Alexander Lotersztain of Derlot has designed the interior of the Chester Street Apartment located in Brisbane, Australia.
Project Description
Alexander Lotersztain’s Chester Street refurbishment has transformed the Brisbane penthouse apartment into a vibrant and expressive space, connecting the inside with the outdoors. The interior was designed to fully exploit the Brisbane weather and aspect. The refurbishment included custom design of the kitchen, amenities and joinery. Both sides of the penthouse open completely to allow light and air through the length of the apartment.
The most efficient design consideration is the integration of the main amenities: kitchen, bathrooms and laundry, into the open spaces for both practical and aesthetic ideals. Concealed innovatively within sliding joinery, they are fully functional but can also be seamlessly hidden to maintain visual comfort and intimacy. Complementary to the daring reverse monochromatic base colour scheme to enhance the feeling of space, warmth was provided through the timber wall panelling and loud bursts of colour on the floor. The selection of materials, sourced from local manufacturers, focuses strongly on practical and elegant design solutions within careful consideration of maintenance and sustainability. The interior was designed to fully exploit the Brisbane weather and aspect. The main dining room is alfresco, and both sides of the penthouse open completely to allow light and air through the entire length of the apartment.
The project merges architecture, art and technology to explore the dialectic between man, machine and nature. The Project 387 open house and reception was Saturday, August 17. Spanning 10 x 10 x 8 feet, Echoviren is a translucent white enclosure, stark and artificial against the natural palette of reds and greens of the forest. Walking around and within the structure, the viewer is immediately consumed by the juxtaposition, as well as uncanny similarity, of natural and unnatural: the large oculus, open floor, and porous surface framing the surrounding coastal landscape. This artifical frame draws the viewer up from the plane of the forest, through a forced perspective into the canopy. Echoviren was fabricated, printed, and assembled on site by the designers. Through the use of parametric architectural technologies and a battery of consumer grade Type A Machines desktop 3D printers, Smith|Allen has constructed the world’s first 3D printed, full-scale architectural installation. Made of over 500 unique individually printed parts, 7 3D Printers ran constantly for 2 months for a total of 10800 hours of machine time. The structure was assembled though a paneled snap fit connection, merging individual components into a monolithic aggregation. From breaking ground to finish the prefab …
Collaborators: Marcos Plazuelo López, Jesus Bozzo Fdez. de Tirso, Rosa Palacios Garrido, Rufino M. Quesada Molina, Peter Taner, Juan L. Bellod, Tomas Ruiz de Terry, Sandra Polonio, Miguel Arrocha, Cristina Cuadro, Inmaculada García, Francisco Soler, María Romero, Laura Organvidez, Tibisay Cañas, Catalina Fernández.
From the architect. The configuration and extension of the town of El Ejido was done practically in the second half of the 20th century. The sharp increase in population has necessitated the provision of a new courthouse to concentrate all the powers of administration of justice. The site chosen to locate the complex is in an expansion area occupied by a low-storey building, low-rise housing and commercial vessels. The plot is situated in an enclave formed by the merging of two streets, with Avenue Oasis forming an important route connecting the town with the coast. Given these circumstances, the first premise of the project was to give the building an imposing volume available in the area and that would give the whole building its institutional character which requires a courthouse.
The plot is in the form of an isosceles triangle with two sides that give the base paths and streets its dividing line. The work was carried out with two blocks of varying heights parallel to the dividing wall. Separate from this, was a little street-level access ramp to the underground and connected plant floor, basement and second floor. This arrangement freed up a frontal square area that served as an open-air atrium. The square is dominated by its space and the building’s great height, rather than any single feature, and is situated on the dividing lower block in order to suit the surrounding buildings.
The building is intended to convey the two conditions inherent in the administration of justice. On the one hand the strength and firmness shown by the strength of the buildings geometry and structural material. Then on the other hand, transparency, enshrined in the constitution of the porous boundary walls and partitions that allow friendly and complex nuanced relationship building in an urban environment. In fact, the construction of the main facade is reminiscent of poles placed on shelves.
The program meets the requirements of building uses and circulation of the various users of the complex. Access is from the front square. At this level the main hall and the services of bigger audiences, the wedding hall, civil registration, general office, police court and clinical forensics are all accessible. The last two have direct access from the street. The main hall is connected with the most important space of the building. The waiting room has views of the first floor through a staircase, which is empty, and a gallery overlooking the square.
The waiting room has a height of 20 metres and has a set of vertical vacuums inside. This is protected by a lattice of concrete and glass, which also opens up into the offices in the courthouse, located in the five upper floors. The larger block then assumes the duties of citizen services, courtrooms and offices of courts and prosecutors. The small block houses archives, the police court, medical examiner and new judicial office. The integral part of this idea of transparency and neutrality uses materials made of glass and other materials with white and metallic tones. What is left are only warm feeling finished materials which are used in representative areas such as the wedding hall and courtrooms.
Architects: Holst Architecture
Location: Portland, OR, USA
Team: R&H Construction, Brightworks
Area: 76,000 sqm
Year: 2009
Photographs: Stephen Miller
From the architect. When renowned design consulting firm Ziba Design sought a new headquarters office in downtown Portland, Oregon, the challenge was to create a place that fostered cross-pollination in a company defined by its multidisciplinary culture.
For the long, narrow site, Holst Architecture designed 55,000 square feet of office space that maximizes daylighting by incorporating a two-story glass curtain wall on the north facade and a light well on the south facade. An internal “street,” stretching the length of the north-facing curtain wall, is punctuated by a series of open and closed workspaces that provide ample opportunity for intermingling among employees.
Open spaces are organized into “tribes,” ideal for collaboration, while the closed spaces include conference rooms, project rooms, and an auditorium. Additional amenities consist of lounges for international clients, bike storage, a multimedia and materials library, and a full-service kitchen that opens onto a roof deck with stunning views of Portland.
The office’s ground floor features an interactive gallery space for rotating exhibits, while the double-height main lobby is flanked by display cases intended to showcase Ziba’s award-winning products. On the ground floor, 15,000 square feet of prime retail space is available for Ziba to lease out, and a public entrance opens to the auditorium, frequently used for lectures and forums.
Photography by Rodrigo Montoya / Joan Puigcorbé We conceive architecture as a language across which properties can express themselves such as: harmony, creativity, happiness, beauty, poetry, complexity, magic, provocation and culture. In our architecture we put emphasis on the quality of the experience of living; we look for pleasure in its deepest forms, a journey through the landscape where one finds the place of thought, the refuge of the mind and the satisfaction by means of sensory and ideal declarations. This house establishes an intimate, woven and direct relationship with the topography and with the existing vegetation. In a descending promenade the diverse spaces are articulated between water courtyards and vegetation, until one approaches the great room, which in only one gesture turns into a great porch, with seamless continuity between the interior and the exterior. Every bedroom, arranged step by step, has its own exterior private space and garden, protected and intimate, and at the same time links to a common open pathway through the landscape. The swimming pool acts as hinge between the built space and the garden. The garden is protected from inward external views and the views of the west, with a visual horizon that allows …
Due to its comprehensive tool-set and great potential for 3D modeling, more and more architectural design and interior design firms are adapting Autodesk Maya and integrating it into their practice. There has been no book aimed at architects and designers who wish to harness the opportunities presented by this software, until now…..
The book promotes parametric design. It integrates the theoretical research of computational design and Maya non-linear modeling techniques associated with simulation, animation, digital fabrication and form-finding within 2D & 3D design. Readers will learn:
How to use Maya polygon and NURBS modeling tools to create non-linear procedural model.
How to use Maya driver keys and relationship tools to generate parametrically negotiable solutions across various design professions.
The design logic and generative processes, as well as the potential of parametric thinking as a resourceful tool for achieving diversity and complexity in form generation and fabrication.
How to use Maya to prepare files for rapid prototyping and the integration of Maya into various fabrication techniques such as laser cutting, CNC milling, and 3D printing.
How to create a digital simulation to simulate all aspects of surface properties and dynamic forces with Maya physics engine.
How to use Maya skeleton system and animation tools to control complex architectural forms.
How to create photo-realistic renderings with Maya lighting, material and texture mapping. Using several real projects as examples, the book will go through the entire rendering process step by step.
How to combine Maya with various CAD/BIM tools to create an efficient design pipeline.
How to use Maya MEL script to create customized tools and interface.
The book includes case studies from Zaha Hadid Architects, Greg Lynn Form, Gage Clemenceau Architects, Tang & Yang Architects, as well as step by step exercises, demonstration projects and crucially a fantastic online resource which includes video tutorials, scripts, and Maya source files.
Architecture office blaanc have created Orikomi, a pendant light made from origami art paper.
From the designers
Orikomi is a handmade origami lamp and by buying one you are also helping the Adobe for Women Association.
They are produced in Portugal by the architectural office blaanc, co-founders of the association, which is currently
helping Mexican women build their own houses with their own hands.
Orikomo’s form is simple and elegant in its visual effect, yet complex to create. It is suitable to light a variety of spaces in
the home.
New Wave Architecture‘s proposal (one of eight) for the 2015 Milan Expo demonstrates an essence of Iran brought together in a series of organic forms. The expo’s theme, Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life, is encapsulated the designer’s exploration of the trace of cookery in culture, literature and Iranian art. The conceptual idea behind New Wave’s proposal, ThePersian Garden, reflects the cycle of a tree: the organism is fed by the soil, grows and blossoms, before nourishing people and spreading throughout the earth “to asset its support.”
According to the architects, “the tree offers a pleasant space on its shadow, carries natural ventilation and becomes a rain shelter in the rainy days of Milan.” “Iran’s pavilion should be an alluring depiction of its long-time civilization, art, historical characteristics and cultural events with having close connection with agronomics, food and technology.”
“Reminding the structure of the dome and various transition techniques in historical Persian monuments, from polygonal shapes to circular forms in the Persian architecture we impel to extract the parametric pattern of the Sheikh Lotfo-Allah dome in Isfahan seamlessly whilst interplaying with light and shade and integrating the architecture with its structure.”
“As a consequence of the continuous arches and open areas alongside the water stream, natural ventilation is deduced throughout the pavilion. Meanwhile the rain water is re-collected, stored in a tank, filtered and distributed to the lower parts of the area for re-use, lavation etc. Solar panels are efficiently angled on the roof to receive an important amount of sunlight for providing a high percentage of energy required for the pavilion.”
Architects: New Wave Architecture
Architects: Lida Almassian, Shahin Heidari
Design Associates: Zahra Hamedani, Helaleh Alaei, Mohammad Keshavarzi, Fatemeh Dehghani, Soheila Zahedi,Golnaz Baharami, Mona Ramzi, Maryam Shokouhi, Sara Milani Nia
Year: 2015
Photographs: Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
The Rockefeller Foundation has named the first group of cities selected in the “100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge.” Each city has been chosen for demonstrating “a commitment to building their own capacities to prepare for, withstand, and bounce back rapidly from shocks and stresses.” More than 1,000 registrations and nearly 400 formal applications from cities around the world were submitted. After careful review of each city’s challenges, these 33 where chosen:
Those selected will work with The Rockefeller Foundation’s partners to establish the suite of financial and technical assistance support to develop and implement the resilience plan, become an integrated member of the 100 Resilient Cities Network, and create or expand the role of a Chief Resilience Officer within the municipal government.
Select on each cities name to learn more about their challenge.
