From the architect. Conceptually, the A&M Houses have been an experiment in drawing a relationship and balance between a reduced footprint, comfortable living and maximised amenity.
The undulation of the roof line and the north facing skylights open up the narrow volumes to the sky above promoting the feeling of abundance of space. The detailing of large openings and the continuation of the limestone flooring into the courtyard spaces aims to create generous and seamless connections to the outdoors, visually expanding the constricted floor-plate. Zinc cladding and waxed stucco walls contribute to the material palette and respond to the client’s ‘no-maintenance’ brief and the site’s close proxiity to the beach as no painting is required – ever!.
Inhabitants of the A&M houses are encouraged to modify and adapt spaces to facilitate maximum amenity in both an environmental and social sense. The use of sliding wall panels in the form of timber screens, frosted glass and linen curtains eliminate the need for fixed swing doors and allows each space to open up or close off according to visual and acoustic privacy needs.
Central to the material selection was the requirement to eliminate future maintenance. Anodised aluminium windows and internally waxed walls have a higher initial cost to install, however will be a more cost effective outcome in the longer term. Sustainability is at the core of the project. A smaller footprint not only generally requires less energy in the manufacture of the components but also the running costs of the building. The house is not air-conditioned and the tiled floors are conditioned with hydronic heating. All windows are double glazed and have external electrically controlled blinds to allow the user to control comfort.
From the architect. A consolidated landscape surrounded by gardens with big trees within the metropolis of Madrid is the fortunate starting point of this house.
The piece, of metallic and horizontal nature, produces the effect of having just one storey. With its proportions and materiality it both contrasts and blends with the tall trees of its environment.
The scale of the house is moderated through the understanding of the day area as a base emerging from the same natural stone which paves part of the plot. The night zone is placed on it and focuses the view to the north and south while protecting itself from the eyes of the neighbours and generating shaded terraces in which to enjoy the exterior.
The substantially square plan is designed to unite the program in a compact way. The staircase and central inner atrium distribute the rooms, establishing a functional hierarchy in which all spaces open up to the garden.
Found in places as diverse as the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon, Willis Tower, and Tokyo Skytree, glass bottom observation decks have become the favorite engineering marvel of thrill seekers looking for a new perspective on the world. Now, the U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles has upped the ante for adrenaline-spiking structures – affixing a glass side to the building’s facade. Spanning from a window on the 70th story to a terrace on the 69th, the 45-foot-long chute opened to the public on Saturday, providing those brave enough to ride it with unprecedented views of the city.
The slide is made of made of four-inch-thick clear glass, and was designed by M. Ludvik Engineering. It constitutes the most daring part of Gensler’s $50 million renovation to the Harry Cobb-designed tower, which at 1,018 feet (310 meters) has held the distinction of tallest building in LA since its opening in 1989.
Suffering from occupancy rates hovering around 50 percent, in 2013 the U.S. Bank Tower was purchased by Singapore-based OUE Ltd., who set out to reinvigorate the skyscraper in hopes of riding the recent wave of revitalization hitting downtown LA spots like Pershing Square and FAB Park. About to lose the title of tallest tower to the Wilshire Grand tower opening next year, OUE needed something splashy to make the building stand out from the skyline. Thus, the Skyslide was born.
In addition to the Skyslide, other new facilities include redesigned lobby spaces, a café, a 54th story “transfer floor,” and a restaurant/bar, as well as California‘s tallest open-air observation deck.
From the architect. The overall vision was to create a space with a design that surrounds the Nordic kitchen to the dual atmosphere of city and garden – urban gardening. The idea was to create a vivid and organic space, as a garden party.
Plan 2
The heart of the restaurant is a large greenhouse, built through the two floors of the space, thereby transporting the guest into the sensation of a lush garden. The vision was to create a particular ambience, reminding you that you are seated right in the middle of the underground of old Copenhagen – just like plants live partly underground, so does the restaurant.
The restaurant is built on principles of environmental sustainability. Using recycled materials not only has a positive environmental impact by reducing waste, it also offered the designers and architects unique and historical materials that adds on to the authenticity.
Here is a list of the things we have (re)used : ⁃ The shelves in the bar is made of file drawers from the National Bank ‘s archive. ⁃ All mahogany fillets are made out of the old grandstand from a stadium (Lyngby Stadion). ⁃ Glass shelves comes from Denmark’s first P – house, garages Palace in Copenhagen from 1934. ⁃ Auditorium chairs in the characteristic style of 50’erne- 60s in teakwood from an old High School. ⁃ Old Swedish fruit boxes ⁃ the bar is made of old Swedish Scaffolding planks. ⁃ The floor of the basement is made of old floorboards from an old factory ⁃ Cabinet fronts in the bar is made of old floorboards. ⁃ The lamps are made of old zinc milk cans. ⁃ The Sails in the basement is made of old tablecloths.
“They are projects that cannot be bought, cannot be owned, cannot be possess, to be kept; they are projects in total freedom. Nobody can own this, because if you own something, it’s not free.” -Christo
In this latest video from NOWNESS, Bulgarian artist Christo explains the fleeting nature of his most recent work, The Floating Piers, a floating dock system wrapped in yellow fabric that connects the towns of Sulzano and Peschiera Maraglio to the island of San Paolo in Italy’s Lake Iseo. First conceived by Christo alongside his late wife and creative partner Jeanne-Claude in 1970, The Floating Piers is in the midst of its 16 day run, lasting until July 3rd. After the conclusion of the exhibition, all components will be removed and industrially recycled, leaving its site precisely the way it was found.
“This is why they are made, for everybody, exist in this very precious time and never again, like our life.”
From the architect. This recently completed addition grew out of the desire to make a building of creative opposites. The addition is designed to in many ways be the antithesis of the existing Kline Center.
This idea of designing the addition in contrast to the existing building led the (then) president Bill Durden to remark on at an early meeting, “I get it, you are renovating, reimagining, revitalizing and rethinking the Kline Center. It should be called the Re_Kline.” The name stuck and we had a metaphoric talisman to guide our process. Its design strategy can be quickly summarized as a form of complementary contrasts.
This building is located on the edge of Dickinson College’s historic campus. Charted in 1783, Dickinson College was the first college in the newly formed United States. The first building on campus, Old West, was designed by Benjamin Latrobe in 1805, the architect of the United States Capital building. It’s restrained detailing in limestone reflected the austere and simple esthetic of the founders, Benjamin Rush and John Dickinson’s vision for the campus.
This building is an addition to a 1980’s athletic complex designed by engineer Daniel Tully, which was constructed using a novel structural system of hyperbolic parabololoid roof shells. The new addition takes that structural system and turns it on its head as a design theme. If the original building was constructed using wooden glue-lam beams the new building is made of exposed steel. If the old building lacks connection to light the new building is filled with natural daylight. If the old building’s structure forms an undulating profile on the skyline the new building creates a quieter presence while referencing the existing building’s roof geometry in the structural steel which supports the facades aluminum sunshade. The pallet of materials for the new building picks up the grey coloration of the campus stone with its enclosure and integrated sunshade system detailed in anodized aluminum.
Site Plan
The addition is made up of a number of distinct constituent parts; a large outdoor covered piazza, a triangulated lobby and connecting sky lit concourse, wood clad office and café volume, a glass enclosed fitness center, a five court squash center and a south facing covered porch. The building was designed as the first part of a master plan. Consequently the residual spaces between the new addition and the original complex are sized to accommodate future growth. In their current state these spaces are designed as a series of garden courts for various athletic activities, such as tai chi, yoga, basketball and impromptu teaching.
Urbanistically the building fulfils a number of important roles within the campus proper. The outdoor covered piazza marks the western terminus of Dickinson Walk which forms the main pedestrian pathway though campus. The pathway continues inside through the lobby and along a two story concourse, which will in future phase eventually link all the athletic programs. At the southern end of the building, a covered porch stretches toward West High Street, one of the main thoroughfares of Carlisle, announcing athletics to the town and campus. At night the building becomes a luminous beacon at this end of the campus, opening up previously tucked away spaces to students and faculty.
Sketches
Dickinson College has a very strong commitment to sustainability in its curriculum, facilities, operations, culture and civic engagements. The new Kline Center Addition takes this sustainable approach holistically with a number of integrated design features. Some of these elements are visible and meant to contribute to the pedagogical strategy of sustainability. As a teaching tool, building’s environment can be manually tuned in the temperate seasons by admitting fresh air through low hopper windows and exhausting it by fan through skylight apertures. A second set of fans recirculate warm air in the winter. The sunshade system is designed to admit low level winter sun while deflecting the harsher summer light. A series of rain water gardens clean and filter street run off before diverting it to a hidden and below-grade water detention system. This system also retains the runoff from the existing building’s tent-like roofscape and remediates a broad area of the campus that was previously prone to flooding.
The Lucas Museum has been looking for a home in all the wrong places. Following months of fiery debate over the future of the museum’s proposed lakefront location, George Lucas announced that he is abandoning plans to build the project in Chicago and will instead return to looking for a site in California. This is the second failed location for the museum, after being rejected by San Francisco’s Presidio Trust in early 2014.
As it stands now, the site in question is occupied by a 1,500-space parking lot just south of Soldier Field that serves as a tailgating area during the Chicago Bears’ 8 annual home games. Proponents of the museum had argued that the project would bring “an iconic architectural structure and additional green space to an otherwise blank, paved, and bleak city landscape” and provide thousands of jobs, without costing taxpayers any money.
But Friends of the Parks feared the implications of placing a private museum on the public lakefront, claiming that the project was in violation of the public trust doctrine, which states that governments must protect certain natural resources for public use. They had hoped instead to preserve the land to someday become a vast park. While the group had hinted at comprise in recent discussions, the lawsuit was never withdrawn, prompting Lucas to take action.
“No one benefits from continuing their seemingly unending litigation to protect a parking lot,” said Lucas. “The actions initiated by Friends of Parks and their recent attempts to extract concessions from the city have effectively overridden approvals received from numerous democratically elected bodies of government.”
The museum will now return to pursuing a location in California, Lucas’ birthplace and home to many of the filming locations for Star Wars, the famous movie franchise created by Lucas. Potential sites include an island in the middle of San Francisco Bay and the city of Los Angeles, which has publicly expressed interest in the project.
¿How to place a house in a suburban landscape in the hills? This was the main challenge of this project, that had to be placed in a fast growing suburban neighborhood in the first undulations of the sierras, in the outskirts of Córdoba city. The development of sub-urbanization in the sierras, has the main problem of destroying the landscape and the native forest, while expanding the urban area towards natural landscape.
When facing the problem of how to stand with the architecture in the site, it was a premise to work taking profit of the topography, making sure that the new construction doesn’t interfere with the surrounding landscape, maintaining the possibility of viewing the native forest through the house at the back side of the site. To do this, we decided to bury the main parts of the house below the street level, hiding it. By doing this, we achieve an intense relation with the surrounding landscape, by generating a strong contrast between the silent geometry of the brick cubes that emerge from the green roof of the buried house, and the green native forest downhill.
Plan
Diagram
The rooms of the house, all of them oriented north, fully opens to a private garden surrounded by typical trees of the sierras, while they hide themselves from the street and the south, gaining privacy for the house. Small interior courtyards, separates the rooms of the house from the contention wall, allowing crossed ventilation, that together with the green roof, climate the house in a natural way. From the street, we can only see two blind volumes. There are two main entrances, one for pedestrians, the other one for cars, that appears like two excavations descending down to the main level of the house.
Lasting for close to two decades now, the annual Serpentine Gallery Pavilion Exhibition has become one of the most anticipated architectural events in London and for the global architecture community. With this year’s edition featuring not just one pavilion but four additional “summer houses,” the program shows no sign of slowing down. Each of the previous sixteen pavilions have been thought-provoking, leaving an indelible mark and strong message to the architectural community. And even though each of the past pavilions are removed from the site after their short summer stints to occupy far-flung private estates, they continue to be shared through photographs, and in architectural lectures. With the launch of the 16th Pavilion this month, we take a look back at all the previous pavilions and their significance to the architecturally-minded public.
The premise behind the creation of the pavilions is simple: an architect who has not built in the UK is given the opportunity to showcase their talents and hopefully gain exposure. They are invited to build a temporary pavilion on the grounds of the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde ParkLondon, England. Each invited architect is given six months, within receiving the commission, to construct the pavilion, then the exhibit is opened for the public’s exploration for the remainder of the summer. The program’s short timeline and limited scope creates the perfect environment for experimentation—safely distanced from pragmatic functions, this is architecture for the sake of architecture. For 17 years, the Serpentine Gallery has provided a significant platform from which to publicize architectural experimentation and avant-gardism, an arrangement from which the designers and the public benefit.
Perhaps there is no architect more perfect than the late Zaha Hadid to set the tone for the Pavilion program. Simultaneously praised and dismissed by many in her early career as a “paper architect,” Hadid is well-known for wild geometries and highly experimental designs. For her first built project in her home country, the now world-famous architect created a tent-like structure that was supported by a triangulated framework.
Entitled “Eighteen Turns,” Libeskind’s Serpentine pavilion was created from sheer metallic planes that were assembled in a dynamic sequence—the same origami-like operations and rigid metal facade that we see in a more significant project: The Berlin Jewish Museum. Having been launched within the same year, it begs to be asked whether the pavilion was simply inspired by the design of the museum, or whether the pavilion was deliberately designed to serve as a teaser for a highly-anticipated, larger and more permanent project to come.
Though it appears to comprise of random triangular and trapezoidal shapes, the facade of the Ito’s Pavilion was in fact based on an algorithm derived from a cube which expands as it rotates. The interplay between light, dark, transparent, translucent and solid created an interesting spatial condition in the interior.
Oscar Niemeyer’s Pavilion took us back to the golden age of Modernism. Built in concrete, painted in white and accessed by a ramp, the designer seemingly created an exhibit of the very elements of his notable mid-century buildings. The famous Brazilian architect, whose sketches are widely published, held the principle that every project must be simple enough to be summarized in a simple illustration and that is certainly applicable in this exhibit.
2004: MVRDV (unbuilt)
Due to time and budgetary constraints, MVRDV was unable to realize their plan of building a mountainous structure.
This duo sought to pay homage to the Serpentine Gallery’s permanent neo-classical building and the hilly landscape of the site. The resulting design was achieved through a rectangular grid which has been distorted to created curvaceous forms.
Koolhaas, in partnership with Cecil Balmond, created a single-level circular pavilion which was protected from the elements by an “ovoid-shaped” inflatable canopy that would be lowered, or floated above the pavilion as a way to temper the effects of the daily weather. With a longer run than the preceding pavilions, Koolhaas envisioned a busy program for the pavilion, including 24-hour interviews. The architect made a case for the pavilion as a venue for attraction rather than just being the attraction itself.
The artist-architect collaboration between Eliasson and Thorsen of Snøhetta created another program-filled pavilion—causing the structure to be late for the Serpentine’s annual Summer Party which coincides with the pavilions’ launch. The timber clad multi-story pavilion, which was shaped like a spinning top, was the the most elaborate of all the pavilions up to this point and contained weekly public “experiments” lead by artists, scientists and practitioners.
Though Gehry’s Pavilion could easily be dismissed as just another iteration of his “wild” architecture he does find ways to challenge his work. While his pre-existing projects could be interpreted as an “explosion” of forms, Gehry’s pavilion was an inversion of that idea. The glass canopies of the Pavilion seemingly “implode” within a well-articulated framework. Collaborating for the first time with his son Samuel, the resulting structure was imagined to be a hybrid between an urban street leading to the Serpentine gallery and an amphitheater hosting a suite of talks and events.
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa’s design was perhaps the most straight-forward and structurally simple: a flat piece of highly-reflective aluminum supported by delicate columns. But in its simplicity their structure appears to “soar like smoke, melt like a sheet of metal, drift like a cloud, or flow like water.” Seen in plan view, they also incorporated a recurring form in their work: a conglomeration of curvilinear blob-like shapes.
Striking in red is Jean Nouvel’s pavilion for 2010 which coincided with the Serpentine Gallery’s 40th anniversary. The pavilion, which contained an auditorium, a cafe, and general public spaces reads the most as a “regular” building, though in the context of the Serpentine Pavilions that isn’t saying much. The vividly-colored polycarbonate and fabric structure embodied a playful spirit and contrasts with the green lawn throughout Kensington Garden similar to Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette.
Zumthor continued his play on solids and voids during his turn at the Serpentine Pavilion. Much like his previous work such as in the Therme Vals, the interplay became a means of creating various effects and setting contemplative or visceral moments within his buildings. Zumthor ultimately set out to realize a hortus conclusus: an enclosed garden meant to act as an intimate space that was designed by Dutch garden designer, Piet Oudolf.
Given the huge success of the previous collaboration between the Chinese artist and the Swiss architects during the Beijing Olympic Games, the launch of their first collaborative work in the UK was much-anticipated, as it also coincided with the London 2012 Games. With more than 10 predecessors on the Pavilion Program, the team took an archaeological approach. Digging a little over 5-feet below grade, a reflective floating platform was erected over 12 uniquely designed columns that pay homage to the 11 previous pavilions at Serpentine and one to represent itself. The pavilion read as an archaeological dig-site, encouraging the spectators to reflect about the Serpentine’s past.
Aptly nicknamed “the cloud,” Fujimoto’s Pavilion was an irregularly-shaped semi-transparent blob composed of light grid modules. The design built on a common theme of the architect’s work which often interrogates the relationship of architecture and nature. In other ways, the pavilion was strongly reminiscent of his most recent successful project at the time: House NA.
Of all the chosen architects, Chilean Smiljan Radic was the least-known before receiving the Serpentine commission, and from the least-known came arguably the most out-of-this-world. In an article by The Guardian, Radic’s design was likened to “a bulbous white cocoon, still sticky with the excretions of whatever creature made it,” but the “weird” structure had more thoughtful underpinnings. Responding to the thick and layered assemblies of buildings in the UK, Radic wanted to create an extremely thin building envelope. With a fiberglass skin of just 10 mm thick, the donut-shaped structure was juxtaposed with boulders scattered throughout the site.
Following the weirdest but most critically-acclaimed pavilion was perhaps the most critiqued. José Selgas and Lucía Cano of the Spain-based studio SelgasCano were commissioned for the Pavilion Program’s crystal anniversary. The pair envisioned a polyamorphous polygonal structure consisting of panels of woven translucent or multi-colored ETFE. Like a human-sized cat’s tube toy, the structure had multiple points of entry and exit and consisted of a number of different corridors. Hinging on the concept of pure visitor experience, the duo set out to build the structure in the most simple and elemental of manners: structure, light, transparency, shadows, change, and surprise.
BIG’s 2016 commission plays with space and dimension, transforming from a single line of tubular “bricks” at its top to an expansive space containing a cafe and public space below. The pavilion is also accompanied by four “summer houses” that have each been designed by an architect who has yet to build a permanent building in England, respectively being Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, Yona Friedman, and Asif Khan.
The project is located in Chilean Patagonia; Region X; on the eastern bank of The Rupanco Lake. The commission consisted of designing a gathering place for family life. The building was designed as a pavilion in the sense that the spaces can be used in different ways for different purposes.
The first level is organized around a double hearth with grill on one side and a chimney on the other. The dual condition allows the spaces to be configured for use as a barbeque areas as well as a living room and dining room. The second level houses a common space that can also be used as a bedroom. The structure that connects the first and second levels forms the roof of the exterior patio.
There were two key factors for the formal definition of the pavilion: the rain and winds molded the project. The building is a continuous corten steel fuselage designed to protect the various spaces form a changeable, extreme climate. The icy south wind of the summer is blocked by the bay on the first level. The northern winter winds are halted by the stairway that leads to the second level. Finally, the section that connects the two levels covers the exterior patio to protect it from the constant rains and sun. Two century-old trees round out the final location of the building in their relationships with nearby elements and the far-off landscape.
Hubo dos factores determinantes para la definición formal del pabellón; La lluvia y los vientos moldearon al proyecto. El edificio es un fuselaje continuo de acero corten para proteger a los distintos recintos de un clima cambiante y extremo. El helado viento sur del verano es detenido por la nave del primer nivel; El viento norte del invierno es frenado por la escalera que conduce al segundo nivel; finalmente la unión entre los dos niveles permite techar un patio exterior protegido de las constantes lluvias y del sol. Dos árboles centenarios terminan de configurar la ubicación final del edificio, tanto en sus relaciones próximas como con el paisaje lejano.
Sig Nordal 