The Box Mix / Manuel Márquez

30 de abril de 2010.

Manuel Márquez, an architect from San Luis de Potosí, Mexico shared with us “The Box Mix”, a two unit apartment building. You can see more images and architect’s description after the break.
The buliding site is a corner in a midclass residential neighborhood. The site has only 2150 sq ft. The developer intended to build two small single homes but after reviewing the urban regulations we realized that an apartment building was much more profitable. And we could even attach a small commercial space.

The building premise was to provide the maximum privacy and independence to each unit. We located the comercial space at the very corner and so we separated the garage and the access to both units. The building became a pile of boxes, each one on top of each other, with different sizes and rotations. The volume creates a series of terraces. The inner space is”cross-connected” so both units share all stories and terraces. The result was a very unusual apartment building.






http://www.archdaily.com/58479/the-box-mix-manuel-marquez/#more-58479

Dolni Dobrouc Sport Hall / Alexandr Skalický Architekt

29 de abril de 2010.

© Ester Havlova
Architect: Alexandr Skalický Architekt
Location: Dolni Dobrouc, Czech Republic
Client: Municipality Dolni Dobrouc
Engineering: AS2000, ASSPRO
Buget: EUR 1,250,000
Project Year: 2007-2008
Construction Year: 2008-2009
Photographs: Ester Havlova

As the construction of the sports hall was financed by a small village with a limited budget, the structure of the hall is very simple and undemanding. Its architectural design uses simple expressional means. Besides the position of the grey panels on the façade and the colour design of the interior, the basic idea is a “numeral” motif where individual numbers are interconnected with sports symbols.

The colourfulness of the hall is also given by the layout of the interior. Separate units such as sportsmen’s locker rooms, corridors, muscle-conditioning gym are of different colours than the spaces intended for the spectators. As the decoration of the interior (floors, walls and ceilings) is also very simple, the hall resembles an austere spatial unit-built structure.














http://www.archdaily.com/58016/dolni-dobrouc-sport-hall-alexandr-skalicky-architekt/#more-58016

National Laboratory of Genomics / TEN Arquitectos

27 de abril de 2010.

© Luis Gordoa
Architect: TEN Arquitectos/Enrique Norten
Location: Irapuato, Guanajuato. Mexico
Project Team: Enrique Norten, Salvador Arroyo, Victoria Grossi, Verónica Chávez, Carlos Marin, Mateo Riestra, Ernesto Orrante, Ricardo Orozco, Alejandro Mantecón, Gabriela Puente, Dionisio Arras, Uvaldo Arenas
Structure: Colinas de Buen, SA de CV, Ing. Óscar de Buen
MEP: DIIN, SA de CV. Ing. Alejandro Borboa
Client: National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity
Year of Design: 2005-2007
Year of Construction: 2007-2010
Photographs: Luis Gordoa

Located in the Bajio, Mexico’s breadbasket, the National Laboratory of Genomics is an extension of the Institute of Agricultural Studies. The location and geology of the site—an empty field with a fault line deep below—gave rise to the metaphor that defines the form of the building: an inscribed line divides the program in half, with the laboratories on one side and the administrative and auditorium spaces on the other, and also delineates the public areas. This constructed fault line forms an intimate civic space that connects the different programs.















http://www.archdaily.com/57856/national-laboratory-of-genomics-ten-arquitectos-enrique-norten/

Chikuzen House / Design nico Architect Associates

27 de abril de 2010.

© Ohno Hiroyuki
Architects: Kazuya Matsuda / Design nico Architect Associates
Location: Nomachi, Asakura, Fukuoka, Japan
Site area: 672 sqm
Floor area: 110 sqm
Built-up area: 116 sqm
Start of planning: 2008
Completion: 2009
Photographs: Ohno Hiroyuki, Kazuya Matsuda

The site is a house built in the suburbs that offer the view of Yasu-Kogen and Mt. Ohira distantly northward. The owner only expected the space for future children and two young couples to live and gave us the opportunity of a design freely. When we visited the site, we were not able to feel an outstanding aspect except that open- northward scenery. In addition, the design started in the situation that I could not find the cozy space easily in the site while the site area is spacious 600 sqm. During the schematic planning, we located the necessary functions in a slim rectangular plan and categorized entire space as the public and private space then we came up with three boxes such as the public and private spaces and the intermediate space to tie those places.

We assumed the intermediate space as a kitchen, and we played to displace two boxes mutually around centrally-located kitchen, and created the opening where it was necessary in the place that the connection with outside and located the place that wanted to keep privacy from the outside in the place where it was in the blind area from the outside. As a result, we reached at the simple constitution that two lines of rectangles (two boxes) were located in the kitchen as the point of contact. In addition, I chose the gabled roof to be able to recognize from the outside that the two boxes were built by the relation that created the gap.

Due to the space of recognizable two L-shapes that came up by the two buildings slip off, the appropriate outside place was born in the site that seems too wide compared with a building area. We think that a feeling to have new place to stay may have come by becoming a person to be target to feel a scale.












http://www.archdaily.com/57786/chikuzen-house-design-nico-architect-associates/#more-57786