Architecture

A door and deep-framed window are set into the glass house-shaped facade of this cupcake shop in Taiwan by J.C. Architecture. Taiwanese studio J.C. Architecture used the cake boxes as a starting point for the interior design. "We wanted to create a space that derives from the actual product itself," say the architects. "We took the idea of the gift packaging and studied the movement of folding." Les Bebes Cupcakery has a house-shaped shop frontage that extends beyond the facade of the building with a floor-to-ceiling glass window, interrupted by a solid black doorway. A black-framed box with a yellow interior pushes through the glass, acting as a display cabinet for the cupcakes. Inside the shop, a line of small shelves appears to have folded out of the white walls like box lids, revealing squares of dark tiles behind. Dark tiles are also used to border a raised bar area, which is lined with yellow and black stools. We recently featured a beauty salon in Osaka that also has a house-shaped shop window. Earlier this year we featured a patisserie that uses reclaimed wooden doors to recreate the decorative panelling of nineteenth century French interiors. See all our stories about shop design » The post Les Bebes Cupcakery by J.C. Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

A new Kickstarter campaign is hoping to raise a goal of $3,500 to fund the second annual MAPEO Borderless Workshop – a workshop that focuses on community mapping and brings diverse people and minds together to think about cities within the US-Mexican border region. By rallying individuals from different disciplines with different backgrounds, MAPEO aims to “learn more about our own cities, evaluate urban challenges and come up with ideas on how to improve our life in cities in a very quick and meaningful exercise.” The MAPEO Workshop examines the urban conditions and challenges facing Northern Mexican cities of the Chihuahua region during an intense four day period of work that brings together 12 students from different universities as well as professionals and experts in architecture, regional planning and anthropology. The process is characterized by research, conversations with guest experts and the exchange of information and ideas about local water resources and systems, manufacturing industry and economy, mobility and ecology and other topics. The funds raised by the Kickstarter campaign will help to support the workshop itself, as well as the production of a video to show the world its processes and findings. Last year’s video gives a glimpse into the landscape and lifestyle of the Chihuahua region and highlights the collaboration necessary to understand and confront this area’s complicated and interconnected circumstances. Click here to view the embedded video. For more information on the MAPEO Borderless Workshop, visit their site here; to donate to the program, click here. Reference: Kickstarter, The Borderless Workshop Tumblr 2013 MAPEO Workshop Hopes to Explore Experimental Mapping Techniques 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?

At just a little over 50 years old, the University of California San Diego is one of the younger college campuses in the United States, but despite this it is one of the most architecturally fascinating universities around. In the official UCSD campus guide, Dirk Sutro emphasizes that “UCSD does not have a single example of the historical-revival styles prevalent at other University of California campuses… and at San Diego’s two other major universities”. The history of UCSD architecture is one of ambition, which has made the campus a display case of modernism in all of its forms from the last half a century. Thanks to photographer Darren Bradley, we can now share this history and a selection of the exciting structures it has produced. Find out more about the UCSD campus after the break UCSD has its roots in the 1950s, when the City of San Diego offered a large section of land to the University of California. The new campus was positioned to include the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which had occupied a site on the coast since the early 20th century. What is now known as the Old Scripps Building was designed by Irving Gill in 1910; even at this early time, Gill had eschewed historical styles and his concrete design set the tone for the approach occupied by the new campus 50 years later. The original master plan for the campus was designed by Robert Alexander. It consisted of 12 colleges, each with a distinct architectural character, joined by a grand pedestrian boulevard inspired by the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The plan was heroic in its ambition: the focal point of this grand boulevard would be a huge plaza “rivaling the Piazza San Marco”, and a 6000-seat amphitheatre with a 360-foot bell tower at its center. A library “as compelling as a Mayan Pyramid” would complete the ensemble. Alexander oversaw the construction of Revelle College, the first of the 12 planned colleges, as well as the medical school and a number of standalone facilities such as the Gymnasium, with its delicate folded roof and the deceptively simple glass Natatorium. Revelle College is particularly notable for adopting the approach of the overall master plan, designed with strong forms and a large plaza at the center of the college. In order to encourage the different architectural character called for in the master plan, the university hired architect Robert Mosher to design the second college, and got more than they bargained for. A disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mosher believed in humanistic design and was worried about the excessive scale of Alexander’s plan, likening it to the totalitarian architecture of the Nazis – entirely inappropriate for the progressive liberalism that characterized the student population of the 1960s. Mosher convinced the university’s administrators to ultimately abandon Robert Alexander’s plan, then designing Muir College, a more intimate collection of buildings than Revelle College. At around the same time, the university hired William Pereira to design the main library, who disagreed with Alexander’s plan to situate the library at the edge of the campus, and convinced the university that a site at the center of the campus would be better. Reacting to these betrayals of his vision, Alexander resigned from his post as consulting architect – but if nothing else, he got his wish for a library “as compelling as a Mayan Pyramid”. The remarkable Geisel Library (named after Theodore ‘Dr Seuss’ Geisel) is the focal point of the campus and the star of this architectural show. Since its rapid expansion in the 1960s and early 70s, construction at UCSD has slowed down a little, but now with six colleges and a much expanded student village near its center, there are still plenty of architectural gems to be seen, such as Moshe Safdie‘s designs for Eleanor Roosevelt College (2003), the Price Center East by Yazd

This house by Spanish architect Daniel Isern looks like a cluster of concrete cubes, stacked up on a steep hillside on the outskirts of Barcelona. The rural site faces out towards the coast, so Daniel Isern designed the four-storey residence with balconies and terraces on three of its floors, as well as a pair of glazed sunrooms. The form of the building comprises overlapping volumes that integrate several cantilevers. Isern explains: "The reduced dimensions of the plot and the desire to leave the minimum imprint on the land led us to seek out a floor plan which, matching the trees that surround it, emerges from a trunk well anchored to the land and opens up in branches on each floor." The entrance to the house is on the uppermost floor. There are no rooms at this level, so residents work their way downstairs to find a living room and bedroom on the next level down, a dining room below that and a master bedroom on the bottom floor. A concrete walls extends out from the north and south sides of the house and integrates a storage area for firewood. Other concrete houses from Spain to feature on Dezeen include a stark building with richly stained timber shutters and an X-shaped house that hangs over a hillside. See more houses in Spain. Photography is by Adrià Goula. Here's a statement from Daniel Isern: Mediterrani 32, Sant Pol de Mar 2012 "For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value." Claude Monet. The project for this house emerged from a very simple premise, to build on a very steep piece of land with a gradient of almost 100%, boasting wonderful views and on a tight budget. It was this highly complicated plot of land, surrounded by pine trees, that defined a good part of this project. The land, and its perspectives, constantly changing as the hours pass, the colour of the trees, the movement of sun and shadows... On the one hand, the reduced dimensions of the plot and its complex orography, and on the other the desire to leave the minimum imprint on the land led us to seek out a floorplan which, matching the trees that surround it, emerges from a trunk well anchored to the land and opens up in braches on each floor, in such a way that each branch becomes the terrace of the upper level at the same time as it becomes the porch of the lower one. All this helps create a very formal building, with huge cantilevers facing out to emptiness, the woods and the sea which lie before it. A structure which opens up to these views and the sun, and which thanks to the terraces and the porches confuse the interior with the exterior. A building which is equally formal in both its volume and the materials which compose it. Concrete, iron, timber and stone combining in a way that emphasises the character of each one. In the end, the whole building represents a dialogue between emptiness and fullness, between materials, between outside and inside; seeking out a balance between these highly contrasting parts. Level four floor plan - click for larger image Level three floor plan - click for larger image Level two floor plan - click for larger image Level one floor plan - click for larger image East elevation - click for larger image South elevation - click for larger image The post Mediterrani 32, Sant Pol de Mar by Daniel Isern appeared first on Dezeen.

On May 18th, we celebrate the 130th birthday of one of the most highly regarded modern architects of the 20th century, Walter Gropius.  Gropius’ contribution to architecture is that of an architect, philosopher and educator.  He was the founder of the Bauhaus, the German “School of Building” that embraced a “total art” in the arts’ production and influence in the social context. This “laboratory” was an effort to  incorporate the elements of art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography in its design, development and production. More after the break. Gropius’ ideas developed in the post-war climate of Europe; the Bauhaus existed in the years between both World Wars, greatly influencing the current of modern art and architecture.  Like many modernists of the period, Gropius was interested in the mechanization of work and the utilitarianism of newly developed factories.  He and Adolf Meyer designed the Fagus-Werk factory, a glass and steel cubic building that is thought to be the pioneering work of the style of modern architecture.  The Bauhaus in Dessau was designed in 1925 by Gropius, distilling his teachings into  architectural elements of the building. Gropius contributed with published writings, discussing the Bauhaus Manifesto, the role of the artist and the artist’s relationship to his or her work.  After immigrating to the United States, Gropius continued his teachings and exploring the Bauhaus idea.  While teaching at Harvard University, he lived with his family at the self-designed Gropius House. Bauhaus rose in popularity with an exhibition, organized by Gropius, at the Museum of Modern Art.  By the time Gropius died in 1969, his ideas on architecture and the Bauhaus itself had become a staple of modernist architecture. Happy 130th Birthday to Bauhaus Founder and Acclaimed Modernist, Walter Gropius 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?

Architects: Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten Location: Claude-Dornier-Platz 1, Friedrichshafen, Germany Project Manager: Frank Karlheim Project Architects: Christof Killius, Lisette Oberleitner, Ana Prikic, Kerstin Schaich, Katrin Wittmann Area: 7,000 sqm Year: 2009 Photographs: Courtesy of Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten Competition Architects: Robert Klein (Project Managment), Katharina Brunn,Uwe Ernst, Johannes Schmersahl Client: Dornier Stiftung für Luft- und Raumfahrt Total Cost: 15 million EUR Gross Volume: 61,100 m3 Structural Engineer: Werner Sobek Ingenieure Building Services: Laux, Kaiser & Partner Ingenieursgesellschaft Interior Design: Grego Exhibition Design: Atelier Brückner Facade Consultant: R+R Fuchs Energy Consultant: TransSolar Energietechnik GmbH Building Physics: Ingenieurgesellschaft für Bauphysik Thor The plot for the Dornier Museum is located in the immediate vicinity of the runways at Friedrichshafen‘s regional airport. The aim of the museum is to present the technology of aircraft construction and the history of the Dornier plant, which was founded in 1922. In addition, links to contemporary history are to be established. Among the exhibits are veteran aircrafts some of which can still fly today. The shape of the museum is derived from the di- rect access of the exhibited airplanes to the runways. Translucent, curved facades delimitate the interior space and guide the way to the tarmac. The end faces oriented towards the airport are closed by transparent gates. A box within the large hall offers space for scenographic presentations of different eras. Function and Concept This museum documents the corporate history and rich tradition of the Dornier Corporation. It is sited in connection to the Friedrichshafen Airport, thus facilitating a uniquely contextual design concept. Translating the particular site quality in reference to architectural typology, to focus the predetermined program of the exhibition within a singular building, to design this space in a restrained fashion – similar to a stage space – encompasses the basic con- ceptual decisions for the Dornier Museum. Maintaining and exhibiting the material documents of people and their environment mostly serves for the benefit of society and its development. Private institutions and individuals, among others, provide this important contribution. Thus, Dornier joins the ranks of renowned founders of private museums who make their collections publicly accessible. In order to document aerospace history, the Dornier Museum is conceived as a platform for the purpose of projection of and reflection on events of the past. On the one hand, exhibits and their historic context; on the other hand, the visitors and their individual comprehension and experience of history. Topically, exclusion and inclusion are both rooted within this concept to equal degrees. The goal of the museum’s architectural concept is to influence this process by facilitating and designing transitions, similar to an airport and its transitory function. Constellation And Gesture Museum and airport, past and present, in one location. This simultaneity manifests itself within a bowshaped runway, resembling an exit in proximity to the southern airstrip. At its apex, it is superimposed with a rectangular volume. The geometric intersection area is the basis for the museum floorplan. The exhibition space volume features curved perimeter surfaces in the north and south, projecting the contour of the runway upward to the rectangular roof structure. In the west and east, the lateral perimeter permits a transition from roof to façade to the runway. The roof elements, projecting outward from the longitudinal perimeter along the intersection of floor plan and runway, distort the accustomed, conventional image of a hangar. The hangar as recognizable type is subject to formal transformation. It thus evokes similarity and difference to the surrounding airport buildings. Material and C

STUDIO magazine just released their Issue #4: TRANSFORMATION which focuses on how the city is a place involved in a continuous Transformation where man is the main creator and user. Furthermore, this issue uses several architectural projects to demonstrate how the city withstands continuous changes in its form, generating new and different landscapes. Through various scales and facets of architecture, the magazine clearly presents to its readers, from basic to in depth analyses, this transformation process cities undergo. For more information, and to read the magazine, please visit here. STUDIO Issue #4: TRANSFORMATION 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?

In this extract from Print Shift, our one-off publication about 3D printing, editor Claire Barrett reports on the growing number of medical applications for the emerging technology and asks how soon we can expect 3D-printed organ transplants. Imagine printing a human liver. Or a kidney. One day this will be possible, and with a desperate global shortage of organs for transplant, the medical industry is pouring resources into developing technologies that will make this a reality. "Eighteen people die every day in the US waiting for a transplant," says Michael Renard, executive vice president for commercial operations at San Diego-based Organovo, one of the companies that is leading the way in tissue engineering. There is a huge amount of excitement around the potential for printing human tissue. Dr Anthony Atala, director at North Carolina's Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine, received a standing ovation at a 2011 TED talk where he printed a prototype human kidney live on stage using living cells. Although a fully functioning kidney for transplant is many years away, Atala's primitive organ produces a urine-like substance. Like other forms of 3D printing, living tissue is printed layer by layer. First a layer of cells is laid down by the printer, followed by a layer of hydrogel that operates as a scaffold material; then the process repeats. The cells fuse, and the hydrogel is removed to create a piece of material made entirely of human cells. This is then moved to a bioreactor, where the tissue continues to grow – as it would in nature – into its final form. "Our approach is consistent with other forms of 3D printing because it's an additive process," says Renard, "but what is unique is our application of the process in the field of cell biology and tissue engineering." Strips of printed tissue will soon be advanced enough to test new drugs Currently it is possible to print small pieces of tissue; the problem lies in scaling this and creating a vascular system that delivers oxygen to the cells and removes carbon dioxide. Without this, the cells will die. In reality, printed organs are a long way away. "In the next 10 years it is possible that [printed] supplemental tissues, ones that aid in regeneration – such as nerve grafts, patches to assist a heart condition, blood vessel segments or cartilage for a degenerating joint – will make it to the clinic," says Renard. "But more advanced replacement tissues will most likely be in 20 years or more." However, scientists believe that strips of printed tissue will soon be advanced enough to be used to test new drugs. These risk-free tests will help determine whether drugs should move forward to expensive human clinical trials. Alongside human tissue, 3D printing is being used to develop body parts. In February, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, announced it had used 3D printing to create an artificial ear for treating a congenital deformity called microtia, where the ear is underdeveloped, or for those who'd lost part of an ear to cancer or an accident. An alternative to painful rib grafts, which result in ears that neither function well nor look natural, a normal ear is scanned and a mould made by a 3D printer. Collagen is injected into the mould, which acts as a scaffold in the formation of cartilage. The hope is that human trials could take place within three years. 3D printed foetuses by Jorge Lopes Although this work is headline-grabbing, 3D printing is already common within the healthcare realm. It is used to custom-print hearing aids, and as an alternative to fixed dental braces. Every day, Invisalign – a company that offers a 3D-printed alternative to fixed braces – prints 60,000 sets of transparent custom-made moulds that the wearer changes every two weeks to realign the teeth. Additive manufacturing is also being used as a visualisation tool to pre-plan surgery. For instance, a heart or fractured leg bone can be scanned and printed to allow the surgeon to

Architects: T38 studio + Pablo Casals-Aguirre Location: Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico Project Team: Alfonso Medina, Pablo Casals-Aguirre, Lucía Arroyo Collaborators: Oscar González, Sara Díaz, Ana Darice Payan Construction: Taller38 Area: 300 sqm Proyect Year: 2011 Photographs: Pablo Casals-Aguirre, Alfredo Zertuche Single family house in Tijuana, on a site where we are developing ten other single family infill houses on sites that range from 300 sq m to 450 sq m. This is house is designed as an experimentation into weight. Juxtaposing the a solid black box, that is covered in volcanic stone native to Mexico on top of a lightweight white box that contains the public part of the house. The black box is the private part, perforated by vertical openings that are not percieved from outside, creating a set of terraces around the whole perimeter. The first floor has openings throughout as to blend the interior and exterior spaces. From the street, you enter through an axis that slices the site in two, having a view towards the city. On the right side there is a studio for the owner who is a psychologist and the main entrance to the house is towards the back of the site. The lower part of the house is an open floor plan that contains the living room, dining room and kitchen. HDJ58 House / T38 studio + Pablo Casals-Aguirre 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?

Connecting time and space with the ‘lucky cloud’, the Aedas designed Xuzhou Suning Plaza is interpreted as magical and delightful, bringing history to life in Xuzhou. Located in the ‘Imperial Emperor’s Town’ of China, the changing of forms inspires reverie and the oval buildings reflect the union of masculine and feminine qualities as well as power and gentleness. More images and architects’ description after the break. The ring shaped design represents the formation of atmosphere. The hard and soft lines symbolize the co-existence of strength and elegance. The project, with a site area of 44,338 square meters, comprises a five-star hotel, Grade-A office and SOHO buildings as well as serviced apartments. With construction commenced in 2012, the plaza is expected to be a keyhole to the future development of the city upon completion in 2016. Architect: Aedas Location: Xuzhou, China Client: Xuzhou Suning Real Estate Co., Ltd. Gross Floor Area: 486,550 square meters Site Area: 44,338 square meters Xuzhou Suning Plaza Proposal / Aedas 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?