Located close to Sagamihara station, approx. 40 min. from central Tokyo, “TRAYS”, a two-story apartment of 12 residential units stands in suburb residential area mixed with large apartment complexes and detached houses. Being designed within the framework of two-story wooden apartment building in architectural regulations, “TRAYS” materializes a quality comfort of privacy and space in living by introducing the concept of “TRAY”, a residential unit complete with dwelling unit, balcony, and porch as a detached house. “TRAY”s are stacked on top and aligned to form an apartment building.
“TRAYS” is built on maximum building coverage ratio as well as setback-line limit, utilizing the maximum volume allowed within the building condition of the premises. Porch, sandwiched between walls with arch shape opening, is a space in front of the door where tenants can put their bikes which also serves as corridor in continuation with “TRAY”s.
Diagram
Tenants need to go through the porches of other tenants to go outside the apartment, leaving ambiguity of the privacy of porch. With the limited number of tenants, 6 in each floor, we considered sharing porches is within the acceptable range. Glass wall facing the porch gives visible access to and from the interior, which can be adjusted with blinds.
Interior of “TRAY” is finished in white, partitioned by grey wall to segment porch, dwelling unit, and balcony. All residential units have lofts and high ceiling, making the maximum height of the two-story apartment almost 10 m. In proportion to the height of the apartment, outer walls of “TRAY”s are also high to secure the privacy from outside while diagonally cut walls in the balcony and porch allow intake of light and wind, defining unique form of the building.
As two-way evacuation route is not required by Building Standards Act, there is no evacuation route between the balconies, which contributes to the privacy of the balconies. The only openings in the balcony are glass wall, doors and window to the dwelling unit, and the balcony can be utilized as part of the dwelling unit.
The building condition of the premises allows three-story reinforced concrete apartment building, however two-story wooden apartment was chosen in consideration of rent balance. Being categorized as two-story wooden apartment with loft in building regulation, this apartment was designed as quasi-maisonette with better access to loft space which is spacious and habitable.
Courtesy of The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
The Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat have announced the winners of the 15th edition of the CTBUH Tall Building Awards. From over 100 submissions, the best buildings from four regions – the Americas, Asia & Australasia, Europe and Middle East & Africa – were selected, along with recipients of the Urban Habitat Award, the Innovation Award, the Performance Award and the 10 Year Award. The CTBUH will pick a global winner from the regional selections later this year.
The towers were chosen by a panel of architects from world-renowned firms and were judged on every aspect of performance, looking in particular for “those that have the greatest positive impact on the individuals who use these buildings and the cities they inhabit.”
“VIA 57 West is an inspired hybrid of the traditional courtyard block and high-rise tower. Its complex and intelligently orientated architecture maximizes occupants’ views to the Hudson River and activates the New York City waterfront with a dynamic new standard for integrated urban infill development.” – Juror Michael Palladino, Design Partner, Richard Meier & Partners Architects
“Shanghai Tower shows the greatest commitment to communal space in a tall building since Commerzbank Tower completed in 1997. It contains the world’s first truly ‘inhabitable’ double-skin façade on a skyscraper, which is not only remarkable for its intended greenery, but its incorporation into the tower’s overall ventilation strategy. The sacrifice of valuable floor area to realize this social amenity proves that the aspirations for Shanghai Tower went far beyond mere commercial gain.” – Juror Antony Wood, Executive Director, CTBUH
Yiorgis Yerolymbos, courtesy of Nice Day Developments. ImageThe White Walls / Ateliers Jean Nouvel
“The White Walls is a truly groundbreaking exercise in materiality, serving as a successful expression of the architectural and environmental values of the Mediterranean across the vertical axis. Extensive vegetation on the north façade and the presence of loggias on the south façade create a very real connection with nature, while the tower’s punctured concrete walls quite literally ‘bleed green’ with tangles of local plant species.” – Juror Karl Fender, Director, Fender Katsalidis Architects
“The Cube indicates a clear alternative to the extruded box typology that defines the majority of residential high-rises around the world, instead comprising a stack of completely unique villas in the sky. The tower is particularly successful in its structural design, which features a system of elegantly framed girder walls that add visual flair and allow for completely unobstructed floor plans.” – Juror Hashimah Hashim, Executive Director, KLCC Property Holdings Berhad
“The Wuhan Tiandi Mixed-Use Development demonstrates that a master plan for a tall building neighborhood can include vibrant public spaces that offer a high level of intimacy, walkability, and social design. The disposition of tall buildings combined with an animated public realm creates a vibrancy that is rarely found in newly created communities. The Wuhan Tiandi complex offers a high quality of life for those that live, work, and visit – a quality of life that rivals long established tall building neighborhoods found elsewhere in the world.” – Juror James Parakh, Urban Design Manager, City Planning Department of Toronto
“Walking along the base of Hearst Tower, you might not even realize that you are right next to one of New York’s greatest architectural achievements of the 2000s. Built directly on top of a 1920s office relic, the tower made the world reexamine what’s possible in terms of preserving historic low-rise buildings in a dense downtown core. There’s also something cathartic about the juxtaposition between its classically reserved base and contemporary diagrid structure above.” – CTBUH Trustee Timothy Johnson, Design Partner, NBBJ
“It is rare to see a commitment to upgrade an existing building to this level of environmental performance. The extensive documentation of its energy upgrades and sustainability initiatives speaks for itself; TAIPEI 101 has been the subject of a tireless and exhaustive effort to become one of the most sustainable tall buildings in the world, and it has been successful in this mission. In addition to a comprehensive set of green technologies and systems installed throughout the building, a rigorous occupant engagement program really puts this project in a league of its own.” – Technical Juror Bill Browning, Co-Founder, Terrapin Bright Green
“The Pin-Fuse system opens the door to realizing increased resilience in buildings constructed in highly active seismic regions. By providing just the right amount of give under pre-determined axial loads, the system is innovative for its tested impact on repair frequency, costs, and structural longevity for buildings that have experienced an earthquake.” – Technical Jury Chair SawTeen See, Managing Partner, Leslie E. Robertson Associates
For more information on the 2016 CTBUH Awards, visit their website here.
Creative Industries represent an 8% of the GDP for mexican economy. Inside Mexico City, the Colonia Condesa is identified today as a historical district because of the wealth of its modern architecture. It is also acknowledged as one of the most creative areas of Mexico City. Either recognized by its Art Deco or International style architecture, most contemporary architecture interventions of the area have been resolved primarily for residential use. Iñaki Echeverria’s office proposes one of the few solutions coming from contemporary architecture for designed workspaces in the area. Sonora 113 incorporates new architecture in the Colonia Condesa which resolves eight offices for creative industries in one of the most innovative districts of Mexico City.
Sonora 113 provides space for projects that require premier present- day spaces as an advertising agency or a well positioned office for interior design and architecture. The building also houses a commercial space on the ground floor.
To resolve this commercial space, the building design has preserved the original facade of the house. Thus, Sonora 113 coexists with the history of the neighborhood, while offering intelligent solutions to elite creative projects in one of the most creative neighborhoods in Mexico City.
Iñaki Echeverria’s office resolved from an area of just 8 meters wide and with 409 square meters in surface, an intelligent vertical solution of 2700 square meters of construction. This solution implies that the high degree of technical challenges defined Sonora 113 in its architectural design.
The building was designed in six levels and includes a square-a public access area of activity at the entrance of the building with a shop on the ground floor, plus an underground parking level.
An MVRDV designed library in Tianjin has topped out as part of the city’s Binhai Cultural Centre. The 34,200 square meter (370,000 square foot) building will join four other cultural institutions designed by Bernard Tschumi Architects, Bing Thom Architects, HH Design, and GMP – creating “cultural corridors” – that are part of a GMP-designed masterplan. The library program includes educational facilities, service spaces, book storage, archives, computer rooms, audio rooms, an auditorium, lounge areas, meeting rooms, offices, general reading areas, and those designed specifically for children and the elderly. Tianjin Binhai Library has been designed by MVRDV in collaboration with the TIanjin Urban Planning and Design Institute (TUPDI).
Courtesy of MVRDV
The library’s rectilinear outer envelope gives way to a topographic interior atrium that is centered by a spherical, mirrored auditorium. MVRDV compares the effect to a giant “eye” granting panoramic views of the building’s interior. The sphere is surrounded by terraced bookshelves that also double as seating and extend around the building’s exterior in the form of horizontal louvers. As the library’s exterior volume was stipulated in the site masterplan, MVRDV calls the “eye” an “inverted icon” or “central point and folly for the building.”
Courtesy of MVRDV
“The Eye is the centre of the library. It ‘hollows out’ the building and creates, out of bookshelves, an environment to sit, to read, to hang out, to climb and to access, to create an organic social space,” says MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas. “In its heart is the auditorium which mirrors the environment, giving a 360 degree panorama of the space inside; a truly reflective and pensive environment.”
Courtesy of MVRDV
Courtesy of MVRDV
Outside of functioning as a typical library, the building is meant to be both an education center and a connector from the adjacent parkland into the cultural district. As part of the 120,000 square meter (1.3 million square foot) masterplan by GMP, the complex is intended to be a junction for Tianjin’s CBD, old town, residential districts, commercial areas, and the government quarter.
Book Mountain Activity Zones
The library, MVRDV’s second project in Tianjin after TEDA Urban Fabric (completed in 2009), is anticipated to open in mid-2017.
From the architect. This peculiar and personal “loft” is located near Malvarrosa Beach, in the distinctive neighborhood of “El Cabañal” at Valencia City. The Origin house responded to the top floor of a very common type of town house between party walls. It’s accessed from the Street through a narrow staircase. The depth of plot required the existence of intermediate rooms that were illuminated and ventilated by a small courtyard; on the other hand, the kitchen and the “toilet” occupied the rear façade as attached parts, and connected through an ancient terrace that had been closed; Finally, throughout the house roof was a ceiling of plaster that hid the actual volume of the steep cover Gable.
Based on a program of basic needs that requires the existence of a single room and a terrace, the project arises as a “loft” in which the only closed part is the bath. In this way, the original volume is put in prospective value: all the interior partitions are deleted to create a unique space where everything happens.
The fundamental work was based, therefore, on removing and choosing what is going to stay. We only added a slight ‘platform’ that seems to float in the middle of space and contrasts in materiality with the rest of the original constructive elements.
Sections
Certain elements were preserved and brought to light, or even “reinterpreted” with another utility, so the past and the future of the house dialogue calmly:
-The anterior and posterior walls were left in the original brick wall, and the entire roof of wood beams was cleaned and restored.
-The old ceiling line was drawn in the space through various resources: with a few light volumetric changes, remaining the height of the original plaster cladding oh the pillars, and retaining the two main beams that supported it.
Floor Plan
-This preserved wood substructure became the space limit of the attic which is the bedroom, as well as used as part of the new railing glass.
-The small and narrow courtyard became a skylight which illuminates the heart of the House. An old window was preserved as a decorative piece, at the time that brought light to the dining area.
-The ancient woodwork was restored and painted in white to bring more light into the space. An old cupboard became a key piece that serves as a shelf, wardrobe, pantry and warehouse.
-The new linear kitchen which was situated in one of the walls was designed by contrast in gray tones that highlights two volumes twinned with a modern and clean image which moves away from the textures, colors and shapes of the rest of preserved woodwork.
Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter have been selected as the winners of an international competition to design The Icefjord Centre in the UNESCO-protected area of Ilulissat, Greenland. Beating out proposals from leading architects including Snøhetta, Rintala Eggertsson Architects and Kengo Kuma and Associates, the new pavilion will serve as an exhibition and gathering space for locals, tourists and researchers alike.
Courtesy of Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter
Selected by the jury for its “poetic, simple and visionary design,” the building takes the form of a giant wooden truss, allowing the structure to float delicately above the rugged landscape of the Sermermiut Valley. The framework is clad in wooden decking and twists to touch the ground on either end, providing access to the viewing platform on the pavilion’s roof. As the new starting point for the Ilulissat Icefjord World Heritage Trail, the roof deck will also contain gathering and informal seating areas.
Courtesy of Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter
Inside the building, a large exhibition area dedicated to telling the story of ice and human history will be located in the apex of the curving plan. Additional interior spaces will include a café and gift shop adjacent to the exhibition space, and research facilities, offices and support spaces along the wings. In section, the rotating geometry of the structure focuses views out to the glacier and surrounding landscape.
Courtesy of Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter
The project comes following the Icefjord’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 and will be realized in partnership between the Government of Greenland, Qaasuitsup Kommunia and the Danish philanthropic organization, Realdania. The pavilion is scheduled to open autumn 2020.
Prominently located along the Hutchinson River Parkway and Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, this facility will augment existing 911 services in New York, strengthening the city’s ability to maintain communication in the event of a natural disaster or large-scale emergency. The center is designed to operate continually under adverse conditions and provide redundancy to the city’s primary call center.
Diagram
Render
Diagram
The 450,000-square-foot, blast-resistant structure is a perfect cube, with minimal windows due to security concerns. To mitigate the structure’s monolithic appearance, SOM gave it a serrated facade made of recycled aluminum, providing both dynamism and asymmetry. The 9-acre site features a wrap-around sculptural berm of wild grasses. The berm helps protect the building without being oppressively defensive.
Inside, the lobby and cafeteria areas feature a green wall that helps create a soothing environment for stressful call takers. It also acts as a natural air lter, drawing toxins and improving overall indoor air quality. Designed to achieve LEED® Silver certi cation, the project’s other sustainable strategies include recycled building materials and reduced water use for irrigation.
Religious architecture in Russia, arguably, remains backward-looking. With the Soviet Union’s anti-religious stance in the 20th century, religious architecture found little opportunity to grow. Russian architect, Philip Yakubchuk argues that only recently has religious Russian architecture begun “learning to walk again” as it discovers its once-rich history. Quadratura Circuli, a trio of young Russian designers Daniil Makarov, Ivan Zemlyakov, and Yakubchuk, are eager to move beyond the image of St Basil’s Cathedral—seeking to revitalize and create a new image of Russian religious architecture for the 21st century.
The group’s Latin name translates to “Squaring the Circle” which is a metaphor used to describe a task that is believed to be impossible—a striking name for a group dedicated entirely to “designing temples for the people of today.” However, with their proposal for a Russian Orthodox Cultural Center in Reykjavik, Iceland, Cuadratura Circuli demonstrates that it is not impossible to link the art of the past and the culture of the present.
Courtesy of Cuadratura Circuli
While the project is a possible catalyst for contemporary religious Russian architecture, the project’s local context also makes the project a catalyst for civic liveliness in the area. Situated only 700 meters away from Reykjavik’s historic core, the proposed Russian Orthodox Cultural Center includes a church, a baptistery, and a multi-purpose parish house. The site borders a residential zone and an old port territory which is also going through redevelopment. The Cultural Center is imagined to be a social hotspot and thus one of the agents for change and improvement in this area of Reykjavik.
Courtesy of Cuadratura Circuli
The proposed design combines the composition of a traditional Russian church with the minimalist Nordic aesthetic. In this symbiotic union, the architects used regional factors such as climate, sun exposure, and landscape to determine which elements to adopt from both cultures. The Parish House for example, is a nod to tradition. Its lower floor is clad in stone masonry and functions like a traditional Russian podklet—an unoccupied maintenance or storage room with its cooler temperature. The second floor of the Parish House is more insulated with wood construction and thus provides the accommodation for the center.
Courtesy of Cuadratura Circuli
For the Chapel itself, the decorative masonry typical of Russian church architecture has been replaced with Nordic purity and minimalism through the use of plain unadorned white stucco walls and a gray wooden roof. Not only does the aesthetic match the neighboring structures in the area, but the stucco also produces a beautiful effect in the low northern sun and complements the landscape of the cold Nordic country.
Courtesy of Cuadratura Circuli
The designers credit the project’s asymmetrical composition to the ancient churches found in Pskov, a region of northern Russia bordering Estonia, but with its stucco-clad curves the Cultural Center exhibits the same sculptural sweeping effervescence of Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut. Aside from these formal qualities, the project also emulates the ephemeral interior qualities that are created by the modernist chapel’s irregular fenestration. As Yakubchuk writes: “Small scattered windows… give dimmed light to create an intimate atmosphere suitable for prayer.” But these windows also serve a regional purpose, as they reduce heat loss in the winter and keep in the cool air in the summer.
Courtesy of Cuadratura Circuli
This proposal interprets Russian religious architecture as flexible and innovative. Consequently, the architects revitalize the image of these buildings and emphasize their relevance in varied applications for 21st century life. In fact, this proposal for the Russian Cultural Center is only one of three other formal iterations. For Cuadratura Circuli, it is definitely not impossible to build traditionally within a contemporary language.
The Cerrado House was built at the foothills of the Sierra da Moeda, a mountain range in the state of Minas Gerais. The three-bedroom house has a rooftop pool and a wide staircase that leads to the rooftop terrace. The rooms are right under the swimming pool and have views of the sierra, the Cerrado and its twisted trees. Louvers on the northern and western faces protect against the inclement sun.
The play between function and form here is spontaneous and undogmatic: the ramps and stairs of the swimming pool are stamped irrepressibly onto the façades and shape the internal space. The employment of the programmatic source is made directly manifest: it is a generative strategy that explores the programme/form relationship as an absolute and inevitable correspondence.
Seeking the plasticity of basic architectural elements, the project also exalts this underestimated and threatened biome: the Cerrado. There is no landscape design: the house sits on natural terrain, whose immensity and vistas are best seen from the pool terrace.
Section
Context Description
The Cerrado is one of the country’s seven biomes and covers an area of 1.5 million km². It holds about a third of all Brazilian biodiversity, 5% of the world’s flora and fauna, and is home to the headwaters of the three largest hydrographic basins in the country (Amazon, São Francisco, and Paraná/ Paraguay). It has a unique flora and stands out for its generously-spaced trees and low-slung brushwood, blending into a South-American variation on the African savannah and the European steppe. Given its ecological, geopolitical and cultural specificities, the Cerrado is considered the biome of national integration.
The soils of the Cerrado were once regarded as too acidic to farm. But since agronomists began applying industrial quantities of lime in the 1980s, these soils have been transformed. The Cerrado now produces 70% of Brazil’s agricultural output.
In recent years, the rate of ecological destruction of the Cerrado has been twice that of the Amazon, and while the majority of the Amazon rainforest survives, more than 60% of the Cerrado’s former 200 million hectares has disappeared under the plough, and most of that within the last two decades alone. It has been a black hole for conservation: only 2% of the ecosystem is protected. However, Brazilian agriculturalists and ministers still talk as if it had no conservation value at all.
Perkins+Will designed a sports therapy and research centre for a new collaboration between the Dallas Cowboys and healthcare provider Baylor Scott & White. To sit within the Cowboy’s new 91-acre campus, the mixed-use medical facility will provide necessary care and training facilities to athletes of all levels, including the Dallas Cowboys themselves.
View of South East Corner. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will
Located in the Texan city of Frisco, the campus will host the new headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys, alongside sports fields, a multi-use event center and a new stadium, designed by Gensler. With an estimated 50,000 visitors annually, Perkins+Will’s new medical center aims to provide the Cowboys’ campus with a holistic approach to sports and wellbeing. The center incorporates indoor training fields, continuing the patchwork of playing greens across the site, and has pedestrian and cycle links to the larger network of publicly accessible trails.
View of Tower Lobby. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will
The 300,000-square-foot, nine-story building is broken in two distinct volumes, visually sliced by a soaring plane that cantilevers out to the south. The design emphasizes connectivity to the masterplan, and largely glazed facades allow pedestrians visibility into the building, as well as views outward to the surroundings. It will host not only medical facilities such as surgery, emergency care, a pharmacy and medical offices, but also a Sports Performance Center where research, training and rehabilitation will take place.
View from South West Corner. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will
The project is under construction and slated for completion in early 2018.
Sig Nordal 