Beach getaway.

This is a 36m2 (388sq ft) beach house designed by StudioMama.

As they say: "The outside of the chalet is clad with cedar shingles and the inside is clad with sawn softwood. Because the land slopes away from the beach, both internal and external steps were constructed to create a level surface inside. Adding height to the rear of the chalet meant that there was space for a mezzanine level that now serves as a sleeping platform."

The views are always focused to the countryside and the sea thanks to the rear glass door and the longitudinal bedroom window. 

All images from StudioMama.

Stacking green house.

This is the HA house (or Stacking Green) by Vo Tronga Nghia, Daisuke Sanuki and Shunri Nishizawa in Saigon (Vietnam). This is a typical tube house in a plot of 4m wide and 20m deep. The two open façades are made by concrete planters. The distance between the planters is from 25 to 40cm depending on the height of the plants.

There are few partition walls in the house, to make sure there is fluency and views of the green façades all over the different spaces. There is also a skylight at the center of the house, and the sunlight gets into the house from morning to afternoon through the plants, creating beautiful shadows on the walls.

This house recreates the typical building in Saigon: narrow and tall houses full of flowerpots. These plants protect people from the sunlight, street noise and polution.

Simply clever!

Images via Arch daily.

The High Line.

"Parks in large cities are usually thought of as refuges, as islands of green amid seas of concrete and steel. When you approach the High Line in the Chelsea neighborhood on the lower west side of Manhattan, what you see first is the kind of thing urban parks were created to get away from—a harsh, heavy, black steel structure supporting an elevated rail line that once brought freight cars right into factories and warehouses and that looks, at least from a distance, more like an abandoned relic than an urban oasis."

This is the beginning of the great article by Paul Goldberger that you can read here.

And you can also "visit" the High Line thanks to this time-lapse video by photographers Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, and senior producer Hans Weise.

Images and text from National Geographic.

Lots of information, images, videos... at the High Line official web site.

Brilliant Gaudí.

Yesterday we visited la Sagrada Familia, by Gaudí. So many years living in Barcelona and hadn't visited yet! It was so beautiful, we also went up to the towers and had great views of the city.

Images by Muffins in my backpack.

Cor-Ten shell.

The other day I was reading this post from Desire To Inspire and came across this image (via Cabin Porn).

I was thrilled and went to the architects' website, Haworth Tompkins, to see the full project.

"The creative campus at Snape Maltings was founded by Benjamin Britten in derelict industrial buildings on the Suffolk coast. The Dovecote is part of Haworth Tompkin's phased extension of the campus for Aldeburgh Music and inhabits the ruins of a dovecote overlooking the marshes. The new form expresses the internal volume of the Victorian structure as a Cor-ten steel 'lining', a welded monocoque that was prefabricated and craned into position."

"Only the minimum necessary brickwork repairs were carried out to stabilise the existing ruin prior to the new structure being inserted. Decaying existing windows were left alone and vegetation growing over the dovecote was protected to allow it to continue a natural process of ageing and decay. The interior walls and ceiling of the space are lined with spruce plywood to create a timber 'box' within the Cor-ten shell."

Photo credits, text credits & more info: Haworth Tompkins

SANAA's cube.

This is the Zollverein School of Management and Design by SANAA in Essen, Germany.

It's a concrete cube of 35m on each side, perforated with squares (in three different measures).

The ground floor contains public spaces; the cafeteria and exhibition spaces.

The second floor contains the library.

The first floor contains the design studio; the third, workspaces; and the roof, the future garden.

Images credits and more info here.

The library. (II)

This is the university mensa and library of Leipzig (Germany), made by Behet Bondzio Lin Architeckten.

"The building is one of the old buildings of the 1970's era campus. Its interior was marked by brick-clad foyer walls as well as the Scandinavian charm in the library. The library was connected to the foyer by a central atrium and the basement expanded in order to accomodate approximately 100,000 volumes. It mantains a quiet and concentrated atmosphere with the bright wall surfaces and wood trim."

"The starting point for the architects for the conception of the inner city university complex was the reintegration in the city structure on the basis of the historical blocks with their alleys, passageways and courtyards. The connection of the buildings of the campus is accomplished by the dominant bright façades surrounding a dark plinth."

Image credits: Behet Bondzio Lin Architekten
Text credits: Masterpieces: Library Architecture + Design by Manuela Roth.

The library. (I)

I am currently doing my final university project (in Architecture), I started in September and hope to finish in October 2012. I chose to do a new library in the city centre of Figueres.

As I'm in the beginnings of all this, I'm starting to make sketches and first models, so I'm looking for exisiting examples. That's the reason of this post, every now and then I'll be posting libraries I really like, and hope they start bringing me the inspiration I need :)

This is a Culture House and Library in Copenhagen (Denmark) by COBE. They made an extension to the existing culture house (of 1150 m2) and completed it with a new building of 2000 m2. 

 

 

As they say: "The new culture house consists of four clearly defined programs: a children’s library, a youth library, a library for adults and a concert hall. These four functions are stacked on top of each other like a series of golden “books”. Each "book" is a world of its own with individual interiors and furnishment. The spaces between the books are open zones for flexible use."

 

"As a main gesture, the concert hall is placed at the top of the building. A powerful object that seems to defy the laws of gravity, the position of the hall encourage people to move across the building towards the magnificent view over Copenhagen."

Image credits: COBE.