This is a strange commission: A “culture ark” in order to retrieve civilization after the 2012 apocalypse.
Located at a mountain slope in Sierra Nevada, Spain, and promoted by Belgian foundation, we were asked to develop the spatial concept to ensure the survival of 20 families and thousands of books for three years.
Writhing Tower, is a LYCS designed Sky Condo for one of the most beautiful residential zones in Lima, is a global architectural competition initiated by ARQUIA, an international development firm interested in commissioning architecture as art.
Each unit is rotated 45 degrees to create a cruciform shape in plan and the appearance of a linear hinged volume. It enables each unit to have uninterrupted views to both the public park in front of the site, and the ocean to the rear of the site. Additionally, each unit has blocked views to the unit above and below it, so as to create extra privacy. Each unit is a two-story townhouse, with a terrace for a garden with trees, and a pool with a deck.
CasAbate is a “bridge house” and is located in one of the more fascinating street of Bologna. It has the typical characteristics of the old house of the city center; there’s a very long corridor, about 20 meters, and a little courtyard. The new project has the aim of improving the space of the corridor, the light comfort and the energy efficiency of the building.
The project’s design and planning focus on a thorough understanding of the local context. The building responds to existing scales. Its location and architecture dentote the space´s public nature and inject new life into the site. By taking surrounding public spaces into consideration when designing the project ,we reinforced the notion that this building is a public facility, a landmark within the surrounding disorder.
The design for this music school is based upon the creation of two hermetic chambers to house rehearsals inside a large space in a historic building located in Nova Prata, Brasil. The configuration of such boxes turns the residual space into two ambients that, even though are continuous, configure different spaces for different activities.
Multifunctional fulldome hall having 300 seats is a core of the Fulldome Experience Center. Visitors will be amused by a dynamic interactive space carrying a scientific and educational functions. It includes installations, exhibitions and game zones as well as cafeteria, gift shop and conference room for the visitors’ comfort and versatility of the building.
The Self-Assembly Line is a large-scale version of a self-assembly virus capsid, demonstrated as an interactive and performative structure. A discrete set of modules are activated by stochastic rotation from a larger container/structure that forces the interaction between units. The unit geometry and attraction mechanisms (magnetics) ensure the units will come into contact with one another and auto-align into locally-correct configurations. Overtime as more units come into contact, break away, and reconnect, larger, furniture scale elements, emerge. Given different sets of unit geometries and attraction polarities various structures could be achieved. By changing the external conditions, the geometry of the unit, the attraction of the units and the number of units supplied, the desired global configuration can be programmed.
VoltaDom is an installation for MIT’s 150th Anniversary Celebration & FAST Arts Festival (Festival of Arts, Science and Technology), that populates the corridor spanning building 56 & 66 on MIT’s campus. This installation lines the concrete and glass hallway with hundreds of vaults, reminiscent of the great vaulted ceilings of historic cathedrals. The vaults provide a thickened surface articulation and a spectrum of oculi that penetrate the hallway and surrounding area with views and light. VoltaDom attempts to expand the notion of the architectural “surface panel,” by intensifying the depth of a doubly-curved vaulted surface, while maintaining relative ease in assembly and fabrication. This is made possible by transforming complex curved vaults to developable strips, one that likens the assembly to that of simply rolling a strip of material.
The project responds to the idea of extending the school with a multipurpose room in an adjacent plot which should be connected internally and have an independent entrance from the street.
The plot is rectangular in a 4:1 proportion and the aim is to have a whole 7 meter span open space with natural light and crossed ventilation. In order to achieve that the façade will have to provide as much light as possible and skylights will need to be incorporated in the roofing and on top of the internal staircase. The multipurpose room will be connected in two different levels with the school, at ground level through an ascendant staircase and at roofing level through a descending ramp.
The site is located in a row housing development , close to the aerodrome and the village of Marratxi and not far from Palma. The area has a mainly residential character with very few premises on ground floor, from time to time a restaurant or a bar. The plot is a rectangular corner, that cannot be entirely occupied, on the contrary the construction needs to set back from the main street and pull forward from the other limit.
Team: Juana Canet arquitectos in collaboration with Mª Pilar Riera Vicens. www.juanacanetarquitectos.com
Software used: Autocad,3d max, Photoshop, Rhino
Image Courtesy jose hevia
Photography: www.josehevia.es
Developer: Private client
Constractor: Construcciones Hidalgo Campoy s.l.
Surface: 228,45 m2
Contract value: 261.757,48 €
Data: Completed in January 2007
Image Courtesy jose hevia
The main goal of the Project is to get the maximum space for parking, premises and dwelling as the main demand of the client and we achieved that also providing natural light to all the spaces and cross ventilation to the main ones and creating living and singular spaces in all the construction at different levels.
Image Courtesy jose hevia
The strategies we followed are:
1_ The construction is lifted up from the road level.
By doing that, the ramp descending towards the garage ended up beeing shorter so we could get the maximum number of parking spaces and beeing able to provide natural light and ventilation to the garage.
2_ The construction is set back from the street and pull out from the back of the plot.
So the front of the plot remains open which becomes a public space and people can gain access to the premises which could be seen from the street. This difference in height makes the front court to be an in-between space.
The lateral limit of the plot is made by a single wall which also forms part of the enclosure of the premises, with a top part of “fenêtres en longueur” that separates conceptually the dwelling. Where this wall is passing by the courtyards it becomes more permeable.
The back of plot becomes a private courtyard that also incorporates skylights at the ground level to light the garage.
Image Courtesy jose hevia
3_.The roofing of the house is folded up.
The program organization follows the logical use’s order in terms of public and private, so the higher you go the more private the space becomes.
The staircase which leeds to the upper level is placed by the party wall and is lighted from a skylight placed at the terrace level. We arrive at the center of the house.
At the interior of the house, the private spaces of the dwelling (bathrooms and bedrooms) are packed by the party wall, there are no corridors.
The roofing is folded up in order to achieve, at the one side a double height unique space to allocate the kitchen, living and dining area, and at the other one, enough height to acommodate a mezzanine which will allow to exit towards the terrace that has views to the Sierra de Tramuntana. The continuity of the roof is given by a window which becomes skylight.
In the main level of the housing a canopy area is created at the front area which will allow to have an external space designed to be protecting the big window with an external skin.
Image Courtesy jose hevia
4_The scale of is worked out with the materials.
The external wall is cladded in slate stones as an independent element. Then the folded roofing is cladded in limestone mares. The front and the back of the dwelling is rendered at first level and at ground level has a glass and aluminium facade.
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