Skin of Architecture: Supergraphic

Source: archidose.org

Lettering Large: Art and Design of Monumental Typography, by Steven Heller and Mirko Ilić The Monacelli Press, 2013 Hardcover, 224 pages

Most of the examples of monumental typography collected in the book are fairly recent, but Heller and Ilić do acknowledge the history of large letters on buildings and in space, be it inscriptions on the buildings of ancient Rome or early modern attempts to synthesize architecture and graphic design. If one thing comes across while imbibing the many examples in the book's 240 pages, it is the blurring of the boundaries between art, architecture, typography, graphic design, and even landscape in many contemporary settings. -- A Weekly Dose of Architecture

Source: 52weeks.rickyberkey.org

Fire Station #4, Columbus, Indiana, USA, 1967 designed by Robert Venturi

The building committee requested an ordinary building that was easy to maintain. Venturi’s design was a trapezoidal-shaped structure of cinderblock, red unglazed brick, white glazed brick and glass. The 37 foot hose drying tower located at front center provides a focal point to the otherwise low utilitarian building. Venturi made the sides and rear of the building as simple as possible and treated the front as if it were a sign. It briefly attracts your attention as you speed past on the busy road. Venturi has described buildings like this as “decorated sheds”, simple, even boring buildings that use signs or decorative elements to describe the function of the building. In this case the hose drying tower with the giant number on top, the white brick and the large flagpole in front convey a sense of civic importance to the building. It is meant to look like a fire station and not to convey any other image. -- 52 weeks of  Columbus, Indiana

 Source: nytimes.com

The New York Times printing plant, College Point, Queens, New York, USA, 1997 designed by Ennead Architects

Bold colors and graphics enliven the long highway facade, and the skin of the plant employs simple and inexpensive materials in unpredictable ways, becoming a vibrant billboard along the adjacent highway. -- architect's web site

Source: Janos Szentivani onsitereview.ca

House of Terror Museum, Budapest, Hungary, 2002 designed by Attila F Kovacs, Architeckton RT

....the exhibition hall and the treatment of the outside is by Attila F Kovács, who painted it black, embedded ceramic miniatures of victims at eye height around the base and added the cornice — what?  brise-soleil?  an extended plane that casts the word terror over each façade: a complex reading because it uses sunlight, light, enlightenment to cast an inverted shadow over something already historically shadowed. The word cast is not hopeful, despite the sunlight, it too is dark. -- onsite review

Source: Roland Halbe archdaily.com

Caltrans District 7 Headquarters, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2004 designed by Morphosis

A graphic sign marks the building as 100 South Main Street where layers of opacity and transparency as well as 2D and 3D typography interplay to designate the space to the public. The public spaces are located on ground level and include an exhibition gallery, a large public art piece, retail stores and a cafeteria. -- ArchDaily

Source: John J. Macaulay archdaily.com

Palomar Welcome Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, 2008 designed by Johnsen Schmaling Architects

A long translucent glass scrim with supergraphic etching wraps the windowless face of the existing brick building, creating an elegant, immaterial facade that transcends the distinction between building and signage. Illuminated from behind with off-the-shelf fluorescent strip lights, the scrim transforms the building into an urban Laterna Magica, a beacon projecting its message of change into the neighborhood poised for a renaissance. The south-facing scrim also creates a thermal buffer for the building, reducing the solar impact on the building envelope during the summer while providing an additional protective layer in colder months. -- ArchDaily

Source: Bill Timmerman archdaily.com

Agave Library, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 2009 designed by will bruder+PARTNERS

With its torquing false metal scrim curving along the site’s eastern edge of 36th avenue, the Library’s ‘cowboy front’ gives scale, presence, and distinction commensurate with it position in the community. Constructed in the tradition of the old lathe houses of Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden using off-the-shelf galvanized hat channels, the scale and form of the scrim also recalls the tradition of drive-in movie theaters so common across Post-War American suburbs. -- ArchDaily

Source: Fernando Alda archdaily.com

Multipurpose Centre Valle De Salazar, Navarra, Spain, 2011 designed by Gutiérrez – ​De La Fuente Arquitectos

....three materials applied: steel sheets (industrial context), pinewood (economical and cultural context) and the local limestone (local and sustainable context).  -- ArchDaily

Source: Iwan Baan archdaily.com

Auditorium in Cartagena, Cartagena, Spain, 2011 designed by Selgas Cano

All the material, both aluminium and plastic, is manufactured from a single extruded section, varied in placement and colour to give the appearance of multiple pieces. These pieces are all set parallel to the pier edge to underscore the idea of horizontality and achieve an even longer rectangle than it already is, in this case extruded like a “churro” (wrinkled doughnut), only on its immediate scale: overall, it seems to be the result of an accumulation of different components, stacked neatly on the pier. The memory of a former use. -- ArchDaily

Source: René de Wit archdaily.com

Primary School De Vuurvogel, Eikstraat 11, Tilburg, The Netherlands, 2011 designed by Grosfeld van der Velde Architecten

The cantilevered gymnasium adjoins the public space and defines the entrance to the complex. It is finished in timber slats and appears to stand on steel box letters spelling out DE VUURVOGEL. -- ArchDaily

Source: Gabriel Verd archdaily.com

Remodeling of “San Julián” Public School, Calle San Julián, Marmolejo, Jaén, Spain, 2011 designed by Gabriel Verd Arquitectos

The new gym is at the southeast corner of the site, connecting to the main building via a new covered porch. -- ArchDaily

Source: Luuk Kramer archdaily.com

Green Sports Hall, Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel, The Netherlands designed by MoederscheimMoonen Architects

The design can be characterized by its playful façade concept; different green coated steel sheets are randomly spread in a two layered structure. This concept of ‘layering’ combines the sports hall and the single layered clubhouse into one unified shape. The façade concept is completed by strategically chosen polycarbonate surfaces on which the different sports are expressed. -- ArchDaily

Source: G&C arquitectos archdaily.com

The Muskiz Municipal Sports Centre Extension, Muskiz, Biscay, Spain, 2014 designed by G&C Arquitectos

The facade design, made from perforated sheet metal, allows visual permeability from inside and puts sporting activities in the foreground. In addition this solution enables the new fire escape to be camouflaged behind the perforated façade. -- ArchDaily

Source: Nic Granleese archdaily.com

Hello House, Melbourne VIC, Australia, 2014 designed by OOF!

Most noticeably, the home features a large, white-brick wall featuring the word ‘HELLO’, that offers a conversation with the neighbouring buildings and its residents. A skin of brick is all it takes to keep a secret and two worlds exist happily side by side with a public face that cheerfully greets the street while giving nothing away about the world behind. -- ArchDaily

Source: Jesús Granada archdaily.com

12 dwellings in Jaen, Calle Llana de San Juan, 41, 23004 Jaén, Jaén, Spain, 2014 designed by bRijUNi Architects

This second building occupies a strange and very unique plot of over six hundred square meters just two hundred meters away from the previous project. The area of the plot is ten times larger so we can develop an ambitious program of twelve houses around a large courtyard with swimming pool over two garage floors.  -- ArchDaily