Eyes on the Roof

Source: Emily Geoff Flickr

MIT Baker House Dormitory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 1946 designed by Alvar Aalto

Built with dark red rustic bricks, the modular pieces come together to create sweeping curves that juxtapose the solid limestone of the attached rectilinear common room. The common room is a calm static space in comparison to the movement of the dormitories. The lower floor is lit with circular lights and the upper floor has views of the river. -- ArchDaily

Source: ltarkitekter.dk

Trapholt Art Museum, Kolding, Denmark, 1988 designed by Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter

The museum is organized around a spatial and circulatory sequence that begins at the entry court, innermost and highest on the site, and culminates in the panorama over the fjord. A continuous, massive wall acts as the circulatory backbone of the complex, integrating museum and landscape as its sculptural form traverses the contours of the site.

The exhibition spaces are a sequence of interlocking rooms, arranged along one side of the massive wall, so that all spaces are accessible. The exhibition spaces have skylights and windows placed according to exhibition requirements and exterior views. -- architect's web site

Source: openbuildings.com

Kunsthaus, Graz, Austria, 2003 designed by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier

....known locally as the Friendly Alien—has since become an attraction for art lovers and the culturally minded from all over the world. But it has also become an essential landmark in the urban identity of the city of Graz. As an exhibition centre for contemporary art, the Kunsthaus exhibits Austrian and international art from 1960 onwards. Its BIX media façade—designed by Berlin designers realities:united—constitutes a unique fusion of architecture and media technology. Effectively a large screen in the middle of the city, it acts as an instrument of art communication. -- OpenBuildings

Source: Christoph Bonke archdaily.com

Stödel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, 2007 designed by Schneider + Schumacher

By placing the new building below the museum’s garden, they almost doubled the exhibition area from 4,000 m2 to 7,000 m2. The outer surface of the doubly-curved roof slab is covered by a total of 195 roof lights, varying in diameter from 1.50 m at the outer edge to 2.50 m at the highest point in the centre. These “eyes for art” were specially developed for the Städel extension and are designed to be walked on. Daylight entering the exhibition space Städel below can be controlled; either augmented using the integrated LED lighting system or mitigated by shading elements built into the roof light. -- ArchDaily

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Source: Tim Griffith archdaily.com

California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California, USA, 2008 designed by Renzo Piano

The planetarium and the bubble that contains the rain forest habitat are the two big spheres that shape the green roof. The roof becomes a landscape with California native species, that won´t need extra maitenance or water, attracting local species to occupy it. Thus, the green roof won´t be fully accesible to visitors, who can only walk through a small path.

• The undulating roofline will draw cool air into the open piazza at the center of the building, naturally ventilating the surrounding exhibit spaces. Skylights in the roof will automatically open and close to vent hot air out through the tops of the domes.
• The skylights are strategically placed to allow natural sunlight to reach the living rainforest and coral reef. -- ArchDaily

Source: Jeremy San archdaily.com

9 Leedon Park, Singapore, 2011 designed by ipli architects

The house is designed to be passively cooled and naturally lit. The concrete walls insulate the interiors from the harsh sunlight and tropical heat. Hot air is vented through small openings in the roof so that there will not be any build up of temperature.  A water feature trickles water down the concrete wall, cooling it further. Little skylights with low-e film illuminate the interiors without letting in too much heat. The concrete walls are left in their natural finish so that they will age naturally with time. -- ArchDaily

Source: Javier Callejas Sevilla archdaily.com

Zamora Offices, Zamora, Spain, 2012 designed by Alberto Campo Baeza

Within the stone box, a glass box, only glass.  Like a greenhouse. With a double facade similar to a Trombe wall. The external skin of the facade is made of glass, each single sheet measuring 600x300x1,2 and all joined together simply with structural silicone and hardly anything else. As if entirely made of air. -- ArchDaily

Source: Brigida Gonzalezarchdaily.com

Forum at the Eckenberg Academy, Adelsheim, Germany, 2013 designed by Ecker Architekten 

The framing structure of the building is a three-axis lacunar concrete slab supported by three rotationally-cast concrete columns. The slab is articulated through a variety of cycloidal coffers, some of which accommodate transparent skylights. The coffering reduces the actual weight of the supporting structure while demonstrating the physical depth of the construction. The skylights ventilate the space, provide acoustic absorption, and contain integrated lighting to illuminate the space by day and night.   -- ArchDaily

Source: James Ewing archdaily.com

Henry W Bloch Executive Hall at University, Kansas City, Missouri, USA, 2013 designed by BNIM + Moore Ruble Yudell

Daylight penetrates the building, and spaces are easily adaptable to accommodate changing needs and active uses. -- ArchDaily

Source: Emre Arolat Architects + Ertuğrul Morçöl + Selahattin Tüysüz archdaily.com

Ulus Savoy Residences, Istanbul, Turkey, 2013 designed by Emre Arolat Architects + Ertuğrul Morçöl + Selahattin Tüysüz

The garage level was designed to hold a sufficient number of cars and to fit the basement of each building block, and, by problematizing the upper cover, at the same time constituted the substructure of a “new topography” within a negative-positive relationship. Each different level in the garage was connected by ramps, thus rendering it fluid. -- ArchDaily

Source: Adi Wainberg archdaily.com

K-house, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, 2013 designed by Arbejazz Architecture Studio

The entrance level consists of a family zone animated by natural light coming from a set of round skylights, which offers a playful interaction between this level and the balcony above. -- ArchDaily

Source: Jannes Linders archdaily.com

Grotius Building of Radboud University Nijmegen, Montessorilaan 10, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 2014 designed by Benthem Crouwel Architects

The main entrance is located on a future new square. Through this entrance one enters the bright central atrium. The vital functions such as the library, the large lecture hall for 500 students and restaurant are grouped around the atrium, over several floors. A waterfall of wide stairs, located at the centre of the atrium, connects all floors. -- ArchDaily

Source: Brigida González archdaily.com

Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Jaeger Street 30, 70174 Stuttgart, Germany, 2014 designed by Wulf Architekten

On the ground floor the visitors can immediately find a large function room which can be enlarged to the foyer. Borrowed lights are illuminating this arrival area and most public space of the building. -- ArchDaily

Source: Fernando Guerra | FG+SG archdaily.com

RENOVA Store & Theatre, Almonda, 2350, Portugal, 2014 designed by PHYD ARQUITECTURA

Perforation over the surface, which is obtained from two different mechanisms, the cut and perforation itself. -- ArchDaily

T 2

Source: Artau Architecture archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

Hôtel du Val d’Amblève, Stavelot, Belgium, 2008 designed by Artau Architecture

The detached house includes 14 hotel rooms of +/-30 m2 and a wellness area. Its location depends mainly on an existing building that needs to be preserved. Furthermore, the building is constructed according to the remarkable trees, the close views on the park, distant views on the opposite slope. The wood is present in all its forms and shapes, not only on a structural level but also in the cedar cladding on the outside and the cherry wood cladding on the inside. The existing hotel is transformed in order to offer 3 more spacious rooms and two seminar rooms. -- ArchDaily

Source: Michel Denancé archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

54 logements ZAC Seguin Rives de Seine, Boulogne-Billancourt, France, 2010 designed by PHD Architectes

The 54-unit project offers a reading in two stages: a able volume in T, massive and raw, self-compacting concrete, cut along the requirements of the surfaces of program, in accordance with the intentions of the agency Lispsky and Rollet and rules PLU. -- ArchDaily

Source: César San Millán archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

Dwelling Etura, Barrundia, Spain, 2011 designed by Roberto Ercilla Arquitectura

The visual impact of the housing is reduced by placing it below the access level into the side, with a piece strongly over hanged. This is achieved by minimal intervention in the environment (9% parcel occupancy). The roof garden with a small access pavilion and vehicle protection completes the intervention. -- ArchDaily

Source: Marc Cramer archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

T House,Sutton, Quebec, Canada, 2013 designed by Natalie Dionne Architecture

In plan, the house revolves around three distinct parts arranged in the form of the letter ‘T’. One part accommodates the living room, another, the guest rooms and a third houses the kitchen with the master bedroom upstairs. -- ArchDaily

Skin of Architecture: Mirror

Source: pcf-p.com

John Hancock Tower, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 1976 designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners

The extreme disparity in size between the tower and the church was the central predicament we faced. ....several aspects of the tower's design may be cited as essential: First, the attenuated rhomboid plan-form emphasizes the planar and minimizes the volumetric presences of the building. Second, placement of the rhomboid diagonally on the site, with its narrow edge adjacent to the church, effectively disembodies the tower as seen from the square. Third, notches bisecting the end walls accentuate the weightless verticality of these planes and make legible the tower's nonrectangular geometry. .... Fifth, the tower's uniformly gridded and reflective surface, stripped of all elements that might suggest a third dimension, mutes the obtrusiveness of its enormous bulk and defers in all respects to the rich sculptural qualities of its much smaller neighbor. With regard to this latter aspect, it should especially be noted that the three-story-high lobby at the base of the tower is sheathed in the same manner as all other floors; had the monumental scale of this space been directly expressed or exposed to view from the outside, it surely would have upset the delicate balance in the dialogue between church and tower. -- architect's web site

Source: predock.com

Mandell Weiss Forum and La Jolla Playhouse , University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California, USA, 1991 designed by Antoine Predock Architect

Going to the theater should be a ritual, a ceremony.  The approach to this building is a gift to the audience - an experience heightened by the eucalyptus grove that defines the site. 

In the center of the grove was a clearing that became the site for the building and its 270-foot-long, 13-foot-high mirrored foreground wall.  The mirror is detached from the theater; it is a floating plane poised against the eucalyptus grove.  When theater goers arrive they see their individual and collective reflections in this mirror, and they smell the aromatic eucalyptus leaves.  The sounds of dry leaves and gravel underfoot also charge the arrival.  There is a true sense of expectation. -- architect's web site

Source: Keith Paisley archdaily.com

Kielder Belvedere, Northumberland, Pennsylvania, USA, 1999 designed by Softroom

On approach from the park, two etched-steel mirror walls reflect the forest and flank a doorway set beneath a richly-coloured glass canopy. The triangular shelter is entered via its apex, through an apparently very thick wall.  The curve of the door suggests what lies beyond; a golden circular chamber, lit by soft daylight filtering through a coloured skylight. -- ArchDaily

Source: Thomas Lenden archdaily.com

Pavilion for an Artist, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2008 designed by DHL Architecture

From the outside, the building is camouflaged with mirrors; it reflects the surroundings negating its own existence. Strange and impenetrable to the unaware, only the owner knows its secrets. The large cabinet doors are almost invisible and the entrance must be discovered. -- ArchDaily

Source: Laura Stamer archdaily.com

Mirror House, Copenhagen, Denmark designed by MLRP

Funhouse mirrors are mounted on the gabled ends of this playground pavilion in Copenhagen, as well as behind the doors. This engages a play with perspective, reflection and tranformation. Instead of a typical closed gable facade, the mirrored gables creates a sympathetic transition between built and landscape and reflects the surrounding park, playground and activity. -- ArchDaily 

Source: Patrick Bingham Hall archdaily.com

Cairns Botanic Gardens Visitors Centre, Cairns, Australia, 2011 designed by Charles Wright Architects

.... a mirrored facade that literally reflects the surrounding gardens.  The architects’ describe it as having a “visual effect similar to the suit as worn by the alien hunter in the original 1987 Predator film.” The camouflaged gateway houses a café terrace, information and exhibition space, and offices for the council staff. It activates the pedestrian promenade and links the gardens with the Arts Centre, while serving as a cool and dry zone all year round for tourists visiting the often hot and wet environment of the tropical gardens. -- ArchDaily

Source: John Lewis Marshall archdaily.com

Garden studio, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2012 designed by CC-Studio

By placing mirrored planes the visual depth of the garden was enhanced to look deeper. Also the geometry of the volume was specially tailored to play with the perspective lines and to have no vertical surfaces parallel to the house but at an angle to have a more continuous flow. This geometry was tested and adjusted on site using a line mock-up first before finalizing the design. -- ArchDaily

Source: Paul Archer Design archdaily.com

Green Orchard, Gloucestershire, UK designed by Paul Archer Design

The exterior is clad in an intelligent skin of bespoke full-height panels, which are electronically motorised to slide open fully. The panels are highly insulated and allow the occupants to control and vary the thermal performance of the house depending on the time of the day and year. An aluminium coating reflects the surrounding gardens ensuring that the house recedes into its setting. -- ArchDaily

Source: Julien Lanoo archdaily.com

Gymnasium and Town Hall Esplanade, Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Chelles, France, 2012 designed by LAN Architecture

Here, we had to escape from the imagery related to sports facilities to implement an object which «lets us see» a fragmenting urban kaleidoscope, diffracting and reflecting the image of the surrounding buildings in order to respond with a new, more sensitive vision. To this end, the facade is composed of two layers, the first (the glass) reflecting and letting in light, and the second (the copper), coloring and magnifying the reflection, providing protection from glass impacts. -- ArchDaily

Source: Holzer Kobler Architekturen archdaily.com

PALÄON, Schöningen, Germany, 2013 designed by Holzer Kobler Architekturen

The metallic skin of the PALÄON mirrors the meadows and forests that surround it as well as the movements of the clouds in the sky passing by. Through its archaic form, the research and experience center becomes one with its surroundings. -- ArchDaily

Source: Jeroen Musch archdaily.com

Mirror House, De Eenvoud, Almere, The Netherlands, 2013 designed by Johan Selbing + Anouk Vogel

The Mirror House is a private villa with a facade consisting entirely of reflective glass, which acts as a camouflage and an obstruction of the view of its  interior. The floorplan has been designed to be as compact as possible, with the possibility to adapt to different lifestyles. -- ArchDaily

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Source: PROJEKTSTUDIO archdaily.com

Reconstruction of Building Ostrava-Svinov, Ostrava-Svinov, Peterkova, 721 00 Ostrava-Svinov, Czech Republic, 2013 designed by PROJEKTSTUDIO

The facade of the house is made of composite panels in the mirror – chrome color treatment, which reflects current hundred-year old distillery. With this “masking” the designed object becomes invisible – like the UFO that suddenly landed on the ground and does not want be revealed. -- ArchDaily

Source: Cassandra Hryniw archdaily.com

Public Art Sculpture Mirage, Toronto, Canada, 2012 designed by Paul Raff Studio

Suspended overhead of pedestrians, large scale mirror-like surfaces create an illusory appearance, which bends light rays to produce a displaced image much like a mirage. The mirage is made up of 57 reflective polished stainless steel panels fastened to the underside of the overpass. -- ArchDaily

Source: Rodrigo Jorge archdaily.com

[DES]dobrar Memorial, Curitiba, Brazil designed by Aleph Zero + Juliano Monteiro

.... the [DES]dobrar Memorial is a space composed by reflective elements which is therefore a cloudy limited space: in, out, far and near, front, back, unique, multiple, real reflection. An important element of the project is one that activates and gives meaning to the objects: the user / observer. Unlike a mere passive spectator, is the observer who composes the piece through its position and its motion in space. Such movement is yet ‘reflected’ by objects that “dance” as the passage of passersby and accuses them of being they, too, actors in a multiple reality, dynamic and interconnected. -- ArchDaily

Source: Steven King archdaily.com

Lucid Stead: A “Disappearing” Cabin of Mirrors, Joshua Tree, California, USA designed by Phillip K Smith III

....an optical illusion/installation that modifies an abandoned 70-year-old homestead with mirrors in order to make it appear transparent. The cabin was also fitted with LED lighting to “extract the distilled experience of how light changes over time — how a mountain can be blue, red, brown, white, purple, and black all in one day.” As Smith stated, the project is about light, shadow, and tapping into the quiet of the desert. Check out more images and a video of the cabin after the break! -- ArchDaily

Source: Raymond Chow archdaily.com

Borden Park Pavilion, Edmonton, AB, Canada, 2014 designed by gh3

From the outside, the pavilion is clad with triangulated, highly reflective glass panels, effectively dissolving into its surroundings. -- ArchDaily

Source: Kate Bowe O’Brien archdaily.com

West Limerick Children’s Centre, Newcastle West, Co. Limerick, Ireland, 2014 designed by SATA

Above the perimeter glazing and up to parapet level, the polished aluminium façade establishes a dialogue between viewer and surroundings by juxtaposing transient reflections of the sky with the natural skies above. -- ArchDaily

Source: Oskar Da Riz archdaily.com

The Mirror Houses, Tirol, Bolzano, Italy, 2014 designed by Peter Pichler Architecture

The projects initial volume is split in 2 units that are slightly shifted in height and length in order to loosening the entire structure and articulating each unit.

Mirrored glass on the west facade borders the garden of the client with the units and catches the surrounding panorama while making the units almost invisible. The mirrored glass is laminated with an UV coating preventing birds collision. -- ArchDaily

Source: wikipedia.org

Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA by Anish Kapoor

The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect Chicago’s famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a "gate" to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives. 

Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high.  -- official web site

Source: publicartfund.org

Sky Mirror Rockefeller Center, New York City, New York, USA by Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor's Sky Mirror is a breathtaking, 35-foot-diameter concave mirror made of polished stainless steel. Standing nearly three stories tall at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center, Sky Mirror offers a dazzling experience of light and architecture, presenting viewers with a vivid inversion of the skyline featuring the historic landmark building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. -- Public Art Fund

RockGiant (La Perrière) by Arik Levy

....it’s an enormous piece of mirror-polished stainless steel, faceted to look like a giant rock. From some angles, it blends into the landscape seamless as it reflects its surroundings; from other angles, it boldly stands out with its obviously manmade origins.  -- Jeannie Jeannie

Source: Tom Van Eynde icaboston.org

Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely, 2005. by Josiah McElheny. Handblown mirrored glass, transparent and industrial mirror, chrome metal laminate, wood, electric lighting. 30 1/2 x 18 1/2 x 56 1/2 in. The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston.

In McElheny’s diverse body of work, the infinite crops up again and again: from intricate patterns in glass, such as the dizzying spirals that grace a set of handblown plates, to the endless reflection of mirrored surfaces, as seen in works like Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely. -- ICA Boston

Source: SPEECH architectural office archdaily

Mirrored “Mobius Strip”, Milan, Italy, 2015 by Sergei Tchoban

Russian architects Sergei Tchoban (SPEECH architectural office), Sergey Kuznetsov, and Agniya Sterligova are featuring the “Living Line” sculpture at this year’s Milan Design Week. Created for a central part of the University of Milan’s main courtyard, which occupies the Ca ‘Granda complex of 15th century Renaissance buildings, the mirrored plexiglass “Mobius strip” aims to reflect the exhibition’s theme “Energy for Life.” -- ArchDaily

Vaults

Source: onsitereview.ca

The timbrel vault

This wide, flat vault relies on thin layers of brick, tile or stone with carefully misaligned joints, that make a laminated shell. The layers are mortared and so all the edges are held in place not by the gravitational pressure exerted on each chamfered brick or tile face running parallel to the direction of the vault, but by laminated continuous lightweight surfaces — cohesive construction, called so by Rafael Guastavino who imported the technique to the United States from the northern Mediterranean where it was ubiquitous — the Catalan vault, for example. -- on site

Source: seier+seier from Flickr

Maisons Jaoul, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, France, 1955 designed by Le Corbusier

The construction of these vaulted houses signals a new trend in Le Corbusier's work, and the Maisons Jaoul can be considered his first "New Brutalist" work.

"...Shallow concrete vaults cast against a permanent framework of thin bricks set in place without the use of centering. These brick spans served as permanent molds for the shell concrete vaults cast in place on top of them. Tied with transverse steel rods, the vaults bear on continuous concrete beams that extend the length of each house at every floor. These beams in turn transfer the weight to load-bearing brick walls that enclose the houses on every side." -- wikipedia

Interior photos from Reference Library Blog

Source: kimbellart.org

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, USA, 1972 designed by Louis I. Kahn

Kahn designed a building in which “light is the theme.” Natural light enters through narrow plexiglass skylights along the top of cycloid barrel vaults and is diffused by wing-shaped pierced-aluminum reflectors that hang below, giving a silvery gleam to the smooth concrete of the vault surfaces and providing a perfect, subtly fluctuating illumination for the works of art. -- official web site

Source: fondazionerenzopiano.org

Nasher Sculpture Garden, Dallas, Texas, USA, 2003 designed by Renzo Piano

Building upon the concept of a “museum without a roof,” the building’s barrel-vaulted ceiling features delicate glass panes suspended atop narrow steel ribs and supported by thin, stainless steel rods.  An innovative, cast-aluminum sunscreen device, specifically designed for this project, floats above the glass and allows controlled natural light to filter into the galleries, eliminating the need for artificial illumination much of the time. -- official web site

More information from architect's web site
Update: Nasher Sculpture Center Controversy from ArchDaily

Source: Simón García archdaily.com

Nursery “Les Parellades”, Sant Pere de Ribes, Barcelona, Spain, 2009 designed by Pich‐Aguilera Architects

An industrialized constructive system makes the volume of the inside, four turns held up by large bars allow to identify the inside area and gives singularity in the nursery. A set of transfused and transparent materials, as well as constructive systems that integrate the vegetation configure the exterior walls. -- ArchDaily

Source: Jordi Bernadó archdaily.com

Interpretation Center for Agriculture and Livestock, Pamplona, Navarra, Spain, 2012 designed by aldayjover

....the building for the foundation inserted in this landscape is proposed as a single story, materialized as a green house. In this eagerness for integration, we use a material palette of polycarbonate, glass, greenhouse shade cloth, a light structure and vines. Three long, separated naves, articulated through a vestibule, give shape to a building placed on a concrete plinth. The building is elevated a meter above the ground, to provide some protection from floods. The roof captures sunlight during the winter to heat up the air, or opens up during the summer to provide natural ventilation. Like the nearby greenhouses, both systems seek the maximum energetic self-sufficiency. -- ArchDaily

Source: Jeremy San archdaily.com

Wind Vault House, East Coast, Singapore, 2012 designed by Wallflower Architecture + Design

Conceptually, the house is a raised reinforced concrete tube whose open ends are oriented in a general north-south direction. On this site, the prevailing breezes also blow in from the south, from the direction of the nearby coast line. In practice, all rooms have walls that side either east or west, and front north and south.

The tubular structure resists east west heat gain thanks to the solid mass of the reinforced concrete but encourages passive cooling through the open north south axis.  -- ArchDaily

Source: Eric Staudenmaier archdaily.com

Vault House, Oxnard, California, USA, 2013 designed by Johnston Marklee 

....the Vault House challenges the typology commonly found on narrow oceanfront lots. Instead of directing its focus on the single prime ocean view, an array of transparent interior spaces layered inside the main volume, offer a multiplicity of oblique views through the house while capturing natural light from a variety of angles. -- ArchDaily

Source: Federico Cairoli archdaily.com

Calera del Rey House, Maldonado, Uruguay, 2015 designed by Gualano + Gualano Arquitectos

A long vaulted ceiling defines the project 6 meters wide x 24 meters long. The dome rests on two stone walls of the place, also supported by a lightweight tubular metal structure. -- ArchDaily