© Konstantinos Kontos

• Architects: Georges Batzios Architects
• Location: Soutsou 19, Katerini 601 00, Greece
• Area: 120.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Konstantinos Kontos

• Production Manager: Kostas Papatheodorou
• Construction Manager: Georges Batzios Architects
• Wood Construction: Mixalis Petritis
• Client: Mlesna Hellas
• Software: Autocad, Rhinoceros, 3D Studio Max, Photoshop

© Konstantinos Kontos

From the architect. To Tsai Tea Room is located at Alexander Soutsou street in Kolonaki, one of the most lively areas in Athens. Kolonaki is a very dense zone located in the south of lycabetus hill, between the archeological/ institutional center of Athens and the anarchist zone of Exarchia that occupies the west part of the Iycabetus hill. It’s consider to be the most expensive area of Athens and its residents are well educated and wealthy. Because of its multi-use character ( residential, offices, retail, entertainment, art, institutional) it’s consider to be the part of the city that never sleeps. People from all the Attica basin along with a lot of tourist are visiting the area in order to visit the newest culinary experimentation or to visit an exposition in one of the multiple galleries and design stores in the area. In fact Kolonaki is an area the open to experimentation in design, lifestyle, architecture, urban culture….

To tsai Tea room it’s the first of half of duzin of tea rooms that were created in the area in the last ten years in a rayon of 200 meters and offer an variety of 500 teas from all over the world. The difference with the other tea room in the area, apart from its amazing collection of teas it’s that after its renovation, it combines the tea room services with a retail shop and a light tea oriented specialties restaurant in the same space. It’s visitors are mainly the artsy residents of the area and one could see some of the most known writers, artists and journalists of Greece that are looking for a calm space to retire from this overwhelming area of the city . Al Soutsou str it’s a quite small street that unite lycabetus str and Dimokritou str that are very noisy and alive. The ornament free minimalistic details of the interior spaces combined with the wonderful odor palette of the teas and the soft music are creating that Zen universe that the artsy residents and tourist could retire from this noisy part of the city

© Konstantinos Kontos

The owner of the place opened a tea import and retail shop just couple of blocks away from the actual refurbished shop in 1994. He was the first to import good quality tea in Greece. In 2008 he opened the actual tea shop in a form of a tea room/ restaurant. The business were slow in the beginning but since the crisis started his business started to boom. The thing is that when the economy was booming tea business in Greece was bad, and since the crisis started the tea business/philoshophy has a very good resonance to greek people. It’s like tea works like a remedy, and that’s natural because the crisis learn greeks to adapt TO a more minimalistic way of life. That’s the good thing about the crisis, and that’s what made the tea philosophy essential to some of the greek people. Tea culture success it’s a reflexion of the slow change of Modern Greek people culture from materialism to essentialism.

Render

Kolonaki it’s not booming back but its stabilizing, its booming was based in a materialistic pop culture bars and restaurants and that mode de vie its gone, supermaterialism it’s gone. What it’s interesting it’s that there is an alternative creative air. A new amazing chocolat place opened couple of blocks away, a chocolate paradise, street food festivals are held every couple of weeks, new galleries, art festivals, couple of amazing architectural interventions like ONE ATHENS, 

© Konstantinos Kontos

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Credit: Astrid Nieuwborg

Five acclaimed international guests join OMA/AMO’s Reinier de Graaf and the students of the Berlage Theory Master Class for a final debate on With the Masses – Architecture and Participation this Friday Night. Expect new insights into Het Nieuwe Insituut’s collection and new formats for vigorous debate designed by the students. With a.o. Françoise Fromonot, architecture critic and educator, Ricardo E. Bofill, architect, and Lucien Kroll, Atelier Kroll.

“We have been reading a footnote under a microscope, hoping it would turn into a novel. Our obsession with the masses has blinded us to the people’s architecture,” said Rem Koolhaas in Junk Space, 2004.

The Masses and the People… Even if the terms were to refer to the same crowd, their connotation couldn’t be more different. The Masses: a supposedly willing instrument of ideology; the People: a power that needs to be reckoned with. There’s no need for an intensive study of the architectural history to realize there’s an uncomfortable relation here. Whereas the idea of users as co-creators has steadily gained traction in other creative domains, any notion of ‘the people’ as a participatory force – one that helps determine the outcome of a design process – is still putting architecture well outside its comfort zone.

Few architects have embraced the idea of user-participation; even fewer have taken it to its conclusion. The user-as-designer registers as a quaint idea from the 1970s, an era of which the hopes and ideals are now considered naïve and obsolete. There is an alternative track-record but its heroes remain mostly unsung. Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Lucien Kroll are household names, but the identities of, for example, those behind today’s ‘Baugruppen’ remain undisclosed. The eruption of popular fantasy that comes with these developments is dismissed as bad taste and thus an emancipatory movement like modern architecture finds itself at odds with the emancipation of those whom it ultimately sought to serve. Where modern architecture made a convincing case of being for the Masses, it has so far been struggling to be with the Masses.

This week we have not only a Thursday Night but also a special Friday Night at Het Nieuwe Instituut, in collaboration with The Berlage. This Friday Night is connected to the ongoing research of Het Nieuwe Instituut on the relationship between people and government. Other projects are De staat van Eindhoven and Open: A Bakema Celebration.

Friday Night Dinner

Prior to the Friday Night programme at 18:30 we serve a meal made from fresh, organic produce in Het Nieuwe Café. An opportunity to exchange ideas with the speakers, Het Nieuwe Instituut staff and other visitors. The meal costs €17,50 including drinks.

The Berlage Theory Master Class

The Berlage’s twice-yearly master classes encourage students and young professionals to experiment with alternative forms of representation and dissemination, instead of stale panels and tedious diatribes.

• Title: Presentation Night ‘With the Masses’
• Type: Panel Discussion
• Website: http://ift.tt/1oUNqCh
• Organizers: Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam/The Berlage
• From: April 15, 2016 07:30 PM
• Until: April 15, 2016 10:00 PM
• Venue: Het Nieuwe Instituut
• Address: Het Nieuwe Instituut Museumpark 25 3015 CB Rotterdam

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© Luís Ferreira Alves

• Architects: Serônio Furtado Associados
• Location: Porto, Portugal
• Area: 19865.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Luís Ferreira Alves

• Collaborators: Carlos Santos, Diana Vieira, Joana Brandão, Joana Figueiredo, Julian Mertel, Luis Albuquerque Pinho, Rita Saturnino, Sara Ribeiro, Sofia Albuquerque, Susana Monteiro
• Engineers: Afaconsult, GET – Gestão de Energia Técnica Lda.
• Landscape Architects: Arqt OF – Arquitectos Associados, Lda.

© Luís Ferreira Alves

From the architect. The shape, defined by an elongated and low volume, serves to contain the garden and creates an urban element that is integrated with its surroundings. 

© Luís Ferreira Alves

Sketch

The form of the building — a compact volume — is determined by the area of the laboratories, which are located above the public areas, floating above the garden without actually touching it. Contact with the ground is carried out through the public spaces on the ground floor.

© Luís Ferreira Alves

© Luís Ferreira Alves

The two laboratory floors are what determine the form and shape of the building, and therefore characterize it. The decision to reference the design and formal concept of the building through its smallest unit, but most important function, the lab, is the main concept of the project.

Sections

The solution thus results in a very compact form, despite having three floors above ground level. This compact, elongated form is perforated by courtyards that illuminate each of the labs on its longest side.

© Luís Ferreira Alves

© Luís Ferreira Alves

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Courtesy of Hayes Davidson

Daniel Libeskind has unveiled plans for The Kurdistan Museum in Erbil, Iraq. With the building, Studio Libeskind seeks to create “the first major center in the Kurdistan Region for the history and culture of the Kurdish people.” The project was developed as a collaboration between the Kurdistan Regional Government (the KRG) and client representative RWF World. The 150,000 square-foot museum will feature exhibition spaces for both permanent and temporary exhibitions, a lecture theatre, state-of-the-art multimedia educational resources, an extensive digital archive of Kurdish historical assets, as well as community center and landscaped outdoor spaces for public use.

Courtesy of Hayes Davidson

“The museum aims to convey the spirit of the Kurdish people, their rich culture and the future of Kurdistan,” says Daniel Libeskind. “The design had to navigate between two extreme emotions: sadness and tragedy, through the weight of history, and of joy and hope, as the nation looks to the future.”

Courtesy of Hayes Davidson

Situated at the base of an ancient Citadel in the center of Erbil, the museum’s shape is created from four interlocking geometric volumes that represent the regions of Kurdistan: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey. A line that intersects the volumes, creating angular fragments, is meant to represent the past and future of the region and Kurdish people. “The two fragments,” says Studio Libeskind, “create an emotive duality: a heavy and opaque mass, the Anfal Line, which symbolizes the genocide under Saddam Hussein; and the Liberty Line, a lattice structure filled with greenery that ascends towards the sky and culminates with an eternal flame – a powerful symbol in Kurdish culture.” A courtyard space at the juncture of the lines refers to those found in the Citadel and throughout the city of Erbil, and a river feature that runs through the museum is meant to evoke the waterways and fertile valleys of the Kurdish region.

Courtesy of Hayes Davidson

The KRG hopes that museum project will be completed once the region has stabilized and the threat from fighting ISIS is minimized. As the KRG’s financial resources have been drained in this struggle, the organization is seeking outside funding to complete the project.

Courtesy of Daniel Libeskind

Project Team:

Studio Libeskind (US) Architect, Haley Sharpe Design (UK) Exhibition Designer, Expedition (UK) Structural Engineer, Atelier Ten (US) Mechanical and Environmental Engineer, Jackson Coles (UK) Project Managers, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK) Consultants for Landscape and Botany, RWF World (UK/Iraq) Development, Management and Content Production, and Tim Renwick, Project Director (London Eye, London 2012 Olympic Village)

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© James Brittain

• Architects: KPMB Architects
• Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
• Architect In Charge: KPMB Architects
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: James Brittain , Tom Arban , Maris Mezulis

• Project Team: Shirley Blumberg (Partner-in-Charge and Design Partner), Andrew Dyke (associate-in-charge), Richard Unterthiner (project architect), Sanaz Shirshekar, Lynn Pilon (project manager), Dave Smythe (contract administration), David Poloway, Carolyn Lee, Rachel Cyr
• Engineers And Specialty Consultants: ERA Architects (heritage architectural services), MMM Group Limited (civil engineering), Janet Rosenberg + Associates (landscape architect), Larden Muniak (building code compliance), Turner & Townsend cm2r Inc (quantity surveying), HIDI RAE Consulting Engineers (mechanical, electrical, fire protection, communications), Read Jones Christoffersen (structural engineering), Aercoustics (acoustical engineering), Soberman Engineering Inc (vertical transportation engineering)
• Builder: Bondfield Construction Company Ltd.

© Maris Mezulis

From the architect. The Toronto Public Library system is the largest in North America and one of the most used per capita in the world. The new Fort York Branch has become an important community centre in a highly diverse, rapidly evolving neighbourhood in downtown Toronto.

© Tom Arban

Unique Heritage Context

The building sits on what was once the original forested shoreline of Lake Ontario at the mouth of Garrison Creek. The library building is designed to allow pedestrian access from Fort York Boulevard to the south, to the future park to the north. This pedestrian pathway system will connect under the Bathurst Street Bridge to the historic fort and its grounds. The angular trapezoidal geometry of the pavilion building references the ramparts of the fort, and the extensive use of wood in the interior of the building recalls the old wooden cribbing found buried on site during the archaeological survey.

Site Plan

Fort York now finds itself buried in today’s urban fabric. The second floor of the library functions as an extraordinary viewing platform to the heritage site, the city and the lake.

© James Brittain

The Urban Living Room

In order to fulfill the client’s mandate and vision to be the social heart of the neighbourhood – to provide a resource for not only books and CD’s, but also community programs, classes, digital studios and study spaces, and to be the first stop for new immigrants – the functional layout of the building had to provide a high level of flexibility for future program development. Durability and ease of maintenance were also important criteria as the building is constantly in heavy use.

1st Floor plan

The building has accommodated the unanticipated high number of users well because of the robustness and generosity of its public spaces. And the modest construction budget imposed a discipline of strategic use of warm materials – such as the wood – and bright primary colours to animate the interior.

© Maris Mezulis

Integrated Art 

Given the site’s unique history, the clients suggested using Margaret Atwood’s poetry collection, The Journals of Susanna Moodie as a theme for integrated art. Poetry excerpts are featured on the exterior of the building, while The Planters drawing by Charles Pachter is reproduced on the perforated metal fins on the west façade along Bathurst Street. The image is visible from the interior and casts extraordinary patterns of shadow and light at different times of the day. The fins at the second level provide sun protection during the day and transparency into the library at dusk.

© James Brittain

Sustainable Design

The selection of the site at the corner of Bathurst Street and Fort York Boulevard was an important step in the overall success of this project. In order to contribute to street animation and encourage use of nearby public transit, there is no public parking provided on site. A dedicated green roof makes up 52% of the total area. The exterior fins mitigate heat gain and operable windows allow for natural cross-ventilation and passive cooling in the shoulder seasons and motorized interior blinds control direct sunlight and heat gain.

© James Brittain

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Using photogrammetry to capture and model existing buildings is a fantastic way to share cultural treasures with the world, and with VR features cropping up everywhere even enables us to give people virtual tours of a site of cultural significance from thousands of miles away. But beyond that, capturing a model of a building is also a great way to digitally preserve that structure at a given point in time – this technique is even being used by Harvard and Oxford to protect structures placed at risk by the ongoing wars in Syria and Iraq.

In that spirit, our friends over at Sketchfab have compiled a selection of cultural treasures that have been immortalized on their platform. Read on to see all seven models, and don’t forget that you can view all of them in virtual reality using Google Cardboard.

Jableh Theater, Syria

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Constructed in the first half of the third century AD, the Roman Theater of Jableh was designed to seat around 7,000 spectators, and was a key factor in establishing Jableh, on the coast of Syria, as an important city in the late Roman Empire.

Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome, Italy

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The Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome – also known as the Mausoleum of Hadrian – has a long and complex history which reflects the dramatic changes that have taken place in the city over two millennia. Originally built in 139 AD to house the remains of the Emperor Hadrian and his family, the building’s tombs were destroyed when the building was converted into a military fortress in 401 AD. Almost a millenium later, the building began to be used by the Popes of the Catholic Church as a refuge, fortress and even a prison. Now, the building is a museum.

Qubbat al-Khazna (Dome of the Treasury) at the Ummayad Mosque, Damascus, Syria

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Built in the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, the Qubbat al-Khazna originally held the mosque’s endowments and precious manuscripts. The small octagonal structure was completed in 789 AD, and like the mosque itself was decorated with mosaics which show hints of both earlier Syrian patterning and an early development of Islamic decoration.

Baroncelli Chapel at the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence, Italy

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The Baroncelli Chapel at the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence is notable for its many frescoes depicting biblical stories of the Virgin Mary, painted between 1328 and 1338 by Taddeo Gaddi. In the above model by Matthew Brennan, each of these frescoes are labeled with annotations to outline the stories depicted.

Church of the Gesù, Rome, Italy

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Constructed in the 16th century, the Church of the Gesù – or to give its full name, Chiesa del Santissimo Nome di Gesù all’Argentina – is considered by many to be the first example of Baroque architecture. Designed by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola until his death in 1575, the construction was then taken over by Giacomo della Porta, who revised the building’s main facade and parts of its interior, seen in the model above. Giacomo della Porta’s design included more dynamic flourishes that would go on to influence the design of many later churches, especially those in the new world.

Segovia Cathedral, Spain

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Built in the 16th century, the Segovia Cathedral is in a way remarkable for how young it is; by that time in most of the rest of Europe, its late Gothic stylings had become thoroughly unfashionable. However, the building is notable for its fine Gothic vaults, which can be seen in the model above. Interestingly, though it focuses on these vaults, the model makes use of a low-poly approximation of the rest of the church to give context to the element it wishes to highlight.

Painted Hall, Greenwich, London

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Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, Greenwich’s Painted Hall is notable for its decoration by the artist James Thornhill. Completed in simple oil paints rather than as a true fresco, these paintings were recently the subject of an extensive restoration.

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© Yusuke Suzuki

On April 2^nd, the jury of the 10^th Ibero-American Architecture and Urbanism Biennial DESPLAZAMIENTOS / DESLOCAMIENTOS met in Madrid to select the winner of the Ibero-American Award for Architecture and Urbanism.

After deliberations and voting, the jury decided to honor Eduardo Souto de Moura, who was nominated by the School of Architecture at the University of Lisboa.

Souto de Moura was selected because of the widespread recognition of his work and his important contribution as a professor at universities in various countries. Souto de Moura creates new and rich relationships between different scales, places and times, experimenting with materials and structures, and creating projects rich with emotion.

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© Åke E:son Lindman

• Architects: Tham & Videgård Arkitekter
• Location: Jönköping, Sweden
• Chief Architects: Bolle Tham and Martin Videgård
• Area: 10900.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Åke E:son Lindman

• Design Team: Eric Engström, Mårten Nettelbladt, Malin Belfrage, Helene Amundsen, Karolina Nyström, Marcus Andrén, Andreas Helgesson, Dennis Suppers
• Client: Vätterhem and Riksbyggen

Site Plan

Site Plan

From the architect. Located on the quayside of the Munksjön lake, these two urban housing blocks are based on a long term strategy of sustainability, creating attractive housing on one of the best sites in central Jönköping. Rather than a row of standard housing slabs, the requested number of apartments was assembled into two large units. The two compact volumes establish a solid position proportionally acceptable both to the city as well as the lake. It also minimizes the building envelope in line with the low energy concept.

© Åke E:son Lindman

Plan

An outer layer of terraces surrounds the perimeter of the buildings and provides all apartments with generous outdoor spaces. These are contained within a transparent screen of anodized aluminum that diffuses the light and with its arched shapes creates alternating open and filtered views. It offers a buffer zone between the intimate domestic interior of the apartments and the vast scale of the water landscape and urban context outside. By shifting the voids in the screen every second level, a characteristic pattern emerges that unites the six floors into one distinct cubical volume.

© Åke E:son Lindman

The apartments are organized around a large vertical atrium, a top lit stairwell dignifies a grand entrance hall and provides an important interior space for visitors and tenants in which to socialize. The atrium hall also functions as a natural preheating of fresh air, thus contributing to over all energy efficiency. The majority of the apartments are located in the corners, all benefitting from good views and light.

© Åke E:son Lindman

Section

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ArchDaily is looking for motivated architecture lovers to join our team of interns for Summer 2016! An ArchDaily internship is a great opportunity to learn about our site and get exposed to some of the latest and most interesting ideas shaping architecture today.

Interested? Then check out the requirements below.

• Applicants must be fluent English speakers with excellent writing skills. 
• Applicants must have completed their first year of university/college.
• Applicants must be able to work from home (or school/workplace).
• Applicants must be able to dedicate 15 hours per week; the schedule is flexible, but you must be reachable Monday through Friday.
• Writing experience is a huge plus. If you have a blog or used to write for the school paper, tell us about it on the form below.
• Basic experience with online blogging platforms, Facebook, Twitter, or Photoshop are a plus. Please indicate this in the form below.
• The internship will run from May/June to August 2016, with training occurring during the months of May/June. 

If you think you have what it takes, please fill out the following form by Tuesday, April 26 9:00 AM EST. We will contact potential candidates (and only potential candidates) for follow-ups during the last week of May. Late submissions will NOT be accepted! 

ArchDaily internships are compensated.

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© VDNH

The Russian contribution to the 2016 Venice Biennale has been revealed to be “an account of how the V.D.N.H. (the ‘Exhibition of Attainments of the National Economy’)—a unique complex in both scale and architecture—is being transformed into a multi-format cultural and educational space, accessible to all.” Entitled V.D.N.H. Urban Phenomenon, the show will examine the park’s global significance “given that the whole world is concerned by the question of how to develop society’s intellectual potential and how to create effective mechanisms for cultural assimilation.” Following the Biennale, the exhibition will be permanently relocated to the V.D.N.H. in Moscow.

According to Sergey Kuznetsov, Chief Architect of Moscow and the exhibition’s curator: “Unlike most theme and amusements parks, the V.D.N.H. does not merely provide citizens with leisure, but has an educational and cultural mission. […] Taken together,” he continues, “the coherence of this urban ensemble, the diversity of its public spaces, and its necklace of national and thematic pavilions create a territory which is capable of accumulating and multiplying society’s intellectual and cultural energy, and it is this which in the final analysis is helping us win the battle for quality of life.”

The #Uzbekistan Pavilion at #VDNH (1954$, now Culture Pavilion. One of the masterpieces of Soviet architecture of the 1950s 🇷🇺☝🏻️ #moscow #archdaily #instagood #architecture #iphonesia #russia

A photo posted by ArchDaily 🏠 (@archdaily) on Feb 21, 2016 at 6:35am PST

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According to Kuznetsov, the outline of the exhibition involves “art and multimedia technologies to talk about the past, present, and future of the V.D.N.H.” In addition, “a section dealing with the history of the exhibition will present artefacts from Soviet times” while there will also “be a video installation immersing visitors in the atmosphere of the V.D.N.H. today.” The pavilion’s commissioner, Semyon Mikhailovsky, has added that a number of researchers have been invited to take part, including sculptors, graphic artists, and students from the Moscow Architecture Institute, the Russian Academy of Arts, and a number of other higher education institutions in Russia.

The #вднх (VDNK) Central Pavilion. The "Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy", opened in 1935 and occupies more than 2 million sqm in #Moscow, where a series of pavilions show the modern and contemporary history of #Russia. 🇷🇺🙌🏻 #architecture #archdaily #instagood #iphonesia

A photo posted by ArchDaily 🏠 (@archdaily) on Feb 18, 2016 at 7:51am PST

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Mikhailovsky continued by saying that “the V.D.N.H. today is an example of a space in which the fight for an audience is being conducted using urban design, architecture, and education, and in this sense it makes an ideal fit with the theme for the 15th International Biennale of Architecture, which the latter’s curator Alejandro Aravena has defined as ‘Reporting from the Front’.”

© Alexey Rezvy

© Alexey Rezvy

© Alexey Rezvy

© Alexey Rezvy

© Alexey Rezvy

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