Gretel (a wire-haired miniature dachshund) found her existing conservatory cold and poorly related to her garden. This scheme therefore replaces the conservatory with a new extension that fully opens out to her grounds. Her requirement for the possibility of being fed tit-bits of grilled sausages led to the design including a barbeque, which becomes an extension of the side wall to the kitchen/ living area.
There is an adjacent seat where her owners can sit and pamper her in the sun. The main opening to the extension containing the sliding doors has an outside “raincoat” of brick with a smooth inner lining expressing the cavity wall and creating a sense of interior comfort. Bespoke cast stone forms a masonry course over the lintel which resolves the weight of the wall above and emphasizes the openings of the weep holes. The floor is resin with underfloor heating, providing a comfortable lounging surface that pleasantly warms her tummy.
The relocation of the police station to the edge of the city will give a strong impulse to the future development of the harbour site. The judicious positioning and dimensioning of its compact, floating office volume ensures that it fits in with the structure and scale of the former harbour area.
Team: Lieven Achtergael, Isabelle Dierickx, Pietter Lansens, Tom Mockett, Jeffrey Berghman, Rein Bultynck, Sofie Philips, Kris Broidioi, Steve Salembier, Vincent De Keyser, Ida Lievens
Structural, MEP and acoustical engineering: Technum
The Visual porcelain stoneware collection as the protagonist Ceramiche Refin, a company specialising in porcelain stoneware tiles, played a key role in the project to restore Wiltshire County Hall, the administrative headquarters of Wiltshire Council, in the city of Trowbridge, England.
The project responds to the surrounding landscape defined by two different topographies: one horizontal plane oriolana garden, where it supports the building, and on the other the ubiquitous mountain in the north facing the delimitation. The volume of the building reflects this duality fragmenting the different volumes that comprise this mechanism to recognize the profile of the mountains to the opening. The building consists of two classrooms of children, four primary classrooms, a gym and a dining room for one hundred students in two shifts, plus all associated teaching spaces.
The building known as “Palazzo Campari” was designed in the 1960s by Ermenegildo and Eugenio Soncini in the heart of Milan and was one of a series of buildings that emerged during the economic boom years, representing a new aspect of corporate identity for Italian industry.
Park Associati architects work on ‘human scale’ architecture. Issues such as context, environment, routes, landscapes and views are in their everyday vocabulary. Their buildings relate with the landscapes with such a lightness and harmony to make them looking perfectly in place, as if they had always been there. Yet they are very recognizable signs, they have contemporary concepts, shapes and surfaces, made with advanced techniques and materials. But this is precisely the key: a historical knowledge and a contemporary vision. In Park’s works, we can feel suggestions from the Modern Movement, lessons from certain Milan architectures and condominiums of the Fifties and Sixties, to the purest Mies van der Rohe of the Twenties, up to Antonio da Sangallo and Michelangelo of Palazzo Farnese. All these inspirations are assimilated, forgotten, and re-invented.
Every house should have some secret. This house has more than one. The originality of this home has grown from dreams of its owners. The owners – a pair of 35-year-olds with a limited (but not modest) budget and a cloud of dreams. They are fans … she is keen on architecture of glass and a person longing for the sun the south and the peace of the night … he is keen on World War II, raw concrete and metal. Opposites attract. They demanded not only a modern house but also a unique emotional experience – a house that would be “their home” – at first sight. It’s a challenge.
The German architectural office SBA in Stuttgart wins the first prize for the new City Cluster of the future. The new multipolar city with the “International Automobile City”, which incorporates the existing BMW plant (Tiexi factory) into the landscape, is organized in several theme areas.
This mixed use development is located on a beachfront site in Auckland’s eastern suburbs, looking north up the Hauraki Gulf to the mouth of the Waitemata Harbour, the North Shore and Rangitoto Island. The building occupies a corner site over two parcels of land, 387 Tamaki Drive and 6 Maheke Street. The lower level of 387 Tamaki contains a bank, restaurant and the main building entry, around a publicly accessible courtyard, at the centre of which is a rotating sculpture known as ‘The Seedling’.
The Ribamontán al Mar Surf Center is located in the seafront of Somo, a small town in near Santander. It’s essential for this new facility to be located as close as possible to the beach (it would be unthinkable that surfers have to move to change, shower or store the surfboards to some urban area of the town); therefore, in the absence of municipal property plot with the required characteristics, we chose to place the building on the seafront. The venue lacks environmental value; one of the goals of the project is in fact to recover this underused space, situated just 20 meters away from the sealine.