Located across from the St-Etienne station on the Esplanade de France, the influence of the intervention at the heart of the ZAC Châteaucreux is a link between neighborhoods and horizon lines, a low point in the topography of St-Etienne in front of a preferred route to the city center. Combined with the scale of the project and the symbolic value of the program, this unique location gives the project a special status in the construction of the city.
The Sharp House is designed as a minimalist desert retreat for a retired couple for NYC. Located just north of Santa Fe New Mexico on five acres of land. The house was designed with the intention to be as economical as possible. The construction of the house is exposed cast in place, reinforced concrete with large glass exposures to the north and south to allow for solar gain and cross ventilation. The interior spaces accommodate 2 bedrooms, dining, kitchen, living areas and bath with a square footage of 1500. The design intention was to maintain honesty with the materials and that all geometries of the architecture reflect the program of the house. The neo-brutalist approach to space is reflected as a by-product in the buildings appearance. The house is a declaration against the gloss of mainstream architectural practice which tend to focus on the exterior “decorative” façades and arbitrary forms. The Sharp house stands in contradiction to this. In addition, the house reflects a sound approach to its ecological impact and carbon footprint. The large expanses of thermal mass allow the building to regulate interior temperature while naturally ventilating itself. It’s a back to basics approach with less becoming more.
Reima and Raili Pietilä won the competition for the Finnish Embassy to be located in the diplomatic enclave in Chanakyapuri in 1963 with a beautiful and powerful competition entry called “Snow speaks on the mountains”. The project was commissioned and redesigned based on the original concept in 1980, and the building was finally opened in 1986 with the large single expanse of roof broken up into the six lateral separate buildings standing on the embassy compound today.
Software used: AutoCAD, Rhinoceros, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and Microsoft Office
Client: Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Architect, Renovation: ALA partners Juho Grönholm, Antti Nousjoki, Janne Teräsvirta and Samuli Woolston with Simo Nuojua, Harri Ahokas, Anders Jönsson, Lotta Kindberg, Mirja Sillanpää and Sari Vesanen
Collaborators: SCG Contracts India (main contractor), Sitowise (engineering), WSP Proko (project management), Annukka Pietilä (Pietilä architecture specialist), C. P. Kukreja Architects (local architect partner), Jasleen Waraich Landscape Architecture (local landscape designer) Architect, Original Design: Raili and Reima Pietilä Architects, competition 1963, completion 1986
The Land Rover Regional Offices in Shanghai was driven by 3 primary ideas: 1) creating a porous urban environment; 2) creating a showroom space for a car company that would, in turn, create a contrast between the scale of the buildings; and, 3) introducing a dynamic façade to achieve a building without automated systems. In realizing these goals, it became apparent that the two towers had to be in the opposite corners of the site and that the shorter pavilions had to fill in the area in-between. The façade utilized parametric tools to transform inspiration from bamboo forests into a complex frit pattern. In the end, the buildings interact dynamically with the changing atmosphere of Shanghai and are in a constant state of metamorphosis.
Sited in Shijingshan, the fringe of Beijing, near the scared Western Hills, the Wuliepoch Life Experiment Center is a sales office for low rise residential developments at the foot of Western Hills. The project draws upon the heritage and inspirations of Western Hills, and presents a new definition for housing in contemporary Chinese metropolis.
The project encompasses a 1500sm of sales center and a 400sm of community skating rink, as a way to response to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The sales office includes model exhibition area, sample rooms, seating areas, bar and catering, a VIP lounge, staff offices, etc.
A new development in the expanding Kartal district on the Asian side of Istanbul will open up a proposed, master planned community of mixed uses. The district itself has a history of light industrial and manufacturing uses that are moving away to the urban periphery allowing housing to reinvent the vacated sites, thereby, transforming the precinct. Residential is pushing in rapidly as the MA motorway plus a public transport new Metro station makes this area very accessible and desirable. The AND site is fortunately located atop a high point that slopes down towards the water and the Sea of Marmara. Sitting astride this advantageous pinnacle, apartments on the upper levels will have sea views. Additionally, the site is surrounded by civic parkland that imparts a strong landscape context for the design.
Three residences sit on three small and narrow up-hill lots in the Hollywood Hills. M u t u o ’s design for this project aims to maximize indoor residential areas as well as outdoor living areas. It also seeks to craft intricate details through the interplay of different construction methods and materials.
Located in the center of the Tel Aviv University campus, The Check Point Building by Kimmel Eshkolot just open to the public this month. As a seemingly floating volume in the campus, it contrasts the adjacent Mario Botta’s iconic Cymbalista Synagogue and the the 1960s Faculty of Exact Sciences.
The Check Point Building is a new type of technology integrated building with a unique envelope made of pixels of glass that were designed using parametric modeling. This shell was developed specifically for the project, and it is an innovative system matching the values that the building represents. Its positioning frames an area to the west of the building which supports its conversion from a parking lot to a central square in the campus.
Tags: Israel, Tel Aviv-Yafo Comments Off on The Check Point Building for the Faculty of Computer Sciences in Tel Aviv Yafo, Israel by Kimmel Eshkolot Architects
The Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), located in Lviv, is the first Catholic university to be opened in the former Soviet Union, with a mission to provide an open, progressive and democratic learning environment for its students and the surrounding community. The UCU has various goals. It wants to make the university accessible to the public and at the same time serve as a role model for higher education in post-soviet Ukraine, a private university accessible to the public.
Stay_Soar is a multi-family housing project in Yangjaecheon Cafe Street. A total of 13 units were arranged in this volume of 286.81m2, including 12 residential units and one retail on the first floor. This was possible because the area of common use space in a typical floor plan was reduced to minimum by incorporating the skip floor layout. We tried to reveal the skip floor structure to the outside through the outline of the mass and the arrangement of the windows. An important element that determines the impression of this building is the movement in the border where the upper part covered with white shell meets with the lower part exposed with the frame structure. This is also the result of moving along the building composition of skip floor. Since most of the outer walls, including the inclined wall, were planned with white stucco finish, it was important to have a countermeasure against contamination. The construction was completed even incorporating details that are not commonly used. In addition, we even had the opportunity to sufficiently inspect the actual performance of the finishing because the construction extended over a period of fine dust and rainy season continuing back-to-back.
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