Architecture

Italian studio Gosplan inserted a perforated metal gate into a fifteenth century marble doorway as part of their renovation of this fashion boutique in Genoa. Gosplan was influenced by the doorways of ancient Italian palaces when designing the perforated gate that marks the entrance to the store, which is located in the city's historic centre. "The door is a free interpretation of doors of ancient Genoa palaces," explains the designer. "The small holes are a metaphor for the large ancient nails, while the large hole in the centre replaces the door knocker." Called Il Salotto, which means "Living Room" in Italian, the boutique has vaulted ceilings and large windows with a bright blue linoleum floor that contrasts with the rough plastered walls. Clothes, bags and shoes hang from white-painted reinforcing rods, which have been bent into angular formations that protrude from the walls and floors. Coat hangers and mirror frames are also constructed from the bent rods, along with a cage-like chandelier that descends from the ceiling and a large circular rail from which curtains hang to enclose dressing rooms. Brightly coloured cables are strung around the shop with bare lightbulbs dangling loosely from the ceiling. The shop counter is made from coloured MDF and features a tiled recess used to display jewellery. The same dove-grey coloured tiles are used to create a unifying band around the walls of the boutique. The shop is owned by Sara Busiri Vici and Matteo Brizio who also use the space to host small art exhibitions. Photography is by Anna Positano. Other shops we've recently featured on Dezeen include a boutique with an upside-down living room on the ceiling and a fashion boutique with glass silhouettes of male and female figures that reach out to each other across a tiled floor. See all our stories about shop design » Floor plan - click for larger image Gate detail - click for larger image The post Il Salotto boutique by Gosplan appeared first on Dezeen.

Architects: Aicher Ziviltechniker GmbH Location: Dornbirn, Austria Area: 4,500 sqm Year: 2010 Photographs: Norman A. Müller, Courtesy of Aicher ZT GmbH Within the next years a high-quality work and living space is originates for about 50 companies with approx. 500 employees on the area of the former “Post Garagen Areal” in Dornbirn. The Campus Dornbirn II was set up in the first construction phase 2008/2009 as the head building of a future business park. Even the close connection to the “Fachhochschule Vorarlberg” is useful to generate a new scientific and research environment, were young entrepreneurs can set up their first business in a highly flexible business park. The form of the monolithic building with his sharp edged facades produces a strong dynamic, which stands in a positive tradition of the booming and flexible architectural language of Dornbirn. The strong raster of the facade with his large windows provides an open view inside. The ground floor of the building can be used as meeting and event space. With the design forum Vienna a corporation was developed for different exhibitions, which will be hosted several times a year. Campus Dornbirn II / Aicher Ziviltechniker GmbH originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 19 May 2013.send to Twitter | Share on Facebook | What do you think about this?

As an update to our recent post about the ‘Richard Meier – Architecture and Design’ Retrospective Exhibition currently taking place until July 28 at the Fondazione Bisazza in Vicenza, Italy, the first images have been shared with us. The exhibit includes several iconic, current and recently completed projects by Richard Meier & Partners, in celebration of the company’s 50th anniversary. Also being unveiled at this exhibition is a site-specific installation for the Foundation’s permanent collection. For more information about the exhibition, please visit here. More images after the break. Update: ‘Richard Meier – Architecture and Design’ Retrospective Exhibition originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 18 May 2013.send to Twitter | Share on Facebook | What do you think about this?

Architects: James Carpenter Design Associates Location: Jerusalem, Israel Production Architect: A. Lerman Architects Ltd Area: 8820.0 sqm Year: 2010 Photographs: Tim Hursley, Courtesy of James Carpenter Design Associates, Reid Freeman Structural Engineers: J. Kahan & Partners Lighting Designer: Tillotson Design Associates Graphics: Kasher Visual Communications Landscape Design: West End Architects and Environmental Planners Project Management: Nizan-Inbar General Contractor: Danya Sebus James Carpenter Design Associates led the reorganization, expansion and new construction of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, while Efrat-Kowalsky Architects was responsible for the renovation of the museum’s existing buildings. The expansion involves new construction (~95,000 sq. ft.), the reorganization of visitor circulation, Entrance Pavilions and a Gallery Entrance Pavilion improving visitor accessibility. The renovation of the existing museum galleries comprise of ~100,000 sq. ft. The particular quality of light in Jerusalem, a product of longitude and latitude, climate, geography and topography, is unique. We believe that integral to the experience of place, is the experience of light and, in view of its cultural history, the particularities of light in Jerusalem is evidently powerful. JCDA’s approach to the renovation and expansion of the Israel Museum was to merge our careful consideration of light in the landscape with a rigorous attention to the existing built environment. Initial visits to the museum established the need to re-connect the existing, and quite extraordinary, garden by Isamu Noguchi with Alfred Mansfeld’s regional interpretation of Modernist architecture. A guiding principal was to dissolve the barriers between the garden and the campus’ building interiors and to transform the problem for a museum of the intense light conditions of the Mediterranean, into an opportunity to integrate a sensory experience of light. Our design organizes and inserts light and light information into the new architecture. This light information specifically embodies the quality of light found within the campus landscape and is used to activate the Entrance Pavilions, the Gallery Entrance Pavilion and the major below ground passage connecting the two – the Route of Passage. The experience of light is particularly powerful within thresholds, and JCDA’s strategies for light were deeply informed by the idea of separating the building envelopes into two components: enclosure and shade. These components support the experiential presentation of volumetric light and views while moderating the sun’s intensity. The relationships between these two components were also carefully modulated to create a sense of passage through the built architecture and across the campus. The shifts in the depth of facades are adjusted, even stretched to transform them into shaded exterior passages. The play of transparency and opacity responds to both north/south and east/west exposures and is sometimes interrupted to frame views of important elements in the landscape and campus. The spatial experience of the decentralized campus becomes simultaneously intuitive and sublime. Drawing from the encyclopedic nature of the institution’s collections, JCDA has created a journey through the museum’s public and interstitial spaces that progresses intuitively and creates a sense of discovery. Volumetric light is the organizing principal for this passage through the museum and articulates Mansfeld’s Mediterranean hilltop village ideal through selective transparency. JCDA has reinterpreted the sensuality of narrow alleys and sunken oases by creating a defined arrangement of spatial experiences animated by phenomenal light. By carving out a vertical volume at the Gallery Entrance Pavilion, it was possible to create the Route of Passage below the existing Carter Promenade, which would lead visitors from the museum’s entrance complex to the Gallery Entrance Pavilion a

Wilkinson Eyre Architects has won an international competition to design “Sydney’s next masterpiece.” Selected over three other shortlisted firms – Renzo Piano, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, and KPF – the London-based practice will now be responsible for the design of a $1.5 billion sculptural icon to host a six-star Crown Sydney resort on a 6000-square-meter site in the inner-city waterfront precinct of Barangaroo. Subject to approval, the 235-meter-tall skyscraper will provide 350 guest rooms and suites, along with four restaurants, a cafe, an ultra-lounge, day spa, roof top pool and luxury retail facilities. On winning the design competition, Chris Wilkinson, Founding Director, Wilkinson Eyre Architects stated: “Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and it is a great privilege to design such a significant building on the waterfront. My ambition is to create a sculptural form that will rise up on the skyline like an inhabited artwork, with differing levels of transparency, striking a clear new image against the sky.” Paul Baker, Director, Wilkinson Eyre Architects added: “The architecture takes its inspiration from nature, composed of organic forms that provide an abstract, sculptural shape; it does not try to mimic any particular plant or flower but is derived from the specificity of the site and the client brief. Its curved geometry emanates from three forms which twist and rise together. The first form peels off, spreading outward to form the main hotel room accommodation, with the remaining two twisting together toward the sky.” Reference: Crown Hotel, Wilkinson Eyre Architects Wilkinson Eyre Wins Crown Sydney Hotel Resort Competition originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 18 May 2013.send to Twitter | Share on Facebook | What do you think about this?

Barcelona's new design museum is an angular metal-clad structure designed by local studio MBM Arquitectes (+ slideshow). The seven-storey Museu del Disseny de Barcelona is located on the edge of Plaça de les Glories, next door to Jean Nouvel's Torre Agbar office tower. Due to the level changes across the site, the building has part of its volume buried beneath the ground and has public entrances on two of its floors. MBM Arquitectes divided the form of the building into two halves. The bottom section is a bulky volume with glazed walls and a grass roof, while the upper section is a top-heavy structure clad with pre-weathered aluminium panels on every side. Set to open in spring 2014, the museum will combine the decorative arts, ceramics, textiles and graphic design collections of four existing museums, which have now closed their doors. The main exhibition hall will be housed in the lower part of the building, while additional exhibitions will take place in galleries on the museum's upper floors. Other facilities include a large auditorium, a small hall, a public library, education rooms and a bar and cafe. The area surrounding the museum has been made into a lake, while the grass roof serves as a new public lawn overlooking the water. The Design Museum in London is also moving to a new home, as British architect John Pawson is developing the former Commonwealth Institute building. See more recent architecture in Barcelona, including a modular office block by Arata Isozaki and student housing at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Photography is by Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre. Here's some more information from DHUB: The new design headquarters in Barcelona The building is the work of MBM Arquitectes, the architecture studio formed by Josep Martorell, Oriol Bohigas and David Mackay, together with Oriol Capdevila and Francesc Gual. The edifice is made up of two parts: one underground (which takes advantage of the slope created by urban development of the plaza) and another which emerges at 14.5 m (at the level of Plaça de les Glòries). Site plan - click for larger image Construction below the height of 14.5m: Most of the surface area of the building is situated below the 14.5m level and is where the more significant installations are housed. They are distributed over two floors and a gallery, and include the main exhibition hall, rooms given over to management and preservation of the DHUB's collections, the main offices, Clot public library, the documentation centre (DHUBdoc) and rooms for research and educational activities, in addition to high-traffic services such as the bar, restaurant and store. Though below ground level, the basement floor receives natural light from a trench which is worked into the different ground levels and which features a huge lake, creating a dialogue with the outside. Lighting is reinforced with six skylights that look out over the public space and can also be used as showcases for the centre's contents and activities. Lower floor plan - click for larger image Construction above the height of 14.5m: This part of the building projects over the width of Carrer d'Àvila and has the shape of a slanted parallelepiped. In accordance with the general urban plan it occupies a minimum footprint, primarily in order not to reduce the space earmarked for public use, but also because the vicissitudes of plans to demolish the elevated road and change the tramline route severely limit the space available. The building cantilevers out towards the plaça, enabling the construction potential to be met while at the same time establishing a display of urban architecture over the motorway. This block will house the venues for long- and short-term temporary exhibitions, as well as a small hall and a large auditorium. Middle levels floor plans - click for larger image Entrance to both parts or bodies that compose the DHUB headquarters is gained through a single vestibule with two points of access: one in Carrer d

Yesterday I stopped by Leslie Feely Fine Art on Manhattan's Upper East Side to check out the exhibition Frank Gehry At Work, on display until June 29. The exhibition collects about 30 process models, some for buildings that were completed, others as studies for projects never realized. Below are some of my photos and impressions. Given the focus on Gehry "at work," the models range from messy to really messy—tape and hot glue are evident where needed to hold the metal, plastic, paper, wood, and even cloth into Gehry's distinctive forms. Easily my favorite piece is the one done in lead (below photo); even though it is undeniably Gehry, the fact it is made from one sheet of lead and is self supporting (no wood armature like the model above) brings it closer to a piece of art than the others. Some of the models are more like presentation models than process models, such as these above and below. Yet as a close-up of the above photo reveals, globs of hot glue are still evident, as if capturing the forms in whatever means necessary is more important than craft. Another model I like seeing is a fairly well developed model of the IAC Headquarters near the High Line, accompanied by a photo of the completed building. In particular it's the entrance canopy in the lower-left corner that interests me, for I've always felt that the entrance and relationship of the building to the surrounding sidewalks is one of the weakest parts of the design (if not his whole oeuvre). But this small gesture, if realized (the entrance is on the north, or right side of the model), would have shifted the center of gravity and sidewalk presence of the building most dramatically. Gehry's paper model for Beekman Tower (what was later named 8 Spruce Street then "New York by Gehry") is also interesting, for it shows much more variation happening from floor to floor, rather than the subtle shifts that happen at the perimeter of the completed building. Obviously this earlier iteration is much more expensive than what was built (remember, one full elevation of the tower is completely flat), but it's good to see Gehry working out what a tower could and should be.

Foster + Partners has been selected to developed a proposal for a low energy, high-density residential community in Islington, London.  The site is a 1980s business park that is to be regenerated into a residential zone of two towers and a landscaped park.  The project will incorporate the arera’s planned high-rise buildings and is ultimately set to provide a new landmark for the city. The two residential towers at 250 City Road will provide the area with 800 new units.  At 36- and 42-stories, the two towers are taller than the surrounding buildings, but are stepped down in such a way as to blend with the existing low-rise architecture. The site is designed to create a comfortable and healthy environment that provides outdoor spaces, amenities, transportation connections and protection against wind and noise in the open spaces.  The site is interconnected with pedestrian routes, connections to adjacent streets and transportation links and shops and cafes to establish an urban quarter. The buildings are designed with a combined heat and power plant that can be connected to the local grid, photovoltaic panels, green roofs, and rain water collection systems. Foster + Partners Reveals Residential Community Project for London originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 18 May 2013.send to Twitter | Share on Facebook | What do you think about this?

Architects: TASH – Taller de Arquitectura Sánchez-Horneros Location: Toledo, Spain Design Team: Emilio Sánchez-Horneros, Antonio Sánchez-Horneros, Álvaro Cabrera Area: 680 sqm Project Year: 2009 Photographs: Miguel de Guzmán Structural Engineer: Carlos Asensi, Antonio de Blas Technical Engineer: Francisco Guadamillas, Ignacio de La Cal Client: SHG society Construction: Hospital General de Toledo UTE Throughout history, large scale projects had auxiliary constructions to host the technical teams and in some cases, their families when they were remote places. Associates to dams, new cities, bridges or airports, architecture of great value emerged. Modern day society allows architecture and engineering to happen without the physical presence of those times. That’s why this Technical Construction Pavilion shows the vocation of making a slow and precise architecture. More than an architecture project, it’s a way of doing architecture. The expiration of use in a building is normal and common but this must not confuse, nor lead us to design temporal buildings. Designing a building means an economic and environmental wear that shouldn’t be dissipated. Under a strict point of view, temporal architecture should only be associated with theatrical shows, so the wear is seen to achieve higher actions. With this building, we propose to state the temporality in relationship to its use, so it petrifies its character. Since the Pavilion is the first finished element in the building, the first reference to a hostile environment, of great mountains of land excavation, material stockpiles, dust and noise, the implantation is made so it protects through a cloister structure fully closed in the exterior perimeter and open to the garden defined by the own building. The orthogonality of the building allows to control the space and define a reference for the rest of the project, so extensions can be incorporated for future uses. The C-form open to the north and closed to the rest orientations benefits a low-rise office building and generates a microclimate in the inner patio that benefits the summer conditions. The use of a self-ventilated clear brick allows a favorable behavior of the whole set with a well proportioned disbursement. This brick is a key element in the buildings’ expression, seeking an image that constitutes a novelty for this material. Technical Construction Pavilion of the Universitario de Toledo General Hospital / TASH originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 18 May 2013.send to Twitter | Share on Facebook | What do you think about this?

photo Nikolay Krusser, courtesy Eifman balletWhat Great Gatsby director Baz Luhrmann is to film, Boris Eifman is to ballet. Which is to say, over-the-top, and then some. To state many critics despise Eifman's work would be an understatement. “Mr. Eifman flaunts all the worst clichés of psycho-sexo-bio-dance-drama with casual pride while he rushes headlong to commit a whole new set of artistic felonies,” sniffed New York Times critic Alastair Macaulay. And then he got nasty. Macaulay was writing about Rodin, the Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg production that's playing at the Auditorium just tonight (Saturday) and tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon. Since I have no taste - I liked Luhrmann's Great Gatsby as well - I recommend it. It's a bit of a bait-and-switch. Although the title is Rodin, the key subject is actually sculptress Camille Claudel, Rodin's lover and collaborator, who spent the last several decades of her life institutionalized for mental illness. Against a greatest-hits assortment of snippets (recorded) of nearly two dozen works by Ravel, Debussy, Massenet and Satie, Eifman charts Claudel's anguished art-making and descent into madness as part of a triangle including herself, Rodin, and Rodin's wife Rose. The set is centered by an angled geometric construction that repositions into various configurations, within a wall of light in various saturated colors, sometimes with smoke. The scenes shift in time from the institutionalized Claudel back to her life as an artist and relationship with Rodin. The music is often deployed ironally, as in the ecstatic final dance of Daphnis et Chloe used to depict Claudel's nightmare state. There's also a Can-Can, and a scene that ends with two rustic women standing in a vat of grapes that puts you in mind of a I Love Lucy sketch.photo Nikolay Krusser, courtesy Eifman balletEifman has his defenders, with L.A. Times critic Lewis Segal describing his work - and Rodin in particular - as “virtually the only one totally in touch with the 21st century.” And he means that in a good way. Eifman's dancers are dedicated and accomplished. And so if you, as a true balletomane, are bored or outraged by Rodin, I apologize, but I found Eifman's work not only swiftly entertaining, but at key moments, deeply moving. You can think of art as an ethereal temple or a writhing animal outcry, but it only has meaning if you have both. Snails and oysters.There's actually a great Camille Caudel website (in French) where you can check out her often very powerful work, including the her bust of Rodin you see to the right. “There is always something missing that bothers me,” she wrote in a letter to the artist. Another interesting Claudel website can be found here.There's a Chicago connection to Caudel, which we wrote about in 2010. When sculptor Leon Hermant's Louis Pasteur Monument, then located next to the Field Museum, was dedicated in 1928, the ceremony was attended by France's ambassador to the U.S. That man was Paul Claudel, who fifteen years earlier had his sister Camille committed to the Montdevergues Asylum with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, only days after the death of their father, who had supported Camille and her work. Despite persistent entreaties from the asylum's doctors that there was no justification in keeping her there, Paul Claudel abandoned Camille kept her imprisoned there for 30 years. It was where she died, age 78, in 1943. The family never claimed the body.Read: The Pasteur Monument, or, Who do Dead Scientists always seem to get the Hot Babes?