Location: Azcuénaga 444, Roldán, Santa Fe, Argentina
Architect In Charge: Franco Piccini, Santiago Rafael Baulíes, Martín Cabezudo
Collaborator: Cecilia Pellegrini
Area: 93.0 sqm
Project Year: 2014
Photography: Franco Piccini
Owner: Yasmina Roganovich – Franco Piccini
Construction Company: EA&ASOC
From the architect. In a next-to-a-square plot of land: the boundary between is considered as a facade. If we look though it, our plot may be perceived larger than it´s real size.
Plan
Diagram
The house is organized in two blocks: the day area, oriented to the north, with a straight connection to the backyard; and the night area, included on a parallel-to the-square block. A non-solid wall, made with bricks, helps to stop the strong western sun.
The house and its construction where solved with a mortgage credit which was given in quotas. The needs to fulfill the restricted, consecutive stages of this credit and the low budjet, made us organize the building phases with a layers-logic. Each layer responds to a particular phase of the credit, shaping precisely every construction period.
Because of the low budjet, the house was thought as a shell which attempts to cover the largest area as possible, considering but not building inner divisions and extra surfaces. Thereby, the room´s block was conceived as a unique space to be subdivided in the future, in three bedrooms, with furniture walls made with plywood and, in the North’s block, the roof folds generating a high space and suggesting the possibility of a future mezzanine. In this place, a big window allows the incoming of South’s difuse light and, once the mezzanine is built, the opportunity to contemplate the whole adjacent public area´s extension.
Until recently, the architecture world largely viewed plastic polymers as inferior building materials, handy for wipe-clean kitchen surfaces, but not practical in full-scale building applications. But with technological innovations driving material capabilities forward, polymers are now being taken seriously as a legitimate part of the architect’s pallet. One of the most widely-used of these materials is a fluorine-based plastic known as ETFE (Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene). Brought into the public consciousness thanks to its use on the facade of PTW Architects‘ Water Cube for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, architects are now realizing the film’s capabilities to express a new aesthetic and replace costlier transparent and translucent materials.
ETFE was originally developed in the 1970s by DuPont as a lightweight, heat resistant film to serve as a coating for the aerospace industry. Since that time, the film has been used sporadically in various agricultural and architectural projects, such as coverings for greenhouses and protection for solar cells. Then, in 2001, the material saw its first large-scale application as the encapsulating membrane of the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, a natural evolution of Buckminster Fuller’s Biosphere concept. The consultant engineering firm for the project, Arup, selected ETFE because of its ability to reliably regulate environmental conditions within the building through UV transparency – the film can be printed with specific patterns and layered to control solar conditions – which was essential to a structure whose function is to house climate-specific flora. Additionally, the architects noticed ETFE’s low friction coefficient that prevents dust or dirt from sticking to its surface, reducing maintenance requirements.
Seeing the material’s success as a large surface membrane, Arup proposed ETFE in subsequent projects for the Allianz Stadium with Herzog & de Meuron (2005) and the aforementioned Watercube National Swimming Centre, in the latter project selecting the film not only for its aesthetic and functionality as cladding, but also for its acoustic qualities. In these applications, layers of ETFE are continually filled with air from a pneumatic system to create pillow-like cushions that provide thermal insulation and structural stability against wind or snow loads. In both arenas, individual cushions can be lit with color-changing LEDs to create unique patterns, allowing the building facade to reflect whatever event is taking place inside.
U.S. Bank Stadium / HKS. Image Courtesy of Minnesota Vikings
In the past few years, ETFE has blown up in the realm of stadium design, currently being featured in Foster + Partners’ SSE Hydro Arena, 360 Architecture’s New Atlanta Stadium, ACXT’s San Mames Stadium, and the soon-to-open U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, whose retractable ETFE roof is the largest installation of the material in the United States. But ETFE is also seeing a surge in non-sports architecture, most notably in SelgasCano’s design for the 2015 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. Rather than using ETFE cushions, the architects wrapped 19 different colors of the film around a minimal steel frame to evoke a kaleidoscopic effect. In another example, KieranTimberlake Architects design for the U.S. Embassy in London included ETFE fins which would help shade the building’s exterior on its east, west and south sides while admitting daylight and increasing visibility for birds.
Unlike potentially health-threatening plastics such as PVC, ETFE is both easily recyclable and long-lasting, holding up to extreme climatic conditions. It is cost-effective to produce, and has a low-energy manufacturing and transportation process, thanks in large part to its light weight. Due to its elasticity, ETFE performs well during natural disasters such as earthquakes, and is self-extinguishing in case of fire.
Plastic polymers seem to have finally become accepted as practical and successful building materials, and ETFE has already been utilized to great effect in a number of architectural projects. Now it’s up to architects to continue to discover new ways of using the material.
From the architect. A segment of Euclid Ave between Ford Ave and 115th Street is anchored by two new cultural institutions, MOCA on the west and CIA on the east. Linking these two pivots are four new urban fabric buildings that contain commercial, retail and entertainment, with housing above.
Site Diagram
Architecture’s role here is to build a piece of city, and a common language and palette of materials repeat on the buildings in the tradition of great cities like Paris and London, where continuous architecture crates the fabric of a district. The language is derived from the large scale historic perforated skin buildings of downtown Cleveland, merged with the townhouse fabric of nearby neighborhoods. The elements are bold perforated horizontal and vertical punctured windows, and ribbed aluminum planks, alternating in vertical and horizontal directions which create the townhouse scale.
Two completed buildings line Euclid Ave and sweep around the corners, making a new urban intersection at 115th Street, unfolding to connect to the CIA. This form establishes a counterpoint to University Circle at the MOCA end of the site, and demarcates the new urban district, Uptown.
Plan 2
The building on the south side of Euclid Ave has commercial space lining the street, with parking on two levels at the rear. The commercial space houses a Barnes and Noble Bookstore, the entry lobby to the residences above is at a gateway which perforates the slab, and a grocery store which wraps around the corner onto 115th Street. Above are residences. Numerous types, ranging from one to three bedroom units, are structured in layers. From a double loaded central hallway, service bars are established on either side, connected to the habitable spaces on the outer walls. Three common area courtyards puncture the perforated façade.
Across the street is a complimentary building which forms a pedestrian alley, a new pedestrian street, together with existing CWRU Residence buildings, which have new commercial programs added at their base. The Euclid building is transparent and perforated, with four restaurants which connect the alley to the main street. The functions of the alley focus on food and beverage. This building on the north side of Euclid has student rental apartments, structured in a similar way to the ones across the street, but more compact. Several communal outdoor courts perforate the façade. At the end of the alley a gateway under the buildings connects to entry of CIA.
The commercial bases on both sides of the street are transparent, perforated and light. The façades of the two buildings are gridded and perforated, and recall Downtown Cleveland for Uptown, the new center at the hub of the most vital part of contemporary Cleveland.
Phase ll is twice the height of Phase l, but retains the scale by folding the same architectural elements of perforated aluminum clad walls over three recessed glass voids which are treated as more neutral zones. Turning the corner at Ford Ave is a large urban gesture of a gateway, supported by a three story column, as a counterpoint to MOCA. This section of the building contains Corner Alley Bowling, with market rate apartments above. The other half of the building has restaurants, a bank along Euclid Ave, and student residences for CIA above.
Two conceptual plans designed by OMA have been unveiled for the redevelopment of Washington DC‘s 190-acre Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Stadium-Armory Campus site. Released by Events DC, theofficial convention and sports authority for the District of Columbia, the phased design concepts aim to “leverage the District’s waterfront, provide neighborhood serving amenities and connect the current site with increased and sustainable green space, flexible recreational fields and natural access to pedestrian-friendly paths.”
The two proposals – “North-South Axis” and “Stitch” – each illustrate a different approach for addressing parking, infrastructure, pedestrian connections, site conditions and program placement.
“Within both the North-South Axis and Stitch design concepts, there are three anchor tenant scenarios: (a) 20k Seat Arena, (b) NFL Stadium, and (c) No Anchor,” says OMA. “All three scenarios reflect a phased approach intended to provide short-term programming elements that will immediately activate the site with uses that will serve the community. Such short-term program uses, which exist in both the North-South Axis and Stitch design concepts, include sport, recreation, culture and park space.
“The long-term opportunities for the North-South Axis and Stitch design concepts offer an extension of all of the program elements delivered in the short-term, plus additional long-term program elements, inclusive of an anchor tenant and the related supporting site and infrastructure enhancements.”
OMA New York’s partner-in-charge, Jason Long added, “Our goal for both design concepts is to reconnect the Campus to existing neighborhoods to the north and south, to bring the District closer to the Anacostia waterfront and to transform the site from a space designed for watching sports, dominated by asphalt, into a new gateway to DC that elevates public health with diverse recreational programming. Both concepts provide a strategy for revitalizing the Campus’ identity from passive space to active place and transform its urban character from pavement to park.”
Collaborators: Aldo Sicilia, Carlos Medellín, Enrico Perini, Juan Manuel Gil, Juliana Zambrano, Manuela Dangond, Maria Sol Echeverri, Milou Telling, Mohamed Al-Shafie, Nicolas Paris, Olivier Dambron, Patricia Gualteros, Yuli Velásquez , Sebastián Negret
As well as the general form the materiality of the Educative Park of Marinilla is perhaps what at first sight stands out the most because of the aluminum mesh that covers up all the building. The facades and the inferior and superior planes are solved with prefabricated panels of expanded mesh that are attached to the main structure of the building, making the assembly process quite simple.
On the other hand, because its configuration is half-opened, the mesh works like the mechanism of permeable enclosure that – acting as the element that protects from the outside – it allows the building to have natural ventilation. In addition, due to the situation of the building, the mesh makes possible for users to take greater advantage of the view and to have contact with the nature that surrounds it and the activities of the outside.
A wood plastic composite (WPC) decking was used for the interior floor to make the place warmer and cozy without breaking with the tonality of the set. On the contrary, with the use of the red covering of the outer faces of the classrooms it was longed to emphasize these points within the great space that is the building; to emphasize the activity nodes.
The structure is another essential aspect of the formal project, because although it is conceived like an exposed skeleton, it manages to be present without being invasive; not only a question of chromatic uniformity but of harmony between the skin and its frame.
Finally it is worth to mention the “vegetation” component, for which a system of creepers is intended to raise along the perimeter of the building, adding vitality and color to the place as they grow. Besides the idea is that this it generates appropriation on the part of the users, who will be able to take care of and to interact with the flowers.
This month’s Archilogic model is a virtual tour of the very first Case Study House being featured in Arts and Architecture Magazine‘s program, designed by Julius Ralph Davidson. After World War II, American soldiers returned home from battlefields in Europe. They had to cope with traumatic experiences during the war and probably just wanted to rebuild their life and settle down.
It must have been hard to get back to normal. Certainly people wanted to live the American Dream: The pursuit of happiness, the intention of all Americans. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was first proclaimed in the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 and became a sort of “doctrine” for American citizens. This was an idea often reflected in the Hollywood film and television industry. The films that were produced in Hollywood after 1945 were stories that suggested that every hard-working person would succeed. Hollywood seemed to repeatedly produce stories of the American Dream.
Maybe the soldiers who came back had a dream. Maybe they imagined buying a house for themselves and their families. In 1945 Entenza, the editor of Arts and Architecture, wrote: “We of course assume that the shape and form of post war living is of primary importance to a great many Americans, and that is our reason for attempting to find at least enough of an answer to give some directions to current thinking of the matter.” Entenza had published an announcement in Arts and Architecture in which he declared the aim of the Case Study House program that he had initiated. It was a program of contemporary model homes, designed by renowned architects such as Eero Saarinen and Richard Neutra, but nevertheless available for all. The big question was whether the postwar generation was ready for modernism.
Entenza was eager to find out. He started his program in 1945. Case Study House #1 was designed by Julius Ralph Davidson, a German who came to California in 1923. In London and Paris he worked as an interior designer, which was his primary occupation during his first years in America. The duplex house that Davidson planned was similar to an earlier house he had designed for the émigré German writer Thomas Mann. For that design, Mann preferred a more “gemütlich” (cozy) version of the International Style, which in his eyes was not the style offered by that other famous architect of Californian homes, Richard Neutra.
Unfortunately, Case Study House #1 did not attract any clients. It took three years before a family with two working parents came forward. Davidson revised the original plans into a compact and efficient one-story house with a standard wood frame construction on a concrete slab floor, built on a gently sloping lot in North Hollywood. He assembled inexpensive materials such as concrete block, plywood panels and industrial glass. His open floor plan with multi-purpose rooms was a characteristic also visible in most of the later Case Study Houses. Since Davidson had, earlier in his life, designed the interiors of ships, all bedrooms had built-in cabinets and closets. An indoor-outdoor experience was made possible by floor-to-ceiling glass with easy access to the gardens.
Courtesy of Archilogic
In an essay for the book Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses, Dolores Hayden wrote that Mrs. X, who would live in the house, could be described as a sort of a circus juggler, who attends easily to the preparation of quick meals in the kitchen adjacent to the bedroom-wing while she is dressing up. However contrary to this feminist critique leveled in 1989, Davidson imagined women as part of the working generation and not as domestic housewives who splish-splashed in the pool when taking a break from housework.
Courtesy of Archilogic
Case Study House #1 had a big influence on Entenza’s program of modern experimental architecture by introducing open floor plans and standardized materials, and as a result the house now has a place on the National Register of Historic Places.
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“…The architect…Through unconventional organization of conventional parts he is able to create new meanings within the whole… Familiar things seen in an unfamiliar context become perceptually new as well as old…” Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
Floor Plan
In front of the opportunity about experimentation in a domestic work of a small scale, it’s developed a series of essays that constitute the frame theorical-practical of project, manipulating a traditional element of our constructive culture in search new meanings and possibilities.
The order is about the construction of four weekend’s bedroom, materialized through horizontal and vertical planes of reinforced concrete that determine his bearing structure and spatial. The exterior enclosure of pavilion it is constituted for self-supporting brick panels of dry construction.
The constructive system start with the basic unit (common brick) disposed in repetitive way, alternating full and empty inside of a steel frame. As of positioning of “panderete” 55 whole bricks and 22 half supported each other without mortar, creates a panel of weft half-open that works as filter of light and protection of intimacy of the habitants.
The rhythm generated for the alternation of the pieces and the silences between them produced a marked uniformity of the enclosure, nuanced for the step forward of some singular parts in the composition: the panels that conform the south facade count with the possibility to scroll allowing linkage of the bedrooms with the outside. The dynamism acquired with the creation of movable panels of brick, submit the material to an unusual behavior, heightening the effect of latent instability to create a new context inside the set to experience capacities that have not been explore.
In his new book Landscape as Urbanism, Charles Waldheim, the John E. Irving Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, argues that in order to understand the twenty-first century metropolis, “a traditional understanding of the city as an extrapolation of architectural models and metaphors is no longer viable given the prevalence of larger forces or flows. These include ruptures or breaks in architectonic logic of traditional urban form as compelled by ecological, infrastructural, or economic change.”
In other words, spatial constructions in urban environments should no longer be attached to intractable functions or intent on isolation, but should instead integrate into the fabric of the city. These types of projects must be flexible to the inevitable changes in functionality and purpose that are byproducts of economic change and evolutions in land-use intentions. The dozen projects featured here are exemplary of such practices, both in how they adapt to past interventions and in how they move beyond the notion of a static future for urban conditions that are perpetually in flux.
Built on a site that was once the largest wholesale meat market and slaughterhouse in northeast Paris, Parc de la Villette was a new typology for landscape design in that it did not preface nature or architecture, but instead generated hybrid forms that integrate the man-made with the vegetal. Unlike parks of the past that sought out beauty and specificity of function, Tschumi’s landscape is a flexible space which acknowledges that the public realm is transient.
Made possible by the dramatic enhancements to computer-aided design, Yokohama Terminal was one of the first projects to utilize digital design technologies. The infrastructural project championed landscape urbanist principals in a facility that creates circulation through shaped surfaces that serve and accentuate the site’s functions.
3. Millenium Park (Chicago, Illinois) / SOM (Park Masterplan)
Courtesy of Krueck + Sexton Architects
Built on what was once parking lots, bus lanes, and a train yard, Millennium Park is cheekily called “the world’s largest roof garden” by masterplan designers SOM. The site completed Daniel Burnham’s 100-year vision for the Chicago lakefront in a settings that is both classical and contemporary, with grand promenades, a Frank Gehry-designed bandshell, and beloved public sculptures, above two-levels of parking, bus lanes, and a renovated and expanded train station.
The sculpture park is built atop a former brownfield site in a zig-zag form that crisscrosses over a major arterial road and train route. In a gradual descent – 40 feet from the city to ground level – the pedestrian path reestablishes a connection to the adjacent waterfront on the last open parcel of land.
As one of the largest airport terminals in the world, Beijing Capital exemplifies what Charles Waldheim describes as “sites whose scale, infrastructural connectivity, and environmental impacts outstrip a strictly architectonic model of city making.”
6. The High Line(New York City, New York) / Diller Scofidio + Renfro, James Corner Field Operations
Perhaps the most well-known project on this list, the High Line is a park built on top of a defunct elevated railway on the West Side of Manhattan. After decades in disuse, the tracks had become a self-seeded park that the DS+R and Field Operations design sought to honor in spirit, but also augment with amenities like paved paths, benches, lawn spaces, and gardens.
Built as a vegetal cap to the Woodall Rodgers Freeway, Klyde Warren Park seeks to correct some of the shortsightedness that allowed highway systems to bisect neighborhoods and blight so many American downtowns in the twentieth century rush to develop car infrastructure. The 5.2 acre park bridges Downtown to the adjacent Arts District with amenities that include a performance stage, restaurant, dog park, playground, great lawn, and a garden of native plants.
Hypothetical, Ongoing, and Under Construction Projects
8.BIG U(New York City, New York) / Bjarke Ingels Group
Courtesy of rebuildbydesign.org
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, New York’s Rebuild by Design initiative was meant to generate solutions for regional vulnerabilities that would prepare the metropolitan region for future storms. In need of a wall that isn’t a wall, in the words of Bjarke Ingels, “[BIG U is] a string of pearls of social and environmental amenities tailored to their specific neighborhoods, that also happens to shield their various communities from flooding.” In other words, BIG U is a series of landscaped interventions that create spaces for everyday recreation, but could endure the brunt of a major storm if the need were to arise.
Repurposing an aging highway bridge over the Anacostia River, OMA and OLIN’s proposal would use the viaduct as a community building park space for populations on both sides of the river. The program calls for rain gardens, an amphitheater, hammock grove, cafe, plaza, lawn space, and plots for urban agriculture.
The second-largest falls in the United States, the Riverwalk design by Mayer/Reed, Snøhetta, and DIALOG seeks to reintroduce the public to a site that was overwhelmed by industrialization during the late-nineteenth and twentieth century. The plans call for the preservation of existing industrial structures with new interventions that will weave the public through adjacent structures built around the geological formation.
A facility that unifies the growing, selling and distribution of food into a mixed-use plan of previously separate entities, Food Port repurposes a former tobacco plant into “[an] active economic and community hub” meant to unravel the commercialization of food production in the United States.
12.Freshkills Park(Staten Island, New York City) / James Corner Field Operations
Courtesy of Department of Parks and Recreation
A 2,200 acre park masterplan being built on top of what once was the largest landfill in the world. The Field Operations design, won by competition in 2001 and begun in 2006, will continue to transform the park over the next two decades. Completion is expected in 2035.
The competition called for designs to meet scientific needs and establish an identity befitting the local context of the city of Tel Aviv and the University campus. Thus, the three finalists created a balance between technical requirements and soft program elements like office and public space, presenting proposals for a center that acts “as an effective facilitator in the dialogue between modern science, Tel Aviv University, and the general public,” according to a press release.
“The new laboratory building will be a working place for over 120 scientists and engineers who will collaborate with one of the most significant universities in Israel. According to the technical report there will be 12 research labs on three floors: physical, biophysical, neural engineering, molecular electronics, and other labs, as well as office and public areas.”
The three finalists are:
Atelier d’Architecture Michel Remon; France
Courtesy of Strelka KB
The Atelier d’Architecture Michel Remon’s concept is a matrix of vertical lines creating a ‘skin’ covering the building. It plays an important role in the exterior load bearing frame. The construction will help control natural light and balance out the interior-exterior ratio. Visually, the building will not have windows or doors. A undulating facade will cover the building. Among the energy efficiency solutions suggested by the company are: special glass to optimize sun energy, natural ventilation, solar panels to cool the building and a rainwater collection system.
Jestico + Whiles + Associates; United Kingdom
Courtesy of Strelka KB
The project, proposed by Jestico+Whiles Associates is a rectangular block carved out of stone. Its shape is formed according to the context, climate and internal functions of the building. Sharp curved indentations form the entrance and a chimney marking the eastern entrance. The shape of the facade was inspired by the Holliday Junction parallelogram that is often used in DNA nanotechnology. The facade will be made of white glass fiber reinforced concrete rainscreen panels with a stippled surface finish. The authors suggest cutting electricity consumption costs by controlling the speed of the mobile equipment.
Zarhy + StudioPEZ Architects; Israel, Switzerland
Courtesy of Strelka KB
Zarhy+Pez’s design’s main feature is glass facades. The glass constructions are suggested to be protected by a second white ‘skin’, a multifunctional grid made of vertical and horizontal components interweaving with the main structure of the building. According to the authors’ concept the glass surfaces maximize the use of natural light and improve the temperature balance inside the building. In order to have comfortable working conditions in the building it will be equipped with a system of passive heating in winter and sunlight protection in summer.
The overall winner will be announced on May 1, 2016.
From the architect. On a very small budget (£100,000) Studio Octopi converted the roof space of a private house in Battersea for the Associate Dean at the RCA School of Communication. We inserted a new stair made from solid black steel sections and perforated 4mm plate. This allowed the light from the new rooflight to still flood the stairwell. Hanging over the stairwell is a clear glass balcony referencing the Phase I works at first floor level.
The archive and loft are both lined out in a white oiled Spruce plywood with bespoke oak framed windows. The archive is designed to re-use IKEA shelving and accommodate a small reading desk. Lit by a linear LED running the length of the corridor, the archive corridor ends in a mirrored wall this blurs the extent of this unconventional space.
The loft has two chairs for the client and her partner to read and, as the sun goes down, watch the south London skies. The client is originally from Austin, Texas and the colours and light of Texas are reflected in the design and objects in the house as a whole.
Sig Nordal 