The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced 17 winners for its RIBA South Awards, which recognize architectural excellence. These 17 regional award winners were drawn from a shortlist of 30 projects. Over the next few months, they will be considered for the RIBA National Awards, and then for the RIBA Stirling Prize.
The house sits between two worlds – a courtyard and a walled garden. The design is based on the desire to enjoy both a south facing aspect, yet also engage with the walled garden to the north. The house therefore becomes part of the rebuilt wall, part of the walled garden. With the overall height strictly controlled by planning restrictions and the site rising by two metres from front to back, the inner courtyard is part-sunk into the ground, increasing the sense of enclosure.
Davenies is a school in Beaconsfield, which provides education for boys aged 4 to 13. Established in 1940, it now comprises a collection of Listed and modern buildings, set around historic formal gardens. Crucial to its success is the holistic approach to learning, based on engaging the children with nature and maximising their connection to the world around them. In 2012 DSDHA were appointed to carry out the final phase of a 20-year masterplan to replace some of the most outdated blocks and provide ten classrooms for Reception level through to Year 4, generous breakout spaces, external play areas, a new library and a hall, along with staff facilities.
The Little Hall, Prestwood Infants School; Prestwood / De Rosee Sa
In 2014, Nick Clegg launched an initiative that every school child should receive a free hot meal at lunchtime. Responding to this, the brief set by Prestwood Infant School in Great Missenden was for a new dining space for 96 pupils and after-school club. The new facility would be located in one of the school’s playgrounds in place of two redundant storage sheds. De Rosee Sa, the architects; and local design practice PMR took inspiration from author Roald Dahl, who lived in the area for 36 years, and the Grand Feast Hall in his children’s book ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’: “We will make,” said Mr Fox, “A little underground village, with streets and houses on each side – separate houses for badgers and moles and rabbits and weasels and foxes. And every day I will go shopping for you all. And every day we will eat like kings”.
House 19 is designed as a two-storey dwelling. However, careful consideration has been given to the impact of the building on the site by expressing the two storeys on the north east elevation, and reducing the height on the southern elevation to a single storey by means of an eccentrically pitched roof form. The advantage of such a form is that it minimises the impact on the adjoining property to the south. And the southernly roof can be used to maximise the incorporation of photovoltaic cells both now and in the future – integration is subtle and elegant. The sustainability strategy is well thought through and works (ground source heat pump, earth tube vent system, low U-values) without resorting to a room full of technology.
The layout is deliberately not overly formal with grids, but at angles to allow an almost rural feel within the garden setting which is in shared ownership between all residents. Not only is the aspiration for the architecture high, but there is also an opportunity for social integration and shared responsibility. The ideas promulgated and put into practice by Eric Lyons have been properly understood and applied to achieve a result that in many ways is un-British as a methodology, but which could become ground-breaking.
Exhibition Mews is a prototype terrace of three affordable homes for social rent, built for Radian Group housing association. This project is the built outcome of Ash Sakula’s winning entry to an open design competition, with the brief to design affordable and highly sustainable new homes capable of replication on other sites within the town as part of the first phase of a wider regeneration of the area involving 3,350 new homes. Ash Sakula’s proposal features three houses, each comprising a highly insulated core of flexibly-arranged accommodation supplemented by an uninsulated entrance space opening onto an enclosed front garden. Importantly, the competition called for sustainable lifestyle suggestions to be embedded into the buildings themselves.
The Observatory Lymington / Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
The architects conducted interesting material studies into Shou Sugi Ban, and developed a greater understanding of how different timbers respond to the burning that gives them longevity. But the most interesting aspect of the project is not technical but human: the effect it has in engaging the local people and helping them to connect with artists and other interested parties. This is architecture acting as a catalyst for positive change, so it achieves more than its physical structure alone could do.
Mottisfont New Visitor Facilities; Romsey / Burd Haward Architects
Mottisfont Abbey is one of the National Trust’s most popular properties in the region: visited by over 250,000 people per annum, it is renowned for its rose gardens and its active contemporary arts programming. The architects were appointed in 2010, following an invited design competition with a brief to improve the entrance facilities at the historic estate. The new buildings are set between the existing car park and a tributary of the River Test. They house visitor arrival and ticketing space, a new shop with associated storage, office and staff room, visitor WCs and a covered external area that can be used as temporary café/sales space. The buildings are raised off the ground to avoid the flood plain, and arranged around a raised courtyard that connects to a new walkway and bridge, and to landscaped paths beyond.
Boldrewood Campus, University of Southampton; Southampton / Grimshaw
The 4.3 hectare Boldrewood Innovation Campus is the product of collaboration between the University of Southampton and Lloyd’s Register of Shipping and places the university at the forefront of maritime research. This collaboration ensures that students and researchers have access to real life case studies while Lloyd’s Register engineers have access to cutting edge research. Grimshaw are responsible for both the masterplan and all building design.
Winchester Cathedral Learning Centre; Winchester / Hampshire County Council Architects
The Dean and Chapter of Winchester Cathedral have been developing a programme of new and innovative opportunities for learning and participation at the Cathedral to increase access for a wider audience. The project has extended the learning facilities into a new building within the garden of No 10A The Close as well as remodelling the existing facilities. It provides a new auditorium which is a multi-functional and fully accessible space with the capacity for a whole school year group at a time. It will enable a much greater range of activities and bring a completely new perspective to understanding of life in the Cathedral’s past. The whole site is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument and surrounding range of buildings are Grade I listed.
This is far from pastiche, it has substance and demonstrates a real understanding of proportion, harmony, materiality and craft. The house feels settled internally – it does not feel like a new build. It fulfills all key criteria set out by the client; all the building elements are extremely well crafted throughout; the indoor air quality is excellent, and the detailing is exceptional at every turn. The staircase in particular is a well-considered composition. The bathrooms are particularly well handled with the tiles and other materials being reclaimed, making the bathrooms a real feature of the house. In fact all the spaces within the building are delightful, very well considered and composed.
Blavatnik School of Government; Oxford / Herzog & de Meuron
The Blavatnik School of Government seeks to improve, inform and support better public policy and government in every country of the world. The new home of the School of Government is prominently located between Woodstock Road and Walton Street, with Somerville College to the south and Green Templeton College to the north. The building has been designed as a precise geometric form which allows its important historic neighbours to maintain and improve their presence along Walton Street, whilst also opening up generous and inviting access into the new Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.
The local authority was South Oxfordshire District Council, whose planners have allowed the architects the freedom to express themselves within the constraints of the location. The elevations in particular demonstrate sensitivity with regard to their visual impact. The cantilever that achieves the half-basement level is clever, and the open plan layout maximises the apparent space, resulting in a home that feels bigger than it is volumetrically. The budget has been cleverly focused on key areas that work well and give maximum value. The green/grey stain to the cladding/windows help to soften the building, as does the use of local materials, for instance with the gabion walls which provide a solid grounding.
The Investcorp Building, St Antony’s College; Oxford / Zaha Hadid Architects
From 1961 the Centre occupied an old rectory on Woodstock Road and housed the university’s primary collection on the modern Middle East, with its specialised library, document and photographic archive. The new Investcorp Building doubles the space available for the Centre’s expanding library and archive, providing optimum conditions to conserve and manage the collections. The design is defined by the built and natural environments. It weaves through the site to connect and incorporate the existing protected buildings and trees, while its stainless steel façade softly reflects natural light to echo the building’s context.
The Ruskin School of Art; Oxford / Spratley Studios
This is a flexible building that works well for the students who need to be able to explore and experiment with their artistic skills. In between the academic years, new students will have opportunities to change the space internally: lights are on tracks and the studios can be remodelled accordingly, allowing for flexibility of use. Exposed services run along the ceiling, accentuating the industrial feel.
The brief for this historic and Grade II listed Giles Gilbert Scott building was, literally and metaphorically, to open the doors of the library to the public to enable them to embrace knowledge. This was combined with the technically challenging requirements of protecting the precious and very rare documents stored within the archive and ensuring their preservation for future generations.
Berman Guedes Stretton were engaged by Wolfson College in 2009 to provide a new building comprising a new lodge, a 155-seat auditorium, cafeteria, 12 academic offices, three seminar rooms and a group workspace to connect with the existing college on three levels. Two existing floors were to be converted into new library spaces adjacent to the existing beautiful, but very small, library and a third floor of existing offices was to be re-planned and refurbished.
From the architect. A bungalow in Naarden built in 1967 was extended and transformed by Dick van Gameren into a contemporary villa. The visionary design led to a timeless house that reflects the personalities and needs of its owners. Previous renovations closed off the original heart of the house from the living space and entrance hall.
The renovation restores the relationship between the landscape and the house that had disappeared over the years. Sustainability also played an important role. This renovation marks the fourth version of the house. Using the existing structure as a basis, the elevations and roofs were updated.
Insulating materials were added and windows and facade elements were replaced. Removing the walls in the centre of the villa created space for a new living hall that overlooks the landscape on four sides. Two geometric roof constructions with skylights contribute to a spacious and light atmosphere. Adjacent to the living hall, a new glass pavilion extends towards the flowing stream. A fruitful collaboration with various partners ensured the sustainable ambitions of the house were fulfilled.
As part of the garden design by Michael van Gessel, felled trees from the site were stored as firewood for the ultra-efficient wood-burning stove in the kitchen.
A heat pump, solar water heating system and LED lighting address all other energy-intensive requirements such as the heating, cooling, hot water and electricity. IDing designed the timeless interior to echo the architecture.
In his recent article, Nick Axel puts forward a compelling argument for the (re)distribution of city-space according to use value: kickball trophies and absentee owners out, efficient use of space in. Distributing urban space according to use certainly makes sense. Along with unoccupied luxury condos that are nothing more than assets to the 1% and mostly empty vacation apartments, expelling (rarely accessed) back-closets to the suburbs frees more of the limited space in cities for people to actually live in.
When, however, this is stretched into a rationale for micro-apartments, the argument begins to thin. There is a big difference between arguing against large apartments, holding nothing but wealth, and arguing that 400sqft apartments (the current legal minimum) are under-used and inefficient. Axel is arguing that micro-apartments offer a design solution to urban inequality by seeing them “as a legal mechanism to distribute, through architecture and urbanism, standards of living.”
While he is perhaps right to acknowledge that for many people the current minimum floor area is “nothing more than an ideal,” lowering the standards we aspire toward will not make living conditions better and will, in reality, only legitimize more substandard-sized homes. Allotting residents apartments that are smaller than the current legal minimum may indeed allow for more of them to squeeze in, but can it really be argued that living standards are reducible to nothing more than their proximity to downtown?
The market-rate rent in the Carmel Place micro-apartments in Kips Bay—Axel’s case study—might be comparatively low for the neighborhood, but they remain more expensive than an average Manhattan studio that does meet the legal size minimum. A 302sqft apartment in the new building costs $2750, compared to a median studio rent of $2568 and an average of $2685, but the new apartments cost an astonishing $109.27 per square foot compared to an average of only $65.87. These apartments are only good deal within a very limited framework.
The premium is arguably the product of a better location, but with half of Manhattan studios being at least $200 cheaper per month, it’s difficult to believe that the extra $43.40 per square foot is a product of location alone. More likely, they are charging for something else.
Reviews of the Carmel Place apartments report that they seem remarkably spacious. According to Amy Plitt at Curbed, “The first thing you notice when you enter […] is how big it feels.” Carefully designed and compactly organized, the promotional material suggests that the minimum standard of living is facilitated by nothing more than a certain range of furniture – what the apartments lack in size, they make up for in retractable beds and expanding tables. With a couch that folds into the bed, a table that folds into the wall and expands and contracts, and a range of hidden storage units, the extra 100sqft becomes superfluous. The spaces use clever design to glamorize a sort of luxury substandard that can all too easily become a justification—or, more worryingly, a normalization—of substandard conditions for people who don’t have access to the same palliatives. The Clei-designed furniture that makes the apartment so versatile and so spacious is far beyond the price range of the vast majority of New Yorkers.
"Nuovoliola". Image Courtesy of Resource Furniture
To further mitigate the limited spaces in the apartments, Carmel Place comes equipped with shared facilities including, according to nARCHITECTS, “a gym at ground floor level, a small lounge, den, community room and public roof terrace, bicycle storage, tenant storage room and separate storage lockers dispersed throughout the building, and a small garden.” Even the marketing material acknowledges that the space afforded is inadequate—supplemental spaces are necessary to make 250sqft attractive.
What the apartments show is not the reasonability of micro-apartments as a typology, but the reasonability of living in these micro-apartments. Their cost is what provides for these additional facilities, thus their cost is what makes them habitable. In the same way that the quality of full-sized apartments depends on the quality of their context and components, the only lesson here is that even very small apartments can be well-decorated.
The ultimate difficulty with Axel’s argument is not his defense of micro-apartments – some people will surely love them. But these people are only a small portion of the population. At their best, micro-apartments might present a stopgap for well-off New Yorkers who want to live alone. What they fail to provide is a generally applicable standard of living.
Axel argues that it is “plain to see that the affordability of micro-apartments are first and foremost relative […] and so long as real estate value is at least in part determined by quantity, [he] neither see[s] their affordability going anywhere nor view[s] it as a model to be glossed over.” But even on a relative scale these micro-apartments are not affordable. Perhaps allowing micro-apartments will allow more people to live downtown, but the benefit is still unclear. If additional micro-apartments come with all of the amenities that have allowed the Carmel Place apartments to be rented at above average prices, they are also likely to be rented at higher rates. If the micro-apartments don’t come with those amenities, they will fail to provide a basic standard of living.
Good design may or may not be able to protect living standards, but we are unquestionably lowering our standards if we accept expanding tables and furniture that folds into the wall as a solution for inequality.
From the architect. From the beginning, the thinking behind the Life House was an uncompromisingly modern design where it would be possible to inhabit a different sort of architectural space. Experiments with massing and orientation have produced a composition that is bedded into the fall of the land. The proliferation of blackened gorse in the surrounding heathland is reflected in the dark exterior brickwork, whilst the rough moor grass provides a reference for the lighter bricks used inside.
The house’s programme is arranged as a series of self-contained folds, opening off two corridors. Meeting at a right angle, these passageways generate extended internal vistas and a plan designed to allow groups living in proximity to spend time together and apart, in a spatial arrangement that shares certain characteristics with the monastic cloister. The corridors — one light, one dark — represent more than just the means to get between the different parts of the house, they are key architectural experiences, each charged with its own distinctive character.
In the spirit of creating a contemporary Walden, communal and private quarters are shaped by the idea of supporting and enriching specific rituals and activities. Across the Life House this translates into optimised inventories of equipment and functional conditions, but also into a series of finely calibrated atmospheres.
From the architect. A residential care home for 105 elderly residents has been constructed on Statteggerstraße in Graz on a park-like plot in the immediate vicinity of the Andritzbach brook.
The passive house has no basement due to the challenging ground conditions and because of its location within the Andritz flood zone. It is a composite construction and features controlled domestic ventilation. Load-bearing ceilings and walls are made of concrete while all other structural elements are wood. The façade elements, each extending across two rooms, were prefabricated, their size determined by the maximum dimensions suitable for transport.
The two-storey building consists of four wings arranged around a semi-public “village square”, designed to host various events. This is also the location of the roofed vestibule, the central nurses’ station, an oratory, a cafe, a hairdresser as well as an open, tended atrium.
Three residential areas on the ground floor and four on the top floor host one carer and 15 residents each, primarily in single rooms, thereby creating a manageable and friendly atmosphere. A large common living area for each residential group, wide loggias and zoned gardens, some of which are suitable for dementia patients, on the ground floor and atria with tower galleries on the top floor serve as additional living zones. Special attention has been paid to ensure sufficient natural light floods the entire building.
Nurses’ stations and secondary rooms are always nearby, making work processes highly efficient. Shorter and longer walks around the building with varying visual references and pleasant quiet zones ensure diverse free movement opportunities, even outside set therapy sessions.
The interweavement of the building with the outside space has been assigned particular significance. The green and open space was designed with the typology of the care home in mind and is based on a sequence of gardens which differ in size and character. The gardens also form the passage into the park bordered by the Andritzbach to the east. A particularly attractive space for recreation has been created by designing a wooden platform that juts out over the water which, together with the manifold zones of a manageable scale inside and around the building, generates a familiar yet invigorating atmosphere.
From the architect. From design to completion, it took only a short period of two months for this less than 60 square meters’ Chimney Café, which open up in a light gesture in the courtyard of SPSI Art Museum. Passers-by from the sidewalk of Jinzhu Road could vaguely see the cafe and bamboo courtyard space through a semipermeable steel mesh wall.
A secret door opens in Art Museum’s iconic stainless steel mesh wall, but it does not obtrusive. From the material, detail to lighting, the café’s design seeks to coordinate with the overall surface of this Museum.
1st Floor Plan
Although the courtyard space itself is very narrow, only five meters at its widest point, it still creates a rich and interesting spatial sequence. A dynamic arc wall guide people to the entrance through an interesting winding path; and then to find the other side of the arc wall is where to enjoy coffee. The patios decorated with bamboo are bright and vivid. Two patios in subtle angles to each other conform to stencil wall’s trend, leading guests to another relatively private coffee space.
Application of anodized aluminum expands the space sense of courtyard; the slightly blurred mirror effect gives people a hazy unreal visual experience, just as drinking a cup of good coffee.
Section
The interior white walls create the most favorable conditions for small exhibitions and art salons. And lighting bands following the arc walls undoubtedly strengthened the sense of movement of the wall, so that the space is full of dynamic effect.
This small cafe effort to create a space of its own character and overcome all constraints at the same time: soft but no lack of tension, natural and full of fun.
S+H HOUSE 2 is the client’s second house, a second opportunity to create a new work with ideas and concept like never before and design which differs from the previous one.
The house is located inside a residence and the site is on a rectangle space with 12x26m in size. The front side faces west which has the residence’s park.
Plan
This project requires plenty of space for the house itself and a gallery inside to display the client’s art collection. With the first thought of an area of 655m2 and only having 312m2 to work with, it becomes a challenge for the architect to succeed and present uniqueness and most importantly, comfort.
The first solution is to assemble the rooms and spaces in vertical way. Between each levels must bring a nice flow and continuity, but still having a special element that create differences. Bringing uniqueness by making a relation between walls and no-walls spaces and a bordering element to connect indoor and outdoor.
The use of split level is to create height between each level as a media for natural light and air to come in and circulate.
Section
The room process starts from the stairs to the main entrance and the front porch. The front porch is an area protected from sunlight and rain because of the overhanging plate and the kids bedroom ‘box’ above. The entrance door uses solid wood and heads towards the foyer inside that blends in with the family room. To split the foyer from the family room, a laser-cut wooden panel with traditional Chinese pattern is used.
The dining area is an open and transparent space with special design and structure to create a hanging effect between the levels above and underneath it. The dining area floor gets an effect of ‘flying’ above the swimming pool and the spaces between them is used as a media to let light and air flow to the service area below.
The first level holds the function of private space. It has the master bedroom on the back side and 2 kids bedrooms with its own bathrooms in the front.
Circulation access is continued until the highest level through a straight and long staircase that ends in the gallery with the size of 6x10m and small and effective light openings that gives a dramatic, silent and calming effects to the gallery.
Transparency brings in air and light that makes the room always looking fresh and bright. Crossed ventilation is created from glass sliding door which is easy to open and close. The air conditioner doesn’t need to be used all day for the ground level. Radiation from sunlight is blocked by the architectural shape of the house which is dynamic with voids and overhanging spaces that keeps the temperature stable. A second skin element from perforated GRC concrete will allow the house to breathe, prevent excessive heat to come inside and allow cool air to come in for a comfortable micro climate inside the house.
Structural Consultant : Moh and Associates, Inc.(platform and track), Envision Engineering Consultants(entrance), K.C. Structure Engineering Office(entrance and basement of joint, development building)
Arch Façade System: Lead Dao Technology & Engineering Ltd.(entrance construction)
Mep : Moh and Associates, Inc.
Landscape: JJP
Geo Tech: Moh and Associates, Inc.
General Contractor: Chuan Yuan Construction Co., Ltd, Iwata Chizaki Construction Corporation
Client: Department of Rapid Transit Systems, Taipei City Government
From the architect. The design theme of the Dingpu MRT station, which serves as both the Tucheng line’s terminus and the future Sanying line’s starting station, differs from that of other stations. In response to the evolutionary transformation of Dingpu from an early industrial (coal) township into its present status as a technology center, historical context and contemporary urban flux have both been incorporated into the station’s architectural design.
Serving as the end-point of an underground line connecting to a future elevated line, the interior of the station is analogous to the transient qualities of light in relation to time. The character “C”, representing carbon, is adopted as a graphic icon, and implies the revolutionary progress from coal mines to high-tech carbon nanotubes.
Floor Plans
The use of natural light as a sustainable design element also sets a precedent for subterranean transit stations in Taiwan. Sunlight is captured through a row of reflective solar tubes running the length of the station mezzanine. Accompanied by supplemental light fixtures, natural light from the collectors resembles vibrant sunbeams that create virtual atriums, intuitively guiding passengers through high traffic areas. During inclement weather, the collectors are shielded by transparent enclosures for protection.
Integrated lighting fixtures reinforce the design theme by abstractly expressing light waves, halos and radiancy, appearing as patterns on the ceiling, floor and walls. Ceiling panels are arranged in accordance with the floor pattern. Programmable colorful LED light fixtures embedded in the concourse wall poetically reflect the changing environment. The steel spiral tube structure at entrance “B” further strengthens the natural lighting effect with its transparent enclosure.
From the architect. It’s the project of the new office of “a TOKYO” which manages ART FAIR TOKYO. It is located on the 4th floor (100m2) of the building facing the intersection in Ikura Minato-ku, Tokyo. We inserted three box spaces as a meeting room, a president room and a chief director room, then the residual space becomes a staff office space and a meeting space.
We considered that the event arising in this space, where an everyday routine work happens, could be changed to ART to the program as office after the necessary rooms were secured.
The idea that “changing the event to ART” is an attempt to rethink the daily living as a special existence by handling a person and a matter equivalently in the space.
Floor Plan
It was required that three box spaces inserted closes the interior. At the same time, it needed the closing way to feel the interior. Then, by cutting out the outside wall by the frame, the view from there also cut out.
The frames consist of a clear glass, a mirror and a wall.The openings cut out by the frames separate the space ambiguously and get the visibility to the both interior and exterior.You will experience the both events, which happens inside and outside of the boxes.
Diagram
The inside wall touching other boxes also consists of many openings and the view from the inside continues to another space through many openings.
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture has announced a shortlist of 19 projects selected from 348 entries received from 69 countries. Presented once every three years, the award honors new standards of excellence in contemporary design, social housing, community improvement and development, historic preservation, reuse and area conservation, as well as landscape design and improvement of the environment. The basis for the Aga Khan Award is “to identify and encourage building concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of communities in which Muslims have a significant presence.” Selected by a Master Jury, the shortlisted projects will compete for $1 million dollars in prize money. Since its establishment in 1977, over 110 projects have received the award and more than 9,000 building projects have been documented.
New Power Station, Baku, Azerbaijan, Erginoğlu & Çalışlar Architects
New Power Station, Baku, Azerbaijan, Erginoğlu & Çalışlar Architects. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
As part of the regeneration of an old industrial area, a new building echoes a recently restored power station beside it.
The original brief asked the architects to demolish the old, late-19th century power station located on a natural harbour in the Bay of Baku, and build a new events hall in its place, but after a site visit, the architects proposed two new buildings linked by an enclosed bridge to house event spaces, while preserving the old power station as an exhibition space. The resulting New Power Station references the old through its placement and form, and the courtyard outside connects the former industrial site to its surroundings, the expanding green zone on the city’s waterfront. The design, with a simple geometric mass, use of zinc and wood for the large sloped roof and the facade, reflects the industrial spirit of the site and enables it to serve as a flexible, multi-functional space. The restaurants, jazz club and the concert area all have access routes to each other to form a dynamic circulation between the two buildings. The New Power House design reflects what defines an industrial building in the collective memory and yet has a contemporary style as well.
Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Marina Tabassum
Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Marina Tabassum. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Ventilation and the play of light make this neighbourhood mosque a refuge for spirituality.
After a difficult life and the loss of her husband and near relatives, the client donated a part of her land for a mosque to be built. A temporary structure was erected. After her death, her grand-daughter, an architect, acted on her behalf as fundraiser, designer, client and builder to bring the project to completion. In an increasingly dense neighbourhood of Dhaka, the Mosque was raised on a plinth on a site axis creating a 13-degree angle with the qibla direction, which called for innovation in the layout. A cylindrical volume was inserted into a square, facilitating a rotation of the prayer hall, and forming light courts on four sides. The hall is a space raised on eight peripheral columns. Ancillary functions are located in spaces created by the outer square and the cylinder. The plinth remains vibrant throughout the day with children playing and elderly men chatting and waiting for the call to prayer. Funded and used by locals, and inspired by Sultanate mosque architecture, it breathes through porous brick walls, keeping the prayer hall ventilated and cool. Natural light brought in through a skylight is ample for the daytime.
Friendship Centre, Gaibandha, Bangladesh, URBANA / Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
A rural training centre inspired by one of the country’s oldest urban archaeological sites.
The Centre was created to train staff of an NGO working with people inhabiting nearby chars, or riverine islands. Offices, a library, meeting rooms, and prayer and tea rooms are included in pavilion-like buildings surrounded by courts and pools. The Centre is also rented out for meetings, training, and conferences for income generation. The local hand-made brick construction has been inspired by the monastic aesthetic of the 3rd century BC ruins of Mahasthangahr, the earliest urban archaeological site yet found in Bangladesh. Structural elements are of reinforced concrete and finishes also include timber and stone. The naturally ventilated structures have green roofs. The Centre is located in an agricultural area susceptible to flooding and earthquakes, and whose low-bearing soil has a low bearing capacity. As a result, an embankment has been constructed with a water run-off pumping facility. Constructed and finished primarily of one material – local hand-made bricks – the spaces are woven out of pavilions, courtyards, pools and greens, corridors and shadows. The Friendship Centre is divided into two sections, the outer Ka block for the offices, library and training classrooms and the inner Kha block for the residential section. At a time, 80 people can be trained here in four separate classrooms. Simplicity is the intent, monastic is the feel.
Micro Yuan’er, Beijing, China, ZAO/standardarchitecture / Zhang Ke. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
A small-scale project that enriches bonds amongst communities and revives Hutong life.
Cha’er Hutong is a quiet spot one kilometre from Tiananmen Square in the city centre. Number 8 in this neighbourhood, located near a major mosque, is a typical da-za-yuan (big-messy-courtyard) once occupied by over a dozen families. The courtyard is about 300-400 years old and once housed a temple that was then turned into residences in the 1950s. Over the past fifty or sixty years, each family built a small add-on kitchen in the courtyard. Almost all of them have been wiped out with the renovation practices of the past years. In redesigning, renovating and reusing the informal add-on structures instead of eliminating them, it was intended to recognise them as an important historical layer and as a critical embodiment of Beijing’s contemporary civil life in Hutongs that has so often been neglected. In concert with the families, a nine-metre-square children’s library built of plywood was inserted underneath the pitched roof of an existing building. Under a big Chinese scholar tree, one of the former kitchens was redesigned into a six-metre-square miniature art space made from traditional bluish-grey brick. Through this small-scale intervention in the courtyard, bonds between communities have been strengthened and the Hutong life of local residents enriched.
Superkilen, Copenhagen, Denmark, BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group). Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
A public space promoting integration across lines of ethnicity, religion and culture.
A meeting place for residents of Denmark’s most ethnically diverse neighbourhood and an attraction for the rest of the city, this project was approached as a giant exhibition of global urban best practice. In the spring of 2006 the street outside the architects’ Copenhagen office erupted in vandalism and violence. Having just gone through the design of a Danish mosque in downtown Copenhagen, BIG chose to focus on those initiatives and activities in urban spaces that work as promoters for integration across ethnicity, religion, culture and languages. Taking their point of departure as Superkilen’s location in the heart of outer Nørrebro district, the architects decided they would approach the project as an exercise in extreme public participation. Rather than a public outreach process geared towards the lowest common denominator or a politically correct post rationalisation of preconceived ideas navigated around any potential public resistance, BIG proposed public participation as the driving force of the design. An extensive public consultation process garnered suggestions for objects representing the over 60 nationalities present locally to be placed in the area. The 750-metre-long scheme comprises three main zones: a red square for sports; a green park as a grassy children’s playground; and a black market as a food market and picnic area.
Manouchehri House, Kashan, Iran, Akbar Helli, Shahnaz Nader
40 Knots House, Tehran, Iran, Habibeh Madjdabadi, Alireza Mashhadi Mirza. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
The combined reinvigoration of the architectural and craft-work heritage in an old city has sparked a broader revitalisation.
A boutique hotel and textile centre located in the historic quarter of Kashan, in the province of Isfahan, the project entailed the restoration of a 19th century merchant home, typical of the historic residential buildings of the area which have for the most part fallen into complete disrepair. The initial purpose that informed the undertaking was threefold: the revival of historically significant hand-woven textile traditions of Kashan which were on the brink of extinction; the renovation, restoration and revitalisation of a historic house and its surrounding neighbourhood in order to draw attention to the vast treasury of this architectural heritage in danger; and raising awareness of the cultural, artistic and technological traditions embedded in the Islamic architectural traditions of this region. It houses not only the textile workshops for brocade, silk, cotton and velvet weaving, but also features the city’s finest dining establishment, a contemporary art gallery, a handicraft shop, and a subterranean movie house adapted from the original cistern of the old structure The project has met with so much success that it has drawn thousands of people from across the world, and has triggered many similar initiatives across the city.
Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, Tehran, Iran, Diba Tensile Architecture / Leila Araghian, Alireza Behzadi. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Infrastructure that connects two parks has become a popular urban space.
The architects first conceived the two-to-three level, 270-metre-long curved pedestrian bridge of varying width, a complex steel structure featuring a dynamic three-dimensional truss with two continuous deck levels that sits on three tree shape columns, with a third where the truss meets the column branches. It was an imaginative leap beyond the basic competition brief of designing a bridge to connect two parks separated by a highway in northern Tehran, without blocking the view to the Alborz Mountains. The structural elements are based on a latent geometrical order rotated and repeated in three dimensions. The result is a spatial structure large enough to create an inhabitable architectural space, where people congregate, eat and rest rather than just pass through. Multiple paths in each park were created that would lead people on to the bridge. Seating, green spaces and kiosks encourage people to linger on a site where greenery has been preserved by the minimal footprint of the bridge, whose curve offers a variety of viewing perspectives.
40 Knots House, Tehran, Iran, Habibeh Madjdabadi, Alireza Mashhadi Mirza. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Innovative low-cost techniques that reinterpret traditional brick facades.
Persian carpets are world renowned, and bricks have a strong relationship with Iranian historical architecture. Here they are fused into a contemporary facade that appears as a collection of intricately interwoven modules. Creating a small and low budget apartment building in Tehran does not leave much space for creativity, yet an architect can try to do something with the material, textures, outer envelope and light. In light of that, a modern interpretation of the ancient mashrabiya was conceived by using the bricks available on the local market. In order to reduce costs in the construction of this five-storey building, unskilled workers, unable to read technical drawings, were employed instead of master craftsmen. All the construction data was transformed into simple instructions to be recited by the supervisor during every fixing, resulting in a protruding irregular geometry, designed brick by brick, a system invented by watching carpet weavers in traditional workshops. The building has been entirely covered with a mesh of bricks impaled on rod bars as contiguous pearl necklaces. The distances between the bricks have been adjusted to create an opaque effect, through which light does not pass, while when there is a window behind the mesh, it becomes a transparent grid.
Royal Academy for Nature Conservation, Um Al-Yanabea, Jordan, Khammash Architects
Royal Academy for Nature Conservation, Um Al-Yanabea, Jordan, Khammash Architects. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
An abandoned quarry serves as catalyst for an imaginative intervention providing educational programmes and visitor facilities.
The project for an Academy was originally proposed to be on a site inside a nature conservancy reserve, but the architect convinced the client to use an adjacent abandoned quarry which is outside the reserve. The basic philosophy was that the building would use the parts of nature which have been injured in the past, instead of adding a new intervention on virgin land. Encompassing an academy that provides educational programmes on environment and features a high-end restaurant and craft, the Academy follows a quarry cliff cut-line, creating a linear addition of constructed stone to the bedrock. Arrival is via a stone bridge spanning 30 metres and the longest in Jordan to the mid-point between the restaurant and the Academy. The massive southern facade consists of very small windows with giant vertical blade-like stone cracks shearing into zero width. Corridors are defined by a crack in the ceiling that lets natural sunlight in. On the opposite side, the Academy touches the forest. The project illustrates how to use abandoned quarries that are found in the surrounding mountains in large numbers of 100 or more.
Bunateka Libraries, Various Locations, Kosovo, Bujar Nrecaj Architects
Bunateka Libraries, Various Locations, Kosovo, Bujar Nrecaj Architects. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
A series of public libraries for disadvantaged youth in rural areas.
Bunateka is a word play from the Albanian wordsbiblioteka, or library, and bunar, meaning well or source of water. The architect, living in Kosovo until the age of 12, grew up and was educated in Switzerland, Nearly 17 years later, as he returned to his home town of Lutogllavë, he saw nothing had changed; there was no library and there were no books. So the idea for the Bunateka emerged from the aspiration to establish libraries in Kosovo’s rural areas in order to provide disadvantaged youth with opportunities to access books and educational materials. A 4 x 6 metre wood and glass box on a concrete foundation and fully covered with a solid roof has glazed sides to enable the books within to be seen from all sides, with exterior horizontal louvers and an alignment to protect them from the sun. Although contemporary in style with its clear lines, it hearkens back to the majlis of traditional rural houses. It is an inviting infrastructure serving as a location for students to gather, learn, and broaden their knowledge. Until now, eight have been built. In addition to educating students, the Bunatekas also have successfully become vibrant neighbourhood hubs. “The idea is that books are a source of knowledge just like water is the source of life,” says the architect.
Issam Fares Institute, Beirut, Lebanon, Zaha Hadid Architects. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
A new building, radical in composition but respectful of its traditional context, “floats” above an exterior courtyard.
The American University of Beirut (AUB) held an invited competition for the design of a structure to accommodate a modern-day think tank on its lush middle campus, one that was in harmony with the rest of the university, especially mindful of the surrounding greenery, and to preserve, as far as possible, existing sightlines to the Mediterranean. The building had to fit into another stage in the implementation of a master plan for AUB, whose upper campus overlooks the water, and whose lower campus is located on the seafront. The architect responded to the project brief by producing a design that significantly reduces the building’s footprint by “floating” a reading room, a workshop conference room and research spaces above the entrance courtyard in the form of a 21-metre-long cantilever in order to preserve the existing landscape. The 3,000 square metre building is defined by the routes and connections within the university; the building emerges from the geometries of intersecting routes as a series of interlocking platforms and spaces for research and discourse. The massing and volume distribution fits very well with the topography, and the nearby Ficus and Cyprus trees are perfectly integrated with the project. The building’s construction is a continuation of the 20th century Lebanese construction culture of working with fair-faced concrete.
Guelmim School of Technology, Guelmim, Morocco, Saad El Kabbaj, Driss Kettani, Mohamed Amine Siana. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
A powerful architecture, playing with the contrast between inside and outside, achieves the dignity essential to educational institutions.
Situated in Guelmim, 200 kilometres south of Agadir and known as the “door of the Sahara”, the School was conceived in line with a policy of decentralisation and making education more accessible to those living in remote areas. Comprising a 250-seat lecture hall, classrooms, laboratories, study rooms, library, offices, sports grounds and staff accommodation, the campus is connected by a series of canopies that create sheltered walkways and seating areas along the north/south axis dividing the campus into two. This organisation makes for readability and clarity of the various elements of the project, while preserving the diversity of the programme. Principally rough-rendered reinforced concrete, buildings are linked by courtyards and partially covered walkways with metal and timber elements. Their volume is massive, yet this scaling finds balance with the projecting windows, louvers and narrow openings repeated throughout. Thermal considerations informed the design, including the orientation, window shading and natural ventilation. Low, massive and with varying volumes, the architecture is boldly contemporary but inspired by its context. Exterior walls are painted ochre, blending with the landscape and the town. In dramatic contrast, interiors are painted in immaculate white. Local stone was used for the terrazzo flooring. The landscaping minimises water use through a choice of local plants and natural ornamental rockeries.
Casa-Port New Railway Station, Casablanca, Morocco, AREP and Groupe 3 Architectes. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
A dynamic transport hub that anticipates the needs of the city of the future.
This transport hub, designed to anticipate 25 million passenger trips per year in the future, comprises a large passenger hall opening onto a wide square to the southwest and the platforms to the southeast, a shopping centre located on the lower level of the hall, an underground car park and an office building. The dimensions of the vast concourse and the walkways leading to the transverse platform are designed to deal with commuter travel and peak time loadings occurring over the same periods during the day. The architecture of the station hall is characterised by its hypostyle roof, a wide canopy of wood and steel extending beyond the facades to jut out over the square, and thin supporting columns, the upper part of which split into eight branches to filter sunlight through the skylight. The hall’s glass facades enable travellers to grasp the organisation of the station and its walkways and, on the west side, a contemporary mashrabiya-like system filters the strong afternoon sunlight. In anticipation of future transformations, the hub has been devised in a way that allows its future connection with a potential regional express line station. In its spaces, volumes, materials, lighting and geometry, the station carries on the heritage of Moroccan palaces and public buildings, while paying tribute to the modernity of Casablanca.
Makoko Floating School, Lagos, Nigeria, NLÉ – Shaping the Architecture of Developing Cities / Kunlé Adeyemi. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
An alternative building system that provides space for education and cultural programmes in Africa’s coastal regions.
Some 80,000 people reside in Makoko, in a stilt settlement south of Lagos, built over water, served by only one English-speaking primary school on reclaimed land susceptible to flooding. The Floating School is a prototype structure whose main aim is to generate an alternative building system and urban culture for the populations of Africa’s coastal regions. The triangular A-frame or pyramid (10m high with a 10m x 10m base), built from locally sourced wood and bamboo and buoyed by recycled plastic barrels, is an ideal shape for tall floating objects on water. The structure has three levels: an open play area and community space; an enclosed space for two classrooms for 60 pupils, connected by stairs to the play area; and a semi-enclosed workshop space on a third level. It is scalable and adaptable for other uses, such as housing, health clinic, market, an entertainment centre or an infrastructure hub. The prototype’s versatile structure is a safe and economical floating triangular frame that allows flexibility for customisation and completion based on specific needs and capacities.
Doha Tower, Doha, Qatar, Ateliers Jean Nouvel. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
The varying patterns of the exterior envelope of this office tower evoke mashrabiya, and serve as protection from the sun.
Sheikh Saud bin Mohammad Al Thani had met Jean Nouvel on the occasion of the retrospective exhibition of the work of the architect at the Centre Pompidou in 2002 and invited him to design a tower to fit into the vision for the development of Doha. The Tower is a cylindrical volume that measures 45 metres in diameter. The steel and concrete structure follows a diamond-shaped grid that bends along the virtual surface of the cylinder. The facade uses a double-skin system. The unique exterior skin is composed of four “butterfly” aluminium elements of different scales and evokes the complexity of the mashrabiya, while serving as protection from the sun. The pattern varies according to the orientation and respective needs for solar protection. The internal layer is a slightly reflective glass skin that completes the solar protection. The tower is accessible by a landscaped garden sloping down to the large lobby under a glass awning surrounding the building. This bias suggests that the tower is deeply rooted in the earth. Vegetation and glass canopy overlap so to erase the boundaries between nature and the environment created by man. A monumental atrium rises from the ground floor up 112 metres to level 27.
King Fahad National Library, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Gerber Architekten International. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
An imaginative expansion that doubles available space and provides a new skin for an existing structure.
The cuboid shape of the new building surrounds the old 1980s library building on all sides, thus giving the National Library a new appearance in the cityscape. It is clad by lozenge-shaped textile awnings, which playfully combine revelation and concealment. White membranes, supported by a three-dimensional, tensile-stressed steel cable structure, act as sunshades and reinterpret the Arabian tent structure tradition in a low-energy way. One particular challenge for the facade is the wide range of temperatures in Riyadh. In summer the steel cables can heat up to a temperature of 80°C and will expand while in winter they can shrink because of night time temperatures sometimes below zero. These effects had to be taken into account in optimising the tension of the cables. Thermal comfort was increased and energy consumption significantly reduced by layered ventilation and floor cooling for the first time in the Arab world. The old building is now an internal stack, forming the centre of knowledge within the new library. Its dome has been reconstructed in steel and glass to bring in daylight and the former roof of the existing building now provides a well-lit reading landscape. The main entrance hall is on the ground floor, and a separate area for women is provided on the first floor.
Thread: Artist Residency and Cultural Center, Sinthian, Senegal, Toshiko Mori Architects. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
An ecologically sensitive meeting place demonstrates how art and architecture can be part of rural life.
Thread is a socio-cultural centre that houses two artists’ dwellings and studio space for local and international artists. Nicolas Weber, of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, had been supporting the efforts of a Senegalese doctor, Magueye Ba, in running a medical centre and elementary school programme serving an isolated network of rural villages in the Tambacounda region. When Ba and Weber wanted to add elements of cultural exchange and support for the arts to the work in Tambacounda, the project of creating an artist residency and cultural centre formally began under the pro-bono stewardship of Toshiko Mori, who had previously held workshops in the area. It is a hub for Sinthian and surrounding villages, providing agricultural training on the area’s fertile land and a meeting place for social organisation which is, in rural Senegal, the crucial mechanism for sustainable development. A parametric transformation of the traditional pitched roof achieved through a process of inversion collects rainwater, creating a viable source for new agricultural projects during the eight-month dry season. Thread exists at a crossroads between (inter)national artist residency, agricultural hub, community farm, water source, exhibition and performance venue, cultural centre, local library, children’s play gym and village cell phone charger. The success of its atypical plurality proves why art and architecture should be the right of all people.
Nasrid Tower Restoration, Huercal-Overa, Spain, Castillo Miras Arquitectos. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
A restoration enhanced by modern design elements and sensitivity towards its built and natural environment.
The project explores the dichotomy between the solid, ageless construction of the existing 13th century Nasrid Tower, made by anonymous craftsmen, and the provisional, light, degradable nature of the contemporary. The additions to the original building are conceived as future ruins, removable, temporary objects placed directly onto the ground without foundations and made with contrasting materials. The restoration of the Tower itself involved the preservation of original materials where possible, removing modern additions and resurfacing the original mud wall and interior brick fabric. To restore the original entry to the tower, four metres above ground level, a new pre-rusted steel staircase tower and toilet and office container were built. The space was adapted for use as an exhibition space but a range of events, including weddings, have taken place. The landscaping of the area adjacent to the tower re-uses the existing topography to minimise ground alteration. A careful, sensitive restoration project has been undertaken which has restored the presence and meaning of the historic Tower, while at the same time a modern design project produced which demonstrates great flair and a sensitivity towards its built and natural environment. The main achievement has been to transform a derelict building into a symbol of the village and its past, and it has become a powerful tourist attraction.
Ceuta Public Library, Ceuta, Spain, Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos. Image Courtesy of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Incorporating an archaeological site as a key feature of the building, this library has become a cultural landmark.
An original 14th century Marinid archaeological area is at the core of the reading spaces of the Library. The excavations were included in the interior space of the public building, and the architects worked with the supervising archaeologist to creating a sense of openness and transparency between the Library and the Marinid centre. The project programme is organised vertically on seven levels, three of them overlooking the archaeological remains. The building consists of many different components and the architects wanted to give it a sense of uniformity, to cover it all with one unifying surface. So they developed the idea of a “veil” (a perforated screen) in order to link it all together. The double-skinned facade cut with windows is built with lightweight perforated metal panels in order to filter the strong light and to protect the interior from the strong Straits winds. It also proved to be a good way to hide maintenance galleries. They wanted to identify good views of the sea and the city and to make sure that these became an important component of the design. Cutting through the veil to highlight these was all the more important given that the steep topography of the site meant that the building would be very visible and effectively had no “back”. The Library caters to a wide range of people in this autonomous Spanish city close to Morocco and incorporates a range of cultural events into its programming.
Master Jury:
Suad Amiry, Founder, Riwaq Centre for Architectural Conservation, Ramallah
Emre Arolat, Founder, EAA-Emre Arolat Architecture, Istanbul
Akeel Bilgrami, Sydney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York
The Award is governed by a Steering Committee chaired by His Highness the Aga Khan. While the Steering Committee can suggest areas of interest, it has no bearing on the final selections of the independent Master Jury.
David Adjaye, founder and principal architect of Adjaye Associates, which has offices in London, New York and Accra
Mohammad al-Asad, the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Built Environment in Amman, Jordan
Francesco Bandarin, Assistant Director-General for Culture at UNESCO, Paris, France
Hanif Kara, a practicing structural engineer and Professor in Practice of Architectural Technology at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University
Kamil Merican, founding partner of GDP Architects Malaysia
Azim Nanji, currently Special Advisor to the Provost at the Aga Khan University and a Member of the Board of Directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa
Brigitte Shim, a principal in the Toronto-based design firm Shim-Sutcliffe Architects and Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto
Yu Kongjian, founder and dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape and the Changjiang Chair Professor of Design, at Peking University
Project descriptions via Aga Khan Award for Architecture website. More information can be found about the individual projects and shortlist here.
Sig Nordal 