Utsav House / Studio Mumbai Architects: Studio Mumbai Location: Satirje, Maharashtra, India Principal Architect: Bijoy Jain Project Team: Roy Katz, Jeevaram Suthar, Pandurang Malekar, Mangesh Mhatre Structural Engineer: Dwijen Bhatt Photographs: Courtesy of Studio Mumbai On a barren plateau, a house is set low into the ground, protected by four black basalt walls that enclose a shaded courtyard, within which pools, pavilions and garden provide shelter for living. Utsav house is a single family home in Satirje, Alibag a short boat ride from Mumbai. The spaces are arranged along the periphery walls that define and support the structures of the house. The living spaces open to the southwesterly breeze, and are protected from the sun and rain by a large roof.
Pirihueico House / Alejandro Aravena Alejandro Aravena was selected as one of the 20 essential young architects by Icon. Architects: Alejandro Aravena, Jorge Christie, Victor Oddó Location: Pirihueico lake, Chile Built Area: 350sqm Construction start: 2003 Completion: 2004 Materials: Stone, Wood, Glass Budget: 1.000 US$ / m2 Photos: Cristobal Palma We were asked to design a summer/winter house in a remote landscape in the most southern part of Chile. More than a design, the client wanted, first of all, an equation that included every possible aspect that one could consider to be included; the design then had to be just the resolution of that equation. Being the weather condition very extreme, we started taking as less risk as possible; that’s why we began from the double sloped conventional roof. Stones and wood came from the clearence made in the site for the house.
Element house / Sami Rintala Architect: Sami Rintala Landscape Architects: Eedo Space Architectural Design, Seúl, Republic of Korea Location: Anyang Park, Anyang, Seúl, Republic of Korea Materials: Steel, Wood, Concrete, Gravel, Glass Construction: October-December 2005 Finish: January 2006 Constructed Area: 72sqm Client: Anyang City / Public Art Project Collaborators: John Roger Holte, Artist, Norway; Finnforest, WoodPhotography: Park Wan Soon, Emil Goh I received an interesting invitation last May. In the Seoul metropolitan area there is a satellite city called Anyang, a small, in Korean context, suburban town with 700.000 inhabitants. Following the Korean life rhythm and style the timetable was very tight. The park is situated in a river valley. On practical level, the idea of the work is to offer a simple shelter where the hikers may rest, enjoy their lunch, have a view over the mountains or light a stick of incense. Main building materials are steel and wood.
Poli House / Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects: Pezo von Ellrichshausen Location: Coliumo peninsula, Chile Client: Poli House Cultural Center Area: 180sqm Site Area: 10.000sqm Construction start: 2004 Completion: 2005 Contractors: PvE Structural Engineer: Cecilia Poblete Materials: Concrete, Glass Budget: 370 US$ / m2 Photos: Cristobal Palma The work is located on the Coliumo peninsula, in a rural setting scarcely populated by farmers, independent fishermen and a few summer tourists. It is a distant location that, we believe, is not far from the reality of the raw dream described by Martinez Estrada. There, a compact and autonomous piece was built in order to capture at least two things: the sensation of a natural podium surrounded by vastness and the dizzying and wide open space produced by the sight of the sea washing against the rocks at the foot of the cliffs. The building functions both as a summer house and a cultural center. The entire work was built with handmade concrete, using untreated wooden frames.
Sumikiri House / y+Mdo The Sumikiri House is located within a residential neighborhood where there are existing older tenement houses in Amagasaki-City, Hyogo-Pref, Japan. The existing fabric of the neighborhood consists of narrow roadways, about 4 meters, and dense housing with limited poor views. The house is located on a corner lot, and with the idea to maximize the lot the architects created a design that incorporated a lot of natural light and joyfulness for the family. Architect : y+Mdo Location: Amagasaki-City, Hyogo-Pref, Japan Project Architect: Masahiro Miyake Project Manager: Hidemasa Yoshimoto Project Area: 113.20 sqm Photographs: Courtesy of y+Mdo In the Sumikiri House the plan at ground level has its corner removed, appropriate to its name which means corner cutoff in Japanese, creating a garage space and a more open feel to the narrow lot. A plain-woven iron grating on the façade of the house suspends out of the the missing corner and creates an interesting mix of transparency and privacy.
BB / Yo Yamagata Architects Architects: Yo Yamagata Architects Location: Tokyo, Japan Project Area: 61.46 sqm Project Year: 2009 Photographs: Forward stroke Inc A gap of the scale The site is facing the street of 4m wide one back from the main road entering the center of Tokyo. Along a main street have a scale of 10-story building but the street near the site have a small scale of 2 or 3 story. A strange form The client’s needs, “does not feel that the house from the outside”. The three courts Because it is surrounded by adjacent housing, it is difficult to protect the privacy if open the directly aperture on the periphery. Step floor The client requests fully decouple residential space and work space.
The Concave House / Tao Lei Architect Studio Architects: Tao Lei Architect Studio Location: Benxi, Liaoning Province, China Site Area: 5,000 sqm Project Area: 3,000 sqm Project Year: 2008-2010 Photographs: Courtesy of Tao Lei Architect Studio This project, including multiple functions such as residence, studio and gallery, is specially designed for Mr. Dazhong Feng who is a prestigious artist in China. The site is located at the downtown area in Benxi, Liaoning Province, facing mountains which turn into the best landscape view for this project. Design concept 1) The AO (凹) shape The building is inspired by the Chinese character 凹, which also means concave. 2) The inner court yards Within the brick cube, the artistic creation of the book yard, the bamboo yard, and the mountain yard has made the interior space unique and full of surprise while the exterior is stable and serious. 3) The brick skin Since the site is located in the north-eastern China, thermal insulation becomes crucial. 4) The twin walls
Vacation Villas / Posto 9 Architects: Posto 9 Location: Manta Rota, Portugal Project Manager: Arq.ªJoana Castanheira, Arq.º André Ferreira Project Team: Arq.ª Joana Ribeiro Project Year: 2007 Photographs: FG+SG – Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra These small vacation villas, were designed for an “anonymous” plot along the beach of Manta Rota on the Algarve Coast. Despite belonging to different clients, the two houses were designed together, becoming a one volume unit house, consisting of two twin sections. In each of the sections, the ground floor is occupied by a single space which makes up the lounge and kitchen areas, facing to the east and west respectively. The first floor is reserved for the private areas, with three bedrooms with the same dimensions, two of them facing east. © FG+SG – Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra Floor Plan
Sky Garden House / Keiji Ashizawa Design Architects: Keiji Ashizawa Design / Keiji Ashizawa, Mriko Irie Location: Tokyo, Japan Structural Engineer: ÅFASA Akira Suzuki Landscape Design: GLAC Corporation Furniture Design: DRILL DESIGN / Keiji Ashizawa Building Construction: Heisei Construction Co., Ltd. Project Year: 2010 Photographs: Daici Ano Sky Garden House is a two-family residence in central Tokyo. The main goal in design was to create an environment where two families can interact freely and frequently, while giving each family a high level of privacy from each other as well as from outside. The peculiar nature of the location and limitations imposed by the building codes (in particular, the building-to-land ratio) presented considerable challenges in meeting this goal. The building-to-land ratio required that maximum use of the available space be made to secure open, comfortable living space for two families. In the end, we decided on three design features in meeting these challenges.
Classic: Cordoba House / Emilio Ambasz Designed by: Emilio Ambasz Location: Cordoba, Spain Architect of Record (Associate Architect): Felipe Palomino Gonzalez Model #1: Nelusco Salvarani Model #2: Bradley Whitermore Project Year: 1975 Photographer: Michele Alassio Situated on a promontory overlooking a lake, the house appears like a very strong hieratic, only after the road’s last turn. Once a treeless prominence, the house’s surrounding site has become populated with olive trees. Two tall, rough stuccoed white walls meet at a right angle, creating an envelope for the house, and defining its entrance. From this entrance, auditorium like steps of increasingly greater width lead down to an open-air square patio onto which the house opens. The walls outside meeting edge is oriented towards the North, so that its balcony is shaded, and the light entering the house is one moderated by the sunlight reflection on the walls’ inner sides.
House A+B / buerger katsota architects Architects: buerger katsota architects Location: Santa Maria, Paros, Greece Design Team: Stephan Buerger, Demetra Katsota, Tassos Govatsos, Anna Karagianni, Mladen Stamenic Consultants: Panagiotis Panagotopoulos (structural engineering), D P Kryfos OE (mechanical and electrical engineering),Scape (landscape design) Energy Consumption: 28.3 kWh/(m²a) Completion Year: 2010 Site Area: 9,500 sqm Total Surface Area: 430 sqm Photographs: Dimitris Kalapodas The scheme aims at accommodating the different needs of two families on vacation. The single volume of one building is broken into smaller ones, different in height and size, placed freely but in relation to each other resulting into an ensemble. The ensemble is sited upon a solid stone and concrete platform at 80cm above a preserved agricultural field in immediate adjacency to the sea. The site offered dramatic views out to the bay, the sea beyond and the island of Naxos.
Rural Mat / njiric+ arhitekti Architects: njiric+ arhitekti doo Location: Zagreb, Croatia Architects in Charge: Hrvoje Njirić, Helena Sterpin Project Team: David Kabalin, Vedran Skopac, Davor Busnja, Igor Ekstajn, Ljiljana Gasi, Tena Zic, Diego Pereira, Diego Labbé Structure: G&F d.o.o., Eugen Gajsak Site Supervisor: Gark d.o.o. – Kruno Komesar dipl.ing, Zoran Skrepnik dipl.ing. Client: Titan d.o.o. Contractor: Ravago d.o.o. Project Area: 3,500 sqm Budget: 3,000,000 € Project Year: 2006-2008 Photographs: Domagoj Blazevic Another attempt to interpret the urban rules in order to avoid “the urban villa” syndrome. Taking the rural scale as a point of departure, the typology of semi-detached houses has been recombined into a series of compact rural mats – flat, introverted, and dense. The unifying ground level acts as a pediment for the units comprising one or two apartments, eight of them per mat.
14 Social Housing Units In Barcelona / Batlle & Roig Architects Architects: Batlle & Roig Architects – Enric Batlle, Joan Roig Location: Can Bisa, Vilassar de Mar, Barcelona, Spain Collaborators: Eva Polío, Oriol Vañó, architects; Carme Balada, ceramist; Diana Calicó, Elisabeth Torregrossa, technical architects; Marta Ballester, architecture student; Gerardo Rodríguez, engineer; STATIC, structure; Albert Colomer, engineer; SJ12, installations Completion: 2011 Client: Vilassar Societat Municipal de Promocions Urbanes SA Contractor: Emcofa Photographs: A. Flajszer Can Bisa is a late-19th century mansion now owned by Vilassar de Mar Council. Situated on the Riera de Cabrils watercourse, it occupies part of a street block that used to include a factory, now demolished. Its historic and heritage value and the strategic position it occupies in the town as a whole led the Council to consider it the ideal venue for a cultural facility, completing the complex with a social housing block.
Rio Cedro House / Plan B Arquitectos Architect: Plan B Arquitectos Location: Río Cedro, Colombia Project Manager: Felipe Mesa + Federico Mesa Project Ream: Ivanovha Benedetto, Sebastián Serna, Carlos Blanco Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Sergio Gomez Location This building articulates itself to the ecosystem of a tropical dry forest located in the shoreline of the Caribbean Sea in Córdoba, a department situated in the north of Colombia. Historically, this area has been victim of extensive deforestations, thanks to constant cattle raising activities, and the massive extraction of timber trees. This situation has highly affected the mangroves and their vast biological diversity. Materials With this in mind, this house presents itself as an open and modulated structure that, to avoid the use of the native woods, is built on cultivated, immunized and certified Caribbean Pine timber, treated with sustainable practices. Text provided by Plan B Arquitectos.