Part of the beauty of an architectural education is that it provides you with design skills that can be applied to a wide variety to jobs. So when it came time for Kharkov University Architecture School graduate Dinara Kasko to select a career path, she chose to pursue something a little bit sweeter: architectural pastry chef.
After graduating from university, the Ukrainian-born Kasko developed her architectural skills for 3 years as a designer-visualizer for a firm in the Netherlands, where she also worked part-time as a photographer. But her true love was pastry making, which she had discovered after traveling to 16 countries starting at age 17. So when she needed to take time off after the birth of her child, she found an opening to follow her passion, inspired by her architectural past.
Approaching her cakes and treats as if they were scale-models of buildings, Kasko utilizes 3D-modeling technologies to create silicon cake molds. She first models the designs in 3DMAX, then prints the master model on a 3D printer, which she uses to cast the silicon molds.
In their completed forms, her cakes resembled diagrammatic models of contemporary architecture, but rather than building with steel, concrete or glass, the material palette for her buildings consists of meringue, gelatin and chocolate.
In searching for her own niche within the field, Kasko is striving to connect “patisserie and architecture” through geometric forms and careful compositions.
“In my creations, I’ve used such geometric constructing principles as triangulation, the Voronoi diagram, biomimicry,” she explained in an interview with So Good Magazine. “Biomimicry is using the models, systems, and elements of nature, macro elements in general. It can be anything, fragmentation of expanding shells in spiral, herb structure, or the form that bubbles take.”
Kasko has also spent time visiting the kitchen of legendary pastry chef Pierre Hermé. Check out the video below for his lecture at the Harvard GSD on “The Architecture of Taste”:
A concentric and non-directional structure formed by four rigid frames, with eight continuous columns that allow for open corners in every floor and other eight that step up regularly in the two elevated levels. This is a balanced sequence in which every floor is symmetrically protected by the following one. The foot of each exterior column is slightly misaligned from the perpendicular beams, thus their heads seem to outline decorative triglyphs. The building is a monolithic piece that supports an entirely confined framework within a compact figure, producing a flat landscape from within, dense and almost mechanically stratified.
Paint
Throughout an eccentric spiral staircase there is a transition from the smallest and shaded storey, compartmented in quadrants with an access in the central crossing point, to another storey diagonally divided by a block of furniture and, in the highest level, to an open and diaphanous plan, although filled with corners, where an informal aerial life can unfold. From the top, the visual relationship with the inferior floor is imperceptible, to the point of cancelling any contact with the natural ground. This veiled logic of an inverted gravitational adjustment (a classical “entasis”) timidly emerges on top of the surroundings foliage.
In between the darkened reinforced concrete grid there is only native wood for platforms, furniture and large glass panels of fixed or sliding window frames. Perhaps, due to its artificial weightlessness, despite natural efforts descending through the very centre, along a thick core, experiences always tend to be suspended against the solid shadows of each perimeter, against silhouettes backlit by the sun, or rather because of the seduction of their immaterial reflections.
Artist and writer Yayoi Kusama has created an installation for the Glass House that will be on display in celebration of the 110th anniversary of Philip Johnson’s birth, as well as the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Glass House site to the public.
From September 1 through 26, Dots Obsession – Alive, Seeking for Eternal Hope will be on display, with the Glass House itself covered with polka dots. “Visitors who attend the exhibition during this time will be offered the unique experience to simultaneously see the world through the eyes of both Philip Johnson and Yayoi Kusama.”
My desire is to measure and to make order of the infinite, unbounded universe from my own position within it, with polka dots, says Kusama. In exploring this, the single dot is my own life, and I am a single particle amongst billions. I work with the principal themes of infinity, self-image, and compulsive repetition in objects and forms, such as the steel spheres of Narcissus Garden and the mirrored walls I have created.
Just as Kusama uses the polka dot to represent an individual, so did Johnson create his own universe at the Glass House by sculpting the landscape experience.
Kusama’s Narcissus Garden—which was first created 50 years ago in 1966 for the 33rd Venice Biennale—will also be incorporated into the Glass House’s 49-acre landscape in New Canaan, Connecticut from May 1 to November 30, 2016.
Our editors look and hundreds of websites per week. What do they admire and appreciate the most? Organization and simplicity. Sites that are not only clean, but fast. We actively search for projects to include on our platform, so it’s crucial that when we visit a website we not only know where to look, but how to access information. Filters and facets are our best friends. Typological differentiation is important, but perhaps not as important as distinguishing between built and un-built projects (“Is that a render?” is a question that comes up at least once a day).
On our own website, ArchDaily has worked very hard towards organizing the tremendous database of projects we’ve amassed over the past 8 years. In 2015 we revamped our platform to make searching much more efficient. If you haven’t tried it yet, our projects search functionality allows you to filter by architect, year, country and project type. Need to find office buildings built in 2011 in Spain? We’ve got you covered.
If you’ve ever published on ArchDaily, we therefore serve as a pretty decent site alternative ;). But if you do choose to set up your own website, we’ve selected a list of 18 firms whose lead you might be able to follow, and provided some pointers on things you should avoid.
Their website is clear and easy to navigate, and they provide really great instructional, informative videos and interactives on different aspects of their design-build process. The website also offers a choice between viewing projects as thumbnails, a list, or large images.
The video on their landing page is a nice touch, not just showing their projects as specific constructions but giving an impression of what it’s like to be there. It’s a very sensitive interpretation of the interaction between material and people.
This is what getting straight to the point looks like. MMBB’s website opens not with an artistic landing page, but with an extensive array of projects immediately laid out before the viewer, accompanied by a series of filters to narrow down your search.
SOM’s website has a lot of information, and is thus an exercise in best practice so that the excess of information doesn’t become a problem. It has several filters for searching (location, markets, services, date, alphabetical), and when you enter into a project, it has all the information (data sheet, news, description, and so on).
Given the firm’s reputation for efficient and sophisticated design, it’s no surprise that Foster + Partner’s website is one of the easiest to navigate around. The menu is perfectly organized, and the huge number of projects and other information is presented in a way that is easy to comprehend.
The layout of Pattersons Associates’ home page is very visual and simple, using just an image and the project name. But once you click on a project you see the biggest strength of the site; the format of the presentation is beautiful with large images and drawings, which can be viewed either by simply scrolling or in a well designed gallery.
With big photos and a menu that sticks to the top of your browser window without being intrusive, the website of Colombian practice El Equipo de Mazzanti is very easy to use.
The projects of OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen are presented using what is effectively two image galleries side-by-side, with one dedicated to photographs and one dedicated to drawings. In this way, the practice ensures that they are always showing the substance behind their designs and not just the eye-candy offered by photographs.
6a architects’ website is clearly visual-first, with text only appearing when absolutely necessary—for example when hovering over an image. The effect of this is a clean, minimal site with plenty of visual interest.
With its combination of a well-designed menu in the top right and large-format, plentiful slideshows and galleries throughout, Bunker Arquitectura’s website offers a great balance between usability and visual impact. A nice touch is the section of the menu prominently dedicated to their “Bunkertoons,” giving a glimpse into the practice’s personality.
The best thing about RSH+P’s website: their project fact sheets are available in multiple languages! It’s not only useful but fun to browse. A good dose of simplicity and thorough information on projects.
This website is an excellent example of limiting choices to increase effectiveness. On the main page, you see a large, beautiful image accompanied by just three link options. It’s only once you get closer to what you want that more information is given, aided by some very slick menus and filters.
The homepage of the FXFOWLE website is flashy, with a captivating 3D scrolling effect. But importantly, they also know when to drop the fancy effects, as the pages on their website that contain more information are simply organized with detailed submenus and filters.
The Jury’s Out
Many of the firms already listed above are large international operations—big practices, unsurprisingly, are more likely and able to invest in their online presence. But in addition to these exemplar designs, there are many that are more polarizing; websites that, while technically flawed in some obvious ways, have designs that some people can’t resist. Interestingly, these also usually belong to large, internationally renowned firms, who have a strong enough profile to break the rules and make a statement with their web presence.
The layout of OMA’s webpage really isn’t the easiest to use, with densely packed information throughout. With the amount of information included in the website though, this is somewhat understandable, and a variety of filters and other techniques are on offer to help you process things, with varying success. A nice touch, though, is how they display recent Instagram images from their built projects using the location’s geotag. It’s refreshing to see a firm give that much presence to the way people are actually using their buildings.
You either love it or hate. Either way, the personality of BIG shines through, simultaneously making it so good (and, on the other hand, so hard to use).
DS+R’s project presentation looks great and has some convenient filters to help you search through their large number of projects. However, loading times may vary.
After waiting until 2011 (yes, 2011, seriously) before launching a website at all, Herzog & de Meuron decided to keep it old-school with a website design that clearly references early-1990s digital technology. The stark, text-based browsing system and succession of pop-up windows are certainly unique and interesting, but is your website really the place to make such a conceptual statement?
Things to Avoid
Finally, if there’s one thing our editors know more about than what makes a good website, it’s what makes a bad website. It’s often said that bad design is much more noticeable than good design, and that’s certainly true when all you want is an email address or the completion date of a project and can’t find it. Now, you may notice that some of our “best-practice” examples above occasionally make use of the techniques to avoid below–the important thing is that breaking the rules is ok in moderation, and while doing one of the things below for creative may be ok, multiple infringements start to become frustrating. So without further ado, here are a few things we truly hate to see in websites:
Flash.
If your site loads slowly, it means it’s broken.
Sites where the navigation menus aren’t clearly worded, so it’s not clear where you need to go.
Sites that look busy, have densely packed information, or too much information.
On the other hand, sites that lack basic information such as completion dates or locations.
Sites with poor quality or pixelated images.
Slideshows with no gallery preview.
Slideshows and other objects in popups.
When designs attempt to be too creative and you have to guess where to click.
An “Intro” Button. So 90s.
Fonts like Century Gothic on a black background. It’s too thin.
And finally, websites that put personality before work. We’re sure you’re a lovely person (or group of people). But social media is for personalities; your own website should focus on what you do.
Tutors. Everyone has horror stories about their tutors, just as everyone has stories about a tutor they truly adored. Ultimately, your tutors are likely to be the single most important element of your architectural education; no matter how much effort you put into learning through other means, these people will probably become formative figures in not only your education, but your life in general.
It’s easy to forget, though, that they are just that: people, with all the flaws and foibles that being a person entails. Some you will love to learn from, while others may be a little more difficult—but like Dickens’ Christmas Carol ghosts, each type of tutor has their own lesson to impart. Here are the five different types of tutor you’ll deal with in your architectural education, and what you should learn from each of them.
Scary from first impression to final critique, there are some tutors who are just a bit too intimidating. Although fear might prevent a late hand-in, discussion is impossible when your knees are shaking. If there’s a tutor that’s made someone cry, it’s probably this one.
Why they’re important: Believe it or not, you will meet people scarier than your scariest tutor. Being around someone who strikes fear deep into your heart is invaluable preparation for the even more terrifying bosses and clients you’ll come across outside of architecture school.
This is the tutor that you want to be in every way. The way they dress, the way they effortlessly sketch masterpieces, the way they listen to your ideas and make them ten times better—all while being someone you’d love to be best friends with.
Why they’re important: It’s always reassuring to have “good guys” in not just architecture but in life. The chance to learn from someone you also look up to can go miles in shaping what you want in your own future.
They seem nice at first, until they suggest you start over completely with just a week left before the deadline, or make a million more iterations even though you’re happy with what you’ve already produced. No matter what you do, or how hard you try, you just can’t seem to please them.
Why they’re important: This is the tutor you’ll probably hate at the time, but in retrospect will be thankful for how hard they pushed you. A tutor who can see your potential and is committed to pushing you to your fullest will get you much further than one who is nice but apathetic.
You can’t always win, and not every tutor will be a bubbly fountain of stimulation. Each conversation with this tutor seems to go nowhere, you can’t connect with them, and they talk without really saying anything. Studios become sleep-inducing.
Why they’re important: The silver lining is that you get an opportunity to work without guidance. You might work through problems on your own, or you might find value consulting other students. Either way, it’s a vital lesson in learning how to complete a task even when something (or someone) falls through.
You’re smirking already—at one point or another there’s been that one tutor who was a cut above the rest for no other reason than being really hot. While very distracting, they’re also a very good incentive to show up to studio. Even though you’re too busy trying to work out if they are single instead of listening to what they’re saying about concrete beams, each studio feels like time truly well spent.
Why they’re important: In a visually-focused field such as architecture, the appreciation of aesthetics is very important…
The winning proposal, entitled Elytra, is an “eye-catching, cutting-edge, [and] unconventional” design that will tower over Moscow’s Tverskoy District, an area which features a burgeoning artistic scene.
Inspired by the forewings of insects—called elytra—the project opens upwards as a protective shell, and will feature both public and private space.
Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan
Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan
Roof access will be available to the public, therefore allowing transparency of the activities inside, and facilitating the creation of a cultural hub. The public roof will additionally function as the “circulation zone, providing waiting and exhibition areas, as well as the chance for the public eyes to gain a glimpse of the liveliness inside.”
Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan
An open-air amphitheater will comprise the heart of the building in a fusion of public and private space, where a variety of programs, such as events, exhibitions, theater performances, and dining, can be held.
Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan
Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan
The elytra of the building tower above, and will provide space for training and academic zones, as well as administration and service areas.
It is believed that the construction of the Santa Catarina Fortress, at the Mondego’s river mouth, is from the XVI century, but there is information to have been there a small chapell before, as illustrated in a nautical chart from 1634 by Pedro Teixeira Albernaz. The spatial and formal relationship between the fort and the chapel is remarkable, revealing different building techniques. Both set up like a triangular “vault” keeping a relic.
The intervention intended to qualify the entire interior of the fort, including the courtyard (ground parade), the chapel and the rooms of the bastions. The intervention restores the exterior while requalifies the interior spaces.
There are two programs: – To the courtyard and the chapel the spaces were cleaned and restored to receive an exhibition alluding to the history of the fort, including its role in the “Peninsular Wars”; – For the rooms of the bastions, the spaces were arranged for a bar and restaurant. In southern one, for the dining room, it was build a laminated wooden domed structure that reorganizes the geometry of space, controls the artificial light, hides infrastructure and protects the original walls. In northern bastion there are toilets divided in separate cabins.
The intervention sought to be the least intrusive as possible so that the formal, constructive and spatial characteristics may prevail and, if necessary, allows total recovery of its original expression. The most significant intervention was the introduction of hidden infrastructure enabling its adaptation to the new program without losing its original spatial relationship, internally and externally – with the natural surrounding and its urban landscape – as a place of seclusion, lookout and observation.
Stavanger Turistforening (STF) or the Stavanger Tourism Association has 23,000 members and provides active, versatile and environmentally friendly activities in the wilderness for young and old, families, amateur hikers and mountaineering enthusiasts.
STF has 35 self-catering mountain lodges in the area. Visitors are usually members of Norway’s trekking associations. The system is built on trust: each person leaves money for the accommodation in a box inside the lodge or fills in an invoice form with their personal information. Since the lodges are mostly a long way from roads and traffic and difficult to get to, it is also the task of the visitors to take care of the visitors coming after them: everyone replenishes the food supply, brings firewood and cleans the lodge before they leave.
In 2013, the Norwegian Tourism Association organized an architectural competition to construct self-catering mountain lodges for the hiking trail around Lysefjord and on the rocky shores of the Soddatjørn Mountain Lake. The competition criteria stipulated that the lodges must be contemporary, easy to maintain and use ready-made factory modules in order to avoid long construction periods in the inaccessible mountains and unpredictable weather conditions.
The solution by KOKO architects takes the wilderness experience one step further. The group of buildings includes a main building, sleeping cabins, a toilet with a storage room and a sauna. Water can be taken from the lake and there is no mains electricity supply. The main building, sleeping cabins and sauna will be heated using wood. There are two gas stoves in the kitchen that visitors can use at the same time and a solar panel provides lighting. The hikers can wash themselves in the sauna where the washing room is located directly above a mountain stream.
The exterior finishes on the lodges are of rolled zinc, which resists the wind and snow and does not require maintenance for decades. The interior uses a lot of wood, which creates a warm and friendly atmosphere. All of the buildings have a wall of glass with panoramic views of the surrounding picturesque landscape. The main building with its rectangular plan and kitchen, living area and sleeping facilities, can accommodate 30 to 35 trekkers. The smaller lodges can accommodate five. The rooms in the main building are arranged to encourage interaction between different trekking parties. The mountain lodges were opened to all visitors and hikers in August 2016.
This new residence, located on a beautiful wooded riverside site in the Constantia Valley, attempts to establish a close relationship with a relatively unspoilt piece of the natural environment.
The site, subdivided off from a larger estate, and originally containing lawns and a tennis court, has a gentle fall to a beautiful stream to the south, which hosts a variety of birds and wildlife. It is entirely surrounded by tall well-established trees. As a result, despite being located on a relatively busy suburban road, the site is visually completely secluded, a ’clearing in the forest’, offering a unique set of opportunities for transparency and continuity with its surroundings.
Site Plan
In terms of NEMA legislation, the house was required to be set back 30m from the stream. The site between house and stream was rehabilitated: the tennis court and lawns were removed and replaced with an indigenous garden, accessed by elevated timber boardwalks and flowing continuously into the lush riverbank vegetation.
The clients, a couple with grown children, require a 3- bedroom, open plan house for themselves and occasional guests.
The brief focused on simplicity of lifestyle, ease of use, the pleasure of well-crafted natural materials and directness of experience of the natural surroundings.
The green wall of trees surrounding the site, were seen as the living perimeter of the house, with the roof expressed as a long continuous inclined plane falling with the slope of the site and forming an evocation of tree canopy, over a free-flowing ground plane. The single storey structure hugs the ground plane and is glazed extensively, to establish contact with the outdoors all round. The street edge is protected by a massive concrete wall, which is designed to reflect road noise from the living areas.
The house is arranged linearly, parallel to the river on the south and opening up to the sun along its entire length to the north. The living accommodation is positioned closer to Brommersvlei Road to the east, with the bedroom section on the interior of the site. The house pivots around a well-established oak tree, which deforms what could have been an idealized floor plan and establishes the idea of a resurgent nature as the primary element on the site.
The single storey structure hugs the ground plane and is glazed extensively, to establish contact with the outdoors all round. The street edge is protected by a massive concrete wall, which is designed to reflect road noise from the living areas.
A series of courtyards and patios, each offering a different experience of site and different degrees of sun exposure and wind protection at different times of the year, focus each grouping of accommodation.
Floor Plan
The entrance court, a roughly square piazza- sized space, bounded by massive concrete and stone elements, is intended to establish an atmosphere of tranquility and silence as the prevalent mood of the house.
The kitchen and dining room open entirely onto a covered braai patio and the lounge is bounded by two courtyards, one planted and one containing a long natural pond.
All the wall elements of the house are detached from the roof and extend out into the landscape to enclose outdoor space and blur the distinction between inside and outside
From the architect. Commissioned by CaoHeJing in 2014, Schmidt Hammer Lassen architects’ proposal was to overclad and unify the existing rendered concrete facade utilising a corrugated and perforated polyester powder coated aluminium skin.
The facade concept allows for a simple and clean expression of openings within and behind the perforated aluminium, providing shading to every workspace whilst optimising both view and daylight. The facade also facilitates the increased insulation build-ups and the integrated approach to new and existing services whilst enabling these to be hidden from everyday view.
Section
The second key design strategy was to open up the existing deep plan of the building, creating a new atrium through the middle with connected views and much improved daylighting.
This new atrium space becomes the heart of the entire project, creating opportunities for collaboration and visual connection. Along with key new public circulation, it contains break out spaces, a cafe bar, hanging meeting boxes and connections to the external green terraces.
Sig Nordal 