ArchDaily is continuing our partnership with The Architectural Review, bringing you short introductions to the themes of the magazine’s monthly editions. In this introduction to the July 2016 issue, Editor Christine Murray continues the crusade, begun in the previous issue, against “Notopia.” Here, Murray describes Notopia’s connection to our 21st century digital society, arguing that “the failed promise of the internet is how it has hurt the real world.”
It may be found even in an attractive metropolis, densely packed with fine buildings old and new, replete with coffee shops and bicycle lanes. Here, Notopia is a simulacrum of inhabitation, like a stage set for its players. Nothing is what it seems. The historic apartments that overlook the twisted pedestrianized lanes of Barcelona are in fact hotel rooms for weekend visitors. The towering sea-view condominiums of Vancouver are foreign investment properties bought in exchange for citizenship. Detroit’s streets of elegant gabled houses have no services, the municipal water systems long turned off.
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A real city lives. It is a trading post, a natural meeting place where humans converge to exchange, not only goods, but ideas and culture. They set about marrying and employing each other. It is a hub for adventuring and joint venturing, with homes, schools and places of work within touching distance. It renews itself, a city with neighborhoods of all kinds of people, from grandchild to grandmother.
We can design for diversity of pursuits and culture – for different social classes, ages and incomes on the same street, and public space for them to meet. But the missing link is as much economic, as spatial. The nicer homes are uninhabited – purchased from abroad, the owners pay few taxes and visit rarely, and invest only in their business overseas. They have no need of a housekeeper or the local convenience store, and their presence produces no job opportunities in the country, let alone the community. Similarly, Airbnbs create a small economic boost for the few, but the tenants do not need schools or nannies, and do not vote in local elections. In these scenarios, money takes up space, drives up property prices, and pushes people out.
Notopia is a disease that prevents, either by design or in a complete failure of housing policy, the creation of a self-sustaining socioeconomic human ecosystem.
Courtesy of The Architectural Review
On the internet, in our digital communities, we gather on social media where deals are done, love is found, food ordered, frustrations shared, gifts purchased, questions answered, capital raised and petitions signed. We have grown more cosmopolitan, appearing in each other’s homes via Skype, investing in each other’s businesses, even a world away. While the scourge of Notopia brings social segregation, delivered and delineated in neighborhoods gentrified or sunk, online there are no borders other than barriers we erect selectively, friending or blocking.
The failed promise of the internet is how it has hurt the real world – the home, the local shop, the municipality, and ourselves. The digital world is one of sensory deprivation: there is nothing to touch, taste or smell, a realm bereft of delight and intimacy of the most human kind.
In the city, we can be surprised by the unexpected pleasure of a conversation with someone we would never have “swiped right.” It’s where an umbrella is held over your head by a stranger, the bike courier cuts you up and you curse loudly, and the market seller offers you the sharp taste of exotic fruit.
Courtesy of The Architectural Review
There is the half-remembered dream of a late evening in a public square in a vibrant quarter of a large city. Teenagers loiter in clusters, residents lean out of windows in conversation with the restaurateur, who serves coffee to the last customer, as the street cleaner begins the night shift. This natural, social symbiosis is nearing extinction – in some places, because nationalism and intolerance deny the migrant traffic that would fill population gaps. Cities need people to thrive.
We must stop the spread of Notopia and its generic anywhere-architecture, and build social ecosystems instead. Our buildings must not only respond to local conditions and climate, but also enable a shape-shifting range of incomes and inhabitants. We must seek balance, not too many Airbnbs, few vacant homes, enough young people, enough jobs, and productive, not just disruptive, economies. We need start-ups and large commercial spaces, subsidized and market rents, family and student housing, the more collocated, the better. We need policies such as rent control, freedom of movement and intelligent city planning to enshrine a self-renewing vitality.
The promise of this virtual world that we have built online – its freedoms of expression and connection – has failed us. What might the post-digital city look like, and how can we design its neighborhood economics to work for us?
Detached house, for a marriage, two children and services. Public areas on the first floor and private spaces in the second. In this higher volume, parents and children are parted; the first to de east and the children to the west. On the second floor, the ends of each volume has the most private places to finish in the center with the most common areas (father desk and TV/multimedia room for children); creating a large central volume of double height; which contain the relations and nexus (both foot how sight) between this double duality (private / public and children / parents)
A dialogue between the weight and mass of Concrete with the lightness and warmth of the wood. The base structure on the first and second floors is concrete, delivering a “sturdy table” to line the outside with a steel and wood. Both on the second floor as the double volume center height, native wood used dried and processed internally. Canelo was used in walls and ceilings, and Tineo or Coihue in floors.
This element was used to create the east wall of the kitchen, like a kaleidoscope filtering out the morning light in the kitchen; and distorter the lighting that receive bathrooms, and in the function how a screen to separate access and dining. It is a playful element that gives movement and illuminates at the same time that separate them.
The second floor hallway is transformed into a large corridor that ends in two terraces; the small west terrace flying over the main entrance, and the large east terrace. This corridor, which runs the maximum internal length of the house (24 meters + terraces) in addition to the semi-interiors latticework of the terraces, is accompanied by a large horizontal south window, communicating the neighboring fields inside the house.
The main staircase, located as a finish of the central volume of double height that is projected to the north courtyard, rests on a large vertical wall that is peeled away from the house and allows the entry of solar illumination throughout the day (being this wall a support of the rays and shadows the sun); becoming a true sundial that indicates both the advance of the day, as the change of the seasons.
Arquitectonica has released the plans for Pierce Boston—its first building in Boston—a luxury residential condominium in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. With the recent large-scale real estate boom, the Fenway area is undergoing a massive transformation, with Pierce Boston to become the first building of its caliber in the neighborhood.
In an effort to balance new luxury with the existing iconic fabric of the area, the building is designed in simplicity with contemporary materials, so as to modernize the building against its context. Glass and metal will panel the façade, with the metal paneling patterned down to the scale and texture of a more traditional masonry brownstone. “As the building comes to grade and its opacity increases, it more closely reflects the history of the neighborhoods within which it rises” explained the architect in a press release.
Overall, the mixed-use tower will feature 109 condominium units, 240 rental units, and over 20,000 square feet of street-level retail space. With a curtain wall and floor-to-ceiling windows, the building is designed to maximize 360-degree views of Boston, Cambridge, the Charles River, and the Emerald Necklace.
We all know that clients can be difficult to work with. But, doing a personal project for a boss… if you haven’t done it before, you’re really lucky. As much as you tell yourself it’s a great thing to have your boss trust you enough to do something for him or her, the stress is so much worse. Have you been there before?
Perhaps you’d like to share your experience with us for our new book project, Architects, LOL, or just enjoy the depictions of the daily trials and tribulations of architectural practice in our webcomic.
The planning process was protracted due to the sensitive nature of the site on the edge of a conservation area and being surrounded by properties. The planning department insisted on the pitched roof envelope (to match a previously granted application) and various conditions with regards to overlooking. While initially presented themselves as limiting constraints, by pushing up against these parameters during the design process the scheme presents itself as a complexly wrought, characterful sequence of spaces.
Ground Floor Plan
Design
The main design concept is the notion of an access courtyard running the length of the site allowing ground floor access to the commercial units communal areas for residents use. Two external stairs tucked between the blocks provide access from the courtyard to the residential units above emphasising the ‘workshop’ character of the scheme. The duplex apartments are arranged with the living space on the lower floor and bedroom and bathroom tucked into the sloped ceiling upper floor.
The majority of the scheme is grey brick with flush mortar joints which is sympathetic to the local stock brick referencing the site’s industrial past. The detailing – flush mortar joints, recessed bargeboards – is contemporary and bespoke timber fenestration, painted dark green externally, provides a visual counterpoint. This sense of heritage is also apparent in the large window assemblies to the commercial units on the ground floor, metal grating balustrades, and continues with the interiors where the commercial units have exposed concrete soffits, polished concrete floors and painted brickwork walls. The material palette for the residential units includes pale grey walls, joinery picked out in bright white and exposed painted timber joists in the main living spaces. This accentuates the flashes of luxury; marble surfaces in the kitchens and bathrooms with douglas fir flooring throughout.
Due to extremely limited site access, all materials for the development had to be carried in by hand. This led to designing a concrete slab and columns for the ground and first floors with the residential upper floors being brick and blockwork with timber joists and studwork. Deliberately the materials are exposed where possible allowing this composite construction to add to the character of the scheme.
Long Section
Sustainability
Sustainable design features were integrated into the project including a green flat roof, photovoltaic cells flush with the pitched roofs, mechanical ventilation heat recovery units in the flats and a centralised gas heating system.
The client, southwest London-based property developers Marston Properties, are experienced in property management and were keen to retain all the units for rental. They believed in developing a scheme which would provide something new for the local area whilst becoming part of the urban fabric and be a flagship project for their portfolio.
The 5 one-bed duplex apartments are between 57sqm and 66sqm with the two-bed apartments 80sqm and 85sqm internal areas. The commercial units are sized between 37sqm and 93sqm offering a variety of rental options for businesses. The site area is 800sqm.
The New Museum is the product of a daring vision to establish a radical, politicized center for contemporary art in New York City. With the aim of distinguishing itself from the city’s existing art institutions through a focus on emerging artists, the museum’s name embodies its pioneering spirit. Over the two decades following its foundation in 1977, it gained a strong reputation for its bold artistic program, and eventually outgrew its inconspicuous home in a SoHo loft. Keen to establish a visual presence and to reach a wider audience, in 2003 the Japanese architectural firm SANAA was commissioned to design a dedicated home for the museum. The resulting structure, a stack of rectilinear boxes which tower over the Bowery, would be the first and, thus far, the only purpose-built contemporary art museum in New York City.[1]
Based in Tokyo, SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates) was established by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa in 1995. These two architects work collaboratively on SANAA projects while concurrently running their own well-established individual practices, all housed within the same building. Staff members overlap across the firms, sharing communal spaces in the largely open-plan office; a borderless working environment which acts as a metaphor for their characteristically transparent architectural style. This style is, in part, a reaction against the opaque buildings found on the streets of Tokyo, and has led to comparisons being drawn with the skeletal structures of Mies van der Rohe.[2]
At the time of being awarded the New Museum commission, SANAA had two other gallery projects underway: the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, and the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio. The latter was the firm’s first project in America, and their relative international obscurity was in keeping with New Museum’s mission to promote undiscovered artists.[3] Having received global critical acclaim for these projects and for later works, SANAA would go on to win the Pritzker Prize in 2010.
SANAA’s design for the New Museum comprises seven boxes of varying proportions, vertically stacked around a central core. The architects avoided using the maximum square footage permitted by the zoning envelope, affording themselves the space to shift these boxes off-center and create a dynamic interplay between the volumes.[4] The unique plan of the building was intended to create a distinct architectural identity that would reflect the experimental philosophy of the clients.[5]
The programmatic elements of the museum are spread across its ten stories; housed within the boxes are galleries, offices, events spaces, a café, a theater, an education center, and two mechanical floors. SANAA’s architecture typically generates a dialogue with the program, as Nishizawa summarized: “We use the function to create the building, but also the building creates the function.”[6] This reciprocity is evident at the New Museum, where an unused space in the air shaft between the third and fourth floors was converted into a micro-gallery measuring just five feet by eight feet but with a ceiling height of thirty-five feet.
One of SANAA’s primary goals for the project was to create an approachable and inviting museum.[7] In order to achieve this, they installed a glass wall at street level to physically instill a sense of openness and transparency. The boundary between the street and the museum is dissolved by this membrane, encouraging passers-by to enter. The continuation of the concrete sidewalk to the concrete floor of the museum further adds to this effect. The glass panels of the wall are sunk into the floor and extend into the ceiling, thereby masking their frames and avoiding any sense of division which might be created by these borders.
The art loading bay is exposed by the glass wall, revealing the back-of-house activity of the museum and implying transparency on the part of the institution itself. The interior also features glass walls, such as that which separates the gallery at the back of the first floor from the lobby and café at the front. Thus, the reach of the museum extends beyond the building, with the art on display visible even to those on the street.
The use of glass walls was facilitated by the structure of the building, which relies on steel trusses to bear the load of the boxes. The trusses also allow the galleries to exist column-free, providing an unobstructed and highly adaptable exhibition space. In certain places, the trusses are exposed to become decorative features, with diagonal struts bisecting the windows. Elsewhere, the trusses are carefully positioned to avoid obscuring the skylights.
Since the gallery walls are not load-bearing, the architects were able to create a recess between the walls and the floor which avoids the typically imperfect meeting of the two. This architectural detail had been previously employed by SANAA in their gallery at Kanazawa.[8] At the New Museum, these floating walls echo the weightlessness suggested by the overall structure, which seemingly levitates over its glass storefront.
Maximizing exhibition space was a key consideration in the new design, particularly given the cramped confines of the New Museum’s previous home. Circulation space was reduced to increase the size of the galleries; the staircase which runs between the third and fourth floors is just three feet wide, the minimum allowed by the city’s building regulations. Here, the narrow width of the staircase and the extreme height of the ceiling combine to create a dramatic spatial experience.
The galleries are almost devoid of windows; wall space was prioritized over fenestration. The shifting of the building’s component boxes was a solution devised to allow natural light into the galleries through skylights in the resulting protrusions. At night, the artificial light produced inside the galleries spills out through the skylights, diffused by the scrim coverings and softly up-lighting the building. The ceiling structure of the galleries was left exposed to allow art to be hung from above, again providing greater and more flexible exhibition space.
SANAA’s architectural projects consistently strive to foster a relationship between the building and its surroundings, and the New Museum is no exception. In the original designs, the building was broader and shorter than it stands now. After spending time in New York, however, the architects refined the composition of the building to become slimmer and taller in response to the architectural landscape of the city.[9] Indeed, the steps formed by the shifted structural boxes are reminiscent of the setback skyscrapers which typify the New York skyline. The cityscape is brought into the museum through panoramic windows on the upper floors, which interrupt the visitor experience to knit the city and the museum together.
The building also reflects its immediate built context through the use of industrial materials, mirroring what the architects described as the “roughness” of the Bowery.[10] The exterior is clad in two layers of industrial aluminum mesh, creating a shimmering, textured façade. Though steel mesh is more commonly used in construction, aluminum was chosen as a brighter and more translucent material which would lend a sense of lightness. The mesh softens the edges of the building, allowing it to melt into its surroundings and adding to its transparency.
When the New Museum opened its doors at the end of 2007, it was praised by the architectural press for the striking minimalism of its design. The new building was certainly successful in raising the profile of the New Museum, which welcomed 100,000 visitors through its doors within the first two months of opening. The architects did not completely escape criticism, however, with several commentators noting the negligible amount of natural light provided by the skylights, which is in any case overpowered by the fluorescent strip lighting.[11]
The decision to construct the New Museum on the Bowery was an unconventional one, given the history of the neighborhood. It had been an infamous hotspot for drug use throughout the seventies and was still run-down thirty years later. In recent years, however, the Bowery has enjoyed a period of regeneration for which the museum can take a great deal of credit. The street now boasts a boutique hotel, an organic supermarket, and a diverse collection of galleries and art spaces.[12] The New Museum, both in terms of the building and the institution it houses, stands as a symbol of the transformative power that both art and architecture can have upon society.
[1] “New Museum: About”. Accessed 20 June, 2016. [access] [2] Guzmán, Kristine. “Reinterpreting traditional aesthetic values.” In Houses: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa, SANAA, ed. Agustín Pérez Rubio. León: MUSAC, 2007. p167. [3] Phillips, Lisa. “Past Present Future.” In Shift: SANAA and the New Museum, eds. Joseph Grima and Karen Wong. Baden: Lars Müller, 2008. p7. [4] Ibid. p9. [5] Grima, Joseph. “Interview with Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa.” In Shift: SANAA and the New Museum, eds. Joseph Grima and Karen Wong. Baden: Lars Müller, 2008. p26. [6] Rubio, Augustín Perez. “Feeling at home with SANAA”. Houses: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa, SANAA, ed. Agustín Pérez Rubio. León: MUSAC, 2007. p15. [7] Ibid. Grima. p36. [8] Elding, Jonas et al. “Backstage.” In Shift: SANAA and the New Museum, eds. Joseph Grima and Karen Wong. Baden: Lars Müller, 2008. p77. [9] Ibid. Grima. p26. [10] Ibid. p28. [11] Filler, Martin. “Miracle on the Bowery.” New York Times, 17 January, 2008. Accessed 20 June, 2016. [access] [12] Ibid. Phillips. p11.
From the architect. In the summer of 2010, Siemens decided to rebuild its corporate headquarters at Wittelsbacherplatz in Munich. Henning Larsen Architects won the international architectural competition with a design that unites tradition with the future.
Siemens’ new global headquarters in the heart of Munich opens up the city. The ground floor – which includes green inner courtyards, a café, a restaurant and a fountain – is publicly accessible. This passage provides the citizens of Munich and visitors to the Bavarian capital with a new footpath between downtown Munich and the city’s museum district.
The building is composed of a volume where four rectangular, rounded courtyards are cutout. Inside the building, a central vertical structure – the ‘spine’ – connects the entire complex. The heart of the building, a roofed courtyard, is situated in the middle of the building and accessible from all sides.
Towards Wittelsbacherplatz, the building rests modestly behind the restored Ludwig Ferdinand Palais and by integrating on the backside still offers updated conference and meeting facilities to the new building. From the plaza you can stroll through the building to the Oskar-von-Miller-Ring – you move from a historic context to a contemporary.
Section
Section
Towards the Ring, the Siemens building has a distinctive and prominent facade that marks that Siemens – one of Munich’s globally renowned companies – is rooted in Munich and closely connected to the city.
One of the main architectural ambitions has been to promote knowledge-sharing and social interaction across the organization. In the new building, transparency is important and the 1,200 employees have visual contact with their colleagues across the courtyards.
The office levels are connected by foot bridges, creating a continuous floor stretching through the entire complex. The central interaction zone connects the various office spaces and represents the key concept behind the organization of the building.
Level 0 Floor Plan
Level 1 Floor Plan
All workspaces are arranged along the floor-to-ceiling windows in order to maximize the use of sunlight. The employees can adjust the heating, ventilation and air conditioning technology in their areas as needed. Ample spaces offer open areas for sharing information and for collaborating across departmental boundaries as well as quiet zones for performing work that requires greater focus.
Siemens’ new headquarters combines an ambitious architectural design with high-efficiency technologies. The building meets the highest standards for sustainability and resource conservation and provides a modern, inspiring work environment for some 1,200 employees.
The new headquarters will consume 90 percent less electricity and 75 percent less water than its predecessor.
All the facades facing the building’s inner courtyards are slightly tilted and completely covered by triple glazing. The tilted facade increases the amount of natural light that penetrates the building’s interior spaces and reduces the need for artificial lighting.
Due to its sustainability, Siemens’ new headquarters building has received the highest certification possible (platinum) at the national level from the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) and at the international level from the U.S. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) system.
The exterior employs building materials from the surrounding region. The more than 23,000 natural stone tiles that have been used for the front facade and the flooring comes from the Altmühltal nature reserve, less than 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Munich.
Siemens smart building technologies control the building and collects data from 30,000 data points to control the entire heating, ventilation and air conditioning. The people who work in the building can adjust the lighting and room climate to meet individual needs. The ventilation system in the meeting rooms uses CO2 sensors to measure air quality, and it optimizes the intake of fresh air.
70 kilometers (44 miles) of water pipes run through the building’s foundation plate. To ensure that the building’s climate is comfortable all year round, up to 100,000 liters (26,400 gallons) of water are pumped through these pipes via a high- efficiency ceiling heating and cooling system. In the bivalent heating system, heat pumps double as cooling devices, while ambient air and ground water are integrated as regenerative energy sources.
The new underground parking garage in Katwijk aan Zee is the result of a multifaceted commission granted to Royal HaskoningDHV by the Municipality of Katwijk. Royal HaskoningDHV is responsible for the architectural design of the underground parking and translated this design into a Building Quality Plan. Based on this Building Quality Plan, Ballast Nedam, in cooperation with ZJA, engineered the integral design (architectural, functional, structural and installation) for the realization of the parking garage.
The Building Quality Plan includes detailed information, definitions, drawings and visualizations of the architectural design, the layout of the garage, the public entrances, the entrance‐ and exit ways for vehicles, the emergency exits, as well as the architectural design and guidelines of the signage (routing, orientation and identification).
The architectural design of the parking garage builds forth on the Design of Katwijk’s Public Space, developed by OKRA Landscape Architects, and respects and adheres to its conditions.
The parking garage is part of Kustwerk Katwijk, a project which seeks to protect the coastline of Katwijk aan Zee in the Netherlands. The design team of this coast protection project took an integrated and multi‐disciplinary approach to this project, taking into considerations the need for defensive coastal protection, functional parking requirements as well as the desire for a landscape design which is related to its coastal environment.
The underground parking garage holds 663 spots, covered by rolling sand dunes along the coastline of a small coastal town called Katwijk aan Zee, a beach town west of Leiden and north of The Hague. The location of the parking garage, in between the dike and the boulevard of Katwijk, makes this project quite unique in the Netherlands.
While rebuilding the town’s dike and reshaping its dunes, the design team recognized an opportunity to genuinely improve public space by hiding the parking garage inside the dunes, which strengthened the relationship between the village and the beach. The long and small elongated shape of the parking garage (500 meter) needed great attention to the functionality. The design team respected the fact that users need to quickly orientate themselves when inside the garage, and quickly find their way out to either the town or the beach.
The architectural design of the parking garage builds forth on the design of the public space, developed by OKRA landscape architects, and respects and adheres to its conditions. The result is that the underground parking is carefully embedded into its natural dune environment. These carefully shaped dunes, which rise up organically to create subtle entrances and exits, not only ensures that the character of the dunes stays intact, it also let natural daylight flowing into the underground parking garage, benefitting the orientation within the long, elongated parking garage.
The design also ensures that the colors and materials used, fuse seamlessly into the urban fabric of Katwijk aan Zee and its characteristic dune landscape. At night, the emergency exits nestled under the gently rolling dunes light up to become beacons along the shoreline.
From the architect. Early architecture was built maybe merely to accommodate people. As time changes, city breath permeates into architecture and stamps them with urbanization. Just like the old residential buildings in shanghai.
This seven-story old residential building is located downtown Shanghai. The renovation is for a studio apartment less than 40 square meters uppermost. The apartment is north-south direction shaped long and narrow. Gate at north, balcony southernmost. According to the original route, it takes 11 to 12 seconds to walk from gate to balcony.
What if we change this constant speed in monotonous action to something more exciting?
Plan
Let’s go back to the very beginning. First you walk into the residence, pass along an open stair outside the lane buildings, reach the second floor, heading east-west, and come to door of the right building. Then you start climbing, make 10 turns, up to the 7th floor. You open the door, taking a breath. High and open, through the whole apartment, you see a row of metasequoia trees outside the window.
Exactly, tree is the inspiration. If not on top of the building, on 3rd or 4th floor – no matter which floor, the trees that are beyond the front buildings couldn’t been seen so completely. Trunk to tip, they beautifully connect the sky and make it a unique scene.
In order to carry out the conception, whole row of the window facing south is designed to be folded. Open fully from right to left reveals a spacious rectangle, a picture of what you see frames into the whole room.
Space is not cut apart by functional usage. Partition walls or doors are left behind. There are four spaces in all from north to south. By changing altitude of floor and ceiling and together applying different materials, the characteristic of the space is fully expressed and the distance extended when moving in. You feel it’s like in a courtyard, from one depth to two, and to three depths…with that picture of ‘the beauty of metasequoia trees’ throughout.
In this renovation, common concept of furniture is not used. Instead, furniture is made up like architecture. The primary identification of terms such as floor, table, chair, bed, cabinet etc., is featured by the material used. Shape and position is naturally not that important.
The Leff Art Studio was built for a couple on the same property of their existing residence. The studio is nestled into a tree line at the edge of the property. The building is made up of two intersecting volumes; one is a steel frame with a translucent poly carbonate curtain wall and one is a wood frame with cedar siding and punched windows. The first volume houses a collage studio for Him and the second houses a ceramic studio for Her.
The site, a developed residential lot, called for the accessory structure to be located within a cluster of mature trees. In pursuit of not damaging any existing trees, the building shape was bent to fit between the trees. Furthermore, the foundation was designed to reduce disturbance to existing root systems. The slab floor was designed to be elevated on a steel frame which rests on 14 concrete piers. The steel frame was designed such that when the piers were hand dug, should a large root be encountered, the pier could be relocated up to 3 feet away from their designed location and the root left intact. All trenching for utilities was also hand dug, large roots were left in place and any required conduits were threaded underneath. All nearby trees have survived.
Plan
The two intersecting volumes are each composed of distinctive skins which reflect the two different working environments. The poly carbonate system creates a private and introverted space filled with diffused natural light while projecting and obscuring colors and shadows from the surrounding environment onto the interior walls. The more typical wood framed volume introduces a series of punctures, framing views of the yard and the house, creating a more direct visual connection with the surroundings.
From the main house, the studio can be seen from the entertaining areas and at night the translucent volume offers an option of either glowing or of providing a light show directed by a spinning disco ball and a color changing spot light.
Sig Nordal 