FREAKS freearchitects have been commissioned for the interior design of the shop for a new natural comestics brand Heliocosm located in Herold street, Paris 1st ward.Clément Sauvet from Helicosm wanted to create a brand that banishes the chemical ingredients of conventional cosmetics and respects both the consumer and their environment. The architects have inserted a rectangular timber tunnel inside this Paris cosmetics shop. An opening cut away from the wooden box provides the location for a salvaged second-hand table, while integrated shelves display products.

xThe program of the shop consists mostly in a big workshop table onto which the customers are invited to make up their own cosmetics based on natural products lead by professional tutors.
As the total dedicated budget of 100K€ was pretty low compared to the total 100sqm area to be refurbished, the project focuses onto one single space characteristic: the impressive length of nearly 20 meters, pretty rare as a shop setting within the typical parisian context.

The major efforts were made on the renewal of the first and the last rooms, linked with a wood-covered tunnel-alike space hosting all the display shelves and cupboards. The chosen color is a light greenish blue, a so called “cool mint” color, applied all over floors, walls and ceilings, wrapping the visitors within a both refreshing and disturbing feeling.

+Cottage Industry

Whangapoua is a Prefab Hut built by Architects Crosson Clarke Carnachan on the shore of an idyllic white sanded beach in New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula rests an elegant hut. Closed up, the rough macrocarpa-cladding blends into the landscape and perches quietly on the dunes, as passersby wonder how it could possibly function for a family of five.

Designed to close up against the elements, the hut measures a mere 40 square metres and rests on two thick wooden ‘sleds’ that allow it to be shifted around the beach front section. This innovative portability is a response to the ever changing landscape that line the beachfront in this coastal erosion zone.

Within the hut, the ingenuity reveals itself further as no nook or cranny is overlooked. Every available space has been utilised, right down to the secret individual cubby holes hidden in the children’s bunk room.

For these clients it was all about the real essence of the hut; small, simple and functional. The hut comes to life when the enormous shutter on the northeast façade winches open to form an awning, revealing two-storey high steel-framed glass doors that form the main entrance. The hut then transforms into a sun drenched haven, opening up to the views of the surf and the distant Mercury Islands.

The mezzanine bedroom is accessed by climbing a wall-mounted ladder through a closeable hatch, it shares the same view as downstairs through the huge glass doors. Climb the ladder again and you arrive on a roof terrace which catches rainwater for the gravity tanks behind.

From the industrial style fittings to the quirky furnishings, this whole structure plays with the idea of the most egalitarian of Kiwi recreations and embraces and challenges the image of the traditional ‘Kiwi bach’. Small, simply and elegantly self-contained, this tiny elegant hut strips holiday living right back to basics.
Via Mocoloco

“Our goal was to give consumers the high quality home that they desired at a price point that they could afford,” said Jared Levy, Co-­‐Founder of Connect Homes. “The conventional building process is inefficient and the prefab industry does not currently deliver on its potential. We knew there must be a better, smarter way to build modern, sustainable homes that people could actually afford.”

While the conversation about prefab continues, the main shortcoming for the industry to date has been the inability to deliver prefabricated structures that are better and less expensive than traditional site built alternatives.
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”We’re pushing the conversation to the next level,” explained Gordon Stott, Connect:Homes Co-­‐Founder. “We set out to confront the status quo and address problems within the prefab industry. Rather than rehashing the same prefab rhetoric, we’re talking about a new practice, a new way of building homes.”
A NEW AFFORDABLE, GLOBAL SYSTEM
All Connect:Homes Series Homes are built to be easily transported, and modules are sized to work with the intermodal network. Connect:Homes is the first prefab company to be able to deliver homes not only by truck but also via rail or ship. These innovations are necessary because standard prefab modules cost about $20,000 to ship cross country and up to $400,000 to ship overseas. Connect:Homes’ patent-­‐pending modular system cuts delivery costs by up to 90%, allowing the new company to affordably deliver homes virtually anywhere in the world. System design allows modules to be 90% completed before shipping, far surpassing current industry standards that are closer to 50%. This greatly reduces the amount of time spent on installation and finishes on-­‐site, and means the hidden and surprise costs often associated with conventional construction projects are removed from the equation. The predictability of the Connect:Homes system means homebuyers can be quoted a simple and all-­‐inclusive price from the outset. All Connect:Homes, which range in size from the Connect:2 to the Connect:8, start at $145/sf delivered, and range to $165/sf installed.

“We did not want to be limited by geographic location,” explained Levy. “There is a growing global demand for affordable green, energy-­‐efficient homes, but until now there hasn’t been a way to sell homes to national and international markets. Connect:Homes will change that, delivering our homes from factory to doorstep anywhere in the country with the same ease as any other major commodity.”

Adaptable designs give homeowners an infinite number of possibilities to personalize their own space.
SUSTAINABLE
Connect:Homes centralizes the construction process with the goal of eliminating waste entirely. In contrast to the 8,000 pounds of waste generated at a traditional home building site, building in a factory cuts waste by over 75%. Once the homes are delivered to homebuyers, Connect:Homes products also offer superior energy efficiency, using less resources and providing significant yearly savings. For example, all homes come standard with LED lighting systems, and all Connect:Homes are designed to attain the points necessary for
LEED for Homes Silver certification before factoring in site variables, at which point Gold and Platinum will likely be possible.

The wings roll up and can be stored aboard the craft for easy transportation and rapid deployment. The UH-18SPW Hoverwing™ is the only ground-effect hovercraft to be released as a plan or kit. Click the links below to see the UH-18SPW in action.

British artists Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey recently transformed a landmark church in South East London by covering the interior in a layer of living grass. Their artwork makes explicit connections with urban political ecologies by highlighting the temporal nature of processes of growth and decay in sites of architectural and ecological interest as well as contemporary art galleries and museums worldwide. The project is organized by the The London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT). You can see it for yourself in Dilston Grove’s Clare College Mission Church, South London.



As reported in New Scientist the Grass Wall process involves:

Stripping walls down to bare plasterwork
Smearing the walls with a layer of soft moist clay a few millimetres thick. Moisture content is critical as if it is too wet it will slide off or too dry and it will peel away.
Press in about 10 seeds every square centimetre of clay so that the finished surface resembles a sesame seed cake.
The walls are then watered three or four times a day to make sure that the clay doesn’t dry out.
In about six days the grass will germinate and then only water once per day
Unfortunately the dense growth of the grass starts to get mouldy after about 25 days. This is because the grass grows so densely that air cannot circulate and water becomes trapped. After about a month the grass wall is taken down.

The building has a special water and energy management. Electricity is generated by windmills and solar panels. Heating and cooling is extracted from geothermal energy, and a natural convection system is used for the ventilation. The wastewater is treated in a helofytenveld. The regional, seasonal food is prepared on a wood burning stove and grill. Finally, the building is constructed so that it is possible to dismantle it again. Thus, the materials can be reused and the location again be returned to nature.

The restaurant provides day and evening service, as well, the building displays information about the surrounding Dutch countryside and facilities for outdoor sportsmen.

A stainless steel sphere, completely smooth and reflecting, features an LED system to create the image of a huge human eyeball that rotates to look to the sky as well as at visitors, or at visitors, or at the ground, changing the color of the iris and the size of the pupil. Inside the eye, there are images of monuments of the Russian avant-garde, which now lie abandoned: a strong message about the need to conserve our history and cultural legacy.

Thanks to the reflecting effect of the steel, the sphere reproduces and deforms the image of the 18th-century courtyard, to symbolize the intellectual process of the architect who reads and interprets the extraordinary forms of the past. Technology, represented by the mobile effect of the eye, is the key word of the approach that sets apart the activities of Taltos, the partner in the installation: the company specializes in the making of large, very thin sheets of natural stone, reinforced by epoxy resins and supports in fiberglass, carbon or steel. The sheets are ideal for use on airplanes and ships, as refined coverings in interiors, or for countertops.

“We still wanted to create an identity that had a singular strong design feel, but one that had more flexibility and a lot more warmth and tactility,” adds Wood. “In addition, in the back of your mind you have to ensure any new look can sit comfortably and hold it’s own along side the other Channel 4 brands.”

Starry night expresses private spaces given by night and various emotions that are not able to be defined and described in the space. I’ve chosen analogue type for the expression which attempts to install electric bulbs in an objet to be expressed using back space of night by taking advantage of huge studio. There are two spaces in photographs. One is a space before electric bulbs of familiar landscape are installed and the other is a space after electric bulbs expressed by dispersing personal emotion are installed. Unified light from these two spaces generates a mysterious landscape.




Via [Colossal]

Their cocoon design creates a space like an art piece by translating the round shape of cocoon as an eco-structure design. This seaside condominium provides a self-sustaining creative business resort located in UNESCO Heritage Jeju Island. The volcanic island Jeju where this house is located has a unique forest called ‘Gotjawal’ with mild temperature and high humidity throughout the year that enables coexistence of diverse living things. An open air pocket pool enables swimming with the feeling of enjoying the nature of Jeju island.

The house is a high-end condominium located in ‘Gotjawal Village’, the first phase of the ‘Jeju Airest City’. ‘Jeju Airest City’ is the biggest integrated resort development in the history of Jeju island comprising various resort facilities including shopping mall, casino, hotel, medical center, and new concept of condominiums under the concept of a ‘Creative Business Leisure City’.





Via [archdaily]

Sculp(IT) Architecten annouced the opening of one of world’s biggest floating openair swimming poolsin Antwerp, Belgium at the Kattendijkdok in mid-August. The pool, with a total length of 120 meters (394 feet), can accommodate 600 people and consists of a swim basin, two event venues, several floors and a restaurant with a lounge terrace.

Project Description from the Architects:
‘The City of Antwerp commissioned a ship with the only condition that it covered an area of 120 by 25 metres and incorporate a swimming pool. For the rest we had carte blanche. We won the pitch and from then on we had to turn our plans into reality. The starting point was the existing ferryboat which Philip De Prest absolutely wanted to use for the project. I have always been fascinated by the maritime world and Sculp(IT) wanted to create a modern, minimalist vessel that was ecologically sound and appeared to integrate seamlessly with the surrounding docks. In addition it had to have extra facilities for the public to enjoy. The result from all this is the Badboot.’

Outdoor swimming pools that float on the city’s canals or rivers are familiar to us from Berlin and Copenhagen. But the Badboot cannot be compared with these two European predecessors in any sense. The Badboot is much bigger, can be moved to another site and will be open throughout the year. Every summer for the next ten years, the platform will be able to welcome bathers in Antwerp’s docks and the swimming pool will be an ice rink in winter. You will also be able to enjoy winter barbecues and winter sports activities (such as curling) on the Badboot.

It also has a restaurant with a lounge deck that will be run by top chefs of Fiskebar, the popular restaurant at Antwerp Zuid. Events can be organised every day of the year in the two event rooms and there is plenty of parking space.
This makes the Badboot the perfect location for organising product launches, office parties, seminars and private events throughout the year.

The deck is open to everybody: for barely 4 euros a swim, Antwerpers can enjoy the revolutionary outdoor swimming pool on water. ‘The Badboot is a perfect complement to the existing urban outdoor pools in Antwerp’, thinks Maarten Dieryck of the City of Antwerp. ‘Having no more than two outdoor swimming pools in the city, we have a dire shortage of opportunities to enjoy water sports in the open air. This project will provide the axis of the development of Antwerp Docklands. That’s why we believe this is a brilliant project.’

It should be clear that the Badboot is a full-fledged leisure platform for the city and not a push barge that happened to be converted to a swimming pool, like elsewhere in Europe. The platform is unique in the world as regards both size and facilities and its potential to use it in all seasons. This is a scoop for the Scheldt port, which again proves its reputation as a cool metropolis.
Facts & Figures:
120 m: the entire length of the Badboot. With several levels and a capacity to accommodate 600 people, this gigantic project makes it one of the biggest outdoor swimming pools with leisure facilities in the world. A total terrace area of no less than 750 m2, ensures that swimmers can enjoy an après-swim drink with a magnificent view over the MAS, the port and the new projects at Antwerp Docklands. In 2013, the Red Star Line Museum will open opposite the Badboot.
Nearly the same length as an Olympic size swimming pool: including the paddling pool, the Badboot pool is 40 metres in length and therefore offers exceptional swimming facilities to visitors. Swimmers seem to dive into the dock of Antwerp Dockland’s Kattendijkdok, providing a unique experience.
A feat of 6 months: ‘Building such a gigantic project in half a year is quite a challenge’, says Martin Seine of shipbuilders HSS. ‘This project is by far the most extraordinary project we have ever worked on.’ The construction of the boat started on 1 February 2012. Everything has to be completed at the start of August. At the moment we are right on schedule.
100% Antwerp Steel: all the steel is supplied by ASS, the Antwerp Steel Services nv. The vessel is built as an integrated structure in Maasbracht in the Netherlands by the HSS yard and on completion will return to Belgium.
The original ferry – which will connect the brand new Badboot to the quayside – was built in 1964. ‘We wanted to emphasise the authentic maritime character of the ferry’, says architect Pieter Peerlings. ‘For example, right now, the original wheelhouse or bridge is being converted into a cocktail bar. By the way, we found a coin from 1964 on the MV Antoon van Dijck, so we are planning to conceal a coin anno 2012 in the Badboot. Traditions are there to be honoured’, he laughs”