© Ulysse Lemerise Bouchard (YUL Photo)

• Architects: MU Architecture
• Location: Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard, QC, Canada
• Architect In Charge: MU Architecture
• Area: 3600.0 m2
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Ulysse Lemerise Bouchard (YUL Photo)

• Project Team: Jean-Sébastien Herr, Charles Côté, Jean-Philippe Bellemare, Pierre-Alexandre Rhéaume, Floriane Deléglise
• Contractor: Paul Lalonde et fils

© Ulysse Lemerise Bouchard (YUL Photo)

From the architect. Located in the verdant Laurentians in Quebec, the Estrade Residence reveals itself discretely on the shores of Lac de la Cabane in St-Adolphe d’Howard.

It is by studying the steep and rocky topography of the place that MU Architecture decided to highlight the peculiarities of this site with an adapted and captivating architectural intervention. The first objective was to design a house in total harmony with its environment.

© Ulysse Lemerise Bouchard (YUL Photo)

Floor Plan

The singular topography of the project takes the form of a rocky crest that plunges into the lake. In order to create a discovery path, a series of animated volumes come to anchor, skirt or levitate on this unevenness. Their staggered and superimposed layout generates a multitude of terraces that embrace the site. This deployment creates a rich dialogue between architecture and the wild landscape.

The Estrade gives birth to long walls of natural stones which seem to be born from the depth of the ground. As they seem to project themselves towards the landscape, these long walls generate and protect the apartments on the ground floor while giving users direct access to the land bellow. The rocks extracted during excavation were reused in the landscaping around the house, becoming also actors of this architectural narrative.

© Ulysse Lemerise Bouchard (YUL Photo)

Discreet and intriguing thanks to its blind masses; the Estrade Residence is revealed slowly, volume after volume. A wide recess under what seems to be a floating cube invites us to penetrate into the place. From the entrance, an aerial and magisterial staircase welcomes the visitor and unfolds in a vast luminous space. Lined up precisely on large openings, it connects all levels in asymmetric flights. The absence of columns in the design makes the glass railings levitate, thus giving the impression of great lightness. Minimalism and attention to detail bring to the residence a certain purity and comfort that immediately gives the tone to the project. Each corridor leads to a luminous opening and makes us discover a larger and more complex residence than at first sight. The spaces offer both conviviality and intimacy through a different atmosphere at each level.

© Ulysse Lemerise Bouchard (YUL Photo)

At ground floor level, the open space is well defined and offers breathtaking views of the lake. Bathed in natural light the main floor ends with a veranda that extends the kitchen to the outside. This large volume of the ground floor stretches perpendicularly to the natural ridge so as to maximize the panorama over more than 60 feet in length. The black ash coloured kitchen and integrated furniture contrasts with the whiteness of the walls and breaks the monochromy. In addition, the double-sided fireplace located in the center of the common room accentuates the warm feel of the place. The floors, covered with natural wood as well as the terrace allows for a seamless and subtle transition from the interior to the exterior. This main volume cladded with natural cedar forms the heart of the project and brings the family together. It marks the transition between the activity of the lower spaces devoted to children and the calm of the parental suite upstairs.

© Ulysse Lemerise Bouchard (YUL Photo)

At the top, a second black cedar mass dramatically overlooks the entrance and dominates the surroundings. It houses the master’s apartment, complete with a bathroom and a large walk-in.

© Ulysse Lemerise Bouchard (YUL Photo)

The volumetric and vernacular aspect of the Estrade residence combined with its materiality testifies to an architectural writing that composes with its environment. This tripartite composition, spread over several levels, blends with nature following the seasons. Moreover, the articulation of its areas within its masses integrates the house softly and reduces the impact of its 3600sq.ft. Its spatial quality is due to the comfort and feeling of well-being, reflecting the image of the tranquility of the place.
via v2com

© Ulysse Lemerise Bouchard (YUL Photo)

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The site of the future Amavarati. Image

Foster + Partners has been selected as the winners of an international competition to design a new £500 million capital for the state of Andhra Pradesh in southeastern India. The brief calls for a new 365 hectare masterplan that will serve as a new municipal capital for India’s eighth largest state, which lost its previous capital, Hyderabad, when state lines were redrawn two years ago.

A photo posted by Deepthi (@deepthi94) on Dec 27, 2016 at 10:57pm PST

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The new 740,000 square meter civic core will be located on the southern bank of the Krishna River near the existing cities of Guntur and Vijayawada, and will feature an assembly building, a secretariat,  and offices for departments leaders, as well as ministerial residences and guest houses.

Following the competition win, Foster + Partners will now work with Mumbai architect Hafeez Contractor to finalize plans. The project is expected to be completed by 2022.

The new capital complex will serve as the centerpiece of a ground-up 200 square kilometer settlement to be known as Amaravati, which is expected to take up to 25 years to complete.

News via Architect’s Journal.

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© Fernando Alda

• Architects: Studio Wet
• Location: Castilleja de la Cuesta, Sevilla, Spain
• Other Participants: Daniel Yusty, Pedro Lobato, Víctor Silveira, Sharifa Haidari, Manvir Hansra, Anna Thomaidou, Julián Calvo, Simona Lupo
• Area: 161.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Fernando Alda

© Fernando Alda

From the architect. We have designed the extension for a single family house, which is settled in an urban fabric that has been consolidated since long ago. The existing atmosphere of the neighbourhood -facades, colors, materials, trees- is legally protected by urban regulations.  The design also faces the wishes of the client to take the maximum profit from the spare square meters, always within a low budget and some reasonable programmatic requirements. There are also some specific urban regulations on regard  to the new volumes and its aesthetics that we have to deal with, along with the inherent technological restrictions of a small construction company from Southern Spain. All these issues come together to build up a way of working, a way we feel comfortable with, which we use to call “Critical Pragmatism” 

© Fernando Alda

Through this approach we build a project of the tangible matter, a project that regards all contingencies as new possibilities and potentialities, and never as an abdication. We then combine all contingencies into one which is the construction itself.

© Fernando Alda

Our proposal respects the personality and context of the existing building by either changing nothing (we avoid modifying its original structure and external aesthetics) or changing everything (adopting a completely different language for the design of the extension). Through the reverberation of curves we also gain visual coherence, some coherence that works for us in the design process, but also for the client in the understanding of the project. To simply put it, the curves help to  indicate the new elements and spaces added.

Sections

The result is a project slowly developed and slowly built. Too slowy probably, and we are perfectly aware of the fact that this is some kind of luxury nowadays. This methodology of work, within the current economical situation of the profession, heads unavoidably towards extinction. 

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View from City Center. Visualization by Brick Visual. Courtesy of Lahdelma & Mahlamäki

Lahdelma & Mahlamäki, with associate architect Arkkitehdit m3, has won a competition for the design of a new Travel Services Center and residential block to be located in the city of Oulu, Finland. Located between the low-lying neighborhood of Puu-Raksila and the high-rising city center, the complex will connect districts through large, arching openings puncturing through a dynamic, horizontal profile, while providing new housing for the city.

View from Puu-Raksila. Visualization by Brick Visual. Courtesy of Lahdelma & Mahlamäki

The heart of the development will be the Travel Services Center and its two public open urban spaces. Here, two large openings in the triangular profile provide access to a bus terminal, train and bus passenger services, a multipurpose hall for sports and culture, a hotel, and shopping and restaurant areas.

“The curvilinear shapes of the Travel Services Centre and the multi-arena belonging to it radiate the impact of their urban image far beyond both sides of the railway,” explain the architects. “The Travel Services Centre also forms a natural hub of public transport, where it is made easy to change from one transport mode to another.”

Inside the Travel Service Center. Visualization by Brick Visual. Courtesy of Lahdelma & Mahlamäki

Extending from the southwest end of the Travel Services Center, three courtyard typology housing blocks will combine the scale of nearby apartment blocks and the architecture of small-scale residential buildings. The blocks will reach up to eight floors, creating wind-protected communal spaces within.

Employing a significant change in elevation, each face of the building responds to its corresponding neighborhood in scale: towards Puu-Raksila, the building meets datum lines established by existing buildings, while to the city, the hub’s distinctive profile will stand out along the skyline.

Site Plan. Visualization by Brick Visual. Courtesy of Lahdelma & Mahlamäki

Gross floor areas

Residential blocks: 65,000 square meters (700,000 square feet)
Office buildings: 10,000 square meters (108,000 square feet)
Travel Services Center: 32,800 square meters (353,000 square feet)

News via Lahdelma & Mahlamäki.

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© HB Reavis Poland

• Architects: E&L Architects + Hermanowicz Rewski Architects
• Location: Inflancka, Warszawa, Poland
• Architect In Charge: E&L Architects + Hermanowicz Rewski Architects
• Area: 100000.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: HB Reavis Poland

• Interiors Designers: Benoy
• Landscape Architects: Benoy
• Lighting Designers: Sipek Team, Lasvit
• Client: HB Reavis Poland

© HB Reavis Poland

From the architect. Gdanski Business Center comprises four office buildings totalling approximately 100,000 sq m of modern Class A office space. HB Reavis broke ground on the first of the complex’s four buildings in 2012. Since then, each distinctly designed standalone building has contributed to brownfield revival of this former Warsaw bus depot area. The first phase designed by E&L Architects has been delivered in 2014, while the second phase created by Hermanowicz Rewski Architects has been completed in 2016.

Gdanski Business Centre is home to over 9600 employees working across tech, media, shared service and finance sectors. More than just an office compound, this is a vibrant, mixed-use offering that seamlessly blends in with the surrounding residential neighbourhood.

© HB Reavis Poland

Apart from the excellent accessibility, employees benefit also from a wide range of amenities including shops, bars and restaurants available in the close vicinity. Additionally, HB Reavis has provided a kindergarten and a dedicated playground for employees and a green courtyard that is open to the public. Roof-top terraces are also available to buildings’ tenants.

© HB Reavis Poland

The office complex is ideally located in the highly sought-after city fringe of Warsaw, with excellent communication links just minutes away allowing staff to easily get to work and to meetings. It is considered the best connected office complex in Warsaw, with unrivalled access to public transportation due to its close proximity to the Dworzec Gdanski metro station, numerous bus and tram stops, Warszawa Gdanska railway station and with the municipal rental bikes Veturilo located nearby.

The entire complex has been delivered in line with the requirement of sustainable BREEAM “Excellent” certification.

© HB Reavis Poland

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A country known for economic dependency on its rich oil deposits, Norway is now looking toward the future of energy production: net-positive architecture. Taking the lead in this initiative, developer Emil Eriksrød has commissioned American-Norwegian firm Snøhetta to design Norway’s first energy positive building, Powerhouse Telemark, a 6,500 square meter (70,000 square foot) office building located in the tiny Norwegian town of Porsgunn, home to just 35,000 people. When completed, it will be the world’s northernmost plus-energy building.

© Loft Visual Group/Snøhetta

The form of the 11-story building is dictated by site and environmental conditions, resulting in a diamond-shaped structure optimized for capturing and retaining solar energy. A system of heat exchangers and heat pumps will also contribute to producing energy for the building.

© Loft Visual Group/Snøhetta

“Powerhouse Telemark will put Norway on the map when it comes to energy solutions and architecture,” said Snøhetta founding partner Kjetil Trædal Thorsen. “The future is all about thinking big, bold and long term, and we need someone to pave the way. With its innovative solutions and design, we believe this building will inspire commercial real estate developers worldwide to push the limits of what buildings can accomplish.”

© Loft Visual Group/Snøhetta

Tenants will have access to modern office facilities, a foyer, gym, cafeteria and a open, vegetated roof terrace with views into town and of the water that the developers are considering opening up for public access.

© Loft Visual Group/Snøhetta

“I hope we will be plagiarised and copied, replicated in all seven continents,” said Eriksrød, CEO of R8 Property.

“This building should do wonders in lowering the bar for daring to do both spectacular and environmentally forward buildings, hopefully in a combination. Just imagine, when Porsgrunn has the customer base for such a building, imagine how many other places that have the same potential. There are tens of thousands of cities with a bigger population in the world,” Eriksrød continued.

© Loft Visual Group/Snøhetta

The Powerhouse Telemark team will also include real estate company Entra Eiendom, construction and development company Skanska, environmental NGO ZERO, aluminium company Hydro, aluminium profile company Sapa and consulting firm Asplan Viak. Together they will create a structure that is aimed at achieving a energy-positive metric over a life cycle of 60 years.

© Loft Visual Group/Snøhetta

“The combination of extreme energy performance and a favourable indoor climate, low environmental impact and robust solutions at commercial terms requires a different approach than in most traditional building projects. Buildings that produce the same or a greater amount of energy than they consume could be an important contribution to reducing global energy consumption – and consequently also greenhouse gas emissions,” says Kim Robert Lisø, Chief Innovation Officer at Skanska and Managing Director of the Powerhouse collaboration.

© Loft Visual Group/Snøhetta

Initial cost estimates for the project come in at $17 million USD. The project is scheduled for completion in 2019.

News via R8 Group.

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© Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

• Architects: OMA
• Location: Normandy, France
• Partner: Rem Koolhaas
• Client: Communauté d’agglomération Caen La Mer
• Area: 12500.0 m2
• Project Year: 2017
• Photographs: Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti, Philippe Ruault

• Competition Project Manager Client: Barcode Architects: Dirk Peters
• Competition Associate In Charge: Clément Blanchet
• Competition Team: Cristina Ampatzidou, Joshua Boyd, Nils Christa, Marc Dahmen, Guillaume Durand, Alice Grégoire, Simon de Jong, Anthony Joyeux, Noémie Laviolle, Clément Périssé, Jos Reinders
• Aps & Apd Project Manager: Dirk Peters (Barcode Architects), Francisco Martinez (APS & APD)
• Aps & Apd Associate In Charge: Clément Blanchet
• Aps & Apd Team: Marek Chytil, Paul Cournet, Lionel Debs, Javier Guijarro, Didzis Jaunzems, Sangwoo Kim, Pierre Jean Le Maitre, Filippo Nanni, Clement Perisse, Maria Aller Rey, Mariano Sagasta, Giulia Scotto
• Pro & Dce Associate In Charge: Clément Blanchet
• Pro & Dce Project Leader: Francisco Martinez
• Pro & Dce Team: Merve Anil, Alicia Casals, Helena Hiriart, Phil Handley, Sangwoo Kim, Byungchan Kim, Pierre Jean Le Maitre, Maria Aller Rey, Mariano Sagasta, Giulia Scotto, Sara Sun
• Construction Partner: Chris van Duijn
• Construction Manager: Francois Riollot
• Construction Project Leader: Francisco Martinez
• Construction Team: Maria Aller Rey, Julien Miguel, Phelan Heinsohn, Jerome Picard, Jeanne Le Lièvre
• Architecture Collaborators : Barcode Architects, Clement Blanchet Architecture
• Engineering: Iosis / Egis Batiments
• Sustainability & Facade: Elioth
• Acoustic: RHDHV
• Scenography: Ducks sceno
• Renderings / Moving Images: ArtefactoryLab
• Façade: Robert-Jan van Santen / VS-a group
• Curtains: Inside Outside

© Philippe Ruault

Level 00

From the architect. Bibliothèque Alexis de Tocqueville is a public library for the metropolitan region Caen la Mer in Normandy, France. The 12,000 m2 multimedia library is located at the tip of the peninsula that extends out from the city of Caen to the English Channel. Its key position – between the city’s historic core and an area of Caen that is being developed – supports the city’s ambition for the library to become a new civic center. The library’s glass facade visually connects the adjacent park, pedestrian pathway and waterfront plaza to the interior and together with two large ground floor entrances at both sides of the building, enables a fluid interaction of the library with its surroundings. On the upper floors, the urban belvedere provides unobstructed views in all four directions.

© Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

The building’s cross-shaped design responds to the urban context, with each of the four protruding planes of the cross pointing to a landmark point in Caen: to the historical sites of the Abbaye-aux-Dames in the north and the Abbaye- aux-Hommes in the west, to the central train station in the south, and to the area of new construction in the east. At the same time, the geometry of two intersecting axes is informed by the library’s programmatic logic. The four planes, each housing a pedagogic discipline — human sciences, science and technology, literature, and the arts — meet in a large reading room on the first floor, to encourage maximum flow between the departments. This main library space is carved out of the center of the solid cross, defining the building’s design as an opposition between mass and void.

© Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

Longitudinal Sections

As a civic center where people meet and share knowledge and information, public space is at the core of the library’s design. At the entrance level on the ground floor, there is a large open space with a press kiosk and access points to an auditorium with 150 seats, an exhibition space and a restaurant with an outdoor terrace on the waterfront. The first floor contains a large variety of work and reading spaces and 120,000 documents, with physical and digital books placed side-by-side in the bookshelves. The digital extension of the physical collections, integrated within the bookshelves, is one of the new multimedia features of the library. The top floor of the library is occupied by a space for children, as well as offices and logistics. The archive and special historical collections are stored in safe and dry conditions in the concrete basement, protected from the surrounding water by an innovative waterproof membrane applied on the inner side of the concrete walls. 

© Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

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© Marcos Mendizabal

• Architects: Alemparte-Morelli y Asociados Arquitectos
• Location: Vitacura, RM, Chile
• Area: 16823.0 m2
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Marcos Mendizabal

• Collaborators: Luz Honores, Nelson Grandon
• Engineer: BYB Ingenieros
• Builder: ISA

© Marcos Mendizabal

From the architect. The edificatory  model  contained in the  norm of the Decree of the Regulatorty   Plan  of the Vitacura Municipality  for  Kennedy Ave. in the section of  Manquehue-Padre Hurtado, defines a typology of isolated medium height building,  this condition leads us to conceive this commission  as an architectural piece which by the addition to others may have the capacity to contribute to the configuration  of an urban course on a  large scale such as is Kennedy Ave.

First Floor Plan

The land in particular,  its corner condition and its buildable area give us   a volume of 9 levels plus mechanical floor,  with a height of 35.62 meters., and a plant of 21.30 meters  per  36.00 meters; these dimensions produce a rather flat volume that  proportionally  to  its height displaces a considerable mass;  Our interest arises from the challenge of managing this condition regarding the city;  how to integrate a prismatic volume which  performs  its activity(services) that throw itself into, with the city?; for this we developed two significant operations: first, to provide the building  envelope with relevant degrees of transparency to enable the citizen, the observer to understand , the activity that takes place in the building without thereby lose  the conditionsof  energy conservation, efficient use of economic resources, which we are  obliged due to the high environmental  comfort  standard   required for office buildings.

© Marcos Mendizabal

Consequently, there has been designed a skin type  “window belt”  between slabs with an exterior structuring made of laminated crystal ribs   that replace the traditional aluminum “mullions”  on the inside, to the above is added   a horizontal  division in  tranches of  two levels  alternating the vertical elements of facade  achieving a “vibrato” of the south facade, east and north, the degree of reflectivity of the glass in “soft code”  does meet the  requested standars of  the project so the facade   contribute to control  thermal gain thus reducing   the initial investment in climate mechanical equipment.

© Marcos Mendizabal

Towards the west facade the building envelope generates a double skin based on aluminum lattice rotated in relation to the facade plane thus  producing  a shadow box adequate to be  protected  against excess light radiation generated by this orientation at the end of the day.

© Marcos Mendizabal

The second operation consisted of  set free all  the outdoor spaces, first level to   public use, eliminating cars from the surface,  thus providing the peaton  a better offer of accessibility through a continuous succession of spaces such hard squares to the  program of commercial stores in this level and in the  plinth.

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Dame Zaha Hadid. Image © Brigitte Lacombe

As reported by The Guardian and the Architects’ Journal, the last will and testament of the late Zaha Hadid—who passed away in March 2016 aged 65—has revealed that the Dame of the British Empire and Principal of Zaha Hadid Architects had a net fortune of £67,249,458 (around $82.5million or €77million). This sum, which was filed in the UK High Court in December last year, will be bequeathed in small parts to nieces and nephews (£1.7million), her brother Haytham Hadid (£0.5million), and her business partner Patrik Schumacher (£0.5million). At the time of her death, Hadid was unmarried with no children.

Her practice, of which she acted as sole owner, has been left in trust. Her executors—Patrik Schumacher, developer Lord Peter Palumbo, artist Brian Clarke, and her niece Rana Hadid—have been given powers to distribute “all or some of the income from her several businesses […] to a wide range of parties.” This includes the Zaha Hadid Foundation.

News via The Guardian, Architects’ Journal

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© MCA Estudio

• Architects: Solange Cálio Arquitetos
• Location: R. Cila, 3344 – Vila Imperial, São José do Rio Preto – SP, Brazil
• Architect In Charge: Solange Cálio
• Area: 785.0 m2
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: MCA Estudio

• Landscape Architect: Luciano Fiaschi – LF Paisagismo
• Team: José Ricardo Corrêa, Bruna Silvestre Parra, Bruna Silva Tozzo, Tamires Edvirges da Cunha, Lucas Fernades de Jesus, Marcos Rogério Navarro, Siumara C.Cálio, Thays Eleida Pereira, Juciara Fernanda da Silva
• Engineer: Dilson de Paula
• Cliente: Rodobens Negócios Imobiliários, Grupo Cem Participações, Grupo Tarraf

© MCA Estudio

Section

From the architect. Within a small condominium with 24 lots, in S.J.Rio Preto, the architect Solange Cálio chose a lot of 1,100 m2, to make her home, for family and friends.

The main idea was to design a project based on the desire to be together and enjoy the company of the two children and the husband.

The concept was achieved through integration between environments.

© MCA Estudio

The architecture project was born along with the landscaping.

Through large gaps the internal and external part of the house has total union, and brings natural lighting into the house

© MCA Estudio

The house has 3 suites, being 2 of the children, the closest, and the double, near the balcony, which provides privacy and warmth.

The floor in cumaru follows from the entrance of the house to the pool, on the deck. In the kitchen was placed glassy insert, only in the wet area, in front of the work bench.

© MCA Estudio

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