From the architect. Easter Island has almost been erased from history as it has no clear documentation of its past. Mysterious Moai statues are the only evidence of civilization. I gained a similar impression of Samjeon-dong, Seoul. Modern Moai at Samjeon-dong began with the consideration of a symbiotic structure for a city, including housing created by stacking commercial facilities and residential units on the everyday cultural ground.
The site is located at the corner of a village largely populated by four to five-story multiplex housing developments, all of similar size on uniformly planned sites.
Even though the size and volume of the rectangular sites, each divided by a gridlike urban planning, is similar, each site has different conditions. Instead of concentrating on a more glossy form to maximize a building°Øs profile, as found in the many villages of multiplex housing, it is assumed that making facade flexible in responding to the condition of all four sides would create a flexible architecture and resolve the relationship with its surrounding features.
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As architectural practice must overcome the mismatch and limitations caused by heterogeneity in retail facilities and multiplex housing. I hope it will begin to propose downtown residential areas of new promenades, enabling °Æcultural production and consumption°Æ combined with the lightness of an everyday program. It can become a village that encourages families to stroll and allow for everyday, smaller-scale culture to flourish, rather than existing as commercial spaces purely for consumption in another generic commercial/residential building.
BAD.Built by Associative Data has released its designs for BARCELONA, a new mixed-use development on the Mediterranean coast of Beirut, Lebanon at the Ramlet El Bayda waterfront.
Spanning 18,000 square meters, the project will serve as “a new gastronomic experience, embracing the Mediterranean from a remarkable vantage point,” through a clustered development featuring restaurants, coffee shops, lounges, and event spaces.
Courtesy of BAD.Built by Associative Data
Courtesy of BAD.Built by Associative Data
Courtesy of BAD.Built by Associative Data
“The project derives inspiration from Barcelona city, in its materiality, tactility, and the relationship between space and gastronomical experiences,” explained the architects, and it will stretch across the waterfront in terraced layers.
Courtesy of BAD.Built by Associative Data
Courtesy of Built by Associative Data (BAD)
Courtesy of BAD.Built by Associative Data
Courtesy of BAD.Built by Associative Data
As a “creative interpretation of a social venue,” the project will showcase varying restaurant identities in customized lobby spaces.
From the architect. Dwell between the countryside and the beach
To inhabit the binomial countryside-beach entails dialogs between uses and customs intuitively disparate. Far enough away from the city but yet influenced by it, the new maritime ‘chacras’ combine opposites in coexistence: from the summer enjoyment to the winter gathering, from the sophistication of the beach meeting to the simplicity of country life. Conjugation of landscapes and practices: field and lagoon, beach and sea.
To build in far away territories from the surroundings in which we usually live is a great challenge. Remoteness not as a limit but as a possibility, as a value, as a generator of fields and conditions. Remote landscapes confronts us with the awareness of immenseness. It puts us in our role in reality.
In landscapes of high natural value, it is fundamental to respect their original condition and so it is essential a reversibility condition. Prefabrication allows us to work with industrialized materials that enable high-precision processes. Thus amortizing the impact of construction on the ground, minimizing waste, staff in situ and displacement: a perfect combination of nature and industry.
Houses do not move. They are made of heavy materials, put together with mortar, concrete must be used. These prejudices are hard to break, as the immobility of constructions.
On the other hand, Prefab Houses are produced in a controlled environment and carefully made. They are born in a factory and taken to its final destination. Houses do not move, however…
Morphosis Architects’ Hanking Center Tower in Shenzhen, China has recently topped out, with the 62nd floor now in place. Defined by its detached core configuration, the building positions its primary core 9 meters outside its main body, connected by a series of sky bridges and braces, in order to increase flexibility and light penetration into the floor plate.
Two secondary cores in the body of the building provide structural reinforcement and house private elevators for VIP users, as well as freight elevators and mechanical services.
In an effort to serve global professionals and bring density to the suburb of Nanshan, the tower will feature flexible office space on its open floor plate, anchored by high-end retail and dining.
The Center utilizes folded angles to elegantly merge public components in the podium with private commercial space in the tower, a departure from conventional towers, where differing program is often regulated to separate and disjointed volumes, explained the architects.
Moreover, the separation of the core from the main portion of the building will allow for “a public to private gradient of activity on each floorplate, as tenants move from circulation and social spaces around the core to quitter perimeter offices with panoramic views.”
At the ground level, a grand plaza and “dimensional hardscape” will support public activity. Similarly, glazed lobbies and sky gardens will be located throughout the building, with one for every five floors, in order to create communal hubs for tenants.
Upon completion, the building will be the tallest steel building in China, as well as the tallest detached core building in the world. Hanking Center Tower is projected to open in 2018.
Located in the Tsaotun Township of Nantou County in Taiwan, the Yu-Hsiu Museum of Arts was completed in October of 2015, after 4 years of design development. The request received by AMBi Studio’s design team, led by architect and founder Wei-Li Liao, was for a building that was “subtle,” “delicate” and “clean.” The building’s focus is therefore on creating a harmonious relationship between the manmade and naturally formed architectural elements, paying respect to the surrounding Jiu-Jiu Peaks. This relationship is demonstrated in the combination of the building’s artificially constructed corridors and the existing vegetation in the area, and the museum’s doubled-façade construction which creates an “intermediary” space between outside and inside.
This successful design led the building to win first prize at the 2016 Taiwan Architecture Awards, causing the selection committee to praise Liao for his “continual effort… to explore the experience of perception… and poetic spatiality.” Taiwan-based photographer Lucas K Doolan visited the site to capture the building’s interaction with nature in detail, exploring the museum’s carefully considered materiality.
Location: San Carlos Department, Mendoza Province, Argentina
Area: 8841.95 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
Team: Fernando Raganato, Tom Hughes, Eugenia Mora
Structural Calculations: Ing. Juan Camps
Landscaping: Eduardo Vera
Electrical Installations: Ing. Nestor Armendariz
Effluent Treatment: Ing. Juan Pablo Rojas
Construction: Santiago Monteverdi Construcciones Civiles
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
From the architect. The plan to design a winery for top quality wines was developed in Paraje Altamira, in the district of San Carlos at 130 km to the south of Mendoza city. Located at 1100msnm, Paraje Altamira is surrounded by vineyards and it is placed in the heart of Valle de Uco at the foot of the Andes Mountains. The area, which has been recognized worldwide, is ideal for wine growing because of the spectacular natural setting.
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
Within this context, wine tourism has gained great importance not only for the industry but also for its tourism. The spillover effect is that in some basic rural areas, new activities and infrastructure related to the wine industry have begun to emerge. Hotels, local gastronomy, real estate developments are exploring the limits of creativity to offer visitors new and original ways of exploring the fascinating world of wines and the virtues of the surrounding areas.
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
The architectural proposal responds to two essential objectives: on the one hand, a building which is functional to the agronomical needs together with the enological aspect always following the strict technical and operational requirements that the process of high quality wine making demands. And on the other hand, the touristic aspect, where the visitor plays a leading role and together with the impressive landscape makes everything possible.
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
The Zuccardi Winery itself is a tribute to the solemn and austere Andes Mountains, which define the weather and the soil of the region. The building emerges directly from the soil and becomes part of the mountain, seeking integration and visual balance which do not affect the landscape.
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
From the productive point of view, the winery is designed on a strong axis which links all the operating areas of the winery. It is similar to a backbone which is repeated on the three levels. The basement holds the wine vats, the ground floor contains all the productive process and the lab, the administration area and the tanks gateways are on the first floor.
Floor Plan
The production system takes place through gravity. The grapes enter from the harvest area. Then, it follows a rigorous process of double selection. Next, it is deposited in big barrels that are raised and transported to the tank mouth to be deposited there. After that, the fermentation process starts.
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
The process is distributed in a U shape and it is organized around a big central terrace which guarantees a comfortable and agile operation, safe from the rigorous weather conditions of the area.
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
The winery is almost completely made in reinforced concrete in sight, exploring different finishes. Big slopes of hydro washed cyclopean (with great rocks) concrete, with local sand and gravel, emerge from the ground with a tectonic strength. Heavy and robust volumes look like bodies emerging from the surface, showing the features of the ground as a way to express its own identity. The use of local elements, such as sand and water from the Tunuyán River, was prioritized. The human resources and local workforce was also part of the plan.
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
The main building surfaces from the ground exposing the long truncated cone shaped wine vats. These vats are the result of years of experience from the team of enologists. They were made of precast concrete. All the internal area, the surroundings and the equipment were solved with the same material giving it an homogeneous look, where soft strategic light lines fill the walls with a lively and natural brightness. This effect leaves the vats and the space exposed as if it were a cave where the vessels have always been but now, they have only been uncovered. The idea is to transmit that the winery is an extension of the vineyard.
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
Between the structural walls emerges a metallic dome, which represents the universal and the eternal. The dome highlights the special conditions of the place, reflecting the light of the sun and the sky at different times of the day in this mountainous landscape. Inside the building, there is a succession of wine storage and wine tasting areas, which represent the passage of times and the projection into the future. Under the dome, a metal work of art, made by Guillermo Rigattieri, is suspended on the air. This work represents the seed, which is the origin and the potential of the future.
Elevation
As you go through the winery, you get to understand the concept and it invites you to discover every corner of it. From the moment you approach the tall and majestic external walls and as you go through the interior and discover the different spaces which show the interplay of light, the changes of temperatures, the silence and the echoes, you feel at awe. All of these features allow the visitor to experience the enological process and get seduced by the attractive and mystic fantasy of the wine making process. Without this experience it is impossible to understand it or feel it.
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
Making wines that respect the identity of the area is a unique activity, which results from a research and development process. It implies a great commitment and passion not only in the vineyards but also in the winery. It is an activity that mainly seeks to understand the place and its unique and unrepeatable characteristics. Science and art together turns into the magic of wine. Following these premises, the design is a mirror to its duality, the technical aspect and the place conjugated with feelings gives us a memorable experience.
Courtesy of Tom Hughes, Fernando Raganato, Eugenia Mora
London’sFoster + Partners will likely design a flagship Apple store for the historic Carnegie Library at Mount Vernon Square in Washington, D.C., reports The Architect’s Newspaper. According to Events DC, Apple will lease a portion of the 63,000-square-foot building’s ground floor and basement levels in a ten-year lease, sharing the space with its existing tenant, The Historical Society of Washington.
This is an extremely important repositioning of an iconic building—a building whose original purpose was about community, information and sharing of knowledge, said Max Brown, chairman of the board of Events DC. Amid rapid change in our city, we are confident the space can become a true blend of the square’s past and future.
If plans are approved by the National Capital Planning Commission and Washington’s Historic Preservation Review Board, the Beaux-Arts-style Ackerman & Ross library will be reinterpreted to fit both the building’s original intent, as well as the modern tech ecosystem of the city.
Funded by Andrew Carnegie, the library was the first fully integrated public building in Washington, D.C. Since 1999, the Historical Society has held exhibitions, public programs, and later the Kiplinger Research Library in the building.
Plans to use the library for the International Spy Museum in 2014 aimed to build additions to the existing building but were rejected by historic preservationists.
Foster + Partners has previously designed Apple stores in San Francisco and London, as well as Apple’s Campus 2. If constructed, this will be the second Apple store in Washington, D.C.
From the architect. Reform project for the fence of the plot located at Santiago Apóstol 22 Street: replacement of pedestrian and traffic metal gates and works of superficial improvement of the existing enclosure without demolition of any element.
L’Eliana is a municipality near Valencia, which in the 1970s developed large housing estates on the outskirts. Carmen Ruiz Navarro and Clemente Carrión Mateu, my parents, have finished their house in plot No. 22 of Santiago Apóstol Street, and, 25 years later the entrance gate is broken and they need a new door. So then, a door for my parents with something else, of course.
As the title says, the first need and goal of the project was to solve a door. Not just one, two, to be exact. Without being able to assume any type of demolition of any element already constructed, with the exception of the already deteriorated door existing, it addresses, on the one hand, the access door rolled, and, the pedestrian door. Each one of them with their free holes marked by the existence of the wall already constructed of closure.
The fence is practically a horizontal line. With the project there is an effort to generate, veils that will deform the fence until it becomes a foliated structure that shelters nuances and attends to the two situations that will be through it, the step walking and the step with a vehicle. The color refers to modernist and precious work, breaking with a canon of standardization through the recovery of another canon in disuse.
From the architect. Transforming this apartment into a working/living space was the trigger for the renovation. The requirements where simple: Dividing the space into two self-sustaining units intertwined into one.
Floor Plans
As the division strategy took shape, the T concept was born, creating a constructed separation of plasterboard walls and carpentry to utilize every cubic meter, both for use and storage.
The strategy was to create a division wall that acts as both an axis element and a functional storage space. The division created one dilemma, which would enforce a feeling of a smaller living space. To deal with this, the white color was chosen as a predominant feature to give the space a cleaner, lighter effect.
Diagram
The client wanted to retain the Altbau (Old building) feeling, of the former workers dwellings, within the typical Berlin “style”, allowing us to reinstall old building elements alongside modern ones.
From the architect. The project came to us to convert an old unused building in to a work place for a software company called Peacock Technology. The site is located in Special Economic Zone, Icchapor at Surat (Gujarat). The client was inspired by the big tech companies where the working environment is informal and working is fun. The major constraint was the tight budget. So we had a need to find the alternative method of designing and execution.
To cut down the cost, best way is to reduce resources, use more of recycle/ reclaimed materials and try to reuse the old scrape in to new way. As it was a tech company and as we know computer produces lots of waste materials as keyboards, floppies, old CDs, etc… moreover Surat is very old city and there are lots of old wooden house in the city which are demolished and the elements of the houses are sold in the scrape market. So we found this as the best way to incorporate the architecture of the city in to our interior.
We found the paper tubes, old packaging wood, car tyres, glass bottles, unused old GI plumbing pipes, machine gear plates etc… from the scrape yards. Wooden elements such an entrance door, stool legs, reception desk legs, some old furniture’s etc… were found from the old houses of city. Moreover student of fine arts were appointed to make the paper lampshades, partition from the ropes, and benches.
In-terms of layout the whole site is divided in three parts and the central portion is used for entrance foyer, reception and lounge area which is extended to outdoor seating area. The reception core bifurcate the working area in to two parts. Furthermore, the spaces were designed in such a way that allowed transparency and interaction among the staff, that could help to build the “peacock culture” as the client says.
In such working environment many time someone need a small formal quite place to attend phone calls and client meetings. So idea of telephone booth came in to picture. And we used the booth in red color, seen at London, very striking element in the space. Moreover Green, Black and Blue cabins were designed for distinct discussions and meetings.
Sig Nordal 