For children with a passion for drawing, or dreams of creating buildings, this book explores how architects really work, taking the young reader through the entire process for planning and designing a house. Learn about an architect’s four main drawings: the Site Plan, Floor Plan, Section, and Elevation—including the concept of drawing each plan to scale. Aspiring architects discover design techniques, along with different, exciting architectural styles used today. All of this is brought to life in freehand, pen-and-ink architectural drawings that will inspire children to apply these lessons to their own designs. This book is the perfect introduction to architecture, revealing why buildings look and function as they do. While this creative book is ideal for the middle grades, ages 9-12, even adults will find it inspiring.
Starting with the Renaissance, this introduction to fifty visionary architects traces the major aesthetic movements over the past six centuries and offers concise portraits of the geniuses behind them. This accessible and lively survey takes readers around the world and through history, from Filippo Brunelleschi to Antoni Gaudi to Frank Gehry. Doublepage spreads feature full-color illustrations, informative sidebars, and a timeline that extends throughout the book. A concise and accessible architectural history, this book is a fascinating look at the enormous variety of ways architects have helped define their eras.
Architects are often known for their more high-profile projects: skyscrapers, museums, chapels, destination buildings. Yet the glamorous projects aren’t the only ones that big-name architects put their stamp on. When they’re not creating the buildings that make it to the front pages, they’re working on projects that might be less suited for Instagram, but are nevertheless essential to urban infrastructures — like parking garages, wastewater treatment facilities, and power plants. Here’s our roundup of some of the least glamorous projects by starchitects. 1111 Lincoln Road by Herzog & de Meuron, Miami, FL This white beauty — a parking garage with retail space at the bottom — is conceived as “all muscle with no cloth,” leaving its exposed, sculptural structure visible with minimal guardrails and dividing walls. This also fills the garage with natural light and gives visitors unimpeded views outward to Miami Beach’s spectacular surroundings. Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant by Ennead, Brooklyn, NY This treatment plant includes sculptural forms, striking materials, and color in addition to perimeter fencing as well as aerial walkways and bridges, forming a unique visual composition. Digester eggs are the star of this show, and glass walls …
Most architectural standards references contain thousands of pages of details—overwhelmingly more than architects need to know to know on any given day. The Architecture Reference & Specification Book contains vital information that’s essential to planning and executing architectural projects of all shapes and sizes, in a format that is small enough to carry anywhere. It distills the data provided in standard architectural volumes and is an easy-to-use reference for the most indispensable—and most requested—types of architectural information.
SHoP Architects has racked up another major project in Brooklyn. The firm behind the Barclays Center and the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment, is designing Brooklyn’s newest, tallest tower. NY YIMBY spotted building permits for 340 Flatbush Avenue Extension in Downtown Brooklyn, where the firm’s 775-foot-tall, 495-unit building will rise. SHoP’s high-rise will top Brooklyn’s current tallest […]
LRS Architects designed this home for a family in Genolier, Switzerland.
Project description
This single family house built in an area with strong zoning ordinances, diverts the vernacular language of the typical chalet into a playful and contemporary architecture.
The topographical insertion, in a «plug-in» way, inverts the interior walk and the superposition of the functions. Reachable from the upper side of the plot, the living spaces evolves underneath the roof, facing the magnificient landscape of the Alps and Lake Geneva. The intermediate floor with the parent and the children bedrooms offers a terrace.
From the garden, the groundfloor is accessible with the innerpool and the workshop. So to speak, this single family house get immersed into the topography and let us play with the perceptions and the variation of scales.
The relation between the inhabitant and the distant landscape (the lake and the Alps) and the nearby context (so are the garden, the terrace and the porche) is a central theme of the project. The utilisation of the larch gives a strong contrast with the mineral parts and the tiled roof introducing the stacking lecture.
Contractor: WS Britland
Consulting Structural Engineer : Jane Wernick Associates
Consulting Environmental Engineer : Atelier Ten
Quantity Surveyors : Fanshawe
Access : Jane Earnscliffe
From the architect. Kew Garden’s Tree Top Walkway opened on 24th May 2008, Kew’s Year of the Tree, to over 9,000 visitors. The Walkway is a thrilling experience, taking visitors 18m high into the tree canopies for a birds-eye view of Kew, providing insights into the special role of trees in our breathing planet and the intimate views of a deciduous woodland and its inhabitants from within the tranquillity of the leaves. Inspiration for the walkway was drawn from the ancient Fibonacci sequence found repeatedly in nature.
In conjunction with the Walkway, an underground ‘Rhizotron’ exhibition space is attached and which explores various themes associated with tree root biology, climate change and the relationship between tree roots and microorganisms. Its appearance is inspired by a natural cracking within the earth to reveal a dark and dynamic space rich with exciting and educational content.
Marks Barfield Architects designed the walkway to be a visually light, discreet presence, at ease in its natural surroundings; while at the same time being unashamedly man-made. They decided to integrate the structure with the handrail support and drew on the Fibonacci sequence, which underlies many growth patterns in nature. By using the progressive series of numbers associated with the sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34, etc), we were able to work to create a ‘Fibonacci grid’ along a typical walkway truss, resulting in a higher density of elements near the trussends where the vertical loads are highest.
A major challenge was to strike a balance between enabling visitors to get as close as possible to the tree canopies and being mindful of the complex tree root system below ground. A radar survey was undertaken to understand the extent of tree root activity at the proposed pylon and pile foundation locations. This enabled strategic positioning of the 12-18m long concrete piles between the major roots ensuring safety and longevity for the tress and walkway.
Contractor: Wates Construction
Structural: Arup
Cost Consultant: Davis Langdon
Landscape Architect: Grontmij
Acoustic Engineer: AEC
From the architect. Design
The contemporary five-storey building is designed around a central atrium which brings in natural light, connects spaces together, and provides passive ventilation. The highly efficient plan increases the net-to-gross floor area to 86%. Adaptability of space is fundamental, ensuring easy modification to suit future generations’ working practices.
The ground floor of the building provides public service facilities, including the One-Stop-Shop, plus support facilities for the building, whilst upper floors provide office space for staff. The One-Stop-Shop and Council Chamber are located at the front of the building, overlooking the new square and allowing passers-by to observe democracy in action.
Office floor plates have been designed to incorporate an open plan formation which facilitates flexible sub-division of office space, allowing for open plan desk arrangements, maximising the usable life of the building and reducing the overall running costs for the Council. The use of quality building materials was a necessity, whilst promoting sustainability and low-energy principles.
Appearance
The council chamber façade is clad with an abstract pattern of coloured, glazed terracotta baguettes. Nearly 3,200 tiles in 12 different colours have been installed, creating a focal point and a unique identity. Terracotta’s longevity and sustainability make it an ideal choice for the building, manufactured from natural robust materials, it is low maintenance and extremely weatherproof.
A high-quality concrete structural frame has been left exposed inside the building, providing thermal mass, fire and acoustic benefits to the scheme. The finish avoids the need to plasterboard, saving on even more costs. Timber panelling has been used to create a warm visual contrast to the concrete and also acts as an acoustic absorber soaking up any noise generated in the atrium.
Sustainability
The scheme takes a holistic view of sustainable design, integrating environmental, structural and architectural elements to create a low energy solution, achieving a BREEAM Excellent rating.
Passive, rather than active measures have been utilized to ensure lower running costs and significantly less maintenance. It is expected that these measures will achieve huge savings for the council. The central atrium maximises natural ventilation throughout the building, significantly reducing air handling. Via the elevations, the atrium also maximises natural daylight, reducing the need for artificial lighting.
The use of a green roof enables sustainable drainage and provides a natural habitat for wildlife. Rainwater harvesting will enable the re-use of any unabsorbed water for WC flushing. A selection of materials were chosen from the BRE Green Guide, minimising environmental impact.
Value for Money
Staircases, M&E plant and vertical service risers were prefabricated offsite and craned into place, reducing the overall cost and programme time, whilst improving the quality of these components.
With construction costs within budget, the new civic offices are without doubt a ‘model of modesty’, maintaining the highest quality finishes whilst ensuring that the Council’s operational costs remain streamlined beyond project completion.
Architects: Belzberg Architects
Location: 100 The Grove Drive, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Architect In Charge: Hagy Belzberg
Design Team: Andrew Atwood, Barry Gartin, Brock DeSmit, Carina Bien-Wilner , Christopher Arntzen, Cory Taylor, Daniel Rentsch, David Cheung, Eric Stimmel, Erik Sollom, Justin Brechtel, Philip Lee, Lauren Zuzack
Area: 27,000 sqm
Year: 2010
Photographs: Iwan Baan, Benny Chan
Project Manager: Aaron Leppanen
Structural: William Koh & Associates
Contractor: Winters-Schram
Mechanical: John Dorius & Associates
Electrical: A&F Consulting Engineers
Methane Engineer: Carlin Environmental
Environmental Engineer: Enviropro, Inc.
From the architect. The new building for the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMOTH) is located within a public park, adjacent to the existing Los Angeles Holocaust Memorial. Paramount to the design strategy is the integration of the building into the surrounding open, park landscape. The museum is submerged into the ground allowing the park’s landscape to continue over the roof of the structure. Existing park pathways are used as connective elements to integrate the pedestrian flow of the park with the new circulation for museum visitors.
The pathways are morphed onto the building and appropriated as surface patterning. The patterning continues above the museum’s galleries, further connecting the park’s landscape and pedestrian paths. By maintaining the material pallet of the park and extending it onto the museum, the hues and textures of concrete and vegetation blend with the existing material palette of Pan Pacific Park. These simple moves create a distinctive façade for the museum while maintaining the parks topography and landscape. The museum emerges from the landscape as a single, curving concrete wall that splits and carves into the ground to form the entry. Designed and constructed with sustainable systems and materials, the LAMOTH building is on track to receive a LEED Gold Certification from the US Green Building Council.
Circulatory Strategy:
Patrons begin their procession at the drop off adjacent to the park. Their approach is pervaded by sounds and sights of laughter and sport—of kids playing in the park and picnicking with their families. Because the building is partially submerged beneath the grassy, park landscape, entry to the building entails a gradual deterioration of this visual and auditory connection to the park while descending a long ramp. Upon entering, visitors experience the culmination of their transition from a playful and unrestrained, public park atmosphere to a series of isolated spaces saturated with photographic archival imagery.
As part of the design strategy, this dichotomous relationship between building content and landscape context is emphasized to bolster the experience inside the museum and allegorically correlate the proximity with which European forest revelers enjoying public parks were to sites of horrific and inhumane acts being carried out in 1930’s and 40’s. Visitors exit the museum by ascending up to the level of the existing monument, regaining the visual and auditory connection with the park environs.
The first room incorporates a large, single interactive table, mimicking a conceptual “community” or dinner table. The exhibit brings a large group of patrons together around one interactive exhibit. The lighting of the interior galleries dim as the visitor steps down into the subsequent rooms where two separate exhibits display divide the singular crowd—diminishing the “community” provided by people nearby. Through the third room and into the fourth, the floor continues to step down as ambient lighting becomes scarcer leading individuals to the room titled, “Concentration Camps.”
The ceiling is low, and the room is almost entirely illuminated by individual video-monitors—about the size of a notebook—which limits viewing to a single spectator. The visitor is now confined to the most isolated, darkest and volumetrically concentrated underground area in the museum. The journey from this point forward is one of ascension and of finding the comfort of familiar space as floor levels begin to rise and natural lights begins to penetrate the interior once again. The final ascent up to the existing monument is filled with sights and sounds of unrestricted park land.
Anonymous Architects have designed the BIG & small House in Los Angeles, California.
Project description
Starting with a vacant lot that was half of the typical minimum lot size, the objective was to compensate for the relatively small footprint of the house.
To achieve this there are only 2 full height walls inside the house which makes the main interior room nearly as large as the building footprint. This gives the house an open lofted feeling with very high ceilings and abundant natural light.
It is an inversion of expectation, so that the smallest house contains the largest room. What the house lacks in square footage it provides in volume.
The free plan of the vacant lot is preserved since the house touches the ground only at the four small piles, giving full access to use the space between the house and the lot. The footprint of the foundation is in fact less than 20 sq.ft. and the house doesn’t touch the ground at any point.
The plan of the house follows the shape of the site which is an asymmetric parallelogram. This form resulted in unusual geometry inside and outside the dwelling and explains the shape of the house. The elevations of the house are designed to mirror the plan.
