© 1st Image

• Architects: Goettsch Partners
• Location: Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
• Area: 174500.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: 1st Image

• Associate Architect: Guangzhou Residential Architectural Design Institute
• Structural Engineer: Beijing R&F Properties Development Co.
• Mep Engineer: Arup
• General Contractor: Guangzhou R&F Properties Development Co.
• Landscape Architect: ACLA
• Lighting Designer: BPI
• Hotel Interior Designer: Super Potato

© 1st Image

From the architect. Located in Guangzhou’s new city center of Zujiang, R&F Yingkai Square emerges as part of a larger master plan of mixed-use towers that collectively signify the stature of Guangzhou as a major metropolitan city. The simple yet iconic form of the tower traces inspiration from the abundant local bamboo plants, rising 296 meters and defined by the building’s asymmetrically carved corners as well as the veining of vertical strips on the façade that provide a sense of visual movement. The strips compress and stretch as they rise, starting more dense at the base to enhance the sense of gravity. The Park Hyatt Guangzhou hotel occupies the building’s uppermost floors, with office space below, and subway connections below grade.

© 1st Image

While the tower internalizes its functions into a singular expression, the design is greatly born of its context. The square tower massing respects the geometric rigidity of the street grid, helping to form urban rooms in conjunction with the neighboring parcel. The pinching language created by carving out the corners highlights the unique views available at various heights through and over neighboring structures while the diagonal extensions of the site relates to the adjacent central green and nearby Pearl River Delta.

Section

The building is at once connected to the urban street life around it while balanced with an intimacy required for a luxury hotel experience. The hotel drop-off and arrival sequence is choreographed to emphasize a sense of calm, with a warm, neutral palette punctuated by sculptures that aid in orientation. An infinity-edge pool on level 60 runs the length of one side of the building, overlooking the panoramic views of the Guangzhou skyline. A signature outdoor roof garden on level 70 offers similar sweeping views while providing an inviting space to dine and relax.

© 1st Image

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© Ketsiree Wongwan

• Architects: Poetic Space Studio
• Location: 24/56 Phahonyothin Rd, Khwaeng Anusawari, Khet Bang Khen, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10220, Thailand
• Architect In Charge: Nuthasard Jeendpund, Yupayong Chaikajonpat
• Engineer: Wichakorn Pinjan
• Area: 451.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Ketsiree Wongwan

© Ketsiree Wongwan

From the architect. The house is built after the great flood in Thailand since 2011-2012, along with the reason of shifting the member of family from ‘single family’ to ‘extended family.’ There are eight members of three generations – grandparent, two families of parent, and grandchild. The project name of ‘Twin House’ comes from the twin daughter of the 2nd generation.

© Ketsiree Wongwan

The 400 sqm. land is divided to be 2 pieces of land for two families – two houses. The design program of both houses is similar, which is 3 bedrooms, 4 restrooms, 2 living rooms, kitchen, and dinning area, basically. By the reason of limitation of land along with a lot of programs to accommodate eight members. Sharing space is a good solution in this project to be completed all facilities – 5 cars parking and service area. Eventually, the design program is consisted of two houses and sharing space.

© Ketsiree Wongwan

By conversation with the owner of two houses; even in the similar design program, we have found the different attitude of using space in the terms of public and privacy space, between inside and outside space. We summarize design direction of this project – ‘similar physical body, different thresholds.’ Meanwhile, sharing space is the area of making the connection of both houses.

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Section

These two house is different degree of privacy. We really concentrate how and where to make the opening void and wall, in order to maintain personal privacy and the place for the whole family meeting. It is important in our thought of how designing a house for a big family.

© Ketsiree Wongwan

Two storey house make the relationship between inside and outside space, trying the blur the wall or boundary connected to its surrounding. The living area is mixed and connected inside program and outside sharing space. Meanwhile, three storey house is on the privacy mode – inside program connection, mainly. The pocket garden in the back transfers space between house and sharing space, garden in the middle. The terrace on the rooftop defines visual privacy of outdoor space, making connection only ground and the sky.

© Ketsiree Wongwan

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© Koichi Torimura

• Architects: miCo.
• Location: Tokyo, Japan
• Architect In Charge: Mizuki Imamura + Isao Shinohara
• Area: 119.24 sqm
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Koichi Torimura

• Structural Engineer: Yasushi Moribe
• Construction: STYLE
• Site Area: 135.09 sqm

© Koichi Torimura

From the architect. This is the renovation, located in the western Tokyo residential area. We had to adjust the boundary, from the greenbelt to the living space configured with territory of the layer, tracing in the city of configuration with some of the territory of the layer.

© Koichi Torimura

Floor Plan

© Koichi Torimura

Providing the Engawa, breaking the high fence, planting trees in the garden. Windows and the balcony renovated, to feel the greenbelt. Privateroom was in space that can adjust the sense of openness, by joinery that put the glass to the existing foundation. We want to be the space with depth, by placing them in the boundary layer.

© Koichi Torimura

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© Brett Boardman

• Architects: studioplusthree
• Location: Marrickville NSW 2204, Australia
• Area: 125.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Brett Boardman

• Structural Engineer: Harrison and Morris Consultancy
• Acoustic Consultant: Acoustic Logic

© Brett Boardman

From the architect. Working in the context of the renewal of a derelict urban heritage property, the approach to this project began with considerations of typology, density and affordability. Key to this was the appropriate adaptation of a Federation-style cottage into a home for two musicians that allowed for future flexibility, and that made the most of its constraints both of site and budget. The result is the transformation of a derelict property into an open, light-filled home for two musicians.

© Brett Boardman

The starting point was a dilapidated, water-damaged house containing a warren of dark and uninhabitable rooms. The rear portion was demolished to provide a series of open living spaces in its place.

Ground Floor Plan

Located in an area undergoing rapid renewal, the design takes advantage of the detached cottage typology. The narrow side alley, common to this type but often neglected, offered an opportunity to extend the living area to create a lightwell and wall garden, allowing light to penetrate deep within the centre of the house.

© Brett Boardman

The route through the house was conceived as a journey of changing light, colour and materiality. Original Federation interiors have been restored in crisp white, whilst new elements are introduced in a restrained palette of dark timber, steel and porcelain. A contrast of light and dark materiality is used to knit together old and new.

Concept

This duality continues in various material combinations. In the kitchen, natural materials are contrasted with the manufactured; such as French-polished timber veneers in combination with crisp, large-format porcelain sheets.

© Brett Boardman

In the living room, bespoke joinery exploits the depth of recycled brick walls, creating pockets of storage along the edges of the tightly constrained site. Flush finishes form continuous planes from inside to out, creating one large living space that expands to fill the outdoor side alley.

© Brett Boardman

These new living spaces are open to the outdoors, yet tempered from the strong northern sun by the depth of a black steel awning, detailed so that it appears to float over the rear timber deck. In a minimal and modern interpretation of a traditional verandah, its glossy surface reflects the garden into the house.

Model

The dialogue between old and new continues by contrasting the roughness of aged, dry pressed recycled bricks, with glossy black steel. It is a project united by contrast – rustic and slick, thin yet massive, dark and bright.

© Brett Boardman

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A photo posted by Justin Harrington (@justharrington) on Sep 11, 2016 at 6:53am PDT

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On the 15th anniversary of 9/11 yesterday, the skylights at Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus at the World Trade Center opened for the first time, allowing light to fill the massive space as a memorial to the attacks on the twin towers. Following the masterplan laid out by Daniel Libeskind, Calatrava’s design used the angle of light as a guiding principle for orienting the transportation hub – so that at precisely 10:28 am each September 11th (the time of the collapse of the North Tower), a beam of light would pass through the opening in the roof and project all the way down the center of the Oculus floor.

A placard at the Oculus for the event explained:

On 9/11 each year, weather permitting, the skylight of the Oculus will be opened to allow the sun to fill this entire space.

Envisioned by Santiago Calatrava to symbolize a dove released from a child’s hand, the Oculus is situated at an angle in contrast to neighboring buildings and even the entire grid of the city, thereby allowing the light to shine directly overhead and for the sun to move across its axis exactly on September 11th each year.

On this 15th anniversary, we remember the innocent lives lost and celebrate the acts of selflessness and courage by so many. Please join us in remembrance of the victims and heroes of 9/11.

A photo posted by Brian Bowen (@bbowen2129) on Sep 11, 2016 at 7:35am PDT

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A photo posted by Marçial (@marcialll_) on Sep 11, 2016 at 9:29am PDT

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The Wedge of Light, 10:28 a.m. on 9/11/2016, fifteen years to the minute after the North Tower fell. #honor911 #calatrava #oculus #libeskind #wtc

A photo posted by Luke (@lukeofearl_) on Sep 11, 2016 at 10:17am PDT

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A video posted by Kim Hernandez (@kim.gif) on Sep 11, 2016 at 10:14am PDT

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A photo posted by cali (@caliklein) on Sep 11, 2016 at 10:27am PDT

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The roof remained open for the day’s events, giving visitors a framed view of One World Trade Center, serving as a symbol of the city’s strength to recover and rebuild from the tragic day.

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© Pedro Vannucchi

• Architects: GOAA
• Location: Vila Anglo Brasileira, São Paulo – SP, Brazil
• Authors: Guido Otero, Ricardo Gusmão
• Area: 70.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Pedro Vannucchi

• Collaborators: Felipe Barradas, Murilo Zidan, Raul Aguiar
• Engineering: Francisco da Silva Alves

© Pedro Vannucchi

The strategy to reorganize the program of this house, consisted in taking advantage of its unusual arrangement in order to create a new spatial sequence. The project focused on the transformation of the house facing the street and whose blind facade contained a graffiti made by a neighbor artist and valued by the client. 

The starting point was to remove all the existing informal constructions followed by the reorganization of the openings, doors and windows, seeking a more fluid integration between internal and external spaces. The adjustment of the courtyards levels created a more connected open space and made room to a rain water cistern, which required a reconfiguration of the residence´s water supply system. 

© Pedro Vannucchi

Two spatial operations complete the routing: the multiplication of the outdoor space by creating a rooftop terrace and connecting the kitchen to the outside area. 

© Pedro Vannucchi

© Pedro Vannucchi

The new program is contained within wooden volumes in order to make a clear distinction between the old and the new construction. These volumes are also visible from the street, announcing its internal reconfiguration and adjusting its scale to its surroundings morphology.

© Pedro Vannucchi

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OPEN's competition entry. Image Courtesy of OPEN

Four leading architecture firms have been selected as finalists for a new Art Museum of Pudong in Shanghai, China. Located on the tip of Pudong’s Lujiazui Central Business District directly below the Oriental Pearl Tower, the museum site features views across the Huangpu River to the Bund. Because the new building will serve as an important part of the modern Lujiazui skyline, the site had been left deliberately vacant for several years in anticipation of becoming the new home of a significant cultural institute – with this competition, that void will now be filled with a world-class piece of architecture.

OPEN's competition entry. Image Courtesy of OPEN

The competition consists of two rounds, from which OPEN, SANAA, Ateliers Jean Nouvel and David Chipperfield Architects emerged as the four firms selected to advance to the final round. The winning project will be announced by the government at a later date.

OPEN’s Competition Entry

OPEN's competition entry. Image Courtesy of OPEN

From the Architects:

OPEN’s competition entry was highly recognized by the juries for its active intervention to the urban life. The Greater Lujiazui area as the site of the Pudong Art Museum, is a compelling example of the rapid urbanization of China in the past decades. An intense concentration of visual stimuli results in a hyper postcard of Pudong skyline built for admiration across the river from the Bund, yet when examined closely, a fragmented and alienating city is revealed.

“As we stand at the beginning of what is arguably a new post-bubble economy era, looking back to the results of such rapid growth, new place-specific strategies are urgently needed to remedy and revive the urban condition.” says Li Hu, the founding partner of OPEN.

OPEN's competition entry. Image Courtesy of OPEN

OPEN’s design started with an urban concept that proposes the use of natural landscapes to connect and consolidate the existing isolated parklands, cultural facilities, and riverbanks to create an enormous new looped park system. Within this connecting natural landscape, new cultural, leisure and entertainment programs are inserted to complement the existing key nodes. Within the Shanghai metropolis, this parkland will in itself become a new cultural destination, and at the same time it will become an integral part of the lives of those who live and work around the Greater Lujiazui region.

The Pudong Art Museum is sited precisely at the critical junction within this new super looped parkway, together with the adjacent landscaped area to the east, it connects the Oriental Pearl Parklands with the Riverside. The existing eastern landscape is transformed into a sculpture garden and music park, as an extension of the art museum.

OPEN's competition entry. Image Courtesy of OPEN

Conceptually the Art Museum is a visual link between the Greater Lujiazui area of Pudong and the Bund area of Puxi. Yet distinct from vertical and formal tendencies of the surrounding buildings, the Art Museum is more horizontal and seeks to fit into its surroundings. The minimalist geometry of the building sits like a diamond within Pudong’s urban horizon, its facets carved out and defined through urban forces.

OPEN's competition entry. Image Courtesy of OPEN

The building was divided into two parts – the “Floating Gallery of Art” and the “Community Forum of Art”. They can accommodate a wide range of curatorial requirements and make Art and Culture become inseparable with urban life and cultural education. The intriguing void that’s held in suspense in between these two parts of the building is the most special place in this museum. It’s a completely open urban art plaza. To the east, it becomes a great urban stage set linked with the park, with the Oriental Pearl Tower as its magnificent back drop. While at the west end, the upper and lower parts of the building act to create a unique frame through which to survey the Bund and the historical urban fabric of Shanghai.

OPEN's competition entry. Image Courtesy of OPEN

In this space, visitors are positioned at the junction between the upper and lower parts of the gallery, between the two parklands East and West, and between an urban imagination past and future. An entirely new relationship is created between City, Art, Nature and People.

OPEN's competition entry. Image Courtesy of OPEN

Program: Art Galleries, Art Community, Urban Art Plaza, Art Park
Building Area: 36,486 sqm
Principals in Charge: Li Hu, Huang Wenjing
Project Team: Ye Qing, Zhou Tingting, Luo Ren, Ma Qiancheng, Hu Boji, Zhou Xiaochen, Anne Fang
Consulting Engineers: Arup

News via OPEN.

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© Taiyo Watanabe

• Architects: Deegan Day Design
• Location: Dillon Beach, CA, USA
• Design Team: Joe Day, Taiyo Watanabe ,Yo Oshima, Noel Williams, Sonali Patel, Mark Lyons, Bonnie Solmssen, Felicia Martin, Garo Hachigian
• Area: 2100.0 ft2
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Taiyo Watanabe

• Executive Architect: Dave Maynard Architecture
• Structural Engineer : Gordon Polon
• Project Engineer: Greg Marin
• Construction Team: Morita Construction
• General Contractor: Ken Morita, Matt Curley
• Grading And Septic: Furlong Brothers, Kevin Furlong
• Structural Steel: Banks Welding, Doug Banks
• Roofing: Henris Roofing, Steve Henris
• Plumbing: Scott’s Plumbing, Basil Scott
• Radiant Heat: Warm Zone
• Electrical: Sherlock Electric, Tom Sherlock
• Drywall: Tsarnas Drywall, John Tsarnas
• Shower Doors Arch's Glass: Rick Stewart
• Painting: DeCarli Painting, Rich DeCarli

© Taiyo Watanabe

Set on a remote site with sweeping coastal views, C-Glass House poses an abstract counterpoint to its daunting natural surroundings. Designed for a client who once helped Phillip Johnson mount a Mies van der Rohe retrospective at MoMA, the project is an exercise in high-performance transparency – a home of maximal exposure with minimal environmental impact.

© Taiyo Watanabe

Plan 1

© Taiyo Watanabe

The C-Glass House is a 2100sf retreat in northern California. Set on a spectacular but periodically wind-swept site, the C-Glass House opens to a panoramic view of Tomales Bay and the open ocean, while bracing against winds that approach 100mph from multiple directions. 

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Section

The design engages not only Philip Johnson’s Glass House and the Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe (the client helped translate texts for Mies’ 1972 retrospective at MoMA), but also the California legacies of Elwood, Koenig and others. In contrast to earlier ‘vitrines in a garden,’ west coast glass houses bias towards the environment, employing tactics of framing, cantilever and directional enclosure to heighten, as well as quantify, the beauty of their surroundings. C-Glass House brokers between the Leica-like precision of high modern glass houses and the cinematic wideframe of the Case Study generation. 

© Taiyo Watanabe

Though its architectural lineage is self-evident, this glass house is as indebted to artists’ explorations of glazed enclosures as it is to the precedents of Johnson and Mies. Larry Bell’s elevated cubes and Dan Graham’s many pavilions capitalize more on the reflective and refractive ambiguities of the medium than its transparency, as do mirrored works by Gerhard Richter and the aquarium-like cages of Damien Hirst.  The C-Glass House bridged between these ambitions in a new way, opening up to a panoramic vista but also modulating and reflecting back on architecture’s evolving role in the American landscape. 

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While climate change, sustainable architecture and green technologies have become increasingly topical issues, concerns regarding the sustainability of the city are rarely addressed. The premise of Ecological Urbanism is that an ecological approach is urgently needed both as a remedial device for the contemporary city and an organizing principle for new cities.

Ecological Urbanism, now in an updated edition with over forty new projects, considers the city using multiple instruments and with a worldview that is fluid in scale and disciplinary focus. Design provides the synthetic key to connecting ecology with an urbanism that is not in contradiction with its environment.

The book brings together practitioners, theorists, economists, engineers, artists, policymakers, scientists and public health specialists, with the goal of providing a multilayered, diverse and nuanced understanding of ecological urbanism and how it might evolve in the future. The promise is nothing short of a new ethics and aesthetics of the urban.

Revised Edition

Edited by Mohsen Mostafavi, Gareth Doherty, co-published by Harvard University Graduate School of Design

• Isbn: 9783037784679
• Title: Ecological Urbanism
• Author: Mohsen Mostafavi, Gareth Doherty
• Publisher: Lars Muller
• Project Year: 2016
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English

Ecological Urbanism

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© Veronika Raffajová

• Architects: Lenka Míková & Markéta Bromová
• Location: Prague, Czech Republic
• Area: 180.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Veronika Raffajová

© Veronika Raffajová

The client asked us to design a refurbishment of an existing triplex with great views and his brief was to create a modern living inspired by American mid-century interiors. Our approach was to keep the interior space clean and simple in shapes and put an emphasis on the surfaces. We tried to minimize all details and hide technical fittings in order to support the natural texture or decor of the materials and their visual and haptic qualities.

© Veronika Raffajová

The careful choice of materials is projected for example in flooring – each of the three floors and all bathrooms have a different surface that responds to the use of the space. At the same time we used several features that repeat on all floors to visually unite the interior. It’s mainly the wooden surface of natural oak veneer that appears on the wall unit in the living space and also on the cladding with sliding doors facing the staircase on the other two floors, as well as on the cladding in the main bedroom and all furniture units in bathrooms. Another uniting feature are tall doors of floor to ceiling height that make the relatively low spaces look higher, or the shape of handles on all custom-made elements.  

© Veronika Raffajová

Layout 

The new layout of the apartment is divided into three parts corresponding to the three floors. The middle entrance floor serves for common activities and gathering of the family in the large living space with an open kitchen corner. From this common area the staircase leads to private parts – a half floor down to the area of children, a half way up to the rooms of parents. 

© Veronika Raffajová

The living space has been purposely left open and undivided. The interior continues outside through a glass wall with large sliding panels to an outdoor terrace and the spacious feeling is enhanced by the generous view over the city. The main feature of the living space is the wooden wall unit that includes facilities both for the lounge and the kitchen. Its uniform look is marked only by a few openings – at one end there is a TV niche, a fireplace and an in-built bar and fitted kitchen units with a desktop in a niche at the other. By putting all necessary equipment to one side of the room we could leave the opposite wall free as a display for paintings. The kitchen part is designed in the way that it can be hidden when not in use, so it doesn’t visually disturb the lounge area – a wooden door can cover a set of appliances, sliding panels of white corian can close the shelving behind the desk in the opening. The kitchen island with cladding in carrara marble stands out in the space as a jewel. For practical reasons the kitchen is complemented by a separate storage room with a desk where all messy things can be made out of sight. The entrance corridor is divided only partially by white vertical slats, so the daylight gets in and even reflects in the glossy surface of closet doors. The slatted partition, the wooden wall unit and the general openness evoke together the mood of American 50s and 60s, which is supported by the selection of furniture including several design icons.    

Diagram 1

On the way down, the staircase leads to a small hall in front of the children bedrooms that can be used as an extended playroom. The bedrooms are also connected by a sliding door and both have glazed walls with an access to a common outdoor terrace that continues into a garden. Both bedrooms are marked by unique wall illustrations by the talented illustrator Michal Bacak. The children share walk-in closet in pale colours and the bathroom with playful tiles decor. Other doors from the hall lead to a separate toilet that can be used by guests and to a technical room. The parents have their privacy on the floor above the children, beside a small home office there is mainly a bedroom connected with a walk-in closet and a large bathroom.  

© Veronika Raffajová

Atypical solutions

The refurbishment changed substantially the layout of the apartment and its technical equipment including air-conditioning, the relatively low ceiling brought quite a challenge. We tried to reduce all visible components and ventilation grills were incorporated into the custom made furniture. As a reply to a dense technical equipment above the parents bathroom, we designed an atypical false slatted ceiling that includes ventilation, revision openings and lighting. It also supports an intimate atmosphere in the bathroom. The combination of tiles and wooden furniture is supplemented by aged brass fittings and brass cladding behind the mirror cabinet. The water taps are located precisely to match the fissures of the hexagonal tiles. In the children bathroom we used decorative tiles in an original pattern which gradually passes from the floor to walls around the bathtub. A large part of the interior consists of custom-made furniture and components that were designed specifically for the apartment and include details that support both the concept and a practical use. 

© Veronika Raffajová

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