Bjarke Ingels to Receive the European Prize for Architecture

Bjarke Ingels, architect and head of übersuccessful Danish practice BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group, has just been announced as the 2010 laureate of the European Prize for Architecture, awarded annually by the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

Press release and images of BIG's biggest hits to follow after the break.

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Laureate of the 2010 European Prize for Architecture: Bjarke Ingels

Bjarke Ingels advocates for architecture to be taught in public schools alongside science and mathematics. He has broken Denmark’s good-old boy network challenging a constipated establishment to think outside a boring box. He is challenging Europe’s mundane status quo. He is also a leading force in Europe’s Green Architecture movement producing astonishing and exemplary works of sustainable design. He has inspired Europe’s emerging young generation—of which he is apart—to push for new architecture beyond the pale fringe.

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MOUNTAIN DWELLINGS; Ørestad, Copenhagen (2008); Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group; Collaborating Architects: JDS Architects; Client: Høpfner A/S and Danish Oil Company A/S; Engineers: Moe & Brødsgaard

At age 38, Bjarke Ingels has already had an astonishing career and is only starting to shape a new contemporary direction in today’s European architecture.

For these reasons and numerous others, The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design have named Bjarke Ingels as the recipient for the 2010 European Prize for Architecture.

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PEOPLE'S BUILDING; Shanghai, China (2004-2005 and ongoing); Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group; Collaborating Architects: JDS Architects; Engineers: Arup

The European Architecture Prize, established as a collaborative effort between The European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum, is to be formally presented to Bjarke Ingels at “The City and The World: Madrid Symposium” November 4-7, 2010.

On Friday, November 5, at a Gala Diner and special Award’s Ceremony, together with Colegio Oficial de Arquitecturos de Madrid, Madrid’s Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón Jiménez will officially present Mr. Ingels with the lauris nobilis—symbolic of the European Prize.

Mr. Ingels will give a lecture preceding the dinner at 6:00PM at Centro de Turismo Colón, Plaza Colón, Madrid.

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8 HOUSE; Ørestad, Copenhagen (2010); Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group; Client: Høpfner A/S and Danish Oil Company A/S; Client: St. Frederikslund Holding; Contractors: Høpfner A/S; Engineers: Moe & Brødsgaard

“We are delighted to bring to Europe and to the world’s attention this remarkable young Danish architect,” states Christian K. Narkiewicz-Laine, Museum President, The Chicago Athenaeum. “He has championed a bold, fresh, and progressive atmosphere in today’s Europe and he will certainly set the stage for new ideas, a new provocative approach to design and urbanism, as well as feed the flames for a new philosophical debate in years to come.”

For this year’s Prize, The European Centre received nominations from professional organizations and societies, museums of architecture, organizations and institutions throughout Europe. Members of The European Centre’s International Advisory Committee served as the jury for the Prize.

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THE WORLD VILLAGE OF WOMEN SPORTS; Malmo, Sweden (2011-2013); Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group; Clieint: H-Hagen Fastighets AB; Collaborators: ART, Tyrens, Tanssolar

The purpose of The European Prize for Architecture is to honor annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates vision and talent and a body of work that has significant contributions to art and humanity.

Born in Copenhagen, Bjarke Ingels was educated in architecture at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen and the Technica Superior de Arquitectura in Barcelona, receiving his diploma in 1998. As a third year student he set up his first practice and won his first competition. From 1998-2001 he worked for Office of Metropolitan Architecture and Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam. His original intent was to illustrate cartoons, but architecture became his fascination and now he tries to achieve a balance between playful and practical approaches to design.

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TALLINN TOWN HALL; Tallinn, Estonia (2011-2013); Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group; Client: City of Tallinn

In 2001, Bjarke Ingels returned to Copenhagen to set up the architectural practice PLOT together with Belgian OMA colleague Julien de Smedt. The company rapidly achieved success, receiving significant national and international attention for their inventive designs. They were awarded a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2004 for a proposal for a new music house for Stavanger, Norway. ““There had been nothing going on in the Danish architecture scene for a really long time. It was an established myth that it was impossible to change things and impossible to start an office,’ Mr. Ingels stated.

Their first major achievement was the award-winning VM Houses in Ørestad, Copenhagen, in 2005. Despite its success, PLOT was disbanded in January 2006 and Mr. Ingels formed a new firm, while his former partner founded JDS/Julien De Smedt Architects.

In 2008, both architects were named “Europe 40 under 40” by The European Centre as two of Europe’s new and emerging new voices in contemporary architecture.

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SHENZHEN INTERNATIONAL ENERGY MANSION; Shenzhen, China (2011-2013); Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group; Client: Shenzhen Engergy Conmpany; Collaborators: Arup and Transsolar

As his firm’s name implies, Bjarke Ingels thinks BIG. As the founder of BIG, the Bjarke Ingels Group, he has smashed Denmark’s dull and lifeless architectural scene and shattered the conventional molds of building typologies. He’s an architect, yes, but he describes his role as more appropriately as a “midwife” of a continuous rebirth of the city rather than the actual “creator” and as an “alchemist” who combines seemingly incongruous ideas to create architectural gold.

The VM House had an immediate signature and an ominous profile as something brewing in Denmark. Next came Mountain Dwellings in Copenhagen (2008): a project consisting of 80 apartments terraced above a multi-story cark park for 480 cars. The apartments were arranged on a sloping “hillside” above the garage and combined the splendor of suburban backyard living with the society intensity of the usual center city density. The roof garden became an instant model for success of progressive sustainability and Green Architecture.

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FINALIST PROPOSAL FOR THE SLUSSEN MASTER PLAN; Stockholm, Sweden; Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group

“The Mountain was our first example of what I call ‘architectural alchemy,’ states Mr. Ingels, “this idea that by mixing traditional ingredients like normal flats and a normal parking structure, when you combine them, they become gold. That idea was taken to the next level with a project we’re working on called the Big House or the Figure Eight, where we mixed the office components and rowhouse components to create a hybrid.”

In 2009, Mountain Dwellings won an International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum.

‘LESS’ IS REALLY A BORE

“In the 1960s,” states Mr. Narkiewicz-Laine, “Ludwig Mies van der Rohe proclaimed: ‘Less is More,’ and a whole generation of uninspired and uninspiring architects fell into line to wreck havoc on the rest of the world, creating the cheapest, most dismal architecture, mainly bland corporate boxes, and ‘remodeled’ treeless and artless urban environments into what looked as friendly as the moon. For four decades, in the name of Orthodox modernism à la Mies van der Rohe, architects stacked the poor in helpless boxes called ‘social housing’ from New York to Sao Paolo; destroyed forever centuries of the best world architecture and cities; and created a Brave New World architecture and urban design that would make even Albert Speer cringe.”

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NEW FAROE ISLANDS EDUCATION CENTER; Torshavn, Faroe Islands; Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group, Fuglark; Collaborators: Lemming & Eriksson, Sámal Johannesen, Martin E. Leo and KJ Elrad; Client: Mentamalaradid (Ministry of Culture) / Landsverk

“It has taken a brave, young Danish architect, continues Mr. Narkiewicz-Laine, “to step up to the plate to make us come to our contemporary senses to stop the process of boring the pubic and to embrace an architecture that allows you to say yes to all aspects of human life—no matter how contradicting.”

Bjarke Ingels argues for an architecture that experiments program, site, and context in the design process, following what he calls “a Darwinian path to get ot the most workable solution.”

Nowhere is this more evident than in the iconic People’s Building now designed for Shanghai—a tower that splits into two at the bottom. The project started for a competition for a hotel in northern Sweden but lost and then caught the attention of a Chinese businessman who wanted closer ties to a Scandinavian office. The building is in a sense, an “anti-skyscraper,” in that the shaft of the building is deliberately reduced and the base opens to engulf the building’s footprint creating a large-scale “front door,” which is missing from traditional highrise towers. The parti is bold, joyful, playful, unbrittled, and intensely romantic. It definitely doesn’t belong in Sweden.

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FINALIST PROPOSAL FOR P.S.1 2010; Long Island City, New York; Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group; Client: P.S.1 MOMA

The 8 House (2010), a 540-unit, mixed-use complex in the shape of an angular double-loop, is organized around a bow in the shape of an “8,” and mixed with commerce and community facilities. The figure “8” arrives by manipulating the lack-luster housing typology most often found in Copenhagen. However, the building’s most appealing tour de force is way the extraordinary moss sedum roofs have become a part of the buildings aesthetic as they slope down 11 stories toward the canal edge.

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NEW KAZAKHSTAN NATIONAL LIBRARY; Astana, Kazakhstan; Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group; Collaborators: ARUP AGU; Client: Kazakhstan Presidential Office

“Engineering without engines, “ he calls it. He believes we should use contemporary technology and computation capacity to make buildings independent of machinery. He believes rightly that building services today are essentially mechanical compensations for the fact that buildings are bad for what they are designed for—human life. Therefore we pump air around, illuminate dark spaces with electric lights, and heat and cool the spaces in order to make them livable. The result is boring boxes with big energy bills. "If we moved the qualities out of the machine room and back into architecture’s inherent attributes, we’d make more interesting buildings and more sustainable cities," states the architect.

A PRAGMATIC UTOPIAN ARCHITECTURE

“Changing the world and they way the world thinks is a bold initiative. Vision and vitality are really an understatement here,” continues Mr. Narkiewicz-Laine. “This young architect really believes in what he is doing and has a mission that is no less intense.”

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TAMAYO MUSEUM; Mexico City, Mexico; Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group, Rojkind Arquitectos; Collaborators: Romo y Asociados, ENTORNO taller de paisaje; Client: Patronato Tamayo

“Historically, continues the architect, “the field of architecture has been dominated by two opposing extremes. On one side an avant-garde full of crazy ideas. Originating from philosophy, mysticism or a fascination of the formal potential of computer visualizations they are often so detached from reality that they fail to become something other than eccentric curiosities. On the other side there are well-organized corporate consultants that build predictable and boring boxes of high standard. Architecture seems to be entrenched in two equally unfertile fronts: either naively utopian or petrifyingly pragmatic. We believe that there is a third way wedged in the no-mans-land between the diametrical opposites. Or in the small but very fertile overlap between the two. A pragmatic utopian architecture that takes on the creation of socially, economically and environmentally perfect places as a practical objective.”

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DANISH EXPO PAVILION; Shanghai, China; Architect: BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group

“Put architecture on the public-school curriculum,” Mr. Ingels has stated. “Somehow kids are taught music, art, literature, and sciences, but nobody thought of giving them a basic understanding of how our cities have evolved. Understanding precedes action. If we don’t understand, how can we ever intervene?”

In Mr. Ingels’ work, one could substitute “wild” for “workable” for some of the schemes the firm has on its boards in far-flung locations, including Shenzhen and Shanghai in China; Astana, Kazakhstan; a museum overlooking Mexico City, and Zira Island, Azerbaijan, which is designed to be carbon neutral resort city and which recently won a 2010 Green GOOD DESIGN Award from The Chicago Athenaeum.

Alongside his architectural practice, Mr. Ingels has been active as a Visiting Professor at Rice University’s School of Architecture and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He is currently visiting professor at Harvard University where he is teaching a joint studio with the Business School and the Graduate School of Design. He is also teaching a studio, “Engineering Without Engines,” at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, researching ways of responding to differing climates that don’t depend on machines.

He has initiated another new venture in product design with the release of The Expo Chair by KiBiSi (Kilo Design + BIG + Skibsted Ideation), a new, joint design firm.

After Madrid, an exhibition on Bjarke Ingels is scheduled for Contemporary Space Athens in April 2011 and then traveling to Istanbul and throughout Europe as a public education program.

Chinese/German Eco-Park by gmp Architekten

An ecologically designed city quarter for living and working is currently being developed in China’s Qingdao, on the coast of the Yellow Sea, to plans by architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp). The construction of the Chinese/German Eco-Park in Qingdao goes back to an agreement between the two countries, which was signed by the Federal Ministry for Economics and the Federal Ministry for the Environment during Angela Merkel’s state visit in July 2010; it is scheduled for completion in 2015.

 

 

With support from the German Society for Sustainable Building (DGNB) and Transsolar Consultants, gmp developed a list of criteria and measures integrating the highest possible proportion of regenerative energy sources into the master plan: in addition to wind and water power, as well as geothermal energy, the Eco-Park focuses particularly on solar energy. The conditions for this are very good in Qingdao as it has an above-average number of days of sunshine.

 

With around ten square kilometres, the size of the new urban quarter is almost that of the Berlin Mitte district. The site extends from a mountain ridge in the south to the bay in the northeast. In their design, the architects mirror the landscape features of Qingdao – its rock formations and green plains. The new development features eight quarters which resemble individual rock formations and, with their soft contours, form flowing nature corridors. The short distances between the quarters, the mixed uses and the density and type of buildings, which are up to eight storeys high, support energy conservation in this urban development.

 

 

 

 

Source: Architectenweb

Hotel Liesma Winning Proposal by Ventura Trindade Architects

The winning project proposal of Hotel Liesma by Ventura Trindade Architects recovers the concept of old ‘estrãdês’, simple outdoor structures formed by a stage with an acoustic shell and a flat audience, in front.The building acts like a system of visual and functional relation with the theme of the music box (resonance box), with visual resonance in the collective memory of the guests and general population.

 

The coast of Jurmala is full of fascinating constructions, like the former restaurant ‘Juras Perle’, the Baltic Beach Hotel, cantilevered over the beach and horizon, or even the Dubulti station, with its impressive canopy and Art Nouveau constructions implanted right on the beach. More recently other projects equally reveal the fascinating moment the country is crossing, after years of foreign dominance, like the Majori Sports Arena or the Dzintaru Park Observation Tower.

But in the same way that the ability to imagine the future is something absolutely necessary for the culture and development of a country, the knowledge of its historical heritage is also the base on which any future could be built. In Jurmala there is a historical legacy even more important than the spectacle of its recent projects: the traditional wooden constructions, the importance which music acquired locally and afterwards spread internationally, the richness of its forest area, the beauty of its coastline, sheltered from the Baltic by the Gulf of Riga.

Jurmala lives in and by these crossroads of ideals: between the history and tradition of the local culture – in which both architecture and music are inserted – and an enormous expectation about its own future.

Despite the existence of various concert halls in Jurmala and Riga, the outdoor events continue to be a tradition strongly rooted in the local culture, as demonstrated in the outdoor auditorium of Dzintari Concert Hall. Wood, with a solid tradition in construction in Latvia (the Riga pine wood is used worldwide) is also the material par excellence in the making of musical instruments as well as the spaces conceived for musical audition. And for those reasons it overlays the surfaces of the exterior pavements and of some facades in the project. It is even the selected material of the indoor public spaces, providing the creation of adequate acoustic conditions for the realization of small musical events, throughout all the Hotel spaces.

The rooms are, on the contrary, covered on some of its surfaces with sound absorsion materials, as those found in recording studios, for example. The idea is to create sound-proof resting spaces, as a counterpoint to the sound spaces of the public areas of hotel. In analogy with a musical composition, the private spaces are understood as pauses, the silent part of music, as important as the musical notes.

 

It is intended to constitute a synthesis of the relation of Jurmala with music (a secular legacy signed by world renowned songwriters and musicians, from Krisjãnis Barons to Gidon Kremer), but also the statement of Jurmala as a beach area of excellence in Latvia and Riga in particular, and of the Baltic in general.

Withdrawn from the beach by a densely wooded range, the current building does not take advantage of the visual relation with the sea, which make other hotel equipments in the region particularly attractive. The average tree height varies between 20 and 25 meters. However, the building regulations allow for constructions up to 37 meters in height (10 floors), as found in the existing structure.

The organizational scheme proposed is, in a way, opposite to the traditional hotel scheme, like the pre-existing building, which is normally based on the disposition of a horizontal block housing the public spaces and areas of greater dimension, opposed to a vertical block which organizes the rooms, in a hierachical form. The proposed structure is based on the creation of a broad elevated floor, with 60X60 meters, simultaneously forming a roof over the exterior access spaces and organizing the more important public spaces of the Hotel, like the halls (restaurant and conference and banqueting center), indoor swimming pool and spa, gym and bar, with a magnificent view of the Baltic and Riga, from far, over the green cloak of the surrounding forests.

Supported on three independent but interconnected blocks and three support and infrastructure distribution columns, this crowning is the counterpoint of a base constituted by two levels which enable the separation of public access and service circulations, creating a high multifunctional square. On the other hand, the ‘high square’ works as a staging of the arrival at the Hotel, assigning a kind of scenic sense to the guests and other clients reception.

The roof of the reception is a wooden platform, which can work as a stage facing the outdoor square. The adjacent facade, with wooden door enclosed balconies, and the wooden ceiling formed by the upper block, build a resonance box which allows to organize concerts or other occasional events, resuming the logic of the outdoor stages common in the various parks of the region.

The whole program is organized, fundamentally, in two vertical blocks of rooms and two horizontal blocks of public and service areas. The first refer to Block A (existing structure, to fully maintain), which organizes the predicted 120 rooms (84 standart rooms, 18 family rooms, 12 business rooms, 6 junior suites, plus 1 presidential suite); Block C will organize 57 additional rooms, as requested, in an indepedent building, although interconnected at the base and crowning, which enables the realization of the construction without impairing the functioning of the main block. In a first phase only the vertical access core of this block shall be built.

 

Block E corresponds to the top floor, which houses the public program, with an indoor height of 7 meters. Block D contains almost all the service areas and is organized lengthwise from the loading and unloading and service access, to the west (Salacas Iela), until connecting to the other blocks, at the lower level. It faces North, towards the parking patio, remaining embedded relatively to the square, to the South. On the last floor, providing direct support to the restaurant, bar and conference and banqueting center, exists a dishwashing service area and buffet support.

There is a third vertical block, to the East, which organizes a loading and unloading access to the top floor, served by a heavy-weight lift and emergency staircase. At the top of the high square the reception is located, along with the lobby and lobby bar, in a space with double interior height which connects from the inside to Block A, pre-existing.

Both circulations of people and vehicles, as well as of guests and service personnel, are separated from each other, which is achieved thanks to the two levels at the basement. Therefore, the high square is reached by guests on foot (or by vehicle but according to a ‘stop and go’ system), through the main access ramp (Dubultu Prospekts) or from the opposite ramp for access to the beach. Below, the atrium is prepared for receiving luggage, mobility impaired guests or VIP’s. The vehicles essentially circulate at this level, revolving at the circular patio and following to the parking along the site’s internal service route.

It is also on this floor that the service personnel circulation is done, between Block D and the room blocks A and C, using the service elevator of each block. In Block A, given the great amount of rooms, there is an area for cleaning and laundry, on some floors, connecting through a technical shaft with the main housekeeping area on the 1st floor. In Block C the equivalent shaft is dedicated to collecting garbage from the top dishwashing area.

The structure of Block A, existing, is maintained, having the vertical access cores reinforced, which will serve as a support for the upper floor (Block E). The future block of additional rooms, C, has a vertical access core which works as a second support for the superior structure. To the East, the block of the heavy-weight lift constitutes a third main support for the upper block. At the same time, three other complementary columns exist, of a circular section, which enable the passing of infrastructures from the base to the crowning.

The base, formed by the service block (D), the reception and high square, unifies the various vertical concrete cores which uphold the superior public floor (Block E), this being built in a metalic truss structure, pre-fabricated, with pavements in collaborative slab formwork, which enormously facilitates the execution of high rise works. The structure is relatively conventional in terms of dimensioning and construction. The building process is equally simple and consists on the mounting of a fixed central crane, in the North patio (Patio 01), in which its arm covers all of the construction area and is supported during the mounting of the trusses by two mobile cranes which precisely position the pieces in place, allowing for the welding of the next truss legs.

These mobile cranes serve almost exclusively to proceed with the positioning of the truss leg, since the weight is held by the central crane. After mounting the main trusses, all of the remaining construction is executed only with the help of the central crane.

 

The building functions like a system which creates climatic attenuation conditions (protection, shelter) and heating retention (since the top floor works like a reflective ceiling of heat emanated from the building). The wooden overlays of the facades and exterior ceilings allow to increase the thermal insulation on the interior, beyond providing acoustic conditions and visual comfort, especially considering the low winter temperatures. In the winter it is possible to close the patios of the upper block, through horizontal skylights operated manually or mechanically. Therefore, the heat from the sun rays which cross this glass roof are maintained below the general ceiling.

In the summer these skylights are open, creating a chimney effect which naturally ventilates the space below the roof. This superior block, functioning as a roof of the whole, offers shelter from the rain and snow over the entrance spaces and room facades. In the summer, as opposed, shade is provided. The fact that the whole is organized in various blocks enables natural cross ventilation of the interior spaces, in order to avoid excessive humidity accumulation.

All the water collected on the great roof, as well as the water gathered in the square, is channeled to a reservoir located below the circular square. The transparent roofs of the indoor swimming pool and gym are fitted with photovoltaic collector panels, for accumulating electric energy, and thermal collectors, for heating sanitary hot water, which, together, help cover a great part of the energy necessities of this main upper block. A radiant ceiling system, for heating the interior air, helps melt the snow on the roof, avoiding excessive accumulation. Located in the service block, D, next to the service entrance, are the hot water production generators, using natural gas or a tank to be located on the site.

The circuits of infrastructure distribution are made above the service corridor ceilings and through the shafts of the vertical access cores. Since, in the future, there will be two independent blocks of rooms, it will be possible to only use one depending on the occupancy rate that is established in each season of the year, thus substantially decreasing the costs for cleaning and heating of the spaces. The embankment which forms the high square can absorb all the non-polluting debris from the demolition of the existing constructions, as well as the excess dirt resulting from the excavation for implanting the new constructions, avoiding economic and environmental costs which would be a result of the transporting of the waste to landfills.

The project tried to create something that gathers the history of the place, its musical tradition, its unique geographic location, with the impulse of modernity which comes from its still recent independence as a country. A functional and symbolic construction, like an acoustic box, like the ‘estrâdes’ that proliferate through the various parks of the region, like a resonance box of a musical instrument, a guitar, a ‘kokle’.

But which can also be associated to the rattan structures that at the beginnig of the 20th century ponctuated these beachs, sheltering the holidaymakers from the wind and the sun. And following this, we could even, symbolically, find similarities with the old fishing boats, made of wood.

More than replicating a shape, finding analogies too direct which could easily be converted into caricatures of that which is intended to enhance, we sought to reinterpretate those structures in an admittedly contemporary design.

 

 

Source: ArchDaily

Related links: Ventura Trindade Architects

Sustainable accommodation for children with cancer

MBM Arquitectes designed the ‘Casa dels Xuklis’ in Barcelona. The project is driven by AFANOC and the Private Foundation of Children with Cancer.

 

AFANOC detected that there are families with children diagnosed with cancer who live too far away from the hospital, and have difficulty in finding adequate accommodation for the frequent visits that the various treatments require. At the same time, an optimal environment contributes in affected children caring. The project has taken five years to be a reality.

 

The Casa dels Xuklis presents a holistic response to sustainability that covers natural resources as well as social and technical design aspect of the building and garden. It responds a new demand of health buildings. The building architecture responds to the climate and culture of the Mediterranean: natural light, cross ventilation, in dialogue with the sun, the patio and the garden and in reference to the four seasons. 

 

Casa dels Xuklis Barcelona, photo: Enric Duch

 

The building has two main parts: the apartments (where families live) and the public areas. The 25 apartments (each 30 m²) are grouped in four separate pavilions each facing a different way around the traditional Mediterranean patio tilted in plan to create social corners. Each dwelling has a covered porch facing the garden, protected with two slatted wooden doors, that when opened extend the privacy into the garden itself. This ensures a delicate balance between privacy and community relationships while the patio, with its cubic basin with the splash of recycled water from the fountain, together with deciduous tree creates an agreeable micro-climate for the families together.

Casa dels Xuklis Barcelona, evening, photo: COPISA

 

The more public accommodation, the library with its different areas for small groups, the dining area with the porch giving protection from the mid-afternoon sun, and the community kitchen in the centre are gathered together under a separate roof that follows the irregular curves of the plan. Over the kitchen there is an attic overlooking the library for conferences and other future activities.

 

Casa dels Xuklis Barcelona, office entrance, Foto: COPISA

Casa dels Xuklis Barcelona, Mediterranean patio, photo: COPISA

In the construction care has been taken to ensure a continuous thermal insulation with a cavity walls and roof wrapped around the building. Sound insulation between dwellings is reinforced with acoustic prefabricated plaster panels on either side of the structural walls, and beneath the zinc roof to mitigate excessive noise from the rain. LED lighting has been installed in the public areas as far as the restricted budget allowed. Throughout the landscape of the garden a special design of the drainage system is integrated with the recycling of the watering of the trees and plants. Finally, a kitchen-garden provides vegetables, grown on site, for the families, not only for meals but also for its natural therapeutic effect of distraction.

 

Casa dels Xuklis Barcelona, kitchen-garden, photo: Juanchi Pegoraro

 

MBM Arquitectes was founded by Josep Martorell and Oriol Bohigas in 1951, David Mackay was incorporated in 1962 and Oriol Capdevila and Francesc Gual in 2000. Headquartered in Barcelona, MBM Arquitectes has planned and carried out, during the last 60 years, many projects responding to different climates and cultures in architecture, urbanism and design in more than 60 European cities as well as Argentina, Mexico and Morocco.

 

Source:detail.de

Agahnia House, California / USA by Sebastian Mariscal Studio

Project Details:
Location: La Jolla, California, USA
Type: Residential - Houses
Architects: Sebastian Mariscal Studio – www.sebastianmariscal.com
Size: 6,173 Sq. Ft
Design Team: Sebastian Mariscal, Mauricio De la Pena, Fernando Iribarren

A humble path seductively leads to a filtered stonewall with a mysterious presence. There are no windows and no reference to any grand entrance. Rather, a dense and naturally grown vegetated surroundings. A door opens to discover an exterior space. The ground is sunken below the entrance level to contain a pond teeming with lilies, lotuses, and koi.

Floor Plan

Elevation / Section

A floating bridge guides us to a crafted space beyond and the absence of railings initiates an awareness and intimate dialogue of oneself with the architecture. The sound of gurgling water slows one’s attention to nature’s pace as the swimming koi create a dance of color below one’s feet. The enclosure beyond, crafted with rich warm Mahogany contrasts the stone and natural vegetation, creating a welcoming feeling. A sliding door reveals a sequence of flawless interior and exterior experiences based on natural conditions of space, light and airflow.

A subtle, yet deep-rooted relationship with nature is made evident, as the individual is removed from a public context into a more intimate one and is allowed to exist in an environment of silence, reflection, and peace.