© Chuck Choi

• Architects: ArchiTerra Inc.
• Location: United States, Boston, MA, USA
• Architect In Charge: ArchiTerra Inc.
• Area: 28000.0 ft2
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Chuck Choi

• Mep/Fp Engineering: R.G. Vanderweil Engineers Structural Engineering, McNamara-Salvia Inc
• Energy Modeler: TNZ Energy Consulting Inc Construction Manager, Lee Kennedy Co Inc
• Food Service Consultant: Ricca Design Studios Lighting Designer, Horton Lees Brogden
• Client: Boston Public Market Association

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From the architect. Design Excellence

The design of the first public market in the country to feature local, sustainable food reflects the triumph of place-making and architectural creativity over mind-boggling infrastructure complexity, transforming the ground floor of a previously vacant state office building into a vibrant destination that anchors a growing market district. 

© Chuck Choi

User Experience

Crisply detailed white canopies of corrugated metal are evenly washed with up-lights, creating luminous canted ceilings that vault over 40 distinctive vendor stalls. Rectangular pylons clad in metallic copper laminate conceal utility risers and simulate a pillared market hall. Pendant lights of copper and silver define the aisles and central hub and evoke a culinary theme. With overhead utilities left in shadow and copious use of salvaged barn board, the overall ambiance is that of a bustling market street at twilight.

© Chuck Choi

Vendor Experience

Creative stall and signage designs are encouraged to express individual vendor personalities while exacting tenant design standards safeguard the appearance and performance market as a whole. An ingenious system of regularized rental modules, sign supports, and plug-and-play utility service connections eases vendor start-up and supports flexible change over time. Aisle layouts and selling walls are designed to maximize rentable area and encourage visitor/grower-seller interaction while integrated LED track lighting highlights the bounty of food and optimizes retail sales.

Exploded Axonometric

Infrastructure Ingenuity

The design reconciles extreme site constraints – Central Artery Tunnel

ventilation shafts, Haymarket subway station, parking garage, and new Registry of Motor Vehicles – with complex infrastructure requirements. With no basement, sub-floor utilities had to be designed within a raised slab. With no ceiling plenum, overhead utilities had to be thread through a morass of existing infrastructure serving the upper office floors.

© Chuck Choi

The design integrates seven entrances, drawing visitors and residents from all parts of the city. The Teaching Kitchen and Market Hub create memorable urban destinations. Through displays, signage and active instruction, the entire market is designed as a platform for public education. Building- scale signs, exterior lighting, and window decals designed as part of the project announce the market as the cornerstone of the emerging market district.

© Chuck Choi

Sustainability

The new market supports local agriculture and promotes land conservation while reducing carbon emissions associated with food transport by air. Ninety percent of all the food sold in the market is grown, caught or produced in Massachusetts, supporting the local economy. The design minimizes energy and water use while providing for recycling and composting. Designed to meet LEED standards for Interior Design & Construction (v. 4, Retail), the project is currently being submitted for LEED Silver certification.

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Site Section

© Chuck Choi

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Context. Image © Johan Mottelson

In an effort to create affordable housing in Maputo, Mozambique, Casas Melhoradas is an applied research project aimed at eliminating city slums. Organized by the Institute of Architecture, Urbanism & Landscape, at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, in collaboration with the Mozambican NGO Estamos, the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (FAPF) and the Danish branch of Architects Without Borders (AUG), the project is part of research initiative on urban development in the Global South.

Street view. Image © Johan Mottelson

Casas Melhoradas has a tripartite focus: the development of alternative construction methods to improve building quality while decreasing the cost of housing; the development of new housing typologies, which utilize space and infrastructure more economically for more sustainable urban development; the construction of affordable rental housing through public-private partnerships to enlarge positive effects.

Old house prior to vertical addition. Image © Johan Mottelson

“The project develops multi-story housing typologies, rooted in the local socio-economic and cultural conditions, seeking to utilize space more efficiently, in order to contain the urban sprawl and use the infrastructure more economically,” say the project organizers. “Thereby, the project seeks to facilitate the development of more compact urban environments in the slums and make future infrastructure investments more cost-effective. On this background, the project seeks to improve mobility, improve the access to infrastructure and economize space.”

Street view. Image © Johan Mottelson

Previously featured on ArchDaily, this newest example of the Casas Melhoradas project, designed by Johan Mottelson and Jørgen Eskemose, was built in 2016 and features a vertical addition to an existing house near the center of Maputo; part of a slum area known as Polana Canico. The expansion was achieved by using concrete supports at ground level to create a foundation for the first floor timber expansion. The project utilizes prefabricated wood elements that were made at a local timber workshop, brought to the site on foot, and assembled on site in a short period of time.

The old house is the common “Casa de Blocos” (local housing type consisting of concrete blocks). Image © Johan Mottelson

“Casa de Madeira e Zinco” (local housing type consisting of a timber and corrugated iron sheets). Image © Johan Mottelson

In a city not known for effective planning, regulation enforcement, or infrastructure, this newest Casas Melhoradas example riffs on local Maputo tradition, adding to what was strictly a Casa de Blocos construction – a house built with only concrete blocks – and creating a variant on the Casa de Madera e Zinco typology of timber housing clad in corrugated iron sheeting. Some of the house’s notable features are a plywood ceiling with insulation foil, mosquito net coverings over natural ventilation openings, new windows added to the old ground floor, and a gallery oriented towards a private outdoor area, which also serves a covered porch.

View from private outdoor space. Image © Johan Mottelson

Maputo has a population of 2.5 million with approximately eighty percent of inhabitants living in slums. The city’s population has been expanding at a pace of approximately five percent a year, with new buildings that are overwhelmingly on the horizontal plane. As Maputo’s footprint increases and puts greater strain on existing and yet-unbuilt infrastructure, land values at the city center have grown, adding incentive for greater densification in the future.

Small scale public space added to the street. Image © Johan Mottelson

Casas Melhoradas’ housing units are rented out and fully financed over 10 to 15 year periods. To complete the work, project organizers rely on public-private partnerships, and are seeking donors and investors for future collaboration. More information can be found, here.

Architects: Johan Mottelson and Jørgen Eskemose, Institute of Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Design, and Conservation
Location: Polana Caniço, Maputo, Mozambique
Area: 30 m2
Year: 2016
Photo Credits: Johan Mottelson

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© Pedro Kok

• Architects: 24.7 arquitetura design
• Location: Campinas, Campinas – State of São Paulo, Brazil
• Architect In Charge: Giuliano Pelaio, Gustavo Tenca e Inacio Cardona
• Area: 70.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2012
• Photographs: Pedro Kok

• Structural Engineer: WGA Engenharia

© Pedro Kok

“Casa dos Caseiros” was first created to answer a private order for a social interest dwelling project to be built numerously throughout some cities in Rio de Janeiro state. Unfortunately after some time of development the project had to be canceled by the contractor.

© Pedro Kok

Originally it was designed using steel frame as structural system, after cancelation we have updated the whole project to use structural concrete blocks, more usual in Brazilian construction, and still a rational modular building system. The project was set aside for a while until came the opportunity to build one unit as a prototype and still be used as home for the housekeepers of a property in a rural district from Campinas.

© Pedro Kok

 
We then set off for an experimental construction, where the cost could not exceed R$ 50,000.00 (around US$ 14,000.00), or something around R$ 700.00/m2. The goal: to house a family with two children.

Initially, we determined that the house would have 70sqm, enough to provide users better quality of life (Brazil´s federal government has delivered homes with approximate 40sqm in social housing programs as Minha Casa Minha Vida –literal translation My House My Life- without expansion possibility).

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The original design aims to rescue street interaction and conviviality stimulation between residents of the same neighborhood. A frame at the main façade creates an extensive masonry bench next to the sidewalk, creating a favorable permanence place. It’s almost an attempt to rescue smaller cities traditions where people put chairs on sidewalk and enjoy as time passes, watching children playing on streets.

The house design is very simple, yet it ensures efficient lighting and natural ventilation in social and service areas. A patio located strategically around the kitchen, office and living room, brings light and air renewal to the more permanency home environments. The courtyard is the guarantee that even with a house attached on its side the project will still have all natural resources necessary for its residents.

In addition to kitchen, living room, patio and laundry services, the project can adapt to different internal configurations:
3 bedrooms + bathroom + office or 1 suite + 2 bedrooms + bathroom

Plans

Two important decisions were taken in order to reduce building costs: Eliminate the roof slab and the exterior and interior plaster. Instead, we used roll texture applied directly on block and a PVC ceiling system together with cement roof to function on an interim basis as insulated roof and slab. A site with many treetops around contributed in preventing overheating inside the building. With good quality concrete blocks it was possible to let them apparent, reducing painting costs.

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After completion we saw ourselves encouraged by the remarkable increase in the quality of life of Casa dos Caseiros residents and since it is difficult to low income population to hire an architect to design aesthetically pleasant and functional homes, we have decided release the project as an OPEN SOURCE project. We will provide (http://ift.tt/1OpmGGF) the project free of charge on our website, as a way of democratization of ideas to be improved and adapted by communities.

© Pedro Kok

We believe that the idea of ​​a network of good projects will inject into the market ways to overcome economic barriers and distances between architect and final client. We lack new typologies and best urban insertions.

© Pedro Kok

It is very important to remember that adjustments are necessary since the project will be built in different bioclimatic zones, building systems, topography, rules and regulations.

© Pedro Kok

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© British Airways i360

After weeks of movement testing, the British Airways i360 observation pod has achieved its maximum height of 138 meters as the attraction enters final inspection phases in preparation for its opening this summer. As a part of “the world’s tallest moving observation tower,” the 18 meter diameter viewing pod will provide 360 degree views of the British seaside resort towns of Brighton and Hove, the Sussex coast and the English Channel, for to up to 200 passengers at a time.

© British Airways i360

Designed by Marks Barfield Architects, the minds behind the London Eye and the recently proposed Chicago Skyline Cablecar, the tower was recently named “World’s Most Slender Tower” by the Guinness Book of World Records for its astonishing 41:1 height to width ratio. The structure topped out at 162 meters earlier this year.

The pod’s cable-driven lift system was developed by French company Poma. Other consultants include Jacobs Engineering and Dutch company Hollandia.

© British Airways i360

As a new icon for Brighton’s historic West Pier, the project will also feature a visitor center, a 400-seat restaurant, a gift shop, a children’s play zone, an exhibition area, and conference and event spaces.

According to the architects, the tower “is a feat of cutting edge engineering combined with innovative technology and elegant design [creating] the futuristic visitor attraction on the Brighton seafront.”

© British Airways i360

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© Gonzalo Guajardo

• Architects: Vilalta Arquitectura
• Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
• Architect In Charge: Vilalta Arquitectura
• Design Team: Joao Medeiros, Miguel Sánchez Enkerlin, Reema Al-Ajlan, Daniel Vaczi
• Area: 14200.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Gonzalo Guajardo

• Project Leader: Maria Rosaria Favoino
• Director: Xavier Vilalta
• Structural: K2N Engineering
• Mechanical & Sanitary : Abiy Aberra

From the architect. Xavier Vilalta´s major project in Ethiopia, Lideta Mercato, has finally topped out in Addis Ababa and is set to open this summer.

© Gonzalo Guajardo

The Lideta Mercato was intended to be a shopping mall just like many others in the city of Addis Ababa. A rigorous analysis has identified the main issues of the existing malls in the city, which are commonly built using glazing structures. As a result, the buildings suffer uncomfortable thermal conditions and over-illumination in the interiors. The observation of the Old Mercato, the largest open air market in Africa, was an inspiration to redefine the program of the building, conceiving a multistory contemporary market instead of a conventional shopping mall based on large shops.

Section

The carved volume connects two parallel streets that define the plot of the project. This diagonal connection creates a shortcut for pedestrians and concentrates all the entrances of the building. This path extends to the inclined atrium in the middle of the building, where all floors are connected. Around this void, a different layout of small shops is placed in each floor.

Floor Plan

The skin of the building was designed considering thelocal climate conditions and traditions. The façade acts as a protection from the sun, controlling the natural light and ventilation in the interior spaces. It was built using a lightweight concrete prefab system, and the shapes come from a traditional Ethiopian fractal pattern commonly found in the local fabrics. The passive ventilation system and controlled natural lightening created between the building´s skin and the interior atrium enables the interior space to have an open-air feeling and balanced illumination.

© Gonzalo Guajardo

Constantly ceased power supply is one of the main obstacles Ethiopia is facing. This occurring problem was turned into an opportunity by placing circular shaped photovoltaic umbrellas in the rooftop that create nice shaded entertainment areas.

© Gonzalo Guajardo

© Gonzalo Guajardo

The roof also functions as a rainwater collection system by draining and storing the rainwater in the basement tanks, which later goes through a filtration process to be reused for building´s toilets and taps.

© Gonzalo Guajardo

© Gonzalo Guajardo

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© Laurian Ghinitoiu

Herzog & de Meuron’s ten-storey extension to London’s Tate Modern, which officially opens to the public this week, is the latest in a series of ambitious building projects pursued by the internally renowned gallery of contemporary art. Sitting above The Tanks, the world’s first dedicated galleries for live art and film installations, the building’s pyramidical form provides 60% more exhibition space for the institution. Two days before its doors welcome art-lovers from around the world, photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu has captured a collection of unique views on this highly anticipated addition to London’s skyline.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

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© Laurian Ghinitoiu

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© Laurian Ghinitoiu

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

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Courtesy of The Architectural Review

ArchDaily is continuing our partnership with The Architectural Review, bringing you short introductions to the themes of the magazine’s monthly editions. In this introduction to the June 2016 issue on what the AR has provocatively named “Notopia,” Editor Christine Murray outlines the defining characteristics of this “selfish city,” the “pandemic of generic buildings have no connection to each other” – stating that their issue-long tirade against Notopia “is less a warning than a prophecy of doom.”

If what is called the development of our cities is allowed to multiply at the present rate, then by the end of the century our world will consist of isolated oases of glassy monuments surrounded by a limbo of shacks and beige constructions, and we will be unable to distinguish any one global city from another.

This pandemic of generic buildings have no connection to each other, let alone to the climate and culture of their location.

With apologies to our forebear Ian Nairn, upon this scourge The Architectural Review bestows a name in the hope that it will stick – NOTOPIA. Its symptom (which one can observe without even leaving London) is that the edge of Mumbai will look like the beginning of Shenzhen, and the center of Singapore will look like downtown Dallas.

This thing of terror, which will wake you up sweating at night when you begin to realize its true proportions, consists in the universal creation of cities that are not human settlements, but places where capital investment lives in architecture devoid of social purpose. Notopia is where empty apartments and gated communities stand under guard while the homeless are not permitted even to sleep on the street, and are prodded or hosed down with water until they move on.

Courtesy of The Architectural Review

How did we get here? Popular misunderstandings of one sort and another – of the consequence of capitalism and vulgarizations of the concept of democracy – have led the public to kick against the principle of land planning. Belief in trickle-down economics has likewise led us to tolerate every kind of abuse in the name of attracting financial investment. The fallacy has been that the free market will provide enough housing for those in need, and that allowing private business to build out our cities will save the public purse while providing for all.

The reality is that left to market forces, the commercialization of land has given birth to a selfish city, disfigured by the interests of bankers and stillborn in vision, and unable to cope with mass urbanization, leaving the working class to inhabit rabbit-hutch towers on the fringes. Meanwhile, the downtown cores are hollowed out by gentrification and the perversity of uninhabited luxury flats, the values of which further increase by not being lived in.

Courtesy of The Architectural Review

With so much energy put into the design of iconic totems, we have been confident that our cities will remain distinct. The essays enclosed at the heart of this edition prove that this is a criminally feckless illusion, and that in fact the mediocre conurbations breeding in New York, Sydney and Cape Town are obliterating the identity and culture of unique and vibrant capitals of commerce and exchange developed over thousands of years. This is not to say that capital investment has no place in development. But look where one may, in the East or the West, every city has a skyline of obelisks and trophies, the duplitecture of elsewhere with a flourish here and there to set itself apart.

The deeper issue, aside from how these towers look, is the no-places created on the ground. One building next to another does not make a place, and many buildings do not make a city. Notopia is a warning sign that the metropolis as a place of exchange, dialogue and delight between diverse groups of people is being exterminated. Buildings alone do not support life. With the erasure of identity and the desire to make cities safe and clean, comes the extinction of culture. The messiness and friction of people together makes for a creative and noisy place. There should be a cacophony of traffic, both mohawks and power-suits, and the vague notion that someone may steal your bag. It should be a place where the unexpected can happen, and not be moved on, imprisoned or fined. It must be unlike life in the suburbs, where nothing of consequence ever happens, and you are unlikely to meet anyone who is not like you.

Courtesy of The Architectural Review

The cure is to adopt a new approach to modern planning.

The city sells off its land to private hands who leverage the value of the property by building as much as they can, as quickly as they can, with architecture there to dress up mediocrity just as parsley dresses up a plate of rice. Everywhere we are levelling the wondrous diversity to a uniform mean. And planning machinery is being used to speed up Notopia, not check it.

The planning offensive was started in a mood of idealism which assumed two things: that rules would be used flexibly and intelligently, and that private developers would build according to the needs of the local people. Now the tail is wagging the dog, and developers are building for the needs of offshore account-holders and money launderers. Any hope of intelligent interpretation was lost when planning was made into another unrewarding office job, and chained to the lowest common denominator, not the highest common multiple, with all the planning rules perverted to make every square mile proclaim its universal style and status as a safe haven for cash buyers.

Too big a problem? Surely it’s not beyond our power to address it. The alternative is the abyss.

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© James Ewing

• Architects: Architecture Firm
• Location: Scottsville, VA 24590, United States
• Area: 2200.0 ft2
• Photographs: James Ewing

• Builder: Peter Johnson Builders

© James Ewing

From the architect. The James River House was designed as a place for three young boys. It is a place where they can grow and learn from their surroundings – experience mud, moths, flowing water, and the changing light of the seasons; a place that would allow for many gatherings of all the people who love them.

© James Ewing

 Three volumes hover above a bluff alongside a bend in the James River, arranged loosely and lightly on the land like a scattered group of stones around a campfire.  As a visitor slips between the volumes, the house opens up to light and river views and the fully enveloping woods. 

Floor Plan

The quiet yet open interior is built around a large and flexible gathering space that can be intimate, expansive, interior, or exterior. Flanked by sleeping quarters, this central living area is at once hearth, tree house, and dining hall and is the nexus of activity for the family and the three boys who fill the house with light and motion.

© James Ewing

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Courtesy of Piuarch

Milan studio Piuarch unveiled their design for the new Latteria Sociale Valtellina cooperative dairy in the Italian Alps. The competition, commissioned by the Latteria, sought to renovate the old building and expand it to include a sales outlet, restaurant, conference room and small museum. Piuarch’s winning design builds on the economic and historic context of the area and surrounding landscape. 

Courtesy of Piuarch

Their design is a reinterpretation of the malga – a traditional Alpine structure – conventionally characterized by a long, low profile. The building proposed by Piuarch is 54 meters long, and consists of a single roof with a front and side overhang. The large overhang adds 340 square meters of outdoor covered areas to the 1,000 square meter building area.

Courtesy of Piuarch

While the “central core is entirely closed in” and contains the conference room, service facilities, changing rooms and kitchens, the areas for customers are “arranged along the perimeter,” including the outlet, cafe/bar, restaurant and museum area.

Courtesy of Piuarch

Following the Design for All principles, the building is void of barriers, both inside and in outside areas so that it “can be enjoyed by people with different needs and abilities,” state the architects in a press release. Framed by large windows around the entire perimeter, the new design will place Latteria’s daily functions in direct contact with passersby.

Piuarch’s choice of materials respects the traditional malga, and incorporates “zero footprint” materials – sheet metal, local stone and laminated wood – to reduce the building’s environmental impact. Moreover, the raw materials are locally sourced, and their aesthetics are harmonious with the surrounding cultural context.

Courtesy of Piuarch

At the heart of Piuarch’s winning design is its tribute to the reciprocal relationship between shepherds’ traditions and the natural environment. The dialogue between the dairy and its surrounding environment is primarily sustained through its long roof, its pitches blending in with the natural slopes of the land, and acting as a shield from the harsh climatic conditions of the Alps. Meanwhile, the lighting and interior decoration are inspired by the culdera, a traditional copper cooking pot that is used for mixing and heating milk. 

• Architects: Piuarch
• Location: 23010 Postalesio SO, Italy
• Area: 1000.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Courtesy of Piuarch

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© Brigitte Lacombe

The Moinian Group announced that they had been collaborating with the late Zaha Hadid to develop a “visionary” new project for New York City. The project, at 220 Eleventh Avenue in West Chelsea, is a multi-residential apartment building with a cultural institution at street level.

This announcement comes after Zaha Hadid Architects pledged to complete all 36 projects that were in construction or design development at the time of her death, as her office continues her powerful legacy.

220 Eleventh Avenue will contain a mix of loft-like condominiums and penthouses, with a design that intertwines the vibrancy of the Chelsea art district with Zaha Hadid’s own experience of New York as a city of “powerful geometries and rhythms.” The design, which is yet to be unveiled, merges the urban scale with intricate detail. The project is slated to begin construction in 2017.

“We are deeply honored to develop one of Zaha’s final creations and cement her astonishing legacy forevermore here in Manhattan,” said Mitchell Moinian of The Moinian Group in a press release. “Preserving the artistic integrity of this project is paramount in order to engrain the spirit of Zaha herself into the streets of Manhattan.”

Check out the four projects that Zaha Hadid Architects will complete in 2016 here.

News via The Moinian Group.

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