ArchShowcase 
Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. ROCA London Gallery in United Kingdom by Zaha Hadid ArchitectsApril 30th, 2012 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: Zaha Hadid Architects Designed as a versatile multi-purpose environment, the Gallery will host a wide range of social and cultural events, including exhibitions, meetings, presentations, debates and receptions. Zaha Hadid Architects have created a precisely ordered, intimate sensory design environment which stimulates the visitor through its active and engaged relationship with Roca’s products.  Image Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects
 Image Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects The Roca London Gallery is a single space of 1100m2 including connected, semi-open zones for product displays and a meeting room space seamlessly incorporating a range of interactive technologies and audio visual resources. Designed as a versatile multi-purpose environment, the Gallery will host a wide range of social and cultural events, including exhibitions, meetings, presentations, debates and receptions. Zaha Hadid Architects has fully addressed this need for a place defining harmony between form and function in which visitors experience the very essence of Roca.  Image Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects The design brings about a connective language between the architecture and the bathroom products, with the movement of water ‘carving out’ the interior and moving through the Gallery as individual drops. A flowing, all-white space made of faceted GRG (gypsum) panels serves as a central axis of the Gallery. Around this a number of smaller connected semi-enclosed spaces can be viewed through openings in walls. As a result, the visitor never feels enclosed in one space, but can always see beyond it into the space through overlapping and cutaway forms that enable a pleasing permeability to the Gallery.  Image Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects The design theme of water movement extends to the dynamic façade of the Roca London Gallery, which appears initially to the visitor approaching the architecture like a set of ripples in movement across the exterior of the ground level space. The grey façade has large apertures for the main entrance and windows and an appearance of tactility, creating a sense of intrigue on the street as the visitor approaches.  Image Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects Water defines the landscape of the interior space, creating a sense of mobile liquidity reinforced by a series of elongated, illuminated water drops. These cascade around the ceiling as a set of lighting fixtures, down the walls as shelves for books, media and small products, and onto the floor as tables and seating. Their fluid lines of convergence both lend each area of the space an individual identity and connect them by the way they define a feeling of movement.  Image Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects All the panels, which are made of GRC, or fibre reinforced concrete and extend up to 2.20 metres in height, have been pre-fabricated in moulds and constructed on-site. The façade is made of 2 x 4 metre panels of 800kg each. The panels creating the interior walls are 6cm thick and made of two waffled concrete layers sandwiching a honeycomb mesh that can stress in different directions and is very robust as a composite material. The furniture is made from GRP, or reinforced plastic, including the cove-shaped reception desk. The lighting scheme created by Isometrix is also innovative in a complementary way, with special features including washing the walls in light and a mix of direct and dispersed mood lights.  Image Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects Part of the brief was to include a series of bathroom product ensembles integrated in the space, and the Gallery’s walls give way in six locations to semi-enclosed, cave-like spaces of GRC panels for the product displays, as well as to the bar and reception area. The cocoon-like meeting space has a wall of GRG, a continuation of the Gallery’s central axis. A special feature of the Gallery is the floor of the product exhibition areas, which has a mosaic of porcelain tiles designed exclusively for the space by Zaha Hadid Architects. With each one cut and laid individually, the design creates an optical effect inspired by a water current.  Image Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects The geometry is akin to natural forms, with no one point in the space being projected vertically. The language of fluidity and natural movement is driven by ZHA’s commitment to parametric design tools and to the creative possibilities arising from the constant evolution of manufacturing processes and techniques. Both panels and the moulds used to create them were realised via 3D modelling, and produced in a sequence so that they would be fully compatible.  Image Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects  Plan  Image Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects
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Tags: London, United Kingdom Categories: Community Centre, Gallery |
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