Located on a green-field site in Regional Victoria, Marist College Bendigo will provide a brand new P-12 facility for a rapidly growing population. When complete it will house around 1500 students and provide ample facilities that will enrich both the school and its neighbourhood providing opportunities to foster community identity and encourage growth.
As the initial stage the Montague Centre sits at front of the school, a showcase for what is to come. The building projects out into newly formed wetlands but remains grounded in the site through heavy rammed earth walls towards the schools centre. These striking elements are complemented with a textural palette of warm timbers and bold colours. The project utilized recycled timber elements within its structure, which provide a layer of history and depth to the new buildings.
Plan
A comprehensive investigation and analysis of emerging pedagogical approaches have informed the framework for learning at Marist College. Through discussions, ideas have translated into the facility design which is both appropriate and adaptable for future developments and change.
Students are provided with an array of interchangeable scaled spaces from small reflective cave spaces, to medium sized discussion spaces, large collaborative areas and extra large gathering/presentation spaces. Staff are embedded within these learning areas, as an accessible and guiding resource for students. Transitions between indoor and outdoor spaces are fluid and enhanced by the buildings location at edge of the water creating an embedded approach to education in the landscape.
Integrated specialist space provide students with access to a variety of facilities from a gastronomy kitchen linking foods to learning, to an exploratory laboratory and messy projects area providing facilities for creative and messy exploration. A think tank zone provides a space for casual discussion and access to resources. These areas are designed to encourage parent participation and foster with coffee facilities, access to resources, food making opportunities and comfortable gathering areas. This complements the school’s philosophy of community building and a nurturing program of engaged activities.
Section
Material selection has been designed to foster a sense of tradition in the school’s culture. The use of rock, rammed earth and recycled timbers form a narrative that identifies both an intrinsic local heritage and the influences of L’hermitage, France (birthplace of Marist faith).
A natural theme of eucalyptus greys/greens and ochra reds/browns are accentuated with textured timbers to create warm and welcoming interiors that gracefully define various zones and spaces. The large windows draw natural light into the heart of the facilities with smaller key openings framing views and vistas of the grounds and wetlands.
Externally, the black forms of the building sit above the wetlands with their bright punches of colour emulating the bush after a fire, with its promises of renewal and growth. The Montague Centre represents the first stepping stone of the school’s journey and is designed to instil the aspirations and values of Marist College on its occupants and community, and create capable learning environments that are succinct with the opportunities of 21st century education.
BIG Architects has designed an inflatable mobile pavilion to be displayed at three Danish events, including its original site at the Roskilde Festival 2016. Known as SKUM (Danish for foam), the structure met the challenge of creating an installation that has the ability to be both permanent and fully transportable by creating a whimsical, bubble-like form that can be blown up in just 7 minutes.
Courtesy of BIG
Drawing inspiration from the inflatable castles of the architects’ childhood years, SKUM is powered by two wind turbines, which keep the structure rigid and smooth. At this year’s Roskilde Festival, it served as the VIP bar area for Danish beer company Tuborg, providing a 120 square meter canopy to shield festival goers from the sun. After sunset, the structure comes to life, as color-changing LED lights illuminate the pavilion in a full palette of colors.
Courtesy of BIG
Courtesy of BIG
Courtesy of BIG
Courtesy of BIG
Courtesy of BIG
After completing its run at the festival, SKUM will travel to Charlottenborg Palace in Copenhagen for the Chart Art Fair, and then will continue on to the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum.
From the architect. The architectural project thought of a house that should provide plenty of space for a middle-aged couple that often hosts friends and family, spending most time with their kids and grandchildren.
The edification was set in as suburban district, in an enclosed allotment, build upon three different lots that, when gathered, sums up to 1.740m². Even though the lots where unified, the occupation by the house was thought in a way that one of the lots kept unoccupied, making it possible to be commercialized forward on.
Ground Floor Plan
First Floor Plan
The view that surrounds the edification shows an old sugarcane factory, surrounded by native woods and the gorgeous Piracicaba River, main character in the city. The sight was one of the pillars when the team initiated the conception of the architectonic solution.
The entire house’s terrain was lifted-up, providing privacy without the need of higher visual barriers and guarantying the overwhelming surrounding view to the spectator that stands in the social area on the main pavement.
The architects wanted to bring into the house all this gardens and abundant nature. In order to do this, the conception defined the edification in two main rectangular volumes, laying one on top of the other in the shape of a cross. This ways the building would provide the landscape views to every enclosed space.
In the upper volume, there are three suites and a large TV room, established at the crossing point between both volumes. The lower volume gave place to an office, lavatory, laundry room and a home wine bar.
At some points, the lower volume needed covering. The solution given in these cases used green covering, providing gardens to the upper spaces as well.
The upper volume projects itself beyond the lower one on both sides. In one side, held also by a concrete wall, the upper rectangle stands over a large living room while, underneath the other side, the garage and main access to the house take place.
To overcome the structural difficulties, a mixed structure was the right choice, always exploring the material in its high qualities.
Section A
Section B
Concrete walls, steel beams and tensors compose the structure that marks the façade with its own aesthetics, showing the bolts and welding on an industrial and contemporary look.
The concrete elements show the molds, as well as the wood grains. The molds layout distribution were matrix to the dimensioning of the construction components like marble flooring, joints in the aluminum panels on the façade and distribution of luminaires, woodwork paintings and all interior design.
Concerned about the afternoon sun incidence on the west face of FMG Monte Alegre, the Urbem architects proposed an unusual solution. Practical, beautiful and of easy assembling, a cold camera panel, coated with aluminum compound was applied as walls on the west side, as well as a thick concrete wall providing thermos-acoustic coverage to the insides.
The overall result is a house that brings the gardens and landscapes into its interior, highlighting its apparent structural solutions and large and integrated spaces with generous natural light.
Bovero House is located in the municipality of Arroyo Leyes in the province of Santa Fe, 10 km from the provincial capital in a residential area of high landscape value. This commune with the City of Rincon, Colastiné and others were formerly the site of summer homes of Santa Fe families, due to the lack of land in the city and improving transportation networks and services, in recent years this area has grown exponentially with families who establish permanent residence here. Thus, on Provincial Route No. 1 there are a lot of subdivisions and developments that expand the conglomerate known as Greater Santa Fe.
Due to the low level of land where the building lots are located and the reclaimed lands from the floodplain of the rivers, the sector’s problems are flooding both by rising rivers as well as runoff rainwater. Thus it is required to place the houses at a safe altitude, so we had to raise the house one meter from the ground level to match the existing defense level.
The requirement was to solve a home of approximately 80m2 for a literature teacher, whose children had already left, so no immediate future extensions were required, with a tight budget, through the government mortgage program Procrear on a corner of 16x55m.
Plan
The house seeks to claim the linearity of the lot setting an urban facade on the access road and opening the facade into the eucalyptus forest that persists in front of it as undeveloped space. Therefore the program is solved linearly with the sequence living room-kitchen-bathroom-bedroom, introducing a courtyard in the center of the house that incorporates the landscape into the house and organizes the kitchen as a meeting place around a breakfast that is part of the yard.
The pre-existence of two large Eucaliptus trees and a lot of typical coastal landscape (Espinillos) set the tone for preserving the largest possible number of trees by inserting the house into the landscape. In turn, we took into account the shadows of the Eucalyptus in the decision to set the house east-west, which allowed us to open the house to the north with the best sunlight conditions.
The interior space is delimited by the wall enclosure which in its configuration addresses three issues: the structural support of the house, it is the programmatic element that organizes in its depth the support of the interior spaces that are free-standing, and the symbolic element that covers the literature collection that is part of the routine of the inhabitant.
Axonometric
The tight budget led to the decision to try to avoid subsequent finishes after construction was over, and that the construction itself was to be its own material expression. The materials are exposed defining the colors and textures of the construction as result and expression of the implicit technique in the process that does not seek to hide its essence.
The “Googleplex” is back on. After the Mountain View City Council announced last year that they would be awarding the majority of the land needed to construct the futurist masterplan designed for Google by BIG and Thomas Heatherwick to fellow tech giant LinkedIn, the future of the ambitious glass-canopied corporate campus seemed to be dead in the water, with the architects even releasing images of a pared down design that would occupy a much smaller footprint. But all of that has now changed thanks to a surprising property swap between the two companies that will see over three million square feet of real estate switch hands.
The deal involves 1 million square feet of existing buildings (including LinkedIn’s current headquarters), and 2.4 million square feet of undeveloped real-estate. Google will receive the land necessary to see through their original Googleplex vision, while in return, LinkedIn will obtain property elsewhere in Mountain View and nearby Sunnyvale that will allow it to build a single cohesive corporate campus of their own.
With LinkedIn out of the way, Google is now free to pursue constructing the massive development that Google has described as “lightweight block-like structures which can be moved around easily as we invest in new product area,” covered by “large translucent canopies” that will “[control] the climate inside yet [let] in light and air.”
Zaha Hadid Architects has released new images and an animation of the firm’s “Stacked Vase” tower in Melbourne’s Central Business District to coincide with the building receiving approval from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, the City of Melbourne and the Office of Victorian Government Architect. The 54-story (178m) mixed-use skyscraper will be Zaha Hadid’s only tower in Melbourne, and upon completion will become an new emblem of “the most livable city in the world.”
Partnering with local firm Plus Architecture, the tower will contain 70,000 square meters (750,000 square feet) of office, retail, residential and public space, including 420 apartments. The tower’s stacked-vase form takes inspiration from its mixed-use program, and will be supported by an “elegant colonnade of sculptural, curved columns” that “embody and emulate the finest examples of historic architecture” in the area.
To provide easy access to all, the tower will connect into the city’s transportation system via a pedestrian link to the Southern Cross railway station and the tram network, while a new plaza and public terraces will invite in residents and visitors alike. The building will also provide 350 bicycle parking spaces as well as bays for electric vehicles and shared car programs.
Thanks to a finned façade system that reduces direct solar gain, 600 Collins Street is projected to use 50 percent less energy than a conventional mixed-use tower. A high performance glazing system, high efficiency central cooling, high efficiency lighting and greywater reuse systems will also contribute to the reduced energy and resource consumption.
“This is an inspired project that will enrich the city, creating a new public plaza and amenities as well as improve connectivity for all pedestrians,” said a spokeswoman for Landream, the project’s developers. “We are proud to be delivering Zaha Hadid’s design for Melbourne and will continue to work closely with her team to make it a reality.”
From the architect. We start from the understanding that a building of monumental value has several layers of history, the result of multiple renovations over the years and that our intervention is another layer in that density.
Section 2
Apesteguia House was originally a single floor ranch made of adobe to which was added a second floor of quincha as a playground, which was then transformed into a two-family dwelling. In 1986 the architect Juvenal Baracco transformed the house into 8 duplex apartments with mezzanines. The apartments were organized as a gear around a vertical circulation axis located in the central bay, consolidating a triple height that connects all levels of the house.
The project was then converted into a hotel that was semi abandoned until it was purchased by the advertising agency DDB Fahrenheit for their offices. While the house was well kept and had been remodelled with an intelligent and important project at the time, the new use forced us to think it in a totally different way. The biggest challenge was to understand that the subdivision of the house in 8 apartments made it impossible for the smooth functioning of the dynamics of work and that it was necessary to reorganize the space into a single unit. The mezzanines and wooden stairs were removed revealing the original height of the spaces and the thatch walls were unclad, preserving the wood studs to achieve a more fluid spatiality on the second level.
We decided to reuse the vertical axis created by Juvenal Baracco as a void that organizes the space and proposed a metal structure staircase that connects the first and second floors. In the remodeling of 1986 all private circulations of the apartments were separated as autonomous volumes in a triple height void. It was a Piranesian space understood from the rest, the interstice, what remains between the separated objects. We considered that with the change of use and the need for a single spatial structure, this triple height void could be considered no longer as 8 introverted circulations, but as 1 single gesture / extroverted circulation. A grandstand literally occupies the void and makes it habitable.
General Scheme
For White Night 2013 and in collaboration with the artist Nani Cardenas, we worked on an installation in the house entitled Irrigation Systems. The piece, between irony and denunciation, refers to the situation of historic monuments and real estate pressure.
Although it opened in 2011, YOTEL New York feels like it belongs in 2084, the same year the science-fiction film Total Recall is set. Quintessentially futuristic, the original cult classic starring Arnold Schwarzenegger features robotic police officers, instant manicures, hovering cars, implanted memories, and skin-embedded cellphones. Its protagonist, Douglas Quaid, is a construction worker obsessed with vacationing on Mars.
One could easily imagine Quaid staying at a Martian outpost of YOTEL, a “minimal-service” hotel modeled after Japanese capsule hotels, which provide a large number of extremely small modular guest rooms for travelers willing to forgo all the services of a conventional hotel in exchange for convenient, affordable accommodations. These kinds of automated-service hotels may be a trend into the 2020s, but are they really hotels of the future?
Located in Hell’s Kitchen near Times Square, YOTEL’s flagship property has 669 “cabins” spread across 60 floors, each cabin with a futon-style bed occupying most of its scant square footage. It has an ultracontemporary all-white design that glows radioactively with neon-purple mood lighting; automated check-in via self-service kiosks; and YOBOT, a robotic baggage handler that stores and retrieves guests’ luggage.
When most people stay at YOTEL, they believe they’re witnessing one of the hotels of the future. But when Ron Swidler, principal of branding at Chicago-based hospitality design firm The Gettys Group, stayed there, he saw something else entirely. To start with, no one was actually using the YOBOT; although it looked cool, it felt more like a gimmick than a service. That was also the case with automated check-in, which failed when his kiosk encountered a software error. And in the two days Swidler stayed at the hotel, he never came in contact with a person working there.
“Here I was in an environment that was meant to be representative of a leading-edge hotel experience, but it was missing an important component: hospitality,” Swidler says. “The future of technology and the role it plays in hospitality should allow for personalization and customization that combines computing power. What we need to consider is how can we use technology to enhance the guest experience while still allowing for a human connection.”
In 2015, The Gettys Group designed the AC Hotel Chicago Downtown, which features wireless service buttons called “Kallpods” that guests can use to easily summon a staff member when they need service; the grand ballroom at the Marriott Manila, with its 176 programmable “pillow” lights in the ceiling that can change to any of 360 different colors to match the moods of meetings and events; and The Godfrey Hotel Boston, where guests can use their personal mobile devices to stream photos, videos, and music directly to their rooms’ 55-inch televisions. (All three hotels were designed using Autodesk AutoCAD Architecture.)
“I’m a big believer that technology should be used to aid the hospitality service experience, not replace the hospitality service experience,” says Swidler, a self-described “early adopter and technophile.”
He’s not alone. Although novelty lodgings like YOTEL will continue to open on the premise that technology is an end, not a means—Japan, for example, recently opened the Henn-na hotel, the world’s first hotel staffed entirely by robots—many hotel designers are laser-focused on integrating technology and hospitality in ways that amplify service instead of merely automating it.
“If you spend a lot of time reading TripAdvisor reviews like I do, you know that aesthetics rarely get mentioned as a driver for someone’s stay,” Swidler says. “Instead, comments primarily focus on service. So if you look at guest expectations of design, it’s design of an overall experience, and a hotel’s differentiation is the delivery of that experience.”
One property whose design perfectly embodies this ethos is the Renaissance New York Midtown Hotel, which opened in March as New York’s first interactive “living” hotel. Designed by Jeffrey Beers International in collaboration with digital design firm Réalisations Inc. Montréal, it leverages innovative technology to enhance the guest experience in support of the Renaissance brand’s mission: “Helping the next generation of business travelers discover unexpected cultural experiences.”
Highlights include a four-story LED board atop the building that displays a digital clock over the surrounding Garment District; an elevator bank showcasing digital imagery timed to change with the opening and closing of the elevator doors; and a “digital tapestry” that leverages reflective wallpaper, motion detectors, projectors, and 3D cameras to capture and project data and movement occurring in the surrounding corridor. A dynamic patchwork of digital artwork that spans the length of an entire city block between the hotel’s main and satellite entrances, the tapestry morphs in response to human movement and touch.
Renaissance New York Midtown Hotel digital clock. Image Courtesy of Renaissance
The tapestry’s centerpiece is the Discovery Portal, a digital alcove with hologram projections on the floor and a large screen on the wall. When guests stand on various holograms, they activate content on the screen that helps them explore the area around them: Standing on one hologram, for instance, will unfurl a menu of attractions located within a 10-minute walk of the hotel; standing on another will reveal nearby attractions that are open at night. For more information, guests need only raise their arm and point at the desired content on the screen.
“Every time they come to our hotel, we want guests to experience something they haven’t experienced before,” explains Renaissance New York Midtown General Manager David DiFalco. “Technology is a catalyst for that.”
The Discovery Portal doesn’t replace traditional human concierges; rather, it supplements them, as guests who desire personalized recommendations and a human touch can visit the sixth-floor lobby to consult the hotel’s “Navigators”—in-the-know neighborhood experts trained to make recommendations for restaurants, bars, and attractions that only locals would know.
Renaissance New York Midtown Hotel Discovery Portal. Image Courtesy of Renaissance
“On the one hand, you’ve got the technology that makes you feel like you’re in an advanced, brand-new property with a lot of great features in it,” DiFalco says. “But at the same time, there’s not so much technology that it prevents you from interacting with staff. Because our people are always the most important asset we possess inside our hotel. It doesn’t matter how cool your technology is or how nice your design is; if you don’t have good people taking care of your guests, they’re not going to come back.”
Whether talking about Discovery Portals, YOBOTs, or any number of emergent hospitality technologies—such as beacons, keyless room entry, or in-room virtual reality—the negotiation between high-tech and high-touch service is constant.
“While a lot of technology has great PR value, we don’t know yet whether there will be guest satisfaction that comes as a result of its integration,” Swidler concludes. “So anything more than the most conservative solutions takes a leap of faith.”
The idea for the floating sauna was born on a cold and wet winter’s. Combining our love of the water, the relaxing dry heat of saunas, and floating structures, the project began to take shape. We focused on primal concepts of fire, water, and community. We were searching for a way to engage the water surrounding our city, enticing visitors onto the lakes year round. We called this project ‘wa_sauna’ and felt it would be a welcome addition to the Pacific Northwest landscape and its adventurous people.
Diagram
wa_sauna engages the ideas of journey and discovery; creating a unique experience and refuge on the water that offers a different perspective on the landscape. Boaters and kayakers can venture out and tie off to the surrounding deck, allowing for the sauna tradition to take place on Seattle’s lakes.
The project was funded through the support of the local community and a crowdfunding campaign. In the same spirit of crowdfunding wa_sauna, the project was built by our studio and a team of talented volunteers, all with close connections to the architecture community and unique construction skills. We were generously donated a large space in the production warehouse of Hilliard’s Beer for the fabrication of wa_sauna.
Details
Maneuvering a 14’ high, 4,500lb structure from the warehouse to the public boat ramp and into the water was a challenging process. Towed on 6 steel casters with a 1980 VW Vanagon, we slowly crept along at dawn making the 8 block trip to the boat ramp in just under 3 hours. The contrast of steel casters on rough gravel and pavement to the feeling of this structure gently floating was the most exciting moment of the build process.
wa_sauna can now be seen regularly on Lake Union and Lake Washington. The sauna is a registered vessel, powered by an electric trolling motor with (3) 12-volt batteries and heated by a wood burning stove. Quietly exploring the lakes, wa_sauna allows users to find peace and quiet in the warmth of the sauna, with endless unique views of Seattle and sounds of the fire crackling and the gentle water around them.
The competition sought out designs to integrate a transport hub into the cityscape of Brno, as well as integrate a design for the undeveloped southern area of the city.
Courtesy of BLAU
BLAU’s proposal centers on the ideas of flexibility and sustainability, so as to adapt to the changing needs of the city. In the design, the city is organized into several urban stripes, each of which functions as a self-sufficient micro city.
Courtesy of BLAU
Courtesy of BLAU
The train station, Brno Transport Hub, is designed as an active urban mixed use node that coordinates mobility and public life in a continuous shared space around different interlinked terminals. The site neighbors a central spine that connects the new area with the historical center to offer a cultural, research, and sports corridor for the city.
Sig Nordal 