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Urban village

One of the greatest challenges in the design and construction of the Municipal Nursery School of Glyfada was to reassert the architect’s role as a key contributor in the creation of a new public building.

Prefabrication System

A second challenge lay in foregrounding the prefabrication system selected for the building’s implementation. The entire structure was transported from the production factory, and the total construction time amounted to six months. The prefabrication system, defined by the competition’s prerequisites, significantly shaped the building’s form, as the basic module had to be transportable by truck.

Design Philosophy

The central idea of the project was for the nursery school to respond to the scale of its users and to reproduce a model of an urban village, while a key compositional element was the archetypal image of a house as perceived by a child. Its repetition defined the new units, such as the classroom, which consists of three modules, and ultimately the entirety of the nursery school complex.

The competition brief required a single-storey structure, a prefabricated system, and a building footprint equal to the total built area. The limited internal communal spaces of the nursery are a direct outcome of these provisions.

Materials & Sustainability

The nursery school was designed so that all classrooms have three free sides, arranged around a central courtyard, while smaller patios create internal vistas from the shared spaces.

An effort was made for simple materials and conventional construction methods to produce a distinctive composition with a low energy footprint. The internal walls were constructed with a thickness of 10 cm in order to maximize interior space, while the external walls and roofs were clad with external insulation – a relatively bold approach, as it had not previously been implemented in Greece. In this way, together with the construction of pergolas from marine plywood and, naturally, the careful placement of openings, the building operates sustainably, creating conditions of comfort for the children’s activities.

Planting will soon become a fundamental component of the composition, as large plane trees will provide shade to the central courtyard and other trees will accentuate the distinct character of each season.

The project received a Distinction at the 2017 Hellenic Institute of Architecture (HIA) Architecture Awards, in the category of Public and Communal Buildings.

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The Golden Horn Library will be located in Galata, a historic neighborhood at the crossroads of Istanbul, Turkey’s cultural and visual memories.

The Galata District was once the Genoese quarter of the city and was surrounded by its own city walls and towers. Today, nearly all the walls are gone, but the iconic Galata Tower remains and provides the district with its identity.

The Golden Horn Library looks across the waters of the Golden Horn to the Historical Peninsula, overlooking the seven hills of Istanbul, each hill crowned with its own monument. Views include Hagia Sophia, Nuruosmaniye Mosque, Suleymaniye Mosque, The Cistern of Mocius, Fatih Mosque, and Yavuz Selim Mosque to the southeast, and Mihrimah Sultan Mosque to the northwest. These seven hills represent the history of old Constantinople, surrounded by historic city walls. Views of the dancing domes of the seven hills, and the iconic Galata Tower, provide a silhouette of the city over the Golden Horn.

Alper Aytac states: “The Golden Horn Library was conceived as almost a “Turkish Flying Carpet”, woven by the culture and the context”. The profiles of the monuments and the axiality of the seven hills pointing towards the Galata Tower form the main roofscape, with the three closest hills inspiring the roofscape housing the functions of the library and learning center. The remaining hills, set further away, provide a smooth transition between the building and the landscape, functioning as a sort of plinth of public space between interior and exterior.

Sectionally and proportionally, the nearby Azapkapi Sokullu Mosque, designed by the great architect, Sinan, sets the precedent, with its elevated prayer hall almost floating over the city to protect the interior against bustling city noise. This strategy was duplicated in order to insulate the library and learning center from noise. Beneath, the ground level houses the busier and noisier activities of the auditorium, a spiraling children’s library, and a restaurant.

Alper Aytac states: “The Golden Horn Library is a beacon of knowledge in the city of Istanbul, and it aims to be an instrument of connectivity between symbols of the city on both sides of the Golden Horn. It radiates energy that is injected into the city, rather than funneling energy out of the city for itself.”

Aytaç Architects

The post Golden Horn Library was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) is New York’s new central circulating library, built within the 1914 shell and steel frame of the Mid-Manhattan Library which it replaces, the 16,722 m² building is topped with a spectacular angular roof and public rooftop amenities to make a new urban icon on Fifth Avenue.

SNFL is a new-generation library for all New Yorkers, with special facilities for young users, adult learning, and business. It offers the perfect contemporary complement to NYPL’s world-famous Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (SASB), located across Fifth Avenue from SNFL. SASB opened in 1911, designed by architects Carrère & Hastings in a glorious Beaux-Art style, and receives over 1.7 million visits a year as the mothership of NYPL’s reference collections.

Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle’s concept was to leverage the synergy of SNFL and SASB and bring them together as NYPL’s Midtown Campus. New features at SNFL reflect this harmony between the buildings: long tables that recall the impressive scale of those in SASB’s Rose Main Reading Room, ceiling artwork in the Long Room that echoes the neo-classical paintings set in SASB’s ceilings, and the use of classic materials including natural stone, terrazzo, and oak.

SNFL’s ground floor is arranged around an internal street that runs beneath a floating linear canopy of wood beams, from the Fifth Avenue entrance to the welcome desks. Located on one side are elevators, stairs, and a mezzanine balcony. On the other side, a rectangular opening in the floorplate reveals the lower ground floor, which houses a Children’s Library and Teen Center. The Children’s Library play area enjoys natural light, and the Teen Center has a dedicated staircase and study and media rooms decorated with bold and whimsical commissioned murals by artist Melinda Beck. An internal window in the lower ground floor allows visitors to see SNFL’s book-sorting machine in action.

SNFL has an annual circulation of two million items, and this sheer volume generates challenges in access, organization, and storage. The design solution offers more space, more books, more seats, and lower shelves. The heart of the library is the Long Room, a new space that truly brings the idea of a library into the old structure, which was originally designed as a department store. A triple height void has been cut into it, 9m (31 feet) wide and rising 26m (85 feet) from the second story to a vibrant new abstract ceiling artwork by Hayal Pozanti.This dramatic linear atrium separates three floors of flexible, daylit reading areas on one side and five levels of book stacks on the other, a creative and efficient solution to balancing the need for a browsable collection and the desire for more public reading room space. Book stacks are a vertical means of storing books dating back to the nineteenth century, and here they are revived to give open access for library users. Through the library’s 40th Street windows, passers-by will see the northern end of the book stacks, visible as a continuous vertical wall of book spines welcoming New Yorkers into the space to browse.

The Long Room’s atrium wall at the southern end is deep red, and perforated with new windows to bring light from a pocket park to the south. Its distinctive look assists wayfinding. Ramps gently slope to connect the different floor heights of the book stack levels and reading areas. The reading areas extend from the atrium to the Fifth Avenue facade, and have bespoke reading tables assembled in situ, many supported by the building’s original steel frame. These oak-surfaced tables stretch up to 20 meters (66 feet) in length. Readers at these tables sit in chairs designed in collaboration with Thos. Moser exclusively for NYPL branch libraries.

Above the Long Room, the fifth and sixth floors host the Business Center and the Pasculano Learning Center facilities. SNFL’s vertical arrangement of programs improves the user experience and journey of learning. The materiality of the library contributes to that user experience, for example in terrazzo flooring and travertine presented in the elevator banks.

SNFL now delivers to the Midtown cityscape a sensational new public roof attraction and a striking sculptural addition. Elevators and stairs continue to the seventh floor, which is built at the original building’s roof level. This new floor has pitched wood slat ceilings and contains a flexible 268-occupant conference and event center. An L-shaped roof terrace runs above the 40th Street and Fifth Avenue facades and includes a roof garden and an adjacent indoor café. It is Manhattan’s only free, publicly-accessible roof terrace and offers staggering Midtown views, including across Fifth Avenue to the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building and surrounding skyscrapers.

Above the seventh floor, a dramatic new roof slopes up to cover mechanical equipment, reaching 56m above street level. Its angled pitches, and a patinated copper-colored aluminum surface, are inspired by Manhattan’s Beaux Art copper-clad mansard roofs, two 1904 examples of which are visible from the terrace. As a new native New Yorker, the form also nods to the tapering spires of New York’s art deco skyscrapers and faceted facades of its newer towers. This spectacular roof is to be ‘a Wizard Hat for all New Yorkers!’

Mecanoo , Beyer Blinder Belle

John Bartlestone , Max Touhey

The post Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The New Archaeological Museum in Chania is an exhibition space for antique artefacts, and a pole for producing and advancing culture. The result was shaped by conceptual considerations, the terrain features, and the program, technologies, and materials.

The building site is in the historical Chalepa district, with a sea view, relatively close to the Chania Old Harbor. The main idea was to create a building shell with an atrium; adapting to the site was the main consideration in the design.

The limited field of view from the site entrance led to a reduced building height for the overground part, to secure the horizon view beyond. From the entrance, one has an immediate perception of the entire circulation network and wayfinding to the exhibition halls, the museum shop, the amphitheater, and the restaurant. Spaces are demarcated by clear surfaces, to create an appropriate environment for exhibitions.

The need for a recognizable Museum, given its public, cultural character, was also a key consideration in the design. Through the composition and form of the volumes, as well as the texture and color of the cladding materials, a discrete yet identifiable shell was created, as a contemporary building, expressive of its time, yet designated for accommodating past civilizations. The linear, geometric shell aims for a timeless aesthetic, through expressive restraint; this is inscribed in the volumes, surfaces, materials, and the main façade, which is flat and defined by a trapezoidal shape, dominated by the main entrance.

Natural lighting penetrates the building from its sides, controlled in a way that prevents excessive reflection. The openings are not immediately visible, and their role is confided to creating the proper exhibition atmosphere. Exhibits benefit from artificial lighting.

The architectural design created the potential for alternative activities and exhibitions at the new museum and designated their interactive character. The result is a timeless building.

Bobotis+Bobotis Architects

Thomas Gerasopoulos

ek 240 | September 2019

The post New Archaeological Museum in Chania was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The new Manufacturing, Technology and Engineering Center (MTEC) at Daley College is an addition to the Richard J. Daley campus. The MTEC sets the framework for a wider master plan. The project unifies the existing complex by creating a campus environment with engaging pathways and collaborative spaces throughout.

Rising from the transformed parking lot, the MTEC project speaks to issues larger than architecture; it seeks to revitalize a Chicago southwest neighborhood by creating a connective message that all are significant and welcome. Daley College tasked JGMA with removing the negative stereotypes that exist in the workforce when pertaining to manufacturing careers. Often suggesting these careers as devoid of dignity and reserved typically for minority populations. The project reverses the misconception through a design focused on celebrating state-of-the-art manufacturing spaces and proves careers in this industry require tech and skills as advanced as any other.

The design strategy utilizes building transparency to showcase machines, equipment, and products integral to the learning objectives of the colleges as well as provide a visual connection to the surrounding West Lawn community. The seamless fluidity to the building’s form was inspired by the constant and linear flow of the manufacturing process. The building spans the main thoroughfare with a strong industrial bridge that links the south and north campus of Daley College.

The new building celebrates the manufacturing industry through the expression of materials such as metal panels, glass, and exposed steel. In addition, the underside of the elevated bridge is intentionally painted caution yellow, bringing the manufacturing expression to the exterior.

The transparency of the building provides a similar experience for even the casual passerby, by providing a look into the advanced technical nature of manufacturing today.

The project challenges the latent stereotypes of a community college and alters the psychology of simply crossing the street to go to class. Through dynamic spatial organizations and site responsive architecture, the MTEC provides students and staff a unique experience from the moment they walk into the building. The circulation spaces inside the building intentionally collide with seating areas, platforms, and alcoves to encourage students to congregate and participate in incidental learning between peers. There is a combination of exterior and interior terraces for users to enjoy in the warm weather months. These green areas facilitate the students’ and faculty’s interaction providing connections with nature and lead to increased cognitive function and wellness, as well as creating a more unified campus.

As the MTEC is now the front door to the campus, thorough analysis was conducted to the user experience with regards to security, wayfinding, and new learning opportunities. It was imperative that the new addition set-up a framework for further transformation of the existing building while still celebrating its current legacy. The unique exterior façade of the MTEC building is phase one in a masterplan to completely rebrand and re-clad the existing facilities to create one new energized campus.

The new building will not only be a catalyst for growth and change within City Colleges of Chicago, but also inspire the pursuit of manufacturing careers as a sophisticated and high-tech learning path.

JGMA

The post Daley College was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

Moving Dunes is inspired by the early arts. It is an extension of the temporary exhibit From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-face Picasso, Past and Present, at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA). The plastic approach of cubist painters questions the role of perspective in visual representation. Anamorphosis, which is the distortion of the subject reconfiguring itself according to the position of the body in space, is one of the methods used. Through this process, Moving Dunes introduces the public to the essence of this approach in a playful way.

 By manipulating the street surface, large ripples are generated, recalling the features of a body or a face. Reflective spheres and geometric shapes amplify patterns and multiply points of view. As the observer moves, the street transforms, shapes are reversed, the ground comes alive and destabilizes. Moving Dunes is an experiential mirage in the heart of Downtown Montreal. Along the way, the passer-by discovers the presence of spheres reflecting the different buildings of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, all unique in their architecture and history. Moving Dunes brings together the real and the virtual worlds and awakens the senses.

The MMFA animated the pedestrian area of ​​avenue Du Musée, which has become a must-see for citizens and tourists alike. The goal was to pedestrianize the street and to create a temporary signature layout. Among the challenges encountered were the development of a concept in relation to the theme of the exhibition, the activation of a pedestrian public space while allowing the passage of emergency vehicles, and the creation of an experience with high media impact on a limited budget.

NÓS

Alex Lesage-Threefold

Raphaël Thibodeau

The post Moving Dunes was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

Located in the center of the historical area, the site of the Museum is adjacent to the Imperial Kiln ruins surrounding many ancient kiln complexes.

Jingdezhen is known as the “Porcelain Capital” in the world because it has been producing pottery for 1,700 years. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Jingdezhen exported a huge amount of porcelains to Europe.

Jingdezhen was growing naturally fitting in the valleys surrounding rivers, hills, and mountains because of the porcelain industry. The early settlements of the city developed around kiln complexes which included kiln, workshops, and housing. The street pattern was generated by nature and the porcelain industry. Most of the small alleys in between kiln complexes have always approached the Chang river in order to transport porcelain products to the river. The main streets have always been along with Chang river to bring all businesses and commerces together.

Situated on a fairly restricted historical area adjacent to the east side of the Imperial Kiln ruins, the plan of the Imperial Kiln Museum was aligned with the north-south street grid of Jingdezhen. With its entry, water pools, and bridge facing west, embracing the open file of Imperial Kiln Ruins to welcome visitors from Imperial Kiln Relic Park. Public pedestrians can wander through the forest under the green canopy, going through the bridge, flowing into the foyer of the museum.

The Imperial Kiln Museum comprises more than half a dozen brick vaults base on the traditional form of the kiln, each of the vaults is of a different size, curvature, and length. They were naturally applied to the site, carefully integrated with many existing ruins including a few ruins that were found after the construction.

The unparalleled, liner, and arched structures of the museum, like old kilns, reach below the level of the street to not only give the flexibility to adapt itself into the complicated site, but also to achieve the intimate scale of interior space. This strategy – in part also as a response to the height of surrounding historical buildings – leads to productive ambiguity in relation to the building’s horizontal datum. The “insertion” of the building into the ground of the site produces a series of public spaces at street level. More importantly, it allows for the design of a number of more intimate open vaults, and courtyards within the museum. Most of those public spaces are covered under shaded and are protected from the rain because it is hot and it rains a lot during summer in Jingdezhen. One of those open spaces, two open vaults sited in both ends, will also reveal the traces of the historic fabric on the site.

When one walks on the bridge, enters the foyer, and turns left, he will pass a series of arched exhibition spaces lightly varied in size and with contradicting openness (enclosed or open to the sky) to encounter a gentle stair, in the end, flowing down to the underground level with five sunken courtyards. Meanwhile, people can obtain a three-in-one (kilns-porcelains-people) museum experience when they see those porcelain, ruins, and sunken courtyards which create manifold layers’ experiences with ancient bricks on the façade. As someone turns right at the foyer, he will respectively pass the bookstore, cafe, tea room, and finally reach a semi-outdoor area under the arch, witnessing a picturesque scene. When daytime surfaces, these arches reflect the waves of water while low horizontal gaps tempt people to sit down on the floor to see the long horizon of the Imperial kiln ruins. A similar surprise would be created when someone sees the Longzhu Pavilion of the Imperial kiln ruins through the vertical seams when he is on the way to the auditorium before accessing the foyer.

Five sunken courtyards varied in size have a different theme: gold, wood, water, fire, soil. Those five themes not only reflect old Chinese thinking about the earth but also associate with porcelain making techniques.

The overall experience of the museum tries to rediscover the roots of Jingdezhen, to recreate the past experience among kiln, porcelain, and human being.

The architect was fascinated by local ancient kiln tectonic and material. Looking in the past, craftsmen built the brick kiln without scaffolding in a very special way. Thin and light brick kiln achieved a maximum interior space with minimum materials, the brick kilns appeared in organic forms reflecting heat flow from one end to another.

The basic structure of the museum is an arch structure system, it is made up of concrete poured in between two layers of masonry brick walls. There is a small arch to be layout perpendicularly to connect two arches.

Using recycled kiln bricks to build houses and all kinds of buildings is a significant character in Jingdezhen because brick kilns have to be demolished every two or three years in order to keep a certain thermal performance of the kilns. The entire city was covered by recycled kiln bricks. Those bricks record warmth and are inseparable from the lifeblood of the city. In the past, the children would take a warm brick from the firing kilns to place in their schoolbags to keep themselves warm the whole day during freezing winter.

The materials of the museum are dominated by bricks, recycled old kiln bricks are mixed with new bricks to reflect the local culture of construction.

This interweaving of two different historical phases proposed by the combination of new and old bricks must arouse interest, curiosity, create new questions, and give new answers. These create interaction with people’s minds who inevitably evoke memories and enjoy a unique experience. The past cannot be erased but can be rewritten by recounting a new awareness and maturity, a sort of contemporary archeology.

The visitors can have a 360-degree sensory experience through the repeated contact between exterior and interior that stimulates the touch, smell, hearing, and sight and transports them into a sort of trip between past, present, and nature.

Even the light evokes active and tangible memories and is the proof of how ancient techniques can be reinterpreted and reread in a contemporary key.

The interior natural light is achieved by both skylight and sunken courtyard and is inspired by smoke holes of the ancient brick kiln. The skylight in the hollow cylinder shape is distributed on the top part of the arch to provide natural light during daytime and artificial light at night time.

Studio Zhu-Pei

schranimage

Tian Fangfang

Zhang Qinquan

The post Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

In a beachside residential area of Herzliya, TEO (the Theodor Herzl Center for culture, art, and content) comes into view as a distinct single-story building, eminently lower than the neighborhood’s enclosed private mansions. The freestanding TEO opens up a wide panorama toward the west—the horizon over the ocean—thus rupturing the visual and social narrative of walled luxury villas this area of Herzliya is known for. The insertion of a fully exposed public cultural center as an event in the surrounding urbanscape was key to the design strategy.

TEO provides a unique functional facility to the city’s art-practicing and culture-seeking residents. The plan is designed within a 50 by 50 m² square around an offset central patio surrounded by the various programs: a music conservatory, a dance school, art and ceramics studios, a gallery, a senior recreation center, and a cafeteria. An upper partial floor houses a library complemented by a 300 m² open deck.

The uniqueness of the design lies in the coherence of a precise geometric module that is strictly enforced throughout; Concrete (on-site casts & precast units), textured glass, and metal flow seamlessly from exterior to interior surfaces. Cutting-edge sealing techniques were used to protect the building from the rain while maintaining its flat roof silhouette and tight proportions.  

The patio (292 m²) makes available a space of quiet and welcoming scale. The floated, draining floor provides a pleasing horizontal surface from which a single mature oak tree rises. Direct sunlight from above dynamically projects its presence across the patio’s surfaces, creating ever-changing visual compositions of organic against geometrical form.

A.Lerman Architects Ltd.

Amit Geron, Nimrod Levy

The post TEO Center for Culture, Art and Content was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The former Lourcine barracks are located in Paris’ 13th district and comprise a parade ground with accompanying military buildings erected in 1875. The project calls for elements of the University of Paris I – library, lecture theatre, classrooms, offices – to be installed within the old buildings and in basement levels under the parade ground.

The project aims to make the most of this Parisian heritage, taking a precision approach that will as far as possible retain the existing spaces and preserve the historic character of the site. ChartierDalix is seeking to adapt the project and its new activities to the buildings without erasing their past. The parade ground retains its central, unifying and symbolic role, as a landscaped forecourt sloping down to frame the new access to the gallery and lecture theatre. Lecture and classrooms are inserted into the existing buildings, making the most of their spatial qualities (ceiling heights, noble materials).

The qualities of the existing site are magnified by the complete freeing up of the spaces: the simple application of flocking on the underside of the arches (acoustics and fire prevention), as well as the complete absence of false ceilings, thus revealing the technical installations, helps to maintain the existing volumes.

A certain “brutalism”, linked to the visibility of all the utility networks, contrasts with the fine details of the made-to-measure furniture and the nobility of the raw materials (steel, solid oak, floorboards).

For the interior design of the reading rooms in the library, we have chosen to position the aisles along the façades to allow the light to freely enter the building and thus free up the view of the succession of windows.

A monumental winding staircase marks the entrance to the library at both the garden level and the ground floor up to the first floor. Its size makes it a remarkable architectural feature and reveals the volume of the building and the height of a whole section.

The eastern end of the connecting gallery of the Lourcine site leads to a section that opens onto the Rue Broca. The reception level thus provides a direct link with the outside and the street at garden level.

In the upper floors, a wide and generous walkway filled with natural light provides the opportunity to create a meeting place over several floors: each floor is thus linked by the main, open staircase that provides direct access to the classrooms without taking the closed staircases.

The garden level gallery, linked to these walkways, transforms them into places to share and exchange in which a number of alcoves have been built for working: building 2 thus becomes a sort of “learning centre” perfectly adapted to new ways of learning and teaching.

The 500-seat amphitheatre, a major feature of the Lourcine campus, is installed at the lowest point of the parade ground where the old car park was and along the north / south axis of the site. It is accessed through a gallery entirely covered with self-weathering steel that provides a continuity with the central esplanade.

The self-weathering steel, a warm, vibrant and changing material, accompanies the visitor throughout all the outside public areas and extends right into the interior. It is a skin that shows the marks of time and embodies the new face of the Lourcine campus.

Chartier Dalix Architects

Sergio Grazia

The post Lourcine Barracks Rehabilitation was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

A small vacant lot located at the epicenter of Montreal student life, just north of the McGill University’s Milton gates, was the basis of the latest design by KANVA. The site endured a fire in the early 20th century, which flattened the existing 19th century historic stone house; this tragedy represents only one of many narrative layers embedded in the land. The historical context of the site became the primary inspiration for the urban renewal project, which lead to the exploration of an innovative concrete fabrication technique: Photoengraved concrete panels that enabled the building to tell a story. The project encapsulates an architecture ‘parlante’; an architecture that heightens the intellectual and perceptual experience of its inhabitants by stimulating active looking. The film sequence photoengraved into the concrete façade is extracted from the sequence of stills from the film: Montreal Fire Department on Runners (Edison, 1901). The film was carefully chosen for both its historical and contextual relevance: referencing the fire that vacated the site and highlighting the prolific inventor Thomas Edison, an important contributor to the development of ‘tableaux mouvants’ and motion pictures.

Materiality constraints arose from the outset of the project due to the fact that the site is positioned in a Montreal heritage zone; the palette was limited to masonry. The design team approached this predicament as more of an opportunity to challenge conventions and to test the limits of concrete. The process of photoengraving concrete was selected for its sensitive properties; it does not overwhelm the viewer but rather invites the user to re-imagine a story, as they move past or through the building and the film stills progressively move in and out of focus. The refined technique of photoengraving is an intricate tool facilitating a playful and adaptable narrative, on an otherwise brutal and barren material.

Specifically, the process of photoengraving translates an image into a positive/negative representation, which is then converted into a series of vertical striations that form the image. Playing on light and shadow, each film still, and by extension, the sequence in the photoengraving technique is perceived in an ever changing, dynamic manner as the sun’s oblique angles accentuate or the clouds soften the visual perception of the vertical ribs that form the image. The panes of glass on the front facade are also screen-printed with complementary images, helping to achieve the desired sequential effect. As students occupy or visitors pass by the site, their proximity and angle relative to the façade, in addition to the speed at which move, transform the way the sequence is viewed.

The choice of program for the building, a student residence, came naturally due to the proximity of the University campus. The two defining public and private volumes host internally their respective private and public functions. The intimate residence houses thirty (30) individual rooms, communal living spaces such as kitchen, lounge, living room etc. Each student room is designed as an optimal module, outfitted with floor to ceiling built-in storage that frames the bed along one wall, and allocates an alcove opposite to slide in a desk. All private rooms give onto the quiet communal garden, which wraps the entire footprint of the building, providing both recreation and security for the users. The side façade and garden abides by the same conceptual cinematic strategies; the yellow markers are a graphic way of marking individual living modules. The primary entrance is through a porte-cochère, a contemporary tribute to Montreal’s traditional method of building a protected passage for horse carriages, which offers an intimate approach to the building. The common spaces are positioned within the public domain of the building giving onto busy University Street and are designed to optimize flexibility and incite appropriation by the student residents.

Edison Residence creates an animated architecture by using new technology in a socially engaging way. It calls for participation and reflection by the viewer as he or she contemplates the transformation and evolution of the site, and by extension the City. Most importantly, the Edison residence will be an inspiring living space for a student as they broaden their horizons.

KANVA

The post Edison Residence was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

In 2014 the Barcelona City Council held an architectural competition for the landscape planning of an interior urban block and a sports facility consisting of an indoor heated swimming pool and a sports court. The winning proposal by architects Anna Noguera and Javier Fernandez, recently complete, was valued for its landscape integration of a singular greened building in an interior urban block and its commitment to sustainability and respect for the environment.

Turó de la Peira Quarter is characterized by the abundance of low-cost social housing from the ’60s and a high density of buildings. A district with a lack of green areas and a shortage of public facilities. The urban environment before the intervention was an unstructured space consisting of a sum of residual spaces; a space occupied by a sports court tucked between neighboring buildings, and a pool of obsolete facilities. An urban landscape of hard pavement, concrete walls and total absence of vegetation.

The concentration of the two facilities in a single building allowed to free space to create a new garden. A space of permeable surfaces, where the unleveled slopes are bridged with green slopes. A place of social relationship, a preamble to the new facility. A garden that provides quality of life and serves as a support of biodiversity.

The new facility is composed of the overlap of two large spaces; a Heated swimming pool on the ground floor and sports court on the upper floor. The building is placed half-buried, adapting to the topography and bridging the difference in level between the two streets. The facade to Sant Isle Street has an urban character, with a corner porch that extends the sidewalk and invites us to enter.

The building minimizes its impact on the garden with a green gallery that surrounds it. The volume is one more element of the garden, not mimicking but dialoguing with it.

The proposal places special emphasis on the perceptions that the space transmits to the user. The natural lighting, the vegetation and the use of wood provide a warm atmosphere, away from the coldness of other similar facilities.

The design of the building has been carried out with passive architecture criteria. The compact and embedded volume in the ground minimizes the façade surface avoiding thermal losses. The climatic conditioning and ventilation of the court take place exclusively with natural systems. 24 skylights and lateral windows monitored by sensors, ensure proper cross-ventilation and lighting. The thermal insulation of the whole enclosure has been selectively treated according to solar orientation.

The building has an aerothermal system that allows the recovery of heat for the production of hot water. The photovoltaic panels occupy the entire roof deck and generate 95.534 kWh per year.

The building frame is in 100% Prefabricated Laminated Wood. The excellent characteristics of the wood concerning its lifecycle were one of the reasons for choosing the prefabricated system in laminated wood. It was also assessed its good mechanical performance, its adequacy to the environment of the pool, its lightness and consequent savings in the foundations and its short construction time (8 weeks).

A green gallery surrounds the building protecting it from the sun and creating a bioclimatic space. The plantation system is hydroponic, chosen for its lightness, the durability of the substrate, the capacity of water retention and ease of installation. From the court, the entire green facade is perceived through the curtain wall, enjoying its flowering changes according to the time of the year.

A large tank located in the basement collects the water from the roof for recycling and use for the entire irrigation of the green facade through a hydroponic system. In the garden’s site development, draining strips at the bottom of the slopes collect rainwater to return it to the water table.

Arquitectura Anna Noguera, (Anna Noguera, Javier Fernandez)

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