design – Page 325 – Sig Nordal

Löyly / Avanto Architects

June 30, 2016signordalLeave a comment

Architects: Avanto Architects
Location: Hernesaarenranta 4, 00150 Helsinki, Finland
Architect In Charge: Ville Hara and Anu Puustinen, Architects SAFA
Client : Antero Vartia and Jasper Pääkkönen, Kidvekkeli Oy
Operator: Royal Restaurants
Area: 1071.0 sqm
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: kuvio.com

Project Management: Qtio Oy
Assistants: Antti Westerlund, architect SAFA / Hiroko Mori, architect / Laura Nenonen, student of Architecture / Xiaowen Xu, student of Architecture
Interior Architect: Joanna Laajisto Creative Studio / Joanna Laajisto
Structural Design: Ramboll Finland Oy / Hans Wilkman, Teemu Nyyssönen
Marine Structures: Ramboll Finland Oy / Juha Kärkkäinen
Steel Structural Design: SS-Teracon Oy / Reijo Kytömäki, Ville Korkiamäki
Glass Structures: Lasifakta Oy / Tahvo Sutela
Hvac Designer: Optiplan Oy / Evgeny Nikolski, Aleksei Lätti
Electric Design: Optiplan Oy / Jari Muunoja
Prime Contractor: Rakennustoimisto Jussit Oy
Foundation Works: Kanta Kaivu Oy
Electric Contractor: Elektro Asennus Oy
Hvac Contractor: Uudenmaan LVI-Talo Oy
Timber Furniture Contractor: Puupalvelu Jari Rajala Oy
Steel Structures: VMT-Steel
Sauna Stoves: Tulisydän Oy and Iki-Kiuas Oy

Sauna culture
Sauna bathing is an essential part of Finnish culture and national identity. There are only 5,4 million Finns but 3,3 million saunas. Public saunas used to be common in bigger cities but now that most new apartments have sauna of their own, public saunas have decreased dramatically in number. There are only a couple remaining. As a sense of community is becoming a more and more important part of new urban culture, many new public saunas are being planned. With Löyly (meaning the steam that comes when you throw water on hot stones in a sauna) Helsinki will offer foreign visitors a public sauna experience all year round – a must when visiting Finland.

Process
The project started from the city of Helsinki initiative. Hernesaari is a former industrial area on the Helsinki seashore that is being developed into a residential area. New uses are being developed for the area, while waiting for future changes to come. There is a cruise ship harbor in Hernesaari and the city wanted to activate the area with new functions and to serve visitors with new attractions. We started the project in 2011 designing a temporary sauna village at the furthermost end of the peninsula. The concept didn’t prove financially sustainable so the first client quit the project. We developed a floating sauna with the second client but the concept proved impossible as the site faces the open sea and a floating structure couldn’t withstand high waves and pressure from ice packs. The coastline will change with future development, but the city chose an area where the shoreline will remain as it is currently. We developed a new free form concept with triangular faces. The client changed once again and as actor Jasper Pääkkönen and Member of Parliament Antero Vartia finally got funding, the construction works could begin.

Context
The site is unique. Being less than two kilometers away from the city centre, it is very central but at the same time the landscape is like in the outer archipelago. The plot is situated in a future coastal park that will be part of a broader “Helsinki park” connecting the capital city to the sea. The building was designed to be slim and elongated so as not to cut the narrow park strip. The volume is kept as low as possible so that it doesn’t block views from the future residential blocks. Instead of building a conventional building, the sauna is developed into an easy-going, faceted construction that is more part of the park than a conventional building. When the wooden building turns gray, it will become more like a rock on the shoreline.

Architecture
The architectural idea is simple: there is a rectangular black box containing the warm spaces that is covered with a free form wooden “cloak”. Instead of being mere decoration, the sculptural structure made of heat treated pine has several functions. It provides people with visual privacy. However, the lamellas don’t limit the sea view from inside it, rather they function like venetian blinds and blocking the views from outside. There are sheltered outside spaces between the warm mass and cloak to cool down in between sauna bathing. The cloak forms intimate terraces between its slopes that serve as a place to sit. The structure protects the building from the harsh coastal climate. It shades the interior spaces with big glass surfaces and helps to reduce the use of energy to cool the building. Moreover, the stepped cloak forms stairs to climb on to the roof and look out terraces on top of the building. The construction forms a big outdoor auditorium for the future marine sports centre’s activities on the sea. There are around 4000 planks that were precisely cut to individual forms by a computer-controlled machine. The big wooden terrace is partly on top of the sea and you can hear the sound of the waves under your feet.

Spatiality
The building consists of two parts: public saunas and a restaurant. The saunas and public spaces open up to the sea, with interesting views to city center and even to the open sea. The atmosphere is calm and the spaces dimly lit. Different areas are conceived as spaces within a space. Interesting views open between closed spaces as you move from one area to the next. You enter in the restaurant that is a light and open space. From there a dimly lit sauna path leads to bathing area. Shoes are left in a wardrobe before you go to a reception desk where you get a locker key and a towel. Dressing rooms and showers are separate for men and women. A leather curtain covering the door indicates entry into the unisex area, at which point visitors need to wear a bathing suit. Traditionally men and women bath separately and naked. We wanted to develop sauna culture so that there would be a possibility bath together with your friends not depending on the gender. This makes sauna experience available also for foreign visitors that might not be used to bathing naked.

Interior
The interior architecture of the restaurant and the sauna lounge is by Joanna Laajisto Creative Studio. The objective of the design was to create an atmospheric restaurant which compliments the strong architecture of the building. The approach could be called soft minimalism. The challenge was to create intimate seating areas in the large hall like space with two walls of windows. People often feel most comfortable sitting their backs against the wall. The solution was to build a raised platform for the bar area which divides the space into two different areas. A wooden half wall anchors the long custom designed sofas which have a great view of the sea.

The main materials used in the interiors are black concrete, light Scandinavian birch wood, blackened steel and wool. All materials are durable and long lasting. The wood used is pressed, glued and slightly heat treated birch, a new sustainable Finnish innovation made of left over materials of the plywood industry that normally is burned to produce energy. This is how waste is turned into a beautiful recycled material. It´s manufacturing process produces a beautiful cool light color tone and heavy durability.

In addition to the long sofas, Laajisto´s office has used the glued laminated birch on walls, tabletops, the long bar and even in the unisex toilet sink. The upholstered chairs, which add softness to the space, are by Italian manufacturer Torre. All fabrics are soft natural wool by Kvadrat. The bar stools are by Gubi and the wooden chairs in the sauna lounge are by Finnish Nikari.
The String lights designed by Micheal Anastassiades for Floss create a subtle rhythm to the space without blocking the views of the Baltic Sea.

Saunas
There are three different saunas that are all heated with wood: a continuously heated sauna, a once heated sauna (that is heated in the morning before the sauna is open and stays warm all evening) and a traditional smoke sauna – a true rarity in an urban sauna. This is how you can experience all sorts of Finnish Löyly during a single visit. Between the saunas there is spa area with cold water basin and a fire place room to relax in, between or after sauna bathing. You can swim in the sea and in the winter there is an “avanto”, the whole in the ice for winter swimming – a popular hobby in Finland and our office name as well.

Sustainability
The building is heated with district heating and electricity is produced with water and wind power. The building is first FSC-certified building in Finland and second in Scandinavia. Forest Stewardship Council’s certificate proves that wood material comes from responsibly managed forests. The restaurant serves organic food and sustainably caught fish.

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W House / SLOW office

June 30, 2016signordalLeave a comment

Architects: SLOW office
Location: Beijing, Beijing, China
Area: 285.0 sqm
Project Year: 2012
Photographs: Zhiwei Fei

From the architect. This is a studio and residence built from the renovation and expansion of a small single-story building inside a factory campus. The original building is brick structure with slope roof. Now we take away the old roof and change it into three stories by making use of original brick walls and adding new light wooden structure walls.

Since the surrounding environment is relatively messy, we put office and workshop which is not so private on the first floor facing the campus and make the outside relatively close. the living functions are put onto the second floor from where the orchard and farmland on the west can be seen. The third floor consists two lofts and an outdoor terrace.

The functions are organized as a series of platforms, from office on first floor, then dining room, living room, kitchen on second floor, finally to loft and terrace on third floor, spiraling up the two-story high atrium.The height differences between the platforms are determined in a way that some of the terraces are floors as well as big seats where people can sit leisurely. Due to the adjustment of sightlines by design of openings, the messy factory is hardly seen from the living space and the main view becomes the orchard. These treatments create a very casual atmosphere that when friends come to visit, they can sit and chat in the living space naturally without any cabined feeling.

We set not handrail but walls with big openings surrounding the atrium. This has concerns about the space as well as the function of strengthening the structure. With these walls, the entire space cannot be seen at one sight. A layered space that is separated and connected at the same time is created.

Now the first floor has a wood workshop along with our architecture office. The samples of our wood products are also made here.

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DeeRoemah / Wahana Architects

June 30, 2016signordalLeave a comment

Architects: Wahana Architects
Location: South Jakarta, South Jakarta City, Special Capital Region of Jakarta, Indonesia
Gerard Tambunan: Gerard Tambunan
Area: 196.0 sqm
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Fernando Gomulya

Contractor: Wahana Cipta Selaras
Lighting: Liam Sak Khian
Site Area: 280 m2
Landscape Area: 104 m2

From the architect. Located in a rather busy midtown of Jakarta, DeeRoemah is a renovation project of a two-storey house on a 280 m2 irregular shaped site which comprises of 1 master bedroom, 3 child/guest bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, office and storage.

Recognizing the potential of the surprisingly serene neighborhood, an honest design approach was developed for this particular project. The design should be humble and merge with its neighborhood. The main idea is simply to conserve the existing mass and modify it by utilizing the space under the roof on one side of the L-shaped building as a full story – letting it ‘naturally fit’ the urban setting.

On the first floor, the living room, dining room and kitchen are designed as transparent as possible towards the surrounding outdoor garden in which the existing trees are preserved to blur the inside-outside boundary, whilst each of every bedroom has the view of a small courtyard.

The semi public office on the second floor, which can only be accessed by the outdoor twirled stairs, also adapt the same level of openness as it is surrounded with clear glass looking through the terrace and garden. A see-through wooden plane (which is from re-used material of the waste from Furniture Factory) is positioned diagonally at one end as a natural shade where its honest craftsmanship accentuates the silhouette of a ‘kampong’ house. It also works as a building skin to cover inside the office activity from the outside and neighborhood.

Supporting the concept, the range materials used for this project were simplified. The cement-textured finish dominates the entire house with a hint of raw wood detail on the façade and metal for the outdoor staircase.

The need of railing was decoyed by a gray planter box with dangling vegetation while to compress the actual height of the house, a new contoured garden was reset. The landscape element is effortlessly used to soften the whole design.

Constraints and Solutions achieved

The main concern of this project is the client’s budget and the neighborhood.

The solution we took is to preserve the existing concrete structure and re-use some of the materials. This will cut the budget while also can work so that the new and renovated house not so-far different with its ‘kampong’ like neighborhood.

Details of landscaping

There are existing trees in the previous house that we preserve and integrate in the new design. The landscape and hardscape of this project really help to create an interesting ambience inside the house. It creates shades for the building while creating mood inside the house and living area.

Description of the Climatic situation

The project is located at a tropical climate in Indonesia. It is important for the house to have a cross ventilation to keep up with the humidity while also use the passive energy. On daily basis, the glass doors and window are open. The natural air breezes in to the house. And the clear glass and skylight works well to insert the natural light all day long. The vertical garden and wooden panel help to create shades inside the house.

Cultural

The re-used materials such as clay roofing and wooden panel on the façade of the building help the building to merge with its natural surrounding and its neighborhood. The newly construct upper level looks no different than the houses and other houses on neighborhood from the outside. The building holds critical cultural standpoint in the neighborhood. It is important so that the building and its habitant can communicate in the new area and creates no cultural and economical shocks that may appear, to the neighborhood.

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Violet Stream Villa Sales Center / Wutopia

June 29, 2016signordalLeave a comment

Architects: Wutopia
Location: Suzhou, Jiangsu, China
Architects In Charge: YU Ting, HUANG He
Area: 100.0 sqm
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Shao Feng

From the architect. The mission to the architect is quite clear, the sales center must be finished in one week including 2-day design, 5-day construction.

For the sake of building up the sales center quickly, using thin-walled light gauge steel structure with sandwich board and polycarbonate sheet as bounding system is the only choice for architect.

The Violet Stream Villa is close to the beautiful Yangcheng Lake Peninsula in Suzhou, which is a city filled with the most famous transitional Chinese Garden. Architect wanted to apply spirit of gardens into the center. He created clear fence and complex inside place with dimed architecture and patio. He created a chiaroscuro and garden walking with constant climax in this center which was called by the architect, a net shell.

The red was used to cover some unavoidable flaws during the fast construction at first, turned out as a highlight landmark comparing to green trees and blue lake. The other conclusion the architect found is red could erase detail and volume while produce richness at the same time. As in HAMLET‘ I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space. ’

The center only stood there for 1 month. It was demolished after villas sold out as a result of eruptible real estate blooming. So the client called it, the instant red.

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What Will Become of America’s Big Box Stores?

June 29, 2016signordalLeave a comment

© flickr user walmartmovie. Licensed under CC BY 2.0

The Walmart Supercenter is generally considered one of the great antagonists of architecture around the world – the hulking behemoth who sold its integrity for the consumer convenience of having everything in one place. Though the first Walmart Supercenter didn’t open until 1988, big box stores have existed in some form since the 1960s, luring in shoppers with low prices and curbside loading lanes. For all the user psychology design that goes into them, the original designs of these buildings rarely pay much mind to their architectural or urban consequences, excluding a few notable exceptions.

Regardless, for the past 20 years big box stores have continued to prosper, prompting tenants to leave their homes and move on to even larger structures, leaving behind giant, open frameworks – for sale on the cheap. In a recent essay for 99% Invisible entitled Ghost Boxes: Reusing Abandoned Big-Box Superstores Across America, author Kurt Kohlstedt explores the architectural potential of these megastructures, drawing inspiration from the architects and communities that have successfully converted them into valuable assets.

Featuring long spans capable of accommodating a variety of program types, these structures have been renovated into libraries, churches, museums and apartment complexes in cities throughout the country. One example Kohlstedt points to is the McAllen Main Library, transformed from a Texas Walmart by MSR Design in 2011, which strategically partitions the open floor plan into human-scaled rooms and zones identified by bright colors and furniture patterns.

The article concludes that as the way we live and shop continues to change, our built environment will need to adapt, and all of the various typologies currently found in suburbia will take on new roles. And while in their current form, big box stores are widely unloved, Kohlstedt argues it is that precise distaste that may save them in the end:

“In many ways, these various suburban typologies are particularly well-suited to adaptation: no one cares about what happens to unloved structures, making them perfect candidates for complete transformations.”

© Matt Kocourek. Courtesy of 360 Architecture

For more big box transformations and to read Kohlstedt’s analysis in its entirety, visit 99% invisible, here.

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Atrium Tower Lobby / Tomer Gelfand LTD

June 29, 2016signordalLeave a comment

Architects: Tomer Gelfand LTD
Location: Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Itay Sikolski (NUMSIX)

From the architect. The newest addition to Israel’s growing Diamond Exchange District is the uniquely geometrical Amot Atrium Tower, designed by prominent architect Moshe Zur. At 158 meters and with 38 floors of retail, the glass skyscraper holds a LEED platinum certification – the first of its kind in Israel. The building’s name is drawn from its impressive atrium entrance hall, designed by architect Oded Halaf, who incepted a radical idea: constructing a sculptural stair element into the orthogonal, glass-encased, four-story high lobby; a complex and seemingly impossible assignment, which had to be commissioned to a professional who holds knowledge, experience and immense creativity.

Enter Tomer Gelfand: a masterful craftsman who specializes in giving architectural solutions to engineering problems. Since inheriting his father’s 1976-founded studio, Gelfand practices design implementations in wood, stainless steel, and glass. Over the 18-months period, since Halaf presented his rough sketch of the stairs to Gelfand, the latter managed to design, execute, supervise and finalize all stages of construction, turning Halaf’s dream into a reality.

The stair structure is composed of two interlocking parts: a skeletal metal staircase and a sculptural wooden envelope. Together, they rise as an expressive tornado from the reception desk – conceived as the inception plateau and up to the first-floor mezzanine, fourteen meters above. To make this happen, Gelfand devised a system of continuous wooden profiles, that may seem flexible and bendable – but is in fact extremely stiff and stable. Gelfand began by implementing an MRI-type scan to the skeleton, cutting vertically through the structure and generating sections in the width of the given wooden profile. The tremendous amount of resulted sections, each exported with a different radius requirement, produced a seemingly-endless amount of arches. In order to deal with this abundance, Gelfand narrowed it down to ‘master-arches’ – devised by calculating the wooden profile’s average bend tolerance, which dictated the ‘master-arches’ radius and angle.

Next was creating the radial profiles from the material itself: a total of 9,000 meters in length of raw Poplar wood was cut in a CNC machine to create the inventory of master-arches modules, each coded genetically and marked to fit precisely in the grand scheme. As each piece was non-interchangeable, every measure had to be taken in advance to ensure the coherency of the final implementation: For example, each of the connecting points between the modules was completed with a reverse radius; together, it forms a sinus-like wave, thus creating a seamless transition. In addition, the digital saw through the raw wood presented with various natural colors. To solve this, a palate of 12 average shades was drawn from the Poplar pieces and then applied to the modules.

Lastly, the coded profiles were delivered to the site for the final puzzle work: a precise, four-month long delicate work of assembly, managed and supervised by Gelfand himself. The final result encapsulated the paradox of contemporary creation: what appears as an artistic, hand-drawn gesture, is, in fact, a result of an algorithmic data processing and the product of countless interchangeable pieces. Seemingly arbitrary yet utterly computerized; nature’s matter harnessed by today’s true artists of technology.

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Cool Capital: Inside South Africa’s Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale

June 29, 2016signordalLeave a comment

© Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

As part of ArchDaily’s coverage of the 2016 Venice Biennale, we are presenting a series of articles written by the curators of the exhibitions and installations on show.

In line with creative director Alejandro Aravena’s theme for the 15th La Biennale di Venezia “Reporting from the Front”, the 2016 South African pavilion at building D in the Sale d’Armi presents successful physical outcomes and practical solutions to urban challenges, conceived and implemented by citizens for the citizens of the administrative capital city of South Africa under the umbrella organization of “Cool Capital”.

Curated by architect Pieter J. Mathews of Mathews & Associates Architects, this year’s South African Pavilion is called “The Capital of Uncurated Design Citizenship”, and showcases a selection of projects from Cool Capital – an urban experiment and labour of love for Mathews and a small team of dedicated architects, artists and designers that began in 2012, coincidentally at the 2012 Biennale Architettura.

Cool Capital’s urban laboratory is Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital city situated 60km north of Johannesburg. Often overlooked as an international tourist destination, Pretoria is a typical landlocked capital city: The perception exists that this city, populated with historic government buildings, stoic monuments and many reminders of an uncomfortable past, is suspended in a bygone and uninspiring time-warp. Cool Capital proved this wrong.

Aravena’s creative call refers to the power of citizens to become active agents in the making, shaping and re-imagining of their own built environment, and it is exactly in this spirit that Cool Capital was launched. Starting out with with relatively few participants, the project quickly mushroomed into a city-wide movement with over 1000 active participants and an ever-increasing social media following.

It wasn’t long before the private sector and educational institutions aligned themselves with Cool Capital’s self-appointed creative commanders, not only seeing the potential of powerful partnerships, but also the chance to use Cool Capital as a laboratory to test out ideas of public ownership and engagement.

Locally referred to as the world’s first uncurated, DIY guerrilla biennale, Cool Capital’s intent was simple: to dislodge the bureaucratic relationship between citizens and public space and to encourage a new appreciation of where they live. The project encouraged citizens to rediscover marginalized or forgotten parts of the city and to collaborate and become active agents in the creative rethinking of Pretoria as home, place, destination and capital city. All of Cool Capital‘s projects either challenged, celebrated or leveled the status quo.

The South African pavilion proves that by short-circuiting the usual bureaucratic processes of permissions and approvals, a city can be effectively democratized in a creative sense, leading to substantial and sustainable empowerment, and above all – a new type of social cohesion for South Africa. It continues ideas of urban renewal in the public realm but urges that this discussion should not only be among industry professionals, but also include the broader general public.

South Africa’s refreshingly unconstrained pavilion features some physical installations pieces from Pretoria, a short documentary film of the inaugural event and the whole collection of 150 citizen-led projects by 1000 participants in the form of a catalogue available at the pavilion and bookstore. The exhibition presents visitors with the passion, diversity and commitment of the residents of Pretoria and demonstrates what can be achieved when citizens are provided with a platform to constructively engage with issues they identify in the realm of architecture, art and design. The Cool Capital project has already proven that this approach can cement one city’s reputation as a notable centre for Africanurban innovation. Real creative change does not come from administrative policy, but lies in the hands and minds of an innovative and engaged citizenry.

According to the pavilion’s commissioner, Mr. Saul Molobi, “South Africa’s participation in the Biennale contributes to international relations and gives exposure to South African talent to the world. This year will also be historic in the sense that we will not be taking only a few exclusive architects or artists’ work, but rather the projects of over 1000 South African participants, probably making this one of the most representative pavilions in the history of SA’s involvement with the Biennale. We look forward to this cultural diplomacy project entrenching South Africa’s positive image in Italy and thereby increasing our country’s brand equity”.

This year Cool Capital in Pretoria is continuing concurrently with the Venice Architecture Biennale under the theme “small is big”.

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Memory Garden in Vinaròs / Camilla Mileto + Fernando Vegas

June 29, 2016signordalLeave a comment

Architects: Camilla Mileto, Fernando Vegas
Location: Carrer de Sant Francesc & Carrer de l’Hospital, 12500 Vinaròs, Castelló, Spain
Project Year: 2015
Photography: Vicente A. Jiménez

Promotor: Ayuntamiento de Vinaroz
Architects: Camilla Mileto, Fernando Vegas
Installations: Antonio Vte. Martí Guillamón, ingeniero
Lighting: Elías Hurtado Pérez, ingeniero
Stucture: Adolfo Alonso Durá, arquitecto
Budget Control: Salvador Tomás Márquez, arquitecto técnico
Garden Advisory : Marta Edo Albalate
Contributors: M. Soledad García Sáez, Lidia García Soriano, F. Javier Gómez Patrocinio, Isabel Segovia Campos
Project Direction: Camilla Mileto y Fernando Vegas, arquitectos (UPV)Universitat Politècnica de Valencia
Director Of Execution: Salvador Tomás Márquez, arquitecto técnico
Project Collaborators: M. Soledad García Sáez, Lidia García Soriano, F. Javier Gómez Patrocinio
Archeology: Noema Restauradores S.L.
Archeology Study: Pablo Rodríguez Navarro (UPV)
Restorer: Noema Restauradores S.L.
Constuction: Construcciones Rafael Zarzoso S.L.
Garden: U.T.E. Jardines

From the architect. In 2001 the church and convent of San Francisco, in the Castellón town of Vinaroz were demolished and only part of the north outer wall and the indoor flooring were left standing. Following this unfortunate event, what had been the site of the church and convent was asphalted and used as a parking space, and over the years the remains of the outer wall and flooring greatly deteriorated due to natural causes and vandalism.

The garden of San Francisco was born from the archaeological remains of the original 17th-century convent and designed to evoke the historic memory of the building, as well as that of the gardens and orchards surrounding it, aiming to restore dignity to the site and transform it into a place for meeting, relaxation and amusement, recovering a living space for the community.

The traces of the former walls of the convent were discovered when the new asphalt was broken up and have been built up to form garden seats using the original building ashlars, stones, tiles and roof tiles found during the excavation. The aim of this operation was to evoke the original convent by incorporating the archaeological remains, rather than adding to the municipal landfill where these remains and their unique background would be amalgamated with many others to finally become environmental waste. The surviving church wall has been carefully restored using remains and imprints of renderings, paintings, joinery, etc., as well as the remains of adjoining houses which had enabled the wall to survive until the present day.

The area inside the convent and church was paved with local stone, allowing the different spaces to be clearly distinguished. While the pavement in the church area is closely spaced and follows the bays of the original building, the convent area features spaces for vegetation to grow between the pavement slabs, perfectly integrated into the garden as a whole. The remains of the masonry walls and pebble paving of the convent found on the ground interact with the vegetation of the garden, blending into it.

The square still preserves many underground crypts and archaeological remains which have been respected for the future following the necessary cleaning. In addition to recovering and restoring the traces of the convent and church, the original access from calle San Francisco through the fence which surrounds the whole area has also been recovered, and new accesses to the surrounding square have also been incorporated.

In addition, the surviving vegetation, palm trees and a cypress, have been preserved and used as the basis for the new vegetation in the garden areas.

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Pavilion of Reflections / Studio Tom Emerson

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Architects: Studio Tom Emerson
Location: Zürich, Switzerland
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Courtesy of Studio Tom Emerson

Staff: Prof. Tom Emerson, Boris Gusic, Adrian Heusser, Celine Bessire, Daniel Ganz, Iela Herrling, Christoph Junk, Guillaume Othenin-Girard, Philip Shelley, Lucy Styles, Thomasine Wolfensberger, Nemanja Zimonjic
Student Team: Christina Albert, Lorenzo Autieri, Vera Bannwart, Alexander Bradley, Arthur de Buren, Jonathan Egli, Josephine Eigner, Kathrin Füglister, Michelle Geilinger, Rudolf Goldschmidt, Dimitri Haefliger, Hannes Hermanek, Donia Jornod, Ricardo Joss, Thierry Jöhl, Phillipp Kraus, Roberto Leggeri, Lukas Loosli, Jonas Meylan, Karin Pfeifer, Jeremy Ratib, Nancy Reuland, Daria Rey, Hanna Schlösser, Valentina Sieber, Anna Maria Stallmann, Kaspar Stöbe, Anastasia Vaynberg, Claartje Vuurmans, Sonja Widmer
Eth Zürich Team: Philip Ursprung, gta, ETH Zürich / Marcel Aubert, Block Research Group ETH Zürich / Alessandro Tellini, Raplab D-Arch ETH Zürich / Brigitte Schiesser, Legal Dept. ETH Zürich
Engineering: Hansbeat Reusser, Holzbaubüro Reusser GmbH / Christoph Müller, Holzbaubüro Reusser GmbH / Andreas Kocher, Holzbaubüro Reusser GmbH / Simon Rehm, Holzbaubüro Reusser GmbH / Samuel Jucker, Willy Stäubli Ing. AG / Robert Jockwer Institut für Baustatik und Konstruktion IBK ETH Zürich
Forestry: Kanton Zürich, Baudirektion, Amt für Landwirtschaft und Natur, Erwin Schmid, Waldwirtschaftsverband Zürich, Vereinigung der Zürcher Waldbesitzer, Kaspar Reutimann
Timber Processing: Martin Keller, Sägerei Konrad Keller AG / Holzwewrkstoffe Notter AG / Katharina Lehmann, Blumer-Lehmann AG
Timber Construction: Hannes Jedele, Handholzwerk / Falco Horb, Handholzwerk / Laura Peisker, Handholzwerk / Karl Rühle
Gewerbliche Berufsschule Wetzikon: Peter Isler
Tools: Robert Bosch AG Power Tools / Raplab D-ARCH / Alessandro Tellini / Daniel Bachmann
Mechanical Fastening: Beat Ruch, SFS Unimarkt AG / Thomas Graber, SFS Unimarket AG
Roof Cladding: Gaudenz Wieland, Eternit AG / Ueli Schweizer, Eternit AG / Pierre Jelovcan , Preisig AG
Steel Prefabrication: Tanja Pichler, Stahlbau Pichler / Daniel Raffeiner, Stahlbau Pichler AG / Albert Hofer, Stahlbaupichler AG
Steel Assembly: Samuel Jucker, Willy Stäubli Ing AG
Scaffolding: Fix Gerüstbau AG / Beat and Gina Ingold
Stadt Zürich: Alex Schilling, Kultur Stadt Zürich / Werner Klaus, Wasserschutzpolizei Stadt Zürich
Lake: Beat Schwengeler, Zürcher Segelclub / Thomas Hartmann, Zürichsee-Schifffahrtsgesellschaft AG / Conny Hürlimann, Zürichsee-Schifffahrtsgesellschaft AG / Marco Rizzi, Zürichsee-Schifffahrtsgesellschaft AG
Fabrication Hall: Firma Geilinger AG / Andreas Gerster, Geilinger AG / Thomas Rickenbach, Geilinger AG
Construction Site: Kibag
Special Things: Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen AG (St. Gallen)
Film Maker: Gavin Emerson, Holy Cow Productions
Helping Hands: David Moser, Student ETH Zürich / Noël Picco, Student ETH Zürich / Lena Stolze, Student ETH Zürich / Lukas Fink, Student ETH Zürich / Micha Ringger, Student ETH Zürich / Milena Buchwalder, Student ETH Zürich / Beatriz Klettner Soler, Student ETH Zürich / Deborah Suter, Student ETH Zürich / Sebastian Oswald, Student ETH Zürich / Daniel Schneider, Student ETH Zürich / Tibor Rossi, Student ETH Zürich / Laszlo Blaser, Student ETH Zürich / Angela Burkart

From the architect. A team of thirty architecture students from Studio Tom Emerson at ETH Zurich have designed and built a pavilion for Manifesta 11, the nomadic, European biennial of contemporary art. Floating in the lake against the backdrop of the city centre, the Pavillon of Reflections serves as the biennial’s public forum: as a meeting point, as a cinema for screening films produced as part of the biennial, reflected in the public swimming bath, open to the public during the day.

A timber island, arrange like a fragment of intimate urban space enclosed by five buildings: a tower, a tribune, a bar, a sun deck with changing cubicles below, a central pool with cinema screen above, and three generous sets of steps that lead into the lake. Together with the tower, the volumetric roofs over the bar are built up from a distinct profile of timber lattice roofs.

Under the guidance of Tom Emerson and project leaders Boris Gusic and Adrian Heusser the 32 architecture students at ETH Zurich collectively concieved and built the pavilion. The project began with an ideas competition between smaller groups of students, from which the most promising ideas were identified and developed. Organising themselves into smaller teams, they worked at different scales, from considering its position on the lake, right down to 1:1 scale prototypes. As well as the design process, the democratic construction techniques employed informed the design: the pavilion is made almost entirely of timber (European spruce), and all joints were designed to be simply screwed together. The students worked over ten months to bring the many design-related, technical and organisational dimensions of the project together to in a multi-layered and ultimately buildable work of architecture. As the project grew, experts and volunteers helped the 32 original students to realise this exceptional public space floating in lake Zurich.

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OMA, Foster + Partners Among List of Finalists for Museo del Prado Redesign

June 29, 2016signordalLeave a comment

Museo del Prado's Hall of Realms. Image © Wikimedia CC user Zaqarbal. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 ES

Madrid’s Museo del Prado has announced the finalists for the competition to redesign and transform the museum’s Hall of Realms. Among the list are acclaimed firms OMA; Souto Moura Arquitectos; a team of Foster + Partners – Rubio Arquitectos; B720 Arquitectos – David Chipperfield Architects; Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos; Nieto Sobejano Architects; Stedebouw B.V.; Juan Miguel Hernández León – Carlos de Riaño Lozano; Garces de Seta Bonet Arquitectes – Pedro Feducci Canosa; and Gluckman Tang Architects – Estudio Alvarez Sala – Enguita and Lasso de la Vega.

Each finalist has previous experience in transforming older buildings into modern museums. They will now compete for the chance to reimagine the Hall of Realms of Madrid, providing the Prado with 2,500 square meters of new exhibition space and an additional 2,900 square meters for supporting spaces. The hall was once used by Spanish royalty and most recently served as the home of the Museum Del Ejercito, or Army Museum, before becoming a part of the Prado in October 2015.

The new hall could play host to a major exhibition on the relationship between Spain, the American Continent and the independence of Latin American countries. Four or five existing elements of the building will be preserved, and new space will be allocated to housing traveling exhibitions.

Final proposals for the competition are due on October 30, 2016, and the jury will select a winner before the end of the year.

News via EL PAÍS and Museo del Prado

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