Architects: MACLA Arquitectos
Location: San Javier, Murcia, Spain
Architect In Charge: Miguel Cabanes Ginés, Elena Robles Alonso & Pedro Gambín Hurtado
Area: 929.0 sqm
Year: 2008
Photographs: Diego Opazo

Quantity Surveyor: José Luis Navarro Sanleón
Exterior Area: 1418 m2
Engineer Direction: Andrés Ortuño
Builder: Miala S,L.
Budget: 901.072 euros
Promoter: TARAY SAU

The current offices of Taray SAU promoter, are placed in a triangular plot exempt. It is an isolated building which contained the offices of the promoter and we opted to maintain due to his perfect condition of conservation, attacking only the substitution of the exterior carpentry and the adequacy of the interiors appearance to the new face of the brand.

It is a building developed in a basement, foreseen for a future extension of the office, and one floor above ground that shelters the different departments of the promoter. The Basement is a lit by “english court” with acute geometry. The building trace responds to the geometry of the Plot potente and orientation criteria to optimize the termal behavior of constructed.

The extensión building is constructed as a “necklace” building around the existing building, so that both coexist without interfering in their scales. The old and new buildings are connected with glass walkways that provide high transparency between interior and exterior. The pieces of the necklace are the different parts of the program that are placed according to the needs of the inner workings of the company. We got to this strategy a courtyard, black gravel finish, visually linking the whole releasing important jobs outside traffic which favors an optimal environment to develop the work.

The development of the plot also has undergone surgery. In order to enhance the building proposes a neutral ground plane finished with white gravel or grass as areas and only have remained some large trees existing in the original plot. The mantle of white gravel contains about circles distinct aromatic ground cover and provide splashes of color, which gives to the whole the degree of abstraction and visual compositional intend with our project.

With all this, the building assumes the new face of the brand, a contemporary and cutting edge where visual criteria should go hand in hand to the constructive. The attention to detail is the maximum of Mies Van der Rohe constructive “less is more”. The exterior walls are of concrete blind and polished galvanized steel joinery, in sharp contrast with the whitewashed walls and woodworks of the existing buildingA draft of etched glass wall and backlit, with the logo of the company, which bears the access road advertising space mode.

Architects: Spaceworkers
Location: Paredes, Portugal
Principals In Charge: Henrique Marques & Rui Dinis
Project Team: Rui Rodrigues, Sérgio Rocha, Rui Miguel
Area: 100.0 sqm
Year: 2012
Photographs: FG+SG – Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra

Finance Director: Carla Duarte
Engineering: Simetria Vertical
Client: Rota do Românico

Preserving the identity of the location and characteristics of the building concerned was for us the slogan for the intervention.

The proposed space appears as a “house inside the house”. A “solid” volume landed within the existing space that reacts to the geometry of the shape.

In this amount is subtracted from the central area thus resulting in a kind of square separating the different functions of the space. On the one hand, a monolithic volume with a central door is “auditorium” on the other, a volume cut is receiving and store.

Architects: FREAKS freearchitects
Location: Paris, France
Area: 170.0 sqm
Photographs: David Foessel

FREAKS has been commissioned to work on the transformation of a 170sqm flat downtown Paris, Rue de Rivoli. The Rue de Rivoli, which goes from Place de la Concorde until Place de la Bastille, has been built under Napoleon the 1st. The very first part of the street, facing the Jardin des Tuileries was his own property and he might have lived here or there in one of those chic flats.

The order was to transform that high ceiling stateroom into a familial flat, including two new children bedrooms in addition with the parents one. Therefore, the main target was to create new connections through the rooms ; some doors have been closed, some others have been pierced to avoid the typical dead-end distribution system. The service rooms on the backyard, at the end of a long and narrow corridor, have been transformed into the children area, to which one can acces by the service door, turning that part into an independent space within the flat. The bedrooms made profit of the high ceiling by embedding mezzanine, on which one can access by using a crinoline ladder.

A new kitchen + bathroom have been placed on the street side. Most of the existing moldings have been painted in white. The very cute Venetian style boudoir has only been renewed.

One of the main interventions consisted in opening the new kitchen towards the dinning room while taking charge to use a contemporary architectural language within the space. No furniture or decoration were required, only a dozen of industrial waterproof neons (Sammode) with a special brass cladding have been used on the dinning room and billiard room walls.

“We’re getting more and more bored by the nice shots where everything is so clean, with the perfect Scandinavian-design chair, the perfect white orchid, the perfect art book on the table”.

“Napoleon supposedly having lived there was a running joke among the building team and us, that’s why we decided, the three of us, to sort of perform the photo shoot wearing Napoleon-style hats.”

Designed by EFFEKT + Henning Larson Architects, in collaboration with Marianne Levinsen Landscape and Moe consulting engineers, Vinge is set to be a brand new town planned in the scenic natural surroundings just 30 minutes from Copenhagen. A large project both on the regional and international level, Vinge will house around 10.000 residents and employ 4.000 people. The city will have its own train station and a new highway will take its residents rapidly to and from Copenhagen. More images and architects’ description after the break.

With its 350 hectares, Vinge is currently the largest urban development in Denmark. The life of Vinge revolves around a central park space, The Green Heart, uniting the best of two worlds: Urban life and services with a scenic location and recreational environments. The Green Heart is a unique urban space that integrates nature, urban life and pedestrian infrastructure. Here, the city’s residents gather for recreation, shopping, sports and other activities. School and childcare centers; sports clubs and club houses are all arranged around The Green Heart – and are in close proximity to the train station. 

The Green Heart is a new type of urban space that unites the city’s pedestrian circulation and public transport with urban functions in order to create a unique base for city life, activities and communities.

Vinge is planned to have a dense city structure with high rise buildings near the station. As the proximity to the station decreases so does the density of the urban fabric, giving way to a smaller, more intimate, townhouse scale.

Rather than the traditional suburb the city is to hold different types of relatively dense low rise typologies with small gardens and large common areas. The Green Heart serves as the city’s community garden where city life can unfold.  Along the perimeter of the city the structure merges with the surrounding landscape. This results in a city with unique encounters between landscape and settlement – both in the center and along the edges. The dense urban fabric creates a vibrant urban environment, while landscape and nature is always present.

The project was developed for the municipality of Frederikssund and accepted unanimously by the city council on May 8^th 2013. Vinge forms part of the Finger Plan developed for Copenhagen in 1947. Introducing a city with its own train station on the ‘Frederikssund finger’ we are writing a new chapter in the history of the Finger Plan development. This makes it an exceptional chance to develop the concept for future railway towns in the Denmark. 

Architects: Alberto Varas & Asociados
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Project Year: 2007
Photographs: Courtesy of Alberto Varas & Asociados

Identity of the Public
In an old structure we needed to harbor the future offices of a public institution.

It was an important conditioning to achieve a proper functioning of flexible public offices so we could fulfill the actual technology requirements for this kind of use and with the public representation needed.

With the scope of the work, it was likely that the companies capable of carrying on with the construction weren’t local or that they would need to subcontract from other parts. For that reason, the technical resolution of the building required a certain simplicity and the possibility of the majority of the work to be done in workshops, in order to facilitate the moving of fragments or components and therefore improving its execution.

The solution was to regulate the superior part of the structure, eliminating the concrete water tanks and the top slab, so the building could be wrapped in a light metallic roof finished in titanium zinc sheet.

The roof plate is vertically on top of one of the side facades of the building and over one of the mid-walls. Not only this unifies the image but a tall gentry is generated in the building access, changing its scale and providing a public character that contrasts with the absence of a contemporary public architecture that dialogues with the buildings existing in cities like Pehuajó.

This situation repeats throughout the Buenos Aires Province, and corresponds to other historic stages that can be seen in old buildings like the Nación Bank, institutional buildings or churches that have shown that public spirit, surrounding plazas of our cities and inner province towns.

The irruption of contemporary objects in these traditional cities isn’t simple. Nevertheless, by giving a different character of the public presence that belongs to the actual times, a new image effect is incorporated, providing a transforming message, and modern injection.

Architects: Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten
Location: Am Hanselbrunn 1, Poing, Germany
Area: 3,840 sqm
Year: 2008
Photographs: Florian Holzherr

Supporting Structural Planning: Hagl Ingenieurgesellschaft
Landscape Design: Max Bauer
Building Services Planning: Konrad Huber GmbH, Zickler + Jakob Planungen GmbH & Co. KG
Project Management: Haindl + Kollegen
Electrical Planning: Karl Neudert
Client: Community Poing
Cost: 5.5 mio €
Volume: 19,150 m3

A surprisingly ephemeral building has been created to satisfy the demands for ro- bustness and adequacy of purpose. The appearance is light, the structure precise and practicable. The new building offers space for all workshops, the vehicle fleet, storage space as well as administrative rooms and staff facilities. Due to the translucent, heat- insulating polycarbonate facade, the reinforced concrete construction is faintly visible from the outside and the workshops bathed in daylight.

Developed by architects AHA+ and Solbjor Arkitekter, their ‘Harvest’ proposal was announced as one of the four finalists in the international competition Nordic Built Challenge for an extension of Postgirobygget, an existing high-rise building in Oslo. Going beyond BG14 and the refurbishment of Posthuset, their concept aims at becoming a new and innovative way to meet the challenges of tomorrow while ensuring financial and practical viability. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Our proposal provides a strategy that focuses on 3 main issues: How to expand existing building in most sustainable way on a small almost non existing site in a dense urban location; How to reconnect existing building to its surroundings and create new and attractive entrance; How to create a low threshold + active energy system that utilise the local and existing energy resources in the best possible way. By giving the right answers to these issues we create preconditions for optimized C2C strategy and enhance the flexibility of the office space in the building.

In order to balance costs with economic robustness we propose to expand the building on the north side of the BG14. This is the only rational and possible place to expand existing BG14 building. From existing 2000 working places we have created possibility for in total approx. 5000 working spaces and 21.000m2 additional spaces. Our proposal is to build highest wooden building structure in the world. This has some obvious environmental benefits but also strengthens iconic quality of the BG14 and creates new and global marketing possibilities. Wooden addition to existing building enhance It’s functionality, makes it smart and aesthetically appealing, a building in the best of the Nordic design tradition. We constructive studies believe this to be possible within existing technology.

Immediate urban surrounding of the entrance plaza is arguably one of Central Oslo’s most inhospitable seen from a pedestrian point of view. The entrance plaza is flanked by barriers. Fences, tramlines, a motorway and a huge roundabout bar pedestrian access. The street-fronts of the next-door neighbors are forbidding, isolating the BG14 entrance effectively from the teeming Central Station Plazas. Pedestrians are largely forced to use footbridges or underpasses. Our project proposes a NEW and inviting entrance area, that reconnects BG14 building to the neighbouring buildings and provide NEW and attractive mall address and public space.

Posthuset is not a conventional building. No ground areas are available for energy production; neither does the building have a large roof area. Is it possible to design house that is producer of energy? How to harvest and reuse energy that is generated by the use of the building its self and in the interaction between building and the elements? Biggest challenge is always not to produce enough energy but to manage to store it so that it can be used later. Our project proposes solution that makes this possible with “low threshold” technological solutions. By utilizing local resources and adapting to a local climatic condition we create possibility to achieve ambitious environmental and energy goals.

The proposed Active House Concept harvests energy. It feeds on excess heat trapped in the building as well as ambient energy at optimal times by means of storage techniques adapted to local conditions and opportunities. This is done to supply in situ renewable energy when most needed. The technology underpinning the concept is an energy-efficient and renewable energy system based on a unique dynamic thermal energy storage technology and an optimized control system.

The real challenge lies in proposing solutions that radically improve environmental performance while balancing costs with market willingness. We propose new facade solution based on cross laminated timber technology that will help owners to achieve zero emissions over its lifecycle. This choice of material not only on new part of the building but also on the existing facades towards south, east and west will improve reduction in carbon emissions for energy, materials and transportation. Our proposal enhances but also optimises the access of daylight in to the building. Developing further on some of the existing principles we propose solution that allows for variation on the glass surface area depending on orientation of the building. Total amount of glass area proposed in the wooden wall elements is on average around 25% of the facade surface. 

BG14 has a large number of identical floors. With the proposed expansion of the building we optimize the floor plans in terms of area efficiency. We create flexible office space that can either be easily divided between various tenants or utilized by one larger tenant. If floors are used as mainly cell office plans we achieve approx 40 m2 per working place, 11 m2 for landscape office plans and for combination of these two we achieve 15 m2 per working space.

Architects: Urban Platform
Location: Seneffe, Belgium
Client: Fancy Home Collection sa
Budget: € 7,400,000
Area: 10759.0 sqm
Year: 2009
Photographs: Tim Van de Velde, Courtesy of Urban Platform

The project is sited in an industrial zone of the province of Hainaut, a region rich with industrial history. As with many zonings, aesthetic grading is the norm, and here, notably, the most prominent feature is… the absence of architecture that provokes any emotional reaction. Against this deficiency, the project ventures what may be seen as pioneering architecture, offering an industrial design that, with only a small sacrifice, favours the emotional over the rational, attractiveness before utility, and the vernacular ahead of economy. Recognizing the scope and impact of the building on the image and quality of the products and the brand, the project highlights the contrast with the environment in order to emphasize its own poetic presence. It is a reminder that 19th century industrial architecture in these regions was sumptuous and on a grand scale, in contrast to the functionality of the 20th century.

The building comprises the headquarters and storage-distribution facilities of a company that imports/exports designer furniture. A distinction is made between the implantation and appearance of the logistics operations and the management area. While this is made obvious by the use of different materials and a break in the main facade, the overriding intention is to integrate the two functions within a single architectural and technicalgesture.The resulting impression is of productivity – a concept that is too often alien to architecture – which is the core purpose of this site. Therefore, the architecture can perform a highly symbolic role in presenting the company.

The architectural language, composed of straight lines, sharp angles and points of inflection, translates a dynamism that should be legible from various aspects. And while it presents an immediate reflection of a company’s vitality, it is, above all, the expression of advancement in the means of distribution, and the techniques and modes of organization. In contrast, the black plinth, raw and inert, conceals as much as it reveals of the high flexibility of the building, yet it reflects also the continuity of an industrial process that has a far older lineage than the means employed.

Materials used for the facades (wood, glass, and metal cladding), simple in nature and application, allow emotion to be an economically competitive element in an environment where cost is a crucial factor. In this context, the creative process must integrate the costs related to the life-cycles of materials (cradle to cradle design), the optimization and the technical adaptability of the building over time, and its operating costs. Here, the architect’s inventiveness has found a unique manner to integrate these multiple and essential dimensions that guided the creative process.

As a place of economic activity is a workplace but primarily a living space, then the use of wood in the facade contributes to the creation of this human dimension. Its natural nobility and its warmth transform these places into areas for living, blending the human dimension with that of production. Wood, echoing the factory workshops of old, adds a historical reference to this project. And metal and glass are materials that recall, of course, the golden age of industry, and which today address the challenge of sustainability that is central to the building criteria, “Environmental High Quality”. Indeed, the project incorporates a high insulation factor, low-temperature heat generation, active flooring slabs, double flux cooled ventilation (instead of air conditioning), optimization of natural light with Sun Tracker, integration of energy from photovoltaics, retrieval and management of water, etc…

All these measures avoid the emission of 132 tons of CO2 each year. It is a reduction of 44% compared to a conventional solution. Over 30 years, this represents more than 3960 tons of CO2.

Designed by PM²G Architects, in collaboration with Satellite Architectes & Menu Design, their iconic proposal project for a new cultural center in Guadalajara embodies and catalyzes the cultural scene over the Chapultepec Avenue besides forming a new attraction for the city. Their design, which was awarded an honorable mention, includes a series of three alternate solids that are combined with transparent and concave spaces. The rotation of the volumes towards the sky gives the building its dynamic and spectacular force. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Guadalajara is known as the 2^nd most populous municipality in Mexico and the well-known vertical architectural route of the Guggenheim Museum in New York is reinterpreted here in the new Chapultepec Cultural Center project. In this case, however, unlike the Frank Lloyd Wright scheme, the route turns to the city and thus provides visitors a 360° view of the city of Guadalajara.

A monumental staircase, “part of the tradition of Mexican pre-Hispanic architecture” evokes the ascension into heaven, allowing to wander the building and at the same time serving as a podium and terrace to display certain works of art; this possibility extends from the inside out, becoming an external tour and concluding with a panoramic terrace, the stair as a magical space to exhibit, contemplate and communicate, a walk in the pleasant climate of Guadalajara.

The exhibition halls, including 300 and 500 m² spaces, are composed by generous spaces with great heights designed to accommodate different types of art. Going from the White Cube hosting classical painting and photography exhibitions where lighting is indirect and natural. Moreover, the Black Box designed as a space for video projection and installations.

The auditorium space has been designed to offer great flexibility to adapt to all kinds of shows, dance and theater as well as conferences, workshops and projections. The retractable seating once extended offers optimum visibility for each of the 200 spectators, and releases the space when retracting (disappear) in the back of the room, thus becoming an ideal place for concerts, and more. The stage is slightly elevated, the backstage space has comfortable dimensions and can be opened to the auditorium in the case of major events that require it; addition to this, a small room to be used by the entire production team completes the device.

The white concrete poetic facade is composed by a series of ruled surfaces perforated in a dotted evolutionary pattern, in some cases, the perforations as windows, others as mirrors and some cases as luminous LED spots. Thus, the facade is crafted to reflect the sky with a gradient from top to bottom, revealing an evolutionary play of light throughout the day. Beyond the monumental staircase, visitors have easy access to each level through a vertical circulation core. The compact core is the backbone of the building and serves to effectively distribute the flow of people and cargo transportation.

The ground floor opens onto the city calling and inviting people to come to the inside; an entrance hall containing a ticket office, cloakroom and control, as well as a library and a small cafe are responsible for receiving public warmly. The access to the underground parking and the loading bay area are located on the minor street that faces the terrain, the last being directly connected to the freight elevator and warehouses for supply purposes.

The structural system of the building is composed of a concrete central core and a network of columns located with and offset of 6mts from the façade and intertwined by a series of cantilever metal beams of varying dimensions according to seismic requirements.

At last, on the top floor the architectural route culminates in a restaurant-terrace space, offering a unique view over the skyline of Guadalajara.

Architects: PM²G Architects
Location: Guadalajara, Mexico
Collaborators: Satellite Architectes & Menu Design
Project Team: Guillermo Lumbreras, Morgane Cauchy, Monique Bastos Nunes Herve, Sebastien Menu, Burkhardt Schiller, and Constantin Döhler
CG Artist: 3D Veron
Program Area: 5,000 sqm
Competition Status: Honorable Mention
Year: 2013

Architects: T38 studio
Location: Tijuana, Baja California, México
Project Team: Alfonso Medina, Mauricio Kuri, Oscar González, Pablo Casals-Aguirre, Sara Díaz, Joseph Ruíz Tapia, Alejandro Bustos, Lucía Arroyo, Alina Castañeda, Ana Darice Payan
Area: 700 sqm
Proyect Year: 2011
Photographs: Pablo Casals-Aguirre

Construction: Taller38
Structural Project: Ing. Pedro Fernández
Instalations: Alvaro García

Located in a residential neighborhood composed by large single family houses in the city of Tijuana, we did an exercise of densification. Inserting a multifamily project that contains four units on a site intended for one single family home. The challenge was how to achieve this, without breaking the scale of the context, something that would blend in based on size, but break with the existing typologies of the surrounding sites.

El predio, de forma rectangular con un frente angosto y de mucha profundidad, distribuye 4 unidades de manera lineal, sobre dos estructuras reticulares. El primer nivel, en el cual se encuentra el acceso peatonal y vehicular, necesitaba ser lo mas libre posible por la circulación de los automóviles, por lo cual diseñamos los núcleos de circulación vertical como dos grandes elementos estructurales, a los cuales llegan las vigas de concreto que reciben el peso de todo el edificio.

El primer nivel de cada unidad, la parte pública del programa, una planta libre que contiene sala, comedor y recámara remata en una terraza que vuela sobre el estacionamiento; el segundo nivel, la parte privada del programa, cuenta con la posibilidad de dos o tres habitaciones. El tercer nivel contiene un pequeño cuarto multiusos, con el resto de la quinta fachada quedando libre para una terraza con vista panorámica la ciudad.

Architects: Eike Becker Architekten
Location: Neuss, Moselstraße, Germany
Area: 3,916 sqm (above ground level), 662 sqm (below ground level)
Year: 2007
Photographs: Courtesy of Eike Becker Architekten

Expert Planning: Arup GmbH (structure), HHP Hosser, Hass + Partner Ingenieurgesellschaft für Bauwesen und Brandschutz GmbH (fire protection), Intecplan Integrierte technische Planung GmbH (building services), Schlotfeldt Licht GmbH (lighting), Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH (energy)
Client: Stadtwerke Neuss GmbH
Cost: 5 mil. Euro

Given a flat property lacking what is generally called “historical context,” there is only one genuine architectural option, and that is to place a highly ambitious building onto the site that is both functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. This was the approach conceived for the administrative building constructed for Stadtwerke Neuss, the municipal utility company. The building is located in a densely built, even congested commercial area occupying both sides of the Konrad-Adenauer-Ring to the south of downtown Neuss. It has a northwest-southeast orientation among other buildings that all tend to look like boxes or flat, formless structures.

The building’s unusual shape makes it stand out among these other buildings: a large, not quite symmetrical “Y” that largely forgoes straight lines. The concave sides of the building—two with gentle curves and one with a sharper curve—form a lively contrast to the three ends, which feature split and offset, upwardly inclining walls. Clad on all sides with aluminum panels, the four-story building is accessed on the southeast by a broad entrance area with a projecting roof. A café and a bistro are behind the foyer. Most striking, however, are the two stairways leading from the ground floor to the second floor and the second floor to the third.

What makes this arrangement so special is less the large “V” shape and more the way the formal contrasts operate between black and white on the one hand, and positive and negative on the other. While adhering to a simple layout, in which a sequence of offices line a corridor to the left and right, the administrative building represents a highly sophisticated adaptation of this convention. The threecorridor system has the appearance of streets that meet from three different directions at a plaza. There are open kitchenettes and bar tables in the hallways.

There are single, double, and triple offices, all based on a 1.35-meter grid. The rooms have floor-to-ceiling glass walls. Fresh air is provided through aluminum vents coated with an anthracite-colored powder.

Upon closer examination, the building proves to be a continuation of the ideas and concepts developed five years earlier for the headquarters of Rheinkalk GmbH in Wülfrath.

Constructed for the Changwon Suclpture Biennale 2012 held in Changwon city, South Korea the Brick-Pod Pavilion defines architecture as ‘a sculpture with interior space’, and attempts to create a dome with black bricks which has been used for traditional architecture here in Korea. Designed by Kazuya Morita Architecture Studio, you can enjoy the breezing air, moving leafs, and sparkling sunshine through its numbers of the openings, feeling much more sensitive than when we are outside. More images and architects’ description after the break.

By using only 15mm thickness brack brick, we tried to make it not like a heavy and massive dome as usual masonry architecture does. The dome has a 4.5m hight, 3.3m diameter, 0nly 30 mm in thickness, which means it is much thinner than an egg shell which normally has 0.4mm on 40mm diameter.

The history of the dome architecture, represented with Pantheon in Rome, or Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, was the history of technical evaluation for pursuing the creation of the interior space to make it more bright and more ephemeral.

For the construction of the brick-pod, we used the ‘catalan vault’ technique, which is traditional the masonry technique that has been used for long centuries in Spain. First, we formed the dome shape by 15mm thick brick and then we applied glass fiber reinforced cement on it by the trowel which is the technique came from Japanese plastering. 

We can truly say this dome represents a new achievement of Korean brick architecture realized by the mixture of far east and far west construction technique on the Eurasia continent.

Architects: Kazuya Morita Architecture Studio
Location: Changwon, South Korea
Structural Consultant: Mitsuda structural consultant
Construction: Tatsuhei construccion + Kazuya Morita Architecture Studio
Materials: Black brick, fast-set cement, white cement, sand, grass fiber
Program: Open air sculpture
Total Area: 8.55 sqm
Year: 2012

Architects: 3 Arquitectos
Location: La Serena, IV Región, Chile
Area: 613 sqm
Project Year: 2011
Photographs: Alberto Castex

Collaborators: Luis Rojas P, (Dibujo CAD).
Client: I. Municipalidad de La Serena + MINVU Cuarta Región, Chile.
Constructor: Constructora Erices y Toro Ltda.
Structural Engineer: Ronald Segovia M.
Technical Inspection: I. Municipalidad de La Serena.
Sanitary: Eduardo Avalos P.
Site Area: Parque 18 de Septiembre, La Serena.
Costq: 19uf/m2

This projects is part of the program ‘Quiero Mi Barrio’ (‘I Love My Neighborhood’) from the MINVU, that seeks to improve the quality of life of the 200 neighborhoods with greater vulnerability and deterioration of Chile.

The edge of the ’17 de Septiembre’ slum is physically deteriorated. It faces huge empty spaces with no defined uses, and residual areas in which small landfills and land seizures have taken place.

The visible facade from the streets that surrounds the slum is formed by backyards, land seizures and residual public spaces, which degrades the presence of this neighborhood towards the city.

With this project, we intended to revert this urban situation, generating a new face in the environment and in two of the main internal corridors. Throughout a lookout plaza, we want to encourage the occupation and use of the public space, improve the access to the park and becoming a potential articulator of pedestrian circulation, integrating the actual activity form the neighbors as well as activities in the new places of the social center.

The inner spaces need to have multiple functions and they are distributed in three main levels: teenage room, administration room and events room. The protection and good care of the place was a main issue. Usually, this community centers are very hermetic spaces, without proper brightness. To address these two conditions, we worked with a continuous perimeter of prefab concrete, providing protection, sifting the light and allowing proper ventilation.

The chosen materials are similar to those already used in the neighborhood (tambourines, metal fences, and calamines), so it assimilates with the local language and giving priority to the proximity of the people with the project.

Architects: Jermyn Manthripragada
Location: Palo Alto, California, USA
Design Team: Alex Jermyn, Ajay Manthripragada
Area: 1100.0 ft2
Year: 2013
Photographs: Lucas Fladzinski

General Contractor: Timothy Lemma
Structural Engineer: Kevin Donohue

The project is the addition of a dining room, reading room and two bedroom suites to an existing 1948 adobe-brick house.Careful consideration was given to the siting of the new addition and its relationship to existing trees, the original house and a previous addition completed by JM-A in 2011 (a writing studio called the ‘Box Office’).It employs the material and formal language developed for the Box Office: spare, platonic boxes of a perceptual mass detailed precisely at their junctions to openings with a material thinness.

Four volumes control view and orchestrate movement through their various internal and external alignments. The reading of the solid/void relationship oscillates between additive and subtractive processes–on the one hand understood as a series of connected volumes while on the other seen as an initially pure box from which two L-forms are removed. The result is a rhythmic reciprocity between interior space and garden. 

A strangeness of scale, already present on the suburban site with an unusually large garden and mature trees, is embraced in the addition as well. A low horizontal window, for example, adjacent to the bath in the master suite, has an uncanny presence at its exterior condition through its positional ambiguity.

Architects: Inarc Architects
Location: Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia
Directors: Reno Rizzo & Christopher Hansson
Project Architect: Wilson Tang
Year: 2012
Photographs: Peter Clarke

Project Interior Architect: Andrew McLeod
Contributors: Cathie Wheelahan
Landscape Architect: Fiona Brockhoff
Structural Engineer: BHS Consultants
Services Engineer: R. Terenyi & Associates
Builder: VCON Construction

Bluff House on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria is a holiday home which confidently addresses the challenges of a dual interface with a rugged coastline and the neighbouring rural countryside.

The building sits on top of an escarpment in the seaside township of Flinders. The view is world class, serene and bucolic to the rural north and to the south a brutal seascape over nearby Bass Straight. The site is located on a transition point between two geologies. This has resulted in a land slip affected site, most dangerous at a point where the site views are at their best. Deep bored piers anchor the building to the crest of the allotment at ground floor level whilst at the upper level, the floor plate cantilevers over the steep terrain below.

The first floor plan is a linear arrangement of spaces kinked around existing trees. The cantilevered corners of the living room and main bedroom give the feeling of detachment from the building, a feeling of leaning over the edge.

The building has two faces. The benign northern orientation has views over paddocks defined by rows of pine windbreaks with rolling hills in the foreground. This facade is clad in tailored narrow blackbutt timber boards and reads as an angular but warm and welcoming timber house. The more inclement southern orientation has resulted in a brooding and sharp composition of dark painted steel and glass. The two facades are not seen together yet co-exist. The geometry resulting from the angles of the building offer a multitude of indoor and outdoor refuges from the sun and wind.

The brief was to design a holiday home which would become a semi permanent home at some time in the future, an increasingly common brief these days .The gay abandon of the archetypal holiday retreat had to be somehow tempered with the ever increasing list of requirements of an everyday home.

The uniformity of the cladding and the jagged composition of walls and parapets suggest house as sculpture, something timeless, non utilitarian and something which will maintain the excitement generated by this location. The spareness of the palette of the external materials continues inside. Grey tiled floors, blackbutt floor boards, white acoustic ceiling and chocolate brown wall panels reinforce the subdued internal experience and the ever changing external colours.

The ground floor slab is a rigid base upon which sits a flexible superstructure of timber studs and steel roof members. The high specification factory painted steel facade allowed for off site pre fabrication which aided in speed and economy of construction. The timber framing and lining boards also added to the economy and simplicity of the project.

The shell is highly insulated; deep overhangs protect the double glazed windows from unwanted sun. Roof catchment is a water source for both the building and the drought tolerant garden.

This is a tightly planned building of great complexity and variety of experiences.A two faced house is not necessarily a bad thing!

Free of clutter but filled with light, shadow and sculptural forms, filmmaker Matthew Donaldson takes you inside the minimalist masterpiece that Italian architect Claudio Silvestrin calls home. As part of NOWNESS’ In Residence series, this video sheds light  Silvestrin’s “reductive, contemplative, near-ecclesiastical spaces” that can be found across the globe – from Moscow to Majorca, and soon-to-be in Miami, where Silvestrin is currently designing a home from Kanye West that will undoubtedly exhibit many of his signature components. 

For more from NOWNESS, watch Richard Meier x Massimo Vignelli: On the Edge of Modernism.

Architects: Max Dudler
Location: 67434 Neustadt an der Weinstraße, Germany
Area: 1300.0 sqm
Year: 2011
Photographs: Stefan Müller

Project Manager: Simone Boldrin
Building Volumes Renovation: renovated buildings: 3.600 m2 gross surface area, 15.500 m3 gross building volume
Building Volumes New: new buildings: 1.300 m2 gross surface area, 6.300 m3 gross building volume
Contributors: Julia Werner, Handan Özdemir, Patrick Gründel
Structural Engineers: Ingenieurbüro Schenck
Landscaping: LOMA

Serving as backdrop to the so-called “German National Festival”, Hambach Castle bears unique witness to both German and European history and is regarded as the cradle of German democracy due to the Hambach Festival which took place amid its ruins in 1832. Since its founding as a late Roman hilltop settlement in 305 AD, the castle has been modified extensively over successive centuries. After its transferral to the Hambach Castle Foundation in 2002, plans were drawn up for the structure to undergo extensive modernisation, remodelling and new construction work. The architectural competition organised by the Foundation was won by the architect Max Dudler.

Dudler was insistent that any additions to the historical building should augment rather than overwhelm the existing structure. The architecture should “respect the language of the place by coming up with a suitable architectural response to the structure’s existing vocabulary”. Bearing in mind the building’s almost two thousand year history, his goal was to extend the existing historical structure through subtle means. A balanced architectural whole was created through use of a contemporary style embedded in tradition and history.

During the rebuilding work, Dudler attached great importance to exposing the building’s original substance. The existing walls were painstakingly cleaned, opened up and consolidated, thereby creating both spatial and chronological connections which had remained concealed until then. The new features, made from materials such as cherry wood, sandstone, steel and glass, blend into the space naturally, and all technical elements are well disguised.

The architecture of the castle’s “restaurant1832“ – with its panoramic stone terrace offering breathtaking views – also takes its visual lead from the defensive walls. These walls were strengthened to an extent, resulting in a sculptural building whose dining function also benefits the complex as a whole. The restaurant has many windows which are glazed flush with the interior wall. These deeply recessed forms in various sizes are distributed like paintings across the restaurant wall, creating sophisticated visual compositions which establish an enhanced relationship with the stunning landscape beyond. The light and rectilinear restaurant harmoniously nestles into the existing historical castle building, providing both an optical continuation of the medieval ring wall and a logical evolution of the building’s structural form. Made of local yellow sandstone, these walls heavily influence the site’s overall appearance and it was for this reason that Dudler chose the same material for new construction work.

The concept of “creating a building from the wall” resonates with the building ensemble as a whole. This results in unobtrusive, clean-lined structures which complement the principal castle building, thereby offering visitors a historically respectful reception.

Architects: 5468796 Architecture
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Year: 2012
Photographs: James Brittain

The Avenue on Portage revives two historic commercial buildings from the turn of the century located one block west of Winnipeg’s most famous corner, Portage and Main. Once major retail destinations in the city, the Avenue and Hample Buildings experienced a slow decline, becoming blights to the street and downtown. In 2010 our client purchased the site to develop the derelict properties into 75 rental apartments and 22,500 square feet of commercial space.

A series of formally simple moves dramatically transform the original façades, shifting public perception of the buildings from eyesores to a unified urban landmark. Hovering above the sidewalk, steel balconies cantilever from existing window openings and provide outdoor access for apartment dwellers. Clad in mirror-finish aluminum, the balconies become camouflaged against their surroundings, reflecting at turns the sky, the façade and the street below.

While the balconies push residents out beyond the façade, the main floor pulls pedestrians in, softening the boundary between the public streetscape and the private interiors. Inside, apartments sized between 430 and 1020 s.f. fill the upper four floors of the Avenue, as well as a new, three-storey addition to the Hample. In order to address the deep building footprint and provide windows for interior units, two existing light wells are carried down through all residential floors, while a third is extended into the new addition.

The main floor is occupied by Manitoba Start, a non-profit organization that provides services for new immigrants in Winnipeg. At street level a wall of glass folds back into the building to create a deep, V-shaped entrance that broadens the width of the sidewalk. Overhead, a faceted, mirror-finish canopy angles outward 13 feet from the face of the Hample before returning to meet the edge of the Avenue, unifying the two façades. Together, these elements draw the city into the building’s expression, making it an active participant in the life of the street.

New York City’s Midtown East will be facing a rezoning in the near future, bringing a dozen office towers into the already crowded neighborhood.  To help the Bloomberg Administration address the issues that may arise with this move, the city has hired sustainable real estate development firm, Jonathan Rose Co.; Dutch Urban Planning firm, Gehl Architects; and the global civil engineering firm, Skanska.  The different firms will be working to develop the streetscape to be known as the East Midtown Public Realm Vision Plan, which is scheduled for release later this year.

The rezoning of Midtown East will be a vast makeover of the neighborhood, covering 63 blocks stretching from East 39th Street to East 57th Street between Fifth and Third Avenues.  The Vision Plan comes as a response to the community board’s and local residents’ concerns over the quality of the development and the implications on the existing neighborhood’s development.  According to Crain’s New York, three workshops will be coordinated with the three participating firms and the city’s planning departments to establish guidelines for the final plan.  This will incorporate a public review process that takes the concerns into consideration.  City Councilman Daniel Garodnick says that the rezoning process is the right step toward a more inviting midtown, and hopes that the recommendations from the consultants will meet budgetary constrictions.

Drawing on design insight and concerns of the public realms through discussions and meetings with stakeholders, the consultants will develop a plan that will serve as a guide which will “feature design tools and action-oriented strategies for improving pedestrian access and other streetscape enhancements to encourage walking and active transportation”.

The new zoning maps will facilitate more office building in the area, increasing the allowable building size by 50 to 200%.  Matt Chaban of Crain’s New York writes that although the area is a premier spot for high rise office towers and a business district, only three towers have been constructed in the area in the past two decades.  These new zoning measures will help inspire more construction.  Developers who decide to take advantage of the redeveloped zoning rights will be able to buy air rights from private landlords or the city and help fund street improvements, which include widening Lexington and Madison Avenues and bringing a chain of public plazas to Vanderbilt Avenue.  Such developments will likely create a secondary business and entertainment district to Times Square, and will help balance the development that is slated for Midtown West.

Chabon points out that critics, locals and Garodnick himself argue that the rezoning is pre-emptive and the hiring of consultants for street improvements at the last minute is a sign that Mayor Bloomberg is trying to push through a last rezoning before leaving office.  With the street improvement plan set to come out in the fall, and the community board voting on the rezoning in June, it is unlikely that voters will have the details of the full scale of the project when making their decisions.  And while the plan for Midtown East’s development has been vague, NYC Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn says that the DOT’s Sustaintable Streets strategic plan, Street Design Manual and World Class Streets study provide the guidelines for designing sustainable and inviting streets for the city’s many functions.

via NYC.gov and Crain’s New York

Architects: Martin Hurtado Covarrubias & Sergio Quintana Felice Arquitectos Asociados
Location: Puerto Montt, Chile
Area: 27,030 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Leonardo Finotti

Collaborators: Iván Salas, Andrés Suarez, Sebastián Erazo, Raimundo Arteaga, Benjamín Covarrubias, Jose Manuel Casas, Álvaro Romero
Coordination: POCH & asociados
Structural Engineer: Jorge González (Hormigón), Mario Wagner (Madera) 
Vialidad: David Zapata
Climate: Ampi Ingeniería Térmica
Electricity: Alexis Soto
Health Installations: Tefra S.A.
Garbage Extraction: Tonini & Westervelt
Floor Engineering: Ricardo Carnevalli
Topography: Héctor Vargas
Pool: ABA piscinas
Site Area: 90,000 sqm

San Francisco School is an institution linked to the jesuits, which founded the school towards 1,850, in Puerto Montt’s downtown. It was in fact the first church and parish and part of its installations are now National Monument. The development and densification of the area, along with the citizens moving to new residential zones located in the suburbs forced the school to relocate. This new building is located at the heart of Pelluhue Alto, a new residential zone east of the city.

After a private competition, we are chosen to develop the complex program that had to include the actual school, as well as new programs to design a building that should last 150 years. ¿How to design the installations and buildings needed to host the educational space of a school that wants to be leader and accommodate the actual and future forms of education?

Places, spaces, technologies, buildings and programs. Many of them unknown today needed to exist in a consistent architectonic body.

We thought that the first jesuits that came to America faced a similar problem. Their installations and buildings needed to last and resist the passing years as witnesses of a mission. Studying the settlement patterns of these buildings we discovered a series of topics that repeated in each of their missions. These are part of of the ‘American Baroque’, which is a “synthesis” between the christian latin greek european cultures and the indigenous american local cultures.

¿What does the jesuits missions of Chiquitanía, Chiloé or El Paraná have in common? Simple rules and order in a chaotic and dispersed world. The foundation of these religious centers during missions had the purpose of evangelize these thousands of infidel souls.

We discovered certain patterns like the use of roman-greek structures surrounding the closed patios, the use of regular orthogonal frames that overlap over inhospitable american soil, the construction of an horizontal plinth as a solid base from which they built blocks and patios, all elements of classic architecture (influenced maybe by architectonic treaties published during that time, like the one by Jacopo Vignola, basis of the church of Gesu in Rome).

The original school of 1859 shows this same spirit, in a different scenario.

After the jesuits were expelled of America in 1757, this second evangelizing mission arrives to help establish German settlers, that arrived to that zone during mid-nineteenth century in search of a christian education for their kids.

These priests, educated in the classic technics of carpentry, built a church and a building that would become the school, with a model that follows many patterns of the former missioners.

The project for the new school is born with the idea to rescue these patterns:

The construction of a plinth at the top of the hill, new grounds that will harbor all the school installations. All the program is projected over one single building. One body with multiple parts to form one unique central inner patio protected from the wind.

The construction with local technics and materials, a modular system that allows an easy growing by stages, wood carpentry, a single body with multiple parts, a hall protecting itself from the weather and everything surrounding a big inner space with a protected inner patio. Windows treatment to help protection from the rain and wind, a compact building easy to heat and great details for the interiors. A single body that domains the profile of the future residential neighborhood of Puerto Montt.