Along with the Radical Park, the Youth Arena will be one of the greatest 2016 RIO Legacies. Both integrate Deodoro Olympic Park, a project by the Brazilian architecture office Vigliecca & Associados. During the games, it will stage the Women’s Basketball competitions, Modern Pentathlon Fencing and Wheelchair Fencing. Once a legacy, it will be used as an education and training center for athletes.
Masterplan
One of the most challenging aspects of the project was to design a single space able to house the Pentathlon Fencing games area in which simultaneous matches take place and the Basketball court that requires only a fourth of this space. The games for both sports will take place six days apart – the first one is Basketball. So in order to adapt its layout to both sports and also make it useful once in legacy mode, temporary installations were created within the permanent installation.
The project uses a sports hangar as its concept, being coherently elegant with the Olympic scale and presenting a great span of 66.5 meters, able to house several sport modalities. The building was designed to operate with only natural ventilation and illumination once in legacy mode. The adjustable shading devices and screens on the facade and exhaust openings on the roof as well as large shaded areas on the facade all contribute to a lowered maintenance cost. The artificial lighting and air conditioning are demanded by the Olympic Committee but will only be used during the Olympic Games.
During the basketball competitions, the stands will be placed on all sides of the court with a seating capacity for 5.000 people. The concept of creating a bowl in which the public surrounds the players is used in sports arenas to create the atmosphere of a spectacle.
In the competition of Modern Pentathlon Fencing, which requires a larger area for its games compared to basketball, the stands will be reduced to 4.000 seats and will only occupy the sides of the court. Once a legacy, the Youth Arena will have eight sports courts and 2.000 seats only on one side.
Diagram
Most part of the structure was done in steel since it was the most appropriate material to create large spans and also for being faster to build. To reduce costs, we tried to work with the smallest possible spans while attending all Olympic requirements. These spans are made possible by 7 triangular trusses of 4.30 m high all connected to a steel-structured trussed facade.
Once in legacy mode, the Youth Arena will work as an athlete training and improvement center will greatly contribute to an ongoing work that has already been taking place in Deodoro.
Zaha Hadid Architects Vision. Image Courtesy of Heathrow Media Centre
Heathrow Airport is offering a first glimpse at commissioned expansion proposals by Zaha Hadid Architects, Grimshaw, HOK, and Benoy, that will shape the future of the global hub in London. The project brief called for “bold ideas to create a world-class sustainable airport that [will] deliver innovations in passenger service, integrate local communities, and showcase the best of British design.” Challenging the architects to push the boundaries of what is the current airport typology, the proposals are meant to drive a step change in global airport design.
HOK Vision. Image Courtesy of Heathrow Media Centre
According to Heathrow’s Head of Design, Barry Weekes, “The visionary concepts are just the start of a dialogue which will fundamentally redefine what an airport is, how it looks and feels, how it interacts with its environment and an increasingly demanding generation of new passengers, and importantly enhancing how it connects with the communities around it. Our ambition for expansion is to transform Heathrow…[into a] global gateway at the forefront of sustainable development and innovative design.”
Benoy Vision. Image Courtesy of Heathrow Media Centre
The proposals will be refined further before a final concept designer is selected in July.
Grimshaw Vision. Image Courtesy of Heathrow Media Centre
PARKROYAL on Pickering. Image Courtesy of WOHA Architects
Singapore-based WOHA’s “Fragments of an Urban Future” will be on display at the 2016 Venice Biennale, addressing some of the critical issues that megacities face today — “unprecedented urbanization, accelerating climate change and the need for preservation of tropical biodiversity.” Part of the Global Art Affairs Foundation’s collateral exhibition, “TIME SPACE EXISTENCE,” WOHA’s contribution will be housed in the Palazzo Bembo.
"Fragments of an Urban Future" Will be on View at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image Courtesy of WOHA Architects
The multimedia exhibition features three of WOHA’s most innovative projects, all of which use vertical eco-systems to take advantage of the challenges facing tropical cities. Sited in Singapore – an exemplar of the hyper-dense, Asian tropical city – these buildings feature “porous façades, airy pathways, and communal gardens” hinting at an “utopian urban future” that is already taking shape.
SkyVille @ Dawson. Image Courtesy of WOHA Architects
Among these projects are PARKROYAL on Pickering, SkyVille @ Dawson, and the Oasia Downtown Hotel. Each features a unique, topographical architecture that blurs architecture and landscape. Ranging from hotels to social housing, each project’s use of living systems creates a more vibrant and sustainable life for both the occupants and the city.
Oasia Downtown Hotel. Image Courtesy of WOHA Architects
The architects will also present a publication featuring their work: “Garden City Mega City” alongside Patrick Bingham-Hall, the author and publisher of the book. The book features photographs, diagrams and infographics to present WOHA’s case for re-imagining the 21st century city.
The opening reception for the exhibit and release of the book will take place at the Palazzo Bembo on May 27th at 4pm.
From the architect. The project for the House in Chamusca da Beira consists in the requalification of a small built aggregate in a rural estate and on its enlargement with the construction from scratch of a new small building, directly articulated with the exterior space. The former woodshed of the main house was redesigned to function as an entrance space (from where you can enter the new building) and to receive an autonomous wooden structure that encloses a toilet. In this space the traditional constructive systems were kept, like the monopitched roof laid on a traditional wooden structure, that is extended to function as a porch over a small courtyard. The demolition of a set of unqualified outbuildings (storage rooms and garage), which were lean to the wall that limits the courtyard, allowed to enhance its presence and to recover the original building character. This wall is crossed by a tunnel made of corten steel, that establishes the transition between the new room and the former woodshed.
The new construction was designed in a very close way to the preexisting constructions (the main house and the adjacent courtyard) but also with the natural landscape, with special attention payed to the proximity of a well and a set of orange trees. The new telluric volume – narrow, vertical and also with a mono-pitched roof – opens the house over the landscape, clearly communicating with it through the three big windows opened towards southwest. Unlike the rehabilitated spaces, where the materiality is recovered from the original, here the material options were made towards an affirmation of contemporaneity, with the use of concrete in the exterior walls and zinc in the roof.
In Granary Square, located in London’s King’s Cross, there is a fragment of the poem Brill by Aidan Dunn set into the ground, which reads: “King’s Cross, dense with angels and histories. There are cities beneath your pavements, cities behind your skies.” Anchored by the converted granary building and a rejuvenated stretch of canal, Argent’s ongoing King’s Cross development is an appropriate setting for Building on the Built, an exhibition which presents the work of London-based practice Jonathan Tuckey Design.
They are currently working on the interiors for Gasholders London, a collection of luxury residential buildings set within the iron skeletons of three gasometers – each having been relocated within the King’s Cross development site. In the latter stages of construction, these iconic Victorian structures and the houses within are visible from the exhibition space, with a 1:20 model of Jonathan Tuckey’s gasholder interiors in the foreground.
The exhibition is framed around the context of the opposing approach to restoration of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and John Ruskin. While the likes of Viollet-le-Duc believed restorative or additive work on existing buildings should allow for them to “attain a state of completion” John Ruskin, for example, espoused the notion of repair rather than restoration of older buildings and the visual expression of the layering of history within them.
Ruskin’s approach is more evident in the work of Jonathan Tuckey, which is characterized by sensitive yet contemporary insertions into existing settings. Collage House, for example, is the conversion of a steel fabricator’s house into a home in which the texture of the retained brick walls and the structure of the trussed roof are integrated into the architecture. The palimpsest of the original building is celebrated, evoking Ruskin’s “walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity.”[1]
Fred Scott, who tutored Jonathan Tuckey on the interior design course in Kingston University in London, describes the work of intervention as “a dialogue across time between successive generations of designers, and as such as work in continuous progress.”[2] The theme of time is integral to the exhibition. Buildings outlive people and, from the moment an architect hands a building over to a client, their creations take over a life of their own. Walls are shifted, extensions added and users change as a result of fluctuating social and economic forces. In several of the domestic projects, scars from buildings’ former lives are retained and contrasted with contemporary interventions.
Inspired by Joseph Gandy’s painting Public and Private Buildings Executed by John Soane, the exhibition displays an assortment of models spanning the last fifteen years. Fragments of projects at different scales give a sense of the practice’s evolution over time and create a variegated topography akin to the agglomeration of buildings in a city. Although principally involved with domestic projects for private clients, there is an engagement with wider urban conditions in much of the practice’s work.
Meticulous large-scale site models combined with rigorous historical research provide clues to the design. In the ongoing Hackney Road project, a 17th century coach house was discovered in a courtyard behind the main road. This historic building once flanked a Roman road which has now been engulfed by development. The project makes a virtue of this historical condition, creating an intimate courtyard around which the new housing is centred. The exhibition text talks about “exterior interiors” and several of the projects on display carve out civic external spaces. Through small scale interventions, the Wilberforce Primary School project reimagines an existing narrow alleyway as a place for learning, while unrealised projects in Folkestone aim to stitch together the urban grain, creating new routes through the town and opening up “backlands.”
While the majority of the exhibition is concerned with refurbishment, two new build projects are particularly engaging in their attempt to evoke the layering of forms and spaces that characterize historic buildings: a house in the South Downs and a hotel in Costa Rica. On a rural hillside in West Sussex, the proposed house at Quellhurst is conceived as a series of volumes which Jonathan describes as ‘appearing to have arrived at different times’. While there was no existing building to work with, the artificial terracing of the site influenced the design, a reminder that landscapes can have the same layering of history and memory as urban environments.
Joseph Gandy’s famous 1830 painting Soane’s Bank of England as a Ruin in a state of decay was part of a pre-Victorian fascination with ruins. Jonathan Tuckey’s ongoing project for a new boutique hotel in Costa Rica is designed with its future as an overgrown ruin in mind. Deep arched colonnades have a timeless quality reminiscent of Geoffrey Bawa’s Kandalama Hotel in Sri Lanka. Once again, the work is infused with the spirit of Ruskin: “there is not a cluster of weeds growing in any cranny of ruin which has not a beauty in all respects nearly equal, and, in some, immeasurably superior, to that of the most elaborate sculpture of its stones.”[3] Jonathan Tuckey Design’s work develops its richness from the addition of new layers into the life of existing buildings, and for designing with the future life of his buildings in mind. This engaging exhibition is highly recommended.
You can find out more about the exhibition, which runs until the 18th May at 6-8 Stable Street in King’s Cross (London N1C 4AB), here.
References [1] Ruskin, John. “The Lamp of Memory” in The Seven Lamps of Architecture. (New York: Crowell, 1890) 190. [2] Scott, Fred. “On Architectural Recycling”, Architecture Today (02/11/2008), accessed 04/05/2016. [3] Wheeler, Michael and Whiteley, Nigel, The Lamp of Memory: Ruskin, Tradition, and Architecture, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992) 86
Client: Swiss Confederation represented by the Council of Polytechnic Schools, delegation for the operations: EPFL – Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Artistic Direction And Design : Gaëlle Lauriot-Prévost
Local Architect: Architram
Consultants: PREFACE SARL (facades), Betica SA (mechanical electrical), Daniel Willi SA (structure), DSILENCE SA (acoustics), Duchein SA (sanitary system)
The ME building, dedicated to the mechanical engineering department, was built by the Zweifel + Stricker + Associates team in the early 70s, during the first phase of development of the campus. Its spatial organization bears testament to the tenets of the original master plan: the separation of cars and pedestrians into two different flows, as per Modern Movement in architecture principles, means that access to the building happens on multiple levels. The building has a three-dimensional grid (23’-7” length by 12’-9” height) which divides its space in a controlled way, regardless of type or purpose. The original master plan was revised several times over the ensuing decades, to question some of the initial projections, and to adjust it to inevitable evolutions such as a growing number of visitors and new usages. Moreover, the remarkable design of the Rolex Learning Center – which sits in the vicinity of the mechanics hall – leaves room for multiple architectural styles, allowing for the identity of the school to be renewed and for the campus itself to become a whole new district in the greater Lausanne metropolis.
Since the early 2000s, in an effort to promote its top-level teaching, research and innovation activities, and to attract more international students, the EPFL itself undertook several redevelopment operations. The campus and the buildings were refurbished, including the ME building which had gradually become cramped and was rapidly deteriorating.
The project of the Dominique Perrault Architecte / Steiner team, which won a 2011 international competition, is to preserve the connecting axes that bridge the campus, while demolishing the aging halls. A new rectangular hall is wedged to the “bridge” buildings, which are left as is, save for a refurbishment of their two lower levels. The new building, covering a total surface area of over 223,000 sq. ft., is spread over four superstructure levels and one infrastructure level. It houses the administrative offices of the department of Engineering (Sciences et Techniques de l’Ingénieur, or STI), consisting of offices and research laboratories, as well as some office spaces for the department of Biology (Sciences de la Vie, or SV).
The building, which serves as a large-scale experimental playground and laboratory for research scientists, consists of two wings connected by a large central atrium. In functional terms, the wings can be considered as two separate buildings, with their own technical and circulation networks. The partition of the space respects the original grid while playing with subdivisions and double heights. The materials used – raw concrete and metal walls, cement and PVC floors – favor a simple black-and-white palette in matt and glossy finishes. The opaque walls and glass screens create a set of perspectives into the depths of the building, turning any walk along the corridors into an original experience. The technical networks, left apparent on the walls and ceilings, are a nod to the scientific purpose of the building. Individual offices occupy a peripheral strip along the external facade. Each office is wide open to the outside world thanks to bay windows that fill the workspaces with subdued natural light. These comfortable, luminous and spacious rooms are apt spaces for long hours of research work.
The atrium, a reception and social area serving the office spaces, is the beating heart of the building. Straight stairways and flared corridors flow diagonally from one level to the next and from one side to another, filling the central void with a blur of lines. Handrails and tubular wall-mounted lamps, accented in black, add to an overall graphic effect inspired by Piranese’s Capricci. Superimposed planes and criss-crossing lines create a dynamic tridimensional picture, which is deconstructed and reconstructed by each visitor passing through it. This plan turns the atrium into a fantastic spatial experience, while reinforcing its social function, by favoring chance encounters without impeding circulation. With its wide open plan and high ceilings, the atrium goes above and beyond its primary purpose as a reception area, turning into a space for experimentation. Placed at a crossroads position on the campus, between different disciplinary fields and as an entrance point for hyper specialized technical laboratories, the atrium is conceived as an accessible door to knowledge and an empirical, experiential space.
The façades combine two distinct architectural styles in one common material, giving the building a contemporary allure while paying tribute the legacy of the 1970s. The metallic mesh, on the one hand, evokes the scope of mechanical engineering, while the northern façade is a direct reference to the molding envelopes of the neighboring buildings.
The mechanical façade stands to the East, South and West of the building. The shape and dimensions of its modules, which were prebuilt in a factory before assembly, were determined by the EPFL’s historic master plan. Each module is made up of two superimposed layers: an inner skin offering thermal insulation and soundproofing, and an outer solar protection, consisting of a frame holding the signature metallic mesh used by DPA since the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The modules are divided into three vertical panels, two of which are sliding and one static. The sliding modules can be deployed in front of the glass panes or superimposed on the third one. For thermal optimization purposes, the mobile panels are generally operated through building automation system, but they can also be maneuvered manually. The third module remains in a fixed position on top of the opaque façade panel.
The metallic mesh panels are tilted away from the façade by a 5° angle, with different slants; this juxtaposition of oblique planes looks like a woven pattern, or a hinge seen on a macro level. The raw material used to build these automated components denotes the building’s purpose as a space for scientific experiment. At night, the indoor lighting system amplifies these contrasts by showing the general layout, turning the hall into a lighthouse for the campus. With its blinds that shift and and turn with the Lausanne skies, the slant of the frames and the weave of the mesh, and the visual clash between the threshold and the outer panels, the building offers a range of rich and contrasting perceptions.
For the historic façade, to the North of the building, the outer coating of the existing facades of the campus was adapted to meet current Minergie® energy standards. Wide horizontal glazings (4’-11” x 9’-10”) are mounted above an opaque apron made of horizontal stamped sheet metal. The outer shell provides insulation, while blinds serve as solar protection for the windows.
Science is the essence of the new ME building. With this architectural project using industrial components and data processing technologies while preserving the circulation network and the structural grid established by the original master plan, the mechanics hall is a new milestone in the history of the EPFL campus. In addition to this brand new building, the 2011 redevelopment competition won by the Dominique Perrault Architecte / Steiner team included challenges across the school’s campus, namely refurbishing the old library to turn it into headquarters for the EPFL (building delivered in 2013), and developing a strategy for a potential Teaching Lab. This last project is an opportunity to reconsider the operation of the campus and the use of its central circulation axis, giving it a broader urban scope.
From the architect. Middle sized family house designed for a couple with two children.
Situated in a narrow street in center of Zagreb. The house is located on the street, respecting the current building line of other houses in the street, but raised above street level.
Garage is kept on the street level but incorporated in the base of the house. Trapeze base plan derives from the site shape.
Plan
Plan
Immediate neighbourhood is very dense, and site itself surrounded by huge houses. That is why the house is „defensive“ towards the neighbours and opens itself diagonally, in angles, to gain light, air and vistas.
On the garden side, the interior expands towards the outside space, with the biggest facade openings. Visible volume of the house is two-storey high, while the base is integrated in terrein, hiding garage and pool area.
From the architect. The Sheik Zayed Private Academy for boys is designed to support different learning styles and 21st century educational skills. Rosan Bosch Studio has transformed the school into a differentiated learning environment that stimulates each student’s individual needs and invokes a sense of pride and belonging.
By offering overlapping and differentiated learning environments, containing areas for knowledge sharing, inspiration and personal challenge, the design supports, develops and engages each student. Sports and movement are recognized as integral parts of the education process and generous capacity for these disciplines has been built into the indoor learning environment. The design combines organized educational spaces with informal educational spaces outside the classroom, thereby extending the learning experience throughout the school.
Instead of empty hallways the academy now forms an engaging setting for different learning situations. Amongst the many special designed elements is an organic red bench, meandering through the space enabling collaborative learning sessions and social interaction. Safe and confortable window niches support individual contemplation and the IT learning labs inspire students to acquire new knowledge. In the learner’s pool colourful ceramic pearls encourage students to dive.
The design refers to cultural heritage with strong visual effects created throughout the school. It draws on references to the desert and natural resources, such as the water channels, which have been crucial to the life in the region. Artistic graphic design and way finding unfolds in the academy with references to the local history and subjects such as mathematics, language and geography.
The comprehensive building fit out includes 29.000 m2, and has a capacity for 1400 students from KG1 to Gr12. The design concept is a high quality and forward-looking design solution, which meets international standards based on a strong visual identity, with deep respect for the Emirati culture and traditions.
From the architect. Folded pavilion structure embracing texture and craft, and confluence of interior and exterior. Various cubic volumes connecting to it in all directions.
Standing on a seemingly solid plinth, the pavilion gives shelter from heavy tropical rain falls and sun, while enabling full, unobstructed enjoyment of the lush surrounding of rice fields and jungle.
Different cross sections of cantilevering A-frames create a sequence of warped surfaces that give the ceiling its character. The roof shelters communal activities and emphasizes a place of gathering.
Plan 2
As further reading suggests the house has two fronts, meaning its side-front and its front-front, both translated into the load bearing, and shape giving structure of its roof. The ceiling is a timber grate enabling airflow, resulting in a comfortable climate, even on hot days.
Under the stone covered concrete base, that also holds the pool, one finds 2 bedrooms, the lower double height loft like living room, and a separately accessed studio, more deck space and garden flowing alongside a winding creek.
Section
The 3 dimensional distribution and orientation of spaces seeks to maximize privacy for each room and space offered in the residence, at the same time provides different places of gathering and activity. Like a village in a house, the spaces form a compound – reinterpreting traditional way of Balinese compound living.
Nearly all surfaces are clad with ‘Baligreen’ a type of strongly textured sand stone. Diagonally cut and mirrored stone plates create are a strongly articulated texture for floors and walls to reflect the folded ceiling planes of the pavilion. Recycled teak wood and iron wood floors were embedded into the stone floors at areas of resting and playing.
To emphasize the sensation of open living, the facade can be vastly opened at convenience, to enjoy the space beneath palm trees in a lush tropical environment.
From the architect. Architecture and Environment, have always been two issues of mutual opposition and complement. Environment, as a kind of void, spreads outside the entity, having its own expression, and at the same time bears different functions. The practice of Fengxian civic center canopy is an effective attempt to respond the void. The project started from the transformation process of the high-rise commercial office complex which is under construction in Nanqiao new town. It is in line with the trend of reusing the excess commercial office spaces in Shanghai. The core of the design is that how to activate the auxiliary space of the complex by means of construction. The architect makes a gesture of directness and romanticism here, combined with construction techniques, he presents an elegant, and slightly nostalgic technique of aesthetics to the citizens.
The choice of the structure style is another core design. Here the structure not only plays the role of load-bearing but also forms the space. The architect wants to influence the space by the beauty of the structure itself .The canopy did not take various popular modern formalism, and finally chose the rational classicism. It is an attitude responding to the complex architectural style on the site. And this classicism is a new attempt under the influence of the modern technology and urban environment. Supported by the structure engineer, two rows of columns of non- parallel did not stand on the columns of the basement which have been built.
Construction Process
The composite column consists of two tubes, two flange, and a series of rings together. Besides the consideration of form, the purpose is to hide gutters and give people a light feeling. In order to overcome the problem of different beam cross-sections of different spans, the architect makes the width of the green strip on roof inversely proportional to the beam width. The architect also designed a night lighting system and spray device system for cooling in summer for the canopy.
In the sunny days, the sunshine would stream in through the glass and collide with the cross -vault structure. The circular rings make the space lightsome and graceful, and people can have a warm feeling here.
Sig Nordal 