From the architect. Building refurbishment and adaptation to Hostel in Quarteira, Portugal.
The intervention consists on the rehabilitation and extension of an old building dated from 1896. The building is inserted in the centre of the touristic city of Quarteira in Algarve. Originally the building was erected to dwell the workers from the fish canning industry that was expanding in the region in the last quarter of the XIX century.
Since that the building was kept in the same family and has survived to the touristic boom since the 1970’s. The fast growth of the city has transformed the cityscape from an average of two floors to more than six floors in the last forty years. The building has a squared footprint and all facades free; two for the street and other two for a courtyard.
The strategy for the intervention was to keep the original support walls much as possible, and extend one extra floor in the roof. To archive this, was used a structural light steel framework system for part of the first floor and for new second floor.
The original space distribution revealed a simple frame organization along a corridor that crossed the building in half. This organization grid was kept in both original floors. The new floor turns the corridor perpendicular to its original position allowing the roof to lift and bring indirect light throughout two clerestory windows.
Exploded Axonometric
The new floor assumes a different finishing material which takes advantage of the structural framework with thinner elements to enhance the expression of the new windows.
The materials chosen reflect cost-efficient strategy where only three materials cover all finishing surfaces: The hydraulic floor tiles based on local colors (blues and yellows) and geometric patterns which covers all public areas and corridors; The wet areas finished with small tiles 10x10cm and an industrial wood panel OSB that is present in every space of the hostel, in furniture, flooring in bedrooms, the bunk beds, the kitchen and the wainscoting.
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The program is separated by floors: In the ground floor the common areas; reception, common kitchen; lounge area and a bar. The first floor holds the mixed dorms with shared bathrooms; and in the second floor holds the double rooms with private bathrooms.
The site consisted of a 100 plus year old derelict blacksmiths forge and the crumbling ruins of an attached blacksmiths cottage sitting on the edge of a busy country road; however, it also benefits from some of the best coastal and rural views on the North Antrim Coast. The site is located in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on agricultural land running down to the entrance of the Dunluce Castle site and has uninterrupted panoramic views from Donegal to Scotland. It is the only structure on the sea side of the road in this location. Due to its prominent location and Natural Beauty the local Planning Authority had refused the previous attempts to develop the site.
2020 Architects became involved in the project when Senior Architect Michael Howe and his Partner Michele Long bought the potential site with the hope of creating a family home. Due to the prominent nature of the site, the unique views and the area of outstanding natural beauty we knew that the design had to be an exemplar of rural design. Over the last 5 years Northern Ireland Architecture has found a confident modern voice and have begun to lead the way in domestic architectural design in the UK, supported by the fact that 4 of the 20 houses chosen for the ‘Manser Award’ were from this country. We wanted to use this project to progress this new found Architectural confidence, producing a building which was unashamedly modern but one which couldn’t exist anywhere but Ireland.
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The design was born out of the restrictions of the site negotiated with the Planning Department through early consultation. The concept was conservation of the old forge and the rebuilding the ruins of the original dwelling creating a visual barrier for a modern highly glazed curved roof living accommodation block to sit behind. These two blocks are only visible together gable on; the two gables create strong basic shapes that are can be seen in the agricultural buildings throughout the Irish Countryside. 2020 Architects and the planners wanted to retain as much of the original forge as possible, conserving the character which would help to ground the design in the Irish vernacular. The curved roofed element of the extension was a solution to the need for two storeys while still being lower than the roof of the original forge. The two strong forms are divided by a flat roofed section planted as a wild flower meadow. Due to the sloping nature of the site the building increases in height as you drive along the road from west to east, this is an original feature which we wanted to use to enhance the drama of design internally.
The completed house creates a guided journey from the moment a visitor arrives on site; it unfurls slowly leading the visitor through differing scenes. The dwelling is approached from the lower western gable where the flat roof of the dividing section is at eye level and the two strong forms frame a long view over the wild flowers towards the grassed field and sea beyond, this view and stepped path guides yours approach to a very human scale front door between the two extruded forms. On opening the door a 16m long wall of natural unpainted stone pulls your eye into the depth of the house, this 500mm thick stone wall was partially rebuilt using the original stone from the site and utilising traditional stone masonry skills of cement free lime mortar. The wall is a ‘touch stone’ for the house; it can be viewed from all but one room and continually ties the modern house back to the history of the site. The wall increases in scale as you walk down a corridor created by the wild flower roof above and between the two strong competing forms of the building. The tension of these two spaces sets up much of the drama of the house, the curving wall of the modern extension pushing against the heft of a massive stone element. The stone wall is puncture as little as possible to form openings to bedrooms and utility spaces beyond. A gap through the curved wall immediately gives a fleeting view of the living spaces beyond. The house is on 7 different levels ensuring that it integrates discreetly into the undulating fields beyond, three of these levels are passed through between the entrance and the living space.
From the architect. An oak-edged window providesa framed view ofthe living room within this Tokyo apartment, intended by Yumiko Miki Architects to recreate the effect of a still-life painting.
Architects Yumiko and Takashi Miki designed the Apartment in Machiya to reference a combination of iconic artworks, architecture and furniture pieces.
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A window inside Villa Malaparte – the seminal 1930s house by Italian architect Adalberto Libera – inspired the oak-framed aperture between the apartment’s kitchen and living area. The aim was to create a framed view of the living and dining space that resembles a painting.
To heighten the effect, the tones, colours and compositional balance of each room were designed to match the paintings of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi, which often featured very basic still-life scenes.
Bedrooms are located towards the front, on either side of the entrance corridor, with kitchen and bathroom spaces behind. The living space is at the end of the corridor, spanning the full width of the property.
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The architects were keen to use “solid” materials throughout, so combined oak and brass to create furniture pieces in each room. Floors are wooden, while walls and ceilings are painted white.
This “pure” and unfussy aesthetic also takes its cues from the iconic Miss Blanche armchair by designer Shiro Kuramata, according to the team. In the bedroom, a partitioning wall creates a closet on one side, and an area for the bed on the other.
Inside the closet space, clothes hang from a brass pole suspended across two pieces of looped leather. Solid wood planks were used to create a raised platform for the bed.
Bing Thom Architects have released new images for Hong Kong’s Xiqu Centre, designed in collaboration with Ronald Lu & Partners. Currently under construction, the building is scheduled for completion in 2017, becoming the first venue to open within the new West Kowloon Cultural District. The Xiqu Centre will serve as the home of the Chinese Opera, as well as play host to an array of cultural events.
Conceived as a cultural sanctuary containing spaces for theatre, art and contemplation, the project draws inspiration from “the soft glow of a lantern behind a beaded curtain,” lighting up the street through four main openings and a series of lightboxes on the building’s elevation. The center’s form reinterprets the traditional Chinese motif of the Moongate to become the gateway into the cultural district – master planned by Foster + Partners – and expresses the concept of “qi” or flow through its curvilinear paths and elements.
Courtesy of Bing Thom Architects
To enable the ground floor to become an open plaza space, Xiqu Centre’s main theater has been lifted several levels into the air, a move that also isolates the theater from the vibrations and ambient noise from the metro station below the site, creating a quiet space suitable for an opera house. The acoustics within the theater itself have been carefully designed to support the human voice by finely tuning reverberation time and targeting audience seating areas. Transformable acoustical devices including curtains and banners have also been added to ensure high clarity of sound for various types of performances.
Courtesy of Bing Thom Architects
The theatre’s lobby space is flanked by two outdoor sky gardens, and will feature panoramic views of nearby Victoria Harbor and Hong Kong’s iconic skyline beyond. Additional spaces within the structure include rehearsal rooms, classrooms, administrative offices, a teahouse theater and retail areas around the building’s central courtyard.
From the architect. Harasic y López Law Office is an open 500 square meters floor plan used by the law firm. The office is located on the 19th floor of a prominent building in Nueva Las Condes, a financial highlight district of Santiago. With this Project we explore different concepts such as integration into rigid spaces, lenguage of conservative spaces, hierarchies, recycling and expression of materials.
Working as a lawyer: Because the way of working, lawyers require, isolated spaces for concentrated work. Meetings are less common. This is very typical in both, large and small law offices. This frequently translates into a lot of rooms, corridors and disconnected spaces. In this proyect, to balance out this effect, we thought of a unique central space in which all the offices are organized within it. With this distribution we concentrate walking areas, force and promote encounters between people, and subsequently revitalize the common areas. The layout has a main and wide corridor that goes from north to south, receiving all day the sun from the north. The main meeting room is placed in the north at one end of the corridor, with views on to the Araucano park and theAndes mountains. Inmediately continuing are located partners offices, all of them with the same size and orientation, then associated lawyers and in between some minor meetings room that allow meetings at several points of the office. On the other side of the corridor are reception, library, secretaries desks, attornys, accouting office, dinning room and baths. Despite having different hierarchies of work, all converge inmediately following the personal office door in the same space.
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Recycling and expression of materials: The project was executed over a recent rehabilitacion which was no more than three years old. Given the waste generated construction projects, we kept or recycled some elements. For example, the tile floor was in excellent condition and was neutral, though it existed only in the half of the office we decided to keep it and complete the rest of the floor with the same flooring. The same with some parts of the ceiling and columns: in the past, part of a recreation of classic architecture, moldings included, now abstract block covered in wood. To generate a warm environment, we chose a second main texture-material, imbuía wood. Main walls and columns were recovered with dark imbuía wood. Also, frames, doors and furniture were treated with the same materiality. From it, the project has a neutral reading between these two materials. There is a constant dialogue. The reception walls are threated with travertine marble in planks cut with water and mate finishing. The decision of chosing marble was to reinforce the texture of the floor and not to add a third material. The decision of cutting the travertine into planks was exploring excercise to obtain a warm effect, and to give a different scale to the space that was treated mainly with these two neutral materials. To add a hand made finish we keep a space in the middle for fresco paintings.
Into the program there was a special requirement to have bookshelfs for more than 1350 archives plus kardex organizers. In the former office of this firm, these were located in the access wall of each office, hiding the entire interior. To give some transparency and publicity of interior acts we decided to put them in the middle of the back side corridor, designing a bookshelf wall. This bookshelf has a few small windows in between the doors that allows to see through to the other side of the corridor and to have an awareness of the space behind it. The neutral space is also a stage for sculptures and paintings of national artists in strategic points, such as the reception, corridor and main meeting room.
Penda has released plans for a series of stacked villas that will bring gardens high into the skies of Hyderabad, India. The complex is the second stage of the Magic Breeze project for Pooja Crafted Homes – the first stage featuring a landscape design inspired by Indian stepwells and water mazes. The 450,000 square foot (42,000 square meter) development will include 127 duplex sky villas, ranging in size from 2,600 to 4,000 square feet (240 to 370 square meters), each separated by a double-height private garden terrace. The structure will be integrated into the landscape design, turning the park on its side to continue vertically up the side of the building.
Courtesy of Penda
In designing the sky villa complex, Penda looked to the architectural typology of “private house with a garden,” surrounding each 2-story unit with a 500 square foot (46 square meter) balcony containing a ribbon of lawn and a modular planter system. By giving each villa a spacious green-space, even when the units are stacked, the complex retains a sense of lightness and openness. Each planter can be filled by the owner with plants of different sizes and species to create a natural backdrop, or to serve as a garden for vegetables and herbs.
Courtesy of Penda
The gardens also work as an effective passive cooling system for the building, providing natural ventilation throughout the complex and shielding residents from the hot Hyderabad climate. This in turn will save up to 60% of the energy consumed by a typical condominium building, reducing the project’s overall carbon footprint.
Courtesy of Penda
The entire complex was designed in accordance with the traditional Hindu architectural system of Vaastu, which prescribes principles of design, layout, orientation and spatial geometry, as well as an importance of creating architecture in harmony with nature. Vaastu remains an esteemed practice in modern Indian real estate development, being employed by famed Indian architect Charles Correa in many projects throughout his career. Penda responded to this need by giving as much space as possible back to nature in the form of garden terraces.
The complex is set to begin construction in the fall of this year.
From the architect. The “Maracaná” is a football stadium built during the years 2013-2014 in the popular El Chorrillo neighborhood in Panama City, Panama. The structure replaced an old sports field, baptized by the locals with the name of the legendary Rio de Janeiro stadium. The new building has capacity for five thousand spectators, and is the end point of a recent phase of the linear park that winds along the city’s coastline. El Chorrillo has a longstanding football tradition, and currently has two professional teams in the first division league. The construction of the stadium was part of an effort to provide this dense, low-income neighborhood with more public space and with attractions of metropolitan appeal, in order to better integrate it to the rest of the city. The building is used by a variety of professional and amateur leagues.
The structure is composed by four straight segments of stands, covered with vaulted roofs, and four “cubes”, one on each corner. Access for the public is located under the stands in the eastern and western wings, while the lower levels of the north and south wings house the locker rooms and office spaces, respectively. The access wings include the general lobbies, commercial stalls, and VIP boxes. The public restrooms are located inside the cubes. The structure combines steel and reinforced concrete columns, and includes a roof structure of steel trusses and semi-structural metal sheet.
The eastern and western wings are built over artificial earth mounds, one level above the northern and southern wings. This solution creates different heights for the roofs of the paired sides of the structure, thus generating a welcome dynamism to an otherwise symmetrical building. Architectural movement is also provided by the curved fronts of the eastern and western facades, which contrast with the straight fronts of the north and south wings, and by the curved outer edges of the four roof segments.
The four concrete cubes are the only “solid” components of the exterior facades, and are painted blue or red, in alternating fashion. For their part, the central sections of each facade are clad with rectangular, perforated steel sheets. The color of each cube is “pixelated” towards the center of each façade, transitioning into white before picking up the color of the cube in the opposing corner.
The perforated sheets and the raised roofs lend the building an open, light, and translucent appearance. Between the stands and the roofs, great views are opened and framed towards the bay, the city, the bridge over the canal, and the famous Ancón Hill. At those times of the day when the sun is close to the horizon, a spectacular light effect created by the perforated sheets animates the access lobbies. At night, the interior stadium lights turn the east and west facades into huge lamps of textured light.
View from Hickson Road pedestrian bridge. Image Courtesy of Tzannes
Adding to the growing trend of timber-framed architecture, Tzannes has released plans for International House Sydney, the “first modern commercial engineered timber building of its size and type in Australia.” Located in the new urban district of Barangaroo, the building was conceived as a gateway to the area, linking pedestrian infrastructure systems and providing six floors of new commercial space.
View from Hickson Road colonnade. Image Courtesy of Tzannes
Taking advantage of the structural capabilities of timber, Tzannes’ design features a colonnade of y-shaped members, giving the building a dynamic presence from the street and providing shade and cover for the pedestrian “Merchant’s Walk.” Behind the colonnade, the seven-story building is made up of two components: a two-story base housing retail that responds to surrounding pathways, and a simple glass envelope above that allows the building’s unique structural frame to be displayed from both the inside and outside.
View from Hickson Road. Image Courtesy of Tzannes
The building has been sited to complete the streetwall on Hickson Road, complementing surrounding buildings and acting as a transitional structure between the street and the towers to the west. The design interacts with the two pedestrian bridges flanking the project, drawing people into the ground-level public space and connecting Barangaroo with downtown Sydney.
In addition to the extensive use of structurally engineered timber, the design for International House Sydney employs recycled hardwood throughout. Noting the renewable and ecological character of timber-framed structures, Tzannes hopes that the project will be seen as a leader in environmentally sustainable design and will set an example for future development in the area.
View from Hickson Road pedestrian bridge. Image Courtesy of Tzannes
London’s Tate Modern just got bigger. Last week, the well-known modern art museum opened its new extension to the public. The so-called “Switch House” was designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, the same firm that designed the successful rehabilitation of the original Giles Gilbert Scott’s Bankside Power Station in 2000.
The museum could not be more satisfied: “It’s a dream,” says Tate Modern’s new director Frances Morris, “We’ve never had such an open space before. The possibilities are endless.” While critics generally approved of the design, they expressed mixed feelings for the addition’s materiality and urban character. Read on to find out more about the views of Frieze Magazine’s Douglas Murphy, The Evening Standard’s Robert Bevan, The Guardian’s Rowan Moore, and The Financial Times’ Edwin Heathcote.
Writing for Frieze Magazine, Douglas Murphy acknowledges the architectural form as being typical of Herzog & de Meuron, but questions the use of brick on the facades, as well as the use of similar visual codes for the two building parts:
The Switch House is by no means a simple box – it nearly matches the height of the monumental chimney of the power station, and has a twisted aspect familiar from H&dM’s work elsewhere, but it is deceptively cloaked in a skin of bricks that appear to be blending into rather than shouting over the original building, a strategy followed, with some exceptions, within.
Murphy admits that “moving around the new building is a joy,” especially “at the building’s sloping edges, where the bricks jut out in all directions, giving the silhouette the fuzziest of edges,” but he raises concerns for the quality of the finishes where the two building parts blend:
It’s not all great – externally the old and new parts don’t meet half as well as they should, while some of the internal detailing is hamstrung by the folded form. Not all the finishes are to top standard, sacrifices towards achieving an admirably low energy building, but overall the client and design team have created something entirely of a piece with the original, while adding a new layer of richness. Now all it needs are the sullen school groups.
In his review for the Evening Standard, Robert Bevan says that “the junction between old and new brickwork is awkward in places,” but supports the architects’ choice to unify the two parts as one organism by quoting Jacques Herzog: “The most important challenge was to make it all feel like one building. One thing with different atmospheres but the same organism.”
Yet Bevan questioned the relationship with the nearby plaza limiting the Neo Bankside residential buildings. “On the south side,” he explains, “a pointlessly winding path and high garden wall to the terrace above The Tanks means that the opportunity to enliven Sumner Street has been lost. Tate Modern’s immediate setting remains unnecessarily compromised. This is not the ‘city plaza’ that the architects promised.”
“Some of the glad-to-be-gloomy parts are plain glum. But if Tate Modern’s extension could be accused of having too much architecture, it is architecture that, once found, you wouldn’t want to lose.” – Rowan Moore, The Observer
For the Observer critic Rowan Moore, although “the perforated brickwork is too heavy to deliver the sun-dappled interior effects that it seems to promise,” and “there can be a lack of correspondence between the exterior structure and the interiors it contains,” the feedback is generally positive.
Moore values the brick surface, as it remarkably contrasts with the glass-facades of the Neo Bankside development across the street:
The building you are in, by contrast, a public art gallery attracting many millions a year, founded on the principles of openness and access to all, is solid and opaque. It sets its face against the dominant piety of modern public buildings that democracy = transparency = glass.
He also notes that the “consistent and insistent use of materials” – brick on the outside, and concrete on the inside – unifies the wide variety of spaces that the architects developed to answer curatorial needs. Also, materials “derive from the former power station,” and profit from the building’s historical value.
“Tate Modern has sucked the power of the past up from below ground to create one of the world’s most memorable and monumental museums of modern art – and its most popular.” – Edwin Heathcote, The Financial Times
Likewise, Edwin Heathcote of the Financial Times notes that “the most visible response to the museum’s new context of glassy towers comes in the form of a massive perforated brick tower.” In reference to Herzog and De Meuron’s concept of “organism,” Heathcote says “the parts are clearly different yet have a common genetic code.” He further adds:
From an urban point of view, what they have achieved here is quite remarkable. They have managed to integrate the former power station into the city and streets behind while maintaining its sense of presence and difference.
While the urban stance is of great importance, Heathcote concludes by praising the Switch House as a “clearly civic space”:
At £260m, this is an expensive project. Yet it feels anything but elitist: this is an open building in which the luxury is that it is ours.
From the architect. The House Carrara’s Project is located in the modernist city of Brasilia and has considered this topic as a determinant factor for its architectural concept and materials choice, also allied to the aesthetic sense the clients were looking for, after all, the environment and the architecture conceived had to be designed to be occupied by dreams, people and its objects.
Then, it was born a residential project for a couple and its two children, who loved cement, concrete and wood. Out of this dream the house has formed its shape with a clear and objective volume, intentionally creating integrated spaces allying functionality to the modernism required by the city and the family’s day life.
The project’s program consists of an intimate house on the top floor, where all the rooms give access to an extensive exposed balcony that acts as a big solarium for contemplation. This results in great environments for each resident.
On the ground floor, all the rooms are divided by operable doors and panels that aid in connecting and isolating spaces. Living room, home theater, kitchen, balcony and gourmet area are connected by the house’s transparency even with the use of concrete and wood panels. The use of the same type of flooring helps the perception of the grand scenario.
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The kitchen integrates with the dining room by folding doors that follow the same cumaru’s wood sheating of the large slatted wood panel hiding the stairs that give access to the top floor rooms, always seeking an intimate and direct circulation. The same flooring on the living room and the gourmet area creates the spaces’ breadth and integration.
The blind facade is structured by an apparent fuldget and concrete painting, to preserve the gray brutalist language of the proposed architecture. Rebars were used as panels on the frontal gate, strengthening the idea of the main materials of the project: cement, steel and wood.
The landscape was executed by Ana Paula Róseo’s office along with the client herself, who loves architecture and has always participated and helped on the project’s conception.
The pool is sheated on hijau’s stone, throwing back to the moments lived by the client who experienced traveling to Asia. The deck is made out of dehydrated wood with no varnish.
Sig Nordal 