Bustler

“The Design Museum in London today announced the seven category winners of the Brit Insurance Design Awards 2010. Collectively they celebrate everyday design, reflecting international trends, current themes of sustainability and social enablement.

In the Architecture Category, Chilean studio Elemental won the first prize for Monterrey Housing, a new model for social housing in Mexico, a project which was first trialed in Chile. An international ‘do-tank’ based in Chile, Elemental focuses on finding solutions to the challenge of housing the world’s ever-increasing population.”
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Project Description:
Restrictions: Santa Catarina is a city of 230,000 inhabitants, located in the state of Nuevo León, in the northwest of Mexico. This project is Elemental’s first outside of Chile.

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Video: Monterrey from elementalchile on Vimeo. (Video: Ramiro Ramirez)
http://www.vimeo.com/8765305
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The Government of Nuevo León, México, commissioned us to design a group of 70 homes on a site of .6 hectars in a middle class neighborhood in Santa Catarina. The required density suggested the application of the typology we developed for Iquique. However, the climate in Santa Catarina is very different from the northern dessert climate of Chile. The 600 mm of annual rainfall required us to adapt our proposal to this new question……..” More On Bustler
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Eriksen Skajaa Architects

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Project Details:
Project: Shuffle – Europan 10 competition
Location: Oslo, Norway
Year: 2009
Type: Competition
Category: Urban plan and buildings
Status: 1st prize
Size: 15000 m²
Architect: Eriksen Skajaa Architects
Team:Arild Eriksen, Joakim Skajaa
Contact: mail@eriksenskajaa.no
Introduction:

Eriksen Skajaa Architects, a small architecture practice run by Arild Eriksen and Joakim Skajaa has won the Europan 10 competition in Oslo with their project Shuffle. The project is exploring low rise/high density urban planning as a way to reinforce local identity, making use of passive-house concepts to shape the buildings
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Project Description:
Weave, Shuffle, Flip, Intensify….Study area strategy

The main challenges in the study area are the homogenous zones that undermine cross connections and permeability. In the perspective of sustainability and ecology, large areas in the study area are under-utilised. We have developed three main strategies to facilitate a new development in the study area:

Weave
The forested paths on Haugerud are places of natural beauty and create a strong sense of place and identity. We propose to extend the network of forested paths through the study area to facilitate interconnections and permeability; both through the new development and through existing homogenous strips like the school area or the social housing.
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Shuffle
We propose to shuffle the existing program in the study area to enhance the life in the area and intensify the utilization of space. Low quality space will be upgraded through this strategy. Examples could be the colonisation of garden allotments, sports programs found in the middle of housing areas and an activity center in the new development shared by the school. Penetrating these boundaries is an important step in the groundwork for a new identity.
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Flip
Flip is a strategy for turning the buildings in the area towards the public space. The school buildings and the centre all turn their back on the public space. By creating public spaces we also want to give them a clear direction. In our proposal we remove most of the existing centre and make facades that open up towards the new public space.

Intensify
Some key points in the study area will be used for more specific program to create specila points of interest. The metro station is already one such point and will be given an upgrade and modern bike parking facilities. The high rise building will be converted into a health/ wellness centre. Public activity centres will be points of special interest to the young and old people that spend time in the area.
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Inventing urbanity. Ecology versus intensity.
We propose a new development on the site based on sustainable ecological principles and the need for a semi -urban typology that can cater to the dual need of new housing typologies (young/ elderly/ small families) and a restructuring of the local retail economy. Grid orientation, formal characteristics, facades and construction methods where determined by the passive house standard. The shaping of the volumes brings light in between the streets and to the solar facades, but it also gives houses individual character.

Through this process we have developed a clear urban typology consisting of a relatively small scale urban unit that is combined in a dense configuration. The unit can accommodate both the existing and proposed programs such as health and recreations centers. There is flexibility within the modules to develop a wide range of housing solutions ranging from individual houses to blocks of flats. The ground floors have all been made as flexible as possible so that they can shift between housing and retail functions.
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Through a high degree of fragmentation we open up possibilities that the large scale existing structures can’t cater to. We foresee in the beginning that a few small scale shops could function in the area, but we also see that this can be the framework for a development where retail and recreation colonise the entire development. This is the concept we call shuffle. Another possible outcome is that the area becomes more a housing area and that people continue to do their shopping in the neighboring areas. We create flexibility within the framework of a strong urban typology.

Urban intensity in this context means not so much an extreme number of people on a small lot, it means living and working in close proximity to each other and shared public space. Larger types of public space such as school yards, fields, football pitches and parking lots are abundant in the area, so we have deliberately tried to make the public spaces small enough to generate types of proximity that will be an addition to the whole area. As permeability is a strategy of the project we will add smaller volumes to create a town or Medina with buildings that can easily fit into the fabric with another program. We believe the feeling of the small scale village will strengthen the identity of Haugerud, as well as offering an attraction. ”
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0300TV

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Project Details:
Building Silodam
Architects MVRDV [Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, Nathalie de Vries]
Program Colective Housing [165 dwellings]
Area 19,500 sqm
Client Rabo Vastgoed, Utrecht NL and De Principaal B.V, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Completed 2003
Location Westerdoksdijk, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
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http://www.vimeo.com/8532835
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Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

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Project Details:

Project type: Private and affordable apartments; mixed use.
Location type: Urban brownfield site
Number of dwellings: 147
Location: Hackney, London
Award: Building for life award – 2008 winner
Text and description: Building for Life
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Design Process:
“First Base was founded by Lend Lease and Stanhope in 2002, as a niche provider of high quality inner city mixed tenure homes. In 2003 Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) were commissioned by First Base to carry out a study for providing high density key worker housing of 150-250, units using efficient, rationalised design and modern methods of construction. The study formed part of a bid in September 2004 by First Base for English Partnerships London Wide Initiative, a government-backed scheme to provide shared equity key worker housing on 16 brownfield sites.

In November 2004, the Adelaide Wharf site was allocated to First Base, who appointed AHMM to provide detailed designs. The site came with an existing consent for 131 flats with 98 underground parking spaces. AHMM redesigned from scratch based on the previous building studies, to create the higher-density built form of 147 flats around a shared courtyard, with 33 parking spaces above and below ground and 180 secure bicycle spaces. The new planning application was submitted in September 2005 and full approval granted December 2005. Work began on site in April 2006, completed in October 2007 and first residents moved in the following month.”
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Project Description:
“Despite the rational design of the construction and interior layouts, the exterior elevations are brimming with originality and character. The architecture is a mix of engineering brick at ground level a with bright, glossy, enamel clad panels in red and yellow hues, wrapping double height pedestrian entrances . On upper stories, a craned-in unitised cladding system forms horizontal grey zinc bands, which are broken up by vertical panels of rough sawn Siberian larch. These are undulated to create a visual ‘corduroy’ effect, to enliven the elevations and to disguise any differential timber weathering over time. Generous balconies are clad in warmly coloured perforated planes and are staggered to produce double height gaps above and to reduce overshadowing of living rooms below. Balconies are suspended from beams at roof level, which are cantilevered over the roof to mimic lifting beams on original warehouses .
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Inside, the enjoyment continues. The concierge, lit by double height glazing from the courtyard, is surrounded by a calm seating area, with a modern recessed bay window keeping an eye on Queensbridge road . A glance up the stairwell reveals a visual puzzle of staggered concrete flights and glazed balustrades. The lobby and stairwell are lined with 16m timber mural designed by local artist Richard Woods, reflecting the sites history as a timber warehouse .

Access to flats is double banked either side of three long corridors served by just two cores. A claustrophobic feeling that often results from long internal corridors is reduced by a greater than average 1750mm width. Natural light is also brought in through large glazed panels at each corridor end, which in the case of the canal side, is a fully glazed slot with double and triple-height voids to maximize light and views out.
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Aside from corner units, most lead off the corridors with single aspect views, but smart layouts of a deep plan locate all serviced spaces of kitchens and bathroom along inside walls, with living and bedroom spaces making full use of the window walls. Open plan kitchen and living space are almost all connected to generous, balconies, which, even for the one bed flats, are large enough for a couple of chairs and a table.

High-density living has been achieved on a relatively small brownfield site, and residents’ views out along the canal and over the city skyline have been maximised. The perimeter block is a tried and tested way of defining streets with a coherent, well structured layout while providing a secure, functional living environment. The lively colours and varied form of this distinctive new block, make it a positive addition to the local built form and a navigation landmark in its own right.” Building for Life

KCAP Architects & Planners

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Project Details:
Client: Heijmans IBC Property Development, Almere-Stad
Architect: KCAP Architects&Planners, Rotterdam
Description: Housing complex with 52 apartments, including renovation of Africa warehouse (by Villa Nova) and new design of Building D
Location: Oostelijke Handelskade, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Time frame: 1998-2009
Contractor: Heijmans IBC Construction
Consultants: structural engineering: D3BN, building services: Deerns, building physics: Peutz & Associés, Zoetermeer, fire safety: DGMR engineering consultants, Arnhem
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” Along the banks of the river IJ in Amsterdam, a former dock-land is being transformed into a high-density residential and working area. The increased density is achieved by placing new volumes in front of, behind, alongside and/or above the existing warehouses. This results in a spatial ensemble with a capacity to include the various programmes intended. The volumes are divided into horizontal programmatic zones.

The new building has been designed as a periscope that overlooks the old Africa warehouse in the direction of the river, with respect to the cruise-ship terminal. The entrance to the new Africa warehouse has been formed by maximising the integration of living and working, as well as the creating of a mix between old and new.
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The building is to be accessed by a central corridor. The second lift and staircase connects the building to a subterranean parking garage. The facade is made of rust-coloured prefabricated concrete elements that form a ‘fabric’ in order to emphasise the sculptural properties of the volume. This choice of colour works well with the atmosphere created by the warehouses and the quays.

The northern façade, which faces the river, has been tilted up and is in its entirety constructed of glass. This double façade forms a barrier to the noisy ships. Due to the disturbing noise levels from the adjacent railway line, the other façades are to be made of extra thick glazed elements. The newly placed columns interact with the existing ones in a manner by which the building’s proportions are retained, thus doing justice to this monument.”

Text & Photos: Architecture News Plus
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REthink Development Corp.

RETHINK DEVELOPMENT CELEBRATES THE COMPLETION OF THE LOFTS @ CHEROKEE STUDIOS WITH A BIT OF ROCK-N-ROLL
Developer Hosts Four-Week Design Showcase and Public Tours to Benefit Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles

“REthink Development, a Los Angeles-based sustainable real estate developer, is proud to announce the completion of the Lofts @ Cherokee Studios, a 12-unit live/work loft development expected to achieve LEED Platinum certification from the USGBC, an accomplishment that marks it as the first building of its kind on the West Coast. To celebrate the siteʼs musical legacy and its future
as a green building landmark, REthink Development is hosting Rock-n-Platinum, a four-week design showcase that interprets music through design. The showcase will run from October 29th through November 19th, kicking off on October 29th with a preview & party that includes live performances. Public tours will be held every weekend until the showcase ends on November 19th. Proceeds from tickets sales for the party and public tours will benefit Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles.”
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Project Details:
OWNERS: REthink Development Corp.
Greg Reitz, Principal & Co-Founder
Steve Edwards, Principal & Co-Founder

ARCHITECTS: Pugh + Scarpa
Gwynne Pugh, AIA, Principal
Larry Scarpa, AIA, Principal

MEP ENGINEERS: Cobalt Engineering
Albert Bicol, Partner

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS: BPA Group
John Pao, President

BUILDERS: JT Builders
Brian Crommie, President

LANDSCAPE: FormLA Landscape
Cassy Aoyagi, Founder
Kirk Aoyagi, Founder
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““This may seem like a lot of fanfare for a loft building, but we really wanted to bring the building to life,” explains REthink Development Co-Founder Steve Edwards. “To date itʼs the only building of its kind, designed to be LEED Platinum and quite literally designed for musicians and other creative types. Since music and creativity played such an integral part in the projectʼs evolution, we thought that Rock-n-Platinum would be an ideal way to really go back to the foundation of what makes this project so distinctive.”

Two of the twelve lofts feature dedicated recording studio spaces that have been acoustically treated and prepared. Upon request, new homeowners can work with Bruce Robb, one of the owners of the original Cherokee Studios, and George Auspurger and his team of expert acousticians to finish building out their professional home studios. The hope is that new generations of musicians will be able to continue the Cherokee Studios legacy, cutting their own award-winning tracks on the very site where David Bowie cut some of his. In an additional nod to the siteʼs musical history, several gold and platinum albums will be permanently displayed in the main lobby of the building.

Besides the penthouse units, the Lofts @ Cherokee Studios also feature more modest one-story live/work ʻflatsʼ and two-story townhouse units. These are located in the Eastern tower that faces onto Fairfax Avenue. In the Western tower, three deluxe penthouse units are perched atop three tri-level units. The units range in size from 1000 sf to 2000 sf.
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A perforated metal façade envelopes the front and back of the structure, acting both as a sound and light mitigator and a form of movable and changeable sculpture that residents can adjust according to their moods. The perforated and completely permeable façade also allows for generous cross-ventilation, cutting down on the need for energy-consuming air conditioning. Between the two towers, a second story courtyard serves as a connective space from which all units are accessed, allowing each residence ample natural daylight. Mini-green roofs accentuate the towersʼ courtyard walls. A field of photovoltaics covers the top of the East tower, while a simple green roof planted with natural drought-resistant grasses adorns the West tower,
serving as communal space for residents and an invaluable form of insulation, reducing the heat-island effect and storm water runoff.

Inside the units, sustainable features and finishes abound. From a kitchen backsplash made from recycled skateboards, to FSC certified wood floors; from recycled glass tile in the bathrooms to super-efficient insulated windows, the greatest care was taken in working towards the goal of LEED Platinum.
“This showcase is an opportunity to really show people what the spaces could be like when they are filled with life and music and creative energy,” adds Greg Reitz, Co-Founder of REthink Development. “Our hope is that the Rock-n-Platinum showcase will also be a platform for us to share good, green building karma. We would like interest in the showcase to help to generate funds and support for Habitat for Humanity of Greater LA, an organization that understands the importance of green building and implements sustainable principles whenever possible while providing homes for the people who need them most.”

“Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles and Hollywood for Habitat for Humanity are thrilled to be a part of Rock-n-Platinum to celebrate the reinvention of an iconic Hollywood Recording Studio into sustainable, live/work spaces,” says Erin Rank, President/CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles. “This project aligns closely with our commitment to building a greener and greater Los Angeles.”
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ABOUT THE LOFTS @ CHEROKEE STUDIOS (www.loftsatcherokeestudios.com)
Cherokee Lofts is the most advanced and distinctive building of its kind in Los Angeles. It will be the “greenest” LEED Platinum* Certified mixed-use development in the state of California. The building honors the significant musical and Hollywood history of Cherokee Studios, and MGM and Republic Studios before it, and all the artists who recorded music on the site from David Bowie to Dave Mathews. Cherokee Studios represents the premiere in green design, form, and function in the epicenter of the entertainment capital of the world.

ABOUT RETHINK DEVELOPMENT
REthink Development is an innovative real estate development and consulting company focused on leveraging green building practices and high performance building technologies to build higher value, healthier, and more environmentally sound communities and workplaces for the future. Like Toyota’s design of the Prius, REthink Development advances real estate development by mixing the right technology, design, innovation, and market positioning to deliver a product that smartly differentiates itself in the marketplace. As a result, the popularity, market recognition and perception, and economics of such a differentiated product ultimately drive
profitability upwards while increasing the economic, social, and environmental bottom line (“triple bottom line”) for all immediate and extended stakeholders.
For more information, visit www.rethinkdev.com.

ABOUT HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF GREATER LOS ANGELES
HFHGLA strives to eliminate poverty housing through advocacy, education and partnership with families in need to build simple, decent affordable housing. Since 1990, HFH GLA has built and renovated nearly 600 homes locally and worldwide, transforming the lives of hundreds of individuals.
For more information, visit www.habitatla.org.

ABOUT HOLLYWOOD FOR HABITAT FOR HUMANITY
Hollywood for Habitat for Humanity (HFHFH) is an entertainment industry partnership with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles that launched in 2000 with a 20 house “blitz build.” HFHFH was founded by Screenwriter/Director Randall Wallace (Braveheart, We Were Soldiers) to encourage the entertainment industry to support Habitat for Humanityʼs goal of eliminating substandard housing worldwide. HFHFH works with talent and industry leaders who support the organization through donations, volunteer hours and advocacy. Thousands of volunteers from the entertainment industry have helped build homes in the United States and around the world.
www.hollywoodforhabitat.com
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tegnestuen vandkunsten

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Project Details:

teglværkshavnen – housing
client: SAB v. KAB bygge- og boligadministration and finansgruppen nordic a/s
architects: tegnestuen vandkunsten
landscape: tegnestuen vandkunsten
projekt team: jan albrechtsen, pernille schyum poulsen, flemming ibsen, ole halfdan andersen, thomas nybo rasmussen, jørn hovind, knud kappel, bjarne lade, marie granholm, jens kristian seier
engineer: lemming og eriksson a/s
contractor: KPC-byg a/s copenhagen
120 apartments
address: peter holms vej 9-27, 2450 copenhagen SV, denmark
photos: tegnestuen vandkunsten – seier+seier+seier
The following text are courtesy tegnestuen vandkunsten
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“The project consists of 120 flats, half of them social housing and half of them private, and a communal house placed out in the copenhagen harbor. the context is characterized by large scale structures and a windblown openness, into which the project introduces a smaller scale and ordered spaces.

it is result of a 2003 competition which had an unusual brief, partly in the 50/50 social housing-private ownership mix but not least in the fact that the copenhagen harbor authorities had donated an area of water for the competition as they wanted a model project to boost development of this part of the harbor.”
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“the idea was that the money saved from not having to buy land could instead pay for a large landfill that would accommodate buildings and cars. our proposal was to forget the landfill and to build an artificial island in the form of a one-story parking house to get rid of the cars that plague the spaces between our houses and to get closer to the water.

the sea-view has become an obsession in real estate but maybe looking at the sea is the least interesting and certainly the most passive way to enjoy living near water. our claim was that the spaces between our houses and the wooden decks around the parking island would encourage swimming, fishing, kayaking – and the great thing was that when the first residents moved in this spring, we saw people fishing from their balconies, swimming, even partying on a floating platform…

building on the water was a challenge, but once the island was established, the plan helped organize things: the floor of the parking house was dimensioned for a single, large tower crane on tracks and the houses were built one by one as the crane moved from one end of the island to the other.”
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“the buildings are quite narrow and all flats receive daylight from two or three sides. windows span from floor to ceiling and are for the most part placed next to partition walls to reflect the at times limited nordic light into the rooms – and to make the most of the light reflected off the water.

the general structure is prefabricated concrete, but because of the difficult site elements like balconies, stairs and fully fitted bathrooms were also prefabricated and simply lifted into place.

insulation is to high scandinavian standards. a careful balance between solar gain from windows from autumn to winter and shading to counter overheating during spring and summer was achieved with the articulation of the south facade and calculated by the engineers.”
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Lan Architecture

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Project Details:
PROGRAM Housing – Offices – Retail Area – Parking
PROJECT SIZE 125 000 msq
BUDGET 120 ME
CLIENT HAR Etudes – BANK MED
DATE 2009
LOCATION BEIRUT – Lebanon
STEP Drawings
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The city that wouldn’t disappear

“As we well know, every city is singular. Yet clearly some are more so than others. Beirut is a unique urban phenomenon, literally inhabited by its history, and with each successive war or occupation finding the strength to combat its disappearance.
The 486 MINA EL HOSN, the ‘mirror-tower’ designed by LAN, is to be built in the port area, opposite the Murr Tower, the shell-riddled building that has come to symbolise the civil war. The tower is absolutely novel in concept: the building’s skin will reflect the city surrounding it. One will be able to see it from everywhere, and everywhere one’s view will bounce off its mobile surface into the surrounding city, showing Beirut in all its myriad facets.
And of course behind this innovative technology lies a guiding idea: the impressive outline of 486 MINA EL HOSN, soaring above the skyline, will enable a kind of moving and poetic visual reconstitution of the city – a way of making Beirut itself, its light, diversity, districts and cultures, the tower’s very substance.
The risk lay in constructing a new monument, a new prisoner of the city’s oppressive memory. True, the tower recreates the diverse histories and cultures that have made and are still making the city, but the building is a living, animated, changing entity. Its envelope will be an integral part of the city’s physical reality, giving it back a body, reflecting its myriad facts. In doing so, it will open up an invisible inner space, strike chords within us, almost effacing itself to become an active agent in Beirut’s reconciliation with itself.”
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Analysis
Identification of a city
What is a city? Talking about Beirut, one has to consider not a single context but a multiplicity of contexts.
At the outset, there are evidently the multiplicity, plurality and divisions that are part of the city’s very substance. With the passing years, Beirut has metabolised the communities that have forged Lebanon’s exceptional and tumultuous life into its urban structure, providing a geography and territory for all, each with their own lifestyle, culture and architecture. One only has to cross the city from north to south or east-west to savour the many perfumes of this unique assemblage. At a distance of hardly a kilometre, one sometimes has the impression of being at the other end of the world.

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The concept
From private to public, from vertical to horizontal

The 486 MINA EL HOSN is set in an area near the port close to the Marina and the Solidere district, on a plot flanked by Fakhreddine Street and Omar Daouk Street.
In a district already occupied by high-rise buildings, there was never question of merely building another tower, but rather of fashioning a new urban space, combining private habitat and public circulation, verticality and horizontality.

The 486 MINA EL HOSN project is composed of three elements:

- The Tower proper is the project’s central and most visible element. The novel design of its mirror-envelope reflects views of the city back towards the city, enabling a visual reconstruction of its manifold identity.

- The Base of the tower provides its residents with a public space playing with horizontality to create circulation and meeting places on a human scale, including a shopping mall, a public roof garden and pedestrian alleys.

- The five Blocks are intermediary residential spaces, imagined on the model of the oriental house. Acting as an interface between the project’s two other elements, they play on the dichotomy between exterior and interior.
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The TOWER

The other side of the mirror / Visually reinventing the city
The project’s central element, the tower, enables a visual reinvention of the city.

The tower is the central element of 486 MINA EL HOSN. Its insertion in a district already populated with towers and steeped in history and symbols, prompted an in-depth reflexion on the project’s meaning. It was particularly necessary to create a dialogue with the Murr Tower, a monumental vestige of the civil war and one of the city’s iconic symbols.
But one had to go further than this, to remove the tower from its immediate physical surroundings and integrate it into a broader environment encompassing the entire city, yet do this without resorting to gigantism. Hence the fundamental idea of ‘meta-territory’ which led to the concept of the tower’s envelope as a means of visually reinventing the city, visually reconnecting urban elements beyond the tower’s immediate physical and material surroundings.
The result is an immaterial, constantly changing object, an architecture of lightness, glass and finely hatched steel whose game consists in effacing the building’s tangible limits by rendering the perception of a solid object superfluous within the poetics of the blurred and evanescent.
The city of Beirut, historically marked by division, can also see the tower as an animated mirror reflecting its living and tormented history and geography.

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Interior, exterior: effacing limits

The building, 142 metres high, its structured around a cruciform volume sheathed by a solar protection based on a 25×25m square unit. The facades of the volume at the heart of the tower are in black concrete, and the design of the openings follows the functional logic of the living units. The exterior skin consists of sliding perforated sheet metal panels with a mirror finish, acting as reflectors and protection against heat but also allowing light to enter.
Our vision of the tower is reflected away to other parts of the city but can also penetrate within. The tower’s cross-shaped ground plan frees its corners and imbues it with lightness and evanescence. Its limits are effaced and only the building’s core has substance. Depending on the play of natural light and viewpoints, the tower can physically reinvent itself in the changing light and points of view.

The Bankmed Foundation will occupy the tower’s first six levels, with an access from the street. The entrance hall to the apartments, imbricated at double height, enables access from the base’s inner street. There is a service level between the foundation and apartment levels.
The surface areas of the 20 apartments (duplex and triplex) range from 750 to 1200 m². A lift provides direct access to each apartment, which are entered via a ‘lobby’ acting as a filter between public and private spaces.
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The apartment layout consists of a main living room of around 85 m² occupying one quadrant of the cross, with a smaller living room functioning as a reading room, contiguous to a more intimate ‘family room’. The dining room is located on the opposite side to the living room, next to the servants’ spaces.
Each apartment has two terraces, extensions of the dining room and living room. To make this possible, the corners of the tower were emptied to give the ensemble more lightness. These triple-height terraces provide optimum views of the city, sea and sky.
Each level is characterised by maximum flexibility and circulation around the core. A system of movable partitions and sliding doors enables the opening up of all the interior spaces and increased views of the apartment as a whole.

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The Tower’s technology

The tower has four façades, 140 metres high and 25 metres wide. The aim was to precisely orientate over 30,000 facets of identical size so that the tower can reflect some of Beirut’s monuments and remarkable districts, and that these reflections should be visible from precise areas of the city. The remaining facets are orientated to produce smooth transitions between these panoramic viewpoints.

When light encounters a reflective surface, it is reflected according to its angle of incidence on that surface. The principle of the reflective facade consisted in globally defining the orientation of each facet of the cylinder’s surface to create the desired reflection.
Working with specialists in this field, we produced an automated 3D tool enabling us to visualise different instances of the facade by changing viewpoints at will, both the reflective area and the position of the reflected images on the tower.”

Sources:
TEXT Lan Architecture
HQE CONSULTING FRANCK BOUTTE
STRUCTURE Batiserf
3D IMAGES Rsi-studio.com
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The Architecture Review

“New Zealand practice RTA Studio has just completed this mixed-use project in Auckland. The building is located on the edge of Auckland’s business district in an area where Victorian and Edwardian buildings dominate the street front. The overall form of the building has been broken down, making the medium-sized office building more to scale with the existing buildings.”

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“The facade of the building is of glass reinforced concrete (GRC) and acts as a ‘veil’ to the high street. It is also seen as abstract to the historic buildings around the site.”
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Source: The Architecture Review
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Hermann Kaufmann Architects

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“The residential complex Mühlweg is the result of a property developer competition tendered within the “Climate Protection Program of the City of Vienna” to point out the feasibility of the realization of multi-storey timber constructions or constructions mixed with timber through low energy architecture under the conditions of social residential building in an urban locality.
The project, which was developed by Johannes Kaufmann and Hermann Kaufmann, was created not so much due to the conditions of timber construction per se, but rather was specified concerning considerations for urban development and demonstrates the various possibilities of timber as a building material in order to create high-grade living space. Based on a concept which does not try to confine it from the environment, but instead lets the ‘Marchfeld’ (proper name of the surrounding area) flow through the residences, three structures are placed close to the building boundary. Between the devices in the basement which are carried out in massive design and the upper floors which are carried out in supporting construction of shelves and plywood, an open courtyard area is created with differentiated ambient rooms. The structures are enclosed by highly insulated salient cladding elements made of untreated larch wood which, combined with coloured sliding shutters, create a homelike ambiance. Most of the apartments face southwards or westwards and offer various living situations with a mixture of different types and sizes. (Claudia Wedekind)”
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Project Details:

Name: e_3
Type: Apartment Building
Architect: Kaden Klingbeil Architekten
Location: Prenzlauer Berg – Berlin
Text by: Detail.de – Portal for Architecture
Photos by: Kaden Klingbeil Architekten
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Project Description:

” Are we really to believe that this seven-story apartment building is constructed of timber? There is no indication of it on the exterior; the rendered facade might very well be concealing reinforced-concrete walls. Timber construction was the express wish of the clients, a private initiative. But the architects felt that the wood did not necessarily have to be visible: Firstly, they had difficulty accepting a timber facade amidst solid-masonry apartment buildings dating back to the late nineteenth century, and secondly, from a fire-protection perspective, flame-retardant exterior surfaces would have obvious advantages. By taking a closer look, one will see that the rendered facade does in fact have a relationship to the structural system: Different textures in the rendering trace the timber frame and the infill.

A timber structure right in the middle of Prenzlauer Berg – on top of that, in the dense urban fabric – is in any event something out of the ordinary and not permissible by the building code at this height. With an elaborate fire-protection concept – followed by a lengthy negotiation phase – the architects were ultimately able to convince the authorities of the project’s practicability. The free-standing, unenclosed concrete stairway turned out to be a decided advantage, because it constitutes a readily accessible, smoke-free escape route (see p. 1304ff.). But the decision to set the stairway apart from the apartment building had not originated as part of the fire-protection engineering, but was a major component of the design concept from the start, ensuring that the apartments receive daylight from three sides. In addition to its front facade and the courtyard facade, the building has a third facade. Separating the main structure from the stairway allowed more flexibility in the design of the floor plans: It was possible to eliminate interior load-bearing walls. Therefore, each of the clients could choose how to organize the floor plan – the only requisites were the two concrete shafts for installations. The overall circulation system incorporates variety, too: Some apartments are directly hooked up to the stairway via a short bridge, while others have a spacious threshold doing double-duty as a terrace.” Detail

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from Planetizen
by: Nate Berg

To fight homelessness, some cities provide services, some build housing, and some arrest people. Often it’s a combination of the three, but now many critics are calling on officials to de-emphasize the law enforcement element. Los Angeles is Ground Zero.

“On any given night in America, there are about 664,000 people sleeping on the street. On that same night in Los Angeles, there are more than 40,000 — the highest concentration of homeless people in any American city. Many of these homeless people can be found in downtown L.A.’s infamous ‘Skid Row’ neighborhood. This 50-square block area has been called ground zero for homelessness in the U.S. and one of the most-policed areas in the world, but the thousands bundled in sleeping bags and tents on its sidewalks every night call it home.

They’ve been doing it for decades, and though it’s frowned upon by many in the city – from politicians to law enforcement officials to business leaders to regular residents – it is an accepted reality. The Los Angeles Police Department and the homeless population of Skid Row have a kind of informal agreement that once night falls the area becomes an unofficial campsite. Tents are left standing and occupants are allowed to sleep through the night, uninterrupted by flashlights and badges. Uninterrupted, that is, if all people are doing is sleeping. Any other illegal activity remains subject to punishment, especially since the adoption of a “zero-tolerance” enforcement policy in 2006. Particularly high numbers of citations and arrests in this part of town show that for the LAPD, to permit homeless people to sleep on public property is not to look blindly on its consequences.

A 2009 joint report from the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty singled out Los Angeles as the nation’s “meanest city” in terms of police enforcement of the homeless.

But a 2007 legal settlement between the city and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has watered down that “zero-tolerance” policy to “some-tolerance”. In the face of a 2003 lawsuit seeking to repeal a more than 40 year-old law that prohibits people from sleeping on public sidewalks, the city agreed that until it built 1,250 units of affordable housing it would not enforce the law, allowing people to sleep on public sidewalks from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. anywhere in the city.

Allowing people to sleep legally on public sidewalks may not be the solution to homelessness, but many experts on homelessness and civil rights agree that it represents a major step towards a solution. Arresting people for sleeping on sidewalks criminalizes homelessness, and that, many say, sustains homelessness. Others argue that it is the homeless themselves who perpetuate their own situation by refusing services and remaining on the street. They say the only effective way to deal with them is by strict enforcement and institutionalization.

These represent two of the dominant ideological perspectives on the issue — two states of mind that have shaped this country’s approach to homelessness for the past three decades. But in recent years, some public officials and civic leaders have begun to question the existing models for dealing with homelessness, arguing that the persistence of the problem shows that what has been done up until now isn’t working. Across the country, cities and communities are trying out new strategies to address the issue, and some of them have made significant progress and actually reduced homelessness for the first time in nearly 30 years. These new approaches have much to teach Los Angeles and other American cities that continue to struggle with homelessness today…”

Read the rest of the article here
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from Architectural Record

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The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) released renderings today of their forthcoming MahaNakhon tower and plaza in Bangkok, Thailand, with design led by OMA partner Ole Scheeren, head of the firm’s Beijing office. The 1.6 million-square-foot, $515 million complex plans to include 200 apartments, a 150-room “Bangkok Edition” hotel operated by Marriott Group International with hotelier Ian Schrager, and mixed-use public and commercial space. Construction begins later this year with an intended completion in late 2012.
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“The centerpiece of MahaNakhon is an elaborately designed 77-story tower. At a planned 1,017 feet, it will be the tallest structure in Bangkok. A spiraling incision of “architectural pixels” travels up the building, interrupting the curtain wall to reveal a series of terraces for larger units and shared spaces. This frenetic expression, according to Scheeren, came out of the psyche of Bangkok itself, which he describes as “the most intense and chaotic” of Southeast Asian cities. Throughout the “pixels,” the tower’s conventional glass curtain wall is disintegrated into cubes that will feature a variety of vegetation circling up the building, reflecting what Scheeren calls “the constant struggle between civilization and nature” in the tropical city.

Another primary feature is the fully operable “bi-fold balcony window” that allows the glazed wall to open completely in the building’s smaller units. Scheeren says that this strategy grew out of the fluidity of indoor and outdoor space in Bangkok’s tropical climate. Instead of a separate outdoor terrace—which would have made smaller units much more expensive—Scheeren says the idea was that “suddenly you can open your whole living room facade in to a balcony.”

At ground level, the design attempts to reinvent the tower podium by creating a “valley” between two series of terraces—one at the bottom of the tower and the second as part of an adjacent structure called the “Cube”—which together frame a public square with restaurants, cafés, and other commercial space, creating a connection to the street and surrounding city. This sense is tied into the name of the tower itself, according to Scheeren: “The full name of Bangkok in Thai is Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, which means ‘Bangkok Great Metropolis’—naming the tower MahaNakhon expresses the ambition of the project to be a metropolitan center for the city.” ” Architectural Record
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An analysis of nearby Bangkok skyscrapers, which Scheeren describes as “a collection of very strange characters.”
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This diagram shows the intended dynamism of the ground level “valley,” absorbing activity into the spiraling “pixels” of the tower.
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An elevation of the site, showing the public plaza framed by the tower and adjacent “Cube.”
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