructivism, intended to replace the Socialist Realism of Joseph Stalin. In both, beams and panels were key elements of the plot of the films, reflecting the two most representative structural paradigms of the twentieth century. Because its primary function was to amuse, the films were successful in presenting in a simple way construction sites as belonging to the daily life of cities, but without the burdens assigned to them by the histories and theories of modern architecture and urbanism.
A Dream Walking, EE.UU., 1934, producida por Fleischer Studios y dirigida por Dave Fleischer.. Image Courtesy of Pedro Alonso y Hugo Palmarola
At the Port (V portu), URSS, 1975, producida por Soyuzmultfilm y dirigida por Inessa Kovalevskaya.. Image Courtesy of Pedro Alonso y Hugo Palmarola
In both the United States and the Soviet Union beams and panels never stop moving. Such endless motion is not accidental but central to the comic plot, as well as the jokes that are all too similar. The only substantial change is the preferred building component chosen by capitalist America and communist Russia: fearless acrobatics high up in the structures, jumping or dancing from beam to beam and from panel to panel, characters chasing each other, somnambulism, unconscious walks, or sudden vertigo that may be taken as tokens of utter the confidence on the technologies and their sustaining ideologies, subtlety admitting they are at the same time teasing danger. As long as they were addressing general public and children, the building sites of dancing beams and panels were battlefields in the construction of a certain consciousness displaced towards politics, ideology and education. Beams and panels were not only sustaining structural loads, but also a whole range of cultural weights.
Cheryomushki, URSS, 1963, producida por Lenfilm Studio y dirigida por Gerbert Rappaport. Image Courtesy of Pedro Alonso y Hugo Palmarola
Never Weaken, EE.UU., 1921, protagonizada por Harold Lloyd y dirigida por Fred Newmeyer.. Image Courtesy of Pedro Alonso y Hugo Palmarola
Outside cinema, however, one of the most famous images on a steel-beam is Lunch atop a Skyscraper (1932), in which eleven workers are having lunch on a large metal beam on the 69th floor, during construction of the RCA Building in Rockefeller Centre in New York. The image, although staged, reflects the job insecurity caused by the Great Depression when risky tasks were accepted without proper safety standards. Coincidentally, within the same decade, and in contrast to that image, animated cartoons started to portray an opposite imagery. In A Dream Walking (1934) Olive Oyl sleepwalks on the moving beams of a building site. Wearing only a nightshirt that was transparent to the moonlight, she puts her bare feet on beams as they appeared on her way, making a remarkable choreography. Virtually every of the American cartoons of this series seem to insist that the beam is a safe way to walk in, even if their starring characters are, for different reasons, absolutely unconscious. These characters, in Giorgio Agamben’s words, are the ones “who can walk on thin air as long as they don’t notice it; once they realize, once they experience this, they are bound to fall” [in: Infancy and History: The Destruction of Experience]. Quite like the irrational walking choreography of Olive Oyl, we shall never fall because that was the time of total confidence in the structural paradigms of beams and panels, elements forming solid imaginary structures that created reliable ways for Americans and Soviets to face the dangers of industrialization and progress, even in state of unconsciousness.
Pedro Ignacio Alonso and Hugo Palmarola, Choreographies. Simultaneous animated loops, 2:56 min. Compiled, edited and produced by Paulina Bitran. Credits: Pedro Ignacio Alonso and Hugo Palmarola, 2016. Music: Akai 47 by Nortec Collective presents: Bostich & Fussible (Courtesy of Nacional Records and Canciones Nacionales). Work sponsored by DIRAC of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, and the Dirección de Artes y Cultura, Vicerrectoría de Investigación de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Título: 4.ª Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa: Choreographies – Pedro Alonso y Hugo Palmarola
In the latest edition of Section D, Monocle 24’s weekly review of design, architecture and craft, Henry Rees-Sheridan visits Oslo to speak to Hanna Dencik Petersson, Director of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale, and Alejandra Navarrete Llopis and Ignacio González Galán – two members of its curatorial team, the After Belonging Agency. The show explores the concept behind the exhibitions of the Triennale, what it means to be located in Norway’s capital, and how the event’s trajectory is both a symptom and cause of Oslo’s development as a design city. ArchDaily’s James Taylor-Foster weighs in on After Belonging’s significance.
After Belonging is the sixth incarnation of the Triennale and the first one in which a single curatorial thread has woven all of the festival’s activities together, including the international conference. The goal of the two primary exhibitions—On Residence and In Residence, including a series of Intervention Strategies—is to develop platforms with the aim of “rehearsing research strategies,” providing new ways for architects to engage with “contemporary changing realities.”
"In Residence" Exhibition (National Museum – Architecture, Oslo). Image Courtesy of Oslo Architecture Triennale
"On Residence" Exhibition (DogA, Oslo). Image Courtesy of Oslo Architecture Triennale
The residence is situated in Delphini, a location along a small gulf at the North-West part of the Cycladic island of Syros in the Aegean Sea. The gulf surrounds a small uninhabited island. As the site extends towards the gulf, the small island becomes its focal point, its point of reference.
Site Plan
The property belongs to a Greek five member family which is based in London and has links to the textile and shipping industries of the island.
The residence consists of five independent wedge-shaped volumes divided in two complexes of two larger and three smaller buildings and a later addition of one rectangular volume, the owner’s studio.
Each complex’s functions and large openings are organized around a courtyard and altogether oriented towards the sea. The axes of the intervening courtyards point to the small island. For the external sides of the complexes small, random openings provide privacy.
Plan
The two volume group, the first one to be built, is designed as an autonomous residence, containing spaces for all the main activities of the family.
Natural materials are used, such as timber ceiling beams, local soil mixed with cement for the external floors, untreated internal plastering made of lime and local sand, etc
The construction methods, the choice of natural materials, the gradation of closed, open and semi open spaces in combination with the building’s orientation provide natural ventilation and lighting, shadow and protection from the strong wind, enabling the house to operate in balance with the nature throughout the year.
Section
Syros House could be seen as a descendant of Mitato,Kalivi and Themonia, the basic monolithic stone shapes that were always been on the island, and as the ideal of Primitive Hut , man’s longing to go back to the essential and the continuity through landscape and memory.
From the architect. Trumpf Poland’s new headquarters in Warsaw, housing offices and exhibition areas, represent a prototype for an economically constructed industrial building combining a simple form with complex surfaces and differentiated interior spaces.
As if wanting to tell a story about the inner workings of the building, gleaming stainless steel fins cover the façades of the new Trumpf Poland Technology Center in a soft gradient. Produced from high-grade sheet steel, the fins are laser-cut and folded to widen and narrow over their 10-meter length — a direct architectural application of the machine tool- and laser technology for which the company is known.
First Floor Plan
With this new two-story, almost 3,000 square meter building, the company gains office space for about 50 employees, as well as a distinctive showroom for the presentation of flatbed laser cutters, bending machines and punch presses.
Strategically located on an arterial road, with highway access and close to the airport, the building plugs into a suburban district filled with commercial and industrial enterprises, parking lots, and available land for development. It is positioned in the northern area of a 10,000 square meter lot bordered by roads to the north and south, and by further commercial lots to the east and west, enabling potential for further expansion.
Section
The new building pulls from this heterogeneous context with a corresponding internal organization and a somewhat prototypical outward appearance: its box-like exterior is de ned by the strong stainless steel façades on the north and south sides of the building, facing the roads as if billboards, presenting an image that is notably powerful yet graphically elegant at the same time. On the interior, carved out of the upper floor is a 16 x 16 meter courtyard-like roof garden, an unexpectedly charming and intimate space for work breaks and for small customer events. A warm, dark grey granite floor and large potted Juneberry plants create atmosphere.
The building’s interior configuration is oriented circumferentially around the slightly o -centered courtyard garden on the upper floor, and an enclosed block with utility and storage rooms lying beneath it: towards the north and east stands a double-height, L-shaped showroom, while towards the south and west, the building is split into two levels housing o ces, conference rooms, and an employee cafeteria. At the intersection of these differentiated zones, the southeast corner of the building houses the foyer with the reception desk. Opposite, in the northwest corner, the open showroom is stepped down into a single-height space displaying an array of products and machining heads alongside examples of their application. Above this, reachable via an open staircase, a glass- enclosed gallery provides a spacious room for client meetings and receptions, allowing views into the showroom below, also connected to the upstairs o ces and courtyard. The showroom’s double height connects it visually with the courtyard garden and thus constantly receives light from two sides.
Both the interior and exterior of the building are characterized by an economic use of industrial materials. The courtyard roof garden is bordered towards the showroom with U-pro le translucent thermally insulated glass, and the load-bearing structure is left visible from within the building. In the o ce area, where the cores and emergency staircases can be found, the frame has been executed in solid reinforced concrete, while the double-height open area is constructed with a black-painted steel skeleton. Beyond creative and aesthetic concerns, another advantage of this design was the quick, twelve-month construction time it enabled.
Aluminum and stainless steel were used for the outside shell of the building. Trapezoid-pro le corrugated aluminum covers the two functional and understated side façades facing east and west: one side with cutouts for the glazed entry door and a large delivery gate, while on the opposite façade, two long bands of windows allow natural light into the training and o ce spaces. A system of polished stainless steel fins have been installed over the post-and-beam glass façades that front the showroom towards the main road as well as frame the building to the south, turning these views into a calling card of sorts for the company and its products.
Detail
The fins are made from laser-cut, square-edged stainless steel sheets, produced in varying widths and mounted to oat slightly o of the building on an intricate, at-pro le scissor construction, giving the appearance of gently opening and closing waves. Cut and applied in increasing widths, a soft progression from relatively open to almost closed louvers is created, responding to the demands of the interior uses of the building: on the north side, narrow slats grant ample views into and out of the showroom, while they widen towards the single-height display area, facilitating the dimmer light demanded by display screens. On the south side of the building, the louver system is predominantly closed, providing the o ces situated alongside it steady protection from the sun. After darkness falls, the illuminated interiors appear from the outside as a shimmering screen.
The surrounding grounds are landscaped with a loose arrangement of birches and delphiniums, their natural structure contrasting with the strict geometry of the gleaming metallic building.
From the architect. K22 is a house of 3 siblings, each of them begins to be grown-up subsequently but they all have the same intention to live together with their parents and taking care of each other like they did previously. The house is located in the inner zone of Bangkok “Huay Kwang”, they all decided to live together in the familiar district better than settling down separately which would result in more costs for land and construction. The main concept of the house is to design sharing spaces for all family members while providing privacy for each one of them. It could be compared as a family’s apartment where each of them has their own living unit, and the common space that perfectly fits the needs and activities of people from two different generations. Consequently, the house promotes all members to spend their time and share their moments together as one big family.
Since the site is in rhombus shape, the house is only accessible from the front, leaving the other sides to be suitable for being a private garden. The entrance is linked to the main corridor which is surrounded by common functions; kitchen, working space and living room. Besides, there is another living area facing the private garden, where all members could spend their relaxation time together. The corridor is also connected to the service area, which is located next to the parking space.
Each family member can access to their own unit on the second level through the staircase locating in the middle of the common corridor. The house is divided into two sides, one with single-volume and another with double-volume. The single-volume side contains rooms for their parents and one of the siblings. The double-volume side has two units for the other two siblings and their upcoming new family members. With the distinctiveness of double-volume space, it consequently appear to have imprecise number of the storeys.
In each double-volume unit, the programming of the main floor and the mezzanine are flexible and adaptable; allowing the family to create their own preferable space. The structure and layout of the house also offer opportunities to further adjust or extend the units in the future to support the change in lifestyle and the growth of family.
Sig Nordal 