Located in Av. da Liberdade. Lisbon´s luxury stores destination, Liberdade 40 is a retrofitting project that results of the rehabilitation of a former office building with an inefficient use, into 16 modern, exclusive and minimalist apartments. This project allowed the closing of the outer arcade, wining critical square meters for the developer.
This profound rehabilitation with an emphasis on the neutral colors and modern straight lines, deeply transformed this 1980s’ building now featuring a cosmopolitan discretion that makes all the difference.
In late 2011, we returned to Grenoble, a place of environmental experimentation with a previous project that made its mark on the ZAC de Bonne: the “Coming Out”.
This time, another challenge is tackled, the one of height – with the same desire to push the limits of ’experimentation with energy performance even further. In an attempt to resolve the issue of thermal bridges once and for all, balconies had to be eliminated.
Location: Lot CI1, secteur Cambridge ZAC Presqu’île, 38000 Grenoble, France
Photography: Luc Boegly and Sergio Grazia
Client: Cogedim
Project Management: Maison Édouard François, architect designer Aktis, architect of local operations Nicolas ingénieries, utilities and environment CTG, structure Verdier, terraces structure Editec, economics Socotec, inspection office, Health and Safety coordinator Kaema, geotechnics Sintegra, roads and utility services / external works
Cost:
€5.3m excl. VAT
€1,940 excl VAT / m² SHAB
Surface area Net floor area: 4,731 m² (5,174 y²) Inhabitable surface area: 2,730 m² (2,985 y²) – Separate terrace areas: 1,073 m² (1,173 y²)
This new housing building is located in a singular site near Collserola, where the small scall of the domestic nearby buildings is mixed with equipments of bigger entity, combining low urban density with exceptional views and orientation. In this sense, the proposal looks for an adequate implantation to the surroundings, trying to complement the domesticity of the residential single-family fabric with the bigger dimension and scale of other pieces nearby.
There was a building slated for construction on the new Avenue de la Presqu’île de Grenoble, in the “Cambridge” ZAC (joint urban development zone).
The client, a property developer with demanding standards, knows its clientele well.
Thus, most of the project’s features were already determined in the program: a recessed top floor flanked by two duplexes, a platform pierced with immense glazed shop windows, large balconies and beautiful openings on the façade to allow sunshine and the view to penetrate the interior.
With this litany of invariable promotional imperatives, the overall effect was slowly becoming a “predictable” project, altogether rather banal. In addition, the zone’s seismicity imposed the simplification of its volume: Amen.
Location: Lot Ck1, secteur Cambridge ZAC Presqu’île, 38000 Grenoble
Photography: Renaud Chaignet
Project Management: Maison Édouard François, design architect Aktis, architect of local operation Ingenergie, fluids and environment Matte, Structure Diptyque, economics Socotec, inspection office Batic, Health and Safety coordinator Kaema, geotechnics Serra, roads and utility services / external works
This 4 apartment’s project was done in the south of the Colonia del Valle, a traditional area in Mexico City, in a 350 sq m lot where a single family home was for many years. One of the main goals of the project was to respect the height of the urban belt and maintain complete harmony with the surroundings.
The project was developed in 3 levels and the main façade was put back 4 meters to have 20% of free space. Two volumes stand out in the limit of the lot, one on the main level protecting the courtyard of one of the apartments and the other in the third level that partially contains the kitchens of the upper apartments.
The project is a 7- storey building with 12 apartments on a hill in Iladalen with an exclusive rooftop garden for all the residents. The site is open and the apartments will have a view over the valley and/ or south towards the Oslo Fjord. The building adjoins the gable on an unfinished building and is forming a completion on the quarter at the junction Vøyensvingen and Claus Riis gate, and completes in this way the neighborhood. For the residents there will be a common kitchen on the roof, in affiliation to the roof garden. On the ground floor it will be benches and art for the public, integrated into the building.
Tony Owen uses laser cut origami screens to blend the inside and landscape in these courtyard apartments.
Astor is a 4 storey apartment complex is located in the North Sydney suburb of Crows Nest. The design contains 50 units. The surrounding area is an exclusive leafy suburb thus the design had to achieve the highest standard of finish and quality. The site is located on a busy main road and is overlooked on all sides, so we designed the ‘U shaped’ scheme to face into a quiet central landscaped courtyard which is oriented north for sun. All of the units are accessed from this courtyard via outdoor screened walkways. Thus the design blends landscaped areas with the internal apartment spaces.
We designed this hotel as a succession of plans and sequences condensing the long traveling shot that leads the traveler to Paris. Access to the hotel is from a reception on the roof of the city, a place from which one can apprehend the opposite way, to understand Paris, this open territory which unfolds in a limitless continuum, whose the white horizon is punctuated by magnificent emergences. Our project will be a place characterized, surprising, a destination, a landmark, a connivance, a point of view on the capital.
Located in one of the most extensively developed areas in the north of the city of Querétaro, and 100m from one of the principal avenues, AIRA is a tower of 35 apartments.
The project is located on a narrow and deep site measuring 2,100 m2. Its compact volumetry reflects the intention to generate open space and to create green areas, and offers a forceful vertical response to an area dominated by horizontal architecture.
Architecture Team: Edgar Alarcón, Joaquín Ríos, César Medina, Ian Pablo Amores, Nadia Ferrufino, David Muñoz, Heliana Echavarria, Yesenia Ruiz, Carlos Cervantes, José Sánchez, Cristopher Franco, Crystal Martínez
The Scotts Tower SOHO apartment building is situated on a prime location in Singapore, close to the Orchard Road luxury shopping district and with views encompassing both nearby parkland and the panoramic cityscape of Singapore City.
The 18,500m2, 31-storey, 231-unit tower consists of 1 to 3-bedroom apartments and 4-bedroom penthouses, along with expansive landscaped gardens, sky terraces, penthouse roof gardens and a variety of recreational facilities.
Ben van Berkel: “An interesting facet of The Scotts Tower is the way that it reacts to the urban context of Singapore. Instead of the more usual means of planning a city horizontally, we have created neighbourhoods in the sky: a vertical city where each zone has its own distinct identity.”
Design Architect UNStudio: Ben van Berkel, Astrid Piber with Ger Gijzen, Konstantinos Chrysos, Luis Etchegorry, Cynthia Markhoff, Elisabeth Brauner, Shany Barath, Thomas van Bekhoven, Iris Pastor, Rodrigo Cañizares, Albert Gnodde, Mo Ching Ying Lai, Grete Veskiväli, Philipp Weisz, Samuel Bernier Lavigne, Lukasz Walczak, Alicja Chola, Cheng Gong