http://urbantheorywest8amsterdam.blogspot.com/

story:

Alessi Watch 8000 Luna Series, (light blue face with light blue genuine leather strap, green face with white genuine leather strap) was created by Allesandro Mendini. Mr. Mendini likes the fact that this watch is named after the moon and expresses its calm roundness and silent mystery. Watches are generally entirely rational instruments, devised almost exclusively for giving precision to our days. But this moon-watch, with its image of calm roundness, inspires a peaceful and astral reading and a tranquil progression of time, days, nights and seasons. As is sometimes the case with the moon, this watch also seems somewhat timeless. Stainless steel case with 5 ATM water resistance.

The project Ordos 100 raises the question of an ex-nihilo architecture in an environment governed by an unique urban and constructive principle: a soil shared by all, a mineral reality.

Alone… together.

Should architect anticipate the ways of development for prematured towns?

Should he provokes the usages? We are about to answer the question by using the climatic issue approach of the site through usages. This contextual project represents a common and unique soil for the home of the community: The Tulou Villa.

Alone… together.

At a crossroads point, the built mass reveals and orients the common use of the plot; It provokes a tension with neighbourhood. The soil unity federates the architectures.

Alone… together.

A community building needs privacy. This opposition is forming and deforming architecture: evolution of thicknesses, heights, orientations and density of openings.

Alone… together.

From all of this, we propose a wall-house oriented to its heart, this one composed by two luxurious gardens protected from the environment.

via archdaily

The cube house (pole- or tree house) is designed as an abstract tree, the total complex (Blaak Heights) a wood (village). The village is like a safe oasis where several functions could take place: small-scale business, shops, a school and a children’s playground downstairs (promenade level) and living in the cube houses upstairs. The strong interaction between the private (upstairs) and the public is characteristic for this situation. The inhabitant has a great view because of the sloping windows. The complex is in fact a pedestrian bridge, crossing a traffic artery. This was an idea of the municipality at the time. Piet Blom was asked to ‘furnish’ this bridge. The cube house could be called an architectonic experiment, in which Blom has considered form, aesthetics and spatial effects of greater importance than functionality and practical purpose. Living in a cube (the top) reminds of a tree house which is accessible through the pole (the trunk). An archetypical way of living really.

The neighbourhood Geuzenveld is located in the western garden cities of Amsterdam. There is plenty of public space available but most of these green spaces lack grandeur. The project is regarded to be a ‘key-operation within the urban renewal of Geuzeveld-Slotermeer. The building should provide an iconographic quality to the neighbourhood which it was lacking before.’ The housing block is situated at the edge of a park and consists out of 5 towers, positioned on a deck, carrying a two level roof plate. The positioning of the towers provides a clear view from all apartments to the park. Because of the holes, or empty spaces in-between, the dwellings behind the big block also still have a view on the park. The title of the project – Parkrand – means park-edge.

It is the central one of three large new buildings on the restructured Oosterdokseiland, near the Central Station. A raised plinth offers a refined transitional area between the upper and lower floors, and the reading and study rooms are like terraces, placed around large and tall empty spaces. A terrace on the top floor accommodates the library theatre and conference rooms. The main shape of the building is attuned to the surroundings: both the apartments on the west side and the wide avenue on the east side leading to the conservatory must receive enough sunlight. At the same time, situated as it is beside the open waters of the Oosterdok, the library has to contribute to an attractive skyline.

At the end of a row-housing with patios and an internal corridor with garages, this 3 storey apartment block is made by using the ending of the concrete tunnel structure. The concrete tunnel construction is a very common way to built series of row-housing in the Netherlands. This project is an atypical solution to the inevitably end of such a row. The block of dwellings has been cut of at the end of the line, and here 3 spacious apartments with terraces have been built. The apartments have their façade over the full width of the block, giving them a panoramic view over the IJ. The space in-between the balconies is filled with several glazed rooms, executed in different colors, symbolizing the functions and giving the spectator a view of what could be inside.

Located at the head of the Oostelijke Handelskade is the new accommodation for two organizations devoted to modern and non-western music. Each organisation had been given its own identity in the new building. The auditorium of the BIMhuis has been inserted like a black box. The eye-catcher and unifying element is the roof. At its head-end the building has a large public concourse and functions as a public plaza. At the waterside is a wide square with an outdoor café on the water. The 24 meter high glass facade provides a panoramic view of the river IJ.

This 65 m high, four star Hotel has 410 rooms, a touring car terminal, an underground parking and several conference rooms. On top of the red ceramic-façade base stands the hotel-tower, of nine floors. This base starts at the Music Theatre and leads to the Passenger Terminal. The façade of the hotel is made out of horizontal stripes of glass, granite, marble and white concrete. Because of this pattern and material the façade is closed; neither the floors nor the function can be read from the façade.

The building of student dwellings in the complex of buildings belonging to Utrecht University has transformed the Uithof site into a full-fledged campus. It will also help relieve the chronic housing shortage for young people in the city of Utrecht. Within the line of freestanding buildings the master plan designed by OMA, our block of 380 independent and clustered rooms presents itself as a solitary mass with a 20 metre cantilever. The spectacular main concrete supporting structure consists of four slabs that together form a theatrical single table leg. The ‘leg’ and its rocking bench dramatize the main entrance and create an urban rendezvous which distils the encounters and the to-and- from of all those students. The colossal mass which rests on the main supporting structure consists of upright slabs penetrated by longitudinal tunnels, producing a building with high flexibility which will be a long-lasting addition to the Uithof.

‘On March, 12th 2009 Winy Maas presented MVRDV’’s vision for Greater Paris 2030 to the Economic and Social Council of France. The project “’Pari(s) Plus petit’” by MVRDV in collaboration with ACS and AAF is one of ten proposals by international architecture and urbanism teams to envision the future of the French capital and its vast agglomeration. The urban challenge has been commissioned by Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France.

“’Paris Plus’” stands for more: more ambition, more optimism, more density, more efficiency, more ecology and more compactness. Greater Paris needs a strong combination of responsibility and ambition to continue its development, to ensure its consistency and to develop a cohesion that can build a base for a collective enterprise to solve its problems, to enlarge its presence and attractiveness, to create an even more remarkable, exemplary city.

MVRDV with ACS and AAF’‘s response for President Sarkozy’’s 2009 urban planning consultation for the great challenge of the Greater Paris area is represented in four parts: the ‘Synthesis’, the ‘City Calculator©’, the ‘Data’ and the ‘Observation’.

The Synthesis defines the spatial agenda for the city, based on ambitious and responsible strategies for the French capital. It is the core of the response and proposes a series of 17 large scale interventions that are based on an analysis of the city’s fabric, its future programmatic needs and spatial possibilities. The proposals are interventions based on available space and feasible. Among them the ambition to make Paris highly accessible: the creation of a grand central station at the location of Les Halles, underground densification of the Boulevard Périphérique by adding a metro line and two underground motorways ring-roads, the creation of new Grand Axe’s and a subterranean infrastructure band along the Seine. The space liberated by the buried infrastructure is used for a housing program that allows for urban living in pleasant and green environments. Further parts of the vision are investments into transport, nature, education, culture, social cohesion and vast amounts of renewable energy. The sum of all projects can avoid future sprawl and radically transform Paris into one of the densest, most compact and therefore sustainable high quality cities in the world: “’Paris Plus petit”’.

The City Calculator© is a proposed demo version of a potential software and possible webtool, which quantifies the ‘behavior and performance’ of a city and makes it comparable to others. It connects qualitative to quantitative parameters. It can be used as a public and planning tool to support sustainable planning. The City Calculator© will be conceived in collaboration, by The Why Factory at Delft University of Technology.

The Data gives the overview of the detailed research on the functioning and performance of Greater Paris, which has been the background for the spatial proposals.

The Observations are a series of articles on the backgrounds, the history, the potentials and the problems of the French metropolis.

President Nicolas Sarkozy commissioned in June 2008 ten teams of architects and urban planners to imagine an exemplary “Grand Paris” a sustainable and boldly designed capital. The project was hailed being the most ambitious since Haussmann changed Paris in the 19th century. The challenge for the 10 teams was envisioning the European metropolis in 2030 being a ‘post-Kyoto’ green urban center which allows for growth beyond the current two million Parisians and provides them with attractive urban environments.

The ten plans will be presented in an exhibition at “Cité de l’’Architecture” open to the public from the 29th of April 2009 until the 22nd of November 2009.’

LRA is one of a handful of architects from the United States selected by Herzon&DeMeuron to design a 10,000sf villa in China’s Inner Mongolia province as part of acclaimed artist, Ai Weiwei’s 100 Ordos Master Plan. Situated on an arid grassland site, LRA’s Villa 007 will be one of 100 villas designed by 100 invited international architects and organized around a new Ordos cultural center which includes an adjacent museum and artist housing.

Situated on a corner site on the south side of the Ordos 100 development, Villa 007 draws the landscape and light deep into its interior. A traditional three-bay grid running normal to the odd-angled west façade organizes three landscape courtyards that draw the surrounding site into the living areas. Interior programmatic and structural zones are organized by these gardens and by a secondary grid running normal to the remaining facades. The addition/internalization of exterior space expands the program horizontally and creates the low building profile.

Villa 007 challenges the normative practice of consolidating residential programs into separate service, living and sleeping blocks. LRA distributed living spaces on each level, interspersing them with sleeping areas and service areas, and encouraging residents and guests to seek a broader range of experiences within the home. In an unconscious act of domestic migration, the home-owner will meander from space to space, drawn by the scale and material character of specific living spaces that resonate with their mood, as well as with the time of day and time of year. Living Level 1 is an active living environment of pool/exercise zones coupled with a lounge, hot pool and sauna. Living Level 2 distributes large entertaining zones away from the more intimate living, study, and dining areas with sleeping rooms mixed between. Living Level 3 is the owner’s bedroom suite with private lounge adjacent to an exterior rooftop terrace.

http://www.at103.net/

Context and shape of the building

This artist’s studio is located in a residential area in the west corner of Mexico City, over a 20m x 40m site. The project has an underground parking space and its formed by a building with 3 levels (a triple-height space, offices on the third level and a service area on the roof), with a very specific architectural program. There were two conditions: on one hand, to be used as a studio and, on the other, to serve as venue for private temporary exhibits. The client asked us for the next spaces: one apartment for guests artists that could stay for a time while developing a practice or a show, a 9×9x9mt space for work or exhibit, one Studio / Office, one kitchen in the large space to use as a side bar for openings and parking for 25 cars.

The project conditions itself to the centre of the space, both the east and the west sides open up, this allows viewing of the trees and gardens on the site.

Construction and Technical Aspects

A 14 x 8 mt cantilevered concrete structure covers the exterior program, used for different open-air activities such as lectures, exhibitions or just as a meditating area. The concrete cantilevered structure contains the studio and office spaces that over looks the main space of the exhibit area. This project is mainly interested in its spatial qualities, than in the programmatic conditions itself, due to its multiple and diverse events. All the building is exposed in white concrete.

via archdaily

The idea behind the project
Capo Finisterre demands (at least from me) an object of architecture that is an extension of the landscape, that dissolves calmly into nature, almost as if it did not exist. How can these architectural demands be applied to the design of a cemetery for this place?

The proposal is for a cemetery made up of small constructions grouped together along an existing route following the slope of the hill, without any fences, with the ever-present expanse of the sea in the background.
Renunciation of fenced-in spaces and elimination of borderlines and walls means that the usual means of identification of a particular space will not apply. How can we overcome this difficulty? By using other references and establishing other forms of borders. Specifically, those characterising ancient Celtic burial places: the sea, the river, the mountain, the sky.

The image of the cemetery is the image of a path crossing through a cluster of houses, a snake winding around the mountain slope to the sea, adapting its motion to sudden changes in the land. Along its route are the tombs, big boxes set into massive geometric blocks, evoking the huge granite forms sprinkled on the flanks of these ancient hills: some of them stop at the bottom of the slope, where the land is flat, and the implacable wind and waves chisel their forms. The project imitates the way nature produces its own architecture, but it also reflects the way the local inhabitants produce theirs.

As we come closer to the stones, we see that they are places made by human hands. Masses soaked in geometries, international forms arranged in apparent disorder. Masses that welcome the tombs set into them, like boxes or containers that have drifted ashore after a shipwreck, a disorderly pomerium where the dead are not inhumed in the city, but on an ordinary road far away from the town. Topography, silence, absence and memories inspire and define the project. Architecture is its result, and even its rethinking.
In this project I think I set aside unimportant concerns, unjustified projects, unhelpful materials, useless details. I turned a deaf ear to the tempting voices of many sirens, stayed away from distractions and all that was not strictly necessary. All that I kept was the essential. I attempted to discover the mystery and the transcendence of language in the midst of silence. A silence conquered thanks to the wish to make one¿s voice heard in the vast, anonymous field of architecture.
This is the kind of architecture I like, the architecture that comes closest to my innermost being. Cleaner, more direct, more transcendent, more personal (but less personalised), more strongly linked by secret ties to history and geography, an architecture that wants to find its place in life and in culture, well beyond the time and space in which it is produced.

I hope that Capo Finisterre will like it too, that O Pindo mountain will like it, the islands of Lobeira and O Centolo, the Mar de Dentro and the Mar de Fora, the sailors and fishermen who navigate the waters of this coast and who will bury their dead on this shore will all like it.
And, if possible, I want the dead who are buried here to like it too. 

César Portela

interesting discussion on pushpullbar

The purpose of the project is the amplification of a small municipals cemetery of Santo Stefano al Mare on the north-west side of Italy in front of the Mediterranean sea.

The new intervention is situated on a small land strip between the old cemetery’s wall and the waterfront way. This strip is orientated from east to west and runs parallel to the coast. The ground floor level (+5 m) is on an intermediate level between the sea level (0) and the old cemetery level (+8 m).

The entrance is located on the waterfront way (+2 m) and it was an old structure . The existing structure was poorly executed under an old contract.

The project is planned according to the local traditional cemetery typology, where the rectangular interments (tumuli of earth or marble slabs) are distributed on the ground in sequence.

The request of the municipal administration to build tombs of three and four levels brought us a plan based on a sequence of extruded rectangles to obtain series of prismatic blocks. Those prismatic blocks, when distributed on the ground, give shape to the intervention.

At the same time, such blocks enclose the wall and the burials, while their disposition in the west-east produce a sense of gaping spaces for the ways, and in the north south a sense of the opening that allows a constant visual contact with the sea and the wall of the existing cemetery.

Each block is composed by two structural concrete walls. They are covered by Carrara marble slabs on the roof and on the front and back facades; inside each prism there are assembled the tombs previously prefabricated.

On the whole, while looking down on the new construction it produces a sense of an expanse tombstone.

This simple way of project, have permeated to not build the enclosure walls around the cemetery , and to concentrate on one repetitive element all the various functions. The prismatic block movement in the area facilitates to obtain the passages and the useful spaces and to creates a dimensional control during the execution of the project. All the work is based on a 30 cm module.

Only two materials are used : concrete in same different ways and Carrara marble slabs.

The main way is used for interment and to join the old and the new part of the cemetery, it is paved with washed cement conglomerate, The gravel strip between the main way and the prismatic blocks is designed to pick up the rain water.

The rear way is used after services and it is paved with untied gravel. There are two small gardens between the old cemetery wall and the tombs in the back. The remaining service area, along with the chapel of rest, the parking lot, the restrooms and the warehouse, are located on the waterfront level.

The work is planned according to the municipal administration austerity budget, covering 850 sqm at the cost of 250 € / sqm.

The contained costs will make the burial lots available at an equitable price.

via archdaily

Light Structures was designed as a deployable armature for exhibiting a selection of projects by LTL. The intention was to produce a self-contained set of units and parts which could be adapted to multiple conditions. Acknowledging the varying quality of gallery lighting at different venues, Light Structuressupplies its own illumination as its structure – the fluorescent tube itself. The ballast acts as the counterweight.