AD Review: From the Archives

AD Review: From the Archives

This was a great week to choose from ArchDaily’s archive.  Again, the projects are from all over the world and vary greatly in size, anywhere from a small private concrete chapel in Lima to a library in Belgium with an active rooftop leaving way for a green pedestrian space.   An iconic concrete oval ribbed stadium in Croatia, remote Montana camp, art museum in North Carolina and Slovenian weekend house are all revisited after the break.

Stone Creek Camp

Stone Creek Camp by Andersson Wise Architects © Art Gray

This remote Montana Camp offers warm, almost cave-like spaces as well as expansive porches, open to the views and sunlight. Small windows and thick walls facing into the slope of the site are contrasted with entire walls that open up towards the lake.

Inhabitants may choose to be outdoors while inside by sliding open walls or moving outside to spaces that are more civilized than the outlying wilderness. Similarly, with each bedroom’s separate screened-in space, it is always possible to sleep in nature and yet still be secure within the building.

The materials and textures of these buildings connect them to the site. The effect is paradoxical: despite their size, the camp’s large structures seem to emerge from the rock, wood, and grasses that surround them. Like the lake, they feel as if they have been – and will be – here forever.

North Carolina Museum of Art

North Carolina Museum of Art by Thomas Phifer © Scott Frances

The aluminum building skin of the art museum—a rain screen of pale, matte anodized-aluminum panels—carries on the discourse with the landscape. A departure from traditional hierarchies, the museum is, in some respects, a single 65,000-square-foot room. Within this spatial continuum, a succession of wall planes, many freestanding without reaching the ceiling, delineate separate galleries. Instead of fully enclosed rooms, each gallery has at least one open corner, inviting fluid movement.

Inside the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA), the light of day and lush surrounding fields have a presence unusual in institutional galleries for art. Overhead, hundreds of elliptical oculi in long parallel vaults bathe the museum interior in even, full-spectrum daylight, modulated by layers that filter out damaging rays. In this gently luminous setting, against pure white walls, the art—including a masterful Giotto altarpiece—takes on heightened immediacy and vividness.

Thomas Phifer’s North Carolina Museum of Art was an ArchDaily 2010 Building of the Year Museums & Libraries Category Award Winner.

House R

House R by Bevk Perović arhitekti © Miran Kambič

This wooden weekend house is located in the idyllic Alpine area near the picturesque Bohinj Lake. It stands within the protected conservation area on the spot where an old house used to be, and – due to regulations-it strictly follows the contours of the preceding structure.

The project addresses the notion of temporary occupancy by merging the traditional model of the house with that of a ‘container’ – the new alpine wooden house looks, when unoccupied, like a large wooden box – a hay storage or a barn, devoid of windows and doors. Its elevation comprises of series of larch-wood panels, all done in pre-patinated silver gray stain that slide to ‘reveal’ the house as it becomes occupied on weekends or during holiday season.

Arena Zagreb

Arena Zagreb by UPI-2M © Miljenko Hegedic

The landmark multifunctional indoor arena boasts 15,000 seating capacity and was built to host the 2009 World Men’s Handball Championship. It is located in the south-western part of Zagreb, Croatia. The unique shape of this building is strongly inspired by its significance in the city context, and has been achieved by synergy between its architecture and structure.

Shaped as an oval ribbed white bowl, 86 large pre-stressed, pre-fabricated concrete curved columns form the main façade. They are mutually connected by an illuminate semi-translucent double-skin polycarbonate envelope which enables various light effects. Suspended roof structure is hanging from those columns leaving minimum roof structure below roof level.

De la Piedra Chapel

De la Piedra Chapel by Nomena Arquitectos + Ximena Alvarez © Ronald Harrison

The private concrete chapel is located at the Lurín River beside the Lomas de Castilla Hill, just east of the city of Lima. Its natural setting of desert vegetation determined the inspiration of a seashell to guide the design of the hiking path and isolated enclosed sacred spaces. The orthogonal geometry of the chapel itself contrasts the continuous spiral of the landscape that leads to the chapel.

Library + Restaurant + Multifunctional Space

Library + Restaurant + Multifunctional Space by BOB361 Architects © André Nullens

BOB361 Architects utilized a strategy that would simultaneously provide a design that could benefit the general public, providing connectivity, and meet the requirements of the building functions. The result is a multifunctional space that has a roof which doubles as a public space of ‘roof square’ and a new connection of two contrasting atmospheres – a main road of the city of Dendermonde and the green bank of the river Dender. The folded concrete slab of the Library + Restaurant + Multifunctional Space gets natural light into the core of the building and provides acoustic absorption. The large open space of the library is formed by the folding planes of the roof and the floor, creating a space of varying volumes.

About this author
Cite: Kelly Minner. "AD Review: From the Archives" 12 Oct 2011. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/174380/ad-review-from-the-archives-4> ISSN 0719-8884

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