Slunákov by Projektil Architekti

25 febrero 2009

Prague architects Projektil Architekti have completed Slunákov, a centre for ecological activities in Olomouc, the Czech Republic.

The building aims to promote environmental awareness and contains an information centre and education facilities for school groups.
The building is charactised by a south-facing, curved glass facade with movable sun blinds and is designed to be heated and ventilated naturally.

Here is some more information from the architects:
Slunakov – Centre for Ecological Activities of the city of Olomouc was designed as a part of the project entitled “Slunakov, facilities for ecological activities – educational biocenter”, which is located northwest of Olomouc, in the Morava River valley. The facilities are to be used to educate the public about the environment and its processes and to support public environmental awareness. The building is also used as an information center and an entrance to the Nature Protection Area of Litovelske Pomoravi. The Center itself is used for a wide range of activities. The main aims are providing one-day and one-week environmental education programs for school-aged groups and professional seminars on ecology and education. The building also enables “soft tourism” that includes environmental education programs. Because the Center has been designed as an energy-saving building, it also provides the public with an example of the possibilities available when designing ecological housing and promoting sustainable development.

Architectural Design
The building was designed as a curved inhabitable land wave that fluently blends into the surrounding terrain and symmetrically follows the exact North-South axes. The architectural design utilizes the southern orientation with a southern glass facade with movable sun blinds. Two recessed entrances are situated on the northern side.

The eastern side of the building symbolically ascends from the ground to enhance the display of the southwestern sunshine. The earth-sheltered northern side of the building fluently adjoins the building’s earth-covered roof, which gradually increases in height from the west to the east. The path that leads the visitor from the main entrance over the “ridge” of the building goes on to the “top” lookout point that provides a unique view of the entire biocenter. The area between the building and the artificial mound in front of the southern facade is used as a living garden for guests and visitors.

The unusual style of the proposed building results from a process of looking for new forms of ecological buildings that not only integrate into the surrounding environment, but also utilize solar energy and are earth-sheltered to increase protection from unfavorable weather. The initial form proposed was inspired by the low-to-the-ground, rustic buildings traditionally found in the region of Hana. The shape of the solar eclipse served as inspiration for the curve of the building.

The building’s ground floor is raised to ensure that it is above flood level. Flexibility, which is perceived as beneficial to the ecological concept of the entire building, was stressed when solving the problem of room plan. The backbone of the building is the hallway that runs the entire length of the building. All rooms are accessible from the hallway. On the sunny southern side from the hallway there is a residential area, partially one floor (lecture hall, dining room, class rooms, offices), partially two floors (accommodation, caretaker’s flat) and on the shaded northern side there are appliances. Similarly, the building is divided into two different parts, from the point of view of the construction. The northern part was proposed to be built as a reinforced concrete skeleton construction, the southern part with the hallway and the load bearing structure made by wooden frames.

All materials used are traditional and have been chosen due to their environmental friendliness. The facades are covered by wood, glass, concrete and stone (stacked). The interior is completed using mainly wood, glass and brick walls plastered or, in the case of unburnt brick, left uncovered. Burnt brick or reinforced concrete is used in the supporting structure for the technical rooms and wet activity areas. Most floors are covered by wooden planks and those in wet activity areas or in technical areas are covered by seamless floor. The entire concept of the interior and exterior of the building is based on reality and takes into account the use of natural colors and surface structures of individual building materials.

Not only does the building have passive building elements (southern glass facade, earth shelter on the northern side) that enable the building to save on energy and help the environment, but it also has active measures. These measures, such as a heating and ventilation using heat recovery to heat the building, solar collectors for hot water preparation and for support of space heating and earth heat exchanger, are also used for educational and demonstration purposes.

Building-energy concept
The building-energy concept was designed with respect to the basic principles of sustainable development. The building is designed for a full year-long operation with the four-month-long heating season only. The heat demand is covered using a combination of renewable energy sources – biomass and solar energy. Ventilation and warm air heating are ensured by fresh air and by warm air circulation ventilation with heat recovery from outgoing air. The building is divided into six separate ventilated zones. Earth heat exchangers that serve mainly to bring cooler air inside in the summer months are located in the earthen berm behind the building. Two automatic wood pellet furnaces provide the main source of heat for heating and are a supplementary source for heating the hot water. A modern solar system that decreases the need for secondary energy for hot water heating has been proposed. It covers 70% of hot water demand and 20% of heating.



Above: ground floor

Above: first floor


Above: site plan


Above: sections

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/02/23/slunakov-by-projektil-architekti/#more-25267

Korkeasaari Zoo by Beckmann-N’Thépé and TN+

24 febrero 2009.

French architects Beckmann-N’Thépé and landscape designers TN+ have won a competition to remodel Korkeasaari Zoo in Helsinki, Finland.

The proposal involves creating a large glass-domed entrance and animal viewing building on the island zoo, and bringing back polar bears after a 30-year absence.

BECKMANN-N’THEPE
sarl d’Architecture

KORKEASAARI ZOO
(Helsinki – Finlande)

Programme :
Redevelopment of helsinki Zoo / Landscape / greenhouses, auditorium, nocturama, reception office, souvenir shop, technical room, restaurant.

Architects:
Beckmann-N’Thépé Agency (Paris)
Aldric Beckmann, Françoise N’thépé
Landscape design:
TN Plus Agency (Paris)
Bruno Tanant, Jean Christophe Nani
Client: City of Helsinki (Finlande)
Area: 26,2 ha
Cost: NC
Design team:
Project manager: Wilfried Daufy
Architects: Anne-Catherine Dufros
Assistant architects: Constance Héau, Jessica Pallatier
Landscape design: Guillaume Derrien, Agathe Turmel
Zoo expert: Jean Marc Lernould

The zoological island of Korkeasaari will be cut off again. Its architectural interventions will be concentrated to make it wild and mysterious once more – a park / garden as a place of popular privilege, the nobility of the future city.

rchitecture disappears in favour of controlled geography, like the resurgence of a neighbouring landscape. The entrance grouping the set of utilities crucial to the running of the zoo becomes a focus of visual identity, somewhere between form and shapelessness, pierced with cavities.

Like layers of skin peeled back to receive an implant, there will be an above and a below that dialogue and interpenetrate one another. Areas of light, uncertainty, reflections and depths will be developed, offering the first emotions of a visit that will play on time and the seasons through four biozones :
- Central Asian Steppe
- Arctic Pole
- Asian Temperate Forest
- Central Asian Mountain

Above: polar bear enclosure

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/02/23/korkeasaari-zoo-by-beckmann-n%e2%80%99thepe-and-tn/

MUMUTH by UNStudio

20 febrero 2009.

MUMUTH, the Haus für Musik und Musiktheater in Graz, Austria, designed by UNStudio, opens on 1 March.

The theatre, part of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG), can seat up to 450 people.

The design evolved from ideas of a coiled “spring structure” supporting the building and enveloping the various elements. Below: sketch


Below: structure line


Below: structure

Below: transparent section

Press Release UNStudio / KUG
Opening MUMUTH - Haus für Musik und Musiktheater, Graz

The MUMUTH - Haus für Musik und Musiktheater, a faculty building for the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG), has been ten years in the making, including two years of construction and will be officially opened on March 1st 2009. To celebrate this special event the Institute for Music Drama will present a performance of W.A. Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute”, just before a “Celebration for Otto Kolleritsch”, Rector emeritus of KUG and a longstanding supporter of MUMUTH, will take place.
Since 1963 MUMUTH represents a central practice and event building for the KUG. “Finally we can offer our students an outstanding architectural building space to further their artistic training. The mission of the Arts University is the on-going development of the arts. Thanks to MUMUTH our audience can be increasingly involved in this exciting process”, says Rector KUG Georg Schulz.

The new Music Theatre, designed by Ben van Berkel of the renowned Dutch architecture firm UNStudio following an international competition with 212 entries, has already formed the Austrian contribution to the Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Of the design of MUMUTH Architect Ben van Berkel says: “The desire to make a building that is as much about music as a building can be, has been a constant throughout the nearly ten years that it took to build the theatre and the themes that are at the basis of the building and its overall organization have also endured throughout this time.”
Construction of the 19 million euro new music theatre began in March 2006 and in August 2008 the Federal Real Estate Society (BIG) entrusted the main part of the building to the KUG. In February 2009 the MUMUTH also hosted part of the 7th International Competition “Franz Schubert and Modern Music”.
Upcoming events in MUMUTH include W.A. Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” (3rd, 5th and 7th March) and on April 2nd the new abo@MUMUTH starts with a staging of the “St. John Passion BWV 245”, the stage set for which has also been designed by Ben van Berkel/UNStudio (further performances: 4th, 6th and 8th of April).

1. Project text Music Theatre
The relationship between music and architecture is a classical one. Too classical for our times, may be the thought of many contemporary architects. But that is not our view; UNStudio likes classical with a twist… The theme of the acoustic space, explored for its dramatic potential by Le Corbusier and Xenakis is still to us a topic of fascination and incredible potential today. And since the MUMUTH theatre belongs to the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and is therefore a place where young musicians receive their instruction in the performing and musical arts, it seems to us even more appropriate to let the architecture communicate that this is a building in which music lives.
This desire to make a building that is as much about music as a building can be, has been a constant throughout the nearly ten years that it took to build it. Although the project outwardly has changed considerably since its inception, the two themes that are at the basis of the building and its overall organization have endured.

The first of these two themes is the so-called ‘spring structure’ which bears the most direct relationship to music. In the first stage of the competition, the design was still very conceptual and was envisaged as an elongated spring of varying diameter size, which would alternately be stretched, suppressed and folded up inside itself to offer structure to the various volumes that together make up the theatrical, audience, rehearsal and utility spaces. We saw the spiral as the organising element of the MUMUTH in much the same way as Serialism works in contemporary music; the continuous line absorbs and regulates intervals and interruptions, changes of direction and leaps of scale without losing its continuity. Things hang on this line like laundry: glass, concrete and installations. In many ways this principle still holds, although in the building as it stands today the coil motif is no longer prominently displayed on the facades, as it was in that first conceptual design, but is now invisibly absorbed in the construction.

In fact, the legibility of the spring was dissolved only gradually. The design that was made for the second stage of the competition shows a refined spiral concept, which, like an octopus, is simple, orthogonal and horizontally orientated on one side and turns into a complex, smaller-scaled principle on the opposite side. This principle of a spiral that divides itself into a number of interconnected smaller spirals that take on a vertical and diagonal direction became an important design model for us which we called the blob-to-box model. It illustrated in a simple line diagram how a building could be structured to combine within one, rigorous gesture a strict, unit-based volume (the black box of the theatre) and a series of flowing, movement-based volumes (foyer and public circulation). Because this organising principle is made constructive, a free, fluent internal spatial arrangement is actualised, efficiently connecting spaces to each other. And, like the spring structure, the blob-to-box motif also remains a core principle of the final building. The theatre has a public character which is dynamic and which facilitates groups of people moving through it during events, and it has a calm, quiet, intense, but also very flexible and rational character which is related to the specific prescriptions of the auditorium and the rehearsal studios.

The unit-based part of the organization (the box) is situated on the right side and the movement-based part (the blob) on the left side of the building as seen from the Lichtenfelsgasse. There are two entrances; the everyday entrance on the park side which is used by students and staff, and the public entrance on the Lichtenfelsgasse which is used by the audience when there is a performance. On performance nights, the student entrance is transformed into a wardrobe using mobile closets. A removable ticketing desk and screen bulletin are placed underneath the staircase. The public ascends a wide staircase and enters a large foyer on the first floor. This foyer gives access to the multipurpose auditorium that can seat up to 450, and that is adaptable to a great variety of performances, ranging from solo instruments to opera to full orchestra.

The free-flowing space of the foyer is made possible by a spiraling constructive element that connects the entrance to the auditorium and to the music rooms above, thus welding together ‘with a twist’ the three levels of this side of the building. The twist is in fact a massive concrete construction which was one of the most challenging we ever realized – more difficult to achieve even than the twists in our recently completed museum for Mercedes-Benz. The dimensions of this particular twist necessitated far greater precision and the use of self compacting concrete which was pumped up from below instead of poured down from above as is the usual method. The twist forms a central feature of the public space, around which everything revolves. Lighting and material details accentuate the ripple effect. The twist is highlighted from above by a skylight in the ceiling, which itself consists of lamellas executed in dark wood which fan out from the twist in a wave-like pattern.

With the overt presence of the spring receding from the facade as the design evolved, the exterior again became a blank canvas, generating the opportunity to return to the theme of music in a new way. Our interest in re-establishing a relationship between music and architecture had from the beginning focused on shared aspects such as rhythm, continuity, channeling. Through our readings of the philosopher Gilles Deleuze we learned that there is another element that we had not seriously studied before: the element of repetition. Repetition generates an aggregate with densifications, intensifications and intervals. Repetition brings sonority. It allows for improvisation, it marks territory, it codes milieus. We decided to use a repetitive pattern, of our own design, and apply this to the facades in various ways to achieve some of these effects. The pattern, executed in the muted tones of stage make-up, is found all over the building in various degrees of density. Its appearance is furthermore impacted by changes in light during night and day, as well as by proximity and view angles since the outermost layer of the façade consists of a glittering mesh.

Client:
Building: BIG, Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft m.b.H.
Interior: KUG, University for music and applied art, Graz
Program: University faculty building
Gross floor surface: 6.200 m²
Volume: 31.600 m³
Site: 2.745 m²
Design year: 1998-2003
Construction year: 2006-2008

Credits
UNStudio: Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos, Hannes Pfau and Miklos Deri, Kirsten Hollmann,
Markus Berger, Florian Pischetsrieder, Uli Horner, Albert Gnodde, Peter Trummer, Maarten van Tuijl, Matthew Johnston, Mike Green, Monica Pacheco, Ger Gijzen, Wouter de Jonge
Engineering: Arup London: Cecil Balmond, Volker Schmid, Charles Walker, Francis Archer
Engineering execution: Peter Mandl and Partners, Graz
Specifications: Housinc Bauconsult, Vienna
Accoustics and building physics: ZT Gerhard Tomberger, Graz
Stage technique: e.f.f.e.c.t.s. technisches Büro GmbH, Klosterneuburg

Oil Rigs Become Luxury Hotels.

18 febrero 2009.

What do you do with 4,000 decommissioned oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico? Instead of blowing them up—costing millions and killing aquatic life—Morris Architects' Hotelier At Sea project turns them into Dubai-esque luxury hotels.

According to BldgBlog, approximately 4,000 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico will be decommissioned within the next century. Morris proposed to convert this space into exclusive, self-sufficient eco-friendly, high-end resort islands off the Gulf of Mexico, dubbing it our very own American Dubai, as you can tell from the yacht parking lot seen in the gallery below.

Currently, the method of removing these sorts of oil rigs would be to blow them up, which would cost millions of dollars and would kill a ton of sea life in the process. With a deck of each oil rig at 20,000 square feet, that creates about 80 million square feet of usable space. One reason this proposal is cheaper than blasting is that the rooms themselves are efficiently shipped out on big tankers and installed by stacking and sliding open, Transformers-style:



http://i.gizmodo.com/5156221/oil-rigs-become-luxury-hotels

Chinese Transparent City Plan Leaves Little Room for Privacy

17 febrero 2009.

The Chinese architects called MAD gathered a bunch of fellow glass-steel-and-concrete artists to design the city center of Huaxi, in Guiyang, China. The goal was maximum eco-friendliness; the end product was a kinkily see-through skyline.

I'm not going to say I don't love the look of these proposed buildings—they are a noble attempt to put environmental relevance and soulfulness in front of sheer density and speed of construction—but damn if they don't appear to be freakishly devoid of privacy.

The building that MAD itself designed barely has so few enclosures, they must be planning to install bathrooms in the elevators. You can see it in the foreground above, and in the gallery below, along with three equally transparent concepts from BIG (which looks like a Wii), Emergent (which looks like it was designed by the Master Control Program) and Rojkind Architects (which looks like it was drawn by a Parkinson's sufferer).

You only start seeing some semblance of privacy when you get to this would-be Podling village by Serie.

There are 11 buildings total, all with seductively nouveau designs, some even fit for people who are modest, mecha fat andor coyote ugly. To get a better sense of how they harmoniously fit together, hit the links. [MAD via designboom and Dezeen]




http://i.gizmodo.com/5155497/chinese-transparent-city-plan-leaves-little-room-for-privacy

Dystopian Farm Is What Happens When Colossal Ferns Grow in Manhattan

16 febrero 2009.

By architect Eric Vergne, Dystopian Farm is a biomorphic skyscraper concept, taking design cues from the cell structure of a fern to create a stunning, multi-functional space.
The tower is designed to provide housing while simultaneously offering a place to grow and sell food. Through a combination of airoponics and managed lighting/CO2 levels, this giant polygonal web could become a leafy, green habitat. Is it bad of me to say I prefer the design before the influx of natural vegetation?
Dystopian Farm recently took third place in the Evolo Skyscraper Competition. I'm guessing the building was a bit too drafty to take first, at least in the winter. [Dystopian Farm via Inhabitant]
http://i.gizmodo.com/5154391/dystopian-farm-is-what-happens-when-colossal-ferns-grow-in-manhattan