Saturday, December 31, 2011

Climbing Up

Source: João Sousa
Le Quartier de Frugés, Pessac, France, 1925 designed by Le Corbusier
The project was commissioned to Le Corbusier by Mr. Frugés the owner of a big factory around Bordeaux. The main idea was to create a standardized set of houses that would be easy to build and not expensive as they were destined to be inhabited by the factory workers.  -- MIMOA

Source: cityofsound.com
Baker House Dormitory, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 1946 designed by Alvar Aalto
Instead of rooms, a stairway systems is housed on the north side of the building with an unobstructed view of its surroundings.   -- ArchDaily

Source: conservapedia.com
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 1977 designed by Renzo Piano + Richard Rogers
One of the “movement” elements that the center is most known for is the escalator (painted red on the bottom) on the west facade, a tube that zigzags up to the top of the building providing visitors with an astonishing view of the city of Paris.  -- ArchDaily

Source: Larry Speck
Void Space/Hinged Space Housing, Fukuoka, Japan, 1991 designed by Steven Holl Architects
A sense of passage is heightened by three types of access, by allowing apartments to have exterior front doors, and by interlocking apartments like a complex Chinese box.   -- architect's web site

Source: MVRDV
Expo 2000 NL Pavillion, Hannover, Germany, 2000 designed by MVRDV
It provides multi-level public space as an extension to existing public spaces. And even by arranging existing programs on many levels it provides yet more extra space, at ground level, for visibility and accessibility, for the unexpected, for nature. Dividing up the space in the Dutch entry and arranging it on multiple levels surrounds the building with spatial events and other cultural manifestations. The building becomes a monumental multi-level park. It takes on the character of a happening. -- architect's web site 

Source: MVRDV
De Effenaar Pop Center, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 2005 designed by MVRDV
In order to achieve a maximal garden and optimal truck-access, the building was situated as far away from the river Dommel as possible. The result was a compact footprint and lead to a stacking of the program. All the different parts of the program of the new Effenaar got their own specific sizes and were then put in a logical order.
By bending a range of little kingdoms, a main hall 'arises' like a test room. This is where the core business of the Effenaar takes place. The shape of the concert hall is a resultant of the space-requirements of the other spaces, like the smaller hall and the café/restaurant downstairs. In this way, a compact volume is made where every programmatic zone is positioned next to the concert hall and is linked to the city in front and the park behind.  -- architect's web site

Source: Namgoong Sun archdaily.com
Life & Power Press Cultural Topography, Paju book city, Gyoha-eup, Paju-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea, 2006 designed by Unsangdong Architects
to insert ‘the vessel of new topography’ into homogeneous space. ‘The vessel of new topography.’ an intervention of a new imagination into the space, works as imaginary texts like those of Jorge Luis Borges. We will make-the “Contour Topography” a space for the’ new experience. The Contour space will reflect the real topography by applying the abstract image of it to the floor. -- ArchDaily

Source: MVRDV
Gyre, Omotesando, Tokyo, Japan, 2007 designed by MVRDV
VERTICAL STREET
The program consists of 7 floors each with a surface of 60 percent of the total plot. By twisting these floors gradually around a central core, a series of terraces emerge connected by stairs and elevators that are placed outside the volumes. They create a twin pair of two vertical stepped terraced streets, on each side of the core. One is for ascending and the other for descending.  -- architect's web site

Source: Stéphane Chalmeau archdaliy.com
Logement Nancy, Nancy, France, 2007 designed by ANMA
Based on a simple post and beam structure (based on a car park frame), three living spaces organised together propose a new way of living: a well-insulated, walk-through interior living space; an inter-climatic space, i.e winter garden or veranda; a planted space for gardening or pleasure.  All the dwellings can be accessed via open walkways adjoined to the façade and punctuated by the verandas and the kitchen gardens. -- ArchDaily

Source: Fujita Syashin Kobo archdaily.com
Shiseikan, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto-shi, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, 2008 designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates
our concept was that the architecture itself could be made flexible to play different roles, such as a bridge, slope or a hole. Same approach was applied for the façade of the building. -- ArchDaily

Source: Wei-Min Yuan archdaily.com
Giant Headquarter Building, Taichung, Taiwan, 2008 designed by Studiobase Architects + Reborn Studio
.... the first and second floor serve as the Giant retail store and the bicycle ramp that wraps around the building becomes the main character of this project. The 2-meter-wide ramp is 46 meter long, and raises 4 meter high from the ground level pedestrian to the second floor retail store entrance with an 8% slope in average. The ramp also cuts the five corners in plan and creates a curvy boundary for the building skin. Although this bike ramp actually stops at the second floor, we tried to make the rest of building skin looks like the ramp extension that goes up to the roof, and finally comes up with this spiral-like expression. We wish the idea of motion and speed could be delivered with the ramp and the spiral-like expression. -- ArchDaily

Source: Stan Allen Architect archdaily.com
Paju Book City, Paju, Korea, 2009 designed by Stan Allen Architect
The simple volume is activated by the figure of the stairs moving up the elevation, exposing the rough stone base below. -- ArchDaily

Source: Iwan Baan archdaily.com
Nanjing Performing Arts Center, Nanjing, China, 2009 designed by Preston Scott Cohen
this building aims to offer a singular expression of the dialogue between two opposing paradigmatic forms of symbolic significance: a curving roof that appears to be related to the landscape of the larger campus context, and a tower which acts as a beacon and observation point.  -- ArchDaily

Source: Hiro Sakaguchi
DST, hibuya, Tokyo, Japan, 2009 designed by aat + makoto yokomizo architects
the discovery of staircase alleys as seen in Daikanyama was of great significance. When going up and down the stairs of DST, I hope that visitors will feel the changes of weather and season and shift their eyes to the city of Daikanyama today and the cluster of new and old buildings breathing inside this city.  -- ArchDaily

Source: Edouard François archdaily.com
Eden Bio, Paris, France, 2009 designed by Edouard François
Eden Bio was a study of the densification of a typical suburban block on the east side of Paris. External straight staircases rise, breaking free from the planted facades to serve two dwellings on each level.  Each apartment has windows on opposite sides of the building.  This idea was used for each apartment in the complex. -- ArchDaily

Source: Timothy Hursley archdaily.com
Eco Modern Flats, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA, 2011 designed by Modus Studio
Ground-based cedar panels carve out new terrace spaces. New balconies extend beyond the wraparound walkways at the second floor, simultaneously extending outdoor space while covering patios below. New cantilevered stairs span from the third floor walkways to roof, allowing people to access previously unobtainable views of the university, city and mountains. The new composition provides a playful backdrop for the complex and delivers unique character and spatial options for various units around the property. -- ArchDaily

Source: Paul Raftery archdaily.com
L’arbrisseau Neighborhood Centre, Lille, France, 2011 designed by Colboc Franzen & Associes
Its helical shape, the staircase that winds itself up around the sides of the building and its aluminium cladding, like a space vessel’s, all make it stand out. -- ArchDaily

Source: stevenholl.com
Nanjing Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China, 2011 designed by Steven Holl Architects
The museum is formed by a "field" of parallel perspective spaces and garden walls in black bamboo-formed concrete over which a light "figure" hovers. The straight passages on the ground level gradually turn into the winding passage of the figure above. The upper gallery, suspended high in the air, unwraps in a clockwise turning sequence and culminates at "in-position" viewing of the city of Nanjing in the distance. This visual axis creates a linkage back to the great Ming Dynasty capital city.  -- architect's web site
Watch VIDEO: Steven Holl on the Sifang Art Museum -- ArchDaily
New Images: Inside Steven Holl’s Sifang Art Museum -- ArchDaily
 
Source: 109 Architectes archdaily.com
USJ Campus de L’Innovation et du Sport, Beirut, Lebanon, 2011 designed by 109 Architects with Youssef Tohmé
This new campus takes a contextual approach, integrating physically, culturally, and historically with Beirut’s urban tissue. Conceptually an urban block with sculpted voids, the building’s hollow spaces define six autonomous blocks and construct multiple viewpoints across Beirut, connecting students to their dynamic setting. The voids also generate a street-level meeting space, which flows fluidly to the top floor in the form of a massive staircase. It concludes at a landscaped terrace overlooking the city. -- ArchDaily

Source: Robert Greshoff archdaily.com
Tidemill Academy and Deptford Lounge, Beirut, Lebanon, 2011 designed by Pollard Thomas Edwards Architects
Major shared facilities between the Lounge and Tidemill Academy include a suite of school/ community halls, a rooftop ball court, and kitchen/refectory. These have separate access points from within the school and from the public realm. -- ArchDaily

Source: Ángel Baltanás archdaily.com
BANCO ESPANA, Piedrabuena, Ciudad Real, Spain, 2011 designed by Ruiz Larrea y Asociados
In the basement, the original structure of the building is maintained, recovering the old ramp as storage space, and it is enlarged in correlation with the new building volume. New escape and circulation routes are made, which allows to enable for storage use, and for building facilities of that floor. -- ArchDaily

Source: Yohei Sasakura archdaily.com
H-House, Hikone, Shiga, Japan, 2011 designed by TOFU architects
This building which has grand stairs is composed of duplex house and a cafe. The site is facing the shopping street leading to the Hikone castle from Hikone station in Shiga. The owner wanted a cafe space on the first floor, so the approach was needed to the third floor. Considering the daily uses, the grand stairs were surrounded gradually around the building.
We adjusted the level of the grand stair to the existing level of the arcade. As a result, creating a facade that was incorporated arcade looks interesting. The stairs are not only for vertical movement, it can be used as a continuous private outdoor space with different heights. -- ArchDaily

Source: Adolf Bereuter archdaily.com
Bergrestaurant, Bezau, Platz 375, 6870 Bezau, Austria, 2011 designed by Markus Innauer + Bernd Frick
The building shape, orientation and internal structure of this clearly and boldly designed panoramic restaurant develop out of the existing topography. The volume is nestled against the hillside on the ridge of the mountain. The external staircase to the roof terrace is following the original terrain and separates the building. -- ArchDaily

Source: Vahos archdaily.com
Mixed-Use Building, Massamagrell, Valencia, Spain, 2011 designed by Vahos Architecture
Most of interior spaces are classrooms that are grouped rationally, with repeated and linear distribution, creating corridors on both sides of these, generating solar control and related spaces.  -- ArchDaily

Source: Adrià Goula archdaily.com
Julia Tower, Barcelona, Spain, 2011 designed by Pau Vidal + Sergi Pons + Ricard Galiana
Wide corridors overlooking the city, stairs in all outdoor places, double-spaced areas and sun-shaded terraces configure a building that is intended to give elderly people an opportunity to socialize and engage in community activities. -- ArchDaily

Source: Werner Huthmacher archdaily.com
House O, Potsdam-Mittelmark, Germany, 2011 designed by Peter Ruge Architekten
The new building is designed as a modern residential building with 3 flats. The floor plans are designed to be flexible and open. The main flat extends across two floors.  Simple and reserved materials (exposed concrete, glass, wood, natural stone) underline the modern architectural style to accentuate focus upon the connection between the interior and outdoor spaces. All upper floors can be access via the external staircase. -- ArchDaily

Source: Bercy Chen Studio archdaily.com
Riverview Gardens Residence, Austin, Texas, USA designed by Bercy Chen Studio
In the spirit of that waterfall, rainwater is directed to the end of each Riverview Garden house and falls 3 stories in a sheet to form a dramatic waterfall, not unlike the rain screen found in classical Chinese gardens. The rainwater is then collected in an 80’ long shared pond which on a breezy day provides some natural cooling to the houses. -- ArchDaily

Source: construction.com
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Extension, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 2012 designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop
The new Gardner entrance opens onto a glass and steel shed attached to a greenhouse, with Piano's square main building straight ahead. Here you first encounter a comfortable “Living Room” (for orientation and relaxing), and beyond that the café, both occupying pavilion-like glazed enclosures overlooking the back of the old museum. Above, separated by a large stair, are two cubic volumes. One, the Special Exhibition Gallery, 36 feet in three dimensions, has an adjustable-height ceiling for differing display needs, with a glazed wall on the north. The other, Calderwood Hall, is a 42-foot-cubic concert space, topped by a skylight. -- Architectural Record

Source: Iwan Baan archdaily.com
New Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China designed by Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio
More photos from ArchDaily

Source: archdaily.com
Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre, Brazil designed by Alvaro Siza
The new building for the Ibere Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre, Brazil designed by Portugal´s Alvaro Siza, is a big rectangular white  structure. It has a big central space enclose by circulations and exhibition spaces. Some of this circulations separate from the main body as arms going out through the facade. -- ArchDaily

Source: Serge Brison archdaily.com
Ecole ITP, Walloon Brabant, Belgium designed by A229
The first floor is accessed by external stairs, which go all the way up to the roof. -- ArchDaily

Source: Esaú Acosta archdaily.com
12 Houses in Icod, Icod de los Vinos, Tenerife, Spain, 2012 designed by daolab
A courtyard house that raises one piece of it a high plant allows passage through the courtyard under the corridor that became stairs. This scheme along with its neighbor, produces a symbiosis so strong that autoregulates and promotes relations. -- ArchDaily

Source: Shu He Photography archdaily.com
Wanda Academy, Langfang, Hebei, China, 2012 designed by HYHW Architecture Consulting
Administrative building focused on presenting an extending and open balcony. It is a focal point of the square on its south side. The dimension of the square was the main consideration and formulating a horizontal performance of the building design. -- ArchDaily
Source: van Dongen-Koschuch archdaily.com
Kunstcluster, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands, 2012 designed by van Dongen-Koschuch
The multi-storey car park next to the Kunstcluster is an exception. This block is literally a green lung in the stone-built urban environment. Analysis during the design process came up with the idea of a parking structure which would be carbon-neutral both to build and, expressly also, to operate. The garage frontage on the Stadsplein side is four metres thick. Here a cascade stairway wends its way up/down through a bamboo plantation six metres high. Prints on the balustrades and other glazed surfaces graphically reflect the bamboo image. The ground floor accommodates retail, resulting in a living streetscape. -- ArchDaily

Source: Joao Ferrand archdaily.com
Nordial Center, Mirandela, Portugal, 2012 designed by Architects Associated, Lda
The construction is strongly determined by its geometry. This is not a purely mimetic relationship but a transformation of the landscape but always with an attitude that develops within its logic. After all, landscape gives rises to maintain the spirit of freedom and hope. -- ArchDaily

Source: LoebCapote Arquitetura e Urbanismo archdaily.com
Knorr-Bremse, Itupeva, São Paulo, Brasil, 2013 designed by LoebCapote Arquitetura e Urbanismo
The volume housing the changing rooms and refectory lies at a lower level than the factory, integrating it with the landscape – an effect that is heightened by the use of a garden on the roof cover and the spacious wood and metal deck intended as a rest area where views of the Serra do Japi in the horizon can be enjoyed. -- ArchDaily

Source: a2o-architecten archdaily.com
Deusjevoo, Winterslag, Belgium designed by a2o-architecten
The red staircase is an eye catcher. It is suspended, as it were, from the projecting third floor and has no other visible supports. It rests on the ground and is anchored in the wall at the first floor. -- ArchDaily

Source: Clément Guillaume archadily.com
La Grenouillère, 37 Rue du père Goriot, Tours, France, 2013 designed by Eva Samuel Architecte & Associés
The project is decomposed into several volumes that are disseminated along the rue du Père Goriot, providing a view inside the parcel by way of transparencies. -- ArchDaily

Source: Nam Goong Sun archdaily.com
KPOP Curve, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, 2014 designed by Moon Hoon
....curved walls, which created the illusion of two-side walls forming a continual whole, as well as two different roads appearing as one. The resulting scene played out have a unique design, as well as linking the building to its context. A stage was inserted into the curved surface, next to the stairs climbing up to and above it, here moulding the streets into seats for the audience and the staircase as alcoves. -- ArchDaily

Source: Jaime Navarro archdaily.com
EGL1916, Guadalajara, JAL, Mexico, 2014 designed by Alvaro Moragrega arquitecto
A concrete tower has the elevator and the stair ramps complete the composition of the north elevation running along the full corridors length generating different rest areas that function as lookout points. -- ArchDaily

Source: Juan Solano archdaily.com
PUCP Engineering and Science Classroom Building, Avenida Universitaria 1801, San Miguel Lima 33, Peru, 2014 designed by Llosa Cortegana Arquitectos
The project reflects on the possibility of encounter by inserting different spaces, activating the building’s life outside the classroom. It explores the insertion of the staircase as generator of spatial and visual relations, extending the idea of stairs -- ArchDaily

Source: Wison Tungthunya archdaily.com
10Cal Tower, Gym Burapha University, Saen Suk, Chon Buri District, Chon Buri 20130, Thailand, 2014 designed by Supermachine Studio
....a stacking concrete labyrinth that offers many possibilities for children and adults to climb around. The structure offers some tens combinations of routes for families to redefine their relationships. -- ArchDaily

Friday, December 30, 2011

Piled Up 7

Source: archdaily.com
Dupli Casa, Ludwigsburg, Germany, 2008 designed by J. Mayer H. Architects
The geometry of the building is based on the footprint of the house that previously was located on the site. Originally built in 1984 and with many extensions and modifications since then, the new building echoes the “family archaeology” by duplication and rotation. -- ArchDaily

Source: Herzog & de Meuron
The VitraHaus, Weil am Rhein, Germany, 2010 designed by Herzog & de Meuron
The individual 'houses', which have the general characteristics of a display space, are conceived as abstract elements. With just a few exceptions, only the gable ends are glazed, and the structural volumes seem to have been shaped with an extrusion press. Stacked into a total of five storeys and breathtakingly cantilevered up to fifteen metres in some places, the twelve houses, whose floor slabs intersect the underlying gables, create a three-dimensional assemblage – a pile of houses that, at first glance, has an almost chaotic appearance. -- official web site 
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Vitra, Ginger bread Vitra Haus, Source: archdaily.com






Source: Herzog & de Meuron
Actelion Business Center, Allschwil, Switzerland, 2010 designed by Herzog & de Meuron 
the new Actelion Business Centre building is an open structure comprising beam-like elements, stacked on top of one another, which change their appearance depending on the angle from which they are viewed.  -- architect's web site

Source: Kim, Yong Gwan archdaily.com
Aggrenad, Geojesi, Korea designed by AND
The building is formed like how fingers are branched out from a hand forming different parts. It is the aggregation of unique rooms, yet at the same time, it is an organic monad. Each unit is cantilevered out towards the sea as if fingers are pointing at the nearby islands. This allows each unit to frame the surrounding landscape in a unique way. -- ArchDaily

Source: Wang Weijen Architecture archdaily.com
Xixi Wetland Art Village, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, 2011 designed by Wang Weijen Architecture
Through the composition of a series of architectural viewing instruments each designed for different positions and viewing angles, the project intends to reverse the process of mo[ve]vie[w] and reframe our scenic experiences, exploring new conditions for our perceptions toward landscape, or mountain and water. -- ArchDaily

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Triangular 6

Source: archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
Triangle House, Nesodden, Norway, 2006 designed by JVA
While the exterior views are singularly framed by the window openings, closely related to individual spaces, the interior is treated in a more fluent way with overlapping sequences of space and light in section and plan. This duality of focal and flow is the theme of the building.  -- ArchDaily

 Source: Åke E:son Lindman archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
Garden house, Södermanland, Sweden, 2008 designed by Tham & Videgård Hansson
The triangular foot print is the result of a steep slope that diagonally crosses the site. With one of the long facades facing south we also managed to eliminate a pure northern façade. This further helped the idea of plants climbing high on the oversized trellis that cover some of the windows so that in time they will become hidden within the greenery.  -- ArchDaily

Source: Jean-Luc Laloux archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
Infinity, Baleares, Spain, 2008 designed by Atelier d’Architecture Bruno Erpicum & Partners
Space and time are two infinite things that pass us by. Architecture, however, enables us to model space and set time, like a sundial. It can also embody a third infinite thing: beauty. -- ArchDaily

Source: Forward stroke Inc archdaily.com
Plans, Source: archdaily.com
UN , Kanagawa, Japan, 2010 designed by Yo Yamagata Architects
The project site is in local hill near Tokyo located in a new residential area. The site is Flagpole-like site of triangle shapes by residential division. So we built a wall at perimeter to guard privacy. And we arranged three courtyards of different types at corner inside a wall. -- ArchDaily

Source: Koichi Torimura archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
On the Corner, Shiga, Japan, 2011 designed by Eastern Design Office
The site is a wedge-shaped flatiron lot which resides at a corner where two streets merge at an acute angel. It was left behind neither used for residential nor for industrial development. Since no one wanted to buy it, and the public sector would not invest to change it into a park, the lot remained.
It is a triangular building configured by the square elements. The cross confines the power of the mixed materials into one. -- ArchDaily

Source: Sebastian Nagy archdaily.com
Plan/Elevation, Source: archdaily.com
Triangolo, Nitra, Slovakia designed by Sebastian Nagy
The apartment house TRIANGOLO was created as a dialog between natural predispositions, town and the construction site locality. The Nitra’s upland, Zobor and meander of the river Nitra represented basic inspirational dominants. Triangular parcel and the roof of harmonic curve together with dispositional and material concept eventually formed architecture into its final resemblance. -- ArchDaily

Source: Adria Goula archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
712 House, Barcelona, Spain, 2011 designed by H Arquitectes
The plot, which was triangular and around 400 sqm, was part of a land promotion protected by the Incasol for self promoters and was subjected to a tight schedule for the development of the house.  The triangular geometry of the plot was assumed and a systematic distribution was established based on two basic and equivalent spaces which were only qualified according to its orientation and its relationship with the exterior: three spaces from 8 to 10 sqm and three from 15 to 18sqm. -- ArchDaily

Source: Trevor Mein archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
House at Big Hill, Lorne, Victoria, Australia, 2011 designed by Kerstin Thompson Architects
Triangular in plan its long side acts as retaining wall struck against the slope of the land. Adjacent to this are sides two and three, joined to provide a right angle, a corner. If this right angle contains the interior and defines a clear boundary between inside and out, the apexes instead breach this. Separated from the retaining wall by full height glazed breaks they reveal views of significant trees and distant headlands. At these acute ends, inside and outside become one. -- ArchDaily

Source: Katsutoshi Sasaki + Associates arcdhaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
Unou House, Toyota Aichi, Japan, 2012 designed by Katsutoshi Sasaki + Associates
For this site which has good view, we put two “frames”. One is vertical frame at east. The other is horizontal frame at west. The space consists of connecting the two frames. It’s a space horizontally opened while reducing height gradually and a space vertically opened while reducing a plan gradually. The “one room” is expanding vertically and horizontally. -- ArchDaily

Source: Nam Goong Sun archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com
Roll House, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea, 2013 designed by Moon Hoon
....an amazing plot of land. It was long, like a sword, adjoined with a long street to its side. The proportion was dramatic and therefore something that added to the appeal of the project, and the shape of the site itself breathed a vital energy into the building. -- ArchDaily

Source: Zooey Braun archdaily.com

Plans, Source: archdaily.com
Residential and Dental Practice Immler, Hard, Austria, 2014 designed by ARSP
This angular form arose as a direct result of two factors. Firstly, a crowded main street to the southern side of the plot and secondly a wish of the client to be able to enjoy a private but sun filled garden throughout the day. -- ArchDaily

Source: Petros Perakis archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com
Residence in Megara, Megara, Greece, 2014 designed by Tense Architecture Network
It is articulated through the creation of two interior courtyards, while the interconnection of its open and closed spaces is served by two juxtaposed corridors -a glass roofed and an open-air one. Its courtyards and living spaces remain inscribed in an austere, yet perforated triangle. -- ArchDaily