NINE HOUSE, an ART-STAY place – a new social and spatial idea introduced by STUDIO QI, is a boutique hotel and gallery nestled within the well-preserved water town, Xitang, located in-between two mega-cities Shanghai and Hangzhou of China.
Diagram
The skyline of NINE HOUSE is defined by an understanding of the organic surrounding fabric.
Inspiration has come from its contextual quality distilled from the ‘tranquil yet on-going’ vibrant lives of Xitang; structured and supported by the rich, spatial configurations on both the urban and architectural scale.
NINE HOUSE places emphasis upon the movement of space and events. Shifting and juxtaposing of volumes, compressing and releasing of moments, intervening or penetrating the negative space; such architectural operations allow the only 500 sqm-compressed site to appreciate an experience of ongoing explorations, composed of spatial excitements and surprises.
The space consists of a glassed coffee & gift area, and a semi-open gallery walkway leading into the bamboo backyard, threading by six guest rooms, each with a private entrance garden on the ground floor. Two glassed gallery bridges, diagonally across the space, continuously steps up to the upper levels of dining room and tea-house, which assign the best views directed towards the picturesque layers of the roof tiles of Xitang. There is an underground wine cellar and a multi-functional event space.
With these analytically translated spatial characteristics and classic urban language, many unique to Xitang, physical movement and visual focus are individually led by distinct spatial moments and super-imposed imagery. NINE HOUSE aims to address the topic of ‘transparency’ in architecture, where the multiplicity of events, the layers of visual connections and physical interactions, along with the complexity of impulse and moments are crucial to its experience.
From the architect. It has been 20 years since the Metro system first established in Taiwan’s capital city, Taipei. As an underground system, the entrance to the station normally appears like a matchbox on the street like cities worldwide, without any opportunity to interact with its environment. When the extension plan revealed, an ambitious new line, which needles the city’s hot attractions carried out by the city’s public transport bureau. A proposed station site in the city’s biggest green space, the Daan Forest Park, creates a great opportunity to introduce a new idea for Metro station design.
The scheme proposed by the design team during the competition was totally out of the juries’ imagination. Unlike the matchbox design, it is literally a station in the park, which breaks the boundary between station and Daan Forest Park. But enormous debates across departments within the city government comes after. In the long run, the conclusion was made by the mayor so the radical idea was able to live up. The proposal aims to transform the metro station from a passive transport service into a vibrant city hub, which connects people, environment and at the same time stimulates porosity. The tactic of embedding the station into the park has also created a gate in the North, which used to be a low active section. The park is therefore getting more accessible and the station has become a jolly linkage, leading citizens to multiple destinations and activities.
The station tries to fit in the park and melt in the landform. A semi-circular sunken, stepping down to the platform level extends the landscape into underground. It opens up the dark tubular station to sunlight and fresh air. With the arrangement of elevation control, layers of plaza, corridor and meeting places were created and the surrounding plantation can effectively absorb the noise from people’s activities. While travelers alight at the station, they will be driven by their biological instinct, seeking sunlight and breeze to lead their way to the park. The transition between inside and outside brings the joy of nature and ultimately, turning the daily commute into a wonderful journey.
From the architect. The existing semi-detached house was a 30 year old house that had stood the test of time. Our clients approached us for a reconstruction of the existing house- with the intention to cater for their family consisting of the couple and their 2 young children.
From the start, our brief was not to maximize the buildable area. The family appreciated the outdoors and the greenery in front of the house was to be preserved. It was a play area the children would most enjoy on an elevated land a few steps above the car porch.
In rethinking the use of the spaces, we sought to make the indoor spaces functional whilst enhancing them with a connection to the outdoors.
The ground floor public areas were “opened up” by demolishing the enclosing walls and enhancing natural light and ventilation with full height glass doors.
A generously spacious timber patio outside of the living room was proposed to allow the living room to extend outside. A textured featured wall continues the dialogue from the inside to the outside and effectively blurs the boundaries.
The result is a living room that is bright and airy. Stepping up to the dining area, the space for dining is similarly allowed to spill outwards with an extension of a outdoor timber deck – creating a romantic space for after hours relaxation after a family gathering.
The roof was redesigned to include a series of skylights above the straight flight of stairs to the second storey.
Diagram
A generous family area greets one on the second storey. where a lush outdoor planter (which the Owners had a free-hand choosing the plant mix) spans the entire length. The planter is accessible by large sliding aluminum glass doors, and effectively brings in natural light and greenery to the upper storey.
The planter also is visible from the common bath to the family area and stretches to peak into the master bathroom.
The master bedroom is located in the front of the house. We designed the balcony space in front of the large bedroom with a more sensitive touch akin to a “sky patio” with a series of sliding timber screens. The Owners were able to adjust their placement in accordance to their preferences for lighting and privacy.
Rothelowman, in conjunction with KPDO, has revealed plans for 88 Melbourne, a $100 million, 55-story tower in the Australian city’s Southbank Entertainment Precinct. According to developers New Sky Group, the audience for this project is “downsizers who don’t wish to downgrade” and “[the project is] designed to cater [to] those upgrading their lifestyle, when trading in the family home.” The tower’s design is inspired by the facets of jewels and the art of origami, creating diamond patterns on the exterior that will glisten during the day and light up at night.
Courtesy of Rothelowman
The interiors by KPDO are meant to evoke the elegance of European hotels and luxury homes, with a range of textural finishes and opulent touches including appliances by Sub-Zero and Wolf. The apartment interiors were devised with zoned living and privacy in mind. Shared amenities of the building include a spa, steam room, sauna, and indoor lap pool. There will also be a communal wine cellar with tasting area, bar, and outdoor terrace, a communal kitchen for large-scale events, and flexible spaces intended for informal meetings and socializing.
Courtesy of Rothelowman
“88 Melbourne will have a sophisticated presence in the city and change the way people think of apartment living,” said Chris Hayton, Principal at Rothelowman. “It will be an iconic Melbourne address and a lasting moment in the evolution of local architecture and how we design for changing life-stages.”
From the architect. The project is made of 2 buildings with 7 apartments « 3 rooms style » on ground floor, and 3 « 4 rooms style » on the first floor with independent access. The apartments are all organized to enjoy the best orientation south side and city center view north side. With the organization in recent, south side, each apartment can enjoy its own privacy. There are closed gardens for the 3 rooms style, and terraces for the 4 rooms style. The terraces face south with pergolas for the shadow.
Pershing Square is a five-acre park bounded by 5th Street to the north, 6th Street to the south, Hill Street to the east, and Olive Street to the west, in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. The redevelopment has been led by Councilmember José Huizar, the Department of Recreation and Parks, MacFarlane Partners (provider of start-up funding for Pershing Square Renew), and other leaders, including Gensler and the law offices of Loeb and Loeb.
wHY + Civitas:
Courtesy of wHY + Civitas/Luxigon
Culver City relative newcomers wHY partnered with Denver’s well-known Civitas Landscape Architecture group.
Standing on top of the Test Kitchen, overlooking The Green and the city.. Image Courtesy of wHY + Civitas/Luxigon
“Los Angeles thrives on the synergy, overlap and intersection of many cultures and identities,” said wHY’s Kulapat Yantrasast and Civitas’s Mark Johnson. “Pershing Green will host and heighten these ideas as the hub of food, arts, nature and culture. The Green will be that living heart enabling Angelenos’ courage and free spirit.”
James Corner Field Operations with Frederick Fisher & Partners:
The trellis canopies, located on the east and west sides of the square, are planted with vines and provide dappled shade for al-fresco moveable tables and chairs below. The canopies reach down and connect to the garage level below, providing light and greenery to the lower level, which is in-turn envisioned as providing new community spaces and functions.. Image Courtesy of James Corner Field Operations
New York’s James Corner is responsible for Manhattan’s High Line as well as Santa Monica’s Tongva Park. Los Angeles’s Frederick Fisher is known for his connection to art and community institutions, such as Santa Monica’s restored Annenberg Community Beach House and exhibitions at LACMA.
The corner of 6th St. and Olive St. hosts a restaurant-café, spilling out under a bosque of trees and animating the street. By distinguishing each corner with activity, overlooks and greenery, the corners of the park are inviting and always active, animated with people and use.. Image Courtesy of James Corner Field Operations
“Our vision for Pershing Square aims to bring greenery, cafes, promenades, social life, flexible space and a meaningful center back into the heart of a burgeoning Downtown LA,” said James Corner, founder and director of James Corner Field Operations. “We envision a park that is both formal and informal, civic yet casual – a ‘garden theater’ providing a varied assortment of spaces for everyday use, special event programming, cultural exchange and innovation.”
Agence TER and Team:
Courtesy of Agence Ter and Team
Paris-based Agence TER’s landscapes dot Europe and have reached the Middle East and French Guyana.
Courtesy of Agence Ter and Team
“By flattening the lifted surface and removing all of the walls, Pershing Square will reach out to the neighborhood again, establishing a real dialogue with the city,” said Henri Bava, found and director of Agence TER. “Reintroducing flexible uses as well as nature will bring a strong identity for Downtown Los Angeles; the new park will aim to install an urban ecosystem, with a generous canopy providing shade, an inviting lawn and Californian gardens. It will become a green, sustainable and active destination for the metropolis and will be timeless and elegant through its welcoming simplicity.”
SWA | Morphosis:
Courtesy of SWA/Morphosis
Both of these firms are based in Downtown LA and well represented throughout Southern California, as well as nationally and internationally.
Courtesy of SWA/Morphosis
“Our proposal reasserts Pershing Square as a dynamic living platform that animates the urban center and advances the long- term vision of the city of Los Angeles as a vibrant cultural capital and global leader in sustainability,” said Gerdo Aquino, CEO of SWA and Thom Mayne, Design Director of Morphosis. “As a meeting ground, event venue, playground, and peaceful refuge, a downtown park is the ultimate stage upon which urban life unfolds. It is also the city’s platform for projecting the values and substantive actions that promote a vision for its direction and future.
Courtesy of SWA/Morphosis
Downtown LA’s renaissance as a premiere location for retail, offices, dining, entertainment, and residences calls for a central square that enhances the district’s emerging position within a greater social, political, environmental and economic context. Our proposal creates a park that is active throughout the day and evening, anchored by dining, concessions, and green-tech educational facilities. An aural garden and children’s playscape accompany a vast, lush lawn, which is maintained by a sustainable wetland water feature.
Courtesy of SWA/Morphosis
Distinct Southern California ecologies lie at the base of a solar-powered hydroponic urban farming tower. The park provides the vital park elements that everyone enjoys, while advancing a future of economic and ecological sustainability.”
From the architect. This project is located in the historic South End of Halifax, Nova Scotia, near the cities largest municipal park. The project was a complete redesign and transformation of a dated house in a traditional neighborhood into a contemporary residence. The design intent was to pay homage to the historical neighborhood by maintaining the original form of the structure while modernizing the aesthetic and detailing. We endeavored to create a home that suited the client’s contemporary taste and lifestyle while remaining perceptive to the surroundings.
This was accomplished through the removal of a number of interior walls and vaulting the ceiling in the great room to create a large open central gathering space. The window openings were also increased in size; these larger windows flood the new spaces with ample natural light and provide views of the foliage in the back garden.
Floor Plan
The inoperable garage was converted into a covered entrance with ample storage for bikes and recreational equipment. This space was topped with a semi private balcony off of one of the three bedrooms that provides an area to relax in the sun during the summer months and offers views over the quiet neighborhood street.
The result is a carefully considered interior space that supports family interaction, reflects the clean lines of modern aesthetic and displays thoughtful detailing. The exterior, on the other hand, continues to participate in the traditional language of the neighbourhood through its form and materials, but distinctively hints at what awaits inside.
As a design build company we are responsible for all aspects of design and physical construction. We find that this way of working allows us to address the inevitable difficulties that arise throughout a project at both the design and construction level. In this particular project everything from the initial demolition to the custom millwork fabrication and installation was included in our scope and we were able to work through solutions in a way that reflected the overall design intent.
COFFICE is a multi-layered initiative. The core concept is a smart combination of a laid-back coffee shop, a co-working space and a bar, in the same space. Sounds easy.
Each function happens at a different time of day, while the size and openness of the spaces needed by the users keep on varying and yet they need to represent different moods. Still, with the continuity, it has a certain coziness for the ones who do the studying during daytime and an alternative for the ones having a cocktail at night, for a place to study, work or tho have a coffee during the day. Work, drink, sleep, repeat.
This is all linked together by various elements from the contemporary interior design of offices and bars, industrial solutions with raw materials and airy, light colors, geometric patterns appear at the same time. The layout, the different more ‘open’ and more ‘closed’ spaces and the ability to fine tune the lighting systems all make this an open-minded, easily changeable place, what can adjust perfectly to the ever-changing needs of its users, allowing it to be a likable, cozy place.
Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has revealed plans to design and redevelop more than 22,000 square meters of brownfield land in Prague, in a 90,000 square meter development adjacent to the city’s Masaryk Railway Station. ZHA was selected by project partner Penta, an investment company active in ten markets across Europe, as the winner of a 2014 competition for the site. Devising a new central business district, the ZHA plan seeks to integrate with existing means of transit, including suburban and domestic rail services, a bus terminal, Line B of the city’s metro, and a future airport rail link to Vaclav Havel International Airport. Approximately one kilometer from Prague’s central square, the design seeks to create a balance between the horizontality of the railway lines and the verticality and publicness of the Old Town.
Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects
The plan intersects with Prague Districts 1, 3, and 8, alleviating the disjunction created by the elevated Wilsonova Highway, which bisects them. Within this context, ZHA has designed buildings that vary in scale and composition in order to generate a harmony with the existing urban fabric. This includes the conceiving of new civic spaces, such as plazas at the main entrance to the railway station, midway along Na Florenci Boulevard, at the corner of the Na Florenci/Opletalova axis, and at the bus terminal in District 8. The development comes as a response to the city’s growing demands for Class A office space in the service and IT sectors.
Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects
“In collaboration with our partners and the city, we have developed an urbanism for the site which draws inspiration from our analysis of the city and the site’s dynamic circulation networks,” says Craig Kiner, Project Associate at ZHA. “[It creates] an architectural response that is sensitive to context, unifying in aspiration and contributes to the urban fabric of Prague.”
Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects
Penta became the part and majority owner of Masaryk Station Development (MDS), which is overseeing the project, in 2011. The company will spend spend CZK 135 million (approx $5.7 million) on reconstruction of the railway station and over CZK 6.5 billion (approx $275 million) on the regeneration project. Phase one of the redevelopment has an anticipated completion of 2020, with all phases being completed by 2022.
In August of last year, many of the most precious landmarks of the ancient city of Palmyra were damaged or destroyed by the forces of ISIS in a violent, iconoclastic attempt to send a message to the rest of the world. Since the UNESCO World Heritage Site was recaptured in March, the question in the architectural preservation community has been how to rebuild and preserve the buildings. That process will begin, of course, with a thorough assessment of the damage.
Shortly after Palmyra was recaptured Iconem, a French company which specializes in the digitization of archeological sites, arrived in Palmyra to lead the survey. In partnership with the Syrian DGAM (Direction Générale des Antiquités et des Musées), Iconem was granted access to the city to survey the damage to the temples of Bel and Baalshamin, the Monumental Arch, the Valley of Tombs, and the museum—all sites which are of the most cultural value and therefore were the greatest targets of ISIS’s violence.
Iconem were so quick onto the scene that there was still a significant danger posed by mines that had not yet been cleared; however, by using a drone to capture the ruins, they were able to minimize this risk. With this photogrammetric survey, they have now produced a detailed 3D model of the Temple of Bel, with the other four sites to follow, which can be used by archaeologists and preservationists from around the world to propose strategies for reconstruction. In addition, a low-resolution version of the model is available for viewing by the public on Sketchfab, as shown above.
While the damage to the Temple of Bel may appear near-total, the survey by Iconem does give reason for hope: “The two temples and the arch have been demolished, but the majority of their component blocks are still present,” explained Iconem’s cofounder Yves Ubelmann. “They are spread across the area, but some of them are whole and have not been destroyed.”
It is hoped that with these 3D models, experts will be able to identify the pieces of these complex and priceless jigsaw puzzles to restore the site to its UNESCO-quality grandeur.
In addition to the Temple of Bel and the four other landmarks in Palmyra, Iconem and DGAM are partnering to document a number of other Syrian landmarks as part of their “Syrian Heritage” project. All of these models are being released as Sketchfab models on Iconem’s website here.
Sig Nordal 