The Canvas consists of individual modules, each of which is a cube made from steel framework, back paneling, L-shaped jambs, secondary structure, waterproofing board, irrigation piping, Green Studios hydroponic skin, and plants. These layered components are assembled on four sides of the cube module, with a motor and water pipe attachment that circulates water throughout.
Thus, hydroponic plants in varying shades are grown on each face, and when put together, modules can create changeable “pixel” art.
From the architect. AEW Architects has completed a £15m, 91,000sq.ft headquarters for Moneypenny, the UK’s leading telephone answering specialist. The offices in Wrexham have been said to rival the offices of Google and Apple, and boast a tree house meeting room, nature trails, vegetable gardens and even its own pub.
The staff are at the heart of Moneypenny’s business and the brief from the client reflected the importance of its team and the desire to create an interesting, inspiring working environment for them, bringing everyone together from several different offices.
Plan
The office was designed as two three storey wings flanking a dramatic, 17m high central atrium, known affectionately as ‘the middle’, which is the hub of the building. One of the challenges was to ensure that the staff, no matter which floor they were on, felt connected to the ‘middle’. This was achieved through the use of large picture windows looking directly into it from the offices and through the placement of bridge links crossing at high level. The atrium includes a treehouse meeting room, indoor terrace and stadium seating.
Set within a 10 acre site in a semi rural location on the edge of the Wrexham town centre, the office building was designed in response to the surrounding environment to provide a strong relationship between interior and exterior and includes a nature trail for staff through the extensive grounds with landscape features including a meadow, woodland, an orchard and wetland.
Courtesy of Moneypenny
Phil Hepworth, Associate at AEW Architects said “This really has been a dream commission for AEW Architects and a real honour to work with such an exciting, forward thinking company such as Moneypenny. The opportunity to create a bespoke office of this magnitude on such a beautiful site where the brief is to ‘ignore the norm and create a space that inspires’ is rare. We really hope that the design helps the company continue to excel and inspires the staff to enjoy working there.”
Courtesy of Moneypenny
Ed Reeves, co-founder and director of Moneypenny believes the building represents the future of office design. He said:”What we believe is simple – the happier our staff, the happier our clients. So when we made the decision to build a new office, we asked ourselves: how we can make sure that our receptionists are the happiest in the UK? The answer was easy – ask them. So that’s what we did. AEW Architects were the perfect partners to help make their vision become a reality. They took our thoughts, suggestions and ideas and created our dream home. What’s even more remarkable is that they have delivered a world-class and visually stunning commercial development for the same budget we’d been quoted for a standard brick ‘box’ office”
Axonometric
The main contractor was Pochin’s Ltd, with Hatrick Property as Development Director, Avid Property Consultants as Project Managers, Cundall as M&E Consultants and Structural Engineers, CW Studio as Landscape Architect and Todd and Ledson as Quantity Surveyor.
Imaginative Italian illustrator and architect Federico Babina has unveiled his latest series, ARCHITALE, “a tribute to the fairytale universe where the architectures are reinvented to accommodate the protagonists of the story.”
Through his illustrations, Babina imagines 17 structures that dance between reality and fantasy, with each architectural detail revealing information about the characters and story of the respective fairytale.
“My first steps as an architect were visiting the homes and castles of fairy tales that as a child made me travel with fantasy,” says Babina. “The lighted windows in the dark night that hide secrets and surprises, the objects that have been transformed and come to life, were for me a prelude to the universe of architecture and design.”
“The idea is to use architecture and its shapes to take part in the relate of stories, transforming the buildings into ‘narrative objects.’”
See the entire set of ARCHITALE illustrations, including designs for Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Peter Pan, Aladdin, and Mary Poppins, after the break.
The site is characterized by its remote feeling and mature trees; this despite being surrounded by dense urban development. It is an unusual paradox to have such a natural setting that occurs in the middle of Los Angeles – a city known for its endless sprawl and crawling traffic.
The goal was to preserve the natural features where practical – even if this meant having a tree grow through the house. The steep hillside allows the house to cantilever as a design solution to minimize foundations. This act of cantilevering also preserves as much native yard space as possible for planting.
To maintain privacy, the house is located close to the center of the lot to create a buffer between it – and other adjoining conditions such as a public street and other houses.
The house is conceived as two separate units under one roof. The main part of the house is two bedrooms and is designed for a family of four. The other component – separated by an outdoor breezeway – is self-contained with one bedroom, a living area, a bathroom, and a kitchen. This secondary area is used daily as an office and entertainment area, but can easily be closed off from the main space and used by visiting friends or family.
Alkiviadis Pyliotil and Evangelos Fokialis have won Second Prize in the European architectural competition for the new Cultural Village of Lemba, in Paphos, Cyprus, which called for spaces dedicated to the production of ideas and art to support the expansion of the village.
Entitled Inherent Simplicity, the proposal centers on spatial arrangements of fundamental architectural archetypes, as well as “the importance of outdoor life, social osmosis, and the vital relationship with nature to the condition necessary to artistic creation.”
Courtesy of Alkiviadis Pyliotis
Courtesy of Alkiviadis Pyliotis
Courtesy of Alkiviadis Pyliotis
As requested by the competition brief, the project utilizes both old and new buildings, creating a spatial dialogue.
“The forms of the proposed buildings display a distinct architectural vocabulary with regard to the existing ones, without any tendency to imitate the stone buildings or be consolidated with them. The tracing follows the natural incisions of the site. The slender building components are ‘touching’ the ground without leveling it. Solving operational needs and building spaces of exceptional quality is achieved with minimal intervention. In this proposal, old and new are conversing by means of an inherent simplicity.”
Courtesy of Alkiviadis Pyliotis
Courtesy of Alkiviadis Pyliotis
Courtesy of Alkiviadis Pyliotis
Generally, the proposal consists of three pieces—a square, a school, and a guesthouse—all of which will be used by the Cyprus College of Art. The main school building consists of three parts: three shear walls of rammed earth, two panels, and two rectangular prisms.
The project was developed for the working floor of Vizor Interactive company – one of the leading international developers of multiplayer games for browser, social networks and mobile platforms with its headquarters in Minsk. The interior was created in collaboration with the guys from Facultative.Works (St. Petersburg), who were responsible for space graphic design and separate interior details.
Axonometric
The interior concept is defined by industrial yet light, cheerful and neatly balanced stylistics keeping up with modern design and architecture trends. It is a place where you will find the openness of loft and minimalism, the nuance application of color and light, as well as graphic compositions inspired by avant-garde design.
Our principal objective was to transform a standard and mundane layout of a typical business center into a creative space for an ingenious development team, a space characterized by comfort and inviting to productive work. Despite using a number of certain patterns, the space features quite a diversity and intrigue with each of the premises showing its own individuality. All this creates vivacious atmosphere and has a favorable effect on the team’s work.
The interior was structured around the central rectangular block housing the kitchen, WC facilities and the server room, which became the main graphic and color focus of the work space. The block is paneled with plywood and tinted MDF of two colors. The ceiling is open and painted white, thus demonstrating the elegance of structures and communication lines. The floor on the entire level as well as the ceiling is made in one technique – it is a self-leveling floor with marble chips filling, which forms an unusual graphic texture. As a result the top and the bottom shape a stylistic entity of space.
The rest can be described as a synthesis of various materials. The prevailing color of walls and partitions is white. Some of the reinforced concrete structures are left untouched. The meeting room is arranged inside a glass box. The game room is fitted with acoustic panels for sound absorption. The work premises are airy, open and well insolated. The ladies’ and men’s rooms differ only in the interior lighting color. The sink cabinets have been designed specifically for this project. Plywood panels and green plants add comfort and coziness to the interior, whereas colorful panels, neon installations and accent details attenuate sternness and austerity. The colors and bright but complex.
Plan
We are trying to create something truly valuable for those who appreciate the concept of aesthetics and are ready to experiment.
From the architect. In a modern society in which we all enjoy immediate access to information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, then what should a library for the 21st century look like and what should it offer to the public? This was the simple question which The Word, National Centre for the Written Word seeks to answer.
It was clear to us that to respond to this challenge would require a reinterpretation of the building typology.
The site for The Word is an extremely prominent gateway to the town centre. It provides a strong link between the Ferry Terminal and South Shields town centre and serves to link the riverside character area with the town centre and historically important market place in South Shields.
Site Section
Building Section
The building concept adopts a simple circular form to reinforce the pedestrian link and views between the Harton Quays Riverside Park and market place. The building’s appearance is inspired by the fanning out of the pages of a book, and includes the introduction of two large glass walls providing superb views of the River Tyne and creating a natural place for the building’s entrance, responding to the public realm of the market place.
The central atrium forms the entrance gateway into the building, expressed externally as a modern portico with full height glazing, creating a strong and contextual relationship with the market place, The Old Town Hall and St Hilda’s Church.
The Word provides a rich array of volumes ranging from the grand social forum in the central atrium to the most private and individually concentrated reader spaces at the perimeter of the building. An array of interactive activities are positioned close to the inner circle of the building providing easy and quick access to these attractions. The Word is not a temple for silence, but a place for sharing knowledge, where the young can learn from the old and the old can learn from the young.
The Word’s design is truly transformative in every sense. It not only helps to transform the character of the site and context, but also helps to transform a visitor’s perception of what a library can be and how it can form part of a larger cultural venue of regional and national significance. It recognises the crucial importance of people, books, traditional media and interactive technologies, and the dynamic relationship and complex interactions between them.
The human-centric design approach places the individual at the heart of the building and celebrates the opportunity to inform, delight and interact. Libraries are of vital importance – they allow us to engage with stories. This in turn allows us to see the world through someone else’s eyes, to see their point of view – enabling us to be more understanding, more tolerant and more human, helping to create a more cohesive and inclusive community and society. The design of The Word empowers this strategy by creating a significant and civilised building which points to the future and underlines the importance of the library within our modern society.
Product Description. – The Word – National Centre for the Written builds upon the long tradition of a circular building form to accommodate a library function. There is a fine architectural tradition of the synonymous relationship such as the Bodleian Library in Oxford or Manchester’s Central Library. To achieve the circular building form and to respond to the site’s sensitive context a 140mm wide vertical terracotta baguette was selected as the building’s main external cladding. Three colour tones of terracotta panels were adopted to respond to the colour of the stone used in the construction of the listed buildings which surround the site. The vertical module enabled the circular form of the building to be achieved without the use of curved panels – this combined with a structurally insulated panel (SIPs) helped to create an elegant and economic envelope solution.
From Oscar Niemeyer’s iconic Edifício Copan to Lina Bo Bardi’s influential glass house, Brazil has long been notable for its residential architecture. Part of that success has been driven by the strength of Brazilian interiors, as many of the country’s designers have an astute understanding of and appreciation for materials. Many designs sensitively fuse both rough, raw elements with luxurious details—an approach that is can be cleverly adjusted to suit a wide variety of clients and budgets. Here we showcase ten projects, published on both ArchDaily and ArchDaily Brasil, that respond to the needs of different clients and different ways of living to provide a cross-section of interior architecture in Brazil.
Designing and building a project is a challenge in itself. However, once the project is complete there are also challenges in expressing the project so that it can be understood by a new audience. This is especially true in digital media, where online readers don’t necessarily spend the same time reading an article as in print media. This way, drawings and all visual representation and it’s new forms -such as the animated Gifs- play an important role in the project’s understanding
At ArchDaily we push ourselves as editors, as well as the architects in our network, to get the best out of the projects we receive and share with the world so that we can deliver knowledge and inspiration to millions of people. The drawings we chose are not only visually entertaining but they serve as a way of educating and learning on particular issues where architectural representation is fundamental.
Regardless if they are digital or hand-drawn, all the architectural drawings we have selected this year have a sensitive expression, whether it be artistic, technical or conceptual, they all aim to express and explain the project using simplicity, detail, textures, 3D and color as main tools.
This year we want to highlight a selection of 90 drawings arranged under eight categories: Architectural Drawings, Axonometrics, Context, Diagrams, Sketches, Animated Gifs, Details and Other Techniques.
The Regional Government of Andalucía (Spain) has decided not to move forward with plans to build “Puerta Nueva,” the project for the new gate of Alhambra. Designed by Álvaro Siza and Juan Domingo Santos, the proposal won an international competition held in 2010. According to the newspaper El País, the decision follows the latest Icomos report, which rejects its construction and suggests it would have a “negative impact on the exceptional universal value of this monument World Heritage.”
The 1992 Pritzker Prize winner’s project sparked a long-running dispute between the Monument Patronage, the Mayor’s Office of Granada and cultural institutions of Andalusia for the high concentration of commercial services that would be included in the project. “How is it possible to argue that the project is not integrated and is invasive in the landscape when the jury noted that one of its main virtues was its integration in a place so sensitive and intervened since the twentieth century?” remarked Siza and Santos on the decision of Andalucía, according to El País.
Reacting to the decision, Siza and Santos asked, “How is it possible to argue that the project is not integrated and is invasive in the landscape when the jury noted that one of its main virtues was its integration in a place so sensitive and intervened since the twentieth century?” according to El País.
With a budget of 45 million euros, the 5,700 square meter project offered a transition zone between the arrival area and access for the 2.5 million yearly visitors to the Alhambra. Its program included a lobby, tourist attention areas, cultural information delivery, as well as shops, cafes, and restaurants. Planned submerged parking sought to eliminate the visual impact of visitors’ vehicles.
The design proposed a series of enclosed spaces, shaded courtyards, and large sunny terraces. In 2014 the project was presented in Berlin at the exhibition “Visions of the Alhambra,” where curator António Choupina stated that “the building merges with the landscape, articulating manuscript documents that sketch the old farmland with the elevations of the garden terraces that are in the village Generalife.”
According to El País, the direction of the Alhambra will focus on “restoration of the whole and restoration of heritage in the Albaicín neighborhood.”
Sig Nordal 