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Darcons Headquarters by Arquitectura en Proceso

2009-07-12T12:45:00.001+01:00

Mexican architects Arquitectura en Proceso have designed the headquarters for Darcons,

a construction company located in Delicias City, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Photography by Francisco Lubbert and Jorge Cajiga

Darcons Headquarters by Arquitectura en Proceso

The site is located at a suburban lot of a middle size city in northern Mexico. As one drives towards it and away from the city, the building appears aligned with the road as an arched gate of a medieval town: looking through it one gets the scenery of the rural fields that surround the city.

The building was conceived as a frame that captures part of the landscape and at the same time defines a plane that divides the intercity from the suburbs. The skin of the building plays a dual role: on one hand it is the transparent material that allows the view through it, and on the other hand, it is the opaque continuous skin that defines the shape of the frame and protects the interior from solar irradiance. This skin was manipulated in order to differentiate the public space from the internal activities of the company: the main reception and the custumer rooms are outside the envelope raised above the ground as a Piano Nobile and organized as self defined entities.

The operation space is contained within the envelope and flows throughout the building in a three dimensional open plan that honors the hierarchical organization of the company. In order to solve the continuity of the circulation the mass of the building was divided in various transversal slices, each presenting an intentionally different profile and two of them defining the geometry of the north and south elevations.

The sequential juncture of all the slices creates deviations and convergences between the internal operational route and the external costumer route. The geometry of the volume is shaped according to a juxtaposition of three rotated orthogonal axis structures. This was primarily done in an effort to recreate the space complexity produced by a urban grid designed in the style of the 18th century. The west elevation also benefits from the rotated planes by casting shades onto itself and minimizing direct sun exposure. The rule was meant to be broken at the main entrance where the opaque skin suddenly sift direction to frame a cantilevered volume that flies above the portico. This creates a gesture of urban scale to emphasize the hierarchy of the entrance and contain the atrium of the building prior to the stair flight.

Visit the Arquitectura en Proceso website - here.

Pavillion in Roosendaal by René van Zuuk

2009-07-09T23:41:00.003+01:00

Photography Copyright by Cristian Richters

Project description from René van Zuuk:

In 2001 the city of Roosendaal (a provincial town in the southwest of the Netherlands) decided to ban cars from the New Market in the centre of town by building a huge two storey underground parking. In order to create a new public square the city of Roosendaal asked the urban design office Quadrat to make a proposition. In their scheme they proposed to pave the square with red and brown brick, plant 15 trees, make three exits for the underground parking and as the most visible and important element they proposed a restaurant and coffee pavilion in the form of an oval.

In 2005 a public design and construction bidding for contractors was organised. Just before they had to submit their entry to the city, the municipality decided to include the pavilion as well. Therefore they asked the office of René van Zuuk to make a design for the pavilion including the contract drawings over a very short span (5 weeks), due to these limitations there was no time to make big changes in the urban scheme and the location and the form of the pavilion was copied from the original urban proposal.

The idea behind the urban proposal was that the pavilion would divide the square in two parts in such a way that you would still have the feeling of being on one big square. Because of the market activities which occupy the entire square twice a week, the terraces of the pavilion needed to be placed above the ground floor . Originally the terraces could only be reached by going through the pavilion. René van Zuuk decided to make the terraces accessible from the outside of the building as well so you can walk from the square up onto the sloped roof to the terraces letting the roof become a public area. The entrances from the roof to the building are made by cuts in the sloped surface giving every floor its own terrace. The rest of the roof acts as a big stage which allows artists to give a performances in front of the building.

On the south side the pavilion reaches its highest point. This part of the building cantilevers over the main entrance of the parking garage allowing daylight to penetrate deep into the two levels below.

In order to make the cuts in the roof and to accommodate the cantilevering part of the building, the structure is made by a simple braced steel grid of 4.2m x 4.2m and 3 m high.

The orientation of the grid coincides with the location of the entrance of the main shopping passage. This results in a new direction on the square making the space more dynamic. The original square dates from just after the war until the 1970's, the architecture was cold and the color monotonous. The new urban scheme is warm in nature thanks to the trees and use of brick. It was obvious that the pavilion should blend in with this character and therefore wood was the most appropriate choice of material. Because the quality of most of the original buildings around the pavilion is not that high, the urban scheme and the new pavilion have to work together as a catalyst to upgrade this part of the city.

Project Credits:

Location: City Center Rossendaal / NL
Client: Gemeente Roosendaal / NL
Program: Pavilion – shops/lunchroom/office / entrance for parking area

Office: René van Zuuk Architekten b.v., Almere / NL
Design: René van Zuuk
Members of the design team: Jorrit Spel, Chimo Villa Belda

Usable floor area: 620 m²
Built-up area: 518 m²

Start of design: 06/2005
Completion: 06/2009

Visit the René van Zuuk website - here.

Humor Design

2009-07-08T23:23:00.000+01:00

Daniel Libeskind

2009-07-08T23:22:00.001+01:00

New Acropolis Museum, Athens - Opening Ceremony Video Projections directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari

2009-06-25T21:01:00.001+01:00

Excelent!! Take your time and enjoy!
Thank U Cê!

Forwarding Dallas / Atelier Data + MOOV

2009-06-15T23:02:00.002+01:00

A good Team, a winning team...Congratulations guys, specially José Niza!

Three winning proposals for the Re:Vision Dallas competition have recently been announced and include Atelier Data + MOOV's Forwarding Dallas prototype for sustainable urban living. The proposal transforms components that make up a city block in an effort to shape how people will live and work in the future.

More images and further project description after the break.

Forwarding Dallas, a 40,000 square meter complex, is a housing and commerce building that accommodates 854 residents in housing options ranging from studio apartments to three bedroom flats. The design of Atelier Data + MOOV, both Portuguese firms, is driven by research which then expands and develops into overall design strategies.

For this proposal, initial investigation recognized natural cycles and focused on how to replicate them architecturally. Working with the natural form and diverse system of a hillside, the space is organized as valleys, slopes and hilltops, which maximize solar gain, views and productive surfaces. The dynamic composition of buildings creates large voids for open green spaces and the angled roofs function as green roofs for agricultural purposes.

"Nature has been working forever, what challenges us now is finding how it will keep working forever. Intelligence has brought us to a point at which we have at hand an array of technical solutions that can either deprive or provide us with comfortable, culturally rich living conditions. The way we arrange such devices will ultimately make all the difference," shared the architects.

Energy is obtain through the combination of photovoltaic and wind power. The southwest façade is created using a venetian blind concept that adjusts according to the season to take advantage of solar gain while the northeast façade is composed of thick, high thermal mass straw bales which provides added insulation.

The final goal of the proposal was not viewed as simply building a physical structure, but rather seen as a way to influence how a community can inhabit a structure. At the completion of the Re:Vision Dallas competition, an entire major-market city block will be renovated into a wholly sustainable urban community which will create a template that can be incorporated into additional cities throughout the United States.

For more about the architects visit Atelier Data + MOOV. The competition may sound familiar because we just featured Standard Architecture's proposal which earned an honorable mention.

Firm: Atelier Data & MOOV [Lisboa, Portugal]
Authors: António Louro (MOOV), Filipe Vogt (Atelier Data), Marta Frazão (Atelier Data)
Collaborators: André Almeida (Atelier Data), Carolina Pombo (Atelier Data), Inês Vicente (Atelier Data), José Niza (MOOV), João Calhau
(MOOV)
Landscape architecture: Susana Rodrigues
Energy efficiency and resources: Maria João Rodrigues, João Parente
Concept communication: João Rato

TateShots: Jacques Herzog

2009-06-11T21:07:00.001+01:00

Mirage House-Supersudaka

2009-05-24T18:52:00.005+01:00

The plot is 5000 m2 and the client didn’t know what to put on it, so he changed his mind constantly.

We proposed to invent an infinite context, a promenade where he could add program for ever in time without affecting each other. A necklace with more -or less- valuable jewels attached.
In the intersection of the “eight” loop the house is situated, and the interior of the circles crops are suggested to pay less taxes.

The house organization also works as an infinite loop.
The façade reflects the same idea: a mirage…

A very interesting project by Supersudaka. A different way to control and dialog with th sourroundings. Worth a look!!

Singapore’s Energy Efficient Green Heart Center

2009-05-16T12:01:00.001+01:00

The very heart of Singapore beats green, thanks to the new design for the National Heart Center by multinational firm Broadway Malyan. The ambitious 35,299 square-meter building at the center of Singapore General Hospital's Outram Campus redevelopment plan will hopefully score high green marks with its unique design that places people first. Recognizing that the medical world advances quite quickly, the design incorporates modular building methods to ensure that the structure of the building remains flexible and adaptable both internally and externally, easily and efficiently allowing for future growth.

Singapore's Energy Efficient Green Heart Center

Selgas Cano Architecture Office by Iwan Baan

2009-05-02T11:45:00.001+01:00

The photographer Iwan Baan show us a the dream workplace of Selgas Cano.
Dream workplace, or...Let the users say the last word.

Once again, Iwan Baan amaze us with this great project between the woods by Spanish practice Selgas Cano: Their own architecture office.

You can see some other photographs after the break and the complete photoset over here.

New Tamayo Museum by Rojkind Arquitectos and BIG

2009-05-02T11:41:00.001+01:00

Rojkind Arquitectos and Copenhagen architects BIG have won a competition to design a museum overlooking Mexico City.

via Dezeen

Impromptu Arquitectos

2009-05-01T12:45:00.002+01:00

Porto, Portugal-based Impromptu Arquitectos, together with their British partner Sergison Bates, have won the "Make Me a Home" competition to design the family homes at Tees Valley Regeneration's flagship scheme on North Shore in Stockton-on-Tees, England. Developers Urban Splash and Muse Developments, in conjunction with BD Magazine and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), held this competition which challenged architects to shape the future of family homes. They were asked for concepts which broke convention and delivered a new typology in housing design.

Competition-winning housing scheme by Impromptu Arquitectos

More than 100 entries were received and six finalists hailing from across the globe had been selected. Two practices were from London, together with firms from Liverpool, Italy, Portugal and Germany.

Submissions were judged on the design of the homes and the layout of the buildings on the site to take full advantage of its south facing position on the banks of the River Tees.

It is anticipated that at least 250 family homes will eventually be built on the £300m North Shore mixed use site and that the development will also provide between 2,500 and 4,600 long term job opportunities.

Impromptu partner Nuno Rosado said: "We're very proud to be part of the project. It's a very important development, and a fantastic site. Impromptu and Sergison Bates have a very similar understanding of how to tackle architectural problems."

Urban Splash development manager Mark Latham said: "They're a fantastic team, with great design ideas. It was a combination of being a flexible typology - a uniform plot size that could be a two-, three-, four- or five-bedroom house, coupled with what Christophe Egret, one of the judges, described as a poetic approach to the masterplan."

Joe Docherty, chief executive of Tees Valley Regeneration, said: "To achieve this level of interest in North Shore from architects across the world is fantastic. It is a huge vote of confidence in the scheme and the Tees Valley."

Matt Crompton, joint managing director of Muse Developments said: "The judges were looking for designs that did justice to the Home Zone's riverside site, given its proximity to the new Infinity Bridge and the proposed new university campus. As part of a substantial mixed use scheme, which will include offices and leisure amenities, public space and deliverability were equally important."

Jonathan Falkingham, chief executive of Urban Splash, said: "We're questioning the typology of the family home, but at the same time trying to be provocative."

All the entrants' proposals will be exhibited at Newcastle's architecture center, Northern Architecture, as part of its North East Festival of Architecture.

Prayer & Meditation Pavillion / Studio Tam associati

2009-05-01T12:13:00.004+01:00

Small Things, worth a look!

Architects: Studio Tam associati
Location: Khartoum, Popular Republic of Sudan
Client: EMERGENCY ngo
Site Engineers: Roberto Crestan (EMERGENCY ngo)
Program Coordinator: Pietro Parrino (EMERGENCY ngo)
Photographs: Raul Pantaleo & Marcello Bonfanti

The prayer and meditation pavilion is an integral part of the recently realized Cardiac surgery centre in Sudan, built by the Italian humanitarian organization, EMERGENCY NGO. The complex, planned and designed by Tamassociati architecture studio, is the only one of its kind to provide free health-care to patients in an extensive area within a ten million square km. radius and counting three hundred million inhabitants.

The Popular Republic of Sudan is a country that, over the past twenty years, has been scourged from numerous Inter-ethnic as well as Inter-religious wars.

The Arab Ethnic group constitutes 39% of the population and 61% of Africans; and in terms of religion, 70% of people in Sudan are Muslim, while the remaining 30% are Christian or belonging to other religious faiths ("Human Rights Watch": Q&A: Crisis in Darfur 05/05/2004).

We needed to think of a place that could accommodate prayer, as customary in any place of health-care, so we had to deal with the difficult dilemma of thinking of a space that could host the spiritual complexity of this country.

Our choice was not to privilege any specific religion, but to create a space that could accommodate the prayer and meditation of all faiths.

The outside hosts a large water pool, as a strongly symbolic image in this sub-Saharan zone. The pool creates a spiritual separation between the external macrocosm of the hospital/world and the ventral microcosm of the building formed by two unaligned white cubes, which are connected by a semi-transparent cover of palm leaf stalks.

The inner parts of the two cubes contain two trees, which render these profane spaces sacred with their presence, as natural elements inside artificial spaces.

We obviously had to seriously consider the Muslim faith, which is the religion of the majority of the Sudanese, along with the religion's rules (ablutions, separation of men and women), but we decreased the contextual impact of those rules in order not to make them appear dominant. This was made possible by concealing all symbols and elements that are specific to only one religion. For example, the ablution area is nothing more than a higher water spray that, before entrance, allows for washing without connoting a strong religious symbol, and it is simply perceived as an element of the water pool.

Vertical Landscape Urbanism / Studio Hp As + L.E.FT

2009-04-22T20:58:00.001+01:00

Our friends from L.E.FT (previously featured on AD Futures) just shared with us an interesting vertical landscape project, a joint work with norwegian architects STUDIO hp AS.

The project is located in Holmestrand, Norway, and consists on a public elevator that connects the old lower part of the town across and 85m high cliff to the newer part of it. The infrastructure acts as an articulator of multiple activities/programs that make this intervention a unique urban piece.

It is being presented to the city next month.

Project: Vertical Landscape Urbanism
Client: Holmestrand Municipality
Site: Holmestrand, Norway
Year: 1999, 2002, 2008 -
Architects:
STUDIO hp AS, Oslo (Landscape, Architecture, Urbanism): Hettie Pisters, Ole Møystad
L.E.FT Architects, New York: Makram el Kadi, Ziad Jamaleddine, Naji Moujaes, Karie Titus

Val de Vézère in France forms one the world's oldest urban systems of settlement. Through almost 40 000 years a constructed geography has unfolded in the valley with the Vézère river carving out the meandering valley in the soft sandstone of the Dordogne area, creating cliffs of 50 – 100 meters with natural caves and shelves. The caves were inhabited and around them grew small villages. What turns this landscape corridor into one continuous urban system, however, is that the villages were linked by the river. The river formed a public infrastructure providing the entire valley with food, energy and transportation. In addition to this naturally given infrastructure, the cave dwellers developed a communication system. Caves located high up in the cliff walls formed excellent observation points from which one could overlook large stretches of the valley as well as send signals to other caves informing them of incoming game or warn against advancing enemies.

The configuration of cliff, water and cave/tunnel, is also typical of any fjord landscape in Norway. Large parts of the Norwegian coastline are inhabited according to the same algorithm: the juxtaposition of cliff (communication node), cave (settlement) and waterfront (transportation system). In the small town of Holmestrand at the Oslo Fjord, the urban context of the cliff creates a rupture between the urban centre at its foot and the suburban population at the top of the cliff.

Program

The prime function of the project is to bridge the rupture formed by the vertical landscape. Technically this is done by means of an elevator. The concept is to compose a program of development by which the cliff is turned from obstacle to opportunity; using the elevator shaft as an infrastructural spine.

The rock itself is conceived as part of the structure, allowing the possibility of building the top floors of the development first, then the bottom floors.

This constructed geography is programmed with culture- and leisure facilities together with public services, and lines the edge of the cliff with a belt of high end housing.

The top half of the elevator, rising outside the cliff, forms part of a building structure starting from level +40.0 rising to +90.0. This structure contains high end offices spaces, conference facilities, apartments and a restaurant on the top floor.

At the foot of the cliff there is a horizontal 3 storey building providing parking and office facilities as well as space for the administration of the municipality.

Around the lower half of the elevator spine, the proposal shows possibilities for drilling horizontal shafts, branching off from the main elevator shaft. These "caves" can serve as pavilions, or spaces for various cultural facilities, conference spaces, cinema halls inside the rock, as well as spaces for storage of cheese and cognac, or the cultivation of champignons.

The green area between the cliff and the coastline would be upgraded as a culture park serving the local culture festival etc. In front of the hotel and its planned extension there is a planned yacht harbour, serving visitors to the various facilities as well as providing private yacht parking for the residents of the cliff.

Pachacamac House / Longhi Architects

2009-04-22T20:57:00.001+01:00

Architects: Longhi Architects

A hill in Pachacamac, located 40 km south of Lima near Peru's coast, is the site for the retirement home of a philosopher. The response to the site's conditions was to bury the house, trying to create a balanced dialogue between architecture and landscape, where inside / outside becomes a constant interpretation of materiality with strong sense of protection and appreciation of the dark and the light. A glass box sticks out of the hill symbolizing architectural intervention on untouched nature.

Kapput!

2009-04-09T19:05:00.001+01:00

Portuguese studio Kaputt! was awarded an Honorable Mention in Beirut Competition. Kaputt! was founded in Lisbon in 2004 by eight young architects.

Honorable Mention for Kaputt!‘s Beirut Proposal: Diving Perspective

This is how the architects explain their project:

In its course and struggle to animate its great civilization, another step is taken: Beirut constructs its House of Arts and Culture. People from Beirut and the world will come to reflect upon and distance themselves from everyday life and, influenced by its extraordinary atmosphere, come together in the creation of art and culture. The House of Arts and Culture is a place of reunion and exchange. It is always free, open to all, yet shelters and protects. Like in the courtyard of a caravanserai, we will find a breathing inhabited space and through its transparency we feel its pulses. The exterior spaces, open to the outside, are both part of the city and the House itself. The House is designed with present technology but is independent of it, something bigger. Something adaptive. Change is its name. This is not an office building.

Conceptual Diagram

Diagrammatic Distribution of Program

URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL OBJECTIVES:

The project is designed from a single volume, a shell that at first occupies all the plot´s surface. From this shell, mass is removed around two perpendicular axes, thus, creating a cross-shaped void. The center of this void and the inside of the shell are structured by copper blades, generating four exterior spaces in the interior of the plot. At the end of this operation, the surface at ground floor level of the project takes 70% of the plot. The affirmative presence of the shell allows for the planned integration of the building within the urban grid planned for the location. Through the vegetation of the exterior spaces, one can see the copper blades on the interior facades. It is the difference of character of these two components, the peripheral shell in white concrete, heavy and compact, and the thin blades of copper, light and permeable, that define the project´s intention. Through the blades, one can see the fluidity of people throughout the whole building. The chosen materials will age and create a patina without changing their character, thereby, preserving the character of the whole building over time.

Site Plan

First Floor Plan

East Elevation

Longitudinal Section

PERFORMANCE AND CONFERENCE HALL:

For the main auditorium we propose a fully equipped proscenium stage; the small auditorium will have a black box character with a technical ceiling and movable seats to enable a vast choice of configurations; the projection room is prepared to serve the National Cinematheque. Theatre, dance, acoustic concerts and oratories are some of the most likely performances; Cinema projection, live concerts, congresses, conferences, seminars, etc. where electroacoustics will dominate the scene, are alternative activities for these spaces. Acoustics suited for live recordings and broadcasting connect it to the rest of the world. Large Performance and Conference Hall: Its shape can be read from the main exterior space through the copper blades. From the staircase it will be seen in all its amplitude. Here, one can understand that the acoustical shell is free of the covering roof. The Large Performance and Conference Hall aspires to be as encompassing as possible. The Hall´s layout consists of a series of fanned radial sections, centered on the stage, forming an ellipsoid in its entirety. Multipurpose usage for the Large Performance and Conference Hall as music and theatre require very different room acoustic properties (opposite material characteristics), raising the need to use interior variable acoustics. A box-in-a-box solution (double structure) must be applied to the main structural concept design at least for the performance halls and the movie theatre. These measures will isolate the buildings from external sources of vibration and noise.

Large Performance Hall

Exhibition Spaces

Facade Detail

C(omic)riticism

2009-04-04T19:57:00.001+01:00

Some comic criticism about what's beeing done in architectural design strategies.
to see in Klaus

Snefjord Road stop / Pushak

2009-03-27T21:53:00.002Z

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is, as well...ARCHITECTURE! We got used to see only undred square meter construction as architecture, but, there are some small interventions that have everything an architectural design project and aproach should have...

via Arch Daily

Architects: Pushak
Location: Snefjord, the road to Havøysund, Finnmark, Norway
Project Year: 2005
Client: Norwegian Road Administration, The National Tourist Road Project
Photographs: Pushak

The site of the road stop is a paradox. Oftentimes, the hardest winds blow off the sea, and yet the most attractive view is toward the fjord. The obvious response in order to shield tourists from the wind would be to construct a view-blocking wall. Instead three "bench-boxes" prefabricated at a local wharf dot the area, and their differing orientations allow visitors to choose where to sit according to wind and sun conditions.

Two persons or groups can use each box at once while they retain some privacy. The structure is built with steel bars with cantilevered benches and roofs. The interiors are covered with oak. The exteriors are coverd with copper sheets.

Santo Stefano Cemetery in Italy / Amoretti + Calvi + Ranalli

2009-03-27T21:51:00.003Z

Architect: Aldo Amoretti + Marco Calvi + Giancarlo Ranalli
Location: Santo Stefano al mare, IM, Italy
Project Year: 2003-2005
Construction year: 2005-2006
Photographs: Aldo Amoretti

The purpose of the project is the amplification of a small municipals cemetery of Santo Stefano al Mare on the north-west side of Italy in front of the Mediterranean sea.

The new intervention is situated on a small land strip between the old cemetery's wall and the waterfront way. This strip is orientated from east to west and runs parallel to the coast. The ground floor level (+5 m) is on an intermediate level between the sea level (0) and the old cemetery level (+8 m).

The entrance is located on the waterfront way (+2 m) and it was an old structure . The existing structure was poorly executed under an old contract.

The project is planned according to the local traditional cemetery typology, where the rectangular interments (tumuli of earth or marble slabs) are distributed on the ground in sequence.

The request of the municipal administration to build tombs of three and four levels brought us a plan based on a sequence of extruded rectangles to obtain series of prismatic blocks. Those prismatic blocks, when distributed on the ground, give shape to the intervention.

At the same time, such blocks enclose the wall and the burials, while their disposition in the west-east produce a sense of gaping spaces for the ways, and in the north south a sense of the opening that allows a constant visual contact with the sea and the wall of the existing cemetery.

Each block is composed by two structural concrete walls. They are covered by Carrara marble slabs on the roof and on the front and back facades; inside each prism there are assembled the tombs previously prefabricated.

On the whole, while looking down on the new construction it produces a sense of an expanse tombstone.

This simple way of project, have permeated to not build the enclosure walls around the cemetery , and to concentrate on one repetitive element all the various functions. The prismatic block movement in the area facilitates to obtain the passages and the useful spaces and to creates a dimensional control during the execution of the project. All the work is based on a 30 cm module.

Only two materials are used : concrete in same different ways and Carrara marble slabs.

The main way is used for interment and to join the old and the new part of the cemetery, it is paved with washed cement conglomerate, The gravel strip between the main way and the prismatic blocks is designed to pick up the rain water.

The rear way is used after services and it is paved with untied gravel. There are two small gardens between the old cemetery wall and the tombs in the back. The remaining service area, along with the chapel of rest, the parking lot, the restrooms and the warehouse, are located on the waterfront level.

The work is planned according to the municipal administration austerity budget, covering 850 sqm at the cost of 250 € / sqm.

The contained costs will make the burial lots available at an equitable price.

Girasole, by konyk

2009-03-27T21:48:00.000Z

Small architecture...ingenious!!!

via Arch Daily

Our friends over at konyk (Brooklyn based practice) shared with us their entry for the Andes Sprouts Society residency studio competition, a project named Girasole.

Gathering all of its energy from the sun, GIRASOLE is a single room studio that is autonomous, movable and flexible. Its independence allows it to function completely off the local utility grid. By manipulating the surface area for maximum solar exposure and utilizing thin battery packs embedded in its chassis, GIRASOLE converts the sun into AC current to heat and electrify the studio. Like Thomas Alva Edison's 1893 Black Maria, GIRASOLE is formed by the function of sunlight, and follows it across the landscape.

More images after the break.

Xi’an World Horticultural Expo

2009-03-22T17:34:00.003Z

Plasmastudio has recently won the competition to develop the building and landscape design for Horticultural Expo in Xi'an, China. The project comprises 15,000 exhibition hall building, a series of conservatories, a 37Ha park around an artificial lake as well as ancilliary buildings.

The next stages of development will take place during the next months with the collaboration of Plasmastudio and Groundlab.

Seen at AALU Landscape Urbanism. For more information, click here.

More images after the break.

Ginkgo Lounge / Tiago Rosado

2009-03-22T17:33:00.002Z

Tiago Rosado latest project, the Ginkgo Lounge in Portimão, Portugal.

Photos by FG + SG (Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra).

To see in: ArchDaily

ORDOS 100 #26: FRENTE

2009-03-13T22:58:00.001Z

It´s good news, that there is still some arch studios that still can surprise us. A simple gesture, for a big project

This villa is located in plot #35 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: FRENTE / Juan Pablo Maza
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm aprox

The immediate context drove the decision of designing an introvert villa. As a result of the extreme weather, it has been chosen to bury the house taking advantage of the generosity of underground temperatures and therefore neutralizing the harsh winter and summer weather conditions.

On the other hand, realizing the good weather during spring and autumn times, the villa responds to this duality by leaving a part of the construction completely exposed, and therefore completely extrovert. This way, the villa celebrates the duality of an introvert-extrovert house.

By taking advantage of the apparent duplicity of the required areas, eighty percent of the program has been maintained in a "big villa" (buried), which lives around an internal courtyard, in a scheme that promotes family interaction and emphasizes the sence of community. The duplicate program is separated and put into a mass equals to the size of the courtyard, thus creating a private "small villa" (floating) which gains the views and gives any family member the opportunity of temporal isolation.

By dividing the program (underground and floating), the ground floor is freed allowing it to be used as public space without loosing privacy.

The main landscape idea, is to suggest a forest within a desert environment. This forest is made out of steel columns that act as "camouflage" for the floating villa's structure, and also gives the visitors a consciousness of trespassing private area.

to see in ArchDaily

Artemide Flagship Taiwan, by CROX

2009-03-10T23:24:00.001Z

Designed by Taiwanese CROX, Artemide's new flagship store in Taiwan is based on the lighting retailer's concept that 'lighting is a source of physical pleasure and mental comfort' - where the architects have played with brightness and the 'sense of hope' instilled by a vision of 'sunlight breaking through a cloud'.

The design makes use of a fiber-reinforced polymer allow for the single, continuous curvilinear form - extending from the ceiling to the wall and forming the counter/desk. This hanging form covers the actual structure of the store, creating the surreal atmosphere.

Now - based on the description I just gave [which is based on what was sent to AMNP by CROX], do you get these feelings of hope, as sunlight breaks through clouds? It would seem to me that night shots wouldn't be the best suited to convey the concepts of this design.

That, and how do people feel about projects like this when the form isn't itself structural? I mean, supporting itself, but being hung from more 'typical' framing - is that 'honest'?

.:info + images provided by CROX ->

Steven Holl Talks With Charlie Rose

2009-03-09T20:44:00.001Z