Backstage Architecture(2012)

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Transcript of Backstage Architecture(2012)

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© 2012 Backstage Architecture. All rights reserved.e-book version, last updated 10th of September, 2012

CHIEF CURATOR Luigi Prestinenza PuglisiSEnIOR CURATOR Bernardina BorraJUnIOR CURATORS nicolò Lewanski, Rosella Longavita, Federica Russo

English translations and editing:Paul David Blackmore

Thanks to:

Massimo Russo and Alessandro Ferullo, creators of web site www.backstage-architecture.orgFrancesco Trovato, Lettera22, Editorial SupportMauro Rallo, IT consultant

BERNARDINA BORRA

SEnIOR CURATOR

NICOLO’ LEWANSKI

ROSELLA LONGAVITA

FEDERICA RUSSO

JUnIOR CURATORS

LUIGI PRESTINENZA PUGLISI

CHIEF CURATOR

BACKSTAGE ARCHITECTURE

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New Zealand

Australia

Russia

Indonesia

Japan

South Korea

China

Hong Kong

Taiwan

Vietnam

India

Bangladesh

Iran

Jordan

Kuwait

Turkey

Israel

Lebanon

Romania

Cyprus

South Africa

Greece

Bulgaria

Serbia

Finland

Poland

Hungary

Croatia

Slovenia

GLAmUZINA PATERSON ARChITECTS

KOKKUGIA ROLAND SNOOKS

www.gp-a.co.nz

www.kokkugia.com

[email protected], [email protected]

[email protected], [email protected]

[email protected]

www.office-kokiwoong.com

www.hhdfun.com

[email protected]

[email protected]

www.votrongnghia.com

[email protected]

www.hamedkhosravi.com

www.agi-architects.com

www.pab.com.tr

www.hqa.co.il

www.bernardkhoury.com

www.unulaunu.ro

[email protected]

www.2610south.co.za

www.paan.gr

www.atikaholding.com

www.autori.rs

www.aoa.fi

www.vroa.pl, www.chplus.pl

www.bordstudio.hu/index.php

[email protected]

www.taste.si

[email protected], [email protected]

[email protected], [email protected]

PlanAR

AKANOmA STUDIO

HIROShI NAKAmURA & NAP ARChITECTS

KO KIWOONG + LEE JOOEUN

HhD_FUN, WANG ZhENfEI + LUmING WANG

ALVIN YIP

ChAOTI ChEN + WORKShOP LEVITAS

VO TRON GNGhIA ARChITECTS

ShROffLEON

FANTASTIC NORWAy

ShAhNAWAZ BAPPy

HAmED KhOSRAVI, MAhTAb AKhAVAN NICOLAS REymOND

ThE ASSEmbLE

ARTURO FRANCO

EmbAIxADA

CLANCy MOORE ARChITECTS

SIAA ARqUITECTOS

LAb.PRO .FAb.

G/CDR ARChITECTS

FORm-ULA

PEREZ MORALES y ASOCIADOS

ChOy-LEóN ESTUDIO DE ARqUITECTURA

PAISAjES EmERGENTES

BENjAmÍN MURÚA, RODRIGO VALENZUELA

KELTON VILLAVICENCIO ARChITECTS

PRODUCTORA

MATThEW BARTON, EmAD SLEIby

AGI ARChITECTS

PAb ARChITECTS

Hq ARChITECTS

BERNARD KhOURy / DW5

UNULAUNU

NOA

26’10 SOUTh ARChITECTS

PAAN ARChITECTS

GEORGI ZAyKOV

AUTORI

AOA

VROA / Ch+ Architekci

BORD ARChITECTURAL STUDIO

Mmmm MAjA MILAT, MARIO MATIC

TASTE

Czech Republic

Sweden

Norway

Austria

Italy

Germany

Denmark

Switzerland

Nigeria

The Netherlands

Belgium

Algeria

France

United Kingdom

Spain

Portugal

Ireland

Brazil

Venezuela

Bolivia

USA

Dominican Republic

Cuba

Colombia

Peru

Chile

Nicaragua

Mexico

OV-A

soma

Birk und Heilmeyer Architekten

NORD Architects Copenhag en

Dreier Frenzel Architecture

NLÉ, KUNLÉ ADEyEmI

Anne Holtrop

PT ARChITECTEN

MAGDA BENDANI

CAfEArchitettura

FoAm-NORDICA

www.ov-a.cz

www.scene-thinking.com

www.fantasticnorway.no

www.soma-architecture.com

www.birkundheilmeyer.de

www.nordarchitects.dk

www.dreierfrenzel.com

www.nleworks.com

[email protected]

[email protected]

www.nicolasreymond.com

www.assemblestudio.co.uk

www.arturofranco.es

www.embaixada.net

www.clancymoore.com

www.siaa.arq.br

www.labprofab.com

www.gallardocostadurelsarquitectos.com

www.form-ula.com

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

www.nomena-arquitectos.com

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

www.anneholtrop.nl

www.cafearchitettura.it

Héctor Loli Rizo Patrón + Ximena Alvarez de la Piedra

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7INDEx

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As I write these words, the economic crisis afflicting Europe has not yet abated. And there are no signs on the horizon that things are about to improve any time soon, above all in those countries facing the most serious problems: Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy. This comports a stagnation in the building market and an absence of employment perspectives for young architects, forced to seek work abroad. However, they are no longer searching, as was once the case, in the architecturally saturated countries of France, The netherlands or Great Britain, but on other continents where economic development, despite that fact that the crisis is global, is impetuous: Brazil, China, India and Australia. In parallel with the redefinition of the geographic scenarios in which architecture is being produced, we are also witness to a redefinition of theoretical research that, with respect to the past, is marked by fewer certainties and increased doubts. The 1990s were a decade of theorisations on design. These were the years of numerous books on architectural theory, and the best designers from this season sought to construct theorems, that is, projects that served to demonstrate their ideas. We need only consider the work of Rem Koolhaas and the protagonists of the first wave of the star system, such as Steven Holl, Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi and Zaha Hadid. However, there are also works that came later: for example the blobby and digital era that sought to demonstrate how the computer could be used to generate the new geometries of buildings and cities. Today we live in an era that is marked – somewhat

like financial markets – by greater uncertainties and volatility. We are afraid to realise overly iconic works and run the risk of the excesses that are inevitable in the presence of overly precise ideas. We return to the past with more nonchalance – there is no longer an idea that we must propose innovation at all costs – and we return to approaches that, until a few years ago, appeared to have gone out of style. There is also a greater desire for simplicity and an increased awareness of economics and ecology. In particular, it would appear possible to define three trends.The first is neo-organic. This has little to do with the super-organicism of Greg Lynn or nox, that, to be clear, employed computer-generated manipulations to create buildings characterised by complex fractal geometries and which, in the end, caused buildings to resemble a medusa or a head of cauliflower. The new organics prefer instead the use of softer, less overtly allusive forms, constructed of natural materials such as wood and stone. Their work recalls the origins of this type of research: for example Alvar Aalto or Frank Lloyd Wright. However, they conserve their own freshness and modernity. The second trend is technological. However, it is extraneous to the excesses of high-tech: the virtuosities of norman Foster or Santiago Calatrava. On the contrary, it appears to move towards the style of the Apple store, where technological innovation is suggested not by pipes and tie rods, but by lightness, transparency, simplicity and versatility. Where instead of a futuristic steel structure there is a preference for glass, with the aerodynamic desk substituted by a table in blonde wood, the computer cables hidden from view or even eliminated. In the end new devices are all wireless. The third trend is neo-modernist. Far from the heroic season of the Modern Movement, marked by a Calvinist work ethic that saw standardisation and the reduction of ornaments as the path towards a better future. Today modernism is viewed, instead, as one style among many others, perhaps the best for expressing a desire

for order and rigour, though not necessarily frankness or economy. On behalf of the Associazione Italiana di Architettura e Critica I am pleased to present this second edition of Backstage Architecture, which brings together the best architects under the age of 35 working around the globe, enriched this year by a number of new entries, and involving a total of 57 nations. I would like to thank all of the architectural critics who selected the ‘under-35’s’, and these latter for providing the requested documentation of their work. The research and this product are the result of the work of a group composed of Bernardina Borra (senior curator), nicolò Lewanski, Federica Russo, Rosella Longavita (junior curators), with the invaluable assistance offered by Massimo Russo for the web design and programming and Paul David Blackmore for the English translations.

LUIGI PRESTINENZA PUGLISI

FEWER CERTAInTIES AnD InCREASED DOUBTS

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BERNARDINA BORRA

THE DIFFEREnT WAYS OF BEInG HYPE

Given the system this book relies on, the survey it presents banks on the critic’s choice. As its curators we cannot pretend that it offers a complete picture of what is happening around the world. Its global scope makes it relevant, while to the same degree - due to the scope itself - it must be acknowledged that its underlying system is highly interpretative and possibly even arguable. Perhaps it simply reflects the current condition of the world we live in: impossible to grasp in a single attempt.Admitting and having this in mind, nevertheless the critics’ choices unmistakably fell on those architectural offices that can be assumed to represent the most successful practices in each country, based on local appraisal. Therefore, a few provisional assumptions can be derived from reading between the lines. For instance, it is possible to observe that the world of architecture is simultaneously as close and as distant as it has perhaps ever been. However, before venturing into the definition of several trends that can be identified, it is first important to take note of an overall mind switch shared by the upcoming generation around the globe. Throughout the years the Eurocentric monopoly over debate has become multipolar, fluctuating as much as the past decades’ economic developments. Yet there is a discrepancy between the established conventional way of looking at, making, and discussing the contents of architecture. While there remains an overwhelming pride in seeking all that is fashionable in architecture, a reading of the texts submitted by the invited critics clearly reveals

how the aims being pursued by young architects are changing in each country according to local conditions.Being hype today is a subtle game of satisfying the rhetorical call of aesthetics on the one hand, and a struggle to respect a growing professional ethic on the other: the profession’s new schizophrenia.In general terms it could be said once again that the notion of form for the sake of Form is now “exhausted” (see Bob Somol and Rem Koolhaas). In specific terms it can be noticed that this is not entirely true, and that it could rather be considered as being in a phase of re-development. Seen from within the current generation, there appears to be a set of new parameters that offset purely formal research, with content assuming increasingly more importance, and becoming more objective and relative to specific contingencies. Architects will never relinquish the performative aspects of design, yet they are recovering its critical aspects in relation to its content. As mentioned in the first edition of this book, the aggressiveness and self-reference inherent to the “suspension of judgment” have reached their end. The precariousness and the hangover accompanying the period that spanned from the end of the Second World War until the conclusion of the twentieth century generated a common feeling that is shrouded in most of the projects featured in this book. This is not yet an outspoken condition, but rather one that is sneaking into the profession as a true condition of the everyday for many, and as a warning for others. The professional education and architectural climax that defined the current generation’s development is beginning to feel like a straight jacket for many; several are tweaking the boundaries (Hong Kong, Sweden) or trying to be sober and efficient (Jordan, Vietnam, nicaragua), while others are finding ad hoc and even unexpected solutions (Brazil, South Africa, Croatia, norway, Russia, Great Britain).In those countries suffering from a recession, as well as in those of the so-called BRICS, or in any

other place reached by educational exchange and Internet communication, worldwide awareness is stealthily introducing an attentive care for local socio-cultural and economic situations. A comparison with the rest of the world translates into a concern in relation to architectural production and the subjectiveness of its users.. Young architects are beginning to consider design – and process – as part of a more pondered relationship between subject/object, or, individual/collective-architecture, as part of a shared project for the city and its territory. Unfortunately, this is not always immediately retraceable and applicable due to the resilience of both culture and the market, and obviously because of the time required for its physical construction. Perhaps the course of this transformation will be more evident a few years hence.Being fair to and critical of given conditions is in a way a new kind of conscious/unconscious modest hype that reveals itself with a different professional approach in many of the countries examined in this book. Being hype in Western countries now means tackling the city through processes of mending and restructuring (Poland, Serbia, Spain), through analysis, and through an attempt to make up for the failings of the participatory dream of the 1970s (Belgium). In countries with a growing economy, like those of the roaring Asia, being hype means riding the wave with rather open criticism, knowing that not everything is as spotless and bright as assumed (Indonesia, South Korea). There are also examples of an emergence of concepts of reuse and social engagement (Taiwan). Similar observations could be made for South America, where the collective assumes a different dimension from Asia, yet not exactly the same as in the old West, and where cities are in a different state of affairs (Chile, Colombia, nicaragua). For the few countries we could recruit from Africa – while extremely different from one another – it could be said that being hype takes the meaning of nurturing existing local culture on its own strength (nigeria, Algeria, South Africa).

The profession is thus returning more and more to what Hannes Meyer would have called an “organiser” of the biological aspects of life, meaning Architecture produced and inspired by man for man, as much as it produces man itself; as a co-operation between man and his environment. This is very close to Karl Marx’s concept of the production of man and society: “just as society produces man as man, so is society produced by him” (The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844). The architecture designed by most of the young architects presented in this book is fed by observing the multitude of individuals as much as individuals will be affected by it. The focus on the first phase of this mutual relationship is growing sharper and more contextual, seeking the non-arbitrary effects of architecture on individuals, but directly connected to them.There is still a long way to go before we can confirm whether this is mere intellectual speculation or truly the way young architects of the upcoming generation will leave their mark around the world. It remains to be seen – regardless of any fashionable label, and without incommoding any elevated cultural legacy – whether the hype of the 2010’s will assert itself as more locally rooted and ethically engaged, or as simply a new opportunistic professional survival instinct to adapt to new environments, or maybe both.

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new Zealand, Aotearoa, offers circumstances of freedom for its architects. Remote and scenic, the country has a tradition of building, rather than architecture per se, first established by pioneering settlers and their need for shelter.In the years since, Aotearoa’s architectural vernacular has been constructed through various ideas – the ‘Elegant Shed’ that draws on simple farm building precedents; tramper’s huts hidden in native bush; the unpretentious family ‘bach’. Yet in practice, the act of making architecture here is equally a way of creating turangawaewae – ‘a place to stand’ – a place to form home, heritage, ownership and in the broadest sense, an environment to live in.

text by Rebecca Roke

Architects Glamuzina Paterson recognise the opportunity that this affords young practices to explore the relationship between realised domestic projects and new Zealand’s vast, picturesque landscapes. The Lake Hawea courtyard house exemplifies this. Grounded in rural land at the foot of a Central Otago mountain range, the 250sqm home is an enquiry into where a site begins and ends, how to define the edges of the project, and the way landscape may be inhabited. Firmly dug into the earth and composed as a simple square plan, its low form recollects modest buildings in the region that housed prospectors during the mid nineteenth-century gold rush. The textural façade of brick wraps the house and large central courtyard, providing shelter as well as framing views to lofty mountains and low plains. Living, dining and sleeping spaces occupy the northern and eastern edges of the plan, favouring the predominant direction of the sun, while niches and overhangs in the building envelope protect from the hot, dry summers and harsh winters.As award-winning compatriot Ted McCoy once commented: “The good thing about isolation [is that] one had to learn for oneself, by looking at surroundings.” Lake Hawea house reflects this.

New Zealand

GLAmUZINA PATERSON ARChITECTS

4 4 ° 4 1 ’ 4 8 . 7 9 ” S 1 6 9 ° 0 7 ’ 5 3 . 1 3 ” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2012LOCATIOn : WanakaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

250m2Lake HaweaCourtyard house

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UP

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T h e E x t e r i o r p e e r s i n s i d e

P L A N

va s t l a n d s c a p e s O t a g o m o u n t a i n r a n g e

“The good thing about isolation [is that] one had to learn for oneself, by looking at surroundings.”

Even from the walled interior views to the mountains are the highlights

Explore the relationship between domestic and exterior

Seen from the mound

Seeking the way landscape may be inhabited

Turangawaewae a place to stand

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Looking into one’s self

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s

This speculative project reconsiders the monument as object, instead positing the formation of an immersive space of remembrance, a space that emerges from the landscape and is carved from within a sombre stone monolith – an inverted monument.Rather than the reductive, singular, top-down imposition of form, this project explores the emergence of a space, rich with intricate detail, reflecting the culmination of individual differences within a multitude. The memorial is designed through the use of complex non-linear systems in which coherent order and space emerge from interactions at a local scale.

This project is part of Kokkugia’s on-going research into Behavioural Design Methodologies. These methodologies operate through Multi-Agent algorithms to generate the point of interaction of simple architectural decisions at a local scale that gives rise to the emergence of a self-organised design intent. Within the landscape this methodology is applied with agents navigating a differentiated field of intensities, negotiating between their own swarm logic and a field of external influences.The project is concerned both with the emergence of figure from a field as well as the dissolution of the figure into abstraction. The space of remembrance within the inverted monument is cast from bronze and generated through the interaction of agent-based components. At a local level the component has no base state, but instead adapts to its conditions. Consequently while local moments of periodicity may occur, its constant shifting of state triggered by local relationships resists a definitive reading of the component. The component logic of this carved space is polyscalar: self-similar agents operate across scales to form a set of intensive affects. The intensity of this space is intended to evoke a visceral response, without being directly metaphorical or referential. In contrast to many of Kokkugia’s projects, which attempt to dissolve hierarchies and dichotomies in favour of the negotiation of a synthetic whole, this project consciously sets up a series of contradictions. A deliberate tension or conflict is sought between the smooth monolithic shell of the exterior and the intricate bronze memorial space, between the intensity of the memorial and the reflective calm of the exhibition spaces.

KOKKUGIAROLAND SNOOKS

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : ---LOCATIOn : babiy yar, Kiev, UkraineCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

0 m2

text by Martyn Hook

Australia

50° 47’ 13.89” N 30° 44 ’ 88 .89” E

Inverted Memorial

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The monument is inverted to generate an intensive memorial space rather than a monument as object

Varying intensities emerge within the landscape through the local interactions of the multi-agent generative algorithm

The intense bronze memorial space is carved from the museum mass, containing contemplative exhibition spaces

Emerge FROM the Landscape

L A N D S C A P E B A S I S

f R O M A S O M B E R S T O N E m O N O L I T H

E X T R A PO L A T I NG

T UN I NG

The memorial is designed through the use of complex non-linear systems in which coherent order and space emerge from interactions at a local scale

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DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011.10LOCATIOn : 11a botanicheskaya, mo-scowCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

14 haMarfino Public spaces In Moscow and a majority of Russian cities, the

field of cheap and social housing is still fulfilled by the production of concrete factories operating since the 1970s. This results in the spread of out-dated standards in building technology, planning and design solutions, and the general quality of the urban environment. Examples include the still-present asphalted platforms for laundry or 12 parking spaces for 10-storey blocks of flats.Despite changes to the economic system, the spread of social groups in the city and significant changes in lifestyles, many of the basic elements of a contemporary city have yet to be introduced to Russian urban space. text by Anastasia Albokrinova

In this light the story of urban “twins” would be quite illustrative. Marfino is a typical housing area near Stalin’s World Exhibition Centre complex. The apartments are used as social housing and possess all facilities typical of the 1980s and 90s. Marfino’s “twin” is located nearby and offers flats for sale. This affected developer’s desire to make make the microrayon attractive to potential buyers. Planar - a young Moscow-based architectural office, was invited to re-evaluate the urban space in this architectural environment. Planar’s involvement in the project brought essential changes to Marfino, beginning with an attractive and inventive navigation system (a set of African animals with specific colours), bicycle and jogging paths with clever intersections with vehicular circulation; from infrastructure for the disabled to original wood gazebos, awarded as the best wooden architecture in Russia.What truly changed the flow and typical lifestyle of microrayon Marfino inhabitants is the system of playgrounds. In comparison, the playgrounds in the social housing area are a compact, colourful, though uninventive block that is cloned throughout the area. On the contrary, diversity of the playgrounds of the “twin” area makes the inhabitants interact, walking around to choose which attraction is more desirable at the moment. In conclusion, it must be said that it is a fact that urban space in Russia isn’t improving with the rise of the price for an apartment. The only introductions made for luxury housing are restricted access and underground parking. In this light, Marfino’s human-centred and visually effective design make the project and its architects forerunners of the long-awaited changes in the post-USSR urban environment.

Russia

PlanAR

5 5 ° 8 2 ’ 6 5 . 0 4 ” N 3 7 ° 5 9 ’ 6 9 . 9 6 ” E

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The most ATYPICAL landscape possible

The inhabitant had adopted them as “totem animals” for their courtyards

Figures of animals form an effective navigation system

ho u s e n u m b e r s

P L A N

A typical prefab high-rise microrayon of Soviet Union style is boring to live in and hard to navigate

e x o t i c an i m a l s ’ f i g u r e s

b R I G H T C O L O R S A N D K I T S C H Y O B J E C T S

ROAD mARKUP

Unexpected objects make the dull background disappear

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29Tweak it!

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Puzzle House The puzzle house is one of the many houses

designed by Akanoma, a rising Indonesian architectural practice. It exemplifies the radical reuse of materials, 90% of which is from the site itself. This house is a renovation of an existing home from the 1980s. A one-story house has been renovated into three floors, with the first floor height being only 2 meters to function as warehouses and storage tanks for potable water, water wells, and rainwater. For a small house set within a 10 x 18 m plot in Jakarta, this water planning is noteworthy.It is designed like a puzzle: a series of fields and masses with a variety of materials, from

the old materials of the former house, leftover construction materials, as well as the client’s personal collection of unique objects, beer bottles, wine bottles, cigarette packages, and various ethnic handicrafts. Further design techniques are applied to the house. A sensitively-designed 10-centimeter deep façade which filters indirect sunlight after 10 a.m., split levels that make the house airy and spacious, the uncommon use of roof tiles as wall cladding and a reference to the ‘peranakan’, the traditional Chinese-Indonesian house: a courtyard garden with a red ‘dadap’ tree. The use of old materials bring a homey feeling to the spaces, an effect one usually has to wait for decades to achieve. Yusing’s idea of ‘the dream of cheap housing’ is a guerrilla approach to make exciting, modern, experimental architecture affordable to Indonesia’s middle-to-low income families. Within a year, the office’s productivity has reached 20 designs, of which 10 are built annually.

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011LOCATIOn : West jakartaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

500 m2

AKANOmA STUDIO

6 ° 1 0 ’ 1 4 . 5 2 ” S 1 0 6 ° 4 6 ’ 3 8 . 8 0 ” W

Indonesia

text by Daliana Suryawinata

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P L A N

Small house within a 10mx18m plot

-1.50+1.30

+1.30

+0.75

+1.35

+0.20

+0.00

-0.35

-0.10+0.1

+0.80

The rooms in the home are set surrounding the courtyard, like a mirrored /c/ letter

The new house is a collection of old materials of the former house, construction leftover materials, as well as the client’s personal collection unique objects, beer bottles, wine bottles, cigarette packs, and various ethnic handicrafts

The corridor is bordered by a gabion wall made of coral stones and some leftover wood from the construction

Simplicity will bring peace

of mindThe house becomes relatively cooler and offers changeable atmospheres according to the weather

S e c t i on

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35Radical material reuse

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House C

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DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2008.10LOCATIOn : Chiba, Tokyo bayCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

90 m2

jnakamura designed a weekend house in the Tokyo Bay. It is surrounded by the mounts of Bousou Peninsula and by the Pacific Ocean.The Japanese architect cut a strip of ground, lifted it up into the sky (not just metaphorically), and turned it into a walkable, vegetal roof for House C.Initially, nakamura thought to sink the house into the earth to hide it within the landscape; however, in the end, he preferred to extract the soil from the site of House C and use it as a construction material. This conceptual gesture defines the project’s identity, and makes House C melt into its surroundings, existing in a sort of seamless continuity with the landscape. text by Salvator-John A. Liotta, Tomoko Kawai

Despite its ordinary rectangular plan, House C does not look sculpturally squared, or like a volume in tension. House C is relaxed, and it appears to be a “gradual” and “not exact” piece of architecture, reminding the viewer of the expression of beauty and imperfection of nature that is celebrated by the Zen Japanese aesthetic.By putting himself in active resonance with the site, nakamura designed a house in which the luminous and connective central space calmly lets in the mountain and the ocean. House C does not lean towards the landscape, it instead receives it; it does not offer itself to the exterior, it instead waits for it to come in. The thick roof slab is made of anti-corrosive concrete and designed with horizontal forces driven into the ground to create a space with almost no columns. The soil is utilized as a protective layer and finishing to reduce the cost of the exterior coating.Instead of looking for an excessively precise design at any cost, nakamura prefers to leave the final shape of the House C to the discretion of nature and its owners, allowing them to change the aspect of the house by planting trees and plants on the roof. In some ways, House C shows the courage of having an architect that let it go.

Japan

HIROShI NAKAmURA & NAP ARChITECTS

3 5 ° 3 5 ’ 5 0 ” N 1 4 0 ° 0 6 ’ 4 3 ” W

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Touching soil

brings certain EMOTIONS

P L A N

a f a m i ly H i d e away o v e r l o o k i n g t h e b ay

Remind through details

The site is located between ocean and mountains, it looks upon the horizon, the seashore, and the cliffs with beautiful layers of earth and fields full of wildflowers

In this region soil has been made into mounds, kneaded and fired it into pottery for many centuries

a large one -room home

Local soil was used to cover the roof and, mixed with diatomite, cement and resin, to apply on the walls

S E c t i on

5m0

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An extension of gardening

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A window on the district This single family house is situated in the detached

housing complex in Pangyo, the new town on the outskirts of Seoul. According to the master plan based on the district unit plan, fence construction is strictly controlled as one’s domesticity must be entirely exposed to the exterior. Without even a minimum protection filter, young parents are facing the dilemma of wishing to provide safe surroundings for their children. The neighbouring houses show rather closed constructions with massive walls in dark concrete or stone panels, and the outdoor activity areas, placed in the centre of the house, are rather introversive and surrounded by walls.However, Jun’s house exposes people coming

in and going out through the main entrance, and there’s only a thin separation made of glass and shades between living room and exterior. Variously proportioned windows on the façade are expression of a will for an active observation towards the outside. (The northern façade shows this intention clearly by placing lots of small sized windows facing outward to their neighbours.) Generally, one who is inside the house would like to avoid ìother’s attention, but the role and relationship between observer and observed is reversed in Jun’s house. Spectators looking at Jun’s house from outside are rather observed by the inhabitant hiding himself behind the window. The windows of the main rooms on the first floor also support this notion with their slightly protruding shape. The steps and corridors circulate like a vessel, driving children up to the roof where they can enjoy the artificial landscape, as a change to the front yard. Dense perforations in the parapet provide the curious children a role as an observer.The seductive white surface offers strong proof of this changing relationship by pushing the formerly known limits of suburban housing to the extreme. Also, this is the first case in Korea to use the latest solid surface material* on the exterior, which is well coordinated with the spatial flows inside.For the moment, of the 2,000 housing units in this planned district, only 1/3 have been completed. It is evident that the uniqueness of Jun’s house exists as an important influence in the neighbourhood. Serving as a milestone within the area, created atop a tabula rasa, it is a pleasant anticipation of the future appearance after the completion of one large housing block.* This mineral material consists of approximately one third acrylic resin and 5% natural pigments. Its main constituent, at 70%, is the natural mineral aluminium hydroxide obtained from bauxite.

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2010.10LOCATIOn : Pangyo, SeoulCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

242,21 m2

KO KIWOONG + LEE JOOEUN

3 7 ° 3 9 ’ 0 7 . 9 1 ” S 1 2 7 ° 0 9 ’ 6 3 . 0 6 ” W

text by Bae Yoonkyung

South Korea

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P L A N

O P E N I N G T O T H E O U T S I D E

The interior spaces are separated by white colored surfaces that give more brightness to the rooms

Densely perforated holes on parapet provide the curious children a role as an observer. Credit pictures: Photo by Kim, Yong-kwan

This house is situated in the detached housing complex in Pangyo, the new town on the outskirts of Seoul

Jun’s house exposes people coming in and going out through the main entrance

s e c t i on

The house

to OBSERVE

Contrary to the neighbouring houses that show rather closed constructions with massive walls in dark concrete or stone panels, this house is completely extroverted and open to the outside

The variously proportioned windows are an expression of a will for active observation towards the outside

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Instead of working with many professional consultants, HHD_FUn is trying to simplify the construction challenges using computer aided systems or, to be more specific, parametric commands or other related methods. Since 2009 the practice has extended its ambitions from small scale projects to much more challenging opportunities. HHD_FUn has recently completed a beach side visitor center development on the Shanhaitian beach park in Rizhao, east China.In the special context of the Chinese economy, one of the most successful strategies of the project is that of balancing relevantly unsophisticated

construction skills with the high expectations of a complicated geometrical form.This development consists of 11 buildings spread along the 2 kilometers beach park. It includes an information center, retail shops, cinema, restaurants, beach shower and changing facilities, gym and a clubhouse for the nearby hotel. Each facility is unique and all together they provide a complete touristic experience to its visitors.Alongside the beach, the key feature of this park is its 50 year old black pine forest and the design challenges are to minimize the construction impact to the natural environment. As a result, the buildings were either positioned on the available area or being pushed towards the sea to preserve the forest. The form of the buildings was minimized in order to fit into their natural environment while at the same time to gain the best view.The park is spatially divided into 2 parts due to the 2 main access roads, therefore 2 building prototypes were developed in order to enhance the recognizability of each land portion. Parametric design technique has been adopted throughout all design process i.e. form finding, structure optimization, facade penalization and construction documentation. Each building is site specific, being varies in sizes and different orientations to accommodate different function requirements. Together a group of them generate a new configuration that has the emphasis on the varieties of the indoor and outdoor spaces.Based on academic work at the Berlage Institute, enhanced by knowledge gained through design work in China, HHD_FUn practice in parametric architecture has, and will continue to move the margins of imagination for emerging architects, especially for young architects in China and the rest of the world.

RizhaoLandscaping Project

China

3 5 ° 4 1 ’ 6 3 . 7 7 ” S 1 1 9 ° 5 2 ’ 6 8 . 8 8 ” W

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2010LOCATIOn : RizhaoCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

2000 m2

HhD_FUNZhENfEI WANG+LUmING WANG

text by Fu Ming Cheng

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Reaching the SeaSide

The structure is designed to integrate into the existing landscape, embedding and extending the natural contours present on site

The buildings generate a new configuration that has the emphasis on the varieties of the indoor and outdoor spaces

This project consists of 11 buildings spread along the 2 kilometers beach park

the design challenges are to minimize the construction impact to the natural environment

Each building is site specific, varies in size and orientation to accommodate different function requirements

The service buildings such as showers and toilets present a more convex facade, creating a sheltered feeling

P L A N

Parametric design technique has been adopted throughout all design process

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Visual Archive Visual Archive is a non-profit community art space

with a lifetime of three years. It is, simultaneously, a research project that investigates alternative development models in Wan Chai, a culturally diverse old neighbourhood in Hong Kong.With his strong interests in the social aspects in architecture and cities, Alvin has invented a new position for himself - “independent curator”, and focuses on the process of formulating another possible city planning. He has engaged in writing journals, participated in numerous decision-making boards, teaching and researching in order to create a platform where he could formulate and implement his alternative city model via

collaborations with various agencies - one in which its citizens are not forgotten, and are part of the active participants in art creation. Dating back to the acclaimed Detour event in 2009, Alvin successfully transformed the deserted Police Married Quarters into a sand beach filled with creative exhibitions and activities which the public could enter and enjoy, free of charge, in the middle of the CBD.Visual Archive is less-defined at this moment. Different from many gentrifications in our city where the main focus lies on efficient construction time and best economical return, Alvin persuaded and collaborated with a like-minded developer to spare a little space and time for this art space on the first floor of a service apartment block before redevelopment. On-going workshops, exhibitions and forums are organized with one consistent theme: embrace and engage with the local neighbourhood.The interior space has taken up a simplistic approach, using panels of zinc metal – the common material for old letter boxes- to cover all walls for changing exhibitions. Externally, foldable metal shop gates are adopted to echo the surroundings. Downstairs, a western bar adorned in local Chinese fashion, is introduced to create an informal gathering place.Can this stretch of time produce a better awareness of the locals, synergize any changes, and emerge something unexpected? nonetheless, it is this insertion one should applaud to, as it demonstrates to our society what could be achieved by deviating from ‘the typical’, with its infinite intangible qualities and possibilities.The project Wan Chai Visual Archive is initiated as a collaborative research between PolyU School of Design and the Goldig group in Hong Kong.

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : may 2011 - ongoingLOCATIOn : Wan Chai COnSTRUCTED AREA:

re-used existing place

ALVIN YIP

2 2 ° 2 7 ’ 7 7 . 7 8 ” S 1 1 4 ° 1 8 ’ 0 5 . 5 6 ” W

text by Annette Chu

Hong Kong

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a l t e r n a t i v e c i t y m o d e l

Temporary photo studio, where families make their own pin-hole camera before shooting

Steel “creature” collaborated with Frank Havermans and local metalsmiths. The installation provokes building boundary and definition of illegal structure

The visual archive project organizes debates and promotes culture in its community with very different kind of means and events

LOOKING FOR ROOF CREATURE

Co-CreativeDIALOGUESbetween

old and new

Adaptable room arrangement and Fan Lee’s magnet wall display system. The space has to function at different times a lounge, a community centre or an art workshop

WVA is an intense dialogue of inside-outside, public-private, modern-tradition

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No profit community art space

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Taiwan

ChAOTI ChEN + WORKShOP LEVITAS

In the past decades, mainstream architectural practices in Taiwan (or elsewhere) have been focusing mainly on commercial projects; socially engaged practices were out of the public interest and often considered as alternative. Today, an emerging number of young practices are re-defining the role of architects by working together with communities and generating new social values - such as the chosen team and their project Social Amoeba. Social Amoeba is about a collaborative team work, a series of workshops and a participatory process. In order to call for participation, social Media (Facebook) was incorporated during the process, gathering Text by Chang Fang Luo

volunteers from every corner of Taiwan. These participants have driven the whole design & realisation process to adapt various situations. A series of community-based events were initiated - not just by the team, but also by the participants. Social Amoeba thus evolved and grew organically in time and with the community engaged. It is worth noting that the idea of “playing beyond the rules of the game” has also fulfilled an important role in their decision making: initially assigned to design the interior, the team eventually subverted the assignment, and took the outdoor space. The decision to deal with outdoor space enabled the team to connect the public to the locality, and to expose the organic bamboo structure that has hosted many public events. In a time of scarce resources, the team has managed to rebuild the connection between designers, planners and user communities in a marginalised neighbourhood. For unsolicited practises, Social Amoeba can be an interesting reference - how it negotiated with the authorities, how it evoked public participation, and how social values were generated by using minimal means.

23° 01’ 08.71” N120° 66’ 60.04” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011LOCATIOn : hualien and Kaohsiung, TaipeiCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

0 m2

SocialAmoeba

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59Fish Lamp

Trash Art: an installation made with materials from Kaohsiung recycling plant

Trash Art, an installation made with materials from Kaohsiung recycling plant

The Social Amoeba project in Treasure Hill Artist Village

Light workshop at Hualien Youth Home

PLAYGROUNDfor

strangersto

connectL I G H T I N G U P

S PA C E C R E A T I N G

S E C T I O N

15m0P L A N

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Vo Trong nghia Architects, with offices in HCMC and Hanoi, represent a new generation of architects in Vietnam. Thirty-six year old Vo (a Vietnamese architect trained in Japan) began his career creating elaborate structures of bamboo for cafés and bars in the Mekong Delta and Hanoi. His first bamboo project was a spectacular Wind and Wind (wnw) Café in Binh Duong province which included a pavilion with a graceful dome shape, created by 48 bamboo frames 10 meters high, with a 15-meter span with a 1.5-meter diameter oculus. Traditional Vietnamese techniques woove the mud-soaked and smoked bamboo together and high fire-resistant water-coconut material covered it. The construction did not use any metal nails. His work also includes the transformation of a warehouse into the

Text by Kelly Shannon

Vietnamese pavilion for the Shanghai Expo 2010, built, not surprisingly out of bamboo. Although the office has thus far only used their developments in bamboo construction for the hospitality sector, they are anxious to apply their ingenuity with bamboo construction methods to other building typologies, particularly with housing in post-disaster contexts—and the seasonal flood events that hit the Mekong Delta and central Vietnam with increasing devastating consequences. More recently, Vo Trong nghia Architects has been developing what can be termed ‘green architecture’. In 2011, they completed in Binh Duong (a new city in a province of the same name, northeast of Ho Chi Minh City), a 800-student, 5300 square meter (private) junior and high school. The glaringly white sinuous plan building wraps onto itself to create two courtyards and optimally use the site. One courtyard collects the teachers rooms, gym, laboratories and library and the second the classrooms. The continuous volume that starts on ground level, and only uses one slope, is constructed of cast in-place concrete. On-site pre-cast concrete louvers, which serve as sun-shading devices, successfully create natural ventilation and playful light patterns. Airy communication spaces bridge the two sections with large balconies and staircases and overlook the courtyards, the classroom one which has a swimming pool and lush clusters of trees while the entrance court has less vegetation but a striking grid of concrete pavers separated by strips of grass. The entire building site has been elevated from the existing ground plane due to its low elevation and the building footprint itself has been raised on another platform of a few steps of red terracotta (the only color in the building). There is a clear articulation of the simple serpentine structure of the building and an almost whimsical arrangement of openings in the exterior screens facing the courtyard, thus animating the facades. In April 2012, the project was awaiting the budget to finish the green roof. Their newest work is not unlike the neo-modernism of Japan in the mid-1990s of architects such as Toyo Ito and early works Kazuyo Sejima. It also echoes the promise of tropical modernism that briefly appeared in Vietnam in the 1960s in a number of remarkable public buildings, most notably by the architect ngo Viet Thu.

10° 54’ 46.24” N106° 45’ 53.22” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011LOCATIOn : Di An town, binh DuongCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

2029 m2

Vietnam

VO TRONG NGhIA ARChITECTS

Binh Duong School

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The benches under the trees provide intimate gathering places

The courtyard hosts outdoor facilities and gets animated during schooltime. The facade is covered by concrete louvers whose density is due to direction

Simple yet elegant facade

The sloping green roof is an important new feature in the area, and the building itself became a beacon

The serpentine plan forms two courtyards on each side

The winded building is climatic responsive for natural ventilation.

BORDERLESSschool

andsurroundings

B AC K T O T R O P I C A L M O D E R N I S M

d i s c o v e r i n g a n g l e s

p l a n

20m0

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ShROffLEON

Text by Gaurav Roychoudhury

18° 41’ 20.30” N72° 91’ 18.82” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : ---LOCATIOn : Kashid, maharastraCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

139 m2

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A virgin site sloped towards a view. A tree, the contours of the land, the direction of sunlight and the seasons manifest a composition; a composition which balances these elements and nurtures them to their best sensuous memory. The only thing unnatural about the Kashid farmhouse is the floating still water, which reflects the sky. Maria and Kayzad have managed in the process of building a farmhouse to re-imagine it as the shaded ground under a tree, where tired travelers stop to rest for a while. It is here that they notice the beauty of the landscape they were traveling through. It is here that they gain the strength to continue their journey.

The built becomes a platform shaded from the intense sun, where the living quarters merge at a deck under the tree. The tree is dense during the summer and sparse during the winter, allowing for the best blend of sunlight underneath. Maria and Kayzad of SHROFFLEón bring with their design process respect and finesse. Practicing in a city like Mumbai, these are rare qualities. The unnatural, circumstantial pressures of the city can devour the souls of any young architectural practice. Yet they do so with ease, taking complex and most often complicated briefs to find something which should always have been but never before conceived. India finds itself at the end of a decade of prolific construction. Cities have grown exponentially over this period of time, towns have become cities and villages have grown into towns. Architecture has been seen at its most brutal. Architecture has become fetish.The Kashid farmhouse and its processes give us a little hope.

India

House in Kashid

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A virgin site sloped towards a view. A tree, the contours of the land, the direction of sunlight and the seasons manifest a composition

The built becomes a platform shaded from the intense sun, where the living quarters merge at a deck under the tree

The tree is dense during the summer and sparse during the winter, allowing for the best blend of sunlight underneath

MUMBAI

ALIBAG

KASHID

ARABIAN SEA

PHANSAD WILDLIFE SANCTUARY

FO L LOW I NG t h e S I t e

V O L U M E S W I T H A C E N T R E

P L A N

A TREE, land and sun

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ShAhNAWAZ BAPPy

I first met Bappy as a recipient of the Berger Excellence in Architecture Award in 2010. As a student in Architecture school, Bappy was full of promise. His work consistently produced appreciation from teachers and peers alike. Bappy was preparing for a future leading to quality architectural work. Things changed when Bappy graduated from Architecture school. The reality of the construction industry was a shock, and adjusting to it was harder than he anticipated. The everyday realities of building in a dense, urban environment with the typical client- architect relationships eroded his earlier idealism. The inevitable disappointment set in. Ultimately, text by Rafiq Azam

there came a point when he decided to end his architectural career and move on to a different field. With the success of the Jury project Bappy regained his lost hope. Gradually his confidence returned. He felt that he could continue on his chosen path, to give form to his inner vision. More projects followed, leading to a maturing of his personal architectural language.

My selection of Bappy is primarily because of the architectural language he engages in. I appreciate his sensitivity to the built environment and his efforts at coming up with architecture responsive to our geographic region. Secondly, I feel architects holding on to their ideological ground in the face the vagaries of the construction industry need to be encouraged and brought to the forefront of the international arena, to give them an opportunity to share their work with the world at large. This is based upon his interpretation of historic, cultural and climatic dictates of the Bengal Delta.

Bangladesh

2 4 ° 2 2 ’ 2 0 . 1 8 ” N 9 2 ° 0 8 ’ 1 6 . 2 4 ” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2007.8LOCATIOn : Ruthna tea garden, moulavibazar, Sylhet districtCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

280 m2Ruthna Residence

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P L A N

G A r d e n t e r r A c e

T h e J u r y r i v e r

The terrace, the pool and the river merge to from continuity with the landscape

Use of local materials and construction techniques

The house i s a p r i va te Bunga low in the Ru thna Tea Garden

The entire building is at ground level

The pattern of the roof is reminiscent of local huts

Mergethe HOUSE

with Nature

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Pairi the clay wall

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In Simulacra and Simulation Baudrillard writes: “To dissimulate is to feign not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have what one hasn’t.” But the matter is more complicated, since to simulate is not simply to feign: ”Someone who feigns an illness can simply go to bed and pretend he is ill. Someone who simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms.“

Tehran today is the same two-hundred-year-old village that was accidentally chosen as the capital of the Qajar dynasty. not having developed through a consistent historical process, Tehran, as a simulator, often produces the symptoms of a capital city. Consequently, through its intense short history of urbanisation, it has produced an Iranian urban ‘hyper-reality’. This ‘hyper-reality’ as the representation of a capital city, is just able to produce the symptoms of an ill metropolis. However Pahlavi’s modernisation project accredited text by Homayoun Askari Sirizi

this false layer. This political intention reduced the new form of the city into a modern mask while tradition is fully present underneath this shallow layer. As a result of constructing a nation-state through a political project, Tehran, in a historical transition, has become a modern metropolis, while there are neither signs of a modern state nor a nation – in the modern sociological definition – traceable in the body of the city. Today this metamorphosed village, by carrying all the disorders of an immature capital city, is rather a trans-national Islamic megalopolis; another manifestation based on the eclectic mixture of Islam, tradition and contemporary values. It has elevated the fortress of a walled village as high as the fourth-ranked highest telecommunication tower in the world: a sign of Islamic state phallogocentrism.

“Tehran has lots of entangled gardens that make it a secure place for its inhabitants…”with this project, Hamed Khosravi re-reads one of the first visible layers of the palimpsest of the city. The ‘Pairi’ or ‘clay wall’ is symbolically projected next to an icon of the late modern metropolis: the Milad telecommunication tower, which now is being reincarnated in the post-modern corpus of a global city: a world trade centre, a 5-star luxury hotel and shopping mall. His architecture ironically illustrates this historical transition: Tehran the village has become the capital city and is being reincarnated once again into a corpus of a global village. In the functional complexity of the site, the inherited historical values are preserved in the natural topographic identity of the city; the massive construction symbolises a wall of an archaeological site while it gently touches the ground. The project celebrates a secured place shaped around intertwined gardens in the heart of the city, where environmental and symbolical issues are combined as the main concerns of the project. It appears as a reduced form in which beneath the modernist non-figurative form lays a metaphor of a historical process, the metaphor of an unfinished project: a Modernity, made in Iran.

Iran

HAmED KhOSRAVI MAhTAb AKhAVAN

3 5 ° 4 4 ’ 4 9 . 7 5 ” N 5 1 ° 2 2 ’ 2 5 . 3 8 ” W

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : ---LOCATIOn : TehranCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

293.300 m2

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P L A N

Pairi, the Persian origin of the word Paradise, means ‘clay wall’ or ‘the wall constructed out of earth’

The ‘Pairi’ is symbolically projected next to an icon of the late modern metropolis

Two gardens shape the core and the building surrounds them as the walls

“Paradise” is a secured place surrounded by walls.(Modelling: Ali Zeinalzadeh)

Rebuild PARADISE

Commercial Mall

Offices

Hotel Accomodations

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Entangled gardens as secure place

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MATThEW BARTON EmAD SLEIby

31° 94’ 87.60” N35° 87’ 70.13” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2012LOCATIOn : AmmanCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

265 m2

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Sleiby House

text by Sandra Hiari

The Sleiby House is situated in one of Amman’s lush neighbourhoods, Abdoun. The majority of the residences surrounding it used to be dominantly one-floor villa prototypes. This is no longer the case as neighbourhood densification has resulted in the expansion of residences to four-storey buildings. In such a medium-density neighbourhood additions to any existing structure have to be surgical in order to weave gracefully into the existing residential fabric. The extension of the Sleiby house, an existing one-storey family residence, certainly speaks to this. Vertically expanding into a second floor, the 265 m2 addition was designed to accommodate the extended

family of one of Amman’s leading fashion tailors. Various housing prototypes have sprouted up in the capital based on nuclear-family living arrangements. This house is quite distinct. On one level it acknowledges the formality of expression manifest in the façades of the existing structure beneath it. Instead of making a statement against it, it actually builds on the formal undertones. When speaking about their approach in this design, Sleiby and Barton refer to figuring a rational composition that builds on what the building may look like were it built to the maximum allowable height and given the existing architecture of the ground floor. They also refer to practices in Amman’s old housing stock in which deploying simple details such as concrete brise soleil can be an effective solution for sun protection. In the overall composition of the house, the architects refer to the formal vocabulary of classical architecture. The Sleiby house and its extension can be seen as layered like a modern-day Greek order containing a base, a column (the capital yet to be added, were the building to grow further).Despite the classical and contextual formality, for one to think that this building can be easily read is somewhat delusional. Unlike the ground floor it rests on, the extension is structurally supported by one wide column supporting a lightweight concrete roof. The windows maintain the width of their ground-floor counterparts, though repeated in a denser rhythm. Due to such repetition, the resulting interior is suited to the modernist open-plan main living space. The devil certainly lies in the details of this building.

Jordan

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Extension viewed from the south east

Open plan living roomSouth facing loggia

5m0 ContextualFORMALITY

P L A N

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Star HouseDATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2007-2009LOCATIOn : bnaiderCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

5000 m2

During the consolidation of Kuwait’s post-oil society, the definition of public/common space evolved in two ways: (1) when it was dictated by the need for accumulation, in order to foster an acceleration in development (“Kuwait Town Development”, from 1951) or to concentrate and mobilise the means for oil extraction (land reserve for oil extraction, from 1975), public property was expanded; (2) Although, after Saddam Hussein’s invasion (Gulf War,1991), the need for the exercise of territorial domain, beyond the city limits, became an argument to “occupy” – among other forms and types, the shoreline with the “chalet”, weekend houses, became a common pattern text by Ricardo Camacho

in the country’s coastline, from Al-Khiran in the south to Al-Maghasil in the north.The Star House by AGI architects, emerges within this context, predicting the unpredictable: the reclamation of an old land provides the opportunity for a new lifestyle. Therefore the house responds to the ambition of a new relation between the Kuwaiti contemporary Man and the nature of his territory. In Bnaider, they call them “chalet”, the weekend houses where the post-invasion generation “first played over the sand” (Paul Virilio,1975).Along the plot, the construction of different levels of domesticity, inverting conventional programmatic features, is the surface and texture. Meandering down to the sea, the star house goes far beyond the noble vernacular that stands at Sheikh Ahmad Al Jaber rest house in Failaka island.A strange awareness of the moment provides AGI with different ways of translating common and conventional domestic uses into hybrid forms - alternative images to what some named as the “welfare aesthetic”.The needs of the programme, together with an extreme ability to operate in larger spaces outside the primitive domain of “the house”, provide those with experience and knowledge to enable a wide range of architectural characters and tasks. In Bnaider, the Kuwaiti/Spanish team produced a sort of “machinic proposition” where each builds on the other: resident-residence, plot-house, seadesert; as a “system of horizontal complementary re-territorialisations” (Deleuze Guattari, 1980).

Kuwait

AGI ARChITECTS

2 8 ° 4 5 ’ 2 1 . 7 9 ” N 4 8 ° 1 9 ’ 4 0 . 9 1 ” E

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The main facade overlooking the sea

Ku wa i t ’ s co a s t l i n e

P L A N

Night view of pool and guest house

View from the Boat Loading Dock

BeNESTLED

View from the roof of the Office looking into the bedrooms

A three -wAy s tA ir

The Main Entrance from the Desert

T he p r ivate s ide

Main family living room

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DATE OF COMPLETIOn : (2011.10)LOCATIOn : Kirishane-DenizliCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

(145000 m2)Tanyards Revitalization Project

The last 10 years in the Turkish architecture scene witnessed major changes in the practice. These changes were closely related to the infiltration of neoliberal urban policies in big cities, the increase in foreign direct investment, the export of large-scale construction expertise to the neighbouring countries and the emergence of a new generation of architects who are well connected to the information and practice networks abroad specifically during their education years. This boom of capital, foreign interest and information was then followed by a period of political change especially in local urban politics, economic crisis around the world and a search to reconstruct text by Sevin Yildiz

the role of the architect in the domain that is left behind by a large-scale architectural offices with 100+ employees who are working on all the major commissions in big cities. The young practitioners are now relearning what their positions entail; diversifying skills to move between different scales (from urban to product design, from publication to consulting), looking for opportunities outside of the major cities like Istanbul or Ankara, working in collaborative teams and trying to build their own breathing space away from the competition against the star architects.PAB Architects, which fits into the description of young practitioners above, is operating on various scales to understand the mechanisms that architects can encroach into for more influence in the decision making processes. Their work ranges from the design and production of a storage unit to an intervention into a small city’s fabric to strategize its economic revival. They are architects, urban researchers and also are involved in the publication of an architecture magazine, Betonart. The office works closely with material suppliers and manufacturers to understand the production process of unique problems embedded in each project. Their work deals with the issues of reuse, collaboration and limited resources not with grand gestures, big commissions and large budgets and in this way they are a good representation of the new generation of architects outside of the galaxy system. For the project presented in this book, which was an invited workshop where all the groups worked on various sites at different scales in Denizli, PAB worked in a collaborative model with local and foreign offices. The central question was what economic revitalization meant for a small city and how various constituents came together in an alternative understanding of renewal.

Turkey

PAb ARChITECTS

3 7 ° 4 6 ’ 3 5 . 4 7 ” N 2 9 ° 0 5 ’ 1 1 . 0 0 ” E

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The existing dense settlement pattern is studied to identify old and worn-out workshops which cannot be restored or new but out of sync buildings

The client of this project proposal was the Denizli Municipality, and the coordinators Arkitera Architecture Center, Kentsel Strateji Strategical Planning Office. Team: PAB Architects - Pinar Gokbayrak, Ali Eray, Burcin Yildirim + Samim Magriso, Zeynep Ceren Erdinc

N E W O P E N A I R F AC I L I T I E S

E X I S T ING

market fashion street

boutique hotel

arts street multi-purpose

halluniaxis open

air

Work atneighbourhood

scaleS E C T I O N

N E W U R B A N L I F E

Arcades filling the gaps in the pattern create a lively and continuous street life

Intervention models at building scale

Boutique Hotel

DO U B L E fACA D E

AR CA D E S

LA N D M A R K S

LO F T SPAC E S

SU B S T I T U T I O N S

R I S I N G h I G H

shoppark

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Multifunctional Cultural House HQ Architects is one of Israel’s young architecture

offices, yet with a diverse design experience with complicated cultural and public buildings, research, urban planning, and housing projects. At the moment the office is designing two theatre buildings, a hotel and an arts school, among other projects. The office introduces a unique approach to both design and working methods.Rather than imposing solutions by the architect, HQ believes that the design process is a collaboration merely guided and lead by the architect.HQ’s designs are not objects created by the architect, but rather the result of working hand in

hand with the clients and all the professionals and consultants who take part in the process.The architects also present a fresh approach to current design topics such as building preservation and sustainability. “Preserving without being conservative” is the motto of projects such as an art school built on the abandoned old bus terminal in Tel Aviv, and a dance theatre built in one of Jaffa’s old harbour hangars.The office’s design process is a remarkable one. Each project is assigned to a design team that includes experienced architects working side by side with young designers and even students. Each member of the team plays an equal role in producing intelligent solutions that always take into consideration budget limits, local building codes and regulation, site limitations, etc. Erez Ella established HQ Architects in Tel Aviv in 2008, after returning to Israel from new York, where he was a principle at REX Architects, and earlier an associate at O.M.A. Mr Ella has also established and is currently leading the sustainable studio at the Bezalel School of Architecture in Jerusalem.

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : ongoingLOCATIOn : Old jaffa harbor, Tel AvivCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

6000 m2

Hq ARChITECTS

3 2 ° 0 5 ’ 1 5 . 4 5 ” S 3 4 ° 7 4 ’ 8 3 . 2 2 ” W

text by GILAD SHIFF

Israel

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A public roof terrace is overlooking the Mediterranean sea

The show level allows for flexible theatre with unique dimensions and state of the art functionality

t h e “ e v e n t ” a n d t h e “ s h o w ” L e v e L

la n d s ca p e

P L A N

The project is born from a renovation of a old warehouse

The ability to host several EVENTS

The main core space is a hall for traditional theatre or conference event

s e c t i on

The design is a renovation of old warehouse into a multifunctional cultural house and dance theatre

d i f f e r e n t u s e s

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BERNARD KhOURy / DW5

The invisibility of Plot #10283 reminds us that the presence of architecture is sometimes in its [dis]appearance. It is a project that is conceived on the mountains of Lebanon [Kferdebian] in an area where private villas are most dominant. Architects who usually build in that area are asked to create monuments more than dwellings, icons more than residences… however, dw5 refused to do so. Instead they created a non-creation. They decided to go back to what architecture is in its fundamentality: a shelter, a refuge, a place to protect beings from the environment. Yet the project itself protects the environment from human beings. After realizing what humans can text by Jad Semaan

do to survive -from the industrial revolution to the modern era- and the impact they have physically and metaphysically on the environment, it is inspirational to witness an invisible building; an invisible haven. To envision this project, the architects used the topography and relied on morphology studies. They almost rebuilt what was decayed through the years in a way that one enters the villa through what seems to be an impermeable formation of triangular structure, since the villa from the street level is quite obscure. Once you are inside, there is a long hallway, which leads to a gym and an interior swimming pool. Alongside the corridor wall there is a linear stair which leads to the lower level where the kitchen, a dining space and a living room are located. On that level two guestrooms are also located which are imposed from the private bedrooms above, resulting in a clear split, a street level [private and hidden] and a lower level [public and exposed]. On the other hand, just before the site drops dramatically into a rocky cliff an exterior swimming pool lays there so one can take pleasure in the outstanding panorama of the wild, untamed valley.Invisible architecture is not a new discourse for Bernard Khoury. One of his most renowned projects is actually an underground club, a camouflage; call it a tomb, or even a bunker. The BO18 is a public memorial, a negative monument, a cosmos to forget and dance on the memory of the civil war. Twenty-two years have passed and yet the civil war influences Bernard’s architecture consciously and subconsciously. Plot10283 is a private villa built on the philosophy of the collective memory.

3 3 ° 9 8 ’ 3 9 . 9 3 ” N3 5 ° 8 0 ’ 5 8 . 3 8 ” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : ---LOCATIOn : Kferdebian COnSTRUCTED AREA:

1255m2

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Plot 10283

Lebanon

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Plan at street level

The project itself protects the environment from human beings

South elevation

Site plan

An invisible building; an invisible haven

ReplaceEXISTING

topography

COV E R I NG

I N T E G R A T E D

f O L L O W I N G

ORGANIZ ING THE INTER IOR

P R O T E C T

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DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011-2013LOCATIOn : Novi Sad, SerbiaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

137 m2House of Architecture There is an inner consonance in all the projects

signed by young architecture office UnULAUnU (one-to-one), one that is given by a close relation to the materiality of architecture. In a generation of young Romanian architects who often continue or re-interpret the Modernist architectural faults, UnULAUnU departs from a rather different approach, defining space not in its relation to transparencies, technologies, or the various mediums and needs, but in its relation to the material surroundings.

There are several marks of an unusual and even fresh approach to architecture: the constant text by Sabin Bors

tensions between the inside and the outside, the need to explore space as a physical and material experience or to submerge into a timeless but bodily presence, the relation between static and dynamic elements that concur for the same space – these are all qualities that share a vision based on a palpable and active presence around the architectural construction. Architecture is not only a shape, nor is it only a function. It is an active gesture that opens the materiality of constructions and seeks to mark out differences by appealing to basic space interactions. And yet the most surprising element is the architects’ constant and tireless intention, not only here but with other projects as well, to define space by starting from an architectural object that unveils its crisp geometry through its relation to all the inherent tensions, dynamics, and constructions.

UnULAUnU creates a balance between geometry, materiality, and interaction. The architects’ approach is a clear way of inviting people to explore architecture beyond the given form or function, to touch or to sense in order to understand space and its constructions. And ultimately, to understand architecture as a way of defining the inner conditions that inspire us not only to build, but also to create.

Romania

UNULAUNU

4 5 ° 2 5 ’ 6 3 . 4 6 ” N 1 9 ° 8 5 ’ 2 9 . 2 3 ” E

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On the outside a monolith marks at once, the presence of something, of space

TThe round whole emphasizes the non-functionalistic character of the building, distorting in the same time the scale

On the interior the same space is defined in the opposi-te way, it becomes something that never gives away its total presence

P L A N 10m0

The TENSION between outside and inside

S t udy model

The interior space never reveals itself totally. The internal slope gives an outside character to the space, adding a 3rd dimension to it.

The walls of the building are bent in order to stiffen the structure, due to its thickness of 15cm

South elevation

North elevation

S E C T I O N

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A strong nonfunctional character

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Exhibition Through a Broken Mirror

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DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2009.11-2010.01LOCATIOn : NicosiaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

310 m2

not Only Architecture, a young Cypriot architectural office located in nicosia, was recently founded by Spyros Th. Spyrou, Aggela Zisimopoulou, Charis Christodoulou and Martha Krassari. nOA has assembled an exceptionally varied portfolio of architectural media, in all its diverse forms, in a very short period of time. It includes a series of private and social housing projects, public interventions, interiors, exhibitions, competition entries and research related to urban design. Their works blend in with the context and explore the physical and sensory qualities of spaces and materials. Furthermore, their productive evolution adds to the creative and future development of text by Chryso Onisiforou

Cypriot Architecture. In addition, the richness of the Cypriot landscape which is often revealed through the alteration of light and shadow influences their choices, materials and compositions. This fundamental relationship consistently forms ideal conditions for various means of spatial production. Combined with various objects and locations these elements form the basic components that portray the uniqueness of the Cypriot context. The interventions of nOA, from thought to creation, take up a position towards these natural conditions together with the physical relationship of human beings with space and their surroundings. These characteristics are evident in various examples of their work, altering in scale and situation. For instance, in the exhibition ‘Through a Broken Mirror’– the Architecture of Zenon Sierepeklis, an atmosphere was shaped using movement, light and materiality as the main agents. The physical perception, recognised through an emotional sensibility, was designed and constructed in such a way that people could experience the attributes not only of the work displayed but of the event as a whole. nOA has begun a productive journey for the imminent architectural development of Cyprus. Besides, it is an apparent and rewarding attempt that could re-shape the transition between local and contemporary Cypriot architecture. In other words, the creation of a unique and beautiful architecture experienced through light, material, air and object.nOA partners Charis Christodoulou and Spyros Th. Spyrou were appointed through a competition procedure by the official responsible committee to curate the national Participation of Cyprus entitled REVISIT in the 13th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia.

Cyprus

NOA

3 5 ° 1 0 ’ N 3 3 ° 2 2 ’ E

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Fragments reflect the architect’s

workP L A N

P u z z l i n g t h e o l d

Tr a n s pa r e n t Pa r c o u r

Exploring fragments

The visitor gets familiar with the architect’s work through different views and movements

The metal structures dialogue with the old Electricity Power House

Models as a treasure

The hidden room

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DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2012.06LOCATIOn : brixton, johannes-burgCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

321 m2informal city/ cooking school nearly two decades after the first free elections in

South Africa, the legacy of apartheid permeates and weaves its way through the everyday of the city, competing with short-sighted post-apartheid efforts, global economic challenges and residents’ DIY. This potent compound is - at times - becoming an insurmountable obstacle which drives many city makers almost to the point of throwing their hands in the air in frustration and resorting to either producing nice and glossy renderings that ultimately sell, or the design of a perfect shelving system for uncounted A4 folders with the documentation of endless process driven projects with little visible outcome. text by BLACKLInES

26’10 transcends this condition, and goes beyond the discomfort in their quest to portray and ultimately alter the urban landscape, comprehensible to the many. Their rigorous and pragmatic ways (not to say methodology) of reading and mapping the South African context become the basis for an approach where place, presence and people are the primary generators of space and form. Stubbornly, they go beyond the visible and refuse to play safe; they rather follow the desire to make something extraordinary out of the common.Their continued work translates this position, no matter what scale, media or programme. From their extensive and varied portfolio, we would like to span their ‘Informal City’ project to the ‘Cooking School’ under the aspect of ‘urban compounding’, which we consider a South African spatial characteristic that describes many layers of the extremely different contexts we live and work in. 26’10 succeeds to implement lessons learnt during their work in Diepsloot, an in/formal settlement, into the design of their own office/home headquarter.With greatest respect for the work of 26’10, we hope that more voices like theirs can make themselves heard in the future and thus make South Africa a better place to be and live.

South Africa

26’10 SOUTh ARChITECTS

2 6 ° 1 1 ’ 3 3 . 0 5 ” S 2 7 ° 5 9 ’ 5 5 . 8 5 ” E

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A continuous process of

PHYSICAL CHANGE

1ha densification informal settlement

INFORMAL SETTLEMENTRECEPTION AREA, DIEPSLOOT

Tenure type relocationstand size 80M2average unit size (self built) 8-36M2initial residential density stands/ha 125initial gross residential density stands/ha 76Initial gross habitable rooms/ha 76Potential gross habitable rooms/ha 342

R e s e a r c h P r o j e c t

C O U R T YA R D

the Brixton Studio-Home affords a distinctly Johannesburg living experience

l o u n g e

S T A I R S

R o o f t e r r a c e

B o a r d r o o m P a t i o l i b r a r y

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In dialogue with the surroundings

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OLIVe Three Vacation Houses Since the 1950’s Greece has been branded as an

ideal tourist destination. Glossy posters of breath-taking landscapes drew large numbers of people each year, resulting in a climaxing need for houses that spread from the hotspots of the Aegean Islands across the entire Greek territory. Today the landscape has been shamelessly dotted with villas as a result of the dispersive development promoted by current legislation. The question is how to keep up with the demand for housing while preserving the quality of the landscape. Paan give their own answer by merging the three Olive houses with the site, an olive grove in southern Peloponnese. Concepts of living are reformed by a

team with strong links to both Greece and Sweden, exploring ways to inhabit the environment. The existing stone retaining walls become habitable, the new plastered walls take the colour of the olive trees and the layout of each house adapts to the natural curves of the traditionally terraced landscape. Low-cost materials were preferred to respond to a low budget while carefully composing the interior spaces and finishes. Comfortable white rooms focus on large windows framing intensive views, a perfect setting for a vacationer.

PAAN ARChITECTS

text by Katita Chrysanthopoulou

37° 16’ 38.46” N21° 52’ 11.64” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011LOCATIOn : Kaliroi, PeloponnesusCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

306 m2

Greece

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Guesthouse interior view

Each house adapts to the natural curves of the traditionally terraced landscape

The existing stone retaining walls become habitable, the new plastered walls take the colour of the olive trees

The question is how to keep up with the demand for housing while preserving the quality of the landscape

POS I T I ON I NG

DAWNV I EWThe perfect

SPOT

P L A N

S E c t i on

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Tailored House

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lGEORGI ZAyKOV

George Zaykov is a young, powerful, ambitious and creative designer, with one foot in the world of design and the other in the world of architecture. I could go on forever with positive accolades. I would like to present this figure in as brief a manner as possible. He was born on 4 July 1976 in the small Bulgarian city of Yambol. He graduated from high school specialising in sport. After graduating in 1999 he already knew that his future lay in the field of design. He enrolled at the IED in Turin, with a specialisation in interior design, arriving at his first success while a student with the design of stand for FIAT. There were undoubtedly other text by Stela Andonova

successes during his studies. After completing the course he returned to Bulgaria, precisely to Burgas, the country’s fourth largest city, where he opened an office together with the very important Bulgarian architect Petko Yovchev. The office was named Atika Desgin, and shared space with the architectural office Atika Holding. In recent years, the designer George Zaykov has met with much success in Bulgaria, designing interiors that have been published in such well known magazines as brava casa, casa, décor, etc. However, his most important works are his public projects such as hospitals in Burgas, an airport in Plovdiv, a theatre, international offices and his latest project, the ‘rehabilitation of the centre of Burgas’, together with Akita Holding. At present the project has passed through 3 of its 5 phases and the city centre appears totally changed and beautiful. His biography appears rich enough for someone of his age. The project here featured is - a big villa in Varna’s city parkwith view on the seaside. the house is unfolds on three floorshas a swimmingpool and a dependance for guests with spa and fitness. The building is made in natural materials and is lit by a Dali system in RGB.

Bulgaria

4 3 ° 1 0 ’ 3 3 . 3 1 ” N 2 7 ° 5 7 ’ 1 1 . 9 0 ” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2008.9LOCATIOn : VarnaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

1027 m2

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C l e a r a n d B o l d

EDONISTIClife

P L A N

P l e a s e a t E a s e

D o u b l e H e i g t

Different materials characterise the space

But you can also turn around

No detail is left to chance

Luxurious design interior

S e c t i on a pr ivate cinema at the har t of the house

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House B

AUTORI

Mokrin is a small town in northeast Serbia, situated on the vast Pannonian Plain in the province of Vojvodina. It is a typical Vojvodina town characterised by a clear-cut linearity, applied to plot plans and the arrangement of houses on the plots. One of these larger housing estates is home to the new Terra Panonica cultural-tourist complex, designed by the young architects of Studio AUTORI.The architects faced a challenging task because of the manifold demands of the company, which is engaged in marketing authentic local produce and developing new trends in high-end tourism. They were required to design offices and educational facilities and to treat the existing Text by Vesna Vucinic

complex of buildings with respect. The basic idea was to offer an interconnected cluster of facilities for culture, art and the exchange of knowledge and experience, accommodating participants and visitors, in particular young professionals from the region. House B is one of five buildings arranged around a courtyard that make up the ensemble. It is used for workshops and seminars. It occupies the site of a family home dating from 1878 which had to be demolished due to its dilapidated condition. The architects’ approach is direct and clear: a reinterpretation of heritage through the use of plain forms and contemporary materials. What they have designed is functional and refers to the memory of the place, like the special piece of furniture: a bench made from wooden beams that were a part of the roof construction of the demolished house, salvaged to continue living in a reinterpreted way. It is to be hoped that this contemporary makeover of a traditional ensemble will set a strong example for the revaluation of vernacular architecture and for giving talented young architects an opportunity to enrich the built environment.

45° 93’ 37.66” N20° 42’ 21.51” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011LOCATIOn : mokrin, KikindaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

250 m2

Serbia

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Stairs

Street façade

Student apartment

Wardrobe

Courtyard façade / opened sliders

SPACEfor

creativework

Multipurpose hall with the view to the pergola

S E C T I ON S

P L A N s+0.00

+2.39

+4.74

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7 Greeting Neighbours

Page 65: Backstage Architecture(2012)

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AOA

AOA Architects is one of the most prominent young architecture offices in Finland. It was founded in 2006 by architects Vesa Oiva (b.1973) and Selina Anttinen (b.1977) after the winning project of an open competition for Poltinaho residential area in Hämeenlinna. The housing project was a completion of an old military area. In AOA’s entry the old military buildings were surrounded by circle housing blocks or chains of detached houses. It was a suitable solution for the greeny area. The first part of the block was built in 2010. The circle red-brick apartment building has got already good reputation. The real breaking through of the office is the text by Pirjo Sanaksenaho

new university library for Helsinki University City Center Campus. There was an open competition for the library in 2008, and AOA won the first prize. The site is in the center of Helsinki, just a stone’s throw from the main railway station by Eliel Saarinen. The library is surrounded tightly by commercial and office buildings. As approaching the building you can see it already from quite far in the street corner of Kaisaniemi area. The facades are made of dark red bricks as the old buildings nearby, but the curve glass openings make the brick-elevation look fresh and trendy.The idea of the architecture is to offer visitors different kind of openings: to the cityscape and inside the building. The interior is divided into spaces by curve holes in the floor plan. The main space through the seven-decker building is an oval form lobby. The spectacular high space with white solid railings helps the visitor to orientate in the library. There are plenty of different kinds of cosy reading places for the students besides the huge windows and the curve floor openings.The library will be opened to the public in the autumn 2012. Helsinki will get a bright new pearl when it is ready.

Finland

60° 17’ 12.11” N2 4 ° 9 4 ’ 7 2 . 0 1 ” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2012LOCATIOn : helsinkiCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

28000 m2

Helsinki City Campus Library

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Blur STANDARD

floor division

5th floor interior viewtypical floor plan (5th floor)

View from Fabianinkatu street

View from Kaisaniemenkatu street

Central void (under construction)

M U L T I P L E H E I G H T S PA C E S

W A T C H I N G O U T S I D E

P L A N

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Centennial Hall Pavillion

VROA / Ch+ Architekci

At a time when economic disparity seems to bisect every cultural and political paradigm, the most difficult ability one could possibly think of is a restraint. This winning project of the UnESCO authorised competition for the refurbishment and extension of an existing pavilion located directly beside the 1913 Centennial Hall by Max Berg proves to be an outstanding example of how young Polish architects are dealing with the current challenges of the profession. While most of the young office’s oeuvre is still dominated by small scale private commissions, the project by VROA Architekci and CH+ Architekci confronts enormous public programme and complex Text by Sebastian Janusz

historical context. This realisation brings new arguments to the discussion of preserving Polish architectural heritage, searching for a new identity after 1989. The entire complex – together with the monumental Centennial Hall – was built in 1913 as a part of the Fairgrounds in Wroclaw. The restaurant was burned at the end of WWII, and only the structure survived. The building was remodelled for the Exhibition of Retaken Grounds – a communist propaganda fair, when it became the office and magazine facility. As an early landmark of reinforced concrete architecture, it was listed as a UnESCO World Heritage Site in 2006. The original project by Max Berg was an excellent example of a technical state-of-the-art. VROA/CH+ decided not to follow the original technical solutions but instead proposed its contemporary equivalent. In this way it is the spirit of the project that is preserved and not its superficial form. Its dark presence next to the historical monument seems unapologetic yet respectful, edgy yet restrained, contemporary yet timeless. It’s subjects are memory and the space-time continuum, but the mind/heart dichotomy is the axis around which it revolves. The project by VROA/CH+ resonates so deeply with what can fairly be described as a triumph of discreet elegance. It’s also a clear sign that young Polish architects deserve more attention and public commissions than they receive.

5 1 ° 1 0 ’ 7 8 . 8 5 ” N1 7 ° 0 3 ’ 8 5 . 3 8 ” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2010LOCATIOn : WrocławCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

4070 m2

Poland

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Multipurpose hall looking to the outside

Au d i t o r i u m w i t h c u r t a i n s d ra w n . C re d i t p i c t u re s : K r z y s z t o f S my k

Triumph ofdescreet

eleganceP L A N

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unapologetic

yet Respectful

Page 70: Backstage Architecture(2012)

Korda MoviePark Visitor’s Centre

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BORD ARChITECTURAL STUDIO

What is really absent in the training of Hungarian architects and urban planners is learning how to work with restrictions. BORD Studio is one of the few examples of those aware that restrictions are invariably one of the aspects of the equation that must be resolved. Instead of taking an ideal approach to design, they first identify the restrictions that are part of the overall scenario and the rules they must abide by, because it is only within these rules that one finds the true degrees of freedom to develop a project. This is where the challenge lies. Young architects need to be convincing, able to express our elite culture to offer solutions that are attractive yet modest, text by Sándor Finta

sufficiently detailed while also misty enough to allow the idea to be appropriated. They need to be brilliant but not too much, as this can be offensive. They need to be able to control expenditures while offering rich, dynamic solutions while also being open to others; they must be provocative but not overly, hard and indulgent at the same time. There are not too many young Hungarian architectural practices behaving like BORD Studio.

Hungary

4 7 ° 2 6 ’ 4 2 . 2 7 ” N 1 8 ° 4 4 ’ 4 1 . 1 0 ” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011LOCATIOn : Etyek, Alcsúti útCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

102.71m2

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V - S h a p e d c u t away s

A glimpse behind the scenes of film industry

P L A N

Mono l i t h

The exhibition hall and the visitor’s cafe were created to give visitors a full insight into filmmaking

N e u t r a l a n d t r a n s pa r e n t

The structure is essentially a vast marquee, framing and offering excellent views of the nearby studios.

The single-storey building has an open floor plan with high ceilings to provide a striking contrast to the backlot sets

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MmmmMAjA mILAT, MARIO mATIC

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2009LOCATIOn : SplitCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

225 m2

Even though it sounds appropriate for any cinema in any place, in this specific case the “Golden Gate” is a highly contextual name bound to the actual location. The address of the Golden Gate Cinematheque is also quite significant: “Diocletian’s Street 7”, right along the Cardo connecting the Peristyle with the Porta Aurea, the northern Golden Gate of the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s Palace. What was originally a prominent, vaulted axis of the Emperor’s retreat is now just a normal, narrow street in the historic centre of Split, at least at a first glance. To a slightly more attentive observer the manifold historic layers appear, from the Roman to the text by Krunoslav Ivanisin

Medieval to the Modern. The building at number 7 is a sort of makeshift work of so-called “active heritage conservation” from the 1970s, when a couple of smaller buildings occupying the site were renovated, extended and connected. The Cinematheque, a rather small projection hall for some 150 spectators, was originally opened in 1971 on its upper floors. After forty years of intensive use it was in desperate need of renovation, not simply because of wear and tear. Obviously, with their very first public commission, the young architects-couple faced an extremely complex task. A task they faced up to very well by logically continuing the series of adaptations that constitute Split’s fascinating urban culture, revealing forgotten layers and adding other new ones. A slight spatial distortion to fit the program, the introduction of daylight into darkness, shifting the interior colours to match the view once the windows were reopened. With this sequence of contextual decisions, a small but important cultural institution was successfully brought back to life, carefully reinvented in spatial and material terms, in other words, the terms of architecture.

Croatia

43° 50’ 90.12” N 16° 44 ’ 05 .85” E

Art Cinema Renovation

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More than

another BLACK box Gallery panorama

Women’s restroom ceramic tiling

Cinema lower floor (parterre) S e c t i on

B E T W E E N N E W & O L D

The renovation reveals forgotten layers and adds other new ones: a slight spatial distortion to fit the program, the introduction of daylight into darkness, shifting the interior colours to match the view once the windows were reopened

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Return to Nature

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2012LOCATIOn : PtujCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

250 m2

TASTE

4 6 ° 4 1 ’ 9 9 . 8 9 ” S 1 5 ° 8 6 ’ 9 9 . 8 1 ” W

A classic ambition of every individual is to ensure a quality standard of living, often idealised in the form of a single family dwelling. However, the construction of such a building is no longer merely a realisation of one’s dreams, but it is also becoming an increasingly prominent issue of ensuring the ethics and wider social acceptability of interventions in space. In contemporary architecture the ethic relationship with the client – an individual – is transitioning towards an ethical responsibility towards society and nature. Modern technologies offer an instant answer, but they potentiate the idea of a “house – machine” on the one hand, while on the other hand they

give a false impression that it is possible to build anywhere simply by reducing the impact on the environment. The single family dwelling designed by Taste demonstrates an appropriate form of cohesion between a strong architectural idea and the paradigm of reducing the environmental burden.The house is located on the northern edge of the town of Ptuj, in an area of single-family residential buildings, defined primarily by its quiet rural character and the edge of a lowland forest. The edge as the focal point of the greatest spatial complexity has a significant effect on the formulation of the building volume, the vertical allocation of spaces, and the selection of materials. The house distances itself from the existing building stock with its clear abstract architectural diction, while it seeks contact with the natural context through its uniformly designed façade skin composed of horizontal wooden slats. The visual design is emphasised by window openings embedded into aluminium profiles, while the architectural mass is loosened by indentations and a vertical breakdown of the volume. The parents’ sleeping quarters are at ground floor together with the living area that gradually extends into the garden. The first floor is composed of a larger common living and play area surrounded by the children’s bedrooms, each with its own terrace with attractive open views of the nearby forest and the old city centre. The logical, compact and sincere design, together with the technological solutions, shows how sustainability issues can be integrated into a high-quality architectural language. The key question of sustainability is: how much architecture do we actually need? Just a little. And it must be done with taste.

text by Ernest Milcinovic

Slovenia

Page 75: Backstage Architecture(2012)

s e c t i on s

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P L A N

The parents’ sleeping quarters and the living area are located on the ground floor

The living area gradually extends into the garden through larger openings and terraces

Horizontal wooden slats

The house is located on the northern edge of the town of Ptuj, in an area of single-family residential buildings

facing a lowl and forest

f A C A D E S K I N

5m0Findthe

BALANCE

The terrace has attractive open views of the nearby forest and the old city centre

A larger common living and play area is surrounded by the children’s bedrooms

Technological solutions are combined with architectural language

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OV-A

The architects Opocenský and Valouch founded their studio in 2007. As the studio is small (consisting only of these two architects), the size of the designable buildings and structures is limited. On the other hand, they are able to devote a lot of energy to their designs. The architects prefer some austerity in their expression. The appearance of their buildings and houses is simple and straightforward without any “phrases”. The architects’ way of thinking and their creative ideas can be best seen in the charts that accompany their designs. Therefore, no extensive explanatory texts are required to interpret their creative intentions. They have won their spurs with their text by Alexandr Skalicky

first common design of a house in the town of Svitavy. The house was actually designed two years before the establishment of their office. During the course of five years, since the studio was founded, the architects have designed an integral complex of houses, buildings and structures. The latest house that has recently been completed is located in Kraluv Dvur. The arrangement of the house is based on a square plan covered with a flat roof. The space is filled with three closed cells (or modules) containing the inhabitants’ private rooms. Between the cells is a free glazed living space in combination with the outer shell made from modular sliding panels. By sliding the panels to the side and back, the inhabitants can change the “mood” of the house. By day, when the panels are closed, the house is closed in on itself. By night, the house shines unobtrusively through the panels. The house makes quite a different expression if the panels are pushed aside and the inside of the house can be seen.

Searching for an original creative way has always been difficult. Today, when practically everything (from emotions to original architectural ideas) can be found “on-line” on the Internet, it is even more difficult. It is easier not to be original, and more difficult to be original.

Czech Republic

49° 94’ 64.01” N14° 03’ 52.29” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2010LOCATIOn : Kraluv DvurCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

225 m2House Kraluv Dvur

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Nor th-East View

Livingroom

Ter race

Southview

UnfencedGARDEN

P L A N

s e c t i on

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FoodprintsDATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2012LOCATIOn : Norra Djurgårdsstaden, StockholmCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

---

FoAm-NORDICA

5 9 ° 2 1 ’ 4 8 . 7 2 ” S 1 8 ° 0 5 ’ 2 6 . 6 6 ” W

Sweden

text by Susanna Malzacher

A Polish/Italian architect now living in Sweden after a childhood in South Africa and studies in both the USA, UK and Sweden, has teamed up with a Swedish industrial designer to work on one of the crucial issues facing the world’s constantly expanding unsustainable cities: food security. They have set out on their Foodprints journey with the aim of exploring how the discipline of biomimicry can promote urban food resilience and biodiversity.The first step was to design a discussion toolkit, a biologically-centred ruler, to throw light on the complexity of food culture and on the significant impact this has on our environment

and to demonstrate opportunities for urban food production.In the next phase of the project the team intends to stage a food performance, exploring a number of possible food-system scenarios figuring in the toolkit, together with invited guests currently involved in the norra Djurgården (Stockholm) development plans. Each scenario combines an example from all eight themes: food logistics, cultural dimensions, ecosystem types, environmental challenges and benefits, urban food sources, farming methods and urban elements. The aim is to disseminate knowledge and inspire a change in urban policymaking with a view to integrating food-system resilience into the urban planning process.But fighting climate change and environmental degradation is not just about finding technical solutions. The issue of how to transform our way of life to make it sustainable, locally and globally, needs to be addressed from a large range of viewpoints simultaneously – social, political, economic, industrial, urban and environmental – if such radical changes in our modes of living are to be achieved.Foodprints is an unusual architecture project in that it is non-object-oriented, multidisciplinary and modelled on nature’s eco-systems, considering the city as a living organism where there is no waste, only closed loops. It has no lesser ambition than to work towards a paradigm shift.

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Author and educator Herbert Girardet describes the city as a complex living body with a variety of interacting organs, similar to our human bodies. Source Herbert Girardet, Cities, People, Planet

Farming+ was a project instigated during Foodprints in order to trace the food strategy for future urban developments in Goa, India

S U P E R O R G A N I S M

f A R M I N G +

urban food

cultures

commuication networks

roads, railways, waterways

food markets

garbage dumps, sewage

parks, gardens

brain

immune system

lungs

digestion system

arteries, veins

nervous system

stomach, liver, kidneys

legislation, police, court

university, library, school

There is an inherent relationship between the city and how food arrives on our plates

5 scenarios which holistically capture the future of possible food outcomes for Norra Djurgårdsstaden

Peak Technology

INPUTS OUTPUTS

FARM BELT

LINEAR METABOLISM

OUTPUTS

recycledorganic

reduced pollution&waste

organic waste(landfill/sea dum-ping)

emissions(co2, no2, so2)

solid waste

liquid wast

inorganic waste(landfill)

inorganic waste

&

CIRCULAR METABOLISM

fuel

timber

water

goods

energy

food

coalwater

fueltimberenergy

oilnuclear

food

goods

renewablessolar economy

Values Communal Regeneration

e c o s y s t e m s f u n c t i o n

SC ENA R I O S

Two diverse flow patterns of resource inputs through a city: one is a linear system, whilst the other is a closed circular systemsource: Herbert Girardet

u r ban _m e t a bo l i sm

INPUTS

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9Urban Food

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Dialogue

Norway

Fantastic norway was founded in 2004 by Håkon Matre Aasarød and Erlend Blakstad Haffner. Their primary ambition was to create an open, inclusive and socially aware architectural practice and to re-establish the role of the architect as an active participant and a builder of society.The heart and soul of this practice is a red caravan that functions as a mobile platform for architectural discussions, debates and workshops. Fantastic norway uses the caravan when they gather ideas, suggestions and local knowledge for the projects they work on and utilise the collected information in the design process. The caravan is a new platform for architecture, down to earth and

close to people and everyday life. The studio aims to first find interesting projects and problems to be solved, and then find the client. not the other way around.

To create enthusiasm and participation in their processes Fantastic norway uses local and national media. Their philosophy within communication is: “If you want to discuss the problem, start with the fantastic”. Through the years the office has written more than 60 essays in local newspapers, made cartoons and publication and recently hosted a television series on The norwegian Broadcasting Channel (nRK). Fantastic norway’s credo is that all projects are stitched together by the stories and lives of the people involved. Every client is different; every place is in some way peculiar. Fantastic norway aims to embrace this fact and through dialogue transform it into architecture.Fantastic norway is by far one of today’s most promising norwegian architect-firms. They have already won several international architectural awards.

text by TYIn Tegnestue Architects

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2014LOCATIOn : between Rosenholm Campus and the StationCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

330m long

FANTASTIC NORWAy

5 9 ° 4 9 ’ 2 9 . 5 5 ” N1 0 ° 4 7 ’ 2 5 . 0 1 ” E

Page 82: Backstage Architecture(2012)

The walk from the station to the office complex includes walking throught a tight, clean cut in a rocky hill, past an out door fire place, through an icy steel mesh, inside a bell tower and through a high rise bird dwelling

The project is an elevated promenade to improve the stretch between Rosenholm Campus and Rosenholm Station

The bell tower

Along the 330 meter long bridge each of the four turrets brings practical and poetic qualities into the forest area below

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Start with the FANTASTIC

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One Ocean Pavilion Whether it be the extension of the Building

Academy in Salzburg, a temporary art pavilion, an observation tower in Taiwan or an Expo Pavilion in South Korea - beauty on itself does not exist for the four architects of soma. A building for them must demonstrate that form is confirmed by function. Soma architects are always looking for more value, for something new, they are extremely keen to experiment and also oriented on implementation.The fact that the buildings really function and that they keep the spirit of the design after being realized, is due to the great confidence they put in the beginning plan. A good example is the Expo

Pavilion in Yeosu, South Korea. The building is composed by cylindrical structural bodies – the client wanted a part of the façade to be a media façade. But the architect wanted the architecture itself to play here, an analog media façade, so to speak. Together with Knipper Helbig, an engineering office in Stuttgart, they have developed a kinetic façade that does not work mechanically. According to bionic’s principle each slats on the facade opens like the gills of a fish and closes again, thus ensuring - according to the time of the day - more or less light in the building. While most of the other pavilions will be dismantled at the end of the Expo 2012, the building by soma will remain and serve as a symbol of the former industrial harbour. The approach of soma is similar in both Austrian and international projects: it is an intuitive approach, marked by the joy that drives them to explore something. The only difference is that in their home country - now at least - only smaller commissions are available. The trust in young offices in this country is usually too low. The design for the tower in Taiwan by the way - even though it will not be built – is also noteworthy. In this competition they won the second prize behind Sou Fujimoto. The design is a zero-carbon construction that combines high-tech and low-tech, and would be composed of individual fibers, whi ch diverge and then merge back to node.

3 4 ° 4 4 ’ 5 3 . 8 0 ” S 1 2 7 ° 4 5 ’ 0 . 0 8 ” W

Austria

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2012LOCATIOn : yeosu, South-KoreaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

6918 m2

soma

text by Anne Isopp

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foyertheme exhibition / preshowtheme exhibition / main showtheme exhibition / post showcafevip areamechanicalswimming platformstairs and escalator to best practice area

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foyertheme exhibition / preshowtheme exhibition / main showtheme exhibition / post showcafevip areamechanicalswimming platformstairs and escalator to best practice area

H.W.L. +3.770M.S.L. +1.808L.W.L. ±0.000

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theme exhibition / preshowtheme exhibition / main showtheme exhibition / post showcafevip areabest practice areamechanicalmain cone viewing platform

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P L A N

a n e w m e a n d e r i n g c o a s t l i n e

The pavillion embodies the Expo’s theme and is constructed in a former industrial harbour

K i n e t i c m e d i a f a c a d e

Moving lamellae in an open position

Multilayer spatial

experience

s e c t i on

T h e m a i n e n t r a n c e o n O c e a n P l a z a

“We experience the Ocean as an endless surface and in an immersed perspective as depth”

Conglomeration of solid vertical cones in constant negotiation between water and land

The facade covers a total length of about 140 m, and is between 3 m and 13 m high

25m0

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ProseccoWine Centre

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OCAfEARChITETTURA

The typical CV of Italians under 35 is full of unrealized projects, collaborations with famous offices and small renovation jobs. Only the last ones turn into real works and represent the real debut in construction, mostly thanks to demands coming from relatives and friends. There are plenty of competitions won, but rarely actually carried out. Only a special occasion can change this situation such as happened to Cafèarchitettura, the winners of the competition open to students and new graduates held by the Val D’Oca winery for its new showroom.They stood out for their non-linear building, with angles and projections both in plan and text by Diego Barbarelli

in elevation, cladded with a perforated brown metal sheathing from which a white volume with panoramic view juts out. The building unravles a form that creates a piazza in the front opening the winery to the people, and echoes the surrounding hills. Thanks to this form it can accommodate inside different interconnected spaces for both production and offices, ending in the overhanging room where the tasting area is. The treatment of the exterior surfaces with perforated metal panels – the strongest identity feature- is inspired by the sparkling Prosecco bubbles. At the back, open to the wine production buildings, the Wine Center instead breaks away from the metal sheathing in a more common, everyday look, due to the pure whiteness of the plaster.Cafèarchitettura represents an exception, but also a confirmation of how difficult it is for young people to emerge in Italy. Also in this case looking at other works of theirs, one finds designs, installations, interiors and contests won but not realized. Despite an initial convincing test, they struggle to find an opportunity to challenge their skills again. In Italy the greatest difficulty for young people is the lack of real opportunities for putting their talents to the test. And the impossibility to determine whether their potential can be turned into reality leaves the offices suspended in a never-ending state of unexperienced youth.

Italy

4 5 ° 5 4 ’ 0 5 ” N 1 1 ° 5 9 ’ 4 2 . 8 6 ” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011LOCATIOn : ValdobbiadeneCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

3390m2

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Interface production

and consumption

P L A N

J u t t i n g o u t

Behind the panels

The tasting room is a panoramic outlookInviting entrance square

S PA R K L I NG A T N I G H T

The Showroom

5m0

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fThe small German city of Hemer in Westphalia has recently come to international attention thanks to a project realised for the Regional Gardening Expo: the Jübergturm, a twenty-meter tall panoramic tower that scenographically enriches the urban skyline and valorises its qualities, assuming the unusual role of a sponsor. The project is the work of the Stuttgart-based office of Birk and Heilmeyer that, in only nine months of work, in collaboration with the work of the office of Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering, has realised an agile vertical construction with a characteristic structure in wood slats. In the history of architecture towers have always text by Monica Zerboni

played an emblematic role, both as functional elements as well as symbols of prestige. Today, this typology has returned in vogue as an ideal model for experimenting with forms, materials and structural feats at the limits of static design. The interpretation offered by the team of Stephan Birk and Liza Heilmeyer represents a bridge between tradition and the future. Using an ancient material – wood – they have realised a work that is aligned with the most recent trends in German architecture: essential, minimalist, and sensitive to the landscape. Awarded numerous prizes and a special mention in the prestigious 2011 Mies van der Rohe Award, with the Jüberg tower Birk and Heilmeyer have confirmed their predilection for a ‘soft’ architecture that, discretely inserted within the environment, utilises its models and instruments in the search for an optimum equilibrium. As a technological lightweight ‘machine’, the tower pays homage to sustainability. Its daring morphology blends with the image of lightness, guaranteeing a minimal impact within the territory. Situated in the periphery of the city, at the edge of a forest, the structure is inserted within its context with the grace of a sapling that draws its expressive force and justification from its symbiosis with nature.

Germany

5 1 ° 2 3 ’ 1 0 . 2 0 ” N 0 7 ° 4 6 ’ 5 3 . 5 0 ” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2010.4LOCATIOn : hemerCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

height: 23.5 mDiameter foot: 6.0 mJueberg

Tower

BIRK und HEILmEyER ARChITEKTEN

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Jübergturm | Lageplan | Site | 1:500 | Birk und Heilmeyer Architekten BDA

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The principle is based on the hyperboloid used for steel constructions by V. G. Suchov (1853 – 1939)

The look-out tower stands out at the end of a long stair

The structure consists of 240 straight timber slats of Siberian larch (glued laminated) with a cross section of 8 x 8 cm

P L A N

E n t r a n c e

Marking the transition BETWEENcity and landscape

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Reacting 360-degrees

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Natural Science Center nORD Architects was established in 2003 by

founding partners Johannes Molander Pedersen and Morten Rask Gregersen. Working within the field of architecture, urban development & innovation processes the practice puts great emphasis on the design process itself. Incorporating user involvement and facilitating various workshops with parties relating to each project is characteristic of their approach. In their body of work one can discern a preference for larger scale urban strategies, meanwhile nORD has proven equally skilled in realizing smaller scale projects.

The building I have selected is the natural Science Center in Bjerringbro, Denmark, which was nominated for the Mies Van Der Rohe Award in 2010. The center is an educational laboratory for the natural sciences and the innovative design by nORD creates a setting well suited to inspire both students and teachers alike.Located on a hillside north of Bjerringbro the solitary standing building has been rightfully compared to a lighthouse. The monolithic cylinder, with a couple of thoughtfully placed cuts in its volume, is clad mainly in translucent u-glass profiles turning it into a beacon of light at dusk. The simple and iconographic exterior, with its smooth and homogeneously glazed façade, is contrasted by the raw aesthetics and the spatial diversity of the interior. Here you are met with unmasked mechanical installations, floors and walls of exposed concrete and a dynamic layout of vertically interconnected spaces. In the educational spirit of the project a “natural Science Garden”, open to the public, is planned to grace the generous grounds of the center.

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2009LOCATIOn : bjerringbroCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

2.560 m2

NORD ARChITECTS COPENhAGEN

Denmark

5 6 ° 3 6 ’ 5 7 . 1 8 ” S 0 9 ° 6 7 ’ 4 2 . 2 6 ” W

text by Kristján Eggertsson

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The building is a monolithic cylinder generated in a series of geometrical transformations

P L A N

l i g h t t o w e r

d e t a i l

f l e x i b l e a r e a s

The monolithic cylinder beacon of light at dusk

Inside the building there are differentiated spatial experiences

The facade openings produce a different reading of the interior space

Education and knowledge

PRODUCTION

u n m a s k e d i n s t a l l a t i o n s

s o l i t a r y b u i l d i n g

S e c t i on s

To make the building an open learning platform the architects have designed it with visible installations

Located on a hillside north of Bjerringbro.The facade changes character when weather and light conditions change

Dynamic layout of vertically interconnected spaces

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Setting well suited to inspire students

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DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2009LOCATIOn : ConfignonCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

32m2Storage Kitchen and Summer room

This pavilion, built in Confignon by the young Swiss architecture practice Dreier Frenzel, houses a storage space, a kitchen and a summer room. It is located on the sloping garden of a single-family house with views over the city of Geneva. Following the tripartite programme the architects conceived three modules of differing dimensions that resemble a sequence of boxes attached to each other. The whole construction is built in exposed reinforced concrete, which protects and divides the spaces while providing the structure of the building. Two walls and three pillar-walls emerge out of three slabs that touch the slope only on one of their edges. The generous cantilevers are enabled text by Cornelia Tapparelli

by outreaching foundations that literally anchor the building onto the terrain. Grey wooden shutters close the three boxes as if they were cupboards. The authors of this building, Yves Dreier and Eik Frenzel, established their office in Lausanne in 2008 after having worked, among others, in Herzog & de Meuron. The pavilion they have built at Confignon can be considered as representative of the current Swiss young architectural scene: one could say that this building takes on the tradition of the “Swiss-box”. This theme has been associated to projects and buildings by the famous aforementioned architects, whose early work is often described as “minimal architecture”. In addition to the affinity of the pavilion in Confignon to the “Swiss-box”, one should also remark that Dreier Frenzel have adapted their boxes not only to the programme and to the terrain, but also to an economic situation with which young architects are often confronted: a return to the essence, to structure and construction, is imposed by the limited budget at disposal. If this pavilion exudes a “minimal” language, this is not due to a stylistic or formal search, but rather to an appropriated pragmatism.

Switzerland

4 6 ° 1 0 ’ 2 7 . 1 2 ” N 0 6 ° 0 5 ’ 0 3 . 4 1 ” E

DREIER FRENZEL ARChITECTURE

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MID-SUMMER retreatA smal pavillion as garden extension of a family house

S w i s s - b o x

Gent ly accomodated a long the s lope

P L A N

When open the space totally merges into the garden

Shutters’ detail

In sequence kitchen and summer room

S e c t i o n a n d e l e va t i o n s

Page 95: Backstage Architecture(2012)

text by Rachel Stella Jenkins

6° 49’ 46 .00” N3° 38’ 37.80” E

MakokoFloating School

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Nigeria

NLÉ, KUNLÉ ADEyEmI

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2012.12LOCATIOn : makoko, Lagos COnSTRUCTED AREA:

210 m2

The fact that our world is urbanising at an unprecedented pace is well known. The fastest growing cities are located in developing regions. Lagos, nigeria, is presently growing by 53 new citizens each hour (births and newly arrived migrants). The population is expected to reach 25 million by 2015, which would make it the third largest city in the world. In our age of Mega-Cities, current planning and architectural approaches are all too often dominated by western city-making approaches that barely fit today’s realities and demands. This added to the often lack of cultural understanding of on-going processes of urbanisation - how cities are changing and how citizens interact with cities – means questioning and rethinking institutionalised planning recipes is a

valid and vital obligation. nLÉ shapes architectural and infrastructural solutions in developing cities by bringing together international expertise through a multi-disciplinary and collaborative practice (quote nLÉ). In conjunction with the personal experience of Kunlé Adeyemi, a nigerian born and educated architect. After practicing in nigeria, Adeyemi worked at the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in the netherlands for 10 years. There he led the design and construction of significant public buildings and infrastructural projects around the world. Having founded nLÉ, Adeyemi leads a project on Makoko, an informal floating settlement which houses about 100,000 people who make up a large part of the informal workers who support the city and its growth, and is located in the very centre becoming a landmark. Providing over one third of Lagos’ fish supply and most of its timber, for nearly a century, Makoko has thrived on fishing and sawing industries. Having adapted its lifestyle to its environment it has become ‘a city on water’. There are no roads, no land and no modern infrastructure yet it is a highly dense and urbanised area. Although overall living conditions are very poor, people’s adaptation to their environment offers valuable insights for addressing the imminent challenges of rapid urbanisation and climate change’ – namely rising water levels - in coastal cities.The area is still susceptible to flooding due to rising water levels, as was the case in October 2011 when the city experienced heavy rainfall (quote nLÉ).nLÉ’s proposes to build a floating nursery and school for the community. The project will also provide a flexible multi-use space that can be used outside school hours by the entire community for a range of purposes.

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Credit picture and ren-ders: NLÉ

Makoko is an informal floating settlement which houses about 100,000 people who make up a large part of the informal workers who support the city and its growth, and is located in the very centre becoming a landmark. Credit picture: Ade Adekola

Design for a floating School for the water community of Makoko located in the city of Lagos, Nigeria A floating

community

NLÉ’s proposes to build a floating nursery and school for the community. The project will also provide a flexible multi-use space that can be used outside school hours by the entire community for a range of purposes

O V E R V I E W

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Trail HouseDATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2009LOCATIOn : Almere, SITE2f7COnSTRUCTED AREA:

Endless

ANNE HOLTROP

5 2 ° 2 2 ’ 2 7 . 6 5 ” S 5 ° 1 3 ’ 3 1 . 3 0 ” W

text by Giampiero Sanguigni

The Netherlands

The site of the Trail House was once at the bottom of the sea. SITE2F7 is characterised by a uniform nature that conceals the artificial origins of the surrounding territory. The architect conceived of its form beginning with the patterns of a number of spontaneous paths present in the area, generated by the crossing of people. Holtrop’s works have a brief lifecycle. They colonise a space for only a few months and, similar to the work of Thomas Demand or Gordon Matta-Clark, all that remains is photographic documentation. It is thus no accident that the Trail House was photographed by Bas Princen. In 2004 the Dutch

artist completed a research project entitled Artificial Arcadia, in which he investigated unplanned territories in The netherlands, used by the Dutch for recreational purposes. The people captured on film were driven less by the qualities of space, rather by the conditions imposed by the equipment employed (mountain bikes, motocross motorcycles, kite-surfers). The Trail House is born out of an analogous principle: in the natural and indeterminate space of SITE2F7, people had traced a series of paths over time according to their desires and their needs, which Holtrop ideally rendered three-dimensional in his dwelling. The house, like the equipment used by the subjects of Princen’s images, is the interface through which it is possible to read the site. From the Trail House one has a view out and, beyond the hedges; it is possible to continue to observe the extension of the structure. In some points, sitting with your back to the wall, you can touch the opposite wall with your feet. This generates a number of minor rooms and hoops by the curvilinear form of the pavilion, where Holtrop placed furniture that functionally determine the spaces required by a home. They are ambiguous spaces, in which the canons of dwelling disappear: the perspective created by endless vanishing lines and symmetry are erased.

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Holtop’s works colonise a space for a few month and all that remains is photographic documentation.Trail House was born in the natural and indeterminate space of SITE2F7. Credit pictures: Bas Princen

B r i e f l i f e c y c l e

Bend and split through the LANDSCAPE

The house has a view totally open to the landscape and the distinction between inside and outside is lost

Inside there are ambiguous spaces, in which the canons of dwelling disappear and the functional division of spaces is determined by the location of different furniture

The plan, as an objet trouvé of a landscape element, has defined characteristics without being formed by its architectural function

a m b i g o u s s pa c e

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Architecture in Belgium since middle ages has mostly relied and thrived on private commission, witnessing qualitative production peaks during guilds’ time and the colonial economy of Leopold II in late ‘800 for instance. During such moments architecture production had a great impact on the form of the city as a collective project. Especially in the times of Leopold II urban visions were carried out in a complentatary way –though not frictionless- to the distributed private wealth, and shaped many of the most important Belgian cities. After WWII this unity was not recovered and citizens gradually fled the city sprawling in small constructions that consumed the territory text by Bernardina Borra

transforming it in a quite scattered semi-industrial, semi-rural densely inhabited landscape.This stealth invasion that turned especially the Dutch speaking side of the country into a witless urbanized mat, has been longly investigated and also criticized. The tendency now is to try counterbalancing it, recovering cities as the main gravity points of the territory, translated mostly in densification and transformation of the existing fabric. This is one of the main issues that in 1998 urged the Dutch speaking governement to re-established the institution of the Vlaamse Bouwmeester (Flemish Building Master) who cares for the improvement of the living quality in the built environment. One of the most relevant intruments enforced by the Vlaamse Bouwmeester is the Open Oproep (Open call): a list of public open competitions that since then fostered great chances for both young and established architecture practices to engage in several public tasks. The project for Cadix square is the winning proposal of an Open Oproep. The Cadix area in the former harbour of Antwerp, close to the historic centre, is under main redevelopment, it will maintain its maritime character and transform into a fully fledged living area hosting nearly 10 times the inhabitants it now has.The main selection reason for the winners has been the importance that PT architects gave in the design process to the wishes expressed by the inhabitants of the area, as well as the evolutive format of it that will adapt in time according also to the newcomers.

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2015LOCATIOn : Cadixstraat, AntwerpCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

19.400 m2

PT ARChITECTEN

Belgium

5 1 ° 1 3 ’ 5 8 . 5 6 ” N0 4 ° 2 4 ’ 3 3 . 2 7 ” E

Cadix Square

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Around the square are planned new housing, a school, and services for elderly people. The area will cater a diverse social mix in terms of origin and age of the people using the open space in different modes and times of the day during the whole year

Opening the waterfront to the public is one of the main conditions to regenerate the maritime functions and exhalt it as one of the most distinguished features of the neighbourhood

The landscape gradually turns from park into square in order to collect different potential open space use according to inhabitants wishes and seasonal changes

The project has already been discussed in several meetings with the inhabitants. the definitive design is adapting to the outcome of this open discussion and the square will be implemented before end 2015

Cadix is a neighbourhood in progress in the old harbour district Eilandje in the north of Antwerp. Massive housing projects are planned and population will multiply in a few years. The park/square is designed to be evolutionary just like the neighbourhood itself. A tram line will cross the square and the former warehouse will be re-used as a covered public space

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Landscape is the base,

people its activatorsw i n t e r

S UMME R

WA T E R F RON T

Page 101: Backstage Architecture(2012)

Evolve in time

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Page 102: Backstage Architecture(2012)

Masterplan for The M’zab Valley

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rMAGDA BENDANI

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2007LOCATIOn : m’zab Valley, GhardaÏaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

12.000m2

Architecture could carry a more local significance, if it would consider the natural environment and social relations in which culture plays a central role. In Algeria, more than ever, an ethical and political awareness is needed among all actors to make “today” and “tomorrow” more desirable and appropriable.The drawings of the project have been a collaboration between Magda Bendani and GAnFOOD Grafic design. Contentwise the design for the M’zab Valley in Algeria is the result of an accurate consideration of specific relationships between the social and spatial contexts of the Mozabites’ (inhabitants text by Samia Henni

of the M’zab Valley). She has acknowledged the Mozabites’ social values and environmental factors and embedded them in the spatial organization.Located within the Algerian Sahara, the M’zab Valley was listed as a UnESCO World Heritage Site for its exemplary nature of traditional human settlements, faultlessly adapted to the local environment. The uniqueness of the M’zab Valley’s natural landscape, social habits, traditional architecture, and building techniques are significant tourism assets for the region. However, the M’zab Valley is witnessing a serious housing shortage and is considerably lacking structures and services for visitors.Seeking to address these shortages, the architect created the opportunity to combine function (housing and tourism facilities) with the Mozabites’ natural environment and socio-cultural needs. The result is a “troglodytic” architecture that hunts for durability. In her view, only the Mozabitian’s “sustainable” way of thinking and acting would ensure returns for local inhabitants and guarantee a suitable use of local resources without compromising future generations.She responds to the housing scarcity by juxtaposing compact habitats based on the Mozabitian lineage and habits. Following the slope of the rocky site, she combines introverted spaces that ensure privacy and female life, with common semi-extroverted spaces for men’s activities. In addition, she proposes a subterranean hotel dug into the M’zab rock, an efficient spatial organization that ensures protection from the M’zab’s arid climate and is seamlessly integrated into its environment. The project exhibits the uniqueness of the M’zab Valley and forces the visitor to actively interact and learn from the traditions of the Mozabites.

Algeria

3 2 ° 2 8 ’ 2 7 . 9 3 ” N 0 3 ° 4 1 ’ 3 9 . 6 1 ” E

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C c ’

A A’

B B ’

Create TROGLODITIC

spaces

P L A N

m ’ z a b Va l l e y

P a r t 1 :H o u s i n g P r o j e c t “ L i t t l e K s a r ”

Terrace buildings integrated in the landscape

Master Plan

Typology

Working on the Mzab valley does not imply the imitation of Mozabites’ forms, but the understanding of its quintessence

D E S i g n P r i n c i p l E S

A collection of “fragments”

P a r t 2 :t h e H o t e l C av e

C c ’

A A’

B B ’

G R o u n d f l o o R 1 s t f l o o r

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ArchipelagoIn France, where urban planning is often detached from the question of architecture, nicolas Reymond Architecture is part of a new generation of architects with a “global” approach. He masters diverse sized projects, from furniture to small apartments to houses and cities. The variety of scale of his practice is one of the reasons he was selected for this catalogue.Despite his youth, nicolas Reymond began working for himself just after graduation, completing a number of successful projects – and winning the prestigious Europan competition 3 times. nicolas Reymond has been already awarded two prices by the French government. The first one in 2010 as

young urbanist by Ministry of Sustainability, and the second one in 2012 as young architect in a selection by the the Ministry of Culture.His office is relatively small, it stands out as being perfectly adequate to his way of working. In a constant search for new things, his teaching and writing are deeply part of his practice. While urban is always at the top of his list, he questions the act of building in our contemporary environment. He claims before all else to be an architect. Strong and clear concepts, followed trough with careful attention to detail, characterises his work. Some of his recent work with Parisian apartments makes this obviously clear. Archipelago is a second prize-winning proposal to an open competition, done by nicolas Reymond in collaboration with Julien Joly Architecture. In Switzerland, many competitions offer young architects a chance to measure themselves against established and renowned offices. Typically, this is the kind of large-scale project that architects are not frequently offered to work on. Located in a suburban context near Lausanne, the project tempts to compose a new city life with a programme of mixed uses: retail and dense residential/public space: prospecting for a new response of how to create shopping spaces for the coming century. Far from the big shopping malls one can imagine, this project attempts to find a new sensory experience, involving different layers.Credits portrait picture: Gaston Bergeret.

4 6 ° 5 2 ’ 6 7 . 6 4 ” S 0 6 ° 5 8 ’ 3 8 . 6 5 ” W

text by LA Architectures

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2010LOCATIOn : Chavannes-près-Renens, SwitzerlandCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

150000 m2

France

NICOLAS REymOND

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The project, designed in different levels, experiments new ways of planning public space

The aim of the project is to articulate a new dense urban quarter with a peri-urban site, facing the Leman Lake, near Lausanne in Switzerland

m I X U S E

New CITY life

The project is based on a repetitive block, that organizes a vertical stratification of the quarter on 3 layers : underground, parking and commercial stockage ; at ground level, a 7 meters-high public layer with shops, show-rooms, passages and access to the apartments ; on the upper level, apartments and offices around surelevated gardens

P L A N

A transversal promenade is excavated in the blocks, allowing to cross the entire district trough diagonal passages, connecting the different public spaces

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Folly for a Flyover

aThE ASSEmbLE

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011LOCATIOn : hackney Wick under the A12COnSTRUCTED AREA:

Temporary

Assemble are young, highly motivated and have already completed some great projects, such as the self-initiated Cineroleum and Folly for a Flyover. They are a community interest company composed of a whole bunch of different disciplines. Their pilot project Cineroleum tested out the reuse of a derelict petrol station as a temporary cinema and was completely self initiated; and with the Folly they had the opportunity to explore social as well as architectural issues in the rapidly developing context of London’s Lower Lea Valley, working their way around complex stakeholder management. The Folly is a temporary canal-side cinema under a London motorway flyover built by a text by Tobias Goevert

team of volunteers over a month, using reclaimed and donated materials from the neighbourhood and the Ashelwell timber supply from Essex. The temporary installation is inspired by the red-brick buildings of Hackney Wick, featuring an imaginary piece of the area’s past. Peering from under a motorway flyover, it suggests an alternative history - where a stubborn landlord refused to move his house when the motorway was built. By day the folly hosted a café, workshops and events and boat trips exploring the surrounding waterways. After the project was dismantled the timber blocks became reusable again. Some of them will be rebuilt as play structures in Gainsborough school - the local primary. Following positive feedback, the flyover site will be undergoing permanent development, as part of muf architecture art’s series of public realm works in Hackney Wick. Assemble’s approach is to collaborate and work across different disciplines with a range of specialists and local enthusiasts in a range of fields from design, cookery, film, theatre to plumbing. This approach not only creates a fantastic moment celebrating the everyday, but also pushes pioneering uses into areas undergoing rapid change, often lacking creative spirit and in danger of becoming dominated by soulless housing developments. Design for London is the Mayor of London’s urbanism and architecture team. We get involved in public realm projects across the capital, instigating and supporting exciting work by a wide palette of practitioners. We value highly and aspire to improve the dialogue between London’s stakeholders, such as the boroughs, the sponsors, the designers and essentially its citizens. We need all you creative spirits to get involved to bring even more layers of richness and make London’s hidden spaces blossom even more, learn from Assemble and get involved!

United Kingdom

51° 54’ 91.20” N 00° 02 ’ 87 .41” E

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F I L M / P E R F O R M A N C E

B A R

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3Film/performance

The temporary building resignifies the lost space under the flyover tunring it into a succesful destination

Everything was built over a month by a team of volounteers

bar

boats

A buildingAPPEARS

S e c t i on

P E E R I N G F R O M U N D E R N E A T H H

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Former Slaughterhouse Legazpi

ARTURO FRANCO

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2009LOCATIOn : Antiguo matadero Legazpi, madridCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

1000 m2

Over the past 5 years the historical municipal abattoir, now the Matadero Madrid Cultural Centre, has become one of the most active centres of artistic and architectural experimentation in the Spanish capital. It is also the point of convergence of two large operations of urban rehabilitation: the extension and transformation of the Prado-Recoletos cultural axis, currently underway, and the Madrid Río project, recently completed. The complex, constructed in 1910 in the neo-medejar style, a language born in Spain between the 13th and 14th centuries from the encounter between Arab and Christian culture, is characterised by its ornamental red brick skin.

Arturo Franco was entrusted in 2009 with the low-budget recovery (500,000 Euros) of pavilion 8b, destined to house the centre’s administrative offices. The first problems encountered were of a structural nature: the deteriorated roof had to be integrally substituted and the load bearing walls reinforced to support new loads. The construction site thus gave rise to a simple and efficient strategy: the tiles removed from the existing roof were recycled and reutilised to create the new walls that, depending upon their role in the project, perform a functional, decorative or structural role. Overlapping and linked to one another by a layer of exposed mortar, the tiles form a vibrant ceramic skin that creates surprising formal relations with the existing pattern on the building’s walls. The porosity, which varies according to the quantity of mortar used, becomes a tool for filtering light and articulating the spaces based on differing levels of privacy. Arturo Franco’s work is of interest because it moves away from predetermined formal strategies, in the constant search for specific solutions, linked to the site, social process, building practices and the potentialities of materials.

40° 39’ 12.45” N -3° 69’ 65.40” E

text by Graziella Trovato

Spain

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Entrance to the toilets

The complex, constructed in 1910 in the neo-medejar style, a language born in Spain between the 13th and 14th centuries from Arab and Christian culture, characterised by its ornamental red brick skin

The tiles removed from the existing roof were recycled and reutilised to create the new walls that, depending upon their role in the project, perform a functional, decorative or structural role

1 2

34

Removedto

SOLVE

E N T R A N C E S PA C E

R E U S I N G

P L A N

S E c t i on

C O N S T R U C T I O N P R O C E S S

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The Potentiality of Materials

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Casa Dos Cubos The housing boom of the last two decades, together

with mass tourism and favourable bank credit conditions, has affected ancestral ways of living, ignoring the relevance of relating contemporary lifestyles to the specificities of the city. Most of the units built to date are the result of real estate strategies that do not recognise the potential of a certain region to attract a new type of inhabitant, or take advantage of the rich historical inheritance to create new proposals to occupy the area.The idea of a new subjectivity coming after bankruptcy, when associated with the phenomenon of living standards, promotes a central discussion about the construction of Portuguese space:

the co-habitation between the exhibitionism of Christian culture, using the visibility of public space as a system of social representation, and the introspection of Islamic culture, that reduces the visibility of public spaces to a navigation system.This context becomes particularly relevant in the work of “Embaixada”, in the way it serves various design purposes and motivations, from the dialogue between attraction and the explorer, house and vernacular, enclosure and exhibitionism, continuity and rupture; to the argument for the construction of a new landscape – defining attraction criteria - mediating dependencies between man and nature with the introduction of new spatial mechanisms, contradicting the idea of ecological disruption usually associated with construction and heralding a new continuity. This last condition is key to describe the “Casa Dos Cubos” environmental monitoring and interpretation centre in Tomar, revealing its uniqueness within the architectural panorama in Portugal, this project assumes a behavioural universe that clearly exceeds the scale of influence of the recognized Oporto School.From the inside “Casa Dos Cubos” is an attempt to establish an “anatomical structure of pre-existence”, thus promoting an architectural image fundamental to the process of (re)-approximation between: man and nature, built and environment, memory and reality.

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2007LOCATIOn : Tomar, PortugalCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

980 m2

EmbAIxADA

3 9 ° 6 0 ’ 3 6 . 7 7 ” S - 8 ° 4 1 ’ 2 8 . 2 9 ” W

text by Ricardo Camacho

Portugal

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Anatomyof the

EXISTING

The museum is a re-approximation between man and nature, built and environment, memory and reality

Pre-existing and new engage each other

The new structure infills a new body using the old one as an outer shell

P L A N

There’s a dialogue between attraction and exploration, enclosure and exhibitionism, continuity and rupture

The new architectural body runs throughout the available space

The design maintains the entire external perimeter construction while its interior is totally scooped out

s e c t i on

the finite interior become a new series of places and programmatic situations

s pa t i a l m e c h a n i s m s

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Reconversion

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CLANCy MOORE ARChITECTS

Clancy Moore Architects was founded by Andrew Clancy and Colm Moore in 2006, after receiving their first commission to design two houses in the Dublin Mountains. Since then, they have been frequent competition finalists and have won awards for their completed work. Andrew Clancy is the most recent recipient of the prestigious Kevin Kiernan Award, granted by the Arts Council of Ireland in partnership with the Office of Public Works, for his research into place-specific forms of construction. Clancy Moore’s architecture is serious, careful and calm and shows a predilection for handcrafted construction. Contemporary technologies are embraced without being overtly expressed. Architectural precedents, both historic and text by Sarah Cremin

contemporary, are studied and assimilated. This ‘slow’ architecture is the antithesis of the frenetic, commercially driven work that dominated recent times.

The site is a disused quarry at the edge of a forest above the city of Dublin, a designated scenic area. The architects gained permission by convincing the authorities that the new building would restore what was formerly an industrial landscape. The timber-framed, bridge-like forms extend across the quarry, resting on concrete cores, facing a shear wall to the rear and looking out over the city through a canopy of evergreen trees. The facade is clad with blackened timber and its grid of vertical fins brings order to the single storey volumes. Seen from a distance, the elongated forms read as abstract sculptures in the trees, scaled to sit in the landscape. Windows are discreetly slotted between fins, and barely register from a distance. The houses are cranked in plan to front and rear. The north-facing, front walls converge towards a shared porch, which sits on a stepped concrete stoop and the south-facing verandas seem to hug the carved out walls of the quarry. They run alongside the living areas, drawing in sunlight, creating an intermediate zone between inside and out as well as loosely connecting the two families. This architectural element, redolent of the great Georgian houses of the eighteenth century, is well suited to the damp and temperate Irish climate. The houses float: the landscape is pictured through frame-like window openings, which create columns of light on the floor of the living room, where the openings are outlined with oak. According to Andrew Clancy, the proportions of the rooms have been inspired by Dublin’s Georgian architecture.

Clancy Moore’s architecture embraces the future and the past in equal measure. The two houses in the quarry sit confidently in a dramatic and beautiful setting and, at the same time feel intimate and familiar, like home.

Ireland

53° 24’ 57.83” N06° 37’ 67 .24” E

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2012LOCATIOn : Allagour, County DublinCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

510 m2Two Quarry Houses

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A patio acts to link the living spaces of the eastern house

The western end of the house is embedded in the forest. Credit pictures: Alice Clancy

The verandah overlooks a shared garden in the old quarry to the south, and offers a third order of space, taller again than the living spaces

Caught between the two houses the shared entrance stairs ends in a low porch that frames a view back to the trees

10m0P L A N

AnINHABITED bridge

C O N V E R G I N G V O L U M E S

D A R K W O O D

S E c t i on

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1 Embracing the wood

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DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2005.10+LOCATIOn : Campo Limpo, São Paulo COnSTRUCTED AREA:

3470 m2Umuarama School The Umuarama School in São Paulo is not an

isolated experience. It is one of the milestones in a path shaped by the hope of young architects’ work. Shundi Iwamizu from SIAA arquitectos is one of the young architects who had the opportunity to build some schools for FDE initiative (Foundation for the Educational Development), an institution belonging to the government of São Paulo State. The Umuarama School is the first one of these and he developped it togheter with Alexandre Mirandez, Marcelo Pontes, and Ricardo Bellio.

The main aim of the competitions was to develop certain prototypes for schools that should be able text by Flavio Coddou

to: be adapted to several different topographical contexts; create a new environment and change the relations of the surrounding urban spaces with the building; increase the feeling of “belonging”, by which the neighbours should be able to incorporate the school in their collective social activities; and finally increase the level of commitments of those children with the school and their educational future.

The main focus of the program was to create a positive impact in certain areas of the city with social, economical and infra-structural problems. All schools became - and this was part of the competition terms- the main point of attraction, creating a new gravitational point in neighbourhoods that were lacking points of reference and had very poor or inexistent urban planning.

The FDE initiative was a major public competition that was a fair opportunity for many young offices to build their first big commission. In a country where all major projects built by the young generation are mostly single-family houses, that opportunity meant a huge step forward in their career. Also important is the fact that since 2003 FDE was experimenting the comprehensive use of pre-fabricated elements in order to reduce costs, speed construction and gain endurance. However, this policy did not narrow the architectural variations, it has pushed hundreds of architects to rethink and adapt new pedagogical and social aspects in new experiences.

Brazil

SIAA ARqUITECTOS

2 3 ° 6 4 ’ 7 0 . 4 8 ” S 4 6 ° 7 7 ’ 0 3 . 1 2 ” W

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P L A N

ur b a n co n t e x t

Designed to a new brief that includes a sports hall in the school complex, this building is open to the local community on weekends. Credit pictures: Nelson Kon

Classrooms are at the lowest levels, whilst the sport facilities and common uses are at the highest levels

The school bridge makes possible new walks and connections between this neighborhood and the city as a whole

20m0

Pre-fabrication of the structure guarantees the quality of construction on site, limits the budget of the building and reduces construction time by almost 50%

S E C T I O N

Open the SCHOOL to the neighbourhood

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A new social and pedagogical gravity point

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San Marino’s Lofts The historical evolution of any country can be

understood through its architectural legacy. Venezuela is a special case. During the mid-twentieth century, the country set an example of progress and modernity amongst the cities of Latin America. Today, we can understand through our current practice how young professionals of the architectural guild are gathering innovative tools in order to face up to a contemporary panorama, complex and full of contingencies, which has now left behind modernism and is looking forward to broadening new paths. LAB.PRO.FAB is a clear example of what current architecture is aiming at. Instead of presenting text by Fundacion Espacio

themselves as a firm, they prefer the term workshop, which combines architectural practice and theorization, urban design and industrial design; constantly downloading such dedication both into their professional practice as well as into the academic field.In the case of LOFT San Marino, the workshop presents in one single project, three fundamental edges of their professional practice: urban analysis of the surroundings to which they must adapt and affect; research and proposal of the residential typology; and innovation in building techniques. On an urban scale, the territory in which the project is settled was benefited, meaning it resulted into a positive catalytic effect of transformation of the preexisting residential way if living, giving a chance to re-activate new offers in this area of the city, now revalued for younger inhabitants.On a constructive level, LAB.PRO.FAB proposes an innovative structural system which allows the inhabitants to enjoy spatial qualities typical of isolated houses; all united within a single volume. By means of a series of structural efforts, the building shows generous heights and cantilevers, which lend the city balconies, patios and terraces; accomplishing on one single lot, nine stacked houses, capable of enjoying open spaces with the requested privacy for each one of the housing cells.

Venezuela

LAb.PRO.FAb.

1 0 ° 2 9 ’ 4 8 . 4 2 ” N 6 6 ° 5 1 ’ 3 3 . 4 3 ” W

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2010LOCATIOn : Caracas COnSTRUCTED AREA:

1100m2

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e d i ta b l e p o lyg o n s

s ec t ions

The building is a hybrid between a metallic and a concrete structure, Modelling and digital dissection techniques managed to diminish the number of coupling points. Credit pictures: Ileana Pita, Eduardo Sauce, Javier Gutierrez

Connectinginteriorand

exterior

The dwellings have the same benefits as a traditional single-family house brings, i.e. patios, gardens, balconies and terraces, to the horizontal property

P L A N

n i n e h o u s i n g c e l l s

The use of transformable components could expand or contract allowing the building to be a permeable entity.

Eac h i t s ow n

Each apartment is different

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Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar

Located in the historical capital of Bolivia, where most of the architectural forms follow mainly a conservative colonial and monumental line, the building for the University campus of the Andes became a new icon in the landscape of the city of Sucre, offering a new face to represent such an important public educational institution. The campus manifest itself in the landscape by mimicking and evoking the impetuous presence of the surrounding Frailes mountain chain. The project was conceived as an ensemble of freestanding white volumes, unified and interconnected by green areas and small squares on the exterior.

On the inside, the spatial connections between the learning rooms are linked through informal meeting points that stimulate visual contact redefining the classic idea of “space for learning”. The learning rooms, library and auditorium are meant for a flexible use with extraordinary natural light condition and effortless spatial articulations.The design strength that G/CdR Architects - Luis Ignacio Gallardo De Aliaga and Andrés Costa du Rels - show in this specific project expresses their ability to reinterpret the local identity of a mixed society and combine it with a sensible understanding of the use of the space. They present with this work a local and yet modern new architectural attitude in Bolivia.A fascinating challenge, to create a building destined to serve education with a progressive point of view; means for a developing country like Bolivia the hopeful chance to reshape the way that its inhabitants think about education and increase young people’s interests about their future. In this sense the campus for the University of the Andes is seen as an innovative meeting point for knowledge and social encounter, playing a very important role in the complex multicultural Bolivian society. This project was chosen for the present publication because of its architectural and theoretical qualities, the potential of its spaces serving as a platform for social exchange. This young practice opens to the world a new chapter for the Bolivian modern architectural scene worth to be seen. Hopefully their architecture enabled as a tool for transformation will have the power to contribute to social cohesion and stimulate the new generations.

1 9 ° 1 ’ 1 4 . 1 4 ” S 6 5 ° 1 5 ’ 5 7 . 0 9 ” W

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2009LOCATIOn : Sucre, boliviaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

3.110 m2

G/CdR ARChITECTS

Bolivia

text by Stephanie Lama

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a n e w i c o n i n t h e l a n d s c a p e

The Campus introspective architecture evokes it´s contextual cultural heritage

P L A N

The library opens its views to the surrounding Frailes mountain chain

Connection between the library tower from second patio and the terrace

The project was thought as an ensemble of freestanding white volumes

Library entrance (North facade) is six meter height wooden door

The spatial connections between the learning rooms are linked through informal meeting points

Effortless spacial

articulation

West Facade

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Brooklyn Mosque:Penrose

I selected this project because I believe it well reflects some of the specific themes being investigated by contemporary American architecture, both in relation to programme and design. Urban cohesion and an active ground floor: the massing of the building completes the fabric and conserves the sense of repetition of the adjacent row houses, with the sole variation in height, a result of its special function. The building opens towards the park space in front, offering the sole evident co-penetration between interior and exterior precisely at the ground floor level in correspondence with the access to the park.

An ‘independent’ section: the section introduces the vertical penetrations of light, which open up the top floor. It appears that the path of light determines the layout of the spaces. On the other floors, the layout is a function of the specific programme of each level. Juxtaposing a fluid internal logic against a more regular urban one is a recurring theme in the United States since Simmons Hall (Steven Holl, Boston, 2002), which this project seems to reinterpret. An ‘active’ façade: even the curtain wall system expresses a widespread theme of research. In terms of design, the idea that the material of architecture is the result of the composition of multiple elements is now a distinctive trait of the latest generation of façades (cf. Cooper Union, Morphosis, new York, 2010). On the other hand, the technological complexity of the system refers to the increased performance requirements of buildings, what is more also in relation to issues of sustainability. Finally, I would add that the programme constitutes an optimum viaticum towards multi-ethnic integration, the social foundation and urban compromise atop which the city of new York is founded.

USA

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011LOCATIOn : New yorkCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

(835 m2)

FORm-ULA

4 0 ° 1 7 ’ 5 9 . 4 0 ” N 7 3 ° 9 8 ’ 2 2 . 2 0 ” W

text by Stefano Ceccotto

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MAIN ENREANCEWASH AREAPRAY ROOMSECOND ENTRANCEOUTDOOR ACCESSKITCHEN, DININGWASH AREAWOMEN’S PRAY ROOMBATHROOMSLIBRARYAPARTMENTCHILDREN’S ROOM

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MAIN ENREANCEWASH AREAPRAY ROOMSECOND ENTRANCEOUTDOOR ACCESSKITCHEN, DININGWASH AREAWOMEN’S PRAY ROOMBATHROOMSLIBRARYAPARTMENTCHILDREN’S ROOM

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MAIN ENREANCEWASH AREAPRAY ROOMSECOND ENTRANCEOUTDOOR ACCESSKITCHEN, DININGWASH AREAWOMEN’S PRAY ROOMBATHROOMSLIBRARYAPARTMENTCHILDREN’S ROOM

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t r an s pa r e nc y

o p e n t o wa r d s t h e p a r k

Interaction with the public space

floorplans, bottom to top

long section

entrance facade view, model

S PA C E S O F L i g h t

facade construction diagram

communicative by FACADE

interaction with the facade and upper floor space, model

P A R A M E T R I C

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Pedernales up Wind

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PEREZ MORALES y ASOCIADOSDATE OF COMPLETIOn :

---LOCATIOn : juancho, PedernalesCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

1500m2

The Museum for Renewable Energy Technologies is a project located within the first ever Wind Farm of the Dominican Republic. The desire of the client was twofold: first, to create a building that could be the flagship of clean energy in the DR; and second, to establish a platform for discussion and education in the topics of sustainable strategies.

Located near the main gates of the Wind Farm grounds, the project sits strategically between two important sites: the small town of Juancho, with its population of approximately 5,500; and the large natural reserve of the Jaragua national Park. text by Adolfo Despradel

The project would cater to visitors on their way into the park, taking them through the history of wind farm technologies with hands-on installations. Though perhaps more importantly, the site would be used as a hub, where international and local experts would be able to share ideas and develop workshops with the people of Juancho. The goal is to establish a knowledge base, with the help of local participation, which would in turn aid communities and farmers in gaining access to modern environmental strategies. The project would be a social, as well as economic and cultural catalyst to this impoverished region of the country. Providing a zero carbon footprint, the building utilises natural ventilation assisted by solar-activated cooling towers. The landscape design incorporates a reed-bed water filtration system for the treatment of greywater which would later be used for irrigation. All waste would be recycled. The ‘intensive’ green roof is designed as a carpet sweeping over the building, visually bonding it to the ground. At the highest point of the building, a viewing platform cantilevers from a central turret, offering unobstructed views of the wind-turbine array, setting the Baoruco Mountain range and the Jaragua park as a backdrop beyond it.

In a country where the word ‘sustainable’ is used as decoration to hollow rhetoric, this building, will not be implemented, but if it were it would help mark the steps of a country returning to a life of communion with nature.

Dominican Republic

1 7 ° 5 1 ’ 3 6 . 4 0 ” N 71° 17 ’25 .40” W

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An international

hub for LOCAL

sustainability

P L A N

C l e a n En e r gy in Th e Do m o n i ca n R e p u b l i c

Ma i n En t r a n c e

International and local experts would share ideas and develop workshops with the people of Juancho

The project would cater to visitors on their way into the park, taking them through the history of wind farm technologies with hands-on installations

The Museum for Renewable Energy Technologies sits between the small town of Juancho, and natural reserve of the Jaragua National Park

Providing a zero carbon footprint, the building utilises natural ventilation assisted by solar-activated cooling towers

LOOKING TOWARDS ThE bAORUCO mOUNTAIN

50m0

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Prado y Malecón Hotel

2 3 ° 1 4 ’ 3 6 . 3 4 ” S 8 2 ° 3 7 ’ 8 1 . 7 6 ” W

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : (2009)LOCATIOn : havana, CubaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

31 731,00 m2

Cuba

text by Eduardo Luis Rodríguez

ChOy-LEóN ESTUDIO DE ARqUITECTURA

The Choy-León Architectural Studio stands out in Cuba’s contemporary scene thanks to its designs for some of the most important buildings erected in the country during the past decade. Since its beginnings, its projects have become known for their conceptual and formal richness, and its work can be classified as avant-garde while being, at the same time, inclusive. This dual approach to the making architecture is expressed in a constant game of apparently contradictory ambivalences that in the final project are integrated through an appropriate balance between antagonistic pairs in a balanced tension. Thus, throughout its production, an enriching dialogue between

vanguard and tradition, the new and the old, the universal and the local, rupture and continuity, and symbolism and abstraction has been recurrent. Made possible by an open and integrative approach that facilitates the use of forms, materials and contents which the Studio assumes as appropriate for each specific situation, without surrendering in advance to a specific aesthetic or a preconceived line of thought. Herein lies the richness of its works: each one brings an element of surprise capable of enriching its physical and cultural environment, and the expectation before each new commission is always fulfilled with the confirmation of the success of the final work. The “Prado y Malecón” hotel project is located in what is now, probably, the most valuable urban lot in Havana. Such a site, in an area of great historical and environmental value, adjacent to the bay and surrounded by several emblematic buildings, has allowed the architects to create a new architectural counterpoint that enhances its neighbourhood and promises to become a new and necessary urban landmark and a symbol of the most advanced Cuban architecture.

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i n t e g r a t i o n

u r b a n c o n d i t i o n

The building positions itself as a dialogue between vanguard and tradition, the new and the old, the universal and the local

A spray of water is produced and the building works as a cooling tower

An exceptional visual environment from and to the hotel

Integration and respect to the inherited patrimony

P L A N

The design of a large atrium and its roof has been conceived as an artistic element that takes as a reference the waves hitting the Malecon

Taking advantage of the long and interrupted views

200 rooms in the perimeter

Creation of a SYMBOLIC

landmark

20m0

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PAISAjES EmERGENTES

Paisajes emergentes is made by Edgar Mazo, Sebatian Mejia, and Luis Callejas, three young and brilliant architects, intellectuals, artists and dreamers. The Atanasio Girardot Aquatic Complex they realised in Medellin, Colombia – winner of the Concurso internacional de escenarios deportivos para los IX Juegos Suramericanos – is one of the most interesting – and experimental – contemporary urban landscapes in recent years. I have never before seen a sports centre with such dynamic, democratic and aesthetic qualities, and which manages to perfectly fuse the aspects of sport and education with those of recreation and text by Luca Bullaro

public use. The system of public pools of the Complejo acuatico Atanasio Girardot in Medellin is spatially organised by a novel three-dimensional play of levels – all of the services are located, as in Mies’ neue nationalgalerie in Berlin, at a lower level, almost concealed, and overlooking a system of triangular patios – that, associated with a powerful and evocative vision of the landscape and a system of public circulation on grade, generates a modern and inviting aquatic facility in a central and strategic part of the city. Colombia

0 6 ° 1 5 ’ 2 4 ” N 7 5 ° 3 5 ’ 2 5 ” W

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2010.2LOCATIOn : medellinCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

16000m2Aquatic Centre

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P L A N

S u n k e n P a t i o s

The project is articulated by a system of garden through which the four pools are connected

A flooded landscape planted with species typical of tropical wetlands provides separation of private and public spaces

The centre is made for future competitions as well as new swimming teaching facility and public pools

Swimming turns into a spectacle

Plunge, dive, swim and dance

children’s pool

adults’ pool

warm up patiochanging rooms

entrance

warm up patiochanging rooms

entrance

olympic pool /underwater depot

toilets -3m

public terrace +5.5m

entrance/offices

synchronized swimming tribune+5.5m

synchronized swimming pool

warm up patio

cafeteria

primary circulation

secondary entrance

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Water as welfare

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DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2009-2010LOCATIOn : bridge to manchay, Cieneguilla, LimaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

85 m2De la Piedra Chapel What has distinguished Peruvian architecture for

the past 50 centuries is its sensitive relationship with territory and landscape, regardless of the size or symbolic importance of the intervention.Unfortunately, this innate Peruvian ability is disappearing quickly. The schools of architecture do not care to pass on this knowledge and sensitivity, instead focusing on urban planning as a functional tool and landscape as a matter of composition of green areas.

Héctor Loli and Ximena Álvarez are among the few young Peruvian architects who have acquired this sensibility (or have not lost it) despite their text by Jean Pierre Crousse

“education” as architects. Meeting with Enrique Ciriani, after having completed their studies, further enabled them to assimilate the necessary skills to complete the De la Piedra Chapel.

With this commission of minimal dimensions, they have found the precise position within the territory to place the intervention, where it becomes not only the center of the countryside plot, but tames the mountains that surround it and concentrates their presence on the chapel, creating a spherical space. The architectural promenade required to reach the chapel introduces the notion of time, pulls us away from the everyday and submerges us in a heterotopic atmosphere.Devices such as the spiral, a multiplier of travel and time, and the set of canchas or strategically placed esplanades that show us the way, are just some of the elements in common with Pre-Columbian architecture.However, the architects have had the insight to take only the strategies used by our ancestors and not the forms. In this intervention, the spiral does not prevent spatial expansion, the symbolism does not hinder the abstraction, and historical references do not restrain modernity.

The result shows a rare maturity that I hope to be the start of a successful and responsible “patient search” in Peruvian architecture.

Peru

HÉCTOR LOLI RIZO PATRóN + XImENA ALVAREZ de la PIEDRA

1 2 ° 1 4 ’ 3 1 . 2 7 ” S 7 6 ° 8 3 ’ 1 4 . 0 7 ” W

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The patio provides the necessary pause for reflection

This continuous spiral creates an enclosure within the vastness of the plot

The chapel is located at the margin of the Lurín river and beside the Lomas de Castilla hill. Credit pictures: Juan Solano

P L A N

50m0

Reflection and

surprise

P A S E O D E P U R I F I C A T I O N

the transition from the “profane” of everyday life

A profoundly “sacred” space where verticality is the means to approach the divine

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gPublic Library

The Taltal Public Library is the work of Benjamin Murúa and Rodrigo Valenzuela, two young architects from Santiago. The project is situated in the small city of Taltal, home to 14,000 people and located along the Pacific Coast, in the midst of the desert regions of northern Chile, some 300 kilometres from Antofagasta. The commission was awarded after a public competition held by the City Government in 2008. The architects’ first concern was that of the proportions generated by the narrow and elongated lot, positioned at the centre of a block in front of a public square. Though the building would face this space with a façade only 7 meters text by Fulvio Rossetti

wide, the secondary walls, 40 meters long, would have generated an important visual impact within the urban context: these walls, almost without openings as per building regulations, on three stories as per the project brief, would have clashed with a more or less homogenous residential fabric with an average height of some three metres. An elongated form and blind walls would have also generated serious issues in relation to the illumination of the spaces at grade. For these reasons Murúa and Valenzuela proposed the large skylights on the top level, realised in steel and using forms that, in addition to resolving issues of natural lighting, could also characterise the massive building as a landmark in Taltal. The large concrete walls acquire the characteristic colours of the desert landscape. The surfaces were also finished with bas-reliefs of abstract allusions to the forms of traditional local architecture. The merit of this work by Murúa and Valenzuela is to be found not only in the indisputable quality of the design of the library, capable of converting the defect of a morphological anomaly into a tectonic-landscape virtue, but above all their capacity to convince us of the value of an innovative work of architecture that, furthermore, is well structured at a range of scales in relationship to the territorial palimpsest.

Chile

BENjAmÍN MURÚARODRIGO VALENZUELA

2 5 ° 2 3 ’ 6 0 . 0 0 ” S 7 0 ° 2 8 ’ 6 0 . 0 0 ” W

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2008.9LOCATIOn : Taltal, AntofamagostaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

463m2

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w a l l s a s f a c a d e s

P L A N

V i s i b l e

Spaces of varied height depend on the type of reading room

Suited for everybody

The new library´s site was a municipal plot, facing the central square

Large skylights illuminate the main hall

ROOF TERRACE

The building is higher than the the city´s average

40 meters long and 7 meters wide

Free up the

interior Space

S E c t i on

5m0

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A place to read

Page 138: Backstage Architecture(2012)

Breast Cancer Clinic

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KELTON VILLAVICENCIOARChITECTSDATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2010.10LOCATIOn : montoya, managuaCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

325m2

An informal sector that almost exclusively directs the nicaraguan construction industry makes a discussion on architectural tendencies in this country an intricate matter. Adverse factors for constructive innovation include a staggering economy, traditional clients along with a harsh tropical climate. Within this context, the practice of Kelton Villavicencio Architects was commissioned to build the first breast cancer clinic in Central America. The clients, namely the Ortiz Gurdian Foundation, a prominent nicaraguan women’s association that want to combat the disease. Construction as well as maintenance costs were text by Jeronimo Mejia

and continue to be collected in fundraising events, mostly in the USA. Most of its users are women of modest means from the countryside. For their comfort, the architects placed an interior garden in the patient oriented ground floor. Administration areas are located on the smaller upper floor. In a country were shade and air-conditioning are thought off as luxury items, using natural light and ventilation is a bold move. Furthermore, as to be close to a hospital in case of emergencies the project had to strife for a site in a residential area.Young nicaraguan architects born in the midst of their 1970’s political and military struggles possess an intuitive and present drive. Thus, unlike their contemporary Western counterparts, they do not tend to operate behind the scenes. In this light, the breast cancer clinic is a highly representative example. It is namely the anecdote of a motivated architect and a fierce client, who together want to showcase a more developed image of nicaragua.

Nicaragua

1 2 ° 0 8 ’ 5 0 . 9 5 ” N 8 6 ° 1 7 ’ 1 6 . 3 1 ” W

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Be treated and feel

like at home

P L A N

S t r e e t s i d e

The form followed the circulation, ventilation and illumination of the site

Groundfloor

To be close to a hospital in case of emergencies the project had to strife for a site in a residential area

W a i t i n g r o o m

Light well Th e r a p y r e s t room

5m0

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Three Zig Zag Living Spaces

Approaching it from the back street that leads to the main and garage door, the Casa Diaz looks just like any other house in the neighbourhood, a local stone wall holding the entrance doors, the discrete and almost anonymous character that the main façade exposes to the exterior with only a few small windows facing the street from the second floor, might seem a humble act of complying with the city’s urban regulations: sloped ceilings and the use of Spanish tile.But after entering the door, the singular stack of three zigzagging prisms is revealed slowly as one enters the space. The stacking prisms reconfigure a quite small, but strategically located piece of

land just at the shore of the lake in Valle de Bravo, one of the quintessential Mexico City weekend retreat destinations.Productora, a young, up and kicking architect´s quartet, has taken advantage of the large slope of the site to accommodate the weekend house programme. The shifting of the volumes creates a house in which almost all the spaces have a direct view of the spectacular sights of the beautiful lake, either from the inside or the outside.As one enters the house the first volume holds the main, generous dormitory and the garage, along with a terrace formed by the main living space, the dining room, the kitchen, a porch-terrace, the guest´s room and a large underground home cinema.The upper volume holds 3 rooms and a terrace/roof garden, while the in-between spaces generated by the irregular placement of the volumes create a series of inner-space patios, which somehow offer more intimacy and privacy to the guest room and the back of the porch. Complementing the over exposition of the ever present sight of the lake.This design was done by PRODUCTORA (Carlos Bedoya, Victor Jaime, Wonne Ickx, Abel Perles) in collaboration with Felix Guillen, Diego Escamilla, Oscar Trejo, Iván Villegas, Diseño e Ingenierías EMET (Leonardo León) .

DATE OF COMPLETIOn : 2011LOCATIOn : Valle de bravo, State of mexicoCOnSTRUCTED AREA:

450 m2

PRODUCTORA

1 9 ° 1 0 ’ 5 6 . 3 8 ” S 1 0 0 ° 0 7 ’ 3 3 . 7 6 ” W

text by Edgar Gonzalez

Mexico

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Located in the shore of the lake in Valle de Bravo

Three zig-zaging prisms accommodate a weekend house. Credit pictures: Rafael Gamo and Paul Czitrom

Multiplying the

VIEW

Almost all the spaces have direct view of the lake

5m0P L A N S

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Comply but do not obey

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Editor |Architect at Foster Partners BArch (Hons) March

ArchitectFounder of Eureka Design

Architects | Founders Gilad-shiff Private and public projects | Teaching and academic research

[email protected]

Architect | Media artist, BA

Registered Architect and Urban Designer. M.Arch

Architectural critic and urban planner, Tareeq

Professor of Architecture at RMIT University Melbourne | Director of Iredale Pedersen Hook architects

M.arch. | Co-founder Architecture In Development | Space curator nest Project

Architect and urban planner at OMA

Designer and curator at MOnOstudio

Architect and Environmental Designer, Msc

Professor at AHO (Oslo School of Architecture & Design)

Anti-Utopias curator | Art and architecture critic

Architect | Founder SHAU | Chief Officer IAI-EU | Researcher at TU Delft

Urban design architecture, blacklinesonwhitepaper

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Principle Architect SHATOTTO Architecture for Green Living

Architect | Founder DESIGnETHER

Salvator Liotta, Architect | Senior researcher at the University of Tokyo, PhD Tomoko Kawai, Artist

Architect and urban planner

Architect | Lecturer at COAD nJIT/PhD Candidate at Urban Systems (Rutgers University & nJIT Joint Program)

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ARChITECTURAL CRITICS

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Engineer | Furniture and interior designer

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Architect co-founder DEMOarchitects | architecture critic and writer | PhD

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Architect | Urban Planner | Researcher

Architect | Phd | Teaching at Universidad nacional de Colombia, Medellin

Architect and urban planner at Architectuurstudio HH

co-founder and co-director of Barclay & Crousse | professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú | Co-founder and co-director of Atelier nord Sud, Paris, France

Architect and Landscape Architect | PhD candidate

Architect at Fira Barcelona | Vitruvius editor

A common platform design in Venezuela

Architect | Editor in chief of edgargonzalez.com a tangential weblog of architecture

Architect

Architect

Freelance architect | Architectural historian and curator | Editor in chief of the journal Arquitectura Cuba

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