© Christopher Frederick Jones

• Architects: Cox Rayner Architects , Hames Sharley
• Location: Herston QLD 4006, Australia
• Area: 28550.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Christopher Frederick Jones

© Christopher Frederick Jones

From the architect. The UQ Oral Health Centre is sited in the University of Queensland’s medical campus adjoining the Royal Brisbane Hospital. The site forms a flank to a formal park that fronts the campus’s historic Mayne Medical Building, with the building restoring the symmetry of the space.

© Christopher Frederick Jones

The Centre unites all of the university’s oral health disciplines including general and paediatric dentistry, oral medicine and rehabilitation, oral radiology, orthodontics, periodontics and endodontics. It provides services to public patients linked with facilities in the hospital.

© Christopher Frederick Jones

A heritage constraint was that the building should not rise above the dome of the Mayne Building. This condition caused the building levels to step its lower levels down the slope, facilitating multiple points of engagement with the park. The park relationship is further enhanced by wrapping the building circulation around the edge, opening out to terraces. The main portion of the park façade is a system of timber louvres inside the glazing, enabling the circulation corridors to be naturally ventilated.

Plan 1

Toward the top of the slope the building opens up to form a full height atrium. This space coincides with the movement path from the medical campus to the hospital, and acts as a new campus heart. It is activated by a bookshop, library and café which connect the building into the historic medical building. A large auditorium opens off atrium on the other side.

© Christopher Frederick Jones

Most of the volume of the building is occupied by clinical simulation rooms, pre-clinical laboratories, research laboratories and lecture/seminar rooms. Our intent was to offset the necessarily systematic layout of these facilities by wrapping the exterior in organic spaces and forms, indented in parts to retain existing trees and projecting in others to create social spaces overlooking the park.

© Christopher Frederick Jones

An ulterior purpose in contrasting rigid and organic form was to embody both the discipline and craft of dentistry. The latter is further accentuated by the materiality, texture and detail of the elements in and around the circulation spaces, the lights for example being designed as abstractions of metalwork in the historic medical school. Several of these elements convey metaphoric interpretations related to dentistry, extending out to the external forms.

Elevation

Although it is a large – approximately 30,000m2 – institutional building, the Oral Health Centre epitomises our core design principles of structure, craft, art and nature. These principles demonstrably translate into a tangibly humanistic architecture, inevitably organic, and inextricable from its context.

© Christopher Frederick Jones

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via AIA

Although the year began with a decline, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) has shown three consecutive months of increasing demand for design activity at architecture firms. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reported the April ABI score was 50.6. Although down from March’s score of 51.9, this score still reflects an increase in design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 56.9, down from 58.1 in the previous month.

“Architects continue to report a wide range of business conditions, with unusually high variation in design activity across the major building categories,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD.  “The strong growth in design contracts – the strongest score for this indicator since last summer — certainly suggests that firms will be reporting growth in billings over the next several months.”

Regional averages:

• South (52.2)
• Northeast (51.5)
• West (50.8)
• Midwest (50.8)

Sector Index Breakdown:

• Multi-Family Residential (53.7)
• Commercial / Industrial (52.0)
• Mixed Practice (50.0)
• Institutional (49.0)

Key April ABI highlights:

• Project inquiries index: 56.9
• Design contracts index: 54.3

As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lead time between architecture billings and construction spending. Regional and sector categories are calculated as a 3-month moving average, whereas the index and inquiries are monthly numbers. 

News via AIA

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© Jesús Granada

• Architects: Javier Pérez De La Fuente, Juan Antonio Marín Malavé
• Location: Puerto de Málaga, Spain
• Area: 7609.85 sqm
• Photographs: Jesús Granada , Javier Orive , José Aznar Antón

• Promotores: Ayuntamiento de Málaga, Centre Pompidou
• Organos Gestores : Gerencia Municipal de Urbanismo; Gerente: José Cardador Jiménez, Fundación Picasso/ Museo Casa Natal; Director : José María Luna Aguilar
• Technical Architects: Agustín Valero Arce, Juan Antonio Macías Patino
• Structural Analysis And Facilities: 3.14 GA Consultores; Antonio Jiménez Márquez, Francisco Cano Fernández
• Health And Safety Coordination: Francisco Godoy Sánchez
• Engineering: Rocío Vilchez Pérez, Socorro López Pinto, Juan A. Carrasco Rivero
• Collaborators Architects: Marta Iglesias Rando, arquitecta, Isabel Ramírez Romero, arquitecta.
• Constructor: U.T.E. DRAGADOS-NAXFOR.
• Quality Control: CEMOSA

© Javier Orive

From the architect. The Outside

Two resources have been used to resolve the initial difficult matter of the very limited presence of the existing building within the public space:  using industrial materials that work in harmony with the port environment in which it is located and an express reference to binomial art-technique using the rhythms of punch cards used by Joseph-Marie Jacquard (1752-1834) in their looms from 1805.

© Jesús Granada

The relationship between technical and artistic production today is reflected especially in the use of new pillars and modes of expression. De-contextualisation as a means of assessment of an isolated object and its integration in a different type of system connects past and present, reflecting the necessary and fruitful transfer of knowledge and experience between various disciplines. This relationship encourages curiosity and strives, consciously or unconsciously, to deepen, develop and advance knowledge and communication.

© Javier Orive

The Interior Spaces

The internal layout of the centre, is conceived as a fluid space, where in a continuous sequence, the visitor takes a journey bringing them closer to the contents on display, preparing them emotionally for the move from the noisy “outside world” into a space that allows “an inner experience” which if where we want the visit to be focused. This idea is embodied as a strategy, a certain fragmentation and visual shutdown that slowly takes us to different places, using different enclosure areas that serve as a filter and allow you to gradually discover each space in their true magnitude.

© Javier Orive

It is laid out on two floors Level 0 (access) and Level -1. Level 0 is made up of various areas and free access: cafe, shop, luggage lockers, and space for young audiences and temporary exhibitions.

Section

Level -1 includes the rooms housing the collection. It is the first sample collection, intended to stay in Malaga for 2½ years, the five topics are: metamorphosis, self-portraits, the faceless man, the political body and the body in pieces, including works from the Pompidou Centre in Paris, with exhibition curator Brigitte Leal, head curator of heritage, deputy director of the National Museum of Modern Art. This floor hosts the multipurpose room / auditorium with a capacity for 121 people.

© Jesús Granada

Empty Spaces

The cultural centre is structured around two areas that assume different characters: the empty outside space and the central exhibition space.

© Jesús Granada

The empty outside space is perceived as an element of urban reference allowing us to always maintain the indoor-outdoor relationship. The space is not accessible, but provides “a window” from which to look inside.

Plan 0

It serves as a central element and organises the service spaces, these are arranged around the access, shop, luggage storage area and access to the collection.

For a first showing, Daniel Buren has produced a piece of work using coloured vinyl entitled “Incubated”.

© Javier Orive

The central exhibition space is made up of a central vacuum inside, which the visitor discovers during the process of immersion in the tour, and once at the access level, has a first glimpse of this space, although very fractional, through the vertical slats. It is the space around which the whole building is organised, with a large covered atrium, and takes on the character of a unique and distinctive space as its size and the versatility of its facilities can accommodate very diverse works. It is 8 metres high and its central area totals around 1,000 sqm.

Both areas share a common internal language using vertical wooden slats that establishes a dialogue between them.

Tours

The two connecting spaces between levels 0 and -1 have also been designed with a distinct character:

The central ramp-ladder, as an extension of the public space, is a fluid and slow declining space, which, almost in a processional manner, brings visitors to the collection preparing them to be challenged by the artistic proposal and deep content that lies within.

Section

The wooden staircase, a serene and friendly space, provides a memorable image to close the experience.

The tours are accessible by lifts that connect the two levels.

© Jesús Granada

Exhibition Rooms

The Pompidou Centre in Málaga, besides the central hall with three rooms for semi-permanent use, has a temporary exhibition hall and a workshop for young audiences.

Cozy beautifully proportioned rooms, expectant containers, equipped with all the systems required to accommodate the most demanding of collections.

© Jesús Granada

Multipurpose Room 

It poses as versatile space, with a seating system concealed under the floor that allows its use as a diaphanous room or an auditorium for 121 people. (made by FIGUERAS).

Service Space

The Pompidou Centre in Málaga also has a luggage storage area, shop and cafe. 

© Jesús Granada

Technical spaces

Spaces that house the air conditioning systems, security, catering and several others are arranged within a perimeter ring that allows the development of management and maintenance tasks without interfering with the operation of the centre.

It incorporates a forklift with independent access from the parking basement.

Externally there are no elements that “invade” the public space, so that the cover becomes a neutral outer space to accommodate the diverse activities of the Centre.

© Jesús Granada

 

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© Naho Kubota

New York-based architecture firm, Leong Leong, created an installation inspired by “the experience of moving through landscapes in a Ford Edge,” for the third annual Sight Unseen OFFSITE exhibition as a part of the citywide NYCxDESIGN festival.  

Titled TOPO, the installation was a scaleless environment composed of more than one thousand foam rollers. Collectively, they form a landscape “that is both an intimate sanctuary and an expansive horizon.” The installation was situated in a room of mirrors, giving the effect that it extends indefinitely.

© Naho Kubota

“TOPO explores the experience of driving and the interior of a car as seamlessly merging into the environment, dissolving distinctions interior/exterior, open/closed and figure/field,” Leong Leong told ArchDaily in an email.

© Naho Kubota

Designed in collaboration with ARUP, the exhibition also transforms the acoustic depth of the space through acoustic actuators that are scattered throughout the design, acting as an “interactive sound bath which creates a constantly changing field of sound,” according to Leong. “The mood of the space can transform radically because the sound is constantly changing. You can lay, sit, roll, have a seance…whatever.” 

Architecture and automotive design have a long history together,” said Dominic Leong, partner at Leong Leong in a press release. “Beginning with the Italian Futurists’ fascination with the new perceptions of space and time enabled by the speed of the automobile to Le Corbusier’s infatuation with the engineered efficiency of the automobile — we are now seeing architecture and automotive design’s common interest in not just form and functionality, but in how we interface and relate to our environments. TOPO explores the experience of driving by dissolving the distinction between inside and outside, creating the perception of multiple environments within a single immersive space.”

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Part of Calgary's "+15" network of skybridges. Image © Wikimedia user Qyd licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 (adapted)

When hearing the word “skybridge” or “elevated walkway,” what often comes to mind is a narrow, glassed-in pathway perhaps crossing between two office buildings or hospital concourses; a narrow artery whose only purpose seems to be keeping people dry and away from cars as they walk from meeting to meeting. But this wasn’t always the case – in the 1960s, skyways were seen as radical urban inventions that would bring city circulation into the 3rd dimension. Championed in the United States by architect Victor Gruen, following ideals espoused by both CIAM and Team 10 in Europe, the skyway movement took hold in cities all over the world with varying degrees of success, but rarely with the fluid connections between levels originally envisioned by its designers.

Steven Holl's Linked Hybrid. Image © Iwan Baan

The past decade had seen a renewed interest in the skybridge as an architectural element. Projects like Steven Holl’s Linked Hybrid complex in Beijing (2009) and Horizontal Skyscraper in Shenzhen (2009) feature elevated circulation connecting users to various buildings within a complex. Proposed dual towers by Dutch firm MVRDV in Seoul (2011) and BIG’s Cross # Towers (2015) are also connected via bridges containing public program. But where these designs utilize the skybridge successfully, they still remain independent entities rather than circulatory networks. Perhaps the best recent example is New York’s High Line (2009-2014), where the elevated park also works to navigate pedestrians through Manhattan’s west side.

This new interest brings us an opportunity to look back at the ways skyways have succeeded (in places such as Hong Kong) and failed (as in Cincinnati, alongside many American cities). In this article from Places Journal, Jennifer Yoos and Vincent James explore the origins and the political climates that surrounded the inception of elevated systems in cities such as Minneapolis/St. Paul, Dallas, Calgary and Hong Kong, and systems that could have been in New York City. As city density continues to increase and technology evolves, skyways may return as a way to bring public space to all levels of the city.

Read the entire article, “The Multilevel Metropolis,” here.

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© Yellow Camera

• Architects: The Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative
• Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
• Architect In Charge: Marc Boutin
• Project Team: Marc Boutin, Sean Knight, Richard Cotter
• Area: 371.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Yellow Camera

• Engineering: Grant Structural Engineering
• Landscape: MBAC
• Contractor: Meadow Sage Builders

© Yellow Camera

From the architect. This two storey walkout residence for a professional couple in Northwest Calgary negotiates a steeply sloping site with dramatic views of the Foothills and Rocky Mountains. The design was developed in response to both the unique characteristics of the site, and to the clients’ desire for an uncluttered, light filled, and accessible living space.

© Yellow Camera

The house addresses the street with a subdued single storey façade, while the private, semi-enclosed courtyard described by the two wings of its L-shaped plan is enveloped by two storey curtain wall designed to take full advantage of the property’s views.

North Elevation

East Elevation

The plan consolidates the house’s private functions within a maple-clad volume, while its public functions are organized in a series of overlapping social spaces, framed and codified by the use of white lacquered millwork. These two halves of the residence’s program are connected visually across the courtyard space and spatially by a promenade running parallel to both the consolidated block of private spaces and the curtain wall.  

© Yellow Camera

Materially, the house draws on a limited number of sources: the public skin is comprised primarily of corrugated aluminum with inset planes of cedar at window apertures, while the private faces of the plan are clad in curtain wall glazing. The interior finishes show similar restraint, allowing light and shadow to describe the spaces while providing a complementary environment for the clients’ collection of contemporary art. 

© Yellow Camera

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© Nigel Young/Foster + Partners

Foster + Partners‘ Craft + Manufacture: Industrial Design exhibition is currently on display at The Aram Gallery in London. It is the firm’s first exhibition dedicated to the industrial design work they have created over the past fifty years. It shows how “the science, art, and craft of making things” has been the foundation of the firm, and how the “collaborative nature of the design team pioneered by Norman Foster” has been translated into their architectural practice.

© Nigel Young/Foster + Partners

The exhibition looks at the industrial design team’s contributions to their architectural projects, including seating at the Cathay Pacific Lounge at the Hong Kong Airport, and furniture designed for the Maggie’s Cancer Center in Manchester.

© Nigel Young/Foster + Partners

The exhibition contains a variety of projects including designs for chairs, tables, shelving units, and even wind turbines, to name a few. Through these objects, viewers are able to understand how the practice believes in the seamless transition between structure and form at a range of scales.

© Nigel Young/Foster + Partners

“I have always had a very close relationship with the making of things – I find it impossible to separate the process of design from the process of making,” Norman Foster, Chairman and Founder of Foster + Partners, said in a press release. “The diversity of the practice’s work is a logical outcome of the way we have evolved through our core activity of designing buildings. For me, the constant theme that flows through our work is the fusion of the humanistic and poetic dimensions of an object, and the technical precision of industry – more succinctly craft and manufacture.”

© Nigel Young/Foster + Partners

 The exhibition will run until July 2.

Learn more, here.

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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.

Spain is one of the countries where the practice of architecture has been most affected by the economic crisis. There are few places on earth where such large numbers of buildings were built in such a short period of time. The lack of reflection over whether these projects were necessary or valid resulted in the subsequent abandonment of many buildings when their completion or maintenance was discovered not to be economically viable. Their appearance throughout Spanish territories has generated a collection of unfinished buildings where the factor of time was eliminated from the formula for making architecture. 

UNFINISHED / curated by Iñaqui Carnicero & Carlos Quintáns. Spanish Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu

Using photography as a filter to portray this reality, the Pavilion’s central space represents the optimistic view of those who have fought back against this recent past, understanding these inherited constructions as an opportunity.

UNFINISHED / curated by Iñaqui Carnicero & Carlos Quintáns. Spanish Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu

The “Unfinished” exhibition, presented in the Spanish pavilion at the Biennale, seeks to direct attention to processes more than results in an attempt to discover design strategies generated by an optimistic view of the constructed environment. 

UNFINISHED / curated by Iñaqui Carnicero & Carlos Quintáns. Spanish Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu

The exhibition gathers examples of architecture produced during the past few years, born out of renunciation and economy of mens, designed to evolve and adapt to future necessities and trusting in the beauty conferred by the passage of time. These projects have understood the lessons of the recent past and consider architecture to be something unfinished, in a constant state of evolution and truly in the service of humanity. The current moment of uncertainty in our profession makes its consideration here especially relevant. 

UNFINISHED / curated by Iñaqui Carnicero & Carlos Quintáns. Spanish Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu

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UNFINISHED / curated by Carlos Quintáns & Iñaqui Carnicero. Spanish Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. . Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu

Alejandro Aravena and the jury for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia have just announced the winning participations.

The Golden Lion for Best National Participation went to Spain for UNFINISHED. The jury cited Carlos Quintáns & Iñaqui Carnicero’s “concisely curated selection of emerging architects whose work shows how creativity and commitment can transcend material constraints.”

The Golden Lion for Best Participant in the International Exhibition, Reporting From the Front, went to Gabinete de Arquitectura. The award was granted to Solano Benítez, Gloria Cabral, and Solanito Benítez (all from Paraguay) for “harnessing simple materials, structural ingenuity and unskilled labour to bring architecture to underserved communities.”

NLÉ received the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant in the International Exhibition Reporting From the Front for his Makoko Floating School. The jury cited, “a powerful demonstration, be it in Lagos or in Venice, that architecture, at once iconic and pragmatic, can amplify the importance of education.”

Japan and Peru took home the Special Mention in the National Participations category. For Japan, the jury particularly appreciated “the poetry of compactness to alternative forms of collective living in a dense urban space.” They congratulated Peru for bringing architecture to a remote corner of the world, making it both a venue for learning as well as a means for preserving the culture of the Amazon.

Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo of Italy received Special Mention for her contribution to Reporting From the Front, which demonstrated “perseverance in using the rigours of her discipline to elevate the everyday into timeless works of architecture.”

As it was announced in May, Paulo Mendes da Rocha received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

We will continue to post updates and images.

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© Ricardo Nascimento

• Architects: Ramos Castellano Arquitectos
• Location: São Pedro, Cape Verde
• Collaborators: Camille Cellier, Aderito Evora
• Area: 650.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Ricardo Nascimento

• Construction Company: ramoscastellano arquitectos
• Engineer: Eoceno Ramos
• Carpenters: Tony e Aguinaldo

© Ricardo Nascimento

Located in the main square of a small fishermen village, Aquiles Eco Hotel aims to be integrated in the architecture and in the social structure of the surroundings.

© Ricardo Nascimento

The architecture is simple, raw and flexible, and it talks with the other houses and the small buildings all around.

© Ricardo Nascimento

The structure is composed by 13 wooden container sized rooms, set in a beton brut structure and painted with lime putty. 

The tropical dry climate and the strong Aliseum winds make the island of Sao Vicente very fragile concerning its avaliable material. Only stones and sand can be found on the island, but still they are protected by local laws and not renewable in the short term.

© Ricardo Nascimento

For this reason we chose the certified wood to build the rooms, choosing renewability and sustainability, and also choosing a solution which is easy to assemble and disassemble. Due to the very unpredictable turistic demands, we chose a flexible structure, easy to eventually move in another place, or to dismantle and use in another contest or country.

© Ricardo Nascimento

The hotel is a prototype. Every solution is found thinking global and acting local. 

The water in the showers is recycled and reused in the toilet flush. In the near future photovoltaic panels will be set on the rooftop. 

© Ricardo Nascimento

In the ground floor there is the reception, the kitchen and the restaurant lounge. A Concrete floor, and simple furniture made with recycled wood (used for the concrete) are the main decoration of those open spaces. 

The first floor and the second floor have quite the same disposition: 6 container sized rooms and a storage.

The last floor hosts a sea viewed suite, the cleaning room and a huge open veranda.

The rooms have a basic configuration to fit with the simple village living. They consist in a simple portal “skeleton” made by 8×8 wooden bars, and a “skin” of assembled wooden panels. 

© Ricardo Nascimento

No need of air conditioning due to the crossed ventilation. No television, as we aim to encourage the discovery of the village and the open-air experiences instead of staying in the rooms. On the other side we offer wi-fi connection in the common spaces to be linked with the world. Low tech installation and few visual information let the visitors experience themselves and the surrounding environment.

The artworks inside the building are made by the artist-architect Moreno Castellano.

© Ricardo Nascimento

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