The project involved major internal renovations to the back half of a single storey federation terrace, and the addition of a second storey bedroom and bathroom.
The form of the extensions can be read as two plywood boxes, detailed to have a furniture like quality. One, the bedroom, sits astride the existing masonry house and overlooks the rear laneway. The other, the bathroom, is interlocked into the larger box and is propped on an extension of the party wall and a single round steel column.
The Panopticon House project is a hybrid of modernist and classical rural villa ideals, exploring the house as figured object versus the disappearing enclosure. Located in rural Victoria, on a prominent hilltop with panoramic views across the surrounding landscape, the Great Southern Ocean, Bass Strait and the Tasman Ocean. The site and program recall the classical villa however a key element of the client brief was to minimize interruption to the views of the surrounding landscape. The house was in effect to become a device for seeing out – a ‘Panopticon’, whose primary function was that of observation.
Jeremy Bentham’s original 18th century Panopticon has been used as a model for a wide range of institutional buildings, including the reading room of the Victorian State library. However, was latter criticized by Michel Foucault and others as mechanism for manifesting and reinforcing power imbalances. In the context however, the relationship between the observer/observed, is that between architecture/landscape, emphasizing the potential of architecture as a device for seeing. This desire recalls the Farnsworth house, itself arguably a continuation of the classical villa tradition – however with the critical departure of the introduction of the ‘free plan’ into the villa type and the ambition of dissolving the relationship between interiority and exteriority. Located on the highest point on the site, the Panopticon House adopts these strategies, elongating and folding the free plan back on itself to provide panoramic views in all directions, while capturing a central courtyard providing shelter from prevailing winds on the exposed site.
It’s all about the brick’ is how SPA future-proofed a garden apartment in a large Italianate semi-detached villa in North London. The clients wanted an enduring space to suit their growing family as their home forever. The answer was two-pronged: to remodel and retrofit the original and to expand into the mature garden, adding a true indoor-outdoor living.
Central to remodeling was providing a flexible space for extended family visits and creating generous amounts of dedicated storage. Although the living space still occupies the same square meterage, resourceful design put away any potential clutter and all building services. Dedicated storage rooms, located deep in the light-less corners of the flat, provide ample space for services, dry food and bulky items of storage. In the open-plan living areas, subtle spatial differences in the floor, wall and ceiling treatments create varried spaces that allow family members to pursue a range of activities within a sociable distance. A light-filled study-off-the-kitchen becomes an optional, sound-separated bedroom, as sliding doors spring out of a hidden wall-pockets and a built-in fold-down bed appears from a customised wall of joinery.
Problems of modern housing today evoke not only because of a single-world universalization, but also a loss of connections to history, national cultures, and local nature. Material failure varies from place to place. The use of the same technologies throughout the world does not always take the uniqueness of places into their accounts. These challenges of engaging Regionalism critically and tangibly are left to be a responsibility of the architects, who will need to fight and seek for more creative solutions in order to shape our society with care and sustainability. With a 10-year-plus experience in designing housing and architecture particularly in the Southeast Asian region, Ayutt and Associate design or AAd brings up their talent and regional experience in sustainable design and demonstrates them through this recently launched project, the Monsoon House.
The Villa in the Dutch countryside near Vught gives a contemporary twist to the local farmstead typology. Traditionally, the Dutch ‘hoeve’ is an ensemble of farmhouses and living quarters loosely clustered around a courtyard. The central open space is protected, yet open to the surrounding landscape. This spatial arrangement guided the design of the Villa.
The Villa’s functions are distributed within three distinct volumes, shaped to resemble the vernacular of a small village. The two lower volumes are shaped like typical gabled barns directly connected to the surrounding gardens. The higher volume captures the view of the wide landscape and forms a striking contrast with the lower buildings.
15-level tower with residential apartments located in Querétaro. The project arises from the idea of making the most of its location since being on the top of a hill, it has spectacular scenery of the city of Querétaro. Therefore, the architectural response seeks to frame this view through a volume that contains the amenities for public use and thus provide an unforgettable experience to all the people who visit the building.
The client, who had recently sold his publicity company, asked us to design an office. The main question was to be a place that would make him leave the house to work in new projects because of its pleasurable and comfortable space. The renovation project started with the merger of two office units into a single space. In the first visit to the building, the circulation spaces called our attention because of the materials and spatial quality. We then decided to extend the outside corridor to the interior using the same kind of wooden materials. The new interior corridor acquired a double use: as an entrance and reception area while still preserving the work, materials storage, library and wet areas.
Fuxing Park locates in the north of Middle Fuxing Road, shaded by oriental planes, while Roarc project “WE+lab” starts in the FUXING Plaza, an old three-storey building that seems to be out of place amongst theFrench garden. Our challenge lies in how to elegantly blend the project in the French grace and romance of the Fuxing Park.
Stepping once again into this park, Roarc team was overwhelmed with the astounding characteristics of the French garden: axis, axial symmetry, gridding, patterning, as well as the beautiful flowers, planes trees, pavilions and ponds. Our team determined to salute the only French garden with our design.
Article source: David Guerra Arquitetura e Interiores
Kûara, meaning sun for the indigenous Tupi-Guarani. The house of Tupã, the supreme god. Kûara Delivers, every day, energy, heat, life, all elements that make Bahia, the province on which the portuguese discoverers, led by Cabral, disembarked in Brazil, a national treasure, that define Brazilian identity itself. The Brazilian, indigenous at first, but not only, mixed through dozens of generations, in an ethnic pluralism, bringing an unique diversity to our people, strength in a fascinating narrative about the roots of this country, becoming memory from the Brazilian identity, reminding us of what’s more precious: our rich nature, as generous mother, provide us the primary foundations of survival, in a fascinating invitation to a healthy relation with the environment, settled in respect and harmony with nature.
This lush nature is inserted on site, since way before the idea of an occupation. An organic composition, which main axis is the Mucugê river. The rain forest flourishes in conjunction with the “mangue” (a kind of swamp endemic for this region, which hosts a unique biome), between the famous cliffs of Arraial D’Ajuda. The 200 meters of beach take us to the unforgettable horizon offered by the Atlantic Ocean, on which, about 500 years ago, the portuguese “caravelas” came from the west, beginning a new phase on Brazilian history. This richness of memory and diversity could not be ignored, opting, thereby, for the preservation of all native vegetation, using the structure of the old hotel to build the new one on the same places as the old buildings. The landscape architecture takes that into account. Felipe Fontes puts down a composition in frank dialogue with all local flora, aligning his interpretation with the native.
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