In today’s evolving global residential landscape, the dire issues of attention to sustainability, access to open green space where social-distancing is possible, and a need for a more eco-conscious living are the newest trends that influence where and how we live.
Now more than ever, the world needs to cut back on carbon emissions, waste and the creation of unnatural materials that damage the environment. In tandem, the creation and planning of architecture need to be mindful of innovations that both manifest outstanding design and have environmentally-conscious attributes. With myriad abilities to work in various spaces and industries, developers, businesspersons and investors will look to upgrade their spaces and buildings, especially luxury residential real estate.
In 2019, MoederscheimMoonen won the architect selection commissioned by Stebru for the residential tower, Riva, in the Scheepmakershaven in Rotterdam. The residential building will be built on top of the existing office block, retaining the iconic reconstruction architecture of this building. The final design of the building was completed recently. This activated the further elaboration and ultimately, the construction of the new residential complex.
The Scheepmakershaven is part of the Maritime District of Rotterdam: a harbour area that has been transforming into a lively residential area since 2009. The area is characterized by its many towers and is the epicentre of high-rise buildings in Rotterdam’s city centre. On the site of Riva, there are currently two office buildings that were designed between 1956 and 1963. The Municipality of Rotterdam has listed these buildings as valuable reconstruction architecture. They show the typical character of this architecture and had to be preserved as much as possible during the redevelopment and expansion into a residential building.
Architect Marina Rechter-Rubinstein, owner of ReMa Architects, was entrusted with planning the inspiring apartment, using a meticulous and welcoming design, overlooking the Mediterranean shores of the city of Ashdod.
The young couple wished to create a homely, inviting and embracing space for themselves and their three children within the 140-square-meter, high floor apartment that they purchased from a contractor in one of Ashdod’s new housing projects. To this end, they enlisted the services of architect Marina Rechter-Rubinstein, owner of ReMa Architects, who designed a space for them, precisely tailored to their tastes and needs. “This is a warm and loving family, above all it was important for them to turn the standard apartment to a welcoming space, and so throughout the work process I made sure to transform the structure into a family nest that they can enjoy for many years,” explains the architect.
Bar Orion Architects, a leading international architecture firm based in Israel and established by Tal and Gidi Bar Orian in 1990, today officially unveils its latest project Mapu 5 a square-shaped, new-build residential property located on the corner of Mapu and Yehoash Streets in the heart of Tel Aviv’s White City, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its extensive collection of Bauhaus and Eclectic Architecture-style buildings.
This private residence is in the Paleo Psychiko area of Athens on a plot of 785m². It covers a total of 540 m² in three levels. The elevated ground floor features living and kitchen areas, while the bedrooms occupy the upper floor. The lower ground level comprises a playroom and guest house. The project is a reconstruction and extension of an existing older residential building. The requirement of the owners was to maintain the outline and the contour of the older building and create there a modern house that will meet their functional and aesthetic needs.
Santes Creus is the capital of the municipality of Aiguamúrcia. It is located on the left bank of the Gaià river, around the Real Monestir de Santa Maria de Santes Creus, one of the jewels of 12th century Cistercian art in Catalonia. Created in 1843 in the old monastery buildings, the town includes places of interest related to the monastic building such as the stone bridge, the Gothic cross, the small Baroque church of Santa Llúcia and the old modernist cooperative winery. Following the main street, which leads to the monastery, on the detour from where the Aiguamúrcia road leaves, there is the well-known Alameda de Santes Creus, unique as a riverside forest in all of Catalonia, declared a space of natural interest.
The project is located on 6th Avenue in the Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie borough in Montreal. Starting from a two-story duplex built in the 1930s, the project consists of a complete renovation of the building into a single-family house with the addition of a mezzanine. The young family of 3 children, whose parents are passionate about architecture, wants to live in an urban and contemporary home that is organized around excentric and atypical living spaces.
On the ground floor, the living spaces are distributed in an open area giving way to a sculptural staircase that unfolds vertically over three floors up to the mezzanine. All the spaces in the house are thus organized around the periphery of the staircase, which becomes the central entity of the project.
“Surprise me with a house” was the client’s demand. The family: a father and two grown children. Three music lovers.
His desire was to have a functional house and, at the same time, different from anything seen inside the residential condominium where he would be.
Given the mission, the idea of a striking element emerges, the robust Y-pillar. In keeping with the requirement, the architecture office sought to create an unconventional project: a house without an entrance door, with a swimming pool in front and the landscaping integrated into many of the rooms.
The project arises from the need of clients to create a refuge near Madrid where they could get away from their busy lives in the city center. The plot and its location almost completely determine the design of the house. A small plot located within a pine forest with a 12 meter height difference and views to the valley to the South. These conditions were the beginning of the project: be able to enjoy the views of the forest from every room in the house, minimal intervention of the area and main orientation towards the South.
The house is a continuous space where the rooms are generated from a single surface. This surface is broken to adapt to the geography of the plot and to generate the different rooms or modules; therefore, each room has a different orientation and opening towards the forest with the idea of creating a distorted and un-homogeneous space. Volumetrically it consists of a single floor, sectioned into several levels, with a gabled roof that volumetrically creates geometric, quasi-parametric encounters.
Loyola Academic Housing sits at the intersection of N. Broadway and W. Sheridan Road adjacent to the Loyola University Lake Shore Campus in Chicago. The 105,000 gsf, 7-story mixed-use project comprises a retail base, student lounge and common areas on the second level that access an outdoor terrace for student use, and 5 levels of student housing above.
Located at the southern entry to the University and adjacent to a small park, the building becomes a gateway to the campus, while its corner site and commercial ground floor lends it civic presence for the community.