© Ralph Feiner

• Architects: Aita Flury
• Location: Domat/Ems, Switzerland
• Collaborators: Konrad Braun, Lukas Podzuweit
• Structural Engineer: Conzett Bronzini und Partner Ingenieure
• Area: 900.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Ralph Feiner

© Ralph Feiner

Not only the name of the house is an allusion to the Villa Foscari La Malcontenta, rather its design is driven by spatial interests deriving from engagement with Palladio’s work. It is centred on a visual equilibrium of the volume, on the interlocking types between interior and exterior space, on the interweaving of wall and buttresses, and on a hierarchization of the facades, formulated as the reaction of the building to its surroundings. An additional essential concern lies in balancing the interior spaces. As in Palladian corridor-free systems, it is the square rectangles that are commonly related to each other. 

© Ralph Feiner

Plan

© Ralph Feiner

These “cells” are clearly experienced as separate units even though optically they are mostly laterally spanned with each other by large sliding-door openings. Similarly to the façade, the idea is centred on a negotiation of stillness and dynamic, openness and closedness, degrees of isolation and interlocking. By this means the relations vary slightly from floor to floor.

Diagram

The multi-family house with a Swiss Minergie Standard label is located in a zone where the building regulations prescribe pitched roofs. It contains eleven apartments (2½ to 3½ rooms) and a commercial premises.

© Ralph Feiner

Constructively seen the house is a solid construction with exterior insulation, plastered and partially visually reinforced with sound-absorbing clinker bricks filled with cement. These bricks are used as a secondary ornament to articulate the facade, and additionally appear wherever people come into tactile contact with the facades.

© Ralph Feiner

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© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

• Architects: João Carriço
• Location: Silves, Portugal
• Collaborator: Vítor Jesus
• Area: 180.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Luís Henrique Da Cruz

• Development, Project Management And Design Concept : Arnold Aarssen
• Construction: Adelino Lopes Gomes, Lda.
• Engineering: Paulo Terra

© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

A complete re-do project with special official built heritage department approval of a single family house, built on the fifties, with modern lines, and located in the heart of the historical center of Silves, Algarve, Portugal. 

© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

Basically the existing situation was on a full ruin state, all materials collapsing indoor and outdoor. Due to the restricted permissions on this historical protected area of the city, the main concept was based on restoring the street northern facade, keeping the height on the rebuild red tiled roof, apply new wooden framing and renewing the coloring, therefore the built identity and layout of the ‘house’s face’ was kept.

© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

Balancing with three terraces on different levels (floors), facing the south river sight, a modern shaped mini tower is sticking out from the terraces. From stones and materials collapsing, a new pure white world was created.

© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

The back garden south façade pretends to achieve the principle of contemporary architecture… big windows for natural lighting and ventilation, pure/plain stucco finishing and permanent visual relation of the interior to the exterior living.

© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

Indoor there’s also an approach for purity… main white color finishing, concrete look and feel solid flooring, modern finishings on bathrooms/walk-in kitchen, mixing of traditional handmade tiles with different geometric patterns, wooden feeling on the ceiling and flooring of the attic’s bedroom.

© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

The circulation scheme is very simple, based on open spaces, sided by a stairwell cut, connecting the three levels.

© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

Section

© Luís Henrique Da Cruz

In general, this projects aims to create an harmonic aesthetical language on the combination of two worlds, the traditional (on the street front façade) with the contemporary (on the indoor and south back façade).

Diagram

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© Simon Devitt

• Architects: Architectus, Athfield Architects
• Location: Christchurch, New Zealand
• Area: 3500.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Simon Devitt

• Structure And Services: Aurecon
• Project Management: Coffey
• Acoustics: Marshall Day
• Contractor: Southbase Thiess JV

© Simon Devitt

Transport interchanges have historically played a major role in the civic and economic vitality of a city. Recognising the importance of the new bus interchange as a catalyst for the revitalisation of the central city the interchange was one of the first anchor projects to be completed after the 2011 earthquake. As a vital part of the new civic infrastructure it needed to not only provide a highly efficient public transport hub but also help define the rebuilt city’s identity and public space experience.

© Simon Devitt

Architectus won the commission in a competitive process and led the development of a compact inner city transport hub that put good urban design and pedestrian experience first whilst incorporating the operational requirements of over 1000 bus movements a day. The hub integrates buses, intercity coaches, taxis and cyclist as well as anticipating opportunities for future light rail. 

Plan

A ‘L-shaped’ concourse was devised fronting both Colombo and Lichfield Streets with 16 bus bays arranged in a crescent shape on the interior of the site. To minimise the footprint of the bus apron a ‘reversing bus bay’ design was adopted. Extensive field testing with drivers and operators as well as state of the art bus management systems convinced all stakeholders that this unconventional approach was best for project, enabling a concealed and secure bus apron as well as a contiguous and legible concourse that engages with the city. 

© Simon Devitt

The concourse is conceived as an extension of the city’s public realm. Materials used are the same inside and out and seating has been developed in the language of street furniture – detailed in concrete and solid timber. 

© Simon Devitt

Along Colombo Street four timber pods sit underneath the main roof. They deliver passenger amenity including cycle and luggage storage as well as retail and food outlets – all of which open to both the street and the concourse. Glazing provides a seamless transition between the two and allows views from the public realm through the concourse to the bus apron beyond.

Section

Section

The experience of the indoor environment is enhanced by providing a fully naturally ventilated environment – a challenge for an indoor space surrounded by diesel buses and two main road frontages. Bus bays with automatic sliding doors prevent passengers from straying onto the apron and in combination with localised air curtains prevent the ingress of toxic fumes. A combination of roof mounted wind catchers modelled on ancient Persian wind-towers and high level louvers on the street frontages draw outdoor air into the concourse. The passenger hall is tempered by hydronic underfloor heating powered through a groundwater heat pump system.

© Simon Devitt

Form and materiality are influenced by Christchurch’s largely lost neo gothic architecture and remaining nearby brick buildings. This is evident in the folded roof geometry with its gables and large skylights which bring daylight into the space and create an internal volume inspired by the great transit halls of the past. A cultural narrative developed by local Rū nanga Ngāi Tūāhuriri based on themes of early Maori navigation is integrated into the building fabric.

© Simon Devitt

The holistic design approach has resulted in a civic facility that integrates the local urban and cultural context with customer comfort and the requirements of bus operators to launch Christchurch into a new era of modern public transportation.

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Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.

From the Publisher: July 2016’s issue of a+u is dedicated to the works of Vietnamese architect, Vo Trong Nghia Architects. The issue features 18 works.

Above all, VTN’s work is concerned with how they can contribute as architects to cities and society in Vietnam and proposes three solutions for the rapidly-growing cities in the country, such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi: bamboo architecture, green architecture, and low-cost houses. Their work is informed by a renewed evaluation of traditional Vietnamese lifestyles, but it is not nostalgic.

Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.

Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.

The issue explores not only their signature bamboo architecture but also more recent green interventions in urban setting.
Can a single architect change the future of Vietnam’s cities? One hopes that Vietnam’s cities will be able to develop without losing sight of the best in the country’s traditions or its love of tropical greenery, light, and natural breezes.

Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.

Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.

Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.

Contents

Feature:
Vo Trong Nghia Architects 

Statement: What Can Architects Do in an Age When Nature Is Being Destroyed by Human Acquisitiveness?
Vo Trong Nghia 

Essay: The Meaning of Creating Architecture in Vietnam
Pham Thuy Loan 

Wind and Water Cafe

Wind and Water Bar

Bamboo Wing

Dailai Conference Hall 

Kontum Indochine Cafe

Son La Restaurant

Diamond Island Community Center

Sen Village Community Center

Naman Retreat 

Bamboo Forest 

Column: The Steel of the 21st Century: Bamboo
Takashi Niwa 

S-House 

Essay: Of Regionalism Past and a Sustainable Future:A Perspective on Vo Trong Nghia Architects

Nirmal Kishnani

Green Renovation 2 

Stacking Green 

House for Trees

Farming Kindergarten 

Stone House

Binh Thanh House

Nanoco – Panasonic Lighting Showroom 

Essay Series: Engineering bamboo – a green alternative under basic research Part 3
Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel (Dirk E. Hebel, Felix Heisel, Alireza Javadian,Mateusz Wielopolski, Simon Lee, Philipp Müller,Karsten Schlesier)

Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.

Courtesy of Shinkenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.

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Courtesy of Broadway Malyan

Broadway Malyan has been appointed to design eight towers for the CIBIS Business Park, a 12-hectare development in Jakarta, Indonesia. Previously, the firm developed the site’s original masterplan, as well as the design for Tower 9, and has since then been asked to additionally deliver Towers 1 through 8.

The goal of the overall project is to create a business village that reflects Indonesian culture, as well as international characteristics in order to bring people together in shared and mixed-use spaces.

The additional appointments for the other towers will help us to ensure continuity and integrity of the design approach and further the high quality office space in the area, noted Ed Baker, Director of Broadway Malyan.

Courtesy of Broadway Malyan

The project features a variety of sustainability measures, like underground parking to keep street levels pedestrian-friendly, green roofs, and rainwater management. Through these features, among others, the project has received LEED Platinum Pre-certification.

Tower 7 of the project will be a residential space, and all others will bring additional office space to the development.

Tower 9, the originally commissioned tower, is composed of 54,800 square meters of office and ground-level retail space, with the largest Grade-A office floor space in Jakarta, at 4,000 square meters. Tower 9 is expected to be completed this summer.

News via Broadway Malyan. 

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© Isaac Ramirez

• Architects: OPUS
• Location: El Retiro, Urrao, Antioquia, Colombia
• Area: 500.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Isaac Ramirez

• Project Managers Architects: Manuel Jaén, Carlos David Montoya Valencia, Carlos Andres Betancur
• Coordinator Architect: Manel Mérida Yeste
• Design Team: Mateo Marín, Santiago López Posada, Carlos Alberto Cano Bedoya, Juan Sebastian Restrepo
• Management And Construction: Construimos EA S.A.S
• Structural Engineering: Cydeca S.A.S
• Interior Design: Maria Paula Zuluaga

© Isaac Ramirez

From the architect. This House, located in a natural environment at 2,200 m altitude, pretends to opens, in a sensitive way, to the different surrounding landscapes of the place by proposing diffuse limits between the inside and the outside of the House. The social module is oriented towards the East, and the room’s module is oriented towards the West. They are connected through a central body of access in relation to the external spaces defined between both modules. A succession of folds in the vegetated cover evoke the movements of the mountains that configure the inner spatiality.

© Isaac Ramirez

Elevation

© Isaac Ramirez

Inside, the social area is part of a high roofing common space that allows observing the views of the Valley. A broad winding corridor connected to the central area and the intermediate patios distribute the access to the bedrooms that are open to the forest.

© Isaac Ramirez

The metal structure is shown with the reddish oxide in contact with the stone and the pinewood as the predominant materials of the House, both inside and outside.

© Isaac Ramirez

Plan 1

© Isaac Ramirez

The thermal inertia that provides the green roof joined to the strategies of solar caption through the skylights and the glass cover of the central module allows heating the inside and preserves the thermal comfort due to the variations in the temperature between day and night.

© Isaac Ramirez

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Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity

Architects for Urbanity has released its designs for Seoul Urban Womb, a mixed-use women’s and family complex in South Korea. Located in Daebang-dong at the former site of the Seoul Women’s Shelter, the project aims to revitalize the current Seoul Women’s Plaza, a space previously described as “gloomy” and “deathlike.”

The new facility will serve as a connection between the Women’s Plaza and nearby train station, as a mix of public and private space, and is hoped to help “form creative culture, [teach] traditions, and expand the value of gender equality in family and community.”

Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity

Designed as “an organic womb that intensifies spatially and programmatically” throughout the site, the complex will consist of a large rectangular volume interrupted by a series of voids that define and connect the various programs throughout the facility.

Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity

Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity

The building will be organized into three programmatic volumes: the pixelated plinth, the vertical tower, and the horizontal roof slab.

Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity

Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity

The pixelated plinth contains the main functions of the building, such as an auditorium, family space, a youth center, food courts, production labs, and shops. The shape of this volume—an “urban living room”—is derived from its pieces, five stripes increasing in size, each of which contains a distinct program “and is positioned between related activities in order to maximize the efficiency of the building” and the user experience. This way when walking in the direction of one stripe, visitors encounter similar programs, but when walking perpendicularly, they find a cross-programmatic experience.

Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity

The tower of the building, located at the western edge, houses the boarding facilities and frames the event space. Each of the five floors above ground will feature twelve rooms and two meeting rooms, while the ground floor space will include a lobby and the Museum of Motherhood.

Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity

As an inhabited truss structure, the rooftop slab will house the conference and administration facilities for the building. “The whole floor is designed as a clear array of programmatic zones tied together by a perimetric circulation zone. Along the façade, the floor is programmed with informal and open-plan office areas. In the center of the floor and illuminated by two large courtyards are the conference rooms of various sizes, as well as meeting rooms and the vertical circulation cores.

Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity

• Architects: Architects for Urbanity
• Location: Seoul, South Korea
• Design Team: Irgen Salianji, Marina Kounavi, Karolina Szóstkiewicz, Stavria Psomiadi, Antony Laurijsen
• Area: 20500.0 sqm
• Photographs: Courtesy of Architects for Urbanity

News via Architects for Urbanity.

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At the recently concluded Moscow Urban Forum, Renier de Graaf shared his opinion on a range of topics, from UK’s Brexit and the EU identity to OMA’s work in Russia, particularly in shaping the recent growth of Moscow. De Graaf is a partner at OMA and as director of the firm’s Think Tank, AMO, he produced The Image of Europe, an exhibition hoping to portray a “bold, explicit and popular” European Union. Thus, it comes as no surprise that de Graaf, along with Rem Koolhaas, is particularly outspoken about the recent events within the European Union.

Beginning in 2001 with the firm’s Barcode Flag for the EU, AMO has closely associated itself with developing the identity and iconography of the European Union. In a previous interview, De Graaf discussed how research and media become vessels for political agendas. AMO’s work with the EU, which includes the “Atlas of the European Union” and the “Hystory of Europe and the European Union,” certainly reflects that opinion. In the video, De Graaf described the Brexit as a “major stupidity” and stresses his opinion of national sovereignty as a myth, spawned by his belief that “politics is all about managing interdependence between countries in a global economy.” He has also recently written a personal blog regarding his thoughts on EU’s current situation.

Taking place at the Moscow Urban Forum following a round-table discussion called “News from the Future,” the interview also offered the perfect opportunity to question de Graaf on OMA’s involvement in Moscow, including  working with the Strelka Institute and designing the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow’s Gorky Park. OMA also took part in the Moscow City Agglomeration Development Concept Competition along with nine other firms. When asked to weigh in on the development of city after the competition, he comments: “In a lot of other cities, interventions about public space are very cosmetic or they stop at the rhetoric. Here [in Moscow] there is an interesting degree of follow-up on the rhetoric.” 

Ulterior Motives: OMA/AMO’s Reinier de Graaf on “Research,” Europe and the 2014 Venice Biennale
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© Nicolás Fotografía

• Architects: A53 + Marc Mazeres
• Location: La Barceloneta, Barcelona, Spain
• Author Architectes: Juliette Boulard, Vasilki Arampatzaki , Marc Mazeres
• Main Contractor: OAK 2000
• Area: 53.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Nicolás Fotografía

© Nicolás Fotografía

The project concerns the refurbishment of an apartment in Barceloneta that suffered through a number of different interventions over the years and had lost its beauty and charm. Our team was challenged to apply a new program and recover the apartment’s traditional character. The most important aspects included the improvement of both the natural illumination as well as the ventilation of the space. 

© Nicolás Fotografía

© Nicolás Fotografía

The original layout of the apartment generated small, dark rooms with bad communication and illumination. The design focused not just on modernizing the space but also on simplifying the congested layout. We decided to eliminate the third bedroom, switch the position of the bathroom and the kitchen to gain floor area on the day zones and restore the interior balcony towards the patio to create cross ventilation in the apartment.

Plan

Section

Large parts of the interior walls were demolished to apply the new program and create an open space for the kitchen and the living room. The existing structural elements were reinforced with great care, while new metal elements were added. An elevated wooden floor was constructed for the passage of the mechanical and electrical services. The existing suspended ceiling was dismantled, uncovering the traditional Catalan vaulted ceiling that restored the apartment its full height.  The ceramic tiles were dismantled to restore the flat’s original colorfoul tiled floors that were in good enough condition to be retained and refurbished.

© Nicolás Fotografía

Diagram

© Nicolás Fotografía

The aluminium-frame windows towards the street facade were replaced by wooden-frame ones to resemble the original facade of the building. A fixed horizontal interior window separates the kitchen and the bathroom, allowing for natural illumination to even reach the bathroom.

© Nicolás Fotografía

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Mas Subramanian. Image Courtesy of Oregon State University

After discovering a vibrant new pigment of blue by accident, chemists at Oregon State University have brought the compound to market in the form of a paint that looks promising to architectural sustainability. 

While experimenting with materials to study applications for electronics in 2009, OSU chemist Mas Subramanian and his team mixed black manganese oxide with other chemicals and heated them to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Little did they know, one of their samples would turn into a brilliant blue color.

Courtesy of Oregon State University

This pigment, called YInMn Blue, or MasBlue, is formed from a crystal structure that allows its manganese ions to absorb red and green light, and to reflect only blue light. While this structure was previously known, it had never been utilized for commercial purposes, including for pigments.

Used in paints, the pigment is highly versatile, especially as it reflects infrared light at the high rate of about 40 percent, therefore helping to keep buildings cool. Similarly, YInMn Blue products can be used in coatings, plastics, and even roofing materials as a part of sustainable roofing efforts.

Furthermore, none of the ingredients in the pigment are toxic, making it especially innovative to use the compound in paints. “Ever since the early Egyptians developed some of the first blue pigments, the pigment industry has been struggling to address problems with safety, toxicity, and durability,” explains Subramanian.

With its stability and durability even with exposure to water and oil, the pigment is additionally resistant to fading.

In May of 2012, the Subramanian team received a patent from the U.S. Patent Office for the pigment, and has been working with Shepherd Color Co. to develop the commercially-available paint.

The team is additionally expanding their research to include a range of other colors with similar properties.

Learn more about the pigment, here.

News via Oregon State University H/T Interesting Engineering.

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