Interior Design Sense

Architects: ACXT
Location: Bilbao, Spain
Architect in Charge: César Azcárate
Project Architects: Gonzalo Carro, Raimundo Bambó, Javier Vergara, Jorge Minguet, Manuel Andrades, Marc Rips, Iñigo Arana, María Labastida, Ruth Mendoza, Javier Oteiza, Cruz Lacoma, Eloy Olabarri
Project year: 2005
Constructed Area: 450,000 sqm
Project Managment: Alexander Zeuss, Eva Madariaga, Álvaro Gutiérrez
Structure: Fernando del Campo
Electrical Engineer: Javier Aróstegui, Jon Ochoa
Lighting: ALS Lighting
Photographer: Carlos Casariego

The new International Exhibition Centre to be situated in the land formerly occupied by an industrial factory in Barakaldo, is an ambitious project to construct a new exhibition centre which will be provided with the most modern installations from the architectural, functional and technological point of view.

The exhibition use is carried out in 6 pavilions situated 3 to 3 along the main indoor axis. This axis really becomes the backbone of the building, since it houses at different levels the flows which take place at the fair: vehicles, lorries and pedestrians. Thus, on the lower levels there are three underground parking floors to house 4,200 vehicles. On a level above, the lorries also move longitudinally having direct access to the pavilions for loading and unloading. Finally, on the upper level and with direct access from the street, pedestrians walk along a large indoor street with access to natural light, which becomes the main space for relation where different complementary services round up the exhibition use.

At the genesis of the constructive project the aim has been to make use of the potential of the building for the installation of energy saving mechanisms: the placing of solar panels on the roof of the building is going to allow to produce electric energy for self-consumption. The offices will be air-conditioned with a radiant ceiling, an alternative confirmed in view of the need to save energy.

About ACXT

In a cultural environment in which creativity is often likened to personal genius, ACXT is convinced of the potential benefits of combining two separate levels of analysis in the creative process. On the one hand, there is the particular contribution of the individual and, on the other, the collective results of working in groups. In ACXT individuals assume personal responsibility for the development of a project within the framework of an association of professionals. We feel part of a team and of a collective effort that enriches us at a personal level and challenges each one of us to improve as individuals, but also affords us the freedom to give expression to our own proposals. Those responsible for each project are recognised as individual creators and therefore each project is also analysed within the context of the personal development of those who conceived it. As a consequence, the way in which projects are conceived is not the exclusive domain of one person, especially when these are analysed as finished objects. Common aspects do exist but they have more to do with the process and the way the work is delivered than with the final result. We are made richer through a permanent collaboration as professionals and at the same time we are guaranteed sufficient scope to take decisions in accordance with the characteristics of each situation within a system that ensures autonomy and freedom. Our work entails, therefore, an essential paradox, namely, how to reconcile the idea of personal creativity and working in a group.

This villa is located in plot #06 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: MOS
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Project leaders: Michael Meredith, Hilary Sample
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm aprox

We based our proposal upon a traditional Chinese courtyard house typology. Each room and function is housed within an individual building volume, which are connected at the corners to remove the need for hallways and excessive circulation space.

The relationship of the house to the sun is critical. In a climate such as Ordos’ which experiences hot summers and cold winters, it is the architectural form which integrates the effects of the sun’s light and heat with the comfort of the occupied spaces. The house controls heat and light through two primary aspects: window placement and the solar chimney.

In the wintertime when the sun is lower and the need for internal heat greater, the windows and skylights, oriented towards the south, west and east, allow sunlight to enter. Passive heating is achieved as the masonry walls and floors absorb the accompanying solar radiation which then is released to heat the spaces.

In the summer, when the sun is higher and thetemperatures greater, it is more important to keep the occupied spaces cool. The deep window sills help to shade the interior spaces from the higher summer sun while still allowing in ambient light. Because heat rises, the solar chimney acts to draw hot air up and away from the occupied spaces, and the hot air is further removed through the operable skylights. Lower, cooler air is then drawn into the space at the occupancy level, further helping to cool the rooms. Furthermore, the masonry walls and floors slow and decrease the transmission of solar radiation into the interior spaces.

This villa is located in plot #80 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: Rocker-Lange
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Project leaders: Ingeborg M. Rocker & Christian J. Lange
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm

The project called “Inside Out|Outside In” is part of the Ordos 100 project and discusses the relationship and fusion of interior and exterior space.  Rocker – Lange calls for an architecture of milieu – that an architecture of the circumstances and conditions by which it is surrounded.  An “Architecture of Milieu” no longer strictly distinguishes between its inside and outside – it rather considers itself as always at once on multiple scales inside and outside, as architecture and environment.  Consequently architecture and its environment are thought of not only as “inside” and “outside” of one another, but as zones of possible relationships, in which “inside” and “outside” vary and shift to accommodate changing seasons and usage patterns.

The “Architecture of Milieu” is an architecture of situation rather than site: An indefinitely expandable and differentiable ribbon serves as the continuous organizational strategy, inscribing zones of different degrees of interior and exterior space vanishing the separation between them. Especially in the widely varying Mongolian climate, seasonal usages of living areas may change dramatically between the cold winters and warm summers; by creating an architecture which is interwoven with its surroundings, we allow the climate to work with the inhabitants, rather than against them.

This villa is located in plot #51 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: HHF Architects
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Project Team: HERLACH HARTMANN FROMMENWILER with Nicole Baron, Daichi Takano, Kohsuke Uesugi and Christian Weyell
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Site Area: 1,521 sqm
Constructed Area: 925 sqm

Context and shape of the building

The physical context for the Ordos 100 project is limited to climatical conditions and some few regulations by the master plan done by FAKE Design. Within Ordos 100, this project is simply the HHF house. It’s making an issue out of the fact that 99 other architects are simultaneously and independently planning 99 houses with an identical program within the same master plan. The outer shape of the building and the shed roof is directly developed as an embossed writing of the letters HHF, acronym of the architects and name of the office. This logo can only be read from the air or in the model. From the street level the writing is never readable. From the ground, the shape of the roof is rising above the surrounding vegetation, reflecting the diverse light situations and various shapes of the rooms inside the building.

The outside area is planned as an extension of the nearby park. Because of the extreme climatical conditions and the low construction costs, the building is kept as compact as possible.

Construction and technical aspects

To guarantee earthquake protection even with all the empty spaces on the second floor, every floor slab is supported separately. Each of these floor slabs is lying on the central concrete core and on one outside wall, which is going without cease from the foundation to the roof. To stabalize the building, the concrete walls next to the stairs are built as buttress walls. The external wall is a rear ventilated brick construction, whereas the inner wall is a combination of a cast-in-place concrete framework with a brickwork infill. The outer shell is an exposed brickwork within a concrete frame. From the roof the rainwater is brought down in downpipes, located between concrete pilaster strips. ‘The shafts for all technical installations are integrated into the central core. In the basement the pipes are collected in a suspended ceiling, from where they are brought to the installation zone.

In the basement there is also a central air-conditioning for the whole building. The intake for the fresh air is removed from the house and integrated in the garage box. In the house the air is distributed from the core of the building.

This villa is located in plot #89 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: nArchitects
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Project team: Eric Bunge, Mimi Hoang; Dominique Gonfard, Hubert Pelletier, Alice Wong (Project Manager), Adam Vana
Engineers: Ove Arup NY; MEP (Mahadev Raman), Structures (Markus Schulte, Thomas Claassen)
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm

Conceived as an Inner House within an Outer House, our villa combines two distinct spatial and thermal conditions. The Inner House is designed as a compact, essential house, containing 60% of the project’s total volume and 75% of its area. Outer House provides a protective enclosure, and a unique series of interconnected, voluminous, sky-lit spaces. This layered strategy responds to the extreme swings of the Ordos desert climate with efficiencies in climatic and material strategies. At the same time, Villa-Villa provides its inhabitants with a variety of modes of living, as they occupy a house that expands and contracts according to the seasons.

Inner House: In this domestic core, three single-storey volumes stack on top of each other, resulting in a series of terraces on the roofs of the volumes below. Each Inner House floor is optimized in its shape, orientation and organization for particular patterns of living. The first floor privileges connections to the landscape and the spaces of the Outer House. Experienced in the round, the second floor’s open configuration connects views to the outside across a continuous living space. Functions are positioned according to solar exposure, with the kitchen and breakfast area on the Eeast, the dining room sheltered from the western sun on the South, and the living room with views of the sunset on the West. Iin the sleeping quarters on the 3rd floor, four bedroom suites face different directions, each with a window on one of the four facades. The roof is designed as a fourth floor, stacked upon the volumes below, and optimized in shape and orientation to house a photovoltaic array.

Outer House: Gardens are incorporated into the diverse spaces and terraces of the Outer House, rather than exposed to the extreme climate and high rate of evaporation of Ordos. The material, light and spatial qualities of these intermediate outdoor-like spaces contrast dramatically with those of the Inner House. While warm woods, stone, glass and plaster line its carefully finished rooms, the materials of the Outer House are rougher: brick floor, painted brick walls on the interior, and an exterior surfaced in various brick textures. The single height stacked floors of the Inner House connect to the landscape horizontally through large window openings. In contrast, the spaces of the Outer House are varied in height, largely opaque, and illuminated by skylights. These opposing atmospheres create a constant fluctuation between inside and outside, side and top light, texture and abstraction.

Climate: Villa – Vvilla expands and contracts with shifting use and changing temperatures. In order to conserve energy, its inhabitants can choose to live mostly in the compact Inner House during the winter. This heated and conditioned zone is protected with 60mm of batt insulation, while the Outer House is in turn wrapped with 120mm of rigid insulation, and heated mostly by passive means. Our engineers project that this approach will maintain temperatures in the Outer House at a ~30% differential between the Inner House and the outdoors. Inhabitants can choose to further warm this intermediate space with radiant heating provided in the first floor slab, or by simply opening the single glazed sliding doors separating it from the Inner House. During the rest of the year, domestic activity can cross this thermal threshold, flowing from interior to outdoor-like interior and on to the outdoors.

Architects: Jensen & Skodvin Arkitektkontor
Location: Bad Gleichenberg, Austria
Design Period: 2005-2007
Construction period: 2005-2008
Client: HCC/Kappa
Project Architects: Olav Jensen(pl), Børre Skodvin (pl), Ane Forfang, Carl Patrik Larsson, Helge Lunder, Minna Riska, Dagfinn Sagen, Thomas Knigge, Torunn Golberg, Torstein Koch, AnneLise Bjerkan
Collaborating Local Architect: Domenig Wallner, Graz
Landscape: Kim Wilkie
Budget: 1.000.000 EURO (US $31.52 millions)
Constructed Area: 17,500 sqm
Photographs: JSA

The project is situated in a protected park and consist of a treatment area with about 50 different rooms for medical treatments, a four star hotel with several different restaurants and cafes, and a public thermal bath for the patients and other guests.

The waiting areas in the middle of the treatment rooms for the patients are shaped around courtyards allowing sun and views to the trees, as to give the patients the impression of waiting in the park itself. A full treatment might last for several days and can consist of a number of different treatments, like different types of massages and baths in smaller private treatment rooms, a visit to a cold room with minus 110 degrees Celsius etc.

Between these treatments the patients wait in the open and transparent waiting areas where the park is always close. One of the main aims of the architecture has been to un-institutionalize the architecture, make it resemble a hospital in as few ways as possible. The interior has been designed by an advertising bureau.

Architects: ACXT
Location: Bilbao, Spain
Project Managment: Elena Varillas, Javier Durán, Ingenieros de Caminos
Project Architects: César Azcárate, Ana Morón, Xabier Aparicio, Carlos Guimaraes
Structure: Javier Duran
Electrical Engineer: Alvaro Gutierrez
Lighting: Antón Aman (ALS Lighting)
Photographer: Aitor Ortiz

PREVIOUS SITUATION

The districts of Txurdínaga and Otxarcoaga are located in Bilbao’s district 3, one of the peripheral areas of the city.

These districts grew during the post-war period when a large number of dwellings were built for workers on the slopes of the mountains that surround the city, characterised by scanty urban services and infrastructures.

As a result of this disorderly growth, the rocky embankment on Jesús Galíndez Avenue had the appearance of an isolated piece of land within the city and until today has divided the city both physically and socially.

At a time when major improvements are being made in the urban infrastructures in the centre of Bilbao, City Hall has also undertaken a number of projects on the outskirts of the city in order to:

- Improve the conditions of the urban space of a number of different outlying areas
- Eliminate physical barriers and improve the accessibility to these areas, which are almost always located on steep slopes
- Eliminate social barriers and improve the conditions of these areas in order to bring them up to the urban quality level of the centre of the city

Our work, consisting of the RESTORATION OF THE EMBANKMENT ON JESÚS GALÍNDEZ AVENUE must be seen against this background.

Prior to this project, the site consisted of a rocky embankment with a difference in level of 18 m,

- with stability problems that caused continuous landslides,
- that created a physical barrier between two districts communicated only by a small, poorly-maintained metal stairway.
- that represented a social barrier, isolating the district of Otxarcoaga, with its severe integration problems, from the rest of the city.

AIM OF THE PROJECT

Consolidate the embankment.
Recover this derelict area, which acts like a physical barrier and disintegrating element in the city.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

We propose:

To shape the embankment by using inclined planes of different materials, which reveal their strange topography to the city.
The triangular planes are formed by different materials: the existing rock, vegetation of different colours, concrete in those areas which required consolidation and light, reconstructing their silhouette at night.

To create connecting elements between the top and bottom levels to lessen the impact of the embankment as a physical barrier in the city.

Create a horizontal platform to take advantage of the height of this area of the city.

All the elements in the project form part of this recreated topography: the stairways, the sitting areas, the public toilets. All these elements are included within a single fold.

Following the embankment project, we were commissioned to develop the Plaza de Pau Casals project and create a children’s play area over a former electricity substation.
All these locations are situated on steep slopes next to the embankment.
It has been necessary to treat these spaces in accordance with the rules of geometry.

We continue using triangular planes.

In the children’s playing area the planes are soft – of grass, rubber, flowers. There are built-in toboggans. The old substation is enveloped in a fold of wooden slabs that convert it into part of the topography.

In the Plaza de Pau Casals, the folds envelop a retaining wall and generate a space edged by gentle slopes where formerly there had been a crossroads; planting planes between the existing trees in the old central reserve; planes of coloured concrete and planes of water to sit next to.

APPRAISAL

The rocky embankment that had represented a barrier has now become a connecting element: cut in the rock by means of planes of different materials; a gently sloping stairway connects the two levels of this district and is used by large numbers of pedestrians who choose this as an alternative to taking the much longer existing routes that run around the embankment.

We take advantage of the place has a high point in Bilbao to create a vantage point over the city on a raised platform which is transformed into a sitting area.

We eliminated the old crossroads between Pau Casals Avenue and Jesús Galíndez Avenue, creating a wooded area where the large lime trees which already existed in this area have been replanted.

Above the old electricity substation we have created a play area for children, integrating the platform in an artificial topography of planting and flexible pavement.

All of these elements have converted the rocky embankment that represented a barrier in the city into a connecting element for sitting and public use. Moreover, due to its scale, it has become a landscaping element that improves the quality of the surrounding urban space.

Architects: Johnston Marklee & Associates
Location: Venice, California, USA
Project year: 2004
Project Architects: Mark Lee, Sharon Johnston AIA, Lars Holt, Mark Rea Baker
Project team: Jeff Adams, Diego Arraigada, Michelle Cintron, Daveed Kapoor, Anne Rosenberg, Anton Schneider
Owner: Josh Sale, Peggy Curran
Contractor: Alonzo Construction
Structural Engineer: William Koh & Associates
Photographs: Eric Staudenmaier

2-4-6-8 HOUSE: HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The modestly scaled 2-4-6-8 House characterizes the type of early commissions that launched a generation of Los Angeles architects. With four incrementally scaled windows from which the structure acquired its name, 2-4-6-8 confronts architectural issues prevalent in the 1970s and 80s, from typology and materiality to kit-of-parts building methods and the use of solar power.

MASSING: INSIDE OUT

The massing concept of the Sale House originated from a Morphosis drawing that multiplied 2-4-6-8 as identical quadruplets. Repeating and transforming the original volume of 2-4-6-8, a ‘condensed mass’ for the master bedroom mirrors the Morphosis pavilion across ‘excavated void’ of the courtyard. The original element and these two serialized variations are anchored to a rectangular base that contains the main living areas and joins the new and existing structures. By redistributing the outdoor spaces typically devoted to driveways, front and side yards to the internal courtyard, the overall design turns the typical single-family house inside out.

COLOR: BRIGHT PINK, TURQUOISE, AND YELLOW-ORANGE

The platonic geometry and primary colors of 2-4-6-8 are further transformed and spatialized in the new design. Private rooms in bright pink, turquoise, and yellow-orange are conceived as shaped volumes – serial deviations from the red, blue, and yellow of the studio windows. The white walls of the main living spaces reflect these vibrant colors. The exterior contrasts this vivid palette with the most neutral color available – that of the photographic grey card – to simultaneously contrast and amplify the interior volumes. While light and color dynamically animate the shaped private spaces, shared living spaces are continuous and transparent to the exterior.

PLANNING AND APERTURES: OUTSIDE IN

2′x2′, 4′x4′, 6′x6′, and 8′x8′ apertures in the new house, sized to match those of 2-4-6-8, contrast the inward orientation and compositional stability of the existing structure. Shifted to the volume edges to accommodate circulation and services, these openings reinforce the outward orientation and rotational quality of the new intervention. Within, centralized space is replaced by poché niches at the periphery. A wall of sliding glass doors renders the shared living space continuous with the glass box of the interior courtyard, and the glazed lower-level street façade visually links both spaces with the pedestrian street beyond. Taken together, the courtyard and apertures comprise an ideal passive cooling configuration: the courtyard draws fresh air into the base of the house, while the upper windows, puncturing each face of the new volume, expel warm air and promote cross ventilation. Radiant floors provide efficient winter heating.

CONTEXT: WALK-STREET BUNGALOWS

Situated on a pedestrian street with vehicular access limited to the rear alley, the design responds to the evolving nature of the Venice walk-streets. With land values in the area far exceeding the value of the original structures, many of these turn-of-the-century bungalows are nearing the end of their life spans. The Sale House offers a unique, well-scaled alternative appropriate to the neighborhood and the climate.

Architects: Jensen & Skodvin Arkitektkontor
Location: Gudbrandsjuvet, Norway
Design Period: 2004-2007
Construction period: 2007-2008
Client: Knut Slinning
Project Architects: Jan Olav Jensen (pl), Børre Skodvin, Torunn Golberg Helge Lunder, Torstein Koch; Thomas Knigge
Budget: 1.000.000 EURO (US $1.28 millions)
Constructed Area: 800 sqm
Photographs: JSA

One of the local residents at Gudbrandsjuvet, Knut Slinning, is building a landscape hotel. The idea emerged at another site, Aurland, but was not realized there.

Basically each room is a detached small independent house with one, or sometimes two of the walls constructed in glass. The landscape in which these rooms are placed is by most people considered spectacularly beautiful and varied and the topography allows a layout where no room looks at another. In this way every room gets its own surprising view of a dramatic piece of landscape, always changing with the weather and the time of the day and the season.

Architects: Johnston Marklee & Associates
Location: Pacific Palisades, California, USA
Project year: 2004
Project Architects: Mark Lee, Sharon Johnston AIA, Jeff Adams, Mark Rea Baker
Project team: Diego Arraigada, Brennan Buck, Michelle Cintron, Daveed Kapoor, Anne Rosenberg, Anton Schneider
Developer: Lucas Ma (President, Markee LLC)
Client: Chan Luu
Contractor: Hinerfeld-Ward, Inc.
Structural Engineer: William Koh & Associates
Lighting Consultant: Dan Weinreber
Landscape: DLush Life LA
Photographs: Eric Staudenmaier

Completed in October 2004, the Hill House was designed under challenging conditions generated by modern problems of building on a hillside. Located in Pacific Palisades, California, while the site for the house offers panoramic views from Rustic and Sullivan Canyons to Santa Monica Bay, the irregularly shaped lot is situated on an uneven, downhill slope. With the canonical Eames House nearby, the 3300 square foot Hill House provocatively continues the Case Study House tradition of experimentation and reinvention of Los Angeles lifestyles.

HILLSIDE ZONING

Increasingly in Los Angeles, local hillside ordinances, building codes, coastal regulations, and design review boards have imposed restrictions on hillside construction, with the goal of preserving the profile of the natural hillside terrain by limiting building heights, location and massing. The Hill House sets a new precedent for hillside building by liberating itself from these restraints – not through evasion – but by strategically transforming these stringent criteria into a sculptural and efficient design solution, that seamlessly engages with the surrounding site.

The massing of the Hill House subsequently results from two economically driven development criteria: To maximize the volume allowed by the zoning requirements; and to minimize contact with the natural terrain. Recalling Hugh Ferriss’s vision of a Manhattan skyline literally interpreting the zoning laws as building form, the Hill House adopts the maximum zoning envelope as its form. The initial envelope is shaped from a combination of property setbacks in plan and hillside height restrictions in section, and is further refined three-dimensionally according to structural criteria.

PLANNING

Within the building enclosure, individual programmatic components are assembled to fit into the fixed envelope, much like a contortionist, artfully compressing the mass of their body into unique configurations. By eroding all non-structural walls and partitions, the program flows effortlessly between three levels stacked within the exterior skin. An upper semi-private loft space and a more secluded lower bedroom suite sandwich the central public living and dining area. An open, sculptural, steel and glass stair vertically stitches the three levels together. The smooth polished interior skin is shaped and curved selectively to accentuate the geometry of the house and to accommodate storage and mechanical services.

APERTURES

The aperture strategy results from a desire to both minimize the quantity for privacy and efficiency in terms of environmental performance, and to maximize size for views, ventilation and light. With the relationship of the site and building to the street, the conventional rear of the house in essence becomes its front with spectacular views of the canyon and ocean to the north, east, and south. Large sliding glass doors in the living area retract into concealed pockets, erasing boundaries between interior and exterior. Where windows and doors are recessed into the building volume, the exterior material membrane folds into the house to form deep sills and thresholds respectively. The recessed windows of the private rooms frame specific views to the exterior while limiting views into the house. The placement of skylights in both the flat and sloped roofs further blurs the conventional differentiation between roof and wall. Indirect light sources and unanticipated views from these openings further enhance the three-dimensional quality of the space and form.

MATERIALS

To express the continuity of the building skin and minimize the conventional distinctions between roof and wall planes, an elastomeric, cementitious exterior coating material was used requiring no control joints. The embedded lavender color of the coating was sampled from the pigment of eucalyptus bark, prevalent at the site, re-enforcing the house’s connection to the site from which its form is derived. The material’s iridescent quality results in dramatic color variations with changing light conditions throughout the day. Similar to the monolithic exterior coating, the interior materials are detailed to suggest spatial continuity. Materials in varying shades of white, including polished Carrara marble, smooth Corian countertops, lacquered wood, and enameled steel seamlessly meet throughout occasionally accented by darkly stained walnut flooring and cabinets. A meadow of various native California grasses forms a blanket covering the slope surrounding the house. Highly detailed succulent plants such as aloe and agaves accent the soft grasses and reflect the crisp lines of the house.

STRUCTURE

The structural assembly is composed of concrete, steel, and timber. The foundation, based upon nine 35-foot deep reinforced concrete piles, is anchored into bedrock and tied together by a network of grade beams. Rising up from this foundation, inclined concrete walls project orthogonally to the grade – instead of vertically – taking on the figure of prevented fall. A braced steel frame with timber infill framing emerges out of the concrete base to form the circulation core and cantilevered overhang at the entry.