visiondivision: The Latest Architecture and News

Our Swedish friends from Visiondivision are back with their latest residential project for a family in Tampere, Finland - an extension that offers a quirky departure from a traditional “addition” as the architecture provides an entire “village” of units to meet optimal flexibility and potential. The village idea offers an interesting structure for the clients to inhabit and one that can be experienced in a variety of ways to inspire the residents during their everyday activities.

More after the break. 

Our friends from Visiondivision have envisioned a creative solution to respond to Stockholm’s lack of housing. While the city is growing rapidly, the pace of new construction for residences is quickly falling behind demand. Due to this lack of housing, the core of Stockholm has grown to be defined by expensive apartments, while the outer edges for those who can’t afford such prices. For Stockholm Stacked, Visiondivision responds to this segregated city by proposing a change in planning regulations to eliminate height restrictions on courtyard typologies, so as to utilize the urban spaces for efficiently and effectively. After all, “Who wants to move to a city where it is impossible to get an apartment? Which companies wants to invest in a city where their employees may have a hard time to find a place to stay? Which exchange students wants to study in a city where all the free time available will go to find a small flat with a decent rent?” asks the firm.

More about the project after the break.

Last week, we shared a great series of modular summer residences by Visiondivision that ranged from a small cabin to a massive castle. In the meantime, the firm has also been working on a competition proposal to replace a church in Våler, a small Norwegian town, after a devastating fire. For a firm that typically takes a standard design approach and then reinvents it or inverts it to form a completely new paradigm, we were impressed by their ability to bring a simplistic elegance to this religious structure.

More about the church after the break.

Just in time for the warm weather, Visiondivison has shared a great collection of summer houses with us. Entitled the Spröjs Series, the residences stem from an organizing modular system present in their built project Spröjs House (previously featured on AD). And, in this collection, in typical Visiondivision fashion, the firm has exploited the potential of the module and crafted residences ranging from a simple shed and cabin to a crazy castle.

Check out the range of residences after the break.

When the Taiwan Tower competition in Taichung asked participants for an iconic skyscraper, Visiondivision responded with a cluster of over 100 slender towers that challenges the expected experiences within and aesthetics of a 21st century tower. Tower Town, a result of examining the traditional skyscraper and questioning its spatial offerings, creates a dense urban environment with its fragmented massing.

More about the project after the break.

At the end of this summer, our friends from Visiondivision will complete their latest commission, a waiting room for a private athletic clinic in Stockholm. By separating the clinic from the larger hospital, the architects were able to create a peaceful haven within the institution. This new section boasts a more refreshing environment that is brightly illuminated and designed for comfort.

More about the clinic and more images after the break.

Check out Visiondivision’s latest work – a residential extension to an old Swedish house. Expanding upon the clients’ taste in the traditional Swedish houses with mullion windows, or ‘spröjs’ in Swedish, the team set out to exploit the building component by introducing ”a huge mullion window as its main feature.” The mullion window becomes the focal point of the house as it covers the front facade and opens toward the garden that slopes toward the nearby lake.

More images and more about the residence after the break.

A few days ago, we shared Visiondivision’s Nature’s Choice – a series of vacation homes that attempt to blend into their unique site placement. The firm just shared their latest competition entry for a hotel room atop a cloud. Presented in a comic strip, the proposal delivers a temporary hotel room to accommodate visitors of the 2012 London Olympic games.

More about the hotel room after the break.

Our friends from Visiondivision shared their latest vacation home for two families in Sweden with us. The coastal site, which has been included on the world heritage list due to its outstanding land uplift geology, has two different levels – an upper level of untouched wood and a lower one of a rocky meadow. The project draws inspiration from the site as its unique arrangement beckons any built structure to blend into its environment. As the site incorporates two very different areas, the architects saw three potential alternatives for the site: either a wooden house set amidst the forest level, a stone house that lies in close connection with the rock outcrops, or, the more challenging alternative of how to appeal to both types of nature present on the site.

More about the project after the break.

Our friends from Visiondivision shared their latest summer house in Singö, Sweden with us. The architects were limited to designing the small summer house within the confines of an existing shed because the site is exposed every tens years to the overflows of the Baltic Sea. Constructed as a lizard’s tail, the house utilizes a pragmatic strategy where if one part of the building gets exposed to water, that part can easily be replaced without affecting the rest of the building.

More about the summer house after the break.

Recently, we shared Visiondivision’s Cancer City project – if you haven’t seen it, be sure to check it out as the firm’s fresh outlook results in a new kind of landscape for the animals. Moving from designing a new metropolis for crayfish, the architects have switched gears for their latest project to create a sukkah for an annual Jewish harvest festival. The proposal is part of the New York competition for Sukkah City (be sure to view the finalists here), which asked participants to re-imagine the temporary pavilion by developing new methods of material practice and parametric design. For Visiondivison’s proposal, the organic pavilion changes the conditions for social interaction and behavior within a simplistic structure of compression.

More images and more about the proposal after the break.

For their latest commission, Visiondivision addressed the extension of an 18th century cottage with their typical offbeat approach (check out their other projects previously featured on AD). Abiding by the clients’ request for the house to blend in with the environment, particularly from the one side where the client’s conservative mother “has her cottage and watchful eyes”, the extension becomes a unobtrusive living space that is part of the earth, making it appear “almost invisible”.

More images and more about the extension after the break.

Visiondivision‘s latest project, a residential extension for two children in Stockholm, utilizes a landscape surface that is enhanced by elements around and inside the house. The young children will be spending most of their day enjoying the outdoors, so Visiondivision “wanted to give the two new citizens a safe base where they can explore their new surroundings and be able to appreciate it to the fullest.” By deliberately choosing inexpensive building components, such as windows and façade materials, the architects saved a bigger part of the budget to create as many playful elements as they could.

More about the Hill House after the break.

Our friends at Visiondivision passed along their Cover Up project which is part of a bigger commission to improve several power plants for an energy company. The firm created a storage facility for several heating containers that could be quickly outsourced and serve as back-up power should the city experienced a black-out. Working in an industrial area where the company was used to break ins and vandalism, the firm designed a “good looking, roofless, and flexible-as-an-anaconda building.” Good looking in the sense that this storage facility could better the rough surroundings; roofless due to the fact that the large containers needed to be transported with a special crane truck; and flexible since the need for additional containers in the future should also be considered.

More about the project after the break.

Visiondivison shared their entry for the Koivusaari Idea Competition to create a new city district on an island just outside Helsinki, Finland. The competition asked participants to organize a master plan for the island that would provide the framework for further planning. Visiondivison’s proposal, Urban Fade, is comprised of a highly efficient city grid that allows users the option of moving around the district to interact with the different areas.

More about the proposal after the break.

Visiondivision, an international young practice, shared with us their competition entry for a children’s hospital prototype for Rwanda. The competition, entitled “Design for the Children”, asks architects and designers to develop a sustainable, culturally responsive, pediatric clinic model for East Africa.

More images and further project description after the break.