The Australian Institute of Architects has announced the winners of the 2016 International Chapter Architecture Awards, which honor Australian architects working on projects abroad.
Chosen from a field of 16 entries across five categories, the seven winners were notable for their size, scale, and locations.
The seven winners of the 2016 International Chapter Architecture Awards are:
Public Architecture:
National Gallery Singapore / studioMilou Singapore with CPG Consultants
National Gallery Singapore / studioMilou Singapore with CPG Consultants. Image Courtesy of The Australian Institute of Architects
Australian Pavilion; Venice / Denton Corker Marshall
The seven projects that received an International Chapter Award are now eligible for the Jørn Utzon Award for International Architecture at the National Architecture Awards announced in November.
The building sits in a neighbourhood shopping lane in Nakanobu, just south to the central district of Tokyo. The town is a mixture of old and new. A grandma’s confectionary and a jazz festival, pensioners among young couples, all share the same streets happily together. The site locates itself in the vicinity of a newsstand, a bathhouse and alike. In order to fit in to this yet humble liveliness of the town, the building’s scale is restrained to those of the neighbouring buildings, 4 stories with only 12 units.
Plan / Elevation
The skewed arrangement of the openings on the façade, concentrated at the bottom and spread gradually up, is to give a floating feel and to reduce massive weightiness of the concrete. A pathway secures an appropriate distance from merely 6m-wide busy lane on the front, giving privacy to the secluded entrance.
Interior is composed solely of exposed concrete and plain white walls in simplest possible details. Planning as well as design aims thorough simplicity: a set of modest independent walls replaces a closet; one tap serves cooking and handwashing. These propose minimal form of a collective dwelling, life unreliant on products, richness of not having. Minimalism here is in direct connection with the way of living.
The few elements left, on the other hand, are designed to stimulate new ideas for habitation. The storage walls, without limitation in usage, can be a perfect fit for a cosy den. The large concrete kitchen counter, a desk. Simplicity when resolute, gives out a new flexibility.
Every single opening is square-shaped. Square is the purest, most primitive form of an opening when thinking outside modernist-style conventions such as verticality or horizontality. Every space inside and outside is rhythmically connected to each other through or across these square, pure openings.
Windows in particular are planned to mediate or control interpenetration between <inside – simple, minimal> and <outside – lively bustle>. A colourful vigour of the shopping lane, trimmed with square openings and arranged on the interior wall, turns into a muffled, controlled scene. Shaped view of the city becomes the only ornamental element inside.
Galvanized steel window frames cast varying shadows to add a non-uniform expression on the facade, emerging as distinctive icons in the cityscape. These reflect outside activity back into the room, again adding variety to the view to the city.
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.
Our report is a reflection on the lessons learnt through designing and revisiting buildings for people with dementia. Visitors enter our space at the end of the Arsenale through a gap in the partition walls. The room is darkened, in contrast with the projected brightness on the floor. The floor accommodates a 4.8m x 6.4m animated drawing of the Alzheimer’s Respite Center. The drawing is dynamic, with multiple projected hands moving across the plane of the floor as they create fragments of a plan. They merge and overlap. These hands represent sixteen individuals inhabiting a series of rooms at the Alzheimer’s Centre. The projection consistently labours towards the clarity of a completed plan but falls short of achieving it.
Suspended speakers create a soundscape, consisting of the physical sounds of the act of drawing itself, layered with murmured conversations; sounds of rain and the sea; quotidian noises—a kettle boiling, children playing, people eating—and the bells of the Angelus.
This installation is an attempt to communicate and interpret some of the changes to spatial perception caused by dementia. In order to understand these changes, we have read, researched and questioned. We have spoken to a broad range of people—neuroscientists, psychologists, health workers, philosophers, anthropologists, people with dementia and their families—about dementia, the brain, and the role of design in dementia care. These conversations are recorded on our website.
We are interested in the social function of architecture: how it can improve the lives of people with dementia. Beyond this, we hope that our research into the impact of the condition on spatial cognition will equip us with a deeper understanding of how all of our minds interpret space.
Our project has also highlighted the shortcomings of the traditional architectural plan: an inhabitant may never experience the building from the architect’s complete and fixed vantage point. This disconnect is particularly apparent if the inhabitant has Alzheimer’s Disease, and has lost the ability to use memory and projection to see beyond their immediate situation and create a stable model of their environment. Our projected animation attempts to address this, by working to develop a technique for drawing the building from the perspective of inhabitation.
The process has been collaborative, enlisting the skills of an animator, a composer, AV experts, graphic designers and many drafters. We have consulted people with dementia for feedback on the website design. We have been planning, testing and adapting our drawing technique with our drafting collaborators. At times, we have needed to design tools of production, such as glass tables for recording the drawing process. We have had to accept a certain level of unpredictability and uncertainty regarding the finished product, perhaps as a consequence of attempting to represent a cognitive state which is only partially understood, using a medium that we are developing through iteration and experiment.
From the architect. The brand new leisure complex and cultural centre captures the spirit of the once mighty but now defunct shipyards, docks and the grid warehouses at La Seyne-sur-Mer, and is set alongside the new municipal park between the bay and boulevard Toussaint-Merle.
The newly completed complex is bordered to the east by a great leisure craft marina and to the west by a recently landscaped public park, at the end of which, just by the old drawbridge, stands a new three star hotel. The casino is thus at the heart of a series of large existing and future installations in the centre of a cultural and commercial hub which will breathe life into the old brick buildings, docks and the marina extension, along a privileged and autonomous beachfront.
The efforts of designers were focused on building a unified architectural arrangement which corresponds with its immediate environment. This quadrilateral schema is geometrically simple and fits naturally into the orthogonal portion of the land alongside the docklands. Viewed from the park the new complex has the air of an old ship at moored dock, an image that evokes the mixed programme on offer, featuring both a casino yet also a theatre.
A large stone square welcomes the visitor to the shared entrance to the casino and theatre, located right in front of the glass watchtower. As it faces out to sea and because of its geometry the building sets the scene for these emblematic projects such as the gaming rooms and the panoramic restaurant in the old watchtower, which juts out like a platform with a cantilevered extension at the bow of the harbour.
Photographs: Courtesy of Scacity and Creativity Studio
Students: Alberto Ballesteros Barea, Jon Erik Dybedal Brekken, Sara Cais Soler, Hiu Yeung Amos Chan, Raphael Fournier, Ingri Heggebø, Jørgen Joacim Høy, Silje Loe, Bao Trung Mai, Alexandra Niedermayr, Sigurd Strøm Nørsterud, Johann Sigurd Ruud, Marc Sanchez Olivares, Johan By Sørheim, Marine Vincentz, Vjera Sleutel.
Staff: Christian Hermansen and Marcin Wojcik
Structural Eng : Felice Allievi, DOF engineers
Courtesy of Scacity and Creativity Studio
Description
It is said that Oslo is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe, and that building land within its natural boundaries is full. To accommodate future growth Oslo will have to look beyond, to municipalities within commuting distance. One such municipality is Nes i Akershus, one of the principal agricultural producers of grain in the country. Nes does not want to become a suburb of Oslo, so it is looking for alternative modes of accommodating additional population without losing its rural character.
Courtesy of Scacity and Creativity Studio
Diagram
One possible growth model is the development of Pocket Farms (Småbruk). SCS was asked to design one such development in Dystlandhaugen Farm, founded in the XVIII century, and currently owned by Terje and Elisabeth Maarud. The project consists of four eco-houses, an agricultural barn, and land where resident families may grow food and keep animals. The residents would be those who want to live in a rural setting and do a limited amount of agricultural activities, and yet be close enough to Oslo to be able to commute.
In addition to the design of the four pocket farms SCS has built the agricultural barn, which will be divided amongst the four residents of the pocket farms and serve to store agricultural produce, machinery, and animals.
Courtesy of Scacity and Creativity Studio
The Design
The client was concerned that the new barn, located in the centre of the farmhouse’s main view, may detrimentally affect the outlook from the farmhouse. For this reason the form of the barn is an extension of the undulating topography, which the building picks up and extends, generating the volume required to house the functions of the barn. In order not to disturb the continuity of the topography, the entrance doors are placed at the back, in the space between the building and the woods. The greatest integration of the barn and the topography will occur in the autumn when the colour of the barley matches that of the cladding of the barn and in the winter when fields and barn roof are covered in snow.
Courtesy of Scacity and Creativity Studio
Structure
In pursuance of the integration of the barn to its landscape, the expression of the building envelope is highly muted, consisting of 23 x 36 mm treated softwood battens with 23 mm spaces in-between, through which one sees the black metal roofing sheets.
Courtesy of Scacity and Creativity Studio
It is in the interior that the envelope of the barn displays its structural articulation. The choice of OSB sheets as the main structural material was due to economic constraints and ease of building. The dimensions of the structural members reflect the fact that OSB is not a commonly used structural material. However, once committed to OSB, SCS pursued the idea that it should perform all the structural functions.
The materials used in the building are OSB and untreated softwood for the structure, corrugated metal sheets in roof and walls, covered outside by treated, spaced, softwood battens.
From the architect. This cafe with a roastery of specialty coffee beans, is located in a commuter town in Aichi prefecture.
This shop, converted from a warehouse, is designed to provide a cozy, pleasant space where customers can enjoy the atmosphere of a barista roasting coffee beans, or brewing coffee by hand drip, while talking with a shop staff to find the coffee of their preferences.
The shop uses specialty coffee beans whose places of origin and farms are clearly identified, and provides the best possible coffee by paying particular attentions to the handling of beans, such as the roasting duration.
Floor Plan
Section
In order to produce a space to match the essential nature and quality of this shop, we carefully sorted out the interior finish elements and materials, and selected copper and brass as the mate rials to accentuate the space for their gradual transformation of textures and feelings by usages.
The entrance with 5-meter height and 3.5-meter width is built with a steel frame composed of H-beams, while its door is produced by using copper plate, and glass channels and door handles are in brass.
Within the large warehouse volume, calm and intimate spaces are produced by assembling 50 x 50mm steel pipe frames for the kitchen and the seating areas. The roasting machine is placed on an elevated platform and surrounded by a semi-circular counter table, so that customers can enjoy watching the process of roasting coffee beans.
From the architect. The Honor Residence is composed with 12 pool villa located near Ram Inthra-At Narong Expressway which is directly connected to Bangkok CBD.
U-shape planning for each unit is developed to create its own courtyard and keeps privacy for each individual house. At 2nd floor exterior wall, Lava stone cladding is set to be floating, and yet create a simple solid geometry.
Interlocking the stone frame, wooden box and screen is introduced for sun shading and blending with surrounding. Post tension structure system is selected in order to create high ceiling interior space with wide span, the column-free floating box above the swimming pool. Open plan allow spaces to flow from one function to other.
From the architect. This project considers the Gaon Lake Park in which the building is located as a significant contextual reference. The large park is sitting in the middle of a huge neighborhood with apartment complexes, two hours from Seoul metropolitan area. This unique type of construction is typical of Korean urban development—building and selling thousands of housing units at one time. Although this type of development contains potential negative side effects for the future, the landscape is more positively designed than the apartment complexes in preserving the natural wetland which is left as the original entity in the park.
The design focus is on the conflict created between the pedestrian bridge and the original topographical relationship. It was an unavoidable assignment to precisely fabricate the connection from the bridge to an “almost accidentally given” site. As the massive urban development left the back-side hill of the building as an “isolated green area,” the dissonant relationship paradoxically becomes a clue for positioning the building by visualizing this conflict.
This pavilion functions mainly for the exhibition and administrative offices of the park. Considering the pedestrian accesses and the functional use, the radio of the arcs which are casted on different levels formalize the hidden tension of two contrasting entities—the linear pedestrian bridge and the natural topography. From the tensional relationship, the front curved façade visualizes a symbolic “barrier” containing the program. As the continuous hallway connects the functional spaces, the inner layer behind the hallway has a series of rooms, a staircase, restrooms and a sunken garden.
Using the different access levels between the front and backside entries, the curved wall controls the degree of visual continuity toward the opened park. Visitors on the roof can look down into the hallway and towards the park through the clerestory. In contrary to the pedestrian bridge giving an open wide view to the park, the visitors visually engages the inner side of the building on the roof. The window portals on the curved wall are carved out from cylindrical intersections to have a series of segmental flat surfaces. While the portals puncture through the hard northern elevation, offering wide panoramic views of the reserve and cityscape, a southern-facing clerestory allows ample sunlight to illuminate the inside all day long. Natural wood planks cover the interior of the curved sur-face to create a warm ambiance contrasting the rectilinear hardness of material.
Organizers: Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Registration Deadline: 30/06/2016 00:00
Submission Deadline: 31/07/2016 00:00
Venue: Beijing, China
1 Overview
This open international competition is to take place among three groups who have been solicited to draw up refurbishment plans of 12 courtyards. Finalists whose plans comply with the design guidelines and have construction feasibility will be authorized by the organizers to implement the project, and the plans will be made available for reference in the Baitasi district, the broader old-town districts of Beijing, and in old towns throughout China that need to be revitalized.
Main Organizer
Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Supporting Organizer
World Architecture Magazine
Schedule
May 29, 2016: Press briefing held at the Baitasi Courtyard Renewal International Design Competition’s Venice Biennial parallel exhibition
June 1-30, 2016: First phase of registration, the participants make voluntary selection of courtyards
July 1-31, 2016: Second phase of registration,courtyard allocated automatically on the official website
July 31, 2016: Deadline for submission of conceptual proposals for the competition
August 15, 2016: Initial assessment of conceptual proposals ends; Judges return score sheets; statistical evaluation of results
August 15-30, 2016: Notification of shortlisted candidates
September 5, 2016: Shortlist published
September 20, 2016: Shortlisted candidates submit further detailed design
October 5, 2016: Final assessment; live Q&A with shortlisted candidates, awards giving
October 2016-2017: Winner exhibition; Eligible designs carry on for implementation
Prizes
First place winners selected from each group will receive a cash prize of RMB 50,000 and an award certificate; their works will be published in World Architecture.
Implementation of works
Finalists whose works comply with the design guidelines and demonstrate construction feasibility will be authorized by the organizers to implement the project.
Baitasi is a key historical area in Beijing’s urban core; its history can be traced back to the Yuan dynasty. The area has well preserved the stylistic fabrics of the Hutong from that era. The Miaoying Baita is not only the symbol of the Yuan Dynasty’s capital, Dadu, but also an architectural landmark on the Second Ring Road of modern Beijing. The area has already become the most stylistically unique district of Beijing and is one of Beijing’s 33 Historical and Cultural Preservation Zones. It has deep historical significance and profound cultural connotations.
By renovating the traditional courtyard spaces, the Batasi project attempts to recreate the courtyards’ various possibilities of spatial and functional recombination—to revive thespaces, to make different functions coexist. Besides the basic residential function, vigorous cultural and creative functions are to be added to the courtyards. By exploring and introducing cultural catalysts, the purpose isalso to revitalize the Hutong culture of the area and revive the eastern residential ideal of Hutongs and courtyards. In seeking ancient architectural wisdom within tradition, it hopes to breathe new life into the space of Beijing’s old town and explore ways in which urban development can coexist with traditional urban areas.
This open international competition is to take place among three groups who have been solicited to draw up refurbishment plans of 12 courtyards. Finalists whose plans comply with the design guidelines and show construction feasibility will be authorized by the organizers to implement the project and it will be made available for reference in the Baitasi district, the broader old-town districts of Beijing, and in revitalizing old towns throughout China.
Design Requirements
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Based on their knowledge of infrastructurerequirements, real-life needs, and the communal context of the Baitasineighborhood, one group will be selected from the three groups; of the fourcourtyards in this group, one will be selected for project implementation.
Competition proposals must abide by the design requirements; however, the competition encourages participants to conduct extensive research and propose creative, imaginative plans.
For more Design Requirement and Courtyard Details, please go to http://ift.tt/1UYsC5U
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
3 Project Submission
· Please submit electronic versions of drawings and related documents online.
· Language: the official languages of the competition are English and Chinese; titles and key design descriptions must include both languages.
· Documentation: participants must include a recognizable, scanned copy of identification when submitting work, registration forms, and authorization documents.
Conceptual proposal specifications and requirements:
(1) Specifications: Drawingsshould be 420mm×297mm in horizontal layout. Each proposal must be composed of 4 drawings. Documents for uploading should be JPG format (for website display, not exceeding 3MB per file), and PDF format (for documentation, not exceeding 20 MB).
(2) Content and form: Plans must contain an introduction in Chinese and English ,black-and-white line drawings of floor plans, elevations, cross-sections, isometric blueprints, and the required analysis diagrams; also to be included are the necessary architectural economic indices and cost estimates. Participants can choose to use images of views, renderings, wall-section details, node configuration details, or real models.
Finalist proposal specifications and requirements:
(1) Specifications: Blueprints should be 841mm×594mm in lateral layout. Each proposal must have 3 blueprints. Documents should be in PDF format and should not exceed 20 MB.
(2) Content and form: Along with a Chinese and English introduction, floor plans, elevation, cross-section, isometric blueprints, and required analysis diagrams; also to be included are necessary architectural economic indices and cost estimates. Participants can choose to use images of wall-section details, node configuration details, or real models.
(3) An introductory design video not exceeding 3 minutes should be presented. Files should use MP4 format and should not exceed 400 MB.
4 Competition Procedures
· The event uses the open registration method of an open competition. Participants can enter individually or as groups; each group cannot have more than 4 members and 2 mentors.
· Each group must have a contact person.
· The registration fee is RMB 300 per group. In the absence of special circumstances, registration fees are non-refundable. Registration fee should be paid via bank transfers asper information provided on the official website. Third party payments including Alipay, WeChat are not accepted. Your bank account information filled in online will only be used for verification purpose of the bank transfer.
· Registration is divided into 2 phases, the date of registration is the time of transfer of successful payment:
June 1-30, 2016: First phase of registration, participants make voluntary selection of courtyards
July 1-31, 2016: Second phase of registration, automatic assignments of courtyards by the official website
· After the organizer confirms on the registration fee payment, a download link will be sent via E-mail.
· After the selection of courtyard, a ID number will be allocated. With the ID number, the participant should fill in the information confirmation letter, and original work declaration & copyright authorization letter.
· Participants should submit only electronic copies of their work; the deadline for submission is July 31, 2016. Competition organizers will not accept hard copy submissions of the plans.
· Under the coordination of competition organizers, jury will assess competitors’ proposals and determine prizewinners.
· Competition organizers will announce the list of finalists no later than September 5, 2016.
· Competition organizers will announce prizewinners at the final jury meeting.
· Questions about the competition can be submitted online, competition organizers will reply to the queries at the earliest possible.
5 Rules and Regulations
· Individuals or groups registering for this competition must abide by and respect the rules and regulations of the event; members of the organizing committee have the right of final interpretation of these regulations.
· Names related to the designer must not appear in any electronic blueprint; inclusion of any text or graphic appearing in an academic institution or business, or which does not comply with rules, will result in disqualification.
· Competition entries must not be multiple submissions; any work that has been submitted elsewhere, in other competitions, or uses others’ previously published work are not permissible for entry.
· Blueprints and images related to competition submissions cannot infringe on the copyrights of others; responsibility for any such resulting controversy shall be taken by the infringing competitor, who will be disqualified.
· Competitors retain the right of authorship of their competition works; however, competition organizers and sponsors have the right to exercise copyrights other than authorship rights over competition works.
6 Jury
Confirmed Jury Members
Alexander Tzonis | Professor Emeritus, Delft University of Technology
Joan Busquets | Spanish urban planner, architect,professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design, former Head of Urban Planning for the Barcelona City Council
ZHANG Yonghe | Founder and Principal Architect, FCJZ
LYU Zhou | Professor of Architecture at Tsinghua University, Director of the National Heritage Center, Vice President of ICOMOS-CHINA
SHI Weiliang | Chief Planner of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning
WANG Yuxi | General Manager of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment and Development Co. Ltd.
ZHANG Li | Professor at Tsinghua University School of Architecture, Chief Architect at Atelier Teamminus, Editor-in-Chief of World Architecture
David Basulto | Editor-in-Chief of Archdaily, Architect
Official Website of BAITASI 2016 International Design Competition
Baitasi (the White Pagoda Temple) is a historical and cultural preservation zone covering about 37 hm2 located just across Beijing’s Financial Street in Xicheng district. To its north is the Xizhimen business district and to its west is the Fuchengmen commercial area and the Sanlihe administrative district. The Xidan and Xisi shopping areas border the temple to its east. Baitasi remains a peaceful cultural oasis for the public in the heart of new Beijing.
The “Baitasi Historical and Cultural Preservation Zone” can be traced back to the Yuan Dynasty and is preserved to this day through the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is the western starting point on the route to Chaofu, across the capital, and has a profound historical heritage with rich cultural connotations. The area is home to Beijing’s most ancient attractions, including the Miaoying Temple (the White Pagoda Temple) constructed during the Yuan dynasty; the Archive of Buddhist Texts; the Lu Xun Museum built around the former residence of the philosopher; and the flower,bird, fish, and insect market. In the area are also seen a few republican-era courtyards reflecting a mix of Chinese and Western architectural styles. While the Xicheng district reflects ancient and civic culture and the homes of China’s great thinkers, the Baitasi Historical and Cultural preservation zone carries with it substantial historical significance; yet, unfortunately, many of the area’s old low-rise homes are lacking in municipal infrastructure and faced with modern challenges.
Baitasi is located in an old low-rise residential district of Beijing, one of the last remaining traditional residential areas in the capital. Currently, options are being explored to provide an alternative path for urban renovation and community revival.
With societal advancements, people have realized that standard large-scale demolition and construction of Beijing’s urban core is no longer viable. In its stead, small-scale, organic renovation models are attracting greater attention and use. The main objective of the Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Company’s “Baitasi ReMade” project is to establish a new model for local residents with the aid of public participation and model enterprises and government leadership. It hopes to establish a sustainable population, revitalize the physical spaces, upgrade to basic energy sources, and re-engineer the public environment, thus fostering a cultural revitalization of the region as a whole. While maintaining the unique character of Hutong neighborhoods and the residential functions of traditional courtyards, “Baitasi ReMade” will inject new elements of design as well as cultural and creative models to create a new cultural district comprehensively integrating tradition, innovation, and style.
With regard to the Baitasi Historical and Cultural Preservation Zone, the goals of “Baitasi ReMade” are to
· adjust the demographic structure of the area through population easing,
· improve the commercial environment of the area by attracting respected businesses,
· improve the basic infrastructure of the area, enhance the residential environment, and strengthen the sense of community,
· revitalize the Hutong culture of the area thereby regaining the area’s residential spirit.
Projected goals of“Baitasi ReMade” before 2020
· Restore and refurbish 200 courtyards
· Improve infrastructure of 28 Hutong lanes
· Establish 600 new motor vehicle parking spaces
International media coverage of “Baitasi ReMade”
· “Baitasi ReMade” successfully debuted at the 2015 Beijing Design Week under the theme “symbiotic connection,” with more than 40 exhibitions, activities, and talks, and 24 creative projects based on the Baitasi courtyards.
· In 2015, ZHANG Ke, the principal of standardarchitecture, HUA Li, the principal at Tao – Trace Architecture Office, and DONG Gong, the principalat Vector Architects exhibited their renovation project at the “Shanghai UrbanSpace Art Season.”
· In 2016, “Baitasi ReMade” was chosen to participate in the “Trans-Design, Shanghai Art & Design 2016,” jointly run by the Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Xuhui district government.
· A residency program has been organized in collaboration with the Cultural Office of the Swiss Embassy.
· A pilot program has been finalized with the French Embassy’s Cultural Office for courtyard revitalization.
· The Beijing Design Week’s organizing committee intends to establish an office in the area.
· Tsinghua University, Peking University, the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing Forestry University, the School of Architecture at Hong Kong University, the Netherlands Architecture Institute, and the AA School of Architecture Visiting School Beijing have all participated in the research on the Baitasi area.
Scan QR code to know about Baitasi ReMade
Courtesy of Beijing Huarong Jinying Investment & Development Co. Ltd.
From the architect. The site is a small trapezoidal piece of expensive real estate roughly measuring around 500 square meters situated on an arterial commercial road in Pune, India. The brief called for utilizing maximum allowable FAR with minimum wastage of space, and yet, to create a building that could make its presence felt in its neighborhood of high rise buildings.
The program is essentially to house the regional corporate office of a quasi banking institution. It consists of a travel agency with direct interface to the street, a banking floor with strong room and a couple of office floors, including the chairman’s lounge, conference and meeting rooms. To this mix of program, the architects have added a cafeteria on the top floor. An amphitheater, accommodating the lift room shafts and a terrace garden completes the building.The design is articulated through several simple moves that add layers of complexity to the building.
Being a small site, the resultant building form is an extrusion of the trapezoid of roughly 8 meters x 23 meters, that is derived after factoring in the side margins mandated by development norms.
Sectional shift
The strategy is to manipulate the building sectionally, and then this sectional articulation manifests on the facade through the fenestration and a climate responsive skin.
The circulation core is placed in the center with the east and west wings on either side. This sectionally displaces the western side by half a floor height, allowing for a multi-level mechanical parking to be accommodated below.
Two glass lifts, housed back to back in a common core, service the eastern and western blocks. The staircase becomes a connecting diagonal thread linking the two wings. This sectional move allows for the building to get seamlessly connected, visually as well as physically across floors. Programs occur at every half level thus increasing the vertical accessibility across floors, and reducing the usage of lifts.
Atriums and stepped gardens
The residual space in the Center is articulated as an atrium that further heightens the visual connect of the interior spaces. The atrium also has uninterrupted glazing on the south side, that connects the interiors with the treescape outside. Two stepped landscaped spaces are suspended in the atrium, additionally connecting the two wings. One connects the reception area with the office floor, and the other connects the cafeteria with the terrace garden.
Programs are distributed across the section enabling interaction between the various functions with the ones requiring public interface, closer to the ground. The eastern wing houses all the executive offices and conference rooms and the western wing houses the work stations.
The cafeteria has a roof that transforms into a skylight and also accommodates the lift headroom in one seamless sweep. This skylight, made of steel and glass is configured as an open air amphitheater on the terrace that could accommodate up to a hundred people.
The amphitheater, terrace garden on the eastern side and the cafeteria below, function as a constellation of public spaces at the top of the building. These public spaces were not a part of the clients brief or requirements. These were inserted by the architects to add value to an otherwise banal set of office requirements and to create a small realm of semi-public spaces accessible to citizens in the center of the town. It is imagined that, in time, these spaces will insert themselves in the social fabric of the local community, helping the institution’s out-reach to its customers and beyond.
The primary building envelope is composed of alternating bands of 200 mm thick masonry walls and sinuous ribbon windows. The Windows seamlessly widen into floor height glazing and narrow down to thin bands. The continuous variation of the ribbon windows is in response to several climatic, programmatic and contextual parameters.
The windows narrow down to thin ribbons on the southern and western sides, where maximum heat gain occurs, and they span the entire walls, from floor to ceiling, on the northern and eastern facades to allow diffused light with minimum heat gain.
The windows also widen near the atrium on the southern facade, allowing for it to be seamlessly integrated with the trees outside, and providing the atrium and its terrace gardens with abundant light, and views of the surroundings. As the glazed windows widen in the atrium, they also start intersecting one another, and the atrium is thus articulated as the place where the distinctions between the different floor plates gets merged, formally as well as programmatically.
What is essentially a simple box, with split levels and an atrium is articulated as a smooth seamless space. This is further enhanced by a skin of vertical fins in perforated steel that cover the building on the southern and south eastern facades. These fins curve out when they encounter the window ribbons, allowing for the openable shutters to be operated. As the ribbon widens, the fins respond by moving away from the building, generating a dynamic facade of continuous variation.
These fins temper the harsh southern sun that hits the building, and allow a more nuanced filtered light into the interiors. They also create an array of light effects that animate the exteriors and interiors of the building, as the sun moves across the sky, or as one moves around the building.
The building is an amalgam of layers of diverse programmatic, contextual and climatic responses that results in an interior scape that simultaneously offers privacy and identity to the various functions, while also interconnects them through the use of transparency, split levels, atriums and landscapes.
These sectional manipulations and the resultant interior spatial experiences are expressed on the exteriors through the use of climate responsive windows and a skin, creating a structure that partially reveals and hints at its interiors as well as intrigues and engages the onlooker for a deeper exploration.
Sig Nordal 