The project brief was unusual, to say the least: “Ensure me freedom in my advanced years.”
In 2013, an elderly citizen sought out the services of Gary Conrath. Both knew each other well since Indesign had conceived and constructed the co-property building where the woman had been living for a decade. The third storey dwelling was no longer suitable for her. She wanted to live at ground level, in an environment designed to meet her anticipated future needs.
The Learning Resource Center, an innovative state-of-the-art library that provides a vibrant collection of study spaces organized around a dramatic social stair on the Michael J. Grant Campus of Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood, New York, takes its place at the center of the campus, at the confluence of major pedestrian pathways between the Caumsett Student Center and the Health/Sports/Education Center, and between the major parking lots for this commuter college. A simple mass of nine cubes arranged in a three-by-three grid accommodates the library program on two floors. Portions of the cubes are either removed or expanded to create an interplay between negative and positive space that allows the Learning Resource Center to act as a prism that casts sunlight deep into the Learning Resource Center throughout the day. A central lantern rises above the building to create an iconic expression on the campus skyline, a beacon visible from all corners of the campus.
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The Curtain, by Tony Owen Partners has just been completed in Wolli Creek near Sydney Airport. The 15 storey building contains 200 units, retail and commercial space.
This site fronts onto a large park with the waterfront beyond. The unique design consist mostly of ‘through-units’ with an open rear corridor. As such almost all of the units face north and enjoy the panoramic views. The benefit of through-apartments is that they are naturally ventilated. This allows for natural cooling with reduced energy costs.
This intervention is part of our double project in a same building. They have the exact same starting plan. They are two twin residential units, respectively the 5th and 6th floor of the same building. Even the internal conditions were the same.
Operatively we faced this project in the opposite way. The approach to the two projects was rather antithetical. Despite having both a type similar client, a young couple, we decided to treat the distribution issue in different way.
While the open area of PORTLAND is invaded by a falling meteorite (concrete cube), MORRISSEY is sectioned by bi-dimensional planes, which define spaces slicing the available volume.
Centrally located at the corner of Booth and Wellington Streets across from the Canadian War Museum, the .79 acre site connects the museum to the historic center of the capitol city. The cast-in-place, exposed concrete Monument is conceived as an experiential environment comprised of six triangular, concrete volumes configured to create the points of a star. The star remains the visual symbol of the Holocaust – a symbol that millions of Jews were forced to wear by the Nazi’s to identify them as Jews, exclude them from humanity and mark them for extermination. The triangular spaces are representative of the badges the Nazi’s and their collaborators used to label homosexuals, Roma-Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses and political and religious prisoners for murder.
Creation reflects our inner selves. Some consider it as a mirror; it can get very personal to create and to design. Thus, if we want to create groundbreaking designs, it is us that need to have a breakthrough. If we want to reveal the intrinsic quality of beauty, we need the constructs of beauty. In this process, self-reflection and self-doubt are involved, and deconstruction is inevitable.
This UA cinema in Shanghai celebrates deconstructivism, a postmodern architectural movement that has started since the 1980s. Deconstructivism is about moving away from the shackle of traditions, questioning pre-existing rules, challenging pre-dominating frameworks. It is a movement about freedom and oppression. The deconstructivist philosophy originated from the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who had influenced some architects during the start of the movement. His approach can be seen in some architectural designs, where there is an absence of harmony, continuity and symmetry in the lines and forms. This design is an attempt to participate in the movement, by creating non-rectilinear shapes that visually appear with unpredictability and controlled chaos. By disassembling space, perhaps a new meaning can be given to the usage of space.
Štrafta Gastro bar is located in the city center of Podgorica, new city district – City Kvart Delta.
The project task of interior design was to find ways to offer a contemporary solution and present a quality visual identity that will establish a new brand in the market. Client’s desire was to transform the space placed on the ground floor of a residential building into a modern gastronomic bar.
Functional organization of space implies two interconnected spatial units, where the impression of streaming the ambiance to one another through the effect of ease and accessibility of space is gained.
The aim of the project is the development of a new building next to the existing Paphos District court building to provide additional court rooms alongside office space. The new building sits in the plot next to the existing court, which was previously used as a car park.
The design aims to create a continuation of the street elevation between the two buildings, inserting like an abstract form, which maintains the general scale of the street and the area and showcase the human scale as well. The proposed building extends lengthwise of the plot, using atriums to allow natural light enter the building.
Casa Sabir is a refined early 1900’s apartment that opens out on to the historic market of the fascinating island of Ortigia, the ancient heart of Siracusa, Southern Sicily, where Greek settlers from Corinth arrived in 734 BC.
Made famous by the genius of Archimedes, the city still bears the architectural and cultural stratifications of the peoples who inhabited it and is a maze of streets where the yellow sandstone eaten by time and salt suddenly stops in intense glimpses of blue.
Villa GEEF was born in a compromised context in the first outskirts of Sondrio (SO, Italy) within a lot that was used as a relax time place by employees of an electric company. The large lot was in fact occupied by a building and playgrounds all around.