14 11 2022

A recycled spatial concept

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture Architecture, Interior eqpipment, Living comfort

Architecture: Nábito Architects
Client: Private
Location: Barcelona

In Barcelona, Nábito Architects transformed a former garage into a comfortable apartment. On more than 70 m², they created an intimate living space with a special charm using recycled material. The apartment is located in the city center on the slopes of Montjuïc, one of the mountains in the Catalan metropolis.

© Adriá Goula

Instead of resorting to standard solutions, the planners reused scraps from the garage and designed the apartment as an urban retreat with an individual touch. The deep main room has an almost L-shaped floor plan; high ceilings give a feeling of spaciousness.

Apart from the gallery mezzanine and two interior walls, the apartment is open and continuous. A shower and a sunken bathtub separate the living room from the kitchen in the rear part of the apartment. Light curtains allow residents to zone this area as needed. The upper level, which serves as a bedroom, completes the spatial program of the attic.

© Adriá Goula

Visitors enter the multi-purpose living area through large sliding doors. Like the staircase to the mezzanine, this door is also made of old sheet steel that was recycled and given a new function during the revitalization project. Some brick and masonry walls remain unpainted; others were painted in a light shade. White tiles and wood or screed floors complete the mix of different textures.

© Adriá Goula

The apartment features further upcycled details and unique artisanal pieces: a bespoke kitchen table of wooden boards, copper fittings, an original shelving unit made of cardboard boxes and textile accents of old jute sacks. The architects have combined the reused materials with rough and natural ones to create a distinctive atmosphere where people immediately feel at home.

Photography is by Adriá Goula

Source

Gallery

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Adriá Goula

: © Nábito Architects

13 11 2022

Tops San Giacomo Apostolo church with undulating copper roof

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture, Sacred architecture Architecture, bricks, Plaster, Sacred architecture, Wood

Client: CEI Conferenza Episcopale Italiana, Parrocchia di San Giacomo Apostolo, Ferrara
Architect: Benedetta Tagliabue – Miralles Tagliabue EMBT

Spanish studio EMBT has designed a brick-and-plaster-clad church in Ferrara, Italy, which has a copper roof informed by hot air balloons and an interior that aims to be a modern take on primitive churches.

The church was developed over 10 years and completed in 2021. It sits in the parish of San Giacomo Apostolo in the Arginone neighbourhood of Ferrara and has an uneven, organic shape.

The shape of the church roof nods to hot air balloons

The sculptural design and wavy copper-clad roof reference the hot air balloons that fill the sky above Ferrara each year.

The inspiration came one day when they were analysing the territory and the environment, when they saw the sky of Ferrara full of hot air balloons for the international festival that is held every year in September.

The church is located in Ferrara, Italy

They imagine a light and friendly church, which comes from heaven and is located in the place where the Christian community needs it most, a contemporary church, rich in strength and symbolism, surprising and familiar at the same time, inspired by the early days of the church.

The exterior of the 710-square-meter church has a facade made of alternating brick and plaster that creates a striped effect.

In some sections, the bricks have been placed in a three-pointed protruding design in reference to the Renaissance-era Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara.

Brick and plaster create a striped facade

The church was designed on a “visual and spiritual axis” to a new bridge and the city of Ferrara across the river. It has a spacious plaza in front that functions as a meeting place as well as an extension of the church courtyard.

A large wooden gate leads inside, where the altar sits at the centre underneath a large skylight. A classroom, side chapel, baptistery and annexes are organised radially around it.

The exterior features angled bricks that reference a local Renaissance building

The central space, which is dedicated to the apostle St James, has raw concrete walls and a stone floor. Its altar was made from a block of white Travi stone that was left almost totally untreated, adding to the rough-hewn feel of the interior.

It has four small crosses, one in each corner, and also features a secret drawer that holds a relic.

Concrete walls clad the interior of the church

The raw, unadorned design of the altar was chosen to “recall the most primitive moments of the church when a mass was celebrated with found objects and where the symbol acquired an even greater importance”, the studio said.

Above the nave sits a large cross made from wooden beams that were salvaged from Ferrara’s old town hall.

A wood baldachin is suspended under the skylight and was designed to evoke the shape of the shell of St James, a traditional symbol connected to the apostle.

Artist Enzo Cucchi created the artworks for the interior, including large grey stone crosses that protrude from the church walls and colourful ceramic pieces.

Two wooden beams form a cross above the altar

The organic feel of the interior is underlined by furniture made from different types of laminated wood, resulting in a striped look that resembles the exterior.

Tagliabue also designed the suspension lamps for the church, which are made from thin wooden slats that create small domes.

The undulating shape of the roof can be seen inside the church

A weekday chapel is attached to the main church but has a separate entrance and leads on to a sacristry, penitentiary, parish house and more classrooms. The parish hall, classrooms and rectory measure 873 square metres in total.

EMBT has worked on the church since 2011, when the studio won a competition to design the project for the Arcidiocesi di Ferrara-Comacchi.

Ancillary spaces are connected to the main church

EMBT was founded in Barcelona in 1994 by Benedetta Tagliabue and late architect Enric Miralles. Other recent designs by the studio include a mass-timber metro station in Naples and a music conservatory in Shenzhen covered in wooden and ceramic louvres.

The photography is by Marcela Grassi.

Source

Gallery

16 10 2022

“Super furniture” Snøhetta organises Pangaea co-working space in Tokyo

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture, Interior design Interior eqpipment, Wood

Architecture: Snøhetta
Client: Tech company Digital Garage
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Huge ribbons of wood provide desk surfaces in this co-working space in Tokyo, created by architecture firm Snøhetta for Japanese tech company Digital Garage.

Snøhetta developed both the interior design and the visual identity for Digital Garage’s new co-working brand, Pangaea.

The wooden furniture is made from Japanese cedar

The company plans to open workspaces and offices in its various locations around the world.

However, this one, located on the 10th floor of a new building complex in Shibuya, will serve as a test track for ideas.

It incorporates desks, seating area and a reception desk

The name, Pangaea, was the starting point for the design – Pangaea was a supercontinent during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic era that broke up to create today’s continents.

Digital Garage wanted to create a space that encourages people of different cultures and backgrounds to come together and collaborate.

As a boutique office space for digital nomads, the space commemorates a time and place where geographical, political, and national constructs were not an obstacle.

Overhead, 534 hanging lights create undulating patterns

This concept led the designers to fill the space with “super furniture”, rather than adding individual tables or desks.

Two large wooden objects curve through the entire space, serving various different functions. They incorporate both seating areas and surfaces, so they can be used by numerous people simultaneously.

The wooden furniture gives the room a natural scent

Constructed as a metaphor for both tactility and fluidity, the super furniture encompasses all core functions of a co-working space: a reception, an amphitheater, phone booths, meeting spaces and individual workspaces.

The furniture also prompts its users towards a greater vision through daily interactions with the co-working space and one another.

The co-working space in located on the 10th floor of a building in Shibuya

Seating is provided by chairs and stools that match the dark tone of the flooring, while 534 suspended light bulbs give a topography to the ceiling.

The space is framed by linoleum-fronted cabinets and acoustic textile wall panels, which together create an abstract image of Mount Fuji as a backdrop.

It is the first of several Pangaea spaces planned

Photography is by Nacasa & Partners.

Source

Galerija

15 10 2022

Mario Cucinella Architects creates “serene and monolithic” church in Italian hill top town

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture, Sacred architecture Architecture, Church, Sacred architecture

Client: Diocesi of Cassano all’Jonio
Architecture: Mario Cucinella Architects

Bologna-based Mario Cucinella Architects has created the concrete Santa Maria Goretti Church, which incorporates a cross-shaped entrance, in the town of Mormanno, southern Italy.

Built overlooking the mountainous Pollino National Park, the modern church stands at the edge of the hilltop town of Mormanno.

Santa Maria Goretti Church was built on the edge of Mormanno

Mario Cucinella Architects aimed to design a building that was both contemporary and connected to the local community.

“We wanted to create a contemporary building that expresses a strong sense of continuity as we felt for a church, in particular, this sense of connection is important,” said Mario Cucinella Architects founder Mario Cucinella.

It has views over the surrounding mountains

The concrete church is surrounded by curving white walls that surround the four-leaf clover-shaped main auditorium.

According to the studio, this form was derived from reinterpreting the shape of Baroque churches in the Calabria region of Italy.

The church entrance incorporates a cross

“Our design for Santa Maria Goretti is serene and monolithic and looks at local precedents of Calabrian ecclesiastical architecture, but also natural forms in a way that is perhaps primeval or timeless,” Cucinella told.

“We looked at Baroque precedents in Italy, like San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini, and the way these embody ritual.”

In part to make the purpose of the contemporary building clear, the church’s main entrance forms the upright beam in a cross that is illuminated at night.

“The church is entered through a cross-shaped incision that is lit up at night and becomes a beacon for the building,” explained Cucinella.

The main auditorium has largely bare walls

Inside, the church’s main auditorium walls were left bare to highlight “the architectural and sculptural form of the building”.

The studio designed simple stone furniture that can be rearranged depending on the space’s use, while folds of translucent fabric were hung from the 16-metre-high ceiling.

“We designed simple furniture for the interior that highlights the architectural and sculptural form of the building and also allows the congregation to focus on the symbolism of the artworks and the play of light created through the fabric that hangs from the ceiling,” added Cucinella.

Translucent fabric hangs from the high ceiling

The studio also created a single storey parish centre alongside the church.

Topped with a green roof, this building contains a parish hall, several classrooms and a residence for the clergy.

A parish hall was built alongside the church

Recent contemporary religious buildings published include a minimalist chapel in northern Mexico made from travertine and concrete and an open-sided church in Bogotá designed to allow people to worship during the pandemic.

The photography is by Duccio Malagamba.

Source

Gallery

14 10 2022

Magdalene College Library in Cambridge

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture bricks, pitched roof

A new building in an historical context

Architecture: Níall McLaughlin Architects
Client: Magdalene College
Location: Cambridge (GB)

The new building stands almost directly on the west bank of the Cam River, next to the Pepys Library, which was established in the 18th century, and surrounded by two of the extensive green spaces so typical of Cambridge colleges. Níall McLaughlin Architects, a studio that counts among the most experienced when it comes to postsecondary institutions, were tasked with planning the building in 2014 after they had won a design competition.

© Nick Kane

Their design is based on a modular, basic plan of square, load-bearing brick cores that also serve as exhaust chimneys; reading rooms and atria open up between these cores. Above the ground floor, the architects have added a concrete ceiling. In contrast, the ribbed ceiling over the first upper level and the roof surfaces consist of plywood panelling.

Thanks to glass surfaces that become larger towards the top of the library, the spaces become brighter as visitors ascend. The architects describe their concept: “We wanted to make the building a journey that gradually rose up towards the light. On the way up there would be rooms, galleries and places to perch with a book.”

© Nick Kane

With its hierarchical division into served and servant spaces, the new building evokes associations with the architecture of Louis Kahn, for instance his designs for Richards Medical Laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania and the modest Trenton Bath House in New Jersey.

© Nick Kane

The floor-plan module of the reading room measures 4.7 x 4.7 m: each servant zone with corridors, stairways and bookshelves is 1.3 m wide. Within the square basic grid, the architects have created a great degree of spatial variation. The largest reading room, located on the first upper level, is three modules long; its neighbouring room to the west extends over all three storeys.

© Nick Kane

Simplicity and longevity were important planning objectives for the library’s architecture and technical equipment. The exhaust chimneys tower over the gabled roofs in order to generate sufficient lift for the natural ventilation. To facilitate eventual reuse of the handmade bricks, lime mortar was used instead of cement. For the façades, the architects took up elements of the surrounding historical college architecture – such as the oriel-like, protruding reveals that divide the fronts of the upper-level windows. While these window jambs consist of natural stone in their historical models, Níall McLaughlin Architects have made these ones of oak that will take on a stone-grey colour over the course of time.

Source

Gallery

13 10 2022

Skamlingsbanken Visitor Centre

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture Architecture, Exhibition building, Glass, Green roof, Mullion-transom facade, Topography

A mound to set off the hilly landscape

Architecture: CEBRA
Client: Community of Kolding, Skamlingsbankeselskabet, Fonden til opretholdelse af Klokkestablen
Location: Sjølund (DK)

With this visitor centre near Kolding in Denmark, Cebra have set off the hilly moraine landscape with another – artificial – mound. It may be hard to believe, but at 113 m above sea level, the Skamlingsbanken, an ice-age terminal moraine about 10 km southeast of Kolding, is considered the highest rise in southern Denmark.

© Adam Mørk

The mound, which is historically protected, is significant in terms of geography as well as history: in the 19th century it took on symbolic power in the Danish national movement, and the country’s current national anthem was composed at the folk festivals that have regularly taken place here.

The architects from the Cebra studio have topped the small hill with an even smaller, artificial one whose grass top conceals around 500 m² of usable space. Two arc-shaped cuts into the ground, which now feature glass façades, open the interior space onto the panorama of the landscape.

© Adam Mørk

Carsten Primdahl, a partner with Cebra, describes the concept: “The visitor centre is an architectural interpretation of the glacial landscape. It is not a destination itself, but part of an overall narrative. The building is a portal – to the significant history and the local nature – and forms a natural starting point for hikes in the area, where a network of paths flows through both building and landscape.”

06-besucherzentrum-skamlingsbanken-cebra

Inside the building, the architects have gone with a reduced material palette of exposed concrete, clay plaster, terrazzo and wood, all of which are intended to distract visitors as little as possible from the experience of the landscape.

Source

Galerija

13 10 2022

Rooftop Addition in Paris

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture, Interior design Plaster, Renovation, Single-family house, Wood

Five storeys in the backyard

Architecture: JAVA Architecture
Subscriber: private
Location: Paris (FR)

On the foundation walls of a decaying previous building, Java Architecture erected a five-story high-rise using wood techniques in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. An investor bought a house in ruins and wanted to turn it into his family home.

03-dachaufstockung-paris-java-architecture

In the office, together with the investor, they embarked on an adventure that would last several years with the aim of helping a middle-class family stay in Paris.

The architects’ prediction came true: the road to completion was long and rocky, full of opposition from neighbours, interim refusal of construction consent and, of course, the client’s family’s limited budget. The area of the previous two-story building was only 4 x 6 m.

04-dachaufstockung-paris-java-architecture

In order to be able to accommodate the family of four there, the architects built five storeys upwards. The lower three levels are home to bedrooms; the third upper level and the greenhouse-like attic storey serve the family as living space. The basement can be used as a hobby room and a space for guests. Apart from the basement and the dry-stone walls that surround the house on three sides of the ground floor, very little remains of the old structure. However, this “very little” was not able to bear heavy loads. Therefore, the architects decided in favour of a wooden construction.

10-dachaufstockung-paris-java-architecture

19-dachaufstockung-paris-java-architecture

The exterior walls include a thermal insulation system with grey plaster. Some feature windows of clear glass and folding shutters of wood, while in places there is a pellucid covering of multi-skin polycarbonate panels which allow a hazy view of life inside the home to shine through. Above all, it is in the stairway – which also functions as the backbone of the structure – that the wooden skeleton appears in all its glory as a design element.

Vir

Galerija

13 10 2022

A Modern Sustainable Cottage in the Catskill Mountains

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture, Interior design, Living comfort Architecture, Interior eqpipment, Living comfort, Modern Sustainable Cottage

Maria Ibañez de Sendadiano and Todd Rouhe spent a decade hiking in the Catskill Mountains before securing the ideal spot to build the perfect escape from their life in Manhattan. The architects, who head their own New York City firm, IdS/R Architecture, chose to build the sustainable Catskills Cottage as a place to unplug with their two teenage daughters. Just a few hours drive from NYC, the ultra-efficient, air-tight structure can be enjoyed year-round as it powers most of its own energy thanks to solar panels.

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-1

Hoping to save on costs and to keep up with the construction schedule, the duo acted as their own general contractors. The approx. 1991-square-foot cottage took six months to build and then since more months to complete the interior.

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-3

The design is based on a traditional longhouse layout with the combined kitchen, dining room, and living room located in the middle between two bedrooms and bathrooms at either end.

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-4

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-5

The open living space is flanked by large sliding glass doors that open up to decks and views of the surrounding woods. The kitchen is outfitted with a sleek Vipp V1 kitchen unit that provides lots of storage without anything overhead to block exterior views. The black freestanding Vipp unit offers plenty of counter space like an island would.

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-6

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-7

The modern interior is grounded with grey, rock-like quarry tiles on the floor and white walls paired with birch wood and black elements. The double-height ceiling makes the space feel even larger.

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-8

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-9

The couple, seen above, designed and built the kitchen table out of birch plywood and anodized aluminum. Just behind them is a built-in pantry with drawers and open shelves hidden behind white doors.

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-11

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-13

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-12

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-14

Catskills-Cottage-New-York-Vipp-IdSR-Architecture-16

Source

Photos by Eric Petschek.

Gallery

12 10 2022

How Many Fictions Can Be Added to a 462-Square-Foot Apartment?

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture, Interior design, Living comfort Interior eqpipment, Living comfort

The answer is a lot. Woon Chung Yen of Meter Architects designed a multipurpose structure to reside in the open space of this compact apartment in Singapore. The layered structure contains a bed, a comfy seating area for TV watching, a desk/table for working, eating, or entertaining, stairs to reach the bed, and tons of storage.

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-2

The custom unit starts at the far end of the apartment at its highest point with the bed, before it transitions down in a sloped fashion to the seating area. The bed rises up to reveal hidden storage, while additional storage drawers are built next to the upholstered seating at the end.

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-3

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-4

Storage runs along the main length of the structure with drawers under the bed and cabinets in the alternating block stairs.

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-6

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-8

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-9

At the opposite end, the plain white wall is transformed with a complementary wall design that’s the backdrop for the television, as well as bench seating with storage below.

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-10

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-11

A glass partition is installed between the living area and the kitchen to provide definition between the two spaces.

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-13

Before

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-14

Gradient-Space-Apartment-WOON-Chung-Yen-15

Source

Photos by Studio Periphery.

Gallery

9 10 2022

Attic Enlargement Carried out in Basel

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture Architecture, Living, Roof, Single-family house, Steel

Architecture: Piertzovanis Toews
Client: Private
Location: Basel (CH)

In enlarging the attic of a house in Basel, the Piertzovanis Toews practice went for a structurally unconventional solution to create space for a studio and a guestroom. In the part of Basel in question – Kleinbasel’s Matthäus quarter – many typical workers’ housing estates came about between 1890 and 1900. Small crafts workshops were frequently built in the backyards of the respective perimeter blocks, but later put to new uses.

© Simone Bossi

It was at such a workshop building that the planning team was asked to make the attic usable by raising it in height. The two-storey house had already undergone several changes over the years but now the owners wanted a multi-purpose space under the roof for working and domestic purposes. Emphasis was placed on minimal interventions and re-use of existing materials rather than large structural alterations.

In the enlargement work, the eaves and ridge of the single-pitch roof were left unchanged; rather, the architects divided the space horizontally in the middle in that they lowered the bottom half and raised the upper one.

© Simone Bossi

Between the two they inserted a long sliding ribbon window with an unusual supporting structure – a ring-shaped element in green steel – in the middle. Designed as a decorative structural element and bearing the complete load of the roof above the existing supporting structure, it eludes all logic and despite all the forces involved makes a visually weightless in impression.

© Simone Bossi

Corrugated zinc sheeting on the exterior bears witness to the building’s industrial past while the floorboards and beams of the original structure found re-use in the interior. Dismantled and partially repainted or otherwise treated, the old elements now lend special charm to the attic with their cracks and dents. The architects also incorporated prefabricated plywood panels.

© Simone Bossi

In addition to the ring-shaped support, a washbasin is the enlarged attic’s second eye-catcher, its formwork incorporating old finds made in the turnery that was once in the building. Now the imprints of old rods and sections of frame embellish its surface as a reference back to the former wood workshop.

Vir

Galerija