Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Healing Gardens

Source: Naomi Sachs healinglandscapes.org
Ulfelder Healing Garden , Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA designed by Halvorson Design
The Ulfelder Healing Garden unites two contemporary trends in landscape architecture: green roofs and therapeutic landscapes. The garden is located on the 8th floor of Massachusetts General Hospital's Yawkey Center, which provides clinical care for patients with cancer and other serious illnesses.
Designed by Halvorson Design in collaboration with the Yawkey Center's architects, Cambridge Seven, this healing garden is a welcoming refuge for patients, families, friends and care givers. Directly adjacent to the pediatric cancer facility, the garden is an oasis away from the waiting rooms, machines, IVs, and treatments—a place for people to gather, talk, reflect, and be consoled. -- architect's web site

Source: chicagotribune.com
Crown Sky Garden, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA designed by Mikyoung Kim
Crown Sky Garden fills out one of Wolf's huge bay windows.
It's a soaring, light-filled healing garden, sure to relieve hospital-induced claustrophobia with its expansive views. Framed by curving fiberglass walls, filled with stones and further enlivened by live bamboo trees, the garden itself, by Boston landscape architect Mikyoung Kim, brings color and nature to the space. -- Cityscapes
One comment from reader and Blair Kamin's response -- Cityscapes

Source: Milad Pallesh archdaily.com
Project Chemotherapy Outside, Hilversum, Netherlands, 2015 designed by VANDERSALM-aim
This summer the Tergooi Hospital in Hilversum commissioned a pavilion where patients with cancer can serve their chemotherapy in the open air. The structure consists of a number of joint and individual seats, which are included in an earthen embankment. Patients are surrounded by grass, flowers and shrubs. -- ArchDaily

Monday, June 18, 2012

V 2

Source: mayalin.com
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC, USA, 1982 designed by Maya Lin
Two black granite walls, placed below grade, engraved in chronological order with the names of the men and women who gave their lives in the Vietnam War. At the apex where the two walls meet, the dates 1959 and 1973 (marking the beginning and end of the war) "meet" thus closing the circle of the time span of the war. -- architect's web site
Source: World Digital Library
Maya Lin: the scale of drawings
The chalk and charcoal drawings[Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Competition Drawing, 1981] were widely reproduced at the time, and in my mind they were large - maybe 3' wide. However, in reality these iconic works were small, sketchbook-sized.  The text describing the project is hand written and glued onto the panel – in fact all the pieces are glued onto a piece of tan matboard. 
Were Maya Lin's chalk sketches and simple hand-written text the last of the clear relationship between hand and thought?  In 1982 when the memorial was dedicated most architectural offices had their new Macs.  Adobe Illustrator was launched in 1986, Photoshop in 1987.  The computer is only a tool, like a pen, or a knife, but it is a willful tool and makes complexity very easy to do.  At some point we have to ask, is complexity what we need?   -- on site

Source: Koichi Torimura archdaily.com
Residence in Keisen, Fukuoka, Japan, 2008 designed by Masao Yahagi Architects
The Clients requested three outer spaces: parking, a courtyard, and a hidden drying laundry space from the street. V-shaped plan was satisfied them simultaneously as the simplest form. V-shaped house does not face with neighbors, the common spaces are in the west side, and the private spaces are in the east side. The fins as structure are lined on the both side of the courtyard. By these fins, the interior space is difficult to see from the street, but family has sight between common space and private space through the courtyard the east-west direction. -- ArchDaily

Source: Walter Salcedo archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com

House V, Funes, Argentina, 2011 designed by I + GC [arquitectura]
The idea for this project was to design a house around a yard without having to resort to the cloister and taking advantage to the shape of the plot. It is after this idea that the “V” arises, as a volume that falls back on itself and creates a plan that allows the garden into its arms. It thus becomes the heart of the project. -- ArchDaily

Source: Alan Karchmer, archrecord.construction.com

Site Plan, Source: archrecord.construction.com
Art center, Château La Coste, Provence, France, 2011 designed by Tadao Ando
The 32,000-square-foot poured-in-place concrete building, V-shaped in plan, contains orientation spaces, a café, and other services. Completed in 2011, it juts out over a large reflective pool that sits atop a parking area for 120cars. -- Architectural Record

Source: Alexis Menting archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
V2 – Ashoka Canggu, Bali, Indonesia, 2012 designed by Mencke & Vagnby
The “v” shape of the villa is a result of the shape of the site, surrounded by rice paddies, rain forest and a local holy path. The narrow north western part of the site is turned into a long swimming pool extending the shape of the northern wing and ending up in a sun deck surrounded by palm trees and with a stunning look down on/to green rice paddies surrounded by the rainforest. -- ArchDaily

Source: Kyung sub, Shin archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
Naegok V house, Seoul, Korea, 2012 designed by jhy architect & associates
Architect started to design Cheon_kyung_jae with site plan which could accomplish “open view” and “closed privacy”.”V” shape site plan which could accomplish spatial extraversion and introversion composed with a spring at the center as well as help to divide the volume to be seen the house proper from a pedestrian level. -- ArchDaily

Source: Scott Frances – OTTO archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
Italcementi i.lab, Bergamo, Province of Bergamo, Italy, 2013 designed by Richard Meier & Partners
The V-shaped building reinforces the boundaries of the triangular site and incorporates a program of technical and administrative spaces into two wings that surround a central courtyard. -- ArchDaily

Source: Renaud Araud archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com
School complex in Rillieux-la-Pape, Rillieux-la-Pape, France, 2013 designed by Tectoniques Architects
The two schools are functionally and administratively autonomous. While following on from each other, they make up a continuum, in an overall composition. They are made up of rectangular modules in “V” formations enclosing internal spaces which, in the case of the nursery school, is a garden, and, in that of the elementary school, a patio. -- ArchDaily

Source: Steve Freihon archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com
A House In The Woods, Ulster County, New York, USA, 2013 designed by William Reue Architecture
The curved Cor-Ten wall is heroic, yet pragmatically justified as it carves a modest entry court that amplifies the sound of the stream running parallel to the house. The wall also operates as a spine that organizes the interior spaces into a series of cinematic portals to the landscape. -- ArchDaily

Source: Søren Harder Nielsen archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
V-Lodge, Ål, Norway, 2013 designed by Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter
The building consists of two bodies united in a V-shaped plan with a south-facing glazed wall at its chamfered intersection. -- ArchDaily

Source: MingFu Weng archdaily.com
Plan, Source: archdaily.com
Wat Ananda Metyarama Thai Buddhist Temple, Block 116 HDB Jln Bukit Merah, 116 Jalan Bukit Merah, Singapore, 2014 designed by Czarl Architects
Taking  on  a “V” shaped plan  that back against the highway, the design of the new building would frame  a  large front courtyard   space that could hold major religious  communal festivities. The branching off of either wing of the  V shaped plan  would accommodate the various program as required on various levels.   -- ArchDaily

Source: Spaceshift Studio archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com
Casa Premium Rama 2, Bang Khun Thian, Bangkok, Thailand, 2015 designed by PODesign
A site is in triangular shape.  By using single plane wrapping around main space, we creates V-shape plan that engage spaces to the site. Building parameter is maximized to fit functions and visual. -- ArchDaily

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Cantilever 4

Source: Luís Prieto Sáenz de Tejada archdaily.com
Ornithological Observatory, Logroño, Spain, 2009 designed by Manuel Fonseca Gallego
The piece rests on top of the hill and crosses the forest’s mass with a powerful cantilever (12 m approx.), poking surprisingly between the vegetation, surpassing the river’s vertical edge.  -- ArchDaily

Source; Alexa Rainer archdaily.com
The Timmelsjoch Experience, Brenner Pass, Italy, 2010 designed by Werner Tscholl Architects
The concrete structure on the North Tyrolean side juts out like an erratic boulder into the South Tyrolean side, underlining the cross-border nature of the Timmelsjoch Experience. The “Ice Cave” inside the museum pays tribute to the pioneers of the High Alpine Road and their remarkable accomplishment. -- ArchDaily

Source: FG+SG – Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra archdaily.com
Almazan Main Square, Almazán, Soria, Spain designed by ch+qs arquitectos
Important point of the proposal were the two new viewpoints that  “sew” the square with the beautiful surrounding landscape: one in San Miguel of the wall, with access from the Main Square, overlooking the landscape, and another on the river Duero, with access from Round River which completes the action in perimeter zones. Like the ladder, the viewpoints in the scene were conceived as timeless architectural elements. The choice of wood as main material and the use of a cantilevered structure that minimizes contact with existing buildings, enabling integration of these new buildings respecting the historical perspective of Almazan. -- ArchDaily

Friday, June 1, 2012

Building/Ground: On Sticks 5

Source: Openhouse
House 14-15, Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart, Germany 1927 designed by Le Corbusier
Mies van der Rohe had originally intended the twin house 14-15 as a single-family house costing RM 23,100, with five rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a maid's room. Le Corbusier and Jeanneret's initial plan adhered to this concept. In the plans, houses 13 and 14-15 were linked, which subsequently proved impracticable as the architects had wrongly estimated the ground level of the two houses.
Later, Le Corbusier redesigned the house, creating two house halves that would represent a novel, convertible house supplementing the single-family house. For the exhibition, one half was to be furnished and fitted for day use, the other for night use.
Characteristic features of the twin house are the continuous windows, the steel columns on the ground floor, and the two staircases standing out as independent cubes on the western side of the house.
The house is remarkably like a railway carriage - an impression accentuated by the convertible living and sleeping area, and the narrow corridor interconnecting the rooms. -- official web site
More photos from OPENHOUSE
Read a post from ArchDaily

Source: David Frutos archdaily.com
New Civil Guard Barracks House in Oropesa del Mar, Oropesa del Mar, Spain, 2011 designed by espegel-fisac arquitectos
The building is organized in two pieces, shaping an L that defines the access square opened to Plana Avenue, being the natural way to the roads that are approaching from the urban center. To the high floors apartments, faced to the south and the sea, the access is through the exterior communication core that is the joint of the two pieces located in the corridor opened to the square. Above the housing line, the apartment block is elevated upright by pilotis. Thereby, an external elevated public space is generated for recreation and leisure areas of the residents. -- ArchDaily

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Primitive Hut 2

Source: SoHo Architektur archdaily.com
Haus BRU 1.25, Heimertingen, Bavaria, Germany, 2008 designed by / SoHo Architektur
Decisions on construction method, materiality and quality were primarily based on building costs. Fair faced interior walls, screed as finished flooring, visible insulation strips between floor and walls, and the use of corrugated cement fibre panels for facade cladding and roofing – no need for rainpipes and gutters – help to reduce the costs. The timber building enables a strong connection between interior and exterior through the accurately positioned openings on ground level. -- ArchDaily

Source: David Grandorge archdaily.com
Ty Pren, Brecon Beacons National Park, King’s Rd, Llandovery, Dyfed SA20 0AW, UK, 2009 designed by Feilden Fowles
The rich local vernacular inspired the concept of a modern ‘long house’, following the contours of the land, embedding itself in the slope of the hill and responding to the prevailing conditions. The design evolved into a crisp extrusion using skilled craftsmen to deliver a high-tech building. The typology of the long house leant itself to a passive solar plan, enhanced by the topography and aspect of the site. Contemporary construction techniques have delivered a thoroughly modern and high performance building, which responds to the landscape. The design was environmentally driven throughout. The passive solar design strategy uses every natural energy source available, and is supplemented with active features such as the log boiler. -- ArchDaily

Source: openbuildings.com
Sliding House, Suffolk, UK, 2009 designed by dRMM de Rijke Marsh Morgan Architects
The brief was a self-build house to retire to in order to grow food, entertain and enjoy the landscape. The site offered a combination of rolling England and agricultural Holland, restrained by stringent local Planning parameters for rural development. A genuine appreciation of vernacular farm buildings shared by architect and client/builder led to a manipulation of the local timber framed and clad 'shed' idiom. -- Open Buildings

Source: FG+SG – Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra archdaily.com
House In Leiria, Leiria, Portugal, 2010 designed by Aires Mateus
The house is a recognizable archetype emptied of its centre by the light designed by a three heighted courtyard that opens horizontally at the garden level. The bedroom courtyards, revealed in the garden, relate with this archetypal object providing different readings on its scale. Scale and volume are controlled in a chaotic context, with a clear identity that from its core relates with the historical legacy far away: the Leiria Castle. -- ArchDaily

Source: Nelson Garrido archdaily.com
Casa na Areia, Comporta, Grândola, Portugal, 2010 designed by Aires Mateus
This project is a response to very specific conditions. Its basis is the recovery of existing wood-masonry buildings, providing the complex with a homogeneous unity under a sloping roof. The design begins with the existing material conditions, depending on their inhabitation potential. -- ArchDaily

Source: Roberto de Leon archdaily.com
Yew Dell Gardens Visitor Center, Crestwood, Kentucky, USA, 2010 designed by De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop
The Yew Dell Gardens Visitor Center is situated within the historic property of the Garden Conservancy. The project required the rehabilitation of an existing tobacco barn with a program including a reception area, information and tickets sales, gift shop, plant sale area, group tour meeting zone, internet sales office, and storage. Preserving the exterior iconic image of the tobacco barn structure, the new facility is designed as a ‘building-within-a-building’. -- ArchDaily

Source: Satoshi Shigeta archdaily.com
House in hieidaira, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, 2010 designed by Tato Architects
The houses in the nearby existing residential area are gable-roofed keeping to the regulation that demands slanted roof, which appeared to be providing a sense of serenity along the street.  
The floor space of upstairs was not required to be so large but was required to be independent to some extent. As ordinarily upright walls would make the space of upstairs cramped and the ceiling of downstairs too high, the partition walls were leaned to have the solid space divided diagonally, and thereby a ”hill-like-floor” and a ”roof-like-ceiling” emerged. Here appeared such a new model as assembling a small cottage type into a large cottage type. A cottage type is assertive enough to make people imagine the interior to be consistent to the exterior, and vice versa. Above a ceiling suggesting a cottage style roof another ceiling suggesting another cottage style roof is provided, and thereby we think we have created a solid space as if it is ever extending up. -- ArchDaily

Source: Gustav Willeit archdaily.com
Casa Prè de Sura, San Martino in Badia, Italy, 2010 designed by Casati
This gabled house in Italy by Austrian architects Casati has stripy wooden walls on the outside and bumpy limestone walls on the inside. Boxy windows project from the facade and frame views towards the castello di San Martino; a small castle on a nearby hillside. A window in the master bedroom wraps over onto the roof, while others meet the floor so that small children can see out. -- ArchDaily

Source: Sean Breithaupt + Yvette Monohan archdaily.com
Connemara, Connemara National Park, Ireland, 2010 designed by Peter Legge Associates
The two cottages though close (a mere three metres apart) were not directly in line nor at the same level but were parallel. A basic decision in the redevelopment process was that they should continue to read as separate elements in the landscape. To allow the cottages read as two separate buildings, a transparent link was required, one totally glazed.  This link would become the entry and circulation hub for the house connecting the cottages at both levels. -- ArchDaily

Source: Filip Dujardin archdaily.com
Habitation TSL, Brussels, Belgium, 2011 designed by adn Architectures
Our first response to a specific domain of work is to propose an alternative design of interior spaces in a limited volume and restricted by planning regulations that defy logic. The work is a reflection of the cavity determine by significant mass elements of the facades, with the input system, solar gain from the south views where landscape is framed. -- ArchDaily

Source: Rene de Wit archdaily.com
Dentist with a View, Best, The Netherlands, 2011 designed by Shift architecture urbanism
The four new treatment rooms are situated in a new volume that at the same time mimics and contrasts the existing house. Its archetypical volume is derived from the existing house – it takes over the exact same inclination of the pitched roof – while it is being materialized in a very different material. Both the roof and the facades of the extension are clad with zinc. This strengthens the iconic quality of the archetype and renders the new extension into a “contextual alien” that blends into the rural surroundings and at the same time creates a clear new landmark that expresses its new function. -- ArchDaily

Source: archrecord.construction.com
House in Komazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 2011 designed by Go Hasegawa & Associates
....a gabled roof typical of the neighborhood. On the first floor, large windows incised in the wood-clad walls offer generous views of nearby trees. Plywood sheaths the interior walls and gives the open-plan space a sense of intimacy.
One half of the second floor contains two bedrooms, a bath, and a narrow, south-facing outdoor terrace. The other half, devoted to a study, has a slatted floor of two-by-threes with 1.18-inch gaps. The open slots allow residents to catch glimpses of activity below and make it possible for daylight to permeate the two floors. -- Architectural Record


Source: Brando Posocco archdaily.com
Villa Jian, Yantai, Shandong, China, 2012 designed by CU Office
The concept of Villa Jian came from the local architecture word called “Jian”. In the local architecture culture, there was one commonly used for building space base unit that is “Jian”, one ”Jian” represented a width of about 3.3 m to3.6 m of spatial scale, this word ”Jian” not only represented a space base unit, but also strongly linked with the local traditional form of construction. -- ArchDaily

Source: Nobuaki Nakagawa archdaily.com
ISM House, Chiba, Japan, 2012 designed by I.R.A
The impressive house that has the form of the white arrow was built to the site without an important context. -- ArchDaily

Source: Li Xiao archdaily.com
N4+ Gluebam House, Wuhan, China, 2012 designed by Advanced Architecture Lab[AaL]
“Glued bamboo prefabricated construction system” ,developed by the Advanced Architecture Lab(AAL) together with the bamboo institute of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, is trying to transform the rich bamboo resource in China into the industrialized building structure material.  “N4+”is a housing typology based on gluebam, located in Huazhong University of Science and Technology, the house is positioned in proximity with the architectural department. “N4+” house completed in 25 days, is a prototype base on the concept of mass production and fabrication, delivery to site for fast construction. -- ArchDaily

Source: Stephane Chalmeau archdaily.com
Maison 2G, Orsay, France, 2012 designed by Avenier Cornejo Architectes
Flirting with the building regulations of the materials and the context of the landscape led a project of “total look” wood. The volume is simple and one-piece, the  wood cladding envelope dramatic. Composed of strips of cedar crate, this one allows omnipresent light, to be so over-input and redirected the angular pants interiors. The volumes are designed and vibrate throughout the day. -- ArchDaily

Source: Guy Wenborne archdaily.com
Barn House, Kawelluco, Chile designed by Cazú Zegers G.
A Barn´s wooden skin creates a relation with the surrounding scenery. It does not impose, but incorporates itself, to the traditional type of construction, typical of southern Chile. This Barn house, is a contemporary representation of a traditional barn model. The use of wood covering for walls and roof , creates an interior twice as high festoned with somewhathigh altillo windows and balconies leading to the surrounding landscape. -- ArchDaily

Source: Jürg Zimmermann archdaily.com
Gottshalden, Winterthur, Switzerland, 2012 designed by Rossetti + Wyss Architekten
The house in Gottshalden is located on a plateau over the Lake Zurich. It is set in green surroundings with a high quality of life, dominated by agricultural use. The volume exhibits a unified design, with a reduced, sharp-angled timber facade. The building is reduced to an almost graphical figure, with even the minimal distances to the eaves and corners verging on disappearance. -- ArchDaily

Source: Åke E-son Lindman archdaily.com
Villa Wallin, Yxlan, Stockholm, Sweden, 2013 designed by Erik Andersson Architects
....the archetypal house. Designed strictly by using the proportional ratio of 1:3, the house measures six meters in depth, eighteen meters in length and six meters in height. The facade windows also follow a clear pattern: they are all square in form and have the same size. -- ArchDaily

Source: Adolf Bereuter archdaily.com
Haus am Moor, Vorarlberg, Austria, 2013 designed by Bernardo Bader Architects
Based on the traditional houses of the Bregenz district, the two-storey residence has a simple rectangular plan with a steep gabled profile and a wooden deck driven through its middle. -- ArchDaily

Source: Maciej Gasienica Giewont archdaily.com
Public Toilets, Kazimierz Dolny, Poland designed by Piotr Musialowski + Lukasz Przybylowicz
The entire property was surrounded by a fence, inspired by the traditional wooden fences. From the north side, it was transformed into the wooden rail shelter to integrate all elements of the new building. -- ArchDaily

Source: Adam Currie archdaily.com
Loughloughan Barn, Broughshane, Northern Ireland, UK, 2013 designed by McGarry-Moon Architects
The preservation and consolidation of the stone structure was fundamental in achieving an architecture where the old and new complemented each other. Thus the residence was designed by fusing new technologies with older building techniques whilst incorporating sustainability ideals in order to create a rural architecture for the 21st century, rather than simply remodelling or recreating the methods and manners of the past. -- ArchDaily