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06 de agosto de 2010.
© Koichi Torimura
Architects: EASTERN Design Office
Location: Takarazuka, Hyogo, Japan
Client: American Club International Co, ltd
Structural Engineering: Hojo Structure Research Institute
Constructor: Fukasaka Co., Ltd
Site area: 711.46 sqm
Total floor area: 361.84 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Koichi Torimura
This building is a design room for a Japanese sneaker brand as well as a residential house. The site is in Takarazuka-city of Hyogo Prfecture. It is located in an exclusive residential district that commands an entire view of the Osaka Plain. The architecture is built on the slope of a hill with an elevation of 330 meters. The level difference of the site is 8 meters.
Taking advantage of the slope, one of the characteristics of this site, an architecture which suits the desires of two persons is built.
A. To be warmed up. A lower floor, a house, invisible in a mountain.
The site has an 8 meter difference in height. 8 meters is higher than a two-story building. The lower floor is in the ground of the slanted site. It is invisible from the upper road.
There is a bedrock layer 1.5 meters beneath the ground surface. It is so hard that even a shovel car could not crush it. Dig to the bedrock and the foundation is supported by this bedrock.
Build two mounds using the soil dug. Insert a residence between these two mounds.
Built on “a new topography-mountain”, all parts of the building are close to the earth. The mountains are designed to emphasize the slope.
An exclusive residential area on a hill features a good commanding view as its sales point. Development of this kind of community is planned in a similar way with no individuality. We consider this phenomenon as “a loss of topography”. We have dreamed of a mountain whose slope was scraped away. The lost mountain is designed into this architecture.
Architecture is not built on a site where the slope is flattened. By contrary the angle of the slope is increased, which results in two mounds. Between these two mounds a living space is built, and the upper story floating on these two mounds is a design room.
Observe the Gulf of Osaka, high-rise buildings, Kobe port, Kansai Airport, Itami Airport, and shadowy blue mountains.
The land originally slanted at an angle of 18 degrees. Mounds are built there to let the slope undulate.
These mountain waves are topography where no previous topography existed. The upper floor was designed to float on these mountain waves.
We have designed the form which passes over the waves. Is it a dream of a long-distance ship going over high waves or is it a dragon?
© Koichi Torimura
The dream of this architecture is like a voyage setting out.
An 18 meter-long terrace. The sea and a range of mountains 60 kilometers away can be observed. When standing on this terrace, rows of other houses in this area are out of sight. This is the way we have arranged this architecture and its openings.
You can get a sense that your body is slightly floating. It is our intention to give the sense of being on a deck of ships, but not in the house. The design room on the upper floor of this architecture is a ship.
The plan is designed in L-shape. The edge protruding greatly from the slope is an opening that swallows the outside. Straight eaves run amidst the curvilinear forms of the topography. The eaves project in a powerful manner not to be beaten by the inherent force of the topography. They are thin, thick, short, long and carved.
To be protected by the house, yet at the same time have the feeling of flying away. Making two extremes into one. This is realized in the architecture in the corresponding forms of the upper and lower floors.
It is a cave and also a nautical form.
It is flying away, yet it is anchored.
It is drifting, yet it is homely.
It is sky, and it is Earth. It is far, yet it is near.
1.5 meters beneath the ground surface is hard bedrock. The foundation is raised on this bedrock. For this, the excavated earth was used and the red curving line was designed to achieve this. In other words, by heaping up the excavated soil, a new undulating mountainous topography is built. The lower floor is built under the mountain.
The form which runs over the mountains is the upper floor. The corresponding upper and lower floors are made into one form.
http://www.archdaily.com/68593/mountains-opening-house-eastern-design-office/#more-68593
05 de agosto de 2010.
© Iwan Baan
Architects: Mayslits Kassif Architects
Location: Arlozorov Street, Tel Aviv, Israel
Design Team: Udi Kassif, Ganit Mayslits Kassif, Maor Roytman
Program: A mixed use building containing kindergarten cluster and municipal welfare offices.
Client: The Tel Aviv-Yafo Economic Development Authority Ltd.
Site Area: 6,000 sqm
Built Area: 3,000 sqm
Budget: $5,000,000
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Iwan Baan, Yuval Tebol
The Remez Arlozorov Community Campus was the winning entry of a public competition held by the Tel Aviv Municipality. The call was for the design of a communal, mixed use complex at the center of Tel Aviv, next to some iconic buildings from the sixties. The winning scheme by Mayslits Kassif Architects organized the compound’s buildings – an auditorium, a sports center, a residential tower and an education wing – around a public space which serves as the vital hub of the complex.
The first building that was erected in the complex is The Mina & Everard Goodman Educational Campus & Municipal Offices. The building was opened to the public in July 2009.
The 100m long horizontal, serene structure of the education wing is juxtaposed with the lightly sloped site, enabling differentiation of scale and a series of terraced spaces accompanying the long building.
The dense plot and the tight public budget posed a challenge and led to the search of a feasible, yet inspiring design. The kindergartens are, therefore, built on two levels implementing compact land use which creates an urban version of the familiar childcare programmes.
An original woven timber fabric separates the public space from the children’s realm, creating a light filter and playful articulation of horizontality and linearity. This handcrafted system acts as a contemporary variation of the Tel-Avivian brise-soleil architectural tradition, which provides solar protection while enabling an air flow through the facade.
The color spectrum is used in various ways throughout the building, serving both as an orientation device and as a sensual stimulus, creating an exciting learning environment for the children.
The project’s architectural asset is in the creation of a contemporary and playful interpretation of its modernistic, monumental surroundings. The success of composing a stimulating design for its diverse users by simple gestures awarded the project its wide public recognition and several significant awards.
http://www.archdaily.com/71859/remez-arlozorov-mayslits-kassif-architects/#more-71859
01 de agosto de 2010.
© Courtesy of SPASM Design ArchitectsArchitects: SPASM Design ArchitectsLocation: Dar-es-Salaam, TanzaniaDesign Team: Sangeeta Merchant, Sanjay Parab, Maithili Joshi & Sanjeev PanjabiContractors: Holtan E.A. LtdEngineers: Pendharkar AssociatesClient: SKAN Properties LimitedSite Area: 2,591 sqmTotal Built Area: 820 sqmPhotographs: Muzu Suleimanji & Sanjeev Panjabi
Sited in a quiet, low-rise, residential neighborhood of Dar-es-Salaam, an emerging financial hub on the coast of Tanzania, East Africa, the AON Insurance Headquarters is nestled within a lovely garden acreage with existing acacias, gulmohurs, frangipanis and Erica palms.
The brief prompted the placement of three off-shutter concrete cabinets, to incorporate storage of records. These cabinets form the principal enclosure and allow for framed vistas of the surrounding garden, continuing and enhancing the spatial construct of the garden.
Over these cabinets, levitates a giant, blade-thin canopy. It is a contemporary interpretation of the indigenous ‘makuti’ or thatch roofs.The glazed upper storey detaches the solid walls from the light canopy and affords limitless views over the tree tops. The windows can be kept open for most part of the year, reducing energy loads, allowing fresh cool breeze to penetrate the building, apart from offering abundant protection from heavy rains of the tropics. It modulates glare-free, reflected light to create a soothing work environment and establishes a strong connection to the outside.
A water body immediately outside the principal meeting rooms invigorates the surrounds with the soft sound of flowing water and acts as a black reflective plane.
From within the building, one can sense the passage of time as the building absorbs the slightest changes in the light quality and the shifting of the shadows of trees, in the outside garden environment. Movement within the building and occupation of each office amplifies the intrinsic connection with the surrounding vegetation.
The building maintains an honest simplicity in its make up and in its materiality, fostering the comfort of its inhabitants and in the hope of promoting productivity.
http://www.archdaily.com/71069/aon-insurance-headquarters-spasm-design-architects/
