From the architect. The NZS Headquarters building duly respects the site of the building that stood in it’s place before. The new building is placed on location as an autonomous volume whose whiteness clearly draws the boundaries between the centuries old work of nature and the creation of the human hands.
Both floor plans are U-shaped, pivoted in relation to one another in a way so that the ground floor opens towards the existing hay-rack and football fields, while the first floor directs the views towards the silhouette of Kamniško Savinjske Alps. The centre of rotation is represented in a round glass atrium, dominated by three fruit trees. The atrium is also the main ambiental attraction for the visitors entering the building.
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The NZS Headquarters building is designed as kind of a nature observatory since all the offices are placed on the outer perimeter of the volume. This way the users have as direct as possible contact with the surroundings via the fully glazed façade. In contrast to the offices the common rooms and corridors are placed around the green curved atrium and have a direct view of the surrounding Alps from the first floor.
The façade membrane is inserted between the horizontal geometry of the concrete slabs and the emphasized aluminium verticals. The latter are a clear reflection of the structural design, most clearly seen on the south wing facade which incorporates the shape of a three-meter high Vierendel carrier. Structural axes that are reflected on the façade along with the locations of window openings correspond to the organization of offices. Together they form a seemingly random composition of the façade cladding that mimics the rhythm of trunk verticals in the nearby forest.
From the architect. A contemporary addition between the original ribbon development. In the direct surroundings old farmhouses are alternated with houses from different periods that were built after the land consolidation.
Since the various functions of contemporary houses are no longer in line with a characteristic farmhouse facade (wide front with residential function) this house has not been developed from this typology. We opted for the design of the roof shape to be positioned longitudinally along the house. This shape is derived from two monopitch roofs at which the lower point of articulation is elevated. In this way two domains are created on the upper floor, which gives the house a large degree of flexibility. Sleep – work combinations or parents’ – and children’s bedrooms can be combined in these two domains.
Large voids create the connection between the two floors. In this way the roof shape is experienced in various places on the ground floor. The roof is covered with natural slates. Sharp folding lines provide the transitions of the different roof planes. To be able to feel the mass of the house we opted for a concealed gutter as a transition from roof plane to house front. The facade is made of a blended grey stone.
Our brief for the project was to transform a late 19th century heritage-listed four bedroom cottage in a quiet, leafy country town into a larger, light filled home for a growing family. To do that, we had to connect the existing house to the garden, creating a series of flexible spaces for contemporary living & entertaining.
A new kitchen/living/dining room and new outdoor living spaces totalling 165 sq metres were added, and an existing 25 sq metres converted into a secondary living room. Our initial masterplan included the new pavilion and minor intervention to the existing cottage which was effectively Stage 1. A second stage is currently being designed. This will reconfigure the existing cottage internally, relocating the master bedroom and adding a walk in robe and ensuite. There are also plans to add a study and create storage in the four large bedrooms. We are also looking at ways to draw light in to the old part of the house.
One of our challenges with this house was deciding how to connect the built form to the large garden to the rear. To do that we had to deal with a significant level change between the existing cottage floor level and the back yard, and also work out how to respectfully hitch a major addition on to the back of the heritage listed cottage.
We conceived the new extension as an unashamedly contemporary ‘podium’ that would would anchor the building to the landscape, connecting the cottage to the garden, and the interiors to the sky. One of the defining characteristics of this region is the dramatic sky, which dominates your perception of the landscape, so we used the podium form to mediate the built form in between the ground plain and the vast sky, effectively using the architecture to intensify this connection. Inturn, this allowed us to respect the old house, essentially leaving it intact and creating a clear distinction between the two architectural forms. We then created spatial program between the two elements as the unification method.
The entry foyer now acts as that connecting device – it works programmatically for the house to separate the private areas, which are all at the front of the house within the existing cottage, and the public spaces – we arranged the living/dining/kitchen areas around a large wraparound deck which connects the internal program to the garden.
It was desirable to keep the levels consistent throughout the house so that it was easy to live in, and secondly, so that the addition would to sit ‘above’ the landscape, providing visual connection to the landscape and hills beyond from the living spaces and the deck. The rural town where the house is located, Armidale, sits in a valley. The sky, the treetops and the mountains you see from the rear part of the house is deliberate due to the way the building is elevated and sited.
Indeed locating the project site higher on the mountain, would provide a pleasant distant panorama of Cheonwangbong (Jirisan mountain’s summit), and at the same time a view over the valley and the small village. A poetic landscape picture, with colors changing every seasons, that could be peacefully contemplated through the house’s large window “frames”.
As always, if not handled with sensitivity, designing a project on a naturally virgin site can easily turn into a serious disaster. To appear legitimate among this wonderful landscape, the project had to draw from the nature’s spirit, and communicate with it.
So came the idea of an organic concept, each volumes nesting harmoniously with the surrounding environment; This harmony is by the way reinforced by the use of natural earth toned materials, inspired from Jirisan mountain’s seasonal colors.
From the entrance door, the plan layout develops from either side of the main circulation axis going upstairs.
On the right the kitchen, dining room and bathroom, opposed to living room and bedroom on the left, with large windows facing the valley view. Thereby the dynamic space is distinctly divided from the resting space.
The living room wooden floor material turns over the walls reinforcing the cocoon feel.
Similar to a waggon, the different interior spaces are connected in one single homogenous entity, covered with a copper fabric.
CRAFT is designed to be an antithesis to its mall location characterized by the placeless experiences that dominate mall cultures.
To subvert the typical experience of a glass horizontal edge between the corridor and ‘ interior’ space we used the arcade as a means to structure a reference to the type of a colonnaded walkway defining spaces of intimacy, pause and refuge from the cacophony of the busy corridors just outside.
This edge is designed as a wooden arcade, assembled by stacking and rotating horizontal wooden members around a pivot point and hence through their form defining the width of a booth while rising as high as double height of the façade. The warmth and intimate scale of the booth is offset by the continuity of the service bar and open kitchen right up to the alfresco dining space beyond.
From the architect. This project involves the transformation of a typically mundane and static office/warehouse building into the dynamic new headquarters for Melrose, a national health product company based in outer-eastern Melbourne. The project embraces the Melrose ideology of whole body health by creating a workplace that is responsive to the natural environment and engaged with the processes within.
The street façade of the existing two storey office block was eroded via the introduction of an organic tubular steel structure that literally connects the site’s landscape to the building fabric. Part sun-shade and part landscape arbor, the structure supports a combination of deciduous and evergreen vines that liberate the existing north facing windows that would otherwise cower from hot summer sun, and provides a conduit for greenery to permeate the office interior.
Openable windows were inserted to facilitate natural ventilation, and modular garden beds and joinery components comprising recycled materials and building off-cuts were inserted to define workstations, co-working areas, quiet spaces and collaborative ‘landscaped’ breakout zones. Existing ceiling tiles were retained and repainted and the original warehouse concrete floor was exposed; a section of floor on the upper level was removed to provide a transparency and connectivity between levels, further enlivening the workplace.
The division between office and warehouse was also eroded, with full height openings inserted to provide a more immediate connection between the various operations of the company. Warehouse palette racking permeates the interior to strengthen the link between the two zones and, in addition to storage and stationary typical of an administrative space, supports additional planter boxes and showcases the Melrose product range. The racking and merchandise extend dramatically into the company’s foyer, which is a light filled double height entrance hall that is programmatically and spatially diverse. The original warehouse floor within this forecourt was once again exposed, and timber lined terraces, a centrally located weeping fig, climbing vines and natural sunlight define a space that, on entry, embodies the ethos of the company, the products it creates and the benefits of harnessing nature to promote good health.
This year ArchDaily celebrates 10 years since it was first launched in Spanish as Plataforma Arquitectura. To commemorate, we sorted through the thousands of projects that have been published over the years to highlight those that represented a milestone for their time.
We also reviewed the most popular projects from each one of our sites – those that our readers highlighted through their many visits. Afterwards, we asked each one of the architects to send along additional material for their project, taking advantage of new technologies that exist and that can help our readers better understand the works.
The compilation of this material allows us to present our selection of the Top 100 Projects. These 100 projects make up a list of interesting case studies and references for millions of architects, students and specialists who are in search of the most important and inspiring projects from around the world. This section will have greater visibility on our site, exponentially increasing the global impact and opportunities that these projects can create.
The Top 100 list that we present today wouldn’t have been possible without the help of all of the architects involved, each of whom voluntarily agreed to send us additional material to enhance their former publications. Thanks to this new information, our readers can now immerse themselves in the project space through virtual models and interactive plans, in addition to viewing floorplans and images taken by some of the best photographers around the world.
As a source of inspiration for architects and students, one of our goals is to make design material available that can be used for educational purposes. The 3D models, which can be seen using the Sketchfab Virtual Reality plugin, the design files, which can be explored using the Autodesk A360 plugin, and the option to zoom in on the images to examine details, are all powerful learning tools.
In addition, as a way to help the thousands of architects that want to know what materials were used for the construction of their favorite projects, we have added a list of specifications that includes the specific products used for each project.
We thank all of the architects that have been part of this selection and we hope that this list is full of inspiration and knowledge for our readers.
From the architect. Benimaclet used to be a farming village, an island in a sea of fields ploughed through ditches. With the growth of the city of Valencia, the island was absorbed to turn it into a residential neighbourhood, and inevitably, into an anomaly within the urban fabric. And in this condition it resists, continually more threatened by the city.
The Casa Ricart has been built on a plot in the Historic Centre of the neighbourhood, and its volition is to strengthen the typological features of the traditional courtyard house constructions, still on a smaller scale, so that they become the fulcrum of the residence.
This house is shaped around two courtyards: the first, located in the transition between the living room and kitchen – dining area, is bathed in sunlight and contains an olive tree; the second, of a more private nature, is a protected courtyard with vegetation providing shade.
Today marks the ninth anniversary of the opening of the Steven Holl Architect’s Bloch Building for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. To commemorate the occasion, Iwan Baan has visited the project to show how it has settled into place on the museum’s campus, become an architectural icon for Kansas City, and continues to shine as one of Steven Holl’s most recognized projects.
The office’s design won the project in an international competition in 1999. The addition is composed of five interconnected structures spanning from north of the museum’s original 1933 building south across the sculpture park. In the words of the architects: “From the movement through the landscape, the five glass ‘lenses’ form new spaces and angles of vision, while bringing different qualities of light to the galleries below.”
“It is inspiring to see in Iwan’s new photos how well the Bloch Building is used,” says Chris McVoy, Senior Partner at Steven Holl Architects. “[The project brings] the museum experience for the public into the landscape, shaping space and light for engaging the art.”
To celebrate the Bloch Building’s tenth anniversary in 2017, the Nelson-Atkins Museum will host a series of public events and lectures.
Concept Team: Marco De Battista, Andrew Chau, Paul Feeney, Alice Grégoire, Ricardo Guedes, Andreas Kofler, Kayoko Ota, Pietro Pagliaro, Miriam Roure Parera, Carlos Pena, Ciprian Rasoiu, Agustín Pérez Torres
Design Development Architects: Francesco Moncada, Silvia Sandor
Design Development Team: Giacomo Ardesio, Paul Feeney, Alice Grégoire, Ricardo Guedes, Giulio Margheri, Pietro Pagliaro, Cecilia del Pozo, Ciprian Rasoiu, Jan de Ruyver, Miguel Taborda
Construction Architect: Silvia Sandor
Construction Team: Aleksandar Joksimovic, Leonardos Katsaros, Francesco Moncada, Federico Pompignoli
Presevation Architect: TA Architettura S.r.l.
Structural Engineer: Tecnobrevetti S.r.l.
Mep Engineer: Politecnica Ingegneria e Architettura
From the architect. OMA’s restoration of the 16th Century Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice is complete. Commissioned by the Benetton family in 2009 to transform the 9,000m2 building into a department store, now under a leasing agreement with Hong Kong-based DFS. OMA has nished its work and transferred the building to DFS for their retail t out.
First constructed in 1228, and located at the foot of the Rialto Bridge across from the sh market, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi is one of Venice’s largest and most recognizable buildings. It was used as a trading post for German mer- chants, a customs house under Napoleon, and a post of ce under Mussolini. Depicted by Canaletto and other mas- ters, and photographed countless times as the impressive but anonymous backdrop of the Rialto bridge, the Fondaco stands as a mute witness of the Venetian mercantile era, its role diminished with the progressive depopulation of Venice.
Axonometric
Twice destroyed by re and rebuilt (in its current form in 1506), manipulated in the 18th Century, and then subject to a series of radical architectural interventions in the 20th Century to accommodate the central post of ce under the fascist regime, the Fondaco quietly embodies Venice’s secret brutality. Almost entirely reconstructed with modern concrete technology during 1930s, the Fondaco is a historical palimpsest of modern substance, its preservation span- ning ve centuries of construction techniques. Regardless of the history of its adaptations (towers removed, courtyard covered with glass, windows added, structure rebuilt …) and the objective lack of authenticity of its structure, its legal status of ‘monument’ (granted in 1987) forbade almost any change.
OMA’s renovation scheme is based on a nite number of strategic interventions and vertical distribution devices that support the new program and de ne a sequence of public spaces and paths. Each intervention is conceived as an excavation through the existing mass, liberating new perspectives and unveiling the real substance of the building to its visitors, as an accumulation of authenticities.
The project – composed of both architecture and programming – opens the courtyard piazza to pedestrians, main- taining its historical role of covered urban ‘campo’. The new rooftop is created by the renovation of the existing 19th Century pavilion, standing over a new steel and glass oor which hovers above the central courtyard, and by the addi- tion of a large wooden terrace with spectacular views over the city. The rooftop, together with the courtyard below, will become public venues, open to the city and accessible at all times.
New entrances to the building are created from the Campo San Bartolomeo and the Rialto; existing entrances into the courtyard, used by locals as a shortcut, have been retained; escalators have been added to create a new public route through the building; rooms are consolidated in a way that respects the original sequences; crucial historic elements like the corner rooms remain untouched. Some aspects of the building, lost for centuries, have been resurrected: the walls of the gallerias will once again become a surface for frescoes, reappearing in contemporary form.
The Fondaco dei Tedeschi will unlock its potential as a major destination and vantage point for tourists and Venetians alike; a contemporary urban department store staging a diverse range of activities, from shopping to cultural events, social gatherings and everyday life. OMA’s renovation, both subtle and ambitious, continues the Fondaco’s tradition of vitality and adaptation, its preservation yet another chapter of the building’s illustrious and multi-layered history. It avoids nostalgic reconstructions of the past and it demysti es the ‘sacred’ image of a historical building. The project was led by Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Rem Koolhaas and Silvia Sandor.
Sig Nordal 